Page 87
Story: Demon of the Dead
19
Mother was furious after dinner, upbraiding him over his absence during the day’s entertainments. She’d come looking for him, and found him in the service hall that led, after a number of staircases, to the stairs that walked down into the cold caverns of the Nágrindr. How funny, he thought without humor, that she’d come looking for him on the path to the dead when she couldn’t find him elsewhere.
As usual, she didn’t acknowledge his Guard as humans capable of hearing.
“…and then,” she continued, voice climbing to something in the startled owl register, “I have to find out from one of the stable boys that you were seen walking alone in the garden with Lady Brigida!”
“Mother, you’ve never spoken to a stable boy in your life,” he said, mildly, just for the pleasure of watching the flush in her face climb up to touch her fair brows.
“Why, you–”
“Secondly,” he said, “I wasn’t alone with her; all of my Guard was in attendance; she came to watch us spar in the training yard. Thirdly,” he went on, in the face of her white lips and red cheeks, “you invited Lady Brigida here. Am I to take it you don’t approve of her as a possible wife?”
“A true gentleman doesn’t show such favoritism!” Little flecks of spittle struck his cheek, cold as her expression.
He wiped his face with deliberate motions. “Yes, well, we’re not in your homeland, Mother, and I’m not a gentleman. Here in the Fault Lands, I’d be perfectly within my rights to drag my bride of choice behind a hedge and fuck her in front of my men.”
An exaggeration, yes, but it had the desired effect. Her eyes flew wide and she made a choking, scandalized sound, hand fluttering to her throat.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us.”
She was still making shocked, high-pitched noises as he stepped around her and, thankfully, she didn’t try to stop him again.
~*~
Valgrind greeted him with glad trumpeting, down below, and ran circles around him, tail swinging dangerously back and forth.
Einrih dodged one of said swings and pointed toward a corner of the cavern, saying, “We’ve brought him a few sheep, as you can see.” Only bones remained.
“Yes, yes, fine,” Náli told the overexcited drake, and scratched along his jaw and behind his horns until he settled, eyes slitted and purr rumbling in his chest. “Do you remember what we did last time? We’re going to do it again.”
It wasn’t frightening, this time, now that he knew what to expect. He gripped Valgrind’s neck spines and kicked along beside him; knew to hold his breath, close his eyes, and brace himself for the squeezing pressure of travelling forcefully through the gate.
They arrived as before, Náli dressed as always, Valgrind shaking white water off his frills. Birds trilled in the distance; bees hummed in the blowsy white wildflowers that dotted the meadow. But when they crested the hill, they found a village that was not merely quiet, but abandoned.
Doors stood open, swinging faintly in the breeze; through them, Náli glimpsed half-eaten meals on tables swarming with flies. Overturned chairs. Fires had burned down to coals, the contents of the cookpots above reduced to black sludge adhered to the bottoms. He found a doll lying in the street, its straw-stuffed cloth arms flung out to the sides, its hand-stitched face scuffed with dirt. That disturbed him most of all, for some reason; the people who’d lived here were dead. What could have caused them to flee? What could harm the dead?
Pulse skipping with uneasiness, he laid a hand on Valgrind’s shoulder, and together they continued.
The longhouse, when they reached it, emitted no smoke from its roof. A deep inhale revealed a lack of fragrant herbs and cooking smells. Náli knew before he pushed the door open that he would find it empty; it seemed to hum with that particular quiet only found in deserted places.
“Hello?” he called, voice echoing off the high timbers of the ceiling. He startled a pair of doves in the rafters, and they fluttered clumsily out through the open windows. At the center of the house’s single room, sand had been raked over the fire, and the pots sat stacked in a corner, along with the shaman’s usual stool. The herbs, he noted, always suspended from support posts in dried bunches, spaced with ropes of onions, garlic, and dehydrated fish, were gone. Unlike some of the cottages, the longhouse had the distinct feel of intentional leaving about it, like the shaman had taken the time to pack what he needed, and organize the rest before he departed.
“Where did you go?” he asked the empty air, turning in a circle, staring up through the open smoke hole at the hazy clouds above. Shouting: “Where are you?”
No answer, save the call of birdsong.
“I don’t even know his bloody name,” Náli grumbled, to which Valgrind replied with a kirik from the open door. “I don’t suppose you know how to go about following him, do you?”
Valgrind withdrew his head, and shuffled away, tail curling and flicking like a cat’s. Náli followed. When they were side-by-side once more, Valgrind lifted his head, tested the air, and then set off at a lope, heading down the track and out of the village.
Náli had to run to keep up, and though he was young and fit, it turned out that a person grew tired and flagged even beyond the mortal realm.
“Wait, wait.” He clutched at his ribs and grimaced, stumbling on his next step. He staggered to a stop, breathing roughly against the stitch in his side. “I can’t – keep running – forever,” he panted.
Valgrind swung his head around, cocked and assessing; then he gripped the back of Náli’s tunic with his teeth.
“Stop! Bloody – what are you doing? You beast!” But his waving and kicking went disregarded, and he was swung up and placed neatly on the natural dip just behind the drake’s withers, where a saddle would fit.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87 (Reading here)
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127