Sword of the Scarred

by Jeffrey Hall

  Requiem always wondered what had happened to that creature once Mote died but Sasha never told him, nor did he ask. Yet here it was now, in a pit, hundreds of miles away from the place it once called home.

  It lunged at the other burrow-tail, its growl barely audible over the yells of the onlookers. The two came together in a fury of fang and claw, their bodies only discernible from one another thanks to the slight variations in their coloring. When they broke free of their violent embrace, Pop staggered back, a slash in its chest, the blood accentuated by the tuft of cream-colored fur that surrounded it.

  A cream-colored fur that was never there when it was Mote’s…

  Requiem shook his head. That was no pet of his son’s. Just some unfortunate beast caught by bored miners deep in the holes of this place.

  “Perry! Hey! Perry Winkle!” Requiem was so deep in his own thoughts that it took a moment to realize that Garp had seen him and was waving him over.

  Requiem nodded to him from behind the swaying heads in front of him.

  “Any luck?”

  He shook his head.

  “Maybe this will change that?” Garp held up the bottle of low.

  Requiem looked from the bottle back down to the bloodied beast he’d thought was Pop, and then he worked his way through the crowd.

  Garp thrust the bottle into his hands. “I’ve got half my shards on Ginger there,” he said, pointing to the rust-tinged burrow-tail Requiem had mistaken for Mote’s. “It’s got something in him. It’s a fighter that one.”

  So was Mote, or so Requiem had always told Sasha. And fight he had, but even with as hard as he fought it wasn’t enough. Slowly his eyes, things that were once bluer than sapphires, faded into dark pools. His veins became purple and pronounced. His legs, once vehicles that would propel him all around Silver Hole faster than an arrow, turned useless. And before Requiem knew it, his fighter, his son, had been subdued. The unconquerable, vanquished by an enemy without a sword, without a bite, without a face…

  Requiem put the bottle to his lips and drank. The sour burn of the low as it ran down his throat was a welcome reprieve from his thoughts.

  “Slow down!”

  Requiem took another slurp, letting the fiery liquid burn away his emotions.

  Garp snatched the bottle out of his hand. “Scarred or not, you don’t go sucking down that much of another man’s drink without asking.”

  “You offered.” Requiem wiped his lips, while at his feet the burrow-tails continued their savage contest. The pit floor was slick with blood and fur. Both combatants had red stripes across them like new camouflage upon their coats. The sapphire in the middle was speckled in blood, but still gleamed wildly in their eyes.

  “Get in, Ging!” cried Garp.

  The burrow-tail once more lunged, and the other—badly cut and beaten—threw up a weak claw in defense. The Pop look-alike pushed past its enemy’s limb and sunk its teeth into the other creature’s neck. It screamed, sounding like a crying child. Half the crowd roared. The other half swore and spat, cursing the failed creature for giving up its life so easily.

  Someone came forward and pulled Ginger away from its dead brethren, away from the curse of the sapphire. There it hung, grabbed by the flab of its neck like being scolded by a mother it did not know, dangling, shocked and bloodied as it came down from that primal high.

  “There it is, you sweet son of a bitch!” shouted Garp, raising the low high into the air.

  Requiem grabbed the bottle, still staring at Ginger like the burrow-tail was some memorialized doll crafted to haunt him.

  “What are you doing?” said Garp as Requiem took another long pull.

  “You won, didn’t you? Buy another one.”

  “That’s robbery,” said Garp, eyeing him with drunken confusion.

  “And this is butchery.” Requiem pointed at the bloody pit.

  Garp just stared at him as he drank more, until finally he left, likely in search of another bottle.

  Requiem stayed for another three fights, forcing himself to watch the violent spectacles like a punishment as he finished the last of the low, making sure that his thoughts were good and muddled before he slipped away. His head was pounding. The world swam, but it no longer bothered him, nor did it haunt him. The low had done its job and chased away his memories at least for the time being.

  He ambled about town, no longer in search of answers about a lost girl or a man with a high-pitched voice; instead he went searching for answers about himself. Things he often looked for, but knew he would never find anywhere except at the bottom of the Abyss. And eventually, when the town of Pink proved to be nothing but another hollow place, he found his way back to the coach. Grey slept beneath it in the dirt with only a rancid blanket for warmth, and Garp sat in its cockpit, another bottle in his hand, stooping slightly from its contents’ effects. He was singing to himself when Requiem arrived, so loudly and poorly that it was amazing that Grey could sleep.

  “The stones of her eyes were like things dropped from other skies. Like lightning they sparked, knowing nothing of the dark—” He stopped when he saw Requiem approaching.

  “You. How was my bottle?”

  “That song?” said Requiem as he looked at the girl. She still lay there, sleeping, breathing. “Why were you singing it?”

  “Because it’s a song…” Garp looked at him glossy-eyed.

  “Give me another pull of that.”

  “To the Abyss with you.”

  But Requiem took it from him anyways, too drunk and tired to show any sense of respect.

  “Damn you. Grey was right. We should have just left you.”

  Requiem looked into the sky at the coming moon. It was large and pale, like an empty platter without hopes of being refilled. Requiem took another long sip and passed it back to Garp.

  “You ever feel like the entire world is just a ghost? That everything is already dead and is just here to haunt you?”

  Garp drank and then wiped his lips. “If everything is dead then ain’t we too?”

  “Maybe,” said Requiem. A rogue cloud wandered into the sky, lost, scampering in a hurry to catch up with an unseen pack.

  “We’re alive. You know how I know? Because of this.” He held up his bottle. “If we were dead then we wouldn’t need something to make us feel less alive. We wouldn’t need something to get us a little closer to the ground.”

  “Yeah?”

  Garp drank, and this time he winced as he took away the bottle. “The low always teaches you the truth. Cuts out the shit in your head. Lets the world speak to you.”

  “What’s it saying then?”

  “What it always says. That you’re good for nothing. That you ain’t nothing but a piece of gravel being kicked around by boots. That you ain’t ever gonna climb out of that hole it put me in.”

  Requiem took the bottle. “You need to stop drinking this stuff.”

  Garp put his hands to his head and looked up. “You see them, or am I dreaming?”

  Two shapes came forward in the darkness, same gait, same rounded shoulders, just one a quarter of the size of the other.

  “I see them,” said Requiem. He didn’t move for his blade. If someone wanted to attack in the middle of the town then they would need a worthy escape plan. Slowly the glow of the moon and the glimmer stones pulled back the darkness and revealed the gatekeeper of the Hive, Monnie was her name… And beside her was a little girl wrapped in a shawl and a ruby-encrusted headwrap. She could have been Monnie’s daughter from the similarities.

  “Monnie? What are you doing here? Thought your shift was over?” said Garp.

  “Didn’t come for the Hive. Came for him.” She pointed at Requiem. Requiem folded his arms, the low dulling any surprise. “Heard you were knocking on doors today in search of the man I described.”

  “No luck,” said Requiem. He caught the little girl staring at him like he was a monster who might lunge.

  “So my sister said. She was watching you go from p
erson to person like a busy bee, trying to knock loose some answers. Told me that you seemed an odd one. But after you come by, next thing she sees is this one here playing with her dolls, talking about a visitor.”

  “She turned you into a doll, Perry,” said Garp.

  “Not him. This visitor her mother heard her talking about… Go on, Melinda. Tell him.”

  The girl kneaded the fabric of her dress.

  “It’s okay. He’s trying to help. He’s trying to help a little girl.”

  “I... I…” the little girl stammered but caught herself.

  “You won’t get in trouble.”

  She exhaled. “I just thought it was like the stories.”

  “What stories?” said Requiem, slurring his words a bit.

  “The one where a stranger comes and takes the princess to a faraway land. One without rocks and holes. One not so pink.” She looked at her feet. “I play that with my dolls. I like to imagine that Princess Swan is escaping her life. I like to sneak out the window of our house at night and put her feet on the dirt of these roads where it’s so dark that you can’t see the rest of the world and can imagine it’s someplace else. Someplace new.” She sniffled and rubbed her nose. “Well, one night Princess Swan was trying to run away down our alley and when I look up I see someone standing at the end, just staring at me.”

  Requiem handed the bottle back to Garp and stepped forward. The girl hid behind her aunt.

  “It’s okay. Tell him.”

  “I thought he was the one. I thought he was the stranger from faraway lands who was there to save Princess Swan. I said hello.” She swallowed. “But he just kept staring. I asked him if he was here to take us away, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he just strode out of the alley. But I was so sure that it was him. That he was supposed to help us. So I ran to the end of the alley to see him mounting a horse. I cried, ‘Wait.’ And the man turned to look at me beneath the stone light.”

  “You saw him? What did he look like?”

  “I... I don’t think it was a him.”

  “It was a woman?”

  The girl shook her head. Requiem exchanged glances with Monnie.

  “Go on,” said Monnie.

  “It was a demon.”

  “A demon?” said Garp.

  “What did it look like?” said Requiem, knowing of no monster that ever rode horseback.

  “Its face was red.” The girl started speaking quicker, as if her fears were finally uncorked and could come flooding out. “There were markings too, like carvings in wood. I... I saw its eyes as it looked back at me. They were, they were red. All red like rubies. I ran. I ran as fast I could. I won’t go into the alleyway anymore, Auntie. Don’t worry. Not after knowing that thing was looking at me with those eyes.”

  “There, there now, girl,” said Monnie. “The man is gone now.”

  The girl looked at Requiem. “You’re really searching for it?”

  “I dunno what I’m looking for,” he admitted, rubbing his head.

  “Well, if you find it, please make it go away.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Melinda clenched her aunt’s hand and leaned her head against it.

  “Don’t worry, girl. There’s nothing to be scared of here. Your mommy, me, everyone in this place is watching over you.” She turned to Requiem. “Well, that’s that. Hope that helps. Probably just some drunk having a go with the locals. Happens from time to time, but there you have it.” She looked back down to Melinda. “What do you say? Should we take you and Princess Swan back to bed?”

  Melinda nodded. They went to turn.

  “Wait,” said Requiem.

  They stopped.

  “Can you change her?”

  “Who?”

  Requiem stepped to the side of the cart and pointed inside to the girl.

  Monnie stared, but then reluctantly nodded.

  That night he thought long about what to do. The rider, the high-pitched voice, the demon, he had a feeling they were all one and the same, but what he couldn’t figure out was why they wanted the girl, or if the girl in the back of the coach was who they wanted in the first place. Plenty of lost girls since the Shamble. Could be looking for one of the hundreds that walked the world in search of a home or meaning since the death of their parents.

  All he knew was that Monnie’s niece’s description didn’t feel right. Demons, if they existed, didn’t watch over little girls. Better to stick with the plan and wake the comatose child and hear from her own mouth who her people were.

  He thought about it still as the coach rumbled on to Bothane, his head heavy, his vision blurry thanks to his time with the low.

  “You spit near me again and I’ll kick you over the Edge.” Grey looked in disgust at Garp, who wasn’t quite heaving, but was shucking saliva over the cockpit like he was a sputtering fountain.

  Garp wiped his lips. “Just trying to shine up the stones a bit.” He pointed to the surrounding land they passed through, a swath of wilderness known as the Piles, a place once overrun with brimlings that burrowed great holes into the grassy flesh of Moonsland in search of the stones they craved. Now the shale and soil they dug up lay in glittering hills to either side, and nature was slowly starting to claim back what was once its own. Grass and moss grew again, making the grey dirt hills look sickly in a way, like some depraved illness was slowly infecting it.

  Grey shook his head. “You’re both fools. Dizzy-headed during one of the most dangerous parts of the trip—”

  “But a few shards richer.” Garp slapped his winnings from the burrow-tail fight and the jangle echoed over the glittering hills beside them.

  “Sloppy,” said Grey, shaking his head. “And you? You’re supposed to be protecting this girl, ain’t you?”

  Requiem stared at the road, trying to focus his vision. “I’m just trying to see her to the right hands.”

  “Yet you toss around her life like it’s a ball in some game. I kept her watered, watched over her as a hundred boots stomped by the Hive while you were out pulling poison with this one. By the Abyss, you went and asked old Monnie to change her for you like she was some midwife at your manse… If you want to just let the world take her then why go through all the trouble?”

  Requiem chewed his lower lip and suppressed the urge to vomit.

  “You don’t care a lick about this girl. You just care about your own soul, and what leaving a child to its own fate would do to it. You’re afraid that it’ll finally tear you apart.”

  “It’s already shredded.”

  “No it ain’t. If it was then you would already be gone.”

  Requiem thought about it. “Take her and I will be.”

  Grey shook his head. “I won’t let you clean your hands of your own mess that easy. Scarred or not, you pick up a piece of shit then it’s yours. No one is going to take it from you, don’t care if you can cut the world. Besides, I’ve already got a child to take care of.”

  “Close it for once, will you?” said Garp.

  “I’ll close it once you start listening. Didn’t pull you from the holes so you’d have one in your head. Your daddy would have my hide.”

  “He’s dead, Grey.”

  “But you ain’t, and I plan to keep it that way, no matter how hard you try to see it otherwise.” He turned to Requiem. “I’m done watching your girl.”

  They passed through the Piles, their eyes cautiously on the hills. Though the brimlings had all been eradicated, other beasts would take residence in the holes they’d created, finding easy homes to make into sanctuaries to conduct their violent existences. Things moved along the hills. Though Requiem never saw the culprits, he saw the dribble of pebbles as something skittered back into a home or out of sight, and he heard snorts and cackles of things as they cried out amongst that barren land, their echoes hopping from hill to hill for so long that it seemed their calls might reach Bothane before they did.

  “You know what they are?” said Garp, watching the hills.

&
nbsp; Requiem listened. “Sleepers. Wumps.”

  Garp spat. “First time we came through here saw a sleeper dangle out a star diamond as big as Grey’s head. Didn’t know it at the time.”

  “Should have known it at the time,” said Grey. “We heard enough about these parts before coming to them. Lost a horse and half our supply then.”

  “Who knew a sleeper would be able to fake a diamond that size?”

  Requiem looked at the hills. Even then he saw a glimmering red stone sitting upon the grass, lustrous bait meant to lure greedy creatures into the jaws of the sleeper waiting beneath the ground, burrowed in the soil. “Their lures are flexible. Can change color. Change size. Change shape. Fill it with air like the throat of a frog. Release a gas into it like from the Abyss.”

  “You meet some before?” said Garp.

  “Met plenty,” said Requiem, recalling the time he was hired by a farmer to rid her field of a family of sleepers trying to snatch her family up. The key was to draw them out of hiding, cut their lure from their body, make them spring their trap before you were in it. Above ground they were slow, strong, but slow. A few flicks of his sword and he could fell them before they moved a yard.

  “Wumps too?”

  “Only when they’re desperate enough for some clink,” said Requiem.

  “Wumps ain’t nothing to worry about,” said Grey. “So long as we don’t show them our stores, then they’ll leave us alone.”

  “They’re plenty to worry about when there’s a horde of them,” said Requiem. “Once saw a hundred of them rip through a caravan fighting over a chunk of tandelite. They see a clink they want if there’s not enough of it to go around then they’ll stir into a tizzy.”