Horsemen of Old

by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

  There was a well in the middle of this clearing. Not a normal well. This one was made of a beautiful stone, pale green, with a single mark on its side. Gray studied the sign intensely. It was an eye, a single eye, with the iris a deep spiral. Oddly familiar. He started to approach the well, but stopped. There was someone climbing out of it.

  An old man. The old man. He was well built for most old men, and looked strong. He climbed out, mopping water off his rags, and then turned to look at Gray. Gray remembered his deep eyes. Brown. The man spoke in the same language as the trees.

  ‘Blood is thicker than water,’ he said. ‘It is the only way you shall be free of this place.’

  ‘Should I give you my blood?’ Gray asked.

  ‘When the time comes,’ the old man said, ‘I shall be there to take it.’

  He opened his mouth then, slowly. Large, wicked fangs stared at Gray, as old and decayed as the rest of his teeth.

  ‘I’m in a dream,’ Gray whispered.

  The old man grinned, and pounced.

  Gray woke up panting, and found himself face-to-face with someone. It wasn’t the old man. Something with large eyes was peering down at him.

  ‘What the hell!’ Gray screamed and sat up, pushing the creature away.

  It retreated a few paces, still looking curiously at Gray. Gray stared back. It was a short, fat creature, humanoid, dressed in a strange, weedy material that covered him from head to toe. Its face was much wider than a human’s, its mouth travelling ear to ear. It wore a pair of flying goggles on its eyes, huge and blue. Its hands were in front of its face, held up in a protective stance. Gray noticed how its limbs were bony and thin, as opposed to its fat self.

  ‘Did not mean to startle you, friend,’ it croaked. The voice came from deep beneath its mouth.

  ‘What are you?’ Gray asked, the first question that came to him.

  ‘They call me Dry Boot Kahuna, protector of the deep,’ the creature said, slowly removing its hands.

  ‘Kahuna?’ Gray repeated. ‘You’re one of the frog men?’

  ‘An insult, a name to which we never agreed,’ the kahuna hacked, its voice colder. It moved, its limbs moving quickly, the body struggling to keep up. It walked around Gray, looking at the water, looking at Gray.

  ‘You are one of them,’ Gray continued, staring at the creature. ‘You kidnap children from boats and eat them under water.’

  ‘Kahuna eat only fish, let me tell you that. Misinformed,’ the kahuna said, shaking its head. ‘You make monsters out of everything. You humans.’

  Gray slowly got to his feet. ‘I shouldn’t be scared of you, then?’

  ‘If I wanted to kill you, you would be breathing water by now, friend,’ it said. ‘No?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Gray asked.

  ‘Merrrhm!’ it cleared its throat with an incredible shake of a loose, wobbly muscle, a vibration ending within. ‘I wonder where you come from. Seems to me your departure was rather hurried.’ It grinned, revealing several large teeth, all square and blunt.

  ‘What is this place?’ Gray asked, looking around. ‘Where am I?’ The ground he was on was a deep, charred grey. The trees near him were leafless and dry—twisted, bony shadows of former selves. On one side of him lay the lake he had come out from, its waters a deep ash, and on the other, a forest of these dead trees, towering above him. In the far horizon between the branches, he could see faint mountain ranges, rocks. For a moment he remembered the nightmare he had woken up from.

  ‘Why, you be in the Shadowlands,’ the creature replied, hopping over to a large stone on the water’s edge. ‘This is Lake Damrier, and let me welcome you to its cold grace.’

  ‘The Shadowlands,’ Gray repeated. ‘Of course.’ He looked at the creature with renewed interest. ‘Have you seen any others? A man, two women?’

  ‘Been travelling in a group, have we?’ the kahuna asked. ‘Seen no one, not many arrive in Damrier. Occasional corpse.’

  ‘Any corpses today?’

  ‘No, no. Nothing. Nobody.’

  Gray stood up, shaking off the dry mud on his clothes. He ignored his body, sore and aching, demanding more rest. The others? There was no other way to find the others but to retrace the route of the river. He would have to do it. Best get moving. He didn’t really like the kahuna. There was something strange about it, excluding the fact that Gray had seen one for the first time in his life.

  The kahuna stared at him with large eyes. ‘Leaving, friend?’ it asked moodily.

  ‘Got to make a move, frog man,’ Gray said. ‘See you around.’ He started off, ducking beneath the lowest branches of the trees nearby. The rock wall near the waterfall would have to be climbed.

  ‘So, you do not desire your backpack, then?’ the kahuna called out.

  Gray froze. ‘You have my backpack?’ he asked, slowly turning around. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Found it on the riverbed,’ the kahuna rasped. ‘Easy work for me, easy work.’

  ‘Well, thanks, I guess!’ Gray exclaimed. ‘I really needed that. I had given up all hope.’

  ‘No, not so fast,’ the kahuna said.

  Gray started walking back towards the frog man. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I return your bag on one condition.’

  ‘Yes, you get to keep whatever you want from it. Fine. Now, hand it over.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ the kahuna asked, eyes wide.

  ‘How is that important? I heard a story, same one that spoke about you eating babies.’

  ‘But—but are you not curious as to why I make this offer, and why don’t I simply keep the entire bag in the first place?’

  ‘Because kahuna can’t keep someone else’s belongings without the owner’s consent. Or if the owner’s alive—’ Gray stopped short and looked at the kahuna again. It did not seem to be packing any weapon. ‘No smooth moves,’ Gray warned. ‘Hand over the bag, and keep anything you like. I’m a man of my word.’

  The creature considered Gray’s offer suspiciously. Finally, it gave in. ‘Merrrhm! Don’t have it here. Will go and get it. You stay right there.’ It slipped off into the trees. Gray hesitated for a second, then followed. The kahuna wasn’t hard to follow, it made a symphony of uncomfortable noises and pants as it walked, upsetting plants and logs and trees. Sometimes it decided to glance behind, but the entire process of turning took so long that Gray found ample time to duck out of sight.

  The frog man led Gray through the forest, skirting the lake, slowly making its way towards a cave in the mountainside, a small, dark hole with shrubbery concealing its mouth. The kahuna ducked within. Gray stood outside the hole for a second, wondering why he had followed the creature. Distrust, mostly. But now that he was here, should he head in? Might be a trap. He did not even know how large the cave was. Then Gray heard something. A scream, faint. A woman’s voice.

  ‘Maya!’ Gray shouted. It had been an echo, an echo from somewhere inside the cave. He looked around, grabbed a short, strong branch, and headed for the hole. The cave widened out as soon as he entered. At first Gray could see nothing. Then his eyes adjusted, and he saw the faintest of lights burning in the distance. Green lights. A tunnel, the lights beyond. He gripped his makeshift club tighter and started to walk.

  Maya tried to scream again, but the creature was back, grinning, adjusting the gag. She could only mouth sounds that did not leave. She felt ill, unable to breathe. Breathe through your nose, she commanded herself. She took a deep breath, then another. Focus. Focus. The creature was ignoring her now, it had moved on to Zabrielle. Maya watched as it checked the Demon’s gag, checked the lock on her chains. Where the hell was Fayne? She slowly turned her neck as much as the chains would allow. He wasn’t here, not in this tiny space, wherever this was. She was chained to a wall, in this room that seemed to be cut from mud. She could see tree roots poking out of the walls, running along, the walls moist in the dim green light. The creature had moved to the adjoining room, and was evidently searching for something, m
aking noises, moving and throwing objects.

  She turned her neck back to her right where Zabrielle lay chained, still unconscious. ‘Zabrielle,’ she murmured, but the gag muffled it all, cursed thing. Where was Gray? She hoped he was all right. What the hell was this animal? And what was going to happen to them? Focus. She cleared her mind. The last thing she remembered was blacking out in the river, holding on to something, trying to stay afloat. Then she had woken up here. This thing, whatever it was, had taken them prisoner, and it did not want them to talk. A creature which knew the power of words.

  ‘Zabrielle!’ she screamed with all her might. Nothing. Just a jumble of strange sounds that betrayed her. She craned her neck upwards, trying to sneak a glance at her hands, tied firm above her. Her sorcerer gauntlets were gone. The bastard knew what they were. Wouldn’t have been much help anyway, she thought bitterly. Another deep breath. These thoughts would not help. She needed to find a way out. She looked at her feet, bare and muddy, her boots gone. Nothing near them, no tool, nothing she could use. Then she saw the silhouette across the room. A very familiar silhouette.

  ‘Gray!’ she choked.

  ‘Maya?’ Gray asked, staring at her form in shock. He slowly began to approach her. In front of her terrified eyes, Maya saw her captor emerge from the other room. ‘Watch out!’ Maya cried, but Gray had already spotted the creature.

  ‘You traitorous scum—’ Gray started, and rushed at the frog man, lifting the club.

  The kahuna’s tongue shot out across the room—a slimy, blue tentacle, thick as a man’s arm—and snatched the log from Gray. ‘Tolbd you gnot to bfollow,’ the creature sneered. It dropped the log and with a vicious whip like blow, lashed out again with its tongue. The impact knocked Gray out and he collapsed onto the moist floor.

  ‘No!’ Maya screamed into the gag.

  ‘Merrrhm!’ the frog man exclaimed, victorious. It turned to Maya. ‘Lover? Family? Matters not. Lunch, dinner, breakfast, matters not. Meat is meat.’ It grabbed Gray by the shoulder and dragged him off into the other room, slowly, slowly, as tears came to Maya’s eyes.

  Never had she felt so helpless, so utterly helpless. She closed her eyes, letting the tears run down her cheeks. The magic. It was here somewhere, around her, it had to be. ‘Come to my aid,’ she whispered to herself, willing the magic to flow. ‘Undo my chains. Break them, burn them.’ She kept muttering to herself for hours and hours until her mind gave way from sheer exhaustion. She blacked out, the pain of her tied wrists finally fading away, the fleeting moments of a lullaby heard before sleep.

  Maya came round for moments in between, and snatches of conversation teased in and out of her ears. It was Gray, talking like a madman, talking desperately.

  ‘What good can come out of that, Dry Boot? You are called protector, why would they call you protector if you do that?’

  A rasp replied. ‘Suddenly I’m not frog man any more, eh, friend? Suddenly I’m not traitorous scum?’

  ‘You BASTARD! YOU PIECE OF SHIT! YOU—I’LL SHOW YOU—’

  ‘Conserve your energy, thin one. Yes? You be needing it, assure you. Yes?’

  Maya drifted off again. She was jerked back to clarity in what seemed like a moment, but must have been hours. Gray was screaming. He was screaming the loudest Maya had ever heard him scream. Her tears came again as she realised just how bad their situation was. They would probably die here, far from home, their task unfinished, at the hands of this frog man, this beast. She gnashed her teeth furiously in sudden hatred, she pulled at her chains with inhuman strength, she pulled at them again and again until she was done, until her vigour was gone. She slumped against the wall once more, hearing Gray howl, blacking out again.

  Perhaps a day passed, perhaps several. She opened her eyes to the same dim green light, the same mud interiors. Her mind refused to work as it should. It was starved, like her. She had dim recollections of the contents of a flask being poured down her throat, soft memories of tasting precious water, but her throat felt parched whenever she came to, the water a lie. She could not react to anything anymore. More days seemed to pass. Sometimes, all she could manage during a day was to turn her head and look at the demon next to her.

  Zabrielle’s eyes remained shut.

  Maya awoke to smoke, and a smell, a smell of food being cooked. It made her salivate immediately, this thought of having something to eat. Perhaps the creature would offer them some of it. She opened her eyes and saw the fire first, green, burning on a rudimentary hearth of stones and wood. It was not far from where she was. What was that heavenly smell? Her eyes, dazed and sleepy, looked at the spit above the fire.

  An arm was cooking. A human arm. Her mind was fuzzy, unable to connect the dots. She was sure she could feel both her arms, but she couldn’t be too sure. She jangled her restraints to check. The right side. The left side. Both her arms were in place. She looked deeper, and then saw it, amidst the smoke. The arm, half cooked already, seasoning laced, glowing a golden brown, wore something on a finger. A ring.

  Where had she seen that ring? Where? Something stirred, in her past. The ring had been a gift. From Ba’al. Then it hit her. Gray.

  Gray’s severed arm was being roasted in front of her eyes.

  She screamed then. She screamed as loudly as the gag permitted. She screamed and screamed and went into a frenzy, pulling at the chains like a crazed animal, all pain abandoned.

  The frog man came soon. He stopped at the spit first, and turned the arm a bit. Then he hopped over to Maya, and hit her hard on the face. It put an immediate stop to her hysteria, and her entire body fell back hard.

  ‘Waste not, want not,’ the kahuna sang. ‘Want a bite, eh? Be sure to give you some, then. No need to scream.’

  Maya tried to glare at him with all the energy she could muster. She was panting, the noxious fumes in the cave making her giddy. ‘No, no, no, not this,’ she gagged out. ‘Not him, not him.’

  ‘We all be dead someday, yes?’ it croaked with relish. It left her alone, and hobbled back to the fire.

  There was an urgency now that Maya could not contain. ‘Mmmppfff!’ she shouted, deliberately being unclear. The frog man sighed, then hobbled back. ‘What now? You’re not getting free.’

  ‘Mmmpfff!’ she mumbled.

  The creature stared, trying to understand her. Finally, when it could not, it lowered Maya’s gag.

  ‘A last request,’ Maya panted, breathing heavily. ‘I know that none of us are making it out alive. I know we’ll be eaten. By you. But I’m young, and it’s only fair that you grant me one last request, Dry Boot. Just the one.’

  ‘Want a piece of the meat?’ the kahuna grinned.

  ‘I want some spirit of hartshorn,’ Maya said calmly, still panting. ‘I’m getting unconscious all the time. I want to feel the pain in my final moments. Even in captivity, I wish to live.’

  ‘Smelling salts,’ Dry Boot said, looking at her with its large eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ Maya breathed. ‘Give me this one thing in my death.’

  ‘Painful path, yes? Wishing to experience it all? Have it somewhere. I shall oblige,’ the frog man said, to Maya’s immense relief. It hobbled around the cave and soon came back with a small container. It pulled Maya’s gag and stuffed the open container under her nose.

  Maya breathed in and her head jerked back. The pungent smell hit her and overpowered her. It wasn’t merely a smell, it was a physical hit in her nostrils, a sharp, overpowering odour worse than urine. It smelt dirty, she wanted to throw up, but she controlled herself. Her senses became sharper immediately, her eyesight clearer. She held her breath, not wanting to take another whiff of it.

  The frog man watched her keenly. ‘Why don’t you keep that there for a while?’ it spoke slowly, and grinning, turned back to the fire.

  Maya ignored the fresh lease of pain that the smelling salt had granted; she slowly gnawed at the container, using the little space between the gag and her mouth which she now had. She gnawed at it, bringing the rim l
ower and lower, until she could bite down on it. In a moment, opening her mouth, she lifted her head upwards and let the salts slide down into her mouth, now mostly free.

  It tasted bitter and sour, extremely strong. She turned towards Zabrielle, and spat the salts onto her face. Then she waited, panting, staring.

  Zabrielle’s eyes opened, fiery green. She jerked awake with an incredible spasm, one that tested all the chains that held her. She took a second to look around, take everything in, and then her fingers twirled in a small gesture. A green flash and she was free. She stood up and gestured, and Maya felt the same force cut away her chains. She fell on the floor, suddenly free, suddenly weightless. Maya scrambled to her feet, unsteady, and saw the frog man backing away slowly towards the tunnel.

  Maya ripped the gag off her face. ‘Where is my brother, you fat filth?’ she spat venomously.

  ‘Next room, next room,’ Dry Boot croaked. ‘He’s alive, yes.’ It slowly turned to leave, and saw a blade hovering in midair, right at its swollen throat. A blade large, ethereal, glowing a translucent green, silently waiting for a command.

  ‘Move and die,’ Zabrielle spoke with anger.

  Maya rushed into the next room. Her eyes ignored everything else in the room—all the bags and trunks and jewellery and clothes—and went straight to her brother. He was chained to a wall, clothes blood-soaked. His right arm was a stump, an ugly stump where the limb had once been.

  ‘Zabrielle!’ Maya cried out, and a green blade freed Gray. He fell from the wall. Maya ran and caught him in mid-fall. She kneeled then, with Gray in her arms, crying, breaking down completely. Zabrielle said nothing, but her large green eyes were mournful as she looked at the siblings. They stayed like that for a long, long time, until finally, wiping her tears with a muddy hand, Maya spoke.