by AD Starrling
The boy’s mother took one look at them, got a bath ready in front of the roaring fire, and scrubbed them both to within an inch of their lives before sending them to bed. By the time the boy snuggled beneath his covers, he had all but forgotten about the stranger from the village.
The next day, his mother taught him the basse danse. He discovered that he was also as graceful as a duck on ice, much to his mother’s horror and his father’s everlasting amusement.
They came shortly after daybreak, over a fortnight later.
The boy was collecting fresh kindling in the woods behind the cabin when the neighs of horses and the thuds of hooves pounding the ground interrupted him. He looked around with a frown.
There had only ever been a handful of visitors to his home in living memory. Most had been woodcutters attracted by the smoke spouting from the cabin chimney. The rest had been trappers and hunters who stayed in the shadows beneath the trees and passed by without exchanging a word.
The boy turned and headed back, curious as to who had brought horses so far in the wild. He had just come within sight of the clearing when he heard voices raised in anger.
A loud bang made him jump. He dropped the bundle of twigs he carried in his arms.
A scream blotted out the dying echoes of the boom.
The sound froze the boy’s feet to the ground. It was his mother’s voice. Then he was moving, his legs pumping through air that suddenly felt as thick as molasses. He passed the tree where he had left the wooden practice sword his father had carved for him from an oak branch, grabbed the weapon, and rounded the corner of the cabin. He skidded to a halt in the snow. His heart stuttered.
His father lay motionless in front of the porch. An ugly wound distorted the area over his left breast. Blood pooled around the gaping crater and stained his shirt in an ever widening, crimson circle.
The boy’s knees almost gave out beneath him. His father had been shot. He watched desperately for any movement of his chest or telltale pluming of air from his lips or nose. He saw none.
The boy’s gaze darted to the figures on horseback who watched his father’s still shape. There were six of them, men with polished features and refined clothing that looked out of keeping with the surrounding wilderness. Silver glinted in the bridles and saddles of their horses, giant beasts with gleaming coats and braided manes and tails.
A figure dashed out of the cabin. The boy’s stomach lurched. It was his mother.
She held two blades in her hands. The boy recognized his father’s broadsword and his mother’s own rapier. She was at the bottom of the porch steps in a heartbeat and assumed a defensive stance in front of the unmoving figure on the ground.
‘Please, don’t do this,’ she begged the silent men.
Someone laughed. The boy stared, horrified, as the man in the lead dismounted and approached his mother. His companions followed suit and unsheathed their swords. The boy’s gaze dropped to the first man’s waist. A sinister looking, round, metal object sat in a leather harness next to his scabbard. The boy recognized it as a matchlock pistol from his father’s lessons on the art of war.
‘Just tell the Council you didn’t find us,’ his mother continued in a trembling voice. ‘Please, Alexander, we haven’t harmed any—’
‘Silence!’ the man yelled.
The boy’s mother twitched.
‘Do not take me for a fool!’ the man called Alexander uttered in a sibilant whisper. ‘You knew full well the sin you committed when you decided to lie with this traitorous Crovir snake, daughter of Bastian.’ He kicked the boy’s father in the leg. ‘You lost the privileges of your station and the right to live the day you gave birth to that monster.’ He paused and glared at the open doorway of the cabin. ‘Where is that bastard half-breed of yours? Hiding like a dog, is he?’
The other men chuckled.
The boy’s heart raced in fear and shock. Crovir and Bastian were the names of the immortal races from the tales his father had oft told him.
‘Alexander, I’m begging you.’ Tears streamed down his mother’s ashen face. ‘He is an innocent child. He does not—’
Her words were cut off by a backhanded slap that almost sent her tumbling to the ground. A trickle of blood escaped her nose and split lip as she steadied herself on the two blades.
A hot feeling flooded the boy’s chest. These men had killed his father and hurt his mother. Before he knew it, he was charging from the tree line, an animal sound tearing up his throat as he raised his wooden sword in a double-handed grip.
His mother’s eyes widened. ‘No! Run!’
The boy landed two blows before someone kicked him in the stomach. He choked for air, stunned by the pain that paralyzed his breathing. His sword fell from his grasp. Fingers closed on his hair and pulled him up until he was practically on tiptoes. His scalp prickled where a few tendrils parted with his skin.
‘Aha! Here is the mongrel!’ someone spat in his face. It was the man called Alexander. Hate turned the man’s eyes to smoldering coals. He smirked at the boy’s mother. ‘The tattletale who told us of your whereabouts said he seemed ordinary. Not much to look at, this runt of yours, is he, Catarine? Why, I could break his neck with my bare hands!’ His grip tightened.
The boy blinked back tears as his father’s killer yanked a handful of dark curls from his head. He suddenly recalled the stranger who had bumped into them in the village. He knew without a doubt that man was responsible for these people’s presence at his home. The boy gritted his teeth, looked down, and grabbed the pistol from the man’s waistband. The latter released him as he raised the weapon in shaking hands.
‘Why, it seems we have a regular hero in the making here.’ Alexander sneered. ‘What will you do now, boy? Are you going to shoot us?’
A strange feeling of calmness descended upon the boy when he glanced at his mother’s stricken expression. His grip steadied on the pistol. He would defend her at all costs.
He aimed the weapon at the grinning killer and pulled on the bottom lever.
There was a flare of sparks and a dry click. The pistol did not discharge.
The boy stared at it in dull incomprehension. Too late, he remembered the lead shots that needed to be inserted in the barrel.
Alexander’s mocking laughter echoed around the clearing. ‘You stupid, stupid child! What did you think would—?’ He broke off.
The boy had turned and cast the pistol as far as he could into the forest. There was a distant crash from among the trees.
‘Why, you—’ Alexander stormed toward him, his eyes deadly. The boy backed away.
A clash of metal stayed the man’s stride. He looked over his shoulder toward the front of the cabin.
The boy blinked.
His father was up on his feet and fighting four of the men with his broadsword. The boy’s mother stood close to him, her own blade slicing the air deftly as she engaged the fifth man.
The horses threw their heads back and snorted, hooves stamping the ground in agitation as they moved away.
Alexander turned on his heels and drew his sword.
‘Father,’ the boy whispered numbly.
His father was alive. Yet, he had been so sure that he had died.
The boy’s mother yelled his name, startling him. He grabbed his wooden sword and slipped around the fighting figures to the cover of the porch. An ill-matched battle unfolded before him while he watched with bated breath, knuckles white on the handle of his sword. A wave of heat washed over his back from the open doorway behind him. He whirled around and ran inside the cabin.
His frantic gaze scoured the room and found what he sought. He grabbed the hunting knives from the table next to the wash bucket and raced back outside.
‘Catarine!’ his father bellowed.
The boy rocked to a stop. Air froze on his lips. His limbs went slack. The weapons clattered onto the porch.
A blade had found his mother’s skin. Her attacker yanked his sword out of her body in a slashing
motion. She gasped and clamped a hand to the gaping wound in her abdomen. Blood gushed from under her fingers.
She looked at the boy’s father with a dazed expression. ‘Balthazar,’ she breathed.
‘Stand back!’ he barked. Sweat beaded his face despite the cold and his chest heaved with his breathing. Crimson trails laced his arms from several cuts.
Two of his attackers lay in the snow, dead from dreadful lacerations carved into their bodies.
The boy’s mother staggered toward the porch. The boy leapt down the steps and caught her as she fell. He looped his arms around her body and pressed his hands to her wound. Hot scarlet stained his fingers, the flow pulsing with her slowing heartbeat. Her pale face blurred in the swell of tears that filled his vision.
She grabbed his hand and whispered, ‘I love you.’
A low sob escaped him when he felt her go limp. He stared into her open, unblinking eyes, shivers racking his body.
The boy’s father froze in the midst of swinging his blade. Horror clouded his gray gaze. He roared and redoubled his efforts to push back their attackers.
Alexander’s sword slashed across the side of his neck a moment later.
‘Father!’ the boy shrieked.
His father thudded to his knees, a hand clasped to the red jet spurting from his throat. Sorrow filled his face as he looked around at the boy and the dead woman lying in his lap.
‘I love you, son.’ He collapsed forward in the snow. His eyes fluttered closed.
A loud ringing sounded in the boy’s ears.
‘No,’ he mumbled. He stared from his father to his mother. His voice rose to a shrill scream of denial. ‘Nooooo!’
There was motion in the clearing. The men his father had slain were slowly rising to their feet.
‘You did not know?’
The boy’s numb gaze moved from the two figures to Alexander’s face.
The man appeared to be relishing something. ‘They never told you, did they? I cannot believe it!’ He sneered. ‘Oh, you are going to enjoy what is still to come, boy! This delicious farce is far from over!’
The boy watched him wordlessly, unable to grasp his meaning.
Two men rolled his father’s body over. ‘Do you want to finish him off now?’ one of them asked. He held a blade over the dead man’s neck.
Alexander’s gaze did not shift from the boy’s face. ‘No. Let him rise and fight again. I want this mongrel to witness what is going to happen next.’
The men glanced at each other, their expressions uneasy. ‘The Hunters’ code forbids us from—’
‘The Hunters’ code be damned!’ Alexander snapped. ‘Our names will be engraved in immortal history for killing these two traitors and the evil they birthed!’ Spittle flew from his mouth and his shoulders heaved with angry breaths.
A shudder ran through the body in the boy’s arms. He looked down in time to see his mother’s eyes blink open. Horror numbed his senses as the reality of what he had witnessed and heard finally sank in.
His parents were immortals. As were the men who had come to slaughter them.
In the hours that followed, Alexander’s threat became a harrowing truth that seared the boy’s mind and forever shattered his innocence.
His father rose from death eight times more and raised his blade to defend all that he loved with every fibre of his being. When his final breath left his body and he lay unmoving on the frozen ground, a crow cawed shrilly from a nearby tree.
Two men held the boy back while the others took turns killing his mother another sixteen times. They stood patiently over her and waited until she showed signs of life before stabbing her savagely in the heart.
Before her seventeenth and final death, the boy’s mother managed to turn her head and look at him for the last time. She mouthed a single word.
A second crow joined the first one, its wings rustling loudly in the silence that followed.
The boy’s mouth opened on a cry that came out as a whisper. His throat was raw and his voice hoarse from his screams.
Alexander collected the wooden sword from the porch. ‘I am curious to see what you can do, boy. Here, use this to defend yourself.’ He threw the weapon at the boy’s feet.
The other men exchanged troubled looks.
‘Alexander, this has gone far enough,’ one of them said in a warning tone. ‘Our orders were to kill them, not—not torment them like this! Let us be done.’
Alexander ignored the speaker. ‘Let him go,’ he said silkily to the men holding the boy.
They released him reluctantly.
‘Pick it up.’
The boy looked dazedly at the wooden sword.
‘Pick it up!’ Alexander shouted.
The boy lunged and grabbed the sword. His body shook uncontrollably. He cast beseeching glances at the other men. They did not meet his eyes.
A silver blade hummed past the boy’s face. He stumbled backward.
Metal clanged against wood. The boy stared from the wooden sword he had automatically raised to Alexander’s surprised expression.
The boy fended off another two blows before the man’s sword found his arm. He cried as heat carved a path along his skin from elbow to wrist. Blood dripped onto the snow.
A hand closed around his throat. Alexander lifted him with one hand. The boy thrashed and kicked, blood roaring in his ears as he wheezed against the iron vice choking air from his lungs. The man watched him struggle for timeless seconds before slamming him down on the ground.
Pain exploded through the boy’s back and head as he made contact with the frozen ground.
A crushing weight landed on his right hand. He heard bone pop. Alexander ground his boot into his fingers and raised his sword in both hands.
The boy’s terrified gaze focused on the gleaming tip as it descended toward him. The blade pierced the skin over his heart and entered his body in a single, savage thrust.
He gasped. Numbness flared from the wound and spread through his entire being. Tears streamed silently down his face as he gazed at Alexander’s triumphant expression. The boy felt his heart slow. A circle of darkness encroached on his vision. As his awareness dimmed and his eyes flickered closed, he thought he heard the sound of approaching hoofbeats and someone shout his name.
The sun had passed its zenith when he awoke. The boy blinked at the snow falling from the gray, winter skies and the dark shadows moving between the white flakes.
Crows circled the clearing, a giant swarm that blocked out half the heavens. But for the crackling of their wings, the birds were silent.
The boy lay frozen for a long time as he waited for a blade to sink into his heart once more. When none came, he pushed himself up and looked around. He breathed in sharply.
The birds perched on the roof of the cabin and the branches of nearby trees. They dotted the blood-stained ground and sat docilely on the eight bodies around him.
Horror brought a flood of bile to the boy’s mouth. He ignored the throbbing from his injuries, leapt to his feet, and swung his wooden sword clumsily at the crows resting on his mother and father.
‘Go away!’ he yelled.
The birds hopped out of the way of the blade before returning to the bodies. The boy’s eyes rounded when he studied the other figures and recognized the men who had come to kill them. An ugly grimace distorted Alexander’s face in death. Stab wounds and slashes covered his frame. The boy’s gaze moved to the tree line. He spotted three of the horses beneath the snow-laden branches.
A sudden downdraft pushed against him. He looked up and stared, appalled, as flock upon flock of black shapes descended from the sky and covered the motionless figures on the ground. The horses startled and galloped away, alarmed snorts fading into the distance.
The boy made several attempts to rid his parents’ bodies of the sinister creatures, to no avail. Although he expected the crows to peck and gore the corpses beneath them, they did no such thing. Instead, they shrouded the bodies with their wings, thei
r coal black eyes almost sad as they watched him.
He had no forewarning of their departure. In a single motion that seemed to denote some kind of silent communication, the birds left just as suddenly as they had appeared, a vast cloud of fluttering wings that darkened the clearing.
In the stead of the bodies were eight discrete piles of ashes. Some flakes fluttered onto the snow.
The boy choked and dropped to his knees by his parents’ remains. He tried to gather the precious mounds in his hands even as a bluster of wind coursed through the clearing and scattered the gray specks.
‘No,’ he whispered, frozen fingers clutching desperately at the vanishing grains of earthly dust that were all that was left of his mother and father.
A noise brought his head up. His stomach lurched. He stared at the trees to his left.
There was no one there.
The boy studied the shadows in the forest intently. He could not help but feel that he was being watched. His gaze finally returned to where his parents had lain.
There was nothing left of their ashes.
Hot tears scalded the boy’s cheeks. His shoulders sagged. He remained still for a long time before leaning down and kissing the ground where his parents had lain. He closed his eyes and said a short prayer before staggering to his feet.
Cold determination filled his veins. He knew what he had to do.
The boy collected the hunting knives from the porch and entered the cabin. He cleaned the wounds on his chest and arm and wrapped a roll of fresh linen tightly around them. Next, he packed a bag with food, a full waterskin, several rolls of clean linen, a tinderbox, and a spare change of clothes. He shrugged into his winter coat, put on a second layer of socks, and pulled his boots back on. He slipped the hunting knives inside his pockets.
The boy doused the fire and walked slowly around the place he had called his home for as long as he had lived. Tears threatened to fill his eyes again when he stood in the doorway of his parents’ room. He wiped at them angrily and stormed out of the cabin, the bag strapped to his back.
