Crouched in the shadows with her weapons, Daimonia felt terror beat against the armour of her heart. She nurtured the inner fire she had kindled. Give me one moment of courage, she prayed. No, not courage. Give me one moment of truth!
Nocking an arrow, she followed the movements of the Grobian youth with her bow. His swaying belly made a large, if moving target. She stared at his neck, which was ringed with a bone necklace. A silent kill was needed if she were to rescue the tortured knights and not wake the camp.
She loosed the arrow with a prayer. Already her hands were reaching instinctively for a second.
The Grobian turned at that moment and the arrow missed him, sticking the tied Way Knight in the face. The knight screamed hideously and whacked his head against the tree as if to force the shaft from his skull. Blood spurted from the agonising wound as he ground his jaws and contorted his face, his cries terrifying the birds from the trees.
Daimonia’s fingers became numb. She dropped the next arrow, gasping with horror as it disappeared into the leaves. She drew another, fighting a sudden dizziness as the young Grobian spun this way and that to determine the arrow’s source.
Daimonia drew again and let fly. The arrow landed firmly between the youth’s plump buttocks. He leapt into the air with a howl, his hands flapping at his rear as he danced manically.
Awakened and agitated, the other Grobians were rising and unsheathing weapons. Each man’s hair was shorn in a berserk style, with faces painted to exaggerate their ferocity.
‘Kill them!’ the arse-pierced youth was roaring at the forest. He was on all fours now like a pig, his inner thighs wet with blood and excrement. Daimonia shot him again and then again. He lifted his head and squealed as the arrows ruptured his flesh, straining furiously against death.
Nervous laughter tittered from Daimonia’s lips. Even as vigilant torches approached, the image of the strained face was fixed in her mind’s eye.
She turned and dipped into the undergrowth, prowling forward like a serpent. She had played this game as a child with Niklos, hiding from each other in the woods. Sliding across the mossy ground on her belly, she made herself a slight and silent snake.
‘Come out and fight, you arse-baiting cowards!’ someone was blustering. The Grobians were readying for a score of foes. Shields were hammered provocatively and curses filled the air.
‘Can you run?’ Daimonia slid up behind the masked Way Knight, who had slumped to his knees. She reached through the atrocious torture mask to soothe his face. He was a young man, bony and lean, not a slab of gritty rock like Goodkin.
‘I beg you,’ he groaned through the metal. ‘Give me one chance to set loose on these dogs!’
‘You can escape,’ Daimonia assured him. ‘No need to die.’ She took the Visoth dagger to his noose and tried to cut. The rope was thick and unyielding and she split her thumb before succeeding.
The Grobians’ ire was rising. They howled like war wolves, barking obscenities into the deathly darkness. Their painted faces were grim or else exhibiting extraordinarily violent expressions. Goading attack, they probed the fringes of their camp with axes and swords.
‘Quick.’ Daimonia beckoned.
Instead the young Way Knight seized Daimonia’s sword and charged at the Grobian pack, yelling, ‘Revenge!’ Hate gave ferocity to his strikes. Men crumpled and screamed, clasping at grievous gashes and mangled limbs.
Daimonia watched the war-madness with lurid excitement, her heart close to bursting. She reached for her bow and tried to shoot the Grobians in the back, but the men had seen her, and as the masked Way Knight succumbed to their swords, they came for her.
The Corpse Returns
As a child Hem had been plagued with nightmares, having been told once too many times that the Burning Man would take him if he didn’t behave. In one especially vivid dream Gorach Baoth stood by his bed and gloated, claiming Hem as his own. That same night he had awoken to a far more dismaying scene: his parents rutting greedily in the dark.
In troubled times Hem’s mother would soothe his fears with her kisses. She would stroke his face and smile reassuringly. Her smile could dispel the scariest dream or heal a bloody knee. But tonight Hem’s mother was all the way back home in Littlecrook and a thing was out to get him. Something made of wrinkled flesh and old lust that wanted to fill Hem’s holes; a thing that called itself Svek and pretended to be a man.
During the day, the Svek-thing had been skewing Hem with its stare. Goddess only knew what depravities it was imagining. At least its interest had drifted away from the Fletcher children, although some cowardly part of Hem wished it was them instead of him.
Tonight Hem needed to stay close to the others, no matter how badly his bowels rumbled. He needed to be near the Way Knight, where he might be safe. The thing called Svek had wandered off with a wink and a chuckle, and Hem was convinced it would return to take him.
Hem made a bed close to his father, who met the boy’s needy look with a withering stare and rolled over. He lay on his back, watching the sinister stars; from the vantage of space they presided over all mysteries and secrets. The stars alone knew the truth.
Within too short a time everyone was asleep, deep in comforting dreams, while Hem remained awake to every sound of the forest. They had left Hem alone to survive the night.
Something began to crawl from the woods. Hem began blubbering in distress. His eyes filled with tears as, lying petrified, he waited for Svek to come twisting and shuddering into view. Instead he saw Pickle grabbing fistfuls of flowers and pulling them up from the grass.
‘What are you doing?’ Hem hissed at the child.
‘Daisies,’ she said, showing the little collection in her palm.
‘Go back to your mother,’ Hem demanded. The Fletchers were camped together in the next clearing. ‘You must go back to sleep!’
‘Don’t want to,’ Pickle protested. She pulled an obstinate expression, her lips pouting sulkily.
‘You must,’ Hem insisted. He slapped her hand to emphasise the point but immediately felt regret. Pickle’s eyes welled with tears, but much to Hem’s relief, she ran back to her family.
Looking around the camp, another fear made Hem’s stomach roll and rumble. Where was Daimonia? Purtur had predicted she would slink back apologetically during the night, and no one but Hem had seemed the least bit concerned by her outburst. They had laughed it off as girlish petulance.
But Hem saw something different in Daimonia. She was a sword waiting to be drawn, a spirit unconstrained by the conventions binding the others. She had hit Goodkin in the face and challenged the Seidhr! She was not going to live very long.
Where was she going? Surely she didn’t intend to confront the Grobians, about whom she had made so much fuss. What if she ran into the Svek-thing?
Fanciful scenarios played out in Hem’s imagination. Daimonia would be confronted by Svek and Hem would save her. Grateful, she would hold him in her slender arms and lay her face against his chest. Becoming aware of his manhood, she would slip from her dress and they would couple secretly in the dark. I love you, she would whisper as he emptied inside her.
Instead of that adventure, Hem remained where he lay, unable to move. His limbs were heavy as stone and his breath had become wheezing. He turned his head to squint at the sleeping Way Knight. It seemed unsafe to stare at Goodkin when the knight was awake, but Hem was continually drawn to the thickly scarred face. A nauseating feeling filled his gut, but it was not disgust at Goodkin’s disfigurements. Instead Hem felt disgusted with himself; he was soft, fat and scared. He could never be a man like Goodkin, a man who was probably tough from birth. He would never be the kind of man who could help Daimonia.
Then he heard it, the awful laugh.
The Svek-thing was by the horses, its saggy face gleeful as it played with them. Hem vomited up the last of his courage and felt his heart freeze as the thing turned its gaze right at him. It licked its fingers before picking its way among the sleepers in exag
gerated grotesque steps. Completely naked, it had discarded its deceptive wig and respectable clothes. Flesh dangled and swung, its excitement rising visibly as it smelled the boy’s fear and crouched over him.
Around Hem, the others slept as soundly as children. Why could no one see what was happening to him? There was a predator in their midst, who may as well have been invisible. Hem tried to roar, to wake the very stars, but all that came out was a pitiful bleat.
The Svek-thing smiled, wrinkles slithering around its face. It stroked Hem’s lips, taking time to be gentle as its slick wet fingers probed affectionately. Together they seemed to slip into a secret place unknown to the others, a place where Hem would no longer be Hem but the object of the thing’s desires.
‘Please,’ Hem gasped weakly. If only there were a way he could show the thing who he truly was, all his loves and cares, all his memories, it would surely leave him alone. ‘Please, you don’t know me.’
It slipped its tongue between Hem’s teeth and explored his mouth greedily, the indulgent and invasive act imposing the Svek-thing’s vision of Hem over the real one.
Hem remembered his warm home and the smell of the flowers in the garden. He recalled the sight of his mother waving them away on their journey as the dog chased them down the path. His mother had worn her brightest smile, lighting up his world, but Hem knew she would be lonely until they returned. Hem and his mother often knew each other’s thoughts, could laugh together like no one else could imagine, until Hem would lay on the floor exhausted and the dog would run up and lick his face. Lying alone in her bed, would Hem’s mother know he was in trouble now?
The thing was writhing frantically, its jaws wide with panic. Behind it stood the Way Knight with his powerful fingers pressed against the creature’s eyes. The Svek-thing shook and tried to claw itself loose, but Goodkin slowly increased the pressure until his fingertips were deep in Svek’s eye sockets. Mucous drizzled down its blinded face.
‘Move,’ Goodkin told Hem.
Hem rolled away as Goodkin knelt on the writhing, shrieking thing’s back and forced it against the bedroll. He pulled a weighty mace from his belt and, with slow deliberation, broke apart the Svek-thing’s skull like he was carefully cracking some rocks.
Purtur, finally awake, began retching at the sight and stumbled away to the trees.
Hem examined himself; he was alive! He had messed himself but was able to breathe again. In just a few weeks he would be back in his mother’s arms. His heart soared at the thought as enormous relief washed over him. He promised he would be more appreciative of her this time, no more reluctance to help with the chores or to take the dog out.
He went to offer thanks to Goodkin, but the knight was looking around the camp with urgent turns of his ugly head.
‘Where’s the girl?’ the knight growled.
Hem felt ashamed and confused. ‘She’s gone. You saw her go! We all did!’
‘I thought that–’ Goodkin looked about ready to bite his own face off. He grabbed his shield and swung onto his horse, riding off with as much thunder as a cavalry charge.
Hem looked at the Svek-thing’s corpse and a sudden courage lifted him. He pulled the bloody mace from the debris and hefted its weight in his hands.
‘What you going to do with that?’ Purtur snapped. He was wiping his face clean with his tunic sleeve.
‘I’m going to help Daimonia,’ Hem asserted.
‘If that girl has run off, then let her die. I don’t like her anyway and it ain’t our concern. And what are you going to do anyway, you useless fat idiot?’
‘I’m not useless!’ Hem rose out of his slouch, rising to his full height above his father. Then he was off, jogging down the road, through the uncertain shadows. Within an incredibly short time he was out of breath, struggling to do more than fall from one foot to the next.
He walked back exhaustedly to the sound of his father’s derisive snorts.
‘You’re no Way Knight,’ Purtur mocked.
‘I am today,’ Hem replied. He untethered his faithful cart-horse and wrenched himself onto her back. ‘Come on, Gertsie,’ he coaxed. ‘Let’s find Daimonia.’ The horse was uninterested in moving, struggling to adjust to Hem’s weight on her back. Then, finding it preferable to the cart, Gertsie rushed ahead into the wood.
Allowed to run at speed, Gertsie eagerly made ground on the Way Knight’s horse until they were riding neck and neck. Goodkin’s expression turned from consternation to bewilderment as Hem pulled ahead and overtook him.
‘Idiot!’ Goodkin’s croaky voice chased them. ‘Bloody stupid idiot!’
Hem allowed a wild grin to take over his face. This was his night now. ‘Faster, Gertsie,’ he encouraged, half-daft with exhilaration. Even in the rushing wind he could clearly hear shouts and clashes in the air. He made for them determinedly as Gertsie bore him along.
‘Daimonia!’ he called out. His voice lacked power and he tried again. ‘DAIMONIA!’ He put all of his wind into it.
And then Daimonia was there, breaking out from the trees and running towards him. Hem could see the fear in her large eyes as she sprinted desperately. This was it, he told himself, riding keenly to the rescue. This is my moment. A second later all courage shrivelled as a gang of warpainted maniacs leapt from the forest, spitting murderous curses as they pursued the girl.
Hem wrestled with the impulse to retreat and hurry all the way back home to Littlecrook. Despite his best intentions, he began pulling back on the reins in panic.
Daimonia fell, her hair whipping out as she stumbled and struck the ground, scraping her palms and knees. The men laughed, the fastest throwing himself atop the girl with all his muscled weight. They wrestled in the dirt as the outlaws gathered about with jeers and protruding tongues.
Behind them strode a colossus of a man, a puffed-out warrior whose outstretched gait exaggerated his size even further. The warrior was beardless but wore his hair in thick black braids. Over his shoulder he carried a monstrous hammer, while his other hand scooped around his crotch in a vulgar gesture of virility.
‘Best let John ’ave her first,’ one of the others warned as the giant pushed in amongst them.
Goodkin’s horse broke into the crowd in a fit of hooves and metal. The bone-crunching impact sent bodies sprawling in all directions. A chaotic barrage of slashing, stabbing attacks rained down as the Grobians fell over each other to get clear.
Hem found himself riding forward; it was happening without conscious choice, but he was moving towards the savage fight, rushing into the fray. He saw Daimonia burst from the earth, stabbing her attacker around the throat and face with ferocious hatred.
Big John Grobian was the first to recover from the collision. He swung his weighty hammer at Goodkin, shattering his shield and dismounting the Way Knight in a shower of splintered wood.
Hem rode straight for the huge man and walloped him in the head with the mace. The man’s nose seemed to disappear, as if his face had been turned inside out. Hem shook his fist in triumph.
‘Boy, look out!’ Daimonia shouted.
John Grobian retaliated, his mallet finding Hem’s skull with the sound of metal on meat. The world went black then thick red as the sky changed places with the earth. As Hem looked up at the hammer-wielding giant, a strange thought crossed his mind. Did Daimonia even know his name? He was about to die for her and she had called him boy.
But then it didn’t matter because there was his mother. There was that smile, the one that told Hem everything was perfect.
Scars upon Scars
‘Sometimes you will need to kill,’ Jhonan had once told Daimonia. It had been a sharp winter morning when the whole of Jaromir was blighted by a drift of snow. From the vantage of the old watchtower they had observed the villagers trying to get about, little shapes struggling through the sun-glazed white.
‘I don’t want to be a knight,’ Daimonia had told him, hugging herself against the cold. ‘I don’t want to fight, I want to learn. I want to un
derstand everything.’
‘Violence will choose you,’ Jhonan warned. ‘Whether you seek it or not.’
‘If ever it does, I will run straight to you.’ She smiled, drinking up her grandfather’s ardent protectiveness. Falling snowflakes nestled in her ebony hair, making a pale crown before melting.
Jhonan allowed his eyes to soften without smiling. He tried to stroke the girl’s shoulder, but he was awkward, unnatural with affection. ‘I won’t be here forever.’ He leaned close, the drink on his breath poisoning the air. ‘And what of your own children and grandchildren? Who will keep them from harm?’
‘I’ll never be a mother, nor a wife!’ Daimonia’s mischievous smile gave her face warmth. ‘No man could bear all my questions!’
‘Imagine you had your own girl,’ Jhonan persisted. ‘A child you loved more than all else. A little Daimonia with big curious eyes and a frown.’ He cradled an imaginary infant. ‘What would you do if she were threatened? What if someone did violence against her? How would you answer your enemies?’
Daimonia felt a flare of emotion searing away the cold. Although she knew Jhonan was baiting her, her heart still felt like a hot coal. Her answer was thoughtful but emphatic. ‘There is nothing that could be done to me or mine that I wouldn’t repay worse in return.’
Jhonan’s face hardened. If he felt discomfort, it quickly became resolution. ‘Then learn,’ he told her, drawing the knife from his belt. ‘Learn and be ready.’
Tonight the forest was the stage of terrible cruelty. Hem’s corpse lay sprawled upon the earth, surrounded by wet mess. Men crawled amid their own guts, hacking up the last breaths of life.
Daimonia was drenched in sweat and blood, her dress stuck to her body. A supernatural anger roared through her brain. She was possessed, a weapon of chaos, unable to think but only to act. Her Visoth dagger was rose red as she wrenched it from the neck of her attacker. She took her blade to other men as they tried to rise, using her weight to puncture leather and flesh.
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