The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  Vrana shook her head. She lifted her mask—the inside of which was covered in dead flies—and dropped it carelessly to the ground. “What did he say?” She touched her throat; she could still feel his hands wrapped around her neck.

  “Not much,” R’lyeh backed away, bent down, and held her head. “Oh god.” She picked out the tiny corpses of flies from the sides of her mouth. “I’m sorry.” She shoved her fingers down her throat and threw up the rest of the bugs left inside her. “Ugh, god.”

  “What did he say?” Vrana persisted. She could a feel a migraine scratching at her skull.

  R’lyeh wretched. She wiped her lips and said, “That he was sorry, and that you had to die.”

  “What about the Witch?” Vrana turned her head to Blix who was beak-deep in the Ashen Man’s neck. “Blix! Get the hell away from him.” She grabbed a loose rock and chucked it at the bird.

  “I don’t think… I don’t think she sent…” R’lyeh pointed to the crow. “Blix? Is he all right?”

  Blix let out a harsh caw, fiercely flapping his wings as he lifted into the air. Oh no, Vrana thought, watching the Ashen Man’s blood dribble out of his mouth. Was it poisoned? Blix flew in circles around the scene, feathers falling in handfuls from his speckled skin. Vrana and R’lyeh tried to catch the bird, but it slipped through their hands, leaving behind an oily residue on their fingers.

  “Stop!” Vrana shouted as the crow rose into the air, fell, and rose once more. “R’lyeh…” she held out her arms, stunned. “I don’t know what to do.” She looked at the girl, not as an adult but as a child watching the last of her youth dissolve away. “R’lyeh, I don’t know what…”

  Blix slammed into the ground with a sickening thud. Vrana and R’lyeh started for him and then stopped as he shook, purple fumes pouring from his pores. The crow’s back split open, spine jutting into the air. Two white hands moved through the folds of Blix’s flesh, larger than the tiny body they were rising out of, and clamped down on opposite sides of the bird’s torso.

  “Vrana…” R’lyeh took a step back.

  The white hands curled, seized the soil, and pushed the rest of their owner through. Pale arms followed by white hair: The Witch, the Maiden of Pain, rose through the entrails nude and grinning, the world about her twisting, spinning. She stood suspended in the air, the tips of her toes hovering above Blix’s ravaged carcass. Her bones creaked and cracked as she contorted her body and looked upon its gaunt exterior with amusement. She ran a finger across her breast, shivering at the forgotten sensation.

  “You fucking bitch,” Vrana spat out, so blinded by rage she could hardly see.

  The Witch’s lip quivered. Her wild eyes rolled over to R’lyeh, who was sliding her mask over her head like a soldier would a helmet in preparation for combat.

  Vrana made an effort to reach the hill where she knew the ax waited on the other side. The Witch moved her dried lips, and Vrana’s legs went numb. She laughed silently as the Raven fought against the paralysis.

  “Little girl,” the Witch said at last, her voice breathy and soft, “tell Vrana goodbye.”

  The Octopus went for the daggers, but before her hands could find their hilts, she was picked up by an invisible force and thrown to the ground, the impact knocking her unconscious.

  “Get it over with,” Vrana barked.

  “That’s not like you at all.” The Witch cocked her head at the Ashen Man. “I never sent him to kill you.”

  “Then what was he doing here?” Vrana inched her leg forward, the numbness already waning.

  “‘No, it is from awareness that the Maiden recoils, spitting and biting from the Void as the collective conscious becomes increasingly aware and anticipates her violent arrival,’” the Witch quoted, sounding pleased.

  I know that, but from where?

  “From the book you read before your initiation feast,” the Witch said as though replying to her thought. “It’s not true, you know.”

  I’m going to die. Vrana looked at her mask, bent down, and slid it over the top of her head. It seemed so bulky now, so unwieldy, but it was an escape, if only a little one. “What do you mean?” she managed to say.

  The Witch floated toward the Raven, her semi-translucent skin catching the sun and showing her icy veins. “It’s the opposite, actually. The less who know of me, the farther my Void is from your world. I whispered lies to the author, and she took them for truths. Simple and obvious, and yet it worked.”

  “Aren’t you proud of yourself,” Vrana hissed, limping away as she regained full movement of her legs.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve had someone new to talk to, Vrana,” the Witch said, her gaze stabbing at Vrana’s back. “Don’t bother with the ax. I won’t let you have it.”

  Vrana straightened up, looked over her shoulder. “He came to kill me to stop you,” she said, spotting the ax at the bottom of the hill, slightly covered in sand.

  The Witch stared back, smug, one emaciated hand rubbing at a red spot on her thigh. “You’ve done so much for me. When the world changed, I was almost forgotten.”

  “And then Mara stumbled across your creation.”

  “There was no more fear to be had in Nachtla. Most had left, and I’d put all that I had into those little boys. But then she came, this Mara of yours, and killed them. I watched from my Void as curiosity consumed her. Seth made sure she found the books.” The Witch glided over to the Ashen Man and landed onto his back. “And she did the rest.”

  “Then why me?” Vrana caught a glimpse of R’lyeh stirring out of the corner of her eye.

  “You?” The Witch stepped off the man she called Seth and padded toward Vrana. “There’s nothing special about you,” she said with a sneer. “That creature in the lake was meant for Mara, but you happened upon it first. It all worked out, though. I’ve seen so much and been to so many places thanks to you.”

  The Void, Vrana recalled, the people gathered in the Void. She had seen the elders there, her mother, and Aeson, too. R’lyeh and Deimos, Serra and Lucan—they, among tribesmen and Corrupted, had been present as well. She’s spreading like a disease; attacked the village just to make sure I wouldn’t let her go.

  “I kept a close eye on you thanks to Blix. Instead of chasing Worms, perhaps you should’ve kept a closer eye on me, too.”

  “I should have let your lover kill me.” Vrana noticed another welt form on the Witch’s skin. Keep her talking. She can’t stay here for long. This world is rejecting her.

  “Lover?” The Witch laughed and stopped a few inches before Vrana. “He meant well, but this way is better.” She turned to address the Ashen Man. “So thank you, Seth, for your betrayal.”

  With the Witch’s attention off her, Vrana’s unbroken arm reached out and grabbed the Maiden by her gray hair. She pulled the woman’s head down and drove the beak of her mask deep into the Witch’s ear.

  “R’lyeh!” Vrana screamed as she released the Witch and ran for the girl. “R’lyeh, wake up!” She scooped up one of the Cruel Mother’s talons. “R’lyeh, get up!”

  Vrana dropped the dagger as she felt the bones of the raven’s head dig into her own. Agonizing, unbearable pain unlike any she had never known overwhelmed her as her skull seemed to shrink and fracture. Her eyes widened and watered as they bulged into the sockets of the mask. Vrana’s tongue stretched forward, the blood vessels that lined it popping and bleeding out. The ends of the mask’s feathers pricked her skin as they worked their way into her neck and collar, and hung on tightly as she tried to rip them free.

  “Your people think humans to be animals, and yet you run around dressed as animals,” the Witch said. “Your people think humans to be Corrupted by violence, and yet violence is all that you know.”

  Vrana shrieked as her jaw jutted forward into the beak of her mask. Her teeth pulled free of her gums and fell out of her mouth, down the inside of the beak, and out onto her feet.

  “You have always been the raven and it you,” the Witch whispered, lif
ting Vrana’s head by her chin. “Accept who you are, so that you may live a fuller life.”

  Vrana dropped to her knees, buried her hands in the feathers that covered her neck. Frantically, she searched for the edges of her mask and found, where they should have been, only rough flesh and hard bone.

  “My pet,” the Witch said, stroking the Raven as she wept, “I'm going to tell you something now.” The Maiden of Pain unlatched the Raven’s satchel and removed the Blue Worm’s necklace. “I’m going to take this, and you, and when she wakes—” the Witch held out one crooked finger at the unconscious R’lyeh, “—she’s going to follow. And after she’s given everything to find you, and trust me, she will, there won’t be a soul on this earth that does not know my name.”

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  R’lyeh missed her mom and dad. They told her they would be back soon, and she had no reason to doubt them, because she knew they hated leaving her just as much as she hated seeing them go. She didn’t have many friends in Alluvia, and the elders certainly weren’t going to let her wander into the Elys, so she decided to do what she did best: annoy others until they sent her away.

  She didn’t need to ask a spellweaver to know this was one of the hottest days of the year. She only had to put her hand to her forehead to see that if she went an hour without water she’d look just as withered as Granny Rags. It seemed, then, being an annoying pest would have to be put on hold until she’d sampled the cool waters of the village’s well.

  “Hot day, isn’t it?”

  R’lyeh looked up from her feet, which were surprisingly dirty given that she’d been outside for no more than ten minutes. Derleth the Eel was leaning against the well, the sight of his muscles just as pleasing as they had always been to R’lyeh. He was a watcher and seldom came home.

  “It is,” R’lyeh said.

  She lifted the octopus mask off her head to give the impression it was too hot to wear. In actuality, she wanted to show him that she had cut her hair the day prior and see his reaction to its length. Derleth was ten years her senior, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t looking for a boyfriend; she just wanted someone to notice.

  “Are you trying to show off your haircut?” he asked, seeing through her ruse.

  “No,” R’lyeh said, looking every-which-way but his. “But now that you’ve brought it up…”

  “Will you do me a favor?” Derleth stepped away from the well and stood over R’lyeh.

  “I’m kind of busy,” she said, knowing all too well she’d ride on the back of a moon cat if he asked her to.

  “Well, perhaps someone else then.”

  “Hold on,” R’lyeh said as he moved to abandon her. “I think I can accommodate you.”

  “I thought you’d come around,” Derleth said. He took another step towards her. He shoved his hand into his pocket, looked around as though to make sure they were alone, and removed a strange root. “Do you know what this is?”

  All of a sudden, R’lyeh felt slightly faint. She took the root, pressed it to her nose, which seemed to come as some surprise to Derleth. It smelled odd and made her quite relaxed, but other than that, it seemed harmless. “No,” she said, handing the root back, “I’ve never seen it before.”

  Derleth quickly placed the root back into his pocket and exhaled, as though he’d been holding his breath the entire time. “How do you feel?”

  “Like taking a nap,” R’lyeh said, rubbing her temples.

  “What if I told you to eat dirt?” Derleth asked, his eyes following her from within the eel head.

  “I’d tell you to go to hell,” R’lyeh remarked. She laughed and then wondered if she’d been too blunt.

  Derleth hummed with interest, though at what R’lyeh could not be sure. “The elders asked me to drop these in the well, to purify the water. The problem is I might be allergic; a lot of people are, I think. I’ve the rest at home. Come by later and help me? I’d appreciate the company.”

  R’lyeh found Derleth’s behavior to be uncharacteristic of him, but she was feeling more agreeable than usual. “Sure,” she said, and because the operation sounded rather covert, she added, “I’ll see you at the Black Hour.”

  “Perfect.”

  The soldiers of Penance arrived a few days later and took them by surprise in the middle of the night. R’lyeh had fallen asleep early in the evening, so when they grabbed her, she was still wearing her mask. This, she thought, must have been why they didn’t put her to the sword as they dragged her across the center of Alluvia, for they had killed the rest of those her age and younger. She kicked at the ground and cried into her hands as she was manacled with the rest of her village and forced to watch as those who didn’t go quietly were split in two and piled high.

  “We’ve been betrayed,” she heard someone whisper as they were marched into the night.

  “They mean the best,” another voice said drowsily.

  “It is a nice night for a walk,” the woman beside R’lyeh stated, as though the chains about her ankles were not rubbing them bloody and raw.

  Geharra rose out of the land with the morning sun, and when they passed through its massive gates, they found more soldiers waiting just beyond. R’lyeh was starving and dehydrated, and she had never been more afraid in her entire life. Her people, however, didn’t seem to share the same sentiment, for they did as they were told, and took the beatings given to them as though they were precious lessons not to be squandered.

  “Please,” R’lyeh whispered at the Corrupted as they moved through the cobblestone streets of Geharra, “please, help us.”

  The Corrupted only stared back, with glassy eyes and warm smiles.

  R’lyeh hated her people for doing nothing to stop the soldiers as they forced them through a church to a tunnel in its floor. R’lyeh hated the portrait of the Holy Child on the wall, his hollow eyes staring down on her as the breasts she’d been so eager to develop were fondled in passing. R’lyeh hated herself for not dying sooner as they ripped off her mask and threw her into a cage, surrounded by those she once annoyed and now pitied.

  R’lyeh woke up to a headache so severe she considered suicide. Vrana was gone, and she was alone. She couldn’t see out of one of her eyes, the swelling having worsened over the course of the night. She remembered everything that had happened and found that the memories were without emotions to accompany them. She was alive, yes, but all things considered, she was as dead as dead could be.

  R’lyeh secured the Cruel Mother’s talons, slid down the slope away from Nachtla, and took Vrana’s ax. She went to the sea with blood on her hands and lips, and offered what little remained of her body to it for cleansing. The salt and the sand in the water cleaned her wounds and cleared her mind. She scanned the horizon for the ships from Lacuna, and left when she didn’t find them.

  R’lyeh didn’t return to Nachtla, because although it seemed the logical thing to do, she was, in fact, not suicidal. Instead, she traveled northward toward the Divide and the Heartland. She was not certain what she would find there, but she found enough food along the way to see that she reached her journey’s end. The Witch had taken her best friend, her only friend, and when she was finished, there would not be a soul across the continent who would be ignorant of the woman’s existence.

  Outside Gallows, R’lyeh found a small shack belonging to a fur trader. The woman seemed to have been expecting the girl, and it took her a moment to realize the woman was in hiding. The fur trader begged for her life and apologized about a Fox; though, for what she apologized R’lyeh didn’t know, as the woman was gurgling blood too loudly to be understood.

  After moving the body to the woods outside the shack, R’lyeh stripped naked, hid her mask, and fitted the woman’s clothes to her body. She’d never understood why her people had insisted on wearing masks to differentiate themselves from the Corrupted; it seemed so much easier to dress as them instead and eat away at their society from the inside. She had gathered some of the fur trader’s blood into a cup after killing
her, so as to paint her right arm red to avoid suspicion from townsfolk.

  When she decided that she was ready to infiltrate Gallows, she swung open the shack’s door, daggers hidden in her pants, and proceeded through the trees with Vrana’s ax in hand. She would tell the Corrupted that she was a woodsman’s daughter, and they would believe her, because she believed it herself. Lying came easily to R’lyeh now; after all, she’d lied to everyone about her mother and father ever since Geharra. Her mother, her father, they never went to Eld; they had returned to the village that night Penance came.

  The only nice thing about watching your parents die, R’lyeh reflected to herself once, is that you get to see their faces every night.

  The woodsman story, however, turned out to be of no use to R’lyeh. When she crossed into Gallows, she found the people stricken with fear by the mountain of flesh in the distance.

  The Red Worm was on the move.

  And so was she.

  YOU HAVE BEEN READING

  “THE BONES OF THE EARTH.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SCOTT HALE is the author of The Bones of the Earth series. He is a graduate from Northern Kentucky University with a Bachelors in Psychology and Masters in Social Work. He has completed The Bones of the Earth series, and has since begun working on a standalone novel entitled In Sheep’s Skin. Scott Hale currently resides in Norwood, Ohio with his wife and frequent collaborator, Hannah Graff, and their three cats, Oona, Bashik, and Bellatrix.

  The Three Heretics

  by

  Scott Hale

  Through hell,

  we find heaven.

  Vrana, now a grotesque shadow of her former self, has been enslaved by the Witch and forced into the Void. Meanwhile, the Corrupted involved in the genocide of Geharra and the birth of the Red Worm have begun to impose their worldviews on others.

  King Edgar is abandoned in the Nameless Forest and forced into a murderous mission that not only reveals the origins of the vermillion veins, but the unholy events that have led to his rule of Eldrus.