by Lisa Mangum
Violet squealed.
A long face the color of a bone-deep bruise—a vicious clash of deep purple, black, and blue—shoved its way between two thin trunks. With eyes the dull blackness of death, and a grease-slick mane to match, it pushed its way into the clearing, snapping the young trees. It stood over Violet and nickered. Nostrils flaring, it turned its head, revealing two feet of spiraling bone sticking out from its forehead like a spear, tapering to a sharp, lethal point.
“Kay, Kay, it’s a unicorn. A for reals, for true, unicorn. Look!” Violet stood up and pointed. “He has a horn like me.” She touched the horn strapped to her head for emphasis.
“Vi, honey, come away from there.” Kayden’s mother had called Violet honey only when she wanted to keep her safe, and it had worked, but Kayden lacked her motherly magic.
In her excitement, Violet ignored him.
Kayden slowed his pace, not wanting to spook the creature. Could it really be a unicorn? He had believed them nothing more than myth, creatures born of fancy and rainbow-lit dreams coated in shimmering white purity. This, this … thing seemed to absorb the light, drawing it into itself as if to cloak the world in night.
The stench Kayden noticed earlier intensified. Its near physical presence repelled him, urged him to come no closer.
But he had to, for Violet.
Kayden inched closer and grasped Violet’s hand. He tugged, trying to move her away, but she fought him.
“Gr-off me, Kay.” Violet jerked out of his grasp and stepped forward.
The unicorn bent low, touching its horn to hers, examining her unnatural appendage. With a casual flip, it knocked the false horn clear, yanking Violet’s head to the side and snapping the ribbon.
“Hey,” Violet glared up at her visitor. “That wasn’t very nice.”
Wisps of black smoke curled from between the unicorn’s dark, heavy lips. Open sores wept foul ichor down its legs and across the prominent outline of its rib cage beneath sweat-slick skin. It wobbled as it took a step toward Violet.
Violet coughed and waved her hand in front of her nose. “Phew. He smells icky.”
“Come on, Vi.” Kayden felt for her hand again, his eyes never leaving the creature’s horn. With one lunge, it could pierce them both. “I don’t think it’s in the mood to play. Let’s leave him be. He looks ill.”
“But if he’s sick, Kay, we should help him.” She slipped Kayden’s grasp again and moved forward. She reached out to the creature’s muzzle. Kayden snatched her hand back as the creature snapped its gnarled teeth.
This time, Kayden clenched his sister’s hand tight and pulled her back. Despite the unicorn’s obvious ill-temper, Violet still fought her brother, digging in her heels.
“Stop, Kay. Stop. Please.”
Not this time. “Dad would be angry if he knew you’d wandered this far from the house on a day like today, especially with him away. What if a wolf appeared? What then?”
At the invocation of her father’s disappointment, the child relented and allowed herself to be guided toward the farm. She didn’t turn around, for that would require her to lose sight of her creature. Instead, she walked backward, guided by Kayden’s hands on her shoulders. The awkward arrangement slowed their speed.
“Kay, why isn’t he white?” Violet asked. “I thought unicorns were supposed to be white. And smell like sugarcane. It looks sad to me, like Daddy does when he thinks we’re not watching.”
“Like I said, he’s sick.” He tried to pull her along faster, but she tripped and landed on her butt.
The darkling beast raised its head and pawed the ground. It sniffed the freshly picked flowers sprinkled over their mother’s grave, and ate them.
“Hey!” Violet yelled. “Leave those alone. They’re for my mommy.” She looked up at Kayden. “I don’t like him. He makes my tummy feel funny.”
The unicorn advanced several steps then danced to the left as if to better align himself with his prey.
“Mine too. How ’bout we leave him alone and head back.” He spared a quick glance over his shoulder, gauging how much open ground he had left to cross.
Still too far. If it wanted, the creature could be upon them within ten long strides.
The unicorn dipped its head. Once. Twice. And blew out foul gas with a snort.
Mouth suddenly dry, Kayden picked up Violet and turned. Fighting the urge to run, he kept his pace slow and deliberate. In the muddy conditions, it would be easy to slip. If that happened, they’d be at the creature’s mercy.
Slow and steady. He increased his pace, walking heel to toe, focusing on the ground ahead, directing his feet as best he could to surer footing.
The unicorn neighed.
Violet, looking back toward the beast over Kayden’s shoulder, whispered in his ear, “It’s coming.” She trembled in his arms and gripped him tighter, burying her face in his neck. “Run, Kay, run.” Her voice faltered.
Heart drumming, breathing rushed and heavy, Kayden ran as fast as he dared. Footing treacherous, he slipped, twisted his ankle, but maintained his forward momentum.
Hoofbeats squelched behind him, getting closer.
Kayden felt the vibration in the soles of his feet, the heavy thump of the creature chasing them. He glanced over his shoulder, the one not covered in golden ringlets, but the move cost him. The treacherous mud slid out from under his foot. He went down, sliding on the side opposite his sister to spare her the brunt of the fall.
The timely slip saved them.
With its horn leveled at Violet’s head, the creature thundered past. It tried to stop, but slid into the yard in front of the house. Its front hooves splayed wide, it went down, spearing an unfortunate sheep in its path. Righting itself, the unicorn turned toward the brother and sister, raising its head as if the impaled and struggling sheep weighed less than air. Blood from its victim leaked down its muzzle and dripped into the mud.
The unfortunate sheep bleated in terror and pain.
Blocked. In the span of seconds, the creature had stolen their path to sanctuary and now held the high ground.
With a quick snap of its head, the unicorn tossed the injured sheep across the yard, where it tumbled a few feet before lying still.
The unicorn’s soulless black stare seemed fixed on Violet. Whenever she adjusted her position, the creature’s head moved a fraction. It flicked its ears whenever she made the slightest sound.
Why her? I thought unicorns revered the pure, the virgins, and yet this one seems bent on Violet’s destruction.
Rooted to the spot, Kayden tried to figure a way out of this dire situation. Open ground stretched around him, and he didn’t have the speed to reach cover before the creature could spear him. The way it watched, the way it waited, he knew it would charge if he made a movement in any direction.
Stalemate.
Violet grew heavy in his arms. As he set her down, his arm brushed a bulge on his hip. The mallet. I forgot about that. Against this brute, how effective would a small wooden hammer be? Maybe if he bashed it in the eye, he could distract it enough to run past, reach the house, and lock themselves inside.
Grandfather’s sword is in there, a relic from his service in the High Lord’s army. Hope swirled in his chest at the thought of getting his hands on a real weapon. Not that he’d ever used a sword, but the promise of wielding a sharp blade instead of a measly hammer seemed far more appealing. Unless his father took it, but Kayden didn’t remember seeing the sword’s pommel riding high over his father’s shoulder. No. His father had taken the ax. He was sure of it.
The unicorn watched them, silent and still, a bruised and abused equine abortion.
Violet sat on Kayden’s right foot. “I’m tired, Kay, and hungry. I’m scared too. What does it want? Why is it here?”
“Good questions. I’ve been asking them myself, but I don’t have any answers.”
I wish I did.
The sheep gave the creature a wide berth, moving to the other side of the house as if sen
sing the wrongness, the vile nature of the creature. Even those dumb brutes couldn’t tolerate its presence.
Can I use them somehow, the sheep? Nah. They’re nothing but lumps in the way at this point.
By the position of the sun, Kayden judged he’d stood in the mud with his sister clinging to his leg for over an hour. The unicorn showed no lessening in focus or intensity.
Do these creatures even get tired? Thank goodness we’re not in the middle of winter or the blaze of summer.
He spun the hammer in his hand, judging the weight, gauging the heft. He could throw it, but then what? Would it buy them a precious few seconds to slip by and get into the house?
“Vi,” Kayden whispered. “Get up.”
Violet pulled herself up using his trouser leg.
“Let’s get a little closer,” he whispered.
Violet panicked, breathing fast, and dug her little fingers into his thigh. “Why?”
“Come on.” He shuffled forward. Violet clung to his leg, but followed, taking the steps as slowly as he. “Granddad’s sword is inside.”
“But the unicorn is so big, and …” Violet’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “And I think it wants me.”
She realizes it too. “No, baby, I don’t think so.” He tousled her hair, running his fingers through strands of gold. “It’s just confused. The sickness has driven it mad, that’s all. Don’t think like that.”
Swallowing hard, she rubbed her nose. “I know it does. I can feel it in here.” She tapped her chest and looked up at her brother, eyes big and moist. She bit her lip. “Please don’t let it get me.”
Kayden mustered his bravest smile. “No chance, Vi. He’ll have to go through me first, and you know how tough and stubborn I can be.” He tried to joke around, tried to set her mind down some other path, a nearly impossible task considering the beast stared right at them.
“I love you,” Violet said.
Anger welled in Kayden’s breast, hot and fast. How dare this thing just materialize and threaten to blow apart our world? It’s bad enough the last winter took our mother, I will not lose any more. Not now. Not ever.
His grip on the mallet tight, he took a large step forward. Eyes fixed on the unicorn’s horn, watching it wave from right to left, he took another step. And another. Violet clung to his leg and mirrored his steps, taking two for each of his one.
The closer Kayden crept, the more intense, and focused, his anger became.
The unicorn waited no more than fifteen paces away. Tense. Ears twitching. Nostrils flaring.
And safety lay just beyond. The trouble was that the thing Kayden needed to be safe from blocked his way. If only he could trick it into thinking they fled in one direction, while sprinting in the other.
The unicorn’s chest heaved. Thick mucus flowed from its eyes, smearing the deep purple coat and drawing darker lines down its cheeks. It switched the few strands of hair remaining in its tail, waiting, watching … hunting.
Hunger overriding fear, several sheep wandered between Kayden and the unicorn, picking at sporadic blades of dead grass.
Is this the time? Kayden knelt in the dirt and pulled Violet around to face him. He cupped her cheeks and whispered, “I’m going for the house.”
Violet stiffened and shook her head, gulping breath in short, rapid gasps.
“When I do,” Kayden continued, watching the unicorn over Violet’s shoulder, “I want you to duck behind those sheep.”
Violet turned slightly, looking at the closest sheep. They came up to her shoulder. Kayden hoped his ruse would buy her the opportunity to duck out of sight behind her woolly friends.
She nodded.
“Ready?” He directed her to his right side, out of his planned path.
“Go.” Kayden jumped toward the door, waving his arms, and yelling at the unicorn. “Hey!”
His sudden charge startled the unicorn, and it reared.
Kayden hurdled the sheep and sprinted for the door, expecting at any moment to feel the horn pierce his back, but it never came. He also didn’t feel the beast bearing down on him. In fact, he didn’t feel or hear anything.
Kayden turned, dread gripping his bowels and coursing through his limbs. Wait. It doesn’t want me. It never did. It wants her.
Violet hid behind the sheep as instructed, but the unicorn wasn’t fooled. It must have been attuned to her in some way. The yard was full of sheep, and yet the sickly creature walked unerringly toward his sister’s hiding place.
Violet peeked over the sheep’s back, catching a glimpse of her stalker. She whimpered and hunkered down, pretending it didn’t see her.
No more than five feet separated them now. Kayden had to do something. He didn’t want to be the one to tell his father he’d lost his golden girl. He knew how much his mother’s death had cost his father, had cost them all, and now to lose Violet?
This will not happen.
Across the field and riding hard from the direction of his neighbor’s farmstead came his father. He whooped and hollered, trying to get Kayden’s attention. He waved the ax in one hand and gripped the reins in the other. While the sight warmed Kayden’s heart, gave him a tiny glimmer of hope, his father was too far away. He wanted to believe his father had arrived in time to save them, but that kind of happy coincidence only happened in fairy stories.
The reality was someone was going to die in the next few minutes, and Kayden’s decisions, his actions, would dictate who. The thought didn’t scare him. He was beyond that now, and he accepted the inevitable with cold practicality. No matter what, he would do whatever he could to save his sister.
He slipped the mallet into his hand. Acting on instinct, he threw it at the creature. It bonked off its head, just above its right eye.
“Come on, you beast. Come get me,” Kayden yelled, stomping in the mud.
The unicorn snapped its attention to Kayden and whinnied.
Kayden wanted to believe his attack at least hurt the beast a little, but the sound reminded him more of a laugh, or a snort of disdain.
Kayden charged the unicorn, trying to hold its attention so Violet could run to the house. As he did, he angled toward his sister, cutting the distance, trying to put himself between them.
The unicorn shrugged him off like a fly and focused on Violet.
She screamed as it approached, startling the sheep. It bolted, leaving her alone and exposed.
Kayden ran as fast as he could, but the mud tripped him up, and he couldn’t make the progress he needed. Closing the distance, the world seemed to slow around him.
The unicorn tossed its mane and raised its horn for the killing blow.
Too late. Too late.
Violet screamed and shook her head in denial, golden ringlets bouncing and bobbing, like sunlight spilling across her shoulders.
Kayden dove.
The unicorn lunged, horn aimed at Violet’s heart.
Violet raised her arms to ward off the blow and turned her head. She screamed.
The unicorn’s horn punched through bone.
Kayden’s bone. The spiral horn tore through his ribs, spearing his heart, and snapping through his shoulder blade to exit the other side. His heart beat one last time, a mighty thump that vibrated against his violated chest, and stilled. Legs failing, the only thing keeping Kayden upright was the strength of the purple beast.
With its horn through Kayden’s chest, the beast’s eyes were only inches from his own. And in that deadened stare, Kayden saw the loss that ravaged the once majestic creature. He saw the pain, the suffering, and the despair to which this poor thing had fallen after no more than a single turning of the season. Once a grand monarch of nature, now a wasted heap of blighted sinew clinging to the last vestige of life.
Like me, clinging to life. No. Wait. My heart stopped. I’m dead, right? Then why …
A tingling sensation began in his heart. Not a beat per se, but the quiver of movement, the tremble of an attempt. And then a flutter around the unicorn�
�s horn, grasping, clutching, drinking.
Kayden felt a pull on his very soul. What had been his and his alone since conception, now fed another. Everything that made him Kayden trickled into the beast. His memories. His hopes. His dreams. His desire for Winnie. His love for his mother. His love for his father. His love for his sister.
The unicorn drained him in less than a second.
Kayden felt the cold in his fingers first. It gnawed at his fingertips, climbed to his knuckles, spread quickly over his hands and up his arms. His toes went numb, or he couldn’t feel them anymore, or … what? His mind grew fuzzy. Thoughts slowed as if traveling through syrup. Darkness closed in, narrowing his vision, blurring the scene around him.
The unicorn shuddered, once. It made eye contact with Kayden’s dimming sight. A spark ignited within that dead stare. It flared, bright and strong, burning away the sickness, the blight that afflicted the creature, traveling across its being, healing whatever it touched with the benevolent fires of Kayden’s love.
Kayden’s vision sharpened. His heart beat again. Not to feed the other creature, but to pump blood through his body.
With a tooth-grinding scrape, the unicorn pulled back, withdrawing its horn through its bone-shattered track and out of Kayden’s chest. The once blackened shaft glowed a pristine ivory white. As the tip cleared, a golden flash blinded Kayden for a moment. Spots danced before his eyes.
When his vision cleared, the unicorn’s form blurred. The deep purple bubbled and seethed, until like mud from the banks of a swiftly flowing river, it slid down the creature’s skin, leaving great swathes of shimmering white. The process continued until not a smudge of darkness remained, and the proud creature stood whole and unblemished. Even its emaciated form had filled out, removing all trace of the illness that had ravaged it near to death.
Simon thundered into the yard. He leaped off the horse, sliding in the mud until he found his footing, and raised the ax over his shoulder.
The unicorn bowed its head, prepared to take the strike it had earned.
The gesture, one of atonement, freed Kayden from his stillness. Though not recovered, he had enough strength to stagger between his father and the unicorn, forcing his father either to continue the stroke or catch him before he fell face-first in the filth.
