Ragged Heroes: An Epic Fantasy Collection

by Andy Peloquin

  "Are you going to try?" he asked.

  She nodded, not quite able to voice the thoughts inside her. But there was one thing she did need to sort out.

  "If it works, you're going to need to help her get away."

  "What?"

  "My understanding of what I'm about to try is limited, and if we were going to die any other way, it wouldn't work. But if it does, then I won't be around to look after her. So please, take care of her." A tear began to slide down Kenna's cheek as she spoke. She hoped above all things that this worked. No child deserved to die so young, much less be burned for no other reason than to be used as bait.

  "I promise," he responded. "And I'm sorry."

  "There's no need to be," she said truthfully. Really, she had very little to live for. At least, the little girl had more. She must have a family somewhere, maybe the real witch could help her find them again.

  Next to her, Ainthe whimpered softly. Probably scared out of her wits, the poor thing.

  "Don't be scared," Kenna whispered.

  "Aren't you scared?" the little girl asked.

  "A little. But not of the flames. Never be scared of the flames, Ainthe. If you are, then they have power over you," she said, thinking of the phoenix within her. She was almost sad to say goodbye to it. But it was a good reason.

  "Ebernathy!" the head witch hunter called, making the man behind them jump.

  "Yes, sir?" he responded. So that's what his name was. She'd never thought to ask. It was probably irrelevant now.

  "Are the witches secure?"

  "Yes, sir," he responded, his voice betraying his true feelings. She wished he wouldn't do that, it made everything that little bit more obvious.

  "Then what are you waiting for?"

  "Nothing, sir," he responded, yanking on the ties behind Kenna once more, this time undoing them completely. Good. That would make things easier. "Good luck," he whispered.

  Kenna nodded once, and tried to get a grip on the nerves assailing her. She really couldn't let them get the better of her, otherwise she was going to end up failing and having to live with the knowledge she'd killed a child for the rest of her life.

  The head witch hunter walked up to the pyre, a lit torch in his hand. Two others followed him, each holding their own with sadistic grins on their faces.

  "Dear Lord above," the head witch hunter started. The people not involved in the fire lighting, bowed their heads reverently. The fools. Didn't they realise he could turn on them just as easily? And probably would too. "Bless us this day as we rid the world of the plague sent to blight you. Send these witches to hell, where they should belong for eternity."

  His prayer fell on deaf ears as far as Kenna was concerned. There was no way he believed all that. He did this for one reason, and one reason only, and that was because he enjoyed it. He wanted to see people in pain, and wanted to do it in a way that didn't get him killed himself. It was almost clever if she thought about it.

  He lowered the flames to the wood, and she watched raptly as it caught. Whatever they did to the pyre before setting it alight, it meant it caught and spread quickly. Which was both a good and a bad thing. Really, she needed them hot and furious as quickly as possible so she could start the spell she needed to.

  She lifted her head, and her gaze locked with Ebernathy's. Even at this distance, she could have sworn she could see tears and regret in his eyes. Another blink, and it was gone, replaced by a stoic expression. At least it wasn't the pleasure many of the others were exhibiting.

  The flames grew again, and her phoenix upped her attempts to get out.

  It's alright, girl. It's almost time, Kenna thought to it, making it chirp in response.

  Her skin was already beginning to heat up, and more whimpers were coming from Ainthe. She needed to move fast, or even this wouldn't be able to save the girl.

  At the first touch of fire against her skin, she pulled her hands free of the loose ties, and cupped Ainthe's face with them.

  "This might hurt," she whispered over the roaring flames. "But it should save you, understand?"

  The little girl nodded, tears streaming down her face.

  "What's going on up there?" the head witch hunter's voice rang out, but Kenna ignored him and the following exchange. She hoped Ebernathy wouldn't get into too much trouble. He needed to stay safe so he could take care of Ainthe. She was too young to be left alone in the world.

  Kenna opened her mouth and began to sing-chant. The words flowed through her, being directed by her inner phoenix, and she actually had no idea what her song actually meant.

  The fire around them grew hotter still, and the skin of her arms began to sizzle. While painful, it was also a welcome feeling, as it meant her plan was working.

  Ainthe's whimpers stopped, as Kenna's own pain increased, until she finished the song. A surge of power flooded through her, and rushed towards the child.

  It was working.

  Contentment filled Kenna as her hands fell away from Ainthe's face, and she collapsed back into the fire. Her flesh sizzled and the heat overwhelmed her, but it didn't matter.

  Just before her eyes closed for the final time, the silhouette of a burning bird rose into the air, before settling back into the little girl.

  It was done. She could finally rest in peace.

  The End

  * * *

  Ainthe’s story will be continuing in late 2018. For updates on when this will be, please join my mailing list:

  www.authorlauragreenwood.co.uk/p/mailing-list-sign-up.html

  * * *

  About the Author

  Laura is a USA Today Bestselling Author of paranormal, fantasy and contemporary romance. Within one genre, you’ll find a lot of it interconnects, and she enjoys hiding Easter Eggs in all her stories. When she’s not reading or writing, she can be found in the kitchen, cooking or baking, both of which she’s apparently good at!

  Read More from Author Name

  www.authorlauragreenwood.co.uk

  Curse the Dead

  Logan Keys

  Chapter 1

  Though she knew not the exact year, time kept itself, so why be redundant? She only tracked the eras in the way that ancient things saw life passing as unchanged beings of indifference. The islands either fell into war, or chiseled out peace from the years of sorrow to find prosperity and then lose it again like only idiot humans can.

  Like a tide, the fortunes of the islands rose and fell.

  And so she knew that this would be the year when men bled themselves dry at every corner of the world in the great war.

  Probably the greatest war she’d ever been through. And that was saying quite a lot.

  Immortals cursed mortals long ago, shocked by their first death, as it is told: An immortal had fallen from his balcony, drunk, and broken his neck. They could die. It had never happened before.

  The shock of it had stirred the droves of them, not unlike a hornet’s nest, to leave the secret island like a mountain moved, to flock onto the sea and then collide with the islands of men.

  It was not a real war for purpose, but only to seek the reason why immortals were no longer so. Men were easy to blame; humans were targets for their anger.

  If there is anything she had learned as an ancient being, it was this: Something always takes the blame and pays for what is not owed, because immortal or not, beings of thought are capable of a tremendous lack of it as well.

  When difference meets different, like always, war ensues and blame is cast.

  Facing sickness and death for the first time, the Immortals fought their first war frantically, shying from the sight of their own immortal blood. Ailments and aging are a humbling thing, but freezing in their first winter, now that had left its mark.

  They were like a large wounded beast taking everything within reach down with their founder.

  Human men and women of the west and north, homeless after battle, roamed in groups as lost as leaves in the fall, blown here and there by each fight,
running for their very lives.

  But here she sits in a bar of cobwebs alone. A widow and witch deep in drink and light of sorrow.

  And the witch had decided that she should join the one she had loved for so long. Despite being an immortal herself, she had married a man who fell long before his time.

  A regular human.

  The blade she’d stuck into her heart would be enough for any other to have their sweet end, for where it rested, no doubt it had struck something vital. Alas, it sits there still, to the hilt. It does nothing for a witch that’s cursed immortal the same as the Immortals have been cursed to die.

  It’s not entirely uncomfortable either.

  “Who decides these things?” she asks, as if the room was filled with philosophers and not mice droppings.

  For an immortal such as she, being cursed mortal would be a blessing. Irony is the thing that makes sure the ones longing to die do not, and the ones reaching for life find it just out of their grasp.

  If there were gods, they would smite us all, she thinks, and so all that is must simply be chaos and stars. Curses and death.

  “A mess is what it is”, she decides, nursing from the bottle in a long gulp.

  She shifts on the stool, the only one she’d found left standing, and feels the cool blades shift as well, still between her ribs.

  Pouring more warmth down her throat, she ignores the red that spills from the wound like rose petals falling. Some has even found a way out of her mouth, mixing with the drink that sloshes now with bitter punishment across her tongue until nothing but iron is left.

  After the drink is gone, she spits red onto the counter, smearing it until her fortune appears.

  Slapping a hand over what she finds, she sighs. “West it is,” she announces to the stringy shape hidden underneath her hand.

  And she lifts the hand, now sticky with spit and blood, and coughs into it.

  Blade remaining in its unusual sheath, she rises, unsteady with liquor, before toddling much like a child to the door.

  Peeking out into the foggy town, still ablaze with the fires of war, she’s wise enough to remove her hat before stepping outside. But not the knife.

  The knife she forgets.

  Her hat, pointy and black, if on her head, would point high into the sky. It would announce to any who saw that she was a proper witch.

  A thing that is never good.

  She can almost hear her mother’s voice with its uneducated accent, “Oya, Esa, you born in zee barn? Close doors, girl, behind you.” Hands above her frizzy hair, she’d cry out in dramatic plea, “Esadora, have I not raised you as a lady?” and then she’d spit like a man. Exactly how Esa had spat her blood. “The draft vil give your seesters the cold, eh? Poy, poy,” she’d go on with more spitting at the devil.

  Only a superstitious mother of ten little brats would wind up with a witch as tremendous as Esa. Last in line, first to disappoint, she’d luckily never grown powers by nature, so her mother never knew before she’d died what had become of the one she’d loved the least.

  Slowly, Esa closes the door as her good mother has bid in the form of a ghost. Then she pauses, remembering what is most important.

  The knife.

  Yanking it from her chest, she slams the point, still wet with her blood, into the sign on the front that’s in the old language: Family is Love.

  And right below that: No witches allowed.

  Chapter 2

  It isn’t the best kind of war, but it isn’t the worst. The worst was when the sister queens were at each other’s throats, because nothing is more terrible than two women wasting their entire armies on one another out of sibling spite.

  No, that was the worst because magic was born from that hatred, and then magic was hated ever since.

  See how it goes, Esa thought.

  It isn’t the most forgettable war, however, because though the humans have rules of combat, and some follow them, and while the raping and pillaging remains at a minimum, the Immortals are not exactly kind. Women and children have not been spared this round, and Esa is weary to see the little bodies strewn about.

  No, she will not soon forget this war.

  Her favorite types of war were all gentlemanly things of shaking hands and riding at one another hacking away. And the winner is the winner on an open battlefield who risks himself alone. Two leaders could challenge one another, save their men, and it would be finished.

  It was a war of honor fought by those who had started it in the first place.

  It was when rich and powerful men would have lost their own heads instead of the islands falling into darkness altogether.

  Sad, she thought. She had lived long enough for a favorite kind of war. But the truth is that the Immortals will wipe out the human race without the help of witches and wizards. These strangers don’t have much space for witches, and she likes men. Human men. A little too much if sense has any say.

  Not immortals as she is, or even male witches (yes there are those) and especially not a wizard, since magic is so…off-putting. No, Esa has a taste for plain ole men, it seems. Human men who might clutch their chest and fall over never to rise again. Fragile, yet mighty. That is to her taste.

  Born a witch, but without true powers, she’d lived as an orphaned teen, and then she’d stolen something ancient—a wondrous power she’d give back in a heartbeat if only she knew how.

  Because then she might age and die and that would suit her fine.

  One power is that she cannot die. The other is she can cast, certainly, but because it is a stolen magic, the spells are never as she wishes. If Esa asks a thing to grow, it snakes out of the ground, choking everything in its path.

  Her powers turn every goodness into a morbid version of that thing.

  When Esa brought her husband back from the grave—she’d only tried it twice—he’d become a monster reaching for the living, moaning, perhaps even feasting on dead flesh.

  Mostly, Esa wisely kept her magic locked away during this war. Her man had fought with the humans, and she’d spelled his shield for protection as best she could.

  Then that shield had been the very weapon that had removed his head.

  “No more magic for me,” she muttered, pushing her way through the crowd of people on the main road.

  They were fleeing the village in droves.

  “Where you are going, woman? Are you mad?”

  Esa laughed as the man shoved her. “Aren’t we all a little mad?”

  A woman with missing teeth shouted into her face. “The war is back there. You’re going the wrong way.”

  Esa moved to the side. “My home is that way, and I don’t plan to leave it.”

  “Ha!” the man crowed, jerking a horse by the reins who trailed behind him. “As if the Immortals leave anything standing.”

  Esa shrugged. Husband or no, she’s not going to be a vagabond as well as a widow.

  The passersbyers soon thinned enough that she could lift her skirt and start home again.

  Mud spattered the pretty black dress, but she didn’t mind. It was already rented from the dagger, and soaked with blood through the bodice.

  They’d churned the road up on their way out, and it was slow going. It would take an age to get there by foot.

  “All right,” she muttered. “One more spell!”

  Esa held her fingers up to her lips and gave a sharp whistle. She could hear the man who’d shoved her cry out as his mount tore the reins from his hand, bolting in her direction.

  The big animal cut a path through the people and then stopped before Esa. “Ah, there-there,” she chided, and pulled the horse off of the road to mount.

  Using a log that had been felled hastily for wood, Esa leapt onto the back of the horse bareback and clicked her teeth together. Muttering spells on the creature, hoping she wouldn’t kill the poor beast with her bad magic, she clucked him into a gallop for home through the mud and towards the oncoming war.

  Chapter 3

  T
he witch would see the good captain as any witch with the sight would. He was a man in the place of better men when the better men have all gone up and died. A man just ruggedly good looking enough to be her future dead husband if they’d met any other time. With a crooked nose, a scar on his chin, thick brown hair that was unsoldierly left loose, and a broad chest of virile strength that would tempt any woman who was looking, he’d brought her from her own house and held her hostage this very moment.

  Homecoming for Esa was short lived. Her house stood un-molested—the battle had not waged this far south. But it wasn’t long after she’d arrived that the human army filtered in their desperate retreat from the Immortals and landed at her door.

  They of course could not leave her well enough alone.

  The Northern Army had surrounded her home and demanded she come out, and when she had, Esa was bound and dragged to the head officer.

  Now, Esa gazed at the Captain with the patience of a witch who did not fear immortals or humans alike, but the good captain, on the other hand, would see the witch as a woman of wickedness, made severely as all witches were.

  He’d think Esa seductive enough to trick a man such as he from his goals, even steer him away from good deeds if left to his desires, but…alas…the Captain was neither weak, nor in need of seducing, and so he gazed back at Esa with the patience of a man who did not fear witches, even one as sensual as her.

  “There is a horde of Immortals driving this way,” he warned, as if even bound and held against her will, his side was the better option for the witch.

  The witch quirked her brow, and he was reminded that they have plenty of witches, albeit younger, more impressionable ones. Also, he didn’t need the extra worry of this particular witch spelling his men behind his back.

  When Esa said nothing: “Cut her,” he said.

  His man pulled his blade cleanly and swiftly along her slender throat without hesitation.

  The good captain sighed then, because to kill a woman was not something he’d have thought himself capable of, even a witch, just years ago, but war does change a man from the inside out.