The Yarnsworld Collection: A fantasy boxset

by Benedict Patrick

  “You’re certainly better than me,” he whispered to the body in his arms, reaching up to take off his own mask and fitting it on the child’s head.

  Crazy Raccoon stood, eyes fixed on the village behind him. The crowd of ash warriors continued to mill around the church. There was no sign of the villagers any more, and no sign of Starving Pup and the Shaven, Yizel.

  This child, this Bravador, needed to be returned home. His family needed to know how brave he had been.

  As if hypnotised, emotions run dry, a man called Reuben Gallo cradled a dead child in his arms, and walked down the slope to bring the boy back home, leaving his own rapier lying in the dust.

  As overheard in the taverns of Espadapan

  This is a story not many have heard. They tried to hide it, the ones responsible. They did not want people to know of the horrors they had committed. But most of all, they did not want any to know the truth behind the rise of the living legend, of the man they now call Crazy Raccoon.

  It took two weeks for the Lion’s Paws to march the boys from the City of Swords to the village of Morelia. Do not look for Morelia on any of our maps today - it is no longer there. Just another Muridae settlement that could not survive the weathering forces of the Wilds.

  The children - all boys - were happy, chattering. They had been plucked from lives that nobody would envy. All wharf rats, snickleway dwellers, whoresons. All boys that nobody would miss. That was why they had been chosen.

  Only three Bravadori came with them, only three of the Paws were chosen to honour the contract their leader had signed with the relatives of the inhabitants of the village. Morelia was a place of no great importance. Nobody would care if it was not looked after as well as had been promised. It was so far from civilisation, nobody would notice.

  As they travelled, the boys were encouraged to pick up large branches from the roadside and beat each other with them, practising their swordplay. In the evenings, when the sun fell and the horrors of the Wildlands treaded just outside of the campfires, the Bravadori would take some of the more promising lads to the side and would tutor them in their footwork and stances, but most were left to their own devices. The boys used mud to paint their faces, aping the heroes who had rescued them from the city gutters, who had fed them and promised them adventure.

  It was only when they arrived at the city that the boys realised something was amiss. From the hilltop they camped on, even from that small distance away, they could tell Morelia was dead. The streets were empty, many buildings already in disrepair. An air of sadness seemed to float from it.

  There were more Bravadori waiting for them, and these were not as kind as the boys’ handlers. The men and women were rough, businesslike, and did not look the children in the eye as they barked their commands.

  “You rotten lot want to be Bravadori?” they asked.

  In unison, the boys replied in the affirmative, for what young man growing up in Espadapan’s shadow did not dream of developing the swordfighter’s Knack?

  “Fine then,” the Lion’s Paws responded, “You’re Bravadori, then.”

  They presented the boys with a sword each, and a simple black mask, and with two small gifts they won them over completely. So excited the boys were with their new toys, they did not pay attention to the Paws looking worriedly at the setting sun, at the black windows of the dead village.

  “You’re Queen’s Blades now,” the Paws told the boys, “so you’ve all got jobs to do. See those houses there? The people inside them, they’re not right any more. Not people anymore, not really. Turned on the Queen, they’re Wild Beasts now. It’s our job - your job - to make sure they don’t hurt nobody else. That’s what you’ve got to do, now you’re Bravadori.”

  The boys cheered, and allowed the Lion’s Paws to herd them towards empty Morelia. They forgot about their fear of the dark as the moon rose. They failed to notice that the adults stopped some distance from the town border, allowing the boys to travel between the buildings alone.

  The first realisation that something was wrong came when the torches began to disappear. The boys who had been given burning brands to carry in their offhands did not travel around the corners after their peers. They entered doorways and did not return. The orange flame ahead of a column of mayfly Bravadori went out, without explanation.

  Then the first of the villagers appeared.

  It was clear from the sight of them that these were no longer people. The villagers shambled from their homes, eyes wracked with pain from the torchlight, arms outstretched towards the youngsters. The villagers were like mistreated rag dolls, limbs broken at impossible angles, body parts shifted across their skin, as if their flesh had melted and had reset after its features had drifted apart. Many of them had clearly been sewn back together, limbs taken off and reattached where they did not belong, some with arms reaching out from behind their backs, others with dry tongues searching aimlessly from the sides of their necks.

  Their mouths made no sounds, not the old or the very young. Their mouths only opened and closed, a wet smacking sound as their lips parted, their needled teeth thirsting for human flesh.

  Most of the boys ran, flinging their blades and masks behind them as they did so. None of these children made it out of the village. Despite their warped features, the remnants of the villagers of Morelia had animal cunning, and they had surrounded the Bravadori boys in the dark, and were waiting for the runners in the blackness between the buildings. The screams of the dying children alerted their companions to the true nature of their predicament.

  Those who remained drew their swords, tried to remember what the Lion’s Paws had taught them, and used their cold steel to fend off the monsters, praying to the Queen to give them her gift. No magic illuminated their blades on that night, yet still they were able to dispatch some of the monsters as they approached. However, even the youngest of them could see that the night was lost, and there was no chance of defending for long against such numbers.

  They retreated to the remains of a tavern in the main street of the village, hoping to bar the doors and windows of the building. The things in the dark were relentless, and the boys - despite their masks and bravado - were young and unKnacked, and one by one the false Bravadori fell, feeding their enemies.

  They fell, until only one remained. This boy was close enough to being a young man that he should have known better than to trust the Bravadori when they had approached him at the wharfside, when they had promised him a better life. However, the promise of greatness had been too much for him, too strong an allure, and now it had led to the end of his life.

  The creatures shambled towards him, silent mouths open, still dripping red from his fallen comrades. He looked at the blade in his hands, and wondered how he could have hoped to use such an alien thing to change his fortune. He had never held a blade, not even a dagger, before. Down on the docks of Espadapan, he had learnt to survive with his own wits, with his own two fists. He had spent his short lifetime fighting with them, every day using them to survive, to take from others what he needed to live. It was his fists that made him special, not this stupid sword the Bravadori had given him. It was his fists that he used to fight. That was where his talent lay.

  That was where his talent lay.

  For the first time in the boy’s life, his Knack flared into being. Instantly aware of what he had to do, the child - now on the road to becoming a man - dropped his rapier, took a step towards the closest of the abominations, and pummelled his fist into the creature’s nose. Cartilage shattered, bone splintered, and was pushed back into what remained of the thing’s brain. It dropped down, dead, but the boy did not notice. He had taken another step, had landed another blow, to similar effect. Methodically, as if hypnotised by the amber sparks that now leapt from his eyes, the boy continued to step forward, then attack, step, attack. Sometimes he punched, sometimes he grabbed, sometimes he gouged. There was no clumsiness of footwork here, no child-like bumbling through stances and manoeuvres that h
e could not hope to understand. This was a force of nature, pounding his way home.

  Outside of the village, the Lion’s Paws waited.

  “You’re sure this will work?” one of them asked.

  The leader, an older woman whose mask sported a headdress of brown feathers, nodded. “That’s what they said. When the creatures feed, a blood lust takes them, and they swarm from the safety of the buildings, out here into the open. Let them finish the children, and then they will fall into our trap.”

  The Bravadori waited until long after the final dying scream of the boys, but none of the warped villagers emerged. The Paws shifted restlessly, not wishing to be the first to voice doubt about their leader’s strategy, not less the sacrifice that had just been made.

  “There!” someone shouted, finally spotting movement at the end of the village.

  The Paws drew their blades, readying themselves for action.

  The figure continued to move towards them, slowly.

  “There’s only one?” one of the Paws questioned.

  The leader narrowed her eyes. “Hold up your torch,” she demanded of her second.

  He did so, as the figure stepped closer, and they all gasped.

  There before them was a vision from their nightmares, but it wore the face of a child. The boy was painted in blood, as if anointed in a thick black oil. They could not tell where his clothing ended, and the ribbons of flesh and gore began. More than one of the Lion’s Paws was sick at the sight and smell of the child.

  The only parts of him that were visibly human were his eyes, wide and white, not really looking at the people he was walking towards.

  “Alfrond’s cock,” the leader of the Paws swore, motioning for her men to move forward to inspect the village. However, looking at the boy’s hands, broken and bloody, she could already guess at what had transpired here.

  She stepped forward to the child.

  “You’ve lost your mask,” she said to him.

  This seemed to break the boy from his stupor, and he turned to stare at her, eyes wide and questioning.

  “You, young master, are a hero. You are our hero, one of the Paws. But you have lost your mask. Remember: a Bravador is never seen without his mask.”

  The boy gave a half smile at this, and then his gaze wandered away again.

  “Great Mouse, look at him,” one of the other Paws whispered, loud enough so all could still hear. “Look at his eyes. Wide as a raccoon’s.”

  The leader grinned on hearing this, as she reached into her belt and drew out another simple black mask, fitting it on the child’s gore-soaked face.

  “This will do for now,” she said, “but we shall have to come up with something special for you when we return to the city. Got to get you a good name, too.”

  Another questioning look from the boy.

  “After all,” she continued, “when everyone back home hears about what you have done? Well, nobody will forget your name ever again.”

  This, finally, was the straw that broke the dam. This finally let the boy find his voice again.

  He tipped his head back, stared at the dust-blood moon above him, and laughed.

  Arturo leapt across the final rooftop, rolling with the impact, turning himself quickly to see what was happening behind him. Procopio was already in the air, blade pointing forward, Arturo’s Knack screaming needlessly that the dead man’s rapier was meant for Arturo’s chest.

  Arturo rolled again, leaving Procopio to land on his feet on the wooden roof tiles.

  Dull my blade, but he’s fast, Arturo thought, rushing clumsily to his feet, holding the point of his blade low in preparation for the next attack.

  Death having stolen all fatigue from his frame, Procopio was relentless. Arturo had learnt this in the few minutes they had already fought together, just as he had learnt how skilled the bandit leader really was with his blade. Multiple shallow wounds were opened across Arturo’s face and arms in testament to the dead man’s skills, Arturo’s own Knack the only reason he had suffered nothing worse. Yet. Thankfully, although Procopio appeared to retain his Knack, with his death the bandit had lost much of the art from his fighting style. The patterns of his attacks quickly became predictable, much more than those even of an unKnacked opponent, as if whatever force now animated Procopio had only a handful of moves available to it, and had lost all ability to improvise.

  Procopio flicked his wrist, tapping his blade against Arturo’s whilst stepping to the side, forcing Arturo to reposition himself. If Procopio’s early attack patterns were anything to go by, he would go for a lunging strike after the next side step, which Arturo would bat away with his duelling glove. The dead man’s predictable patterns were exactly what Arturo needed to survive this.

  Despite this good fortune, however, Arturo knew he was going to die. Procopio was predictable, but he was fast, he was strong, and Arturo was finding it increasingly difficult to move his blade to intercept Procopio’s attacks, even though he knew when they were coming. The dead thing in front of him did not appear to share this problem. That was why Arturo had made the last two rooftop leaps, to give his arm muscles precious seconds to recover. However, now he was on the final rooftop, with only the sheer walls of the church belltower to greet him next time. Arturo had seen the militia fall when they had attempted the climb. Going by his performance when first jumping across the roofs, and by the dead weights his arms felt already, Arturo knew he would make a similar plunge.

  As predicted, Procopio lunged forward, his white-scared face’s rigid grin mocking Arturo’s attempts to bat aside the attack. Arturo was too slow this time, and the bandit’s blade caught his right thigh before he was able to muster enough force into the push, tearing through leather and flesh before he was able to knock it aside.

  He staggered back, struggling to put weight on the wounded limb.

  Queen’s tits, that was a deep one.

  He did not dare move his eyes from his attacker, but he knew it was bad - he could feel the flowing blood like soft, stroking fingers down the back of his knee and calf.

  Procopio grinned, as he had no other choice. The dead man’s wide eyes fixed Arturo. The shade knew it had won.

  A noise from below him, from the church’s copper doors, caught Arturo’s attention. He saw a glimpse of a hint of pale skin in the sea of grey, coupled with a bellow of rage and pain. And then, the church doors buckled, and the Shepherdess’ creatures surged into the building.

  Yizel?

  Procopio was single-minded in his intent, and was not distracted by the events below. He lashed out at Arturo with a shoulder swing, an uncharacteristically strong attack for the shade, but an apt response to an opponent who had let his guard down. Warned by his Knack, Arturo lifted his rapier to deflect the blow, but still the edge of Procopio’s sword drew a red line across the top of his forehead. Arturo cursed, blood from his wound flowing down into his eye, half-blinding him.

  I can’t win this fight. I’m not good enough to best Procopio.

  Eyesight restricted to one eye, he looked down again at the church entranceway. The ash warriors continued to push their way inside, but were obviously meeting resistance, as their initial surge had been reduced to a slow trickle. There, outside the church, beneath their feet, was the forgotten form of Yizel, curled into a ball of pain, her hands over her face.

  I’m not good enough to beat him. But Yizel is.

  Switching to the offensive, Arturo took an unskilled slash at Procopio, forcing the ash warrior backwards. However, Arturo was not interested in pressing his advantage any further. Instead, he ran to the edge of the roof, and jumped down towards the sound of Yizel’s voice, leaving dead Procopio to grin alone on the rooftop.

  Reuben’s mind was full of the past as he walked. He thought of that night back at Morelia, of when Restless Hawk told him he had become a true Bravador, back when she had given him the name Crazy Raccoon. To him, being a Bravador had never been about what he could do for others. He had heard the stories
, he had known about the Queen’s gift and about protecting Espadapan, but for Crazy Raccoon, being a Bravador had been about elevating himself, about being lifted from the slums he had lived in for all of his childhood. Where he was from, the Bravadori had respect, and were due that respect because of their skill and service to the city. He had never had a problem with that status quo as a young wharf rat, and he certainly had no problem when he rose through the ranks of the Paws. In his young life as a Bravador, his secret hidden by his stable master, he had been shown success after success, and only now did Reuben see the falseness behind his rise. He had not earned that praise, he had been given it to add fear to his name, a name that already carried weight because of what people said about him in Morelia.

  The stories of Morelia were wrong, however. Crazy Raccoon had not dispatched an entire village full of Wild Beasts with his sword. Reuben had done it with his fists. Not a skillful Knack, blessed by the Queen. A Knack born from the need to survive. A Knack that tens of dozens of other wharf rats developed. A pauper’s Knack. Nothing special.

  Reaching the edge of the village, ash warriors crowding around the church, Reuben lowered his gaze to look at his hands. The boy he had been carrying was no longer held in them, despite the fact that his arms were still curved into the shape needed to cradle a small child. Instead, Reuben’s leather gloves were covered in ash, with his own mask crumpled in a grey heap held within his right hand.

  He felt no sadness at the sight of his empty hands. He did not even feel confusion. Reuben was numb, overcome by his role in the death of the boy, and overcome with his realisation that everyone else was - for once - correct. He had never been the best.

  He looked up again. Some of the ash warriors had spotted him, and were running towards him, hands outstretched, reaching.

  Still numb, Reuben looked back at his empty gloves, and clenched his fists. Something about that small motion felt good, right.