by Clare Daly
A fly buzzed close to his ear. He swished it away but it was persistent. Can you smell the bread, fly, is that it? He hit out at it, his hand connecting with its wings as it flew away. The buzz faded but a distant hum remained and he looked beyond the roadside to a ditch further up. He willed his legs to stand and they obeyed. More flies hovered in the air, the hum louder as he moved closer. Death, he thought and the wind blew its scent to him.
Over the grassy bank, a thick swarm of flies were having their feast. A woman lay dead, her head rested to one side, her hair alive with the movement of insects. Her face was a horror of sunken flesh, one cheekbone free of its skin thanks to the night’s predators. She wasn’t alone. Her hand reached towards the child that clung to her. The little girl, no more than three, did not have the pallor of death and for a second he thought she might be alive. But the flies were having their fun with her too and one appeared from her nose to stake its claim to that part of its gracious host. On her face, old tears had dried in streaks and her lips were stained green from the clump of grass in her hand – the last resort of a starving child.
Michael staggered back to the roadside, feeling the bile rising in his throat, and prayed that he wouldn’t throw up. If he did, he feared he would not make it back at all and what use would his journey have been then? He gripped his knees and took as deep a breath as he could. The dead were nothing new to him, not anymore. He had seen people he knew, strangers he didn’t, who had lost the fight and he’d learned to use that to propel himself forward, to keep fighting for he was lucky enough to be alive to do it. Defiant, he made for home as the clouds won out and the rain began to fall.
3
Evelyn had wanted to ask more questions but her father was weary from all his talk. He had fallen asleep holding her hand, the rosemary beads snaked around his fingers. Was it true? Either way, he was convinced of it and his arm, well there was no doubt that he believed her mother had done it. Eventually she too must have closed her eyes for she when she opened them, the candle had burned out. Around the door a beam of daylight shone – just enough to make out the shape of her father lying there. But something was missing. There was no sound of laboured breath from his lips, no rattle of it in his chest. She listened to his heart, but it was silent – an empty cage bereft of its fluttering bird. He was gone.
The grief, that had nestled inside her these past weeks, began to grow. With it also came relief – not only for him, that he would suffer no more – but for herself. She was glad she would no longer have to witness it – even at the cost of her father’s life. What kind of child would secretly welcome death for their parent? And why was it that emotion that would rise now above all others?
She crept to the door. The frame was rotten, the rusted hinges barely holding on. Without it, the wind that scoured through the valley would howl through them like a banshee and so she moved it gently, just far enough to bathe him in a narrow rectangle of light.
‘Evelyn?’
She turned to see Michael coming up the path. His tattered jacket was soaked through. Water dripped from the strands of hair falling on his cheek and she could see the makings of a bruise over his left eye. Always the fighter, but she loved him for it and she thought of her father’s words. He had always looked out for her. Whether it was childish squabbles in the village or when a suitor came calling, he was out front, ready to protect and defend her, whether she welcomed it or not. It was she who wanted to protect him now, to shelter him from the truth. He was carrying a package, offering it to her, his eyes full of hope until they met hers.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
He hurried past her, looked at the pale, still figure of his father lying there and flung the package against the wall.
‘There!’ he cried. ‘Eat!’
He would blame himself of course. There was no-one harder on Michael than himself. He turned to her and she thought she saw softness in his eyes, but no. The last of his energies went into a swift kick to the door. It collapsed outwards, hinges with it and he cursed.
‘I should have got here sooner.’
‘Don’t.’
‘I stopped. I shouldn’t have.’
‘It wouldn’t have helped,’ she said.
He looked back inside.
‘This isn’t your fault, Michael.’
‘I should have been here...at the end.’
‘You were out there trying to help.’
‘And what good was it?’
She grabbed his arm.
‘We will live a little longer.’
He pulled away.
‘I’m not sure I want to.’
‘Don’t you dare give up, do you hear me?’
If he did, then all their fight would have been for nothing. She would not lose him too. Her eyes searched for the package he had thrown away. The bread had come lose and she dusted it off, tearing it in two. When he refused it, she forced it into his palm.
‘Do you think I want to eat – right at this moment? Do you think he’d want us now to throw it away?’ she said.
‘He’d kick me from here to kingdom come.’
She nodded. ‘So, we eat.’
Neither of them spoke as they did. She closed her eyes and forced herself to think of her father as he had been, before all of this. She would hear his unmistakable whistle as he returned from the fields each day. As a child, she would run out to meet him. He would take her hands and swing her around and she would laugh as the wind caught her hair and her feet would leave the ground for the twirling. She burned the whistle’s melody into her mind as she looked at the fields, knowing she would never hear it again.
‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.
Michael took her hand in his. ‘We’re going to bury our father.’
‘And after that?’
‘We’ll tend to the lazy beds as always and hope for a crop next season.’
Next season. There would be no next season for them. Usually the potatoes would see them through the winter but with blight there had been nothing to harvest and there was simply nothing to eat.
‘There’s talk of evictions,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to go and see him.’
‘Lord Stockett? Have you lost your mind?’
‘We have to do something.’
“We’ll be dead before he hears our plea.’
Later that morning, they buried their father in a shallow grave beyond the house. Though their limbs ached it was not something they would entrust to a stranger. The dead were too many for the graveyards anyway and here was perfect, just where the land started to rise into the hill beyond. Right at the twirling place.
4
The Great Hall of Castle Valla was a massive cave around which the prison’s many cells, landings and nooks spread like weeds, with no form or design. The interior was built into the rock face, the castle’s outer walls like an elaborate tumour on its side. Some of the cells ran back into the mountain, no more than carved out tombs within its dark crevices. Here, Rako kept the most dispirited ones. Men to whom even the society of Castle Valla was too much, for they had pulled their hair out in clumps, banging their heads off the jagged walls, that only solitude befit their existence. The mountain was their solace. They would converse with it like a sinner to his priest, draw on the walls their pictures and symbols, their words of redemption, handed down in their confessional.
Rako often thought of these men as his pen idled down the list of prisoner numbers. He did not take the selection for sacrifice lightly and so Caleb Tamersk or prisoner 6479 as he preferred, had been given due consideration among a prison full of dangerous men. There were a few who begged with pleading hands to be delivered to the creature – that the mountain demanded it. He wished it for some of them too – skin and bone, their beards allowed to grow only so long that they could not strangle themselves. These lost men. Where it up to him, he wou
ld release them all to the creature but the instructions were very clear and only men of a strong mind and body were required.
The stone walls began to close in and he breathed deeply, willing the room and his mind to settle. From the Great Hall, he could hear the familiar notes of violent song, angry roars tearing through the walls, the brutal tones of fists meeting flesh, all played to the background chorus of guards who had momentarily lost control. Every few months when the castle became an unbearable thief of their liberty, the inmates would revolt and a wave of violence would crash through its walls – until every man was engaged in it, compelled to fight.
Rako rolled up the list and made his way down the tower steps, stopping at a small balcony overlooking the chaos below.
‘Enough!’ he barked at them, his voice echoing off the damp walls.
In his right hand, he held up the paper scroll. He didn’t need to say anything else. Trouble immediately abated, the tension evaporating as quickly as it had begun. The prisoners began to fix the overturned tables and benches, shoulder to shoulder with the man they had pummelled only moments ago. He surveyed the growing calm, all eyes cast to the floor for fear of meeting his gaze.
‘Order is restored,’ said an officer beside him.
Rako nodded. It never failed.
‘Sir, one of the tower inmates has asked to speak with you, prisoner 6820.’
Rako sighed. ‘Very well. Bring him to my office.’
The prisoner in question had arrived at Castle Valla just six months ago and Rako knew his number immediately for he memorised all those who piqued his interest, either as dangerous liabilities he needed to keep a close watch on, or those whom he couldn’t quite figure out. From the moment he’d laid eyes on Vladimir Dermatov, he knew all was not as it seemed. He had looked up at the castle walls as if he were its Lord returning from war, marvelling at it without the slightest hint of intimidation, and Rako didn’t like it. He’d also arrived with his brother in tow and though he had come across members of the same family interred before, there was something about these two that made him feel uneasy, and so he had earmarked their numbers for further scrutiny and a close eye. The fact that they had arrived with enough money in their pockets to ensure them a comfortable stay also made him wary, though bribes were always welcome. The castle made high demands on its staff and any added incentives were a bonus to them and the families they supported back home. He himself needed very little, just a comfortable bed and a soft pillow on which to lay his head. Castle Valla was his home. He had no need of anything or anyone else.
He listened to the slow progress of chains up the staircase. When the prisoner finally shuffled into the room, Rako was met with a cool glare.
‘Are these really necessary?’ the man said, shaking the chain on his shackles.
‘You are a prisoner here.’
He pointed to the chair in front of Rako’s desk.
‘May I at least sit?’
‘Be my guest.’
The prisoner lumbered to the seat and sat down with a sigh. He was tall and lean and though his beard was long, it suited him. Rako could smell soap, the same kind he used.
‘You can leave us,’ Rako said to the guard.
As soon as the door closed, the man spoke.
‘I have been very generous, have I not? You and your officers are well taken care of?’
‘Indeed, we are. Is there something you want? Some new clothes perhaps?’
Vladimir’s shirt was blood-stained from the fresh bout of violence and he wondered if he were a willing participant or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It didn’t seem to be his blood anyway. He pondered Rako’s question, scratching his beard.
‘There are some things I need. Nothing very important but I expect I’ll have a few weeks to use them. Some new books perhaps?’
‘You got books the other week.’
‘And I’ve read them. But that’s not why I’m here, Commander Rako.’
He leaned in conspiratorially.
‘I want to go next,’ he said.
‘Next?’
‘The next offering – to the creature.’
His brown eyes lit up as if to savour the look on Rako’s face, waiting for his reaction, but Rako was calm.
‘I thought that’s why you do pay us. So, you won’t be sacrificed,’ Rako said.
‘I paid you to show you I have the means and I will pay you handsomely for this opportunity. It will be sent after we are gone to him.’
‘We?’
‘My brother and I,’ he said. ‘I will go first, then he will follow.’
‘And your brother, he is on board with this plan? He doesn’t strike me as one who would choose such a gruesome death?’
‘Death is only the beginning. I have watched all those who have gone before us these months and I am now ready. He will be too when the time comes.’
Rako had heard enough.
‘Go back to your cell. This place…’ he said, casting his eyes around the room, ‘draws out the strange in some men and it swamps you now and clouds your judgement.’
‘My judgement is sound. I know what he is and he’s not the only one,’ he said. ‘Do you think I would come to this place of my own free will and take my brother if I did not believe it?’
‘You came here for this?’ Rako thought of the prisoners in the tombs, madness running down their bloodied faces versus the composed man opposite him.
‘He has something to offer that transcends life. Don’t you see Rako? He offers immortality. Didn’t you ever think about it? What he was doing?’
‘All of the men he’s taken are dead.’
‘Have you seen it?’
‘He is not one to be questioned,’ Rako said. ‘And neither am I.’
‘I can tell you there are others out there and they find their own prey. They don’t ask for it. Why would he not simply sweep in here and take anyone he chooses, on any given night? This ritual is highly unusual. They are hunters, not collectors. You are providing him with an army handpicked by you and you don’t even realise it.’
The balance of power in the room had shifted to the prisoner in front of him and he didn’t like it. He paused, giving due thought to what he was about to tell him.
‘I’ve seen him kill only once. When he first came down the mountain, to Castle Valla. I was twenty years old, a young officer, newly arrived. I hated it at first. You can see why. It’s not the most hospitable of places and after a while, all the snow and ice makes you feel detached from humanity. But I made the best of it. I obeyed my commander, did what I was told, learned to handle myself and I was content. One night, as I patrolled the battlements, I met my commander taking in the night air.’
Rako was lost now in his memories as Vladimir listened.
‘He often checked on us to make sure we were covering our posts and he must have been in a good mood for he offered me a cigarette. I took it gladly, the light from it a tiny orange glow in the night. Perhaps that’s what attracted him to us but I suspect he knew what he was after. The temperature around us dropped. The stones changed from grey to white, glistening before our eyes. Our cigarettes froze. And the smell. Wherever it had come from, it was not a place either of us would ever wish to know. We hurried along the battlements when our path suddenly disappeared into shadow. Something was lurking there. It moved and we saw it was a man, walking towards us. He was covered in dirt, clumps of earth clinging to his body. It was hard to make out his face for the shadow never lifted from it, but I knew this was no ordinary man. It was a monster and he growled at us, a sound from deep inside him. We drew our swords but still he advanced. And when my commander faced him head on, he simply walked right into the blade, pushing it into his own flesh, blood spilling on the stones. He was pulling my commander to him, only the hilt of the sword between them. He grabbed his shoulders as light fel
l on his open mouth and a display of sharp jagged teeth. He bit him, clamped them to his neck and drank, until there was nothing left.’
‘What did you do?’ Vladimir asked.
‘I froze. His form seemed to grow as if the drink had fortified him. He discarded my commander and pulled out the sword, his wounds healing. His hands, reached for me, his palms white and unmarked by the blade. And he spoke to me. He told me that he would need more of it but not from just any man. Strong men. That when the moon was bright I was to leave one for him in a place he would make known. He would take their blood as he had my commander’s.’
‘Why not just kill you all?’
‘Because then he would have no supply. As long as the prison functioned and new inmates came he could continue to get the best of them.’
‘Chosen by you.’
‘Only me. He said that I was commander now. I followed his orders to the letter. This has been going on a long time. It will continue no doubt after I’m gone, when he will choose my successor. I do not ask any questions of him. Frankly I don’t want to know what he does with them but your theories, they are fantastical.’
‘You think it impossible, after what you’ve just said?’
‘I don’t think at all. It’s better that way.’
‘Let me go to him.’
‘So, you can join this army?’
‘I must.’
‘You will die. Just like my commander. Strong men mean strong blood, to make him stronger. Keep him alive. Your theory is wrong.’
‘Then let me prove it…and come back.’
‘No-one has ever come back and they never will. Now I have indulged you enough Vladimir and while I appreciate your enthusiasm I’m afraid there is no evidence of it.’
