Cursed

by Frank Miller

  Arthur turned some embers with a stick. After a few uncomfortable moments, he said, “Just looked like it hurt.”

  “Well, it doesn’t,” Nimue said quickly. “Most of the time it doesn’t.” She looked up at him. Their eyes met across the fire.

  “Looks like claws.”

  Nimue nodded.

  The memory squirmed in the back of her mind. She could still smell the onions in her father’s hair as she slept between her parents. It was the safest, warmest spot in her entire world, or had been until that night, when it all began: the visions, the visits, the spells and the terror, when that sickly sweet voice called her by name: “Nimue.”

  “I was five years old,” Nimue began as she looked into the flames.

  “Nimue,” the voice had whispered again. She climbed out of bed and walked outside their wooden hut.

  “Hello?” she called out to the night air. The village had been so quiet. She remembered her bare feet padding on the dirt and her stomach humming like a fiddle string as the voice said again, “Nimue, why won’t you come?”

  Nimue had asked, “Where are you?” The moon shone so brightly that night it lit a path through the village, past the Chief’s Hall and into the Iron Wood.

  Unlike most of the children, Nimue had never feared the woods at night. Her mother was the Arch Druid of the village and her father, Jonah, a respected healer, so from a very young age they had taught Nimue about the Hidden. She knew they were very small and hid inside of things, like the dew on a leaf or the bark of a tree. And when they did show themselves, they were invisible to all but a few with special eyes. Lenore could sing songs that teased the Hidden into the light, the way soft strokes made sparks on a cat’s back. Nimue had never been given a reason to fear the Hidden. No one had ever told her that just as the Hidden could find her and speak with her, there were other things, darker, more terrible things, that could find her and speak with her too. At five years old Nimue considered the Hidden her friends, though friends she had never quite met. Which was why the voice intrigued her. It was warm. It wanted to play.

  Nimue crossed the tree line and felt the pine needles under her bare feet. The hum in her stomach pulled her softly toward the voice.

  Where are you, Nimue?

  I’m coming. Be patient. I can’t find you. Nimue walked the moonlit path until she reached the dens, a rise of tilting rock slabs that glowed like a pile of gravestones under the moon. Even at her age, she knew the dens were off-limits.

  “Why are you in there?” she asked. There was a pause.

  “I need your help,” was the soft reply.

  Nimue climbed onto the rocks that formed the dens, careful not to slash her bare feet on the very sharp edges.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  “I’m hiding from you.”

  Nimue peered into a crevice between two large rock sheets, where the moon shone on a patch of dirt floor some ten feet below. She had always been a very good climber, and her small fingers found grooves in the rock that allowed her into the hole with relative ease. But there she was engulfed in a curtain of blackness that the moonlight could not reach.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m here, sweet thing,” the voice had said from the darkness. “Come closer.”

  The hum in her stomach thrummed painfully as it pulled her toward the darkness. She realized that whatever was inside that darkness had made her come, had somehow drawn her there.

  “You have your mother’s eyes,” it whispered.

  Then a hint of black fur swayed into the moonlight, suggesting a creature inside the shadows in the shape of a bear standing on all fours. But it was bigger than a bear. It was bigger than anything she had ever seen. Its shoulders squeezed between the walls of the cave. Claws longer than Nimue’s arms slid into the light, and piggish eyes gleamed yellow in a face that looked slashed from a thousand maulings. Loose, bloody jowls hung from its smiling jaws, and patches of flesh were torn out of its long, thick snout.

  Nimue screamed for her mother with her mind. The Demon Bear lumbered into the light, whispering, “Only the seed of Lenore can sate my terrible hunger.”

  Nimue turned and slapped her hands against the wall, searching for handholds. Before she could climb, she felt the tips of three swords pin her to the wall. The claws dragged down her back. Nimue howled. They burned where they cut. She dared to look over her shoulder and watched the Demon Bear tasting her blood, like a child sneaking cream from the froth of a milk bucket. Then it giggled at her. Nimue’s bloody nightdress clung to her legs and back.

  And then she heard her mother’s voice in her mind, urgent but composed. Call to the Hidden, Nimue.

  I don’t know how! she had thought back to her mother. Help me!

  I won’t reach you in time.

  This shook Nimue into action. She closed her eyes and reached out. She reached out her thoughts to every rock, leaf, and branch, every grub, raven, and fox. She screamed to the Hidden with her thoughts, as the Demon Bear tasted her scent on the air, then dipped its head low, brushing the dirt with its bloody snout. Nimue could smell its rancid stench of death. The Demon Bear’s jaws unhinged and stretched to swallow her whole.

  She kept calling to the Hidden.

  The crevasse wall trembled under her palms and the hum in her stomach rose to a high pitch. The Demon Bear snorted and looked about as the cave bucked violently and dust filled the air. Nimue had heard a crack directly overhead. She looked up and saw a large slab of rock tilt forward from the pile. It fell, like the blade of a guillotine, so quickly there was no time to react. Nimue shut her eyes as she heard the wet, crunching impact. A terrible wailing filled the crevasse on a gust of hot wind before exploding into a thousand different screams.

  After several seconds, Nimue finally found the courage to open her eyes. She remembered staring at the mighty slab standing upright before her. Its sharp edge had bisected the Demon Bear’s skull.

  Nimue looked into the fire. “Nothing was ever the same after that. The scars never healed, which many in my clan took to mean I was cursed. Even my father’s eyes turned cold. He no longer held me. After that night I began to have visions, and sometimes they were so strong I would”—Nimue glanced over at Arthur, who was listening intently—“forget what happened. The spells embarrassed my father. They frightened him. He made me drink sour remedies, thinking they would cleanse me of evil spirits. All they did was make me sick. So he pulled away. Started drinking more wine. His moods became dark and violent.”

  “What about your mother?” Arthur’s voice startled Nimue, but his tone was gentle and without judgment.

  “She thought I was special. But I hated her lessons. We fought all the time.” Nimue chuckled dryly, then went silent. She felt shame rising up inside of her, and her eyes brimmed with tears. She turned away from Arthur so he would not see. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  Arthur opened his mouth to say something but clearly thought better of it. One of the logs on the fire snapped. They sat in silence.

  Until screams cut the night.

  Wailing. Harsh voices, carrying through the trees.

  Nimue stood up and quickly stamped out the campfire, cloaking them in darkness. It was hard to tell how close the voices were. Another round of pitiful screams pierced the quiet. A lull. Then a rise of fierce cries, panicked howls for survival. The sound was dreadfully familiar.

  They heard the ring of swords. Then, slowly, one by one the screams went silent. Nimue squeezed her fists against her eyes to fight her rage. They heard a single begging voice and then . . . nothing.

  Nimue went back to her tree and slumped to the ground.

  The accusatory silence of the faceless victims in the forest hung over them.

  THE DEMON BEAR’S JAWS UNHINGED AND STRETCHED TO SWALLOW HER WHOLE.

  TWELVE

  THEY HEARD THE FLIES BEFORE they saw the bodies. The toppled wagons of an ambushed caravan came into view when Arthur and Nimue rounded the bend of a sun-dappled t
rail. A clear, cool November sun fought through the red leaves of the large beech trees that filled the forest. The lumps in the road Nimue had first taken as fallen baggage were soon revealed to be dead bodies. They lay strewn over the path and deep into the thicket, chased and cut down in panicked flight.

  Nimue slid off Egypt’s saddle as they approached.

  “We don’t want to linger here,” Arthur warned. But Nimue ignored him. “They probably camped nearby, waiting to loot the wagons by daylight so they didn’t miss anything.”

  Nimue pulled a woman’s bloody corpse over onto its back, revealing a dead toddler beneath her. The mother’s body hadn’t been shield enough for the paladin’s broadsword. The child’s face was cherubic and peaceful, cheeks and eyelids tinted blue with death. Nimue stroked the locks that spilled out from under the girl’s wimple.

  “You’re a brave one, aren’t you?” Nimue whispered. “I’m very impressed with you. You didn’t cry. You stayed strong for your mum.” She held the girl’s cold hand. She thought of leaving her mother in the temple. She felt so ashamed. “I wish to be as brave as you.”

  Nimue felt a stir in her stomach. The hum.

  The girl’s eyes snapped open.

  Egypt whickered and turned in a nervous circle, sensing Arthur’s tension. For his part, Arthur surveyed the woods, eyes darting for any movement among the trees. He couldn’t keep his gaze from drifting back to the bodies.

  It looked like the paladins had been too lazy for crosses this time. They’d tied three of the Druid men to separate trees and simply swung away at them with their steel until their bodies were unrecognizable.

  Something even more disturbing caught Arthur’s eye. It sat by the front of the caravan. Arthur swung his leg around and dismounted Egypt to have a closer look. It was the body of a woman, propped up against one of the wagon wheels. Her head, which lay nearby, had been replaced with a dog’s head. Someone had drawn words in blood on the broadside of the wagon.

  DELIVER THE WOLF WITCH

  Nimue’s heart pounded. Every instinct told her to run, but the hum held her to the spot. It throbbed in her ears. The girl’s eyes were absent of light, yet open and staring at her all the same.

  “They are watching you.” The dead girl’s lips barely moved.

  Nimue managed to croak in reply, “Who?”

  The dead girl stared at Nimue for a long pause, then answered, “Those who seek the Sword of Power. They wait for you to abandon it so they may claim it.”

  “My mother told me to bring the sword to Merlin.”

  “The sword has chosen you.”

  The thought panicked her. “But I don’t want it.”

  “Who in the bloody hell are you talking to?”

  Nimue jolted and turned to Arthur looming over her. “Noth-nothing. No one.” Nimue looked back at the dead girl. Her eyes were closed. Her cherubic face was still once more.

  “There’s something you should see,” Arthur said softly.

  He led Nimue to the woman’s propped-up body. Despite all she’d seen in the past few days, her knees still weakened at the almost joyful savagery of the Red Paladins. Stifling an urge to vomit, Nimue growled. “And?”

  Arthur pointed out the bloody words on the wagon. “I can only assume this is you.”

  Nimue stared at the words and then closed her eyes and felt her scars burn under the warmth of the sword on her back. She could sense the steel through the scabbard, and an enveloping fury rose up from her guts, into her neck. For a moment she thought it might blind all her senses, but then she steadied her breath and allowed it to writhe within her like some unchained animal.

  “We shouldn’t keep them waiting.” Nimue turned on her heel and walked toward Egypt.

  Arthur turned, confused. “What? Wait—what?”

  THIRTEEN

  ARTHUR LED EGYPT DOWN THE path at a crawl, stopping every few minutes to listen for riders and to scan the terrain. Nimue felt Arthur’s sidelong glances but paid him no mind. She felt far away inside herself. She wanted to unleash the demons. She now knew how to do it.

  She could still taste her father’s sour brew on her tongue, his paste of juniper and rue and coal dust. Her insides twisted at the memory of those sick mornings, writhing on her bedroll, too ill to stand as her mother and father bellowed at each other. But for all her retching and poison swallowing, Nimue could not control her episodes nor expel the demons causing them.

  Eventually, her father packed his seeds and tools, loaded them on a wagon drawn by their only palfrey, and rode north. Nimue had been making dolls that day and came home only to find her mother crying and her father’s wagon turning onto the forest path. He hadn’t even said goodbye to her.

  Lenore tried to pull Nimue into the hut, but she broke free.

  “Papa!” she shouted, and ran after him. It took forever to reach him and when she did, she was so out of breath she couldn’t speak. She could only pull on the palfrey’s reins.

  “Let her go, Nimue,” her father had said.

  Her stifled sobs made breathing even harder. Again, she had tried to pull on the horse, but her father’s switch lashed her on the wrist. Nimue stumbled and fell onto the road.

  “You’ve brought darkness to this family, Nimue. It’s not your fault, child, but you’ve done it all the same. You’re cursed.”

  “But I’m like Mama! The Hidden speak to me, too!”

  “Let your mother explain it,” her father growled. “Let her give name to the shadow inside you. I’ll not speak it.”

  “I’ll fix it, Papa,” Nimue had pleaded. “I’ll take the medicine! I won’t complain!”

  “It’s in your blood, child. There’s no fixing it.”

  “But you can stay for Mama. You don’t have to speak with me, just please don’t go!”

  Her father’s voice was choked with emotion. “Go now.” He flicked the switch and the palfrey moved on. Nimue ran after him for nearly an hour, until the moon rose over the trees.

  But her father never looked back.

  Nor did he come home.

  Arthur cursed under his breath and Nimue’s attention snapped back to the present. Six horses were tied to a set of pines a hundred paces from the road. Nimue could hear voices in the distance. Arthur clucked his tongue for Egypt to hurry past.

  Red Paladins. The effect of those words on Nimue was like a torch to oil. It was a fire that swept through her. Her father leaving, Lenore’s last dying cries, Biette kicked into the dirt, the mocking eyes of the paladin at Hawksbridge, the demon priest’s cold blue eyes, Pym shouting her name.

  Nimue slid off the saddle and ran across the road.

  Arthur hissed, “Nimue!”

  She picked up her pace, ducking under branches, running for the horses. She could hear Arthur’s muffled curses behind her. As she approached the horses and drew the Sword of Power, the horses huffed and stepped nervously. With ease she cut the bedrolls, coin purses, food packs, and waterskins from the saddles, letting them drop into the leaves. She ignored Arthur, who was waving his arms like a madman for her to return to the road, and pointed to the stolen goods. Then Nimue turned to the voices. She squeezed the sword’s warm hilt.

  She felt it. The sword wanted blood.

  She wanted blood too.

  She felt her rage pouring into the sword like another fold of molten steel, sharpening and hardening the blade. She thought she might vomit. Yet it wasn’t a bad feeling, just a monstrous urge. To cut. To kill. To feed. Like a hunting wolf, she thought. Unleashing demons.

  A path sloped down into what appeared to be a glade, surrounded by large rocks.

  Nimue followed the wall of boulders around to the edge of a large green pond, sheltered under generous limestone cliffs, dripping with moss. She crouched in the mud, several feet from the edge of the water. She peered around the leading edge of a rock.

  Red Paladins were on the opposite shore, only seventy paces from Nimue. A fury choked in her throat as she remembered the high-pitched screams o
f the Sky Folk on their crosses while the flames licked their flesh.

  Time to avenge them, Nimue thought. Time to avenge them all.

  There were two in the water. They splashed, laughing like children. The four on shore shoveled food into their mouths. A blanket of stolen booty was open in the mud, likely the desperate handfuls of the family from the caravan. Religious totems, candlesticks, a few small children’s toys.

  Nimue heard a stick snap behind her. She turned to see Arthur. He mouthed, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Nimue pulled her cloak over her head and took off her shoes, leaving them in the mud as she crawled closer to the water. Arthur shook his head vigorously.

  Nimue pressed her chest to the cold mud, dug in her fingers, took a deep breath, and squirmed like a reptile into the pond.

  She reached down in the blurry brown darkness for the stones of the bottom and found them. With one hand she pulled herself forward, while her other hand held the Sword of Power, which gleamed emerald. She heard the muffled horseplay of the paladins and then saw their pale, naked legs kicking in the void.

  On the water’s surface, a monk caught his brother in a choke hold and forced his head down, laughing at his struggle. He caught an elbow in the testicles for his trouble and paddled away as his friend surfaced, gasping for air. They squared off again. The elbowed monk swam at his friend and then hesitated. His brow furrowed. His droopy eyes brightened with awe.

  A girl’s face hovered in the waters below him. Perfect. A doll’s face. Her hair danced and her eyes captured glints of spectral green. The monk took her for a water nymph from one of the pagan stories. He tried to speak as a perfect silver blade entered the bottom of his jaw and tore through the top of his skull. The blade slid back into the water as the monk bobbed for a moment, rivulets of blood pouring down his face, before sinking.