The Sunderlands

by Anastasia King

  Sounds of revelry gobble up the air with the pillars of smoke from their bonfires. Roguish voices chirp curse words like demented birds perched on chopped down branches. They spend their nights crossing swords out of boredom. Drinking to fill their emptiness.

  I take a position in the shadows. Remember what she’s taught you, Ker.

  On the hunt, Ivaia goes into a place in her mind that houses years of experience and discipline. Fearlessness. Nature requires balance. In Ivaia’s world, she’s on one side of a scale, these Men on the other, and the weight must always be even. They killed nine, so nine will pay. Blood for Blood. She claims that’s what Mrithyn wants. We’ve hunted together countless times. She’s equipped me with lessons in fighting and magic. Ivaia and Mrithyn have both vested their unique powers in me. Every part of herself she’s put into me reassures me she’s here with me.

  The God of Death is here in all things around me. He is in the rotting wood of the walls, the decaying leaves, the ashes. His power is in my hands as they nock an arrow to the bow; heightening my senses as I survey the camp. But something else is here in me too.

  What isolates me from Ivaia is what both sanctifies and corrupts me: The Death Spirit. She has never understood the blight on my soul. My curse. Controlling my power, my cravings for violence and bloodshed, sets my teeth on edge. It’s antithetical to my Divine nature. As safely as her lessons live in my head, an untamed spirit of desolation inhabits my bones. The Death Spirit does not discriminate, and it does not cower. It hungers.

  “You want vengeance,” the echo of Ivaia’s voice reminds me. “Keres is not here to grieve.”

  The Dalis will see me, they’ll look into my eyes before I take their lives. And they will not see a young woman, they will see Death.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to steady my hands. Nine. Only nine.

  Footfalls crunch into the leaves ahead, bringing me out of the stillness in my mind. A soldier stumbles into my line of fire. I withdraw the bowstring as he tugs his belt loose with one hand, lifting a bottle to his mouth with the other. His trousers drop to his ankles and he pisses in the dirt. I loosen my grip on the arrow. His head jerks back as the arrow enters his eye socket. As if in slow motion, his legs go out from under him. His arms flail, his back thuds against the ground, and I recoil at the sound of the glass bottle hitting a rock.

  This one will be for Meir, youngest of the nine.

  Back into my hiding place, I stifle the need to breathe faster. Control your breath, control their death. Ivaia was always saying poetic shit fueled by her righteous anger, but it made sense. I wince, not with disgust but with overwhelming pleasure, as the smell of blood tinges my senses. It burns my nostrils and narrows my vision, and I revel in the feeling. Peering out from behind the tree I’d chosen for cover, I ignore the gorgeous shade of crimson oozing out of his skull. I need a better position, away from the first body.

  I creep around the walls like a vulture circling a carcass. Burying my thoughts in the back of my mind like an arrowhead deep into bone. A guard is leaning against a tree up ahead. I check to see if he’s alone; vision burrowing into the shadows and uprooting every detail. He’s alone. I sneak up behind him, crouching as low as his own shadow. The smell of fire wafts on the breeze, his comrades on the other side of the wall begin singing off pitch:

  “Wallow, wallow, or walk on with pride.

  Follow, follow, in Ahriman’s Stride.

  The Gods are listening to the voices of men.

  When we call upon Chaos or Imogen.

  War, war, we conquer and toil.

  More, more, ‘til there’s blood in the soil.

  Wallow, wallow, or fight on with pride.

  Follow, follow, in Ahriman’s stride.

  He gives us the weapon, he gives us the war.

  He leads us and brings us the spoils of war…”

  Their screeching masks his scream as I grab him, digging my claws into his shoulder. My knife traces a bloody smile across his throat. Holding his limp body up by his shaggy brown hair, I adjust my stance to his dead weight and drop him into the dirt.

  Jaren.

  I wipe my blade on my leathers before sheathing it. Jaren used to start the singing around the campfires. His voice was stunning, bright as a crackling fire. Now he's dead on a cot, soul in the wind, and voice forever silenced.

  I hear footsteps and a conversation looming above me on the wall. Two guards walk at a lazy pace, rounding the curve of the embankment. They’re just coming to me tonight.

  “I swear, it’s like they wait for the trees to move on their behalf.”

  “Well, there’s not much he could have done, anyway. Not with my knife at her throat and my cock in her cunny.” They share a laugh.

  “Must have not liked the poor bitch if he didn’t lift a finger.”

  “They’re spineless. It’s too easy to—”

  I shoot an arrow into his open mouth.

  My next arrow nestles into his friend’s eye before he can scream. They fall off the wall and land at my feet. Whipping the knife back out, I drop to my knees at one’s side. The arrowhead perks up out of his throat. His body, refusing to give in to death, gasps and writhes. With a flick of my blade, the rapist’s pants tear open. Unable to suppress the growl in my chest, I sever his prized appendage. I rip the arrow from his mouth and replace it with his cock. I seethe as he sputters, and I watch until his body stops moving.

  Katrielle.

  This one was for her and for the female he raped. I look toward the other body, limbs bent at ghastly angles.

  Hayes.

  He and Kat would have been wed tomorrow.

  I hear a gasp behind me and whirl toward it. I jump to my feet as a soldier’s nova blue eyes flare at me. I stare back for a moment. My mouth runs dry and a thirst for blood erupts like a geyser inside me.

  Oryn.

  No more feeling, no more memories. Only vengeance, only bloodshed. I lunge for him, bloody arrow still in hand. Dodging his sword, I stab the arrow into his sword arm, forcing him to drop his weapon, before grappling with him to the ground. Our struggle isn’t quiet. My bare feet paw the earth as I fight to get on top of him. We roll over, trying to keep each other at a distance but still in a lethal hold. He bucks between my legs, hands reaching for my face and hair. Grunting, I throw all my weight behind the arrow and plunge it into his neck. He screams. I yank it out and stab it back in until I’ve broken a sweat. The sound of his gasps beneath the arrow subside into the sounds of blood bubbling up in his throat.

  His men are coming for him, for me. I sense them before I see them. Above the groaning of the desecrated forest, I hear their staggered breathing. Mine are the unrivaled senses of a predator. I hear the blood whooshing in their veins, pumping with adrenaline as they run toward that silenced scream. I taste blood and note that he had scratched my lip. I smell fear on the tenuous air as it grows thicker. My hands should be cold where the wind licks at the blood on them, but all I feel is fire.

  Nilo, Lucius, Cassriel, Leander.

  I don’t look, I shoot. The next Man falls. Six.

  My arrow will not miss so long as Mrithyn’s power courses through me. That familiar, otherworldly beast gnaws at my rib cage, begging to be unleashed. Its roar fills my lungs, blasting Ivaia’s lessons out of my head. Another arrow nocked and ready. Dawn has walked into the clearing and stopped short at what it’s found.

  Turning from the sunlight that threatens to expose me, I prowl into the last of the fleeting shadows. I repeat the last three names over and over in my head. Nilo, Lucius, Cassriel. My heart beats their names, louder and louder until it’s all I can hear. That creature within me breaks free of its cage.

  I see him. My arrow rips through the air and sinks into a wide eye. Again, Nilo’s empty eyes stare back at me from his deathbed in the camp. My grip on the bow tightens.

  I hear him. I spin on my heels, arrow biting at the bowstring, ready to soar home. It strikes him through the temple of his sk
ull. “Remember, they don’t see you as a person,” I hear Lucius’s voice. “Remember, all they see is someone in their way.”

  There is now a palpable panic in the air. I’ve raised an alarm that’s sparked an outrage in the camp. I stop searching for another shadow to drift into. I stop counting my own steps. I stride into that orange glow of time between day and night, a beast in the stillness of dawn.

  A smile breaks across my face as another man crosses my path. His scream tells me he’s glimpsed the terror living inside me. Another arrow, another death. The silence after his scream sucks the air out of my lungs like a vacuum where his spirit once was.

  The phantom breeze caresses my face, soothing the part of me that is so like it. So bitter, so brutal and unforgiving. My mind swims with the smell of blood thickening the air. Mrithyn’s entropic power is taking hold of the nine bodies that paint the soil red. He’s here despising the war and terrorism, the perversion of His power. Mortals were never meant to kill. All the blood staining this land calls to me. Keres. He’s in me too, his might reaching for souls through my very hands. Fix it, fix it. Make it right. I hear the echoes of long-lost heartbeats. The earth itself seems to pulsate beneath my feet. A bleeding heart, one threatening to stop. Balanced. For every beat, a moment of silence. All must be balanced.

  My mind is drifting in the waves of bloodlust now. I twirl on my toes, head tilted as I listen for more footfalls. The moan of a Man grieving the loss of his comrade breaks the silence and I move toward him, greedy for more souls. I hear him breathing, and I smile at the thought of silence.

  “Nine,” Heavy hands fall on my shoulders, pulling me to a hard stop. “Only nine.”

  My eyes darken at the sight of those bright, clean diamonds in Riordan’s head. A gasp catches in my throat as he ushers me back in the direction of the loft.

  “What?” The question escapes me but we both know it’s already answered.

  Only nine. Only nine. Only nine.

  His hand stays on my back, reassuring my direction.

  “I should have never come here alone—”

  “You’re not alone, Keres.”

  We’re running now. His long sword is drawn, and my bloodied hands cling to my bow.

  “Hey! Elves!”

  Dirt flies up from our feet as we skid to a halt. I snarl, flinging myself toward that voice— but falter, realizing we're surrounded. A human steps out of the shadow and his arrow trains on Riordan.

  5. DAWN

  Everyone wonders what dying is like. It’s a natural thing to ask. At a curious age, we ask our elders, as if anyone we could ask has died before. When a sparrow falls from the sky, we question the bittersweet nature of everything. We ask our Gods when we cannot answer each other. But when the Gods do not reveal their secrets, we make up our own answers.

  We spin our own web of understanding, entangling ourselves in beliefs, like a child would cocoon themselves in a blanket. Folly. Faith is not benign. Sometimes, our faith tricks us. Pulling a blanket over our heads can be comforting but it is also blinding.

  I don’t blame anyone for trying to assauge the pain of reality with faith-based balms. Nobody can resist asking the question or dreaming up its answers. “What is dying like? Like going to sleep and never waking up.”

  But there’s a preeminent question we should all be asking, with a much more harrowing answer: “How merciful is Mrithyn?”

  I have faith in one thing: The men at my feet saw my God before they died. As I brought the dead justice, the living begged me for mercy and I gave them the final answer. From the looks my prey gave me, I believe dying doesn’t feel like going to sleep.

  Blood is pulsing from a Human’s severed leg and he’s gripping the new end of it in disbelief. I don’t hear his voice, but I know he’s praying as I put him to an end. The blood stops squirting and pools beneath my bare feet.

  Riordan is face down in the dirt and he’s covered in blood. The birds aren’t chirping or welcoming a new day. A Man is sobbing, realizing it’s his last morning. The Death Spirit is snickering with sadistic glee, back in its cage within me. Riordan isn’t moving.

  After that, everything comes in waves of sounds, smells, and sensations. My slippery wet hands roll Riordan onto his back. My legs almost give out with the strain. I check his throat with shaking fingertips before laying my ear to his chest. He groans as his eyes flutter open.

  “Rio! Wake up.” I shake him by the shoulders. A large cut decorates his wide forehead. His blond hair is muddy and blood streaks his face. I push resurfacing images from my mind. “We have to go.”

  He staggers, rising from the ground, regaining his sword and sheathing it. Eyes locked on the trees between us and safety the whole time. He doesn’t once look down at the massacre of bodies. Never looks down at me or what I’ve done. He places his hand on my shoulder for support and we run. The forest hurtles past us as we flee to the safety of the loft.

  Once we’re close enough to feel them, the wards overwhelm me. The magic draws out every bit of panic left in me. I stop him, commanding him to face me as I scan him for injury.

  “What happened back there, are you all right?” I ask, although I know very well what happened back there.

  “I’m fine, Keres.”

  He unbuckles his sword belt and leans on the hilt of his sword like it’s a walking stick. I see he’s bleeding from his leg and a little from his brow. He rolls up his trousers and reveals a scratch. The blood on his armor is someone else’s.

  “Bastard knocked me unconscious, but then you….”

  I can’t breathe. I can’t—

  Doubled over, hands braced on my knees, I empty my stomach onto the ground. I cough and gasp for air. A tremor takes hold of every muscle, stealing control of my legs, and I buckle. He catches me.

  Riordan’s eyes meet mine, concern filling them to the brim. He’s saying something but I can’t focus on his words. My chest heaves against panic’s tightening grip on my lungs. A stabbing pain gnaws at my chest and a dull ache balls up in my throat.

  We had fled like shadows that run from the sun, and no one had followed. A glorious morning broke open the sky, filling the clearing with shades of pink, red, and orange. It reminds me of all the blood. The thoughts in my head sound like a conversation between two people:

  “You should have wiped them all out. Why didn’t you kill them all so none may follow?” My inner Death Spirit growls.

  “I should have stopped at nine. You’re no better than them, beast.”

  The second voice belongs to me, or at least who I was before the Monster moved into my body. Two spirits, one mortal and one belonging to Death Himself. Or myself. I don’t know anymore. I rake my hands through my hair trying to push away the intrusive thoughts.

  “Keres,” The Death Spirit roils in my head, taunting me.

  “Only nine, only nine, only nine.”

  Riordan’s soothing words find space in my mind at last. “It’s over.”

  The crisp morning air settles my shivering muscles. That same chill relieves the sweat on my brown, my palms, and finally fills my desperate lungs. I look up into his eyes again and nod. A weak smile trembles on my mouth.

  “Ivaia is waiting for you at the shrine.”

  “I’ll go get her to come and help you,” I say.

  “I’m fine. If I hadn’t come, you’d be the injured one right now. Maybe.” He straightens my shoulders. “Go.” He flashes me an unconvincing smile. “It’s been a while since I wielded my sword but recovering from battle is muscle memory. Don’t tell her I stopped you. I don’t want to upset her.” His expression shifts into something graver.

  “Okay, I won’t tell her,” I nod. “Thank you, Rio.”

  I turn to go but he stops me, remembering something. “We told her this hunt was futile, that we were throwing grains of sand at waves. Tell her how you felt, what happened to you. Not the men, not me. She must hear reason. These hunts are getting more dangerous for us instead of those it should hurt— t
he Men of the Baore. She needs to see that and come up with a new plan. I know you can help her see the truth.”

  “He interfered.” Her voice cuts through the cavern, echoing off the walls. Our meeting spot is a makeshift temple in a cave beneath the mountain. Always has been. Ivaia is kneeling in prayer before the shrine.

  Well, there goes the big secret.

  “Ivaia, I needed… He came right before—” I sink down to my knees beside her and bury my head in my hands. The acrid smell of the blood staining my hands assaults my nose. Tears stream into my mouth with salt and dirt. They taste like poison and I wish they were.

  “Keres,” She says.

  The only sound to follow is that of water dripping somewhere in the cave. I rise from the cold ground. My eyes burn from sweat and the stench of my stained skin and clothes. I stare up at the statue of the God of Magic, Elymas. Her gaze flickers from his gilded face to my twiddling hands.

  Behind the shrine, a deep pool of water stretches out to the far end of the cave. I strip out of my armor, dropping the heavy leathers into the dust. I let go of all other senses as I walk into the cold water until it reaches my neck. Sunlight slips through a hole in the cave’s ceiling. The intrusion of light unsettles me, and I force myself to wade deeper into the pool where it’s darker.

  “Keres,” I hear her voice behind me. “You can’t swim. Don’t torture yourself.”

  I don’t listen. Right now, I feel no specific desire to float or sink. Stained and in need of cleansing, I am breathing and drowning all at once. I deserve punishment, for the water to scourge me. The weight of the water shifts over my collarbone and its silvery chill kisses my jawline. A gasp escapes me, a desperate need for air overwhelms me. I kick my feet, hoping to push off the bottom of the pool but am met by bottomless, swirling terror. I propel myself upward with aimless hands and spit a surprising amount of water out of my mouth.