A story.
Petra figured a story would hearten them, take their minds off their resentments.
Though it was almost noon, godshade had brought a night-thick darkness. Snow hissed on the school tent’s roof. Inside, one small lamp produced too little light for lessons. Anyway, the teacher had left Petra in charge.
With the young kin cross-legged around her, she told a favorite story of Kastra, of that far off time when the legendary scout tracked juggers in the wastelands. Without the teacher present, she could embellish as she pleased. While she spoke, the youngest listened enrapt, the oldest with their heads turned sideways, only pretending to whisper mean jokes.
“Though weak from hunger, Kastra followed the juggers to the Pan of Drood, not so far from here,” said Petra, her voice ominous. “At dusk she looked across that fearful bog, where the blood of thousands soaked the peat, and afterward the bodies of the slain sank and rotted where they fell, and none received the Wayrite of the Dead. The night mist that people call corpse-breath was rising.”
There was a hiss of breath drawn in through many parted lips.
It wasn’t by chance that a story of the Drood had sprung to Petra’s mind. If all went as she hoped, she would soon cross that bog herself.
Leaning forward on her cushion, she continued. “Kastra laced her boot tops and gauntlets tight, and wrapped her face so that only her eyes showed. Then she set out, leaping from stone to tussock to rotted branch as nimble as any goat. All around, bubbles of corpse breath rose from the inky water and burst with a foul stench, and green lights glimmered. One slip and she’d have sunk to her waist in the muck and bones and hungry skulls.”
“Ohhh,” sighed the children.
“Soon the mist swirled so thick that she could hardly see the moon. Anyone else would have followed the corpse lights in circles and been doomed. It was then she saw, dimly through the wraiths of mist, the reeds and bushes moving—or so she thought. Only there was not a breath of wind to move them.”
“What were they?” asked Liam, who was six. He clamped his hands over his ears so as not to hear the answer.
“They were arms,” hissed Petra, snaking her own arms upward. “Arms of tattered flesh and rotten bone, rising out of the bog and waving around, looking for something to grab. Skulls pushed up among the arms, with bog ooze and maggots pouring from their mouths and ears and empty eyeholes.”
Some children covered their eyes.
“Was Kastra afraid? Did she turn and flee?” Petra asked.
“No!” shouted Liam, his hands still clamped on his ears.
“Well, I bet she was afraid,” said Petra, quietly. “I bet her heart was hammering fit to burst and she was nearly choking with it. Kastra was no immortal wizard, no mighty warrior in armor, but a Drakhorn girl of seventeen years, a living, breathing human like any of us. She was afraid, like we would be.”
“Did she want to pee?” the smallest girl asked breathlessly.
“Anyone would,” said Petra. “Anyway, Kastra didn’t run away. She wove and leaped like a mountain cat between the reaching arms. But the moon shadows played tricks with her eyes. Suddenly she stumbled into the bog muck, her hands sinking to the wrists. She thought her ankle had caught on a root, but the grip tightened and pulled her back. It wasn’t a root—it was a hand of gray flesh, just risen from the mire!
“Next rose a ring of spikes like wolf’s teeth made of iron, and under that crowned helm, a skull dressed in stinking, rotting flesh. This was a prince of the ancient enemy, a sorcerer with demon powers. His magic had preserved him better than the rest, and his bloodless eyes still swiveled in their sockets.”
The tent ropes moaned and the snow hissed. Petra watched the faces of the smallest kin. Their mouths were open, their breathing shallow, their brows furrowed.
“As the risen man dragged Kastra backwards, she twisted to face him and freed her sword. She raised it high to slash at the arm that held her. But to land the blow, she had to look—”
“Oh, oh, she didn’t, please …” gasped the smallest girl, her face twisted, her breath shaking.
Petra quickly gathered the girl with one arm, and Liam with the other, and held them close beside her. If any child began to cry, she wouldn’t be able to finish the story.
“I’m afraid she did; she couldn’t help it. She looked into that prince’s dead eyes. And you know …” she swept her gaze around the circle of anxious faces. “You know that an unwed girl must never, ever look into the eyes of a dead man who has not received the Wayrite, because …” She paused again, for drama’s sake.
But for the soughing of the wind, the tent was as silent as a grave.
This fragment was chopped from Clanmarks many moons ago. A revenant splinter, just risen from the mire. The pictures are by stability.ai—which means they’re by the ghosts of unknown artists.