Rend the Dark

THE BOY FELT IT BEFORE he saw it.

There was a chill feeling, different from the usual cold
that filled the stone halls of the orphanage. That cold was familiar and
simple. You felt it in your bones. You endured it by hovering closer to the
kitchen fire before the matron caught you, or by sharing a blanket with your
chosen brothers and sisters.

But this was different. This was a sharp-edged cold. Like
the glitter that came off the knife they used to kill the goats. Like the ice
that sheathed the old tree outside and made the branches snap off. He did not
feel this cold in his bones, but in his very soul. And it made him want to
whimper with fear.

He had tried to keep quiet. Already many of the other
orphans were angry at him. The dancers and jugglers had them clapping and
laughing, a rare treat for the forgotten children housed here.

Until he had begun screaming and pointing at one of the
performers.

He had ruined the show, and the embarrassed matron sent the
children off to their dormitories immediately. Their anger was palpable, a
terrible thing he felt all around, and he could hear harsh whispers up and down
the halls of the old fortress that served as the orphanage. “Crazy is at it
again,” he heard. “The lunatic’s seeing monsters again.” He knew if not for his
friends, he would have suffered that night.

His friends Elinor, Alys, Roan, and Kay had not been angry,
though. They believed him. They comforted him, drawing him away from the
performers and out of the room without a look back at the ruined entertainment.
Elinor wrapped an arm around his shoulders as they walked and Roan stared
daggers at the other orphans, defying their anger at his friend. Together, they
returned to the dormitory and prepared for bed.

No, his friends had not been angry like the other children
were. They never were. But he also knew they did not understand. Not truly.
Even he began to doubt himself. Perhaps the cruel whispers from the other
children were right, he thought.

Until tonight. Until he had seen the blackheart just an
arm’s length away from him and he screamed and screamed till his throat was
raw. Where their hearts should have been, oily mud and black smoke oozed from
their chests to cover their bodies. He had seen them three times before, but
never up close like this.

Even now, in the small hours of the night when everyone in
the large room was asleep, the boy remained awake. The fear of the shadowed
juggler would not leave him, and behind his closed eyes, he pictured the
horrible darkness moving over the man. The feeling crept over him more and
more. The cold feeling. Sharp. Dangerous.

He finally could not stand it any longer. His eyes snapped
open, and he looked across the darkened room, past the simple cots the orphans
all slept on.

And he saw it.

The blackheart was in the room. The rolling, oily blackness
spilled from its chest like blood from a wound, deeper even than the dark of
the night. It stood across the room from him, looming over the foot of one
girl’s bed. The boy felt his heart pounding, and he longed to reach out to
touch his friends, either to wake them to see what he saw or to wake himself
from what must be a nightmare. But he was too frightened to move.

As he watched, the juggler’s shape sloughed off, dropping
to the floor like a discarded garment. In its place was something more
horrifying. The head became longer and had no eyes, only a round mouth from
which the boy could see wicked teeth. It craned a long, serpent-like neck
toward the sleeping child while reaching forward with ragged claws at the end
of spindly arms. The thing bent down to feed, and the boy moaned with terror.

The long neck whipped impossibly around, turning its
eyeless face toward the boy. It dropped to all fours and charged across the
room.

For the second time that night the boy screamed himself
raw.

***

Ferran opened his eyes and tried to still his breathing. The
room was warm. All around him were men and women, wearing the earthy colors
favored by the Order of Talan. Many of them had their exposed skin heavily
tattooed with strange symbols and designs. But all of them looked on him with
understanding eyes.

An old man stepped forward, leaning heavily on a cane. Dark
stripes were inked onto his weathered and wrinkled face, contrasting with the
bright white of his long beard. He stood before Ferran and watched as the young
man drew deep breaths.

“What did you see?” the old man asked.

Ferran matched the old man’s gaze and steadied himself. “My
past,” Ferran said.

The old man studied him for a long moment and then nodded
once. He stepped out of the way and made a gesture. Across the length of the
chamber, a heavy iron door swung open, to reveal the creature from his memory.
The monstrous head whipped around and the circular maw puckered at the air.
Long talons scraped across the floor with a high-pitched keening as it drew
away from the open door.

“What do you see?” the old man asked from behind Ferran.

In his left hand, Ferran felt the weight of a long length
of silver chain, and he let one end fall to the floor with a clear, bright
ring. His other hand tightened around the haft of a short spear, the blade held
before him, catching the light of the torches carried by the members of the
Order who looked on.

“What do you see?” the old man asked once more.

Ferran’s lips drew back into a savage smile. “My future,”
he said and advanced on the monster.

Cold wind blew
through the
trees and made gray clouds race across the morning sky.
There was a pall to everything, and even the rich fields around them seemed
dull and faded.

As the wind blew hard, slipping beneath his cloak and
chilling him, Hileon Finchlas wished fervently he was back at his desk. There
he would have had a small fire going in the hearth. Perhaps a small pot of stew
bubbling on a little iron hook beside the fire, as he worked his way through
recording the fall tithes from the outlying villages of the march.

But instead he was standing out here. Hungry, exhausted,
and freezing. Hil pulled his cloak tighter about himself and looked at the
other two men waiting with him at the crossroads. They had been in the great
hall last night as well. It had been good to see Riffolk there, at least. The
tall young man had been Hil’s friend since their time together at the
Collegium.

Though they had traveled all through the night with no
sleep, Riffolk seemed more restless than normal. He paced the small stretch of
road, and his hand fiddled constantly with the handle of a longsword he wore at
his belt. Riffolk always wore the blade, even when working in the keep. He had
once confided in Hil that had it not been for the wishes of his parents, he
would have entered one of the Razor schools instead of the Collegium.

Hil wore a blade today as well, but it was a strange and
unusual event for him to go armed. He wore the weapon awkwardly. The belt kept
sliding down from the weight of the scabbard, forcing him to reach under his
cloak and adjust it.

Riffolk let out an explosive sigh. “Did your friends not
know to expect you here?”

Hil’s jaw dropped at his friend’s boldness, and he shot
Riffolk a cautionary look.

The man Riffolk had spoken to turned slowly toward the
young magistrate. He fixed Riffolk with an icy stare. “I did not say they were
my friends,” Warden Mesym Aker said, his voice low.

Unlike Hil and Riffolk, Warden Aker did not answer to the
Lord of Greenhope. In truth, the warden was answerable to no one, save the king
himself. It was never a good day when a warden came to do his yearly
inspection, but it was an even worse day when a warden came for other reasons.

This was one of those times.

The warden stood in the road, his long, heavy cloak
flapping in the frigid wind. His look shifted from Riffolk to Hil, and Hil felt
himself wither under the intensity of that gaze. Aker rubbed a gloved hand
along his neatly trimmed gray beard and seemed to come to a decision. “There
has been some troubling reports coming out of this region,” the warden said.
“Reduced tithes, disappearances on the roads. Weeks back, a royal courier was
passing this way. He did not reach his destination.”

Riffolk bristled. “Greenhope is a large march, Warden. We
magistrates do what we can to maintain order, but even under our scrutiny,
bandit attacks will happen.”

“If I thought it was just bandits, boy, we wouldn’t be
waiting out here to meet an acolyte of the Order of Talan,” the warden said
sharply.

Before he could stop himself, Hil spoke out. “A witch
hunter?” he breathed fearfully. “That’s who we’re out here to meet?” Even
saying the term aloud seemed to cause the hair on the back of his neck to stand
on end. In the old stories the acolytes of the Order of Talan hunted evil
creatures. Beyond those stories there were darker rumors. Everyone knew it was
bad fortune to cross paths with a witch hunter. Hil could not imagine actually
being so foolish as to wait around to meet one.

Where Hil was frightened, Riffolk just shook his head. “So
it is not bandits, but the monsters from children’s tales that are plaguing the
village,” Riffolk said. “Well, thank goodness you called in help for us mere
mortals.”

Aker rounded on the young magistrate. “Before this day is
done I pray to the memory of the First King himself that you will still have
reason to doubt those children’s stories. And you,” he said, pointing a finger
sharply at Hil. “Do not ever use that term around one of the Order of Talan.”
His voice dropped as he caught sight of two figures far off in the distance,
making their way down the road toward the crossroads. “They don’t like it.”

The pair drew closer. The man was tall and lean. He walked
with a sense of purpose, his long strides eating up the road. Strapped to his
back was a length of something, likely a staff or a rod. The skin around his
eyes and part of his forehead were painted a dark black, and Hil felt a shiver
of cold apprehension. The tall acolyte was like a character come to life from
one of the stories his childhood nurse had told him.

The woman who kept pace with the acolyte appeared to be a
witch hunter as well. She was shorter than her tall companion, but her
movements were lighter, freer. She wore a simple coat as well, though cut
shorter, and she carried a heavy iron lantern, swinging it as she walked. Her
hair was loose, and it blew wildly in the wind. Her face did not have the dark
markings that the man’s beside her had.

Aker’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Try not to
say anything unless you are spoken to,” the warden said. “But listen well to
what is said.”

Hil tried to draw himself up taller as the pair approached,
but he felt like his nervousness was readily apparent to all. Riffolk stood
with his arms crossed over his chest. The pair crossed the final distance to
their group in short time and stopped before the warden.

The man with the tattooed face bowed his head. “We received
your message, Warden Aker.”

Aker frowned. “Where is Cadell?”

The woman gave a small smile. “My father was called to
serve at the Spire. We have come in his stead, Warden.”

At that, Aker’s eyes narrowed in understanding. “Mireia,”
he said. “Your father mentioned you to me when last I had need of him.” The
warden’s frown softened. “It was a long time ago.”

Mireia nodded. “Not so long that he does not remember you
as his friend, Warden. He spoke well of you, always. He was impressed with your
courage that day.” There was an edge of sadness in her voice, as if she spoke
of something dark and unpleasant. Hil felt the change in the pit of his stomach
and his unease grew.

The warden drew in a deep breath. “Let us all hope that we
are not looking at something similar this day.”

“No,” said the tattooed man. He did not look at the warden
or even the two magistrates. Instead his attention appeared focused along the
road where the pair had come from, at a grove of trees that marked the edge of
a forest a short distance away from the road. “No. It is something different.”

Aker looked to the forest that held the man’s attention.
Hil could not see anything besides the branches shifting in the wind. The
warden’s lips were set tightly together. “Do you know what it is, acolyte?”

The witch hunter shook his head, eyes bright and shining
amidst the blackness of the tattoo. “Not yet,” he said. “But we will not have
to wait long to find out.”

Aker lowered a hand to the hilt of his sword, and Hil felt
fear blossom in his gut, cold and hard. In the wake of it, he forgot the
warden’s command to remain silent. “What?” Hil whispered. “What do you mean?”

“Your liege sent you with me so that you would see proof of
my concerns,” Aker said, drawing out the words. “Your proof is coming.”

“Ferran,” Mireia said, her eyes focused on the forest.

With a rasp of steel across leather, Ferran pulled the pole
from behind his shoulders, and Hil saw a dark blade at the end of it. With the
spear in one hand, Ferran filled his other with a length of bright silver
chain.

Mireia removed her coat and rolled up her sleeves, baring
intricate tattoos covering her forearms. She held the dark iron lantern in her
right hand and raised it up before her. Her long hair seemed to blow in the
wind, though Hil noticed that at that moment, the wind had died down.

Aker drew his sword, and Riffolk readied his weapon. Hil
fumbled at the hilt with hands suddenly gone numb and clumsy. He managed to
pull the sword from its sheath without dropping it to the ground.

“What’s coming?” Hil whispered.

From within the forest, shapes began to come forward. Hil
fought to keep from yelling out and pointing, but it was clear the others had
seen them well before he had. As they cleared the edge of the forest, Hil saw
what they were.

They were… men. Just men. Their clothing was ragged and
threadbare. Each of them was armed with some sort of weapon, from farming tools
to old, rusted swords and axes.

Beside him, Riffolk laughed. The sound of it almost caused
Hil to jump out of his skin. “Bandits?” Riffolk said. “That is what has you all
so riled up? I do not know what they have taught you at your temple, but I can
assure you, I have faced scum like this before.” With that, Riffolk walked
forward and held up the magisterial seal bearing the crest of Greenhope March.
“In the name of Lord Garre of Greenhope, I charge you to disperse.”

Even as Riffolk spoke, the men approached, each step
bringing them closer. A cold feeling of dread rolled over Hil at the sight of
their slow steps, and as he looked to their faces, the sensation flared. The
faces of the bandits were blank and expressionless, their eyes glazed over and
unfocused. Even in the strong wind, none of them blinked or changed expression.
They simply continued their advance.

“What is wrong with these men?” Hil asked. The uneasy
feeling inside him grew hotter and sharper.

“These are not men,” Ferran said.

In strange, horrifying unison, the group of bandits raised
their weapons high and charged forward. There was no savage yell of fury or
bared teeth. Their faces remained utterly blank and expressionless as they
moved to attack the group.

Ferran rushed past Hil to meet them, striking with spear
and chain. Hil tried to run, to gain some distance from the cruel blades and
blank faces, but he stumbled and went down hard. He rolled to his back and saw
one of the bandits coming for him.

Hil tried to scramble away, but the dead-eyed man
closed quickly, hefting a woodcutter’s axe above his head. Hil raised his hand
in a helpless gesture to ward off the coming blow.

And then Riffolk was there, his sword swinging through the
air and catching the bandit’s arm, severing it just below the elbow and sending
the axe falling to the ground. Hil’s stomach clenched and his eyes went wide
with a maddening horror as he watched blood pour from the terrible wound the
bandit had suffered, and yet the man made no sound, no expression of pain as he
swung again and again at Riffolk.

Riffolk pushed the bandit away and then stabbed him in the
chest. Hil was no expert at swordplay, but he knew a sword through the heart
should fell any man. But the words of the witch hunter, Ferran, rang in Hil’s
ears as he watched the bandit push himself forward on Riffolk’s impaling blade
to claw once more.

These are not men.

Hil watched in a helpless stupor as the thing tried to kill
his friend. Riffolk desperately pulled the sword free from the thing’s chest
and swung again, cutting into the leg. The blow glanced off the thick bone of
the leg, but it was enough to topple the bandit.

As it fell, it looked at Hil with dull eyes. Through the
blood-stained face, there was no twitch of muscle, no blinking of the
eyes. Just the same, flat lifelessness. Then, reaching out with its one
remaining arm, it began to crawl toward him.

Riffolk moved to his side, reaching down and pulling Hil
forcibly to his feet. Together, the two magistrates backed away from the thing
on the ground. Hil looked around, surveying the scene of the fight around them.

All around the crossroads and grassy fields there was
carnage. All of the bandits were down, their bodies twitching and shaking. Some
continued trying to attack despite their maimed helplessness. And yet despite
the nightmarish scene, there were no screams from the broken and bloodied men.
Hil could hear no sound beside his and Riffolk’s labored breathing.

There was a pungent smell in the air, the iron tang of
blood and rotten offal, and Hil felt his stomach clenching. He fought to keep
from gagging.

Riffolk looked around at the scene. “What manner of drug or
chemical could do this to a man?” he said. “I have never seen anything like
this before.”

“Then you have lived a fortunate life,” said Warden Aker,
approaching them. “This is no alchemy, boy. Though I pray that it were.”

Hil followed the warden’s gaze across the grass to where
the two witch hunters stood amidst the downed bandits. Ferran stood still,
spear in one hand and silver chain in the other. He scanned the field as Mireia
knelt down beside one of the still-moving bodies. She carefully put her
fingers on its neck and looked at her companion.

“These are no deadsteps, Ferran,” she said. “There is a
pulse. They are alive, but they appear to have no control of their own bodies.”

Ferran dropped lower, his spear extended before him, and
Mireia shot to her feet. Both of them looked toward the dark wood nearby.

The warden frowned and raised his sword. “There is
something else out there,” he said in a low voice that chilled Hil. “They sense
it.”

“Sense what?” Hil breathed out in a barely audible whisper.
He could not take his eyes from the two witch hunters.

Mireia raised the small, black iron lantern and she began
to chant. Her voice was strong and powerful, and in the eerie silence of the
battlefield it rang out like a bell over the cold wind. Hil could not make out
the words, but as she chanted and sang, the lantern began to glow with a bright
light.

And then the world drowned with screams.

Hil dropped to his knees as all around him the maimed and
broken bandits moaned and screamed. They writhed in pain, as if all the
horrific suffering from their wounds now seemed fully felt. Hil heard men cry
and gurgle their last breaths as they choked on blood.