2. Chapter One
2
William
N o one knew Death like William. He danced with her most nights, sometimes dared to defy her, though ultimately no power prevented Death from reaping her fill. She was queen, eternal, limitless, especially so here where the stench of death hovered over agonized screams and smoking entrails.
William knelt among mud, gore, piss, and shit. They seeped into his stained trousers. The scent of burning leather seared his nostrils through the cloth wrapped tightly around his face. A soldier laid before him, insides painting his outsides. Slaughter and stench, vomit and copper, wafted from the open wound. Snow flurries clung to his frozen hair and frostbitten uniform.
Every corpse-to-be he stumbled upon reminded him of years ago, a child listening to war stories told by foolish gentlemen with nothing to do. The fantastical tales high society spoke of never painted reality. They gossiped of heroes and adventures, of glory and the Holy Soul guiding brave soldiers through Elysium’s waters, not shit stained trousers, maggot infested abdomens, and gouged eyes.
“Did we win, Doctor?” the soldier croaked in a puff of white smoke. Blood caked his bruised and chapped lips. His left arm lay a foot away, revolver clutched between blue-tinted fingers.
“We did. The monsters of Lockehold are vanquished and the road to the Deadlands has opened. The war will be over soon and we will return home,” William replied in a carefully crafted voice perfected over five years. The serene and collected tone of a physician meant to ease the pain, and passing, of patients. Some patients.
Blood gurgled in the back of the soldier’s throat. “And I will join them, won’t I?”
“After such a marvelous battle? Of course. King Ellis shall mark this day in history, our names laid among golden plaques within his castle walls. Children will sing of Lockehold’s fall and write of our accomplishments in history books. You will return home a war hero.”
The soldier whimpered a delirious laugh. The dying didn’t want the truth. They sought hope, for Death had her claws in them. Her brisk breath nipped at their necks. A temptress guiding them to the other side, wherever that may be, and so the dying sought comfort, a ledge to uselessly cling to.
He tightened the leather strap securing the rifle to his back. The worn gray leather bag of medical supplies he carried would not be of use. The Sight revealed the interior of living beings, a series of shimmering silver strings coalescing to expose the soldier’s torn muscles, blood bursting from his lungs, and a heart fluttering fruitlessly.
Slipping off a glove, he flexed his fingers among the unforgiving cold, then set his hand atop the soldier’s chest. The strings of the world curled around his fingers, gentle in their caress, even if he willed them to strangle the heart beneath his palm. The soldier offered a curious stare.
“Comfort will greet you in a moment,” William said.
The soldier’s heart slowed, weak as an injured mouse caught between a starving cat’s fangs. With a few short breaths, the soldier’s eyes glazed over, and all went still. Tranquil. An end to suffering. Death swept another away although William knew not where.
He had long since discouraged the idea of Elysium, of the Holy Soul shepherding the compassionate dead to their next life. He couldn’t fathom joy after brutal deaths or supreme beings watching over their miserable existence. If the Souls were real, if all the so-called godly beings ever uttered truly existed, then they were malevolent bastards and he wholly despised them.
He didn’t glance at the dead man’s tags. In his line of work, he needn’t feel for these men, merely care for their wounds, end suffering to those who deserved it, and move to the next. As he did now, shifting through corpses of beasts and man alike in search of the next wounded or dying, but his gaze defied him by traveling north to Lockehold, a midnight black thorn bleeding upon the horizon.
Towers sharpened to deadly points prodded at the gray sky, defiant to the world above. Smoke rose from fires scorching upon long terraces and crumbled ramparts. The Dread Peaks, a range of monstrous mountains, ran along either side of the fortress, tips coated in white, casting a looming umbra over the field of dead. A single path sliced through the mountains. The fortress of Lockehold protected that path for decades, until today. They had won this battle.
If the dead could argue, they would say otherwise.
Snow crunched beneath William’s boots. His medical bag swung from one hand and a revolver itching for a fight in the other. A soldier knelt among the grim ahead. Head bowed, the soldier clutched the hand of another man long dead. The corpse of a spion lay nearby, belly ripped open and green guts spilling out, reeking of rotten meat baked in a summer sun. The grotesque creature was an amalgamation of a spider and a scorpion. Eight-legged, two pinchers, a stinger, too many eyes, and a hard indigo tinted outer shell. The webs suffocated prey or pinned them long enough for a spion to drain them of blood. The spion’s stinger had embedded itself in the deceased soldier’s chest. That close to his heart, the poison worked swiftly.
“Doctor,” the grieving man rose and wiped the snot from his nose. A recruit based on his boyish face, plump cheeks, and bloody, albeit uncalloused, hands.
William tugged the cloth from his nose and gazed at the soldier’s name tag. “Do you require medical attention, Oscar?”
“I feel alright, but this cut was bleedin’ horribly earlier, sir.” Oscar revealed a long wound along his arm. Out here, infections took more lives than fangs and claws.
William retrieved a mixture of herbs from his leather bag. The Sight granted wondrous magic, but magic had always been wild and unpredictable.
The strings connecting the world didn’t always obey commands. They disliked taking orders and preferred kind suggestions. If one pushed too hard, if they pushed themselves too far, requested too much, magic replied and the response was rarely good. He, and all others with the Sight, knew to use assistance when they could, something to ease the pressure of their abilities. For his healing, herbs and potions worked wonders.
After crushing the herbs between his palms, he ran the green paste on Oscar’s arm. The young soldier winced while admiring the wound, stitching itself back together, then healing entirely.
“How does it feel?” He ran a finger over Oscar’s arm, checking for abnormalities.
“Great, sir.”
“Good, now follow me. You do not wish to be here if there are unfriendly scavengers. The medical tents are over there.” He nodded toward the flickering fires. He did a thorough walk through. Nothing could be done for the remaining bodies, and one on his list had been taken care of.
Oscar shut his friend’s eyes and hurried after him. The cold stole the color from one’s skin, making Oscar white as winter itself. Snow clung to the thin layer of brown hair atop his head and his full lips trembled from chattering teeth.
“The bodies of the dead will be returned to their loved ones, won’t they, sir?” Oscar whispered.
“Perhaps. Did he fare from across the sea?”
Oscar’s sniffle gave the answer. Many, like William, were not born in these lands. During the first year of his recruitment, he remained in the Heign kingdom for training. A long year of endless torment. Then came the days of battles that dragged him, and many others, across the sea, closer and closer to the Deadlands behind the Dread Peaks and the monsters summoned within.
“Priests of Soul will retrieve the dead to grant proper burials,” he explained, eyes shifting to the crunch of snow at their back. He feigned looking at Oscar to glimpse their follower; fae scum. He clutched his revolver tighter, and muttered, “Fear not. Your friend may not be home, but he will rest in peace.”
“May the Broken Soul find him true and the Holy Soul see to his rebirth,” Oscar whispered, with two fingers pressed to his heart.
He struggled not to roll his eyes. A friend told him it was uncouth. He didn’t need a lecture from her over his needlessly boorish and unlikable nature. Her words, not his.
“So many dead.” Oscar’s gaze lingered on the decapitated head of a debrak. Titanous monsters, muscled and red as an open wound. They ate men like midday treats and snapped spines easier than flower stems. “At least we ain’t like these poor suckers. Ran himself right into a trap.”
Oscar laughed with a madness to his voice. He kicked the debrak. The head rolled and released a gurgled whine of breath. Oscar cursed and stumbled. William caught the oaf prior to falling into the fatal trick that killed the beast, a fairy ring. Traps created by fae with varying degrees of torment and death laid within, warned only by a ring of mushrooms.
A dry chuckle crept upon them; the pointy-eared vermin William spotted following them. The fae brushed by donning a grin of villainy. She wore a beauty that stole hearts. Complexion perfect even beneath the mess of battle and eyes breathtakingly beautiful, a shade of eternal obscurity against rich ochre skin and white braids woven by starlight. The allure of fae drove one mad, and their personalities were another hoax entirely.
“Watch yourself. We are not immune to fae trickery,” William warned. “Fae are allies, not friends, and it is easy to die at the hands of an ally out here.”
“Y-Yes, sir.”
Oscar shuffled behind William, who kept that hand tight around his revolver, eyes trained on the fae’s back. Waiting. Expecting the worst.
Though mortal kings and fae lords spent months toiling over agreements to prevent the races from slaughtering each other, they did little in the face of a fae’s murderous wrath. Agreeing to fight together didn’t prevent those like Oscar from stumbling into traps. Unfortunate deaths, not murder. The fae always found ways around deals struck, even those that benefitted them.
“A woman,” Oscar remarked with a soured expression, like a toddler sucking on a lemon. “I’ve always known fae to be a rotten bunch, but to send a woman to fight ain’t right. It is a horror waiting to happen.”
“You did not witness their battles today?”
“They were not the ones I was paying attention to.”
“You should. Always.” He gave Oscar a stern look. “The stories spun about fae are tame at best. They torture and curse so as not to kill us with their own hands. Most humans take their lives once a fae is through with them. Do not believe for a second their women aren’t equally vicious. They expect mortal men to underestimate them, and I’ve met many who did not live long enough to regret such decisions. Do you understand?”
Oscar nodded vigorously, then followed to the medical tents without further incident.
A dozen tents had been pitched along the outskirts of the battle, away from filth and along the line of pine trees. Oscar took to helping others outside while William entered.
Heat suffocated the interior. Orbs of flames lit the chaos and stole the chill. The injured spilled from cots to makeshift floor beds of hay and damp cloth. The stench of charred leather and excrement burned the corners of his eyes. Nurses hurried to attend to the worst injured while soldiers scurried past carrying corpses to make room.
“William,” a cheerful voice called.
Charmaine Tuckerton hurried forward, her military uniform seared up to the elbows and caked in crimson. A bandage wrapped around her bald head, and remnants of healing remedies stained her cheek.
Towering over most, Charmaine had little trouble shoving through the masses to wrap William in a tight embrace. “What a relief, you’re alive,” she muttered against his temple.
“I am relieved to see you, too. Has anyone looked at your head injury?” He settled a hand on her temple, catching the strings that felt too tight. She had a concussion.
“Yes, there is nothing to worry about, and we need our medics to tend to the others. I have nothing more than bumps and bruises otherwise. What about you? Are you injured? I wanted to join the initial search, but—”
“Tuckerton!” Charmaine jolted at the shout of the Head Medical Officer, Marsha Montgomery.
Montgomery went by her last name only. Never liked being called Marsha because the men scoffed at her before she entered a room. One of the very few female medical officials of her status, she had to be stern and borderline cruel to survive here. That’s probably why she was barely forty and already gray as a grandmother. She glared from across the tent, wrinkled tawny brown hands covered by the blood of a thrashing soldier she kept pinned to the table.
“Cauterize this wound, now! Move it, man!” Montgomery bellowed.
Charmaine’s expression fell. William squeezed her hand. That was the most either of them could do here. Others would see Charmaine as sick for daring to say she identified as a woman. No one could fathom why one born a man, supposedly mortal representations of the Holy Soul, would want to be a woman.
“Yes, sir!” Charmaine hurried to the back of the tent. Fire crept over her fingers. An anguished cry followed the hissing of flames and smoke.
Removing his jacket and rifle, William joined nurses at a nearby cot.
Hours passed. Darkness settled. Those meant to die, had. They laid in droves outside. Forty among them wore silver shrouds to represent lost fae. Resilient rabble. Forty had been the most fae lives lost in a single battle. Although, once a man spoke of an assault where seventy fell. No one believed him, and as expected, the fae cared little for their dead.
A group of the rotten dregs converged by one of the supply carts, belonging to the human troops. They had no issue stealing, and mortals had long since ceased arguing. Fae were easily outraged and impatient to seek revenge for the smallest slight. A selfish lot. William despised them. Their nonchalance, their disdain, the general lack to feel outside their own greed and lust for mayhem. War was troublesome enough. Fighting alongside the fae made war worse. They were good for one thing and one thing only—
Fuchsia light burst through the camp, followed by a wave of blistering heat. The fae cried out. A series of victorious chants grew in the face of shadows closing in. The fuchsia flames dimmed to flickering sparks within the palms of a pompous fae.
The bastard and his entourage stepped into their kin’s circle. His raven hair sat a glorious mess atop his head, wound loosely at the nape, and roseate eyes brighter than gems. His tattered clothes hung against a muscled form. When he laughed, it was joyous and evil and proved what the fae were good for; fearsome power. Fae wielded magic better than the air they breathed. The pink tinted fire danced between his fingertips, illuminating his suave features. A face that most would look enviously upon.
Perhaps fae were good for two things. They had always been charming to admire, flawless and magnificent. Everything anyone could yearn for, and even what they wouldn’t expect. As much as William, and many others, hated working alongside fae, none denied their grace made the sun shy. Yet another weapon in their long arsenal, a way to deceive lonely and desperate souls.
Charmaine appeared carrying the heavy aroma of disinfectant, wafting from the towel wiping her raw hands clean. “Nicholas Darkmoon,” she whispered, awestruck.
“You speak his name as if we are to be impressed,” he said.
“We should. He’s the son of a High Fae who holds tremendous power. The fae revere him, in their manner, and thus revere his son.”
“All I see is a cursed jackass who likes to show off.”
Sweat dripped from his brow thanks to Nicholas’ infernal flames. The sparks danced over his broad shoulders, flickering at his back like feathered wings. Such magic was unnatural, tainted, and wielded by the enemy they battled against. Thus, the sight of Nicholas put him on edge.
“Lockehold must have had something.” A hopeful gleam caught in Charmaine’s down-turned eyes. “I heard Nicholas was sent more as a delegate, but he has been appearing frequently during important battles. Rumors say he throws tantrums after a boring siege.”
“Only a fae would call any siege boring.”
“If I had to wager, he is in a good mood. Lockehold is the key to the Deadlands. We’ve broken through. There must be little more left to do. We can go home. I can…” Charmaine said no more, less she risks unpleasant interactions with the simpleminded.
“Albie,” William whispered. He hated using that name, but they agreed it was different enough from her deadname that it wasn’t an utter torment to use. He pressed a finger beneath her chin, gentle and nurturing, to break that hopeful gaze away from creatures intent on snuffing it out. “Do not trust hope. She’s a painful and disappointing mistress.”
“Hope has never failed me. Hope gave me you.”
“A group of ruthless boys with a lot to prove and a pained cry brought us together. At most, a dose of dumb luck.”
“Such optimism, William. Where ever did you acquire it?” Charmaine sank to the floor. “I want to sleep through the night and have three meals a day with snacks in between. I want to look like myself, to sing, and dance, and be happy. I want this damned war to be over. I want to go home,” she whispered in a breathless voice others shared in the middle of the night when they believed no one listened. William, too.
He wanted to hope. He dreamed of home, of afternoon tea, his favorite asiatic lilies in the garden, a soft bed, a mother’s comforting embrace, his brother’s teasing laughter, and his father telling him long-winded stories. What he remembered of that, anyway. What he hoped he still loved about normalcy.
He craved the life before suffering, war, and cursed fae, like the annoyed one heading their way with fuchsia flames at his back.