Hollow Kingdom

Chapter One

Earsleh Outerlands

I could smell them. The scents of rot and decay always hung in the air long after the Hollows had gone. Finnrey and I stood in the sparse cover of trees and stared at the farmhouse. The door hung askew, no smoke drifted from the chimney, and even the birds were silent.

“It’s too quiet,” Finnrey whispered.

“Quiet is good,” I said, keeping my gaze on the house. “Quiet means they’re gone.”

“Or eating.”

I winced at the grotesque picture those words conjured. “No doubt they were here.”

She put a gloved hand to her nose, probably to try and mitigate the smell. “No doubt,” she agreed. “Let’s go back for Gaz, Nize, and the rest. We can clear it as a team.”

That was the protocol. The Hollows were unnaturally strong, and they rarely traveled alone.

The farmhouse might look empty, but if some of the brainless monsters were inside or around the back, out of sight, Finnrey and I could easily be overwhelmed.

Not that I was overly concerned. I had been fighting Hollows for over a decade, since the age of twelve.

Finnrey had been fighting them even longer; she was three years older. We could handle a few Hollows.

Still the protocol was designed to keep us alive, and it had done its job so far.

Every able-bodied man, woman, and child in Earsleh took at least two turns a year in the outerlands, either on patrol or at the wall.

We were lucky to have the sea as one of our borders or we might have all been required to take even more turns a year.

No one save the king was exempt from duty, not even royal princesses, like Finnrey and me.

We were three weeks into our month-long rotation, and this farmhouse was the third time we’d seen evidence that Hollows had breached the Barrier.

I could remember years ago not seeing one of the monsters or any sign of them for a year or even two, but I’d recently heard men and women who’d returned from a Barrier rotation whisper that the numbers of the Hollows were growing.

I wouldn’t have doubted them except they often claimed the Hollows’ attacks were bolder and coordinated.

Hollows didn’t have the ability to organize.

My father was right that too much time on the Barrier turned people paranoid.

Still, this third Hollows’ assault in as many weeks made me wonder.

I shook my head. If Gaz were here, he’d say the Hollows’ attacks weren’t bold at all.

He’d remind me the Hollows didn’t think.

They acted on instinct and hunger. Seemingly insatiable hunger.

If a few of the monsters made it through our defenses and surprised the residents of this farm, they might have easily killed and eaten the entire family.

Finnrey stepped back and I made to follow her just as we heard what sounded like a cry. In front of me, Finnrey’s head snapped up. The top knot she wore to secure her long dark hair seemed to vibrate with tension. “Was that—”

But I had already turned and started for the farmhouse. Hollows grunted and hissed. That cry had sounded like what a child might make.

“Mara!” Finnrey whispered. “Wait.”

But I couldn’t. If a child was inside alone or in danger, I couldn’t afford to wait. I was almost to the door of the farmhouse when Finnrey grasped my shoulder and spun me around. “No time to get the others.” I shook her off.

“I know. But we need a plan.”

“The plan is we go inside and save the—”

Another cry sounded and Finnrey’s eyes widened.

This time, before I could charge ahead, she pushed me behind her and gave me a look that meant she outranked me and would remind me of that if I didn’t do as she said.

So I took up the rear, turning my back to brush against hers so I might watch the yard and the line of trees we’d emerged from.

Finnrey moved forward, and I followed blindly.

As we stepped into the doorway, the light dimmed and the smell intensified.

The Hollows had been here. No question. I had to resist the urge to retch.

Instead, I put my arm to my nose, breathing shallowly against the dark fabric of my tunic.

I heard Finnrey catch her breath and knew whatever we’d walked into must be bad.

Still, I’d been trained well, and I kept my eyes on our egress.

“This is Finnrey of Highcastle,” she said, clearly but not loudly. “Is anyone here? We mean you no harm.”

I held my breath, listening for the cry we’d heard earlier. But no sound penetrated the thick stench or the twilight inside the modest farmhouse.

“Stay here,” Finnrey commanded.

I rolled my eyes but didn’t argue. As she moved away, I pressed my back against the doorframe and slowly dragged my gaze from the yard to the interior of the home. What I saw made my belly roil. I had to swallow and look away again.

Don’t look. Don’t look, I told myself. But some innate desire to know, to see, made my head turn back to the carnage.

This had once been a gathering room in the home.

A table and chairs were turned over in front of what had been a cozy hearth.

Pots and pans littered the hearth area and pallets for sleeping were strewn across the floor.

The last few nights had been cold, and the family had probably been sleeping near the hearth for warmth. Had they been sleeping when the Hollows came? Was that why they hadn’t fled to their safe room? Every home had one in case of attack by the Hollows.

But it was clear that the family had not fled.

The first body was unrecognizable. I thought it might have been an older man once, but his head had been severed from his body and I didn’t see it near his ravaged torso or shredded legs.

His intestines spilled from the open cavity of his abdomen, looking very much like the carrion left by predators for scavengers to feast upon.

Beside him was a female. Her head was still intact, and one eye stared at me.

The other was gone as was most of the side of her face.

I could see the bone of her jaw and the thick, black, swollen tongue inside her mouth.

I should have looked away then, but my gaze was drawn by the child.

I couldn’t tell if it had been a girl or a boy.

I couldn’t even tell the age. Almost nothing was left of the torso.

The abdomen had been a feast for the Hollows.

What was left—part of a finger, a foot, and what might have been a calf—lay haphazardly about the room.

Finnrey moved among the butchery, searching for survivors, though she must have known as well as I that she wouldn’t find any.

“Look for the safe room,” I choked out. “Mayhap one of them made it.”

“Good idea.” Finnrey bent, and her short, athletic frame moved gracefully. Her skin, usually a golden hue, was tinged pink, making her appear obscenely alive amidst the death in this room. “I think it’s under him,” she said, nodding to the dead man. “Help me move him?”

I didn’t want to go near the corpse. I’d been in a hurry to enter the farmhouse, and now I was in as much of a hurry to leave.

But I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and made my way across the floor, trying not to slip in the congealed blood and pieces of innards.

I squeezed my sweaty hands inside the thick gloves I wore for protection against contamination.

I leaned over the farmer, my gaze sliding to the form who had probably been his wife.

Without a head, I knew the farmer was gone, but I couldn’t be so sure about his wife.

The last thing I wanted was to be bitten for my trouble.

I saw no signs of swollen red veins on her corpse or that of the child.

Those were some of the first indications of the change from human to Hollow.

“Ready?” Finnrey asked.

“On three,” I said. I counted and together we rolled the body aside.

Finnrey kicked at the blood-stained pallet, uncovering a trap door.

She pulled at the now-exposed woven cord, and the wooden floor panel creaked open.

A dank smell wafted out which, though unpleasant, was far preferable to that of death and rotting and Hollows.

I peered inside. “Is anyone down there?”

For a long moment, we heard no sound, and then we heard that cry again. Fainter than before but unmistakable. “I’ll go down,” I said.

“No, I will. Stand here and keep watch in case they come back. These kills are still fresh.”

“Fine.” As much as I might want to argue, I knew better than to disobey orders.

Finnrey might be my half-sister and my friend, but she would report me—if only out of a sense of protectiveness.

As she lowered herself down the ladder and into the safe room beneath the farmhouse, I trudged back across the sticky floor to look outside once again.

The yard was still clear, the light breeze blowing the dust about.

Most of the farmers in this area grew wheat and barley.

I didn’t know what this family had farmed as the fields in the back had been harvested weeks ago.

With the cold weather coming, the growing season was over and the dry season upon us.

A crash and a shout sent my heart racing. “Finnrey!” I moved as quickly as I could across the slick floor and back to the open trap door. She was in the cellar now, and I couldn’t see her. “Finnrey!”

“Don’t come down here!” she ordered. Her voice sounded shrill, and that tone was so unusual coming from Finnrey that I began to perspire.

“What’s wrong?”

No answer. Another crash and a growl.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I knew that growl. It was one of them—a Hollow was down there.

I wanted to scream Finnrey’s name, to ask what the situation was, to climb down, but if she was fighting one of them, my screaming would only distract her.

And knowing safe rooms, they were small with little room to maneuver. My presence would only crowd her.