Page 45 of Rise of a Fallen Man

The sound of my real name coming from the chapped lips of the stranger thundered through my mind.

“Do I know you?” I studied the scars on his face, searching for the features I might recognize. But his face was so disfigured, it looked like a grotesque, unfamiliar mask.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” He smirked. “Of course you don’t. No one does anymore. It’s me, Das. Remember? We both worked for Traeh, what feels like a lifetime ago.”

“Das?”

I knew the name. It belonged to a dark-haired boy only a year older than me. He came to Traeh’s establishment a month afterme and stayed for less than a year. After several complaints from customers about him, Traeh asked him to leave. The women complained Das was too rough, even when they had paid him to be gentle.

“What happened to you?” I stared at the complex map of scars on his face.

The web of them covered his entire face and neck, descending into the neckline of his shirt too. Some were long and narrow, as if left by a blade. Others looked puckered and discolored, like burns. One scar slashed across his left eye. The eyelids healed in a way that kept that eye almost completely shut.

“Monsters, Salas,” he croaked. “Monsters have been at it for as long as I remember.”

“What monsters?”

“You call them women. I call them beasts. They love blood. Pay good money to see men writhe in pain. Even more money if they get to inflict it.”

“Did they do this to you in a fun house?”

“A fun house?” He exhaled a coarse laugh. “They had fun, all right. But to someone like us, that’s a place of horrors.”

“Das, I’m sorry about what happened to you. But what you did—”

He jerked at the approaching sound of footfalls against the cobblestones. His one good eye opened wide. Horror replaced any sense of intelligence in his expression.

“Demons are here. Monsters are coming. They bring filth and darkness. Eternal night is near. Ghouls reign. Can’t you see? They’re too powerful. There is no salvation. No refuge from them. They... We need to fight them. You need to carve their hearts out... Slice their flesh...” His eyes bulged out, rotating wildly in their sockets. Saliva bubbled in the corners of his mouth. His voice descended into a barely comprehensiblemumbling. “They thrive on pain. Give them pain. Until they are no more. That’s the only way... The only way to save this world from evil.”

The woman he’d attacked ran to us from around the corner, followed by the armed city guards.

“There he is!” She pointed an accusing finger at Das.

Her hands trembled as she clutched her ruined dress to her chest, but her eyes glared with determination and her voice was firm.

Das growled, then shrieked like a man possessed. With an unexpected burst of strength, he wrenched his arms from my grip, then punched me in the chest, knocking me off balance.

“Get him,” the leader of the guards ordered.

“Monsters... monsters.” Das fought his way from under me, chanting that one word under his breath.

Gripping my chest where the pain from his blow bloomed, I scrambled to my feet.

“Hold it!” A guard aimed her crossbow at me, drops of milky white sleep potion glistening on the end of the bolt.

“I mean no harm.” I spread my arms in the gesture of surrender.

“This one helped me,” the rescued woman said quickly.

The guard didn’t shoot, but kept her crossbow trained on me.

“Perish, monstrous beasts!” Das took off in a mad dash.

Another guard released a bolt from her crossbow. It hit Das in the back, just above his right shoulder blade. He roared in pain.

The wound seemed to cost him whatever was left of his mind. He whipped around. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, foam dripping from his bared teeth.

“Evil!” he screamed. “All of you shall perish. Drown in your own blood!”

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