Page 11 of The Scattered Bones

“You aren’t alone, child,” The Stranger says as the snowflakes settle with an unnatural twirl, but his tone is not urgent, not worried, and I understand. I’m not alone. Lovec is here. He won’t set foot in our realm until his temple is cleansed, but his spirit is watching. I am glad I bled on his altar.

* * *

I finally reachthe abandoned city, and even crumbling under the weight of one hundred cycles of snow, it is breathtaking. Carved from the very mountain itself, it’s one with nature, a home intended for a god, and Lovec’s desire to return hangs thick in the air. The village I left behind is a sad imitation of this looming structure, and I try to picture what it looked like before evil stole its magnificence.

The grey stone is smooth in some places and razor-sharp in others as it protrudes through the ice. Some structures are small and humble, while others tower high, disappearing into the blizzard. My imagination dusts the piled snow off the streets and sprinkles life throughout the vacant windows. I allow myself a moment to picture the Great Hunter walking among his people. I pretend the Northerners welcomed his secret bride with open arms instead of allowing magic to carve her into pieces for scavengers to find. Lovers embrace in my imagined scene. Children play. Animals roam free. It’s a beautiful sight. One I would have loved to see, and I wonder what he might think if he were here with me. I was never permitted beyond the temple walls. My knowledge of the realm came from his stories. His tales of rich merchants and their hidden jewels, of assassins and their weapons, of lands I couldn’t fathom. He enjoyed telling me as much as I relished hearing them, and now our roles are reversed. I’m witnessing the wonders and horrors of this world, and he lies locked in a box. I shudder, but not from the cold.

A low roar rips me from my reverie, and I stiffen. The entire mountain stills, as if even the storm fears the predators, and I climb up a barren tree for a better view of my surroundings. More of the city becomes visible, and I wish it hadn’t, for I see how close the monster drifts. Pure white with thin streaks of black, so tall its shoulder blades would reach my chest. The tiger is all grace and violence, a malicious beauty. It’s one of many beasts who knows the taste of human flesh. One of many monsters who craves it.

A second rumble answers the first, and subtle movement disrupts the snow further within the city. I hope they haven’t caught my scent on the wind. If they hunt me, I stand no chance, and my eyes frantically scan the frozen buildings. A piece of him is there somewhere, but I don’t have the luxury of time. These beasts will never allow me to search their territory. My only hope of survival is to slip behind their ranks unnoticed. The breath is icy in my lungs. The tree rough against my back. Where is he? Where did they hide him?

A swirl of dancing snow catches my attention, and my stomach pitches. I recognize that pattern. I know who walks there, and I know why he does, but the realization ties my insides into knots. The swirl falls into nothingness before the furthermost structure. Lovec’s true temple. That’s where his bones rest. Its entrance was carved directly into the mountain peak at the city’s back. The sheer cliff’s smooth stone and imposing height make flanking this city impossible. To reach it, I must traverse the convoluted streets, and no one can survive a trek that long with bloodthirsty carnivores on their tail.

The Stranger’s voice penetrates my brain, but I don’t hear his words. I’ll never make it. The distance is too great, the enemy too brutal. For a second, I cannot comprehend how they hid him here. In the Sivatag? In Death’s invaded temple? These places of unspeakable horrors, but then I see War’s blood-soaked face, and I understand. Valka delivered his bones himself. It is fitting since Valka carved him to pieces, and I gag at the memory. Of course, War and his love of brutality walked unscathed within these—

“Damn it, Sellah, Run!” I register panic in The Stranger’s voice, and I nearly fall out of the tree at its urgency. “Why aren’t you answering me, girl? Move your feet!”

The low roar is all the warning I receive before a tiger leaps onto a branch behind me. The monster is all grace and hunger, and without thinking, I throw my body to the ground. My ankle twists, sending a shooting pain up my leg as my palms scrape against ice, and I scramble forward, the beast’s anger rumbling at my back.

I am a fool. A gods damned fool. I was so worried about the creatures at my front that I never noticed the one flanking me, and now I’m boxed in on all sides. I’ll never make it.

“Run, damn it,” The Stranger bellows into my brain, but the snow is too thick, too deep, too unforgiving. The tiger leaps from the tree, landing without a sound, and I grit my teeth, preparing for death.

Snow swirls to my right, and without hesitation, I lunge for it. I move through the drifts toward a structure missing a door. I don’t know how running through it will save me, but if Lovec walks before me, then I shall follow.

The tiger roars a war cry, a savage scream of hunger, and three other rumbling voices answer him as I dive for the opening. I feel the wind at my back, the hot breath on my skin, but the second my body crosses the threshold, the entire house trembles. When no teeth carve through my flesh, I spin, coming face to face with white irises. My fear is a punch to the gut, and if I was half a foot closer, this monster’s fangs would sink into my face. But for all its snarling rage, it cannot reach me. The doorway is too narrow for its shoulders to slip through. Fissures in the stone spiral out from his impact, but the creature is stuck. I burst into ugly tears as the tiger pushes against the structure. And pushes, and pushes, but it’s no use. He cannot fit.

“Run, child,” The Stranger orders, and I flee.

Returning to the blizzard, I race through the empty streets. My brain tries to picture the path to the temple, but the convoluted maze of homes is a twisted skeleton. I don’t know where I am, and the roars have only increased. Three, four, six. They’re closing in. My lungs hurt.

I shove my fingers into my boot and pull out my dagger. Its blade is no match for their fangs, but the solid weight anchors me. I cling to it as if it’s his hands, as if it is his warm skin dragging me forward and not my spinning fear. I notice movement above me, but I don’t look up. The tigers are stalking me from the roofs. What small and easy prey I am. I say his name over and over. If I must die, I’ll die with him on my lips.

The tiger above leaps off the roof, and I fling myself sideways. I break through a rotten door and barrel through a house that’s sat untouched for a century. The air is stale and ancient, but the lack of snow has me careening unrestricted across the floor for the opposite exit. In seconds, I burst back out into the cold, but I barely make it three steps when I freeze in my tracks. I curse with a laugh before retreating within the confines of that home-turned-tomb.

There, collapsed in the corner, is the corpse of a hunter, his body perfectly preserved. His intestines spill from his gut encased in crimson ice, and his once blue eyes gawk at me in their eternal sleep, but it’s not his shredded gore that draws me close. It’s the weapon frozen in his grip. For one hundred cycles, this man lay cold and alone, his sword at his side. My soul sings as I break it free from his icy hold with a few well-placed kicks.

“Thank you,” I say to the dead. I say to The Stranger. I say to Lovec. The blade is still razor sharp, and I shove my dagger back into my boot. I’m no swordsman. I was not bound to Valka and his love of war. I wasn’t raised by Lovec and his demands for bloodshed, but I was baptized in the fire of despair and heartache. Reborn in torture and anguish. Come, oh ancient evil. Take my head from my body. I will return the favor.

I say his name twice as I race out into the cold, but a tiger blocks my path. By the growl at my back, a second cuts off my retreat. I say his name a third time, a fourth. I beg his memory to stay with me and give me strength. I say his name a fifth time, and then the monster charges.

I’m too stunned to move as I watch the creature plow through the snow. He’s as tall as I am, his muscles greater than anything I’ve witnessed. He’ll kill me in seconds. Snap my bones like twigs, and I shut my eyes to picture my beloved’s face. Not his beautiful face, complete with the soot markings. No, I picture his face in the end. The pain. The torture. The agony. I recall his screams. I visualize how Valka forced him to remain awake until it was over. That’s what my mind conjures, the destruction of the man I love, not the beauty of his smile and his scarred lip, his flashing eyes and their golden flecks. Bile rises in my throat. I never replay that moment. I never let myself remember that day. It haunts my nightmares, but now I force myself to. I smell his blood and the black magic. I dwell within his fear. It fills me with an unholy rage, and then my eyes open.

The tiger is upon me, leaping for the kill, but with the grace he taught me over a cycle of stolen midnights, I lunge low and shove the blade high. The tiger roars, and I split him apart, throat to gut, his innards raining down on me. When he falls to the snow, everything is stained crimson, but it’s his blood, not mine.

“That,” I say loud and clear for the mountain to hear, “was for Kaid.”

I stand and meet the stare of the second animal, the gore already freezing to my skin. Revenge is in the beast’s gaze. Revenge is in my entire body, woven through the cells that build my being. We are not the same. I have a reason to survive, to kill, and steal, and hurt, and rage. It consumes me. Owns me. Drives me. I need to live more than this creature needs to feed. It was born of evil. I was born of love. We are not the same.

I scream a war cry as I flee from my new enemy, leaving a trail of carnage in my wake. The tiger snarls behind me, answered by two other voices, and I veer to my right, leaping onto a toppled wall and climbing up to the roof, just like he taught me. From this vantage, I can see Lovec’s ancient temple. I’m so close. I’m too far.

I push my legs faster. Two tigers hunt me from below. Three track me from the roofs, but I don’t stop. A divide approaches, and I leap, but the snow crumbles beneath me. I slide off the edge, catching myself before it’s too late, and as my frozen fingers haul me to safety, pain lances through my calf. I scream in agony, cursing and spitting and raging. Blood pours from my veins in ugly pulses to freeze in the pure white snow, and I almost laugh. Once pure, I’m now tainted. My sin has stained my soul, just like my oozing blood stains the earth.

“Eyes up, child.”

I jerk at The Stranger’s voice in time to watch the tiger who savaged my calf leap to the roof. Mangled leg forgotten, I grip the sword, angling it above me at the monster. It punctures the beast’s jaw and punches out through his skull, killing him as he lands on my prone body. His unbearable weight crushes my chest, but after desperate minutes, I escape his corpse. My ankle gives out as I try to flee, and with a sinking sensation, I realize how badly the beast shredded my calf. Adrenaline allowed me one final kill, but this evil will win in the end.

“And that,” I spit with angry tears, “was for Lovec’s wife.” I rip the sword free from the animal’s brain with a sickening crack. These tigers are here because black magic ripped a wife to shreds. I’m here because a god ripped a husband to pieces. At least, I offered both their souls some vengeance before I die.

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