Page 64 of Howling Eve

Several ravens burst from a rooftop overhead, their maniacal cawing rising over them, and Barok spun toward them, his eyes wide. Raskyuil’s eyes followed them as he re-harnessed his ax and plucked his little mate back up once more. He met Barok’s eyes grimly as the male spun toward him.

“This place is cursed,” he spat. “We leave now.”

Barok bobbed his head in agreement, and they charged at full speed through the fog. Their muscles may have begun to feel the strain after a couple of miles and their breath heaving from them desperately, but neither broke their pace. The fairy horses no longer waited, and he wasn’t sure if it were because the others fled or because something in that fog got them and tore them apart before anyone could leave. He could hear something rushing over the ground behind him, a hissing snarl filling the air, but neither of them slowed for even a moment. If MaryAnne spied anything within the fog following after them, she wisely kept it to herself. The view ahead was bad enough. Eyes glinted in the woods. Ravenous. How many of them had fed upon those who stumbled out of the town in their maddened state and crumpled to the forest floor, their remains left there long after sundown. The hour was still early in the evening as they had passed much of the dwindling light of the day in town, but the darkest part of the forest sheltered them and they followed, their jowls dripping with their putrid venom.

He picked speed, keeping far from the forest’s edge. The flock was rolling in higher, muting the sun. The shrieking howl rose from the woods, and he leaped forward with a new burst of strength. Barok’s head whipped toward the woods, his eyes wide with panic. They flew down the road, their breath blasting from them in deep grunts as they pushed what little remaining strength they had through the muscles of their legs, running as if their lives depended on it. Raskyuil was certain that Barok could feel the same icy approach of death upon him.

Bewilderment filled him, threading with the horror that had settled deep within his being. The fairy hounds hadn’t been so near The Bend. They hadn’t even approached the outer edge of the carnival grounds until he caught a glimpse of their eyes glittering in the fog just beyond the edge of the trees. It made no sense. And now something else was stirring, racing behind them and he could feel it rising voraciously as if it had crawled beneath the town and infested the land there. They were surrounded by death on all sides and their only way was forward, back the twisted embrace of the carnival.

It was all tied together but how? He couldn’t think. He could barely breathe as every resource went into running and keeping his mate safely pinned within his embrace. Drawing the last of his reserves, he charged over the last stretch of the road with the orc by his side and through the yawning mouth of the carnival’s gate, at once consumed by the carnival that so loved them all.

Raskyuil nearly fell to his knees in relief as the magic of the carnival surrounded him, the barriers that both haunted and preserved them closing in around him. Barok stumbled away with a hasty farewell, which Raskyuil returned absently as he headed toward Elwyn’s tent. He didn’t put his mate down; he didn’t even wait for a formal entry or greeting. He merely stumbled into the tent, gently prying the sack from his mate’s frightened grip, and thrust both sack and jug at the aelven lord contemptuously.

“We need to leave,” he spat.

Elwyn chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is our wintering ground. Why would we uproot ourselves from a perfectly comfortable spot?”

“There is something wrong with the humans here. They killed four of our own.”

The aelf’s lips thinned. “Have they really? We will have to cancel day trips into town then, at least until after Hallow Night. Things always settle down then. In the meantime, the carnival will draw those who need us, and will continue to follow our purpose, and we will be safe from harm. In fact, the sooner we reopen, the better, I think. It will remind everyone why we do this.”

Raskyuil stared at him incredulously. “That is your answer for this?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Elwyn gave him a confused look. “Death comes to us all, the carnival reminds us of that. Of the darkness of the netherworld while bringing peace to the living. It’s our purpose.” He smiled as he strolled away toward the back of his tent with his ill-gotten goods. “Just do your job, troll. All will be well soon enough.”

A menacing growl rumbled in Raskyuil’s chest, and he was tempted to set his mate down and go after the male, but he quieted abruptly when MaryAnne’s small hand flattened his chest and pushed. His eyes immediately dropped to her, and she gave him a shaky smile in turn.

“I think I’m ready to go back to our tent…. please,” she whispered.

He inclined his head and gave Elwyn one last disgusted look as the male dithered with something on a far table. He was ready to go as well. But he wouldn’t sleep. He didn’t sleep. Even when MaryAnne was tucked in safely at his side, her body curled against his, spent with the fervent rutting as they spent all their fear and relief upon each other, he didn’t sleep. He stared at the flickering lantern, his thoughts drifting as he considered the nature of the carnival itself.

ChapterThirty-Eight

Raskyuil puffed on his cigar as he stood in the shadows between the ghostly skeletons of the carnival rides. They were off at this hour, the last routine testing finished, which made it an opportune meeting place with Zagrol. The taste of the tobacco rolled over his tongue soothingly. It was his last cigar. He hadn’t happened to see any when they were in the merchant’s shop in town, much to his misfortune. He’d been saving it until he could resupply, but with what he’d seen, he might as well just go ahead and savor it.

The Bend was going to hell anyway. Who knew how long the carnival’s magic would last against it when it was so busy terrifying them to keep them confined within it? And it was slowly going mad. He was convinced of that.

The way the carnival groaned and howled as if in pain and in merriment all at once. It wasn’t just the children it was holding within it. It had its own madness. A madness that drew the fairy hounds to it. And perhaps why they had crept closer and closer as the days passed without anyone even realizing it. And they were still waiting out there in the dark of the forest.

He’d caught a glimpse of them already that morning when he stepped out of his tent. They were deep enough within the woods so that he could only see the faint glimmer of their eyes, but they were there. Circling it like wounded prey. That alone told him a lot of just how sick the carnival had become. Whatever good it had started out as, the glimmer of good that he’d still seen within it, it seemed to all but disappear at The Bend.

He could tell even if the others who lived within it could not, though he was certain that Elwyn knew. The male believed that everything would go back to normal after Hallow Night, and perhaps it had before, but Raskyuil wasn’t so sure. There was a sense of something coming that he couldn’t put his finger on, and it had him on edge, expecting the worst. It was for that reason that he left his mate with the drya twins under the pretense of allowing her to practice since Elwyn was so determined on reopening the carnival soon.

He shook his head and took another deep drag of his cigar. As far as he was concerned it was a bad idea. He understood that the carnival depended on the guests and the energy from their emotions and activity within the grounds. Only part of that power was distributed as magic spun into fairy coins. He knew from living a great many years within the lucumo’s palace that the spirit of places that were birthed with the foundations were very much like any constructed spirit, or servitor. They could gain personality over time, and they could begin to feel emotions the longer that they lived, but they were still simple constructs that required the energy to feed them.

Raskyuil had a feeling that the carnival had been feeding on something tainted within The Bend for some time, drawing from terrible creatures that tunneled deep beneath its surface and perhaps even inhabited the water. He refused to go anywhere near the island, and had no plans on venturing to any of the other towns along The Bend. The fact that Elwyn still wanted to draw energy from The Bend disturbed him on more than one level. And the fact that the aelf also intended to feed on the souls of the dead with the hope of making the carnival grow in strength and perhaps even in size was dangerous when it was already descending into madness.

Throwing more into the carnival wasn’t going to save it. It wasn’t going to right whatever had infected the carnival. It was going to make it even worse because Elwyn clearly had no direct experience with servitors of the nature of which he attempted to replicate within the carnival, because he didn’t seem to know that such servitors require simple purpose. The lucumo’s palace was capable of shifting its physical structure, usually to protect the inhabitants.

The carnival, however, was charged with too many complex tasks. It was to funnel the magic into the reservoir from collected energy to be made into coins. It was to make those within the carnival feel safe and happy, to lull visitors. But worse, it was frightening the inhabitants to keep them inside should they attempt to leave its confines for long.

He was finally seeing it clearly, and what he saw frightened him as much as the infestation of The Bend. A mad servitor could take it upon itself to do anything at all in its confusion out of its love for its people. Even potentially consume those who dwelled within it, absorbing them into itself to keep them safe.

A shiver ran through Raskyuil. He itched to get MaryAnne far from the danger, but part of him was certain that it was too late. And she would never leave without her children or before making any attempt to save them. Regardless, there would be no leaving before Hallow Night if what he understood was correct.

Which brought him there, hiding in the heavier shadows. It had taken most of the morning just to request one of the goblins send his message to Zagrol without making it look too obvious as he tended to his duties. And even longer to get a response on where to meet.The male had best show up.

Raskyuil clenched his cigar between his teeth and studied the shadows with narrowed eyes. He almost missed the shift and bend of a long shadow but caught it soon enough that he didn’t startle when the goblin in question stepped out of it, a humorless smile on his face.

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