Chương 64: Hurtful Memories

The forest lulled him into an unnatural sleep. His dreams and memories pulled from his mind to sooth someone else while unrecognizable thoughts filled his own consciousness.

"You'll never survive that jump, Elenya." Elenya? Isn't my name Wretch? She opened her eyes and a salty breeze brushed against her skin. Three children stood on a cliff overlooking the dark ocean. They weren't supposed to be here, but the old dockworks were riddled with gaps for those small or daring enough to squeeze through. She turned, looking down at her friends. They were all the same age, yet she stood a full head taller.

A blond girl in an oil-stained overall clasped her hands together, looking down the steep cliff. She gave a yelp, falling onto her behind and crawling away from the edge.

"Even if you survive the fall, the waves will crush you," she stammered. Beside her stood a boy with a wide grin and two missing teeth, dressed in a similar rough overall.

"And if the waves don't, a beast will eat you. My pa says the reef is full of them, and he was a fisherman before he became a baker." Elenya crossed her arms and stared out at the sea, defiant despite the rapid thumping of her heart. The waves crashed against the stones in fountains of foam, and beyond stretched an expanse of dark water to the horizon. Only the armored steamboats dared to fish in the horror-infested waters.

"I want to dive," she said, stepping towards the edge.

"So I am going to dive." She took two quick steps and leapt, throwing herself towards the murky depths to the echo of excited screams from above. The scene froze, burning away at the edges like a picture in a stove, smoldering away until nothing remained. With the fading memory, his thoughts grew stronger, given a brief chance to think before another scene took its place. This isn't my dream, it's hers. Is she alive? Am I?

"Hey, Elenya! What are you dazing off for?" She opened her eyes, finding her thick arms slumped over a table cluttered with bottles. The room was cramped, smelling of salt and oil. A dozen throwing knives pinned a newspaper to the wall, and a bed was shoved against a wall that barely blocked the sea breeze. In a doorframe stood a bald man with an eyepatch, arms crossed in disapproval. She knew him. They had worked together for years. Then why did his name slip from her mind?

"Sorry, Daevel. What's up?" The words came out of her mouth without so much as a thought. The man sighed.

"The revolt has spread. A depot by the dock went up in flames this morning." She stretched with a yawn.

"And?"

"The military has ordered us to stand with them. It's time to choose a side." The world fell to smoldering ash again, leaving a moment of lucidity. These are things that have already happened. The world built itself together, burning into view just as quickly as it had faded. The ten of them sat around a table with stiff expressions. This was her crew. They were reliable, strong.

"What do you think?" Daevel asked, leaning forward with forearms marred by scars.

"There is little chance the revolt goes anywhere," said a shifty-looking man with sharp features.

"It's doomed to fail."

"Don't get me wrong, I agree with them," a young woman with a scar over her nose said.

"Those Nov Yanosk snobs think they can own everything under the suns."

"If we join the revolution and it fails, we are done," Daevel said.

"It would mean the gallows for mercenaries like us."

"It's a shit situation," the shifty man muttered.

"What do you think, Elenya?" Daevel asked. She shrugged her shoulders.

"As long as I can eat and drink, I am fine with either." The woman with the scar covered her face with a hand and shook her head. The table turned to black ash, spreading up to the people, and lastly their faces melted away, leaving a void of nothing but a struggling sense of self. The black ash reappeared, growing into a new scene. Rain poured down. A tall fence surrounded their group of ten, all dressed in waxed raincoats. An imposing building stood behind them. The head administration building of Yenvograd.

She had sprinted past it many times growing up. Daevel leaned against his halberd, a massive weapon made of cast iron.

"Remember, we just buy the paper-pushers long enough to pack. When the mob comes knocking, we'll escort the four-eyes to the station and leave. Job done."

"We won't be able to come back to Yenvograd for a while," the woman with the scar said.

"Enjoy it while you can."

"I'll miss the salt gin," the shifty man said, holding a crossbow close to his chest.

"As long as we don't hurt them, they won't hurt us," Elenya said.

"We are Yenvograd folk too."

"Forever the idealist," her female colleague replied.

"But you're right." If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Rumbles and shouts came from down the street, then the light of a dozen lanterns played against the windows along the street. Finally, a tidal wave of figures with makeshift weapons washed over the cobblestone.

"Let's just rough them up a little," Elenya said.

"They'll get the message." The feet of her crew turned to black ash, spreading up to their faces as the world crumbled like burning paper, building into a new vision. The crowd pressed against the fence with enough force to bend the spikes. From above, the rain hammered against the street.

"We got to go, where are those bloody bureaucrats!" Daevel said as he jabbed his halberd towards the crowd. A board, sharpened to a makeshift spear, punched through his neck. His expression turned from determination to shock. He stumbled to one knee, holding a wet hand up to his throat as his halberd clattered against the cobblestone.

"Daevel!" shouted the shady-looking man, catching the man in his arms.

"Inside, now!" Elenya shouted. She took a step forward with a sword in each hand, her crew rushing towards the stairs.

"It's locked," the woman with the scar said, panic creeping into her voice. Rocks and broken bottles rained down.

"They locked us out," someone said. Elenya sheathed the weapons into her sleeves, raising her hands into the air.

"We give up. We need a doctor or a healer. Take whatever you want!" The front ranks of the mob screamed, not in anger but in pain as they were being crushed against the metal bars. The spiked fence collapsed inwards, sending the closest people tumbling over it. Over the pained screams of the trampled rioters, the mob roared, "Justice for Yenvograd." Elenya retreated up the steps and held up her hands.

"We surrender!" She glanced to her side. The shifty man holding the bleeding Daevel.

"A healer! We need a healer!" she roared over the mob. A rock whistled through the air, cracking against the skull of her female co-worker. The next moment, the mob crashed towards them with shouts of terror and fury like a wave from the dark ocean. The next moment, Elenya's sword was lodged in the chest of a middle-aged woman pushed forward by the rioters. Stones hailed, and her own team tried desperately to get through the door.

Elenya cut another as a bottle with a burning cloth shattered against the door behind her. The shady man and the rest of her crew burned alive, their screams reduced to primal howls of agony. Elenya just cut and cut, blind with fury and fear. The baker's son, her cousin's wife, anyone unfortunate to step forward. When her blade cracked, she took a weapon from the ground. The scene froze, the faces of the mob crumbling to ash. She opened her eyes.

She knelt on a mound of corpses, clutching Daevel's halberd dripping with blood and gore. In the hollowness inside her, an Ember lit with the raving of whispers and burning heat. But mostly her throat hurt. She realized it was because she was screaming. The scene froze again, burning away into pitch black. Darkness swallowed everything, sight replaced by a burst of unfamiliar sensations and recognizable emotions. Hunger and pain. Thoughts that weren't his rushed through a bestial mind.

Runt of the litter, born from the corpse of a blind broken thing. Something had taken her, something brutal. Now, she was trapped in a cave, and though she couldn't see, there were others like her. Starving hounds. There was another creature there too, waiting at the exit, stopping them from leaving and that thing was strong. Anything that approached died screaming. That creature only sat there, waiting for something, but for what she didn't know.

It must have passed many cycles of warmth and cold since they woke up. Bellies churned, and claws scraped against stone. It was about to begin, she knew. Somewhere, a maw, frothing from hunger, lunged into the dark. A yelp echoed as sharp teeth cut into tender flesh. As if they had all been waiting, chaos erupted. Kin slaughtered kin and Vishnii's blind world became a chorus of agony and laughter. The hunger burned away, replaced in a moment by a new sensation.

Pain, her blood pulsing from wounds along her twisted limbs. Something squirmed between her jaws, she bit down. With a crunch, sweet liquid drenched her throat in a sense of bliss. She fed on the flesh of her dead brethren. She was the only one left. A painful burning sensation filled with raving growls washed through her, and she snarled in surprise. The snarl turned into a howl of pain as Blessed power filled her chest. Brutal visions pulsing through her mind while she slumped to the ground.

For the first time in her life, strange shapes filled her head, broken bodies and thrashed fur covered in blood. She could see.

"Oh, little kin of my Flame, all bloodied and beautiful, sorry to have hurt you like this," said a voice. She turned her head. At the other end of the cave stood a man, just beyond the sea of corpses. His hair was white, and he didn't look strong, yet her claws quivered at the sight of him.

"I am Grendel. I will lead, and you will follow," he said. The world burned away from view, rebuilding itself in a flash of twirling ash. The chieftain lunged at her, and she turned to mist just like he had taught her. The leader of her pack was a hound merged from four others, each with claws coated in grey steel. She appeared between the cold stars above and the fire-lit camp below. Her claw slammed down, tearing into its many heads.

Yelps and laughs of excitement echoed all around as the rest of the tribe watched the bloodshed. She was strong. The scene burned away, replaced by a new one. She was the matron of the pack. Only five other hounds below the Scar-spines could match her strength, and they all commanded their own tribe. She ruled parts of these lands in the shadow of the peaks above. There were things out there in the lowlands she didn't fight, but with time perhaps even they would fall to her claws.

The things slithering between the peaks, however, were creatures far above even her. She gnawed at a bone, content in her burrow. A shiver jolted down her body, an uncompromising will and authority ingrained in her being. In an instant, flame flooded through her and she swirled around with exposed teeth as eyes opened on her body. In the doorway stood the man, Grendel, white hair and blue eyes. Four seasons had passed since they last met. Those delicate features of his made her appetite grow.

Yet she knew that despite all she had suffered and grown, he could tear her apart, push her to the cold ground and sew her eyes shut, as he'd already done.

"Oh Vishnii," he said.

"Grown all the way to Blaze, I see." She crawled onto her knees with a growl. That frail human hand reached out, gently caressing her snout.

"I hurt you," he said.

"But suffering is fertile soil to beasts like us." She only quivered, despite her power, her claws and her fury. Every fiber of her being told her she was without chance, a subjugation carved into her heart from a dozen beatings to the edge of life itself. He spoke again, "You feel it, don't you. The vibrations from the mountains. The time is here."

"I will attack the other tribes. You will unite them, tell them it's the humans in their fortress who are challenging you."

"In four weeks time," he whispered, "You charge Sternthal, hunt and kill every blessed human behind those walls, and I'll let you be as free as mist." The scene burned away into nothing with growing lucidity.