Distant Worlds Volume 1 Read online

  Jean Francois stared at him for a moment, then nodded.

  “Come.”

  The priest led him outside and they made their way around to the back of the chapel, where a large pile of chopped wood had been stacked up almost as high as the roof.

  “What troubles you, my friend?”

  “I know what the Vinlanders want from this place,” Ekundayo said.

  Jean Francois’s eyes widened.

  “What? How did—?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I know. But I’m going to give it to them. It’s the only hope of avoiding more bloodshed.”

  “I don’t understand,” the priest said. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Because I need your help. The reavers are much closer than I led you to believe. Even now, they’re watching us from the forest, waiting to attack. If my plan fails, you must stand ready to drive them back.”

  Jean Francois’s gaze fell to the large sack dangling from Ekundayo’s belt.

  “What is that?”

  Ekundayo ignored the question.

  “I’m going to need a loaded pistol and help getting outside the wall.”

  The Vinlanders weren’t hard to find.

  Most of the reavers had taken up position just beyond the treeline at the base of the hill, waiting to swarm up toward the fort when the opportunity presented itself. Ekundayo took only a few steps into the forest before he saw them emerge from hiding.

  Holding the cocked pistol in one hand, he raised the sack aloft with the other.

  “I bring tribute on behalf of New Anjou,” he said.

  The Vinlander captain stepped out of the shadows, his face illuminated by the ghostly moonlight.

  “So this is how you’ve chosen to repay me for sparing your life? What tribute could possibly—?”

  Ekundayo tossed the sack to him.

  “See for yourself.”

  The reaver reached into the bag and pulled out a bloody head.

  Thomas Danford’s bloody head.

  “What is this?”

  “You demanded vengeance,” Ekundayo said. “And now you have it. You need trouble this place no longer.”

  The Vinlander examined the head closely before shoving it back into the sack, which he tossed to one of his men.

  “A fine gift, indeed. And to whom do I owe this generosity?”

  “Ekundayo, son of Amadi.”

  The reaver smiled.

  “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Ekundayo, son of Amadi. My men have travelled a great distance to help me avenge my honor. They expect to be well compensated for their loyalty.”

  Ekundayo raised the pistol.

  “Then they’ll have to make do with plundering empty farmsteads along the river. The fort’s cannons and muskets are trained on our position. All I need do is pull this trigger and they will open fire.”

  The Vinlander laughed.

  “Then you intend to die along with us?”

  Ekundayo pressed the pistol’s barrel against his temple.

  “Better to die doing some good than to be led away in chains again.”

  The two men stared at one another, unblinking. Then the reaver smiled.

  “I believe you, Ekundayo, son of Amadi. So be it. There’s sure to be fatter and easier prey than this place upon the seas.”

  He barked orders out to his men in the harsh, Vinnish tongue. A few of them looked disappointed, but most seemed a bit relieved at the news.

  Ekundayo kept the pistol pointed at his head as the Vinlanders withdrew into the forest. The captain was the last to go, but he paused before following after his men.

  “Tell me, African, what will you do now? Do you expect those white devils to treat you as a hero after you’ve murdered one of their own?”

  Ekundayo opened his mouth to reply, but realized he had no answer. The Frenchmen would almost certainly accuse him of murder even though his actions had saved them all.

  If he was lucky, they would hang him.

  If he was unlucky, he would be chained and sold into slavery once more.

  For one terrible second, he considered pulling the pistol’s trigger once the Vinlanders had gone.

  “I…I don’t know,” he said.

  The reaver captain smiled again.

  “You have a strong spirit, Ekundayo, son of Amadi. Come with us. Learn what it means to live among free men once more.”

  Ekundayo lowered the pistol and looked up at the night sky.

  The stars were so different in this land.

  If the heavens themselves could change so much, what might be possible for a mere man?

  He returned the pistol to his belt and followed the Vinlander into the forest.

  Rain & Iron

  Originally published in True Dark (Red Skies Press, 2013)

  Written shortly after the completion of The Walls of Dalgorod, “Rain & Iron” was another themed anthology submission. The editor wanted stories that were as horrific as possible, with no punches pulled. I had a feeling I was on the right track when two of my coworkers at the time were too disturbed by the story to finish reading it. The story was originally set in a fantasy world I’d been developing for many years, but the editor wanted the anthology stories to take place in the real world, so I rewrote sections of it to place the events in late 16th century Russia.

  Zlygost woke to the touch of cold rain and the sound of creaking iron.

  He opened his eyes slowly.

  The cage was suspended by a chain some six or seven feet off the ground. It was only an arm’s length wide and just high enough for a tall man to stand upright. The iron bars were caked with rust. Jammed into a crouching position at the bottom of the cage, Zlygost found it difficult to move. After fending off an initial surge of panic, he managed to pull his aching body to its feet. The cage swung back and forth as he worked his limbs free and the iron chain above him groaned with every movement.

  He glanced around to find himself in the center of a village square. Most of the old buildings were fashioned from crudely hewn blocks, their crumbling foundations set in thick, soggy mud. Wooden shutters covered some of the windows, but they were scarred with weathered cracks and rotting away at the corners. The rain-swollen clouds hanging overhead blotted out the sun and the gloom seemed to suck the color out of everything, leaving behind only a gray, lifeless haze. Aside from the pattering of the rain and the creaking chain above the cage, the village was silent.

  There were a few bodies lying in the muddy streets. Zlygost pressed his face against the bars of the cage to get a better look at the closest one, a man dressed in simple, woolen clothing. His body was covered with black sores, some of which were as big as a man’s fist.

  Plague, he thought. It had been spreading fast as the refugees from the fighting in Livonia poured into western Muscovy. Along with the famine, it was a fitting consequence of Tsar Ivan’s pointlessly vain war.

  Zlygost pulled back from the bars and looked over the rest of the bodies he could see. All of them bore similar marks. It seemed likely that disease had claimed the entire village.

  “Who are you?”

  The voice came from behind him and startled him so badly that he lurched forward to slam his face into the rusty bars. He managed to regain his balance as the cage swayed back and forth, and he turned around to find two children, a boy and a girl, standing there. The boy looked to be about ten or eleven years old, the girl somewhere closer to fifteen. Their hair was long, tangled, and black. They were dressed in ragged clothing and wore no shoes. Although it was difficult to make out through the rain and the dim light, their eyes appeared to be black.

  “Who are you?” the boy asked.

  The children stood completely still as they stared at him.

  His first attempt to respond left him coughing up bits of grayish phlegm. After taking a moment to clear his throat, he managed to croak out an answer.

  “Zlygost.”

  “Why are you in there?” the boy asked.

  Zly
gost had no answer. The last thing he remembered was leaving the city of Novgorod, but he could not say how long ago that had been or how it had led to his present situation.

  “I’m not sure,” he said.

  The boy giggled and leaned over to the girl.

  “He’s not sure!”

  The girl did not laugh.

  “He’s been touched,” she said. “The nechist stink is all over him.”

  The word chilled him. Zlygost’s grandmother used to terrify him with stories of the nechistaya sila, the unclean force that had lurked in the shadows of old Russia long before God’s church arrived there.

  “Is he going to die soon?” the boy asked.

  “Not yet,” the girl said.

  “What do we do with him, then?”

  The girl stepped closer to the cage, but stopped just short of where Zlygost’s reach likely ended.

  “Leave him. We can come back for him later.”

  The boy smiled.

  “Okay!”

  Without another word, the children walked past the cage and approached the nearest body. They knelt beside it and carefully peeled away the clothing.

  Once the corpse was naked, the children ate it.

  Their mouths opened wide enough to swallow a large man’s fist, revealing row upon row of serrated teeth that shredded through the dead man’s flesh with minimal effort. They tore away chunks of muscle and fat to be gulped down with a single swallow.

  Zlygost tried to look away, but he could not pull his gaze away from the loathsome spectacle. His empty stomach heaved painfully and he fell back against the iron bars as he tried to keep his throat clear. The sound of tiny, gnashing teeth grinding against the corpse’s bones carried above the splattering rainfall and Zlygost’s skin prickled as the children scoured every bit of flesh away from the body.

  There seemed to be no limit to their appetite. They moved on to the next body when they had finished the first, and then on to another after that. Trapped in his iron prison, Zlygost could do nothing but watch their abominable feast with a growing, bitter sense of dread. Within a few minutes, they had consumed every body in the village square, leaving only scattered piles of bones behind.

  When they finished their grisly work, the children returned to the cage. Their long black tongues lapped up the red grime that had collected around their lips as they approached. Once their faces were clean, they sucked away the bits of flesh caught under their fingernails and pulled larger chunks of gristle out of their wet, matted hair.

  “I’m still hungry,” the boy said.

  Panic coursed through Zlygost’s suddenly energetic limbs as he pressed his back against the wet, rusty iron. He imagined them pulling one of his legs through the narrow bars of the cage and gnawing at his toes, imagined hearing the crunch of bone as they tore through his cold, numb flesh.

  The girl sighed.

  “There are more houses on the other side of the village,” she said. “We’ll try there first.”

  The boy smiled.

  “And then we can come back for this one?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What if he’s not ready?” the boy asked.

  The girl glanced up to meet Zlygost’s unblinking stare. Her eyes were empty and black.

  She smiled.

  “Then we wait.”

  Zlygost could not bring himself to move until the children had passed out of sight. Once they were gone, he fell forward and nearly struck his forehead against the bars of the cage. Once he caught his breath, he started struggling desperately with the cage’s lock. It was old and corroded, but still more than functional. He needed some kind of tool if he hoped to open it. There was nothing in the cage itself that he could use to pick the lock.

  Frustrated, he slumped down in the cage and the chain that held it aloft groaned with the shifting weight. Zlygost looked up to see that the chain was affixed to a wooden beam protruding from an old, stone column. The chain was as rusty as the cage, and the beam looked like it was beginning to rot.

  Zlygost stood up and began to rock the cage back and forth. The chain seemed to hold firmly, but the wooden beam creaked under the strain. He kept the cage swinging until he heard a faint snap, which was quickly followed by a much louder crack.

  The beam gave way suddenly and the cage crashed down into the mud. Most of the corroded, iron bars snapped upon impact and Zlygost tumbled out of the cage. His leg, however, was caught between the bars and he felt it crack when he hit the ground. Intense pain lashed through his body and his vision faded into darkness.

  When Zlygost regained consciousness, he lay still in the mud for a few moments before he remembered the sight of those monstrous children scouring the flesh from the bones of the dead villagers. Fear brought him strength once again and he managed to pry his broken leg free of the twisted, iron bars. To his great relief, he found that the bone had not punctured the skin. The discovery did not diminish the pain, however, and it was clear that he would not be able to walk any time soon.

  Anxious that the children might return at any moment, Zlygost crawled through the mud towards the nearest building. When he finally reached it, he unlatched the door, hauled himself out of the rain, and shut the door behind him.

  The interior of the building reeked of rotting food and excrement; Zlygost had to clamp his hand over his mouth to keep from throwing up. Every breath made him want to gag and it took several minutes for his stomach to settle and his nostrils to adjust to the fetid air. Once they had, he tried to get a sense of his surroundings.

  Bits of decayed food were scattered across the dirt floor and a few roughly fashioned pieces of furniture were overturned. At the far end of the single-room dwelling, there were two beds pressed against the wall. Zlygost crawled over to them and found the first one occupied by a corpse covered with the familiar sores that he had seen on the ones outside. The body was slightly bloated and insects were already gathering around the oozing blisters.

  “Who’s there?”

  Zlygost’s heart jumped at the unexpected sound and he would have cried out had his voice not been so hoarse. When managed to still his quivering stomach, he glanced over to the other bed to see something moving beneath the heavy blankets. A young woman’s face peered out at him. Her eyes were swollen shut and tiny droplets of blood seeped out of her skin’s pores. The fever had moved into its final stages; she probably had a day or two left at most.

  “Quiet,” Zlygost said, struggling to contain his disgust at the sight. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The woman’s head slumped back down to the bed.

  “So dark…”

  “Wait,” he said, his curiosity overcoming his sense of caution. “The man outside in the cage. How did he get there?”

  The woman shuddered and her breathing hastened. A thick, gargling sound welled up from her chest as her body began to convulse.

  Zlygost looked back to the door, fearful that the sound would carry out into the square.

  “Quiet! They’ll hear you!”

  Blackish-red bile spilled over the woman’s lips and her back arched as it went into spasm. The swollen pustules covering her body tore open as she thrashed about in a fit of coughing and vomiting. Her piteous, hacking cries grew louder and Zlygost envisioned the eager, hungry children drawing closer to the house. The sound of crunching bone echoed inside his ears and a shudder ran through his limbs.

  He scrambled over to the woman and yanked her off of the bed. She continued to flail wildly when she hit the floor. Her eyes had rolled back to expose only the bloodshot whites, and her throat had cleared enough viscous liquid for her to let out a pained scream.

  Frantic, Zlygost grabbed her blanket and pressed it against her face.

  “Be quiet!”

  The woman struggled, but Zlygost slammed her head against the floor and forced the rough fabric into her mouth. He groped around for her nose under the blanket and clamped it shut.

  “Quiet!”

  She tried to
push his hands away as she gagged, but the fever had left her too weak to put up much resistance. After only a few moments, her limbs slowly dropped to her side and her body grew still. Zlygost fell back onto the ground, his heart racing.

  The woman had stopped breathing.

  He didn’t bother removing the blanket.

  The feeling of her face squirming beneath his fingers clung stubbornly to his skin and Zlygost frantically shook his hands. He wiped them off on his wet pant legs and then rubbed them in the dirt until his palms were cracked and bleeding. The resulting pain pushed the horror of what he had just done aside, and his thoughts returned to the children that were roaming somewhere in the village.

  When they came back to the square, they would be looking for him.

  He looked around the room for anything that he might be able to use to fashion a splint for his injured leg. The search produced nothing suitable to brace it, but he did find a shovel leaning in one of the room’s darker corners. It would make for a crude crutch, but it was better than crawling through the mud. He hauled himself up on his good leg and reached out to take it.

  When his hand passed into the shadow-draped corner, he saw something moving on it. He yanked it back and shook it out again, thinking that perhaps an insect had perched upon his skin. Seeing nothing, he decided that it had been a trick of his weary eyes and he reached for the shovel again.

  This time, he watched his hand closely. As it entered the shadow, he saw tiny, black tendrils sprout from his skin’s pores. They writhed slowly like blind worms emerging from the soil, brushing against one another and intertwining as they spread across his exposed flesh. The shadow itself felt warm and dry, far more comforting that the cold, sodden air that hung inside the dwelling.

  His eyes widened and the frantic terror seized him once more.

  Nechistaya sila.

  He grasped the shovel and withdrew his hand from the shadow. The black strands vanished immediately as the dim light touched his skin again. He studied his hand intently for several seconds, but could find no indication that there was anything wrong with it beyond his self-inflicted injury.