Dark Souls Read online

  It was through a window that I spotted her. I was high up in flats, raiding, when they started to march into the small town. And they were led by a woman more beautiful and deadly than any I had ever seen before.

  Her hair is strong in my memory. Silver and straight, like a polished sword. And her face was all sharp angles, like knives. She rode a horse shrouded in shadows, and the orange torch-light bounced of her chain armour.

  Looking back, I guess she was a General.

  Back then, we were looking for others like us, but that’s when we realised it was too dangerous to go to the towns and cities.

  Best just to keep away.

  The fae started to burn the town, but we had enough warning that we could escape, and we fled down the highway, and didn't stop until we reached a quaint farm.

  Since then, it always felt like they were chasing us, at our heels. I feared I would never outrun them.

  I glance around at the others—the twenty humans surrounding me and the guards and the army ahead. I guess I never did outrun them.

  I look at the runner boy, bound and gagged on a cart ahead. He will never outrun the fae. No hope of escape left for him to cling onto. Don’t need a crystal ball to see that his future is total despair and darkness.

  Just as I think it, the army comes to a sudden stop, and the dark, familiar feeling of danger rolls through me. All my muscles seize up into hard balls beneath my skin. Sweat is quick to dampen my palms.

  Ahead, a shout splits the air in two. It’s fast followed by the thick, heavy pounding of hooves on the asphalt. Steeds come barrelling down the side of the standstill army.

  As they draw nearer, the General’s face sharpens in the dim light back here, and he looks as ruthless as he did when I first laid eyes on him. Dark hair, dark diadem, dark eyes. He is the darkness.

  Instinctively, I take a side-step closer to Adrianna. Her hand finds mine and she squeezes tight. Her palm is hot and clammy against mine.

  “What are they doing?” I mutter under my breath as the steeds pound down the road, toward us.

  “They are coming for him,” she whispers.

  I trace her gaze to the runner tied-up on the cart.

  “Don’t look away,” she warns. “It’s worse if you don’t watch.”

  I think of when the boy’s father was decapitated at the post. I recall the guard hitting me on the back when I tried to turn away, tried to ignore what the dark fae were doing. That was just a warning, I guess.

  If I look away again, who knows what will happen to me. I’ve already been whipped at the post, too. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’m far out of chances.

  Fuck up again, and I suspect it will be the last time.

  Caspan pulls his steed’s reins before he reaches us. Beside him is Cheekbones, and like magnets, his eyes find me instantly. He really has it out for me. More than ever, I need to stay under the radar—stay the hell out of their way.

  Cheekbones must be fairly high up in the ranks. I suspect he might even be Caspan’s second in command, since his tent is normally parked beside Caspan’s, and his authority is never challenged by the other fae.

  If Cheekbones was in charge, I would be dead by now. Slaughtered without hesitation.

  Or, on second thought, would I? Because I’m certain that it’s Caspan’s interest in me that has painted a target on my blood-stained and grimy forehead. If Caspan wasn’t here in this army, if he wasn’t the General, would my existence in this group be a little easier?

  To avoid Cheekbones’s gaze, I turn my stare to the runner on the cart. Lazily, he writhes against the ropes binding him. But the fight has long since left him. His efforts are weak and tired, and a ball of pity blossoms deep inside my chest.

  Is that what I’ll be like in my final moments? Numbed survival instincts, strong enough to move me, dull enough to leave me succumbed to my fate.

  The guards in front of us divide the space between the cart and our group. They turn on us and usher us backwards.

  The space between us and the cart widens.

  Caspan speaks in his foreign tongue. Even though I can’t understand the words he speaks, his authority rings through his tone and captures the whole of the army. Everyone is watching, silent.

  Two guards abandon us and make for the cart.

  The runner starts to twist with more vigour, pulling at his restraints. His face has paled to the pallor of a sun-bleached stone. He looks about ready to puke or pass out.

  His body seizes up and he winces as the guards grab him. They heave him off the cart and, with lazy tugs, tear the ropes from him.

  I’m a fool—I almost think for a moment that they’re going to let him go, give him a chance to run. Of course that’s idiotic, and the hope that started to blossom inside of me is quickly snuffed out.

  The guards use a black-metal chain to tie the boy’s hands together. Then the chain is fastened to a black hook on the back of the cart. He’s meant to walk with us now, I think. It seems an easy punishment. Too easy, and I’m starting to panic again.

  More is coming, I know it in my churning gut.

  In a swift, fluid move, Caspan throws himself down off his steed, and lands like a tiger on his feet. He rises up slowly, and ice-cold fear starts to trickle down my spine. I watch him closely as he wanders over to the runner.

  The runner boy pulls on his chains. The rattle is all that breaks the silent air. Until Caspan withdraws a knife from his belt and the song of a blade sings out.

  I cringe as Caspan strikes out at the boy, and the blade slices through the back of his calf. The runner chokes on a cry and crumples to his knees. My own leg throbs with sympathy pain.

  “On your feet!” Cheekbones shouts, then dismounts his steed.

  A guard grabs the runner by the underarms then hauls him up to stand. He is uneasy on his feet.

  Cheekbones pulls something large and round, like a ball, out from his saddle. I squint at it, waiting for the dim light to give better sight—but then I realise what the ball is and bile crawls up my throat.

  He tosses the severed head of the runner’s dad, and it lands on the cart with a thud. It rolls around for a long, horrible moment before it settles in place, and the mangled face of the head stares up at the boy.

  I realise the horror of it.

  The boy will be forced to walk behind the cart with a wounded leg, bleeding out, all the while facing his father’s decapitated head. The boy will be constantly faced in his final moments with what he caused. The blame of his father’s death will haunt him to his own death.

  If there was ever a doubt of how cruel and wicked the dark fae are, it has been squashed in this moment.

  Monsters. The lot of them.

  Caspan and Cheekbones mount their steeds, then ride off to the head of the army.

  Caspan didn't look at me once.

  I don't know how to feel about it. Does that mean I’ll be allowed to slip away into the shadows of the group and go unnoticed? After the whipping, he probably lost all interest in me. Here’s hoping, at least.

  It’s a few moments before the army starts to move again. I notice that this time, our pace is that bit faster than before. Too fast for the runner who hobbles to keep up. His chain is stretched thin, and I doubt it will be long before he succumbs to his injury and collapses. Maybe he’ll be lucky and bleed out before he can fall behind.

  The silence that hangs over the group is heavy for a long while. It must be hours before the first soft murmur of chatter starts to rise up from us. Then the guards begin to talk among themselves in their strange language.

  It’s then that Adrianna breaks the silence between us. She lightly elbows me on the side. “Here,” she says and I catch sight of the protein bar in her hand. “You haven’t eaten in days, you must be starved.”

  I take the bar into my hand and frown at her. “Days?”

  “You know what I mean,” she huffs at me.

  “No, I just meant—I didn’t know I was out for that lon
g,” I say. Surely she’s wrong. I couldn’t have been out for days after the whipping. Unless that black powder knocked me out longer than I thought.

  “Yeah,” she says, a pip back in her voice. “I checked on you every day.”

  “Really?” I arch my brow and tuck a dirty strand of yellow hair behind my ear. What I wouldn’t do for some shampoo or even soap to spread through my hair. “Why?”

  She shrugs. “Dunno. Suppose you’re growing on me.”

  A small smile fights to settle on my lips. “Lucky me.”

  She snorts and turns to look at me. It’s only then that I see how poorly she looks. She’s paler than the bleeding-out runner boy, and a sweaty sheen glistens over her face.

  “He visited you too,” she tells me in a whisper. But now I wonder if she speaks softly because she has no energy, rather than to avoid attention from the guards.

  “Who did?” I realise her hand is still in mine, and the sweatiness of it has nothing to do with fear of the dark fae, and everything to do with how unwell she is.

  “The General,” she says. “I saw him go into the healer’s tent while you were recovering. He went in every day, when most of the camp was asleep.”

  It’s not good news. I know that. I know that this information should flood me with fresh waves of panic, and it does. But still, there’s an inexplicable bud of relief in my chest as I hear those words, as I realise that maybe his interest in me hasn’t shifted away.

  “I still can’t figure out what he wants with you.” Adrianna sounds worried. More worried than I expect her to be. Maybe she isn't the only one growing attachments in the worst of places. “I know you said it’s your tattoo, but I’m not so sure.”

  “Me either,” I confess. “But it’s not something I’ll ever get answers to. He’ll kill me before he explains anything to me.”

  “True. I don’t think we’ll ever know anything—why they keep us alive but kill so many others, or what they want with us.”

  Before we can say anything more, the runner trips over himself and cracks to the ground. Blood spills out over the black road, making it look like there’s a tarry puddle spreading out.

  The guards don’t yank him to his feet, like I expected. They watch—we all do—as he struggles to stand on his own, his wrists being strangled by the tightening chains as the cart moves on ahead without him.

  He makes it to his feet, and I let out a choked breath of relief. Not for him—for myself. I can’t stand the thought of watching more brutality. If I could shut my eyes and cover my ears through the rest of the horrors to come, I would. But that would only get me in more trouble with the fae.

  We move on ahead.

  The runner’s weeping carries on the cold breeze, pulling pangs at my heart. He doesn't weep for himself. At least, I don’t think he does. I’m almost certain he cries for his dad, whose severed head faces him through the trek.

  I can’t watch him another moment. I turn to Adrianna to pick up our chat, but the words are frozen on my tongue at the sight of her.

  The further we walk, the worse she looks. And she looks just like I felt when my back was being shredded by a whip. Her eyes are shut. The sweat on her brow rolls down her nose and hangs at the tip.

  I untangle my hand from hers.

  Her hand goes limp at her side before I loop her arm over my shoulders, and take some of her weight on me. She mutters a nearly inaudible ‘thanks’ that is fast to wisp away on the wind.

  “Are you ok?” It’s a stupid question, but I ask it anyway.

  She waves me off with a weak flourish of her other hand. Then a wince quickly twists her face, because she moved her sore arm.

  “I should get Hassan,” I say and look over my shoulder to scan the humans. But I don’t see him since the twenty of us are pressed together, and the light is too dim to make out faces that aren’t right next to me.

  “I’m ok,” she mutters. “Just help me keep going.”

  I nod firmly, but I make a mental note to fetch Hassan once we stop. But that isn't for a while.

  We trek for a long time before we reach the outskirts of a forgotten town, whose streets are littered with face masks and pamphlets and pools of dried blood turned crimson on the black roads.

  Everyone falls silent once we reach the edge of town. It’s like a ritual. The dark fae do it to contain their excitement, to be predators and hunt their prey silently. But we do it out of respect, I think. Because we know what’s going to happen here. The same thing that always happens, and what faces each of us at the end of the journey.

  Total destruction.

  3

  This town is small compared to the last. It’s empty, and I couldn’t be more relieved about that. It saves me from watching people be slaughtered in the streets. It saves me from hearing their screams of agony tear through the air.

  Because there’s not much action, we can sit for a short moment. The guards are relaxed, though I doubt they have forgotten us completely. I get the inkling they want us to take advantage of their backs turned to us and make a run for it. That way, they at least get some action and can chase us down. They want the thrill of the hunt, since there’s no such thrill offered in this town.

  The dark fae who aren’t guarding us split into two groups. One brings down the town, loots the buildings, then starts fires. The other simply watches from the sidelines.

  The morale of the dark fae is low. I can feel it in the diminished atmosphere. They are disappointed that there’s no people here to fight back. Some even look our way longingly, as though they want us to be set free so that they can chase us down. Just like the guards.

  I’m beginning to wonder if that’s what our purpose will serve in the end. A final hoorah for the dark fae. A final hunt before they leave our world for their own.

  Are we just game, meant for the final slaughter?

  For a while, I sit silently beside Adrianna and watch the looting happen around me. Mostly, it’s just water bottles and cases, and some packets of food. A slight replenish of our stores.

  Adrianna leans her head on my shoulder. Her breathing is so soft and steady that I think she’s sleeping.

  Once the flames devouring the town start to rise up, I can see the rest of the human captives better. I can see the dirty, grimy faces around me. Most of the others do what Adrianna does, and catch some sleep. I can’t sleep with pungent stench of fire all around me.

  Neither can Nicole apparently. She crawls over to us from a metre or so away.

  Looking between me and Adrianna (who doesn't stir), she says, “Bout time I get my scarf back.”

  I follow her gaze to Adrianna’s shoulder, where the scarf is loosely bound around her wound. My eyes narrow into slits and my upper lip curls at Nicole.

  “Are you fucking serious?” I spit.

  She stares at me blankly. “It’s cold. I’m cold.”

  “Fuck off.” I kick out at her.

  Nicole jerks back and, with a sneer, scoots back to the little group she hangs with—a younger boy who looks like a red fox, and a hairy guy whose chest is like a sweater poking out from under his torn shirt.

  Adrianna stirs from the commotion. She lifts her head from my stiff shoulder and looks around sleepily. I watch as she rubs her fists against her eyes.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just Nicole,” I say. “Don’t mind her.”

  The firelight is rising up over the town. The smoke is starting to thicken. It won’t be long before we’re moved out of the town where we will watch the settlement be burned to the ground from a safe distance. It’s what usually happens. The fae—even the ones who aren’t joining in the destruction—like to watch the fires consume the towns and villages. They like to watch chaos.

  In the growing light, I catch sight of Hassan down the other end of the group. He looks up as though he can feel my gaze on him.

  I wave him over.

  He plods through the parked group and makes his way over to us. Before he crouches down in
front of Adrianna, he asks, “How are you feeling?”

  She tries to wave him off, but I cut in, “She’s not good. Sweaty, sleeping a lot.”

  “All right.” He gingerly peels apart the scarf-bandage from around her shoulder. “I’ll just take a quick look.”

  “I’m fine, really,” she says, but doesn’t put up much of a fight.

  Hassan has the make-shift bandage off within seconds, and the bloody scarf falls to the ground. The smell hits me first. Her wound stinks. Smells like rotten eggs. It takes all my willpower not to cover my mouth and nose from the stench.

  I force myself to look at the wound, and I think I might be ill.

  Hassan’s face is grim as he inspects the bullet hole. It’s clearly infected. Around the wound is a cluster of yellow-filled bumps, packed with pus, and a faint green slime has gathered inside of the wound.

  Bile sears my throat, and I’m forced to look away. I hide the vomit climbing up me with a swallow.

  Adrianna stares at the wound with a distant look on her face. “There’s no point,” she speaks as if talking to herself. “Just leave it.”

  Leave it to fester? That’s how Olaf died. An infected wound.

  Will I soon be watching Adrianna take her last breaths before I have to move on? Or will the dark fae kill her before she becomes a burden? Already, a few of the guards are eyeing her with an amused glint in their hungry eyes.

  A cold hand clutches my heart. Fear deadbolts to my stomach like lead, and I scoot closer to Adrianna. How miserable would I be in this group without her? She’s my only reprieve from the horror. If we’re not friends, we’re at least co-survivors, partners maybe. And that’s enough to spur panic through me at the thought of losing her. Then I would just be left with nasty Nicole.

  But what can I do? What can any of us do for Adrianna?

  Unless Hassan has a magical course of antibiotics in his deep pockets—which, by the look on his grim face, he doesn’t—then she will die. She will die from the infection that will probably spread into her bloodstream. Or the fae will end her for being weak before the infection can really start its war against her.