EPTNormally, the "about the author" section comes at the end of a book. Fortunately, I’m not much of a writer - I know that, and I don’t mean to be - so I get to put it at the beginning. All the same, sometimes it’s good to tell a story, something to keep the mind occupied, and keep yourself thinking creatively in a world that begs you for thoughtless work. And most of all, I currently lack an outlet for any sort of constructive creativity, so I write. Really, I had originally intended on just keeping this story backed up as I wrote it, so that one day it might be a cohesive whole – but I thought, as long as I’m doing that, why not let other people read it if they feel so inclined? So here it is, the story I’ve been spending time on lately.
Pupils of the Dead
Morris Gideon’s head hung like dead weight from the thin body of the young man, his dark hair swaying from side to side with the cadence of his steps through the snow. He did not know where he was heading, and he had no thoughts of what he would do now. He only knew that he had to go – to not be in this place anymore, this place he had for so long considered home. All around him was a pale white landscape blanketed in snow, excepting only the occasional tree jutting up from the earth like thin spindly hands. Morris kept his eyes downcast. It all looked too much like home. When he looked back, part of him felt that his home was still there – that somewhere in the mess he’d left behind were the boy and woman who had been like family to him, the people who had played his mother and brother. All that remained of them now was in the trail of deep crimson he left in the snow as he walked, and in the grisly mess on the front of his clothes. Too much, he shuddered as his thoughts wandered back, this is all too much to take in. He continued plodding ahead aimlessly for a long time.
One step in front of the other - that was his only plan. At some point he might emerge from this march with the dead to rejoin the living – but at present he dared not. At present, it could only mean facing all that he had lost.
As he walked, his glance was drawn up by a sudden shade cast over his feet by the canopy of trees ahead. He knew this place.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he could hear his younger brother’s voice call from the far side of the forest, from a time when the grass was green, the trees were lush and full, and two boys were passing the time the best way they knew how. He had not been Morris’ brother, truly, but he had been with them ever since his mother left when he was young. And to any outsiders, he’d be counted as a member of the family, even though it wasn’t his birth family.
He had been hiding in the brush nearby. Than approached a patch of thick weeds nonchalantly, and then abruptly leapt forward, yelling “Gotch-ow! “ as he tripped amongst the tree roots and gnarled patch of weeds that he had been so sure Morris had been hiding in.
Morris remembered snickering at the sight, but it was not laughter caught in his throat when he thought back on it. He ran from the place, far and fast, but everywhere he went, it was the same. All around him was the life he led, the boy he was, the people he loved. When he felt he could run no longer, he stopped and curled up on the ground near another grove of trees along the side of a road leading into town. And he wept. He wept for the unfairness of it all. He wept with shame for his part in the ending of long days of games amongst the hills and down in the forests. He wept with sadness for the sweet smile of the women who played his mother, as she put him to bed and told him all would be well in the morning. He wept with anger at black cloaks and snarling lips and the words, more spat than spoken, “Your brother tried to put me to the sword”.
And when he felt he could weep no more, he slept, curled against a tree, half his body pressed into the snow.
Sleep was not kind to him. The dead called to him from the ground – those whom he missed, and those whom he placed there alike. “Why?” they called, rhythmic voices nearly whispering, shaped by rotting mouths on faces with blank expressions covered by flies and maggots. At first it was a formless wailing cry, but over time it formed into one cohesive dirge, sung by mother and brother and murderers alike. He couldn’t understand the words, but he felt their meaning. The dream was punctuated by a familiar face, still smashed in pieces, being melded together by strands of crimson to form the words of the song.
He jerked awake.
He found himself in a bed, with a long white fur pulled over him for warmth. Could it all have been a dream? Would his brother be here in bed with him? ‘We’ve just come to a new house for a time. Worry not, all’s well, you’ve just been asleep a while’ he could imagine himself hearing.
He turned over, but found no one in the room with him. He was alone.
He stood up from the bed and stretched his aching back. A voice called back to him. “Awake at last, are you, lad?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice called back to him. “I expect you’re hungry.”
His stomach grumbled at the prospect of food, but the thought of company did not sit quite so well. He did not respond.
After a time, she piped up again. “Of course you are, what am I thinking? It’s like to have been a day or more since your last meal. Do you prefer jam or honey on your toast?”
He started to respond, but his voice caught in his throat, making only a bit of garbled noise. He tried to remain stony, but she had to leave him alone. She just had to. The impact of her voice was too jarring, and had that tone of all being well – the same tone the woman who had practically been his mother used when she was doing something. She had to stop.
“I... need to leave,” he stammered.
“Leave?” her voice became hard. “Now that’s just shameful. I’ve got a right good bit of breakfast here for you, and you’d ask to-”
She came around the corner brandishing a plate of toast and scrambled eggs and salted meat, but stopped at the sight of him. He supposed he must have looked as pitiful as he felt, because the woman merely pursed her lips together, laid the plate at his feet, and walked back into the other room. Shameful? Morris thought bitterly, yes, quite shameful – how I feel for you at the tragedy of your bread and eggs.
Her voice had an edge of compassion when she spoke again. “What happened to you, boy?”
“Me?” his voice cracked as he responded. Nothing happened to me, he thought, I’m not the one who’s dead.
“My husband said he’d found you caked in blood, but couldn’t find a scratch on you. You’re lucky he found you, y’know? There’s wolves about – and worse, who’d catch onto the scent of blood right quick.”
“I –,“ Morris started. What could he say?
The silence stretched longer than it should have before she spoke up again. “My husband doesn’t think well of you. You might be a boy, but he doesn’t like the smell of you. I can’t force you, child, but my husband will try. You won’t be here long if you can’t tell us what’s happened.”
He found his food had grown more interesting as it lay in his lap, and he began to eat away at it. When he had finished, he stood again. “You have been kind to me, ma’am, but your husband would be right to send me away. I don’t belong here.”
Just then, the front door slammed open and the sound of thick boots clomped into the room. The husband wore a green overcoat and brown trousers, and looked upset. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, boy,” he said. “I retraced your tracks, and they lead back to your house. You know what I found there? A dead boy and a very dead Lord Norbert. Murdered, from the looks of it.”
The wife gasped.
Morris said nothing, but stared at the floor.
“Let’s have it, boy,” the man thundered. “Do ya mean to have us dead too, then?”
“No,” Morris said weakly. “I never wanted anyone dead.” Unbidden, tears came to his cheeks, as he told his story. “Than and Yara, that was the name of the boy and the woman who lived there. They were like my family, more family than I’d ever had before. They took care of me. They played with me. They were the only people in life I felt like I could count on – ever since my mother left. But then one night, I heard noises in my sleep, and I woke to find her arguing with Lord Norbert – he was the man who owned the land we lived on. I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like they were arguing over us. My brother and I, that is. Anyway, it wasn’t going well from the sounds of it, and then all of a sudden, he had a knife in her throat. Even then, he kept yelling at her. Those boys were his, he said, to do with as he pleased.”
The memory of that night made Morris queasy, and for a moment he had thought he would not keep his breakfast down. “And he cut her – again and again and again, with this mad look on his face. I was so afraid – I walked quietly back to our room, but later on, the lord poked his head into our room. No, I thought to myself, don’t let him have heard me. But he said nothing, and the stillness of night continued. In the morning he told us that our mother had gone away for a short trip and she’d be back in a week’s time. Than – that was my brother’s name – he never suspected anything was wrong.
“But I knew better. When we were out playing that day, we made a secret trip to a town nearby. I told Than it was to see the ships come into the harbor. But while Than was watching the ships, I slipped away to a smithy and told the apprentice there all that had happened, and that I’d need a sword to protect Than and me.”
“And this apprentice gave you a sword to slay Lord Norbert?” the man sounded incredulous.
“Well, I kinda told him it was my dad that had done it.”
“I see.”
“Anyhow, he told me that no little urchin was going to get a proper sword out of him, but as it happened, he had an old broken plowshare with a jagged edge that someone had paid him to remove, and if I came back next day I’d have a poor man’s shortsword. Wouldn’t be much of a sword, he said, but it’d be sharp.
“So next day I pick it up and we head back to our home – to find Lord Norbert there waiting for us. We’d be coming with him someplace special the next day, he said. Everything would be better, he said. But something about the look on his face was off. He was excited - too excited for a day spent with a couple normal boys. Maybe he meant to kill us, too. I dunno. But the thought of a man like that being so close with us for the entire day - and I knowing what he was...
“I couldn’t take it. I stashed away my sword, and told myself I’d wake in the middle of the night and kill him while he slept.”
His hands were trembling as he talked now. He was no longer in the nice, quiet, safe home. His eyes were nervous, his voice breaking regularly. He had the same feeling that he had that night – his back was to a wall, but this time, he knew how it would end.
“I fell asleep,” he said, losing himself to tears. “My brother, he found the sword, not long after I woke, and went to ask Lord Norbert about it – but Lord Norbert took one look at the sword and drove my brother through with it. I cried and went to my brother. I told him to be brave, told him I was sorry, sorry he had to die." And at the blade of my sword, he thought, his eyes clouding with tears.
" ‘The boy saw,’ Lord Norbert said to me – with that same crazy look in his eyes I’d seen the night he’d done in Yara. ‘I heard him that night – he saw.’
‘He’s my brother’, I cried, ‘how could you do this?’
‘Your brother tried to put me to the sword,’ he snarled at me. ‘Would you rather that? Eh, would you?’
“He sensed my answer before I got to him, but I killed him all the same.” Morris shuddered.
Unbidden, the memories of the fight with Lord Norbert came to his mind. Morris had struggled to get the sword back, but the old man had thrown him aside easily each time. His own strength had been nothing to speak of, against the strength of an accomplished swordsman like Lord Norbert. ‘It’s too bad,’ he heard Lord Norbert say, ‘I had such plans for you. Such high hopes. Such ambitions. You would have made a fine son. The gods themselves say so.’ The lord’s eyes and face were tight with anticipation, as he quickly brought the sword towards him in a quick thrust. Then the world went mad, yet made a strange sort of sense, too, all at once. He could see everything so clearly. He reached out as if with a third hand, and felt around the room to the lord as he stood over him, the deathblow fast coming. Everything felt so odd, but also right, as though he knew this were the way of the world for as long as he’d been born. And then, his thoughts shifted, his will drove itself into the lord, and suddenly the lord’s body just seemed to fall apart. His face was torn open as if by will itself, and there was a deep wound in his chest. He was conscious of doing it, and yet had no idea how it had happened.
And then, just like that, it was gone. He felt normal again, and the sword clattered to the ground, Lord Norbert’s mangled body falling in a heap on top of Morris, who retched. That face would haunt his dreams for some time.
“You’re lucky to be able to say that,” the man said. Though Morris had clearly fallen to pieces in front of him, the man look unmoved. “Lord Norbert was quite the accomplished swordsman.”
Yes, ‘lucky’ – that’s what I am, Morris thought scornfully. “So that’s the story,” he said. “What do you intend to do with me?”
“Oh, you poor dear, two families lost. The least we can do is-“ the woman began.
“Have you lost your senses, woman? This boy’s just confessed to killing a Lord. Not a well-liked one, but a Lord nonetheless. And you mean to take him in?”
“He was no Lord. He was a monster, and everyone knows it.”
“Aye, but monster or no, it’s a Lord’s murder the guards will come investigating, a Lord’s killer they’ll find, and anyone who helps him is sure to be punished for it. The boy’s got to go – I’ll bring him to the town myself and see that he turns himself in proper.”
“You’d lock him away for-“
“If I were the captain of the guard and he brought his story to me? No, I’d not. But mark my words, woman. We help this one and we’ll just get ourselves tangled up in his mess. I’m not like to do that for-“
“But he’s so young yet, with so much life to live, given a proper home. We could-“
“Just because you’ve not yet had sons doesn’t mean we’re going to go adopting criminals and fugitives just because they seem nice. I’ll have no more of this foolishness. Come on, boy. We’re leaving.”
The man’s boots thundered towards the door, as the helpless woman made some weak noises of protest.
Morris should have argued, he knew. He should have begged to be let free, or better yet, to be taken into their care. The right words and the man would change his tune - perhaps if he were penitent, or if he acknowledged the sense in the man’s words. But no words would come. Did he deserve another life with another family? Did he even want one – given that fate seemed so determined to see him alone?
With the same melancholy demeanor with which he’d come, Morris Gideon stood up from his meal and walked back out into the pale, snowy landscape to follow the man to town. It feels good to walk again, he thought to himself, even if it is to prison.
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The night air was penetratingly cold and the howling of wolves could be heard clearly as Leo Bronston walked down the snowy road with his two companions Crowly Sciggins and Eric Tinsten, drawing two pull carts behind them.
“Are we sure this is the right way?” Leo complained.
“You want me to check the maps a fifth time? This is our road,” Crowly retorted, icily.
“I just thought we’d be there by now is all. Getting awful late,” Leo said, shivering as they walked on.
“Scared to be out in the dead of night, Leo?” Eric chided him.
“Just tired is all,” Leo said, averting his eyes, as a few flakes of snow landed lightly amidst his dark hair. He wanted to go home. It had seemed like a fine way to make a few extra coppers in Virelion – just go bring some Lord’s body back to town for the Captain of the Guard to return to his next of kin. He had felt brave enough then. But then, even cowards feel brave within the safe walls of the city. Crowly had set a course the next day, and they’d set off with high spirits, three friends on their way to make a good bit of easy coin.
But the further out from town they went, the more Leo found himself missing the safety of his home. And Leo suspected he wasn’t the only one who wanted this whole thing done. As they came closer to their destination, Crowly was having more and more trouble navigating, and was all the more frustrated for it – and even Tinsten was beginning to lose heart. He had been downright jovial when they left, but now he was all business.
“Well, you’d be less tired if you spent less time running your mouth and more time running those stumpy little legs of yours, Leo,” Eric scolded.
Crowly chuckled.
“You can keep that to yourself, too," Eric spat at Crowly, "Captain Osmund is gonna run me through for how long we’ve been out, thanks to that lovely little shortcut you took.”
Crowly reddened and made a motion as if to speak, but said nothing. The three continued on in silence. Something was happening to them as they went – as if each of them was slowly unraveling as they walked, leaving behind a little bit of themselves with each step, and becoming more and more lost in the job – and a poorly done job at that. Leo supposed that was just the kind of thing that happened when things don’t go well. As if the gods could read his thoughts, his contemplation was interrupted by a growing torrent of snow. Just moments ago the snow could easily be ignored, but now it was coming down in sheets, making it hard to see more than five feet ahead of you – and a frigid wind began to gust as well. The sooner we get this all done with, the better, Leo thought.
Then Leo saw it. “Look there, what’s all that mess on the side of the road?”
“This must be where the farmer said he found the boy,” Crowly stated. “I told you, didn’t I? We’re just about there.”
Tinsten eyed Crowly warily. “See that on your map, do you? Why don’t we just follow the boy’s trail through the woods. The farmer said he’d followed the boys trail through the snow.”
“Because it takes you a good deal longer to slog through the snow with these pull carts,” Crowly said, the redness returning.
“This may be the only chance we have to take this trail, Crowly, and I’m not taking another shortcut,” Eric bellowed against the howling of the wind all around them.
“Fine then,” Crowly said, the redness of his face deepening as he shouted back. “You take the pull carts and I’ll get nice and warm in one of those cabins while I wait for you idiots.” He thrust his pull cart at Leo and marched furiously down the road, calling back at them without turning. “And maybe after we’re done, one of you can plan our return route!”
Eric just laughed. Leo tried to join in, but no noise would come. He had an ominous feeling about the trail Eric had volunteered him for. He didn’t want to be off the road in the snow at this time of night. Of course, he didn’t dislike it enough to follow Crowly, either. He'd be safer with Eric.
As they walked, he heard wolves howling someplace nearby.
“You don’t suppose…”
“Don’t go soiling yourself, Leo. There’s plenty of wolves out there who’d love to get a bite of you, don’t get me wrong – but the guard’s got them too scared to approach groups of men these days. Used to be these woods was full of wolves. Now, you’re lucky to hear any. You just keep your eyes on that bloody trail, eh Leo? Just keep following the blood – it’ll lead us right where we need to go. That’s what the old man said anyway – just follow the blood, it’ll take ya right to the scene.”
There was a momentary silence before Eric piped up again. “I suppose this is your first time out on something like this, eh? Not me. Not old Eric. This other job I went on - musta been week before last – two of them there were, a lord’s daughters. One got found by a huntsman in some woods south of Virelion. Well, we found the one easy enough, me and Grey – he’s another guardsman ya see – and he says ‘Say, now that’s a mighty fine girl, think the old man’d mind if I took her for a ride before we brought her home?’ And then I say, ‘Come off it Grey, she’d just lay there the whole time, and she’d be all cold on the inside – you think you could really do something like that?’ and he says ‘You’ve never been married have you?’ “
Eric broke into a fit of laughter.
“He wouldn’t-“
“Nah, he was just kidding, I think – I’d sooner run him through than let him do something like that, anyway. Such a sweet little thing, even in death.”
Suddenly, all Eric’s bitterness, all his irritation melted away and he was possibly even more jovial than when they started out. He was acting drunk, Leo thought, or maybe he’s just gotten used to things being terrible.
“Wish we had found the other one,” he went on. He was scarcely giving Leo a chance to get a word in edgewise now, he was talking so quickly – not that it would have been easy with the wind howling and the snow coming down as it was. “Must have been horrible for them – getting lost in the… “ He paused and seemed unable to continue. “Then this other time-“
He’s scared, Leo realized. That did little to calm his own fears. As they went along the trail of blood, Leo felt smaller and smaller. We’re going to die out here, some little part of him whispered, against the backdrop of Leo and his rowdy storytelling. Leo had suddenly become very anxious – every howl of wind hid a muffled footstep, every bush and tree contained a shady something hiding within it, and always, just on the edge of the darkness, something was watching and waiting for him to turn his back. Just keep walking, he told himself. Just follow the bloody trail –we’ll reach the cabin and nothing can go wrong. And there’ll be nothing… nothing will be… his footsteps quickened… following you. He slammed into Eric in front of him.
“Hey, what the… what’s wrong with you?”
“Sorry,” Leo muttered, his eyes still flitting all around in the darkness. “Guess I’m just… in a bit more of a hurry to get out of this snow than I thought.”
A somber Eric regarded him coolly. “You’re getting yourself spooked.”
Leo said nothing.
“That’s how people die out here, Leo.” There was no malice in his voice. If anything, it was steady, understanding. Leo nodded, and for just a moment, he forgot his fears. “One foot in front of the other, and try to occupy your mind, Leo. We’ll get there.”
It was slow going from then on. The cover of snow made it hard to find where the boy had made his trail, but soon enough, they could see the outline of the cabin. As they edged up to the cabin, Leo’s sense of foreboding got worse. Something was watching – something terrible, something vicious. He was a fawn shaking in the cold, and the wolves were closing in.
“Well,” Leo started at the sound of a voice. He had nearly forgotten Eric was there, “here’s our Lord Norbert,” Eric said, kneeling down in the snow.
The scene was gruesome – too gruesome. Lord Norbert’s face was shattered and hideous to look at, his jaw dislocated at a sickening angle as it hung from his face, and the flesh peeled away from around his eyes and nose. “How could such a small lad be capable of…” Leo started.
Eric’s voice was grim. “He’s no boy. Murder Morris, that’s what the guard were callin’ him. Lord Norbert was some fighter.” His eyes were dark. “No mere boy could’ve done this to ‘em.”
“Let’s get inside,” Leo said. The more he heard about Murder Morris, the more sure he was that he shouldn’t be here. The wind was howling, the trees swaying from side to side as if in tune with an unheard song, and the cold snow fell all around them. Leo ran for the door, and after Eric was inside, he bolted it shut.
“What’s gotten into you, Leo?” Eric’s tone was annoyed again.
“This isn’t right. Something’s not right here. We need to go back. We need to leave now.”
The house creaked and swayed around him, and for a moment, he thought he heard a voice. Murder Morris, the thought came to his head unbidden, and he shuddered. Eric seemed oblivious to it.
“Don’t start in on that again, Leo. Let’s just get warm. Hey, look who decided to take a nap while he waited for us.”
Leo was relieved to see Crowly’s face again, huddled up on a bed, still and sleeping, his back to a lit fireplace behind him. He was sure something horrible had befallen him, wandering alone in the snow in the dark.
Then it was back again – the voice, and much more clearly this time. Eric and Leo exchanged a look, and crept towards the back room of the cabin. The closer they came, the clearer the heard it, a child’s voice. He was weeping.
The wind beat against the cabin’s walls, and the walls and floorboards creaked around Leo as he walked. Shoddy furniture lay all around the room, a couple pieces overturned, but mostly everything intact. They walked by a large window along the way. Leo saw that outside, the trees were still swaying, and the house, he could feel, was practically swaying with them. He felt a surge from within him, as he heard the voice, and could scarcely fight the urge to bolt for the door.
“Mother…” the child’s voice wept, clearly audible now. “I don’t want to die.”
Eric gently pushed the door open, and found a child there, hugging his knees to his chest, with his head against his knees, rocking on the bed.
Eric spoke in the same understanding tone he’d used with Leo out in the snow. “It’s alright son, no one here is going to hurt you.” He put his hand on the child’s shoulder.
“Mother,” the child screamed, his voice cracking, he lifted his head from his knees, and his eyes were wide and vacant. “I don’t want to die!” His hands grasped something hidden between his legs and he thrust it up through Eric’s chest, right into his breast. Eric tried to deflect the blow, but he had gotten too close. He fell to the floor. It was then that Leo saw the bloody gaping hole in the child’s chest. The child’s face was hard and expressionless, when his body lifted itself toward Leo. Leo staggered backwards, and then turned and ran as Eric’s body slumped to the floor in a slowly expanding pool of blood.
“Crowly,” he panted as he sped away from the steady footsteps behind him. “Wake up and run, Crowly!” He sped around the corner and grabbed the hand of the still-sleeping Crowly. He pulled the man from bed, but he instead flopped over the bed and collapsed on the floor.
“Crowly?” Leo whimpered.
And then he saw the gaping wound in the back of Crowly’s head, as it leaked the messy contents of his skull over the floor. He realized the hand he was holding was cold and dropped it instantly. His hands were shaking and he could hear the sound of his own blood pulsing through his body. The steady rhymic pulsing, was almost musical as he went to run, and tripped over a fallen chair.
“Mother…” the child said again, “I don’t want to die. Am I doing well, mother? Is he happy with me?” His still face did not leave the floor.
Leo shot up again and ran to the door, but the bolt was rusted and his shaky hands could not open it. He began to sob. I really am going to die here, he thought. His motions at the door became frantic, scrabbling, but he was shaking too fiercely to work the broken lock.
“Please,” Leo begged, as he collapse to the floor, too frightened to fight, and too cornered to flee. He could only beg. “I don’t want to die.”
The child looked up at him and his expressionless face seemed to consider him carefully. “He needs them. He needs the bodies.”
He’s talking to me, Leo thought, maybe I can reason with him. It was a mad hope - but it was the only one he had. “Please,” he whimpered again. What could he tell the boy? He spoke feverishly, desperately, “I’m just… I’m not… I’m here…” The boy walked closer. The bodies! “The bodies, I’m here for the bodies!” He blurted.
“He needs the bodies!” the boy said angrily, and rushed up within a foot of Leo.
“Help… I’m here to help… Gods be good, I’m here to help,” He fell to the floor. “I’m bringing him the bodies too… to, um…. him.”
The boy reached out, and for a moment he thought he was a dead man, but the boy only took him by the hand, and led him down to the basement. The lower they went, the stronger he sensed the smell of death. His hand was firm and cold. Leo shuddered and stammered nervously behind the boy, but the boy continued down. He lit a candle and led him into a dark room, where the smell suddenly became overpowering. Leo looked inside and saw piles of bodies of dead women and children – a dozen or more, at least. He averted his eyes – but the image had already burned itself in his mind. He fell to his knees and retched.
“You are here to help,” the boy said. “He is waiting at the end of the bloody trail.”
He looked up again and slowly took in the hauntingly brutal scene around him. He dared not look too closely at the children, but there was a woman nearby whose still expression was almost pointed in his direction, though the head was bent at an unnatural angle.
Mother, the boy kept saying. He shuddered.
