Candle Children by Michael Baker

Author:Michael Baker [Baker, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Lassiter’s soldiers buried him alongside the villagers they had slaughtered that morning. Some of the victims had cried in pain and anguish. Some begged for mercy or salvation. Only Lassiter cried that he didn’t belong in the pit. He was an officer, their commanding officer. Couldn’t they see that? His own soldiers ignored his cries. Men he’d known for a decade had stared at him blankly as they’d fired a musket volley that had sent Lassiter and twenty others tumbling into the pit. He felt no pain when the soldiers fired, but a young man next to him knocked Lassiter’s legs out from under him as he fell. He hit the soft mass of cold flesh and warm blood that inhabited the pit with enough force to knock the breath out of his lungs. Lassiter tried to push himself to his feet, but his hands and feet slipped on the blood. By Her light, there is so much of it. Before he could scramble to his knees, another body landed on top of him. He tasted blood, spat it out and tried to breathe. Above him, another volley echoed like distant thunder. More weight crashed down upon him. He was buried alive under a mountain of the dead and the dying. Unable to move, unable to breathe.

His lungs tore themselves apart in the effort to breathe. He could taste blood and retched between desperate gasps. He felt a tingling sensation in his fingers and terror in his heart. Another volley, more weight, and he knew that fighting was pointless. It would be better to close his eyes and rest. The fear and pain would pass in time.

He felt the bodies above him shift. Not by their own strength, but as if they were being pushed aside by a strange and godlike force. A hand as cold as steel wrapped around his wrist and pulled. He would have screamed in agony if he’d had any breath left. His fingers felt the touch of air, almost as cold as the hand that pulled him, and then he was free.

There were no soldiers anymore, nor anyone standing and waiting to be shot. It had snowed a little, giving the grass and the corpse-filled pit a light dusting of white that sent a shiver down Lassiter’s spine. It was as if there wasn’t another soul in the entire world. There was no one left, except for him and the girl in the light blue dress who stood above him. She gazed down at him with familiar hooded eyes.

Lassiter spat out blood, then vomited yet more. None of it was his own. The girl didn’t move, didn’t even twitch. The light breeze that cooled Lassiter’s face failed to move even a single strand of her hair.

“Who… who are you?” he asked.

“They call me Dancer.” Her voice was utterly devoid of emotion, but her expression remained full of contempt. “I am new.”

“Are you a spirit?”

“I am new.”

“This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“No. This is my realm.

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