Howard, A.G. - Stain by Howard A.G

Author:Howard, A.G. [Howard, A.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2019-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

17

A Collection of Corpses and Consciousness

In the ravine’s lowlands, where the ash thinned and the shade deepened, the Shroud Collective prepared to feast. It had been a long famine—three full weeks—since their last taste of flesh. Soon their suffering would end. The page boy who escaped five years earlier was about to stumble back into their keep. From this distance, he appeared to be in much the same state as when he first arrived in a pine box: shredded clothes matching his torn skin, deserted and broken. The perfect candidate for luring into their lair. Mistress Umbra began casting out her siren’s song—a whispering enticement meant to trick those walking the path overhead, meant to sound like whatever their heart wanted most to find. The page boy would take the bait. He was too lost to do otherwise. The mother shroud gathered her children within the clearing, each amorphous silhouette conforming to the black, gnarled trees that hid them. Innumerable glowing white eyes blinked between branches, awaiting attack.

Stain paused along the steep pathway, perking her ears at a rustling down below. The ash within the ravine muffled most sounds, like a thick layer of downy feathers. The ravine’s lore echoed within that silence . . . a tale she hadn’t thought of in some time: those who came to live here brought their sins and shed them upon the trees. The wickedness, having nowhere else to go, transformed to a sentient moss that slunk to the ground and decomposed every wild, beautiful thing to ash.

Had she been so wicked, in her past? That someone had shed her here like a vile sin? Or was she once beautiful until left to decompose and rot in the wastelands?

With the absence of wind, birds, and skittering bugs, the quiet became deafening. She’d been calling for Scorch in her mind to fill the void, to no avail.

Before ending up here, she had searched their usual haunts: the market where they frolicked in the after hours when everyone closed shop (Scorch was fascinated by human customs and items, much as he tried to deny it); the lofties, where the ravine’s dense canopy reached to monolithic heights so high Scorch could fly without even stirring the ash below; and the quagmire-quarry, where they held contests to see who could outrun the most puddles. Scorch had the advantage of wings, but Stain learned that climbing trees worked as well, since a living puddle—no matter how agile—was repelled by wood and stone. Over the years, she had tied with Scorch in only three matches, and only because he allowed her to, according to him. Every other time, she had to tolerate him mocking her lack of wings and extra legs. Today his arrogant jibes would be music, if she could only see him safe.

She’d circled around the tarn of clear water where they liked to go fishing, only to stop in her tracks, hidden behind a trunk. Though she didn’t see the Night Ravager, his crew had set up camp there—close to the labyrinth of thorns where Stain first encountered them.

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