Black Library Celebration 2022 by Various Authors

Author:Various Authors
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2022-01-14T13:20:11+00:00

Ray Cluley

Rutger ran through the wet cornfield, staggering between withered stalks, slipping in mud, one arm hooked around his stomach to slow the blood. A weak rain hung in the air like mist. The sky was thick with cloud and all colour had seeped away to something purple-tinged, like a contusion. Rutger held up a hand to protect his face from the crops, barely able to see where he was going in the descending darkness.

He glanced behind, as he’d done countless times over miles he barely remembered, but all he saw was stalks of corn closing behind him in broken rows. Some were bent out of shape, bloodied by his passing; others drooped with the weight of their own rot. Trampled stalks pressed beneath his boots were slow to rise again, and the prints he’d left in the mud were filling with small puddles. He would be easy to track, even in this dying light.

A furrowed row, mud-thick and slick with rain, sent him stumbl­ing and he added a handprint to those of his boots, pushing up from the ground to continue fleeing. He turned with the direction of the crops and followed them for a few moments of easier pro­gress, then turned again for the safety of their cover.

Amongst the corn were tangled low growths of bloodweed. Some of it burst underfoot as he ran, souring the soil with its dark, poisonous sap. Where it was thickest it snatched at his ankles and threatened to trip him. It was said that upon land where battles had been fierce the bloodweed grew, and there was nowhere in Shyish that had not known battle. It thrived where blood had been spilt in vast quantities, keeping the killing fields red and spreading to choke whatever else might grow. It was desperately difficult to farm such land, but evidently there were those who tried. Rutger cursed them for not ploughing deep enough before planting, for not pulling the weed properly, and he turned to find a clearer route through the rows of the cornfield.

Crows burst into sudden flight around him in a flurry of feathers that swallowed him with their darkness. He dropped into a crouch, one arm overhead to fend off the thunder of their wings. Then they were gone, lost to the early evening sky as quickly as they had erupted into being. He heard their cries and for a moment he was back on the battlefield with the screams and shrieks of the dying. With his eyes clenched shut he saw soldiers fall, carved to bloody pieces. Saw them trampled by the hooves of two-legged beasts that growled and howled as they rushed towards their next enemy, each one hefting vicious blades or wickedly tipped spears. One of them swung at him but he found his feet and ran and–

He was back in the cornfield, fleeing from a battle left far behind. The sky deepened with cloud and seemed to press upon him, slowing him, trying to claim him for its own.

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