Slow Burn by Tamara Vincent

Author:Tamara Vincent [Vincent, Tamara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

Seventeen - Ghouls

The Flamberge hissed and flashed in the night, and a head rolled on the grass. Black blood stained the snow. Liane took a step back, and found herself back to back with Giso.

“Where do they come from?”

The bitch growled and shook her head, and adjusted her grip on the handle of her double ax.

The creatures had moved on them as soon as the moon had downed. They had caused the horses to flee, the panicked animals hurling themselves along the path, in a reckless, suicidal run. Liuva, that was mounting guard, had shouted a warning, and Liane and Giso had had the time to disentangle from each other and the blanked under which they had been keeping warm. Now they stood, both naked, both wielding their weapons.

With a curse and a roar, Liuva milled her arms around, a flaming log in each hand, and kept the creatures at bay, and danced on her tiptoes out of the reach of their talons, rejoining her mistress and her partner.

The creatures crouched and scurried around them, remaining outside of the circle of light and warmth cast by the fire. Their eyes blinked red as embers in the darkness, and they made strange clicking, chirping noises. They trampled the snow, moving in a slow circle.

“The stories were true,” Liuva said.

“That is why we are here,” Liane replied.

Giso scoffed. “To be eaten by ghouls?”

One of them came forward, suddenly, leaping across the fire. Liane had an impression of pale skin and shriveled, pendulous breasts, a mouthful of needle-like teeth. Outstretched hands, sharp claws.

Liuva intercepted the ghoul in mid air, grappled it and pulled in a stranglehold. One arm around the skeletal neck, one knee in her back, and with a sickening creak, Liuva snapped the monster’s spine and let it fall on the ground. The creature thrashed and screeched. One of its companions, vaguely male, came to the rescue, or maybe just tried to use the diversion to strike. Liane stabbed it through the chest. It kept pushing against her, crawling along the blade, its claws trying to rip her face off. A thick, dark goo dripped from the wound. Balancing against Giso’s shoulders, Liane planted her bare foot in the creature’s groin, and pushed it back. It stumbled and fell.

Liuva cursed. The ghoul she had broken was standing up again, swaying, its bust readjusting as its spine knitted back. It straightened, and hissed through clenched teeth.

“Enough!”

The monster turned, and let out a chirp, and then retreated, swaying on thin skeletal legs. Its companion, its wound already closed, crawled away on all fours.

A cloaked silhouette approached from the darkness, and walked into the light. The creatures huddled around her, no longer afraid of the fire. Pale bodies, flaccid skin, lanky hair, male and female rubbing themselves against the legs of the woman, like dogs greeting their master home.

“You must excuse my children,” she said. “They are confused.”

With a sharp nail, she incised the inside of her left arm. Blood dripped from the cut, thick and dark.

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