Split Scream Volume One by Carson Winter

Author:Carson Winter
Format: epub

THE MOURNER ACROSS THE FLAMES

Scott J. Moses

The Emissary

The shot rang out across the salt, and Bharath peered through the rifle’s scope at the two travelers stopped cold. As the rifle’s roar faded, undulating echoes to the mountains where salt met cerulean sky, the two mule-mounted travelers, rags swaddling their faces, looked to one another, their mules unfazed by the interruption. The shot was a warning, but Bharath jerked back the bolt-action, ejecting the shell, and forced in another. Salt flowed in phantasmal wisps, floating atop the countryside like gusts of powdered snow. Though Bharath only knew snow’s likeness from stories, from those ancient enough to recall it. He leaned into the salt bags, brought his eye to the scope again.

The leader’s head swiveled to his companion, their goggles glinting sunstare once, twice, then back to the tower where Bharath crouched, death in his hands.

Four mules for two zealots? Bharath thought, and slowed his breathing, homed his sights on the one dismounting. The leader advanced a step, then another, their hands raised to the amorphous clouds, and as they crept to the corpse a mule’s length away, aflood with feasting buzzards big as a child, Bharath grit his teeth beneath his cloth mask.

“Could you take him from here?” said a soft voice behind him.

“Yes, Love.”

“Like the dead one there? All the others?”

“Yes.”

The figure neared the corpse, their shawl whipping in the harsh wind, and Bharath let loose another round. The buzzards screamed, scrambling off on shambled wings as the dead man skidded along the salt flats, sliding to a halt. The zealot nearest the corpse had flown back, as if they were the one shot, and sat there now, chest heaving as the salt blew in plumes.

The zealot stood, brushing the salt from themselves in futility, and motioned to the one still mounted behind him. They turned their back to the tower, and Bharath clocked the rifle slung over their shoulder. The zealot turned from their companion and cupped hands around their mouth, though Bharath couldn’t quite make the words. Their call all but smothered on the roaring wind.

“Will more come?” The voice behind him again. “More like the dead the salt preserves for the demon birds?”

“I suspect so,” Bharath said, willing the zealot to pull his rifle like all the others. “Though I’m surprised they still come in pairs.”

Bharath thought he heard his name where the salt met the sky. He looked to the horizon, squinting in the sun’s onslaught despite his goggles, heard his name once more. He ejected the spent shell, fed his rifle another, and when he brought his eye to the scope again, the figure had removed their cloth-mask, goggles flung to the white-laden earth. Bharath smirked, dialing the man’s head between his crosshairs.

“Don’t,” the voice whispered. “Please...”

Bharath’s teeth sawed behind his lips watching Kamber turn back to his companion, perhaps wondering if they might die like those sent before. Never to rot, but to be preserved in the purified desert. One enormous feast for the morning carrion-eaters.

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