Helspira’s voice found his ears. “What are you doing?”
It sounded far off, ethereal, as he focused on the task at hand. His mind sifted through the soil, the clay, the dirt. Prey, prey, prey. Where, oh where, had the predator bones gone?
When he mentally latched onto the bones of a shavugin—a savage beast whose claws and teeth remained heartily intact—he smirked. “Tending to dinner,” he finally replied, before adding, “An’stisei tus necrouz.”
The grass rustled as the soil spread, and a fleshless corpse crawled from the earth with all the grace of a baby bird pecking free from a shell. Upon breaching the surface, it shook the dirt from its joints and crevices, sat upon its boney haunches, and awaited its orders.
Helspira brushed away particles of dirt that landed on her legs. “If that’s your idea of dinner, I think I’ll pass.”
Sikras chuckled until the backlash hit, a little lightning strike of pain that streaked through his veins without mercy. Fortune favored him in that the scythe made it easier to hide his weakness by propping him up. He glimpsed his new, undead companion and nodded toward the forest. “Dry wood and whatever meat you can find, please and thank you.”
The shavugin bolted, clattering bones ringing through the air as it vanished into the black, twisting trees.
“Oh.” Helspira revealed a sheepish smile. “I suppose I should’ve known you had no intention of eating a corpse.”
“In your defense”—Benjamin readjusted the canvas over one of the poles—“Sikras and eccentricity go hand-in-hand. I wouldn’t rule out corpse consumption entirely.”
“Apologies for any discomfort my methods bring,” Sikras said, concentrating on the steadiness of his voice, as he slowly returned to his seat. “If being surrounded by the symbolic embodiment of death gives you the creeps, it’s going to be an awkward trip. That’s sort of my whole schtick.”
“Oh, no.” Helspira’s expression softened. “I actually find bones comforting. I had a, well, a pet of sorts when I was a child in Chthonia. Except”—her cheeks and ears flushed a perfect shade of pink to match her hair—“it was less of a pet and more the remains of someone else’s.”
Something between a laugh and a snort shook Sikras’s shoulders. “There’s a story that begs telling.”
Helspira waved her hand. “Forget it; it’s silly.”
“All my favorite stories are.”
Hesitation delayed her response, but she relented with a sigh and a shrug. “When I was a child in Pio Chamila—that’s one of the five territories in Chthonia—I found the remains of a burrowing howler that’d been killed in one of the countless skirmishes there. I can still remember the little handmade collar it wore around its neck. Probably someone’s pet that got left behind. All I could think about was how scared it must’ve been. Even in death, it looked so ... lonely.”
Enthralled, Sikras leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I couldn’t bear to leave it,” Helspira continued, her somber monotone shifting to airy nostalgia. “So I carried its skull around from hiding place to hiding place. It felt nice giving it a second chance at a loving home—as much of a home as a child constantly on the run could offer a dead howler, anyway.” She pressed a hand into her chest, her smile broadening. “I named herOsta.”
“It’s a comfort to know women can still find room in their hearts for corpses,” Benjamin said with underlining mischievousness.
Helspira laughed. “I’m rooting for you, Ben, but I don’t think it’s a popular trait. The other abnormals in our troop found it macabre. Even my parents were a bit put off, but they ultimately decided carrying a skull around was the least of my problems. After all we’d endured, they’d take whatever win they could get.”
“Hold up.” Sikras raised a finger. “Abnormals?”
A sweeping smile lit her face. “That’s the closest Siapharian word I can think of to describe what they called us. All the Chthonian beasts who didn’t fit the profile of the standard, bloodthirsty lot. My parents and I traveled with other demons, fiends, devils, diavoli, succubi ... All manner of creatures who are predisposed to aggressive tendencies but choose to fight those urges.”
“What happened to Osta?” Benjamin asked.
Her smile faded. “An invading devil ripped her from my hands and crushed her underfoot during one of the times they captured us. It’s next to impossible to outrun enemies forever. They’re everywhere. I wanted to have a funeral for her, but the devils carted us and the other survivors to one of their nearby camps before I could collect all the pieces.”
Sikras frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s never easy letting go of something you love.”
“Yeah.” Her shoulders sagged as she slouched forward, hair tumbling to obscure her features, but when she tucked a lock behind her pointed ear, she revealed a small smile. “Gods, I haven’t thought about that in almost twenty years.”
Sikras nodded, both hands on his scythe’s snath, as he leaned into it to combat lingering nausea. “Memories are the fuel that stoke the soul’s fire.”
A shuffling noise rang out as Benjamin tested the tent’s durability by rattling one of the poles. “This seem good to you?”
Sikras barely acknowledged the tent; he didn’t need to. His brother-in-law’s reliable obsession with craftsmanship told him everything he needed to know. “Benjamin, that is the finest-looking tent I’ve ever had the pleasure of laying my eyes on, and I thank you for setting it up.”
In the distance, footsteps neared. The swish of flattening grass. Sikras looked up in time to see the shavugin approaching, several thick branches clamped between its jaws. It laid them at his feet and, bound by the obligation of Sikras’s spell, dashed into the forest to fulfill more of its undead duties.
The time was as good as any for a fire. Soon the shavugin would return with the evening meal, and without open flames to cook it over, the party risked contracting any number of food-borne illnesses. Except Benjamin, the lucky bastard. Sikras slid off the gnarled roots and onto his knees to snap the branches into smaller sizes, while Benjamin gathered rocks for the fire’s barrier.
