Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One) (9 page)

Bandits,
he thought, gritting his teeth.
These were no bandits
. He dismounted and drew his sword, his grip on the weapon's hilt tight enough to make the leather creak in protest. The other men followed suit, silent except for the scrape of metal and the creak of leather. “Rik,” Will said softly, and the boy
darted up to him. “Find someplace to tether the horses.” The boy nodded and began collect
ing
the steeds. “The rest of you spread out and search the houses. Something's not right.”

They moved quietly, their soft footsteps and the occasional stifled tinkle of mail the only sounds aside from an oddly cheerful breeze. Will headed for the closest house and knocked lightly on the door. When there was no answer, he gave it a gentle push—and was surprised to find that it swung inward on creaking hinges. He stepped in and let his eyes adjust to the darkness.

It seemed as though the occupants had left in a hurry; Will saw half-eaten plates of food on a small table, and the dying embers of a fire still smoldered in the hearth amid a mound of grey ash. He frowned. There were no people, no bodies, and no signs of a struggle. He stepped back outside as his sense of disquiet grew.

The rest of the search produced the same results—each house was empty, as though its occupants had left in a hurry, and each showed none of the telltale signs of a fight of any kind. It seemed as though the villagers had simply left without bothering to collect any of their belongings, and had Will been a green recruit he would have thought this was the case. Decades of bloodshed, however, had taught him to always follow his gut feelings.

It did not take long to search the huts, small as they were, and soon all that remained was the large building in the village center. It seemed strangely sinister as he approached it, its tall face wickedly imposing. Two heavy wooden doors guarded the entrance, and with a steadying breath Will braced his shoulder against one of them, signaling his men to make ready on either side of him. They moved into position with weapons drawn, silently awaiting his command to storm through the doorway. The air seemed quieter somehow, as if the world was holding its breath in anticipation. Will could hear his heart beating like a drum, tapping out a steady rhythm that made his excitement rise with each passing instant.
Now or never,
he thought.

Gripping his longsword with white-knuckled intensity, he mentally counted to three and then shoved with all his might. The door, like all the others, came open easily with a groan of protest, but this time each of the horses screamed in terror. A hot, foul stench, locked inside until that moment, hit them like a stone wall, and Rik doubled over, retching.

“Spirits above,” Sam whispered, and Will, covering his nose against the stench, followed his gaze.

Over the years the number of things that had cost Will his sleep had slowly dwindled away. There was now very little in the world that could claim to truly disturb him. Here, however, his eyes widened and his hand fell from his face, the choking stench no longer a concern.
Found the villagers,
he thought dully, and in some sequestered portion of his mind he realized that the building was not a temple as he had thought, but a town hall. It had but one room, and a long table lined with chairs had at one point sat in its center.

Something had broken them, though, rending them into countless pieces and scattering them across the floor, which was not so much covered as flooded with dark, half-dried blood. It was on the walls, too, splashed haphazardly across them in long, ragged, crisscrossing stripes that had drawn little trails down the stones, and some small speckles had even reached the ceiling. The light streaming in from the high-set windows was broken by smudges of shadow where blood had spattered across the glass.

And in the center of the room, laid out in one massive circle, were the bodies of the villagers. All fifty of them had been eviscerated, and pale coils of their intestines were strewn haphazardly across their naked forms like some madman's obscene work of art. A single old woman had been laid in their center, her arms and legs spread out to either side of her body and a second set of arms stretching out from her shoulders. Her own innards had been strung in a circle around her, creating a barrier between her and the other villagers.

Will gagged and tried desperately not to vomit. Hundreds of flies swarmed around the corpses, filling the air with a high-pitched drone. Some of the villagers had soiled themselves, and the stench of refuse mixed with rotting flesh was so overpowering that Will gagged again and stumbled back outside, unable to hold it in any longer.

He was sick even after his stomach was empty, but he stood and wiped his lips with the back of his hand and tried to force the sensation out of his mind. He opened his water skin and drank, trying to wash the taste of bile out of his mouth but succeeding only in gulping so quickly that he choked. “Spirits above,” he gasped and looked at Sam, who shook his head weakly. All of the men looked pale, and suddenly the bright summer day seemed far less cheerful and more a mockery. “I need to go look at them,” Will said finally. His men looked at him as though he were mad, and he met their gazes. “I've never seen anything like this before. I need to know what we're up against.”

“But Will,” one of the men said, “they're dead! We're done here—we should go back to Prado.”

The man wilted under Will's withering gaze. “We are going to stay here, Marten,” said Will, “and we are going to wait for whoever did this. And when they come back, we are going to kill them, because I find myself suddenly very,
very
angry.” Without another word he removed his cloak, pack, and war hammer and laid them to the ground away from the building along with his sword. Then he looked around for a moment until he saw a patch of wildflowers and tore a handful out of the earth. He pulled a long rag from his pack, crushed the wildflowers until their odor permeated the air around him, and wrapped them inside the rag. With the rag—and its scent—pressed firmly against his nose and mouth, he stepped inside.

Outstanding,
he thought as his eyes began to water.
Now it smells like a rotting corpse covered in flowers.
He walked to the nearest villager and knelt down, grimacing as the sticky miasma of blood sucked at his boots. It was an older man with a head of thinning silver hair. His scalp seemed to have been in the middle of a losing battle against liver spots. His mouth was stretched horrifically in a rictus grin, and maggots churned across his eyes and on the insides of his cheeks. There were more clustered around the wound in his gut, and on several other injuries around his body.

Will narrowed his eyes and leaned closer. It looked almost like the body had been chewed by an animal in several places.
What in the name of the Void?
he thought.
Hounds, maybe?
It was not an entirely alien practice for soldiers and mercenaries to bring trained hounds into battle, and he had heard that there were some cities in the Westlands that were quite fond of the practice. But he had never encountered a Karkashian regiment with them, and the only dogs he had ever seen with Eastlanders were thin, wiry little mongrels. Perhaps sand dragons, then, or dhe'ghar
.

He moved to the next body, and then the next. Each of the corpses followed the same pattern—disemboweled, chewed, and in some cases there were what appeared to be ragged claw marks. Will shook his head, unable to make sense of the spectacle, and finally left when the overpowering stench threatened to make him vomit what little remained in his stomach.

“Well?” Sam asked as Will closed the door behind him.

“I...I don't know,” he replied quietly. “It looks almost like they were...” he barked a short laugh, “like they were attacked by animals.” He massaged his temples and gritted his teeth in frustration. “But animals don't disembowel humans and use them like a decoration for some...demonic ritual,” he growled. “And the doors were closed—you could tell as well as I could that nothing had been inside that building with them. I didn't even see any footprints.” He shook his head. “Bandits indeed. You know, Sam, I wonder...there are terrible things that live in the wild places of the world...”

“But Prado is just down the way,” Sam murmured. “Maybe if we were up by the Kahara, or deeper into the mountains, but this close to a city?”

Rik muttered something, and Will turned to see the boy shaking as though cold and staring at the ground with wide eyes.

“What did you say, Rik?” Will asked.

“Keth,” the boy whispered. “The bodies...it's a sign of Keth.” He looked up at Will. “The seven-pointed star in a circle. It's a sign of Keth.”

“Quiet, boy,” said Sam. “That's pagan superstition. The Titan religion died out long ago, and if you're not careful with that tongue, one of Gefan's children might feel the need to cut it out.”

But Rik jerked his head from side to side as though he had not heard, tears leaking from the corners
of his eyes. “No,” he whispered, “no...no...no...no...”

Will looked at another of the soldiers and jerked his head in Rik's direction. The man nodded, put an arm around the boy's shoulders, and led him off a short way, talking to him in a soothing, quiet tone. Will folded his arms across his chest, troubled by the boy's words.

“Sir?” Sam stood close to Will, searching his face. “What are your orders?”

A sign of Keth.
Will glared at the ground as though to provoke answers from the earth itself through intimidation.
A sign of Keth. A sign from a dead god. Spirits above, what
is
this?

“Are any of you men of the faith?” he said at last, and several men tentatively raised their hands.

“I follow the word of Gefan, sir,” one sellsword answered, grasping a trilix pendant around his neck.

“Should you wish to say some words for the dead, now is the time,” Will said. “When you're done...burn the bodies. If the people who did this are still around, that should bring them back. We'll all sleep together in one of the huts tonight; no need to get caught on our own.”

They left the bodies in the building, unwilling to drag them out into the open air. Will told himself it was because he did not wish to further defile the corpses, but that thought rang hollow in his mind.
They deserve a decent burial,
he thought as he hurled a torch into their midst.
Not this.
The sun had just started to sink over the horizon by the time the oily black smoke began to billow from the open doors of the town hall. When the sunset drenched the land in its bloody red glow, a feeling of foreboding washed over Will; the night, he was sure, would hold answers. What he was less sure of was whether those answers were what he wanted to see. 
A sign of Keth.
The words continued to dance around in his mind, refusing to leave him be. It was ridiculous, of course. Nobody followed the old ways anymore. Keth and the rest of the Titans were a belief that had been dead for five hundred years. Rik had to be mistaken.

And as if on cue, his ears pricked at the sound of soft footsteps behind him. He turned to see Rik standing shame-faced with his eyes locked firmly upon Will's boots.

“Yes?” Will prompted.

“Sir,” Rik began in an embarrassed mumble, “I...about what happened earlier...”

Will held up a stalling hand. “It's fine. We're all strung a bit tightly right now.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Don't worry about it. We'll get the bastards who did this.” Rik nodded silently and turned to leave.

A thought suddenly occurred to Will, and he said softly, “Rik...do you follow the old ways?”

In answer the boy's cheeks reddened. “Er...my grandmother did,” he answered. “She was one of the last. I grew up with it.” He shrugged self-consciously. “But it's not like I believe in that mystical—”

“Tell me about Keth.”

Surprise flitted across Rik's face. “Er—really?” he asked in disbelief, and Will nodded. “Alright...well, he was the god of time and death. The old stories say that he went mad because his brothers and sisters cast him out after he gave death to the world. But...you already know this, right? I mean, everybody's heard the stories...”

“Yes, but please,” he motioned with his hand, “continue. The stories change from place to place.”

“Well, supposedly the Titans stayed in our world in human form for thousands of years, protecting us from the Dark One.” He gestured toward the town hall, now wreathed in smoke. “There used to be loads of cults devoted to Keth. One of the symbols they used was a seven-pointed star in a circle.”

Will frowned. “I don't understand. What'd they use it for?”

“To summon demons.”

Will stared. “Demons.”

“Well, sure. That's what people call them now. Back then it was 'Keth's children.' That symbol that you saw there—the circle and star—would have been used to summon Keth's children.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “You know, I hear that way far down in the marshlands to the south, there are still people who believe in the old ways—and even some that worship Keth.”

Will walked a short distance away, deep in thought. Off in the distance the sky was beginning to turn purple, and the land darkened. The windows of the town hall glowed orange as the fire continued to
burn inside, and the stink of burning flesh permeated the air.
Children of the Dark One,
Will mused. Aloud, he said, “Tell me more about the demons.”