Fantasy When He Will Awaken

[sumurset]

Footsteps. They were quiet.


His head lifted. The man, Pieter, was clad in only rags. He wielded a wooden staff and nothing more.


He sat up. The footsteps approached and then stopped. They were a few feet away.


Something hit the side of his head and he cried out.


A woman's voice made itself known.


"Tell me the boy's name."


"The boy has no name!"


He got to his feet. His head swam from the strike. Pieter's eyes were open but they did not see.


"Who is the boy's mother?"


"The boy has no mother!"


Another hit. His side.


He tried to lash out but was unable to make contact with his target.


His eyes were open but they could not see.


"Tell me the boy's name and I will give him back his sight."


"The boy," he swung his staff out, "has no name."


"Then he will not have his sight."


The footsteps retreated. Pieter thought of going after her but was too exhausted.


He sank back to the ground. On the damp cobblestones he slept.

 

[sumurset]

The visits were frequent. They alternated between a woman and a man. He was unsure who they were. What they looked like.


The boy had grown a beard. It had been weeks (perhaps months) since the trials had started.


Life on the street had become normal. Begging for food, sleeping on stone; normal. People pitied the blind beggar but they treated him as trash. They threw him scraps and boxed his head.


Time had escaped him.


He sat in his spot. A tattered shawl wrapped around his shoulders. It protected him from the chill.


He shivered regardless.


There were no footsteps.


The voice came. A man's.


The man's.


"Does the boy have a name?"


"He does not."


A slap of the stick. Not on him, but on the ground nearby.


"How does a boy have no name?"


"He has never had a name."


"No name? Has he had a mother?"


"No mother."


"How can a boy have no mother?"


"He has had no mother. No mother to give him a name. He has had nothing."


"Nothing?"


"Nothing."


The man paused. He could hear his clothing shuffle as he moved. He was in front of the blind beggar.


"Has the boy had his sight?"


"He does not need it."


"He doesn't?"


"He needs nothing."


The beggar did not flinch when he felt a hand on his cheek. It left a red mark.


"With sight, he could have stopped this."


"Did he want to?"


The question seemed to catch the man off guard. The beggar heard him catch his breath.


A few moments passed.


"Will he follow?"


"If he must."

 

[sumurset]

The room echoed. There were two people before him. He could hear their breathing.


The beggar leaned on his staff and waited.


He had followed.


"Who is the boy?"


"No one."


He fell as the woman kicked away his staff.


He laid on the ground.


"What is his name?"


It was the man.


"He has none."


"Does he not? What of Pieter?"


The name echoed in his mind. It tasted familiar. Like a bread one enjoyed once and never had again.


He did not recognize it.


"The boy does not know him."


Steps circled him. The man lifted him to his knees.


"And a mother? Who is the boy's mother?"


"He has no mother."


A blow to his side. It was the woman again.


"How can a boy have no mother?"


"He did not need one. There was none to name him."


The man came forward. He gripped the beggar's face.


His hold was firm.


"Tell me the boy's name and he will have his eyes."


"He has no name. He needs no eyes."


He pushed the beggar down.


His staff scraped along the ground. It hit his thigh.


"He does."


"He hasn't."


"Does the boy take a beating and not defend himself?"


"The boy has no eyes. Who would strike a boy with no eyes?"


A long pause followed. The staff clattered to the ground.


The two people left the room. They left him in the damp cold.


He slept.

 

[sumurset]

Hours passed. Perhaps a few days.


He wished for food but the painful cramps were familiar.


Almost comforting.


A door opened. He was awake.


He sat up.


"The boy has a name."


The footsteps were fast. They came to him and the man pulled him up.


"The boy has a name and a family."


"No. No mother. No n--"


The man slapped him.


"No mother. But he has a name."


"What is his name?"


"Pyek. His name is Pyek Barron."


"Pyek Barron."


"Yes."


He opened his mouth to ask a question. His throat flooded with liquid. It interrupted him. He sputtered.


It tasted like copper.


Light came.


He stopped breathing.


A man stood before him.


Long brown hair. Dark eyes. He had a scar on his forehead. He appeared concerned. There was genuine emotion in his features.


Pyek did not speak.


The man's brow creased.


"Pyek?"


"Yes?"


His features smoothed.


A woman stepped into the room.


The room.


It was large with a domed ceiling. All stone. No furniture or fireplaces. Water dripped from some crack above.


He gulped in the sight.


His vision.


The woman had red hair. Green eyes. Pale skin and freckles on her cheeks. She looked hopeful.


Both her and the man were clad all in black. She favored loose clothing. The man did not. He wore tighter clothing.


The woman spoke. "Pyek?"


"Yes?"


She grinned. She stepped forward and embraced him.


He stood still and accepted it.


The man smiled too. He patted Pyek on the shoulder.

 

[sumurset]

Life was simple. His duty was clear.


He was a hunter. His job was to protect the people from beasts that roamed the night streets. Monsters who wore the face of other men and women.


His family was not close. They fought among themselves often.


The two who had conscripted him had disappeared. He did not know their names. Only their faces. Their voices.


He could pick them out from their footsteps alone.


He did not need them.


He hoped he would never meet them again.


His family was not close.


They fought among themselves often.


"His name is Pyek Barron." It was a phrase he repeated to himself often. It warmed him. The boy, at last, had a name.


It had been a year since he had his name.


Pyek ran along a crumbling roof. He was chasing a sister.


His mask, metal and shaped as a plague doctor's, glinted in the moonlight. His clothing was black. He wore a cloak adorned with feathers but his clothing was plain. Easy to move in.


His sister slipped on a roof tile. It fell. She did too. She caught herself.


He caught up.


Practice had honed his abilities. He moved like a shadow. One charged with the speed of lightning. His scythe was at her neck as soon as his feet stopped moving.


She gasped for air like she was drowning.


"Wait! Wait. Do not kill me."


"Do not kill you?" He was speaking to himself, "She asks not to die but has failed in her duty."


"It was only one man!"


"One man. Too many."


Her head rolled down the roof. It fell to the ground. He heard it crunch on the cobblestones below.

 

[sumurset]

He woke with the night.


His steps were silent. They carried him far and fast.


He dodged from one shadow to the next. He lived with the beasts he killed.


His scythe was faster than a snake's strike. He could behead anything before it tried to speak his name.


"Pyek Barron."


A growl interrupted his dash. He stopped as though a wall had materialized before him. He turned around.


The growl deepened. Two eyes reflected the moon back at him.


It approached.


A lycan. It thought itself sly. Skilled. Blood dripped from its maw.


Pyek frowned behind his mask.


"One killed does not confidence make."


The beast's growl became a roar. He did not flinch.


It stalked towards him. He let it.


When it lunged at him he side-stepped. His scythe swung around like a pendulum and sliced through its shoulder. It yelped.


Its paw swiped at him. The tip of its claws caught his leg but did no damage. He was able to step back before it could hurt him.


His scythe whipped around once more. The blade caught its muzzle. It shook its head. Blood splattered and dripped from the wound. Its fur matted with the crimson liquid.


In its frenzy, the lycan pounced at him. The beast was too bewildered. He somersaulted out of the way. As he stood he brought his scythe up with him. It arched through the air.


A dull thud interrupted the beast's growls.


Pyek let his scythe collapse. He placed it at his side.


"Off with its head!"


He disappeared a moment later.

 

[sumurset]

He had grown fond once.


Eileen. The girl's name was Eileen.


He had liked her since he saw her slay a boil-covered beast.


They got along well enough.


Both wore similar masks. She had found her own cloak. One that looked like his.


They slayed together.


They spoke.


The girl's name was Eileen. The boy's name was Pyek.


But crows and ravens do not flock together.


The boy had become too close to the girl. The girl did not feel the same for the boy. She left and never looked back and took his soul with her.


He hated her.


That fondness became dispassion. When the boy thought of the girl he thought of betrayal. He resented commitment.


No one would play him as she had. Not again.


He spoke ill of her. To himself.


Not to anyone else. He no longer spoke to anyone else.

 

[sumurset]

There is no beast greater than an ambitious man.


He looked at his former comrade. He was mad.


The scourge had taken him. It would take all.


Pyek took it upon himself to stop them: the fallen hunters. The hunters who became the beasts they were sworn to fight.


In his hand, his scythe's blade.


He thought of the Healing Church. An organization founded to heal. One that had lead to the scourge's spread. One that now left the consequences to its members. To its hunters.


The man before him did not speak. He was beyond it. His thirst for blood had ravaged any semblance of humanity left in him.


It was sad.


"I am sorry."


The blade licked the fallen hunter's skin. It drew the liquid which had drawn insanity into every brick of the town.


He sheathed the blade.


Pyek pulled out the envelope which he had been thumbing for some time.

Pyek Barron;






An esteemed hunter of hunters and beasts alike.






We at Cainhurst castle welcome you into our gardens.






A stagecoach will arrive for you at Hemwick Crossing.






Do not hesitate to join us.






Hospitably,






the Queen.

 

[sumurset]

Cainhurst was foul. As foul as everywhere else. The blood had erupted there as well.


A festering boil that had enveloped the province.


Its queen was kind. She was odd but he was odd.


They were odd.


Pyek did not mind her. The queen adored him.


She sent him on missions and he did what she asked.


He was her toy. He was her pet. That was it.


A pet.


Large feathered pet.


She had named him her raven. The Raven of Cainhurst. That was what people called him.


He flew with the night. His wings sliced through flesh.


His talons tore off heads. He did not mind. It was what ravens did.


They ate.


Pyek ate. In the same way other hunters ate. He consumed every soul. Every echo of a soul.


Their deaths became his tallies. He savored them. Hunters feared him. Every hunter.


Prospectors, hunters of hunters, the ones with the white gloves. All of them.


They feared what he could do.


They ate.


And he was the one to stop their feast.


"Long live the queen."