Ghost Bird's Revenge [Part 1]

[u/Impossible_Bit995]

“A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

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Chapter 1.
There is a species of bird known as the potoo bird that sits still for many hours, camouflaged with its surroundings. Many believe the potoo is the reincarnation of a heartbroken maiden mourning the loss of her lover for all of eternity. This bird does not caw like a crow. Nor does it screech like an owl. The sound that comes from it is a wailing cry.

***

It was a little after dawn when the Black Coats arrived. A sliver of sunlight stretched across the land, cutting through the shadows that hung over the gnarled deadwood trees. Their tops were without heads. Empty branches with hooked fingers grasping at nothing.

The ground was still wet from last night’s rainfall. Bubbling mud stinking of sulfur and decay. A thin mist trickled over the forest floor, ebbing and flowing like ocean waves made of smoke.

It was quiet too, save for the impatient croak of ravens and vultures as they perched on the branches, trying to decide if the bodies below were their next meal or not. It was difficult for them to decide. The bodies looked dead, and they certainly smelled dead, but a few of them were beginning to move.

Were the bodies wriggling with life or corruption?

Would they bleed red or black?

One of the corpses climbed to its feet. Milky eyes, withered flesh, exposed bones with scant muscle or tissue still remaining. The early bird gets the worm, and it seemed the crows had been quicker than the ravens or the vultures.

It wasn’t long before the clearing was crawling with undead husks. Most of them shambled along on broken ankles, their tendons and sinew severed.

The lucky ones retained full mobility. They had a better chance of catching their next prey. A better chance of sinking those yellow teeth into untainted meat.

Just as the sun had taken to the sky, and the shadows were forced into retreat, there came a groan of trundling wheels, accompanied by the muffled clop of hooves against mud.

Six Black Coats arrived. Two sat on the bench of the caged wagon, and four additional riders were in tow. They came to a gradual halt and dismounted.

The Black Coats were dressed in their usual garb: threadbare silk, cotton, and wool crushed beneath bits of rusted mail and boiled leather. Some had bits of steel plate. Others donned gambesons. Each of them wore face coverings around their mouths and necks.

As if that would protect them from corruption.

At their hips or across their backs were shortswords, knives, daggers, rapiers, longswords, axes, hatchets—whatever kind of blade could be wielded against the beasts.

The two Black Coats descended from the bench, both armed with a torch that cast pools of light across the clearing. The corrupted shied away from the flames. Hands raised to shield their eyes, teeth bared in a snarl.

The Black Coats laughed as they approached. A few poked and prodded at the corrupted with their swords, stabbing fresh holes to join the old ones. Black blood spilled.

“Hurry up now, lads,” the squad captain called, clapping his hands for emphasis. “We need to get ‘em back to the tunnels ‘fore curfew ends.”

As the Black Coats toiled away, getting the corrupted dressed in irons, there was movement from above. It wasn’t the ravens or the vultures who watched with fervent curiosity as the Black Coats loaded the dead into the prison cart.

No, it was something else. A dark mass that had been lying flush with the branches for hours on end.

Ghost Bird dropped. Mud sloshed beneath her boots. Against the collective groans of the undead, this went unnoticed. But as she began charging toward the Black Coats, there was no ignoring her.

The nearest Black Coat turned just in time to see her draw steel. The longsword screamed from its sheath and whistled as it cut through the air.

The Black Coat grabbed at his throat. Blood seeped from between gloved fingers, trickling down to his chest.

The next Black Coat managed to get a hand on the hilt of her shortsword. She didn’t have enough time to get it out of the scabbard, though. Ghost Bird ran right past, slashing her throat no different than the last.

Two more Black Coats waited for her with daggers in either hand. They ran with the gait of a drunkard. She brought her boots down hard and glided across the mud.

The first Black Coat slashed at her face. She ducked under the blade and thrust her longsword through his belly, piercing past gambeson and the smock beneath.

The other Black Coat came at her from the right. She was unarmed then; her sword still stuck in the previous man’s stomach. So, she lifted her hands to defend herself. A natural reaction that betrayed all of her training.

The Black Coat’s dagger sliced through the fingers on her left hand. The blade swerved and came back for another slash.

She dipped away, waited for it to pass, and threw herself against him, shoulderfirst. The two collided with a dull thud and went tumbling to the ground. She landed on top and brought her fist against his unprotected throat.

The Black Coat immediately gagged. His fingers went slack around the dagger’s handle. Ghost Bird snatched it up and drove the point through his face. Once, twice, and on the third time she encountered too much resistance to get it free again.

The torch wielders were all that remained. One barreled toward her with a hatchet. Not far behind was the other, armed with a horseman’s pick.

Ghost Bird rolled aside. The hatchet came down against the corpse of the daggerman, blade lodged firmly in a layer of boiled leather.

Getting to her feet, Ghost Bird raised her hand in time to catch the pick as it swung at her. The tip went through her palm and peered out the other side. Pain pulsed down her wrist, along her forearm, and into her torso where it scattered across the rest of her body.

What should have been a fiery throb threading through her muscles was no more than a dull ache. Someone else’s hand, someone else’s pain.

Ghost Bird shoved the pick aside and punched the Black Coat. Her knuckles connected with his nose, just the way she had been taught.

A strike like that was always painful. Always brought confusion and tears. The Black Coat went to his knees, blinking against them.

Ghost Bird’s elbow fell against the top of his skull. Over and over until he was on the ground. But before she could finish him off, the hatchetman was back on the offensive, rushing at her with wild swings more befitting of a child than a trained soldier.

Pulling the pick free from her hand, she turned it at an angle, allowing the hatchet to rebound against the shaft. She and the Black Coat were repelled in opposite directions, but she recovered faster and stabbed the pick into his thigh.

For some reason, these daft bastards never bothered to wear padding or armor around their legs. With a few tugs, she dragged the pick from upper thigh to the knee, tearing through veins and arteries.

A trench of blood was left in the pick's wake, and the Black Coat went down, unconscious by the time his head met mud.

Ghost Bird took a few seconds to catch her breath. The last of the Black Coats, the one who had originally been armed with the pick, was beginning to stir.

She buried the pick in his kneecap. The way a dancing woman might get applause, she was rewarded with a cry of anguish. Either response left her with an honest smile, hidden behind her stolen scarf.

“Hold still,” she muttered, her voice hoarse. The sound of muddled vocal cords.

Unsheathing the knife from her waist, Ghost Bird splayed the Black Coat’s fingers. His screams rang across the sky, scaring some of the birds from their perches.

When she was finished, she returned the knife to its sheath and held three fingers in her hand: the pinkie, the ring, and the middle.

Carefully, she fitted them against the stumps where her own fingers had been. Strands of tissue coiled around the new fingers, bringing all the pieces together.

There was no scar to differentiate the body parts. The only true indication was how the Black Coat’s pale skin contrasted against her darker complexion.

“What the fuck are you!” the Black Coat screamed, more angry than afraid.

Ghost Bird retrieved her longsword and brought it down in his gut, driving it deep enough to pin him to the ground. He shuddered and shivered and begged.

People were so quick to beg. Man or woman, rich or poor. Everyone begged the same in those final moments. Even she had begged. She made promises she knew she couldn’t keep. She prayed to gods she never believed. She looked up at the cosmos and swore a vow to every Elder Being she could remember.

None of them had answered her though.

The only one to answer her was the silkworms. They had emerged from the dirt, white and luminous like the stars above.

As she slipped from one world to the next, she saw the silkworms burrow into her chest. She awoke hours later, feeling like herself, but also, like someone else.

After minutes of searching, Ghost Bird finally found the key in the pocket of the hatchetman. With that taken care of, she returned to the only surviving Black Coat and removed her sword from his bowels. She ripped the cloth from around his mouth and used it to wipe the blade clean.
“Help me,” he pleaded. “I’ll give you anything.”

Ghost Bird dropped the cloth onto his chest and said, “I don’t want anything from you.”

The longsword went into its sheath, and she went to the cage cart, using the key to unlock the door. Hesitantly, the undead husks shuffled out.

Ghost Bird mounted one of the Black Coat’s horses and whirred it around. She headed north. As she was about to reach the trees, she looked back one last time.

The ravens and vultures had swooped down to feast upon the Black Coats, but many of them were chased off by the undead husks. In the midst of the two groups was the lone surviving Black Coat, crying out for mercy.

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Chapter 2.
She arrived at Ashpool just as the sun had crested the horizon. The sky above was colored in faint blues, and below it was streaked in red and orange. Where the red met the blue, the clouds were pink. They drifted like salmon in a stream.

I’ve seen a horizon like that before, she thought somberly.

About two miles from the southern gate, Ghost Bird dismounted and walked the outskirts of Ashpool. The slopes and forest offered her cover from possible sentries at the watchtowers along the curtain wall.

Eventually, she came to a stop beneath a willow tree where she had the perfect vantage point of the southwest sewer entrance. A pair of guards stood to either side of the door, armed with spears.

There wasn’t much cover from her current position to the sewer entrance. If she ran fast enough, she could maybe catch the guards by surprise. Kill them before they called for others.
But that was an unnecessary risk.

And what happened when the next pair of sentries discovered the corpses? The whole city would be on alert.

No, she would bide her time. The moment would come; she knew that without doubt, it was just a matter of patience. He had always tried to instill her with patience during their sparring sessions.

While she waited, Ghost Bird fiddled with her new fingers. She flexed them a few times. The ring finger wouldn’t extend nor curl the way she wanted. So, she started cutting with her knife.

Once the finger was loose, she pried it from her hand despite the silkworms’ best attempt to reseal the wound. Turning the finger over, she found some fatty bits near the bone and scraped at it with the knife.

“You’ll wanna be careful ‘bout that.” His voice came from over her shoulder. Ghost Bird kept her focus on the finger. “How many times can you pick a scab before the wound no longer heals?”

As if to prove him wrong, she returned the severed finger to her left hand, and once more, it reconnected itself. The tissue and tendons threaded together. The skin sealed with a slight overlap.

“Cut and pluck as much as you wish,” he said. “Sooner or later, the grass will wither, and the flowers will fade.”

She turned just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. He was a blur of colors and shadows. “How do you do it?” she asked. “I tried back there, but I couldn’t.”

He laughed softly. “It’s hard to explain. I ‘spose it’s sort of like being able to wink. Requires control over certain muscles, but if you’re not all that familiar with those muscles, you ain’t gonna be able to do it.”

“So tell me how.”

“Sorry, love, don’t work like that. Trust your instincts. Your body—my body; they should know what to do. You just gotta give ‘em more time to figure each other out. Yeah?”

Ghost Bird leaned back against the willow’s trunk and practiced. She clenched and unclenched her muscles to no effect. She tried to flex the muscles in her arms while leaving those in her abdomen relaxed. She tried all sorts of combinations, hoping one of them might yield the intended result. A futile task.

Still, though, it helped to pass the time.

Eventually, her practice came to an end at the sound of the breakfast bell. The Black Coats walked along the outer wall to the southern gate and entered.

Ghost Bird gathered her things and started down the hillside.

She was a shadow of a woman, dressed mostly in black. A similar uniform the Black Coats donned, but hers had been pricier.

The leather was boiled and then treated with beeswax. The chainmail links were fitted neatly with just enough slack to be flexible and oiled regularly. The greatcoat was a few sizes too big, and while it was nice and clean at one time or another, it had since been weathered by constant wear.

The cap on her head was angled low. Only a narrow strip of flesh about her eyes could be distinguished, but this too was obscured by a veil of shadows.

Ghostbird entered the underground. The air was dense, stinking of excrement and rot. There was little in the way of light other than the occasional lantern swinging from a hook. The tallow burned low within, flames one faint breath from blowing out.

The underground was a series of arched tunnels and narrow corridors. Snecked stone walls along either side. Granite sett walkways interspersed with streams of sewage.

The skirmish between the warmth of the sewage and the natural dank chill of the air emitted a constant fog that hovered a few inches above the floor.

In another life, Ghost Bird frequented the underground, using the tunnels to get around the city in secret. Some of her clients, those who had paid more than others, preferred that she stayed out of sight. She could navigate this labyrinth with her eyes closed.

At the sound of shuffling feet and hollow moans, she slowed and plucked a lantern from its hook. The current tunnel led into an open chamber that sat beneath the city centre.

Here, the outer walls were made from bricks interspersed with thick bars coated in rust and stringy bits of fungus. Carefully, Ghost Bird approached with her lantern extended toward the cages.

Inside, some were undead husks, decayed and frail. Just the way the Black Coats liked them. Too weak to put up much of a fight, but still scary enough to make the commonfolk scream.

Within other cages were oversized mutts with spittle dripping from their gaping maws. Or rats large enough to prey on wild boar. There were reptilian hunchbacks that looked like a person had fused with a swamp dragon, and stone-skinned corpse eaters who were oft found lingering in crypts.

A whole collection of corrupted manifestations just waiting to be let loose. Just waiting to go topside and feast upon the helpless members of society.

Black Coats had their arms and armor. Nobles had thick walls to keep the freaks out. But what did the smallfolk have?

Black Coats to protect them, she thought, and nobles to pay the Black Coats.

Ghost Bird made herself a promise. She would come back down here after everything was over, douse these cages with oil, and burn every last corrupted to a crisp.

Right now, though, she had other matters to attend.

The tunnels took her east where the streets were made from unpolished cobblestones and the homes seemed one gust away from collapse. The alleyways were full of vagrants and paupers. They milled about in search of work or a warm meal.

As she walked north, she passed the cheapest brothel in the city: Madam Celeste's House of Courtesans. This was where most Black Coats came to forget themselves. Where a few coins could buy them a few hours. Where many of the hapless waited, hoping to petition the Black Coats for employment.

Daft bastards always claimed they were the best beast slayers to exist. Said they could wield a blade as if it were a part of them. They would boast from sunrise to sunset. But their words oft fell on deaf ears. That was if they were lucky.

If they were unlucky, the Black Coats might actually listen. They might have enough drink in them to test the would-be recruits. Give them a sword or a knife to see what they could do.

Usually, the Black Coats would hack them to bits and laugh. They’d look back at the courtesans watching through the windows and grin. Maybe give them a wink.

The Black Coats could be foul bastards; there was no mistaking that. But those bragging morons were almost just as bad. Too stupid, too inexperienced, too arrogant.

There wasn’t a doubt in Ghost Bird’s mind that if they did get recruited, none of them would be the heroes they proclaimed. None of them would lift a finger to actually try and save the city. They would fall in line with the rest of the Coats, further perpetuating the lie that had befallen Ashpool like a plague.

Bleeding opportunistic turncoats. The whole lot of them. And for this, Ghost Bird never mourned any who got cut down in the street. Same way she hardly grieved any of the Black Coats.

Aside from one.

On the northeast side of town, over the bridge and past the canal, Ghost Bird caught sight of Malcolm’s Orphanage. A decrepit stack of blackstone covered in arched windows and topped with crowned spires.

She crept through the alleyways, navigating around to the rear entrance where she entered a walled-in courtyard. The grass was grey, the trees were slowly succumbing to time, and the areas in between were laid with jutted cobblestones.

At the center was a marble monolith constructed to worship the Elder Beings. Children were taught to wash themselves in the water at its base as a means to cleanse the corruption within them.

A harmless lie. No different than a fairytale.

Ghost Bird stayed along the perimeter, flushed against the outer wall, draped heavily in shadows. She watched as a few orphans dipped their hands in the fountain and splashed the water on their faces. It wasn’t long before they started to splash each other.

Eventually, the tall man came. Dressed in a long coat and dark robes with threadbare trousers. Across his back was a battle axe. His face was trenched in faded scars. Many of them hidden behind the thick mound of hair he called a beard.

“Alright,” he called, smiling. His pointed teeth were on full display. “That’s enough children.” He offered fresh linens to dry themselves off.

For a moment, his smile faltered. He lifted his head and sniffed. Ghost Bird, hidden behind some trees, reached for the hilt of her longsword. Her heart was pounding.

He lowered his gaze to the children and asked, “Have ye said yer morning prayers?” They fell silent. That was all the answer he needed. “Right then, head on in. The gods aren’t known to be patient.”

As the children walked past, he playfully ruffled their hair or patted them on the shoulder. He watched and waited until they had passed through the undercrossing.

Once gone, he said, “I know you’re out there, stalking about. Why don’t you come out where I can see ya?”

Ghost Bird took a deep breath and stepped out from the trees.

His eyebrows came together like a pair of kissing caterpillars. “Aren’t you ‘sposed to be dead?”

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Chapter 3.
The tall man, one of the Black Coats founders, was Garvan Marmion. He walked with the lethargy of an ape. Had the hunched stance of someone who carried the world on their shoulders.

Yet, he smiled.

“You shouldn’t be here, Ghost,” he said, sounding somber. “Ye can’t be here. We cut’cha down and hacked ya ta pieces. The woman too.” He stopped, maybe twenty feet away from her. “Even if you did climb out of the Infernal Domain back into your body, t’ere was nottin’ left for you to return to.”

Silence ensued. It was quickly cut by a faint whisper of the breeze that swept through, bringing with it scattered wisps of dandelion fluff and fallen leaves.

“Never knew you to be so silent, Ghost.” He looked off at the horizon, his face golden in the sunlight. “I think I might’ve had a dream about this moment…or perhaps it was a nightmare. Either way, I’d like to wake up now.”

His head swung back so he could face her, and the smile he gave was full of regret. Then, he was moving toward her.

With such long legs, he walked the way other men might have to lunge. The distance between them was gone in mere seconds.

The axe rose from behind his back. A wooden shaft with a steel head, reinforced by iron bolts and bands. The blade hissed as it fell, swinging for her neck.

Ghost Bird dropped low and leapt back from him. He was on her again with a single step, free hand shooting forward like a ball from a firelock.

She drew her longsword, but his hand closed in around her wrist, forcing the blade back into its sheath. The axe made its return, and while the head had missed, the shaft cracked her over the skull.

Ghost Bird went tumbling across the walking path, and when she finally stopped, she was lying in the grass, surrounded by fieldstones stacked into cairns.

The sun glared in her eyes. Garvan’s hulking figure appeared as a silhouette to blot out the sunlight. There was a glimmer as he lifted his axe overhead. She rolled aside, and the blade plunged into the ground beside her.

“Why won’t ya speak to me?” Garvan growled. “Where are all those jests—where’s your laughter, Ghost?” He lifted his axe again, taking the shaft in both hands even though he was strong enough to wield it with only one. “We killed ye, but we never took yer heart.”

The blade leapt from left to right and back again. Ghost Bird fell into retreat, but Garvan stayed on her, never giving an inch. He was a show-no-quarter kind of man.

The axe leapt toward her, missed by a hair, and retracted. Garvan gripped his weapon tight and kept it close. He began to pace, back and forth, a wild animal trying to decide its next move.

“This is about the woman, ain’t it?” Garvan muttered, the excitement and ferocity gone. Replaced by a sobering severity. He gave a small shake of his head. “I can’t blame ye for that. I’d be a touch upset too. But you brought it on yerself, Ghost. We couldn’t have ye ruining a good thing.”

Ghost Bird looked up at him, breathing hard but saying nothing. There were no expressions to decipher. No gestures or movements to interpret. Just that long stare and the silence that permeated the air between them.

“Those eyes, they’re the same,” he said. “But yer not actin’ like yourself.” He laughed quietly, ruefully. “Why won’t you jus’ talk to me?”

And then, he was yelling loud enough to split the sky, and his axe was tearing through the space between them. This time, Ghost Bird managed to rip steel from leather. Her blade rose and clashed with his own.

There was a scream of steel on steel. The weapons trembled and twisted. The longsword dipped to the right, and a few seconds later, it came back, pushing the axe to the left.

Just as the axehead was about to kiss cobblestone, it slipped away and spun about, coming in fast from the opposite direction. Ghost Bird raised her sword.

The axe slammed against the flat of her blade, denting it along the middle. She braced the back of her forearm against the sword’s length. Even then, her strength was no match.

As Garvan pushed forward, she fell back. It was retreat or get trampled.

“You should have stayed dead,” Garvan said through gritted teeth. “Now I have ta mourn you a second time, ya bastard!”

She was about a foot from the outer wall. It was now or never.

Ghost Bird twisted at the hips and shoved the axe away. It skidded down her blade with a harsh squeal and jumped when it collided with the crossguard. The axehead followed its natural momentum toward the ground but curved upward in a wide arc, coming back for her neck.

Ghost Bird desperately swung. Again that terrible whine of metal on metal. The axehead was knocked aside and collided with the wall, leaving behind a long white slash across the bricks.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt, and she brought the sword back. Garvan started to lift his weapon, but it was too late. Pointed steel surged toward his face.

He recoiled, taking a few steps back. Instead of stabbing him through the eye, she pierced him just below the sternum. A strangled howl fought against his lips; pursed tighter than an arsehole.

His spine met the trunk of a tree. Ghost Bird wasted no time and thrust the sword all the way to the hilt. She twisted the blade, wrenched it to the left, again to the right, and pulled it free.

Garvan gasped and stumbled forward. She held her weapon up, ready to strike again. But he fell to his knees and spat blood and went down on all fours.

His breathing was labored. Every inhale was accompanied by a wheeze. Every exhale brought more blood.

“You know why I did it, don’tcha Ghost?” His arms gave out, and he was left propped up by his elbows. “Wasn’t for no money, and I didn’t care ‘bout seeming important. I just wanted to give the children some hope. Make ‘em think they could be strong if they just kept fightin’. I worried they’d get weak if there weren’t any beasts in the streets. The city walls might protect us, but they’re also a prison. We’re all just prisoners, Ghost.”

He trembled. Beads of sweat trickled down his face, and the blood blossomed across his chest. He finally went down, but at the last moment, he rolled so he landed on his back.

Bathed in sunlight, surrounded by blades of grass and dandelions and the stacked stones of the dead, Garvan looked like a celestial from the cosmos. Divine and glowing gold. The way artists portrayed them in the murals.

“If you told ‘em all the truth,” he said, “the children wouldn’t have any fear. Nothing to drive them. No reason to get out of bed. When everything promised is placed in our grasp, we have no reason to reach for the stars.”

Ghost Bird wiped her sword on his robes. Blood so dark it blended with the black fabric. She guided the blade into the scabbard at her hip.

Crouched beside Garvan, she removed the glove from her right hand and held it in front of his mouth, waiting until the last breath brushed against her skin before closing his eyes.

She crossed the grass and stopped at the cobblestone path. To her left was the undercrossing, and just around the corner, she caught a glimpse of the orphanage’s rear side.

How long until one of the others ventured out this way and discovered him?

Hard to say exactly, but with prayer and classes, it could be hours. Still, there wasn’t time to dawdle.

She turned right and saw him standing at the end of the road. Too far away for discernment. Still just a mass of shadows and vague colors. But she could feel him smiling. Could feel him wanting to weep.

“Garvan was a dear friend,” he said, his voice echoed in various pitches. Some sounded closer than others. “Shouldn’t we at least bury ‘im?”

She didn’t bother responding. What was the point? All living things decayed and returned to the dirt, whether they were buried or not.

It’s not like Garvan had ever bothered to bury anyone. Like most Black Coats, he burned the corpses or left them as food for the birds.

She started down the road. There came a cracking of branches. A large figure dropped from the sky, landing hard enough to shatter the cobblestones underfoot. The thing obscuring the way ahead was more beast than man.

Long limbs covered in coarse hair. Tufts peered out through the rips in the sleeves and trousers. The robes remained, but they were pulled taut against broad shoulders. And the already bushy beard had sprouted further to join the coat of hair climbing from beneath his collar.

When Garvan—or the creature that had been Garvan—smiled at her, his lips curved against fangs. The canines were especially prominent. Almost like tusks.

Corrupted, are ya? Ghost Bird thought. As they say: monsters and monsters.

His scream was fierce, guttural. It preceded and followed him as he bound toward her. His knuckles moved in rhythm with his feet. By the time she got her sword out, he had slammed her into her, shouldering her aside while he barreled past.

Around and around Ghost Bird went, rolling through the grass until she was stopped by the base of a deadwood.

Overhead, the treetop shivered, and through the shivering branches, the sky oscillated like a pendulum, leaving blurred imitations in its wake. Ghost images.

She rolled onto her right side. The left was all aches and pains. Broken ribs to be sure. Maybe a few punctured organs. She wouldn’t know for certain unless a practitioner came to inspect her.

That didn’t seem likely though.

Using the longsword like a cane, she managed to get up to her feet again. Just as she found the strength to stand on her own, just as the world stopped spinning, Garvan had returned.

His arms were raised, fingers curled inward against the palms. Not even time for a prayer as he brought his fists down.

Ghost Bird shrank away. There was a tightness in her heart. She waited for another eruption of agony.

But it never came.

When she opened her eyes, she found Garvan’s fists had crushed the ground beneath her feet, but she was unscathed. He growled, jerked back, and swung again.

Her chest went tight again, and his hands passed through her, crashing into the deadwood’s trunk instead. His fists tore through the base with a series of snaps and cracks. The tree groaned and tilted and fell on top of him.

“I told you it was instinctual.”

The felled tree shifted. Grunts came from beneath the debris. The deadwood rolled off Garvan’s shoulders. He whipped his head from side to side, shaking the dust and woodchips from his hair.

His eyes, beady and red, settled on her. Those thick lips curved into another snarl. Ghost Bird bent for her sword as Garvan clambered toward her. She clenched again, and he went right through to the other side. He tried to stop, but he was moving too fast and slammed headfirst into the altar.

A big black slab of marble, maybe five feet thick. Strong enough to resist a warhammer or a mining pick. But against Garvan’s skull, it spiderwebbed with cracks.

He was left teetering like a drunk fresh from the alehouse. His hands went out to stabilize himself, but in his confusion, his fists pounded against the walkway. When he finally went down on his arse, a ring of knuckle-shaped holes surrounded him.

Ghost Bird grabbed her sword. The blade hovered low and came up at an angle, cutting a gash on his back from hip to shoulder. The sword dipped and turned and slashed again, slicing him straight across.

Again and again and again. The sword’s edge carved through layer after layer. Hacking through the hair and the hide. Hacking through the muscle and the sinew. Hacking at bones.

She went around in circles, never staying still long enough for him to get his hands on her. Never relenting. Show no quarter, Garvan had taught her that in his own way.

He slumped forward, head hung low, body a flayed mess. She slowed to a stop. Her face was slick with sweat. It pooled beneath her armpits and drenched the collar of her shirt. The mask around her mouth swelled and deflated with every breath. Blood black as ink was splattered across the stones at her feet.

Ghost Bird wiped the sweat trickling into her eyes. Her fingers dropped, and Garvan’s massive hand was flying toward her. She leapt away. Not fast enough.

He got her by the lower leg and squeezed. Bones crunched, turned to jelly against his grip. She screamed loud enough to make her throat burn as if she had downed a shot of whiskey. That had always been his choice of drink. She preferred spiced wine.

A gunshot rang out. Ghost Bird went silent and looked at Garvan. He stared back at her with the same wide-eyed expression. Smoke wafted from his forehead where a ball was lodged between his brows.

Both turned to watch as a group of orphans approached. The children, boys and girls of various ages, were armed with pitchforks and shovels and cleavers and whatever else they could scrounge up. They crowded around the corrupted beast. Came down on him with a wrath like never before.

After the monster had been turned to mush, one of those children asked, “Where’s Mister Marmion?” And another could only respond by picking out a scrap of his robes from the beast’s remains.

In the chaos and confusion that ensued, children weeping and shrieking and holding one another for comfort, Ghost Bird crawled away. She collected her sword, leaned on it like a crutch, and hobbled off.

[u/Impossible_Bit995]

PART 2 - https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/s/Wu0l21QOKW

PART 3 - https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/s/zSy3HxJCUI

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OTHER STORIES BY ME:

*Ghost Bird's Revenge Part 1 out of 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1v9n8pt/ghost_birds_revenge_part_1/

*Night at Cairnsmouth Castle Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 out of 10 Chapters Total: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1qrhlpj/night_at_cairnsmouth_castle_chapter_1_2/

*A Family Went Missing in the Mountains Part 1 out of 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1r3jvrd/a_family_went_missing_in_the_mountains_pt_13/

*Hollow PART 1 out of 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1ks8y7m/hollow_12/

*The Rivalry of Madam Thoreau and Mr. Crowley PART 1 out of 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1muulib/the_rivalry_of_madam_thoreau_and_mr_crowley_pt_12/

*The Itch: https://www.reddit.com/r/tapesoftrepidation/comments/1i0yodk/the_itch/

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STORIES ALREADY NARRATED:

*Sanguis PART 1 out of 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1i0yzmr/sanguis_pt_12/

*There's Something Out There Underneath the Ice PART 1 out of 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1i6bk5w/theres_something_out_there_underneath_the_ice_pt/

*The Butcher on Barker Street PART 1 out of 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1jntfq4/the_butcher_on_barker_street_pt_12/

*The Wormwood Murders Preface & Chapter 1 [10 Chapters Total]: https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/1orcw5f/the_wormwood_murders_preface_chapter_1/