In a ruined land, cursed by the gods and haunted by the dead, a young mercenary discovers a horror threatening to destroy what is left of civilization.
Welcome folks!
Whether you’ve come here from social media, or happened to meander across this page, I am thrilled to have you visit, because this post marks the official preview of my new serial novel Hunted, book 1 of The Blood Rot Saga.
My last serial novel, Nameless, was a great deal of fun to write, and can still be found right here. I liked the world so much that I wanted to explore it further, and from there came the idea for the Blood Rot Saga. Like Nameless, this story is a fair bit darker than my Stalker Chronicles series. If that doesn’t interest you, don’t worry: the next Stalker book, A Cursed Factory, is already started, and you’ll be able to read Abyowith’s next adventure/mystery later this year.
Unlike Nameless, Hunted will only be available to Erik’s Coffee Club. Memberships start at only $3 a month, includes free ebooks and paperbacks (depending on your membership level), meet-ups with the author and, of course, a chapter a week of Hunted, right in your email inbox. And every membership makes it possible for me to spend more time writing, and to reach more people.
Hunted is set a thousand miles north of the City of Seven Walls and Nameless, in a the remains of a once great empire destroyed by natural disaster and now a land of small, squabbling fiefs, each vying with the other for power and wealth. But our story begins with a young boy whose life is about to brutally change…
The Beginning
Content Warning: terror, violence, gore, violence against children, death.
Malchiulm is seven when they burn down the whorehouse.
He knows because they celebrated his sixth name-day a month earlier, and babies aren’t named until they reach their first year. Wilcin, who is eleven and terrible, gleefully explained that it was because most babies die before they turn one. That made four-year-old Felicy get teary, and earned Wilcin a scolding.
So six plus one is seven and Malchiulm is seven. Old enough to know he should be in the nursery, being quiet and not getting underfoot.
The House of Shining Flowers does not include children as part of its offerings. The men who come here do so to escape their families; to indulge in a world of gentle candlelight, soft fabrics, gambling, sumptuous food, alcohol, drugs and willing women.
Lady Glinnis, who owns the house and the women in it, doesn’t like children. She makes the whores drink a tea of bloodwort and red cedar every two months to keep children from appearing. Such things work well, but don’t work always. The three children are the result, and the law says Lady Glinnis must keep them. A child of a debt-slave can’t be sold and must be fed enough to thrive. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be put to use. Lady Glinnis makes them work from the time they can walk, first in the yard, then inside. The children dust and sweep, wipe up vomit and other messes, and haul the night slops to the privies overhanging the river. The housekeeper—an old woman with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue—oversees their work and has no problem taking a switch to a seven-year-old for not doing things right.
This evening, Malchiulm finishes his last chore—polishing the banister—late enough that he can hide behind the newel post and watch the women go downstairs. He loves the bright colours and patterns on the dresses which they only wear at night to show off to the men before doing the act.
Malchiulm knows what “the act” is—acts, in fact, because the women do a variety. He and Wilcin once snuck into the peep-hallway to see what went on in the evenings. It all looked weird and disturbed Malchiulm, so he didn’t go again. Later, he asked his mother why men enjoy such things. She said he would understand when he was older, which explained nothing.
The twelve women, all debt-slaves sold by their families, see him behind the newel post as they walk past. Eleven give him the side-eye and muss his hair. His mother, last in the line, twists his ear to remind him he’s being naughty, and shoos him away with her hand. Any other night, Malchiulm would have retreated to the nursery. But this evening he stays, watching the women lining up before Lady Glinnis.
Something terrible is coming.
It isn’t a thought, or something he’s heard. It’s a feeling in his stomach, worse than when he first saw the ghost on the bed in the yellow room, covered in blood from a dozen stab wounds and trying to gasp through a hole in her throat. No one else in the house sees the ghost, which annoys Malchiulm, but he knows she’s real. He described her to his mother, who looked worried but told him that a customer murdered the woman four years ago, and Malchiulm was never to mention it.
He hasn’t been in the yellow room since.
Whatever is coming now is far, far worse than the ghost. Malchiulm is too young to understand what “terror’ means, but that’s what he’s feeling, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. So he stands at the top of the stairs, watching.
The women and Lady Glynnis don’t act like they feel anything. The women stand in a straight line. Lady Glynnis checks their teeth and breath and hands and hair, and sniffs them to make certain they’ve bathed. When she’s satisfied, she nods and heads for the door. The women drop into deep curtseys to greet the first men who enter. Some men will claim a companion at once. Others will go to the gaming tables, or head for the comfortable settees in the salon to talk and laugh and take their time before selecting.
Malchiulm wants to yell at Lady Glynnis not to open the door, to keep the whorehouse shut and not let the terrible thing in. He knows he’s not allowed to talk to her, or anyone outside the nursery, this time of night, but whatever is out there is far worse than the punishment he’ll get for it. Malchulm opens his mouth to cry out, but no sound comes from his suddenly dry throat. His body shakes, his stomach hurts, and tears fill his eyes. He has to clutch himself to keep from peeing, and feels like he’s going to mess himself as well.
The door swings open.
The man in the doorway looks ordinary. He’s neither large nor small, and wears a deep red surcoat with black shirt and hose beneath, and shiny black boots. His long, pale hair flows down his back. He’s thin, with no beard, skin as pale as his hair, and green eyes. A silver armband, inscribed with patterns Malchiulm can’t make out is clasped tight around his bicep. It flashes in the candlelight as he grabs Lady Glinnis’s throat and forces her backwards.
Without turning his head, the man says, “Kill everyone but the children.”
Men pour through the doors, short, wide-bladed swords in their hands. Half charge into the salon. The others attack the women and screams of pain and fear and the sounds of flesh ripping and blood spattering fill the air. Malchiulm’s mother sprints for the stairs. A man catches her ankle from behind and hauls on it. Her head slams on the steps and she cries out, then gasps as the man shoves his blade deep into her back.
Malchiulm wants to help his mom; wants to stop the man; but he’s seven and his terror freezes him in place. Blood pours out of her as the man yanks the sword free and grabs her hair. He pulls her head up and Malchiulm’s eyes meet his mother’s. She looks confused and scared.
The blade drags across her throat and blood sprays.
Malchiulm runs, his bladder cutting loose and leaving a trail of urine. He sprints for the back stairs to the nursery, because that’s the safe place for children. Behind, comes the loud stomping of an adult, chasing him. Malchiulm runs faster, reaches the back stairs and misses the first step. He hits the second, stumbles, and falls down the next six steps to the landing. He lands hard but jumps up, too scared to realize he’s hurt. Malchiulm grabs the banister and clings to it as he runs, not noticing that his other arm isn’t working.
Two more landings and he reaches the kitchen.
The matron sprawls on the floor, her guts visible through the bloody slash in her stomach. A second woman lies nearby, but Malchiulm can’t tell who because her head is missing. Beyond them, the nursery door stands wide open and Felicy and Wilcin scream as men grab them. Felicy’s screams are high and wordless and filled with fear. Wilcin sounds just as scared, but he’s using every dirty word he knows to show he’s brave.
Malchiulm, runs again; down into the basement with its shelves of beer kegs and wine barrels. There’s a place the children hide in sometimes, where no adult can reach. He dashes for it, squeezing his way between the kegs to the small space behind them.
“What’s taking so long?” demands the terrifying man, his voice loud enough to ring in Malchiulm’s ears.
“One hid in the basement,” says a man.
“Can he get out?”
“Not past me.”
“Then wait. Show me the others.”
Malchiulm pushes through to the small, tight place behind the barrels. He hears footsteps above, and the terrifying man speaks again. “I’ll take the girl. Kill the other.”
There’s the sound of a blade chopping through meat, and Wilcin’s stream of screamed profanity cuts off. For a second Felicy falls silent, then she wails, helpless and heartbroken and terrified. Malchiulm cowers back against the wall, his fists stuffed in his mouth to muffle his own cries.
“What about the one in the basement?”
“We’ve got the kid we need,” says the terrifying man. “Light the place.”
More feet tromp across the kitchen floor. Malchiulm hears things being thrown around and broken. After, there comes a crackling sound, like wood burning in the nursery hearth, only louder, and the talking fades away. Malchiulm doesn’t understand what’s happening, but the lack of voices gives him the courage to slip out of his hiding place. He starts upstairs and sees a bright orange and yellow glow. The crackling grows to a roar and only then does Malchiulm realize the building is on fire.
Flames lick the walls and block the kitchen door. A black cloud fills the air from the ceiling to just above Malchiulm’s head. He squints across the burning room, past the corpses, to the salon. The lush velvet curtains and the red-cushioned chairs blaze with flames, spitting cinders and sparks. Beyond it, in the foyer, another wall of flame blocks the front door.
And because he’s seven, all Malchiulm can think to do is hide in the nursery.
Flames dance in the toy chest. Blankets and mattresses lie in a burning pile in the middle of the room. Heat sears Malchiulm’s skin, but he doesn’t know where else to go. The curtained-off privy is the farthest from the fire and Malchiulm slides along the wall to slip into it. He curls up on the plank seat, crying as his skin turns red. A beam falls into the nursery and flaming bits of wood fly through the privy curtain, piercing Malchiulm’s back. His cries become screams. The curtain catches fire and Malchiulm scabbles against the privy wall. He is trapped, and so scared.
A memory bubbles up, of being perched on the privy hole and Wilcin giving him a push, saying, “don’t fall in,” and laughing when Malchiulm grabs the seat, terrified of sliding into the filthy river below.
Malchiulm shoves his legs into the privy and tries to slide through the hole. His backside gets stuck a moment, but he squirms until it slips through. His back scrapes against the edge and the wood shards imbedded in his flesh rip free with sharp shocks of pain. He jolts to a stop. His shoulders are stuck and his smock tangled around his face, forcing him to breathe the stink of his own urine. His working arm thrashes high over his head, the other still useless. Then the smock tears past his face and Malchiulm falls into the river.
The current grabs him and yanks him downstream. He’s fights to reach the surface but no one taught him how to swim. Water invades his mouth and nose. He starts choking. Then his knees scrape along the river bottom. Malchiulm struggles to stand, gasping as his head breaks the surface. He sputters and wheezes and tries to keep upright. The current shoves him like a monstrous, powerful hand, and his feet slip out from beneath him. His world narrows to the water around him and his held breath as he rushes downstream. The air in his lungs pushes hard against his mouth, demanding to come out, until at last it releases and water rushes to take its place.
Someone catches his arm and hauls him up from the water. He coughs and hacks as his body expels the water from his lungs. The person who picked him up drags him out of the river and dumps him on the river bank’s hard stones. A woman’s voice demands, “What the hell are we going to do with that?”
Malchiulm’s back still burns from the fire. He’s cut and bruised, and sharp pain jabs into him from his not-working shoulder. He wants to cry but doesn’t have the strength.
“Might be worth something,” says a second woman.
“Not to us,” says the first. “Pity Cherlee fished him out. River would have done him faster.”
“He’s not dying,” protested a third woman. “He’s half-drowned, and he’s burnt, poor thing.”
“That fire in town?”
Malchiulm tries to speak, but no words come. He tries reaching out, but can’t move. All he can do is stare as everything fades away.
He wakes up on a plank bed with a blanket over him and a canvas roof stretching out on a wood frame above. His chest and lungs ache from expelling water, and dull pain radiates from one shoulder. His burnt back still feels on fire, and his arms and legs hurt in a dozen places.
“Look at that,” says a gruff voice. “It lives.”
Malchiulm turns his head. A stocky man with a dark beard and wavy hair stands over him. He wears a long smock and a bloody apron over it. He puts on a smile that shows some missing teeth and makes him look more frightening.
“You’re in the bonemender’s tent,” says the man. “I’m Grendor the Mender.”
Grendor smiles and Malchiulm suspects he’s supposed to laugh at the rhyme, but he’s hurt and confused and scared. Grendor sighs. “You’re in the camp of the Night Scouts mercenary company. Our washerwomen fished you from the river, and the captain brought you here. I put your shoulder back in joint and tended your burns. The captain says to send you to him when you woke. Can you walk?”
Malchiulm sits up, discovers it doesn’t hurt worse than lying there, and pushes off the blanket and stands. He’s naked, and wonders why until he remembers his smock came off in the burning privy. He swings his legs off the plank, and slides until his feet hit the floor. That doesn’t hurt too much either, so he stands. Malchiulm wobbles, but stays on his feet.
“Well, you can’t go walking starkers,” says Grendor. “Hang on a tick.”
He turns his back, goes to a chest, and rummages. He comes up with a pale blue tunic, with a faded red stain around a mended hole in the stomach. “This will do. Belonged to young Clemon. He was still growing when he got stabbed. Here.”
He puts the tunic on Malchiulm. The fabric hurts as it rubs against his burned skin.It covers him to his ankles, and threatens to slip off his narrow shoulders.
“Got no shoes for you,” says Grendor. “Boy your age shouldn’t wear any in summer, anyway. Come along and watch your step.”
Outside the tent, dozens of men stand, sit, talk and move. Each one wears a knee-length leather coat with studs—a brigandine, Malchiulm learns later, made with a layer of metal plates sewn between the leather outside and cloth interior. They carry swords and axes, and some have bows and arrows. Many sit in groups near their tents, around the remains of last night’s fires, talking, cleaning weapons and laughing. Others sit alone and silent, looking grim. Most sport bandages, and everyone looks as if they’ve worn their armour a long time.
There are twelve rows of tents, Malchiulm counts, and five tents in each row, which is . . . a lot, he decides. Many tents have their sides up like the bonemender’s, showing the six cots inside each. At the camp’s centre sits a larger tent than the others, with two men standing guard on it. Grendor leads Malchiulm inside. Four men, mugs in their hands, sit around a table with a keg of beer beside it. In one corner is a bed—a proper one instead of a cot. Grendor pushes Malchiulm forward.
These men also carry weapons and look as if they’ve worn their armour for weeks. Three have red cloth sewn into their armour at the shoulders. The fourth has purple. That man looks Malchiulm over the way Lady Glinnis examines the women, and takes a sip of his beer.
“What’s your name?” asks one of the men in red. He’s wide, with dark brown hair and beard, and hands that dwarf the mug he holds.
Malchium is scared again, and doesn’t know what to do, so he answers, “Malchiulm.”
“Tell us of your people, Malchiulm,” says the man with purple shoulder pads. He’s lean, as if he gave away his extra flesh to the other three. He has no beard, a scar runs his jaw, and the hand he holds his mug with only has three fingers. Malchiulm tries not to stare at it. The man waits, and when Malchiulm doesn’t answer, his tone sharpens. “Well?
“My people?” Malchiulm repeats, confused.
“Your parents. Cousins. Family.”
“I don’t have any,” Malchiulm says. “Just my mother . . .”
He trails off, and sniffles. The men’s eyes narrow, their faces harden. It scares Malchiulm, and he swallows the wail that wants to come forth.
“The House of Shining Flowers burned down last night,” says a second man with red shoulder pads. He’s bigger than the other two, his hair and beard blond. He wears no shirt under his armour, and scars criss-cross his arms from the wrists up to his shoulders. “Your mum a whore?”
Malchiulm nods and sniffles.
“No chance of a reward, then. Should we toss him back in the river?”
Malchiulm wonders if he’s joking, but none of the others laugh.
The man with the purple shoulder pads rises from his chair. “I’m Captain Braccart, head of the Night Scouts. This is my company, and no one stays here who isn’t working, so you’ve got yourself a choice to make. Come with me.”
The man’s tone demands obedience and Malchiulm follows him out. Captain Braccart leads him down the closest row of tents and points at a jumble of wagons, tents and makeshift buildings a hundred metres away.
“That’s the followers’ camp,” he says. “Whores, smiths, leatherworkers, armourers and tavern wagons. I asked around to see who needs help, and your choices aren’t good. The whorehouse wants a pot boy and the laundresses could use another washer. Of course, you can go back to the city, but most likely some gang will grab you and make you a thief, or force you to do what your mother did, under worse circumstances.”
Malchiulm stares at his feet. He has no idea what to do. He wants to go home, but there’s no home left; he wants his mother, but she’s dead. Everyone is dead. He doesn’t want to be a washerwoman or a pot boy. And the thought of being forced to do what he saw through the peep-hole makes his stomach roil.
He bites his lip to keep from crying. Captain Braccart waits a moment longer, then says, “There’s another job, but most boys aren’t brave enough for it.”
Malchiulm’s eyes go wide with fear and a small spark of hope. The captain smiles.
“We use lads as signallers,” says Blaccart. “Teach them how to drum on the field and run messages between squads. They serve as pageboys, too, for the squad leaders, sergeants and lieutenants. If you’re quick and smart, you can earn a place in the Scouts.”
Malchiulm looks around him, at the many soldiers with weapons and metal-studded coats. He thinks of the men who burned down the House of Shining Flowers. What if they find out he’s alive? What if they come after him? If he stays here, it will be harder for them to hurt him, and he can learn how to fight and stop them next time.
“Make up your mind, boy,” says the captain, and there is no hint of patience in his tone. “Otherwise, I’ll kick you out, right now.”
Malchiulm, scared, alone, and with no one to help him, swallows back his sniffles and says, “Signaller.”
“Thought you might,” says Captain Braccart. “Follow me.”
It takes Malchiulm years to realize that Braccart manipulated him; gave him no real choice except to join the company. He hates him for it, but by then doesn’t know any other way to live.
Braccart leads Malchiulm to a tent with five men sitting in a circle, who rise when they see their captain. One, with blue shoulder pads, staggers as he does. He sees Malcolm and says, “Oh, fuck, no, Captain.”
“Oh, fuck, yes, Sergeant Jillet,” says Captain Braccart, “Meet Malchiulm Whoreson, your new page and signaller.”
“He’s an infant,” Jillet protests. He stands taller and wider than the captain, with a tangled, shoulder-length hair and a thin, brown beard. The rivets on his armour are covered in dull red that Malchiulm thinks is blood but later learns is rust as he scrubs it off. The man’s eyes are bleary and bloodshot around their brown irises. Mud cakes his boots, as if he hasn’t bothered to clean them in weeks.
“He’s no younger than I was when I started,” says one of the men around the fire. Malchiulm looks and sees he’s not full-grown. Lady Glynnis would call him a youth, just old enough for the House’s services, but not by much. His dark hair is tied back in a pony tail, and his beard is sparse and scruffy. “And I turned out all right.”
“Shut the fuck up, Goff,” says Jillet. He glares at Malchiulm. “He’ll be dead in five seconds.”
“He won’t,” the captain says, and the tone makes the word an order. “Summer’s ending, campaign is done. You got the winter to teach him his job.” He steps closer to Jillet. “Do it right this time, or I’ll bury you with him.”
Braccart stares until Jillet looks away. The captain nods in satisfaction, and says, “Good. Welcome to the company, boy. Try to survive.”