Rot | Echoes Between Sky and Stone

Echoes Between Sky and Stone - Rot

“Holdsman.” The word rasped from Kaen's throat. A rank spat on him a year ago—too weak to be a proper soldier, yet useful enough to serve as a mule. The swamp pressed close, air thick with the stench of eggs and wet bark. Mosquitoes feasted on him, but the festering wound in his back stopped him from caring anymore. Shade came only from a canvas scrap, mold-stained and barely hanging onto the broken frame of the carriage he'd taken refuge in.

In his palm rested a necklace, its broken chain slipped through his fingers into the mud below. What was left was the pendant, three gemstones in silver braiding resembling a helix circled by two crossing rings. He turned it once, twice, as though to test if it was real. He clenched it in his fist, muttering, “Damned Wardens...” The curse cracked his lips. Immortal bastards...

The swamp was indifferent, insects buzzing, birds chittering in the distance. Faint breathing, shallow. Behind the trees, then gone. His skin prickled, hair lifting on his neck.

I—The fever. It has to be. His eyes rolled back.

Fever overtook him, dragged him back into memory to nine months ago when he'd marched on the city-state of Druanvi. A fog of blood so thick over the battlefield every breath tasted like iron.

Constructs rose from the fog, flesh fused with machine, nightmares brought to life. Druanvi had created the perfect soldier. They cut through their ranks as shards of light tore limb from body.

He crawled forward, crystal charges and field supplies strapped to his back, while hands of the wounded clawed at him. Their voices pleading, breaking and fading as they begged to be taken to safety.

Attack after attack was struck down, attrition bleeding their ranks. Then came a flash

so blinding he could see the bones of his fellows even with his eyes closed. It felt like the ground shattered and the blast wave slammed him into the dirt.

When he staggered back to his feet, Druanvi was gone. Not destroyed — but simply gone, nothing left but blackened rock. No cheers followed, no cries of victory, just silence so complete the world itself held its breath.

Kaen exhaled, wheezing and coughing. His only companion to silence now was the faint buzz of the insects and soft rustle of leaves. The swamp air filled his lungs. The sweet tang of infection sticking in his nose and coating the back of his throat. He thought he heard the breaths again — quick, panicked, circling him — but when he looked, there was nothing.

“Wh—who’s there? I can hear you!” His voice cracked, thin as reed. Mustering the strength to pull himself upright by the carriage, spitting into the silence. “Quit circling — come get me already!”

The rotted wood gave out. He fell back into the mud with a wet squelch, cold seeping straight into his bones. A bird shrieked overhead, its cawing sharp, mocking him in response.

His sight blurred at the edges, damp heat smothering him. The world thinned, sky folding into trees, swarms of flies warping into distant shapes.

For months after the war he'd walked past dead furrows where servitors once hummed. Now only wind scoured the upturned soil, scratching at his ankles. Immortal bastards had broken everything. Shapes moved in the distance, bent figures picking through bone dry dirt with the same hunger in their eyes as his. A servitor lay face-down near the treeline, dead in the earth it had tended, its metal limbs locked.

Every so often he'd passed a caravan, people leaving their dying cities behind. Cities that had become breeding grounds of violence, where neighbor turned on neighbor.

Children thin, skin stretched taut, sitting on carts among the elderly. The adults walked beside the pack animals that pulled makeshift carts. Their kids are starving and still they keep their animals.

The caravans he'd pass all were the same, the elderly ignoring him. The kids stared.

Kaen blinked. For an instant, a girl's terrified face flashed before him.

He jolted. Breath caught, eyes snapping open. The buzz of mosquitoes returned. Sweat stung his eyes. The memory left nothing behind, there was just the shivering as the fever ate deeper into him.

"Never meant to kill..." He gasped, shallow half-panicked breaths. Grasping at his flask, he only managed to push it over. Not that it mattered. He’d finished the last of it two days ago.

Two weeks before, after days of wandering with an empty belly, smoke and the scent of roasting meat had dragged him from the main road. It had come from a small camp, mere minutes into the scrub. Far enough to remain unseen.

All he had to do was simple: creep into the camp, find the supply tent, grab whatever he could, and disappear into the darkness.

He'd slipped past the so-called guard, a withered man, slumped against a carriage. Darkness didn't hide the smell of bread and meat as his stomach drove him.

It had been pitch-black in the tent, the air thick with the smell of food. His mouth watered like a dog. Stumbling over half broken crates, his foot caught — he fell. Broken wood bit into his back.

"He—he had heard me..." Kaen mumbled, the memory flickered and twisted in his fever.

A shape shifted inside the tent. Panic and whatever training he had took over; he'd lunged before breaths could turn to sound.

He pressed a hand over the mouth, drove the knife in. Once. Again, deeper. The body had jerked under him, gurgled, thrashed — then went still.

Kaen froze. His heart hammering, ears ringing with each frantic beat. The familiar iron scent of blood mixing into the air.

A horsefly bit his neck, reeling him back to the cart. Deliriously he mumbled "H—had to..." S—So hungry... His world blurred, his heart racing in his clenched chest, breaths sharp and shallow, empty stomach convulsed. He retched, but nothing came. Dry heaves and his head fell back as the cart's canvas went dark and turned to tent cloth.

A shape shifted at the far edge of the tent. A shadow? A fold of canvas. Then, eyes. Wide, unblinking, too still. Too — small.

Seven, maybe eight years old. Her mouth hung slack, trapped somewhere between sleep, panic and disbelief. Had she seen something? Or had he imagined it?

Kaen’s hands shook as he bent over the supplies. Dried meat, a flask, half a loaf of bread.

A sharp pain had lanced through his back, sudden and hot. He jerked, twisting. She stood frozen, face pale with terror, small hands clenched around a jagged shard of wood.

Kaen lashed out. Back of his fist finding cheek, sending her into a stack of pots. The sound was thunderous.

Shouts erupted outside the tent. Lights, movement, the world around exploded and he ran by reflex.

All of it had led up to this. Rotting inside a broken cart, half-sunken in some swamp, breath shallow, lips cracked.

Trembling he felt the cool weight of the necklace in his palm. He remembered taking it. The precious stones glistened in the woven silver. A bonding piece, the kind of jewellery given to a wife when you celebrate a firstborn.

The shivering grew worse. Kaen curled in on himself, bile in the back of his throat as the sky spun slow circles above the trees.

Silence hung thick in the air, yet he'd sworn he heard the breaths again. Shallow, quick breaths, almost panicked. Close, then they drifted far off in the distance again. "I-I killed him... I didn't mean..." Cold spread from his back. "I've never hit her... Didn't do it..." The words clotted in his throat. Those small hands...

The tent returned every time he closed his eyes. Blood on his hands, the girl looked at him. Confusion in her eyes and her face losing whatever colour it still had. "But she fell..." His breaths became sharper, the swamp had become smaller. "I didn't see..." The more he fought to stay alive the smaller the world became.

The pots came crashing down. "She fell... I-I... fell between..." he mumbled, eyes rolling as he struggled to stay awake.

Fighting to keep his eyes open, the world around him flickered. The breaths — close. Uneven. Suffocating. Ragged.

As the wet canvas flapped against the carriage he wasn't sure what he'd heard. The world went black as fever claimed him.

The ground swayed beneath his feet. The tent void of supplies, twisting and elongating. At the end she stood. A face with no emotion — wide eyes staring straight into his. Her mouth slack.

From her throat a darkness spread, flowing down the rags she slept in.

He jerked. His grip on the necklace tightened, dragging him back into the swamp. The cloying smell of his festering flesh mixed with the swamp's earthy damp — enough to make him retch. Pain turned his world dark once more.

Again the tent, its canvas bending and warping. A familiar shape stumbled in. Feeling around — searching, stumbling into splintered wood. A muffled grunt escaped.

"Di—didn’t see..." His chest tightened and his back burned as though a branding iron was being driven in.

He heard the breaths again, short, uneven. They sounded frightened.

I killed... The shape pulled itself from the half broken pile. Another shadow moved in the dim light. A sudden instinctive lunge, a glint of steel, the shadow crumpled onto the dirt.

He moved closer, the shadow slunk away. Small hands. Torn tunic. Eyes caught in terror. Panicked gurgled breaths. Watching him.

Cold mud clung to his fevered body. There was no more food, no drink, no more running now.

He shook his head. “I—I killed a man." She saw it "Stabbed me...”

Trying to summon the man’s face. Only hers came, wide-eyed, losing colour, choking. Again. And again.

“She fell—”

No. She was in his lap, fighting, thrashing as she clawed at his hands. Her blood ran hot on his hands. Her breath bubbled, then broke.

He'd kept his palm pressed over her mouth. She bit for air. His fingers slid, slipped. A snap. Something tangled in his fingers. Her necklace. Three stones soaked in blood.

Her wide eyes stared up at him, the fight went out of her, and her arms fell slack.

His heart hammered. The child lay in his lap, eyes glazing, mouth open. Heat poured down his legs, soaking through, her blood clung to him.

He shoved her away and scrambled backward. Pots toppled. Iron screamed. The noise tore through the camp splitting the night.

Lights flared. Shouts rose. And as he ran into the darkness, the voices turned to screams.

He ran. Kept running until fever caught him. Forcing him to hide in this carcass of a cart.

His lips moved. Nothing came. She stood there. Watching. Tunic soaked in crimson. The necklace sinking into mud.

V. Post — Echoes Between Sky and Stone — Short

9 Months After Warden Intervention at Druanvi