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They didn’t turn but at least they stopped, exchanging glances, shrugs, and mumbles. Of course, gossip about a man riding a dead horse had spread.
“M’Lord…” A woman stepped forward, the girl draped over her arms a pale blue even against the orange flickers of fire, old sores speckling her cheeks. “This is Anna, my only child. The pox took her three winters ago.” Her eyes shifted to me for a breath before the woman lowered her head. “My husband and I will give you all we have if only y-you… merciful Lord, please let her rest. For days, she battled the fever. All I w-want is for my daughter to rest in peace. Y-you have this power, do you not?”
My throat shrank to suffocating tightness as I glanced over my shoulder at Enosh. His jaws clenched; eyes so fixed on the flames licking the moist evening air that he spared the girl not even a glance. The girl wasn’t mine but, had I been blessed with a child, wouldn’t I beg the same as this woman did?
Yes, I would.
Only when I pressed my hand to Enosh’s chest did he look down at where I touched him, then his eyes met mine as his deep voice verged a predatory growl. “Little one, the answer isno.”
I swallowed against the grip of heartache and hatred. “She’s just a child.”
The one I never had, yet I felt her mother’s agony bone-deep. Whatever had happened to Enosh, these people had nothing to do with it. Least of all this little girl, her brown hair neatly braided, the end tied with a purple ribbon.
“Enosh,” I whispered. “Can you do this for me? Just this once? Please? Rest them, and they’ll be on their way.”
At that, the muscles in his jaws jumped, but he neither barked nor grunted. Was he considering it? He had to be. Oh, please, please, he had to give me this one thing.
But he shook his head ever so faintly, letting my heart sink as he looked back at the woman. “I have no use for your earthly possessions. Go home.”
“But Lord!” The woman ran up before me, her little girl’s lifeless limbs tossing about, but it was the hiss of fire following behind her that straightened Enosh’s spine. “I am your humble subject. Whatever you wish of me, I will…” Her voice trailed off, eyes going to me once more before she rearranged the lifeless body of the spindly girl. Then, head lowered, she pushed the threadbare cotton of her dress down, exposing a breast. “If you wish to lie with— Augh!”
The man beside her fisted her hair and yanked her about with brute strength, but still, she didn’t let go of her daughter as arms flopped about. “How dare you whore yourself out in front of everyone?”
“She’s doing it!” The woman stabbed a finger at me, voice tight with grief and anger. “He can sard me forward and backward, plunder all my holes—”
Smack.
Her husband’s palm hit her hard enough that the woman spun, then sunk to her knees on a groan. “Shut your mouth before I beat you close to death. Harlot!”
A cry lodged from my throat. “Enosh, please—”
“Be quiet,” he snarled, then turned to let the strength of his voice shatter through the night. “This is my only warning. Leave, before I let the corpses open the ground and swallow you whole.”
I trembled at his roar.
No, the ground did.
It shifted beneath us, letting some people stagger sideways while a wooden wheel vibrated off its axis. The handcart broke down, letting two beaten corpses roll off and splay out in the dirt. A woman cried out.
“Enosh, the ground is shaking…” My words drowned beneath the villager’s screams. “Wh-what is happening? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my— Are you doing this?”
The corpses twitched.
Their death-veiled eyes blinked open.
They jerked to their feet.
Except for the girl.
Still resting in loving arms, Anna wrapped her small hands around her mother’s neck, then clasped tightly. She choked her mother harder with each violent snap of her jaws. Little teeth dug into the woman’s neck, cutting through skin and ripping flesh until her mother screamed. Yet the woman didn’t let go, clasping her daughter tighter as she scrambled to her feet and ran.
It was too terrible.
Too painful to breathe through.
“Stop it!” I shouted, hands pressing to my mouth as I watched the dead chase the living. Whatever rage my voice carried, in the end, it distorted into a long wail of helplessness. “She’s just a little girl…”
Enosh held me tighter. “Be still!”
