NOVEL NEXT 36. Twenty-Three
No roosters crow, no dogs bark. The houses and sheds remain still as tombstones.
Only a shallow grave stirs.
I lie beneath a thin covering of dirt and broken thatch, damp lumps pressing against my ribs. My sword rests beside these bones, its edge sharp against yellowed femur. The demon shield covers my chest, its scorched surface hidden under soil.
Perfect stillness comes easy to the dead.
No breath to hold, no heart to quiet.
Through gaps in the thatch, dawn's first light creeps across empty streets. The hamlet waits, each building a monument to false life. Tripwires glint with morning dew. Pits hunger beneath innocent dirt.
Hook-lines hang patient above doorways.
The balverines will return soon. They always return to their false den by sunrise, shedding bestial forms like old clothes. They'll walk these streets wearing kind faces, neighborly smiles hiding blood-stained teeth.
They'll tend their props and prepare new lies.
These bones remember siege warfare. Patient warriors who lay still for days, waiting for the perfect moment. That knowledge serves now as I remain motionless, covered in soil that has known too many victims.
The larder's bones whisper of similar mornings. Dawn bringing false peace while death wore pleasant masks.
Not this dawn. This time the hunters become prey.
I lie beneath a thin covering of dirt and broken thatch, damp lumps pressing against my ribs. Over me, a half-rotten cloak masks risen bones. Through a single watchhole, I watch the hamlet gates.
In borrowed memory, I recall men who once waited in shallow graves to ambush the unwary. Scouts who held position for days in enemy territory, breathing shallow, moving less than insects that crawled across their skin. Warriors who became part of the earth itself until the moment to strike arrived.
Their patience joins mine now, adding to the stillness of these fragments. Earth presses against borrowed bones, dampness seeping into joints that feel no discomfort. My frame settles deeper, adjusting to the contours of the shallow pit.
A scavenger's tunic drapes across my ribcage, its fabric stiff with old stains. Rope binds the garment tight against yellowed bone, creating the illusion of flesh beneath cloth. The larder provided these trappings, final outfits from final meals.
I adjust the hood over my skull, arranging its tattered front to cast proper shadows where eyes should be. Filthy rags wrap my arms, tied carefully at each wrist.
From across the street, these bones might pass for living limbs.
The disguise feels familiar. These borrowed memories know the art of deception, of appearing weak to draw in the overconfident.
No hint of tripwires or pitfalls shows.
The hamlet remains still. Windows stare like empty eye sockets across the central lane. Gardens rest undisturbed, though stakes wait beneath soil between neat rows of vegetables. Water in the central well reflects early light, bucket poised for its deadly swing.
Morning advances. The eastern sky brightens from gray to pale blue. Birds return to nearby trees, their songs creating illusion of normalcy. They know nothing of the monsters that will soon walk beneath their branches, wearing false faces.
I settle deeper into my shallow grave, adjusting the cloak to better hide these death-white bones. When at last revealed, the Balverines will only see in me an enemy of soft flesh.
They won't notice what cannot be killed beneath these rags.
Bones that refuse to break.
Footsteps approach the hamlet gates. The soft pad of bare feet on grass. They return as they always have, shells of humanity wrapped around monster hearts.
These bones know patience.
Each fragment of my form lies still beneath dirt and thatch.
Hours pass. The sun climbs higher, shadows shortening across the hamlet's central path. Heat builds beneath the covering of soil and thatch, though these bones feel no discomfort. The waiting continues.
At last, distant shapes move beyond the gate. As they near, fur disappears. Muscles twitch, jaws retract. The half-shift that leaves them looking more or less human.
Not all change at once. Three remain crouched on powerful haunches, scanning tree lines with amber eyes. Their shoulders still bristle with dark fur, as the others transform.
A broad-shouldered male with sharp cheekbones pulls clothing from a hidden cache. A farmer's coat, well-worn.
He puts it on. His movements are easy, practiced.
He's done this countless times before.
Others join him at the cache, retrieving their human disguises. A woman with graying hair smooths down a simple dress. A younger male adjusts leather work boots.
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They move as if changing from one set of clothes to another.
The guards begin their own transformation, fur melting away like frost in sun. Bones crack and reform. Spines straighten.
All that remain are strong men who work the fields.
Twenty-three shapes become twenty-three villagers. They speak in low voices, sharing news of the hunt. Some laugh. Some yawn as if tired from honest labor rather than fresh hunt.
One licks blood from fingertips, the only visible reminder of their night's true nature. Another scrubs at dark stains on sleeve edges, fastidious even in deception.
These bones remain still beneath dirt and thatch.
The trap is set.
The prey returns to its den thinking itself the hunter.
They have no reason to suspect anything has changed. No reason to look too closely at disturbed earth or shadowed doorways.
They pass through the gates in twos and threes, speaking in gentle voices about mundane things. Bread to be baked. Fields to be tended. Children to be fed.
Their faces wear peace while smiles and light catch on teeth too sharp for human mouths.
A large male pauses to adjust his boots. The fabric of his shirt stretches tight across shoulders that seem too broad for a normal frame. His companion waits, hand resting casually on his arm in a display of affection that mimics human closeness.
Their performance continues even when they believe no observers watch. The deception runs deep, practiced over countless cycles of night and day. It has become more than disguise - almost a second nature they slip into with the sunrise.
A woman, no, a thing wearing woman-shape, pauses near this shallow grave. Her bare feet leave red prints. She sniffs the air, nostrils flaring.
Searching for what cannot be found.
These bones carry no scent of life to betray their purpose.
Her head tilts, a predator's instinct not fully suppressed by human guise. She takes another step closer, toe brushing against the edge of this concealed pit. Her eyes narrow, scanning fallen thatch and disturbed earth.
For a moment, borrowed memories tense, calculating angles of attack if discovery comes too soon. Aeternus waits beneath my skeletal hand, ready to emerge.
But she turns away, distracted by a call from across the lane. Another woman beckons her toward one of the cottages, voice carrying talk of breakfast.
They do not see the tripwires their feet will find. Cannot smell the oil soaked into innocent-looking ropes. Do not notice how certain patches of dirt lie looser than others, hiding sharpened stakes below.
The woman moves on, joining her pack as they disperse through the hamlet's streets. Twenty-three monsters wearing human skin, returning to their den.
They pass beneath hook-lines and over covered pits, confident in their safety.
These borrowed bones remember more. Remember the art of patience.
Remember how to turn a settlement into killing field.
I lie still in my shallow grave, watching through narrow gaps. Some balverines head toward the central hall, while others move to individual cottages. They maintain their human performance, casual in posture and gait.
Two young males carry wood for what appears to be a communal fire pit. A trio of females gather at the well, drawing water as if for morning cooking. An older male examines garden rows with careful attention, maintaining the fiction of a farmer tending crops that will never be harvested.
Waiting.
Twenty-three beasts left to hunt last night, and twenty-three return. I've set my traps with care, but not here, not at the threshold.
Let them enter deep into their false den first.
No easy escape this time.
Simple rope tangles dot the yards, but the main street remains pristinely clear until well past the gate. Their anchor lies in the cellar, with the children that they tend.
Even if they sense danger, they won't abandon what they consider precious, though that precious thing is merely another part of their slaughter.
I wait.
They push the gate open.
The hinge squeals softly. A few linger behind, scanning rooftops.
If I stand now, they'll retreat.
Slowly, they move deeper in. One by one, they pass the threshold, stepping into the hamlet's main lane. My arrangement is subtle, the real snares lie deeper, wire across windows, angled stakes under certain porches, small pits covered with straw.
Let them come closer, near the center.
They spread through the hamlet, separating into smaller groups. Some enter cottages, closing doors behind them. Others gather near the central well, beginning morning routines that have no purpose beyond maintaining their facade.
One stoops to adjust a garden row marker, hand passing inches from a concealed spike. Another leans against a post where wire waits to slice through throats. They move through their created world, blind to the death I've hidden in every corner.
When about half of them are well inside, the others at the rear do an odd thing: they start to close the gate behind them. The alpha is not among them at first glance, but I see a hulking shape that might be she, lingering near the back.
Her shoulders remain too broad for the dress she wears, her movements more fluid than human joints should allow. She surveys the hamlet with practiced casualness, but her eyes miss nothing. The others defer to her with subtle gestures - a lowered gaze, a slight incline of the head.
She is their leader, their alpha. The most dangerous of them all.
I remain perfectly still.
My plan requires they see me eventually, so they chase me deeper.
One of them, a lean female with uncombed hair, steps to the side of a cottage. "We should check the cellar soon. You, go around that side. I'll meet you at the orchard fence," she says to a companion.
They break off in pairs, moving toward their own dwellings.
Another pair heads for the main hall near the bell tower.
Good.
More of them move in. Some keep scanning, but they suspect nothing yet.
The alpha moves deeper into the hamlet, strolling with apparent casualness toward the central hall. Her eyes continue their methodical observation, missing nothing. Three others follow her, maintaining respectful distance.
I sense them drawing closer. The big shape near the rear, a half-shifted beast with a ragged shirt clinging to its chest, sniffs.
He steps closer to me, scanning the ground.
Perhaps he caught a whiff of earth disturbed by these borrowed bones.
His foot shifts, toe nudging a clump of thatch covering my skeletal hand. He bends slightly, nostrils flaring wider. Suspicion darkens his features, the human mask slipping momentarily.
He does not know what lies below, or see how skeletal hand curves around sword.
One more step.
His foot plants beside my skull.
Perfect.
Aeternus moves. The blade parts flesh and bone before his transformed vocal cords can shape a warning.
Dark blood sprays across thatch and soil.
I surge upward, dirt and debris falling from my frame. My free hand catches his falling form, guiding the corpse into the shallow pit that concealed these bones moments ago.
His mouth opens in silent surprise, eyes wide with shock rather than fear. He knows what I am - a thing of bone and ancient steel - but recognition comes too late. The blade has already found his heart, shearing through muscle and sinew with surgical precision.
No sound escapes his lips as life leaves his frame. His eyes dim, the amber glow fading to dull brown.
One hand twitches, fur rippling briefly across skin before settling into human appearance.
The body settles with barely a sound, blood pooling beneath loose earth.
I drag soil over the corpse, covering dark blood and half-shifted limbs. Thatch and debris scatter across disturbed earth, masking signs of violence.
The shallow grave accepts its new occupant.
These bones settle taking staged pose of a weary traveler. My cloak drapes over jutting ribs, concealing undeath beneath fabric.
Twenty-two remain.
None glance this way.