Corpus Malus

**SENSITIVE MATERIAL**

References to sexual violence, blood, gore, and self-harm.

“There’s a lot that will confuse you tonight,” whispered Komatis, taking a thick, black bind from his pocket, “But trust what we’ve taught you and you will be safe. You may suffer but, if you are brave, you will not die. You understand?”

The boy swallowed the last of his fear down and said he did. His brother-in-arms slipped the soft cloth around his eyes and the small party that surrounded him disappeared in the blackness. All he could make out was the dull, flickering orange glow from their torches. Komatis’ hand was like ice against his arm, and he whispered, “Follow.”

So he followed them.

Most days, they were dressed in their armor, with a resplendent yellow hanging over their steel and a scarlet sun stitched in front, the sigil of their Order, the symbol of their Oath. But, that night, they came to him in dark cloaks, dark like moss, like the shadows of trees during the sun set. The shadow of their hoods kept him from seeing the three others with Komatis, but he had his guesses.

They had taken him to the edge of town before blinding him. Now, their feet fell into a somber rhythm, crunching along the highway gravel, scraping against the dirt. In the darkness, the forest came to life as a single, unending scream. Thousands of cicadas creaked, clicked, and chirped, swallowing up the empty spaces. They buzzed over their heads, whizzed past their ears. One landed on the boy’s shoulder and he twitched. Komatis squeezed his arm, and said, “Shh!” as he swatted the bug off his shoulder.

Hours later the crunch of the gravel was replaced by the squish of mud, icy and deep. The boy’s foot gave way to the sludge, but Komatis kept him steady and guided him down the untrodden path. Weeds and bushes scratched his legs and arms, smacked his face. They reminded him of their Knight Captain, who answered to the name “Buckskin”. He carried an old branch as they’d train the yard and smack the new recruits whenever their form was off, or when they let their guard down, or if he didn’t like the look of them in that moment. His back was sore with the lashings he’d earned the last week during training. He wondered what his parents would have said if they saw him now. But they were both dead.

In an instant, Komatis tensed his grip and the five of them stopped. Sweat was trickling down the boy’s face from the heat of the torches. His mouth tasted like salt and his spit was coagulating in the back of his mouth. The night was still screaming a thousand little calls at once that threatened to split his head in half, but he dared not raise his voice. He knew he was strong enough.

Finally, a gravelly voice called out, “Who comes this way?”

“Only a dead man,” answered Komatis.

“What was his name?”

“Olliander, son of Dorheth.”

In the midst of the cicada’s cacophony, footsteps snapped against twigs and parted grass, as the Gatekeeper approached the initiate. Ollie swallowed, his mind racing, trying to remember what to say and in what order.

The Gatekeeper called out, “How did you die, Olliander, son of Dorheth?”

“Uhh… For-From pitched combat,” said Ollie.

“A bold claim. Who can vouch for you, dead man?”

“I,” said Komatis, “I witness his feats. He struck down two men with his sword on the battlefield less than a fortnight ago.”

It was more than surviving your first battle that qualified aknight for the Brotherhood of the Dead. One had to show aptitude with its members, who were excellent at hiding that they were even members. If the rumors Ollie had heard were true, then there was no possible way the Church could ever find out what they were doing. To be selected was a rare honor. To survive, the rarest.

“And now he has fallen,” said the Gatekeeper, “A warrior’s death awaits you.”

Ollie answered, “I sta-… I stand ready.”

“Know the trials that await you too, dead man. A warrior’s death is a burden that you will carry for a lifetime.”

“I seek no reward but blood. I seek… no joy but in steel. I renounce my mortal ties and accept this burden.”

“Very well. Follow, spirit.”

The Gatekeeper’s hand touched his, rough and leathery. Komatis released his grip, but whispered, “Hoye evadicut”, which, in the Old Tongue, meant “be shielded”. A spell of protection.

The Gatekeeper’s calloused hand gripped Ollie’s and pulled him through a field. The summer midnight air was as sweet as it was thick, suffocating the boy before he plunged back into the woods and the weeds. Then Gatekeeper grunted, “Hold,” and Ollie obeyed.

The blind was unraveled from the boy’s eyes, and before him stood Hoswind, the Order’s scribe. His stringy beard poured out of his cloak and his little, gray eyes glowed like embers in the shadows, but he could have spotted the old codger anywhere.

They were standing in front of a door made of old planks in the middle of the copse. It rested outside a mound and orange light flickering from within. The old knight’s withered hands shook as he took a wooden bowl from beside the door, and murmured, “Quite an opportunity, son. Are you ready?”

When Ollie was invited by Komatis to join the Brotherhood, he was warned about this trial. He almost replied but stopped his tongue. Hoswind took a small reed brush from within his sleeve and stirred the bowl. There was a thick, dark liquid in it. “You don’t have a distaste for blood, do you?”

The boy only stared at the old man, and said, “If you don’t answer me, I will send you back.”

Still, nothing.

The old man stared back and said, “You are not ready for this trial. Put your blind back on. I’m taking you back.”

Ollie reached for the blind and put it back on, wondering if Hoswind was still toying with him or being serious. He started to tie it back around his head, when those tough, old hands, lifted it from over his head. He stirred the brush in the bowl, and painted across his forehead. The blood was warm and it quickly caked across his skin as the old man guided its shape across its canvas. “You’ve done well so far,” said the old man.

Ollie still did not reply.

While Hoswind set the bowl beside the door, he said, “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

The boy bit his tongue, and the old man cracked a mischievous little grin to himself. But it disappeared when he placed his rough hands back on the boy’s shoulders and said, “Some advice for you, son. Do not question. Doubt is your enemy. Even if your senses tell you you are burning alive, don’t listen to them. If you do, you will perish. Do you understand?”

Ollie nodded, and the old man reached for the door and cracked it open. There was something hot inside that breathed on the boy’s face. The old man gestured to the opening, and said, “Enter.”

So he did.

The heat only built the deeper he went. It reminded him of his father’s oven. Just that year, he was told he was old enough to become a man. His pa let him learn how to feed sourdough and wrap dough into knots and when you could tell you’d baked them enough.

It baffled the boy how deep the tunnel continued to wind. Torches flickered along the walls that were scraped along to reveal the red clay within them. The way it glistened in the fire made it resemble the long, dark throat of some ancient, massive beast.

What did not help this thought were the etchings along the walls, marked with glistening black ink. Some were longer or shorter. Some had fangs bared, while others stared at him in silence. But they were all serpents. Perhaps they were drawn to honor Skirio, the God of Fear. Perhaps they were there to ward off intruders.

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in his hometown who had any love for their King. For generations, they lived under an oppressive yoke that told them their gods were no longer the gods of the land. They called them “The Old Gods”. Their priests beat them in the streets while the king’s men looked on. Even men of the Makavian Order, Ollie’s brothers-in-arms, were formed so that pilgrims could travel and worship their new gods across his land.

One doesn’t have many choices when one’s father is forced by the Knights to house them and, as repayment for his kindness, wakes to hear his wife violated in the middle of the night and slain beside her. The screams were just as loud the night it all happened. One doesn’t have many places to go when the orphanages won’t take boys of pagan lineage like him. The only men that would take him were the band of murderers that swore him to take the Oath. The same men guiding him down that infernal hall to gods-knew-what.

The hall opened to a small chamber, hazy with smoke and surrounded on all sides by men in the same dark cloaks, heads bowed, their voices combined into a long, low, reverent hum. A fire crackled in the middle. Atop the logs, something was resting. Something wrapped in thick gauze. Something almost human in shape. It did not burn, though the flames threatened to lick it from every side. It rested peacefully in the middle.

He was so caught up staring at the figure in the fire, that Ollie had almost forgotten he had to speak the invocation next. “B-Brothers…” he said, his tongue getting sticky, “I come to face the first of the trials of the dead.”

The humming ceased. One of the hooded brothers walked toward him and produced a knife from his sleeve. “You have no advocate,” he whispered, “If you reject life, show us the last of your blood.”

Ollie swallowed something rotten down and took the knife into his hand. It was heavier than any he’d held before, a crude stiletto with jagged edges and a ruby shard fixed where the handle met the blackened blade. He held his hand over the burning flame. He ran the blade across his palm. He winced, his hand tightening to a fist to close the open mouth on his palm, crying into the open air.

Smoke filled his lungs when he turned his hand down to the fire and opened his palm. Globs of red dripped from his hand and sizzled into the fire.

Another brother approached him and took the blade from his hand. “That which does not bleed does not die.”

As the hooded figure wrapped Ollie’s hand in the gauze, he muttered, “A fire fed with life will never burn out.”

One of the brothers in the back took two sticks and tapped them together, softly at first. A silver, grizzled man stepped forward in the center, and called out, “Olliander, son of Dorheth, what demon is at your back?”

The fire crackled and burst with life as Ollie knelt before it. He whispered, “The men who killed my father and mother.”

“Reach into the fire and find your demon.”

He almost reached his hand forward, when the wrapped mass shifted atop the pyre. A muffled cry rose from it. The men chanted some strange word over and over he did not recognize. They said it out of rhythm, but in the same dull tone. The beating of the sticks grew louder with their chant.

He’d heard the rumors of what the Brotherhood of the Dead could do. They called on mystic arts they said came from a time before the Old Gods. They called on a power that lived within the earth itself. From its womb they called vengeful spirits to exact their deeds.

The name they shouted grew louder and louder. Ollie soon pieced out what they were saying. “Ashyla, Ashyla, Ashyla!” all of them cried. Some lost their composure and moved their bodies back and forth, undulating their heads, their arms contorting like they had minds of their own.

The heat was almost unbearable. The wrapped body shifted and twitched, letting out another gruff howl from its shell. They were all dancing around the two of them now, all throwing themselves, screaming that horrible name, “Ashyla! Ashyla! Ashyla!” Ollie didn’t know what it meant, but it felt like nails clawing the inside of his skull, needles prodding the back of his eyes, hands trying to separate his ribs.

Without a word from its master, his hand hovered over the flame, over the writhing body. Another hand appeared, bursting from the blackened gauze. It was gray and green, covered with welts. Some of the skin had been eaten away, exposing the bones beneath. The smell that came out with it was unbearable. Ollie gagged, but his hand did not flinch. The hand from the body fell on his and wrapped its sinewy, boney fingers around his wrist.

Another hand burst from the other side, and ripped off the gauze, piece by piece. Its scream, no longer covered, let out a grotesque shriek, as though someone were stabbing it. That perveted thing had brown welts and blackened scars that showed its ribs, its rotten guts. Its half-melted head had only a few sprouts of hair coming from it. Half of its mouth was sealed together, flesh giving way to more flesh.

Its body jerked and twisted as it sat up, pulling Ollie in with it. The boy tried to resist and stand his ground, but the dead thing was much stronger than he and, after a final tug, brought him into the fire.

The flames danced around the two of them, like the brothers dancing in the cloaks around them. The rotting beast bared its piss yellow teeth at him, and whispered like tree leaves, like thorns crunching against skin, “You come to join the dead, boy?”

Ollie didn’t know what words were, looking into the thing’s pale, glossy eyes. Its lungs were a leaking bellows dying to squeeze out whatever air they could. Its hand gripped him tighter and its mouth opened, breathing out a century of dust and decay on him.

Through his coughs, the boy remembered what he was supposed to say, and answered, “I am ready for my trial.”

It stopped after nearly clamping down on his neck and withdrew. It raised its head and let out another deafening, bloodcurdling cry, and the dancing stopped. Everything stopped.

“You carry a turncoat within you, boy.”

Ollie didn’t know what to say back. That was all Komatis told him to memorize.

“The Old Gods are watching you,” it said, “But you are watching for justice. It will never come.”

Still Ollie didn’t know how to answer, so the thing said, “Speak your mind, boy.”

“I won’t betray my brothers,” he answered.

The thing shook its head, and said, “You want names. You want to know where they rest their heads. I can tell you.”

“But… what do you want from me?”

Its half of a mouth formed a twisted, wicked grin. It said, “You know my name now. I want yours.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your ‘brothers’ should have told you,” it said, letting out a raspy chuckle, “If you call on my name, I will come for you.”

“What would you need me to do?”

“I will only grant you one boon for your name. What question do you want answered?”

He remembered holding his father, wheezing, calling out his name as he breathed his last. Under his snarl, he asked it, “Would you kill them now?”

“I would.”

“For my name?”

“Only your name.”

“It’s yours,” he said.

It cackled and said, “A shrewd trader, you are. Very well.”

It released his hand and its head shook violently, as it stumbled back. It let out a final cry, worse than any he’d heard before. It scratched from inside his bones, under his teeth, inside his lungs. He covered his ears, but it was no good. Nothing could stunt that horrible scream.

Two of the brothers fell where they stood, clawing their chests, dropping to the cold, dark earth, dead. The rest of the brothers fell to their knees and lifted up their shivering hands, begging in a terrified whisper, “Ashyla… Ashyla… Ashyla…”

It looked back at him and said, “My end of the bargain is done. Now yours.”

“I am Olliander, son of-“

The thing put its skeletal finger to his lips. Then it floated up to his head. It drew a circle along the skin, then pierced into the middle. A dagger was plunging into Ollie’s mind, searing and freezing all at once, digging into his flesh. He nearly collapsed from the pain, but in an instant, the pain retreated, and the thing’s hand drew back. It smiled at him and said, “Welcome.”

Its body burst into flames. The force of it threw Ollie back to the ground. It raised its hands letting out a final screech, before it disappeared into nothing. The fire was dead. Only darkness remained.

He heard the grizzled voice inches away from him say, “Ollie? Are you still there?”

He recognized it. It belonged to Captain Buckskin. He never thought he’d hear even a trace of worry in his captain’s voice. The boy answered, “Yes. What about the trial?Is there-…?”

“Shh… That is all,” said the Captain, resting a warm hand on his shoulder. His eyes were beginning to adjust, but still, he thought he saw the face of that half-dead monster where the Captain’s was. He whispered to Ollie, “Welcome to the Brotherhood.”