A Cold Tang of Fear

Death In Harmony: Part One of Twenty-Nine

Death In Harmony is the fifth in the Tales of The Lesser Evil and this is the first chapter.

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This is a fantasy series—not quite grimdark, but dark nevertheless—with complicated and believable characters doing their best to survive in a world simply indifferent to their existence.

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A Cold Tang of Fear

The present: somewhere, north of The Pit

‘They will not take you. Not again. They will not take you,’ Flin gasped, struggling up the steep incline, words quiet, breathless and determined. ‘No one is taking you away from me. No one.’

There was no answer. There never was.

The hill was like all the others she had tried to lose them upon: scree slopes, boulders, moss and trees. Lots and lots of trees. The footing could, and did, switch from stable and solid to a lurching glissade within a heartbeat. She could not fall, she could not risk the damage to her tiny burden.

Twice now she had slipped, arms windmilling, somehow keeping her balance as she was borne downhill, rocks crunching and slipping, popping underfoot. Twice she had slipped, twice she had steadied herself and twice she had carried on. The Gods, if such things existed, were both smiling upon and cursing her; she may not have injured herself or the baby, but the fresh rockfalls may as well have been road markers, clear, obvious sign.

‘Nearly at the top, nearly there,’ she said, as though such a thing would help. Each hill had been the same, each attempt futile.

A dog bayed, still a way off, but closer than the last time she had heard it.

‘We need to find some running water, Mummy needs to fucking lose them.’

Flin paused and altered her precious cargo, tightening straps whilst catching her breath, trying to slow her pounding heart. She felt out of shape.

Once upon a distant time she had been able to run further and faster with a full pack, various instruments strapped to it, all the time wearing her favourite heavy leather coat. Before that, she had journeyed across The Mother, across the Isthmus, down along the Ribbon, walked east, walked west, walked north and south, living out of that pack and bartering her skills with song, dance and story, with kora, drum and flute. That kora was long ago burnt, the drum stolen, the flute only recently taken and snapped in front of her, a stolen fiddle left when she fled the last village. She missed each of them and still felt a deep rage at their passing. One day, she would be able to afford the time to make replacements but, for now, her priority was survival, evasion and escape.

‘Mummy will make sure they’re gone, that they don’t find us. Mummy will keep you safe little one, just a bit more running.’

The baby woke and spluttered against her chest. She knew the child was hungry and needed changing, but she could not stop any longer. So far he had not cried, the constant motion lulling him to sleep.

He wailed.

‘Shit, please be quiet, please shut up. Mummy can’t—’

The dog howled again, but this time it was joined by an answering bark, somewhere off to her left, to the north. A little closer. She clenched her buttocks together, stomach already taut, jaw tight, teeth grinding. She forced herself to breathe.

‘Shit. Let’s go.’ Flin was very much aware that her recent, one-sided conversations involved considerable use of flowery language. That, and a constant, cold tang of utter fear. Neither were ideal for the child’s development.

She pulled a twist of jerky from her belt pouch. The baby would be fine without feeding for just a little longer, but she needed to ensure her own energy level was high enough to keep going. She had no idea how long she would need to run, or how far.

It had only been a brief stop in a small outlying hillside village. A quick resupply, then back into the wilds, back into the trees. She did not want to make the same mistake as last time. Avoid the cities, avoid too many people, at least until she was a considerable distance from The Pit, where she had nearly lost her life, along with her flute.

How had it come to this?

The sun was low over her shoulder when next she stopped, still warming her back whenever she passed into a pool of light, despite the lateness of the hour.

Wolves howled out in the hills to her front. Flin knew the animals would follow the more open ridges to cover more ground and, not for the first time, she wished she could do the same. But that would be what her pursuers expected. Dogs were scared of the wolves but, with men on the other end of their leashes, they would be emboldened, confident in their pursuit.

Wolves were not a problem. People were the problem. People were always the problem.

She had heard nothing of her pursuers for what she estimated was two turns of the glass. No baying hounds, no distant calls. They were still following though, Flin knew that.

Sometimes, when she got a feeling like the itch she had now, somewhere between sweat-soaked shoulder blades, she knew with absolute certainty she was in danger. More than once it had saved her life.

‘Time to feed you, little one.’

Flin changed him first, trying to throw the soiled moss as far down the hill as possible, all the while chewing up his food, spitting it back into her horn cup and mixing with water, thinking about their next move.

Her heart was still pounding, her legs felt like they were made of rope, but her mind—her mind had always been her greatest weapon.

All the supplies she had paid for were still in the nameless village from which she had barely escaped. As were her bow, quiver, bedroll, axe and pack. Each was neatly placed on the bed she had also paid for, with the last of her silver. The small purse she carried tucked inside a hidden pocket contained nothing but four small bronze coins of dubious authenticity. All the money she had made in The Pit was gone, as were the three tiny jewels she had saved since her time in the further south two years before, cunningly sewn within a fold of her good linen shirt. She wondered if the innkeeper would ever find the stones. Yet money and jewels could be replaced, as could all the items she had now lost—the infant could not.

Truth be told, she missed the bed almost as much as the other things. It had been a month since she had last bathed and slept on a mattress, even one as lumpy as the one she had bought for the week, and she had been looking forward to a rest before the long, bedless journey ahead.

‘Here you go.’ She used a finger to spoon the mashed mixture into an eager waiting mouth. He was hungry, and hunger was good, it meant he wanted to strive, to grow, to succeed and survive. It was lucky to have a hungry baby.

It had been luck that she had been carrying her haversack and wearing her cloak too; she had decided to see if she could find someone to patch the cloak and replace the worn shoulder strap on the bag.

Now the cloak was rolled up and slung across her back; she could not remember the last time she had felt so hot and sweaty. Definitely out of shape.

A haversack, two knives, the contents of her belt pouches, a battered, almost-empty canteen, the clothes she stood in, and a baby. It was not much with which to face fifty days of wilderness, but she had been in worse positions.

She twisted an errant hair, twirling it around her forefinger, before plucking it free and spinning it into a tiny length of cord.

‘There was that time I had to cross the Great Canal, head to the north shore and continue my journey to Westsea through the silent, dark woods. That time, I just had my instruments, my clothes, knives and whatever was in my pockets. Or there was… no, eat it, it’ll do you good, you have to keep…’

A dog barked, then howled, closer this time, much closer. The answering bay came a moment later—also closer, also too close. She flicked the hair to oneside.

‘Fuck.’

She needed to run again, run faster than she thought she could. For the first time since fleeing the village she wondered if she would make it, before answering her doubts aloud,

‘We’ll make it little one. I always do,’ she whispered. She had to make it, they could not take her baby, not again.

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