VALRAVN
Compendium 2020 – Story 3
By Andrew Hawnt
Henrik stared at the
sky shared by the nearby Slesvig and wondered if it was still there.
1914 would never end for him, and neither would the war that was
building across the globe.
The world around him
was lost in fog as thick as the black smoke he had choked on and spat
out when he had been running. When he had been one of many. Before he
was alone.
Henrik stared at the
eddying fog that had eaten the sky above him and waited for death.
The blood had clotted messily around the wound in his shoulder and
the second in his side. It smelled metallic in the cold morning air.
He listened to his laboured breathing and thought of the damage the
bullets must have done. He thought of mother. He thought of the 16th
birthday he would never see.
One thing he was
grateful for was the fog. It hid the dead. It hid boys just like him,
but those boys hadn't been toppled by a couple for stray shots. Their
heads had been sheared in half by heavy rounds. Their innards lay in
heaps beside them after the impact of other shells.
His uniform itched. It
always had. He thought of home and hot food and what a stupid idea it
had been to lie about his age and come out here.
No Man's Land certainly
lived up to its name. None of the others that had fallen beside him
had been men. Not yet. They never would be now. It would only be a
matter of time before he would join them, Not long to go until his
final breath would be lost in that fog and darkness would fall across
his mind as his heart stopped and his brain shut down.
Henrik thought of the
stories that came with death. He thought of the folk tales. The ghost
stories. The Valravn, which ate the bodies of the dead.
He took in a sharp
breath, triggering agony in his chest, as the creature stared down
over him.
“V... Valravn?”
It stood as a man. Its
long, thin body and limbs were clad in a black mockery of an old
military uniform. Its face was hidden by a mask, bone white,
depicting the hooked beak of a bird's skull. Behind the mask a plume
of ragged black feathers dipped top and fro as if sailing upon the
fog.
“Did... I call you?”
Henrik asked, coughing and spitting blood as he did. “Did my
thoughts of you bring you to me?”
It stared down at him,
the eye sockets of the mask shrouding its face in darkness. Slowly it
shook its head.
“Will you eat me when
I die?” Henrik asked, his voice wavering.
Valravn leaned closer
to the wounds on Henrik's cold body. The beak of the mask was almost
against the thick clots that matted itchy fabric to ragged skin. Then
it stood back and moved away, quickly partially obscured by the fog.
Henrik forced his head to move to follow the creature, and saw the
shape of it crouching nearby. Another boy like him must lay there,
Henrik thought.
Dark things unfurled
from the mass where the creature's head would have been had it been
human. The mask hung at its side as lengths of something sinewy
emerged and attached themselves to the blur of a corpse. The fog
wavered and thrashed for a moment, and the shape of the body was
gone. The blackness seeped back upwards and was again hidden by the
bird mask. Valravn walked deeper into the fog and was gone.
Darkness fell over
Henrik, but it wasn't permanent. His eyes opened, maybe the next day,
maybe just a few hours later, and he found he was able to move a
little. The shock must have been worse than the wounds themselves.
With some effort, he pulled himself upright, found an empty rifle to
use as a walking stick, and started to inch his way through the fog
that still hung over the horror of the field around him. He stumbled
and fell, pain screaming in his shoulder and stomach, and he
scrabbled back, expecting to see the ruined remains of another boy
soldier.
Nothing much. A helmet.
A few shards of wood. Valravn must have consumed them all. In his
dizzy, hungry, thirsty delirium, the presence of a supernatural being
from the distant folklore of his ancestors seemed acceptable, if not
normal.
He wandered amidst fog
as far as he could, then fell. His stomach ached from hunger and a
fever was building. He feared infected wounds. Henrik fought to stay
awake as he collapsed in mud at the edge of a modest forest. Thin
trees buried their heights in the fog like veins against skin.
Amidst those trees
Henrik, saw the shape again. Valravn fed upon the dead that were
hidden in fog.
Again the creature came
to him, and again it passed him by.
Henrik dragged himself
after it, calling out incoherently.
It stopped and turned,
almost lost in the grey swirl. It raised a thin finger and pointed to
Henrik's left. The boy followed the gesture and saw a knapsack that
was hidden by a broken tree stump. Henrik shuffled over to it and
grabbed it from the ground.
Inside was a canteen of
water. A hip flask of brandy. Stale bread rolls. Hard cheese wrapped
in cloth. Nuts.
Henrik wept, but
Valravn was gone and could not be thanked.
The boy ate and drank.
It felt like the greatest meal in history. Some strength returned. He
took up his journey through the endless fog once again.
No. It can't be this
way.
The thought hammered at
him as he heard the foreign words. Heard the readying of foreign
guns. His heart sank as he realised he had journeyed across No Man's
Land and straight into enemy territory.
A soldier in strange
fatigues stepped closer, emerging from the fog, and aimed a worn
rifle at Henrik's face. He spat words that Henrik didn't recognise,
but the fear in the other boy's eyes and the tremble of his hands as
they held that gun said it all.
I don't want to do
this. I don't want to be here, but I have to.
Henrik wept against his
makeshift walking stick. He wanted to raise his hands in surrender
but couldn't force himself to do so. This was wrong. This whole war
was wrong. He had wanted to fight and be the man his father had said
he would never be. He wanted to go home a hero.
But none of that
mattered any more. He was a child, facing another child with a gun,
and both of them were terrified.
With an anguished sob,
the foreign boy squeezed the trigger. The report of the weapon
sounded like God slamming the doors of Heaven shut.
But no pain came. No
blood.
The fog had stopped.
Before Henrik stood Valravn once again. It was holding the moment
back. Henrik could feel it. It pointed at him.
A choice, came a voice
like twigs and mould.
Valravn clutched its
mask and pulled it away. Beneath it lay a perfect copy, gleaming and
new. It offered the bone mask in its hands to Henrik.
Not life, it
said to him, but not death.
“Why?” Henrik
asked. “Why do this for me?”
The thing regarded him.
Let the journey never end, rather than the life be taken. Feed on
what remains and wander forever.
Henrik thought of the
death that awaited him behind the dark figure. Of the broken bodies
that littered the path he had walked. Of the blood he had lost and
the lives that had been taken. Of the conflicts that lay ahead if he
survived. He reached out gingerly, and all was cold.
The shot rang out
around the scared soldier, but it hit nothing but fog.
As the sound faded, the distant unfurling of feathers could be heard like a whisper between
words.
===
© Andrew Hawnt 2020
About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a
project from author Andrew Hawnt and consists of 52 weekly stories
encompassing science fiction, fantasy and horror. They are a mix of
short stories and flash fiction, 100% original and written throughout
2020. Why is he doing this? To keep the words flowing. To keep the
ideas coming. To see how far he can explore the worlds that live in
his head.
About Andrew Hawnt:
You can find Andrew on
Facebook at facebook.com/andrewhawntauthor and on Twitter and
Instagram as @andrewhawnt. Formerly a musician and DJ, Andrew is
known for his books, comic book writing, music journalism and more,
including fiction in Doctor Who Adventures, the Judge Dredd Megazine
and others. Look out for his film work soon.
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