“It’s true I tell you. It’s true! There’s an old woman in the woods with fingers for teeth and centipedes for hands. She lives with a broom that makes you fly in the clouds. She also makes the best roast pork in the west.”

  -Tavern patron

  Lodur

  The forest was always a calming place for Lodur. It was one of the few places he felt safest. Some would fear the woods due to the prowling wolves and hunting beasts, but animals always avoided wherever he tread. Animals would always instinctively give him a wide berth when walking. They always had such fear in their eyes whenever he approached them.

  Except chickens.

  If you asked Lodur what creature was a manifestation of pure spite and evil, it would be chickens. He thought that when he left the church he wouldn’t need to spread the feed of chickens or capture one any longer, but here he was face to face with some sort of chicken beast.

  “Okay Lodur, don’t move, it’s vision is based on movement.” Rob said, standing still as a pole.

  They were both sweating buckets as they were just a few meters away from a man sized feathered chicken thing with teeth. Apparently it’s called a velociraptor. It had sharp claws and pointy teeth used for biting and tearing apart cows. It stood motionlessly staring in their general direction.

  Lodur was showing Rob how to dig for yams, since he couldn’t touch it on account of the ‘everything I touch becomes a dead horse’ curse. Rob was digging trough the dirt when all of a sudden they heard a clicking growling sound. They saw a velociraptor move slowly through their path.

  Lodur looked around to find something that could give them even the smallest chance to survive. He thought that if he touches a non-sentient object, then it would turn into a corpse of his choosing. He looked at a nearby branch of dead wood and bit his lip.

  “Rob, I got an idea. Can you get me that branch over there?” Lodur said while visualizing the heaviest creature he could imagine, a moose.

  Rob slowly grabbed the branch and hid it behind him.

  “Alright throw it to me.” Lodur caught the stick and threw it at the velociraptor. It turned into a large dead moose in the air and crushed the big feather chicken thing under it.

  The velociraptor thrashed under the corpse, seemingly trapped under all that weight. It’s fervor and panic slowed down as it lost more and more air, until finally it stopped moving.

  Rob brushed himself as he stood up, Lodur followed the same. They surrounded the creature in macabre fascination and childish curiosity.

  “I didn’t know you could make other types of corpses, i thought you could only make dead horses.” Rob said as he took a stick and began poking the dead raptor.

  “I kinda didn’t too, but I’m glad I could do it.”

  “Well this changes everything! I was originally gonna have you make dead horses to sell to butchers in the capital. The guys there would eat anything so long as it’s roasted.”

  Lodur looked at his hands. The were black and slick, as if they were dipped in pitch. “Do you think I could make other stuff too?” He looked at Rob with a grin which the thief reciprocated.

  Quickly, Rob snapped other sticks from branches and bushes and gave it to Lodur.

  Lodur could make animals with no problem. He made fish, cows, moose, rats, goats, sheeps, pigeons, giant bats, snakes, pigs and many other beasts he has seen before. Unfortunately he couldn’t make corpses of things like whales or octopi, since he doesn’t even know what any of them look like.

  Days and days of testing gave them several small hills composed of dead animals, all spread out to the point of hiding the dirt from the ground itself. They were already miles away from their initial point of origin that a road of flesh and bone trailed behind them.

  “Okay okay, can you try making a human?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Lodur grabbed the next pebble and thought of a human, one of no particular identity. He thought it would be some regular man like one of those guys who threw beans at him in the town square. Unfortunately, it became a newborn infant instead. Well, newly dead infant.

  “What the hell man!” Rob fell to the ground at the squelch of the sudden infant appearing.

  “W-wait, maybe it was a mistake. I’ll try again.” Lodur grabbed another pebble this time and thought of an older person. The pebble grew flesh and morphed into the shape of a human, a human teen around their age. This one however looked just like Rob.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “I-is that supposed to be me?” Rob stood up and faced his own nude corpse. He moved closer and checked the crotch. “Yep that’s me.”

  Lodur touched another stick and tried visualizing himself.

  C’mon work, work, work.

  The stick formed into an exact replica of him, but only dead and without the black hands.

  Lodur pumped up his hands in excitement. “This fuckin’ rocks!” He yelled with glee.

  While the two were experimenting with the curse, they forgot to deal with the mountain of corpses they left on the way. This attracted a bunch of predatory animals and feral scavengers ready to seize the fleshy prize.

  Panthers and wolves ran to pick the fattiest sections of meat, while four-armed bears fought for the choice cuts. Raptors and carnivorous dinosaurs all decided to establish a temporary truce in the presence of the all-you-can-eat buffet. Many monstrous and violent beasts gathered at the center of the banquet and established their territories to prepare for their own gluttony, while flying rocs and thunderbirds swooped down to catch cattle-sized creatures, dead and alive, to bring back to the nest.

  But like all gatherings, there were bound to be disagreements. And for beasts, these disagreements often ended with bloodshed. The beasts fought for food and in turn some of them joined the fleshy pile below. The smell of blood attracted more and more beasts who fought, and gorged, and harvested, and eventually joined the pile. It was a frenzy of bloody gluttony that only grew by the hour.

  Lodur inadvertently caused a cascade of unimaginable ruin for both the forest and the lands that surrounded them. It would be an event that would change the ecology of the area for years to come with continuous bouts of feral violence.

  The wave of wild beasts were getting larger and larger until Lodur and Rob heard it from their position. But if they were close enough to hear it from the forest, it meant that the things in the forest also heard them.

  Lodur (A few days later)

  Rob was currently opening the eyelids of the two corpses when Lodur heard a rustle in the bushes.

  “Uhhh Rob” He nudged Rob with his foot.

  “Hmm? Yeah what’s up.”

  “Rob, I think we have to go.” The rustle in the bush got more erratic. “Like we need to right now.”

  Three raptors jumped out of the bush and headed straight for them.

  “Run!!” Rob grabbed Lodur by the collar and ran as fast as they could.

  Lodur and Rob ducked and jumped through the large roots of the gigantic trees, hoping to lose their pursuers.

  Lodur grabbed a handful of dirt and thought about geese. A flock of dozens and dozens dead geese suddenly appeared and drowned one of the raptors in a pile of feathered meat.

  “There” Rob pointed to a nearby tree with a hole inside.

  Both of them ran through the foliage until one of the raptors lunged at Rob, pinning him down with a large claw. “Gaah!” Rob tried to shake away the claw as the raptors head got nearer.

  “Get away from him!” Lodur threw a stick which transformed into a moose corpse. It kept to the same trajectory but exponentially increased in size. Soon a moose sized wall knocked the raptor to a nearby tree till it snapped in half.

  The tree fell, making a huge thud in the ground.

  The third raptor came from behind Lodur and swiped its claw, making a large bloody gash on his back.

  “Lodur!” Rob jumped between the raptor and swung a branch haphazardly to its face.

  “Rob go down!” Rob did as instructed and dead raptor flew above him, trying to hit the reptile. Unfortunately, the raptor dodged the large lizard corpse.

  Rob, not one to lose the opportunity, grabbed Lodur and ran to the hole beneath the tree. They were trapped beneath a cage of roots and dirt now.

  Lodur was slowly losing consciousness due to the blood loss. He was slurring his speech and starting to get limp as he curled himself into a ball, making sure not to touch Rob with his black hands.

  “Rob..I-I’m sorry...I’m sorry I didn’t see it from behind.”

  “Shush now, you did good man. Stay with me now alright. You’ll be fine, okay?” Rob furrowed his eyebrows and bit his lip in worry.

  The velociraptor then came to the hole, enraged by the hit it got. It began clawing at the entrance in fury. Lodur couldn’t even throw a pebble if he tried. Rob looked down to see a pool of blood below him as he tried to close his eyes as he held Lodur’s head.

  A bottle suddenly hit the velociraptor’s face and made it stand back from the hole where they stood. All of a sudden the raptor convulsed and collapsed on the ground. It was twitching and frothing in the mouth, before it eventually bled from all of it’s orifices.

  Rob stuck his head out and saw a barefoot girl wearing a shoal with strange markings, a strap filled with bottles, and a walking stick that floated beside her, all the telltale signs of a witch.

  He knew that witches were wise women versed in the arts of magic and medicine. They had incredible prowess in mystic arts, but there were rumors of them doing terrible things like shapeshifting into sheep to steal babies or cursing crops to wither. He even heard of them listening to whispers of the devil.

  He looked at Lodur dying of blood loss and frowned.

  If rumors about witches were true, she may be the only one capable of saving Lodur right now.

  He ran out of the hole and called for the witch.

  “Witch!”

  “Gaah!” The girl leapt at her feat and grabbed a vial from her strap, ready to throw it at a moments notice.

  Rob bowed before her. “Great witch I ask for your help!” The girl was startled at the sudden appearance of the cloaked guy bowing before her.

  The girl looked left, then right, then left again before pointing at herself. “Me?”

  Rob nodded from the ground. “Yes great witch, my friend is dying from blood loss right now. I beg that you heal him from his wound.” Rob ran to the hole and pulled out Lodur who was currently delirious from the lack of blood.

  “R-r-r....robby” Lodur was currently hallucinating and breathing shallowly. He was slowly losing color in his lips and skin.

  “Not now Lodur.” Rob flipped him to reveal the big wound in his back.

  The girl didn’t miss the blackened hands, the mark of being cursed by a god.

  “Please help him O great witch!”

  “Well, I mean, since you asked so nicely why not.” The girl was currently smiling at the sound of being called a great witch. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  She ripped the clothes of Lodur open and started taking out various bottles of liquids and powders. She moved with expert precision, one that noted years of experience and study. She quickly mixed components that produced smoke, crackled, and changed in color.

  “Hold him tight.” She told Rob, which the boy readily obeyed. After which she wiped the wound with her shoal. She held the bottle in her mouth and pinned Lodur’s arms down to the ground.

  She drank the mixture, sloshing it in her mouth, before spraying it in Lodur’s back.

  Suddenly his blood started going back to him. The blood bubbled in and out of his skin, like water poured in a hot skillet. Lodur screamed and began thrashing. He started making fists as he thumped the earth with his feet. He was convulsing as the wound behind him started knitting back together.

  Rob looked at the panicked boy and furrowed his brows at the girl.

  “Don’t worry about that, it’s normal.” The girl said with a smile, still pinning down Lodur’s limbs with her own.

  His blood fizzed as smoke came out of his back. Slowly the wound had mended and became normal skin again, though a large scar had formed. Lodur slowly calmed down, now a bit more conscious and lucid.

  The girl stood up and smiled at her handywork.

  “There all good.” She patted Lodur on the back which elicited a yelp.

  “Ouch!”

  She unwrapped a piece of cloth and pulled out a blood red mushroom, one that looked like a shiny leech, and shoved it to Rob. “Feed him this, it’ll help with the blood loss and from the look of things, he needs all the help he can get.”

  Lodur was struggling to stay awake. “Wuh-uh ummmm.” His lips were still pale and his face was still white, but at least now it wouldn’t get worse.

  Rob bowed and thanked the girl before taking out a waterskin and feeding Lodur the mushroom. He started getting his color back as Rob leaned him to a nearby tree.

  “Drink up bud.” Rob pressed the waterskin by the boy’s lips. “Heh, that’s it slowly now.”

  “Did I do good?”

  “You did good man. The thing with the flying moose was really cool.” Rob was happy to see Lodur pep up, even if it was just a little bit.

  The girl came nearer and tapped the black handed boy.

  “You did that yeah? Like the corpse making stuff?”

  Lodur nodded, munching on the leech mushroom which tasted like roast meat, a rarity for Lodur.

  “Well, I think I know how you guys can pay me back now, the mushroom was pretty expensive. Took me a whole week of searching.” She smiled a wicked grin. “Heh heh heh, this’ll be so much fun.”