Yet another example of masturbating my book characters all over a short story, this is an interaction that’s heavily-based in my world, and maybe wasn’t the best way to slap a short story together.

Especially for something as exciting and important as The Little Journal, something put together by the most-excellent people at Writing WA and Night Parrot Press.

750 words about speculative fiction, horror and other “super genre” stuff, I feel like an idiot for trying to shoehorn my already-created world into something that I really should have just written something fresh for.

But yeah, always learning. Usually the hard way. But I do like this story, if for no other reason than I’m in love with my characters and the world I’ve created.

**

Glutey watched his cousin appear from the night behind their enemy, the axe’s blade shining in the moonlight as it swung at the man’s head. The deathblow passed through though, and the dark-hooded man disappeared like mist. Glutey knew then this was a Kadaitcha, a Featherfoot. A demon here to exact revenge.

He didn’t know Noongar well but he knew some of the stories. Most books were gone along with the rest of society when “The Pulse” hit late last century, sending the world into darkness, but the storytellers did their best to instil fear. It had worked, Glutey was terrified.

He and his cousin hadn’t meant to attack the hooded man but he’d stumbled across them after they’d raided a sleeping camp of some stupid Avonists who’d wandered too close to the border. Glutey staggered backward in the dark, glancing left and right, wondering how to tell the Featherfoot it was his cousin Tega’s idea to cross the Derbarl Yerrigan and come south.

Reluctantly, he’d followed Tega across the river separating north from south of what used to be Perth-Boorloo, intending on killing, raping and taking whatever they could. Now a demon was on them and it was all Tega’s fault. Glutey had no idea if Tega could get them out of this and braced himself to flee. Tega wouldn’t though, he was the fiercest and toughest fighter Glutey knew. Sparring with him and roaming to raid or spar with other tribes, there was no one faster or deadlier.

Panic suddenly filled Glutey’s heart as he watched the Featherfoot suddenly appear right behind Tega, the blade in the demon’s hand sinking into his cousin’s neck. Poor Tega stumbled forward a few steps, his face a mask of anger and surprise, his life leaking out from between his fingers, before falling face first into the dirt. Glutey watched as the demon then disappeared.

Glutey ran. Tega was the brave one, Glutey always just along for the ride. He had no idea how to avenge Tega’s death against a demon, instead running as fast as he could back down the trail toward the river. All he wanted was to retreat back through the ruins and back to the lake. He’d be safe there.

Glutey barely made it twenty metres before he heard something on the trail ahead. Gripping his axe and moving slowly forward, his blade still sharp and deadly despite shaking like a leaf. Heart hammering in his chest, eyes like chicken’s eggs in the night, he searched anywhere and everywhere for the force that was now stalking him.

Tears stung his eyes and he tried to force it down but a voice inside his head talked openly, calmly, about his home. “Irony is thick, that they call you gangs from North of the River ‘Joondals’ after Lake Joondalup.”

The demon whispered to him from inside, and despite the calm voice Glutey’s body was frozen in terror, he couldn’t move a muscle. Sweat mixed with his tears as the whispering continued.

“The Noongar suffix ‘up’ means ‘place of’ but ‘joondal’ can be either ‘whiteness that glistens’ like water, or ‘creature that only moves backward’ like you’re doing now.”

Glutey, still frozen in fear, felt his bladder release.

“My blade still thirsts, so go backwards now, Joondal. Back to your tribe, your gang of rapists and murderers. Tell them of my blade. Tell them of this night.”

Suddenly unfrozen, Glutey felt his legs moving as fast as they ever had, branches whipping across his face and stinging his arms. With every strike he imagined the Featherfoot’s blade in his neck and he ran screaming into the night. He’d reach the lake eventually, but never again would he feel safe.

“Kaya, mate. Nice touch with the ‘thirsty blade’ business.” The Edge Guard stepped out from the trees. Moonlight glinted as he slung his plasma rifle onto his shoulder. “You forget that I’m under orders not to let any of them go though.”

“Kaya yourself. You forget too, that to them I’m a demon, a legend.” The hooded figure suddenly appeared, his smile shining from under his beard. “One terrified survivor is worth a hundred of your summary executions by plasma rifle.”

“Maybe…” the Edge Guard’s voice said in his friend’s head, “Neat trick there though. Disappearing and all.”

“Thanks, been practicing. You have too, I like the body freeze thing. How’d you make him piss himself?”

“I didn’t. Must be something to this Featherfoot legend-thing after all.”

This was an entry for Writing Battle, which is a concept that I still find amazing and fascinating. You write something under 1000 words that follows a few prompts, then it goes to “battle” against another story and a group of folks vote on who wins. Meanwhile, you do the same for another group, reading two stories at a time and deciding the winner.

I had a great time, though once again had only that to take away as I didn’t even win my first battle with this piece.

This isn’t just inspired by the Spec-fic I write under my pen name, it’s literally the first meeting of two of my main characters, Dukan and Ranton (though Dukan’s name is never used). I felt like it hit the prompts and the feedback all seemed to centre on how they, the readers, all wanted to know more about the MC and how he got there.

Perhaps I’m guilty of being too in-love with my characters and risk masturbating their interactions all over a short story when they’re best left throwing their weight around in my books. Dunno. A part of me thinks that it’s a slam-dunk to Spec-fic with a world I’ve already built, but I frequently fail to Consider The Source when I’m submitting a short story.

Which sucks, because if I had the headspace and energy to do my research, get inside the heads of the judges et al, then write something specific to them, I’d probably have a much bigger chance of getting something noticed.

It all remains a Learning Experience, I suppose. And those are never easy. Opportunities missed still hurt, but that’s how we learn, no?

**

His legs dangled out the bars of the cramped cage as the smell of cooking meat wafted in through the tent’s open flap and set his mouth to watering while nearly sending him into a ravenous rage. This would be the fifteenth day he’d refused to eat, and he wondered how many more he had left.

The two initiates were a welcome surprise as they carried their meals into the tent. Tattered robes and smiles, they jabbered excitedly at their overflowing plates before they saw the captive and remembered their orders.

“Does Prelate Ranton really believe he can be saved?” the taller one squinted, “By us? They say his days here in the compound are nearing an end.”

He looked barely older than a boy at first but his thick arm held out a plate to the captive. Despite the hunger, despite the steam rising from the cooked meat, the captive turned his face away from it.

The shorter initiate snorted. She looked too young as well but had a worldliness about her that the captive recognised. She’d had it hard out there, either life in the Territories or slogging through the forests. Harder than the male had, that was for sure.

He figured it was likely why she was here, though both would have been drawn into the Hoytist’s for their promises of peace, order and, of course, bounty. Scrapping and clawing for 60 years after The Pulse wiped most of humanity out and here was a ready-made paradise in the forests. All you had to do was shave your head and worship some asshole named Hoyt.

“More to it than that,” the captive thought as he inhaled the aroma of the meat, “A lot more.”

He looked down between his legs at the old padlock on his cage and smiled. He’d practiced picking this style lock and would have been long gone had the Hoytists not stripped him.

“By the Hoyt,” the taller one chewed, “He refuses this! Cooked meat the likes of which I’ve never tasted, yet still he smiles!”

The other one approached. “Hoyt be praised, this meat’s amazing. A nuttiness I’ve never tasted in meat! May he someday be saved.”

The taller one turned to her. “So… who did you save? When you came in?”

She regarded him with haunted eyes, clutching at a small doll hidden inside her sleeve. “My sister. You?”

The captive recognised the hemp twine used for the doll’s hair. He’d once brought the local doll-maker thin strips of bendy metal for the doll’s innards.

“Mum,” he took another bite, “She couldn’t do for herself out there.”

“And,” she regarded her fellow recruit, “Who did you send?”

He chewed thoughtfully. “My brother. He was always so good at foraging he’ll be fine in the forests. He always had an acorn in his mouth, finding so many of them he was even a bit fat. Can you imagine?”

She lowered her eyes as a sadness took hold. “I sent mum. I didn’t want to, but those are the rules when you enter, the Prelate said. Besides, she’ll be fine too. Probably.”

The tent was suddenly filled by a wide form in sweeping robes. “By the Hoyt she will!” boomed Prelate Ranton, “The Hoyt provides for all! Even this wretched recluse here, resisting all resplendence with reproachful reprises.”

The captive gave Ranton a dark look. Ranton glared back before turning his softened eyes to the female initiate. “And? Has he? All may partake of our bounty, saved or no.”

“Bounty? You sick fuck,” The captive cast his eyes between the initiates, “Didn’t either of you ever wonder how the Hoytists forbid trade with the only territory to have pigs or goats, yet there’s all this cooked meat? You see any livestock around here?”

The initiates looked to each other, then almost in unison said back, “The Hoyt provides.”

“No…” the captive’s mouth twisted, “Turns out you provided. You there, think about how your fat brother ate heaps of acorns and consider why that nutty-tasting meat’s dripping with juices.”

The taller initiate’s eyes squinted in consideration as the other’s eyes boggled in horror. She quietly spat her mouthful back onto her plate and his chewing stopped.

The initiate turned to the Prelate. “By the Hoyt, Prelate Ranton, I know the apostate blasphemes but where does the compound source such bounty?,” he caught himself, “I… I mean, am I able to visit the Preparatory to witness the Hoyt’s benevolence?”

Prelate Ranton’s large eyes turned downward, saddened. He pursed his lips and shook his bald head at the captive. “You would waste their welcoming with your words, wouldn’t you wastrel?”

The captive bared his teeth back. “Scientia potentia est.”

Ranton looped his arms around both initiate’s shoulders. “Of course you may visit the Preparatory, my itchingly-inquisitive initiate,” a blade was suddenly in his hand, “You have my word.”

It was less than a full-second for the Prelate’s blade to slice the jugular vein of the shorter initiate before flashing across and neatly severing the same in the taller one’s neck. The captive gripped the bars and growled angrily as they fell, even as Ranton’s eyes never left his.

Ranton breathed out. “You’re almost right, that knowledge is power. But you and all your Latin and vaunted book-learning still aren’t powerful enough to oppose the will of the Hoyt.”

“Someday,” the captive whispered, “You’ll burn for this.”

The Prelate smiled grimly as he gripped the dead male by his ankles and started dragging. “Maybe. But all your vaunted volumes will never make you as venerable as you view, my valuable vulnerable. Now I need to keep my word and take him to the Preparatory to finish bleeding out before he’s carved.”

The captive watched him go before slipping his hand up the dead girl’s sleeve, retrieving the doll, and quickly dismantling it. Venerable or not, he knew the doll’s skeleton would make fine lockpicks, and that his days in this place were indeed nearing an end.