The Haunted

The glow, he noticed immediately, was coming from a fire pit in the center of the single room. There was no one in here, and the only piece of furniture was a small table made from twigs, next to a large flattened rock that obviously served as a chair. On the hard dirt floor lay bones, human bones, and in the smoldering fire pit was a man’s blackened hand with the flesh still on it.

What was this place? Huerta knew not, but it was evil; of that he was certain. He could feel here the presence of an unholy spirit, and he quickly exited the hut, feeling afraid, hoping he had not been corrupted by exposure to such malevolence.

Outside, two of his men were fighting. How this had happened in the few moments he had been inside the hut, Huerta could not understand, but as he emerged, he saw a line of soldiers, their backs facing him, while from the other side of the line he heard a metallic clash of swords. Pushing through the row of men, he saw Ferdinand de la Cruz and Hector Barbara, his best and most loyal warriors, engaged in an intense duel, apparently to the finish.

This was neither the time nor the place for swordplay, and even if the two men had a grudge against each other—which Huerta did not believe the case—it was not the appropriate occasion. They were aligned against other forces, engaged in a dark battle against an unseen evil, and they must put their personal differences aside until these other, more important matters were settled.

But Ferdinand and Hector showed no sign of ending their conflict. They each had seen him, they both knew he was there, and ordinarily his mere presence would cause them to leave off. A kind of fever seemed to have gotten into the soldiers, however, and their focus was entirely on each other. How this had come to pass in such a short span of time and why the other men stood watching dumbly rather than intervening could not be adequately explained by conventional reason. This, Huerta was certain, was connected to the madness of the horses and the horror inside that hut, and he knew in his soul that if he did not put a stop to it now, this evil would spread.

He stepped forward. “Halt!” he ordered. “Cease this fighting!” But the men paid him no heed. He felt the anger growing within him. He bade them stop yet again, and when they refused to obey, he grew enraged and held forth his own weapon. “I order you to put down your swords!” he shouted.

He was by far the most accomplished swordsman in his company. It was one of the reasons he was the captain of this expedition. He had had occasion to use his blade skills before, and all of his men knew that he had both the will and the ability to mete out punishment for any transgressions.

Yet these two continued fighting.

Although they were evenly matched, Ferdinand seemed to have gained the upper hand, due primarily to his position on the slight upslope of the land. He had sliced open Hector’s right arm, inflicting serious injury, a fairly deep wound that was bleeding out through slashed clothing. The blood looked black in the flickering light of the torches, and shiny. Hector, for his part, had become enraged by his adversary’s successful penetration of defenses, and, holding his sword with both hands, was making up for his disadvantages with passion and vigor. He stabbed forward zealously, crying out in triumph as his blade sank into the flesh of his rival’s leg.

Ferdinand listed sideways but did not fall, and once again, Huerta ordered both men to stop the fight.

They ignored him.

Filled with an anger so black that he could feel its searing intensity in the tightness of every muscle, Huerta stepped forward, and with a scream of fury he sliced at Hector’s head. He was strong and his blade sharp, his blow powerful, but the head was not severed in a single slice. His sword was caught in the other soldier’s neck, and he had to pull it out and hack again. This time, Hector’s head fell backward, spurting copious amounts of blood but still tenuously connected to the body. One more stroke, however, and the head was off, falling to the ground and bouncing once even as the body crumpled behind it.

Ferdinand, by this time, had fallen, though whether from the stab wound to his leg or as a reaction to his captain’s intervention, Huerta knew not. What he did know was that Ferdinand had to die, and as the other man tried to push himself up from the ground, Huerta ran him through with his sword, twice in quick succession, both times through the chest. The soldier collapsed backward, lifeless, but even though he was dead, Huerta continued to chop at the body, hacking off hands and feet, arms and legs, until what was left of Ferdinand was little more than a bloody stump surrounded by chunks of chopped flesh.