Read Online Valley of the Dead by Kim Paffenroth - Free Book Online

similar, with the same dark hair and eyes, their skin slightly ruddier than Bogdana’s. Perhaps they had been brother and sister. They were old enough to be betrothed, as Dante had been when he was twelve, but that was more the custom among the aristocracy, and those who hoped for their children or grandchildren to ascend to that class. These people probably never had such aspirations, and now they were dead, they aspired to nothing, other than to kill.
    The boy was on him first. Looking into its big, brown eyes, Dante couldn’t help but hesitate. Its gaze registered nothing but an inhuman, animal need, with no recognition of danger or sympathy. But it was still childlike enough to make any normal man pause. Tears welled up and blurred Dante’s vision, the way pity was blurring his cold, rational judgment. The moment allowed the boy-thing to get close enough that Dante’s delayed slash was awkward and had less force, striking the side of its head, driving the thing down, but neither breaking its skull nor cutting through its neck. It and the girl were now both on Dante. The girl tugged at the hem of his frock, while the boy got a hold of his right arm. He grabbed the girl’s long hair with his left hand, pulling her away before she could bite into his thigh or stomach. He tried to pull his right arm away from the boy, but the dead grip was powerful and tenacious. The two children were dragging him down, and for a moment he felt fairly sure he’d be dead soon, too.
    Bogdana’s club came down on the boy’s head with a loud crack. His soulless eyes rolled back and somehow looked even more dead. His grip still held Dante’s arm, though now the body felt so much lighter than before. Perhaps the water was buoying him up. Bogdana nudged him with the stick, so he slipped off of Dante, splashed in the water, and floated away.
    Dante was left holding the girl’s hair as the thing struggled and growled. He gritted his teeth and pulled her upward as he raised his sword. Radovan walked up next to him. Apparently he had killed the two dead people who had been attacking him. “Go ahead,” he said to Dante quietly. “You have to.”
    “No one ever has to do anything,” Dante whispered. He could hear the catch in his voice, hear the sniffling in his nose, as he breathed in after saying this. It was embarrassing, and it stung him that his emotions felt more embarrassing than killing children did.
    Dante could feel Bogdana move around behind him. She kept her hand on his shoulder and back as she moved, perhaps so he’d know she was there and feel reassured by it. He heard her say something to Radovan, though he couldn’t quite make it out, then he heard the other man splash out of the river. He couldn’t see him, as he kept looking at the girl-thing. Bogdana came around on his left side and drew his dagger.
    “It’s all right,” she whispered to him. “You’re right. No one has to do anything. But sometimes things have to happen. We don’t know why. Just look away for a moment. Please.”
    Dante glanced from the girl to the dagger. It was a practical, rugged weapon, not a dainty or decorative piece, but Dante had never before thought it looked so ugly and evil. It caught the afternoon sun and he thought it looked like a sliver of cold hate. He wished, for a moment, it would be going into his brain and not the girl’s.
    Bogdana gently put her hand on his face, over his eyes. Her hand was every bit as rough and calloused as he would have expected, but the touch was as maternal, loving, and reassuring as any he could remember ever feeling. She gave the slightest push, turning his head to the right. “Hold on to her hair tightly, please.” Dante tightened his grip. “It’s for her good, too. The soldiers will be much less gentle, or she’ll kill others, and cause more evil.”
    The growling turned into a kind of high pitched wailing, and Dante could feel the girl thrashing about so hard he didn’t think he could hold