Fiction

Not Again

A fantasy story set in the Shadow Kingdoms world

Petra groaned and staggered to her feet, noticing a bitter taste in her mouth. “What happened?” she murmured.

She glanced down, noticing how mud-spattered her clothes were. After a few half-hearted attempts to brush the dirt away, she gave up. Her hands were muddy, her smock was muddy… everything was muddy. The most she could do was move it around.

Turning and looking at her surroundings, Petra tried to remember what had just happened to her. There was a gap in her memory — a void. The last thing she could recall were a pair of bandits with swords coming towards her…

“Oh, shit. Not again.”

She then twisted around to feel at her lower back. Yes. She clearly remembered the sword sliding in — surely a fatal blow. She had been putting up a fight; not bad for two-against-one odds with only a dagger to defend herself.

But then thieves had killed her. She had been dead, for sure, and now, she was very much alive again.

The first time this sort of thing had happened, her family had disowned her. The second time, even her close friends had pushed her away, saying that she was cursed by witchcraft.

It might well have been true…

The irony was that she had been on her way to see a specialist in Katresburg about the issue when the bandits attacked.

Petra began to walk, narrowing her eyes as she looked from side to side trying to orient herself. It was still well before dawn, with only a glimmer of light in the east. Otherwise, two large boulders blocked most of her view. Stepping past them, she nodded grimly. The bandits had dumped the body behind some rocks, not far from the path she had been on.

They couldn’t have got much in the way of coin, for she never had much to lose. All the same, it was a real nuisance that her coin pouch had been stolen, and worse still to lose that fine dagger.

Now she was all alone — no dagger, no coin, no nothing. It was time for a long walk back to town.

Well — at least it was dark enough that nobody would see the state of her clothing.

Two guards stood by the city gate.

One, an older man with silver hair, had removed his helmet, and was slowly smoking a rolled-up bunch of shana weed a few paces back, a crossbow at his feet.

The other stood closer, a young man with a narrow chin and cropped hair. He stomped towards Petra, a spear in his hand. “Identification.” The young guard looked tired and irritable, and spoke in a high-pitched voice.

Petra sighed, and spread her arms. “I was robbed. I don’t have my identification token.”

He snorted in response. “Can’t help you, then, Miss.”

Petra frowned. “What? I’m a citizen of this place. I’ve lived here half my life. I served in the Vyalian campaign. Don’t you have any respect for veterans?”

“You’re a veteran?” He raised his beetle-black eyebrows and sneered as he spoke.

“You have my word.”

“Not good enough. If you have no identification, then you’ll have to pay us five silvers.”

Petra now fixed the young guard with a withering glare. “Neither moral nor bright, then, I see?”

At this, the young guard raised his spear in both hands and took an aggressive step forward, his eyebrows joining together. “Then be off, peasant. We don’t allow vagabonds and freeloaders into the Imperial city of Katresburg. We can’t trust outsiders.”

Petra met the man’s gaze, and glared right back at him in cold silence.

On the one hand, she felt that she could take this kid, even unarmed. But it depended on the other; the older man was packing a crossbow, and looked much more battle-hardened.

She looked over at the older man, and raised her voice. “Hey! Are you going to let this guy make all the decisions?”

The older man had now lit his roll-up. He puffed some smoke, picked up his crossbow in one hand, and ambled closer. “Maybe you should just let her past, Rosco,” he said calmly.

The younger guard swiveled around and frowned at his co-worker, his face turning purple. “I don’t think so, Altimar. She could be a spy, or a witch from one of the villages.”

Altimer puffed on his roll-up some more, looking at Petra through the haze. “Nah. She does look kinda familiar. I’ve probably seen her around the city.” He took one step back, and gestured for Petra to proceed.

“Thanks,” she said, stepping forward. “At least someone here knows how to do their job. Not like this child.”

The younger guard shoved the shaft of the spear against Petra, snarling, and jerking her to the side. “What did you say, wench?” A vein was pulsing in his forehead, his knuckles white on the shaft of the spear.

She paused, rubbing her arm and looking him cooly up and down. “Just observing that you are a bit young for a job like this. Did you get weaned early or something? I get the impression you’d be happier if you were still suckling on your mommy’s teat.”

The older guard suppressed a wry chuckle, and gestured again for Petra to proceed. She nodded at him, pushed past the younger guard and began to saunter into the city.

But just then, she felt an agonising shock blast through her body. She realized too late that the enraged younger guard had stabbed her with his spear as she had passed him…

“Oh, fuck,” Petra murmured, as she slumped down to her knees. She looked at the blood pooling on the stone paving below her.

“Not again…”

When she snapped back into consciousness, Petra found herself lying on her back in a wood-paneled room. She looked to the side. An old woman, lay beside her, fully clothed. Gray skin; serene in death.

There was a smell of incense in the air.

This time, it took only seconds for Petra to register exactly where she was. She had grown up in the Merchants’ Quarter of Katresburg, and had frequently caught glimpses of the building where the dead were taken. Now she was among them.

Before long, she knew, members of the Elemental Hand Guild would arrive to prepare the ‘bodies’ for burial.

She had to hurry.

Petra crept to the door, and pushed it open a crack, then let it close again. Many townsfolk were in the street outside, and she didn’t want to attract the kind of attention that tends to happen when the dead start to walk.

She glanced around the room again, thinking hard, then fixated on a set of black robes hanging on one wall. Perfect — an Elemental Hand Guild outfit. If she put that on and kept her head down, nobody would know the difference.

And it would cover up the mud and bloodstains.

Soon, Petra was walking through familiar city streets. The building where she and the other corpses had been kept wasn’t too far from where she had been headed — the tower of the sorcerer Maluhk. The old half-orc was the specialist who, she hoped, could help with her curse.

It wouldn’t take long to get there.

But now, she thought to herself, turning a corner and slowing her pace as she walked through the city, perhaps it was time for a different approach?

This ‘curse’ was perplexing — unnatural. That was for sure. But it had certainly proved useful… even if she did need to keep quiet about it to avoid freaking people out.

After all, it had saved her life and got her inside the city — all within a day.

And her friends? Well — perhaps she could find new ones. Less judgmental ones.

A half-smile playing across her lips, Petra made her way towards the nearest tavern.

Thanks for reading! This was a response to the following prompt from Ira Robinson:

The first chest opens, and reveals the following words on the scroll hidden deep within its recesses…

The protagonist is a veteran of a war, living on the outskirts of town. He tries to avoid dealing with people, but there are times he has no choice. What the townsfolk do not realize is he’s already died multiple times but keeps rising again.

A good beginning to a horror story? Or, perhaps a twist of the screws could make it into an interesting paranormal romance or fantasy tale.