The following is the tenth installment of my serial novel, ALO & WYOME. If you missed chapter nine, you can read it here, or if you’re just starting out, you can read the first installment of ALO & WYOME here.

ALO LAY IN BEAD WITH A TERRIBLE SWEAT. Thoughts of death tossed him through the night. The men who abandoned their wives, either by choice or misfortune, haunted him. Asleep, he dreamed of wolves and festering wounds. Awake, he sat on the pallet he shared with Wyome and marveled that she slept despite his tossing and turning.

Alo stood from the bed and walked out the door to take in some cool air. The sky was at the point when it could either be very late at night or very early in the morning, but the air outside felt warm and did not refresh his sweaty skin.

Alo looked around. All was quiet in the hollow. He thought about the creek and its cool waters. The shallow bend he swam in yesterday lay just beyond the huts at the southern end of the hollow. He walked, then ran to the creek. The widows’ warning be damned. He wanted to cool off, and no one would be up to know he left the village.

He ran shirtless through the hollow, and when he came to the stream, he stripped down further. The cold water was shocking as he stepped in. He waded into the deepest part and submerged himself before his mind could protest. Air leaped from his lungs as soon as his head went under, but he remained below the surface for several breathless moments until his thoughts were clear. The widows and their dead husbands fled from his mind. When only pain and the desire for air were left, he succumbed to instinct and emerged gasping for life.

Many minutes passed, and Alo became cold, very cold, and shivered. His back was turned to the hollow, and he let his body suffer the bite from the breeze across his wet torso. As he turned to leave, a shadow moved before him on the bank. Every fear that had just evacuated from him came rushing back as he noticed the woman standing over his clothes, with a gray sky behind her.

“You are not supposed to be here,” said the shadow. “You’re not supposed to be anywhere without your bride.”

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The following was first published in the anthology MYTHS, GODS, AND IMMORTALS: LOKI. You can find links to purchase the book at the end of the story.

THERE IS A CAVE THAT LIES BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. Its floor is the basement of one realm and the ceiling of another. The cave is hidden beneath a waterfall that fills a deep pool where an impossible-to-navigate river originates. Only intrepid swarms of salmon can swim up the river to find the pool, but they lack feet with which they could step out of the water to walk through the falls and into the cave.

If one could navigate the river’s windy meanders and knees all the way to the headwaters, one would be struck by the deep pool’s beauty. Velvety moss grows on smooth river stones, and centuries-old beech trees cast shade over the deep waters with knurled and twisted limbs. The pool is clear enough to see to the bottom, but one could never sink to its deepest depths in a single breath. The sound of the waterfall’s ceaseless rush fills the air like feathers stuffed into a down pillow and softly mutes the surrounding world.

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Behind the deafening falls is the entrance to the cave that no mortal has found. It is not a small hole in the earth. In fact, it is large enough for both gods and giants to enter through. But the cave is not inviting. It is dark and belches more foul-smelling air than drunkards after a night of revelry. Jagged rocks line the cave walls, and thick ooze drips from the ceiling above. The cave mouth is as terrifying as the pool is enchanting.

Things do not get better after stepping inside. The sun and moon are quickly replaced by utter darkness, and the sound of running water is consumed by silence. Unlike most holes beneath the earth, the cave air is not cool. It is stifling. The deeper one goes, the warmer the temperature becomes until it is almost unbearable. Where the heat is the strongest, Loki, the god of mischief, dwells.

But ignore the god. He is harmless in his present condition. His hands and legs are lashed with charmed cords tied in unbreakable knots. He has been bound this way for years and will continue to be tethered until the end of days. Mind the snake instead. It sits above the god’s head with open jaws as though it were ready to strike. Venom drips out of its fangs onto the upturned face of the incarcerated. The vile drops sear the skin and are most painful if they splash in open eyes. Loki yanks on the cords that bind him. He is strong enough to shake the earth in his discomfort but unable to free himself.

A goddess comes into the cave to give Loki aid. She has been near the cave for as long as him, though she is free to leave if she wants. The goddess is Sigyn, Loki’s once fair and ceaselessly loyal wife. She carries a shallow pail with her.

“I’m back,” Sigyn calls to comfort her tormented husband. She takes her place between Loki and the vile snake. Two divots are worn into the stone where she has stood over the years.

Drip.

Another drop of venom falls out of the snake’s mouth, but Sigyn catches it in her pail. Loki breathes a sigh of relief. His skin will heal, and with Sigyn beside him, his prison is more bearable.

“Thank you, dear,” Loki says. He wants to hug his wife, but the cords do not allow him that pleasure. They haven’t touched in decades. They haven’t kissed in centuries. Coming near is too risky, especially when more than a few drops of venom are in the pail. Instead, Loki embraces Sigyn with his words.

“I love you,” Loki says. It is something he says often. Another woman might think he addresses his words to the pail that protects him, but Sigyn is not such a woman.

“I love you, too,” she replies.

Drip.

Sigyn holds the pail over Loki’s head day and night. She catches every drop of venom except when she must go outside to empty the pail into the pool. If she is fast, Loki only suffers two stings from the snake. But there are some days when she takes her time. Some days, Sigyn looks long into the wind and dips a toe into the waters of the pool before polluting it. Loki suffers in her absence, and the whole earth trembles from his mighty jerks at his tethers. He cries for the pail; he screams for her return.

“SIGYN! Come back, oh please come back.”

Loki’s voice is not easy to ignore. Not even the waterfalls can drown his anguish, so Sigyn takes her toe out of the numbing waters and turns her back to the wind. She drains the contents of the pail. The venom kills the fish in the pool. It’s a wonder there are any fish left in the world, Sigyn thinks. Surely, she’s poured out enough venom to kill them all over the years.

But her trips to empty the basin are less frequent than she thinks. As shallow as the dish is, filling it takes a long time. Sigyn returns to Loki’s side in time to catch the seventh drip.

Loki and Sigyn are not without visitors in the cave. Some of the other gods and goddesses come to see them. Only Odin, the All-Father, neglects to visit. He cannot bear to see his once beloved blood brother in such misery.

When the gods come, they check Loki’s bonds and give Sigyn a morsel of food and a draft of mead. She’s grateful for the vittles and the company. None of the gods tend to Loki’s needs. They have yet to forgive him for his mischief and misdeeds against them.

“Have you not proven your loyalty enough?” asks Tyr, the god of glory. While he speaks, Tyr strokes the stump of his arm where a hand once was. A hand he lost to Loki’s son, the great wolf Fenrir.

“Loyalty is not shown once, but continuously,” Sigyn answers.

Drip.

“Let me hold the pail for a while,” Tyr offers, “You must be weary of this task.”

Loki looks at his wife with fear in his eyes. The same fear a lamb displays before the butcher. Loki knows Tyr would sooner dump all of the snake’s venom onto his head than protect him.

“Tending to me is far too lowly of a task for a god like you,” Loki reasons. His once cunning voice is rough and ragged. His lies are out of practice. “Surely you must be leaving us soon to watch some battle amongst the mortals?”

“The world is quite peaceful for now,” Tyr grumbles. He does not look at Loki when he speaks. He has offered to take Sigyn’s place before, so he knows what she will say and gets up to leave

TIME PASSES. The snake above Loki does not move. It does not eat or sleep and never shuts its vicious jaws. It is perched too high for Sigyn to reach, though she is sure that if she tried, the snake would bite her with its terrible fangs. If a single drop can cause Loki, a god and the son of a giant, to writhe in pain, what more misery might come from a bite?

One day, a most unexpected guest enters the cave. She is not a goddess— one of the Aesir— but the giantess Angrboda, Loki’s first wife. She is wet from the falls. Her straight, dark hair clings to the sides of her face. Her pale blue skin glistens like ice thawing in the sun. A headdress made of stag antlers rests on her head, adding even more height to her imposing stature. Deep-set eyes scour the scene for anything other than the two pitiful gods. When nothing of interest is found, she looks to Loki.

“I see that the Aesir have treated you well,” Angrboda says.

“They’re going through a phase,” Loki sighs. He pulls on his cords. They are as taught as ever.

“Why are you here?” Sigyn asks. She knows Angrboda. She knows Loki loved the she-giant first before he came to Asgard and returned to her embrace often enough to sire three monstrous children.

“Why are you here?” Angrboda asks in reply. “Why do you suffer with this fool?”

“Loyalty is not something I would expect a giant to understand.”

“Ah, but you would be wrong. It is loyalty that brings me here.” Sigyn raised a doubtful brow as Angrboda continued. “I have news that concerns the both of you.”

“You have lies,” Sigyn hissed.

“The only liar in this cave is the one you so desperately protect.”

“I have not lied for some time. I think by average I might now be considered an honest man,” Loki said with the smallest of smiles on his venom-scarred face.

“Bite your tongue and keep it that way,” Angrboda said.

“I see my absence has not made your heart grow fonder of me.”

“You’re wrong, I have grown quite fond of your absence.”

I’ve missed you too,” Loki sneered.

“Speak and be gone,” Sigyn said. Loki’s exchange with his former lover was too playful, in her opinion. It twisted her heart.

Drip.

The pail was near capacity. Sigyn adjusted her grip so that the splashes would not land on her. The skin of her fingers was calloused and scarred even more than the hammer-wielding hands of mighty Thor. The venom’s touch was indeed painful; she had caught it with her own hands several times. Despite the occasional mishaps, Loki never once heard his wife cry out in pain.

“Ragnarok has come,” Angrboda said.

“Ragnarok?” Loki and Sigyn said together. Angrboda nodded.

“Fenrir is free. Jormungandr rises from the tides as we speak.” Angrboda’s voice carried unhidden pride. The monstrous wolf and the world-sized serpent were her children—her and Loki’s—two beasts fated to destroy the gods at the appointed time.

“Impossible,” Sigyn said, but then the blast from a battle horn echoed through the chamber. The unmistakable call of Heimdall, the god’s watchman, summoning the Aesir to battle.

“It is inevitable,” Angrboda said. “The giants march on the Bifrost as we speak.”

Drip.

“Why are you here to tell us? What can we who are imprisoned possibly do?” Sigyn asked.

“Only one of you is in chains,” Angrboda answered. Her words were as cool as her frosty skin, “Since Loki could not come to me, I had to come to you. Besides, is it so unreasonable for me to see my husband one more time before the world meets its end?”

Sigyn scoffed, but she otherwise held her thoughts behind her teeth.

“You’ve had him all to yourself for so long,” Angrboda said, “I can take your place if you wish. Give me a turn with my love, and you can run and fight with your fellow gods. Loki is, after all, my husband, too.”

“And a good wife you’ve been,” Sigyn mocked. She wanted to refuse, but Angrboda’s proposal was the first to cause her to waver. Her hand jerked as though eager to accept. Her body betrayed the mind. Milky white venom swirled in the heavy bowl and threatened to slosh over the lip. Heimdall’s horn sounded again, and a roll of thunder answered. The call to battle was difficult for her to refuse.

“Stay here,” Loki’s objection interrupted Sigyn’s thoughts and caused Angrboda to frown.

“Both of you. Stay here.”

“Why?” Angrboda asked.

“Let Ragnarok pass us by. Let Asgard fall. Let the world burn, and from its ashes, we can start new. The three of us, together, with a blank slate.”

Angrboda and Sigyn exchanged glances. Neither woman looked friendly to Loki’s suggestion.

Drip.

“I’d rather spill this dish on myself than make such a cowardly decision,” Sigyn said.

“Go, then,” Angrboda said to Sigyn. “You are not bound nor a coward. Fight alongside your brethren. Leave me to protect the craven.”

“Can neither of you see the opportunity we have?” Loki protested. More thunder rolled in the distance as Thor entered the far-off battle.

“Go,” Angrboda encouraged, “you’ve been in the dark for too long. The gods need you.”

Sigyn squinted. She and Angrboda ignored their spouse and the fierce sounds of war while they examined each other. Angrboda clearly bore ulterior motives for her visit. The giantess came near. Despite her size and crown of antlers, she made an attempt to appear endearing. Meanwhile, Sigyn was torn by dueling loyalties: to stand by Loki or leave and fight with her kin.

Loki watched without hiding his misgivings. He only cared about pain and avoiding it.

Drip.

“What is your goal?” Sigyn asked.

“I have been clear with my intentions. My goal is to speak to you about loyalty. I want you to remember that you are a goddess first, one of the Aesir, and married to Loki, the son of a giant, second.”

“He is my husband.”

“He is mine, too, and he is my kind. A son of a giant.”

If she could, Sigyn would have stepped back. She desired more space between her and Angrboda, but the task of catching venom kept her anchored in place.

“This is silly,” Loki said, “You can both have me if you want. Just stay here.”

“You have already had both of us,” Sigyn snapped. The contents of the pail threatened to spill out, but venom spewed from Sigyn’s mouth instead. “This is all because of you, Loki. Those monsters you call children would not even exist if you could only keep to one bed. But nothing is enough for you. You have to take more. You might have a dwarf and an elf wife by now if you weren’t locked away for so long.” Sigyn took in a breath, “How can you receive my unrelenting attention for the ages we’ve been together in this cave and think for a second I’d share you at the first offer? Especially with her?” Sigyn jerked her head in Angrboda’s direction. The giant did not look offended, only amused.

“Does that mean you’re going then?” Angrboda asked.

“Why would I leave?”

“Because I am staying.”

“That’s what I want you both to do,” Loki said. He gestured in exasperation as much as his bonds would allow.

“You are not staying,” Sigyn laughed,” I won’t allow it.”

“How will you stop me? You seem a little preoccupied at the moment.”

Drip.

“Leave,” Sigyn commanded.

“I think I’ll sit here,” Angrboda said. She walked over to a ledge near one wall of the cave. A perch situated well out of arm’s reach and likely too far for Sigyn to fling at with venom from the pail.

The tumult outside grew louder. The battle was undoubtedly fierce to be heard within the cave. Every giant, god, and monster was surely fighting in incredible duels. Sigyn considered the sounds. Was every god truly fated to die at Ragnarok? she thought.

“Why now?” Sigyn asked. “Why come today and not yesterday or the day before? Why come at all?”

“I’ve told you—”

“You’re just as deceitful as him,” Sigyn cut off Angrboda’s words. “You are here in search of something.”

“What is here that I could possibly gain? The realms are hours away from being dismantled, and all that is here is a bound god, a snake that drools, and a pouty goddess.”

Drip.

Sigyn clucked her tongue. “Very well,” she said. She glanced at the pail and then at Loki. Her husband’s face was as white as the venom. His lips said, “Don’t go,” but something in his eyes spoke differently. She never knew what thoughts existed behind those eyes and had no hopes of deciphering Loki’s intentions now. “The vessel is not yet full, but I’ll empty it before I leave.”

“I can take it,” Angrboda said, standing up from her chosen ledge. “Go without delay.

Your presence might turn the battle.”

“That’s what you want,” Sigyn’s brows raised. “You came here for the venom.

Angrboda’s convincing facade fell. Suddenly, she looked concerned for the pail’s contents. “Give me the bowl,” she said coldly.

“What would you do with it?” Sigyn asked.

“Just leave.” The giantess was very close to Sigyn and reached for the venom-catching pail. Sigyn could not move for fear of spilling the venom, but Angrboda’s hand went above, not below. The snake’s fangs yielded a drop, and it landed on the backside of Angrboda’s wrist. She was not prepared for the resulting pain and howled like a wolf in her anguish. Her arm jerked back and knocked the bowl away. Sigyn dove after it in the air and crashed into her moaning rival.

Loki shrieked in horror at the descending wave of cream-white affliction, but the venom did not land on him. Instead, it splashed upon one of his bonds. The bewitched cord dissolved as soon as the venom touched it. Loki wasted no time to escape once he became unbound. With one limb free, he could shapeshift again. He took the form of a fish. His scaly body wriggled out of the bonds and flopped twice on the floor before Loki turned back into a man-sized god.

Sigyn and Angrboda untangled themselves from one another on the stone floor. The pail, which Sigyn held for so long, lay shattered where Loki once was. The god of mischief stepped on the shards with his booted foot.

“Look out!” Sigyn and Angrboda shouted in unison; the snake overhead uncoiled and struck at Loki, but the shapeshifter was quick to morph into something else to avoid his tormentor: a snake-eating wolverine. The snake’s bite missed, and Loki attacked instead. As a beast, he was ruthless. He tore the snake like a ribbon and swallowed the tail end whole. The head tried to writhe away with the remaining body, but Loki pounced on it and painted the cave floor with red entrails.

Afterward, Loki took on his usual form again and looked at both of his wives. A bit of blood dripped from his chin, and his eyes were black and rabid like an animal’s. He wiped his chin off on his wrist. The skin where the ropes had been was red and scarred.

“What now?” Angrboda asked. The antlered crown sat crooked on her head, and her wet hair was brown and muddy from the cave floor.

Loki looked down at the shards of Sigyn’s dish. He picked up one of the larger ones and rubbed it with his thumb like a lucky totem.

“Thank you,” he whispered, then he looked up at Angrboda. “You should have come sooner,” he said before turning into a hawk and flying out of the cave.

“Did you know that the venom would do that?” Sigyn asked after a moment passed between them in the cave.

“I had a hunch,” Angrboda answered.

“And did you think he would leave?”

“I was sure of that.”

If you liked this story, you will certainly be interested in LOKI, the anthology in which it was originally published. Purchase your own copy of this beautiful book by following the link below. (Corey D. Evans receives no part of your purchase).

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Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed my previous story SVANHVIT, you can find it at the link below.

Copyright © 2026, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

The following is the ninth installment of my serial novel, ALO & WYOME. If you missed chapter eight, you can read it here, or if you’re just starting out, you can read the first installment of ALO & WYOME here.

“YOU KILLED HIM?” ALO STRUGGLED TO DISGUISE HIS SHOCK.

“Yes,” Mother Taliah answered.

“His decision to abandon Naomi left us with no other choice,” said another widow. She was older than Naomi but still a youth compared to Mother Taliah.

“Was redemption impossible?” Wyome asked.

Mother Taliah shook her bald head.

“Impossible in his case.” The other widow said. “He claimed that beasts consumed Naomi. We could see through his lies, and that sealed his fate. He was irredeemable.” The widow shrugged. Mother Taliah looked back at the fire. She let out a long sigh as if the recollection exhausted her, then smiled at the flames. The time for questions ended.

“The hour grows late,” Naomi said. “We are grateful for the presence of newlyweds.” She spoke to Wyome, “Tomorrow, we may have a few tasks for your husband, but you must accompany him everywhere he goes. You may go anywhere in our valley as you please, but if your husband is not with you, he must remain in the hut.”

“Why?” Wyome asked. The widows looked at her with wooden faces.

“Because you would not want us to doubt your husband’s loyalty,” Naomi said.

Alo swallowed hard and realized that his hands were sweaty. He was startled when the widow addressed him directly.

“Alo, love your bride, and fear not,” Naomi spoke with a smile, but the threat was understood.

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The following is the eighth installment of my serial novel, ALO & WYOME. If you missed chapter seven, you can read it here, or if you’re just starting out, you can read the first installment of ALO & WYOME here.

THE DAYS BECAME WARM IN THE FOREST. After passing her sign, Alo and Wyome continued walking south. They traveled only during the day and made their camp whenever they came upon a boulder. These unnatural markers always indicated good ground for setting up shelter for a night.

Alo and Wyome discovered that their route followed a cool stream just out of sight from the path. They bathed in the stream every morning, and often, Alo could spear fish from its waters.

After weeks of encountering boulder after boulder, there was a change in their pattern. Where they had expected to find a stony marker, Alo and Wyome came across a tall, carved totem standing out of the ground. A carved figure took up almost all of the totem. I was that of a woman, but grotesque and twisted in shape. Her features were long, unnatural, and looked to be hewn out of pain as much as out of wood. The woman’s mouth yawned agape, forever caught in a muted scream.

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A SWAN SOARED HIGH OVER THE GOLDEN ASPENS of a sprawling wood. She flew alone out of the low mountains that blackened the horizon and searched the yellow leaves for a body of blue to take rest. The swan was weary and desired something peaceful; the headwaters of a secret spring or a mountain lake too high for anything but goats to find.

Her dark eyes saw the lonely cottage first. It was nothing more than a house-shaped pile of mud and logs with a thatched roof, but clearly the handiwork of some man. The swan considered flying further. The works of men rarely brought good tidings. Then she saw the azure pool of purest mountain water north of the cottage. Her tired wings betrayed her misgivings. The swan circled once around the house and saw nothing to indicate recent occupancy. A stack of unsplit logs, fences in need of mending. Not even smoke billowed out of the chimney. Hopeful not to be disturbed, the swan flew to the pool. Long white feathers peeled off her wings and body as she dropped from the sky.

Inside the cottage, little Torsten knew nothing of a swan or its falling feathers. He stood on the cold hearth watching the rise and fall of his mother’s chest. She lay in bed for the third day in a row. Every blanket in the house rested on top of her, yet her skin felt cold. Torsten wished he could start a fire, but that knowledge had not been given to him before his father left to fight for the jarl and his mother fell ill. Even if he could stoke a fire, he was too small to lift the ax and split the kindling needed to keep the flame burning.

Torsten’s tummy grumbled. He had managed to feed himself while his mother was sick, but the supply of ready-to-eat foods was dwindling. How could he make bread or cook potatoes without fire? So much of the full cellar beneath the house was useless without burning timbers. He reached for the skin of water to satiate his belly, but the bag was empty. The bucket of water next to his mother’s bed needed to be filled, too.

So Torsten left the cottage and his ailing mother to go to the little pond.

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As the swan descended, more of her feathers shed until, just before she reached the water’s edge, she did not resemble a swan at all. Pale, pink toes touched the rocks instead of webbed feet. Alabaster legs covered by a long chain mail shirt. Battle-worn breastplate beneath a cape of feathers. White translucent hair shod an eternally youthful face. In the shape of a woman, the Valkyrie named Eir, scanned the woods around the pond with the same black eyes with which she scanned the skies.

Squirrels scampered away; any bird that did not see her coming lay silently in its nest, hoping to remain unseen. For now, the pond was hers to use. She unclasped the feather cape from her armor and laid it against the salmon colored bark of a larch tree. Then she worked on removing the rest of her armor.

Torsten found the first white feathers halfway to the pond. He had never seen a white so clean and pure against the mottled forest floor. Its beauty was irresistible to such a young lad, and he picked it up. He admired its iridescence long enough to notice another feather further down the path, then another and another. He put the first feather in a fold in his tunic, but merely followed the rest. If the swan had flown somewhere other than the pond, Torsten might have wandered deep into the woods and forgotten all about his deathly ill mother. But fate desired that both the swan and the boy needed the water that day.

Eir had swum deep under the surface of the pond when Torsten emerged from the wood. Her fallen feathers led him straight to the cape, though it would have been impossible to miss among the greens, golds, and browns of the autumnal forest. Torsten took hold of the cape without knowing what destiny he brought upon himself by doing so. It was a fine thing. Finer than any garment Torsten had any hope of seeing in his lifetime. His desire for it was not in its beauty or magic, but for the warmth it was sure to bring his mother. Didn’t kings and queens sleep beneath goose down quilts? How much better would one of swan be?

Torsten noticed the pile of armor just as Eir emerged from the center of the pond. She appeared to sit on the water like a fowl. All of her naked waist was above the water where Torsten knew it to be deeper than a man is tall. Eir ran her fingers over the rippled surface, not noticing her quiet observer. Steam whirled off her warm body as though her skin were hot iron. She smiled. Torsten gripped the feather cape like a war shield and brought it over his eyes. His movement caught Eir’s attention. Two piercing black eyes found the cowering boy immediately. Her expression turned dark like storm clouds when she saw the captive cape.

“A child?” she asked violently. Torsten stepped back, with cape in hand. “Stop,” Eir demanded.

Torsten ran.

The cape flew behind him like a flag in the wind. It never caught on stick or bramble as his sure feet carried him up the path. But as fast as he was for his age, he was no match for the speed of a Valkyrie.

Eir ran like a doe through the trees. She took silent strides that stirred no dust and left little tracks. She overtook the boy at the place where he found the first feather, but when she reached for her cape, she found that some secret force repelled her hand. She screamed in frustration. Torsten turned to look. The naked woman hot behind his heels was a sight to behold. Beautiful. Fierce. Terrifying. Equal parts a goddess and warrior, even without clothes. The muscles that rippled in her torso were like those of his father, a woodsman who hewed trees into beams with only an ax and a wedge. Silvery scars, faded to wisps from age, lined her arms and legs that flushed red with immortal blood. Her face was that of an unwed maiden’s. Youthful and clean. Innocent except for the dark eyes that could frighten the hardest of fighters away from battle. Torsten looked into those angry eyes as he ran into a tree.

Rough bark bit into his flesh and tore his tunic. Air burst forth from his lungs like a bellows, and stars came into his vision, though the noonday sun was high. Torsten wept and wheezed on the ground, rolling over and over on the fine swan cape in pain and misery.

Eir came to a stop and attempted to retrieve her garment. Again, her hand was repelled with force and with pain. Deep pain like a burn that intensified if she pressed nearer to the cloak. Unlike a burn, the pain went away entirely when she withdrew.

“Do you know what you have done?” She asked Torsten. The boy groaned.

“I think I ran into that tree.”

“No, it was that one,” Eir pointed to the aspen trunk Torsten struck, “but that is not what matters now that you have stolen a valkyrie’s cloak.”

“A valkyrie?” Torsten attempted to roll over, but yelped in pain as he moved. Something was broken, his collar bone, perhaps, and he returned to his back. He did his best to put on a brave face for the pale nude standing over him, but the pain forced his legs to shake, and tears came out of his eyes.

“Mama,” he mumbled between gasps and sniffles.

Eir found compassion for the youngster then. Her role was not in judging the dead like her winged sisters, but in healing the worthy maimed. Other Valkyries shuttled the souls of the mighty to the halls of Valhalla. Eir restored those that death did not claim: the wounded victors and survivors of man’s battles. She had seen burly men face pain with less discipline than the youth before her.

Eir knew broken bones. She had healed many and seen many more twisted limbs that had mended on their own. This forest wasn’t a battlefield, and the injury wasn’t from a weapon. The boy would be fine. He didn’t need her.

“Ma.”

She thought of the pain that struck her when she neared the cloak. Her cloak. The cloak that Torsten stole. She needed to touch him to heal him, but he lay on the cloak that burned her when she neared it. Would the magic allow her close if her intentions were different?

“Mama,” Torsten moaned.

“Where does it hurt?” Eir knelt beside the boy. Dirt and leaves stuck to her bare knees, but the pain from the cloak did not touch her.

“Here,” Torsten said, touching his chest. A broken rib, maybe two. The boy was lucky a lung did not collapse.

Eir did not hesitate to push her hand beneath Torsten’s tunic. Flesh against flesh. His skin was warm from the heat of his injury; her skin was still cold from the pool. Torsten winced once from her touch, then the pain in his body disappeared. All of it. The pain in his ribs, the scuffs from the tree, the concussion in his skull. Torsten was made right by the hands of Eir.

She pulled back once her task was finished. The drain of power made the muscles in her wrist sore. The boy stood up from the cloak, leaving it unattended. Eir thought of taking it back for the briefest of moments, and then the burn returned as though she had just leaned against a piping hot cauldron.

Her rapid retreat went unnoticed by Torsten, who marveled at his lack of agony.

“I’m better,” he said.

“For now,” Eir said. Mortals were too easily broken for her to be impressed by her own power.

“How did you—” Torsten asked.

“I have many things to explain to you, child, and my power is not one of them.”

“Why are you naked?”

Eir looked down at herself. Unlike mortals, she felt no shame from her nudity.

“You stole my cloak,” she said.

“This?” Torsten asked, holding up the feather cape. Dirt and leaves fell off of it like water running down waxed cloth.

“Yes, that is mine.”

“Oh. It’s pretty.”

“It was made by the All Father. A gift. One given to each of his Valkyries.”

“What’s a Valkyrie?”

“Of all the mortals to be cleaved to—” Eir pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply. “Valkyries are the warriors of the gods. Odin’s shield maidens. I’m a valkyrie, and you have stolen my cloak, which also makes me your wife. Have your mother and father not taught you these things?”

“Father is gone,” Torsten answered. “He is fighting for the jarl. And Mama is—” Remembrance of his mother’s health returned, and Torsten turned and ran home.

Eir sighed and decided not to chase after the boy. Instead, she walked back to the pond. Her armor looked dull without the splendor of her cloak. It was made of magnificent mail, finer than any human smith could forge, but absent her Valkyrie’s mantle, there was nothing to differentiate her from any other shield maiden of the world. She didn’t want to put on the armor, but knew it would be easier to wear than to carry.

“Are you truly my wife?” Torsten asked. He reappeared behind Eir just as she fastened the last buckle on her breast plate. She wasn’t startled by the boy, though she was surprised he had returned. Her cloak was notably absent, and the boy looked even smaller than she remembered. Perhaps not even eight winters old.

“Regrettably, I am yours.” Eir said.

“Can you help me then? I heard Dad say a wife’s supposed to help their husband.”

“Is that what he tells your mother?” Eir imagined the conversation between the boy’s parents and shuddered at their domestic life.

“I heard him say it once.”

“A wife can help her husband with some things.”

“Can you help me then? Please.”

Eir looked at the child. He looked hurt, though she had just made him whole a few minutes ago. She felt a matron’s pity for the boy. Where was his mother? She thought.

“Tell me how I may help you,” Eir forced herself to say.

“Follow me,” Torsten requested, then turned again to go up the path. Eir obliged.

Torsten did not run through the woods, but his pace was urgent. He took two steps to every one of the Valkyrie’s strides.

They reached the house. The same house Eir saw from the sky. Its disrepair was worse than what she observed. Perhaps, she thought, the boy’s father was right to reprimand his bride. Winter would be over the land soon. The little bit of cut wood stacked around the cabin was green and unsplit. Gaps needed to be chinked in the shelter walls. The thatched roof surely leaked. The jarl’s war might claim the father’s life, but his absence would certainly kill his wife and son.

The boy naively rushed past all of Eir’s concerns and went through the door. Eir hesitated to follow. The smell of something putrid stayed her feet. Something sick or dead was inside the house.

“Come in, please help me,” Torsten called. Eir entered and found the source of the smell.

A waif of a woman lay in the center of the house under a pile of pelts and linens. Her cracked eyes stared into oblivion. The fine swan-feather cloak rested on top of the stack of bedclothes. Eir’s desire to take it out of the miserable house sent a strong throb of pain through her. She had to wrestle her emotions down to stay inside.

“Do you know how to start a fire?” Torsten asked. He offered flint and iron. “I can’t keep her warm.”

Eir’s black eyes softened. She looked at the flint, then at the boy’s mother, who breathed beneath the blankets, but only just. A fire would not save her.

The room bore signs of the boy’s care. Damp rags hung on pegs; a pile of soiled clothes in a distant corner; an untouched plate of food near the bed. She formed a new opinion of the boy and began to feel unworthy to be his wife.

“Take off the blankets,” she instructed.

“But she’s—”

“Sick. Yes, do as I say if you want to save her.”

Torsten followed orders. He hung the cloak up on a peg, but he pushed the other coverings onto the floor beside the bed. He did all this without his mother moving an inch. Her eyes remained open, but shut to the world.

By the emaciated form beneath the blankets, Eir could tell that the boy’s mother had been sick for far longer than her child could have known. She was nothing but bones wrapped in sallow skin. How long had the woman suffered? Six months? A year?

Eir looked at Torsten. He was a picture of health if not a little plump in the middle. His mother must have fought a private war to keep him well.

“I have to touch her,” Eir said. She knelt beside the bed and put a hand on the woman’s chest. The disease bombarded her senses. She felt the imbalanced humors and each failing system as though they were runes etched in stone. The woman had an hour to live, if not minutes. To pull back a life so close to death would push Eir’s skills to the limits, and it was an impossible task without the power of—

“My cloak,” Eir said. “I need my cloak to be able to save her.” Torsten lifted the feather cape off the hook as soon as Eir’s words were out of her mouth and offered it. The feathers came near enough to brush her skin, and Eir felt no pain.

“If you freely return that which you’ve taken, I will no longer be your wife,” Eir said. Torsten pulled the cape back.

“Will you still help me?” He asked. Eir smiled

“I cannot help you if I am your bride. But as a Valkyrie, I swear I will.”

With her reassurance, Torsten returned the cape to its owner. It shimmered with even more brilliance once Eir took hold of it. She draped it over her shoulders, and the cape became a pair of wings. Bright light, like the glinting reflection of the sun, filled the dingy cabin. Torsten stepped back in fear of the Valkyrie’s full form.

When Eir touched Torsten’s mother this time, the sick woman’s body convulsed. Her eyes and mouth opened, and a thick substance like coal smoke flew from every orifice of her head. The dazzling light of Eir’s wings flickered as she fought out the pestilence, until they dimmed entirely. The Valkyrie drew away her hand at the darkest moment. She stepped back, spent from her ordeal, and gasped for air. Torsten’s mother inhaled sharply, too. The skin flushed on her face and neck. Pink and red replaced yellow. Her skin, which had previously sagged, drew tight with health and vitality.

“Am I alive?” She asked.

Torsten leaped onto bed to give his mother a hug. He buried his face into her chest and cried, “You’re alive, Ma. You’re alive.”

EIR STUMBLED OUT OF THE HOUSE like a drunkard leaving a tavern. Mother and son embraced inside while she struggled to stand. She forced herself to walk out of the yard and down the path towards the pond. As she went through the woods, she began to change. The loops of her mail shirt transformed into feathers of the cleanest white. Her stumbling gait began to shuffle, then waddle. When she reached the banks, Eir no longer resembled a woman, but a swan. Her wings flapped as the bird stepped into the water. She took one, two more steps, then her wings flapped violently. As a swan, Eir ran across the surface of the pond until she took flight. She rose high into the sky and disappeared behind great white clouds.

TORSTEN HELD HIS MOTHER LONG AFTER THE SWAN vanished into the sky. For once, she felt warm.

“I love you,” his mother said.

“I love you, too.”

“What’s this?” Something in Torsten’s tunic had poked his mother in the chest. He opened the fold and revealed a single, perfect white feather.

“It’s a gift,” he said, holding the feather in his hand. “Ma, can you tell me about the Valkyrie?”

This story is dedicated to Sol, my very first paying subscriber, and the writer/editor behind the publication Whim and Wander.

Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed my previous story The Boldest of the Greeks you can find it below.

Copyright © 2026, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

A ROAR OF CHEERS CAME FROM THE BIRTHING PLACE while Alo and Wyome left the village. The elder announced the name of Elan and Tara’s child, but her words could not travel the distance to Alo and Wyome’s ears.

They walked out of the village to reach the southbound path. New, green growth covered the fields around them, and there was no sign of winter’s frost anywhere. The path was damp but not muddy, and the sun sat three-quarters of its way to the horizon.

The dog Wyome had trained in the kennel fields led from the front. Dolly walked behind Wyome; her size made the small sled an easy burden, and she wanted to be near her master.

They came to the forest. Wyome looked at the village nestled behind them in a patchwork of green and brown fields. She could see pillars of smoke coming from the femerells of some of the longhouses. Villagers were preparing their dinners, and her stomach grumbled as she realized they missed lunch.

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“WHERE ARE YOUR DOGS?” Wyome asked. Tarah had accompanied her in the morning to feed Dolly and the other two dogs at the kennels. She noticed her companion had no animals to feed.

“They didn’t survive,” Tarah said.

“I’m sorry,” Wyome said, but Tarah shook her head at the platitude.

“You should rotate which dog leads and which carries your things,” Tarah added. “If you don’t, two will grow envious of the unburdened dog.” She petted Dolly between the ears to show Wyome she knew which animal was her favorite. Dolly lolled naively under Tarah’s affection.

They left the kennels and walked to the site of Elan and Tarah’s future long house. Several men and boys were busy about the plot. Elan and Alo cleared the land together. An elder, Norah, was there, too, guiding the building of the long house.

“Are your elders always women?” Wyome asked.

“Always,” Tarah said. “There is a group of men that the elders consult with occasionally, but they rarely gather. Your elders are only men?”

“They are,” Wyome said, “and I do not think they ever consult with women.

“It would be wise if they did.” Both women shared a smile.

“My village sometimes refers to yours as our sister in the south.”

“And mine calls your village our brother in the north. I never thought it was because of our elders. Have you come to my village before?”

“No,” Wyome said, “but my parents talk about it often. Mostly from memories of the time they came here on their honeymoon. We receive your people, too, when they pass through traveling north.” Wyome paused to look over Tarah before adding, “I suppose you must have been there about the time Alo and I were betrothed last year?”

Tarah chuckled, “Elan and I left the path.”

“Left the path?”

“Yes. At the time, I thought it was exciting to do things differently than how they had always been done. Now I know that was foolish. We did a lot of foolish things in the forest.” She turned away from the working men to look Wyome in the eyes. “But we never made the same mistake twice. That’s why we were able to make it back.

“Was it that bad?” Wyome asked.

“Yes. And probably worse than you think.”

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The following story was first published in the anthology MYTHS, GODS, AND IMMORTALS: ACHILLES. You can find links to purchase the book at the end of the story.

ARGUMENT: Thersites Final Goads

In the ninth year of the war of Troy, Thersites, the hunchbacked critic of the Greek generals and most beloved by the common soldier, witnesses the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles and the following mistreatment of the corpse. He first complains about the defilement to Dictys, the scribe, and then directly to Achilles. The defilement continues for twelve days until King Priam ransoms his son’s body from the Greeks, after which a truce is made for the funeral of Hector. Following the truce, Amazon warriors attack the Greek armies. After the battle, Thersites criticizes Achilles for the final time.

THERSITES WATCHED ACHILLES CHASE AFTER TROY’s CHAMPION. The two great warriors circled the city a second time without exchanging a single blow of either sword or spear. Running the distance in full armor and with weapons was no small feat, but a mighty foot race was not what the Greek soldiers had gathered to see.

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“Swift-footed Achilles spent too many days inside his tent,” Thersites said to the man beside him. He slushed his words; his tongue struggled to form consonants with too few teeth in his mouth.

“Aye,” agreed the other, “Hector is getting away.” They stifled their chuckles, but not before Dictys, the Cretan scribe, heard the outburst and turned his noble attention towards the irreverent onlookers.

“Be glad Achilles fights for us,” Dictys said with a haughtiness that outpaced his station. “We would all be fleeing before Hector had he not roused Achilles back to battle.”

“I will not be glad until this long war is over,” Thersites said and spat in the sand between him and the scribe. Dictys’ nostrils flared, and Thersites sneered at the small man’s rage. Though he was nearly bent in half by many wounds received in the war against Troy, Thersites stood a head taller than the scribe. His bronze armor was green and dented from nine years of hard battle testing, while Dictys’ chest plate shone bright and brilliant in the afternoon sun. Thersites’ face was sullied with scars; his head bald from the rub of his helmet. Dictys had long hair as thick as a horse’s tail and a youthful face. Unlike Thersites’ mangled and broken fingers, his hands were manicured and smooth. He was clean-shaven, too, which made the man look even smaller than he was, like a young boy playing soldier in his father’s kit. The scribe came to Troy to record his king’s deeds in battle, whereas Thersites was a foot soldier compelled to do the fighting attributed to others.

Dictys glared on as Hector led the vengeful Achilles around Troy for a third time. Thersites pointed as the two heroes disappeared beyond the high walls.

“How will you record this day, scribe? Will you write that Athena bore Hector away from the battle on her chariot and that Achilles rode Hermes’ golden backside in pursuit?” The same man beside Thersites gave a hearty laugh, but Dictys was not amused by the other’s wicked tongue.

“Scribes do not embellish as the poets and bards,” Dictys said, “though I will be sure to record each of your many blemishes accurately.” Thersites spat again, this time closer to the feet of the Cretan, forcing the man to step away or else have a mess on his toes.

“Would you write that my deformities were from birth? I would hate it if future generations thought I earned any honor from this farce of a war.”

“Truly, your disrespect knows no bounds,” said the scribe, who turned from the conversation to have the final word, and a pregnant silence fell over the Greeks while Thersites bit his tongue. He had more words to say to the scribe, but he was not standing in the hot sand to argue with stylus pullers. Like all the others gathered outside the fortified camp— home for almost a decade— Thersites came to witness the great Achilles and noble Hector do battle, and Hector rounded the far corner of Troy again with the vengeful Achilles hot on his heels.

The breaker of horses, unable to break mighty Achilles, finally stopped running and turned to face his doom. A murmur rose up from the Greek warriors gathered to watch. What they came to see formed before their eyes like water pooling in the sky to make soft clouds. Swift-footed Achilles and Hector, Prince of Troy, locked spears for the final time.

Despite coming out to watch, Thersites focused his eyes upon the back of Dictys’ head rather than the combat. He was certainly no stranger to death by the spear, but at the moment, he felt little urge to add another man’s bloody end to his mind’s library of pain and suffering.

The men around him held their breath as the two warriors threw spears. Achilles’ flew first. His aim was wide and missed Hector by a great margin. Thersites was right that Achilles spent too many days away from battle. His spear arm was out of shape. Hector threw his spear more accurately, and it embedded into the Greek champion’s shield. But the damage caused no harm to mighty Achilles. Disarmed of ranged weapons, the fight turned to swords. The Trojan drew his in a flash of fiery bronze and closed the distance, but Achilles somehow reproduced another spear, and the men around Thersites gasped at the unexpected deceit.

“More cunning than Odysseus,” whispered the scribe. Thersites rolled his eyes.

Hector still approached Achilles and crouched to make himself a small target. Achilles whirled his spear, and Hector backed away. He brandished his short sword, but the blade was useless unless he could come close to the flesh of his enemy. Hector threatened a charge, and again, Achilles chased him back with the tip of his spear.

“How long will the cat play with the mouse?” Thersites asked, but he did not wait long for the answer. Hector charged once more, and Achilles found an opening in his defenses. He thrust the spear with deadly accuracy. Bronze and ash wood penetrated the cleft of Hector’s armor beneath the throat, and blood spilled upon the Trojan sand. Hector stumbled back and stood for a moment, suspended like a pitted boar with Achilles’ spear protruding from under his chin.

Those watching from the Greek camp cheered while Hector choked and gasped. He helplessly groped at the shaft sticking out of his neck and fell to his knees. Achilles watched the dying man with pitiless eyes. Thersites could see Achilles’ hate for the enemy even from his vantage point across the field. Any other Greek would have finished their foe with the sword, but not Achilles. He was content to deny Hector a clean death. Lions do not let lambs suffer long, but Achilles was no lion, and Hector was no lamb. They were men, and Thersites was disgusted that the Greek sword remained mercilessly sheathed.

At last, Hector died, but the day’s capacity for cruelty was not met. A tumult arose from the walls of Troy as the Greek hero stripped their favorite son of his clothes and armor. Achilles lashed Hector’s body to his chariot and drug the naked corpse around the city while he roared in triumph. The walls of Troy wailed and bemoaned its fallen hero. In response, Achilles lofted Hector’s helm in the air with one hand and whipped his horses to run faster with the other.

Silence fell over the Greeks. They expected Achilles’ victory and longed for it, but the defilement of Hector went too far for even the most hardened veterans gathered to watch.

“My disrespect just met its boundary,” Thersites said to Dictys, the scribe, “you can embellish my scars and exaggerate my crooked spine, but you will find nothing in all the world that is uglier than this black day.”

ONE BLACK DAY TURNED INTO ANOTHER AND THEN ANOTHER. Each morning, Achilles awoke to find the body of Hector— still lashed to the chariot— deserving of more punishment. He whipped the horses into a frenzied gallop before dawn could stretch its rosy fingers across the wine dark sea. He dragged the body of Hector and awoke the city of Troy with his howls of war like some horrible cockerel loose from the depths of Tartarus.

On the seventh morning, Thersites walked about the Greek camp at the end of his watch. Fires from the night before smoldered nearby, and men snored from within their tents. The sea crashed in the distance like a giant waking from a long and deep slumber. Thersites left odd tracks in the sand as he shuffled; one of his knees was broken in the first years of the war and fused back oddly. He limped to the camp of the myrmidons, Achilles’ famous fighters, and stopped outside their leader’s tent. It was too early even for the wrath of Achilles, and Thersites spied the chariot with its rancid cargo tied about one of the rails. Despite being seven days dead, the body looked no different than that of a sleeping Greek nearby. It’s only blemish was the grievous wound from which Hector’s life fled.

“Impossible,” Thersites heard the cool air say. He would have mistaken the words as his own thoughts had they not been spoken by a woman. He stepped back as Briseis emerged from the other side of the chariot. Achilles’ Trojan slave girl did not notice him and she gazed upon Hector instead.

“Even in death, you continue to thwart the mighty Achilles,” Briseis continued. She knelt beside the body to wipe away errant dust from its brow and to shake the mud from its hair. Thersites watched her curiously as she handled the dead. She was careful, as though Hector might wake up if her touches were too rough; she anointed the head with a sweet-smelling perfume and held one of Hector’s hands. The scene was tender, and Thersites looked away in her final moments of grief. Once she finished, she left without acknowledging the presence of another mortal soul.

Achilles emerged from his tent with a flourish of flaps and cloth. He was wearing his armor, and Thersites imagined that the hero slept in bronze. Unlike Briseis, Achilles noticed Thersite’s presence at once.

“Who goes there? What are you doing?” He demanded, and Thersites turned towards the man of rage.

“I’m admiring your craft,” Thersites said, ever quick-witted.

“Thersites?” Achilles asked. “It is you. I should have known. Who else has a spine as crooked as their tongue.”

“How could I bow to the mighty Achilles if this war had not made me so lame,” Thersites said with a gap-toothed smile. “The gods know I would never humble myself before you willingly.”

“If only you were a Trojan. I’d drag you behind my chariot next to Hector this morning.”

“Alas, I was born across the sea,” Thersites said, miming a sorrowful gesture with his hands. “The gods saw it fit for me to fight alongside you, Ajax, Odysseus, and all the rest of the mighty Achaeans.”

“Only a fool would list you among those born of the gods.”

“Oh yes,” Thersites grinned, “I forgot only the god’s supposed bastards get to be heroes. Forgive me for knowing both my mortal parents’ names.”

This last remark went too far, and Thersites felt Achilles’ grasp around his neck before he saw him step close enough to grab. They were rough, thick hands with enough power to throttle men like fattened geese.

“They are right to call you swift,” Thersites choked out with what might have been his final breath had Briseis not reappeared from the dark.

She did not speak or touch Achilles to put him at peace. She merely watched with her sad, bright eyes. Achilles caught a glimpse of her disapproval through his anger and released Thersites, who wasted no time shuffling away. He came out of the Myrmidon’s side of the camp when he heard Achilles whip the horses and begin his morning cries.

A FEW DAYS LATER, Achilles returned Hector’s body to Priam, the old king of Troy. He offered a twelve-day truce for the funeral rites, and the Greek camp relaxed while the Trojans mourned. Thersites kept his protests to himself during the truce and avoided the noble Greeks he often rebuked. He sat around the fires with men like him, the lowborn foot soldiers who rowed a thousand ships to Troy and fought the battles that won their kings glory, gold, and prizes.

Evening fell on the last day of the truce, and word spread around the camp of an offensive planned for the following day. The grating of bronze against stone sang through the night as men sharpened their swords and spears.

Thersites sat with some of the Ithacan sailors, men who fought for Odysseus, and polished his dented breastplate by firelight. Spirits were high, though anxious thoughts of battle and death kept the men subdued.

“We will take the gates of Troy tomorrow with Achilles,” said Eurylochus, pilot of Odysseus’ ship. “We will sail for home before the new moon.”

“The Trojans will waver without Hector to lead them,” said another, “they will cower before us like women.”

“Pass the whetstone,” Thersites interrupted, “I have beaten my wits dull against many fools in this war. My edge needs honing.”

“Here,” Eurylochus said, tossing him a stone, “grind your wits into dust. They have only brought you shame in this war.”

“I am the least ashamed of all the Greeks,” Thersites said.

“I agree,” said the other Ithacan, “but your goads have become tiresome to bear.”

“If our kings were wiser, braver, and less loathsome, I would gladly seal my lips and follow them blindly to Hades gates.”

“You should pledge your allegiance to Ithaca,” Eurylochus said, “who is braver, wiser, and less loathsome than Odysseus.”

“Ally myself with my most violent critic?” Thersites exclaimed, “I’d rather not.”

“He approves of your words.”

“He has a strange way of showing his approval. My back still aches from his blows.”

“He beat you for speaking out of turn in the council but not for speaking untrue words. He despises this war as much as you.”

“It is his oath that brought him here.”

“All the more reason for him to feel guilt. Have you not heard how King Agamemnon found Odysseus when he called him to war?”

“I’m sure he was honing his knives and anxious for battle.”

“No,” Eurylochus shook his head. “Odesyus played a fool. He put an ox and an ass to the plow and sowed salt into the fields of Ithaca in front of all the kings of Achaea. And he did so as naked as the day he was born.”

“Really?” Thersites asked, genuinely intrigued by Odysseus’ scheme.

“Truly, and his ploy almost worked, had the lords not put Telemachus, Odyseus’ infant son, in the path of the deranged plow. He all but tossed the animals aside to protect his boy and gave in to the summons to war.”

“Then why does Odysseus assent to Aggamemnon’s foolhardy rule?”

“Because to resist would only prolong this war. We would all be home and fat from eight years of harvest if the other kings obeyed as Odysseus.”

“Achilles, too, would rather not fight in this war for another man’s bride,” said the other Ithacan.

“Bullocks,” Thersites said. He rubbed at his throat where the bruises left by the demigod’s hands had been and spoke a curse.

“It’s true,” Eurylochus said rapidly before Thersites’ vitriol could gain momentum. “I was with Odysseus when he fetched Achilles. We found him in a harem disguised as a woman.”

“Odysseus might as well have brought the other women along, too.” Thersites said. “Few among our mighty kings and generals are better warriors than the women they force to take their beds.”

“Here, here,” agreed some other warriors around the fire.

“I’d rather a woman take my place in the coming days,” another said, adding his voice to the conversation for the first time. His wide-eyed gaze was long, though everyone sat near. A soldier with nine years of the ways of war under his helm, and still, the eve of battle filled him with dread. “Though this war’s end draws near, I fear I may never see my home again.”

Some warriors nodded, while others shook their heads as if attempting to rid the same sentiment from their minds. Thersites, who was as quick to comfort his comrades as he was to criticize his kings, stood and walked to the scared man. He placed a hand on the warrior’s shoulder.

“Take heart,” Thersites said, his all but permanent tone of mockery gone from his voice. “There are worse places to die than on the beaches of Troy, but better places to live than Ithaca.” The other men groaned, but Thersites’s meaning was not lost on the man he consoled. He chuckled and nodded.

“How do you do it?” the man asked. “How do you find courage? You face the Trojans and our lords so boldly.”

Thersites shrugged his hunched shoulders. “It is not courage I possess,” he said. “The men of Troy are no different than you or me, but if one of us must die, then I choose that it be the other. That is not courage. It might be more courageous not to fight at all. And the men we follow who claim to be born of gods— men like Achilles or Odysseus— need us more than them. They need us to fight their wars and tell their legends. Without men like you and me, Achilles is nothing. In a way, I think my mockery of our heroes is just as important as another’s admiration. Just as a man needs a woman to produce an heir, Achilles needs Thersites.”

WOMEN KILLED MANY OF THE GREEK MEN THAT FOLLOWING DAY. Unbeknownst to them, Amazons joined the Trojan’s cause and attacked at dawn. These mysterious women of war were the fiercest foes faced yet. If one fell, they were sure to take ten men to Hades with them. Worst of all, the Amazons stirred up the women of Troy. They no longer fled, hid, or surrendered but fought like their husbands, brothers, and sons. Even the war brides, the women held captive in the Achaean camp like Briseis, turned against the men they were made to serve.

The battle against the Amazons grew long. In the confusion, Thersites found himself fighting among Achilles and the Myrmidons, but this was no safe haven. The greatest division of the Greeks pitched itself against the most capable of the enemy, Penthasilea, queen of the Amazons, and twelve of her personal guards.

The Myrmidons outnumbered the thirteen Amazons but suffered heavy losses in their efforts to overwhelm the queen. Penthasilea hewed down eight warriors herself with a two-bit ax that she swung more deftly than any woodcutter alive. But the tide of battle was against her, and soon she was alone, surrounded by myrmidons and their leader, the mightiest of all the Greeks.

Achilles approached Queen Penthasilea with cunning steps. She growled at him like a mother bear cornered by dogs and spun her ax with impressive skill. The men formed a perimeter about the two champions as the greater battle swirled around them. Thersites watched, too, safe for the moment.

A hot sun blistered overhead as if Helios himself brought his fiery chariot down for a closer view of the duel. Penthasilea cursed at Achilles, who made sure, deliberate steps closer and closer to his enemy. He took shelter behind his great shield and leveled his spear against the queen. It would be easy for him to throw the weapon at her— Penthasilea did not carry a shield, but he intended to give her close combat. He stepped within reach, then, quite unexpectedly, exchanged his spear for the sword and charged the final distance. Penthasilea cleaved Achilles’ shield with a heavy blow of her ax, but she had no time to parry the thrust of the sword. Achilles stabbed her through the heart, and the last Amazon smiled as her soul fled to the ferryman.

The battle shifted swiftly after the queen’s fall. The women of Troy lost their hearts and fled back behind high walls. Those who had turned against their captors were subdued. The battle came to a close. In the waning hours of the day, under a sun as red as the sand, Achilles gathered his men about the thirteen bodies of Penthasilea and her guards.

“Help me carry them to the Trojan gates so that they may be given proper rites,” he said. “Warriors such as these deserve our respect.” Before another Greek could answer, an incensed Thersites stepped forward.

“Achilles, are you mad?” he yelled. “Why do you honor these thirteen, who killed many of your men, when you disgraced Hector, who only sinned against you once?”

“Bite your tongue, Thersites,” Achilles shouted, but Thersites went on.

“You are cruel to ask your men to carry the bodies with you,” he came near the enraged Achilles, who stood over the slain Penthesilea. He shouted face to face with the legend.

“Do you hate your comrades to ask them to do this while the blood of their brothers is still wet in the sand? Do you hate them like you hated Hector? Or do you love this Amazon more than the men who have bled for you?”

Achilles, swift and powerful, hit his accuser in the jaw. Blood and teeth erupted from his mouth like fire belched out of a furnace. The force of the blow broke the hunchback’s crooked spine, and Thersites ridiculed no more. He fell on top of a dead Greek, one of the nameless many never spoken of by the poets.

The Greeks that bore witness to the murder stood still. More than fifty pairs of eyes glared at their commander as though he became their enemy. Then, one by one, they turned to carry their own dead, but no hands helped Achilles honor the fallen Amazons.

Finally, when all but Thersites remained, Odysseus and Phoenix— one of Achilles’ generals— came to retrieve the body.

“This sin lays heavy upon the men,” Phoenix said.

“I do not care,” Achilles murmured.

“You should,” Odysseus boomed. The wily commander was rarely forceful in his speech, so the outburst surprised Achilles. “Thersites’ death by your hands is the worst thing to happen for our cause. A lord has struck a commoner dead with rage, and you were in the wrong.”

“I did not intend to kill. Even You have stricken Thersites before.”

“I struck Thersites with a scepter wrought of wood and gold. Your hands are like swords. Their only purpose is to kill. A father does not correct a child with a spear. A mother does not call her babes to suck with slings and arrows.”

“I will not be bothered by your riddles anymore,” Achilles turned aside to carry Queen Penthasilea away.

“The men refuse to fight until you repent,” Phoenix said. “Just as you withdrew when Briseis was taken away, they will not fight until you make this right.”

“Let them retreat. My men have done their fair share of fighting in this war.”

“It’s not just the myrmidons, but all the Achaeans,” Odysseus said.

“Impossible,”

“It’s true,” Phoenix asserted. “Thersites was the boldest of them all. He was their heart and soul, and you have broken both.” He knelt to lift Thersites by the ankles, and Odysseus joined him with the head and shoulders.

“What would you have me do?” Achilles asked, but the two lords solemnly carried Thersites away. “What am I to do,” he cried, but there was no one left on the battlefield except the dead.

This story is dedicated to Gabe Landes, who is a paid subscriber, and who never fails to live boldly.

If you liked this story, you will certainly be interested in ACHILLES, the anthology in which it was originally published. Purchase your own copy of this beautiful book by following the link below. (Corey D. Evans receives no part of your purchase).

Buy ACHILLES

Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed my previous story NOBODY BURIES A TRAITOR, you can find it at the link below.

About the Author

Corey D. Evans is a speculative fiction author whose work appears in anthologies from Flame Tree Press. He has also edited theological works for Dispensational Publishing, including a modern revision of The Silence of God by Robert Anderson. Drawing on myth, religion, and the landscape of the Ozarks, Corey writes stories where folklore dances with faith and the mythic drifts into reality.

Corey D. Evans lives in the American Midwest with his wife and seven children. When not writing, he can often be found admiring trees or turning them into cabins.

Copyright © 2026, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

THEY HELD THE FEAST OUTSIDETHE VILLAGE IN A FIELD similar to the one where Alo and Wyome were married. Three stone ovens lit the evening, and several animals roasted on spits near each great fire.

Four dancers weaved through the crowd. A dancer dressed in only a breechclout led the performance. He tossed and twirled a hunting lance over his head like a spinning maple seed falling from its tree. The three men who danced behind the man with the whirling spear pawed at the ground with their hands like animals. One wore the pelt of an ancient brown bear; the other two each wore a skirt made of wolf skins.

Alo and Wyome watched the dance from an esteemed place at the front of the feast. They sat with Tarah’s family, nearest to Elan and his bride. The four elders mingled with the family of honor. The sisters, Chenoah and Hannanoah, wore beads and plaited their hair just as the other two elders had done the day before. Each looked like they had never tilled fields or spilled an animal’s blood.

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It was a short walk to Kim’s household from the center of the village. Adriel led Alo and Wyome there. The matron of the house stood outside, awaiting their arrival. The woman’s prominent cheeks and wide smile narrowed her eyes as they approached.

Adriel introduced Alo and Wyome to his future mother-in-law, and the barrel of a woman rolled over to Wyome and wrapped her bulging forearms around the young bride in a tremendous hug.

“Blessings to you, dear girl,” Kim said.

“To you as well,” Wyome said as Kim squeezed the breath from her chest. The older woman released her hold and turned to Alo. He offered his arm in greeting, but his host hugged him too.

“Well, I can see that you will get along just fine,” Adriel said.

“Of course, we’ll get along, Addie,” Kim said. “You get back to the fields now. I’m sure they’ve been missing your help.”

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ALO AND WYOME JOURNEYED SEVEN DAYS. The path was easy and the weather pleasant. New buds appeared on the bare brown trees and tender young grasses sprung out of the duff. The path sloped downhill and the thickets thinned. Occasionally Alo and Wyome would see stumps of trees cut down by axes, and then, on the seventh day, they discovered a large valley cleared of all of its timbers.

Grey-green grasses lay dormant over most of the clearing. A village was built in the midst of the valley and surrounded by a low wooden fence. It looked like a bird’s nest in the dull field with orderly rows of longhouses nestled inside the palisade walls. Men and women scurried about the fields— preparing them for planting— as children played along the fringes of the forest.

A young boy who had been busy thrashing the ground with a stick noticed Alo and Wyome’s dogs emerge from the woods first. Dolly, the wolf-like alpha of the pack, gave the poor boy a fright.

“Wolf,” he cried as he ran away. He ran to the nearest man working the field, who stopped tilling the ground and prepared to face a wolf with his hoe. Dolly watched the scene with her head tilted to one side and waited for her master to emerge from the treeline, too.

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Argument: Greeks for Gold

Betrayal finds the Greeks in the first year of the Trojan War. Palamedes, son of Nauplius, Prince of Euboea, and rival to Odysseus, flees the Greek camp before King Priam’s soldiers break through the lines. He is aided by the mysterious beggar, Outis, who leads him to a well in the Trojan wilderness. At the well, scheming Odysseus and Palamedes both confront a traitor.

PALAMEDES STUDIED THE GOLD IN HIS HANDS. Two heavy ingots stamped with the horses of Troy on one side, the face of his enemy, King Priam, on the other. Even in the dark of his tent, the gold gleamed soft and pure like the smile of a fair maiden. The mysterious allure that drives men to do foolish things like sail the seas and start wars in foreign lands. He returned the metal to the hole and placed a letter—a bill of sale—on top of the small fortune of similar bars, covering it all with his sleeping mat.

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Palamedes wiped his brow and realized he had been sweating. The gold was not all he had borne into his tent. Something heavy, like the fate of whole armies, stooped his shoulders and fatigued his soul. How much gold is a man worth? An ounce? Perhaps two? Palamedes had weighed the lives of his fellow Greeks and found them to be of little worth. Men like Ajax and Diomedes certainly tipped the scales, but men like Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles, and most of the others were as weightless as down feathers. And yet, he knew the gods refused to give favor to traitors, no matter how vile the betrayed.

Grindstones grated against bronze blades outside Palamedes’ tent; fires crackled, and men laughed. Word of the raid planned for the morning excited the Greek camp. The war was young, and the men believed in swift victory. Fools, Palamedes thought, they have no idea how right and how wrong they are. The Trojans, thanks to his betrayal, already knew of the raid to come.

Across a league of sand, the Trojans would be increasing the fortifications of the same town the Greeks planned to plunder. Instead of catching farmers and their daughters unaware, Agamemnon and his horde would meet long spears and Trojan chariots. Ajax, Achilles, Odysseus, and their ilk would finally meet their match.

A tremor of delight went through Palamedes as he thought of Odysseus— that cunning raider of cities, slyest of the Greeks— coming upon prepared forces in the morning and not women asleep in their homes. What clever scheme could he devise before the snare snapped closed? Palamedes could think of none.

This betrayal would be the second time Palamedes outsmarted the King of Ithaca. The first occurred when Agamemnon sent him to summon Odysseus to answer the call to war. Rumors had spread that the witty king lost his wits; that he toiled each day plowing the same field with an ox and an ass, and sowed salt in the crooked furrows. Palamedes saw through the ruse and placed Odysseus’ newborn son in front of the deranged plow, curing the king of his feigned insanity immediately.

Palamedes lay smug on his bed, thinking of his own cunning. He was the slyest of the Greeks, not Laertes’ son.

He couldn’t feel the gold beneath him, but he knew it was there and spread his legs as if he were straddling a mound. Another bead of sweat trailed down his face while the sounds of men filing bronze spearpoints lulled him into a shallow slumber.

HUNDREDS OF ARMORED MEN SHUFFLING INTO FORMATION woke him up before the rosy bloom of dawn. The sweaty, briny smell of the sea hung heavy in the air. The roar of rolling waters tumbled into his ears. Palamedes leapt out of bed like a child caught sleeping in by his tutor. Sheets and sand went flying. There was no time to waste.

He reached for the gold first. The ingots were warm and felt alive when he touched them. One, two, three, four, five,— all of his advance present and accounted for. He reached further under the bed, then recoiled when his fingers found the letter. The papyrus scroll was hard, brittle, and not supple like the gold. But he grabbed it, the ransom, and plenty of sand in one quick scoop.

Next, he groped in the dark for the small leather bag he set out for his flight. He found it and filled it with his gold. The scroll did not fit, and so Palamedes decided to leave it behind. After all, no Greeks would be alive to find it by the end of the day.

He left his armor and his sword, too, a condition of his betrayal, but stuffed a short dagger into the folds of his tunic.

The feet outside no longer shuffled, but stepped in unison. A forest of spears, each as long as a ship’s oar, clattered to an arhythmic beat. Someone could be heard shouting orders. Was it Achilles? Palamedes couldn’t tell. It would be good, he thought, if the Myrmidons were the first to fall into Troy’s trap. Each of Achilles’ warriors was worth ten times that of any other Greek. If they were the first to fall, then the remaining armies would surely be crushed.

Palamedes listened to the marching recede, then looked to his tent one last time. It was not a simple soldier’s tent, but nothing compared to his rooms in his father’s house and much farther from the palace of King Priam. He spat in the dust.

“Henceforth, I will dwell among the tamers of horses,” he said, and he stepped out of his tent.

The milky light of the waning night and waxing day illuminated the beach on which the Greeks camped. Phosphorus, the morning star, burned in the East, and a low fog crept in from the shore. The hulls of a thousand black ships brought out of the tides each looked like slumbering giants. Giants who would never be roused again, Palamedes thought. He quickly slipped into the shadow of one of the ships and slinked away from camp.

He kept near the shore, letting the waves lick his footprints away. Sand clung to his skin for a moment before the foam lapped it like a dog. The tide was coming in, and a fair breeze brought more fog in from the sea. Palamedes looked behind him once. His tracks were gone, and the Greek camp was shrouded in a sheet of gray. Sure that he wouldn’t be seen, Palamedes walked out of the sea to a rocky shelf where his letter told him to be before sunrise.

“You’re late,” whispered a voice in the dark. Palamedes was just to the rocks when the figure of a man bent in half with palsy and clothed in rags emerged from a cleft.

“I’m here before sunrise just as the letter instructed,” Palamedes said with disdain towards the filthy man. Outis, or Nobody, was what he was called; a man so loathed by fate he even lacked a proper name. Palamedes wondered what the Trojans offered him to relay treacherous messages to and from the spies within the Greek ranks, or if he stood to gain anything at all.

“Make haste,” Outis huffed with fear in his voice. He limped further out of the dark, and the wind carried the man’s wretched odor of dung and sweat. Palamedes let him get several paces ahead before following the beggar inland.

The city of Troy was no short walk from where they stood. Outis’ wounded gait made the journey tedious, and Palamedes meandered at a distance behind his guide. The sack of gold wore on his shoulder. Though he was a prince, he was unused to carrying his own purse, and the weight of blood money is no small burden to bear.

Gulls called as they flew towards the sea. How long would it be, Palamedes wondered, before the birds flew back inland, drawn by the scent of Greek blood in the sand? The Trojan trap would soon spring upon his countrymen, and Palamedes tried to think of the Greeks he loathed rather than the ones he loved:

Menelaus, the cuckold husband of Helen, who brought the whole world into war.

Agamemnon, that violent brute. Few could forget the blood of the high king’s daughter, Iphigenia, on Agamemnon’s hands and knife. He sacrificed her so that the gods might give fair winds to ships driven by oars.

Achilles. The champion of the Myrmidons, boldest of all the Greeks; a coward who fled to Skyros and dressed as a woman to avoid sailing to Troy.

But the worst of all was Odysseus.

Palamedes could forget all the rest of the Greeks if he only thought of Odysseus. Cunning, crafty, yet foolish. Odysseus devised the oath to Menelaus that dragged every king and hero into war. An oath he refused to uphold until Palamedes exposed him. Odysseus deceived Iphigenia with the help of Achilles and lured the innocent girl onto the altar. He orchestrated everything to kill her except drawing back the knife. Odysseus, when the Greeks laid eyes upon the impenetrable walls of Troy, proposed the loathsome strategy of raiding defenseless villages and towns.

The beggar’s pace slowed, and Palamedes caught up to his stench. Troy’s gleaming walls shone like a lesser sun on the far horizon. The mouth of a well jutted up from the sand, and Outis stopped to draw a drink. Sounds of a battle drifted on the wind.

“Must we stop now?” Palamedes asked his guide. The beggar leaned over the ledge of the well.

“I thirst,” he groaned.

“There is surely water in Troy,” Palamedes complained. “We’ll drink there. Press on.”

Outis only leaned further into the well. Too far. The rock on which he leaned gave way, and Palamedes watched helplessly as all but the feet and legs of the beggar slipped into the pit. He ran to render aid. Desperate shouts for help echoed up from the well as Palamedes grabbed onto a filthy calf before all of Outis slipped into the black. The beggar’s stout legs surprised Palamedes. Both of his hands barely encompassed the muscles around Outis’ shin.

Regardless of their girth, Palamedes managed a firm grip and hauled Outis out like a fish caught on a line. He came up empty except for a string of curses exuding from his mouth.

“Damned fool,” Palamedes said. “Your vile body almost tainted the waters below.”

“I thirst.”

“We can get water later.”

“I thirst!” Outis roared in a way that stunned Palamedes. His voice possessed power and authority that many kings would envy. Palamedes stepped back from the man and the well and looked around, half expecting the very rocks to be erect at attention.

“Is there nothing to draw water with?” Palamedes asked placatingly. Outis gestured to the well with his thumb.

“Out of reach.”

Palamedes glanced down the hole. A pail floated on top of the water, deep at the bottom. A thin cord tied to the pail came up the wall, but the end hung on a jagged rock just out of reach from the top.

“Slipped when I fell in,” Outis answered the unasked question.

Palamedes studied the situation. Outis, foul beggar, was more than he seemed. He looked at the man’s hands; strong, dexterous. His slumped shoulders had power beneath deformity. Outis’ face looked familiar, princely even, beneath the grime that covered it. This man was someone, or something, in disguise. A rival warrior? One of King Priam’s fifty sons? Apollo, patron god of Troy, descended to deceive him? To test him?

That was it. Palamedes reached his conclusion: the well, the rope, this beggar who was not a beggar. All of it was a clever test.

Palamedes looked at the rope again. Out of reach for one man, but not for two.

“I can lower you down,” he offered Outis.

“Only one of us is a traitor,” Outis said. “Only one of us can be trusted.”

Palamedes winced. Yes, he was a traitor, but that title was new and poorly adhered next to his name. Was his betrayal not righteous? Was he not saving an assaulted people? Palamedes reasoned to himself that the beggar had no cause to doubt his word, but considered the only other option.

“Can you lower me down?” He asked, “I might just be able to reach the rope if you hold my legs.”

“I will try,” Outis answered. Palamedes nodded, took off the bag of gold, and leaned over the side of the well. He tested the stones and removed a few loose ones from the cairn.

“Hold me tight, here,” Palamedes instructed, pointing to his own muscled calves. Outis nodded and took hold. A godly grasp, just as Palamedes suspected. Still, he trusted those hands with much. He took in a deep gasp, then stretched over the ledge.

His body blocked most of the sunlight from above, but he kept sight of the rope’s end. The rocks in the shaft rasped against his shoulders as he reached.

“A little lower,” he said. Outis dropped him three inches more, but not enough. His body dislodged a pebble from above, and it tumbled down to the waters. “A little lower.”

“Aye,” Outis grunted. Palamedes felt the man’s fingers tighten around his legs and his body sink. He extended one arm to grab hold of the rope.

“I got it!” Palamedes cried. A warm feeling of satisfaction washed over him just as Outis let go.

The well shaft tapered like a spear point, so Palamedes did not fall far before his torso wedged tight between the rocks; his head a few feet above the water. The arm with which he reached for the rope remained extended into the well; his other was out of joint and trapped between his chest and stone. His screams of pain and terror echoed in the subterranean dark. The rocks clenched tighter as with every breath Palamedes slipped further down, and muffled laughter trickled from above.

Outis stood tall above the well. No longer slumped or lame. With a sweaty arm, he wiped muck from his face, revealing the grin of wily Odysseus.

“Now you know how betrayal feels, Palamedes,” he said with a voice that pierced the rock and soil. “Suffocating, isn’t it?”

“Help me!” Palamedes yelled. He kicked his legs, slipped further, and gasped at the pain in his shoulder.

“NOBODY is here to help you,” Odysseus roared, laughing at his own pun. He kicked a stone into the well. Palamedes shrieked when it hit him. The rock and the breath sent him deeper into the throat of the world. His lungs became difficult to fill for the press of the rocks. Palamedes could only pant.

Odysseus tore off his beggar’s robe and tossed it in the hole as a burial shroud.

“This is your doing. You could have left me mad in Ithaca. Mad and alone with my wife and son.” Odysseus dislodged another stone. “I’m sure you thought yourself so clever when you revealed my scheme.” He sent more rocks down to more sobs. Palamedes couldn’t scream.

“I’m sure you thought yourself so clever when you betrayed your kinsmen for Priam’s gold.” Odysseus picked up the bag and opened it to find the five ingots that had once been stamped with the likeness of his face on one side, and the goats of Ithaca on another.

“I see you left my letter behind,” Odysseus said. Then he recited what was written:

“Princely Palamedes, most cunning of the Greeks. YACHK!” Odysseus feigned an awful retching noise and spat in the well before continuing. “I have heard rumors of your waning confidence in your kinsmen. My spies tell me you wish to sail for home. Perhaps I can offer a solution most profitable to us both— Palamedes, you gullible fool. The only one who profits from war is Charon, the ferryman, who takes his wages out of the mouths of the dead.” Odysseus produced a simple copper piece from within his robe and tossed it down the silent well. “Tell Hades it was Odysseus who sent you to hell.”

ODYSSEUS TOILED THE REST OF THE MORNING. He pushed every stone he could find into the well long after Palamedes made his final sounds. Once the pile of rocks reached the level of the ground on which he stood, he scooped sand over the top so that any signs of the well disappeared.

A column of smoke pillared the sky in the middle distance. A Trojan city that received no word of the Greek attack had fallen. Gulls indeed flocked inland, but Odysseus knew it would not be Greek corpses the fowls sought to dine upon.

Odysseus stopped to cleanse himself in the sea on his way back to camp. The mess and mire he caked on the night before washed off easily. The stench did not, but what man at war smells good?

The camp was busy when he entered. Foot soldiers tended to the dead and wounded while the heroes gathered spoils for redistribution. Odysseus navigated away from most of the tumult and made his way to Palamedes’ tent. The floor was a mess when he entered, but the scroll lay on top of it all.

THE GENERALS WHO LED THE RAIDS spread out the finest spoils of war in the center of camp: food, wine, gold, bronze, women, and animals. Agamemnon, who sat on a dias before the treasure, looked smug and pleased. Odysseus approached the loot piled before the high king. He untied the purse, Palamedes’ bag of gold, and flung it forward. The seams burst, revealing the gleaming ingots inside.

“You did not fight this morning,” Agamemnon stated. “How did this gold come into your hands?”

Odysseus held up the scroll. “A traitor,” he announced before the host of Greece. “King Priam sought to purchase one of our princes.”

Agamemnon stood. His ruddy face was as bright as a brazier. “Who?” he demanded.

Odysseus looked around the gathering and noted the Euboeans, men loyal to Palamedes, who marched without their leader in the morning’s fight. He opened the scroll to read:

“Princely Palamedes, most cunning of the Greeks—”

“Palamedes?” The crowd asked in unison.

“Where is he?” Asked Agamemnon. Odysseus shrugged as though the issue at hand were a trivial matter. He rolled up the scroll and tucked it beneath his left arm.

“Nobody saw him leave. Nobody knows where he is.”

This story is dedicated to my uncle, Tom Evans, who became a paid subscriber last month, and who has always shown me much love and support.

Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed my previous story APHRODITE’S GAZE, you can find it at the link below.

About the Author

Corey D. Evans is a speculative fiction author whose work appears in anthologies from Flame Tree Press. He has also edited theological works for Dispensational Publishing, including a modern revision of The Silence of God by Robert Anderson. Drawing on myth, faith and the landscape of the Ozarks, Evans writes stories where folklore encounters theology.

Corey D. Evans lives in the American Midwest with his wife and seven children. When not writing, he can often be found admiring trees or turning them into cabins.

Copyright © 2026, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

ALO AND WYOME WALKED A WELL-WORN TRAIL of bare earth south out of the field. The trail was lined by towering pines that blotted out the stars above. It followed the natural folds of the land, and the packed dirt made it easy to travel even in the darkness. A small pack of dogs howled ahead, which might have worried Alo and Wyome if they had not recognized the siren tones.

"They sound eager to see you," Alo said to Wyome.

"I'm sure they want to be untethered more than see me," Wyome replied. The dogs— her dogs— were waiting in the wilderness for Alo and Wyome's exodus. They howled again at the scent of their master in the breeze and thrashed at their leashes when Wyome came into view. The largest, a great female built more like a wolf than a dog, tore free from her cord and careened through the dark.

"Woah, girl," Wyome commanded, but the dog was too excited to obey. Wyome knelt to better absorb the dog's embrace. The two collided in a mess of limbs and fur.

"Easy, girl. Easy!" Wyome shouted while trying to ward off her dog's kisses. Alo laughed at her lack of success, and Wyome laughed, too. Then, the other two dogs broke free and joined the onslaught. One even knocked Alo over to affectionately lick.

"Stop it, stop it," he yelled at the three dogs without conviction, but the dogs' excitement waned in response nonetheless. Wyome stood up first and helped her husband rise from the dirt. They dusted leaves and branches from each other's clothes; Alo pulled a twig from Wyome's raven-dark hair.

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“WILL YOU SIT IN MY WORKSHOP?” Hephestus, the lame god, Olympus’ great craftsman, and my husband asked me. I lay in a chair in our home on Olympus, sipping honeyed wine. A plate of half-eaten ambrosia sat on the windowsill beside me. I turned to face my spouse, the ugliest of the gods and sighed at his miserable presence.

“You know I loathe the smell of coal fire,” I replied.

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“I know, but I am not working at the forge today. Mighty Zeus has commissioned a work made out of clay.”

I sat up from my lounging, “What could you make from clay that is fit for the king of Olympus?”

“Come sit with me, and you shall see,” my husband smiled. He rarely had the upper hand in any conversation, let alone one with me. He relished this fleeting position of advantage. I rolled my eyes. His pettiness annoyed me, but I stood to follow him to the workshop attached to our dwelling.

The fires were cool in the forge, but I could still smell the lingering dirty aroma of the black smoke by which my husband earned his place among the Olympians. My nose crinkled. I was born of seafoam and starlight. Fire is my nemesis, and I am certain Zeus understood the irony of betrothing me to the maker of flames.

I wrapped my skirts tight around my legs to keep the hems from brushing against any of the soot-stained surfaces. It’s almost impossible to be around Hephaestus without accumulating ash on one’s clothes.

He led me through the forge where he usually does his business and into the courtyard. Flowers of every size and color bloomed all around, and the grass was soft underfoot. No thorns and thistles grow on Olympus, so all the gods except Hermes tread barefoot when they walk here. A mound of moist clay of the highest grade sat in the midst of the small paradise with a chair by its side. Hephaestus beckoned me to sit, and I examined the setup. The potter’s tools lay in a satchel across from the chair rather than beside it.

“Do you want me to model for you?” I asked, simultaneously flattered and annoyed by the proposition.

“Zeus asked me to make a beautiful woman out of earth for the men that Prometheus created. Who better to mold her from than you?”

“You lie,” I said. “Zeus is furious with Prometheus and those fire-wielding mud men. He would not want you to bless those abominations with such beauty.”

“Oh, but the woman is not a blessing,” Hephaestus said, his grin growing wide. “Zeus intends for her to be a curse upon mankind. Her beauty and charms are meant to bring the mortal race misery.”

“And so you thought I would be a fitting muse?” I asked. I am not ashamed to say that my face reddened; my voice became shrill.

“Of course. It is your form that has been my bane. That and your affairs with Ares, Hermes, and any other god who does not walk with a limp.” He said the word ‘limp’ as though it disgusted him. “Whose likeness would curse mankind better than the one who has cursed me?”

“You impotent wretch,” I shouted, but Hephaestus absorbed my barb with his work-hardened skin and grinned all the more. “Do your work from memory. I will not lend you my form to look upon,” I said and stormed out of the courtyard. My skirts billowed in my wake and came away blackened and stained as I left through the forge.

TIME PASSED. I still burned with fury towards my husband, so it could not have been longer than a century. It was not night; the sky cannot darken in heaven, but Ares snored from his side of the mattress. I rose from the bed in which he and I lay together. I knew he would not wake for some time. Love always conquers war, and the god of conflict is no exception to that rule. I left the room and walked through my abode with only a thin shawl draped about me, hoping Hephaestus might see me and become enraged at my radiance.

I went to the courtyard where I knew his creation stood, but the craftsman was missing. I looked at the clay. It no longer resembled the mud of the earth. Instead, the form of a female body— my female body— stood in its place. As much as I despise my husband, I must give his hands and mind credit. The statue’s resemblance to me was startling. The figure’s clay hair looked ready to twist in the breeze; her neck was elegant. She had slender arms and a nipped waist above full hips where delicate hands rested. Her legs tapered to thin ankles and small feet. All of me was there on display, and I shuddered. Hephaestus possessed a perfect memory, for he had only seen me disrobed once, and that was by accident. Yet there I was, formed out of clay.

“So this is the curse meant for mankind,” I said to myself. I walked around the lifeless clay and looked for imperfections. There were a few, but I knew they must be intentional; Hephaestus’ hand does not slip in his craft. I found a blemish here and a dimple there, but overall, the only thing lacking from the girl was the breath of life.

“Incredible, isn’t she,” said a voice behind me. A voice I could not fail to recognize even if I tried. I turned to find Zeus, the god of all the gods, watching me like the eagle that is his emblem.

“Is she all that you desired?” I asked, trying not to appear startled by Zeus’ presence at my home.

“She is all that I could have hoped for,” he said with a predatory smirk. I counted myself lucky to never have been the subject of those lustful eyes. Then I remembered who the clay girl was modeled from. I pulled my shawl tight around me and wished for a cloak.

“Is she made for you or for men?” I asked, but Hephaestus interrupted before Zeus could answer. He entered the room and animated it with shock and horror.

“She isn’t ready yet!” He screamed and tossed a dirty sheet over the clay woman. “You must leave now, both of you.”

“I am tired of waiting, Hephaestus,” Zeus, the hurler of thunderbolts, bellowed in reply. “Finish the woman soon. There are many ways to punish a god, and you do not wish to tempt me to wrath.”

Hephaestus and I both trembled. All in Olympus witnessed the binding of Prometheus and the first of his eternal eviscerations by the cloud-bringer’s own raptors. Zeus’ propensity for cruelty was as unbounded as his sensual appetites. Every god learned about fear from the punishment of Prometheus. Every god learned that though we cannot die, there are fates worse than death.

“I just need a little more time,” Hephaestus said. He stood between Zeus and the creation like a protective shepherd between his flocks and a wolf. Zeus prowled closer. The air crackled as a dying fire. Hephaestus didn’t cower, and I was surprised to find pride in me for my husband’s defiance.

“I expect you to be finished before the horses of Helios gallop three times over the face of the earth,” Zeus said, “You have three days, Hephaestus. Man cannot go unpunished any longer.”

AFTER ZEUS WENT AWAY, I left the courtyard before Hephaestus could confront me. I knew he would search for something to vent his frustration on, and I possessed no desire to be what he found first. I did not return to Ares either but went to look upon mankind from above.

There is a place on Olympus where one can sit and see the world below. It is like a ledge; if one is daring, one can hang one’s feet off and dangle them in the space between the earth and the sky. I do not go there often, but I knew then that it was the one place Hephaestus would not go.

It was dark on the earth below. I could see the first men, those horrid little creatures, huddled around their pathetic flame; they sheltered the fire from the wind with their bodies and worshiped it with their breath. Men look hideous to me. They are ill-formed and rough as if the mud they are made from consists of more gravel than silt. I can’t find pity for them, and I wonder what Prometheus saw in his creation. What made him steal fire from heaven to give it to them? I wonder if Prometheus thinks of man each time the eagles come to rip open his side.

The little brutes I watched bore no resemblance to the masterpiece standing in my husband’s courtyard, and I realized then that the woman Hephaestus made would not be a curse upon mankind. Mankind would be a curse upon her. I could see that man would be unable to comprehend her beauty. They would have no appreciation for her delicate nature or her gentle form. Instead, they would grope for her and deal roughly with her. They would break and abuse her like iron against an anvil. Looking at man, I did not find pity for them but for their curse.

THREE DAYS PASSED IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE. What is time to a god? If I had not heard Zeus’ threats, I would not have counted the rising of Helios in his emblazoned chariot at all. But rise and fall, the titan of the sun did, and Zeus came knocking on the door with the rest of the pantheon following close behind. The other gods expected a show. Either Hephaestus delivered a wonder, or Zeus dealt cruelly with another immortal.

Much to the gods’ chagrin, Hephaestus was ready when Zeus arrived. Like many craftsmen, my husband works best under deadlines, and his latest work was no exception. Zeus, nine other gods, and countless other minor deities entered the courtyard. I stood near my husband. The center of attention, the clay woman, was shrouded in the same dirty sheet Hephaestus thrust over her the other night. I wondered if he had done any further work on the figure or if he had decided to leave the sculpture as Zeus and I had first found it.

“Well, Hephaestus, what do you have to show for yourself?” Zeus asked once all of the heavenly hosts were gathered. Hephaestus fidgeted with the corner of the sheet in his hand, but he did not look unsure of himself. He cleared his throat before speaking.

“O Zeus of the thunderbolt,” Hephaestus began, “watcher of sea havens, ruler of Olympus. You asked me to make a beautiful woman out of the earth, and I did just that. I am finished with my toil. Here is my gift to mankind. Meet the first woman, Pandora.”

With a flourish, Hephaestus uncovered the clay. A collective gasp went up from all of the gods. Hephaestus had made many great things before, but this ‘woman’ was his crowning achievement. If the statue was beautiful before, she was magnificent now. She stood clothed in a white gown made of the finest weaving, no doubt a contribution from Athena. Her clay hair hung over her shoulders and down her back like a cape of fleece. Her poised lips looked as though she might introduce herself at any moment.

Zeus smiled lecherously. “Wonderful,” he said, turning to the crowd as though he were responsible for Hephaestus’ genius. “The first woman requires gifts. Come and bless her so that she may be a burden upon mankind.”

Zeus beckoned the rest of the gods. Bright-eyed Athena stepped forward first and put a veil over the statue’s eyes and a garland of flowers around its neck.

“I bless you with the craft of weaving, by which man will know they are naked and ashamed,” Athena said.

Hermes came next. The wily god slithered to the front like a snake through the grass. “I give you beguiling words and soft speech, by which man will know they are dull and lack cunning.”

One by one, the gods blessed the lifeless statue with backhanded gifts. Hera, the queen of the gods, gave curiosity so that man would know their ignorance, and bright Apollo gave her the gift of singing so that man would know their own voices are harsh and discordant. I watched silently beside my husband. The gods enjoyed their wit, but my mind was on the brutes of darkness that dwelt below the heavens who were about to receive this offering. I thought of their meaty faces, grubby fingers, and the fire they cherished so dearly. It would be long before any man possessed enough intellect to understand the curse laid upon them from above. They were sure to destroy or devour this poor girl long before then.

Poseidon, the last of the pantheon, placed his gift of a pearl necklace around the statue. “So that man will look to the seas for treasure but find tragedy instead,” the sea god said.

It was not my turn. Hephaestus already gave the gift of my beauty to the clay, but since I considered this unwilling on my part, I felt entitled to bestow one last charm on the pretty lump of wet dirt. No god or goddess objected, and I came near to the statue. I took off my pale gold earrings and worked them into the clay ears Hephaestus had fashioned. Then, with a whisper so low that even the gods could not hear but still carried my divine authority, I said, “I give you grace, by which man can learn to love.”

WHEN I FINISHED, Zeus stepped back into the center of the ceremony. He did not face the deathless gods but looked at the lifeless clay form. He carried a large black jar in one hand, and with the other, he touched the face. Zeus leaned close as if to kiss her but placed his open mouth over her nose and lips, blowing a mighty breath of life into the earthen nostrils. Pandora’s eyes came alive and then went wide with terror. She fought against the sky father, which only increased his zealous embrace. She beat at him with her fists, but still, Zeus held her to his tongue. I heard her scream echo down his throat, and then Zeus released her and laughed while she looked around for safety. The others laughed, too. Even I laughed at the absurdity of a mortal seeking shelter in our midst. Mortals are, after all, amusing to the gods.

“Do not fear, sweet Pandora. You are safe.” Zeus held out his gift. “Take this,” he said and handed her the jar. “This is your final gift, but do not open it here. Take it with you to the man you shall marry. It is a wedding gift from the gods.”

Pandora did as she was told, though many questions hung around her newly-born mind. She cradled the jar like an infant but touched the lid as though already tempted to break the seal.

“Don’t,” Zeus all but shouted. He pushed her hand aside and pressed against the jar to ensure its lid was closed. “Do not open it here.”

All of the gods looked on with interest. What could be held within the jar, and where could Zeus have fetched it? I glanced at my husband with eyes that asked if the workmanship was his, but he shook his head.

“Hermes, take Pandora down from here,” Zeus said quickly, “I am certain that man is eager to receive its bride.”

Hermes, the messenger of the gods, took Pandora’s hand. She did not shy away from his presence as she did from Zeus. Hermes is finer-featured and less imposing than the king of the gods, though no less dangerous. I watched the pair take to the air and leave the courtyard for the cold, dark world below.

I went to the ledge from where the gods can observe the earth. I am, after all, the goddess of love and desire. Therefore, weddings and brides are my interests. I found Pandora and bright Hermes easy on the sodden earth. He did not take her to mankind first, which I thought was wise. Instead, Hermes led the first woman to a grove of olive trees that were in bloom. White petals danced in the wind and frolicked in the dark tresses of Pandora’s hair. But Hermes and Pandora were not the only ones present in the grove. The titan, Epimetheus, the procrastinating god of excuse and brother of Prometheus, emerged out of the shade.

“Oh, there you are, Epimetheus,” I heard Hermes say, feigning shock at the titan’s presence. “Look, friend, I have brought a gift for you from the gods. Meet Pandora, who is to be your wife.”

I gasped. This was not right. Zeus said Pandora was meant for man and not a titan. Did the almighty sky father deceive his own pantheon? Epimetheus was wary at first. It was well known to all of us that Prometheus’ last warning to his brother was to refuse any gift from another god. So far, Epimetheus had upheld his brother’s parting wish. But how could he deny Pandora? She possessed my beauty, Athena’s deft hands, Hera’s curiosity, the subtlety of Hermes, and the treasures of the deep. If ever there was a worthy wife for a god, it was Pandora.

Still, Epimetheus examined his bride doubtfully. The titan crossed his arms like a stable hand judging a mare.

Then, I understood my greatest folly. Not only did Pandora possess attributes meant to beguile men, she also possessed the power to inspire love. But for an immortal to find love with one who dies is to condemn oneself to misery, which is the punishment Zeus desired for Epimetheus. My final gift was the most necessary for Zeus’ plan to succeed. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. I wanted to scream and warn the foolish titan, but I knew that act would only put me in chains beside Prometheus.

Epimetheus’ guard let down the longer he stood by Pandora. I could see his demeanor soften. In the end, he held out his hand to accept Pandora, and Hermes proclaimed their union sealed.

“What is this you have?” Epimetheus asked his lovely new bride. She held out the jar.

“It is our wedding gift,” Pandora said. Her voice was as pure and sweet as nectar. She touched the lid, and Hermes fled from the grove.

“What is inside?” Epimetheus asked.

“I do not know,” Pandora replied, and she opened the lid.

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Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed my previous story BY MY FRUIT you can find it at the link below.

Copyright © 2026, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

I will be dipping my toe into non-fiction writing this year. I’m less comfortable with this facet of writing and want to exercise this more than atrophied skill. I will start out by writing small micro essays (less than 1000 words in length) published in my subscriber newsletter first. If you want to be among the first to read these essays, become a subscriber today.

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No, I’m not eating my book for breakfast.

Serializing a novel is to publish a book-length work of fiction one segment at a time instead of all at once as a whole unit. This odd approach is fast becoming the preferred way for indie authors to engage with an online audience while releasing work at a faster schedule than the more conventional method. But serialized fiction is older than the Internet. In fact, much of the Western classical canon was first serialized. Novel serialization was the preferred release strategy for authors like Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, and Victor Hugo, to name a few.

During our current moment in history, novel serialization is more than just a quirky homage to the greats; it is the way to publish in this fast-paced, social media-driven culture.

​Novel Serialization Then:

Serialization first developed in response to technological advancements in printing and rising literacy rates in the 19th century. Demand for the printed word was at a high, but bound volumes remained expensive. Printing magazines and pamphlets, however, became cheaper than ever. Publishers responded to the market, and the serial novel became mainstream with Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers.

The serial novel continued to grow in popularity until technology changed again, and the radio show became the prominent form of cheap entertainment, which was later usurped by television. In some sense, the serial novelist did not die, but simply morphed into the modern TV script writer. Serialization as a literary form did not disappear entirely, either. It continued mainly as graphic novels but has been tried by contemporary authors like Stephen King (The Green Mile) and Orson Scott Card (Hot Sleep).

​Novel Serialization Now:

Once again, the publishing of the written word is shaken by technological advances. We are well on the tail end of the 2010s eBook craze and now in what I call the platform era. Authors have been emancipated from the shackles of the literati. No longer does a writer need to appeal to agents, editors, publicists, and marketeers in order to get their words into the hands of readers. Instead, authors are free to create their own platforms on sites such as Substack, Medium, and Patreon. I guess they have always been able to do so (one of my favorite IPs, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, was created independently of major publishing companies), but the cost was prohibitive before large-scale production.

This is not to say publishing serials on Substack or Patreon is a golden paved road to financial independence, but it is a step in a gilded direction.

Why I’m Serializing Alo & Wyome

I discovered the idea for my first novel, Alo & Wyome, while driving home from work one evening. An image of the penultimate scene came to mind, and I was quick to tell my wife about it as soon as I got to the house. The image was so inspiring that I began writing the next morning. This is the story I became a writer to tell.

I have a specific vision for this tale, but I fear it would suffer if I forced it into commercial book markets. I am not bitter or jaded. I do think I could bring this story to the right agent and publisher and that it could be a moderate success. Unlike some on Substack, I do not release my material on this platform as a vendetta against the Big Five publishers. I simply want as much creative freedom as possible, and serializing on Substack allows me this.

Join the ALO & WYOME presale today!

Serialized novels also enable authors to keep up with content creation in a way that is conducive to a writing career. Traditionally, a novelist would spend at least a year writing a book, another year bringing it to market for release, and then disappear to write the next tome. Compared to other forms of media, two years between book releases is so slow it may as well be dead. Yes, a few writers can shorten this timeline, but they are the exception and not the norm.

Releasing a book slowly, one chapter at a time, keeps an author’s name in the mediasphere, which is another reason I am choosing it for my debut novel. It also allows significantly more engagement with readers. I’ll be able to see which chapters are most liked and read in real time, and readers will be able to contribute to the story through comments and chat groups.

Lastly, bringing a full book to print is costly and carries risks for an independent author that I cannot absorb at this stage in my career. I do not have the funds to edit, layout, market, and print a first edition run of Alo & Wyome. Typically, a publisher would handle these expenses, but again, I am seeking creative freedom, not the help of a publisher. Producing one chapter at a time costs next to nothing (I do pay for graphic design and editing services, but this is minimal compared to the cost of a full book package).

So, serialization is right for me for several reasons. I’m sure I’ve missed a few, too, and I am excited for this new venture. The first chapter of Alo & Wyome will be released in February, and I hope to see you in the stacks each week.

Copyright © 2026, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

I’LL NEVER FORGET THE SUN THAT DAY I SHOT THE MISSIONARY. The first bright rays to break through the dense smog looked like white ribbons on brown paper. The brightest sun in over a month. I had to keep my head down because the light hurt my eyes. This made aiming my rifle all the more difficult, which is why he died the way he did. But I must explain a few things before I get to the trigger squeeze.

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Of course, I didn’t know he was a missionary then. All I knew was a strange man came through the territory twice a month pushing a cart of meat. The smell of smoke-dried flesh preceded him by half a mile, and he’d holler, “Come get your protein,” when he thought he was getting close to those of us hiding under rock and sand. Gerald told me the farmers used to yell like that at markets back when there was enough food in the world to sell. Well, we didn’t have anything to pay him for the meat or even to trade for it. Most of us barely owned enough to cover the skin on our backs. Even still, while our stomachs actively digested our insides, none of us considered taking the offer. We were downright terrified of the man with the cart.

Timmons was the first to name our cause for fear.

“That’s long pork he’s got in the cart,” Timmons said after the man was out of sight. My twisted stomach groaned at the mention of the cart’s contents. “He’s trying to lure one of us into becoming the next meal,” Timmons said.

“Would that be so bad?” Gerald asked. There were three of us sheltered in the dugout, and Gerald was older than me by quite a few years. Old enough to have had a life before the end of everything.

“You wouldn’t want to be eaten,” Timmons answered as though he had personal experience.

“Don’t kid yourself,” Gerald said. “We all get eaten eventually. Some of us feed worms, others feed cannibals.”

“There’s not enough meat on your old bones to feed a worm,” I said. “Besides, we’ve already eaten all of them in this ground. You’ll just turn to dust when you’re gone.”

We laughed together and then Timmons said, “Bring your rifle next time he comes back.”

Gerald and I swallowed our humor. My rifle, an old, small-caliber varmint gun, was always by my side. I wore it across my back as we spoke about the cart. A firearm, even one without ammunition, was a valuable possession to have in the territory. I never took a chance setting it down out of arm’s reach. Timmons carried a pistol in his belt that I’m pretty sure wasn’t loaded. My gun was, but I didn’t have shells to spare.

“He’s not worth the lead,” I told Timmons.

“I say he is,” Timmons said. He looked at me hard with his thin, black eyes, but there was nothing more he could say. It was my gun and ammo, not his.

We watched the man pass by several more times after that. I always had my gun with me, and Timmons would tell me to take a shot.

“It’s just one bullet. He’s a sitting duck out there,” he said.

“He hasn’t done me any wrong,” I replied.

“Where do you think his cart full of meat comes from, huh? He’s got bits of people in there, man, and he’s trying to feed it to us.”

“It ain’t worth the lead,” was always my final answer before Gerald told us both to hush.

But things changed on the day the sun came out. The man with the cart passed back through the territory, and he wasn’t alone this time. A woman with black hair and dirty clothes followed behind the cart.

“Come get your protein,” echoed over the sands, and into the dugout. I thumbed at my rifle’s strap.

“Oh, come on,” Timmons groaned, “Now he’s trying to get us out with fresh meat?”

“Take the shot,” Gerald whispered to me. I looked at the old man. His pale eyes were almost blind but good enough to see my objection.

“We can’t watch this happen anymore. Take the shot.”

“If you don’t, I will,” Timmons said. I wheeled around to see him lift a hand towards the rifle at my back. He jerked away, and I looked back at Gerald.

“Are you sure? What if I miss?”

“You won’t,” Gerald said.

“Okay.” I took the rifle off and gazed narrow-eyed at the man pushing the cart. He was not a sitting duck. The man walked almost one hundred yards away from the dugout. A long shot for me. Every bullet I owned represented a full belly of game meat, and I only had ten shells left. I often went hungry rather than take a risk at closer targets; even a direct hit this time meant forgoing a meal in the future.

“I’m only taking one shot,” I told myself and the two men around me.

“You won’t miss,” Gerald encouraged.

I chambered a round and brought the wood stock into my shoulder. A headshot was out of the question, so I set the irons on the man’s back. Sun rays reflected off the sand and into my eyes. The mirage obscured my vision as the man took another step further away, and every moment of indecision brought the woman closer to being in the cart instead of walking behind it.

The shot rang out like a crack of thunder. The woman fled while the man screamed in agony. He fell to the ground, gripping his abdomen. A hit, but not a good one; my trigger pull was tense and sent the bullet down, to the right, and through the man’s liver. A fatal wound, but one that would take time to die from.

“Nice shot,” Timmons said with a grin.

“Shut up,” I said.

“You didn’t kill him,” Gerald said slowly.

“I did. He just hasn’t died yet,” I said.

“Take a second shot,” Gerald begged. He was looking at me again with that ancient stare of his. He expected mercy, but I was a harder man than him.

“It ain’t worth the lead,” I said and shouldered my rifle to end the discussion.

THE MAN TOOK HALF AN HOUR TO FALL SILENT AND DIE ALONE with the sand and the sun as his only comforts. I have no idea what happened to the woman, but she didn’t stay in the territory. She probably died somewhere on the road. It’s dangerous out there all alone. We watched the road for things to steal, but others were out there watching the road for something to eat. I’m sure she found a death not much different than what we thought the man with the cart would have dealt. A wasted bullet all around.

We left the dugout before the vultures came for the corpse. I told Timmons I didn’t want to patrol with him again, and Gerald told me the same. All of us were disgusted by what we’d done, or rather what I had done, and thought it best to part ways.

The days trickled by one after another like a fount of water running dry a gallon at a time. The sun hid behind the smog, and we did our best not to starve. I wouldn’t call what we had a community, but it was more than most had in the after— neighbors to help bury the dead instead of eat them.

It might have been a month or six weeks after I shot the man when a second pulling another cart appeared. This one snuck up on us. He walked as quiet as you could in front of a hand cart, and the smell of meat didn’t precede him. I and the other sentries barely made it into our holes before he came close enough to see us.

I peered out of the dirt dugout to see that this man wasn’t pulling a cart of meat but one of fresh fruit and vegetables.

“Oh, my god,” I couldn’t help but exclaim and lick my scurvy-ridden gums. I pulled my partner— a mousey, middle-aged woman named Jen— over to see what I saw.

“Does he have what I think he has?” She asked after looking through the peephole.

“I think I saw tomatoes,” I said.

The man with the cart came to his predecessor’s bones. Birds had picked them clean, and the world shrouded them in dust. A skull with empty eye holes looked up at the fruit man. Its jaw slack as if to say, “Nice to see you here.”

But the dead didn’t deter the man who bore fruit. He looked at the bones for a moment, then surveyed the dunes and sand embanking the road. He cupped a hand to either side of his mouth.

“Fresh fruit and veggies,” he shouted. I all but jumped at the sound of his voice. “Come out for food,” he yelled again.

“What should we do?” Jen asked.

“Ignore him,” I said, but then I spied one of the community emerging from their hole on the side of the road across from my dugout.

“Oh, no,” I huffed. I took off my rifle and stared down the sights at the man and the fruit. His smile was wide and beaming like a predator’s snarl. I chambered a precious round and adjusted my aim up and to the left.

“Don’t,” Jen whispered. She put her hand on my gun between the sights.

“Don’t?” I looked at her with the barrel still protruding through the peephole.

“Let’s wait and see.”

“They need cover,” I protested.

“Someone else can bear that burden,” Jen said. I disagreed— mine was the only loaded rifle in any direction— but I let her words prevail.

“Alright then.” I lowered my weapon while we watched the exchange.

It was Gerald who approached the stranger. He walked with his arms out, and the man with the cart returned the gesture. They greeted each other like scarecrows from neighboring fields. A show of good will. I couldn’t hear what was said. Eventually, the two men dropped their arms and came near enough to strangle one another if they wanted to. But the man with the cart began unloading bags of food at Gerald’s feet. More food than I could even imagine. Bags of potatoes and ears of corn, carrots, and tomatoes. A true miracle when every green thing you can recall eating came out of cans past their due by half a decade.

Gerald waved to the side of the road, and Timmons popped out of the earth like a prairie dog. The stranger backed away from his tribute of food while Timmons came near. He said a few parting words to Gerald, Gerald shook his head, and the man turned around. As he went, the empty cart made hollow, clattering noises on the weathered road.

Gerald and Timmons could not carry all of the food, so we came to help once the cart was well out of sight. I was the last to emerge from my hole after Jen. I walked towards the bounty with my gun still in hand. My companions smiled as each one sampled the goods.

“He said he’ll be back,” Gerald said over the revelry. “He said where he’s from has plenty of food to share, and we can follow him there if we wish.”

“Why don’t we follow him now?” Jen asked.

“He said we must be strong for the road ahead.”

“You mean he wants us fattened up for the slaughter,” I said.

“Perhaps,” Gerald sighed, but he looked unconcerned about this possibility. “Or perhaps people who can afford to give away food like this have no interest in our flesh.”

“What did he have to say about him?” I ignored Geralds’s remarks and pointed to the remains of the man I’d killed. The corpse was reduced to dun-colored bones in tattered clothes, bits of sun-dried flesh clinging around the joints.

“He said his name was Stephen,” Gerald said. “He said Stephen tried to give us goat’s meat.”

WE GATHERED TO EAT THE SUPPLIES THAT NIGHT. Gerald said the raw spuds needed to be cooked well, or the white flesh might kill us. He roasted the potatoes over a foul-smelling flame, but the odor could not deter our appetites. We ate the tomatoes while we waited. Their juices stained our filthy shirts and skin, and we looked like wild animals covered in the red flesh of our kill.

We were an odd group of misfits. I’m not even sure what brought us together originally except that we were all tired of fighting and killing when we gathered into a unit. I still wasn’t speaking to Timmons that night, but Gerald pulled me aside to talk after the potatoes were cooked near to crisps.

“That man today asked me if I killed the other,” Gerald said.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I said I killed him.”

“Why did you say that?” I almost yelled. “What if he got mad and wanted to kill you?”

“ I did kill him,” Gerald said, “I told you to shoot him.”

“You know that’s not the same thing.”

“Would you have shot him if I didn’t tell you to?”

I stammered some excuse, but Gerald held up his hand for silence. His palms were old and withered. Too old. He was the oldest man I’d ever known, and I old enough to remember that that meant something, so I closed my mouth and let him speak.

“I killed him, son, I don’t want you thinking about it no more.”

“I don’t think about it,” I lied.

“Good,” he said. “Keep it that way.” Then he handed me the rest of his potato and slipped away into the dark.

TWO WEEKS LATER, the stranger returned. He didn’t call attention to himself or wait for anyone to greet him but unloaded his cart at Stephen’s feet and left. The third time he came, the cart was empty.

“Follow me,” he yelled into the wilderness. “Follow me to find salvation.”

“I’m going,” Jen said to me in our dugout

“Don’t,” I said.

“You should come, too.”

“I’m staying.”

“Okay then,” Jen sighed and walked out of the dugout. Others were already exposed and walking towards the stranger. He looked pleased at their number. There were a dozen of us in the territory. Eleven walked toward him now. I saw Gerald sweep the faces for mine and watched his head droop when he found me absent.

“Come and follow me,” the man cried once more, but those around him, those who knew me well, shook their heads. They knew I would not come, and soon, the man understood this, too. I watched them turn down the dusty road and leave me alone with the bones.

WHY WOULD A MAN LIVE ALONE AT THE END OF THE WORLD? Why press on when all around him is dead and gone? Is it because he understands that the universe demands a witness because he knows that when the last man is gone— when conscious thought flickers out— all else will cease to exist? I don’t think so. I think it is more simple than that. I think we’re scared of death and will choose to fight it down to the last man standing.

I was the last man, as far as I could tell. I often stood over Stephen’s bones for company in those lonely months. They were white like alabaster and pitted from weather and wear. Almost a year had passed since I shot him, and not a day went by that I didn’t regret pulling the trigger. Gerald didn’t kill anybody. I did, and nothing that old man said could change that.

I had ten bullets before. Killing Stephen brought me down to nine, and I used eight more in just as many months after everyone else was gone. I spent many days standing over the dead with my gun in hand and wondered if I was worth the lead.

I was doing just that— contemplating a one-way trip to join Stephen— when a voice called from behind me.

“He lived up to his name.” the voice said.

I wheeled around and leveled the rifle on the heart of the man behind me. It was the fruit man, except today, he had no fruit or cart.

“Why are you here?” I asked after a long moment passed between us.

“His name was Stephen, you know,” the man continued as if he didn’t hear my question. “There was a martyr named Stephen long ago.” The man didn’t look at the gun or at the dead beside me. He looked at me and into my eyes with something I’ve since come to know as compassion.

“What’s a martyr?” I asked

“A martyr is whoever gets killed when two beliefs decide only one can survive. It is what you’re about to make out of me with that gun of yours.”

“I’m not making you into nothing except bird food if you don’t start speaking straight,” I said. The man smiled at this, though I could see a tinge of unease in his face. A twitch of nerves.

“A martyr is someone who is killed for what they believe in,” the man said, “and to answer your first question, I’m here for you.”

“Eleven people not enough for your appetites?”

“We don’t eat people where I’m from.”

“Where are they then? Where’s Gerry and Jen?” The man’s expression fell, and I saw I struck through to something he didn’t want to say. I shook the rifle and made its hardware rattle. “Did you even ask their names?”

“I know their names as well as I know yours,” he said to the barrel of my gun. “Brother Gerald wanted me to come to you.”

“He ain’t your brother,” I said.

“I assure you, he is.”

“Why ain’t he here then?”

“He died.”

Those two words, a simple sentence, compelled me to close the distance between us and press the muzzle hard against his nose. I don’t think I broke it, but blood trickled down his face. I’m sure he didn’t mean to cry; you just do that sometimes when something hits you hard between the eyes, but tears mingled with his blood and made a mess of things on the road.

I roared words at him I’d rather not repeat and pushed little round bruises into his cheeks and chin. I had no right to bully him that way. If he wanted to, he could have easily overpowered me. I was emaciated and missing teeth from malnutrition. He was well-fed and much bigger. But he took my abuse and only resisted out of reflex. At one point, I had him down on his knees with my gun in his mouth.

“You ain’t worth the lead,” I said, slipping my finger on the trigger. Any other man would have done their best to fight away from the open barrel, but he spread his arms wide and looked at me with those damned compassionate eyes.

“You ain’t worth the lead,” I said again and turned the gun on myself.

The fighting spirit the man lacked before appeared like fast-moving storm clouds over the desert sands. He rose from his knees to sweep the rifle away from my face with the force of a gale and wrestled me down to the hot road. We both had hands on the gun between us, but neither could find the trigger for the press of our bodies against each other.

“You miss him?” the man grunted. “You miss Gerry?” I couldn’t look him in the eye, so I stared at one of the bruises on his chin.

“Don’t say his name,” I said.

“He had a lot to say about you,” The man said. I pulled at the gun but lacked the strength to break his grip. “He said you’re a good man and don’t deserve to be out here alone.”

“He did not,” I said.

“He also said you’re a mean son-of-a-cuss and won’t come with me unless I drag you kicking and screaming, but I think he was wrong about that.” The man gave the gun a mighty heave and ripped it out of my hands. I didn’t try to grab it back. I was weak, and he knew it.

“Go on. Kill me then,” I said. To my surprise, the man did not. Instead, he pulled the bolt back on the rifle and ejected the single shell into his palm. His hand jerked when the bit of brass and lead touched skin. I don’t think he was expecting the gun to actually be loaded. He looked at his hand, then at me with the respect one shows a snake in the grass.

“You got any other weapons on you?” the man asked.

“I got a knife,” I lied.

“Keep it,” he said, “and keep this, too.” He reached out to give me the bullet. I put my hand beneath his, and he dropped the bullet into it. It was warm from his touch and felt alive, heavy, and happy to be free from its chamber.

“I don’t got a knife,” I told him.

“That’s okay, I’ll get you one.”

“You don’t think I’ll try to kill you with it?” I asked.

“I’m not giving you that good a knife.” The man rifled through his pockets as he spoke and produced a scrap of sharpened iron wrapped with cords for a handle on one end. He handed it to me. The metal wasn’t much of a knife at all, but there was a point and a keen edge.

“It ain’t much, but a man needs a knife.”

“I could kill you with this.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?” I asked. The man looked me over, assessing me before he spoke again.

“Cause I know where Gerry’s grave is,” he said. The man turned back the way he came, and I chose to follow.

THAT WAS ONE YEAR AGO. The missionary took me to Gerry’s grave just like he said; the old man fed worms, after all. I buried my last bullet there with him. Could it have been the last bullet in the world? Probably not, but I swore to Gerry it would be the last one I’d ever touch.

After that, the missionary brought me here, to the Abbey. I healed. I learned to confess my sins and listen to sermons about love and grace. I learned that the missionary lied. You do eat blood and flesh here, but only that belonging to the Son of Man and not from men themselves. I took my first communion. I’m told Gerry did the same shortly before he died, which is why the missionary called him a brother and that he’s my brother now, too.

I also heard the talk about those living out in the West that are more like me: some mean sons of a cuss. I’ve listened to the whispers of the danger and have seen that no missionary who goes out to them ever returns.

Well, I can reach them. I think I can pull a cart into their territory and come out with a soul or two. If nothing else, I’m okay if I die trying. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready to go up to see Ol’ Gerry yet. But if what they say is true— that to die is gain— then what do I have to lose?

I’ll pull a cart past dry bones and cry out to those in the wilderness. I’ll call to those who are lost and weary: who kill those who they do not know.

But do not give me meat to carry. Give me an abundance of life to bear and not the sustenance from death. Let them know me by my fruit.

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Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed my previous story A Kiss of Magic, you can find it at the link below.

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Copyright © 2026, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

IT STARTED WITH A KISS. Deep and passionate. The kind of kiss you would be embarrassed for your mother to see. A girl I’d just met leaned in to put her mouth over mine. For that moment, I thought I was more than lucky. Her cool lips were smooth like spring water. Her breath tasted like honeyed mead. As soon as her tongue touched mine, I was finished. Then, something like lightning went through my bones. I tried to draw away from the pain, but found I couldn’t move. I wanted to scream, yet somehow we kept kissing. The girl had her way with my mouth and spoke black incantations down my throat. When our lips parted, I was welded to her bidding.

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“What a good boy,” she said, licking her lips like I was something to savor. “Don’t be a dullard. Close your mouth before you catch flies.”

My mouth clamped shut against my will, though I tried to cry for help from the others leering across the bar. The most I could do was flutter my eyelashes in protest.

“Why don’t you take me out of this place?” She was coy with her words, and my body yielded to her suggestion. I stood up, took her thin hand in mine, and led her through the tavern. My mind fought against every step, but my feet walked anyway. The girl—the witch—giggled and cooed like a bride on the way to her wedding bed. A few of the men watching rolled their eyes at the display, but how could they know I’d rather be back at the bar with them than slinking away with her?

She leaned in to whisper in my ear as we stepped out.

“Oh, darling,” she said, “you’re not going to believe the things I’m going to do with you.”

I was anything but aroused by her suggestion.

“Take me back to my place,” she added before biting at my ear. I had no idea where the witch lived, but my feet took us down a cobblestone street.

Whatever spell she put me under also sobered me from my drinks. I neither staggered nor stumbled as I led my enchantress by the hand. Her lemon-yellow sari danced and twirled above the dust as we walked. The glow of candles and firelight from other taverns lit the way. Taverns, I should have drunk from instead.

I blinked into every window for help, but none came.

“Oh, do look a little more excited to be with me, darling,” said the witch. My lips curled against my wishes.

We turned a corner at an alley, and went to the second door on the left. The sign on the door said, ‘closed,’ and the boards over the windows said, ‘permanently,’ but I turned the knob and helped my witch inside. Once the door shut, my body locked in place.

The witch whirled in the room like a child, flinging dust into the air as she spun. Her sweet giggles sounded nothing like that of a cackling she-devil. Her laughter almost put me at ease, but then she blew a kiss and a long blade appeared in her hand. Its gleaming edge sliced my calm away. She pressed the steel against her lips, and the knife turned into a daffodil.

“Don’t be scared.” She tore the flower off its stem and held it up to my shirt. “We should match.”

Our clothing fluttered in reply. I glanced down. My tunic, threadbare and dull, transformed into a saffron kurta; my trousers, once linen, were now made of silk. The witch’s own garb became a golden gown of the finest fabrics.

“Much better. Exactly what you need to take me dancing at the Kasbah.”

My body did as told. This time, I knew just the place she wanted to go. The Kasbah, Sheikh Salim’s palace in the midst of the city. A place that hosted nightly gatherings of the richest and most noble citizens. A place where no woman could gather unless escorted by a man.

Revelation of her innocent scheme— to use me for entry into the kasbah— pressed on me like the cool air outside the vacant shop. I exhaled with relief as she took hold of my hand and stepped across the threshold.

My path to the palace went through the night bazaar. Our attire fit in well with the many colored canopies and wares on display. Merchants shouted for my attention, but I walked with unmatched determination through the market as though hell itself were on my heels.

I heard music and revelry over the din of the bazaar as we neared the palace walls. A pair of burly guards stood before its arched entryway. A queue of would-be guests waited anxiously along the palace walls. But my command was not to stand in file. We went straight to the front, and our spell of confidence must have taken the guards by surprise, because both stepped aside.

I seized once more inside the palace courtyard. Men and women of various nobility danced in time to exotic music. Velvet and silk swirled in a kaleidoscope of colors. The sheikh watched from a balcony above.

The witch took a moment to assess the guests while the musicians started a new song. Then she took hold of my hand.

“Dance with me. Better than anyone’s ever seen.”

Her spell went into action. It took us a verse to work into the crowd, but we had command of the floor by the second chorus. We dipped and dived and spun like dervishes in a trance. Others stopped to watch. Sheikh Salim leaned hard over the balcony in awe. By the end of the song, he was on ground level and clapping with glee.

“Fabulous,” he said, stepping near. “Such talent. Such beauty.” He looked at the witch with intentions any man could recognize. She curtsied low. Then, to my horror, the witch paid homage by kissing the sovereign’s hand.

Corey’s Story Stack is a reader supported publication. If you liked what you read, please share your support by buying me a coffee.

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Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed my previous story FEVER DREAMS you can find it at the link below.

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Copyright © 2025, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

HELP ME CHOOSE WHICH NOVEL TO SERIALIZE

What follows is the first chapter to my novel The EYES I ONCE HATED. It is one of two novels I am debating on serializing this fall (2025). Whichever excerpt collects the most engagement by the end of September will be the one I publish exclusively to Substack. If you would like to read more of this story, be sure to let me know by liking, commenting and sharing this chapter.

DAK STOOD OVER HIS FATHER’S BODY. The hounds tore at the carcass of the hunted boar and paid no mind to their dead masters in the thicket. The king's dark eyes remained open and stared unflinchingly into the sun. His final unspoken words caught on lips that would never close on their own again. There was no sign of pain or fear on the king's dead face. Dak had never seen fear in his father's eyes. Why would it be in them now in death?

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The boy turned away and wretched. He had not eaten before the hunt, so only water and yellow bile fell to the earth. The acid sting clung to the back of his nose and throat, and his teeth felt fuzzy when he was done. It was not the sight of his father's blood that turned Dak's stomach, but the sudden realization of what also lay in the thicket beside the king: the bodies of five other dead or dying men cooling in the grass.

A cough brought Dak's attention away from the pool of his own vomit. The sound spun him around with the spear from his father's back raised and ready, but he was the only man standing in the thicket. Dak felled each one except for the king. He was in the midst of the hunting party running behind his father when he saw the spear of Ap'kalloo, the king's closest friend and ally, thrown into the monarch's back. Ap'kalloo and the other men on the hunt were too skilled for Dak to think that the throw was unintentional. These were the king's most trusted companions; kings and warriors who had allied themselves with his father and fought and bled alongside the man they betrayed. Four other spears turned on Dak before he fully understood what was happening, but he reacted to their betrayal quicker than they expected.

The men who sought to kill Dak were veterans of the fiercest battles, but the long years of peace under his father's rule made them soft and lulled their spear arms. They rarely trained for combat, whereas Dak's skills were fresh and well-honed. He drilled daily with the spear, and though he was only fourteen, Dak had ten years of untested combat training under his girdle. The fight unfolded like images out of a manual. The courtiers' spears each were true in their aim, but Dak's was faster.

The body that clung to life belonged to Yab-gal, the king's cupbearer. His chest was open to the gods above, but still his dying lungs found a way to take in breath. Dak approached Yab-gal with caution through mud made thick by the blood of six men. He thought he killed cleanly, but if Yab-gal lived, then there might be another lying among the dead still capable of putting up a fight.

The cupbearer coughed again. It was barely a gurgle and indistinguishable from the dogs' tumult over the body of the dead boar. Dak tried to ignore the sounds of the animals tearing into flesh, but his senses were raw from combat and tuned to every stirring in the thicket. If there was anything else left breathing, Dak would hear it. He examined each dead man for signs of life— a rising chest or twitching finger— as he approached the body of Yab-gal. He saw none, and even Yab-gal barely moved.

The bronze tip of Dak's spear came over the dying man. It glinted red in the sun like the angel of death itself. The blood of the king did not run easily from the tip, but congealed into a glistening mess that covered the bronze and some of the wooden shaft. Yab-gal could not turn his head toward the spear-wielding boy. He reached out to where Dak stood, but his arms flailed in the dirt instead. The strength in his body bled into the ground with each fluttering beat of his failing heart.

Dak watched the dying man take in a shallow breath before he drooled out another choking cough. The boy thought that perhaps Yab-gal was attempting to say something, but nothing intelligible was spoken. It was a marvel that the man made any sounds at all. The horrendous wound that opened Yab-gal's chest should have taken his life cleanly. Dak could not fathom how he had inflicted such damage to another human.

Dak had grown up around Yab-gal. The cupbearer was always by his father's side, and the boy knew the man and his family well. Ap'kalloo and the others who tried to kill Dak were vassal kings who governed neighboring lands, but these men were not strangers either. They had been mentors, and some were relatives through marriage. In many ways, the five who accompanied him and his father on his first boar hunt were like family. They each were so quick to aid in grooming Dak as the prince and future ruler of his father's kingdom. The cut from their betrayal went deep, and the spear began to quaver in Dak's hands while he stood in the flood of memories he had with Yab-gal. He recalled the jokes they shared in the great hall, the pranks he pulled on his father's cupbearer, and playing with his son in the cool parts of the day.

His son. Yab-gal had a son. A son named Ku'le. Ku'le was only a little younger than Dak; just a few months from going on his own first boar hunt. But Dak had taken that rite of passage away from his friend. Ku'le and his father would never plan a hunt together. Yab-gal would never see his son again.

The weight of the spear was too much for his grasp, and it fell to the ground. Dak took one step towards Yab-gal and went to his knees while tears poured out from his eyes. He grabbed the hand of his father's cupbearer– his father's betrayer– and held it tight to his chest. Yab-gal still couldn't turn towards Dak, but the timbre of his dying breaths changed. Tears mingled with the man's spittle and blood in which he lay. Something like a whimper came from deep within Yab-gal's throat. His condition forbade him from weeping with regret, but Dak could feel the sorrow in the man's cold, trembling hands.

YAB-GAL’S LIFE LINGERED ABOUT HIS BODY FOR AN HOUR. The dogs were drunk from the boar's blood and drowsy with bellies full of flesh when Dak let go of the man's hand. None of the others around him stirred while he comforted Yab-gal to the veil of death. Their life-strings had been severed cleanly, while the cupbearer's frayed before finally breaking.

Blood and earth clung to the hem of Dak's tunic. Never again would it be the same color as before. Much like Dak's soul, the fabric had been tarnished by violence and stained by death. He examined the garment. It was a fine tunic, tightly woven and embroidered with a pattern that only royalty could afford to wear so casually. He was a fool to wear such good clothing on a hunt. His own father, the king of the richest lands in all the world, girded himself that morning in a simple, threadbare smock. His own father, the king of the richest lands in all the world, had died in a pauper's attire.

Dak tore at the soiled tunic. The fabric refused to yield to his rage and held tight; his hands grasped and slipped away without splitting a single seam. He screamed. It wasn't the cry of a warrior, or even that of a man. His gasping wail sounded more like it came from a baby with an Adam's apple than a boy at the cusp of manhood. He tore at the grass, broke his nails against rocks underneath the soil, and screamed again. Then he wrenched his clothes once more and kicked at the bodies on the ground. Bastards, all of them, he thought. Cowards, too.

UNSEEN BY DAK, a runner from the citadel approached the edge of the thicket with the subtlety of a snake amongst hens. He heard Dak's cries while he was still a long way off, and wondered what manner of tragedy might have befallen the hunting party to warrant such grievous sounds.

The runner had been sent by the queen so that she might hear a report on the hunt's progress. This was an unorthodox request made by her majesty, but the runner was not one to protest against his monarch and did as he was told. The hunters' tracks were easy enough to find: the seven men with the same number of hounds chasing after a wild boar left quite a path; only wood cutters might leave clearer tracks through the trees.

He came upon the thicket and saw Dak first. The boy was no longer screaming, but stood with his face in his hands. Bloody hands. Dak was smeared with blood. It was even thick in his hair, but there was no wound that the runner could see from where the blood might have come. That's when he noticed the others. Six men, including the king, lay dead on the ground. The dogs and the mangled body of a boar were not far off, but the runner knew better than to think that the beast was responsible for such carnage. Nor did his mind leap to conclude that Dak was the one who slaughtered the others. The runner's job was to carry messages, not interpret their meanings. The queen wanted to know how the hunt was progressing. He could now report that the hunt was successful, but also that the king was dead.

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Copyright © 2025, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.

FLAMES BURNED BRIGHT IN THE GREAT STONE OVENS lining the edge of the field. Columns of smoke rose from their chimneys, each hewed long ago from boulders that nature herself placed in a half circle.  The late winter sun cast a burgundy light that made the fires look bigger than they ever could on their own.

Villagers congregated in the center of that half-circle, arms linked at the elbow. While the flames and the waning sun gave everything an ominous tint, hope flowed from person to person, and anxious feet tapped out an arrhythmic beat with no melody. 

A betrothed couple knelt on the ground some distance in front of the crowd. The bride and groom gave their best displays of long-suffering, but their hearts pulsed in time with the tamping of the feet behind them. They trembled with nervous excitement beneath their facades. Tradition kept them separated for several weeks before the ceremony of their union. Tradition n…

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HOLFAST AND OAD PERCHED ON THE WINDOWSILL like two warts on a toad: lumpy, still, and anxious to jump at the first provocation. They watched the father inside the house put his child to sleep, and hoped the boy's fever was high enough to warrant an open window. They needed an open window and a breeze to carry them inside. The breeze was there; it dried the fine mist of sweat off their backs. Now, they just needed an open window to steal away the boy's dreams.

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Oad grunted. The father was taking too long to say goodnight. Didn't he know what ailed the boy was contagious? Didn't he know it was too late once the fever set in? Oad knew. The wind carried him and Holfast in through too many open windows in town for them not to know.

The two (were they Goblins? Fairies? Fantasms?) watched and waited for their chance to enter. Still, the father doted on his dying son in the stifling room. Every minute that passed with the window shut brought them closer to losing the boy's dreams forever.

A child's dreams are precious things. They are irreplaceable, like a grandmother's fine china or a fisherman's good luck charm. They are things worth stealing, and if Holfast and Oad didn't get them first, then—

"He won't open the door in time," a voice whispered as dry and breathless as the grave. The two thieves didn't need to look to know who it was that spoke. It was their rival, if not their superior: the Shadow.

Darkness covered the windowsill as a frigid aura touched Holfast and Oad like the icy hands of a mortician. The embrace was neither threatening nor kind, just there. A natural force as neutral as the sun and rain.

Holfast and Oad often worked under the cover of the Shadow. In many ways, the three were partners in crime: they shuffled away dreams before the Shadow fleeced souls. And the dying boy brought them together for another job.

"I think we'll save these dreams yet," Oad replied.

"You'll have to work fast," breathed the Shadow, "I can feel my fingers slipping into the room."

"Our work is always fast," Holfast said. "The dreams of children are light and loosely tethered."

"Is that why I never meet you two waiting outside the windows of widows? Are the dreams of the old too large for your tiny arms?"

"The dreams of the old are spent up and used," answered Oad. "The dreams of the young are too fresh to waste."

The man inside the house stood. Holfast and Oad coiled like threatened vipers. Death’s shadow loosed its grip on the thieves, but the father did not open the window. Instead, he fetched a moist rag from a basin on the dresser. The only lamp in the room cast long shadows on the back wall above the bed.

"We might lose this one," Holfast admitted.

"No," Oad said, and then he did something that even startled Death. Oad barked like a lame street dog and pawed at the window pane with his taloned hands. The man inside set down the rag. He could not see Holfast and Oad; no mortal could, but he could hear the sounds.

"Cut it out," the man shouted. His sick son did not stir while Holfast joined in the scratching and barking.

"Rah-Rawr," Holfast growled.

"Hey!" the man charged at the window. It didn't open easily; the latch was rusty, and the frame stuck, but he did open it. The gentle breeze floated the two thieves inside like wisps of ash from a chimney. Their barking stopped right away once they landed on the boy's bed. They wasted no time in pilfering his unused aspirations.

A mercurial stream bled out the boy's ears. The dreams were, indeed, unmoored. Holfast and Oad sorted the substance. Some of the silver ribbon they let slip into the ether, some they stashed in satchels slung across their backs.

"There's the dream of riding unicorns," Holfast whispered.

"Aye, it first belonged to the little girl we met last week."

"And this one here with the frogs came from the cobbler's child?"

"The very same," Oad said with a heavy sigh. "So many recycled dreams. Too few are being minted new."

"Look at this one," Holfast said. "It's the little boy, and he's fishing for sea monsters."

"Sea monsters? Is it a nightmare?"

"No," Holfast grinned. "He's happy. He's laughing beside his father."

"Take it quick," Oad said. He saw tendrils of dark mist edge around the bedposts. The Shadow making its way.

"And this one," Oad looked and caught another new dream. "He is extinguishing flames with a water cannon."

"Sea monsters and fire! Brave dreams indeed."

"What's that?" The man at the window heard Holfast's remark and turned to his son. He rushed to the bedside. The burglars cowered despite their invisibility.

"What did you say, son?" The father’s hands were work-scarred but caressed his boy as gently as a feather duster.

"There's something on me," the boy said to everyone's astonishment. Even the Shadow seemed to halt its progress. "I think they're taking my dreams."

Oad glanced at Holfast. In all their time as thieves, detection never occurred.

"Taking your dreams?"

"What will they do with them, Papa?" The boy's voice trailed off. His eyes, which hadn’t opened, squeezed tight.

“It’s just a fever dream.” The man brushed away sweat from his son's brow, and another ribbon slipped out of the boy's left ear. It was a dream of a knight walking into a dragon's lair. The beast was unseen, and the cave mouth looked terrifying. The knight—an image of the boy in shining armor—held his sword and shield with determination. A dream worth saving, if there ever was one. Holfast grasped it by the tail and brought it down into his knapsack just before the wind blew out the lamp, the only light in the room.

Corey’s Story Stack is a reader supported publication. If you liked what you read, please share your support by buying me a coffee.

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Short stories are published on a monthly basis. If you missed last month’s story THE EYES I ONCE HATED you can find it at the link below.

Read THE EYES I ONCE HATED

Copyright © 2025, Corey D. Evans. All rights reserved.