Fifth Lord

Chapter 4

"There will be rules for your time in my estate," Lady Dimitrescu stated with regal countenance, her long strides followed by the rustling of feathers and cloth as Corvus' slight frame attempted to keep pace. The click of black talons against the stone path was muted by the snow coating the ground.

The snow muted not just the rasping of sharp to stone, but the natural sounds of the forest. Every noise that persisted was left in loneliness before being consumed once more.

The thing in her chest roiled at the thought of such consumption, pushing between meat and organ to thread through her rib cage.

"First, those who escape from the dungeons should be brought to me and me alone. If they cannot be brought to me then they should be killed or held until they can be brought to me."

Animal eyes in dead human skulls prowled from the tree line, the feeling of being watched caused the thing in her chest to thrash and tear. Her hands twitching to feel the thick oily blood between her claws, maggot feasted meat between her teeth sating the beast in her stomach.

The cold voice of the lady shook her from her reverie, the snap of bone and tissue were softer than the clutch of her claws. "Secondly you must not stray from the castle grounds. The farther you go from the castle the more likely you are to encounter..."

The unnatural groans scraped across the ground, across decomposing vocal cords. Starting low, the crunching of snow and gravel under foot that previously hid the mass of decaying bodies that roamed the trees was no longer able to mask the rasping of metal against brittling bones.

A rotting gray thing broke from the tree line. its humanoid form was distended, limbs disjointed and long as its skin stretched over what should not be.

It no longer had a face.

What should have been its face was stretched, its jaws snapping forward forming a gaping, festering maw housing bleeding flesh. Gnarled teeth jutting out through graying meat, caked in marrow and stain.

It screamed, the still functioning lungs of it visible through the bleeding gash of its vivisected sternum. Ribs were cracked and pulled from home, what should have been life dripped from the splinters a black, oily, pulsing mess that tarred the snow. The only thing keeping its macerated organs from joining it were strips of gauze sewn through holes in chewed skin.

It kept screaming even after clawed hands reached into its core and tore the rest of its decaying insides out.

Even after its lungs were punctured and the vitriol of its body had run dry

It stopped screaming when its throat was crushed, body left behind, left to be eaten by the rest.

"There are those that roam these woods, things that are not my own," The sound of tearing was wet and tearing against the cold of Lady Dimitrescu, "Nor are they my families. They have been left to fester, live, and die out in the forest." Corvus felt the pain of unnatural hunger in her chest, the thing within her screaming to be fed, screaming at the loss of its rotting meal.

She was broken from her reverie by the large glove on her shoulder, "I will not be responsible for loosing you to them." There was something in her face that would have made Corvus' stomach roll if it could. It was fear, or it might have been before it was hidden under disdain and was that worry?

It was gone as quickly as it came, the hand on her shoulder heavy and pulling Corvus up to face her as she loomed. "The most important is to never open any windows during the winter cold," yellow eyes pierced her through to the empty cavern in her chest, "My daughters cannot stand it, look at me, my daughters will die and if this happens my wrath will be the last thing you feel as I rend your flesh from your bones regardless of Mother's wishes."

She was dropped back onto the snow with a soft thud, hidden pebbles digging into her soft flesh. Corvus shivered, unable to blame it on the cold.