Villainous [Wattys 2021 Shortlist]

32: Nightflower

Delilah emerged into what looked like an ancient, mud-drenched battlefield. She greedily sucked in oxygen: the air wasn't so thin here. Wherever here was.

Kaya and Nell collided with her back.

"Watch it!" Her voice seemed to echo unnaturally.

The whites of Nell's eyes were huge.

Delilah turned to see that the archway looked exactly the same in the Spectral Realm, like a normal stone structure. Slimy, cold mud made her feet slide as she took a few steps into the in-between.

The living were not meant to be here, nor was the dead. This was for the trapped souls.

"Why did Dante come here?" Kaya whispered.

"Doesn't matter right now. Do you see any flowers?" Delilah scanned the landscape. Greenish smoke hung low over everything, but Delilah couldn't smell it. Heaps of decaying armour, rusted weapons, soiled banners and snapped spears stuck out of the mud everywhere - the bodies were either buried so completely that she couldn't see them, or they had... moved on from their resting place.

A few grey clumps of grass had managed to grow in patches, but there was no other plant, not even a weed.

"Is this a real battlefield?" Nell asked. "Where are the flies?"

"Real and yet not," Delilah muttered. "Come on. Let's start searching. If something moves, stab it immediately and do not let it touch you."

"Yes, Princess."

They rested hands on their sword hilts and began to trudge through the ancient field.

Delilah's senses were on high alert. She expected every lump, every tussock of grass, to explode into movement; rotting hands to reach out of the ground and claw her down...

"I don't think time exists here," Kaya said suddenly. "There's no sky, only smoke. So we won't know when dawn is approaching."

Delilah hadn't thought of that, and icy fear flooded her. Her arm tingled horribly. "Then we need to move fast."

They scanned for flowers, going even as far as to comb through grass in case they found any tiny, unassuming things. But there was nothing, and the field of fallen soldiers did not seem to have an end in sight.

"Did Dante say they attacked him?" Nell whispered. "This isn't right - it's too quiet."

"Why was he in here in the first place?" Kaya added.

"I don't care!" Delilah kicked a rusty helmet and shrieked as pain exploded in her toes. "I just - want to survive to see the morning." She sank to her knees with a groan, hoping she hadn't just broken all her toes.

Nell just sighed and strode past her to keep looking. "I advised shoes."

"What's that, over there?" Kaya called suddenly, pointing. Delilah spotted a circle clear of debris in the distance.

"Help me up," she grunted to Nell, and they made a beeline for it.

Kaya gasped in delight as they drew closer and found it full of little white flowers. They started clawing up handfuls of them, and Delilah made to stuff one in her mouth when Nell caught her arm.

"Wait. They might be poisonous if you ingest them like that. We should get back to Dante and ask how to prepare them."

Delilah scowled, but Nell's words made sense.

Kaya suddenly swore loudly, and they swivelled around to see armoured bodies moving in the distance. Turning slowly, Delilah spotted patches where the corpses were stumbling to their feet.