Mercy of the Road by Ally Bodnaruk

Mercy of the Road

Mercy of the Road is a short story from Volume 2 in Tales From Netherün, a free fantasy e-zine from Quill & Read.

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She came with the night upon a swift horse; Mercy of the Road.

Asphodel awoke at the sound of muffled hoof beats. Her heart leapt in her chest. Harvest's wind drew cool fingers down her spine and she shivered as she wriggled out from under her blanket. She knew who was waiting now beyond the wagon and in her knowing her stomach twisted. She stumbled upright and out of the wagon, leaving the driver and other passengers to their gentle dreams. She wrapped her shawl tight around her thin shoulders and pushed her hair–thin and brown like dried grass stems–behind her ears. She looked older than her meager years, haggard in the way only open sun and blighted elements could bring. Her body quavered, wracked with the desire to return to sleep and escape the nightmare before her.

The sky was clear and the moon was full, so the ink-black horse that stomped and whinnied in the middle of the road was easily seen. It's rider was not.

Mercy of the Road was a shroud; ashe-like; insubstantial. Mercy was a gloom-filled monster, who lurked along the way preying on the downtrodden, the lost and looking, the wanderers who had a want in their heart. Mercy would make promises, and you believed them, if you didn't know better.

Asphodel knew better. Her brother hadn't.

'Why do you call on me?' She clutched her shawl, hoping her fingers didn't visibly shake.

'Why do I ever call on you, Flower of Mourning?' Mercy rasped. 'There is a debt. It must be paid.'

The horse moved closer and the figure's cowl fell away. A viscous, black substance leaked from empty eye sockets and dripped down Mercy's face towards her cruelly-curled mouth where it stuck to her needle-thin teeth. Out of the robes sleeves crept snow-white hands, more bone than flesh, tipped in talons. It took every measure of Asphodel's resolve not to shrink like a frightened child, yet still she felt Mercy's amusement at her terror.

Mercy held out a glass ampoule to Asphodel. The vial was closed at both ends with a thin neck two-thirds of the way down, where it would have been broken to release the tincture inside if it were not empty.

Asphodel had first seen such vials in her apprenticeship—before her brother's debt; before his death. Her mentor at the Gardens had used them for concoctions that were too precious to leave unsealed. A tool for wealthy herbalists, not for a road-wearied root-cutter. But Mercy didn't care what Asphodel was. All Mercy of the Road cared for was the debt.

Mercy's ampoule was a store—Mercy had hundreds of them. They were a way of transporting nether beyond the influence of a wellspring–the only way as far as Asphodel could glean.

'It must be refilled at the Keystone wellspring.' Mercy loomed through the ominous pause. 'And then the debt will be done.'

Asphodel drew in a quick breath. An end to her servitude. Her heart trembled. Freedom; too late for her brother but soon enough for her. Nether-work was wily as a fox, but during her time paying her brother's debt to Mercy, Asphodel had learnt to be wilier.

Unbidden, the atonal tune Mercy had taught her to summon nether flitted through her mind, and she hummed it without thinking.

Carry black tidings, over the heath.

But be careful to shroud your load.

Carry black tidings and brew them beneath,

If you look for the wraith of the road.