THE STARVED AND THE SILENT
(A Tale of Rylen Vale, the Wandering Blade)
----------------------------------------
The air smelled of rain, though the storm had long passed. Puddles dotted the dirt road, reflecting the dull glow of lanterns from the village ahead. Rylen adjusted his cloak, shaking the dampness from his shoulders as he approached the wooden gate of Hallowmere, a small settlement on the border of nowhere.
Two guards stood at their post, spears crossed in front of the entrance. One was young—barely more than a boy—while the other had the tired eyes of a man who had seen too much and cared too little.
"State your business," the older one said, barely glancing at Rylen’s sword.
"A warm bed, a cold drink, and a place where no one asks too many questions," Rylen answered, voice dry.
The younger guard hesitated. "You’re a mercenary?"
Rylen smirked. "I prefer 'sellsword.' Sounds more dignified."
The old guard grunted. "So long as you keep your blade sheathed, we won’t have a problem."
"Then we won’t have a problem," Rylen said, stepping past them.
---
The Willow’s Rest Inn was quiet, the kind of place where men drank to forget rather than to celebrate. A fire crackled in the hearth, its warmth barely reaching the corners of the room.
Rylen ordered a drink and found a seat at a worn wooden table. He was halfway through his cup when he noticed the girl watching him.
She sat by the fire, small and pale, her dark eyes fixed on him with unsettling intensity. She couldn’t have been older than twelve. She didn’t flinch when he met her gaze.
"You're a swordsman," she said, more statement than question.
Rylen took another sip. "So they tell me."
"They also say you're not a knight."
He chuckled. "That, too, is true."
She hesitated, fingers gripping the edge of her cloak. "I need your help."
Rylen sighed, setting down his cup. He could already see where this was going. "Do you now? And what kind of help does a girl like you need from a man like me?"
She leaned forward, voice barely above a whisper.
"I need you to kill a monster."
---
They walked through the village streets, past shuttered windows and doors bolted tight. The girl—Mira, she called herself—led him toward the edge of town, where the houses thinned and the forest loomed.
"Tell me about this monster," Rylen said, keeping his tone casual.
Mira glanced at him. "You don’t believe me."
"I believe a lot of things," he said. "But it helps to know what I’m dealing with. Bandits? Wolves? A man who hits harder than he should?"
She shook her head. "A real monster. One with claws and teeth, one that comes at night and takes people. My brother—he’s gone. And no one will help me."
Rylen frowned. The world had its share of beasts, but more often than not, the real monsters walked on two legs.
Still, there was something in the way she said it.
"Show me where he was taken," he said.
She did.
And by dawn, Rylen would know this was no story.
This was something real.
Something waiting in the dark.
And it had left a trail.
---
The day had settled heavily over Hallowmere. The village was small, its houses huddled close together like sheep warding off an unseen predator. The wind was restless, whispering through the trees beyond the farmlands, carrying the distant scent of damp earth and dying leaves.
Rylen Vale sat in a quiet corner of The Willow’s Rest Inn, nursing a drink that had long gone warm. The inn was lively but subdued, the kind of place where people talked just enough to drown out their own unease.
Mira sat across from him, her small hands clasped together on the table, gaze sharp despite her age.
"You don’t believe me," she said.
Rylen tilted his head, considering. "I believe something’s taking people. I believe you’re afraid. But a monster? That’s something else entirely."
Her fingers tightened. "My brother didn’t just vanish. I heard him. He was screaming."
That was harder to dismiss.
He leaned forward slightly. "Who else has gone missing?"
She hesitated. "Henrik Talver. The blacksmith, Lorran. Elda, the widow. And… maybe more."
Rylen glanced toward the bar, where the innkeeper poured a drink for a man with gray-flecked hair and a face worn from too many harvests.
"Do people talk about it?" Rylen asked.
Mira shook her head. "Not really. Some think it’s wolves. Some say it’s just… bad luck."
"That many people gone, and no one thinks it’s strange?"
She looked toward the fire. "Maybe they don’t want to."
That was enough to keep Rylen at the table.
---
Later that afternoon, Rylen walked the village streets, tracing the edges of its quiet misfortunes.
Henrik Talver’s home still stood as he’d left it—door ajar, belongings untouched. No one had boarded it up. No one had taken his things. No one had even spoken his name.
That was odd.
Disappearances left ripples. In a village this size, even a single loss should have left a mark—people talking, families grieving, signs of distress. But here, there was nothing. No mourning, no speculation, just an absence that people accepted too easily.
He stopped by a shopfront where an old woman arranged herbs on a wooden table.
Rylen picked up a bundle of dried sage. "How long was Henrik missing before anyone noticed?"
The woman glanced at him, then back at her work. "Few days, maybe. He traveled sometimes. Thought maybe he left on business."
"But he didn’t," Rylen said.
"No," she admitted. "Not this time."
He watched her for a moment. There was no fear in her voice, no paranoia. Just resignation.
"Bad luck," she muttered. "Nothing more."
But bad luck didn’t drag men from their beds in the dead of night.
---
Rylen found himself at the village well, staring at the worn stone lip where moss crept in the cracks. Mira had followed him, watching from a few paces away, wary but expectant.
"Your brother," Rylen said. "Where did he disappear?"
She hesitated, then pointed toward a narrow alley between the blacksmith’s old workshop and a storage shed.
"He was fetching water late at night," she said quietly. "I heard him call my name. When I came out… he was gone."
Rylen walked to the well, resting his hand on the stone. His fingers traced faint grooves—claw marks? Scratches? Something else?
Then he noticed something else. A house, directly across from the well.
"Who lives there?"
Mira hesitated. "Elda."
"The widow who disappeared."
She nodded.
Rylen exhaled slowly.
Henrik, the merchant.
Lorran, the blacksmith.
Elda, the widow.
And now Mira’s brother.
Were they random?
Or was someone—or something—choosing.
---
The sun hung low by the time Rylen made his way to the village chapel.
It was small, unadorned, more a place of gathering than true worship. He found the priest, Father Serren, tending to an old wooden altar, polishing the worn surface with slow, deliberate strokes.
"You’re the sellsword," Serren said without turning.
"You’re the priest," Rylen replied.
The man chuckled softly. He was older, with the calm, measured presence of someone who had seen more than his share of grief.
Rylen leaned against a nearby beam. "You’ve lost some of your flock, Father."
Serren stilled for a fraction of a second before resuming his work. "A village loses many things. Time, crops, people. It’s the way of the world."
Rylen studied him. "And yet, some losses weigh heavier than others."
The priest sighed, setting the cloth down. "What is it you really want to know?"
Rylen crossed his arms. "Why doesn’t the village mourn the missing?"
For the first time, the priest met his gaze. There was something tired in his eyes.
"Because it’s easier not to," Serren said.
Rylen waited.
The priest exhaled, looking toward the doorway. "It is not fear that keeps people quiet, sellsword. It is guilt. Not shared by all, but by enough."
What was that supposed to mean?
But before Rylen could press further, a scream tore through the village.
Mira.
---
Rylen ran.
The wind carried the sound of wood splintering, something heavy crashing against walls. A few villagers stepped outside, startled, but none rushed forward.
Mira’s scream had torn through the village like a blade, but by the time Rylen reached her home, the door was already hanging off its hinges, broken inward. The inside was chaos—furniture overturned, deep scratches in the floor and walls, the scent of cold sweat lingering in the air.
The villagers barely stepped outside. They stood in doorways, hushed, unmoving.
Not again, Rylen thought bitterly. Not this time.
Then he saw the marks on the floor—dragged footprints, too large for a child, too uneven for a man.
The thing had come for her.
And it had left a trail.
The tracks led straight into the woods, and he followed—cloak whipping behind him, sword drawn.
Rylen’s fingers tightened around his sword hilt. The time for questions was over.
Now, he hunted.
---
The wind howled through the trees, a hollow sound carrying the scent of damp earth and rot. Rylen ran.
The trail was easy to follow—too easy. Footsteps dragged unevenly across the damp forest floor, twisting between thick roots and low-hanging branches. And with them, deep grooves where something heavy had been pulled.
The creature was not hiding.
---
The deeper he went, the colder it became. Not the clean cold of a winter morning, but the lifeless, empty cold of a body wasting away. The trees loomed closer, their gnarled branches reaching like skeletal fingers, enclosing him in a prison of black bark and dead leaves.
Then he saw it.
---
It stood in the clearing, Mira and her brother in its arms.
Not clutching them like prey. Not dragging them like a mindless beast. Holding them.
Its thin limbs wrapped around them, its gaunt frame caved inward, pressing its hollow stomach against their small bodies.
Mira whimpered. Her brother was frozen, eyes wide, breath shallow.
The thing did not react at first. It only swayed slightly, its head tilting, empty eyes locked on something distant.
Then it whispered.
"Cold. Hungry. Alone."
The words seeped into the air, soft as a breath, brittle as dead leaves crumbling in the wind.
"Not alone anymore."
---
"IT REMEMBERS!"
The voice came from the edge of the clearing—shrill, shaking.
Elda, the widow. She was still alive.
She knelt in the dirt, fingers tangled in the roots, rocking back and forth as she muttered to herself. Her eyes were wide, not with fear—but with recognition.
"It remembers! It remembers what we did!"
It did not turn to her.
Rylen barely spared her a glance. His focus was on the creature—on the way its claws trembled against Mira's back, uncertain.
"The woods don’t take them. The woods don’t let them die!" Elda wailed.
Rylen took a slow step forward, sword raised. The gaunt figure still did not react.
"We thought the cold would take him! We thought the earth would bury him! But the woods don’t forget. The woods DON’T FORGET!"
Elda clawed at her own arms, nails tearing into her flesh, her breath ragged.
"The lost don’t stay lost!" she shrieked. "THEY COME BACK!"
She lifted her gaze, her voice dropping to a hoarse whisper.
"The Lostling."
---
The moment the word left her lips, it stopped swaying.
Its head snapped toward her—too fast, too sharp, as if something inside its bones had broken.
For the first time, it acknowledged her.
Elda froze. Her mouth hung open, eyes flicking wildly between Rylen and the creature. She had spent years trying to forget. Now, the thing she tried to erase was staring back at her.
For a breath, nothing moved.
Then the Lostling let go of Mira.
And it leapt.
Elda barely had time to scream.
It crashed into her, all brittle limbs and sunken hunger, fingers clawing deep into her flesh. The weight of it sent her sprawling backward, dirt kicking up as she struggled, thrashing.
"NO! NO—!"
The Lostling didn’t whisper this time. It shrieked.
The sound was raw, jagged, torn from something that never learned how to scream properly.
Then came the wet tearing sound.
Elda convulsed, her body jerking unnaturally as the creature’s claws sank deep into her stomach. Not slicing—ripping.
Blood sprayed across the dirt.
Her scream gurgled into nothing as her insides spilled out, intestines slapping against the earth in thick coils, steaming in the cold air.
The Lostling hunched over her, pulling, tearing, its bony hands slipping through the gore as if searching for something.
Elda’s hands twitched weakly, grasping at nothing.
Her mouth still moved. No sound came.
Then the Lostling wrenched its fingers deep into her chest—and pulled.
Bones cracked. Ribs snapped apart.
And Elda was gone.
---
Silence.
Rylen could still hear the wet sounds of something shifting, something sliding where flesh should not move.
Mira sobbed, half-collapsed in the dirt, blood splattered across her cheeks.
Her brother didn’t move.
The Lostling rose slowly, hollow belly streaked with red.
It turned back toward the children.
"Not alone anymore."
Rylen raised his sword.
The Lostling twitched toward him, blackened nails curling, stomach quivering like a gaping wound.
And then—
It lunged.
Rylen swung his blade.
---
The sword cut deep.
Rylen felt it land true, slicing clean across the creature’s ribs, parting flesh that felt too dry, too brittle beneath the blade. The strike would have staggered a man, dropped most beasts.
The Lostling didn’t even flinch.
It moved—not like a fighter, not like a thing that even understood pain. One moment it was still, swaying slightly, the next it was inside his guard, too fast, too wrong.
Rylen barely twisted in time, but the claws raked his side. He felt the fabric of his cloak shred, then the sharp, tearing heat of flesh splitting beneath it.
He staggered back, gritting his teeth, one hand pressing against the wound. The cold set in immediately.
Not the bite of winter, but something deeper, unnatural.
The Lostling’s head tilted as if watching him, but it had no expression, no eyes that he could read. Its fingers curled, and then it lunged again.
---
Rylen was fast, but the Lostling was faster. He ducked the first swipe, barely twisted away from the second—but the third caught him across the arm.
Another burning slash of pain. Another wave of that deep, unnatural cold.
He wasn’t going to last.
This wasn’t a man. This wasn’t even a beast. It was something else.
His mind scrambled for anything—anything from the old stories.
Salt? No good.
A name? He didn’t have one.
Fire?
Fire might work.
But he had no fire.
What he did have—was oil.
---
He moved on instinct, reaching for the small flask at his belt. He had only a moment to act before the Lostling struck again.
He threw.
The oil sailed through the air—but his throw was off.
Instead of breaking across the Lostling’s body, the flask plunged straight through the hollow cavity of its stomach.
For the first time, the Lostling reacted.
It froze.
Its head jerked downward, as if trying to process what had happened. Its thin fingers twitched—then dug into its own stomach, clawing, grasping at the object inside.
Glass cracked. The flask shattered.
---
A wet, sickly sound filled the air as oil leaked into the thing’s hollow insides.
The Lostling staggered. Convulsed.
Then came a sound Rylen didn’t expect.
A dry, hollow retching. A thin, choked wheeze.
Then—a whisper.
"Not food."
It never rejected anything before. Never hesitated. Never reacted to pain.
But now—it didn’t know what to do.
Its fingers scratched, tore, dug deep into itself. As if trying to claw out what had no place inside. As if trying to purge something it had never felt before.
And then, it wailed.
The sound was not like an animal, nor a man. It was high, sharp, and wrong.
And it was coming for him.
---
The Lostling lunged, erratic, spasming.
Rylen had seconds to act.
It grabbed him.
He felt the cold spread through him—not just through his wounds, but through his very bones.
The hollow stomach pressed against his chest, still dripping oil, still convulsing.
His fingers tightened around his sword hilt.
This was it.
With his free hand, he struck steel against steel.
A spark flew.
The world ignited.
---
Fire exploded from the creature’s hollow stomach, bursting outward like a second mouth yawning open.
The Lostling shrieked— not like a beast in pain, but like something reliving a nightmare.
It thrashed, convulsing, its limbs twitching violently as flames climbed its skeletal frame.
It wasn’t just burning.
The cold. The hunger. The moment before it became this thing.
The fire spread fast—too fast.
Rylen barely tore himself away, hitting the dirt, rolling to smother the flames now licking at his own arms, his own cloak. The smell of burning flesh filled his nose—his, the Lostling’s, everything.
The thing collapsed.
And as the fire consumed it, it whispered one last time.
"Still hungry."
"Still cold."
"Mama?"
The flames roared.
And then—silence.
---
The fire crackled, but the screams were gone.
Rylen tried to push himself up, but his arms wouldn’t move.
His breath was ragged. His burns screamed louder than his thoughts.
His vision blurred.
Mira was somewhere nearby, sobbing. Her brother was too stunned to speak.
The village? He didn’t know.
All he knew was pain, smoke, and the fading memory of something that once whispered, “Not food.”
The ground rushed up to meet him.
And everything went dark.
---
Pain found him first.
Not the sharp, searing kind of a fresh wound—but the deep, aching kind that settled into the bones, the kind that meant he had survived something he probably shouldn’t have.
Rylen’s body felt heavy. His arms, his chest—bandaged, stiff, raw. He could feel the heat of healing burns beneath the linen wrappings, the dull throb of torn flesh along his ribs.
His throat was dry. The air smelled of smoke, old incense, and sickness.
He wasn’t outside.
He wasn’t dead.
Slowly, his senses sharpened.
The ceiling above him was wooden, darkened with age. A simple cot beneath his back. A room too small to be an inn, too quiet to be a house.
A chapel.
He was in the village chapel.
And he was not alone.
---
A chair scraped against the wooden floor.
Rylen turned his head, sluggish, vision still hazy from pain and exhaustion.
An older man sat beside him, dressed in simple robes—a priest, by the look of him, though the weariness in his face was anything but holy.
Father Serren.
Rylen didn’t know the name, but he knew the type. A man who had seen too much. A man who carried the weight of things left unsaid.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the priest exhaled, slow and heavy.
"You should be dead."
---
Rylen’s throat was too dry to respond. He shifted, feeling the pull of bandages, the bite of pain in every muscle.
The priest watched him. Not with kindness. Not with gratitude. With something closer to… calculation.
"Fire alone would not have killed it."
The words cut through the silence like a knife.
Rylen blinked. His mind was still sluggish, but the priest’s tone—flat, certain, sharp—made something cold settle in his gut.
"I saw it burn," Rylen rasped, voice rough. "It died."
Father Serren shook his head. "No. It died because something else happened. Something you don’t understand."
Rylen’s fingers twitched against the blanket.
He remembered.
The fight. The oil flask landing inside its hollow belly instead of breaking across its body.
The way it froze—like something had gone terribly, horribly wrong.
The way it clawed at itself, twitching, spasming, making a sound like dry retching.
The whisper.
"Not food."
---
"Fire hurts them," the priest said. "But it does not end them. You got lucky."
Rylen swallowed against the dryness in his throat.
"Lucky?"
Father Serren nodded. "It wasn’t the burning that killed it. It was the breaking."
Rylen frowned. His mind felt slow, heavy, but he tried to follow.
"What are you saying?"
The priest leaned forward, elbows on his knees, expression unreadable.
"You threw oil at it, but it went inside. The glass broke inside its hollow belly."
The memory surfaced—the sharp crack of glass, the way the Lostling convulsed as the oil spilled into the empty space where a stomach should have been.
"It was not fire that killed it," the priest said quietly. "It was the first time it ever rejected something."
A slow, creeping feeling crawled up Rylen’s spine.
"It could take people," the priest continued. "It could take children, drag them away, make more of itself. But for the first time, something was forced inside it that it could not use."
That was why it had choked. That was why it had tried to claw it out.
The Lostling wasn’t just burning—it was rejecting.
"That broke the cycle," the priest murmured. "That made it weak enough to die."
He let the words hang in the air before adding, almost absently, "A miracle… or a mistake."
---
Rylen exhaled sharply, pain lacing through his ribs. He shifted on the cot, ignoring the burn of raw skin, his voice rough but steady.
"The old widow."
The priest didn’t react at first.
"She knew."
Serren’s expression darkened. His fingers tightened slightly against his knee.
Rylen pushed on.
"She called it by a name. The Lostling."
This time, Serren reacted. A slow inhale. A flicker of something in his eyes—not surprise. Resignation.
That’s when Rylen understood.
"You already knew."
Serren didn’t deny it. He just exhaled. Long. Tired.
"Then tell me why."
The priest hesitated.
Then, finally—he spoke.
"Because she was right."
And at last, the past was remembered.
---
“She told me under confession,” Father Serren said.
His voice was quiet, steady. Not hesitant, not regretful. Simply stating a fact, as though it were nothing more than the turn of the seasons, the coming of rain.
Rylen sat up carefully, his body resisting the movement, every inch of him aching. He felt like a corpse someone had mistaken for a man still breathing. His ribs ached, his burns stung. The scent of herbs, wax, and drying blood clung to the chapel’s air.
Across from him, Father Serren did not move.
The priest was still, hands clasped in his lap, his gaze distant.
He looked like a man who had seen the inevitable arrive and had simply decided to greet it.
Rylen exhaled slowly, feeling the pain coil in his chest.
"Elda."
Serren inclined his head slightly.
"She told me what she knew. Long ago. Under the seal of confession."
A pause. A flicker of candlelight against the chapel’s stone walls.
"She asked me if God would forgive her."
Rylen’s jaw tightened.
"For what?"
The priest’s lips pressed together. He lifted his gaze then, meeting Rylen’s with something unreadable in his eyes.
"For surviving."
---
The chair creaked as Serren shifted, slow and deliberate. He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his lined face.
"You asked what a Lostling is," he murmured.
"A monster," Rylen said flatly.
Serren did not react.
"No," the priest said. "A monster is something unnatural. Something that should not exist. Something made of wickedness, or magic, or the will of cruel gods."
He let out a slow breath.
"A Lostling is none of those things."
Rylen frowned.
"Then what is it?"
"It is hunger."
"That thing—it wasn’t starving," Serren continued. "It was starvation. It was the moment before the end, stretched too long. A suffering so great that it refused to die."
"You’ve seen the way corpses shrivel when they go too long without food?"
Rylen nodded once.
"Now imagine if the body died, but the hunger remained."
---
"There was a winter," Serren said.
"Long ago. Before your time. Before mine."
His voice was quiet. Flat. Not the voice of a man unburdening himself, but of a man who had told this story many times in his own head and had never dared to speak it aloud.
"The snows came early. Crops died in the frost. The herds thinned."
"People starved."
He folded his hands together.
"The village made a decision. A cruel one. A necessary one, they thought."
Rylen said nothing.
"They took the weakest. The ones who would not last the season. They led them to the woods, told them to wait, that food would come. And then they left them there."
"To die?" Rylen’s voice was cold.
"Yes."
The candle burned lower.
"And when the thaw came," Serren continued, "the village survived."
"And the ones in the woods?"
The priest’s mouth tightened.
"They did not die."
---
"The snows melted. The rivers swelled. And one night, the first one came back."
Rylen’s fingers curled slightly against the blanket.
"Not the same," Serren murmured. "Not whole. Not living, but not dead. Just… hollow. Empty. Hungry."
"It took the first child in the night. No one saw. No one heard. Only found the bed empty the next morning, the doors left open to the cold."
"Then another. And another."
"It did not kill them."
Rylen exhaled through his nose, his jaw tight.
"It made them like itself."
The priest nodded.
"Not alive. Not dead. Just wandering. Waiting."
"The village drove them away. Hunted them when they could."
"But Lostlings do not die so easily."
"So instead, the village made a new decision."
"They stopped speaking of them."
"They let the woods take them back."
"They buried the past under silence, and the years went on."
---
"But hunger does not forget."
"It waits. It lingers. And when the time is right, it returns."
"That thing you killed," Serren said. "It was not the first."
"And it will not be the last."
---
Silence stretched between them.
Rylen sat rigid, his mind turning over the words, the images they conjured.
"Why tell me this?" he asked finally.
Serren exhaled.
"Because Elda wanted the truth to be known."
"And because you have seen it. You have touched it. You have survived it."
He looked at Rylen then, eyes dark, calculating in a way that made the swordsman uneasy.
"And because I do not know if that was a good thing."
---
The chapel door groaned on rusted hinges as Rylen pushed it open.
The morning was grey, the sky still heavy with the weight of last night’s fire. The air carried the lingering scent of ash and damp earth, the kind that clung to old bones and fading memories.
He stepped out slowly, testing his footing. His body ached—burns pulling, ribs tight with pain—but it was nothing new. Pain was an old companion, familiar as an empty road.
The village was waiting.
Not all of them, but enough. A few figures clustered near the square, eyes cautious, unreadable. Some cast uneasy glances toward him, others looked away, as if avoiding the gaze of a man walking away from something they could no longer see.
They were waiting for him to say something.
Or perhaps, they were just waiting for him to leave.
---
Mira stood among them, arms wrapped tight around herself. She was the only one who looked at him properly. The only one who didn’t seem afraid.
Her brother stood beside her, thin and pale, eyes sunken with sleeplessness. He had seen too much. He would never unsee it.
Then, from somewhere in the small gathering, a voice.
"Thank you."
Quiet. Hesitant. A phrase spoken more out of obligation than true gratitude.
It was all it took.
Another voice followed. Then another.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The words carried no weight. They were not relief for lives saved, nor gratitude for justice done.
They were the words of people who wished to be done with it all.
Rylen stood there, cloak loose over his shoulders, watching them in silence.
Then, slowly, he glanced back toward the chapel, where the light of a single candle still burned behind the half-open door.
Serren had not followed him out. But he was watching.
Always watching.
---
Rylen adjusted his cloak, shaking off the stiffness in his limbs.
"Don’t thank me," he said. His voice was even. Flat.
He fastened the clasp, adjusting the weight of the fabric over his shoulders.
"Thank the cold."
A pause.
"It did half the work for you."
Silence.
Mira’s fingers curled slightly at her sides, but she said nothing.
Serren did not move.
No one did.
Rylen turned, stepping past them without another word.
No one stopped him.
No one called after him.
No one dared.
And by the time the village finally moved again, the swordsman had already vanished down the road.
---
End of Story.
---