The Nameless: A Writing Practice

The putrid stench of rotting flesh and odium hung over the bloodstained battlefield piled with corpses, but I could not smell it. The cries for loved ones discovered with bodies mangled and eyes lifeless still rang out on occasion, but I could not hear it. The shadows of the shrouds, hungry for corpses, danced along the ground, but I could not see them. All my senses remained transfixed on the body before me.
I could not bring myself to move him, to bury him. I just…couldn’t. 
The shell of the soul I had loved so deeply was void of any familiarity. The arms that held me in the night when the shadows of the past attacked were shredded down to the bone, muscles peeled away in every direction. The chest I had buried my head into the night battle with anxious tears was now an open cavity seeping with oily onyx odium. And his wonderful, handsome face that I had caressed and kissed every day for the last five years…gone. Ripped away, like the rest of my soul. There would be no green pastures for him, for us. No afterworld of peace. Only void.
Perhaps that was what I could give him. 
Accepting that thought, I summoned a flame in my hand. Better this than to be pecked apart further by the monstrous vog-birds who flew overhead. Tears streaming down my face, I gently placed it into the hole where his heart had once been. I backed away, watching as the remains of my love transformed into ash and smoke. I tried to sing the Song of Farewell, but my throat, raw from screaming his name—his real name. The one only I knew— locked up. Instead, I stood in silence, slipping into nothingness as my everything disappeared before my eyes.
As the body disintegrated, my senses returned. First came the smell. The smell of his burning flesh mixed with the volatile stench of refuse that made me dare not inspect the underside of my boots to see if it was splattered with more than just mud. The shrouds carried their distinct sulfuric odor that blanketed the battlefield as they landed to feast on the unclaimed corpses.
A woman shrieked as one alighted onto the body of her loved one. I jolted at the sudden return of my hearing. I watched as she fell back, pleading with the deaf creature as its six inch claws shredded the dead man’s muscles before devouring it with its four-foot beak. Even at this distance, I could see the distinct riftmarks hiding beneath the blood that covered her face. Tears pouring like a rainstorm, she reached for her lover.
Snap!
The shroud’s beak clamped down on the woman’s torso and ripped it from her body. Her hips crashed to the ground, her legs falling in opposite directions. Bile bubbled in the back of my throat. A second vog-bird landed on her remains and helped themselves as the first returned to its meal. 
I forced myself into a brisk walk in the opposite direction. There was no room for regret. The poor girl had no idea that the odium coursing through her veins marked her as a delicacy to the shrouds of that I was the one who summoned them to feast on those infected with the disease of the void. Not that anyone knew that was its origin. Few have bothered to study odium, or Rift as the common folk call it, and even fewer have found a treatment. No one cared to investigate the potential connection to the beyond. Except for Him.
The vial around my neck felt as heavy as the armor on my back. There was no denying our presence now. He knew where we were and what we were capable of. And He was prepared. Very, very prepared. This time, He didn’t just send the blood-drinking Nightwalkers. There had been the rifted and three necromancers as well, leading a battalion of Rima. They held back for a long while, allowing the speedy Nightwalkers to draw out our defenses while dodging the steady infiltration of the rifted who sought to spread their infection. I was the one who summoned the shrouds in hopes that they would prey upon the rifted for us. But it even that wasn’t enough when the necromancers released the Rima.
The pounding of their racing feet thundered towards us louder than a calvary. Unlike the slow-paced rifted who were caught between their humanity and the Beyond, the Rima were already gone. Instead of black scars covering the entirety of their skin, they only had a single riftmark on their forehead in the shape of a black shepherd’s crook. Their flesh were in various stages of decay, some being no more than bones bearing the mark and others looked as if they had never laid in a coffin. Unearthly screeches tore from their mouths as they slashed their way through our ranks. They carried no weapons. They used their nails, sharp razor and dipped in poison that made their victims writhe on the ground with a single scratch, to rip through our armor before shredding our skin down to the bones with their teeth.
My love ordered the Children to retreat. The Nameless did their best to cover their escape, but we were overwhelmed. But then, when it seemed our extermination was on the horizon, the Rima were recalled. They pulled back and that was when I realized that almost our entire force had been eradicated.
The last decade of work, years of training and planning, all of that time spent developing the most efficient elite network of assassins, gone in a single afternoon. Only those that had accepted the Offer remained.
My heart sank when I entered the camp. Nearly deserted, the few stragglers sat and stared at the dirt, eyes hollow as the horrors of battle danced in their minds. Many were injured. Some had been infected. I made certain to stop and check on each and every one of them. No kind words came out of my mouth. No thanks for the glory and honor they displayed. There was none to give. We did not win this fight. We merely survived.
I took extra time with the freshly rifted. I was no gifted healer, but I did know the disease. I could feel the way it behaved underneath one’s skin and came to know how to convince it to stop spreading. It was almost as if odium had its own secret language, one that, for some reason, I understood. Twice I came across followers whose infection had spread too rapidly to convince it to contain. No doubt they had been touched by Rima. In those cases, I removed the vial from my necklace and made them the Offer. Both agreed. 
I wished my hands had been cleaner— I hated completing the Offer while covered in dirt and blood— but that couldn’t be helped. Time was of the essence and a decent bath was at least two days away. I used the vial’s pointed tip to break the skin of my left ring finger until a small amount of blood pooled on its tip. I then uncorked the stopper and released a single drop of the precious iridescent water onto my blood. It bubbled in response, and I extended it so that the infected could drink.
It was a painful process, but a necessary one. The ritual burned the infection from the inside out before freezing their blood in their veins. They thrashed and twisted, their screams reducing several bystanders to tears, but then came the pause. The silence that occurred when their blood froze over and the riftmarks retreated from their skin, leaving deep scars in their wake. I waited patiently, clutching the vial tightly until they went stiller than death. That was when I dug my knife into their ring finger. I squeezed with all of my might until a small bead of icy red released. I then pressed my ring finger against theirs until their blood melted into my veins.
Then, I became their tether.
  I felt their soul struggling to make the crossing as there was no ferryman to guide their way. I heard their consciousness cry out when they get stuck in the In-Between. Gently, I reached my energy out, prodding their hand to grasp my own. When I felt them make the link, I pulled back hard, willing their consciousness to return to their body. Sweat beaded on my brow, my energy draining as I summoned them back. I pulled and pulled until finally, their hand grasped my own and they lurched forward gasping as the breath of life filled their lungs.
They thanked me. I smiled and swallowed a mouthful of the crisp, cold water from my precious vial. But as I walked away, my smile disappeared, and I silently cursed the fact that I now had two more voices whispering in my head, and neither of them were his.