old, the only child of a baker and a home-keeper living in a Southland village below the Duln—a small community that in most ways was very much like every other. It seemed a long time ago now, though it was only a little more than seven years. He still remembered his parents’ faces and a few of their expressions and mannerisms. He remembered them as kind and good and caring. He used to fish with his father in the streams that ran through the woods surrounding the village. He used to take walks to the market with his mother to purchase goods.
Then, one night, for reasons he never found out, he was attacked by a group of boys. They came at him in a swarm, and they overpowered his feeble and ineffective efforts to defend himself. They beat him until he was unconscious. They broke bones and cracked ribs. They nearly blinded him. He begged them to stop, pleaded with them to tell him why they were doing this, but they ignored him and continued pummeling him until he lost consciousness.
His parents and the village healers nursed him back to health. No one could identify the boys responsible or say why they had chosen to make an example of him. No one seemed to know anything about what had happened. His father went door-to-door and spoke to everyone who would listen. He did this for days. One man told him he’d heard it was a mistake, that the boys thought he was someone else. Another man said he thought it was something Reyn had said or done. Nothing came of any of it.
Months went by. He recovered from his injuries, and the details of the incident dimmed in his memory. Life returned to normal.
But all too soon the boys came again. They caught him coming home after an afternoon of fishing. It was night, and he was alone. They came at him in a clutch, whispering what they were going to do to him. Terrified, he screamed. And something happened. His voice slipped out of register, the level of intensity shifting dramatically. He lost control of what he was doing. All at once his scream had an impact to it, a punch that struck his attackers like a physical blow and sent them sprawling. Many were left unconscious. They others picked themselves up and ran. The boy stood staring after them. He had no idea what he had done.
Several days later, a couple of them found him again. But this time one of them had brought his father. The man was big and mean and drunk, and he was carrying a knife.
“Gonna carve you a new face, boy!” he hissed. “Gonna cut that wailing witch tongue right out of you!”
Reyn Frosch never hesitated. He screamed again, but this time with dark intent and terrible purpose. The big man slowed, dropping to his knees, hands over his ears. He screamed back at the boy, then scrambled to his feet and lurched toward him anew.
And then he simply disintegrated. His body blew apart; separating at the joints, bones breaking, blood emptying out, he turned into a lump of raw, shredded meat.
In that moment Reyn seemed to lose consciousness. He didn’t fall, didn’t collapse; he simply lost track of what was happening. He stood there in a daze, his mind gone somewhere else, and it was several long minutes later before he even realized where he was.
By then, the boys who had brought the man had fled. Reyn stared at what was left of his attacker, appalled by what he had done. Even to save his life, he shouldn’t have done this. But the power of his voice was new to him, and he had been frightened so badly by the size of the man and the presence of the knife that he had simply reacted. He ran home to tell his parents.
The boys who had attacked him had run home, too. But they still weren’t finished with him. Over the next few days they revealed themselves, telling everyone what he had done. A black haunt, they called him. A wraith of darkness and destruction. He’d killed a man for no reason. He was possessed and should be stopped before he could hurt others. No mention of their intentions toward him; no mention of the knife.
Eventually, they stirred up a response from the already superstitious townspeople. They came for him then, dozens of them, men and women from the taverns and ale shops,