Horn, Heart, Seed

Hooves clattered high over the fighters’ heads and then hit the ground like a thunderclap. Kaleb feinted downward, signaling the others to strike from behind.

Alethia and Samsil slashed at a hind tendon. Injured, the beast swung around, tearing through Alethia’s forearm and hurling Samsil away. The side blow from its thick horn sent Samsil crashing into the temple gate. He scrambled on his back in the debris. Noiselessly, the unicorn aimed the point of its horn at Samsil’s chest, eyes shining like lightning under thick lashes, head lowered in a tight aggressive stance. Sparks shimmered down through honeyed breath. Glossy hooves cracked like flints as the monster charged and gored Samsil, who twitched like a pinned insect.

Kaleb bellowed as he ran. From opposite sides, he and Alethia attacked, driving their swords into the vulnerable lumbar region. Rainbow light shot from the creature’s angry prismatic glance. Alethia’s weapon chipped a magical rib bone and cracked in half, leaving Kaleb alone armed to face the beast.

The huffing equine head dripped with Samsil’s innards. Their blood stained the horn a hellish red. Raging and numb, Kaleb angled between the beast’s ribs—his long blade cut through the soft confection of its candy-filled heart.

Pink and yellow oozed around his hilt. The unicorn fell. A sweet smell of stardust rose from the glittering froth that spilled from its panting mouth. Its tongue dragged in the dirt as it finally spoke, pronouncing its dying curse:

“Will you plow my field with foreign seeds, little man? I am the sword and the swallower of swords. I am the cup and the knight of cups. The head of a unicorn impaled on the head of a unicorn impaled on another. Before the vernal equinox, the herd burns its fields.”

Alethia tossed their broken blade down in triumphant disgust. “Mouthy things once they get started, aren’t they? Is this the last one?”

“Let’s hope so,” Kaleb said.

Swallowing tears of devastation and disbelief, Kaleb focused on a correct and honorable battlefield burial for his fallen lover, and then the hard task of sawing off the animal’s head.

Riding home, the sweet smell of rainbow-fragranced carcass didn’t cheer him. No longer would the unicorns trample farmlands and burn the flesh of the unwary with their searing and maddening eyes. But success felt meaningless in his partner’s absence. Instead of reveling, the champion of the hunt prowled the lonely perimeter where the staked heads of hundreds of unicorns formed a magical wall against invaders and plague.

Many months passed. The community prospered. Kaleb still wandered the outskirts of town, bereft of friend, lover, or cause. Unicorn heads murmured their eternal curses in soft, whinnying language. The spells of the sweetly fragranced remains worked their way into his dreams.

Every painful echo of battle corroded his bones like cancer. Every thrust of his sword, every drop of blood he’d spilled in the valley of the hunting shrine—they screamed for justice like an infection lacerating his brain. His memory ached.

Disturbed, he sought out the old healer he’d disdained as a young warrior. She’d been ancient even then. Kaleb had mocked her eccentric clothes and disordered garden along with the loudest of the brash fighters, most of whom were now lost. Unchanged, she welcomed him nonetheless, offering food and rest.

He said, “I dream of a child. It approaches from darkness in nothing but a tattered loincloth, young and skinny, no covering upon its dirty feet. It wears the severed head of a unicorn. A fresh kill. Candied gore streams down its slender shoulders and chest.”

“Go on.”

“It speaks the curse.”

“This seems well in line with what you’ve suffered. Is there nothing more?”

Kaleb stared down at the fire.

“It uses Samsil’s voice.”

The healer sipped the stinky brew that Kaleb had declined. “Ah. And how do you answer?”

“I don’t.”

“That’s very rude.”

“Please, make it stop.”

The healer patted Kaleb’s clenched knuckles with a tender, gnarled hand. “History can’t save us from ambition. We must accept its judgement. We’re visitors here.”

“What must I do?”

“Nothing. It’s time to listen.”

“Listen?” Kaleb flung her hand away. His was the fist of a hero. “This listening has made me sick, charlatan!”

He stormed out—past the perimeter, past the murmuring of severed heads, toward the mountainside shrine where he’d first learned to hunt, where he’d fought his last battle. Long untrodden, the trail had disappeared. Kaleb hacked away brush, forging a fresh path with rage.

He slowed as he crested a rise. Across the valley of the hunt, the shrine mirrored his stance. Between the twin mountaintops, overgrown grasses and proliferating seed-heads danced in a sunlit breeze. Peace had settled over the hunting field. Where blood had been spilled, a garden now arose.

A shimmering wave caught Kaleb’s eyes.

Below, an equine herd grazed in silence. One hundred delicate white foals filled the valley from foothill to foothill, unaware of Kaleb’s approach. Tails flicked, wafting sweet aromas up the mountainside. Prismatic flashes beneath lush lashes glinted in the sun. Manes tossed, revealing a single nub on each forehead, the fuzzy bumps of nubile horns.

Samsil is buried here, he thought.

Kaleb took a step. One hundred heads turned. They stared at him with wide rainbow eyes, ignorant of war. They didn’t burn.

He risked another step. One hundred foals bolted. The valley drained like a mighty river, manes and tails flowing in white rapids, churning into oblivion, leaving him alone.

Then he cried.

Wishing he could relinquish his sword and rest in his lover’s strong arms, he fell on the ground, grasping at the dirt and thick weeds. His head pounded. He mourned the generations slaughtered, the countless deaths fertilizing the valley.

Near sunset, the words of the prophecy returned and roused him from his tears.

I am the sword and the swallower of swords. I am the cup and the knight of cups. The head of a unicorn impaled on the head of a unicorn impaled on another.

He spoke the final words aloud: “The herd burns its fields.”

When Kaleb returned to the village to gather weapons, he told no one. He had to buy time. He needed months to reinforce the temple gate and barricade the shrine before he’d be ready to defend the newborn herd from the town’s imminent attack.

© 2025 Joe Koch

About the Author
Joe Koch writes literary horror and surrealist trash. Their books include The Wingspan of Severed Hands, Convulsive, Invaginies, and The Couvade, which received a 2019 Shirley Jackson Award nomination. His short works appear in Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Vastarien, The Mad Butterfly’s Ball, and many others. Find Joe (he/they) at horrorsong.blog.