Haggardly surveying his isolation, the stave-toting priest wandered cautiously towards his quarry. His trepidaton was wholly absent from the scene—a lonely man, elderly and frail, who calmly shuffled through the hilly woodlands that crowned the dark moors. He bore no blade or bow, save the spry paring knife he used to carve chunks of cheese and sausage that supplied him on his journey into the frontier. The old man had only a day’s worth left, at best, which concerned him only a small amount compared to the grim shadow he anticipated lay ahead.
From his perch on the hill he surveyed the country beyond: tufts of treeline sprang from the valleys and meadows sundered by wispy fog. Mounds of earth that were once solid hills were strange in the light—sloping half-eaten as if carved by a giant axe in sheer grade, leaving reddish earth like the flesh opened by a flaying strike. Which was exactly the diagnosis of the damage, being the surreal tales of the easterling’s mythos—of giants who’d run fire-eyed and mad, rampaging across the earth and striking the hills with untameable fury—that the priest had heard since he was spry and naivete to the world. It was this blaspheme and other such atrocities against nature that earned the giants their apocalyptic reward: drowning the world in a hundred years of aquatic annihilation, submerging the world in a flood that sunk their palaces of salt and iron and rendered them virtually extinct.
The old man did not disrespect the tales, even for their bizarre origin. He humbly wandered under the half-hill shadows where sage and crimson-stained rock sprang in columns like monoliths in the early night. When his lean and aged body demanded respite, he made camp at the feet of one such skyward pillar—a primordial cliff of red-rock that made an arrow against the night, where he laid his meager things out and carefully made a rite. He crafted and burnt balms of annointed oil and sanguine petals, drifting in staunchly fragrant fumes towards the star, a rite of offering to the spirits to guide his journey. The flame of his campfire illuminated the tall red-rock, illuminating the mottled granite and played shadows upon the angled surface of the cliffs.
His weak voice recited, by heart, the ardent prayers derived of runestone he’d long since studied as a fledgeling monk. But a disturbance was made known to him only by senses of one who was accustomed to being stalked.
Without glancing up, the wrinkled traveler abated his chant to demand of the darkness, “Who approaches?”
When no answer came but the uncanny feeling persisted he lifted his gaze to behold the crimson cliff, his shelter, and the earth that formed a pedestal around it. There, treading soundlessly against the backdrop of starlight was a shifting shadow that scampered amidst the bristly sagebrush.
“Who approaches?” he repeated.
“Rakgal,” was the delayed and guttural reply.
Nodding as if this was expected, the elderly man reverted to his humble insticts began to chant once more, finishing his prayer. In violent swiftness where he could not see, the shadow sprang down from its perch and loped into the light: a hillsmen garbed in the tribal dress of buckskin pants and a harness of rusted plate-mail, doubtlessly stolen and passed down generations. Another stolen item crowned his head, a dented helm of eastern make, covered a mane of unruly hair and shadowed his sharp gaze. Toting a fractured sword with a wicked edge the man leered like a mountain lion on the fringes of a meadow, stalking the elderly man like he might be a doe. In his eyes glinted a feral whisper of peoples who had yet to be collared by the vice of monarchy and civilization.
“Rakgal, I am finished now if you wish to inflict your ill will upon me,” the old man announced, rising shakily from his knees. Spreading his hands wide, he offered himself unarmed and awaiting the blow of the would-be assassin.
But none ever came.
“I give my name. Now give yours,” hissed the barbarian with surprising sliver of concord in his gravelly voice.
“I am Obravik,” replied the elderly man, producing a wineskin from his pack that emanated a sharp tang from its mouth: Wyhearthian brandy. He drank first of the liquor, then offered it outward in a gesture of hospitality, “I am pleased we can speak and not spill blood. Take a drink, be my guest.”
Violently the barbarian refused the gesture with a repulsive face, “Drink makes the mind dull.”
Obravik was again pleased, if not charmed by this wild man’s shrewd and bold nature, “Indeed, it is a poison to the thoughts of a man, but the journey less harsh on the knees with a drink now and again. So friend, why do you come to ambush me?”
“You are weak,” Rakgal admitted to the blunt remark.
“Another truth. I surmise you have changed your mind?”
The barbarian’s eyes flickered to the sooty spot of the rite, sniffing. There was an uncertainty that was concealed behind his primitive mask, “I cannot harm a spirit-talker.”
Feeling a slight sense of relief, vindicated by the rumors he’d heard of the hillsmen, Obravik smiled, “That is good to hear, Rakgal. I am merely an emissary to these parts and hope to return back to my mission to regale them with what I find here.”
Grunting, the barbarian urged him to speak further, taking a seat opposite on a stump.
“I am a stave priest of the mission in Begreth, near Vinagorn. A river town north of here—in your land—were housing a number of our monks. They came on behalf of a mission, supposedly to investigate a plague that had befallen the souls in the town. Those monks were to return weeks ago and have yet to return,” explained Obravik, who set about carving some cheese and sausage as he spoke. After chewing thoughtfully he continued, “And then there’s the matter of the wagons. We trade much with this town, called Ujcriva, particularly steel and copper like that mail of yours. Resa isn’t a firm trade partner these days, nor is Wyhearth—they’ve filled our miners with crossbow bolts before they can even climb the mountains. Those wagons haven’t been seen for shy a month neither.”
“A few guilds put together some coin to send a band of sellswords but they’re stubborn—won’t go marching into a land with a suspected plague for so little a price. So, seeing the monks as my own sons, I decided it would be right if I were the one to investigate what’s been shrouding the lands near Ujcriva.”
Reaching with the subtlety of an ape and suiting even further to the stereotypes of their people, the barbarian plucked the remaining cheese and tossed it into his mouth.
“I will ask you, Rakgal. Have you heard of any disturbing things north of the river? Of the river towns? Your people know this land well—you are among the few who can claim it as your home,” the man asked.
At the mention the other spat on the ground, “Yes.”
“Speak it.”
“I do not know the exact thing,” Rakgal noted but did not halt his tongue, “but not far is a black fog. It comes from beyond, in twilight land of the pale Moonwalker. Water is tainted, poisons the food. Witches say there is a great rock that fell from the sky—a dome darker than night and will peel a man’s skin by standing close to it. Man cannot suffer the air near the dark land of the Moonwalker.”
The fire that played shadows against the crimson rock seemed to lower as a chill wind drove in unspeakable haunts from the forest beyond. It rebuffed the warmth provided for the fire and turned the primordial rock above bleak with darkness.
Obravik wrinkled his nose, “You say this…blight comes from the land of Egrath? Of the elves?”
“Sharp-ear. Moonwalker. Yes. It is they. Turn back spirit-talker. Land will be dead, none will be left.”
“Dead?”
“Leave,” growled the barbarian, making a fist against the iron harness then a palm to his forehead as an unknown symbol. His tone was wary rather than intimidating, offering, “Go back to your soft home, spirit-talker.”
“I must investigate and see if for myself,” replied Obravik, though his stomach had dropped at the doom spoken of by the man, affirming the fears he’d failed to subdue.
“You wish death.”
“No, though it may be my fate. However I have faith I will return to Begreth.”
“You never see Moonwalker?”
Obravik shook his head.
With an expression neither wholly fearful nor savage, the mail-clad man stood and swung his axe into the soft wood of the stump for effect. He plunged his hand under the steel plates to produce a leather loop bearing a pair of pale, glinting objects: ears that were far too sharp and discolored to come from any man. They, as Obravik tried not to dwell on too long, looked as fresh as the day they were severed.
“I kill one of them,” bragged Rakgal, taking his seat once more while dangling the necklace, “One. Slay my hunting party all but me. Only die from the removal of the head—cut off. Like a worm, it dies hard. Moonwalker is fierce enemy. I do not want to fight one again.”
Gulping, the old man took this in with silence. Of the alien peoples who dwelled in north-east coast—the Egrathian elves, who were known by many names—he’d never seen one but had heard much. Tales spun by even the reputable court bards spoke of their elusive nature attributed to their inability to leave their dark lands—that their blood hardened when they drifted too far from their hearthstone, turning them to ash. Not the sort of fairy tales told to children. Being a priest of men, dealing with monstrosities and curses of a mundane sort, Obravik did not indulge in the stories of the elves or their sorceries, save the times when liquor was shared with the northern traders. They had always been solemn on the topic, never cracking a smile when discussing sharing borders with the mysterious elves of Egrath.
“I see,” he spoke in uncertainty.
“You cannot,” Rakgal, “without touching one. It is not man. It is not ground-man. Moonwalker is…monster.”
Noting the charred logs that were little more than blackened husks on the small bed of coals, the old man took a final pull of the liquor and stoppered the wineskin. He began to lie down, addressing the hillsmen with a gracious nod, “Please accept my thanks for your advice and wise words, Rakgal. I will heed them and take great caution on my journey. I must rest now.”
“Wood-brain spirit-talker, you have drank too much,” insulted the barbarian, springing up and dashed away into the wood without any notice.
* * *
Morning came with dew and nothing but the ache of age. A drizzle drew over the marshy land—in the interim the priest clung to the soil beneath the redrock cliff until it subsided. Obravik packed quietly and took off once more into the frontier, stomach protesting at the lack of vittles to stave off the hunger that came with waking. He did not fault the barbarian for the gratuity that his life was spared, if not in such a humorous fashion.
Into the windless wall of bramble and branch he wandered, treading past bushes and gaining elevation to summit the next hillside. Out of the corner of his eye he spied a few deer and hare but no threats to his slow walking. So he walked for hours in the blue shadow of dawn until he reached the first moor, bisected by a low oak trestle that spanned the marshy expanse. The man began to step across the low bridge, peering curiously into the mist when he heard an eruption of noise: screeches of panic followed by the ringing of steel and the barking of a dog. Obravik hurdled on the rotten trestle, its planks occasionally dipping into the murky water below. He broke free of the reed and mist where he found the source of the sound at the outskirts of a farmstead.
Blood carpeted the wet morning earth, where a pile of corpses were discarded like the limbs of a beast in a butcher shop. Their faces were sunken to the ground, spines viciously splintered where steel had ravaged them. Lying around the rotting men were a collection of wicked knives, hatchets and a broken bow. Obravik leaned down to inspect when the dog’s barking rang not far, springing him to his footpads.
“Hello?” he inquired.
First came the hound, a ragged thing that burst from the shadowy walls of the farmstead. It was matted with mud and congealed mud, limping as it drew towards the man. The dog, clearly not wild, whimpered as it stumbled over the bodies.
“Stop. I will kill,” announced a familiar voice.
Stalking from the tail of the dog was the barbarian. He stunk of death, his harness and sword smeared with gore as he strode with a cruel gait, eyeing the hound with hunger in his dark eyes. The hillman stilled as Obravik stood in front of the dog protectively.
“Food,” Rakgal pointed the bloodied axe.
“No,” Obravik felt anger swell in his throat, his eyes flickering to the corpses. Stamping his polished stave in the earth, the priest rebuked the hillman with the firmness he might a misbehaving child, “Creatures like this are not to be taken lightly—for it is a divine gift. The spirits watch over my endeavor here, truly, and entrusted with this dog. Do not strike at it or you might steal their generosity and replace it with anger.
Glancing at the matted hound, Rakgal shrugged, “Fine.”
“Is there any other food?”
“Little. These scum ravaged what the farmers had,” snorted the barbarian, kicking over one of the freshly axed. “Waiting for you, they did not see me coming.”
“What are they?”
“Thieves.”
Surely enough, there were tattoos marring the neck of a broad one. Exhaling slowly Obravik gave a gratuitous nod as he squatted beside the dead. By the looks of their weapons, not one was coated in even a drop of blood. He winced at their wounds at a closer look: without knowing, he could have guessed a beast savaged them and not the steel wielded by the near-feral hillman.
“How did you know?”
“Smelled the dead. They kill the others, leave inside to rot,” the hillsmen grunted, pointing back to the farmstead.
“I owe you my thanks again. And for sparing our new companion,” the old man embraced the hound who had begun to lick his hand.
Wordlessly offering another grunt, Rakgal began to plunder the bodies. Obravik turned away as their necks were snapped, twisted and could hear the sounds of brutality inflicted on the corpses. When he returned his gaze, there were but stumps remaining as the barbarian set about affixing the heads on pikes, lining them every ten paces or so in front of the trestle.
“Warning to others to leave,” the man returned with bloodied hands, completely unfazed by the effigies he’d just created.
Obravik did his best to agree, “Aye…yes. It would be for the best.”
“Now,” Rakgal faced him down like a demonic warrior of a forgotten world, reeking and appearing as though he swam in a lake of blood. “You go. It will only be death.”
“I did not speak untruly last night. I must press on. You may stop me if you must,” replied the old man albeit a shaky voice.
They stood apart, staring intensely without the impulse to blink or look away, daring the opposite to do so. Obravik struggled to maintain composure, becoming lost in the dark glint of the barbarian’s hooded gaze, solid and unflinching as a statue.
When it felt as hours had passed and his eyes grew dry, the other spoke, “Spirit-talker you are bold like an ox. I believe you are blessed by the spirits as I see you before me.”
Acknowledging the treaty, the priest began to search the farmstead astride the hound until he came upon a long spade. However before the wooden tool bit the dirt there came a dismissive snicker. The barbarian swatted the shovel from the priest’s hand.
“Do not bury. Leave dead. It will stink but no predator will come. Not now,” commanded Rakgal.
Obravik furrowed his brow at the grim suggestion—being bound to the codes of his monastery to make rites for even the bleakest of souls—yet he did not argue with the barbarian’s shrewd logic. Instead he held a silent vigil for the dead. By now the hound had settled beside him, shying from the presence of the wild hillman who busied himself with looting the farmstead, returning back with a jute sack and a ceramic jug. To the old man’s shock the barbarian emptied the jug of its alcoholic contents into a puddle beside the corpses.
“Why let it go to waste?”
“For moonspawn,” was the brutish, cryptic answer. “I need a weapon.”
* * *
Leagues into the marshes the undercast sky, past more farmsteads who shared a similar, eerily still inertia, the night fell and camp was made once more. Wet logs produced a torrent of smoke from the maw the barbarian had erected in careful fashion—stones cemented with silt and mud hardened by the flames to produce a primitive furnace, a hole at the bottom to allow air to pass into the whitish coals. Obravik was impressed by the heat emitted—even with the wet logs. Near the walls of the furnace the dog curled by his feet while the distant thud of steel biting wood gave the barbarian’s position away.
Not long after, the man returned with armfuls of dry cedar and oak, feeding them into the basin of heat. Then, inexplicably, Rakgal smashed the jug of ceramic against the wall so it split into two pieces. He tossed the neck away, placing it at his feet, then produced a pair of yellowed stones that he began to rub furiously against each other above the makeshift ceramic bowl. It then was summarily pounded by a pestle of flint as the river-sand was added to the mix.
“What are you doing?” curiously inquired the old man.
“Making a blade,” grunted the hillman, “but I need flux.”
“How? Are you going to smelt the rock?”
To his question was a bemused snort, “No. These are stone of tears from the eyes of demons. I mix it with sand for it will grow hotter than hell. See? Flux. Then it is melted.”
“You are not forging steel?”
Rakgal did not reply but lowered the ceramic into the base of the red-hot furnace.
Ensorcelled by what would come next, Obravik watched the primitive blacksmith lean over the furnace, whose face was contrasted sharply with the ambiguous orange glow born of the flame and the shadows cast. He could have been a giant of the unwritten days, boiling the bones of his foes while eschewing dark chants over the rim of a mammoth cauldron.
Not after long the mix bubbled and frothed within the cradle of the pot. During the process the barbarian finished his mold in the earth, creating an arm-length shaft out of reddened earth until it was firm and ready. In his hand was the slender iron handle once belonging to a knife—doubtlessly one of the bandit’s. When the steam of the melted glass began to hiss from the molten puddle, Rakgal seemed anxious, yet determined with his brooding expression. Gently he plucked the pot by the ends of thick oak branches and balanced it precariously—squatting as he poured the hellish orange liquid into the mold. Earth hissed back and steam rose from the floor.
Swiftly, even as the glass cooled into its desired slender shape, he thrust the handle of the knife into the end and then began to dust the earthen mold with the scattering of powder.
“It is done. By morning I will be ready,” grunted the hillman, wiping sweat from his brow.
And it was true. In the inevitable dawn that came for the unlikely companions, gracing them with the dull blue that drove back the dark veil of night, the work of Rakgal was revealed. He drew a shimmering green-gold blade of glass that held a subtle yet wicked edge that threatened to sunder the very breeze, longer than a desert dirk yet stunted compared to a northman’s longsword. Tilting the glass blade with an appreciative grunt, the hillman stuffed it into the hide belt about his waist.
Obravik did not know why, knowing little of the ways of war and fine steel, but the sight of the strange weapon stirred that cold dread that lurked in the bowels of his stomach. For whatever they faced ahead on the edge of the frontier had inspired such caution from a hillman whose barbarity was of impressive repute—so that he might craft an instrument for such a singular purpose as to fight an aberration that he himself knew scant of.
* * *
Out of the salty gloom of the waterlogged woodland and black thickets of the marshes did the icon of their destination arise. Like a sharply curved headstone that came to an arrow-point in the dank ruin of a graveyard, the town of Ujcriva loomed forth from the mists.
She waited on the sloping, reed-forested banks of the great Fjormene. Pastoral lands lined the outer fringes of untended fields of grain, tall and yet to feel the sweep of the scythe, not a single head of cattle or sheep in sight. The town, erected on the fertile delta off the sea-seeking streams, whose steep masonry and arched rooftops lay trapped in a damp shroud on the opposite end where the forest was yet to be hewed. Her trade roads and bridges were barren, carts abandoned to the ditches, where flies buzzed on the corpses of decaying horses. It was utterly and ghoulishly silent even where the ambiance should have filled the vast and empty fields.
“I go around,” muttered the hillman, toting both the splintered sword and his glass blade before he prowled into the reeds.
Hesitantly the stave-priest began to venture towards the city stiff-legged, gulping shallow breath as the cloying scent of decay met his nose in fierce waves. Carrion and flies ignored his entrance as he crossed the bridge and over the first set of market stalls—where not a soul could be seen. Doorways were ajar to the elements where no torch or candle lit the dark framework within. The only ambiance was his shuffling and the padding of the hound’s beside him. At the town’s center, Obravik felt like he’d entered the great bones of a titanic corpse, stonework like gaunt gray ribs. His anxious fingers found the handle of the paring knife as he rounded the intersection and felt the creeping sense of dread prick his nape.
“What happened here?” the priest muttered, “not a soul to be seen. No corpses or blood. It’s odd. They just…left?”
A creaking whine sent him skidding sideways—the sound of a doorway’s hinges.
Instinctively the dog whimpered.
“Can’t turn back now. We must find those monks,” Obravik muttered, much for his own consolation.
Feeling conscious that his footsteps clamored against the dead interior of the town, the priest made every effort to suppress his existence as he began to climb the single hill on the opposite end of the town. Nestled between the forest and the walls of Ujcriva was the heathen hall where communion was made and rites not unlike his back in Begreth. However, as the elderly man made it at the steps of the arched temple of onyx-painted aspen and deep umber frame, there was no smoke trailing from its outer braziers. Nor were there chants of esoteric tongues that sung from the inner bastion daily, as were all the monasteries of their dynastic faith.
“Hello? Brethren?”
An echo of his voice distilled within the timber, hauntingly returning with an inhuman ring to it.
Defying his own doubt, the stave-priest pressed within the temple—into its darkness.
“Hello? It is I, Father Obravik—” he choked on his own words.
Clunk. The oiled staff dropped carelessly and without notice.
Hanging by the upper framework of timer was an grisly effigy, none of the likes the man had ever been encountered in nightmares. Draped horridly over the gore-soaked wood were the intact skins of the priests, flayed from the flesh and nailed to the woodwork like stars in the night sky. Nailed even higher were the intestines of the monks in a grotesque display of cryptic font, rotting flesh turned to harsh alien glyphs of a language that no man could speak. The disturbing display was overwhelming for Obravik, who collapsed to his knees and wailed at the sight of his comrades , shedding tears for the agony they must have endured at the hands of their torturers.
So caught up in his suffering that he almost neglected the creaking sound that came from the dim corners of the temple. Suddenly Obravik choked on the mucus and gaped as something emerged under the shadowy doom of the effigy, arresting him in his place: a husk of a man that shambled towards the light, twitching at the neck and moaning without meaning. Swaying dementedly from his neck—where the iron beads inscribed with runes should be—were tiny arms, chewed down to the sinew and bone. The man’s bare chest was but a complex wall of heiroglyphs from neck to belly, carved with such similar text as the innards above—still glistening raw with pus as the wounds were deep and opened as the man moved. Cementing the horror was that the man had but chewed stumps for hands, eyes gouged into pulpy ribbons. Yet what truly eclipsed the atrocity was that Obravik recognized the man.
It was Cedomir, one of the lesser priests he’d come for. By only for his stout and wide-shouldered stature and bald head, Cedomir was otherwise virtually unrecognizable in his self-inflicted torture.
“Brother…” the stave priest trailed off.
Cedomir twitched and opened his maw—revealing he had neither a tongue left. Obravik nearly vomited at the sight of splintered teeth and the fractured jaw that nearly hung by the man’s head.
“What madness have you endured? Oh Cedomir,” the old man agonized.
Fear yet immobilized him in his place, which came as a blessing to the man’s sluggish awareness: the once polished wooden floor had been defaced with a in concentric, jarring ring of runic characters identical to that tattooed into the chest of Cedomir. What was of the most bizarre import was the tiny centerpiece that was perfectly centered in the temple: a dark pyramid of meteorite on a silver pedestal. It appeared so innocuous in its obscurity—overshadowed by the petrifying carnage adorning the hallowed walls of the temple—that Obravik could have believed it was unrelated. The whisper he often referred to as the guardian spirits who accompanied members of his faith, told him otherwise: that it was the source of the madness.
Before Obravik drew any closer to understanding, the deceptively docile form of the tortured priest before him leaped with sudden agility. Shrieking without context or words, Cedomir crossed into the circle where the pyramid was—and evaporated. For a moment the stave-priest believed the man had been whisked away to some nightmarish realm.
He was mistaken.
Lunging from the pyramid, spewed out like smoke, was the man once more only altered slightly: where his chewed stumps were long silvery arms that extended in alien length—a hand longer than any ordinary man’s.
“Cedomir, please! I beg you to let me heal you!” offered Obravik but the hour was beyond reconciliation.
Cedomir crossed the concentric ring with blinding speed, gibbering with an inane voice that would drive even the sane to weep, lifting silver claws to disembowel the old man. And they would have, if the hound did not leap before Obravik. Aghast, the rune-priest watched as the gray dog bounded and absorbed the blow intended for his guts, followed by a harrowing whimper as blood splattered the floor. Determined to buy him time the dog hung onto Cedomir’s collarbone, teeth locked in the mangled flesh of the madman, kicking its legs out as the silver claws tore into its body. By a stroke of luck, Cedomir stumbled on the oiled staff and collapsed with the dog pressing on his ragged bones. Obravik reeled back with a vacant gaze as the dog whined shrilly—clinging by the teeth as they wrestled on the ground in a tangle. Then it fell still.
This time the old man did not pause.
Obravik tore out of the temple with a stride that would have befit a younger man—reminiscent of the time when he’d jogged on the mountain trails near Wyhearth after studious hours of apprenticing the craft of worship. Behind him came a wet thud of the dog’s body, to which he gave another silent thanks to the guardian spirits who’d gifted him such a companion. Hyperventilating and sprinting blindly, he tore down the steep hill road to the dark outline of Ujcriva and the mists that surrounded it. Daring not to pause even for a breath, the old man ran until his knees threatened to buckle beneath him as he rounded about a tavern wall, bereft of the typical jovial ambiance and solace of drink.
Clapping behind him faintly were the sounds of another with a disjointed, frantic stride. Tensely the old man stole into the tavern’s open door, cuffing his own throat to keep from announcing his stealth from the horror that chased him. Within the damp confines of the hall was a cloying scent, coppery and yet devoid of the fetid stink that dwelled in corpses. By his swift examination the wide room was occupied by not even a spider—only overturned furniture and drafts of soupy air that fluttered through the open door. Aching and chilled to the bone, Obravik deigned that staying within the tavern would provide him the sanction he desperately needed—shaking violently even as the footsteps dwindled away. He hoped the horrid creature that was once Cedomir would search further, or perhaps return to the desecrated temple empty-handed so that he could make his escape. Doubting even the opportunity would arise, causing a swelling of the throat by stress, the rune-priest swallowed and began to tiptoe further into the hall.
Repulsion replaced the anxious ghost in his trembling fingers as Obravik’s eyes caught the source of the odd smell within the tavern. Painted in letters—these ones discernible and written in the tongue of his kin—across the flank of the tavern’s inner woodwork: ‘THE SUFFERING ENDS IN THE WATER,’ it read over and over again, until the last iteration dwindled halfway and ended in a downward splash, as if the one who wrote it had slipped into utter mindlessness.
“Scrawled in whose blood?” murmured the man, swallowing hard.
Attempting to immerse himself in the scene—to understand the events that led up to the desolation of the town, Obravik scarcely allowed himself to breathe for fear of being detected. Slowly however, his mind gravitated away from the mysterious gloom of the tavern and back to the faceted pyramid of intangible origin. Its pure nebulousness invited the man to speculate in his isolation, suggesting sorcery of the like which even the recondite wizards of Formithold could hardly compare. Certainty gave way to speculation, ebbing at what the old man knew of the world and the forces that guided the powers that were hidden behind the mortal veil—the totality of good and evil. How did the pyramid fit into all of that? What did the runes mean? What came first?
Somehow, Obravik knew the answer without having to ask it.
Back into the reigning, overpowering silence did the old man wander again. He scampered along the corridors of stone, under the ominous shadow of the architecture of his forebears. The dusky mist allowed him safe passage around the breakneck streets of Ujcriva, where the discarded fruit on the streets were not even touched by the rats who plague civilization—abuzz with clouds of insects. He once again mounted the steep hill that overlooked the serpentine river and towards the high steeple of the temple.
This time the stave-priest was not anxious—he was consumed by curiosity.
It waited his return, sitting so low to the ground on its silver pedestal, its titillating and opaque onyx faces could not be compared to any gem or piece of masonry. The astral artifact lured him like the salacious invitations of a devilish woman, whispering tantalizing hints into his ears. Only there was no sound but his footsteps. The rune-priest licked his lips, the morbid thrill of anticipation building as he wandered to the edge of the concentric ring. Nothing—to his wondrous surprise—occurred when his boots stepped into the first line of alien characters. Then another. Nothing. On and on Obravik pressed until he reached the final, tight circle that wound about the dark prism.
“Ahhhh…” he heard himself mutter as he leaned down to gaze into the pyramid, staring down at the point.
As a spider might uncurl, so did the pyramid unfold into five perfectly equal segments, revealing a nightmare of starry depths at its core.
Immediately the man beheld something so indescribable, so crude and unyielding to the naked human eye, that it forced a mewing sound from his throat—the likes heard when a man dies upon an impaled blade. Such a visceral horror lay in the dark chasm that gnawed on his conscience that he felt compelled to shriek and curl up in the corner. Obravik was faced with such unholy vision that he sank to his knees, feeling his eyes beg to be clawed from his skull. Truths that man could not bear witness—even for the most stubborn and curious—were drilled into his unwilling mind like the stingers of a hundred wasps, swelling his head and drowning out all his resolve.
Creak.
Gaunt, horrid breath drifted from the entrance of the temple. The rune-priest waited, even as the scraping footprint behind surely told of the creature who lumbered in would surely mangle and brutalize him as it had the others of his monastic brotherhood. Doom had ensnared him and Obravik eagerly awaited release from the hell he’d delved into so carelessly.
“I’m ready to die, spirits,” he moaned in what felt his last seconds of mortality.
A commotion suddenly broke him from the bleak reality—the shambling form of Cedomir was whirling as another entered the temple behind him: the barbarian had come at last. Iron spun and glanced off with a wicked throw cast by the hillman, carving a chunk of the cursed priest’s shoulder and earning a yowl from the creature. It toted the shining extended arms and swung—meeting the glass blade of Rakgal, whose reflexes matched even that of the aberration’s. Sparks flew from the collision, furthering the notion that the hillman’s primitive smithing was indeed sourced from an ancient magic.
“Gah!” bellowed the hillman, defying the horrid husk before him with little more than a taunt.
It was received without emotion—the creature of Cedomir lunged once more.
With venomous, blind glee the monster of a man became a torrent of glinting silver as the claws yearned to taste the brawn of the wild man. They only scratched the steel corselet, raking with a cringing whine as the barbarian danced with the monster, bouncing on the pads of his feet with dexterous unpredictability. This was no unarmed monk who would cower at the face of horror but a man weaned off a grim and harsh upbringing, every scar earned by a pyrrhic victory or narrow defeat.
Then the true melee erupted.
Rakgal hurled himself at the creature, eyes ablaze with a wild fervor as the lime-yellow blade in his hand turned into a bolt of thunder—searing the flesh of the ghoulish priest with every nick or scrape. Pus and smoke filled the temple, scouring the tattooed floor of the temple as they exchanged blows under the zombified framework. His glass weapon fell like hammer blows, meeting the silver claws and illuminating the cavernous room with sparks, some finding their mark. As did the monster’s reach—spilling fresh blood on the floor as the hillman suffered a number of wounds to his armpit and neck. Bestial and retaining nothing of his former humanity, the monk whipped and struck Rakgal across the face, shredding the man’s cheek with vicious impunity, then latching onto the steel harness. With inhuman constitution and power, the creature wrenched the barbarian backwards—cracking something in the man’s back, who fell limply to the floor.
Cedomir chortled with inane satisfaction and gurgling moan that would shrivel a lesser opponent’s will.
Not the hillman’s.
Seizing the brief opportunity and performing the unexpected, the prone barbarian suddenly plunged his free hand into the bloodied sockets of Cedomir. Gore filmed up to Rakgal’s wrists as he snarled and dragged the head of the monk towards him, using the momentum and confusion to use his other hand—thrusting the glass blade through the abdomen of his foe. The cursed aberration rattled, Cedomir writhed and tried to tear free of the blade as it melted the marked flesh and curled into ghastly steam. Then Rakgal sawed upward with a mighty heave—tearing his weapon upwards. Flayed like a fish to a filet knife, the haunted and cursed monk was split in two, rent by the glass blade that severed even the skull.
Identical thuds followed as the creature that had once been a mild-tempered monk was rent asunder.
* * *
The man who had been sent to investigate the disturbance of the frontier had his answers, if only they did nothing but stoke the unasked fears that dwelled in his most base core. He chuckled dryily to himself at the revelation—that his serene demeanor had been stripped away by the revelatory black vision within the abyss of the star.
“Hell does not await us below but in the stars,” he commented as he rose to meet Rakgal.
“What? You speak strangely,” winced the barbarian clutching his back as he shakily ascended.
“Nothing. Do not trouble yourself further.”
Grunting, the hillman lifted his hand and indicated towards the artifact, then began to stroll towards it.
Obravik surprised himself when he planted a hand on the steel plates to halt the barbarian from wandering closer, “It is not for your eyes. Believe me friend. It is enough that I have gazed within it…and seen…death of the soul.”
The hillman shrugged callously and returned to plunk the lime-yellow glass blade, crimson stained from its previous kill. The man seemed to contemplate within the transparent weapon for a moment, returning back to the rune-priest with an assured swagger.
“Rakgal I must ask of you something,” began Obravik, then at the silent brooding of his companion, he continued. “I don’t think I will be returning to Begreth. What I saw has disturbed me beyond utterance. I believe…no I know that I cannot live long before the madness will take me. I think this is what this place suffered…what Cedomir here suffered.”
“Man plundered that,” the barbarian pointed at the star once more, “from the heart of the land beyond here—the sharp-ear country. I have seen the accursed likes of such things there.”
Obravik began to feel weak, his breath limited to shallow gasps and struggled to maintain composure.
“Can you deliver my message? Begreth may lie…weeks away but nonetheless what I must relay to the city is…most urgent. Do not let them send any more north. Let them…let them know…that this…place…is…”
Suddenly and without warning, the old man’s head was suddenly filled with a droning hum that sent him flailing and hacking up his lungs in dry bouts. His vision turned to grey then black—to his horror as the scene of futile void began to play—as the star’s dark gift was initiated. Madness swept over the sanity of the rune-priest and he felt a moment of manic sociopathy, of recreating the words that appeared on the mental landscape, repeating evermore until his very being was consumed by the alien text. Obravik felt the bleak desperation fill him—knowing exactly what Cedomir had endured before his final drift into annihilation.
Abruptly as it began, the darkness mercifully ended.
* * *
“I will carry your message, spirit-talker,” swore the stern hillman even as he sheathed his blade in the neck of the man.
It was a swift and painless death, as the white-haired easterling slid forward and slumped to the ground with not even a rattle. Impressed, Rakgal inclined his head once in respect, squatting beside the wrinkled visage of the man named Obravik and plucked the beaded chain about his neck. Though the man of the hills abhorred the desecration of such a holy corpse, desperate measures would be taken to allow him into civilization. Without proof of the monk’s death, Rakgal figured his entrance would be cut short by the means of a noose. He hung the beads about his own neck and emitted a dry laugh at the absurdity of an idea that he might be mistaken for a spirit-talker.
“They will think I’m an easterling with these beads. Perhaps I’ll don his robes and paint my face white too! Bah!” he chortled to himself.
Lobbing a well-aimed mouthful of mucus at the alien artifact—to which the barbarian had not a sliver of desire to plunder—he departed from the temple. Aiming to pass over the bridge that spanned the river, the hillman known as Rakgal did not dare to touch the waters. For what he’d spied lying at the shallow bottom of the river was a discovery that made even the wild, uncivilized man shiver and shy his gaze in horror. Nothing less than a black curse had befallen the place and Rakgal was unconcerned with the outcome—only that he would be far from it when any pale horror might be dredged from the river’s belly.
Breaking into a sprint that would match the fleet-footed deer, the barbarian entered his domain—the marshy highlands, already pondering what sacrifice might be necessary to appease the hill-witches that dwelled in the red-rock cliffs so he might cleanse himself of the curse he’d surely encountered. Or the healing waxes for the broken rib on his back.
“Hopefully not an eye,” he snorted at the dark joke, wincing at the sharp pain, then pressed into the brush.
So ended the journey to the remains of Ujcriva and the dark secret of its desolation.
Thank you for reading this. I’ve been trying my hand at mini-tales and short stories—this one came to me as inspiration after reading Lovecraft and wanting to try my hand with something that I haven’t touched yet in my own books too strongly: the ‘alien civilization’ of the Muhnran, the elves of my world, who do not originate from the plane of Aelorad but elsewhere…in the inky depths of the stars…I supposed part of the idea I must attribute of a ‘mind-plague’ is due to the sudden novel Corona-virus and my fascination with the annihilation of civilization.
Fantasy-horror seems to be an untouched market, so the birds have told me, so I would be inclined to try my hand at it again if this is popular! I enjoyed writing it immensely and am interested to hear your thoughts as well. If you did, please consider my latest anthology book that I published this last December, Tales of the Smuggler. It contains a fun, rompy set of swashbuckling tales in the style of Robert E. Howard’s ‘Coming of the Cimmerian’. Click the link below!
LAW WITHOUT SEA 
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