*Scene 01* – 11:00 (Man-Made Monsters)
In the orange twilight and purple haze shining over the mountainous terrain, multiple stones appeared to move and slide down the rocky slope of the hillside towards the backs of the main body of troops passing in formation through the basin of the ridgeline valley. Rather than tumble with a grinding, clacking, snap-pop of stone over stone, these “rocks”, upon further inspection, shifted silently and stealthily, having both arms and short legs, as they shuffled in a crouch-crawl, skulking through the shadows of the undulating hillside toward the unsuspecting troop regiments.
A low, feral grow passed among these oddly, misshapen creatures, and a short huffing sound signified breaths taken, and expelled, as they advanced with growing excitement and snuffling noises. Their eyes shone like cats, their rubbery mouths, pinched and drooled around pig-like tusks jutting from their lower jaws. Their minds were corrupted and ruled by an animal rage and a hunger for violence: an inexplicable yearning for the sound of snapping bones and the anticipated smell of spilling blood. These were the Grawplins, nascent troll-kind, not fully resolved into their final squat forms, and more reasonable, if duplicitous, mindsets. This was their most dangerous phase of their ‘becoming’. A phase their Xarmnian holders had learned to make use of for campaigns of warfare. These were the Mid-World equivalents of the Surface World berserkers. Savage and bestial, unrelenting and cruel, blinded by initial madness, until their raging mental fires cooled into more tapered flames.
These were the shock troops. The first devasting wave of an onslaught that Xarmnian field commanders had been desperately wanting to utilize, to mitigate any subsequent losses of their human armies who would sweep the battlefield killing the surviving remnants of their enemies, after the first devasting wave of savagery had terrorized them and swept them asunder.
***
Dusk was settling into its fiery phase in advance of the darkling coming of evening. Visibility was poor, deep within the shadowy valley as the newly arrived Capitalian troops marched in a travelling phalanx formation to the north of the Zefat mountain range, carrying trade goods and food supplies from their ships towards the eastern and highland communities. Towns and citadels that had once swore loyalties to these far westerners had recently ceased communications and had grown more reticent to send messengers across the increasing hostile free land routes, due to threats of Xarmnian patrols and marauders, with no military to protect them. Honorary tribute taxes from these had ceased, citing the dangers of transporting or carrying any coinage in precious metals that did not bear the imprimatur of the Xarmnian crown.
Capitalia’s regent, Artemis Xerxes, had become increasingly irritated and alarmed by the few reports he received of the secrecy around the old city of Azragoth’s rebuilding efforts, and the insinuations in letters he had received from a local merchant in one of the small communities just north of the woods of Kilrane where the highland access road passed through its commons area. A township once named Surrogate but now known as Sorrow’s Gate as its was increasing plagued by Xarmnian patrols. The author of those disturbing missives was the proprietor of an Inn there in Sorrow’s Gate and claimed to be in the know about such things as the goings on in surrounding communities. He had agreed to keep tabs on whatever news might be whispered concerning the old city, and for months had dutifully reported on its progress and its current leadership under the regent’s former cup bearer, now holding the governorship of the friendly region, and given the title of lordship with a royal stipend, and authorizations for supplies.
The letter writer, a man who signed his name as Shimshai, had exchanged harsh words with the appointed governor, who was overseeing the rebuilding of Azragoth, and the man suspected him of sedition and disloyalty. The Capitalian King then decided to send a battalion of soldiers into the eastern lands to investigate these claims and to inspect the work being done in the old city. And to require an accounting of his appointed governor related to the charges leveled against him by this letter writer, and others delivering such charges. Were there any other evidence or witnesses that could corroborate these claims of sedition? The King insisted on finding out, and on securing the once profitable trade route against Xarmnian encroachment, and intended to collect any back tribute payments, even if they bore Xarmnian imprints, and ensure they back it back to the Capitalian royal treasury, for goods delivered but never fully paid for.
***
When the Brella officer, over the hidden company of Xarmnian soldier had witnessed what was done to one of the keepers of the caged Grawplins, he knew he had to find a way to release those monsters without getting their handlers or their own men killed in the process. He needed to aim the rampaging beasts at a target within sight, rather than making it easy for the creatures to charge and attack his own company.
After he had sent Shihor’s brother, Bayek on his way to deliver his private message to the Son of Xarm, Shihor and a few of his field captains conferred on what was to be done. They had known these beasts were vicious and immensely strong–and they had counted on that being the case–but they had not factored their own vulnerabilities into their planned ambush. It was then decided that long lengths of rope could be used to pull the hinge pins of the cage doors from a distance, with the lengths of rope running over the tops of the cages through one of the eye-rings that had been used to hoist these cages and vicious occupants up onto their horse carts. The cages were to be set along a ridge shelf overlooking the deeper valley below and tilted along the sloped edge of the shelf, allowing the creatures a view of the coming lines of Capitalian soldiers passing through the valley floor below. Sending monsters into a marching battle group was not as simple as pointing and aiming a bow-drawn arrow to direct their deadly force, as was previously assumed. No, the creatures had to be incentivized, to attack in a preferred directional path, and Shihor had offered a further solution to that problem: Horse meat.
It was a brutal course of action, but a workable one, and the Brella commended Shihor for thinking of it. They would butcher the cart horses, since the Grawplins would no longer be returning with the Xarmnian soldiers once released, as they were no longer needed to carry the creatures or their cages. The Grawplins had not been fed since leaving Xarm City during the days of travel, to keep them somewhat lethargic and famished, hoping to mitigate any mishaps with the beasts along the way. The plan was to feed the creatures at their bivouac encampment, to allow them just enough sustenance to gain strength, but hungry enough to devour the enemy ahead. Yet, carrying food sufficient to feed hungry soldiers and the creatures proved to be more of a logistical nightmare travelling overland already encumbered with armor, weapons and supplies. They had to reduce weights and abandon gear along the way to forge low water crossings, and deep sandy areas, and this was just another pairing down of dead weight, the group decided. So, they had slaughtered those horses and laid the cut carcasses out below the cages so that the hungry creatures would catch the tantalizing smell of raw meat, drawing them towards the overlook and sight of the enemy troop lines. The plan worked, and the Xarmnians watched the Grawplins charge out of their sprung cages, tearing the unhinged door asunder and as predicted, move immediately to the open buffet below of slaughtered meat, while the watchers withdrew to a safe distance, just on the other side of the ridgeline crest. The banquet was devoured in short order, and the Grawplins noticed the far movements in the valley below and began stalking their ‘second breakfast’.
***
From below and among the ranks of Capitalian soldiers, a soldier, named Karver, kept glancing upward, as he marched, at the strange furtive movements along the upper ridgeline. Inevitably, he bumped into a soldier ahead of him, apologized and then lagged behind a bit, impeding the forward progress of the soldiers following him in close proximity. A mounted officer noticed the break in formation and rode up alongside the marching troops, with a scowl and rebuke on the sharp edge of his tongue, about to be delivered to the seemingly distract soldier named Karver.
“Soldier!” the mounted officer shouted. “You are out of step! Quit dawdling and stay in line!”
“Lieutenant, I see movement on the upper ridge. I think we’re being followed,” said Karver.
“Of course we would be, soldier! You don’t march this large company of fighting men through the eastern lands and not gather attention. Let’em watch! We have blades and points enough to meet them in their coming. Now eyes forward and stay in step with the cadence!”
“Yes, sir,” Karver responded, turning forward once more. The officer snorted and then rode forward back toward the rear of the marching line, examining the ranks for any further deviations of order.
Other men witnessing the exchange could not help but glance quickly up to the shadowed ridgeline, bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun behind them. Some cursed under their breath as they thought they witnessed large rocks moving laterally along the ridgeline, but they could not be certain. Karver had introduced the idea and, in the interest of avoiding a further reprimand, none of the others allowed their glances to linger long enough on the upper ridge to be certain, without the risk of breaking their present stride.
As evening was descending, they would bivouac soon. Hopefully, on the plains of Ono. Then the night watch would take over. Perimeter scouts would be sent out to survey the area under moonlight and see if whatever was following prove to either be friend or foe.
*Scene 02* – 07:45 (City on a Hill)
The evening shadows were beginning to stretch the coming night across the blazing sky as Mattox rode back into the tunnels and was joined by his attendant soldiers that had guarded our flank from a distance, as we made our way out of the city. Four other Azragothians, two from the east and two from just to the west of us, both hidden from our view during our departure, joined them after following us about a league by different hidden paths down the switchback trails until we reached the dry riverbed. By Mid-World and Surface World measure, a league was about the distance a healthy person could walk in an hour’s time (approximately 1.4 miles). They all were mounted on horseback and rode into the tunnels and sealed up the grotto entrance, by pivoting a cleverly balanced stone slab and sifting dirt down grooves cut in the top so that its base appeared undisturbed by the movement. A mere shallow backing to the small cave, rather than the great stone entrance to a series of complex tunnel systems. They seized the flickering firebrands from sconces in the cavern wall and rode downward, carrying their lights aloft and before them, picking up their pace when the cavern floor began to even out enough for the horses to feel secure in their footing.
Mattox addressed those following and riding astride him, “The others should be clear of the enemy beasts soon if we timed it right. But we must hurry if we’re to share in a part of this.” And with those words he rode forth, pushing the cavern’s darkness ahead within the light of his fiery torch.
At no time was Mattox ever really left unattended. A guard was always present within shouting distance to relay an order to another within earshot so that The Eagle’s commands always had a swift reach to the larger company needed to carry them out. His attendants had a gift for blending in and making themselves seem part of the background citizenry going about their daily lives. Where none were expected, these agents of his often resolved into the shadows and recesses, every watchful for their leader’s command or signal, scanning the perimeter for anything that looked out of place or may pose a mortal threat to their general.
A great strategist and good with maps and military terrain advantages, Mattox and his men had studied the environs of the hills and forests surrounding Azragoth. Much of their time was spent outside of the city rather than within it, though Mattox was always aware of the progress being made by Lord Nem and his craftsmen, and met with him regularly and often when he was not on a military campaign, providing strategic suggestions for the rebuilding effort when needed. Lord Nem valued the keen understanding of The Eagle and often consulted him when there were plans to be drawn up for the remaining vulnerable sectors of the city. The point was that Mattox and all of the leadership of Azragoth, and its people had been planning for a siege attack for many years, and they stood in readiness. Mattox did not have to be present, observing and directing from the battlement walls, for the people of Azragoth to know what they were expected to do. They had drilled in emergency procedures and had discussed scenarios if there were to be a break in the chain of command. They could regroup and continue fighting as coordinated units, or fight as independent battle groups, as needed. Each of the bastion towers housed soldiers on duty, ready to defend the walls from the heights at a moment’s notice.
Mattox and his team did not enter the interior of the citadel through the keep tower, but via the horse gate ramp that rose out of the tunnels onto a stone paved courtyard near the Azragothian stables, beyond the inner black wall. This paved area had once been a spring-fed a shallow foot-pool that could still be sluiced clear of animal dung and mud from the forest trail that had caked upon the animals’ hooves and fetlocks. Stable grooms used the area to wash and brush the riding stock, from forays through the woods of Kilrane.
When the men rode through the tunnel gate, they quickly dismounted, surrendered their animals to the groomsmen, farriers and stable hands, and walked briskly up the stone steps to an upper balcony where the city council members had gathered.
Lord Nem was there, along with Ezra, Corimanth, and Sage the Xarmnian historian, who had, at Corimanth’s prompting, been filling the leadership and other members of the council in on Xarmnian history and the present crown’s interest in Kilrane and their reborn city’s turbulent past. Many of Azragoth’s present populace had not known the full extent of the outside interests, for many of them and their families had been exiled and had only recently returned to the devasted and quarantined home of their ancestors.
When Mattox arrived, Lord Nem and Erza turned towards his approach.
“I am pleased,” Mattox said, gesturing in deferential salute to the council, “to inform you that O’Brian and his team have made it safely as far as the clearing field. But others beyond the Xarmnian threats are approaching through the woods.”
Corimanth spoke up, “Yes, we know. The beasts have been prowling through the ruins of the outer city. We saw them coming in.”
“Have the wood sentries been called in, as we agreed?” Mattox asked.
“They have,” Ezra nodded, “they should be arriving shortly. We’ve a duty watch stationed along the black walled battlement, ready to give the orders, should those creatures attempt the wall.”
Lord Nem added, looking around at the council members and citizenry, who stood readied for the actions ahead, “The Council has been briefed, and the citizenry apprised of the situation facing us. And we are all in agreement. Now is the time. Azragoth will hold its tongue…for now. What you have suggested risks much, but we are committed to the course no matter the cost.”
Mattox bowed in deference, and gratefully assented.
Ezra offered a verse from the revered text, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.” [Mathew 5:14 NKJV] “Quite a compelling argument,” he added. “Azragoth has existed in the shadow of its past for way too long. I agree, it is time we became a beacon once again. We can no longer trust to lies and legends or expect Xarm’s quarantine to offer up protection. If we are to take our stand, let it shine forth for all to see in defiance of our world’s evil. We have submitted ourselves into The One’s keeping.”
Mattox smiled, peeling back his cloak, revealing once again that he wore the eagle crested breastplate and was ready for battle.
Lord Nem stood and raised his hands towards the sky and looked towards heaven, and spoke in a loud voice, “Then let the walls of this city be anointed! For we have committed ourselves to The One and stand ready to resist these devils that threaten our home, our villages and our world!”
On that cue, men stationed in the corner towers came forth with large jars and began to pour what looked to be oil into a groove all along the top of the black walls of the inner city.
*Scene 03* – 10:17 (Casualties of War)
The Capitalian night scouts rode out as the troops reached the base of the rising hill leading towards Sorrow’s Gate.
But they never returned.
As dark shadows began to roll across the land, yellow-eyed creatures moved within the darkening veil. Huffing and snorting as they came. Before Capitalians knew what hit them, gangly armed beasts leapt from behind rocks and down the sloping incline, slamming into the troop lines, shoving supply carts over, toppling their horses in tangled harnesses, seizing soldiers who had barely reached for the swords in their scabbard before being pounced upon and pummeled by stone-hard fists, knocked out of consciousness…out of life.
Mayhem erupted as shouts of surprise and screams of pain and terror mingled together in a nightmarish symphony. Swords clashed, sounds of steel against stone rang the clarion call of general alarm. The monstrous creatures were fast and brutish, savage and cruel. They struck, they bit, they seized, they broke, they tore through the ranks of soldiers and waggoneers, pages, bladesmiths, infantrymen, archers, officers, surveyors, and merchants, cooks, livery hands, quartermasters and servants. The Capitalian battalion leaders were shocked at the speed and might of these feral beasts that had so suddenly emerged out of the night and were rampaging and rapidly decimating their fielded army. Their confidence was shaken as they witnessed the ensuing conflict surging around them, yellow-eyed threats pouring through their ranks in leaps and gallops.
Pole-axe wielders swung, struck and glanced off the rough hides of these animal-man brutes, barely cleaving through them, as if striking at rolling stones. The monsters tore those mallets and maces out of the hands of seasoned soldiers and returned brutal and deadly strikes back, cleaving flesh, breaking bones, pulverizing their hapless victims’ bodies beyond recognition. Firelit torches were emblazoned to provide some semblance of light for those men attempting to fight off the creatures but having very little success of it.
It was then that some of the men finally got a good look at their attackers and were shocked to see how short the creatures were, and that each had some kind of ragged peasantry clothing of sorts. The beasts’ forearms appeared to be sheathed in what could only be described as hairy rocks, and they moved swiftly on their knuckles in a frenzied apelike fashion, using their short, thickly muscled legs to stamp and pivot, swinging their fisted knuckles like stone clubs. Their wide mouths gaped like frogs, with ragged tusks sprouting from their jaws, as they lunged and bit gouts of flesh out of their victims.
One man wielded a fiery torch at the troll-like creature stalking and circling him, and the beast shied away from the flames enough to indicate that fire might be used to at least keep the monsters at bay. Others sheathed their brandished blades and opted for torches, forming a defensive circle around their leaders and the supply wagons that had yet to be destroyed. A lunging troll tried to come in low under one of the raised torches and was summarily set ablaze when the flames caught in its ragged clothing, sending the beast screeching and writhing, back out into the darkness, its hairy arms and hoary head ablaze.
Several of the felled and wounded soldiers lay dead around the remaining troops and many were severely wounded by the onslaught, some of which would prove to be fatal. Food stuffs were spilled and spoiled. Grains and meal, kept in barrels, were thrown from carts, broken and scattered. Horses whose riders had been brutally unseated, ran amok across the field of battle and some ran off into the night away from the conflict zone.
It took over an hour before the attacking creatures gamboled off into the darkness, taking with them sundry and grisly spoils to be consumed later. All about the travelled roadside lay broken and scattered supplies, fallen implements of warfare and the dead, dying and wounded, while those surviving warily held forth their flickering torches against the surrounding shadows, hoping that the monsters had left the field for good. Others had caught stray horses, mounted the animals and rode off in a desperate effort to try and reclaim their straying and frightened remudas.
Fresh water barrels and wine casks had spilled and intermingled with the dust of the road and the strewn carnage and the battle’s aftermath. Barbers and field medics, and nurse attendants who had survived the assault scattered throughout the impromptu battlefield, followed by torch bearers, attempting to do what they could for their wounded. Many of these caregivers had suffered wounding themselves but insisted on treating others in far worse shape than themselves.
Light bearers on the rough edges of the battle site, stood sentry against the surrounding darkness, trying to establish a perimeter to ward off those agents of chaos that had so thoroughly defeated their army and robbed them of any sense of their own security, and ability to thwart any additional renewal of the threat.
Some cart horses were righted and refitted into the harnesses and traces of wagons that could still be used for travel. The war wagons had carried heavier equipment and armor that were not so easily turned over, and most of these had survived the battle without damage, although two of the ten wagons had caught fire when a torch had been swiped away from one of the soldiers bearing it, when he was attacked from a blind spot.
Surprisingly enough, about four of the troll-like creatures were found dead among the human fallen, their vacant yellow-eyes scintillating under the firelight that expose their prone forms. Four dead monsters, among thirty or so confirmed Capitalian dead. In the far distance, coming down from the mountain side and over the lower foothills, they spotted distant torch lights moving in their direction.
Carver, the soldier who had first witnessed the strange movements along the upper ridgeline, turned and ran through the combat zone, weaving around the fallen and the broken detritus of the conflict, searching for one of the ranking Capitalian commanding officers.
He found one of the medics named Uballissu, attending a wounded soldier who lost part of his arm in the attack. Uballissu, known as Uballi, was tying a tourniquet around the soldier upper limb, and had wrapped a soaked cloth around what remained of the unfortunate soldier’s lower arm to staunch some of the blood loss.
“Uballi, I must speak with Nergal.”
The medic did not turn but continued treating the wounded amputee.
“Uballi!” Carver spoke louder, but Uballi did not turn but only spoke in a low voice over his shoulder.
“Captain Nergal is dead,” he intoned in a flat voice.
“Are you certain?!” Carver pressed in shock.
“I pulled the half-broken spear out of him, myself. It had gone clean through him and the other half was beaten to splinters striking him after he had fallen. You may confer with his ghost, if you like,” Uballi added in a humorless tone.
“What about Commander Huzalu?”
“Last I saw he was surrounded by torch bearers near the lead war wagon. He may have survived.” Uballi shrugged. “There are so many, it is hard to be sure.”
“Where was this?”
Uballi gestured vaguely, “Follow the road down. The wagon was in the lead with the mounted officers when those monsters came out of the dark. I expect the wagon is still there.”
Carver did not wait but continued away toward the front of the road leading towards the distant hamlet of Sorrow’s Gate. The torchlight ahead gave him a possible indication of where the commander he sought might be now in the aftermath.
At last, he found the commander, once again mounted on horseback, giving orders to the surviving soldiers and his ranked officers.
“Commander Huzalu, Sir!” Carver called out breathlessly to the Commander. The man turned his horse at the noise. “Who hails me?!” he said in a sharp tone. “Speak!”
“Ensign Carver, Sir!” Carver said, trying to catch his breath from his run through the broken caravan. He gestured backward down the road from which they had traveled before the attack. “From the hills, sir. Lights on the hills, beyond the rise in this road. They’re coming! Carrying torches.”
Commander Huzalu nodded his understanding and looked out into the darkness, over the distant rise in the road before it descended toward the yellow glow of the lights of Sorrow’s Gate. He could just see the distant glimmer of tiny sparks in the far dark, coming over the foothills at the base of the ridgeline above the valley passage.
He motioned an attendant forward and said, “We’ve been led into an ambush! Get this man a horse!” And then he turned towards Carver, standing shakily on his feet. “Can you ride?” he asked.
“Aye, sir. Since I was a lad,” Carver responded.
“Then mount up,” the Commander said, “and carry this message through the surviving ranks.”
An attendant brought a saddled stallion forward and offered the reins to Carver, helping him get a foot up into a stirrup. Once mounted, he turned the horse and nodded to his Commander.
“Tell the ranks to make haste. We ride on to Sorrow’s Gate and will make our stand there. Those that can fight, tell them to grab whatever weapons and find a horse or a wagon if still harnessed with horses. Convey this order to any rank officer you meet, and do not surrender your horse to them, under my orders. Leave the dead. There is no time to lose. Leave the mortally wounded, and those unable to fight. There can be no delays. Be swift about it and meet me in Sorrow’s Gate for further orders!”
With that, Commander Huzalu reared his horse, drew his sword and rode towards the lead war wagon, heading toward the town in the distance below.
Carver blinked, but then turned his horse heading back in the opposite direction. Leave the wounded. It was a hard order, but one made out of necessity. Casualties of warfare, they called it. He wondered at how flippant the term ‘casualty’ sounded under such dire circumstances. But the commander was right, even though it grieved him to admit it. If those who could still fight did not make it to Sorrow’s Gate soon, they might all become ‘casualties of war’ and never see the dawn.
Scene 04* – 07:33 (The Summonsing) – Part 1 “Summonsing Help”
Tizkon had spent the day on the plain of Ono just waiting for Hadeon’s return with the rest of the Xarmnian Protectorate hunters…babysitting the man he had come to refer to as ‘The Stick.’ Two days had passed and he was becoming annoyed. Somehow the inn keeper and that palace scribbler, Sage, had managed to evade them with a wagon switch ruse and had already reduce their original number of fighting men down to a measly few. They had had help doing it. That enigmatic figure known as The Stork Hawk, and his men had fooled them, posing as a weapons convey from the ‘stink mines’. He knew Hadeon had to find them to save face. He’d never seen the man so anger and so desperate. Hadeon was a man who always go things done. When Helmer and his men did not return, Jahazah had sent Hadeon out after them… to get it done. The Son of Xarm was adamant. Don’t come back without that scribbler’s head and bonuses for those of his brood.
Two days, and nothing but sitting here watching over ‘the stick man’. A pathetic piece of work, he thought, as he glared at the man, contemplating how he might get rid of him without getting into trouble with Hadeon. Hadeon had said to slit the man’s throat initially, but… Ah well, he sighed.
Dusk was coming. The wind in the tall grass looked like waves on the sea, as the yellow light darkened to orange, pink, then flamed to red and finally scorched the sky into a withering purple twilight. It was then just then that he noticed the horse grazing in the distance. Where had it come from? he wondered.
He looked from his miserable prisoner, hands still bound and feet tied, sitting, propped against a pack, near the fire. The man was gaunt, his eyes stared vacantly into the flickering campfire, unseeing. He wondered if he could leave ‘the stick’ sitting there while he rode over and tossed a rope over the stray animal. They had already lost so many of their mounts, Hadeon might welcome Tizkon’s initiative in securing one more for their men. Was it wild? he thought. Would he have to break it in?
He started to rise and noticed ‘the stick’ flinch at his movement. Good, he thought.
“You stay there!” Tizkon growled. The man did not respond. He was so weak, Tizkon was certain the man had despaired of trying to make a run for it. And where would he go, if he didn’t. Tizkon could easily run him down and make him smart for the futile attempt.
He scanned the area towards the east and the Kilrane woods beyond the main road. Suddenly, he saw movement against the backdrop of the dark woods. Had he imagined it? But no. There was a rider coming his way.
He would have to think of the grazing animal later. Or perhaps, he was finally being relieved of ‘guard duty.’
He watched as the rider approached, but in the fading gloom, he was not certain who the rider might be, so he unsheathed his blade. When the rider was within earshot, he called out, “Who goes there?!”
From a distance the rider slowed and responded, “Tizkon! It is I, Kathair!”
Tizkon nodded and sheathed his blade, “’Bout time one of you returned?!” He snorted. “Did Hadeon locate the wagon and that scribbler?”
The man rode up closer to the campsite and dismounted, tying the animal up to a picket ring and stake, Tizkon had used to secure the two horses he had remaining within his care.
Kathair came up and rubbed his hands together and squatted near the fire. “Night’s gonna be cold again,” he muttered.
“Kathair?” Tizkon pressed.
“Not yet. But we’re close. We’ve located a road these rebels have been using. It runs over the branches of the highland base and is connected by bridges. It was above us all this time, when we were searching the woods.”
“A raised road?” Tizkon asked skeptically.
“Aye. And we’ve located Aridam. He was injured. Ran into a trap and lost his crew.”
“How careless of him,” Tizkon grumbled. “All of them?!”
Kathair shrugged. “Hadeon was none too happy.”
“I’ll bet,” Tizkon snorted.
“His arm was in bad shape. Said trees fell on them and swept them off the road.”
“How’d he get down here?” Tizkon asked. “No one’s come down the graded road since I’ve been here, or I would have seen them.”
“Said there was a tunnel he found, under the deck of a bridge. A clever escape route, but one these Storm Hawk riders must have used many times.”
“Then we’ll be catching them too as well. The Hawk’s been a boil on us for so long. Maybe we can deliver his head AND the scribbler’s as well in the bargain. There’s a hefty bounty out for that outlaw as well, y’know.”
Kathair nodded.
“So, what’s Hadeon want to do?”
“He says for you to take the prisoner on to Sorrow’s Gate and turn him over to The Over Watch there for safe keeping. We’re to see if we can borrow a few of the city’s watchmen and return here and join them in the woods. I’m to show you and any others we might get how to get onto that hidden road. We are certain it leads to the old city.”
“You mean…?”
“Azragoth, yes,” Kathair said reaching a fork into a pan of cut and frying meat that Tizkon had placed over part of the flames.
Tizkon pondered that for a moment, while Kathair chewed thoughtfully. “So, the old city survived, did it?”
Kathair nodded, reaching again for a second morsel with his fork.
“Okay, then. But I need your help with something, so don’t get too comfortable.”
Kathair sniffed, and looked up, seeing Tizkon pointing. “Seems someone lost a horse.”
Kathair shifted on his heels and looked where Tizkon was pointing, seeing the horse quietly cropping grass in the dimness light of the fading light. “Huh!” he said. “How unlucky for them.”
Tizkon sneered, “And convenient for us. We’re currently running a little shy on riding stock, with as careless as both Aridam and Bayek have been with their animals.”
“That’s true. Let’s get this one. Can’t hurt to have added rather than subtracted to our common stock.”
“My thought exactly,” Tizkon said, unlashing his horse from the pin stake.
Together, Kathair and Tizkon were able to ride over and catch the animal but were surprised to find that the beast wore a full saddle, and trailing bridle, and some light-plated armor. Upon closer look, however, came the greater surprise. The saddle and leather work was not that of a local craftsmanship, but one they had seemed only a few times before. This was a Capitalian saddle, and what’s more…this horse must have had a recently unseated Capitalian rider of rank, for this was a war horse. Built and bred for long travel and battle. Meaning that their arch enemies were somewhere nearby. Here was yet another thing, they both knew, that would not make Hadeon happy. They must be very careful. And now more than before, they would need the assistance of the Xarmnian Overwatch who were quartered in Sorrow’s Gate.
*Scene 04* – 22:18 (The Summonsing) – Part 2 “Court Summons”
In another part of the country, Bayek had finally reached the main road leading to the great stone city near the delta of the Cascale fjord inlet, on the far shore beneath the dark brow of the mountains fronting the higher Stone Wall range. Xarm City was a massive mountain fortress built of megalithic proportions. The Stone Gate was over twenty meters high, and its fronting was bridged by a stone pillared entry, and parade walk all fitted together with massive stones cut from the mountain beyond it. Its outer walls towered and ran for miles along the base of the mountain backdrop, and its castle towers and battlements cast long shadows over the land as the edge of the fading sun finally doused its violet glow into obsidian behind the great Stone Wall in the jagged hills beyond.
Bayek seemed to feel the heavy weight of the city as he rode his horse down the parade walk towards the massive gate, and its portcullis under the stone arch.
He gave the secret pass sign to the attendant guards at the gate and was permitted entry into the city. He rode through the stone streets under the silver sheen of moonlight, gleaming off wet pavements, and flowing down gutters, where towns people had flushed out the walkways, after long hot days of business. Guardsmen were present, but stood in shadowy recesses in dooryards, and alcoves as he passed by, keeping a watchful eye on him as he found a place to livery his mount for the night.
He wasn’t sure whether he should wait till morning to approach the palace with his message. He knew the Son of Xarm to be a restless sleeper and would often walk the upper battlements during the night to ward off insomnia and bad dreams. The man was haunted by something, but he could not be certain what. But he strongly suspected it had something to do with the sirens and their queen who had issued her strange summons. What ‘service’ had those sinister sirens provided his sovereign? What were these ‘golden spores’ she mentioned? How did he know this witch of the woods who called herself Briar? He had thought over the message long and hard during his journey, and only his designation as her erstwhile emissary had saved him from a brutal death in the encounter with The Pan and its monstrous ministers of death. What diabolical hold did these beings have on the Son of Xarm? And was it true that these creatures had a way of watching him? Of finding him? Even in the supposed safety of his home city? A city that, his brother had informed him, no longer offered a bed for him to lay his head without hiring it.
His father was dead. He had not known this, or he might’ve found a way to return sooner. The place felt alien to him now. He debated going to see the night guard at the palace to request a morning audience. Even if the king were wakeful, the message he had to deliver, would not allow the man to rest easy, and few dared to rouse the king knowing that whatever few hours he did find to sleep were to be guarded.
Either way, he would need to notify the king’s chamberlain to seek the audience needed to deliver the message. Perhaps, he could sleep in one of the guard tower’s quarters. Afterall, the king must be anxious to hear any news from the front, considering he had fielded an army to meet the threat of the Capitalian presence on this side of the great fjords. If the king had a good night…if…he might be able to speak to him first thing in the morning. The long travel had worn him out, even with the change of horses, and the provisions given him at the army bivouac site.
He was able to arrange an early morning audience, and as he was told the Son of Xarm had been impatiently awaiting news from the front and from those Protectorate bands that he had dispatched in pursuit of the errant scribe. His appointment would be given first priority on the morning’s schedule and would be allowed temporary quarters in the gate house. A cook hastily prepared him a warm meal, and a palace messenger informed him that he would be fetched when the king awakened and was prepared to receive him. Even with these initial positive developments, Bayek slept poorly.
Morning came sooner than Bayek had wanted, and he hurriedly dressed as a palace attendant arrived to convey him to the royal meeting. He learned from the attendant that the Son of Xarm had daily requested news from his fielded men, and wanted progress reports that none could provide, increasing the frustration of their dread sovereign. The chamberlain was relieved to hear the Bayek had arrived, for the king was growing more and more irritable with each passing day. The king’s first pursuit venture had failed, as Helmer and his men had seemed to vanish without explanation. Bayek had been among the second group sent out to pursue and either capture or kill the scribbler, under his Bruel Hadeon’s lead.
One wondered what might have happened to Helmer and the other Protectorate band. But with the rumored presence of a tunneling tanin resurfacing and the proximity of The Pan being near, any of a number of misfortunes could have befallen them. Either way, the Son of Xarm would have further cause for vexation, and the chamberlain might not be so happy about delivering messages to the king and he might have wish to be.
He was led into the royal audience hall, shortly after the king had finished breakfast. The king was installed upon a raised dais, with the rare golden light streaming down upon him from one of the high windows in the hall. Bayek was announced and the Son of Xarm raised his palm, beckoning that he be led forward to the base of the raised throne.
The king watched Bayek approach, scrutinizing him as he came. A vizier leaned forward and whispered something to the king and the royal nodded, and then sat back, his arms resting on the rails of his high seat.
“You look familiar to me,” the Son of Xarm said. “Have we met before?”
Bayek’s throat was dry and he tried clearing it quietly before he spoke. “I served under my Lord the King, your father, Sire.”
“Ahh, yes…my…uh…father,” the Son of Xarm steepled his fingers together. There was a heavy pause, and the king continued, “I’m an told that you bear a private message for me, and that you have news of both my fielded army and of the progress of the… shall we say… hunt?”
“Aye, m’Lord,” Bayek answered.
“Please continue…,” the Son of Xarm said, gesturing for Bayek to speak.
“Well, m’Lord. Of your fielded army, when I left them, they were stationing an ambush to quell the approach of—what I was told were—a troop of Capitalians, newly arrived in the harbor of Skorlith.”
The king nodded. “And what did you think of my…caged pets, Protectorate Bayek? Will come as quite the surprise, don’t you think?” said the king smiling with lowered brows over a grin that indicated no mirth.
“Indeed, it will, sire,” he answered and added in a lower voice. “Perhaps, for all involved,” thinking of his brother Shihor.
“Continue…,” the king gestured. “My troops fare well and ready. But I would hear of your progress with regard to the errant scribe. Has he been found?”
“Soon, my liege. We have located the place where he has sought refuge. A place thought to be…”
The king nodded, “The place?”
“Azragoth, m’Lord. It seems the quarantined city has survived somehow. Disease did not claim it completely. Hadeon has pursued the fugitives into the surrounding wood of Kilrane. Knowing Hadeon, he will rake through every last leaf of that wood until he finds your fugitive. The man will pay for his offense.”
The Son of Xarm gripped the armrests of the throne at Bayek’s mention of the forested city. He exhaled a long breath, his eyes narrowed, as he repeated the name of the place through clenched teeth—Azragoth.
Bayek was quiet, as the king put a knuckle to his forward and looked off, but motioned with his free hand for Bayek to resume his report.
“Sire, I…,” Bayek paused, and the king turned fierce and annoyed eyes back toward Bayek.
“If this hesitation keeps up, this meeting will need go no further. Speak up! Is there more?!”
In a small voice, Bayek said, “Yes, m’Lord. The Pan and some of his subjects have been seen in a meadow outside of Kilrane. I believe he has taken an interest in those woods. And there are others present with him, that wished me to deliver a personal message to you.”
The Son of Xarm dropped his hand and leaned forward, his eyes keen and shining.
“And what message is that?” he asked, lifting his chin as he spoke, a look of something akin to worry creasing his brow.
“There is a wood siren, my liege. She says she knows you. She says she did you a service once before.”
The king leaned forward, almost rising off his seat. “What did she look like?”
Bayek described the siren as being a beauty beyond compare. He described her green gown lined with gossamer wrappings, her eyes shining with a piercing green light, and her face of an alabaster tone and clear complexion. “She spoke as one with absolute confidence and authority, m’Lord. And she beckoned you come meet her in Kilrane once more. She requests… some kind of offering…and she mentioned an exchange in gold.”
The Son of Xarm let out a long sigh and rubbed his temples thinking in such a way that seemed to cause him some degree of pain. His eyes were clenched shut and his hands trembled slightly.
Finally, after some time, the king said, in a low voice, “Anything more, Bayek?”
“Only that my life was spared by her to bring you this message. She made that quite clear. My unit crew were…not so fortunate. She’s…very dangerous, my Liege.”
Finally, the king raised himself up, and looked hard at Bayek, and asked something that Bayek had not anticipated.
“What did you think of my father?” It was a direct question and one that seemed to have a weight beyond what might have been perceived by anyone else hearing it.
“He was a brave and good man. As you are, m’Lord.”
“Flattery. I have too many courtiers for that. But I expect brave and harsh honesty from my fielded men. So, I’ll ask you again. What did you think of my father?”
“He was a hard ruler, but a brave one. Cunning and disciplined, crushing any who stood in his way. One whose discipline brought dread. He might have made enemies for that, but that he was every bit as a harsh disciplinarian upon himself, if not more so, than he was on those who served the crown. He led, where others followed. He was present, where he was needed most. He was both a king and a warrior. Those who served him had no doubt that he commanded respect, and with it, he shared some of that glory achieved.”
The Son of Xarm leaned back and brought his hand to his chin in thought, nodding only slightly.
“Hmm. And what do you think, my father would have done…” he opened his hands expansively, “…under these present circumstances? How would he have led in this?”
Bayek bowed his head, avoiding his king’s scrutinizing eyes.
“You said you would wish your field men to be brave and their honesty to be harsh, if necessary?”
The Son of Xarm cleared his throat and said, quietly, “I did.”
“He would have roused himself…from this throne,” he paused, “…and lead.”
The king was silent. Bayek’s head remained bowed in submission. He knew that the Son of Xarm had men stationed on either side of his throne that would raise their battle axes and bring it swiftly down on his bowed and expose neck, making the breath following his words be his last. The silence could go either way. The king merely needed to raise a finger, and that would decide his fate. The present silence seemed to stretch into an eternity.
Then he heard the sound of his sovereign rising and slowly lifted his gaze.
“I have too long stayed in this gilded tomb. It is time that I left this place for air not tainted by the putrid stink of fawning subservience and fake abeyance. Rise Protectorate Bayek. I will quit this mausoleum and venture out. It is time.”
The king turned to some attendants, standing in the shadows.
“Fetch my horse. Call forth the company of venturing servants. Prepare me for seeing that my commands are being followed.”
He then stepped down from the dais and placed a hand on Bayek, and instantly the two sentries followed behind the king, their axes borne with them.
“Walk with me,” the king said, and Bayek rose and accompanied him.
“When I was a boy, there was a game we were taught to play. It involved a flat board with squares etched into it. Black and white squares in an alternating pattern. The game had several names over the years. It was called ashtapada, chaturanga, Shatranj, and finally arrived at its simple title—chess.”
“Yes, m’lord,” Bayek said simply, unnerved to be having such what seemed to be a mundane discussion with his dread sovereign.
“There were individually crafted pieces used and placed on the board. One for the king, the queen, there were two clerics, two tower pieces, and two knights, and the rest were subjects. Each of the royal pieces had specific directional moves and some degree of limitations. Oddly enough, the king piece was only granted a few moves, one square move at a time, the same as his subject pieces, while the rest moves with much greater liberty. With the queen being the most libertine of them all.”
The Son of Xarm kept walking with his hand on Bayek’s shoulder, leading him out of the great hall and receiving chambers. Bayek was uncertain of where exactly he was being led, but dare not question the king, noting that the two axe-bearing personal guards followed them closely.
The king continued, “I thought it unfair that the king piece was given so little moves. He could only advance one square at a time, while the queen could advance across the board along any adjacent and unobstructed path. I asked my father why this should be and was slapped for the question. He told me that I was a dullard and would only understand in time, if I just thought it through.”
Nervously, Bayek asked, “A-And what was your conclusion?” Feeling a sense of danger being this close to the Son of Xarm, as if walking too close to a coiled viper ready to strike.
“The queen piece serves to protect the king. She is the delegate of all directional moves and must endeavor to use any and every part of those moves to serve him. If she is taken out, the game still can continue. And because she has that capacity, she is the focus of the opponent’s intense targeting. She gives her life for the king. It is expected of her. Required.”
“I see,” said Bayek quietly.
“If you ever encounter a lion, you know that it is the lionesses that do most of the hunting and killing for the pride, while the male roars and commands, and then shows up to take his choice portion of the slain. It is the way of kings. The same as it was in the game.”
“I understand,” Bayek acknowledged.
“But the point is,” the king concluded, “it was only the fate of the king that decided the game. The goal of the opponent kingdom was to trap him into immobility. To force him into a final check of limited moves, either of which would ultimately decide his fate. Father taught us to play this game. Drilled us in it. Insisted we gain skill learning its techniques, for they would prove useful in ruling a future kingdom.”
Bayek was silent, listening to the king, uncertain of what to say or how to respond.
“Father would often interrupt a game, and send us on an errand, and then when we would return, something on the board had changed.”
“Were the pieces moved?” Bayek asked.
“No,” the king gestured ahead, “the game board was expanded by one row or column. And it could be on any side.”
“Why was this?”
“To give us a chance to see what impact expanding the kingdom would have on our strategy and game play.”
He let that sink in.
“Kingdom expansion does change the strategy. It gives the king piece a few more options on the board but can create more difficulties as well. Expanding in the wrong direction and the field becomes too broad to manage and the king loses his opportunities to evade his opponent and get trapped into a corner.”
“So…,” Bayek began, but the king interrupted. “Too long I’ve allowed myself to be trapped into a corner. The longer I stay couped up in this fortress the more opportunities I lose to evade those who seek to take what should all be mine. There are too many rulers in the Mid-World as it is. There should be only one. Power should be centralized. As in the game, all other pieces of play serve the same purpose. To protect their one ruler. There must be winners and losers. Victors and the defeated. My father knew this.”
He turned to Bayek and faced him. “And his legacy is mine. I cannot allow Capitalians to have loyalist behind me. I cannot allow The Pan to take possession of my flank. This is warfare and survival. You understand?”
Bayek nodded, “Yes, m’Lord.”
“And you will serve me in this?”
Bayek knew he had no choice but to answer in the affirmative, for the two sentries we not just there to follow the king, and that purpose was dangerously apparent as they shifted their holding of the battle axes into a two handed grip.
“Aye, my Lord.”
The Son of Xarm stared pointedly at him, noting Bayek’s fear, but seeing that the man understood.
Finally, the king said, “All is good then.” He sniffed.
“You will then go with me to meet this Siren Queen. It is my choice to go, not at her beckoning. I will not be ordered, by anyone. I long to see how my army has fared against these Capitalian invaders. And if The Pan will do me the service of ridding me of these upstarts in Azragoth, he will have indication of my gratitude…for now. I cannot have the eastern lands occupied by those not loyal to me. It is enough that the…”
The king stopped abruptly and did not finish and seemed to clamp his lips tightly against saying anymore.
He then turned and placed both hands on Bayek’s shoulders. “We understand each other, don’t we?”
“Yes, m’Lord.”
“So, go. Prepare yourself and take whatever supplies you need for the return journey. I have things to attend to before we leave, so I will expect you back here in the morning. And we will leave…together.”
When Bayek stepped outside of the palace and was able to get beyond the palace portico, he released a breath he had not realized he’d been holding. He leaned against a wall and could not help but be overcome by the need to retch. The Son of Xarm would be finally be going beyond the walls of Xarm City? He had hoped to only deliver the Siren’s message and then wash his hands of the matter. But now he was thrust into the middle of it. And in deep.
*Scene 05* – 12:36 (Azragoth Under Attack) – Part 1 “The Dead Sector”
The black death resided within the wall of the Azragoth’s outer curtain, beneath the killing zone. The old outer ring of the citadel was filled with a conglomerate of short courtyards choked with vines and twenty years of weeds and rot. Throughout were burned-out domiciles and collapsed buildings. Broken rubble was strewn about—remnants of its former destruction. Beneath the weeds in the old dead sectors of the city lay charred arrows and half-chewed, mold-blackened children’s toys—sinister symbols of its historical tragedy. Stray herds of goats haunted the breaks and defiled the once hallowed family homes that now moldered with decay and neglect, char, and ruin. Except for the creep of vines and molds, lichen and moss, one might expect the outer ring to be devoid of life, yet living things remain. A herd of donkeys and a flock of goats, both of which were wild and untamed, had taken up residence within the crumbling and deserted hollows that had served as domiciles for many of the slain people of that once thriving city. Braying and bleating of those invasive animals had caused many a hapless forest wanderer to believe the stories of the haunting of the old, wood-bounded citadel.
But of late, other things moved about through and under the overgrowth in the dead sectors as well. Hunters. Creatures of questionable origin. Beasts which defied the natural order of like kinds, promulgating along their like kind. The bleating of the goats and the braying of the wild donkeys had not only been signifying their presence but, of late, also signified their distress. Many of those former natural animals now lay dead under the canopy, their carcasses torn apart and pulled under the blankets of vines to be further savaged. Skulls and twisted haunches, and partially gnawed legs, now matted with dried decaying flesh, crawling with worms and maggots disintegrated silently under the leafy canopy. The awful smells blended in with the moss-rot odors of the kudzu and mushrooms growing along the pavements of the dead sectors.
Malevolent eyes of these unholy creatures, newly arrived in the old town of Azragoth, had watched the comings and goings of the hidden inner city. They had seen the silhouettes of the people standing on the terraced balconies beyond the blackened wall, looking down into the ruins of the old town, unaware that they were being observed from beneath the bushes and vine mats.
One of these angry watchers was the short squatty creature called Grum-Blud, who now carried the slain evidence of his attendant monstrous hunters with him. Grum-Blud, Shelberd, and the onocentaurs had arrived outside of the old city just before nightfall, accompanied by The Pan’s manticores. Grum-Blud ordered the donkey-men and Shelberd to wait beyond the old outer wall, while he took the manticores into the interior. The mission was to assault and remove the remaining human presence still occupying the woodlands of Kilrane that he had claimed from the human king from the City of Stone. They would have launched that mission sooner, had the manticores not been distracted by the goats and donkeys wandering through the ruined sector leading up to the inner black wall, stained with a sticky substance that adhered to anything that touched it.
Grum-blud dug at his chest, with his free hand, angered by the black stuff that he could not seem to get off of his clothing and the shaggy coarse hair on his forearms and beard. He was not a particularly clean or fastidious creature by any stretch of the imagination, but the black sticky stuff annoyed him and pulled at his hair whenever he moved his arms. He wondered if later he should allow himself to be combed or worse yet, …washed.
The manticores were savage beasts, but stubborn. Since they were discouraged from eating Shelberd and the two onocentaurs, Grum-Blud had promised Mowgrai that they would soon be fed from another source. And when they discovered the goat flock and donkey herd animals within, their instincts took over and they pounced, pursuing the animals into the thickets, and tangles of vines, and eviscerating them both with claws, teeth and speared telsons. Grum-Blud had tried persuading the manticores that there was an even greater feast set for them beyond the black wall but could not get the monsters to listen to him, ravenous and hungry as they were. He made the mistake of touching the black stone and had further enmired himself to the amusement of the monsters trying to get unstuck from its adhesive and slick surface. When he had finally extricated himself the monsters had already begun stalking their more proximal and accessible quarry.
With his prior notion of surprise attack by stealth completely thwarted by the savage and noisy pursuits of these hunters, he resigned to watch and wait as the Chimeric beasts made short work of their meals and managed to snatch a morsel for himself in the bargain. He glared up at the blackened wall with piggish eyes, as he absent-mindedly gnawed on the ripped haunch of a goat. Fresh gouts of blood mixed with his own drool, spilling over his lips and matting his grizzled beard as he ate. His tusk tore through the limb meat, as he savagely imagined the sight of the one responsible for the rolled up and tied, fire-blackened remains he and Shelberd had carried into Basia tracking two women. The interlopers would pay for it. And if they had sought refuge behind this black wall, he was bound and determined to get past it and come for them, to ensure they did.
Scaling the inner walls of this old town, he had thought, should have been easy enough. But something bothered him about the black coating. It smelled and resisted all growth of any kind. No vines protruded from the mortar lines, not even a mushroom cap or blanket of moistened moss could be seen anywhere along its surface. Kudzu, a hearty plant, curled away from it and any creeper vines extending to touch it were yellowed and dried, crumbling to powder when rubbed between fingers.
Without a ladder to lean against the top of the wall, there would be no way to get over it, except to get further enmired in its black coating by attempting to scale it with hammered spikes. Not an attempt one could hope to achieve with any degree of stealth or secrecy. Black gaping murder holes lined the top, just two to three feet shy of the jutting cornice. No doubt the means by which the thick sticky substance had been poured down to thoroughly coat its outer face. Was it possible to snag the claw end of a rope and grappling hook within these gaps? If so, it would be quite a trick and not a feat in which he was confident even on the best of days. A rock mound ramp might be attempted, but not under the watchful eyes of those manning the bastions and battlements. No, The Pan’s creatures were more adept at this kind of assault.
They had insisted on eating first, before any fighting, and he had given them their will. They hunted through the great leafy nets, killing whatever they could catch and corner. He had insisted that the city within not be alerted too soon, but they only half-listened, not being accustomed to following any orders except those given by The Pan. But all the same, what did it matter? Those inside the wall were not going anywhere. The noises would scare them. Let them know what was in store for them. Dishearten them and let them know who had the superior odds in this imminent attack.
The Pan did not share its authority unless it served his interests to temporarily seem to do so. Something even the Xarmnians did not know. Something that would have made the creation of trolls, like himself pointless in continuing in practice. There had to be a usefulness to everything serving the greater good. The fact that the trolls were given recognition by the Half-men was a useful thing in the eyes of the Xarmnian leadership. And the trolls relied on being viewed as useful to the Xarmnians and to the Half-Men to preserve their continued existence. To continually grow in numbers through the propagation and administration of the mysterious elixir.
The Pan and his creatures had a deep-seated hatred for these peoples, and Surface Worlders in particular, that Grum-Blud, was not able to understand. Something about their ancient past. Something lost to antiquity, buried as it was in their animal brains, and what passed for their collective memory.
The Half-men creatures were noisy eaters. They slurped, grunted and snorted while they ate. A few of them farted. Not particularly keen on manners himself, but Grum-Blud was irritated by it, and by how much louder it seemed, when he had tried warning them not to make noise and attract the attention of the guards within.
Anger focused him. And he determined to get over that wall and cut through those people with tooth, claw, and blade until they surrendered the traitorous, murdering Surface Worlders. These would not be shown the mercy of dying so quickly. These would be given over to The Pan, to devise something horrible that he could watch and savor. Hear their screams as perhaps they were served piecemeal to The Pan’s subjects.
Perhaps he would eat a few pieces of the one who had led and the one who had killed his brother as well. He licked his fat bloody lips at the thought. The blood of the goat refreshed him in some odd way. Perhaps, his tastes were already changing to becoming more aligned with those of the Half-Men, rather than those of the Xarmnian peoples that he had once been. Perhaps, in time, the Xarmnians themselves might be fair game for tasting and slaughter as well. Perhaps, in this way, they might become useful to the greater good of Trolls too. The dark-eye mind trick did not seem to work on the people of the Mid-World, as it did on Surface Worlders. Perhaps, that too might one day change. One never knows.
Of all of the Half-Men types that The Pan could have sent, these kinds seemed the most suited for scaling walls. Grum-Blud was amazed at their ferocity, even though he was annoyed by their reckless disregard for keeping and maintaining a low profile.
The manticores were now growing impatient with Grum-Blud’s delay, as he had tried working out what he deemed to be the best approach to scaling the black barrier. The delay had been mostly for his benefit. For he did not want them to go over the barrier without him. The one called Grawldo, glared at Grum-Blud and growled in annoyance. It wore a collar around its neck with the loose end of a rope. Grum-Blud’s way up and over. As far as they were concerned, the fat frog man was an annoyance, but The Pan had been clear that they were not to ditch him or eat him. And…they were to bring him back after it was all over.
There was fresh meat on the other side. They could smell it. The kills had only whetted their appetite. The long run from the marked and scented territory of The Pan had been tiring but their energy was returning with their recent meal. The meat on the other side had very little hair to have to cough up later. The Manticores were big and powerful, muscular and tawny, their claws oversized and thick, extending and retracting from their giant powerful paws. It was going to be a massacre inside. And finally, Grum-Blud grinned and raised his hand to give the signal.
*Scene 05* – 03:31 (Azragoth Under Attack) – Part 2 “The Black Wall”
Meanwhile above, Mattox and the wall guards watched the manticores below as they paced beneath the black wall seeking and scanning its surface, looking for a break in the stone that they could not find beneath the thick viscous coating. The soldiers of Azragoth had observed the Troll and its newly gathered beasts for some time now. They had seen the little squat creature crawl over the battered and twisted portcullis gate beneath the Barbican under the silvery moonlight. They saw the other troll and onocentaurs argue and break camp in the early morning hours. The two who had arrived with onocentaurs, miserable creatures with the body of a small donkey and the top half of a man. These had been left outside of the city to forage in the surrounding woods, while the troll scouted the ruined city.
The onocentaurs had been tied to the lower forest trail in a copse. The onocentaurs argued with the troll very heatedly, and the bemused Azragothian observers almost laughed aloud and gave their hidden location away when the larger troll in the lead was overheard telling the onocentaurs that “Asses should not be fitted together with a human mouth!”
The observers correctly surmised that the leader troll’s initial attempts to get over the inner walls of the city of Azragoth had failed miserably. It was almost too comical to watch.
When the signal below was given, the Azragothian soldiers stationed with smoldering torch standing just inside the doorways of the bastions along the inner wall, waited in readiness to do what their commander The Eagle had instructed them to do.
Lord Nem and his craftsmen had rebuilt and redesigned the inner wall in a very unique way, with characteristics unlike any other city wall in all of the towns and citadels within the Mid-Worlds. The inner wall had a shelf at its top, called a machicolation, with a V-shaped trough running along the top, just under the lip of the stone cap, filled to the brim with a petroleum-like oil. The lip-edge of the trough was also coated with tar and pitch, spilling over and down the wall where it ran partially into the horizontal gaps of the murder holes about a foot below. From the inner-shelf of the interior wall, about waist high from the battlement walkway, was a slanted grooved-trough in each merlon between the crenellation caps of stone, where hot oil, tar, boiling water or stones and arrows and could be poured, dropped or shot down upon anyone attempting to scale the pitch-blackened wall. A wooden bench lined the inner wall rampart, allowing archers to raise themselves between the crenellations and fire down into the killing fields of the narrow outer courtyards upon any enemy who might successfully breach the outer curtain wall. Bundled quivers filled with arrows lay at the ready in the dry boxes below the benches, which allowed the archers to always have an ample supply of darts ready to come to both hand and bow should they run out of those in their carried and strung quiver slings during a protracted battle.
Manticores were irrepressibly vicious and savage. They would pursue, maul, kill and give no quarter. No one would be safe from their fury. Mattox warned his armed defenders to do whatever it took to prevent the manticores from entering the city. Between the torch-bearers and the archers of Azragoth, they assured him they would see to it that that never happened.
*Scene 05* – 05:22 (Azragoth Under Attack) – Part 3 “Claws of Fire”
With flared claws, the Manticores, spaced out all along the city walls leaping almost as one, though slightly staggered, as they saw the movement of the signaled cats commence their attack. Ferocious roars struck terror in the men atop the wall as the creatures lunged against the blackness, scrabbling to gain purchase in the buried grooves beneath the coating. Invariably the beasts slipped and became enmired with blackness, their powerful paws caked with tar, their hides gleaming with the thick, black, glutinous ooze.
Archers fired arrows down through the murder holes in the top wall, some hitting, some missing the big cats, but not deterring the beasts. Rather, it further infuriated the monsters, making them even more determined to scale the obsidian wall.
The torcher bearers in the bastion doorways looked down upon the horrible spectacle and from one to the other, waiting for their own signal to be given. A lookout sentry, from higher up on the clockwise running stair within the bastion tower, watched and observed as each of the creatures became more and more enmired and coated with the pitch, some bristling with arrow quills, but each was still making some degree of progress up the Inner Wall.
The Troll ran from creature to creature as fast as its stocky legs would carry it, loping and bounding from its knuckles in the characteristic Troll gait, urging the beasts onward and upward, each time they slid back downward. Their broad paws swept away more and more of the viscous tar with every attempted ascent, exposing the stone wall beneath, and the caked mortared grooves. With persistence, these creatures would soon make it over the wall, and then in anger and frustration, these monsters would tear them apart.
Suddenly, the word was given. Lord Nem and Ezra watched as The Eagle and his attendant soldiers burst forth from the gate of The Keep and rode off the galley loader on horseback.
“Light them up!” he shouted, racing his horse at full gallop through the streets, the hooves of his mount pounding into the cobblestones as he rode forth.
Instantly, from every corner of every bastion tower located along the city’s inner wall, a wall of flames burst forth with a loud whooshing noise. So intense was the sudden flash of heat that the men watching along the wall dove for cover, backing away from the edge as flames tore across the outer portion of the machicolation rim and fiery oil spilled down the external side of the Inner wall, igniting the blackened pitch, creating various blue flames whooshing over and around the embattled manticores still attempting to ascend it. Roars of pain and screams of rage formed a cacophonous dark symphony. A deafening crescendo that caused Azragothians to hold their ears in uncertain terror. Unsure whether the sounds signified their imminent death or a successful rout and repulsion of the enemies from without.
Doused and roiling in engulfed flames the manticores ceased their assault on the fiery Inner wall, their own immolations imminent. The pitch and oil covering their human and animal bodies licking all over them with painful blue and yellow tongues of fire. Howling and roaring, they tore through the underbrush, colliding with buried and hidden detritus from times gone by, bouncing painfully off stones half-buried and crumbled from partially collapsed walls. Blinded with searing hot pain, they raced along the killing fields over and under the vine mats and weaving and bounding in great leaps over obstacles searching for the twisted gate of the Bastion through which they had entered. The thick manes of the manticores, stained with the grime and oil of the black wall, erupted into flames, creating deadly haloes of burning hair and smoking flesh, blinding the creatures even more.
The conflagration and the howling and roaring echoed balefully throughout the forests and hills surrounding the cliffside, redounding off the stone peaks, reaching even to the lower valleys and villages beyond. Truly, the foretold black tongue of the city of Azragoth took a far second place to the city’s angry tongues of fire.
The inevitable effect of this was that for miles and miles around, and after twenty years of silence, the city could no longer be quietly hidden among the forests at the foot of the upland ridge.
***
From our vantage point in the valley below, we witness those once hidden interior walls suddenly blaze into the night sky and shine through the trees blazing forth in a bright ring of fire. Flaming balls of fire streaked out from what we assumed could only be the old front gates of the city, and raced in flicker blazes through the smoky forests, setting some of the drier vegetation ablaze as well. The sight of it was terrible in its fury, the noises of it even worse to behold.
As the evening dusk settled in colored bands upon the distant horizon, Azragoth appeared to have, at long last, awakened from the dead and was stunningly revealed to the surrounding communities below. An emblazoned harbinger of proximity to all its friends, and foes alike.
*Scene 06* – 07:04 (Into the Inferno) – Part 1 “Spiteful Laughter”
Laughter was the last thing Hadeon and his men, along with the wounded Aridam, had expected to hear as they rode grim-faced and purposefully along the bridged upper road beneath the overhead canopy of towering trees. The sounds came from above and below them, seeming to grow in volume then fade amid sounds of birds’ wings flapping and the rustling of leaves and animals small and large scurrying about through the limbs and rustling through the underbrush below. The horses they rode blew and snorted, also affected by the activity.
Aridam rode sullenly along looking down at the forest floor about fifty to sixty feet below them. He had suffered a berating and a few blows from Hadeon when he returned and reported all that had happened on the ridge road and of what had befallen them as his assigned company had been swept from the roadway or had been buried under the mat of the downed trees. He saw a flock of deer running and weaving through the thickets, bounding over moss-covered deadfalls, racing swift footed through a mat of ferns and ivy. Squirrels leap from tree trunk to branch and chitter excitedly, weaving in and out of the wood growth. He paused, reflecting on the flurry of activity below and above. Those animals sensed something, and it was not excitement that caused them to vocalize with such animation…it was fear. Birds fluttered and darted under and over them, stirred to flight, yet never coming to a perch, or taking time to peck through the ground cover in search of their insect diet. These animals were leaving the woods, and in a frantic hurry to do so.
Others in the company of riders seemed to notice this too but were too wary and hesitant to comment. Hadeon was in a foul mood, but Aridam thought, “when was he not in such a dour state?
The laughter was disturbing. At first Aridam had not registered the noises to be such, but rather some odd trick of the woods. Aridam had heard the rumored stories that Kilrane was haunted, and he was beginning to sense that there might be some truth to the whispered tales. After hearing those swooping sounds come again through the woods, only now had he decided that they were more like harsh laughter than anything else he could account for. There was a odd feminine quality to that chortling, like the cackle of old crones setting on a porch front swapping humiliating stories of their men folk. But what would womenfolk be…? He took in a sudden breath as the realization struck him. Harpies! It could only be those of the winged half-men kind, loyal to The Pan. He looked up, about to say something, when he saw others raise an alarm pointing ahead. Beyond was a flickering glow that could only indicate one thing and explain the behavior of the animal life above and below. The wood was on fire.
The treetops ahead throbbed as fire spread, flashed and popped through the upper canopy and fiery brands of leaves and burning limbs fell into the brush below, igniting the dead detritus.
Hadeon and all those astride horses reined in and swiftly giving heed to the instincts of their animals, to reverse their course. Aridam knew there was only one way down from this strange high road and it lay several winding miles back from the direction they had come.
Turning back, they saw that dangerous glow was now also behind them and blazing in the roof of the hollow ahead. Aridam grabbed his rein tightly, wincing at the renewed pain in his busted arm as his muscles flexed. He amended his former thought, as he kicked the flanks of his mount forward into an increasingly faster gallop, his position now in the lead of the company of Protectorate hunters. That road and slope father ahead was not the ONLY way down, and if the fires reached the wooden bridges spanning the root ridges of the highlands they would all become aware of that second way, if that inferno did not fall upon them first.
***
Delitch, Neenitch, and Remitch wove, dove and whirled over and under tree limbs and partially fallen logs, weaving and dashing through the air savagely setting everything they could ablaze. The dove through ridge valleys, under a strangely built road bridging one spine of the highland to another. Flames licked through the dried canopy and hungrily dropped tongues of fire and spewed embers onto the raised roadway, igniting the planks that formed the bridgeway surfaces. They espied horsemen traversing this raise roadway, and chortled as they saw then fleeing in terror, savagely imagining the mortification and dread the wood sirens would experience when they saw what was being done to their would-be home.
The Pan would be angry, but they knew that the fault of the blaze could be easily laid upon the humans inhabiting the old city in Kilrane, for they had seen the fires erupt from their blackened wall. The woodland city had exposed itself to the outside world once more, giving them an even greater opportunity to enhance the flames that lit up the surrounding wood. Currents flowing from the eastern sea drifted inland and eventually poured down over the highland rim into the valleys below and the lowlands stretching down towards the fjords of Cascale. Naturally the flames would be carried by these winds toward the fronting edge of Kilrane, scorching a fire-swathed trail rolling downward toward the trough of the Zefat range to the west.
The Harpies were making sure that the wind-driven flames spread wider than they might have if they had simply come directly from the direction of the old city.
Already fiery arms encompassed the northern flank of the wood as the flying trio flew toward its southeastern length running towards the town of Crowe. The cressets worked perfectly in the north, and they were anxious to try their torches to the south.
They surveyed the fiery field, riding the thermal updrafts from the flames below, their crone features stretched in what might have been considered a rictus, if not for their gleeful cackling. Their wild hair streamed and flared torrentially as they spun and soared over the crackling canopies, now withering to embers and greying into falling ash and rising soot. Smoke billowed upward but leaned forward to the west under the press of the wind.
A wide swath of land formed a growing delta of blackened trees, scorched earth, and smoldering brush and grass as the flashing copper edge of the fire honed its blade to thresh through more of the wood.
Ahead of the fires, the harpies spotted a curious band of riders with a wagon and hitched team wending their way quickly through the woodland still under threat by the approaching fires. Their course would necessarily drift towards the southeast if they hoped to survive, and the feathered sisters darted and swooped ahead to ensure that they would not.
*Scene 06* – 07:56 (Into the Inferno) – Part 2 “Burning Bridges”
Aridam and the others continued racing along the roadway that slithered in and out of the growing conflagration. Hadeon and the front men were now trailing them, with each in desperation to reach either the down slope ahead of the high road or the cave opening that had led Aridam onto the raised road. Parts of the roadway behind them sagged, canted and sloughed off the shoulder ridges, engulfed in flames. Bridgeworks had collapsed behind them, and portions of the spanning planks cracked and fell in a shower of breaking and scattered embers. Two of their company had fallen, as their horses veered away from a leaning edge, their hooves pounding and scrabbling to remain on the leaning planks, as the support structure beneath crumbled. The men had been pitched out of their saddles and fell into the hungry flames beneath, unable to remain seated when the horses suddenly shifted their momentum and leaped over gaping holes in the bridgeworks.
Hadeon had been so intent on running the fugitives to ground after being evaded so long, he had to make up the distance and coax more speed out of the horse he had already driven so hard in the pursuit, when they were forced by the fires to turn back. He had narrowly missed being swept off of the roadway himself, when a flaming tree fell across the path that had once stood prominently upright along the spine of the root ridge holding the end of one of the many bridges. His anger had finally given way to dread as he feverishly lashed at his horse, trying to stay up with the others now in the lead of his band. But that was not to be.
There were three of them, along with Hadeon who had crossed the southern edge of a spanning bridge, as its northern side slanted and broke from its mooring. Binding ropes had burned and snapped, loosening the logs that undergirded the bridge, causing them to roll. Scorched stone broke and the structure heaved forward. Men and animals alike shrieked as they were pitched forward. The ends of the logs stuttered down the edge of the spine, having broken from their former nesting, and for a moment they held, leaving the bridge’s edge about six feet below the continuing roadway now above it.
The others ahead heard the breaking, and whine of the crumbling bridge, but only two looked backward, seeing the fate of their bruel and his luckless lieutenants.
Aridam was now eight horse-lengths ahead, his animal topping the last remaining bridge before the tunnel that would be around the bend just ahead. A curtain of sparks and smoke draped the roadway in a hellish gossamer veil. The bridge was missing cross planks, and burning branches littered its surface, making it hard to see where the span continued and the edge dropped away into the lower wood below.
A collection of broken boulders, fire blackened where green moss had once covered them, yawned like a mouth full of jagged and irregular teeth. The rocky spine at the other end had a more manageable downward slope on its northern end, but its south face was sharp, vertical and flint faced descending into deep ravine.
Aridam was only five feet from reaching the opposite end when the bridge shuttered and began to fold. In that split second, his horse leaped forward, launching itself away from the bridge surface and stabbing its heels on the far edge of the jutting spine. Aridam’s heart pounded, his ears throbbed, he coughed through the smoke that stung his lungs. His battered arm felt like it had been run over under a team of draft horses. His eyes watered to where he could barely see. But that fact that he could perceive any of these discomforts told him the most important thing. That he was still alive.
His horse trembled and shuddered, shying away from the edge of the now cliffside, hugging the shoulder of the rock face, almost leaning against it. Aridam blinked through the haze but could not hear anything above the roar of the fires. The remainder of their company was lost. Hadeon and the others…gone.
He rubbed his soot-stained face, careful to balance his weight over the center of the saddle. Tears of pain streaked his cheeks and fell from watering eyes. Should he try to go down the descent route? He winced at how foolish the thought came to him. Of course not! The cave opening was the only sensible choice to evade the fires. It was just around the corner ahead, if he remembered correctly.
Suddenly, he felt his horse sag beneath him and start to lower its hindquarters. Its eyes were glassy and Aridam knew that the animal might not make it. He freed his toes from the stirrups and slid off the horse as it sank its flanks onto the roadside.
He stood shakily and put out a hand to calm the animal, stroking its nose, and wiping away some of the soot that spotted its snout and flaring nostrils.
“C’mon, Aries. It’s just a few more feet. You can go just a few more. It’s just you and I, now. We’re survivors.”
He rubbed the horse’s jaw line as the horse’s deep-throated rumbles eventually lessened. Comforting the animal somehow did something for him. It awakened something inside him. Something he had thought he had rid himself of long ago when he had joined the Xarmnian Protectorate. Compassion. He had always been told it was a weakness. But now…somehow it felt like a strength.
Though the fires continued to rage and spread around them, somehow Aridam had managed to get his horse, Aries, up from its seated position and coax it to follow him around the corner, around a burning branch that nearly obscured the tunnel entrance, and back into the cavern.
Somehow, he no longer felt it was just enough to save his own skin. The animal mattered too. And as for that, in the face of so much death, and in considering the part he had played in bringing death to enemies of the Xarmnian crown during his time as a Protectorate guard, he now concluded that…Life in general mattered as well. In fact, it was too precious to waste serving a regent who did not share his newly discovered belief.
Hadeon was gone. No one would miss his cruelty. In a few years, no one would even remember his name or what he had accomplished during his time and service. For anything to last beyond a mere human’s breath, it had to come from someplace other than a pursuit of power and dominance. That path was merely a chasing after the wind, that would eventually go up in smoke. No, there had to be something else to give a man’s life a purpose and a meaning. Something he felt might be hidden within his sudden feeling for the suffering of his horse. A beast that had helped him survive. A beast that was more than something to be used and discarded when it seemed to have expended its usefulness. Man was more than a mere beast, but that did not mean he could discount the innate worth of lives with less cognition than that granted him by the unknown source of it all.
It was with those thoughts that Aridam and his horse stood in the dimness of the tunnel, sheltered from the fires from without, and finally sagged against the moistened stone walls of the cave. A cool seep trickled and drained down its side. They both drank from the seep and its rock shelves that pooled some of the refreshing water. And then succumbing to exhaustion, they both slept…as the fires outside continued to rage.
*Scene 06* – 05:16 (Into the Inferno) – Part 3 “Flame Out”
When Delitch, Neenitch and Remitch arrived in the wooded area on the southern side of the Kilrane fires, they discovered to their dismay that they had run out of the loaded wick in their cresset torches. They had been warned by the Xarmnian blacksmith that that might happen, but had been so fascinated with their new fire makers that they had dismissed the admonition. Now they had no way to continue lighting the woods, and the mirth that they had once displayed was waning into disappointment.
Delitch grumbled and tried to think. Could they snatch a burning branch and carried across the field to this area? She suggested such, but the singed feathers from their feeble attempts had taught them the foolishness of that option. The branches might burn for a short time, but flying into the wind would snuff the flames out, and the ends only smoked, and climbed up the length of the wood, scorching them. The branches hung on their shanks and they could not carry one long enough to ignite anything.
Burning the southeastern end of Kilrane was a washout. Delitch could only hope that the edge of the current delta blade would turn in that direction, but it did not look like that was happening. The southeastern side was lusher and greener than the northern side, and it was fed by rivers and woodland streams coming down from the upper highlands. That was something that rankled Delitch for she knew that something had caused the escarpment stream to awaken once more. The water from that stream was pure and nourishing and would further infuse the woodlands and the valleys below with lush green life. It would be so much harder setting fires going forward.
Delitch saw no other path forward but to send her two sisters after more wick from that chandler the blacksmith had mentioned. They had managed to get Delitch’s cressets loose and off of her legs, using their claws to pull up the shifting pin that secured the leg collar to its joining cup. They perched high up in a tree in discussion, with Delitch giving the orders.
“But why stay you? One of us can play watch. You bigger and stronger.”
“Argue not with me! You each carry my leg lights! One to one. I need stay, see what the twiggies are up to. They leave sign of being here before. A nursery they have. Heads of men dangling. Must burn those too. Water come here soon and then all it over. Pan catch me with firestick and we done. We…” she clapped her wings together with a whoosh and twist, signifying some unknown and horrible recompense that The Pan would do to them, if their wings were caught in this burning of the woods.
“Evidence still on you too. Must hurry you! Must fly to this chandler and reload wick burn! Stone city few hours flight, but be swift, and unseen. Now shoo! Shoo! Get you gone!”
“How we find you?” Remitch asked.
“I find you. Same as in mountain, with your tasties! Now get!”
Reluctantly, Neenitch and Remitch gathered Delitch’s unhooked cresset shanks and flapped up and away, heading back toward Xarm City, to the blacksmith shop and to get this chandler to give them the fire again.
Meanwhile, Delitch fluttered and flew back towards the burn site, hoping once again to catch a glimpse of the wood travelers hauling their wagon. To find out what they may be up to.
It was then she saw the lions…or what looked to be lions. Bright and shiny lions. No. She came in a little closer, seeing these tawny fire-shrouded creatures with their curling and pulsing arched tails rushing through the brush. Several of them slowed and then collapsed, with the fire licking over their forms, blackening their hides and their insectile tails thrashing and then drooping, and then dragging as they ceased moving. Smoke twisted upward from their immolated carcasses as they succumbed to the deadly embrace of the flames.
Manticores. These were The Pan’s personal guardians. The Pan must be close, Delitch gasped diving into the trees taking some degree of shelter from being spotted high upon the wing. Delilah, her queen Harpy would be near as well. And the others. The Pan never left the moon wood without his retinue. There would be satyrs following. Slavish and puckish. Irreverent and puerile. Hard to endure more than a few minutes without disgust. ‘Tree chickens’, they were called, by these squattish imp-like goatlings. Delitch hated the insufferable little prancers almost as much as she hated the nymphs. Almost.
Delitch would have to think things through. How would she and her silly sisters evade suspicion. Could they even? She had not taken time to plan that far, but she would do so now, while she waited her two siblings to return with more fire.
*Scene 07* – 18:30 (No Turning Back) – Part 1 “Getting Past Wrongs”
We saw the fire….and so did everyone else in the valley below and surrounding villages.
I am not sure what I had expected, but a flash of light permeating the trees was not what I had anticipated. But somehow, the scene before us did not seem that surprising to Maeven. She was stunned for only a few seconds and then she nodded, seeming to have an idea connected to something else she had witnessed from actions taking place in Azragoth.
She spun her horse to us and said, “Follow me!” And then she took off across the small meadow heading towards the southeastern front of the descending woods of Kilrane. I grabbed the reins of my mount and urged the animal forward racing to keep up with Maeven who had only a few seconds heads start. She was not racing the animal, for she needed us to follow and was not planning to lose us in the woods.
Fast as we were able, we could not escape the cacophony of the growing noises behind us. Whatever was happening to or with our friends in Azragoth, we could no longer bear to think about. In the immediate, we had to focus on fleeing the aftermath of the destruction if we were to somehow manage to save our own skins. We had to get further down to the valley. All eyes in the surrounding villages, though still many miles away, would be turned in our direction, curious and unnerved by what was happening, but also clearly attuned to discovering us fleeing away like bandits from the scene. The danger to us, and the chance of our being discovered, followed, ambushed or captured by the suspicious onlookers was real.
Begglar drove his team horses through the grasslands, the stalks brushing against the bed and base of the wagon, as the others followed behind on horseback.
I caught up to Maeven riding abreast of her.
“What’s going on? I thought the defenses of Azragoth were planning on releasing the plagued waters beneath the city.”
“Too risky,” Maeven said, “…and too final a solution. The black tongue is reserved for only the most desperate defense.”
“And Xarmnians finding out that it survived, does not qualify?”
“Re-born.” Maeven corrected.
“What?”
“Re-born! Azragoth did not survive. It died and came back to life. It was born again.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I commented.
“Those of us who survived that plague are not the same as we were before. It is like we all died and came back with a greater appreciation for what living means. Life will always be a fight and a struggle. But it is worth the struggle. Azragoth’s outer courts are dead, and we have left them that way to remind us. The black tongue buried below that dead sector festers with the remnants of the former plague and the filth of what the city once was. It reminds us of what complacency led us to.”
“I see,” I said acknowledging the implications of what I had missed before, as Maeven continued.
“But the inner part…,” she said, “that is where life is. That is the part of us that remains and is preserved. That is where Hope dwells. That is where I found family.”
Her voice dropped off and tears seemed to shimmer in her eyes as we rode together in that following silence.
Finally, she spoke once more. “I’ve had a hard time forgiving you, Brian. I still struggle with it. I lost friends that I was close to, because of what you and Caleb did. A part of me feels like I am losing more, because I was sent from Azragoth as well because you showed up.”
She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her free arm as she gripped her horse’s reins and looking straight ahead.
“I’ve lost so much, already. I have dreams. Dream that I still cannot understand of my former life in…” she broke off and wiped away a tear from her cheek.
“…in the Surface World?” I offered, and she nodded, sniffing.
“There is a fog of pain there, that I have not be able to unpack or make sense of. So, I have avoided it. This place has become my surrogate home away from that painful cloud of jumbled memories. I have not been able to clear them from my head. I see strange images in my mind. A silver apple spinning, in a half dark. A shimmering of gleaming stars. A branch of wood, a loud popping sound and then all goes dark…”
She turned to glance at me, her face was flushed and wet, “And you show up once more, and I feel like I am losing my family again. It is hard for me to forgive the feeling that wherever you go, you bring those I have grown to care about into more danger.
I bowed my head, understanding the implications and her struggle. I began, “I know words may not mean much, but I am sorry, Maeven. My sorrow does nothing to help you, nor can it do anything to bring the others back. Their blood is on my hands, and I am guilty for not keeping my word to Jeremiah and doing whatever I could to prevent Caleb from taking the Cordis stone. If I had prevented it, then The Pan would never have been able to use it to hunt the others.”
“And why did you leave us?” Maeven asked, an accusation implicit in her tone.
“Because of what The Pan told me that night that he took the stone.”
“And what was that?!” she said, thinking I was making some excuse to cover my own cowardice and evasion.
“He told me, that ‘everything and everyone I loved would be stripped from me’. That my betrayal had given him the key, and the means to bring that about. At first, I thought it was just an idle threat made, but when it started showing up, I realized that somehow The Pan was using the stone to track us. And since it was using my feelings for you all, I knew I had to get as far away from you as possible. To draw The Pan away from you, and if that did not work to go back to the Surface World life I left, where the stone reach was diminished.”
Maeven was quiet again, but finally said, “And that is why you left? You thought you were protecting us from The Pan?”
“It was the only thing I could think of doing that might help. Those stones are mysterious. None of us knew how they truly worked. Yes, Hanokh had told us something about them and their nature, but I was afraid for you all. In fact, I hoped The Pan would try to go after me, so that whatever connection I had with that stone would be broken, and it could not be used to harm you through me again.”
“And you believed all this?” Maeven huffed.
“I wasn’t certain what to believe. I was just so afraid of anyone else getting taken out because of me. Caleb’s blood was already on my hands. Jeremiah no longer trusted me, and so why should any of you? Begglar was the only one who seemed to understand, but he had his own family to think of. He and Nell had just married. He had a new life ahead of him, even though we all were fugitives. Splitting up seemed like the only feasible plan, but when The Pan and his creatures kept showing up and ambushing the small group with me, I knew that somehow, I was ‘the key’ being used to find us.”
“And Basia?” Maeven asked, “What was that all about?”
“Basia was little more than the old traces of some abandoned farm cottages. Many of which had been burned out or left to rot and crumble by those who fled to the communities for fear of the Xarmnian hunters. It was remote enough to be left alone. To try and see if I could be apart, without leaving the Mid-World entirely, but even there, I was eventually found.”
“By The Pan?”
“No. By Xarmnians, even though I think they had been helped to find me by The Pan and its half-men creatures. They tried to drown me. Chained me to a rock and rolled it down into a stream, pulling me under.”
“And you believe The Pan helped them find you?”
“Or one of his creatures did. Either way, I don’t think The Pan wanted me dead. That would have ended my connection to you all, and some of you were still out there. I survived but knew I could no longer linger in the Mid-World, so I told Begglar I was leaving. That I did not want to be responsible for any more harm coming to anyone of you. Ask him, if you don’t believe me.”
“And why did you come back?”
“I really am not certain. Life did not go back to normal when I went back to the Surface World. I had the constant feeling that I had unfinished business here. And so, I sought counseling. I was challenged to face the choice of what my fear was telling me, or what The One reveals about the quest stones. If those quest stones are truly creations connected to The Marker Stone, and are devices imbued with properties given by The One, their power must be governed by The One who knows all things and can see the outcome of what they can do. While it seemed that Cordis stone was being used to find us and lead us to being slaughtered, there was something that did not set right with me. Perhaps, my belief was giving that stone the power to do harm. Or my unbelief. I don’t know which. I could not rest until I found out, and I felt compelled to come back here and somehow make it right. If that meant that The Pan would have to take me out, then so be it.”
“Caleb and I both believed the truth that ‘Love never fails.’ That was the Cordis Stones’ core virtue. An love protects. It is why both he and I thought we could use that stone’s power against The Pan. We were both badly mistaken, for I broke my promise to Jeremiah.
“But that was only half the truth. And you can’t proceed on half-truths. I still believe that any promise coming from the Ancient Text is true. But I also have painfully realized that when we try to make that promise to come true, without guidance, we cause more harm than good. The One needs no help in fulfilling what He promises. But He lets us take part in the unfolding in obedience to His beckoning. Both Caleb and I were stupid and foolish trying to help by confronting an enemy alone. We thought ourselves to be like the story of 1 Samuel 14, where Jonathan and his armor bearer, just the two of them, climbed up to a Philistine garrison without telling King Saul, Jonathan’s father, and took out twenty of the enemy’s men. We thought that the stone would help us. It didn’t. Caleb and I fled, but Caleb fell and was captured, and I believe they killed him. But somehow, I got away. And later believed that The Pan let me get away, so that I would lead it and its monsters back to you all.”
“And so, you came back.”
“Yes. To pick up the quest again. To see if what I had done could be made right by completing what we had started together.”
“And what about these others.”
“I did not know that my return would prompt the arrival of others. But when I saw them on the beach, I knew that I was supposed to lead them and take care of them. To do for them what Jeremiah did for us. I am responsible for whatever happens with them, and I hold myself responsible for watching out for you too, if you will give me a second chance.”
Maeven was quiet for a while after that, but then said, “You know it is hard for me to just forgive and forget what happened to my friends.”
“Then don’t,” I said. “I don’t expect you to forget what happened to them, or that I was in part responsible for it. I need you to hold me accountable.”
“But that’s not forgiving and forgetting,” Maeven said, puzzled.
“Only The One has that capacity. I know of no verse in the Ancient Text that demands we forget the wrongs done. Only those verses that ask us to not give place to bitterness, that anchor us to those past wrongs.”
Maeven pondered that. “So, what about the principle that love never fails? Do you think it did when that virtue stone failed to protect you two in your stubborn foolishness?”
I thought about it for a bit and finally said, “No. I think I just misunderstood the principles’ true meaning and application. I still believe the ‘love never fails,’ but I don’t think Caleb and I applied it correctly to the Cordis stone. One cannot give importance to one principle and violate the other ones. We forgot the other parts. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says: Love is patient and kind. If you remember, Caleb, was anything but patient, and it was unkind to deceive his brother and go behind his back on an unauthorized mission. Caleb and I both thought we would be heroes, so we were seeking our own glory, rather than bring glory to The One. We covered it by thinking we were protecting others by handling the situation ourselves. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’ [John 15:13 KJV] was another verse we took out of context.
“Love is a term we tend to trivialize and never give enough weight to. We apply it to so many things and dilute the true definition of it. We violated nearly all of the prior definitions of what an unfailing love is, before we emphasized the latter part we chose to lean in on. We selectively chose the characteristics that protect and persevere but ran roughshod over the others.
“You remember what happened to me at The Marker Stone. All that scripture is still up here, but it doesn’t equip me to live it. I got to thinking I was somehow special because of that gifting, but it’s not knowledge to spout the Ancient Text, but wisdom to apply it consistently that matters. We don’t get to choose what parts of The One’s principles we like and ignore all the rest.
Paul wrote to Timothy, “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.” [1Timothy 1:8 NIV]
That is what I must remember in relation to these virtue stones. They are not good luck charms or protections in and of themselves.
James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” [James 2:10 NIV]
We cannot use them in a way that contradicts what the whole counsel of the Ancient Text reveals about the virtue they represent. The Cordis Stone, the heart stone, never wields its powerful nature out of the ambition of the holder.
It’s not in our fallen nature to determine what is worthy of our love or wield a ‘power of love’ independent of The One. Knowing a truth does not mean one is protected from failure. I learned that the hard way. Understanding only comes by the power of The Spirit of The One. It is not subject to how we independently want to selfishly define it. No, I do not trust myself enough to try to define what is meant by that principle, but I do see how betraying a trust was not an operation, however well intentioned, that commence in love. Love did not fail. We did, in not seeking The One’s direction. We assumed we were doing ‘a good thing’ in confronting The Pan without counsel. We were arrogant in that we expected The One to use His stone to protect us in our rash and reckless action, in violation of the virtue’s very nature.”
Maeven pondered my words, and then said, “Thank you, Brian.”
“For what?”
“For not making excuses. For owning up to your own failings. For admitting that you were wrong in not seeking counsel. And for taking responsibility to come back and be a part of this again.”
As we approached the edge of the meadow, and the thickening woods beyond, I asked, “Where are we going?”
Maeven inclined her head, “The fires are headed west, towards us, but mostly towards the northwest. We have a little time to stay ahead of them. Whatever those fireballs were, drifted towards the south a bit, but stopped. They may set part of the southeast side of Kilrane ablaze, but not as quickly. We need to get near water, and the Trathorn rivers run from the highlands and to the southwest before they curve down the hillside. There is a basin lake just below the large falls. If we can get to the lake, we will have some protection from the fires, and there are enough remaining trails there to get that wagon down to the main road.”
I nodded and we followed a slanting trail into the woods, with the wagon still following.
“It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but I now realize what Mattox was planning.” Maeven said cryptically.
“What do you mean?”
“Mattox had men stationed at the top of the Keep tower,” she explained further as we rode into the woods.
Maeven told me how she realized that Mattox had planned to use the black firewall all along. Remembering how he had erected something that had seemed strange to her at the top of the Keep tower. A hollow looped flag which allowed him to note the wind direction coming off the top ridge of the highlands. The wind consistently descended in a downdraft from the highland ridge and Rim wood, over the tops of the trees and through Azragoth, flowing westward down towards the valley and through Kilrane below. The fires would naturally flow away from the citadel and be driven forward through the woodlands fronting the old city. Meaning that the fires would be behind us, driving us forward, and there could be no turning back into the inferno soon to come. They would need to get somewhere near a source of water, and that source would naturally be the basin area lake near the bottom of Trathorn Falls. Her instincts kicked in and she realized that Mattox had been counting on her to get our party through the woods and to some place of safety.
*Scene 07* – 04:49 (No Turning Back) Part 2 – “Naming Names”
Maeven had led us through the wood where, over time, other woodland animals had carved a meandering path that led to the streams of water. The path had been widened enough to allow the wagon to pass, but the going was a bit rough, for it was often uneven in places. But Maeven assured us there was a protected gulley ahead that we could get to, that would make travel a little easier.
The fires behind, concerned us, but the wind still blew its course away and to the northwest. I knew that could change at any moment but refrained from saying so.
One of the women rode up behind me and said, “Mister O’Brian. We want to talk to you.”
I turned to see Lindsey, Christie, Cheryl, and the tall black man who had introduced himself to me as James back in Azragoth, along with the Will and the others.
Oh, boy, I thought, what now? The last time they had gathered like this was to accuse me of something horrible. “Yes,” I answered tentatively.
“The others are ready,” Lindsey said.
“Ready for what?” I asked, lowering my hands to the pommel of my horse’s saddle, crossing one over the other.
“Ready to tell you their names,” Lindsey said.
My jaw must have dropped open, and I just sat there gaping in astonishment.
Lindsey smiled quizzically at my expression and Christie gave a short laugh. James grinned and looked from me to Will, and back to me. Begglar and Nell had turned and were grinning as well. Dominic rode around the wagon and came up beside me and nodded. Curious why we had stopped and what caused the gathering, Maeven rode around the other side of the wagon coming up on my left flank.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Apparently, my fellow travelers have something they wish to tell me.”
“Team,” James said into the quiet, correcting me.
“My…team,” I amended, in answer to Maeven.
One of the others, a man whom I had noticed seemed to have something of a military carriage, posture and bearing, said, “My name is Tiernan, Mister O’Brian. But you may call me Tye, as those of my unit once did.”
I nodded in acknowledgement.
“Whatever I can do to help, I am with you in this. Leadership is important, and you find me fighting through whatever comes right beside you, sir.”
“Thank you, Tier…uh, Tye. I appreciate that. And am honored to serve you.”
Will spoke up, “I’m in. Whatever this is, I’m game.”
“Fair enough,” I acknowledged appreciatively.
Two young men came forward and told me their names were Matthew and Mason. Matthew opted to go by Matt but told me Mason didn’t like being called Mace. “’Cause people in general don’t like being maced,” Matt explained with a wink and a wide grin. Mason was quick to respond with his own quip. “And I’ll be sure to wipe my dirty feet on you,” he framed with air quotes, “‘Matt’!” Mason elbowed him and I knew it was a good-natured jab, and that these two were apt to tease each other. Like brothers.
“I’m Cheryl, but I think you already know my name. But, if it matters, I have not given it to you directly,” the tall blonde woman said, looking down and added in a lowered voice, sotto voce’ “Sorry about that.”
“Thank you, Cheryl,” I said, “and it does matter.” I smiled at her warmly. “Because you matter. All of you matter.”
She nodded, smiling sheepishly.
Cheryl had been holding Miray and the little girl raised her hand, smiling widely. “I gave you MY name first!” she proclaimed, eyeing the others with a cute kind of playful scolding.
“Yes, you did, Miray,” I grinned, “and it is my honor to serve you too.”
Miray beamed, and folded her arms, and looked back at the others. She unfolded an arm and waved her hand towards me, speaking to them in a whisper everyone gathered heard.
“Get on with it! We ain’t got all day. The woods are cooking. Ber’member?”
One of the women laughed and said, with a musical Aussie accent, “My name’s Gemma. But you can call me Gem, luv.” Her hand went suddenly to her mouth as she realized, with embarrassment, that she probably should have dropped the automatic affectation.
“Sorry, guv’na,” she said, blushing. “Don’t mine me. It’s…”
I smiled, “It’s okay, Gemma. No worries, right?”
She smiled and nodded, “No worries.”
James suddenly interjected, “We’ll if she’s going by Gem, then I’m going by James, just so there’s no confusion.”
That broke us all up, and we all laughed together. As—to use James’s word—a team.
*Scene 07* – 03:05 (No Turning Back) Part 3 – “Jeremiah”
Elsewhere, in the lower part of Kilrane just downriver of the Trathorn lake, below the basin, a woodsman armed with a longbow, riding a dappled mare at the edge of the forest, looked up as a flash of light passed through the tree cover. He heard the terrifying sounds of beasts and fowl shriek as smoke and flame billowed upward from somewhere deep in the upper forests of Kilrane. Monstrous sounds bellowed into the chilled air, echoing off the canyon rims, burrowing into the cacophony of the crackling trees alive with the sounds of burning and animals fleeing under their flaming bowers. He gaped as he realized where the sounds were originating from.
“What are they thinking?” he mumbled at first, and then with frustration and conviction he added, “It is way too soon! What ARE THEY DOING?!”
With that, he leaned forward in the saddle, made a loud clicking noise with his mouth, and kicked the flanks of the mare signaling her to gallop with all haste, not away from the fiery woods but deeper into the very heart of it.
He hoped there was still time to get to the hidden cache and back out again. He was taking quite a risk doing so, for he suspected he was being followed by creatures he had not seen in these parts for many years now. Creatures only partly human, and part beast.
“Jeremiah, you idiot!” he cursed himself, realizing what an utter fool he had been. It had been a mistake telling Tobias anything. He had long doubted that the man could be trusted, even if he was said to be assisting the resistance movement. Though one of the Azragothian priests had vouched for him, the man had too much love for the coin, and unless he had missed his guess, he suspected that both he and Sanballat were the very ones responsible for the and mysterious reappearance and recent disappearance of Noadiah, whom he thought had drowned.
There was an odd, almost imperceptible shift in the woods of Kilrane. Something that felt like an awakening. A shift towards something new. No, he thought to himself. Not new. A renewal. Something that would soon follow.
The fire prophet had warned him such would be the case. He had told him, in his deep rumbling voice, “The One doesn’t finish where you choose to stop.
“Despite what you may believe, your part in this is not over. It quite often is always darkest, before the dawn. Ignore the rumblings and the flash and the fire. Don’t be distracted by fear. True love drives out all fear.
“The One may reveal Himself as a consuming fire. But don’t let that dissuade you. Focus on The One who called you, and listen carefully for the still small voice.
He shaded his eyes, looking toward that growing flashes in the woods to the northwest.
The flames appeared to be coming from the last known location of the dead city of Azragoth and whatever was happening there now, would have dire repercussions for them all.
*** End of Part 1 ***
“For evil does not come up from the dust, nor does trouble spring up from the ground, but people are born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward.” [Job 5:6-7 NET]
“If the distance to the nearest city of refuge is too far, an enraged avenger might be able to chase down and kill the person who caused the death. Then the slayer would die unfairly, since he had never shown hostility toward the person who died.” [Deuteronomy 19:6 NLT]
“Never again will you be called “The Forsaken City” or “The Desolate Land.” Your new name will be “The City of God’s Delight” and “The Bride of God,” for the LORD delights in you and will claim you as his bride.” [Isaiah 62:4 NLT]
“I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death. Death, where are your barbs? Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.” [Hosea 13:14 CSB]
“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [must] put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where [is] thy sting? O grave, where [is] thy victory?” [1 Corinthians 15:53-55 KJV]
“God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” [Romans 6:2 KJV]
Author’s Note:
C.S. Lewis wrote in a 1945 letter to fellow author Dorothy Sayers: “Apparently reviewers will not tolerate a mixture of the realistic and the supernatural. Which is a pity, because a) it’s just the mixture I like, and b) we have to put up with it in real life.”
This story is therefore, in line with the kinds of stories that Lewis wrote, in that it is unapologetically blending both aspects of how humankind experiences reality. On the Surface level, and at a deeper Mid-Point level, AND, if made alive through Christ Jesus, on a Hidden Deeper level to be explored and Excavated.
Azragoth in this story represents many things. On one level, it is a city reborn after judgement in the form of a plague that consumed it, as even the surrounding woods of Kilrane, pronounced “Kill – Reign”, grew thick and dense around it. When judgment comes, death seems to reign.
But rebirth and resurrection comes from The Almighty alone, for he holds the keys to death and destruction. On another level, the parallels to the destruction and rebirth of the ancient city of Jerusalem should also be clear, drawing heavily on the biblical accounts in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, with situations and characters drawn from those accounts as well.
Most of the names I give in the story have hidden significance. Some of those are a conglomeration of word root forms joined together. The Hebrew word Azubah, means “forsaken.” I tend to note similarities in words, while also being cognizant that word means have fluctuated over time and with usage. The seer/prophet Ezra’s name literally means “help” in Hebrew. So, I gravitated toward the phonetics of both words with a nod towards their meanings.
Azragoth /Az-Rah-Gawth/ – In Israeli, the name Azra means – pure. In Israeli, the name Gath means – a wine-press. Hence, Azragoth means, Pure Wine-Press. The New Wine, pressed out of trouble and crushing.
It struck me that the character of Brian/O’Brian was struggling with his own guilt and identity, with the added weight of a calling that he feels neither prepared for nor worthy of. A place of trouble and crushing seemed like a place he might wish to avoid, but it is the very place he needed to go, despite what he might believe. God puts us through trials to refine us. (Isaiah 48:10, Zechariah 13:9, Jeremiah 18:4) O’Brian, at the direction and counsel of Begglar, comes to think of Azragoth as a place of refuge. The kind of place that an accidental murder, like himself, might go to hide from a slayer. But it is the place where he must face up to the reason for his running, and meet the monstrous slayer [Sheol], accept the calling and accountability for his actions, and receive the renewed forgiveness that cleanses him. More importantly, it is there he is compelled to give up trying to be his own savior, for his own sake and for the sake of protecting and serving others.
Truth be told, we are all murderers at heart, guilty of betrayal, and the death of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ–the only pure and innocent sacrifice, taking our guilt and shame upon Himself as punishment for our sin: past, present and future. But the point of this story goes beyond that initial step of accepting Christ’s completed work to satisfy our past and present guilt.
It leans instead into the ways we forget that, while we walk into the newness of our rebirth, we must remember to cast off our grave clothes, and stop living chain-linked as prisoners under the shadows of our past. As redeemed, we too often forget that God’s payment extends beyond the moment of our first acceptance, but must be carried into a daily acceptance of Him as Savior for each failing that we have in this present new life. This is what Lordship is about–taking up our cross daily. (See Luke 9:23-27) There is no point at which we can become our own savior. Rather, we must be willing to surrender and repent of our guilt in a daily process, until we are completed in Him by His work through us alone.
Mankind was born in the dust, and it was only by the quickening Breath of God that he arose from it to become a living being. (See Genesis 2:7 & 1 Corinthians 15:45-49) From the very begging, we, ‘the man of dust’, were meant to arise from our inert grounding, to find and walk in a restored relationship our Redeemer. That is our primal and defining purpose and calling.
But in the interim of the course through which we walk, in our being conformed to His image, to becoming refined vessels of honor, we must pass through trials and hardships in this land of trouble. (John 16:33) Initially, in our young walk there are some sins we readily take to the cross and ask for forgiveness. But strangely, when we believers live a little more of this new life, and find that we commit a sin that has dire consequences for more than just ourselves, we seek forgiveness from those hurt by our actions, but the hardest one we have trouble accepting forgiveness for is ourselves. Especially, when the cost to another came at the expense of their life.
As an example: The Christian who may have been driving distracted, leading to a car wreck that claims the lives of others, especially those they were charged with protecting will have a tough time forgiving themselves, even if the family of those lost forgive him. Though not entirely the same, O’Brian has a similar struggle leading to debilitating self-doubt. Not only is his character arc centralized on finding forgiveness for himself, but it takes a turn, with him learning to extend forgiveness to an enemy. Something he even unwittingly alludes to concerning the initial discovery of the Cordis Stone.*
(* Chapter 21: Scene 4)
The difficulties ahead of O’Brian and the team he leads will force them to confront past grievances and dispel assumptions that could undermine the stone quests entirely. For as the following verse states, “people are born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward”, trouble will most certainly come.
[Job 5:6-8 NET] “For evil does not come up from the dust, nor does trouble spring up from the ground, but people are born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward. “But as for me, I would seek God, and to God I would set forth my case.”
In the story ahead, they will be both driven by fire and threatened by ice.
Join us to see how that unfolds in Excavatia Book 2: A Swirl of Embers.
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