Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  "Storm Master," Arga'Dyne said the name he had given the young man with a large measure of respect in his voice, "I won’t argue with you, nor will I accuse Ilya'Gar of lying or filling his speech with exaggeration.” The chieftain stood to his feet, looked about the camp and added, “Give me a moment to gather my thoughts before I give you my answer to the proposal of an alliance being formed between us."

  While only hushed conversations filled the space found between the rock outcropping and the nearby forest, Arg'Dyne sat motionless with his head lowered in thought at a place where he could be alone. After a time, while the moon began to rise above the dark tree tops, the Broyn'Dar Chieftain stood and came over to stand before Travyn and Ilya'Gar who rose to meet him.

  Then he gave his warriors an order to strip them to the waist. Once this was done to the two who offered no objections to the Broyn'Dar removing their upper garments, Arga'Dyne studied their bodies.

  Since what he saw pleased him, the chieftain growled as he nodded his mane-covered head in approval. There, before him, were scars cut in patterns that identified them as being purposefully made, scars that were left as reminders of the Bonding Ritual the two had gone through together, those that were once deep cuts that sent blood streaming from one body onto the other, bathing each in its sticky flow.

  "Give them their clothes back." Arga'Dyne rubbed his hands together as he cleared his throat.

  Once the two were dressed again, he stood to his full height and spoke with a formal, though deep-throated and gravelly, voice. "My Bro'Noon Cousins," he said to both Travyn and Ilya'Gar, "I will accept Loda'Gar's proposal for an alliance with one condition."

  "What is that Cousin?" Ilya'Gar bowed his head in a show of respect.

  "You must come and help us fight the Hag tomorrow." Looking both squarely in the eyes, one after the other, he added, "Does this change things?"

  Without blinking an eye, Ilya'Gar replied, "It would be an honor to spill Hag blood with you. May I ask what you have in mind and the reason for such a venture?"

  For all practical purposes, the war that pitted the Ar against the Nyeg began with The Battle of Chylgroyd's Keep when Jeaf Oakenfel was freed from captivity. Travyn and Ilya'Gar joining the Broyn'Dar in their struggle with the Hag tomorrow was just another step taken towards a larger fight with the Sorcerer and his teeming hordes. Keeping oneself safe was no longer an option, not really, not with Nyeg Warl's forces amassing on the western shore of the shrinking Breach Sea. Besides, Ilya'Gar had a good idea of who Arga’Dyne was going to attack- the Hag that were making mutant hunchman-humans. Travyn had told him about this shortly before they went looking for the Broyn’Dar.

  "Good. Good." Arga'Dyne said with a voice that was more a growl than a shout. After clasping Ilya'Gar's forearm with his hand, he exclaimed, "The alliance has been made. The Broyn'Dar and Bro'Noon are as one clan now and until the war ends. Tell Loda'Gar that." Then he pulled Ilya'Gar into his chest and hugged him like a brother while other Broyn'Dar went over to the remaining Bro'Noon and slapped them on the arms and grabbed their manes like they were family they had not seen for far too many moons.

  The hunchmen's ability to engage in punctuated displays of affection like this bewildered Travyn since his inclinations were to maintain the austere demeanor the hunchman normally assumed. How could such irritable beings act this way? Sitting down and lowering his head, Travyn hoped to avoid being caught up in the uncomfortable emotions that swirled about him. If he could evade attention for a heart beat longer, the wave of silliness would pass. But Arga'Dyne would have none of that. Grabbing the human by the arm, he yanked Travyn to his feet and gave him a hug of his own.

  Lamarik nervously laughed while putting A'Kadar's massive body between her and Arga’Dyne. There was no way she wanted to feel as embarrassed as Travyn looked as he returned the chieftain’s hug with a stiffness that would make a scarecrow proud.

  Chapter 5: The Hag Encampment

  Seated behind Arga’Dyne on Bacchanor's back, who had transformed into an owl the size of a griffin, as they flew through the night sky, Travyn studied the terrain they passed over as he and the Broyn’Dar chieftain sped toward the Hag encampment used to make the abominable hunchman-human mutants. Bala had come with them. Looking like a green insect flying beside the giant raptor, it was well within the cretchym's abilities to keep up with the shape-shifter, though his wing span was ten times greater than hers.

  With all the supernatural power he was exerting to maintain the enhanced shape, Bacchanor had a hard time retaining his body’s mass given that nature's unrelenting influence tried to force it back into an owl's normal size. The expenditure of mystical might needed to resist nature’s incessant pull and maintain his transformation depleted the reserves he would need to draw on for tomorrow's fight. Still, the need to see what they were up against made the price worth paying.

  With all the chata that had been ingested earlier that night, the Broyn'Dar were in no mood to wait for the sun to rise before they moved against the Hag. Seeing the extent to which the drug was agitating the hunchmen, Travyn agreed to begin operations as soon as possible. Hearing the reasoning behind the Broyn'Dar's incursion made agreeing to go along on the raid an easy thing to do.

  Arga'Dyne told his new allies the story of how the Ab’Don was abusing the Broyn'Dar to achieve his goal of bringing a harvest of monsters forth whose numbers would be used to build up his armies. This all began when the Hag overwhelmed the Broyn’Dar villages and took captives they would use to formulate the foul concoction needed to make the hunchman-humans. After the intitial raids, the Hag only needed to threaten those who were already prisoners with harm to keep the Broyn’Dar compliant to the Sorcerer’s abominable scheme.

  Until this very night, the Broyn'Dar had begrudgingly acquiesced to the Hag's intimidation to make certain that the hostages were kept safe. Once they realized the hunchman eventually died when the last of their bodies' essence was drained from them to make the hunchman-humans, the Broyn'Dar's compliant attitude began to wane. The threat against the hostages lost much of its sway.

  When Arga'Dyne's own mate, Shala'Dyne was taken captive in a recent raid on their village, one that took place after the males were drawn away to keep an eye on a company of humans that just so happened to be hunting in the area, the chieftain caught sight of the scope of the Hag plan: The dark wizards meant to replace them entirely with the mutants they were engineering. If not stopped, the Broyn'Dar would cease to exist.

  In Arga'Dyne's thinking, the alliance that Loda'Gar offered him couldn't have come at a better time. His outward resistence to the pact came from his need to know details of what he was getting him and his kin into. The chieftain wanted to ascertain ahead of time what the lay of the land would be like if the Nyeg Warlers were able to do the impossible and defeat the Sorcerer. No matter how the war sorted itself out, he knew the Broyn'Dar would face an uphill battle for survival. That was until he got to know Travyn and Ilya'Gar and the relationship the hunchman and human had with each other. Now for the first time, rays of hope were seen rising above the horizon. For that hope to remain, he had to snatch his wife and the other hunchmen out of the Hag's cruel grasp.

  Hearing how the Broyn'Dar were emptying their villages and hiding their children in the mountain heights to keep them out of the Hag's hands, the rebels were only too happy to help those who had suffered as they had at the Sorcerer’s direction. Bacchanor, Travyn, and the Candle Maker, Ben'Syne, went around strengthening the Neflin and Fane J'Shrym for the demands the impending fight would place on them. The Healing Magic used renewed the company’s physical and mental resources, staving off the need for sleep. Taking out a guitar from a pouch too small to accomodate it, Bacchanor used his enchanted songs to do the trick. Ben'Syne used his white candle’s flame and Travyn his sword infused with Andara's Healing Magic. Blue light danced along its sharp edges as he touched the warriors' shoulders with its blade.

  Aware of his own angry nature, Travyn was surprise
d he was better at summoning Andara's Magic than Vlad'War's. While Andara was a commited pacifist that Travyn would never emulate, he took pride in being a fighter like Vlad’War. How could this happen?

  With war at hand, Travyn needed to find a way to predictably tap into Vlad'War's power that was created to resist the plague of darkness relentlessly pursuing those living in the Warl. And there couldn't be a better time for that to happen than now. The encampment they were approaching was proof of that.

  Very few guards, all mutants, could be seen below, and these milled about what looked like a dozen huge bubbling vats, talking rather than standing watch like disciplined soldiers. Why the Hag didn't punish the hunchman-human cretchym for such negligence was easy to guess. Drunk on their own power, the Hag had grown careless. They feared no one and with Nyeg Warl's armies being so far away, why sweat the small stuff?

  Night was given to sleep. Daytime was long enough to whip the cretchym warriors into fighting shape. Besides, the Hag used the cover of darkness to pursue their own interests that included inflicting pain on those they kept captive. The kind of magic employed in these activities worked best in isolation, where the Hag were left alone to feed their dark cravings.

  The muted cries of those the Hag operated on, using instruments of wickedness to work their woe, rose out of the dome-shaped huts made with the same hardened excretions used to build the Hall of Voyd.

  Arga'Dyne growled when he heard one of the cries coming from the encampment below, wondering if his mate was one of those who complained so. The Broyn’Dar chieftain had no idea the magic Bacchanor used to transform himself into a giant owl had given him the ability to hear sounds the hunchman-human guards couldn’t, since Spells of Silence, woven about the Hag dwellings to gain the privacy the black-robed wizards needed to practice their Dark Arts, rendered the sentries deaf to the foul doings.

  As arrogant as they were, the Hag chose a campsite without any natural defenses. The wizards’ lodgings, dome-shaped as they were, looked like a string of pearls encircling a wide, shallow depression that was devoid of trees and grass. This was where the mutant guards and the huge bubbling vats were found. On closer inspection, a handful of hunchman-humans were seen scooping up a clumpy discharge oozing over the vats' edges before carrying it off to a ring of wooden huts located just beyond the Hag quarters. The crude compex was built on a mountain slope far less steep than the place where the Broyn'Dar and Bro'Noon had met.

  Countless rectangularly-shaped huts, made with logs gleaned from the once robust greenwood found there, filled the decimated forest surrounding the wide, shallow bowl the Hag used for a base of operations. Each was a replica of the crude huts used to house the bubbling vats' discharge. Many of the forest’s remaining arbors that had arbitrarily escaped being cut down had tent-like structures anchored to their trunks. Ropes, fanning out from a central point higher than a man could reach with a long pike in hand, were covered with rough cloth, making the tents look like a ship’s sails.

  Travyn took a deep breath as he surveyed the myriad huts and tents used to house the mutant army. "Look there," he said as he lifted a hand to point at two buildings that were many times larger than the huts they imagined were barracks. These were built on the slope above the main grounds. Guards stood on walls that ran between the two structures, joining them together. As wide as the buildings themselves, a crude courtyard was created by the barriers.

  "Do you think that's where they keep the prisoners?" Looking over one of Bacchanor’s massive wings, Arga'Dyne couldn't keep from snarling once he finished speaking.

  "With the size of the buildings and the discipline the guards are showing, for each has a pike in hand that is held at the ready, I'd say that’s likely. My guess is, the place also serves as a stronghold the Hag can retreat to if need arises."

  "Bala," Bacchanor's voice sounded strange coming out of a giant owl, "can you take a closer look for us?"

  The Brown Wizard asked Bala to do the close quarters spying since he needed to keep enough distance between himself and anyone who caught sight of him, to keep them from figuring out his actual size. If he had chosen to assume a griffin’s shape, the separation would have had to been much greater.

  Looking into one of Bacchanor's huge eyes, Bala took a moment to examine the reflection she saw. So that's what I look like when I'm flying. Impressive!

  Realizing who Bala was really looking at- Bacchanor knew it couldn't be him with the distracted look on her smiling face- he repeated the diminutive cretchym's name, using a tone that told her he was aware of the reason for her reverie.

  Unhappy that Bacchanor had caught her enjoying a moment of self-absorbtion, Bala replied, "Alright, I'll go get closer look. And don't worry, I'll be descreet."

  ****

  After Bacchanor took his passengers back to the mixed-company of raiders that were waiting for their return, he shape-shifted back into his human form and joined the others who were intently listening to Bala as she spoke. The diminutive cretchym used Dog's back to stand on so she could look the others directly in the eyes.

  "The area between the two buildings is being used as a corral where the strangest cretchym I’ve ever seen are held. Wooden cages cover most of the ground, four in all, with each having a different cretchym inside. A swarm of hair-covered cockroaches, the size of large swine, is inside one of these. Another cage…"

  "Does the swarm have blond hair?" Travyn had to know as he recalled the creatures he had seen in the gorge where the Hall of Voyd sat.

  "Yes, blond like Ab'Don's and just as unruly." Bala pursed her lips, contemplating the tell-tale sign that the Sorcerer had made the odd-looking cretchym.

  "Another cage," Bala returned to her report," has two giant centipedes crawling around inside, so big there isn't enough room to put another one inside the cage. Each has human hands attached to the rows of legs they move about on. The eyes watching me, for they kept track of me the whole time I flew about the place, were as yellow as an eagle's.

  A third cage had a snake coiled up in the corner, twice the centipedes’ length but only half their width. Watching me with unblinking eyes just as yellow as the centipedes, its pupils were elongated instead of round.

  The fourth was filled with winged-cretchym that looked like game hens as big as water barrels. Despite having beaks, their faces look oddly human. One of these that was startled out of sleep when I flew closer to the cage to get a better look, had fingers sticking out of the feathered-wings it used to take to the air. With the size of the cage it was in, the cretchym fluttered and thrashed about more than flew."

  "Do you think this is a kennel filled with creatures waiting to do the Hag's bidding?" With limited moonlight making its way past the forest's canopy of leaves, Poroth’s face took on a spectral aspect.

  "Maybe," Bacchanor chimed in. "But I doubt the fowl have any use aside from…"

  "Aside from what?" Poroth wanted to hear what the wizard had to say since he had already concluded that the bird-like cretchym didn't fit in with the idea of a kennel.

  "Aside from being used to feed the hunchman-human army." Bacchanor's eyes narrowed as he rubbed his curly, brown beard. "With the vast number of huts we saw, there has to be thousands of mutants that need to be fed. Maybe tens of thousands.

  “I wouldn't put it past Ab'Don to create cretchym in a way that they would feed on themselves. A food chain based on cannibalism would appeal to him, I think, even if the cannibals are feeding on the product of his own flesh and blood. By doing this, he could hide the cretchym's true numbers from those who would make a guess based on the amount of supplies that were being transported into the Hall of Voyd."

  "What about the centipedes and snake?" Poroth continued his inquiry.

  Emotionless laughter was heard before Lamarik spoke. "Living in the Lorn Fast Swamp as long as I have, I've learned that it's a dog eat dog warl. No offense Dog. Fish will feed on other fish small enough to fit into their mouths, no matter if the prey comes from their own spa
wn. As for the bigger cretchym Bala saw in the cages, their flesh would feed multitudes whose advantage in numbers makes them the bigger fish."

  A'Kadar snorted and shook his massive head, once, like he was trying to throw off a swamp spider that had jumped on him from its hiding place in the trees above.

  "Did you see any Broyn'Dar?" Arga'Dyne needed to know. At the present, the bizarre warl of the cretchym was of little interest to him.

  "Not having windows, I couldn’t see inside. But I did hear sounds of fighting coming out of one of the structures that sounded like Broyn'Dar squabbling." Looking at Arga’Dyne, realizing that she might have offended the chieftain, Bala sheepishly added. “You know, growling, snarling, and the barking sound you hunchmen make when you get real excited.”

  "Which building?" The wry smile that appeared briefly on Arga’Dyne’s face was the only sign that Bala’s words insulted him. Besides, he had a few unflattering thoughts about the diminuitive cretchym that he could insert into a later conversation. To do so now was pure foolishness. Not when his wife’s life was in the balance.

  "The one whose exposed side faces east."

  "Then that's where I'll go. But I need help against the Hag." Arga'Dyne looked to Bacchanor for input.

  "There are eight of us who know how to work magic if you include Travyn and Ben'Syne. We'll keep the wizards busy while you look for Shala'Dyne and the others."

  Satisfied with what he heard, Arga'Dyne turned to his brother. "Duga'Dyne, you, Fage'Dom and half of the Broyn'Dar will give the wizard the support he needs to fend off the hunchman-human crethym the Hag will throw at us."

  "We'll stand with them," Ilya'Gar said.

  "As will we," Poroth added.

  "Good." Arga'Dyne seemed to relax as the plan was made.

  Once the moment of peace that comes with settling a matter passed as he added, "Once Shala'Dyne and the others are free, we'll make a run for the mountain tops where we can lose the army of abominations that will be chasing us."