Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  Even though the foul spirits could shred normal flesh and drink the blood that flowed out of the wounds they made, their sharp claws had little affect on the giant's skin that had been toughened by the measure of Vlad'War's Magic the Hammer of Power had transfered to Bear at the Battle of the Cave of Forgetfulness when he went with Jeaf and Muriel to face the fiend Schmar.

  While Bear looked like a farmer harvesting a field that had grown wolves instead of cabbages or melons with the way his club swung back in forth in front of him, Grour Blood did his best to separate the wolves that that had fallen under the Spell of the White Hand from the curse that had been cast on them. As it turned out, the two massive warriors- one a Cragmar Giant and the other one a fabled griffin- were working together to eliminate the threat the lupine hordes posed to Muriel and the others.

  "Grour Blood!" Bear shouted to be heard above the wolves' whining squeals and growling when he caught sight of the huge griffin. "It's goods ta see ya."

  "Bear," came the reply, "hurry this way, Muriel needs our help."

  I knew it, Bear told himself. Muriel needs me once again. Seym Blood was wrong to try and dampens my desires to follow her.

  Little did the giant know that Seym Blood would readily agree with him now, since he had joined Nazar Blood and Shar Blood in attacking the swarm of cretchym that was sweeping through the graying sky on its way to the Well of Souls; neither was Bear aware of the fierce aerial battle that the three were fighting in the sky just east of where he stood swinging his club; nor was he cognizant of the fact that an evil greater than Ab'Don's skirted the griffin and cretchyms' violent struggle to avoid impeding its progress in gaining the prize it was after- the Prophetess, Muriel Oakenfel.

  Seeing the bird-like monstrosity made of black smoke winging its way past the swarm of cretchym he, Nazar Blood, and Shar Blood were busy tearing apart with their claws fully extended, Seym Blood let out another roar to warn Bear and the others that danger was on its way. But with the number of cuts he had sustained from the cretchym blades that worked ceaselessly to reach his fur-covered hide, he, for the time being, could do little more than try to hold his own against the cretchym's superior numbers.

  Once he was certain that Mar'Gul had fled with Muriel by employing the Magic of Flying, Seym Blood planned on separating himself from the swarm and going to help Bear escape retribution from the hands of those who would be displeased with him for having helped the Prophetess escape what was clearly meant to be a trap that was set for her, even if it killed him to do so. With the sorcerous might he felt infesting the black, bird-like creature as it flew past, he was certain helping his friend fight such a monster would likely do just that.

  Once Bear reached the bloodless packs, his huge, metal-studded club was much more efficient at separating the wolves from the Spell of the White Hand than Grour Blood's claws and fangs were. It took three or four blows for the griffin's powerful forelegs and paws to rend the lupine fiends enough to end their fetid, sorcery-driven existence; whereas, one direct hit from the giant's club broke evey bone the wolf had, turning the possessed creature's body into a worthless fur-covered sack filled with mashed organs. As always happened when the spell was broken, black smoke rose out of the slain and into the sky overhead.

  Unlike the Catchers who were sucked up by the tunnel that led to the Warl of the Dead once Mar’Gul’s spectral blade had turned them into smoke, the residue cast off by the discharged spell gathered into clouds that gave off mournful, howling cries as they made their way back to the Sorcerer who conjured up the dark magic used to cast the spell. Since the spell’s master had assumed the form of the giant crow-like monster that flew towards the black discharge, the flock of ragged vapors hurried off to be absorbed into the monstrosity’s weirdly assymetrical body. As this was happening, urns made of hard-baked pottery used to hold the victim's blood broke and spilled their contents onto the floors of numerous caverns, dungeons, tunnels, and basements where they sat along with multiple thousands of others that remained intact.

  Freed from the cretchym who had been trying to skewer her once they raced off to help the swarm battle the griffin, Bala took a moment to watch the griffin’s fighting style. Rhythmically moving past and around each other, the massive winged-lions wove a pattern that would have been considered beautiful if not for the destruction the tight, constantly moving formation created. In and out they went in a criss-cross, looping maneuver that enabled the griffin to constantly watch each others backs, a maneuver made possible by the supernatural abilities invested into the Community of Blood's progenitors on the day it was drawn forth from the Fires of Extinction. Once frail birds that poachers slaughtered for their beautiful plumes, the Warl's Magic transformed their lifeless, denuded bodies into magnificent creatures whose might terrified those set on exploiting the weak.

  Denied an unimpeded shot at the griffin's flanks, the cretchym were left facing the winged-lions, who used claws on all four paws and their powerful jaws to shred their foes, head on. The griffin wings were used as shields that knocked the cretchym about whenever they gathered enough courage to attack Stromane's guardians. Still, the swarm's vast numbers could afford loses as it relentlessly cut away at the winged-lion's with scores of razor-sharp blades.

  Seeing Bear and Grour Blood meet up after they had broken the wolf packs into pieces, and turn their attention to helping Muriel and Pearl beat back the Catchers, Bala swooped down to make certain the fires remained lit. Having Flown with Mar'Gul as often as she had, the diminuitive cretchym knew how important the carefully-placed flames were.

  When Bear and and Grour Blood drew near, the Catchers saw them as opportunities to work their Magic of Pesuasion on. All they had to do was wrap their black, elongated arms and legs aroud the flesh and blood creatures and hold on while they spewed their foul words into their intended prey's unguarded ears. And once they had taken control of the giant and griffin with the power-infused words they regurgitated into their minds, they would pull their spirits out of their bodies and drag them into the shadows that covered half of the Warl of the Dead. There they would be either grafted into the bridge the Evil One was building across the chasm that separated the darkness from the light in the Realm of the Deceased, Gulf Fix as the chasm is called, or they would be lumped into the mount the dark entity made to mock the Mountain of Song that rose up in the light-blessed half of the Warl of the Dead, a mountain the Evil One intended to conquer once his bridge reached across the chasm's expanse.

  To the Catchers' surprise, the giant and the griffin were no more swayed by their words than the wizard had been. And they were much harder to latch onto then the unsuspecting human was. The Catchers, who were lucky enough to get past the massive, metal-studded club that fell on them and the claws and teeth that sank into their black bodies, found that their words, though administering a measure of pain to their targeted prey, had no other affect on them. To their chagrin, the weapons wielded against them by the humans, the giant, and the griffin broke their forms down into black smoke that was unabled to retain their hold on the corporeal warl.

  The reason for these things was attributed to the fact that Bacchanor and Grour Blood had entered the Warl of the Dead with Jeaf Oakenfel when he went to rescue his wife's spirit from the Evil One and Bear had been raised from the dead at the conclusion of the Battle of the Temple of the Oak Tree. Since each had conquered death in a fashion, they were made immune to the infections that were found in the Realm of the Deceased and had gained an ability to fight off the contagion with any weapon they took in hand whether it was a Candle Maker's candle, a massive club, a sharp sword, or teeth and fangs.

  Taken off guard by the forces that confronted them, the Catchers were driven back into the tunnel they used to shield themselves from those who dispatched so many of their kind back to the dark place they came from. After the Catchers had fled as far as they could while maintaining purchase of the Warl of the Living, they stopped their retreat and waited for the chance to disrupt Mar'Gul w
hen she tried to initiate the Magic of Flying. After all, their master had only sent them to delay Muriel's departure until the hateful thing reached the Well of Souls. Sensing foul entity’s presence was drawing neigh, they were content to pull back until they were needed.

  What the Catchers didn't count on was the giant taking up huge boulders he used to seal the crack they had fled through to escape the reach of his club. After Bear had securely stopped up the opening, he went to stand guard over Mar'Gul as she conjured up the Magic of Flying.

  "Quick," Pearl said. "Seat yourself on the stones covering the bowl so I acn intitiate the magic that will take us Flying. But be certain you stay inside the depression. Don't let a finger stick out beyond its border.” Then she added, “Giant, keep the wolves back."

  With that said, Muriel stepped inside the bowl-shaped depression followed by Grour Blood, Bala, and Bacchanor. Pearl was last to sit down. As she did, she reached out to the flames that had already consumed all of the detritus amassed for fuel, except for the three pieces of firewood Bacchanor had the wisdom to pick up in the Nyeg Warler camp, and wove her hands before her as she spoke the words to a spell that drew the flames toward them.

  Looking like strings of fire were reaching out toward the stone-lined bowl, the rivulets of flame soon spred out to form a sphere around Pearl and her passengers, a sphere with a surface filled with jagged veins of flame. All the while, Bear kept turning his head from the remnants of the wolf packs to the boulders he used to seal the crack with, huge stones that vibrated as the Catchers summoned dark magic to move them aside.

  Then Muriel cried out as she caught sight of the giant, black, bird-like monstrosity that glided through the graying sky overhead. Remembering the Catcher, who was once the King of Otrodor, boasting that the Evil One had entered the Warl of the Living, Muriel instantly knew who she was looking at. Reaching out with her prophetic gift to touch the ugly monster confirmed what she had already recognized.

  Looking at Bear, Muriel shouted, "Run. Darkness you can't overcome is descending upon us. Get away while you can. The Magic of Flying will protect us." She said the last statement not knowing if it was true or not.

  "Forget the wolves and leap into the bowl," Pearl's voice echoed throughout the Well of Souls environs. "Do it now before the sphere is complete. You'll die if you don't."

  "I'm ready to die if I has to," Bear shouted back as he hit the palm of an open hand with the club he carried.

  "Ashes," Muriel sounded enraged as she kept an eye on the flying creature made of black smoke that grew larger as each moment passed, "I need you to live. You and I haven’t done all that we will do together in the Warl of the Living."

  Since Muriel was the Prophetess, Bear took her words to be a foretelling that gave him a reason to abandon the defense of the glowing sphere and do as Pearl had instructed.

  Noticing the cramped conditions inside the spherical vehicle that would be used for Flying, Bear couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure?"

  Startled by a creature as small as Bala shouting as loud as she did, "Jump you big lout or I'll come out there and push you in," Bear couldn't help but obey.

  "I'll catch him," Grour Blood growled as they others quickly sought shelter behind the massive griffin's body.

  A loud HURUMPPPPH, mixed in with growling, accompanied Bear's arrival as all the passengers were pressed up against the increasingly brilliant sphere's shell that would no longer allow itself to be breached. Unable to sit, the giant stood over the others like he was a tree that suddenly sprang up in their midst, a tree whose leather clothing and hair was smoldering from its passage through the veins of fire. One of Bear's thick braids was still burning after Grour Blood had smothered the fire that gained purchase in his other locks before too much damage had been done. The griffin used his huge paw to extinguish this fire too, since he was the only one in a position to do so.

  Thumping and barking noises were heard as the wolves threw themselves against the sphere in an effort to break it apart. Boulders clacked against each other after the Catchers had conjured up enough power to push them out of the crack.

  The black fiends were soon swarming over the sphere, crying from the pain it inflicted on them, even though they refused to stop what they were doing. It wouldn’t go well for them if the Evil One saw them doing otherwise; and, at that very moment, he was descending on them like a massive blanket had been thrown over the Well of Souls.

  Settling on the sphere that Pearl was trying to launch into Flight, the giant, bird-like creature wrapped its black wings around the globe that glowed with jagged veins of fire coursing through it. Discarding its avian form, the black smoke engulfed the sphere that began to rock back and forth in its grasp. A moment before the rocking gave way to spinning, the sphere disappeared from the physical warl and slipped into that place that lay between the Warl of the Living and the Warl of the Dead.

  Those inside the vehicle used for Flying, spun along with the sphere. Pressed outward by the inertion the spinning produced, they found themselves upside down a moment before they they were seated at the sphere's bottom that they visited for hardly a heartbeat's time before they climbed back to the top of the round chamber they sat in. On and on this went.

  Since everyone was forced outward by the incessant spinning, the humans weren’t crushed by the giant and griffin who were jammed into the sphere along with them. If the vehicle used for Flying suddenly stopped when Bear was at the sphere's zenith, it would have been a different story, one that would include broken bones and torn ligaments in its telling.

  Pressing his hands and feet against the glowing shell's interior wall, Bear held himself in place as best he could. Grour Blood used his paws, head and hindquarters to do the same thing. As big as they both were, each of their bodies helped wedge the other in place. This left Bacchanor and Muriel to fend for themselves as the grabbed hold of a tree trunk leg or hands full of heavy mane to stabilize themselves. Bala chose Bear's belt buckle to anchor herself to. Pearl contorted her vaporous form to fit into the remaining free space.

  When the spinning turned back into rocking, the passengers adjusted themselves accordingly. When the rocking turned into a gentle swaying like one might feel standing on the deck of a ship sailing over calm seas, each settled into the positions they would take for the journey's duration.

  For things to work, Bear had to remain standing. Bent at the waist, he hoovered over the others like he was a parent checking on his sleeping children's well-being. Propping his upper body up by putting a heavy hand on Grour Blood's powerful shoulder, Bear was able to maintain his posture with minimal effort.

  Chapter 14: The Magic of Flying

  "Ashes," Bacchanor spat out an expletive as he saw darkness filling the spaces between the veins of fire that were taking on the appearance of shreds of glowing clouds that continually swept over the sphere's shell. He said, "Ashes," again when he saw the faces of grimacing Catchers pressed against the sphere's surface as they exerted effort to keep ahold of the Flying ball. Seeing the strained expressions turn into looks of surprise a moment before the Catchers lost their grip and disappeared behind a veil of black smoke, brought little relief to Bacchanor and his fellow travellers since they realized the smoke posed a greater threat than the Catchers themselves.

  The dynamic used for Flying eventually exerted pressure on the black smoke in a way that slowly wiped it off of the sphere's surface like it was soot clinging to a window. Eventually the smoke came to look like a dollop of black honey stuck to a spoon that was dropping the sticky stuff into a bowl filled with boiled grains as it clung the spherical craft. When the trailing dollop took on a shape as round as the vessel used for Flying, the new sphere used the last of the smoke that kept it tethered to the vehicle Pearl had created to exert a pull that eventually stopped both spheres in mid-flight.

  This feat was impossible given how the Magic of Flying worked.

  Traveling through the barrier that separated the Warl of the Living from the Warl of
the Dead, the opposing forces the two places exerted on the vehicle used for Flying and the passengers it carried provided the impetus for movement. Still, the sphere itself was not where the magic was focused. Instead, the power that made Flying possible was manifested at a point just outside the sphere on the side facing the direction the passengers wanted go. Here the magic was used to tear the fabric separating the warls apart, creating a space that the sphere fell into like a ball dropping into a hole. At the same time, the enchantment that maintained the fabric's integrity drew the torn pieces together behind the sphere as it passed by in such a forceful way that it helped push the sphere forward into the tear that had been opened up in front of it. Thus, the vehicle used for transportation was pushed and pulled at the same time, giving it the incredible speed the magic achieved.

  Added to this, both warls were trying to pull the sphere into their respective realms, creating incredible tension that added energy to the vehicle's motion. The inherent pull the Warl of the Dead exerted on the living, a pull that reached past the flesh and tugged on the spirit it clothed, was one part of the equation that helped carry the sphere forward. Yet the sphere itself was wholly of the corporal warl; as such, it was subject to forces of comparable strength that tried to pull it back to the place where it belonged, back to the Warl of the Living. This was the second part of the equation.

  Ironically, the tugging effect was how they were able to enter the fabric separating the warls in the first place. Manipulating the phenomenon, Pearl had opened a door that allowed the pull of the Warl of the Dead to suck the sphere they now rode in toward it. The pull the Warl of the Living had on the sphere kept it from being totally absorbed by the realm it initially fell towards.