by DJ Morand
I glanced quickly at the guard, his hand rested on the pommel of his sword. My eyes met his, and they were cold steel. He reached for my arm and I reacted quicker than he had anticipated. My hand chopped into his throat and he gasped as he took a step back. I crouched and drew a dagger from the bottom of my shoe. I flung it with haste and watched as it struck the emperor in the shoulder. Satisfied that the poison coating the blade would finish the job, I turned and ran. Blackness exploded across my vision and I fell forward. The ground was hard and cold. I fell into the darkness. I shivered.
* * *
The Praetorium: Year 536 AO
47 Frafer: Sepal - 5th Hour of Eralda
Palace Prison
I woke in chains. The musty smell of rotten hay surrounded me. I was thinking of those poor periwinkles and how much I wished I could smell them instead of this dank cell. It was dark, but my mind told me it was day. If that was because I had just wakened, or not, I couldn’t say. Suffice to say, I was fucked in a bad way. Somehow, the emperor knew I was there to kill him. I needed to know how. If my true identity had been compromised, I would not be able to continue my work. I would not allow myself to be relegated to the position women held within the Midlands, and I had no magical aptitude worthy of joining the Order. I decided that despite whatever situation I was currently in, it would not be permanent.
Less than twenty minutes after I woke the light of the sun peeked through the smallish window near the roof of the cell. It passed shortly after, and I was left in the dark again. I waited in that cell for the better part of the day before I heard someone stir. The rattle of chains came from nearby, but not from the exit.
“Hello?” I called in a hoarse whisper. “Who is there?”
“The dead,” the voice was dry and flat.
No emotion came through in the man’s speech. It was surely a man, for it was deep and gruff, despite its dry flatness. There was a light shuffle and another rattle of chains. I stepped towards the sound and nearly screamed in horror. On the other side of my cell lay a man who appeared to have been flayed. His muscles were exposed and the straw clung to the dried blood upon his body. He wore shackles around his wrists and ankles and he dragged his wretched form towards me. Lying on his belly, he clawed with bloodied hands. His nails cracked and tore as he scraped at the stone floor.
I raised a hand to my mouth. In sympathy or to prevent myself from losing my stomach, it didn’t matter. The sight was grotesque. I gained the courage to speak again, “What happened man?”
“Tortured and flayed alive until death,” he rasped.
“You live yet,” I said.
“No, this body is finished. See here?” He dragged his form into the meager light and showed me his face.
This time I did scream. The perfect horror of his features left no doubt that his life had already ended. Blood caked his face and the left eye socket had caved in completely. His skull lay askew on his shoulders. The angle of his face was sharp and ragged. I expected some sort of rattle from his exhales when I realized he was not breathing. It spoke again.
“Stay your tongue,” it said. “Do not speak. I can get you out of here.”
“How,” I was intrigued. Who wouldn’t have been?
I heard the entry gate open. The guards were coming. I turned back to the dead thing, “How?”
It did not respond. It laid there motionless, crusted blood caked the side of its face. I tried to whisper to gain its attention again, but the guards knocked on the cell door. I could smell the blood on their clothing. It hung in the air, thick and coppery.
“Well,” the first guard’s voice was raspy and strained. I recognized his width and the purple bruise on his throat. “It’s a little rabbit. Get the hounds,” I heard him speak to someone else.
I never saw the second guard. I couldn’t believe my luck. Two fully armed guards would have been too much for me to handle alone. I was tired, weak, and pretty well battered. He must have seen the light smirk wind at the corners of my mouth. He stepped forward and eyed the body in the cell next to mine.
“Were you talking to the dead? Crazy witches,” he muttered.
He was under the impression that I was one of the sisters. That was bad. If he thought I was a part of the Order, then he would take precautions to ensure I could not fight back. He stepped to the gate and motioned for me to approach. I shook my head and wrapped my arms around myself. I made myself appear small and weak. I had to put his guard off. He growled at me.
“Come here, or I’ll come in there.”
“If you step one foot in here I’ll kill you,” I said with bravado that I didn’t feel.
He licked his lips. It sounded like sandpaper against stone. He reached down to his belt and grasped his keys, “Take one fucking step and I’ll kill you witch.”
The keys clanged against the cell door and I felt my body tense. He pulled back the door, and I sprang forward. He smiled. I realized my mistake. He had goaded me into a fight. My head ached from where I’d been struck the night before, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. He stepped back and let loose a whip. The leather was interspersed with bits of rock and bone. The whip caught me on my shoulder and he yanked it back.
Blood sprayed from my shoulder and rained on him. He laughed. The pain surged through me like wild-fire and I couldn’t lift my arm. He swung the whip again and caught me on the side of my neck this time. I turned and exposed my back to him. The whip caught in my hair on its return and I felt it tear from my scalp. The burning did not stop for several minutes. They were agonizing horrifying minutes that felt like hours. I remember, I didn’t scream. The guard yelled at me, screamed at me, but I did not give him the satisfaction.
He stopped when the other guard returned with three large hounds. They were scraggly things, bone thin and not well fed. I felt sorry for the dogs, even in my condition. I killed people, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have compassion for the abused. I liked the hounds less as they led them to me and they snarled and snapped. The big guard laughed as if he was in on some big joke. The hounds sniffed me and my blood while the big man hefted me to my feet. I lost track of the twists and turns we took out of the prison. The pain was agonizing and my clothing barely covered me. It was cold and I could feel the blood drying on my back. The cool night air and then the rotted smell of the periwinkles assaulted my senses again. They took me to the gate.
“Run witch,” the big guard laughed as he shoved me forward.
I lost my footing and barely regained it before I fell face first into the ground. The dirt became mud as it mingled with my blood. I hadn’t realized my neck was bleeding so badly.
That explains the confusion, I thought. I rose to my feet and I ran.
* * *
The Praetorium: Year 536 AO
47 Frafer: Sepal - 5th Hour of Feralda
Palace Wilds
His features were angular, beautiful in a way. I had no fight left in me and I could hear the bay of the hounds as they approached. I looked into his dark eyes and coughed. Blood welled in my throat. I knew I was going to die. I tried to trace the outlines of his face in my thoughts, but I couldn’t. My vision blurred and my heart raced. I could feel the blood rising in my lungs. I must have broken a rib in my flight from the hounds. I still cannot write his name. He smirked at me. I looked up, helpless.
“Help me,” I gasped.
“I shall,” he whispered. Somehow he was next to me, his hot breath on my ear. “Accept me.”
“I--” I coughed and spat blood. I was almost gone. “I accept.”
I have never felt anything so painful as when he took my body. It was like something tore into my soul and burned me from the inside. The fire raged and consumed me. It empowered me too, though. I felt strength flood into my limbs. My wounds closed, and I burned. Hell, I burned like an inferno in a forest. I could feel him too. He writhed inside of me like a thousand tiny beetles moving through my body. I could smell his sulfuric scent, and it made me want to gag. I screamed. The ho
unds bayed.
I saw them rushing at me. They were slow and distorted. Large and gainly the hounds plodded along with their noses pressed to the ground. They stopped short and growled at me, but they did not bay. I could feel their confusion. I could see it in their eyes. The lead hound met my eyes and whimpered. It lowered its head and whined again. A wicked feeling rose in me. I tried to suppress it, but I was no longer in control. He took my hands and raised them above my head. Green fire ignited around my wrists and licked into the air around my fingers. I cried inside, but he did not heed me.
My arms lowered and the flames blazed around the hounds. I watched as the green flames ripped into their forms and filled them. Fire blazed from their eyes and their mouths. The hounds were transformed into hellish beasts with horns and fangs. I heard myself laugh, but it was not my voice. I was thrilled, but it was not my emotion. The fire burned in me and I wanted to taste more of the power he offered. I wept, but I moved forward behind the hounds. I was the hunter now.
* * *
The Praetorium: Year 536 AO
47 Frafer: Sepal - 7th Hour of Feralda
Palace Wilds
I hunted them. I could smell their body odors as if I were engaged with them. Their peculiar scents mingled with the smells of the forest. Mushrooms, moss, and other fungi gave off smells that wafted through the air. I felt like an animal. I ran up the side of a tree, barely touching its trunk or branches with my fingertips. The bark was rough and rigid. I could feel every bit of its porous surface. Little drops of dew seeped into the tree. The air stirred around me and enveloped me like an icy splash of ocean spray. The air was thick and foggy in the dark night.
I hadn’t realized it was dark. I saw everything down to the tiniest of minutia. The raw power surged through me again and I flew. Leaping from one tree to another. Always, I landed with grace and silence. My body felt weightless as I glided through the forest. The guard’’s smells were laced with fear now. Their adrenaline must have spiked because I could smell their odor even more now. I had been chasing them through the forest -- power blazing from my fingertips scorching and tearing trees from their roots. I heard their raucous laughter turn to fear as the hounds burst through the trees. The snarling beasts slavered and howled as they hunted their former masters.
I screamed inside my head, begging for control. He just laughed at me. It was that same mirthless laugh that I saw in his smirk before he took me.
Fucking son of a bitch! I screamed. Get out! Get out!
No, was all he said. Then added, Your vengeance is not complete. We will burn the flesh from their bones and make them suffer as you have suffered.
There was a particular snarl to his voice that I had missed before. Somehow I had missed the malevolent nature of this spirit. We came upon the guards hiding in a thicket. The spirit used the power of my body to fuel his ire. The thicket burned away with little ill effect on the guards. I saw them through my new eyes, the dark eyes of the spirit.
Pathetic, I heard my own thoughts hiss.
Something in the way I said it gave me satisfaction. I could hear the low purr of the spirit in me. He was pleased that I had thought the words in that manner. I may have been an assassin, but it was an emotionless job. This, this was something else entirely. My blood boiled and twisted inside me. I wanted to taste the fear of these men. I wanted to see their blood flow. Rage burned in my bosom and there was a pain in my chest. The pain spiked deep down in my heart. It was a profound pain, not physical or emotional, but something more. Then it was gone and my rage flooded out of me like a broken dam.
“DIE!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and fire burst from my fingertips. My hair flew in the air and I could feel the strain of the power in my skin, just below the surface. The power ravaged me and tore through me fueled indefinitely by my emotion. I continued to scream something unintelligible and more green fire burst from my hands. Then it was over. I slumped back and fell against a nearby tree.
The corpses of the guards were a smoking mess of putrid innards and charred flesh. The fires still burned around them, and I heard a sickening pop as one of the guards’ eyeballs burst with sickly white and black fluids. The carrion birds hovered overhead singing their death song as they descended.
Let me go now, I thought in a weak and pleading whisper. Let me die.
No, he said again. You are mine. I will feast on your soul for all time, but you will not die until you are no longer of use to me. You are a thrall to Aldefe, master of the hells, lover of Kokila. You are Witch, bound forever in servitude. I will never let you go.
No, I whimpered. No!
I forced my will against his. Aldefe resisted my power and used it against me. He siphoned my will and strengthened his own. I felt my body slam repeatedly against the trunk of the tree. My head exploded in pain as it struck the tree again and again. He was snarling in my head and I could do nothing to resist him. I was his thrall, and he was making sure that I knew it. I tried in vain once more to gather my will, to steal his. I failed.
I relent, I cried. Tears streamed down my face and blood covered the back of my head. The pain ached and I could feel my vision swim with blackness. I relent.
Good, Aldefe whispered. He was kneeling beside me again. For a brief moment my mind leapt with joy. He had left me, I was free! Then he spoke, “You will not move from this spot. You will not die. The moss will grow over you and the carrion will feast on you, but you will not move. You will not cry out. My essence is still within you. I will return when I feel you have been punished enough. Goodbye sweet thrall.”
* * *
He left. I sat there against the tree for ten years before he returned. I begged for death over and over again. I wept, but I couldn’t even wipe away my own tears. He did not lie, the birds fed on me, the moss grew, and my body grew rigid and weak from the elements. When Aldefe returned, I praised him. He was beautiful and terrifying, but I felt joy at his presence. I felt relief he had come back for me and I hated him for it. I hate him. I have to be careful with such thoughts and such emotion. Should he discover my thoughts, my private feelings, he will punish me again.
My name is Jessa Poe. I am possessed.
Please... help me.
Bastion Frell
Riftlander
Riftland: Year 1100 AO
23 Torfer: Fraal - 1st Hour of Eralda
Bridgeguard Keep
"Charge!" Bridgeguard-Captain Bastion Frell bellowed from the back of his horse. The contingent of his forces surged forward. The pounding of the horses' hooves joined in cadence with his beating heart. The air was crisp and still. Winter was nearing its end and spring had not yet come in full. The morning dew that had frozen crunched under the horses’ hooves.
Across the field were dead men; men possessed by demonic spirits. The demons possessing the fallen braced against the Bridgeguard advance. Spears and shields raised, they planted their forms in readiness. Bastion knew they were not his men any longer, but the pangs of guilt flooded him as he charged. He leaned forward in his saddle and braced his shield against his side. He crouched and made himself into a smaller target. Bastion calculated the distance to the line of demon soldiers from his current position. It would be only a few moments before they collided. He knew that the enhanced strength of the demons would make it difficult for he and his men to break through. The dew of the air gripped his beard. He felt the cold trickles of moisture wick away in the wind. His heavy breathing felt like fire in his chest.
Take your breaths slowly, he reminded himself.
He took a deep breath and set his spear for the charge. His longsword slapped against his leg as the horse galloped. Sulfur assaulted his nostrils and he knew they were close. Thump, thump, thump. His heart thundered in his chest.
"Brace!" he called above the cacophonous roar of the charge.
The sound of wood against armor rang above the thunder. The clanging was like hundreds of tiny bells, as the Bridgeguard soldiers braced their spears and lances. Opposite
the charge, the demons clanged swords against shields. Some of the demons pounded gauntlets against breastplates. The tempo of their weapons pounding against armor was discordant.
Time slowed for Bastion as the charge met, the sound of clashing steel and ripping flesh filled the air. The scent of blood rained upon the ground. Bastion's spear caught a demon in the throat and stopped him short. The impact flung him forward over the enemy line. His horse buckled and crashed into their ranks. The clatter of armor, weapons, and the hard pounding of bodies hitting the earth filled his ears. He tumbled and rolled. The din of battle seemed a distant echo as he gained his bearings and rose to his feet. For a moment, it was another battle, another time, so long ago. He stared at the line of men and tried to ignore the pulsing beat of his heart in his ears. The faces of the men fighting on the lines were his men, his men who died in a hundred battles. Panic gripped his throat and Bastion couldn't breathe.
A large blade swung down toward his head. Time resumed. He swung his shield in a wild block and deflected the sword. The ring of metal against metal echoed in time with the rest of the battle. An overwhelming sea of echoing steel swept over the battlefield. Another swing from the enemies sword came in from above, he blocked again with his shield. The pain of the impact vibrated through his arm and shoulder. He couldn't fight back. His sword was still sheathed. Again, the sword descended. Again, he blocked. The subsequent hammering shook his body. Bastion was in agony. The fall, or the attack, had weakened his shoulder. He stumbled back and tripped on a stony outcropping from the ground.
The rock clanged against his foot armor, but had little effect on his well-being. As Bastion fell, the sword missed, cutting the air in front of him. He recognized the face of his attacker. He remembered the faces of all his men. In twenty years, he remembered them all. Everyone that died under his command. The Rift spawned demons and those spawn took the bodies. He remembered his men out of necessity as much as he did to honor them. It was a disconcerting thing when a man you knew was dead came back to face you in battle.
