by Sean Rodden
This is where it began, dearest, judged the Rhelman. The things came from the sky. Likely from the east. And they were many. Very many.
Featherfoot nickered in quiet trepidation.
Nay, dearest, soothed the Rhelman, scanning the vacant skies in all directions. They are not here. They have gone. East or south. They did not go north.
His eyes moved to the distant grey stone of the Westwall and the huge and hoary Haunted Mountains, domain of the mighty akanga.
And they will not have gone west.
The stallion stamped one heavy hoof.
Few buffalo escaped the initial assault, Runningwolf continued. Those that did so fled northward. The first we found was the last to die. The things that perpetrated this abomination suffered none to live.
He paused, peering into the vast flowing fields south of them. The waystation of Highmarch, the Rhelman knew, lay more than a full day’s uninterrupted swift ride down the North Road. Three hundred souls resided there, with little soldiery of which to speak.
Let us hope the things that did this have gone eastward.
The Rhelnian’s regal head bowed in agreement.
Come, dearest, nudged Runningwolf, we will depart this place. We can do nothing here but lament. And we leave lamentation for lesser hearts.
They rode through the remainder of the day, through the purple-grey glow of evening, into the black heart of night, across the risen glimmerings of dawn, through another long day, and achieved lonely Highmarch as the shades of the following dusk were coming down on the world. Runningwolf halted the fatigued Featherfoot a small distance from the outpost and surveyed the place with weary but wary eyes.
Highmarch – the northmost waystation and trading post between the Erelian Republic and the Free Nations of the North – consisted of a small cluster of buildings closely lining the North Road upon both the eastern and western sides. Each structure was distinct from the next and each was in a differing degree of repair. Faded flags of the Free Nations fluttered at varying heights from poles and porches. Runningwolf noted a traders hall, a pair of inns, a stable, a general store, a smithy, a postal station, lenders offices, a garishly painted brothel – and several other establishments necessary to the continuance of open commerce.
But Highmarch seemed dead, deserted, a town of ghosts and grey wind. Nothing moved within the gloom deepening in and about the town. And despite the hour, Highmarch should have evidenced some activity – a vendor bartering with a customer in the makeshift market, a groom rubbing down a weary horse, a drunken merchant shambling down the single dusty lane, a whore peddling her lascivious wares. But all was desolate, disquietingly quiet – nothing moved, save only the slow dark breath of the southwind.
The Rhelman readied his bow and placed it across his thighs, then loosened the hand-axe at his waist. Highmarch had been far enough south to have been spared the sorcery of the red wind of six days past – no, the silence and the stillness of the waystation were sourced in something other than sorcery, a darker thing, a thing far less subtle. And the sour reek of sulphur was its brand burned into the dusk.
Forward, my dear, the Rhelman whispered silently. But slowly. Ever so slowly. Be watchful of all. Miss nothing.
They had drawn little nearer when Runningwolf marked the first corpses – all but shadows initially, they swiftly took form in the growing gloaming and became the destroyed and the dead. Three men, one woman, strewn upon the street, each horribly mutilated, torn to pieces, ripped almost beyond recognition. And more beyond. Dozens. Scores. Lying dead in the dust, in the dusk. The ruined remains of lost lives.
Warily, ever watchful of the sky, Rhelman and Rhelnian moved into the town. Beneath the suffusive stink of brimstone, the smell of death was thin yet, more given to the metallic flavour of blood than the rancid reek of rot. No, this slaughter was young, recent, fresh. Even the bh’ritsi had yet to come. Some of the butchered bodies still seeped blood. Others remained limp, awaiting the rigidity that comes hard upon the heels of death. All were only an hour, perhaps two, removed from life.
Man and mount moved along the road in hushed horror.
The dead were everywhere, lying in the blood-sullied dirt along the street and between the buildings. Men, women, children. All had been ripped and rended. Dogs, chickens, horses. Everyone. Everything. Destroyed. Massacred.
Runningwolf rode Featherfoot the length of desecrated Highmarch in silence, the soft but heavy thud of the horse’s hooves on the road matching the slow pump of the Rhelman’s pulse. He then turned the Rhelnian about, and moved into the waystation’s dead heart once more. There he halted, his flat earthen eyes absorbing the extent of the atrocity about him, then peering upward into the deepening darkness of the skies, seeing nothing there but grey becoming black.
In some time he dismounted, secreted the amber beneath a blood-spattered awning, and moved afoot about the battered bodies of the slain. Though many evidenced wounds that could only have been caused by long and wicked fangs, none had been eaten, nor even gnawed upon, and no trophies had been taken. All had been slain to satiate an urge other than hunger, other than pride – the sole purpose of the atrocity had been to provide the perpetrators with pure impassioned pleasure.
Evil.
The Rhelman then investigated each structure in turn, thoroughly inspecting all interiors – but he found only more dismembered dead sprawled in swathes of slowly sluicing blood. Stubbornly, he persisted in his search, looking behind every door, in every trunk, beneath every bed, in every closet, in every cellar – all the possible places where one in terror might conceivably flee to hide. But he discovered nothing but further death and the spoors of sulphur and slaughter.
Of three hundred souls and more, none had survived.
Such evil.
Leaving the last building, Runningwolf gathered some feed from the stable-cum-slaughterhouse, returned to Featherfoot, and led the stallion into the dark dingy confines of one of the inns – the only structure where there were none of the slain. The low ceiling there was only barely high enough to accommodate the tall Rhelnian, and Featherfoot nickered against the closeness of the place.
Nay, dearest, we take our rest in the open no longer, explained Runningwolf as he massaged the amber’s tired muscles.
The Rhelnian quieted at his master’s firm but gentle caress.
And we journey no more by night, nor even beneath skies low with cloud. Should the things that committed these desecrations come for us, it would be well that we have some warning.
Night claimed Highmarch. Featherfoot watered and fed in relative security in the front room of the tavern. Runningwolf stood in the entrance, arms folded across his muscled chest, feathers dangling from the thongs at his hard biceps, weapons loosened and at the ready. His loamy eyes searched the black skies for sign of peril, his ears harkening for the flap of leathery wings. He saw nothing but the white of the moon and the distant shine of a thousand stars. And all he heard was the growing buzz of bh’ritsi come to feast.
We will remain here till dawn, my dear, the Rhelman spoke silently over his shoulder. But for our own selves, there are only the dead in Highmarch now, and the things that killed them have no use for the dead. The things are not likely to return. Indeed, unliving Highmarch is the safest place on the North Road this night.
Featherfoot snorted skeptically.
Runningwolf then settled to the floor, rested his arms upon his knees, closed his weary eyes, and soon sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The boy waits as the light approaches from the north. So white and pure, like living starfire in the night. Beneath his floating spirit, the snow begins to bury his frozen body. He hears an otherworldly music, soft and melodic, the tinkling of tiny bells, the stringing of a harp on a sighing summer wind. The light draws nearer, the song seems closer. The boy’s soul warms in the glow, weaves to the melody. But strangely, he is no longer at ease.
I am dead, he thinks. But I am not content.
But then a co
ldness grasps him, bears him down, draws him back into his body. Winter claims him once again, shackling him in ice, wrapping him in polar chains. Pain wracks him. His spirit flails, resists. But the struggles are in vain. He is not dead. But only dying. Slowly. And in agony.
The soundless scream of the boy’s floundering spirit shrieks into the frigid heart of the winter storm.
Shrieks, and does not pass all ears unheard.
They departed the horror of Highmarch at dawn. The great amber seemed desperate for the run, relieved to put the devastated outpost behind them, hurling himself heedlessly over the Plains. But Runningwolf was not so enthused to be upon the open grasslands, visible and vulnerable, where shelter was sparse and refuge rare. He continually scanned the southern and the eastern skies; he paid the northern sky less heed, though of its vastness at his back he was ever conscious and aware; and the western heavens he abandoned entirely to the guardianship of the Haunted Mountains and the angry vigilance of the mighty akanga.
They ran through the day, into the steady surge of the southwind, galloping over the grasslands with a haste born of urgency, of necessity. Even at a constant gallop – which Featherfoot could not hope to maintain without his heart rupturing within him – the silver city of Hiridith lay many days distant yet, and Runningwolf’s duty was to deliver his Commander’s dispatch with all speed. He would ware the death that rode the dark wings of the southwind, but he would not fly from it, nor would he turn aside from his Commander’s charge.
Despite the swiftness of their run, the day passed slowly for man and mount. The leagues inched past, and the yellowed seas of the Northern Plains differed little from one sun-crested wave of grass to the next. The horizons south and east and north never appeared to alter. And to the right, the Westwall was a single long grey monotonous line, seeming without end; beyond and above, the hulking mass of the Haunted Mountains remained wreathed in the motionless mists of stilled time.
The day was old when Runningwolf marked the minute black blot in the southern sky. Dark and distant. Many long miles away. A small but stark stain upon the deep blue mantle of fading day.
The Rhelman first slowed Featherfoot, then drew the great amber to a halt, staring warily, watchfully, southward into the wind. The horse huffed and snorted. But Runningwolf’s own breathing remained measured and even. Hand on axe-head, he sat astride the anxious amber, the pair seeming so very small in the vast and otherwise empty expanse of the Plains. And with the patience and the dispassionate self-possession of his people, Runningwolf of Rheln waited.
And slowly, gradually, the black stain swelled, drawing steadily nearer, like a terrible dark dragon soaring on the southwind. And before it, faint but intensifying with each passing moment, with each furious flap of wings still too distant to discern, came a sinister harbinger in its van – the hot acidic odour of brimstone.
They have come, my dear.
The Rhelman shadowed his loamy oval eyes with the flat of one hand, squinting into the distances both east and south, scrutinizing every vague variation in the grasslands, seeking some semblance of shelter or sanctuary. But all he saw was the endless emptiness of the Northern Plains.
Nor is there haven behind us, dearest.
Runningwolf’s gaze flicked back to the sable stain in the sky. It had expanded, enlarged, but had also blurred as the one blot became many, dappling, allowing sullied light to seep between individual forms. Then, as Runningwolf gauged the speed of the things, he detected an infinitesimal but significant alteration in the their course as they neared.
They have seen us, my dear.
Featherfoot neighed nervously as Runningwolf whirled him around to face the faraway heights of the Westwall and the huge and hoary hulk of the Haunted Mountains. The Rhelman’s dark eyes flashed in the flat fearlessness of his face.
Westward we shall fly, dear one, for though they are swift, the setting sun may slow them a trifle. And mayhap we shall find some shield in the shadows and the stones beneath the cliffs.
Deftly, reflexively, Runningwolf nocked an arrow to his bow.
But blood, my dear – both theirs and our own – will surely feed the earth this day.
Featherfoot then reared, hoofing the autumn air, and with a whinny born of the rival thrills of exhilaration and trepidation, the great amber of Rheln streaked westward over the grasses, chasing the sun, gold on gold on gold.
Six miles.
Six miles of vacant meadowland lay between the racers from Rheln and the soaring steep of the Westwall. Fleet and furious was their flight – Featherfoot’s magnificent muscles rippling and rolling beneath his glistening coat, Runningwolf bent low upon the splendid steed’s neck, the golden mane of the former and the midnight hair of the latter flying as one in a wind of the pair’s own making.
However, the Rhelman knew only too well that even such utmost speed would not suffice. He needed not look their way, needed not see them adjust their course to know the foul things in the sky were moving, rushing, racing to intercept. He could sense them, feel them like the fiery breath of a pursuing dragon on his left shoulder. He could smell their sulphuric spoor. He could taste their evil, their hatred, their very wrongness. He could hear their heinous screeches increase in both frequency and volume as they narrowed the distance between them and their prey. And he knew them for what they were.
They are golgarrai, dearest, he revealed in reserved revulsion. Bewinged demons of the First World, loosed long ago upon this Second Earth. They have not been seen in the skies of this Earth since the battle of Gan Gebbernin twenty centuries ago. Long have we thought them destroyed, extinct, removed from reality to the misted realm of mythos. His earthy eyes narrowed into slits glossed with hindsight. Long have we been mistaken.
Featherfoot ran like wind, like lightning, like no other Rhelnian had run before him. Before them, the Westwall grew steadily taller, certain features and facets of its immense stony face becoming discernible in the shadows as the sun swept over the Haunted Mountains. Runningwolf soon distinguished great rocks heaped at the Westwall’s landing, titanic talus creating an abundance of protective crevices and defensible caves.
Refuge was near. So very near.
They were less than half a mile from the Westwall when the golgarrai fell upon them from the sky.
“Abbawontandontas.”
The voice is ethereal, eurhythmic, surreal. It is not so much heard as it is felt. A soft and gentle caress on the boy’s chilled cheek. A summer wind within him. A rich loam upon his soul.
“Awaken, Abbawontandontas.”
A revival.
“Awaken, now.”
Or a resurrection.
The boy’s eyes crack open. He fights to focus. He is aware of a great whiteness – immediate, extreme, excessive. Sunfire. So brilliantly bright. Yet not hurtful. And as the boy’s sight adjusts, the light swirls, solidifies, assumes shape and form.
And lo!
There stands before him such a creature as could have only been born of the Light itself. Tall and regal, it is – magnificent, resplendent – an equine entity as far removed from the humble horse as the Sky Spirits are from lowly Man. Its immaculate coat glistens like starshine, whiter than the sun-kissed snow on the mountains, brighter than lightning aflame across the heavens. Its mane and tail and fetlocks are long, lustrous, spun of the finest gold, flowing in wondrous waves and fluttering without avail of wind. And its eyes are as gold-gilt moons, large and round, their innate internal light evidencing intellect, reason, emotion.
And cold and darkness flee the creature, in reverence, in terror. The snows and even the trees withdraw from where the equine entity looms over the prostrate form of the boy. And the boy soon finds himself upon a green glen in the night, where the grasses are as soft as down, and the ground is warm and dry. And the boy rises to his knees, his face and eyes bright with reflected light, and he reflexively extends one small shaking hand. He well knows what is come for him in the night.
A Spirit Horse.
A thing of legend, of the tales of the elders about the village fires at night. A Sky Spirit’s steed. One has not been seen in Rheln in one hundred generations. But the boy knows that not all things that exist are seen. His soul soars within him.
But then he becomes aware another thing.
Astride the Spirit Horse’s back sits a figure, man-like in shape and form, and as black as the steed is bright, as baneful as the steed is beautiful. He is tall as well, taller than any Rhelman, and cloaked and clad in diaphanous midnight. And within the shadowed close of his cowl can only be seen two eerily colourless eyes, flashing like pale pearls in the depths of a bedless sea.
The boy shudders for a cold beyond any that winter might muster. His sailing soul falters, falls within him. He knows the Spirit Horse is not come for him. It is merely the means to an end. And it bears the end upon its back.
The boy lowers his hand, then his eyes, and submits to the might and majesty of Death itself.
The golgarrai swooped down upon them from the gloaming firmament, great dark thunderbolts, shattering the air with their hellish screeches. The grasses withered in the burning wind of their wings. Runningwolf whirled atop Featherfoot, sensing the proximity, the immediacy, of the demons. And his bowstring sang aloud, clear and cold. The Rhelnian bow was small, compact, recurved, specifically designed for close fighting from horseback, and none was more its master than was Runningwolf. Swifter than the eye could follow, one, two, three, a dozen slender Rhelnian arrows flew into the mass of bewinged beasts that made black and bleak the broad blue of the evening sky. But the bolts fell harmlessly away from hard lacertilian hides, dropping haplessly to the earth, broken and unbloodied.
Undeterred, Runningwolf discarded bow and sheaf, leapt from Featherfoot’s back, rolled, rising with both axe and knife in hand.
And he gave his loyal steed one final command.
Fly! Fly, my love! came the voice of his soul. Fly to the Wall! I will distract them if I might, hold them if I may. Fly! And if fate shall have it, we will meet again upon the fair fields of the Otherworld!
