by Paul Yoder
32
Returning in Defeat
Streaks of shadow and light ripped across the desert, unnatural sounds jerking, sounding off discordantly with silent pockets in-between. The fever-like spectacle sent wildlife scurrying in fear as the streaks began to consolidate into two figures, one in shrouds, and one in light leather armor.
The robed figure walked out of the dissolution of reality that he had been walking through, a ring on his finger burning a neat violet. The ring began to cool, turning back into a dark, lustrous obsidian before the man turned his head to gaze for a moment the direction in which he came.
Denloth had left what remained of his troop behind, more than likely to be picked apart by the small troublesome group that had shown up at fort Brackhill the previous day. He had perhaps erred in taking prisoners of the ones he had. They seemed like nobodies, not even associated with military or the local government in any way, but they had proved themselves a worthy threat during their raid, and they had successfully beaten him that day. All he had gained was one prisoner—one the others had referred to as Wyld.
He looked back at his only traveling companion. She was an indigenous race whose population had dwindled under the more ‘civilized’ people’s rule of law. He could understand her name due to her kind being known by most others as a wild people. Language was not common among them, and when one did attempt speech, it was crude, and their understanding of higher thought seemed hindered, not truly on par with the rest of the recognized races of the land.
Her kind had many names by the Southern Sands region, some older, some newer, but most referred to them as kaiths. They were known for their natural fur coats, slitted pupils, and sharp fangs. A beastile people, closer to earlier evolutions of the other races, kaiths posed a great threat when provoked, their speed and power outmatching any opponent in their weight class.
He had spoken with her before hypnotizing her and he respected her intelligence, considering her natural mental limitations. She had the command of speech, and she had been articulate in her threats directed at him. He would use her. She showed promise.
She had fallen during the walk through the Seam, her hypnosis compromising her judgement and functions. The Seam had left its mark on her, and parts of her clothing and body were phasing in and out of existence, giving a holographic effect upon a ragged swath of her right side. The iridescent scar stretched across the kaith’s face like a surreal tattoo, leaving Denloth to wonder the state of her mind after interacting with the Seam so directly.
All that dared venture into the Seam, a state of warped reality, knew to never veer from, what his people called, the thread. It was a safe, narrow path that led from entrance to exit. Along the thread, all calls for reality as one knew it, was off, and anything could happen. As a result, it was extremely dangerous to traverse, but the one rule all walkers had for their journeys through the Seam was to stay steadfastly on the thread. If one didn’t do that, that walker was never seen from again.
“Come,” Denloth commanded, and for a moment, he worried his hypnotism spell had been broken, or degraded in some way, but a moment later, Wyld began to walk towards him, stopping before him, waiting for additional orders.
He smiled.
Though he had been bested by an anonymous band, he had one of their members under his control—a very powerful, ferocious member—and they would follow. And when they arrived to where he was headed, they would be met by an army of the dead. Not a thirty-man detachment of their weakest troops, but thousands of newly minted true abominations that his master, Sha’oul, had personally risen, graphed, and chanted runic soliloquies of death and murder into.
“You lost control of the fort? How?”
“This one’s friends stormed it midday,” Denloth admitted, nodding to Wyld. “They are skilled combatants, and they also allied up with Dubix. They are headed here now. I have hopes to convert them to our cause. They would be powerful assets.”
The two walked through a shaded canyon along the borders of the Imhotez mountains. They were only accompanied by a spellbound Wyld, who followed close behind.
“What happened with this one’s…skin?” Sha’oul asked, unsure as to the odd optical illusion that scarred a good portion of Wyld’s body and clothes.
“She fell in the Seam. It seems to not have affected my enslavement spell.”
Seeming satisfied with Denloths’ preliminary answer, Sha’oul continued his questioning. “These people, do they have any affiliations that you know of?” Sha’oul asked as the two made their way through the winding slot canyon, seeming underwhelmed by Denloth’s report thus far.
“None that I know of. There’s only five in their group, if Dubix remains with them. My mammoth ape killed one of them. They seem to be specialists, however. They may cause trouble for us, but if they do follow him here, we will need to be sure not to underestimate their talents. Even with their small numbers, they could pose a nuisance to our plans.”
Sha’oul stooped low to avoid a withered tree growing out of the cliff wall six feet up, Denloth following, ducking his head slightly, much shorter than the giant man he followed.
“You may use whatever force necessary to snare this group—all I care is that they are out of the way for our march, be it through their deaths, or their joining us,” Sha’oul said, mostly unconcerned with the subject, but turning to Denloth and adding a menacing follow-up order, “Do not fail to this group a second time. If some random group of vagabonds can best you twice, you’re perhaps less useful than I initially thought.”
Denloth gave the threat time to sink in before replying with, “Yes, master.”
The canyon opened up before them into a crag valley, arid trees pointing up like green spikes out of the hills on either side. The rain had granted a wave of new vegetation. The scene that normally would have been a lovely vista was marred by a spread of felled trees and the moaning lamentation of a pen of tribes people, numbering more than a hundred, surrounded on all sides by a host of rotting arisen so numerous that their true numbers to the prisoners were hidden deep into the tree lines stretching all the way back into the mountains.
“I have need of six strong souls. Find them there. Bring them to the tent of ash and meet me there. We’ve finished the slaughter of the mountain gorillas. I must finish the raising rites, and then I will see you in the tent,” Sha’oul explained, then headed off up the hillside, leaving Denloth only in the presence of his tentative kaithian ally whose skin and armor glimmered a lustery opalescent as Wyld stared off blankly into the valley ahead.
“A ritual is afoot. Six strong souls is many,” he said to his mindless companion, grinning at the thought of what was to come, heading down to the moaning prisoners who cried one name over and over.
“Sha’oul! Sha’oul!”
“It seems our master is pleased with this people’s name for him,” Denloth mused sideways to Wyld.
“I must admit, Hell Raiser is an appropriate name, one that he seems keen on permanently adopting for this war, at least. Come now, keep up.”
Wyld hesitated a moment, wetness lightly brimming her one good eye, the other awash in dimensional matter.
The resistance ended as soon as it had come on. Wyld began to step forward, attempting to keep up with her domineer.
33
Cliffs of Imhotez
Fin checked the strange marks in the scorched desert sands. A strange coruscating fluid had been scattered along the scar in the earth. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, and since he suspected magic at play, he had poked the substance with a twig instead of using his finger.
The twig, apparently agitating the liquid, disappeared, then the liquid itself vanished.
“It seems Denloth is headed for Imhotez Pass, employing some very strange means—magic of some sort. No idea when he traveled through here, but if the pass is where he’s headed, we might want to trek up along the cliff walls to be safe. Would be bad if we come upon t
he arisen army while in the pass and not atop it.”
Matt considered Fin’s suggestion momentarily, grumbling, “That’s going to make travel for me a great deal more difficult, you know that? It’s not exactly enjoyable to navigate a mountain range blind, boy.”
Fin had no answer for Matt, and after not getting a reply, Matt huffed, “Stumbling through the mountainside it is then. Wyld had better still be alive when we catch that son of a bitch, Denloth.”
“Yes, and we had better pick up the pace,” Malagar added, looking in the direction the strange scars in the sand led. “He may slip through our fingers if we linger too long. Every day that passes in his captivity increases her chances at sharing Cray’s fate. I have known her for many years now, and I know how spirited she is. Unfortunately, I fear that may play against her this time. She may force her captor’s hand before we can arrive to aid her if we do not hurry.”
Hamui, half the height of everyone else, swathed in thick, grey and red robes, stood silently, brooding under his wide hood. He had listened to their conversations, though hadn’t contributed much most of the day.
“Right,” Fin said, after looking over the group, analyzing where everyone was at, lingering on the quiet Hamui. “We head to the mountains then. It’ll be difficult terrain to navigate at a quick pace. Keep your wits about you. I’ll scout ahead once we hit the mountains and get out of this sand. Mal, you take lead for the group, I’ll signal to you to halt if needs be, so watch for me—keep everyone at a good clip.”
Malagar nodded, and though he expected to hear complaints from Matt, none came.
The group started their trek up once more with a bit more spring in their step, following the discordant scratch marks to the mountains ahead.
The day had come and gone along with an unhealthy amount of sweat from everyone, save Dubix, who labored effortlessly, even with his weighty armor he had salvaged at the fort, whatever dark magics that kept his hinges moving not waning in the least.
Their water reserves had suffered from the quickened pace they had set, and Fin had been keeping an eye out for pools of water to replenish their water bags from.
Since it had been raining so often the last couple of weeks, it hadn’t been hard to find standing water, but most were stagnant and thick with algae and not suitable, even with boiling, to drink. They still had time to be selective, so he had passed by quite a few watering holes already.
The striations in the sand had ceased a ways before they had entered the foothills. Footsteps had immediately preceded them and led straight into the vast canyon. Denloth had not made it hard to follow.
Cresting a peak, Fin scanned the next few mountain slopes ahead for signs of Denloth or the arisen horde. They were high up by that point, their ascent had lasted the better part of the afternoon, and though he had superb visibility down on the canyon pass, he saw that the way ahead, if they wanted to keep at the top of the canyon, was going to be arduous, the trip would not be easy for Matt to navigate.
He was just sitting down to await Malagar and the others to catch up when he noticed a small plume of smoke coming from a ways down on the other side of the canyon wall in one of the many crags along the mountain.
He shaded his brow, trying to make out the scene that was nearly a half mile away. It looked like a small camp, Fin making out what seemed to be a single figure. Surely it was not Denloth that he had spotted, having seen signs of a trail from time to time of Denloth and Wyld from his vantage point hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. They had kept to the valley. This figure was alone, and as of yet, Fin did not think aware of their presence.
Looking back to Malagar, who was now close enough to clearly see him, he waved for him to hurry up and keep low. Malagar whispered to the others of Fin’s orders and the group approached Fin’s spot within a matter of minutes.
“See?” Fin whispered, pointing to the camper deep in the mountainous region.
“I don’t see like you mortals,” Dubix hissed, getting an approving grunt from Matt who was waiting for an explanation of the sight.”
“Some lone wanderer. What are they doing way out here?” Malagar spoke aloud, answering the two companions that had not a keen eye, or eyes at all.
“How do you see, Dubix?” Hamui asked, breaking his day-long silence. Everyone turned to the two out of genuine interest.
The bleached skull looked down to consider the question, whispering to the small praven, “Patterns in the hexweave. All entities interact with the weave differently.”
“How far can you ‘see’?” Hamui pressed, the praven’s natural curiosity kicking in fully.
“It depends on the complexity of the arisen. Some are barely aware of their surroundings at all. Others still have some connection to their senses they once held in life. I cannot see as far as you are pointing, the weave is too muddled for me further than a hundred feet or so. It is difficult to sort through all the chaos beyond.”
“Curious,” Hamui mused, stroking his chin in the shadow of his cowled hood with his small hands, mentally chewing on the presented curiosity.
Fin noted the confessed information, distractedly moving the subject back to the lone wanderer below.
“Matt, you’re with me, the rest of you, follow a ways back, let us approach first and back us up once we move to engage.”
“Understood,” Dubix answered for the others, Matt leaving the group, following Fin’s lead as they made their way down the sloped hill towards the campsite.
34
At a Camp Along the Dunes
“I’ll rush back to let Bannon know we’ll be stopping here for the night,” Arie said, turning her dolinger around, spurring it into a trot to meet up with the troop that they had lost sight of after the last sprint of their journey.
“It seems we’ll be sharing this camp, Sultan,” Henarus quietly spoke as they continued to approach the desert camp where many tents had been pitched all around a central pit that blazed bright, even in the setting sunlight.
“Indeed. Reza, Henarus, come with me to entreaty if we may share this campsite with them. Perhaps mingling with their people would do our company good. The trade of information with locals could prove useful.”
Reza and Henarus trotted up along with Metus ahead of the rest of the small group, leaving them at a distance as they approached the camp of around twenty-five people or so, a stocky man walking just out of the camp boundaries to address the three strangers that rode up along the highway.
“Greetings, travelers,” the barreled-chested Tariganniean said in a thick accent. “I see you ride dolingers, are you military? I see no banners or colors to guess where you might be from.”
The man seemed pleasant enough, but as Metus looked over the camp more closely, he could see that the curious onlookers were heavily wrapped up, showing little skin, and the skin that was visible, Metus could see horrible lumps and bumps along flaking skin.
Metus must have been distracted by the observation for a moment too long, the man looking to the encampment, poignantly pointing out what Metus was wondering.
“Lepers, as you may be suspect to. I would not assume you would wish to spend the night in our camp, but there is plenty of good, flat ground in the area. We would not at all be opposed to having neighbors for the evening if your intention is to camp here overnight.”
“It is rude of me to have hesitated. We have not seen leprosy in our state for many years.”
“And where is this state of yours?” the man asked.
“The Plainstate,” Metus simply answered.
To which the man replied, “Ah, yes. Though small, it is a prosperous and peaceful place, I have heard, at least those who are willing to keep well within the rule of law. I hear you are banished for the most basic of infractions there. Tell me, what post do you hold with them? Military I’d be guessing.”
Metus nodded, considering for a moment his answer before agreeing, “Yes, military.”
“
Do you have a name, good soldier?”
“Adom,” Metus replied, bowing his head slightly in greeting before introducing his two companions at his side. “This is Henarus Alabathe, a follower of Hassome, and Reza Malay, my right hand, and that is part of my attachment,” Metus motioned to the others they had left thirty yards back.
“Very good. You can call me Darious. I hope to bring a measure of peace to these poor people, castaways from Rochata-Ung, doomed to exile.
“This camp belongs to the Traveler, as it has serviced thousands of weary wanderers over many centuries. Your company is welcomed to this area. If you plan to stay longer than a night, we’ll be packed and moved out on the morrow.”
“Where are you destined?” Metus asked, glad to have moved the focus of the conversation to Darious rather than it be on him, not wanting to give any information about himself or his mission more than was necessary.
“Surely you have heard of the enclave north of here along the Daloth crags? It is a town where all of Tarigannie’s refugees, diseased, and other unfortunates are sent to.”
“I have heard of the Enclave, though, reports are sparse with details of its governance. Tell me, what role do you hold there, if any?”
“As long as you have no orders to interfere. I cannot think of any reason for a soldier from the Plainstate to care, but I’m what you could call an ‘official’ of the town. We have little in terms of governance, it’s more a commune, but what order must be kept is kept by a few seniors, myself being one of them. The only credentials to my name are the number of unclean I have rescued from the slaughtering streets of the slums of Rochata.”
“I respect your work, Darious. This is an honorable thing you undertake,” Metus said, mournfully looking over the lugubrious group of lepers, a child and mother standing close to the outside boundaries of the tents.
The child spoke in a pidgin mix of old tariganniean and callatum. Looking to Reza, whispering to her mother, she spoke the words, “Angel. That one’s an angel.”
