by Galen Wolf
We go on for a few miles, heading south. I know that Silver Drift is south and then east from here. The light is fading. We need to find somewhere safe to leave the animals while we log off. The Jabberwock eggs will be safe in my inventory. It’s only if I die that I’ll drop them, or a high level rogue pilfers them from me. I’ll just have to keep my wits about me against that possibility.
We see a stand of burned trees about a quarter mile ahead well off that path. That looks like a good laying up point.
Then my attention is caught by a pulsing red light way to the south, over the horizon. It lights up the sky ahead and in time with the pulsing is an ominous booming noise. ‘What the heck is that?’ I ask.
‘Hellsmouth,’ they both say at once.
The Hedge
We logged off in the stand of trees and arranged to meet again the next morning. I get there and meet the others, then mount up and look south towards Hellsmouth.
I sit on horseback observing the pulsing, spewing energy that is vomiting up from the hole Satanus has dug right down into hell. ‘Is there any way round it?’ I ask.
Cuthbert laughs bitterly. ‘I couldn’t say. I’ve never visited it.’
I say, ‘We could try and ride round? Ride east as far as we can go?’
Elizabeth is strangely quiet on the back of her mule, then she says, ‘I can get you through it.’
Cuthbert looks sceptically at her. ‘Really? Without you turning us into your friends?’
‘They aren’t my friends,’ Elizabeth says.
‘Then what favours can you call in?’ I’m studying her. I don’t believe her any more but I’m half-hoping she’ll come through with something because if she doesn’t, and both Cuthbert and I die in Hellsmouth, the enemy will definitely get the Jabberwock eggs, then it will be only a short time before their armies are equipped with vorpal weapons and then any hope we have of winning back the north is sunk.
Elizabeth says, ‘I still know people. They don’t necessarily know I’m not one of them anymore. A friend of mine is the leader of the Skull Guards Regiment. With his permission we will be able to get through the north gate of the city.’
Cuthbert snorts. ‘Or get executed and drop the eggs.’
‘Yeah, maybe not,’ I say.
Cuthbert’s still sneering at her. ‘You think we’d follow you into Hellsmouth? You must be crazy.’
Elizabeth shrugs. ‘Whatever. I’m sorry you don’t trust me Cuthbert…’
He breaks down laughing, holding onto the pommel of his saddle. Henry joins in laughing, though I’m not sure he knows why. He throws back his head and his braying joins the saint’s cackling.
‘Let’s go,’ I say.
‘Which way?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘West.’
‘I’m not sure we can—’
I raise my hand. ‘It’s okay, Elizabeth. Going straight through Hellsmouth has to be Plan B. Trying west is Plan A.’
‘Fine,’ she says. We trot off in single line. Elizabeth on Bessie is right behind me and trailing along at the rear is Cuthbert, his shoulders still shaking occasionally at the thought we’d follow Elizabeth into Hellsmouth.
We head west down a devastated river valley. Blackened stumps of trees stick out from filthy, oily mud. Occasionally the ribs and skulls of long-dead animals poke up from the mud or threaten to trip our horses. The sky is dark to the north but a foul red-black glare illuminates the horizon to the south, pulsing like a broken heart. The stink of decay wafts on a warm wind from the Hellsmouth. I shudder and ride west.
There’s very little conversation between us. The atmosphere is heavy but the only consolation is we are slowly but surely getting closer to Silver Drift.
The trail is narrow but we’ve seen no enemies in this blasted forest as we ride beside the polluted River Tyne, running now like a trickle of bloody oil in the muddy river bed. There’s no sign of life at all in fact, or there wasn’t. Then we see something.
Cuthbert nudges Henry and comes up alongside me pointing in front of him. I follow his finger until I see what looks like a massive hedge of corrupted briars. They’re as thick as tree trunks and form a line across the horizon. They’re also moving.
‘How are we going to get through that?’ Cuthbert says.
I scan the horizon up and down. The briar hedge forms an unbroken line as far as I can see. It’s like an evil version of the Hedge of Thorns in the Sleeping Beauty story.
‘There may be a way through,’ I say. ‘We should get closer to check it out.’
Cuthbert tugs his beard. ‘Maybe we could go south?’ He looks uncertainly over the polluted river. I hate to think what that foul water would do to our horses if we tried to cross it. And even if we did cross the river, the briar hedge extends as far as we can see. I nod. ‘Let’s just get a better look at the hedge. Maybe we could cut our way through?’
‘You can’t,’ Elizabeth says.
Cuthbert pivots in his saddle. ‘Nobody asked you.’
‘Easy, Cuthbert,’ I say. ‘There’s no point us all falling out.’
He glares at me. ‘She just wants our eggs. That’s all she’s here for.’
I smile. ‘Then we’d better make sure we don’t die.’
‘I’m not dying. Not for her, not for no one,’ the saint mutters into his whiskers. He twists round to check the box of eggs is still firmly lashed behind his saddle. Satisfied he turns back and shakes his head. ‘It is big though, the barrier.’
We’re closer now and every trudging step of the horses takes us closer still. When we’re about a quarter mile away we halt and stare.
The Hedge of Thorns must be two hundred feet high. The black briars twist like snakes in the hedge as if they are perpetually on guard against intruders.
‘It’s designed to stop people getting round Hellsmouth,’ Elizabeth says.
‘We got that,’ Cuthbert snaps.
I can’t see any gaps. We’ll have to cut our way through. I start Spirit into a trot and we close the gap between us and the Hedge. As we approach the twisting briars become more active as if they smell us.
They stir and I swear the bottom ones are reaching out towards us. I grunt and dismount, pulling my sword from its scabbard. The flames lick up its blade and the bleed rune put on ages ago now, gleams red in the crimson light coming from Hellsmouth miles behind now.
I step closer and Cuthbert slides off his saddle and runs up to where I am. I notice Elizabeth stays behind. ‘I wouldn’t,’ she says. ‘They’re dangerous…’
The briar strikes like a rattlesnake, hitting Cuthbert with its thorns; its end opens in a lamprey-like mouth of twisting thorns bites at Cuthbert drawing blood that seeps in red circles through is white robe. The saint staggers, the wind knocked from him, but the briar strikes again, then another and another. Two or three of the sinuous shoots wrap around his legs and drag them from under him, cutting him viciously with their six-inch thorns. Cuthbert screams and he’s wrapped up like a carpet, bundled by twisting briar shoots. I can hardly see him because they wrap him up so tight, but the silver glow of his self-healing, lights up his living coffin, then they’re on me.
The briars snap out at me like a nest of vipers. Snap, bite, snap, they ring on my shield and armour, but my plate offers better protection than Cuthbert’s cotton robe.
I jump back. Each strike only does small damage but they’re so fast, they’ll bleed me out, if I’m not careful. The briars follow me. One snakes underneath and winds around my ankle, digging in thorns and unbalancing me. I go crashing on my backside.
I roll and cut with my sw
ord at the briar’s limb.
Now I’m free of the one that snagged me, I pull back and turn to help Cuthbert. There’s a blaze of silver healing and white offensive magic from within his thorny cocoon. I hack at the stems that are holding him and I sever two or three, then there’s a rain of clanging as they shoot out and hit my metal shield.
I’m trying to rescue Cuthbert, but the briars snap out at me.
I need to focus or Cuthbert’s going to die. I bend down and push, trying to protect myself with my shield but I’m taking more and more damage as I cut off the stems that reach out to squeeze Cuthbert, but as soon as I sever one, three more reach out and throttle the life out of the saint. Blood puddles on the ground underneath him and seeps through their thick black tendrils. More silver healing, but he’s going to be running out of mana soon. I hack and cut and then a huge briar like a conger eel snaps out and drags me toward the hedge itself. If I go in there, I’m not going out. I think of the Jabberwock eggs. I pull and cut and turn myself onto my knees and drag myself away. They tendrils are still wrapped on my shoulders but by sheer strength I resit and then roll and cut and I’m free. A few more slender fronds snap out at me, but I cut them.
On my feet again, I look at Cuthbert, wrapped in his shroud of thorns. Red blood forms a lake below where he lies, and there’s no more silver healing. I step forward and cut but as I slash at them, Cuthbert’s ghost emerges from between the briars and as I watch, the briars hungrily gobble his body, dragging it into the thicket.
I got a further 300xp from all the briars I killed, but it’s not much consolation. Bernard and Tye and Fitheach and Cuthbert are dead. There’s just me there now. Me and Elizabeth. She sits there quietly on Bessie.
I back away from the hedge and the fronds snap uselessly at me now I’m out of range.
‘I told you it wouldn’t work,’ she says.
Anger rises up my throat. ‘You didn’t help at all!’
She shrugs. ‘I didn’t think you wanted or needed my help.’
‘More like you wanted us to die here so you could pick up the eggs.’
She looks indignant. ‘Hey, don’t put that on me. You were the ones who wanted to try this way. I told you it wouldn’t work. If you died here, it would have had nothing to do with me.’
‘Cuthbert did die.’
She glances at the box of eggs that is now free for the taking because Cuthbert’s died. She sees me watching her and doesn’t move towards it. I go and snatch it up and put it on the back of Spirit. It’s now in my inventory. She won’t get it now until I die. And I’m not planning on that happening. These eggs need to get back to Silver Drift.
‘So what now?’ she says. ‘Are you ready to take my advice?’
I mount Spirit and turn his head so we’re facing back the way we came. ‘We’ll see,’ I say.
We travel back through the blasted forest. I’m really tired again and want to log of, but I can’t not yet — the horses won’t be safe here. We go on for about two miles then I see a path down the steep bank that leads to a stone bridge over the poisoned river. We ignored this way before because it obviously leads to Hellsmouth.
It’s true what Elizabeth said. She didn’t encourage us to travel down the trail that led to the briar hedge. In fact, she advised against it. I don’t have lots of options. Maybe I should risk trusting her?
She points down towards the bridge. ‘That way leads up to the Hellsmouth. The Skeleton Bridge goes over the River Styx there. Of course it’s guarded both ends.’
‘By your friends.’
She grimaces. ‘I wish you wouldn’t say that. I’m trying my best here.’
I study her to see if there’s anything in her expression that gives away whether she’s lying or not, but there’s nothing.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll trust you.’ Of course, I’ve got very little option. I can’t get past the Hellsmouth, so I’ve got to go through. I’ve got a plan though. If it looks like I’m going to die, I’ll jump into the Hellsmouth and the two boxes of eggs will be lost forever in that bottomless abyss.
I click my tongue and we start to move off, descending the slope towards the trail that leads to the bridge then over to Hellsmouth. I’m first on Spirit and then Henry trots forlorn and riderless behind. Elizabeth is last. ‘I’m glad you’ve finally decided to trust me,’ she says.
Hellsmouth
The trail we’re on between the blasted tree stumps becomes muddier and shows the tracks of many feet. As we get closer to the Hellsmouth the temperature rises and the skies turn a ruddy grey even when they are not illuminated by the constant pulsing of the Hellsmouth itself. We pass ogres and trolls and player characters either coming from Hellsmouth or going there, pushing past us in a hurry. I’m both in a hurry and also reluctant to get there. The light from the Hellsmouth flashes brighter as we get closer, its colour and rhythm are making me sick, and clouds of demons fly up from the hole swooping and flocking like blasphemous starlings in the fetid air.
I sweat under my armour. Elizabeth is leading and I’m trusting her to lead me to straight into hell. Hellsmouth is the centre of enemy operations. Once, Satanus was holed up in his castle of Tantallon in Scotia, but since they burrowed a hole down to hell like so many foul maggots, this is where he resides.
My skin crawls as if he can sense me — a Knight of the Round Table. I’m still in my Green Knight disguise and to all the world it looks like Elizabeth has captured me and is taking me for questioning.
The Hellsmouth is surrounded by a tall obsidian wall, similar to that which blocked our advance north what seems a long time ago now. Guards patrol the battlements; I see their spears and make out the shape of their helmets. Black and red banners flutter with the red inverted pentagram sign of Satanus on a black background. If I die here, they get the eggs, but what other choice do I have? I have no boat to sail, no way of crossing the hedge to the west, so I have to come through Hellsmouth. No allies either. I’m not counting Elizabeth as one, but I’m praying she is trustworthy, while all the time keeping my hand close to my sword hilt.
The black gate looms ahead of us. This is the main way into Hellsmouth from this direction and it’s busy. Crowds of travellers mill around the gate being checked by armed guards that wear helmets in the shape of skulls. This must be the regiment of the Skull Guards Elizabeth spoke of.
We wait in line. Spirit fidgets but even Henry is quiet. I see him nuzzle into Bessie as if for comfort.
The line shuffles forward. The guards are cruel with the travellers and I see one stamp the butt of his spear into a dwarf NPC’s forehead knocking him to the ground.
‘Wrong papers,’ I hear the guard yell. ‘You don’t come into Hellsmouth with the wrong papers.’
That could be awkward.
‘Elizabeth…’ I lean forward and whisper.
Without turning she says, ’Don’t worry, Gorrow. I’ve got this.’
We’re close to the guards now. They’re checking papers with great thoroughness. I wonder why the heck they need to be so careful about who’s coming into Hellsmouth?
I hear a shriek and a pit fiend flies up and swoops down. I will myself to sit straight and not pull my sword, but Spirit flinches and Henry gives a crazy yee-haw causing the guards to look in our direction. One walks over and then sees Elizabeth. He stops and bows. They say something I can’t hear then he goes back to his post.
‘What was that?’ I whisper.
‘Nothing.’
I sit back. She’s not exactly building trust. I put a hand behind me to check both boxes o
f Jabberwock eggs are firmly in place. I don’t know what kind of rogues are skulking around in the shadows round here.
The Hellsmouth pulses from behind the wall, sending beams of diseased red light up into the sky. I shudder. We need to be shot of this place sooner rather than later.
Then we get to the guards. I’m expecting a rigorous check but they just back off and allow Elizabeth and her prisoner through with a short exchange of words.
We ride under the obsidian gate, leaving the guards behind us. ‘How come that was so easy?’
‘I told you, I know their boss.’
And now there’s nothing between us and the Hellsmouth itself. The hole must be a mile across, and the skeleton bridge, built of huge bones arches over it. I can hardly see over to the other side because the air that pulses out of it is turbulent and coloured black and red. There’s an awful booming like a heartbeat coming from far below. It looks more like an organ than rock and I see veins throbbing in its walls.
We step onto the beginning of the bridge. I can’t see down and I don’t want to go to the edge of the bridge to look. Not that I could. The line of travellers winds round towards the black buildings that form the settlement of Hellsmouth ahead of us. The tallest of them is a tower, circular and narrowing at the top and on the top is the huge glyph of a red eye.
Demons fly around in the air and every now and again they swoop and snatch a passer-by, eating him as they lift him up, snapping off his head and spitting out the bones.
I wonder why the guards are pushing some travellers to the edge of the bridge, when I see a vast red tongue lol out of the hole and lick off passers-by like an anteater gobbling ants. They’re either snatched by the tongue or fall screaming into the hole.
‘Oh my God, what is that?’ I can’t help myself.
Elizabeth gives a low laugh. ‘Well they call it the Hellsmouth for a reason.’
‘And Satanus lives down there?’
