I am Brek

by Mark Mulle

attacks against other outlier settlements. His army of creatures was destroying crops, killing livestock and attacking villages with little resistance.

  Most of these villages had no standing military presence and the King was refusing to send troops for fear that this Enderman might lead an army of fearsome monsters against some of his more valuable settlements. Upon hearing that no one was doing anything to stop this monster, the seed of a plan began to form in the back of my mind. The Widow Berken was the first to speak again. She said she had sent word to her relations back in one of the cities and was preparing to return there. Crandow agreed that this was for the best and then suggested that the village should move over to Darsooth because one united village stood a greater chance than two small ones.

  He also suggested that the farmers begin an early harvest and then set up new farms nearer to Darsooth and that the ranchers and shepherds move their livestock closer. It was only an afterthought that Crandow asked the Widow what was to become of me. She responded by saying that her relatives only had room enough for her she wasn’t sure what to do with me. Crandow said that he couldn’t ask anyone else to bear the burden of feeding another hungry mouth in these difficult times and that I would have to be left to fare for myself. Hearing this, I made my decision. I began packing my meager belongings in my one small satchel and settled in for night to fall.

  The moon provided just enough light for me to see my way out of the widow’s root cellar and across the path, but, just as I was passing the front of the house, the door opened and the Widow stepped out into the night. She expressed her deepest regret she could not bring me with her and that I was being left on my own once again. I could see that she meant every word and was sorrowful that events had brought us to this point. I reassured her that I understood and told her that I had a mission of my own to complete. The widow reached under her shawl and produced a sword that was forged out of the finest diamond. The blade seemed to absorb and then emit the moonlight like it was a torch. The Widow explained that the sword had belonged to her husband but, as they had no children and her relatives didn’t need it, she wanted me to have it. I took the blade in hand and was surprised by its weight - or lack thereof. I thanked her and quietly slid the blade into its sheath before I headed off into the night.

  I passed our neighboring village of Darsooth as the dawn was just cresting the gentle hills of the plains. I stepped off the main road to avoid any early morning travelers and carried on towards Wall. Wall was so named because it was the last fortified city before the true wilderness began. Spreading out from the city for miles to see were hundreds of small, elevated shacks. Rangers were stationed at each hut and, for all intents and purposes, it was their home. The rangers were never to be far from their huts because each had been laid out according to the others, such that no stretch of land would be without some measure of surveillance. The city of Wall was surrounded on all four sides with a massive stone wall. Along the outside of the city was a recently established sub district and some farm lands, but the city itself was designed so that, if trouble should present itself, the people of Wall could get inside quickly and efficiently. I had never traveled this far into wild land, but my father had told me of a library in Wall that was the greatest repository of information in existence on the mobs that plagued our world. The library itself had been established by a former ranger by the name of Belmont Douglas.

  I reached Wall by the end of the day, just as the sun was setting. So late was the time that I was forced to sprint towards the gate to get in before the gates were shut for the night. I managed to find a corner protected from the night wind and pulled out some of the cooked meat I had brought with me. The meat was dry and difficult to chew, but as far as sustenance goes it was good enough.

  The next morning, I awoke to the loud sounds of the city. Traders’ carts were being pulled into place by horses and cows, the local grocer was busily chasing chickens around his back yard and builders sat atop the scaffoldings, hoisting and lowering beams into place for some new construction. For every corner that I turned, I was greeted by new sights and sounds. I had never been in a large city - my father had always left me to tend the forge when he was summoned to the capital. I walked for some time and only stopped briefly to splash my face with cold water from a nearby barrel.

  Drying my face off with the sleeve of my coat, I realized that I had stopped in front of the most imposing building I had yet encountered. It was made of a deep, dark oak and every surface was nearly black. The building was so dark that it seemed to absorb the very light around it. It had a row of windows along the bottom but, instead of the clear glass I was used to, they had red panes instead. Each was also fitted with iron bars that could stop someone from climbing in even if the windows were shattered. I could see through the windows that the interior had dark oak shutters that appeared so heavy that this building could surely become its own fort in the heart of Wall.

  The windows along the top floor of the building were clear glass without any iron bars over them, but I could detect the same oak shutters. A heavy sign hung just above the door with the words “Iron Library” carved into it crudely. As I approached, the door was flung open by a woman who was in the middle of a bellowing monologue. “I hope ye burn Master Farnsworth! I will work for ye no longer!” she shouted.

  I stepped to the side, letting the flustered woman pass uninterrupted. Behind her, sat in the middle of the library, upon a stack of books, holding a molten hot branding iron, was the master of the library, Captain Abel Farnsworth. Farnsworth chuckled ferociously and extinguished the branding iron in the bucket of water next to him. I stepped inside, letting the heavy door close again with a dull boom, and Farnsworth regarded me curiously.

  “I’m sorry boy, but I don’t have anything to donate right now. You can try again tomorrow and I might see if I can have some bread left over,” he said.

  “Oh no sir, you are mistaken,” I replied. “I’m not here looking for handouts, I seek any information you might have on Endermen, specifically one that bears a long scar down his front right side, along with many other scars.”

  Farnsworth stared me down to the point that I began to fidget uncomfortably and then, with a slight shrug, rose from the stack of books and headed for a particular shelf.

  “What little has been recorded about Endermen is in this book. I’m familiar with a scarred Enderman but none of my references list him having a long scar on his torso,” Farnsworth replied.

  “They may not have been updated recently then,” I replied. “That particular scar is the one that I gave him.”

  Farnsworth again stared deeply at me and the seconds ticked uncomfortably by. Suddenly, he let out a laugh like a thunderclap.

  “Hah, you are just a boy! I find it hard to believe you could strike the Endermen’s general!” he said incredulously, and then began to explain the Endermen to me.

  What he told me, I have never forgotten. The Endermen are creatures from another dimension known as the End. Their flesh is black as the night itself with long legs and arms that bend and contort unnaturally. Perhaps the most disturbing feature of these Endermen is their jaw. When angered an Enderman’s jaw will disjoint much as a snakes would. Their whole mouth is filled to the brim with dagger-like teeth that stand out ferociously against the black flesh. Their eyes feel as though they could pierce your very soul with their glow. They are normally passive, preferring to gather materials rather than attack people, but there was an account in the books of a group of settlers who trapped and tortured one particular Enderman. He endured weeks of torment at the hand of his captors and, when he finally managed to free himself, the villagers were never heard from again.

  The next recorded entry of this Enderman occurred when a villager mistakenly made eye contact with the creature and, from that point onwards, anyone who made eye contact with the Enderman was brutally attacked. This particular Enderman eventually vanished from the frontier and was only ever seen in the wilds beyond Wall.
After a time, even the rangers stopped reporting sightings of him. It was believed that he had finally succumbed to his wounds or returned to his home dimension. No mention of the creature was made until the night he led the attack so deep inside the civilized territories.

  As the sun set that day, I sat amidst a pile of dusty tomes, talking about Endermen, Creepers, Zombies and Skeletal Archers. Nowhere in the histories were any examples of these creatures working in concert with one another until that fateful attack on Tanlin.

  I was sound asleep in the inn when the first warning bells began to sound across the city. I bolted from my bed as the explosions began to rock the buildings around me. I was still pulling my jerkin over my head when Farnsworth burst in.

  “I can’t believe it!” he cried at me. “The mobs really are working together. There are multiple Endermen teleporting creatures inside the city - we have to get out of here right now.”

  Farnsworth grabbed me by the wrist and we ran down the back stairs and ducked into a narrow alley, just as a line of skeletal archers marched past us and into the door of the inn we had just vacated.

  “How did you know where I was