by Unknown
“Villifor ordered me to burn the village, but I can’t get the fire to catch.”
“Nothing burns hotter than wizard’s fire…” Lucus walked over to the nearest house and held his hands beneath the thatch. A ball of fire formed in his cupped hands and instantly spread to the thatched roof. “It’s just like starting a campfire. Use your torch to transfer it to the other houses.”
Slate did as advised and made fairly quick work of igniting the town. He headed away from Magnus’ men until he had a couple homes left nestled between the woods and the rocky bluff overlooking the town.
Slate lifted the torch when he thought he heard a noise in the woods to his right. He scanned the woods for a minute or two and wondered if the master woodsman had stumbled on a tree root. Chuckling at the thought, Slate lit the thatched roof of the last house. He turned to leave but stopped in his tracks, dropping his torch.
A little girl and her dog stood before one of the burning houses. She knelt beside her dog and cried softly into his fur. Did this girl somehow survive the attacks? Maybe she had been away gathering berries or doing another chore. Had Slate just burned down her house? He approached her slowly, not wanting to frighten her. If this girl had really survived the attack and seen the attackers, she could provide more information than a simple piece of fabric.
“Excuse me, little girl…” Slate gently placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her around.
She turned toward him with eyes closed, still crying and whimpering.
“It’s ok, you’re safe now…” Slate opened his arms to embrace the frightened girl, but the alarmed cry of a raven came from within the woods. Slate drew back at the sound of Lucus’ alarm and the little girl opened her eyes. They were blood-red.
She launched herself at Slate’s throat, trying to bite him. He threw her small frame away, but the dog attacked a second later. Slate used his forearm to prevent the dog’s teeth from locking on his neck. The dog’s powerful jaws crushed Slate’s forearm, but he wrapped his free arm around the rabid dog and snapped its neck. He saw the red eyes of the dog close as he pried its locked jaws off his forearm.
The little girl jumped onto his back and bit. Slate grabbed her and heaved forward, throwing her in front of him. The force of the impact didn’t slow her down. She stood up and came at him again, red eyes piercing.
Slate reached his staff and hit her with light, defensive blows, just keeping her a safe distance away. Somewhere in the woods, the cries of a Raven could be heard again. How could he stop this crazy girl? Fire would fend her off, right? Slate picked up the torch with his left hand, pain shooting through his forearm where the dog had bitten.
“Stay back! I’m warning you!” Slate stopped hitting the girl with his staff and waved the torch in front of him. She ran into him without hesitation, her hair and dress catching fire in the dry air next to the burning houses. Her little blows into his stomach didn’t really hurt, but her burning hair caught his shirtsleeve on fire as he held her away. The fire seared the open wound on his forearm, riddling him in pain. Pain gave way to instinct and training. Slate punched the little girl…with his right hand. He felt her bones crush beneath his stonehand and she fell to the ground in a flaming pile.
Slate snuffed out his burning forearm and bent down to check on the demon child. He had just killed a little girl. Should he feel bad about it? What was that red-eyed witch? Slate felt fatigued from the fight and wanted to contemplate the morality of his actions, but more raven cries warned of impending danger.
Dozens of people and animals emerged from the woods. Most were adults and some carried rudimentary weapons, predominantly axes and kitchen knives. Their red eyes trained on him and they attacked.
Slate had time to yell, “Magnus!” Then they were upon him, kicking, punching, cutting, and swinging axes. Slate kept them away with his staff but was forced to give ground because of their numbers. The mob backed him into a corner between a rock wall and a burning house. Slate switched tactics and started thinning the herd.
Slate transferred his staff to his injured left hand, sacrificing defense in favor of his stonehand. Slate gave an uppercut to an untrained farmer swinging an axe, dropping him to the ground. He gave more ground and punched a red-eyed woman in the chest. Her heart stopped and so did her attack. Slate backed up again and felt his heel hit solid wall. He had run out of room.
Slate swung one last time, connecting his fist to a dog in mid-air. It fell to the ground in a thump, but the attackers overwhelmed him. An unarmed villager broke his guard and clung to his arms, further lowering his defenses. Slate was about to lose out completely when some of the attackers turned the other way at the sight of incoming guardsmen.
Magnus took a giant swing with his battle axe and decapitated three villagers at once. Then the guardsmen lunged beneath his swing to stab other villagers through the chest in precise blows. Slate took a superficial knife wound to the shoulder. The villagers dropped quickly now, but Slate wasn’t sure the guardsmen could keep up with the ferocious attack. Another dog bit into his leg, tearing flesh as its teeth sunk deeper and deeper. In front of him, someone with a knife swung at his head.
Slate reached up with his right hand and caught the blade before it reached his face. He didn’t feel any pain and silently thanked Lucus for his glove. The spike of Magnus’ battle axe flashed inches from his face and the head of the red-eyed attacker accosting him rolled to the ground. Seconds later, guardsmen dealt fatal blows to the villagers closest to him. Slate leaned back against the rock wall behind him, resting while the carnage was pulled away. He closed his eyes and reopened them to find Magnus had pinned his neck to the wall between the spike and blade of his battle axe.
“If I picked up one of those kitchen knives and killed you, no one would know differently. I would say we got here too late and the best we could do to honor your memory was to avenge your death. These are MY men and they follow me anywhere.” A crooked, crazy smile was etched on Magnus’ lips. It contradicted starkly with the mixture of remorse and relief Slate felt after battle. Magnus scared him. “You can live because battle action always puts me in a good mood. The next time you cause me trouble, I wouldn’t expect the same fortune. In fact, I still owe you from our previous encounter.” Magnus pressed his chest against the rock wall, keeping him pinned while removing his battle axe. He casually flipped the axe downwards and drove the spike into his foot, sending shots of pain radiating up his leg. “I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to repay the Sicarius headmaster for that stunt in Pillar, so send along my regards.” Magnus pulled the spike from his foot and laughed. “It looks like a battle axe works just as good as my old broadsword.”
Slate knelt to inspect the damage. A slow trickle of blood oozed from his foot, as it did from his arm and leg where the dogs had bitten him, but it was far from life-threatening. He stood up and kept his weight on his good foot.
Magnus had one last laugh in store for Slate. “Let’s go, men. We’ll tell the story of our heroic defense of the village when we get back. Slate is thankful for our rescue, but his wounded pride won’t let him accept any first aid from us. And his fear of horses won’t let him accept a ride back to camp with one of us either. Our only option is to succumb to his stubborn wish of walking back to camp on his own. Isn’t that right, Slate?”
Slate mouth dropped open. They were going to leave him here by himself? What if more red-eyes showed up? He’d be nearly defenseless.
“The fun of this infested town is over and I’m ready for some lunch. Let’s ride.” Magnus skirted the edge of the burning village and disappeared down the trail back to camp.
As Magnus and the men disappeared out of sight, Lucus and Sana emerged from the woods. Sana cradled a broken arm and blood flowed from several fresh wounds. Slate would have run to help her, but running was out of the question and Lucus was already healing her wounds. “What happened to you?”
“A group of villagers came from the north,” Sana said slowly. “When I notic
ed the torn clothes and red eyes, I raised the raven’s cry, but my attention was diverted from the group.”
“Is that how you got injured?” Slate asked. Lucus offered healing to Slate, but the guardsmen were expecting him to return injured. Instead, he allowed Lucus to support him as they began the walk back to camp.
“An even larger group approached from near the bluffs,” Sana continued. “I barred their way by stringing grapevines across the rocky, narrow path. Unfortunately, the strategy left me within arm’s reach while the coiled grapevines unraveled from my arm. I’m sorry for letting the first wave into the village…”
“You saved my life. I couldn’t have defended against any more of them. What were they?”
Whatever the answer was, Sana was uncomfortable with it. She diverted her eyes at the question and Lucus answered for her. “Blood Mages preferred magic that affected the body’s function, since small changes in a person’s body can produce profound effects. The brain, in particular, was a favorite target of Blood Mages and mental subjugation was commonplace. A skilled Blood Mage could push an idea or a desire onto a person without any visible signs. Less skilled Blood Mages lacked the tact to hide the implanted ideas, so they simply overran the desires of the subjugated mind, leaving them with a single purpose to fulfill. The subjugate’s mind would fight back when this happened, but they would inevitably lose out. During the process, the blood pressure to the head would increase and rupture small blood vessels, including the capillaries in their eyes, giving them the defining red-eyed look you observed in the villagers.”
“So these possessed villagers were under the control of the Blood Mage. I think we knew that, but how does that change anything?”
Slate’s skills of deduction didn’t impress Sana. “Try to think two steps ahead for once. Though we’ve heard rumors, this is the first direct evidence of Blood Magic and it indicates a level of proficiency high enough to burn out some villagers’ brains and turn them into mindless soldiers. That brings up a very dangerous possibility—the Blood Mage may be capable of more advanced forms of subjugation and anyone could be affected.”
They approached camp and Slate promised to meet them at Ibson’s in the morning to continue the conversation. Slate contemplated the ramifications of Sana’s concern as a way of distracting from the crippling pain in his foot. Could Villifor be subjugated? Could he have sent Slate into Minot knowing the red-eyed attackers would be coming? Even Magnus and his troops might not have been enough to withstand the larger attack of red-eyes, which Sana had prevented.
A patrolling guardsman found him and propped him up next to a tree in camp. “Villifor will want a report. In the meantime, I’ll sew you up. The Ispirtu healers stopped accompanying us on our missions, so you’ll have to tough it out the old-fashioned way.” The guardsman held up a bottle of unknown content, but it didn’t take a genius to understand the offer. That stuff was probably just as potent as the alcohol he had used to soak his torch in the village. Slate shook his head, declining the offer. “Suit yourself.” The guardsman started on his arm. “I can’t do much for the burns. This will probably hurt worse than the others because of them.” She held down Slate’s arm and poured the contents of the jug into the dog bite. Slate didn’t have to worry about screaming in pain…his jaw clenched instantly and he was thankful to have missed his tongue. The guardsman then pulled out needle and thread that she soaked in the contents of the jar and started closing up his arm. It was painful and ugly, but it was nice to see the wound closed, even if it had released only a trickle of blood. The guardsman repeated the procedure for the wound in his leg, and then Villifor arrived.
“Magnus gave his report but I don’t believe it. Tell me what happened.” Villifor knelt beside him and carefully removed his boot. Slate attempted to tell the story while the guardsman starting stitching the puncture wound in his foot, having to sew several layers of the underlying tissue to properly close the wound.
“I was clearing the village when a little girl and her dog came out of the woods. I thought she had survived the attacks and when I got closer, they attacked me. By the time I had finished with them, over a dozen more had come from the woods. I found myself trapped and Magnus and his team saved me.”
“It couldn’t have taken too long to dispose of a little girl and a dog. How did a dozen people corner you?”
Slate thought about his early conversation with Villifor. Someone had to fight these things…they might as well know what they were. “The little girl wasn’t just a little girl. She kept her back to me until I got close, and when she turned to look at me, it was with blood red eyes. Then she attacked. Since she was unarmed, I was able to keep her away from me. The dog attacked me too, and I snapped its neck after getting one of these bites. The most worrying thing to me though, was that this girl kept attacking at all costs. Hits that should have wounded her didn’t even faze her. She ran straight through fire and didn’t stop her attack to put out the flames consuming her. It took a lethal blow to her head to stop her.” Slate grimaced as the needle went into his foot.
Villifor grimaced too, although Slate couldn’t tell if it was from watching his surgery or the news he had just delivered. “Magnus says these attackers are simple peasants. His men went through them without injury.”
“They were peasants. They fought without skill or armor and only rudimentary weapons. Magnus couldn’t see what I saw because they arrived late and only dealt lethal blows.”
“Magnus had another suggestion. He thought the peasants you described were survivors of the attack. Maybe they saw your…complexion…and it reminded them of the real attackers. He thought they attacked you because you looked like…I don’t know what. Why do you look the way you do? I’ve heard rumors, but I want the truth.”
The guardsman tied off the last stitch and Slate sighed. “That was a mishap in Ispirtu. Master Primean was conducting a pain tolerance experiment with me as the test subject. The experiment reduced blood loss to superficial wounds so that I could experience higher levels of pain without passing out due to blood loss. His experiment worked and he became overeager, pouring himself into the experiment and eventually dying from using too much spark. I survived, but it left me looking very pale. Fortunately, the blood staunching abilities have remained with me.”
“I did notice there was very little blood in your boot for that type of wound. I don’t necessarily understand what happened to you…but I do believe you.”
“I don’t understand it either.”
Villifor looked to the guardsman who had sewn up Slate. “Please leave us.” After a minute, Villifor continued. “It seems you have more tricks up your sleeve than I’ve given you credit for, Slate. Let me ask you this. Do these red-eyed attackers scare you?”
“Yes. Now that I know what they are capable of, I won’t be holding back the next time I encounter one.”
“I’m inclined to believe you,” Villifor said, “because the hole in your foot looks remarkably like the spike of a battle axe, and your story reminds me of a campfire story handed down in my family since the days of the Blood Mages.” Villifor moved over to prop himself against the tree beside Slate and began his tale. “A farmer and his wife lived a quiet life. They minded their own business, subsisting on what they grew or raised. Then one day, their crops began to wilt and no amount of sun or rain brought them back to health. Autumn came and the farmer hadn’t harvested enough crops to survive the winter. He went to the nearest village, several hours away, and asked if anyone had a bumper crop they could share or barter, but the entire region suffered the same fate. He found out a Blood Mage had created a blight in the region, causing the crops not to grow properly. The farmer was desperate and entered the local tavern to drown his fears when someone joined him at the table. After hearing his story, the stranger said he could help. ‘How?’ asked the farmer. ‘Blood Mages aren’t the only wizards left in the land.’ The wizard then pulled a seed from his jacket pocket, dropped it into a crack in the wooden tav
ern table and the farmer watched as the seed grew into a little flower right before his eyes. The wizard winked at him and said, ‘Let’s go to your farm.’ Along the way they chatted amicably and the farmer asked why the wizard was helping him. ‘Well, to be honest, I’m hoping you will help me in return.’ The farmer asked how he could possibly help a wizard. ‘Everyone needs help once in a while. Let’s fix your field and then decide on the payment.’ They traveled the rest of the way to the farm and the farmer’s wife met them in relief. The wizard spread his arms outwards and walked the rows of the field. Everywhere he went, the crops grew instantly, leaving the farmer and his wife stunned at the sight of the miracle. By the time the wizard returned, the farmer would have agreed to anything, but the wizard’s price wasn’t that extravagant. The wizard asked the farmer to keep his eyes open for other signs of the Blood Mage and to report back to him every week at the tavern where they met. The farmer gratefully made the weekly trip to the village and it was the farmer’s wife who first noticed disturbing behaviors. First, rabid animals started showing up around the farm. Then, neighbors started reporting that something had broken into barns and killed all the livestock. Soon, the entire area was overflowing with tales of brutal attacks that had spread from the barn to the neighbors. Even more disturbing to the wife was that her husband began leaving in the middle of the night and showing up with small scratches on his arms in the morning, except he didn’t have any memories of leaving his bed or recollection of where the marks came from. Finally, she stayed awake one night and heard her husband get out of bed. She called out to him and he didn’t answer, but continued to walk out of the house, so she ran out to confront him. He was sleep-walking and she couldn’t get him to stop, so she slapped him in the face. He opened his eyes and returned a blood-red stare. He pushed past her and returned in the morning with blood on his arms. Word spread from their neighbors of a brutal murder in the middle of the night. The farmer’s wife didn’t know what had happened, but she knew her husband was to blame. The next night she cut his throat and then kissed his forehead.”
