Legend of Ecta Mastrino Box Set 2

by BJ Hanlon

  There was a wicked howl, but he wasn’t sure it was the wind that howled or something else. A creature’s shivering cry on the wind.

  “I’m not here,” Edin said and looked down to see that wasn’t true. He was his full body, he wore green robes and had his sword strapped to his side and his quarterstaff in hand.

  Edin looked around and saw the mists to the left. They were yellow and choking but they stopped a few hundred feet away as if held at bay by an invisible wall. He could see dark shapes at the side of the mists. Wights or draugrs of some kind. He saw large bat-like wings easily six feet across and long serpentine figures like vines, but they all seemed to come from a single source.

  Above he saw a giant flying reptile. A wyrm. It cried out above him with the wind.

  Edin spotted giant birds, real birds far off in the distance. A flock of them seemed to be fleeing the fog and the wyrm.

  Then Edin spotted the glow of the mouth and the bolt of electricity strike one of the birds. It cried out, squawked in pain, and began to drop.

  The wyrm swooped down and seized it in its mouth. The raptor still was alive and it cried out. Even from this distance, Edin heard the crunching of bone as the animal was eaten.

  ‘This will come to pass,’ a voice said. One that was familiar, ‘if you let this happen. If you fail.’

  Edin looked around but there was no one. Then the mists rose up and around him blotting out all visions of creatures and the red land. They hung at a distance like shy boys and gals at a wintertide festival dance.

  Then he looked up.

  Directly above him were two gray clouds, oval in shape and reminding him of furious eyes. They seemed to stare at him with venom and fury.

  “I won’t fail,” he yelled, though his voice quivered so much it was more of a whimper like that of Bliz or the monk named Monk.

  Edin woke to look up at a purple, aching sky. His pulse racing as he gasped for the largest breath of air he’d taken in a long time. Edin’s back arched and he felt his stomach twisting and pulling.

  Then he collapsed it. Everything collapsed back to the hard ground. Monk was above him with wide eyes. Fearful eyes.

  Edin’s chest hurt, he had phantom shocks around his body and his heart felt like it’d been bruised by a stone being whipped directly at his chest.

  ‘What was that?’ he said in Edin’s mind, the inner words barely known beneath the throbbing headache.

  After a few moments he was able to suppress the headache and his eyes adjusted. Edin blinked away tears. Painful tears and saw the outline of the forest and the green leaves that were beginning to appear.

  Another few moments he was able to sit up with some effort. “A bad dream.”

  But was it really a dream? He remembered the voice. Why would I ever let that happen? he thought.

  “That wasn’t a dream, it was something else,” Monk was speaking normally.

  “You saw it?”

  “Parts. I was there. I saw the sky and the monsters.” He paused, “and the burning.”

  Edin nodded.

  “It was as if the world had turned on its head, as if it had become a different dimension.”

  Edin reached for the waterskin and took a few deep swigs of the fresh water, then he remembered the valley and looked back up over the ridge. He couldn’t see the fog, not even that nimbus aura anymore. Was it even there or was it a shared delusion that he and Monk had experienced?

  “Thousands of years ago, there was a thinker who believed in different dimensions,” the monk was saying. “Could it be true?”

  Edin looked back at him but didn’t answer. At this point, he honestly did not care. “What time is it?” Edin asked interrupting some spiel about the thinker who was dead for thousands of years now.

  Monk looked at him as if he were crazy and then said. “I haven’t worried about time in—”

  “Millennium, right, I forgot,” Edin said and picked himself up off the ground. “Maybe it’s time you start.”

  “I suppose so since I’m probably aging now.”

  Edin pointed back up the hill. “Would you rather be in there?”

  Monk didn’t answer. He let loose the tie around his waist and retied it. There was a hard look of determination on his face and Edin wondered what he was thinking, and if he could read the man’s mind as well.

  For a moment, he tried but got nothing.

  “We should get a move on,” Edin said. He looked toward the forest a few miles distant, he looked to the fields and the hills that slowly disappeared to the south and beyond the horizon. To the west it was the same.

  He knew somewhere over there was the Allutian River and a crossroads. One for travelers.

  Edin was going to head toward Turridor, or so he hoped. Soon, he’d have to meet the dematian king. Edin clenched his jaw. It could end this threat, maybe put the world back to normal.

  Did he just wander until he stumbled across the dematian king or did the dematian king wait until the last moment? Maybe when Edin was worn out from travel.

  He picked up his pack and the quarterstaff and looked at the dark skies to the west. Away from the rising sun, though the sun wasn’t rising as bright. The sky was gray and purple like a sick bruise.

  Then he started that way. He put one foot in front of the other and walked toward the darkness.

  It took hours, longer than he’d have thought to reach a small dirt track that looked at least somewhat familiar. He found the path that had led him through the forests and past the ghost hollow. Monk stayed behind him not talking while Bliz disappeared at points after he’d seen something in the tall grass or near one of the many brambles of bushes or copses of trees.

  Edin stared off into the darkness ahead that was still there despite it being nearly noon.

  He thought of the vision of the dematians swooping down through the deserts of Porinstol. He thought of the prophecy. The west is in darkness, the is being covered in shade.

  Edin swallowed.

  There were many different people, false prophets and crazies who’d yell about the end times. He heard one in Carrow on his first visit when he was searching for Arianne. Then he remembered another in Aldenheim on a trip when he was young. The man wore a sign around his neck that read. Pray to Losilin before he sends his son Yio to destroy all!

  Edin didn’t think Losilin would want the destruction Edin had seen. Heck, the old father of the gods created the world.

  After one of his trips away, Bliz returned with bits of blood and fur in his teeth. Edin, who had been famished, lost his appetite.

  Monk didn’t complain. They walked on with the sky far in the distance staying dark and evening coming earlier than it should have.

  As night came on and the orange moon lit up the western sky. They grew tired as they headed south toward what he remembered was the ferry.

  It was much faster by horse but eventually, around midnight, he began to see manmade shapes in the distance. A silo and the upside-down V of a small cottage. It was warm out and late into the night, so to Edin, it wasn’t too odd that there was no smoke coming from the chimney.

  As he continued, he saw a giant tear in the silo. Coming from the tear was an avalanche of some sort of grain; wheat or oats he couldn’t tell.

  A section of the grain seemed darker… shinier. Edin swallowed, blood, he thought but didn’t say anything. He fingered the hilt of his weapon and watched.

  They hiked on and he saw the inn from across the way. In the dark, he could see it was still standing.

  Edin caught the smell of over-cooked flesh and was glad he hadn’t been hungry earlier.

  They found the small ferry crossing with the raft on the far side. Edin sighed. He was tired, too tired to summon the raft to them and certainly too tired to swim the cold water.

  Edin started a fire and they put their backs to the river. At least they couldn’t be surrounded.

  He needed rest and the thought of eating was sickening, but Monk started cooking anyway. He p
ulled out meats and some fresh vegetables. Tomatoes, carrots, celery; all things that’d be great in a stew, but the monks didn’t provide a pot. Instead they were roasted on an iron grate.

  As they were cooking, the smell of burning flesh was pushed back and he grew hungry. Edin looked across the river the fifty or so yards and saw the inn and general store shut tight and dark. With all that’d happened, he wondered if the old man and woman were alive.

  He felt a twinge of sadness when he remembered their jabs, him being lazy, her being uppity. There was something in those jokes. They were warming and fun and there was a sort of love in them.

  Like Arianne and he. Edin wondered if the love was still there or if the dematian king had come by and stripped them of it like highwaymen to travelers.

  The food was ready and despite his churning stomach, Edin ate. He stared at the moon and then his eyes went back toward the dark western sky. He could see no stars beyond the point where the sun disappeared. There was a bit of the night’s sky covered. It was like a black sheet was being pulled over the world. He knew it was coming this way.

  In a half-awake stupor, he saw it. It was like that dream: the west wasn’t really rising in darkness it was being smothered. Life was being smothered so the wicked plants and swamps would live. Yio Volor would walk the land and Vestor would be forgotten.

  If a god were forgotten, what would happen to him? Would he fade or would he simply be alone in the world or in the heavens? Would he be real anymore?

  Despite no one worshiping Yio Volor he lived. Though maybe that wasn’t right. Edin had heard stories of his worshipers, creepy folks who’d dress in black and slaughter animals and spread their entrails around chalk circles and chant in nonsense tongue while they held hands and licked blood from things.

  Edin shivered at the thought. Weirdos, and then got lost in the thought. A little while later, he fell back asleep.

  The tunnel was ending. He could feel it. And before them, before Yio Volor and his army, there was a giant stone slab. It glowed with an ethereal white glow. A nimbus around it that made him think of a ghostly apparition. Maybe the spirit of the mountain.

  He could see it from a distance and it was growing closer. A day or two and Yio would be there.

  Edin felt the words in his head. They weren’t for him and they weren’t in a language he could really understand, but somehow, he could. The words were powerful and not meant for human ears.

  There was a weird breaking, crackling sound then he heard ‘him,’ crackling ‘visit her is’ Do no fail…’

  Everything was choppy in his head and it hurt. Edin closed his eyes so as to block out the approaching horde.

  Edin had a foreboding of what was going to happen that day. The dematian king was coming, he’d be here eventually and sooner rather than later.

  Edin only needed to know where to set up his defensive location. The best place to fight, or at least confront the dematian king.

  Edin reached in his pocket and felt the emerald. He held it in his palm and some part of him—a very tiny, quiet voice—told him to send it away with the monk. Send them both down river to Alestow. Have the monk hide. Maybe Sinndilo would hide him in his brother’s old house or the castle.

  Edin closed his eyes and pictured Arianne.

  Edin released the stone and let it fall to the bottom of the robe’s pocket. He saw on the far side of the river that no one was waking. The raft was upstream of the dock and still hitched to its posts. The river provided a clacking of wood striking wood all night.

  The road to Alestow was long, taking the raft may speed it up, but did he want to go to Alestow? Should he go there for his trap? Heck he probably couldn’t even get there. Not in time he knew and then wondered if the dematian king would show up if he were there behind city walls? He may, but he’d bring an army.

  “What are you doing?” Monk said, startling him from behind. “Are you waiting for the boatman?”

  “I don’t believe he’s coming,” Edin said. He stared at the ropes that tied the ferry to the dock. There were two. One on either end.

  Edin summoned ethereal knives in his hand and threw them. One after the other. They split the ropes and the raft soon began to float toward the center of the river.

  With his hand still out, he felt the water flowing beneath it. It was slow but cold and higher than last time with the recent spring melt.

  Edin took control of the water, just the topmost layer and began to pull the raft toward him.

  It took barely five minutes and was not much of a struggle. That was good. He brought it to the dock on his side and had the monk and Bliz get on. His dire wolf was a bit stubborn but eventually made it onto the rocking craft.

  Edin let go of the talent and the raft began to flow downstream. Edin grabbed the pushing pole and leapt on. He used his muscle as opposed to the talent to push them across the river.

  When they reached the other side, there wasn’t enough rope to tie up to the dock, but Edin didn’t see the husband and wife nor anyone else. He held the raft with his foot while the monk went in the inn.

  Monk reappeared with another rope and they tied up to a tree.

  “Was there an old couple?” Edin asked. “Cranky and probably arguing about nothing.”

  The monk shook his head.

  “Blast. They got some of the best ale I’ve ever had.”

  “It looks abandoned,” Monk said. “But doesn’t smell of death.”

  “Small blessings from the gods,” Edin said barely thinking about it. Edin hitched up the pack and went inside. He spotted the stool he’d sat at and looked toward the one where the old man had lingered. Where he had yelled at his wife and made Edin very uncomfortable until they stopped. It had been a game for Edin’s entertainment.

  He thought again of the ale and the apple loaf. The smells came back to him. There was peace in this place at this crossroads. At his crossroads. When he was on the run he came here and they didn’t ask any real questions. He had a nice meal and met good people.

  People who were gone and now this place was lonely. Empty of people and as good of a place as any to meet the dematian king.

  Edin went behind the bar and picked up a mug. There was a bit of dust on it. He wiped it and filled it with the tap.

  Bliz went through a swinging door and Edin heard him crunching on something back there. At least he was ravenous.

  If Edin had coin, he’d leave it for them, but for now, he needed a drink and he needed a fortress. Even an old building could help. It did have few windows and access points.

  Edin finished the ale and looked at the monk calling himself Monk. The man was stone faced and silent. He was looking around the room though as if disgusted by it, by the outer world.

  “I need to board this place up,” Edin said. “The dematian king will be coming.”

  The monk said. “I’m a decent enough craftsman.”

  “I didn’t think you monks did any crafts. The place was like a pauper’s tomb.”

  “Pauper’s cannot—”

  “I know they cannot afford one, but if they did there would not be any decoration right? There’d be no personality.”

  “I’m not sure how being a craftsman relates to a… personality. But I can construct and we can make things of beauty. We just do not keep them in the monastery. That is for the holy.”

  The monk disappeared through the kitchen and said, “Come now dog, share.”

  Edin snorted, there was most likely an exit through there. Then he looked around again. There was a stair heading up to the second floor as well as three windows on the front. None were longer than an arm’s length nor as high. The front door pushed inward which could be easily blocked with one of the tables. He’d put that in place when the time was right.

  After a bit of searching he found a shed out back with wood, nails, and hammers. The monk and he began to board up the place.

  Edin wasn’t sure how the dematian king would come. Would he fly in on a wyrm as he had
last time? Would he muster an army to attack or would he come alone? Would he be overconfident in his own abilities?

  Am I? Edin thought.

  Above him, Edin heard the banging of hammers and the scraping of furniture being dragged across a wooden floor. It sent shivers down his spine.

  Edin thought back to the dematian king. He knew he had to face him. That was Edin’s destiny.

  But what was his fate? What would happen after all of this? Would he die fighting, would he somehow lose the stone and the dematian king would seize it and go open the gates to the underworld and let loose his master and all the demons and monsters of the past?

  Anxiety grew in him and his hands shook when he thought of it.

  “Pray to Vestor,” the monk said appearing in the doorway from upstairs. “We are secure. All windows have been boarded and furniture has been pushed against them.”

  “Good,” he said and began toward the front door. It was an hour or so before midday he guessed.

  He opened the door and looked upon the rising darkness to the west. Would it come from that way or would it come from the north or from the mountains?

  He knew of but two tunnel entrances, the one outside Carrow was closed. Hopefully too the one outside of Calerrat.

  The monk appeared behind him and then Bliz pushed through to stand before the porch. “Does the west usually look that dark outside the vale?” the monk said.

  Edin shook his head. He was glad the monk wasn’t talking in his brain and didn’t seem to be trying to read it either. He thought about attempting to meditate to block off his mind but there was too much nervous energy coursing through him. Too much anticipation.

  This could be the place where it all would end. If he could stop the dematian king next to this river, he could keep Yio Volor from rising, though he’d still have to do something about the dark sky and the swamps of old. And the most necessary to him, the most important. Arianne.

  His heart ached and his stomach felt like it’d just disappeared. Edin set his ale down on the hitching post. The one he’d tied his horse up to when he’d first visited this tiny stop.