Mark of the Witchwyrm

by Steve Van Samson

"What was that?" asked Kro without turning from the thorns.

  Belmorn sighed. "I said 'The Moat' is a strange name for a wall of thorns."

  Kro appeared preoccupied. The man was clearly looking for something, but to Belmorn, there could be nothing to find. Wherever he set his eyes, the wall's surface was a uniform mess--tangled and overgrown.

  "The name would make more sense if we could see the mountain," Kro answered after a bit. "Many have looked upon those peaks and seen a castle. And as I'm sure you'll attest, every proper castle needs a--" The man stopped mid-sentence, straightening his back. "Ah!" Kro drew his knife.

  Belmorn had seen the weapon before. Had seen it pulled from the same old tree trunk that had been host to a creeping vampire.

  Kro twisted the knife between a pair of hardened vines, wiggling, sawing, and eventually prying one branch away from the rest until it snapped with a crisp wooden sound.

  Its breakage revealed something flat, metallic, and covered in rust. To the blackfoot's foreign eye, this object looked like an oversized hinge. Stepping back, Belmorn took in the section before them. The more he stared, the more he could make out a vague rectangular outline... close to six feet wide and taller than he was.

  "A door?" His words formed an unintentional question.

  "Only counts as a door if we can get it open." Kro's huffed. He turned to regard the child in Belmorn's arms. Her face was pale, but with an unsettling under-hue of yellow. With a flash of what might have been concern, Kro spun around and began hacking away with his knife. As he worked, wooden bits and thorns spun through the air to collect at his feet.

  "This is it then?" Belmorn's voice was low. "Your safe place."

  "It is." Kro's breath was getting labored from the exertion, but he did not stop. "Though admittedly, I've been away for a while. Too long, perhaps." He drew an arm across his brow. "These vines... They grow slowly, but they never actually stop." His speech was becoming truncated with short gasps.

  Belmorn watched the man work a little more, examined what he was doing and what he was trying to accomplish. With a sigh, he made a decision. One he hoped he wouldn't regret.

  "Kro."

  The stern voice caused the alchemist to stop. Breathing heavily, he turned around and was struck by the eyes of the riverman. They possessed a steely glow in the moonlight.

  Belmorn took a step forward, offering the girl who slumbered restlessly in his arm. "Take her."

  For an awkward moment, Kro couldn't comprehend what was being asked of him. This business of clearing brush with a dagger was hard enough. Did the blackfoot expect him to do better whilst holding the girl in one arm? The proposition was ludicrous, of course, but Tenebrus Kro was exhausted and overtaxed, and it had been more than seven years since anyone had freely offered to lighten his burden.

  He opened his mouth but quickly closed it. Putting the knife away, Kro accepted the unconscious girl, wrapping his long night-blue cloak around her.

  Belmorn stepped pointedly to his gigantic horse, unfastened the clasps on one sheath and then the other--returning with those unforgettable axes in hand.

  "Mind the hinges." Kro pointed, drawing a vertical line with one finger. "There are four. All secured to a single post... here."

  Belmorn looked at the massive wooden column the vines had reclaimed. Without another word, twin axes sliced through air and bramble, ripping into the thorny mass.

  As he watched the branches fly and fall, Kro's mind drifted inward, to that secret burden. The one question that had sent him halfway around the world, before finally calling him back to its edge. The unfinished task was all that mattered. The duty had been Kro's truest companion for so long he could hardly remember an existence without it. Now that he was so close to completing the damned thing--

  Now

  The word gave him pause. Its bitterness permeated his sleep-deprived body and mind. He had been so close then. Before the incident with the rose and the wolves. Nearly at the end. Nearly home. Nearly done.

  But no more. Not since a single night of brash impulses nearly cost the man his life. And while he yet lived, Tenebrus Kro had paid for his foolishness with his one chance. The hope it had taken seven long years to find. Truly, the road ahead had changed much in such a short time. So much that Kro felt as if he had been thrust back to the start of it all--to that blackest of all his days.

  How had he come to this? Standing out in the cold night, cradling an unconscious whelp, waiting for a strange man to finish hacking away the vines from his old door. This was not where he had pictured this week going.

  Kro looked down at the face of the helpless girl, then at the blood stains. The filthy horse blanket she was wrapped in was filthier now by far. Marked with a large red patch that looked darker than any shade of black he had ever seen. It looked like a mouth, like a great yawning chasm in the cosmos.

  With a hard shudder, Kro turned to look at the flat rock in the distance that had always served as his marker. It looked much the same as it always had. Oblivious to the horrors that had waged around it for so long.

  Lucky bastard. He thought.

  Saving one child was pointless. This was a fact blissfully unknown to the rock, but Kro forced himself to remember. He had no choice. He had to find a new way forward. There was no going back. The road behind was lined only with enemies--in the woods and half the cities in the damn world. In fact, enemies were all he saw anymore. Except...

  Kro regarded the blackfoot. Watched as more of the wooden post and connecting door were revealed. He could picture this man Belmorn aback some giant river eel, slashing at its bucking, slime-slick hide. Unleashing every bit of primal ferocity that his black-river-blood lent him. But here, in this remote place was a riverman with no river. A blackfoot who had crossed leagues to the very edge of the known world.

  But why? For what possible purpose?

  The man did not feel like an enemy, but Kro had been wrong about these things before.

  Looking down at the young girl who lay helpless in his arms, he denied the swell of affection growing in his chest. Kro had known the child for a girl straight away. Even under all the caked-on grime. He had girls of his own, after all--more precious than anything. And they were waiting. Waiting for him to be done.

  6 - 3

  Belmorn tried to control his breathing, but the frigid air raked the insides of his throat with every inhale. The moat's secret door now had a clear outline of newly severed branches. It was free, and for a series of cathartic moments, he had been free too.

  Opening his hands, the axes dropped to the ground. Each landed with a dull THUKK, the bladed heads embedding in the hard earth so that the handles stuck straight up. The blackfoot set his large gloved hands upon one of the door's main timbers and pulled for all he was worth. The door heaved, but ultimately snapped back to its original position. Belmorn tried again, but the result was the same.

  Admittedly, the door wasn't as free as he had assumed.

  Still holding the unconscious girl, Kro spoke up. "There's too much on the other side. Let me--"

  The blackfoot tossed over a glare that silenced the hooded man. After pulling his axes from the ground, he strode over to the adamandray. Magnus, who had apparently fallen asleep, gave a start.

  "Easy, Old Man." Belmorn slipped the axes into their sheathes, and then produced a length of thick rope from one of the saddle bags. "Just one more favor tonight, okay?"

  Magnus snorted a great cloud of annoyance.

  One end of the rope was attached to a heavy ring on the back of Belmorn's saddle. Then, leading the horse over to the gate, he wove the rope in and out of the thorns and around the wooden frame. Finally, he tied a knot so large and so complicated, it looked almost as tangled as the moat itself. After checking the work, Belmorn stepped up and into his saddle.

  "Ready?" he asked the horse, squeezing his sides with his calves. The adamandray lumbered forward, pulling the rope taught. The gate lurched, then stopped. Though it still refused to open, Magnus'
efforts prevented it from snapping back into its original position. After a second's rest, the horse took another step. From within the thorny mass, green and wiry pops could be heard. Proof of the raw power of the gigantic animal.

  Kro couldn't help but wonder how the rope could hold under such strain, but then remembered the size and power of the prey these river men pulled out of the rushing black.

  His mind shifted to a monstrous beast he primarily knew from illustrations. The nautiloth was a shelled, tentacled behemoth, said to reach the size of a modest cottage, yet Kro had tasted its flesh on his last trip to the region. Even now, so many years later, thinking on it made his mouth water. The meat proved unforgettable, sharing characteristics of both scallop and the rarest venison. It had been served in a thick soup along with cabbage, leeks, and heavily peppered cream.

  In all his prodigious travels, the alchemist had never tasted better. Unfortunately, reliving the memory only brought misery, as the man's stomach vibrated with an angry growl.

  The adamandray jerked forward with another round of snaps and pops and finally, the massive gate swung open.

  "There." Belmorn turned to Kro with a smug look in his eye. "Seems we've got a door after all." He led the gigantic horse over to where the other man stood. "Kro..." He reached out a long arm. "It's okay. I'll take her."

  The hooded man looked up, dumbfounded and momentarily blinded by an errant moonbeam.

  "Kro?"

  With a slight nod, the alchemist handed the girl carefully up to the riverman. "Heavier than she looks," Kro said with a smirk, rotating his shoulders.

  Belmorn said nothing to this. He was cinching a fold of his bear pelt over the girl's shoulders, around her face.

  Kro climbed into his saddle. For a second, he just stared at his unlikely companion. Stared just like a child might at the pieces of a disassembled puzzle. "Tell me Belmorn. Before we go another step... tell me why."

  "Why what?" the riverman sneered.

  "Why here? Why all of this?" Tenebrus Kro walked his mare slowly, cautiously, toward the dark tunnel behind the gate. "The world lies that way." He nodded south. "Behind you. Here, all you will find is its ragged edge, so tell me, Lord Belmorn, why are we doing this? Why are you here?"

  The blackfoot cocked his head as wild moonlight flashed in his eyes.

  Before he could utter a response, a sound unlike any other crashed into existence. It was utterly non-directional and bigger than the sky. From miles ahead or only paces behind, it flowed like a poison torrent, carrying fear and spite, but also sorrow. Inside that enormous sound, there was a note of mourning... or perhaps just the mockery of it.

  As Magnus grunted and stomped the ground, Belmorn's mind raced to tales of ocean-farers he had met some weeks ago in Fengaal. Men who spoke into their cups of great leviathans. Sea-dragons, the sort which typically lurk in the edges of maps. The sailors spoke of the songs these animals would sing. Claimed they could howl like underwater wolves for hours on end.

  The tales had seemed tall at the time, but Belmorn supposed there were things a man who spends his life in a five mile stretch of river might never see. Never know.

  As the sound reached its end, the blackfoot wrenched his neck to glare at the hills behind. He searched the shadows for answers, finding none. Then, before he could speak, another sound resonated. A series of gulping barks. One, two, three--then nothing. Nothing at all. Beneath him, Magnus stood stock still. To Rander Belmorn, the world felt much too quiet. He opened his mouth, forced out the only question he could manage. "What in Rinh's name?"

  "That's Her." Kro was rubbing the neck of his mare who'd begun to dance in place, ears flat against her head.

  "Her who?"

  "What do mean who?! Didn't you hear?" The voice of the hooded man lashed out with quiet outrage. "The Veld has a witch!"

  Again came the sound. Coursing through earth and sky and bone. First the wail, then the barks. One, then two, and one more.

  Though Belmorn had heard mention of this witch since passing into the Veld, he hadn't dwelled on it. But these sounds were too big! Too monstrous! He searched the distance for any sign of what might be making them. "That doesn't sound like some bent-backed, old crone to me!"

  "It's not," replied Tenebrus Kro. "That's a Hispidian witchwyrm you're hearing."

  Heart beating wildly, Belmorn's gaze shot down the length of the wall of thorns, westward, where he had spotted the gap that surely served as a proper door. Deep grunts shook the body of his mount. His angry stomps threatened to escalate into hops.

  "The horses!" Kro's eyes seemed to burn with strange hues--one of them, the color of madness--as he pulled one rein tightly to curb his mare into a tight turn. "We have to keep them quiet! she's close. Damn close."

  "What in the hell is a Hispidian witchwyrm?!" growled Belmorn, pushing Magnus into a tight figure-eight to calm him.

  "A curse." Kro sighed--his hood shifted slightly, revealing a pale face. "The nemesis devourer of countless. A gigantic patchwork thing able to straddle an unnatural line, each of its feet placed firmly in two distinct places. Life and death. The within... and the Without,"

  "Damn it, Kro, I don't understand what any of that means. Speak plain, and do it fast or whatever is out there will be the least of your concerns."

  "Keep your voice down, you idiot," the hooded man hissed in a hoarse whisper. "You want it plain? There is no plain. Not with this thing." Kro shook his head, letting out a cloud of resigned frustration. "Look... the species has been whispered about for a thousand years--appearing in historical records, the world over. The Akkadians wrote of the sirrush, the great serpent what slithered upon the earth without dragging its belly. On their splendid gate, the Babylonians depicted the mushussu, An amalgam of feline and reptile that was said to devour any first-born child foolish enough to be female. It was the Slavs who first noticed the animal's unique talents. They dubbed the beast drakvedma--the dragon witch. But the doomed people of Hispidia used another word: vanisher." Briefly checking the spanse behind, Kro steered the mare towards the secret door. "We have to get inside as quickly as possible."

  Licking his lips, Belmorn reached a gloved hand and absently patted the somewhat calmer adamandray. Pulling the unconscious child closer, he asked, "Safety is in there?"

  The hooded man held a finger to his lips and nodded. Taking slow, deep breaths, he visibly relaxed in his saddle and rode the nervous mare into the wall of thorns. After checking that the rope was still secured to Magnus' saddle ring, Belmorn followed, closing the gate behind him. Once shut, he tugged on a central bit of the massive knot, causing the rope to unravel. With practiced swiftness, he looped up the braided length and put it away.

  Then, staring into a shadow steeped corridor lined with thorns and the unknown, he became aware of the silent fear in his throat and swallowed.

  6 - 4

  Both riders urged their mounts slowly, carefully.

  Not more than a couple feet above their heads, the tangle of vines formed a thorny ceiling. The points were unnervingly close and the space, damn near suffocating. An inner battle raged within Belmorn. His rising panic was beaten back by reason, but only by the slimmest of margins. As one rider followed the soft hoofbeats of the other, no words passed between them.

  Within the moat, time moved strangely. Moments no longer ticked away, but stretched. Both light and visibility were diminished, but that was just as well. The blackfoot reckoned there wasn't much to see beyond too many thorns and a horse's arse. The weight of his growing fatigue was becoming formidable. He needed rest. Needed it more than he would admit, even to himself. With a deep breath, Rander Belmorn relented. Closing his eyes, he did what every blackfoot had done since first mastering the black river.

  He placed his full trust in his horse.

  As the adamandray moved slowly along, a subtle change crept into the air. It was cleaner, cooler. Instinctively, Belmorn took a long draft and held it, reveling in the sensation. When he opened his eyes, he saw the si
lhouette of Kro on his silver mare.

  There was a light at the end of the passage. Not very bright, but definitely there.

  "Up ahead." Kro's voice drifted past in a carefully tended volume. "Just where I left it."

  The horses moved out of the thorn corridor and into an opening. Belmorn squinted, his eyes straining to adjust. They stood in roughly a quarter acre of cleared space. The thorny walls surrounded on all sides but here in this unexpected hollow, there were none above. He looked up at the blue September moon, happy for the added company.

  Kro had dismounted and was already stomping toward a structure in the center of the glade. Belmorn stared until the dark blob became four walls and a roof. It looked to be a wagon--the sort that could be pulled by a single horse.

  Kro shot a whispered demand behind him. "Wait here."

  Hurried footfalls were followed by the creak of hinges. Then came rustling, rifling sounds. Glass bottles tinkled together, followed by a sharp chip-chip-chipping, like a knife stabbing rock. It was almost a minute before the warm glow of fire appeared. A suspended lantern swayed back and forth inside, painting the clearing in a subtle, swaying flicker. Following this, the glow of two more lanterns came into being.

  Urging Magnus closer, Belmorn could see that the cart's broad side was covered in a large tapestry cloth. It was tied in place by unseen ropes and flapped in the breeze. It was through this the light of the three lanterns shone.

  Magnus snorted, shook his head.

  "I have no idea," admitted Belmorn. "But... I have a feeling about this place. This damned wizard. Maybe... we aren't so far off the map's edge after all."

  Mindful of the unconscious girl, the blackfoot dismounted before approaching the wagon. The rear featured a wooden door. Through this, Kro appeared, holding one of the lanterns.

  "Quickly! Bring her inside."

  Three steps led to the open doorway. Inside, Kro moved from drawer to drawer, opening and then slamming them shut one by one. Belmorn lowered his head and stepped up and into the wagon.