Into the Valley of Death

by Frank Cavallo

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Another student and I became embroiled in a dispute. The details are rather unimportant now; that it involved a woman and too much wine is all you need to know. This fellow crossed a line, widening the dispute to offer insult to my family and my heritage. It was an affront I could not tolerate. My entire life I had been striving to earn the respect of my family, and this spoiled aristocrat spit upon my very name! I could not stand for it.’

  His voice fell still for a moment. His eyes looked out to the shadows of the darkening woods, as if seeing the events unfold against that black tableau. His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword.

  Draeder guessed what came next.

  ‘You duelled,’ he said. ‘And given the skills I have witnessed you employ this day, I’d imagine this other man stood very little chance.’

  ‘I’ve never been one to run from a fight. I gave him just what he deserved. I ran him through like pig, in the main square, in sight of all,’ Felix answered.

  ‘And for that, they expelled you,’ Draeder replied.

  Felix nodded.

  ‘Word made it to my father before my belongings were even collected. He cared nothing for the circumstances, nothing for our honour. He cared only that I was expelled. I had besmirched our good name, he wrote to me. And I am thus forbidden to return home.’

  ‘Then we are kindred souls indeed,’ Draeder said.

  ‘You appear to have fared better in your exile than I,’ Felix answered. ‘Since my dismissal I have done nothing but wander. I have taken up with brigands and outlaws and many a wench, but most nights my aimless journeys have left me with without so much as a roof over my head. At this moment, I cannot even say with authority where in the Empire I am.’

  ‘Then you are in luck, on both accounts,’ Draeder replied.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For one, I can not only tell you exactly where you are, I can show you.’

  He began to reach behind him, putting a hand into one of his travel bags. Erhard reached across to clutch at the young wizard’s arm however, lowering his voice to a whisper that Felix could not quite hear. But Draeder waved off his sergeant’s hushed concerns with a dismissive gesture.

  ‘This man saved your life, as well as mine,’ he said. ‘What else could he do to earn your trust?’

  Erhard nodded, and returned to smoking his pipe.

  From within a leather saddlebag that he had placed behind him, Draeder pulled out a thick scroll of parchment, brittle from age. He untied the scarlet bands holding the scroll closed, and then unfurled it very slowly, holding it with care as one might handle a most treasured heirloom. The edges were uneven, ragged and frayed and charred in spots from some long-ago fire.

  The inside surface of the vellum was stained with splotches and discolorations of every sort: blemishes from wine, soot and possibly even blood, all of which bespoke the document’s great antiquity. The centre of it was covered in faded lines, sketching out a design in old black ink that Felix recognized as some kind of ancient cartography. Unlike the modern maps with which he was familiar though, this scroll was etched in a highly stylized script, with artfully drawn mountains and rivers alongside images of serpents and horrific daemons.

  The map quite literally reeked of age. When Draeder rolled it open, a musty odour spilled out along with hints of dust and mould.

  The young wizard held it out for Felix to see. He pointed at a section near the bottom, just north of where two great rivers separated, near where a smaller third tributary split off from the eastern stream.

  ‘The river that runs beside us is the Stir,’ he said, then touching his finger to a single spot. ‘We are roughly here, in southern Talabecland, on the edge of some of the deepest woods in the Great Forest.’

  Felix studied the map. The geography looked vaguely familiar, but the notations and script were of a sort he had never seen before.

  ‘That settles one question then, what of the other?’ he asked.

  ‘As it happens, my journey back to Castle von Halkern was not quite a direct route. Instead, the mission upon which I was engaged when I returned to my father’s house was only half-finished when this beast intruded upon our lands.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Felix said.

  ‘Quite simple, really,’ Draeder answered. ‘I was recently dispatched from the Amethyst Order on an official, albeit rather secret errand, to seek an item of great value that my superiors believe is to be found to the north-west of here. That is the purpose of this map, in fact, for it is our guide through these most perilous of lands. I had at first intended to purchase the services of some hired swords to assist me in the effort, but having secured this contingent of my father’s men that soon became unnecessary.’

  Draeder rolled the map scroll back up, returning it to his pack before clasping his hands, bringing them together under the wide sleeves of his wizard’s robes. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘However, you do seem to be just the sort I was looking for,’ he continued. ‘In fact I’d say you more than passed the audition.’

  Felix lifted his eyes at the suggestion.

  ‘Are you offering me a job?’ he asked. ‘Doing what, exactly? My most recent attempts at employment have not gone as well as I would have hoped.’

  Draeder smiled.

  ‘We have just this evening buried five of my men, and three more nurse deep wounds. This quite obviously leaves my party rather short on manpower. I could use someone with your kind of skills. I have been promised by my superiors in Altdorf a chest of gold to be split among the mercenaries who accompany me. Quite a decent haul for a young man such as yourself,’ he said.

  ‘And just what is this mission that you’re on?’ Felix asked.

  Draeder looked to his comrades, then leaned in closer, bringing his face so near to the campfire that his pale skin was cast in a deep, blood-red shade. His voice fell to a deliberate stage-whisper.

  ‘I’m searching for something that even my fellow wizards of the Amethyst Order have never seen, though they have sought it for centuries, a book that holds the key to unlocking the deepest mysteries of life and death,’ he said.

  ‘I must confess, I do not know much of magic at all, whether contained in books or otherwise,’ Felix answered.

  Again, Draeder took a measured tone in response.

  ‘I assure you, Felix, my intentions are only the purest. What I told you of the College of Amethyst guides everything we do. The book I seek is a very old and very important text. It was compiled ages ago and it contains many of the oldest spells known, as well as some of the most powerful methods to harness even the most obscure currents of magic.’

  ‘Unschooled as I am in such things, I will admit that it sounds like quite an important volume,’ Felix said.

  Draeder laughed.

  ‘An uncommon gift for understatement! That could only come from a poet,’ he joked. ‘Indeed, my new friend, anyone who possesses a book such as the one we seek, if they also command a sufficient knowledge of the lore of death, would be the greatest of assets to the Empire.’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘While many wizards do fight alongside the armies of the Empire, I am quite obviously unsuited for a combat. But, what if I were to stand with them in command of forces that could shield the armies from death itself? Imagine if all those who did take up arms in the Emperor’s name were protected from the cold touch of mortality. Our warriors would never fall to the swords of the enemy. Our homeland, would be made stronger than ever. Invincible, perhaps.’

  Felix, whether because of the drink or the persuasive tone of Draeder von Halkern, could find no fault with the man’s reasoning. The sound of adventure seemed to brighten his eyes and lift his already brimming spirits.

  ‘Well then, consider me among your party,’ he said. ‘Never let it be said that I shy away f
rom action.’

  Erhard laughed, taking the flagon from him.

  ‘Awfully quick to rush into things, aren’t you?’ the old sergeant said, his voice raspy and rough from a lifetime of pipe smoke.

  Felix almost took offence at the suggestion, but elected to find humour in it.

  ‘I suppose that’s one of the reasons I’m here, come to think of it,’ he replied.

  ‘Well, you’d best be careful. One of these days, you might rush into something you can’t get out of so easily,’ Erhard said.

  The eager young wizard however, shrugged off his sergeant’s worries.

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Felix. He’s an old timer, his best days are behind him. The future belongs to men like us. Men willing to venture into the unknown, to take risks. And even if the gold were not enough to persuade you, consider this… it could mean even more to you than money,’ Draeder said.

  ‘How do you reckon?’ Felix asked.

  ‘Think of how you would be viewed by your family if you were to assist me,’ he continued. ‘If you were to return not as a disgraced student, but as the hero who help bring such power to the armies of the Empire? How could your family refuse a son celebrated by the Emperor himself?’

  Felix pondered again, his mind now awash with suggestions; a flicker of lost hope and the thrill of both money and adventure quickening his pulse. He looked over to Erhard, then back to Draeder, before answering with the kind of certainty only known to the young – or the foolish.

  ‘Like I said before, count me in,’ he said.

  4.

  The gloaming of dusk had faded, followed by the roaring scarlet of the campfire. So too had the conversation. Eventually the flagons had run dry, and the old familiar numbness had crept into every corner of his exhausted limbs. Then Felix Jaeger put aside the horrors and the mundane triumphs of his day. He found a spot to rest his tingling head, grabbed a ratty old cloak to wrap himself in, closed his eyes and finally slept.

  What awakened him this time, many hours later in the darkest still of the night, was neither violence nor carnage. It was something far stranger, at once more wondrous and troubling than anything he could have imagined.

  It was a voice. A hissing sort of call that seemed to cry out from the distance, as though half-buried in the whistling of the cold night wind. At first its silky, spectral whispers soothed him, rousing Felix but gently from sleep. Just enough to announce their presence, without disturbing the peace of the evening.

  He didn’t even lift his head, merely listening to the strange echoes as they rose and fell in a soft and slinking symphony; the peculiar music of the haunted shadows.

  But the echoes in the dim did not remain tranquil. What had been one voice soon doubled, and then doubled again, until the single tone had swelled into a ghostly chorus, bringing a multitude of eerie, rasping voices. Somehow, they all seemed to shout and whisper at once.

  The change roused Felix ever more slightly. The numbing effect of the wine combined with the utter exhaustion in his bones had sent him into the deepest of slumbers, and he came around to no more than a muddled, groggy haze. The gauze of a deep repose veiled his eyes like a curtain of mist.

  When he looked out, he saw only gloom. Black skies over dark woods. The fire was all-but dead. Gone were the crimson and golden glimmers of the camp hearth. Only the milky shine of moon-glows now lit the river banks.

  The rest of the men huddled in their cloaks, nestled in every crevice and nook of the rocky outcropping. Most snored in a similar deep slumber. Even Ernst Erhard lay still, wrapped in his woollen shroud beneath the great oak tree.

  Draeder von Halkern alone among them all however, was not at rest.

  Dressed in his capacious wizard robes, black and violet and emblazoned with the grisly designs of the Amethyst Order, Draeder was outside of the camp. He’d hiked down-river, just barely in sight. He looked to be standing over the carcass of the hound, ministering like a priest over a coffin. The old leather-bound volume was open in front of him again, set upon the flank of the hound like a lectern. He seemed to be reading from the pages, as though speaking to an invisible congregation at an altar that stank of death. He chanted and made blessings, and each of them found its echo in those ghostly whispers that somehow carried on the wind itself.

  Neither Draeder’s words, nor the answers spoken from the deep recesses of the night were in a language Felix understood. It wasn’t even one he had ever heard spoken. The words were utterly foreign, almost serpentine in their rhythm, in the elegant way each syllable wove its way into the next. To the ear of a poet, attuned to the subtleties of tempo and meter, Draeder’s recitations wove an intricate tapestry of voice, made all the more exotic by its inherently incomprehensible character.

  For a long while, Felix watched. And he listened. Unsure even if what he was witnessing in the hazy pre-dawn hours was real or merely a dream. He dared not disturb the strange rite, fearful of making so much as a whimper lest he draw the attention of the spirits spilling forth from the darkness. So he continued to watch, quiet and still – until, inexplicably, everything stopped.

  After a long and twisted incantation, Draeder paused. He looked down over the length of the beast, as though studying it yet again. Its wounds already festered with pus and the first stages of decay, a process of putrefaction only accelerated by the dark forces that had corrupted its form.

  Once his eye settled on a section of the beast-corpse, near the mane of thorny bristles that framed the hound’s great head, he reached a hand into the folds of his mantle. From within the dark robes he drew a single-edged sword, more like a woodsman’s machete than a fighting weapon. Draeder then knelt down above the hound carcass, and proceeded to hack the largest of the beast’s tusks from its hide.

  The carving was not easy. Rooted deep in the hound’s thick skin, Draeder chopped and sawed at it with more effort than Felix had witnessed him employ at any other task. When he finally managed to cut it free, he returned to his feet, clutching the severed tusk like a precious gem. Dark, congealed blood clung to his hands like clumps of black jelly and oil. It dripped down on to his sleeves and splattered across his pale face.

  The student of the Amethyst College then picked up his scythe, which he had rested next to him as he worked. Caring little for the stains on his hands, he wrapped a leather thong around the base of the tusk, then lashed it to the very crest of his reaper.

  ‘And now the blood,’ he announced, speaking to the winds again but now in common Reikspiel. Once more he consulted the pages of the aged book in front of him. ‘I summon the purple winds of Shyish. May the blood of the living and the blood of the dead now come together within its cold embrace.’

  Draeder turned his blade. Slicing open the palm of his own hand, he let blood leak out from the slit in his pale flesh. It fell on the tusk, staining the ivory dark red and slathering the wild beast’s horn atop his staff.

  Another incantation followed. Once again, the winds answered. But this time, they did more than echo his inscrutable verses. Descending from the clouds, a column of mist centred around the blood-bathed tusk. Every word from Draeder’s lips spurred the winds, turning them around the scythe.

  As the air churned, the blood-speckled wind seemed to ignite, first spinning the red-purple tusk at the centre of its vortex, then sparking flames that soon overwhelmed the entire crest of the scythe-staff. Soon the glows merged into a single column of flickering purple flame, a ghostly violent fire that burned atop the tusk-crowned reaper.

  The violet fire gave off no smoke. It made no sound. Its light was unreal, cold and unforgiving and unlike true fire.

  Draeder lifted the flaming scythe into the sky, piercing the swirl of ghostly, whispering winds. The fire climbed, as though fuelled by the ghostly congress of purple wind. It grew and grew until the violet flame rose up into the clouds, roiling with dark lightning.

  It all buil
t to a crescendo, until the flame could ascend no more. Then the churning winds collapsed back down on the violet flame, sending a wave of phantom light surging across the outcropping. The whispering voices screamed in that moment, their ghostly calls fading away just as the flash of flame.

  When it was done, all that remained was Draeder von Halkern, standing beside the hound corpse, holding his scythe in the air as he bathed beneath the purple flame. His eyes glowed with the same foul fire.

  Felix clenched his muscles, too frightened to move. He squeezed his eyes shut, but despite his exhaustion, he barely slept at all the rest of the night.

  5.

  When the men began to stir just after dawn, Felix remained in his place. He waited until all the others had arisen before getting himself up. When he saw Draeder, standing upon the edge of the river with his scythe in hand, he couldn’t help but stare. He puzzled over the events of the past night, questioning his own perceptions.

  If it had been a dream, then it was the most vivid of his life. If it had been real, then Draeder von Halkern was indeed something more than the ineffectual young wizard he’d saved from the jaws of a rabid hound.

  In the light of day, there was no hint of the purple flame, and the winds were calm. But when Felix looked closer, he noticed that atop Draeder’s reaper-blade there was indeed a single bloody tusk affixed to the staff. When the wizard turned in his direction, and for an instant caught him staring, Felix quickly looked away.

  A chill ran through him.

  For close to an hour the men gathered up their things in near silence, struck camp and prepared to move out. None of them even seemed to know of it, unless all of them held their tongues out of some measure of fear, as Felix himself did. He was not inclined to broach the subject, either way.