Unexpectedly, Teefa turned out to be the oldest Inscribed after Kahn. By the age of sixteen she had already spent many a year as a comfort slave, dragged from campaign to campaign for Kyran’s higher ranking men. One night while being drunkenly pawed by one of his paladins, a man she referred to only as the Hammer, she snapped and drove his own dagger into his throat. Terrified, she fled into the forest surrounding the camp. There she had hid for hours, freezing in the frigid dark until she was stumbled upon by Regicide, another of Scurt’s original four.
Malaki gruffly bragged of his prowess as a huntsman. “No man could read the woods and stalk prey as well as I!” he boasted, thumping the table and spilling mead everywhere. “I was known as the wolf in man’s skin.” Chance had one day brought him upon a stranger in the woods one dusk. The stranger was fighting six other men draped in grey military garb. Malaki, having no love for soldiers, who often confiscated his kills in the name of nobles or thrones, leapt to the stranger’s aid. That stranger turned out to be Kahn, and his brave act earned him both a chance to study for the trials and a lifelong friend.
Fate brought Neasa to the group during the witch trials of the New World. Her caring nature had driven her to speak up for one of the accused, earning an accusation herself. She was incarcerated with Teefa and two other Inscribed who took her with them when they made their escape.
Paw had been a master swordsman and a notorious pirate. He was known and feared by all of the group’s enemies, or so Teefa told the story anyway. In an unfortunate twist of fate he had been captured by Kyran in the tragic assault referred to as ‘the Betrayal’, a failed attack, during which the group had been betrayed by Trayue, another of Scurt’s four. It had cost many casualties and decimated their ranks beyond imagination. “We do not mention that dog’s name,” spat Malaki sternly at Teefa, who was telling the story.
Her voice softened, but still she continued, “It was then that the paladins took his sword fingers and he bit off his tongue. He never spoke again, but his sword play......well that’s a different story. Put it to the test and you will soon learn his left hand is as capable as the right.”
Fond tales of his mother flowed from Dorian’s slurring tongue. His swept hair had slumped drunkenly with the rest of his body and now covered one eye. She was a beauty born in the southern Japanese islands. Sakura was lost when he was a young child, leaving only faded memories of her face and tales from his friends. She had also been lost in the Betrayal. Though Kahn pretended not to hear, Gudrik noticed a sadness creep across his face as the tales of his beloved were told.
The light hearted mood continued late into the night and on through the early hours of morning. That night for the first time in over ten centuries, Gudrik slept. The feeling which overcame him as he lay his head down and closed his eyes was so embracing and warm that a child like smile crept across his chiselled face. Better still; dreams came to him that night. He had almost forgotten the power a dream could hold. Forgotten how much sense a nonsensical collage of people, places and events from one’s past can make in the dream world. It was a window into his old life. He drank with his father once more, spoke with The Twelve, hunted in his beloved homeland and made love to his beautiful wife.
I am Kahn
Many people see leadership as a crown, something glittering and golden; something which stands one man above another. However, anyone ever topped with such a crown knows that it is nothing more than a crushing weight of duty and sacrifice which slowly buries you. I am Kahn, the first of Scurt’s familiars. The first of the Inscribed, a man eternally cursed with duty.
Familiar is an ancient spirit tongue term, “trusted one”. It was something Scurt called me often, but in truth I was more like a son to him. Maybe not a son by blood, but having never known my birth family, I gladly claimed him as a father. Before he came along I had lived as a slave, stolen from my homeland and torn from my family in an event I can scarcely remember anymore.
Scurt was the first person who ever treated me as an equal......or even as a human really. It was a gesture which shone all the brighter when he shared the truth about how far from his equal I truly was. Suddenly, with one revealing slash of his wand I was thrust into a world which an orphaned slave boy could scarcely have dreamed existed. The Warlocks were no less than gods among men, beings shrouded in such a heavy veil of legend that they are still referred to unintentionally in the modern world by people who know them as nothing more than myth. The term ‘blue bloods’ stemmed from stories of their status. Numerous bible tales are twisted recounts of their deeds. Legends of werewolves and skin changers evolved from their beast transformations. Fables of Alchemists, Wizards, Druids, Witch Doctors and Sorcerers all have their origins in The Twelve. Even the traditions of beheading which survive in some cultures developed from the uprising against the Warlocks. In fact, they are the root of most supernatural folklore heard around the world today.
Scurt always hungered to help the world and his drive was stronger than any other I have met to this day. Though they didn’t understand it at the time, and probably still wouldn’t today, his death was a sharp loss to all of humanity. To me personally though, it was a crushing blow.
It’s surprising the details which stay with you from a trauma like that. I remember things being wrong about the cottage when I arrived home that day. Little things, a pot knocked over, the door ajar and hanging crooked on its hinges, the thick smoke of a poorly tended fire in the hearth. I remember Scurt’s body lying almost peacefully in front of his chair. I remember his eyes staring at me from the opposite side of the room, not blue as they had always been, but dead and hazel. I remember red blood, not blue soaking into the floorboards. But none of that is what springs to mind strongest about that day. No, what I remember perfectly, as if it happened only seconds ago is the breathless feeling. It overcame me as I entered our home and it froze me in the entrance. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe. To this day I couldn’t even tell you how long I stood there. It wasn’t until Trayue arrived, seconds, minutes, maybe even hours later that I reacted. It was the shame of being caught frozen, like a blubbering coward that finally coaxed me to move. What should I have done? No idea, but I’m pretty sure I should have done more than just stood there.
I had lost the only family member I had, the only family I had ever known. In tribute to my father, I set upon a mission to help the remaining Warlocks. A quest in which I and the other three original Inscribed failed miserably.
Beaten, but not defeated, I did not put my tail between my legs and flee. One of The Twelve had been taken captive. My goal was clear. Free Gudrik from the clutches of Kyran. After all, he was practically my cousin. It was a struggle which waged on and on. Our inscriptions gave us an edge in combat; our numbers though were our weakness. Finding trusted people to inscribe was near impossible. Kyran was worshiped as the striking hammer of god. To everyday people, we were but minions of the dark lords struggling to raise them from the hell Kyran had sent them to. We were forced to skulk in the shadows and hide our existence. Nevertheless people who saw him for what he was did surface from time to time and new members faced the trials. My wife was amongst them.
Whenever Kyran would move, we were there, right on his heels, waiting for an opportunity to strike. We followed him through Europe and the Middle East as he expanded his empire. Distraction and setback plagued us, but we fought on. In Wallachia we rallied support from locals and found sympathy and allies in neighbouring Hungarian forces. For the first time in our existence, our numbers almost matched his. It was the high point in the Inscribed’s existence and we had never been so sure of ourselves. What followed was a crash so steep I am not sure we have ever truly recovered from it. It is simply remembered as the Betrayal.
To this day, I still don’t understand why Trayue did it. Nothing about it made sense. He had always been dedicated to the cause; many times I even believed his dedication to be stronger than my own. The slaughter I saw on that day will be fo
rever etched into me, a scar that will never fade. Though some of us escaped death, none escaped injury. As we retreated, half our forces were already impaled on stakes around his fortress, dead or dying, my wife amongst them. The differences between agelessness and immortality are never bolder than in the wake of something like that. Our only solace was that the traitor also found himself amongst the stakes once his purpose was served. We mourned our losses, fought our doubts and returned to the task. New Inscribed were found, but the blood ran low.
His empire soon moved to the New World, the Americas. Again we followed. There we successfully halted his operations for a time, fighting out of ancient forests. Again he proved resourceful. Again we suffered as he depleted our numbers. This time Kyran seized upon paranoia which was rife in the colonies. He used the guise of a fanatical witch hunt to identify and decimate our number, along with many innocent civilians. The smell of burning brothers and sisters is more baggage I carry, along their screams begging for help which we could not provide, such was the cost of remaining in the shadows. We used the last of our blood; no more would ever be Inscribed.
He shifted his seat of power again and again, following the demand for different minerals and resources, into Asia, Africa and finally Australia, where I find myself today. I am not alone in my losses, nor my grief. All Inscribed have suffered, all Inscribed have lost. Our thousand year struggle has been a bloody one. We have all watched those we care about ripped from our lives, either through battle or the ravages of age.
Did our focus ever falter from our sworn task? Of course it did, we’re human. Of course we considered giving up, but then the dead would have been lost for nothing. We have fought a secret war, a war where we are forever rebels, forever terrorists. Should we ever be victorious, there will be no recognition of it. We will forever be in the shadows. The only solace we have is that the gods know.
As our numbers continued to shrink, our plight seemed more and more futile every day. We still made new friends, people who would have been inscribed had the situation been different, but we never seemed to get any closer to our goal. Until today. Today I witnessed Gudrik, last of The Twelve soaring majestically through high rise buildings. Finally the fates have conspired with us. Finally the tables have turned in our favour.
Isolation
“Only when alone can your needs truly be felt.”
George woke the next day with a dry mouth and a pounding headache. It had been a long time since she’d had that much fun, not to mention drank that much. Kahn, Dorian and Malaki had collapsed in a scatter on the main living area floor. Teefa and Neasa had retired to hammocks slung from the rafters of the shed. Paw had passed out face down in the front yard and Gudrik dozed off in a chair on the verandah. This had left the small bedroom free for George and Tabitha, a gesture she appreciated. Gingerly she propped herself up against the wall, massaged her throbbing temples and remembered why she’d stopped drinking. The room spun as she looked around and gathered her senses. “Wakey, wakey,” she sang, unwrapping the blankets to see how Tabitha was.
Panic! The blankets were empty. George leapt to her feet, all traces of hangover suddenly forced out of being. Blame flooded in, long before logic or reason could. “What kind of mother am I?” she thought, mirroring her emotions of the previous day. “How could I let them knock me out with booze. They could be anywhere by now, doing anything to her. God I hope there’s no rape dungeon!”
She flew from the room in a terror-fuelled rage, frantically turning the house, and then shed upside down. Nothing. The house stood eerily deserted, the Inscribed gone. The ground beside the shed, which was last night littered with cars, sat bare, fanning her fears further.
George shot up the side of the house. Tears began to fill her eyes. In the empty front yard she dropped to her knees, weak with worry. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. The mother’s head fell into her hands and she sobbed uncontrollably, drowning in hopelessness. Seconds of grief felt like hours of torture in George’s world. Her panic clouded mind left her paralysed, kneeling helplessly above a serene snap of paradise. Emptiness and regret, that was all George could muster. They consumed her entirely, but a distant sound soon slapped her free of her spiralling self pitty.
Her head shot up. Her eyes blinked free of their tears and focussed on the beach. Far below in the distance George spied solace. Three figures, one tall, one tiny and a dog. “Wait…a dog?” The trio were skipping, running and frolicking along the water’s edge, leaving long trails of footprints in the pristine, white-gold sands. She quickly shook the hopelessness off and darted down the winding path which snaked through the grass of the hillside. She passed through the cool shaded archway of entwined Casuarina limbs. George streaked along the sands which were just beginning to warm in the sun’s early rays.
“Tabitha, Tabitha!” she screamed.
“Mummy!” came a cheerful squeal in reply. Tabitha tottered over and leapt into her mother’s arms. George hugged the child tightly and peppered her with kisses. A crushing weight was set free seeing Tabitha safe and happy, but the bubbling mess of emotions which were surging and churning inside caused her only to cry even harder than before.
George hated crying in front of people, in fact she despised it and she had done far too much of it in the last twenty-four hours. “Pathetic!” she thought.
Happy with the hug she had received and completely oblivious to her mother’s emotional torment, Tabitha wriggled free of George’s grasp and scampered back over to Gudrik. He was standing shin deep in the crystal clear water with an unnaturally large, black dog at his heels. Its eyes were a striking electric blue colour and its thick legs ended in the wet sand with shaggy paws large enough to have belonged to a bear. It stood staunch at the Warlock’s side, ears pricked, intently staring at Tabitha, watching her every movement as she jumped and splashed playfully. No sooner had she run back over, then the dog had run up to her slathering a sloppy, wet lick across her cheek. Tabitha cackled loudly.
George was shaking with anger, her fists clenched tightly ready to tear strips off Gudrik and possibly knock a tooth or two out for scaring her. But as soon as George saw the blissful smile on Tabitha’s face, she couldn’t do it. Instead she took a deep breath, pushed her own feelings into the pit of her stomach and beckoned Gudrik closer. She forced a tight smile across her face. The Warlock splashed towards her, his tiny, adoring shadow trailing closely behind. “Are you well?” rumbled Gudrik, in the happiest tone his deep, gravely pipes could muster.
“Well, other than being sharply reminded why I swore never to drink again, I’m just hunky dory thanks.” She rubbed her forehead.
“Keeping pace with Kahn in the art of drink is no feat to be dismissed.”
George covered her face and groaned, “Ah that’s right, the drinking competition. That’s why it feels like someone is chiseling away at the inside of my skull.”
She looked over at Tabitha who had her arms around the large dog, dangling joyfully from its thick, shaggy neck and kicking her legs. The strange animal’s presence finally got the better of George. “Umm, why is my daughter hugging a stray dog?” she asked.
“He’s a wolf,” grunted Gudrik.
“Okay. Where did you find a wolf?”
“I bled him for Tabitha. His name is Fenrir.”
“Jesus Gudrik, he’s big enough to swallow her,” George said, rolling her eyes.
“He won’t harm her. He will protect her. Fenrir would follow Tabitha to the end of the earth and back again,” reassured Gudrik. George didn’t have the patience to continue the discussion right then.
“Ok Gudrik, but next time you feel the need to get her a gift, how about just a teddy bear or something?”
“I can make him into a bear if you wish,” offered Gudrik. George rolled her eyes yet again.
“No he’s perfect,” she relented, “Anyway, let’s go have some breakfast.”
The four began the short, winding hike back up the hill to the house. “What was its na
me again?” asked George as they walked through the shaded arch, screwing her face up in thought. Gudrik flashed her a blank look. “The wolf,” she added.
“Fenrir,” he replied. Again there was a poorly restrained roll of the eyes.
“Gudrik, she struggles to say hello and goodbye. Tabitha will be twelve before she can pronounce that name.”
“Fenrir is named after the father of wolves, a very noble name,” he explained.
“Did you ever have any children Gudrik?” George asked.
“No. None of The Twelve ever did after the change.” He paused. “I take your meaning…. about the name. I have told her how to say it many, many times. Still, she calls him pup pup.”
So it was that the noble beast Fenrir was from that moment forth known to all who met him simply as ‘Pup’.
Upon arriving back at the beach house they enjoyed a breakfast of fried eggs and toast. George also introduced Gudrik to something which he had never experienced before, coffee. “This is a drink which traditionally follows a night of.........indulgence in our culture,” she lectured.
Even through the splitting ache of her hangover, George couldn’t help but be reminded of weekend family breakfasts when she was a girl, the relaxed enjoyment of knowing there was nowhere anyone had to be. She had always loved them, and was grateful Tabitha was experiencing one too, even under such bizarre circumstances.
The uneven rumble of a rather old and rather large engine bubbled in, interrupting the peaceful breakfast. Pup was the first to react, pricking his ears and moving himself closer to Tabitha. The two adults then leapt to their feet and moved to the window, leaving Tabitha to fumble at the table alone. She proceeded to feed most of her meal to Pup.
A large, rusted out hulk of a truck had rolled up the drive and pulled in beside the drunken shed. There was a loud creak as the heavy steel door swung open and a man stepped out, stretching his arms, legs and back simultaneously, forming a crucifix. “Brood?” Gudrik rumbled.
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