Servants fled the keep. Soldiers, too. And they told of demons in the tower, the tower where Ydral dwelt. They told of seeing Gritchi on the walls and in the bailey. They told of Durdi and Vulgs, too.
An exodus from the Barony began: first it was but a few families who left, then a flood. And the population dwindled.
Baron Stoke raged, but there was little he could do to stop the flight, for within ten years all his soldiery was gone. And now the Drik—the Gritchi, the Rūcks—served him. Too, there were the Ghok—the Durdi, the Hlōks—serving him as well. And Vulpen. All summoned by Ydral.
All manner of Foul Folk would serve Baron Stoke, for such was his power.
Some five years went by, and Baron Stoke’s minions ranged wider and wider afield to capture victims for his insane pleasures and mad experiments. For by this time Ydral had introduced him unto necromancy.
But then there came a night when the Baron discovered Ydral hastily gathering together some of his possessions, preparing to flee.
“There is a Dolh, an Elf, who has pursued me for more than three thousand years—since the cursed War of the Ban. I have word from one of my own that he draws nigh, and I would not face him, for he wears a token that I cannot overcome, and bears a weapon that will slay even me. This, too, do I know: it is my destiny to perish at the hands of one in whose veins courses Dolh blood, and I would stay such fate, forever.”
Béla tried to persuade Ydral to remain, offering his mentor the protection of the keep, to no avail, the yellow-eyed tutor leaving that very night, riding a Hèlsteed easterly into the Skarpal Range. And at last Baron Stoke was alone, but for the Spawn.
* * *
Three years passed, and Stoke decided to travel away from this empty Barony and unto Aven, unto the bartizan of his Uncle Lenko, unto a place where the harvest would be rich.
Two years after, an Elf bearing a crystal spear rode into the Skarpal Mountains, into the abandoned keep, searching for a yellow-eyed Man.
None were there to greet him.
* * *
Following the murder of Lenko and all his get, Baron Stoke remained in the hold north of Vulfcwmb for a number of years. He harvested the region of Humans until it was nearly barren of game.
Then he fared south through the Grimwalls to come to Marik’s estates in the mountains above Sagra in Vancha. Baronet Marik was an old man by this time, giving Béla but little pleasure as he flayed his uncle. The others of the household, however, had youth and vitality. Thus they lasted longer.
Over the next years, the estate came to be known as Dreadholt, and the mountain behind as Daemon’s Crag. And it was a place of horrid repute. Even so, people were slow to react to the danger it represented, and more years passed ere the harvest became sparse.
Stoke and his minions then made their way unto Basq, and then Gothon, and a number of other lands, remaining at each for ten years or so, until the game played out, and then they would move onward to fresher pastures, where the herdfolk were not yet wise.
And so went Baron Stoke’s existence down through the decades, hunting, capturing, flaying, experimenting in necromancy. And still he appeared to be a yellow-eyed Man in his middle thirties, though by now he was more than a hundred years old; given what he was, he aged not, and only silver or starsilver rare could do him permanent harm, that and perhaps fire.
He was some two hundred fifty years old when he at last perfected the potion that would sustain the life of the one being flayed, sustain it until all the skin was gone, sustain it and keep the victim awake and aware, sustain it but not deaden the pain.
Then he began impaling them.
* * *
Although he retained the looks and physique of a Man in his mid-thirties, Baron Stoke was five hundred fourteen years old and had just established a new chamber within the Grimwall when his scouts told of a waggon train crossing the Crestan Pass. A sudden snowstorm caused it to turn back. His raiders failed to harvest herd victims, and so Stoke took it upon himself to lure several unto their doom. Baeron, they were, a vibrant Race of Men, and with a few well-chosen words he managed to fool the Chieftain. Ten were sent into the night, following Stoke to a hideous fate ordained by him.
But the Baeron were more than Stoke had bargained for, and one managed to break free. The escapee brought back a force of these powerful warriors and what appeared to be a savage, trained War-Bear. Stoke fled for his life, for surely they had silver weapons at their disposal.
This was the first time that Baron Stoke had been hounded from his dwellings. At all other times it had been his choice to move on to more fertile harvesting grounds. But this time he had been forced to flee. His rage at such was nigh boundless, yet there was nothing he could do against so powerful a foe as the Baeron Men.
* * *
Stoke fled to the Rigga Mountains in Gron. Over the next four years, he experimented upon the Drik, yet they did not seem to satisfy his unholy passions.
And then he and his minions captured a male Elf.
Compared to a Human, the flaying of one of the immortals was delicious, and the impalement of the Elf was beyond Stoke’s wildest imaginings.
He was driven from the Gronfangs by his rekindled lust, and he returned unto the bartizan above Vulfcwmb, for he had not been there for several decades, and so the harvest promised to be fruitful.
After a number of months of reaping victims, some Men of Vulfcwmb had the temerity to try to oppose him, coming at his fortress with the intent to slay him. They screamed most delightfully.
And then his lackeys brought to him some of the Wee Folk, with the jewel-like eyes and Elven ears. Two elder males there were and an elder female, but also there was a young female, and Stoke saved her for last, slaying the others before her horrified eyes.
But ere he could harvest the young damman, three would-be rescuers came into his holt: another Warrow, a young male; an Elfess, the sister of the Elf he had slain in the Rigga Mountains; and Urus, the Chieftain of the Baeron, the Man he had so easily deceived.
It seems that these fools were hunting him. Hunting Baron Stoke!
Stoke and his minions captured them all. What a glorious harvest!
But then the Man, Urus, changed into a great Bear and burst down the door of the cell!
Stoke almost died that night, nearly slain by the fangs and claws of another so cursed as he. Yet he managed to escape…barely.
* * *
He fled to Vancha, to Dreadholt upon Daemon’s Crag. It had been many years since he had last harvested in the region, and Sagra was once again populated.
But two years after fleeing Vulfcwmb, again his holt was invaded—by the very same four who had nearly proved his undoing there in the bartizan!
This time he came even closer to dying—by a starlight sword most dire, borne by the Elfess; by silver bullet, hurled by the buccan; and by fire.
Dreadholt burned to the ground, yet once again Stoke managed to escape.
* * *
He fled to the distant eastern reaches of the Grimwall, there on the border of far away Xian. But within ten years the harvest became sparse, and so he drifted westerly, remaining in the grip of the mountains, reaping new victims as he went, deriving his perverse pleasure from flaying people alive and impaling them, and from practicing his mad necromancy.
Some years later, he had drifted as far as the ruins of Dragonslair, in the quaking mountains above the Land of Aralan. He sent his lackeys down to reap victims from farms and villages of the region, to raid caravans, to capture the fourteen folk living near the river crossing known as Stoneford.
In the mountains north and east of Dragonslair, Stoke discovered a monastery above the Great North Glacier, and he flayed and impaled the twelve priests he found living therein.
He made the monastery his lair, but again his holt was invaded, by the very same four pursuers: two Warrows, the Elfess, and Urus—twenty years had passed, and they were still after him!
Stoke hid in the underground rooms of the m
onastery, but their search revealed him. He fled to the belltower and shifted. Yet as he flew away, he was severely wounded: a silver sling bullet cracked a bone in his left wing, and he spiraled down onto the glacier below.
Still they pursued relentlessly, as they had done for two decades. They overtook him on the ice. Even so, he nearly slew the Elfess, she with the starlight blade, but as he prepared to behead her with her very own sword, a silver knife was thrown by the damman, embedding in his shoulder.
The pain was hideous, yet he could not bear to touch the silver to withdraw the blade. He shifted again, but the knife remained. In the form of a Vulp he sprang from the lip of a wide crevasse, leaping for the far side to escape, but that fool Urus intercepted him in mid-flight, and together they fell down into the frigid black depths below.
And the crevasse slammed shut, locking Vulp and Man eternally together in frozen battle.
When they crashed into the ice in the depths of the abyss, the silver knife was jarred from Stoke’s shoulder, and over the millennium the ice held them, slowly, ever so slowly, the Vulp healed—he was, after all, a Cursed One, and rapid healing was one of his traits, though here in the cold, the process was greatly retarded.
A golden glow bathed both the Baron and the Baeran, Vulp and Man, and even though his life was suspended, still Stoke felt the cursed light.
A thousand years passed—deep in the ice the Vulp and the Man were caught in a slow, grinding eddy, an eddy drifting ever closer to the edge of the pack.
At last came a night that the wall of the glacier split, calving, disgorging the Vulp. Hours passed, and still Stoke did not move. Yet given his powers of regeneration, ultimately he regained consciousness, and he heard the far-off voices of yammering Drik and Ghok and the distant howls of Vulpen. Stoke yawled for help, and when it was answered, he shifted again, becoming once more a yellow-eyed Man, if Stoke could be called a Man.
As he waited, he saw a hairy star scoring the night sky, and by its position among the stars he deduced that it was the Eye of the Hunter and that he had been locked in the glacier for more than a thousand years.
At last, aid came to him. And when he was lifted up from the ice, he could dimly see the form of Urus yet trapped in the glacier, but only inches deep, silhouetted by a cursed golden glow. Stoke ordered the Foul Folk to dig Urus free and behead him, and to burn the remains. Yet none could withstand the auric luminance, and so Stoke had to let the Man be, for Stoke, especially Stoke, was repelled by its holy aura.
That night the Drik bore Stoke to the canyon caverns. And there he laired, regaining his strength.
Two nights later, his hunting parties reported the scent of strangers, and they told of an Elfess who vanished into thin air. And just ere dawn, a wounded Vulp came limping from the monastery bringing news of a damman Warrow that had escaped, and of a savage Bear that slew.
And then Stoke knew that he was yet pursued—by Elves, by Warrows, by Urus. He deduced that likely this place was watched, and so he laid a plan.
And the next night, as he and his band left the canyon, remaining behind were Drik and Ghok and Vulpen. If Stoke was followed, those who hunted him would in turn become the prey.
A hideous winged thing flapped southward through the falling snow, knowing that the white would cover the tracks of its lackeys, knowing also that even if someone managed to trail them, the trackers themselves would be slaughtered from behind.
And so it flapped onward through the night, the savage storm howling ’round not matching the cold fury within.
CHAPTER 23
Vanishment
Early Spring, 5E988
[The Present]
Hurtling out from the spinning wall of white, the snarling Vulg crashed into Faeril from behind, slamming her facedown into the snow, smashing atop her, driving the breath from her—“Unhh!” Only the deep snow and her backpack saved her from instant death. All she could hear was a wild wrauling and footsteps thudding past. And the creature bearing her down sought to savage her. Struggling, Faeril attempted to roll, but she could not escape the mauling weight crushing her. She could not reach the knives in her bandoliers, but she jerked the silver Elven blade from the scabbard at her waist and slashed at the creature’s leg, gashing it. With a howl it leapt aside, and Faeril managed to scramble to her knees even as it plunged at her again, savage mouth agape. Without thinking, the damman jammed the blade past its teeth and straight down its throat, silver slamming home even as slashing fangs tore into her flesh. Yawling, it jerked away, wrenching the blade from her grasp. And of a sudden it collapsed.
Gaining her feet, Faeril threw down her backpack and drew a steel throwing knife and looked into the swirling whiteness whirling all about in the howling wind. And at that very moment, all was plunged in blackness. The lantern! It’s out! Oh, Gwylly!
She could hear sounds of combat, the skirl of steel on steel and the shrieks of the dying, and vague shapes hurtled past in the blackness, more sensed than seen, but who was fighting whom, she could not tell. I cannot see to throw! She jammed the dagger back into the bandolier and drew her long-knife—a sword in the hand of a Warrow.
Before her, a torch sputtered into life, and she could momentarily see dim figures lunging through the blizzard, a tall one plunging toward the torch bearer, merging, a loud shriek, the torch falling in the snow, sissing, blackness returning.
A figure loomed before her. “Adon!” she cried. She could sense the figure turning, and she stabbed out with her blade, feeling it scrape bone, the figure gasping, collapsing, nearly wrenching the long-knife from her hand. But she hung on grimly, and grinding, it came free of the downed being.
Faeril fell to her knees and groped. Oh, let it be foe! Her hands fumbled across the body, the torso clad in leather sewn with steel ringlets. Rūck! she thought just as she put her hand atop spurting blood from a heart pumping its last.
Revulsed, Faeril scrabbled backwards, only to slam into someone behind. Snarling, the being fell over her akimbo, thudding into the snow. Blindly the damman slashed, making contact, the being howling in agony. Faeril jammed the long-knife at the sound, but whoever, whatever it was rolled away, scrambling up and running through the blackness, a blot of darkness disappearing into the raging ebony storm.
Another came near, gasping harshly. Faeril readied her blade. “Adon!” she called, starting to plunge the long-knife.
“Adon!” came the instant reply.
“Gwylly!”
“Faeril!”
“Oh, Gwylly, I almost—”
“Back to back, love,” interrupted her buccaran. “Back to back, though I won’t be much help. I’ve taken a wound.”
“Oh, Gwylly—”
“Back to back!”
And so the two Warrows stood back to back, facing into the blackness—Gwylly breathing harshly, coughing now and then; Faeril trembling in fear for him.
In the distance, another torch sputtered into life, to be extinguished moments later amid shrieks of dying.
Still the black blizzard howled, dark snow hurling past—ebon ravens’ feathers flying in the nightwind. Occasionally there sounded steel on steel, occasionally a dying scream, occasionally footsteps ran past. Nought could be seen in the blackness, and little could be heard above the squall of the storm. And Warrows stood back to back.
“The darkness and wind alone save us,” hissed Gwylly. “Without the blizzard hiding us, the wind flinging away our scent, we would fall to the maggot-folk.”
And then Gwylly collapsed.
Faeril spun about and knelt, feeling for his wound, discovering nothing.
But even as her hands fumbled over Gwylly’s form, from nearby there came a guttural growl, and a snuffling, and then a yawl of a Vulg. Faeril crouched above her buccaran, her long-knife at the ready, praying that the beast would not find her, would not find Gwylly. Yet that was not to be, for the rasping snarls sounded louder, the creature casting about, coming nearer. And then black on black loomed before her, wrauling. �
�Adon!” she shrieked, leaping up and across, hurtling forward over Gwylly. But in that same moment another plunged inward, spear piercing the Vulg’s unprotected flank, Aravan crying “Adon!” even as Krystallopŷr burned into and through the howling beast, even as Faeril’s blade took it in the throat, chopping short its agonized wail.
Now Elf and damman stood back to back, Gwylly lying in between. In the darkness by feel alone they could find no wound, and so they took up station above him, for there was nought they could do in the midst of battle to aid the buccan.
Now and again they heard the skirl of steel on steel, at times coming from two different directions simultaneously. “They fight themselves,” hissed Aravan, “though surely Riatha engages them as well.”
Suddenly a harsh voice yawled above the howl of the wind, his call taken up by others. What he cried, neither Aravan nor Faeril knew, for Slûk was the language. After several moments, again there sounded cries, farther off, southward. Then again, growing faint in the storm. Then no more.
“Perhaps they’ve gone,” said Faeril.
“Mayhap ’tis but a ruse,” responded Aravan.
Still they waited in the blackness, ebon snow whirling about. The world spun ’round, and Faeril’s stomach heaved, a sudden nausea whelming upon her. She staggered a step or two and fell to her knees and retched.
From far off a hollow, booming voice echoed in her ears. “Faeril, what passes? Art thou wounded?”
The damman could not answer, for her ears rang and her entire body seemed aflame—she burned. Icy perspiration exploded from her skin. And as she toppled into the blackness, she managed to whisper a single word: “Vulg.”
* * *
Stoke!…Stoke!…stoke!…stoke…stoke…stoke…toke…oke…o…
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