Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  In time, as the half-light that had finally arrived threatened to become more than what it was and the enraged cretchym’s patience had been taxed to the limits, the Hag’s guards cleaned their swords, slid them into the sheaths on their backs, and calmly walked off beside the black-robed wizard who silently slipped away from the growing fires.

  Since it was not uncommon to see a Hag moving through the encampment, once Ben'Syne and his Bro'Noon guards had left the sword wielding cretchym behind, those who were unwilling to follow them for the same reasons they didn’t interfere with the torching of their homes, they had little trouble passing through the cretchym that were being awakened by the ensuing commotion and the smell of smoke.

  Slipping into the undisturbed greenwood that stood at the fringe of the vast encampment, Bro’Noon continued to play the part of a Hag and his guards until the snarling shouts could no longer be heard.

  After speaking a Word of Power that extinguished the magical talisman's flame, Ben'Syne put the cloth-covered candle away along with the black robe he shrugged off as he and his brethren set a course for the dwindling Breach Sea and Loda'Gar who waited for them there. Ben’Syne had news the Bro'Noon chieftain would want to hear and a personal message Ilya'Gar had entrusted him to deliver to his father.

  Skirting an open field used for practicing battle formations, one of three that was easily accessable to the mutant warriors and those who trained them, the Nyeg Warlers continued their swift westward march. And as they did, the Broyn'Dar raid went into motion.

  ****

  Spotting the fire that wreaked havoc on the encampment's northern reaches, Arga'Dyne led the Broyn'Dar forward. Fortunately, their destination was well short of the ensuing conflagration that was drawing the kind of attention it was meant to. Fanning out, the raiders moved quickly through the cretchym tents and huts covering the ground before them like a bad case of skin-rash.

  Avoiding travelling in groups, whose numbers would draw too much attention, enabled the Broyn'Dar to be mistaken for hunchman-humans who were on their way to squelch the chaos the fire was creating and to confront the ones who were foolish enough to set it. The horn blasts coming from the direction of the distracting flames, calling the cretchym to battle, signified an enemy was at hand.

  If anyone had bothered to closely examine the wave of beast-men that swept through the encampment, they would have noticed their unusually thick manes, how long their snout-like mouths appeared, how wide and muscular their backs were, and the shortness of the legs that carried them forward. All these things would have raised alarms if noted. But in the ensuing bedlam, the distinction between a full-blooded hunchman and the mutants that were being created there was negated by greater concerns.

  "To arms," the Broyn'Dar shouted as they passed one of the large, round pits used to hone the mutants' fighting skills. "We're under attack. Wake up your brothers and head for the smoke. That's where the fight is."

  The premeditated ploy was meant to whip the cretchym up into a frenzy that would empty the encampment's southern reaches after the high-strung hunchman-humans rushed off to fight an enemy that wasn't there. Looking like a swarm of ants drawn to a downed prey, the cretchym joined the Broyn'Dar as they sped toward the diversion Ben'Syne had so expertly and mercilessly crafted.

  If the cretchym had heeded the clacking noises the teeth-filled necklesses were making as they bounced off the shoulders of those running beside them, they might have taken notice of the dour trophies that could only have been collected over time, time that the newly created hunchman-humans had not yet known. But as it was, the lust for blood, driving them to the north, kept the cretchym oblivious to the anomalies moving along with them.

  Once Arga'Dyne and his warriors reached the two large structures where the hunchman, used in the mutant-making process, were being held, they planned to withdraw from the horde that was charging toward the smoke and the flames beneath it and turn their attention to the work they had come to do, namely to free their family members from the prison they had been thrown into.

  Inciting the hunchman-human cretchym into a frenzy that sent them off to a battle they had been created to fight, worked so well the Neflin and Fane J'Shrym horsemen met little resistence as they followed the wave of Broyn'Dar that had swept up the mutants with its passing.

  Unfortunately, the raiders would soon learn that the Hag wouldn't be so easily deceived.

  After reaching their objective, Arga'Dyne took a moment to make certain the frantic cretchym continued surging toward the diversion Ben'Syne had put in place. Catching sight of the huge vats used to brew the concotion the mutants were drawn from, he snarled in disgust as he watched several fulfill the task of scooping up the newborns, cleaning the slime off their bodies, and carrying them to the huts where they would be aroused to wakefulness. The cretchym midwives resisted the call to battle. Noting how focused they were on tending to their charges, the chieftain was confident they wouldn't pose any real threat.

  The whitish, dome-shaped dwellings, looking like a ring of blisters had risen around the hot vats, were another matter. Constructed with the same magically-manufactured material the Hall of Voyd was, the strange, rounded walls hid the real danger from sight- the ruthless Hag. Only three black-robed wizards were following the mutants into the encampment's northern reaches as they went to deal with the smoke and fire, and three wasn't enough to quell the cheitain's concerns. Hopefully more were leading the charge that was closing in on the rampaging flames.

  A solitary Malamor warrior moving along with the mutants- for that is who they must have been with their burnished bronze armor that had the image of a blazing sun embossed on it and the blond hair falling on the blue cape covering their shoulders- gave the chieftain pause. This had to be one of the officers tasked with training the cretchym for war. How many of their kind was around was a question that needed to be answered.

  Ignoring the impulse to have someone follow the Malamor and keep an eye on him, Arga'Dyne turned his attention to the set of doors that were before him. Duga'Dyne and those he commanded were positioned before the second building's set of double doors to the west of him. When the chieftain unsheathed his jagged-edged sword with one hand and grabbed hold of the door's handle with the other, Duga'Dyne mirrored his movements. Then with a nod of his head, both pulled on the handles they gripped with their strong, claw-tipped fingers. To their relief, the doors opened with little effort. With the Hag domiciles as close as they were, there was no need to lock them.

  When Arga'Dyne entered the huge, barn-like building and stood silhouetted against the graying sky that spread out behind him, he was greeted by snarling and growling that sounded like music to his ears. The timber of the clamor he heard was pure Broyn'Dar. The mutants weren’t capable of making such sweet noise. Their vocal chords were too human, preventing them from resonating in the deep gutteral way a true hunchman could.

  "Arga'Dyne!" The chieftain's name was spoken in reverence by those who weren’t surprised to see him. Their wait was over. It was time to fight the fire-blasted bastards who kept them locked up. But with all the voices that intoned his name, one caught his ear in a way that none other could.

  "Shala'Dyne, where are you?" His harsh whisper sounded desperate with need. Then he saw her standing in one of the cages near the back of the large room.

  As he hurried to her, the Broyn'Dar warriors in his command flooded through the doors and began to break the mechanisms keeping the cages locked. In time, thirty Broyn'Dar were freed, though five of them refused help from those trying to get them to stand on their feet. As fate would have it, this was supposed to be the day they were sent back home, as they all knew, to die. And they weren't about to let their fatal exhaustion slow the others down as they tried to make good their escape.

  Refusing to let them perish before their tormentors's leering faces, who would take out their frustrations on them for the others who had escaped, these were comforted by a friend or relative before their throats were slit a
nd the last moments of their lives were spent in the arms of another Broyn'Dar.

  After Arga'Dyne broke off the long embrace with his mate, Shala'Dyne said, "I knew you'd come for me."

  After giving her a long knife, he had tucked in his wide belt along with the spike-like dagger he planned on using to cut his way out of the encampment, Arga’Dyne asked, "Can you run?"

  A harsh laugh was heard as she accepted the knife and a buckler her mate took off his wide belt where it had been tied before Shala'Dyne replied, "I've always been faster than you. You know that. Today will be no different than any other."

  With a snorting laugh heralding his retort, Arga'Dyne answered, "In your dreams."

  Seeing that everyone was armed as best as they could be, the chieftain signaled the Broyn’Dar warriors to open the doors once again. It was time to run.

  ****

  Duga'Dyne's reception in the other barn-sized structure was nothing like the one his brother received. Instead of finding cages filled with Broyn'Dar, the chieftain's brother was confronted by all the accoutrements found in a slaughterhouse. To his left he saw the remains of a giant centipede-like cretchym that had been cut into chunks of meat that would be dispensed throughout the camp.

  The fingers that stuck out of the game hen-like cretchym’s wings were easy to see now their feathers had been plucked. Hanging from hooks fastened to the ends of long chains falling into the room from above, the headless bodies pink flesh looked weirdly human. In turn, the dangling chains were affixed to small wheels ensconced in grooves cut into timbers running the length of the building. The wheels allowed the cretchym's bird-like corpses, all as big a water barrels just like Bala said, to be pushed along as the work of gutting them was done in stages.

  Turning to his right, Duga'Dyne sucked air through his teeth as his gaze fell on an enormous snake's decapitated head. The open, fang-filled mouth that greated the chieftain was responsible for the startled response that quickly abated when he realized the monster was dead. Like the centipede, half of the serpent's body had been cut away. It was obvious, the missing meat had been included in last evening's meal.

  With Duga'Dyne's attention fixed on the slaughterhouse’s interior, he didn't notice two huge piles of clothing stir against the far wall, neither did the warriors under his command. Only Fage'Dom caught sight of the movement, and what he saw made him shout, "Giants!"

  As a host of worried eyes sought out the source of Fage'Dom's alarm, their manic aspect intensified when they locked on the behemoths who were rising to their feet with metal-studded clubs in hand. But instead of fleeing, Duga'Dyne ordered Fage'Dom to go tell his brother what was happening before he attacked the giants that were already striding his way. With saliva dripping over their quivering lips, the rest of the chata-driven Broyn'Dar followed Duga’Dyne’s lead, snarling and growling as they ran headlong into danger.

  Six hunchman kept guard at the door while the others went off to fight.

  Wearing matching pants and jerkins, fashioned with the mutant snakes’s skins, made the behemoths look like they were wearing the livery of a kingdom devoted to a reptilian diety. Each wore black boots made with hair-covered hides stripped from a brace of wild boars that made the fatal mistake of running straight into the giants as they were relieving themselves against an exposed tree trunk. Down wind from the herd that had been stampeded by two prowling mountain lions, the nearly blind boars didn't catch the giants’ scent until it was too late.

  With black hair as wavy and thick as gangor wool, covering most of their large ears that grew at right angles to their cubed-shape heads, and with eyes as dark as their hair, framed beneath eyebrows as thick as briar bushes, the giants were fearsome to behold. Large, hooked noses and wide tooth-filled mouths did nothing to soften their appearance. Neither did the impossibly thick forearms forearms and huge, gnarled hands that gripped the massive, metal-studded clubs they carried.

  The blood-soaked floors proved problematic for the Broyn'Dar, making it difficult to set the knuckles of their free hands on the slick, wooden planks when they needed to change directions to avoid the massive metal-studdded clubs arching their way. If not for the claw-like nails tipping their toes, the beast-men’s disadvantage would have been insurmountable. Even with the traction their claws gained, the slippery floors slowed the Broyn’Dar’s reaction time enough to make them susceptible to their slower foe's advances.

  Metal studs, protruding from the giants’ boots’ thick soles, freed the behemoths from this concern.

  Nearly three times as tall as the average Broyn'Dar, the Thrall Giants carried nearly ten times their weight. As a result, a direct hit by one of their metal-studded clubs was fatal. But the illusive hunchmen were proving to be hard to hit with the clubs’ heavy heads.

  Broyn'Dar quickness was not the only thing that kept the giants from squaring their weapons up on their annoyingly agile foes- the down pour of chains that fell from above, those whose hooks were used to carry the cretchym along as their bodies went through the slaughtering process, created a barrier that the massive mounds of bone and muscle had to contend with. Wrapping around the huge, metal-studded clubs as they flew about, numerous unincumbered chains acted like a spider web made with strands of flexible iron. Those that had the water barrel-sized, bird-like creatures dangling from their hooks were even more difficult to deal with.

  Bellowing out their frustration, the Thrall Giants didn’t expect the slaughterhouse to impose such restrictions on their movements. In hind sight, the behemoths would have been better served by chosing to bed down closer to the doors. Then they could have forced the fight outside where there was room to swing their huge weapons.

  With the Broyn'Dar leaping through a shower of chains, the battle soon became a snarled mess that saw the hunchmen hacking away at any part of the giants’ tree trunk-sized legs they could reach. When the hunchmen sheathed their weapons while they used their long, muscular arms to pull themselves up the chains, the giants soon found their enemies cutting away at their arms and shoulders as well.

  When one of the Broyn'Dar jumped on a giant's back and stabbed him in the neck with the spike-like dagger he had drawn out of his belt, the behemoth roared in terror and swung his club so violently that it tore the troublesome chains from their moorings before it slammed into the hunchmen who failed to scramble out of the way. Four in all were struck. Two eventually got up and limped away. Two more lay motionless on the wooden floor. A deep gash in one of the hunchmen's mane-covered heads was adding a generous contribution to the red, sticky stuff covering the floor.

  A moment later, the giant reached up with one of its basket-sized hands and plucked the offending hunchman off its back before throwing him to the ground. A loud cracking sound was heard when the Broyn'Dar struck the wooden floor. Both bones and planks had been shattered by the impact.

  Refusing to quit stabbing the giant, time and again, with his spike-like dagger had doomed the valiant hunchman. But his death was not in vain- for the giant who endured his ruthless attack stumbled to one knee struggling to take in the air he needed to regain his strength and re-enter the fight.

  Taking advantage of the giant's lowered head, not giving him time to lift it, Duga'Dyne howled as he ran forward and repeatedly hacked at the exposed, bloodied neck until he reached the vertebrate found there. Once the thick spinal cord was severed, the behemoth dropped to the ground beneath its own heavy bulk.

  Hating everything the Hag encampment represented and enraged at his fallen brothers' deaths, Duga'Dyne sheathed his jagged-edged sword and dove on the behemoth's motionless body before he did something hunchmen were loathe to do. Maniacally growling, as the drug he ingested inflamed his emotions, he tore at the gapping wound with sharp teeth that ripped at the giant's flesh like he was a deer the beast-man had brought down.

  Doing what the Broyn'Dar no longer did- for long ago the hunchmen had sworn off eating the elves, humans, and giants they killed- Arga'Dyne tore chunks of meat out of his vanguished foe
and held it in his mouth as he fought the urge to show dominance by swallowing it. But instead of completing the deed he would later regret, unexpectedly shaking off the fog chata cast over his powers of reasoning, Duga'Dyne spit the bloody mass out of his mouth, disgusted that he would contemplate doing the unthinkable.

  Rubbing a forearm across his snout-like mouth, whose blue and red paint was obscured by the giant's blood, Duga'Dyne growled as he watched the remaining behemoth stumble over to a large door located in the slaughterhouse's wall facing the courtyard where the cretchym were held in enclosures made with thick wooden bars. After the behemoth opened the door, a massive coiled form, whose skin matched the material used to make the giant's clothing, came into view.

  A look of fear and excitement appeared on the Thrall Giant's face as he stepped away from the door and retreated to the back of the slaughterhouse where it sought shelter.

  At that same moment, Fage'Dom returned from delivering Duga'Dyne's message to his brother and shouted, "Arga'Dyne is leaving."

  Since the Thrall Giant had unexpectedly disengaged from the fight, the Broyn'Dar were free to leave. Before they did, a small fire that those standing guard at the door had built was stoked into a blaze as their surviving kin slipped past them. The fire would consume the slaughterhouse and their fallen brethren along with it once they left, keeping their bodies from being desicrated by the Hag and the cretchym they had created.

  Huddling in the back, the giant looked at the side door he had opened and at the growing fire that spred across the building’s primary opening with apprehensive eyes. Still he didn't move, though he wanted to.

  Exiting the slaughterhouse, Duga'Dyne and those under his command gave off barking sounds of joy when they saw the Broyn'Dar prisoners standing beside Arga'Dyne and those under his command, a joy they couldn’t revel in once they looked in the direction their brethren were fixated on. What they saw chilled their blood in a way the fire, growing behind them, couldn’t dismiss.