Bloodwalk

by James Davis

  Quinsareth contemplated the vacant town. Unlike fellow aasimar he’d met in his travels, he enjoyed his isolation, and did not brood over the loneliness of such an existence. He typically saw only the worst in people when called by the shadows—the faint voice of Hoar, his patron deity—and preferred to spend as little time with others as possible. Thus, he feared those he hunted less than their victims, daunted by the ordeals of conversation and social etiquette.

  He stared into a window, his eyes adjusting to the darkness within. Dim ambient light illuminated the cottage’s interior in shades of gray. A table was laid out for dinner, the carcass of a chicken festering in its center, swarmed by flies and crawling with maggots. A loaf of stale bread was all but gone, devoured by rats and mice. A quick look into a few other homes revealed much the same, prepared meals left for vermin and any inhabitants utterly missing.

  He wondered at the scene, uneasiness and dread settling in his blood. He knelt on one knee, listening to the distant rolling tide. Evening drew closer and weak sunlight faded behind ominously hushed storm clouds. Then he saw it—a dark stain spattered across a large garden stone, rust-colored and almost black, spilling across the wooden border of a flower bed. The sight of blood was almost comforting. Better a morbid clue than a complete mystery, he thought.

  A strong draft blew down the avenue then, casting dust into Quinsareth’s eyes and mouth. He coughed and spat as a loud clatter sounded behind him. Instantly, his hand went for Bedlam’s hilt, drawing the first few inches of blade as he spun to face the source of the staccato noise that shattered the town’s heavy silence.

  As he watched the gates crash together, blown by the sudden gust, he eased Bedlam back into its scabbard. The garden stone forgotten, he stared at macabre splashes of blood and gore across the inside of the weathered gate.

  Most recognizable were the hand prints. Some were clearly defined, others smeared downward as their owners were dragged beneath what could have been a sizeable crowd. The smears indicated a mob, all pushing on a gate that he had opened easily. Had the gates been sealed—by some force or magic—not to keep something out, but to keep it in?

  He turned away, grimly searching for more and expecting the worst. It was a philosophy that had rarely failed him. “Prepare for the worst” matched his experiences better than “hope for the best.” The empty streets suited him just fine as he strolled from house to house, relegating the possible fate of Logfell’s population to the back of his mind. He would sort it out in time.

  On his way to the eastern wall, Quinsareth paused, noticing something in a west-facing window at the end of a broad street. Looking in, he studied a small broken figure lying on the floor of a bedroom. Rather than lingering, he determined the town’s secrets had moved on, and he must keep up to discover them.

  He paused briefly to inspect the sanctuary of a small temple to Savras in the center of town, expecting any survivors to be there. In the company of its stained glass and marble floors, he felt something familiar, fleeting memories picking at his mind but dodging recognition. The temple itself seemed to be the only place untouched by spilled blood or signs of violence, yet it held the most ominous chill, as if any connection to its divine patron had been severed and replaced by a void.

  Quinsareth was reminded of a monastery on the River of Swords, hundreds of miles away, similarly left hollow one day, its charred remains no doubt grown over by now. Those who walked the paths of Hoar rarely stayed in one place for long. That place though, had seemed hundreds of years old the first time he’d entered. The day he left was the last day he’d set eyes on any structure devoted to his god. Faith and service had come naturally to him, and Hoar was not a deity strict in the observance of rituals or rites. Though priesthood had never called to him, Hoar had.

  Quinsareth found the eastern gate in the same condition as the western, except open and swinging, banging together like loose shutters on an open window. Logfell was desolate, displaying its wounds on every street corner, moaning as the windy breath of the coming storm blew among its orphaned lanes and austere buildings.

  He studied the ground and the footprints he found there. The clawed prints of several gnolls and the heavy, sunken tread of an ogre confirmed the presence of possible attackers or even scavengers but did not explain the total lack of traces of them within the town. The prints showed them moving east, skirting the edges of the forest. His instinct was to follow them, as he’d always done, but something kept drawing his gaze to the forest, its dark depths hiding secrets, its twisted and misshapen trees calling to that dormant chill running in his blood.

  He forced his eyes and thoughts away from the forest. Reaching within himself, he disappeared into the swift embrace of the Shadow Fringe. He followed his instincts and avoided that inexplicable dread of whatever lurked among the trees.

  Sameska had seen to the daily tasks of the temple, forcing herself to remain awake, unable to even imagine sleeping. The others had noticed. She was wearing her hair loose and had let several rites go unsupervised. Normally she insisted on being present, seeming to take joy in the lesser oracles’ minor and admittedly rare mistakes. Nothing could destroy her today. She was invincible and strode confidently through the corridors of the temple.

  It was late afternoon, and she could not wait to be left alone again. The other oracles had worried and fussed after finding her unconscious in the rune circle that morning. She’d wanted nothing to do with them, refusing their help and their questions, stubbornly maintaining her composure and the secret of her visions.

  The attitudes of those around her that day had changed. Things were different, somehow, and rumors wound their way among the members of the church and the citizenry alike. The blush was spreading, and those who’d always been looked to for guidance were silent.

  Sameska pitied their blindness and looked forward to the morrow when she would make them see, but she needed time for the magic and communion with her god. She made her way to the sanctuary after closing the temple’s doors. Dreslya, the most vocal of her young rivals, awaited her in the hallway, lit only by the dim gray of a suddenly overcast sky filtering through a window in the eastern wall.

  “High Oracle,” she addressed Sameska and bowed, touching her forehead lightly with both hands as she did so, “I offer my assistance with the Turning of the Circle and beg my lady to grant me such an honor.”

  Sameska stared at the top of Dreslya’s bowed head, unable to suppress the subtle smile that turned the corners of her thin lips upward.

  “No, Dreslya.” She savored the sound of her answer, enjoying the shock on the lesser oracle’s face as she rose from her bow.

  “But High Oracle, this morning we found you unconscious. I and the other oracles fear for your health in these plague-ridden times.”

  It wasn’t often that Sameska thought of her own age, one of frailty and senility in some, but she knew the tone of Dreslya’s plea and did not appreciate being reminded of it.

  “Young lady, you seek to stand with me in the Hidden Circle, to hear the whole and full voice of Savras? You fear I am too old to withstand the power of his sight?”

  “N-no,” she stammered, shaken by the tone in Sameska’s voice and the steel in her gaze, “I did not mean to imply—”

  “I have stood in the rune circle alone since I was but a slip of a girl well younger than you! You stand here stuttering and unsure in my eyes, hearing my voice. What will you do when he speaks fully to you? How will you stand when Savras pours his truth into your ears, child?”

  “I beg your pardon, I have seen—”

  “Yes! You have seen, haven’t you? Seen the day a woman will bear her child, advising midwives to be prepared. You have seen the lives of lovers perhaps, where their paths might cross and for whom they are destined? These are but fragments! Bits handed down in his mercy so your soul will not be set on fire with the visions that await you in that circle!”

  Dreslya was speechless, wide-eyed she looked away, unwilling to bear the
indignant fury in Sameska’s eyes. The high oracle looked her would-be successor up and down, once again feeling strength in her old blood. She reached out with one hand and turned Dreslya’s face to hers, allowing a brief silence to settle on the young woman before speaking again.

  “Child, I stand in the Hidden Circle for us all. Neither age nor burgeoning plague will end this.” Her voice was softer, placating Dreslya’s look of hurt and confusion. “Should Savras wish me to fall and another take my place, so be it, but until then I must do what my mother and her mother did before me. Alone.”

  Dreslya nodded and her quivering lip steadied. “Yes, forgive my intrusion. I did not mean to offend.” She bowed and turned to leave.

  Sameska’s stern explanation belied the sudden rage that built within her, but she held it in check. As she watched Dreslya walk away, she wondered what new rumor or derisive comment might be made of this behind her back and decided she might have her hand in it as well.

  “Wait.” Sameska’s voice echoed in the long hallway, sounding louder than it was. Dreslya stopped, cast in the darkness between two windows, but did not turn.

  “Yes, High Oracle?”

  “Instruct the oracles and the hunters to gather in the sanctuary at noon tomorrow.”

  Dreslya turned then, worry spread across her smooth features as the import of Sameska’s words hit her.

  “All of them? A gathering?”

  “Yes, child, all of them,” she replied, enjoying the moment, eager to proclaim her terrible secret and assert her authority once again over the whisperers and doubters of the church. Then she added, “Something is coming, and we must be prepared.”

  She left Dreslya standing in the dim hallway, mystified and frightened, and closed the heavy doors of the sanctuary, ending their conversation.

  Sameska paused behind those doors, pleased with herself and feeling younger than ever as she straightened her robes and studied the circular chamber.

  She stepped quickly to the edge of the rune circle. She recited a traditional prayer and cast a minor spell of seeing, a divination to guide her through the visions she hoped to receive, felt confident she would receive. She focused her mind, blocking out all but the circle from her thoughts, studying its edges, arcane symbols intertwined with the divine.

  The Hidden Circle was the path of the oracle, the center of Savras’s attention in the temple. She sighed and trembled as she placed one sandaled foot within its rings.

  She had no chance to pray or meditate, or even to draw breath before she screamed in shock and pain. Sameska was thrown to the center of the circle as power flared around her, pulling her down and squeezing her mind. Torn free of her weak skull, her consciousness was sent beyond the temple, beyond her pain-wracked body. She fought feebly, attempting to wrest control by mere reflex, before giving in to the invisible thread of magic that wrapped itself about her spectral form.

  Never had Savras been so forceful. He had been silent so long, had withheld his guidance and voice. Sameska had been as blind as the common people who looked to her for protection and truth.

  I’m being tested, she thought. This is a test and I must pass, I must be vigilant.

  Again she was thrust into the Qurth, flying through its perversions of nature, cursed so long ago by a Calishite sorcerer. His magic had survived centuries, winding its way into the soil and the roots, corrupting those that fed there. His curse was drawn into the forest’s green embrace time and again to leave its lasting taint.

  Miles sped by in moments, and as they did, she saw flashes of other places. Visions blurry and clear at once entered her traveling mind. The forest speeding by her was her present, but the fleeting images that appeared were the past. That same awareness one has in dreams told her she was seeing places and events that were already written in recent history. At one time, long ago, she might have been comforted by those things that were done and unchangeable, but the horror and fear she felt as she watched the unfolding scenes in her unblinking sight made her brutally aware of her mistakes and helplessness.

  Dark ships gathered on a reddened sea. The gentle shores near the peaceful town of Logfell suffered a tide of plague and terror. Sameska felt a distant connection to her screaming body, but could hear nothing and saw only the blood, felt the press of bodies against her invisible form as she became part of what was shown to her. Though she could not touch what was no longer physical, the emotions in that place were a tangible mesh of accusation and betrayal. An aching stress infected her, catching her up in its urgent rush and soundless clawing.

  She watched lives fade away, replaced with something else, something driven by passionless need. Something dark that pulsed and burned, leaving her numb and disoriented. Her vision moved and she stood on the edge of a clearing, looking into a bowl-like depression in the forest.

  The ground was covered in fragments of worked stone, the ruins of an ancient place that she knew without knowing as dim familiarity blended with vague memory. The once-large city existed here as an outline of fallen walls, grown over with thick vines and the old roots of trees. Its only significant feature was a single tower untouched by time or weather. Sameska knew she saw a place of legend and myth, a tale she’d been told as a child and a story some said was as old as the Qurth itself.

  The ruins of Jhareat and the tower that survived its fall.

  At its base was a woman in red, a stark contrast to the dark greens and heavy grays around her. Sameska was mesmerized by the woman’s stare, though she felt naked and humbled under its scrutiny. Then she realized the woman was looking directly at her, or at least seemed to be. Something else was moving in the forest behind Sameska’s hovering, spiritlike form.

  A muted pulse hummed in the air around her, followed by palpable heat that she knew could only be a construct of her mind. She imagined her body, chilled on the cold stone floor in the rune circle. The pulse grew stronger and closer, pushing through the undergrowth, heedless of thorns and razor vines. Sameska could not see them, yet in great numbers they arrived, out of sight, unbreathing, joining her in the long gaze of the woman in red.

  The heat became nearly unbearable, its aura twisting the atmosphere and distorting the faint light. The high oracle wanted to gasp for air but had no mouth, no lungs with which to breathe, and the scene began to dissolve. The rippling air became dark waves as the tower and the strange woman disappeared and Sameska found herself floating above the coastline again, above another little town.

  The confusion and vertigo of a dream stole over her as she tried to focus, wanted to yell and scream at the far-away guards on the outer wall, warn them to run, to avoid what was coming. She knew that she was witnessing the present yet nothing could impede the progress of whatever danger crawled toward those gates under the cover of darkness.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  No warning came, no war-cry to alert the lazy guards, no marching drum to crush the morale of the few defenders there were in Targris. Arrows struck down the five guards watching the western gate. The first crucial moments of the attack passed in quiet peace.

  In the streets, people were hurrying home. Merchants packed up their wares. Those quarantined with the blush slept fitfully, disturbed by terrible dreams and fevered delirium. Only a few saw the western gates open—only a few casually turned from mundane tasks to see what merchant caravan or traveling adventurer sought refuge for the night. What they saw froze them in their steps; terror overtook them as bestial creatures rushed forward, baring white fangs and jagged blades.

  Those few witnesses ran and hid, too frightened even to scream out, to make themselves targets. The gnolls passed them by, unconcerned with the meek, determined to eliminate the strong. This strategy they were largely unfamiliar with, but their pack leader Gyusk had excelled in it.

  The bodies of the guards atop the western gate had barely cooled before Mahgra’s incursion fully began. Nearly the entire city watch had been struck down, and no surmountable defense seemed possible to those who watched from wind
ows and prayed for salvation.

  As his gnolls did their work, Mahgra walked the length of the city walls, lacing them with spells and minor magic, alarms and illusions to ward off attempts at escape. The gates he sealed as they had been in Logfell, though his spells were more effective than those cast from rocking longboats. He relished working his magic and seeing it up close, perfecting the slightest syllables and gestures.

  Homes began to burn, citizens were thrown into the streets and herded together. A foolish few had been killed trying to defend against the numerous attackers, and those had been grizzled old warriors who still felt the lure of battle. Retired in the shadow of the Qurth and battling only the occasional bold beast that ventured out of its edges, they were unprepared for the assault, lulled into false security by their oracles’ visions and the town’s lack of strategic or economic value.

  A group of gnolls began to destroy and burn the gardens around the Temple of the Hidden Circle. They spat on the ground of their enemies—the church had thwarted many such attacks in the past—before entering its sanctuary and continuing their enraged defilement.

  Finishing his work, Mahgra breathed deeply the smoke-filled air, striding confidently down the main street. His well-kept robes fluttering in the wind, he cut for himself the image of a consummate conqueror. His attack had been swift, well planned, and made easy by perfect execution. That Targris had been an easy mark was of no concern; victims would scream with or without swords in their hands. Survivors would tell tales of the ogre’s night of attack in awe and deep-seated fear. He always left a few survivors despite Morgynn’s concerns.

  His mistakes in Innarlith were far behind the Order now, ancient history as new vistas spread before them.