Whoever I was, whatever had happened here, I needed to get moving before more barbarians or scavengers took hold of the courtyard and made escape impossible. I knew pestilence would soon take residence and kill me as sure as a dagger thrust. I needed food and equipment if I was going to survive. Unfortunately, everything of significant and obvious value had already been raided. Thankfully, something inside of me said that men raiding silver would often eschew apples, and apples were worth more to me at this moment than silver.
I levered myself to my feet. I limped through the keep, favoring bruised muscles and strained tendons, but I found it all the same: Death and the Dead. There must be a line a parish long to get into hell just from the bodies who littered this home turned to tomb. The noble lady, the stable boy, the servants, the cooks…no one had been spared. Men, women, and children had been crushed, hacked, throttled, or stabbed. One thing became clear: The attack came without warning, and had probably come through the gate before the defenders were roused.
Perhaps a guard had been asleep? Treachery from within? Something inside me began calculating odds.
There was no way to tell, but when I found a body-length mirror in the noble lady’s quarters I was sure this was just the spearhead of a deeper raid into the Kingdom. This one thing of vanity was easily the most valuable object in the castle, but they had left it behind, meaning speed was more important than gold. I paced around the lady’s room, ignoring the fact that her remains lay in all four corners at the same time. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and went in for a good long look at the stranger’s face inside.
I am a man, a human. When not filled with clotted blood, my hair is thick, wavy, and black and it travels past my shoulders. That says nobleman.
Nobleman?
Who else has time to care and clean long hair?
I nodded at my image. I fought the urge to cut it off and instead found a leather thong and tied it out of the way.
I’m Norian, I think. Way too much parentage has been passed back and forth between the countries during times of strife to be completely certain, but I was dressed as a Kingsman. My eyes are naturally blue, but at that moment the whites were stained red with blood. The swelling of my skull is going down, at least it looked smaller than it felt yesterday, this morning, or whenever, and I know that is a good sign.
Some may call me handsome someday, Though with a head like an overstuffed sack, that’s not likely at the moment.
I’m perhaps late twenties, early thirties, and my jaw blurred by at least a week’s worth of beard growth. My build is muscular, but not an axe man’s girth; A swordsman’s. Or a dancer. My form was pliant yet tough, fast and durable. My arms, chest, and back are like stone from years swinging pieces of tempered steel.
So where is your tempered steel now, hero? A shiver danced up and down my spine like a shaving razor carved of ice. I glanced back at the mirror. A short haired man stared back. Dressed in gray rags, his hands dripped with blood as his eyes burned over an insane rictus grin.
I bolted backwards, over the corpse of the recumbent princess, and toppled over onto the floor. My heart was thumping in my ears so fast it seemed only one continuous beat, but as I climbed to my feet his image had fled from the silvery surface. I bounded down the stairs like a man possessed, my heart crashing in my chest like constant thunder. An inescapable dread filled me as I felt my clothes peeled away to expose me completely to whatever dangers still lurked in this house of flies. My feet hammered the stones like a hailstorm.
I sprang upon the pallet and the Phantom/Angel sword was still there, clutching its glittering blue heart. I snatched it up and swung around in an arc, looking, almost expecting an attack. But as my hand felt the wire wrapped leather of the hilt, the panic faded as the pain returned. The headache felled me down like a club to the temple. My eyes trailed over the blackened blade in my crimson flecked hands, and it blurred into a moment perfect clarity. As the world strained to fit inside the confines of my broken skull, I saw clearly that the greatest reaction I had gotten from myself was a bottomless pit of dread over my own well being.
This does not speak well of my humanity. And there he was again, sharp and hateful, inside my head. He sneered at me.
Even if a man wishes to lift himself up a sheer cliff face, he can only do it so many times before tumbling back into the abyss. I had to leave this nightmare, and soon; Else the scenes of violence and death would slowly erode my mental walls and I would go mad. As soon as the agony abated, I set to work.
Like a mouse in a tomb, I took from the dead so that I might live. I gathered preserved foodstuffs and basic equipment: Blankets, lamp and fuel, tinder, flint, and hatchet. I nearly balked at collecting the clothes of the dead, but the murderer inside me ordered me to be practical. I did manage to find a slight purse of silver coins in the guardhouse. The main vault had been sacked, though, and it would appear that the great evil that had been done here was due to greed and not some darker malice.
There were no horses in the stables, no living ones let me say, but there was a set of saddlebags in which I could store my valuables. I also found ten full barrels of siege-oil in the gatehouse. Apparently the attack had come so fast that it had never been used to pour through the murder-holes and onto the incoming horde. I stared at the abandoned, thigh-sized barrels for long moments.
I have a use for you.
I was generous with it in the main hall, where people getting ready to eat had been summoned to fight for their lives. I bathed the bodies and parts of men alike in the courtyard. Forgotten friend and unknown foe, I made no distinction. When I left, lit torch in hand, I turned once more on the scene of my recent birth. I was made new, without knowledge of myself or the world beyond. I had no choice but to venture forth and begin again until the Fog lifted and let me know what life was truly mine. Not many men get the chance to do what I was about to; Start life over, though as wombs go it had a lot of room for improvement. I tossed the torch into the courtyard.
The flames caught cleanly, and burned hot, dancing over the bodies like demons devouring their get. But that was unfair, in truth this was a band of warriors getting their well-deserved funeral pyre. Once again, the small voice in the back of my head spoke. It said that it really did not matter that they had lost. They had died fighting because they had to. In so doing, they had lessened the burden on the rest of mankind by removing some small part of the evil in it. Then, the sharp, dark stranger swept the voice away with a stroke of his arm. He sat behind my eyes, tapping his foot and waiting for me to get going.
Still not sure what part I had played in this lightning siege, I watched the flames leap into the nameless keep and greedily lick at the lumber of its supports and blacken its stone with greasy soot. I offered a clumsy prayer to both the Gods of War and Death, that the defenders be welcomed. I was frightened that I could not even fool myself into believing it was any more than just another empty gesture.
I knew then that I was a practical man, for I turned from the fires and began along the road. From where, to where, I knew not.
The comforting weight of my weapon pressed on my back where I had tied it with cord, lacking a proper sheath. I tried to remain positive and took stock in my situation. I had food, a little water, a spear to use as a staff, a fine weapon, and sturdy boots. As I cleared the gates I gazed on the mountain range that spread outward in all directions, all directions except ahead. Well, at least I’m walking downhill.
The Fog murmured a town should be to the north and west. I did know I would soon need more food and more urgently well water not tainted by a soldier’s corpse. The Fog assured I could find it. I knew I needed the attentions of an herbalist for my wounds and a bath to stop smelling like a rotting kill. I also knew I would soon have need of a name, men do not trust a wanderer without a name…
Again the Fog lapsed into silence.
…The damned bastard.
2
The Walk
I got my bath in a hot-spring fed pond
only a few hours walk down the dusty road. I had followed a deer in the hopes of getting fresh meat, the thoughts of venison moistening my mouth. Yes, I had preserved meat and hard bread…but eating it is like sleeping in armor, and you know how I feel about sleeping in armor already. Then, as it lined up for a perfect shot, the world shifted behind my eyes and I missed badly with my scavenged spear. The weakened tip shattered against the bole of a tree four full paces from the buck. The deer simply looked at me as calmly as a dwarven lord gazing on a rat and bounded into the brush.
It is safe to say a master hunter, I am not.
There are times where a man can do nothing but laugh at himself, so I did. I sat on the ground, unable to stand as I held my head together with my bare hands and the pure joyous sound washed over me and filtered through the trees. I felt small fissures in my fragile self closing. I was vaguely disappointed at myself at having missed, but I comforted myself with the thought that I had recently come close to losing my head.
And I don’t know who did it, but I hope at least I returned the favor.
I was to find, however, that my hunt was not altogether unsuccessful. On the way back to the road, I came upon a deep, secluded pool not thirty paces from my way. Screened by the massive fir trees that populated this area, it was a bastion of comfort and safety. I scooped the steaming water into my mouth, mindless of the slight metallic tint and gulping until I my thirst was slaked. I filled my canteen. Lastly, giggling like a child, I stripped down to my bare flesh and lowered myself in slowly, as men have throughout time, sparing the more sensitive parts of my anatomy as the steaming water seeped into my bones.
My internal calendar was guessing it was early autumn; But the splashes of color that would normally adorn the boughs above were instead a deep, royal green. The floor of this wood was carpeted by rich pine needles that were kind to my feet and had graciously impacted into the mud, creating a soft pillow where I could rest my tender head as the water leeched the gore from my pores. For a few minutes, I could truly let go of everything.
I watched the branches above weave about each other, seeming to cast some ancient faerie spell. My eyes followed them back and forth, up and down…circles within circles, dancing together like the skeletal hands of old lovers…
The world was in color, bolder and richer than I had ever seen. The fir greens reached into me and pulled at me. The sparse clouds above were no mere white, but a brilliant mother of pearl. The water was warm, silken and wet like a virgin’s womb. I lifted my head from the coal-black loam to stare at a cloaked angel across from me standing chest deep in the pond.
I had always known he was there.
Something began to scrape my heart with veins of frost as the figure raised his arms. Two hands, carved of aged alabaster, emerged from within the robe woven of webs and night. He held a regal raven in his right hand, carved of ebon wood so pitted and worm-eaten it seemed to wither and crumble in his grasp. His left held the finest sculpture I had ever beheld. Easily ransomed for a king’s crown, the gold and ruby blazed in the shape of a lidless eye. Sparkling facets caught fire in the too bright sun, lighting an unending fury within it. He seemed to be offering the statuettes to me, waiting with the patience of one who has no life left to trickle through the hourglass. Power. Secrets. Wealth. I reached for the eye-
I awoke with the night. The water, still steaming, seemed to reach at me with glacier-forged talons. I knew then that I was no soothsayer nor priest, for dreams of this intensity are their stock in trade. I knew, in the deepness of my soul, that I was not the receiver of Great Things. Lastly, I knew that I was determined to leave the dreaming pond many leagues behind me before another hour of the night was upon me.
I exited the water and began pulling on some dead man’s clothes. I had left the cuirbouille armor behind at the keep, all of it a total loss. It had absorbed the worst of the wear and gore, never to be rid of the smells of the death and terror. In my weakened state I should be mourning the loss, but in reality I felt like a rabbit exposed in wide open field, with the shadows of hawks passing overhead: All I wanted was speed.
It took me less time than it took to say it to throw on the heavy breeches and thick linen shirt. I grabbed everything else without packing and took off down the road. I had gone half an hour before I stopped to finish dressing, even with the Dark Thing in the back of my head haranguing me as a fool. I paused in the shadow of an old evergreen tree and shook off the last of the dream, but I could not escape the feeling that my problems were just beginning.
This was the dress of a servant, a peasant, at odds with my sword and the expensive, rugged boots. It would become a problem when I hit civilization. Someone was going to look at me and figure I was a nobleman in disguise and consider kidnapping me for ransom, or a peasant who had stolen from a noble and stretch my neck. I needed a convincing story to keep myself alive. Again, I probed the Void, the mocking Fog that held me as its hostage.
I cursed as my feet angled down the mountain, trying in vain to put the vision behind me.
I should be happy that the bath had washed away a number of aches and pains, allowing me to move more or less normally. The day was bright and relatively silent, allowing me to hear any quiet conversation, drawn weapon, or clink of armor. The carpet of needles would disguise any escape I would have to make. I should be buoyant, after all things were looking up. Or at least looking up in comparison to those I had left behind. After a while, though, the Phantom Angel became heavy in my hands and I slung it over my shoulder on the stout leather thong. Then I readjusted it by a fraction.
I stopped- All wraiths and dreams forgotten.
I shifted the sword back to where it originally lay. There, it sat like a nettle on my skin. I shifted it back and indescribably, it was right. I moved it again and it gnawed at my hindbrain. It was like my skin knew where it was supposed to be. I moved it back into its rut. Without looking I sent my hand behind me at its greatest speed, soul screaming at sinew-
-My hand closed about the hilt as if born there.
I again took off the aged sword; Its carved angel of death staring eyelessly at me from underneath a metallic cowl…just like it did when standing in the pool. The hilt was well worn and the lower folds of the blue-hearted priest almost gone.
Who would not wear such an impressive weapon, given a chance?
Perhaps I am a mercenary? But what mercenary carries their sword on their back, where it is too slow to draw?
The spongy bruise that made up the side of my head began to throb as the Fog protested my constant probing. I once again decided that sitting befitted me more than falling, and I breathed deeply as the stabbing, searing hurt made my hands shake and my eyes blur.
I do not know how long I sat there, caught in the hands of some pitiless phantasm. I can say it did ebb, and I cursed the pond as a blighted place. I staggered off into the unknown forest, the quickly lightening saddlebag of supplies bouncing on my chest and back. I crested a hill and my feet stuttered into silence.
Trees carpeted the ground as it echoed down and away into valleys. To the north and south the mountains pushed the clouds out over the hills, into the plains, and across the rest of the world. To the north, a storm brewed in the caldron of the sky. I could see the angry angels of light and sound beginning their symphony inside the black, cottony masses. The setting sun painted the sky in a riot of color, but the encroaching dark came in columns that were legion. The storm crushed the color and light, cutting off the sun from all love and support, forcing it back over the horizon. It was a moment of truth, of beauty, of terrible honesty. I could only watch in wonder at the greatness that made me infinitesimal by comparison, a small light against the black sky.
And then the Dark Thing reached out and snuffed the candle flame with a wave of his hand. Instantly the obvious splendor became banal, drained of color and mass. I stood there for a few heartbeats more, a child with a broken toy, before the Dark Thing motioned for me to get going.
The dead
light left an echo of numb cold inside me, and the whole world lost its naked brilliance. A fresh wave of bone crushing force erupted behind my eyes. I blinked away tears, disturbed by their alien feel. I put aside the horrible pounding inside my head and began trundling down the mountain road.
Little did I know my fate was rushing toward me much faster than I could stagger toward it. The storm that night was a city full of wrath and clamor, and a village worth of rain. I was able to weather the short downpour underneath the boughs of a tightly packed family of firs and sleep the night without waking completely soaked. After a sketchy breakfast I set out.
The miles began to blend past me in tones of green accompanied by the hypnotizing scent of pinesap. I imagine that there are those of the bored petty nobles who would have loved to have joined my on my grand, epic quest, Whatever that was.
The woods were becoming friendlier, the light winning against the darkness the further east I traveled. I couldn’t help but feel better the more miles I placed between my arse and the keep. Excepting, of course, at certain times where the Fog twisted and turned inside me, threatening to shatter my skull. Oh, yes, other than the skull-shattering thing the trip was quite pleasant.
The dirt path I followed joined a well-traveled route, large enough to pass two carts abreast. I stopped to probe the earth with my fingers, relishing the ruts, hard packed even after the slight shower. The menace in my mind allowed me a smile. Roads this size, this well traveled, lead only into major cities and this heartened me. The ruts were dug deep, but unused for many weeks: The last of the harvests must have come to market a month or two ago. That would make what I had taken to be the early fall in reality a mild early winter.
It did not strike me to wonder how I knew these things after a long, measured look, the knowledge was so easy and certain I never pondered upon it. It wasn’t that I supposed that everyone would see what I did; It was that I did it without thinking. I was too busy hoping for a warm bath, a hot meal, and a night with a healer. Should I have pondered it more, I could have saved myself grief later.
I Know Not: The Legacy of Fox Crow Page 2