In The Shadow Of The Beast

by Harlan H Howard

  Sigourd was about to turn and motion for Jonn Grumble to keep his own council lest he alert any guards, when a slight scraping up ahead drew his attention.

  The space in which Sigourd and Jonn Grumble moved stretched away down the length of the pod, terminating in yet another spherical opening covered with more of the gossamer gauze.

  Sigourd didn’t need to wait and listen to know that the sound was coming from behind that curtain. Moving with more urgency now, he and Jonn Grumble arrived at the second portal and slowly pulled aside the gauze, to reveal within the thing that Sigourd had quested for all these long weeks.

  There, sitting beside a softly glowing orb that seemed to grow out of the floor of the chamber, was Isolde. Cast in the soft light, she seemed even more beautiful than Sigourd remembered. Her pale features were alight with a radiance all their own, yet the solemnity of her expression was unmistakable.

  ‘My love..’ breathed Sigourd. When Isolde looked up at the sound of his voice, there was astonishment written on her face, but that solemnity did not entirely leave her eyes.

  This had not occurred to Sigourd, who flew across the room, caution be damned, and swept Isolde into his arms. He held her for long moments as she hugged him tight, before finally kissing her upon he scarlet lips with all the passion that had been pent up in his heart.

  ‘I knew I would find you,’ said Sigourd as he held her close to him.

  ‘So did I, my love,’ she said, her head resting upon his shoulder.

  Sigourd stepped back, his eyes moving quickly to assess her well being, ‘Are you hurt? Can you flee?’ he asked of her.

  ‘I am unharmed, they did not mistreat me.’

  ‘Who has done this, why did they snatch you away?’ asked Sigourd, his emotions rushing to the fore in an instant. Isolde was about to give answer, when Jonn Grumble coughed quietly from his position keeping watch near the portal, ‘I hate to have to rush a happy reunion, but maybe we could do the catch up when this place is safely behind us?’

  ‘Jonn is right,’ said Sigourd, ‘we must make haste and escape this place.’ So saying, he took Isolde by the hand and together the three of them fled from the chamber.

  Sigourd made to come the way they had arrived, but Isolde stayed his hand, ‘No, there is a quicker way down, it will lead us straight into the deeper forest.’

  ‘And we’re quite sure the deeper forest is where we want to be going, are we?’ asked Jonn Grumble uncertainly.

  Isolde took the lead, and led them instead down a narrow passageway that opened out onto the eastward gantry that Sigourd and Jonn Grumble had spied earlier.

  They were back outside amongst the trees and the other pods where now a thick mist had descended to shroud the treetops. The light of the orbs that hung between the trees was hazy now, and everything seemed to be cast in a disorienting, hazy twilight.

  As they made their way along the gantry, there came a sound that chilled their blood. The howling of a wolf, long and protracted, it carried on the cold night air like the braying of a ships horn far off and away on lonely seas. That lonely howling possessed all the murderous promise of the hunter unleashed.

  ‘They know...’ said Isolde, her voice trembling now with fear.

  ‘What, you can tell that by the sound of some scavenger howling at the moon?’ asked Jonn Grumble incredulously. But as he spoke, another wolf took up the cry of the first, and then another, and another. The howling was coming from all around them now. Echoing out of the mists near and far. It was impossible to tell how close the makers of those blood chilling sounds actually were.

  ‘There is more to this place than meets the eye,’ whispered Sigourd.

  ‘There is no time to dally. We must leave this place,’ she Isolde, her voice wrought with a desperate need to be away.

  Sigourd nodded, and Isolde turned once more to lead them. In the course of their head long flight, Sigourd lost his bearings entirely. He could no longer tell which way was north or south, if they were going up or down. He feared that he would take a wrong step and tumble over the edge of the gantry, but Isolde seemed so totally convinced of her direction he could do ought but follow her footsteps as faithfully as he could. All the while, the ululating braying of the wolves echoed all around them.

  Down through the mist they descended. It almost felt as if they were falling through the impenetrable miasma so quick was their descent. Sigourd’s feet were churning up great puffs of vapor that stirred between his legs in coiling tendrils. His footfalls felt as nothing against the heavy mist as the trio made their descent.

  Of a sudden, the ground rose up to meet them. It was under their feet so unexpectedly and so solidly that both Sigourd and Jonn Grumble collapsed onto all fours.

  ‘Quickly, ’ said Isolde, ‘we must make for the cover of the deep forest.’

  Picking themselves up without pausing to dust off, Sigourd and Jonn quickly regained their feet, breaking into a run for the nearest trees that would provide them with any sort of reasonable cover.

  As they ran, the relentless braying of the wolves continued to echo and re-echo around them. The sound hanging in the cold night air far longer than it seemed possible for any mere animal noise to do so.

  They ran headlong through the dark forest. Only the barest slivers of silvered moonlight fell to cast poor illumination in aid of their flight. That moon was still masked by a gathering of the heavy clouds that hung brooding in the sky.

  Bracken and low hanging branches whipped past them, stinging bare faces and snagging loose clothing. In and amongst the gigantic red trees that populated this forest were smaller cousins that nevertheless offered impediment aplenty to the trio. They ducked in and around those trees in an effort to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the strange village they just infiltrated.

  The trio entered a small clearing in which the trees of the forest, large and small, seemed to maintain an almost perfect circular perimeter around an area open to the night sky. Standing there on the edge of the clearing, some fifty meters across, Sigourd cold not shake the feeling that they were already surrounded.

  The light of a moon partially obscured by rolling clouds shone down on them, and as Sigourd looked upon its radiance, as he had in his dreams, there came to him a strange sensation. It was as if he could feel the rush of blood through his own veins. The hammering of his heart in his chest. The intuitive understanding of dangers unseen.

  From the darkness of the surrounding trees, eyes flickered open. At first two or three pairs of yellow eyes. They hung, suspended in the murk like nuggets of purest amber, shot through with a vertical black slit of a pupil. Then another pair, and another, and another until the trio found themselves surrounded by eyes in the dark. The howling of the wolves ceased suddenly.

  Now Sigourd and Isolde and Jonn Grumble looked back at those golden points of light as surely as those same menacing orbs looked back at them. A deathly silence had befallen the clearing, and Sigourd could hear nothing but the gentle soughing of the wind in the trees and the hammering of his own heart in his breast.

  He pressed Isolde behind him so that he might come between her and any threat, and drew his sword. To his left Jonn Grumble held his own sword staff ready, a sneer of feral challenge upon his lips, ‘I think we definitely took a wrong turn somewhere,’ said the wild man through clenched teeth.

  And then the voice came. Booming out of the darkness, heavy with the weight of authority yet also riven with a savage lilt that cut through the quiet of the surrounding forest like razors through flesh.

  ‘You are indeed brave, Sigourd Fellhammer,’ said the voice. ‘But bravery can make foolish the noblest of intentions.’

  Sigourd puffed out his chest to fill his lungs, so that when he spoke his words would not be afflicted with the shiver of timidity that fluttered in his heart, ‘Then step forward out of the shadows, if you are fool enough, and I will show you bravery,’ he said boldly.

  From the darkness of the tree line, savage l
aughter boomed.

  ‘You continue to impress me, young lord,’ said the voice, ‘but let us bring this deceit to an end.’

  From the shadows, a tall figure emerged into the silvered light of the shrouded moon. Broad about the shoulders and thick set in the arms and chest, he was clad in a leather bodice and draped with a cloak of rough hewn cloth. A deep hood was pulled up over his head, and from within its depths twin amber jewels twinkled, glaring at the trio across the clearing.

  Slowly, the figure reached up to pull the hood back, revealing a face so hard and rutted that for all the world it looked like to be carved from the dark wood of the great trees hereabouts. He possessed a heavy brow that hung over his deep set eyes like the edge of a cliff, and his high cheekbones framed a jaw that was set as hard as the volcanic rock of the Ash’harad.

  When Arook spoke again, his voice was low, but the tone of threat was unmistakable, ‘Lower your weapons.’

  Sigourd’s response was to assume a fighting stance. He brought up the tip of his blade up so that it was pointed squarely at the formidable looking figure not ten meters in front of him.

  Around the shadowed perimeter of the clearing, the floating pairs of eyes seemed to shift as if agitated, like they were preparing themselves to launch from the cover of the forest in frenzied attack. But instead they continued to stare on, blinking here and there as they glared at Sigourd and his companions.

  For his part, the craggy faced figure that stood before Sigourd made no indication that he had registered the young lords defensive posture. He seemed content to simply stand there, as if waiting for some sign or signal.

  Sigourd was so intent on the figure and the baleful glaring eyes in the woods that he did not notice the curved blade edging its way toward him until it was pressed firmly against his throat. He looked down to see the blade resting there, a momentary confusion flashing through him, and then turned slowly to see that the delicate hand gripping the weapon belonged to none other than his beloved Isolde. His eyes went wide with surprise, ‘Isolde, what are you doing?’

  ‘Do as he says, my love,’ said Isolde, ‘this will go far easier for you if you do not resist us.’

  Jonn Grumble spun on his heel, bringing his own weapon up so that he might strike at Isolde.

  ‘No!’ cried Sigourd, Isolde’s curved blade still pressed against his throat, a solitary bead of blood tumbling down the nape of his neck. Jonn Grumble stayed his hand, the sword staff poised above his head ready to strike.

  ‘Oh, I can definitely see the attraction with this one!’ said Jonn, his eyes burning with the light of a cornered animal set to attack.

  ‘Both of you will lower your weapons,’ insisted Isolde, a steely undercurrent of menace in her voice that brooked no argument. Jonn Grumble looked to Sigourd, who nodded reluctantly to his wild friend. There was a moments hesitation before both men slowly lowered their weapons, dropping them to the ground with dull thuds.

  In the instant that the weapons landed upon the soft earth, figures from the forest’s edge rushed forward to seize Sigourd and Jonn Grumble. These figures were dressed in a similar fashion to the men who had stolen Isolde from the palace, all cloaks and hoods, their faces hidden beneath deep shadow.

  Jonn Grumble struggled in vain against his captors, snarling and cursing at those who clamped strong hands firmly about his arms and torso.

  Sigourd gave no resistance whatsoever as his captors held firm. He could do nothing but stare at Isolde, his eyes betraying a depth of confusion and sadness that he had never known.

  ‘Why, Isolde....?’ said Sigourd, his voice rising barely above a whisper, ‘why have you done this?’

  Isolde had lowered her blade the moment the other’s took hold of Sigourd, and she now stood before him with eyes that were full of a different kind of sorrow. Regret. The regret of the reluctant betrayer. She could not bear to see the pain in Sigourd’s eyes, and looked away, casting her gaze upon ground.

  ‘Isolde is an integral part of a far grander design than simply to steal your affections, young lord,’ said Arook, who had come to stand beside the crestfallen girl. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, which seemed to renew her vigor somewhat as she looked to him with the conviction of one who has made necessary sacrifices for a greater cause.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ said Sigourd. ‘Who are you!?’

  Arook stepped closer so that he might look more clearly into the boy’s eyes. He moved with an easy, feline grace despite his considerable size and fearsome appearance.

  ‘We have brought you here to this sacred place so that you might witness your own emergence Sigourd,’ he said.

  ‘Emergence? What madness are you speaking?’ said Sigourd, trying to mask the uncertainty in his voice.

  ‘Through study of our ancient texts, we have determined the exact time and place that you would come to us, Sigourd. We have known for hundreds of years that tonight you would slough off the skin of your former self and begin your journey into a new existence. Behold the lunar zenith,’ Arook gestured to the shining moon hanging low in the sky. The clouds that had formerly obscured it seemed to have been burned away by the fierce brilliance of the glowering sphere.

  ‘The great eye of the wolf looks down upon us,’ continued Arook, ‘it will cast deep into your soul Sigourd, and you will see in its light the course of your destiny!’

  Strong hands gripped Sigourd about the head, forcing him to look directly upon that hunter’s moon. As he looked, the feeling of momentous energy built steadily until it coursed through him. It was the manifestation of all of the sensations he’d experienced in his dreams, in his fight with Jonn Grumble, in the moment when he’d maimed the brute in the tavern at Yarneth Vardis. It was all that magnified a thousand times. His heart became a percussive hammering in his ears, his blood rushed in his veins like the surging of a tidal wave crashing ceaselessly against a forgotten rocky shore. He could feel the throbbing pressure of the minds of those around him, and those others who remained concealed in the shadows at the edge of the clearing. He could feel the heat of their collective life force, it surged in and around him like underwater currents. He felt so alive!

  But it was too much. Sigourd’s mind was on a precipice, about to fall and shatter. His body felt like it might burst with the excess of life force seething to escape his mortal shell.

  The moon, the terrible moon, so cold and remote, like the love of a distant god. Like an intelligence too vast for Sigourd to comprehend other than to be intimately aware of its soul rending scrutiny. He tried to look away but could not, his will was no longer his own.

  And still the surging life force built within him. Sigourd was wracked with agony, the marrow in his bones feeling as if it had quickened to molten lead. His blood boiled beneath skin that felt alive with a fire so intense it consumed him. His whole body seemed to be made of fire. Fire the destroyer, fire the great bringer of change.

  Inwardly, Sigourd burned in that silvered moonlight, his body a crucible of incandescent agony.

  But on the outside, he seemed to warp and shift. His limbs thickening, his fingers and nails lengthening. His face was stretching, the bones creaking and cracking as invisible hands worked to remake his flesh. Thick fur stood out on his arms and back, spreading rapidly to cover him, sprouting out from underneath his leather jerkin and over the top of his hunting breeches.

  Around him, Arook and the members of his congregation were going through the same change. Their faces turning to lupine snouts filled with rows of razor sharp incisors. Their hands and feet lengthening and the skin thickening. The digits terminating in wicked looking talons that would rend flesh like it was parchment.

  More of the pairs of amber eyes were coming forward too, emerging from the cover of the forest into the moonlight. Revealed, their bodies too were shifting with the flux of the remarkable metamorphosis.

  Sigourd was lost to the light of the moon. Blinded by ecstasy, burning in agony. His mind retreated to a place of saf
ety deep within himself. He was possessed by a feral, primal intelligence that he now realized had always been a part of him. Moving in the shadowed corners of his soul, always careful to stay away from the light of recognition. This was his true nature revealed and unfettered in the most cataclysmic way.

  Sigourd threw back his head and howled at the moon, the sound carrying high and loud into the crisp cool air of the night. Others joined in his ululating, exultant cry. He could not see them, he could only hear their voices joining his own, could only feel their life energies converging with his. Sigourd gave into himself utterly.

  In the middle of the madness, Jonn Grumble looked on horrified. He could barely speak as he watched Sigourd. His friend was shifting form before his eyes, becoming the sort of feral monster that surely belonged only in children’s fairytales, not here in the world of living, breathing flesh. Too consumed with their own transformation, Jonn Grumble’s captors slackened their grip, and he was able to shrug them off. He stood there for many moments, surrounded by the inhabitants of the forest dwelling.

  What he was seeing defied all explanation save for the foulest and darkest of magics. Sigourd, Isolde, the grim faced man who had addressed them. They were all shifting with the insanity of this...change.

  Jonn Grumble gripped his sword staff tightly between knuckles as white as snow. He would swing his weapon, he would cast down these nightmarish creatures. But how far would he get before they turned upon him, rending him limb from limb to feast upon his organs. Jonn Grumble did not fear death, a man of the Velvet Forests had no place for such weakness in his heart. But he was not fool enough to so casually invite the great reaper of souls to his door.

  And what of Sigourd? The wild man had yet to repay his blood debt to the boy. He had sworn his life to the service of the young lord until such time as the debt had been repaid in full. But more than that, Sigourd was his friend. Jonn Grumble had known many people in the course of his life, but few of them had been blessed with the lad’s purity of spirit.