After the initial surprise, he pushed all thoughts aside, as he felt the presence of his companions at his back. He walked forward a pace or two to give them adequate space. Some of them were quite large.
He looked down at himself out of habit, seeing the familiar black and red, studded-leather jerkin he always wore when in the field. The matching breeks upon his legs were tucked into knee-high boots, stout, steel-reinforced. From the belt about his waist hung his longtime friend, his long sword – Dräk-Mür, which meant anguish in the disgustingly sweet language of this particular realm. Smiling, he caressed its’ wide pommel. It was Vyche-forged, so it hummed lightly with the boiling magics within. Soon, my old companion, soon you will drink much blood and taste much gore. Soon…
Out of the night, from behind a pair of large trees with low hanging branches, walked three figures. Two of them were small, almost child-sized, the other was monstrous. If he hadn’t been expecting them, knew them for who they were, he would’ve drawn his weapon immediately and commanded the rest of his Band to prepare for battle.
That not being the case, he reacted in the opposite and casually walked toward them. His armored fingers hooked upon his belt at either side of his waist, he planted his feet a shoulder-length apart. The others came forward out of the shadow and into the light. His eyes settled upon the hulking, four-legged beast as it approached. It stood nearly five feet at the shoulder on four heavily muscled legs culminating in broad feet and cruel, three-inch claws. Its’ mouth was made great by a huge row of sharp, yellowed fangs splotched here and there with some dark fluid. Clutched between its’ massive molars was what looked like the bone of the upper portion of an arm, belonging to a not quite, fully grown human being. Its’ eyes shown red and burned like coals deep in a fire, smoldering and hot, without depth or life. They burned with hate, death and malcontent. It lowered its’ head closer toward the sodden earth, baring more of its’ horrible teeth and the bone as well, as if it was bowing to him.
It was, of course.
The sight of the bone though made him frown, his face darkening with anger.
“I thought I made it clear there were to be no incidents that could draw the attention of the local authorities?” he lisped, his voice like sandpaper over coarse wood.
“My Lord, a matter of some… shall we say, magnitude arose. I’m afraid my pet had to attend to it in order to ensure another, even more important, condition of yours remained intact,” said one of the small figures as it too came from the deeper shadows of the trees.
He had seen it clearly the whole time. His vision was quite capable of piercing through the deepest shadow. His eyes danced over the small form. It was no larger than a human child of four, maybe five years of age, though its body completely wrapped from head to toe in a long flowing, black robe, complete with a hood and low cowl. Its’ face was hidden from view. He could only make out the creatures twisted, wizened hands and the very lowest portions of its arms, both greatly wrinkled and pale in the starlight.
“Explain yourself, Prēost, or die here,” he said gruffly. His companions behind him shuffled as they readied themselves to carry out any order, should he choose to give one.
Speaking as if he hadn’t heard the threat upon his person, the tiny figure motioned toward the other small figure still in the shadows. He turned back to look at the Vülfen, the hooded figures’ diminutive companion didn’t come forward, though, but chose to stay close to the hindquarters of the great beast. “My pet, as commanded, had been keeping tabs upon the Twelve with all the due diligence of her good offices and discovered this very night that one of them was about to be harmed. She acted upon the situation accordingly.”
“And from the trophy still within the beast’s maw, I deem this act involved the death of a human,” said the creature clad in armor, barely able to contain his fury. By the Storm Lord, himself, I told them there was to be no slayings of any sort during the course of this mission! Stealth and deception are the only tools needed here! He seethed his jaw as clenched nearly as tight it he’d done when he traveled from his plan to this one.
“Regrettably, m’Lord, this is true – a human, a male human, was slain by my Pets’ familiar. The actions of this particular human would’ve proved detrimental to your long term plans,” replied the hooded figure, clasping its’ hands before it, rubbing them together in false supplication.
He considered this for a moment, staring hard at the tiny robed figure, who hadn’t moved. Not even a flinch was evidenced under a gaze that would’ve sent others screaming in fear. “Are there any other such incidents I should be made aware of, Prēost?” each word clipped as if he were eating them, instead of speaking aloud.
“No, my Lord, all else is going according to plan. The Twelve have been identified by our most excellent tracker here. None of the Guardians will escape us,” he began motioning once more to the other small framed creature in shadow, “They should be easily rounded up once the Rending is initiating and the Melding begins.”
He just grunted, but didn’t say anything for a time.
Only the traffic behind him could be heard.
“The Kring-Hël as well?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes, m’Lord, the boy has been marked as well as his two little sisters. My Flesher has made it her mission to be very, very close to those three at all times.” From his stance alone, he could tell the small man was being smug.
“And the Elemental?” he went on, not about to compliment the wrinkled old man nor his bitch of a Flesher either.
A loud cracking abruptly resounded through the brisk night air. The great beast had begun to chew through the arm bone in his jaws, small splinters and fragments peppering the ground about its paws.
“She is almost as important as the Kring-Hël,” he added, scratching at the underside of his snout, masking his discomfort of the beast as it chomping through the three-quarter inch bone with ease.
“The Isighünd is keeping a close eye on her, My Lord. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his dedication in this matter, she might’ve been hurt, quite badly. I’m afraid, the human boy had very bad intentions toward the girl. It would have been a messy one, indeed.” The diminutive, coifed figure glance up into the starlight, his chin and mouth coming into view, his lips pulled thin with a wide grin. He actually hopped one foot to the next in what could only be excitement. “You know, my Lord, how much we Prēosts love a good rape!” he said through a quivering voice. “I believe it would’ve been worse than that.”
He ignored the others expression, knowing full well how much the other relished sexual torture. If what he said were true, then it was probably for the best the human male had been slain. Besides, he had decided long ago, it would be him who would have her maidenhead. It was a welcoming thought that it remained intact. “Well, we surely couldn’t have abided that, Prēost.”
“Indeed, my Lord.”
“Well, then where are we to lay in waiting until the appointed time?” he asked gruffly, glancing behind him at the fifty or so figures that had followed him from his world. He swept his gaze back toward the three figures in front of him.
“We are currently within the confines of the park of San Pasqual, as the human’s term it. We will have but a short trip into the Arroyo of Saco to the east, naught more than a mile or so from here. That is where our hidden camp lies,” the hooded man replied, pointing past him, over his right shoulder where the valley they were standing within turned into a canyon of sorts.
“Good, then let’s be about it and get out of the open,” he commanded curtly, spun on his heel and began walking in the direction the small man had indicated. His companions immediately followed in tight military formation.
At his back, the wrinkled, pale man, the Prēost smiled anew. “As you wish…”
He made a series of quick gestures to those of his Band with one hand and they began to fan out, scouting the area. Their huge, lumbering bodies were amazingly quiet as they scurried from the park.
T
en seconds later, San Pasqual Park was as empty as it usually is at this time of night, excepting of a few cowering birds and rodents that dared not move from their dens or places of hiding until almost an hour had passed.
The minions of Storm had frozen them with terror.
~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~
~ 16 ~
A Second Sighting
Sunday, November 21st, 11:49 am:
Louis sat on the lower patio of his backyard, having changed out of the clothes he’d worn to church in favor of a pair of gray shorts, an over-size tank top and a pair of beat up sneakers. They were his “play clothes”, though to him they were merely comfy older garments that still fit him. They were over a year old. They were, beyond a doubt, better to wear than the itchy black slacks, the stifling, dark blue, button up shirt and dress shoes he’d been wearing earlier.
Sitting cross-legged in the wane sun of late autumn, he was enjoying what little warmth the day provided as he played with a few Bionicles and various action figures from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones universe. He was deeply engrossed in the mock war he’d devised between two factions. He was having them interact within one another in precise, slow-motion combat moves he measured and timed to make sure both sides played “fair”.
Still, a little upset by the absence of his father, he was trying his best to make good on a bad situation. This proved particularly difficult during his soccer game yesterday. Louis had actually managed to score a goal - however accidental it may have looked to everyone else. It had counted and that’s what mattered to Louis. It had his first scoring point of the year. It would’ve been nice if his father had seen it. His mother had been excited enough, maybe a little too much, but it wasn’t quite the same. The huge banana split his mother had bought him afterward in celebration had assuaged a bit of his regret at not having his father there in his customary cardigan sweater and age-old Cubs baseball cap. Three delicious flavors of ice cream with all the trimmings tend to do that to kids like him. Big eaters, was his preferred way to term it.
On the other hand, he would’ve traded the confection in a second for his father’s presence any day of the week. Still, the banana split had been scrumptious, though.
He glanced up from his battle and looked around as a chill wind blew across his body, through the thin material of his tank. It made him shiver of a sudden, more than enough to rouse him from his thoughts. He wondered if the weather was about to change as his eyes danced around the patio - a drain-canted affair eleven feet wide and forty-five feet long. It was situated in the lower portion of his backyard and bisected by a brick encased stairway leading to the upper patio. The stairs continued beyond, all the way to the farthest reaches of the property positioned even higher up the hill his parents’ house abutted.
Maybe I should’ve worn a sweater or something.
He didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, other than the air. It was much cooler than it had been just prior to the passage of the wind a few moments ago, but the sky remained clear, devoid of clouds. He couldn’t see from his vantage. The backyard was in a narrow valley, surrounded by the two ridges to either side of him. His parents’ house had been built upon the shoulders of one of them. Thus, he was afforded a good deal of the heavens. It was all blue sky above him.
About the patio were scattered a few plastic chairs, though a good majority of them were stacked up against the L-shaped retaining wall, supporting the stairs as they continued up to the higher portions of the yard above. There were also a few small white end tables made of plastic about the area as well as an ever-growing pile of trash bags full of crushed soda and beer cans.
Louis recycled them in order to get extra money. Funds he usually used to buy video games or more expensive toys his parents wouldn’t buy for him. They were amusements, he himself, would have to save up for.
Be responsible, and learn at an early age to work hard for what you want in life. Blah, blah, blah! How many times had he heard that from his mother?
On the far end of the patio, there was the clothesline his mother used to hang their more delicate garments to dry after washing, ones she didn’t like to put into the dryer for a full cycle. There was some outdoor shelving beyond the clothesline as well, within which his father stored some tools, old magazines, and other age-old junk Louis had never gone through.
There was nothing else out there with him - nothing, other than the chill.
With half a mind to go in and fetch a sweater, Louis was about to get up, but abruptly decided against it. He wasn’t a baby anymore, in need of “baby” coverings every time there was a brisk wind or a puff of icy air. He would survive. He was fine. So, without a second thought, he picked up Princess Amidala and made her run away from the battle with quick, stiffs hops.
“Oh, Indiana save me, please, that terrible Darth Sidious has sent his evil Bionicle warriors after me,” he said, in what he thought was a pleading female voice, but sounded more like the bleat of a baby goat.
He grabbed the fedora wearing, bullwhip bearing, figure of Indiana Jones with the other hand. “Hurry up, Doll! I haven’t got all day,” using his deepest range in imitation of Harrison Ford’s voice, but was more of a graveled version of Amidala’s screeching tones.
“I’m trying, Indie, but - .”
“What is this you do, boy? This changing of your voice, while moving of humanoid figures about, what is it for? Why do you do this?” It was a raspy, mushy voice spoken from Louis right hand side, from above. It startled the boy. He nearly jumped to his feet directly from his sitting position. The voice had come so suddenly and so unexpected…
“Whoa!” he yelled before he could contain himself, thoroughly shaken. His eyes darted toward the sound of the voice.
What he saw made him stop short. The outraged comments on the tip of his tongue turned to ash in his mouth. It was a child-sized figure, clothed in stained, black robes. The hooded coif of the garment was drawn down so he couldn’t see the face within. A wide belt was cinched about its waist. It wore thick leather boots, at one time dyed black, but were now scuffed and worn as if they’d been exposed to the elements for a decent amount of time without any break. It sat upon the retaining wall, its’ hands resting upon the top of the stucco-covered, cinderblock wall. It had placed them to either side of its small body. Its’ feet were dangling, swaying slightly as if it were a child, bursting with excitement. From where he sat, Louis could make out the skin of its hands. They were gnarled and discolored, but not bruised in appearance or even reddened with rash or the like. Rather, they looked sickly to the boy - putrid, yellowish, as if the robed figure was somehow diseased.
“It is possible you hadn’t heard me over the din of your intense conversation with those human-looking figurines? Did you not hear my query? I did in fact ask, young man, what is it you are doing?” It spoke to him again, its’ voice like sandpaper over a piece of mucus-drenched wood.
Confused and uncertain of the topic the creature referred, Louis shook his head negatively and frowned. “What?”
“This thing you were doing just now, this capering about with those little representations of humans in your grasp, making them speak with your mouth. What were you doing with them?” it replied immediately, though its tone belied patience as if it expected Louis not to understand.
Louis frown deepened. “What do you mean ‘doing with them’? I wasn’t doing anything with them, I was playing with them,” he clarified with equally patronizing tone. He was fairly sure this was some neighborhood kid dressed up in a Jawa costume with one of those voice alternation microphones attached to a hidden headset within his hood.
Stupid kid, you might have scared me at first, but I’m not going to fall for your lame ass tricks now!
“Ah, playing… this is what you call it? I have never before seen a child at play and was curious as to what the act was called. Where I come from we just tickle, a whole, whole lot,” it added, though Louis wasn’t sure if the kid was talking to him or to
himself.
“Well, good for you,” he began after a couple of seconds of awkward silence. “So now you know, so why don’t you bug off and leave me alone. I don’t want any company right now.” He paused as another thought occurred to him. “Besides, it’s really rude to just barge into someone’s backyard without any permission, you know.” He was scowling as he gathered his toys closer to him, suddenly feeling protective of them.
Maybe this stupid kid wants to jack my toys or something…
“What if, I do not wish to ‘bug off’, Louis Willigan? What if, I mean to stay here for the rest of this late morning and on through the afternoon, and even beyond that?” countered the small figure, the swing of its legs increasing, congruent to its’ level of excitement. No, it was true excitement. Maybe, it was something else he was seeing. Agitation, maybe? Was that it? This whacked-out kid was getting mad at him?
“Well, you can’t stay, you little creep, because this is private property! All I have to do is call the cops and your toast, man.” Louis got to his knees and stuck his chin out at the kid in defiance. “So, why don’t you save me the trouble of getting up and yelling for my mom to call the police to get your sorry ass out of here. Why not make it easier on yourself, ok? You know, just get the hell out of here.” He waved at the kid as if to dismiss him.
Then, in the background, quite possibly, from inside his parent’s house, he heard a dog bark, followed by a yell and the crash of something large being upset.
Louis ignored it, because to his surprise, not a single word of his threat had frightened the tiny robed figure, as he expected. It simply reared back. Then, it laughed out loud, a hoarse wheeze of mirth, half-obstructed by too much flem in the kid’s throat, bubbly and slick with goo. At the same time, as the figure’s head tilted back, sunlight hit the lower portion of its’ face, exposing molted, yellowish skin matching its hands exactly. Its mouth was drawn back with a grin impossibly wide, much too wide for an orifice belonging to any child, even one in costume. Its gums were as black as coal. Its teeth were colored to the precise hue of urine and bloodied where they met decayed gums.
The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves Page 14