by J. A. Hunter
“Hello there, friends,” he said with a wave toward the figures. “Not sure if you understand me or not, but I’m hoping you do. Me and my friend here have come in search of Chief Kolle of the Ak-Hani clan. Don’t suppose you fine folks would be willing to give us a hand out of this pit, then point us in the right direction, eh?”
The masked faces regarded us for a long minute, then disappeared, retreating from view.
“Good work, Cutter,” I said, pushing myself upright, then brushing the flaky earth from the seat of my pants with one hand. “You scared them off.”
“As long as they don’t murder us,” he replied, voice drawn and worried, “I’ll consider that a win … Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to get that lucky,” he finished as the masked faces appeared once more.
“Chief Kolle,” one of them said, his voice deep and gruff, “where did you hear this name? Who told you to come to the lands of the Ak-Hani? And speak true, outsiders. If you lie, we will find out and you will suffer. Lie, and we will personally ferry you back across the stream and into the many arms of the Mairng Mong—the Spider Queen and her brood.”
For a long stupid moment, I looked to Cutter, expecting him to take the lead and answer. Instead, he stole a glance at me and planted a sharp elbow into my ribs. “You’re on, Grim Jack. These are your people, your quest, after all.”
I gulped then reached a hand into my tunic, pulling the leather thong the dying Murk Elf had entrusted into my care—the mark of the Maa-Tál, embossed with a raven. “My friend and I”—I hooked a thumb toward Cutter—“were taken captive by a black priest of Serth-Rog,” I began, then, as quickly as I could manage, I spooled out the tale, recounting our escape and my subsequent encounter with the dying Murk Elf. “So,” I concluded, “she gave me this talisman as a sign of my trustworthiness, and charged me with bringing word of her death to the chief of the Ak-Hani.”
They were silent for a moment. “I don’t like it,” a woman said, giving a shake of her head, the great horns of her mask swishing and swaying. “They are outsiders, Baymor, and he”—she nodded toward me—“is of the Lost Tribe. Everyone knows the Lost Ones cannot be trusted. How do we know they are not merely Viridian sympathizers? Sympathizers looking to curry favor by mapping our lands or assassinating Kolle? The human has a certain sneaky look to him. Is it so hard to believe he could be Sicarii?”
“And what of the talisman?” the man asked in return, more statement than question. “Does that not merit some small measure of trust?”
“No,” she replied flatly. “It is unwise. What if they captured this missing Maa-Tál, tortured her to learn the name of our chief, then stole the talisman? It is not beyond belief, Baymor. The Viridians’ shame and indecency know no bounds. Caution is better here, I think. Smarter. Let us kill them and wash our hands of this.”
“Amara makes a good argument,” said a different masked man. “These are evil days, after all. We’ll give them quick, clean deaths, then hang their bones by the path as a deterrent against other interlopers. This is good, I think.”
“Whoa boy, this is about to turn ugly,” Cutter whispered sharply in my ear. “Do something. Anything. This is your show, Jack. You’re the Murk Elf.”
The four on the ridge spread out, and suddenly each held a short curved bow, carefully knocking arrow to string. Oh no. They were going to execute us on the spot.
“Wait,” I shouted as a bout of inspiration struck. “The woman, the Maa-Tál who gave me the talisman, she gave me something else, too.” I whipped open my inventory and hurriedly removed my leather bracers, then hastily rolled up my left sleeve. I held my forearm up like a shield, the black handprint standing out in sharp relief against my gunmetal gray skin. “She marked me with this.”
For a long beat, nothing happened—which was both good and bad, considering the circumstances—but eventually, one by one, they lowered their raised bows. “He has the mark,” the man, Baymor, said. “Is there some explanation for this, Amara?” he asked, tone slightly accusatory.
“No,” the woman replied with a sigh. “No Maa-Tál would offer the mark unless the Shadow-Spark is present.” She paused, slung her bow, then crossed her arms as she regarded us. “I suppose the truth of his story is for Kolle to decide. We could still kill the human, though,” she offered with a shrug. “He has neither the talisman nor the mark. Truly an outsider. What say you, Lost One?” she shouted down to me. “Will you allow us to kill this traveling companion of yours to spare your life?”
Cutter stole an uneasy look at me, a nervous grin stretching across his face. “Don’t hang me out to dry here, Jack. We’re in this together, eh?”
I smiled, shook my head, and slid right, repositioning myself in front of Cutter. Using my body as a shield. “No,” I replied to the Murk Elf woman above. “Either you offer us both safe passage, or you kill us both.” I drew my warhammer from the frog at my belt. “But, word to the wise, we’re not going to go easy.” That wasn’t true—if they decided to kill us, we’d fold like a bad hand, but maybe they wouldn’t know that.
The four Ak-Hani suddenly broke into a chorus of chuckles and hoots. “Good answer,” Amara replied. “Perhaps you have what it takes to be Maa-Tál, after all. We will take you and your friend to see Kolle, but be warned. If there is deceit in your heart, Kolle will know, and what he will do to you will be far worse than death by spider.”
With the threat made, the four Ak-Hani quickly lowered down a pair of ropes and hauled Cutter and me out of the pit. It wasn’t all hugs and high fives after that, though. No, in short order, they bound our hands behind our backs with chafing strips of rope, then fitted us both with metal collars affixed to chains so they could drag us along. The collars, aside from being positively frigid, offered a string of terrible penalties:
Debuffs Added
Bound: Movement rate reduced by 10%; duration, indefinitely.
Drained: Health, Stamina, and Spirit Regeneration reduced by 30%; duration, indefinitely.
Inhibited: Carry Capacity -40lbs; Stealth is 50% more difficult; all spells have a 50% increased chance to fail; duration, indefinitely.
Assuming Cutter and I lived through this, I’d need to get my hands on a few of these collars—they’d sure come in handy against the enemies I’d made for myself over the past couple days.
“If you fail to keep up,” the woman said, rounding on me, “I will sling you over my shoulder and carry you all the way to Yunnam like a mewling child. And you”—she gave the chain attached to Cutter’s collar a stiff yank—“will keep up, or I will slit your throat and leave your remains for the crocodiles. Now move.”
TWENTY-EIGHT:
Chief Kolle
It took two or three hours of hard walking to get to the Murk Elf city, Yunnam. At first, the path was easy to follow, but the further into the forest we went, the more often the trail veered into thick tangles of swampy vegetation or hooked through shallow bogs, which made moving nearly impossible. Our guides, though, walked the route with the confidence of people who’d made the same trek a thousand times before. They seemed to know every pitfall, every stone, and their steps always found the stable rock in the mud or the dry patch of grass in the otherwise mushy marshlands.
Not that they shared any of that information with us. They were an abnormally tight-lipped group, and our time passed in silence, with the exception of the occasional muttered curse from Cutter.
Eventually, we started to see subtle signs of habitation: at first it was guard towers, built into the branches of spreading trees. The towers were nearly invisible, heavily camouflaged with mud, sticks, leaves, and vines, but my Keen-Sight ability quickly outlined the blurred edges of the structures. Then, after a time, I noticed the jungle had been cleared back in places to make room for the increasingly broad dirt path, which almost resembled a crude road. After even more walking, the dirt path finally morphed into a cobblestone street, made from dark worn river rock.
The stone walkway carved through
the trees, twisting and winding this way and that, following the natural contours of the land. We rounded a corner, identical to a thousand others before it, and suddenly found ourselves at a wooden palisade with a rough gate, already open, waiting to receive us. The town beyond the gate was a far cry from what I’d experienced in Rowanheath. While the Wode city vaguely resembled a mix between medieval Europe and the ancient Roman Empire, this place didn’t look like any city I’d ever seen—in real life or on the big screen.
The town was built among twisted, moss-covered trees, the urban sprawl taking great care to give the towering plants room to grow. The buildings were built from an amalgamation of wood, mud, and palm fronds, all joined together with odd bits of leather, tangles of luminescent green moss, and gobs of silvery spider silk. Not a lot of curb appeal—no cozy little townhomes I could see myself settling down in—and also, no actual curbs to speak of. All of the buildings towered high above the ground, raised up on dark wooden struts, giving the homes a strangely arachnoid appearance.
Considering we were in a swamp that probably received a fair amount of rainfall—this area was likely called the Storme Marshes for a good reason—I guessed the elevation was for flooding. It was still weird, though. Our guards pulled us through the center of town, the residents staring at us with hard, guarded gazes. I saw more than one Murk Elf parent usher kids up rickety stairs and into homes at our passing. So far, I didn’t know much about the Ak-Hani clan, but one thing was readily apparent.
Outsiders were really, really, really not liked, which didn’t bode well for us.
Yunnam was also radically smaller than Rowanheath, so it took only a handful of minutes before our escorts dragged us to a halt at our final destination. A massive and twisted tree. The thing was fat and gnarled, with giant boughs branching off from the trunk, reaching for the sky like a hundred broken fingers. Great ropes of moss clung to every branch, to every twig, pulsing with a soft light. A set of weathered stone steps climbed up the the tree’s face, dead-ending at a squat door inset directly into the trunk, flanked by a pair of circular windows shedding weak yellow firelight.
One of the guards—a man who hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words—loosened my hand restraints, removed the metal collar from my neck, then gave me a little shove toward the stairs. “I thought you said we were probably assassins,” I commented, rubbing at the raw skin around my wrists. “Aren’t you worried I might try to do something?”
“We said he might be Sicarii,” the still-masked Amara replied, with a nod to Cutter. “You? No, I don’t think so. Besides, we are at times overprotective of our chieftain. He is a great warrior and a powerful Necromancer of the Maa-Tál. Try anything and he’ll rip the soul from your body. Now”—she paused, staring at me through the mask slits—“up you go.”
“What about my friend?” I asked.
“He does not bear the talisman,” she replied, deadpan. “Nor does he have the mark. So”—she paused, and it almost sounded like she was smiling—“he will remain in our custody until Chief Kolle determines your intent. If he declares your innocence, you and your friend live. And if he finds you guilty?” She shrugged, unconcerned by the prospect. “Our pigs are always hungry.”
“Don’t screw this up,” Cutter called as the guards dragged him away, deeper into the village. Amara, however, accompanied me to the top of the stairs, then pounded on the door with a closed fist, thunk, thunk, thunk.
“Enter,” boomed a deep, masculine voice that sounded like a cement mixer loaded down with bricks. Amara opened the door and rudely shoved me through, before slipping in herself.
Despite the foreboding exterior, the tree’s interior was beautiful, well lit, and clean. There wasn’t much by way of furniture, but what I saw was all finely made and polished to a dull glow. Elegantly curved bookshelves lined the walls and were heavy laden with thick leather-bound tomes and a host of arcane potions and ingredients. Chief Kolle lounged on a pile of colorful pillows at the far side of the room, thumbing through a dusty book laid out on a squat, rectangular table in front of him.
After seeing the elaborate and terrifying attire of the Ak-Hani Rangers, I’d come expecting a nightmare shaman looming on a throne made of human bones. But the chief was none of those things. He was large and heavily muscled with black hair, heavily streaked with gray, and wore plain clothing that would’ve let him pass unnoticed in Rowanheath. His bushy eyebrows nearly climbed into his hairline as his gaze flickered between me and my guard.
“I see your patrol has yielded some interesting results,” he said, closing his book and rubbing absently at his chin.
Amara bowed formally, removing her mask in the process. She had the same gray skin as the rest of the Murk Elves, short black hair, shaved down to the skin on one side, and a few swirling tattoos covering one cheek. She was younger than I’d expected—late twenties, early thirties—but just a glance at her violet eyes told me her years had been hard and painful. Filled with violence, bloodshed, and loss.
She rose from her bow and immediately launched into the details of the expedition, giving a terse, no-nonsense report—the spiders were encroaching again, there was sign of Imperial soldiers moving along the northern border of the marshes, the Moss Hag had struck again—then offered an account of finding me and Cutter stranded in the death pit. The chieftain listened placidly, little emotion displayed on his face, then dismissed her from the room, before turning his gaze on me.
“Well,” he finally said as the door shut, “what do you have to say for yourself, boy?”
I fidgeted nervously, clearing my throat as I tried to figure out what to say. Truthfully, Amara had summed everything up much more efficiently than I ever could have. I struggled for another few seconds, the silence turning into an uncomfortable weight around my shoulders. Then, the chief did something to break the tension. He smiled, a wide grin missing a few teeth.
“Relax, boy,” he said with a bark and an eyeroll. “You and your friend are safe. You are no Viridian cutthroat come to collect my scalp, even a blind man could see that. Some of my clan—like my daughter, Amara, whom you’ve had the pleasure of meeting—can be a little zealous in their disdain for the empire. At times, a bit overzealous perhaps. Such passion is both the blessing and curse of youth.”
I gulped, feeling weak in the knees. That crazy, mask-wearing woman was his daughter?
“I, on the other hand,” he said after a pause, “have the benefit of many years on my side. Such time often brings a certain degree of wisdom and discernment. As a result, I am not quite so quick to rush to judgement. This gift of time also allows me to use my eyes.” He paused, grinned, and tapped at the corner of one eye. “Not only do you not look like a cutthroat, you bear the Blessing of the Forest. Only the mighty tree-kin can issue such trinkets, and the trees have far better discernment than even the oldest of our kind. If one of the elder tree brothers thinks highly enough of you to give you such a gift, I can at least hear you out. So please, come, sit, relax, and tell me your tale.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief and my legs seemed to move me forward as though on autopilot. Before I knew it, I was seated on the floor across from the chieftain, spilling my story.
I told him everything. Waking up in the cell. Finding the old woman. Giving her the potion, trying to resuscitate her and failing. He listened thoughtfully as I talked, nodding or frowning in all the right places. I told him what I knew about the black priest of Serth-Rog, which didn’t amount to much. Still, he seemed to absorb the details with great meaning, as though finally fitting some long-missing puzzle piece into place.
“Well,” he said as I finished, folding his hands in his lap, “that certainly clears up a few things.”
“Does that mean you know what that priest was doing, then?” I asked, genuinely curious about the mystery.
He canted his head to one side, brow furrowed, and nodded.
“There is still much I do not know,” he said gravely, “but this is not t
he first such report to reach my ears. Folk from all six named clans have gone missing over the past several months. Many never to reappear again. A few, however, have returned, but they are different from when they left. To the undiscerning eye, these doppelgangers may go unnoticed—but I have noticed. Their bodies are whole, but they are absent a soul. Or, at least their soul. These dark priests are hollowing people out and replacing them with corrupt spirits from Morsheim, the realm of Serth-Rog. To what end this is being done, I cannot yet say …”
A notification popped up as he thoughtfully trailed off:
Quest Update: Imposter Georgie
Chief Kolle of the Ak-Hani clan has informed you that the black priests of Serth-Rog are replacing people with convincing doppelgangers, though he doesn’t know why. Tell Cutter about the new revelation in order to get to the bottom of Gentlemen Georgie’s strange shift in personality.
Quest Class: Unique, Personal
Quest Difficulty: Hard
Success: Help Cutter get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Gentleman Georgie’s sudden personality change.
Failure: Refuse to help Cutter or allow him to die before the mission is complete.
Reward: ?
“That aside,” the chief continued, “I truly cannot thank you enough for fulfilling the final wish of our dear departed sister, especially at such great risk to yourself. You do not know this, but one of our elders, Larriet Shadowrunner, went missing near a month ago, and we’ve been urgently searching for her. That talisman you bear belonged to her. Her passing is a terrible thing, a deep loss to our people, but better to know than to suffer in uncertainty.”
He was silent for a long time, staring at me, jaw clenched tight, forehead creased, eyes unfocused, as though he were seeing something far off. “That talisman she gave you—I think you should keep it. Larriet would’ve liked that. Besides, you may find use of it yet, since this is not the end of your journey among us, but rather the beginning. I am Maa-Tál myself—the Chief Dark Templar of the Ak-Hani—and I can see the Shadow-Spark burning inside you. I can see the mark Elder Larriet left upon you. It is possible you are destined to become one of us, boy. If, that is, you have the mettle to endure what is to come.