“So now we wait, and I am to have the men build siege engines which we will never use to keep them occupied,” Moyan said, outlining the script his brother had already fed him.
“Yes, brother,” Hethal said. “He will return at the rise of the evening moon four days hence. At which time we will intercept them in person with the aid of your Black Hands. The gates to the City of Thunder will open before your host that very night.”
“And this woman of fire?” Moyan asked. “How will we deal with her?”
“She will no longer be our enemy, she will embrace Lady Scythe as a beloved friend,” Hethal said with a warm note in his voice.
“Scythe will be here?” Moyan asked, his demeanor changing in the instant to that of a man protecting his own fragile offspring.
Hethal nodded and clasped his brother’s hand firmly.
-in Ousenar
The Devourer approached a small farmhouse in the wilderness. The structure stood alone, surrounded by well-tended pasture lands. This small, sod roofed farmhouse was one of very few that had gone unnoticed by the Zuxran raiders over its few years of existence. Only that great fortune had allowed it to flourish and the family within to grow and know happiness for those years. The Devourer knew none of this, nor did he care—he only hungered.
He was thin as a desiccated corpse, little more than translucent skin stretched over bones, and his eyes were dimly glowing embers in the morning light. He stumbled to the door of the farmhouse and scratched upon it until a sturdy woman with a gloriously glowing spark of life opened it. He fell into her terrified embrace and his lips parted in a horrid rictus grin as she involuntarily clutched at him as one would a snake that suddenly fell into their lap. Her shriek of agony cut short as her spark snuffed out and a moment later her fleshless bones clattered to the hard dirt floor. The single sharp cry would be enough to draw out her husband and young sons from the outlying corral.
The Devourer stepped past the threshold of the door, into the relative warmth of the single room to hungrily await them. As he waited, he held up a hand and watched with lidless eyes as the skin thickened and veins crawled beneath. If he had a tongue he would have given voice to his pleasure and his hunger. With twisted desire he hoped the flesh and life force of the remainder of this farm would provide him the substance to form one.
chapter 10
fire in the woods
Twenty-Fourth day of the Moon of the Thief
-along the north bank of the Silarne in Erenar
Lorace sat carefully upon his bedroll which he had in turn laid upon a thick bed of broad red and yellow leaves he had raked together with his hands. It was early dusk, and he was glad to be out of the bone-rattling wagon after their second day of travel up the Silarne River road. Every rock the wheels of the wagon struck, every jarring blow as they dipped into a rut had gone right into his tail bone and up his spine.
Sending his sight on ahead, he prayed that Ralli’s estimate of one more day remaining upon the wagon was correct. Tornin and Oen were in the same straights; Tornin much less so since he took to his own feet to trot alongside the wagon, managing to avoid most of the punishment of the stiff axles. With one hand on the hilt of his black sword, he claimed to be able to run all day. The dwarves were completely unaffected, their bodies taking every bump and shock without any sign of weariness.
It was Tornin who spotted the smoke rising deep in the forest upon the south side of the river, while the dwarves and men were setting up their camp.
“Lorace, look,” the young guardsman said, pointing to where the long plume of dark smoke was rising to the last rays of the setting sun, “Something is on fire.”
Lorace sent out his sight, as he called his gift of awareness. He pushed it down through the smoke and onto a scene of dreadful carnage. It was a small primitive village that burned—five timber and sod huts of huge proportions were already collapsing in flaming ruin. Humanoid forms were scattered about likewise engulfed in flames that consumed their flesh. These were not the bodies of men but something far bigger. With his eyes focused on the distant fire, he described the scene to his anxious companions.
“Those are ogres, I wager—eaters of man flesh,” Ralli said in disgust.
“They are all dead,” Lorace said. “All of them burned, I don’t see any sign of fighting. They look like they were running away from the flames.”
“Are there any arrows in them? If elves struck them it would be with their unerring, deadly arrows,” Petor suggested.
“No, no arrows. No other wounds besides the fire. Many of them are burned down to their bones already.”
“Aye, ogre bone’s won’t burn,” Petor said. “They are nigh unbreakable as well.”
“We are camped besides one of the few fords across the Silarne if you wish to get a closer look at this fire,” Ralli said. “I imagine these ogres must have come down out of the Stormwalls and established this village recently. There has been no sign of such creatures within the Keth before.”
Lorace agreed to ford the river, though the water was quite chill in the evening air. Thryk, lacking any skill at swimming, elected to stay with the wagon and ponies while the others forayed across.
The water here was slow moving and only came up to Lorace’s hips at its deepest, though the dwarves were lifting their chins high to keep as much of their heads above water as they could. Tornin held his sheathed sword above his head, and both Oen and Lorace did their best to keep their robes hiked up high to avoid a complete soaking. By the time they came out on the far shore the sunset had given way to night, but Lorace led them with his sight until everyone could see the flames of the fire illuminating the forest ahead of them.
They approached the small village, ducking from tree to tree, wary of encountering any surviving ogres. The first burnt corpse they came to lay near the edge of the village clearing. It had apparently been fleeing the fire. The size of the creature was daunting, standing upright, this ogre would have stood almost twice the height of Tornin. Size alone, and their massively long arms and huge crushing hands would make them formidable opponents. Their hard hide, peeled up and cracked from the fire, was two fingers width thick.
They looked back toward the center of the village where one large hut still burned in a raging fire when the rest had crumbled to ashes. The heat from the flames was furiously powerful, even from the distance at which they stood.
“We should not have come,” Oen said in sudden apprehension. “Something still lives in that fire, and it is horribly dark with corruption.”
Lorace sent his sight into the bright flames of the central hut just as it collapsed in on itself. Standing exposed was a stooped black form wreathed in fire. At first he thought it was an ogre that was somehow still living in the flames, but this form was lower and more hunched as it stomped toward them. Its black skin was rock-like in texture and living flame was flowing out of many holes and cracks from within. There were no distinguishable facial features except a mouth that gaped to reveal a deep gullet of flame like an open furnace.
“A demon!” Oen exclaimed as Tornin leaped before them, unleashing the gleaming light of his upraised sword.
The demon laughed and continued forward, its heat driving even Tornin back. The flames surrounding the demon soared up higher and the ground beneath it baked and hardened with each heavy stride.
“I can barely contain it, so well have I fed now,” the demon said in a voice like stones grinding hollowly together. “They wanted me to come with them but I refused—this feast was too great to leave behind.”
It laughed again. “And now there is even more to feed upon, I will return to Nefryt with untold strength, but for now I am free from Aizel.”
They were surprised to be spoken to by this malevolent entity. Lorace realized that the demon was not talking to them so much as it was merely voicing its thoughts.
“I cannot control the power I have now, but it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“What do you mean, demon?�
�� Lorace said, shocking them all by speaking to this murderous embodiment of corruption.
“I don’t know how many I have killed. I must be near my limit,” it said stomping ponderously forward another step, driving Lorace and his companions back further. “I can feel the weight of the souls pulling on me, it is delicious, but sad.”
“Why does this sadden you?” Lorace asked above the sound of crackling flames.
“I do not think I can have you all, and I do not wish to return to Aizel’s grip,” the demon muttering to itself, with a despondent rumble.
Lorace demanded in a voice of authority, “Who is Aizel?”
The demon halted. “Aizel is our lord and master. His will is all,” the demon ground the words out before shrinking back and turning its head back and forth, searching for an unseen presence. “I should not have said that, he hears, he knows, but I am beyond his reach now.”
Tornin tried to take a step forward with his sword raised and glowing, but the heat emanating from the demon held him back. Oen forged up beside him and spoke the words of a ritual to ward against fire, erecting a barrier of force that parted the rippling waves of heat before him.
“I am so glad I stayed here to chase the tasty ogres around. They were wonderful sport.”
“Stayed? Are there more of you? Speak to me, demon!” Lorace demanded, trying to keep the demon’s attention as Oen began the lengthy Ritual of Banishment.
“No!” the demon shouted then straightened up to tower above them. It was not answering—rather it was denying an answer. “You are the one!”
Petor and Ralli took hold of Tornin and pulled him back from the fire that blazed forth in the demon’s rage. Oen’s ward held strong, parting the heat before him, but the fire was beginning to wrap around the barrier in its intensity. Lorace knew that more than half of the Ritual remained to be spoken before it would be complete, and the demon was once again stepping toward them.
Lorace began the Ritual of Binding, the words flowing from his lips with ease.
The demon was now enraged, growing larger with the power it had devoured from the life force of the ogres. It also seemed much more aware of what was happening before it. It heard the Oen’s low voice enunciating the divine words of a ritual spell.
It screamed like an avalanche of splitting boulders, “You will not send me back! I will be free!”
A gout of liquid flame erupted out of the demon’s mouth, spewing onto Oen’s fire ward and past it to land stickily on the priest’s robes. To his credit, Oen kept speaking the Ritual, making his way toward the final stanza as the splattered fire ate into his robes and began to burn his skin.
Lorace completed the Ritual of Binding just as the demon unleashed his full power in a burst of fire that completely overwhelmed Oen’s ward. Shimmering planes of visible force appeared at a radius out from the demon, trapping its heat and closing inward, pinning the demon’s arms to its sides. The demon growled in rage, but the restricting force of the Ritual of Binding continued to crush tighter, and its growls became screams when its stony flesh began to crack and collapse inward.
When Oen’s ritual was completed, the priest fell to the ground to roll in agony. The demon had been crushed down to less than half its original size and all semblance of its form was lost to the tight mass of fire and rock contained within the planes of the Ritual of Binding. With an audible snap these remains vanished from existence and the fires were snuffed out as wind rushed in to occupy the space where the demon had stood.
Tornin was at Oen’s side immediately, helping put out the flames that had burned much of his robes away and blackened and blistered his flesh. The priest was unconscious and breathing in short, rapid breaths.
“Take him up, Tornin,” Lorace commanded. “Get him into the river quickly, but gently. We will catch up.”
Tornin cradled Oen to his chest and ran with him toward the river, to vanish in the trees ahead before Lorace and the dwarves had taken a half dozen running strides in his wake.
“He cannot survive those burns,” Ralli said as they ran. “They will claim him before the night is through.”
“I was a fool to waste time talking to it,” Lorace said. “I should have cast the Ritual of Binding immediately.”
“Your ritual crushed the demon, is that what it was supposed to do?” Petor asked from behind Ralli.
“No—I am not sure. I have never seen it used before.”
“Well something made it very powerful indeed,” Ralli said. “Do not blame yourself for your actions, they are past and done, unchangeable by even the gods.”
“I do not know any healing rituals—I do not remember any. If I could just remember one and cast it with as much strength, it would surely heal his wounds,” Lorace moaned in frustration. He felt powerless, watching Tornin with his sight, as the tall guardsman held Oen in the current of the river while keeping his unburnt face above the water.
“Lorace, healing is a divine ability,” Ralli told him. “There are no rituals for it, it has to be channeled directly from the gods while one prays.”
“I do not remember how to pray,” Lorace cried over the murmur of the river as they emerged out of the woods onto the bank of the river. Tornin had continued across toward the waiting Thryk, while floating Oen before him, making his way to the perceived succor of their camp.
Lorace, Ralli, and Petor hurried into the river and made their way to the far side. By the time he stood beside Tornin he was panting in exhaustion and shivering in his soaked robes. He removed his robes and pulled them about Oen’s body and had Tornin carry the priest to his bed. Lorace used more wet cloths, torn from the clothing in their packs, to bandage what burns he could, hoping that the cold and damp would lessen the priest’s pain.
Once they had Oen as comfortable as they could make him, they settled down to await the inevitable. Tornin shook his head miserably when Lorace asked him if he knew how to pray to Aran. “When he healed my wounds the morning we left, that was the first time I have spoken with him, and he was only with me through Oen’s effort.”
In the cold night, during Ralli’s watch, Oen awakened for the first time since falling to the demon’s fire and called out to Lorace, waking him from another nightmare of murder and death. He woke with a start, surprised that he could sleep at all.
“Lorace,” Oen called so weakly, only Lorace was awakened. He reached out a bandaged hand which the young man took in both of his. Pain was writ heavily on his face, but the priest held onto consciousness with a strong will. “Lorace, pray with me.”
“I don’t know how, Oen,” Lorace said through tears he could not hold back.
“Call Aran’s name out in your inner voice, find a link to him within you,” Oen gasped. “There are no words to say, no rituals or rites.”
“I will try, Oen,” he took a breath and, in the voice he used to speak to himself, cried out to Aran in his head. Nothing. He relaxed more and sifted through his few childhood memories, trying to find an example of his parents or brothers praying, but there was nothing.
He latched on to a memory to calm his nerves. He was following his brother, Jorune, through the woods. Their mother had sent them out to pick mushrooms for a dinner stew. He was happy and carefree, eyes scanning the ground and the trees for mushrooms, wrapped in his desire to bring back more in his basket than his brother. Then he lost sight of his brother, and the dark woods became frightening. Scared of being lost and alone, the child Lorace cried out. “Jorune! Where are you?”
“I am here, Lorace,” came the voice from nearby, it was soon followed by his brother as he ran back to the frightened Lorace.
“You cannot get lost,” Jorune said as he took up the boy’s hand. “You have the gift of sight we all share, just look for home and you will see it.”
Jorune pushed his single lock of silver hair out of his eyes and teased his brother lightheartedly. “It is all right though. You are allowed to forget about your gifts, you are just a child after all.”
; “I was looking for you though,” Lorace whined.
“I tell you what, Lorace, for you, I will always come when you call me, though you can see me too with your sight if you wish it.”
With his hand held by Jorune the forest was no longer a dark place, it was warm and full of life again—not a thing to be feared. The light seemed to be brightest around Jorune and bloomed brighter still as his older brother gripped his hand. In Lorace’s other hand the basket of mushrooms was forgotten as his full attention focused on watching the golden light that played across his brother’s features.
Jorune put a finger to his lips in a show of clandestine secrecy then pointed toward Lorace’s basket of mushrooms.
Lorace looked down and it was Oen’s bandaged hand in his, not the handle of the basket. The golden light that shone upon his brother was now flowing through Lorace and into the priest he knelt beside.
Lorace watched intently as the lines of pain faded from Oen’s face and his blistered and blackened skin flaked away and healed over with new pink skin under the shroud of light. Whole once more, Oen gave a heavy sigh then drifted into a deep sleep. Looking back up, Lorace watched the vision of Jorune fade away with his finger once more set to his lips.
When the light faded away, Lorace laid down Oen’s unblemished hand. Ralli looked on with a broad smile upon his face while the camp slept. Smiling to himself, he covered Oen in a warm blanket then he went back to his own bedroll and sank back into sleep. He slept the rest of the night without any further dreams of murder.
chapter 11
the sound of stone
Twenty-Fifth day of the Moon of the Thief
-along the Silarne and upon Kur K’Tahn in Erenar
Gifts of Vorallon: 01 - The Final Warden Page 11