Tales of Eldelórne

by Karleigh Bon

  Dimly lit oil fires dotted trailing pathways below in the vast cavern. The place seemed empty at first glance. Directly below, you could hear the faint sounds of grunting and voices.

  “They are breeding mutant hiisi again,” Roe said with a scowl.

  The familiar smell of feces and filth rose up from below and made their eyes sting as they climbed further down into the place.

  “They must be taking human captives to multiply," Roe was horrified at the thought.

  “There has to be a leader,” he whispered. “We must get across to see where this all exits. My guess is Etten Fields.”

  “Then we have just come through the whole mountain underground,” Naalin said, clarifying what they believed was right.

  Roe nodded in agreement and then silently motioned across the cavern toward the other side. Naalin nodded back in understanding, and they started to pick their way across the rocky terrain.

  Roe regretted leaving his men in the valley. Their investigation turned into an expedition, and it was taking too long for them to return from the depths of this cave. He knew his men would eventually go back to the fort, leaving a smaller patrol behind to keep an eye on the sleeping dragon. He had to keep his mind on the task at hand. The gross odor of this place did not make it easy. They moved in the shadows around the edges of the giant cavern.

  “This would soon be an active hive of their ilk,” Naalin said, knowing exactly what that looked like, having seen this kind of thing before with her own eyes. She launched up over Roe’s shoulder to a ledge above and sent down the rope for him to climb. They were making good time when they were forced to stop. They came upon an open area. It was dominated by a large carved stone throne and an altar. There were six wizards, or maybe just ordinary humans, dressed in ornate red robes preparing for a ritual of some kind. The stage was surrounded by a sunken standing area that was kept darkened. Naalin could make out elevated seating areas that spread around into darker corners.

  “It is a meeting place,” Naalin whispered.

  The scent of pungent incense burned the nostrils and eyes even from this distance. The leaders chanted as they walked a circle and bowed at the corners of the chamber.

  “So this is what men perform as religion. It looks like magics to me,” Roe mumbled quietly.

  "Fionna says they are called ‘priest,’ these leaders. They are not magic though they may seem so," Naalin whispered.

  They had never seen anything like this in all of their long memory. Suddenly the clanking of metal drew their attention. Naked men in chains were led to the alter. When released from their bondage, they were beaten and made to do all manner of beast-like behaviors. The bleeding and bruised men crawled to the altar on their hands and knees and begged for their tongues to be cut out.

  “Lords!” Naalin cringed when the first knife cut came down.

  Turning her face away with her hand over her mouth, she tried not to scream. “They are filthy and vile,” she gagged on her words.

  “Shhhh… Naalin,” Roe held her to himself to quiet her anguish. “This surely must be the cult as we have suspected,” Roe sadly whispered.

  She buried her face in him and felt his steady arms around her. They were both sorry to have witnessed the evil ways of these men. They did not have to watch to know what the humans were doing to themselves. They stood there in the dark shadow clinging to one another for comfort as they waited for it to be over. When the room lay dark Naalin moved forward to the next ledge along the wall to find their way past.

  “There will be trouble if they find us here,” Roe cautioned while climbing another rope she dropped for him.

  “These men have lost all nobility. If they ever had any,” Naalin growled. The smell of thick metallic blood and burned flesh stuck in her nostrils. She just wanted to end them from all their misery right now. Roe felt fierce resolve creeping over his heart too.

  “We cannot let this mar us!” Roe grabbed Naalin’s shoulders and stared firmly into her eyes. He had to be the commander now and get them both out of here alive. Naalin was struggling against her emotions, but she was not going to let the weight of this place destroy them either.

  “It is as if we are in a womb of evil,” she whimpered, knowing there was naught to be done about it. This was a mission of stealth and gathering information.

  Roe nodded sadly, and they hugged to each other for emotional strength. He thought about how Fionna, with her more volatile nature, would have probably gotten his brother killed by now. He was glad, at that moment, that they were there instead.

  With renewed resolve, the pair continued to move quickly, to reach the other side of the expansive place. Always in the shadows, all the while scouting for another path, they hoped to find a back door out of there.

  They came to the top of a man-made wall that was jutting out into the cavern. The fortification looked like new construction compared to the rest of the place. It wrapped across the whole end of what once was the goblin kingdom. It was apparently a palace for the priests, their followers, and possibly the leader of this place.

  “I think we will have to go through here,” Roe said, looking critically into the fortress.

  They silently dropped down and edged their way past guards and men in robes that were walking in groups. The guards were well-armored in beautiful golden chain mail. Their pike staffs were gold engraved as if for ornament more than actual use.

  “They look ridiculous in this dismal place,” Roe thought to himself, “these priests know nothing about real warfare.”

  Naalin ducked into a darkened room and found a bunk-room of snoring men surrounded her.

  “Here,” she grabbed a robe off the hook and threw it at Roe.

  The garb seemed to fit well enough in an overstuffed, tight sleeved, kind of way.

  “Ej was right,” he thought, “I am too large to blend in with such a puny costume.”

  He started to perspire as he looked at Naalin who was also too short in a loose-long-armed robe.

  “We are sad indeed,” Naalin quietly smirked, hoping Roe’s biceps wouldn’t rip through the seams and give them away.

  They got in line with the next group of worshipers who walked past, hoping to remain invisible and find a way through to a back exit, without any trouble. The men of the cult led them on their march around to a barren garden courtyard. The walls of stone opened to the sky.

  “Finally some fresh air,” Roe thought, wondering how these humans could stand the pervasively nauseating stench that filled the caverns.

  As they neared the center, he could see a stone circle that was an open well in the middle of the space. The procession marched around the well three times. Roe was gauging the leap to go up over the top of the rock walls, but he calculated it would be way too far, even if he boosted Naalin. He decided this was not an exit. He glanced down the well, and saw it was thick black inside. It stank of rotting flesh and blood.

  The robed men not noticing them, or maybe not caring there were strangers among them, stopped and waited as if expecting something to happen. Roe and Naalin backed away into the shadows, to find an escape, when a dark cloud seemed to swoop down from above, or maybe the creature came out of the well, they couldn’t tell exactly. It filled the air around the men like a swarm of bees.

  Roe and Naalin leaped back under a rocky overhang behind a large dead tree and dropped their robes to let their dark armor camouflage them into the shadows.

  The swarm surrounded the men who smiled in ecstasy as it turned into a thick black stream that caressed each one. It was as if it was searching for something.

  The men were enthralled in its embrace as the long dark fingers picked each one up off the ground, and crushed the life’s blood out of them. When their screams stopped, the monster discarded their lifeless bodies down the well. None ran from their appointed meeting with this creature, even as the blood of another splattered over them.

  The last human alive spoke through its limp puppet-like face as the body
hung swaying slowly back and forth clutched in the long black tendrils. It was as if the thing was pointing its blank eyes in search of something.

  “Old blood ... I smell you,” the ancient evil hissed through its dying human mouth.

  Naalin’s skin crawled at the sound of it.

  “It is the sorcerer,” she spat as her eyes grew wide in terror.

  Roe readied to fight. His eyes blazed with concentration as he calculated all the scenarios and their chances.

  “Come out...” the creature hissed again.

  Roe decided in his mind whether or not they could both make the distance back to the archway and escape.

  “You will not escape... yessssss...” the half-dead corpse uttered in a guttural, rattling gurgle as the human flesh died from the stress of hosting its dark parasite.

  Roe’s mind-numbed with horror as he began to realize how they walked into this unwittingly, and it was a trap. It was always a trap!

  “Naalin, you will run...” he instructed her firmly under his breath. Roe’s arm reached back behind himself and found her there. He squeezed her shoulder, lovingly.

  “I want you to run fast... leave this place and get help to destroy it. You have witnessed the creature, you must find a way to warn the others,” his voice cried softly.

  Naalin’s face pressed into the back of her Roevash’s hand as he spoke.

  “What are you saying?” She knew he would die if she left him here. She squeezed his large fingers tightly in both her hands and didn’t want ever to let go. She also knew he meant to be a diversion for her escape.

  “Nooo... we fight together!” Naalin’s heart was breaking.

  “Not now, my love, this dark magic will succeed in killing us both. You are small enough to disappear. Someone has to warn the others… tell my brother I love him. Do not fight me on this. Please...” he begged in anguish, wishing she had already gone to safety.

  Roe wanted to kiss her goodbye, but he would give away her position if he took his eyes off the enemy. Instead, he felt warm tears on his hand as Naalin kissed it one last time. Giving him a final squeeze to her forehead, she tried to steel herself. Roe’s heart was in agony, knowing what he had to do. He could only pray that his Naalin had a chance of escape as he left her behind.

  Roevash stepped out from the shadows. The tendriled monster grabbed Roevash. He grunted in surprise at how strong the thing was. It lifted him up, holding him swaying helplessly in the air. Roevash expected to be dead by now, but it did not crush him. Instead, he found himself being flung around and prodded in a disorienting dance. The monster peeled off his weapons and armor to better inspect its prisoner. Roevash growled in protest, trying to stay focused, as he struggled with all his might to find a way to defeat this strange enemy. The black swarm was stronger than him, and as elusive as smoke with no real substance.

  “This is the body I desire,” the monstrosity jeered as it dropped the other man’s used up corpse carelessly down the open well and focused on this new captive.

  “Humans are weak, this ... Edhellen and human of Darjalia. It is good.”

  “Run,” was the last garbled word Roe managed to choke out in his final moments of awareness. His eyes rolled back in his head as his mind seized in the assault of the fallen one. Mouth pried open, he shuddered violently as his body fell stiffly to its knees. The thick black swarm flowed furiously down his throat possessing his very being like a new suit of armor.

  Naalin crouched, in the shadows, stunned at the horror of the scene before her. Realizing too late her mistake. She sprinted for the opening but was grabbed from behind and jerked off her feet. As her head hit the stone floor. The edges of her sight darkened with stars, and she fought not to pass out.

  “It is good, flesh and bone,” a voice growled somewhere above.

  Kneeling its whole weight upon her, the monster with familiar hands tore the weapons from her and threw them aside. He ripped at leather armor and shirt, tearing into it down to her naked back.

  Blood streamed across her forehead, blinding her vision from the violent concussion of her fall. Fingernails dug into her flesh, marking her like an animal. Naalin screamed helplessly under his bulk.

  Roe’s voice growled through clenched teeth, “She-elf filth you are nothing!” Heavy hands ground her face onto the floor as blood from his attack seeped into the jagged edges of the flagstones beneath her. Naalin stopped struggling as her mind drifted into numbness.

  “It is not worthy of this,” he snarled down at the silent elf clutched beneath him.

  Eyes still fogged over, Lord Surmanos fought with his inborn dragon instincts, struggling for control. He tried to remember the purpose of this newly possessed body. Distracted by the smell of fresh blood, his long tongue reached down and licked what had pooled on her back, smearing its warmth onto his face, he tasted his first victim. The dragon sighed as its blood lusted ecstasy climbed. When he finished, the monster pulled himself off of her. He found his hand still clutching the she-elf in its grip.

  Naalin hung limp in dazed shock.

  Not caring, whether it was dead or not, he tossed her used body down into the blackened hole of the well, discarding her with the others.

  Naalin silently fell for what seemed an eternity into the darkness.

  The Fallen Returns

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Surrounded by the shouts of his followers, their god incarnate stumbled down the corridor naked and half-blind.

  “He has come!”

  “Our Lord has returned!”

  Voices of men filled the air as they scrambled around to clear the way for him.

  Lord Surmano’s followers had been calling his name and worshiping him for one hundred and nineteen years. They prayed for this moment. The fallen god had not stood up on legs of his own since the defeat of his kingdom in the Ajattara Fells. Right now, his mind was jumbled in his weakness. He struggled to control the muscle and sinew that made up this new body. The black dragon and the cultist’s cold well were the only things he’d known for too long. He was dragon. He was a fallen lord of Ilmatar. He was distracted by these puny humans. His nostrils filled with smells of blood, and his hunger burned.

  He felt a tingling surge of power as he learned to walk in this new skin. In confused blindness, many died as the noisy throng of overjoyed followers pressed in and guided him past the iron gates. They took him into the vast cavern where his throne waited. It was built beyond the gates so the minions could view their lord from a distance. They would now know real fear as their risen god took his seat of power.

  Men thought themselves blessed to be touched by their god. They offered up their bodies freely to his blind, sadistic cravings. The bath of blood flowed into him, and out over the stone floor.

  Lord Surmanos had a vague sense of where he was as his dragon body slept in the opening of the cavern, but he had never physically been inside the stone palace. The blind gluttony of men woke the black dragon, and in its rapture, it roared out over the valley from its roost inside the cavern entrance. The eyes of his vessel flamed blue and red inside Roevash’s stolen body.

  “Bring more flesh,” he bellowed, and terrified captives were brought to him to be marked and consumed by his dragon’s insatiable lust and blood hunger.

  +++

  Word went out immediately, across the land by the cult’s runners, that the shadow cult had successfully resurrected Lord Surmanos. Followers came to the Etten Fields, and filed into the underground fortress. They took their seats in the auditorium to witness him. Many were descendants from the first families who found the six priest rings. They had faithfully supported the work that made this day happen. They were respected leaders in their communities kept hidden by their public piety and virtuous actions.

  They came to their god as the ruling members of his new religion to safely witness his return, and to satisfy their own twisted desires.

  +++

  Only after a long time of listening to the unending screams of the
defiled and mutilated did the leader of the shadow cult dare come out from the safety of darkness to address their risen lord and master. He had no doubt that the cries and moans of the dying that lay strewn across the floor felt only rapturous in the hands of their god. He was not afraid.

  “No, no, not scared, only excited,” he tried to convince himself. He was the last in a long line of men who served Lord Surmanos. His bloodline was bound to the dark lord’s will throughout all the ages. He had gladly inherited the task of shepherding his master’s return, but nothing could have prepared him for this.

  “I am the Heritor. I am the leader of your coven sire,” he beckoned Lord Surmanos as he fell on shaky hands and knees to the red-stained floor.

  In numb fear, he didn’t even take notice of the dampness as it soaked into the brown velvet robe he wore. The palms of his hands were sticky with blood. He wiped them on the front of himself, staining his lapels in long dark streaks. The thick, luxuriant pile had folded beneath his knees like a cushion on the hard stone floor. He clutched the front of his cowl as if he was going to rent the material apart. He could not take his eyes off the blood-soaked apparition before him.

  “There is an excitement in this,” he thought to himself, as he felt an odd thickening in his mind, and in his body, “…if one should survive…” His breathing came rapid and shallow as he stared expectantly at the bloody monster before him. His dread only added to the heady feeling as hot sweat dripped into terrified eyes.

  Cloaked only in the dark, crusted blood of his worshipers, the monstrosity that stood before him paused and sniffed the air. It slowly shifted its gaze. Stretching itself up, it glared at the small man huddled on the floor.

  “Who dares interrupt me...” The gruesome apparition growled in an ominous low voice.

  “We are here to bring you all you desire, my Lord. I am your humble servant.”

  The man shuddered knowing full well, like all the others who lay strewn upon the floor, his life could be ended in the next few short moments, so he sputtered, “The whole realm of mankind is at your disposal.”