by Dante King
She met my eyes and grinned.
“Ready?” I asked.
She nodded once. “Let’s go.”
The path down the cliffside to the marshes was steep and rocky, with steps and handholds cut here and there to aid descent. We scrambled down onto the flats and stood for a moment, catching our breath and looking out over the Westmarsh.
“The Festering begins over there,” I said, pointing.
Cara shaded her eyes, peering through the haze. “I can’t see much. The sense of it is strong here, though.”
“It is. I feel it strongly, too. We’re likely to meet enemies soon after we enter. The Festering changes and mutates creatures as well as the landscapes they inhabit. Let’s be on our guard.”
We set off into the marshlands. The ground was thick green moss, with tufts of dry grasses here and there. Our feet sank into the spongy moss up to the ankles. After we’d walked a short way from the cliff edge, we glanced back. On the clifftop, we could see through the haze the figures of our warriors, watching our progress as we made our way into the mist.
We came to the edge of the Festering suddenly, after about half an hour’s careful walking. There was no sign of the cliff behind us now, and the mists wreathed around us so thickly that we couldn’t see more than twenty yards in any direction.
Cara, who was ranging a little ahead of me, came upon the edge first. She stopped and let out a hissing breath between her teeth. She was pale and her eyes were wide as she stared at the pallid gray expanse of grass and slimy water.
To me, it seemed like waves of gray-brown energy flowed through the air from the edge of the gray, outward; the spreading influence of the Festering. I felt it, but it did not have any effect on me. Cara was not so lucky.
She leaned over with her hands on her knees, panting like an exhausted runner. I began to approach her, but she waved me away.
“Ugh,” she croaked, “I’ll be fine, just give me a minute.”
She straightened up and rummaged at her belt, before coming up with a glass bottle full of some dark blue liquid. With deft, practiced movements she unstoppered the bottle. I saw that the bottle top had a fine glass dropper attached to it. She squeezed the flexible bottle top and drew some liquid into the dropper, then carefully put two drops of the liquid under her tongue.
Immediately, her body was suffused with a soft blue light, which pulsed three times like a heartbeat, then faded. Cara smiled, rolled her shoulders, and breathed out a long sigh of relief. The color was back in her cheeks as she carefully screwed the top of the bottle back on and replaced it in her belt.
“That’s impressive!” I said.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she grinned. “It’s a powerful guard against evil influences, designed to ward off malign magic. Do you need some? It’s very concentrated, so one bottle will do many doses.”
“I don’t need any. The Festering doesn’t influence me the way it does other people.”
“No? Why’s that?”
“I’ll tell you on the way. Come on.”
Together, we stepped into the Festering.
The marshland which lay under the influence of the Festering was not dead. Instead, its way of being alive had changed. The grass and moss was slimy and gray, and the water which came up to fill our footprints was thick and black. Looking closely at the grass, I could see that every stem was covered in what looked like a fine gray dust. When I ran my finger along a blade of grass, the dust transferred to my finger, but the grass stem was not cleaned. Instead, the gray substance reappeared like a fungus growing before my eyes. When I looked at the stuff on my finger, it wriggled as if it were full of tiny worms. I flicked it from my finger in disgust, and it hit the moss with a thick plop.
Cara gazed around her. “Well, this is horrible.” I had to agree.
“I can see where the influence is coming from,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows at me questioningly.
I shrugged. Now was not the time for an explanation of my childhood battles.
“I just can. I’ll tell you about someday, but now is not the time.”
“Can you at least tell me how it works?”
“I can do that,” I replied. “The assault It’s like waves of energy against my senses, all flowing out from a specific point. The Keeper said that the Festering uses the power of the Relic to power itself. The influence must be coming from the corrupted Relic which we’re tasked with finding.”
“The Helm of Ironside,” Cara mused. “Which direction is the influence coming from?”
I pointed into the mist. “That way.”
We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when I heard a splashing sound off to the right. Cara was only a little way ahead of me, but her shape was already hazy through the thick mist.
“Cara,” I said, “there’s something...”
My axe was off my shoulder and in my hand with the speed of thought as the splashing became louder, crashing toward us. Cara began to turn, reaching for her sword, when a horrific shape loomed up out of the mist.
It was a monstrous spider, as big as a roe deer, with legs as thick as my forearms. A huge, chaotic mound of red and black eyes bulged from the top of its head, shining with a horrible intelligence. Below the eye-mound there was a wide, square jaw with chin and lips like a man’s, though much bigger. The mouth was full of a mess of razor sharp, slavering teeth.
“Arachnon!” Cara shouted, leaping backward and hauling her sword from its sheath.
The thing reared up on its back legs, waving huge clawed forelegs, chattering and screaming at us, and snapping its nightmare jaws. The Arachnon were oversized spiders which were known to dwell in the marshes. I’d fought them on occasion, but they were generally content to be left alone. Never had I seen one that looked like this.
Its high-pitched jabbering suddenly deepened to a guttural roar, and it dropped onto all its legs and charged straight at me. I swung my axe, but the creature leaped to the right with horrible speed and dived at me with one swipe of a great clawed foreleg.
I pulled my axe back in mid-swing and punched the double-bladed head upward, catching the mutated Arachnon’s flailing claw and chopping it off halfway up the leg. Black blood squirted out from the wound, splashing and hissing in the moss. Then Cara was coming at the thing from my left side, ducking in and chopping at the hideous creature’s back legs. She took off one leg at the knee joint and followed up with a huge curved slash at its piled eyes. Her cut went wide, but as the monster leaped back from her blow and tried to turn to face Cara, I stepped forward and brought the head of my axe around in a great curving two-handed swing.
My axe thudded into the monster’s head and buried itself deep in the huge mound of eyes. The Arachnon spasmed horribly, its legs crashing up and down in the black water as the life went out of it, and I wrenched my axe free and jumped away as a wash of thick, stinking yellow fluid gushed from the snapping jaws. Then there was a gurgling sigh, and the monster sank, twitching, partway into the turgid bog.
Cara gripped my arm. “Look, Leo, what’s that?” As we watched, a thin wraith of white mist came up from the corpse of the monster. It solidified into a vaguely humanoid shape, then drifted upward and disappeared into the mist above us.
“It’s the monster’s spirit,” I said. “It must be some effect of the Festering, we can see the spirits of creatures we defeat in battle.”
“Hey, do you feel something?” Cara said suddenly. I looked at her. She was standing very straight, her hand on her chest, a look of pleasure on her face. I did feel it. Somewhere inside my soul, there was a deeply satisfying feeling, like the clinking of coins into a strongbox.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Feels good though, right?”
She nodded, slowly. “Like I gained something. Strange. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
“Let's get going. The morning is passing, and if that Arachnon is anything to go by, we’re going to
have some work to do when we get to the source of the Festering.”
“All right,” she said, “but take a little of this first, and I will too.” She had unhitched a green vial from her belt, and, popping it open, she dipped a finger in and drew out a bit of thick green paste. “Hold your tongue out.”
I shrugged, and stepped forward. I had to bend down a little so she could reach my mouth. As her finger touched my tongue our gazes met and she smiled, her eyes sparkling. I drew the stuff into my mouth. There was a strange taste, bitter and sweet at the same time. I swallowed.
Green light flashed through me, followed by a warm feeling that rushed down my spine.
“Incredible,” I said as the pleasant feeling faded. Cara took a little too and placed it in her mouth.
“It will keep the cold and damp from getting to us. It’s my own recipe.”
“Good job,” I said, and she smiled at the compliment. “Now, come on. The Helm of Ironside is waiting.”
We marched off into the mist, heading in the direction from which I could sense the waves of malevolent energy emanating.
Most of the afternoon passed in a slow, wary trudge across the marshland. Now and again, we heard rustling and movement nearby, and once we heard something howling off in the distance, but we were not attacked again. As the light dimmed toward evening, we came upon something unexpected; a dark range of low hills looming out of the mist. Two spurs of land stuck out into the marsh on either side of us, enclosing a wide area of marshland in a wet, foggy valley.
I looked into the gloom. “The Festering, it’s emanating from up there. Let’s climb this nearest spur of land. Perhaps if we get a bit of height we’ll be able to see the Helm.”
“It surely won’t just be there on its own?” asked Cara as we began to climb the left-hand spur.
“I doubt it. Power like that is attractive. It’s sure to be guarded by someone... or something.”
It didn’t take long to get to the top of the ridge where the land flattened out into a wide, flat sward with a few scattered boulders. I glanced around and didn’t see anything, then I looked down.
In the valley not far below us, partly obscured by the darkling mist, there was a wooden-walled fort. The walls looked solid on three sides, but on the side nearest us, the camp used the hill we sat on as a perimeter barrier. We could slide down and land right in the camp if we wanted to.
The camp appeared deserted. Wooden sheds and shacks lined the outer walls. Peering through the gloom, I could make out what looked like a stone sarcophagus in the center of the camp. Waves of dark power pulsed from it.
“You see that?” I whispered, pointing at the sarcophagus. “That’s it. That’s where all the power is coming from. We need to get down there.”
“I don’t see any sign of anyone.”
“It might be a trap,” I said.
She looked at me, considering. “It probably is a trap. What do you want to do?”
I took my axe from my back and met her eyes, seeing my own fierce excitement mirrored in her face. “If it’s a trap, I want to spring it.”
I led the way, and Cara followed. She had her bow in hand, a long arrow nocked to the string. The wall of the valley was steep, but not sheer. We slid down fast, in a rattle of stones, landing on our feet at the base of the rough cliff.
Still no sign of any trouble.
Here, so close to the source, I found my iron resistance to the influence of the Festering being tested hard. I caught my breath and glanced at Cara to find her face determined and set. Her potion must be working.
My axe in my left hand, I gestured to her to follow me forward. She fell in, two steps behind me and to my right, her eyes scanning the dark space from side to side.
“Now!” I hissed, and we sprinted through the deserted camp, straight toward the sarcophagus.
It was a huge block of black stone, oblong and as tall as my shoulder. Running around the edge, about the level of my chest, a thin line of shadow, darker than the rest, showed where the lid fitted. I raised the head of my axe and jammed the top of the blade into the crack.
Cara stood ready, her arrow fitted and the bow half drawn. She had taken up her place to my left, turning a slow half circle and scanning the darkness, tension in every line of her supple body. I heaved, levering the stone lid up with the blade of my axe. The lid moved with a deep grinding noise. I bent my knees, huffed in a massive breath, and levered the lid up with every ounce of strength I could muster. As it rose, revealing an even blacker darkness inside, I let the axe slide down and caught the edge of the huge lid with my gauntleted fists.
With a roar of effort, I heaved the gigantic piece of stone up and away. It teetered on the edge of the sarcophagus for a moment, then toppled over. In the thick silence of the fog-bound camp, the sound of the lid shattering was like a bolt of lightning.
The tall skeleton of a mighty warrior lay in the base of the sarcophagus. In life, he must have been a huge man. He had been interred wearing his full armor, and though this was now ancient and rusted, a glance told me that it must have been very fine. His arms were crossed on his chest, and his bony hands still gripped the shafts of his twin axes. I smiled at that; an axeman, like me, but one who favoured a pair of one-handed axes, rather than a big two-hander.
“Is that it?” Cara’s voice broke in on my examination of the skeleton.
“It’s got to be.” The skull of the warrior stared up at me from inside a tall iron helmet. It had a long nose guard and broad cheek guards which could hinge over to cover the mouth. The top was rounded, and fixed in place with crossed bands of gold which glimmered in the darkness. My sense of the Festering was almost overwhelming as I focused on the helmet. This had to be it; the cursed helmet of Theodoric Ironside.
I reached out to touch it, and that was when the trap was sprung.
They came silent as the night itself, a great horde rising up out of the blackness at the edges of the camp. One moment all was empty, the next everywhere was filled with a wriggling mass of shambling figures. Countless pairs of red and yellow eyes glowed at us from the shadows of ragged hoods. Scimitars gleamed in their claws. The Festering’s dark magic must have obscured the foul creatures, working like a powerful cloaking spell that kept them hidden until this moment.
One, taller than the rest, ran forward to stand ten yards from us. He stood up to his full height, only a little shorter than Cara, and threw back his hood.
It was a Ratman. Coarse gray fur covered his long, hideous face. His eyes glowed brightly. He had two huge, pointed teeth at the end of his mouth, and a jagged double row of razor spikes running back into his mouth. A double-handed scimitar as big as my axe was in his hands. His smaller minions flowed up and clustered behind him. He threw back his head and screamed a battlecry, and all of the filthy creatures around him took up the high, ululating call.
Cara let fly her arrow, and in that same moment, as I turned away from the skeleton in the sarcophagus to grab my axe and face the enemy, the tips of my fingers brushed the Helm of Ironside.
Everything stopped.
Cara’s arrow floated in midair, and the huge Ratman’s spittle hung around his mouth. My perception of the scene spun, as if my view was spiralling out from my own body. I could see myself frozen in place, one hand reaching into the coffin, my other raising my axe. I could see my body half-turned toward Cara and the enemy. Her bowstring was caught mid-release, her hand raised up, fingers splayed, like a statue of an archer’s perfect form.
Then it was all gone.
Chapter Two
I knelt, hands on the ground, looking down at smooth flagstones of beautifully figured marble. There was a rich floral scent in the air, like blossoms. I took a breath, when a voice spoke and I raised my head to see a powerful warrior standing a little way from me.
“Stand, Leofwine of Saxe,” he said. “We have only a little time together. Stand.”
I stood and faced him.
He was a big man, powerfully built with a
long black beard flowing down over his decorated steel breastplate. Gauntlets of leather and steel covered his massive hands, and a skirt of heavy chainmail dropped down to cover his knees. Heavy riding boots showed under thick shin guards.
Despite his obvious power and strength he looked afraid. Anxiety clouded his bluff, broad face. Above his black beard, he had a strong nose and piercing dark eyes. His head was bald, and his high, intellectual brow was beaded with sweat.
All my senses were taken up with this new scene, and yet my mind was still aware of the moment which I had just left; Cara, frozen in time with an arrow in mid flight, and a horde of wicked ratmen caught in the fearful moment before the charge.
“You have come at the bidding of the Keepers?” said the warrior.
“I have. And you, you are Theodoric Ironside. I recognize the breastplate from the skeleton. Come, Ironside, say what you need to say.”
He glanced around, fearfully. “I have little time in which to say it. My curse has left me for a moment, but soon it will return... But you have come, and that is well. I am Theodoric Ironside. In life, I used an ancient magic to pour my prowess, my strength, and the power of my Glimmer into my Helm. It became a mighty artefact during my life, a vast repository of power. When my body died at last, I felt the power of the Helm become something beyond what it had been during my life. My spirit found rest in the long halls of Saxen warriors who die in honor, but my essence, my strength, my skill, and my battle lust combined in my Helm to create a magical item of immense power. It became an artifact that would grant the Persona of Ironside to one who was worthy. For years uncounted, it had awaited the coming of a warrior who could claim it.”