Bloodwalk

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Talmen eyed his followers warily, studying their control of the creatures they had summoned from the Lower Planes. His senior acolytes had successfully gathered a small troop of malebranche devils, enticing them with promises of blood and destruction. The hulking brutes, four in all, shook their great horned heads and stamped the ground, gnashing their fangs and roaring in voices culled from the deepest nightmares of living men. The ground shook as they pounded the dirt with massive clawed fists in anticipation of the promised carnage. The malefactor smiled at their ferocity. In their own realm, the malebranche served as shock troops and soldiers, but on Faer?n they were nothing less than living engines of war, towering above their foes. Turning back to the less capable of his wizard-priests, he watched with concern as five of them began the final ritual of their summoning. Within their circle raged a dozen abyssal ghouls, thrashing and howling against the magical constraints of the arcane perimeter drawn on the ground. Undead were, as a rule, much easier to call and command, but these half-mad creatures were a test of will for even the more experienced Gargauthans. Talmen paid close attention to the efforts of the five as they sealed the controlling spell and made ready to release the bonds of the inscribed circle. Already he could see that minor mistakes had been made, but he took no steps to interfere. Those who survived would be stronger and wiser for the experience. In unison the five broke the circle, chanting the last of their binding and taking hold of the symbols of Gargauth about their necks, a gesture of control to denote themselves as the masters of the ghouls. The majority of the creatures stood still, swaying in an almost trancelike manner, with their unnaturally long fingers dragging the ground. Glowing white eyes looked blindly upon their summoners.

They hungrily lashed long, whiplike tongues around their gaunt faces, the ends of the purplish tentacles trailing off into a dark mist. One of the five acolytes, sensing something wrong, held his symbol higher and repeated the infernal language of command. The three ghouls before him shook their heads and tensed, crouched and growling, digging furrows into the dirt and mud as they leaned back on birdlike legs.

Their blind eyes rolled and they sniffed at the air, smelling his fear. The priest's voice cracked as he desperately repeated the command again. The change in his tone incensed the ghouls. They jumped, howling, and pounced on his screaming form, burying the misty ends of their proboscis tongues in his head and torso. His screams filled the clearing as they drank his mind and raked at his unarmored body, tearing his robes and flesh to bloody shreds. Talmen casually glanced at all who stood nearby, including the four who had been successful in their summonings, making sure that all saw the consequences of failure. Once the man's screams faded, Talmen stepped forward and raised his own symbol, chanting a spell of command far beyond the ability of the fallen priest. The ghouls immediately took notice, turning their bald heads and dead eyes on this new voice, but continued to feed on the body, their smoky tongues reaching past mere flesh and bone to suck at the very marrow of the man's identity. In the grating tones of an abyssal language, Talmen conferred command of the ghouls to the surviving four. The priests' masks hid faces of disgust as the creatures shambled away from the mess they had made of their meal. From the shoulders down, the man was unrecognizable as having been human, yet his neck and head were untouched. His unmasked face conveyed all too well the horror of his last moments. Looking up to Morgynn's darkened window, Talmen wondered if she'd witnessed or enjoyed the spectacle. His scrying upon her had been unsuccessful of late, but this he attributed to the growing power of the storm that surrounded the tower. Part of the genius of Morgynn's ideas included an obscuring spell that foiled all attempts to scry upon Jhareat or even the surrounding forest. The dense magic around the tower was barely contained. He could sense the design of the Weave bending to accommodate the dense net of spells being laid to summon and control the tempest. The symbol Morgynn had burned into his arm still throbbed, in tune to the restless host in the forest, the bathor, the undead of Logfell. Morgynn doted on her creations, calling them her children. He shuddered and rubbed at the scar, returning to his tasks and muttering prayers to Gargauth for a swift victory and an end to the whole affair.

Time in the tower passed swiftly as Morgynn slumbered, tossing and turning in the throes of nightmares woven of old memory. Her skin was flushed by the swift current in her veins that had become agitated and heated as her dreams progressed, closer and closer, through battle and flame and darkness, to the chill of death. The dream, the memory, was relentless. Darkness had become a vast landscape of bewildered faces, all meandering slowly toward a glittering spire of rock in the far distance. Lightning hung in her mind; the spell, not yet fully formed, clung to her thoughts. Kaeless was gone. The Well of Goorgian, the Sedras, the battle-all gone. She had no time to contemplate what had happened before powerful clawed hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her back into a swirling pit of crimson tornadoes. As she fell, a second landscape came into view, another sky she was falling through.

Her back slammed into the surface, a ground that gave way like thick mud, knocking the breath from her lungs. A red sky filled her vision as she sank in a black bog. A foul wind carried the scents of burning flesh and rot. She struggled to keep her head above the slime that had her in its grasp. Her limbs felt weak and sluggish, unable to fully obey her commands, her desire to pull free. Dark shapes flitted overhead and cavorted in the tempestuous sky. The silhouettes of what appeared to be giant mountains loomed in the distance. Squirming in the strange bog were the wormlike forms of hideous creatures. Their pale skin was smooth and glistening as they flopped and splashed. Now and then, a head would emerge, bearing a humanoid face and smacking lips full of the dark ooze, gnashing toothless gums and wailing like a newborn infant. Morgynn tried to scream as well, but her throat felt raw and she could manage only a weak croak. She freed one arm and reached outward, seeking something to hold onto. The flesh of her arm was loose and torn in several places. Her blood streamed into the thick, tarlike fluid and seemed to excite the wailing worms. She could feel them sliding against her body, biting her flesh and tasting her skin with cold tongues. Frantically she waved her arm and thrashed against the gnawing beasts, flexing fingers that were almost skinless as she clawed at the air. The soft beds of her fingernails lay exposed and the winds lashed across them, sending lances of fresh pain down her arms. Loud voices roared and argued somewhere nearby. In the part of her mind that had not been lost to utter madness, she recognized their language with sickening horror. The unseen beasts argued in the language of demons, the tongue of the Abyss. They were fighting over the pleasure of owning her soul. Fresh pain washed over her head as the memory of her mother's last blow returned. The sensation played itself slowly, her skull fracturing, the mace exposing the fragile tissue beneath to the open air. Again and again she died, ignominiously, in the courtyard of Goorgian's Well. Moments stretched into years as, bit by bit, Morgynn lost hold of herself. Her flesh was dissolving in the muck, devoured by the maggoty things around her as it sloughed off. A fleeting realization that she was becoming one of them crossed her mind but was quickly forgotten as her eyelids drooped and a few teeth slipped away from her loosening gums. The argument over her soul ended, and a night-skinned hag stood grinning with lion's teeth nearby, heating a branding iron over a venting crack in the ground. Behind the hag stood a massive creature with red skin and burning eyes, enveloped in massive batlike wings like a deep red cloak. The fiend's horned head nodded in approval as the hag held up the white-hot brand for his inspection. Morgynn's eyes rolled back, barely seeing the blurred colors of the bruised sky above. Her body had begun to shrink. Her legs were numb and she wondered briefly if they were still there. Madness beckoned in her mind with the long trembling claws of a mania from which there could be no escape. Hope for death was lost to her now-that bridge had been crossed. Only oblivion awaited beyond this hellish afterlife. An airy giggle passed her lips as the spell she'd left unfinished still floated through her mind, teasing her with that feeling of the living, the warmth and ecstasy of magic. Desperately, she clung to those arcane phrases, nearly weeping as she spoke them uncontrollably, feeling the emptiness that lurked behind them grow as they were lost. The lightning faded from her thoughts, but, strangely, its heat remained as if mocking her death. The spell was gone. She knew she would never feel its power again. Never would she feel the Weave respond to her command and flow through her body, but despite her fears and lamentations, something strange happened. Her blood began to burn and a searing light assailed her eyes. The lightning returned. The magic tingled through her blood, summoning it back into a heart that beat more fiercely than she remembered. She could still see the hag and its reaching brand, the worming souls around her and the ever-changing colors of the sky, but she also saw her arms rising in the air unhindered by the foul ooze.

New life flooded through her in waves of unspeakable heat and wild, pulsing magic such as she'd never felt before. A droning chant surrounded her, drowning out all other sounds as she rose, weightless, into the air. The night hag's fanged mouth opened in a stifled roar as she stabbed at Morgynn's rising form with the heated brand to no effect. Morgynn ignored her, fixated on the warmth of life and magic that mingled in her body, growing stronger as the chant grew louder.

Her heartbeat joined the relentless voices in her mind, and she flew upward into the tumultuous sky. Tiny bat-winged creatures swarmed toward her, and she screamed in horror as their claws lodged in her retreating heels. Looking back, she kicked at the little green-skinned demons. Her sanity swooned as she felt them pulling her down, into the pit, to the worms and the hag with her cruel brand. Her screams continued for a long time, even as the walls of Goorgian's Well coalesced around her. Gargauthan priests in fearful masks stood gathered, ghostlike and somber, as her eyes fluttered open. Her flesh transformed and trails of blood receded into closing wounds. The bones of her misshapen face, disfigured by her mother's killing blow, cracked and popped, knitting together. Talmen held his ears as her ungodly wails echoed throughout the ruined halls of the Well. As Morgynn opened eyes that streamed crimson tears, her laughter became maniacal. Somehow, she had evaded death. Goorgian's dark, battle-scarred well looked like a paradise. Kaeless had lost but still had much more to lose.

On the first day of autumn, the horses had grown sick, becoming weak then dying within days. The nomadic Sedras were at a loss to treat such a virulent disease. Magic and healing had availed them nothing. Rumors of a horse plague would make them outcasts among the scattered tribes of the Nar. Fear of a harsh winter, though, settled more deeply into the bones. An autumn without productive hunting would make the colder months all the more difficult. They moved more and more slowly, until finally they stopped to construct a more permanent settlement for the safety of the tribe. Light gray skies blanketed the snow-covered permafrost when Morgynn and the Order of Twilight finally beheld their wandering foes. The smell of smoke from the campfires drifted on the late afternoon air. The temperature had dropped considerably in the last few days, a constant reminder of colder days to come. The Gargauthans wore heavy cloaks and furs, while Morgynn had shed many of the usual trappings of the Nar plains, filled as she was with a feverish heat that coursed through her body. She was barefoot in the snow, wearing little more than a crimson robe and small pieces of found armor for modesty's sake against the bitter northern winds.

The day was drawing to a close, bringing thoughts of supper and sleep under the darkening gray of the clouded sky. The season's silence carried a young girl's voice across the plain, clear as the calling horns traditional among the Nar tribes. Pieces of an old Lathanderian chant sought their ears, ghostlike across the white fields, eerie as it twisted in the wind.

In the flames of his crown, We give praise to the dawn. In the fields where we hunt, We give praise to the light.

Morgynn remembered the tune only vaguely, having heard it as a child, before she was taken away by the Creel. It was a song of ending, a light-hearted dirge for the setting sun. Its haunting melody had no meaning for her anymore, though her head ached to remember such things from before her untimely death. Masked from sight by illusions, the newly formed Order awaited Morgynn's command, already viewing her as a sign of their god's favor. Morgynn surveyed the peaceful camp, settling in for the evening with only unmounted scouts on foot to watch for signs of danger. The smell of cooking horseflesh signaled the beginning of a mournful supper. They had slain one of the healthy to feed the tribe until they could catch up to the wild oxen in the foothills of the Giantspire Mountains. The song drew to a close, the last lines awakening the burgeoning spirit of destiny that burned in the blood of Morgynn's restored body.

Night is yawning, The Dusk is falling, Twilight is dawning, The Sun is calling 'Farewell 'til the morning's prayer.'

The last note disappeared in the wind. Morgynn narrowed her eyes and stretched her fingers out wide to her sides, touching those warm tendrils, the unseen connections from pulse to pulse in the hidden forces of the Order. Her silent command was clear and unmistakable.

"Kill them all." The battle those words precluded was swift and brutal. The Sedras were weak, and the Order was prepared. There was no salvation for the tribe. Hunger gave them a desperation for survival but little else. The evening matured quickly as Morgynn waded through an ocean of chaos. Sweat poured across her brow in pink rivulets. Her entire body was flushed with heat arid pulsing with magic, an instrument of the Weave vibrating with power. The ground became soft and spongy beneath her feet. The permafrost of the tundra melted and became mud as fires raged across the Sedras camp. All around her, magic seethed and slithered from vengeful Gargauthan throats.

Unimaginable beasts howled in the ungodly pain of tortured existences as they heeded the bidding of the Order and fed on the flesh of the fallen and dying. Their hideous melodies sang in her mind, etching themselves in the depths of memory. Morgynn drank in the moment, lived in the passing time of the night and early morning. She immersed herself in the final act of a former life, the first task of a spirit lost to blood and magic. The sky was a halo of light, a false dawn to mock Lathander's breach of the eastern horizon. That sunrise would find only waste and char, carrion and silent screams whistling through mouths agape with voiceless tongues. Devilish visages, leering faces of crafted wood and painted metals, paced solemnly among the remains, witnesses to the death of one moment and the birth of another. They all looked north one by one to the girl they had wrought from injury and Abyss. A shadowy black dog slunk close to the hem of her crimson robes, casting bright and intelligent eyes on any who came near this new mistress. Talmen, now the Grand Malefactor of the Order of Twilight, gazed upon Morgynn's dark beauty in awe. The light of flames danced across the broken horns of the skull-grinning mask he wore.

Acolytes gathered behind him, following his lengthy stare as they whispered prayers of promise and offering. Morgynn ignored them all, circling the prone form of a final enemy, the first enemy she had ever known. Golden armor was battered and warped, blackened in spots and spattered by mud and blood. A heavy mace that had once glowed like the sun lay twisted and broken, beyond the reach of fingers too weak to lift it. Kaeless breathed raggedly, puffs of steam drifting lazily in the dying morning wind. Her eyes stared sightlessly into the gray sky.

She shook her head in senseless denial, lost in a silent prayer. A plea for mercy or forgiveness, Morgynn could not tell. Kaeless's head jerked to one side, suddenly alert to the noise of nearby footsteps.

"Forgive me! Forgive me!" she cried mournfully, pleading blindly. "I killed her! I killed her, and Lathander punishes us! My own daughter…" Her voice trailed away into nonsense, mere mumblings as the pain of mortal wounds slid like burning ice through her body.

Morgynn knelt closer, shaking with baleful animosity, to reach her mother's ear. "No. You didn't kill her." She kept her voice soft, soothing. Kaeless squinted, trying to make out the dark blur against the lightening sky, trying to identify that familiar voice. She held her breath, waiting for that woman to speak again, to absolve her soul of wrongdoing. "She isn't dead." Morgynn reached out to stroke her mother's matted hair, leaning in and whispering, "She is damned."

Morgynn's hand clamped over Kaeless's nose and mouth, foregoing magic or dagger so she could feel the life ebb between her fingers. In moments, her mother's eyes glazed over, her trembling stopped, and the battle was over. A chant arose among the Gargauthans in the blasted field, a prayer to their devil-god. Morgynn heard them, but did not listen. She sat and stared at the hands she had felt melting away in a grave of ooze as demons had bargained over her soul. A gust of the north wind blew across the small hill, and she marveled at the gooseflesh that arose along arms covered in scars and blood.

Panting, Morgynn awoke. Recognizing her surroundings, she rubbed her forehead and her eyes, trying to clear the fog. The plains and the Sedras camp were gone, replaced by her chamber atop the tower of Jhareat. The dreams had ended. Morgynn sat on the edge of the divan, bent at the waist, rubbing her temples and shutting out the phantom noises of her awakening. Khaemil was nearby; she felt the vial of his blood at her belt stir and churn. He could wait. She sat still for a long time, trembling as her emotions ran amok. No matter how much she slept, she always awoke exhausted.

Morgynn descended the stairs carefully, weary from dreaming too long. Near the bottom, she heard voices outside. Talmen's was one-his voice and emotions were known to her through the connection she'd forged on his forearm. Khaemil was the other. She stopped to listen before revealing herself. Tracing a finger lightly on the wall and whispering a spell, the stone became as clear as glass so she could watch them, though they could not see her. "She sleeps still?" Talmen asked. "No, she has awakened. Her screams stopped only moments ago."

"Ah, then she has rested. Good. Matters are grim enough without having to worry about her judgment." Khaemil turned away from Talmen, facing the wall, smiling and shaking his head. "Did you honestly think you would come to this point and not have your precious life threatened by some enemy? Or would you prefer that we choose a more fitting location for your Order, some place uninhabited and far away, perhaps?" "I am no coward, shapechanger. My only fear is that our ambitions may exceed our ability. We have traveled across half of Faer?n, growing in numbers but dwindling in prospects. Any reservations I have concerning this one are well founded, I assure you." Khaemil smirked and looked sidelong at Talmen. "Your doubts will mark you, human. Leave them behind when we march or they will pierce your flesh and put your body in the grave where your mind already rests." He looked back to the tower's entrance as Morgynn appeared. "This, I assure you." Morgynn stood with her fingertips pressed to her temples. Her eyes were closed as she walked, but her form was straight and her step was sure.

Despite the lingering distress of her nightmare, she was confident in her bearing. Talmen and Khaemil parted as she neared and passed between them. Her hands slowly left her aching head. Stretching her neck in a spasm that helped to separate physical action and wild emotion, she opened her eyes and beheld the monstrous troops that lay waiting on the field of stone. Although few in number compared to the garrison she hoped to command one day, the nature of the minions would be both horrific and daunting to any enemy. "I commend you, Malefactor. Your wizards and priests have done well." She favored him with a look over her shoulder. "The malebranche will be interesting to observe in battle. What little there may be." Talmen bowed. Morgynn was amused by the change in the priest's thoughts and actions now that she was in his presence. "Thank-you, Lady Morgynn, but our servants are summoned merely to complement your own. The bathor numbers far outweigh my Order's meager contribution." "Very good," she replied.

"Go. Take your place and gather them. Our path will be prepared shortly." "Yes, my Lady." Talmen walked swiftly toward the forest's edge. He showed no emotions, but she felt him tremble beneath his mask as he stared into the trees and gripped the scar seared on his arm.

Khaemil's words still echoed in his mind, and Talmen endeavored to bolster his feelings to match his show of courage. She left his mind then, confident that his fear of her was greater than his fear of death. "I wager he will soil himself if the oracles have a guard posted at the gate, my lady," the shadurakul said over the droning work of the wizard-priests around the tower. The humor in Khaemil's jest was not lost on her, but her mind was elsewhere as she scanned the damp ground. "No doubt. But as long as he makes it that far, his fear is irrelevant." Finding what she sought, Morgynn knelt on the ground, tracing long fingers around a puddle of water. She mumbled words of magic and waved one hand erratically over the water's surface while the other reached for a pouch at her side. A sliver of wood appeared in her hand from the pouch-a splinter from the ancient scrying bowl in Goorgian's Well. It would be a catalyst for her spell to allow her simple scrying to become more intrusive than her targets might enjoy. Completing the words of the spell, she finished the incantation by biting her lip and drawing blood. This she spat in the center of the puddle and it flashed with light, dimming to show a scene of swirling mist and impenetrable gray. "Sisters," she whispered, focusing on the materializing image of the pale grove of oaks hidden in the forest. Their leafy voices emanated from the water, sounding hollow and far away. Though their words were unintelligible, their tone of defiance was unmistakable. From her pouch, Morgynn produced the Stone of Memnon and held the glossy black stone above the puddle, dipping it to brush the surface. Tiny ripples tore through the sylvan scene. Its effect on the trees was immediate, causing the branches to twist and writhe as they'd done before when confronted with the artifact. "What do you want, blood-witch?" She ignored their insult, admiring their tenacity and empathizing with their anger. "A path. You three together have much control of the forest. I desire that you part the undergrowth and allow my followers to pass. East, if you please." They did not respond, but the sounds of a disturbance in the forest served as their answer. Morgynn watched eagerly. To her left, trees parted, roots shifted, and entangling vines and bushes pulled back, revealing a wide road of soft soil. The leaves in the image of the grove shook and hissed as the sisters spoke. "Our influence reaches far, but not to the other side. You must forge your own road beyond ours." "We shall make do," Morgynn replied, and dismissed the image in the puddle. Rising, she brushed mud from her red robes and discovered Talmen standing at the edge of the road, staring into the shadowy avenue that had seemingly appeared from nowhere. She touched a fingernail to her arm in a place corresponding with the dark glyph on his. Morgynn revealed the true extent of the link she had forged into his skin and spoke, her words resoundingly loud in his mind. "Follow the path as far as it goes. The bathor will clear the rest." He nodded, clearly unnerved by the sudden command, then shouted to those waiting behind him. Morgynn smiled as they marched into the Qurth. She felt the weakening pulse of her children as they moved away from her, leading her army to the gates of Brookhollow and the doorstep of the Hidden Circle.

Sodden grass lay bent and broken across the western edge of the Reach in the wake of the heavy rain still moving southward along the Qurth's border. In the midst of the swamped plain, a solitary figure paused in her travels and gathered the ingredients of traditional magic. The ancient language of the Ghedia, the grass witches of the Shaar, sang in the air. Mud sucked at the Ghedia's bare feet as she circled a pot of boiling water. Floating reeds churned and tumbled on its surface. Her loose clothing rippled in the wind and beaded bracelets dangled from her wrists, clicking like tiny wind chimes as she waved her arms and hummed, working the old magic of the Shaar. As she hummed, she traced a stick through the mud every so often, writing down what she saw in the boiling pot. Her deep voice continued the casting song of her ancestors, but her mood grew grim as understanding dawned on her. Her Ghedia sisters had already moved on, wandering the troubled grasslands of the Reach seeking answers and signs, protecting anything sacred as well as the ancestral ground of the Shaaryans.

Their auguries had become erratic of late, showing danger and threat from every direction but not revealing the source. Lesani slowed her dance and stopped, her long brown hair falling from beneath her hooded cloak, framing the worried expression on her exotic and mature Shaaryan features. The flames of the fire danced in her deep brown eyes as she gazed upon the muddy runes. For years, she and her fellow shamans had ignored the aura of darkness around the Qurth Forest, accustomed to its presence in the background of their seeing spells.

Recently, it had begun to radiate with a strange magic-magic that grew stronger by the moment and moved sluggishly, as if just awakened. Yet all the signs pointed south, to Brookhollow. She narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips, and exhaled a long breath. Scanning the darkness and roiling mist on her left, she deliberated silently. She knew her duty, as all of the Ghedia did, but this would not be an easy decision. The Savrathans had long ago broken ties with the old magic of the Shaar and would not readily accept the assistance of those labeled heretics by the Hidden Circle. If they still lived and had not succumbed to plague or secret foes by now, she thought. Finding a cure for the blush had been a concentrated effort for the Ghedia lately. The runes Lesani had drawn, though, were clear: Plague, War, Twilight, Blood, and the eye-shaped symbol for Prophecy, the closest rune in the Dethek alphabet for Savras, not yet a god when the language was young. Lesani thought of Elisandrya, one of the few hunters still friendly to the shaman sisters and acquainted with their ways. She knelt and grabbed a fistful of grass, twisting the blades together, breaking them in half and rubbing them between her palms, staining her hands green as she squeezed them. The spell of the green-fire sprang to her mind. "If for no one else, then for young Elisandrya." She stamped her foot in the mud, chanting the ancient call of the grass witches. The words of the magic were older than remembered time, lost in the history of the Shaar, older than the Shoon Dynasties, and older than the Calim Desert. Her voice was an echo from an age forgotten, passed down from shaman to shaman in the great oral history of the Shaaryan tribes.

Raising her folded hands to her lips, she blew upon them, igniting them with a flickering green light. She cast the crushed grass into the boiling pot, setting the water aflame. Using a stout stick, she upturned the pot's contents, pouring them onto the fire beneath. The flame sprang to life, whooshing upward in a blazing emerald bonfire.

Lesani stepped back from the heatless flame and began to gather her belongings, the sparse possessions of a nomadic life. The flame would reach beyond darkness and fog, beyond ruins and all obstacles, visible only to her sisters. They would return and they would follow, of this Lesani was sure. Whether they journeyed to war or a funeral, though, she could not say. The green-fire was a symbol of both.