(To Lisa Tyler) "Gee, never been in trouble with the LAW before."
Wade Elliott
Featuring: Hessian
Date: 23-06-11
Location: @ Culture Shock Night 1 & 2
In the dead of night he raced carelessly into the wood, never looking back. The great unblinking eye of the moon bathed the land alabaster and with reckless abandon he threw himself into the blackest shadow beyond the tree-line, scrambling through the gorse and bracken and paying no mind to the bloody wounds scored into his flesh or the swathes of silk linen torn from his back by the unforgiving night. A deep terror pushed him forward into the unknown and he never once stopped to gauge the location of his pursuers, remembering the awful sight of them and the their uninterrupted advance, silent were it not for the spine-tingling scraping of their approach and the sporadic gurgle choked from their abominable maw.
A collision with coarse bark halted him in his tracks, and as breath leapt from his throat into the cold night air he could not help but look back. The moonlight glimmered in the gaze of his piercing blue eyes; the eyes of a man who once held acclaim in the kingdom of man. Once upon a time those eyes had beheld in their sight the wonder of vast treasures and the beauty of the purest babes beckoning his intimacy, for upon the tongue of simple mortals he was more than legend. Had he abstained from dealings with the underbelly of society he would still to this day command legions of men who dreamt of seeing glory as he saw it in those piercing blue eyes.
Now what they saw lurching through the brush towards him chilled him to the core. He screamed a lunatic's scream for he had since sunrise two days past been unable to outrun his tormentors. His knees trembled and he fell to the dirt and when the lumbering atrocities broke from the shadow he threw his arms out in despair and from his grasp flew the last remaining symbol of his lost affluence; the single piece of fortune he was able to steal away before his deposition from power. At the sight of it the creatures froze. So to did the fallen hero's beating heart.
It was no bigger than the span of his palm and so perfectly rounded and golden that had the beasts no inclination of its being they would have turned to the sky in the belief that the moon had fallen from its perch. Its radiance drew them into the pale midnight light where their barrel bodies shone slick, and beady black eyes upon undulating stalks pointed at the trinket and its keeper all at once. Suddenly the night sky was filled with a piercing howl that he could not drown out no matter how hard he clapped his ears, and when the creatures threw up their massive ribbed wings and reached out with many grasping tentacles the dread in his heart deepened. He lunged for his treasure; for the last remaining tether to a memory of a time when he was king, when the mere sight of him was known to cause orgasm in the throng of followers that worshipped him.
And the night air rang shrill with one last desperate howl.
Recovery
The rising sun of the next morning found the bobbing shadow of a scout patrol making its way over hillocks of granite. Though stout of heart the two appeared bedraggled; their feet wrapped to the thigh in the thick hide of a kill, the mahogany leather skin of which served as trunks and padding around their slim and toned upper bodies. Their heads were banded with braids of fine black hair which had been shorn from the scalp of some nameless corpse to keep their own greasy locks from interfering with their line of sight. One of them carried a horn around his neck.
As feral their uniform, the spear and shortsword they carried individually were equally regal. Decorated with laces of pointed bleached teeth and colourless feather the majesty of the weapons was diminished to a comfortable level of savagery that the patrolmen wielded proudly.
"The mountains lie dormant still," the spearman said with a glance to the northern peaks, "and the desert of Culshoch breathes life into naught but the sandstorm." he grumbled, sweeping his spear across the horizon where lay the southern sands forever fogged by a gale of biting dust.
"We do what is asked of us and we do not question our master for it." the swordsman replied sternly, with a knowing narrow of the eye that turned to the east, towards the kingdom of Colus. "The day our line of territory is slackened will be the very day that death severs it. Too much is whispered of the mountains for it to be mere legend and we both know what lies beyond..."
The swordsman was silenced as his gaze fell upon an unfamiliar form a mile off in the direction of his survey.
"...the woods."
The spearman scanned for any further anomalies along the tree-line of the great forest of Kïok that blotted most of the land's central belt. It was their task to commit to memory the panorama of dead pine that formed the perimeter of the forest. It was a half day's walk through that marshy tangle where the land rose away from the west before a further day's ride through dense conifer that fell into lifeless sycamore and cedar towards the east. They knew off by heart each individual rock, tree and shrub lining the western woods so that should hostile forces stalk them from the murk they would know it before the enemy advanced across the forty acre flatland to the rocky protuberance upon which they scouted from.
"What do you make of it?" the spearman asked of the mysterious shape, to which the swordsman gestured to the bull horn, which served as the scout's alarm. "Gutless shit," he sniped sardonically, taking his first steps down the granite slope.
"Not so gutless as to question our lord's will!" the swordsman called after him with a smile, which his comrade waved off with a sneer.
With a two-handed grip of his spear the scout traversed the field between the rock hills and the wood, slowing to a cautious poise when it became apparent to him that the thing lying in a foetal curve on the edge of the woods was some kind of animal, most likely porcine in nature, judging by the pale flesh of it scored crimson with blood. As he came upon it however the scraps of cloth stuck to its skin and the long, gangly limbs identified it as man.
Adapting a defensive stance the spearman levelled his weapon and spun it blunt end forward so that he could stab at it without further injury. Growling and hooting aggressively did not prompt a reaction, and so the scout came closer and rolled the body over onto its back with his foot. Before tasked with scouting missions the spearman had himself been seasoned by many a conflict throughout the land and had witnessed much violence and gore like the gashes over the back of the body, but the injuries to the abdomen caused him to gasp, grip his spear tightly and once more survey the tree-line.
The flesh had been chewed on, that much he guessed. Five overlapping cavities had been carved out leaving the flesh a bright pink where it met the skin. Beyond that the meat was black and swollen in some places, purple and oozing pus in others. Congealed blobs of bright red claret patterned in precise circles left the corpse looking as though it had been attacked by a creature of the deep blue sea, but that was surely impossible given the distance to the ocean and the freshness of the kill.
"Seb help me."
The spearman jumped with astonishment as the corpse suddenly drew breath, reaching up at him and rasping its plea.
"Who are you? What happened here?!" the spearman roared, holding the spear tip before the stranger's bloodied face.
"They...took it..."
"You have trespassed upon the land of the barbarian and you will answer me! Who are you?!"
Though the answers hung upon the trembling jaw of the stranger he could not muster voice and promptly fell into unconsciousness. The spearman turned to the rock hills where the lone figure of his fellow scout watched intently and let loose a specific series of lupine howls, signalling the discovery of the wounded. Giving the woods a final once-over he took the stranger up in his arms and raced back across the flatland to meet his companion.
"Are you mad, fondling a corpse?" the swordsman exclaimed upon his return.
"He yet lives. We must return to the clan and treat his wounds," replied the spearman, continuing on his path over the rocks.
"We are patrolmen! Our heads will find the tip of a pike if we bring a stranger into our home uninvited!"
Without stopping or looking back the spearman yelled, "we are patrolmen returning with a trespasser on our land! This is no madness but our duty!"
"Then we must deliver him to the Hessian!" the swordsman shouted back, which was enough to cause the spearman to halt abruptly before shaking his head and carrying on out of sight over the hill. With a frustrated grunt he followed his comrade, knowing that however it was explained there would be hell to pay upon their return.
Delivery
At the westernmost point of the granite hills the land sloped steeply into a hollow of evergreens. Opposite that stood an inactive volcanic plug of hardened magma, rising one thousand feet where it table-topped before falling two thousand vertical feet to the sea below. When the barbarian king first settled in the area he, along with the few who followed his rule, built an encampment in the hollow. Over time others came from the east, sparse in number, seeking the warrior for their means. Thus the clan was born.
Such was its size that the hollow began to swell with bodies and it was ordered the magma of the extinct volcano dug out from foot to fall. Cave dwellings and paths were carved out, and as the clan grew the habitations extended deeper into the mountainside until a veritable village rose vertically all the way to the summit. It was there on the table-top meridian that the ruler of the banished built a fortification of the same magma and granite.
A great stone castle was erected with its back to the cliff and an open central courtyard to the fore, surrounded by a training ground for the soldiers, surgery for the doctor, armoury for the armourer, and store for the cooks, as well as living quarters for all. The entire fort was squared off by three-metre thick walls standing forty feet high that ran from one corner of the table-top to the other and were interspersed with guard towers. As a finishing touch no doors were built into the walls, but rather a single entrance was dug into the grounds of the courtyard and a tunnel excavated through the mountain that exited randomly near the base amid a cluster of soldier's dwellings.
With a clan of military might at his command and an impenetrable fortress to call home it was then that the barbarian king named it the realm of Helväte.
There ran a strict hierarchy to the clan that rose with the mountain. Expendable newcomers were granted shelter in the lowest caves at the base of the lava neck amongst pikes stabbed into the ground and decorated with the corpses of traitors, trespassers and the unworthy so that the first sight to greet any outsider was that of ghoulish figures milling about the remains of the dead like cannibalistic zombies. Above them hunter-gatherers and soldiers tasked to defend them resided all over the first four hundred feet, while the upper half was populated by warriors, scouts, hunter-gatherers and most of the women who found their way to Helväte through cause or fault. For the king, by the king. All of barbarian law.
The scouts had been spotted long before their return and even as they reached the summit the king's personal surgeon, a crooked old man barefoot and clad in a black leather apron, awaited them in the vast hall built around the tunnel entrance to the kingdom. By his side a team of stocky soldiers, heavy with muscle and adorned with thick animal hide and the skulls of prey and predatory beast alike, stood to attention.
"The vanguard wrest me from study to attend a corpse?" the surgeon croaked, stepping forward to examine the body.
The skin had further bruising courtesy of the journey back from the woods, and signs of necrosis were already creeping throughout the flesh. Running a hand over the shorn blond locks of the cranium the surgeon peeled open an eyelid and paused abruptly. Leaning closer he pulled open the other eyelid and studied the piercing blue stare in those vacant orbs and mumbled something under his breath before turning to the elite guard at his side.
"He must be treated at once, see him to my quarters immediately," the old doctor ordered of one soldier in a grotesquely over-sized ram skull helmet and to another in a bull mask he said, "find the king at once, tell him-"
The surgeon stopped and glanced at those around him before beckoning the bull soldier closer and whispering something out of earshot to the others. With a nod the bull soldier shot off in the direction of the castle while the scouts assisted the ram-headed soldier with the stranger.
"Do you know this man?" the spearman asked as he and the swordsman handed the body over to the much larger, thicker soldier with the ram-skull helmet who then trundled off to the surgery with the practitioner hobbling behind him.
"Focus your mind on your duties," the surgeon replied sternly, leaving the scouts to wonder just what importance the stranger held as they headed back to their watchtower.
Last Words
Clay pots of exotic remedies and herbs and bloodied wraps surrounded the bucking and groaning body of the stranger laid upon a large wooden table in the middle of the surgery. His strong muscular frame from time of discovery to now had become thin and frail, as though some unseen vampire were sucking the flesh from the bone. The doctor worked intensely over his patient, his apron stained with claret and flecks of decayed flesh, when a massive shadow fell over the doorway. Wiping the sweat from his brow with his forearm the surgeon turned to find a giant stoop through the entrance before rising up behind him.
His boots were of a size twice that of any other in the clan and fashioned from the golden short-haired hide of some magnificent beast slain far from his realm. He wore a kilt of puce fronted by a black sporran all made of leather, and bone manica around his forearms and draped around his neck a chain of iron fixed with a bronze pendant stamped with his mark.
He was seven foot of hard muscle and scarred flesh and wore a thick, wily brown beard around a permanent snarl. His eyes were a dead blue. He kept his hair shorn close to the scalp to accommodate the crown of bleached bone with sat upon it. A human skull only slightly larger than his own had had the mandible torn away and the top half of the cranium cracked off and the ragged edges sanded down to points. The orbital cavities too had been scoured down forever leaving an expression of fury in the hollow sockets.
He was the barbarian king. The Hessian.
"Are you sure it's him?" his voice boomed as the surgeon stepped aside to let his king examine the stranger.
"If my claim is false I would throw myself over the castle walls, sire," came the firm reply from the doctor, "I fear he is not long for this world; I cannot treat his wounds and fever racks his body. He speaks only in tongues now."
Met with unintelligible ravings and a crazed glare from out of those piercing blue eyes the Hessian asked, examining the wounds, "what creature is there in all of Primeiea capable of driving a champion to such illness?"
"In all my years sire I have seen but one other instance..."
"Lake Deton." the giant grumbled, in reminiscence of the tale long ago of forty unidentified bodies washed upon the shores of the lake just north of the great forest before the land spiked into the heavens as unfathomable mountains, shrouded in mythical superstition, where men feared to tread after hearing of the grisly end to the forty strong who, from the scraps of fabric still stuck to their corpses, could not be identified as belonging to any known group throughout the land.
Suddenly the stranger howled and clutched his bandaged torso, then to the surprise of both men grabbed at the surgeon's blade where he lay and began scoring into the wood of the table, knocking pots to the floor where they shattered and spilled their contents. The surgeon stumbled back in fright while the Hessian watched intently as a shape began to appear out of the frantic scrambling of the blade across the wood.
"S-sijhl..."
The Hessian cocked his head to the side as the stranger broke his incoherent rambling and began repeating that same sound.
"Sijhl...de-sijhl!"
"What do you speak of?" the Hessian asked, looking at the score-marks in the table to find a pattern fully emerged in the form of a pieridine design that resembled two back-to-back 'S' shapes. In the centre a circle had been carved with five points protruding from it like a star, with each point only just breaking the lines of the outer shape. An outline had been faintly carved in that, as he peered closer, he found to be writing of an apparently foreign language.
"What is this lunacy?!" the barbarian king roared.
In a final desperate moment of lucidity the stranger bolted upright and as his guts spilled into the bandaging and onto the table he grabbed the Hessian by the arm and screamed, "the sigil, they took the sigil!"
"What sigil? Whom do you speak of??" the Hessian asked, taking the stranger by the shoulders and ignoring the mess of innards slopping out of the body.
A thick black foam welled up out of the stranger's throat and all at once he fell back onto the table, his complexion as snow on winter's day and his gaze fixed upon the ceiling in hopelessness. The Hessian grabbed one of the dirtied cloths and wiped the befoulment from the dying man's lips.
"Monsters," he said with frightening clarity, "monsters in the mountains."
And then he knew no more.
Interrogation
In the vast dining hall of the castle the Hessian sat at the head of a long table surrounded by seven other men with his elbows upon a crude canvas map, staring at the disproportionate landmarks that made up Primeiea and finding his gaze continually drawn to the jagged black spikes that represented the northern mountains. The rest of the table lay bare of any cutlery or crockery.
Of the hundreds of barbarian clansmen but a small handful were in the king's trust. Possessing either a unique knowledge of the landscape or having been by his side from the beginning, the barbarian king would sacrifice everything and everyone if it meant keeping these seven safe from harm.
The surgeon was there because with his long years came great experience in not just medicine but the psychology of men. Next to him three of the soldiers from the courtyard were present; the bull and ram, who stood with his hand resting upon the pommel of a mighty greatsword equal to his height, and by his side a third soldier whose face was painted with a thick mixture of coal dust and clay. Those three were excellent tacticians of war and had travelled with him across the land seeking a new home and in the process slaying anything that crossed their path, including the beast whose hide clothed the giant Hessian.
The fifth man was barely a man at all. Shrouded in a coarse robe he stood less than half the height of the barbarian king and sat on the table opposite him, cross-legged and studying the map. A clawed hand the colour of deep purple like that of a bruise rose up to the imp's cowl and disappeared into the shadow of it as he stroked his chin in silent thought. He was the Hessian's personal advisor and though little to nothing was known about the origin of the creature the giant trusted him above all others.
The other two men present at the meeting were not of the clan. Though soiled, their apparel was of a much richer regal bearing; maroon silk leggings and cotton shirts that were once pristine white before blood spatter had tainted the fabric. The shackles around their wrists and ankles however were unmistakably barbarian. They had been sent from the east on a mission of infiltration by the ruler of the kingdom of Colus, and that mission had failed. It was they who the giant addressed first.
"How long have you served King Ward?"
"From the day following your deposition, barbarian." came the immediate reply from one of the prisoners.
He was a rake of a man whose handsome features had been beaten to pulp and whose blond curls had been ripped from the scalp in chunks. His cohort still had his full head of thick black hair and his dashing looks, but that was of no comfort to him when his eyeballs had been plucked from his head and tossed into the sea beyond the castle walls. His face had been bandaged since and he stood only to serve as a warning to his fellow spy. That single act had taught the blond to speak when spoken to in the presence of the leader of barbarians, and frankly so that the memory of being ousted from his rightful throne burned bright in the front of the Hessian's mind.
"So you would consider yourself well acquainted with his royal highness?"
With great reluctance the prisoner nodded, his lip trembling from an unabated fear.
The giant produced a block of wood sawed from the surgeon's table. The blond prisoner stared at the rough engraving and held back a shudder as the Hessian ran a finger over the lines carved into the wood.
"You're familiar with this emblem." the barbarian said, careful not to present its importance as a question of optional answer.
The silence was filled by the low howl of the wind blowing through the hall and the crackle of the wood burning in the fire pits at either end of the room. Each click and spit of the tinder sent chills down the prisoner's spine in memory of the snap of his partner's eyeballs being ripped from their sockets.
"I know nothing of this insignia-" he began, his voice gripped by a tremor.
The Hessian clicked his fingers and suddenly the painted soldier, the clay man, had one hand around the blond's throat and the fingers of the other pressed into the lids of his left eye.
"But I recognize the letters!" he screamed, giving the barbarian king cause to halt the eye gouging for the moment. "It is a dead language. King Ward set every scribe in the realm to the task of translating it so that he may learn its meaning and venture to the Dulalo Tower so that he may fulfil his destiny."
The giant barbarian had no understanding of the tower which the blond spoke of and scoffed, turning the block in his hand and trying to figure out its upright position never mind make sense of the strange symbols carved around the emblem.
"What importance is a lost tongue to a dog like Ward? He seeks power, not knowledge." he said.
"Our Lord believes that power has many forms," said the prisoner, his tone weak with relief as the clay man released his grip and backed off at a single gesture from the Hessian, "and he seeks to master each so that all of Primeiea will bow before him."
"What power is to be gained from...words." spat the Hessian, still sore from his defeat long ago to the new king and insulted that he would seek to rule all men in such a way.
"Magic, perhaps." replied the imp, warranting concerned looks from those around him and unsettling the giant.
The prisoner shuffled on his feet and looked off into the farthest corner of the hall.
"Ward was able to overthrow the single strongest force in Primeiea with as vast an army as anyone has ever seen," the surgeon said, garnering a resentful glare from the giant before turning to the blond captive, "what cause would he have for dabbling in sorcery?"
A stiff jab to the ribs brought the prisoner's focus back to the table as he realized the surgeon had been addressing him.
"I know only that the King ordered those symbols deciphered and that on the dawn that we left for our mission a second-"
"Tell him nothing!"
The blond was silenced as the blind prisoner shouted at him abruptly. In the ensuing moment of silence he began to shiver and shake, fat beads of sweat rolling through the grease and bloodstain upon his brow and falling in dirty globules into his bandaged eyeless sockets.
"We serve the inhuman being Lord Matthew Ward of the Kingdom of Colus! Our duty is to his throne; our hand at his command and our blood for his life!" We swore an oath to our king and now you spit in his face to save your own life when his is all that matters! You betray him so that this weak barbarian scum may revolt against the throne?! You have damned yourself this day and I am glad to be blind of it you spineless worm!"
He spat in what he thought was the direction of the Hessian, but instead soiled the imp's cowl with a milky green wad of sputum. The creature hardly looked up, but enough to make eye contact with the wide-eyed barbarian who immediately rose from his seat and took from the ram the mighty greatsword before taking his place at the back of the blind prisoner and never taking his eyes off the blond, whose quivering legs quickly stained with urine.
"And how appropriate that you should happen upon this," the giant rose his arms to the walls around them, no matter the blind man's ability to see him do so, "in the kingdom of the worm..."
Mountains of Madness
North of the forest of Kīok, past Lake Deton and the foothills beyond that the Danforth mountains rose violently to the heavens, slowly at first where the sky first meets the clouds and then sharply into barren cliffs permanently capped with hard snow. This is what the men of Primeiea imagined though none were so brave as to clarify it for themselves, little did they know that the great mountains they thought they knew were mere promontories at the edge of whole ranges of peaks that transcended borders with other nations and indeed covered most of the world north of Primeiea.
At their centre stood Mount Seb. Whole nations could fit beneath its base, and it was of a height unfathomable to man. The foothills were teeming with wildlife adapted to the northern clime, though beyond that no life was presumed to exist. No herds of bighorn, yak or llama. No bears, wolves or cats. Not even the ape-men or terror birds or the nameless things that stole away lives in the dead of night.
And yet there was one who called such a place home. One who was shunned by all others despite his reputation as a fearsome warrior whose methods were labelled heroic by some though insane by the majority. Praised or feared as he was he was not welcome in any region of Primeiea by any walk of life from savage to sovereign, and so he took refuge in the impossible mountains.
Atop that unimaginable place the Bringer of the Black Gospel knelt in prayer. Not to Seb, but another deity of dark origins not of this world.
It was the cornerstone of Primeiea's religion that the world as man knew it came about after the supreme being Seb created the land and the sea and wanted to build for Himself a palace in the sky to watch over it. According to Primeiean mythology another of the Founders, Joeo, the warrior god of the storied land of Eseesedu, grew jealous of the paradise that Seb had created in contrast to his own and tricked the Primeiean god into a race to see which of them could build the greatest palace upon which to look down on the other.
Joeo allowed Seb to build His palace higher than he or indeed any of the Founders, and only had to watch as the proud deity built up and up until He could build no more and, exhausted, the supreme being completed His palace before falling from the heavens and crashing through the earth creating the Gremerni canyon, and was lost forever in the abyss below.
Having defeated his rival Joeo continued trying to perfect Eseesedu but, unable to match the magnificence of Primeiea and taunted by the monolithic palace built by Seb, destroyed the very land he created. In the eyes of the Founders the destruction of creation was an unforgivable act and Joeo was sentenced to spend eternity roaming the very land he despised as a mere mortal, and Mount Seb was forever clouded from sight by the Founders so that they may forget the treachery of one of their own.
Clad in a ceremonial gown of sable that lashed the air with a whip-crack against raging gales, the maddened priest Shanahan let loose a maniacal laugh at the thought of such weakness on the part of those so-called gods. He held in his hands the cursed tome of the Mad Arab, bound in cracked leather fitted with metal clasps and filled with sinister accounts and malevolent spells.
He raised the book towards the violet sky and over the roaring thunder recited one such incantation that brought forth the flash of yellow lightning within a swirling nebula wherein a drawling monastic chant emanated, reverberating down the mountainside and shaking lose the rock and shale and revealing what looked like corners and adjoining edges and hints of designs carved upon them. Though the thunder died away the storm roiled overhead as the man, who had looked into his prey's eyes and told them that by the hand of Violence Jack they were ended, brought the book to his chest to hug it, bowing his head and closing his eyes in a moment of exhalation.
An incessant chirping broke the still and looking up the infernal priest found the sky filled with rolling black shapes coasting through the gusts of air as though it were a gentle breeze on a summer's day. To the untrained eye they were a bastardized amalgamation of sea creature and plant life, the notion of flight inconceivable against the fat barrel-shaped bodies and flimsy wings and those many curling tentacles. Violence Jack knew them well however, and offered no verbal greeting as they landed on the summit.
All was silent bar the howl of the high winds and the occasional crack of lightning, and the demented fiend found himself swaying back and forth as he was overcome by some ethereal force. The monsters before him ceased their undulations and vibrations and tuned their vocal chords to the mysterious growling coming from the nebula. One of the creatures approached him with something clutched in its tethidine grasp. Shanahan scoffed.
"I raised a following so that the will of the dark lord may be fulfilled and yet they were deemed unworthy and disposed of. I breathe life into every word of this book and yet they go unheard. I have plotted and perpetrated countless acts towards the awakening and NOTHING has come of it!" he bellowed, pointing an accusing finger at the monster before him.
Suddenly the creature stabbed at him and he found himself rigid with shock unable to move as an alabaster light welled up from inside him, glowing brightly from every orifice of his face. Jack found himself flung to the ground as though struck by lightning, and was now surrounded by a billion stars that slammed into the mountainside and shot across the blackened sky as transparent clouds illuminated by the starlight flew by at incredible speed and his own movements seemed amplified a hundred times. Generations passed in the blink of an eye yet the mountain remained still, and in the faintest whimper he heard the voice of the dark lord.
Feeling the cursed book in one hand it was the smooth surface of a cold foreign object gripped in the other that drew his attention. Careful not to move so fast as to snap his own spine, galaxies bore through the night and the moon and the sun chased one another around the orbit though no day dawned or dusked as Father Shanahan uncurled his fingers from around the object and his eyes gazed longingly and he smiled confidently as a warm golden haze washed over his face.
"...Y kadishtu hai." he said, and as the creature backed away the world slowed to a halt and in a moment of breathlessness he was forced back to his feet by another's doing.
An alien hum escaped his throat then, which caused the summit to shake violently and from several thousand feet below a hellish mass of glowing pustules spewed forth at his summoning, from where legions of nightmarish beasts tore away the rock to form titanic edifices of cone and cube in contour, hollowed into which were a dense warren of passages upon which hieroglyphic murals covered every square inch. Inlaid with a myriad of black eyelets the monstrous summoned thing lowed like a steer and waited as the Bringer of the Black Gospel stepped forward and threw himself into its accursed body, and like a bubble bursting the creature exploded and in an instant man and beast were gone from the mountain.
Reward
The barbarian's greatsword was a weapon that inspired fear on the battlefield. When its victims bowed under the death strike of the blade it was said to be out of respect and not fear. It was fully six and a half foot in length and weighed nine pounds in the hand of the Hessian. Its blade was forged of a steel that rumour had it would let the giant cut through entire mountains if he so desired, and the ricasso bore the mark of the barbarian king. The cruciform hilt was made of iron and the handle wrapped in leather, and both sides of the cross-guard had, instead of side rings, sharpened fleur-de-lis tips that allowed the giant to deliver punishing blows at short range.
He swung it without notice and with such ferocity that the blind man was cleaved from the top of his head to his pelvis in one clean cut which sliced through flesh and bone, and even the manacles which bound the prisoner's hands, like butter. The edge of the blade stuck fast in the dead man's pelvis and the dinner table simultaneously, and vibrated eerily against the bone from the impact.
It was a sight terrifying to none but the blond, who fell to the floor in a hail of gore as the corpse of his comrade jerked on its feet, knees bucking senselessly while the arms dangled lifelessly at the sides of the split torso which in turn began to peel outwards. The bandage fell from its head as the right side of the cadaver flopped over him, and in that eyeless, torn-mouthed stare the blond saw a horror that defined not just the remorseless vengeance of his slayer but his own virtue and faith and belief and what it meant to have lived and died for them.
The corpse shimmied for a few moments in its final throe before eventually separating from the steel blade and collapsing to the floor where the innards spilled out across the stone, washing over the blond who vomited from the sight of it and the stench of bile and blood and shit. The Hessian pulled the greatsword free from the table and placed it in the hands of the ram once more before returning to his seat.
"As you were." he said to the blond, but the prisoner could not lift himself from the floor and had to be hauled up and supported by the oxters by the bull and the ram, but still he was captivated by the ruined mess of his comrade on the floor.
The imp had been busy wiping the phlegm off of his hood, and in his own moment of ire he rose up and waddled to the edge of the table, glancing at his gob-stained hand before smacking the prisoner across the face. The blond reeled from the surprising strength of the slap and with a shudder he gazed around the room at those around him as though wakened from a nightmare.
"When we left on the morning of our mission," his voice was flat and he spoke almost in a whisper, "a second team had been deployed with orders to seek out a man believed to be the last known speaker of the dead language. The Crimson Angel of the Gremerni canyon..."
"Deville..." uttered the imp, and the Hessian's eyes lit up.
Like the man who had died in the surgery earlier, the Crimson Angel had long ago been one of the High Kings of Primeiea. For a generation he was heralded as Seb-like among his people until, like the blue-eyed stranger, he fell from grace and was banished to the Gremerni canyon; an immeasurable chasm that separated the forest of Kïok from the desert region of Culshoch and ran from the Primeiean Sea in the west to the border with Giceedu in the east. The canyon was unique in that from end to end it varied from a gentle mile-deep slope to a sheer drop into blackness that fell forever. It was populated by nightmare creatures and the Crimson Angel ruled it all.
As a matter of interest the Hessian asked, "what tied the Lion to this sigil?"
"Snow?" the blond replied, astonished that the giant barbarian would know of such things. After a long pause and fleeting glances at the corpse by his side he said, "I was not aware of such a relation."
"Something devious is afoot my lord." said the imp, and the soldiers nodded in agreement.
"Agreed." the surgeon said, pacing back and forth with one hand stroking his temple and the other held against his hip, "there is too much in this for it to be simple coincidence. One High King is found torn to shreds claiming to be in possession of a sigil bearing this mark and the ruler of Colus seeks another who is claimed to know its meaning."
The bull stepped forward. "The clan is incapable of overcoming such odds as those we faced during the upheaval, sire. If these symbols are of such great importance it may be in our best interest to track down the Crimson Angel and determine what power they possess, if any."
The Hessian began to nod as the pieces fell into place. Since his deposition at the hands of Ward his only mission was to claw his way back onto the throne by any means necessary. This was the reason that he allowed so many former citizens of Colus to join the barbarian clan; those ejected from the realm by Ward and those who could not abide his law, all in the hope that with enough men behind him the battle to regain the throne would be easily won. There was no other plan of action for a warrior whose key to victory lay in his incredible strength, and so the opportunity that had presented itself to the Hessian simply had to be taken advantage of.
"Assemble a team," he said to the clay man, "we leave for the Gremerni canyon at sunset."
"So soon?" the bull interjected.
"If the men Ward ordered to the chasm are as skilled as those he sent to me we must take our leave as soon as possible before their deaths are reported."
The blond prisoner gasped and felt his legs give out from under him once more, but the ram was there to steady him.
"Please Hessian, I implore you...spare me. I have cooperated fully and given everything asked of me. Please, if you grant me my life I would pledge new allegiance to you and shun that jackal of Colus."
The giant took back his sword, admiring its blade, "of all those I allowed into my clan," he began, "none made their name as a spy. It is said there is none so low as a serpent's belly yet here you stand before me."
A fat tear welled up in the prisoner's good eye and stung his skin as it trickled down his cheek following a dried rivulet of blood and seeping into his gaping mouth. The image of the blind man being sliced through with the greatsword and dancing a dead jig played through in his mind and he felt his stomach heave with a primal fear.
"But you have served a great purpose today and thus you may return to Colus. Alive."
The blond burst into tears, whimpering and snivelling and thanking the giant for showing mercy. What he did not notice was the wink that the barbarian king aimed at the ram, who took the prisoner by the shoulder and dragged him from the dining hall, happy to be alive after all he had endured.
"Find the man a mount so that he may return to his king post haste." the Hessian called after them, and as the door closed behind the ram and the prisoner a rictus grin found itself upon his face.
"I sometimes wish to ride with those you send back alive," mused the bull, "just to see the looks on the faces of those who greet them."
"A desire I share equally," the Hessian replied, "but come, preparations must be made for our departure. There are worse things out there than us barbarians." he laughed.
The bull joined in the laughter and with the clay man, surgeon and imp, followed the Hessian out of the hall, leaving behind the brutalized corpse of the blinded spy.
All That Glitters
The sun rose with a hundred screams over the kingdom of Colus. Before the reign of King Ward the Primeiean capital of Revo had been surrounded by high walls that protected the city and the castle that stood at its centre. From miles around the view of Revo was of the tallest tower of the palace peering over the walls that were intersected with guard towers upon which flags of the kingdom were hoisted, and as such the city projected a regal perspective to all outside its confines.
Beyond those walls however the majority of the streets were far more common. The poorest folk lived in dwellings of wood cut from the forest of Kïok topped with thatched roofs that sat in rows along dirt roads that spread for two miles into the city before the architecture changed to cobbled lanes and homes belonging to proprietors and landowners built of sandstone quarried from the foothills in the north before again giving way to brick avenues and whitewashed walls that made up the central district of Revo, populated by the more affluent citizens as well as the civil guard.
After the assault at the hands of an army numbering into the many tens of thousands, which saw the Hessian dethroned, King Ward had the poorest areas of Revo demolished and rebuilt using the stone from the walls surrounding the city to house his forces. Though open to attack from all sides the capital remained free from invasion thanks to the huge number of soldiers residing there, and a new border was marked into the ground surrounding Revo dubbed the suicide line, an idea of Ward's that further dissuaded any notion of incursion on the part of the enemy.
The castle was situated atop a motte, surrounded by a deep ditch with access provided by a single drawbridge which been permanently lowered in accordance with the deconstruction of the city walls, the flags of which were raised all along battlements of the the curtain wall. Inside the perimeter royal knights patrolled the grounds where several small keeps surrounded the main tower in which King Matthew Ward resided.
The Hessian had been a modest king. Not Ward. Red velvet carpeted every floor, tapestries and portraits adorned every wall and minstrels occupied every room, playing their lute whether company was present or not. Such was the wrath of Ward that he had the Hessian's private quarters doused in oil and burned to ash and refurbished to his liking where he may sleep in peace without the taint of the giant's stink in his nostrils.
The walls of the dining hall were lined with lit torches burning brightly between landscape paintings depicting hunts. Mounted above the hanging art were the select heads of several of those kills; everything from doe-eyed bighorns to snarling bears to a large golden reptilian beast with a horned crest and a strong jaw supporting a maw full of razor sharp teeth permanently frozen in a death roar. The dining table extended the full length of the hall like its counterpart at Helväte, though it was crafted of fine mahogany and waxed smooth and topped with a great tablecloth of woven silk. At its head sat a high-backed chair with ornately carved armrests and cushioned with blue satin.
Beyond the tall gilded iron doors the throne room was the most extravagant of all the rooms in the castle, large enough to accommodate an audience of over a thousand guests. The entire floorspace was carpeted with a cut and loop pile decorated with intricate gold, silver and white weaving. Along the sides of the room stood large bronze statues of Matthew Ward striking a heroic pose with his broadsword held high overhead. Between those statues against the maroon-painted walls hung huge mirrors framed in solid gold and elegantly shaped to regal standard, and fronted with end tables of equal design on top of which stood an arrangement of tall candles.
From the ceiling thirty feet above to a height of only eight feet from the floor hung three giant multi-tiered crown chandeliers of incredible opulence. Candles stood upon many hundreds of golden arms from which hung arrays of crystal and pearl that dazzled all who looked upon them.
At the front of the room, six marble steps rose up from the floor to the throne itself. The most important seat in Primeiea was also the grandest: built of ivory and overlaid with gold and cushioned with lion's hide. The backrest rose ten feet high and carved into the gold were elaborate carvings designed by Ward himself. The armrests rose nearly to chest height so that when the king sat upon it he maintained a strong posture in appearance to his audience. The ends of the rests were decorated with roaring lion heads, and in their mouths they held enormous black jewels that shined with a captivating iridescence under the light of the chandeliers.
He sat there now, face drawn in scornful contemplation. He never smiled. By his own merit he was a greater champion than any of the kings before him; he commanded the greatest army, he fought the smartest battles and always, always wore his suit of steel-plated battle armour, only swapping his helmet on the battlefield for a crown and cape in the castle. Yet he was not considered among the legend of the Lion and the Crimson Angel before him regardless of all his prestige. Despite the grandeur of his surroundings his was a most sour mood, further embittered by the news given to him by the secretary knelt before him that a further reconnaissance mission had gone awry.
"How many scout teams have been deployed to Gremerni thus far?" the king asked dryly.
"Several your highness." replied the page nervously.
Ward massaged his temple, "and all are missing presumed dead?"
"Neither of the squads despatched to their recovery have returned to confirm the fate of your spies sire, however-"
"Fucking incompetence!" roared Ward, slamming a gauntlet down upon the armrest. "Those men were able to infiltrate the Hessian's court and yet they are lost to one man in a canyon?! They throw themselves in even after the bear has fallen into the pit? Fucking imbeciles!"
The page raised his hand, mouth agape to the attention of the ranting king, "on the subject of the barbarian your highness-"
"If I am to be told the very men who infiltrated this castle under his regime are incapable of the task when the giant has been banished to the wilds..."
The secretary seemed unsure of how to explain the situation to Ward, and after a moment's hesitation his shoulders dropped and he shook his head.
"Perhaps you had better see for yourself, sire."
Alive
In the grounds of the castle most of the knights had crowded around the same spot. The air was filled with both worried chatter and boastful sniggering amid a strange moaning as King Ward stormed out of the keep towards the crowd.
"Attend your fucking stations!" he bellowed, startling the guards who immediately parted to give the king full view of what had piqued their interest so. It was the blond scout, identified only from the scraps of cloth still clinging to his torso, who had been sent to Helväte. At least what was left of him.
Ward was staggered by the sight. From the blond's body his hands, feet and ears had been severed. The strange moaning sound was emanating from his gaping mouth, in which the king could see the bloodied stump that had once been the scout's tongue. His eyes too had been gouged from their sockets, and around the blond's neck hung a bulging sack. But as promised by the barbarian ruler, he was alive.
"He came in on the dawn astride a mount." said one knight.
"And the streets parted to allow him to ride into my castle?" Ward barked.
"He would not cease his screaming," another knight explained, "none would approach him for fear he was of the cursed undead."
"This is the work of the barbarian," the king's first knight scolded them as Ward took the bag from around the scout's neck, "he makes a show of murder to mock the kingdom."
Inside the sack were the hands, feet and ears of the scout. A pair of eyeballs rolled about atop the pile and stared up vacantly at Ward. It was then that he noticed beneath them, sliced into the palm of the rended right hand was a symbol that as he pulled the extremity from the bag he recognized immediately.
"Snow betrayed me..." he muttered under his breath, gripping the severed hand so tightly that the bones cracked and popped.
It was by complete chance that Ward stumbled upon the Lion's secret treasury. After the fire which incinerated all trace of the Hessian from his private quarters, the new king discovered that a secret door was fitted into the floor at the foot of his bed and hidden beneath a carpet fashioned from the hide of the High King's namesake. Ward reckoned that the giant was too stupid and heavy-footed to have ever known it existed, and yet there it lay out in the open for him.
The door opened up to reveal a drop into pitch black that when he investigated it found to be only a few feet deep before opening into a corridor that he could only just crouch comfortably inside. It ran in the direction of where the bed lay before stopping at the wall and rising up in a staircase that spiralled up around the inside of the outer wall of the tower. The climb was tight and eventually the stairs stopped outside a wooden hatch that led into the lost treasury.
The space was roughly as large as the king's bedroom, but less than half the height so that Ward had to crab-walk across it. When he stopped and was silent he could just make out the voices of the marksmen posted to the roof of the keep above him; archers who could pick their shots and kill a man before he even crossed the drawbridge into the castle.
From the natural structuring of the passageway and the treasury itself Ward deduced that this had been the original rooftop before the High King had it built over to allow himself this secret place in which to hide his most prized possessions. It was here amongst foreign relics and championships that he found the sigil.
It fascinated him so that Ward hatched a plan to trick the Lion back into the kingdom from whence he had been banished and have him divulge the secret of the symbols stamped into the golden seal. The new ruler did not reckon that the High King prayed for that very day when he might return and reclaim it for himself, having had time to escape only with his neck after his corruption was discovered by the people of Revo.
So his plan failed and the Lion escaped without trace, until now as Ward gazed upon that same symbol. He knew only that it held a great power and though a hundred scribes were set to the task of its translation nothing came of their efforts. It was only when one notary from the reign of Deville, later hanged, informed Ward of the Crimson Angel's ability to make voice of the icon that Ward gathered his best men and set them to the task of retrieving the translation if not the former High King himself.
Now it was his understanding that the giant warrior Hessian he had defeated in battle to claim the throne possessed this same knowledge, and perhaps the sigil. Given the nature of the decapitation of the blond it was obvious to the king that his loyalty had been completely compromised. As such it was entirely possibly that the barbarian would also try to seek out the Crimson Angel and discover what power lay in the seal.
Tossing aside the bag and the hand, Ward addressed his first knight, "mount a third of our forces to a brigade with orders to invade Helväte and raze it from fucking existence. The second third are to take arms and guard the suicide line around the city until I order otherwise."
"What of the final third?" asked the first knight.
"They will ride with me to the Gremerni canyon," Ward replied to which the first knight cocked his head in puzzlement, "it seems that, disregard of power, to seek the simplest answer one must seek them oneself...or at the head of an army capable of unseating the Founders themselves."
Into Hell
Without hesitation and neglecting the greatsword strapped to his back, the giant shoved his thumbs into the eye sockets of his squealing victim and with his bare hands cracked the skull like an egg, tearing flesh and spilling blood and brain out onto the ground. Around him the bull, ram and clay man stood over several other butchered bodies of a group who had tried to ambush the squad on their way to the canyon.
They were now accompanied by the rest of the Hessian's elite guard; several equally thickset warriors splattered in the blood of their kill and clad in the hide-and-leather uniform of the barbarian, complete with skull helmets of disconcerting size; the bear, stag, wolf, serpent, boar and another warrior who stood just half a foot shy of the giant and wore the skull of the mythical terror bird on his head. Though not as clever as the bull or clay man he held a kill streak rivalled only by the giant Hessian.
"Why would Ward send so few men after his scouts? Why not a larger squadron?" asked the wolf as he re-sheathed his sabre.
"They are not of his army." the bull replied matter-of-factly.
"Of course they are; they wear the uniform and armour of the new king." argued the bear.
"They are scavengers," the Hessian said aloud, "raiders who carry only what they can salvage from fallen soldiers."
The guard studied the twisted faces and garb of the wild men and agreed that the ill-fitting uniforms and malnourished frames of their attackers were not traits of Ward's forces.
"Keep moving." the giant said, and as he passed the t-bird noticed a broken shard of a blade buried in the soldier's thigh. Without the t-bird noticing the giant pulled the fragment free and tossed it aside.
The t-bird turned to him and nodded with a nonchalant grunt, "sire."
The squad of ten barbarians trundled on through valleys of dense bracken and across rushing rivers, through groves and over moss-covered ruins of what had once been thriving villages before the advance of Matthew Ward's army. They were not furtive in their travels, walking freely for all who cared to try their luck. When the moon rose they camped out in the open and fell asleep to the sounds of primal screams and the howling of the haunting shadows. The creatures that did prowl out of the night to hunt the barbarians were cut down and left to cook upon the camp fire for breakfast.
On the third day of their journey a crack opened in the horizon and before the sun was at its highest it had opened up into a chasm a mile wide and they descended into its depths out of the warmth of the day. Accustomed to living on a volcano they traversed the steep incline with confident steps, over broken boulders and bone dust and down past the remains of giant petrified trees and their broken stumps until they could walk no further. The warriors halted at the edge of the great abyss and stared for miles into the canyon.
"A lake of darkness." remarked the ram, to which the Hessian snorted.
"The tomb of Seb himself." added the bear.
"Spread out." the giant said, pointing to a plateau jutting out from the right side of the chasm a half mile below them. "There lies the way forward, find a path to lead us there."
The warriors separated and fanned out over the land's end, stepping as close to the edge as they dared and peering over in search of any kind of track that would take them further into the chasm. They scoured the ledge back and forth, pacing across one another's paths and finding no step or drop down to the next level. Eventually the eight soldiers regrouped with the Hessian to share their findings.
"Is there any such way to be followed?" asked the giant.
Every one of the soldiers grumbled and shrugged and the barbarian king huffed disappointedly, then as he ran his gaze over his squad he discovered something amiss. The terror-bird had not returned.
"Someone must have crossed paths with him at some point, is he not the largest among you?"
The soldiers huddled anxiously, though none of them could recall having ever met the t-bird during the search. The clay man stayed silent throughout, but his reaction was steady enough to tell he knew nothing more than the others.
"Am I to assume he walked right off the face of the earth?" the giant growled.
Suddenly the canyon was filled with a roaring echo. All of them turned to the abyss and at the edge searched for its source, and again it came confusing them further. It was the keen eye of the serpent that pointed the giant towards a figure perched inside a cave opening a hundred or so feet below them on the right side of the canyon wall.
"Apparently he jumped." joked the bull.
They signalled the terror bird and crossed over the ledge until they were almost directly above him. Searching for any sign of how the t-bird would have made it to the opening the giant could find none.
"I see no path." he shouted down to the soldier.
"There is a root hanging over there," the t-bird called back, pointing to a spot fifty yards back from where they stood. "Below it lies a cave. There are tunnels dug into the earth leading in all directions but there is a main passageway that seems to lead straight down to the terrace."
The bull got to his hands and knees and leaned out as far as he dared searching the face for the supposed tether that the Hessian himself had missed. To his surprise, clinging to the rock wall was indeed a long, thick root which he clarified as belonging to an ancient tree stump further up the incline.
"He is more clever than we give him credit for." the bull said as they made their way to the spot below which the root hung.
The earth had been kicked away where the t-bird had gone over the edge, and opting to go first the bull carefully hung himself over the brink and without any help managed to cling with one hand gripping a stubborn rock while the other fished the root away and heaved the thickest portion up into the arms of the clay man. Then without trouble he grabbed the anchor and shimmied down the rock face and after dropping some fifteen feet found himself staring into the promised cave mouth the t-bird had spoken of.
"Well?" the Hessian called after him.
"The cave is here, he was right." the bull exclaimed before swinging into the darkness and releasing the root.
The rest of the barbarians followed until they were all crammed into the main tunnel. A torch was lit from the boar's pack. As they walked along a familiar odour wafted into their nostrils, along with a smell like salty rot. True to his word the tunnel curved around the wall of the chasm and soon they regrouped with the t-bird, also with a torch.
"Well spotted." the ram grinned, slapping his comrade on the back.
"You can congratulate one another when we get to that plateau." said the Hessian, pushing past them and gazing down the tunnel. Strange shapes danced in the torchlight and as he studied the side tunnels he could have sworn one of the shadows disappeared out of synch with the rest as the light shone upon it.
"Is there something wrong?" the wolf asked, stepping to the giant's side.
"No." he replied, realizing at the same time that his greatsword would be too big to wield within the confines of the tunnel.
They carried on along the corridor, the t-bird and boar leading the way with their torches. The barbarians didn't have to go far before the tunnel began to veer into a right turn that gradually steepened until they had to use the walls to prevent themselves sliding into the dark. When they thought they were travelling too far from the canyon wall they investigated the nearby side tunnels until one was found that brought them closer to the abyss.
When they found a cave mouth that opened out into the nothingness they checked the sky above to keep track of time, and when they reached the plateau floor the only difference between above and below were the billion twinkling stars far and beyond.
"Shall we make camp?" the bull asked.
"No, by now Ward will know what became of his spies. If there is an easier way into this canyon I want to be well ahead of it before company finds us." the Hessian replied.
Though the plateau was wide enough to walk forty abreast they stayed close to the wall where the torchlight played across the safest path. It wasn't uncommon to hear stories of those who had tried to find the Crimson Angel before only to walk right off the edge of the path without notice.
"It smells like the coast down here." remarked the bear, and all agreed that the salty odour was a strange sensation this far into Gremerni.
"And far too quiet." added the serpent.
When the full moon rose high above, casting no light into the depths to aid them, they were miles from the tunnel that had led them onto the plateau. Aside from the path narrowing slightly and a short climb or drop onto the next section of terrace their progress was unhindered. Finding no other path that could lead onto the plateau the giant eventually agreed to make camp until the sun rose, giving his men a short time to rest.
When dawn came it was the terror bird who was on watch when the world went to shit.
The Sky At Night
In deep contemplation he soared noiselessly through the silver-soaked ether. The creature carrying him was neither plant nor animal and it pitched and rolled, unaccustomed to passenger flight. A deep hum oscillated inside his brain and no matter how the creature's barrel-shaped body turned and pivoted the maddened priest remained held in place by the beast's spindly tentacled limbs wrapped around him.
Primeiea was a blur far below, and only by the fleeting sparkle of a million diamonds upon the surface of Lake Deton was he aware that they had left the safe haven of those mountains of madness. He seldom ventured beyond the high peaks, but this time was different. The prophecy had been foretold to Father Shanahan and such was his duty to the dark lord that he departed immediately. Many eyes were upon him and now with the intervention of the star-spawn it was imperative that he appease the great old one.
Tied around his neck by a lanyard and tucked inside his robes the golden seal pressed against Shanahan's flesh, and a wave of exhilaration washed over him at the thought of what that insignificant trinket to any ordinary man meant in the grand scheme of the universe. A fire storm would rise up out of the earth bringing with it the hand of doom, and in that inferno the world would wither and die and he would dance upon the ashes and bathe naked in the black stew.
A bright light on the horizon roused him from his dream and in a moment of confusion Violence Jack thought he saw that very fire burning before his eyes. Then just as quickly they were upon it and his heart swelled at the familiar sight of chaos. His charge slowed to a hover to better allow the mad priest a glimpse of the carnage unfolding, and at his command they fell through the clouds and he watched in stunned silence as the walls of Helväte crumbled down the mountainside and into the sea amid screams of agony.
Swords clashed and blood was spilled and Father Shanahan watched a veritable army ascend the dead volcano, crushing bodies underfoot as they sacked the castle. A huge pyre had been lit in the central courtyard and men clad in battle armour dragged the dismembered corpses of scantily clad bodies much larger in mass than themselves to the fire before throwing them on. The twisted remains of many of the knights littered the summit, though the barbarian casualties were far greater in number. For all his planning and preparation in building Helväte to an impenetrable fortress, the Hessian had not reckoned that Ward's army would swarm it so easily.
"Vulgtlaglan Cthulhu. It has begun." he gasped, and with a sudden sharp jolt they flew off over the ruins of the castle and into the night.
A blood-curdling screech drew the attention of several of the knights to the midnight air, though they quickly shrugged it off as the dying howl of a barbarian and dragged the final two remaining bodies to the base of the fire. Neither the old man nor the imp made protest as they were cast into the flame, praying that their king realized the power he sought and that it was worth their lives. Watching the two clansmen walk coolly to their deaths unnerved the knights more than the mysterious scream.
The Horde
A length of ebony rope stretched from the middle of the plateau to the edge of the abyss where it dropped into the nothingness. The t-bird was mystified by it, for he could not recall seeing it there the previous night and stranger still it was without tether. A furtive glance at his sleeping comrades motivated the warrior to casually approach the cord, and he sheathed his sword before kneeling down in front of it for a better look.
It was no thicker than a whip, and ended in a blunt point. Picking it up he rubbed his fingers across the surface and something about its smooth texture caused him to murmur. He cast an eye back at the snoring barbarians lying around the ashen pit of the camp fire, and it was then that he felt the rope twitch in his hands. It was the faintest throb, like a weak heartbeat, but it was enough to startle him.
The image of some mysterious being standing on the underside of the plateau and jerking the rope like a fishing line sent a shiver down his spine. Grabbing it tighter and with both hands now he waited for the twitch to come again, and when it eluded him he looked back to the camp fire frustratedly.
"Sire, I have found something." he called out, to which the Hessian raised his head and stared back at the t-bird as he held the rope up. "Did someone leave this-"
And then he was gone. At first it appeared as though he had simply vanished, and after initially rubbing his eyes and looking around for the t-bird the giant ran through the image in his head again and again, trying to figure out what he had just seen. All that he could pluck from memory was of the t-bird disappearing, and the rope in his hand lashing free and curling up into the air.
The Hessian jumped to his feet and froze, drawing the attention of the rest of the waking men. He watched in disbelief as the rope that the t-bird had been holding floated back to the ground and after a momentary sweep lay still once more.
"What happened?" the bull asked in a whisper, aware of the barbarian king's posture and keeping equally covert.
"We are not alone..." the giant replied, and as the squad rose so too did the spirit of the warrior in them all.
A thick tension hung over the eerie silence of the canyon. The Hessian had watched the t-bird taken with his own eyes, but no sound followed. Ordering the men into position with a single hand gesture, the giant approached the rope close to where the t-bird had been snatched up, and when they had crept to within a few feet of it the Hessian gave the order to halt.
Each one of them regarded the object differently; some thought it a lure used by some unseen subterranean predator, others thought it a trap set by Ward. The first thought that occurred to the barbarian king was of the Crimson Angel taunting him like a cat is taunted with a piece of string. The cord twitched again and they all watched as the tip swept the ground once more before rising up a few feet off the floor and swinging towards them. Nobody moved and the Hessian kept a hand stretched ready to give the next order.
They were so entranced by the sway and dance of the rope that none of them noticed a second slither up over the edge of the plateau towards them. It hovered just above the ground, making the same sweeping pat motion of its counterpart before inadvertently tapping the clay man on the thigh.
Had it been any of the other barbarians they would have been snatched up as quickly as the t-bird, however the clay man possessed a greater agility and faster reactions to the others. In the same moment that the second cord brushed his leg the clay man drew his sword and swept it to his side before arcing up and slicing the air and feeling resistance against the blade. He saw the thing hit the ground, reeling and leaking a viscous yellow fluid. On top of it, from out of nowhere, fell a bisected claw that clunked against the ground.
The swish of the sword turned the heads of the others, and their weapons were drawn before the claw hit the ground. A terrifying screech echoed throughout the chasm and their hearts leapt into their throats as the giant whip spider hauled itself up onto the plateau before them.
It was twice the height of the giant and stood five abreast the barbarians could not match its width. Its thick frame was encased by a solid jet black carapace that shone a dark cyan in the faint light. Beady black eyes bunched into the front of its face blinked rapidly while a terrible maw flanked by four snapping mandibles salivated horribly. On six jagged legs it pulled itself level with its prey and folded, what had turned out to be, both its feelers behind its head.
In their initial assessment of its ascension they marked that it had only two claws on each arm to attack with and no tail, but its overwhelming girth caught them by surprise. When its claw-less arm shot out and collectively slammed them all to the ground they had no time to counter as its other arm came at them and grabbed the serpent by the leg. He gasped and clung to the boar in sudden realized terror as the giant amblypygid yanked him free and casually tossed him overhead into the eternal night.
Seeing their comrade dispatched so easily put the fear of Seb into each of them, and the clay man was the first to strike back, rolling forward with his sword at the ready and leaping over the arm as it swept forward again. The bear and stag rushed to his aid as he skidded beneath the creature's face and swung to the left, cutting off a front leg. As the creature reared back and screamed a hideously human scream the bear and stag grabbed at its arms and put their full weight down upon the limbs to prevent them flailing.
The bull and ram were a shadow behind them, leaping into action with their brethren and disabling the whip spider's sweeping arms. Glancing at the wolf to his side the Hessian only had to narrow his eyes for the warrior to sprint into the fight, stepping up over the other barbarians onto the creature's face before hopping up onto its back. Before he could pull his back foot up however the monster latched on with its mandibles, and the giant watched coldly as the wolf was chewed to pieces in its jaws while blood poured over its awful face. With only his upper torso still hanging futilely to the roots of the feelers the wolf let out a final grunt before he disappeared wholly into the creature's spitting mouth.
The clay man had already cleaved through the other front leg and was hacking at the two middle legs simultaneously when the creature flung both its arms out sending the four warriors tumbling to the dirt as the Hessian gripped his greatsword in both hands and stormed towards the monster with purpose, pointing the blade forward and breaking into a run and throwing himself into the air at the abomination. His aim was true and as the creature's arms folded back the sword plunged into the monster's face, all the way to the hilt.
To the horror of the others the thing began to skitter backwards to the edge with a squeal while the giant tried to pull his sword free. His feet dragged across the dirt and the sword refused to give as the rear legs of the monster slipped over the edge. As it keeled backwards the clay man emerged from beneath its segmented abdomen and grabbed hold of the giant and pulled with all his might as the giant tugged on the cross guards of his sword.
The cleaved remains of the middle legs went over next and now the other barbarians were at their king's side, grabbing onto the giant and his sword and with a single burst of energy from all seven the sword jerked loose with a sickening slurp as the creature finally disappeared into the abyss to join the serpent and t-bird in limbo, shrieking all the way.
The Hessian was back on his feet immediately, wiping the blade of the greatsword down and glancing over the edge of the plateau to ensure the spider's demise. The bull and clay man followed, though the other barbarians were not so eager.
"What manner of demon was that?" the stag groaned.
"None I have encountered could so easily defeat even one barbarian." the boar added.
"Was no demon, but a whip spider" snapped the Hessian, "and we would stand here ten of us alive had the others not made such foolish error. If it bring you peace then pray for them upon our return to Helväte, for now we move to the lair of the Crimson Angel. But for the love of Seb keep your wits about you!"
They picked themselves up off the floor and joined the clay man, the bull and the giant and together the remaining barbarians set off, leaving that awful memory behind as sunlight crept across the canyon wall over a mile above. Lighting another torch the boar took point as they started marching alongside the wall pockmarked with scores of tunnel openings. They barely made it a hundred yards before a distinct chirping turned their attention back to the edge of the plateau.
"The creature lives?" uttered the boar.
"No..." the giant murmured, "something stirs in the tunnels."
The boar held his torch up to them and gasped as the firelight danced over the still bodies of countless whip spider offspring crammed into the openings, their feelers and claws twitching sporadically as they watched the barbarians watching them. The salty smell of rot was thick in the air.
"Sire," the bull whispered, "that creature we just killed..."
"Yes?" breathed the barbarian king.
"This entire section of canyon appears to be its nest."
"I gathered as much."
From the lowest tunnel one of the young crept fully out into the open where it stopped dead as the boar swung the torch towards it. Insouciantly clicking its claws the whip spider, half the size of the Hessian though nearly twice as wide, regarded them cautiously. As it took a step forward the boar's hand began to shake and he half drew his sword from its sheath.
"Steady," the giant commanded, "do not startle them."
The boar nodded and watched as three other spiders crawled down the wall and stood beside the first; their feelers twitching vigorously, making no sound but for their claws pinching the air in front of their hideous faces. The giant clicked his tongue and gestured to the others before stepping away.
"Move away. Slowly."
They did as commanded and the spider young watched them sidle off as they were once again lost to the shadows. The barbarians continued moving along the wall in silence, maintaining a safe enough distance from the creatures but staying close enough to know they would not suddenly drop off the edge of the terrace. As they sashayed along the sound of little clicking feet against the dirt grew louder in the darkness to the right of them, and when the boar swung the torch towards its source he let out a holler as a writhing mass of the creatures fell upon them.
"Run!" yelled the giant, and as the barbarians took off the throng of whip spiders leapt at the boar and knocked him to the floor under their mass, sending the torch flying to the ground in the process.
The clay man chased it, swinging his sword aimlessly as the swarm advanced on him before he grabbed it and skidded around after the others. Racing past them he kept the way lit as the Hessian and his warriors followed while the ravenous horde pursued them in a thunderous hail of clicks and squeals.
As the clay man sprinted along the light from the torch began to fade at the rear of the squad, and soon the stag was left running in darkness. He let out a yell and the Hessian spared a look in time to see him leaping from the darkness on a wave of spiders tearing at his flesh with their puny claws and pulling him back into the void. Taking deep gulps of air he pushed forward behind the clay man when from one of the openings to his right one of the creatures dove out, wrapping itself around the clay man and crashing to the ground, extinguishing the light as they fell.
"Keep moving!" he roared, "find the wall and do not stop!"
As he passed the point where the clay man had been tackled he heard no scream, only the sound of steel frantically cracking through shell. Shouting and screaming filled the black air amid the screeching torrent, and with no idea of the path ahead the giant raced on with his hand grazing the wall to his right. Panic stole the beat of his heart each time his touch fell into the gape of an opening before hitting the wall again and sending a burst of adrenaline through his body.
"HELP!!" came a pained cry from off to his left, and the giant knew that the stag had been carried right off the edge of the plateau.
The clicking and screeching seemed to close in over him, and when something at his heels tripped him up he fell into a roll and came back up running with terror in his heart.
"Shit!" said a voice just in front of him, and the barbarian king stifled a frustrated roar at being overtaken by the ram.
His legs were burning and his heart hammered in his chest as another of the warriors slammed into his back and clawed past him, too frightened for his own life to apologize or even acknowledge the stunt. Up ahead he heard a loud smack followed by a winded groan.
"Climb! Climb! For the love of Seb climb!" the ram gasped.
Pinpointing the distance of the call to his approach the giant took five massive steps and leapt into the air and slammed into the forewarned obstacle; a rise of solid rock nearly six foot high. The wind was driven from his lungs but he scrambled up and over the grade as something hot licked across his calf muscles at the same time that a burst of sparks flew across his face as the ram hastily lit another torch. Quickly glancing at the hotspot on his thigh the giant found that he had been sliced across the back of the legs.
As light blossomed around them once more he saw that it was the clay man who had overtaken him and was now poised on the edge of the rise with his sword at the ready as the bear, serpent and bull raced towards them before flinging themselves at the slope with the skittering monsters at their heels.
Confession
The Hessian grabbed at the scrabbling arms and helped them over as the clay man began slicing and stabbing at the pincers that shot up from below. Without pausing for breath the rest of the barbarians drew their swords and together they launched into a frenzied assault under the light of the ram's torch, ploughing their blades straight through carapaces that were much softer than that of their gargantuan mother. Wielding his greatsword as though it weighed nothing the giant hacked at the whip spiders that scurried over the corpses of the others as a wall of guts and broken shell built up over the grade.
When the creatures started clambering over the wall of dead the barbarians backed away and with a glance to his rear the Hessian found the path narrowing. Turning back to the ram he grabbed the torch and spun around once more and suddenly came face to face with a sharp-eyed stranger clad in a white ruffled linen shirt, dress pants of crimson wool and black boots with golden buckles across the top. His blonde hair was slicked back and leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest he seemed untroubled by the swarm of creatures advancing on the barbarians.
"Deville?!" the giant flinched as the Crimson Angel stepped away from the wall and nodded back at an opening in the rock.
Without hesitation the Hessian called on the barbarians and together they piled in after the stranger as the spiders fell over the wall and scattered across the narrow path after them. To his surprise the passageway quickly tapered into a cleft which they navigated in single file, and looking back over the others he saw in the bouncing torch light the creatures slamming into the crevice and piling up, unable to squeeze in after their prey.
"They have us trapped!" cried the serpent.
"They're going to get through!" panicked the bear from the rear, pushing into the barbarian in front of him and sending the lot of them cascading over one another as the passageway opened up into a burrow.
"Damn you all, get up!" roared the Hessian as he pulled himself free of the pile and brushed himself off. As he looked up he met the stony gaze of the Crimson Angel, once more relaxing against a wall and regarding him with a reserved squint.
"Well that was about as Primeiean as double-penetration." he scoffed, as the barbarians rose up behind their leader and pulled their swords once more, only sheathing them at an order from the giant.
The burrow was bathed in the soft amber glow of the torch, and the six barbarians studied the strong sleek features of the Crimson Angel's face and the malcontent in his stare before the ignorant bear asked, "is this the spirit of death come to take us away?"
The bull scolded him with a clap over the neck before whispering the name of the High King into his ear. The Crimson Angel noted the remark and moved away from the wall, pacing before the barbarians with his hands behind his back and making no illusion of his vulnerability in such a dangerous environment, or perhaps his great power over it.
"It has been an age since a survivor of the onslaught made it this far," the Crimson Angel motioned to the narrow passageway, at the end of which the whip spiders tirelessly surveyed the fissure for a way through, "and longer still that I did not part their heart from their chest for intruding." he gestured to a dark patch of dirt at the feet of the barbarians which the giant instantly recognized.
The Hessian bent down on one knee in the middle of the stain and so too did the others, their heads all bowed as the barbarian king addressed the legend of Primeiea.
"High King, my name is Hessian; leader of the barbarian clan of Helväte..."
"It would seem so judging by all the bones. Were you not ruler of Colus?"
The giant flinched, "not since my deposition at the hands of Matthew Ward."
"Ward..." the Crimson Angel mumbled trying to recall the name, "the pissant that hails from Donfal, north of Revo?"
"You know him?" the Hessian queried, rising back to his feet and ushering his men up after him and praising the Founders for the Crimson Angel's forthcoming nature.
"Well. A cerebral son of a whore, during my reign he tried for first knight more times than I care to recall. Each time I disqualified him he would find another way to weasel back into the trials. It comes as no surprise that he would also find a way to depose a man of your stature."
The Hessian bowed his head once more at the subtlety of the Crimson Angel's stinging remark.
"Is he the reason you throw yourself at my feet? For a merciful death?" Deville added, at which a few of the barbarians exchanged worrisome glances.
Reaching into the pouch hanging off his kilt the giant produced the block of wood bearing the mark of the sigil, which had since been filed down until it was barely thicker than the blade of a sword. He held it face down as he gave it to the Crimson Angel, who flipped it over and regarded it with the same expression he had first made of the barbarians battling the whip spiders. Then he realized why the giant had made mention of Ward.
"You descend into the nightmare of Gremerni to present me with a shingle?" the High King snorted, calling the giant's bluff.
"Begging your pardon sire but I am no fool. You know these symbols well." the Hessian asserted himself sternly. "What meaning lies in them?"
"None whatsoever unless inscribed into the seal with which their power was imbued. What concern is it of yours? You favour brawn over brain, barbarian. This is the business of-"
"This business is mine." the giant yelled, slamming the fist of his right hand into the open palm of his left. "Do not presume to be so clever when you scrounge a living from the shit-bed of insects. You, of the order of High Kings so vehemently worshipped and yet equally despised by all. Your breed were cursed to fall by their own greedy hand thus you are no one to judge me; a king forced by battle from his throne. I was defeated as champion. You? Snow? You were defeated by the taint of your very reputation and sent off with your tail between your legs. I make this my business because of the battle for that championship; the honourable war. If it takes the power of this...this sigil over that of my own arm to defeat Ward then it will be mine!"
The Hessian's bug-eyed stare unnerved the Crimson Angel, though the barbarians at his rear did not share his courage in the face of a man before whom even Death bowed. The High King and the giant dually exhaled, and the Hessian seemed to shrink slightly at the realization of his outburst.
A long awkward silence followed where the giant was unsure whether he had humbled the High King or marked he and his men for death where they stood. Deville spent a while stroking the stubble of his chin and looking off into the middle distance before eventually sighing in defeat of the giant's logic. All of his success and prestige had done nothing to ruin his image in the eyes of men, and he knew that the giant spoke the truth and that it would be warriors of virtue like the Hessian that would lead Primeiea into a new age.
"So be it." he grumbled. "What you seek is the Göltik; the key to the Tower of Dulalo."
The giant met this revelation not with astonishment but a vacant confused stare. The Crimson Angel raked his fingers down his face and groaned again.
"It is a well-known story between heroes and legends that when Seb created Primeiea he devised a method for man to determine who would lead his people. He built the Tower of Dulalo in the Culshoch region as the ultimate challenge for men who sought the power of the Founders in a single wish. At the top of the tower lies the gateway to transcendence, and to pass through it one must be in possession of the Göltik. You see, the title of High King is faux pas; whosoever possesses the Göltik holds the greatest power in the land. It is said that Seb created the sigil and infused its metal with His word so that that single seal had the power to unlock the gateway at the top of the tower."
The giant nodded along with each admission, then gave himself a moment to absorb it all before
asking, much to the chagrin of the High King, "so what do the symbols mean?"
"The symbols are not important you fool! They only mark the sigil for its purpose, that it be known as the key to unlock ultimate power for whomever completes the challenge set by Seb."
"So how is it you came to know what they mean?"
"Because," the Crimson Angel paused and looked away as if shamed, "I was unaware of the true power that the sigil possessed. It was my misguided desire to know His word. I sought meaning from those symbols and I was granted that knowledge. I am the only man in Primeiea, in the world, who can decipher the word of the Founders, wherever they may be found."
"Surely there is power in that?" the giant said almost with empathy.
"It served only as my downfall as King of Colus. Do you know how much people are willing to pay to know the definition of the higher word? Generations of study could not reveal what I see at first glance with my own eyes."
"And what do you see at first glance of the Göltik?"
The High King spat at the floor in disgust of the Hessian's lack of understanding and tossed the piece of wood back to the giant.
"If it is your desire to know such a thing then ascend the fucking tower and find out for yourself."
The giant held the carving in his hands, staring at it longingly. Through his own blood and sweat the barbarian had learned a great secret of the Founders that not even the mighty new king Matthew Ward was aware of, perched on his throne and sending minions to do the work for him. In order to defeat his nemesis the Hessian would have to complete the challenge set by the supreme being, and to do that he needed the sigil. A thought occurred to him then.
"These symbols came to me by the hand of the Lion, on his deathbed. If the sigil holds such power why was he found barely alive on the edge of the great forest and not claiming the power you speak of?"
The Crimson Angel muttered under his breath at the mention of the other High King. Unwanted memories and the disgrace they carried etched a pained look in his eyes, and when he glanced at the barbarian he knew that it had been noticed.
"You must understand that there are those who claim power for their own, and others who would do anything to see it removed completely from the grasp of their enemy. You only have one chance to use the sigil, after which it is as any other rock in your hand. I gifted it to the Lion, promised him the world on a silver platter should he desire it. I could not know he too would misuse the seal and waste his opportunity as I had. I do not know what he used it for in the end, only that afterwards he concealed it within the walls of the castle never to be seen again. From what you have told me I can only assume Snow stole it away from the hands of Ward to prevent him from using it as it was intended, though it seems another in turn stole it from Snow. I suppose you should find the sigil before someone else realizes its true potential."
The giant seemed mystified, "how do you know so much?" he asked. "You have knowledge of events which transpired long after your banishment, yet you speak of them as though-"
An incredible blast from the other end of the passage through which they had come shook the ground and silenced the Hessian. The barbarians all craned their necks to see through the narrow fissure to what had caused such an explosion before looking back to the Crimson Angel for an answer. But he was gone.
The burrow into which they had escaped had room for perhaps thirty men and there was no nook or shadow large enough to hide anywhere. The barbarian king's heart sank and raced in his chest all at once at the mysterious vanishing of such a knowledgeable source, and yet the commotion from beyond the cleft could only mean bad things that he would have to contend with if he were to make it out alive and find the tower which the High King had spoken of.
"These High Kings are all the same sire; mad, raving and full of greed. Similar tales are told in Giceedu of Rollins the Renegade. Are we to buy into this lunacy and wager your dominance on magic and mythology?" the bull asked.
The Hessian cast another eye around the burrow for any sign of the Crimson Angel, searching for a hidden crevice that the High King could have slipped into, all the while contemplating the bull's words. When his eyes fell to the passageway through which they had entered, a snarl grew on his face at the sight of a pair of beady black eyes watching him from the shadow beyond the torch light.
"We have no choice." he said, bolting towards the fissure after the figure that had been watching him.
Catastrophe
"The king! Tell the king I have found the barbarians! Tell him at once!"
The spy dashed out the other side of the cleft before the giant could squeeze back into it. As the shrill voice of the sneak rang out the passageway suddenly filled with a bright light and the cries of a new horde that had chased away the whip spiders from their prey.
"Shit!" rasped the serpent. "We are discovered!"
"Find your balls, boy" growled the bull, "they will not advance single file to their death. We are safe for now..."
The air exploded with a mighty boom that rocked the ground once more, and this time they saw the brilliant flash of light from the other end of the passageway. None of them had any idea as to what could have caused the blast short of a thunderstorm inside the chasm. The same voices that had cried of the barbarians to the inhuman being were now screaming in vain of some unseen force bearing down upon them. In that same moment a blood-curdling shriek tore through the tumult and brought about a still of collective terror to the barbarians.
"What in the name of Seb is going on out there?" whispered the ram.
The clay man responded only by drawing his sword and making for the passageway, attempting to push past the giant in order to wade into the battle. The Hessian had to hold him back, blocking the way out in the process. He cocked his head to the entrance and listened as the screams continued among Ward's men, cut through with that chilling shriek of inhuman origin.
"Could more spiders be attacking them?" the bear asked.
"Only one way to find out." growled the giant, drawing his greatsword and making his way along the passage with the tip held level in front of him. The others followed him as they left the safety of the burrow to investigate the turmoil.
The further they went, the louder the reverberations of the shrieking in the cleft. Beyond the light of his torch the giant could see flurries of shapes flashing across the open breadth of the canyon ahead, both at ground level and higher in the air. When the barbarians reached the end of the passageway the Hessian leaned his head out and was startled by what he saw.
The entire terrace was lit by crackling pools of burnt sienna from a hundred torches spilled in the heat of combat. To his left where they had climbed over the rise the wall of dead spiders had been cleared away and knights in shining armour were falling around on the plateau beyond, cleaving at the air in terror of the shapes diving from overhead. Looking to the right he found that past the fissure the pathway opened back out into a much wider terrace where a massacre had taken place.
Bodies littered nearly all of the plateau; knights whose armoured bodies had been sliced through and others who were missing whole limbs or heads. Around the mess of flesh and steel were larger forms that the giant could not quite identify but thought resembled oversized squash from which stiff feathered stems protruded. With starfish stuck to either end and what appeared to be tentacles lying lifelessly over the bodies the Hessian was clueless as to what monstrosity had descended upon them; perhaps nightmares borne of the hellish chasm.
The gore stretched out in a great circle, at the centre of which stood a phalanx of overlapping kite shields bearing the mark of the new king Matthew Ward. Every few seconds the abominations in the sky would dive-bomb into the formation, staggering the men behind the shields. In the middle of the crowd the roof of shields parted after each attack and several archers let loose a barrage of arrows which tore the creatures out of the sky, and as they breathed their last they slammed into the ground with a grotesque whump!
"This the doing of the Crimson Angel." marked the ram.
"No," said the giant as he spied one particular creature soaring high above the others, astride of which he could make out a figure in robes observing the chaos from a safe distance. "The mountains have brought their insanity to Gremerni. The mad priest is here."
Their spirit dropped at the revelation. He was a figure no one spoke of in the civilized world. Men feared the beings that dwelt in that forbidden place for their true existence was always shrouded in myth and shadow and blood. But Father Shanahan was detested and his was an existence without question for he had wreaked a multitude of sins against Primeiea, marking his crimes with the ravings of otherworldly blasphemy that no one could comprehend.
As the last of the knights beyond the rise were cut down their attackers moved across to join in the assault on the shielded king, to which the archers responded with volley fire. Several of the beasts fell out of the air almost at once and from high above the giant watched as the Bringer of the Black Gospel cursed their futility before making a strange gesture with his arms, at which the rest of the winged beasts glided to the canyon floor and began swarming around the phalanx beneath the range of the archers.
"This is our only chance," the Hessian said to his men, "kill the creatures then eviscerate Ward's men."
The clay man was already on the move before the barbarian king had finished giving the order. Staying low to the ground he weaved around the bodies of the knights and used the corpses of the fallen beasts as cover while the others followed his lead. The alien beings were too busy trying to prise the shields away with their tentacles to notice the advance, though from his perch high above the carnage Father Shanahan could see the line of barbarians moving to the backs of the monsters.
N'glagln hlirghh! he said out loud, and all at once the creatures turned their attention from the phalanx to the barbarians charging at them out of the battlefield.
The clay man was upon the first creature like a lightning strike, unfazed by its hideousness. A flash of the blade saw the five-pointed protuberance parted from its barrel-shaped body and the wings both cleaved to the ground before two more of the monsters grabbed at him with their tentacles and tore him to pieces in front of the giant.
The barbarian king responded with a death cry and fell into the three creatures with his greatsword swinging, cutting them down like saplings while the ram and serpent dove onto two more of the creatures, tackling them to the ground before ripping their tentacles out by hand. Spotting creatures on the opposite side of the phalanx the bear ran around to their position while the bull leapt onto the phalanx and ran straight over the shielded king. Looking to the barbarian the Hessian roared at him to stop as the shields suddenly opened up, swallowing the bull whole. As they closed over again the screams of the bull rose into the black air.
Through a slit in the formation the seething giant could see knights watching the barbarians at work, and with his greatsword levelled he plunged it between the shields and heard the agony of several knights being stabbed to death. He made a sawing motion with his sword and hefted it up and down before withdrawing it from the phalanx and wiping off the bloodied blade on his kilt.
"Help!" cried the bear, and the barbarian king looked up in time to see another warrior torn to shreds in the arms of the creatures. Glancing to his left the ram and serpent were knee-deep in entrails, and as the phalanx began to part revealing dozens of Ward's heavily armed soldiers the barbarians tallied the number of beasts and knights and with a collective roar they rushed straight into the kill zone.
The knights quickly surrounded the barbarians, using their shields to deflect the thrusting swords. At an order from the Hessian the serpent and ram backed into one another so that they had a full circle of perspective on the enemy as they fought off stabbing pikes and slicing blades. Another series of spine-chilling shrieks came from above and as the knights looked up to see more of the mad priest's creatures descending upon them the Hessian used the opportunity to swing the mighty greatsword in a huge arc, beheading a dozen soldiers in one fell swoop.
The beasts hit the dirt hard and barrelled into the fight with impartiality towards a kill. As the serpent made for a small group of soldiers who were caught in the attack of the monsters another knight behind him struck with a spear, stabbing through the thick skull helmet into the warrior's brains. After an initial spasm the barbarian fell to the ground and only the ram and the Hessian remained against two dozen knights and several more alien creatures from the mountains of madness.
Another swing of the greatsword brought down six more knights; cutting clean through the midsection of each before the giant followed through with a secondary swing that slashed an ugly wound into the belly of one of the creatures, spilling its guts to the floor. In a moment of panic the beast spread its wings and flew into the air while its insides splattered over the heads of the soldiers allowing the ram a window of opportunity to cut them all down.
As the skirmish continued the giant searched around for Ward. The knights were all identical in their armour and though he knew from experience that Ward distinguished himself by wielding a broadsword of greater length to his minions, the Hessian could not find him amongst the battling crowd.
A creature came up behind him then and whipped its tentacles across the backs of his legs, opening up the cuts made earlier by the spiders. Dropping to his knees the giant instinctively fell to his back and thrust the sword up into the maw of the beast, dropping it to the dirt. As he rolled over he spied between the tangle of legs a small crowd of archers and swordsmen watching the battle from a short distance away, barely illuminated in the light of the dropped torches. Stood in the middle, with a hand on the pommel of his down-turned broadsword, was the new king. He was smiling.
The giant charged forward and burst through the mess of bodies in his way, knocking them all to the ground where the aliens from the mountains gurried into them like wolverines. Behind him he heard the howl of the ram, and with a quick glance saw the last of his elite squad stabbed all at once with swords and halberds. The pain in his heart turned to rage and he broke into a sprint in the direction of Ward with his greatsword at the ready. To his surprise however the king pointed his sword to the sky and the archers by his side shot their arrows at an object above the giant. He heard a loud screeching inside his head and was suddenly thrown to the ground as the creature that Father Shanahan had been riding tumbled to the ground, tossing the mad priest from its back.
Skidding to a halt he yelled out as his greatsword fell from his grasp. When he reached back to retrieve it he saw a flash of gold out of the corner of his eye. Turning to its source he gasped as he saw the sigil, torn from the lanyard around Violence Jack's neck, lying before him. As five of Ward's men advanced on the fallen beast on which the Bringer of the Black Gospel had flown down on, the mad priest saw the barbarian king gazing at the seal and scrambled for it. Forgetting all about Ward for the moment the giant made a desperate lunge for the sigil, but fell short as a searing hot pain blossomed across his back and he saw the arrows that had missed him ping off the ground and break apart.
His spine ached and his muscles protested but the Hessian ignored the pain and got to his feet, chasing Jack as he grabbed up the sigil and made for another of the beasts which had dispensed with a group of three spear-wielding soldiers. To his relief the creature was brought to the ground by a second wave of arrows, sending the mad priest into a panic. He heard Ward calling for the sigil then, from close behind, and as he turned to see the king approaching surrounded by his guard a massive fist came at him from his left and in a burst of claret he was on his back, out cold.
He came too again moments later to find the familiar face of the bull that he thought dead staring down at him, flanked by the king and his men. From somewhere behind him he heard the mad priest bellowing an incantation in a foreign tongue and again he blacked out.
When he opened his eyes once again he was on his side, and gazing groggily ahead saw the remains of the guard in front of him, vaporized by an unseen force. Beyond that he saw the bull with two swords in hand chopping down the last of the alien beings. The bull had been a loyal servant by his side and had slain many of Ward's men in the battle for Revo before his deposition. Together they had fought as brothers and in their defeat had amassed a barbarian army of their own to lead the revolution. Today he had seen that loyalty betrayed by one he had trusted above all others.
"Traitor..." the Hessian muttered, raising a hand towards the fight but finding himself immobile.
The last thing he saw among the corpses of knights and barbarians and aliens was the howling Father Shanahan desperately clutching the sigil in one hand whilst frantically bashing a claimed shield against the trained arm of Matthew Ward wielding his broadsword. With a final pained bellow the giant fell into unconsciousness.
The battle was lost.
Chains of Misery
"NO!"
The Hessian sprung to life all of a sudden and charged forward with the mad priest and the inhuman being in his sights, then just as quickly the image vanished from his head and he felt himself jerked backwards, his naked back slamming into cold stone before he slumped to the ground, staring into nothingness.
Shaking his head the giant gazed at his surroundings and groaned as a migraine pulsed through his skull. His arms felt fuzzy and when he tried to pull them close found that they were suspended above his head and shackled at the wrist. In a furious daze he grabbed the chains to which they were attached and twisted and tugged them in a futile bid for freedom, to no avail.
"You cannot escape from here..."
"What? Who goes there. Where...where am I?" the giant asked, blinking his eyes into focus and surveying the darkness.
Unable to make out any form in the void he swung his legs out and felt beneath him a jagged bed of straw that itched upon his skin, and beyond that more stone.
"You know this place well." came the voice again, and the giant was sure he recognized its owner.
"Show yourself."
"Or what?
"OR I-" but the Hessian was silenced as he jerked on the chains and felt no give whatsoever.
"Hahahahahaha..."
The laughter sounded as though it came from inside his own head. Opening and closing his fists the barbarian king tried to work the blood back into his numb arms as the devious chuckle died away to a bitter groan. In a fit of rage the giant smashed his head back against the wall and saw dull swirling purples and reds dancing in front of him. He was most definitely awake.
"It is impossible to count time in this place," the voice said in a much clearer tone, which the giant attributed to the headbutt and finally pinpointed it to a source several feet in front of him. "But I have endured three sleepless nights listening to you babbling in your coma of monsters and gods, and now that you are lucid I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to shut. the fuck. up."
Three nights? the giant thought to himself, and as the memory of the battle in the canyon came flooding back he felt in himself more lost and alone than he was the unknown limbo in which he was now a prisoner.
"Yes, three nights." the voice replied, and the giant realized he had spoken aloud.
"Where am I?" he asked again sternly.
"The very same place you left me to rot. As I said, you know it well."
"I have no time for games!" the Hessian roared coarsely before breaking into a coughing fit.
"Unfortunate, giant. Games are all I have time for." mocked the voice, and something in what he said brought crystal clarity to the barbarian.
The stranger's tone was familiarly sinister, every word tauntingly twisted and he knew he remembered it from somewhere. When he realized where he was; shackled in the dark and surrounded by straw and stone, his heart sank. This was the dungeon of the castle he had once been king of. The castle in the centre of the capital city of Revo in the kingdom of Colus. The kingdom now ruled by Matthew Ward.
"Is that you Sloan?" the giant asked, almost afraid to know the answer.
"That depends," the voice said, and the Hessian detected a viciousness in its uttering, "do the children of Revo sleep comfortably in their cots at night?"
The barbarian would have been proud of his guess work, but his stomach turned at the thought of the neighbour he shared the dungeon with. During his reign as King of Colus, reports had come in of children being abducted from their beds at night and disappearing without trace. Many theories were banded around of kidnappings by the monsters from the mountains or simply that the children were running away from home. It wasn't until one fateful night in the central district that the aristocratic parents of twin children; brother and sister, checked in on their sleep to find a prowler leaving through the bedroom window with the pair bound and gagged under each arm.
The gates of Revo were locked and a manhunt was launched to find the kidnapper. After many weeks of searching the Hessian's guard happened upon a chalet in the poorest corner of the city from which a smell of rot had been reported by neighbours, in a street void of slaughterhouse or butcher shop. Upon investigation they discovered a basement had been dug out of the earth and the entrance hidden beneath a pile of soiled rags too small to belong to an adult. When they ventured into the murk they found the perpetrator writhing naked amongst the bodies of over twenty children; dead or starving. All ruined.
Some called for his head, but the majority deemed that his fate should be as inhumane as the crimes he committed. Thus the Hessian committed him to the castle's dungeon where he was starved, beaten, tortured and one a few occasions sodomized by the guards in retribution for all that he had done to the children of the kingdom. Despite the deposition of the Hessian, the prisoner was left to rot in the cells and continually tortured to this day where he now sat across from the former king.
"I thought you would have died down here long ago," sniped the giant, "or have you grown a taste for the torture and sodomy?"
"I was cooked up in hell's kitchen, giant. Nothing those moronic guards do to me can come close to the pain and suffering of those children or their families. As long as there is breath in my lungs I will live each day comforted by the knowledge that each scar on my person is another on the skin of my victims. The flesh is weak, but the mind...oh great Hessian the mind is so strong it will outlast these very walls that imprison me."
The thought of being locked up next to such a fiend prompted the giant to cry out, forcing himself to his feet and pulling with all his might on his bonds with such strength he was astonished that he did not pull the stone block from out of the wall. Collapsing back onto the floor he swore out loud and spat into the darkness, cursing Sloan's teasing chuckle.
"Chains of misery, old friend." Sloan hissed, emphasizing the word 'chains' with a long drawn out zzzz that cut through the Hessian's psyche like a blunt saw.
"When I free myself the first thing I do will be to make your punishment seem like a pleasant dream, Sloan." the giant seethed, tugging on the chains again.
"You think it so simple, don't you?" Sloan replied confidently, "that you can approach any situation and overcome it with that gargantuan strength of yours. No matter the cause, whether it calls for intellect or cunning, you just come out swinging as though you can strike it down with those big muscles. That's how Ward was able to overthrow your kingdom-"
"Shut your mouth." the giant growled, wrapping the chains around his hands and pulling on them as though they were a garotte around Sloan's neck.
"-where you have an empty space filled with mush," Sloan continued unabated, "Ward has a great mind, always working out the intricacies of any given situation so that he may manipulate it to his benefit. While you were busy trying to force the square peg through the round hole he was inventing the wheel that slotted through it perfectly. I always knew it was just a matter of time after your deposition when you would join me here in this humble abode of mine."
"You have no idea how wrong you are, fiend. I know things that that rat bastard will never realize, and once I-" he paused to give the chains another tug then tried to tear the shackles from his wrist with the opposite hand, "free myself...I will show you only a morsel...of the pain...that Ward is going to-URGHN!" he cried as he lost his grip and tore the skin of his fingertips off against the iron. "FUCK IT ALL!!"
His hands throbbed, his head ached and the wounds in his back and legs had re-opened from the strain of his attempts to escape. Sliding back to the floor yet again his eyes felt wet, and glaring across the blackened distance held his breath in the hopes that the vile monster had not heard him weep.
"Chains of misery." Sloan chuckled again. "You know, the more I think about it the happier I am that I cannot see you struggling as you are; the true sight of it would spoil the image in my mind." he cackled, and the giant quietly took a breath and let his heartbeat settle while a single tear rolled down his cheek.
"You have no idea of what is at stake here, you pitiful lump of shit." the giant sighed.
"On the contrary giant, I couldn't care less if the fate of the world depended on you breaking out of those shackles. Primeiea could be razed from the face of the planet, as long as I'm around to see the suffering I'm happy. For instance, I know I have no chance of ever getting out of this shit hole alive...but I know why your strength fails you, and I know the reason why you cannot break those chains. Every time you try and you suffer for it I feel a little closer to home, great Hessian. The flesh is weak, but the mind is strong. You'd do well to remember that."
The barbarian's stomach turned and he felt sick and weak as though the monster Sloan had put a curse on him. He gave up trying to wrest the chains from the wall and refused to acknowledge Sloan's understanding of why it was impossible for him to do so. Instead he played his fingers through the links and around the welding as he thought about where the sigil was now. He was unsure if either Ward or Shanahan knew how to use it without first talking with the Crimson Angel, and he doubted the High King would oblige either man, or perhaps he had told them all about it just to get a kick out of seeing it fought over so vehemently. As long as he was locked up in the dungeon he was powerless to stop them, and with a heavy heart he sighed.
"No one remembers you, you know." he said after a long silence.
"What?" Sloan asked tiredly, and the giant wondered if he had again roused the fiend from his slumber.
"I said no one remembers you, or the crimes you committed." he said again, feeling a sudden flutter in his gut.
"You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" Sloan yawned. "Mine was the greatest atrocity Revo has seen since your pathetic rule as king."
"I know so. After you were locked away people continued about their lives as though nothing had happened. We live in a world of monsters and gods as you rightly said-"
"You said it giant, and it only served to disturb my sleep."
"It matters not who said it, only that it is so. There is so much more happening around us that your crime, as unthinkable as it was, was just another day in Primeiea. Perhaps in Giceedu with all its faeries and goblins you would have been burned at the stake, made into legend and spoken of only in bedtime stories designed to scare children into obeying their parents. Not here. Your mind has run free where your body could not and well beyond the realm of reality for that matter."
"You lie." Sloan hissed, and the giant realized what the fluttering in his gut was.
"How are you to know? Your only contact with the real world is at the hand of the guards. You profess to have found strength in the beatings and the rapes, but when I held the throne I heard only whisperings of how the lunatic in the dungeon enjoyed the feel of a warm hard cock inside him. You may have been crazy on the outside Sloan...but in here you have truly gone insane."
"This from the strongest warrior in the land who cannot break the weakest link of chain. Do not play games with me great Hessian, nor question my knowledge of the world above. You wouldn't imagine that I know all about the fate of your precious Helväte, for instance."
"...I could not care less what you know." the giant sneered, but in the initial pause he had let Sloan know that it did indeed matter.
The quest for the sigil had cost him his best men and now his very freedom. Helväte was a clan of deserters, and of their vast number only ten were fit to stand by him in the heat of battle. Everyone else was expendable, and destined to be fodder in the Hessian's retaliation against Ward. He didn't have the bodies to spare a full assault on Gremerni as the new king had, and now that Sloan teased him with the downfall of his barbarian kingdom he wondered if an attack on Revo would have been a suicide mission from the beginning. Still, he had built his realm from the ground up, and to imagine it all torn down again by the same man who had taken his crown troubled the giant.
"You're all alone in here," Sloan said, burrowing into the barbarian's brain like a tick, and the Hessian shook his head as though it were so.
"But unlike you I will be remembered." he responded with surprising self-assurance as his hands played over the shackles. "I could perish this very day but my name will live on in history as one of the great warrior kings of Primeiea, for all the deeds I have done. You on the other hand might very well live forever, but your name will be long forgotten. You made your reputation with a single act of debauchery while my legend is yet bounder for greater things."
"Not while you rot away in here with me." the fiend jeered. "King Ward himself designed those shackles for the sole purpose of your imprisonment. Your legend is marked by failure and defeat."
"Is that so?"
The revelation came with a sharp click that was followed by the rattle of chains falling to the floor. Sloan froze, his ears pricked at the noise and the scuffling of footsteps over straw and stone. He imagined his mind playing tricks on him and when he heard only silence he breathed a sigh of relief. Then in his left ear he felt the breath of another.
"You were right. The mind is strong."
The giant's frustrations were eased amid the crack of bone and the squelch of bursting guts as the porcine screams of the fiend reverberated off the ancient stone wall of the castle dungeon.
Escape
The guard posted outside the keep was a new recruit to the kingdom of Matthew Ward. He had been a shit shoveller to begin with; mucking out the stables and emptying chamber pots in the castle. When the position for a guard on the grounds opened up he jumped at the chance to properly serve the new king, and so he found himself in charge of the dungeon and the two prisoners within. Aside from allowing some of the seasoned soldiers in to administer punishments on behalf of the sovereign his duty was chiefly to guard the front door and add to the number of knights roaming the castle grounds.
Thus he found himself quietly humming the anthem of Colus to pass the time, and watching the moon as it peeked out from behind one grey cloud and was hidden again by another. The sound of screaming startled him, followed by loud banging from inside. Cursing under his breath he unlocked the iron door and unsheathed his sword, closing the door behind him before hurrying down the spiral staircase to the door that led into the dungeon and stopping abruptly at the frantic slamming against the heavy wood. Another scream sent a shiver down his spine as the pounding ceased and all was silent again.
He muttered anxiously to himself, and questioned whether or not to call for support from the other soldiers on night watch. In doing so he risked ridicule and demotion for alerting the knights from their important duty to hold his hand while he investigated the sound coming from the prisoners who were bound by iron and steel to the walls.
"Keep it down in there!" he yelled, choosing the assertive path.
The torch burning beside the door threw shadows across the floor that for a moment the guard mistook as originating from inside the dungeon. A faint mewling emanated from beyond the door along with what sounded like a plea for help, and he abruptly felt the need to exert his influence upon his position. The dungeon key made a satisfying clunk in the hole and he pushed the heavy wooden door open, allowing the ominous creak to linger before light spilled across the floor, revealing what was left of the monster Sloan.
"Good Seb almighty." he choked in shock at what lay before him.
Suddenly a massive figure bore down on him in the doorway, and before he could call out for help a bloodstained hand shot out, catching him around the throat and breaking his neck with a single squeeze. Tossing the corpse in with Sloan the Hessian listened out for any movement above before closing the door and locking it shut. Before he left he slipped the key under the door into the dungeon and snorted in disdain. This would never have happened on his watch.
At the top of the stairs the giant cracked the door open ever so slightly and peered out. The grounds were under patrol, though the number of soldiers was less than the barbarian expected and he deduced that much of the guard had been those slain in the canyon. Keeping to the shadows the giant stayed as low as possible and chose his moments to move across the courtyard in the direction of the livery. To his relief it was filled with all but the steeds belonging to the king, the first knight and the royal guard. One guard patrolled the stable, and the cracking of his neck bones was little more than a whisper in the wind.
The giant didn't recognize any of the horses dozing in their paddocks as those from his reign. With not a moment to spare he happened upon a hot blooded jet black thoroughbred standing sixteen hands high with a gentle snore as opposed to the guttural whinny of the other sleeping mares. Softly rousing it from slumber he removed its cover and with no time to throw on the reins mounted it and gave the beast a moment to adjust to his weight before he grabbed hold of its white mane and drove his heels into its flank.
With a disgruntled neigh the mare shot off across the paddock and leapt at the fence. For one heart-stopping moment the giant imagined that his bulk would be too great and the horse would stumble on the fence and collapse in a heap, turning into one big alarm for all the guards to hear. When its hooves dug into the grass on the other side he breathed a sigh of relief and galloped past the knights who barely had time to register his approach. As he raced into the gatehouse two arrows whistled down from atop the main keep, the first splitting the horse's tail and shattering against the cobblestones and the second slicing the giant across the right arm before it too broke into pieces on the ground.
Ignoring the pain the Hessian rode across the lowered drawbridge and through the empty streets of Revo. He thanked Seb that his escape had been so straightforward as the mare tore across the dirt roads of the poor district on the outer section of the capital, and the giant almost laughed as he saw the moonlight glowing over the treetops of the forest of Kïok in the distance, and the city limit looming just ahead of him.
Then he hit the suicide line.
The guards were almost unaware of him as he galloped past, and it wasn't until they realized who had ridden right by them that panicked calls went up and the archers trained their aim on the escaping barbarian. That familiar whistle rang in his ears again and he stretched himself across the mare's back while arrows whipped past him and stuck into the ground. His heart hammered in his chest and when the number of arrows reaching him decreased to a lucky few he knew he was home free. At least he thought so until he felt something bite him on the left shoulder at the same time as the horse let out a pained whinny that only spurred it faster into the night and away from Revo and Castle Ward.
The giant rode through the night following the constellations south into the next day when he pulled out the arrow that had struck him, and the second that had dug into the rump of the mare. When the sun rose he had reached the border between Colus and Culshoch, and a section of the canyon of Gremerni separating the two regions that, unlike the route he had taken with his fellow barbarians, was a gentle incline that fell a half-mile and ran for several more before rising up again into the desert sands of the south. As he traversed the expanse he noticed with a degree of indignation that to the west for as far as the eye could see the canyon seemed to be all meadowland that fell gracefully into the shadows of the true chasm that he had battled across with his elite guard, and that traitorous dog who wore the mask of the bull.
He broke pace sporadically to let the mare have its fill of the lush grass on the meadow before continuing on up the other side and into the region of Culshoch. The difference was immediately noticeable. Rolling hills and flowery fields gave way to moving sand dunes and barren outcrops of rock where survival was less a guarantee than a whim on the part of the Founders. They hit the first sandstorm a quarter mile into the trek, and endured its stinging embrace for the rest of the day. When night fell he guided the horse over the dunes, allowing it to stumble across the unfamiliar terrain.
The next morning he looked to the horizon and couldn't believe his eyes when thought he saw the top of the great tower peeking up over the next dune. Holding his arm out straight and placing his thumb over the dark form he deduced its distance and feared the worst. Coaxing the horse up the dune he cursed the Founders as sure enough a plain stretched another day's ride into the distance, where the shadow of the tower rose high into the sky.
Noon brought another sandstorm, this one more vicious than the last. Exhausted from the journey the mare eventually had to be led by the mane across the sands, and it wasn't long before the giant knew the beast would not weather the rest of the way. In the turbulence of the storm he chased the animal off, and as the mare limped away whinnying in fright the barbarian once more felt his heart sink. As his mount disappeared from sight he turned towards the tower and set off again.
When the equine scream rang across the sands he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Turning back in the direction of the horse's departure he waded through the sand after it, finding no prints to follow. Forced to leave its fate to the storm the giant was about to turn back once again when a great shadow fell upon him, and the air buzzed with the growl of a monstrous figure looming over him, its breath hot with the stink of a fresh kill.
Admission
The Dulalo Tower was a fifteen-hundred foot tall square-plan structure built from blocks of solid black diamond that shone with an iridescence under the hot sun, and at its base it covered an area of two acres. The tower rose in several great sections that decreased in size in ascension, and were bordered with flanged eaves. The tower was capped with a flat roof where rose four great pillars of marble topped with solid spikes of gold.
A running battle was being fought around its base. During the massacre at Gremerni the new king Matthew Ward had succeeded in stealing the Hessian's greatsword as well as loyal bull servant plus the sigil from the mad priest Father Shanahan, and made a hasty retreat when the Bringer of the Black Gospel inexplicably resurrected his fallen army of alien monsters. The pursuit from the canyon to the desert was fraught with conflict as Jack tried to reclaim the seal from the inhuman being to no avail, and when the Hessian was taken off to Revo to be imprisoned in the dungeon the order was made for reinforcements to be sent to Culshoch.
When he finally made it to the tower Ward had the entire structure surrounded in a phalanx as he had done in the canyon to dupe Shanahan and the giant barbarian Hessian. While the otherworldly creatures at Jack's command bombarded the line, behind the shields Ward searched the entire perimeter of the tower for a doorway or entrance, scanning the walls for any sign of a matching symbol that would open a portal inside.
"There's no fucking way inside!" Ward yelled.
"The sands may have washed over the entrance, my lord!" yelled the bull from behind one of the shields.
In a frustrated rage he took to digging at the sands around the base hoping to uncover the top of a doorway, but the sand just piled back in on where it had been scooped away and with a defeated wail the new king beat his hands upon the wall of diamond and leaned his face against its smooth surface. When his gaze drew upwards to the edge of the wall he bellowed his frustrations at the sight of crescent ribs jutting out from the corner of the tower that climbed as rungs up the entire side of the structure. He had found the way.
"Your destiny awaits, new king." came a voice from behind him. "Perhaps you had better start climbing."
He spun around against the wall and came face to face with the source of the taunting; a figure clad entirely in black robes that hung open at the front revealing hideous gouges of scarred flesh and sutured wounds from past battles. The skin was a pallid grey, and hidden behind greasy locks of hair that swished with every movement he made was a face twisted into a look of hatred by blackened eyes. In his hand he held a long staff topped with a black jewel carved from the same diamond as the blocks in the wall of the tower. Ward had heard of this creature in legend as the right hand of Seb, and uttered his name with great trepidation.
"The Man in Black..." he gasped. It was no wonder the creature was able to penetrate the phalanx and slip past the bull without notice.
"I am Shakur, Keeper of the Tower." came the hoarse reply, and as those beady eyes fell upon the sigil in Ward's hand he raised a crooked finger to the inhuman being. "You wield the sigil with intent to claim its power. Do you accept the test of men set by the supreme being?"
"I do." Ward answered abruptly, brandishing the seal as though it were a golden ticket to the top of the tower.
"Then let the trial begin." Shakur rasped, and suddenly he was gone. Turning to the ribs hugging the edge of the tower, Ward's gaze followed the rungs all the way up into the sky where he could no longer distinguish them amongst the blackened wall of the structure. He squinted at its summit when he thought he caught sight of something. A familiar shape. He narrowed his eyes and in the bright gleam of the sun he was sure he could see the Grand Throne of the High King perched upon the heavens. Then he cursed.
His Will
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." Shanahan chanted in a low irate murmur from astride his mount.
He watched as his alien army threw themselves into the defensive line around the tower, unable to break through the shields even with their misshapen bulk. Behind the formation he could see the head of the new king bobbing up and down and the silver sheen of the greatsword across his back as he traversed the line looking for a way in and he laughed despite not having possession of the sigil, for he had been told by the dark lord exactly how it had to be utilized. Ward on the other hand seemed to have mistaken it for a door key.
Just as he was studying the assault on the phalanx he thought he saw a figure appear before the inhuman being, and peering closer he saw Ward talking with the stranger who was of neither army. At that same moment his mount snarled and to his left Shanahan felt the presence of another.
"You intervene in the challenge of man set by Seb, priest." growled the robed figure at his side, and the Bringer of the Black Gospel met the dead gaze of the creature wielding a wooden staff.
"This task is mine to fulfil." Jack replied without hesitation, unperturbed by the sight of the spectre hovering high above the ground without aid of tether or mount.
"I am Shakur, Keeper of the Tower." said the wraith. " You intend to claim the sigil and the right to its power. Do you accept the test of men set by the supreme being?"
"It is the will of the dark lord." Shanahan hissed.
"So be it. The trial has begun." Shakur rasped, waving a hand over the mad priest. In the blink of an eye he was gone, and Shanahan was alone again.
He whispered something in the foreign tongue of the devil creatures, and all at once they focused their attacks on the section of the phalanx behind which Ward was now cowering. He tilted his head back and let loose a maniacal laugh, then stopped abruptly as his gaze settled on the summit of the Dulalo Tower.
There amongst roiling cloud and rolling thunder lurched a gargantuan maroon beast. It clung to the top of the tower with monstrous claws, its torso and limbs sickeningly human in appearance. A pair of wings so immense they blotted out the sun spread out from its back; the torn membrane illuminated amber in the shade. Atop its powerful shoulders a wide hideous tethidine face leered at him, and when it spoke to him the air resonated and the ground shook though only he felt it.
NOG HAFH'DRN. ULN Y N'GHFT, its voice boomed, and the mad priest immediately threw himself into the battle.
Emergence
With no chance of scaling the tower under the constant barrage from the flying monstrosities Ward ordered his men to fight back, and when the next wave of creatures came at the line they were impaled on the end of swords and spears protruding between the shields.
"Close the ranks!" he roared, and as the order was passed on down the line the knights bunched up around the king creating multiple defensive rows.
In response to the tactical manoeuvre the mad priest muttered another incantation and licked his lips as the creatures flew high above the shielded king, soaring hundreds of feet high before they all dropped into a dead fall and plummeted towards the earth like rocks. A thunderous boom echoed out across the desert as they crashed down upon the shields, crushing the knights beneath them like bugs and themselves bursting like purple grapes over their remains.
The mad priest creased with insane laughter and glided closer to the ground to survey the carnage, but to his dismay the new king had survived the impact along with the bull and two other knights, though their legs had been crushed inside their armour and they were of no use any more. Dismounting from his grotesque alien warhorse Father Shanahan grabbed up a sword from amongst the dead and stormed over the blood and guts and armour towards the new king. High above, hanging from the ribbed rungs on the side of the tower, Shakur watched intently with a sinister smile upon his thin cracked lips.
"You have meddled with forces beyond your comprehension, king. Return the Göltik to me at once and see your life ended by the merciful hand of Violence Jack." he snarled, standing over Ward and holding the sword at his throat.
The inhuman being lay cruciate on the ground with the sigil held firmly in hand. Staring up the length of the sword into the cold eyes of the mad priest, blood and pulp dripped down Ward's face as he spat on the blade.
"Take it." he grumbled.
With incredible reflex Ward pitched abruptly to the right and launched the sigil at the face of the Bringer of the Black Gospel. His nose cracked on impact and he staggered backwards holding his face, tripping over a cadaver and falling to the ground. When he looked up again King Ward stood over him with the bull cradling bruised ribs by his side and the greatsword held firmly in both hands in a striking pose.
"Foolish priest. You wasted years in those mountains babbling of your dark lord and learning nothing of the ways of a true warrior. Your spells cannot save you now. I will have your head, and with the seal in my possession all of Primeiea will bow before me."
"Who is the fool that does not understand how to wield such power?" sniped the mad priest before cackling at the king.
"You will know no more!" Ward roared, raising the greatsword overhead as Violence Jack shirked under the death strike.
A blood-curdling cry like that of a lion chewing on twisted metal broke the new king's concentration, and losing the momentum of his swing Ward dropped the greatsword. The mad priest was also shaken by the sound and glanced back to see a behemoth riding out of the sandstorm on the plain.
The bearded terrorsaur loped towards them on long muscular hind legs footed with chunky claws, its vestigial forearms clawing wildly at the air. Its scaly tan hide was covered with a thin coat of fine golden hair over its long tail, thighs, back and belly. Loose folds of skin flared over its throat and Ward immediately recognized the horned crest flushed crimson, and the gaping maw lined with two rows of teeth as long and sharp as daggers. A similar head was mounted in the dining hall of his castle. Its slitted pupils in its blood-red eyes were locked on him with a primal blood-lust, but it was the death stare in the eyes of the giant riding on its back that filled him with terror.
The Hessian commanded the beast with large handfuls of its nape and struggled to control it as it tried to buck him off. He wore the hide of its kin upon his frame and knew of the immense power of the creature from past battles. With great strength he pointed it in the direction of the tower where Violence Jack and King Ward looked on in horror. Seizing his chance, the mad priest pounced on the sigil and scrambled to his feet, and the terrorsaur immediately changed course after him while Ward dropped low to the ground with the giant's greatsword at the ready.
"Kill him!" Ward commanded of the bull.
"But sire..." the traitor murmured.
"KILL HIM!" Ward roared again, picking up a sword and driving it into the grasp of the bull.
The traitor drew a deep breath and made for the approaching terrorsaur, and glancing back at the furious king realized that he had always been a pawn in the eyes of his power-hungry master. As the terrorsaur thundered towards him he thought back to the blind prisoner in the dining hall at Helväte, and prayed.
"Forgive me, my king." he muttered towards the Hessian, but the giant didn't even acknowledge him as the jaws of the terrorsaur snapped shut on him, snuffing him from existence.
Summoning his alien mount Father Shanahan threw himself onto the beast and clung on as it lifted off from the ground with the terrorsaur quickly looming over it, its mouth red with bull meat, while Ward picked his moment to chase after them. As the beast lunged forward with its jaws wide open the Hessian used its momentum to throw himself over its head, diving through the air and slamming into the alien creature, knocking the mad priest off and sending himself and Shanahan hurtling to the desert floor. As they rolled through the air Violence Jack found himself on top of the barbarian as they slammed into the ground.
The terrorsaur missed its target by a nip, and the winged beast that was neither plant nor animal pitched to the right and soared over the head of Ward who hurtled towards the mythical super-lizard and as it turned to face him brought the greatsword up and with all his might drove the blade through its chest.
Pulling himself up off the winded barbarian, Father Shanahan stumbled away as the terrorsaur fell to the sand with a final pained howl. As it lay dying Ward turned to find the mad priest beckoning his mount from the sky and, leaving the greatsword embedded in the terrorsaur's heart, bolted after him as the Hessian rose up, gulping down air and chasing after Shanahan.
The mad priest was once again taken into the tentacled grip of the alien being, and as it took off the barbarian was at its heels, reaching up and grabbing hold of the five undulating appendages that made up its feet. The extra weight caused the creature to drop back to the ground, and Violence Jack screamed hysterically, kicking at the barbarian's hands.
As the creature tried to fly off the Hessian grit his teeth and held fast, when a sudden burst of pain shot through his knee. Hollering in agony his grip was lost and he felt something clamber over him as he fell to the ground yet again. Looking up he saw the inhuman being in his place clinging to the creature's legs as it soared towards the top of the tower, leaving the barbarian alone on the ground.
"BASTARD!" roared the Hessian, checking the burning pain in his knee to find that Ward had plunged a dagger deep into the joint. Clutching the handle and crying furiously, the giant tilted his head up to see the new king and the mad priest shrinking into a black spot that disappeared into the clouds.
"You have intervened in the trial of men set by the supreme being." came a coarse whisper at his side.
Rolling onto his back the giant ignored the voice and tore a strip of leather from his kilt, biting his tongue as he pulled the blade from his knee.
"I am Shakur, Keeper of the Tower." the figure rasped, pointing its crooked finger at the barbarian.
As claret leaked onto the sand the Hessian wrapped the leather strip above the wound and tied it so tight that the flow of blood was stemmed in moments. Suspending his leg stiffly in the air the barbarian raked his fingers down his face and groaned in agony as his leg pulsed under the tourniquet.
"You intend to claim the sigil and the right to its power. Do you accept the test of men set by the Founder?" Shakur asked.
The giant reached for the dagger and aimlessly stabbed in the direction of the keeper. As he did the spectre vanished in a burst of black smoke and reappeared at his feet.
"What are you?" the Hessian growled, his voice tinged with the frailty of defeat. "Why do you mock me?"
"I am Shakur, Keeper of the Tower of Dulalo." the creature repeated again. "Do you claim the sigil as your own and the power thereof?"
"Neither Ward nor that raving priest will have it as their own."
"The almighty Seb determined this a challenge of men," Shakur spat, "do you accept?"
"...I do." the giant answered.
"Then enter into the trial and see it finished. This is a test of men." Shakur said again in an irate huff, almost cursing.
Tucking the dagger into his kilt the Hessian watched with bated breath as the keeper raised the staff towards him. The jewel on the end of it began to swirl and pulse, and a bright flash of light blinded the giant for a moment before he blinked the world back into sight. A dark hue had enveloped him, and once again he found himself staring up at the tower's summit. Though the sun shone off to the west he could have sworn a second star radiated its brilliance from atop the tower. Suddenly his world turned to darkness. The words of the keeper resonated in his head.
"This is a test of men."
Destiny
When he came to, his ears were filled with the sound of pained howls and the smack of flesh on flesh. On opening his eyes he found himself in a place he didn't recognize. The glint from a golden spire suddenly blinded him again and he turned away and gave his eyes a moment to adjust before looking back and taking in the majesty of his surroundings.
White clouds rolled across an azure sky, and as a cold breeze washed over him he knew he was atop the Dulalo Tower. He lay at the edge of the roof and was only saved from rolling off to his death by a foot-high parapet. Immediately in front of him was the centre of the tower-top, where the marble up in four pillars topped with the golden spires that had blinded him. At the base of the pillars polished ivory steps led up to three railings of gold that connect each pillar to the next.
Inside the enclosure a squared circle was formed, floored with gleaming blocks of quartz upon which had been inscribed ancient hieroglyphics from pillar to post. Engaged in mortal combat at its centre were the mad priest and the new king, and on the other side of the squared circle the giant saw the creeping figure of Shakur standing over the eviscerated remains of the alien warhorse.
"This is a test of men."
He heard the keeper speak but saw no movement from his lips, and turning to Ward and Father Shanahan peeled his lips back into a snarl and picked himself up off the floor.
"Tell me how to use it!" the inhuman being had Violence Jack held by the collar of his robes, and drove hard knuckles into the raving priest's face as he buckled with laughter and wiped the blood from his face, frenziedly flicking it on the ground.
The barbarian moved around the squared circle to Ward's back and silently climbed the ivory steps, careful not to let the pain in his knee evoke any sound from his throat.
"Tell me priest or I will kill you where you stand!" Ward hollered again, veins bulging in his neck. The giant noticed he was without his helmet.
"You are unworthy of its power!" Shanahan bawled with insane laughter, tears streaming from his eyes. "You made claim to the greatest power in Primeiea and yet," he paused to catch his breath, "you know nothing of how to achieve it! You FOOL!"
The Hessian stopped at the railings and gently hefted his legs one after the other over the top as Ward spat in the priest's face and bludgeoned the madman with elbows and fists and headbutts until Violence Jack was a giggling wreck writhing on the quartz. Gazing down at the hieroglyphics he let gobs of crimson slobber drip onto the quartz before licking at it and running his hands over the floor, laughing all the while.
"So be it. By the hand of King Ward you will die, Violence Jack." the new king hissed.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die." Shanahan replied with great clarity between bouts of laughter.
"Crazy fucking-"
"WARD!!" the giant roared as the inhuman being raised his armoured heel over the head of the mad priest.
He spun around in shock and was met with a massive fist that cracked him across the nose and sent him pin-wheeling over the body of Violence Jack to the quartz floor. Stepping over the giggling madman the barbarian mounted Ward and grabbed him by the chest plate, hammering him against the quartz and with every sick thud of the new king's skull against the floor the giant was overcome with an unfathomable fury. He no longer felt the pain in his knee, for here lay the man responsible for his defeat, the deaths of his best men and his imprisonment. He slammed his fists down upon the chest of the inhuman being with great vengeance, denting steel into flesh and unleashing an animalistic roar that made Ward's ears ring.
Suddenly the mad priest was upon his back choking him and cackling in his ear. He lurched backwards into the railings, but despite being crushed Father Shanahan held on for dear life. Squeezing one arm tightly around the giant's throat Jack scraped at his face with the other. The barbarian tried to prise the arm from his throat and suddenly felt the golden seal in the hand of the mad priest. Tearing it from Shanahan's grip the Hessian swatted at the lunatic on his back and finally caught a fold of robe in his hand and hauled Violence Jack overhead, driving him to the floor and knocking the wind out of him.
He looked up and gasped as Ward ran at him with an arm outstretched, smashing his armour into the giant's face and knocking the Hessian over the railings and down the ivory steps, causing him to drop the sigil in the process. Picking it up Ward hid it from sight and moved to Father Shanahan, pulling the madman off the floor and tossing him onto the rising barbarian and sending them both tumbling onto the diamond roof of the tower.
From the daze of the fall Violence Jack leapt onto the giant once again, and the Hessian tried to throw him off but the mad priest had adjusted his position and choked the barbarian out of reach of his massive arms. On his hands and knees in the middle of the squared circle Ward produced the sigil and studied the symbols engraved upon it, scanning the hundreds of hieroglyphics against it and trying in desperation to find a correspondence between them.
"This is my destiny!" howled the mad priest, clawing at the giant's eye. "Only I know how to utilize the power of the seal!"
"You are not the only one who knows the secret of the Göltik, priest." the giant reeled.
Violence Jack froze in shock that the barbarian knew the true name of the seal and thus the power it possessed. The pause was enough for the Hessian to thrust his head back, and a spray of claret burst forth from the mad priest's nose and evoked a scream from his lips. On hearing it Ward looked over before cursing out loud and continuing his scramble across the quartz searching for the matching symbol. As Shanahan loosened his grip the barbarian turned his back to the nearest pillar and threw himself at it, crushing his foe between his massive bulk and the unforgiving marble.
"You...you cannot possibly know this..." Shanahan wheezed as blood gushed down his face onto the giant's back.
Grabbing him by the arm the barbarian hoisted him up onto his shoulder.
"I know it, priest. The mind is strong." he said turning to the edge of the roof.
With a wild roar the barbarian threw Father Shanahan over the parapet, and the mad priest plummeted to the earth in silent horror, for he knew he had failed the dark lord.
King Ward heard the roar of the giant and turned to see the lunatic thrown from the tower. His heart leapt in his chest as the Hessian faced him and began staggering towards the squared circle.
"No, no!" he yelled, running a hand over the hieroglyphics and searching over the same symbols he already knew had no bearing on that of the sigil.
As the barbarian climbed over the gold railing, wincing at the pain returning to his wounded knee, Ward rose to his feet and charged at him.
"I am the true High King! Primeiea is mine!" he cried, brandishing the sigil like a weapon. "Fucking barbarian!"
As he swung, the giant reached out and grabbed Ward's arm with one hand, and out of the corner of his eye the new king caught a flash of light in the other hand of his nemesis. He felt a burning sting in his throat and something wet spilling down his chest and dropped the sigil, staggering backwards with both hands pressed against the hilt of his own dagger embedded in his neck. His eyes were wide with fright as he dropped to his knees, reaching a shaky red hand out to the giant before he collapsed face down in the middle of the squared circle.
The Hessian exhaled and dropped to his good knee, cradling the other as pain shot through it. At his feet he saw the golden seal lying upon the quartz and picked it up, studying the symbol. He couldn't help but smile at the dead king as a pool of blood spilled from his corpse across the hieroglyphics in the floor.
"It is done," came the familiar rasp of the keeper at his side, "the trial of man is complete."
He looked up at Shakur as the spectre pointed his bejewelled staff towards the bloody remains in the middle of the squared circle, at which point the giant noticed that the claret had stopped spreading in a pool and was seeping into a rectangular fracture in the surface of the quartz.
The ground suddenly began to shake under his feet and the barbarian made for the railing, then realizing there was nowhere to go turned and watched in astonishment as the bloody rectangle began to rise up out of the squared circle with the corpse of Matthew Ward draped upon it.
"The price has been paid in blood upon the Dulalo Tower this day. Claim your power, barbarian." Shakur said in a booming voice, and then he was gone.
Amid the rumbling tremor and the scraping of rock, a monolith rose out of the squared circle to a height of ten feet before it shuddered to a halt. It was made of ancient stone and covered in similar hieroglyphics to those on the quartz floor, and in its centre was carved a spherical groove with the symbol of the sigil engraved into it. The Hessian gazed at it in amazement, limping around to the other side of the standing stone where he saw the groove, and laying the seal in its rightful place he stepped back.
Another tremor staggered him as a white light began to swell in each of the hieroglyphics upon the stone. Reaching out cautiously he ran his fingers across each one and found them to be warm. A trance of wonderment crept over him and he was lost in the glow when the entire monolith erupted in a burst of light. Shielding his eyes against the beacon, the Hessian was bathed in its warmth and, without questioning why, walked straight into the gateway to transcendence.
The light shone so brightly from atop the Dulalo Tower that it could be seen all across Primeiea. From the smouldering ruins of Helväte to the great city of Revo and even the mountains of madness, the people of Primeiea all saw it and gazed in wonder at the star that had been born that day.
When it finally faded, the giant was gone.
The End.
The giant returned to his kingdom the next day, unopposed. Though the remaining forces loyal to Ward bowed before the barbarian as though he had always been king there were whispers of the reign of Matthew Ward coming to such an abrupt end. It was then that the giant addressed his people and told them of the Dulalo Tower, the battle at Culshoch and Ward's defeat by his hand.
Soon thereafter the Hessian set to work rebuilding the city of Revo in his image, then ventured back out west to Helväte to see it torn down brick by brick and the discarded bodies committed to the sea. In the months following, the barbarian sent brigade after brigade into the mountains to the north and razed from them all life that was not of the Founder's creation until the land was cleansed of the godless abominations that howled in the dark of night, pining for the mad priest with only the steel of the Hessian's greatsword to answer their cries.
Throughout it all talk of what had happened at Culshoch was rife amongst the people. Murmurs of the tale amongst old scribes trickled out into the city and were soon swept up with rumour and legend in the streets until it became folklore throughout Primeiea, strengthening the giant's reputation. He capitalized on the myth to expand his kingdom deep into the deserts of Culshoch and the once terrifying mountains until every last acre of land in Primeiea was under the rule of the Hessian.
Every duty was fulfilled and all of his endeavours accomplished, and all that was left for the giant was to see off each usurper with designs on his kingdom. Most came for the throne, but a select few sought a different kind of power. The myth of the Dulalo Tower had become an obsession to those men, and they wasted too much of their time pursuing it. Some wanted to know how to achieve their own power, others wanted to know what the Hessian had done with his.
By the time the secrets of the Hessian's power and the events of that fateful day in Culshoch were discovered, the giant's reign as king was long over. Someone else ruled over Primeiea and though word spread to the farthest reaches of the land, no one ever really knew what fate had befallen the barbarian. Though no one ever saw the giant again, his story lived on and spurred others to greatness, and those who succeeded were rewarded with the power they deserved, with all of Primeiea there for the taking.
Primeiea. A paradise in the eyes of the Founders and a land of gods and monsters. A place where mountains climbed past the heavens and canyons fell beyond the depths of hell. The landscape was forever the same, and only its people changed. Names came and went; wars were fought, won and lost; men lived and died; leaders rose and fell. Its warriors were praised in song; its heroes spoken of in legend; its villains forgotten from memory; its kings remembered for all time.
And the Hessian had the power to transcend it all.
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Roleplays
Where the Road Ends (Singles Match vs. Tyler Rayne, Colossus VIII)
By: Wade Elliott
Location: From Chicago to Cambridge
Date: Fall, 2012
By: Wade Elliott
Location: From Chicago to Cambridge
Date: Fall, 2012
The Re-Build (Tag Team Match with Chandler Tsonda vs. Tyler Nelson & Devin Shakur, ReVolution: The Last Stand)
By: Wade Elliott
Location: Phoenix, DC, Massachusetts, and all places in-between
Date: From 248 to The Last Stand
By: Wade Elliott
Location: Phoenix, DC, Massachusetts, and all places in-between
Date: From 248 to The Last Stand
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