“Worship me in the portals of night and enter the dark plane.”
–from
Necromancy and Wolves: The Veiled Darkness
Walter’s mother Isabelle stared into the worn leather-bound ledger book, numbers blurring in her eyes. She leaned back in her wooden chair carved with the likeness of wrapping elixir vines and yawned like a lion, head lolling back, sharp chin pointing at the ceiling. “Just a few more accounts to reconcile, and I can make my way to the festival,” she said into the empty study.
The large dark walnut desk she used had two large piles to either side of her, one of signed receipts of elixir shipments, the other of payments owed. Both piles were being held in place by a pile of low-denomination marks.
The sound of a horse thundered down the Mission Road.
This doesn’t seem right
, she thought. She wrinkled her nose, listening intently. It was getting closer, almost at her doorstep. She snapped her fingers in the direction of the five burning beeswax candles, snuffing them out simultaneously. She looked furtively through the study window to see the form of her son collapse.
**
Walter stared into the clear night sky, its luminescent beauty at odds with the agony he felt.
This was supposed to be a nice night. Should’ve listened to crazy fucking Ralph… should’ve trusted the vision. I was supposed to kiss Nyset. Lashes, daggers. We were going to watch the Phoenix burn. Juzo and I were going to… Juzo – I need to help him. Get up, get up, you fool!
He forced his body into movement, lifting his torso upright. The stalactite lancing his shoulder reminded him of its presence when he moved. He felt the midnight dew from the blades of grass on his fingertips. The gelding remained close, pawing at the ground nervously.
“Walter! Is that you?” his mother yelled when the front door burst open.
“Mom? Mom, you’re here,” he said wearily.
“What happened to you boys?” she said, concern lining her eyes.
She looked them over, wincing at their wounds.
“Help Juzo, he”, Walter trailed off. She tore a piece of white linen from her shirt and quickly bound Juzo’s leg to staunch the profuse bleeding.
“Dad, Dad is dead Mom” Walter said flatly, staring into her cool blue eyes. His eyes bubbled over with tears. Pain seared across her face, but was quickly replaced with decisiveness. “OK, OK, let’s get you inside,” she said. Her eyes flashed a brilliant yellow. She loaded Juzo onto her left shoulder and Walter on the other.
Ten minutes passed and Juzo regained consciousness. “How did you do that, Mrs. Glade?” queried Juzo from an armchair, sipping water. He peered at his thigh, now bound with proper cotton bandages and coated with antiseptic Ribwort oil.
Isabelle had spent her former life as the community surgeon in The Great Retreat, before Aiden swept her off her feet with his natural charm and wit. She didn’t think it would be a useful skill in her new life as a businesswoman, but found after having Walter that it was indeed useful. Evidently, a hallmark of a well-lived childhood was to inflict the occasional broken bone and gash upon oneself.
Juzo stared at her, blinking. “Do what, Juzo?” she replied, finishing applying Ribwort oil to Walter’s shoulder bandage. A slow smile crept across Juzo’s lips.
“I saw you carry us in at the same time,” he said.
“I was so concerned about you boys, I feared for your lives. What other choice did I have?” she said.
“I suppose,” he said, staring off at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the study.
“Tell me again what happened, everything you can remember.” Her gentle eyes scanned their faces. She started gathering water skins and dried peach slices, stuffing them into a satchel. Isabelle hurriedly packed other sundries.
“Everything was amazing, then there were terrible hoof beats, and screaming, ear-piercing screams,” said Walter, shivering.
An explosion tore through the front of the house, splintering wood across the foyer as a Cerumal lunged through the doorway. The red cedar door skidded down the hall, shattering bits of doorframe in its wake. The Cerumal paused, towering in the hallway and then pounded up the stairs to the second floor. Thankfully, the study was on the first floor. The floor screeched under the tremendous weight of the heavily armored horror.
“I’m sorry, boys, but you must go. Get back on the horse and ride as far from here as you can!” Isabelle hoarsely whispered.
“No, we’re not leaving you!” cried Walter.
This is too much
, he thought.
“If you love me and trust me Walt, you will do as I say. Now go! Please!” Walter relented, obeying his mother. Juzo felt at the contents of his satchel and narrowed his eyes.
They proceeded together towards the foyer, where the heavy door had once been. Isabelle shoved them outside, onto the porch. The Cerumal roared angrily from the second-floor landing, spotting them. The well-lit landing revealed long smears of blood that had splashed across the chest and legs of its gray slate-colored armor.
Isabelle widened her stance and spread her arms across the doorway, using her body to shield the boys behind her. She extended her right arm towards the beast, and opened her right palm. A jet of flame erupted from her palm, dashing towards the interwoven armor. When it struck, the creature ignited in a hail of Dragon fire, falling to its knees and bellowing in pain. It removed its helmet in an ineffectual attempt to stay its execution.
Holy shit! It’s true! It’s real! My mother can use the power of the Dragon?
Walter thought, beaming at her and knitting his eyebrows.
Juzo’s mouth hung open. “I knew it!” he exclaimed. “I knew it!”
The sound of smashing wood and glass echoed from the two adjacent rooms on the first-floor hallway. Isabelle looked down the main hall, watching as an armored foot crashed through the forest-green-painted back door to the kitchen. A warm, orange glow from her eyes brightened the marble-floored foyer.
Too many
, she thought. “Please go, boys. Walter, I love you – you must go! Please go now!” She pushed his satchel she’d packed into his arms.
First Dad, now this?
Walter thought grimly. “I love you too, Mom,” he quavered. He had the feeling this was another cusp. Did he stay and fight, or flee, obeying his mother? He obeyed, telling himself it was out of respect, duty and love for his mother’s wishes.
You’re too weak to fight them
,
the voice of truth stabbed in his head. His pulse pounded between his ears as he inched towards the door.
“Everything is going to be OK,” she said, putting a hand on his head, pushing him out the doorway. He saw death in her eyes. He knew in his chest how this would end.
“This isn’t right,” Juzo whispered into his ear on the front porch. Moments later, Walter wiped the cold sweat from his brow and drove his heel into the gelding’s side. He turned as they rode away from the home he’d always considered a refuge for peace. Roars from the Cerumal punched into the night sky, blending with Isabelle’s screams. A burst of bright light flashed from a window. What started as her war cry ended in shrieks of agony, and finally only the sound of pounding hooves remained with the boys.
**
Juzo sat tall atop the back of the wounded gelding they’d named Brownie as they sauntered along Helm’s East Road. Walter walked beside it, giving it a rest from carrying him. The heat from the mid-day sun was strong, its weight bearing down upon them. Two Monterey Pines that had grown too close rubbed against one another, creaking while the boys passed. A welcome gust from Lich’s Falls filtered through their loose clothing, dashing away some of the incessant heat.
They had collapsed under a puffy Silver Lamb’s bush two hours after departing Breden the previous night. Its long tentacle-like leaves captured glowing insects from the air, and passed their corpses to its central golden flower. Walter found its fluttering leaves not very conducive to restful sleep.
They had luckily remembered to tie Brownie to a nearby tree. Walter removed the stone lodged in the horse’s flank and bandaged him with the supplies his mother had unceremoniously given him.
Take the time to correctly dress a wound, and it is far less likely to become Rot Fly food,
she had told him. Thinking of his mother made his stomach twist into knots.
Breathe, focus.
Brownie was a great horse, Walter thought.
Without him, we would already have been dead.
He rubbed his sides and massaged his muscular neck.
The gurgle of a brook emerged from the south. “Let’s get him some water and rest,” said Walter, breaking their long silence. Juzo nodded, his gaze fixed down the empty trodden road. They came upon a clearing with crystal clear water, babbling and forming bubbles along the green vegetation-lined river’s edge. Brownie drank greedily, while Walter and Juzo splashed their faces with icy water from the Blanched Falls. Walter felt the water cleansing his spirit and dissipating some of the tightness that sat on his chest. In that brief moment, he felt normal, perhaps he could even crack a smile.
Juzo pulled his head from the water, pushing his long hair back, the sun highlighting strands of gray. “Do you think what we did was right?” he asked.
Walter stared into the water, bubbles popping and reforming. “I don’t know. We already made a choice, all we can do now is go forward, right?”
Juzo slowly shook his head. “We have to go back,” he said with steely resolve.
“And get slaughtered? You saw those things, and the one that almost killed us on Brownie… How could we possibly kill that?” said Walter.
“You’re a coward!” yelled Juzo, tears in his eyes. “My parents…” he trailed off, sobbing. A flock of tiny amber Bongol Jays darted from a nearby spruce tree.
“If we went back and died, everyone’s sacrifice will have been for naught,” said Walter. “We need help. Those beasts are too powerful. If we go to Midgaard, the Falcon army will help us. They have to, don’t they?” he asked.
Juzo exhaled, growling. “I sure hope so,” he said. He removed his bandages, revealing a gaping wound that, thankfully, did not look infected. He cringed while rinsing it in the cool, running water. “So many dead, why did they do this? Why did this happen?” he said.
Walter met his friend’s blurry eyes, “I don’t know. Noah called them Cerumal, and even he fell to their spears.” He tilted his face to the sun, “We will have our revenge, but we can’t do it alone, and you know this.” The white sunlight blinded him, flashing in his mind the memory of the fiery glow of his mother’s eyes. Juzo hobbled back to Brownie with the assistance of a twisted stick, and, with some difficulty, mounted him.
**
By morning the following day, their stomachs were rumbling. One can be only so satisfied by nuts and salted beef. The pine-tree forest had given way to young birch trees interspersed with spruce, their white bark, peeled, revealing inner cambium.
Tiny Shroomlings a hand in height scurried in the underbrush with their brown mushroom-capped heads and red-purple humanoid bodies. They gathered Scarlet Berries with their human like tiny hands. The berries were about a tenth of their size. One almond-brown-capped Shroomling had managed to kill a chipmunk, impaling it with its toothpick-sized spear. It allowed the kill to dangle lifelessly from the end of its spear behind its back. As Brownie came into view on the path, they vanished into the birch forest.
“Shroomlings, but not enough to be a bother,” said Walter, catching a glimpse of them. Shroomlings could be very annoying pests due to their territorial nature. Juzo readied his leather training lash, holding its end loosely in his hand, just in case.
“So, your mother could use the Dragon Power?” Juzo asked.
Walter paused. “Apparently. She never told us, or hinted at it, I suppose for obvious reasons. I’m still amazed it’s real. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. It was just like it was written in the stories.”
“Can you?” Juzo asked.
“Not that I know of… I guess I’ll never be able to learn from her…” Walter trailed off, settling into a heavy silence. They loped further east, passing the Bearded Foothills to the south. The Bearded Foothills were named for the profile of rock that loosely resembled a bearded man, which could be seen on the northern rock face with the right viewing angle.
“My, oh my, look at this sweet flesh,” whispered a gaunt man emerging from the road, brandishing a rusted butcher’s knife and blocking their path six paces ahead.
Highwaymen
,
Walter thought. The man had an angular face with deep-set eyes and a thinning beard that hadn’t seen a razor in months. “Yarba! Look what I found, Chuck,” he shouted, eyeing them hungrily. He tapped the spine of the knife against his palm, sizing them up.
“I told ya them Shroomlings ain’t filling!” a gruff voice yelled from the bushes.
“Nope, these ain’t no Shroomlings – got ourselves some tasty flesh right here.” He smiled, revealing the remnants of three blackened teeth.
Brownie halted in his tracks mid-trot as the haggard man in rags stepped from the thick woodlands. “Whoa, boy,” said Juzo, pulling on the hog-leather reins. Walter put a hand on the horse, calming him, and then sent his lash slicing through the air with a crack.
“We don’t want any trouble, friend,” Walter said, lips drawn to snarl, eyes wide and doing his best to intimidate.
Chuck stumbled from the wood, standing at least three paces tall with a bulging paunch and hefting a heavy branch. His trousers had been cut off at the knee, highlighting a myriad of scars on his legs. “Oh, no, boys, you won’t be any trouble at all now, will you? Just go ahead and put that down now, and we won’t hurt you. We’re just looking for some new friends, ain’t we, Mar?” Mar and Chuck beamed at each other in amusement.
“The fun never stops, does it?” asked Juzo. Walter centered himself and slipped into Warrior’s Focus, detaching himself from the pain that still throbbed around his face and shoulder, and the fear paralyzing him seconds ago. The greens and blues of the surrounding trees became vivid and magnified with their individual shades. Chuck’s anxious breathing resonated in his mind, the clear sign of an impending assault.