A single letter was all it took to get Arynn riding
through a countryside she had not seen in over ten years in the mist of early
morning. The words of the message scrawled upon cheap paper by the hand of
someone who scarcely knew how to write, yet no amount of spelling errors could
hide the urgency behind each word. A call home, after so long. Something evil
was stirring in the shadows, that even the faith of the rural folk could not
repel.
Grasping the reins tighter as she rode hard, the chill of
the mists swirling around her trying to pierce the cloak of thick black wool
and fur that hung from her shoulders, the supple leather of her tunic doing its part to protect her as the
inn she had stayed at through the previous night faded deeper into memory.
She had wanted to travel through the night to reach the
home of her sister, the only family she had left up here in Aenkleth, but the
rumours and whispers from those that stayed at the inn last night had convinced
her otherwise. It wasn’t their words that convinced her something was lurking
in the night, but rather their fear. Arynn had not lived so long ignoring the
signs of demons and monsters.
As the shoddily paved road turned upwards, towards the
crest of a hill that ran from the mountains in the west that sheltered Arynn’s
childhood village, and three miles east, she remembered the last time she had
traveled this road. Nearly eleven years ago, she had been heading the opposite
direction, a young woman with no husband, no children, and no future in sight,
never thinking to ever set eyes upon the wooden beams and thatch roves of what
had once been home again.
Now, as she crested the hill and emerged from the mist,
overlooking the plains before her, still struggling to overthrow the morning
fog, she saw smoke curling upwards towards the sky. Not a single column, but
many thick plumes of black that lazily drifted upwards menacingly. Right where
Glenval village was nestled.
With a shout, Arynn kicked her heels into the flanks of
her horse, the recently purchased and as yet unnamed rouncey letting out a
whinny as it broke into a hard gallop. Arynn’s heart pounded in her chest as
the clatter of hooves and patches of dirt sounded in her ears. She kept one
hand on the hilt of her sword as she rode through the mist.
Time stretched out for the demon hunter, the early
morning hours turning to an eternity as she rode hard and fast, the horse’s
breath coming in short snorts as it struggled to keep the pace his rider
demanded. Foam dripped from behind the horse’s bit as it pushed itself at the
behest of a stranger.
By the time Arynn had reached the outskirts of the
village, her horse was struggling to walk straight, and the mist had slid away
to a pale morning, the sun hidden behind a sheet of gray clouds that had swept
in from the mountains. Slipping carefully from the saddle, Arynn reached over
her shoulder and pulled her sword free of its sheath. The silver inlaid down
the blood groove and curling like veins along the edges glimmered ever so
slightly in the pale light. Her gaze swept over Glenval.
Each house was a smoking ruin, only blackened skeletons
remaining of humble homesteads, smoke still rising from the mounds of ashes
where once there had been furniture, walls... people. Leaving the horse
stamping at the ground in discomfort at the edge, Arynn began to walk inwards,
eyes flicking to splashes of blood smeared across stones laid carefully into
the dirt to make pathways.
A raven let out a loud cry from the far edge, from the
forest where the villagers gathered their wood and hunted their meat. The demon
hunter kept moving, unable to find a single corpse save the occasional severed
limb, though she could see all too clearly the entrails draped over the edge of
the well in the centre of the village.
Sword at her side, standing beside the well she had drawn
water from so often as a child, had tossed the occasional coin into to make
wishes, she looked upon what had been her home. Had continued to be her
sister’s home until some time last night judging from the smoke. She was having
trouble conjuring memories of an innocent time with the stark reality of the
present before her.
As Arynn’s gaze moved slowly from the husk of one home to
the remains of the blacksmith, something caught her eye. With careful and
deliberate steps, her eyes snapping from one location to another, she
approached the ruins, stopping at the front steps and kneeling to one knee.
The smear of blood here was darker than the rest, almost
black, and it stank horribly.
“Druden,” Arynn said softly to herself as she rose to her
feet, noting that every scrap of metal had been taken from the blacksmith. So
the demons had come to her home and razed it to the ground; the druden were not
the most subtle of creatures.
Another piercing cry from a raven in the woods, the bird
of death seemed like a beacon. Arynn followed its call, her footsteps too loud
to her ears in the silence of a dead village. She left the path and walked
through grass that grew taller and taller until she reached the edge of the tree
line and peered into the shadows cast by the looming trees of the woods.
“Ilimm save us,” Arynn whispered, lifting a thumb to her
left brow and pushing it upwards to her forehead.
That’s where she saw them all; the villagers, swaying
ever so slightly as they dangled from ropes tied firmly around the thickest
branches. The soft creaking was eerie in the morning quiet, disrupted only by
the occasional beating of carrion wings.
Each of them had been stripped naked, their flesh bearing
the long cuts of knives that had ripped the clothing from their bodies. The
wounds that killed them had been made only worse by the birds that descended to
feast upon the dead flesh, pulling strings of meat out from ragged holes in the
skin to let it dangle.
Stepping into the grotesque orchard, Arynn carefully
stepped around each of the bodies. Some of the men had their genitals severed,
leaving a bloody hole with crimson trickling down to their heels. Some of them
had been hung still breathing gauging by the rope burns on some of the palms
that now lay by their sides uselessly.
Then Arynn spotted her. Even with her belly cut open,
entrails trailing across the undergrowth of the forest awaiting the next
carrion beast to come along and snag it, and her face a mass of purple and
black bruising, and ten years of age changing her features, Arynn recognized
her sister. A strange rush of emotions ran through the demon hunter as she
stared up at her own flesh and blood. It had been so long that Evelyn no longer
felt like the family she was, but she had been Arynn’s sister.
“I’m sorry,” Arynn said softly, taking hold of Evelyn’s
hand gently, and knowing the gesture was utterly pointless even as she said it.
She was thankful for the fact that Evelyn was here; it
meant her corpse was not wandering the countryside as one of the sluagh. She
was far too late to save her sister, but she could avenge her. She had not
expected the legions of Aalzgoth to have gained such strength here in Aenkleth.
Still holding her sisters feet, Arynn let her eyes move
amongst the other corpses swaying around her, the creak of branches and rope
almost overbearing in the otherwise silent wood. She felt her heart drop, for
she couldn’t see Gillian; Evelyn’s daughter, and Arynn’s niece. She would be
fifteen now, scarcely a woman, yet from what Arynn could gather, young Gillian
was amongst the sluagh now.
Turning, Arynn stepped out from the forest, anger, sorrow
and regret spurning within her heart as she sheathed her blade. She could make
it back to the inn easily enough, but she needed more information on the
movements of the druden, and if there were groups of sluagh wandering the area.
There had been a convent just an hour’s ride to the north east, on the way
between Glenval and Lairdon, the sisters might know something.
Gently taking the reins of her still recovering horse,
Arynn began to start out, following the road that curled across the grasslands,
skirting the forest that stretched far to the north. Absently, she wondered how
many deer and squirrels were happily running about on this day.
The journey was longer by foot of course, and when she
spotted the convent in the distance, another hour’s walk to the small hill it
was perched upon, Arynn took a long drink of water, deciding to save her food
for when she was mostly safe within its walls. She didn’t see any smoke rising
from the holy site, which was a good sign. Perhaps Ilimm had not lost all his
powers here in the north of the world.
Starting the climb up the hill, Arynn caught a sound on
the wind. One hand upon the reins of her rouncey, the other reaching upwards to
grasp her sword, she turned and looked towards the forest, listening.
Nothing else came after it, and she hadn’t be sure to
begin with what it had been, so she quickly turned upwards again, moving step
by step to the convent. Soon she was standing before the gates that led into
the courtyard of the convent. Through steel bars with silver embossing curling
like vines up the metal, Arynn could see the gardens lining the edges of the
courtyard, the simple fountain in its centre displaying the St. Genevieve
pouring water from an urn curled gently within her arm, and the crushed stone
pathways that curled from the gate to each of the buildings within.
Directly on the other side of the gate though, spears
clutched firmly in weathered hands, swords sheathed at the thick leather belts
around their waists. Leather and chainmail armour was covered by a tabard split
into quarters of blue and green, the symbol of a fox clutching a chalice and a
sword upon it. From beneath kettle helms the two men stared at her, the left
most one with a scar that left his cheek a horrible mess and his beard
struggling to grow around the deformed tissue, was chewing on a piece of jerky.
The symbol was familiar to Arynn, she had seen it a few
times during her time in the south. The Fox Company, one of the many free
companies that had worked as far south as across the Marizan Sea. She’d not
heard of them working this far north however.
“Sanctuary,” Arynn said, eyes moving between the two
mercenaries.
“Not ours to give,” the one on the right said with a
simple shrug.
“Then find me someone that can,” Arynn said firmly, and
the two mercenaries merely glanced at each other before offering a simple
shrug. Movement behind them caught Arynn’s eye.
“For the sake of Ilimm open the gates. You are not paid
to turn away travellers, but to slay the beasts of this land. And seeing as how
your acting, you may as well turn your blades upon each other,” a woman said,
anger clear in her tone as she stormed up to the mercenary guards. For their
part, they looked ashamed.
The woman’s garb was that of the priestesses that
worshiped within the convent, except her white robes had golden lines running over
her shoulders and down to her waist, where they burst out like sunrays. A rope
of matching colour was tied around her, the tails trailing down with the folds
of her robe. The high priestess of the convent, and not the same one that Arynn
knew from so long ago. Yet, she did seem familiar.
As the guards opened the gate, the woman offered a sad
yet warm smile to Arynn, ushering her inside, gesturing that she walk with the
priestess. The demon hunter quickly fell in step with her, while a young woman
in the gray robes of a novice came up to take Arynn’s horse to the stables.
“It has been many years Arynn Atwood. It is a shame that
your homecoming must be in such, dark times,” the high priestess said, and the
demon hunter was surprised that the older woman had recognized her. She looked
closer, trying to pretend that the ash gray hair that was shaved until only the
top of her head had growth, was more lively, that the crows feet and wrinkles
creasing the forehead were smoothed out.
“Amelia?” Arynn said with some surprise, and the
priestess smiled gently. A truer smile than what she had worn before.
“I’m guessing you’re here for your niece?”
Arynn quirked an eyebrow, and looked to the old
priestess.
“Gillian is here?”
“Of course. She is amongst the novices.” A brief pause,
gravel crunching beneath their footsteps as Amelia turned her head to Arynn,
while the news sank into Arynn’s mind. “You didn’t know did you?”
The only reply the demon hunter could give was a slow
shake of her head, before letting out a long breath of relief. A pair of
mercenaries wearing only tunic and breeches wandered past, laughing quietly to
themselves, Arynn’s eyes tracked them only briefly.
“No. Evelyn never mentioned it in any of her letters.
Does she know?”
“She knows as much as any of us. That Glenval was
attacked by druden last night, and that sluagh have been seen emerging from the
village. I’m guessing you do.”
“Evelyn is not amongst the sluagh.” It was the only
answer Arynn felt she could give, she could not bring herself to tell even the
high priestess what she had seen in that wood line, no matter what horrors
Amelia must have seen to prove herself worthy enough to inherit the position
she held. She certainly did not want Gillian to know the vicious details. “She
is dead.”
“It will give Gillian some comfort to know that her
mother is in Ilimm’s light, and not in the shadows of demons,” Amelia said
gently, and Arynn nodded in response, but the high priestess was not yet
finished. “If not for Gillian, then why did you come?”
“Information, shelter for the night.”
“I can offer sanctuary for the night, but I have precious
little to tell. The nights have been getting worse with each passing day. Aluma’s
eye is blocked by thick clouds, and those that wander beyond torchlight have
been dragged away by the druden. Packs of the sluagh have been seen to the
south, slowly moving eastwards. We’ve been under a siege of sorts,” Amelia
said, and Arynn nodded, though inwardly wondered if this woman had ever born
witness to a proper siege to make that comparison. That she had made it inside
the convent so easily, Arynn wondered how prepared for the coming days Amelia
actually was.
Their walk had taken them to the front doors of the
chapel, the second largest structure within the convent, loomed over only by
the dormitories where both the priestesses and novices slept, and ate. There
were a trio of mercenaries, one of them in leather and chainmail armour,
sharing a bottle of wine between them.
“That why you have the mercenaries?” Arynn asked, and
Amelia simply nodded slowly.
“There have been threats rising around Lairdon. The Order
of the Burning Blade has been busy at the capital, and the king’s armies are
marshalling in case Baron Henry decides to rebel after all. My pleas for aid
have gone unheeded, leaving me with no other option than coin to drop in the
coffers of a free company to try and protect my people. Twenty men in total,”
Amelia said, looking towards the drinking trio on the steps. “They can fight,
but they leave much to be desired when it comes to piety.”
“I see that,” came Arynn’s dry reply. The mercenaries
either didn’t hear them, or simply ignored them.
“So, demon hunter. What will you do?”
“It sounds like I’m starting to Lairdon in the morning.
If the sluagh are headed east, and there are already threats around the city,
then Aalzgoth’s aim must be out there. I need to find out what it is, and why
he is hitting Aenkleth so hard when his focus had always been in the south.”
Amelia nodded gently. “I will have a room prepared for
you, so you might at least get a good night’s sleep. I can also make sure your
horse is prepared for a journey and pack some fresh provisions.”
“Thank you.”
“I helped bring you into this world Arynn. I wouldn’t be
a very good mid wife if I let you flounder and perish on the road.”
Arynn nodded as she looked to the ground. Seeing mother’s
face, pale and drenched with sweat, dark circles around her eyes as she gasped
for breath, the sheets between her legs sodden with blood.
“Come, I’ll take you to see Gillian. She’s in the orchard
behind the dormitories,” the high priestess said, snapping Arynn from her
memories before they could take proper hold. The demon hunter nodded and let
herself be guided along another pathway that curled behind the double storied
structure on the south side of the convent.
The orchard ran from the outer walls of the convent,
fifteen evenly spaced trees away to the small gap that separated it from the
dormitories. There were ten rows of those fifteen columns, each with plenty of
room for two carts to be pushed through, with ample room between them. Yet
another mercenary was seated at a bench, absently sharpening a knife, his eyes
watching a pair of birds that fluttered between the branches. Only two novices
were in the orchard at the moment, inspecting the apples hanging from the
trees, placing the ripe ones within a basket that hung from their forearms.
Even though the last time Arynn had laid eyes upon her,
her niece had only seen four summers, she recognized Gillian immediately. Her
thick brown hair had yet to be shaven along the sides and back, and she looked
like her grandmother. For a moment Arynn just watched with a smile with Amelia
standing beside her. The high priestess said nothing for a moment, but
eventually laid a hand upon the demon hunter’s shoulder.
“Go on, before you frighten the poor girl.”
Arynn let out a short laugh that was even shorter in
humour as she moved slowly into the orchard. The mercenary sharpening his knife
watched her with a raised eyebrow, his knife pausing for a moment half way down
the whetstone, but he made no further movements as Arynn walked forward.
“Gillian?” she said carefully, and the girl turned, an
red skinned apple held within dainty hands that nevertheless looked callused
and worn. Convent life was not an easy one. For a few seconds Gillian looked
confused, and didn’t say anything.
“I’m Arynn, your aunt.”
“You came,” was her answer, the corners of her lips
turning upwards ever so slightly.
“I’m sorry I could not get here earlier.”
“So am I,” the reply held just a hint of bitterness, and
Arynn could not find it within herself to blame the girl. She let out a sigh.
“You’ve seen Glenval,” she said, a statement, not a
question. As she waited the answer she gently placed the apple she held into
the basket on her arm.
“Your mother... is not amongst the sluagh,” Arynn said,
choosing her words carefully. She watched the same clash of emotions run across
Gillian’s features that she had felt in those woods when she found her sister.
Finally Gillian nodded, and moved forward, drawing Arynn into a tight hug,
taking the demon hunter aback slightly. An apple fell from the basket, hitting
her in the back of the calf, but Arynn ignored it, soon wrapping her own arms
around Gillian’s.
Then the basket fell with a dull thump, apples rolling
across the evenly cut grass, and Gillian buried her face into Arynn’s shoulder.
