“What kind of visions did yä have?”

Guiromélans shifts painfully beneath their sodden tarp and looks at Caidryn.  The girl concentrates on her rowing, but the occasional glance back at him indicates her interest was genuine.

“Elements of my deepest shame,” Guiromélans says, “That which drives me in many directions, that which tears me apart.  My greatest betrayal.  Exposure of my weakness and crimes.  Punishment.  Alfs and Fée.  The look in God’s eyes when I must finally account for my actions.”  He lifts the edge of the tarp and looks out over the dark Sea, “That which I fear most, what I regret most, I suppose.”

Balen carelessly dangles his makeshift gaff in the water, trolling for fish lured in by Baldruus’s ember.  They crafted the long hook from the plethora of twisted metal found in the castle.  Now he looks up from his work and frowns.  “Yä does one thing wrong,” he whispers, “and yer punished like this?”

Guiromélans tries to smile but doesn’t have the interest or energy.  “I did a very, very bad thing.”

“Yä means this inigena yä says yä betrayed, uh?”

Guiromélans nods.  “I loved her.  I abandoned her.  I betrayed her.  I attacked her.  I let the trappings of my office blind me to the true spirit of its purpose.  And in the end, she proved more noble than I.”

Caidryn shakes her head, “The dusios had its pick of yer worst nightmares, sä I gotta figure yä loved this inigena that much, uh?”

“Yes,” he answers.

“Damn, fool, boduus,” she laughs mockingly, “Gettin’ sä worked up over a piece of tail and a bunch a buachar oaths.”

“And what visions did you have, Caidryn?” he asks, trying not to let her comments nettle him.

She is silent for a long time before finally shrugging, “I saw me mosac.  Me old friends.  Me man, the one that hurt me.  The things I did.  The people I hurt.  I saw me past.”  Her eyes flicker towards Balen and then Baldruus, “I saw me future.”

“The Lord saw into our hearts,” Dagnin murmurs.  “Deep into our hearts… where no one can hide.”

The Coward Knight sits alone, as apart from the others as their tiny boat allows.  He is a pathetic, bitter sight, but after the events in the castle, Guiromélans couldn’t bear abandon him there.

“I thank the Gods that Balen was spared from such visions,” Caidryn mutters with a shudder.

“The Lord showed us the truth!  Truth!” Dagnin insists, “He saw what we feared and hated most about ourselves, and He showed it to us!  Us!  Us!  It was His gift!  It was—”

Without warning, Caidryn viciously backhands him, sending the sickly knight sprawling onto Guiromélans and nearly out of the boat.  “Shut him up!” she screams.  “If yä don’t keeps him quiet, I’ll throws him overboard meself!”

“Enough!  Enough!” Baldruus screams almost hysterically, obviously at the end of his rope as well, “Enough of this bickering!”

Caidryn falls into a morose silence, pulling at her oar angrily.  Guiromélans groans with pain as he helps the whimpering knight off him.  His bones and body are still tender—his wounds still bleed from time to time—and the tremors still torment him, though not as often now, nor as severely.  He remains weak, wounded, and Baldruus’s healing magic works slowly.  It is of little matter, however, as he still insists on putting in his time at the oars, and such efforts often do his body more harm than good.  He and Balen work together on one as Dagnin does the other.  None of them have much strength, but it does give Caidryn and Baldruus a few short hours of rest or sleep.

Guiromélans reflects back to that castle and their escape.  The circles lost their power with the final death of the themoch.  The curse lifted, the spirits put to rest, all signs of the Masks disappeared or fled.

The secret dock did indeed exist, and Guiromélans was hardly surprised to find its passage to be in the kitchens rather than the bedroom.  In that dark place, they found a small beach, a brittle jetty, and the longboat neatly beached on the sand where water couldn’t reach it.

No one knows how long the boat had waited—surely not 400 years—but it was still serviceable and seaworthy.  Perhaps it belonged to thieves or adventurers who had subsequently fallen into the Lord’s power?  Nevertheless, it has been Guiromélans’s home now for some 5 days so far.

He has named it the Knight’s Redemption, a suitable counterpart to the Knight’s Torment.

Thus far, food and water have not yet been a problem.  Baldruus summons large, healthy fish to their boat, and his stone purifies the water for drinking.  So far, the weather has offered only a steady rain with only a mild southerly wind to rattle their sodden sail.  No fog, no tempests.  It seems it is only Guiromélans’s companions and their close proximity to him and each other that pose any risk to this vessel.

* * *

“Sä, where will yä go now, uh?” Caidryn asks unexpectedly one morning.

Guiromélans breaks his rhythm at the oar and turns to look at her.  “Where?”

“Yäh!” she laughs, “Where?  Yä can’ts goes home, uh?  Yä lost yer ship.  Are yä’s a Cathubodua any more?  I can’t tells na more, but if yä are, all yä gots left is a broken sword and that cual saddle.”

“We should throw the damned thing away,” Baldruus moans from beneath the tarp, “It just takes up space!”

“I still have my brooch as well and my Median,” Guiromélans corrects, ignoring the sorcerer’s complaints.

“The wealth of a vavasour, uh?” Caidryn mocks.

Balen’s eyes light up.  “Does yä have lots of treasure at home?  Are yä rich?”

“In Orqueneles, I had the lands and holdings appropriate for a man of my station, yes.  But when I became a Raven, I surrendered all worldly possessions in lieu of my new duties.”

“What’d yä do with them?” Caidryn asks, more than a little surprised.

“I gave them to my father and brother.”

“Na possessions?  What about yer little silver bauble and that fine blade of yers?”

“They and the black cloak of the Raven are trappings of my office and were loaned to me and not truly mine.  It was my sin of pride that kept me from surrendering them when I fell from grace, and I have been punished for it.”

“And back to this cursed saddle of yours?” Baldruus asks.

Guiromélans nods as he looks down at it.  “It is a useful tool.  It may be worth something if we ever land in civilized lands.”

“Hmmn, yes,” Baldruus says, obviously not convinced.  “So the Raven speaks.”

“Yes, I do retain the tools of my station—and I may be guilty of the sin of pride—but I still have my faith, Baldruus.  My goals remain the same.  I serve God’s needs, I avenge the wrongs committed against Him.  I go where my mission takes me.”

“Yäh?  Sä where’s that?”

He shrugs as he begins rowing again.  Where to, indeed?  South, always south.  When last he looked at Radla’s maps, they were close to some large Weaning Shores islands, and even if they miss them, they’ll eventually hit the Southern Territories.

“Perhaps I’ll go south into the Southern Territories?” he answers, mirroring his own thoughts, “Or maybe north through the Fists of God and journey to the Docile Kingdoms.”  He looks out across the northern horizon as he pulls at the oar.  “Or perhaps east to the Desecrated Domains.  It would be easy to become lost there.”

“Lost?”

Guiromélans nods, “The Ravens of my homeland still seek me.  I suppose it would be best not to let them find me.”

“Have yä been tä all those places?” Balen asks.

Guiromélans shakes his head.

“Well, what’s the furthest yä ever been then?” the boy asks impatiently.

“I’ve been to the Rompu Islands of Ehre and looked upon the waters of the Abyss Ocean.  In the east, I’ve been as far as Synes, not the Pigi Realms but the Outlands.”

“If you’re looking to go to the Desecrated Domains, you’ll have to cross through the Maggot Sea,” Baldruus says from beneath his covers.

“There are ways,” he answers, “I’ve heard of ways.  God placed the Sea there to prohibit contact with the cursed Synes Republic, but there are ways around it.”

Baldruus chuckles, “Yes.  I believe you call it the Duchy of Ulbandis!  A well-kept secret, yes?”

“The mountains of Vis'I Qira are impassible to all but the native sherpas and the merchants that risk travel with them,” Guiromélans answers with some heat, “The Maggot Sea is navigable only by those who know how to appease the worms.  These barriers are there for a reason.  If that reason is to make sure that all commerce passes through Ulbandus, then so be it!”

“They are there because God put them there?” Baldruus asks incredulously, finally abandoning his sleep and sitting up, “They are there because God doesn’t want the Seven Kingdoms to trade with the Synesi?  God raised a whole mountain range, and polluted a whole sea, just to prevent free trade and enrich the Ulbandi pashas?”

“I do not choose to question the wisdom of God,” Guiromélans answers.  “His reasons may become evident centuries after the Seven Kingdoms have turned to dust.  I don’t assume His purposes are for me or my time.”

“Too simple,” the sorcerer mutters as he falls back down.  “Want to know what the Söderkarl say is the origin of the Maggot Sea?”

“Yäh!” Balen shouts.

“No!” Guiromélans insists.  “Enough of those stories!”

Baldruus chuckles, but he leaves the Raven alone.

“The Lord once told me of a test the followers of Tygg practiced with the worms,” Dagnin whispers, “A terrible test…  To fail was do die.  To die was success.”

All eyes turn to the knight, but he abruptly falls silent again, seemingly cowed by the attention.  Sighing, Guiromélans goes back to concentrating on his rowing.  Ten days so far, and he is much improved.  There is still some pain, but it is growing tolerable.

With a triumphant hiss, Balen spears a fish and struggles to pull it to the surface.  Caidryn lurches to the rail to help.  “It’s a big one!” the boy squeals.

The fish struggles against his spear.  In the weak light of the stormy sky, its sides flash silver.  Sometimes, the fish are dead before Balen can spear them—their eyes swollen, their stomachs bursting from their mouths, as if the journey to the surface was somehow fatal—other times, such as this, the fish are strong and virile and fight fiercely the moment the gaff pierces their sides and Baldruus’s spell is broken.

Guiromélans stops his rowing and moves to help Caidryn.  He is grateful that it is such a large fish.  Baldruus is still insistent on not offending the Powers of the Sea.  With each fish they catch, they must sacrifice half of its flesh to the denizens below.  Guiromélans sighs as he reaches for the thrashing tail.  They may suffer from lack of food, but at least it isn’t as annoying as Baldruus’s endless rituals and ceremonies.

With one concerted effort, he and Caidryn manhandle the huge fish into the bottom of the longboat.  It is long and silver, shaped like a bullet, with patches of yellow at the ends of each fin.  Guiromélans’s heart races.  It must be nearly 6 stone in weight!

His eyes catch movement on its side, near its anus.  He had taken the black streak trailing from the tail to be seaweed, but now he sees it moving.  Just as quickly as his spirits rose, they sink, and he pushes Caidryn and Balen away.

“Throw it overboard,” he says heavily.

“Ah fuck!” Caidryn snarls, immediately understanding Guiromélans’s concern.  Taking Balen’s gaff, she gingerly pries open the gills.  Inside, more of the slick worms slide and writhe.  Their bodies are like black leather, shining with water and slime.

“Maggots,” she curses.

“We’re seeing more and more of them,” Guiromélans agrees as he helps her lever the fish overboard.  “And more boils free-floating in the water.  I’ve never heard of them reaching this far west before.  I wonder what it means?”

“Nothing good,” she spits as she carefully examines herself and the boat, making sure none fell off.  Maggots can be worse than kobolde if left on a ship.

“In the end, it is a matter for Lady Fortune to decide, yes, yes?” Dagnin suddenly blurts.  “Lady Fortune!  She has hair in the front of Her head and is bald behind!  Bald!  If you have the foresight to see Her coming, you can seize Her!  If you wait until She is past, it is too late!”

Guiromélans blinks at the knight in surprise.

“Damn fool,” he hears Baldruus barely whisper.

“Tell me something, sorcerer,” Guiromélans asks, “What visions did you have while in the care of the Masks?”

“Me?” he answers quietly.  “I… I dreamt of rats.  Rats and Ravens.”

* * *

Days ease past, and despite the cramped conditions, Guiromélans recognizes a new order in the world around him.  Despite Baldruus and Caidryn’s efforts and curses, the winds and the rogue waves wash them past any seemingly habitable islands.  Guiromélans however ceases to fret.  There is a pattern here.  The weather and the waves have guided him to his destination before.  He is content to allow them to do so again.

Dagnin coughs harshly as he rows.  Despite Baldruus’s magic, the elements have taken their toll on the weakened knight, and a sickness has settled into his chest.  There is no real shelter on this longboat, no place for a fire, no place to garner warmth.  Days like this one become very cold.  Guiromélans fears the man’s health is failing.

“I wish we could do somethin’,” Balen moans with ennui.

Guiromélans nods and pats the boy on the shoulder.  “As soon as we make landfall, we can begin to train again…”  He glances up at Caidryn, “So long as the lady doesn’t object.”

Caidryn waves off the comment with an angry noise and tries to cover her face from the rain.

Balen brightens, “Now that we have two Cathuboduas, maybe yä can shows me some real fightin’?”

Guiromélans glances at the sallow knight and shakes his head, “Dagnin is a knight, but he isn’t a Raven, Balen.”

“What’s the difference, uh?”

“The Raven is different from a normal knight—he is more than a knight—and more is expected of him.  A Raven must teach and show those he meets all that is good and holy, by his deeds even more than his words.  He is a paladin, a crusader of God.  He must excel in all matters of the spirit and the soul as well as in battle.  Only the highest stations of the Medianist clergy should be expected to surpass him in his piety.”

“So what does that mean?” Caidryn mocks, “That Dagnin’s weak and a coward, and yer not?  Ha!”

“Caidryn—”

“Yä!” pipes Balen, “Sä yä could kills him, uh?  Yer a better fighter?”

“Balen!”

“I know not no—know?—no fighting,” Dagnin mumbles.  His eyes are wide, terrified, as he stares at Guiromélans and Balen.

“Yä don’t knows how tä fight?” Balen sputters incredulously.

“No… no,” Dagnin shakes his head, “No.”

“Of course you do!” Guiromélans says, “You told me yourself you were once a great warrior.  I only suggest right now, you might not be up to it.  Let time heal your body and restore your strength!”

“No, I am shamed.  Shamed.”  Dagnin bows his head in his hands, his shoulders trembling, “The Lord showed me the truth.  I am no knight.  I know nothing, no nothing.  I am the Coward Knight.”

Guiromélans shakes his head.  Is this how he appeared to others not so long ago?  It is odd that the schemes of a venomous Mask could restore him so completely!  “Dagnin!” he insists.  “Listen to me!  You were under the control of a Mask for a very long time!  They feed upon your faith, they destroy it!  But they can’t destroy your mind or your soul, unless you let them!  Remember your skills, and they will return!”

“Worthless!” Dagnin howls, far past the point of reason.  “Useless!  Coward!”

“Told yä we shoulda thrown him overboard,” Caidryn mutters without opening her eyes.

“What makes yä think he knows anythin’?” Balen asks.

Guiromélans sighs and wraps a sodden blanket around the knight, helping him beneath their tarp.  Caidryn grumbles but moves aside to make room.

“He was a knight of Ehre,” Guiromélans answers as he takes Dagnin’s place at the oars.  “Such titles aren’t awarded casually.  As you will learn, boy, every profession requires effort and devotion and practice.  Knighthood is no different.”

“And tä be a bod— a Medianist knight, I has tä learn the Medianist ways?”

“Yes.  It is called the Certu, the Words of God.  A knight must learn them and practice them.”

“What about the Söderkarl, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Yä said they still practice dusios magic.  How can that be if they’re Medianists?  Why don’t they hate circle magic too?  What does yer Certu say about that?”

“Circle magic is born through the casting of their runes.  The runes are part of the Thunderer Heresies, and they are still strong among many Söderkarl.  In time, they will learn the error of their ways, and those that practice it will be held accountable by God.”

“Or by yä?”

Guiromélans hesitates.  “Yes, or by me.”

“Not all Circle magic is evil, Balen,” Baldruus suddenly adds.

Guiromélans wheels on the sorcerer, an angry retort on his lips, but stops before he says a word.  His eyes widen.  Slowly, he stands awkwardly in the rocking boat, his mouth and eyes wide with surprise.

Baldruus and Balen also turn to look.

Ahead of them, stretching as far as they can see from left to right, are shores of brown and gray, shrouded in black clouds and mist.  They’ve reached the Southern Territories at last.

* * *

Guiromélans gasps with exhaustion.  It seems God had decided it was time for them to land, and He was very decisive about it.

The storm came from the northwest, pouncing on them as they stood enamored with the new coastline.  Its winds drove them hard into the shore, tearing apart their sail, washing away their oars.  It was all he could do to grab whatever gear was in reach and leap into the surf before the boat broke apart in a meat grinder of wood, metal, and sand.  It’s a wonder they survived at all.

Guiromélans slowly rolls over on the sand and checks to make sure Balen is still breathing.  In this hard wind and chilling rain, it is difficult for him to tell.  Forcing aside the complaints of his body, Guiromélans staggers to his feet and hoists the boy over his shoulder.  Lightning flashes all around them, making vision a series of still-images followed by periods of inky, blinding darkness.  It is night?  It is hard to tell.  Even those visions cast by the lightning are obscured by the vicious, driving rain.  Regardless, he must find shelter, else none of them will survive.

Guiromélans staggers up the beach, fighting for purchase as a sudden wave encircles his ankles, trying to suck him back into its embrace.  To his left, he sees Caidryn and Baldruus helping each other.  Beyond them is Dagnin, staggering out of the surf, coughing violently.  Already the storm-enraged waves are throwing the remains of the Knight’s Redemption upon the shore.

Once off the beach, Guiromélans calls to the others, screaming above the wind, and tries to gather them around him.  In a storm like this, they cannot afford to be separated.

Clinging to each other, they form a ragged human chain and trudge inland.  Caidryn leads, so Guiromélans concentrates on other things besides where they are going.  Barely 20 rods from the sea, the ground here is already flat and very muddy.  His boots strike few rocks.  Just endless, soggy underbrush.  He wonders if this land was once cultivated.

With a dull metallic thud and a shriek of pain, Caidryn trips and falls.  Baldruus nearly follows, but he catches himself in time.

Guiromélans looks down at where they fell.  In the flashes of lightning, he can see Caidryn rocking back and forth in the mud, clutching at her shin in pain.  It is hard to tell in this rain, but she might be bleeding.

“What happened?” Guiromélans shouts.

“I fuckin’ tripped over somethin’!” she shouts through gritted teeth.  Guiromélans’s eyes cast around and see a heavy metal stake planted into the ground.  Glancing around, the lightning quickly reveals many such stakes.

Baldruus crouches next to her, “I’d better take a look at that…”

Just as quickly, Guiromélans jerks him to his feet, “No!  Not here.  We get her on her feet and take her somewhere else.”

“Now, look!” Baldruus says with some heat, “She’s hurt—”

“Not here!” Guiromélans insists.

“Tewi!  Who the fuck cares where?” Caidryn screams up at them.  Grabbing Guiromélans’s hand, she struggles off the ground.  “There’s some sorta dunum ahead.  I was headin’ us there when I fell.  We goes there!”

Guiromélans squints ahead and can just barely make out the squat form of some kind of low structure.

“Fine,” he grunts, shifting Balen’s weight on his shoulder, “Go.  Go now!”

With a glare at Guiromélans, Baldruus takes Caidryn’s arm and helps her limp forward.

Guiromélans pauses before following, glancing down once again at the gory scene Caidryn and Baldruus somehow failed to notice.  Each of these stakes seems to be nailing a corpse firmly to the ground.

 

It is no Brackish dunum, not in these southern lands.  The building is long and narrow, a longhouse within a ruined Söderkarl stead.  Its ceiling has long-since collapsed under its own weight, and it is nearly as wet inside as it is outside.  Obscene images of alfs, nisse, and other Fée are carved deeply into every post and frame, almost as if the Söderkarl who once lived here considered them decorations.  Guiromélans and the others have to crouch pretty low to make it through the main doors, and Guiromélans is disconcertedly reminded of his similar entrance into another hall nearly 6 months ago.  He averts his eyes from the leering carven visages of Alfdis and Her minions.

The interior of the longhouse is barren, wet, and rotten.  The layer of mud on the dirt floor is relatively thin, so the rains must have just recently started here… perhaps coinciding with Guiromélans’s arrival.

Guiromélans nods towards the wreckage closest to the bowing walls, “We may find some dry wood in here.  Best to look close to the walls where the rain might not have seeped in yet.  If you can start a fire, Baldruus, we can tend to Caidryn and Balen.  The warmth will do us all good, especially Dagnin.”

Baldruus nods as he helps Caidryn down onto a dry patch.  Guiromélans sets Balen down next to her, and the three men go about collecting firewood.

Minutes later, Baldruus is nursing a weak flame as Guiromélans and Dagnin look for more tinder.  Suddenly the Ehrech knight freezes and gasps.

“What is it?” Guiromélans asks.

“Hear it?  Hear it?  I hear it!  Hear, hear…”

“Hear what?” Guiromélans hisses with frustration, his efforts thwarted by another bout of coughing from Dagnin.

“What?  What is it?” Baldruus worriedly calls after them.

Guiromélans freezes.  He hears it at last.  The rattle of chains, so out of place among the sounds of the storm outside.  Amongst the moans of the wind, they hear a keening wail that sets Guiromélans’s hairs standing up.  In the firelight, the carved faces on the walls seem to dance and laugh at his fear.

“What is that?” Caidryn shouts.

Guiromélans can only shake his head.  “I’ve never heard such a thing.”

“Have you weapons?” Baldruus asks.

Guiromélans’s hand leaps to his hip, but his saber is missing—probably lost when the Knight’s Redemption wrecked—but his other hand finds his Median.  “I am not.  You?”

Dagnin shakes his head.  As does Baldruus.  “I have me spatha,” Caidryn grunts, “but I can’t swings it!  Na like this!”

One weapon among the four of them.  Not good for a siege, but as Guiromélans was taught most effectively by his witch, one man can hold off a hundred given the right fortress.

Quickly, they gather their wood and build as large a fire as they can.  Caidryn’s shin will heal, and Balen sleeps the sleep of the exhausted.  Clinging to each other for warmth, they sleep restlessly.

 

Guiromélans wakes with a start.  The rain has stopped.  Their darkened longhouse is filled with the drip, drip, drip of settling water.  He sighs, and his breath billows out in a great white cloud.  It is cold!

Carefully, he eases himself out of the warm clutch of his companions and slowly walks a circuit around the inside of their building, working warmth back into his stiffened limbs.  All appears whole and undisturbed.  Their fire’s embers glow weakly, and he will need to add more wood to keep it from dieing before morning.

He is about to gather an armful of kindling when he hears the rattle of chains again, followed by a grunt.  Or was it a snort?  Certainly not human.  Then he hears many quieter noises, like those of feet treading through mud, further away, but more numerous.

Silently, he returns to his sleeping companions.  Finding Caidryn’s spatha, he eases it from its scabbard and picks up a piece of firewood whose end still glows with fire.  So armed, he moves for the doors.

Outside, the bulk of the storm has passed, though it is still overcast and windy.  The occasional star shines down at him through the rare breaks in the clouds.  The chill is sharper out here.  The cold air burns his lungs and numbs his bare skin.  There is a thin layer of frost over everything, and the partially frozen mud crackles gently beneath his boots.

Without the rain and lightning to blind him, his eyes adjust quickly, and he keeps his firebrand held low to keep his vision clear.  He can see the ruins of the stead’s grounds around him.  Smaller buildings circle the longhouse.  He sees the place that once held horses and livestock.  The wreckage of a granary stands elsewhere.  Just inland, a night-blackened forest stretches as far as he can see in either direction.

Everywhere, he sees the iron stakes sunk into the soil, their moldering corpses forming smaller heaps between them.  He turns around and examines the longhouse.  Even though weakened and dieing, the glow of their small fire still illuminates every crack and crevasse, a veritable beacon to whatever might be lurking in the darkness.  He sighs and carefully circles the building, taking care to keep his back against its bulk.  Wolves, of both the timber and dire varieties, are known to frequent the wildernesses of the Southern Kingdoms.  Could there be a pack of them circling their camp?  Would they approach a fire so brazenly?  It is possible, but that wouldn’t explain the chains he heard.

His foot brushes up against a stake, and he holds his glowing torch lower.  It’s weak light reveals this corpse was killed violently, its flesh torn away by some powerful animal.  This man was freshly killed.  The look of horror is still plain on the Söderkarl’s face.  The corpse is held to the ground by five stakes, once in each limb and once through the chest.  The other nearby bodies are similarly pinned.  It seems someone is taking great pains to ensure these dead will remain where they were left.

Much to his surprise, not all the corpses are human.  He finds horses, cattle, even the occasional bulk of udyronde.  Some of the corpses are fresh, others are mere bones.  All are meticulously staked to the ground.

A series of animal-like grunts alarms Guiromélans, and he raises up his torch without thinking.  The bright flame blinds him, and he staggers backwards, spatha held low to preserve his arm strength.  The noises grow louder as he struggles to see past the pulsating darkness in his eyes.  There is movement all around, but he still cannot see.  Whoever, whatever they are, their feet crunch and crack in the semi-frozen ground.

Finally, his eyes clear.  He sees them, a multitude of bent figures cautiously moving towards him from the cover of the trees.  Their arms are long and distended, their eyes reflecting some unseen light.  Their fingers flick against each other in nearly unanimous nervous anticipation, and he can hear their talons go click-click-click.

Guiromélans considers his options as he tries to count their numbers.  He could cry out—his friends might hear him—but would they arrive in time to help him?  Would it matter if they did?

Flight is a possibility, but he has no idea of the speed of these creatures.  For now, they are moving slowly, cautiously, but perhaps it is only because they are hunting him.  From the looks of the corpses around him, they’ve brought down fleeter creatures than him.

Is that what this place is?  Their hunting area?  Their place for killing and feeding?  Their killing grounds?  But why stake their kills to the soil?

Distant lightning flashes, illuminating the stead with white fire.  The creatures are pale, rubbery things, with bloated bellies and swollen joints.  Teeth of exaggerated size gnash behind blackened lips and gums.  They were once Söderkarl, as their tattoos and ragged clothes reveal, but now they are something else.

Guiromélans understands now why the dead are staked down.  In this place, the dead walk and plague the living.

Guiromélans shakes his head and fingers the Median against his breast.  If it is his fate to die tonight, at least he can warn the others.  He sighs deeply before shouting, knowing he does not know how many more breaths he will have afterwards.  “Caidryn!  Baldruus!  Dagnin!  Awaken!  Protect yourselves!  We are surrounded!”

The pack of undead freezes momentarily, hissing and screeching in outrage, and then with surprising speed and agility, they lope towards him en-mass.  “Be merry and glad on the day of your death,” Guiromélans murmurs in Söderkarl as he prepares to face them, “For, it is after death that the true battle begins…”

“And all who have fallen by your sword will be there to face you again,” a nearby inhuman voice finishes.  It growls deeply, “A worthy oath, but one that is difficult to fulfill.”

Guiromélans swings the spatha around, torn between the incoming pack and this new, closer threat.  An udyronde suddenly rises up, not as dead as he had believed.  Its chains clatter quietly in the mud.

“Shall we face death together, genton,” it asks, “or shall I kill you quickly and spare them the effort?”

Guiromélans does not have time to answer, as the first of the corpses reaches him.  With a mighty swing, he spins and cleaves it in two.  His back swing cuts the leg off a second.  Seeking to buy time, he staggers backwards to get behind the udyronde, but these creatures are a lot faster than he anticipated.  Even as he tries to face the next, one leaps on him from behind, driving him to his knees.  He feels its teeth gouge at his scalp, seeking purchase to crush his skull.  With a risky backwards swing, he feels the spatha cut deeply into its flesh, and it falls away screaming.

The one infront of him leaps, but it is caught in mid-air by one of the udyronde’s forelegs.  With a powerful swing, it drives the corpse down into the mud, impaling it on a stake.  The beast-creature spares Guiromélans a wry look before returning its attention to the task at hand.  All four of its arms flail around, alternately pounding, throwing, or clawing at its assailants.  It leaps and dodges with as much agility as its chains permit.  One massive hand rips a corpse from its back and raises it to its maw.  A single bite snaps the spine.

Guiromélans has little time to appreciate the udyronde’s technique.  There are more than enough of these leaping dead for the both of them.  Even as one lunges at his throat, his lashes out with his torch, driving it down the corpse’s throat.  It falls, smoke and bloody steam gurgling from its mouth.

He cuts and stabs, trying to keep the mass of shrieking undead at bay, backing away until the bulk of the longhouse prevents him from going any further.  He sighs.  There will be no more retreat, and his arms are already burning with the effort of swinging this damned spatha.  The udyronde is merely a struggling figure in the darkness, too far away to render aid or be aided.

Guiromélans cuts upwards into the groin of the nearest rushing corpse, dropping it to the ground, and he stomps on its neck as he faces the next.  He cuts down one, two more, but there are too many.  100 pounds of stinking flesh bowls into him, claws and teeth ripping into his clothes and chest.  He tries to keep the spatha between them, to protect his throat, though he isn’t sure why he bothers.

Suddenly, light illuminates the stead.  The creatures over him real backwards in horror, their skin dissolving as if bathed in acid.

As quickly as they attacked, they are gone, fleeing into the forest.

Guiromélans gasps for breath, though he finds it hard to breathe.  The light grows brighter as footsteps quickly approach.  First in Guiromélans’s bloodied vision is Baldruus, his hand glowing like the sun.  He smiles, but his eyes twitch with concern as he stares down at the Raven.  Then they suddenly dart up past his field of vision.  “No!” Baldruus shouts, waving someone away, “Take him back inside!  There isn’t anything you or he can do here!”  Picking up the spatha, he throws it in their direction.  “Take it and go inside and wait for me!  It isn’t safe out here!”

Guiromélans blinks and gasps for breath.  He feels liquid bubbling and churning in his lungs.  In his mind’s eye, he can imagine Caidryn reluctantly picking up her sword and guiding Balen back, a surly look in her eye, but she knows as well as Baldruus that she doesn’t want to see what’s become of him.

The sorcerer looks down at him and smiles again.  “I have to stop finding you this way, Raven,” he says as he crouches next to him.

“I hope your magic will permit us such further opportunities,” Guiromélans tries to say through the pain, but no words come out—he hasn’t the breath—but Baldruus seems to understand nevertheless.  “Where,” he gasps, “Where—”

Baldruus nods and picks up Guiromélans’s Median.  “Here it is,” he says.  “It fell from your shirt when…”  His voice trails away.

Guiromélans frowns and minutely shakes his head.  The Median is covered with more blood than he’d care to notice.  “No,” he gasps as loudly as he can muster, “Where… is… my… friend?”

Baldruus frowns.  “Friend?”

 

The corpses return nightly, knowing now that living meat hides within the longhouse’s walls.  Baldruus calls them ghuls, though he is at a loss as to their origin.  It seems some corpses rise despite their stakes, while others stay properly dead.  When they eventually make contact with the locals, it will be one of many questions they will have for them.

The ghuls are strong and swift, but not very clever, and they have yet to devise a way inside the longhouse.  Guiromélans finds this curious, but to Balen, it is endlessly entertaining.  He has already lost his fear of them, and nightly, armed with rocks and pointed sticks, he wounds all who dare come near, taking shelter inside when they get close.  The wounded quickly fall to the teeth and claws of their companions, and in just a few short days, the boy’s efforts have taken a greater toll on their numbers than Guiromélans and udyronde combined.

The udyronde.  Guiromélans’s mind returns to that great beast.

Baldruus and Dagnin dragged the great savage thing into the longhouse at Guiromélans’s insistence.  It sleeps still, recovering from wounds even graver than his own.  Where did it come from?  How did it come to be chained out there, to wait for the arrival of the ghuls?  Sacrifice?  Offering?  Execution?

These questions cannot be answered until it awakens.

Guiromélans is once again immobilized by his injuries.  As in the boat, Baldruus’s ember summons a wide variety of game to their shelter.  They eat well, Baldruus especially.  This is a good thing, as the effort of healing both Guiromélans and the udyronde is extremely taxing.  Guiromélans smiles.  As sorcerers go, the man isn’t even that powerful.  How strange it is that he’s become so necessary.

Guiromélans looks around the longhouse.  Today, he is alone with the udyronde.  The others must be out scavenging or hunting.  Their daily excursions have proven fruitful beyond mere food and game.  While the storm chose to chew up the Knight’s Redemption, it was most generous in what it expelled upon the beach—clothes, supplies—of the little gear they had, most was recovered largely undamaged.

Grunting with pain, Guiromélans sits up, his tightening wounds complaining about the stretching.  He’s been injured often enough to know that while rest is the fasted road to recovery, it tends to leave a body in less than ideal fighting shape.  Moving slowly, he stands and twists, flexing the tender tissues across his chest and throat.

Caidryn tells him that they had found him carved open like a melon by the ghuls, his guts scooped out and thrown aside.  He has only vague memories of the fight and gratefully no memory of his injuries.

Leaning heavily on his saber’s scabbard, he takes some experimental steps around the longhouse.  He looks down at the blade he is leaning so heavily upon.  Balen told him, of all they salvaged, his saber was the easiest to find, standing in the sand as if someone had planted it there for them to discover.

How fortunate for him.

Sweat and blood dampens his clothes and bandages.

“I smell your pain, genton.”

Guiromélans turns around as quickly as he dares.  The udyronde is awake, watching him with its golden eyes.  Its upper arms twitch and scratch unconsciously against the floor, almost as if belonging to another creature, but its massive lower arms flex carefully, testing their strength and the extent of their injuries.  Almost mimicking Guiromélans’s movements, it slowly rolls to its belly and sits up.

“You’re awake,” Guiromélans says, careful to keep his voice neutral, not yet sure if this creature is truly a friend.

“I have been awake for many days,” it growls.  “The time of turm comes and goes.  The scent of you burns in my mouth and mind.  Your blood comes in my dreams, my turm.  It awakens me.  You come, and now my atu is broken.  My atu is broken, and my turm is ended.”

Guiromélans takes a cautious step away.  The udyronde narrows its eyes, “You misunderstand me.  You genton always misunderstand.”

Painfully, it eases itself back down and begins to lick at its freshly bleeding wounds.  Always, its golden eyes stay on Guiromélans.

Guiromélans carefully sits down as well.  He watches the udyronde watch him, always careful to keep his saber in reach.  Though he has seen many in the arenas of EroBernd, this is the first of the so-called centaurs that he’s seen in the wild.  And he’s never seen one quite like this.  It is much larger than he expected, more feral, covered in heavy, brown fur.  Of the things he remembers most is their speed.

The wrecked longhouse fills with the sounds of its patient licking.

“I never knew udyronde could speak Söderkarl so well,” Guiromélans says at last, breaking the silence.

It licks for a couple moments more before cocking its head and fixing Guiromélans with a hard stare.  “Udyronde?” it growls, “An empty name from saut-isas genton.  Udyronde.  What more can you expect?  Dumb genton.”

Guiromélans frowns, “You object to udyronde?  It is what you are known as by my people.”

The udyronde snorts and goes back to licking.

“What are you called then?” Guiromélans presses.

Those eyes stare hard at him as it continues to lick.  Guiromélans sighs and looks around.  It is not yet midday, and it will probably be hours yet before the others return.  For the time being, he is on his own with this creature.

“That other night,” he says, “When we met, when we fought the ghuls…  I thank you for your help.  I doubt I would have survived without it.”

The licking abruptly stops, and the golden eyes stare.  “You are strong, genton.  Douro.  I can smell the turm that burns in your blood.  You run in my dreams, the chase, the turm, you run in your waking dreams.  Were you meant to survive or not, who is to know?  Such was your atu.  My atu was to die that night, but you broke it.”

Guiromélans shakes his head, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“You are genton.”  The eyes at last look away as it begins to lick again.

“Well, regardless, I thank you.”  He pauses before adding, “I am Guiromélans.”

Slowly, the beast-centaur rolls onto its side.  The licking slows, stops, begins again, and stops.

Guiromélans releases the breath he’d been unaware he was holding, and he finally relaxes.  It seems his companion has fallen asleep.  He’d heard stories of the udyronde, but now he understands the fear.  The Söderkarl hate them, hunt them, kill them whenever seen, and he suspects the creatures return the favor whenever possible.  The centaurs of the Synesi poems, however, are thoughtful at times, savage at others, philosophers and vandals, rapists and lovers.

Guiromélans eyes the sleeping hulk, its sblood-stained sides rising and dropping with each powerful breath.  To him, he sees just another talking beast, a demon, a mistake left behind for mankind to correct.  They can choose to help man, like the cabeiri, fight him like the alfs, or stay out of the way.  If they choose to defy God’s mandate, they do so at their own risk.

He turns and limps to the doors of the longhouse.  Outside, the grounds of the stead are covered in light snow.  Some parts are worn through to the mud by the passing of his companions and the ghul legions.

There is a quiet noise behind him, and he suddenly realizes he’s turned his back on the udyronde.  With the speed leant by experience and desperate fear, he draws his saber and spins, dropping to one knee.  The tip of his blade hovers just inches from the nose of the beast.  It leapt nearly 20 feet almost silently!  It’s smaller upper arms tremble as those golden eyes regard him fearlessly.  Blood flows from countless reopened wounds and falls like rain from its belly.

It sniffs at him.  “You are swift, genton.  Had my leap been true, you would have slain me…”  It snorts.  “You with your suchis’s toy.  The turm does run in your veins.”

Guiromélans suddenly feels weak, and an unpleasant chill breezes straight through him, as if his whole insides were laid open to the air.  Blood, certainly his own, runs down his chest, pools in his boots.  Too fast, he moved too fast, and now he’s bleeding again.  Much too much blood for his condition, this he knows.  Slowly, he sinks to the floor, his knees no longer able to hold him, the beast’s eyes following him down.  “We are therm, genton,” it growls, its voice becoming surreal and echoed as Guiromélans drifts towards unconsciousness.  “It is the name given to us by our great huntress, Zburul.  It is the mark of the turm, the cry of our atu.  The rhythm of the sacred raskus, and the dieing bleat of the slaughtered búzas.”

“Therm?” Guiromélans wonders dreamily, “What was a therm doing chained among corpses?  Food for corpses?”  He laughs.  “Dead for the dead?”

The therm grunts, “The suras of my dentu call me putras.  Putras I am.  Such was my atu until you broke it.”

Guiromélans can no longer see, but he hears the steady lapping of the creature’s tongue again.  Rasps across his arms indicate the therm is licking at his own blood.

“Putras?” he wonders.  “Pu—”  He tries to speak, but no more words come.  His mouth fills with hot, coppery blood.  Distantly, he knows that if it is his own, it is a very bad sign, but he has not the strength to care or complain.  Is the beast actually eating him?

“Sleep, genton,” the therm’s voice murmurs reassuringly.  “Dream of your turm.  Your blood is mine.  It fills my dreams.  We are embraced by the flow of ala.  We are vair-us.”

* * *

The world around him rocks and clatters.  The stench of hay, dead meat, and vomit fills his nostrils.  Guiromélans moans.

“He’s awake!  He’s wakin’ up!” he hears Balen shout.

“Dammit!” Caidryn curses quietly.

“The man’s got the constitution of a workhorse, that you have to admit,” Baldruus sighs.

The floor beneath him jerks and bounces.  Wooden joints creak and moan.  Somewhere, a horse whinnies in protest.

“Why do we stop?” another voice asks in frustration.  Deep, strong, it speaks in perfect Söderkarl.  Guiromélans doesn’t recognize it… does he?

The voice.  It is familiar, isn’t it?  He’s heard it before… but was it only hours ago, days ago?  Years ago?  Thoughts are coming to him slowly, too slowly.  It is hot, his throat parched.  There is something over his head, he now realizes.  He tries to pull it away, only to discover that his hands are bound.

“Our good knight awakes,” Baldruus answers back in Söderkarl.

The new voice grunts, “Do what you need to do, but hurry.  These forests are not safe.  We have nearly half a day’s travel yet to go!”

“I know!” Baldruus grunts from somewhere else as he lands on the ground.  The floor shifts with the movement.

“We do not want to be here come nightfall, häxa!”

“I know!”

“What’re yä sayin’?” Caidryn demands.

Someone has grabbed Guiromélans’s arm, pulling him closer.  Guiromélans moans and tries to struggle away.

“Stop it, Guiromélans,” Baldruus chides.  “Nothing, Caidryn,” he adds, “Ofeig was merely asking why we stopped.”

Bright light burns Guiromélans’s eyes as the cover is suddenly removed.  Baldruus’s dark visage peers down at him.

“Yä knows I hates it when yä talks in that tongue and I can’t understands yä, uh?”

Baldruus smiles down at Guiromélans and presses a waterskin to his lips.  The Raven drinks the leather-tinged water eagerly.  “You don’t speak Söderkarl,” he answers, “He doesn’t speak Brackish.  Or Palpi.  Or EroBernac.  We make due with what we can…”  He touches Guiromélans’s cheeks and forehead, “Damn, the fever has come back.”

Guiromélans tries to croak out a question, but the sorcerer merely shakes his head.  “Don’t speak, friend.  You’ve grown too awake already.”  Baldruus closes his eyes and casts his hands over Guiromélans’s face.  Almost immediately, he feels sleep overtaking him.

“No…” he gasps, “Putras—”

“Putras?” Caidryn spits.  “Is that what he said?”

Even as Guiromélans fades into unconsciousness, he hears Baldruus sigh, “Yes, he still thinks he’s talking to that damned udyronde…”

 

Darkness of the trees conceals the darkness of the clouds.  Above, Guiromélans wonders if the stars still shine?

It is cold.  Snow falls lazily upon the camp, blown by a gentle breeze.  By morning, the tracks behind them will be covered.  By morning, he and his companions will be covered.  Sweet snow.  Many think it purifies, but it only conceals, it does not destroy.

The campfire burns brightly, warmly, hissing quietly as the falling snow expires in its embrace.  Its light reveals the tree felled across the track, partially hacked apart by desperate blades but not yet enough to allow their wagon to pass.  Their wagon and horse are tethered to one side of the dirt road, the beast whickering nervously at the living darkness.

Figures flicker between the shadows and the trees, dancing like the flames of the campfire, gangling ape-like shapes.  Eyes glow in the orange firelight, and their chittering snaps fill the air.  They are cautious and shy, watching Guiromélans watch them from a distance.  Far from the mindlessly violent ghuls, he knows these earthy forest spirits as gars, though he cannot remember where he learned that.

Guiromélans lays where the others left him.  He doesn’t try to escape any more.  It is at night that Baldruus’s spells are at their weakest, allowing him to struggle briefly from his slumber.  The fever seems to be passing, and he understands now why they did the things they’ve done.  They incapacitated him only to allow his wounds to heal, for his sickness to pass, drugging him with magic to keep him immobile.  For the time-being, he merely lays in the perpetual twilight that is the best his consciousness can muster and waits.

There is a quiet sound, something only he was meant to hear, and the gars ape-creatures evaporate into the forest like mist.  A gust of hot air blows across his night-chilled face, melting the flecks of ice in his beard.  It smells of animals and grass and blood.

“I have come, genton,” the familiar voice murmurs.

“Who are you?” Guiromélans asks, dreamily.  How many days has it come to him?  He cannot remember.

“We are therm.  The genton call us udyronde.  You call me Putras.”

“I know you,” he sighs.

“Yes.”

“Why do you come?  Every night?”

“It is my atu now that it has been restored to me.  We are vair-us.  Our blood was mingled in the raskus.  Now, we run in the same turm.”

Guiromélans tilts his head back and peers up into those serene golden eyes.  “You’ve come close tonight.  You’ve braved the fire.”

“The genton you travel with mean well,” Putras murmurs, “but they sleep soundly.  Should they awake, I will be gone before they notice.”  After a pause, it leans closer, brushing Guiromélans’s forehead with its whiskers, “I come to say goodbye.  Tonight is my last visit.  I can delay you no longer.  Tomorrow, you arrive in the dava of the genton, and I cannot follow you there.  You will be under their protection from now on.”

“Yes,” Guiromélans sighs as he drifts off to sleep.

* * *

“You’ve tended to these wounds, böndi?”  It is the voice of an old woman.  The Söderkarl consonants rasp with age.

“Yes,” Baldruus answers after a brief hesitation, “As best as I could.”

Sharpened nails prick at Guiromélans’s skin, inspecting the tender, virgin flesh spreading across his injuries.  “Hmmn,” she rasps, “so it seems.  This healing magic is weak!”

“Considering the conditions we were in,” Baldruus protests, “it was the best I could do!  You should have seen him!  In the condition he was left, thrice, he was lucky to have survived!”

The woman hacks a laugh.  “On that, at least, we agree!  As he is, it will be months before he is of any use my Lady and her bygthir!”

Baldruus makes an insulted noise but doesn’t otherwise contradict her.

Guiromélans’s eyes struggle open as he feels his clothes slowly peeled away.  The Söderkarl häxa hovers over him, carefully inspecting, smelling each scrap of clothing she cuts away.  Old blood—ancient blood—is clotted beneath her long nails.  Rancid oils are combed into her unkempt hair.

Her meticulous fingers find the small leather pouch tucked beneath his belt.  Guiromélans moans as she removes it.  Long nails pull open its mouth and fish about inside.  Triumphantly, they emerge, a black sorcerer’s stone pinned between them.

“By Vigdis!” she hisses, “So many stones have not seen the sky since the Night of 10,000 Fires!”

“Yes,” Baldruus answers drolly.  “He makes it a habit of killing sorcerers.  Of collecting their stones.”

“But he has not yet taken ours, jâ?”

“Give him time,” Baldruus murmurs.

Chuckling, she ferociously crushes the black stone between her nails.  Baldruus gasps in horror as the pieces fall to the ground as dust, “That was a sorcerer’s stone!”

She laughs as she licks the black stain from her fingers.  “Was it a greater horror to destroy it?  Or to cut it from its owner’s twitching corpse?”

Baldruus takes a step back, his mouth open, his eyes shocked.

She sets the bag aside and goes back to pulling the sticky clothes from the Raven’s body.  A narrow, darkly tattooed tongue snakes out from her creased lips and tastes the dried blood soaked into the cloth.  “These wounds, they were made by draugr?”

“Draugr?” Baldruus frowns, glancing down at Guiromélans.  “They were made by walking dead.  Ghuls.”

The old woman nods, “Draugr.”

“And an udyronde.”

She shakes her head as she throws the clothes aside.  “There is nej udyronde within these wounds.”

“What?  What do you mean?”

“Nej udyronde.”

“You are mistaken, häxa.  There was one.  We saw what it did to him!”

“Fools,” she sighs as she continues her work.

“No, look!” the sorcerer insists, “There was!  It attacked him!  It was like a Gock-damned slaughterhouse when we found him!  We know—”

“It is just like the others,” the crone spits with impatience.  She looks down at Guiromélans and addresses him as if he is a confidant, “The others, they do not listen either.  They see but do not understand what they see.  Nej udyronde.  Nej Anwar Clobyn.  Nej therm.”

“Therm?” Guiromélans croaks.

The häxa smiles broadly.  “Jâ!” she hisses, “You run with the therm?  I can smell the turm in your blood, my brave Korp.”

She gives Baldruus a stern glare, “Nej udyronde harmed this one.  Only draugr.  Now.  Give me those pots.  We shall see about properly healing this ridder.”

She looks down at Guiromélans and smiles unpleasantly.  “We shall heal you proper, my Korp, and then you shall make things right!”