Our morning was overcast, a change from the fairly relentless sun we’d experienced across the Hastwith desert. Surprisingly cool, a southerly breeze was chasing up from the pass just visible on the horizon. Smoke from the fire added a stale smell to the air, already weighted with humidity. I came out of my tent and moved to the fire, extending my hands to warm them up while tapping a finger on the kettle to check its contents.
Full, good thing.
I poured a bit of water into my mug and added some dried mint leaves to make a weak tea, and sat on a “stool,” little more than a carved piece of rock around the semipermanent firepit.
The others had arisen already, and were variously bustling about. Sered was off to one side discussing something with Bingo, while Karac worked out with his axe in a small clearing. Morin sat on a similar stool on the opposite side of the fire, smoking a clay pipe.
I finished my tea and was stretching my back before returning for my gear, when I noticed Bingo heading off back the way we’d come. Puzzled, I called out to him, but he never turned, just kept heading away.
“Where’s he going?” I nodded in the direction of the diminutive bowman when Sered walked back to us.
“He’s seen us this far, he’s heading back to Al’Veydra now.”
“What?!? He’s just leaving us?” I dropped my hands to my sides, spilling tea on the dusty ground.
“We’re under no contract to remain with each other, he has things to attend to.”
“Like leaving us without any warning at all?”
“He’s going on business for Fellbane.”
“What’s that mean? If it’s something for us, then it’s something we should all hear about!”
“He has his reasons.”
“Well, I hope his reasons don’t leave us finding his bleached little bones in the desert, because I’ve half a mind to set him on fire from here.” I looked down, realized I’d spilled my tea on my boots, and tossed my cup aside.
Something howled in the distance.
An hour later, we had discussed what to do with our time here at Vor Kragal. Serim Selduzzar had told us that Kaenig had visited the Pool of Bronze to gain a boon and a memento for his troops to follow in the form of a new metallic arm, and I was torn on whether such action might be necessary for myself. Ultimately, it seemed more important that we travel after him rather than waste days here chasing what might be a pointless effort.
As we were discussing this, another Shadrim entered the camp from the caldera, hooded and cloaked against the ashen winds. He dropped a few coins – ancient, tarnished things with a patina that can only come from long periods undisturbed – into a bucket next to Selduzzar’s own tent. I walked over to the bucket and examine d a few of them, comparing them to a few of the remaining ones I still possessed from my former life as a citizen of Bael Turath. My own money still had the glimmer of newness, of fresh use. These relics were old, they almost smelled old in my hands…marred with scratches, etched with soot, they had seen disaster and decay in plenty. Two were even melted together, testifying to some great calamity they had witnessed as impartial observers.
The Shadrim un-hooded himself and poured hot water into a bowl of…something. I think it might have been soup at one time. “Well met,” he said, regarding the bunch of us. “When did you arrive here?”
“Just last night, yourself?” Morin replied. Only his eyes followed the Shadrim, the rest of his body made no move other than to breathe and occasionally pull smoke in from the pipe. He had watched my exchange with Sered closely, but said nothing.
“I’ve been here several weeks, exploring the outlying sections of the city.” He nodded towards the edge of the crater. “Selduzzar has helped me in finding my way.”
“Where are you from?” Morin pulled a small pouch out, extracting more pipe-weed.
“Banner. Lived there most of my life.”
“Bit of a long way to have come on your own, no?”
“Wasn’t alone. I joined Caudlron’s Boil a couple months back, and we were coming here together.”
“Coming here sounds like you didn’t all arrive.”
The man hesitated for a moment. “We didn’t. I’m the only one.”
Morin looked more interested. “What happened?”
The Shadrim shrugged. “I convinced them to come here, I was looking for traces of my ancestors – I am a descendant of House Zolfura. We made about a week when we hit Tarsis, and we heard of their troubles. Decided to stick it out and help.”
I nodded. “We found Tarsis ourselves. Didn’t stay, though.”
“How was it? Had anything improved?”
I shook my head. “No, the town was dead when we arrived. Perhaps sixty living survivors. We got them out, though.”
Morin looked back to the Shadrim. “What was it like when you were there?”
He looked steadily at us, shifting his gaze from one to the other. “Many people had disappeared, but there were still thousands, perhaps six or eight thousand, still there. People were getting sick, and they knew there was a problem with the dead rising. But the whole town is gone now?”
Morin nodded. “I take it you were defeated then? What happened to the other survivors of Cauldron’s Boil?”
“What survivors? I’m it. They were all killed, we were overrun. I only just escaped with my life.” He set his bowl aside, apparently no longer hungry. “I stumbled onto a few nomads heading this way, and I had nothing to lose. I traded my way for passage here, been here ever since.”
“What’s your name, then?” Morin turned his eyes back to the coals of the fire.
“Deimos. Yours?”
“Morin. That’s there Azrael, the blue-skinned one is Sered, and that’s Karac over there. Bingo was the midget who left a little while ago.”
“What are you all doing here? Going into the ruins?”
“Thought about it, but it sounds like we’re going south. Know anything about the army that was here a few days ago?”
“Just that they went in and found the Pool. They were here arming up, so there might have been a trip to the Crucible in there, but I don’t know.”
Deimos looked around at each of us. “Well, if you’re short-handed, I’m available.”
Sered looked over at me, the question on his face. I raised my hands up, palms out. “We’re all free to come and go, remember?”
I walked off, pulling a cigar out and lighting it off a small conjured flame. I stared out over the caldera, as the grey light filtered in on it. A deep fog filled the bowl of the mountain, from which the Charspire extended like a blackened finger. A few other small tower peaks broke through the mist, but only momentary glimpses revealed their presence.
After a period of thinking things over, I turned back to the camp and gathered my gear up and packed it back into the saddlebags before strapping them back on my horse.
The others did much the same, and we started out.
Somewhen during the following day, as we were passing through a wide expanse of scrub, we found ourselves among irregular ‘ponds’ of black ashes that stirred as though things swam within them. The darkness of the black was so profound that you couldn’t really focus your vision upon it, your eye just seemed to slide away from the shadow and onto the land next to it. Something like a drowning man clawing back onto shore, your vision accepted the normal ground with relief at finding something solid upon which to settle.
I’d known this sort of thing could happen, magic of ancient pacts had the power and the virility to defile portions of the ground it touched. I suppose this was once a battlefield upon which that sort of conflagration had been unleashed. Whether it was my ancestors or the Arkhosians, or perhaps even some Nerathian interloper since then, I could not tell. I only knew the stained earth and ash was a dangerous commodity – and not something to be trifled with.
We steered among the pools carefully, treading only on solid earth. Perhaps it was this very caution that provided enough distraction for the wolves to sneak up on us, for they set on us without warning from almost every side. They were a grotesque form of wolf or lizard, it was hard to tell specifically what group they belonged to – there were scales, claws, fur, the long-jawed skull of a wolf and the howl of a pack hunter. There really weren’t many of them, but those that were, were both quick and strong. Perhaps six in total. Without even thinking, Deimos unleashed some burst of lightning that danced among each of them, singeing fur and scoring flesh. Before we knew it several had teamed up on Sered, forcing him into the pond of ash behind him.
The ash swelled up around his legs, and like a vomitus of molasses crept up past his waist. Tiny violet sparks sang out with the smell of rot over the ozone of Deimos’ arcane power, and Sered adopted the look of grim determination he normally wore when he resigned himself to fighting down to the ground. He swung a blow clean through one of the three lizard-hounds that was harrying him, but as he did the other two brought him down under their thrashing jaws.
I ripped my way through space, teleporting to the shore next to him, and swung my dagger with a charge of eldritch power behind the stroke. The weapon buried itself to the hilt in the creature’s flank, and the power surge detonated into its body, throwing it into the froth of black dust and ash. Deimos meanwhile flung a bolt of lightning across the field that cast the other into the ashes as well, and set it into wild spasms. Both hounds howled furiously as they hit the blackness, struggling to keep their heads above the surface.
We dragged Sered’s unconscious form out of the ashes, which made a curiously slick sucking sound that was almost inaudible as it relinquished its hold upon him. Once he was secure on solid ground, I raised up to take stock of the other enemies on the field.
The pair of dwarves had gone back-to-back, and between Karac’s axe and Morin’s brilliant flames and beams, the other three animals were swiftly being taken to task. One had already gone into full retreat, howling plaintively as it receded into the scrub brush. Another lay in a bloody mess at Karac’s feet, its body leaking a strange combination of red and black fluid that did not mix when they met.
As I wound up to infect the remaining one’s mind with nightmare, Karac landed a blow with the flat of his axe against its side that drove it to the ground, and his follow up drove the point of the shaft above the blade down through its eye. The body struggled for a few moments, trying to drag itself away from the weapon pinning it to the ground, but the axe was firmly embedded in the ground and had the beast locked in place.
Sered came to with a little water in the face, and Morin turned out to be more than just a magical healer. As he was tending to Sered’s wounds, the rest of us retrieved our mounts. When we were returning, I saw Morin reach up and hold the Deva’s face in his hand. “Hold still.”
He pried open Sered’s eye and held it, looking hard into his face. “Not good,” he said.
“All of you, come here.” Morin waved us all around to him.
“He is infected with mind rot.” He looked down at his hands, turning them over. He told Karac, “Look into my eyes here. Do you see it bloodshot? Bloodshot with black, not red?”
Karac looked at him, then leaned back and nodded. “Yep.”
“Okay, I’ve got it, too.”
Over the next few minutes, he inspected all of us. With the exception of Deimos, we were all infected.
“Give me a bit of time here.” He went through his packs and found several bags and jars. He whipped together some concoction in a mortar dish, muttering over the container, and wiped it into his eyes. Sneezed three times, hard. When he stood after the third sneeze, a trickle of blood ran from his nose staining his moustache. He looked back at Karac. “Still black?”
The dwarf warrior shook his head. “Nope, red now. Maybe a little more spread than before.”
Morin nodded. “Yep, that’s good. Each of you, take some of this and put a bit of it in your eyes. Each one. Better if you do both eyes at once.”
I did as he told us, getting some of the greasy gray paste on each forefinger and spreading it onto my lower eyelids. When I closed my eyes, a sense of burning, like acid, covered my eyes as though I’d dunked them in a vat of the stuff. Then, in a flash, the pain was gone – and in the moment where my face relaxed, my sinuses went haywire, forcing me to sneeze violently.
When I rose up, I too had a bloody nose, but that was the extent of my injuries. Each of us had a small stain in our eyes, I saw – a grey smudge at the corner of the left eye. Strange effect, that.
After resting a short while – and flinging the bodies of the hounds into the pools of darkness – we remounted and headed on our way. We passed through the ruins of a town, around which were scattered the ribs of an ancient Turathian airship, a zeppelin that had once served as an observation device as well as an aerial assault platform.
The following afternoon, towards nightfall, we came into sight of the Bonegate – the enormous pass between the mountains, fortified on each side by towers and battlements constructed of millions upon millions of bones, and arched with a skyway of similar ossified remains. I remembered the tales of its creation, how the necromantic energies binding the bones together made the gate more impregnable than if a mountain itself had stood there. Though I was sure the abjurations had long since faded from the gate, its structure remained against the elements, so some portion of its enchantments must have remained.
We put up for the night in a crushed keep just short of the Gate, overlooking the pass. Through the night, shadowy echoes of armies long passed drifted through the air, and the colorful fade-and-surge lights of more of the living spells gave the Bonegate a fascinating, if dreadful, atmosphere.
The following morning we set out a bit earlier than we’d expected, most of us quiet after our night watching the lights and listening to the ageless souls of long-dead armies.
We were passing through the other side of the gate, when we came to realize our path ahead was blocked.
An enormous devil stood on the road, flanked by two Shadrim mounted on nightmares. A small squad of four or six infantry spread out from them, infernals all. Malebranche, I remember the name being given to the thing that led them all. A devil of war.
“Hold and return, Azrael. Your presence here is unwelcome, and if you do not turn about, you and your thralls will be slain.”
I pulled up the reigns, and held a hand back to keep the others in abeyance. Dismounting, a walked forward. “You have me at a disadvantage. What may I call you?”
“I am Sariel. You are Azrael Ille Macreane, and you are prohibited from passing further.”
“I have no quarrel with you, my lord, only with he who leads the army we follow.” As I spoke, I saw several of the other devils moving to either side of us, setting up flanking positions. “He is a betrayer, and I would have my…”
“We know of your plans, Azrael. Horn Prince Kaenig has the support of the Lord of the Rod. You are ordered to return from whence you came and trouble him no more.” As he said this, he flung a small object to the sand before me.
I reached down and picked it up. A small chess-piece, a pawn, weathered and beaten. Much the same as the one Mahar had used on his board in Al’Veydra. Perhaps of the same set.
Sered spoke quietly. “This enemy is beyond us, Azrael.”
I stood for a long while, looking at the force arrayed against me. I recognized the two Shadrim now. Zakne and Molonor, they had been contemporaries of mine in the Cairn Jale. No doubt they recognized me as well.
I disagreed with him regarding whether this was beyond us, but looking back at the skepticism in their faces, I realized this fight was already lost. We would not be able to battle anything when we ourselves could not successfully fight down our own internal strife. This was not the time.
As I walked back to them, Morin asked under his breath, “What’d he throw you?”
I tossed the piece to him. He looked at it, and threw it back. “Guess you’ve been checked, huh?”
I didn’t respond. Just took another look over my shoulder before we rode away.
