Post by zimraphel on Sept 28, 2008 17:34:07 GMT -5
Summary: When a life-sucking entity of immense power breaks through a dimensional barrier, it will take two heroes everything they've got to stop it.
Sluggish yet hungry, the worm stirred from its stupor and felt its way along the perimeter of its prison. It had eyes--shriveled grey things like dead berries--but its world was darkness and it did not need to see, not in the way of mortals, beings of the light. The worm knew its world through its skin, could sense where the incarcerating barrier gave pain and where it was weak.
Though it did not experience time as a monotonous linear thread, spun together of memory and possibility, nevertheless the worm instinctively knew its world might be larger than it seemed, that at one time it might have roamed a space without walls. It knew this was what it wanted, to move freely about and to feed, to swallow life and light and shape it into darkness. Where the fabric of its prison had begun to unravel, the worm could taste the beginnings of that larger world; through the infinitesimal tears it sensed life not of its own kind, and it knew then that it was hungry.
A vast new world in which to sate its appetite. So close, so full of light. The anticipation was agony. Just a slight nudge, right here, and the fabric of night would split wide open.
"Which way?" asked the Eledhrin.
"S-south, my l-lord. Along th-the road to Kemshe." The herdsman visibly trembled in the darkness, both from exhaustion and the strain of directly addressing a man as powerful and well-known as Jhaen Morendil.
After a few moments, the man verged on collapse. With a little sigh, the Eledhrin signaled to one of his retainers to lead the wretched fellow off to one of the fires. Hopefully someone, perhaps Elhanu, would remember to give him a sedative and not ask anymore questions. The herdsman had as little to offer as the corpses lying strewn through the ruined village.
"My lord?"
The Eledhrin turned to find Tharada hovering at his elbow. "Yes, what is it?"
"Do you want me to send for reinforcements? They could be here by mor--"
"No. We hunt this thing tonight, before it gets to Kemshe." Certainly he had not gotten out of bed and ridden hard up the Great Northern Road to wait idly by until daybreak.
Tharada anxiously cleared his throat. "The men have been asking, sir--they're, ah, wondering if this attack has anything to do with the Moredhrin--"
"Not now." The Eledhrin was already in a foul mood, and now Tharada had the poor sense to suggest a topic he didn't care to discuss even at the best of moments. "Go assemble the etteva--and have somebody take the survivors across the river to Rocha. I want these people looked after. If the Rochai start to grumble, you tell them these are my orders."
"Yes, my lord." Tharada bowed once and moved away.
As his company of eighteen men began to mobilize, the Eledhrin tugged his cloak about his shoulders and spared a final glance at the devastated village. The survivors were still tallying the corpses, people and livestock both. He neither wanted nor needed to look on them again; he could not get the image out of his mind. They gave the impression of having been dead many days, when in fact their deaths had come but a few hours ago. Over the years he'd seen more corpses than he cared to count, and death visited upon hapless souls in ways that would haunt his sleep if he permitted it, but what he saw tonight utterly confounded him. It was one thing to kill, but these people and animals hadn't merely been killed--their lives, perhaps their very souls, had been ripped out of them.
What could possibly be so powerful, so callous, that it dispatched its victims in this way? The Eledhrin's attempts to glean information about it all yielded the same result: it was a creature which defied anyone's ability to describe accurately. No one could get a good look at it because it seemed to eat the light around it. An energy feeder. He didn't want to think about where it might have come from, nor did he want to think about what might happen when he encountered it.
The rattle of weapons at his back told him the etteva was assembled and awaiting his orders. It wouldn't be the first time he'd led these men into a night battle, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd led them knowing next to nothing about the enemy, but on this occasion he felt a curious, gut twisting unease. Something isn't right here. Had he any sense, he would have waited until daybreak, to take Tharada's suggestion and call for more men, but he knew the creature wouldn't wait that long before striking next. Wait until daybreak and Kemshe would be gone.
As they followed the road south to Kemshe, the creature's trail soon emerged. Even by torchlight, the ruin it had left in its passing was painfully evident--where had once been verdant forest now stood only the bones of trees. Withered grass crumbled beneath the feet of the etteva. They moved cautiously through the devastation, thrusting their torches into the eerily twitching shadows, at any moment expecting to come up against the enemy, yet only exposing more death, more ruin.
Someone paused and bent to retrieve an object. In the man's cupped hand was a bird which had dropped lifeless from its nest above. The Eledhrin's eyes passed over it without really seeing; the forest floor was littered with such carcasses, just as the cottages and outbuildings of Devor had been, and there was no end to it. After the initial horror of recognition, numbness, even apathy, set in. The dead deserved better, he knew, yet couldn't help it. If at that moment he lacked compassion, he also lacked fear. The etteva might live and die at his very word, but even they would hesitate if he showed fear.
Time dragged and then seemed to stop. An hour might have passed, perhaps several, without any sign that they were any closer to finding the creature. How fast could it possibly move and still wreak the vast and total destruction it had already visited upon Devor and this corner of the Alasian forest? Kemshe.... They might already be too late. The Eledhrin twitched with the sudden urge to break into a run. He forced himself to stay where he was. Only a fool ran blindly into the dark without knowing where his enemy was.
A few heartbeats later a loud rustling, then a series of eerie, slobbering sounds, broke the silence. The night air, already chilly, abruptly dropped to a bone-numbing cold. Someone started to speak; the Eledhrin hissed at him to be quiet. He tested the air with his ears and nose as he'd long ago learned to do on the hunt, but in the end it wasn't sound or scent which spoke loudest to him--it was the torches. Despite the cold they continued to burn, but the quality of the light changed even as he watched. Something was siphoning away the light, swallowing it piecemeal. Whatever that thing in the darkness was, it was undeniably close, the force of its presence so palpable now that one could almost put out a hand and....
The torches suddenly guttered out, plunging the woods into total, smothering darkness. A body slammed into him, then another, and it was all he could do to stay upright. Shouts filled the air, not of battle but of confusion--the etteva were fighting blind--and then those shouts became screams, abruptly cut off, stifled one at a time. He tried to call a retreat--damn fool for not waiting until morning--but in the chaos no one heard. His men were flailing hopelessly about in the dark. He'd led them into a deathtrap and now he couldn't get them out.
Crouching against the bent skeleton of an oak, he shivered in an icy sweat. He knew by now there was no fighting this thing in the conventional way, and no hiding from it. But there must be a way to stop it. There's no such thing as invincible. Think--quickly, you fool! You haven't got much time left.
His fingers flexed and tightened around the hilt of his sword; it began to hum through the thick leather of his glove. You idiot, he thought, you've got the power right here in your hands. What are you waiting for? The sword sensed his panic. Soon the humming would rise to a steady whine. Soon it would begin to burn beyond his ability to control. If the creature was going to be stopped, if any of his men were going to survive, he had to act now.
A faint, cold fire began to stream from the edges of the blade, bathing his arms and face in a throbbing glow like moonlight, filling him with power. He felt his blood turn to quicksilver, as if he was actually becoming the sword; the humming was now in his throat, swelling into his lungs, and it waxed into a roar like thunder as his eyes focused on the darkness spreading open before him. It beckoned to him with tendrils of black and antiseptic cold.
And he answered. Gathering his legs under him, he sprang straight into the darkness, at that moment neither knowing nor caring what might happen to him. He was outside of himself, outside fear or rational thought. The thunder of power reverberated through him as the blade pierced the blackness and sank deep. And then, without warning, came the concussion, and a wave of pain, blossoming from his hand upward into his arm. Cold pain. A shriek filled his ears; he wasn't sure if it belonged to him or to the creature. At that moment, pain was his world, and everywhere the cold, the cold....
His world violently tilted under him and then he was falling--spinning and falling into a scream that went on forever. He didn't even remember hitting the ground.
Sluggish yet hungry, the worm stirred from its stupor and felt its way along the perimeter of its prison. It had eyes--shriveled grey things like dead berries--but its world was darkness and it did not need to see, not in the way of mortals, beings of the light. The worm knew its world through its skin, could sense where the incarcerating barrier gave pain and where it was weak.
Though it did not experience time as a monotonous linear thread, spun together of memory and possibility, nevertheless the worm instinctively knew its world might be larger than it seemed, that at one time it might have roamed a space without walls. It knew this was what it wanted, to move freely about and to feed, to swallow life and light and shape it into darkness. Where the fabric of its prison had begun to unravel, the worm could taste the beginnings of that larger world; through the infinitesimal tears it sensed life not of its own kind, and it knew then that it was hungry.
A vast new world in which to sate its appetite. So close, so full of light. The anticipation was agony. Just a slight nudge, right here, and the fabric of night would split wide open.
"Which way?" asked the Eledhrin.
"S-south, my l-lord. Along th-the road to Kemshe." The herdsman visibly trembled in the darkness, both from exhaustion and the strain of directly addressing a man as powerful and well-known as Jhaen Morendil.
After a few moments, the man verged on collapse. With a little sigh, the Eledhrin signaled to one of his retainers to lead the wretched fellow off to one of the fires. Hopefully someone, perhaps Elhanu, would remember to give him a sedative and not ask anymore questions. The herdsman had as little to offer as the corpses lying strewn through the ruined village.
"My lord?"
The Eledhrin turned to find Tharada hovering at his elbow. "Yes, what is it?"
"Do you want me to send for reinforcements? They could be here by mor--"
"No. We hunt this thing tonight, before it gets to Kemshe." Certainly he had not gotten out of bed and ridden hard up the Great Northern Road to wait idly by until daybreak.
Tharada anxiously cleared his throat. "The men have been asking, sir--they're, ah, wondering if this attack has anything to do with the Moredhrin--"
"Not now." The Eledhrin was already in a foul mood, and now Tharada had the poor sense to suggest a topic he didn't care to discuss even at the best of moments. "Go assemble the etteva--and have somebody take the survivors across the river to Rocha. I want these people looked after. If the Rochai start to grumble, you tell them these are my orders."
"Yes, my lord." Tharada bowed once and moved away.
As his company of eighteen men began to mobilize, the Eledhrin tugged his cloak about his shoulders and spared a final glance at the devastated village. The survivors were still tallying the corpses, people and livestock both. He neither wanted nor needed to look on them again; he could not get the image out of his mind. They gave the impression of having been dead many days, when in fact their deaths had come but a few hours ago. Over the years he'd seen more corpses than he cared to count, and death visited upon hapless souls in ways that would haunt his sleep if he permitted it, but what he saw tonight utterly confounded him. It was one thing to kill, but these people and animals hadn't merely been killed--their lives, perhaps their very souls, had been ripped out of them.
What could possibly be so powerful, so callous, that it dispatched its victims in this way? The Eledhrin's attempts to glean information about it all yielded the same result: it was a creature which defied anyone's ability to describe accurately. No one could get a good look at it because it seemed to eat the light around it. An energy feeder. He didn't want to think about where it might have come from, nor did he want to think about what might happen when he encountered it.
The rattle of weapons at his back told him the etteva was assembled and awaiting his orders. It wouldn't be the first time he'd led these men into a night battle, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd led them knowing next to nothing about the enemy, but on this occasion he felt a curious, gut twisting unease. Something isn't right here. Had he any sense, he would have waited until daybreak, to take Tharada's suggestion and call for more men, but he knew the creature wouldn't wait that long before striking next. Wait until daybreak and Kemshe would be gone.
As they followed the road south to Kemshe, the creature's trail soon emerged. Even by torchlight, the ruin it had left in its passing was painfully evident--where had once been verdant forest now stood only the bones of trees. Withered grass crumbled beneath the feet of the etteva. They moved cautiously through the devastation, thrusting their torches into the eerily twitching shadows, at any moment expecting to come up against the enemy, yet only exposing more death, more ruin.
Someone paused and bent to retrieve an object. In the man's cupped hand was a bird which had dropped lifeless from its nest above. The Eledhrin's eyes passed over it without really seeing; the forest floor was littered with such carcasses, just as the cottages and outbuildings of Devor had been, and there was no end to it. After the initial horror of recognition, numbness, even apathy, set in. The dead deserved better, he knew, yet couldn't help it. If at that moment he lacked compassion, he also lacked fear. The etteva might live and die at his very word, but even they would hesitate if he showed fear.
Time dragged and then seemed to stop. An hour might have passed, perhaps several, without any sign that they were any closer to finding the creature. How fast could it possibly move and still wreak the vast and total destruction it had already visited upon Devor and this corner of the Alasian forest? Kemshe.... They might already be too late. The Eledhrin twitched with the sudden urge to break into a run. He forced himself to stay where he was. Only a fool ran blindly into the dark without knowing where his enemy was.
A few heartbeats later a loud rustling, then a series of eerie, slobbering sounds, broke the silence. The night air, already chilly, abruptly dropped to a bone-numbing cold. Someone started to speak; the Eledhrin hissed at him to be quiet. He tested the air with his ears and nose as he'd long ago learned to do on the hunt, but in the end it wasn't sound or scent which spoke loudest to him--it was the torches. Despite the cold they continued to burn, but the quality of the light changed even as he watched. Something was siphoning away the light, swallowing it piecemeal. Whatever that thing in the darkness was, it was undeniably close, the force of its presence so palpable now that one could almost put out a hand and....
The torches suddenly guttered out, plunging the woods into total, smothering darkness. A body slammed into him, then another, and it was all he could do to stay upright. Shouts filled the air, not of battle but of confusion--the etteva were fighting blind--and then those shouts became screams, abruptly cut off, stifled one at a time. He tried to call a retreat--damn fool for not waiting until morning--but in the chaos no one heard. His men were flailing hopelessly about in the dark. He'd led them into a deathtrap and now he couldn't get them out.
Crouching against the bent skeleton of an oak, he shivered in an icy sweat. He knew by now there was no fighting this thing in the conventional way, and no hiding from it. But there must be a way to stop it. There's no such thing as invincible. Think--quickly, you fool! You haven't got much time left.
His fingers flexed and tightened around the hilt of his sword; it began to hum through the thick leather of his glove. You idiot, he thought, you've got the power right here in your hands. What are you waiting for? The sword sensed his panic. Soon the humming would rise to a steady whine. Soon it would begin to burn beyond his ability to control. If the creature was going to be stopped, if any of his men were going to survive, he had to act now.
A faint, cold fire began to stream from the edges of the blade, bathing his arms and face in a throbbing glow like moonlight, filling him with power. He felt his blood turn to quicksilver, as if he was actually becoming the sword; the humming was now in his throat, swelling into his lungs, and it waxed into a roar like thunder as his eyes focused on the darkness spreading open before him. It beckoned to him with tendrils of black and antiseptic cold.
And he answered. Gathering his legs under him, he sprang straight into the darkness, at that moment neither knowing nor caring what might happen to him. He was outside of himself, outside fear or rational thought. The thunder of power reverberated through him as the blade pierced the blackness and sank deep. And then, without warning, came the concussion, and a wave of pain, blossoming from his hand upward into his arm. Cold pain. A shriek filled his ears; he wasn't sure if it belonged to him or to the creature. At that moment, pain was his world, and everywhere the cold, the cold....
His world violently tilted under him and then he was falling--spinning and falling into a scream that went on forever. He didn't even remember hitting the ground.
