[RP story] End of the dusty trail – life and death of Jansensen, Gunderman fighter
Hi guys.
This is the ending to my main char’s story. Sort of a destiny while I still play out the intervening time in game.
I have also reposted some of my char’s stories from the old forums, as they will be lost forever pretty soon.
The stories are posted backwards with the end first and then goes to the beginning at the end. ;)
Enjoy!
P.S. Please post comments, if you wish.
Summoning the darkness
The Gunderman half-breed who was called Jansensen straightened and examined the occult circle he had chalked onto the floor of the filthy rented room on Tarantia’s wharfs. He would not have to stay even the full hour he had paid for.
He sighed and thought how close he had been to redemption at one stage in the recent past. He thought of his comrades, the brave few who waded through rivers of blood and still kept their vision and drive.
But he knew himself. When among them he could believe that he could be a good person, an honourable and worthy companion. Yet, when he was alone, his thoughts turned back to darkness, to oblivion. Ah, the sweet nepenthe he sought: freedom from responsibility.
This ritual would cut his very soul from his walking corpse and replace it with a dark soul from ancient Acheron.
It would give him immortality, of a sort, and power. Not him, as such. His brief spark of a soul would be snuffed out. But what continued to walk in his body would wield the power every warrior sought: freedom from death. A soldier could usually only fight until his last strength; this ritual would enable the night-weird to draw on nigh-limitless sources of cosmic power. And all it would cost was his dark, twisted and wounded soul.
A bargain, he thought.
He cursed the tears welling up in his eyes, cursed himself, cursed the universe. How could he betray his comrades who had invested so much trust, time and effort in him? But they could not see the darkness inside him.
He smiled and sniffed through his tears. Now, at least, the darkness inside would no longer be him. It would be another being, a twisted monster from the outer dark. He still felt that its soul would be less black than his tarnished, miserable and skulking one. At least the terrible acts that it commits will not be his doing any longer.
He pulled out the black Stygian dagger he used to draw life and power from living and dead creatures, and gashed his arm with it. He dripped the dark-red blood in a uniform pattern around the circle, muttering ancient and foul names of things that would have been gods had they been even remotely rational, instead of coldly alien and terrible.
He felt the magic of the dagger draw his life out, felt himself weaken but knew that the life energy had nowhere to go. This was a key part of the ritual, the summoning of the darkness into an empty and receptive vessel.
He chanted the names of a host of lesser demons and gods, building up to those beyond even the realms of the gods proper.
From out of his eyes, his nose and mouth, a darkly glowing cloud was drawn, wine-red and flecked with specks of pure darkness. It roiled in front of his streaming eyes. He could barely see it and was unsure if it was because of the cloud emerging from his tear ducts, or the tears themselves, obscuring his vision.
He had gone to such lengths to save that part of his soul stolen by just such a ritual. Now there would be no redemption, no matter how much he fought because the first ritual was forced upon him; this one would be voluntary and eternal.
Would they know it was not I walking in this sack of flesh? Would they see that it is not I? Would they forgive me? Would they be merciful and kill me?
He stood holding a burning match to light the final candle that would precipitate the ritual, held it until it began scorching his fingers, held it until it burned out. Then he stood in the dark, on the verge of summoning even darker darkness into his soul…. He stood like a statue, his life slowly leaching from him and dripping onto the floor to merge with the other rubbish and filth of humanity.
Pra-Eun and the Scarlet Circle
(Hi guys. I have not had RotGS for long, or rather I had it and my Internet was not operational, so my imagination is only now being fired by the stories. Ah, well….)
Wizards! Bah!, I thought as I stomped a corrupted human’s head into the obsidian shards lying on the ground. These self same corrupted have a peculiar effect on wizards as well, I mused, considering that the Scarlet Circle, the de facto wizardly enforcers of the Eternal Throne’s increasingly crazy commands, had a large outpost near where these monstrous, corrupted people congregate; the Crater of Madness.
The red-robed thaumaturges populated a hillside of this damned crater in Kara Korum. I wondered if the Circle had managed to familiarise itself sufficiently with the crater’s powers to avoid or even command these cannibalistic ghouls, for a touch from the corrupted renders a person light-headed and unable to speak as the jaws lock, which is a problem for wizards. An out-of-breath soldier who charges must deal with these feelings.
But, casting philosophy to the wind, I started to climb the black-blasted mountains surrounding the otherworldly crater towards this sanctuary of Pra-Eun, master sorcerer and second in command only to the Emperor himself.
These mages had been invaluable during the Frenzy when the crater had spawned an ocean of monsters, more even than it does to this day, and they had burned the monsters from the earth, much as the Legion does to the corrupted humans found around the crater’s fringes, who are drawn to the crater like maggot larvae to an open wound. What horrible forms they will assume after pupation I could not imagine, gagging as I looked at a corrupted human’s green teeth scattered on the ground next to its evil-smelling corpse. The corruption seems to twist their very souls, moulding the flesh in the image of the madness growing inside.
The Last Legion’s commanders, like true soldiers, do not philosophise about the cause of the corruption illness and merely kill all enemies necessary to defend their lands and the throne of an emperor who has turned his back on honest fighting men to cavort with witches and wizards instead.
I, who have a deeper background in magic than most soldiers, have learned to pay attention to wizardly intrigues, if only as a way to avoid them at all costs.
A number of Scarlet agents have died on my blade. I was following orders from the Legion, merely considering myself as a soldier and fighter much as in any other army. Yet Khitanis live with intrigue, seem to drink it in with their mother’s milk; and she probably schemed with a neighbour’s wife to act as nursemaid to her babe.
In any event, this meant that the Legion, while maintaining the hallmarks of a regular army, had begun to dabble more aggressively in the politics of the realm, owing to the power vacuum left by the detachment of the Emperor from events in his lands.
This is where I found myself: caught between the intrigues of wizards and those of my superiors. A tough life it is being a soldier, I sighed and chuckled.
Not a single soldier was spared to help me. I was given hasty, whispered instructions to save the family of the general in command of the Legion in Kara Korum. They had been abducted by these Scarlet mages as a lever on the general, in the hopes of forcing him and his forces in the region to obey their commands. Perhaps the Circle does fear the corrupted as the Legion, in turn, fears becoming corrupted, I thought, identifying a number of Scarlet wizards standing watch on the slopes above.
Moving behind a shoulder of rock, I pulled my crossbow from my back where it hung below my shield and peered around the edge at the wizards. I gauged the distance to the nearest sentries, chatting while keeping a firm hold on their weapons and a wary eye on the slopes below.
I was not a great shot but could hit a big target at 200 metres repeatedly. I have never been drafted into the arbalest divisions in the armies I have hired my sword to. But I hefted the crossbow, let out my breath and shot an arcing shot down the slope. The bolt sank deeply into a corrupted legionnaire’s thigh and the beast yowled and came charging up the slope in a frothing frenzy, its rotten siblings following suit.
Above me the wizards let fly ear-searing oaths as they saw the corrupted war party approach, and I felt my hair stand on end as I watched their magics build in their hands. The former legionnaire, a frightful flap of skin hanging from his face, was blasted into an oily smoke by the searing light summoned by the mages. But the corrupted had appeared after the Frenzy, they were not as vulnerable to wizardly fire and lightnings and the other corrupted in the mob merely scattered and spread out as they sighted the Scarlet wizards.
A strange sighing-singing sound, almost a keening groan, issued from the corrupted humans’ mouths and their jaws champed spasmodically as they advanced on the sentries.
I looked on as one sentry drew a massive sword from off his back with a feverish prayer to all the 999 999 gods in this crazy country. The other raised his staff in invocation and spread his arms as he called a blast of fire onto the approaching monsters.
I targeted the wizard calling down fire but my haste sent the bolt through the back of a corrupted as it engaged the sword-wielding adept. It coughed and twitched its left shoulder, its mad attention focused solely on the wide-eyed mage in front of it. This mage almost cut the corrupted in half with his flaming double-edge sword, and I did not have time to rewind my arbalest.
Dropping the steel-armed crossbow, I pulled my shield from my back and called a Stygian blessing upon myself, one that was supposed to reduce the effects of magics on the invoker.
I rushed in the lee of the almost-obliterated corrupted warband and managed to get within twenty metres of the mages before the one higher up, his staff dropped to the ground as his fingers wove magics, spotted me and called out to his companion.
I kicked a corrupted human in front of me towards the spell-weaving wizard and turned to face the large mage wielding a blade. He grinned and, knowing that he had the longer reach, stepped back as I advanced. He twisted as he readied a blow meant to knock me to the ground, calling on a dozen demons to aid his blow, but I was more experienced in mêlée fighting than he was and I stepped forward and slashed through his cheek with my sword tip, blessedly preventing his spells.
He gagged on blood and his arms bulged as he sought to wrestle with his suddenly heavy sword. Wizards and swordplay do not mix, I thought, as I spitted the impotent sword-singer’s heart and turned a dark grin on his companion.
This type of wizard I knew; cold, calculating and dangerous as a snake. He did not grin in return, merely stepping over the smoking remains of the corrupted that had snapped broken, rotten teeth at him before being blasted into oblivion.
His fists glowed as he summoned fiery orbs into his palms and levelled them at me. I ducked into the protection of my shield and felt a spitting ball of fire strike the surface. Yet, these are no mean wizards, their powers of destruction are far beyond those of normal hedge wizards and I felt my shield soak up the heat and begin to glow.
I bellowed and released the shield, pulling my scorched arm from the straps. Black, charred, crispy flesh seemed to grin at me and I caught up my amulet of Asura hanging from my neck, steadying my mind to accept my now-inevitable death.
The mage, still not showing any emotion, took careful aim with the remaining ball of demon’s-fire and I felt my sword tip dip as I gave up the struggle. I made peace with the world and my place, yea even my death, as part of the cosmos.
I felt time slow as I watched the luridly glowing fireball in the mage’s opening hand.
I have felt like this only once, when Hadrathus had confronted me on the nameless road near the Border Kingdoms and I had ceased to think and merely existed. He had had the power to kill me then, but had not. I have always pondered why. I closed my eyes, seeking meditation.
If our deaths were inevitable, why would we be given cognisance or consciousness in this life? Would we not be better off as beasts living and dying without blame or power? Why have the gods given us reason and the potential for good or evil? I say good or evil because these can only exist as conscious acts and are meaningless if committed by a self-unaware creature.
Yet, even with consciousness, we cannot prevent our deaths and we are so bound by the illusion of reality that we function effectively as a part of its deterministic weavings, impartial and powerless, fate-bound for an early grave.
Why then, o gods!, have we been given the power to know how powerless we are? Must we endlessly return to fix problems our souls are not meant to solve? Are we caught in this rat-wheel of reincarnation for all eternity? Why?
My eyes opened and I looked at the molten ball of power and energy the mage extended towards me. I saw my death approach.
A phrase entered my mind as a potential answer to the silence of the gods: Asha. Hope.
With this one word I became calm again. We are given power because we can achieve good things, or squander our power in doing evil, both only achievable because we are self-aware. We can equal the gods in our deeds, both good and bad. Karma, actions. It also speaks of responsibility, individual responsibility, my responsibility. The cause of the cycle of cause and effect is my intentions.
I felt suddenly the world lift a weight from me and I saw the wizard’s fire only as the consequence of his and others’ actions. But they were not my actions.
I felt a magic build inside of me, different from the Stygian thaumaturgy I learnt on my mother’s knees; it was light and sentient. I felt the power of the mage’s spell evaporate in its presence flowing from within me.
Actions… the word repeats itself. Evil really does triumph if good men do nothing, I think, and I strike the gaping mage, tearing a terrible gash into his chest. I deserve no pity. I have brought my suffering on myself. So did he. I think of the family of the general. Actions are our decisions, and we must embrace the shadows within, to allow our light to shine. No one is blameless, but much can be forgiven because we are sentient, fallible and flawed.
Inspired by Milton’s on his blindness, Ursula LeGuin’s a Wizard of Earthsea, T.S. Eliot’s the Wasteland and a nod to Sir Terry Pratchett’s works.
Also inspired by looking down a gun barrel without knowing what the person behind the trigger will decide.
Stygian RP-PvP impression
(My internet is not working, so I have taken to writing stories to make up for not being able to play.)
The inside of the Serpent’s Head Inn was dusky, and not just from the lack of light, though the thick stone walls removed the desert heat from the air. All around gyrated women in split skirts dangling from belly girdles, lengths of silk held immodestly in front of bare breasts, or behind smooth rumps, giving throat-tightening glimpses of the pleasures they offered for a price.
The barmaids were more modestly dressed, and darted between groups of customers in the smoke-filled arches lining the walls.
Business was good in Akhet, the turtle, sole port of Stygia’s trade with the western world, for those who managed to avoid the sacred serpents crawling through its streets, hunting for a fitting “sacrifice for Set”; invariably the young and the weak.
Earlier the soldier had been cornered by a huge venomous serpent, and had been forced to kick sand over its twitching cylindrical corpse before walking into the Head. He prayed that the serpent remained undiscovered for a few hours more at least. Even locals whose children and loved ones have disappeared down the snakes’ gullets would turn on a foreigner who had killed one of the crawling Sons of Set.
He had made himself comfortable at an empty table, seemingly enjoying the lilting music, the bare, naked ladies and the drink and fine smokeables.
He reclined on his pillows, propped up on his elbow, and lazily ate dried fruits and nuts, his wine jug kept cool in a basin of water.
A prostitute came to stand at his table, her long leg exposed to the hip as she displayed her wares to him.
He pretended to look her over, and fondled her rump and felt how smooth her legs were, as if he were checking a horse. He noted that she was dusky, but not as dusky as most of the other whores. She may be a half-blood, with a noble father and a peasant mother who are often the targets of nobles’ short-lived affections. Thus came forth the artisan class of Stygia.
She tossed her dark foam of hair in indignation, but stood while he assessed her wares.
At last, he fell back onto his pillows, seeming to have decided against the whore’s services.
Swiftly, she straddled him, her silken skirts pushed up to her hips, and as he lifted his angry eyes they lit upon a short, but very sharp, dagger she held in front of his neck, unseen to the other clientele in the Head behind her supple back.
“I believe you are mistaken, my lord. I come at a very reasonable price for a taste of heaven,” she said, but her eyes spoke in less honeyed tones.
The soldier cleared his throat and said, rather loudly, that he had rented a private parlour upstairs for them to enjoy their time together.
The dagger magically disappeared in her scanty garments, where the soldier had not believed a knife could be concealed.
She grasped his right arm, he was not comfortable with his sword-arm being held and felt an icy tingle run up his spine, tightly in both her hands, her shapely breasts pushed against him as he led her upstairs; just another patron spending his money on earthly wiles.
The parlour door slammed behind him and seemed to echo into the nighted-gulfs between the stars.
She turned swiftly and a glowing ball appeared in her hand. He knew she held death in her hand, a fire hot enough to blast sand to glass and burst a head like a ripe melon.
He turned on her, eyes narrowed to slits, a growl building in his throat as he clenched his fists to buffet her from her feet. She stepped smartly back, but also held up an open spare hand and said: “I seek only to speak, soldier. You are known to me, though I am not known to you.”
“Would you like me to get to know you better?” he asked her bluffly.
Her eyes lit to a raging fire at his disrespectful words, but she merely snorted and said: “I am no whore, Aquilonian. I am a wizard from Luxor, though my skirts fooled a fool like you.”
He grinned at her words, hooked his thumbs behind his sword belt and said: “Speak then, sister. You have bought my interest.”
“A dead sacred serpent lies outside in the dusty alley. I found blood and scales mixed in the sand where you cleaned your sword. Also, I smelled the acrid scent of serpent blood, something well known to an adept in Stygia. Are you a fool? Some of the sacred serpents are more than they seem.”
The soldier shrugged, the fatalism of his philosophies being summed up in this one motion.
The wizard looked hard at him and then said: “I may have a job for someone like you….”
The soldier grinned as she detailed her plans. He grinned more when she mentioned how much he would get paid.
He loved working against the dark theocracy of Stygia, even for the different factions vying in it, but he loved it more when it profited him at the same time.
Below the music continued to wind up and down like a desert serpent to a fakir’s fife, but suddenly a cool breeze had sprung up from out of the north; blowing through the ancient streets….
Glutted lust for vengeance (PG16 V)
I gaze up at the weeping sky. Grey light barely filters through the canopy of clouds, like an old tent roof, fit only for goats and the elderly.
I feel weary, as if I cannot remain standing, the weight of the world oppresses me.
What could make humans behave like this? Was this the inevitable outcome of the fury of fighting? A red dawn filled with crows and flies?
Many of the Aquilonian settlers beyond Thunder River were murdered, raped and their corpses mutilated until not even parts of a body could be distinguished.
Picts! Dogs! I growl under my breath feeling the red mist rise before my eyes. I grip my blood-soaked weapon and grind my teeth.
The burnt-out shell of farmsteads, livelihoods and lives, lost to the tsunami of humanity sweeping out of the Pictish kingdoms.
I hurl my notched sword away from me; let my shield fall with a startling clang in the fetid silence. I sink to my knees and remove my helm.
The good that comes from fighting! Ha! I laugh at the grim jest. Much is spoken about fighting for what is good, keeping the candle of civilisation alive, but we are mere beasts; our spilled entrails and rust-scented blood proves it.
We cannot contain the raging monsters inside us, nor can we transcend our physical forms, I think, caught in a black pit of despair.
I gaze at the form of a woman in front of me, clutching a child to her breast. The sword had gone clean between her shoulders, piercing both her and her infant’s hearts together like beads on a string of indifference.
So much suffering, so much death. I feel overwhelmed by the images sifting through my mind. Blood-mad Pictish fighters howling like the damned, feathers in their hair and flint axes in their hands. I see again my sword tear through a brave from below his ribs to his other shoulder and the spray of gristle, the snap of bones and the smell of wobbly organs. I see again the archer trying to pierce my shielded defences. I see again standing over him, beating my sword again and again on his head until a bloody ruin alone was left of his torso.
I feel again my anger, my hate, my triumph! I see once more, a final time, the shaman of the village begging for mercy, cringing as my sword descends.
I see again the children and women, running frantically from my dripping figure, blood splashed and malevolent, like a demon from the outer dark.
I see finally… my sword piercing the mother and babe, hear her indrawn breath cut short in a final hiccough.
So much for victory. So much for liberty. But equality is here to stay… we are all cut under the same sword, pressed from the same mould to be torn apart by beasts in men’s clothes in a frenzied, bloody holocaust as brothers die with knives in each others’ hearts.
I need redemption. I need release. But it cannot be found in this world.
I see that fighting always ends in the victors weeping.
The grey, unfeeling sky yawns and spits forth a ray of sun that makes me cringe as if I belong in the dark.
Flet victus, victor interiit, as the ancients would say.
Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum, and all, yet never has fas est et ab hoste doceri (it is right to learn, even from the enemy) been more true.
We have learnt to hate like them.
(from Jan’s mercenary days before he met the Asurans)
{Inspired by real-world events.}
Zelata journal of Jansensen
I gazed across the wooded landscape rising in gentle undulations to mountains in the distance. The track before me led through an open valley between two of the hills and brown grasses mottled the ground between the thorny acacia trees.
I, a well-built, medium-height Aquilonian soldier with dark, Stygian influences, rolled my yellow-brown eyes over my armour and armaments, not really checking them but more reassuring myself that I was indeed armed and armoured. I have felt the power of some monsters and thus I made sure that I was not heading into battle half-naked, like other heroes I will not mention.
It was strange that I have been warned of wolf-like gorgons in this area, capable of tearing a man apart. I say strange because the calm countryside turned this into a lie. But, with dusk settling, I felt that perhaps this might have some truth to it because I heard no birds in the branches or the noises of small mammals in the underbrush.
I was on my way to the huntress in the region, a wily ranger who can scout without being seen, something I have no luck with. She must know the truth of the rumours I heard in Tesso. The Tesso captain had seemed gruff and cheerful, but his attitude also seemed a bit forced, as if he thought that his confidence affects the villagers, which I guess is too true. The villagers have heard the weird calls sounding in the night but curse the witchwoman of the wild lands, Zelata.
But this seems incongruous; a panicky reaction to the obviously real threat. The reality of the threat was obvious but the perpetrators unknown. For this reason, I was sent to discover the identity of the threat in the region that had claimed many lives. Some corpses were found chewed and mauled; of others only the gnawed bones remained; but with yet others a sticky, oily goo was found over their bodies and their limbs had been crushed.
The captain laid bare to me that he believed that there were multiple problems in the area and that I should not discount the slavers and bandits of the region. It was a true mystery, but one which I meant to solve with steel.
The dusk deepened and the evening stars began to display their lights on the Ecliptic. I briefly gazed up at the planets in cogitation when a slight noise brought me sharply back to earth. I lowered my hand to my sword hilt, confident that my shield hung over my exposed back. But the hair on the nape of my neck prickled and I felt sure my short hair was lifting my helmet slightly as the strands tried to stand up in stark terror.
A stealthy pad of a foot sounded behind me and, surmising that no friend would step so, I spun, drew my curved sword and slashed in the same motion. But, as my father had taught me while training for our rural militia, never strike without aiming first. My bent arm had not yet travelled past my face when a hairy monster bared glinting teeth and leapt at me, pushing my right arm towards me. The point of my sword changed direction, from whistling through the air to tearing a deep, ragged furrow in my flesh below my left ear and jaw.
I cursed as I felt warm blood pour from the wound and just barely ducked my head into my right shoulder before feeling the beast’s fangs slide off of my helmet. Not trusting my precarious position, I grabbed the monster’s right shoulder with my free hand, placed my booted feet on its abdomen and, after smashing my helmet against its muzzle, leapt backwards to fall onto my shield.
I lay there, stunned, winded by the handle that pressed into my ribs, and thought briefly about how damned strong the monsters were that habitually try to kill me. However, this thought only flickered through my head as I forced myself to stand up and face the large, grey-haired walking wolf which was even now whimpering, snapping its muzzle and licking splintered teeth. It snarled savagely and again leapt at me - deformed, taloned paws raised to tear me apart.
But I am no mean person to back down when my obvious defeat rears its head in a fight, even twice or more times. I mocked to my left and then dove right, under its arms and cut its left arm above its elbow to the bone as I ducked under it. Red blood ran down my tulwar and I felt it drip onto my thigh as I turned around, almost within the monster’s embrace - just in time for me to be smashed from my feet by a hurtling right paw that struck my chest like a catapult stone strikes a wall.
I was thrown far by the impact and rolled twice before coming to my knees, dazed but still gripping my saif. The wolf-like beast was on me even before I had cleared my head, its left arm held low and dripping dark drops in the deep dusk. It struck at me and I managed to raise my left arm to prevent its claws from tearing my face open but I felt them rip along my arm and snag on my bracer. Immediately I felt the strength go out of the arm as a wave of pain flooded through my shoulder and into me. I gasped but slashed quickly at the beast’s face to drive it back. It gave back with a bound and I, cursing and forcing my numbed arm to motion, slipped it wetly through my shield and drew this off my back.
Thus armoured, and with my rage boiling up like a wild animal’s in response to my pain, I gave a short, sharp shout to lend focus to my fury, much like the militia drills in which we use chants and yells to execute manoeuvres, and charged with my shield held up before me. The monster answered with a deep bellow and charged at me. It bounded high, straight for my face but I ducked and raised my shield into its chest and, bearing the beast over my head, slashed along its underbelly.
The keen edge of my sword cut a clean line into the beast, from breast to loins, and this started to weep blood and entrails. It fell heavily on its back and stood up with an effort, wheezing and coughing to get its wind back. But the eyes never stopped glaring at me. I faced a bestial ferocity that more than matched my more cultured anger. I was a trained soldier but here was a beast that thought of nothing beyond slaughter.
I lowered my sword and shield, with blood running freely from my neck and over my fingers, and stood with my arms at my sides. The bleeding, snuffling monster looked at me with a malevolent glow in its bloodshot yellow eyes. It dipped its head, as if in submission, but then suddenly charged and roared like thunder as it came towards me.
However, for all my apparent benevolence and supposed mercy, I have not lived through a great number of fights by surrendering before they were over. I whipped my shield up over my head, stepped in with my right leg and pivoted between the talons, turning my sword over and past my right shoulder and using the monster’s momentum to bury the tip in its heart, next to the earlier, shallower cut. The monster shuddered as my steel found its mark, gave a deep, coughing sigh and then went limp in mid-stride, bearing me backwards to the ground.
I lay like this for a second, breathing the fetid stink of the twitching animal on me, before I rolled it off with a groan. I then rolled onto my knees and let my shield slip off of my wounded arm. The sticky blood pulling at the ragged edges of the wound caused me to wince.
I felt delicate, much like I always do after a battle with a monster, and staggered upright. I shook the blood off of my sword and sheathed it one-handed. My other hand was clenched in pain and blood still flowed from under my ear.
But I was not done with the monster and my flowing blood would make my task easier. I stepped over the carcass and drew a small, black dagger from my girdle. This was stolen from a Stygian hedge wizard who had worked on the Barachans. I had pretended to be a member of a ship’s crew that he had hired to guard him and he had peremptorily ordered me to take some of his sorcerous objects to his new lair. I had then promptly walked away with the loot in my arms.
But, owing to my Stygian mother’s teachings, I know what power the dagger held. It is used to steal life. Quite simply, one has only to drive it slowly into a victim’s heart while standing over them during the deed to gain their life energy. Some Stygian sorceresses use this to keep their beauty alive, while men use it heal wounds, extend life and as a grim source of vigour to renew debauches. It would not work on dead creatures but there is life enough in freshly killed victims to heal.
I stood over the dead beast, muttered a cryptic incantation and then dipped the tip of the knife into the flowing blood of my wounded arm before sinking it into the beast’s muscular flesh. The creature’s spilled blood started to glow luridly and sullenly, as if only my arcane mutterings could evoke such a blasphemy, as indeed they were. Suddenly, rising from the blood on the corpse, a wine-red, flickering glow whirled and stretched. The purple-red mist was flecked with black spots that spun and danced in unholy rapture. The profane cloud roiled between us and I gaped my mouth to suck in the monster’s residual life force.
As soon as I opened my mouth the cloud streamed in, but some of the vapours tenderly stroked my arm and swarmed up my neck, and I felt it prickling as it healed me, the darkness entering my flesh. The last of the beast’s vitality poured into me and I straightened, wiping my mouth out of habit. Dried blood flaked off of my newly healed arm as I flexed the suddenly limber limb.
Above me on the slopes I saw the movements of more creatures that moved like wolves but walked like men. I grinned humourlessly and picked up my shield.