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I wrote until five this morning.
I am the daughter of Lady Leola Glavindel and Lord Korreshi Aiah. When the nations were still whole, my parents were minor nobles in the old city. Just over thirty years ago, they were forced to flee. I was born shortly after the exodus. My parents never told me why they left, and perhaps I shall never know. But all was not lost, and they, along with the other refugees, became the founding fathers of the walled town of Tahsis Creek.
My father became a town council member. My mother kept the Glavindel tradition of slaving alive, retaining several skilled indentured servants and providing necessary services for the people of Tahsis Creek. I was being groomed to be a council member like my father, and although I did learn some basic political skills, I had little interest in other people, let alone the affairs of state. Neither was I interested in my mother's business. Sure, I could handle the servants, and even showed a certain facility for record-keeping, but I had another future plotted out for myself. I often shirked my duties to spend my time in the darkest parts of the forest on the far side of the ridge, sneaking up on deer, hypnotizing the fish in the shallows, and practicing other childish fancies.
I was a sneaky child, and I would frequently spy on my parents, neighbours, the soldiers, and anyone who intrigued me in the slightest. I liked to watch the soldiers training with their swords, and copied their exercises with a stick, practicing my attacks on the servants. My parents doted on me, and refused me nothing but one thing: they told me I was never to go into their room. I did just that, of course. When I was still very young and the house was empty, I snuck in to look around. There wasn't much to see. Nothing unusual was in their chests or armoires. But something about the tapestry behind the bed intrigued me. When I went to investigate, I saw it hung a couple of feet away from the wall, and behind it was a dusty trunk. Inside the trunk, I discovered a sword, worn leather armour, and a strange book. Although I knew a smattering of several languages, I understood none of the markings or diagrams on the pages.
I cleaned out the trunk, stashing everything under my bed. Over time, I forgot about these things, and they were buried behind other interesting things I "found" elsewhere in the village.
When I was much older, I followed my father's footsteps, becoming a council member, but I am shamed to say I paid only lip service to the position. I continued shirking my duties, skipping out on council meetings to cross the ridge to my favourite place in the world: the old oak by the waterfall. It was on one such trip that I met Mallivel. I had seen him before, of course. Tahsis Creek wasn't so very large a town. But we'd never really spoken. He was a messenger for the council, and most of the times I saw him, he was running to or from the town with a small leather knapsack on his back. When I saw him in shade of the ancient oak by the waterfall, I think it was the only time I ever saw him standing still. He was waiting for me.
We met frequently after that. He became my lover, and although I never told them, I think my parents approved of the match.
Early one evening, I excused myself from a council meeting to run to the woods. The other councilors looked at me with pained expressions, but I didn't care. I was going to meet Mallivel. We were to meet that night under the big oak. I waited the entire night with two of my maidservants, but he didn't show up. I wasn't terribly worried, though. Perhaps he'd been sent off with an important message. It had happened before. And so I reclined beneath the tree, watching the rosy glow of dusk blotted out by the black-blue of a cloudy night sky. I must have dozed off, because when I looked up again, the faintest glimmer of dawn had risen. I stood up and stretched, yawning deeply, and the leaves crackled to life above me as the wind suddenly picked up. The air carried the smell of smoke. I didn't think much of it at first. After all, it could have been cooking fires. However, as I crested the ridge, I could see that one of the buildings was on fire. I tore down the escarpment, my maids close behind me. As I drew closer, I could hear the howling of dogs. When I got to the walls, the gate was closed. A man was hung spreadeagled over it, suspended by his own entrails.
I reeled back, crashing into my servants. I spun around and looked at them. They looked as shocked as I. Together we circled the town, and at the lowest part of the wall, I saw a rope ladder. As I got closer, I saw the ladder was also made of intestines, and I vomited.
I needed to get inside the town. My servants and I found a dead tree by the creek, and we dragged over and leaned it up on the wall. I shimmied my way up, pulled myself over the edge, and froze at what I saw. I couldn't see all the way into the town, but I did see body parts scattered here and there throughout the streets. I stood on the catwalk for a while until one of my servants nudged me aside so they too could cross the wall.
We stayed on the catwalk for a while, walking around the wall in a daze. Walking down the stairway, I almost tripped on a guard. He was nailed to a step by shards of bone. His eyes had been plucked out, and it looked as though something had dug his guts out of him. They were still steaming in the cool morning air.
Gagging, I jumped over him and tore off toward my house in the centre of town, calling for my mother and father. I was met by a pack of snarling dogs. My handmaidens pulled me into the schoolmaster's house, and we slammed the door shut behind us. I turned around to see where I was. The front room was smeared with blood and redolent with the stench of burning meat. Inky smoke roiled from the fireplace. I glanced at the fire, then did a double-take. Those weren't logs but limbs. Charred arms and legs were neatly stacked inside, and the poker lay close by as though it were just abandoned. I grabbed the poker, wielding it like a club. Terrified at what I'd find, I crept my way through the rest of the house, but no one was there.
We tried to leave several times, but the crazed dogs drove us back inside each time. The poker just wasn't enough to fend them off. With my servants' help, I was able to crawl up onto the roof. From there I could see the extent of the carnage. Mutilated bodies were everywhere, haphazardly strewn throughout the streets. A mother had been impaled on the other side of the house, a long iron bar jammed up her fundament and through her abdomen, her infant skewered at the end just beyond her reach. Smears of blood led to the town centre where a huge circle of bodies rested in front of the smouldering town hall. I collapsed on the roof, gagging. My world was turning brownish grey. The incessant baying of the dogs waned in my ears. I could feel my body and mind shutting down. I wanted nothing more than to curl up and die, but my servants pulled me back down and in through the window.
We stayed in the house for a few days, unable to leave. By the end of the first day, the town bodies had begun to stink. We tied rags around our noses to keep the stench at bay, but it didn't help much. The weather turned unseasonably warm, and the bodies bloated and oozed. It was only on the second day that the flies, carrion crows, and rats showed up, and underneath the grief and shock, I remember being surprised the scavengers hadn't arrived sooner. And although the dogs seemed ravenous, they shied away from the bodies, circling the town without ceaselessly.
On the third day I heard snarls, yells, and the shriek of a dog in pain. I looked out the upstairs window. Down at the end of the street, I saw a soldier wiping down his spear, a dead dog at his feet. My servants started screaming for help. I ran downstairs and was about to throw the door open, but the dogs had returned to the step. I jabbed one with the poker, but the others launched themselves at me and I threw myself back inside, pulling the door shut behind me.
The returning patrol had heard our cries, though, and within a few minutes a pair of soldiers dispatched the curs outside the door, letting us out of the house. The servants collapsed in tears at this rescue, but the soldiers began pestering us with questions. I couldn't think to answer. All I could think of was how I needed to get to my house, how I needed to see if my parents and Mallivel were alive. And how I would kill whoever had done this horrible thing.
I staggered down the street, but the men stopped me. They wouldn't let me go by myself. I remember slapping one of them across the face, and he slapped me right back. No one had ever raised a hand to me before. Impatiently, I walked with the men as they continued their circuit. Finally they got to my house, and I burst away from them and inside, screaming for my parents. The first floor was empty, although I saw some bloody hand prints on the parlour wall. I called out, but no one answered. I darted upstairs, but it was empty, too. I paused in front of a smear of blood in my parents' bedroom, and I suddenly remembered the sword beneath my bed. I grabbed the sack containing the armour and the book, and as I pulled the sword out from under the bed, one of the soldiers had me by the arm, pulling me back downstairs, telling me I had to see the healer right now.
The healer asked me many questions, but I was dazed and couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. It was only when I was led out of the town and away from the stench and death that I could regain clarity. I told the soldiers I was supposed to have been in a council meeting, but had left to meet Mallivel.
The next morning, one of my servants made a meager breakfast, but no one had an appetite. We headed back into the town for another look, but there were no other survivors. I looked at body after body, but almost all of them were so savagely mutilated that identification was impossible. I know I couldn't identify anyone I knew, which was both a relief and a curse.
We gathered the corpses in a heap, and as they burned, I pulled my amulet to Raze out of my tunic, rubbing it between my hands and whispering to it that I would seek revenge. With wet cloths tied over our faces, we scavenged what we could from the ruins of the town, and we left following the tracks of wounded survivors who'd fled through the gate.
The tracks led to the farms in the outlying regions. But no one was there, and the farmers had been slaughtered as cruelly as the townsfolk. I heard a smothered cry as Captain Syrache found a body. I overheard one soldier tell another that it was his father, and I ground my teeth together in anger.
I walked away, giving him privacy in his grief, circling outward from the farm, and I found where the trail of the wounded continued. I followed it for a little while. It was headed northwest into unfamiliar country. I came back into the camp and saw Corporal Xirque consoling the captain. He saw me looking, and raised his amulet to me. I held mine up to him and nodded. I knew him fairly well. He often led the services in honour of Raze.
I went off in search of the second in command, and told him I'd found sign of the survivors heading northwest. He seemed surprised I'd even left the camp, but pleased I was able to find the trail.
The tracking was difficult. The trail kept away from towns, and led us through rocky land and coniferous forest. It took every bit of my skill to find any sign, and it was slow going, but every now and then I'd catch sight of a piece of thread, or a bit of hair caught on a branch. We followed the trail for weeks, and every evening we'd pray together to Raze. I wasn't entirely surprised when Captain Syrache began giving the sermons, himself.
We traveled for months. Although it was summer and the weather held, game grew ever more scarce, and what few herbs and berries could be gathered were mixed into the meat into foul-tasting pemmican. But even as our food supplies dwindled, our sense of purpose swelled, bolstered by the sermons to Raze. When we found a road running parallel to the trail of survivors, we all cheered. But three days in, we were attacked by orcs.
I'd never seen an orc up close before. They were hideous, with pallid skin, bristly hairs, and piggish faces. They were also prodigious fighters, and they descended upon us with clubs and rocks. Kardov, the human soldier in front of me, was felled by a blow to the head. I skewered Kardov's killer on my parents' sword. It was the first thing I'd ever killed, and its death filled me with a warm satisfaction. How much better it would feel to kill the things which had destroyed my home. The orcs kept coming, though, and although I wanted to keep fighting, the months of undernourishment had taken their toll. I could barely raise my sword arm. When yet another of our soldiers had his head staved in, Captain Syrache ordered a retreat.
We made our camp on the top of a small rocky hill at the base of a tall cliff. During the course of the fight, we were spun around, and I no longer knew which way the road was. The ground was desolate and covered in small white rocks. Captain Syrache sent a couple of soldiers out to bag some game, and we awaited their return, lying down amongst the white stones in a fruitless attempt to get comfortable. After a few minutes, I heard a strangled yell from the healer. "They're not rocks! They're bones!"
And sure enough, we were lying on ground sprinkled liberally with old bone shards. I stared out at the countryside. As far as I could see, the ground was covered. What could have happened? How was this even possible?
Captain Syrache told us that as soon as the hunting party returned, we would leave. Although I was exhausted and could barely hold my head up, I was eager to leave. The wrongness of the place was getting to me. When I heard footsteps approaching, I was happy we'd finally be able to leave this place. But when the breeze shifted, it seemed as though I were smelling the village all over again. The dank stench of putrefaction filled my nose, trickled down my throat, and I felt my gorge rise. I jerked upright and saw six rotting corpses halfway up the hill. They shambled toward us. One was missing its bottom jaw. One had a badly broken leg, but that didn't seem to slow it down any.
I don't know where I got the energy to pull myself to my feet, but I did, and I drew my sword, holding it ready in front of me. I slashed at them as they drew near, but it was as though I were hitting them with straw. Our weapons did nothing to them, and they clutched at us with their hands, gnashing at us with their teeth. One lunged at Captain Syrache, and Corporal Xirque leaped in front, his throat torn out by the seeping animated corpse.
I seethed with helpless rage. There was nothing I could do. I was pinned against the wall, my sword was useless. My greatest regret was that I wouldn't live to find or avenge my loved ones. But then the hunting party returned, and when they attacked the corpses from the rear, it confused them enough that we were able to escape.
We ran for days, exhausted, starving, and demoralized. I think I saw more orcs in the distance, but by this point I may have been delirious. I believe it was only by Raze's blessing that we blundered across the town of Leighton.
Captain Syrache says that when we are rested and healed, we will head back into the bone lands. This time we will have reinforcements. This time we will find what we are looking for. We will not be stopped.
I am the daughter of Lady Leola Glavindel and Lord Korreshi Aiah. When the nations were still whole, my parents were minor nobles in the old city. Just over thirty years ago, they were forced to flee. I was born shortly after the exodus. My parents never told me why they left, and perhaps I shall never know. But all was not lost, and they, along with the other refugees, became the founding fathers of the walled town of Tahsis Creek.
My father became a town council member. My mother kept the Glavindel tradition of slaving alive, retaining several skilled indentured servants and providing necessary services for the people of Tahsis Creek. I was being groomed to be a council member like my father, and although I did learn some basic political skills, I had little interest in other people, let alone the affairs of state. Neither was I interested in my mother's business. Sure, I could handle the servants, and even showed a certain facility for record-keeping, but I had another future plotted out for myself. I often shirked my duties to spend my time in the darkest parts of the forest on the far side of the ridge, sneaking up on deer, hypnotizing the fish in the shallows, and practicing other childish fancies.
I was a sneaky child, and I would frequently spy on my parents, neighbours, the soldiers, and anyone who intrigued me in the slightest. I liked to watch the soldiers training with their swords, and copied their exercises with a stick, practicing my attacks on the servants. My parents doted on me, and refused me nothing but one thing: they told me I was never to go into their room. I did just that, of course. When I was still very young and the house was empty, I snuck in to look around. There wasn't much to see. Nothing unusual was in their chests or armoires. But something about the tapestry behind the bed intrigued me. When I went to investigate, I saw it hung a couple of feet away from the wall, and behind it was a dusty trunk. Inside the trunk, I discovered a sword, worn leather armour, and a strange book. Although I knew a smattering of several languages, I understood none of the markings or diagrams on the pages.
I cleaned out the trunk, stashing everything under my bed. Over time, I forgot about these things, and they were buried behind other interesting things I "found" elsewhere in the village.
When I was much older, I followed my father's footsteps, becoming a council member, but I am shamed to say I paid only lip service to the position. I continued shirking my duties, skipping out on council meetings to cross the ridge to my favourite place in the world: the old oak by the waterfall. It was on one such trip that I met Mallivel. I had seen him before, of course. Tahsis Creek wasn't so very large a town. But we'd never really spoken. He was a messenger for the council, and most of the times I saw him, he was running to or from the town with a small leather knapsack on his back. When I saw him in shade of the ancient oak by the waterfall, I think it was the only time I ever saw him standing still. He was waiting for me.
We met frequently after that. He became my lover, and although I never told them, I think my parents approved of the match.
Early one evening, I excused myself from a council meeting to run to the woods. The other councilors looked at me with pained expressions, but I didn't care. I was going to meet Mallivel. We were to meet that night under the big oak. I waited the entire night with two of my maidservants, but he didn't show up. I wasn't terribly worried, though. Perhaps he'd been sent off with an important message. It had happened before. And so I reclined beneath the tree, watching the rosy glow of dusk blotted out by the black-blue of a cloudy night sky. I must have dozed off, because when I looked up again, the faintest glimmer of dawn had risen. I stood up and stretched, yawning deeply, and the leaves crackled to life above me as the wind suddenly picked up. The air carried the smell of smoke. I didn't think much of it at first. After all, it could have been cooking fires. However, as I crested the ridge, I could see that one of the buildings was on fire. I tore down the escarpment, my maids close behind me. As I drew closer, I could hear the howling of dogs. When I got to the walls, the gate was closed. A man was hung spreadeagled over it, suspended by his own entrails.
I reeled back, crashing into my servants. I spun around and looked at them. They looked as shocked as I. Together we circled the town, and at the lowest part of the wall, I saw a rope ladder. As I got closer, I saw the ladder was also made of intestines, and I vomited.
I needed to get inside the town. My servants and I found a dead tree by the creek, and we dragged over and leaned it up on the wall. I shimmied my way up, pulled myself over the edge, and froze at what I saw. I couldn't see all the way into the town, but I did see body parts scattered here and there throughout the streets. I stood on the catwalk for a while until one of my servants nudged me aside so they too could cross the wall.
We stayed on the catwalk for a while, walking around the wall in a daze. Walking down the stairway, I almost tripped on a guard. He was nailed to a step by shards of bone. His eyes had been plucked out, and it looked as though something had dug his guts out of him. They were still steaming in the cool morning air.
Gagging, I jumped over him and tore off toward my house in the centre of town, calling for my mother and father. I was met by a pack of snarling dogs. My handmaidens pulled me into the schoolmaster's house, and we slammed the door shut behind us. I turned around to see where I was. The front room was smeared with blood and redolent with the stench of burning meat. Inky smoke roiled from the fireplace. I glanced at the fire, then did a double-take. Those weren't logs but limbs. Charred arms and legs were neatly stacked inside, and the poker lay close by as though it were just abandoned. I grabbed the poker, wielding it like a club. Terrified at what I'd find, I crept my way through the rest of the house, but no one was there.
We tried to leave several times, but the crazed dogs drove us back inside each time. The poker just wasn't enough to fend them off. With my servants' help, I was able to crawl up onto the roof. From there I could see the extent of the carnage. Mutilated bodies were everywhere, haphazardly strewn throughout the streets. A mother had been impaled on the other side of the house, a long iron bar jammed up her fundament and through her abdomen, her infant skewered at the end just beyond her reach. Smears of blood led to the town centre where a huge circle of bodies rested in front of the smouldering town hall. I collapsed on the roof, gagging. My world was turning brownish grey. The incessant baying of the dogs waned in my ears. I could feel my body and mind shutting down. I wanted nothing more than to curl up and die, but my servants pulled me back down and in through the window.
We stayed in the house for a few days, unable to leave. By the end of the first day, the town bodies had begun to stink. We tied rags around our noses to keep the stench at bay, but it didn't help much. The weather turned unseasonably warm, and the bodies bloated and oozed. It was only on the second day that the flies, carrion crows, and rats showed up, and underneath the grief and shock, I remember being surprised the scavengers hadn't arrived sooner. And although the dogs seemed ravenous, they shied away from the bodies, circling the town without ceaselessly.
On the third day I heard snarls, yells, and the shriek of a dog in pain. I looked out the upstairs window. Down at the end of the street, I saw a soldier wiping down his spear, a dead dog at his feet. My servants started screaming for help. I ran downstairs and was about to throw the door open, but the dogs had returned to the step. I jabbed one with the poker, but the others launched themselves at me and I threw myself back inside, pulling the door shut behind me.
The returning patrol had heard our cries, though, and within a few minutes a pair of soldiers dispatched the curs outside the door, letting us out of the house. The servants collapsed in tears at this rescue, but the soldiers began pestering us with questions. I couldn't think to answer. All I could think of was how I needed to get to my house, how I needed to see if my parents and Mallivel were alive. And how I would kill whoever had done this horrible thing.
I staggered down the street, but the men stopped me. They wouldn't let me go by myself. I remember slapping one of them across the face, and he slapped me right back. No one had ever raised a hand to me before. Impatiently, I walked with the men as they continued their circuit. Finally they got to my house, and I burst away from them and inside, screaming for my parents. The first floor was empty, although I saw some bloody hand prints on the parlour wall. I called out, but no one answered. I darted upstairs, but it was empty, too. I paused in front of a smear of blood in my parents' bedroom, and I suddenly remembered the sword beneath my bed. I grabbed the sack containing the armour and the book, and as I pulled the sword out from under the bed, one of the soldiers had me by the arm, pulling me back downstairs, telling me I had to see the healer right now.
The healer asked me many questions, but I was dazed and couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. It was only when I was led out of the town and away from the stench and death that I could regain clarity. I told the soldiers I was supposed to have been in a council meeting, but had left to meet Mallivel.
The next morning, one of my servants made a meager breakfast, but no one had an appetite. We headed back into the town for another look, but there were no other survivors. I looked at body after body, but almost all of them were so savagely mutilated that identification was impossible. I know I couldn't identify anyone I knew, which was both a relief and a curse.
We gathered the corpses in a heap, and as they burned, I pulled my amulet to Raze out of my tunic, rubbing it between my hands and whispering to it that I would seek revenge. With wet cloths tied over our faces, we scavenged what we could from the ruins of the town, and we left following the tracks of wounded survivors who'd fled through the gate.
The tracks led to the farms in the outlying regions. But no one was there, and the farmers had been slaughtered as cruelly as the townsfolk. I heard a smothered cry as Captain Syrache found a body. I overheard one soldier tell another that it was his father, and I ground my teeth together in anger.
I walked away, giving him privacy in his grief, circling outward from the farm, and I found where the trail of the wounded continued. I followed it for a little while. It was headed northwest into unfamiliar country. I came back into the camp and saw Corporal Xirque consoling the captain. He saw me looking, and raised his amulet to me. I held mine up to him and nodded. I knew him fairly well. He often led the services in honour of Raze.
I went off in search of the second in command, and told him I'd found sign of the survivors heading northwest. He seemed surprised I'd even left the camp, but pleased I was able to find the trail.
The tracking was difficult. The trail kept away from towns, and led us through rocky land and coniferous forest. It took every bit of my skill to find any sign, and it was slow going, but every now and then I'd catch sight of a piece of thread, or a bit of hair caught on a branch. We followed the trail for weeks, and every evening we'd pray together to Raze. I wasn't entirely surprised when Captain Syrache began giving the sermons, himself.
We traveled for months. Although it was summer and the weather held, game grew ever more scarce, and what few herbs and berries could be gathered were mixed into the meat into foul-tasting pemmican. But even as our food supplies dwindled, our sense of purpose swelled, bolstered by the sermons to Raze. When we found a road running parallel to the trail of survivors, we all cheered. But three days in, we were attacked by orcs.
I'd never seen an orc up close before. They were hideous, with pallid skin, bristly hairs, and piggish faces. They were also prodigious fighters, and they descended upon us with clubs and rocks. Kardov, the human soldier in front of me, was felled by a blow to the head. I skewered Kardov's killer on my parents' sword. It was the first thing I'd ever killed, and its death filled me with a warm satisfaction. How much better it would feel to kill the things which had destroyed my home. The orcs kept coming, though, and although I wanted to keep fighting, the months of undernourishment had taken their toll. I could barely raise my sword arm. When yet another of our soldiers had his head staved in, Captain Syrache ordered a retreat.
We made our camp on the top of a small rocky hill at the base of a tall cliff. During the course of the fight, we were spun around, and I no longer knew which way the road was. The ground was desolate and covered in small white rocks. Captain Syrache sent a couple of soldiers out to bag some game, and we awaited their return, lying down amongst the white stones in a fruitless attempt to get comfortable. After a few minutes, I heard a strangled yell from the healer. "They're not rocks! They're bones!"
And sure enough, we were lying on ground sprinkled liberally with old bone shards. I stared out at the countryside. As far as I could see, the ground was covered. What could have happened? How was this even possible?
Captain Syrache told us that as soon as the hunting party returned, we would leave. Although I was exhausted and could barely hold my head up, I was eager to leave. The wrongness of the place was getting to me. When I heard footsteps approaching, I was happy we'd finally be able to leave this place. But when the breeze shifted, it seemed as though I were smelling the village all over again. The dank stench of putrefaction filled my nose, trickled down my throat, and I felt my gorge rise. I jerked upright and saw six rotting corpses halfway up the hill. They shambled toward us. One was missing its bottom jaw. One had a badly broken leg, but that didn't seem to slow it down any.
I don't know where I got the energy to pull myself to my feet, but I did, and I drew my sword, holding it ready in front of me. I slashed at them as they drew near, but it was as though I were hitting them with straw. Our weapons did nothing to them, and they clutched at us with their hands, gnashing at us with their teeth. One lunged at Captain Syrache, and Corporal Xirque leaped in front, his throat torn out by the seeping animated corpse.
I seethed with helpless rage. There was nothing I could do. I was pinned against the wall, my sword was useless. My greatest regret was that I wouldn't live to find or avenge my loved ones. But then the hunting party returned, and when they attacked the corpses from the rear, it confused them enough that we were able to escape.
We ran for days, exhausted, starving, and demoralized. I think I saw more orcs in the distance, but by this point I may have been delirious. I believe it was only by Raze's blessing that we blundered across the town of Leighton.
Captain Syrache says that when we are rested and healed, we will head back into the bone lands. This time we will have reinforcements. This time we will find what we are looking for. We will not be stopped.
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Date: 2007-10-12 09:59 pm (UTC)From: