Re: QUIETUS [S!5] [Round 1: Godsworn Valley]
05-17-2012, 12:01 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by XX.
Oliver ran.
The forest was cold and dark, thick with the smell of rain and blood. His feet pounded over leaves and mud in rhythm with his heart, beating hard enough for him to taste it in his mouth: iron and fear and mindless, animal panic. Trees appeared like ghosts before him from out of the fog, a cage of branches and thorns that slapped and clawed at him with every step, filling his mouth with leaves and nettles, lashing him with thorns and twigs. He couldn’t see where he was going, couldn’t see anything but thick black fog pouring up from the ground where his bare feet had stepped. His lungs were on fire, his hands a bleeding mess of scrapes and bruises, his vision blurry with blood and dirt.
The forest howled with the cries of war-dogs and screaming soldiers, following him at every turn, every dodge he made away from the endless trees. They were behind him, always a step behind him, roaring in his ears. “Mercy,” they cried, “Mercy! Kedemonas, mercy!” Something wet slapped against his heels and he stumbled, smashing his arm against a wayward trunk and stumbling off to the side. His head swam with pain but he had no time to stop, had no time to-
“MERCY!”
Something slammed into his stomach and he fell heavily, skidding on his knees against the soaking undergrowth. His face crashed into a branch and he gasped, scrambling for grip on anything, everything, rough bark jutting into his hand but melting into something cold, cold as ice as it wrapped around his hand and forced it down to the ground. It struck his other hand and bent it backwards as Oliver kicked blindly at the fog, his boots hitting only air. His hands were frozen, numb from the elbows down. He tugged them frantically, desperately; he couldn’t feel his fingers, couldn’t feel his wrists, the dogs howling and howling in his ears through the fog and the forest. He heard gunfire, impossibly, the screams of women and children and wolves coming up from the ground, deafening, deafening.
“Save yourself,” he heard a woman whisper, “You can make it if you run. There’s no hope for me,” and she screamed and screamed and screamed.
__________________________________
Cirrha’s desk was neat, orderly; unexpectedly so for a mercenary captain. Thick hide-bound notebooks lay neatly stacked on its polished surface, trimmed in fine gold banding and well-worn with use. Fat inkwells lay side by side in every color a man could reasonably desire to write in like fat, glittering jewels. Even the polished skull resting on a stack of papers had been relentlessly cleaned and shone like fine china in the light of the torches. It was on this that Cirrha’s gnarled hand restlessly tapped, claws clicking on the dead man’s teeth.
“One sixth of the roster, sir, just gone,” his lieutenant told him, ears folded back against her head in submission. He could smell her fear, the same quailing uneasiness that had flooded his camp when the news spread that the Second Regiment had vanished with not a single hint of scent to follow. “Fifty men and sixteen hounds. They took nothing with them, not even their guns. They’ve just disappeared.”
Cirrha said nothing. The camp was quiet, subdued by the loss. He could hear the whimpering of his men in their tents, speaking in hushed tones of the deceased. It was only protocol that lead his officers to speak of desertion and other lies; there was no doubt in the Hyleoroi captain’s mind that the missing soldiers were dead. This was war.
“Recover their gear,” he said, his voice a rumbling growl from the wolf’s head that sat atop his shoulders. His nose wrinkled with distaste. “Tell those that remain to wait. We will make the best of this situation.”
His aide nodded and silently left, squaring her shoulders to face the waiting troops outside. She knew better than to pester him further. Cirrha watched her go, a foul taste in his mouth. He’d suffered bigger losses than this on many occasions, more than he could count, but never with such unnatural abruptness. The rear vanguard, vanished: no bodies, no cries, nothing to indicate that his soldiers had ever existed except for the guns that had fallen where they had been abandoned. Many had been found still in the locations of their owners’ posts, warm and without a single bullet fired.
He rose from his chair and stalked to the front of his desk, rifling through his books. It was too obvious. The boy from the Desolan Clergy had arrived mere hours before the disappearance. He’d spoken to the softskin himself. Slowly Cirrha felt his hackles begin to rise as he poured through the pages, searching for any hints, even the slightest indication that the situation was not exactly as it appeared. Did his enemies take him for a fool, executing such a simple ploy? Did they think a wolf’s brain led the Hyleoroi as well as its head? Angrily the captain slammed the book shut, the boom echoing far outside his tent accompanied by panicked yips. There was nothing that led him to believe this was a mere child’s jest by one of the other clans. The Eleionomae, the Lampades, the Seirenae, any of them. Possibly more than one, working together to bring his army down. The Hyleoroi were the strongest mercenary faction on the field. It was perfectly understandable for those of lesser strength to attempt such an underhanded ruse. The only question that remained for him to discover was how they had managed it under the noses of his guards.
Growling, Cirrha padded to the back of the tent to where an ancient wooden altar was somewhat awkwardly jammed between bookshelves and artillery racks. More than half his height, it was long enough to accommodate two moderately sized victims laying head-to-head and two grooves hollowed out of its surface indicated this was the traditional placement. Carvings of impossible intricacy covered every inch of it: birds and beasts, men and gods, each hair and feather and scale detailed in unearthly precision, the wood flowing like finest silk over even the most delicate of figures. Its table was stained a deep, dark brown atop the dull sheen of the polished oak, the product of a hundred years of sacrifice. Reaching into one of the many canisters hanging from his belt, the captain produced a thin glass vial and shattered it across the altar’s surface, over the gaping mouth of a horned man holding a knife in each hand. The preserved blood trickled down through the cracks of the carvings as he felt the tent fill with the fecund heat of the First Forest, reeking with life and the scent of ancient loam and rock.
“Kedemonas,” Cirrha intoned, spreading his claws over the altar, “Your children call you. Heed us.”
With a great creaking of wood the horned god twisted fluidly within the carved pantheon, raising one of his daggers above his head and slowly revolving to face the Hyleoroi captain. His fanged mouth broke into a wide smile with a painful cracking. Respectively Cirrha knelt, bowing his head before the Hyleoroi’s patron; he could feel the god’s eyes on him from the altar and felt the all-too-familiar twinge of reverent terror.
“Rejoice, child,” the god spoke, stirring Cirrha’s fur with the depth of his voice, “The Forest comes. The River moves in the realm of men. Mourn not for the taken, those whose souls walk the hidden paths. The earth will claim what is owed.” Around him the rest of the altar began to writhe into life, tendrils of plants intertwining with the slender legs of deer and herons stalking through the forest. At Kedemonas’ feet, a nubile maiden clad only in flowers turned toward the figure with an expression of rapture on her face.
“May their hunts never end,” the captain said curtly. He dared not hold the god’s attention long. He’d seen the results of that particular folly. “Watcher in the Woods, Lord of Hunters, an enemy stalks us who dares not reveal their treachery to the light of honest day. Grant your servant knowledge of the interloper and you shall have ten times what they take from us as sacrifice. We swear it to you by the roots of the old forest and the hearts of the firstborn men.”
The altar groaned with strain as the horned god raised the second dagger and brought the blades down into the chest of the waiting maiden, who collapsed gracefully to the floor of the wooden forest at his feet as she had done countless times before. “The River bears itself to you, my children. A daughter of the silent sound now hunts this world. The one you seek is not yet lost.”
A tense moment passed before the captain offered the ceremonial gesture of parting. Painfully sparse as the answer was, Cirrha knew better than to press the god. He’d offered him too much already. “Our endless worship, Kedemonas. Grant us swiftness and cunning and we will hunt the earth bare in your honor.”
The scent of earth and blood began to fade from the tent as the carving of the horned god grew rigid and became mere wood once more, the faintest smile still visible on the settling figure’s face. Cirrha stood, brushing the dust from his clothes. Kedemonas had been as cryptic as ever, but he was practiced enough to know when the god was being gracious enough to grant him a boon. He had little doubt whom the god had meant by “the one you seek”. As for the daughter… Kedemonas did not recognize those not born of the ancient earth. He would not have imparted the information had he not intended his cult to find her and bind her to their efforts. It made little difference that the thing had murdered his men. Cirrha was not of the sentimental breed.
The captain burst through the flaps of his tent with renewed vigor, scattering the contingent of lieutenants and officers waiting to present him with their endless petitions, always in need of revisions and confirmation. He was glad for once to have an excuse to leave this pomp and circumstance behind and stalk the forest once more as Kedemonas had intended.
His aide came loping up to him with hopeful eyes, sensing his purpose. “Sir,” she barked, “Orders?”
Cirrha swept the gathered Hyleoroi, watching them slip from the rigid stances of men into the easy grace of wolves as they caught the scent of his bloodlust, panting at the sudden chance of prey. They snarled eagerly among themselves, dropping their ledgers and pens to the ground, stamping them into the mud. “Gather a pack,” the captain growled, watching his men begin the transformation with feral pride. “Sweep the forest. Our guest is waiting. We no longer hunt men, my brothers. Our god has seen fit to deliver us some finer prey.”
Oliver ran.
The forest was cold and dark, thick with the smell of rain and blood. His feet pounded over leaves and mud in rhythm with his heart, beating hard enough for him to taste it in his mouth: iron and fear and mindless, animal panic. Trees appeared like ghosts before him from out of the fog, a cage of branches and thorns that slapped and clawed at him with every step, filling his mouth with leaves and nettles, lashing him with thorns and twigs. He couldn’t see where he was going, couldn’t see anything but thick black fog pouring up from the ground where his bare feet had stepped. His lungs were on fire, his hands a bleeding mess of scrapes and bruises, his vision blurry with blood and dirt.
The forest howled with the cries of war-dogs and screaming soldiers, following him at every turn, every dodge he made away from the endless trees. They were behind him, always a step behind him, roaring in his ears. “Mercy,” they cried, “Mercy! Kedemonas, mercy!” Something wet slapped against his heels and he stumbled, smashing his arm against a wayward trunk and stumbling off to the side. His head swam with pain but he had no time to stop, had no time to-
“MERCY!”
Something slammed into his stomach and he fell heavily, skidding on his knees against the soaking undergrowth. His face crashed into a branch and he gasped, scrambling for grip on anything, everything, rough bark jutting into his hand but melting into something cold, cold as ice as it wrapped around his hand and forced it down to the ground. It struck his other hand and bent it backwards as Oliver kicked blindly at the fog, his boots hitting only air. His hands were frozen, numb from the elbows down. He tugged them frantically, desperately; he couldn’t feel his fingers, couldn’t feel his wrists, the dogs howling and howling in his ears through the fog and the forest. He heard gunfire, impossibly, the screams of women and children and wolves coming up from the ground, deafening, deafening.
“Save yourself,” he heard a woman whisper, “You can make it if you run. There’s no hope for me,” and she screamed and screamed and screamed.
__________________________________
Cirrha’s desk was neat, orderly; unexpectedly so for a mercenary captain. Thick hide-bound notebooks lay neatly stacked on its polished surface, trimmed in fine gold banding and well-worn with use. Fat inkwells lay side by side in every color a man could reasonably desire to write in like fat, glittering jewels. Even the polished skull resting on a stack of papers had been relentlessly cleaned and shone like fine china in the light of the torches. It was on this that Cirrha’s gnarled hand restlessly tapped, claws clicking on the dead man’s teeth.
“One sixth of the roster, sir, just gone,” his lieutenant told him, ears folded back against her head in submission. He could smell her fear, the same quailing uneasiness that had flooded his camp when the news spread that the Second Regiment had vanished with not a single hint of scent to follow. “Fifty men and sixteen hounds. They took nothing with them, not even their guns. They’ve just disappeared.”
Cirrha said nothing. The camp was quiet, subdued by the loss. He could hear the whimpering of his men in their tents, speaking in hushed tones of the deceased. It was only protocol that lead his officers to speak of desertion and other lies; there was no doubt in the Hyleoroi captain’s mind that the missing soldiers were dead. This was war.
“Recover their gear,” he said, his voice a rumbling growl from the wolf’s head that sat atop his shoulders. His nose wrinkled with distaste. “Tell those that remain to wait. We will make the best of this situation.”
His aide nodded and silently left, squaring her shoulders to face the waiting troops outside. She knew better than to pester him further. Cirrha watched her go, a foul taste in his mouth. He’d suffered bigger losses than this on many occasions, more than he could count, but never with such unnatural abruptness. The rear vanguard, vanished: no bodies, no cries, nothing to indicate that his soldiers had ever existed except for the guns that had fallen where they had been abandoned. Many had been found still in the locations of their owners’ posts, warm and without a single bullet fired.
He rose from his chair and stalked to the front of his desk, rifling through his books. It was too obvious. The boy from the Desolan Clergy had arrived mere hours before the disappearance. He’d spoken to the softskin himself. Slowly Cirrha felt his hackles begin to rise as he poured through the pages, searching for any hints, even the slightest indication that the situation was not exactly as it appeared. Did his enemies take him for a fool, executing such a simple ploy? Did they think a wolf’s brain led the Hyleoroi as well as its head? Angrily the captain slammed the book shut, the boom echoing far outside his tent accompanied by panicked yips. There was nothing that led him to believe this was a mere child’s jest by one of the other clans. The Eleionomae, the Lampades, the Seirenae, any of them. Possibly more than one, working together to bring his army down. The Hyleoroi were the strongest mercenary faction on the field. It was perfectly understandable for those of lesser strength to attempt such an underhanded ruse. The only question that remained for him to discover was how they had managed it under the noses of his guards.
Growling, Cirrha padded to the back of the tent to where an ancient wooden altar was somewhat awkwardly jammed between bookshelves and artillery racks. More than half his height, it was long enough to accommodate two moderately sized victims laying head-to-head and two grooves hollowed out of its surface indicated this was the traditional placement. Carvings of impossible intricacy covered every inch of it: birds and beasts, men and gods, each hair and feather and scale detailed in unearthly precision, the wood flowing like finest silk over even the most delicate of figures. Its table was stained a deep, dark brown atop the dull sheen of the polished oak, the product of a hundred years of sacrifice. Reaching into one of the many canisters hanging from his belt, the captain produced a thin glass vial and shattered it across the altar’s surface, over the gaping mouth of a horned man holding a knife in each hand. The preserved blood trickled down through the cracks of the carvings as he felt the tent fill with the fecund heat of the First Forest, reeking with life and the scent of ancient loam and rock.
“Kedemonas,” Cirrha intoned, spreading his claws over the altar, “Your children call you. Heed us.”
With a great creaking of wood the horned god twisted fluidly within the carved pantheon, raising one of his daggers above his head and slowly revolving to face the Hyleoroi captain. His fanged mouth broke into a wide smile with a painful cracking. Respectively Cirrha knelt, bowing his head before the Hyleoroi’s patron; he could feel the god’s eyes on him from the altar and felt the all-too-familiar twinge of reverent terror.
“Rejoice, child,” the god spoke, stirring Cirrha’s fur with the depth of his voice, “The Forest comes. The River moves in the realm of men. Mourn not for the taken, those whose souls walk the hidden paths. The earth will claim what is owed.” Around him the rest of the altar began to writhe into life, tendrils of plants intertwining with the slender legs of deer and herons stalking through the forest. At Kedemonas’ feet, a nubile maiden clad only in flowers turned toward the figure with an expression of rapture on her face.
“May their hunts never end,” the captain said curtly. He dared not hold the god’s attention long. He’d seen the results of that particular folly. “Watcher in the Woods, Lord of Hunters, an enemy stalks us who dares not reveal their treachery to the light of honest day. Grant your servant knowledge of the interloper and you shall have ten times what they take from us as sacrifice. We swear it to you by the roots of the old forest and the hearts of the firstborn men.”
The altar groaned with strain as the horned god raised the second dagger and brought the blades down into the chest of the waiting maiden, who collapsed gracefully to the floor of the wooden forest at his feet as she had done countless times before. “The River bears itself to you, my children. A daughter of the silent sound now hunts this world. The one you seek is not yet lost.”
A tense moment passed before the captain offered the ceremonial gesture of parting. Painfully sparse as the answer was, Cirrha knew better than to press the god. He’d offered him too much already. “Our endless worship, Kedemonas. Grant us swiftness and cunning and we will hunt the earth bare in your honor.”
The scent of earth and blood began to fade from the tent as the carving of the horned god grew rigid and became mere wood once more, the faintest smile still visible on the settling figure’s face. Cirrha stood, brushing the dust from his clothes. Kedemonas had been as cryptic as ever, but he was practiced enough to know when the god was being gracious enough to grant him a boon. He had little doubt whom the god had meant by “the one you seek”. As for the daughter… Kedemonas did not recognize those not born of the ancient earth. He would not have imparted the information had he not intended his cult to find her and bind her to their efforts. It made little difference that the thing had murdered his men. Cirrha was not of the sentimental breed.
The captain burst through the flaps of his tent with renewed vigor, scattering the contingent of lieutenants and officers waiting to present him with their endless petitions, always in need of revisions and confirmation. He was glad for once to have an excuse to leave this pomp and circumstance behind and stalk the forest once more as Kedemonas had intended.
His aide came loping up to him with hopeful eyes, sensing his purpose. “Sir,” she barked, “Orders?”
Cirrha swept the gathered Hyleoroi, watching them slip from the rigid stances of men into the easy grace of wolves as they caught the scent of his bloodlust, panting at the sudden chance of prey. They snarled eagerly among themselves, dropping their ledgers and pens to the ground, stamping them into the mud. “Gather a pack,” the captain growled, watching his men begin the transformation with feral pride. “Sweep the forest. Our guest is waiting. We no longer hunt men, my brothers. Our god has seen fit to deliver us some finer prey.”