Far to the north of Etirranen, there was a township at the base of a range of mountains, called Aurin Peak. In the shadows of these mountains was a line of hills and a layered town fenced in by many walls. An ancient riverbed divided it in two; the waters had been diverted long ago toward the central lake of the capital. There were many dwelling there in the age of dejection that had come upon Niriu. It was established centuries before the current age, at the behest of the great King, Master Etir, when the Shroud were not yet an enemy.
Captain Veirr was a chief healer in the local infirmary. She had been awakened by her commander's loud words; he was angered by the intrusion. Everyone knew not to rouse him from sleep. Scouts were coming into the main hall; one was already at the entrance when she reached it, yelling for any who would listen. He demanded an audience with the command staff. An opposing force had come upon the scouts, who had been manning an outpost northwest of Aurin Peak. There in the muddy wastes on the edge of the town, an enemy had established a new encampment.
Thunder rolled, but in the distance, and it was faint to Veirr's ears. She had not received summons, but Veirr listened anyway. She recalled the night before; the storms were bad and had made the ground slick; the rough, hilly terrain would have hindered the movements of those who would seek to endure the deluge. Their road was protected; Veirr was not worried. She would not have to endure the sight of wounded men, or hear their screams of pain – she was ready for her shift change in a fortnight. If the drums were used, volleys of heavy artillery would stop the horde of Runners in their tracks and destroy them.
But Runners did not make encampments. They did not besiege cities, and they did not build their own. The horde was a feral mass of inhuman things. Veirr muttered about the lack of trust in the builders who created the fortifications protecting her and her town. In any case, the city was protected by something else. The deadlands were to their west; they were cursed lands, covered in poisoned trees, on the other side of the bleak marshlands, far past the craggy fields outside the walls.
There was the fog – the Black Fog, a hideous fume spoken of by adventurers. It might have been made up: a dreadful tale, made up by old wives perhaps, to stop the wanderings of children. It was well known, and even in her adulthood Veirr knew people who would not venture into the westlands of Etirran, and even fewer sought holiday travel beyond the southern march of King's Sanctuary, far past the great range of Aurin. There were dangers there, lurking in the perpetual darkness of a dangerous forest. It was cursed, they said in the capital. It had been cursed by a madman in his death throes following a terrible war against him and his forces of black spell casters, in a distant age of man. The Runners he'd left behind were not a threat. They could be swept away like flies.
A horn call broke Captain Ailarien Veirr, or Aila, as her friends and kin called her, out of a reverie. The horde had come again. They were being led. There was a new rumor among the rabble. Banners had been found. Hollan had come out of the westlands; he had brought slaves. Veirr did not believe it. Hollan was slain in a failed raid, she had heard. She kept listening. Another call came, and then a fearsome sound like a breaking of stone in the old quarries with the great hammers, used by workers to smash up large portions of rock at one time.
Spell work enhanced these hammers. Perhaps that was the sound; another quarry had been established; they had been in need of more working material. Veirr was sure she had heard stone masons grumbling about it, down in the capital market during her previous leave. Veirr left the safety of the central command hall, and walked shivering up to the edge of the high cliff. There was a great glow on the horizon. There was a fire. The Runners loved cold and damp places, and their dens were always gloomy. Past the horizon was the deadlands. The fields which should have been visible on this cloudless night, were completely covered up by black fumes; the Black Fog had left its boundaries. It was real.
The captain had not been into the westlands. She had never seen the cursed lands. But, as though her very thoughts had manifested this foul aspect in the real world, there was a fog covering the landscapes of the Green Hills. It was coming fast, against the wind, too fast to be natural. She blanched and tried to flee back to the hall; she was seized by a childish memory of a folktale, that must have been it. It was a mere trick of the mind; there was no such thing as the Black Fog. The healer turned back, but only for a moment; Veirr was wrong.
It was even closer, now. And now a flaming sphere was racing others through the sky against the wind, and after a moment, hardly long enough to draw a breath, it struck the great tower above her on a steeper hill, close to the top of the town. Others were watching, other officers; the commander was irate and was yelling obscene things. The tower fell. The base fell after it and the heavy stone crushed the upper parts of the town, obliterating its oldest buildings.
More horns blew. None answered, none even from the great wall behind her; the tower was their last chance at signaling for aid from the Citadel. The great drums had been broken. The Runners came then; the Runners had no need for language or tools of war, and no need of strategy. They were mindless shells, automatons which simply existed, and abducted children and older maidens for breeding stock; they dragged off young men to be thralls and food, maybe. Shimmering spoils were taken as well, gleaming gold and other trinkets; but it was useless to them, a habitual holdover from their past lives, and they did not besiege ancient townships.
Whatever had destroyed the great tower of Aurin Peak, it was nothing to do with the Runners. More projectiles slammed into other targets. Veirr fell on her face as the great hall was broken by another part of falling stone. She was dragged to her feet by a knight she knew. The knight at the healer's side left her when he saw her shoulder insignia; she was able to use healing spells herself and was not in immediate danger. He ran off, and Veirr followed.
The lower quarter was destroyed quickly; everywhere she turned, there was utter chaos, and many were falling to the horde. Three of her own former trainees fell before she turned back. The maintained path was no longer accessible. Other staff had been coming down to the town; they were not able to get far. Another spherical projectile dropped before them spewing flame and poisons, and then it exploded.
Veirr searched for an hour; others she found huddled in a broken house, and some of the local cavalry forces shepherded them into the culvert at the base of the wall. It had been a useful way for transporting goods. The grates had been removed. Young children were not in the city, but there were many young men in the town. All would have been called up. The houses were burning. Healers were busy, and other casters were attempting to quell the flames; many homes had spell-lamps and held vessels of many substances like oils for heating and cooking.
They would have fueled even more blazes. Veirr hurried on, ignoring no screams she heard, but she could not attend to everyone. She helped nearly twenty, or so, but the stress of doing so alone was too great. When Veirr drew her dagger at last, she realized she had only reached the middle of the district, and decided to go back to the local army headquarters. The district was still burning and there were many fighters in the streets leading to the hall; she moved to the other side of the town, and was met by another healer team. The commander was dead on a stretcher they lowered onto the ground. Veirr recalled something, a backup plan.
There should have been a scout ready to go. To the south was the country's large boundary wall; it spanned the great distance between Aurin and the Etir citadel; Veirr did not think she could make it. No horses were in the stables she passed. Thrice she was forced to take another passage. She slew several large runners and threw off another from a fallen civilian. Blood was on the ground. Blood was on its terrible mouth, and the torn throat of its victim. Black sludge seeped from the bodies of slain runners. Veirr heard more screams, and more yells in her own tongue.
She could neither hear, nor see, any normal beasts. The healer returned to the top part of the town and recovered from her wounds. After about ten minutes of searching, Veirr stopped a runner from dragging another healer off into the shadows of a building. She slashed its foul throat and kept going after, casting a ward into the air; faint, shimmering, and blue, it lit up the buildings around her; there were people in another building. She'd reached others of the garrison; many knights bachelor found their position to be a rewarding, permanent calling. Few women would consent to abide in the vale in the shadow of the mountains in this age. Veirr was one of the healers who decided to remain. Most civilians had left to take part in a mandatory evacuation drill three weeks earlier.
There was no help coming. Scouts had already been up to the the hall Veirr dwelt in. Placed close by the base of the tower, and stretching far past it, was a ring of buildings, barracks for the officers of the garrison. High Captain Veirr was only qualified to be a healer. She traversed an empty lot; there ahead were mazes of tunnels, but she climbed up a tall ladder in the wall; it was iron-runged and there was rust on her hands when she reached the top. Veirr clenched a cut hand, and when she opened it, there was no longer a cut, but a blue slime had formed. She wiped her hand and kept moving. The darkness was getting more dangerous. Runners leapt down from pillars and walls and rooftops. Other knights ambushed them. Three larger runners were slain; in turn, one of the knights was mauled. Veirr tried to save him; the spell failed. Her hands and tunic covered in blood, Veirr continued on after apologizing profusely.
The Black Fog rose to the top of the wall. It covered the second level of the city. The inner passage was won; it ringed the town and there were many gates in it. The walls were manned by bowmen. Men-at-arms were caught without steeds; their scouts had already been sent out quickly with weekly tidings for those stationed abroad. A three-man team had already been slain trying to escape a postern in the southern wall. Veirr found them – their throats had been cut, and there were no pages in the gear she found on them. The healer left a buckler, but she took the fallen soldier's saber with her.
Aside from two marshalling reports circulated in the township only, for the men due for a shift change – and used-up equipment they would soon transport away from the town – there was a third report due, containing notes on the doings of the deployed regiment over the last 27 days. One was sent abroad to the capital every month, ahead of the departing regiment, by courier. The latest had been sent to the capital already, and messages departed south by pony relay. Even so, the monthly report had nothing in it regarding an attack; it was routine formality, nothing more or less, and even if it had, a remnant of the ancient horde had returned. There was no help coming; Veirr could see nothing but fire and fog; she should have been able to see the road from her position.
Stolen story; please report.
Veirr did not know it, but even the monthly report had been waylaid, for those scouts had already been found, and were slain, one after another; this deed was done a month earlier, while men-at-arms were involved in a skirmish before the walls of a southern villa. Three large hounds and their handler came upon an exhausted messenger and his pony and viciously slew him. He was found within the villa walls after an attack, mauled and disguised in the wear of the workmen of the southeastern villa. Hollan was the handler's name, one many southerners feared greatly. He was well known to them, as a wild butcher of many men, and a thief of prized livestock; but of him there had been almost no news, but most had been told about his cache of stolen banners, collected by him like trophies. It had been recovered a few months earlier and paraded through the streets in the central district.
His current banner supposedly bore the device of the Raiiya, used when their race was still the King's Guard. Yet Veirr believed Hollan to be dead; he had been slain. Most people said it. She would not have staked her life on it, but she cursed the crowd which frequented the capital marketplace. Hollan was known for riding with his bandits across the plains on beasts, like great dogs of war, or wolves maybe, perhaps bred for such a purpose. Against them on the back of even the swiftest horse of the Etirii, no scout could possibly have won a race.
But Hollan had gone abroad again, and his master had set him loose upon the fields to assail the villagers outside the walls; too many had already fallen; others were in their homes now, guarded and encircled by many palisades – Hollan's servants made innumerable trenches and quickly established mobile forts along the plains outside the great wall of the green hills. A rain of arrows could not reach the enemy of the King Etir far off. There was little fire to be seen within the capital; the Black Fog was too dense. Already, along the southern flank, there were a few ranks of the enemy forces, busy with the digging of trench works to defend against horsemen and answering checks from the citadel. The drums would not sound. They were known to the horde.
Three weeks had passed since the raid on the distant villa. At this point in time, the owner was convalescing in some hidden infirmary, likely being visited fairly often by family and friends, his home burnt to ruins. Beforehand, Hiro Faryn had sent many things abroad: food, and recovered goods and his possessions. Those were now abroad or in storage, but some of the food was sent into the many subterranean store rooms of Aurin Peak.
The township was being attacked by a small force of about five thousand. There was also a supporting force of three thousand strong, feral men not seen by capital civilians in years. They were called Runners, for several reasons; many of the so-called Runners were entering the town to sack it. There were spear and glaive-wielding men to keep them back, and many volleys of arrows were loosed by defenders. The town still fell quickly.
Archers killed many, but there were many still hurtling toward the keep grounds where the command hall was built long before. Their ranks were replenished swiftly by other runners bearing grappling lines of heavy hemp ropes and steel. Others made the grueling climb even by hand, and soon the town was overrun by the most powerful and long-lived of the runners.
Veirr reached the training grounds. She was being followed; a giant had come. Bred by the natives as a soldier, and a traitor to their race, he was weak to no spellwork. Not that any had yet tried to come against him with spells. There was armor on his chest and he had received a new tool, a gift from an emissary of people who survived the destruction of the deadlands in the forgotten age. Veirr could sense him; she darted down many paths, slaying nearly ten enemies as she moved toward the main wall leading south. It connected the capital and Aurin Peak. There were many horns to blow at stations along its length. Veirr sought one of them; the sentries had gone, for whatever reason. She was gripped by a terror like none she had ever felt. Rumors of the nearness of Runners was enough to put fear into anyone. The stench of the horrid things attacking her allies was severe, and she could already see their rotten, putrid blood corrupting the ground where they lay. She hacked up phlegm from her lungs. It had been a while since she'd gotten ill.
For a time, Veirr was joined by a squad of valiant knights and their sons; they were called 'journeyman knights', and many had already met their demise. Six thousand and five hundred, two hundred being officers, were there to defend the place; four thousand civilians lived in the town as permanent residents, the women and children being housed on the higher ground. Of course, another thousand were sent away to guard the departing civilians and could not aid those left behind to fight.
Veirr recounted many horrible raids as she jogged along the road; eventually she lost herself in the gloom; she knew little of her commander's intent. The Runners were many. But, alas, the desires of the lustful, half-starved and wrathful Runners – a scavenging horde now possibly vying for worthy mates, or shimmering spoils, or even food to drag back to their hovels – were not to be sated this day. The capital city's Watchers, blessed with foresight, had already issued a mandatory evacuation drill. Four of the ten thousand of Etirran proper, and the four thousand of Aurin Aiyrannad, a fair place in the foothills of the Shining Peaks, had been gone for a week. They had been gone since the start of a drill, called the day prior to an explosion close to the villa Di'elarun, which was 'Fast Water' in the local tongue. The villa was indeed named for the dead river, which once flowed past its boundaries toward the sea. Whether this drill was done coincidentally, or because of their forbidden power, who could have said, but the Watchers themselves?
A heavy pall quickly joined the deep fog of L'iiyronain encroaching now upon the townlands; it was a remnant from the tumult of a deadly cataclysm, recalled only by the most well-read scholars. The Black Fog was being shoved eastward from its boundaries. Superstition might have been the cause for its name, but the hellish fog was very real, and toxic, and was coming fast against the wind toward the fortress, despite men's beliefs.
Veirr reached the training grounds. Ahead of the captain were broken sections of the inner curtain wall now damaged by some new weapon of the enemy, and many homes were smoldering behind her. Enemies were sniffing out the faltering defenders. She hid after slaying another of them. The blade of her scavenged saber was broken in two. It was also coated in some foul-smelling and inky black muck; she abandoned the damaged saber after pulling away from the falling runner. She dropped the smoking, rusting weapon in fear and kept traveling. Whatever it was, it poured out with the red blood of the runners, not instead of it. Veirr wiped her hand on her tunic and moved beyond a gate. It creaked despite her attempt at silence. The blood was still on her mind, and the smoking weapon she left in the street.
Her weaponless state frightened her, and Veirr avoided most of the fighting; her aid was spent swiftly; no other knights had reason to come this way, except to do what she was planning to. Veirr wanted a horn, but had no idea the wall was clear; no sentries were on station. She attended to a fresh wound, a deep gash in her right arm, from a slashing by a clammy hand with black nails like talons. The runner had ripped through her tunic, and her torso and her upper thigh. Still, despite the pain, Veirr managed, miraculous though it seemed, to staunch the blood flow with a final spell. She felt a numbness come over her then. It reminded Veirr of a common tale among spellcasters, a tale about a permanent loss of one's ability, but she put it out of her mind. She could hear rumbling again.
The pain from the coughing fits came quickly and stayed. Veirr climbed part of the way up a steep passage, a stairway, and nearly fell to her death twice off of the side into a deep, empty channel between the wall and the yards below; the fog had come and made it too difficult to see clearly. The labor of it was too much to bear. The captain descended to go another way. It had beaten her. She wept as she ran through a tunnel after the descent, crossing the footbridge across the channel as quietly as she could, as quickly as she dared in order to avoid the sound of her heavy boots alerting nearby enemies. There was one more way, and a ladder beyond another culvert which led to a training yard, and a paved foot path which led to the arch of the wall above, on the other side. Veirr got there at last and waited with bated breath to listen for an enemy above. She took the chance; unfortunately, it was the very act which led the captain to a fast end.
Several thrown blades struck the captain, one deeply stabbing into her right thigh. Veirr screamed hoarsely and fell, and dragged herself to a facade wall near the edge of the training yard, where she bled out.
Approaching from the north, out of the murky blackness, was an invading force not seen in these lands since they fell in an age of war. The battles of that struggle had been studied intensely by all youths who joined a guild, and fought in War Quest competitions for renown and short-lived wealth. Veirr recalled the horns again, goat horns hung at stations along the wall. She stared across the town at the horizon beyond, as her vision faded. A bright, golden light soared up from one of the villages in the plain.
Blood ceased pouring from the woman's deep wound. None of the crawling things were up above the town. Stomping began, and a horrid, squelching sound made by something too large to be a normal man. This force remained still and the sound ceased. It was louder than the rumblings afar off.
Shien-khail, a herald of the King's Guard, came then up the stairs on the other side of the yard. When he reached his destination, the herald desecrated a corpse there with a swipe of his horrid war-scythe. Its head rolled to the ground. The herald spoke no words, but waited; soon a lone rider came up from the south, riding under the arch in the wall leading from the capital, alone and unhindered.
The rider spoke to his underling then. “You always were so crude, according to my father's notes on you.”
The giant did not speak at first, but stared in the direction of the city he could not see. After some time, he whispered words in the tongue of the Silurè peoples. “Your father's notes, or your own? Have we not heard of your indiscretions? I killed her beforehand, anyway. What are my next orders? Is the path clear ahead?”
The rider sat pondering, upon his pale steed. “It's blocked off,” he called. “They barred it and blocked off the entrances with a sealing spell. You wouldn't fit through the passages I took anyway, brute.” He lowered his hood, and dismounted, and went over to his ally. Facing the edge of the wall, the boy wheezed and limped along toward the giant. He was wearing the attire of a local commoner, and atop this he had a sable cloak. The clothing may have been a pitiful disguise, but had served him well.
After several minutes of silence, the giant spoke again. “Lord Ceras! An honor, for you to convene this meeting; even in such an important battle, you have come to advise me.”
Ceras's eyes narrowed. He kept his gaze on the view below. “Sarcasm?”
The giant laughed at him. “It would be unnecessary, 'lord', to indulge in habits from my youth. I have concerns. I perceived something, thoughts from this woman here. She wondered about Master Raiya's death, and of preemptive measures her people decided to take. Expeditious maneuvers.”
Ceras swatted the giant's shin with a conjured walking stick. “Does it matter? We have succeeded. Why would we not take into consideration the possibility he would be slain?”
The giant did nothing else, but kneeled. “What say you regarding their tactics? Will your master's plan unravel? Is his foresight failing us? What of the survivors?”
Ceras did not answer yet. He made his way back to his horse and raised his hood again. Only then did he turn suddenly, thinking of some secret he had learned in a dark rite. “I can give you few answers. That is to say, few satisfying ones, for your peace of mind. But we revealed little of our capabilities, even if we struck early. Now, they will fail. Do what you must; our king will arrive when he chooses. I fear his wrath will be severe, if we should somehow fail him, but his advisor seems to believe we cannot do so.”
Ceras climbed back onto his horse, and went into the town to see the horrible sights he expected; he was paler still by the time he reached the gate. The Runners had come out of their hovels. He did not think they would be allowed to commit such terrible acts against innocents. He muffled his own hearing with a spell. The screaming coming from a mead hall across the road was too much to take in. His recalled the crumpled, torn page currently in his saddlebag . He knew he was running out of time. Ceras rode out past the town gate, and vanished into the Black Fog.
Series Preface
space ranger sorry, "Relic Hunter", actually DO? What was in the mysterious note that our handsome protagonist Shiden received from his mum at the end of Chapter 2? Why did Cinar Raiya attack our heroes in the first place? Who is the mysterious fire wielder that burned down Hiro's epic starter base? Who was creepily watching the gallant Captain Aurien from the woods around his daughter's house? Where would the civilians of Etirran even go for safety during an attack? Why was the capital so full of smug, black-armored, elitist jerks?! - and what the h*ck are Runners, anyway? Find out next time on...okay, we won't do that reference. I just wanted to avoid spoiling anything, this is only the first chapter. You're gonna stick around, right?
Volume 1's 20 Chapter Limited Edition on Ko-Fi - 150 epub copies
Volume 1's 17-chapter Standard Edition
