Marrow Lost

The blade of the sword was slick with blood, clinging to the white metal edge.  It was not chipped, though some still said that it was made of bone, even after the hundreds of years it had wandered the earth, changing masters when each successive wielder's luck ran dry.  The man who held it, back pressed against a moss-covered wall, was too tired to stand by his own strength.  Still, the sword tip stretches out toward his hunter, pulled forward by its own lust for blood as much as the strength of its master's arm.  Besides the two men, the ruined bridge and the clearing it sits in is empty and quiet.  The water that travels by beside them is content to babble on despite the scene playing out.  Blood spatters in the grass, mixed from both men, map the progress of the fight back through the undergrowth, traveling for hours before finding the road they had encountered each other on.  With a snap, the blade lunges forward, passing by its crude, iron relative to bury itself in its hunter's chest.  The man was not worthy, but the blade is content to drink in such a failure's life.  Satiated, it sleeps.

Its master collapses, dropping the hilt, gasping for breath.  He himself did not best some famous knight in battle.  He stabbed an old man riding a horse through a bad country.  Perhaps the old man had lived in overconfidence too long, perhaps his skills had degraded from his youth.  If he had recognized the symbol on the old man's cloak, he might have been too scared to approach, but the moon had been covered in clouds that night.  It would be months before rumors spread that the great rabid lion had died in some lost and forgotten province.  No rumors would spread for the thief that was emptying of blood as he hyperventilated on the ground.  None either for his former partner who lay with a hole in his chest.

Something between greed and hatred enters the thief as he catches sight of the sword.  It was the sword's fault, after all.  It yearned for combat, drawing him into it, refusing to rest until everything was dead.  He was not willful enough to control its urges, and it was too proud to acknowledge his weakness.  He loathed the thing, forcing him away from society more than he already had been ostracized.  With his last strength, he pushed the sword forward along the blood-slick grass and over the edge of the bank and down into the river.

Ancient World: Part 3

To say that the street was shady would be accurate.  It did not just have a feeling of danger from the wet, creaking planks that barely held together as buildings, but the way that they leaned inwards over the street, slumping in a way that was halfway between looming and exhausted left shadows for any number of unfriendly creatures hid inside.  Darkness was not a commodity, even at mid-day on the street, and as such, the Black Seagull was hard to find for those who didn't know where to look.  The entrance was tucked away inside an alley that slanted off the street that itself was mistaken for an alley by those who were not at home in the shadows.  The muddy stains on the young man's black coat blended in with the blackish brown of the planks and the muddy path as he made his way down the street.  His backpack with most of his valuable posessions sat safely back at a more respectable tavern in a rented room.  Less to keep out of the hands of pickpockets.  He would re-stock on provisions and find a shovel later in the day, but for the moment he wanted more information, and this tavern was the only place he knew that might have a lead.  At least, a lead that wouldn't cost more than he could pay.  He was searching for the storyteller that had come to the port months back, back before he had gotten into his adventures.  Adventure.  He still was new at them.  It had been one tale, a tale of a stone obelisk that would whisk men away to fields of gold.  A tale of a magical rock, a key, that opened the way to wonders.

The light in the tavern was dull, like it had died and the pale echo of light was all that illuminated the dozen or so faces that drank beer, murmering to each other.  If the street had been any brighter, the young man's eyes would not have been adjusted for the gloom.  It was the same as it always had been.  A thin, long room sandwiched between other slightly more reputable establishments in the dock district, wall sconces burning low.  The old man wasn't there.  He walked to the back, passing conversations that went quiet as he passed, then started up in hushed tones.  The barkeep looked young for how old he really was.  Black, matted hair and a trimmed beard with dark eyes that looked like they were made of polished rock.  He had been the barkeep since before the young man was born, since before the rifts had been rumored to open deep in the wild lands of this unsettled continent.

"So you return, young master Thistle."  The barkeeps voice was low, with the barest hint of harshness.  "I expected you to have died wandering about after that silly tale, but fools have their luck."  The young man, thistle was not his true name, only smiled and pushed a small bag across the counter, jingling with a few coins.

"When was that storyteller last here, Greggory?"  His voice was quiet, just above a whisper.

"So you're looking for that one again?  Going to pay him back for the wild goose chase?"  Greggory leaned back, chuckling.  "No, I can't tell you that, the man has a high priced deal you can't match up against."  The young man's face tightened, eyes sliding downwards in thought as he reached forward toward the bag.  "But, what I can tell you is who else is looking for him, for that price at least."

The young man's hand stopped , hovering over the bag.  Greggory grinned at the hesitation.  "And where I can find them."

"That will cost you more.  An account of the route you took before coming back."  Greggory eyed the bag of coins.

"I'll draw a map of half of my journey and throw in a few more coins."

"Well. . .that might be acceptable.  How many more will depend on the quality of the map."  Greggory ducked down behind the counter, a few glasses clinked against each other as he rummaged into the back.  He straightened up, setting parchment and a quill pen on the table before stooping to grab a well of ink.

The young man nodded.  "A beer then, while I'm working," he said, digging out a few coins from his pockets and placing them on the bar.  He retreated to a small table, scratching out lines on the parchment, labeling parts, and drawing in small graphic representations where they were needed.  It became a long flowing line that ran from one edge to another.  Satisfied, he returned to the counter.  "Will this do?"

"Come back in two days.  I'll have a few people I know check it for accuracy as well as they can and I'll have your information ready."

As the young man left the Black Seagull, a few eyes tracked his progress, making sure to remember his face.

Ancient World: Part 2

A light flutter of wet leaves drifting down through the cracks in the land was the only sound the daytime transition made.  Where the trees stood up, thick trunks of ash-grey, the land drifted apart farther, revealing them to stretch deeper down than up, disappearing deep into the darkness.  The young man could only stare in silence, jaw hanging, as he caught sight of the cobbled stone walls that made up the sides of the moving pieces of land, soil resting on top for the first few feet.

The island of land his camp rested on drifted for the day, moving farther away from the glowing tree.  At times he saw windows on the sides of some islands, or doors, yet no stairs down, no lights or signs of inhabitants.  At dusk, the land moved back together, nestling around the tall trunks of the trees.  It was as if it had never happened, besides the position of the trees, the forest floor was as bland as ever.  He would need a shovel, he reasoned.  Jumping down, would leave him with no way back up that he could see, and his backpack was not equipped to solve the problem in any other way.  He also did not happen to have a shovel.  In the dark, he made his way back to the tree, pushing against it with pendant in hand.

Dawn light seeped into the cave, empty as it had been when he had found it.  A weeks travel was ahead of him, then a shopping trip, then another weeks hike back through the wilderness to find the place.  Treasure hunting was turning out to be more boring than he had anticipated.  But there was the magical land beyond the portal.  Mysteries and forces beyond human knowledge.  Some of the explorers thought the ruins and portals had to do with aliens or demons.  There were certainly tales of feral beasts and magical creatures that had been spotted in the areas around and beyond the portals.  Others tied legends of wizards of ancient past to the portals, citing their opening as some mystic veil lifting that had once protected the treasure inside from thieves.  There were more theories around, but the young man had been struck by something that rang of truth in these.  The fact that there were, as he had heard it, piles of gold, magic swords, and glory to be had in the ruins was the more pressing matter in his mind.  The way that the treasures got to those places was just another way that let his fancy wander back to the idea of being rich.  Such things, as well as what pleasures to spend the expected riches on, were what occupied his mind on the way back.

He was lost in thought about where to buy a house when he crested the hill above the port city of Rowenton.  Its docks stretched the ten miles around the half-moon cove that housed hundreds of ships, from fishing skiffs to warships.  Dotted around the cove were the various taverns, brothels, and fish markets that came with being a port town.  There were the market districts further in, large stone stores and bright crimson tents that covered a majority of the rest of the city.  At one tip of the bay, situated farthest from the youth's vantage point was the castle that sat watching over the residents.  It looked permanently dilapidated, though the defenses had never been bested by pirates or bandits when every decade or so some crazed group would see the wealth of the markets and descend upon the city.  It was in this town, in one of the shabbier taverns around the bay, the Black Seagull, that the young man had procured his necklace and the stories of treasure.  It was in that same tavern that he would truly begin his journey.

Ancient World: part 1

Long lines of sunlight filtered into the cave through hanging vines.  It was peaceful, quiet, deserted, at least to the untrained eye.  The young man that swept aside the curtain of foliage to peer into the gloom was of a more knowledgeable sort.  Fishing a small stone pendant up from out of his shirt, he glanced back and forth between the darkness and the polished jade arrow hung on a thick leather string.  It pulled in his hands, moving forward with a soft tug that drew him inwards.  Behind him the vines slid back into place, dimming the area again.  Stepping farther in, he mumbled a whisper to the stone and it began to glow green.  It was a dull, faint light, but he felt around on the wall, searching for nooks and crannies, sweeping the light across the stone, letting the pull guide him as much as the light.

It fit with a click, finding a crack in the stone and magnetically snapping together.  A green glow spread through the stone itself, like moss growing in a moment what a summer might nourish.  Then, like a vacuum the air, the vines, the young man's coat, his backpack straps, his hair, all of it was pulled in towards the wall.  He stepped through.

It was dark, and the air was musty.  Stars shined down through a thin canopy of trees that scattered the ground around him.  It was an old forest, stretching out all around him on the flat expanse he sat upon.  Standing, turning, he saw the tree-trunk glowing the same green behind his entrance.  That would be for later.  For now, he had treasure to hunt, if only he could figure out where.

Hours later, he had found nothing more but trees and dirt.  No sign of what was hidden in this rift.  No sign of the local fauna that he had come to expect.  Perhaps this one had already been cleaned out, he thought.  He wasn't the only person making his way through the wilderness, searching for these places.  Yet he had seen no tracks that would indicate this place had been found.

He set up camp near the glowing tree, kindling a fire and raising a tent.  The night was turning to dawn when he finished.  Sleep hit him fast, exhausted as he was.  As he slept, the fire sputtered out, the sun rose higher, and the forest changed.  When he awoke, the trees had shifted.  It was like they had uprooted, traveled a ways, and then set down again.  The sun was setting as he prepared some rations for his rumbling stomach.  The tree that he had settled next to had moved, and he had to search an hour to find the glow again.

That night he napped, relocating his camp to the glowing tree again.  The dawn came, then the sun climbed.  He watched the trees, fiddling with his pendant.  It was not the trees that moved, however.  In large chunks, the ground split, like an earthquake in molasses.

The madness of the forest.

The storm challenged me as I strode through my forest.  Rain pressed down, attempting to flatten me and all else.  The dirt below turned traitor and sucked softly at my paws.  Thunder boomed in defiance for all the creatures to hear, echoing off the trees and hills.  Above and around the lightning snapped down like an aimless spear, searching for something to consume.  The wind was my ally though, combing its way through my fur, down my snout, sides, and through my long tail.  It raced like a pack of my own between the trees, calling out shrill cries of an intense hunt.

She would be out there too, black of fur to match my white.  Her tracks and smell drifted like shades through the forest, carried as news by the wind and muffled by the oppressive rain.  We both sought some fight that the storm would never truly give.  I felt alive in it, feeling the intense glee of running towards danger.  Yet my mind, if not my instincts wandered like this, wondering what I was really doing, what she was doing.  It was on the hill ahead that I caught sight of her form in a flash of lightning.  She would be the only other one to prowl the woods at night, even if her size served as a distinctive indicator.  Others of our kind might stand to our belly, the largest of them.  They played and nurtured us in our youth and slowly grew frightened as we began to tower over them.  She became a tyrant, then an outcast.  I left before I was driven out, not by their power which was less, but by my own instincts and isolation.  I could do nothing but follow her tracks up and over the rise.  If I moved too quickly, I might catch up and be forced into a more real combat.  If I slowed, I would lose the scent.  Her fur scraped off on tree-trunks.  Broken flowers were smashed into the ground where she ran.  Down the slope and through a deep ravine where deer would sleep in lighter weather.  Through a copse of trees that held deep markings of the bears that made their home on the sunward side of a small hill.  We toured my domain at rapid pace, snaking across the forest as I hid my presence in her wake.  I had enough experience avoiding her, of course.  She was the constant danger that loomed on my mind as I lived my days.  If I did not avoid her, we would fight, and she, bigger than I, would in her crazy-eyed fervor strive to kill me.  I always imagined I would win, but I never wanted to test it.  I never wanted to find that result.

My fur was becoming drenched in sweat and rain as I ran.  I had spotted her a few times on the higher points when the lighting fell, and some in the ravines where she slipped like a shadow.  She seemed driven by the storm in the same way I was, chasing some invisible prey.  snapping out at the light and the rain.  It gave me a comfort in my loneliness that there was someone out there, similarly alone, similarly driven.  She reached the top of the tallest hill, barren of trees or anything else.  Just slabs of rock piled high up toward the offending storm.  Her howl pierced the wind and the rain.  It carried through the forest in a way that mimicked the rain's own oppressiveness.  The end was drowned out by thunder, though it almost seemed to pierce that too.  The lightning that came down was the answer she waited for, though.  It stabbed towards her head, towards her open mouth.  It was aimed in a way it had not been before.  She bit down with her teeth, sinking her canines into it deeply, ripping it down from the sky.  It was dazzling, brighter than any lightning I had seen before.  It was also longer.  My eyes saw white in the seconds and minutes thereafter.  When I could see again, she still stood, but now over a glowing form that dripped its blood across and down the rocks.  The lightning itself was her hunt, and she had killed it there.  From where I stood in the shadows of the trees, I could see the shape had legs and horns and a grand tail.  It would stand taller than us, if it could have stood.  That grand beast was her prey and she started to feast, now ignoring the storm that fizzled around her, going through the motions as it dwindled away to nothing.  I would return later.  It pained me, somehow, to see a beast so tremendous brought low.

Two suns passed and I returned, climbing up the sharp hill.  The area had been deserted, it smelled like lightning still, sharp and cutting.  The corpse of the thing was stripped clean of meat, her voracious appetite put to test and found victorious.  The bones were scattered around, and the pelt still shone with white light.  Its horns seemed to pulse, vaguely, as I paced through the scene.  The blood had hardened into streams of clear rock that filled cracks in the stone.  I found myself picking the bones up, stacking them together at the center of the peak.  I draped the hide over it and stacked the skull and antlers at the top.  Then I waited.  It was the rainy season.  Two more suns passed.  I hungered, but I knew another storm would come soon.  My nose told me, and the wind carried it to me.  The second night grew clouds and threw down wind and rain.  It ran off the pile of bones I sat beside, chilling me through my fur.  I did not have to wait long for the lightning and thunder to make their way to the hill.  It happened much the same way.  The lightning came down, the thunder boomed, and I was blind.  My nose stung with the lightnings scent, more powerful that it was before.  When I saw again, another of the creatures stood there, overlooking the pile.  It was taller, larger.  I would have reached to it's chest if I had stood.  Through the glow it put off I saw its legs tense.  It lept up, thunder booming as the stones cracked below it.  The lightning ascended.  The pile was still there, glowing more intensely than before.  I stood, walking towards it.  The sound rang out again, thunder..  Lightning flashed.  I felt the smell of lightning all around me.  It smothered me in a way the rain might dream to.  When I could see again, the glow was gone from the bones, from the hide.

I turned to make my way back down the hill, and somehow in she shadows I saw her.  Around her seemed a cloak of darker black, like an angry storm cloud.  She bared her teeth at me, a low growl rumbling from below me.  I could see a light shining down towards her, radiating from the hill.  I cast no shadow as I walked to meet her.  To kill her.