Song of Seven

In a few short weeks these woods will be impassable, he thought as he leaned his aching back against the rough bark of a tall oak. Raising a calloused hand to his temples he rubbed hard at the dull headache that pulsed through his skull, lowering his hands he reached for the flask at his belt, the cold metal of it bit at his fingertips as he raised the cap to his lips and gulped down the fiery liquid that had been his medicine for too long. Axel. A name he barely recognized anymore. You’re still a good man, and you’re doing the right thing. A mix of guilt and shame stirred in his guts, waves of nausea combined with the strong liquor and the lack of any real food rattled his frayed nerves. Axel leaned forward onto his knees and retched, then settled back against the hard tree trunk with a profound sigh. A chilling wind brought forth a swirl of snow, and he pulled his wide-brimmed hat lower over his eyes and tucked his face into the tall collar of his torn shirt. I may die out here if I don’t get moving soon. Waiting for a few long moments, contemplating the fire in his belly and the foreboding stinging of his exposed skin, Axel raised his eyes to survey his surroundings. Mighty oaks stood like an impenetrable series of watchtowers in every direction, the forest floor was covered in a thin blanket of snow and wet leaves. I reckon I’ll be leaving an easy trail no matter which way I go. With a groan and cracking of his tired joints, he heaved himself to his feet, the fine steel blade at his hip scraped against the hard leather chaps that covered his thighs. Axel reached down to his belt, fastening it tighter and moving the weapon in its scabbard back to a more comfortable traveling position. His head tilted back, the wide-brimmed hat sliding off slightly and tangling in his unwashed black hair as he tried to get his bearings. The weary man examined the position of the sun and scanned his surroundings for any moss that might be growing on the trees. Without a map, I don’t know that I’ll make it outta here. The warrior scratched at the prickly whiskers of his jawline and decided that north must be in front of him and began to step slowly through the snow. Though he carried a heavy burden of his rucksack and the weapon at his hip, Axel stalked like an apparition through the bristling treeline, the crunching of the leaves and snow beneath his soft boots was scarcely audible over the quickening wind that sounded through the trees like a distant widows cry. The sun in the grey skies was losing its luster as it sank lower over the horizon and soon it would be even colder, yet he did not stop to make a fire or a camp. Gotta keep moving.

After some time had passed, and the exhaustion of many miles beneath his heels had begun to set in, Axel stopped abruptly and crouched low to the frozen ground. Shifting his hat again he focused his bleary eyes and saw that the treeline was finally beginning to thin out. Past the branches and browning leaves, he could see a wide clearing up ahead, and the looming walls of a wooden rampart that stretched from east to west. Sanctuary. Axel’s heart slowed in his chest as he steadied his breathing and wore a cautious smile of relief blended with a still uneasy measure of anxiety. This was the place he was looking for, but would it be this easy to escape the past? Nothing had ever been this simple for him, yet the choice made to walk away from life seemed straightforward enough. Could the warrior find a new home and forget his grief? The promise of a future in which he didn’t have to draw the steel at his hip was too alluring to ignore, but Axel never believed the stories of this place. It was situated far outside of Vayan territory, and their brutal laws had little meaning out in these borderlands, that much he knew, but that was no guarantee that the hounds of his past wouldn’t come barking at his heels. With some trepidation, Axel raised himself, sliding his hat back into position, and heaved the rucksack over his shoulders. Pushing aside a few thin branches and exiting out through the thick brush, he approached the walls of the sanctuary.

The high timbers of the structure stood three times the old warrior’s height as he followed the wall to the west, dragging his fingertips along the smooth wood. Feeling the grain of the wood as though he expected the finely sanded walls to reassure him that his choice was the right one, he sighed. Voices of men and women on the other side of the wood were like an unexpected poem to his ears as he closed his eyes and slowly followed the line of the wall to a gate a few yards away. A lowered barricade of sharpened wood timbers marked the passage into the sanctuary, and on either side of this gate were two men draped comfortably in thick fur cloaks. Axel sniffed at the air. Wolf. The pair turned their attention toward the approaching traveler and cautiously raised their long spears to point in his direction. Axel studied their weapons a moment, though the spears were of simple construction, there was no doubt in his mind who these weapons were designed to kill as his eyes glanced over the sharpened bright green metal of the spear tips.

“Friend” Axel raised his left arm in the air and with his right arm he slid the steel blade out of his scabbard and tossed it into the snow as if he were throwing a bone to a vicious pair of bloodhounds. The irony of that thought played on his mind for a moment as he closed his eyes and cleared his throat. “Friend...” he repeated as he sank to one knee in exhaustion. The cold snow-covered ground ached at his knees as he surrendered himself before the gatekeepers.

The two cloaked sentries eased up their grip on the spears and slowly approached, the taller of the pair kicked the blade to the side as they got closer. It sang a metallic song as the blade skidded across the top of a frozen crust of snow. The shorter man tucked a leathery hand underneath Axel’s arm and lifted him to his feet. “Friend, you may stand” the short but shockingly strong man offered peaceably, his voice was soft and low, but carried a warmth in it that cut past the cold of the wind and snow. “You walked?” The pair of cloaked men looked past the weary Axel as if they expected an ambush from the treeline behind him, turning the heads from east to west they saw no sign of a horse or any other companions.

Axel removed his hat, holding it to his chest as though he were in the delicate company of noble women, lowering his eyes to show subservience. “I did.” There was a scratch in his voice, a weary combination of resignation and dehydration from too much fiery medicine.

The two men that guarded this gate exchanged a few meaningful looks between them and studied Axel as though they were trying to read an old text. “You aren’t wearing Vayan colors, so that’s a good start”, the shorter and gentler man decided after a few moments of close inspection that Axel wasn’t a spy or a Mayj. “If you’re looking for sanctuary then you have found it, but know that even peace and freedom have a cost. We won’t dig into your past, we won’t question who you are or what you’ve done, but if you’ve got a tendency of violence or theft... you’ll be left to the judgment of winter.”

The taller of the two sentries reached into the snow to retrieve the weapon, wiping the blade across his furs he held Axel steady as he slid it back into the holster for him. He offered a smile as he clapped a thickly gloved hand against the shoulders of the bowed Axel. “You want sanctuary, you have to work for it like the rest of us, you’ll follow us and talk to Bruth. You carry a good piece of steel, got any skill with that thing?”

Axel closed his eyes as he thought back to the uncountable times that he had to draw his blade at the command of another, remembering how it felt to follow orders blindly, what it felt like to kill and maim, how it felt to have the warm blood of another man splash against your skin. Axel longed to reach for his flask again as the hair on his neck bristled. “I will not kill with it.”

The two men smirked and glanced at each other, the taller man once again placing his hand on Axel’s shoulder, “Then we won’t ask you to kill, friend. Come, Bruth will get you sorted out.”

The pair lead him through the wide barricade and inside of the wooden fort, it was not what Axel had expected, and yet it was so much more. Sanctuary looked much less like a town or village he had seen in his days in the Vayan march, and more like a collection of hunting cabins. Tall stone chimneys stuck out of each structure, offering the familiar scent of wood stoves and warm interiors. Each cabin was solidly constructed and inviting, some served as housing for the many men and women that came here to live freely from Vayan laws while the other larger structures were constructed to be warehouses, tanneries, smokehouses, and even a brewery or two. Men, women, and children in warm furs and animal skins hustled along the hard-packed ground, pushing carts of wood and leather, loading barrels into wagons, or carrying buckets of water from a nearby well. Axel felt himself relaxing the tension in his shoulders as the two men escorted him through the central courtyard, he could almost picture himself belonging here and starting a new life for himself. A pang of guilt struck down the feelings inside him as he suddenly remembered what he had to leave behind to get here, and his conscience pressed in on him like the stone walls of a Vayan prison cell as he reminded himself what a coward he truly was.

Further into the walled sanctuary, the men passed by some potato fields, the garden boxes were covered with a thick woolen blanket to protect the precious soil from the coming winter. Axel saw some young children climbing the fence near the fields and a motherly figure in a smith’s apron chasing after them to “Get down from there before you break your necks!“. Soon, the trio arrived at a long cabin with an overhanging sheltered porch, the chimney that jutted from the side of the cabin billowed a thick white smoke and smelled of meat. Axel’s stomach rumbled as the scent wafted past them like a perfumed courtesan, forcing him to recognize his hunger and thirst.

“Wait here friend, we’ll go in and speak with Bruth,” Once more, the larger of the pair slapped Axel on the back as the two headed inside. Axel was left alone to lean against the railing of the porch and take in his surroundings. It was remarkable that a sanctuary like this existed so far north he thought as he watched the work of some nearby carpenters erecting another cabin in an empty lot of the sanctuary. The carpenters worked as a team, hoisting up long and smooth logs using a system of pulleys and ropes, and as a log fell into place, one of them would come running up with a bucket of hot tar to seal the gaps in the wood as the walls of the new cabin were built higher and higher. Nearby the tradesmen there was a stout wooden cart lashed to a team of work horses, piled high with strips of hardened clay sod that would eventually become the roof. The team of men worked fast and hard, making good progress on the building as the day went on, they would no doubt have this place built before the first heavy snowfalls of the season. Axel pictured what it would be like to have a place like that as his home. He imagined coming home from a long day’s hunt in the woods, opening the front door, and feeling the rush of warmth from the hearth and the smiling face of her.

In a few moments, the two cloaked men came back out onto the porch, moving quietly beside Axel who was still watching the tradesmen toil away. “Bruth will see you now, friend”, the pair gave Axel a nod and then stepped down from the porch, moving back towards their posting at the lowered barricade that acted as the entryway to the sanctuary. Axel once again removed his hat, holding it to his chest, turned slowly on his heels, and headed inside to speak with the man called Bruth.

“Girl! Get over here and give me light!”

The young woman snapped her eyes open, pain jolted through her body like a slithering eel had crawled under her cold skin. It was as though it were the first words she had ever heard spoken aloud, yet she understood their meaning to be a command she must obey. Thoughtlessly, she hurried to catch up to the rough man barking the command, every bone in her body begged her to run and hide, but her mind commanded her to obey. She stopped beside the man, his wide shoulders and muscular body casting long shadows over her even in the pitch black of the night. The woman raised a delicate hand out into that darkness, her fingers curled around a shape that was not there, with a strain she concentrated on the command. I am ordered to make light, I must obey. In the soft white palms of her hand flickered a small point of light, as though an unseen force was striking flint against a stone. The tiny flecks of light danced around in her palm, coalescing into a tiny globe that formed into the curled shape of her fingers like it was always there until it reached the size of a small apple. Her eyes burned and itched at the growing light, and for the first time, she saw her hand and arm stretched out in front of her, they were an arm and a hand she did not recognize as hers. The growing light illuminated a few feet around the two, lighting up the foul face of her commander.

She did not recognize the face that appeared out of that shadow; dull grey skin, rotten yellow teeth, greasy dark hair, and scars across the lips. A vascular grey hand wrapped painfully around her wrist, and a second hand moved in the darkness to wrest the globe of light out of her palms. The horrific creature that stood there in the blackness sneered and grinned awfully, lifting the globe to its ghastly face to examine it.

“You’d better be worth the coin I paid for you”, the ghoulish man hissed through crooked teeth as he moved the light back and forth in front of her face. The young woman’s eyes watered at the breath that seeped out from his cracked and scarred lips, but she did not react.

She felt nothing and made no response, instead, she continued to examine her hands again, trying to make out the purple streaks of color that wrapped around her skin. The woman did not recognize herself, the man, or her surroundings. Thoughts came into her mind and left as quickly as they appeared, she seemed unable to reason or think for more than a few moments before an unseen wind blew them out of her head as if they were dust on an ancient tome. Every time the dust of her thoughts was carried away, her mind would burn as she strained to read what was under that dust, only to be replaced by another layer of confusion. It was then that she realized she could not form words or speak, could not answer whatever the foul man in front of her had just said. Terror followed by emptiness in a never-ending cycle was all that her mind was capable of at this moment.

“They’ve done a thorough job at breaking your mind haven’t they?” The hideous man waved his gnarled hands in front of the young woman’s face, her expression remained blank except for a slight twinkle in her eye that indicated a keen intelligence locked away behind a tremendous pain. “Let us see if you are capable of more”. The large ghoulish man pulled her roughly by the wrists through the darkness, a seemingly unnecessary show of force as she was incapable of resisting his commands. After a few moments of being dragged through the impenetrable darkness the ghoul halted, and the woman stayed as still a tailor’s mannequin. “Light!”

Once again, the woman obediently raised her hand into the odd claw shape, the sparks formed and congealed until they formed that spherical globule of yellowish light. The ghoul snatched it out of her palm and held it out in front of him, his other lengthy arm pointed a greying finger off into the darkness and the woman turned her head to follow it. Past the light of the sphere, the young woman focused her eyes and could make out several figures kneeling on the ground, their arms raised above their heads. Her eyes traced the silhouettes to their wrists and she saw that they were fettered by chains to an iron ring anchored into a smooth stone wall. The figures seemed unconscious except for one who raised its head to look at the pair. “Please...“, it croaked in a voice that was distinctly human but hoarse from injury or weakness. A throaty, rattling laugh gurgled from the ghoul’s lips, “You dare to beg me, priest? Or is it that you call in pious vanity to Lyris? She can not hear you down here...” The ghoul trailed off and gurgled out another hideous laugh that rang out in hollow echoes around the blackened chamber.

“Y-you are wrong, dark one... Lyris walks among us” the imprisoned figure hoarsely coughed out, even through the dim light a smile was slowly forming on his dried lips.

The ghoul hurried forward to grab the figure by the throat with his free hand, lifting him off of his knees, the light from the globe now clearly illuminated the thin, dying man. The chains around the prisoner’s wrists jangled against the stone wall as the ghoul lifted him high into the air and pinned his body against the cold stone wall. The woman watched blankly, something inside of her mind wanted to scream out, but still, she remained motionless, a prisoner within herself. The woman watched as the fettered priest turned away from the furious, ghoulish man and the shackled man slowly turned his head to face her, “Our prayers have been answered! I see it in your eyes...” The prisoner’s moment of revelation was cut short when the burly ghoul dropped the globe of light onto the stone floor, grabbing the chained man with both hands and smashing his torso against the wall. A sickening crack of ribs and a desperate gasp of air were all that was heard as the ghoul crushed him against the stone. The light sphere began to roll along the floor away from the prisoners, the chamber falling into blackness again just before the ghoul cracked the man’s skull against the smooth stonework. There was a moment of black silence as the woman stood motionless in that darkness.

“LIGHT!” The ghoul screamed, and the young woman was quick to obey. This time the globe formed quickly as though the mindless woman sensed the urgency and anger in the ghoul’s shrieking rage. The ensorcelled woman held the globe up, patiently waiting for the ghoul to reach for it. Instead, the horrifying gaze of the angry ghoul leaned towards hers, the sour breath hot upon her face as he growled low, “Kill the rest of them”. Quickly the ghoul spun around and disappeared somewhere down another corridor to leave the young woman standing there alone in the chamber with her globule. Her head tilted in an inquisitive motion in the direction she thought the ghoul had gone but remained still, unsure of the last order. “Use the magic you were gifted, burn them, turn them inside out, whatever it is you witches do. I’ll come back for you in a few days.”

The woman lifted the light higher, circling the dark chamber to get a count of how many men were chained in this prison. Somewhere deep inside her soul, there was a screaming pain, a howling regret of sorrow at what she was about to do. Yet, despite this turmoil within, the woman would obey wordlessly.

The dancing fire in the hearth stung at Axel’s fingertips as he warmed his hands, the tired old warrior rubbed at the skin ruefully, it hadn’t developed into frostbite but had he spent another night out in those woods he may have come dangerously close. Bruth had been welcoming, offering the traveler his hearth and a hearty bowl of meat and gravy before the two had even properly made their introductions.

“Axel was it? Not a Vayan name I don’t believe,” Bruth approached from the side, joining the man at the hearth holding two steins of frothy ale. Axel accepted one with a nod, taking a polite sip but being cautious not to look desperate for a drink. “Relax friend, I ain’t here to dig into your past... just curious why a fighter like you would come so far on foot.”

The sip of cool ale calmed Axel’s nerves and soothed his scratchy throat, he searched his mind for the right words to say. On one hand, he wanted to approach the conversation with as much honesty as possible, yet there was much about himself he wasn’t eager to reveal. “Nay, not an Empire name... or at least not Vayan. My family didn’t join the Vayan Empire until my father’s lands were taken in the Battle of Mount Vanir.”

“Ah, a mountain man,” Bruth smiled teasingly “but you don’t look like you’re here to snatch up our women and children”. Even Axel had to grin, turning his head towards Bruth and raising his stein back to his lips. His family wasn’t from the barbarian bloodlines of the mountains, it was true, but back in the days of the war, there was still a lot of prejudice towards the men and women that lived so far from the core of the Vayan lands.

“Nay, I ain’t here to take nobody” he paused momentarily before taking a larger gulp of the ale, the suds coated the long unshaven mustaches of the traveler before he remembered his manners and wiped them clean with the torn sleeves of his ragged shirt. “Just another man running away from his problems”.

Bruth scratched at this long, neatly kept beard and took a step forward to tap his stein against the newcomer’s nearly empty one. “Yeah, we get a lot of that. The cold season is coming, and we are still pretty short on meat and furs, if you wish to earn your keep here I’d ask if you were any good with a bow”

Axel sipped at the last remnants of foam at the bottom of the stein, setting it down on a nearby stool and raising his hands back up to the warmth of the hearth, responding with a short nod to Bruth. “I can shoot well enough, I’m a good tracker but I was always better with a sword”.

His new acquaintance’s eyes dropped to the thick leather belt around the waist of the traveler, coming to a stop on the simple-looking holster strapped to his hip. He opened his lips, wanting to comment on it but then stopped. Meeting Axel’s cold stare, he realized the man didn’t want to talk much more about swords or what he might have used them for in the past. “Hm, well we can get you a bow. We’re a bit short on space, but there are still a few small rooms available in the tavern. Well, it’s more of a bunkhouse. You’ll stay there for a while until we see what you can do... you build up some trust and help us out around here and we can look into getting you some better accommodations.”

Axel turned to stare long and hard into the fire for a moment of contemplative silence, “I ain’t got any money to pay for a tavern room”. The old warrior patted demonstratively along his belt, indicating that he didn’t have a coin purse. His face looked almost ashamed or apologetic as Bruth studied him for a short while before snorting.

“Coin? We don’t have any use for Vayan money here, friend. Everything here is paid for through sweat equity, we trade goods or labor and services amongst each other. There are a few of us who travel back south to Empire lands to buy some things we can’t acquire here, but that’s the extent of it. Everything you see here we try to make for ourselves, if we can’t grow it, build it, or craft it... well, we don’t find a lot of use for it.” Bruth chuckled a bit as he explained. The handsome Bruth reached for Axel’s stein off of the mantle and refilled it from a sizable wooden cask he kept on the other side of the small sitting room. “So friend, what do you say? I’ll send you out with a few of the hunters tomorrow morning, we’ll see if we can find a use for you.” Bruth pushed the stein back into Axel’s hands and tapped it once again with his own before taking a long gulp.

“Alright, friend.”

The morning was miserably cold, made worse by the necessity of both men having to remain perfectly motionless behind the fallen tree. Axel pulled his cloak quietly up over his mouth to hide the steam from his breath as he lay in the snow, still as a white owl. The wind was dying down as the day stretched into the warmer hours just before noon, but it was still difficult to listen for the sound of breaking branches over the quiet rustle of the breeze and the slight shiver of his chilled old body. His partner lay on his belly, only a few meters away, flat enough to watch through the trees in the gaps where the fallen logs had split, it was a good spot to use as visual cover for the approaching game they had been stalking all morning. Neither of them had managed to spot the stag yet, but Axel had insisted the trail they had found would loop back around the treeline towards the creek where the animal could come to get a drink before laying down in the afternoon. All they had to do was wait for it.

Axel took his eyes off where he thought the game would approach to size up his hunting partner. Bruth had told him the young boy was one of their best hunters, but Axel thought the boy had to have been far too young and inexperienced. The boy’s fingertips didn’t show the callouses of an experienced archer, nor were his muscles well developed from dragging dead game animals through thick brush. The old warrior did have to admit though, that young Kellard moved quieter than most and seemed to have good instincts for hunting. Axel himself wasn’t the most experienced hunter either but had a lot of practice tracking. The two of them worked well together that morning and now all they had to do was sit and wait.

In that silent waiting, the old warrior began to feel uneasy, the stalking and waiting reminded him of a time when he hunted and tracked a different prey. The hair on his arms prickled, not from the cold but from a rising instinct within, he quietly scratched at his arms to dispel the feelings. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus on the moment and bring his mind out of the past, but all he could envision behind his eyelids was the color of blood. Snapping his eyes back open and shifting uncomfortably in the snow, he saw the Kellard turn his head toward him and gesture for him to keep still. Axel felt an irrational anger at the young man, an anger that burned through his skin and raised his hair again, he tried to shake it off by reaching for his flask but quickly remembered that he had left it back at the sanctuary. Get ahold of yourself, dog... he heard a voice in his ears that wasn’t his own. The familiar sounds of that voice ran through his head and down his clenched jaw when young Kellard jumped up onto the fallen tree, swiftly drawing back his bowstring for just a quick moment before releasing it with a twang.Thunk!

“Axel I hit it! Hurry!” he called over to the old warrior, crouching down to grab a fresh arrow from the quiver he had set to the side of the tree. Shaking his thoughts loose, Axel swung himself up onto the tree beside his partner just half of a second later, and seeing the flash of brown fur in the tree line he knew that he only had a moment before the stag took off running and they’d be following a blood trail for the rest of the day. Axel raised his bow, lining up his cheek with the straight shaft of the arrow, drew back with a breath, and held it for a heartbeat before releasing it.

thunk!

“Good shot old man!” Kellard exclaimed, swinging his legs down from the tree and dashing through the clearing toward the felled beast. “We got a fat one here!” the young hunter slung his bow and quiver off his lean shoulder to lean up against the torso of the downed animal, reaching for the sharp ranger’s knife strapped around the calf of his boot.

“Way to go kid, now you can put that knife to use and dress the poor thing”, the old hunter patted the kid on the back to congratulate him.”

You know, a little help with it would get us back home faster”, the kid whined as Axel walked back over to the fallen tree, sat down, and began to rub his numbing fingers together to warm back up.

Axel shrugged with tightness in his shoulders as he watched the kid kneel over the stag to begin the bloody process of removing the organs and bleeding it out, “I seem to have left it back in my room... ah, don’t gimme that look, I did forget to bring it. You clean it and I’ll carry it back, deal?”

The young Kellard twirled the knife a few times in his hand, realizing there was no point in further whining, and set to work. “Hey Axel, you wanna head out again in the morning? I’d bet we can kill a few more deer before the really heavy snow comes.”

“Yeah sure, kid.”

“So you’re gonna stay in the sanctuary?” Kellard glanced up from his bloody business towards Axel, the steam rose from the fresh kill as it was gutted open and Kellard scratched at his nose with the back of his hand.

“Nowhere else to go.”

Kellard continued, a slight smirk playing at the edges of his mouth, “You old men always say that; you know the coastal lands to the south don’t belong to the Empire right? Been thinkin’ I might go there myself one day”.

“South is a long way to go for a young lad with no gold, horse, or experience on the road”, Axel remarked casually, he’d often thought about the coast and what the people there might be like. He had not been that far south during his days as a soldier, most of his deployments were on the eastern borders sniffing out spies or rebels. With another effort, he cleared the memory of those days from his mind.

“I know that, but how long can we stay hidden from Vayan lords up north? There have already been rumors that Lord Ahrin has been stationing his men along the borderlands, it’s only a matter of time before they decide that these lands should be brought into their control again.” Kellard kept to his work, although Axel could tell the young man was contemplating the very real possibility that the northern lands would not be safe forever.

Axel sat quietly on the tree, he had to admit that Kellard was probably right, he hadn’t personally seen any of Lord Ahrin’s men along the border when he was making his sojourn to the north but it was obvious that with Ahrin’s lands so far north that he would one day soon look to expand his holdings. The Emperor would be more than pleased to hear that one of his Lord’s would take the initiative to capture the rest of the north for him, and Lord Ahrin was no fool, he stood to gain a lot of imperial favor if he could establish a foothold in the lawless lands. The old warrior had to wonder if places like the sanctuary or the lawless towns around the northern valley passage could muster a militia capable of holding off the advancement of an ambitious Lord. If the northern hamlets managed to gather a force of fighting men, what then? They might be able to win a few inconsequential skirmishes, put up a defense of a town or two, perhaps even strike a victory in an open battlefield against Lord Ahrin but the reaction from the Empire would be a dangerous one. If the North was able to rout a Lord’s army, reinforcements would be called from other anxious Lords looking to prove their military might and gain favor with the Emperor.

“Not sayin’ we’re gonna get attacked tomorrow, or even this year... but what happens when the dogs of war come barking?” Kellard said with all seriousness in his voice and Axel cringed a bit at the phrasing of the statement.

Dogs. If only the kid knew. Once again, Axel’s mind was transported back to a time when he and his men searched the wastelands to the east for defectors, spies, and rebels. He remembered the dread feeling of disemboweling a man with a blade or claw. Crown Hounds they called us. It was a moniker that Axel and his men had been given by those they hunted and one that they had grown to accept. A handful of the Hounds had taken pride in the name, yet others like Axel had grown to resent the title, and what they had to go through to acquire it.

His thoughts were interrupted by Kellard rising to his feet, “Come on old man, let’s get this deer home”. He wiped his blade clean on the fur of the deer and slipped the knife into the strap of his boot.

Heaving the deer over his shoulder with a grunt, Axel followed the young hunter along the game trail and out through the thick woods, and back to the sanctuary.

Cold steel shackles chafed at the woman’s wrists as she reached into the basin of water, the dried blood caking her hands flaking off and clouding the water with red. The moment before the water turned bloody, she saw her reflection on the surface of the still water and it was a reflected image of a woman that she did not recognize. Frustration burned at the edges of her mind like a secret letter being burned at the wick of a candle, and the clandestine contents of her burning mind were unable to be read. The woman she saw in that water had long greasy blonde hair, matted into dreadlocks from dirt and filth. The water in the basin rippled and turned bloody red as the image dissipated, and as if to confirm what she saw in the water, she raised her hands to her head to feel the matted dreadlocks. Chafing and the rattling of the manacles at her wrist rang out in the dimly lit chamber, the only light source being an oil lantern hanging somewhere above her head. Whether it was the darkness or the frustrated haze of her mind, she could not discern where she was, only that she had been commanded to wash herself and she was to obey the command. Frustration rose again as she splashed her hands in the water and attempted to wash her face clean, regardless of how hard she attempted to exert mental control on her thoughts it was like trying to open a door with an infinite number of locks.

Each time she tried to focus and force open one of the locks, there was an endless amount of them, each lock varying in size, shape, and complexity. It felt impossible for her to think, to form a thought, to reason, to have an emotion, to feel an instinct. The only tasks her psyche was able to rationalize were the strict obedience to following commands. Self-recognition, memories, control. All of these were sealed tight behind the doorway of her locked mind.

From somewhere in the shadows a rag came flying towards her like a bat that had died and fallen from its perch in a cave, it landed on the stone floor in front of the basin. The shackled woman reached for the rag to dry her hands and face, something inside her compelled her to do it, as though she knew that part of her obedience to the given commands was to scrub herself dry. As the rag wiped away a layer of dirt and blood from her arms, the mindless woman’s eyes scanned the marking on her arms. Even if she couldn’t comprehend what they were, she saw tattoos marking her skin and coiling around her forearms and up to her shoulders. Faded purple ink marked her skin, the image was of a long linked chain, starting at her wrist and wrapping around her thin arms up to her shoulder. Somewhere in her consciousness, she struggled to understand what the markings were, and who might have given them to her. Those thoughts were quickly erased and sealed behind the locked door, her eyes seemed to ignore the markings now as she cleaned the dried blood and dirt from her skin.

“This experiment was a success, wouldn’t you say?” a rattling voice broke the darkened silence from beyond the dim light of the lantern. “We’ve tested the power you have, and now that power belongs to me.” A grotesque laughter cut through the darkness, as did the familiar shape of a grey and wretched ghoul.

Her master stepped quietly into the circle of light, the only sound was a wheezing breath as he crouched down on the opposite side of the wash basin. “...and we know that you can kill on command. You’re going to be well worth the price I paid for you, and we have much more work to do.” The odor of the grey man’s rotting mouth assailed the enslaved woman’s senses, yet she did not react, her soulless gaze remained still as she met the eyes of her master in obedient silence. With a cough, the master rose to his feet again, the joint in his knees made a cracking sound as he straightened himself out. Reaching down, the master gripped her by the wrist to pull the slave to her feet. Her chafing wrists protested the rough handling of the master’s hand, but she stood up quickly. The rhetorical questions from the master settled over the dark room like a funeral shroud, punctuated by the rattling wheeze of this breathing. Still holding tight to her wrist, the ghoul lifted the lantern off a swaying hook and led her through a wooden door that looked like it had been shattered by a battering ram. The slave girl stumbled a few steps over the wreckage of the door as he led her past the threshold and down a corridor. The lantern rocking back and forth in the master’s grotesque hand did very little to illuminate the interior of the narrow and cold hallway, but at the end of the passageway, the slave could see a faint pinprick of light shining its way through what seemed to be a circular exit to the outside. As they approached, the small circle revealed itself to have been dug out like a tunnel. Fresh air greeted the two as they stepped through the tunnel and out into the fading light of a late evening. Outside the exit was a wide valley cut between two peaked mountain tops that rose from the earth like ancient stone sentinels, behind them the tunnel seemed to have been dug out of the hard rock at the base of one of those sentinels. To one side of the tunnel was a rounded boulder that appeared to fit perfectly into the spot where the opening had been dug. The chains relaxed around her wrists as the master released his hands from her, he eyed her suspiciously for a moment as though she might be capable of running. Then he snickered to himself, knowing that wasn’t a possibility. The master walked a few steps away from her and with a strength that seemed preposterous for such a wretched-looking man, he pushed his hands against the rounded boulder, easing it into place to seal the tunnel behind them. The sound of rock grinding against rock bounced off the mountains and was carried down the expanse of the valley as the ghoul set the massive stone into place. The master coughed into a stained and tattered sleeve, the effort seemed to strain him. The slave stood like a terrified rabbit as she watched him wipe his disfigured lips on the hanging sleeve of his robe. A gnarly finger pointed at her accusingly as a look of hateful anger crossed the master’s face, “Do you think I’m weak? Does my body look hideous and sick to you slave?” The grotesque man coughed again into his sleeves, the tattered fabric masked his sneering mouth as his breath rattled and strained. “Answer truthfully, I command it”, his voice began to calm as his coughing slowed.

A mixture of confusion and terror ran through the slave girl’s mind like a ship caught in a storm at sea. Waves of apprehension crashed against her as she struggled to obey the command, “Yes... you are weak”. Something in her mind forced her to answer his question, yet another small part of her that still had some semblance of logic told her that it was a rhetorical trap.

Cackling madly, the ghoul limped over to her and pulled the collar of her ragged shirt towards him. “She speaks!” he gurgled, half mocking and half taunting her. The ghoul released her collar and she stumbled backward, he began to circle her like a spider who had caught a fly in the center of its web. A spider acts purely on instinct, eating flies and laying traps only because that is what a spider does. The ghoul, however, took pleasure in playing with his food and saw this as a game for his amusement. “If I am so weak, why do you not run? Why do you obey?” his voice was sharper than a razor’s edge and just as dangerous. He continued to slowly circle her, looking as though he might suddenly devour her whole.

The storm in her mind continued to rage on, these questions weren’t a command like the ones before. Still, she knew somehow that she was meant to answer them. “I can not...“, her answer was cut short as the ghoul leaped forward and tackled her into the hard ground. Pinning her shoulders down and nearly crushing her small frame beneath his weight he brought his face up to hers and hissed, “No, you can not!“. The stench of his breath was hot against her face, but she offered no resistance while he exerted his power over her. “You belong to me, your power belongs to me!” Spittle dripped from the scarred mouth of the hideous man as he rejoiced in his dominance, “You’re a tool and a weapon, nothing more. Do you understand?” Her answer was unable to escape her gasping mouth as his weight pressed the air from her lungs, all she could manage was a weak nod and a pitiful squeak. The cloud of her mind swirled, and she knew she could do nothing but obey. Satisfied that he had asserted his power over her, the master let some of his weight off of her chest. The slave girl took a sharp inhale of breath, a vague look of fear was still visible beneath her nearly blank expression. Deep in the recesses of her mind, she struggled again to beat on the door that kept her free will locked behind it. Perhaps a lock or two broke and fell away, but still, there was no freedom and no action for her to take against the burdensome yoke of whatever it was that kept her soul chained. Getting back to his feet and reaching down to grasp one of her weak arms, the master pulled her forcefully back into a standing position and let her go as he began to cough into his sleeves. Brushing some of the dirt from the front of his long black robes, he led her by the wrist down a hard-packed trail that cut its way through the valley.

A cool breeze began to blow as the sun sank below the crests of the mountain peaks. Long shadows from the treeline stretched across the valley ominously as the first signs of twinkling starlight appeared in the darkening sky. The master did not command his slave to summon her light globe to help them navigate to wherever he was leading them. His hardened fingers gripped a little more tightly at her wrists as he lead them on, his free hand pointing further down the trail to a spot where the mountains abruptly ended and the valley opened up into a larger swathe of forested land. Despite the darkness of the late hour, the slave girl was able to spot multiple flickering orange lights on the edge of the forest. The orange flickers were the fires of lit torches, she recognized, and a swell of unease rose in her stomach. The master tugged again at her wrist, spurring her on to follow towards the lights. As they approached the torchlight, she saw several covered wagons arranged in a half circle around a group of tall figures wearing the same style of long robes as her captor. The feeling in her stomach grew more sickening, her base instinct trying to warn her of impending danger, but the overwhelming oppression of her clouded mind forced her to remain emotionless and obedient. Each of the tall figures took turns pulling back the hoods from their faces, revealing each one to be more horrible looking than the last. The torches each one of them carried sputtered in the wind, their ugly features highlighted in shadow by the dancing of the flames. Two of the dark-robed figures were revealed to be raven-haired women, their skin oily and scarred in much the same fashion as the slave girl’s master. The other two could have been siblings of the master himself, each of them with cracked lips and ghoulish facial features. All four of them had their sallow eyes fixed directly on the slave girl, her gaze subconsciously lowering to the ground in subservience.

“So this is Graylen’s little project?” one of them coughed out, turning to question the master.Beside her, the master nodded his head in reply, “Yes it is, and I’ve personally tested her. He’s done his best work on this one, she is powerful and obedient.”

“Let me see the markings”, another of the four spoke out. The master lifted the slave’s arm and moved it forcefully into the light of the torches. The purple chain tattoos that spiraled around her arms reflected off the flames.

“Remarkable”, said one of the raven-haired women as her long fingertips stroked softly along the lines of the tattoos.

The slave girl wanted to recoil from the touch, as though she were stung by a venomous insect. She held still as the women examined every inch of the purple markings inked into her skin. The women made sounds of approval and curiosity as they turned her arms over and ran their slender fingertips across her skin like a nasty centipede.

The master at her side was fixated on the covered wagons, his slimy tongue curled along the edges of his mouth as though the wagons were filled with savory meats. The two cloaked figures that weren’t busy examining the girl took a step towards the girl’s master as if to respond to his wordless questions.

“Sacrifices. Destined for the hole.” Said one in a smooth, low tone of voice that commanded a measure of authority. “We hope to refill them soon, if she’s ready.”

Her master nodded low, his hood slipping back over his head and shadowing his face once again. “I’ve seen her handiwork. It will be a remarkably easy task, but again I ask... why do we not wait for Lord Ahrin to make a move?”

The authoritative voice spoke once again, this time there was a hint of resentment, “We’ve discussed this already, Graylen wants us to move before Ahrin does. The last thing our project needs is an upstart lord with some victories under his belt starting to poke his nose around in the north.”

The girl’s ghoulish master seemed frustrated and indignant, “Graylen himself won’t even commit to our cause! Why do we continue to entertain his requests?”

The man with the low voice stepped closer to the master as if to strike him but remained calm, “Need I remind you of what we might face if Graylen didn’t turn curious eyes away from us? Our project is in the crucial stages now, it is by his grace and... other temperaments that we can operate.”

The ghoul spat on the ground but seemed to give up the argument, “So you say, but soon enough we won’t need him or any other Mayj. I just don’t want Graylen thinking he is a part of this, even if his interests might prove useful to us.”

The low-voiced man nodded in agreement, “I understand. We will cut him loose when the time is right and we have what we need. In the meantime... sacrifice.”