Crimson streaks rolled down the eyes and mouth of the pallid corpse. A innocent woman whose chest, right above the heart was punctured with a black bladed dagger. Still the weapon pinned the body to the frost hardened soil. In the gloom of the night, a figure comes out through the icy covered brush.
Looking over the murder scene, the dark glad adventurer looked over the body. Warmth had left the frigid corpse, whatever love that resided within was bled out through the attack. Tattered dresses, rough bruising on her wrists, and a still moist crimson stain around her virtue.
Smells of carnal violence hung in the frosty air, it was clear she was raped, robbed of all semblance of humanity. Over her body he could see the markings of demonic harm, it was burned into her skin as if it were tattoos.
‘Incubus…’ the word was a vile wad of discontent upon the lips. Foaming out in a wretched sting that harms the very air once spoken. Telltale prick marks, large circular, digging into the veins of the neck, as if bitten into by gigantic mosquitoes.
Sniffing the air, it was evident it was befouled by a demon of the flesh. Rising above the body, he poured crumbled consecrated Hosts upon the body. Before placing a small wooden crucifix into her grasp. The gravedigger will give her body some peace, once he had spoken to him, but he had to make sure the body remain undisturbed by further evils.
Howls in the night gave him cause for concern. Night’s hunters were on the prowl for flesh, and he didn’t have the will to take the body with him, while possible fending off such beasts. Covering the body in sticks and rocks, he left continuing his way to the nearest sign of civilized dwellings. Following the moon and stars as if it were a map stitched into black velvet.
***
Morning came and the gravedigger along with the sheriff and his men, pulled a wagon into the cloistered town of Saint Samuels. Bells rang in the murky dawn, and the grievous news of death had stricken the women, and terrified the children. Men carried clubs and blades on their belts, expecting it is not the end of danger.
Every shadow became the phantasm of death, and even the air carried the mystic sensation of a deathly numbness. Whether it was their imaginations getting the best of them or a supernatural dread, it was affecting them hour by hour. By noon the grave was dug, and family and neighbors of the girl gathered at the grave to give blessings for the dead.
A dark stranger was also there, by a gray barked tree, overlooking the ceremony. Everyone there from the Sheriff to the Priest saw him, but none dared approach to question him, and dispel the dangerous suspicions that clung to him as a secondary skin. Though he told them of the girls murder, and led them to the body, he was a unknown to them, and although many suspect another force ended the girl’s life, he appeared just as sinister.
Despite not wearing a foul veil around his person, he was dark, and soft spoken as was the one they feared in the mountain pass, overlooking their valley homesteads.
Parishes and counties within the vale, are at the mercy of the south-western checkpoint, which had of late been under peril by ravenous wolves, and the master of the northern pass—Duke Doth Raku, chooses to not intervene from his castle.
Within the elevated steppes of the mountain side, Castle Cuptor has been shrouded by plumes of smoke. A deep fire rages in the furnaces of the mountain's cavities. Covering the castle and much of the mountain side in a thick smoke.
Through the castle foregate is the only other way to leave the valley, and no one dared approach.
Listening from unobserved places, the dark stranger already deduced the girl went up to the castle.
That place, that loomed over the graveyard, he could tell was the crèche of profane evil. Leaving the funeral undisturbed, he headed towards the castle. Entering the forest of dead trees that surrounded the mountains.
***
Months of conscriptions has yielded a military corps of nearly five hundred fighting men. Lieutenants oversee their divisions, as the Clay Captain oversees them all, riding among the gaps of the ranks, on a steed whose eyes as murky as a mud puddle, and who wears brass armor.
Under the black haze, a young recruit named Härthø of Salo was repairing the retention wall, separating the upper tiers of the castle from the lower battlements. Overlooking the army camp, he saw the banners displaying the Pale Chalice, wavers in the weak mountain winds
.
‘Cruton?’ Härthø got the attention of the veteran soldier, who was busy piling bricks, as the younger man was gawking at the camp below.
‘Boy, why must you distract yourself when work is needed to be done?’ the veteran chided him, as he roughly shoved a brick into Härthø’s hands.
Joining in on the work, the young recruit still wanted to ask a question that he was pondering. ‘Why does the Duke have such a flag?’ he didn’t know the proper words for things yet, but was eager to absorb the language of his elders.
‘Never you mind.’ the old, scarred chinned man answered with the harshness of a deathly cold. ‘You don’t speak of the Duke and his tastes…—’ he looked around as if to see if anyone was listening. Instinctively he looked to the ramparts above, to see if anyone was looking upon them from windows above. ‘—the Lord of this vale is cursed, don’t no one who speaks his name is known to live long.’
‘You mean Duke—’ before he could utter another sound, the youth’s mouth was covered by a muddy glove, that squeezed tightly as a vice, enough to cause pain.
‘Listen here boy. You lived a good deal long than most, but you won’t if you utter that name…he can hear if, no matter where it is spoken. And once he notices you—’ a paleness came to the tanned face of the old fighter. ‘—it is best that he doesn’t even know you exist, now keep quiet and lets finish this job.’
Hurriedly as the blackness started to deepen in the sky, as the smoke flowed out of the cracks of the mountains, they just managed to finish the wall before it was so dark to light a torch.
Cruton handed Härthø a torch, and led the way around the catwalk that bridged the outstretched balcony from the lower battlements. As they moved towards camp, the smells of poorly cooked rations soured the smoke that filled the air. Missing the coolness of the lowland air, Härthø considered going down the road to breath some fresh air, but the bodies of deserters hanging from the upper keeps walls forced down all thoughts of home.
The military was his life now, leaving his parents back at Salo, as he was preparing the defenses for a attack by the savages from beyond their lands. In the recent days since his conscription he hadn’t heard so many names of places and people he never heard before, and sounded so alien, as if it were a witch’s incantation.
Rejoining the camp, he heard many more names, of armies of dark skinned beast people who crave Christian blood. Such ghost stories made him shudder, and wish he was not there, preparing to hold off the incoming invasion. From what he had heard it wasn’t going to be a prolonged siege, just a relentless onslaught from the moment they arrived till they achieve victory, or are slaughtered to the man.
Looking up into the sky, as he joined his comrades around a roaring fire, Härthø tried to see the moon, but couldn’t through the dense blackness. As he was looking for it, his eyes caught a ghostly visage moving through the upper halls of the castle. Through the windows he saw a pallid blue face, with eyes as black as the smoke, seemingly floating above the shadows as it made its way towards the upper keep.
Feeling his mouth fall open in horror, he felt a quiver come to his lips, as he tried to utter words, his throat tightened as if it were punched together, forcing his silence.
As he was watching the head seemingly float in the castle, Cruton was trying to get the young soldiers attention, so he could join the group’s conversation.
‘Härthø... Härthø… Härthø!’ the older man firmly punched him in the arm.
Feeling the shock to his petrified body, Härthø leapt from where he sat, and as he landed, he let out the words that he was warned against uttering— ‘Doth Raku’ it felt as if he had acidic vomit trapped in his throat.
Coughing up stomach bile, those around the fire and within earshot were dumbstruck with horror at what he just spoke. Through squinting eyes, and a layer of tears he tried to see the pallid face again, and he did; those shadows were eyes should be were looking upon him, and he felt a tremendous terror.
He had broken the unspoken rule, and he was in the sights of the Duke, a rough pull from Cruton turned his gaze away from the Duke’s stare.
‘What have you done boy?!’ the old soldier, was aghast, uttering that word had driven most of the camp quiet, as they all began to wonder what pitiful soul spoke that name.
Härthø was in a daze as he looked upward, to see if he was still being watched by the floating head, but it was gone.
Fearful one of the Duke’s attendants or the Clay Knight himself might send for the youth, he urged the young man to his feet.
‘Come on boy.’ he commanded as he pulled him to his feet, then as if pulling along a dazed toddler, led him through the camp fires.
Men were drinking foamy beers and eating bitter soups, as the night deepened, and the commotion of their host reached its zenith. Climbing stairs, the old soldier could think of only one place to hide the young soldier for the night. Fearing he might be claimed that night, as was the way of the Profane Lord, they serve.
Moving around the foregate leading to the camp, cause it was guarded by the Duke’s personal guard. Grayish blue skinned men, who looked more like beasts from the tropical forests. Savage, and cretinous, they were not to be trusted to have any mercy for those that flee. Many men have hanged from being captured by them, some suffer worse fates as befit innocent souls taken to Sodom.
Finding the way to the desolate manor house, apart from one of the main keeps, near the lower edges of the mountain. Härthø began to smell a sort of freshness in the air, not as foul or harsh as the smoke filled air. It seemed almost blessed and hallowed.
Reaching a door, Cruton threw his weight at the door, that had been long stuck to age, and ill-repair. Joining in the older soldiers efforts, Härthø wasn’t sure what was the reason for it, but knew it was all for his benefit. Together they managed to budge the door from its rusted frame, as it soon swung open into a dark, cobwebbed filled room. No light shone in, through the filth covered glass windows.
Taking out his flint knife, Cruton stuck it against the stone till the spark brightened the room, and he saw something useable in the darkness. Grabbing it, he used his knife to create as spark and light the candle he retrieve in the shadows. The fragile light bloomed brighter, but not by much, and he led Härthø within, lighting the other candles, till the room was moderately lighted.
A cross was affixed to the far wall, above a dais where an altar once was, a groove left in the floor shown that it was once built into the room, but was chiseled out for some reason.
‘You’ll stay here tonight.’ the old soldier told his younger comrade. ‘Christ curse for whatever reason you said his name…but you did. Now this is your only salvation, wait here, he can’t enter here, and don’t come out till your ready for your duties in the morning. And no matter what, no matter who you hear, or think you hear at the door, do not open it, till I come in the morning.’
‘But…I don’t…’ Härthø was startled by what he saw, and was confused at the extent of his seasoned comrade’s actions. Finally he resolved to accept this and said. ‘Alright, I believe you know the best for me. God bless you.’
Cruton gave him one last wary look before he departed, but not before. ‘God bless you too boy, Christ knows you’ll need it.’ Closing the door firmly behind him, Härthø was left alone in the chapel as he sought out a place to lay his head down for the night.
***
Princess Gorwynn was locked in the tallest tower in Castle Cuptor. Constant rise of smoke had made her eyes swollen and bloodshot, and she struggled with the harsh burning in her throat from breathing. Dressed in virgin white, and wearing a reef blessed branches from the sahabi tree, she was looking out of the window to the tower. Gazing off into the distant horizon, wondering when her father would come and rescue her from captivity.
Then she heard it, looking to the mirror she placed next to her spot by the window, she saw the door open, and felt a horrible thing enter the room. Closing the door by invisible hands, she heard the wretched breathing of a covetous creature, posing as a man.
She didn’t not turn to meet his eyes. For she had once before and found only the faintest sign of pale eyes sunken into a decline of the creature’s skull.
‘Princess, you wound me.’ the voice spoke as if by a humble man. ‘Please do not scorn me, I am not your enemy.’
‘You are.’ the princess said with all the courage in her chest. ‘As you are of my father, and his father, and his. Generations you have haunted the women of my family, often to their grave. I have no want to indulge in any of your desires.’
A pitiful silence filled the room. ‘Your father will come. He will fight to breach my walls, you know he will fail. The stars are against him, and are with me.’
Princess Gorwynn did not answer, knowing it would further feed the creatures need for conversation, to explain its despicable nature in a more gentile light.
‘You only harm yourself…and your father.’ the Duke saw her back go rigid as a pole when he spoke about her father. ‘When he comes, he will die…unless you…love me.’ seeing her not react further, the vampiric nobleman started to leave the room, and spoke his parting words to her softly with some feigned remorse. ‘But we shall see how strong your resolve is when the battle is over.’ With that he closed the door, and left her with the gloom of her surroundings.
***
Night had descended, and there was a quiet rumble within the mountains, as the furnaces continued to burn. The bulk of the army was sleeping, and only the Clay Knight and the nights watch were prowling the ground. Midnight was close at hand, and a figure had climbed over a low point in the foregate wall.
‘Who goes there?!’ a voice barked out, as a patrol man, with ugly gray-blue skin approached the darkness, lantern in hand. Drawing out a sword, the patrol man was irritable having not had his share of beer that night, and was eager to make a beautiful valley man pay for his discomfort.
As he raised his lantern he saw a crouching shadow in the dirt. Approaching it he wasn’t sure if it was a hound escaping its master or a lump of indescribable rubbish. Getting closer was his folly, a bladed razor lashed out at him, as swift as a serpent, and slit open his throat. Blood poured out, and as he tried to speak, he found the cut had sliced the viscera needed to speak.
Dropping his sword, he tried to plead for mercy, but he was roughly dragged and flung over a sheer cliff face that overlooked a pitch black lake. Falling down at great speed his gurgling softly echoed during the descent, as he struck the water below, and sank into its surface.
Crouching low, he looked about the sleeping army, he saw no patrols would hinder his progress if he kept to the edge of the cliff face. Where no one thought of building a wall, it was easier to blend into the shadows with his black cloak and hood. Carefully plotting his course through the intersecting pathways through the war camp. Hundreds of sleeping and groggy men sat by their campfires, their senses lulled by the heavy smoke in the air and alcohol.
Nothing smelled right, and it was hard for him to hear over the quieted chorus of snores and grunts. Rounding a rock he almost stepped into the way of a approaching shadow, hiding back, and keeping his breathing low, he saw a tall, lanky figure passing where he hoped to tread.
Riding a horse, a Knight was on patrol, dressed in irreligious plate mail, he wielded a scythe bladed spear with serrated edges on its inner blade. Looking more akin to a overdressed torturer, the trespasser didn’t expect seeing such a figure. Though he expected much more unnatural oddities lay within the demons hunting grounds. If he didn’t slay the evil, he expected the curse to extend beyond the valley, dooming more good Christians to its plague of misery.
Sneaking around the passing horse, he couldn’t help but step in the firelight for a few moments, so he could cross the gap between shadows. Fortunately his coming was well camouflage by the shadow of a wandering soldier, awoken by the need to piss in the darkness.
Moving along with it, he passed into the greater shadows, and was now at the back of tents, pinned to the rocks to provide some shelter. No one was permitted to stay within the castle’s housings, as it seemed the master of the house was choosey on his guests.
Looking upwards he saw a stray candle by a window, and a face, a gorgeous, innocent maiden’s face. No doubt held against her will, and soon to be a source of feed for the incubus. Carefully he climbed a rock ledge, trying to elude the camp fires, he ascended digging his boots and gloved hands into the rock and soil.
Not till he ascended the rise was he spotted.
‘Vile wretch!’ he was spotted by the mounted Knight, obviously more observant than he intended to appear. Having turned back, and taking an alternative route, had cutoff the trespasser, exposing him to the light of a lit torch.
‘Taste by steel vagabond!’ with that he charged, holding his crooked lance to slice at the stranger as he attempted to dodge away from his attack.
Tucking in his legs, he rolled under swinging blade of the Knight’s spear, while avoiding getting trampled by the charging horse. Sliding in the rocks and dirty, he sprang up, and tried to move in leaps, rolls, and jumps in different directions. Doing this confused the horse, and annoyed the Knight’s pursuit. ‘Alarm! Alarm! Sound the alarm!’ he commanded, and those positioned at the bells, rang them to rouse the entire camp.
As more men came to the scene, he had little choice but to flee at the only available escape path. Where they were converging from above and below, he needed to fled down a set of stairs, to a undercroft, leading into the mountains. Hidden by shadows and a enclosing rock formation, the cave opening was brought to his notice by the Knight’s torch. Dashing towards it, he noticed he was enveloped by a haze of smoke in his descent, as he heard men and saw the light of their torches as they pursued him into the darkness.
***
Härthø awoke to the sounds of commotion from outside, an alarm bell was rung, and he was waking up from the hard stone floor. As he sat up, light headed, and sleepy eyed, he heard a more alarming sound as he heard a firm knock at the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
It had the appealing sound of a rattling sound from within a coffin. Saying quiet, he went into the darkness, staying hidden, as he remembered what Cruton told him before leaving. Looking out the dirt stained windows, he didn’t see the light from day, though he thought it might’ve been at first from the torch light that flared from high above the battlements.
Then he saw a hand, a blue pale hand wipe away at the dirt. Once enough of the filth was clear away, the hand was removed and a familiar horrific face looked in from outside. Shadowy eyes scanned within the dimly lit chapel, as if expecting to find something. Remembering that it was a hallowed place, Härthø trusted his comrade’s words and stayed out of sight. Hiding his face against the wall, as he no longer could stand looking at the monstrous face, the young soldier breathed shallow breathes till he heard a voice.
‘My Lord! My Lord!’ the sound of rustling armor followed and for the first time he heard the Duke’s words with his own ears.
‘What is it, my Clay Knight? What trouble you this night?’ the words were as harmonized as a wasp wing flapping, as it forces a baby to cry after puncturing its eye with its stinger.
‘My Lord, a trespasser, some stranger in black garb has infiltrated the castle, and it now below in the furnaces.’ there was a brief silence, followed by a irritated groan.
‘Must I be tested this of all nights? So rarely does one speak my name, and I am wanting.’ a slurping sound came through the air as sharply as a knife being sliced across sharpening stone. ‘This must wait…he can have tonight, tomorrow nail shut the door, and forbid anyone to enter here, it is off limits to all.’
‘As you wish my Lord.’
‘Now come, we must flush out this miscreant, he’ll be drawn to the Princess, as much as I am.’ then after a moment of silence, the presence of absolute evil vanished.
Härthø looked at the window and saw the face was gone, and he was alone in the darkness again. Quiet he prayed to God for some kind of salvation, to at least survive the night.
***
Deep in the mountains that surround the valley of man, is the Heart Of Devour, a hedonistic extreme of desire and want. Created by the Lord Of Devour, Osmin in the World Before. Having gone into foreboding caves, he was entombed by a cave in, only his skeleton hand sticks out of the rock. From the crack where his arm protrudes is a river of fire, that pours into the basin that feeds the furnaces under Castle Cuptor.
Known as the Ring Chamber, stairs and passages from above intersect there, where the smoke blows up from the crack in the wall. Upon the finger of the skeleton hand is a gleaming light of menace, a crimson star small enough to fit in one’s palm. The stranger having fled into the caves, had many close calls in his flight, as the Duke’s men flood the passages, and cut him off, forcing him deeper into the Ring Chamber.
There with the furnaces, and kilns used to make the Duke’s bewitching works. Once he descended a pair of stairs, he saw there was no were to flee, it was a dead end, leaving only to sweltering heat below a slope, where the fires burn around a massive cavern. All other stairways were blocked off by soldiers, their ugly faces, betray their demonic natures. With no escape, he climbed the slope around the pool of fire, and drew his rapier, preparing to fight them off hoping for a opening in their ranks.
As he stood ready, by the pool of liquid fire, he saw that his pursuers didn’t come to get him, he wasn’t sure what forestalled their approach, till he saw the fiend’s face appear through the ranks of his men. Even in the blood red fire, he saw the pale blue face of the demon was not changed by the deep red fire.
‘Du hast einen langen Weg zurückgelegt, um zu sterben.’
‘Your devil tongue does not beguile me, fiend.’
A bemused chuckle came from the large lips of the Duke as he wrung his hands together in contemplation.
‘It is my native tongue…sometimes when my heart just swells with pity, I speak it as a sort of prayer, for those that need it.’ opening his mouth in a bemused chiding grin.
‘Keep your tongue in your mouth, lest you lose it.’ the stranger slashed his rapier in the direction of the Duke, which made a his face sullen into wonderment.
‘Best you keep you rapier in your belt. Come, we may not be enemies, you are welcome to my hospitality if you so need it, all I desire is to know why you are here, and who you are?’ such a Faustian bargain was for fools and cowards.
Pulling back his hood, the dark face of a horned man looked back at the incubus’s with a righteous defiance. Horns curled up half-way formed into a raps curl, Ƶ challenged the insidious Duke.
‘You speak of me, as if I am a demon…yet you yourself are closer to the Dark One than I.’ his suffocating apathy broke to make his thick lips lift into a sneer. Despite this Duke Doth Raku fell no kinship with the stranger, as he would other denizens of the occult.
‘Unlike you demon, this does not repel me.’ he pulled from under his chainmail tunic a talisman of spite for evil creatures. A crucifix made of iron, that was tied around his neck by a thick string.
Just seeing the icon of Christ made Doth Raku hide his face in fear, as he trembled at just seeing it, backing away, he continued to the stairs, hiding the sight of the cross with his hands.
‘You speak proudly stranger. A shame you will die without me knowing of your name. May your death be swift…goodbye.’ gesturing to his men to approach the trespasser, the Duke climbed the stairs, leaving the intruder to his fate.
Cautiously the ugly guardsmen approached Ƶ, shields raised, spears poised to strike, climbing up the ramp. Careful not to fall into the pool fo flames below, without allow them to corner him, he flung his cloak at the front most one, and with wide spread kick, knocked the first one into the pond.
Letting out a terrible cry, the guard plummeting into it, and as his comrades watched in horror saw his eyes burst from their sockets, and his flesh melt before sinking below. While they were stunned Ƶ lunged forward, and stabbed his rapier into the neck of another. He clutched his neck, stumbling back, pushing the cluster of guards as he stumbled back.
However one of the them in the rear aimed a spear and threw it at Ƶ, swiftly it stabbed into his shoulder, the chainmail barely proving a barrier between his flesh and the sharpened wood. Pulling it out, he threw it back, and nailed one of them in the eye, but this time, several more returned fire, and he couldn’t dodge all the attacks.
One sliced open his right ear, and the other chipped his horn, while the rest he barely dodged, scrapping at his protective mail and gloved hands. Violet blood leaked from his horn, as he steeled himself for another attack, despite his effort, they didn’t offer a break in their formation.
The next time they approached, it was unlikely he’d be able to fight them all off, picking up the spears they threw, he tried to frighten them off to give him time to think, but they blocked with their shields.
“You’ll die…accept a olive branch…and claim me.” words of some unseen speaker sounded in his head. Offering him hope for survival, at first he wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from, then he looked towards the crack in the wall. Above the flow of liquid fire was the skeletal hand, and on the ring finer was a crimson light.
With no where else to go, and no chance of fighting off all the men, he reached for it, and took the light into his hand. Immediately it burned his flesh, a corrosive sting, that ate away at his skin exposing crimson under flesh.
Once he touched it, he wanted to drop it, but the ring forbade it, and commanded him to wear it—but he refused.
‘No!’ he commanded, as fire filled his blood, and ran down the tips of his fingers. The rapier he held flashed with a blue flame, and shot out as if it were retribution by divine hands.
No defense against such a feat of sorcery, many of the guards were consumed by the flame, in moments their skin and eyes were evaporated by the heat. Leaving charred bones, and smoldering amendments to fall into a heap onto the floor.
Frightened by what they have seen, the rest fled, more fearful of the flame then they were failing their master, they disappeared from the chamber, leaving Ƶ alone.
The ring still burned in his hand, and putting it into a pouch only had it burn through the fabric.
“Use me fool…don’t waste my power.”
Ƶ saw its usefulness, but dreaded the cost of such a talisman in his hands. Wrapping a leather strap around his hand, he placed the ring into a groove of the strap and closed his fist around it tightly. Whether he used it or not, he wasn’t going to let it burn away his skin to wield it, as he left the chamber to continue his search, the fires went dark in the Ring Chamber.
The crack in the wall stopped flowing with liquid flame, thus emptying the pool below it, and eventually ending the flames in the furnaces below.
Without the flames, the smoke left the mountains, and the night air picked up, blowing away the noxious plumes into the distance.
***
The army was roused from their sleep, and forced into formations. A intruder had entered the castle, and they were to take their defensive positions until further notice. The night was still heavy in darkness, and as they manned their positions the soldiers experienced a chill in the air. That was a odd sensation for the heat from the mountains usually warded off such early winter gales, but that night, the smoke started to fade.
Air became light, and the cold deepened as the moon cut through the remaining smoke, shinning down a pale light. Cringing at its touch, the Duke as he walked his battlements, was tormented by the natural light of sun and moon. Unable to stand it, he let out a bemoaning hiss, as he whined and disappeared into the crypts of his castle.
‘What has happened to my curtain of shadows?’ the incubus considered the cause. Then he noticed the men he sent to dispose of the intruder were rushing from the cave passages. Putting his ear to the window he listened from the safety of darkness, in his underground sanctum.
‘Clay Knight! Clay Knight Sir!’
‘What is it spineless wretch.’ the Knight shot back, as he prepared to lead a patrol around the grounds.
‘The intruder, he…he…he got away Sir.’ the sudden fear at realizing his failure did not occur to the wretched thing till he stood before the Knight.
‘Vile fool!’ striking the guard with the blunt end of the lance. The Knight reeled back his horse, threatening to crush the cowering man beneath its massive hooves.
‘It wasn’t our fault, he called fire upon us! He is a demon a true demon!’
Those words once spoken made Duke Doth Raku realize what the trespasser had taken from its proper place. ‘The Ring.’ he cursed the talisman falling into another’s hands. He trusted it was kept away from scholars of the occult who would usurp its power, though he himself couldn’t wield it, he found its fires had helped in his nocturnal practices.
Since the smoke was gone though, he would fall prey to the light, as he had been a predator of the night. Once the sun rises, he will be forced to entomb himself, weakness will overcome him, and on rare, lightless nights would he be able to prowl about nights for sustenance.
Such things were unbearable to his attempts to retain power and gather more, he resolved to regain the ring and cast down the intruder.
‘Clay Knight…come to me, I have need of you this night.’ although speaking in a whisper, the Knight hearing its master went to the window of the crypt below the keep. Climbing off his horse, he knelt down and listened to his master’s words. Through the bars of the window the voice of the Duke came out as a hoarse weary creature stricken by some malady.
‘Listen to me, my Knight. Go into the castle and find the intruder, kill him, and take from him the Ring Of Devour, and return it to its place below the castle, lest I perish to dawn’s light.’
‘As you command, My Lord.’ with that the Clay Knight rose and went into the keep to search for the intruder, leaving his master to languish in the crypt, suffering from a desire to feed. Despite the moon blighting the sky, he had to feed, licking his large lips, he left his sanctuary, and decided to searched for a victim, one whose whereabouts he knew of that night.
***
Climbing up staircases that haven’t been climbed in nearly a century, Ƶ found himself accosted by small hairy spiders, and long centipedes. Walking into dense webs, and tripping on crumbling stonework, he persevered despite the suffocating darkness surrounding him, all while his hand stung from the burning of the ring even through the leather.
Opening his grasp he saw a blue illumination fill the darkness, allowing him to see once again.
‘Blessings.’ he said, as he saw the dark burn marks formed around his hand.
Continuing upwards, he sought the tower he saw the young maiden reside. Not wanting to see another innocent be killed by the villainous, life-draining, fiend, he resolved to save her as he needed to do, to achieve redemption for himself.
Climbing the rest of the stairs, he saw the stonework around him, take on sinister visages, as petrified imps lined the railings of the staircase. Sinister devils with chimeric faces, making hideous faces as if relishing in their misery. Reaching the final step, he looked about and found no door. Dreading having to descend the steps again, he rested on the walls, and by happenstance found a trigger in the stonework.
A hidden mechanism made by artisans back when the castle was first built, ancient pulleys and gears shifted, and a panel of stone move away, revealing a opening. Walking through he came to a long stretching hallway, that led out into the battlement on one side, and a set of stairs in the other direction.
Not wanting to go to the battlements as he saw men patrolling them with lights, he climbed the stairs. Through the windows he saw moonlight had somehow pierced through the darkness the veiled the castle. He might’ve looked out, but he saw a door at the end of the stairs, with candle light shining through the seams in the door. Climbing the stairs, he sheathed his rapier, fearing it would frighten the woman, and closed his fist around the ring, despite it burning his hand.
Standing at the door he knocked out of politeness, then he felt something stir within. He knocked again, and waited for someone within to say he can enter.
‘Come in if you must.’ a proud but delicate voice said through the door.
***
At first Princes Gorwynn expected her captor to be the one through the door, however she looked to the mirror, and saw a strange face in its reflection. First she thought it was a man, a foreigner with dark skin, till she saw his horned head, and strange eyes.
Turning around she looked over the man. ‘Who are you?’ she sounded aghast with surprise.
‘Fear not, My Lady. My name is Ƶ, I’ve come to rescue you.’ the man bowed his head, in respect.
‘Who sent you?’ she was hoping her father wouldn’t send such a weird vagabond to her rescue.
‘God, his hands had directed me to this evil place to slay its master, and I saw you in the tower window. It was as if the Lord God had directed me to your salvation.’
Doubt was on the Princess’s face, she wasn’t sure such a man could be trusted, but he seemed to carry a benevolence to him, that clung as if it were a halo of sainthood.
‘I will trust you, kindly Ƶ, if only to see my father, and prevent him from attacking this wicked place. The Duke’s curses maybe too much for even my father and his knights, I wish to go to him, so he has no reason to attack this place.’
‘As you wish, may I know you name, My Lady?’ Ƶ asked courteously.
The Princess’s first impulse was to rebuke the horned man, but she appreciate his civility and kindness of tone. ‘I am Princess Gorwynn, and it is my pleasure to meet you Sir Ƶ.’
‘I am no Knight, Princess, but I will do my best to honor such an assumption.’ together they left the tower, and went to the secret passage. Sealing it up once again, Ƶ led the way, using the ring’s light to guide their steps, as he cleared away the pests and their webbing.
After reaching the passage he first entered the tower, he backtracked his steps, to the underground passages. Avoiding patrols, and guiding his way through the gloom, till he saw the way he first entered the caves under the castle. Climbing out, he cautiously led the way, wary of any who may be laying in wait.
The Princess was close behind, but far enough to retreat there was a threat. Emerging from the cave, they climbed up the slope, to the courtyard surrounding the lower keep, no one was in sight, with a relief exhale, Ƶ climbed out into the open, then he saw struck by the blunt end of a lance.
Falling forward, he scrambled to get to his feet, but a curved sickle blade stabbed into his back, digging through the gaps in his chainmail to slice into his flesh. Letting out a deep groan of pain, thick streams of blood left his wound, and leaked down his back.
‘You believed yourself save, wretch!’ the Clay Knight taunted his enemy, as he twisted the scythe imbedded in Ƶ’s back.
Trying to pull himself away, Ƶ was pushed down by the heavy boot of the Clay Knight, who grounded his heel, as he dug the blade deeper into his new victim.
‘You cowardly dog! You have done enough harm to my master!’ pulling free the sickle blade, drenched in violet blood, he struct at Ƶ against with more impact. Causing the horned vagabond to scream out in agony, as he struggle to reach his weapon. The pain caused him to close his fist tightly around the ring, that continued to burn into his hand, he considered using it, but he didn’t want to fires to consume the Princess.
He tried to push back, but the Knight was too heavy for him to push off of him, and he was in too much pain to use more of his strength.
Seeing this, Princess Gorwynn was mortified her would be rescuer was in such turmoil, so she searched for something heavy to strike at the Clay Knight. The wicked servant of the Duke, she loathed him for so long, his cruel remarks, his torture of those under his command, which she witnessed through the window. She looked for a large rock, and once she found one with sufficient heft that she could carry, to went behind the Clay Knight, and with furious vengeance struck his helmeted head.
At first she expect a din of metal, as he seemed to wear bronze armor, but the metal of his armor was a mere illusion. As the rock smashed his skull, hardened chunks of clay fell off of a ivory skull. By some necromancy, human remains were transmuted into a clay golem, a subservient to its creator.
Crimson eyes looked back at the Princess, reaching for her, as she stumbled back in fright, tripping over herself. She let out a powerful wail which brought Ƶ to his feet. Finding strength in him, to push back against the pain, he ripped out the scythe bladder spear from his back, and tossed it over the cliff, then he grappled with the Clay Knight.
His eyes flaring with rage, as he gritted his teeth, and with a bestial snarl charged ahead tackling the Clay Knight, dragging him along to the edge of the cliff. A sheer drop below into the black lake below, struggling to remain on the ground, the golem was trying to retain control over the fight. However Ƶ was empowered by a zealous desire to punish wickedness and preserve a semblance of justice in a benign world.
Despite this urge, he started to feel weak in the legs, but he had a instant of epiphany. Taking the ring between his fingers, he thrusted it into the Clay Knight, jamming it into the eye of the skull. The instant the ring was pushed into the slick surface of the eye, the golem stopped moving, its entire body became wrecked with a seething suffering. Ƶ didn’t even need to push, it fell over the cliffside as if to hope the water below would extinguish the unbearable heat implanted into its body.
Looking at the descent, Ƶ watched as the clay automaton plummeted, and crashed into the black water, sending a up flow of water. Waves of the water rippled around the black pool, and the entirety of the body became to bubble and froth, overflowing from its confines, till in mere moments the water vaporized into a cloud of steam, that vanished into the air.
What was left was a empty crater, with a glowing cavity where the remains of the Clay Knight remained, crumble as the Ring Of Devour continued to glow with malicious radiance.
***
Knock. Knock. Knock. The ominous knocking on the door disturbed the quietness of the chapel, Härthø awoke to those sounds, and felt his chest become tight, as if a large hand was squeezing his ribcage.
‘Open the door.’ the voice softly commanded, it was laced with a sweet poison that swaddled him in a softly cold embrace. Despite the allure, he kept to the darkness of the chapel, not wishing to venture away, remembering the words of Cruton, ignore the words at the door. The night was not over, yet he began to have his thinking change, as if his straight thinking was twisted and malformed by the hands of a mind sculptor.
“Was it so bad if I open the door?” the thought didn’t scare him as he once expected.
Rising to his feet, Härthø felt a unwavering anxiety, a sort of feeling of a huge spider crawling around his chest and stomach. A lingering sense of incoming disaster, that was not abated by time but demanded absolution, a action to grant eternal release of all mortal dread.
Standing before the door, he wasn’t sure if he walked that far, his head was light enough it felt as if it wasn’t even on his shoulders. Panting and letting out a defeated whimper, he felt as a child going to a waiting parent’s knee, to be given a harsh spanking after a momentary slip of naughtiness.
‘Open the door.’ the soft voice called again.
Härthø put his hand on the door latch.
***
Ƶ and Princess Gorwynn were noticed by the Duke’s army. None however wished to engage them, as they saw him handedly defeat the Clay Knight, the overseer of their despair and obedience to the dreadful Lord of the Castle. Many of his personal guard with their animalistic faces retreated to the underground caves.
Those conscripted into service, saw there was no one guarding the gates to prevent their escape. Even the lieutenants looked to an easy escape, and they might’ve fled, if not for the appearance of a monstrous figure, moving as if floating through their ranks.
Duke Doth Raku seemed to come forth from a haze of shadow, to walk amongst his mortal underlings, a aura of self satisfaction seemed to leak through his continuously dreary face. Standing in front of his stunned, silent soldiers they looked upon the trespasser and his captive, and felt a mild twinge of envy that annoyed him to the slightest extent possible.
Breathing hard as if he ran there, a slurping hiss came through his teeth, as he looked between the Princess and horned interloper.
‘Indeed you have proven to be a despicable thing.’ the Duke looked up at the fading moon, relieved it not longer held must sway over him, now that he empowered himself with the elixir of life. Almost disinterested eyes turned to the blackened and slightly smoldering hand of Ƶ.
‘You no longer possess the ring. Where is it now?’
The question remained unanswered, till he approached them quickly, causing them to back towards the cliff. Both of them nearly falling over in a moment of fear.
Out of curiosity, the incubus lord looked over the edge as well, and saw the dried out lake, and the glowing spark of the ring down below.
‘I see.’ there came a slight sarcasm to his voice. ‘You couldn’t handle its power, as well as its previous master. If you had been as adept you may have prevailed with the ring’s power, although it didn’t much help its former master…I still remember his cries of dismay as I sealed him in his crypt.’ smiling the slightest of smiles, the memory of a being who being who suffered greater than him, made him almost giddy.
Taking advantage at this moment of distraction in the demon, Ƶ pulled free his rapier as swiftly as he could, and stabbed the other in the chest. The blade dug deep into the Duke’s heartless chest, as it seemed repelled by some sturdy substance. Seeing this impudent display, Doth Raku grabbed hold of Ƶ’s neck and lifted him in the air, as the struggling horned man grabbed onto the other’s collar.
In a rough motion, he tore off the demon’s shirt, and revealed the cause of its resilience to his weapon. Over the heart and most of the torso, a glimmering ceramic was used to fill in the gaps in the man-devil’s chest.
‘You see my shame…’ the Duke looked at his half eroded body. Once a heroic, steely chest had become half-formed, a living abortion of his humanity. Despite his warlock enchantments, he was a lich bound to a eroding corpse, as his soul stagnates into a Cancerous revenant of fading emotions and humanity. Slowly the white of his eyes lifted up to look Ƶ in the eyes, as he applied pressure to his neck. ‘...you are no different…we are all born to fade, only some a cursed to never be allowed to extinguish.’
‘Fiend!’ the Princess cried, as she had took the opportunity to take spear from one of the soldiers, and stab the Duke in his neck. ‘Die and rot with your Dark Master!’
Gurgling as his mouth filled with black ichor, the incubus, swatted away the spear, sending the Princess flying, but then he was blinded in one eye by Ƶ’s dagger. Not letting go of his hold, Doth Raku held tightly to his prey’s neck, and decided it was befitting to dispose of him, as he had done to his prized creation, the Clay Knight.
Lifting him over the sheer edge of the cliff, the incubus held him over the dried lake, intended to drop him, despite the cry of dismay from the Princess and the silent aghast gathering of soldiers, except one. A young soldier, by the name of Härthø staggered through the ranks. Holding a bloodied hand to his neck, to preserve what little of his life's blood remaining, he marched towards his killer. Though sparring him a final death, so much was taken from him, he was bound towards death without reprieve.
Formerly frightened by the fiendish predator of man, he was now an avenging avatar of the Lord’s will, with his last ounce of power in his veins, he would dispel the evil upon the valley. Stumbling forward, his approach was unnoticed by the Duke, who savored the fear in Ƶ’s eyes as he contemplated the drop below.
That was till he felt a weight, dislodge him from his sure footed stance. Knocking him forward, he instinctively let go of Ƶ, but as he was falling forward, he swung his arms back unintentionally, throwing his victim to safety. As Härthø sacrificing the last of his fading life, to purge the evil Duke from his perch. Pulling the wicked demon over the edge, both of them fell over the cliff, but as Härthø accepted his fate with graceful resignation, the other wailed a furious defeat as they descended to the darkness below.
After the fall both struck the ground, brave Härthø was mercifully taken into an angel’s arms during the fall, and felt no pain, whereas Doth Raku crashed into a spectacular combustion of his entire body. Limbs, blackened, dry organs, and a splash of vile black sludge covered the crater, as the still living head of the fiend looked up helplessly into the sky.
Wishing for an end, as he was crippled beyond his ability to repair, he heard the sound above, on the high cliffs of the mountains nests of song birds awoken, singing a song of welcoming. The sun had come far earlier than his dark magics would ever allow, and as if by the command of the Almighty himself, a golden twilight overcame the darkness.
Through the peaks of the mountain’s surrounding a vale, dawn’s light peaked over the top, and spread over the land, brining a promise of banishment of all supernatural wickedness from the land. Fearful and forlorn over his eternal punishment from a prolonged existence of sins, Doth Raku felt the unbearable heat of dawn wash over his remains, and ushered him into a total oblivion.
What remained of him, dried out into hard rock and dust, fading into the soil, leaving no trace of him behind.
With the dawn’s lights, the army gathered to protect the abode of evil disbanded, returning to their lives before the conscription. Allowing the Princess Gorwynn and Ƶ to enjoy the aftermath of a painfully won victory.
***
Cruton lingered at the foot of the mountains, just long enough to find the remains of his young ward. Bloodied and broken, the body was almost unrecognizable, without compromise used the spade with him to dig into the dry lake bed, and bury Härthø.
‘Jesus Christ, you are getting one Hell of a man.’ he prayed over the grave after he finished covering it with the last of the upturned soil. ‘Amen.’ With that he travelled forth to Salo to give tidings of his death to his parents, who would be waiting in vain for their son’s return.
***
Lord Augustus Brockfy had arrive at Castle Cuptor to the gates wide open, and his daughter waiting for him and his Knights at the front gate.
‘My daughter, pray tell me by what miracle do I see you not jailed or enthralled to that monstrous Duke?’ the Lord asked his daughter after he leapt from his horse to embrace his child.
‘Father it is by no miracle alone, a man by the name of Ƶ rescued me, and with the help of another poor soul destroyed the evil Duke.’
‘By Christ, this is a triumph!’ beamed the Lord at hearing this news. ‘Pray tell me where this brave rescuer is, I shall knight him for his courageous deed.’
There was a moment of sadness in the Princess’s eyes.
‘I am sorry father, but he believed you might have been prejudice against him for his appearance, admittedly he does have a rather discriminatory feature, that one might mistake him as vile as the Duke.’
‘Do you think so little of me child, that you believe I would rebuke your savior?’ the Lord looked warmly at his daughter.
‘Father, I asked him, no, begged him to stay, but he left with the raising of the gates, and I fear I cannot say which direction he left.’ she hung her head low, worried for the wandering soul, an outcast from the human race for his appearance.
‘Daughter, I will set my best knight’s to find him, he must be awarded for his actions. My honor would not allow less.’
Despite these words, Ƶ travelled by a forsaken path through the darkest routes that exist on the Earth. Becoming a fading phantasm that inspired myths and legends thereafter, and with each telling removing his malevolent features, turning him into a fictional figment beyond any truth there was to the tale.
Ƶ never saw the Princess again, and his journey was not yet over.
Epilogue -
As bright as the day was, there was a eerie disturbance that split the smokescreen between realities like a hatched through a chicken’s neck. Crimson stained the atmosphere, and around the dried lake bed, beneath the mountains where the demonic Duke met his end, a great prize was left unguarded.
Splitting the folds of firmly stated reality, a portal opened, a vacuous black thin that was neither round nor square, it had to firm shape, but sort of wriggled about in oblong constructs. Within this dark mass, a crimson glad figure emerged, dressed in seamless armor. No feature of his was shown through his armor clad shell, and despite his human shape, he was of great height, and imposing mass.
Walking as if he were a colossus among toys, he observed the surroundings, till he saw the glimmer of the discarded ring. No longer protected under its veil of bewitchment, it was ripe fruit to be plucked.
Using invisible hands, he reached out with them, and clutched the Ring Of Devour, and brought the talisman to his left hand. Upon it two of the Ruling Rings were already worn. The Ring Of Cancer and the Ring Of Zeus, one black the other white with unique adornments of design was worn on his forefinger and thumb. As the Ring Of Devour in its crimson heat rode his middle one.
‘Two more.’ stated the Red Paladin. Observing the world he inhabited currently had no current protections, he stripped it of all its psychic wards, and blackened it sun, as if it were in a eternal solar eclipse.
A crimson ring of fire surrounded the now black star in the sky, and a grim and permanent twilight covered the land.
Soon he will send his crew of Planet Strippers to extract all the precious resources on the planet, to further his war machine. Once he had finished he left that world to its fate, to slowly die, and be left a wasteland to eventually vanish into a meek apocalypse.
A fantastic and chilling tale.