(105) Preparations In Blood

“You assume that her words are even credible. We have known this region for hundreds of years. Many have tried to conquer it. None have succeeded in conquering even a portion. The best attempts even to this day are warlords squabbling over small valleys,” a man, Runfeld, if Daedron was not mistaken, grunted.

“We have been over this, you old bat. We do not have the luxury of contemplating such things. We must operate on the assumption that she spoke truly. We must prepare for the worst,” an equally aged woman croaked from the other side of the table.

“What about the lad?” a man asked, nodding toward Daedron, his arms crossed.

All the faces around the table turned toward Daedron, and he tensed, though hopefully not noticeably.

“Well, boy? What say you?” Adrienne, the old woman who had addressed Runfeld earlier, asked.

“Forgive me, elder. What specifically do you wish to know?” Daedron asked.

“What’s your read on the woman, Nephthys, and Nemesis?” Runfeld clarified.

“I know only what I have already reported. I have never met Nephthys, and my only interaction with Nemesis was my brief encounter with Leia,” he explained, pleased he had not stuttered.

“And? From what you have seen, what do you think?” Runfeld pressed.

“I don’t know what Nephthys said, but what I witnessed from Leia was…frightening. I would believe they were capable of nearly anything they claimed,” Daedron answered, a small gulp accompanying his words.

The table was silent for long seconds while its occupants digested his words, each wearing a different look as they contemplated.

“It boils down to a single question, in mine own mind,” a woman of truly advanced age said, her voice hoarse but domineering against the previous silence.

“Shall we continue hiding or not?”

The room was silent once again, though this time the quiet was different. Many brows furrowed. Many frowns darkened faces.

“You act as if you have not been hiding yourself, Greta, but—” a woman across the table began.

“Be silent, recalcitrant child,” Greta scolded, as if the woman did not have graying hair as well. “I do not say this to judge. We have hidden when needed and survived.

“However, many of you are generations distant from our past prior to this mountain. I was born here, too, but I remember my father and mother telling stories of the outside world and how we wandered it freely.

“We have occupied this valley for so long, been so afraid of the world outside our walls, yet need we? This place is our home, our refuge. I would see it stay that way, not become our prison,” she finished, sinking back into her chair heavily, as if her energy were drained.

Muted conversation broke out around the table, and Daedron fidgeted nervously. Was he supposed to have taken his leave when he answered the earlier question? Would it be rude to leave without proper dismissal? He had never been in a council session before, and he found the lack of direction distressing.

Daena sat with her arms crossed and eyes closed, seemingly in her own world as the discussion continued. Daedron watched her curiously. Though he knew everyone on the council was technically equal in authority, he also knew that things were not exactly equal in practice. Whatever direction Daena decided would very likely be the direction of Chicolua.

Daena opened her eyes suddenly, lifting her head to gaze over the council members, who seemed to fall silent in unison, as if all knew she was about to address them.

“It seems we will not reach a consensus today, either. Let us think on what was discussed and reconvene tomorrow,” she declared, standing and turning toward the door, brooking no argument.

Daedron sighed, grateful for the dismissal.

——————————

Flint lay prone in the brush, his eyes bloodshot, hands shaking. Before him was one of the larger Peak clans, the Brunai. Their dominion stretched for a hundred miles east and at least fifty miles west. Their domination of the area was thanks to their strength, but also to their policy, which supported it.

Members were recruited based on personal strength, and anyone was welcome in their clan, provided they were strong enough. Though they kept slaves and raided, any prisoner could claim full membership by competing in their arena.

Though merely a pit carved out of the center of this valley, the arena was central to the clan’s way of life. Members would compete and test themselves against one another, and slaves could compete against other slaves as well, eventually earning enough renown to challenge a clan member. Should the slave kill them, they would take the member’s place and be welcomed fully.

It was brutal, but among the warring clans that occupied the Peaks, it was one of the more favorable.

Flint’s breath was heavy and wet, as if he were always on the verge of a hacking cough, as he watched the clan. This was one of the strongest in the region, each individual member a powerhouse in their own right.

They were perfect.

With his left hand, Flint covered his mouth, biting down on the back of his finger. He stuck his right hand out of the brush and held it just above the ground.

A muffled cry worked its way past the hand covering his mouth, and blood trickled down from between his fingers where he bit. He writhed in the bushes, doing his best to keep his movements small, lest he draw attention.

His right arm shook as his skin split in a line down his forearm. Blood ran, and bugs of various sizes began to emerge from it. They were too small to see individually and seemed almost like a black liquid, a morass, flowing from his wound.

Suddenly, Flint felt attention on him. It was like the phantom feeling one has when being watched from a distance, but this gaze sent shivers down his spine, distinct even amidst his pained struggling.

It was watching.

With a final twist of his pained body, Flint’s arm released the bugs. They dispersed into the surroundings like a puff of smoke, nearly invisible. Flint lay on the ground, heaving, his hand still covering his mouth, blood dripping into the dirt.

He was vaguely aware of grunts and cries. They grew louder and more frequent as he lay there, but he was too exhausted to pay much attention. His whole body throbbed, as if every inch of him was swollen. Somehow, the bugs’ absence felt worse than when they made nests of his flesh.

Flint gasped and struggled for several moments, finally managing to roll onto his back. He stared up at the sky, which seemed to wheel over him. It shifted from a deep blue to a purple, darkening as he watched. He felt as though he were traveling through time, as if the world was suddenly whizzing by without him—

A dark void within a black hood stared.

“Huh,” Flint grunted, sitting up. “I’m going.”

He put his hands on the ground and pushed, attempting to push himself up. With a choked cry of pain, he toppled over onto his side, the split arm giving out on him. He panted, drool running in a string from his mouth to the ground.

A dark void within a black hood stared.

He rolled onto his back and, propping himself up with his good arm, pushed himself into a crouch, standing slowly. His chest rose and fell, but no amount of air he gasped was enough. He drank it greedily, as if the volume filling his lungs were the issue, but his thirst for air could not be sated.

Before him was a graveyard in twilight.

The shadow cast over the valley seemed to match the somber silence, not even a bird chirping to fill it. Bodies littered the ground, yet the village remained intact. Buildings stood proud, their make sturdy and functional, but their occupants were dead. People lined the stamped grass paths, as if they had fallen where they stood, with no struggle or resistance.

Some had alarmed looks on their faces, their hands raised as if to defend themselves, yet they seemed to have fallen before they could even launch an attack, judging by their posture on the ground.

Flint trudged along the paths, dragging the corpses as much as he was himself toward the arena in the center. His blood dripped freely from his arm, though it seemed to be slowing. That was good, right?

A pile began to form, first one body, then another, then dozens stacked atop each other. The smell was horrendous, but Flint did not notice. He stumbled in the dark, constantly banging his foot against a rock or a root and breaking off a toenail, but he did not notice that either.

He dragged the corpses, one after the other, and tossed them into the pit, his motions mechanical, his eyes glazed.

As he was dragging a particularly large, heavy body, he stumbled over a root and buried his face in the ground. He could not rise, could not even summon a coherent enough thought to try. He lay in the dirt, his breathing shallow, his mind foggy, fading.

A small black cloud, visible only when it blotted out the stars overhead, whirled toward him. It swarmed over his body, coalescing on his right arm. It flowed into his arm like black blood, and the skin seemed to grow back together, though what now covered the split was a black, chitinous shell rather than skin.

Flint inhaled sharply, sudden clarity returning to his mind. He jerked, sitting upright and glancing around him. The moon shone overhead, illuminating the vacant village with an eerie white light. A stench wafted into his nose, and he coughed, a wet, wracking thing that ended with a glob of pale red sputum shooting from his throat.

“Gotta get back to it,” he muttered, rising to his feet.

He dragged the corpses throughout the night, piling them high in the center. He paid no mind to any individuals. The entire spectrum of life was represented: the young, the old, the women, the men, the others in between, humans, and any other permutation of sentient life to be found in the Peaks was present, yet they all looked the same to him, just like all kindling.

He chucked the last corpse in with a grunt. The pit was filled to bursting. The corpse pile rose over the rim of the arena, now a vestibule of decaying flesh. One of the corpses’ arms was draped over, and he grabbed it by the forearm. He stepped on the shoulder and, with several sickening twists and pulls, wrenched it free from the body.

He traced a path around the arena, drawing crude glyphs with the arm’s blood, using it like a stylus. The process took several hours, and by the time he tossed the arm back onto the pile, the moon had vanished. The darkest of the night, just before dawn, had descended on the village, and the pit, though broadcasting a foul odor, was completely hidden from sight.

Flint withdrew two small red gems from his tattered trousers, staring at them almost in disbelief. He gazed for several long seconds before shaking himself back to the present and depositing one back into his pocket. The other, he clutched firmly in his hand as he plopped down onto the ground, sitting cross-legged.

He placed the crystal within a circle of blood, part of the greater matrix of blood glyphs, and pressed it down with the palm of his right hand. He closed his eyes, and nothing seemed to happen for several long, silent seconds. However, the skin on his right arm began to writhe and bubble, as if his blood was boiling.

The crystal glowed red, and the glow spread slowly through the glyphs, filling the entire pattern and illuminating the arena. Within the pit, the corpses seemed to begin dissolving, melting into each other and swirling, a conglomeration of flesh and bone and stench that would send any sane person running and retching.

After minutes of swirling and bubbling, a fleshy tendril reached out from the arena pit, gripping the ground, pulling an abomination up behind it.