A Different World: Part 1 - The Siege of Penthorpe Keep - 4. Midnight Excursion

The stone doors opened and Skold entered the audience chamber. The walls of the chamber were high, thick and made of stone; torches, held in place by brackets grafted into the wall, cast dancing light. Three pulpits stood on a small uprise in the center of the chamber; Maeglin stood at one of the pulpits, General Gendimoth Cevna at another. An elven scribe stood in the corner of the room, scribbling notes down on a scroll of parchment with a quill.

On a platform at the front of the chamber, King Yaldon’s counselors sat in three thrones. Althon sat in the middle, Alagossa on the left, Viktor on the right. Skold had been summoned to an audience, where they would most likely catch up on events. He stepped up to the third pulpit, coming up on Cevna’s right.

“Skold, good morning,” Althon said brightly. “Maeglin has just finished telling us about his side of things. Normally we would have waited for your arrival, so that you too could hear what he had to say, but time is of the essence as I’m sure you can understand.”

Skold said he did and took no offense, but inside he was relieved: he had no patience for politics or formalities.

“Perhaps you could shed some further light on what we’re dealing with,” Alagotha said. “I know you and your troops had a few run-ins with Paladin’s troops.”

“Yes, I believe I can,” Skold said, starting with the run-in at the edge of the Pannonian Plain and ending with the battle at Boar’s Head. He brought up details he thought were important, particularly noting how the orcs had come out of the woods before the village where Skold and his troops would have no doubt traversed through. “It appeared as if they were waiting for us, as if they knew we were coming.”

“Yes, that is strange,” Cevna said, frowning. “You would think the brutes would have rode straight for the Keep but instead they cut you off.”

“Perhaps they were just having a bit of fun,” Viktor said, the reverberating echo of his voice magnifying the ill-concealed laughter within his tone.

“It matters not,” Skold said. “We’re fortunate we made it here.”

“Thank you, Commander Skold,” said Althoth. “Your testimony will prove to be very valuable, I’m sure. Cevna, how are we with reinforcing the Keep?”

“As best as can be expected,” Cevna sniffed. “As I’m sure you know we are low on resources. Due to Paladin’s alliance with the orcs it has been impossible for King Yaldon to send supplies. Consequently we’ve been working day and night, rushing to make sure we have proper provisions-”

“Spare us the details,” Viktor snapped, cutting Cevna off. “We know you’re overworked, exhausted, and underappreciated. We all are. What defenses are you setting up?”

Skold found himself searching for any signs of emotion in Cevna’s face and found none. Did it not anger Cevna to be interrupted, disrespected in such a way? Of course no matter how it angered him, if it did anger him, Cevna would not show it. He simply didn’t have the backbone. He was a military dog through and through. “Your Grace, I have set archers along the towers and walls. A barricade has been built to reinforce the gatehouse and keep intruders from getting into the Keep. We have two hundred and fifty barrels of oil and another hundred barrels of gunpowder.”

“That’s all?” Althoth said.

“I’m sorry your, Grace, I wish I could give you better news. Alas, I will be commanding things in the ward. Skold is my second in command. He will be topside with my archers.”

Something inside Skold gave a twitch of excitement.

“Also I will spare fifty additional troops to guard you my Graces, if you would accept their company. I’ve picked them out myself. They are very capable fighters and I could not trust your lives in less capable hands.”

“If you can spare them,” said Althon.

“Anything to keep you safe, my Grace.”

“What about this mysterious force we all sensed on the way to the Keep?” said Maeglin.

Five pairs of eyes switched to him.

“What of it?” Viktor asked.

If he hadn’t been looking for it, Skold would not have missed the minute bob of Maeglin’s Adam’s Apple, a sign of embarrassment. “Paladin’s troops are still days away. I say we send a few troops to investigate this strange force, whatever it is. I know with everything going on it isn’t overly important, but I know I sensed it coming from the hills. I did send out scouts and they never returned. Whatever it is, it is dangerous. I think it best if we knew what it was before it becomes another problem.”

“I see your point,” said Alagossa. “But we simply cannot spare the time.”

“But my scouts,” Maeglin retorted. Despite himself Skold blinked in surprise. He’d never seen Maeglin speak out of turn like this, for like Cevna he was another military dog.

“What was said is what will be,” Viktor snapped, voice dripping with contempt. His eyes bore into Maeglin.

Maeglin’s head immediately dipped towards the ground. Did he feel ashamed for speaking out of turn?

“Are we done with the chit chat?” Viktor demanded. “I’m sure General Cevna and Commander Skold have everything under control.” When no one offered an answer he turned his head to the three standing before him. “You’re dismissed.”

Outside of the audience chamber, once General Cevna was well out of hearing range, Maeglin pulled Skold to a stop. He looked up and down the hallway conspiratorially before leaning in. “I don’t care what those damn counselors say, whatever that thing is up in those hills, it’s dangerous. And my troops...”

“You think something happened to them,” Skold said, an observation not a question.

“Yes.”

“What are the chances orcs got to them if anything did get to them?”

“What are the chances it’s something else and not orcs...if something did get them, of course.”

“You still want to investigate it...even though the counselors said not to.”

“Yes, and I want you to come with me.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Skold asked, crossing his arms.

“But you do want to.” Maeglin smiled knowingly. “I know you all too well.”

Skold scowled and looked away, trying to hide his frustration. He didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing him: what he thought, how he felt, or anything else for that matter. Though he already knew Maeglin was right and they both knew what his answer was, Skold pretended to think on it. After a while he said, “Alright. How do you want to go about it?”

“I think we should wait until nightfall, when it’s completely dark. The hills aren’t far away. If we hurry we could be back before nightfall.”

Skold scoffed. “And what, are the two of us just supposed to go and face off with this mysterious force by ourselves, you and I?”

“Of course not. I’m not saying we fight the thing, I just say we go so we know what it is, that way we can prepare. Problem is there’s not a person I trust on my security team who wouldn’t rat me out to the counselors except maybe my squire, sad as it sounds and is. Can you think of anyone? Like your sister.”

“I can think of a couple of people.”

“Good, ask them and get back with me. Do it quiet.”

Skold had no trouble convincing Sonja; like himself, she was always looking for something to do, never one to sit around in complacence. Konstantine on the other hand, he wasn’t so sure. He knew he’d wounded Konstantine when he spurned him, and it hadn’t been the first time. Skold, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t make himself feel guilty.

Like Skold and Sonja, as third-in-command, Konstantine had his own quarters. It was there Skold found him, sitting on his canopied bed, running a tattered, oiled rag over the blade of his sword. His shoulder-length hair hung down, was not braided, something Skold had only seen a scant number of times. He could tell from the way Konstantine’s shoulders were slumped he was in a mood; it hung around him like a shroud.

Skold cleared his throat.

“What do you want?” Konstantine said flatly. Skold did not miss the barbed undercurrent of reproach in his voice.

Skold closed the double doors so they were alone, so their conversation could not be heard. “Is that anyway to talk to your commander?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light.

“I’m in the mood for your condescending shit,” Konstantine said.

“Ah,” Skold said, walking around the bed so that he was now standing before Konstantine. “So you are pissed about what happened in the woods.”

“I don’t know why I bother with you,” Konstantine mumbled, looking up. “You don’t deserve me, you heartless fiend.”

“You’re right, I don’t. I wish I could convince you to chase after someone you do deserve. But I’ve told you before, many times, what you’re getting into. We’re in the middle of a war; we don’t have time for adolescent romance. And furthermore, I’ve repeatedly told you what I want, what this arrangement is about.” He paused. What he said next took great effort: “I will admit, when we’re alone I enjoy your company. But I do not love you.”

“Do you love anyone, Skold?” Konstantine said.

Skold couldn’t find the words to provide an honest answer.

“I’m tired of this one-sided farce,” said Konstantine.

Skold could feel himself growing impatience. “You wanted this!”

Konstantine sprung to his feet, sword in hand. “Aye, and I want more!”

“Well, you can’t have more!” Skold shouted back. “I can’t give you what I don’t have to give!”

They stood in silence, both trying to catch their breath. Despite the wintery chill in the castle, Skold felt hot. Already he could feel himself receding back inside himself, building up his internal ice-wall. “I don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve been honest about my intentions from the beginning and still you cannot get the truth through your thick head. You will never have my heart, and that is the end of this conversation. I came to ask for your help, not to have a lovers’ spat.”

Konstantine nodded. “What do you need, Commander?”

Skold told him.

Skold waited until midnight, when the halls inside the castle walls were mostly deserted, when everyone would be down in the ward, preparing for war. He met up with Sonja first, sword sheathed at his side, wearing all black clothes including a black wolf pelt to keep him warm. He was reluctant to go without any extra protection but since they were sneaking out of the Keep against the counselors’ orders they would need the cover of darkness as to not be detected by the guards along the out wall.

“We’ll have to be quick about this if we’re to get in and out without anyone noticing we’re gone,” Sonja said for the third time, dressed exactly as he was.

“So you’ve said twice before.”

Maeglin, Valyuun, and Konstantine were waiting for them on the top floor of the Eastern wing, armed and ready to go. Maeglin’s shoulders relaxed, a sign of relief.

“Did you think we wouldn’t come?” Skold asked with a smirk.

“Aye, couldn’t help it. The very thought of committing treason has my stomach all in knots.”

“Then we don’t go.”

“No.” Maeglin shook his head. “I want to know what’s in those hills, and furthermore, what happened to my scouts.”

“Why did we meet up here instead of down below?” Sonja asked.

“Because, except for a few guards, the top is lightly guarded with everyone working down below.”

Skold, barely listening, glanced at Konstantine. As soon as their eyes met Konstantine looked away. He’s still pissed about our conversation in his quarters, Skold thought, amused. He has the temperament of a child.

The group of five made their way up to the battlements. Facing the land below, there were eight guards, two to a wing. It wasn’t difficult to move undetected. The towers and structures of the Keep provided plenty of shadows for them to be able to hide behind. The idea of being on the move again and possible danger ahead made Skold giddy. He wondered what they would find, if anything, up in the hills. Would they find out what had happened to Maeglin’s men or was this excursion they were taking pointless?

Maeglin, in the lead, clenched a fist in the air, signaling for them to take to the shadows as a guard climbed the steps along the outer wall. The group melted into the shadows. Skold and Sonja exchanged a brief glance before Maeglin whispered that it was safe to move on again.

It was a seventy foot drop to the ground. Such a drop would kill most mortals if they were to try but an elves’ bones were far more durable. Maeglin made the first jump, then Valyuun. Skold risked a quick glance to make sure no guards were looking in their direction and then vaulted into the darkness. A dizzy rushing sensation passed over him as the shadowy ground came up to meet him, the full moon and a million stars hanging over his head. His pelt billowed out behind him like a cape. Waves of impact ran up his legs as his feet met the ground; a second later Konstantine and Sonja landed beside him.

“Let’s move!” Maeglin hissed, waving a hand impatiently through the air.

Skold broke into a run, at Maeglin’s rear. As the distance between them and the Keep grew farther and farther apart the world darkened, the sky seeming to grow more vast, to weigh down on them. It was on nights like this that Skold was reminded just how feral the world could be; the dangers within it could sneak up on you with the fury and sneakiness of a starving animal.

The ground became steep and rocky as they made their way down the mountain, towards flatter land, and beyond the plains, the hills. Out of habit borne from experience Skold’s eyes searched the area, the shadows by the rocks or the thin copse of trees where orcs or any other threat might hide. At one point he felt his heart speed up as the blood-curdling howl of a wolf cut through the air some distance to the west, followed by a second and then a third. He wasn’t aware of his hand going to his sword until Maeglin put a hand on his shoulder, urging him and the rest of the group on.

Halfway to the hills Maeglin came to a stop. Even in the dark Skold could see he was frowning.

“What is it?” Valyuun asked, looking around nervously.

“I can barely feel it,” he said. “The presence was stronger yesterday...but now it’s, it’s fading, barely there...I can barely feel it.”

“I feel it too,” said Sonja, “but it’s weak. We best hurry.”

An hour later they found Maeglin’s scouts - what was left of them - at the top of the hills.

At first Skold wasn’t sure what he was looking at. His brain had all of the pieces - it was just a matter of putting all those pieces together.

Maeglin said he’d sent out four of his men to scout the area, and here their corpses lay, around a campfire. From where he stood, Skold could feel Maeglin’s shock - and his anger that his men had been slaughtered, their bodies mangled, as if someone had feasted on them. He knelt over one of his fallen scouts, looking down at the corpses half-mawed face.

“What could have done this?” he whispered, voice quivering with a mixture of sorrow and rage, sweat-matted hair hanging down in front of his face.

“It wasn’t an animal,” said Sonja. “See the shape of the teeth marks just left of the eye. They look humanoid.”

“I don’t like this,” said Valyuun, looking around frantically. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“None of us do,” said Konstantine, shooting Valyuun an annoyed glance.

Skold circled around the camp. He could see tiny idents in the snow. He dug the snow out with his fingers, revealing them to be footprints. He swore. The footprints told very little: They did not belong to an orc - their feet were considerably larger than elves and humans alike. No, the shape of the prints were humanoid indeed, but whether it was fae or human was impossible to tell since most fae and humans’ feet were exactly alike. Skold was facing the remnants of the campfire when something caught his eye, laying in the snow. He held it up so that the silver moonlight caught it: it was a strange amulet made of bone. The amulet itself was round and had strange archaic symbols carved into it.

He glanced at the others. Maeglin, Sonja, Konstantine, and Valyuun were standing in a circle, talking over the possibilities of might have happened to Konstantine’s men, unaware of Skold’s latest discovery.

He was getting ready to call them over when a strong gust of wind blew at his back before he could move, and a voice spoke, seeming to come from the trinket itself. The voice, deep and male, said, “Reis ad’n klli fro mie.”

And then Maeglin’s dead scout began to rise.

They rose silently and with surprising grace and speed.

Revenants! Skold thought. He stood, frozen to the spot, for the first time he could remember unsure what to do. I’m witnessing the use of Death Magic! Death Magic was one name for it, necromancy the other. Death Magic, the greatest sin that fae could ever commit. To use it, to be caught using it, was an immediate death sentence, the ultimate blasphemy towards life. For centuries there had been no known practitioners…

There was no time. Already the undead were moving to attack, moving with a speed that no dead thing, undead or otherwise should have been capable of. Skold let out an inarticulate shout, the only warning he had time to give, and charged forward, sword in hand.

As Maeglin, Sonja, Konstantine, and Valyuun looked around, alerted by Skold’s shout and the unsheathing of his sword, Skold slashed at the closet revenant. His sword cut through armor and flesh, dark ichor splattering the snow. The revenant stumbled forward, letting out a grunt. The smell of decay, of decomposing flesh hit him on all fronts. His throat clenched, his stomach rolled. The revenant turned, axe in hand, and gazed at him with empty lifeless eyes. Though there was no emotion in that white dead face, Skold sensed a murderous intent.

The revenant hissed, teeth clinched, and charged at him, the axe whistling through the air despite the fact it only now had one arm. Skold managed to bring his sword up just in time to keep his head from being cleaved in two. He took another step back and almost lost his footing. Skold gathered his will, letting his body do the fighting for him, and chanted. "Fe’ri b’nur tehso woh tnhaeten ty’h lefi adn teh bdloo fo teh itnneto. B’nur tmhe wtih teh fe’ri fo trhie niss." (Translation: "Fire. Fire burn those who threaten thy life and the lives of the innocent. Burn him with the fire of his sins.")

A rushing feeling went through Skold and the revenant immediately blazed into flame. And yet the flames seemed to have no effect whatsoever. The revenant kept coming. Skold’s muscles were beginning to ache from blocking relentless blow after relentless blow and he could feel himself growing alarmed, growing panicked, maybe even a little afraid…

Then there was a brilliant flash of purple light that seemed to fill the sky and Skold was thrown from his feet. He felt as though he’d been socked in the stomach by an iron fist. The impact of hitting the ground made his teeth rattle in his head. He was on his back, looking up at the stars, trying to figure out what’d just happened, it’d happened so fast. Surely there was not another foe.

He grabbed his sword and staggered to his feet just in time to see a new figure move swiftly through the air. One of its arms slashed through the air and a revenant’s head fell from its shoulders and went rolling over the edge of the hill and out of sight. Another lay on the ground. It took a moment for Skold to realize that its arms had been cut off and was now lying at its sides. It was trying futilely to get to its feet, grunting in what very much sounded like frustration; however Skold very much doubted that revenants could feel any kind of emotion...and if they did feel emotion then it was the only emotion their masters allowed them to feel. Who could say?

The other revenants were...dead...again. Whoever this newcomer was, they had dispatched them quickly and efficiently.

Skold raised his sword between him and the hooded stranger. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Put down your sword, Skold Gil’eppsie, son of Solomon and Lea Gil’eppsie,” the figure responded with a soft female voice. “I mean no harm.”

She pulled down her hood.