[Mkguild] Heading to All Tomorrows (3/6)

[C. Matthias]

And part three!

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Metamor Keep:  Heading to All Tomorrows
by Charles Matthias


He wasn't quite sure how long he'd been walking 
when he reached the bridge across the river, but 
it was in the middle of the day, and all 
suggestion of rain had long passed. The air was 
warm but not humid, with a crisp scent from the 
river, as well as the pungent offal of a human 
village with livestock milling wherever they so 
chose. A forest had once lined the river, this 
the eastern arm of the Marchbourne that fed Lake 
Bozojo, but they had all been cut down centuries 
ago to make way for pastures and farms.

And also a garrison. This stood on a rise 
overlooking the river and the wide bridge that 
crossed it, and from its towers snapped the flags 
of Bozojo and Salinon. From the ramparts archers 
could decimate any army attempting to seize the 
bridge, though on that day, with the warmth 
making the air shimmer as he glided along the 
winding road with its close fitting stones, they 
stood at their posts with as much animation as 
the gargoyles decorating the walls of Midlander castles and cathedrals.

The village was nestled behind another ring of 
walls. These at times seemed to be fashioned from 
stone, and others from wood, and this moved back 
and forth so smoothly, that Andares wasn't sure 
if he was gazing at a moment in the present, or 
one from the distant past when the humans had 
first settled this favorable bend in the river. 
Even his feet seemed to float above the road, 
rising up higher and higher as he neared the bridge.

He could hear others speaking to him, and words 
seemed to pass from his lips though he couldn't 
remember them once they left his tongue. The 
strangers around him, some travelers, some 
villagers, and some soldiers stationed to keep 
watch over the road and the river, were all 
unfamiliar with a blend of faces that resolved 
into only the most general of human countenances. 
They were neither short nor tall, fat nor thin, 
with neither blond hair nor black hair, blue eyes 
or brown eyes. They were all these things and none of them at the same time.

Andares skipped through the air, born aloft on 
the bright blue sky, settling back to earth only 
when he'd finally left the lands of Bozojo 
behind, his boots touching down in Linduin. And 
the rest of that bright day was a smear of light, field, and forest.

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April 4, 708 CR


In the week since Andares and Anefistar had 
decided to journey together beneath the willow's 
sheltering boughs, they'd met with good weather 
along the road with bright sunny days and warm 
breezes that suggested Summer without bringing 
it. Despite the scholar's age, he had no trouble 
in keeping pace with the Åelf, and so after two 
days of walking they crossed the bridge over the 
Marchbourne and were soon in the country of Linduin.

While the soldiers bearing the fish heraldry of 
Bozojo were left behind at the bridge, they still 
saw a large number of soldiers stationed in each 
village they passed. But the villagers themselves 
were always friendly and willing to put them up 
for the night once the sun had set. They were 
greeted each night by good food, warm blankets, 
and a soft if lumpy pillow. With the dawn they 
would set out again, and while Andares would 
wonder at his dreams which seemed unusual in both 
their clarity and their disjointedness. These he 
kept to himself, but during their day's walk he 
and Anefistar would share stories of their 
journeys, the gods, and also thoughts on the 
precarious state of many of the kingdoms of man.

To Andares's relief, Anefistar, as asked, never 
brought up the situation in Dûn Fennas that he 
had once asked the Åelf to intervene in. The 
scholar seemed resigned to the fact that Andares 
would be parting ways with him once they reached 
the fork in another few days, and while there 
were moments when they were lost in their own 
thoughts that the human began to brood with heavy 
brows and darkened countenance, those fears never spilled over his tongue.

But after a week of journeying together, never 
had they seen anything that stilled their tongues 
completely until that day. The road took a turn 
toward the southeast, but for a moment as they 
came around the bend, the hills flattened out and 
in the distance to the northeast they could see a 
long gray line that bled over the horizon. 
Nothing else stood at the periphery of the 
forest, all was blighted for a mile around as if 
life itself refused to prosper in the shadow of that ancient and dark wood.

Anefistar stopped in his tracks, eyes wide and 
one hand lifted to ward off evil. Andares also 
paused in his steps, eyes narrowed, one hand 
resting upon the ivory pommel of his sword. He 
couldn't even hear any birds singing as they 
struggled to make their feet take that next step. 
The road continued down into a slight depression 
where a line of hills would shield them from 
sight of that cursed place, but it would take 
them a minute to reach that seeming safety.

This was not the only place along the 
northernmost road through Marigund country that 
one could see Elderwood; in fact, there were 
other places where the road came much closer to 
the baleful woods. And never before in his 
journeys had Andares felt such a peculiar 
sensation, an inkling that brushed up across his 
back and through his long, black hair like the 
curling tendrils of smoldering myrrh. This was no 
mere pious caution in the face of an evil 
imprisoned, for such an evil could never strike 
beyond the reach of its chain, or from beyond the borders of its cage.

Andares stared at the Elderwood as if somebody 
had unlocked its chain and unbarred its cage.

The air, for a moment as still as they, turned 
against them, bringing a chill that lanced 
through their traveling cloaks, as well as the 
festering scent of mushrooms and choked foliage. 
Anefistar finally lifted one hand to brush across 
his nose and he stumbled a pace backward.

That one motion broke the Åelf's paralysis. He 
swept his free arm out and grasped the scholar by 
the shoulder, steadying him. “It is best to move 
quickly here. Something is not right. Keep close to me.”

Anefistar nodded, and the two of them walked 
stiffly down the bend in the road. Andares kept 
his free hand on the hilt of his blade as step by 
step the Elderwood passed out of sight. He 
listened intently but the only thing he could 
hear was the nervous breathing of his companion 
and his clumsy footfalls. The air felt crisp, 
with the sweet scent of blossom and new grass 
fading beneath a veneer of empty wind. Even the 
sky, so bright a blue, seemed somehow utterly 
remote as if that vibrant color had been bleached 
onto the heavens instead of born there.

They kept close together for several minutes, 
their anxiety pulsing in their hearts with each 
step they took. The road kept behind a line of 
hills for several miles so that they could not 
see the edge of the Elderwood as it lurked off to 
their left. The sun shone bright on their right 
but did not seem to warm them any. The wind tried 
to resume a gentle breeze but failed ere it had 
begun, leaving all a calm that came not from 
peace but from patience, as of a watcher waiting 
to see what would come to pass.

Into that world of muted sense a sudden grumbling 
like two stones rubbing against one another 
erupting from the stones behind them made Andares 
draw his blade. The hiss of steel seemed a 
beast's reply to the threat, of a snake rising up 
to strike back at the one who'd nearly trod upon 
him. Both Anefistar and Andares spun on their 
heels to see what threat had begun to follow 
them, but the road was empty and the hills barren 
of all but grass, scrub, and a few miserly trees.

They waited a moment in that place, but the sound 
never returned, and once their hearts slowed 
enough that they could breath normally, they 
resumed their quick pace along the road. Andares 
did not sheathe his sword for several minutes, 
but eventually he did, and while he kept his hand 
upon the pommel, for several hours he had no 
reason to draw it. The sound did not return in 
all that time as they moved across the miles. At 
a few junctures the road lifted along the hills 
until they could see the Elderwood again 
stretching across the northwest, but the sense of 
dread it had instilled in them at their first 
sight now became muted, as if whatever beast had 
been prowling in that cage had gone to lie down, 
convinced that its bars truly did confine it.

By the time the sun was nearing the horizon, 
their road began to descend further toward a wide 
valley in which a narrow river coursed and along 
whose banks a village clustered. Fields were 
given to pastureland on the western bank, while 
the eastern was divided into several small farms. 
The road passed through the valley lengthwise, 
but first it diverted around several piles of 
rock upthrust from the ground in an earlier age. 
The sides of the rock had been gouged by weapons 
of some sort; the marks were regularly spaced in 
sets of three on the northern flank, a curious 
fact that gave Andares, exhausted by their hearty pace that day, some pause.

“Bless be the gods!” Anefistar exclaimed, the 
first words either had spoken since they'd first 
seen the cursed woods. “A village! I am all for 
staying in a good tavern tonight, with fresh ale 
and some stew to fill my belly.”

“As am I,” Andares admitted, his tongue moving 
only to form the words, which escaped his lips in a sibilant whisper.

They lost sight of the village as they began to 
move around the cairn. The northern hills also 
flattened out so that they had one last view of 
the Elderwood. Though still lurking on the 
horizon, the trees appeared taller, their line 
shifting like a wave at sea, pulsing as of a 
giant's breath, while the ground between them 
seemed to teem with a million ants. Andares 
stopped and stared in both wonder and horror, but 
whatever those ants were, they all seemed to flee 
the blighted lands to vanish back beneath the 
doomed boughs like children scurrying beneath the hem of their mother's dress.

Just as the last of those little dots 
disappeared, the groaning rumble they had heard 
once before sounded again. Only this time it did 
not follow them like a jackal pursuing a rabbit 
on the Steppe; this time it challenged them from along the road ahead of them.

Anefistar who had been standing at Andares's side 
as they watched the strange dark shapes flee into 
the forest, now gasped in fright, coughing and 
clutching his throat as his eyes bulged from his 
face. Andares drew his blade and turned back down 
the road, tensing as some dark shadow slipped out 
from behind the cairn before them.

The creature was nothing that Andared has ever 
seen before. It possessed a bulky mass with no 
discernible head but four arms radiating out at 
equal intervals from its bulbous main body. Each 
arm ended in a paw with three long claws like the 
talons of a hawk. It strode upon four legs 
splayed out beneath its arms, each one striking 
the ground with a crunch of stone. The skin, now 
that it was visible in the last rays of the sun, 
was leathery in texture, covered in a blend of 
scales and patches of a dark downy fur. It was 
not completely black in hue, for the scales 
themselves had a deep green luster that shimmered 
as it moved. The main body had between each set 
of arms what could only be a mouth, with broad 
flat teeth that ground together like a mill crushing flour.

“Go back to the shadows!” Andares declared in a 
powerful voice as he raised his bright, silver 
blade, etched with runes that glimmered with 
power. Anna-ithil-årda trained upon the beast, 
and though it had no eyes they could see, a pair 
of arms turned toward them, and one of the mouths 
opened in hunger. “You do not belong here!”

The four-legged, four-armed, and four-mouthed 
beast did not seem to agree as it began to lumber 
toward them both, long arms stretching outward, 
sickle-like claws waving up and down. Andares 
pushed Anefistar behind him with one hand, and 
with the other turned the blade to one side and 
then slashed across at the nearest arm. The flesh 
parted easily and the grinding sound intensified 
as the flat teeth pressed deeply against one 
another. The end of the monster's hand dangled 
limply, held to the arm by only a shred of skin and sinew.

Anefistar stumbled back several more paces, while 
Andares held his ground. He felt an intense 
urging to turn and follow the human in retreat, 
but he marshaled his heart with the quiet reserve 
that the patience of long years had built in him. 
He slashed a second time, the bright silver of 
his blade nearly severing a second arm. The 
creature wailed with its ponderous voice as it 
flailed its two wounded arms back and forth.

It lunged one more time at Andares, but this time 
he nicked it along the side of its bulbous form 
between two of the mouths. A foul smelling 
ichorous pus oozed from the wound, and with a 
scream that sounded like sheet rock sliding 
across each other, the beast turned back to the 
north and retreated through the hillocks. Andares 
brandished Anna-ithil-årda over his head, 
catching the last of the sun's gleam as he dared 
the creature to come for him one more time. But 
its flight was true and it made with great haste 
for the sheltering canopy of the Elderwood in the distance.

“Is it gone?” Anefistar asked as he came back 
around the side of the cairn, his breath ragged 
in his chest, one hand clutching the end of his 
beard as if it were a startled dog trying to scramble into his arms.

“Aye, it is gone,” Andares sheathed his blade and 
glanced at his attire, but saw no stain of that 
ichor. Little piles of it had been left where the 
creature ran off. The grass shriveled beneath it. 
“But it is not dead. We had best move quickly.”

In silence they proceeded at a brisk pace down 
into the valley where the high hills shielded 
them from the sight of the Elderwood. The village 
nestled along a small river and they had erected 
wooden stakes all along the hillside to the 
north, as well as a dozen watchtowers in roughly 
equal sections. Similar fortifications graced the 
southern hills, but these were not nearly as extensive.

They passed by several young men with spears, 
bows, and swords as the road wound down between 
the first set of buildings; these were fashioned 
with stone foundations and wooden upper floors 
with high windows to give them a good view of the 
valley entrance. The young soldiers accosted them 
briefly and listened with grim faces as Andares 
described the beast that they fought only minutes before.

“We've seen three of those things in the last two 
weeks,” the eldest of the soldiers admitted. He 
spat on the ground and nodded his head with a 
heavy sigh. “Thank you, Velelya, for your assistance.”

“Have you seen them before?” Anefistar asked.

“Not in my lifetime, but there are stories of 
them. And other things...” two of the other 
soldiers made signs to ward off evil.

“What other things?” Andares asked.

“Nothing we've seen yet,” the soldier replied 
with a sudden firm set to his lips. His eyes 
narrowed and he cast a quick glance to the north. 
“We can handle these four-armed things. But if 
anything else comes...” He turned back to the two 
travelers and gestured over his shoulder with a 
thumb. “Best you Velelya be finding a place to 
sleep for the night. The Inn's a dancing deer. You'll see it.”

“Thank you, maethor,” Anefistar bobbed his head 
to them, before stumbling along at Andares's side 
down the road between the homes and shops. Few 
townsfolk were about that evening, and what few 
that did walk the streets moved quickly and paid 
them little heed if any heed at all. A brief 
glance at most before they rushed along.

“They're frightened,” Andares noted with a heavy 
sigh. It ached his heart to see the people so 
distraught. The few times before he had passed 
through this village it had been a bright place 
full of laughter and... children. He saw no 
children on those streets, only grown men and a few women escorted by men.

“Three of those things in two weeks? And nary a 
foul thing for years before, they have cause to 
be frightened. What could have led those beasts 
to leave the forest and attack these simple folk?”

The Åelf shook his head, and then drawing his 
cowl more firmly over his raven-black hair and 
pointed ears. “I do not know what it could be, but it cannot be left alone.”

“And why only these few soldiers? Do not the 
princes of Dûn Fennas know what transpires on their most treacherous border?”

Andares's frown deepened, but he said nothing. 
Nor did Anefistar press his questions further. 
Together they brooded as they walked down the 
street to find the Dancing Deer Inn, where they 
both expected to sleep lightly and without any peace.


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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias
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