[Mkguild] Divine Travails of Rats - Pars IV. Infernus (n)

[C. Matthias]

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Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats
by Charles Matthias and Ryx

Pars IV: Infernus

(n)

Saturday, May 12, 708 CR


The little rat did not so much as feel warmth on 
the bridge as he felt the lack of the 
life-stealing cold. Nothing surrounded him for a 
moment and even though he was only a hand tall 
this bridge seemed no larger than the others. His 
whiskers twitched and he breathed a long sigh of 
relief which turned into a coughing spasm. His 
thumbless paws rubbed across his snout and 
brushed free the encrusted blood, even as the 
presence of his guide appeared on the bridge.

Qan-af-årael smiled down at him from a distorted 
height. From the folds of his elegant robes he 
produced the rat's meager garments. “Are you 
well, Charles?” To hear his voice in his ears 
instead of his mind made him squeak in surprise.

Charles willed himself to grow and his body 
swelled, shifting proportions, straightening his 
back. When his thumbs returned, he grasped his 
breeches and held them before his waist for 
modesty. His bare chest rose and fell as he 
attained his full height, still looking up at the 
Åelf but not nearly as far. “I am whole. And I am 
very grateful for your protection. I know that I 
could not have come this far on my own. How much torment remains?”

“Four realms more you must cross before the 
Beyond can be reached. Any souls you meet in 
these realms will be far more evil and corrupted 
by sin. You will have no friends below.” This 
last was said with an almost apologetic sigh, as 
if the Åelf thought himself responsible for the 
composition of the daedra realms and the souls trapped within.

Charles stepped into the breeches and pulled them 
to his waist. He cinched them with his belt, a 
pensive claw rubbing across the rat-head buckler 
“I haven't had any friends since the Gardens save 
you.” He grimaced but offered his guardian a 
lop-sided grin that stretched his snout and 
jumbled his whiskers. “Thank you again for 
helping me.” He pulled the tunic over his snout before he said anything more.

“I will protect you and bring you where you must 
go,” Qan-af-årael assured him. “After all that 
you have done to aid my people and save our 
world, how could I do less? Such base ingratitude 
is a terrible injustice toward one such as yourself, Charles.”

Charles shimmed into his tunic and then donned 
his vest. He checked his gear, found the 
Sondeshike where he had kept it inside a secret 
fold, and rubbed it between his fingers. “Thank 
you again. What must we face now?”

“The Lord of Rage,” Qan-af-årael replied with a 
veneer of disgust. “You will need your weapon.”

Charles took his torn Long Scout cloak and threw 
it across his shoulders; it brushed over the 
rat's ears as it settled against his back. “More 
creatures like the Gardeners, or those things we saw in the forest?”

“Worse things than they await us below.”

He swallowed and flicked his tail. “Of course.”

Charles pulled the Sondeshike from its place 
within his tunic and extended it. The ferrules 
snapped out to either side, but did not fully 
extend. It appeared that they had struck 
something immovable, but all that the rat could 
discern was the curving boundary to the bridge. 
They could not extend because there was no 
reality into which they could reach. Through his 
weapon Charles had touched an edge of creation.

Unsettled, the rat turned the Sondeshike 
sideways; the staff extended the rest of the way 
along-side him. He ground his molars together and 
wished for something to chew as he walked down 
the bridge. The optical distortion rushed to meet 
him as everything shrunk to a single point. And then he stepped through.

A snarling noise rose up around him as he fell to 
all fours, the Sondeshike still gripped in his 
hand. He lifted his head and blinked at the 
shifting of fiery red fur and rippling muscles 
that surrounded him. The muscles twisted, each 
attached to four legs which ended in paws with 
sickle-sharp claws, as they turned to reveal 
monstrous dog heads lathered in saliva with fangs 
so large they could never close their jaws. Their 
eyes were black as coals and burning with anger and hunger.

Charles felt their breath strike him like a muddy 
field after a brutal battle in which bodies had 
been left to rot. Boxy snouts snarled and snapped 
at the rat as he scrambled to his feet and leaped backward.

Standing, Charles was finally able to make sense 
of what he saw. Before him, standing nearly as 
tall as he did, were six infernal hounds. Spiked 
collars of black iron were fastened around each 
of their necks, and the chains disappeared he 
knew not where. Slavering jaws snapped at him, 
heavy paws dug into the ground and launched them forward.

Charles lifted the Sondeshike and spun it as fast 
as he could before him. The nearest of the hounds 
struck the spinning disc with its ravenous snout. 
Bones cracked as his momentum scuttled him 
sideways, his face caved inward where it had been 
struck. Yet still the beast rose, blood frothing 
forth in a mist as it scrapped its claws over caked stone.

The hounds bounced on their paws, moving around 
him to attack from either side. Charles stepped 
back to keep himself from being surrounded, 
shifting the spinning disc from side to side as 
he tried to decide on what else to do. He 
summoned forth his Sondeck, willing it to fill 
his arms and legs as he danced on his paws looking for a way out.

A second hound lunged from his right as he turned 
aside. Had he been human he would not have seen 
the attack, but as a rat his eyes were better 
placed to see what happened at either side and 
even a little bit behind. He side-stepped, 
lashing his tail toward the left even as he drove 
the tip of his Sondeshike into the face of his 
attacker. The brass ferrules smashed into the 
hound's forehead, caving it inward with a 
sickening crunch. Blood and gore spewed through 
the open jaws only to be turned into a fine mist 
where Charles spun his Sondeshike through what 
was left of the hound's jaws and upper body. The 
bones snapped and the muscles fell to paroxysms 
as the creature was knocked aside. And yet it too 
climbed back to its feet, the ruin of its head 
disorienting it but otherwise availing the rat nothing.

The other four hounds bounded away from him for a 
moment before rushing to encircle him. Charles 
tried to find some place he could escape, but 
there did not appear to be anywhere he could go. 
For the first time, in that brief moment when 
their hideous jaws were not snapping at him, the 
rat could glimpse at the desolate land to which 
he had come. Light suffused the place, and an 
uncomfortable heat permeated everything, but it 
was not a desert sun crisping his skin. Rather it 
was the blaze of a flame that breathed across the 
sky; all of the land lay scorched and appeared to 
be nothing more than a maze of jagged red rocks.

The red was not the mesmerizing glow of a warm 
fire, nor was it the delicate sensuous hue of a 
Spring rose in full bloom. This was no twilight 
sun kissing the horizon, nor was it the amorous 
rouge of his wife's tongue reaching to kiss him. 
This red had no royal aspirations, had no 
clerical dignity, and no use to heraldry. It was 
not even the color of blood spilled from a wound.

Those were all reds Charles knew. Most of them were reds he loved.

This red was neither.

This red was putrid and formed by the spilling, 
the baking, the burning, the freezing, and the 
cracking of blood over ages uncountable. This was 
blood dried upon the rocks, pounded by foot, hoof 
and paw, beaten and slavered by parched tongues, 
ground beneath all until it had become the very 
dust of the air. This red was that dust of blood 
bound together, forged and fused until it rose up 
as the very rocks upthrust in every direction. 
The sinew of the realm beneath his feet was 
fashioned from this beaten, crushed, pulverized, 
and reformed blood. Drained of all its potency, 
there was nothing left but desiccation; a barren 
red fed only by the endless effusion of dismemberment.

No paint could make this red and no ink could 
illuminate it. No wine could be soiled as this. 
His heart beat with fury at the mere sight of it; 
at the sight of the bloodstone.

While the two injured hounds shook their heads 
about as if they could force the bones and 
muscles back into place, the other four 
surrounded the rat and snarled, licking their 
jowls, posture tensed. Charles danced back and 
forth, keeping his Sondeshike spinning as fat as 
he could. He willed his Sondeck into his tail and 
lashed it about, sending little strikes through 
the air to slow them down. He knew he could 
probably crush two more heads before the other 
two would be on him and it would be over. He 
could only hope that they attacked one at a time.

He had no such luck. All four charged as one. 
Charles stood in the very center and spun on his 
paws, eyes narrowed, entering the Tanze wie 
Zherd. The dance could only properly be done with 
two Sondeckis, but it was the only thing he knew 
that would allow him to strike in all directions. 
He turned and turned and turned, hands spinning 
one over the other, as the silver disc ran 
through the air, kicking up a red dust that 
enfolded him in a crimson pillar of choking air. 
All of the world about him, barren and dangerous, skipped by in a flash.

The hounds crashed into his Sondeshike. He felt 
more than saw as the first one was clipped on the 
side of the neck by the end of the metal staff, 
the bones shattering and the body flung outward 
in a heap of scarlet fur and claws. The second 
nearly snatched his tail in its jaws when the 
staff crashed down into its head, pushed through 
the flesh, and ripped the jaws apart in a spray 
of ichor. From the third he felt stinking hot 
breath and then the Sondeshike lifted it up from 
beneath its forelimbs and flung it, chest caved in, out across the rocks.

He even managed to strike the fourth, but not 
before its momentum crashed into his side and 
knocked him from his paws. Charles sprawled from 
the Tanze and struck the earth so hard that the 
cloud of red coated him in a fine mist. He gasped 
for breath and choked on the dust, his hands 
clawing at his neck as if they could rip out all 
the poisoned air. He forced himself to grab his 
Sondeshike with his right hand even as the left 
continued to dig, choking and coughing for a single breath of pure air.

The sixth hound limped as the Sondeshike had 
shattered one of its back legs, but the jaws, the 
head, and the chest were all fine. Yellowed fangs 
dripped with spittle, and a meaty red tongue 
pressed out between those fangs, eyes burning 
with hunger. It stepped toward him, confident 
that Charles could do nothing more to stop him.

Beside the hound the first two he'd injured rose 
up, their faces reforming, their wounds mending. 
Charles stared in horror but could not make his 
arms work. The three beasts stepped closer, snarling and ready to feast.

A brilliant plume of green light struck downward 
from the side, and the lead hound's head bounced 
across the ground as its body fell to pieces 
behind it. Stepping out from behind a stand of 
rocks was Qan-af-årael, bearing in each hand a 
blade of brilliant green that bifurcated like a 
vast tree. Charles remembered seeing those same 
blades in the Hall of Unearthly Light when he had 
done battle with the Marquis. Then he had been 
matched by a foe of limitless power and the 
blades had only managed to dissipate the 
Marquis's attacks. Never before had he seen their true potential.

The other two hounds bayed, turning to attack the 
interloper, but were themselves reduced to slices 
of flesh that did not even bleed. The remaining 
three hounds, each of them in varying states of 
recovery, tried to circle this new bit of prey 
like they had Charles moments before. As the rat 
continued to hack, eyes glazing over from the 
bitter poison, all three advanced with powerful leaps.

The Åelf lifted his arboreal blades and skewered 
two of them. Their flesh bounced from his chest 
and legs in chunks, carried forward only by their 
momentum. The third hound was only grazed, not 
from a lack of skill on Qan-af-årael's part, but 
only because its wounds kept it from leaping 
true; this final beast had veered off course and 
fell to the ground with a snarling yipe and half 
its tail missing, before turning tail and fleeing 
into a cleft in the maze of rocks.

The brilliant green light of the tree blades 
vanished from the Åelf's hands, replaced by a 
pulsing orb of blue. Unlike the red all around, 
the blue was a pleasant blend like a carefully 
polished bit of lapis lazuli in the process of 
melting. Qan-af-årael extended this orb in his 
arm and then dropped it on the ground in front of 
the gagging rat. It splashed and erupted a gust 
of sweet air. The blood dust lifted from the 
ground and scattered in every direction. Even the 
dust in his throat was drawn free.

Charles gulped the sweet tasting air. The 
panicked trembling of his limbs subsided, and 
after several deep breaths he stood, clutching 
his Sondeshike close. “You saved me again. Thank 
you, ancient one. I am in your debt more times than I can count.”

“You may have the chance to repay a portion of 
that debt here. Everything we see will try to kill us.”

Charles grimaced and nudged a hunk of scorched 
flesh with his toes. Blood a dull red in hue 
oozed from every side. “Can we avoid them? I don't see anything else here.”

“It is better to kill anything we find.”

The rat frowned and held his Sondeshike tighter. 
“But won't it attract attention if we are 
constantly fighting everything we see?”

“In this realm, the surest way to draw the 
attention of its master is not to fight. He will 
not care who we are so long as we fight and 
kill.” Qan-af-årael's expression was touched by a 
glimmer of profound disgust. “At least until we reach the bridge.”

The rat lifted his ears in hope. “You know where it is?”

“I do. It will not be easy to reach. Charles, are 
you prepared to kill anything you see in this 
place? There is no quarter offered, no mercy 
shown, and no victims here. Strike without anger, 
for rage is what the master of this place wants, but strike nonetheless.”

He swallowed and nodded. “If I must. What of the hound who got away?”

“The hound is returning to its master.” 
Qan-af-årael gestured to a small cleft between 
the rocks. Without sun in the bloodshot sky, it 
was impossible to tell the difference between any 
direction. “We must move quickly before they 
return.” And then he felt the presence resume in 
his mind. And for now you will wish only to speak 
in this fashion. The air is poison; cover your snout.

Charles nodded and drew his cloak over his snout. 
It felt awkward, but at least he could breathe.

His protector led him down into the cleft which 
twisted in either direction for a few minutes as 
if trying to shake them off before straightening 
and opening out onto a jagged tumble of hard, red 
rock between ridges on either side. Charles eyed 
them warily. His ears and whiskers twitched at 
the sound of snarling and anguished screaming 
that carried over the almost serrated saw-like 
bluffs accompanied by rending and gnashing of 
fangs of a more beastly character. Who was 
killing who and what? The rat neither knew nor wished to know.

The ridge to their right grew in size until it 
stretched into the murky scorched air, lost to 
sight amidst choking clouds. To their left, the 
labyrinth of crimson stone fell away to reveal a 
long slope toward a chasm. Charles sucked in his 
breath at the sight of the precipice which 
stretched at least a league in width if not more, 
and whose bottom was imperceptible and swallowed 
in darkness. Equally forbidding peaks rose beyond 
the chasm, crater-domed volcanoes busily spewing 
ash and disgorging streams of blazing lava. A 
faint echo cast across the chasm, and his ears 
turned to catch its receding touch.

More screams.

Qan-af-årael turned to him and his thoughts 
coalesced in words. It is as you fear. Souls 
cooked in the lava before being consumed by the lord of this realm's minions.

For once I am glad a rat's eyes cannot see that 
far. Charles almost spat the thought toward his 
companion, and then grimaced as he fought the 
rising of his gorge. He tasted the red dust on 
his tongue and grimaced. At least it did not seem to choke him anymore.

The path sloped toward the chasm but they cut 
across near the escarpment on their right. The 
heat from the volcanoes cooked the air, and the 
ash made it even more difficult to breath. 
Charles focused his thoughts on moving forward 
and breathing as slowly as he could. Still his 
heart would not settle; the disquiet made his 
claws twitch and dig into his cloak.

The attack came without warning. The escarpment 
did not run in a clean line along the top of the 
defile, but was riddled with alcoves and jutting 
rock that forced them to risk the steep incline 
above the yawning abyss. As they navigated around 
one such bend, from the rocks above leaped a trio 
of shapes that landed on their backs and sent 
them sprawling. Charles slammed snout first into 
the stone, his arms and legs scratching at the 
stone as it slid past, little pebbles hammering 
his chest and legs as he careened down the 
defile. Something blunt beat at his back and between his ears.

An upthrust stone caught him in the side. He 
wrapped one arm about it and rolled upward. The 
thing on his back snatched a meaty hand at his 
cloak, ripping the front from his snout and 
pulling the clasp tight against his neck. Charles 
gagged, inhaling a mouthful of the red dust, even 
as his free hand searched for his Sondeshike. He 
caught a glance of Qan-af-årael throwing a red 
and black striped almost Lutin-like creature from 
his shoulders, the lanky creature vanishing with 
a wail over the side of the chasm, while another 
had its baboon-like arms firmly wrapped about his protector's legs.

The creature hanging on by his cloak dug its feet 
into the ground, found purchase, and began 
climbing up the rat's back. He felt a gust of 
hot, putrid breath stream across the back of his 
neck. Charles' shivered in fury; his tail lashed 
from side to side even as he dug the claws of his 
left hand into the stone that had saved him from 
a fall into impossible depths. He felt the firm 
smack of flesh against a scraggly hide and heard 
a satisfying screech. Still it climbed.

His claws touched metal, and he wrapped his hand 
about the weapon of his clan. Charles stretched 
out his arm, and extended the Sondeshike over the 
top of his back. A wet splatter struck him and it 
burned as if he'd been dipped in lye. He twisted 
the staff and felt the weight from his back move 
with it. He turned his head and glimpsed the 
creature's head sliding off the end of the 
ferrules. It dropped to the defile and in a 
clatter of stone disappeared over the edge.

Charles ground his molars together, got his feet 
under him, and dashed back up the incline. 
Qan-af-årael had summoned his tree blades and was 
carefully nudging the meaty remnants of his last 
attacker over the edge of the defile where it 
tumbled down into the abyss. Radiant blue eyes 
regarded him with disapproval. The presence 
filled him. You must not let anger guide you 
here. It is a chain that will bind you to this place.

I'm not, I...

His objection was cut short by the sound of small 
stones clattering down the slope. The staccato 
bouncing lasted for several seconds before 
vanishing into silence. Charles held his breath, 
fingers tightening about the bloodied haft of his 
Sondeshike. Qan-af-årael turned, silvery-black 
locks gliding between his pointed ears. Something 
hunts us. Let us move. Calm your rage, my little friend.

The Åelf offered him a faint, but reassuring 
smile. Charles nodded and continued on their way 
along the escarpment. All the while he sought the 
Calm within himself, that very center of his 
Sondeck that all in his clan were trained to know 
and abide in. It proved elusive, for his focus 
was on stepping swiftly and with silence across 
the shattered rock and loose pebbles covering the 
blood-fused sandstone, a task already made 
difficult just by the slant of the rock. 
Nevertheless, the mere search for his Calm settled the trembling in his flesh.

The depth of his Sondeck imbued him with 
preternatural strength. This he felt and savored 
against the ravages of this realm. He could feel 
the power in each of his limbs and knew it would 
not fail him in his time of need. His arms were 
limber and his blows could strike mountains. His 
claws were hard as steel and could rend the very 
rocks around him. His legs could propel him into 
the air any height he should require, and no fall could break his bones.

He twitched his whiskers against the cowl 
stretched across his muzzle, eyes spread wide and 
ears turning to capture the tiniest sounds. 
Distant screams lined the other side of the 
chasm, but they were too faint to distinguish 
with any detail. A cry resounded from above and 
both Charles and Qan-af-årael lifted their heads. 
A figure, misshaped but not by Metamor, hurtled 
down from the top of the escarpment, limbs 
flailing. Charles had only time to extend his 
Sondeshike before the creature smashed into the 
defile not twenty feet away, its body crushed. A 
cloud of red dust scattered in the impact so that 
he could make out no details of its form. The 
shape quivered and groaned even as it slid down 
the slope over the edge into the precipice. The 
screaming began again; it did not stop this time, 
but merely dwindled until the rat could no longer hear the thing's fall.

A faint stirring in the air brushed the whiskers 
above his left eye – those over his right a year 
gone beneath the Shrieker's touch – and he lifted 
his gaze to the escarpment. Another form hurtled 
downward, but this one with bat-like wings 
spread, angling its trajectory as if it were 
chasing the creature that had already fallen. 
Charles snarled and bared his incisors behind the 
cowl, snapping the Sondeshike into place. His 
fingers turned and turned that metal shaft until 
it spun in a silver disc limned crimson from the dust ripped from the rocks.

The creature swung away from the rock wall, 
banked its wings, and came about until it had 
turned to face them. The wings flapped with a 
heavy beat that made the stones bounces on the 
defile, scattering them around until they poured 
over the edge in a rippling tide. Charles braced 
himself against the escarpment with his left 
hand, claws digging at the stone. His cowl 
slipped across his snout and the red dust tickled 
his nose. Fire filled him, a fire he poured into the spinning Sondeshike.

The winged creature bore a long, thick 
lizard-like tail covered in spikes ending in a 
broad, flat spade that glistened a bilious green. 
Muscular arms and legs suggested a form similar 
to a Keeper, but infernal with protruding spikes 
and vicious claws on an eight-fingered hand. Each 
digit splayed in a radial direction as if it each 
were a thumb. The head was sunk against its 
shoulders and was shaped like its hands and feet, 
with eight starfish arms spreading out around a 
vacuous black maw that opened like a sphincter 
into whatever hellish torments could be imagined 
inside. From this abyss poured a burbling 
insanity laced with strident peals as of claws 
slowly scrapping against glass. A wave of 
revulsion struck him and Charles felt a sickness 
in his stomach and a weakness in his knees.

The rat snarled deeper, and let his Sondeck hold 
him upright in the face of the terror. 
Qan-af-årael spread his arms wide, a sheen of 
verdant life ringing round the both of them like 
a vast shield. The monster dived forward, 
crashing into that shield and bending it out of 
proportion. But the spell held it at bay for a 
moment, long enough for the rat to regain his composure.

Out of the sphincter-like mouth erupted a stream 
of perfidious vomit. The leprous mass spread 
across the shield and ate through it like a 
legion of maggots gorging upon a pit of corpses. 
His protector watched this without fear, the tree 
blades springing to life in his hands. Charles 
kept away from the ichorous mass and kept 
spinning his Sondeshike. His thoughts were 
jumbled in the face of the winged-horror. As he 
ground his teeth together in his attempts to 
focus on the hell-beast, an image kept intruding 
into his thoughts. It took shape only dimly, as 
if in a dark room lit only the smoldering wick of 
a single candle. Twilight rust in hue, it seemed 
to be metal, thin, and stretched beyond his sight.

His attention was called back when the beast 
smacked its tail against the remnant of the 
shield, cracking it and bringing it down. The 
beast dropped onto the defile as if it had dived 
into it. Charles felt the ground shake beneath 
his feet, and to his horror, realized that it had 
come loose from the rest of the rock around it 
and started to slide down the precipice. He 
jumped to the side, and then ducked as the 
colossal tail swung toward him. He felt the edge 
of the of its spade brush against the back of his 
left ear, which immediately began to itch and 
burn. Charles gasped and clawed at the back of 
his ear with his free arm, digging so deeply that 
he drew blood as the flesh was shredded.

One of the octopus feet stomped the ground next 
to him, and Charles bounced into the air where 
eight long fingers wrapped him round the middle, 
upending him on a journey toward the yawning maw. 
The flash of green from the tree blades 
interposed itself and he felt a searing heat at 
its presence. The creature howled with a 
nightmarish cacophony that afforded the rat a 
view down into its gullet. What little light 
penetrated to those depths revealed a long 
sarcophagus lined with gangrenous, serrated teeth 
that would reduce anything consumed to a vitreous 
mush, but only after interminable hours of chewing and scraping.

The wound his protector had inflicted convinced 
the beast to flap its wings and propel it 
backward over the precipice, carrying Charles 
with it. Death stood moments away. Charles stared 
at it, and felt an enormous hatred fill him. He 
had not come this far to become a meal to this 
fetid monstrosity. The image in his mind grew in 
radiance, and he realized it was a vast chain, 
each link of a substance similar to his 
Sondeshike; they conveyed strength and power. All 
that he should need was his for the asking.

Charles blinked the image away, letting the rage 
in him fuel his Sondeck. He spun the Sondeshike 
before him, battering it against the creature's 
head. The eight tentacles ringing that maw 
quivered and bent beneath his assault, and 
another scream of protest erupted from it, 
bringing with it an otherworldly hissing as of a 
thousand distant screams all clawing one atop the other.

Its arm pulled the rat away from its maw, and now 
he could see the wound Qan-af-årael had 
inflicted. A deep gash rent into its chest, 
leaving behind a bright, red scar into which a 
jaundiced set of ribs protruded. Seething, 
Charles drove one of the brass ferrules beneath 
the bones, and then spun outward. The front of 
the creature's chest exploded in a spray of blood 
which coated the rat's face and chest. It flung 
its arms wide in a roar of anguish and Charles 
found himself flying through the air.

The precipice and escarpment twirled in his 
vision, but he demanded it stop with a furious 
beat of his heart. For just a moment everything 
seemed clear to him and his trajectory his own to 
command. His paws landed on the defile, claws 
digging into the stone for purchase, as momentum 
returned and he buckled beneath its pitiless 
strength. But his grip held and he readied his staff for another volley.

The octopoid horror let lose another vomitous 
mass, but Qan-af-årael had slipped behind it. 
With a downward strike the tree blades shore the 
beast through the middle down to its waist. It 
quivered one last time, before, limp and oozing 
blood and puss from every sinew, it collapsed 
against the defile and slid down into the waiting 
abyss. Only a wide smear of its vomit and blood 
remained to show it had ever been.

Charles took a deep breath and reached one had 
toward the ruin of his left ear, wincing as he 
did so. There seemed to him a strange weight 
against his shoulders and around his neck, but 
felt nothing there apart from the cowl of his 
tattered cloak. The flesh of his ear still itched 
even though he'd already ripped it apart, and it 
took all of his will power to keep from tearing 
into it further. Instead he grabbed at the collar 
of his tunic and tightened his grip. A faint 
rattling of chains echoed in his mind.

Qan-af-årael surveyed him and a glimmer of a 
frown crossed his lips. He crossed the short 
distance to where the rat stood and laid a gentle 
hand upon his torn ear. The presence filled him 
with a warmth that cooled the anger of battle. No 
mortal wounds taken in this place will leave with 
it. Your ear will be restored to you once you 
cross the bridge. But a mortal wound if not 
healed by my hand will trap you here.

The rat stood straighter, snout turned in a 
defiant moue. I will take no such injury from 
anything we face here! Not with your protection, Master Åelf!

There are wounds mortal to the soul as well you 
must ware. Do not listen to the false promise of anger.

He could only grimace anew and nod his head. The 
scent of blood staining his cloak nauseated him 
but he tried to ignore it. The vision of the vast 
chain dimmed in his eyes but did not go dark. He 
glanced down at his cloak and wiped a smear of 
blood covering the Long Scout insignia on the 
front breast. These foul beasts would not 
besmirch the company of friends and family.

Charles lifted his good ear at the sound of 
baying. Qan-af-årael glanced behind them but 
there was nothing to see but the escarpment, the 
defile, and clouds of red blistering the horizon. 
The hunter is closing on his prey. We must make haste.


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

Charles Matthias
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