Forums

(8) Ikov immediately went to Armadyl. "It is the fog," he said, and Armadyl understood. The god responded, "I have a sense of how we can drive this spirit out. As in any place, many spirits live in the land, but this one spirit has sought to control them all, to bend the native spirits to its will - this is why we could discern nothing here. In order to drive out the spirit of this fog, we must draw upon the native spirits. But this is going to be a difficult task and a task for you alone. Ikov, you must grapple with the fog and release the native spirits who are wild and angry; you must hold fast the spirit of the fog while the natural spirits destroy their bonds and banish their captor. You and we will need to endure their beating while they cleanse the land." Ikov understood. After the scouts returned in the evening, Ikov commanded that no more scouts would be dispatched and that all should eat well and sleep well, in preparation for the next day.

(9) Ikov spent the following morning alone; he ate little. The troops waited for his command. In the late afternoon, as the autumn sun began to set above the troll-mountains, Ikov had each soldier stand at attention before his tent. Then Ikov stood in the center of the camp in a trance; in his mind, he addressed the fog. He seized it and held it fast. The fog did not resist, but the spirits it held captive began to stir. The soldiers watched as storm clouds gathered and lightning flashed across the sky. Winds began to whip about the camp, cold winds that bit through their coats. Thunder rolled across the moors as a heavy rain approached, heavier than any rain they had yet seen. The wall of rain swept across the camp, and every soldier retreated into his tent. The rain was cold; the drops were large and struck hard against the tents. Then came hail. Large hailstones pounded against every structure in the camp. The wooden huts were smashed. Some soldiers screamed out in pain, but no one dared leave the safety of his tent. Only Armadyl stood exposed, watching his servant Ikov.

(10) Ikov remained standing still amidst the wind and rain and hail. "Release me," whispered the spirit of the fog, "or use my power to quell these wild spirits, before they crush your body and tear your mind." Ikov recognized the truth of its words. They might kill him, might rend his body or soul. He endured their rage in his mind, just as violent as the elements around him. But he knew that should he release the spirit of the fog or attempt to control it, he would be controlled by it; he would quell the native spirits only to tighten the grip of the fog over them and him. Therefore he endured, offering his body and mind to their beating, risking his life to their rage.

(11) The sun set, the fog thinned, the red light of dusk faded from the sky, and the storm raged on in the darkness. For six hours Ikov stood still. No hailstone struck him mortally. He gave no heed to the minor injuries he sustained. His mind endured, even as he exposed it in sacrifice. Then the rain stopped, and the wind died down. A cool breeze blew through the moors. Soldiers emerged from their tents and beheld the stars in the clear night sky. Ikov allowed himself to be carried to a tent, and there he slept.

(12) On the following morning, the soldiers salvaged what they could from the camp, whatever had not been crushed into the mud. A small contingent formed to carry the severely injured and the bodies of the dead back to Kathekontos. The rest prepared to journey east and to leave the moors. The campaign there lasted for four months.

Part 5: Mountain

(1) Coming down from the wetlands, Armadyl, Ikov, and their company traveled east across the plain. The days became shorter and the weather colder as the end of autumn approached. But the troops were glad, for travel was easy, and game was plentiful in the uninhabited north. Not Armadyl, nor Ikov, nor any other soldier there knew the northern steppes, so it was decided that they would explore the land until the time came to entrench themselves for winter. Until then, they would wander the wilderness.

(2) Except for the occasional bundle of hills, the land was flat, and dotted with forests - the forests would provide them with wood in the winter. And any of the clusters of hills could provide them with shelter from the winds, high places for keeping watch, and a defensible location if necessary. Yet it did not appear that defense would be necessary. They encountered no enemies: they encountered no one at all. There were ruins here and there, of settlements long forgotten, and also abandoned campgrounds of pioneers who passed through the land, some old and some new, but they met none of the explorers along the way. Armadyl and Ikov walked together and spoke often, just as they had at the start of their journey together over a year before.

(3) After a week on the march, the company passed a large mountain in the distance to the north. Then Armadyl decided to turn the company northeast. Keeping the mountain on their left, they marched for two more weeks, until scouts reported smoke rising on the horizon. They soon came upon a village. The villagers rejoiced at their arrival, for they were Asgarnians. The army and the villagers feasted together that night, and afterwards Armadyl and Ikov listened to the story of the village leaders of how they had come to live there.

(4) Many months before, some Asgarnians who had lost their fiefs at the end of the rebellion, as well as those who desired adventure and a fresh start, had migrated to the steppes and had found fertile farmland in the far northeast. There they established two villages. They had divided the land amongst themselves, according to their custom; gathered food and supplies for the harsh winter they would endure; and intended to wait for the coming year to begin to work the land.

(5) Before the Asgarnians had finished their account, Ikov asked them, "Why have you built such high wooden walls and towers? We encountered no enemies on our way." Their faces darkened. They told Armadyl and Ikov of a mountain which lay upon the horizon, on a penninsula which extended from the furthest northeast corner of the continent. From the mountain they had been attacked. A horde of creatures came upon the other village, slaughtering many of the Asgarnians there and burning down their homes. Many more of the Asgarnians had escaped to the surviving village. The horde did not follow them; soon thereafter the Asgarnians were prepared to defend themselves - though they did not know what kind of creatures had attacked them, how many of them lived on the mountain, or when they might attack next.

(6) Armadyl called for some of the Asgarnian villagers who survived the attack and asked them to describe the creatures. The villagers described them as small, squat, fleshy humanoids, beige in color. They had beedy, black eyes, pointed teeth, and sharp claws. They moved quickly, running or bounding on all four limbs by dropping their knuckles to the ground. They attacked in the day and retreated in the night. Some of them had carried torches, but they were for burning and not for light - the creatures did not seem to prefer either day or night - rather it appeared that they had very poor eyesight, which allowed many Asgarnians to escape.

(7) Armadyl and Ikov thanked them for sharing their account and then retired to sleep in their army's camp, pitched within the village walls. In the middle of the night both awoke to the sound of horns: the villagers were arming themselves and rushing to the walls; the torches of the horde had been sighted upon the horizon, leaving their mountain home. Armadyl and Ikov ordered their troops to prepare for battle. Armadyl inquired of the estimated number of creatures coming against them - twenty torches suggested about two hundred of them; exactly one in ten had carried torches in the last attack. Armadyl had every soldier in his army procure a torch; then he asked for the gates to be opened, and he ordered his troops to form into columns before the village walls. He spoke to Ikov: "These do not sound like intelligent creatures to me," he said, "We will test them tonight, and perhaps follow them home."

(8) Armadyl called some soldiers apart; he ordered them to dig a small ditch a few inches wide in front of every row of standing soldiers and then to fill the ditches with oil. When the village soldiers stationed in their towers signaled that the horde was only a mile away, Armadyl ordered the oil in the ditches set aflame and for all the soldiers to light their torches at once. Armadyl himself lept up to the top of a tower to watch what the approaching horde would do. At the sight of more than four hundred torches before them, the creatures stopped. The horde stood still for several minutes. Standing at the front of the company, Ikov could only see a handful of lights on the horizon; he waited quietly. Every soldier also stood still, sweating from the heat of the fires, chilled by the wind, nervous in the silence, not knowing what enemy and what numbers they might face, unable to see into the darkness around them, for they were blinded by the glare of the torches.

(9) At last the lights of the horde began to move away, back toward the mountain. The soldiers of the village cheered, and the company of Armadyl and Ikov sighed with relief. But then Armadyl spoke with a clear and commanding voice: "Drop your torches where you stand. We will follow them to the mountain. Move quickly and quietly." Armadyl, Ikov, and their company pursued the creatures at a light run. By the time the company had covered half the distance to the mountain, it was clear that they would not catch the retreating horde. But Armadyl did not stop the pursuit.

(10) Once the torches reached the base of the mountain, they turned left and disappeared around its western side. Soon Armadyl, Ikov, and their company were crossing a narrow isthmus of rock, bounded on both sides by the sea - none of them had seen the sea for over a year. But for their running, the cold, salty air threatened them with fatal chill. Once they too reached the sheer rock wall at the base of the mountain, Armadyl turned left to follow whither the horde had run. Rounding a wall of rock jutting out from the western side, the company met a strong, freezing wind from the north, blowing between massive formations of rock, from over the arctic sea. The company ran into the wind, north along the side of the mountain.

(11) Suddenly Armadyl stopped. Ikov and the company stopped behind him. On their right they beheld a break in the side of the mountain. A chasm extended from the level ground before their feet all the way up to the broken summit. Within it they saw exposed the enormous shaft of the volcano, like the trunk of a tree split open by a bolt of lightning - it was filled with the creatures, thousands of the creatures, locked in frenzied activity. The creatures came in every size. Small ones slaughtered each other in pits below and upon the stone terraces throughout the atrium. Large ones feasted upon small ones, or crushed them against rocks as they hobbled about. Some fell from high places, only to be torn apart by those among whom they landed. From deep below to high above, layers and layers of volcanic stone overflowed with cannabalistic violence. And from walls riddled with caves poured forth more and more of the creatures who threw themselves into the gluttonous feast. The squeals and screeches of the debauchery echoed throughout the chamber, and the smell of blood met the company on a draught of warm air from within.

(12) Terror struck the hearts of the soldiers, but Ikov did not turn his eyes from the sight. He surveyed the scene until he found one creature unlike the rest, standing alone upon a terrace on the far side, hardly illumined by the red glow of magma beneath - it was like a man, with dark, reddish skin, and legs like a goat's. Two glowing, yellow eyes stared back at him. Ikov did not know how long he spent locked in the stare, but he felt Armadyl touch his shoulder and heard Armadyl order the retreat. Armadyl commanded that they run, quickly enough to keep warm, but no more quickly, because they would not be attacked that night. Ikov was pensive as he ran with the troops, considering the creature who oversaw the deranged feast. Soon the army arrived at the village, exhausted, and they slept.

(13) On the next day, Armadyl and Ikov walked together. "They are troglodytes, cave-dwellers," Armadyl said, "brought here by a demon of Infernus. I don't know where they come from, but I've encountered them in other worlds. They don't naturally act like they did last night. They're under the control of the demon you saw; he induces them to their disgusting ritual. He's using them, to spread fear in the land, to oppress, and to make his way into the hearts of the Asgarnians." "I don't understand," said Ikov, "He was just standing there in the open. Is he a spirit already manifested or something like us?" "The creatures of Infernus are like us; they have lives of their own and can die. But also like us, they have spiritual powers; they can project themselves into a world and work themselves into the land and people just like a spirit. This one probably wants to be invisible, but the land is newly inhabited, and it will take him time to seep into it."

(14) A little later, Armadyl spoke again, "You will have to face the demon, Ikov. You met him in your mind, and he is after the hearts of men. If you hold him fast, as you did against the spirit in the moors, the troglodytes will not be able to fight. I will lead the troops, and we will slaughter them, end their unnatural presence in this world. Then you can banish the demon." "Must we kill them all?" Ikov asked. Armadyl responded, "Yes, they have been wholly twisted by their captor; through them he maintains his presence here."

(15) Soon after the army had returned to the village, the report spread that thousands of troglodytes inhabited the mountain; the soldiers provided graphic accounts of their frenzied slaughter and of their strange commander. The soldiers remained gripped with fear, and many of the villagers wondered aloud if they should return to their former home. Armadyl and Ikov said little and allowed the troops to rest for a couple weeks. Then, Armadyl ordered the army to assemble.

(16) The god addressed them thus: "Soldiers of sea-folk, tribesmen, and woodsmen, you have served me, your god, and Ikov, my servant, with generous hearts. But our quest has not reached its end. The darkest days of winter are upon us, and we are to march into battle. You have seen the horror within the mountain, the horror we will efface from the world. We will march directly into the mountain, and there we will slaughter the troglodytes more thoroughly than they slaughter themselves. We will banish the threat from this land and fear from the hearts of its settlers. Do not fear marching directly into the house of slaughter, amidst enemies above and below and on every side. In every battle thus far, your commander Ikov has placed himself in as great or in greater danger than you. Remember that he alone faced the black knight among the last, resistance fief-lords; remember his vigil in the storm of hail. Once again he will face the spirit here. Remember Ikov, the justice he has won for you, and fear no troglodyte."

(17) In the late afternoon, the army of Armadyl and Ikov marched from the village. They marched slowly. All knew that the troglodytes and the demon waited for them in the mountain. Most shook from fear, but Armadyl and Ikov walked with absolute calm and confidence. The troops nearest them drew strength from their composure. The company crossed the isthmus of rock and then rounded the wall jutting west and again faced the freezing northern wind. Soon they stood before the gaping chasm. Arrayed upon every terrace waited the army of troglodytes, armed with tooth and claw and torch. Ikov did not attend to them but sought out the demon, standing in the same place as he was before. The two locked eyes, and Ikov lost track of time.