II: The Sharpest Among Beasts

[Altiak 1648]

 

 

Chapter II

The Sharpest Among Beasts

 

23th of the Deep Cold, 1537

The Lifeless Wetlands called The Mires, on The Isle of Ulmsbottom

In solitude, Edgar de Saltpans treks through desolation in search of the man who could help him.

 

 

Spoiler

 

Howbeit, the obscure and tenebrous marsh he found himself in was not a place to come unguarded and weak-witted. There were no ghosts here. He had peered over his shoulder thrice now as he rode through the swamp, and still Edgar de Saltpans caught not a single glance of the eidolon that haunted his shadow. Each time he had chastised himself for his foolishness, quashing his fear with reason and logic. To navigate this boundless expanse of soggy ground and foetid water it fell to the boldest and barmiest of man, but very few could boast the feat of making the journey and returning alive.

 

Edgar had arrived on the Isle of Ulmsbottom some few weeks ago, on a neglected old barge that rattled and groaned without end as it undulated over the waves of the Shimmering Sea. He remembered the moment he sighted the mass of black, accursed land on the horizon, mired in fog and shadow, and he remembered too how he had promised himself long ago never to return. His homeland was a wretched and war-ravaged place, torn asunder and put back together more times than the dominion of Oren ever had been.

 

It had been an unremarkable arrival, as Edgar recalled. He rode through the ruined capital city of Saint Lucien, past the stygian hovels and ramshackle churches that constituted what little civilization remained on Ulmsbottom, and into the untamed outback that was native to the island. As he journeyed westward, kept company only by his haunted thoughts and his trusty mare, he noted that the crowing of carrion birds he had known all too well in Vailor were not present on Ulmsbottom. Here, there resided a far more fearsome thing than the crow, a creature as old and savage as the wilds themselves.

 

There were no ghosts here - only beasts and men.

 

 

Presently, Edgar rode through the noisome swamps of Ulmsbottom’s western midlands, the bog having opposed him for every step of his journey. From the moment he first passed under the knotted and gnarled trees of the wetland, the sun’s yellow glow became a limited commodity, beams of pale light piercing the dusky trees’ canopies only in sparse pockets.

 

Edgar, having discounted the rumours surrounding the swamp as apocryphal and false, found his skepticism waning as he ventured deeper into the eerily-still land. There were no buzzing gnats or croaking toads, and the suffocating silence that bore down on him made Edgar feel like a trespasser in an alien world, one in which he was not welcome. There were no wayshrines or roads to guide his path, and he was alone in his quest.

 

Thick mud clung to the hooves of Edgar’s horse, and with ever-growing exhaustion the beast soldiered forth, strength waning as it struggled against the black grimy water. He cursed himself from atop the lethargic animal, eyes scanning the thick maze of trees for some better route that would not lead him through low-hanging creepers and mossy thickets.

 

From somewhere far beyond his eye’s reach Edgar heard it again: the high, keening mewl of an unknown creature, its shrill tone making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. In his mind’s eye, Edgar imagined that the taunting cries were that of a squamous and immense monstrosity that lurked in the swamp, but again he shook away his childish imagination and pressed his steed onwards at a quickened pace.

 

Edgar’s horse huffed restlessly as another cry came in response to the first, this time not as far away. The call carried over the gloomy wetland, and in response a bevel of howls came from all around him. There was a oneness to the invisible pursuer’s recurrent verse, one that dripped with devious intelligence. Edgar shuddered involuntarily, and brought a hand to the pommel of his shortsword as he glanced about for a sign of movement in the mist.

 

Edgar’s horse, as though the euphony of faraway sounds triggered some antediluvian instinct within it, began to struggle and buck uncontrollably. Ensnared in the mud, the poor creature succeeded only to further entangle itself, whinnying and thrashing about out of hysterical impulse. With nary a moment to cry out in vain, Edgar’s horse reared up, tossing him from the saddle and into the repugnant water underneath him.

 

Sinking into the warm and unpleasant bog, Edgar felt a mouthful of muddy fluid seep into his open mouth. With a growing sense of panic, he flung himself for the water’s surface and sucked in a great breath as he breached the inky water. He saw his horse - hind-legs submerged beneath the bog, battling fruitlessly against the fen’s terrifyingly stubborn clutch.

 

The same hitching yowl as before sounded without warning, this time accompanied by a flash of movement from a nearby tangle of trees. Edgar found himself backpedaling through the muck, away from his hopeless mare. In the dim light of the swamp, he saw shapes, forms dipping low and darting from the trees towards his horse. The cries of Edgar’s doomed animal grew to a sickening pitch as unseen animals threw themselves atop it, growling and snarling like dogs.

 

Edgar found himself rooted in place as he heard the cold butchery of his entangled horse, and it took him a moment before he could wrench himself from the horrific muddy sump of the wetland and flee blindly away from the insidious and howling predators. From behind him, their sickening cries sounded once more, carrying over the dead and hostile land, but this time they were different.

This time, they were triumphant.

 

 

Edgar had run stupidly and without a set destination in mind, stopping only when his lungs felt fit to burst from his chest some few hours later. By the time he had slowed to a halt and sunken down against a sturdy tree, he realized that night had fallen upon the swamp. Looking up, Edgar noticed that with the coming of evening the sky only seemed to have brightened. Long, spectral streaks of moonlight shone down on him, and Edgar saw the moon, cyclopean and unearthly, staring back down at him with a sort of perverse scorn.

 

Shivering from the dampness of his muddy clothes, Edgar soon understood that he would freeze to death if he did not find warmth. He knew that destiny had pointed him on the treacherous course through Ulmsbottom, but he would not let fate, that dastardly mistress, shirk him of his life in a hateful land like the one he found himself in. Careful not to wander too far into the depths of the primeval marsh, Edgar accrued a sufficient bundle of dry wood with which to make a campfire. With his firesteel he struck a mossy rock once, twice, three times, before he was graced with a spark of light that quickly spread to form a flame, a white trail of smoke snaking up towards the heavens.

 

For hours he sat stoking his meager fire, and after a long while the frigidity that clung to his quaking form subsided. With time, however, the inkling notion of despair that had clung to him for some time only doubled. Edgar de Saltpans realized that he was well and truly lost, with little hope of finding his way out. Slumped before the orange, glowing warmth, his bones aching and weary, he soon found himself giving into fatigue and surrendering to a slumber that could not have come sooner.

 

A slumber that was interrupted by an alert, nearby howling, ushered in by the blue radiance of the twilight.

 

Edgar’s pale eyes shot open, and he scrambled to his feet towards the scabbard that lay by his campfire. Unsheathing his sword and holding it tight against himself, he crouched low next to the fire, whirling around haphazardly as the very same mocking cries as before permeated the brush. Edgar gritted his teeth, bewilderedly searching for the phantoms that surrounded him and taunted him.

 

Brandishing his sword helplessly, Edgar squinted as he began to make out more shapes, lithe and close to the ground. They slinked around just out of the fire’s dim glowing reach, and horror seized his heart with an iron grip as he saw countless pairs of eyes catching the moon’s dim light for fleeting moments at a time. On nights like this, with the moon high in the sky, pale and brooding, the spirits were free to move about - or so the folk tales Edgar had been taught growing up were wont to say.

 

There were no ghosts here - only beasts.

 

Jackals. They watched Edgar from the shadows with a sort of inward cunning, their gray, reflective eyes drinking him in hungrily. Their fur was grimy and streaked with muck, no doubt a consequence of their habitat, and when they bore their teeth Edgar could see rows of yellow and bestial fangs. He held out his useless length of steel as he squared up against the pack of nightmarish canines that loped around him from all sides, biding their time. They were toying with him, waiting for the right moment to strike. Rhythmically, methodically, they circled him; the sharpest among beasts.

 

The indignation of the fate that awaited Edgar enraged him, and he lifted his sword in bitter anticipation, prepared to fight to his last breath. Spittle flew from his lips as he shrieked, issuing a challenge to the knowing and devious devil dogs of Ulmsbottom.

 

“Come on, then! COME ON!”

 

A lone canid, matted and greasy hide spotted with fur the color of burnished gold, surged forward, snarling as it leapt at Edgar. Off-balance and unprepared, the man staggered back and lifted his sword a second too late, and the vicious cur sunk its fangs into the soft flesh of his calf. Screaming, Edgar thrashed and stabbed at the predator that had latched itself to him, and at last his sword found purchase in the beast’s exposed flank, and he felt its jaws loosen from around his leg.

 

The jackal tumbled backwards over Edgar’s fire, kicking up a dazzling burst of ash and sparks. The other beasts were hooting and yelping now, unanimous in their hatred for their quarry. Edgar glanced down to his wounded leg, where blood wept without end. The animals were hungry, savage, a choir of macabre creatures hellbent on tormenting him. Edgar could only watch as the fire swelled twice and coughed its final breath, leaving only the light of the moon to illuminate his hapless encounter with the beasts.

 

Edgar turned and ran.

 

Discarding his sword, driven to his most fundamental instinct, finding himself fighting a foe that would outsmart and outfight him in the darkness, Edgar de Saltpans turned and ran from the butchers of Ulmsbottom. At his heels they crooned and jeered their horrible song, more boisterous than the cruelest of men in their pursuit. But Edgar was a man of firm resolve, and he would not give the creatures the satisfaction of killing him outright. And so he ran, the unfriendly swamp growing darker and more oppressive as he raced along.

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

Men garbed with plate of mail, armed with sharpest of steel, imbued with iron will - be wary, for when the Mires tarnish thine armor and shatter thine sword, it shall be thee that withers next.

 

Edgar would join his brothers in death imminently, of that he was certain. He had gone to Vailor to bury the memories of his tormented past and, for a time, he became free of them. But as soon as he set sail for Ulmsbottom and embarked on that fateful journey home, remembrance seized Edgar. It had drawn him to his demise - a demise he would meet at the maw of a beast much crueler than the skulking crow from far across the seas.

 

Edgar panted exhaustedly as he weaved through the dense underbrush, leaving in his wake a bloody and ravaged trail of branches. His body spited him, hated him and failed him, and soon he found his mad dash slowing to a dogged hobble as pain flared in his leg. As though by some miracle he staggered out of the hideous, deformed treeline that he had blindly raced through, and soon the ground beneath him turned to muck. Wading out with the last of his strength, Edgar collapsed into the gray waters of the shallow lagoon.

 

Edgar floated atop the bog, arms spread wide, staring up at the night sky that shone brilliantly with its countless modicums of dreamy, far-flung light. His body drifted weightlessly over the muddy water, battered and vanquished, but in the far distance the glow of a glimmering beacon on the lagoon caught his eye. Softly swinging to and fro as it picked its way gently over the water towards him, the stunning effulgence of its glow rid Edgar of any despair. As the iridescent light washed over him, Edgar de Saltpans was suddenly aware of the fact that he was being lifted up, plucked from the jaws of condemnation by the iron hands of salvation.

 

There were no ghosts here - only men.

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CheekyNolan 5420]

Moved to the Archive. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.