Evil Unmasked | Chapter IV: A Father

[Xarkly 12599]

A Lord of the Craft Short Story

EVIL UNMASKED | CHAPTER IV

A FATHER

 

CHAPTER 4 OF 5

 

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

 

MUSIC

Spoiler

 

---

 

 

“... and if you put in the soil -”

 

“Can I please just go play with the others? This is boring,” Krug drawled. His face was propped up on his two hands as he sat cross-legged in the dirt, and his youthful eyes watched the small hole in the ground. 

 

“You can play with your brothers soon,” Iblees said, his voice as patient as a stone. As he crouched down so that his eyes were level with Krug, his dishevelled grey hair and the folds of his brown cloak stirred in the wind. “And this is not boring, Krug. It is the future.”

 

“The future is boring, them,” Krug shot back stubbornly. He wanted to be back at the tents - the other children were playing chasing - but Iblees had dragged him aside for one of his lessons. “What’s so special about a stupid dead tree, anyway?”

 

“Not a dead tree.” Iblees’ muddied hand opened to reveal a brown oval in his palm. “A seed, Krug. It’s special because if you take care of it just right, it can grow into an entirely new tree.”

 

Krug rolled his eyes. “There are trees everywhere already.”

 

“Some trees, yes. But with this,” Iblees gently rolled the seed over in his fingers, “you could grow an apple tree, or pear, or nuts. When those trees grow, they’ll produce even more seeds, so you can grow as much food as you want.”

 

Krug eyed the seed doubtfully. “As much food as I want?” He was only a child, but for as long as he lived, the search for food had always been constant. That was why they wandered across the land, foraging and hunting the game. “A … dead tree can do that?”

 

“A seed,” Iblees corrected again with a soft sigh. “And yes, it can. Not just one seed, of course, but if you collect enough and plant them in good soil, then you produce all the food you want right at your feet. No need to wander, no need to hunt, no need to gather.”

 

Krug’s eyes widened incredulously. For a moment, he only watched Iblees as the light of the evening sun fell on him, strands of his grey hair gleaming like silver, and the wind gently gusted across the field. Infinite food, an end to wandering the wilderness hunting and gathering, an end to death by starvation, monsters, and the elements … It can’t be. That’s too good to be true.

 

As if reading Krug’s mind, Iblees smiled warmly. “Like I told you, my boy, it’s the future.” 

 

“How … how do you know all this?”

 

“Why, I learned it, of course,” Iblees said as if growing new food was common knowledge. He bent down, scooping out a little more dirt from the hole with his hand.

 

“But why tell me?” Krug’s voice had gone meek. “I - I’m only ten. Why aren’t you telling the elders?!”

 

“Because,” Iblees stared up at him, and then pressed the muddy seed into Krug’s hand. “A father should teach his boy some tricks.”

______________________________

 

Spoiler

 

 

“Krug.”

 

With a grunt, Krug’s eyes slid open. 

 

The childhood memory of sitting with Iblees in a field glazed gold by the setting sun vanished from his mind as the stench of smoke, burnt thatch, and death stung his nose. This is hardly the time to let my memory wander, he scolded himself. And why that memory? It had come to him unbidden when he had closed his eyes for just a moment’s rest. Thinking of it left him with a strangely mournful feeling, as if he had last something. That memory had been a long time ago.

 

“Krug?” the voice that had disturbed him repeated.

 

“What?” Krug asked gruffly as he pushed off the tree he had been slumped against, and turned his eyes on Grahla - a Far Ridger with a proud, bold nose and a certain wild beauty about her. Krug did not often think such things about women.

 

“Tracks have been found,” Grahla explained passively, but she looked troubled. “The farm was razed, but the farmers still managed to mount a resistance. The brigands have left tracks leading north, east, and west. They are scattered, as if they left in a hurry.”

 

“A resistance … Hmph. For all the good it did them.” He had chosen a solitary pine to rest on about thirty paces from the burnt farmhouse, and from here he could see the bodies of the murdered farmers arranged outside the hut by his reinforcements. Nearly everyone had been killed.

 

Leadership could have prevented this. You could have prevented this, echoed Iblees’ infuriating voice in his head. Krug clenched his fists. “Shut up,” he hissed, and when Grahla flinched, he added, “Not you. Come on.”

 

Grahla looked around to search for who Krug had been speaking to, before she frowned and plodded along beside him back towards the farm.

 

Smoke still hung heavy in the air, but it was thin enough to see through now. Krug, however, almost wished he could not see: burnt, ravaged fields surrounded him, and his boots crunched under torched soil with each step. Slaughtered animals lay motionless in the pastures, and all that remained of bushels and bales in the fields were mounds of ash. The brigands had been thorough in their destruction. As I will be in theirs.

 

“There is something else,” Grahla spoke up as they walked. “Two of the farmers - Pad, and his son - chased some of the brigands into the woods. The Wizard and I went to search for them, but the farmer’s son turned up dead.” 

 

“And? Is there something strange about that?” Krug’s voice was more curt than he intended, but his patience had been worn too thin for niceties. 

 

“Not exactly. It is just … Pad was fighting one bandit when the Wizard and I arrived, and he had sent his son to hide. I killed the bandit and Pad and I searched for his boy, but … We saw no trace of anyone else in the woods. It is not clear to me who killed the son.”

 

“It was Iblees’ who found the body?” Krug was not surprised when Grahla nodded.

 

Could he …? He began to think, but then shook his head. Have I gone mad? Iblees would not really kill a child, would he? He sighed, and stared down at his calloused hands. Sap, dirt, and soot made dark ridges in his flesh. No, this is just paranoia. Iblees would not. Why would he? It made no sense, but then again, many things that Iblees did made no sense to Krug. For the briefest of moments, he saw himself back in that sunlit field as a young boy with a man he had once called father, with a muddy seed in his hands. 

 

“Rotting Wizard,” he whispered to himself. 

 

He stomped towards the group of Far Ridgers gathered outside the burnt farmhouse. As he approached, he could hear the wails of two of the survivors - a man and a woman - kneeling on the ground and clutching the corpse of a young boy. Iblees stood just next to them, short and gaunt compared to the Far Ridgers, his clothes all cloth and wool rather than furs.

 

As he approached, he whistled loudly to draw the attention of the Far Ridgers standing around the bodies. “The cravens had fled,” he declared as their cloaked bodies turned to him, their wood axes and boar spears glinting in the pale sunlight. The man and woman kept crying over the corpse of the boy, but Krug spoke over their sobs. “There are tracks leading north, east, and west. We will follow them, and kill them. Grahla will take half our number and follow them west; Tavo, you will take the other half east. Two stay to watch the farm. I will take the north trail alone.”

 

No one objected to him going alone - everyone knew he could handle himself. Quiet, grim talk broke out again as the Far Ridgers began to organize themselves. Krug spared one brief glance down at the dead boy, an ugly red gash across the width of his throat and glazed eyes staring up at the sky in unseeing horror. 

 

Gritting his teeth, he began to march north and tried to put both the dead boy and his childhood memory of Iblees out of his head. He was not sure why it kept coming into his thoughts, but he did not like it. A father … He spat. I can’t believe I let him speak to me like that. He brushed back his bearskin cloak to pull out the twin axes hanging from his belt. He spun them in his hands, and flexed his grip on the shaven handles. They felt good in his hands. They felt right.

 

He crossed beyond the farm, and the fields beyond, until he found himself in a sparse wood of towering pines. The ground here was littered in leaves and needles, and it rolled gently downwards. He neither paused nor turned around when he heard footsteps on the burnt ground behind him. “I said I would take the north trail alone, Wizard.”

 

“I fear the marauders may have regrouped.” Iblees’ voice lacked its usual unfaltering calmness. There was a weariness to it now, and a grimness that had not been present earlier. “You could walk into their entire band. Can you fight six of seven of them alone?”

 

“Probably not.” Krug’s stride did not slow.

 

“You fool,” Iblees glowered, and that was not normal either. Something about the Wizard had changed since their exchange in the farmhouse. “You’re just going to walk into your doom?”

 

“If that is how it is meant to be,” Krug answered, and he suddenly felt calm. Do I mean that? He asked himself. The possibility of death did not frighten him. It had once, long ago; he was certain of that. When he first came to build Far Ridge, when he first wanted to build it as a beacon of how mortals should live, he had wanted to survive to see it to fruition. Now, though, he did not think he would mind dying.

 

I have no purpose in this world anymore.

 

“That is not how it is meant to be.” There was heat in Iblees’ voice.

 

Krug paused, and arched his head to give Iblees a sidelong look. “Why? Because that is not how you wish it to be?” He balked a mirthless laugh, and then began to trudge through the foliage again. “It would not bode well for your plan, is that it? You raised me and my brothers to be kings and rule through us, but I cannot be a king for you if I am dead.”

 

“So you will get yourself killed to spite me?”

 

Krug’s smile did not touch his eyes. “That would be a good death.” 

 

“King or not, Krug, I will not let you die.”

 

“Why? I will not serve your wishes.”

 

When he spoke again, Iblees’ voice was an impatient snap. “Did you perhaps consider that I might care for your wellbeing, now as I did back then? Not just whether you are alive, but that you have become miserable and wretched up in this wasteland!”

 

Krug froze. The hair on his neck stiffened, and not from the chill caress of the wind. My … wellbeing? He looked back at Iblees again, not with a glare this time. The Wizard did have a weary, haggard look to him, as if he had not slept in days. Krug tried to see past that deceptively unremarkable face and forget the man who had taught them to farm, to build, to fight, and tried to remember another man. A father.

 

For a moment, Krug was not sure if he was angry or not. He opened his mouth, but it was then that Iblees’ eyes suddenly shot open.

 

“Duck!” As soon as the word came out in a strangled cry, Iblees threw himself forward to tackle Krug, and they both went down in a heap. As they fell, Krug watched an arrow sail mere inches over his head, the flint point gleaming coldly in the sunlight before it thudded violently into a tree.

 

Spoiler

 

 

As soon as they struck the earth, focus replaced Krug’s surprise. He rolled off Iblees with a grunt, and sprung to his feet as his eyes darted about the trees surrounding them. Figures, clad in heavy furs and wool, were stepped out from behind thick trunks, weapons in hand. Each of them had the lithe and lean features of Malin’s Folk.

 

Six, seven …. Eight. Rotting idiot, he cursed himself. I was so distracted that I did not notice their tracks. 

 

As he heard bows creaking as drawstrings were pulled back, he moved on instinct. He dashed towards the bowmen, and before they could fire, he slashed one of his axes into the earth. The blade skimmed the foliage, and threw up a cloud of the fallen leaves like a smokescreen. He rolled immediately, and allowed himself a twinge of satisfaction as two arrows punched through the cloud of leaves at the spot he had been.

 

He leapt forward off the right foot, closing the distance between him and the panicked archers before they could draw their second arrow. One, two. His axes descended in two clean sweeps; one for the first archer, then a pivot brought the second down on the other. Malin’s Folk were no physical match for Far Ridgers, and the axes cleaved in deep with a crack of bone and splash of blood. Both of them dropped, gurgling. Easier than cutting down wolves.

 

He ripped his second axe free right in time to throw himself away from a spear as a third marauder charged him. Falling on his back, he swept his legs forward to kick the brigand’s feet out from under him. He bounded upright once more, but he did not have time to finish off the spearman as a fourth bandit - a woman, he could tell from under her cowl - rushed at him with a blade and shield.

 

With a shrill rasp of metal, his first axe parried her sword aside, but the shield slammed into his chest before he could strike again. The wind was knocked out of him and his ribs seemed to tighten, but he did not allow himself to lose focus. No matter what he had said to Iblees or admitted to himself, he did not intend to die today. He swung his axe, and the woman was sent back as the weapon sundered into her shield. When the axe remained stuck, he cursed and released it before launching a kick into the woman’s splintered shield to drive her away.

 

A flicker of motion in the corner of his eye prompted him to whirl around. The spearman was back on his feet, his cowl brushed back to bare a strikingly young face twisted with rage. His legs tensed visibly as he prepared to charge, the spearpoint levelled at Krug.

 

Rot, he cursed. He pictured the tree by the riverbank back by Far Ridge’s longhall, he flung his remaining axe. With a half-shriek and half-wheeze, the axe rent into the spearman’s chest, and he collapsed. This time, he did not get up. 

 

“Krug,” came Iblees’ alarmed voice as the Wizard backed into him. His chest stinging and lungs labouring from where the shield struck him, Krug looked around to find that the remaining marauders had closed in on them in an armed circle. The woman with the sword threw her ruined shield to the ground, his axe still in it, as her fellow brigands formed a loose ring around Krug and Iblees with spears levelled. 

 

I … I am going to die here. Both he and Iblees stood weaponless, and he could barely draw breath. 

 

The brigands were talking in hushed, urgent voices to each other, but their accents were so sharp that Krug could not make out what they were saying. “I … I told you I would go alone,” he said stiffly to Iblees. The Wizard’s face was hard-set and not quite afraid, but his eyes jumped from bandit to bandit in a mad dash as if searching for a solution.

 

Iblees swallowed. “... No. Neither of us are going to die, you least of all, and not to these worms. Just …” he licked his lips as if his mouth had gone dry. “Just promise me that you will remember the future we must build.”

 

Krug narrowed his eyes. “What are you -”

 

Iblees took a step forward, and then he was no longer Iblees.

 

Smoke wreathed his form, and his clothes burnt away to reveal flesh as black as onyx streaked with veins that glowed like magma. He grew in size, doubling to twelve feet and then sixteen, and his head grew long and serpentine. Fires blazed in the sockets of his eyes and mouth, and black horns twisted out of his skull to crown him.

 

With cries of terror, the brigands began to scramble back, but Krug was rooted to the spot. Iblees - no, the Demon - slashed forward with an elongated arm, and black-red claws gored one of the spearmen like a leaf. As the claws protruded from the brigand’s back, his body burst into violent flames. A second claw slashed at the woman with the sword, and diced her into bloody chunks in one swing. The entire band broke, then, and took off running with petrified yells.

 

The Demon stepped forward on hooved feet, and a ring of fire - black fire - erupted from nowhere between the trees, forming a perfect circle around Krug, the Demon, and the marauders. A perfect cage. The Demon loped forward leisurely, the ground quaking under each step, and the bandits scrambled in every direction to find an escape. Some tried to push through the fire, but the second they touched it, their bodies combusted into ash. It was only then that some of the bandits turned, flinging their spears at the Demon like javelins. Though one slid right into the Demon’s chest, the horned horror kept advancing as if it were nothing. 

 

Without any sense of urgency, the Demon picked off the remnants in deadly, burning swipes. Within seconds, silence befell the forest but for the cackling of the flames. All the brigands lay dead, their corpses either burning or slashed to bits. The Demon turned, then, and its flaming eyes settled on Krug. 

 

Krug had always thought of himself as brave. He had bested bears in single combat, faced entire wolf packs, and driven off brigands for years. But as that Demon stared at him, as he looked back into the caverns of its eyes, he felt fear - a truer fear that he had ever felt in all his life.

 

And then it was gone. 

 

The Demon’s form twitched once, and then it dissolved into smoke and ash. At the same instant, the black fires encircling Krug winked out immediately. Only blackened earth indicated there had ever been any fire at all.

 

The Demon - Iblees - was gone, and Krug found himself standing alone in the forest, surrounded by bodies.

 

“... what just happened?” he asked weakly, but only the oblivious chirps of birds answered him before he keeled over and began to vomit.

 

[gavyn 855]

When’s the hardback copy being released?

[UnBaed 8942]

big fan, can't believe i got this dude's autograph!!