The Legend of the Five and the Choosers of the Slain

Chapter 3 - One of Five

            Through the woods moved a man who looked like a human tree. He was extremely tall, with a thin but muscular build and a long, unkempt brown beard and hair. Indeed, he even moved like a human tree, the motion of his legs barely noticeable under the dangling brown rags that he wore draped over himself like a robe. His staff, a simple, stiff piece of wood, actually moved with more fluidity than he did. It almost seemed to be pulling him along, striking out in front of him as he slowly caught up behind. He stared forward, or at the ground in thought, hardly looking about, yet one could tell that he was entirely in tune with the forest around him. Indeed, he did not seem to be walking through the forest so much as part of the forest. His age could not be determined. Like a tree, he looked young and strong, yet old and wise.

            None who saw him would have known his name, for never did he walk among men when he could avoid it. But in truth he had many names in many tongues, all known throughout the North. The Russet Devourer… the Hound of the Trees… the Wolf of the Forest… the Earthwolf…

            The Brownwolf.

            As he approached the edge of the forest, he knew immediately that others had been here not long ago. So acute were his skills of tracking in the forest that he hardly needed to glance at the earth to confirm this. It told him what it had seen as if it spoke to him. Four men, all clad in heavy, Imperial-made boots. Two had been carrying bows, the other two crossbows, all of which left familiar indentions in the soil. Their prints were many and deep; they had stood here for a long while, all staring off in the same direction. The Brownwolf turned to regard what they had seen.

            As he had predicted from the sounds and smells that had been reaching him as he stood there, it was a camp, built under the shelter of the small cave-like indention in the cliff. The beings who camped there were a strange and surprising sight. They were women all, and each was clad in shining silver and gold armor and a cape made entirely of bird feathers. The Brownwolf had but one guess at who they were, and though he knew it had to be correct, he could scarcely believe it himself. Could these truly be the Valkyrie themselves? The Choosers of the Slain?

            He approached with caution, careful not to make a sound… and paused. There was something in the bushes. It was Gondul. She had not noticed the wanderer, and he had not noticed her, but now they both detected one another at the very same instant, and his shadowy hazel eyes locked with her great, moon-like blue ones. The Brownwolf blinked at the girl as she stood up, tossing aside the brown cloak she had been wearing to reveal the silver and gold plate armor underneath, as well as the ornate spear she was carrying. She then placed a winged golden helmet upon her golden-brown haired head… and smiled.

            “Excuse me,” said the Brownwolf, in his deep yet gentle voice. The perfection of his speech made it clear that he knew the language very well but was quite unaccustomed to actually speaking it. “I did not see you there. I was just…”

            “Who do you think they were?” she asked, in an otherworldly voice.

            He blinked. “You… Who do you mean?”

            She looked back at the camp, and then turned and looked into the trees behind him. “Not us, them. The markings in the forest.”

            “The tracks? I noticed them, yes. They appear to have been made by a party of hunters, armed with bows and crossbows.”

            “Not of the Tribes,” she said, “so from where?”

            He nodded and could not help but smile a bit at having found so acute a fellow tracker. “Yes, the boots…”

            Suddenly a voice from the direction of camp interrupted them. “Intruder! Gondul has found an intruder!”

They turned to see Skogul rushing forward, her hands crossed over her torso so that they rested on the sword hilts hanging from either side of her waist. The Brownwolf rested his staff against his shoulder and held up his hands in a show of peace. The red-haired warrior maiden let her hands drop to her sides and slowed her gait. The other Valkyrie were all standing behind her now, staring at the intruder with their bright eyes, the blue light of which seemed to pierce into his very soul.

            The stare was one no mortal man could ever forget.

            “I mean no harm,” said the woodsman. “I was but passing through.”

            The most pristine Valkyrie in the group stepped forward and placed a hand on Skogul’s shoulder. The Brownwolf stared at her in awe, for her hair was white as ice, blending in almost seamlessly with her swan-feather cloak. Her skin, however, fairly glowed with radiance, illuminating the many necklaces and other jewelry she wore. She also wore the lightest armor of all the Valkyrie, little more than a suit of chainmail that hardly covered enough to be protective. Across her back was an ivory white bow of a peculiar recurving design.

            “We can see that you mean no harm,” said Myst, though she was looking at Skogul as she said this. Then she regarded the human. “You may continue in peace.”

            The Brownwolf nodded. “And so I shall. But I feel I should warn you; there were others here a few nights ago. I have been trailing them, and their tracks tell me that they watched you in the night, from those bushes back there. The one you call Gondul here saw the tracks as well.”

            Gondul nodded once. “Only just this morning. Four men, armed with bows, wearing heavy boots.”

            “They came from far to the south,” explained the Brownwolf, “for their boots are of Imperial make.”

            Skogul scowled. “Then their intentions could not have been good. Would that we could have detected them last night. Then you would have found their graves instead of merely tracks there in the bushes!”

            The next Valkyrie to speak looked like the polar opposite of Myst. Her hair was black, and she wore a cloak of matching Raven feathers. Her armor bore no gold, only silver, with black cloth and dark leather fastenings that contrasted with her pale skin. Her eyes, however, were blue, as were the indigo gems in the hilt of the peculiar silver scepter that she carried in addition to her sword.

            “Calm yourself, Skogul,” she said. Then she turned to the human and said, “You were tracking them, you say? From which direction did they travel then?”

            “They journey from the east of here,” said the Brownwolf, pointing back into the woods, “presumably from Northtown, since it is an Imperially-controlled city. I believe them to be hunters looking for game in the Northern wilderness, nothing more. It is a common sport among the wealthy men of the Empire, unfortunately.”

            The Valkyrie seemed relieved by this information. A few of them exchanged glances, but they said nothing. The Brownwolf wondered what their purpose was, but he feared to ask. If these truly were the beings he believed them to be, he wished only to help, not to meddle in their affairs.

            For the Brownwolf was a werewolf, a remnant of times long past. And unlike many others, he knew their true history. The werewolves were descended from the ancient followers of a pantheon of primitive gods, who granted them powers of transformation and other limited magical abilities. But the other men, those who worshipped the current pantheon, grew in number, and their gods consequently grew more powerful. A great war erupted between both gods and men, in which the shapeshifters, and their gods, were defeated. With the fall of their deities, the shifters were cursed, losing many of their powers. Some became Beastfolk, stuck in a half-man, half-animal state. Others became Lycanthropes, their powers, once a gift from their gods, becoming like a disease…

            And these women, the Valkyrie, were the servants of the new gods… those who had cursed their ancestors. Still, he held no resentment. That was the past.

            “So,” he said, “I suppose I shall take my leave now.”

            Myst nodded. “Yes. Thank you for your help.”

            Kara, who had been listening to the conversation while looking over Myst’s shoulder, stepped forward.

            “Are you sure we shouldn’t ask him about…”

            “No,” Skogul interrupted, “let’s not.”

            “But he…”

            “…is a suspicious, half-naked, hairy man wandering alone and unarmed in the woods,” Skogul concluded for her, cocking her head and smiling. “I’m not sure we should trust every mortal we meet.”

            The Brownwolf blinked. Then he smiled, shrugged, and turned away, waving farewell to Gondul. Myst put a hand on Gondul’s shoulder.

            “You know,” Myst said, nodding back toward Skogul, “I think she rather disrupts our image.”

            In an ordinary human’s life, magic was nothing but fantasy. Most villagers of the North and citizens of the Empire only knew of it in diluted form, as magical trinkets, superstitious practices, and mysterious stories. Though fighting off monsters was a regular enough occurrence, and trade with dwarves and other strange folk was fairly common, actual magic – pure arcane power – was a thing all but unknown. This was because, unlike the elves and a few other magically-gifted creatures, most humans simply lacked the ability to tap into magical fields. Those that could were often seen as dangerous freaks of nature, persecuted and killed by their fellow men. Others hid their talents and trained them, living far from normal society and meeting together in secret councils. These men were known as wizards.

            The six most powerful human witches and wizards from all parts of the Western half of the world still continued to meet in a majestic tower hidden somewhere inaccessible to ordinary men, in the great mountains known as the Jagged Edge. Each wizard had his or her own philosophy and field of study. Some were well-known, others rarely seen by any fellow mortal. Some were alive, and others were dead… although they continued to attend the meetings anyway.

            One of these wizards was known as Plutark the Stern, a tall, dark man who wore majestic red and gold robes and made his home in the heart of the Empire… when he was not occupying his secret black tower in the North, near the feet of the Jagged Edge mountains. Plutark’s area of study was focused on commanding other beings, mortal and immortal, through mind control and summoning. He also, however, dabbled a bit in necromancy. It was for this reason that Arylia was now riding toward his tower. But in reality, she hoped he was not home… for she was actually here to speak to his current student, the half-elf named Nahyr.

            When she arrived, Nahyr welcomed her into the stables at the base of the forbidding tower with his usual friendly smile. Nahyr and his master were polar opposites; one wore red and gold, the other turquoise and blue. One was known as the Stern, while the other was friendly and charming. One kept his affairs as far away from the ‘fair folk’ as he possibly could, while the other was half-elf and loved to speak to either half of his heritage.

            “Welcome, welcome!” Nahyr said as he stabled Arylia’s horse. “Master Plutark is away at the moment… but I’m sure you already know that.”

            Arylia returned his smile. “Aye, I saw his demonic steed flying over the treetops on its way south to the Empire not long ago. I was hoping he would not be back yet.”

            “He won’t,” Nahyr assured her. “He’s off to the Imperial City, to spend some time with his… wife.”

            Arylia frowned. “The great Lord Plutark, a family man? I wasn’t aware.”

            Nahyr looked away. “Not a family; he has no children. He prefers not to speak about his wife, and they see their relationship more as a business agreement than anything else. Currently they’re upset because an assassin they’ve been keeping an eye on has disappeared. They think he left the Empire on a big mission, but they don’t know where or why.”

            After ascending a winding staircase, they emerged into Plutark’s main guest room, which was decorated in his typical dark but elegant style. The furniture was made of dark mahogany, into which were carved strange magical symbols and the hideous faces of demons. All of the cloth was richly colored in deep, dark shades of red, purple, and blue.

            “An assassin?” Arylia prompted, shunning the Imperial luxuries around her by seating herself directly on the carpeted floor.

            “Yes,” Nahyr replied, plopping down in the smallest chair available, “a man they call ‘Nightknife.’ He’s a cold-hearted killer who only works for the highest bidder, or so I hear. He seldom comes to the North, but he may be here now, and he never goes anywhere without good reason. But he moves like a shadow, very hard to follow.”

            “And your master thinks he may be after him?”

            “Well, not really, but Plutark likes to keep an eye on every skilled assassin that he can, just in case. Nightknife is not the only one moving around in the North. There’s an archer using black arrows that no one has been able to find. We think it might be an elf, because the arrows are very well-made and the few tracks we’ve found were very light, and usually the archer leaves none at all. But Plutark says the archer is no concern to us, because he’s never left Northtown as far as we know. And then of course there’s Kye, a very unpredictable killer, nearly impossible to track. He’s part demon. Who knows what he’s going to do next, eh? As I said, very unpredictable. Well, mostly unpredictable. My master calls him ‘predictably unpredictable,’ but…”

            Arylia nodded and listened. Sometimes when Nahyr got started talking, it was better just to be patient and let him stop himself. And Arylia was very patient.

            After a moment, the boy did finally fall silent and bite his lip. He blushed. “Erm, would you, uh, like some tea? Some wine, perhaps? Water?”

            “No thank you,” the elf replied with a gentle smile. “I’d rather you just tell me what you can make of this.”

            Nahyr frowned, slightly disappointed, but took the piece of paper she offered. He studied it for a few seconds, and his frown deepened. He muttered a few words to himself, and something about the air seemed to change slightly. It was almost imperceptible, but somehow the air seemed both heavier… and thinner. But when Nahyr looked up, it went away.

            “Necromancers,” he said. “This is an ancient passage of text whose origins lie in the Lower Worlds. There in the Underworld, it is simply text, with no real power. But here, its magic is immense. Of course, one must be naturally gifted in the arcane arts in order to have that connection to the power of magic that enables the spell to function. And of course one must be able to read it, which requires a great deal of study, since one wrong inflection could result in disaster. Lately, I’ve been studying the effects of intercosmic language when used in the wrong…”

            Arylia’s patience ran out this time. “Please, Nahyr, your studies are all very interesting, but perhaps we can get to them later? For now, just tell me what these particular words do.”

            Nahyr gave a small “Oh,” as he blinked back into reality. “This passage can be used to bind the immortal soul to the world of mortals, I think. At least, I think… yes, that’s certainly what… well, it’s what the first part is for anyway; there are appear to have been some additions made at the end here, which I can’t quite understand. But yes, it’s definitely something to do with binding souls. Of course, it requires some reagents. An object with a high magical conduction must be used as an “anchor” to keep the soul from escaping. An object from another world will always do the trick, but the simplest way to make an anchor yourself would be to inscribe a certain rune on a regular stone. Of course, a certain type of conductive stone would work best, like one of these my master keeps in this drawer. I can find one if you like. So whose soul are you planning to bind, and is the person living or dead?”

            Arylia’s bright green eyes went wide with shock. “Nahyr! I don’t plan to use this monstrous spell! The very idea of… binding a person’s immortal soul to some rock and preventing them from entering the afterlife they deserve is just… unimaginable!”

            Nahyr looked genuinely upset. He bit his lip and massaged his hands nervously. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry! I do get carried away… Sometimes my mind, when it gets onto some academic pursuit, just sort of boards it like a chariot and gets swept off, you know? Then morality kicks in afterwards… Honestly, I’m very sorry. I’d never, ever really consider such a thing myself, though my master might…”

            Arylia placed her hand on his. “Yes, yes, Nahyr. It’s quite all right. I apologize for my outburst as well.”

            Nahyr breathed a sigh of relief and smiled that disarmingly innocent smile of his. “Thank you, Lady Arylia. It’s just… Are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea?”

            “I may take some, yes,” Arylia consented, though she knew Nahyr was developing some sort of crush on her, and now she regretted touching his hand, “but first let me ask one more question.”

            “Anything,” Nahyr said with a grin.

            “Can you name any necromancers operating in the area?”

            “Oh, I know many of them, yes! My master meets with them from time to time. There’s an independent contractor who goes to gravesites for families, but he actually goes there to make sure nothing has happened to the souls. He’s sort of an anti-necromancer in that way, keeping other necromancers from misusing their magic. Then there’s Count Norovius, formerly the Count of some Imperial province, but the Emperor kicked him out of the position and the Empire itself due to his practice of dark magic. Some say he’s come here to the North to set up a new operation… Um, that’s all I can think of right now. Is there anyone you are looking for in particular?”

            Arylia leaned in closer. “Do you know anyone by the name of Surandil?”