A Tarnished Age; 1

Histandes’ foot caught on a loose stone, and he had just enough time to curse before he pitched forward. Long grass reached up to whip at him as he rolled downhill. His totem flew from his grasp and tumbled onward ahead of him. Through the chaos of his fall he heard the thumping footsteps of the pursuing fiend.

He came to a rest on his back at the base of the hill. With his vision reversed, the fiend’s long, curled horns twisted downwards like tree roots in clouded soil. From where he lay the stone atop the beast’s club seemed large as his head.

The weapon rose, and Histandes rolled away before it slammed into the ground in his place. He scrambled to his feet and ran to where his totem rested in the grass nearby. When he gripped the leather-wrapped handle his mind felt the three spirits kept within the stone. Phanael and Lassakim lay dormant within their seals, and Histandes knew awakening them would only invite their ire.

Balassu, however, was eager.

As the fiend approached, Histandes invited the spirit into his body and a new strength flowed up his limbs from the seal slotted into the totem. A grin split his face as Balassu flared to life in the space between his eyes, a fiery sigil which seemed to shiver with laughter.

The fiend swung its club in a low arc, but Histandes was already on his feet. The stone-topped weapon tugged at his clothing as it passed him by, and the shaman charged into the opening. He caught a glimpse of the fiend’s shocked face, nearly humanlike in its expression, before his totem cracked into the thing’s neck.

Histandes could feel Balassu’s satisfaction at landing such a blow, and the spirit’s eagerness to continue. The fiend reached around to crush the life from Histandes’ chest, but the shaman slid under the thing’s grip and struck again. His totem hit the fiend in the side, and the skin there split and cracked.

Balassu was elated at the bloodshed and the sound of the fiend’s pain and rage, and the spirit’s emotions crashed against Histandes’ mind like high tide. The shaman grit his teeth, ready to surrender himself to those urges should the fiend charge again, but the horned beast seemed unwilling to tempt more violence.

It was with a moment’s will that Histandes quelled Balassu, and the spirit’s fury at the interruption echoed as its presence left the shaman aching and tired. Though the spirit’s seal was faultless Balassu was of such a strength that its absence echoed through his limbs.

The fiend knelt nearby, club grasped defensively against another attack, and Histandes could see its inhuman eyes follow his totem. Then it spoke, “The thing gripped in your hand, a slur against nature’s order and the way of things.” Its voice was melodic and deep, like the far-off sound of thunder in the mountains, but an undercurrent of something altogether different laced the words.

Histandes inhaled and leaned on his totem. Its leather-wrapped grip was warm from recent use, and he could see wisps of steam curl from the fiend’s neck and between its fingers. The shaman knew the wound would take some time to heal, far longer than any injury his other weapons could cause.

“Naught but vermin ‘twixt the feet of giants,” the fiend said as it rose to its feet and began its way back up the hill. Histandes stayed still as it retreated, and the fiend kept his gaze all the way over the crest until its horns vanished from sight.

It wasn’t until the beast had left that Histandes let his breath rush from his chest. He was far more tired than he’d first suspected, and pulling Balassu from its seal had nearly proven a mistake. Even then the shaman could feel the spirit contend with the boundaries of its prison, though he knew they were secure.

With that thought in mind he turned again and moved down the hill towards the climbing smoke on the distant shoreline marking Port of Sharks. The harbor was the only city worth mentioning on Antuk, and the seat of the local High Speaker. The foothills soon gave way to a scrub forest, and Histandes gladly entered the trees. Fiends avoided the woods, where the low canopies and tangled branches snagged their horns and impeded their bulk.

He’d spent much of the past three moonturns in forests like these up in the Peaks on his mission to recall those living in those remote villages. Fiendish incursions into Man’s Reach had grown more and more violent over the past years, and the High Speaker had finally dispatched Histandes, the only shaman present on Antuk, to withdraw the most distant men under his watch.

Maybe a third of the villages he’d visited still showed signs of habitation, and even less recent. Of those few, even less were willing to take the risky trip down the mountainside to Port of Sharks, where they claimed the High Speaker would put them to work in the fields. Histandes hadn’t bothered to dispel that notion, partially because it was true, and partially because it wasn’t his place. A shaman carried the High Speaker’s word, without judgement and without change.

During his walk he came across a cluster of stonepit bushes and picked a handful to supplement his waning supplies. As he continued downhill he chewed at the fruit until the pits separated from the meat, and left the cores in a trail along his path. His totem rested on his shoulder, the spirits within quiet as twilight lowered above him.