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.

A Tarnished Age; 0

The Dayim’s fingers gripped the rocky ledge as he hauled his bulk onto the shelf. The mid-morning sun already beat upon his back like a lash, and he had succumbed to the temptation of Comfort and donned a head-wrap to protect the back of his neck from the heat. He would rather fast in penance for a day and a night than develop sunsickness. On his previous pilgrimage up to the High Peaks he’d gone uncovered, as was tradition, and his skin had cracked and oozed for days after.

The mountainside was much unchanged since the Dayim’s last ascension, but he kept a close eye for scree or weathering. Gwal’s last Dayim had never returned from his final pilgrimage, and his body was later discovered broken and picked at by scavengers at the mountain’s base. The man’s lack of faith and subsequent death meant his position remained unfilled for nearly a full moonturn, until the current Dayim forfeited his old name to lead the tribe.

He continued his climb, thankful to Gwal for his past life as a shepherd. The time had prepared his body for this hardship, and the muscles along his arms stood out underneath the coarse hair as he again pulled himself onto another rocky outcropping. The Turach stretched out behind him like a tan canvas, though he did not turn to look at it. Each moonturn he made the climb and each moonturn the Turach remained the same.

The Dayim allowed himself a small note of relief as he ascended the final stretch. For the most part the High Peaks were nearly sheer, with only the most subtle outcroppings serving as handholds. This last part of the mountain was a slope, however, and one shallow enough that he could march his way up, if he leaned his weight forward during. The wind grasped at his clothing, and carried with it the cold, bare scent of the mountains. Somewhere further north thunder echoed, though there was no way to know how near the storm was. The Dayim prayed Gwal would hold the clouds back long enough for him to conclude his business and find shelter in the crags for the night.

The gentle slope led to an outcropping which broke from the mountainside like the prow of a ship. Underneath his bare feet the Dayim could feel the smooth stone surface, worn of any imperfections by the weather. This time the Dayim did turn to look behind him. The steppe ran to the eastern horizon, and at the base of the foothills he could just make out the rest of the Gwalim’s encampment in small, dark brown patches against the tan.

After three days of climbing, he’d finally reached the point where his successor had fallen. With a prayer to Gwal he turned again and approached the altar. It rested atop the far end of the outcropping, a pile of loose stones cemented by weather and age into a roughly circular platform which reached his knees. A stunted tree, bereft of leaves, grew from the cracks between the stones, and the Dayim had to admire the plant’s tenacity.

As he approached he cocked his head in curiosity. The tree was a gnarled thing, bark craggy and wrinkled in a way that reminded the Dayim of the Sothna bed during the dry seasons. But it was the depression in the trunk that caught his eye, a disturbance in the otherwise consistent mottled browns. When he drew closer he saw it was a hollow, just large enough for his fist to plug. In the failing light he saw a round shape nestled inside.

He paused, his pilgrimage interrupted by the vision. There was no other one permitted to approach the altar, or even ascend the peak, other than Gwal’s Dayim, and he very much doubted the previous priest had left anything behind. The altar was Gwal’s to affect, and Gwal’s alone.

The Dayim knelt in front of the altar and reached a hand into the hollow to remove the object. Its surface was round, and slightly rough. Once taken from the hollow the Dayim saw it was a small earthenware pot, of the sort his tribe used to store foodstuffs. It was just large enough to rest comfortably in the palm of his hand, and he turned it over to inspect it.

The mouth was slightly raised with a lip, and around that lip was fastened a waxen seal. The Dayim thought he recognized it as beeswax, but couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen anyone in the Gwalim trade for the substance. The only peoples who kept the animals were the Nasirama, and they were far to the south in their stone towers.

He shook the jar, and something within rattled against the clay sides. He looked to the sky, eternally clouded and bruised this high into the Peaks, and when no sign came from Gwal, he used a fingernail to gently pry the wax from the mouth.

A sudden wind rose up around him, whipping at his robes and head-wrap, and the Dayim nearly lost his balance atop the outcropping. He upended the jar into his other hand, but nothing fell from the opening. The Dayim huddled lower by the altar as the wind increased in intensity, and he wondered briefly whether he’d been caught in a mountainstorm. Would the other Gwalim discover his body broken on the rocks below, another priest tested and found unworthy?

Gwal demands my faith, the Dayim thought as he straightened against the gale. He peeled the rest of the wax from the jar and looked inside to its empty exterior. Had the sudden wind snatched the pot’s contents from his notice? It was a possibility, though if that were the case his curiosity would remain unsated.

At that moment the Dayim’s back seized straight, and a vision clouded his mind:

A brilliance on the horizon

a bitterness in the waters

a Fiend among the Peoples

The Dayim heard a thunderous cracking sound and then silence. When he reached up to his ears his fingers came away coated red. The jar fell, forgotten, as he collapsed to his knees. The stone beneath him slumped and crumbled and eventually buried his broken body along the mountainside.

Writing Exercise: Forced March

Words: 415

Just done to get some words down:

Two hundred or so others walked with Eloski in a ragged column, manned at strategic points by Hatchetmen atop their lumbering crashers. The previous day had seen three attempted breaks run down by the huge beasts, and a number of them still had red stains on their horns from when they'd caught up with their prey.

For nearly a month the Vederesti had forced them south at a rushed pace. After the disaster at Bazimon's Crossing it was all they could do to keep from angering their captors. Much like the rest of them Eloski had started out with his chin up in defiance, but  the harsh treatment at the hands of the Hatchetmen combined with the late-summer heat had worn him into submission. For the past few days all he'd cared about was making sure he didn't lose meal privileges.

Thunderous thuds announced a crasher approaching, and Eloski stepped aside to let the animal and its rider past. The large grey beast fixed him with one baleful eye as it rode past, and the man atop looked down at him in much the same way Eloski would regard a disobedient dog. The bright plumage attached to the Hatchet's helm marked him as some sort of commander.

"Do not make me repeat myself." It took Eloski a moment to realize the Hatchet officer had spoken to him. He looked up and shook his head at the man in a sudden sign of rebellion which earned him a *whack* across the shoulders from the man's short crop. "Your commander's name for an extra ration," the Hatchet said, and the crasher tossed its oblong head in shared irritation.

Eloski shrugged. He'd torn off his Officer patches at the end of the battle all those days ago, and now they were probably somewhere a hundred miles north, trampled into the dirt by the others. As far as anyone was concerned he was just a footman.

"Useless," the Hatchet said as he dug his spurs into the crasher's side. The grey thing snorted and tossed its head as it moved forward towards the next rank of huddled Dalldren marching south.

Eloski wasn't worried. These were his men, hand-picked for their loyalty and fierceness. Even as the distant city towers grew closer and he realized they had passed into the Front, he held onto some measure of certainty that none of the others would talk. Dalldren loyalty ran deeper than the world's roots, and were twice as hard to unearth.

Writing Exercise: Mountain Ritual

5 Minutes
216 Words
39 Words Per Minute

The altar was unremarkable, considering its purpose. It was plain stone, joined to and rising from the ground in front of the deep, dark hole in the vertical mountainside.

Five figures huddled against the cold winter wind. The gusts howled through the mountain hollow, across the scattered scree and rocks, and cut through their  fur. The material's weight did little to actually keep the chill out, but that was the norm for early winter up in Ranvald's Range.

The hole ahead of the altar seemed to moan in the wind.

Shuffling footsteps heralded the approach of the final member of their group, a wizened old woman standing straight against the scything wind. If any of the other members present felt any less before her, they didn't show it.

With a nod she entered the circle and approached the altar. Atop it she laid a needle-coated bundle of branches, tied loosely with a goat-gut cord.

"Lord of the Mountains," the woman intoned. Her voice rang out clear, despite her apparent age. The branches rested in the slight depression in the surface of the square-cornered altar.

"Lord of the Mountains," the others echoed. In sequence, each presented their own offering and placed it on the stone next to the branches.

In the empty darkness before the hole, something stirred.

Writing Exercise: Yoxen Drive

Decided to do a 20 Minute Exercise again. I've found that if I at least have an idea of what I want to cover I can plunk down something I'm not too ashamed of when it's over. While I'm definitely not writing great American literature, it seems that this helps me solidify a tone and some content for the world I'm writing my main project in.

I'm also trying to move away from short pieces where the main conflict relies on an explosion of violence. It's limiting, and some of the best advice I've received is to step outside of my comfort zone.

Again, this is unedited, unrevised, and written in one long stretch. If you have any comments, critiques, or anything else feel free to leave it, but don't feel obligated.

20 Minutes
952 Words
~46 WPM

Suster nudged the boss with his boot. "Hey, time to wake."

The man didn't respond, and Suster tapped him again, harder this time. "It's near sunrise, we're wasting time."

Nothing, still.

A sinking feeling took up a spot in his chest. If the boss had died somehow on the trail they likely wouldn't see any payment for the job at all. The man bent low and shook him by the shoulder. "Boss?"

The man turned over, and the telltale green smudge under his nose showed he wasn't dead, simply a victim of his own addiction.

Anger replaced Suster's concern. "Hey!" he said, louder this time. "You son of a bitch, wake up!"

Miristal approached from nearby. "What's the problem, Sus?" He had difficulty hearing her over the lowing calls of the yoxen grazing nearby.

"The bastard's gone and dipped into his Wax," Suster said, motioning down at the prostrate form.

The taller woman sighed and rested both hands on her hips. In the growing light she looked more disappointed than angry. "Well, drag him to his feet, we'll need to prop him up somehow."

"What's all this?" a third voice asked from nearby. The creak of wagon wheels came from nearby and the drive's quartermaster, Leophan, led the wagon their way. "Did old Eckham finally sink to the Depths?"

"We're not so fortunate," Suster said. He reached down to the man, gripped him under the arms, and hoisted him to a sitting position. The boss groaned, and Suster used a gloved hand to remove the pale green substance from under his nose. "No, it seems our esteemed benefactor has finally succumbed to boredom."

Leophan laughed from his bench. "Ah, yes. Well it was only a matter of time, I guess. It's been, what, over a month on the trail?"

Suster clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. They'd been on the yoxen trail for just a little over a month, leading almost twelve-hundred heads of yoxen from the farms at Crowntown across the Volbrugg provinces to Borderpost, where they'd fetch a far better price than anywhere else within reasonable distance. The scrubland was unbroken monotony, disrupted only by the occasional copse of stunted tree or rocky outcropping.

When Suster had taken the contract he hadn't recognized the name at the header, just the promise of 350 marcs paid on successful delivery. The landscape was in the vast expanse of the Volbrugg furthest from the bickering Lord-Governors towards the center of the region, meaning the only troubles they might encounter would have been brigands or the odd raiding party coming north from Deindall.

So far the only problems had been from their boss himself. He hauled Eckham to his feet, with some help from Miristal, as the man's girth was not insubstantial. "Come on, you old fuck," he muttered, "Time to close this contract so I never have to see you again."

More hoofbeats heralded the approach of the tailguard, and four other mounted contractmen approached. "Are we setting out or having a festival?" one of them asked. Suster hadn't bothered to learn their names; the tailguard were the ones willing to take the cheap work, and weren't usually the type to socialize on the trail.

"Aye, but it seems our dear boss spent a night with your mother, Otmund," Leophan said.

The tailguard's face grew redder than usual inthe morning light, but he said nothing.

"We're setting out soon," Suster said. He lightly patted the boss's face with his hand. "Wake up, you useless sack," he muttered. "You won't be losing me this contract, you hear me?"

The boss's eyelids flickered before they shot open, revealing a pair of bloodshot eyes crazed on Wax. "You will not touch me again!" the man roared, and in a flurry of movement he lashed out against the pair holding him up.

Suster relinquished his grip on the man's arms at the same time as Mirival, and the boss fell to his knees in a heap before struggling again to his feet.

"How dare you!" the man shouted, smoothing out his coat, and patting the dust from the cloth. "Handling me as such is a clear breach of your contract..." the man's anger trailed off as he realized that most of the crew was in witness to his embarrassment, and he quieted, red-faced. "We leave with all due haste."

Suster didn't say anything, but the gaze he exchanged with Mirival said all he needed. The yoxen lowed again in the distance, and the sound seemed all the boss needed to move him towards action.

Twenty-one days had been long enough, Suster thought as he took to his saddle again. The horse he'd been granted for the job was an old, bitter-tempered beast with a nasty habit of biting at his fingers when he readied it for the trail, so he'd taken to leaving most of the animal's gear hanging from its neck overnight.

The remainder of the day was uneventful, for a yoxen drive. The harvest season had seen thicker than usual rainfall, and the final creekbed needing crossing had been higher than expected. Suster had nearly been swept down-river when his horse reared halfway across, but thanks to Leophan and his wagon he'd managed to calm the animal and successfully drive the heard of yoxen across.

Towards mid-day the Old Spire at the center of Borderpost came into view in the distance, though Suster knew it would still be close to dusk by the time they approached the city. To the south the mists which clung to the surface of the Madlands made the horizon a haze, and what little conversation there had been dried up.

That was fine, in Suster's opinion. Other than the occasional midnight dalliance enjoyed between he and Mirival, there really wasn't anyone else in the crew he had any interest in ever seeing again.

Writing Exercise: Bath-House Thieves

So there's this fun website/app called The Most Dangerous Writing App where you choose a time limit and if you stop for...I think 5 seconds or so, it erases your progress. I've played with it a little bit, and I like it for writing exercises, flash fiction, etc. So in an effort to develop some sort of public expectation/presence, here's what I wrote over the course of 20 minutes. It's unedited, unrevised, and not very good, but practice is practice and putting this stuff out there is the only way to improve.

By all means, feel free to provide criticism, comments, or whatever else.

20 Minutes
986 Words
48 WPM

Pashand sat on the roof of the bath-house overlooking the back alleyway leading towards one of the main thoroughfaires. The thieves supposedly came this way every night, using one of the upper windows to enter the building and make off with the day's take. His client was paying handsomely to follow them to wherever they went to ground and make sure the Hatchets would be able to find the spot and clear it out the next day.

It wasn't his usual type of contract, thief-busting, but the Shemant family paid far better than most other clients on the market, and there wasn't too much work in Vedergost for a man from the north.

The night was warm, far warmer than he was used to. Further to the north, in Gelalus, they caught the warm sea wind from the west, but here it was just hot. Pashand had left his coat in his room back at the boarding home and had taken just a thin linen shirt and trousers, alongside his knife and other gear. He'd purchased an iron climbing hook from a vendor the day before and a length of silk rope which had helped him reach the bath-house roof, but he hadn't planned on needing anything else. This was a simple job. All he needed to do was follow along.

Pashand looked up and made eye contact with a group of dark-clad figures on the opposite roof. They sat in a similar fashion, with legs dangling over the side of the building, heedless of the drop just below them.

One of the figures waved.

Pashand responded, more from habit than anything else.

Were these the thieves? Had he really been that distracted that they'd appeared just across the way without him noticing?

Footsteps sounded behind him and once again he cursed the heat that had dulled his senses.

"Don't turn yourself, or we'll give you a good shove," a voice said. It sounded like it belonged to a woman to Pashand's ears, but Vederesti accents made it hard to tell. Their language depended on pitch, which seemed needlessly confusing to the northman.

"No worries there," Pashand said, raising one hand off where he'd braced himself to show he held no metal. "I've no desire to see if I can fly."

"I don't doubt it," the voice said again. Closer, now, close enough that Pashand was fairly certain it was female. "I'm going to have to ask you turn over any sort of letters of note on your person."

"I don't have any," Pashand lied. He held his Document of Citizenship with the Gerneschmenk Empire, though it wouldn't mean much this far south, aside from delivering them his name. "And I don't carry coin on my person anymore."

"Any hidden metal?" the voice asked again. Closer still. The group of thieves across the way had stood now, and he counted three of them. The contract listed half a dozen potential targets, meaning the crew had split themselves to cover the property.

Pashand shook his head. "Just the climbing spike, but that's on the lip of the roof at the alleyway off Notary Lane."

A single pair of footsteps went off in that direction, but the sense of lurking presence diminished only partially. Most likely there were two of the crew behind him. If they were good at all at their work one of them would have a hand-bow trained at his back while the other one stepped close enough to interrogate him without the sound carrying to the street blow.

Pashand looked over the lip of the roof towards the street down below. Gendikan had a thriving night-life, and the bath-house was flanked on three sides by a green city park. The pathways through the greenery were lit with dimly flickering gas lamps in various colors and shades, giving the entire place a festive mood. From his height he could just make out citizens wandering the paths.

"It was there, like he said," the footsteps were preceded by another voice. "What are we going to do with him, Ashoshko?"

The name was almost cut short by the unmistakable sound of a hand striking cheek. "Idiot," the first voice muttered. "We leave him up here by himself."

"I appreciate it," Pashand said. He meant it, too. It seemed even in the south there was courtesy between professionals. "Though that climbing spike cost me fair coin. I'd rather you let me keep it."

The first voice, Ashoshko, grunted in approval. Metal clanged against the rooftop somewhere behind him. "Can't fault you that. We're all only trying to make an honest living, eh?" A chuckle.

Pashand returned it. "True enough."

The three thieves across the way had vanished from sight somewhere among the crowded rooftop. He waited for a few moments in case the folk behind him meant to continue, but no sound came. The young man took the chance to turn, and he wasn't surprised to find the rooftop empty, excepting himself.

It took him only a moment to find the climbing spike towards the center of the bath-house roof. His clients would be disappointed he hadn't apprehended the thieves, but he counted it as a victory that he only needed to descend the roof after being so effectively outplayed.

Six of them, he thought as he approached the lip of the building. Vederesti roof-tops were slightly sloped towards the edges, with overhangs which turned up slightly. It made finding a path downwards difficult, but Pashand had spent his childhood scrabbling up and down the cliffs near Crowntown; climbing man-made walls was nearly as simple as walking down an empty street for him.

He received a number of strange looks from night-time citizens as he let himself fall the last ten feet or so to the stone-shod streets. The front of his shirt had been ripped in a a few places on the descent, but he'd only been overcharged a few marks for the clothing.

And he had a name. There were people in this city who could work wonders with that alone.