Knox of the Bloom

The Gods Watch

Two things happened that day, the day that young Knox pierced the heart of the Fugrah. Firstly, his blood was tainted with the beast, he had been near killed by it, and when he pierced its heart he took from it its strength. We were watching. We saw their souls bind.

Inside of that cave, the White Lady watched as Knox was carried by the men, they bounded his flesh as best they could. The dark stone man beheaded the Fugrah, and together they rushed to the village, where Knox was tended to by the healers. Many moons passed, and he broke a fever, and the people inside of the village heard his howls, and they shivered in their homes, and the howls were matched by the monster of a wolf the young man kept for company, but beyond the walls, wolves called to their kin. The land was filled with their baying. The watchers on the wall said that the treeline was filled with them.

Beyond the dark trees and the mountains, in the south the bronze men were building new ships and more men were arriving from the lands they call home. They built their high stone walls around the edge of cliffs and waited, gathering their strength. Their priestesses also had visions, and like them, far to the north, where the many small villages are scattered through deep valleys and jagged coastlines, where thin children stare out from desolate homes, their gaunt faces are filled with fear. The shadows are growing darker. The forages are growing meagre. The men are growing restless. Children die in their cots at night. The cold is beginning to settle on the land, and all know that there is not enough food to last them until the Warm Days return.

Far to the east, on the isles where the druids speak with the gods, the flames are appearing. They first came from the south. All souls fled before it, and many refugees who had inhabited the lands where they first appeared begged the druids for their guidance. Plague and pestilence had followed the appearance of the flames. The druids spoke to the people briefly, telling them that the gods cannot protect them now, and that they should flee into the land while they still could.

On a distant isle, a young woman shielded by the gods is listening. At first she hears nothing but the wind, the sea, the birds. But beyond that, there are sounds. And as she learns of the gods and the land and the dark shadows that are settling onto the land, she also hears the howling. And as the days pass and the weeks turn, and a fever breaks, she sees the wolf on the horizon.

He is coming. We are watching...