Novi 22, 4980xm
Somewhere on the slopes of Mount Ænckræge in the Kingdom of Acirema. Late Autumn
Clouds dipped low hugging the mountainside as the snow draped vegetation became lost in the grey embrace. The snowfield upon the mountain's ridge made a dampened, yet audible crunch with each heavy booted step before the wind picked up and threw the brooding clouds of the winter storm onto the lonesome traveler's path.
A flash of lightning streaked through the darkened grey-haze of sky. Immediately it was followed by a thunderous boom that, which, made even the mighty mountain tremble. As if the sky was confirming its imminent threat, a deafening howl of wind rushed through the terrain and unleashed its blizzard--forcing several branches of a lone and stubborn, albeit stunted, pine tree to rip to shreds in the instance. Those shattered limbs blew down the mountain ridge before the trunk quickly accepted it's fate and with a final shattering crack of a bow, the wind slung its prize with all abandon marring the white-blanketed landscape and nearly hitting the brave traveler.
The man, moving his legs to plow his body through the chest-high drift, gripped hard to his staff and drove himself up the sloping path backwards. The going was slow and many times the man had to stop to catch his breath leaning heavily on the strong walking stick keeping his head hung low and his back to the newly formed embankment to better protect him from the carnage swirling above his trench-trail.
'That old man better not die on me...' The lone traveler made the empty threat mentally to himself before giving a sigh, an exhausted and worn sigh for the journey left to bare, that was drowned out by the ravaging blizzard above. Despite his weary frame and through heavy breaths the young man, known as Rouk, pressed on once more; snow frosting his cloak and sheathing his dirty-blonde beard, making him look venerable beyond his years, with weatherworn cheeks chapping from the unforgiving elements and hoar frosted brows to match.
Rouk had been traveling for nearly half a year, trekking deeper and deeper north into the unforgiving tundra, ever since he received a letter from a sister he had never met, Frendalla. The letter spoke of his father falling ill and requesting his presence in these times to discuss his bequest. Rouk was reluctant at first to the idea of returning to his birthplace and, more importantly, to his hermit of a father; Lärřyà Fishęgg. Rouk never received his father's last name; something he was rather relieved of although his mother, Lãoçyn, claimed Lärřyà was up in arms when he found out his only son had his mother's maiden adoptive-name, Avernus. Rouk in his youth thought the household name of Fishęgg sounded weak and unremarkable and when he learned of his absent father he realized his suspension held truth for House Fishęgg was far from an important family and Lärřyà's title as Warden of the Great Northern Bush afforded him the Fell Keep--a shack of a ruined castle, dilapidated from the attempted siege by Lord Divoc some years ago, which left his father a crippled visage of his former self to complement the ruined fortress at the summit of Mount Ænckræge where he has spent his days in near solitude overlooking the Adanac Kingdom to the east and the Acirema Kingdom it belonged to that stretches out to the west.
Rouk felt the stinging of the wind as it shifted suddenly--breaking him from his concentration--with its force blowing hard at him now directly in the face, whilst he plowed backward in the snow. This forced Rouk to growl in frustration as his gloved hands gripped harder on the stick and he abruptly sent himself over the trench lip, vaulting off of his staff to do so, and accepting the blizzard's assistance with the updraft that sent him end over end to somersault 20 feet from his trench. Rouk landed hard on the ice crusted snow and failed to find his legs as he sprawled before twisting, which allowed the wind another push, sending him several more paces forward in his tumble. When he landed he miraculously did so on his knees with the staff pinned to the snow by both hands. Rouk wasted no time pulling his foot beneath him to stand from a kneel, but as his foot pushed off the boot instead sunk through deep causing Rouk to spill over slightly, although plenty enough to topple and allow the wind its reign over him once again; this time not in his preferred direction.
His roll cascaded with chunks of snow that jettisoned down the mountain side building and breaking on its way down, while Rouk struggled to catch himself in his own free-tumble. Down he went crashing and spinning off the snowy mountain side until a jutting rock outcrop caught him and brought him to a painful, albeit sudden, stop.
Rouk felt the heat of his blood leak down the side of his head and spill down over his ear, warming him with woozy appeal, as his vision tunneled and only the roar of the storm raged in his senses.
"Ow." Rouk tried to reply to the blizzard, but it never gave him the chance as a heavy snow boulder barreled into him taking his world from white to black.
Rouk struggled to breath as his snow coffin pressed in all around with chilling affection that soaked to his bones some of which now broken. Beyond the encapsulated traveler, the wind seemed to cry out victorious, mocking Rouk's plight.
Despite the anger pulling to the nape of his neck, and flushing him with vengeful heat, Rouk still could not budge enough. For his movement sent the pain in his broken ribs to seize the last amount of breath he possessed, as if his own body had forsaken him, leaving him gasping in a freezing asphyxiation.
Suddenly the storm was drowned out as the surge of his own blood through his heart filled his senses and panic nestled upon him, perched with blind ambition while his limbs ceased to respond to his mental beckoning of their movement.
'No...not like this!' Rouk pleaded weakly with the last of his mental effort.
Unexpectedly, a beam of light broke the darkness and precious air reached him at long last. The breath was bittersweet for his side wreathed anew in pain, from the great inhale, and it caught in his chest which only brought about an agonizing coughing fit.
Rouk, however, did not notice the snow that packed around him was breaking and blowing away from the torrent of the winter storm. For what seemed like hours Rouk was wincing and wheezing, laid out on the rocky jut--that stayed him from flying off the mountain--with the wind pulling and beating against him the whole while.
The sun fell, bringing a darkened gray about the mountain ridge before the wind finally quelled to a dull gusting. The frozen fluff was free to fall heavier now and within the minute Rouk felt its weight bare down on him, but the temptation of comfort in its embrace stirred something else within him.
Rouk's eyes snapped open in-between shallow breaths and, albeit sluggishly, he brought his unpinned hand over to try and push himself off the frozen stone. His ribs screamed in protest, but he paid it little heed as he propped himself up sending snow to slide off his sloping side to spill over the ledge.
As he stirred he caught the faint scratching of wood against stone and once he freed his other arm from beneath him, it revealed in his torn-gloved—bloody hand—the staff snapped down to a third of its splendor, but Rouk was more concerned with his arm. Once his arm was unstuck, it lazily swung into view and the grasp on the broken staff was nonexistent as his bum hand unskillfully sent the broken staff skittering over the ledge off the rocky outcrop. He tried to bring his hand to his own face, but this only mandated his anguish to swell in his shoulder forcing his other hand to rush to it with, albeit futile, abandon.
He sat with his back to the stone wincing his strife as he fought to get to his feet, but his dead arm and busted ribs made the effort slow and agonizing. The snow finally slowed in its fall as night began to settle and finally Rouk made it on to his own two feet, clutching his lame shoulder, althewhile taking shallow controlled breaths to appease his busted bone-cage.
It was then that he looked around, eyes squinting in the pitch black, to scan the path most direct back to where he had fallen from. Steadily his useless sight crawled upward, revealing more pitch shaded snow as he tried to guesstimate the distance back to his path; based on his neck's motion of lifting his head and by so up righting his view to rise upon the expected skyline at the ridgetop. Only when he noticed the top of the Ridgeline, around where he had fallen from, there hung in the darkness were a dozen pair of burning yellow eyes plotting upon him with the swelling celestial audience of the siosen night sky overseeing the pack above and behind; offering silhouettes of standing fur on hunched shoulders to steal the horizon line made of snowcapped stone.
As there gazes met, Rouk's breath froze and his senses burned something ancient—a warning of dire affairs to come—onset by the predatory gazes that stared on at him, unblinking, but now suddenly and slightly the pairs of eyes bobbed and grew ever so slightly in the darkness as the sounds of fresh snowfall faintly crushed under the pads of many paws mounted.
Rouk felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest as fear ravaged his limbs and they refused to heed his request, but the sensation of fear made his mind race with possibilities with no preview of any outcome, just ideas as he raced mentally, 'Oh, fuck! A pack of wolves?! A pack?! Fuck! So many. Where? Where can I? Shit they are getting closer. Fuck I have Nothing!'
Rouk's eyes were darting fervently, hopelessly in the dark around him, when his eyes glanced back to check the pack he noticed then that one of the wolves was standing up-right and fully erected on its hindquarters offering a towering figure with eyes a shade of brilliant glowing green that seemed to burn like eerie fire at him.
Rouk could no longer swallow, for it seemed his own breath didn't want to be there, but he could not blame his broken body for abandoning him as he wished the same while he onlooked his coming horrific demise, but suddenly the air between them lit up, a magnificent—albeit blinding—display of color radiated forth in a prismatic sweep as the terrain was wash anew with light, but the wolves now showed to be barring his only route up, back to his original path, and in his condition he doubted he could flee without being rundown, so he remained stationed and looking for what caused that and his eyes met the bipedal predator, the body of a notawolf, a shape changer of legends but a beast more than a man for its hunger and cruelty is beyond ravenous with power and speed unrivaled by mortals, but no moon hung in the astral display of sky. Only the shimmering colored display danced above, but beyond its illumination the land was its troubling inky self and offered nothing for a cause to the wonder that brought the fears of darkness into the light.
Rouk had only seen minor spell work once back in his home town, but usually when a spell caster arises they ship off to some arcana academy, rarely heard from again. But whatever he saw he knew it not to be natural.
Suddenly a horn bellowed an annoyance to his right drawing the concern of the pack, but the alpha was locked-in on Rouk and suddenly dropped down into a ferocious gallop on all four heavily corded, bulging limbs with fur drafting in its charge at the leaning and busted up Rouk.
Rouk could only shrink at the charge with his back to the icy outcrop as the notawolf barreled in, but with incredible strength it halted its charge at the last second in a dead stop planting hard and shaking the snow from the jutting ledge and forcing Rouk to cower and his legs to buckle and shoot out to make him backpedal but the rock didnt budge as his boots scraped frosted stone in a failed retreat.
Rouk looked away, terrified to meet his gaze, as another horn blared and a distant murmur of pitched calls echoed in the night.
"Thre thruids are too lath. Tuyourrr mihne!" The monster growled out between a violent toothy maw, deep and guttural, difficult to discern.
The voice stole his fear and his courage flashed as he looked to see the volatile speaker; the beast instantly pounced. His jaws spreading to reveal lethal glistening teeth before flashing through the air, deftly snatching up the downed humans good shoulder, breaking his clavicle and snapping his scapula in the immediate clench before pinning him against the stone and the weight of its monstrous body crushing in behind its bite.
Rouk screamed out, but it was muffled by the creatures arm cradling him from beneath—with razor sharp claws digging into his spine from around—spilling his life liquid to dribble about staining the snow around his struggle.
The force of blow and the chaos of his strife to free himself from under the notawolf's violence made Rouk's body flush as the pain rippled all over and didnt quell even when the monster released him. Instead he stayed limp, hoping it was over, as the beast howled his triumph and through clenched razor sharp teeth spoke to the nearly dead man, "Chell Miizgg slheeggs churr lahgkk."
Rouk's mind blazed with a foreign plight, the bite burning ferociously as the blood pooled about his limp body and the words he heard made him feel even more confused as his desperation finally snapped when he thought, 'This is it. I'm sorry da.'
The air filled with a static buzz as an electrified bird defied the night and zipped somewhere right over head offering blinding hot white light with strobe appeal.
The notawolf seemed discouraged as he offered unexpectedly through large predatorial fangs, "Hindd knee, holloo thre Oon."
At that Rouk mustered the strength to look up from his fetal position—the colorful displays of magic still offering some visibility within the darkness—but the beast was already gone and large tracks in the snow, from its approach, were all that remained.
Rouk felt the heat wash over him from his bleeding shoulder, but not like the heated pain in his dislocated shoulder. This pain was burning something that of intrusive trouble, a foreign blight that seared like blackened sickly death, forcing Rouk's arteries to bulge a dreadful shade of darkened green as his lips quivered, no longer able to breath or scream. Eyes searching with futile hope as they bulged in final desperation, with corruption filling him entirely and his world as well.
His final glimpse was that of a white robbed figure, short and stout with an icy beard and piercing light blue eyes that rushed into view just as it all faded.
YOU ARE READING
Tales From Sios: The Wishing Well Arc
FantasyA unique world view of a time far in the Earth's future when the land is known not by Earth but by Sios! However, this is no futuristic science fiction... Those of you brave enough, come visit a time-stream where reality blends with fantasy in a med...
