Terry Simpson - Etchings of Power

The next farm they reached was the same. At the third such farm, Ryne stopped at the orchard’s edge. “Maybe one farm I could begin to understand, but three? All abandoned?” He shook his head. “This goes beyond just being odd.”

Sakari shrugged. “Raiders?”

“I thought so too at first,” Ryne pointed to the orchards, “But the crops have been harvested too cleanly at every farm. And they’ve taken every farm animal and any stores.” He glanced around, examining the field cautiously, then dropped from Thumper’s back. “This isn’t natural. And we’ve seen no signs of a struggle. Up here, almost every farm employs mercenaries at this time of year. It would be near impossible for the small bands raiders prefer to do all this.” Ryne motioned for Thumper to stay and he and Sakari strode deeper into the orchard.

No more than fifty feet in, Ryne found the patterns he sought. There were too many footprints in the fluff and soil. Too many for farmers and the extra hands they hired for harvest. Too many for raiders who generally hunted in squads of fifteen men or less. There were enough tracks for a small army.

“You think these are from the same forces that attacked Carnas and the clanholds?”

“Maybe. If they decided to split into smaller compliments for this work.” A sudden stillness prickled against Ryne’s skin, igniting uneasiness. “Do you feel that?”

“The disturbance in the air? Yes.”

Ryne opened his Matersense. The world blossomed as if he viewed it through a magnifying tube tacticians often used to survey a battle. Smells sharpened. At the corner of his vision, he saw the same distortion as he did in Carnas. The razor sharp edges of the elements of Mater he was accustomed to were now smudged. Hidden among the perfumed scents from the harvested kinai wafted a slight decayed aroma mixed with what he could only describe as a wet dog’s stench. The same scent from Miss Corten’s, the strange woods with the half-formed wraithwolves and from within Carnas. Ryne released his Matersense.

“The air is the same as Carnas,” Sakari said before Ryne could utter a word.

Ryne nodded as he surveyed the field before them. Six murdered men at the kinai patches around Carnas, the clanholds destroyed, his entire town slaughtered, and now these farms, devoid of people and kinai. Yes, this army advanced, but what did it all mean? Sooner or late, he would find his answers. He hoped it would be sooner.

They left the fields, collected Thumper, and headed to the buildings. Each one was as empty as the orchards. Within the farmhouse, the furniture was intact, children’s and adults’ beds made up and boots still at the front door. Rotting food sat on the kitchen table with a pot of tea and a pitcher of juice. Maggots crawled across what might have been venison and a baked chicken. The food’s rancid smell filled the air. They found no corpses.

By the time they left, night had come. Ryne had no wish to camp close to the farm, so he pushed them for a few miles until they found a copse of trees he preferred. There, they built a small fire within a hollow and cooked lapra meat Ryne had preserved with salts the day before. While Ryne ate, Sakari went off to keep watch.

When he finished his meal, Ryne resorted to sword practice once more. The farms joined Carnas foremost on his mind. Hagan, you and your pipe… As Ryne remembered each of his friends, the action soothed him. Sometime later, he completed his practice, and found sleep’s solace.

Ryne woke abruptly from his slumber. The fire was nothing more than glowing embers, its smoke a faded scent. Thumper’s humped form was a mere silhouette in the night. Overhead, a cloudy veil occluded the twin moons and the stars, the resulting darkness enveloping the copse. He felt them coming before Thumper’s plaintive mewl or before he sensed Sakari through the trees.

He leaped to his feet and sprinted to Thumper. The dartan did not need much encouragement and stood ready, his neck swinging from side to side. Heart racing, Ryne snatched up the reins and leapt onto Thumper’s back.

Moments later, Sakari burst through the brush and sprang into the saddle behind him. “There are at least twenty of them.”

“Twenty-six,” Ryne corrected. His Matersense revealed all before him. He extended his sight and smell well beyond their normal range by using the air and its endless void as part of the element of Flows. Within this sight, the dark became late evening.

The black auras he depicted with this increased range engulfed the night itself. They shone with their blackness, making the night appear as nothing more than a gray shadow.

At the head of the interlopers bounded eight wraithwolves. From time to time, they sprang up on two legs like men, sniffing the air before dropping onto to all fours to leap again and again. Elongated muzzles adorned their faces, and thick hair covered arms and bodies, muscles pumping with each movement. The fetid stench of wet dog’s fur mixed with decayed flesh rolled from the beasts in waves. As one, the wraithwolves stopped and lifted their snouts toward the copse. Green eyes glowed.

A chill prickled Ryne’s skin at the things that followed behind the wolves.

At first, he thought they were humans, but as his sight touched them, he knew differently. These creatures glided instead of running, similar to Sakari, but where Sakari’s feet touched the ground, these men did not. They also possessed no solid forms. They appeared as mist or smoke in the shape of men. Wherever they passed, the elements around them distorted from sharpness into dulled edges. They easily kept pace with the wraithwolves.

“Darkwraiths,” Ryne whispered. As he turned to whip Thumper’s reins to send him running, bloodcurdling howls echoed into the night. He glanced over his shoulder.

The wraithwolves no longer ran. Instead, they swelled, and he sensed more than he saw the shade they pulled within themselves. Then they vanished. They reappeared from the shadows themselves some twenty feet closer.

Ryne dismounted. “The wraithwolves just Blurred,” he said without looking up at Sakari. The thrill for impending battle fluted across his skin. “There is but one place we can find safety. Take Thumper there, I’ll meet you.” He held up the reins as Sakari leaped into the forward saddle.

“As you wish.” Sakari flapped the chains and sent Thumper speeding through the copse.

The darkwraiths screeched a keening wail. Ryne focused on them. They too Blurred, using the shade to leap from shadow to shadow.

Ryne calmed his battle energy and reached through his Scripts to the elements of Mater stored there. The celestial bodies etched into his skin came alive with his touch. Their light filtered from among the Streams.

The heat he had ignored when he first embraced his Matersense raced through Ryne’s body like wildfire on dry tinder. His toes curled, and he leaned his head back. A morbid grin twisted his features. He no longer needed to hold his bloodlust at bay. He no longer needed to calm himself. The voices called, and he embraced them, allowing the Scripts to work. Above him, the clouds parted to reveal the moons.

Hagan, you and your pipe, your body ripped in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Vana and Vera, impaled on the floor and ravaged. Kahkon, bloody and torn. Lara, your throat ripped out.None of you deserved to die in such a way . The fire within Ryne burned brighter.

He painted a mental picture of himself as a fleeting luminescence, and his Scripts took over, adding the moons’ light to theirs. The two Forged together. An ethereal glow bathed Ryne’s body.

The shadelings drew closer, eyes burning embers among the shadows.

White flames flared within Ryne as his bloodlust burst forth with the Forging. He threw his head back, a smile twisting his lips, the thirst to kill filling him in a wave. Ryne’s battle energy and lust intertwined as one, long lost lovers in a wanton embrace.