Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 1

At first, it seemed a wolf or shaggy dog had emerged from the evening shadows. Yet when it approached the standing stones, head low, the companions realized that the creature was the size of a small horse. It stalked carefully, black fur bristling, growling in a sound so deep that it was felt as much as heard. Feet tipped by oversized, wicked claws, each a hand’s length, dug into the soft ground as it stepped forward. As it sniffed the air, they saw the thing’s face was as bat-like as it was dog-like, the nose smashed close on its short muzzle. Its ears, too, had a bat-like quality, and the longer the group watched the creature, the less canine it seemed.

“Chaos is here,” Erin breathed, she gripped her curved, silver dagger.

“We must leave this place, now,” the red-haired girl whimpered, eyes wide.

“You stay hidden, lass,” Umur murmured, eyes shining. “Haffoot?”

“If you think we can take it, I’m ready,” the halfling said in a small whisper, breathing shallowly. She held two short blades in her hands, one thin for piercing and one wide for slashing.

“On my charge,” Umur nodded. “Hilda, keep the girl safe.”

As Umur, Haffoot, and Erin broke from the woods, Hilda stood.

“What– what are you doing?” the girl stammered.

“‘Hilda, keep the girl safe’,” the robed woman scoffed. “Let them witness what I can do.”

Hilda threw back her hood. On her forehead was a tattooed marking of a black rectangle, like an empty doorway above her eyes. As she began chanting, the rectangle became outlined in a bright blue light. It was as if a miniature portal beneath the Empty Star from three months earlier had opened upon Hilda Breadon’s forehead. She swept her robed arms wide.

Everything in the darkened clearing changed. The earth dried in an instant. Trees and bushes grew, as if reaching towards the shaggy beast. Weeds erupted from the stones themselves, wending through cracks and bored holes. Just as suddenly, fat snowflakes filled the area as if it were a blizzard instead of late Summer. The black hound was suddenly a smudge of darkness in a white storm.

The others staggered and glanced back, stupefied, at Hilda. Lightning crackled at her forehead and around each hand. Then a flash of searing blue filled the clearing as a bolt of jagged lightning struck the creature at the stone, leaving behind a seared image in everyone’s vision. The creature staggered, then turned to peer malevolently at Hilda, its body smoking. It rumbled a low, dangerous growl.

Erin Wywood, Acolyte of Shul and sworn enemy of Chaos, was the only person not stunned by the display of otherworldly magic. Instead, she smiled savagely. “Ha!” she yelled into the storm, and then charged at the beast.

The white-armored woman, almost invisible in the blizzard, spun and slashed a line across the creature’s cheek. It reared and snarled at her, ready to pounce.

Instead, with a whoop, Haffoot soared past Erin with her thin blade outstretched, impaling the creature’s snout in a spray of black blood. The beast howled in pain, a sound that shook their bones. The howl grew shrill and louder as the creature’s back immediately arched in agony, its bloody nose to the sky, and then it was dissolving into oily black mist. One moment the enormous dog-bat-beast was there, and the next it was snaking tendrils of smoke, quickly dissipating, the pained howl echoing across the clearing.

Where the beast’s legs had once been, Umur completed the chop that felled the creature. The dwarf blinked in surprise at his success and its disappearance, then smiled fiercely at Erin and Haffoot through the falling snow.

It seemed that, with the creature’s death, the storm ceased. Fat, white flakes floated gracefully in the air in rapidly decreasing amounts, then stopped altogether. It had been mere moments, and yet the companions stood in almost a foot of fresh snow, their breath misting in the unexpected cold.

Hilda, stepping with high knees, crunched through the snowy clearing to them. She’d redrawn her hood, and heavy puffs of air were visible from her panting.

“Hilda, I…” Umur began, then lost words as he looked around. Though everything was blanketed in white, they all remembered the sudden growth of vegetation. She had utterly transformed the clearing with power none of them knew she possessed.

“Yes, well,” Hilda chuckled. “I… may not have expected that, exactly.”

“Bloody brilliant, is what it was!” Haffoot whooped. “And Erin, chargin’ that creature through the snow!”

The woman nodded, face stoic. “Your thrust to its head and Umur’s slash to its back seemed to have killed the abomination before it knew we were even there. Well done, all around. Shul’s will be done.”

“We’re bloody heroes, is what we are!” Haffoot pirouetted in the snow and waved a sword overhead. “We’ve saved the village! That girl over there and anyone else who they would’a sacrificed, yeah?”

At that, the four of them turned to the edge of the forest. There, snow on her shoulders and shivering, wide-eyed, the red-haired young woman watched them with dumbfounded awe.

“Come, lass!” Umur called out to her. “Let’s get you back home. The beast is dead.”

After the group had gathered and tromped to the edge of the fresh snowfall, already melting in the late summer evening, they were once more struck by the enormity of Hilda’s magic. Stepping from the snow into the path beyond felt somewhat like stepping through another world, as they’d done a season ago at the old stone mound. Though none of the four Graymoor residents voiced it, they all felt the echoes of that evening leaving the remnants of Hilda’s spell into the seemingly mundane forest path outside of Hirot.

It was entirely dark when they approached the palisades surrounding the village, which stretched a full fifteen feet high. The stout, double gates were closed tight. The five of them walked across the wide clearing towards the gates, and a voice called out from somewhere at the top of the wall.

“Joane? Is that you? Who is that with you?”

The red-haired girl stopped and placed hands on hips, peering up into the darkness. “Nothan, it’s me. Open the gate!”

Thanks to their respective ancestries, both Umur and Haffoot could see perfectly well in the darkness, though the images lacked color. Eyes limned in soft white light, Erin saw just as clearly. Thus it was only Hilda, squinting up into the shadows, who did not see the hawkish, gaunt man who peered over the palisade wall from some sort of platform. He had a simple steel helm atop his head and a long, drooping moustache.

“It can’t be done, Joane,” Nothan shook his head. “Only a direct command from the Jarl can open it after nightfall.”

“So go get him!” the girl stomped her foot.

“Ah, no,” the man said simply, peering down. “Now who are these folks with you, then, and how is it you’re…?”

“Not dead and eaten?” Joane hurled back at him. Nothan visibly flinched. “These outsiders saved me. Killed the Hound dead without even trying, with magic and blades. Go get the Jarl, Nothan! They might be what we need!”

Umur scowled and looked at Haffoot questioningly. The halfling shrugged.

“Magic and blades?” Nothan repeated, rubbing at his mouth. “And hardly trying, you say? That’s quite a tale. Well, you can tell the Jarl yourself in the morning, girl. Sounds like you have good protection through these dark hours. The gate stays closed.”

“Nothan!” Joane shouted, stomping her foot again. Haffoot calmed her with a hand to her arm and some whispered words.

“You have a peculiar way of giving thanks,” Erin called up, crossing arms over her armored chest. “We will wait until the morning and camp here.”

“That’s fine then,” Nothan responded. “I’ll tell the other Night Watch to not shoot you. Just don’t creep around in the dark or you’ll find yourself full of arrows.”

“A peculiar way indeed,” Erin growled, turning to her companions. “Shall we make camp, then?”

Umur sighed. “S’not a warm bed, but ya, fine.”

The group made a fire and ate the last of Hilda’s now-stale baked goods within a stone’s throw of the palisades. After the Night Watch captain’s words, it was unnerving to have the towering wall next to them, where bowman could be lurking at the top between sharpened tree trunks. Still, they made camp and ate. Eventually, bellies more or less full, it was Umur who asked, “So, lass, tell us about this Hound.”

Joane had stayed silent since the interaction with Nothan, seemingly both petulant and in awe of the Graymoor residents. She blinked with large eyes, glancing around at the others before clearing her throat.

“Not much to tell, Master Dwarf. Some months ago, soon as the sun went down, the Hound started appearing, killing people. Lots of people died. Eventually the Jarl decided to start sacrificing one person every three nights to keep it satisfied.”

“Sacrificing? Do say more,” Hilda asked mildly. A fingertip traced the runic writing atop her staff, seemingly studying it in the firelight.

“Yes, ma’am,” Joane’s head bobbed. She seemed, understandably, most in awe of Hilda. The outspoken, foot-stomping girl at the gate had been replaced by a polite, shy companion. “Every third day, the Jarl draws a lot from a box in the village square. That family has to send someone to the standing stones. Today my pa got the lot, and my mum and brother’s already gone.”

“Madness,” Erin scoffed. “What was the Jarl going to do when he ran out of villagers? Fool. Why not fight the creature?”

“Oh,” Joane said. “They’ve fought it a lot, ma’am, and just more people die. Nobody likes drawing lots, but losing one every third day’s kept it out of village, at least. People say the Jarl is working on a plan to defeat it, but I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s all done!” Haffoot piped up, smiling face lit by the fire. “No more sacrifices, yeah? We did the Jarl’s work for him. I wonder if there’ll be a reward?”

Strangely, Joane said nothing, and instead abruptly stood to begin cleaning up after the meal. She was a strong young woman, and clearly used to hard labor. But then with half her family dead, she would have to be. Her actions spurred the others to stand as well, and soon they were settled onto thin blankets and bedrolls to sleep for the night.

The group woke at dawn and had broken camp by the time the heavy wooden doors of the gate swung slowly open. There was Nothan, who, it turned out, was quite tall and older than they’d guessed, with gray streaked in his moustache. He was flanked by a man and woman in green livery, each carrying a spear, and both Watch members eyed the Graymoor residents suspiciously.

“Come in,” Nothan announced, his face serious. “I’ll take you to the Jarl. You stay with them, Joane. He’ll want to hear your tale.”

“Still no word of thanks?” Erin arched an eyebrow. “And no expression of joy for seeing your neighbor returned unharmed?”

“Come on,” was all Nothan said, grim-faced, and turned with the Watch members to escort them. The companions shared a confused, offended look and followed.

Nothan led them past several houses and shops and into a largely empty village square. A few scruffy mongrels picked their way through abandoned shop stalls while ravens circled and cawed overhead. Dark smoke hung forlornly over the village as well, as if it somehow wanted to stay within the protective circle of the wall. Ahead of them, past a large church, a path snaked up a low hill, with the Jarl’s manor atop it. The Night Watch members did not pause to interact with the few, disparate residents who busied themselves in the morning hours, nor did they bother to say a word when those residents paused to gawk at Joane and the outsiders with her.

As they passed a strongbox with a heavy padlock, bolted to a chest-high post, Erin scowled. “Is this used for the lots?” she asked Joane, every word dripping with disdain. The young woman simply bobbed her head, staring at the box with eyes wide. The white-armored woman grunted in disgust and her chin rose imperiously to glare at the manor above them.

The sole structure made entirely of stone was the chapel, and this early in the morning its iron-banded, heavy doors were closed. Above them, carved into the stone, was the symbol of a balanced scale, the sign for the goddess Justicia. Those scales, devotees claimed, must always balance between justice and mercy in equal amounts. As with most gods and goddesses, Graymoor residents found reasons to pray to Justicia, but none of the companions had seen a structure dedicated entirely in her honor, much less one so large. The church was fully twice the size of any other structure in Hirot, even larger than the Jarl’s manor. Umur examined the stonework as they passed and immediately recognized it as the most defensible building were Hirot under siege.

The last four days, the group had trudged through moors and forest, so it was a relief to be on simple, dirt roads. Their boots kicked up dust as they followed Nothan up the winding path to the manor atop the hill. As they crested the rise, a great, squat hall built from enormous timbers, thatched with golden straw, greeted them. Standing in front were more humans in green livery and spears. Nothan raised a hand in greeting and left the companions to speak in low, urgent voices with the manor’s guards.

“They sure aren’t happy we’re here,” Haffoot commented with some bewilderment.

“This entire village feels as if Chaos hangs over it,” Erin grumbled. “It is steeped in despair.”

“They’re in mourning,” said Hilda from beneath her low hood. “Did you see how few people still reside here? Every family must have experienced loss. But still, news of this Hound’s death does not seem to be spreading. It’s… odd.”

One of the guards speaking with Nothan left at a trot, pushing through the front doors of the manor. The Night Watch captain returned, his hatchet face still grim and serious.

“Let’s go,” he said, jerking his chin forward.

“I’m eager to speak with the Jarl,” Umur growled. “Find out what the bloody hells is going on.”

Beside him, Joane bit her bottom lip, looking at the open manor door with something like fear. Reluctantly, she followed the group into the Jarl’s great hall, guardsmen flanking with spears on either side.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 3