[game-notes version here]

XIV.

Duskmarch 17, Goldday, Year 731.

The village’s shrine to The Watcher—also called The High Listener, The Fourth Sister, and She Who Watches the Bay, among many other titles—sat in the heart of Vastren Hollow, at the center of a cobblestone square. Alric supposed that, since the village had been founded by rangers long ago, they had built the shrine and its flame to signal safety to travelers or passing caravans, much as Skywarden Tower served for Oakton. Yet Vastren Hollow established no trade routes currently in use and had never proven to be of strategic advantage for the city. As a result, the village had maintained the Watchflame but grown around it, sitting comfortably within the rampart wall and defensive structures, unseen by passerbys. It was now, he guessed, primarily a symbol of safety for Vastren Hollow’s residents, a sign that Oakton’s gods still sheltered them from the wild world beyond.

Today, however, safety was under siege.

As Maelen and Vessa led Alric and the ragged militia through the village, they saw the true devastation of the skratt swarm. Every home gaped open, doors torn, windows bloodstained. Fires guttered across the square. One house, fully ablaze, stained the twilight orange. Black-furred bodies of skratts lay everywhere, some curled on their sides, some with backs arched and white eyes staring lifelessly at the clouds above, and others face down in the mud. Indeed, it seemed that the skratt corpses outnumbered the others by four to one, though everywhere Alric looked there were dead villagers and animals, all shredded by claws and with faces ravaged. The smell of blood, offal, and smoke filled Alric’s nose, making him gag several times.

The shrine itself was a waist-high, octagonal structure made of pale granite, atop which sat a bronze brazier in the shape of an eye. Alric could see immediately that the flame within that brazier was magical, its fires burning both white and blue. A few desperate soldiers stood in a tight ring above a mass of writhing, snarling black fur. Even as they approached, one of the women fell shrieking under the skratt horde. In moments, the others would follow.

With a shout, Maelen charged.

Alric had seen her fight before, stumbling uphill at Greenwood Rise, but this was different. She flew across the square, all power and precision. The Vastren Hollow militia, with a whoop, raised their makeshift weapons and followed her towards the besieged shrine. The humans at the shrine let up an answering call, rallying against the enemies around them. Now Alric watched, mouth agape, as Maelen’s spiked mace swung to catch a startled skratt in the chest, sending it arcing into the air. Right behind her, the Stonekin soldier’s glaive flashed out, shining in the bright light of the Watchflame.

Then the skratt mob swarmed them. The whispering chitter of rats mingled with the cries of pain from the militia, and the group disappeared amidst a mass of black fur. Alric gasped.

“Stay sharp!” Vessa loosed an arrow into the swarm, cursed, and dropped her bow. “Here they come!”

Vessa stepped past Alric and slashed with the short blade of her sword, intercepting a skratt that had run at him. It fell to the square awkwardly, scrabbling for purchase with its claws on the stones. Alric swung his staff, cracking into its body with a crunch. Then it launched itself at him, black hands outstretched and white eyes wide. He sidestepped on instinct but felt the hot flash of a claw across his cheek. It had gone for his eyes.

The creatures were everywhere. Vessa pivoted and swung her blade as Alric held out his staff defensively. Magic whirled in his mind, unable to form into anything coherent amidst the battle.

All around him, violence raged. Yet for several heartbeats, Alric faced off against the skratt Vessa had injured. It crouched on the cobblestones, feet set wide and clawed hands flexing as it sniffed the air loudly. Then its milky eyes fixed on his position, the oil-slicked, ropy tail lashing. The thing chittered and jumped again at his face.

This time, Alric was ready for it. He interposed the staff between them, though a frantic claw still nicked his neck as he pushed it away.

He swung the heavy wood of his staff in a desperate, wide arc. The blow struck the skratt where its head met its scrawny shoulder and the creature crumpled. Then Alric struck again, and again.

He hadn’t realized he was shouting until another skratt, slashed by Vessa’s blade, rolled into his leg.

Alric whirled, wide-eyed, to take in the scene. The dead lay everywhere, skratt and villager alike, though a cluster of both still battled around the Watchflame. Maelen was there, batting furred bodies left and right with her weapon, a fierce smile on a face spattered in dark blood.

Two skratts leapt out of the crowd at the shrine simultaneously. Their bodies fell atop the Watchflame deliberately, as if trying to smother the fires with their lives. More followed. The scattered soldiers on the granite pedestal cried out in dismay, striking at the smoking bodies. Alric watched the blue-and-white flame gutter, and then he couldn’t see it at all amidst the writhing, black-furred mass.

“No!” the stocky soldier roared, his glaive carving a desperate path through the skratt swarm. The last few villagers closed ranks around him, driving toward the shrine. Alric watched, almost transfixed by the scene: A last push of bravery amidst carnage.

The whispery chattering of a skratt near his ear jerked him into the battle. There, one of the creatures bared its long front teeth and spread its clawed hands wide, pale eyes fixed on his face as it readied to leap. He froze, surprised.

Maelen’s spiked mace crushed the skratt into the cobbles with a wet crack. Alric hadn’t even seen her cross the square. The warrior was bloodstained, panting, her hair and eyes wild, as she gripped her black weapon and spun, looking for another opponent. Vessa finished slicing the throat of another creature, then positioned her back to Maelen’s, a move that looked almost instinctual for the two mercenaries.

But it was unnecessary. Any skratts that had broken from the horde at the shrine were dead or gone. For a long moment, only panting and the crackle of fire filled the square.

Alric’s eyes scanned the scene, his gaze passing over countless corpses that his mind refused to register. He focused instead on the shrine. The Stonekin soldier had retaken the granite pedestal. Black-furred bodies lay everywhere around him, the stack of them fully to his waist. Three other humans—all covered in gore—yelled and moved to chase the last of the skratts as they fled. They had been fighting all night and day, however, and had no hope of catching the rat-like creatures. Dozens of skratts scurried from the village square, flowing like a river towards some exit Alric couldn’t see.

The soldier sank to his knees at the brazier’s base. His glaive clattered against the stone dais. The Watchflame was gone, buried beneath smoldering skratt corpses. Only the burning houses lit the square now, flickering orange, warped by smoke.

“White eyes, oily tails, and whispers,” Maelen rasped beside him. “You’re right, lad. Orthuun’s work.” She coughed, blood on her lip, and dropped to one knee.

“Maelen!” Vessa called out, but Alric was already kneeling beside her.

As soon as he’d entered the village, Alric had begun to hear a low, whispered murmur at the edge of his awareness. He’d convinced himself it was nothing.

But as he reached for Maelen’s face, the mumurs rose, coiling around his mind. Words he couldn’t understand, half-heard and hissing. They filled his ears, drowning out everything else. Lone cries from anguished villagers, blazing house fires, and even a question that Maelen asked him as she looked into his eyes—Alric could hear none of it. Only the whispers remained, and his lips moved with the alien rhythm of them.

A familiar numbness spread throughout his body, as if he were separating from the world and becoming apart from it. His skin tingled as it passed from his head, down his neck and spreading throughout his torso and limbs, moving down to his legs and feet. Once the sensation had passed, he felt nothing, no pain or emotions. Dispassionately, Alric said words he and his companions would not remember later.

Maelen’s eyes went wide, then relaxed. She blinked at him, a sense of wonder across her face as he released her head with his long fingers and ceased the spell. It would take, he knew, several heartbeats for his senses to fully return, and the tingling as the numbness retreated was awfully distracting. But he could still speak through deadened lips, and asked, “Are you better?”

“Lad,” Maelen mouthed. “How?”

“Shh,” Alric shook his head, pursing lips. He hadn’t heard her through the diminishing whispers in his ears, but he saw her lips make the words. “Later. Let’s help the others.”

As he stood on shaky legs and surveyed Vastren Hollow, though, he wasn’t sure who there was to help.

The village was gone, its Watchflame cold. Orthuun had wiped it from the world like ink from a wet page.

Next: Make Sure I Do It [with game notes]