Tuls couldn’t sleep without the aid of resin. Normally he detested the use of sedatives, but he had no choice. The pain came in waves. He found himself tossing and turning in a fruitless effort to escape the burning. So, he smeared some lyanth resin across his nostrils and felt the world list beneath him, welcoming him into its embrace. Even then, he awoke several times in a dazed stupor, the agony and the salve causing him to skirt the edge of delirium. During one of these lapses, he awoke to find Vincent standing in one of his trances, staring in the direction of Crefield, pointing toward it.

“It's looking right at me,” he mumbled to nobody in particular.

Tuls fell back to sleep before he saw who guided Vincent back into his cot. When he awoke the next morning, the pain had subsided to a dull thrumming, yet he winced with every step. He had to be careful not to bump his stump too hard, otherwise the injury would send hot waves pouring over his tail. A healer came over to unwrap the wound to inspect it. Tuls had to clamp his jaw around a bite stick as the bandage came off. Madrian patted him on the shoulder.

“It'll grow back,” he said, “saw many recover from worse amputations. Too bad the marsh took the rest of it. You could have kept it as a souvenir.”

Pain made his temper short, but even then, he managed to grimace at Madrian's jibe. A gentle breeze licked at his back and chilled the wound. He wished he lacked a channeler's senses so he could enjoy the sensation. Instead, he knew this wind was not a natural phenomenon. They were closer than ever to the source of the black storms. Something was throwing the forces of nature into chaos. Perhaps a gleaner, trained to analyze the weather patterns, would be able to provide more insight. But for now, Tuls was unsettled, knowing that this wind was a reaction to a profound wound on the world. When the expedition left on their final trek toward Crefield, it was at their backs like an escort, carrying them toward their destination. Hints of frigid air brushed at their wings.

Around mid-morning, they entered a rocky moraine and every single channeler instantly became alert as they caught whiffs of the stormspawn's telltale stench. M'kari leapt off his landrider and scooped up a handful of gravel.

“They've been here.” he said, sniffing it. Then he let the rocks fall from his hands. Tuls didn’t know how he could stand to be touching the ground. He felt the sting of malice even though he was still on top of his mount. But the sensation diminished once they left the moraine. Madeen, who flew up above them, reported no sightings. Still, everybody was on guard. Stormspawn had been through here, there was no mistaking it.

They had hints that they were getting closer to Crefield because the clouds were growing denser, and the air was getting colder by the moment. Systems began to clash with systems and lightning silently flickered. None of these storms were the same kind that spawned the abominations. Rather, they seemed to be a reaction to whatever was happening in Crefield. The sky was protesting against violation. Eventually, the zerok had to leave them, citing that certain “emanations” from the village were too painful to bear. So, they were left without the flyers' sight.

It was around noon when they finally spotted the region of Crefield. The village itself and the ruins surrounding it inhabited an enormous caldera of a long-dead volcano. The volcano had not been tall, more of an expansive, uplifted region than a mountain. But it had been vast, vast enough that the village could not be seen from their vantage point. They stood at the caldera's rim, looking down upon a biome that had once been tropical. Now, it was now covered in white dust and storms.

Rising above the center of the caldera in the distance was a sight that made Tuls reel with vertigo. Bordering the rim but not daring to encroach upon it, systems continued to crash against each other with such virulence, the sky itself seemed to be on the verge of shattering. But this chaos formed a dome of emptiness around the region, a boundary beyond which no storms seemed to penetrate. No storms except for one singular formation gyrating directly above the center of the village.

A solitary, elliptical column of clouds arose high, churning and boiling from the violence within. Tornadoes tried and failed to establish themselves along its length, the weather too chaotic for even their fury. It was quiet for a storm of its potency, unnatural. The formation stood in front of them, rising in a gyre so high, its top could not be seen. Yet the only sound it emitted was a soft, quiet rumble.

Tuls shivered as white flakes drifted lazily from the clouds above. At The La'ark's command, everybody began to dress for the trek ahead of them. They had to cover everything with several layers of garments made with ookai hide and stuffed with landrider fleece.

“Stop moving and I'll help you!” Sperloc growled as he assisted Vincent with the stockings that were made to cover the wings, chastising him as he did so. “No, fold them. No, the peak goes first! I said the peak! Is that your peak? No, it is not! This is your peak!” He grabbed the apex of Vincent's wing and shoved it into the baggy garment.

With some effort, Tuls managed to get his own fitted. They made his wings feel stiff, but they were warm. Vincent was not his usual self today. He had been unusually quiet. He emitted emanations of shame and dread. What had happened to him?

When they were ready, the expedition headed into the caldera. As soon as he passed over its threshold, Tuls flinched. The temperature dropped almost immediately, as if they had hit some sort of bubble beyond which all warmth ceased to exist. Every part of his body was covered except for his face, but the shock of the air against his snout alone was enough to jolt him. How could anything be so cold and so bitter? It felt like the air itself was trying to eat at his flesh.

The white flakes continued to fall from the sky. A few of them landed on his snout and melted. It didn't take long for the expedition to tread on ground that was covered with the stuff. The bizarre white powder made a strange chafing sound as the landriders crunched it under their feet.

Everywhere Tuls looked, the world became more and more unrecognizable. Snow created white outlines on the limbs of trees and buried small bushes under its volume. Extremities were encased in a clear crystalline substance Vincent called ice. Apparently, this type of weather was normal in his world. There was a surreal beauty to it. If Tuls had not been a gloweye, perhaps he would have been enchanted by the sight. But beyond the beauty was a tormented land. Every tree that they saw was dead, their limbs bent and tortured under the weight of the ice and snow. Some had even split in half while others had simply fallen over. And beyond all of that, he could feel a prickling sickness radiating from the direction they were trying to head.

Eventually, the dusting on the ground became so thick, the landriders had trouble pulling the wagons. They had planned for this though. The expedition stopped to begin the process of removing the wheels and replacing them with skids that were stored inside the wagons. Several took this opportunity to find a place in the woods to relieve themselves, Tuls included. When he returned, he found several soldiers with heated fireglass blades drawn to keep themselves warm. M'kari scooped up a bit of the powdery substance in his hands to inspect it. Then he shoved some of it into his snout and began to eat it, his face twisting as bits of the powder fell from the sides of his lips.

“Oy, are you sure that's a good idea?” Menik asked.

“Hmmf...the weather is wrong” he grumbled, “but this stuff is clean. Not bad. Refreshing. Tastes like water.”

“That's because it is water.” It was the first Tuls heard Vincent speak that day. He had spent the entire morning in silence.

“What are you doing?” Madrian asked.

Vincent began to pack the powder into his palms, using the heat of his hands to melt and compress it.

“Making a snowball,” he said as he molded it into the shape of a ball, “we’d throw these at each other when I was a kid. Me and my sisters.”

“You looking to throw it at one of us?” Sperloc asked.

Vincent didn’t answer. He simply stared at the object he’d made. His expression was both flat and disconnected. He rotated it in his palms, looking as if he were searching for something. After a few moments, he tossed it. It crashed against a tree and exploded in a white plume.

When the skids were fully attached to the wagons, it was time to go. They glided over the snow with ease. Tuls scanned his peripherals and became more paranoid the closer they got to their destination. Occasionally, he could detect the residual scent left behind by the presence of stormspawn, but beyond that, he could only sense the growing malignance coming from the center of the system.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The weather became more violent as they proceeded, with wind picking up snow and blasting it at their faces. It felt like a barrage of a thousand tiny needles. Tuls activated the storm ward latched onto Mola's saddle. The wind jumped back and the snowflakes, apparently susceptible to the same dictations that affected rain, were pushed aside. However, it did nothing to affect the chill that seeped its way into his bones. He was shivering.

Navigation became increasingly difficult throughout the day, as trees and bushes became blanketed with walls of wind-blown ice until they were unrecognizable. Three soldiers had to walk in front of the expedition with heated fireglass and carve a path through the obstacles. When they plunged their blades into the ice, steaming water poured down at their feet.

Eventually, they came to an opening in the trees and found themselves looking over an expanse of ruins. The ice and snow, obfuscating the features, made it difficult to demarcate where the ruins ended and Crefield began. The ancient city had been arranged as a circle. Roads radiated outward from a central point: a domed building that Tuls supposed acted as a hub for all of Crefield's meetings. But they were still quite a way away. Still...there were far less trees in the ruins, which meant navigation was easier. However, the wind howled, and he found himself clenching his teeth. Up above, the colossal pillar of clouds churned with a power he could not comprehend.

“Does anybody hear that?” he whispered.

Every instinct that he had told him that he shouldn't be looking at it, but he was too entranced, too afraid to turn away. Beneath the towering gray-blue whisps, something constantly flickered and shimmered, as though just beyond its veil lied a colossal glimmering gemstone. Crackling flashes danced behind twisting gyres and spinning tendrils. Auroras fluctuated just out-of-sight.

He was looking at a confluence of powers he was not meant to understand, a knowledge that lied far beyond his mortal mind. It was a cut in the world, but he did not understand the nature of its wound. It was making noise, a strange ambient sound that lied behind the rumbling of the wind, a hysteric jabbering. It was separate from the black storms, perhaps something far more dangerous.

“Tuls!” Menik called out, breaking him out of his trance, “you look sick.”

“I...am fine.”

Vincent also stared up at the storm with a look of longing in his eyes. He was afraid, but he was also filled with a silent determination. Tuls' thoughts were interrupted when the kiolai that had scouted up ahead returned, dropping the veils that obfuscated their figures, making it look as though they had materialized from the air itself. They reported no signs of the stormspawn. However, they did say there was something strange in the village of Crefield itself.

When they reached the entrance gate, they saw exactly what the kiolai were referring to. Figures that looked like they'd been sculpted from ice stood posed next to the gate, one to the right, another to the left, and a smaller one lying on the arch spanning the top of the gate. One of the soldiers up front was about to reach out and touch one of them when several channelers simultaneously shouted and told them to stop.

“Do not touch them!” one of them shouted.

Perplexed, one of the soldiers brought his blade close to one of the figures and flared it. Tuls could feel the heat even though he was a good distance away. The ice glazed over, then it melted away, revealing the corpse hidden beneath. It was a woman whose face twisted in both terror and agony. Her eyes were rolled back into her head so that only its whites could be seen. She was bowing as if posed to welcome visitors. The other figure was a male, half of his face was missing, so it was hard to tell what expression he was wearing. He too, was bowed in a gesture of greeting.

The soldiers raised their blades to the smaller one lying on top of the arch. As the ice melted and rained water, a boy was revealed. He laid across the arch in a lax posture of mischief, his lips curled back in a grimace and his eyes, empty black sockets with flaccid lids. He was posed with his snout resting in one hand while with the other, he pointed a finger into the gate as if saying “Come on in!” Lightning flickered, casting their desecrated silhouettes in relief. Tuls was certain they had not died in those poses.

“Naikira's wing...” Sperloc rasped.

Tuls had to grasp onto the channeler's gate within, allow himself to feel the scale of its power. He had to make everything else small by comparison, even the lore that touched those cadavers. He looked away from them and yet he could still see them one by one, their images flashing, invading his mind. Lightning flickered and he thought he could see their shadows limned through his eyelids. He knew that if he opened his eyes, he would be standing alone, everybody else mysteriously vanished, leaving just him, these corpses, and the strange storm that churned silently above. He saw the boy with the empty voids for eyes turn to look at him.

“Tuls. Get a hold of yourself,” M'kari said.

Relieved to hear his voice, Tuls opened his eyes. He was not alone. The expedition was still at his side and the cadavers had not moved.

“Kelek!” The La’ark said, speaking to one of the nearby channelers. “Your thoughts?”

“I lack the words...” he said, “I would burn the bodies. Don’t touch any of them, just burn them.” Several more channelers agreed with him. She did not question their intuition. So, to Tuls’ horror, she had the soldiers splash the corpses with fuel and set them on fire. Tuls covered his nose and leaned over Mola's flank in case he got sick. He tried not to look at the flaming figures as they passed through the gate. But Crefield was not finished with him, more horrors awaited.

Tuls remembered spending a small fortune as a child to get his sister a small, hand-carved dollhouse complete with its own set of wooden figures. She would pose them, weaving a narrative without words using the dolls alone. The tapestry of terror that laid before them reminded him of those dolls. More of the frozen figures stood, captured in time. Parents chased children through the alleys. A farmer sheared a dead landrider. Somebody hung meat up to dry. All of them had been posed performing mundane, everyday activities. It was a harrowing facsimile of life.

The expedition finally came upon the center of the town where the round, domed structure resided. More figures had been posed to greet them in the plaza, sitting on the rooftops with snouts resting in their hands, hanging upside down by the knees from the rafters of landrider shelters. A welcoming committee.

The centerpiece of the display was the corpse of a landrider lying on its side. Its gut was open, and it had been hollowed out. Of all the displays, this disturbed the onlookers the most. He could feel their terror. Tuls didn’t know why until lightning flashed and revealed the reason: A smiling youth stared out at them from inside the creature's wound, his snout revealed for an instant in the flickering. When the lightning died, Tuls could only see the boy's hands planted on the edges of the opening as though it were a window. It had made a home out of the landrider's corpse.

“We don’t have enough fuel to burn all of these,” Akhil said. The La'ark simply nodded, glaring at the macabre display.

“Divide the men into squads of five,” she ordered, “put a channeler in each squad as a warning against danger. Go around and cut them down. Use stars if you have to.”

Naikira's wing... Tuls thought, shaken to his very core.

Akhil looked at her for a brief moment, then he acknowledged the order and went off to carry it out.

No, Tuls thought, we should not spread out.

There is incredible danger here even if he didn't understand what it was. But he was too terrified to speak because he was alone with these things. Yes, there were others present but if he were to close his eyes, they may as well have ceased to exist. It was just him and these corpses. He could feel hints of a primal awareness radiating from their frozen forms.

Please...don't leave me here, he thought, that's what it wants us to do.

A blade swung down on the first corpse. Tuls flinched. The dismemberment had begun, and he tried not to look. Coming here was a mistake. He wanted to go back to Meldohv. No...he wanted to go back home to Raleen. He clasped his hands to his ears and willed the noise to stop. But it wouldn't. Even though he didn’t watch, his mind filled in the blanks and showed him what the soldiers were doing to the people of this village. It was wrong.

“Tuls,” The La'ark said, startling him. She and Oris faced the round structure, which was swirled in snow and ice. “Your senses are acute. Is that the source of the storms?” She nodded to the gyrating pillar above it. When he didn't respond, she turned her mount to face him, her features were limned with the light cast by the flickering display above. She repeated his name. M'kari came up beside him and reached a wing out to touch him.

“Oy...Tuls,” he said, “I feel it too.”

Tuls broke out of his trance and nodded. “Yes...sorry.”

“That storm,” The La'ark repeated, “tell me what you're feeling. Is it the source of the black storms, can you tell?”

He looked up at it and felt the world list under its scale.

“I don't know...it could be. But...it lacks the malice of the storms. I feel like...I'm looking into a hole.”

“A 'hole'?” Oris repeated.

“I don’t know how to explain it. I guess...it's like a well I was afraid of as a child. I was afraid I would fall into it and sink to the bottom. So, I would never go near it. When I look at that,” he nodded toward the system, “I get the same feeling. It feels like an abyss. I think it is...it is dangerous, but...” He looked around at the village, at the darkened homes and the frozen statues. “There’s something else here...and I think it hears every word we say.”

“There is something in the building,” M'kari added.

The La'ark took a moment to think things over, then she turned to Oris.

“We will use the homes as shelter instead of erecting canopies,” she said, “take some men and ensure the houses are clear before we move in. Keep storm ward usage to a minimum. We do not know how long we will be here.”

“Yes, La’ark,” Oris said.

“One more thing: Get the landriders to shelter. If you must erect canopies for this purpose alone, do it. If a black storm should appear, we cannot risk them being corrupted by its rains. Once Akhil and the squads clear the bodies, we will assign a patrol around the perimeter of the plaza. Nobody is to approach that building until I say we are ready. If you find anybody breaks this rule, punish them severely.”

Nobody should approach it, Tuls thought, there's something horrible within.