ACT 4

CHAPTER 23

FROZEN STEEL

Caleb watched Po bleeding out. This was the third Afflicted to have found their way into his private quarters. Reckless hate glowed in Po’s eyes, as if his glare alone was weapon enough to exact vengeance. He maintained eye contact right up to the moment he died, his cursed Aura dissipating. Whatever madness they had brought back to the camp, was spreading like fire in dry leaves. Caleb’s people had always been in a constant state of fear and anxiety, perfect conditions for an Affliction curse. Fear became anger and anger became hate. Once the hate set in, any sense of self preservation was pushed aside by the relentless drive for vengeance. Once Afflicted, even the most servile weakling became a deadly threat.

It had started the moment they left the battle to capture Lucas. The whole crew was demoralised by the loss of Koro, but for Hestor it was far more than a lost comrade. Caleb was aware of their connection. They had made a vow to each other. It was visible in both of their Auras but Caleb didn't know the details. Whatever it was, when Hestor heard of Koro’s death his Aura became like a black void.

Perhaps because of the obvious pain of his loss, they had not immediately noticed that something unnatural was happening. Hestor’s grief quickly transformed into anger and suspicion. He had blamed Caleb and the others, but ultimately he ended up convinced that it was Neb’s fault. It had only been because of Neb’s promise to keep Koro safe that Hestor had agreed to their plan and left Koro’s side during the battle.

Hestor was a very dangerous man so the rest of the crew was simply glad not to be the one under his hard eyes. On the second day of the trek back to camp, the other mercenaries were also showing disturbing signs. All of their Auras were tangled with frustration, the slightest inconvenience setting them off. But Hestor… Hestor’s Aura had become dense with hatred and malice. Everywhere Neb walked, whatever he did, Hestor was watching. Neb tried talking to him, to apologise for failing to protect Koro, but Hestor was like frozen steel.

Caleb also began to feel it that day. Simple inconveniences that he could normally brush off or ignore bothered him immensely. Despite the fact that his troubles required no more explanation than chance, his first instinct was to suspect foul play. Caleb was unusual in the level of attunement he had to his own Aura, and so immediately noticed that the changes had an unnatural origin. The others did not have much talent for introspection as a whole, and internalised the emotions instead of questioning them. The need to rationalise the way they felt led to escalating levels of paranoia, which was only vindicated by their allies suddenly looking at them like enemies.

That night the air was heavy with threat, nobody wanted to be the first one to fall asleep. The day had been long and exhausting, so sleep inevitably took them one by one. In the pre-dawn light a blood curdling scream woke the whole camp. The first thing everyone saw was Neb’s body. He had been nailed upside down to the trunk of a tree, his chest and belly cut wide open. The ribs and belly skin had been peeled back and nailed to the tree, exposing the entire inside of his torso to the open air. His genitals had been stuffed into his mouth, and at the foot of the tree all of his organs and viscera were carefully arranged to spell the word “Liar”.

Only Hestor was capable of doing this in the middle of the camp. He could use his Aura to create a zone of soundproofing over a small area. Neb would have been kept alive for most of the night, screaming for help over and over, but nobody could hear. Most disturbing of all, Hestor was nowhere to be seen. There was little else Caleb and the others could imagine that was more terrifying than being hunted by Hestor. He was a stealth specialist and a cunning ambusher.

The next day was tense, but otherwise uneventful. If Hestor was hunting them, he was being patient about it. Nobody slept that night. Everyone kept a few metres distance from everyone else, with their backs to a tree or rock. A clinging fear hung over the camp and the whole place stunk of cold sweat. In the end nobody died that night, but the lack of sleep pushed everyone closer to the edge. Nobody talked, only muttering to themselves as thick streaks of hate and anger grew in their Auras.

The peasants around here had ways to prevent people becoming Afflicted, but it required a kind of nurturing kindness that doesn't fit in well with mercenaries and Slavers. The moment they reached the camp, Caleb sent a runner to Votterdam to get a spirit healer. They had obviously been cursed somehow. He separated the mercs, dispersing their sleeping arrangement throughout the rest of the compound with orders to assemble in the morning.

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He had never been attacked with a curse before, but he knew the basic principle. There would be a fetish of some kind attached to one of them, spreading psychic poison to everyone nearby. Separating them should make it clear who is holding it. Unfortunately, it appeared that multiple mercs were carrying the curse. Dispersing them throughout the compound spread the curse to the rest of Caleb’s staff, who were overcome with Affliction at an alarming rate.

Caleb had spent years wearing down the psychological defences of those wretches, a necessary evil to keep control of his tenuous situation. Their fearful and worried souls offered little resistance. Some of the damned fools probably embraced it willingly, giving themselves over for the chance at killing him with the demonic power that came with the Affliction.

That night the first one came for him. It tried to sneak into his chambers but tripped one of the wires that he had set up in his private quarters, causing a small bronze bell to ring through the stone chamber. It was one of the girls. She sprinted at him with supernatural speed the moment their eyes met. It took twelve nails to bring her down. She spat out his name with every breath up to her last, as if she could kill him with it.

Caleb was resetting the trip wire when a high pitched screaming started somewhere else in the compound. It went on for hours, sounding more and more hoarse until it abruptly cut off. Caleb didn't sleep, sure that it would be the last time he closed his eyes.

The next day they found the source of the curse. One of the mercenaries found an Arach in his bed while tossing and turning in the sheets. It had been hiding with some kind of stealth ability. It was only a couple inches long, so several of the mercs trapped it in a sheet and brought it to Caleb. It was black with red eyes. When they shook it out of the sheet it didn't attack, but blasted out its vile Aura defiantly, sending waves of baleful malice over everyone present.

The mercs gasped at the power of it, momentarily paralysed as their Auras reeled from being exposed to the menacing energy. Caleb stomped on it, sending its revolting Aura whipping out around the room. Everyone was shaken, but the mercenary it had been attached to was deeply affected. Having been close to such a powerful corrupting energy for several days had likely caused permanent damage. The other mercs were patient and kind to him, letting slide his occasional outbursts of anger or spite. Understanding now the cause of his own behaviour, he tried his best to stay silent and keep his energy from infecting others.

Despite killing the Arach, the madness continued to escalate. Having figured out that there was more than one, they ventured into the compound to hunt down the other Arachs.

The moment they entered the dormitory it was clear that something had gone very wrong. Someone had smeared all of the white Relic lights with blood, drenching the entire building in ominous red light. The sound of cackling laughter from deeper in could be heard from the first hallway. They made their way towards the back of the building, stepping over several dead slaves that had been bled out from the neck into buckets that still lay scattered. The blood had been used to mural the walls with hand painting, silly and childish images, poorly drawn.

The source of the laughter turned out to be another mercenary that had trapped several of Caleb’s staff members in his room. When Caleb and the others broke down the barricade of furniture they found him naked and covered in blood. The entire skin of a man was draped off his arm like a cloak pinned up to dry. His hand was inserted from the back of its head and he used his fingers to move the mouth skin like a puppet. When he saw them enter he turned it towards them and mimed it talking as he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

“Ah, hello there.”

They ended up having to kill him. He spontaneously attacked while they tried to talk him down. The Arach had been hiding in his hair. Killing the wretched creature did a lot to disperse the horrific atmosphere, but it did nothing for the staff members who looked like offcuts from a butchery, discarded in the corner of the room. They had all been skinned alive. Three of them were already dead, and the other two Caleb killed as a mercy.

Worst of all is what they found when they returned to Caleb’s hall. Another member of the team that had gone to retrieve Lucas, killed in the same way as Neb, hung up and split open. The organs and viscera spelt out a message on the ground in a pool of blood.

“I’ll kill you last Caleb”

That night, most of the mercenaries deserted.