05

The wind howled and hard frozen pellets of snow pelted San as he moved down the empty streets of the village. The clouds had thickened and darkened, but the storm was taking its time.

He passed the barracks and took a deep breath as he looked up the road toward the keep. The stone and wood building dominated the area, its empty windows gave the visage of some great beast looking down upon the village. It was where the Flesh Horror lived. It was where it spent its days before coming out at night.

San shivered again, but not from the cold. He took a step forward, hesitating and second guessing his actions. He needed to see the keep, he needed to see what he had to work with. Fire would destroy the monster, but he needed to know what lay within the keep.

The Mage Chief didn’t want to talk about the creature anymore. The ghost or whatever he was, just sat in the hut, staring at the flames. The sadness and misery that wafted off of him was enough to drive San out of the hut and into the beast’s maw. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what the man was feeling, it was that San knew all to well what the man was feeling and seeing it, only made him remember the pain even more.

He trudged up the incline toward the keep. There were scattered weapons and armor cast about as if abandoned, but San didn’t think the wearers had voluntarily left them behind. The massive gates had seen better days. The hinges had nearly rusted solid, keeping the doors open and the Flesh Horror free to enter and exit. The thick wooden slabs that made up the gate were weathered and cracking, the metal bands reinforcing them rusted and in a few spots the bolts had failed and the bands were coming loose.

The walls were as tall as the village; nearly twenty feet high and about eight feet thick in some areas. It wasn’t the massive defensive structures that San had seen in illustrations or in random history documentaries. There were castellations along the walls, large enough for a man to hide behind, but for the most part the walls themselves were made of wood and stone. The fortifications were designed to stop raids by other people or monsters, not to withstand a long term siege.

The wind was kept at bay by the still standing walls. As he entered the main courtyard of the keep, a smell began to suffuse the area; a stench of rotting flesh. San grimaced and continued forward. He had the axe he had found, but he doubted that it would do much against the monster, there was also the revolver, but again that wouldn’t do much.

He hadn’t seen the creature, but San knew it was massive. It had only pushed an appendage into the hut the night before, but San could tell there was much more that he hadn’t seen. Something that large shouldn’t be able to exist, not in the barren wintry landscape of this place.

The Chief had claimed he had summoned the creature and it seemed to feed off of the ‘fires’ of the people it had killed. Some kind of soul powered flesh demon. And San was walking right into its lair.

The keep loomed up before him, the bottom floor was made of rough stone covered in chipping stucco or plaster, there was a set of wide steps that led toward a torn open door. The remains which lay scattered about the courtyard. The smell of rotting flesh was oppressive but San continued onward.

He had never seen a keep up close before. San had once met a man from Scotland during a conference, the man had talked about the old fortifications and ruins of a bygone era. His summation was that they were cramped, dark, and probably hellish to live in during the winter.

There were definite signs that the monstrosity moved in and out of the keep, as the ground was churned up and a grotesque slime trail of what looked to be blood was embedded deeply into the stone. San gagged and continued forward.

He entered the entryway, it was a wide hall with a railless staircase that wound counterclockwise to the second floor. The hall was smeared with the same substance that was covering the courtyard; it vanished into a darkened room beyond. San assumed the monster lay in that direction. The stairs themselves were dusty, but seemed unused.

San panned his flashlight around and then decided to head up the stairs. They were made of stone and seemed solid as he walked up them.

The second floor was filled with narrow halls and wooden doors. San approached the first door and pushed it open. Cold air blasted him as the door creaked open, the gaping holes of the windows letting the wind enter. The room was possibly a bedroom of some kind, there were rotting remains of furniture, damaged from the weather, and not much else.

San closed the door and continued to the next room. This room didn’t have any windows and was dark, but San noted that the items within seemed to be somewhat preserved. There was a small bed, a desk, and candles, several of the wax variety and others that were long pieces of coiled twine that sat in an iron holder.

As they were dry and still seemed usable, San pocketed them. He knew his flashlight wouldn’t last forever.

The rest of the second floor was equally sparse. Where the wind and weather hadn’t rotted the furniture, there wasn’t much to be had. San moved up to the third floor.

The rooms on the third floor were larger and probably once more ornate. But like any penthouse suite, they had large windows and sonic views, which all led to the rooms turning to rot.

The biggest find was a dusty fur cloak within a wooden chest. The closed container had prevented the clothing from rotting and San thankfully pulled it over his shoulders. It was designed or a smaller man, but San didn’t care. Walking around in a thin jacket and three T-shirts hadn’t been keeping him warm. The keep wasn’t much warmer than a walk-in refrigerator.

Weather and water, San realized, was the only thing that seemed to be destroying the keep. There were no signs of insects or rodents, besides the mouse skull he had found. The grain within the barracks hadn’t been touched, the wool-like fabric of the clothing he found hadn’t been eaten by insects. Was the Flesh Horror keeping everything else away?

The final room was the Cheif’s chambers. San had to work to open the door, as the rusted hinges barely gave. The howling wind greeted him and he stared at the big hole in the wooden walls. He hadn’t seen the damage as it lay in teh opposite direction of his arrival. He shivered in his new cloak and looked around.

The bookcase was the first thing that garnered his attention. A large library of books had once graced one wall, but as he looked at them San realized that water and weather had worn them to trash. The first book fell apart in rotting pages. The other volumes had swollen and contracted over the years, the ink running and leaving nothing of value behind.

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There were other items within the room of interest. A long table that once held what looked to be potions and actual glass bottles. Most of it was destroyed, the clay and glass bottles littering the floor and what looked to be old blood smearing the surface.

Upon a collapsed bed of straw and cloth, San saw two items. One was a leather bound book and the other was a basket hilted sword in a scabbard. They caught his attention for they were the only clean items in the room. Everything else was covered in a layer of dust, mud, or the snow that was beginning to come down.

He picked up the book first, seeing that it wasn’t in the same condition as the other volumes, even though it lay in an exposed area. The leather was supple and marked with arcane stamps. He opened the book and saw pages upon pages filled with tightly written script and diagrams. Although he could speak the language of this place, it appeared he couldn’t read it.

San tucked the book into his pack and then picked up the sword. As a child, San had a fascination with swords. He recognized the weapon as a broadsword, a single handed weapon with a long straight double edged blade, made for cutting and thrusting. He knew they were used mostly by calvary, a forerunner to the calvary saber.

It was a heavy blade, San hefted it in his hand, taking a experimental swing. He was expecting somekind of magic to work, but it didn’t seem that it was a magical sword he had found in the ruins of a wizard’s castle. Although as he noted that blade was still sharp and hadn’t suffered any damage from weather, that seemed more than magical enough.

San took the weapon and left the room. It held nothing else but rotting clothing and more rotting books and scrolls. He would have taken the unbroken bottles and clay containers, but he didn’t know what had been within them before. The last thing he wanted was to be poisoned by some residue left behind in the containers.

There was a wooden staircase that lead to the fourth floor and possibly the leaning spire he had seen, but the stairs were damaged and warped. San decided he had done enough exploring and headed back down the stairs and entryway.

The smell had lessened as he rose within the keep, but as he reached the entryway the smell was overpowering once more. He followed the residue on the floor, entering what looked to be a dining hall, with a massive fireplace on one end and broken doors that lead to a kitchen and side rooms. The slime trail lead to the wide entrance way of the kitchen.

He leaned the sword against the entrance and took out his revolver. With his flashlight leading the way, San entered the kitchen.

The smell was practically physical, causing San to tear up and nearly vomit. The room was covered in a thick layer of sludge, thick and ropey, it covered the walls and the floor. He gagged again and panned his light to see that there was a large hole in the floor across the room.

There appeared to be stairs that led down into a basement level. San cautiously walked across the layer of sludge, feeling his boots squish into the mass, leaving behind wet and sickly footprints. The stairs were thankfully mostly clean, but the odor that arose from the hole was ferocious. How something could smell even worse was beyond comprehension.

San crouched at the landing of the stairs and panned his light into the darkened room below. He couldn’t see much beyond trash and more ropey sludge that covered everything below. He had enough.

The monster made its lair in the basement, that’s all he needed to know. He quietly backed out of the room, taking caution to watch his step and constantly check behind him. Once in the main dining hall, he could almost breath easier, although the stench was still heavy. He quickly reached the entryway, grabbed the sword, and left the keep. Taking long, deep breaths of the freezing air.

The wind was howling again and snow was beginning to fall. San shivered in his cloak and faced the wind, trying to drive the stench out of his nose and mouth. He shuddered as he looked back into the keep entryway, feeling as if a million eyes were upon him.

***

The amphora were heavy and San struggled to lift them out of the basement of the barracks. He grunted, shivered, and cursed as the storm raged outside. Sweat dripped down his back, but the rest of his body was freezing. It was an odd feeling, to be hot and cold at the same time.

He knew he had to warm himself up; even with the exertion of moving the amphora, he was still on the verge of hypothermia. The day was nearly over and he had to move the items from the barracks before the Flesh Horror stirred.

It was madness, he thought. To stay another night in the village that the creature prowled, one that had killed hundreds. San tried not to think on it, but he knew he was mad. It was one thing to try and kill himself, it was another to be consumed by that monster and have his soul feasted upon.

Which brought him back to the reason he was doing it. The soul. He wasn’t a spiritual man. His grandfather had been Sikh before immigrating to America, his father hadn’t been into religion, and that had been passed onto San. Mary’s people had been Christians; a big part of her life had been going to church events. Although by the time Mary and he had met, she was more or less agnostic.

But the Mage Chief, the ghost that was haunting the hut, that was real. He had spoken to San, he had talked to him, it was not a hallucination or madness. The Chief was real and he was also dead.

That meant there existed a soul. A spirit that lived on after the body died. San shivered at the thought of what it meant. Not for himself, but for the people that the monster had killed. He was not a religious man, but the souls that monster fed on had to be freed. He had to kill that creature.

San looked out of the busted barracks window; at the snow and wind that had made it difficult to see more than a dozen feet. If there was a soul in this place, then that meant there were souls on Earth, right? That meant that one day… one day he would see Mary again, and Julia, and little Sanjay.

He blinked away the tears and got back to work.

***

“If its so big and powerful, why does it not just tear this hut down with me inside of it?” San asked the old man.

The Mage Chief Hazalban glanced up from the fire. He looked more haggard than before, as if existing seemed to be leaching whatever life-force he had.

“I grew up in this house,” the man said. “When I was very young, this village was so tiny. A dozen families lived here, hunting, fishing, and occasionally going to other villages to trade when the Trader came in the spring,” the man’s eyes glittered in the firelight. “When I was twelve winters old, I was tested by a traveling Mage; I had power within me. He took me, purchased from my father like I was an animal. We went South, to the Empire, to the great cities that surround the Great Inland Sea, that ply trade upon the Sheltered Sea and lands beyond.

“There for a decade, I was taught Imperial Magics. I was to be a battle mage, to fight in the wars against the enemies of the Empire. But then my master was killed, great politics I had no idea of were in play, shifts of power, changes in favor from the Emperor. They tried to kill me too, so I fled, back to the only place I knew of. My home.”

The Mage Chief looked at San, eyes sadden. “I learned my mother had died, my brothers and sister too, but my swine of a father still lived. People spoke of how the money cursed him, made him spend it all on Empire wine and left nothing for my mother and siblings. When I returned, I killed him. I cast his ashes into the river and I fixed up this hut of ours, to honor my family, to remember where I came from. Then I began to unite the tribes.

“This house is warded. The fire burns and it keeps evil at bay. That is the blessing of this house. For as long as the fire burns, evil will not step foot within.”

San stoked the fire and watched the old man. He shivered and seem to shrink just a little more.

“Will the fire be enough?” San asked. “Will it be enough to kill it?”

“Fire cleanses all,” the old man said. “When you are done, when the beast is dead, burn this place. Burn it all down.”

“Why?” San asked.

“I sought glory and power,” the old man said. “I wanted it so badly, that my name would forever be remembered. But all I have wrought is horror beyond imagining. Let my name fade and this land heal.”

“I won’t get to do much burning if this storm keeps raging,” San replied.

“The storm will end in the morning, it shall be bright and sunny,” the old man said.

“A good day to kill a Flesh Horror.”