The Enochians waited patiently inside their tents for the Sorginak’s beckoning. The sounds of the celebration drifted through the night air - soft and distant, yet clear enough to be heard: The strings of a well-played guitar wove through the lighthearted murmur of conversation, accompanied by occasional bursts of laugh and song. It was all in the language Julien couldn’t hope to understand, and it left him feeling strangely disconnected from the moment, like an outsider peering into another world.
He turned his attention back to preparing both himself and Robert for the coming battle. Piece by piece, he equipped the armor—each buckle tightened, every strap secured. Robert’s lifeless limbs were not as difficult to manage, his dead muscles growing increasingly better at bearing the weight of the armor. The shield, still too heavy for his budding arm, rested across his back. Julien followed suit, adjusting his own armor before moving on to his weapons. The fenestrated axe hung from his side, its presence oddly comforting, despite the dark power it held.
He finally draped cloaks over both of them, the heavy fabric concealing their readiness for combat. Best not to reveal too much too soon, he thought. As the night deepened, Julien’s eyelids grew heavy, and just as he felt himself on the edge of sleep, a confident clapping reached his ears.
“Julien, can I come in?” A voice asked, the Latin broken but clear enough to understand.
Shaking off his drowsiness, Julien answered: “Come in.”
Zeru entered, carrying a tray laden with a hearty meal: The aroma of roasted poultry, glazed with an orange-tinted oil, filled the tent, accompanied by wild mushrooms and apples. The sight of the meal, perfectly cooked and steaming, caught Julien by surprise.
“Eat as much as you need, Julien,” Zeru said warmly, “just leave the leftovers outside, and someone will come for them.”
Julien nodded. “Thank you, Zeru. This is truly generous - more than enough for Robert and me.”
Zeru’s smile was bright, his enthusiasm infectious. “Agerkunde told me what you and the envoy are about to do,” he explained. “If you succeed in defeating Akerbeltz, we will all be free. We want you as strong as possible for the battle.”
Julien chuckled softly, picking at the mushrooms. “Thank you again. And give my regards to Agerkunde.”
The sorgin grinned wider as he turned to leave. “Just don’t eat too much,” he added with a light laughter, “I’ve overdone it before and couldn’t even lift my sword afterward!”
With that, Zeru departed, leaving Julien alone with the meal and his thoughts.
…
Moments had passed since Zeru’s visit, and the remnants of the meal Julien had only partially finished lay outside his tent, a third eaten. In front of Tariq’s tent, the same meal sat half-consumed.
The sound of guitars, drums, and melodious voices grew louder, filling the air with a vibrancy that pulsed full of life through the settlement. Bonfires and torches blazed across the space, while pieces of colorful fabric and resilient wildflowers adorned the structures. Each roof, tent, and building was charmingly dusted with a thin, shimmering layer of the freshest snow. In the distance, Julien could make out the flickering shadows of dancers - some spinning in circles together, others swaying alone, each movement as fervent as it was free.
He glanced up at the sky and almost felt the fires were superfluous; the full moon hung overhead, glowing so brilliantly that it outshone the stars completely. It seemed impossibly close, bathing the world below in a silvery light. The night sky, ink-black save for the colossal pearl of the moon, stretched endlessly, a stunning contrast to the bright celebration below.
As the minutes passed, the fervor outside grew nearly unbearable. Even from within his tent, Julien could barely listen to his thoughts. The relentless music and chants felt like they were pounding in his skull, creating a budding headache. He lay flat on the floor, closing his eyes in an attempt to block out the overwhelming noise, hoping to find a few moments of peace before the night’s inevitable chaos ensued. His thoughts wandered to Tariq and Urraca - were they feeling the same pressure? Was Tariq as restless as he was?
But any hope for quiet reflection was short-lived. The foreign chants outside shifted, suddenly singing names Julien recognized: his own and Tariq’s. A group of brothers and sisters - Zeru among them - opened his tent’s entrance, their faces alight with excitement. While chanting and dancing, they gently pulled Julien to his feet. "Feign foolishness, Julien," Zeru whispered with an urgent smile, his voice nearly drowned by the rising energy of the night.
As Julien was led into the whirlwind of celebration, he caught sight of Tariq being pulled from his tent as well, by Uxue and a handful of others. Unlike Julien, Tariq’s face was stern, unaffected by the revelry swirling around them. If Uxue had whispered the same warning to Tariq, it hadn’t fazed him in the slightest.
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The procession moved forward, Julien noticing the shift in the scene around them: The torches and wicks that once burned with intensity were now reduced to thin streams of smoke. The large spit roasts, which had likely held the night’s feast, stood empty, the bonfires beneath them reduced to a weak flicker of embers, offering little more than a faint glow; bones, greasy plates, and overstuffed revelers told the tale of excess. Scattered across the ground were also goblets, mugs, and bottles - some still clutched by intoxicated hands, others discarded, dry and abandoned.
A few brothers and sisters still danced and sang, their movements heavy with the weight of food and drink, while others slumped where they could, too incapacitated to continue. Despite their folly, Julien noticed their auras remained eerily controlled, their arima kept in check.
But the procession marched on, undeterred by the lethargy of the revelers. The chanting grew louder as they moved closer to the only place still aglow: a stone altar, roughly hewn but purposeful, standing in front of a tall stone archway leading into the dark grove beyond. Julien hadn’t noticed the arch before, and its sudden presence added to the nigh surreal weight of the moment.
The air was thick, as if he could slice through it with his sword. With every step closer to the altar, Julien felt his earlier feigned foolishness melt into genuine bewilderment; each new sight and sensation overwhelmed him. Near the altar, but off the main path of the procession, he saw Urraca standing in the shadows. She was now dressed similarly to Agerkunde and Uxue, her anxious eyes catching his in the low-lighted candlelight. A faint smile played on her lips, filled more with apprehension than joy. "Good luck," she mouthed, her lips barely moving, but her message clear.
Julien nodded slightly, his own lips curling into an uneasy smile. "Thank you," he mouthed back before turning his focus back to the path ahead.
They were only a few steps away from the altar when Agerkunde emerged from the shadows: She was dressed just like the others but with an air of authority, stepping to the pulpit behind the altar. She joined the chant, her voice blending with the others before rising above, clear and commanding.
At her arrival, the procession halted, and the settlement fell into an eerie silence. The dancers stopped mid-step, the singers fell mute, and even the revelers, who had collapsed from exhaustion or gluttony, stood at attention like solemn guards. The entire community now faced Agerkunde and the procession.
It struck Julien how calm, even content, they seemed - none appeared to bear any guilt for sending two men to their supposed deaths. His earlier conversation with Agerkunde flickered in his mind, unsettling him a little more. Maybe they are just celebrating the coming death of Akerbeltz.
He glanced at Robert, who had been trailing at a distance, uninvolved in the sacrifice ritual; Julien contemplated leaving the corpse behind to guard Urraca, should the situation take a dark turn, and he knew Robert’s presence might also aid in an escape, should the need arise. With a quiet resolve, he decided to do just that, preparing the dead count for whatever may come. If things went awry in the grove, he could always call on Robert for help.
Tariq, however, still looked distant, already focused on the darkened forest that loomed ahead, ignoring Agerkunde as she began chanting alone behind the altar. There was an unnerving calm about him, as though his mind was already beyond this moment, fixated on the battle to come.
The young Enochian, while unable to comprehend the foreign words that flowed from Agerkunde's lips, recognized the cadence, the rhythm – it was a reverential ritual. Every fourth or fifth word seemed to be ‘Akerbeltz’, and with each repetition, the energy around him thickened, growing more electric, more sinister.
After the second ‘Akerbeltz’, the members of the procession joined in the chant, their voices rising in fervor. By the third, the other brothers and sisters of the settlement, once mere observers, added their voices, swelling the sound until it reverberated through the entire area like a heartbeat. The fourth ‘Akerbeltz’ summoned the drums, which began to beat like a gathering storm, their thunderous rhythm shaking the very ground beneath their feet. At the fifth, guitars, strange in their tuning, began to wail, their discordant notes twisting around the chant like serpents.
The sixth ‘Akerbeltz’ was the signal for something far stranger: The brothers and sisters who were not part of the procession began to move - some swayed in a frantic dance, their bodies contorting in time with the maddening rhythm. Others, to Julien’s astonishment, began to levitate, their feet lifting from the ground as if they were being pulled into the air by invisible threads. Their iric auras pulsed, expanding and retracting with each beat of the drums, each strum of the guitars, creating a surreal, hypnotizing spectacle.
Julien’s breath hitched, his instincts bracing for what he believed would be the seventh Akerbeltz, a climactic moment in the chant. But instead of the expected name, a gut-wrenching, primal roar tore through the night; it echoed from the depths of the grove, raw and filled with pain, rage, and something else - something almost ancient, and deeply unsettling. The roar seemed to vibrate in Julien’s skeleton, clawing at his nerves.
A sudden and profound silence fell over the settlement, leaving only an oppressive stillness. Agerkunde, her eyes gleaming in the low light, left the altar and approached the two Enochians; without a word, she took their hands, her grip cold but steady, guiding them toward the stone arch that loomed closer. Her voice, though quiet now, held the same commanding presence as she muttered a few more words, phrases similar to what she had chanted before. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, she threw her head back and, in her raspy but powerful voice, screamed to the heavens: “Akerbeltz!”
As the final echo of the name faded into the grove, she stepped back, a slow, deliberate retreat. Her smile was brief before she gestured for them to pass through the archway. Her role, it seemed, was now over, and with a final glance at the darkened forest beyond, she turned and rejoined her brothers and sisters.
Julien cast one last look back at the settlement, his heart racing, hoping to catch a glimpse of Urraca. But she was nowhere to be seen, lost in the crowd of entranced revelers or hidden in the shadows. Before he could dwell on it, Tariq’s voice cut through his thoughts, sharp and direct.
“Let’s not waste any more time, Mazars,” the experienced Enochian said confidently as he glanced over his shoulder. His hand hovered near the hilt of his curved sword, fingers twitching with anticipation. “We’ve got a beast to vanquish.”
At that moment, another blood-curdling screech ripped through the night, its intensity shaking the very sky, like a lightning bolt. Julien’s pulse quickened.