The Apostle
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In the roiling dark clouds, violet and mauve webs of light arced violently like lightning.
Tosont was silent once more as pieces of the obelisk began to fall apart, revealing a shadowed nook. Cultists and Khormchaks stood frozen in terror as a scream tore from the great crystal. Yesugei covered his ears, the piercing scream was like scratching glass, and it grew unbearably loud. Then abruptly, the screeching ceased.
As Yesugei opened his eyes he saw a figure standing before the crystal.
It resembled a human, but only by shape - the differences were more terrible than any legend, any inscriptions Yesugei had seen. The creature’s cracked, gray skin resembled heat-blasted clay, and twisted, rope-like muscles bulged and tore through the fissures. It bore a gray, lifeless face that resembled a stone mask crumbling along chiseled lines. Long, greasy black braids hung down to its waist - and its naked form was covered only by an ancient patchwork skirt of leather. Narrow slits where its eyes should have been revealed only small windows into twisting darkness.
“The time has come.” The monster’s voice sounded like cracking, crunching glass as it spoke the Common Tongue in a stilted, uneven tone.
The girl who had saved his life moments before collapsed, clutching her heart and choking. The monster moved slowly toward the courtyard, and its first step dropped the cultists nearby to their knees.
Blood flowed from beneath their masks in a torrent, draining the living and the wounded until their bodies crumpled. The creature beheld the dead for a moment, then waved one arm over the corpses.
The bodies stacked by the obelisk and littering the town square began to twist and melt. Flesh, skin, bone and cloth twisted into a viscous, colorless mass that slithered into the creature’s hand as it walked. The mass reshaped into a massive, grotesque cleaver - its handle a twisted spine, and its blade two parallel lines of jutting, yellowed human teeth. Long fingers ending in pitch-black nails tightened around the handle as the cleaver solidified in shape - its blade as long as a man stood tall, and a foot wide.
Yesugei snap out of his terror - only he, his companions, and the unconscious girl now remained.
“Targyn! Kenes! Get back!” he cried, readying his bow. But as he aimed, his grip weakened and his vision clouded in darkness. Merely looking at the creature seemed to sap his strength.
Targyn collapsed with a strangled cry, blood spurting with renewed force from his wounded side. His veins swelled and blackened, crawling like tendrils across skin that turned gray as stone. The keshik went on all fours and vomited a wave of blackened blood and pus. Moments later, he fell limp at the creature’s feet, his keen archer’s eyes now bulged and bloodshot.
Kenes stumbled backward, nearly tripping over Sergen, who trembled and clutched his bone idol in fear. Abandoning the shaman, Kenes drew back towards Yesugei and Kaveh, his gaze still fixed on Targyn’s corpse. The three warriors stood frozen - Yesugei wanted to run, but his feet felt as though they were nailed to the ground.
The monster extended an arm towards the three, and with a small flick of its wrist Yesugei heard the wooden gates slam shut behind them. From afar, the monster's finger traced a flaming symbol onto the wooden doors - a clawed hand that burned with baleful energy.
"Spirits of the Black Havens, abjure this abomination from our midst!" cried Sergen, raising his carved idol to the sky. But the spirits were silent. The shadows of the standing houses and the towering trees bent unnaturally toward them all as the monster approached. When the monster was almost upon him, the shaman's braids suddenly began to smoke. The black crystals in Sergen’s hair began to crack and hiss, and fell free from his braids. The monster halted in its tracks, suddenly wary of the circle of smoldering crystals.
"Khariija!" cried Sergen, throwing his arms to the sky as he chanted the name. "Savior of the Mother Woods! Hear the prayers of this Ormanli, I call on you once more for your divine aid! Save us!"
The creature faltered, sinking to one knee at the name. Yesugei felt his terror ebb away as the crystals in his sword began to hiss as well, emitting a pale-green smoke. The intense heat warped the horse’s head on his pommel into a grotesque shape, and the weapon hissed with spite, its smoke a barrier against the tide of death that rolled off the monster’s body. More smoke rose out from underneath Kaveh’s tunic as his brother pulled out the handkerchief and tied it around the shaft of his spear.
The monster strained under the weight of its own unnatural body. They would not get a chance like this again.
"Brothers!"
The three of them surged forward, weapons at the ready. Kenes kept close to Kaveh’s shield, glaive and spear aimed as one. Yesugei fanned aside the pale-green smoke, nocking an arrow as Sergen’s words flooded his chest with new warmth.
"The time has come!" The monster cried, throwing its gray hands into the air as it struggled to stand.
A barbed Khormchak arrow struck the monster in its chest, between the cracks of its hardened skin, but the creature only faltered briefly. It continued to rise.
"The time has come!" the monster growled again as it pulled the arrow from its chest.
A second arrow pierced straight through the monster's cheek but was pulled out just as quickly at the first. The gaping wounds left by the arrows suddenly began to close as the monster's face and chest stitched themselves together.
Yesugei felt terror begin to eat away at the corners of his emboldened spirit, as Kaveh and Kenes bore down upon the creature. Kenes roared, his glaive flashing as the keshik struck it deep into the monster’s neck, but the creature barely budged beneath the blow.
Kenes gasped. The monster’s cleaver of flesh and bone whistled through the air. The massive blade drove through iron plate, flesh, and bone as if it were all paper, cleaving Kenes apart. The keshik’s lifeless body splattered into two dripping, quivering pieces as he hit the ground.
Blood drenched Kaveh from head to toe, and he stood, frozen in horror.
Yesugei felt his own surging spirits drain, and his fingers hastily reached for another arrow only to grasp at thin air. His quiver was empty. The crystals in his sword were shrinking faster, and those around Sergen were reduced to tiny, sand-like grains.
“The time has come!” came the final shout from the monster as it ripped the glaive from its neck, flesh closing in an instant.
“Sergen!” The monster pointed a clawed finger at the shaman, who continued to pray with the desperation of the damned. “The Bright One demands your sacrifice, Ormanli slave!”
A light flickered inside the monster's chest, spilling out through the cracks in its hardened skin. Then a bright, red-orange bloom exploded from the pointed claw. A great torrent of flame erupted and all Yesugei could do was close his eyes as the heat took his world, and the air warped and screamed. When the eruption subsided, he saw a black mark in the dirt where Sergen had knelt. Fragments of bone protruded out from the ash, flesh and fat rendered and fused into unrecognizable nothingness.
The monster gave a rasping laugh as the smell of burning flesh rose into the air.
***
Vasilisa’s felt as though she were on fire. The crystals in her heart were burning. She scrunched her eyes shut in pain and screamed. The crystals felt as though they wouldn’t stop burning until they melted through her.
But then the agony subsided, replaced by an icy coolness. Vasilisa opened her eyes, and saw two of the Khormchaks sprawled on the ground, bleeding and mutilated while a gray monster loomed over them. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air. The monster, wielding a massive, bone-lined cleaved, laughed as it stood before the frozen spearman.
“Even the name of a slave to the Majesties has more power than your spirits,” the creature barked in the Common Tongue, laughing at the burnt remains. Whispers rose from the earth, the blood-soaked dirt, and the looming shadows of the trees. They called for more blood - more sacrifices of flesh and bone to the gods.
Yesugei threw his bow to the side and rushed the creature with sword in hand, but he was too far. The monster gripped the gigantic cleaver with two hands to split the terrified spearman in half.
“Stop!” Vasilisa cried as the blade whistled downwards. The cry came to her throat naturally, but left her lips sounding like cracking, scratching glass. No sooner than her cry had sounded, the cleaver came to a sudden halt mid-swing.
“What magic is this?” the monster exclaimed, turning its cracked face to look at Vasilisa. Its stony expression was set in terrifying serenity, but behind the crafted skin sensed it was shocked. Frightened. “You speak the song of the stars?”
Vasilisa felt a buzzing strength rise from her chest as the crystals thrummed with power. She suddenly felt as though she could move the heavens out of alignment, and bend the shadows of the forest to her command. But more than that, she felt a strange sense of connection to the gray monster - one of master and servant.
“Leave.” Her command thundered like a mountain echo. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself thrusting the monster back into the dark crystalline alcove from where it had emerged. The creature suddenly dug its heels into the ground, as if resisting an invisible hand pressing against its chest.
“You are not among the Vessel,” growled the monster in the same, grating tongue. “Yet you call on their power. Thief.”
Yesugei snapped his comrade out of his paralysis, and the two of them stared at her. Vasilisa noticed their weapons bore crystals, but their power was ancient and fading, the last captured breaths of a greater thing long gone from the world. The crystal teeth within her chest surged with new, youthful vigor, and Vasilisa focused her thoughts into pushing the monster further away from the two men.
The monster resisted with a strained huff, digging its heels deeper into the dirt. A great pounding exploded in her mind, like fists hammering on glass. She faltered for a moment, and the monster broke free from her hold. It fixed her with a deadly glare - and then a speartip stabbed one of its swirling dark eyes.
“Focus!” shouted Yesugei in the Common Tongue as he and the spearman threw themselves in front of her and into the attack.
The monster reeled from the stab to its eye and swung its cleaver, but the two nomads dodged aside as they called to each other in Khormchak. Yesugei slashed at the exposed, knotted muscles of the creature’s chest, while the spear free from the creature’s eye and impaled itself through the monster's knee. The monster bucked under the attack, and its wounded flesh seemed to struggle trying to seal itself.
Vasilisa shook off the pounding in her head. She reached out with her left hand, and focused her mind on the Apostle’s cleaver as it swung out at the Khormchaks. She could not stop the blade’s path, but with a surge of will she nudged its trajectory just enough for it to miss. The blade buried itself in the ground with a thunderous crack - the Khormchaks weaved away and past the monster like dancers as they hacked and stabbed away at it.
Vasilisa’s eyes fell upon a pile of debris - the ruins of a peasant’s house. With a wave of her hand the scattered bricks and logs went soaring through the air, smashing the monster off balance. The Khormchaks seized the opportunity, and ripped into the creature again. Black blood soon gushed from a dozen different wounds; the two nomads’ weapons were soaked in darkness, but still the monster fought - its focus torn between the nomads mauling its body and the magical assault.
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“ENOUGH!” it roared, the force of its voice startling the nomads into retreat. With a sharp motion, the monster hurled its massive cleaver skyward. The blade hung in the air for a moment, then spun down like a scythe, slicing toward her.
Vasilisa leapt aside as the cleaver tore past, burying itself deep into the ground. The cleaver twitched, then jumped free into the air again after her. Panic gripped her as she fought to wrest control of the blade from the monster’s invisible grasp. It was a battle of wills, but her strength faltered. The cleaver vanished—and a white-hot agony erupted in her neck.
Her left arm hung useless as she reached with her right hand, feeling hot blood gushing over her fingers. She traced a long row of teeth and tried to pull them free, but only succeeded in falling to her knees as the staggering weight of the cleaver dragged her down.
She gasped for air. Her throat tightened and she tasted bubbling iron in her mouth. The world blurred—the nomads and the monster melted into soft, bobbing colors - blue, green, and stone-grey crashing into one another.
I’m dying, she realized, her blood pooling beneath her. The thought wasn’t terrifying - merely a certainty. She pressed her scarred right hand against the dirt as she slowly fell forward, bracing herself. Wouldn’t want to hit my head, would I?
Somehow, this didn’t seem like a bad way to die. She felt her breathing slow - the rough ground pressed small marks into her face. She stopped trying to breathe. The pain dulled, and her thoughts shifted.
This didn’t seem like a bad way to die. Fighting free from mysterious captors. Talking to animals. Fighting alongside brave warriors against strange monsters. It was the kind of adventure they would sing of in her father’s court - heroic, if brief.
Unanswered questions faded, none of them distinct enough to focus on. Dying felt less like how she imagined death, and more like falling asleep. Or was dying just like falling asleep, only to never wake again?
Falling asleep…
Falling…
Fall…
***
The sorceress collapsed to the ground - the gray monster’s cleaver of flesh and bone dragging her to the dirt where she gurgled her final breaths.
Yesugei’s heart sank as the girl fell. She appeared like a well-needed prayer - and her magic, like Sergen’s had kept them on even footing against the monster. Now she was dead, leaving only the two sons of Aqtai-khan.
The crystal-decorated handkerchief and Yesugei’s sword left trails of smoke in the air as they clashed against the monster. Their weapons leapt out high and low to bite and rip into bleeding muscle and sinew beneath hard, cracked skin. The creature circled ponderously, but its every move was becoming faster and faster as the girl’s magic was faded. Panic gripped Yesugei. They had struck the monster two dozen times over yet its wounds healed again and again as if stitched by invisible threads.
The head. We need to hack the head off - fully. Without the head, the body will fail.
“Kaveh!” Yesugei shouted, ducking under a swipe by the monster. “Take the leg!”
His brother spun, driving the tip of his spear into back of the creature’s knee. Kaveh learned into the shaft - forcing the towering beast to lower itself just enough.
Yesugei lunged as the creature threw one hand to the ground to balance itself. Its distracted gaze turned back to Kaveh. Gripping his sword with both hands, Yesugei swung.
The blade bit an inch deep into the creature’s neck. Blood hardly began to well from the wound before Yesugei tore his sword free struck again, hacking as if with an axe. The monster dropped to all fours, its thick neck straining as pain finally showed. There still remained an impossible barrier of cursed muscle, and already it began to crawl closed around the shamshir’s blade.
Gritting his teeth, Yesugei planted his boot on the blade and drove his weight down. ancient flesh and muscle rent in twain by shining Khormchak steel. An enraged screen escaped Yesugei’s lips, but it sounded muted to his own ears, drowned out by the deafening war-drum of his heart.
Then came a gasp, and Yesugei’s blade tore free.
The monster’s long braids wrap messily around its head as it fell free from the body, landing in the dirt. The ground lapped happily at the poisonous blood as it seeped from the monster’s severed head, which was followed shortly by the body as it fell with a thud.
A twitch. A shiver. And then silence.
Yesugei dropped to one knee, his sword slipping from his weakened grip. The blade, riddled with cracks, stuck into the dirt beside him. The hissing of the crystals was the only noise that sounded in Tosont - now littered anew with the bodies of fallen allies.
Kaveh’s tired hand fell upon his shoulder, and Yesugei braced himself against his brother as he rose to his feet, his eyes glued to the massive corpse. A bleak tide of sorrow washed over his exhausted heart as he looked over at the scattered others.
Sergen, the old shaman disgraced and redeemed. His ashes were already scattering to the wind, along with whatever answers he might have had of the nightmare.
Targyn, whose body was already set upon by the crows as they descended from their seats on the roofs.
Kenes, who lay so mangled his own kinsmen would scarcely recognize him if they brought him back to the Qarakesek ulus.
And the strange girl, who appeared as if from nowhere. Who bought them time to finish the monster when she could very well have fled and taken their horses. A girl whose name he didn’t even know, who saved his life twice and was repaid only with her own death.
Yesugei bent his head down before the fallen, and brought forth a small prayer. “Spirits of the White Heavens - may these brave souls find peace in the Blue Sky.”
The prayer rang empty, lifeless as the rest of Tosont. Yesugei’s thoughts turned to the loved ones left behind: Sergen’s grandchildren, Targyn’s two wives, and Kenes’ younger brother training to join the keshik guard. Their bodies would need to be returned to the steppe, or their souls would linger in foreign lands, denied the Eternal Sky. The girl though - she was Klyazmite, judging by her dress and features. There would be no kin to mourn her in the Qarakesek kurgans. Yesugei resolved to bring her to her own home. If she had kin, he would use his own personal hoard to see to it they would live without want.
The black crystals in his sword hissed one last time, then fell silent. The horse’s melted head sat eyeless and still, and Kaveh untied his scorched handkerchief from the shaft of his spear, scattering lifeless crystals into the sparse grass.
“Legends come to life, hm?” Kaveh muttered, coughing as he adjusted his grip.
“At least they can be killed.”
Yesugei staggered forward as Kaveh coughed again. His fingers brushed through the fallen monster’s greasy, shining black hair. Its head was twice the size of his own, and weighed as if it were made of stone and lead. But they had their proof for the khans at the gathering kurultai to the east. A sign of the Ormanli legends coming to life. Exhaustion threatened to overtake him - he let the head fall back to the ground.
Kaveh’s coughing worsened, violent and hacking. Yesugei felt a strange itch come to his chest, and a sharp burning sensation spreading through his lungs. It felt like insects were erupting from inside his throat. He coughed, then coughed again when the itching did not cease. Panic set in - he clawed at his neck and felt the veins bulging beneath his touch. Tendrils of rot were crawling up his face.
No…the monster is dead.
Yesugei collapsed, his body convulsing with coughs as the fiery pain in his lungs spread across his body. His veins writhed visibly under his skin, and invisible legs seemed to skitter under his flesh. He looked toward the monstrous corpse in horror. Tendrils of black blood oozed from the cracked earth, wriggling back into the stump of its severed neck.
No.
“Yesugei!”
A fleshy crunch sounded from behind him. The giant cleaver rose up, dragging the girl’s lifeless body with it before slipping free. Then the cleaver spun through the air again, travelling in a lazy, lethal arc. Yesugei threw himself to the ground. Kaveh, bent over and unaware, reacted too late. The cleaver shattered his brother’s shield, sending him tumbling aside with his left arm broken. Deflected, the cleaver landed softly in the dirt near the gray corpse.
The black worms buried in the creature’s neck crawled into the empty eyes and dead flesh of the severed head. He reached for the greasy braids, but the snaking blood pulled the head away from him. The two stumps connected, and then the jagged wound was closed as if it had not been there at all. The monster’s chest heaved with a hollow breath.
Yesugei tried to cry out, but his throat tightened as veins bulged, threatening to burst. In desperation he clawed at his neck - if he could pop the veins, perhaps the pressure would relieve itself. Perhaps the agony would stop. He felt his skin crack, bleed, and then peel away as he scrambled to rip out the swelling rot as it suffocated him. And through the pain, he saw the hulking gray corpse one hand on the cleaver to steady itself.
“Foolish animals,” the monster boomed, its grating voice sounding just as it had before. As though he hadn’t just ripped off its head a few moments ago. “There are no legends - only truth.”
Yesugei's legs spasmed as he gasped for precious air, fingers clawing at the dirt in search of his sword. The monster stood tall, turned to Kaveh, and lifted him by the collar. With a single motion it slammed him into the wall of a house, shaking the whole wooden structure. Crows cawed above, chanting a single refrain: suffering, suffering, suffering.
“May the gate be opened!” cried the monster, raising a clawed finger to the sky. “My Lord Gandroth, accept this sacrifice!”
Its black claw tore through Kaveh’s robe, then pressed against his chest, pressing deeper and deeper until it drew a single drop of blood. The claw shot downwards, ripping through Kaveh’s chest as the monster traced a crimson cross and triangle into his skin. Kaveh gasped and thrashed uselessly, but once its bloody work was done the monster released him - dropping him like a discarded toy.
“Now, suffer. And be enlightened.”
The carved sign flashed with fire, and Kaveh screamed as the flames turned black and spread across his body.
Yesugei’s fingers wrapped around the handle of his sword, and he staggered to his feet with a desperate roar. Kaveh’s screams tore through the air. The black flames transformed him into a living shadow as the air filled with the smell of burning hair and flesh. Yesugei lunged for the monster, swinging madly.
His slash halted mid-air at a flick of the monster’s finger, the blade frozen, his hand immobile. As the crushing pressure on his chest grew, Yesugei glared at the monster, his heart split with rage.
The creature pinched its bloodied fingers together, and Yesugei’s sword trembled. He struggled against the invisible force that held him, trying to reach with his other hand so he could gouge out its black eyes and rip into its throat. Then his sword shattered, shards exploding outward. Silver fragments pierced his arm, chest, and throat, drawing black and crimson blood.
The monster flung him across the courtyard. As Yesugei crashed to the earth, something snapped in his back. Sensation drained from his legs.
He managed at last to take a single gasp of breath through a mouthful of blood, then spat out a glob of black and crimson. His body knew he was injured, that shards of his own sword pierced his gut and his neck, but he didn’t care.
It would be so easy to die, to surrender and ascend to the blue, endless steppe of the heavens. Perhaps his death was set in stone the moment the monster, or when he decided to enter Tosont - or even when they left the Qarakesek ulus to search for Dagun. But none of that mattered.
Sergen, Kenes, Targyn, and now Kaveh were all dead. The only thing that mattered now was hurting the creature as much as possible - to draw as much blood as he could, even if it meant he would be shattered. Even if the monster would heal and go on to reap its human harvest anyway. All that mattered now was giving one final, desperate, stupid fight.
The girl lay just off to the side. Yesugei crawled towards her limp form, reaching for her saber that lay just out of reach as the monster stomped towards him. A giant hand grasped the back of his robe. Something lay in the dirt, tucked in the folds of the girl’s ripped dress. Yesugei seized at his final, desperate insult as the monster lifted him into the air.
“Very good,” the creature rasped. As it raised its claw to carve another sign, twisted in its grasp. Bracing himself against the monster’s arm, he struck as hard as he could with the black crystal that was in the girl’s pouch.
A heart-rending howl filled the outpost, scattering the waiting crows to the sky.
Yesugei hit the ground, watching with a sick grin on his face as the monster clutched at its smoking chest and its foul, wretched heart. Staggering backwards the monster tripped, and as it fell, its cracked gray skin, knotted muscle, and greasy hair dissolved into black ash, scattering on the ground.
Yesugei let his head fall back, and he stared up at the gray clouds.
It was over. The nightmare was over. The monster lay dead, his vengeance was complete, and he could finally die in peace.
He felt the flow of his life essence from his wounds slow to a steady trickle as he let his breathing still.
As his life ebbed away, he thought of his grandfather, a grainy memory of falconry. He thought of his mother, lost to a rival tribe. Their faces were blurred, faded by time. He hoped to see them again in the Eternal Sky, but remembered where he lay - alone, cold, and forgotten in foreign lands. In the corners of his vision he saw the monster’s flames were spreading, consuming the houses all around. Tosont would become a great funeral pyre, and they would all be turned to ash.
His breath slowed, and his hands fell from his burning wounds.
Another stir beside him drew his fading gaze. Through his dimming vision, a silhouette appeared over him - a woman in a bloodied, tattered dress. Long black hair brushed his face as she knelt down.
Yesugei’s eyes widened. He met her gaze - two bright pools of molten gold.