Magistrate Brennen stared out of the window of his office at the chaos descending on the plaza below. People running in every direction scattering down alleys and the tight roads, some walking into the arms of the waiting hungry dead, others becoming trapped and overwhelmed by their own kindred rushing and pushing past them. Down the road, he saw the families standing outside the chapel hammering on the door, their children held tightly in their grasps. The portly man turned away from the window with rushed steps and went to the wall, grabbing the old sword hanging on a plaque.
He looked at the old blade closely for a moment, memories of the past welling up as he glanced at its once keen, shimmering metal, that had now grown dull and lifeless, weathered by the years. It seemed oddly unsuited for the round, lumpy man that he had become. It was a finely crafted, thin and long blade, more visually suited for a daring swashbuckler. An ornate bronze handle engraved with runic markings sat beneath the whisper-thin blade. Brennen rushed to the door, wrenching it open and moving now with quick pace into the hallway, stepping over the tea stains on the rug. He looked around and then went right down the stairs, over the landing and then down to the ground floor; his heavy steps muffled by the carpeting below. He looked around the empty entryway chamber. It’s grandeur somewhat overshadowed by the screams and dancing orange lights of the fires outside.
“Girl!” he shouted. Almost immediately, the door on his left opened, the servant’s kitchen behind it. Out stepped Ava in her maid uniform, a fearful expression visible beneath her black eye. He pointed the sword in his hand towards her. “Go to the carriage house. Get a cart ready. Take as many with you as you can, head to the higher gate!”
“Y- Yes Lord Brennen,” answered the woman fearfully.
The portly man nodded and lowered his sword, turning to the large entry way door before moving with quickstep towards it. The large man wrenched it open and made his way down the many steps.
He ran down the stairs waving to the few people standing dazed at the marketplace, unsure of which way to run or where to hide.
“Magistrate!” cried a young man to him.
“Head to carriage house. Tell everyone you see! Go higher!”
The boy stared at him. He placed a large hand on the cusp of the boy's neck and shook him. “Now, boy!”
“Yes magistrate!” said the boy, not needing another word, before running off. Several others nearby saw that he had a goal and now followed after him down the way, ducking and weaving past the living and dead who both added their pursuit.
Brennen ran down the marketplace to the red robed figure who he saw sitting alone on the circle, his hands locked onto it, it was emitting a deep orange glow. “You! Witchblood! What is your name?” The red robed man turned to the fat man, standing down the steps from him.
“Hal, my lord. Of the school of fire.”
“Yes yes, I know what your job is. Why are you still here?!”
“The lanterns, sir. Somethings wrong with them. They’ll all go dark if I leave my post!”
“What? They burn on their own once the spell is cast.”
“Not tonight, my lord!” shouted the man in frustration, his eyes growing wild. “It is as if the night itself is blowing them out!” shouted Hal back to him with horror in his eyes.
“By the gods man! If we don’t have light we might as well jump into the pit right now!”
“I don’t want to die, my lord!” cried the shaking man, lowering his head, his fingers arching but the tips never leaving the surface of the stone.
“None of us do, you fool!” Brennen turned his head, as he heard the whistle, one of the creatures, a woman old and long since decayed, lurched forward towards the two. Her skin clung taut to her emaciated, long since decomposed body. “Stay on the circle, boy,” commanded Brennen, as he raised his sword towards the creature shuffling towards them with its sickeningly fluid, swaying movements.
The smell was just as virulent and vile as he recalled it being all those years ago. The moment it touched his nose with its sour acidic bite, he forgot his age, his frame and body. The sword in his hand, which now rose upward in a high angled position that his body hadn’t attempted in nine years. It knew without effort or thought the mechanics of what to do. With a simple step forward matching the sway of the creature, he ran the blade through its heart. The wet whistling coming from its now convulsing throat slowed, then stopped. He pulled the sword back out and the creature fell over dead, for now. Until the hole regrows.
He turned back to the witchblood “You stay there and keep the lights on. If we lose the light, everybody in the town dies. Including us!”
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As the large man left out through the front doors, Ava hustled back into the kitchen, rummaging through the drawers. She pulled out a simple kitchen knife with a short, but intimidating blade; her shaking hand gripping the wooden handle tightly. Clutching it, she rushed to the side door in the kitchen, leading out the other way and gently twisted the handle, peering outside to the main road. It was chaos, people ran screaming and clutching each other. Several guardsmen waving their pole-arms held off as many of the dead as they could, but they were steadily losing ground and men.
She jumped out onto the street, but rather than running down the main road with the group of terrified survivors, she turned a sharp left at the first alley not ten meters away. The woman ran past the many shut doors and broken windows, ignoring any screams or pleas of help that she heard from inside of them. Only a single cry for mercy slowed her pace, but it quickly fell into a screaming gargle and she knew there was nothing left to be done for them. The alleyways were short, but they turned at many odd angles behind and between the houses. Some stopping abruptly, others usually open ended, now filled with the living and the dead.
Winding and weaving her way through the twists and turns, she found herself now at the final bend of the labyrinth that she had long since memorized for her daily fetchings and purchases. Ava’s thoughts had left her, her body fueled by adrenaline as she rushed through the city that was dying before her eyes. Only briefly did her thoughts leave her, as her mind went to the face of her sister and she thanked the gods that she was chosen and safely on her way to Erstel now, having departed nigh immediately after the journeyman’s message. She clutched the knife tighter, as she rounded the final bend.
“Help! Help me!” A man lay screaming on his back, a yellow straw hat to his side, one of the freshly dead on top of him, trying its best to bite the man, who was only barely managing to keep it at a meager length away. “Help me!” he screamed again. Ava froze. Her mind knew she wanted to take a step forward, but something inside of her clicked into place. Some primal mechanism activating the machineries of the old world and her body no longer reacted to her commands. Time seemed to go slower for a moment, the pleading screams of the man became slow and distorted.
Ava urged herself to move to help him. Another second passed, all she felt was the spiritual lock of fear, holding her fingers around the knife and her legs firmly in place. She was breathing harder than she ever had before, her blood rushing through her veins. Her ribs almost felt as if they lurched forward with every violent strike of her heart. She wanted to move forward. She wanted to help the man, but her wants no longer mattered to whatever had taken hold of her body. Was it some selfish survival drive? Or some paralyzation through fear? She pleaded with her body to move forward.
A wave of darkness ran through the lanterns, blowing them out in quick succession, sending the small side street into darkness. All Ava heard was a wet blood curdling scream and the noise of meat being torn, like the seams of a moist doll being ripped apart. She knew it was too late for the man. Time returned to her in that second, as she stood in the dark street, listening to the wet crunches and continued screams of the man being mutilated. Swallowing her pride, she ran towards the dark center of the road where the two were, lights still shone on the far side and on the end behind her.
The road was small and she was as far against the wall as she could be, without it hindering her speed. Ava ran with full force towards the screaming man begging for mercy and the creature devouring him alive. As she reached them, she gritted her teeth, the hand held tightly as ever to the knife and then ran on further without stopping. Sick whistling came to her ears but it soon vanished again, as the screams of the man rose once more to fill the void. Ava burst out onto the other side of the street, her goal before her now.
A large building with a half open front stood before her. A large wooden double door visible through the openings on both left and right sides. Ava ran towards the carriage house, bending around to the left side. She grabbed one of the large metal rings fastened to the right half of the door and yanked it open, leaning back with her body weight to shift the large barn door to the side. Once it had begun moving however, it quickly kept its momentum, requiring little extra effort on her part.
Smells of dried grasses and straws filled the air. The itch in her nose however was not high enough on her levels of perception to be a disturbance that she took active note of. Her eyes seemed to jump from one spot inside of the large open room before her to the next. Stopping with each twitch over the areas with a level of hyper focus she had never felt before. Four small wooden fences sectioned off the left inside half of the stall. The floors inside each were lined with hay. Several small carts and wagons were inside the building, neatly lined up against the half wall to the outside.
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Disturbingly, a loud smashing and crashing could be heard from the far side of the room. Something loud squawking and rampaging with violence. Ava walked inside the building with hurried steps past the empty stalls to her left, towards the last fourth one, at the far end of the building. Visible in the lantern light shining through the gaps of the open front half, was the large ren, tethered to a pole inside the stall with a chain. It was thrashing about violently attempting to free itself, spooked by the chaos outside. Gray tufts and feathers of the same color flying loose from its neck, as the chain tore against its skin with abrasive force.
It was still young, having not grown out from its gray feathers just yet. But it was nonetheless a large creature, Ava’s head reaching just up to the rise of the bipedal avian’s back. Its thick, muscular legs stamping on the ground in a frenzy, the razor talons chipped and worn from smashing them against the stones beneath it. Ava looked around the barn towards the coaches that sat empty of people, some filled with boxes and crates, others with thick wooden barrels. There, hanging off of the front smallest cart she saw it. The bell hanging off of a rod, dangling to the side of the cart. Ava tucked the knife into the pocket of her servants apron.
She rushed over to the shining bronze thing, the orange light streaming off its sleek surface, giving it the appearance of almost glowing itself. Rising up to the tips of her toes, she reached upward and began unhooking it from the pole that it was attached to. A round metal handle at the top slipped into her hands, as she pried it off of the gray metal hook, the bell lightly jangling as she fumbled with it. It was heavy, the metal smooth and elegantly formed with several ornate, but otherwise meaningless engravings near the bottom rung. A metal tongue of the same color was inside.
With the bell in hand, she ran back to the occupied stall with the bird still violently thrashing and struggling and swung her arm several times. As the bell rang out, the large bird spun its neck around, staring at the woman from the side of its head. Its beak was short and rounded, but ultimately a massive construct that could easily snap through bone and sinew. It moved its head attached to its long neck up and down, with sharp snappy movements that stopped abruptly at each point, letting out small cooing squawks with every jank.
She lightly rang the bell again and watched as the creature's left pupil, dotting the side of its head, grew large, focusing intently on the woman now. The creatures snapped its beak lightly several times, releasing a series of soft clicks and Ava rang the bell once more, softer now and the creature once more clicked several times in response. Its muscle tension seemed to relax and let loose, the flapping wings at its side now returning there. It straightened its neck up high once more, bending its head down at a sharp angle. Its suspicious eyes however never leaving the woman.
Looking behind her, Ava checked that nothing was there and then slid the bolt of the stall door open, swinging the half gate past herself, as she stepped onto the fresh hay which crunched beneath her steps. She rang the bell again and the ren cooed once more, still twisting and contorting its head to observe the small woman approaching it. The space between it and the wall was small, a meter at most and she slowly, with bell in hand, slid past the creature, their eyes never leaving the other’s as they moved past each other. She knew the bird could tear her to shreds if it wanted.
Standing before the creature now, she raised her hands to the chain at its neck. It clicked its beak several times, seemingly in agitation. But it knowingly lowered itself down a bit, bringing the bolt binding the chain around its neck closer to her grasp. Sliding her fingers beneath the chain, Ava took hold of the bolt locking mechanism looped through the rungs of the metal and slid the bolt to the side with a soft clack. Then up and out, releasing the mechanism from the loop. The chain slid loose from the creature's neck, falling to the ground with a metallic clang, as it struck the hay-covered stone floor below.
The ren turned its head with a snappy movement, focusing now on the woman with its other eye. It shot its head down, bending its neck quickly, stopping with the side of its head just before her face. Ava stood unflinching before the bird, which she knew was gauging her. It pressed its head sidewards now, slowly towards her, its right eye now only inches from her own. A soft metal jangle rang out from the woman's left head. The Rens black pupil exploded to twice its original size in a second and it cocked its head forward with another janky movement.
With another snapping twist the creature righted itself back up straight and turned to the stall door, clicking its beak in agitation. Ava’s nostrils stung as an acrid smell began to grow stronger and stronger. They were coming. The bird snapped down onto its hinds, snapping its head to the woman. Knowing what to do, she swung a leg over the creature and leaned forward, placing her right arm gently around the base of its large neck, only managing to wrap her grip about halfway around it.
In an instant, as soon as her weight pressed down on it the large bird sprung up onto both feet with explosive force, charging out of the stall and making a sharp turn towards the right. It only took a second and Ava clung on as tight as she could, feeling the momentum of the movement shifting her weight to the angle of the turn threatening to throw her off with frightening speed. Raising her eyes, she looked to the side, past the creature’s thick, feathered neck and saw the two bodies shambling through the large doors that she had opened not two minutes prior.
The woman and the man who she had passed by, both shuffled towards them. Their movements slow and fluid, their heads locked stiff, focusing on the fresh meat still before them. The ren snapped its head down straight and bolted forward, accelerating to full sprint, before having even passed the next stall door. Ava didn’t have time to think or panic, it all happened so fast. The dead held their arms out forward, reaching for them. Not a moment after that, Ava was staring at them from above, her head tilted sidewards. The sound of a violent, wooden crash behind them.
With a burst of speed, the ren had jumped against the large wagon in the middle of the stall, its left leg pressing back against it for only a split second, before propelling the creature forward with an explosive burst. It took all the strength Ava had in her body to hold on to its neck. Not a moment later, it planted a foot on the landing between the two large entry doors and charged on, never breaking stride for a second. It shot around the corner to the left. Ava didn’t even have time to look at the dark alley on her right that she had come through before they shot past it.
Instead, the creature barreled on straight to the main road, turning sharply left once more, sliding with its sleek feet along the road still being carried by the momentum of its sprint, it leaned left against the drift. In that second, as time slowed for the woman, the adrenaline spiking once more, the realization hit Ava immediately, how quiet the screams had grown now. How long had it been? Twenty? Thirty minutes at most? The constant shouting and cries of havoc had all but vanished, save for the occasional yelp or shout for mercy that would inevitably be silenced not a moment after. The main street was littered with corpses, some turning to face them. The snapping of the bones in their necks audible, as their heads wrenched violently in unnatural angles.
Others torn and mutilated, streaks of red and blue lining the mangled carcasses that still laid quiet. No living human who could still stand upright, save for herself, was to be found here anymore. Still unbroken in its charge, the creature bolted forward, barreling down the main road towards the higher gate. Arms of the dead and those soon to be, rising from the befouled ground, reaching for the woman and the large bird, seeking either sanctuary or meat. In a blur, they flew and bounded past the chaos; leaving all of it behind to sort itself out.
The ren constantly darted from side to side to avoid the obstacles before it. Bolting from one burning house to the next, kicking itself off of low walls to rise above the groups that were too large to run through. The bell in Ava’s hand jangled with every step at the front of the creature. Both her arms had long since locked around its neck in a desperate attempt to stay on. The houses and roads and faces of the suffering and hungry all blurred together, into a vision of destruction and malady. Her sense of time was lost and distorted and her body was focused only on surviving, her train of conscious thought long since vanished into the screeching chaos that surrounded them.
Her eyes were wet and stung from the acidic bite in the air, her throat raspy and tight from the acrid breaths she took, perpetuating the smell of death and viscera inside of her. Ava saw the rising wall coming up before them now, the creature however was not breaking its stride towards the shut gate. She saw the dead laying before it. Piles of them, writhing and clawing at each other. The great doors of the gate were still sealed shut, dooming any who ran this way to die without escape. Trapped. The lower doors were still sealed as well by something Ava couldn’t discern due to the mass of corpses and the perpetual darkness beyond the faint touch of the lanterns strung above them.
The wall was high, easily the size of the two to three story houses built in connection to it on the left. She couldn’t feel it, but she knew that the thousand eyes of the dead before her had found them. The whistling screech coming from each and every one of them, combining into the chorus of a raging swarm. Her head stung and a pain shot through her and she pressed her grip down tighter now than she thought possible. The ren once more bounded leftward, springing high into the air just below the second floor window, pressing once again with its left leg against the wall of the house before the gated exit as they jump.
Ava wasn’t sure why, but she turned her head to the left in that second as they flew past the windows and she saw through the glass. She saw the small child reaching out towards them, its eyes glassy and white. Its neck, all but missing, causing the boys head to flop almost completely off from the body. Dangling only loosely from a bloody spine and a few strings of meat. Another split second passed and the ren catapulted itself forward and upward, spreading its short wings out wide now. They shot through the air, gliding over the wall, landing on the other side where the lights had gone dark.
Despite that, the creature propelled them forward and up the spiral road, sprinting with lightning speed, leaving the quickly fading cries of the starving behind. Ava wasn’t sure how much time would pass after that, before they reached the other side of the chasm, on the far side across from Achtel and noticeably higher up. There, then the creature slowed its pace, burning down to a steady trot and then to a complete standstill. The smell of the decay and rot had long since left her nose, but had for the second time in the woman's life, carved a notch into her soul.
The screams, if there were any left to be heard, didn’t carry this far across the chasm. All Ava saw were the bright lights of the burning fires, silhouetting the houses and buildings. The great arms hanging over the abyss with windmills that stood still, as if the wind itself were avoiding them now. Then, slowly at first, expanding rapidly outward from the heart of the town, she saw the lanterns die out row for row, cascading into a giant wave, that swallowed the entire city of Achtel into oblivion. A strange sensation of combined disgust and anguish wrenched through her body and she leaned to the side and vomited down to the ground, heaving several times until nothing more would come out.
With snappy movements of its head the ren cooed and clicked with its beak, turning its gaze sideways to look at the woman in the dark. They stood there for a time, her grip now loosened, her mind now in a state of absent dysfunction. Ava spit several times, getting the rest of the bile out of her mouth, before wiping her face on her shoulder sleeve. Leaning forward against the large neck of the creature, she once more wrapped herself around it, now with only a loose hold and it began to run forward through the pitch black night. Though this time it went at a gentler pace.