“Unbind me!” shouted the rogue. “Unbind me dammit!”
The red-haired man looked at Edum who was starting to unclasp the shackles.
“That wise, Edum?” asked the red-haired man. “He’s precious cargo for Osto, could easily run—he is a bladed one, a fuckin’ bladed one.”
Edum paused and thought for a moment.
“Got a point, Randal does, you are a bladed one after all—could fuckin’ kill us easily and ‘scape free! How do I know you won’t stick us with that black iron when I unshackle you? How can I trust you?”
“Why the fuck are you asking questions,” said the rogue while standing up in the cart. “That boy isn’t going to stall his appetite for your deliberation.”
The wheezing sound intensified. A small shadowy figure could be seen in the nearby valley standing among the tall reeds of moving grass. Hissing and gargling, it began to stagger closer to the group of fretting men.
“Listen,” commanded the rogue, his voice intimidatingly deep. “If you don’t unbind me I’ll do it myself. ” The rogue struggled to reach his mithril prayer chain hanging from the side of his belt.
“The chain, Edum!” Randal exclaimed, pointing to the rogue.
“Oh no you fuckin’ don’t!” Edum grabbed the chain in his fist and shoved the rogue back down, ripping the mithril links from his belt. “You’d cast some fuckin’ hex on us, make us rats or some shit.”
“You idiots, you absolute idiots,” said the rogue, his voice lowering to almost a murmur. “You can’t kill this thing, trust me!”
“Edum,” Randal said, putting his hand on Edum’s shoulder. “We put an end to this boy and bring Jackmere’s killer to Osto, we’d be fuckin’ heroes to his Lordship, fuckin’ heroes. Imagine the gold, the privileges. He’d probably give us one of those Essolian blades from his collection. Let’s not fuck this up, Edum.”
“Keep em bound!” shouted one of the men at the horse reins. The men all began to eye each other, subconsciously nodding their heads, an implicit agreement that the rogue was to remain prisoner.
“This shouldn’t be that hard,” said the rogue. “I am a bladed one, an exorcist—I’m exactly what you need for—”
The cart came to an abrupt stop, residual momentum causing the men to fall forward.
“The fuck you doin’ Kalum?” asked Edum to one of the men at the reins. “Why’d we stop?”
Kalum appeared to be staring forward into the darkness of the path ahead. He was perfectly silent. Edum put his hand on the back of Kalum’s shoulder. He smelled something, something burning. Flesh.
“I said, the fuck you stop for?” Edum forced Kalum around to face him. Kalum slouched, his body falling limp, dangling from its seat. His eyes were missing, reduced to sockets of simmering flesh. Ethereal columns of smoke rose from his dark eye holes.
The rogue noticed two dull yellow lights were glowing in the distance, hovering in the low-hanging midnight fog.
“By the—by the, by the fuckin’ gods! What! Oh fuckin’ Inferno, oh shit!” shouted Edum, his face now washed of color.
The other man at the reins similarly slouched forward, his eyes smoldered away—another corpse.
“Fuck!” shouted Randal. “It’s fuckin’ magical?! It has fuckin’ magic?!”
“Yes!” the rogue exclaimed. “Don’t look directly into its damned eyes. Its gaze will burn through your skull.”
“Bladed one,” Edum said quietly, his voice quivering, as he began unclasping the shackles. “Keep me alive and I’ll be forever in your debt—forever.” Edum handed the rogue his sheathed blade and his prayer chain. The rogue gave him a slight nod.
The rogue unsheathed his blade. The yellow eyes were growing closer. Waving his hand downwards, he gestured the men to crouch down in the cart. He cautiously stepped out from the back of the cart onto the worn dirt path. He walked slowly to the front of the cart, his stance wide, his blade out in front of him. His mithril chain was wrapped around the palm of his sword-wielding hand. The main path ahead descended into the moonlit fog. It was silent save for the rustling of oaks and pines that flanked each side of the path. The scene was bathed in the eerie blues and grays of the midnight sky. The eyes grew closer. The rogue was careful to only view them from his peripheral vision. As the eyes hovered towards the cart a form could be seen, an entire body. The edge-lit figure of a small, blonde-haired boy—five or six years of age—his body partially decomposed, his jaw slack, his skin a ghoulish white, peeling in some areas and decaying into deep lesions and holes in others. A corpse, a walking corpse.
The rogue took a step back, driving his stance into the ground, ready to parry, strike, or dodge whatever motion the creature would take. The creature staggered, almost limping, closer and closer to the rogue. It was wheezing through a slit in its throat—a manmade slit. It stopped a couple of dozen feet from the rogue and paced back and forth, staring at him.
“Do something, fucking do something,” the rogue muttered to himself. He was growing nervous with anticipation.
Then in a sudden dash of movement the creature leapt with unnatural speed forward, claws of tapered bone protruding from its fingers. He slashed but the rogue was too agile, dodging the attack by a few inches. The claws finished their missed stroke through the neck of one of the horses. The horse collapsed to the ground instantly, releasing a forceful and raspy cry. The creature paused for a short moment, looking at the dying horse. The rogue flourished his blade, entreating the creature to strike again. A devastating counter-strike, thought the rogue, might be enough to ward off the creature—it can’t be killed by a mere blade but a severe enough injury would send it scampering away for now.
The creature began devouring the horse, tearing out tendrils of flesh, gnawing into bones. The rogue knew what was happening, he had seen it in the past. It was feeding in order to further its process of metamorphosis.
“Fight me you infernal mutt!” Shouted the rogue in an attempt to redirect its attention. The creature jerked its head away from the dying horse, its gaze once again focused on the rogue. A sickening squelching sound came from the creature. The rogue noticed its back legs slightly extending, the flesh tearing apart at the ankles as the bones grew into almost wolf-like hind legs. It ran towards him on all fours, slashing once more. The rogue parried the slash, his blade locking momentarily between two of its bony claws. He kicked the creature in its chest sending it backwards fumbling onto the ground. The creature began to wheeze heavily into a gurgling roar as it lunged back at the rogue. It struck in a downwards motion with its claws, clanging off one of the rogue’s steel pauldrons but leaving a deep gouge in his leather armor. He could feel a trailing wound across his ribcage and the warm seeping of blood from it. It wasn’t fatal, he thought, the wound would have been warmer, more painful, if it was.
The rogue fought on, dodging and parrying. Unlike the knight, the rogue couldn’t track the motion of his opponent’s eyes, he couldn’t predict the next blow. The creature wasn’t dexterous or precise with its claws—it was sporadic, chaotic, unpredictable. His only tactic was to match the frenzied and swift nature of his opponent. His blade fluttered freely, spinning, slashing, and parrying in a hectic manner. The two were interlocked in a tornado of equally-exchanged blows. The rogue locked his blade once again with the creature’s claws—now was his chance. The rogue sought to take advantage of the stalemate. Ramming the creature with the side of his shoulder, he managed to have it fall backwards again. While the creature stumbled, attempting to regain balance, the rogue began to say something softly to himself. The men in the cart could hear a rhythmic voice, a gentle swelling of some song, an ancient hymn. The creature leapt at the rogue again with both of its claws over its head, ready to propel them downwards. Suddenly the rogue’s blade beamed with a gleaming, radiant, white light—silvery tongues of fire emanating from its edges.
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The creature, blinded by the light, missed its attack, collapsing onto the ground. Its body writhed as the rogue walked closer to it, holding the intensely burning blade in front of him. The wheezing gasps transformed into the shrill scream of a small child. The creature attempted to crawl away from the approaching light, clawing at the ground. It lurched its body backwards and leapt towards the valley. Mid-leap, the rogue swiftly struck the creature’s arm at the elbow, dismembering it. The piece of the arm fell to the ground as the creature squealed. At an incredible speed it scurried away into the darkness of the valley, a putrid black bile oozing from its mutilated stump. The rogue looked at the arm lying in the dirt. It twitched for a moment and then went still.
The men in the cart were silent. Edum peaked his eyes over the edge of the cart, watching the rogue as he methodically cleaned his blade with a rag.
“The fuck you just wipin’ your blade for, bladed one?”
“He’s gone for now,” the rogue replied, looking down at the arm. “He’s hurt, hurt bad—he’ll need time to reconstitute his form.”
“He’s not dead?!” exclaimed the Randal.
“No, I can’t just kill him with a sword—it’s not that simple. I can maim him, yes, but to kill any type of wraith requires some sort of earthly offering.”
“Then fuckin’ earthly offer it!” shouted Edum.
“It’s not that straightforward, dealing with something like this,” replied the rogue as he began unhitching the reins from the dead horse. “It’s not as easy as crucifying peasants or flaying farmers, after all.”
The rogue hopped onto the front of the cart, pushing the eyeless bodies of the two men out onto the main path.
"The creature will want to devour its fallen prey—we don't want him trailing our cart, so we're leaving them behind."
"Just like that?!" exclaimed Edum.
"Yes," the rogue replied stoically. He whipped the reins of the one remaining horse. The cart steadily began to move.
Edum and Randal watched as their fallen comrades grew smaller as the cart rolled further down the path.
“Now, Edum and Randal,” addressed the rogue to the two men, still visibly shaken by the incident. “I saved your lives. If it wasn’t for me your eyes and brains would have been reduced to ash or worse, you’d end up with a mangled esophagus like that horse. It would have been a painful, gruesome death. He likely would have started devouring your flesh while you were still conscious, that’ how they like to feed—on the living. No honor in dying to the aberrations of this world. At least our friend Sir Jackmere died against a professional swordsman, someone with sentience enough to end him swiftly. Now I have a proposal.”
“I’ll admit, bladed one, you put on a flashy show,” interrupted Edum. “Haven’t seen magic like that since the old mage Bolvrik wandered through Etka.”
“You shouldn’t have to admit anything—don’t act as if you’re sparing me more favor than you should. I saved your life. That’s it. It’s that simple. And, remember, Edum, you are ‘forever indebted’ to me. Now, my proposal is that when we arrive at Etka you don’t scurry up to Lord Osto and sound the alarm of ‘offense against the crown.’ You tell the truth—Sir Jackmere was a complete idiot who threatened me and endangered the innocent patrons of the tavern. Throw in the fact that he was a charlatan too. While congratulating me on my courageous feat of vanquishing the ass-of-a-knight, you all expressed your worry about the rumor of the monster child that lurks these parts. I decided to aid you in your trek back to Etka, and, of course, you know the rest. Oh, and hang onto this,” The rogue tossed the severed arm back into the cart. “It’ll act as some proof, in case Osto is too drunk to take our word for it.”
The arm rolled and bounced slightly with the momentum of the moving cart.
“It’s, it’s fuckin’ alive! It’s fuckin’ alive!” shouted Randal.
“Calm down,” said the rogue. “It’s as much alive as any severed arm.”
Randal watched the arm cautiously.
“Now my proposal, what do you say?” asked the rogue intently.
“Bladed one,” Edum said looking over the dark valley the creature crawled away into. It was getting smaller and smaller as the cart rolled further down the main path. “You’re a terrifyin’ man, a bloody, awful, terryfin’ man. I told you my pa spoke of stories ‘bout your kind. You kill evil things, demonic things. But you’re right, you’re no knight, no gallant vanquisher. No, he told me stories ‘bout the awful things your kind can do too, killin’ dozens of men, abusin’ their miraculous powers to kill all the guards of some count’s estate, and stealin’ his fortune after slitting his throat.”
“Stories can be exaggerated, warped,” said the rogue. “There’s a legend from the city of Spiroth that a sentient man-sized egg used to sit atop of the city wall at the cock row each morning. Was clumsy, fell off, and the city guards attempted to piece him together but failed and decided to eat his scrambled remains over a fire. The truth was more sinister. The man was a deformed bastard of the king. The monstrosity of a man was relegated to a life of masonry and stone-cutting. The king became paranoid about his reign—delusionally thought a deformed mason would threaten his throne. While the mason was repairing the bricks of the city's northern gate, the king commanded his guards to throw him off. Similar stories, but in the latter he wasn’t an egg and the city guard didn’t make breakfast of him after his fall.”
“That’s some story, but doesn’t change how terryfin’ bladed ones can be,” replied Edum.
“You’re right,” said the rogue, whipping the horse into a faster pace. “With every class of persons—witches, mages, Angelar, the Fey—there are wretched ones, ones that make your blood boil when you hear tales about them. But that doesn’t mean their sins universally apply to all in their class. By the Infernal flames, you think I should judge the character of every Etka civilian by the likes of you two? Is the harmless shepherdess in the fields also complicit in your sin of crucifying farmers?”
“Why the fuck do you keep bringin’ that up?” asked Edum.
“Because you crucified farmers—do you think your character is better judged by the little white lies you produced as a child?”
“Alright, bladed one, I see your point,” said Edum. “Your point to all of it. But all I’m sayin’ is that, yes, I’ll agree to your proposal. Not just because I’m indebted to you for savin’ my fuckin’ skin, but because you are bloody terryfin’. I’ve known you for only a few hours and I’ve seen you kill an armor-clad man two heads taller than you and survive an encounter with that freak creature, scarin’ it off with whatever-the-fuck shiny magic you did. I’d say you don’t leave me a lot of choice. How could I refuse your proposal without feelin’ threatened myself.”
“Like I was sayin’ before,” said Randall, still staring intently at the severed arm. “I’ve heard they can kill a dozen men with ease.”
The rogue knew what they were thinking. They thought he was one of those wretched types. Even if his moral character was flawless, even if he had never pulled his blade on innocent blood, it didn’t matter. For these men power and corruption were practically synonymous, and under the reign of Osto the former seemed to always produce the latter. Long gone were the days of noble lords, virtuous kings, competent and moral leaders. Such notions had begun to take on the air of myth—legends of a bygone era, ideals unattainable by the fallen world.
The southern gates of Etka could be seen from a distance. The night sky was slowly taking on the morning gradient of light blues and pinks. Stars began to fade as the ambiance of early dawn intensified. Birds could be heard singing in the wild oaks, several deer grazed the outskirts of a nearby wheat field, and a thin layer of dew wet the dirt of the main path. For a moment everything was serene, perfect, meditative. The rogue sighed for the first time out of pure relief—not that he particularly felt relieved but at least in those few quiet moments he could pretend to be at peace, pretend he wasn’t that terrifying man Edum and Randal thought he was. But he knew he was that man, he knew he couldn’t escape his past. His very name would have given it all away.