Where once the cerulean waters of the Inner Sea had swirled across golden sands, now spread a desolate basin that reached to the far horizons, filled with shattered boulders and shoals of drifting sands. A white city, still fair to behold, sprawled along the rocky shores, with jutting piers now long abandoned. Once proud boats sat among the shifting sands that lapped against the shores, salt encrusted and decaying.
Out across the now vanished sea, the crimson sun settled upon the horizon, staining all that it touched with the colour of flame and blood. The suffocating heat that had settled upon the land seeped away, to be replaced with the growing cool of the night.
An ancient road, broad and built to last by expert hands, followed the curve of the sea from distant parts towards the white city. Now cracks spread across its surface, and dried weeds forced their way between the stones the lined the way. It had seen the march of an age of boots, of merchants and traders who had grown wealthy beyond measure, of mystic and priests carrying new ideas and religions before them, and of armies that had marched to war and conquest. None remained but for a single, solitary traveller, a woman tall of stature upon whose shoulders rested a shadowed cloak. Dark and pale she was, with hair like the depths of the night and eyes as clear as the swift flowing waters of Mehmer. A long blade swung at her hip, white as bone and carrying death within.
Iskor Yar the city was called, once standing proud and unchallenged, the favoured city of Nakhurena the Everqueen but far it had fallen since her death in battle to her fiercest rival, the Summer Lord of Mishas Surut. Now for the most part it had been abandoned, its walls thrown down and its people taken or slain. Those few that remained clung to a precarious existence, serving as traders or raiders or slavers as the fancy took them or opportunity arose.
Night had all but fallen by the time Ishkinil's step brought here near to the great bronze clad gates that marked the entrance to the city, gates that had been broken open in the shattered walls. Still upon them could be seen the marching forms of a beast in blue, one that was part lion and part dragon, now battered and scarred, the symbol beneath which the armies of Nakhurena had marched and sought conquest and thunder.
Beneath the ruined walls, near to the gates, a handful of men squatted around a small brazier in which coals smouldered. Over it roasted three of the quick running dezet lizards, the sweet smell of their flesh suffusing the air. The men drank from clay mugs and cast bones and dice in the dust between them, gambling for coins of many shapes and sizes and designs, some silver, but most of copper or bronze.
They had an ill kept look, one that did not inspire trust or confidence, being scarred and dusty, unshaven and clad in rough garments of linen and wools, dark haired and skin deep tanned by the kiss of the sun. Resting alongside them were heavy wooden cudgels and spears with tips of sharpened bone.
Laughter and talk ended abruptly as Ishkinil drew near. Mugs and the game were set aside as the men rose from their position, taking up spears and cudgels.
One man, taller than the others, yet not as tall as the pale woman, pale as the priests of Ekhener whose skin never saw the touch of the sun, stepped forward.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Iskor Yar is closed,“ he said to Ishkinil as she looked upon the broken gates. Only at his words did her attention turn towards them, casting her gaze in their direction, one unsettling in its intensity for there was no fear in it, rather being a source of discomfort. Cold, it fixated them to the spot, leaving them uncertain as to their coruse of action.
“It would appear that it is open to me,” she responded. Her words were quiet, but all the more resolute for it. As she spoke, upon the broken parapets above the gate, a white eyed raven came to land, to stare down upon those gathered below.
Thalshuran glanced aside to the other men with him, as if seeking out courage from their numbers. The woman was alone, yet showed no concern about it, even in the face of more numerous numbers.
“The gates may not shut,” he went on, “But the city is closed. Death stalks the streets, and worse besides. If you value your life you will not enter.”
“Aye, that is why I am here,” she told him, hand resting lightly upon the hilt of the sword at her side. Thalshuran’s gaze was drawn to it.
“Balshazu’s Teeth, but it is her!” came a whispered hiss from behind Thalshuran.
His eyes widened at the pronouncement and over his face a dawning realisation swept as he studied the woman closer still. Tall she was, more so than any man there, but not by her height was she marked out alone. Her colouration, with eyes and skin so pale, and hair so dark, were a rarity to behold; few others matched her description. Not alone, not bearing the sword at her side. She was the one that walked with Enkurgil, and bore His blade, Dirgesinger, feared and desired. He made a warding sign with his hand, one to stave off death and evil both, as surreptitious as he could so as not to offend the woman before him.
“Death you may now well, but here it is not as it should be,” he told her. “The healthy waste away without warning and the invalid grow strong yet marred still, while in the darkest places it is whispered that the very dead walk still. All nature is reversed. A curse there is upon this place and it befalls us to warn any who should dare confront it.”
Ishkinil’s gaze was unwavering as he looked at Thalshuran yet there was no indication of her thoughts in her eyes or expression, for they were as a closed book. “Death should not be denied in such a way,” was her only response after a delay that hung in the air for so long that it felt as if an epoch had rolled over them.
The men shifted, ill at ease at her words. All had seen death, and more, before. None wished to meet it, or talk openly of the Bringer of Ends, to draw his attention upon them. Relief he might gift to the old and weary and infirm, but they yet were still young and strong and wished not to talk openly of Enkurgil openly in such a manner, not as she did.
“It is folly to enter,” Thashuran stated, “Yet you, I fear, shall not heed our warnings and would not let that hinder your passing.”
“It is so.”
Grim were her words, grimmer still her expression but in them Thalshuran found some small glimmer of hope, the weakest of embers that sparked to life, weak still but one that could catch ablaze if nurtured and fed aright. “If in some manner you can comfort this trouble, to bring it to an end, then shall all of Iskor Yar be thankful for you, aye, and grateful besides. Our city withers and dies even as its people do, becoming a haunt for things that are best not spoken of.”
“I make no promises,” Ishkinil replied, “And nor do I seek any rewards. The Lord of Ends has set my feet upon this path and his biding I do.”
More warding signs came from the gathered men, an uneasy look upon their faces. Thashuran doubted not that Ishkinil had seen it but there was no response, no reaction. Instead she looked upwards, to the skies above the city. “Day has fallen and nights comes, yet I feel that it is with the night that I shall find the answers I seek.” So saying, she turned from the men and walked through the battered gates, into death-haunted Iskor Yar.