Chapter 1- Shurn

Shurn was having a bad day. Most days weren’t the greatest in his life, but this one took the cake, puked on it, then used him as a garnish and fed him to a starving bear. 

Currently he ran for his life with a wild dog or wolf hot on his heels. Shurn was scratched, bruised, embarrassed and filled with more than a little heart-pounding terror.

Running through the woods at a full pelt his breath came in short pained gasps. The slavering, keening sounds behind lent him speed. Up ahead, through the trees he could make out a hill, with some rocks at the base.. And a cave.

A mad scramble up some rocks tore his fingernails bloody, but he was safe. The dog thing couldn’t reach this high. Safe, right?

Nope. 

A furious snout barreled through the opening behind Shurn. He backed away, eyes

darting around, looking for anything he could use.

He scooped up a rock and hurled it at the canine. It flinched but did not retreat. It circled, growling and snarling. Were wolves always this vicious? 

An explosion of pain just below his left knee. The creature had pounced and latched on, twisting and tearing. With a yell, Shurn punched out wildly. His fist connected to something wet and cold and, with a high pitched yelp, the thing released him.

Shurn shuffled backward on the ground, tears streaming, jaws clenched in a muffled yell of agony and adrenaline. It hurt. More than anything in recent memory. His leg hurt.

In the midst of his pain and panic, he saw something in the corner. A short, curved stick. With a lunge, he seized the end of it and swiped at the thing. It growled and jumped back.

An awkward dance ensued with the wolfdog steadily advancing and dodging while pressing him against the back of the cave.

Shurn pressed his good leg down, steadying himself to make one last desperate swing. The creature pounced. He screamed and swung with everything he had. There was a sickening crack.

A furry body slumped to the floor, its claws shredding flesh and trousers as it spasmed one last time. Blood ran down the stick in his hand and from the mess that remained of bad leg. Today was not a good day.

—---------

Interlude - The Tainted One

Immortality isn’t all that great. If you’re immortal, that just means your enemies have to get more creative to defeat you.

I floated in the Void. And dreamed. 

There wasn't enough of me in one place to call what I am alive.

Drifting, somewhere between non-existence, death, and the gates of Hell. Oh and yeah, Hell is a real place. Wouldn’t recommend it. Time and again I had tried to reconstitute, to rise up and reclaim my former glory. 

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Each time the so-called ‘gods’ would bestow their power to mortals and seek out anyone tainted by my touch, and annihilate them root and branch. Men, women, children. Not even the animals were spared. Each time another sliver of myself was banished to the endless Void. Outside existence. Outside everything. Only pain and dreams.

Sometimes I dream of the past. Of commanding my legions. Raising hordes of the damned and conquering all in my path. Of glory and death. I dream of bringing blights and harvests to mankind. Bounty and Death. Slaying gods and crafting weapons of legend. All gone. 

There are but a few scraps of me left in the world of men now. In my latest dreams, I see a cave. How humiliating. To think that any scrap of me has fallen so far to be discarded in a dogs’ cave.

It is hazy. I see. . . A man? A boy really. I could reach out to him, even in my dreams I could set him on a path to become an unrivaled sorcerer, a peerless warlord fit to shake the earth!

Ahhh but what’s the point? Even if I did, the ‘gods’ would simply band together and banish even this scrap of me, no matter how much power the child amassed.

Oh! Fresh blood and life force, that's' nice, very nice. Did he kill the dog with me? What was that piece? A tip of my horn. He didn’t even use it right, the idiot. Horns are meant for stabbing, not bludgeoning. He could've just stabbed the dog, could've been all of two seconds work but no no, this numbskull has to reinvent the wheel. I remember when invented the wheel. Good times. They were terrified of absolutely everything back then, it was hilarious. 

As soon as he touched the horn I knew everything about him. It's not something you mortals can understand. To brag, we Higher Beings know things in ways you don’t. I know his name is Shur-Nah-Kest. It means, son of a bi*ch, or ‘son of an undead female that gives birth to spawning horrors’. Lovely. I see that he grew up in a village not far from here, constantly belittled and beaten. Outshone by his older brother, he resorted to mischief and petty thievery and was subsequently exiled. . . This morning? Well he certainly didn't waste time. Not even a day and he’s nearly dead. I could blearily make out some more random details about the village and its occupants, the tedium of it all almost making me tear my nonexistent eyes out.

The bit of life force was nice though. Like a chocolate chip on a really bad day. Didn’t do jack for me but it's a bit sweet and a reminder that not everything goes wrong.

I figured the kid had earned something in exchange.

—----------------

Shurn

Wet dog stinks. Wet wolf and blood? The smell wormed its way up Shurns’ nose and sat on his gag reflex. And this was a kid who grew up in a piss-poor village among farm animals, manure and a goat named Farting Bren.

Shurns' heart pounded in his chest. A freezing wind blew into the cave causing his sweat covered body to clench with cold. For a minute or two he just sat there, staring at the dead dog and trying not to scream, moan or swear.

Then he started screaming, moaning and swearing. 

“AAAAAHHHHHHHHUUUGHHH!!!”

“ULLLLGGGG!!!!”

“T-Tainted. Gods. By all the t-tainted gods. W-why me? Just. Why?! I'm dead. I'm dead. I’m-”

He went on like this for several minutes, alternately screaming, whimpering and swearing. All the while Shurn sat on the rank cave floor and clumsily attempted to extricate his leg from the wolfdogs’ claws.

Wrapping the injury with a shirt-bandage opened Shurn to new levels of agony. Apparently, wrapping badly mangled limbs can be incredibly painful. Who knew?

Something buzzed under his left hand. It had gotten trapped while he was scuffling around and cursing his ill-fortune.

It took him a moment to recognize his new best friend in the world. A three-foot club of dirty wood, much thicker on one end than the other.

Injury momentarily forgotten, Shurn hefted the club and swung it experimentally. Blood spattered the wall in front of him. 

He was just about to turn away when something caught his attention. The club was vibrating in his hand. It was subtle but he could feel it. Slowly, the blood remaining on it was disappearing. Looking more closely, Shurn could see the blood was vanishing into the dirty bit of wood, as though it were. . . Drinking it?

Did it come from an evil, blood-drinking tree?

The wood buzzed and hummed. He tried to throw it away but it stuck to his hand. Panic flooded him until a cool sensation flowed from the wood into his arm. It felt like icewater but strangely hot as well. He’d once felt something similar, when he dunked his hand into the winter pond while fishing, then held his frozen fingers over a fire so they wouldn’t have to amputate them.  

The coldfire flowed through his gut and down into the injured leg. There was a moment of searing pain. Then, nothing.

Shurn looked from his leg to the piece of evil wood.

“What in the unholy-”