It took several hours of sitting by the fire before the warmth began to creep into Eligon’s extremities. He hadn’t even known he was cold until his men dragged him from the womb of the earth, hadn’t felt the chill of death that had silently stolen up his limbs until, all at once, he’d collapsed like a puppet with its strings sliced through.
The group waited there patiently, in the strange, hot crater that barred the path to Égidim until the worst of the shivers had passed. There were no attempts at conversation; Eligon was in no mood to share and his guards were savvy enough to recognize it. Instead, the time ticked by in silence until enough strength had returned to his legs that he could stand. Then his servants fetched him new clothes from his bag - clothes not marred by mud and frost - and the group began the hike back up the mountain to the waiting portal.
The unnatural heat of the sunken valley quickly gave way to the frosty peaks of the Almakkarian range. The path they had forged through the thick snow mere hours before was already all but blotted out, their footsteps refilled from the nigh perpetual flurries and winds that swirled on the frozen crests, and Eligon was more than glad when the tall spires of the portal finally loomed through the haze.
Atû was waiting for them. The man’s coat was crusted over with snow and ice, and his lips were a shade of blue not entirely healthy, but he had already prepared everything in their absence. He’d erected barriers to block out the worst of wind and etched a runic pattern deep into the ice. Lined with the appropriate powders, everything was ready to power up the portal.
The mage took his position at the circle and glanced expectantly at Eligon. “The crystal, my lord?”
Reluctantly, the emperor rifled through his bag and withdrew what the mage was asking - an essence crystal worth enough gold to buy a manor back home. He hesitated a moment before tossing it to the man, thinking of all the provisions for troops it could buy, but it was necessary.
Atû could open the portal just fine without the crystal’s help, but the mage couldn’t cross through the portal while simultaneously powering it. In the end, it pained him to waste the crystal, but runic mages were too rare to simply be abandoned on distant mountaintops - the journey back could take months.
Atû snatched it out of the air and bowed gratefully. Then he bent down and slotted the crystal into the formation. As he circulated a little of his own essence into the rock, the crystal began to glow, the light spreading along the lines of the rune until the portal flared to life.
Eligon’s men trotted through the portal one after the other, but the emperor waited to let the mage pass first. He trusted Atû more or less, but the man was a Sicyan and after more than a century under off-and-on Zalancthian control, the loyalty of many natives to the southern provinces was more mixed than one might hope. When the Zalancthians had conquered the capital city, so too had they gained access to the vast hoards of wealth the empire had accumulated over the millennia, so the prices they were able to offer were always higher than Eligon could match, and as the saying goes, “money talks.”
It was only after the runic mage had crossed to the other side that Eligon joined his men. The icy gusts of wind fell away as he stepped down into the abandoned tower, but the air inside was far chillier than it should have been, the sort of damp cold that clings to your bones like glue. His heart rate ratcheted up as his eyes swept across the room, filled with an unspoken fear that was quickly confirmed.
There was no sign of Merûm, the runic mage they had left behind. Her possessions lay beside a burn-out fire, one that had died down so thoroughly that even its ashes were cold as stone, but the room was otherwise empty.
Unlike Atû, Eligon had no fear that Merûm had run away - the emperor knew her better than that. The runic mage was a villager he’d personally recruited from his family’s ancestral lands in the northern Almakkarian range. She was as loyal as they came, and he knew she’d rather die than abandon her post.
His eyes landed on the third side of the tower - the side that led into the abandoned fortress. A thin, black pair of doors stretched high along the wall, many times higher than any human had need of, and the left one was cracked slightly ajar.
No, Merûm had not run away. She had been taken.
Damn it - I warned her to set up a protective shield. Eligon sighed as he ran his fingers through his thick curls. His hair was sopping wet from the melting snow and, ignoring the worried stares from the men waiting for his orders, he shook the moisture off as best as he could as he thought through his options. Do I risk it?
Eligon knew all too well what lurked in the shadows of Ālmakkar’s once mighty fortress. With the city abandoned, there weren’t too many travelers that passed this way any longer, so when the reports of the missing had slowly trickled in, it had taken some time to attract the Empire’s attention but, eventually, they had noticed.
The commander at Dūr-Ṣadê had despatched a troop to investigate, but the soldiers found the fallen fortress empty. There were no beasts to slay, no monsters to kill. The large pile of bones, whose ends had been gnawed off and whose marrow had been sucked dry told a poignant story of the being who haunted the fortress - a s̆izbu.
The troops had staked out the fortress for nearly a month, but the creature had not returned and eventually they were forced to return to Dūr-Ṣadê with empty hands. The killings had stopped for a time, and Eligon had thought the creature must have moved on, but, clearly, he’d been wrong.
With a sigh, he dropped his bag on the ground and began to pull his armor out. “Get suited up, boys. We’ve got a battle ahead.”
An hour later, the nine filtered through the black doors. A deep gloom hung over the ruined halls. Here and there, the enchanted lights still worked, but many had been destroyed when the Fey armies sacked the city, and signs of that battle loomed all around them - the walls were scorched and battered, riven with deep cuts and cracks, but for all the damage they had taken, the ancient enchantments still held strong.
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Their progress was slow, and his men were paranoid. To their frightened eyes, the s̆izbu lurked in every shadow, stalking in them every creak of the wind and stone.
Eligon, though, was calm. He'd fought a s̆izbu once before - one he’d once called a friend. He'd met Maris̆ in the guard. The Fey had been exiled from his homeland and, disdaining the Zalancthians' ineptitude at magic, had eventually made his way up north to the Empire. It was unusual for a Fey to join the guard, but he'd proved his loyalty time and again and the two'd become close. But something had happened on a hunting trip in the mountains. There were differing opinions on what caused the change - a possessing ghost, a vicious curse, or some sort of undiagnosed illness - but the symptoms were always the same. The changeling would become obsessed with the need for marrow, and animal marrow just wouldn't suffice to quell their craving.
Maris̆ had hidden his symptoms well. Perhaps he was a bit more withdrawn than unusual but no one - not his friends, his family, not even his commander who should have seen the signs had noticed anything wrong until the day the need for marrow overcame him. On that day, Eligon's friend died and the s̆izbu was born, the beast who slaughtered his wife and newborn child, drank their blood, and fed on their bones before fleeing into the wilderness.
It wasn’t the duty of the empire’s heir to hunt down the monster, but when the adventuring party was formed, Eligon had insisted on going, and it was his mace that dealt the final blow.
Several hours of searching ensued; the abandoned castle was a labyrinth of winding staircases and narrow halls that made their progress slow. The lower floors were filled with cramped barracks that had once housed the city’s guards, while the upper gave way to more luxurious tenements, but as they scaled higher and higher up the tower, the soldiers no signs of the creature - none of the blood and bones that Eligon expected to see around every corner.
He was beginning to wonder if he'd been mistaken, that perhaps some other monster had moved into the tower and abducted his missing mage when the smell hit him. As he crossed the threshold into the tower's final floor, the damp, cold air that filled his nostrils was rank with the gut-wrenching scent of rotted flesh and defiled blood.
Nearly overpowered by the stench, Eligon wretched out the contents of his stomach, his men quickly succumbing too. But as he wiped his mouth dry, hope was rekindled in his heart. The s̆izbu was here - if they hurried, perhaps they could still save Merûm.
Pulling his mace free, the emperor charged through the empty rooms with reckless abandon. One hall after another was left in his dust, each as empty as the first, but the smell continued to worsen. And then, as he breached into the long-abandoned steward's hall, Eligon’s hopes were dashed.
A misshapen beast of green and white was hunched on all fours in the middle of the room. The hair was long and matted, a blonde that looked almost brown from dirt and filth. The s̆izbu was hunched over a crumpled form, and its long, dagger-like claws were dug deep into its victim's chest. A head lolled on the ground nearby, with a wide set of familiar brown eyes staring back at him.
Damn it.
Time slowed to crawl as Eligon weighed his options. The beast glanced up at the approaching soldiers but ignored them, too preoccupied with sucking the marrow dry to care about anything else. He knew killing the s̆izbu wouldn’t bring Merûm back. He knew, too, that the life of the emperor was too important to risk on meaningless revenge. He could turn around now and the beast would likely let them leave. He could always send another troop of soldiers to deal with it. And if they can’t find it again?
Eligon's hesitation vanished, and he began to sprint straight toward the beast. Sweeping his mace high above his head, Eligon leapt into the air, roaring with rage as he descended on the s̆izbu.
The beast, ever greedy for more marrow, waited until the last second before darting to the side with preternatural speed. Eligon’s mace smashed into the floor hard enough to carve a small crater, but it missed the beast. The beast lashed out with its claws, but Eligon deflected them with his paldron and drove his armored elbow straight into the s̆izbu’s face. His mace followed the swing, slamming into the creature’s side.
It was only a glancing blow, but it forced the beast to leap backward. It landed spryly on its feet and opened its maw. An ear-piercing shriek filled the air, followed by a thick, green miasma that seeped out from its pores.
“Stay away,” Eligon commanded his men as he once again closed the distance; unlike them, his armor was encrusted with more than enough glyphs to protect him from even a s̆izbu. The glyphs flared into life as the miasma closed in around him, and a thin aura of air filtered it out. Ignoring the miasma, Eligon arced his mace straight toward the creature’s skull, but again the creature dodged out of the way.
Selene's grace, he swore. The creature was older and faster than his friend had been, and the years of experience showed. The s̆izbu suddenly went on the offensive, lashing out with a flurry of blows that Eligon strained to block and reminding him just why the s̆izbu were so feared - they were as strong as they were fast.
He missed a strike, and a panel of his armor caved in as the man was tossed halfway across the room. His foot dragged across the ground, and he dug in fiercely, stopping his momentum, but the creature chased after him. Steadying himself, Eligon braced for the blow, but it didn't come. The s̆izbu flinched back as a hail of arrows rained down upon it.
His men were still stuck on the far side of the room, unable to cross through the miasma, but they fought back with what they could. Their arrows pounded into its flesh, sinking in just far enough to stick but - if the lack of blood pouring out from the wounds was any indication - not far enough to do any serious damage.
The s̆izbu’s head swiveled between Eligon and his guards, contemplating.
Eligon snarled and shook his mace defiantly. “Come on - let’s finish this,” he roared, but the s̆izbu decided to pursue easier prey. Spinning on its heels, it darted straight toward the soldiers.
Crap. Eligon was forced to activate the skill he hated so much, a blessing and a curse rolled up in one.
Burden of the People.
Waves of pain radiated through his body, the cries and pleas of the hundreds and thousands he’d failed to protect. But that pain was accompanied by an equal measure of power.
Eligon surged across the room on a direct intersection towards the s̆izbu, buoyed by a borrowed strength. The two collided. Metal and flesh, mace and claw clashed, and then the beast collapsed. The two rolled together, end over end across the floor, as the Emperor rained down blow upon blow on the s̆izbu’s body, empowered by the might of those he’d failed.
The two crashed into the wall with a thunderous boom and a cloud of dust. There was a moment of silence, and then slowly, painfully, Eligon staggered to his feet. The strength was gone and now only the pain lingered, but he finished the job. His mace rose and fell, and shards of bone flew as the s̆izbu's skull was crushed.
Exhausted, he leaned against the wall to catch his breath and his eyes unwillingly drifted back to Merûm’s crumpled form. Eligon knew he'd won, but, somehow, it was hard to feel a sense of victory.