Fortress Al-Mir

Arkk was no stranger to being out in the middle of a storm. Really bad storms didn’t happen around Langleey more than a few times a year. When they did occur, they tended to do so at unpredictable moments. If he was in the village, it was typically a time for staying indoors and doing little else. Sometimes, however, they happened while he and Ilya were out hunting, forcing them to seek shelter—and often forcing them to head home should the winds have ripped their camp down.

This storm was the first Arkk could recall in which he ventured out into it willingly.

The soakless solution on the cloaks helped a lot. The rain didn’t quite avoid them, but it was the next closest thing. If not for the humidity in the air, he wouldn’t have felt much different than on a chill day. Watching the water run down his front without drenching him brought a little spark of joy as he started thinking back to that treatise on alchemy, wondering if he would be able to make something like this in the future. If Arkk had known this was possible, he would have tried to find an alchemist a long time ago to treat his clothes.

Though, until recently, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

Checking over his shoulder, he was pleased to note that all three of his orcs were looking much happier, outfitted in their own cloaks. Morford walked a short distance away, moving with their group without being a complete part of it.

Turning his attention forward again, Arkk frowned. “Damn. She must have been beyond the walls before I started tracking her.”

The street they just stepped on was near the edge of Darkwood Burg. A thick stone wall stood tall at the end of the street, blocking progress forward. While Arkk could see the ethereal glow of Gretchen in the distance, he hadn’t been able to tell what was between them. This had simply been the most direct path from the alchemist’s shop to Gretchen.

“Is there a gate nearby?” Arkk asked, looking to Morford.

The alchemist looked around as if to double-check where they were, then nodded. “Follow me,” they whispered before walking along the street they had just come from.

The nearest gate took longer to reach than Arkk had been hoping for. He knew from the first time he had successfully performed the tracking ritual that it wouldn’t last forever. He didn’t know exactly how long that was, but if it started to fade before they reached Gretchen, he would do nothing to try to restart it. He couldn’t risk that.

Not with what happened to the stag.

The gate was locked tight, protected by miserable guards trying to take cover from the rain in the small alcoves on either side of the larger wooden structure. A few happier guards hung out near the guardhouse, safe under its awnings. As miserable as the others looked, the ones positioned on the ramparts had to be in a worse state of mind, not even having a wall to block some of the rain. The alchemist, in far more of a hurry than Arkk was even with the time limitations on his ritual, rushed up and began speaking with one of the guards. Their conversation concluded before Arkk could finish walking up.

“They will allow us out,” Morford whispered as the guard pulled the latches on the smaller door set within the larger gate.

“I know what I said back in the tavern about following your orders… We’re really going out in this?” Dakka grumbled, first glancing at the dark clouds overhead and then at Arkk.

He wasn’t particularly happy about it either. Perhaps he should have taken everything the alchemist owned instead of just the soakless solution.

Dakka’s shield was on her back, over her cloak. As she ducked through the relatively small door, she drew her axe, holding it firm in two hands. The other orcs followed suit, drawing their weapons. Orjja wielded a large mace with thick triangular protrusions coming off the bulbous end. Farr’an, apparently having taken up tutelage under Olatt’an, wielded a crossbow with a nasty blade on the end.

Arkk had his daggers but planned to use lightning almost exclusively if something started a fight.

The alchemist followed up in the rear, brandishing no obvious weapons but took a moment to adjust a number of vials on a bandolier. Some contained colored liquid, others clear liquid, and others still looked more like they contained miniature clouds. Arkk was curious, but not so much so that he hoped one of the Darkwood’s monsters would come charging out and force the alchemist to reveal just what was in those stoppered bottles.

Outside the burg, thankfully on the side of the town that faced away from the majority of the forest even if some of it did wrap around and follow alongside the road, Arkk could see the ethereal glow of Gretchen in the distance. It didn’t look like she was making good time, trudging away with heavy steps. From her posture, hazy though it was to his eyes, he guessed that she was wrapped up tight in her cloak.

It hadn’t occurred to Arkk to try to scry on her as scrying on someone invisible was fairly useless. Now, he wondered if that cloak was her invisibility cloak or a regular one that she had switched to for the travel.

Drawing his crystal ball from its pouch, he looked down and focused. Unable to tell how far away to look from the tracking spell alone, he focused on himself first then dragged the view in the crystal ball toward Gretchen’s position. After a few moments of seeing nothing, Arkk almost put the crystal ball away. Movement in its smooth surface made him pause. A few quick flashes of the view changing had him close enough to see what they might be dealing with.

“Wolves,” he said, drawing the attention of the others even as they hurried along the path away from Darkwood Burg.

A small pack. Six that he could see. All things considered, a pack of wolves wasn’t the worst thing to face. Even better, while in the rough direction of Gretchen, they didn’t seem to be actively hunting her. The heavy rain probably played havoc on their senses, drowning out footsteps and washing away smells in the air. Still, they were in her direction and that alone posed a mild danger. Most wolves wouldn’t just maul a person for no reason, but if they were hungry enough?

Arkk had everyone pick up the pace.

A few wolves weren’t a problem. So long as they were far enough away from him when he spotted them, he could likely take them out on his own. Having seen the results of the orcs on their first mercenary job, that of culling a few out-of-control wolves that had been harassing a village, he was willing to bet that Dakka alone could take them on, let alone all three orcs and him. That was assuming the wolves would fight at all rather than run off once faced with a threat they couldn’t handle. Arkk figured that just them showing up would see them back to the woods.

With them running and Gretchen stumbling through the mud, they made decent progress relative to her. It was quite a ways away, far enough that Darkwood Burg looked like a little brown box against the backdrop of the thick Darkwoods. Had Gretchen managed to get her hands on a horse, catching up would have been a much more difficult ordeal. As it was, it just took some good old-fashioned hustle.

In the distance, he thought he could see her. The actual Gretchen, not the ethereal tracking spell. The crystal ball must have been too small to see properly, but there was an odd haze in the air. A person-shaped bubble where the rainwater hit and ran off, leaving a space in the air. As impressive as the invisibility cloak was, it did not work perfectly in the rain.

He could see the wolves as well, lurking off in the woods a short distance away from the path. As Arkk expected, their hasty approach startled the small pack, sending them away.

“Gretchen!” the alchemist said, apparently having seen the same distortion in the air that Arkk had. Their voice was still a whisper, but a raised one filled with a harsh rasp.

The haze, and the ethereal glow coming from within, froze.

“She knows we can see her, right?” Dakka said, loud enough that it was meant for Gretchen to hear.

There was a long pause before Gretchen reached up and pulled her hood down. “I told you not to follow me,” she said, looking about ready to cry. Maybe she was crying. With the rain, it was hard to tell.

“I might have listened to your wishes had you left on any other day.” Morford stepped forward, only for Gretchen to step back. The alchemist stopped moving as soon as she did so. “Today? What were you thinking? You know the dangers—”

Six heads snapped to the south of the road as a baying cry started and silenced in the same short second. An instant later, four of the wolves from earlier bolted out from the tree line straight toward their group. The lightning spell on Arkk’s tongue died as he watched the four wolves, two of whom were splattered with blood, run straight past them, heading into one of the recently emptied fields.

A new noise followed in the wake of the wolves, drawing everyone’s attention back to the trees. Arkk had a hard time identifying just what that noise was supposed to be. A howl? A shout? Laughter? It sounded distinctly human and yet animalistic at the same time.

Whatever it was, it sent a chill up his spine.

“We cannot be out here,” the alchemist whispered, grasping hold of Gretchen’s invisible shoulders. “Back to the burg. Quickly.”

“And put our back to that sound?” Arkk asked, watching as Morford forced a protesting Gretchen along the road.

“Better to be near the wall than caught in the open.”

“Caught by what?” Dakka asked, glowering at the trees.

“Ghasts,” the alchemist said. “Quickly.”

None of them made it more than five steps before that chittering howl started again. It was louder now. Closer. Arkk narrowed his eyes, looking at the trees. With the heavy clouds overhead diminishing what little light made it through the trees and the rain making it even harder to see, he didn’t spot the source of the sound.

“What is a ghast?” Arkk asked, moving once again. Even Gretchen wasn’t protesting now.

“Beasts created for war,” Morford whispered without looking back. “We do not wish to encounter even a single one.”

“Created?”

This time, the alchemist’s beak-like mask turned. Not fully. They still kept their hands on Gretchen’s shoulders as they rushed along the path. “This forest has played home to a plethora of unpleasant guests over its lifetime. Necromancers, warlocks, vampires, and others besides. This dark forest contains numerous ancient evils.

“The ghasts are creations of a life alchemist attempting to design a being that could conquer the kingdom. I dare say he might have succeeded if he hadn’t been consumed by his creations before he could learn to control them. It is what initially drew my interest to this area.”

“You wanted to conquer the kingdom?”

“I wanted knowledge. What would I do with a kingdom?” The alchemist managed to inject incredulity into their whisper.

Shaking his head, Arkk looked to the forest again and decided to ask a slightly more immediately important question. “Are they immune to lightning?”

“I do not know. They were created for war and all that entails.”

Although Arkk talked to every single person who passed through Langleey Village, learning more about the world beyond the farms, he had little clue about what, exactly, war entailed. Obviously, people fighting each other. Soldiers, weapons, knights, and spellcasters. Zullie had taught him the academy-approved lightning spell and it was fairly long-winded, but if a row of spellcasters was protected by a frontline of soldiers, they would be able to cast it with relative freedom.

But did they? Would a man who wanted to conquer the kingdom have prepared his creations for lightning spells in specific?

Arkk gnawed at his lip as another cackling howl echoed from the trees.

This time, he saw something. A dark shape, shadowed by the heavy birch and pine trees. The silhouette shuddered with great, heaving breaths as it stood hunched over with long arms dangling down to its legs. Arkk opened his mouth, the incantation for lightning on his lips, but the creature disappeared behind another copse of trees before he could get a single syllable out.

“It is watching us,” he said instead.

“All the more reason to hurry,” Morford said, drawing a vial of dark red liquid and holding it tight in one hand.

“If we reach the walls and they don’t let us in because we’re being chased, doesn’t that just mean that we’ll be up against that wall with nowhere to run?”

“You would rather face it out here?”

“I would rather not face it at all if I’m being honest. How likely is it to attack us? Do they travel in packs?”

“There won’t be more. They are aggressively territorial toward their own kind,” Morford whispered, looking off into the trees. “Another failure by their creator. As for how likely it is to attack? I’m surprised it isn’t attacking already.”

Arkk started to ask another question, only to freeze as he caught sight of the creature once again. It chittered, wheezing behind one of the trees. He could see it better now. Closer to leaving the forest, it was in the light enough for Arkk to grimace in revulsion. Hairless with skin a ghastly gray, it looked like a human with distorted proportions. Its eyes were tiny relative to its head and it lacked both a nose and ears, having only thin slits in their places. It lacked lips as well, leaving gums and far too many teeth visible as the skin was drawn back around its maw. Red glistened off its teeth.

Blood from one of the wolves?

It elicited a feeling of revulsion similar to what he had experienced the first time he saw one of the lesser servants. It wasn’t quite the same but it was a feeling of wrongness. The creature near the trees just shouldn’t be.

“Electro Deus,” Arkk intoned.

Even as he built up magic at the tips of his fingers, he didn’t fire the spell.

The eyes of the monster changed. Formerly a beady white, the moment Arkk finished his incantation, they glowed a luminous red. A familiar red. Its entire posture shifted, moving from a hunched back to a straightened back. The laughing wheeze vanished.

Arkk’s eyes widened, then narrowed immediately. Not sure that he could do it on demand, he drew on as much irritation as he could manage; the rain, the waste of time this trip had been, the delay in returning to the fortress, and the other bounty hunters. All his feelings focused on a point.

An external view of himself using his connection to his employees showed his eyes flashing red. It didn’t last long. A few seconds at most.

It was enough.

The ghast, the possessed ghast, stilled for a long moment. Its large thighs and digitigrade legs made it look like it was better suited for leaping, yet it took a single step forward.

Farr’an readied his crossbow and the alchemist raised the vial in his hand, ready to throw.

“Wait!” Arkk said, holding up a hand. Aside from that single step, the ghast wasn’t moving. Just watching.

“Wait?” Morford hissed. “I’ve seen the red-eyed ones before. They’re smarter and far more vicious.”

“Orjja, Farr’an, escort Gretchen and Morford back to town. Dakka, with me.”

Everyone hesitated at Arkk’s orders. He could see Dakka’s glance at him over his shoulder.

“You sure about that, boss?”

“No. But…” Arkk took a breath, not blinking as he kept his eyes on the monster. It still wasn’t moving toward them, just watching and waiting. “But yes. Do it.”

Orjja and Farr’an still hesitated. Morford and Gretchen did not. Jerking his head got the orcs moving. Arkk waited a few moments for them to put some distance between them before he cautiously approached the line of trees. Arkk eyed the monster’s teeth and its long fingers. The fingers were like spider legs, sharp and to a point with thick joints. One of its hands was as red as its face.

But it still didn’t attack.

Arkk kept a distance between them. He might be curious and suspecting that this wasn’t some wild creature, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. Only mostly an idiot.

“Do you speak?” Arkk said, then paused and altered his question. “Maybe I should ask if this body speaks?”

The ghast narrowed its thin eyes even further. When it did speak, its voice gurgled with a wet slop in the back of its throat. “You are the one casting old magic in my domain.” Arkk got a distinct impression that these creatures were not designed to speak as humans did. Or, if they had been designed to speak, this one hadn’t done so in years. Its speech was further hampered by its lack of lips.

“If by old magic you mean a single lightning bolt yesterday, then yes. Otherwise, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

A repetitive clicking came from the back of the ghast’s throat. Arkk wasn’t sure what that meant.

He was curious and wary. The presence of this possessor made Arkk wonder about this forest. All the stories he had been told, from what Hawkwood said back in Cliff to the alchemist just a few moments ago, said that this forest harbored numerous dangerous creatures. It drew the attention of necromancers and life alchemists—whatever those were—and other powerful individuals who all sought refuge within to carry out their plots and research.

Now it was starting to make a little more sense. There was a [HEART] in the forest. One that sounded like it had been claimed many times over the decades.

Was there another of Vezta’s kind out in the forest? Did this claimant know more old magic than Arkk did? Was there a library out there filled with a treasure trove of old books that were more intact than those in Arkk’s library? Would this [HEART] work for Vezta’s ultimate goal or would they have to destroy it?

He was curious. Eager, even. Yet, something gnawed at the back of his mind. It had been gnawing since seeing this creature’s eyes turn red. Arkk wasn’t quite sure what that feeling was, only that it was screaming a single word at him.

Rival.

“Where did you learn?” the gurgling gaunt asked.

“Old magic?” Arkk licked his lips. “A mentor taught me everything she knew. You? You’re using Cranium Internum, correct? Possession.”

Its narrow eyes widened for a moment. “You do know. In my eighty years, I have never met another…”

Arkk did not miss how it didn’t answer his question. He didn’t bring it up. Most of that was an attempt at deflection. Admitting to being another owner of a [HEART] felt dangerous. He would consult with Vezta before saying anything on the subject. Instead, he shrugged. “I am a traveler from afar after a bounty. I wasn’t expecting to meet someone like you. I apologize if you feel I’ve intruded. We were going to leave today, but the storm has delayed us.”

“After feeling the old magic, I set my watchers along the roads. I was preparing to invade the burg, but I suppose that is no longer necessary.”

“Invade?” Arkk said, tension threatening to rip his stomach apart. “Just for me? For a single lightning spell?”

He had been about to ask if the ghast—or the person possessing it—would be willing to sell books on old magic in exchange for gold. Now?

“An old magic practitioner is too rare. I would have you give your knowledge to me.”

“I have a few books,” Arkk said. “Not with me, but—”

“No books,” the ghast said, stepping forward. “I would have you give your knowledge to me.”

Something about the way it spoke made Arkk think that it wasn’t inviting him to a nice sit-down around a cup of tea for a chat about their favorite spells. The way it was looking at him was more akin to something wanting to rip open his mind and consume the contents without any regard for him.

Was that possible to do with possession? Arkk hadn’t tried to do anything similar during his one experiment with the spell, but it did make a little sense. He had been sharing Zullie’s mind.

Something to think about later.

For now…

“Well,” he started, trying to keep as calm as possible. “I suppose I could share my favorite spell right now. Have you heard of… Electro Deus.”

The moment the incantation left his lips, Arkk opened the gateway of his magical power to its fullest. Every scrap of magic he had went into his fingers as he thrust his hand forward. A bolt of lightning burned into his eyes as a deafening thunderclap threatened to throw him to the ground. The air around him lost all moisture as it burned, feeling more like he was standing next to a bonfire rather than out in a rainstorm.

When his eyes finally cleared, the ghast was gone. In a panic, he started looking around, only to turn back to where the ghast had been.

There was a dark cloud there. Shadow given a misty form. As it slowly solidified, a pair of bright red lights appeared in the head of the shadow. The two eyes narrowed into thin slits, forming a glare that lacked any words but promised pain, agony, and ultimate death.

Before Arkk could start the incantation over for a fresh if less powerful bolt of lightning, the shadow whisked away through the trees.

Gone.

Possessing something else? Another ghast? Back to his [HEART]? Arkk didn’t know.

All he did know was that they needed to get out of here. Immediately. Back to the burg, maybe to mount a defense against whatever invasion that Keeper of a Heart had been planning on.

Turning, he noted Dakka’s face twisted in a snarl. She was blinking several times, trying to clear her own eyes from that bright lightning bolt. At the same time, she looked completely ready to chop her axe down through whatever approached.

“Are you okay?”

“Where did it go?” she growled. “Did you get it?”

“I think I got the ghast. Not whatever was possessing it.” Arkk, carefully, grabbed Dakka’s arm and helped lead her back to the road.

Shaking him off, she kept blinking for a few moments before shaking her head. “I’m fine. Just a blind spot straight through the center of my eyes.”

“Sorry. After the alchemist’s comments, I wasn’t sure that a normal lightning bolt would put it down.”

“I wish I could have seen its face,” she grumbled. “Didn’t know who it was messing with, did it?”

“We need to get back and try to convince the guard that a threat is coming,” Arkk said, avoiding her question. It wasn’t like he had given it a fair shot. The ghast probably would have torn him apart if he hadn’t taken it by surprise. If it came back with two ghasts, he doubted he would be able to kill both before they reached him. Not with that powerful of a bolt of lightning, anyway.

Shaking his head, he started running down the path toward the other orcs and humans. He could see they had stopped. Probably because of that thunder. “We need to hurry,” Arkk shouted. “We’ll pick up and carry Morford and Gretchen if we have to.”

Hopefully, the guards could be readied for an invasion.