GUHIN

The air hung heavy with the scent of damp earth and splintered wood, the aftermath of the Ancient’s wrath still lingering in the atmosphere. Bokun remained vigilant, his eyes constantly scanning the surroundings, while Etro skillfully maneuvered through the rugged terrain.

Hours seemed to pass before the dense forest finally began to thin, revealing a long-forgotten road that had seen better days. The cobblestones, cracked and uneven, were overgrown with weeds and moss, but they offered a clear path forward. Beside the road stood a weathered drinking well, its stone structure crumbling with age, the wooden roof sagging under the burden of time.

Bokun clicked his tongue, urging Etro to a halt. The steed obeyed, slowing to a stop near the well. With stiff, tired movements, Bokun swung down from the saddle, still covered in dirt and blood apart from his face—remnants of the battle and their harrowing escape. Exhaustion tugged at him, but there was still work to be done before he could rest.

He moved to the well, the pulley system creaking as he lowered the bucket into the dark water below. With a few steady pulls, Bokun hauled up a bucket full of cold, clear water. He drank deeply, letting the cool liquid soothe his parched throat, then splashed some over his face, and body.

Satisfied for the moment, he filled another bucket and walked over to Guhin, who still lay draped across Etro’s back. With a rough, though not unkind hand, Bokun threw water onto Guhin’s forehead, hoping to rouse him. But Guhin remained unconscious, his breathing shallow but steady.

“Still out cold,” Bokun mutters, more to himself than to anyone else. He sets the bucket down, allowing Etro to drink his fill, the horse eagerly lapping up the water.

As Etro drank, Bokun opened a weathered saddlebag and pulled out a large, leather-bound book. The cover, cracked and worn, was held together with thick rope and branded with candlewax, giving it a rough, well-traveled appearance. He set the book down on a flat stone, flipping it open to reveal page after page of detailed sketches and notes—illustrations of creatures, maps, and battle plans, each one meticulously drawn.

Reaching into the saddlebag once more, he pulled out a small pouch filled with pieces of coal, some black as night, others tinted with hues of red, green, and brown. He sifted through them with a practiced hand, selecting a piece of black coal and a few colored ones, and set them beside the book.

As he prepared to draw, Bokun glanced over at Etro, who was still drinking from the bucket. "I have to draw it now, while it’s still fresh in my mind," he said softly, his voice low and contemplative. "Not every day you come face-to-face with an Ancient. I don’t want to forget a single detail."

And so, Bokun sat beside the well, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten as he turned his attention to the task at hand. He began to sketch, the coal moving swiftly across the page as he captured the colossal form of the mountain troll—the roots entwined around its limbs, the rocky texture of its skin, the faint glow in its deep-set eyes. Every detail, from the cracks in its stone hand to the massive, earth-shaking roar that had nearly ended them, was carefully recorded.

Bokun worked in silence, accompanied only by the quiet rustle of the wind and the occasional snort from Etro as the horse finished its drink. The image of the Ancient took shape on the page, a testament to the encounter they had survived, and a reminder of the power that still lurked in the forgotten corners of the world.

The quiet of the moment was broken by the faint sound of an instrument, its notes soft and haunting, drifting through the stillness. Bokun’s hand stilled, the sound pulling his attention away from the page. He looked up, ears straining to catch the melody that seemed both close and distant, weaving through the overgrown foliage that surrounded the abandoned road.

Curiosity piqued, Bokun stood and moved toward the source of the music, pushing aside the thick bushes that had reclaimed the path. As he parted the greenery, an old, weathered road revealed itself, the cobblestones cracked and uneven, nearly swallowed by time. At the end of the road, Bokun saw a frail old man sitting with his back turned, a small caravan beside him laden with goods.

The old man’s voice, barely more than a whisper, wove through the gentle strumming of his instrument. He sang in an old dialect of Valherya, the words foreign to Bokun but carrying the unmistakable rhythm of a children’s song—soft, innocent, and tender.

"Sira-mir taláve, nualé raél

Eáren lúthé, tiritá vélen…

Lírien daévan, nóthar estú

Súl lenára, élan gurúth."

Though Bokun could not understand the language, the melody seemed to speak of loss and longing, and the old man’s voice quivered with age and sorrow.

"Bright star falleth, dreamer doth roam

In lands afar, a child seeks home…

Singeth no longer, night's veil draweth nigh

Cold wind carrieth, a sorrowed lullaby."_

But as he drew closer, a sharp, pungent odor hit him—rotten fish, its stench unmistakable and overwhelming. Bokun’s nose wrinkled as he glanced at the man’s wares. The goods were all spoiled and decayed, a collection of rusted pans, molded fruit, and meat that had long since turned rancid.

Flies buzzed lazily around the old caravan, as Bokun's brows furrowed, his gaze sharpened with a mix of concern and unease. He wasn’t afraid, but there was something unsettling about the scene, something that didn't fit. He stepped closer, circling around the man to see him from the front.

What Bokun saw made him pause. The old man’s face was a grotesque patchwork of scars and missing flesh. Deep wrinkles etched across his gaunt features, and thin, grey threads of hair wavered in the wind from his spotted bald head. Where once there might have been recognizable features, there were now only twisted remains—chunks of flesh seemingly torn away and healed over with time in a hideous, uneven manner. His eyes were missing, hollow sockets of tissue and his lips, or what remained of them, barely moved as he sang the song.

Bokun’s hand instinctively moved toward the hilt of his greatsword, though he made no move to draw it. Instead, he studied the man, taken aback by the sight before him, as if the old man was a living relic of some long-forgotten horror. The old man's song continued, a haunting lullaby in a world that had long since passed him by, the soft melody clashing with the harsh reality of his decayed form.

The old man’s song ended with the final strum of his snare. He turned toward Bokun, his voice gravelly and resigned, “A customer? In Jhorfa? No, that can't be... I see, you have also come to meet your end then?”

Bokun’s eyes narrowed, but he remained calm. “No, I haven’t... If you wish, I can offer you death. It would be more peaceful than the trolls of these lands.”

The old man paused, his eyeless gaze shifting slowly. “Peaceful? A gift my family has not received. No, thank you. I will endure what everyone else in Jhorfa has endured. I will remain here...”

Bokun’s thoughts raced. He had heard stories of the Fall from Jhorfa—the collapse of the Kingdom of Aric nearly sixty years ago. Those tales, shared by the elders in his homeland, were steeped in grandeur and mystery. For his own sake, he asked, “What happened in Jhorfa?”

The old man’s scarred lips twisted into a grimace as he let out a dry, bitter laugh that cracked at the corners. "What do you care?" he spat, a hint of venom lacing his voice. "Another passing warrior with no stake in our fate, just like all the others. You think hearing our misery will give you some grand insight? Or is it just another tale for you to carry back home, something to spin into some heroic ballad?"

Bokun held his ground, his expression unyielding. “What happened here sixty years ago?”

The old man’s sneer faltered, his lips trembling slightly, the years of suffering evident in his hollow gaze. His voice dropped to a hoarse rasp, thick with resentment. "Fifty-eight years, to be precise…" he spat, the bitterness evident in every word. His cracked lips twitched as he hesitated, as though reluctant to spill the tale. “Fine, if it’ll shut you up…”

The wind stirred the flies buzzing around the rotten goods, like vultures circling a dying beast. The old man’s hands trembled as he gripped his instrument, his voice growing ragged with each word. “Jhorfa was my home… back then, at least,” he began, his tone laced with bitterness and sorrow. "I was just a farmer, tending my fields, caring for my family… but that didn’t matter once they came."

He paused, his frail hands gripping the strings of his instrument as if drawing strength from the memory. “Troll's... we could hear them long before we saw them—roaring and shaking the very ground beneath our feet. Until they rose from the depths of the earth... we were unprepared. Our weapons—our finest swords and arrows—shattered against their skin. Even our magic, failed to leave a mark. It was as if the trolls were immune to everything we threw at them. They were untouchable, unstoppable."

The old man’s eyes, though sightless, seemed to search the past for relief. "They didn’t just kill, they tore families apart. My wife, my children—they were taken by the trolls, dragged away from me. I tried to fight back, to save them, but there were too many, and I was too weak. I had to watch as they were carried off, piece by piece...

He spat on the ground, his voice rough and frayed. “Then the main castle fell. King Aric, that worthless excuse for a ruler, was our last hope... and what did he do? He cowered like a frightened dog, hiding as the trolls slaughtered us. He was slain in his own fear, not on the battlefield where a king should die. That bastard deserved to die in his chambers.”

His voice grew harsher, almost spitting the words as he continued, “And Thalos... the greatest wizard Valherya had ever seen... The one we believed would protect us, the one who promised to stand by us in our darkest hour. He never came. He vanished, leaving us to face those, those monsters alone. He abandoned us, just like the king.”

He exhaled shakily, the anger draining from his voice, replaced by a hollow weariness. "So now I play the song I used to play for my children... every sunset. Sunset, oh, how we used to adore seeing the sun fall behind a curtain of clouds... It's the only thing I have left, the trolls have eaten away at everything else—my family, my home, my hope, my flesh. For some reason, they haven't killed me yet. Perhaps they find some twisted amusement in my suffering."

Bokun glanced up at the sky. It was still as gray and bleak as ever, with no sign of the sun that the old man seemed to be waiting for. But perhaps, after so many years, the old man had grown accustomed to the time when the sun should set, clinging to that fleeting memory of warmth and light.

The old man turned his hollow gaze toward Bokun, his voice eerily calm. "If I were you... I'd hurry. They are coming." His tone carried a sense of resignation, as if he had already accepted the inevitable fate that awaited him.

As the old man resumed his playing, the snare produced a haunting, delicate tune that carried the weight of his loss. The sound was both beautiful and tragic, a mournful echo of a time long gone.

And as he played, a gust of wind swept through the trees, carrying with it the foul stench of urine and feces—a clear and unmistakable sign of trolls. Bokun’s eyes narrowed as the birds took flight, fleeing the treetops in panic. The ground trembled slightly, a foreboding signal that an army of monstrous beings was on its way.

Bokun moved swiftly, making his way back to Etro and Guhin with a purpose. His gaze fell on the weathered drinking well where his leather-bound book was resting. The wind caught the pages and flipped them back and forth before finally settling on a drawing of a mountain troll.

He paused, staring at the sketch. This mountain troll was vastly different from the Ancient that had risen from the earth not long ago. The troll in his drawing was tall, standing upright with a hunched back, its body covered in thick, grayish-blue skin that looked as hard as stone.

Unlike the ancient troll, whose form was merged with the earth itself, this one was distinct, with long, muscular limbs that ended in sharp claws. Its eyes were small and deep-set, glowing with a yellow light. The head was more humanoid, with a large, crooked nose and a wide, toothy grin filled with rotten teeth, each one as sharp as a blade. These were creatures of brute force and raw power, that showed no signs of intelligence or wisdom.

Bokun’s grip tightened on the book as he took in the details of the sketch, remembering how a group of trolls had ambushed him and his men during their journey through Valherya, before his fateful encounter with Guhin.

The memory of that battle flashed in his mind—their swift movements, the way they darted through the trees and struck from the shadows. This was a different kind of danger—more mobile, more aggressive, and entirely merciless. He knew that these trolls, though not as colossal as the ancient, were still formidable foes, driven by an insatiable hunger for destruction.

He quickly closed the book, securing it in his saddlebag along with his assortment of colored coals, there was no time to waste, the trolls were coming. Before Bokun left, he paused and reached into one of his saddlebags, pulling out a small, weathered pouch. Inside was a flaky substance—imp dandruff, a rare ingredient typically used in witchcraft or for brief communication with the dead. But Bokun had other plans for it.

He poured a handful of the flakes into his palm and moved closer to Etro's tail. "Hold your breath, Etro," Bokun murmured. As he coated Etro's tail with the substance, the horse shifted slightly, sensing the strange, acrid smell that accompanied it.

The imp dandruff would mask their trail, hiding them from the keen noses of the trolls. It was a small precaution, but Bokun knew better now, than to take chances in these lands.

With the task complete, Bokun tightened the straps of his saddle and mounted Etro. Before they set off, he reached over and pulled Guhin's hood back, glancing at the young man's face. Seeing that he was still unconscious, Bokun chuckled quietly. "Idiot," he muttered, shaking his head.

Then he gave one last look at the old man, still strumming his haunting melody, before clicking his tongue to signal their departure. As they rode off, the scent of trolls grew stronger on the wind, but with any luck, their trail would now be as invisible as the sunset the old man longed for.

GUHIN!