Wander West, in Shadow

When Martimeos awoke the next morning, a light snow had begun to fall. The soft flakes drifted down from the sky, whipped wildly in the wind, dancing around their campsite in swirls and eddies.

Their high spirits from yesterday had left them, now, and breakfast was eaten mostly in silence. Elyse was pale, her hat tilted down over her face, as she quietly stoked Cecil by her side; Kells looked grim and withdrawn as he packed up his tent. There was no more delcay, no more denying what it was they were about to do, no more putting off thoughts of danger until tomorrow. The Witch-Queen's mountains, gray, jagged and dark, crowded in all around, like the claw of some monstrous creature closing in on them.

Martimeos was surprised by how eerily calm he felt. Maddie's letter had gone into great detail about the horrors he might find upon the mountain, and Martimeos did not think that he had ever, in his life, walked into more danger. The bogge-man in Twin Lamps might have spoken, after a fashion, and tried to cut deals, but among the crags, there was no such restraint, no mercy. What the bogge-men saw, they killed. And if they did not leave you a headless, wandering corpse, they would nail you to a tree. And they did not hunt alone.

Martimeos had expected to feel dread, or anxiety, but no, within he felt...nothing. Just a flatness, like all his worry was wrapped in thick wool. He had faced danger before, and come out the other side through blood on his blade and clever use of the Art, but never something like this. He would not be going into the mountains if he did not think he could make it through, but...still.

He looked toward Elyse. The witch sat on a rock, staring into the campfire, flames dancing in her eyes as she chewed on a crust of bread for her breakfast, black robes standing out starkly against the snow, long dark hair falling across her back. Martimeos could not help but feel a twang of guilt in his heart as he watched her. It was true, the witch had chosen to follow him of her own free will, but there was a part of him that could not help but feel that he had dragged her into danger. Despite her peculiarities, he had grown fond of Elyse these last months, and would feel badly if she came to harm because of him.

But there was little time to ruminate on these thoughts. The bread they ate for breakfast was finished soon enough, Flit pecking the final crumbs of it from Martimeos' gloves. Martimeos hoisted his pack upon his back, and Kells did the same with his, and they kicked snow onto the campfire, killing it.

And then, beneath a slate-gray sky, shivering against the snow that drifted around them, the three made their way up into the mountains.

The ascent here was much more gentle than it was elsewhere, having been a path used by merchants and their carts in the past when traveling over the peaks. But though the slope was gentle, and the path broad, it was still hard going. Winter had left thick drifts of snow across the path, high enough to come up to their knees in some places. And it was a winding path upwards, one where they soon found their vision obscured not just by snow, but by the pines that surrounded them, dark trunks rising high above the snowdrifts, creaking and rustling as the wind swept through their branches. Rocky outcroppings dotted the landscape here and there, black boulders peeking out from beneath the snow.

The three proceeded quietly, little noise other than the sounds of the forest surrounding them, and their own footsteps. Martimeos did not know, precisely, when they might expect to enter a part of the mountain where the bogge-men dwelt. Maddie had simply written that they'd know when they came to those lands; that you could feel it in your bones, something dark sinking into you.

He sent Flit out ahead to scout, the little cardinal darting from pine tree to pine tree, and Elyse did the same with Cecil - though the witch told her familiar to not stray too far. Flit was relatively safe - the bogge-men, apparently, rarely used bows, preferring to do their killing up close - but Cecil was still in danger from them. Martimeos caught the occasional glimpse of the cat prowling between the trunks of the pine trees, always clever and cautious to remain among the shadows.

Elyse would stop, occasionally, to talk to the pines as well, laying her hands upon their rough bark, listening to the wind rustling through their needles, the creak of the wood. None of them spoke yet of bogge-men passing by, though the further up they went, the quieter the pines became, the less willing to actually speak.

Kells, for his part, clutched his spear at the read as they walked, cautious gray eyes peering out from beneath the brim of his kettle-helm, scanning the treeline for any sign of movement as they walked along. Weapons had been of little use against the bogge-man in Twin Lamps, it was true - its warped skin too hard, and its strength too great. But that had been a particularly twisted one. Maddie had claimed that bogge-men who had not worn the helm for so long were smaller, not so changed, and could be killed by force of arms on occasion.

It grew colder as they ascended, the air thinner. Their breath rose in plumes from their faces, swirling away with the snowflakes falling all around. They ate on their feet, unwilling to settle down amongst the chill, wishing to keep their blood pumping, keeping them warm. They walked close together, almost huddled against one another, as the pines loomed over them, creaking and groaning in the wind.

Elyse was the first to feel it.

As she tramped along, lifting her legs high to make her way through the snow, something came over her. Something tickling at the back of her mind, something that settled like poison into her blood. A dread that gripped her heart, that made her limbs feel stiff and slow. A nameless anxiety that knotted up within her mind, tangling her thoughts. She could not say that it came on suddenly. But as they traveled on, it worsened, growing, until the forest around seemed flat and surreal, until it seemed as if dark shadows danced at the corner of her vision. The world felt....thin. Like it might rip or tear. Something, Elyse realized, she had felt before.

She stopped in her tracks, fogged breath rising before her. Martimeos and Kells both looked to her, and she could see the shadows beneath their eyes, their haunted faces. "You feel it as well, don't you," she said quietly.

The wind howled through the trees as snow collected on the three of them, standing there silently.

"I had thought it my nerves," Martimeos said finally, grimacing, his voice almost a whisper. His dark green eyes darted around the pines, looking for movement in every shadow. He shook the snow out of his long, shaggy hair, and tugged his black-furred cloak tighter around him. "But...yes. Something....isn't right, here."

"All I know is, I've got a headache fit to split my skull," Kells muttered. He gripped his spear tightly, shaft end buried in the snow. His polished breastplate was crusted with a thin layer of ice and frozen snow, and he rapped against the metal with his knuckles to break it off. "But it's been building up for a while now."

"Perhaps the Art gives a better sense for it." Elyse shook her head, looking about for Cecil, searching for him among the shadows of the pines. She wanted her familiar by her side, and now. "Martimeos is right. Something is wrong, here. 'Tis an Outsider causing this, I am sure of it, and one that does not belong."

Kells snorted. "What Outsider does belong?"

"Some are particularly..." Elyse searched for the right words. "Out of tune, with our world. You can feel the world strain from their presence."

"And how would you know that," Martimeos asked softly.

Elyse looked at the wizard, his green eyes dancing with shadows in their depths, penetrating and mysterious. "I....told you before, my mother consorted with Outsiders," she answered quietly.

Martimeos remained staring at her for a moment, cloak flapping in the wind. "Well," he said finally, "I think this may be what Maddie spoke of. I think we are now in the lands of the bogge-men."

Peering at every shadow, looking for the slightest hint of movement, the three of them moved off the cleared path, into the pine forests that rose alongside it. The endless trunks rose like grim pillars from the snow, and the snow drifted down between them, limiting their vision, and yet they did not want to remain on the road, in the open, where bogge-men might find them. Elyse called Cecil back to her side, the cat's fur covered in white as he padded silently by her side. Flit, though, kept to the trees, so that he might serve as a lookout for them. Martimeos paused to take a torch out from his pack, a rough wooden stick round about at the end with cloth soaked in lamp oil. He did not light it - he thought it might attract too much attention - but it would be useful, to have something to burn at the ready. Elyse herself kept her crossbow in her arms, bolt ready to fire.

They picked their way through the pines, through snow-covered brush underfoot, occasionally having to take paths around large rocky outcroppings and cliffs as they moved ever upwards. The forest here was disturbingly silent. The trees, Elyse said, no longer spoke at all. Above the pines rose the jagged, dark peaks of the mountains. It felt as if they were utterly alone, alone in the world, amongst the endless pines and the whispering snow.

They moved slowly, and cautiously, ever alert, watching the trees around them for the stirrings of a black cloak, straining their ears to hear the clatter of teeth, always glancing behind them. But there was nothing. Just the constant sense of unease that sank into their bones, even more so than the chill did, formless dread that ran like black tar through their blood as the day's light began to fade, the world becoming dim and gray around them, almost as if the color was draining out of it. And upwards, ever upwards, they marched.

Martimeos had almost begun to wonder whether they would need to make camp soon, when Flit came darting down from a treetop towards him, a bright red blur in a world of almost endless white. His eyes widened as the little bird perched on his shoulder, and twittered in his ear, as quietly as it could.

Kells instinctively lifted his spear up before him, trembling slightly in his leather-gloved hands, once he saw Martim's expression. "What is it?" he whispered, as quietly as he could. "Did Flit spot bogge-men?"

"No," Martim replied, his face pale and grim. "A corpse."

They followed Flit as the cardinal darted from tree to tree, leading the three to what he had spotted. He bought them, eventually, to a particularly large pine tree, trunk thick and wide, knotted roots tangled into the snow-covered earth surrounding it. And nailed to the tree was a Crosscraw woman.

She looked to be older - perhaps in her forties - and thin, haggard. She was wrapped in thick deer-hides and furs for clothing, and her long red hair blew wildly in the wind. Down her face, dried blood ran like black tears; two large, iron stakes had been driven through her eyes, pinning her head to the pine's trunk. Another two stakes nailed her feet to the wood, blood blooming through her hide boots, and her arms had been bent cruelly backwards, wrapping around the trunk, only for her hands to be pinned by stakes as well. Her expression was contorted into a twisted grimace, as if she had died screaming. Blood ran in thick streaks down the pine's bark from her hands and feet.

The three stared up at the corpse for a long moment, no sound except for the wind rushing about them.

It was Kells who spoke first. He approached the corpse, running a leather glove down the blood staining the bark of the pine. "I...'tis hard to tell, with this cold," he muttered, "But I think this was done not so long ago. Perhaps yesterday, or even this morning." He spat. "Could have been as recently as a few hours ago. It does not look like any scavengers have had a chance at her."

"I feel as if we ought to bury her," Elyse said quietly, shivering, and not just from the cold. Around her feet, Cecil curled, the familiar silently watching the shadows of the forest. "Or at least, take her down."

"I don't know that we should touch her," Martimeos replied, eyeing the forest as well, his hand on his sword. "I do not think we should linger here long."

Kells snorted. "To the hells with that," he snarled. "I will not simply leave her nailed here, for the bogge-men's foul sport." With a grimace, the soldier reached up towards one of the stakes driven through the corpse's eyes.

"Don't...do that."

Kells froze. The voice that spoke had been rough, raspy, coarse and hollow, not like any voice he had ever heard from a human tongue. Slowly, he turned around.

There, in the shadow of a pine, stood a bogge-man. Its dark cloak fluttered around it in the snowy wind, but the bogge-man itself stood perfectly still, as if it were a statue carved from black stone. This one stood not nearly so tall as the one that had hunted them in Twin Lamps, just a head higher than Kells himself, and it was lean and sinewy, snakelike. Its helm was a horse-skull, bleached-white bones with a small red dot painted into the center of the forehead. Howling yellow eyes flickered in the dusklight.

Martimeos and Elyse had whirled around themselves, shocked to find the bogge-man behind them. Elyse scrambled backwards, bringing up her crossbow to aim, while Cecil hissed and spat, hackles raised. Martimeos drew his sword, and raised the unlit torch he carried high, as if it had a flame upon it.

The bogge-man made no move for them. Instead, its gaze settled on Kells, still frozen with a hand outstretched towards the corpse nailed to the pine. "Strangers...on the mountain," it continued, its voice like a saw cutting through their heads. This one did not use a human head to speak - Martimeos wondered whether it had only recently had the bogge-helm placed upon it; Maddie had said that bogge-men lost the ability to speak eventually, but perhaps this one was still...fresh, enough, to use its own tongue. "I...am trying...to savor my kill."

Kells withdrew his hand, placing it firmly on the shaft of his spear, and stepped back from the corpse.

"We have no quarrel with you," Martimeos said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. Inwardly, he was cursing. He had hoped to hide from the bogge-men, for the most part; but neither had he expected that one might try to talk to them. "What is your name?"

The bogge-man slowly turned its head to regard the wizard. "My....name? I...I am..." Its teeth chattered, clacking, above the sound of the wind. "I....cannot remember." It shivered, for a moment, as if straining against something.

"Well," Martimeos said quietly, feet crunching through the snow as he continued backing away, "Why don't we part ways in peace. We only wish to travel through these lands."

The bogge-man stood still, silent, staring at Martimeos for a long time. Martimeos took the time to reach out with the Art, to try to light the torch he was carrying. Though he had gotten better at lighting a flame while teaching Elyse, it still took considerably more effort to light a flame than to feed it. He did not think that they could truly afford to let this bogge-man live, but if they could prevent it from raising an alarm -

Before he could manage to get his torch lit, though, the bogge-man spoke again. "No," it said, sounding almost uncertain of itself for a moment. "No, I think...I would...like your heads, instead."

And then it raised its head to the slate-gray sky, and let out a howl that tore through their heads, a loud, grinding scream, more animal than human, loud enough to echo off the peaks around them. Martimeos shook his head as his vision blurred and pain lanced through his skull. The echoes of the cry had not yet faded when fresh ones could be heard, in the distance - but not that far off, shrieking peals carried over the wind. And when his vision had focused once more, he saw the bogge-man with its curved sword bearing down on him, horse-head skull a leering grin, black cloak fluttering behind it as it advanced.

Martimeos stumbled backwards in the snow, narrowly avoiding the bogge-man's blade as it hissed through the air, a strike clearly meant for his neck. There was a twang as Elyse fired her crossbow, but the bolt went wild, glancing off the bogge-man's skull helm. And then, with a shout, Kells was there with his spear, aiming the steel point in a thrust meant for the neck.

The bogge-man whirled to knock the spear aside with its sword, cloak swirling about it. A raking slash left a long scratch down the front of Kells' breastplate, but the armor was good steel, and it held, although the soldier staggered back, winded. Elyse dove out of the way as the bogge-man turned its attention to her, with a furious swing that probably would have split the small witch in two had it connected. Teeth clattering, it stalked after her as she clawed through the snow, frantically cursing.

And suddenly, the torch in Martimeos' hands roared to life, the hazy heat of the flame bursting forth with a puff of black smoke. With a shout, he held it high, feeding the fire, and an arc of orange flame leapt forth from the torch, roiling through the air. The bogge-man screeched as the blaze engulfed its head, scorching the bone black and charred. Martimeos did not let up, sending another gout of flame to engulf the bogge-man's body, crackling as it fed upon the black leathers the creature wore. And Kells, too, charged forth with his spear, ramming it home into the bogge-man's gut as it flailed wildly.

A blow like that would have probably driven a normal man through, but this bogge-man's skin had already grown thick enough that the spear was merely embedded in its stomach. It screeched again, teeth chattering, as Kells pulled his spear free, the point stained with oozing black blood. "Wizard," it hissed, voice grating, as it backed away, holding its sword up warily before it, skull helm and cloak still trailing thin wisps of smoke. The bogge-man paused for a moment, as if considering them, and then fled into the forest, melting into the shadows of the pines.

They did not have time to celebrate their victory, however. They had all heard those echoing replies to the bogge-man's screech; the returning cries had been close enough that they had no time to waste. Kells lifted Elyse to her feet, yanking her out of the snow, and then, with not even a backwards glance for the corpse still nailed to the tree, they ran.

To where, they did not know, only that they ran opposite the direction from which they had heard the cries. They tore through the forest, as fast as they could go through the snow, between the endless pines that loomed up over them in the dusklight. Martimeos soon found himself soaked with freezing sweat, despite the chill, worn down from the pack on his back. Flit soared on ahead, looking for a place that they might take shelter or hide.

He considered, as they ran, extinguishing the torch that he held. Useful as it may be against the bogge-men, it would serve as a beacon to them, a bright light peeking through the forest. But it soon became clear that their pursuers were too close for them to hide, either way. They could hear guttural voices, speaking in some cursed tongue, coming from behind them as they fled. Strange, alien speech, unknown words that seemed to drip with violence, drifting to them over the wind.

The forest seemed to be full of darkness in the fading light of day; every pine's shadow seemed dark enough to hide a bogge-man. On aching, burning legs they ran, but it was not fast enough. They could see their chasers, now, though disturbingly, it never seemed as if they actually saw the bogge-men run. No, they simply appeared, standing perfectly still, silent and dark, staring at the three from some distance away as they ran, like shadows in the forest.

Martimeos did not know how many of them there were. He counted at least three, himself. One, the horse-skulled bogge-man that they had fought by the corpse. Another had a helm made from the skull of some massive boar, complete with tusks painted with some strange, spiralling pattern. And the third had the skull of a moose, broad, flat horns decorated with crudely painted red eyes, one on each. Martimeos felt a knot of dread in his stomach as he realized this last was nearly as large as the bogge-man they had faced in Twin Lamps.

The bogge-men drew ever-closer, each time they appeared. Martimeos sent gouts of flame at them from his torch, hoping to scare them off with the Art, but it seemed that hunting in a pack put bravery into them. They did not relent, until, finally, as Martimeos, Kells and Elyse ran past a pine, the boar-skulled bogge-men stepped out from behind it, and seized Martim's arm in a vice-like grip.

Martimeos screamed in panic and pain as the bogge-man squeezed, and searing agony lanced up his arm. He dropped the torch, which immediately extinguished itself with a sizzle in the snow. His heart seized with dread as he looked up into the blazing yellow eyes in the dark sockets of the boar skull looming above him. The wind whipped the bogge-man's cloak about him, and he felt as if he was drowning in shadow.

He heard Elyse scream, and suddenly the bogge-man's boar-skull helm bloomed into flame. It did not react to this, though. It was glamour, Martimeos realized; Elyse was trying to give him the opportunity to create false flame. He tried to reach out, to feel the illusory flame's hunger, but the pain from the bogge-man's iron grip was too great; he could not concentrate. Above him, the bogge-man raised its cruel, curved sword.

Time seemed to slow down. Looking to his side, he could see Kells rushing forward with his spear, running as quickly as he could, snow flying into the air with every strike of his boot, his mouth a thin grim line. The soldeir's eyes were dark, shadowed, already full of guilt. Kells knew, Martimeos understood, that he would not make it in time. And Elyse, her eyes wide with terror, face frozen in a scream.

The bogge-man, head wreathed in flame, eyes blazing, raised its blade high, about to strike. I'm going to die, Martimeos thought to himself, and with that, an eerie, strange calm settled over him. He felt a little satisfied, at that. If he was going to die, at least he would not let the bogge-man have him die in horror.

And then, just as it was about to strike, an arrow bloomed from one of the bogge-man's eyes, and with a burst of light it went dead. It reeled back, screeching, clutching at its face, and dropped Martimeos into the snow.

Martim was stunned, for a moment, watching the bogge-man scream and claw at the arrow sticking from its eye. But he recovered quickly, and wasted no time. Despite the throbbing pain that lingered in his arm, he clapped, and poured all he could of the Art into the illusory fire burning on the bogge-man's skull. And suddenly, its head was a pillar of flame.

A certain sadistic glee filled him as he watched the creature thrash and roar, stumbling blindly among the pines. False flame wouldn't kill the bogge-man, true, but just maybe it would be driven mad from the pain before it realized the blaze wasn't real. He clapped, and clapped again, eyes flashing, until the bogge-man was nothing but a shadow in a column of roaring fire, screeching thinly, surely thinking it was dying. Even if it did not, perhaps it would at least scare the others away.

"Strangers!" he heard a voice cry, in the thick accent of the Crosscraw. The owner of the voice was a woman, wrapped about so thickly in hides and furs that it was almost impossible to tell anything about her appearance. Only the top half of her head was visible, long, wild red hair that came down in curls, tied back from her face with a leather band and whipping in the wind, and a pair of fierce green eyes. In her hands, she held a short hunting bow made of black wood, another arrow nocked in it already. She was, Martimeos realized, the one who had saved him.

She stood perched upon a boulder nearly twice as tall again as she was, and as Martimeos, Kells and Elyse watched, she released the tension on her bow. "D'ye seek safety from the ones pursuin' ye?" she shouted, over the shrill screams of the bogge-man, who still thrashed on the ground in pain, still burning with the false flame. "Then Ah suggest ye follow me!"

And with that, she leapt down from the boulder, landing deftly in the snow, and dashed into the forest, quickly disappearing into the shadows.