The Auric Insignia (12 page)

     - And leave the others without your eyes in the sky? They need you and I fear neither of our parties will be out of harm’s way.

     Stari bit her lip, swallowing her reply as she considered Roarke’s words. Lastly, Korri was looking at Roarke, but in the place of Vaya’s understanding gaze, her eyes wanted answers. Roarke saw worry and conflicted emotions, or at least he thought he did, in the black pools that served as murky windows to her soul.

***

The master is never wrong

The horse’s panicked screams assaulted the ears before it was drowned by the snarling of the hounds, ripping their prey apart. Their madness was without restraint and their hunger felt no limit, tearing the horse into pieces. This was the second horse to succumb to the grueling pace and subsequently, the snapping jaws of the pack. Marielle had ridden them without stop on her way to Brightseed and now she had almost traveled all the way back to the swamps of Fenmyere. Traveling without stopping for food and water, or even to rest except for when she had stopped in Brightseed, she had knowingly ridden them to their death. It was of no significance to her, they were simply a means to an end, tools.

     So was she, she knew it, and it also, mattered little. The way she saw it, everybody and everything was used in a purpose, and she would rather be the sword than the wagon. The hounds that swarmed around her on her travel were also tools, blunt ones, but tools nonetheless. Like a locust swarm, they ran like a cloud of destruction through the trees, lacking focus and lacking direction. She was the commander and they the army, she was the scalpel and they the war hammer, lacking her refined skills. They all had their uses, like all tools do, a device of death in the right hands, in the hands of the master.

     Now she was on her way to another, particularly deranged instrument, the frenzy and the craze of the dogs personified, she was heading towards their true packmaster. Around her the landscape had once again changed from the thick forest of Brightwood, to the bleak trees scattered throughout the marshes to both her left and right. The smell was also there, barely had she gotten it out of her system before she now felt it attack her senses anew, like acid in the air. If the hounds was bothered by it, they gave no tell of it, ever charging on, fueled by some feral energy, and by the unending hunger. The dogs had after all traveled the same distance as the horses had, but these hounds were not some scabby mutts, lounging by their master’s fireplace, they were Racka’s own. He had bred them vicious and strong, their mentality keeping them from stopping, even if their lungs were burning and their joints were aching, lest they be seen as weak. The odd sluggish specimen was taken care of by the pack itself, destroying the decrepit link in order to keep the chain strong.

     Piercing through the barrier of sound, through the thudding of paws and hooves, came the baying of hounds approaching. Incoming on intersecting trails, snaking their way through the surrounding swampland, came a smaller group of hounds, led by two familiar shapes, Braise and Rugeux. They joined up with the main group, melding to one consistent pack, Braise and Rugeux positioning themselves on either side of Marielle, who was riding on her last horse. Even if she was traveling off the main road, and these parts could seem like a maze at times, she was not about to take any chances. She had sent out her most trusted dogs, the coal black and the tan one, to throw any possible pursuer off the scent as a final precaution.

     They were close now, she could see the small clay huts positioned throughout the vicinity, miserable servants slaving away to extract the gas that was the symbol for this wretched place, as well as retrieving the valuable minerals that lay hidden in the sludge that comprised the bottom beneath the murky water of the swamps. The stench was on her now, another plight for the workers, standing in the corrosive stew up to their waists. It gave no respite, removing all possibility of distancing oneself from the misery of the present. Going by watch posts, inhabited by guards with stern looks on their faces, Marielle turned in on the main road leading to the courtyard and to the dark keep. Drums told of their arrival and the metal gate was raised to allow their entrance. From being dead as the grave, the yard erupted in chaotic activity as the servants began the dangerous process of caging the pack inside the kennel. Marielle however, gave no time to such matters and instead made her way towards the main doors of the keep.

     It’s last few steps, spastic in nature, the horse collapsed as Marielle descended, lathered muscles contracting and its gasping mouth frothing. Its body was broken, driven past the point of recovery, it would serve as food for the dogs, a morsel for their ravenous craving. Meeting her on the steps was the old man from her last visit, though this time, he was missing a hand, showing her in with a maimed stump he had received for some slight, real or imagined.

     - If you would be so kind as to come with me , my lady.

     Not deigning the man with a response, she allowed him to guide her through well known hall ways. Different from last time however, she was not led to the dark room to wait for an audience, instead she was taken directly to the dungeons where she was told the lord would be waiting. Going down a winding staircase made out of stone, Marielle left the servant at the top of the stairs. The air grew cooler for every step she took, moisture collecting on the stone slabs under her leather boots. The stairs leveled out into a short hall way, lit by the same lamps that illuminated the rest of the keep. Tired from her journey, Marielle did not knock on the small black door at the end of the corridor, nor did she wait but instead let herself in. A draft surged through the opened door, like cold, clammy hands caressing her figure, only to continue on, up the stairs. She walked in to what looked like a natural cave, tamed to the frame of a dungeon, rather than a proper one. She was standing in a main hall of sorts, seeing smaller tunnels leading off to unknown expanses. Stalactites and stalagmites were scattered around the open area, with some of the latter ones stained in a dark burgundy by the bodies that had been thrust down upon them. Dead eyes, milky white, along with the empty eye sockets of older victims, stared off into the gloom of the cave, their decomposing bodies assuming unnatural positions upon the darkened spikes, making for a morbid scene.

     In the middle of the room, atop a natural platform, stood the lord of the keep, surrounded by a collection of people. Marielle received no signal to approach but did so anyway. As she moved closer, details in the gloom began to become visible. Situated at the tables, positioned in a rough circle around their lord, were women, the youngest no more than ten years old, and the oldest looking more in the range of eighty. All of them were totally focused on their task at hand, not even giving Marielle a fleeting glance as she came closer. In the middle stood Racka, beside a orate full length mirror and a bare mannequin. He was trying on some gloves, flexing his fingers and trying different angles in the mirror. The gloves were not of any normal make, the leather had a familiar appearance but it was not made from the normal sources like cow or pig, Marielle knew that much. Taking another look at the work the women were performing, gave Marielle the explanation she needed. They were all working with human skin, like stations they were all in different stages in the whole process, one was skinning a leg whilst another was stitching the leather that had once been a torso.

     Racka was wearing hands, hollowed out and patched pieces of several hands, making a pair of grotesque gloves. He twitched his hands, ripping a seam and tearing the delicate skin, leading to his furry paw-like hand underneath to become exposed. Like stunned, the women froze in sudden fear, not daring to move a muscle.

     - No no no, not good. This is not good!

     Like the madness was trying to escape the confines of his body, Racka jerked and twisted before he was able to subdue his lunacy.

     - Who made this?

     Terrified glances was exchanged between the women, eyes darting back and forth.

     - I said, who made this!?

     - It was me, my lord. I made it.

     The woman was of short stature, crows feet under her eyes, telling of a weary life. Everyone was quiet as Racka advanced slowly towards the woman who had answered him. He examined her as if he had not seen her before, not truly, before he turned around to once again stare at himself in the mirror.

     - Very well then.

     With silent steps and teary eyes, the women walked up to their former friend, now nothing more than material, and with sharp skinning knives, cut her throat and began to cut into her skin. She didn’t scream but instead let out a gargled gasp as she sunk to the floor, landing in a pool of her own blood. The last moments before her eyes lost their spark, they fixed on the eyes of the little girl, who instead of participating in the gruesome work, sobbed quietly, holding her dying mother’s hand.

     - My lord.

     Racka turned to face Marielle, not having acknowledged her presence until now.

     - Ah Marielle, I trust you bring better news than you did last time.

     - The mission was a success, my lord.

     - They’re dead?

     - Yes, my lord, all of them.

     Almost like a child, he turned giddy, showing his abhorrent smile.

     - Good, good, that’s good. The master will be pleased.

     The repulsive work that was continuing beside him had received no attention from Racka himself until now, when the newly orphaned girl couldn’t contain her frantic crying. The older women tried to silence her as best they could, fearing for both her life as well as for their own. But it was too late, the distressed child with tears running down her cheeks had attracted the attention of their cruel lord.

     - Leave us! And muzzle that sniveling cunt or she will be next!

     The female workers left their work as it was, on the cave floor, and rose to their feet, eager to scurry off. The little girl’s panic rose to new levels, refusing to leave what, a few minutes earlier, had been her mother, her world.

     - No! I don’t want to leave! No, let me go! No!

     The girl was pulled from the woman’s bloody corpse by the other seamstresses, and was taken, kicking and screaming, down one of the tunnels leading off from the main room.

     - Mummy! No please, I want to stay with mummy!

     Her wailing, pure sorrow and panic, bounced back the way they had gone, reaching Marielle before they got so far away that the masses of earth between them absorbed her cries.

     - So, where were we?

     Marielle didn’t like him. It wasn’t his cruelty or his wicked appearance, she couldn’t have cared less about that. It was his lack of focus. Like the blind rage of the pack distilled, he was a rabid dog. A monster on a leash, with some uses but in the end, a crude instrument. His perverted fixation with conversion, with assuming human form, was a distraction, a dilutant to the purpose he could have had.

     - They are all dead, and I set a fire before leaving. I also left a message for Roarke, should he return back through the Blackhorn pass.

     - Oh he will, the master has foretold it, and the master is never wrong.

     - Of course, my lord.

     Racka returned to his mirror, taking a half done skin torso, holding it up in front of him, judging it whilst mumbling something to himself that was too low for Marielle to hear. Marielle was left standing, waiting for some directive, an order.

     - Lord, what do we do now?

     Preoccupied with testing his second skin, Racka answered without turning away from his bizarre and haunting reflection.

     - Come closer Marielle, and I will tell you.

***

So what do we do now?

They progressed slowly, slower than Roarke would have liked. Since they had gone their separate ways in the bloodied square of Brightseed, his party had made little progress, a trio on the hunt for retribution. In comparison to the first stretch of their journey that had started on the other side of the Horned Mountains, this one was of a significantly more serious nature. He didn’t really know what he had expected, approaching the whole idea with a mindset that seemed naive, if not outright stupid, in hindsight. He supposed one should be grateful for being able to be happy when one could, the blessing of children and fools, and Roarke was no child.

     They moved through the forest, on barely visible pathways going this way and that, capable of confusing even such experienced trackers as the two Kappas he traveled with. Roarke himself was lost and had been since shortly after they had left Brightseed, now traversing through new territory. Now he was walking in woods he didn’t know, like he had done north of the mountain range, but this time in scenery that was less amazing and more on the somber side. The fact that neither Refaz or Ama offered any reprieve, lacking the jolly nature of Marel and Ippan, didn’t help with the monotony of trees upon trees either. They traveled light, Roarke had discarded his backpack along with most of the belongings inside, thinking they would slow him down even more, compared to the much faster Kappa. He had even left his axe behind, in favor of the dark spear that had been used to impale the torn head of Gumma. Roarke, having had no formal training with weapons, didn’t know how to wield a spear with any greater finesse, but still, he had felt compelled to take it. Wrapping around his skin was one of the good things to come out their otherwise miserable visit to the settlement. The Megin, as it had been named in the notes of the hidden workshop, encased him perfectly. Its light weight had already proven to be a major perk as Roarke could only have imagined how tired he would have been, had he made the journey in full mail or plate armor.

     His travel companions, were of course the embodiment of traveling light, having no other garb than their own hides, and no weapons beyond their own claws and teeth. Smelling the air and sniffing on broken branches, one of the Kappas would vanish in pursuit of a scent, only to return to suggest a change of direction, a habit that made Roarke feel like they were walking in circles. Walking where he did, feeling like he was of little use, Roarke could have sworn he had walked past the same trees several times before.

     - Didn’t you say it had had to be a large pack?

     Ama grunted and set off to test a new trail,  whilst Refaz faced Roarke.

     - Yes, yes we did.

     - Then why do I have the feeling this isn’t going so well?

     Refaz looked irritated, whether this was because of Roarke and his stupid questions, or because of the situation in general, Roarke didn’t know.

     - The ones we track are no fools, they have taken precautions. They don’t travel in any organized fashion but rather swarm through the trees with tracks going off in every direction, making it difficult to follow.

     - But they are just dogs.

     Refaz gave Roarke a look that made Roarke add to his statement.

     - No offence.

     - I highly doubt we are dealing with any normal dogs here. Dog packs rarely attack whole villages either, do they?

     Ama returned to them, shaking his head before he set off in a different direction. Roarke considered what Refaz had said and a thought came to him.

     - Are they alone, I mean, are there just dogs?

     Refaz’s face became one of confusion.

     - What do you mean?

     - I mean, could there be something else with them, or someone?

     - Hard to say, the scent has notes that I would say are human, but considering their deeds in the town, it’s probably just remnants, blood and gore, giving off those smells.

     Roarke dismissed his thought and kept on walking.

     - We will talk later, okay? Follow this path but stop at sundown if we are not back.

     Roarke couldn’t do anything other than agree, as he would be lost without them. Refaz shot off and left Roarke alone with his thoughts. He felt a tinge of uncertainty about setting off as he had done, before he reminded himself of the reasons and emotions that he had felt in that square the day before. Plista’s pleas had fallen on deaf ears, Roarke’s mind only seeing revenge, red hot and pulsing, steeling his resolve.

     They had vowed to reunite in Mark, the small settlement that was the first town one came to when one traveled south from Brightseed, along the road that eventually led to the southern cities, as far as Roarke knew. Roarke had never been there, but he knew it was a small, yet busy trade hub for merchants traveling anywhere in the northern lands, acting as a final outpost, even more so than his hometown that lay in the shadow of the mountains, so it was known, even to someone as far off and isolated as him. Plista had not been happy about it when they had parted, but short of carrying Roarke south, there was nothing he could have done to keep Roarke from going after the pack. What bothered Roarke the most however, was Korri. She had not said a word when they had left, whether this was because of anger, disappointment or something else entirely, Roarke didn’t know. If he was being honest with himself, it probably would not have changed his decision, whatever the reason was, but that didn’t mean it felt any less terrible.

     He kept walking onwards, every once in a while stopping to make sure he was still on the path. They were making their way southwest, Roarke thought, but to what end, he had no idea. He followed the trail and the sun moved in the sky until it finally started to set. Before it was too dark to see, Roarke gathered some dead leaves and twigs, which he lit with the one thing he had saved from his bag, his fire steel. Eager to keep on the hunt, Roarke reluctantly leaned against a tree, his stomach growling as he tried to get some rest. He held his spear, its black nature denying the glow of the fire, remaining as dark as the oncoming night. In many ways it was his vengeance, his purpose taking physical form, a symbol of his grim cause. A cause that Roarke himself, now that his flaming rage had turned into a subdued and slow burn, didn’t quite understand. He had seen himself as a part of humanity, and more locally, as a part of the community of Brightseed, in name and by proximity only, if at all. A notion he had prided himself on at one point in his life, but that now, after having collided with the deeds that had been done, and the lives that had been ripped away, seemed more foolish the more he thought about it, if not outright shameful.

     In its wake, rising from the ashes of past convictions, Roarke found a concern, a concern that he felt, with the new viewpoints of new allies, stretched beyond his fellow man. A foreign experience for Roarke, an experience that left him feeling exposed to the world, and for the first time since Roarke could remember, he felt okay with that.

     Snap! Roarke jumped to his feet, his spear held tightly in hand at the sound of nearby foliage rustling, telling of the arrival of someone ,or something. Roarke’s modest fire did little to illuminate the forest past the immediate orb of golden light that the fire carved out of the night. When Roarke’s eyesight failed him, he tried to listen for any sign of activity, in an attempt to alleviate his tense state but he heard nothing that helped him, failing to identify the source of the sound. Fortunately for Roarke, the suspense did not hold for long as Refaz’s familiar slender shape breached the gloom and entered into the light. Roarke exhaled and loosened the tight grip he had had around his spear, allowing blood to once more flow freely through his veins, coloring his white knuckles. Refaz saw the last remnants of the dissipating worry leaving Roarke’s face and he responded with confusion.

     - I didn’t know who or what you were.

     Refaz looked as if he reprimanded himself for the blunder, most likely brought on by exhaustion. He raised his hand to show three dead rabbits hanging limp and still from his grasp.

     - I’m sorry.

     - It’s fine, it’s just that, last time i was surprised, alone in the forest like this, I walked away from the meeting with some difficulty, and some broken ribs.

     As if his ears had been burning, a rustle told of his arrival and before Roarke could raise his weapon, Ama joined them with some dead rabbits of his own, panting from his journey.

     - Your ribs look fine to me, human.

     - No thanks to you though.

     Ama didn’t bother to continue their banter and instead turned to his brother.

     - So?

     - No luck, I’ve followed trails that end in the middle of nowhere and I’ve found some that could turn out to be the right one. Honestly though, I don’t know, I mean Roarke was following this trail as it’s the one we think most likely at the moment but in reality, we can’t be sure, can we? How did it go for you?

     Ama’s body language answered the question when his words did not. Ears standing tall and a tail that stood straight out, told Refaz and Roarke that the wolf Kappa had not been more successful in his pursuit. Letting out a low growl, Ama threw the dead critters on the ground, their limbs flailing without will, in an attempt to vent some aggression. The dead of the night overtook as the three seekers got lost in their own frustrated thoughts, until Roarke postulated a question that was simple in its construction, but that demanded a difficult answer.

     - So what do we do now?

     The query hanged in the air, its solution eluding them, like trying to catch smoke, it seemed so close but just out of reach, no matter how hard they tried. Time, also, was not on their side, for every moment that passed, their enemy moved further away, every passing hour making it less likely that the trio would find them, and in turn, their vengeance. Roarke observed the brothers, so close but so fundamentally different at the same time. Refaz who, in the warm light of the fire, looked like he was on fire, flames shrouding his shape. The red and brown hues in his coat springing to life in a vibrant blaze of color. In comparison, his brother Ama looked like the ash one got when the fire had died out and lost its energy. His bleak tones symbolizing the pain he still carried, a tender wound still fresh in his heart. Roarke looked at his hands, covered in the armor he had found, he saw the hands of a warrior in place of his own, new and untested. Minutes passed and Roarke’s question went unanswered until Roarke spoke again.

     - We keep going. What else is there?

     Trading their precious time for rest, all of them settled by the fire in order to try and get some shuteye. Roarke drifted off, looking into the fire, seeing images of horror and battle. Old faces of memory blurred together with new ones spawning from his tired imagination, mixing and twisting within the flames until his eyelids grew too heavy, and he finally entered the realm of sleep.

***