***
In the depths of the inky blackness it began: a single thud, like a drum. Then there came a pause, perhaps an instant, perhaps an eternity and then a second thump arose. The endless night was cold and vast but slowly warmth crept forth, invited in like a reluctant guest. The heat brought awareness, consciousness and a sense of being.
Her eyes flickered open, though only the irritation of the caked dust in them allowed her to discern between open and closed. The blackness around her was complete. She was overcome by an intense thirst and hunger, which ripped through her guts like a knife. Her mouth was as arid as the Pyrian dunes. She moved to explore her surroundings when in horror she realised she was trapped.
Weight pressed on her legs, a dull pain that mirrored the throb of her shoulder. The air was stale and dank, and the smell of burnt wood was all around her.
She was buried under the inn.
The hibernate spell had worked its magic. An enchantment rarely used by even the oldest druids, it slowed metabolism and functioning down to a semblance of death. Yet in this suspended state the body healed rapidly, repairing torn tissues and rent bone as industriously as ants would repair their colony.
Panic began to pulse through her as her senses returned. Marthir was entombed, probably in an air pocket, with no way out. She had no comprehension of the passage of time; she could have been here for hours or days or weeks. The panic seared one thought across her young mind: how in Nolir’s name could she get free?
The air felt abruptly thin and she began to sob in desperation. She did not want to die, not in this place. When she had been younger and visualised her end it had alternated between heroic and peaceful. In one dream she was a brave warrior, charging against insurmountable odds like a true Artorian. In the more tranquil alternate she would be lying on a bed of moss with the green haze of the woods around her. But choking on dust as the air gradually thinned? She could not imagine a more dismal end.
Tears mixed with the fine powder on her face and began to sting. Damn it, she could not die. Her life was far too bright. I burn with primordial energy, she thought, I flame like the brightest star. I am a furnace of passion and life, with too much yet to achieve, too much yet to say and with too many regrets in my short span of years.
She reached out her aura to the earth around her and with despair realised how scanty the earth force was. The place was barren; its deeper soil was leached and drained, like animals in a slaughterhouse with their flesh white and cold. Tiny tendrils wormed to the surface, enough to sustain the weeds and stunted trees that choked the city, but true nature was yet to return. If she died here would her soul permeate the ground the way it must? Or would she be trapped for eternity floating across the surface like dandelion clocks on the early spring breeze.
“It’s not fair,” she said and her throat felt as if it were cut. Goddess, she needed water or she would die of thirst before the air ran out. If I get out of this, she prayed, I will repair the torn tapestry of my past.
But how was she to manage that? She could not move and the transformation to a lion or a horse would crush her before it shifted any masonry. The answer came to her with a grip of cold dread. There was another transformation she could attempt—but it carried great danger. Was she ready for it? In the months before this mission she had practiced and honed the change, but she had only undergone the preliminary rituals, not the final. She could still recall the agony of the venom as it coursed through her shaking body. She could still remember her insides on fire as she lay exposed before the high druids, their cold eyes as impassive as the great pines that loomed above them. The taste of the warm serpent flesh was even now a rubbery memory in her mouth; the blood had run hot down her chin as she completed the Rites of Eris Fe. But the final ritual, the sealing, the joining of human and beast, was not yet performed and to transform prior to that risked losing oneself in the mind of the creature you became.
Yet what choice did she have? A guarantee of death in this dark tomb, leagues from the bosom of Nolir, versus the possibility of becoming a serpent in mind as well as body. In the end it was no choice.
Marthir focused, blocking out the pains from her legs and shoulder. She recalled the sensations of scales on her flesh. She remembered the smoothness of slithering through the leaves of the forest with her tongue flicking to catch a taste of the world. She visualised the kaleidoscope of scents, as bright in her mind as the vibrant shades of a new summer’s day as the gold of the corn meets the emerald of the hills under an azure sky.
The pressure on her legs eased as her limbs shimmered and warped. She had become the snake. The feeling of the rough stone slipping under her as she slithered across it was exquisite—like silk robes drifting from her body as she stepped into a warm bath. Her senses were magnified immensely: sight was of little use yet her sense of smell and taste guided her through the warren of crevices and cracks, the tang of fresh air tantalisingly close.
She hungered still. She hungered for fresh meat, perhaps a rodent, one that she could kill with a poison bite. She would eat it whole and enjoy the richness of its flesh melting within her gut. She hungered for a mate to seed those eggs that lay within her belly so that she may find a nest and bring forth new life. In the rear of her mind she knew there was another drive, another purpose. It was something to do with men, with friends, who unlike her had legs and arms. They were in danger. Yet if it was dangerous she would need to flee, slithering away through the dark corners of this place to seek safety for her and for the young she must yet bear.
She slowed as a pungent smell assailed her. It was the scent of burnt and decayed flesh. Was it dangerous? It would seem not, for it had been dead for a long time. She approached with caution, her tongue and nostrils evaluating the corpse. It was crushed under this mountain of rubble. A name came into her serpentine mind: Iogar. Big and stupid, not slim and smart like her.
The flow of air caressed Marthir’s scales as she slid past Iogar and she squeezed through a tiny gap following its direction. It was fresh air, imbued with a rich aroma that was moist and welcoming. The stone dust powdered her green skin as she breached the surface and emerged into the night air. Her eyes adjusted swiftly as she peered around, desperate for prey.
A dead man was next to her, half buried in the rubble. There was no flesh just dry bone. It had just rained. She drank from the puddles avidly. Now she must seek prey before making her nest.
No, Marthir thought, I must find my friends.
No, she replied, with her serpentine mind. This place is dangerous; I must find prey and then a mate.
With a supreme effort Marthir took control and battered down the instincts of the beast. In truth, a large part of her did want to flee this dead city, eat greedily and even seek the warmth of a man. But the strongest part of her consciousness knew that this saga had only just begun, and with a wrench of pain she began her change back to human.
She lay in the rubble for ten minutes, staring at the speckled sky and savouring the sensation of the night air on her tattooed skin. A patter of rain on her face reminded her of her thirst and she opened her dry mouth wide and relished the moisture as it trickled down her throat.
She rose with a groan and strode to a shattered water fountain on the perimeter of the square. It had once resembled a stone serpent, the dried up water spout being inside the snake’s open mouth. Rainwater had collected in the corner of the basin and Marthir drank slowly, mindful that quick consumption would cramp her stomach. An ebony statue of an old woman was crouched over the fountain and Marthir found herself staring at the gnarled face frozen forever at the moment of its annihilation.
Next she crept through the dark brambles that spilled from several of the ruined shops, weaving amongst the small purple flowered bushes in the square. Her deft hands sought out berries and with delight she found some sourberry, one of the few plants to bear fruit this early in the year. She picked a dozen berries carefully and, steeling herself, slowly munched them. Their piquant
taste made her shudder.
She returned to the ruins of the inn to contemplate her next move, easing past the toppled statues that littered the square. A dead knight lay partly crushed by the rubble. Marthir bent and pulled off his helmet, on a whim. His head was now a grinning skull, its yellow bone pock-marked from acid.
She held up the helmet, turning it in the light drizzle as the red and silver moonlight struggled to illuminate the square before her. The workmanship was excellent; subtle curves and seamless joins. The faceplate was carved into a demonic image, breached only by two eye holes and a mouth slit. She had heard the flesh of the knights was bound to the metal. It was impossible to know for certain. When the knights died the armour was rigged to release acid that seared off their flesh leaving naught but bones inside the metal suits.
“Who are you strange warriors?” Marthir asked, thinking aloud. “You come from the darkest reaches of these wastes, for years only ever seen in passing or skulking around the peaks of the mountains. And now you plan something—but what? You ally with the undead and with sorcerers. You keep slaves to drive your abomination of a machine. Your armour and weapons are rigged with devices unlike any I have ever seen.”
As if to prove her point Marthir pressed her toes into the vambrace of the corpse’s armour. At the sound of a subtle click she pulled back her foot as four curved blades sprang from the metal.
She returned to her discussion with the knight’s helm.
“So, my vacant enemy, share your eternal wisdom with me. Every instinct tells me to slip from this dead place and return to Artoria proper. I have to report back to the Druid council—for it was they who sent me on this insane mission. Surely that is my real priority, at least according to that rarely tapped sensible part of my Artorian brain!
“But as I slid past you from this devastated drinking den I caught some scents. Faint, nearly washed clean from the stones, but none the less they still linger. They have my friends: Ygris, Ograk and dear Kervin. Each to a man would scream to leave them be. Well, Ygris wouldn’t, he’d say rescue me you lazy trollop of the trees. But the others… well, you get my point.
“But they are here because of me and the rewards promised them from the druids in the south. Well Ebfir and Iogar got their reward and then some. It’s down to me. What will your comrades do to the lads? Slavery? Sacrifice? Or something worse at the grave-tainted hands of that ghast? If I go now to the south it’s under the pretense of duty, a justification that will prove hollow when I lay safe in my cot under the mighty eaves of the Great Forest.”
Marthir stood and let the helmet drop to the ground; its clatter rang sharply in the night air. Her hair was soaked with the rain, but retained its natural spikiness. It ran in cooling rivulets down her skin. Damn this place, it had weakened her resolve and allowed despair to dent her confidence. Her friends needed her in all her untamed prowess. If they still lived she would rescue them and then flee into the mountains. At least there tracking them would be a challenge and the dark knights would be far fewer than on the two roads that ran from Erturia to the other parts of Artoria.
The lion’s courage pumped through her with every heartbeat and she let out a low snarl into the drizzle. This mission was far from over.