View Full Version : The Grimm Price of Freedom
(Solo)
Tall and ominous was the clock tower as its gears and clockwork guts rumbled and whirred while the bell that sat atop the tower began to clang with such a din that everybody within the town square heard its solemn call as it struck noon. Hanging hesitantly in the air, the sun shed its forenoon, pulpy flesh for a bright glare that caused the smoggy depths of the city to dissipate and the banishment of darkness as black as pitch that slunk into every nook and cranny of the city. Staring at the crooked, bricked building, a tall, lanky man regarded the clock face with a look of mixed anxiety. Dressed in a green linen duster that hanged to his ankles and a crumpled fedora that sat atop his unkempt black mane, the man was almost akin to a hat rack.
"Can we go now, Papa? To the iced cream store?" a voice asked as a small tug caused the man to look down at his son who stood aside him. Dressed in coveralls and jean jacket to match, the boy who was barely four at the time held onto his flat cap as a fresh breeze threatened to snatch it away.
"Hm," the man said as the gears turned and whizzed within his supple mind, "Perhaps. Gotta get to the station and catch the train before half past one, though," he answered as he watched his son hop up and down and cheer, "Easy now, Noah. Don't tell your mother I'm buying you sweets before Jól or she'll kill me."
Stopping mid-motion as his father's hand rested upon his tiny shoulder, the boy's golden, honey-dew bangs wafted into the air as another fair wind blew into the square. Fibonacci could see the glazed look in his son's eyes as his child-like imagination worked overtime to process the information that had just been given to him. Pulling his jacket collar over his neck, the storyteller nodded across the street and stuffed his hands into his pockets and began to walk, his son following after him.
Viktor should've been here days ago, the storyteller thought as he grabbed Noah's hand before they entered the ebb and flow of the busybody city. Pagans by nature, Fibonacci and his family celebrated Jól every year and it was unlike his eldest son to forsake them on such an occasion. The holiday was a favorite among his children, especially since the prospect of gifts and other such things caused them to scoff at their neighbors who were strictly worshippers of the Thayne. Either way, there was only a week before it would come to pass, and they had a long way to travel if they were going to be able to get back to Radasanth in time and trying to track down his eldest while catering for Noah was going to be a problem in itself.
Women dressed in bonnets and petticoats and long, bell-shaped skirts stuck their noses disdainfully in the air at the sight of Fibonacci and his son who stuck out like a sore thumb in the salvic province of Römingüld. Men bearing canes, stove-topped hats and bowlers wore thick, woolen coats and regarded the pair with glares of contempt as they watched them pass them by. The storyteller snorted at the prospect of becoming like those types, the rich some had put it. To Fibonacci they were just snobby bastards too set in their ways to accept anything different from their own stock. But, that was Römingüld and all the other salvic states that were connected to the outside world.
Their fellow countrymen were savages, and the people of this city had evolved and pulled up the ladder behind them as the slave trade that hit the city forced them to grow lazy and ungrateful with their rise from the primordial muck. It wouldn't be too long before this city too was overcome that they'd eventually be plagued with the impossible choice of progress over compassion. Slowly the storyteller's thoughts drifted back to Viktor, and began to drown out the loud clamor of footsteps upon the cobbled road. Looking from the stands of merchants peddling their wares to the stove-tops belching greasy smog atop roofs of bricked buildings, he was left to wonder why his son had chosen to meet at a place like this. Where is he? Fibonacci wondered. Viktor had always been the orderly type, which was probably why he was a soldier in the salvarian army and lived his life in such a fashion that his father could barely believed he had raised such a totalitarian.
There had to be a reason why he hadn't shown up at the rendezvous. There had to be. If it was one thing Fibonacci knew about Viktor, it was that his Achille's heel was narrowed down to booze, women, and the thought of his mother's sadness. He'll show up, the father thought, Or Daliya is going to break his legs, whichever comes first. Stopping at a shop with green lettering stenciled into the windows as 'Sarig's Family Iced Cream Parlor', Fibonacci was almost knocked aside as his son made a bee-line for the door and wrenched it open. Winded, the man looked up and watched Noah stumble inside and shook his head with a lopsided grin as he followed after him.
The clang of the bell atop the door followed after the storyteller as he scratched his thick, black beard and regarded the shopkeeper with a nod. The shop was as alien to Salvar as the city of Römingüld had been to Fibonacci. Looking to be straight out of a 50s motion picture, the parlor had everything. Red leather stools bolted to lime green marble floors, paned glass where buckets upon shiny steel buckets of flavored cream where displayed behind it. Everything from chocolate to raspberry twirl sat behind the glass, and it was a wonder how a town such as this would allow a shop to exist that defied its rigid code of conduct and betrayed it with fancy bells and whistles of new technology reminiscent of Corone. It was a friendly reminder of home, and it was all Fibonacci needed to remember why he took Noah here to meet Viktor in the first place.
Hearing the door close behind him, the storyteller watched soda jerks hard at work as they filled cups full of their tonic that was usually sold at pharmacies. Groups of co-workers looking to be just out of their teenage years attended a throng of children and whimsical parents that stood on the far side of the shop. Walking over to the elderly, bald cashier who had a tri-tipped paper hat atop his head, Fibonacci gave him a nod as he watched Noah stand on his tip toes and pressed his face against the glass containing the iced cream, "Howdy there," he said in salvic.
"Noon," the cashier who also bore a handlebar mustache responded in eloquent salvarian with a soft smile, "What can I get you two today?" He continued as he nodded to the stenciled menu that sat on the wall behind the counter.
Leaning on the counter, Fibonacci peered at the distinct flavors and was interrupted by his son who cried, "I want that!"
Hearing the shopkeeper give a soft, hearty chuckle, the father leaned back to look at where his son stood frozen and pointed to a mountain of chocolate cream dimpled with almonds that bore the name 'Rocky Road' in the familiar stenciled lettering across the shiny steel container. Turning back to the cashier, Fibonacci pulled out a bag of coins and whistled at the price, "Okay. Uh.. He'll have a small scoop of rocky road and I'll take a medium glass of.. what is that.. strawberry fizz? Alright, lets give that a whirl."
The shopkeeper punched the numbers into the strange contraption known as a register that sat to the side and listened to it clang before he smiled, "That'll be twelve silver pieces, partner."
Gingerly dipping the bag onto his hand, Fibonacci watched carefully as twelve round, silvery pieces tumbled forth. Handing them to the cashier, the storyteller walked over to his son and listened to the cashier call to his employees over the sound of the familiar bell ringing at the door. Picking up Noah to sit him on the stool, Fibonacci turned to see the brawny, stocky individual that was Viktor enter the doorway. He was dressed in a brown leather jacket and jeans with a patch of white linen fringing at the corners of his neck indicating an injury. The soldier with short, curly brown hair like his mother's walked inside with a duffle bag hanging across his shoulders, "Hey, Pop."
Fibonacci barely had time to greet him before he felt Noah wriggle out of his grasp and fall to the floor as he stumbled and threw himself at his older brother, "Hi Vik!" he cried.
"Hey," the storyteller's son said as he ruffled his little brother's hair and smiled, "You're getting awfully tall there, pal. What has mom been feeding ya'?"
Hearing Noah laugh broke Fibonacci's stern expression as Viktor looked up at him, "Where the Helluva you been, Vik? Thought you got into a fight or somethin'."
"Two," the soldier corrected as he unzipped his jacket and withdrew an injured arm swaying in a sling across his neck, "Had to get patched up before I got here."
Concern drew upon the father's face as he turned to see a cup of iced cream and a glass of fizzing, pinkish soda awaiting him. Picking them up, the storyteller nodded to the booth as he handed it to a spunky Noah and walked with his eldest son, "What happened," he muttered.
Sitting upon the soft leather seat beside Noah who tried to shovel the entirety of the ice cream into his mouth, "Slow down, you're gonna choke," Fibonacci chided his youngest who immediately ceased at the command. Turning his gaze to the store front, the father watched Viktor heft the duffle bag into the seat and sit down in front of him. Looking from either son, the peddler raised an eyebrow and splayed his hands," Well?"
Letting out a deep breath the son looked at the table and shook his head, "Pa, you're never going to believe this."
"What?" Noah answered for his father as he looked up at them.
"Pop, I met Saxon," Viktor whispered with an air of finality as he looked to his brother and father with calm green eyes. It had been long since made taboo by Daliya to mention Saxon's name within the household, and every member of the family took it to heart, especially Viktor. As far as skeptics went, Fibonacci's eldest son could've written a book on it, for the peddler could remember fighting for hours, maybe even days with Viktor and Daliya about the legitimacy of his claims. But this had been a special occasion. Nobody Fibonacci knew firsthand had ever met Saxon face to face, not even Fibonacci himself, and it left him speechless. Could it really be true? Could his dark obsession finally be catching up to him through his family?
Sitting there in the iced cream parlor, unable to hear the sound of the commotion of the shop behind him over his racing heartbeat, Fibonacci stared at his son blankly who immediately began to recount the entire incident as Saxon's memories began to flood the storyteller's mind. Mixing and muddling his son's words, the memories coalesced and slowly but surely the peddler was pulled once again into the mind of an eldritch.
~*~
Upon the ravaged maw of Sulgoran's Axe, a frigid timberland sank into darkness as night closed its jaws and swallowed the entire landscape whole until the last inkling of vague, lavender twilight was snuffed out. The frozen, wild reaches of the Makavaal woodland had laid quiet and dormant in Salvar's icy heart for centuries until the first of its native settlers had trekked over the rows of daunting stalwart mountains not unlike the giant's fingers and attempted to tame the untamable forest. Nobody knows how long the settlers truly remained within Makavaal, but even children to this day can recall the bloody exodus that had caused the hardy pioneers to vanish from their broken homes.
It had been passed down for ages afterwards on the accounts of why or how the fledgling colony collapsed, but the most brilliant of scholars and foolhardy adventurers had to agree that the twisted, enigmatic tangle of wiry trees and strange beings that had populated Makavaal must have fought back to reclaim their home. There was no other explanation for it. It wasn't the gruff, stout mountain bears that had pillaged and dragged an entire village of one-hundred and seventy-three people to their doom. It wasn't the wolves that had sullied the meandering thickets nicknamed 'The Killing Fields' that bled into the mountains. It wasn't the noble bird or the cunning cougar that had caused hundreds, possibly thousands of people to disappear in a single night. But if no animal had undertaken this pitiful and horrible slaughter, then what could it have been?
Nobody knew.
Even if the barbaric nomads had raided the villages surrounding the wood, they frequently swore on their honor that they would never dare to travel into what they called they had called the Root of Evil, and never have crossed its borders in many a century. The untamable forest, most experts agreed, had swallowed the invaders whole until finally the world steeled itself against the unknown had taken Makavaal off its maps and forgotten it for the better half of a millennia. It would remain that way with the sinister timberland devouring unsuspecting travelers, maybe even a cavalry or two until Makavaal's mythos itself began to fade from memory.
It hadn't been until lone, burly figures swathed in furs were spotted lumbering around the only known entrance of Makavaal, dubbed the 'Devil's Mouth', that a nearby village, almost seven leagues away from the wood, began to get curious. It began to send envoys or hunting parties in numbers no less than a score to investigate the strange anomaly, and those that dared to cross the border into the wicked, sinister forest were never heard from again. Almost sixty-seven people had sealed their fate until finally the village elders had rallied the townsfolk together and bolstered their ranks with the aid of a half dozen other villages dotting the area to march into the cursed timberland and find out what dwelled there once and for all.
At this point in the story, Saxon had drunk himself into a stupor and had forgotten the rest of the account by a crazed hermit who had participated in the fateful expedition. After all, what had it mattered? A forest out in the middle of nowhere that ate people trying to encroach upon in? Screw them, he had first thought. It sounded more and more like that of a god's ploy to bolster common sense within Althanas or a practical joke to the eldritch than a serious, unrelenting problem. There was no way, not one iota of a chance that the weird would make a trek into the unforgiving cold to go spelunking into a timberland with a taste for human flesh.
Yet something bugged him. It wasn't right, the weird pondered. No, there was no need for hundreds of people to be sent to their doom without a reason. Something was in Makavaal and it had infinite patience to wait for its next meal.
Years had passed since Saxon heard the tale, and for the most part he had forgotten it until one day an entrepreneur by the name of Tervald had sought the weird out and piqued his insatiable curiosity. A brigade of salvic foot soldiers that had been dispatched to find missing prospectors had been wiped out by some sort of an unspeakable horror. But the promise of crushing the skulls of monsters wasn't enough to gain the eldritch's attention. It was the fact that a single survivor, for the first time in history, had managed to escape and live to tell the tale that brought the eldritch running.
"Perhaps Makavaal is losing its touch," Saxon chided from across the table from a stout, shadowy figure who seemed more interested in his cigar than the lives of thirteen individuals he had singlehandedly sent to their deaths.
"Pish-Posh," Tervald had blubbered from over his cigar as he sat back on the table, "Whatever the case. I have stockholders banging down my door and demanding that I give my excavators the go-ahead to strip-mine the fuggin' place, threatening to pull out and leave me holding a rather expensive meal ticket."
"And?" Saxon had said as he raised a small shot glass of whiskey to his dried lips, "How does this reflect on me? I'm no titan. No God. I can't break a curse that is older than the Salvar people themselves!"
Tervald leaned in under the lamplight, his chair squeaking in protest, as his face twisted into a toad-like sneer, "I know of you, eldritch. And what powers you possess. You’re what folks in some higher, more secretive circles call a good luck charm. And with the ability to command darkness itself, I don't see any loss here."
Having downed the glass as he spoke, the weird slammed the crystal onto the tabletop and glowered at the man, "Yeah, and what about that guy you managed to pull out? Whatever happened to him?"
Saxon could tell from the unsteady silence that the tycoon was glowering at him. It took a couple of long, treacherous moments before he spoke, "Don't worry about that fella, we fixed him up real nice. Has a house on the Moore last time I checked. But this isn't why I called you here. I want my men back, boy. This isn't the first time the forest has taken something of mine. And I'm not willing to stake a claim and millions on blighted ground. Bad luck ya' might say, but I think all this hocus pocus is bad for business. Any way I can get a hold of this land, I will gladly pay the price. Y'hear me?"
Saxon simply stared at him as he sat his glass down, "You have no idea how high some prices are to pay, old man. My question is this; if I were to do this for you, perhaps as a favor, how far are you willing to take this? To the edge? To the brink? I work for those that see their means to end, Mister Tervald. You don't strike me as the type that has what it takes to vanquish something this ancient.. this.. Evil," he said.
Tervald raised an eyebrow and a reddish hue flushed his cheeks as he sank back into the darkness and began to prattle his fingertips against the tabletops, his face was cast in shadows as he nodded slowly, "Boy, I'll tell you what I, Chuck Tervald, will do. I eat gold and shit out treasure hoards. I command an army of lumberjacks and miners under my complete control, every man awaiting my orders in camps dotting around Makavaal. But I see you're a man that likes results, Saxon. So here's what I'm gonna do," he said as the eldritch watched him ruffle with his pockets under the dull light and pulled forth a pen and a leather-covered pocket book, what some might consider to be the tycoon's mightiest weapon. Pulling the cap of the fountain pen off with his teeth and flipping the booklet open, the entrepreneur leaned in until Saxon was sure he could smell the scent of rancid tabacco on his breath, "I'm gonna write a number on here and I'm gonna pass it over to you. You tell me if it’s fair."
Pouring himself another glass of whiskey, Saxon watched as Tervald secretly began to scratch out a ridiculous number and flipped the paper over before sliding it over to the weird's side of the table. Sipping down the hot, fiery beverage, Saxon flipped the paper over and held it under the lamplight and instinctively spat whatever was in his mouth out as he began to sputter and cough uncontrollably, "I take that as a yes," Tervald said as he chuckled to the swaying shadows of his men.
"You don't have the money to cover this," Saxon rasped as he tried to regain control of his lungs, "This amount of money would ruin anybody! I don't even think the entire nation of Corone has this kind of dough to hand out!"
Tervald began to tug on his thick, black mustache in an act of quiet victory as he smiled at his potential employee, "I don't pay you to think, boy. That is spitting in a bucket compared to the money I will make should I be able to successfully claim Makavaal. The land there is ripe for excavation and one of the last untapped veins of certain metals that their properties are so magnificent that they cost a fortune on the market. So what do you say, will you help me and my company here doze a cursed forest or will you sit there on your ass?"
Recovering his bravado in more ways than one, Saxon stood up as he stuffed the paper into his breast pocket, "I'll be in touch, Mister Tervald," and before the mining and lumber tycoon could respond, the eldritch had disappeared into the all-consuming darkness.
It had been the last time Tervald and the weird spoke in person, and another four weeks had passed until the eldritch had appeared within the twisted, sinister Killing Fields, the entire scene playing over and over again in his mind. There had been more than one reason to take such a humongous pay stub, and in Saxon's mind, his wishes were far more altruistic than anybody could ever have imagined. Clothed in the thickest of mammoth furs and armed with ingredients to several rituals and an axe of a woodsman, the weird still felt himself unprepared as he crossed into the reaches of the timberland.
A sudden chill swept over him, and in the darkness Saxon heard the rustling and growl as the stench of evil filled his nostrils when he crossed the border. Hearing the sound of humongous, groundbreaking footsteps echoing closer and closer to him Saxon felt dwarfed. It was the first time he had actually considered his mortality with this job, and he watched as rows of moving shadows, even the trees began to get closer as he walked forward. Watching Makavaal set its sights on him, Saxon clenched his jaw and paused for a moment before pressing onward.
Hours had passed since the weird had first entered the forest, and already he could tell he was lost. Having a keen sense of direction and having worked as a navigator aboard a ship before, Saxon was no stranger to being trapped and at the mercy of the forces of Nature, but he knew without a shadow of doubt that there was more to it than just 'being lost'. It was part of the game the forest liked to play with its victims, he had realized. There was hardly a better way to weaken its prey than to leave him open to the elements than to have him wander for hours, maybe even days before it sank its teeth into him.
Whatever those teeth may be, however, was still a question Saxon couldn't answer. Salvar was too large, and too harsh to catalog every living thing that dwelled within its frosty reach, but he suspected that it was going to be big. Really big. And there was probably a good chance it had a taste for flesh as far as the eldritch was concerned.
I've gotta find a river, the weird finally decided, Only way I'm going to be able to get back on track is to find one and follow it out. The trees may have been able to fool him by uprooting themselves and changing his course, but the eldritch would've liked very much to see the forest to pull the same trick with a river bed.
"If it can manage that, I'll eat my hat," Saxon thought aloud as he continued to skulk about the overgrown path laid before him. Twisted vines and brush sat high above the weird's head on either side of the winding path. It made it almost impossible to discern or tell what direction a traveler went, and the thick canopy overhead of leafy trees, and dark, twisted fauna gave the ambience that the forest was always blanketed in darkness.
For any normal man, that would've been a problem, but the fedora atop his head, Aamlarj, gave Saxon the keen ability to see in the dark as needed. Everything seemed to be set in a soft afternoon light, making it easier to see and far easier to see something coming. That was if he didn't hear it first.
The forest thrived with so much plant life, that the overgrown tendrils of vines and roots buried under a hearty layer of snow made hearing someone coming mere child's play. The forest could play its games with the weird all it liked, but eventually he'd find what he was looking for and then finally the tables would turn. Patting the burlap satchel that rested on his hip, Saxon gave a soft smile and knew that he too had a few tricks and traps in store for this overgrown enigma called Makavaal.
The rushing torrent of frigid, unforgiving water that belonged to that of a river met Saxon's ears as he continued to move down the path in the wilderness, sensing it could easily have been three or four hours since he had first walked into the timberland itself. Hearing the soft crunch of snow under his booted feet, the weird moved faster in the direction of that precious sound of Salvar's lifeblood coursing through its veins.
The forest must have gotten tired of toying with me, the eldritch thought skeptically as he saw a clearing in the distance. Branches and weeds bent around the clearing like that of a pair of columns trying to support the overhanging mass above it. Frosted mounds of sheer ice sat piled against the natural columns, and the mirror-like surfaces reflected waves of soft light that indicated there was water nearby. The combination of vines and weeds twisting and absorbing the snow and ice gave an eerie take of the neverending struggle between life and death, almost as if Makavaal itself was eternal against the onslaught of the tundra's harshest of climates.
Forsaking the metaphors and throwing caution to the winds, the weird continued to walk faster and faster towards the clearing until he broke into a run, as if he feared the forest would snatch the opportunity to put water in his gullet and torture him further. Saxon held his breath as he saw the soft light dancing in the distance, luring him and taunting him with the promise of nourishment if he would just move a little bit faster. Pushing himself forward against the enormous weight of the cloak of mammoth fur and the handle of the woodsman's axe, the eldritch passed the threshold and stopped dead to what awaited him.
The sound of rushing water had held true, with a wide treacherous river coursing between the weird and the forest beyond. The sheer beauty and marvelous look of icy froth lapping against the frosted ridges and the large trees that bent over it and spiraled amongst each other forgetting the starry sky overhead weren't enough to astound Saxon with the path he had taken. Not even the reflection of moonlight as the round, pallid orb hung lazily over the wide gap the canopy had created seemed to daunt him.
No, that wasn't it at all.
Sitting before him against the current of the river, an unnatural raft made of timber and driftwood had been laced together, anchored to the other side by thick hemp rope that served as its only lifeline. Every instinct the weird had told him that there was more than met the eye, and for the moment he confided in them. Standing upon the rocky path that sat before him, Saxon watched the river hypnotically as he reached for his satchel and threw it open.
Without looking, the eldritch dug and sifted through the clink of glass and the smell of exotic herbs, and the coiled form of Syvriak until his fingers found what he had sought. Carefully bringing it to the surface, he held the bag and finally looked down as he pulled the water skin free, his smoldering blue eyes fixed upon it hungrily. Setting the axe aside, Saxon plucked the cork from the top, and he quickly brought it to his dry, cracked lips and tipped his head back expecting the cold bite of icy waters to sate his thirst.
But it was empty, the skin having been gorged upon in the last few hours that had made the weird feel the temporary touch of guilt and the burdens his mortal form demanded of him. No matter, he thought as he attempted to assuage his injured pride, A river's a river.
Reaching absent mindedly for his axe, the eldritch felt it firm in his grip and moved slowly forward, his suspicion screaming at him not to approach the river at any cost, the eldritch held the cork and water skin in his other hand as he made his way down the path. The sound of the coursing river grew louder and louder as he approached, as if Nature itself roared with pride.
Making it to the edge of the river, Saxon fell cautiously to his knees and felt the axe slip from his grip and clatter noisily to the ground. But he didn't care. The allure of water was too much for the weird to resist as he bent forward towards the glossy, dark blue surface that was the river and slowly brought the skin to the water until he noticed what was looking up at him.
The dark, perpetual gaze of those two orbs of wavy black sent a chill through the eldritch's spine as he considered what he was looking at it. Moving further away from the water, he felt his eyes locked upon the human skull that sat beneath the waves. Who knew how many bodies lay scattered about this river, much less whom or what had put them there.
It stood to reason that any remains dumped into a river like this would be carried off by the current and out of the accursed forest forever. But if it was still here; that could've only meant one thing. It caused Saxon to get gooseflesh as he whispered, "They're fresh."
Snapping out of whatever hex or spell the river had cast upon him, the eldritch bent over again and scooped the water skin through the dark, indigo waves until his entire hand up to his wrist was numb and wet. With the current going down stream and the constant supply of fresh water, there was no reason to squander the opportunity. Whatever remains there were would be washed away eventually, and with it whatever torment they had experienced at the hands of this sinister place.
Wedging the axe in the ground to help him to his feet, Saxon held the water skin aloft before putting it to his lips again. Taking a quick swig before smacking his lips, he shoved the cork into it and looked back across the river, "Not bad, not bad at all," he muttered.
Placing it back into the satchel, the weird looked towards the rickety raft that sat at the edge and then back over the course of the dark river and into the beyond. There was no other way across, and that fact had become apparent. But as he turned and gazed back whence he came, the eldritch knew the course of action he was going to take.
Better to go in a direction he knew the forest couldn't meddle with than to get lost again within its tangled grip. Hefting the handle of the axe, Saxon began to remember the reason he had brought it here. Legend had it that only woodsmen and lumberjacks were able to master the trials and tribulations of Nature. In fact, the trailblazers were so keen upon becoming one with Nature that they had fervently believed that with each blow of their axe upon the trunk of a tree, their fiercest rival would spill its earthy wisdom into the axe head.
Not that Saxon had believed much of it, but from where he stood, he needed all the help he could get. Squaring his shoulders, the eldritch prepared for the work ahead as he steeled his jaw. Stepping toward the raft, the weird felt his steps growing heavier and heavier as if his body felt something he didn't. Stopping, the weird took a deep breath at the bobbing raft that sat aloft the river and took his first step aboard, half-expecting something to go drastically wrong. But nothing did.
Pulling himself further onto the raft, Saxon bent over to set the satchel onto the middle of the floating mass. Knowing what he was about to do, he stood and hefted the axe again in both hands before turning back whence he came and held his breath as he lifted the weapon high in the air and swung downwards, the silvery reflection of moonlight against the steel of the tool all too surreal, as it hit the hemp rope and splintered it into threads.
The eldritch stumbled as the raft lurched forward beneath him, as if it could sense it's impending freedom, and with one last swing the axe came down and the last lifeline between the landscape and the open river was severed. Bumping over the waves, Saxon held his arms aloft as he tried to maintain balance and moved towards the center of the raft where it was the most steady.
As he had guessed, Saxon watched the raft slug stubbornly along at an unnatural pace against the current, showing that there was more at work than at first glance. Slowly setting his eyes back whence he came for the last time, Saxon watched himself bob further and further away from the safety of land.
Feeling the wrath of the rushing river as it thrashed, tugged, and pulled upon the small raft, Saxon counted himself lucky that he only needed to cross the river to abandon the rickety driftwood vessel, for it seemed that at any moment it could fall apart from underfoot. The very thought of plunging to his icy doom caused the eldritch to cringe as he leaned upon his axe and stared pensively at the path that sat just a stone's throw away. It didn't take long, however, before Saxon heard the sound of din above the rolling waves that caused him to look out into the dark reaches of the river. It took a few moments before the weird set his sights upon the humongous shadow beneath the glassy surface that seemed to be gliding towards him.
Faster and faster it came until it was only a few yards away, and it was only then that the eldritch knew he was too far from the safety of land to escape it. Hearing the splash of waves as it moved closer and closer to the surface, the weird heard his own voice as he muttered, "Oh, crap."
Realizing it'd be upon him in seconds, Saxon kept his eyes fixed upon the menacing shadow as he rushed into action. Hefting his axe into the air, the eldritch stifled a breath as his mind reached out and brushed against the cold, omnipotent presence of darkness. It was far different from anything he had ever experienced. The shadows were old, far older than anything the weird could think of and it seemed as if the primeval force had been tethered to that of Makavaal and had not yet been ushered into the realm of Tsep.
Focusing his will upon his charge, Saxon felt the darkness shy away from him, unable to comprehend this new force that willed it into submission. The weird would have to explore the possibilities of this later, but for now he felt himself powerless. He hadn't the time or the state of mind to command something that hadn't been tamed by his predecessor before him.
Black panic gripped the weird as he quickly forgot about his helplessness and concentrated upon his impending doom that rushed towards him, unable to comprehend what it could possibly be. Turning his back upon it, Saxon kneeled and tore open his satchel, examining its contents for something that could be of possible use. Turning his sights upon his destination, what was once yards away became miles. He couldn't swim to safety, and he knew once this thing pulled him under there'd be little he could do before he was killed.
Saxon scarcely had time to make a grab for his axe when he heard the unearthly roar of the creature that jarred him at his roots. An uneasy pause stumbled before the eldritch as he relaxed his grip on his axe when seconds later, his mind failed to comprehend the shower of splinters and icy foam washing over him as he tumbled from the pulverized craft and plunged into the icy deep.
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