So, I’ve been watching a fair amount of Monty Python lately, and a line stuck in my head and bloomed into something of a little idea. It’s a fair bit outside the original context of the line, but I liked it nonetheless.
Abel stood wearily before the ragged Jackson, both bloody and bruised, and without either breaking their gaze. Abel held the bat upon his shoulder, ready to swing if he had to.
“Why can't you leave us alone?” Jackson cried at his old friend, eyes filled with anger at what he saw as a betrayal of the greatest magnitude. “What harm have we done you?”
Abel laughed derisively, a silent snarl on his lips.
“What harm? How can you stand there and ask that? You've killed a dozen people, and for what? A lunatic who's conned you into thinking he'll be your redemption?” Abel sighed before continuing. “You're a fucking fool. An absolute moron. And worse than that, you're a murderer. I can't leave you to kill more people, not while I can do anything about it.”
“You don't understand Abel, you never could. You laughed at people who found their god, mocked them for being weak-minded. Well I've not only found my god, but he's found me as well. Lawrence is our saviour. He has led us through this dark and evil world to this place.”
“He's led you into the darkness, not away from it.” Abel yelled. “You're right, I never saw the point of believing in a god who doesn't care about you, but I can tell you now, your saviour couldn't care less about what happens to you. Your death would mean nothing to him, nothing. And that's the man you want to follow? Do the lives of others mean nothing to you either?”
Jackson's eyes filled with a passion, as if the words of Abel had sparked a fire in him.
“They are heathens, sinners who must be purged from this world. Unwilling to admit their transgressions, unable to change. Why should they be allowed to live when they have taken the lives of others, and the law would see them live out long lives in prisons where their every need is cared for.
“We are the fire that will cleanse this world, just as the flood attempted to wash away the evil before. I can't let you pass, you know that.”
“And I can't let you stop me. Not now, not with so much at risk.”
“You will not get past me, you will not reach the messiah.”
Abel's eyes steeled, and a manic grin spread across his face, the words finding their way to his mouth without his help.
“Your messiah? Oh no Jackson, he's not the messiah.” Crack. The pine of the bat connected with flesh and bone as he swung it hard and fast. Jackson's jaw broke immediately, and the skin split beneath the force, the pain and power behind the swing throwing him to the ground. “He's a very naughty boy.”
Abel looked down at the prone figure now at his feet, the sound of agony filled weeping enveloping him. He bent down and picked up the knife that Jackson had kept us his sleeve, that had clattered from his hand as he fell. He stood up and walked towards the door that had been guarded, but now stood vacant and waiting for him.
He reached it, and turned the cold metal knob, feeling the mechanism move behind it, and pushed the door open onto the chamber room. It was littered with the bodies of the followers, their necks opened from side to side in a dark display of fanaticism, and in the centre of the carnage and gore, his one white robe now stained a dark crimson, stood Lawrence, a knife in his hand and a child in his grip.
After a long break, I’ve finally got something written up. It’s an idea that came to me last night, and I think I might try to flesh it out over time.
Christoph’s face matched the very stones upon which he stood, cold, hard, and unyielding. The night was dark, the sky cloudless and the moon new in its cycle; the only light came from the small hooded lantern that sat a few feet away from him atop a stone pier.
The woolen cloak stuck to his back from the rain, but the discomfort it caused only steeled his resolve further. His wide brimmed hat and cloak blended into the darkness, and if it hadn’t been for the lantern, he would have been invisible against the shadows. The rain dripped off the hat’s brim, keeping the worst of the rain from his eyes, letting him focus on the task at hand. The rage in his chest kept the cold from leeching away his heat.
His hands tightened around the dark wooden staff, stood as it was planted against the stones and upright. The feeling of the carved wood was reassuring to him, a reminder of what needed to be done, and why it had to be done.
As the darkness reached its peak Christoph began to draw in power, pulling it from the gems he’d spent his last coins on, and his last few weeks filling with any power he could spare. He fed the power into the staff, feeling the slow of magic as it filled. Like all mages Christoph had chosen a focus for his power, something to allow him to pool it before use, and his was the staff, an old and battered ebony rod that had been passed to him by his father. The carvings in the staff began to glow, at first only faintly, but soon intensifying with every moment until the ferocity of the brightness hurt his eyes. The staff was radiating heat now, as the power longed to be loosed, seeking to escape the confines of the focus. The heat came in waves, rapid and pulsing, causing the rain to evaporate from the air, and the skin on Christoph’s skin to burn.
The pain broke through the shield of fury he’d built, and he felt the excruciating agony tear through him, and felt his resolve begin to weaken. As he thought of dropping the staff and running, the sounds that had driven him to this place came back, the wailing and screaming cries of his sisters, the agony he was feeling incomparable to that pain. The sound, which may have made others crumble in pain and sorrow, served only to steel him further, his grip on the staff not wavering.
As the staff reached its limit the carved runes began to sing to Christoph, begging for release of the power it was storing. Christoph focused on the song and began to weave the power into the pattern of it, leading the magic into place. As the song reach its crescendo Christoph raised the staff, and brought it down against the stone, releasing the first wave of the spell.
“Arise and obey.” He whispered.
He raised the staff again, the sound of the last strike still echoing in the still air. He brought it down again, the resounding crack filling the night.
“Arise and obey.” He said again, louder this time.
The staff raised one final time, and as he brought it down he screamed into the night.
“Arise and obey.”
The power he’d built up in the staff released in an explosion of magic, an icy blue flare in the dark night. Christoph was thrown back from the force of the explosion, hitting against the rigged worn stone of one of the gravestones behind. His vision blurred and swam as he slipped from consciousness, blood flowing from the impact to the back of his head, the hair soaked in the scarlet liquid. In front of him the staff hovered nearly two foot above the ground, the icy blue light radiating from it. The heat that had been coming from it was now replaced with a cold that reached into Christoph’s very soul. As his vision finally faded he saw the first of the crypt slabs falling away from the wall with a muted crack as it hit the ground; out of the crypt shambled a decaying figure, the clothes rotting away with the skin, jaw hanging by the last few tendons. The blue light from the staff glinted off the still sharp swords worn on the belt of the figure, and it shuffled towards the slumped body of Christoph, kneeling before him as it reached him. Behind the figure more swordsmen and women stumbled over, joining the first in their pose.
Christoph could feel the last remnants of his power and life slipping away, the spell having taken all the energy he could muster. The warmth leeched out of him with the blood from his head wound. His breathing became ragged, filling the renewed silence following the release of the spell. In the distance he could just hear the sounds of fast approaching yelling, the noise of the approaching crowd fading as his last ounces of strength drained away from him. His final breath left him, ragged and fast, his heart stopping as it did.
He opened his opened his eyes again, his body feeling weightless, the pain from his hands and head erased, and all sensations gone. All that filled him now was the rage he’d clung to during the spell, the fuel for his actions. His mind was clear, no longer addled by the confusion and fear he had felt, but now focused on nothing else other than vengeance. Before him knelt the squad of sword masters he’d raised, ready to follow his orders without question. He smiled maliciously at the sight, and stood up before them, accepting them as his servants as they accepted him as their master.
The group he had heard as his life had slipped away were now approaching and Christoph turned to meet them. At the front of the group were a trio of battlemages, their leather armour creaking as they moved, their swords ready in their hands and glistening with their focused power.
“What’s going on here mage?” One of the three asked, a woman who appeared in her thirties and wore the scarlet crest of the king’s guard.
“Mage? You look at me, stood before a cadre of the dead, and you call me mage?” Christoph replied, the smile still on his face.
“You have the mark of the power about you, so yes, mage. Now answer me, what have you done?” Her face was a mask of confidence, however Christoph could tell she was nervous about the situation she found herself in.
“Gwendolin, I think there’s something wrong here.” One of her peers said to her.
“Apt review of the issue;” She snapped back, “we have a mage stood here with a bunch of the undead kneeling to him. I’d say something is wrong.”
“I don’t think he means the dead before me, Gwendolin. Why don’t you look a bit closer?” Christoph chuckled as he spoke, reaching out his hand towards the still floating staff and calling it to him.
“Gwen, I don’t think he’s a mage.”
“Of course he is, look at him, he even just called his focus to him. What else could he be?”
“Look at him, read his soul.” The second of the trio paused for a moment to let her do it, seeing the confusion on her face as he did. “He’s a lich.”
Christoph laughed at this, seeing the fear take over the group before him. Without a word he glanced towards the kneeling cadre, and they stood as one, turning towards the group.
“Very true; I am. He’s a smart one you’ve got there Gwen, it’s a shame what’s about to happen.”
“And what’s that, lich? There are three fully trained battlemages here, and we can cut through your dead before they even reach us.”
Christoph couldn’t help himself and nearly doubled over laughing, before straightening up and grinning sardonically. He shook his head before replying.
“No mage, you can’t. Do you know whose graves these are that now lay empty?”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” Gwen responded with more defiance than she felt.
“You don’t know?” He turned his attention to the other two mages, “How about either of you two, do you know?”
The other two were silent for a moment before the one who’d realised what Christoph now was nodded.
“Then why don’t you tell her?”
“Gwen, he’s right we won’t be able to stop them.”
“Why not?” She asked angrily.
“Those graves, the empty ones, they’re the crypts of the spellblades.”
Gwen’s face dropped in realisation. Christoph laughed again.
“That’s right mage. I raised the last of the spellblades. They’re mine now, so I’ll give you a choice. Willing to hear it?”
“What choice?”
“Stand down, release your power, and bind yourselves to me. Become my servants and I’ll let you live. Deny me and you’ll die.”
“You can’t be serious, there’s no way we’d do that.” She replied incredulously.
“I thought that would be your answer, so I’ll extend the offer to your friends here.” Christoph regarded the other two mages. “Join me or die. The choice is simple, so tell me what do you choose.”
The other two mages remained silent, the choice filling the silence as they considered it.
“Remember your oaths, you swore to protect the kingdom, you can’t just abandon all that. Our lives for the kingdom, that was the promise we made.”
“Gwen, don’t be stupid, we can’t beat him, and what use is throwing our lives away?”
“What good is it? It means we fought for the kingdom, to protect the people we promised to keep safe. If you stand with this creature then there’ll be no choice as to what I have to do.”
“I won’t fight you Gwen, but we can’t win this fight.”
“We still have to try.” She urged.
The mage stood silent for a moment, before nodding in agreement with her.
“I stand for the kingdom, and I’ll stand with you now Gwen.”
The third mage, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, sighed heavily before taking up their stance.
“Very well, you’ve made your choice, and I respect the strength you have to have made it.” Christoph told them, before turning away from them towards the spellblades who stood awaiting orders. “Kill them. Leave none alive.”
The spellblades drew their weapons, the glow of the power they’d held onto even in death blazing into life, and advanced towards the group, the scared townspeople turning to run away. The first few of the dead moved forward and engaged the battlemages, swords and magic clashing in sparks of colour. The remainder of the group broke into a run and chased down the fleeing townspeople, cutting them down as they went.
Christoph walked away towards a headstone and jumped to sit on top of it to watch the fight,
The spellblades make short work of the group that had come to investigate, and when the final body fell he slid down from the stone, and made his way to the fallen fighters. He looked at them for a moment before drawing in his power, which now seemed almost limitless to him in death. In life the power was limited to only what he could draw without killing himself, but now he’d passed that barrier, there seemed to be no end to the power he could draw. He focused the power into his staff, and released it almost immediately, filling it far quicker than he’d ever been able to before. The bodies of the battlemages lurched into movement, before standing before him, the wounds across their bodies oozing slowly as gravity worked on the blood.
“I should have said when I gave you the choice, either you serve me in life, or you die and still serve me.” He reached out and stroked the face of the body that had once been Gwendolin. “Now it’s time to resolve some unfinished business. All of you, follow me.”
So I’ve spent some time this evening typing up and working on something I wrote down about a month ago. I’ll put it below a read more. Not sure if I’ll write more on it or not, but I’m quite happy with it currently.
John knew, the moment he had awoken aching and tired, that he was a dead man walking, and it had led him into the sewers of the city, a lantern in his cold hands to light the way through the foul waters, and twisting tunnels. He had, upon his waking, found himself the subject of a manhunt by the king’s watch, and knew he needed to escape, though had no idea how it was that he had ended up like this. Far behind him he heard the voices of a number of people, all members of the watch so far as he knew, echoing through the dark and dank tunnels, accompanying the methodical pace of those on a hunt for a dangerous animal.
“Shit.” He muttered to himself quietly, “Shit. Shit. Shit.” A fear filling him as he knew his followers gained ground on him. He reached his free hand up and brushed his hair back, a trait he’d picked up somewhere along the line to calm him when he was nervous or stressed. He immediately regretted the action, having remembered where he had run, what he was surrounded by, and what his hand had touched as he had travelled. He spared a glance at the hand in the lantern light, and wished that he hadn’t, grimacing at the thought of having spread what covered it in his hair. The moment ended as the voices came back to him and he began to move forward again, trying to find his way out of the warren of sewers through which he crept.
John knew he needed to get out of the city, to leave behind those he loved, but beyond that his mind was a blank, unsure where he was would go, knowing that if he escaped the watch would send runners to the nearby settlements to warn the local guards of him. His mind was hazy on many of the details of the preceding few days, but was clear on his current goal; escape the sewers and survive the winter night.
He’d been moving through the fetid sewers for nearly an hour at this point, from his best guess as he couldn’t see any light to indicate the time, and the guards have been following him the entire way, tracking him with their best. They’d been forcing him forward with no chance of a short rest, besides the few moments when he’d stopped to decide on his next route. Luckily the city had seen its way to putting signs at the tunnels intersections for any of the city workers that were unlucky enough to be sent into the sewers, ensuring they knew where they were, mainly to avoid them coming up covered in filth in the high end areas.
After an unknown amount of time to John, his lantern began to gutter, burning through the last of the oil he’d been able to grab on his way towards the closest drains. It threatened him with darkness, causing him to begin to beg it not to fail, before ignoring his pleas, and plunging him into darkness.
“No, not now, please. I know I’m close.” He muttered to himself and the now dark lantern, before dropping it to the waters, aware that it would further give away his route. “Gods above. Just need to keep moving. Must be near the wall.”
John forced himself ever forward, the ever-approaching sounds of the watch his constant, and unwelcome, companion. He began to ran, his now empty hand against the wall, keeping him aware of when the next intersection arose, where he had to fumble to find the engraved signs, and attempt to make out the words by touch, having to stop for longer than he wanted.
“K...n...o...w..l.” he began to make out before realising where he stood “Knowles Way, about half a mile from the wall, further than I’d thought.”
Soon after the intersection the voices become more than just wordless echo, and he began to make out what was being said.
“Sir, he must be close. The trackers have found a lantern in amongst the filth, and it’s still somewhat warm.” A young voice squeaked in the sounds of a man just into manhood.
“Good, we’re closing on him. Remember, the man is dangerous, and cannot be allowed to leave the city. He is to be taken back to the apothecary for examination. There is no restriction on weapons, but attempt to apprehend him.” Another voice, older, experienced, and hardened responded.
“Gods, they’re closer than I thought. Too close. They’ll be on me any minute.”
John broke into a run, his feet splashing loudly in the waters, but he no longer cared about stealth, seeking only to escape before they caught him.
“Over there. He’s down there.” Called a third voice, followed quickly by the sound of many people running. There was shortly the glow of a lantern in the tunnel behind him, but John’s eyes had accustomed to the darkness somewhat, giving him some semblance of sight, though his luck ended there as there was still only tunnel in from of him.
“Stop and give yourself over to us Goodman.” Called the older voice. “There is no escape for you.”
John ignored the order and carried on his path, following the bend of the tunnel, whilst fear bloomed within him, almost causing him to stop and give in.
The chase continued for the next half mile, with John narrowly ahead of the guards, with an occassional thunk as the bolt from a crossbow clatter against the not far behind him. Should he find himself in front of them in an open stretch it would be a clear shot for any who were decent with the weapon, but it was his luck that the final few tunnels tended towards being curved.
Shortly after he’d heard another thunk his exit loomed ahead of him, the open mouth of the tunnel that lead into the river that ran around the city, but it was a straight of some distance, and he knew that by the time he’d reached it the guards would have eyes on him fully. As he drew close to the opening he heard the guards round the final bend, and knew they had seen him.
“Stop Goodman.” Yelled the old voice, breath fast from the chase. “My men will shoot if you don’t, and you will have no escape after that.”
John continued forward and heard the twang of the string of a crossbow, and knew it had hit him as his left shoulder was pushed forward, throwing him off balance and into the river that now lay before him. He recovered himself as he came up from the cold waters, and began to swim as hard as he could to cross, knowing that with the watch’s armor and weaponry they were unlikely to follow him. He heard a few more crossbows firing, and felt the water hit his face where they struck just a breath away from him.
Soon he found himself on the other side of the river, far enough away that in the dark he was no target for the watch. He continued onwards regardless, moving towards the forest to find a spot to stop and rest, and try to get the bolt that was lodged in his shoulder out.
“Sir, we hit him, he’ll not be going far with that injury.” Said one of the younger watchmen at the tunnel’s mouth.
“Hit him? What in the name of the Gods is that going to do to him? We needed to stop him from escaping. He’s a damn abomination and needed to be destroyed.” The guard’s captain, and owner of the older voice John had heard, retorted quietly, seething with anger. “He’s across the river, and in that forest at this time of night we won’t have a chance to find him. He’s got a lead on us, and if he has any sense will keep increasing it. You fucking moron.” The captain punched the young watchmen, his anger finding an outsource, and walked away as the young man fell backwards into the filth. “Someone get the runners out, warn the villages and towns. We need to stop him.” He ordered. “And I’m going to go tell the king that he got away from us. I can only imagine what he’s going to do to me.”
John had carried on for a couple of miles before settling himself against a large oak. He was tired and sore, but he was out of the city, and at the moment that was what was important. He inspected the bolt that protruded from his shoulder, glad of his predicament only so far as it had stopped him feeling the pain it should have caused him. The broke the head off and pulled the bolt through, seeing in the moonlight that filtered through the trees the thick, black liquid it was coated in.
Two days ago John had died somehow, his mind not letting him remember the details, and tonight he had awoken in a strange chamber filled with chalk markings and thick tallow candles. Shortly after waking a figure had come over to him and told him that the watch was coming for him, told him how to escape, and told him what he was, with a laugh. A dead man walking.
So, after a prolonged period of putting off writing, mainly because I only did it when I felt an inspiration and even then only writing a few lines at a time, I thought it was about time I got round to finding a place I could post my bits and pieces. This blog will mostly be just the little things I work on, maybe occasionally a longer, ongoing piece. If you want to comment, provide feedback, make suggestions on improvements, or just ideas I can work on, please feel free.
