The moon had risen by the time the Lars and Dalmar had garnered enough stray bits of wood and timber to begin the evening's fire. Dalmar bent down on the rocky, flat precipice in the shadows of the crumbling spire and piled bits of thin wood atop a dry patch of moss. With a few quick strikes of flint, the moss began to glow and soon smoke. Dalmar bent down close to the embers as Lars watched in anticipation, his companion blowing softly into the dead limbs until a flame erupted softly illuminating the immediate area. Dalmar sat up straight and smiled at his handiwork, turning to Lars' rosy face in the growing firelight. "Aye, now, let's see what we can find." Lars said finally as he turned his attention to the other side of the open area of crumbling stone where the straggling vines and forest reached into the scene from above.
Before them stood the weathered mountain covered with a thin layer of green and black earth. Dalmar peered upwards at the strange column of stone with the jagged top where the chunks of stones about his person once sat majestically to the world. Lars had crossed to the remains of the large stone door, broken and now made more of rubble than a defined structure, and studied the stony edges of the opening. The opening in the mountain bore the belly of the forgotten monastery, Monmüth, to the night's air. Dalmar stood, pulling a burning limb from the now-roaring fire and crossed to the opposite side of the stony clearing and peered down into the forest below at the bottom the south slope. The light of the flame flickered upon the eerie branches of the trees, casting strange shadows into the undergrowth several meters below him. Then, as the light of the makeshift torch moved back and forth with the mild breeze, Dalmar's eyes caught the glint of a piece of metal several steps below. Dalmar hiked his leg over the rising stone that marked the edge of the landing and pulled his other leg over as his body shifted to support itself on the bare ground below the crumbling Monmüth's outcropping. "Lars, over here." Dalmar called to his friend. Lars turned his attention away from the opening into the ruins, crossed the area, and rested his hands on the remains of the wall as he peered down at Dalmar as he skirted the mountainside.
"Careful, Dalmar...." Lars rang down the slope to his friend. "It's a long way back to Altendon." Dalmar cautiously moved his feet over the soft ground until he stood above the now-apparent forgotten sword stuck into the ground half way up its rusted blade.
"It's a sword!" Dalmar hollered back up to his friend as he scanned the immediate area. But as Dalmar bent down and grasped the hilt, Lars voice quickly snapped back at him.
"Wait, Dalmar! Don't pull it out. Let me look at it first!" Lars quickly hopped onto the remains of the wall, and rolled his body to the other side. Within moments, Lars was standing in front of Dalmar staring at the old blade buried in the earth at their feet. "If there be goblins in these parts, this could be a trap. They are fond of such things." Lars lowered himself to his knees and cleared the ground of debris around the hilt that stood upright in the torchlight. Indeed, there was more to be seen as Lars' hands quickly uncovered the blackened bones of what seemed reasonable to be the previous owner of this unimpressive blade. But no body was uncovered as Dalmar's eyes widened with the find.
"What is it?" Dalmar queried.
"I would imagine it's the remains of the one who found the goblins, and this is his sword. Check the rest of the area and see if you can find the rest of his body." Lars said knowing that the keen dwarf's eyes were a perfect match for the natural darkness of night's blanketing shadow. Dalmar turned and began walking in a circle around the sword, but no bodies matching the lone bundle of bones was to be found. Dalmar widened his perimeter, nearing the edges of the trees where the shadows encroached upon the scene. Meanhwhile, the dwarf poked his fingers through the loose earth around the sword, feeling around the strange miniature monument to struggle. What was this sword doing alone here buried in the mountainside? It made no sense Lars thought to himself. There was no signs of struggle, no apparent scene of battle of any kind. Lars had cleared away several inches of dirt and stone when his hand finally struck something foreign and smooth to the touch. "Dalmar..." Lars said. "You can stop looking now. I've found what we were looking for." Dalmar turned and walked to his friend, bathing them both in the warm glow of the torchlight once again. Lars' arm was buried in a mound of earth as he pulled it free of the ground that swallowed it. Dirt sprayed into the air as Lars' hand broke free of the ground, and clutched in his hand was the jawbone of a man.
"There's more of him under there, too." Lars said. Dalmar sighed as he looked back up to the stone wall at the front of the mountain monastery, his eyes running through the sky to the position of the moon.
"Think there's any more of them?" Dalmar asked. There was a strange pause in both of them as Lars thought to himself.
"Maybe. Leave the sword here. Let's get back to the top first. My belly is grumbling, and this fella' isn't going anywhere anytime soon." Lars said smartly as he rose to his feet and shook the dirt from his hands. Dalmar nodded as he turned back up the slope which seemed a bit steeper as the two adventurers began to trudge against the mountainsides loose floor. Dalmar didn't remember the journey down the mountain's slope being so arduous as the journey back up to the stone clearing at the top. Dalmar soon found himself on his knees as he grasped the ground with his hands like a monkey, climbing the slope with all four of his limbs while Lars walked upright as if he was born to do climb mountains.
"Why isn't this more difficult for you than it is for me?" Dalmar mused as he wiped the dirt from his face, and grinned a devilish grin at his friend. Lars smirked at Dalmar.
"Once a dwarf, always a dwarf." Lars said. "We're built low and strong, Dalmar. This is our sort of land, sir. Not your's." Lars chuckled to himself, marking Dalmar's own folly and his lack of makeup to match his friend's stature. Just at that moment, a pebble struck Dalmar in the forehead from above. Lars, seeing this, laughed aloud as another stone trickled down from above glancing off of Dalmar's shoulder. Then, at once, as the two warriors realized at the same time from where the rubble had come, their eyes grew wide in unison as they both turned to gaze above them. An eerie screeching of claws and the flapping of the beast's leathery wings signaled the folly of the two as it peered over the wall above, perched like a strange gargoyle picking out its prey from above. The creature's deathly pale blue eyes stared blankly at the potential meals as it arched its gaunt, ridged back and let out terrible screech piercing the spines and minds of both Dalmar and Lars causing them to freeze in their tracks.
"Berbalang!" Lars cried and his drew his axe and braced himself for the beast's advance. Dalmar sat up on his knees and drew his two swords, pausing for the beast's inevitable lunge. But the beast did not lunge after its meal, but instead crawled upon the top of the crumbling wall, it's horrific claws scraping the softer stone and sending pieces of rock tumbling down towards the mountain's side. The berbalang screeched another terrible screech that could be heard echoing into the halls of Monmüth above. The beast turned its attention to Lars and Dalmar now. Its toothy maw seemed to grin and evil grin as it menacingly flapped its leathery wings about it, as another appeared beside it. The two beasts emitted a series of clicks and yips to one another in arcane communication as a third, and finally a fourth, chimed in and landed beside the other two. Then, at once, the four boney figures of claw and wing each turned their eight pairs of glowing eyes towards the two watching the demons plan their attack, and they leaped into the air over the wall. The night sky, filled now with the frightening sounds of flapping demons gave no comfort as Lars and Dalmar furiously tried to reach the stone landing above them. From somewhere in the distance, the ghastly sounds of frightened and terrorized horses were followed by a fading noise of hooves signaling the scattering of their mounts by the berbalangs. In the back of the minds of the two warriors, this was a bad sign.
The beasts hung in the air in front of the moon above the two struggling mountain climbers as two of the beasts dove from above, their claws outstretched to latch on to their prey. Swinging wildly into the air, the sound of Lars' mighty battle axe rang out as it struck bone and the beast's claw flew down the side of the slope. The injured predator screeched and hissed as it rose back up into the air to plan its next attack. Dalmar rolled to his left as his attacker swooped down upon him, narrowly missing Dalmar with its slashes. Now on his back, Dalmar stared the belly of the beast in its protruding navel and thrust his blade through the overly apparent ribcage causing the beast to flail about upon Dalmar's blade. With lightning speed, the beast's razor-like claws furiously swiped at the man, catching Dalmar across the shoulder as blood spilled onto his person. Another claw quickly dug into the meat of his thigh, and he felt the beast's claws scrape the bone of his leg. Dalmar emitted a cry of pain as he raised his blade with a furious twist that carried the evil creature over his head. Dalmar thrust the blade's tip into the ground above his head, pinning the dying beast's wildly shaking body to the ground with its limbs in the air. Lars, his head spinning at the sounds of pain from his friend, ran over to Dalmar. With a mighty strike of his axe, Lars cleaved the berbalang in two, silencing it forever as the glow disappeared from its socket all at once.
The blood poured from Dalmar's badly damaged leg and shoulder, the individual slices of each demonic claw visible through the leather of his garb. Lars turned to the attacker again as the other two joined the remaining berbalangs in a mass of flapping wings and claws about Lars and the injured Dalmar. Bearing his wide blade towards the three-clawed beast, Lars swiped at the demon backing it's advance away from his bleeding friend. Dalmar, still conscious, raised his other blade into the air, swinging it at the other two creatures hovering above his head. The three nimble messengers of death flapped their wings with a relaxed sort of motion as they looked at each other, their eyes pulsing with strange energies as they screeched and hissed together above the heads of Lars and Dalmar. Dalmar began to feel light-headed as his vision became blurry. The blood poured from his body like rivers of red water, emptying into a lake beside his body. His sword bearing arm fell limp, and began to tingle. Lars, following the flight of his attacker as it joined the other two, spied his friend's degradation, and kicked Dalmar lightly and yelled at him.
"Dalmar! You've got to wake up!You've got to fight, man!" Lar's screamed. Lars kicked his limp friend again as the three-clawed beast lunged at him. Once again, Lars met the creature's attack. But as Lars fought off his own attacker, the other two berbalang swooped down upon Dalmar, grasping his body in their terrible claws and raising him into the air as they tore him away from the clutches of his protector. Together, the demons of the night rose into the air dropping Dalmar's body dripping with red essence of his body onto the landing above with a thud. Dalmar's emitted another cry as his body hit the hard surface before the ancient monastery Monmüth. The jar from the meter fall knocked Dalmar's blade free from his hand finally as it bounced momentarily on the stone letting out a metallic ring and fell silent. Dalmar's consciousness fading quickly, a piercing screech rang out from over the wall at the end of his feet, and he heard the sounds of Lars running up the side of the mountain after him. Dalmar managed to smile slightly as the mass of berbalangs above him turned in time to notice Lars emerging victorious, covered in the green blood of the other beast. Then, Dalmar shut his eyes, and he felt calm. He relaxed amid the strange jumble of sound as his hearing began to lose its ability to discern between one sound and another. It was all just a rumble. His mind began to wander as suddenly there was an apparent flash of light from an unknown source, the light of the burst breeching his eyelids and the remaining strands of his consciousness as it wandered aimlessly, grasping onto anything and everything.
And then, everything disappeared again.
Like a swimmer emerging from the bottom of a great torrent, Dalmar's mind awoke. In a single voice, his own, a phrase echoed in what appeared to be a great open space of nothingness with pinholes of light twinkling like stars in the heavens before him. Each pinhole was distinct and seemed to be too far in the distance to reach. A soft, blue glow emanated from all around him as he lay there on the cool, sandy-colored surface of the stone floor with no edges. His eyes fluttered with disbelief as they opened to behold all of this, and a familiar face: the goddess. She smiled at him, no longer bearing the fantastic armor of a warrior-goddess, a divine herald of strength and battle. But she wore the robes of a caretaker this time as his eyes fell upon her. Her soft, warm face gazed down upon him as he felt himself smile, and his eyes ran down the repeating blue pattern at the hem of her priestly garb. As she gazed into his eyes, her ruby red lips formed a smile as she drew in a breath before a spoken word.
"Dalmar..." her soft voice echoed through his mind. "Dalmar, wake up. You aren't finished." The calm voice flowed over his body as it held him in its hand, rocking it slightly as a mother might a child in its crib. "Dalmar...?" She said again. "Wake up. Lars needs you." This time the voice persisted as it resonated in his soul and in his mind as it knocked its consciousness loose like a rock frozen in the side of a cliff. The blue light began to rapidly fade and the vision of the goddess fell into the blackness of the universe. One by one, each pinpoint of light faded along with the disappearing dream, but the voice persisted in his head. Dalmar couldn't feel his body, and startled to this realization, he tried to shake himself awake. He tried to rise from the fading of the light. He struggled and he could, at once, feel his heart beating within its chest and then his arms and shoulders began to become apparent as his face began to feel once again. Dalmar gritted his teeth as he squirmed in his mind, and finally, his eyelids responded and his breath erupted like a volcano from his lungs. The light of the moon struck him in his face as the world came into view again, for what seemed like the first time. Lars, hunkered down over him with a bowl smiled, and turned his head to a man standing behind him.
"Well, it appears as if Ar-Simba-El has smiled upon this one, after all." said the bald-headed priest behind Lars. "But let's not start hugging each other just yet. This man needs some rest. And those marks are going to hurt like the air of Acheron for a while until they fully heal." The cleric smiled. Like clockwork, Dalmar's vision returned to full as he sat up and supported his torso with his arm behind him. His belly, awoke with fury as he swallowed finding his throat painfully dry, and he coughed. Lars handed Dalmar the bowl of broth as Dalmar emptied the tiny vessel and sighed with relief. Dalmar looked at his leg which was thoroughly wrapped and stained red with blood as was his shoulder and torso. He looked around, finding himself beside the crude fire that he, himself, had started and in the company of not two, but three men. His head looked around, taking in his environment, and finding another man like the priest resting on the other side of the fire.
"Who are you? What happened?" Dalmar said weakly.
"My name is Gwydion of the Zyn-Lar. That man over there is Averis. He, too, is of the Zyn-Lar. We've been traveling through these areas doing mostly missionary work when we saw..." Gwydion looked at Lars for a moment, and changed the direction of his speech. "...when we came across the berbalangs hovering about your heads. At that moment, our path had been chosen for us it would appear." Gwydion smiled at Averis and Lars, his calm demeanor setting the tone for the entire party.
"I certainly thank you for your assistance, but what happened to the berbalangs?" Dalmar asked.
"Let's just say, they saw the light and the error of their way." Gwydion said as he smiled warmly. Dalmar laid down again, trying to remember the moments after he lost consciousness and the ones before he regained it. Had he actually been visited by the goddess? Did he die? These thoughts troubled Dalmar, and until he was able to sort things out he wouldn't mention them to Lars or any of these men of Zyn-Lar. But even that name, that Zyn-Lar, seemed to get caught in his mind. Where had he heard that before? Was it something that the goddess had said? These questions persevered.
"And the horses? I heard them run off..." Dalmar asked.
"Gone, but we'll find 'em, lad." Lars said. "In the meantime, we need to get you back on your feet."
"How long was I out?" Dalmar inquired. An awkward pause came over everyone, and it unsettled Dalmar.
"It's been a couple of days, Dalmar" Lars said begrudgingly.
"Well, no wonder I'm starving" Dalmar said lightly and he grinned. "But that means...that means we're going to be late getting back if we don't leave pretty soon, Lars." Dalmar sat up again and looked at Lars.
"Aye, and so we will. Back to Altendon t'morrow then. But you rest for tonight. I'll try to find our horses." Lars stood as he sighed, knowing that it could be a while before he found just one of the horses. He also knew that Dalmar was right - they had to get back to Altendon before Dorian decides to charge in after them. Granted, they had not run into anymore of the Crimson Reign in these parts, but they had not really had an adequate amount of time to pursue the possibilities in Gr'Valdth either. Once more, Lars wasn't sure if Dorian wold be patient enough to let he and Dalmar search Gr'Valdth for signs of Sarat's men much less Dalmar's friend,t he elf Lanthis. Lars bade each of the men a good night as he walked down the side of the mountain where he and Dalmar had entered just two days before. He wasn't sure if he'd actually find any horses, but he had to try. His dwarven vision easily made sense of the dark forest, but even he knew that after two days, there really was no telling if they were even alive at all.
Invino Veritas
5/5/12
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