Stench from the South Pt. 02

"Well, what now?" Balthus shrugged. "It's several hours' ride to the next town, at least that I know of. So, unless you've got a battering ram, a dozen men to swing it, and a full day to spare..."

Jakobus held up a silencing hand. "Let me try something. See that hitching post over there?" He pointed to the right of the gate, where there was indeed a small hitching post set up. "Tie the horses up, and leave it to me."

Balthus and Mattison tied the horses to the squat wooden post as Jakobus unshouldered his staff. He was already muttering an incantation of some sort as they returned to his side, the long oaken shaft pointed at the man door. The crystal atop its' length glowed softly, like some kind of aquamarine-colored lamp.

"There is a latch on the other side, of course, but no lock. That's fortunate; it will make this quicker and easier," Jakobus said after brief pause. "Give me just a moment."

He pointed his staff at the door again, and without speaking he lifted the tip in an upward motion. The crystal flashed briefly, and there came a muffled, metallic 'clunk' from the opposite side of the man door. Jakobus lowered the staff and approached the door, giving it a light push. The thing shuddered open a few inches without a sound.

"I must admit, I find it odd that the gate has not been locked when there are no guards present. That bodes ill, I think," Jakobus said softly.

"To say the least," Balthus muttered. "What say we find out what the good folk of Elksmore have been doing while they let their visitors stand out in the cold?"

The three men filed quietly through the doorway, Balthus going first. Again, his soldier's instinct kicked in, because he found his hand hovering close to his sword before he'd even laid hand on the heavy bulk of the door. Despite its' heft, however, it swung inwards soundlessly at his touch, emitting only a soft 'thud' sound as it met the inside of the gate.

"Well, Master," Mattison said, "they do have a lock, but I don't know why they thought it would do them much good on the ground."

The other two men glanced to where Mattison was pointing-a spot on the cobblestone street just to the left of the man door, where there was indeed a large, heavy steel padlock lying in a puddle of water. They noted that its' shackle did indeed seem as if it would fit the slot in the door's sizeable latch. It almost appeared to have been discarded-or as if someone had been in a hurry, dropped it, and merely left it to its' fate.

"Enough jokes, Matti-"

"Father fucking above."

Balthus stopped dead in his tracks. Jakobus and Mattison did the same immediately following his vulgar proclamation, and together they took in the scene of utter chaos and disarray before them.

The cobblestone street before them, with its' stone-accented, log cabin-style buildings on either side, was not the clean and orderly stretch that Balthus remembered strolling down several years prior when last he'd visited. Much like the scene of the covered wagon they had come across earlier, the entire place now looked as if it had been the scene of a mass riot. Everywhere they looked, their eyes found only detritus and destruction. Crates and barrels lie smashed, splintered, and overturned, their contents spilling out onto the smooth, worn stones of the street. Carts lie abandoned here and there, their owners having apparently decided that the valuables within hadn't been worth taking along after all. Clothing, boxes, bags, papers...even tools, weapons, and foodstuffs-the sorts of things no one in their right mind would simply leave behind-were littered all over the place, now merely rotting or rusting away.

Balthus slowly began to venture forward, with Jakobus and Mattison following silently behind. He glanced over to the first building to his left-the Silver Antlers Inn, yes, that's what they called it. Biggest and best lodgings in Elksmore, or so the proprietors apparently claimed (though he'd never been by to test that claim for himself). The two large windows which flanked the front door were now oddly filthy, stained with some sort of dark, blotchy substance that he couldn't positively identify from this distance. But-and maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him-he swore that he could see the outlines of...were those handprints?

"Balthus."

Jakobus' voice was soft and grave. He had halted, and was staring at the front of the building just opposite the Silver Antlers. It was the Hollingsmark Trading Post, where Balthus recalled resupplying during his last visit. The owner, a one Miss Caretta Hollingsmark, had been a stern-looking yet welcoming middle-aged woman with braided blond hair whom he was fairly certain had been eyeing him with great interest, but that was all he remembered about the woman herself. It was a modest but homely two-story, with only a few windows and a simple door, plus a hanging sign advertising the business itself on a post which stood near the entrance. An awning covered a porch which ran along the length of the building's front fact, all of it made from dark wooden planks which had almost certainly been cut and ripped from the very trees which surrounded Elksmore itself.

It was something-or rather, several somethings-laid out in a row upon the far right side of the porch which had given Jakobus pause. Balthus had stopped as soon as he'd heard his name, as had Mattison. As soon as he'd looked in the direction that the Master Mage was nodding, he saw them for himself, and immediately he was certain of what they were. Clad in white sheets (which reminded Balthus eerily of the improvised rope that Amos Fessely had cobbled together to escape his home), tightly bound with thick lengths of rope, and stained in several places with a dark substance that could only have been blood, were bodies-three in total, all laid out side by side, along the front porch.

"What do you make of it, Balthus?"

The Captain didn't give him an answer. He couldn't, if he were being honest, because he had none to give.

Balthus took that moment to truly appreciate the thick veil of silence which seemed to hang unseen over the entire town. Other than the ever-present gusts of southern wind and the fluttering of a few errant pieces of paper or parchment blowing about the street here and there, there wasn't a sound to be heard. It was as if the entire town had simply pulled up stakes and bolted-or died, in the case of the mystery bodies outside the trading post. As if on cue, Mattison spoke up.

"Where is everyone? They can't all have left."

"What other explanation is there?" Jakobus sounded as bewildered as the Captain felt.

"Wait," Mattison muttered, stepping over and laying a hand on Balthus' shoulder, "Captain, look."

The vampire pointed to the left, at the second story of the building just past the Silver Antlers. Balthus and Jakobus followed his finger and looked upwards only to be greeted to the sight of a large, cream-colored bedsheet that had been hung between two open windows. It was thoroughly soaked and weather-beaten, but not so much so that the men could not discern the two words which had been crudely yet clearly scrawled across its' length: 'HELP US'.

"What-?"

"I don't have any answers, Jakobus."

Balthus didn't know why he'd even bothered answering. The question had been a rhetorical one; he knew that, of course, but he himself was still trying to process the insanity that he was witnessing. He wasn't sure what possessed him to do it (and he never would be), but as he and his two traveling companions stood in the middle of Green Bog Way-Elksmore's currently ruined main drag-he cupped his right hand around his mouth and began to call out.

"Hello!"

Nothing.

"Hello! Can anyone hear me?!"

Only a gust of wind answered his call.

"Hello! We come from Braelon! Is anyone there?!"

A sudden crash met his words this time, coming from up ahead to their right. Balthus stopped, and all three men looked over to see a figure stumble out of an alleyway between what the Captain recalled were the town guard's barracks and a magic and alchemical supply shop. It had collided with a small tower of precariously stacked wooden crates and boxes which had been left near the alley's entrance, knocking most of them to the ground, where several of their number splintered into pieces. It seemed not to care or even notice, however, as it took several wavering and unsteady steps out onto the cobblestones of Green Bog Way without even glancing back at the minor damage it had just inflicted.

The figure belonged to that of a man. In any other circumstance, Balthus would have taken one look him and immediately worked to get him help, as he looked an absolute wreck. He wore no shirt, and his trousers were damp and shredded, their meager remains clinging uselessly to his pale skin. Thin, scraggly chunks of blond hair either hung limply from his head or lie plastered to his scalp. He wore a pair of ruined loafers that were as soaked through as his trousers. He was emaciated, his ribs pressing outward against the skin of his torso, as if someone were pulling it taut. However, Balthus made no move to help him, though his reasoning for not doing so had nothing to do with a lack of empathy or kindness.

In truth, it was because the man was missing the entirety of his lower jaw, as well as everything below the elbow of his right arm, and Balthus was simply too stunned to move.

How was the man even able to stand, let alone walk? How was he not lying dead on the stones, killed by shock and what had to have been extreme blood loss? He certainly had the look of someone who'd been drained of the stuff; his skin was gray and mottled, but it also bore a vague greenish hue that Balthus hadn't seen the likes of in a person before. Could someone in such a condition even be helped? Balthus doubted it very much. However, it was the moment in which the man looked up and over at the three newcomers that Balthus felt something begin stirring deep within his gut.

It was fear. Low, bubbling, entirely unmistakable fear.

His eyes...what was wrong with his eyes? Why could Balthus (or his companions, though he did not see it) not take his gaze off this walking horror's eyes? Sunken deep in their sockets, they were hooded, milky, and glazed over like a pair of filthy and unpolished pearls (though he swore that they might have once been blue). As these horrific orbs locked onto Balthus' own, they slowly opened wide. The man ceased his awkward, shuffling gait for half a beat and stared at the trio, before raising his arms (both intact and mutilated) and breaking out into a shuffling, stumbling walk straight towards them. His ragged boots scraped on the stones of the street for a few seconds before he nearly tripped over a toppled wicker basket full of rotting winter vegetables. As he barely managed to stay upright, he suddenly began to emit a disgusting and harrowing gurgling sound, the torn flesh surrounding his mutilated throat visibly shifting beneath the broken teeth still resting in his upper jaw.

"What...what is wrong with him?!" Mattison's voice was almost childlike in its' confusion and barely-concealed terror.

"I-"

Balthus did not even have time to begin to form his reply, for there was another great crash from above and to their right. This time, however, it was not the sound of wood being splintered that met their ears, but of glass being shattered. Then came the harsh twinkling sound of glass impacting stone, and the three men looked over and up just in time to see a large, dark mass tumble out the ruined window of the apartment above the Hollingsmark Trading Post. It rolled down the overhang, then it impacted against the surface of the street with a heavy, sickening 'crunch'. Almost immediately, the mass began to shift, and one sickly, dark-skinned arm rose unsteadily from it. The figure was most certainly not that of Caretta Hollingsmark, but that of what appeared to be a young M'zaeran fellow wearing a filthy black tunic and grey trousers. His own eyes-just as milky and lifeless as the other man's-immediately locked onto Balthus, Jakobus and Mattison, and he tried to rise for a second or two before flopping back onto the stones and broken glass. That was when Balthus noticed that the man's right foreleg was twisted off to the side at a freakish angle, rendering him incapable of standing, let alone walking. However, he did not scream or weep, and he did not call for help, but instead began to make a sound that chilled Balthus to his very core:

He began to moan.

It was loud, insistent, monotonous. His eyes remained locked on the men like those of a predatory animal, their horrendous gaze never once leaving the three figures before it. His hands, gnarled into claw-like hooks, swiped and groped at the air in between frequent attempts to drag himself forward on his stomach. Nothing seemed to distract him-not his ruined leg, not the knife-sized shards of glass which protruded from several parts of his body, and not the life-threatening gashes which littered his flesh. There was only blind, hateful, desperate desire behind those strange, awful eyes of a kind which chilled the Captain like the onset of a winter frost.

"Captain, we should-" Mattison had found his voice again.

"Go," Balthus muttered, "back away, now. Head for the gate."

Then, they were everywhere.

From every alley, out of every open door or window, and from around every corner of every building on Green Bog Way, they came. They spilled into the street like monsters from a child's nightmare, whereupon they stumbled around, through, or over the debris that littered the street. There were men, women, teenagers, and even children, all of them stumbling and shuffling towards Balthus and his companions-arms raised, fingers groping at the air as if carelessly molding blocks of soft, invisible clay. Many sported injuries just as grievous-if not more so-than the man who'd lost his jaw and forearm. Some were covered in brutal open wounds; gashes that nearly (and in some cases literally) left their victims disemboweled. Some were missing entire limbs, some were covered in burns, some were missing eyes or entire patches of skin, exposing the horribly mutilated tissue and bone beneath. Balthus even saw one woman with a kitchen knife embedded in her shoulder, sunk all the way to the hilt-though it did not seem to deter her in any way. And with them they carried the low, unmistakable stench of early decomposition.

From all across town now, these dead-eyed, slack-jawed, gray-green people were called forth, whereupon they began making their way, slowly but surely, toward the source of the commotion. All the while, their calls rose to near-cacophonous levels, the blood-curdling dissonance of their collective moaning rising above the rooftops and snaking its' way into the ears of the three interlopers. As they packed into the main drag, saw the Captain and his companions for themselves, those moans intensified and grew to a fever pitch, morphing into strangled, furious howls. Their maws hung open as if they had lost control of their own jaw muscles, their filthy and stained teeth poking out of ruined gums and lips. They reached for Balthus, Jakobus, and Mattison as the men quickly backed away in the direction of the main gate, Mattison nearly tripping over a torn and damp dress before Jakobus grabbed him roughly and helped steady him.

"Run!" The urgency in Jakobus' voice was unmistakable. "Go, now!"

No one argued. As Balthus turned to charge toward the man door, he got one last look at one of the stained windows of the Silver Antlers Inn, where he saw the pale face of an old woman with dead, milky eyes staring at him, all the while pounding on its' weathered glass. Her hands were covered in some sort of dark substance, and they left sloppy handprints behind every time they slapped clumsily against its' surface. Her jaw worked slowly and steadily, as if she were a cow chewing a mouthful of cud, her nose flattening bizarrely as it pressed against the pane. She slammed her left hand against it once more, and a long crack suddenly shot up and down across its' height.

Balthus couldn't take any more. He fled, and did not look back.

*****

"Well what in the name of the Mother do YOU think was wrong with them?!"

"You think I'd keep it to myself if I had the faintest fucking clue, boy?!"

Mattison Rhaeg slapped his hands to his temples and groaned in frustration. The lad was clearly not handling it well, that much was certain.

"Get a hold of yourself, Mattison!" Jakobus' tone was not one of impatience, but of frustrated concern. "We mustn't lose our heads!"

"That man had lost his fucking JAW!" The assistant was nearly shouting, his eyes flashing angrily as he whipped around to face his Master. "And his forearm! Yet still, he came for us! How do you explain that?! What is going on here?!"

Balthus, again, had no answer for him. He could only sigh and look to the gray skies above, as if expecting some sort of divine revelation to strike him like a bolt of lightning.

"Mattison! I understand how upset you are; you are hardly alone in that, but please, stop and take a breath!"

Balthus almost envied Jakobus in that moment. He could see why Cyrrel and Raela had kept him by their side for the duration of their rule: he was intelligent, capable, levelheaded, and rational even in the face of utter madness. Balthus could easily sense the confusion beneath that exterior, but the Mage still kept his composure. Shit, he'd probably have made a good soldier, had he not landed on the arcane arts...

"I am of the opinion that those people-or, rather, people like them-were who attacked your farmstead, Balthus."

The Captain glanced at him, grateful for speaking the words he'd been almost afraid to say himself.

"I agree. The way they moved, the way they walked; it's consistent with the tracks I saw at the Fessely place. I think you're right, Jakobus."

The party stood on the side of the road, over a mile away from the walls of Elksmore proper, each holding the reins of their beast as they stood in a rough semicircle. Mattison had called out to stop only moments before, where he'd stepped down and demanded that they talk about what they had just witnessed. Balthus didn't like being in the open (nor, he suspected, did Jakobus), but the assistant had been adamant.

"Master, you must have some idea," Mattison snapped. "What happened to those people? What were they doing, and why were they doing it?!"

"My only guess," said Jakobus calmly, never failing to look his assistant in the eye, "is that they were under the control of some sort of possession spell. Highly advanced dark magic, and also highly forbidden-the kind that's been punishable by hanging or life imprisonment in the Western Kingdoms for centuries. That, or..."

Balthus had to know. "Or what, Jakobus?"

"Well...I can't know for certain, but I initially suspected necromancy. I have my doubts, however."

"They did look like corpses," Balthus conceded. "Very early in decomposition, yes, but corpses nonetheless. Where do your doubts stem from, though?"

"I...well, to put it in the simplest terms possible," Jakobus said, scratching the side of his neck, "when a necromancer raises a vessel-a dead body possessed by a summoned Aetherial spirit-it will invariably emit a magical aura. However, those people exuded no such aura. Those untrained in the magical arts can rarely discern such things, but to those who are attuned to magical forces-such as myself and Mattison-it would have been immediately apparent. Therefore..."

Balthus let the pregnant pause linger as Jakobus stopped to think for a moment. Even Mattison did not dare disturb him at a time such as this.

"No," he finally said, looking between them with a sigh, "I do not believe that there was necromancy at work, unless it is some entirely new form of the art that I have never seen or heard tell of before."