North of the Widowblade Peaks - Frozen Tundra

CW: body horror, cannibalism, violence, death, nudity, torture, gore

The storytellers speak of the days before. The days when dwarf and goblin still lived in the belly of the mountain and the goliath lived upon the tundra. Where the dwarves speak of Kinsdeep, the heart of the dwarven empire, goblins remember First Home and the dark still waters of the Pool of Memory where goblin speakers first gathered to share and learn. All lost now…lost to myth and legend. Tales for children. For most of those born today, there is only the Wilder: mixed clans of goliath, goblin, and dwarf that dot the tundra scraping out an existence in the harshest of places.

They were well beyond the walls of Hearth’s Keep. The bitter wind screamed as it fled from the dark clouds before them.

“Won’t be snow,” Oddoc said adjusting his balaclava to better see what was coming. “That’ll be an ice storm on the way.”

Lanna grunted. She and Oddoc had other plans for this day, and she was still angry that those plans had been set aside because of Elder Samu’s vague prattling. She looked back at the stocky dwarf, barely taller than she, with his curly hair poking through his mask in multiple directions. She had told him once that his hair reminded her of the color of storm clouds at sunrise. Those clouds were nothing like the dark daggers that were moving in today. There was something in these clouds. She could feel it.

Oddoc caught her looking and grinned through his mask. She saw the grin in his eyes, as the crystalline sheen of ice that formed on the outside of his mask obscured all else.

“Could be worse, eh?”

Lanna scowled and pulled her hood close around her own masked face. “Samu could have sent any of the hunters on this trek. He sent us, and you know why. Another delay. Another chance for you to come to your senses.”

“Nonsense, love,” he moved with practiced ease on the broad snow shoes that kept him on the surface of the waist-high snow. They had been one of her first gifts to him. Her brothers and sisters had teased her mercilessly when she made it for him, but when he opened the package and smiled she felt like she was flying. She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder. “Samu asked us because we are the best. He already gave our union his blessing. He is merely concerned.”

She placed her small hand over Oddoc’s and nodded keeping her eyes on the horizon. He was not wrong. Deep down, she knew that Samu was right to be concerned. Something was happening in the Wilder clans. There was a darkness on the mountains that left the storytellers reciting myths of First Home and Kinsdeep. The hunters came back with stories of strange lights and movements in the night. The southern pass was blocked, but the hunters swore they heard the sound of combat from the Temberkan fort that was built there. Samu and the Elder’s conferred but said that this was not Wilder business and to let it alone.

Then there was Obi, her giant friend who had never even harmed a mouse. Obi who played with dwarf and goblin and didn’t care. Obi who had pulled her from the waves when she swore she was going to sail away from this Twins-forsaken place only to watch her skiff dissolve beneath her in the waves. Obi who was beaten nearly to death on his journey back to Hearth’s Keep from Harbor’s Stone. He said they were Jalokai. He swore it, in fact. Samu kept telling him that the last of the Jalokai clans had been forced to the far wastes before any except Old Magda were born, but Obi told him he was wrong. Her giant friend, who had never feared a thing, had been terrified. He begged Samu to seal the walls.

Now the moon had traveled another full cycle. The healers had patched Obi up, but he still walked with a bit of limp. She brought him berries and he thanked her. His eyes were so haunted, though. He hugged her, nearly crushing her, and begged her to be safe. She didn’t know what to say. She just held on to him as he cried remembering when she once clung to him, crying, half-drowned, and angry and afraid of a world she did not understand.

“Let’s stick to the ridge,” she pointed south to a line of stone that jutted from the snow at inconsistent intervals. They were close to Standpoint Rock, but something kept whispering to her that danger was ahead. She whispered a small spell and moved, silent and quick to leave the already snow obscured trail moving up and along the upper ridge line to keep cover. Oddoc slipped his axe from its sheath and followed. Her spell ensured there was no mark of their movement in the falling snow.

They were close to the mountains now. From the ridge she could see them rising high in the south, a great wall of ice and stone that normally made her think of shelter and comfort. She sensed something else in them, today, something darker that tugged on the edges of her senses. Oddoc motioned ahead his face grim, and Lanna followed his gaze. His eyes were better than hers in the daylight, but she could see Standpoint Rock on the edge of the horizon.

Standpoint Rock was a hunter’s camp. A loose collection of stone buildings and storage that gave shelter to hunting parties from various clans. It was a place of peace and shelter. By solemn decree, all had sworn to never raise a weapon against another clan when in site of the camp. The rule was sacrosanct. There had never been a time when Lanna had not seen the camps as places of a shelter and communion.

The snow was black as pitch around the entrance to the camp. It was only now, as they moved ever closer that she could see it was blood. This was heart’s blood, thick and black, splattered ink across a white page of snow. Many had died here. She strained to catch sight of any people and nearly jumped when two large creatures moved to stand in the midst of the bloodied snow.

She pulled Oddoc down and the slid behind the ridge to keep out of sight. She signaled him to stay silent and he nodded. She could read the confusion in his eyes. She was sure the same was echoed in her own. Who or what could have done this? Not Temberk, the city-state was friendly with the Wilder tribes. They traded regularly. The Truce of the 5 Spears had been in effect since before her birth, and all seemed to agree it had been a good thing. The clans were not at war. No one would have violated the camp even if they were. The camp was a safe place. Her mind struggled to make sense out of senselessness.

She reached out with her spirit, finding eddies of wind to ride up ever higher beyond the ridge until she was moving over the camp. Lanna looked down and for a moment her goblin stomach nearly turned. The Hearth’s Keep hunting party were scattered about. The smaller bodies had been laid out on benches and storage boxes. The goliaths of the party had been bound to hastily constructed wooden cross sections. There were other goliaths in the camp. Not pale-skinned, but nearly shock white in color except for the red blood that smeared their bodies, faces, and hands. Their armor was old and in tatters. In places she could see bare skin, but none seemed to even acknowledge the cold. They moved about the camp with no fear or concern.

Jalokai

Then she watched as one of the Jalokai walked up to the body of Lor. Lor, who had taken this party out. She almost gasped at the realization. Oh Twins, it meant that this party was new and young. Lor was a trainer. Hells, Lor had trained her to hunt. His large goliath hands had guided her as she learned to pull the bow. “Magic is not enough,” he would tell her, “it is merely a tool in broad arsenal.” She wanted to scream.

The white one raised a jagged blade and cut a chunk of bloody flesh from Lor’s chest. He then patted Lor’s face with a vicious grin of jagged teeth stained red and black with gore devouring the flesh in front of the bound and hung goliath. It was only then that Lanna realized the full horror that was happening. The horror that her magical senses were screaming at her but her rational mind refused to accept. These hunters, all of them, some gutted, some missing limbs, other being actively eaten by the goliaths in this camp were not dead. They were being kept alive.

She could feel the healing magic moving throughout the space. Infusing the bodies of her fallen friends. Magic that stopped the bodies from dying or losing consciousness, but not repairing, nor stopping the pain. It was only then as she pushed that she felt the second spell, deeper, but one she knew: sensory enhancement. Nerves and sensation heightened to level she could not imagine. Every cut, every bite, amplified a hundredfold in pain. Pain that could bring neither death or unconsciousness. Even their screams had been silenced so that not even that could offer any release.

“But how…” she let the whisper out more in shock and sick fear as she turned to follow the ley lines that powered the spells back to the source. In the middle of the camp, a goliath woman, naked and bathed in blood and entrails twirled in ecstatic glee, a Witch of the Wyrd. Lanna had heard of them spoken in myths and stories, but none were as terrifying as what she now beheld. The witch was feeding, not like her men, not on flesh. She was feeding off the madness and the pain of the hunters. She was howling with pleasure, screaming to the sky with an open mouth of jagged teeth.

And then the witch’s eyes opened - vast pools of blackness - staring back at the goblin girl. Lanna broke the spell and wrapped her and Oddoc in the wind. “We need to move now,” she whispered harshly. “They are coming..”

“Who..what,” Oddoc started as they both began to run.

“Jalokai,” she said using the spell to push them faster still. “The Jalokai have returned.”

“How is that possible,” he moved swiftly despite his dwarven bulk and she quietly thanked the Twins that it was only the two of them. Others could not have kept up. “Even if they were real, they would have all been dead by now.” She didn’t look back. They needed to get to Hearth’s Stone well ahead of the Jalokai. The Elder’s would need to prepare. The walls would need to be sealed.

“They are dead,” she said. “Every one of the Jalokai in that camp had been dead for over a thousand years.”