Tales of Malus: Chapter Four

Chapter Four

         For half an hour Malus followed the road the way the rider had come, with each step mentally preparing himself for the vile scene he knew he would soon behold. The smoke in the distance wasn’t the only thing drawing nearer though. Massive thunderheads were looming to the north, their colossal bulks engulfing the stars. Malus knew a tempest of terrible proportions would soon set upon him, and being caught on the completely open Tradeway would not end well.

         No sound pierced the mantle of silence that the night wore. He was alone; the only living creature to be seen for as far as the eye could see. Even though his training under the great sorcerer Malzaren Darkraven had focused greatly on purging one’s mind of fear, Malus could feel the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to prick up. The fact that he actually felt fear made him all the more afraid.

         The necromancer was now close enough to the decimated town to see the glowing of the fires that now ran rampant across the thatched roofs of the rickety wooden houses.

Malus readied himself to unleash a torrent of destruction upon the first hostile creature that showed its face. Almost reflexively, he pulled the Necronomicon from its resting place in his haversack, stroking the cool binding for comfort. For reasons unknown to him, this actually worked to calm his nerves slightly.

After a few more tense moments of crossing open ground, Malus reached what once should have been the wooden gates of the town. They appeared to have been torn from their hinges by some creature of tremendous and brutal strength, smashed to splitters against a few nearby boulders. “What could have done this?” he thought to himself.

Taking a deep breath, Malus cautiously continued through the ruins of the town’s walls.

Though blood coated what used to be a tent probably used by a watchman, no bodies could be seen. Death was everywhere here, its chilling feel saturating the very fibers of the town.

The first building appeared in front of him, gutted by the flames that greedily devoured the dry timber. A small wooden sign lay on the ground near the front door, reading “Meeting Hall.” Strangely enough, there weren’t any bodies here either, despite the fact that Malus knew several deaths had occurred on this very ground.
Turning to survey his surroundings, Malus noticed that the town had been built in a circular manner, the buildings forming a tight ring around a well at the town’s heart. A crudely made wall of spiked wooden posts created a perimeter around the town, allowing only one way in as far as Malus could see.

Concentrating deeply, the necromancer sought to detect any evil entities within the town’s confines. There was nothing, at least that he knew of. Not knowing what else to do, Malus strode over to the well; a location that would allow him to see the entire settlement easily.

Suddenly, just a few paces away from the well, Malus felt a searing pain jolt through his head. Falling to his knees, he desperately pressed his hand to his forehead and cast a spell of healing. This had no effect whatsoever. It felt as if someone had driven a knife through his skull, though this obviously wasn’t the case. His vision began to swim before him.

To add insult to injury, symbols of unknown meaning appeared on the surfaces around him, slithering around as if they were alive. Screaming frantically, he beat his hand against his head in a feeble attempt to banish the raging pain. Was he mad? Was this how insanity felt?

In a flash, everything he saw vanished. He now stood in a dark, high-ceilinged banquet hall.

A massive wooden table took up much of the room, adorned with a dust laden tablecloth that had many holes torn into its once white surface. Intricate stained-glass windows lined the upper parts of the walls, depicting scenes of horrendous slaughter and morbid rituals. The stones that made up the walls were crumbling with age, yet some unseen force kept them from collapsing under the great weight they supported. At the far end of the hall sat a grand fireplace, though no cheery blaze now warmed its soot choked depths. The only door in the room stood behind him, double sided and carved by a person of exquisite skill.

The pain in Malus’s head seemed to have subsided, though he reflexively held his left hand to his head still. “What the hell is happening to me . . .” was his only thought.

Without warning, the pain struck again. He fell to his knees, trembling with the strain of staying conscious. Then, as quick as it had come, it was gone.

Malus, finally finding the will to peer around, noticed that he now lie next to a large brazier that glowed with crimson flames. The room he was in was both gargantuan and dark as a night without the moon. He could not see anything past about ten paces away from the brazier. Even stranger, the floor here was not of stone like the banquet hall had been, but of earth.

Out of nowhere, the sound of a bell tolled, followed closely by the giggling of a young child. Despite his best efforts though, Malus could not see anything. A frigid breeze whipped past him, causing the flame within the brazier to flicker and dance crazily.

“Alone wanderer full of fear,
Your untimely death draws near.
Hungering spirits in the dark,
Grasping claws will meet their mark.

Shadowed figures in the gloom.
Fate will deal out your gruesome doom.
Soon their charnel gaze you’ll meet,
Filling your soul with deepest grief . . .”

The voice came from just behind him, the sing song tone of a young girl without care. Malus whipped around, but saw nothing. Standing to investigate, a bright flash filled his vision.

A grotesque scene of brutal carnage met his eyes. Nightmarish lumbering creatures were hacking the inhabitants of the town he had investigated to pieces indiscriminately, throwing the parts into giant mounds.

The creatures were about the size of an average man in height, but were hideously deformed and bulky. Around half their face they wore a mask of cracked leather, covering the entire left portion of their head. In one hand they bore a meat cleaver of massive proportions, stained crimson with the blood of innocents. In the other hand they held a long, thick needle; similar to that which surgeons used to stitch up their patients. The terrible creatures were clothed in a varied assortment of ragged clothing, obviously taken from victims of previous attacks. Their skin was cracked, grey, and putrid; like that of a long dead man.

One of the oddest features though, was that they wore large packs on their back that were fashioned from iron. More than packs, they seemed like canisters of some sort, complete with a hose that looped down to a large needle. A morbid example of the use of this item soon followed.

A corpse, disfigured by the fact that it had two extra limbs sown to its torso, was promptly stabbed with the hose needle and injected with some strange green liquid. Instantly, the corpse started writhing as if it was in great pain. Screeching, it jumped into the air, completely reanimated.

The baying of some unearthly hound filled the night, followed by a scream that was quickly silenced.

Then, all of a sudden, a mighty crash shattered the chaotic sounds of the massacre, awakening Malus instantaneously.

*

He was lying on his back, next to the stone well. A drop of rain splashed down on his forehead, cooling his fevered brow. Lightning split the night sky, followed closely by a clap of deafening thunder. The fires on the buildings were burning low now, having consumed most of which was flammable.

“It was just a vision . . .” he whispered aloud. “Was it though?” came a nagging thought. It had seemed so real; too real to have been imagined.

Grunting, he moved into a sitting position, resting his head against the moist stones of the well. He had been too late to save the town, but perhaps there would be some evidence that would provide a hint as to where the marauding abominations had gone to. If this was so, he would need to act soon before the wind and rain picked up any further.

With tremendous effort, Malus stood from his resting place and began moving towards the nearest semi-intact building. He summoned forth a new globe of light, for the old one had vanished during his time spent unconscious. The structure was burned in places, like every other part of the town save the well, but it had escaped the full wrath of the all-devouring flames. Its door had been smashed inward, leaving a gaping hole where it once stood. It was a simple building, a single floor in height and made of wood from the nearby forests.

Moving forward with practical caution, the necromancer crossed the threshold of the building. It was obviously a house based on its furnishing, he noticed, after doing a quick scan. One of the grotesque creatures he had seen in his vision lie dead upon the wooden planks of the floor, a large hunting knife protruding from its skull. It pleased Malus to know that not all the villagers had run like terrified sheep, that some of them had taken up arms and defended themselves against the unnamable horrors that had beset them.

There had been a struggle here, that much was evident. Chairs were scattered, tables flipped over, and a wardrobe was upended. Deep scratch marks and gouges could be seen covering the floor and some parts of the walls. Congealed blood was thick upon the wooden planks, whether human or not was unknown. The only window in the one-room house was shattered into miniscule fragments, each reflecting the greedy glow of the dieing flames outside.

Though, as it had been in every other part of the town, Malus could not find any bodies, save the corpse of the sadistic creature lying upon the floor. This did not shock him though, for after the vision he had witnessed, he knew what had befallen the murdered villagers.
“What had prompted that vision though?” Malus thought to himself. “I have had many minor visions before this, but that is only natural when one works in such proximity to the arcane. Never have I had such a vivid vision . . . one so terribly realistic.”

Seeing that there wasn’t anything else to find in the house, Malus made his exit out into what was now becoming quite the raging tempest. Just as he was about to make his way to the gates to see if there were some tracks he had missed, a booming bellow of a roar reached his ears.

Malus quickly spun around to peer in the direction of the noise, spreading forth his consciousness in order to detect any animate and potentially dangerous creatures. There was definitely something alive in the town now other than the carrion beasts, something that seemed vaguely humanoid when he sensed its presence. Strange though, he had been positive that the town was deserted when he had done his initial scan however long ago it had been.

Nonchalantly, Malus pulled forth the Necronomicon and began readying a spell that would let loose an inferno of destructive flame. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be all that dangerous if he hadn’t detected it until now.

Cautiously, he began moving in the direction of the noise. As he grew nearer to what appeared to be a wrecked storehouse, another bone-jarring roar split the night, accompanied by a flash of lightning soon after and a clap of thunder following that. What the lightning illuminated was unnerving.

In the split second that the powerful bolt of searing plasma lit the confines of the storehouse, a form of colossal proportions was revealed. It, whatever it was, seemed to have noticed Malus as well. This was obviously one of the creatures created by the Surgeons, as he had decided to call them. The creature must have been constructed inside the building, for it seemed much too large to fit out the normal sized door.

The creature, noticing this, rushed the wall with the force of an enraged bull, smashing through it as if it had been made of parchment. Splinters flew everywhere, forcing Malus to cover his face to avoid being struck by shrapnel. Standing just over five yards away from the necromancer, the creature was now easy to see, despite the ever increasing shower of rain that had begun to fall.

It stood about nine feet tall, completely naked save a few tattered pieces of leather that once served as pants and a shirt. Iron manacles hung snapped and useless from its wrists and ankles, obviously used in an attempt to restrain it during the animation process. The creature had evidently been a man at some point, though it was far more muscular than any living human being. Its face was savage, twisted into a seething mask of hatred. Eyes, red as blood, glowered out at Malus; a gaze filled with loathing. It breathed heavily from an open mouth, pure white teeth sharpened to razor-edged points. Its skin was an ashen gray, the color of an overcast sky. Thick veins pressed against the skin on its arms, head, and chest, easily visible beneath its leathery skin. Not a single hair was to be found atop its head, it had all fallen out during the transformation process.

Much to Malus’s surprise, the manlike creature growled out a few words in human speech; most constructs made of flesh could not harness the ability to speak intelligibly. “You . . . you did this to me! I will tear you and all that follow you apart for what I have become!” Its voice was deep and thundering, filled with unsuppressed fury.

“I honestly don’t know what you are speaking of,” Malus replied in a tranquil tone, “I arrived at this town in an effort to save it after I met a survivor riding up the road.”

“Silence! Lies! All of it!” it bellowed. “I will rend your flesh asunder for the pain you have caused! My wife lies dead and my children slaughtered before my very eyes. And me . . . I wasn’t even granted true death. Those . . . those creatures turned me into a monster!”

The creature’s voice dropped to a quiet, malice-infused tone. “You wanted a monster . . . LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT ONE CAN DO!”

With that, the creature leaped forward, granting Malus just enough time to dodge away as its massive fist smashed into the earth with the force of a meteorite. Chanting quickly, Malus dashed forward and pressed his palm against the creatures arm before it could lash out. Instantly, following a shock of yellow light, the creature’s muscles locked up.

“Nothing without your petty magic spells, are you necromancer?” it muttered angrily through a clenched jaw.

“Listen to me, I do not wish to harm you. I want to bring those who did this to justice, just like you. I can’t help you if I’m smashed to a bloody pulp, can I?” Malus reasoned.

For the first time since Malus met the creature, its muscles relaxed and it seemed to calm slightly. As a sign of trust, the necromancer released the spell of paralysis, though he still kept himself on guard.

“I still don’t trust you, but I have noted your eyes and disposition carefully. When I was still human, I had quite the ability to read people’s motives . . . you appear to be telling the truth. If you truly wish to aid me, come forth and help me in destroying the abominations that ravaged my peaceful home!” the creature said in a stable, if distant, tone.

“Malus Darkskull, at your service,” Malus replied. “And your name is?”

“I cannot remember most details before the massacre; I don’t even know why I wasn’t turned into a mindless beast like the rest of the injected. The name I previously held avoids my memory, so I will have a new name. I shall be called Fury, for the raging fire of anger that burns deep within my soul,” it mused.

“A fitting name, I suppose,” was Malus’s only response.

Sighing deeply, Fury turned and gazed up into the whirling tempest. A lightning bolt lit the night sky. “Here me abominations, I come for you! I feel only rage . . . anger . . . I AM FURY!”