Home » Great Library at Hoeth » Book of Tales » Voice of the Phoenix » Voice of the Phoenix, Chapter Nine
| Voice of the Phoenix, Chapter Nine |
| by Calarion Sapherior |
For time immemorial, the Darkling Morass had been in this place. Ever since the Treeman Oakheart had slain the great daemon that had taken the life of Astarielle, the first Everqueen, it had festered like an open sore in the verdant glades of Avelorn. Its true name had been lost to time, but the daemon soul had sunk into the land, staining it with its foul presence. And feeding, satiating some horrific primal urge by devouring those who tried to pass through it. Driving them mad with visions of their worst fears realised, and then sucking the delicious psychic nectar from their minds as they writhed and screamed, until they were exhausted and their desiccated corpses were abandoned in the brackish water, to rot there.
But now the Darkling Morass was confused, and angry. A party of passers-through had come, and it had left them unhindered, as They demanded in the thing’s subconscious, even now. But They had promised that it could feed, on those that would come shortly. They had not known the power of the prey, had not known that one was so powerful it had cast down the illusions crafted by the Morass in its mind and instead used the psychic bond to see into the mind of the Morass itself.
While once the daemon that had been the Darkling Morass had been possessed of great intelligence and cunning, now its sentience was that of an animal. And now, backed into a corner, wounded and desperate, it did the only thing left to it.
The ground erupted before Howell, spraying water and mud as the very land itself moved to crush the impudent one who would resist the magics of the Darkling Morass. The Caledorian flung himself aside as with a terrible roar the rolling earth flowed past him. He felt a flash of pain in his cheek as two stones bit through his flesh, leaving blooding scars.
As quickly as it had come, the dirt burst beneath him, and around him, reaching up to swallow him into the bowels of the earth. Panic threatened to engulf Howell, as he felt the ground closing around his legs. There was no way out!
And then he spied the treebranch, not far over his head, and a vague hope returned to him. Deftly, he jumped onto the cresting wave that surrounded him, felt it shift beneath his feet to swallow them, but Howell was already gone, using the earth’s momentum to fling himself higher through the air than he could have jumped himself. Desperate hands clawed at the branch, and found a hold, and Howell hauled himself up to safety.
Howell shrieked in surprise as something cold wrapped around his neck...the vines and branches of the tree were bending towards him. His hand dropped to his side and he shouted as his knife flashed forward, severing the foul green vine about his throat. More vines moved around him, one snapping out of the shrouded tree-canopy to wrap around his wrist, twisting it tightly. He watched as his knife fell from his hand and plummeted to land with a faint splash in the marsh below.
With his weapon gone, more vines stretched out, wrapping around his arms, his legs, his throat. Then they tightened, and Howell’s fear grew as they tugged him off the branch, into the air. He hung there for a moment, spreadeagle in the air, before a new horrible realisation came to him.
The vines were tightening! They meant to tear him apart, limb from limb! He struggled, or tried to – the vines were so tight he could barely move. He felt pain as his arms strained in their sockets...
There was a flash of red and silver, and the pressure lessened suddenly as the vines fell away from his right hand. “Regulus!” Howell shouted, realising the identity of his saviour. The Caledorian swordmaster held his blade in one hand, tearing back and forth through the vines that reached for him as his other hand clutched another vine, holding him in the air.
The sword slashed, and more vines fell away, and Howell found himself free. He plummeted through the air, and struck the brown water hard, sending a spray airwards with his impact. The droplets of dirty water twisted in midair, forming a wave that loomed down above him, meaning to smash down and drown him. With a shout of dismay, Howell turned and sprinted. Roaring with the force of its coming, the cresting wave rolled behind him. Howell could feel stray droplets from the wave spitting down over him, and his ears were full of the noise of the wrath of the Darkling Morass. Sparing a look behind him, Howell’s eyes widened as he saw the wave, growing ever larger and closer, bearing upon him with all the force of a charging dragon. It was too fast, he could not outrun it...
Something struck his ankle, and again he fell into the water with a cry. He landed heavily on his left arm, and nearly screamed at the pain that jolted through his body. Twisting, he saw the wave, massive and brown, sweep down over him and engulf him.
A thought came unbidden to his head, and instinctively Howell followed it, as the water soaked him, saturating his body with vicious force, making him gag and choke as it flowed into his mouth and nose. He forced himself up, through the wave, feeling its brutal power forcing him down, bearing him down to a brackish oblivion. And then he was spluttering and gasping for breath as his head emerged from the other side. His arm was screaming at him, and he could not move it – he knew it was dislocated. Dirty water ran in brown rivulets down his soaked form.
But the wave was behind him. Lurching as fast as he could, kicking up a spray of water with his passage, Howell broke for the edge of the glade and escape. Before him, branches and vines unfurled, knitting together to stop his escape. Too slowly; Howell struck them hard. He felt them tear at him, the sharp grasping claws of the Darkling Morass shredding his clothes and skin further, but he drove through them and out.
The branches closed around him, hard, grasping one leg and pulling him back. It was no good – how could he fight against a seven thousand year old daemonic swamp? It seemed laughable – nearly. He should give up and let it tear him apart...
Stubborn intuition fought his despair. One hand grabbed defiantly at something, and Howell spun and thrust it at the branches. They unfurled around him nearly instantly, and the Caledorian knew his instinct had paid off. He unfurled his clenched fingers and gazed at the small piece of oak bark in his palm. Oak had destroyed the daemon before, and it still held power over the malignant remnants of the thing.
Closing his fingers around the talisman, and drawing his sword with the other hand, Howell grimly strode back into the glade to do battle. Almost immediately, a torrent of daemonic-possessed branches came at him. His sword flew, hacking through the foliage, while the oak bark was brandished against it, causing the branches to fall back whenever it touched them.
“Regulus!” Howell shouted. “Grab Eilinel and run!”
The Caledorian swordmaster jumped nimbly off the branch he was perched on, landing on the ground. Howell noted clinically that the swamp did not seem adept at coordinating its attentions against two at once, and Regulus had gone almost unscathed while the daemonic consciousness had focused on Howell.
Howell sheathed his blade and the two warriors each grabbed an arm of the still-catatonic Eilinel and fled the Darkling Morass at last. A few last branches tried to stop their flight, but Howell presented the oak talisman and they drew back. The three Asur collapsed just outside the confines of the Darkling Morass.
“Wait here,” Howell said grimly. “There is one thing more that I must do.”
He untangled himself from Eilinel, and laid her down carefully on the forest floor, and then rose and walked away, looking at the trees until he found what he sought...an oak tree, tall and broad and weathered with old age. Howell stooped and peered around the ground, until he found what he sought, a handful of acorns fallen from the tree. He scooped them up and then rose and turned, returning to the Darkling Morass one last time. It did not attempt to stop him anymore, the fight gone out of it, but lay quiescent while he walked to the central mound that stood above the water level. His gloved hands dug a furrow in the dark earth, and then he patted in the acorn into the hole, before covering it up again. He moved steadily around the glade, planting the rest of his handful. The Darkling Morass had no power to hinder oak, and as the acorns grew they would eventually reclaim this twisted part of the forest, exorcising the daemon within and returning it to its natural state at last, after seven thousand years.
He was smiling as he left the glade, but the smile slid from his face quickly. A cluster of forms stood around the fallen bodies of his friends. Eilinel was still unconscious, and Regulus slumped unnaturally, a small shape protruding from the side of his neck. A dart...?
Several of the forms turned to Howell and raised small crossbows. “Surrender or die, Asur scum,” a druchii voice snarled. |
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