The Call (8 page)

The sensation was strange. As if something was happening around her which she could
almost
see,
almost
hear,
almost
smell. As if she only needed to rip a blanket off her head to experience it.

She heard Serdra's voice somewhere in the distance muttering quietly and guiding her along. She tried to understand the words but they were so indistinct. Yet there was nothing else to feel. Not breathing, not a heartbeat nor the chair beneath her butt cheeks.

The whispers showed the way despite her lack of understanding, and she saw the cabin without opening her eyes. Saw it
within
herself, from no particular angle.

She saw it empty.

She saw herself and Serdra practice outside.

She saw herself and Serdra arrive on the first day.

And she saw a man.

He was angry, terrible and powerful. He desired something he couldn't get and sank deeper and deeper in search of it.

She saw the first victim. A boy on the cusp of adulthood. He was numb with sorcery when the man pushed him into the cabin and tied him down.

The man cut him.

The spell wore off and the boy felt every cut, every stab, while the man pried the ribs apart and examined the organs. He screamed, twitched and then gurgled until he finally died.

The man was dissatisfied. He hadn't seen enough, hadn't found what he wanted. He sewed the chest back together and recited words over the corpse. The day after it stood up and obeyed the man's commands. He sent it down the fell to fetch another experiment.

That's how it began. The man tried new approaches, new spells in search for the secret and each time he was left with only a new monster. They got stronger with each 'generation', but also more savage and more frequently came back from missions splattered with blood.

Katja watched this,
felt
this, and wanted to scream. She didn't understand the cruelty. What did he want? How could he torment people so terribly? They couldn't defend themselves, hadn't wronged him in any way and when they finally escaped into death their remains were desecrated and misused.

Why?

This went on for a while. She couldn't sense time well, but eventually the stitched-up monsters numbered about twenty.

Then came the assault, just before dawn.

Serdra, wearing different clothes, with different weapons and entirely brown hair, approached the depression the cabin stood in along with five men. Two of them carried long axes, two more had chopping spears and the fifth had a sword just like Serdra's.

Serdra went ahead of them and ran first to the west and then north, heading past the cabin. The men carefully walked straight towards it, holding their weapons with the familiarity of trained warriors. Serdra came to the first sentry hidden in the scrub, surprised it and cut it down before an alarm could be raised.

She kept going with fast but silent strides and felled another sentry just west of the cabin.

The men kept on going and the one with the sword, a blond youth with graceful movements, split from the group, stealthily moved ahead of them and struck down a sentry.

Serdra kept on moving in a circle and met another one north-east of the depression. It died with a quiet gurgle. At the same time the men were almost to the edge of the depression. They were focused and alert, but still started when a sentry monster rose from a bush they'd just passed and screamed.

The scream was answered. Some of the calls came from other places on the fell, but most came up from the depression.

The monster attacked. One the spearmen stepped forth and tried to slash at its legs. It dodged to the side and attacked the one with the sword. He cut its arm off but it still struck at him with the other arm. His cheek was badly torn, he screamed and blood flowed.

A man of about fifty years in leather armour and a hood came up behind the beast and buried an axe in its back. It whined and tried to pull off the weapon, but the swordsman recovered and clove its head.

But the damage was done. Footsteps approached from the cabin, accompanied by shrieks from stitched lungs.

Serdra sprinted clear across the plain and towards the depression. She was delayed by encountering yet another sentry, which attacked her with a staff. Meanwhile the men took up a position on the edge and braced for the group which assaulted them.

The monsters were stronger and the more recent ones were also terribly quick, but the long reach of the spears and axes made up for it to a certain degree, as most of the reanimated monsters were totally unarmed.

The swordsman was in fact in the greatest peril with his relatively short weapon, and they also seemed to go for him more than his companions. Perhaps it was the smell of blood.

Serdra had slain her foe and resumed the sprinting when the men killed the first of the grouped monsters and three limbs lay in the grass.

Meanwhile the man responsible for all of this stood outside of his cabin and watched. He had a fighting staff in one hand and waved the other one in the air as he intoned something incomprehensible.

One of the axemen took a nasty bite in the leg from a monster he'd struck down, and the swordsman stabbed it. Another monster seized the opportunity to attack him and a spearman protected him by chopping it in the chest. It fell, but he couldn't turn his spear back to the throng of horrors quickly enough and one of them got a grip on the shaft.

The spear shaft was snapped in two with one blow of a fist and the monster tackled him to the ground. He tried to pull a knife out of his belt but the monster sank its teeth into his throat.

Katja felt energy gather around the man with the staff, but either it wasn't sufficient or he didn't manage to finish, because Serdra came up behind him and cut him almost in two.

Something passed through the group of monsters. They reacted as if startled. The men took advantage by decapitating one of them and running through the one which had torn out the spearman's throat.

Serdra kept running, which was good as the monsters recovered and attacked the men again, now with utter frenzy. The teamwork they'd used before was no more, though. They jostled and got in each other's way in search of victims. The recklessness caused more injuries to both groups, but when Serdra joined the fray, the monsters fell swiftly. She hit the back of the throng like a scythe hitting grass, and when they realized a new foe had arrived it was too late.

In a few moments Serdra and the men had given the final death blows and then turned their attention to healing.

Serdra bandaged the swordsman's cheek, who held up pretty well in spite of the nasty wound, and the rest tended one another. There were no life-threatening wounds, as the one with the throat-bite had expired before the battle ended.

They burnt the monster corpses, buried their comrade, inspected the cabin and then left. The cabin stood empty for a while but the events stayed behind. The anguish, fear and suffering and unclean magic had seeped into the earth and air and stayed there like a bad smell. A smell Katja hadn't noticed until now.

The smell faded far too slowly. She gradually became aware of the smell of meat and grass, the crackling of the fire, the seat beneath her ass and Serdra's hands on her shoulders. It was nonetheless startling when everything snapped back to the way it was and she sensed only the present.

She sprang from the chair, staggered for a few moments as her equilibrium returned and then strode back and forth with quick, jerky movements.

“Easy,” Serdra said, still by the chair.

Katja walked around hunched with her hands on her head. The vision haunted her. She looked at the spot where the sorcerer had kept his cutting table. She heard piercing screams in her mind. She wanted to flee this horrible place, but where could she go?

“Easy Katja!” Serdra said more loudly and Katja looked at her. She didn't know what to say or do.

“Have a seat,” the woman said more gently and pointed at the chair. “I know such things are trying. Take a deep breath and relax.”

“I... felt it!”

“I know,” Serdra said, still in that tone Katja hadn't come to expect from her. “I know exactly what you experienced. Sit.”

Katja staggered back to the chair, mostly due to a lack of other ideas, and fell onto it limply. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, and tried to breathe deeply as her mentor had instructed.

It worked briefly, but then her breaths became more shallow and jerky, and she felt herself begin to cry.

“He... hurt them so much!”

“Yes.

“They were so afraid!”

One of the women had broken loose and fled. She had almost escaped, before one of the monsters caught her and dragged her back to the cutting table.

“Yes.”

“Why did he do that?” Katja growled and tried to control herself, but the vision had sapped her strength.

“He was a dark sorcerer. He acquired power through dealings with demons, evil spirits and other entities from the Underworld. But in time, as tends to happen, he began to fear the consequences of such connections and sought ways of cheating death.”

“Cheating death?”

“Mortals do manage it sometimes, but with various side effects. He studied the workings of the human body in hopes of avoiding them, and at the same time created protectors and servants. I and a few of our allies tracked him down when it became clear how much of a menace he was.”

“He was a monster!”

“Yes, for a human.”

Katja resumed her battle for deep breaths. The vision had been more than just sounds and sights. It had been the unnatural horror which had made it so easy for her to see those events so clearly, and she felt like they'd slid through her skin and tainted her.

“Is it this...” She cleared her throat and sniffed. “Is it this kind of stuff you, we,  battle?”

“Amongst other things. Dark forces can cause plenty of harm on their own, but sometimes act through mortal men.”

“I wanted to kill him,” Katja muttered. Silence reigned for a period after that, while Katja gathered her strength and Serdra for some reason said nothing. Katja expected a lecture about not letting such things affect her, or some such. Instead she felt Serdra's hand tenderly stroke her hair and shoulders.

It surprised her. She wasn't accustomed to such gestures from the woman. But Katja was too exhausted to make some snarky comment, so she just allowed herself to sit there and enjoy it. As the fire crackled and evening gradually became night she started to feel better.

Katja cleared her throat again and rubbed her face. The vile sensation was still there, but at least the breakdown had passed.

She turned and looked at Serdra with the corner of her eye, who now stood with her hands on the chair back, and felt she saw something new in the woman's eyes. Something softer, which she could almost call human.

She wasn't sure what it was or whether it could really be called warmth, but at least for a moment the woman didn't seem to be considering her next step or to have all the answers.

Their eyes met before Katja turned away. She suspected she wouldn't see that again for a while.

And here I thought I was starting to understand her.

“Was that... did you show me that as an answer to my question?” she asked to fill in the silence. “About reasons for fighting? To stop that kind of cruelty?”

“You need to learn to use your abilities,” Serdra replied with her familiar mentor voice. “And this is a good location for it. But it's good that you ponder a bit.” She hesitated. “So do you want to prevent such things?”

“Yes,” Katja answered and surprised herself. This lust for combat, the Call, had always been within her, but she'd never given thought to how she might put it to use. She had wanted to stop the sorcerer in the vision and if she encountered something similar in the modern day she would want to stop that as well.

Then she went over Serdra's question again in her mind and felt the tone had been a bit strange.

“Wasn't that the reason you set out on that expedition?” Katja asked. “You and the others?”

“Yes,” Serdra said. “I, Arnar, Ulfur, Maron, Kasidi and Otto gathered together forty-four years ago in outrage at the murder spree and vowed to put a stop to it.”

Katja looked back at Serdra, but found the woman gazing up into the air with a distant look.

“And stop it we did, but it cost us.”

“The one who died.”

“That was Ulfur, but he wasn't the only one. The battle drew the attention of our other enemies, as we suspected it might. It caused us considerable difficulties and Otto and Arnar died later that year in the following conflicts. One of the elders criticized me harshly for rashness.”

“Rashness? In saving people from such horror?” Katja asked, outraged.

“Well it was, from a totally logical viewpoint.” She still hadn't looked at Katja.

“A logical viewpoint? And what is your viewpoint?”

Serdra finally looked at her and was silent for a moment.

“I want to see you forge your own,” she then replied. “I am curious to see what it will be.”