Chapter 6

We were both tired and had gotten careless. With the days now much shorter than the nights and the clearness of the sky at this higher altitude giving us good visibility in the now more open terrain, we had taken a risk. The Orkneas and other creatures of the demonic supernatural had not bothered us since our original first days in the cave and we had assumed that up here, far from any other men and their source of prey, that we would now be safe from them. The only thing that saved our lives was that out of habit we had set our silver border-wards around our camp. We were certainly not paying close guard attention at the time.

About an hour after sunset, we had passed a nice snowy open field that featured a warm water pond that flowed up from a hot underground spring. This was a temptation that my bath-loving partner could not resist. It was the first hot bath she had enjoyed in over a year, she told me and I shared the first hour or so in it with her. We had made love standing up with me holding her in the deliciously warm water. At length, I withdrew to our nearby campsite with the intent of cooking a little of our deer meat for our late dinner when I felt the shiver down my spine that warned me of the presence of the Pink Terror. I ran for my bow and grabbed my silver arrows.

I was not a moment too soon.

The pink glowing form of their ethereal bodies appeared nearly directly in-between Elessa and myself. It is said that some of the more physical demonic creatures cannot pass easily over running water but the Pink Terror, having no physical body and being like a malevolent mist, have no such difficulties. Elessa would not be safe in the pond.

There were two of them and I fired one of my silver arrows into each. This stopped them momentarily but they would not be denied their prey! Where the arrow had passed through them, a darker redness appeared in their form. They were hurt but their need to feed was apparently stronger. I discharged more arrows, as fast as I could string them but this only delayed not discouraged them. I yelled for Elessa to run to me and not stop for anything and fired another pair of silver arrows into each. Their form was nearly all an angry red now and at last one of them fled from us, but the other remained fast behind her and I could no longer safely fire into her path to deter it.

As I reached for my silvered dagger to ward it off after Elessa had reached the safety of our wards, I saw to my horror that just feet from safety she had tripped over a large rock mostly hidden in the snow and had fallen helpless and prostrate just outside of our camp's circle of protection. I knew I just had seconds before it would fall upon her and she would be helplessly devoured.

I also had the ill-fortune of not instantly finding that dagger I so desperately needed. It was apparently on the underside of my pack but I saw Elessa's small pouch of silver powder, carefully ground from Yflen coins. It was now her only hope.

Racing outside of our protections to her side, I opened up the pouch and threw the dust before me over the inhuman evil form of that Orkneas, and I then rushed to attempt a near hopeless attempt to grab and drag her to safety in time.

The Pink Terror can speak, or rather mutter much like an ill-favored wind and to hear their words is to be seduced to your death. I think that is much of what makes them so awful to encounter and such a terror to us. I expected to hear my fatal words of seduction but instead we were subjected to the most utterly horrible screaming any mortal had ever before heard. It cried the pain and death of seemingly hundreds of voices all distinctly separate but heard together as one. There was a flash and the form of the Orkneas was no more.

Trembling, I grabbed Elessa on my third attempt and brought her to safety. Her ankle was twisted but sound and her shin was a bit banged, but she had no lasting hurts. She had been an instant from the clutches of a horrific soul devouring death and she trembled with more than just the cold.

"When it came to me near the water, I heard Wulfric's voice calling to me." she said. "He beckoned to me, bidding me to come to him so that he could once again embrace me and we would be together forever in death - but I was able to resist it. My soul belongs to you, he or the demonic voices calling in his name, have no binding over me."

She slowly dressed by the fire, and but still shivered and not just from the crisp cold, for the rest of that long silent night.

Her silver powder had indeed been her 'emergency' last-chance trick, and as she had surmised, it worked very well against the them, apparently giving them enough silver contact and of long enough duration to dispel them from this world and back to their own foul realm. I did the best I could in the dark to scoop up the entire top layer of snow around the area where I had thrown the silver powder and by melting and straining it in a cloth we reclaimed virtually all of the spent silver powder. We just might need it again some day.

Sleepless, we moved on the next morning moving fairly slowly. Elessa's ankle had swollen a little bit in her boot so we did not attempt a fast pace. The lovely clear sky we had enjoyed since the last storm was also disappearing. It was clouding over fairly fast and my old skin burns were tingling — usually an excellent judge of a change in the weather.

We did not find good shelter that next evening but we camped at dusk regardless and set our wards and made a careful watch all throughout the night, giving each of us a little sleep in turn. The sky was darker the next morning and thick clouds seemed lower and heavier with the promise of snow or even another snowstorm, and we decided to head to the closest sidewalls of the valley to search for a good cave. By mid-afternoon, with the wind now gusting and swirling an occasional snowflake, we found a very suitable cave. Unfortunately it had an owner already, one of the greater Eotenas, in fact one of the giant-kind. Some spoke the common language and could be parleyed with but this one didn't — and he was hungry. A bad combination.

Old Venial had taught us to kill the giantkind preferably with arrows and at as much of a distance as was possible. He said it would definitely take more than one arrow to bring one down and if you let one get into combat range with you things could get 'messy'. It did get very messy and the situation could easily have been much worse than it ended up being.

We had little warning of its approach as it came out of his cave in front of us. We did get an arrow each into him, but these only had the effect of making him angry and didn't appear to slow him down at all. He had a large club already in hand and he showed a marked willingness to use it — and not without some skill.

He swung his club like it was weightless, despite being about the size of a sturdy tree branch thicker than my thighs, and with his first few blows he had cracked or broken at least three of my ribs and apparently had also broken Elessa's left arm. She was hard pressed at that moment and had made the hard choice of maybe losing her arm to hopefully save her head from being cracked open like a ripe melon. She nearly missed breaking one or both of her legs a moment later when she just barely jumped over a powerful low sweeping blow that would have crushed her against the side of the rocky cave entrance with horrific force. Caught momentarily out of defensive position by his near miss, Elessa took the opportunity to roll behind him and swiftly hamstrung him to bring him down to the ground where I could swiftly cut his throat.

The dozen sword and dagger wounds we had landed plus the earlier two arrow strikes had barely fazed him. Giants might be inhumanly strong and tough, but they were not built for speed or rapid maneuver. We should have run and taken our chances on finding other shelter. We had been lucky to prevail over this creature and our victory had come at a too high of a cost.

This cave offered no suitable existing provisions, nor stacks of ready firewood. Giantkind eat their meat raw, bones and all. There was a partial haunch of something that might have been a non-human, perhaps a Boar-Man, but that was flesh that we would not willingly partake of. We still had some venison left to cook, and before the final fury of the oncoming storm hit us about dusk, I had somehow with broken or cracked ribs managed to cut and trim enough firewood to last us for at least a few days. Elessa made no complaint about her broken left arm, and helped as much as she was able to.

I trimmed some wood and bound her broken limb the best I could after resetting it, which she endured without complaint. We had no bandages left now long enough for wrapping my ribs to reduce the pain and assist healing. We could have sacrificed one of our two blankets for this but we suspected we would be very cold in a few days and might want them both wrapped whole around us instead. We suspected correctly; it was five very chilly days later before the storm broke.

With nothing else to occupy our time, we told more 'war stories' together with little bits of our previous home lives, which seemed as if they had happened in ancient history to us. We tried lovemaking a few times ... alright, daily and often. The only position that would work was her riding me on top, very slowly and carefully. In fact, much in any way of 'bouncing' hurt us both too badly. In the end, it became a game where she would seat herself gently on top of me and try to bring us both off using her vaginal muscles only. She got very good at it by the end of our stay.

By the time the storm passed, all of our rations had been utterly exhausted and we had shared our last hard biscuit the day before. We could not risk going into unknown and potentially still more dangerous territory with restocking at least something for our larder. We spent another day in the giants cave while I snared and roasted an unwary mountain goat while Elessa successfully dug some edible roots that we could at least gnaw on while on the trail in the event of need. They wouldn't be tasty, but they would fill an empty stomach and help keep up our strength.

It should have taken less than a week to get to our probable destination, instead it took nearly two. Even walking slowly made my ribs feel like fire as at least one break in my bones continually tormented my lungs and made each breath feel like agony. The path was nearly all uphill and as we were both hobbling, we needed to choose our step carefully. Running in the event of danger was impossible at the moment, so we did those last miles with as much stealth as possible. With her broken arm, Elessa could not use her bow, which also limited our defensive options. My bow remained strung and in my hand, but it was near intolerable agony to draw and shoot it, but I had merged all of our remaining arrows into my back quiver just in case.

Sometimes we had to travel five miles to avoid passing through a wide open area of less than one mile. By the end of the second day on the road I was coughing up a little blood. While I tried to hide it Elessa's eyes were sharp but there was nothing she could do to help me and she kept her worries and fears to herself. I was already getting worried enough for the both of us.

We moved slowly and with extreme caution and we took frequent rests as often as we dared. Contrary to our fears, the large mountain valley we had climbed up into was rich with wild game and we enjoyed a hot meal every evening. We placed our protections every evening as usual but never had a need for them. Once we did find a couple of Goblin tracks that crossed our path, but those secretive night-going creatures would probably seek to avoid us as much as we would them.

It worked out and on a miserably cold late Sunday morning we saw what seemed to the white columns of a structure at the top of a high hill quite near to the root of some great mountains, which seemed to be nearly impassible. We were exhausted and I was hurting badly with my lungs on fire and in near constant tears from the pain by the time we got to the top of that hill. Frankly, I'm not sure I could have travelled more than a few more step or even another mile, let alone another few days. For at least the last day or so, Elessa had been virtually holding me upright as we slowly walked with her one good arm and she was nearly all done in as well.

We found ourselves next a circular structure of raised columns of old carved white marble that could certainly be mistaken (especially by a scout flying in the air in that old written account) for a small temple or chapel. Inside the circle, it had an open domed lattice of delicately carved stone for something of a roof. There was a great circular stone table with seven elaborately carved stone chairs in the center. No one was presently occupying them. If the Gods used this as a meeting place, they certainly didn't seem to be there now.

We saw no trace whatsoever that anyone had been here for a long, long time.

There was however, at the center of the great table a delicately wrought gold and silver centerpiece, which held a fairly large crystal sphere. On the sphere were numerous delicately etched runes and symbols that neither of us could read. We assumed that one set was Dweorg and while the other set did have a slight resemblance to some Ylfen characters, the other language was unfamiliar to Elessa. She was a good deal more well-read than I was.

But neither of us had any doubt whatsoever as to what the true message was. This had "Touch me and die horribly!" written all over it.

But the two months of trial and hardship had been for something — the temple did exist and there was a crystal globe just as Eilmer had predicted. He had a lot more confidence in long forgotten and (invariably) barking mad prophets than I had.

We had found Eilmer's chapel and its mystical crystal. It was remotely within the realm of possibility that, flouting obvious and immediate death, we could maybe do something to shatter that globe and release its undoubtedly lethal magic. Could this really end the war and bring us peace, and banish the horrific demonic things that now preyed upon us? Maybe, but I just didn't see how. How would this also restore our Gods to us?

Neither of us could see any answer to these questions. We discussed our limited possibilities in increasing vague detail. We weren't sure what we were going to do and even less sure if anything we COULD do would work. Nevertheless, we were resolved that it was probable that we going to likely die.

I certainly wasn't good for much longer anyway. I was now coughing up so much blood from my lungs that survival even to see tonight's sunset seemed unlikely. Traveling with broken ribs had carved my lungs into such a bleeding mess that every breath was flaming agony and a fight with drowning in my own blood. If I were to lay down now or should I fall asleep, I would be finished. Even if I was home in my army camp there would be little that the healers and bone-cutters could likely do for me.

A good death here and now so that others might live sounded perfectly acceptable to me. Hopefully after all of this everyone else would find the world afterwards a little better of a better place than we had.

Eilmer had said that in order to be able to do this we would have to be the sacrifice, a true "Aefenoffrung". Elessa's knowledge of theology ran much deeper than mine and she was quite ashen faced at the stern duty this required. She had accepted her fate — it was sealed forever with mine now ... but wasn't particularly eager to immediately confront it. I offered her an alternative out of this tragedy with slightly more enthusiasm than I actually felt.

"Ok, Eilmer was right. We could just go limping back home and let him know. Really, that was really about all he had ever asked of me, not to give up my life in the process. If I were alone, I admit I would probably next stand up and pray to every God I can think of for the strength to pick up and shatter that ball. My lungs I fear are sorely punctured and I now breathe as much blood as good air. My safe return, even if we camped here until my wounds healed is now far from assured, for these wounds are indeed, I fear, grave. I have you to consider now, and you must now see to your own survival. You are my partner, my cup-bearer, my lover and already in my heart my 'gefera' even though you are still not my formally acknowledged consort and wife. You can still leave and return home to safety with our child. You can find your true Ceorl-Husband, bear his sons, and we can meet again in some future weaving of the world."

She cried many tears at this, and would not be parted from me and we held each other for a long time. I even considered commanding her to leave me to my Doom alone, but I knew that even as she would be forced to obey my order she would never forgive either me or herself in her heart. I opened my mouth to further entice her to save herself, but she stopped my word cold with a kiss.

"My Doom brings me here as well, for I was told by the Moon-Woman that 'Two shall wield as one — Once shall the crystal sing as like a bell'. Together we shall laugh and cry one last time and together will we find a way to destroy this crystal or indeed make it sing, and an end shall be brought to things. It is indeed proper that we should do this together and just perhaps once done, great honor will carry our names to distant generations who may yet know peace by our deeds. Succeeding, our souls hand-in-hand as in life, shall travel to the Shadowlands to await reweaving upon the great loom. I accept this Doom willingly and shall face it with you with stern acceptance. Perhaps truly, our great sacrifice is to become the Peace-Weaver between the Gods and the race of Men."

There was really nothing more to say. We had both made our decision and our will to succeed was now implacable.

We set our packs into some sort of final order and Elessa, whose scribe hand was much clearer than mine, left an all too brief account of our names and the Doom that brought us here so that someday perhaps one of our peoples could know whom to hoist a tankard in remembrance to in their feast halls.

I took the best last breath that I could and together Elessa and together reached across the great stone table and despite the excruciating pain that it caused my bleeding ribs and lungs and her broken arm we managed to get three good hands around the globe to lift it. We felt an odd but faint tingle as we first touched it and it seemed quite warm to our hands and offered no harm to us. Its weight was ponderous, far heavier than it ought to have been, but somehow despite our frailties we somehow managed to lift it and raise it up as high as we could manage. With the last of our strength we dropped it, throwing it down to the hard marble floor next to the table.

Despite its hard forced landing it remained undamaged, probably even unscratched. Our attempt to destroy it had been nothing but a love tap, but it did emit a faint sound something like a low sounding of a deeply buried or muffled bell. It was weak but it held its tone and did not dissipate, and its surprisingly deep tone lasted for several long minutes and seemed to penetrate everywhere.

We were still alive.

We laid there on top of the table just enjoyed the moment for a good long while and we practiced our extensive collection of exotic obscenities. My lungs and ribs were extremely unhappy with me and I enjoyed a long coughing spell and tried to empty my lungs of just enough blood to begin to even consider starting to pick up the crystal ball and making another try at shattering it. My chest seemed engulfed in an internal flame that seemed to sear me worse than hellfire ever had, and it was quite awhile before I felt ready to make a fresh attempt. I was teaching Elessa an especially ripe archaic Caesterian obscenity that I had learned from Old Venial when we realized that we were no longer alone.