(USFB): Twenty-Six: Blood and Bargain

The tunnel was a winding snake that at times stood tall and wide enough for Razien to walk upright, albeit at a lumbering pace, while at other points, forced him to crawl on his belly like a worm. The foxes ahead of him had an easier time and, when at such points, could go on paws and knees and easily navigate. For once, he found himself wishing he had such a narrow and squat frame as most foxes and wished all the more that rotund holy man had taken up the rear behind him.

The Soweyn had remained behind, his demeanor stoic and his words untouched by any notion of fear. As though it were his duty and honor, he stood watch over the passage until Razien and Jemine had entered and then sealed it so that neither exit nor entrance would be possible. Razien wanted to turn about and argue with the man, but as he pressed against the latch, he found no purchase or give to the vertical door. Reluctantly, even with the Soweyn’s final words, he moved on following the swishing tail of Seras’ boldest guard.

She was the next on an ever-growing list Razien found he carried with of those who had worked against him. Though Jemine might have been well-intentioned and doing her very best, it was enraging to think she had done so little for Greshalin. After being told about the blade, how little time his love had until she would expire, and how the tunnels would have served her as a tomb rather than salvation, it was still impossible for Razien to let it die. He wouldn’t give word to the animosity he felt every moment those icy eyes came back into his memory, but he felt his heart beat faster, the heat grow in his limbs, and a slight tightness in his skull. As they continued in the near pitch dark of the tunnel, Razien felt he was growing ill from every thought he had of Gresh.

They had been fast friends for so long; she was more than that this Summer, and to her people, she was everything. When he found LaRoux again, if he found him, Razien wasn’t sure what he might say had become of the ex-privateer’s last remaining blood tie. Worse still, he wasn’t quite sure what the wirey old lynx would do with the information. Something about the man told him that there would be no violence brought upon the bearer of such unfortunate chances of fate, but hardly could he fault the man if he struck him or worse. If he were in his position, Razien would do away with whoever brought the cursed word to his ears. Yet to his ears, there would be nothing for several hours, only the internal condemnations he faced, knowing there was something that could have been changed, but not sure what that was.

When voice once again came to him, when the sirens of songbirds, the morning cry of the insects, and faint breeze of the acrid south returned to give the world life, Razien found he and the foxes were far from Seras. Where they stood now was not only far removed from the village they called home but even further from the mountain fortress they intended to reach. However, it was not a place unknown to Razien, though it seemed utterly alien to so many of the foxes. And, of course, it should have; the City of Colored-Glass was a forbidden zone.

They had ventured southeast in the Spring two years prior, the Cubs. Their query had escaped from a coastal village dominated by coyotes. Though it wasn’t certain, they had confidence the blood-cursed man had sought shelter in the city. Even had he not, there was curiosity in too many of the men not to take a closer look. Razien had waited at the perimeter with Jaium, and it was with their band outside of the city they caught the killer. Gore still streaked his muzzle and paws, and though he begged, he was dealt with.

Those who had entered the city had flanked and caught him by surprise. He had been transfixed by his own visage in the looming, warped glass structures that made up the strange locale. They were, from what Razien could admit to himself, quite enticing structures as they morphed the form of those standing before them and repainted their fur into strange, geometric patterns of iridescent quality. Even with the dawning sun still so low, the foxes congregated outside the vertical corridor they had ascended. Every last one looked like some abstract nightmare on the mirror-like surfaces.

Razien pushed past the huddled masses of panicked refugees, making for the most empty space in whichever street would be distant enough for him to think. The task was easier said than done as at every turn there were knots of children and clots of elders. Worse still, the city was not so much arranged as it seemed to have grown, wild and careless like a forest. However, pushing his way through as pleasantly as possible, he found his way to a distant stretch unmolested by foxes and likely by anyone for several lifetimes. 

It never ceased to amaze him how so much of the world was a prefabrication, an echo from a past none had ever quite known and yet had remained so undiscovered. There were ruins like the tower, which was said to have stood only cycles before his birth, and those inhabited places like the Ringed City of Kysel on the coast. And still, there were more ominous structures like the city he stood within. It was hard to say what distinctions had been made to name one place cursed and another blessed or at least neutral enough to warrant living space. But as he rounded the corner to another corridor of the reflective arcing rainbows of glass, Razien was given more insight than he dared.

A flinch of panic clutched his nerves and almost sent the wolf sprinting back through the winding network of walled paths. Yet, halting a moment, he noticed the hulking mongrel, the towering splash of red and black to be no more than a reflection. His visage was contorted and twisted into a shape that was not even vaguely his own, while his proportions were stretched well beyond even the height of an elk, horns included. Worse still was the face as his rather unpronounced eyes and otherwise hidden teeth became the highlights. In so many ways, it was like looking at the woodcut of a blood fiend before it had sated itself on so much flesh. And before he knew it, the reflection was that.

Warping as he stepped nearer, it wasn’t until Razien stood within arm’s reach that he noticed the colors cascade down from an image pulled to the furthest corners of the immense shard to culminate in the middle, almost touching earth. It quivered there, its complexion turning from rust to copper to a cobweb gray. The effect seemed queer, but what rose as he stopped was all the more baffling to Razien. Clawing upward as though it were a myter chick forcing its way out of its shell, a new lifeform came into being.

Though it wore a largely homogenous tone of ash across its fur, its curving, hooked tail and oddly configured paws were a sharply contrasting blush of pink. What was far less subtle was the immense smear across its face as though it had gorged just moments prior on a patch of strawberries. Standing out as the only nimbuses in an otherwise cloudless sky were the pale orbs that fixed Razien with a glare that spoke death in every language known and unknown. The body was emaciated, its appearance like one left in the burial grounds for some time before the insects and flowers had taken over. Pressing its muzzle against the glass, as though trapped within, a spider finding the confines of its jar limiting, the thing beckoned for Razien to come nearer. 

He couldn’t find his feet; nonetheless, he stood only a paw’s length away from the glass. It was odd how the sound of the foxes behind him should have carried but had been silenced completely at the rounding of the last curve. What filled the space was the thrum of his own heart, the clicking of a damp tongue across a parched mouth, and a low whisper. At first, the words were indecipherable, as though the speaker couldn’t give voice to anything intelligible. Razien leaned closer to the reflective wall, finding not only a smell of decay lousy across its surface but that the great burg of crystal trapped sound to nearly a full mute.

Closer to the glass, nearly pressing his ear against the image of the strange, furry creature, Razien could hear it speak, “I know what you want. Easily done, this thing. War, battle, whatever you call it, to turn the tide is nothing, a child’s trick. But one can not sell their services for free. What do you say to a little deal, Moqura?”

“How do you know my name,” Razien’s words were almost as muffled as those he strained to hear.

In its croaking whisper, it began again, “Salt is no sanctuary for any, less I find them useless. And trust, I find more useless bleeders than those I’d like to take. But, I hadn’t enough time, child. So instead of proliferating in your veins, I am here, waiting for your next slip-up.”

“Goredrinker!”

“A pretty name, they’ve called me many such,” he chuckled with the withered muzzle of the creature, “The Red King, Bloodhawk, Corpian Archille, but Pai’gen, that’s what they’ve all come to call me, too inept in any age to know my oldest of titles. But enough of me, child, I am here for you. I have an offer, and you have a need. So far from home, far from the troubles, and now with the foxes safe and clear, your little lover no more, what is there left for you but the fight?”

Razien pressed his forehead against the cool slate of solid crystal. He had not forgotten Greshalin in their attempt to flee. She had quickly settled in as an ambient thought over every aspect of his mind, and only in trying to find an exit from the maze of this city did he begin to ease away from his despair. Facing down the Goredrinker had taken even more of the pain from him, but the merest suggestion of what was lost sunk Razien deep into throughs of agony untold. Had he a maul or a well-built truncheon, he would have razed the wall of icy glass to powder. As it stood, there were two options: listen or flee.

“I can not guarantee these people their safety, but tucked away in this ancient architecture, praising vacuous and empty lost gods should find them safe enough. After all, the only evil that lurks here any longer is that which carries in the heart of all mortals. But you, I could help. You want to be back in the north country. You want to crush those foreign mercenaries and killers worse than anything else. I can feel it, even on this half of the mirror,” hissed the burgundy lips of the strange animal.

Swallowing fear and pride, hate and misery, Razien nodded, “If you’ve already planted your seeds of destruction in me, what more could you want?”

“There is blood to be spilt, and that will suit me fine enough. I might have further use of you, in time, should other plans fail to find their footing, should other souls fail to be of use. What I would want of you, in the interim, would be a small smattering of that precious fluid you all protect with such caution,” the humor left the voice as it laid down the aspects of a deal, “But not this moment, not directly against this dull stone. Follow me.”

With the gait of a broken old man, the creature lumbered forward on its end of the screen. It was not difficult to keep pace for Razien, but what became a burden was trying to keep the right angle on the man. Though there were only so many routes, it was still an imposing maze that, at any point, the wolf was certain he would find himself in the wrong channel of. Yet, he kept close enough for the Goredrinker to lead him to and through a gate of curving pylons whose arcs nearly touched like the horns of some shren. The silvery material did not reflect down the corridor that preceded it even slightly but against the seemingly detached structure, like a squat dome with a singular opening in its face. At the mouth of this structure, the reflection stopped and gestured for the wolf to enter.

Sunlight streamed into the hollow just enough for Razien to see that within the tight enclosure lay the sinewy form of a great serpent. It did not move at his arrival nor cause the merest shutter for the wolf as he stepped inside the dome. The snake seemed very much dead and long past the first stages of rot. Where the slit eyes of the snake should have been, bulged clutches of maggots and, in spots, the scales had come away to reveal the hollow insides. Being that it was slightly wider across than Razien himself and longer than he could know in its coil, there was no wonder it had passed. The creature would need an absurdity of prey to stay fat off of, and if starvation played little into it, the kris splitting its gemmed skull was a worrisome agent.

“The feathered serpent, a daring mount for one who means to cover weeks of travel in a day. Or should I say several days of travel? You don’t use weeks or months, bless your poor souls, not even years, I know,” the Goredrinker condescended in his most neutral and perhaps even welcoming tone. The manner in which he was regarded irked Razien only slightly. What was expected of him was another story. Assuming the devil wanted this creature, possibly of his own design, to live once more in the thrall of tainted blood, Razien stooped and withdrew the blade. The weaving iron implement had been planted to the hilt but was only about the length of the wolf’s forearm. A fine edge was still on it, and the handle was inlaid with highlights of silver and gold on the relief of a queer flower. Razien handled the blade another second before tucking it in his belt and looking into the milky-eyed gaze that met him. Low in the throat came a rumble, “Not just that. Give that blade sucker at your new wound, which you salted. Let the blood run into the shattered crystal.”

Though it went against every instinct and broke those most profound and fundamental taboos he had been raised on, Razien touched the edge to the scab of his gash. With a flick of the wrist, one hard-fought and long in coming, the wolf allowed the crusting cap over his wound open, breaking the salted barrier between the world and the dripping wine of the flesh. It was easy to target the point of entry. For Razien, it felt as though the broken stone were a greedy mouth taking all that might be offered and still hungrily looking for more. Yet, when the stream of gore ceased, and the scab began to set once more, it was enough for his purpose.

In the same manner, his wound had closed, the gem knit together as organic as though such material were easy to repair. As it did, a glow came over the serpent where it lay in a coiled mass of reeking and ripe flesh. Patch by patch, scales regrew, and between those along the spine burst new growths of the feathers these predators had once been known for. The entire process seemed to go on for hours when, in truth, mere minutes had passed from the mending of the dagger-like tail to the revitalization of the luminously lapis orbs that came shockingly from the golden arrow-shaped face. All at once, as the snake found itself not only alive once more but whole again, it reared up until there was nowhere else to go in the cave and then shot after its healer.

Tumbling backward, Razien found himself on his tail just beyond the mouth of the dome. The kris was tight in his left paw, not his best side to engage on even before sustaining injury. Yet, he was confident, as the feathered serpent unwound itself to give the slack needed to exit the cave, that it would not be beyond him to battle that way. As the point of its face was graced by the shine of a new day, it was as though Razien looked on a writhing mass of the most precious metals. Where its scales were a polished gold, its feathers swayed like waves of silver across its back, and the fangs, old with ruin, shone a dull bronze as they came careening down. Jabbing forward the point of the pilfered blade, Razien knew he’d meet death but took solace in destroying one who seemed a foe to life itself. When the embrace of those twin points, undoubtedly dripping with a dense venom, remained absent, he opened his eyes.

Hanging just before his muzzle was the snake, the slit of its eyes widening and thinning as it studied Razien. Its stare was enough to freeze his soul in an unbreakable cage, but more damning was its lack of action. With its control, the serpent could have whipped around him and swallowed him head-first without a fight, but it had stopped. From the exterior of the dome, the Goredrinker whistled before folding forward his right ear. Where the round flap connected to the gray mop of fur was another of the gems like what sat on the brow of the serpent. His whisper did not come from any crystal surfaces so far as Razien could tell, but the lips read something to the tune of, ‘part of me.’ 

Pulling himself to his feet proved no danger to him nor threat to the snake. As Razien reached his full height, the serpent sank to its belly in the dirt. He stumbled over to the wall and pressed his face against the chill glass, “What’s the point of this?”

“You’ll be at the frontlines by nightfall. Just climb on.”

“And of the foxes?” he added, uncertain anyone would make it out of the maze alone and confident they would struggle to survive.

The Goredrinker spoke without passion, “I said they were not promised in this deal. They are not fools. They will live, I am sure.”

“What more do you get from this? Will you come asking a price of my flesh once it’s all over?”

“If you fall,” the ancient ghoul remarked, “I will be there to take your body and make it anew with my light. But you won’t worry it when your time comes.”