The Farmer's Wife #018

When Matthias' vision returned, Anya was staring at him awe-struck. She stepped slowly forward and crouched beside him. "What was that?" she asked, breathless with awe and now-receding fear.

"The name of my god," said Matthias simply.

"The presence of your god," said Thanos, breathlessly but not without his usual sharpness.

"If you can do that, we need never fear the darkness again!"

"The name of a god is not lightly invoked, nor often. If the sheer power of Aranaus' presence does not kill you outright, the name on your lips will grow meaningless and your god will ignore your cries of real desperation."

She looked deflated. "That can... kill you?"

Thanos rolled his eyes. "Look at him. He can barely stand after a single utterance; what state would he be in after ten, or fifty?"

Combat to scolding in less than a minute, thought Matthias wry. He gave a glance of pity to Anya, who averted her eyes from Thanos' and sat quietly on a tree-root.

Looking up, he saw Valdis propped against a nearby tree, clutching his arm to his side. Anat was standing over him, a worried look on his face.

Matthias stood unsteadily and walked across to the two. "Brother Valdis?" he asked. "Are you injured?"

Valdis nodded. He was trying hard to hide the pain, but the marks of it were clear. "A bad swing," he said, nodding to his mace, which lay on the ground a little way away.

Matthias walked over and picked up the mace. The light that the Hymn had brought forth from it had faded, but the heavy silvered bulb was still warm to the touch. He walked back to Valdis' side and offered the mace deferentially, but the Purgator shook his head.

"Keep it," he said, fumbling with his unhurt hand to undo the leather strap that usually held the mace at his side. "Oh, don't look at me that way, Thanos. It's useless to me with my arm like this, and I think the boy has more than proven himself. Most Purgatori defeat their first shadow half a decade after their initiation, and he has defeated half a dozen before it."

Matthias would have sworn he could feel the Justicar's eyes boring into the back of his head. He froze, unwilling to accept the mace if it would incur the old man's ire, but also unwilling to turn down Valdis' offer. It was more than a simple matter of practicality, whatever he said to pacify Thanos. Giving Matthias his weapon was a twofold token of trust; first, he was all but declaring Matthias worthy of being a full Purgator, and second, he was trusting him to defend him with his own weapon.

After a moment, Matthias heard Thanos grunt. "As you wish."

Valdis handed him the strap, smiled, and winked. It probably didn't hurt that giving him the mace annoyed Thanos, thought Matthias.

He stood, tied the strap to his waist, and then looked up at Valdis. "Brother, there is no altar, no font."

Valdis shrugged. "The gods can hear you perfectly well without one." Behind Matthias, Thanos cleared his throat loudly, but Valdis took a waterskin from his satchel, tossed it to Matthias, and continued. "Needs must. That will do for water."

Matthias frowned, and winced at the look he knew must be on Thanos' face, but opened the waterskin as reverently as he could. Pouring the water over the mace, he recited the Purification.

"Blessed Aranaus of the Silver Crown, Guardian and Warrior, Shadow's Bane, purify this weapon that it my strike down darkness wherever it may rise." He genuflected, holding the mace above his head, resting atop the palms of his hands. "Blessed Aranaus of the Silver Crown, Guardian and Warrior, Shadow's Bane, bless this weapon to my hands that I may do your work with it."

Matthias felt something wash over him, and he suddenly became keenly aware of every aspect of the weapon he held in his hands. He opened his eyes and saw the mace glowing softly, washing him in gentle white light. He stood and fastened the mace to his side. The light slowly faded, but he felt a bond with the weapon he could not describe, something he had never encountered before.

"There," said Valdis, smiling. "Let us pay due respect to the gods when we are able," he said with a polite nod towards Thanos, "but there is no sense in going weaponless when there are weapons to be had, and well does the Warrior know it."

Matthias knew Thanos would be scowling, but the knowledge did not in the slightest diminish the sense of pride washing over him. He smiled to himself for a moment, and then knelt to help Anat secure Valdis' wounded arm.

The Farmer's Wife #017

Suddenly, the shadows fell upon them.

The world slowed almost to a halt as Matthias watched something almost like a wolf leap -

flow

 - through the air towards Valdis. He yelled a warning, but the Purgator was already lunging to one side and reaching for his mace. The wolf-shadow's maw missed his neck by a hairs-breadth, and the creature's body twisted in the air as he shouldered it aside.

Too late, Matthias saw another shadow already launching itself towards Valdis, but as he watched the man spun around, mace in his hand, and smashed the beast aside. With a harsh sound somewhere between a yelp and a scream, it fell to the ground, rolled, and leaped out of the torchlight.

Valdis backed slowly towards Anya and Matthias, holding his torch out in front of him, peering into the darkness. Behind him, Matthias heard the soft sound of steel on leather; he turned to see Thanos' sword glinting in his hand.

The three priests closed in around Anya; Matthias realised that they had left a place for him in their rough, outward-facing circle. Breath caught in his throat, he stepped forward to fill it.

He lobbed his torch a short distance in front of him and took up a defensive stance, feet planted wide apart on the ground. He muttered a silent prayer of thanks for Brother Talis and his endless mantra of "'unarmed' should never mean 'defenceless'".

"Show yourselves, beasts," muttered Thanos. Matthias' eyes flicked back and forth from shadow to shadow. Things moved in the corners of his eyes. He felt his heart beating in his chest, heard his short, rapid breaths in his throat. What was coming? What was coming to take them?

For a moment, he almost lost control. Then he heard Valdis' voice. The man was chanting; singing. Matthias knew the Battle-Hymns of the Purgatai well, and, without any deliberate decision, his voice joined in. The voices of Thanos and Anat followed.

Four voices was not much. In the days of old, before the Shattering, this hymn would have been sung by groups dozens or hundreds strong. But as the chant - more a sung battle-cry than anything else - rose up within him, it lit a fire in his heart and washed away the fear. On his left, he saw Valdis' mace swinging in his hand; as their voices rose to a shout, the mace began to glow white-hot with a light that burned away the darkness that surrounded them.

In the woods around them, creatures stalked between the trees, circling, waiting.

All of them were four-legged, but otherwise no two were the same; some were more like wolves, some more like bears, some more like great cats. All of them did not so much walk as flow forward over the ground; the sight would have been extremely disconcerting save for the Battle-Hymn steeling Matthias' spirit.

They were hard to count; they faded into and out of the shadows the mace's light cast from the trees. There were at least thirty, perhaps more.

One of the cat-things darted forward. In moments, others followed. Seconds later, all were charging.

Matthias braced himself as the cat sprung up at him, jaws agape, claws outstretched. He dodged slightly to one side and span with the impact of its body into his shoulder. Grabbing it bodily, he used its own momentum to slam it into the ground. He kicked his legs out from beneath him and dropped down after it, slamming his elbow into the back of its neck with the full force of his weight. With a sickening crack, the beast went still.

Not staying still for a second, never letting the hymn fade from his lips, he rolled forward over its corpse, already begin to flake away in the holy light that washed over it, and scanned the circle of light as he rolled to his feet.

Thanos was swinging his sword through a hulking black monstrosity; the darkness of its flesh burned away before the silvered blade. Anat was wrestling a shadow-wolf to the ground. Valdis was spinning around into a follow-through even as the shattered body of the shadow he had just struck disintegrated into falling motes of darkness.

He rolled upright just as another wolf leapt at him and the last spark of conscious movement faded away as he brought his fist up sideways to meet it. Hymn still rising from his lips, he struck and span and struck again, weaving around his foes in an intricate dance that seemed to spring from his limbs themselves.

He pulled the others into his dance, and entered into theirs; here, he threw a leaping beast towards Valdis, whose mace launched it into a tree; there, he ducked below Thanos' blade as the old man cut into the beast that had been heading for his throat.

His foot caught on a root, the hymn faltered on his lips, and the dance fell apart around him. He fell, rolled, and came up strong, but before he could ready himself one of the creatures struck him in the chest, bearing him him down to the ground.

The hymn halted in his mouth and vanished from his mind, and there was only the primal terror of the prey before the predator.

"Aranaus!" The name of his god rung out from his lips, and with a flash of light and thunder the creature was thrown from his chest. He leapt to his feet and launched himself towards the creature before it could do the same; with a wrench of his arm he snapped its fragile neck.

His voice took up the Battle-Hymn again, but as he looked around, he saw the last few shadows fleeing into the darkness.

The hymn slowly faded from their voices and the fire that had burned in Matthias' blood receded, leaving exhaustion in its wake. He slumped down against a tree, staring blankly ahead as his vision clouded over and faded to black.

The Farmer's Wife #016

The sullen light of the torches flickered through the trees as they continued through the forest.

Matthias found himself walking alone alongside Anya. Ahead of them, Valdis forged ahead; behind, Anat and Thanos followed slowly.

He did not want to hear what she would have to say now, especially in the deep darkness of the forest. Her words from the cabin, and from the farmhouse before that, still clung to his soul like lichen, slowly sapping the light from his thoughts.

But Valdis had said to watch her; perhaps she would say something now to give herself away. And besides, he would struggle to find an excuse to escape now.

"It is sad to see the forest like this," she said. "My father used to hunt here, when I was a child. He would bring me with him, if I was quiet." She smiled gently. "He always used to say that my mother gave me too many chores for a child, and that I needed to learn more than how to cook and wash and darn. I was almost as much a son to him as a daughter."

This did not seem too bad, thought Matthias. "Do you have no brothers or sisters?" Small families were rare out here in the farmlands.

She shook her head. "No... Not anymore." Matthias gave her a prolonged look of sympathy, and she continued. "My brother was the oldest. He died while I was an infant. I had two sisters. Both dead, and now I am alone."

"What happened to them?"

She sighed, shaking her head. "A story for another time."

"You were talking about the forest, before... this happened."

The flicker of a smile crossed her face for a moment, but then it was replaced by a... hollow look. "There are many places like this now," she said. "Too many. These lands do not belong to Men anymore."

"Men still live everywhere, even through the deepest darkness."

She shook her head. "We live, but we do not belong. Only the gods held back the darkness, gave us power over the land. And now they are gone, and we are barnacles on a beached ship, clinging on but slowly drying up, until the scraper comes, and... shhk."

Matthias stared at her for a moment before answering. "The creatures of the darkness are the works of a god as well, my lady. The darkness is the darkness of Ygn, and of the Midnight Crown."

"Ygn shaped the darkness, and mothered the things she created from it, but she did not create the darkness. This..." - she gestured around them - "...this darkness is ancient, more ancient even than the gods, Even than Ygn. And it has endured past her fall."

Matthias frowned. She knew more of Ygn than she ought; indeed, he only knew of the Dark Mother at all through the sacred texts he had read as an initiate. And she seemed unduly knowledgeable about Ygn's darkness as well.

"How do you know this?" he asked.

If she realised that she may have erred in saying too much, her face did not show it. "Knowledge is the only way to survive these dark times. Knowing what is trying to destroy you is... helpful."

"Some knowledge can be dangerous to those who know it."

She shrugged. "I will share no more of it, then, and keep the danger to myself."

Matthias faltered. "I did not mean-..."

She laughed. "You did not think. You priests think that the Silver Crown and the holy texts are all that is needed to drive away any evil, but the Silver Crown has fallen, and their words mean nothing any more. You judge and persecute those who take any steps to protect those they love except the ones you prescribe, empty prayers to long-dead gods."

Matthias stopped in his tracks, staring at her. She held his gaze for a moment, and then turned and walked onward after Valdis.

The Farmer's Wife #015

Matthias was no stranger to forests. As a child he had spent much time in the forests just outside Galden, picking mushrooms with his mother or playing at hunter with the other boys. But this forest made chills run up his spine with every breath.

The moment they crossed the threshold and entered the trees, what dim light there had been seemed to vanish altogether. The darkness below the forest's canopy was not merely lack of light; it was a suffocating blanket that lay over everything, actively snuffing out any light that entered.

Matthias did not know where they were going. Valdis led now, occasionally uttering a brief prayer, occasionally stopping and closing his eyes as though waiting for inspiration. The others followed where he led, occasionally stumbling over a root or stopping to disentangle themselves from the vines that covered the forest's floor.

The forest was deathly still. No birds chirped in the trees, and even the crickets, if there were any living in this dark place, were silent.

Eventually, it became too dark to continue walking. They stopped to build a fire; it took an eternity of stumbling around in the darkness to gather enough twigs that weren't soaked through with sticky damp to dry out those that were.

Finally, a fire flickered dully in the space between two large tree roots, and they sat around it for a moment to rest.

"We are not far now from the deepest shadow, I think," said Valdis.

"How long?" asked Thanos brusquely.

"It is hard to say." Valdis shook his said. "With Aranaus' guidance I would have been able to tell you to the pace how far it is, but with only prayers and vague impressions..." Anya looked meaningfully at Matthias as he spoke, but he deliberately stared into the fire as though he had not noticed.

One of the trees nearby was a pitch-sap; Anat tapped into it with his knife and soaked several old rags from his satchel in the thick dark sap that oozed through the wound in the bark.

"You see?" he said to Matthias, smiling. "In the deepest darkness, this," - he gestured to the sap - "though dark itself, gives us what we need to bring forth light."

Matthias half-returned his smile, but his mind was fixed on the darkness behind Anat; he thought he saw the darkness itself moving of its own accord.

He broke off a few sturdy branches from nearby trees, and Anat wrapped the rags, now black with sap, around the ends. Lighting them from the embers of the fire, they handed torches to each of the others, took two for themselves, and set off through the darkness.

The Farmer's Wife #014

The woman had not cried long when she slumped back down on her bedroll, apparently asleep.

Matthias ran his hand over his head and sighed at the bristles he felt. Collecting a few things from his pack, he went outside into the cold morning air.

The diligent loggers had dug a well a little away from the cabin, though it was more a deep, wood-reinforced hole in the ground than anything else. The wooden well-cover was rotten and crumbling, but Matthias did not need the water to drink.

Down into the hole went the tin pail; up it was hauled to the surface, water splashing from its sides. Matthias dipped a finger in the bucket and winced. The water was icy cold. He opened the flask of Anat's preparation and poured some into the water; with a little encouragement it quickly foamed up. He flicked his straight-razor open and set to work.

When he had finished, washed his now-smooth head and emptied the bucket, he went back inside. All three of the Brothers were awake; none of them looked as though they had had a restful night's sleep.

Thanos looked up as he entered, and gave a small nod of approval at Matthias' clean-shaven head. Matthias stood in front of the three and bowed, greeting each of them in turn.

Anat went to wake the woman, and Matthias gestured to Valdis, calling him aside.

"What is it, Matthias? I must prepare for the day's journey."

"I am sorry, Brother, but there is something I must speak of."

Valdis looked at him curiously. "What is it?"

"The... The woman, I have a... bad feeling about her."

Valdis raised an eyebrow. "A bad feeling? Surely we have taught you better than that. Come, what have you noticed?"

Matthias nodded deferentially. "I have spoken to her twice now. Her mood changes at the slightest provocation, and at times she speaks with words that do not seem to be her own."

Valdis nodded. "You think she is deceiving us?"

Matthias was surprised at the trust Valdis placed in his judgement. "I-... I do not think so, Brother. Her child has been Taken, of that much I am certain. But I believe there is something else that we do not know."

Another nod. The Purgator looked at him until he continued.

"She is not a shadow herself. She has not tried to harm any of us. But that wound on her hand... she will not let Brother Anat see to it. She will not even show it to him."

"Yes. That has concerned me as well. But unless she is a shadow herself, which she is not, any concern about her intentions fall to Brother Thanos to address, not to I." The dismay Matthias felt at the thought of a prolonged discussion with Thanos must have shown on his face, because Valdis smiled slightly to himself and continued, "I will speak to him of this, but not yet. He is not a man to be readily troubled, and we have nothing certain to give him. Watch her closely, Matthias, and tell me what you see. I will do the same."

Matthias nodded with relief. "Yes, Brother."

"Now go, collect your things. It is almost day; we must leave soon."

Matthias walked across to where he had slept. He returned to his satchel what he had removed, pulled the leather strap onto his shoulder, and walked out into the grey dawn light.

The Farmer's Wife #013

Matthias awoke again to the sound of a crackling fire. He rose slowly from the floor and wiped the sleep from his eyes to see the woman sitting in front of the fire, warming her hands.

She looked him up and down with weary eyes. "Bad dreams?"

He nodded silently.

"Do you still think my husband was a coward?"

He imagined what it must have been like to face dreams like that night after night after night. "No. No, I don't."

She smiled. He could not quite tell whether it was a friendly smile or a satisfied smirk. She gestured to the fire and spoke softly enough not to wake the others. "We have fire, and it will be some time before it is light enough to travel. Come, tell me about your dreams."

Matthias frowned. It seemed like she was being genuinely friendly. The woman was an enigma; perhaps the trauma of losing her son had done more harm to her than even Brother Anat could heal. Still, there were worse things than an offer of warmth and company on a cold winter morning.

He shuffled closer to the fire. "I dreamt..." He shook his head. "I dreamt of dark things about which you would not wish to hear."

"Only darkness?"

"No. There was..." He sighed. "I saw Galden. My home."

Anya nodded. "The Silver Throne."

"Yes." He stared into the fire, remembering the beauty of it in the dream. He wondered if it had been as beautiful in reality. "Did you ever see it?" he asked.

"Not close to. I was on a caravan that passed the city once, when I was a child. But... you seem sad. Dreams of home should be dreams of joy, or dreams of comfort at least."

"I saw it being destroyed."

"The Throne?"

"Everything. The whole city. So many people died."

"The Shattering," she said, eyes glinting oddly in the firelight. "The death of the gods."

He looked up, looked her in the eye, but he could see no hint of malice there. She might as well have been making idle conversation about the weather.

"We do not know that. Cannot know that."

"How old were you?" she asked. "A child? An infant?"

He shook his head. "Not yet born. My father died that day. My mother said he died saving her. Saving me. She never told me how."

"So you have never known the god you serve?"

He shrugged. "I have never spoken to him, but few did, even before-... before. I know his teachings, and the teachings of his servants. I see his work being done in the world."

She smiled inscrutably. "So much faith, for one who has never seen."

He gestured at the cabin around them. "I did not see this building raised, nor meet the men that raised it. But I can still dwell in it, still repair it, still send a weary traveller here to rest."

She shook her head. "The gods were not just builders; they were the foundation, the root, the heart." She spoke as though correcting a child. "Without them, the building crumbles, the tree falls, and the flesh dies and rots away."

Something about the woman's voice had changed. No, not her voice. Her speech. What was the word? Her... diction. She did not sound like a simple rural housewife.

He tried both to hide his suspicion and find an answer to her retort, and failed; "They... when I..."

"Take your time." Again, he could not quite tell if she was being friendly, or merely condescending.

He breathed in, and gestured to himself and the three still-sleeping cenobites. "The building still stands, the tree has not fallen, and the flesh moves still. Whatever you may think, the reality lies before you."

Something in the woman snapped; she rose from her seat and stepped quickly toward him. She clutched the neck of his cassock and pulled him to his feet, until his head was level with hers. Her eyes burned with an emotion he could not quite place, but wrath's part in it was clear.

"Come down from your cloister and walk among the people, Purgator." Her voice was no less quiet than it had been before, but it seethed with rage. "Come and see your crops wither with blight and cattle slaughtered by black wolves. Come and see your love grow sick and pale and die without a Beneficar in sight. Come and let-..." Her voice faltered for a moment, and at once Matthias knew the look in her eyes. It was that of a mother whose child was all but lost to her.

"Come and lose your child?" he finished for her.

Whatever was holding her upright flowed away, and suddenly she seemed very small. She released his cossack and stared up at him. Now it was helplessness he saw, helplessness and fear, though a spark of rage still burned within those eyes. "Your gods are dead, and they have left us all to die as well."

He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She winced at his touch, as though expecting a blow, and then looked at him astonished at the gesture of affection. He looked her in the eyes and caught her gaze before speaking. "If we can find him, Anya, we will."

"If." Never before had he heard a single word so laden with despair. The woman half-sat, half-collapsed onto the ground. He sat down next to her, his hand on her shoulder as she sobbed into her hands.

The Farmer's Wife #012

Anya tossed and turned in her sleep. The wound on her hand burned with cold, keeping her from any true rest. Her eyes flicked back and forth behind their lids. Mumbled words spilled from her lips... "Eugen. Eugen. Eugen..."

She was standing at the door of the house, looking out over the freshly-tilled fields. Regan was standing with their son on his shoulders, pointing at something in the distance. She smiled. All was well.

But the scene began to change; the ink of the dream washed and ran and flowed away from the canvas of her mind, leaving behind raw truth. Warm spring sunlight turned to bitter, sunless winter. In moments, tangled weeds sprung up from fallow fields. Her husband paled and fell and rotted away; his yellow-white bones lay lifeless in the dirt in front of her. And Eugen... Eugen was gone.

The shadows of the dream-world grew deeper; the feeble light that filtered through the clouds above dimmed. A chill ran up her back. She knew she was not alone.

"What do you want?!" she screamed into the wind.

The answer snapped into her mind like the crack of a whip. Him.

"I am doing as you asked! Give me time!"

An image of her son appeared in her head; his face was a pale white mask, and his eyes burned black. She recoiled, fell to the ground, but the image followed her.

It is not yours to dictate terms, little leaf in the wind. You will do as I command, or your son will suffer and die.

Eugen. She was doing this for Eugen. She brought him to mind, caressed his face - his real face, not the dark caricature that was being forced upon her mind - and heard his voice. Slowly, his young, pink face replaced the one before her, and she stood from the ground and looked around. "Where are you, shadow of Ygn?" She could hear her voice quavering, but she breathed deeply and continued. "Afraid to show yourself?"

Hnnnh. There it was again, the not-quite-laugh. Amusement mingled with derision. You are a strong little one. Something flickered in the corner of her eye, and she span to face it, but there was nothing there. She heard a noise behind her, and span again to face nothing.

She realised what was was happening. She set her mind on her son, breathed deeply, and stood still, staring straight ahead.

Something moved in the corner of her eye. She did not turn. A hiss rose from her feet. She did not look down. A cold touch ran down her back. She did not even twitch.

Hnnnnnnnnnh. Enough of these petty games.

Did she hear the slightest hint of anger? She smiled. "Well? Still afraid to stand before me?"

You do not warrant an audience on your terms, little furless rodent. But even as the presence whispered harshly in her mind, tendrils of shadow arose from the ground and coiled together, twisting and contorting to form a shape.

Through dark tendrils, whipping back and forth, she saw what looked like a hooded human figure, half again as high as she was, floating above the ground. Beneath its hood writhed something darker than darkness; it hurt to look directly at it. From the hem of what looked like the figure's cloak the tendrils of darkness flowed, moving ceaselessly about, probing at everything around her. A tendril moved up to brush her cheek; she clenched her teeth, but did not move away.

"So this is what you look like?"

Look like? Tendrils flicked angrily towards her and stopped just short, as though forcibly restrained. She did not flinch. Foolish girl. I am shadow and darkness and fear made manifest, unbound by mortal form. I am the terror in the night, the shadow at the door, the-...

"Yes, yes, I think I have the general-..."

Her wound flared with pain, and she gasped. Lines of darkness whipped towards her again, but this time nothing held them back. They wrapped around her limbs and chest and pulled her into the ever-shifting mass of dark tendrils until her face was brought against the nothingness beneath the figure's hood. She tried to look away as the wrongness of the thing ate into her mind, but she could not.

Enough of your games. She tried to hold Eugen in her mind, but he slipped away and was replaced only by the all-consuming darkness. You will fulfill your promise, and perhaps your son will live.

Perhaps? "You... you said-..." she gasped.

A tendril burrowed into her hand and forced its way up her arm. I could stop your heart with the merest touch.

The cold agony of the tendril passed her elbow and continued onward. Every moment you live is a moment granted by me, and me alone.

The pain pressed up through her shoulder and into her chest. You will do as I will, and nothing more.

The tendril brushed against her heart, and she felt it clench tightly against the cold. Its beating ceased. Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnh. The creature's mocking sigh echoed in her ears as darkness fell across her mind.

Anya's eyes snapped open as she awoke. She looked around as much as she could without moving. The faintest light was beginning to filter through the room's small windows.

Her whole body shaking, she rose from her bedroll. Her left arm would hardly move; it was cold to the touch.

Scraping together the embers of the night's fire, and adding the little wood they had left to the fire-pit, she nursed the warmth back into her arm and waited for the others to awake.