The Cairnlands (part 1)
Alex Ward
This story is a fictionalization of this actual play session.
Ael Frigsson sat next to the campfire, left leg bare and outstretched. Deep black lines ran from his calf up past his knee, stopping just short of his rolled up trouser. He prodded at the fire with a stick, allowing the wood to smolder before bringing it to rest on the origin point of the black lines. He inhaled sharply as the heated wood seared his skin.
Fire seemed to slow the affliction, though he knew not why. Ael looked towards the darkened woods mere yards from his campsite. The moon loomed large overhead, a thin crescent dominating the night sky. The light of the fire cast shadows towards the trees, making shapes and figures appear behind them, as if they were dancing. He watched those closely, for the night could also conceal horrors. Strange creatures with a corrupting touch. Ael’s face dropped to a scowl as he fought back memories of that night. The night a horror took his wife, Hildegunn.
Ael rested a hand on his sword, gripping the hilt tightly. Not long after, satisfied there was nothing out there, he rolled his pant leg back down. Tomorrow he would head into the woods and seek the Aesir Grove, and hopefully a cure for the affliction now crawling up his leg.
His sleep was restless, he awoke in fits and starts throughout the night at noises he couldn’t be certain were real or imagined. But eventually, to Ael’s relief, dawn broke. He made himself a small meal of trail rations and preserved meats.
“A poor excuse for a last meal.” he scoffed as he finished the last of the honeyed grains. He dusted off his hands and stood, retrieving his pack and sword in a singular motion, stamped out the remnants of the fire and marched directly into the woods.
He’d located the small hunter’s trail amidst the massive pines the night before and now walked carefully along it this morning. The path was quite overgrown, but there was some evidence that someone had passed here recently. Some foliage out of place, broken twigs, and the like. He proceeded carefully, for as far as he knew there were no others making the pilgrimage to the grove. None had done so for years, not since the horrors took up residence in the surrounding woods. Only the foolish, mad, or desperate would dare tread here now. Ael was certainly in the latter category, but he often wondered if he wasn’t a bit of all three.
After following the trail for a few hours deeper into the forest, Ael came upon a small clearing. The light from the sun overhead was barely able to penetrate the thick canopy, giving the place a subtle gloom that added to Ael’s trepidation. Ael’s heart beat faster as he spotted what looked like the remains of a campsite. Foolish, then, for someone to camp inside the boundary of the forest.
He carefully approached what was left of the site: a cold campfire filled with wood-ash, a collapsed cloth tent, a bedroll, and a few pieces of food on the ground, now covered in mushroom buds. The main support pole of the tent had been snapped in half, and the cloth torn as if from a struggle or desperate flight. As Ael investigated further, he found drag marks, where something heavy was pulled into the thicket at the edge of the clearing. Rapidly.
Ael followed the trail, and used his sword to clear away some brush to follow the scene. It didn’t take him long to find a cloaked figure lying face down on the ground. He looked around the woods, checking for evidence of Horrors before leaning in to examine the person — to see if they were still alive. A quick examination of their wrist was enough to tell Ael that they had been dead for a while, for it was cold and no pulse. The wrist and hand were lithe, and smooth. It lacked the calluses of a life of labor.
"What were you doing out here?" Ael said gently.
His eyes drifted upward, examining the rest of the body. The rest of its form was just as lithe as the wrist had been. A thin form, cloaked in skins and leathers that looked new. As if they'd been purpose made for this trip. They clearly hadn't seen seasons of wear, though they had been ripped and torn. Deep wounds peeking through the damage. Ael gagged.
Ael began to stand as something caught his eye a few feet away, a small bundle of cloth of the same material as the cloak, about a foot in diameter, amidst disturbed leaves. The same direction whatever had done this, had gone. He rose and slowly walked over to it, keeping low to the ground, listening to the rustling of the wind. When Ael got close he noticed a bit of hair peeking out from behind the cloth, stark red. He looked back to the body and sighed. It was obvious what this was.
He gently grabbed the edge of the cloak, and slowly removed it from what he was now sure was the woman's head. As he did, the head rolled out from the tatters of her hood, landing so that her vacant eyes locked with Ael's. They were a mossy green color, with flecks of brown, just like his wife's eyes. Her hair had been cut short by whatever had removed her head, a deep red. The same as his wife.
This was Hildegunn's head. Her eyes suddenly focused on Ael. She stared right at him, and a whisper escaped her lips. "You killed me."
Ael skidded backwards against the leaves, hyperventilating. He blinked several times and tried to look away from Hildegunn's gaze. Her face was now twisted in a visage of rage, eyes narrow and brow furrowed.
"You left me to die. You. Killed. Me." She repeated.
"I… but, I had…" Ael sputtered. His heart pounded. He gasped for breath. His vision blurred and then went dark.
Ael's vision returned and he looked around him. Hildegunn was standing next to their wagon, a worried expression on her face. She had tied her hair up in a bun, now soaked from the heavy rain pouring down from above. She was wearing loose-fitting traveling clothes, though those were now drenched and covered in mud.
Their son, Vul, stuck his head out of the back of the wagon and watched his mother as she examined the wheel that was now stuck in the remnants of the old dirt road. His short red hair, the same color as his mother's, stuck to his forehead as the rain fell down upon him. He was sitting on the top of a crate of goods bound for Frinessen, a small village just on the edge of the Chrakis rim. An uncomfortable chair to be sure, but the villagers would need every last bit of the goods they'd brought.
Unfortunate, then, that the heavy rains from the past two days had washed away this part of the road, and the wheels had cut deep grooves in the mud. They were stuck. Hildegunn sighed and looked over to Ael.
"What if we broke apart some crates and used them as a platform?" She said, biting her lower lip.
"I don't think that'll work, love. We'll just get stuck further down the road. I think we either need to wait it out or walk the rest of the way to the village and get someone to help." Ael heard himself say, but he was not the one to say it. "Maybe we should camp here until the storm passes."
Hildegunn fidgeted with her wedding ring, a simple band made of iron, and looked to the woods. "Someone has to stay with the cart. What if something were to happen? It'd be a major setback. Not to mention the town needs these supplies."
"I don't think I should leave you and Vul. What if the Horrors show up? What will you do?"
"Horrors are extremely rare, love. If one does show up, we can hide. Now go, the village shouldn't be much farther along the path, a few hours hike at most."
What passed next was a blur: Ael marching through the torrent each footstep a struggle to plod through the grasping mud; The innkeeper rousing the townsfolk from their slumber; the trudge back to the cart as the rain slowed to a drizzle; The overturned cart with deep gouges in its sides; Vul cowering in the wreckage, hidden beneath a tarp, sobbing gently.
It was several minutes before Vul could recount what had happened. Horrors had appeared from the woods not long after Ael had left for the village. Hildegunn hid him in the cart and urged him to stay quiet. She then lured the creatures into the darkened forest away from the cart. A long while passed, and one of the creatures came back and wrecked the cart. Vul wasn't sure how he wasn't found, but he held his breath and kept quiet as his mother had told him to.
Ael rushed off into the woods without a second thought, following the deep tracks through the mud that Hildegunn and the Horrors had left behind. He shouted her name, despite the danger "Hildegunn!! Where are you?" he cried, until he was hoarse. The trail became muddled, difficult to follow, but still he pressed on.
Eventually, he found her. She was lying prostrate behind a thick oak tree, dead eyes staring into the dark canopy, a look of grim determination on her face. Wrapped around her throat was the long, clawed hand of one of the Horrors, its arm had been severed at the elbow. Next to her, with a long knife sticking from its chest, was lay the horror's corpse. She'd killed it.
Ael walked over to his wife and pulled the hand off of her, breaking each finger at the joint to pry it loose. "Oh Hildegunn, I'm so sorry."
He began to weep.
So distracted by his sorrow, Ael didn't hear the rustling just behind him. It was only until the sharp pain of claws digging into his calf accompanied by the deep chill of a Horror's touch did he realize he was in danger. He cried out in pain and scrambled away from Hildegunn, turning to face the thing. The one-armed horror slowly stood, its bones cracking as it rose unnaturally from the ground. Its face, if you could call it that, was naught but a maw of white teeth. Grinning at Ael.
He struggled to get his axe free from his belt. His vision blurred. His mind raced. He would die here, with his wife, he was certain. But he'd avenge her first. He forced himself to his feed, and finally managed to ready his axe.
"You will not leave here alive, monster!" he bellowed.
The Horror simply turned around and ran off into the woods. Ael growled in a rage and tried to follow, but his leg collapsed under his weight. As he struggled to stand, he lost sight of the creature, and then his vision failed him completely.
Ael groped through the leaves and mud, until he found his wife's body, mere inches from where he'd fallen. He took her hand in his and whispered "I'm sorry". The sound of the rain on the leaves above him faded, until he could no longer hear them. The last sensation he remembered was his wife's fingers coiling around his hand and squeezing.