Private Tales Tales Told in Blood

[Kol]

Eastern Blightlands

The loud scrapping of the longship's bottom on river rocks echoed out over the soft lapping of waves onto the shore. Seconds later the sound of two dozen boots splashing into water followed.

Twelve figures stepped out from a lone ship, each of them gnarled and ragged. Most carrying weapons notched by fierce blows and their handles stained with old blood. Ahead of them lay a massive cathedral of stone, it's walls torn apart, it's great facades and color stained windows long since shattered. The earth itself seemed tainted here, broken. No trees sprouted from the ground, and what little plants were left seemed worn and weary, as though the bright sun above did not touch them.

"This it?"​

Arthix's voice rolled from his lips like gravel. The skinwolf was decorated with dozens upon dozens of scars, one most prominent directly over his throat. His features were worn, and despite his youth it seemed that the years had not been kind to him. A predatory nature stuck to his eyes, even in the form of man.

"This is it." The Sorcerer spoke as he stepped out from behind Arthix.

Even without the Dark God's screaming in his head he would have known they'd found the right place. Kol could feel it. The air was filled with a strangeness, a pressure slowly and constantly forming around him. The ruin before them stood peacefully, quietly, and yet the Sorcerer could not help the unease which crept into his stomach.

Laughter echoed within his skull, taunting insidious jabs at his discomfort.

"Doesn't look like much. Seems we missed the party, eh?"​

Arthix said with a chuckle, but Kol didn't answer. His eyes fixed on the broken window of the great cathedral.

 

[Skad]

A single eye surveyed the surrounding desolation, seeking the bated breath of blades that may have come in the form of a sudden ambush. Sodden furs crept over rock and waste as Kin-Slayer looked for any obvious nook or cranny that might have held death for them. Skad was a patron of the art of the ambush, thus it lingered upon her vicious mind.

Once she was satisfied that they were not in any immediate, obvious danger the woman drew her well-worn skinning blade and drew it across her heavily mottled left palm. She lifted the cut hand and made a fist, squeezing droplets of crimson through clenched fingers and onto the ground.

"I claim this shore in the name of Haraudur," she grunted in guttural Wiir-tongue.

After completing her small ritual she regrouped with the others, who had gathered outside the foreign and decrepit construction. Skad did not engage with her peers, her single eye placing its diligent gaze on Kol, who held sight beyond sight.

"What do you see, Kol?" the woman asked in an impassive tone, her face an empty mask of scars that told of nothing beyond a lone deadened eye.

 

[Kol]

The ground quivered as Skad's blood dripped onto the worn stones. Rippling as though someone had thrown a rock into still pond. Slowly the waves reached out, drawing over the earth until they touched against the fallen cathedral.

A pulse rushed through the walls. A shadowed wave.

Kol's vision blurred. His eyes losing focus.

In his head some of the whispers grew louder, bolder. While others shrunk away. One among the cacophony began to laugh, the distant roil of his boisterous cackle sounding in the Sorcerer's ears. Growing only louder as the Kin-Slayer stepped up behind him.

A blink rolled over his eyes.

"I see a ruin." The Sorcerer said quietly, gaze turning towards Skad.

Some of the others turned their attention back to Kol, curiosity flickering over their features. "With something yet to offer."

As he spoke the Sorcerer began to walk, the others parting ways in front of him as he began to climb the small hill towards the cathedral. As they ascended the ancient carved steps, clear skies above began to fill with clouds. The soft breeze in the air turning to a rabid wind.

 

[Skad]

Even amongst his own people Kol was something of an enigma. One one hand, as a man of flesh and blood he was seen as a leader; the first in a long time that was managing to wrangle warring tribes of Nordwiir together into a passable unified people.

On the other hand, his Blessing placed him out of reach as a man. He was the mouthpiece of their Dark Gods, they whispered their will into his mind and used him as their voice. He was exalted; chosen, even moreso than the rest of them and that could breed jealousy and contempt. However, that which singled him out for silent scorn had kept him safe from most treacherous blades, after all, who would dare strike out at the chosen vassal?

Not Skad, at the very least, a small irony given her propensity for wanton backstabbing.

The wind picked up as they ascended, as if nature itself was attempting to push the gnarled raiders back down to the shore. But an omen for some was a challenge to others.

"A living temple?" Skad asked, turning her head around to check that they were not being followed. A building did not have to seem occupied to be such and this was not their first encounter of restless ruins, the draugr coming to the woman's mind.

"Do the Voices bring good omens?"

 

[Kol]

"No." He answered, lips thinning for a brief moment as they came to the final step. A long plateau stretching out before them to a broken doorway. One ancient gate still hung from it's hinges, the other nothing more than splintered rotted wood.

Above them loomed that great rotting spire, pieces of the shattered colored glass scattered over the rocky ground. "Something else."

He could not have put it into words. This place was dead, there was no doubt in his mind. Yet he could not deny what he had seen. The shifting within the walls, the objection to Skad's ritual. It was there, and as ever the Dark Gods provided no clear answers.

Something lost.
Something forgotten.
A whisper.
The power.
So much power.
Go!
Take it.
Leave.
You will all die here.
​

"Yes." The cacophony of voices roiled within his skull.

"Well, then lets get on with it."​

Arthix said with a wild grin. His great strides taking him further than the others. He practically bounded towards the open doorway, his ax pulled free from it's belt loop. The Skinwolf stepped on broken glass and shattered wood, moving with all the confidence of a man who had killed hundred.

He stepped through the doorway, and then his skin burst into flames.

A roar of pain and agony broke from his lungs, the Skinwolf howling as he bounded backwards away from the temple's entrance.

 

[Skad]

Riddles.

It wasn't an unusual thing for Kol to translate the words of the Dark Gods in such a labyrinthian manner; it was the price of his blessing. Too many voices, and only one mouth. Skad's lack of empathy failed to imagine how that must have felt, her head a chamber of blood and sacrifice.

Thankfully, Arthix took the charge, willing to be the mangy canary that would storm fearlessly into any potential trap.

"By Járn's teeth!"​

And so the mangy canary was burned.

The others reacted in a combination of awe, superstition and amusement as Arthix quenched the flame from his stinking flesh but Kin-Slayer stared at the half-open temple door, her blank stare attempting to appraise what was surely a well-laid trap, perhaps one set with foreign conjuration.

Skad picked up a broken shard of stained glass and threw it into the entranceway.

 

[Kol]

The glass shattered as it struck the inside of the Monastery floor. The sound resounding and reverberating inside like some strange instrument. Drowned out only by the cursing of Arthix as he patted out the last of the flames, his skin mangled and burned. Half his face a mess of torched skin.

"Is Uratash's name! What magics is this?!"​

He cursed, demanding and answer as he half stumbled back towards Kol.

The Sorcerer's gave flickered from the skinwolf towards the door, then to Skad who had thrown the glass. "It is what lurks inside."

He commented dryly. Though he knew not the truth of the words. For a brief moment he considered something, and then the air began to bend around his palm. Flecks of black began to gather, drawing together and taking the form of his oddly curved knife.

"Skad." Kol called, extending his open palm and waiting for hers.

"Whatever lays within does not want us." The Sorcerer said. "But the Gods will not be denied."

No.
Step through the Threshold.
No.
Yes.
Take her blood.
The mark.
THE MARK.
THE MARK!
Yes.​

 

[Skad]

A less devout Nordwiir might have held reservations about entering a treacherous sanctuary that could so easily alight the flesh of a man. Who knew what dark magicks lurked within decrepit stone walls? If burnt flesh was but a warning, what could lay deeper?

"Nobody wants us," Skad replied bluntly, handing her massacred palm over to Kol without hesitation.

The woman known as Kin-Slayer was nothing if not devout.

If death awaited her within, she died a vassal of the Dark Gods. Why else would they have guided them to this point? If they perished, a lesson. If they didn't, then they found what they were led here to find. If she was she meant to live? Then Haraudur would provide and therefore protect. Such matters didn't bear further contemplation. Do or die.

"But they cannot stop us."

 

[Kol]

A wry smile touched Kol's face at Skad's quip, though he knew that she had not intended it so. "No, they cannot."

The Sorcerer said as his own fingers gripped Skad's.

Seconds later the very tip of the oddly curved knife pierced through mangled flesh. It did not drag into a cut, but simply pressed down. Slicing just enough to cut deep and drew a well of blood into the Kin-Slayers palm. The blade disappearing only a heartbeat later.

Yes. It will do.
The Blood.
THE BLOOD!​

Kol continued as the voices screamed. Those objecting drowned out by the furor of those who demanded more. His fingers dipped within the blood, and without a word he pressed them to Skad's forehead. Three quick swipes as a symbol was drawn.

A flicker of pain would wrack, and then it was gone. "Ithrir will see you through the flames. Haraudur through the pain."

The Sorcerer said as he beckoned the others.

Each of them knelt in turn, receiving the blessings of two gods. A mark scalded upon their flesh, a blessing granted by the Gods, and given by Kol. With each new mark he could feel the air quiver, and the clouds above grow darker.

Rain began to fall, it's soft patter growing hard. As though it were trying to wash away the blood.

 

[Skad]

Her single eye settled upon the fresh wound, silently observing the rich well of her own blessed blood bloom forth as Kol made his mark. She imagined herself, not only Haraudur's Blade but also his Chalice; one of many. It made her heart pound like drums of sigur, she felt so close to him.

But likely nowhere close as the man beside her, who could convene with Haraudur if he wished.

Skad grit her teeth as the mark was applied, a swift burn pressing through the physical and deeper into spiritual flesh. It felt like being chosen. The rest received their blessing, with no soul faltering in the face of the omen before them. This crew was hand-picked, beyond the scope of ordinary Nordwiir who may have faltered before this monument of heresy.

A sudden caw. A flicker of black. Peririphal vision of her remaining eye caught the glimpse of a passing superstition as the rain began to grow heavier. Enough waiting. Kin-Slayer marched with little hesitation, eager to show faith as she stepped through the cursed doorway.

She too burst into flames, a sudden heat overwhelming her senses as Skad became a living hearth. Orange blazed across her furs, her skin, her hair, lashing in a painful dance that forced the Nordwiir to gnash and snarl, black smoke spewing from consumed clothing. She looked down, at her arms and hands, whose scarred and searing skin remained entirely unburnt.

Through the flames. Through the pain.

The flames began to peter out, and the woman was left standing, with her garb half-melted and scarred head revealed by a freshly bare yet blackened scalp. A drooping, empty eyelid revealed behind the now incinerated cloth that formerly covered it. Skad bared broken teeth and spat upon the ground of the hallway; a mark of disrespect.

"WE ARE CHOSEN!"

 

[Kol]

The words seemed to spurn them on.

As soon as Skad's cry echoed through the clearing in front of the great Cathedral the other Nordwiir let out a communal roar. The cry went up, and they charged forward almost as one. Even Arthix did not hesitate, having seen what the kin-slayer had done.

One by one they rushed forward, almost scrambling over each other in a desperate race to break through the threshold. The fire which lit their flesh hissed as raindrops fell upon them. Screams of pain and roars of determination drowning out the howling winds which rushed over the hilltop. One by one they crashed through the flaming door.

Kol watched them with disinterested eyes, peering as the fourth, then the fifth, and then the sixth passed through.

Now.
It will break.
Watch it shatter.​

The voices whispered in his mind, and then he watched as the seventh of his kin stepped through the threshold. Fire caught upon his flesh, singing his skin, burning his flesh, and yet something in the air seemed to shatter.

Only he would see it, yet all of them would feel it. A fissure within the air itself, a crack rolling through the force which had set them aflame. A wailing screech echoed through the air, resounding and echoing. The rain seemed to stop, stilling within the sky.

Then, within the beat of a heart it fell again.

Kol lingered for a second more, then slowly stalked forward. His foot falling beyond the threshold, no flaming touching his flesh as he entered the broken cathedral. "The blessings you have received truly are remarkable, Kin-Slayer."

He mused.

"For who else's blood could break magic such as these" The Sorcerer said as he walked through the shattered church.

 

[Skad]

Still-smouldering, she watched as the remainder of the blessed surged forth, invigorated by her pious roar.

Chosen by the Dark Gods. Anointed by the flame. These strange lands and false monuments were not true, and in such a thought Skad felt the very atmosphere bow and crack. Instinctively, she clenched her teeth.

She was so close.

Kol came last, untouched by even the flames and Skad's religious fervour retreated, allowing sense and wits to return to the one-eyed woman. After all, they had only breached the threshold, who knew what lurked in the deep?

"Hauradur's blood is my blood," Skad affirmed through slackening lips as Kol began to lead the way, her face returning to its deadened mask as her fervour was tempered once more.

She followed Kol, lone eye observing alien architecture with an edge of distrust and disgust.

"What strange heresy is this?" Skad asked, knowing that Kol's knowledge of the mainland was far greater than her own.

 

[Kol]

As they walked through the Cathedral's open hall Kol could not help but be reminded of the places he had found in the Southlands.

Though no roof remained atop the building, huge columns of stones rose throughout the main floor. Arching up to touch a ceiling that was no longer there. Each was intricately designed and carved, pattern not of men and creatures, but a language which Kol did not speak.

Ancient and rotted benches ran up and down the line, an odd stone dais sitting at the head of the entire building.

Within the walls themselves sat statues. Representations of strange creatures that might have once been men, but were now adorned with six wings and horns rising from their skulls. "I have seen something of the like in the South."

He said softly.

"A temple of worship." Eyes flickered to the stone Dais, where a spot sat upon which something seemed to be missing. "The light..."

Kol remarked, glancing up at the broken window. "It was meant to cast down onto the dais."

Though he did not know why. "Perhaps a god once stood there."

 

[Skad]

Skad, unlike Kol, was not as familiar with the mainland and so this temple of worship stirred the ill-will of Wiir blood; paranoid and jealous. The woman's blackened expression may have been blank but her insides churned pure acid.

A sentiment likely shared by the rest of the party.

What likely soothed the raiders was the very fact that they wandered through this hall, men and women of flesh and blood; chosen and living in the here and now much unlike the decrepit place of worship. Her bare right hand settled over the back of one of the benches, clenching and crunching the rotted wood as it splintered into rancid dust.

"False gods," Skad stated in absolution, approaching the dais with a confidence that confirmed that her words held conviction. Taking her still-bloodied hand, Kin-Slayer smeared Harauder's conviction upon the damp, cold stone.

 

[Kol]

False gods.

The words had echoed from the lips of so many priests and monks he had encountered. Those learned folk of the south who had claimed their own deities were the only ones true. But for Kol their words always rang empty.

There was no denying the Nordwiir were blessed. One could not discount the flames from Saemund's Ithrir, nor the immortality from Skad's Harauder, or any of their gifts.

Even without the voices in his head, the whispers and screaming which plagued him, Kol would have believed. The Dark Gods were real, their life and essence pouring through each of his people. It did not matter if the voices within his mind were truthful, if they were liars all or not even real.

For the blessings were always there.

As Skad's hand slowly dragged over the cold stone, the earth itself began to quiver. The ground shook, shifting when suddenly the dais Skad stood upon cracked. A fissure drawing through the center of the great stone, opening like a giant maw and tearing through the grounds of the cathedral. Biting at the Nordwiir and throwing them all into the abyss below.

 

[Skad]

Something had stirred.

Fervour rose within Skad's chest as the strange stone monument cracked under the weight of Haraudur's touch. It granted a sense of power and dominance over such false gods.

"You s-"

A feeling that was short-lived, as the ground beneath their feet soon followed, splitting in two where they all stood. The sudden fissure was so great, so carnivorous that none of them could avoid being swallowed by the jaws of the cathedral.

They fell into the deep.

-​

Skad awoke moments later, her head slick with blood and flesh both bruised and grazed from the fall. There was a pained groaning, she recognised it as one of their own, who had broken their fall with their leg, snapping the lower half in two and leaving jagged bone jutting violently from flesh.

A dim glow of lights greeted them in a stark stone hallway beneath, ancient dust-buried torches clung steadfast to ominous obsidian wall sconces.

It was unnatural.

Such fires surely should not have remained in the abandoned depths of the temple. Perhaps the accursed place of worship was not as abandoned as first presumed. Or maybe...

"Kol?" Kin-Slayer called out, seeking counsel from the podium of the Dark Gods himself.

 

[Kol]

Kol floated in an everlasting blackness. It was not dark, he was not without sight, for he could see the palm of his hand. He was in an Abyss. Nothingness which seemed to stretch and go far beyond what the eye could see. There Kol found himself.

Alone.

Until a wide cheshire grin spread over the nothing. Teeth, sown into the very sky began to flicker out of the abyss itself. A smile suddenly hanging in front of them.

It sees you.​

The words came from behind him.

It wants you out.
Such power.
It could be ours.
Another blessing.
Yes. Another blessing.
A reward.​

Dozens upon dozens of parting grin appeared within the darkness. Parting into open maws as they began to shout and whisper. One growing louder than the others.

"Kol?"​

The Sorcerer's eyes snapped open, pain lancing through his side as he forced air into his lungs. "Here!"

He called, his fingers brushing over the stalagmite impaled in his side.

 

[Skad]

Skad stood, noting sharp pain radiating from her right shoulder, the angle of which seemed off enough to be broken. A better injury than some as she strode past Saemund's compound fracture and to Kol's side, where jagged rock jutted forth.

Not known for her compassion, Kin-Slayer crouched down and pressed her fingers around the wound, trying to fathom if any vital organs had been punctured or if the wound was potentially fatal. She wasn't known to be a healer either.

"You'll be fine," Skad grunted, having done little more than cause Kol additional pain, "you have suffered worse."

Saemund screamed, the others helping him reset his leg before fashioning a splint out of whatever wood hadn't been rotted by time.

"It seems as if something has stirred within this place," she theorised, standing once more and focusing on her own dislocslated shoulder, grabbing her wrist and pulling her arm straight with a satisfying pop, "I say we kill it."

 

[Kol]

A hiss escaped his teeth as Skad's finger prodded the wound in his side.

Pain lanced through him and he shirked away from her. "I have."

He agreed, though that was no reason to poke at it in the way she did. His own hand came up, wrapping around the back of the spike which had broken off the moment he moved. A grunt escaped him, and then with a sudden wrench Kol pulled the natural spear out of his side.

Tar colored blood almost immediately seeped into his leathers, but a palm flickered over the wound. Beneath his hand his flesh began to knit itself together, drawn closed by a thin tendril of red light. Stitching skin as though it were little more than cloth.

NO!
NO! NO!
TAKE IT!​

The Dark Gods shouted in objection at Skad's worth, though one disagreed.

Yesssss. Blood. Tasting of divinity and MINE!​

Kol flinched at the sound more than he had pulling the stalagmite from his flesh, his teeth clicking together as his jaw set. Head shaking. "No."

He called to Skad.

"We can find a better use." The Sorcerer said, pushing himself up and stepping further. A bloodied hand reaching up in the dark, red light casting forward and illuminating the Nordwiir.

 

[Skad]

Skad stopped for a few seconds as Kol denied Harauder's chalice, her expression vacant in a manner that didn't betray a single thought in her mind. The mossy solitary eye of Kin-Slayer travelled downwards to where Kol's wound had now mended. It lingered there for several more seconds and then at long last Skad nodded and walked away.

"I trust your judgment that we will."

Approaching one of the wall sconces, the woman wrenched an obsidian torch from its ancient grasp, granting the raiders the light that would allow them to traverse the depths of the unknown.

She cast a look at Saemund and his broken leg before moving to continue deeper down the broken, primordial hallway. If he could not walk then she would leave him behind, but this group would be more than well aware of Skad's impersonal brutality.

"Come," she nodded to Kol, "lead us."

 

[Kol]

Trust was such a thin thing among their people.

Even those closest, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. Family itself could not be trusted in the Lost Isles, nevermind those ordinary folk would call friends. There was too much danger in the minds of his people. Too much betrayal in their past.

Every Nordwiir expected a knife in the back at least once in his lifetime.

That wasn't any less true for Kol.

"I will." The Sorcerer said, pulling himself up to his full height and motioning for some of the others to help their fallen comrade. Quickly Kol made his way towards the front of the group, stepping just ahead of the light from Skad's torch.

As they wandered the darkness of the depths began peel away. The crevice they had fallen into was in fact a tunnel, or the remains of one. Neatly carved into the stone and drawn further into the rock below. Mosiacs scrawled upon the rock around them.

Depictions of giants, stalking among the cities of men.