Set upon their journey by circumstances strange and unnatural, three minuscule points of firelight marked the position of Zura, Dagran, and Avanessa as they crossed the countryside and entered the pass through the Ashborne Mountains.
The mountains were a broad range, making up the entirety of the western border between Duurmanshor and So’litore, but this stretch was unique for two primary reasons. The first was the pass — there was only one, carved long, long ago by Bandalari terramancers and stonemasons when this territory was part of their home. Zura could still pick out the masonry from time to time when the walls of the mountains grew close.
The other was a massive swath carved through the mountains known as the Blackriver Ravine.
In some areas, it took the form of a thin gorge, perhaps only five feet wide but with a near-vertical plummet into darkness below. There was no telling how far down the water was, much less how much further you would have to go to reach the bottom of the river.
In other areas, the ravine opened up to be several hundreds of feet wide, like a sloping valley off the side of the pass. Equipped only with torchlight, they often could not make out the river itself from where they were, following along the ridge of the ravine. It didn’t help that the sound of rushing water echoed near and far — at times deceiving them into thinking they were closer or further than they actually were.
The ancient Bandalari stonework came and went, often disappearing entirely where the pass deviated to accommodate the ravine.
“Usually rivers this fast don’t have good concentrations of pitchmud,” Avanessa remarked idly, clearly trying to fill the anxious silence as they all headed further and further up the road. “But they don’t call it the "black river" for nothing, I guess. A few of us went down where the ravine was wide and shallow and were able to bring back a lot of the mud for our fires. Burned better than we thought it would. A lot better.”
“Pitchmud is a crude thing,” Zura responded, one hand gripped tight to her sword as her eyes scanned the Night. “But befitting of humans, I suppose.”
“…do the Bandalari not use pitchmud?”
“Some do, but not many,” Dagran explained. “We don’t have beaches on Bandoska, only cliffs. Even if we did, the ocean… point is, it isn’t worth it.”
Avanessa nodded slowly, her attention split between wanting to know more and worrying for her people. They had passed into an area where boulders had clearly come loose from higher up on the mountain, though they had rolled off the road. All that remained was a path of crushed plants leading out into the darkness. “…what do you use, then?”
“Don’t — Don’t get him started.”
“Get me started on what?”
“If I. Have to hear. About the strictness of the Bandalari logging industry’s regulations. Or why it burns purple. One more time...”
Dagran held up his hands in surrender. “I won’t. I won’t.”
The silence stretched once more, taut as a bowstring.
It wasn’t really about the logging industry, or the pitchmud.
It wasn’t really about humans, even for Zura.
Falling rocks were certainly a troublesome thing — and nothing to be underestimated, of course, especially in the wake of the earth shaking — but they were not truly what any of the three was worried about.
“…if the caravan was still moving, we would have run into them by now,” Avanessa murmured to the air.
The open darkness was the domain of nightbeasts. The hunting grounds of horrors unknowable and foul.
“I’ve not lost hope yet.” Dagran assured her, “If their fires are still burning, there is a chance.”
And so they pressed on, despite it all.
The path soon returned to a narrow passageway through the mountains, but it would eventually widen back out along the ravine once more, and when it did, the small rescue group was faced with a sight to behold: firelight dotting the ridge ahead, clearly cutting out the frames of at least four wagons, but no people. The frontmost wagon was halfway off the path, its torches gone and a massive boulder still lodged in its side.
Though the two Bandalari had been in the lead much of the way, Avanessa broke past both of them to rush towards the caravan, calling out several names in a near-panic. Dagran picked up pace to match her, so Zura did as well, unwilling to be left behind.
The closer they got to the wagons, the more they could make out something — someone — lying in a bloody heap on the very edge of the firelight. Seeing them, Avanessa’s cries became breathless and hysterical, dashing the final few feet to collapse at their side.
Dagran was close behind, the runes on his horns already glowing bright white. He stabbed his torch into the ground next to them, raising his hands and casting a healing spell.
Mazzurak stood over them both, every sense on high alert. She swore she could see very faint movement within the space of the wagons, but…
Dagran’s healing spell finished, breathing vigor into the bloodied body of a human man that bore some resemblance to Avanessa. There wasn’t time for formalities though.
There was a small shift in the darkness to their right, sending the hair on the back of Zura’s neck on end. She suddenly dropped as she called out, “Dagran! Shield!”
Had either Zura or Dagran been even a fraction of a second slower, that might have been the end of them. Dagran threw up his arm, a glowing white dome of magic flashing to life all around them just in the knick of time as something came hurling out of the darkness. It slammed against the shield, breaking it immediately but coming away having done no damage.
A grating screech broke the Night, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Pandemonium broke out. At least ten voices from the direction of the wagons suddenly began calling out to them to run, to hurry! Gaunt faces appeared in nooks and crannies, hands outstretched to wave them to whatever safety the lights of the caravan provided.
“HURRY! It’s still out there!”
“RUN!”
And run they did, as fast as they could. The three abandoned their torches, Avanessa and Dagran helping each other pick up the injured man while Zura drew her sword to defend their flank as they all ran. They had to maneuver around the destroyed front wagon to get to the other humans, who began to pull the injured man into the wagon, then Avanessa. Dagran helped them, throwing his weight into ensuring their safety.
Unfortunately for them, safety was little more than a fantasy.
As Zura stood there, her hooves planted and wings flared out to either side, darkness encroached on them.
Silence fell like a sudden shroud, as fragile and thin as a glass cobweb.
Zura could sense the nightbeast’s approach before she could see it — the dull vibrations in the ground rumbling slowly beneath her with each of its steps. Out of the darkness, two orbs of reflected firelight shone brightly back at her, on the same level as her own. Her hand shifted its grip on her sword, all too aware of the sweat building up on her palm. She assured herself that it must be an unusually small one if was only as tall as she was.
She was wrong.
It approached, raising its head. She watched in horror as its eyes climbed — six feet, ten feet, then fifteen feet off the ground — and with this creature came a rolling fog of darkness that snuffed the torches behind her one by one, until the last fire died and she could see its eyes no more.
Until Zura brought a hoof slamming down against the stone underfoot.
In an instant, a ring of runes flared up in a circle around her, setting her sword ablaze with vibrant purple fire.
The glint of the beast’s teeth or the gleam of each wicked claw was enough to send anyone running, but that was far from the worst of it. In the instant before it reeled away from the sudden light, Zura could make out more of its form. More of its hulking body, more than eight feet at the shoulder. More of where its body branched off into the trunk of not one neck, but three.
In the flash of light, she saw the distinct shapes of not one, but three nightmarish heads looking back at her from twenty feet above them all — one whose eyes reflected back the purple light of her sword, and two whose eyes reflected nothing but abyssal darkness staring directly into her.
No amount of training the university could provide would have prepared her for that moment.
There was little time to dwell on her horror. The creature’s tail emerged out of the darkness overhead, slamming down on them all. She and Dagran leaped in opposite directions with a flap of their wings, but many others were not so lucky. The remnants of the first wagon were destroyed entirely, and the wagon behind it was shattered in two. Those that survived scrambled to free themselves and others from the rubble, working only by the light of Zura’s sword.
Before they could even react to this, one of its side heads came down out of nowhere onto the wagon behind that one, bloodcurdling screams of the humans within ringing out into the Night air. Its claws came next, swiping down at her directly. There was no parrying an attack so powerful, only deflecting it and using the momentum to keep light on her feet and strike at its legs while it was flat-footed.
There was a flash of white light as Dagran cast another healing spell, unintentionally drawing the nightbeast’s ire. It turned its claws upon him instead, forcing him to raise his spell-shield against concussive blow after concussive blow as it attempted to destroy both him and the injured human he was with.
Mazzurak knew without a doubt that there was no real fighting a beast like this. Not with so few people. Not with so few supplies. She—
“Zura! ZURA!” Avanessa cried out to her, her voice cutting through the chaos. She spotted the bard, balancing atop the wreckage with a bucket in her hands. She wasn’t alone, several more standing with her. They were shaking in every limb, but preparing for something… an attack? Against the nightbeast? “Draw its attention! Get one of the heads to strike at you! And get ready to use that sword!”
Zura hesitated, but this was far from the time to be picky about her allies or their plans. She planted her hooves once more, letting loose a roaring war cry and swinging her sword with wild flair. The fast-moving light easily got the attention of the center head. It turned on her, its jaw opening to reveal row after row after row of teeth all the way into its throat. They were already bloodied. They already bore the marks of torn cloth and crushed armor from those that had dared challenge it before.
It took every drop of willpower she had to hold her position.
As its head came slamming down at her, she waited until the very last moment to jump out of the way. It slammed its face against the ground in front of her with enough force that she lost her balance and stumbled to one knee.
At that moment though, Avanessa and the bucket-wielding humans all tossed their contents onto the head and neck of the creature, and a familiar, awful smell hit her. The plan suddenly clicked in her mind.
With renewed vigor, she scrambled up and charged at the head before it could get far off the ground, using her wings to give herself the extra lift she needed to leap up and drag her sword across the nightbeast’s hide. The cut it made was superficial, but that wasn’t the point.
The second her sword made contact with the several bucketloads of concentrated pitchmud the humans had thrown on the thing’s head, everything the mud had covered erupted into flame.
The roar of pain it gave was deafening, resonating in every bone in her body as she landed once more. It began to thrash around wildly, knocking her hard into the mountainside and sending chunks of fire raining down on the pass and the ravine. It wailed as it dragged its middle head along the ground, trying to scrape off the mud.
People ran around, yelling and madly stomping out the fires that had landed anywhere on or near the caravan. Others could only watch the nightbeast flail in a mix of horror and awe, believing it to be in its death throes. Zura could do little more than brace herself against where she’d hit the rock face, all the wind knocked out of her.
After some thirty seconds, the creature’s cries stopped.
But it was far from dead.
Half of its middle face burned and melted together, its remaining reflective eye made direct contact with Zura and her flaming sword. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, could only watch as the enraged creature charged.
She made out Dagran, so much closer and yet so much slower. He wouldn’t make it to her in time, and they both knew it. Just as Zura braced for the impact that would end it all, there came a rumble and CRACK from somewhere behind them.
A wave of light rolled over everyone and everything, imprinting their surroundings onto their vision for a brief moment. A horrible, ear-splitting screech rang out from the nightbeast like nothing she’d ever heard before.
By the time everyone had regained their sight, the thundering of the beast’s footsteps had taken it far away, back into the darkness. It… was gone.
For several seconds, it was silent.
Dagran made it to her. Her entire body shook as she stood back up with his help, only catching her breath with the aid of one of his healing spells.
The first sound that broke the silence was that of cautious, incredulous laughter from some of the humans. It wasn’t long after that the pained cries rose and reality set back in though. The humans began to tend to their wounded and dead, loading the wagons and working at clearing the road — quickly, in case the beast returned. There was no time for most of them to dwell on strange quakes and lights.
Mazzurak found herself oddly removed from it all. Dagran helped her over to a rock to sit down on before leaving her. She was only dimly aware of the repetitive flash of white light from his healing spell as he tended to those he could. Even now, she maintained a white-knuckle grip on her sword. She was still the only light source for anyone to work by.
She was useless at healing magic. She couldn’t mend a wagon wheel any more than she could mend a wound.
Several minutes passed before a voice called her back to the present — of all people, Avanessa’s.
The storyteller cleared her throat. “…I have no idea how any of us are alive right now. But I know we wouldn’t be without you and Dagran. I don’t know if you value a ‘thank you’ from a human, but I’m offering it all the same.”
Zura didn’t know what to say to this. In the end, she didn’t say anything, just gave a small nod.
An awkward pause followed between them before Avanessa sat down next to her. “My brother is going to be okay, thanks to Dagran. They’ve almost finished loading the caravan to catch up with the others.”
“…that’s nice.”
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
“But…”
In a strange moment of kinship, their eyes met and they knew they both still held the same lingering question.
Avanessa’s lips pursed. “I think I want this to be over as much as you do. I really, really do. But I had a clearer view this time — I-I think I know where the light came from, even if I don’t know why.” She pointed up and slightly to the right. “That way. The tallest peak of the Ashborne Mountains. There should be a path that leads up that way near here.”
It occurred to her then why Avanessa had brought this to her. “…a path that leads up to the old Bandalari holy site, you mean.”
The storyteller nodded gravely in response.
Zura chewed on this information for a few seconds before asking, “Why… why would the light be coming from there?”
“I… hoped you might know the answer to that.”
She didn’t have a clue. Her head shook in disbelief. “It… the site was lost a long time ago...” Zura’s eyes searched her own trails of thought for anything that might lead her to answers, but all she found were rabbit holes of paranoia. Could the Godborn or their Solitorean cousins have gotten ahold of the site? Could they be doing something to it even now, calling upon the Light of their goddess?
Regardless, if it was coming from there, she and Dagran, and perhaps Avanessa too, had a duty to find out why.
Mazzurak’s jaw grew taut, turning her eyes towards the peak. Whatever was going on here, it was far from over.