from Chapter One: The Yoke loosens...

"Why, human, are you here? In this black night, speaking with me? You would call me friend. Choose your words carefully and tell me why."

Loomgrin took heed to my caution and looked me up and down before grinning and smiling.

"A challenge, by Hell! So I must speak well with you. But I have been told few words pass between you and other living things ever. Even your master keeps you not to speak, but to do diabolical work. You keep things alive that have no place in this world. For this reason I will trust you and be candid... but I will wait for you to slake your thirst. Drink deep and I will tell you certain things. I expect you to do the same."

"I know no secrets. I am a dumb brute," I told him, "what matters to me your prattle? Speak as I drink and entertain me."

I drank and held my empty jack out for more. By the time I had my third I had heard plenty.

Loomgrin did not like selling his sword to persons such as Baelbozurg. Magicians, perhaps, unsavory types, perhaps, but men like Baelbozurg put uncanny fears in even the sternest hearts. Loomgrin was no different. That he would hire himself to a black magician with dark designs and darker secrets was a sign that he needed money. Loomgrin had made it known that were the other side to match Baelbozurg’s offer, he would take it. To this end he needed to know more about the wizard. He had sent loyal scouts here ahead of him and learned that Old Gnathgabber would not go wagging his tongue to Baelbozurg. For whatever reason, the old man kept a grim neutrality.

"These Grogens. We have not their like in my country... what are they?"

"Grogens," I said, "are dumber than apes. Perhaps more in gait like humans, but that is all. They take pleasure from putting their heads in campfires and baking their skulls. The skin often peels away, leaving charred, rotting flesh, and blackened bone. It clouds their eyes and slowly kills their brains. They twitch and flail in a clumsy manner. They are nothing to fear if you are a hardened warrior, steeled against them... but they can make you afraid if you have never seen their like. And if they can make you afraid, they can kill you."

"Speak to me now of Uttertup. What is it?"

"Uttertup," I began, "is an ancient ruin. It has preserved darker souls than the wizard in elder times. If it is re-built and restored, nothing can destroy its keeper. To this end he has begun to work and the work is grim and dirty. To this end, he has called forth Heldrinkers."

"What are the Heldrinkers?" asked Loomgrin, "I want to know more than terrified whispers. I need to know more than wild conjecture!"

"Better had you never asked," I said, "than to know what they are. They drink blood and live in shadows. No more than six of them can ever walk the earth at any time, and he now has five. He will have another, the last, before his plans are through."

"They are powerful?"

"Yes."

"They are undead?"

"Yes."

"They are Vampires?"

"No. What they are is deeper and darker still. They are immutable and unyielding. They are a danger to the soul as well as the body. They corrupt and destroy, for that they were forged long before, indeed ages before, the names of the gods who made them were forgotten."

"They are from before?"

"From before."

The only sound now was the thumping of heavy raindrops against the windowsill.

 

"Friend," I said quietly, "ask more. Ask more, if you will, but keep no more hidden from me."