From Chapter Three: Passage by Sword

“Did you hear that?” I asked, leaning into the mountainside.

“I have heard nothing but meaningless laughter,” Loomgrin replied, “steel yourself, for we are ill-prepared!”

Then the presence vanished and we quickened our pace, as the shadows took on an eerie, fathomless depth.

“I am fighting the urge to run,” whispered Loomgrin.

The air suddenly exploded with a swift fury, as if swarms of wasps had been unleashed.  Yet instead of the sounds of angry wings, there was a cloying silence that urged me to shout.

“There is no hope!” I cried, “It knows we’re here!  It is toying with us!”

The first images that poured into my head were those of wild beasts and of human cruelty.  Then torrents of darker, wilder things dazed my mind and made the grip I held on my sword loose and tenuous.

In the darkness a presence loomed before us and reared onto its heels.

“Damn you!” bellowed Loomgrin, swinging Mustardseed fitfully.

I roared unceremoniously and sprang savagely ahead with my own weapon, feeling the wild, devouring darkness pitch and yawn.

Then the nightmares flooded my senses and I almost fell to my knees weeping and trembling.

“Fight it, Zombiac!” cried Loomgrin.  Something lashed out with the fetid smell of a lingering crypt blazing in arcs behind the solid, raking hand.  I sneered and thrust my sword forward.

The thing scurried in unreachable places and mocked us with lewd, jeering peels of laughter.

“We can not hope to survive!” I gasped, in despair, for now my body itself seemed to be controlled. I began to kneel.

Loomgrin flailed about, in the dark, without reason, swinging his sword at every shadow.  I fought to keep from lowering my sword.  The voice in my mind screamed, with a primordial hatred, for me to surrender.  If Loomgrin was under such attack, it was not working.  He had gone completely berserk.  Now frustrated in the dark, perhaps mad from the visions in his head, he bolted off to a camp of Grogens and loosed his fury upon them.

The sweet, pure sound of steel clashing with steel somehow gave me heart and I sprang to my feet, shook off the terrible nightmarish images and swung my sword around defiantly.

Abruptly the clamor of battle stopped and Loomgrin called out, “Zombiac!  Come to the light of this fire.  At least we shall see this Murderous Odauntutaunt and look it in its eye.”

I called out his name and swiftly ran in that direction.  Before long I was there.  Loomgrin was covered in the blood of fallen Grogens.  The grey streaks in his hair and beard gleamed crimson in the firelight.

The voice, close enough to be a whisper, returned, saying:

“So you think you might fare better if you could see me, I who could shred your brains with a look in my eye!  Very well!  I come!”