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Dec. 30th, 2010 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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hunters_forestOriginally posted by C.S. Friedman on Facebook
EXCERPT FROM "DOMINION" (a.k.a. The Coldfire Surprise)
Niklaus lies on the ground, badly wounded. But they cannot stop to tend to him now. Their quarry has finally begun to weaken, which means they must redouble their efforts, pressing home their advantage before the demonic creature they are fighting can draw enough power from the fae to heal its wounds and recover its full strength.
Righteousness sings in Faith's blood, sparks of sacred fury dancing along the edge of her sword as she takes up position directly in front of the unholy thing, blocking its access to her fallen comrade --
"Faith! Look behind you!”
She whirls about in response to the warning. Too late, too late! While they had been concentrating on the demon, a human mob had snuck up behind them. Rank upon rank of maddened men, eyes burning red with rage, primitive weapons in hands. As they see her turn about they let out a cry of bestial rage, and fall upon the demon-hunters like a pack of ravenous beasts. The same knight who had called out a warning to Faith cries out once more as he is crushed beneath their feet. She cannot reach him in time to save him. She cannot reach any of her companions in time. The hunters had spread out in a circle to contain their quarry, and that means that now they are scattered, divided. One by one they will be engulfed by this tide of angry flesh and steel, forced to choose between turning their backs on their faeborn enemy, or upon this rabid mob of demon-worshippers.
The creature is laughing now.
Despair is a knot in Faith’s gut as she brings up her sword to protect herself from the thrust of a rusty pitchfork; its tines scrape against the scales of her armor as she forces it aside. Who are all these people? Don't they understand what this creature really is? Or what the cost of worshipping it will be? All faeborn creatures feed upon mankind. This thing is no exception. Do these people really think that they will escape that fate just because they have agreed to worship it?
It is not a god! she wants to scream at them, as she struggles to keep the wave of attackers from overwhelming her. Her blade slices through the neck of one opponent before swinging into the next. It is not worthy of your worship! But even if these men could hear her words, they would not care. Once a faeborn creature becomes this powerful, it attracts weak-willed humans like rotting meat attracts flies. And why not? Such a creature can perform a thousand and one supernatural tricks that pass as "miracles", and the weak-willed are easily swayed by such tactics. Why should men choose to worship a more complex god, who might actually ask them to read a book, or obey restrictive laws, when this one will indulge their vilest pleasures and ask nothing in return? Never mind that it is a construct of the fae, not living flesh, and therefore can only have one real goal. By the time its followers come to understand what that means for them, it will be too late.
The mob is endless. The demon must have corrupted all the surrounding towns, to be able to command so many. Why had the Church’s scouts not discovered that? On and on Faith fights against them, knowing that the battle is hopeless, but too proud -- or perhaps too stubborn -- to die. Her fellow hunters are no longer visible to her. Whether they have gone down to their final deaths, or are simply shielded from her eyes by bulk of the mob, she does not know. They are not part of her universe any longer.
But these are distractions, she realizes suddenly. Behind her is the feaborn creature they came here to destroy, wounded and angry now, and it is controlling these men like puppets. Even as she wastes time fighting against the mob, the creature is gathering power to heal its wounds. How close she and her fellow knights had just come to destroying it, in God’s name! One more blow might have dispatched it forever. But now, thanks to the sudden arrival of this mob, the greater battle will be lost. By the time she can force back the demon’s worshippers -- if she can do that at all -- the demonic thing will be at full strength once more, and more than capable to taking on a single armed woman..
She cannot allow that to happen.
A strange sense of calm comes over her, as she realizes what she must do. A pitchfork comes thrusting toward her face; she forces it aside, steps in towards its wielder, and slams her shield into his face. Stumbling backwards, he cries out as a blow that was meant for her rips into his shoulder. The moment’s triumph should please her, but it does not. The next assailant should worry her, but he does not. Her mind is elsewhere.
This is her moment of duty.
She takes one last wild swing at her attackers, trying to forcing them to back away from her. To gain a moment’s time. The strategy manages to clear a small space around her, but she knows it will not last for long. Men with lances are headed her way. Once they get within striking distance, she’s finished.
It’s now or never.
Whipping about, she turns her back on the mob and launches herself without warning at the demon.. There is no heat in her veins now, nor fury, just an eerie sense of peace, and it is strangely empowering. The creature is still weak from their earlier assault, she sees, and apparently her sudden attack has taken it by surprise. Knowing she will have only one blow and must make it count, she swings her sword toward that place in its neck where a thick black vein throbs, putting all her weight behind the effort. If God is with her, perhaps she can take the thing’s head off. If not, if his body is similar enough to the human template, then severing a major vein might bring it down. She prays it is so. Right now it is the only hope these people have, of ever being free of its influence.
But something strikes her on the back of her head, hard enough to dent her half-helm. Her swing goes wild. Something else slams into her back, knocking her off her feet. And then the body of mob catches up with her, a tide of furious human flesh bristling with rusted blades and twisted pikes, forcing her down to the earth, crushing her beneath its weight until she cannot breathe, she cannot breathe, darkness is closing in, the air will not come --
I am sorry, my God. I have failed you. Forgive me.
As suddenly as they had come upon her, the memories vanished.
Shuddering, Faith wrapped her arms around herself. She was grateful to be able to take a deep breath at last, though the effort sent shards of pain lancing through her chest. Where were her fellow hunters now? Almost certainly dead. She prayed they were dead. Death in battle was an honorable end, especially when that battle was waged in the name of God. While the possibility of being taken prisoner and sacrificed to a faeborn demon-- of being devoured by the very creature one was bound by sacred oath to destroy -- would be the ultimate religious defilement.
Now that she could remember the battle clearly, she realized where she was. And why. The demon must have wanted to exact vengeance upon her, for her final attack. She was not to be allowed to die in battle, or even as a messy sacrifice on some pagan altar. That kind of death would be over too swiftly.
They had left her alone in the Forest.
All about her were trees...or rather, what might have been called "trees" in some more natural place. Here they were only twisted, sickly structures, covered with a mottled patchwork of parasitic growths, hollowed out by colonies of death-white insects. Only in the tangled canopy overhead, where sunlight played weakly upon malformed branches, was there any hint of normal life; everything below the canopy reeked of death and disease. And power. Currents of earth fae so corrupted, so malevolent, that they made her skin crawl. Normally she couldn't detect such things, lacking an adept's vision, but in this place the power was so concentrated that she could sense it all about her. Its sheer foulness made her want to vomit.
It was said that human nightmares were drawn to this place, where they manifested on such a scale that normal faeborn horrors paled by comparison. A single despairing thought could spawn a host of wraiths, each of them hungering to devour its creator. A normal person who was abandoned here would stand no chance at all; his own fear would take on a life of its own within minutes and consume him. Doubtless that was the fate which the demon had intended for Faith. A slow, painful demise, fleeing the claws and teeth of her own terror, until finally they ripped her to pieces.
With a trembling hand she drew her sword from its sheath. The blade was dull to her eyes, and crusted with dried blood from her battle, but she knew that to faeborn creatures it glowed with all the force of a sacred fire. Had her enemy left her this one weapon because it repelled him so much that he could not bring himself to remove it? Or had he wanted to prolong her dying even more? One sword might not be enough to hold every nightmare creature in this blighted realm at bay, no matter how many prayers clung to its blade, but maybe it would encourage her to fight for her life, instead of just surrendering to the inevitable. And thus prolong her dying.
But the demon had not known about her gift.
Kneeling in the thick loam, holding her weapon upright before her, she let her eyes fix upon the symbol etched into its guard. Two interlocked circles. Two worlds, inextricably linked. She had dedicated her life to cleansing this one of the fae's corruption. And the One God had blessed her with a special gift to make that mission possible. It was not like the gift which the sorcerers enjoyed, allowing them to mold the fae to suit their will. Not was it the gift of the adepts, to whom all the shadowy powers of this world were clearly visible. No, her gift was rarer than both those things, and in a world where Workings were a part of everyday life, it was something few men would envy. But it had allowed her to become a deadly hunter in the One God's holy cause, and now it might -- just might -- save her life.
The fae did not respond to her. Ever. That same dread force which brought men’s secret desires to life, and could turn them into veritable gods, never manifested hers. The fae did not bring her luck or misfortune, health or sickness, or the thousand other varieties of blessings and curses that it provided for other men. Oh, what a precious and terrible gift it was, and how her fellow hunters envied.her! The touch of Earth, they called it. A sign from God that she had been destined to serve Him.
But just how complete was that immunity? Was she really safe from the fae's ministrations, or had she just never been in a place where the earth-power was potent enough to test her gift?
Grimly she thought: I am about to find that out.
Things were starting to stir in the shadows now, just beyond the range of her sight. Foul, unwholesome things, whose odor was carried to her on the wind, making her stomach churn. In the distance she could hear a strange chittering sound, and it was coming closer. The deathly pale insects in the trees surrounding were starting to come out of their woody burrows as well, crawling along the lichen-stained branches in her direction. Clearly she needed to get out of this place, and fast. But how? There was a river that cut through the eastern portion of the Forest, she knew, and if she could find it she could follow it to the Forest's border. But which way was east? The dismal light seemed to be coming from all directions at once; she couldn't even find a clear enough shadow that she could watch it shift as the sun moved. In time the angle of light through the trees would no doubt become marked enough for her to make out which direction was west...but night would fall soon after that, and then it would be too late to run.
She had to start moving now.
There was a clear grade to the land surrounding her. If she followed it downhill she might eventually reach running water. And that water might lead her in turn to the river. And the river might lead her home.
It was a slim chance, but it was the best she had.
Taking up a fallen branch to use as a walking stick -- shaking off the various foul insects that were clinging to it -- the huntress of the One God muttered a prayer under her breath and began to move again. Promising herself that if she had to die in this foul place, at least she would go down fighting.
EXCERPT FROM "DOMINION" (a.k.a. The Coldfire Surprise)
Niklaus lies on the ground, badly wounded. But they cannot stop to tend to him now. Their quarry has finally begun to weaken, which means they must redouble their efforts, pressing home their advantage before the demonic creature they are fighting can draw enough power from the fae to heal its wounds and recover its full strength.
Righteousness sings in Faith's blood, sparks of sacred fury dancing along the edge of her sword as she takes up position directly in front of the unholy thing, blocking its access to her fallen comrade --
"Faith! Look behind you!”
She whirls about in response to the warning. Too late, too late! While they had been concentrating on the demon, a human mob had snuck up behind them. Rank upon rank of maddened men, eyes burning red with rage, primitive weapons in hands. As they see her turn about they let out a cry of bestial rage, and fall upon the demon-hunters like a pack of ravenous beasts. The same knight who had called out a warning to Faith cries out once more as he is crushed beneath their feet. She cannot reach him in time to save him. She cannot reach any of her companions in time. The hunters had spread out in a circle to contain their quarry, and that means that now they are scattered, divided. One by one they will be engulfed by this tide of angry flesh and steel, forced to choose between turning their backs on their faeborn enemy, or upon this rabid mob of demon-worshippers.
The creature is laughing now.
Despair is a knot in Faith’s gut as she brings up her sword to protect herself from the thrust of a rusty pitchfork; its tines scrape against the scales of her armor as she forces it aside. Who are all these people? Don't they understand what this creature really is? Or what the cost of worshipping it will be? All faeborn creatures feed upon mankind. This thing is no exception. Do these people really think that they will escape that fate just because they have agreed to worship it?
It is not a god! she wants to scream at them, as she struggles to keep the wave of attackers from overwhelming her. Her blade slices through the neck of one opponent before swinging into the next. It is not worthy of your worship! But even if these men could hear her words, they would not care. Once a faeborn creature becomes this powerful, it attracts weak-willed humans like rotting meat attracts flies. And why not? Such a creature can perform a thousand and one supernatural tricks that pass as "miracles", and the weak-willed are easily swayed by such tactics. Why should men choose to worship a more complex god, who might actually ask them to read a book, or obey restrictive laws, when this one will indulge their vilest pleasures and ask nothing in return? Never mind that it is a construct of the fae, not living flesh, and therefore can only have one real goal. By the time its followers come to understand what that means for them, it will be too late.
The mob is endless. The demon must have corrupted all the surrounding towns, to be able to command so many. Why had the Church’s scouts not discovered that? On and on Faith fights against them, knowing that the battle is hopeless, but too proud -- or perhaps too stubborn -- to die. Her fellow hunters are no longer visible to her. Whether they have gone down to their final deaths, or are simply shielded from her eyes by bulk of the mob, she does not know. They are not part of her universe any longer.
But these are distractions, she realizes suddenly. Behind her is the feaborn creature they came here to destroy, wounded and angry now, and it is controlling these men like puppets. Even as she wastes time fighting against the mob, the creature is gathering power to heal its wounds. How close she and her fellow knights had just come to destroying it, in God’s name! One more blow might have dispatched it forever. But now, thanks to the sudden arrival of this mob, the greater battle will be lost. By the time she can force back the demon’s worshippers -- if she can do that at all -- the demonic thing will be at full strength once more, and more than capable to taking on a single armed woman..
She cannot allow that to happen.
A strange sense of calm comes over her, as she realizes what she must do. A pitchfork comes thrusting toward her face; she forces it aside, steps in towards its wielder, and slams her shield into his face. Stumbling backwards, he cries out as a blow that was meant for her rips into his shoulder. The moment’s triumph should please her, but it does not. The next assailant should worry her, but he does not. Her mind is elsewhere.
This is her moment of duty.
She takes one last wild swing at her attackers, trying to forcing them to back away from her. To gain a moment’s time. The strategy manages to clear a small space around her, but she knows it will not last for long. Men with lances are headed her way. Once they get within striking distance, she’s finished.
It’s now or never.
Whipping about, she turns her back on the mob and launches herself without warning at the demon.. There is no heat in her veins now, nor fury, just an eerie sense of peace, and it is strangely empowering. The creature is still weak from their earlier assault, she sees, and apparently her sudden attack has taken it by surprise. Knowing she will have only one blow and must make it count, she swings her sword toward that place in its neck where a thick black vein throbs, putting all her weight behind the effort. If God is with her, perhaps she can take the thing’s head off. If not, if his body is similar enough to the human template, then severing a major vein might bring it down. She prays it is so. Right now it is the only hope these people have, of ever being free of its influence.
But something strikes her on the back of her head, hard enough to dent her half-helm. Her swing goes wild. Something else slams into her back, knocking her off her feet. And then the body of mob catches up with her, a tide of furious human flesh bristling with rusted blades and twisted pikes, forcing her down to the earth, crushing her beneath its weight until she cannot breathe, she cannot breathe, darkness is closing in, the air will not come --
I am sorry, my God. I have failed you. Forgive me.
As suddenly as they had come upon her, the memories vanished.
Shuddering, Faith wrapped her arms around herself. She was grateful to be able to take a deep breath at last, though the effort sent shards of pain lancing through her chest. Where were her fellow hunters now? Almost certainly dead. She prayed they were dead. Death in battle was an honorable end, especially when that battle was waged in the name of God. While the possibility of being taken prisoner and sacrificed to a faeborn demon-- of being devoured by the very creature one was bound by sacred oath to destroy -- would be the ultimate religious defilement.
Now that she could remember the battle clearly, she realized where she was. And why. The demon must have wanted to exact vengeance upon her, for her final attack. She was not to be allowed to die in battle, or even as a messy sacrifice on some pagan altar. That kind of death would be over too swiftly.
They had left her alone in the Forest.
All about her were trees...or rather, what might have been called "trees" in some more natural place. Here they were only twisted, sickly structures, covered with a mottled patchwork of parasitic growths, hollowed out by colonies of death-white insects. Only in the tangled canopy overhead, where sunlight played weakly upon malformed branches, was there any hint of normal life; everything below the canopy reeked of death and disease. And power. Currents of earth fae so corrupted, so malevolent, that they made her skin crawl. Normally she couldn't detect such things, lacking an adept's vision, but in this place the power was so concentrated that she could sense it all about her. Its sheer foulness made her want to vomit.
It was said that human nightmares were drawn to this place, where they manifested on such a scale that normal faeborn horrors paled by comparison. A single despairing thought could spawn a host of wraiths, each of them hungering to devour its creator. A normal person who was abandoned here would stand no chance at all; his own fear would take on a life of its own within minutes and consume him. Doubtless that was the fate which the demon had intended for Faith. A slow, painful demise, fleeing the claws and teeth of her own terror, until finally they ripped her to pieces.
With a trembling hand she drew her sword from its sheath. The blade was dull to her eyes, and crusted with dried blood from her battle, but she knew that to faeborn creatures it glowed with all the force of a sacred fire. Had her enemy left her this one weapon because it repelled him so much that he could not bring himself to remove it? Or had he wanted to prolong her dying even more? One sword might not be enough to hold every nightmare creature in this blighted realm at bay, no matter how many prayers clung to its blade, but maybe it would encourage her to fight for her life, instead of just surrendering to the inevitable. And thus prolong her dying.
But the demon had not known about her gift.
Kneeling in the thick loam, holding her weapon upright before her, she let her eyes fix upon the symbol etched into its guard. Two interlocked circles. Two worlds, inextricably linked. She had dedicated her life to cleansing this one of the fae's corruption. And the One God had blessed her with a special gift to make that mission possible. It was not like the gift which the sorcerers enjoyed, allowing them to mold the fae to suit their will. Not was it the gift of the adepts, to whom all the shadowy powers of this world were clearly visible. No, her gift was rarer than both those things, and in a world where Workings were a part of everyday life, it was something few men would envy. But it had allowed her to become a deadly hunter in the One God's holy cause, and now it might -- just might -- save her life.
The fae did not respond to her. Ever. That same dread force which brought men’s secret desires to life, and could turn them into veritable gods, never manifested hers. The fae did not bring her luck or misfortune, health or sickness, or the thousand other varieties of blessings and curses that it provided for other men. Oh, what a precious and terrible gift it was, and how her fellow hunters envied.her! The touch of Earth, they called it. A sign from God that she had been destined to serve Him.
But just how complete was that immunity? Was she really safe from the fae's ministrations, or had she just never been in a place where the earth-power was potent enough to test her gift?
Grimly she thought: I am about to find that out.
Things were starting to stir in the shadows now, just beyond the range of her sight. Foul, unwholesome things, whose odor was carried to her on the wind, making her stomach churn. In the distance she could hear a strange chittering sound, and it was coming closer. The deathly pale insects in the trees surrounding were starting to come out of their woody burrows as well, crawling along the lichen-stained branches in her direction. Clearly she needed to get out of this place, and fast. But how? There was a river that cut through the eastern portion of the Forest, she knew, and if she could find it she could follow it to the Forest's border. But which way was east? The dismal light seemed to be coming from all directions at once; she couldn't even find a clear enough shadow that she could watch it shift as the sun moved. In time the angle of light through the trees would no doubt become marked enough for her to make out which direction was west...but night would fall soon after that, and then it would be too late to run.
She had to start moving now.
There was a clear grade to the land surrounding her. If she followed it downhill she might eventually reach running water. And that water might lead her in turn to the river. And the river might lead her home.
It was a slim chance, but it was the best she had.
Taking up a fallen branch to use as a walking stick -- shaking off the various foul insects that were clinging to it -- the huntress of the One God muttered a prayer under her breath and began to move again. Promising herself that if she had to die in this foul place, at least she would go down fighting.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 02:45 am (UTC)Though if this is pre-evil!Gerald, we're more likely to have him get inspired by her, urgh. X_X
no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 07:41 am (UTC)Can she go evil, then, and he can go kill her and be all properly heroic about it?
no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 09:23 am (UTC)And I am baffled by the lack of Gerald. If this is a story of his past, where is he?
no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 02:21 pm (UTC)