Pillar

Chapter Sixteen

Stepping out beneath the wide-open sky, the den of chaos that was Hamlin now far enough away that she could think, Vivian spread her arms and stretched. She heard a snort from behind her, Gaul and Dora both dressed in their leather jerkins and breeches with iron greaves and breastplates. They wore the thin purple capes that all the Royal Guard wore outside the town walls, and each had a long sword strapped to their hilt with a buckler on their arm.

Together, they were prepared for the bridge and the eventual encounter that would occur when Vivian met with the eldest troll brother once more. She remembered the peppered shards of ice protruding from its gullet and chest, leading to its stomach.

I imagine it’s not too pleased about that, Vivian thought. Still, at least I’m outside the smelly town!

She breathed in the fresh air, full of floral scents and heady odors coming off the Prism Strands, the two-and-a-half foot long leaves growing from their deep roots expanding to absorb, and reflect, the light coming down from the sun. She already planned on taking some more samples of the Strands for brewing tea, and she knew where a three-horned tortoise could be judged from what she observed last time in the river, but first she had to speak to the tree, Old Man Willow.

Vivian was getting worried. The more often you infused something with intellect, the longer it is kept it and the smarter it got. That was how vessels became a thing, a wizard meddling where he shouldn’t have. Vivian wouldn’t be worried, but truth be told she had lost count of the number of times she’d infused the old tree with life. The partial face resembling an old man was growing more and more expressive with each passing a pulse of the Astral and, soon, it could remain intelligent just thanks to the rays from Selene.

“So, this tree,” Gaul said, interrupting Vivian’s thoughts. “You said it talks?”

“Yes,” she said, chuckling. “Truly a marvel…”

“How come nobody has ever reported it?” Gaul pressed. Vivian looked back and noticed Dora was admiring a few birds fluttering about from tree to tree. Gaul’s stupid grin seemed all-too-knowing.

“It may have only started talking since I got here,” Vivian admitted. “It was just a test, and like many I perform, it exceeded my wildest dreams.”

“So, you’re saying you brought an inanimate object to life?” Dora asked, now paying rapt attention.

“Well, technically it’s an animate organism, as it’s a Leeching Willow, which can move when the soil is moist.” Vivian corrected.

“So, you gave a carnivorous tree that can chase people down when it rains—which happens here almost every other day -intelligence? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Dora demanded. “Because if you did, that might be on par with some things Bleak has done, and that man is just twisted.”

“Look, Old Man is just confused and scared. Sure, he eats meat, but he can also survive off fertilizer. He really likes beer,” she pulled a bottle of Everchill from her satchel, picked up from the grocer across from Kiara’s Herb’s and Plants, “and he can be poetic. You probably won’t understand him. as I doubt he’s progressed far enough to speak Elhim. You’ll see…”

Vivian stopped short of the first post standing some twenty feet from the bridge, an old stone pillar that had once held signs showing the cardinal directions. Now it only had a rusted pole extending up with an arrow pointing north, the word hanging below the arrow in exquisite craftsmanship, despite the verdigris-encrusted exterior. Vivian reached into her satchel and gripped the tiny iron bell, pulling it out handle first.

Ringing it loud and long, she stared out across the bridge. The cloudy sky promised rain later in the day as the darkened clouds were heavy with droplets; no doubt the Old Man would be pleased and move a respectful distance along the river bank. His resting spot was gathering too many bones, and the stench of rotting marrow scared off the smaller animals that made up its diet.

Waiting, Vivian didn’t hear the normal sounds of pained cries that usually came from the iron-striking-iron. Ringing it again, this time swinging her arm wildly to really carry the noise out over the rippling water. Vivian stepped a few feet closer, still ringing the bell.

No sign of the smaller brother…

“Maybe it’s with its sibling?” Dora ventured to guess.

“And give up its side of the bridge? No way,” Gaul said, “things just hiding deep enough so it can sneak up behind us when we’re in the middle of the bridge. Draw your blade, get ready for some action.”

“If you’re certain,” Dora said, unsheathing her sword, giving it an easy twirl to loosen her wrist up should she suddenly need to strike or parry.

“Would be a gift from the spirits if the trolls had moved on, but we aren’t that lucky and the spirits aren’t that kind,” Gaul replied, pulling his heavier sword out. His sword hand bore a gauntlet attached to the bracer, giving him a stronger grip and the ability to strike with his fist as a follow through should his sword not prove effective enough. She’d heard from Dora how Gaul had decked a drunken sailor with the gauntlet instead of running them through during a sword fight, preventing the need for a mortuary slab.

Vivian frowned. Buspi… if only I’d realized that they could reanimate, you might still be alive.

Looking up with a scowl, Vivian stopped ringing the bell. “No more hiding behind theories and petty protections. Let’s go!”

“What?” Gaul asked, frowning as Dora followed Vivian as she marched onto the bridge. “You two are insane! The things going to come up and attack us from behind, I’m telling you!”

“Then watch and be our rearguard,” Dora ordered.

Gaul grumbled under his breath but did as commanded. Vivian strode with purpose, her mind still on Buspi’s face as he was being consumed by the ravenous Addled. How his eyes had glimmered in the faint lantern light, his sweat glistened as he fought to cling to his life force as it was pulled out onto the cold stone floor of the morgue, making him just another body to be cleaned up, in the end. Lt. Costello had been kind enough to tell her the ashes would be sealed in jars and stored in a dry storeroom within the barracks. That’d pleased Vivian, if only because nothing dark could arise from their bodies being mixed into the waters of the river. If what Old Man Willow and his branch had to tell, there was something unsettling wandering the surrounding riverbanks and floodplains at night.

Gaul almost made a triumphant cry when a loud splashing noise from the river announced that something big was emerging from beneath the bridge. They were only a third of the way across, and some eight feet above the water. This was why it was surprising when Dora, who rushed to peer over the wall, died in a gory shower of crushed metal and torn leather, a mud-covered claw dripping with bloody water.

The elder troll was on this side of the bridge and was climbing up the side to start some trouble!

“Dora!” Gaul shouted, rushing forward to cleave into the arm, the blade sinking in a few inches to the muscled limb, the layers of mud absorbing much of the blow. The enormous hand released Dora’s upper torso, revealing fingers that were larger than Vivian remembered…

“Curses, Gaul! It’s not one brother!” Vivian screamed as she pulled Astral energy into her hands, channeling in enough energy to call out arcane words, lowering the temperature in the air. A slight mist formed over the bridge, not enough to block sight but enough to muffle sounds.

It didn’t muffle the low groan of the massive troll that gripped the side of the bridge, the cracking of stone crying out as if in pain as the immense aberration pulled itself up by one long limb. The enormous head appeared, roughly the size of a barrel with two bowls serving as pale yellow eyes, a wide mouth filled with large teeth, dribbling blood from some kill it must have made under the bridge.

Its other arm lashed up and slapped the stone into the middle of the bridge, its thick talons digging into the cobblestone to grant it purchase as it drug its muddy body out of the slow-moving river.

Hulking shoulders marred by several arrows, and rotted leather padding that had obviously once been the barding to a horse serving as a shoulder guard, lifted the muscled brown body, the gigantic pectorals forming into slimmer muscles making the creature seem almost comical in appearance until you realized the arms could likely punch through the foot-deep walls on the bridge with ease. Its legs were dribbling blackened mud, which pooled beneath its dripping sloped form as it took in the sight of both of us, Gaul using his boot to pull his sword free of the monster’s arm with a savage cry.

It sniffed once and mumbled something, a guttural voice that seemed to carry with it shivers that ran down my spine. It belched, a mangled tree limb flying out from between its jaws to splat down onto the stone, sliding towards Vivian’s feet as she stood in horror and watched as, contrary to any common sense, the troll lifted Dora’s ruined corpse and bit into her mangled upper torso, tearing away the ruined breastplate, leather jerkin, and human flesh to chew slowly, a horrid sound of metal being bent and wrenched into unnatural shapes as the troll ate from his first kill in front of Vivian and Gaul, as if they weren’t a threat.

Maybe we aren’t? A small voice whispered in the back of Vivian’s mind, a voice she pushed down beneath the beating of her own heart. No! We can beat this, we must! It may have killed Dora, but it won’t kill any more innocent lives!

Vivian finished her chant by slamming the heel of her staff onto the cobblestone path, a resounding c***k of metal that echoed throughout the mists, a slight reverberation rippling through the fog. Neither the troll nor Gaul noticed, as one was busy eating and the other was attempting to cut deep into the formers side, with little luck.

The mud is too thick for Gaul’s sword, Vivian thought with a smirk, rolling her staff above her head before as ice coalesced in a growing shard, starting out a foot wide, then three. She was finally straining under the spell’s weight when the spear was easily seven feet long and weighed over five hundred pounds, the back half widening out with spurs of jagged shards bursting from the bladed edge like the tail of a comet.

The troll tore off Dora’s waist and left leg, leaving only the bloody hunk of thigh dangling from within greaves from the knee. The creature chewed thoughtfully, the iron causing it no strife despite everything she knew about the aberrations of Pillar. Casting the stray thought aside, Vivian focused on the final line of the chant before thrusting the head of the staff forward, a great whoosh of air pulling in the mist into a swirling tornado around the spear, causing it to spin like a drill, rapidly gaining speed.

Gaul looked away from the minor scratches he was inflicting in the behemoth’s gut to the torrential blizzard swirling about Vivian. A fierce smile marked his face as he stepped in front of Vivian enough to provide a modicum of protection.

“Send it to Dis!” He shouted, bringing his buckler up, sword lowered to where it was almost scraping the frost-rimed stone of the bridge.

And without a second thought, Vivian unleashed the power of winter in a single icy blast, the back half of the spear exploding as it launched like a twisting ballista bolt fired point blank into the chest of the titanic troll. It barely had time to look up before the spell affected, a massive crushing of flesh with a wide arc of blackened blood spattering the bridge below the monster as the spear drilled into it where it stood.

Gaul cheered, pumping his sword in the air as the tunneling spear continued to rend through bone and muscle, shredding organs at a phenomenal rate. The blood started flying faster, the blackened sludge having been chilled, Vivian assumed.

But then her assumption fell short. Instead of the troll bellowing in pain or roaring in agony, over the cries of grinding bone and mulching muscle, she heard a guttural laughter. And then it rained.

Glowing specks of rain that smelled of rot, specks that turned into droplets, flying from the titan’s steadfast body.

“It’s not a troll!” She bellowed. “It’s a Vessel!”