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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jun 18, 2006 22:09:32 GMT -5
The cart wobbled and jerked slowly down the hill, retracing the path of the ruts that led around the side of the house. It stood three or four feet off the ground, was at least eight feet long, and appeared constructed entirely of heavy dark wood. In its corners, tall spoked wooden wheels stuck out and stood several feet above its flat top surface. The great wheels were covered in a layer of dead leaves, and the wooden axles groaned as the dogs pulled the heavy cart downhill. Various leaves and twigs, ripped from the forest undergrowth, fell off the cart as it lumbered forward.
The dead wolves had been tossed in a rough pile at the back end of the cart and they flopped and threatened to fall off at each bounce and jerk. Robbyn and Copper stared in stunned silence as the dogs worked the cart around to the side of the house. Abercrombie did not acknowledge their presence, simply slouching forward on his long bony legs beside the cart. When the cart reached the corner of the house he yelled at the dogs and the whole thing ground to a halt. Then, reaching onto the top surface of the cart, he retrieved Robbyn’s mace and helm and Copper’s sword, and threw them on the ground.
A wave of relief washed through Robbyn at the sight of Copper’s sword and he looked over at her to see how she might react. Her face was impassive, but she walked quickly over and slipped the blade back into the scabbard at her side. Even though she was hard to read, Robbyn thought he detected a hint of relief in her body language as the shining blade slid back into its place. She then picked up Robbyn’s things and tossed his helmet at him. Robbyn caught it, but not without hurting his hand in the process. He winced.
“You are such a fucking baby,” she said, handing his mace back to him.
“S-sorry.”
After depositing their things, Abercrombie barked at his dogs and the cart, with its disgusting cargo, moved out of sight. Robbyn and Copper followed to the corner of the house. As Robbyn rounded the corner, a building came into view. Set back about fifteen feet from the house was a long single-storey grey stone building, about six feet high, and at least twenty feet long. Though cracked and crumbling slightly in the corners, it was made out of huge stone blocks, and appeared indestructible. The outer surface was periodically broken up by small two-inch slits, which may have been either arrow or air holes. It had no windows or visible door. Robbyn had no idea what it was, but to his mind it looked disturbingly like a mausoleum.
Abercrombie pulled the cart up to the far end of the building. As the dogs stood panting, he walked back to the end of the cart to unload the carcasses, then stopped and stared at Copper and Robbyn.
“Wh-what do you think he’s doing with them?” Robbyn whispered to Copper.
“Cursed if I know,” she answered. “I think he’s fucking crazy.”
Abercrombie turned away from the dead bodies, and then went back to the dogs and released them. As soon as they were all released, they came racing over as a pack to Robbyn and Copper, barking furiously. Abercrombie yelled something and waved his walking stick menacingly, and several turned back to the cart, but a few ignored him and continued to approach the pair menacingly. Robbyn stood stock still as they smelled his privates, sweating furiously. For some reason most of them seemed to leave Copper alone, except for one male who leapt up on her and got a snarl and swipe from her for his trouble.
Abercrombie approached and swatted at the dogs that were intimidating Robbyn. He did not look at either of his guests and he seemed to speak to no one in particular. “Shouldn’t be outside. Inside is safer. Never know if the Rotted Ones are coming. They’re fast. And they’re not the only ones. Flesh Eaters, Bone Chewers, Brain Eaters, Rotted Ones, Plague Spreaders. More maybe. The Plague Spreaders are the worst. Never kill them. They didn’t believe me. ’Liza didn’t want to believe either. I told them to move the town, but they didn’t listen. Mostly they don’t come out during the day, but it has been known to happen. And the darkness comes during the day too, sometimes. Better inside. Better to stay safe.”
Robbyn was completely confused. He decided that he had to ignore the man’s rambling. “Abercrombie, wh-what are you doing with the w-w-... the dead bodies?”
The old man’s eyes snapped to Robbyn. “The dogs get the meat. I need the skins. For my work.”
“Your work?”
Abercrombie was clearly agitated by Robb’s question. “It’s none of your business! It’s my work. That’s all you need to know. You wouldn’t understand. And it’s not finished.” His long skinny arm pointed back at the stone building behind him. “You are never to go in there!”
Robbyn stood slack-jawed, not knowing what to say. Half of the dog pack still milled about them, and more than one had stopped to watch their master closely. Robbyn swallowed hard. After a moment, he said, “OK. We w-wont. I p-p-promise.”
For a second, Abercrombie continued to stare at the two of them alternately. Then he relaxed and said, in Copper’s general direction. “I know ’Liza wouldn’t like it. She never liked conflict.”
Copper grunted something noncommittal in response.
Abercrombie pointed at Copper’s shirt. “That’s her shirt, you know.”
“Ah.” Copper nodded. “It’s…nice.”
“Yes. But she wouldn’t mind. She was always very generous.”
“She sounds very nice,” Robbyn volunteered.
Abercrombie shooed them back towards the doorway into the house. “Oh yes. Generous to a fault. And trusting.”
Robbyn and Copper had no choice but to back up around the corner. Abercrombie walked forward, and the dogs milled about them. Several more turned back towards the cart. Robbyn wondered if they were hungry. They sure looked bony and ravenous.
“You are going to skin the wolves?” Copper asked.
Abercrombie nodded. “Yes. I’m just an old man in the woods. The town is so far away and I am so old and feeble. I can’t let them go to waste.”
Robbyn’s ears perked up at mention of the town. “The town? Is that Raven Hill? How f-far is it? That’s where w-we are trying to get to.”
Abercrombie had continued to move them towards the doorway, but he stopped and stared hard at Robbyn. The silence stretched. After a long time, Abercrombie turned his head and looked away to the woods. He was so long answering, it seemed like he either was not going to answer or had forgotten the question. Copper coughed meaningfully, and then opened her mouth to speak, but Abercrombie cut her off. With a haunted look in his eyes, he quietly replied, “There ain’t no Raven Hill any more, son. It’s gone.”
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jun 21, 2006 0:23:32 GMT -5
Robbyn’s wasn’t sure quite how to take Abercrombie’s words. Copper just closed her mouth and studied the old man, like a bird deciding whether or not to attack a strange insect.
“Gone?” Robbyn said.
The old man took a deep breath and exhaled out his nose, then looked back to take in the two of them. “Yep. I told them to move the town, but they wouldn’t listen. They scoffed at me; Ello and his precious council. I saw the signs before anyone. I showed them the dead Liferoot even before the streams dried up. Clumps of it, enough to make fifty bottles of greater healing potion if it hadn’t have been sick and rotten. I shook it in their faces and still they didn’t listen. It was jealousy. It was his jealousy that killed ’Liza. He tried to take her away from me…”
Abercrombie’s voice had faded away to almost a whisper. Robbyn tried to follow the rambling, but he couldn’t. Copper evidently didn’t have Robbyn’s patience. She threw up her hands and interjected, “The town isn’t gone. Towns don’t just fucking disappear.” But Abercrombie appeared lost in his memories again. Robbyn tried to get him to focus. “Abercrombie,” he said, laying a gentle hand on the man’s thin and bony shoulder. “Wh-what do you mean by ‘gone’? What happened?”
Abercrombie’s eyes came back into focus on Robbyn’s face and a terrible sadness filled his eyes. “I tried to warn her. I knew she was afraid. I was afraid too, but the horses were strong. We could have made it past the barricades. No one would have chased us. It wasn’t far to Westfall. We could have started a new life.”
“Abercrombie, I don’t understand. Wh-what happened to her?”
The old man didn’t answer. Instead he suddenly said, “I have to work. Rigor is setting in already. The pelts will be useless!” Then he pulled away from Robbyn brusquely, walked away to the corner, and then slouched out of sight.
Robbyn stood at the doorway, unsure of what to do, or even what to think. Clearly the man was not entirely right in the head, but there was an undeniable ring of truth in his voice. If only he could have kept Abercrombie talking! Robbyn rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and then turned to Copper to see what she thought. She just fixed him with a ‘you’ve got to be kidding me?’ look and said, “You can’t be taking him seriously. Man, he’s crazy! Towns don’t f-”
“…disappear. I know.” Robbyn held up a hand to stop her. “B-but what if the town is still there, but the p-people all left for some reason. You remember the stream yesterday? The w-water was gone. Maybe something did happen to Duskwood. A drought or something.”
Copper considered for a second, then shrugged. “Well, we wont know what the Nether happened until we get there. We can stock up on food here and make it there, probably in less than a day. The town had at least twenty families, not to mention the outlying farms to the south. There’s got to be someone left.”
At the mention of food Robbyn’s stomach growled and he realized how hungry he was. “Is there any food?” he asked.
“Yeah. There’s some inside. Nut-job here stores all of his food in jars or under the floor inside the house.”
Robbyn’s confusion as to how she might have learned such a fact must have shown on his face, for she added, “He got some out for me earlier.”
Returning inside, Robbyn was again confronted by the overpowering den-like stench. Clearly, Abercrombie never cleaned, and with the windows boarded up the ripe smells fermented. Copper held her shirt up over her nose as she proceeded over towards the bed, then pulled up a hidden trapdoor and, kneeling down, drew up large a leather pouch. Robbyn could not help being curious, and walked over to look into the hole. It was a three-foot square opening in the floor and was about three, perhaps four, feet deep. The walls were earthen, but smooth, and covered with what appeared to be red paint. Inside of the cavity were a collection of leather pouches of various sizes and shapes. Kneeling down, he took a closer look at the one in Copper’s hand and saw that it was composed of a collection of stitched-together leather scraps, somewhat like a quilt. A cool air rose from the cubbyhole, along with the smell of preserved meat.
“F-fascinating.”
“Whatever.” Copper closed the trapdoor in his face and carried the leather package over to the table.
“Are you sure w-we can j-just help ourselves? The f-food doesn’t b-b-belong to us, Copper.”
“I’m gonna eat. You can do whatever the fuck you want.”
Copper pushed open the package to reveal a large pile of leathery strips of meat. Robbyn wondered what animal it might have come from, his thoughts running back to the wolf carcasses outside, but his stomach growled and his mouth watered. He was starving. Copper closed the leather bag again and carried it outside, declaring that there, “Must be a fire pit around here somewhere.”
Robbyn trailed along, worrying. Turning right, Copper travelled around the corner of the house on the far side from Abercrombie, the wolves, and the dogs. The weed garden continued around the house, but halfway to the back of the house it ended, and was replaced by dry stony ground. The ground appeared well worn, as if the dogs had run there extensively. Small clumps of the short grass grew in places between the rocks or struggled out of cracks in the ground. There was no fire pit, but there was a blackened place or two where a fire had clearly been burned.
Copper continued to the back of the house, looking. The back of the house was covered with scratch marks and signs of attack by animals. Whatever it was must have been tall, because the damage, and the ramshackle repairs, went up six or seven feet. Robb was about to mention it to Copper, but judging by her muttered language, she evidently was getting frustrated by the lack of fire pit. He decided that it was not the right time for his curious mind.
“Maybe he c-cooks inside?” he suggested.
Without acknowledging him, Copper turned back to one of the scorched places at the side of the house, and then ordered him to get some wood from inside. Robbyn went inside and got a small collection, along with his belt pouch with his tinder supplies. By the time he returned, Copper had found a rusted metal object in the garden and was pulling it towards the blackened area. Robbyn deposited the wood and went to help. He was not sure exactly what it was that Copper had found. Possibly the remnants of an old fence, now twisted and rusted beyond recognition. They leaned the frame against one of the larger stones, and then began to build the fire beneath the triangular space between the metal, ground and stone.
All of the time while they searched around and then fashioned a makeshift fire pit, Abercrombie was nowhere to be seen. Even more curious, none of the dogs came over to look at what was going on. As Copper got the fire started, Robbyn went over to talk to Abercrombie and to ask permission to eat his food. It would put them in Abercrombie’s debt further, but Robbyn planned to offer to work it off somehow. Perhaps the old man needed help gathering plants from the forest or something. During the daytime. However, when Robbyn arrived at the cart, both Abercrombie and the dead wolves were nowhere in sight. As he leaned against the back of the cart, Robb looked down and realized that the wood was not painted red, it was stained with dried blood. He stumbled back, horrified. How many dead carcasses had the old man hauled?
As Robbyn rubbed his hands uselessly against his ripped chainmail leggings, he looked up at the stone building in front of him. It was not hard to guess where Abercrombie was. On this side of the building, a well-worn path led down to a double set of metal doors set down about two feet from the ground level. All of Abercrombie’s dogs lay or sat facing the doors, expectantly waiting to be fed. Every so often one of them would wake a small whining sound, but otherwise they were silent and still. Robbyn thought he heard the sound of scraping metal inside.
Abercrombie’s admonition to never go into the stone building was clear in Robbyn’s mind, and so it was with some trepidation that he knocked and called out through the heavy doors.
“Hello? Abercrombie?”
No answer. The sound of activity stopped dead.
“Abercrombie, it’s Robbyn. I’m not going to c-come in. I just w-want to talk to you.”
Silence. Then, muffled, “Don’t bother me now! I need to work!”
Robbyn was defeated. Asking for permission to eat was a stupid idea, he realized. Abercrombie would understand. Clearly he would mind the interruption more than their helping themselves. Robbyn could just make it up to the old man later. They could cook some for him as well; he would appreciate that. After a second, Robb called out, “OK.” Then, in an attempt to set the old man’s mind at ease, he added, “I’m g-going now.” As he walked back to Copper, he thought he heard the muffled scraping start up again, but it was impossible to tell for sure.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jun 28, 2006 22:54:52 GMT -5
The slabs of red meat taken from the leather bag smelled oddly as they charred on the metal railings of the makeshift cooking grill. They smelled almost as if they had been pickled, but fat and blood dripped down the scraped metal surface and spattered in the fire. A vague unease took hold of Robbyn as he looked down at Copper’s handiwork and wondered again from what kind of animal the precisely sliced pieces came. There was no way to tell for sure.
Robbyn quietly sat down upon a nearby stone and watched Copper work. After a few seconds, she wiped a strand of sweaty hair away from her face with her forearm and spoke over her shoulder to him.
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing. I mean, he was w-working and didn’t w-want to be disturbed.”
Copper fixed him with a look that as much as said, “I told you so.”
“It was the right thing to ask,” he said defensively. “W-we are in his debt for saving us already.”
“For saving us? Robbyn, we…you killed the wolves. He just patched us up.”
Robbyn was not sure that they would have survived if Abercrombie had not come along, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to argue with Copper. Instead, he said, “I guess you were right. Let’s just make some for him too, in case he’s hungry.”
“Fair enough.” Copper leaned down and fished out another precisely cut piece and placed it carefully on the slanted grill with her shortsword. The red emblem at the base of the blade glinted in the light.
“That looks like a valuable sword. I was w-worried we had lost it,” he said.
Copper replied curtly, “It is.”
Robbyn was very curious about the sword’s metal and its extraordinary properties. All his life nothing fascinated him more than oddities, puzzles and curiosities. In fact, it was this same attraction to the unknown that had been the impetus behind his love of tinkering and all things gnomish. The diminutive gnomes, curious and ingenious by nature, had traditionally been a reclusive society, crafting wondrous gadgets and magical inventions in their underground halls. Their great subterranean city of Gnomeregon was supposedly a wonder of science and, if the texts Robbyn had read were accurate, almost entirely automated. The Stormwind library contained a large section devoted to technology and invention, and a good portion of that related to gnomish 'engineering,' as they called it. It was not easy reading either, for gnomes had an unparalleled penchant for detail, but not for order. Robbyn had spent countless hours flipping back and forth through gnomish texts on various subjects, trying to follow the flow of thought. Robbyn well remembered the time that he attempted to read Stopgap Zipperfizzle’s ten-volume treatise on the enervating properties of moss agate for a week before giving up in exhaustion. Robbyn had always dreamt of seeing the fabled “City of Invention.” Sadly, the technological wizardry of the gnomes had apparently been their undoing, for in a desperate bid to protect their homeland from invaders they unleashed a contamination that backfired upon them and all but destroyed their society. The great city of Gnomeregon was forever lost and the scattered remnants of gnomish society fled to Ironforge, the city of dwarves in the north, or to Stormwind.
The General had never approved of Robbyn’s tinkering, and Robbyn was careful to make sure that his attempts to construct mechanical devices stayed out of sight. Several large boxes of odds and ends were hidden under his old bed, pushed far enough back so that they could not be seen without getting down on hands and knees. Tinkering was one of the things Zhi used to do with him, after she was finished reconciling the books. She said she had no patience for engineering but her hands were small and dexterous, and she had an innate ability to see how things might work together that often amazed Robbyn. Also, she read gnomish, which helped immensely. Zhi maintained that the translations were almost invariably wrong.
Thinking about Zhi, and his old life at home, brought with it a wave of melancholy, and Robbyn focused back again upon the mysterious sword in Copper’s hand. “Where did you get it?” he asked.
For a second Copper's hands stopped moving and she got a far away look in her eyes. Then she stiffened and snapped at him, “None of your fucking business.”
“Ok,” Robbyn blurted, startled by her sudden hostility. What had he done?
Copper went back to turning the meat, and an awkward silence filled the space between them. After a moment she said, “There’s pickled everything inside in the cupboards. Why don’t you go get us something to go with this?”
Robbyn stepped back into the shack and began to rummage around in the half-light looking for something to eat. The stuffed heads stared down upon him from the shadows above him, but he tried not to look at them. Now that he began to look around more closely, it was apparent that there was a lot of shelf and storage space around the room. Virtually all of it was filled with an infinite variety of vials and bottles, and inside each one were murky shapes surrounded by liquid. Some of the pickled items Robbyn recognized: fruit, potatoes, vegetables. Others, he was less sure. Robbyn foraged about laying various options upon the large table, trying to guess what was the safest option. Many of the bottles had strange coloured liquids, which made him nervous. After some digging, he spotted a large jar on the bottom shelf of a cupboard filled with what looked to be carrots suspended in a clear liquid. Carrots in water sounded safe. He reached down, intending to take a better look in the light on the table, but as he did so his eyes were drawn to the other jars lining that particular cupboard’s shelves. Inside each jar was a single large floating object. The liquid was dark-coloured, and Robbyn squinted into the darkness as he turned one of the jars slowly trying to make out the object inside. Finally, he lifted it up and brought it out to the light.
As the light from the doorway fell down upon the murky jar Robbyn realized what he was holding. The water inside was a thick red and floating inside was something that he had previously only seen in textbooks in the science section of the Stormwind library. Instinctively, his hands flew away from the jar and it fell from his hands to land with a crack on the top of the table. As he covered his mouth and watched with horror the blood within the jar began to bleed out from the hairline crack running up the side of the glass and a small pool spread around the base of the bottle upon the table’s surface. He tried to call out to Copper, but all that came out was a series of meaningless grunts and gasps. The water level inside the jar descended, exposing a human-sized heart.
Suddenly Copper appeared in the doorway, knife in hand. Her eyes flashed as she scanned the darkness for danger. Robbyn rushed passed her to bend over and gag towards the ground.
“What the Nether…?” she said to him.
Robbyn wiped the spit away from him mouth. Without looking at her he said, “I found a heart in a jar. It’s on the t-table. I think there’s more.”
He felt her eyes turn back inside the cabin and she moved away inside. A moment later he heard a colourful outburst. When she reappeared at the doorway she held the dripping jar in one hand and an unlit torch in the other.
“It’s a bloody heart, alright,” she said, holding it up and studying it. Robbyn did not appreciate her repartee. He kept his eyes averted.
Placing the dripping jar on the ground, Copper went around the house and then returned with the torch lit, evidently having used the cooking fire to light it. Then, gesturing to Robbyn to follow, she said, “Show me where you found it.”
Robbyn had a sinking feeling as he re-entered the dark and foul-smelling room and approached the cupboard where he had found the heart. The light of the torch played upon the surfaces of the room, exaggerating the shadows and making the eyes of the mounted heads flash crimson down upon them. Copper held the torch towards the shelf Robbyn indicated and, despite himself, Robbyn was drawn forward to examine the other bottles. Copper began to turn the bottles and jostle their contents to expose what was inside. There were at least twenty jars in the cupboard, and other than the large jar of carrots, every single jar was filled with thick blood and, submerged within, some kind of heart. They were of all sizes and shapes, from the size of a walnut to the one the size of Copper’s head. Robbyn felt faint.
“P-p-please, just close the cupboard and let’s g-get out of here,” he begged.
Copper closed the door and then led the way silently outside. They stood for a moment together in silence before she said, “Man, that’s really sick. This son-of-a-bitch is…he's a...” She seemed at a loss for words.
Robbyn could not help staring at the jar on the ground, with the dark stain around it. His mind was spinning, trying to find a rational explanation regarding why Abercrombie might keep pickled hearts in his cupboard, without success. “At least twenty pickled hearts,” he said to himself, clarifying his thought.
“Is that a human heart, Robbyn?” Copper asked.
He nodded.
“Shit,” she murmured.
The smell of burning meat wafted under Robbyn’s nose from the fire pit around the corner. He wasn’t hungry any longer. They both stood, staring at the bottle as it slowly stained the ground red before them. Then, as they stood speechless, from the other side of the house they heard the sound of the metal door on the sunken stone building creaking open. Abercrombie was coming out again.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 1, 2006 17:47:15 GMT -5
Copper’s head swirled towards the distant rasp of the metal door and, handing Robbyn the burning torch, she slipped off to the corner to peek around and see if Abercrombie was coming. After a second, she looked back to Robbyn, made a quick motion with her hand, and whispered, “Get that jar out of sight!” Robbyn stood transfixed, not wanting to touch the jar and completely at a loss as to where he might go. Around the corner of the house the clink of a metal bucket could be heard and the dogs began to bark and howl furiously. Robbyn tried to keep images of the old hermit’s 'feeding time' out of his mind, without avail.
Copper appeared beside him, cursing furiously. She took the torch from his hand, then picked up the seeping jar and put it in his hands. It felt warm and sticky and he looked into her eyes piteously.
“Robbyn, we don’t have time for your antics. The guy’s a fucking lunatic. Now, take that and hide it out behind the house before he finds out.”
Robbyn was totally confused. Where? How? What? He stood stupidly before her. Copper grabbed him and pushed him forcibly towards the side of the house with the fire-pit, away from Abercrombie and his dogs. Robbyn stumbled forward, his heart racing. As he turned the corner, he heard the old man’s voice behind him.
“What’s that smell? Why are you holding a lit torch in the middle of the day?”
Copper’s response was lost to Robbyn as he rushed along the side of the house, trying not to look at the thing in his hands. When he reached the back of the house he looked to the right and saw the pack of dogs huddled together, devouring a bloody mass that was smeared upon the ground. Robbyn shuddered and looked away, and then hurried across the open ground to duck into the woods.
Again Robbyn was struck by the preternatural darkness of the Duskwood Forest. For a second he was completely blind, and he had to stop and let his eyes adjust. Then, slowly, the forest came into focus around him. It was the same as he remembered it. Thick overhanging trees, filled with dense foliage, and layers of decaying leaves covering the ground. However, there was one thing unusual about this place. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Robbyn saw that near beside him was an uncovered mound of dirt. The pile was approximately six feet long, and half as wide, roughly tossed together and looked like it was freshly gathered. On impulse, Robbyn knelt down to hide the jar under the loosely piled soil. It was wet and soft, and struck to the blood on his palms as he dug down. As he dug down into the dirt with his hands, he was suddenly struck by an overpowering feeling of déjà vu. He stopped and dropped the bottle in the hole as his dream of the night before flooded back into his mind. Suddenly, Robbyn realized that he knew what the six-foot pile of dirt was. He was an idiot for not realizing it sooner. The fresh pile of dirt covered a grave. A human grave; recently dug by the looks of it.
There was only one person who might have made the grave: Abercrombie. On the heels of the realization of exactly where he was burying the bottled heart came a rush of fear for Copper’s safety. Robbyn had left her back at the house, at the mercy of what Robbyn now acknowledged to be a dangerous madman. A madman who had killed, and recently. Who knew how many bodies were buried out of sight in the woods? Quickly, Robbyn pushed dirt over the jar with his foot, then he turned and ran back through the undergrowth towards the house. This was how Abercrombie worked, he thought. His mind bent and twisted, the old man enticed strangers in to his lair only to kill them and dissect them for his jars. Terrible images flashed through his mind. Copper was tricked into looking away just as Abercrombie drew out a razor-sharp blade and cut her throat. Copper’s eyes glistened with fear and helplessness and she thrashed helplessly as her blood poured out and her body sagged in the old man’s vice-like grip. The crazed old hermit laughed maniacally, dragging her bleeding body down into his terrible workshop, where he would proceed to remove her head and then mount it like another trophy on his wall.
Robbyn burst out of the forest and into the open field behind the house, mace in hand and crying out, “Copper! No!”
But Copper was not dead. She was standing over by the fire pit, mad as a hornet and swearing up a storm, as Abercrombie furiously kicked the fire out before her. The metal grill was tossed aside and Robbyn appeared just in time to see the last remnants of the steaks being devoured by the dogs. Both Abercrombie and Copper turned and looked at him as he burst screaming from the forest. Robb stopped, painfully aware that he had just made a fool of himself, his broken chainmail jangling as it flapped against his legs. No one said a word. Abercrombie and Copper continued to stare at him, waiting for an explanation. At that moment, Robbyn realized that a leafy twig had gotten stuck under his breastplate and was itching his stomach. He pulled it out and giggled nervously.
“I uh…” he began, nervously looking from one to the other. Copper was looking at him meaningfully, and her face made clear that he had better have a good explanation for his bizarre actions. Curiously, Abercrombie also seemed unusually intent upon an explanation. 'He knows I found the grave!' thought Robbyn.
Robb tried to look as calm as possible. A trickle of sweat slipped down the back of his neck. Putting his mace away at his side, he jangled forward, wiped his muddy palms against the remnant of his leggings, and offered, “I…ummm…had to go to the b-bathroom?” And then, innocently, “What’s g-going on?”
It was enough. The two looked back at the smouldering fire and Copper threw up her hands in disgust, “Ask him.”
Abercrombie looked back to Robb. “You don’t understand. It’s not safe.” He pointed a bony finger at the grey sky. “You see that cloud?”
Robbyn followed the direction of his finger and saw a dark grey mass on the horizon. “Looks like rain?” he asked.
“No! Not rain! Death!” Abercrombie’s eyes were wild and bulging from his head. Robbyn felt a ripple of fear run down his spine. The hermit continued, “Never cook outside! It’s not safe...and the missus doesn’t like it.”
A few of the dogs wandered off, back to the workshop and the bloody mass that Robbyn did not want to think about. Robbyn’s mind was spinning. He needed to get Copper aside to tell her about the danger they were in, but Abercrombie riveted his attention.
“Abercrombie, I d-don’t understand.”
Copper slapped at one of the remaining dogs with the side of her blade and cursed again. “We don’t have fucking time for this! We’re starving. We haven’t had anything to eat all day. And now, thanks to this madman, our food is wasted!”
Robbyn’s stomach gurgled again.
Abercrombie’s temper flashed and he turned on Copper. “You have no idea what’s out there in the woods!”
“What I know is that whatever thing is in there I’d face it a lot better on a fucking full stomach!” Copper shot back.
Robbyn felt himself shrinking inside. The two of them stood face-to-face, rage flashing in their eyes as their voices rose. The dogs began to circle and growl. Robbyn tried desperately to think of what he might say to break up the fight.
“You come to my house, steal my food, and have the nerve to call me madman for saving your life!”
“By the Light! You didn’t fucking save us, Robbyn saved us! You just have your bloody bottles and your green paste! Light only knows what you did to us!”
“You ignorant girl! Just like the others! You don’t understand it and so you fear it! Look at yourself! Look at your skin! I should never have taken you in!”
“Fine! We’ll leave then.”
Robbyn couldn't watch. He looked up at the sky. The dark cloud that had been on the horizon was moving quickly towards them. Already it seemed to fill a quarter of the sky. It might have been his imagination, but it felt like a small wind gusted around his feet. His broken chain leggings jingled quietly. Perhaps it was just his knees knocking.
“Fine!” Abercrombie spat back, pointing off into the woods. “Go and die!”
“Copper…” Robbyn put both hands out, palms downward, to make a placating ‘stop’ gesture. “Maybe we should just c-calm down a minute…”
That was a mistake. She turned on him, eyes flashing, and he suddenly was very aware that he was confronting an angry woman with three feet of blade in her hands. He put his hands down and involuntarily pulled his head back.
“You are taking his side?! I can hear your stomach growling, and you…you…” her eyes glistened, “…you fucking coward! Go ahead an starve for all I care!”
With that, she whirled, grabbed the leather pouch with the remains of the meat from inside, and marched off across the weed-infested yard towards the forest, leaving Robbyn speechless behind.
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Post by Emizael on Jul 2, 2006 18:56:50 GMT -5
(( More! More!!)) ;D
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 2, 2006 21:56:02 GMT -5
Abercrombie was tromping on the remains of the fire as Robbyn made up his mind, sighed audibly, and went running after Copper. As he jangled off across the yard, he heard the old man muttering behind him but all he could make out was snippets like ‘damned fools,’ and ‘the dead,’ and something about ‘washing his hands.’ Robbyn had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he had no time to stop and ask for clarification. Copper was already out of sight in the forest.
Robbyn crashed into the forest. He called out her name as he blundered blindly through the darkness, but she was much quicker than him and clearly did not want to be found. The damp surroundings sucked away the sound and made his voice die on his lips. His feet slipped on the rotted leaves, rocks stubbed at his toes, and the low tangle of hanging branches that covered the edge of the forest near to the hermit’s clearing whipped at him, mercilessly raking his skin. The forest was dark and impenetrable, and there was something distinctly wrong about it, as if it were infected with a horrible disease. In his mind Robb heard the treble voice of the old man, “Never know if the Rotted Ones are coming. And they’re not the only ones. Flesh Eaters, Bone Chewers, Brain Eaters, Rotted Ones, Plague Spreaders. More maybe.” Every nerve within Robbyn cried out for him to be quiet, but he continued yelling frantically, “Copper! Copper! I’m sorry! Come back!” He wasn’t even sure exactly why he was apologizing. It didn’t matter.
The darkness was complete around him, but up above he thought he heard a rippling in the trees. His mind went back to the dark cloud that Abercrombie had pointed out. It had billowed out at an unnatural pace even as Robbyn had watched it, and now, he knew, it was coming near. Robbyn’s eyes searched above as he stumbled and slid along down a steep slope within the forest, calling out Copper’s name. The trees about him began to creak and moan, and the rustle increased in volume. A shimmer appeared up in the branches as the leaves began to whip and toss erratically. A storm was coming. A storm of death. Robbyn was terrified.
His foot landed on something soft and sank into a hidden hole in the ground, causing him to twist his ankle and fall. Robb’s body hurtled downward with increased speed because of the slope and he instinctively put his hands in front of his face. Just in time too, for the gnarled bark of a great tree-trunk suddenly materialized before him, and Robbyn barely managed to avoid crashing into it face first. As it was, his forearms and shoulder took the worst of the impact before he crumpled to the ground.
As he lay panting on the ground in the darkness, all he could think of was what a fool he was. Copper hadn’t wanted him to go after her. Of course she heard him, and had she wanted him to find her, she would have come. All he had done, most likely, was to drive them both deeper into the terrible dangers of the forest. He nursed his ankle and moaned in pain and despair. “She needed to be alone, you idiot!” he said to himself, banging the back of his head against the tree behind him, but he could barely hear himself over the gathering roar of the leaves above him in the darkness. But what should he do now, he wondered. They had made no plans, other than to go to Raven Hill. Surely she would not have started out alone, would she? He hoped not. The forest had already proved itself to be harsh and unforgiving and Abercrombie’s warnings still sent a chill down his back. “No,” he said aloud, convincing himself. She would not have gone alone. She probably would just take a little time to cool down and then go back to Abercrombie’s house. He hit his head in frustration. The house was not safe, and he was not of any help to her flailing uselessly through the forest.
With a heavy sigh, he clambered up to his feet and gingerly tried to put weight on his twisted ankle. It was not in good shape and he grimaced at the pain. Yes, what he needed to do was to get back to the house. Perhaps, he thought, he had overreacted about the pile of dirt he had found. He did not know it was a human grave; he had just let a crazy dream spook him. Perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable explanation why Abercrombie kept pickled hearts in his cupboards, and locked himself away in a stone workshop ‘working’ with carcasses. The more Robb thought about it, the less convinced he felt.
Robbyn straightened up and began to hobble back up the way he had come. The air was thick and still, but the wind whipped the forest cover above him ever more madly. Every so often he heard a crack and a branch would fall down from the treetops to crash into the rotted ground with a soft thud, like the footsteps of some giant bird. The dark shapes falling about him startled him, and his head whipped back and forth as he limped uphill. It was almost as if the forest was alive around him. A wave of goose bumps ran down his back. He limped faster, his heart racing in his chest. Pain shot through his leg. He tried not to look back.
Abruptly, the wind stopped. The trees stopped creaking and the leaves suddenly went absolutely still. It was as if he had entered into the heart of the storm, and all about him was dead silence. For three heartbeats Robbyn stood transfixed by the sudden change. Then, off behind him and to the right, Copper’s voice broke the silence in a blood-curdling scream to terror.
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Post by Fechak on Jul 2, 2006 23:34:05 GMT -5
((I didn't want to be such a fanboi as to put a reply after every post, so I've been quiet for a little while at least... but I can't stand it any more - great stuff! I hope this story goes all the way through Duskwood, it's outlying areas and follows Robbyn's entire adventure. You'd have quite a beautiful epic on your hands then...))
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 3, 2006 11:49:15 GMT -5
((Thanks Fech, Emi. It sure helps to hear that you are enjoying it!))
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 3, 2006 12:08:24 GMT -5
Robbyn twisted around towards the sound. The fact that Robbyn knew Copper to be absolutely fearless only made her scream all the more terrifying. He wanted to help her, but he could not move. Whatever it was, if it were frightening enough to made her scream like that, he did not want to meet it. In his head he head Copper’s voice screaming at him, “move, you fucking idiot!” but his legs would no longer respond. He just stood transfixed in the darkness, his legs knocking together and his lip quivering pathetically. He loathed himself, but he could not go to her. Instead, every muscle of his body screamed at him to flee up the hill, away from the nightmare in the darkness, back to the safety of the hermit’s cottage. It was all that he could do to just stand still and stare helplessly into the dark.
Copper only screamed once, and the sound died as quickly as it had come, swallowed up by the impenetrable darkness of the thick forest air. Robbyn strained his ears for some further sound that might tell him she was alive. But when at last a sound arose out of the darkness before him, it only made matters worse. It was not Copper’s voice. From somewhere down the hill in front of him came a low broken sound, something between a moan and a gag, as if someone was trying desperately to vomit. The sound was enough to curdle Robbyn blood, and if that was not enough, soon after the first a second rasping noise pierced the darkness, and then a third. They were clearly not animal noises. Each sound was vaguely human, though sick and twisted, and each was distinctly hideous.
Abercrombie’s voice chanted over and over in his mind, “Flesh Eaters, Bone Chewers, Brain Eaters, Rotted Ones, Plague Spreaders…” It was too much to bear. Robbyn stumbled backwards and stepped heavily upon his twisted ankle, which caused him to cry out in pain. Copper was dead; he knew it. Devoured by the horrors that Abercrombie had seen. As he stood transfixed in the Duskwood forest, the boarded up outside walls and windows of Abercrombie’s house suddenly flashed into Robbyn’s mind. He saw the six-foot scrapings along the back wall of the house with terrible clarity. Abercrombie wasn’t a madman tearing out the inside of his house for no reason. He had cannibalized the inside of the house in order to repair the damage made by the monsters in the forest. He ate inside, bathed inside, and for good reason. It wasn’t safe! Abercrombie barricaded himself inside with his dogs for safety.
Still Robbyn could not move. He felt dizzy from the pain in his ankle and wanted to pass out. His stomach was heaving and out of his mouth little panicked noises gurgled with his breath. Then, out of the darkness before him came the sound of something scurrying towards him up the hill. As he stared petrified, out of the darkness materialized a human-like shape, scrambling up the hill towards him at a ferocious speed.
Robbyn’s spirit shattered. Any lingering resolve to go to Copper down in the dark evaporated and was gone. Under its own volition now, his body twisted around and began to tear through the forest, back uphill towards the clearing and the old man’s shack. He hobbled at break-neck speed, with pain shooting up his leg at every other step. It barely registered. He urged his legs faster and he ran for his life. But whatever it was, it was clearly gaining on him. He heard the wet thud of its feet pounding the rotten leaves behind him, coming closer and closer. He could not look back. As he ran, little wheezing squeaks burst from his lungs. He was in all out flight from the monster in the darkness behind him and he ran like he had never run before. But no matter how much his vast legs pumped and churned beneath him, he was still a fat man and it was not enough. As he exploded out of the woods, he felt the creature right behind him, heard its ragged breath as it ran him down. It was upon him; he was going to die. He closed his eyes and stumbled forward blindly.
But he did not die. In fact, as he stumbled forward he heard the creature pass him on his right. And then suddenly its pounding feet were in front of him and Copper’s panicked voice broke out across the clearing, “Open the fucking door Abercrombie! By the Light, open the door!”
Robbyn opened his eyes. There, in front of him, was Copper, very much alive and sprinting full tilt down the hill. Her lithe form moved like the wind, leaving him plodding along clumsily behind. It should have been the middle of the day but the clearing was dark like night. The mysterious storm cloud sat immediately overheard, a great swirling mass, blotting out the light. Ahead of them, down the small slope of the hill, was Abercrombie’s shack, shut and sealed. The dogs were nowhere to be seen but Robbyn heard their muffled voices barking furiously inside. Copper arrived at the house and began banging madly upon the door, swearing and begging for the old man to let them in, but the door did not open.
What terror could cause Copper to flee in such abject panic? Robbyn was halfway to the house when he heard the terrible sound break out again behind him. There was a rustling of branches and then a series of moans erupted out of the forest. Against his will, his head twisted around slowly. What he saw was something that should have only existed in a nightmare. The dead were emerging from the forest. Once human, they were now only a contorted mockery of life. Their skin was a colourless grey or charred red, mottled with some sort of disease, and barely covered their bones. Great bald patches covered their heads, and where there was hair it hung down in filthy tufts and clumps. Some had the ripped and ragged remnants of clothing draped upon them; most were naked. Their bodies were in various states of decay. Holes riddled their skin, or their eyes were dead sockets, or their noses or ears were simply missing. But notwithstanding their decayed bodies, they surged forward towards Robbyn and Copper unerringly, drawn like a magnet to living flesh and blood. In an instant, the image of the horror behind him was indelibly stamped in Robbyn mind. Then he screamed like a little girl.
Copper was shouting something and pounding on the door. Robbyn’s mind was a blank. He was screaming too, but he did not know what he was saying, if anything. All he thought, as he ran towards the house, was that he needed to get away from the nightmarish dead behind him. He needed to get inside. He would just break the door down if he had to. His body was like a boulder rolling towards the door, picking up speed as he came. Ten feet to the door he put his arms in front of his face. Copper looked back at him and screamed again, but Robb had no idea what she was saying. Behind him the moaning dead raced forward, doubled over and propelling themselves forward with hands and feet. Their jaws hung down brokenly before them. Five feet and Robbyn bent forward to ram the door. Copper was waving her arms wildly before him, panic in her eyes, her mouth formed into a round “o”. He could not have stopped now even if he had wanted to. Copper stepped out of his way. Three feet. Then, with a wooden scrape, the door flew open at the last second. Abercrombie stood in the doorway with his dogs. Robbyn barrelled into the house. He smashed into the frail old man and sent him flying into the air, across the top of the table, and out of sight. The dogs scattered. Robbyn ran right into the massive table and felt his body crumple against it. His legs flew out from under him and the full weight of his body fell upon it. There was a great crack as his chest smashed into the wood. Copper slipped inside. The door slammed shut. The wooden brace crashed down into place.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 4, 2006 21:35:57 GMT -5
For three interminable seconds silence filled the room. A lone torch that stuck out from the wall beside the front door lit the room, and in the silence a thin popping sound was heard as the fire turned part of the wood to ash. One. Two. Three. Then all hell broke loose. The walls erupted in a barrage of assaults. Outside, the walking dead ripped and tore furiously at the windows, walls and door. Their broken mouths wailed and screamed muffled half-words with an unbridled fury. The door shook on its hinges as they threw their bodies against it, desperately trying to get inside.
Robbyn had smacked his head against the table when he crashed into it and for a second he lay winded and disoriented. It felt like he was cast away at sea in a shipwrecking storm. For a second he was taken back to his childhood. His one and only sea voyage. Robb had originally thought it was his mother’s idea. He was about ten-years-old. He remembered that it was mid-summer, for though the window of the upstairs bedroom was open it was hot in the bedroom. The city was busy down below, and their mother had come in to kiss them goodnight. Vatorio complained that he was too old, but Robbyn still loved her softness. His mother had sat next to Robbyn in his bed and patted his face gently, and then had asked both of them what they thought of a sea voyage. She was clearly excited about it, and they were captivated. Vato had sat straight up in the bed and asked her where they were going, and when, and why, and she had answered calmly that it was not finalized yet, but that she and the General were talking about a cruise to Menethil, or perhaps even Booty Bay. Booty Bay! After she was gone, Robb and Vato had stayed up half the night talking about the great adventures that they were going to have. Both Menethil and Booty Bay were harbour towns, and both were known to be rough and filled with seafaring characters, but it was particularly Booty Bay, on the southern-most tip of the great uncharted Stranglethorn Vale forest, that fulfilled a boy’s fantasy of high-seas adventure. It was well known that real pirates and goblins lived in Booty Bay.
Robbyn had read more than his fair share of swashbuckling adventure tales, of course. Few figures captured the imagination like Grand Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, and the histories of his victorious campaigns against the bloodthirsty Horde during the Second War were legendary. The day after his mother made her quiet announcement, Robbyn had rushed down to the library to find everything he could find on the subject of naval adventures. It was then that he got to know Donyal Tovald, the librarian or, more, accurately, Mr. Tovald got to know Robbyn by name. In any event, it was Tovald who put into Robbyn hands the “young man’s edition” of the Admiral’s travelogue of his early adventures as he mapped the savage coast of Strangletorn Vale. Years later, Robbyn realized that it was just raw fiction, and that the Admiral’s great naval campaigns took place both long after the coast had already been mapped and also, for the most part, across the world in Durotar. But in the month before they took their sea voyage, Robbyn pored over every syllable of that travelogue as if it were gospel. Even Vatorio took an interest in the book, and had Robbyn read the best parts to him, though he was admittedly more interested in playing ‘Admiral and savage’ down in the yard with practice weapons.
Robb and Vato were not the only ones enraptured; the house was abuzz with excitement. Finally, the long-awaited day came. Stormwind was a citadel built into the mountains, but there a small port town less that a day’s travel from the capital, right on the edge of Elwynn Forest. This town, appropriately called Forest’s Edge, had a garrison and a few ships, and it was there, where the river broadened and entered the Middle Sea, that they began their summer voyage.
Their ship was a thing of beauty. More than fourty feet long, lovingly crafted, with three towering masts filled with great billowing blue and gold sails emblazoned with the roaring lion of Azeroth. And, as the General could not travel without escort, two smaller ships travelled with them, captained by the navy’s best officers. Sadly, almost as soon as the ship left port, Robbyn’s romantic notions were ruined by the reality of seasickness. He spent almost the entirety of the voyage green in the face and heaving over the side of the pristine craft. The remaining portion of the voyage was spent cowering in the belly of the vessel as a storm threatened to tear them all apart.
What happened, in fact, was that the General had an ulterior purpose for the supposed summer “vacation.” Edwin VanCleef, the same genius architect who had designed the glorious city of Stormwind, had apparently been dissatisfied with the payments provided to him for his work, and had mysteriously disappeared for a few years only to re-emerge in association with the notorious Defias bandits. This was a serious blow to the Stormwind militia, for VanCleef turned out to be something an excellent military tactician. He had, apparently, sunk and pirated more than a few Stormwind Galleys. The General had been advised that VanCleef might have been operating from a hidden cove off the Stranglethorn coast. And though the General had no intention of endangering his family, the two disguised warships that travelled with them had instructions to explore every inlet and bay as they travelled slowly down the coast to Booty Bay, and to capture any Defias they might find for interrogation.
The first week at sea Robbyn lost fifteen pounds. He was so ill, in fact, that his mother began to plead with the General to command the captain to hurry up and finish the journey at sea. But the General would have none of it. His captains reported signs that suggested that they might be close to a discovery, and the General was fixated by the thought of locating VanCleef’s hideout. They lingered and searched another week, and then a third. In the end, it was this same fixation that caused the General not only to ignore the pleadings of his wife, but ultimately also the warnings from his men that a storm was coming. The final week at sea was a nightmare, and more than once Robbyn desperately prayed to the Light and promised that, if they were only delivered from drowning at sea, he would never ever set foot on a ship again as long as he lived. It was a promised that he had kept.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 7, 2006 17:32:23 GMT -5
rewriting...
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 7, 2006 20:06:57 GMT -5
“What the fuck is that?!” Copper was standing next to Robbyn, screaming at the crumpled form of Abercrombie curled up on the floor on the far side of the table. She pointed wildly behind her at the door and the horrors outside. The barrage on the outside of the house continued unabated. Abercrombie gasped out an answer but it was lost in the din.
Robbyn shook his head and got up from the broken table before him. A series of large cracks twisted across the surface of the wood from where he had crashed into it. The contents of the table were scattered around on the floor. As he straightened, the table wobbled, revealing a broken leg. He went over to Abercrombie to help him up.
“S-sorry.”
Abercrombie winced and put his hand to his ribs. His eyes flipped from the shattered table to Robbyn.
Copper approached Robbyn and shouted in his ear, “You ok?”
Robbyn nodded. Other than a bruised face he was fine. The breastplate had born the worst of the impact, and there were certain benefits to having an excess of padding in the stomach. He was more worried about Abercrombie. It was clear that the old man was in a lot of pain.
Robbyn carried Abercrombie over to the bed and laid him down carefully. The dogs had fallen silent and now pressed close around them, seeking comfort from the terrible noise outside. Copper stood in the centre of the room, rubbing her silver blade along her palm and staring at the front door as it shuddered and threatened to break. The worst of the assault was still at the front of the house, and though Robbyn was primarily concerned that he had not broken the hermit’s ribs on impact, he was glad to be as far away from the noise as possible. Abercrombie settled down with a groan.
Abercrombie turned his beady eyes on Robb. “Flesh eaters, I think…I couldn’t see for sure…”
“Let me t-test for broken bones.” Robbyn began pushing lightly on the old man’s chest. He was skin and bones, and flinched more than once as Robbyn checked him over. The darkness in the corner made it impossible to assess the damage.
“Copper, I can’t see!” Robbyn called.
“Shh,” Abercrombie warned, weakly. “They can hear you.”
Copper grabbed the torch out of its holster by the front door and came over to hold it over them, still tightly gripping her sword in her other hand and looking nervously over her shoulder. The beasts outside continued to throw themselves against the door and windows. Abercrombie was scraped in a few places, but he did not appear to be bleeding. He was wearing a simple brown robe, tied at the waist with what looked like a hemp rope, and must have caught his shoulder on something when he was propelled backwards for the shoulder was ripped and ruined. His white-haired chest was half-exposed, and Robbyn examined the sensitive places again. Though Abercrombie winced a few times, there appeared to be no permanent damage.
“I don’t think anything’s b-broken,” he declared at last. Unfortunately, just before he spoke, the slavering noises outside fell silent. Robbyn cringed inside as his voice cracked out across the dead air. There was a moment’s silence, and then the back wall beside the bed exploded with a barrage of pounding, scratching and grotesque howling, as the Flesh Eaters renewed their desperate efforts to get in. The creatures must have been somehow drawn to the heat of the living bodies inside for they attacked the house precisely where Abercrombie lay helpless. The dogs scatted. Robbyn fell back heavily on the ground. How many of them were there? Robbyn could only guess. At least half a dozen, he thought. Not that it mattered. Even one would likely be enough to kill them all. Then, in the firelight, Robbyn saw one of the boards blocking a back window crack and splinter. For a second his heart stopped. Then Copper was there, standing beside the window, sword in one hand and flame in the other, poised to strike if the window was breached. Robbyn cowered away, praying that she was quick enough to save them.
There was another crash against the covered window, then a third. Before their eyes, the wood cracked and bent inward. Then, just as they braced for the wood to shatter, the assaults stopped entirely. For a second, silence again. Then, breaking the silence came a new voice. It came muffled by the wall and originated from a distance from the back of the house. Similar to the tortured sounds of the Flesh Eaters, and terrible in its own right, it was high and shrill, almost like a demented cackle. Robbyn could not be sure, but it sounded disturbingly like a woman’s voice.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 7, 2006 20:17:48 GMT -5
“No…No!” Abercrombie cried, clutching at his chest.
Both Robbyn and Copper turned towards the old man as he frantically tried to sit up in the bed. Terror and pain flashed equally from his face.
“Abercrombie what…?” Robbyn moved towards the bed, but the old man cut him off.
“How did they find her? She was safe. She was safe underground.” He sat for a moment in stunned silence. Then, a moment later, he suddenly announced, “We need to save her! They’ll tear her apart.”
“Who? Who is it?” Copper shouted, evidently frustrated and confused.
“No time to explain!” Abercrombie swung his legs over the side of the bed, went to stand up, and then gasped and crumpled to the floor from the pain in his chest. For a moment he lay whimpering from the pain. Then he wheezed out something that sounded like, “Must go…’Liza…my love…”
Outside, scuffling could be heard indistinctly. The guttural moaning of the Flesh Eaters rose and fell, at a distance from the house, interspersed with ghastly wailing and strange barking noises. Over them all and piercing their clamour, however, were the maniacal shrieks of the strange shrill voice. Abercrombie knelt beside Robbyn on the floor of his hovel, gasping for breath. He grabbed hold on Robbyn’s arm with a skeleton-like hand and, looking into Robbyn’s eyes with abject desperation he begged, “Please…” There were tears in his eyes.
Robbyn stared at the broken old man before him, completely speechless. Then, slowly, the truth began to dawn.
“Abercrombie…is that your w-wife out there?”
“Yes. Please! She’s dying!”
Robbyn could barely look into the eyes of the broken old on man on his knees before him. He wanted to help, but he knew it was madness to go outside.
“I’m sorry, Abercrombie,” he managed, looking away.
Copper stood still as stone and looked at the back wall, as if staring right through the battered wood at the scene beyond.
Abercrombie struggled up to his feet. He held his chest and began to stumble towards the front door. Copper moved to block his way, her knife pointing at his chest and her eyes flashing dangerously. A harsh realism rippled through her tone. “Whatever that is out there, it’s not your wife. It’s…it sounds like one of them, whatever in the light they are!”
Robbyn listened to the sounds of fighting outside. If it was Abercrombie’s wife, it did not sound to Robbyn like she was dying. Through the wall he heard her feral laughter rising higher and louder, while the moaning voices of the Flesh Eaters seemed to be falling away one by one. With a dawning horror, it all started to make sense to him.
“Abercrombie,” he said, without turning, “Did you bury your w-wife?”
Robbyn felt both their eyes trun upon him in the darkness. He turned around and stood up before the old man. “Did you bury her? ’Liza; your wife? In a grave in the w-woods behind the house?”
“She’s not dead!” the old man breathed.
“Why? Why did you bury her?”
Outside, the chorus of guttural voices was gone. ’Liza’s shrieks came ragged and pained, but the groans from the attackers were all must silenced. There might have been two Flesh Eaters left. Then there was a clash of voices, and sickening crack, and the low voices were reduced to one.
“By the light-damned nether…” Copper breathed. She looked pale and sick.
“She’s not herself!” Abercrombie began. “And she’s allergic to the sun. I…you don’t understand…”
Beyond the wall, the final moaning voice came to a sudden stop. The woman's cackling rose in pitch and frenzy and a fleshy ripping sound came through the wall. A moment later something heavy and soft bounced off the back of the house. There was the sound of distant branches being ripped aside and then she was gone.
Abercrombie sighed. It was hard to tell if he was devastated or relieved.
For a few seconds the three inside the house stood in complete stillness, each lost in their own thoughts. Then Robbyn said, “Abercrombie, you are right. W-we don’t understand. Please. Can you explain?”
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 7, 2006 20:48:39 GMT -5
The hermit sank weakly into a chair next to the great cracked table. Through a trick of the light, his eyes were shadowed and he seemed to look at them from dark cavernous holes. For a second there was silence between them. Then Abercrombie sighed and began to speak softly. “When you love someone, it’s like nothing else. And when it comes to you, you know. You know it’s forever. Some folks never find the one they’re meant to be with. Maybe it’s a blessing for them. For, if you meet the one, it grabs you like nothing else and wont let you go. You know you have to have them by your side. You can’t eat or sleep if you’re not with them. The one’s who never had it, they don’t understand. There is nothing that is too much for the one you truly love. When I nearly lost ’Liza, it almost destroyed me. That bastard would have just let her die, but it was not her time. It was not our time. We were supposed to be forever.”
He paused for a moment, and then continued, “You think I always lived like this? Long ago, things were different. I lived in town. I had a good job, was respected. I was the local apothecary. You know what that is?” Robbyn nodded. “My medicines kept people alive.” Abercrombie shrugged. “Sometime I eased their passing.”
Abercrombie raised a thin body arm and gestured weakly towards the back wall of the house and outside. “Her name was Eliza Marian, and was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She had long black hair that hung down to her waist, and the biggest, kindest, brown eyes you’d ever hope to see. And all of the curves that only come to a woman in youth. The sort that make an old man’s heart ache for wanting.
“I loved her from the moment I saw her full grown. I did not pursue her at first though, on account of my being a less-than-handsome man, and almost twice her age, and on account of the fact that she only seemed to have eyes for the local hero, Ello Ebonlocke.” Abercrombie spat the name out as if it were poison. “Ello was a good-looking young man, just back from the war, not particularly bright mind, but he had a serpent’s tongue and ’Liza was charmed, just like all the other young ladies in town. I figured I didn’t have a chance for her affections, but love had got a hold on me, and I just wanted to be near her, so I would make up various excuses for ‘happening’ by. And whenever we were together, it was like time would just melt away. I would tell her crazy stories and act the fool, and I could make her laugh describing the stupid things I’d done with my life.
“Long story short, one day she just up and kissed me. Shocked the hell out of me. She had started stopping by the shop, and we were sitting out on the stoop at the back and watching the sunset. I had just started telling her about the time I ate wormwood too quickly and my tongue stopped working for a day, and suddenly she was pressed against me and her lips were silencing mine.” Abercrombie’s voice faded away into reverie. “She sure got me speechless that time,” he chuckled. “A man doesn’t know if a woman loves him until she up and tells him directly. “We were married in secret, on account of the fact that the town didn’t approve. I knew that Ello was jealous. He couldn’t understand why such a beautiful woman would chose a man like me over a man like him. He would smile to our faces but would make snide remarks about us behind our backs. In a small town, word gets around. Frankly, I didn’t care what he thought of me. He was fool. But any insult of ’Liza was enough to boil my blood. ’Liza cried about it; but she didn’t like to fight. She even tried make nice with Ello’s wife when he eventually got married, but she got a cold shoulder. I gave Ello a piece of my mind that night.
“After that, the war between us was open. When we passed each other in town, he wouldn’t even look at me, which was just fine. About that same time he became mayor, though not by my support. If I didn’t like something he did, I said so to him or whoever would listen. The dark times were coming then, and I started to see the signs. The plants were sickening; you could see there was something terribly wrong. When the dead started rising, he called town hall meetings. I told them to move the town, but they didn’t believe me. Him and his council decided to ‘save the town.’” Abercrombie scoffed. “They were ignorant; they had no idea what they were facing. Even when his wife disappeared, he still denied the truth.
“Not long after, they were quarantining and burning the dead. ‘Bout that time they formed the Night Watch, which was a fancy name for a mostly useless collection of brigands and thugs. The Night Watch wouldn’t let anyone out of town with out a pass, and you can be sure that Ello wouldn’t give us one. I told ’Liza that we could make a break for it at night. The horses were strong and fast, and we could travel light to Westfall and make a new life. But she didn’t want to leave. Just like everybody else, she was afraid of being set upon on the road. I begged her to reconsider, but she would not listen, so we stayed. I would never leave her.
“The more that were injured, the greater was the call for my services, and I worked long hours with dwindling supplies. Then one day I come home late and ’Liza was sick. I found her fallen on the floor, running a high fever. A terrible sickness had taken a hold of her, clouding her mind and ravaging her beautiful body. It was the constant fear; I know it. It broke her body down until she was screaming in the bed, her eyes were white and cloudy, and she wasn’t herself. I locked up the house then. I strapped her down so she would not hurt herself while I treated her. She fell deathly quiet, her breath faded away, but I listened closely and I heard a heart beating. I knew that she was alive.
“As I said, the house was locked up tight when Ello and his Watch came and demanded her from me. They claimed she was dead, which was a lie. It was his revenge. I wouldn’t answer the door, but I heard him order them to break down it down, and they did. I fought them, but they were fully armed and I was just a grief stricken old man. The dogs were tied up. They held me down on the floor, and while I thrashed and swore, Ello and his men took ’Liza away from me to burn her!”
Abercrombie was rambling on quickly now, less and less coherently, lost in the overpowering memories of the past. “They dragged her away, but even after she was gone I heard her heart beating, telling me she was still alive. I stopped struggling so that they would release me. It was then, as I sat in the darkness of my own home, listening to that heart beating, that I realized that the heart I heard was not just hers alone. It was my heart as well. Here is the truth: when you love someone like I loved ’Liza it is like you become one flesh, one heart. I still hear it at night. I stole her back from those bastard who wanted to kill her, and came out here to be alone with her."
Abercrombie turned his head up, and the whites of his eyes flashed at them piteously. "I know that she was not herself! She's feverish...The disease has a hold of her and she is wild and dangerous. I tried to keep her safe...but she escaped. It must be some form of albinism, for the sun burns her. She dug a hole...buried herself...but she’s not dead! I still feel her heart beating...I still hear it! I...I search for a cure to her, I...will find it…and someday, Ello will pay…”
Abercrombie’s voice faded away to meaningless mutterings that faded away until he sat before them, head bowed, with his hands to his face, crying soundlessly.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 10, 2006 21:29:50 GMT -5
A Coward's Tale - Chapter 5
The first thing that Hatch thought upon awaking was that he was going to kill that bloody horse.
What followed were several minutes of pure agony. Thought was not possible, and he writhed helplessly on the ground trying not to choke on his own vomit. The combination of having his head smashed in on top of a hangover was bad enough, but evidently Colley and his boys had seen fit to clear out without straightening out his body from the contorted position in which he had fallen. Now, as Hatch’s body rejected the foul swill that he had been so copiously drinking the night before, his neck remained twisted and the watery vomit burned as it passed up through the constricted passageway and out of his mouth to pool before his face on the ground.
Finally, the pain diminished to a raw ache and he slowly began to be able to think again. First, with a series of popping cracks, he straightened out his neck and took a few deep ragged breaths. Then he rolled over and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Nausea overtook him again but at least he no longer was he rolling in his own filth.
A few minutes later he was down by the river’s edge, stripped down and wading into the water. So long as he was careful to keep his burnt face out of the water, the silty water felt good against his scarred and leathery skin. The dockmaster’s place was deserted. This was no surprise. Judging by the light it was mid-day. The boys kept day jobs in the neighbouring towns and only showed up at night or to do a job. Lucky for them they weren’t around too. In Hatch’s current mood, at least one of them would have paid dearly for leaving him to rot.
And for letting the girl get away. As he scrubbed the soft loamy soil over his body Hatch tried to make sense of what had happened. He couldn’t; it just didn’t make any sense. Why would the militia send one man to capture the girl? How could they have arrived so quickly? Why would they have stolen the boat?
Then again, perhaps the fact that the boat was missing showed that more than one Stormwind guard had actually ambushed him. After all, it took at least two men to move it once it was firmly beached. Hatch cupped the water and carefully washed the vomit off of his face. It burnt like fire, but it was a familiar pain and it cleared his head. He was satisfied that there had been more than one kidnapper, but the missing boat itself was a riddle. For some reason, the attackers had taken off in the boat. Why wouldn’t they just walk the girl back to the city? Maybe they thought that Copper was too weak to walk and too heavy to carry that far. Hatch nodded to himself. That must be it. He had been a bit rough with the girl because he hadn’t wanted her getting spirited on him. They must have figured they had a better chance to get her away by water.
Colley had made that boat himself years ago and it was his pride and joy. He had named it “Martha,” after his dead wife, if Hatch’s memory served correctly. The edge of Hatch’s mouth curled upwards on his good side. Colley’s old lady had been a hefty one too. That bloody boat must have weighed three hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce. It was a hunk of garbage, but Colley swore by it as a trustworthy craft that had never let him down.
Hatch waded back out of the water and got dressed. It had all gone to rat piss. A simple collection job, hardly even worth his attention, botched. If he had not have been so drunk it might have turned out differently. Drink was going to get him killed one of these days. Then again, the way he felt, dead would a mercy. His head was still splitting, and his mouth was dry and thick. He had seen in the water that his face now sported a large purple welt. All the more reason for the girls to fall for him, he thought, wryly.
Hatch trudged back into the house, unconsciously performing his daily stretch upon his deformed hand and grimacing. Sadly, the half bottle of firewater he had left inside last night was now gone. Colley must have taken it or, more like, put it back away in the storehouse. “Too bad,” Hatch muttered. He could sure use a drink to take the edge off his hangover.
Finally, leaving the shack behind, he walked around the building and retrieved his morningstar from where it lay discarded on the ground. He coiled it back up carefully and clipped it onto his belt, ready for quick use. Finally, he turned and addressed the black horse.
“Listen sh*t-for-Brains, you kick me again, you’ll end up my dinner for a month.”
Hatch almost never called his horse by its real name, Duke. He hadn’t named it; it was a pedigreed stallion, gift from VanCleef some years back. Probably taken from some soft noble. Apparently, according to VanCleef anyway, such horses came with names already given to them. Hatch had half a dozen more colourful names for it that he preferred: ‘sh*t-for-Brains,’ and ‘Stupid’ being his recurrent favourites. When asked, he usually responded that it didn’t really matter what the horse’s name was as it didn’t listen anyway.
Whatever its name was, it matched Hatch for ruthless ferocity and had the weight on him. Today, Hatch didn’t have the energy to get into a mix up with the stubborn thing so he just got some feed out of the saddlebags, hitched up the feedbag, then untied the horse and led it over to the water. After the feed was gone, he put the bag back away and let the beast drink its fill.
Hatch stood by the water looking across at the Duskwood bank on the far side and tried to plan out what needed to be done. He was not about to go back empty-handed. If the kidnappers had taken to the water there was one of two possibilities: they either went upriver or downriver. If they went upriver they would either go to Darkshire or Lakeridge. Darkshire was not on the water, so if they were headed there the boat would be left somewhere near to the Duskwood path. Wouldn’t make any sense to pole all that was only to have to carry the girl inland for half a day’s travel, however. Lakeridge was more likely. The town sat right on Lake Everstill, right at the source of the river. They could pole all the way there by water. Hatch turned and considered the downriver option. Not much that way in the way of towns. A few farms and vineyards, that was about it. They might have taken the fork in the river up to the old garrison near to the ruins of the town of Forest Edge, near Westfall, but there were a few rapids on that river before it widened out, and Colley’s boat would sink like a stone in that kind of water. Again, not likely.
It was possible, but highly unlikely, that the captors took off into the Duskwood forest. If they did, they would likely be dead by dawn. The forest was worse than haunted and uncompromising. Besides, the militia would want the girl in Stormwind, out of the Brotherhood’s reach. It just didn’t make sense to head south.
Just in case, Hatch would send birds to every place he could to have people watch for Copper and a couple of Stormwind guards. Redridge, Darkshire, the farmsteads, he would even have his people watch the Moonbrook bridge far to the south. As for himself, he would head to Goldshire to make inquiries. He checked his coin purse. It always cost more to insure anonymity, but he should have enough. As the stallion continued to drink copiously, Hatch clambered on up. The dizziness came again, but he held on until it passed. Then, taking hold of the reigns with one hand he spurred the beast off towards the northwest.
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