Tales From a Thousand Worlds

A low rise looked down over the misty marsh, one upon which the fading sun still shone. Atop it squatted Renkheqen. He had set his smoking brazier down beside him while he leant upon his staff with one clawed hand. With the other he scratched markings into the ground around him, patterns that spiralled outwards, in complex, esoteric designs that pained the eye to gaze upon. As he did so, he whispered words that seemed more sounds than actual phrases.

Follow this link for Part Eight of The Sleepers of the Marsh

The mists once more began to thicken out across the marsh, rolling onwards in waves. Again the silence began to descend over the region as the gloom of the shrouded sun took hold. Peregrine stood atop the small island that Ket and his kin had lived upon, looking out, still half expecting trouble. After a short time Blade joined her, his sword sheathed.

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The band of mercenaries forded forward through the waters of the marsh, following in the wake of the burning footsteps that walked across the surface of it. All around them the mists rolled away, forced back by the dark magics of Renkheqen.

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The interior of the tower was one large room room at ground level. Waters covered the floor, lapping up against the walls and the large, central pillar. A set of stairs wound up around the pillar, headed to floors above. The tattered rags of old tapestries clung to the walls, frayed to wisps, the colours in them long since faded away. If there had been anything else in the chamber, it had long since gone, rotten away by the waters.

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Fetid, marshy water filled the streets that Peregrine and Blade splashed there way through. Swirls of reeds and algae curled across the surface of the murky water. When the marsh had overtaken the city, many of the buildings had subsided into the ground. They had not done so evenly and so the whole of it had an uneven appearance, with buildings rising up out of the water at odd angles. Statues stood here and there through the city, overgrown with vines and weeds that crawled up over them. Through the misty air that curled through the streets, shadows loomed up around them, growing sharper into relief as they neared them, of buildings that became more distinct in form.

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The corpse lunged forward at Peregrine, pushing through water near up to its waist to get at her. It’s skin had shrivelled up and was bleached of all colour to the point of translucence, its eyes washed out and slime and weeds were tangled up in its limp hair.

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Ahknetsos stood upon the shores of the marsh, staring out at the ever present mists that forever shrouded his destination, denying him that which was rightfully his, the ancient lost city of Khatner. All attempts to reach it had been thwarted by the mists and the marsh, by the foulness that clung to the land and the insidious villagers who had opposed at every turning. The arrival of the two foreign mercenaries had been the tipping point. He looked aside to his brother, Khetemene, then to the third man standing with the pair.

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The path that Ket took led them into the marshes, his bare feet silent as they waded through the murky waters. Ahead of them, spread across the marshes so that little could be seen, rested a hazy mist, one in which tendrils twisted about almost as if alive and searching, growing thicker the further in they went.

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A crash of horses burst through the tall reeds that swayed in the breeze, the thrum of hooves pounding upon the spongy soil that bordered the sodden ground of marsh lands that disappeared off into the misty air. The region was a haunt of swarming insects and potent odours. The surface waters of the swamp were disturbed from time to time by things unseen that moved beneath it, causing rings to ripple out across it.

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Hanetsi, Sun Queen of Metsheput, looked on with wide eyes. A chill had settled upon her slender limbs, one that neither cloak nor blazing fire could dispel. She could see that she was not alone in that condition. All along the lines of her gathered army that self same fear had taken hold.

Follow this link for Part Five of Dreams of Days to Come