The Man in the Mist
The rain swept down in driving sheets on the kneeling boy and his murderer.
His killer's face was a storm-swept range of crags carved by time and pitiless wind. His eyes were sunken pits set far into the depths of two valleys, cut deep on either side of a massive flat-topped peak of a nose. Long gray, unkempt hair hung down on either side, brushing against a massive jaw beneath a dark crevice of a mouth. It was a face as far removed from mercy as that of an ancient beast.
His killer rested a massive bone club carved from some great beast's thigh up against the side of his face. It felt smooth and cool. Almost gentle.
"I will tell you why you must die," said the rumble of thunder that came from his killer's mouth.
Confels to Endspoint had been their road. South of Riverbend, few of the barges plied their trade, and that was where the cartsmen made their keep. There was no easy way for goods to get south, these days. Most of the trade went down to Yyredin by barge, and took ship through the Scrapes to get clear to Erhlith or Mernaix, but it was a pirate and storm infested journey in the best of times. The other choice was to take the south road, and haul over the foothills of cold and ragged mistland to reach the safety of Endspoint and the g'Aurené fortress. Brethan was an island of security, but villages even a day out from Levetias had been burned. The long route around the passes would take caravans just as close to Ellery raiders. It was no better.
For much of it they had the ancient Athsarin road, straight, smooth and crumbling, taking them from the golden fields of the Lantern City into the upper Cairyn. The wide stretches of cleared, cultivated land became dotted with hills, and the forests gradually grew deeper. The Daufmark was a wilder place than Cairyndell, but more beautiful, to his eyes. He had been born in the Daufmark, born in caravan and raised in it. He hoped to live and die in it. He would get his wish.
They stuck to the west side of the river, the safe side, until they reached the ford at Felling. Felling itself was surrounded by a rough-hewn new palisade and filled with Daufing guards when they reached it. Two knights leading them, a sandy-haired Ulklander named Ralf and his younger brother Garred, laughed openly in his father's face when he paid his toll and declared his intent to make for Brethan Pass.
"Old Eraric's dying. What few they can afford to keep are standing wary at castle to see if Wigmar will kill his brothers."
His father merely smiled in that disarming way of his and said, "More guards at Brethan is fine for us."
"Seor is out hunting, you fool," the knight called after him. "Do you know what that name means?"
His father hadn't listened. He had made this run so many times before. They all had. It would be fine. It was always fine.
When they were three days up into the pass, the weather turned. The mountains gathered a bowl of mist, and out of the mist came the rain. It was soft at first, forming wetness on their faces without even leaving the impression of a raindrop. Then it started to fall in earnest. There was no road here, only a rocky switchback trail rising further up and up, and the mist clinging to the ground, obscuring the desolate stretch of mossy rocks and mountain after mountain rising into the sky, glaciers hiding in the cloudy heavens. They were drawing close to the height of the pass, where the rocky ground crested between two great mountains.
A strange sound started to fill their ears, and they squinted up into the swirling mist as they climbed. "Careful now, we'll see this out." said his father. The mysterious sound gradually began to sound like music as they drew closer, and a shadow in the shape of a person slowly became visible.
The guards relaxed visibly when they saw that it was just a young woman. She was barefoot, and a short brown shift barely covered much of her body, despite the deep chill of the high mountain summer. Long, fire-red hair was woven into an intricate braid down her back. She looked to be perhaps fifteen.
She was singing in a strange language none of them could understand. In her right hand a knife glistened. It seemed she had cut herself, because a thin trickle of blood ran down the blade.
"Aldleith n berthei toc ranail mat?"
"Tm, tm n berthei."
"Ao n Saeor cuoleire toc raneil mat?"
"Tm, tm n berthei."
The oldest and wisest of their guards was Caloch, and he had a little Fennacht from when he was a boy.
"She's singing a dirge," he whispered.
His father strode forward, pointing his bronze-capped staff directly at the woman, who gazed at him with curious eyes. "You there, clear out of our way. We have no business with mountain folk and we'll thank you to have no business with us."
She stood there, looking at him, and tilted her head to the side. Then she looked down at the knife in her hand, as if seeing it for the first time.
"Tm, tm n berthei," she whispered. She threw the knife, which glittered as it spun. It was bronze, with a hilt of bone. And his father choked and gurgled as it was lodged in his neck. It happened before the boy could blink.
Then the screaming started to begin, and the mist around them had voices. He was screaming along with them.
---
They were all dead but him before long.
One of their wagons burned from a fire arrow, black column of smoke rising to mix with the white mist. The woman continued to sing her soft song as she slowly severed the head from his father's dead body with her knife. Taking it in her hands, she kissed the forehead. Then she picked up the bronze-capped rod from his father's nerveless fingers where it had fallen. She lifted it up and drove it hard into the rocky ground, twisting it back and forth.
Then she stuck his father's head on the stick.
The rain started to fall again, and the cart hissed.
The boy knelt there in shock. He had not even fought, just watched as everyone was slaughtered. For some reason they had ignored him.
Two of the Fennacht lay dead, and most of the others gathered around them in a circle, painting signs and symbols in the blood of the fallen on their faces, singing again in their lilting language.
Then, as one, they went quiet, as his killer walked out of the mist. He said two words to his men and they vanished back into the mist, leaving the bodies where they lay. Only the girl remained, singing her sad song as she stripped his father's body naked.
He wore a pelt of a mountain bear, black fur fringed with red, and a helmet carved from a ram's skull. Strings of human skulls were draped down his body. The skulls were small. Strands of bird feathers, charms, and amulets were hung around his neck, his arms, and his legs. And below the helm was the pitiless face.
"I will tell you why you must die."
"Once the Feiaghta lived in peace, serving ysberyd and drnfheis. Your people took the land, killed the drnfheis, chained the world in stone and iron. You pull gold from the ground and you burn the forests. You hunt the creatures of the earth and kill them all."
His killer grabbed his chin, and forced him to look directly into his eyes.
"Your people enslaved us and murdered our children. So I will sacrifice theirs until the ysberyd return."
"It's not my fault," the boy said. It was all he could say.
"And this is not mine," said the Old Seor. He wound up, his huge muscles rippling, and smashed the club against the side of the boy's face. The mighty blow crushed his skull instantly and he died.
A few will o' wisps appeared, dancing in the air around the boy's crumpled form, the ysberyd twinkling in acceptance of the sacrifice, then evaporated as if they had never been there. The girl clasped her hands in delight, laughing a sweet melodious laugh at the dance of the spirits.
The heads were left on stakes for the Greylings to find. But not the bodies.