Clouds of dust rose in the horizon as the sound of thousands of hooves hammering the earth rang through the air. The clouds rose higher and higher as the hooves came closer and closer. The sounds grew louder and to the men who stood in the path of the storm, it brought home the reality of their situation…the cruel realization that they faced death! One man in their midst had known from the very beginning the results of their senseless expedition. Rumors had already begun to spread through the kingdom of the dreadful beasts that stalked the land. Those rumors had led to this expedition, the man knew very well. He had been one of the few people who had argued against organizing the expedition in the first place. But he had been put down.
"Oh how those fools will regret now!", he muttered to himself as he faced the coming storm.
The dust clouds rose higher and higher till they almost blocked the rays of the sun!
"Odin, keep our souls!", the man said as the hooves finally came into sight.
Along with those hooves came their owners, the long dead…and yet living…souls of noble beasts once known as horses. Now they were known simply by the fear they caused in all who lay eyes upon them. They were nightmares…nothing but Nightmares! The man took a deep breath and reached for his sword. The long sword had been forged by the finest smith in the capital city and had been imbued by a shard of the Flame Heart. Its blade shone with the blazing fires of the heart, pure and noble heart that belonged to its wielder. The man sighed and steadied himself. There was no time for regrets, no time to curse the fools who were the cause of this soon to be massacre! There was only time to fight. Yes! They would fight as they would have fought under any other circumstance. They were fools! Oh indeed, they were such jolly fools. Loyal to a land that would soon fall…loyal without any doubts…loyal without any fears…loyal until death and even after. They were fanatics, he realized! Fanatics who had sworn to lay down their lives in the field of war, to protect their kingdom and country, to protect the lives of their friends and family.
"Fanatics like me.", he told himself as the first of the Nightmares spotted him. The bizarre creature, the man knew, was what remained of once noble beasts known to the humans as horses. They were noble steeds, capable of carrying men to the farthest of lands. Like him they too were loyal to their masters, at least they had been loyal once upon a time. Once upon a time when they still had their souls. Now…they had nothing! They were dead remnants of a species long extinct. The heartless souls of mages and wizards had worked their magic and stole the hearts of the noble beasts. The man shuddered to think of the power and skill that was required to carry out such a task. No one had ever thought that the kingdom possessed such powerful wielders of the arcane arts. Oh, but such fools they had been! They had never thought that such evil could exist. Oh, no! Not in their kingdom of happiness…their bed of roses…no thorns could possibly rise there!
"Odin, save us! We have betrayed your trust.", the man said as the hooves came closer.
The time of reckoning was near for him and the man knew it. His days were numbered. Surely, there was no way this measly band of warriors, be they holy or not, were going to defeat the oncoming mob of Nightmares! Besides, the man knew the other terror that came with the beasts. His keen vision, augmented by the skills of his profession, showed him the spear wielding forms riding the Nightmares. Their screams of terror and anguish hammered at his very core and he found himself slipping into their clutches.
"No!", he cried out to his companions, "Do not listen to their wails and screams. Ignore them. Do not succumb to the Bakhy or you will be dead before this fight even begins! Listen to me!"
But they would not listen. The man knew well that they distrusted him for speaking against the expedition. He was the one who did not want to face his enemies…he was the dishonorable warrior who would not face his fears, the one who ran away from the enemy willing to leave his country, his motherland to the enemy's vile clutches. No! They would never listen to this man regardless of the oaths that he had taken beside them at the holy Church of Prontera. They would simply ignore him as they did every other time and the man watched as they ignored him now as well. What he feared came to pass and there was nothing he could do about it. He watched as his fellow warriors, the same warriors he had fought with side by side for many a year, succumbed to the specter's call…the dreaded Bakhy! They had opened their souls and their mind to the agony of the specters and in doing so, they had taken it upon themselves.
The man watched as the terrible pain of the undead shattered the will and the heart of those brave warriors. Their flesh began to rot and crumble and they screamed as they saw their bones in front of their very eyes.
"Eyes?", the man said to himself, "What eyes? They have nothing but black pits. Odin, forgive them. They have given their souls to the abyss!"
The bones of his comrades turned into ash and as he watched with ghastly terror, their skulls began to rise in the air, still intact, and moved towards the oncoming Nightmares. The man knew what would happen next. The Nightmares, the ones without any riders, would absorb the souls of his comrades. They too could not accomplish their purpose. They had died before they could lay down their lives defending their motherland and their kingdom. Thus, the abyss would condemn them to the same fate that many like them had suffered…the pain of the specter…the agony of the undead would be theirs now and there was nothing he could do about it. He knew what his oath had bound him to do…what he must do now…to avenge the deaths of his companions.
"But why? Why should I waste my life in this senseless battle?", he asked himself as the Nightmares now turned upon him.
They came towards him, galloping at full speed, hooves hammering the soil and raising mounds of dirt in their wake. There was no hope for him now. He too would be absorbed by their unholy terror. His will to resist the Bakhy weakened as they neared and he felt himself loosing strength.
"No! I will not give in…NO! NOOOO…", he screamed and screamed and screamed!
Then, there was silence. The man refused to open his eyes. He did not want to see the terrible hooves descend on his head. He did not want to see the smirking faces of the specters as they absorbed his soul and stabbed his body with their double edge spears. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing his fear…he would not succumb to the Bakhy, not until his last breath and the last drop of his blood had been drawn from his body. He would not…
The chirping of birds and the roaring of the waves startled him out of his dream. He had been sitting on the ground, meditating and gathering his energy, trying to distribute it evenly throughout his body to allow him to move around comfortably. Old age had sapped much of his strength and he had little left to give. Yet, fate would not allow him to rest easy. The dream had come again, as it had come many a time before.
"A dream?", he asked himself, "Was it really a dream?"
He had asked the same question over and over again, a thousand times and then again a thousand times! Every morning and every night, every day when the dream came to him, he would thing exactly the same thing,
"It is like yesterday. All so perfectly clear! Why? Why, Lord Odin? Why do you seek to torment me so? Am I not old and frail? What use is this mortal sheath to you? No longer fit for any duty, no longer fit to serve. Of what use am I to you, o Lord?"
As if by magic, or perhaps by divine grace, a butterfly rose into the sky, flaunting its broad wings and the dazzling rainbow colors, caused by the sunlight shining on its surface. It was a large butterfly, larger than most species, but the old man had seen it before. He had seen it in his youth and he had seen it many a time in this place. The people of the kingdom called it a Creamy. Such a cute little name, but so deadly a creature! Ironic it was, for that very creature had killed many a young adventurer, who had dared to set his sights on it. To the experienced warrior, it was about as dangerous as the everyday fly, but to all else, it would kill. Quick and deadly was the Creamy!
The man watched as the Creamy rose into the air, apparently oblivious to his presence. It rose higher and higher and then took off to the north, gradually adjusting its path to the west. The old man watched it fly towards the ruins of a massive tower that seemed to the touch the very sky. As he gazed at that tower, he knew what it was. He had known it well in his youth and had known it even better when he swore his oaths. Tears filled his eyes and he tore them away from the ruins, gazing instead at the town behind him. Even then he could not make the memories go away. Those thoughts haunted him so! With tears flowing down his cheek, he fought to control his voice as he muttered the same lines that he had said many a time,
"O Glast Heim, glorious Glast Heim! Jewel of the north, city of heroes! Pride of kings… the treasure of the soul! O Glast Heim, why didst thou fall? O great jewel that shines in the night, why does thou haunt me so?"