Consider this entry the starting point of the story, as it has the title.

As always, corrections are appreciated and feedback welcome.


The Far Lands


Taylor leapt from the grand oak at the heart of the forest and jumped the tree tops to the smoldering village.

Taylor had seen it from the northern barracks tower last night. The embers had lit up the night sky, and the black, billowing smoke nearly blotted out his view of the late night moon. He sounded an alarm, grabbed his bow and quiver, and dived off the top of the tower, sliding down tapestries and bounding off their supporting poles. He sprinted, jumped, and climbed up the main gate, over the wall, and disappeared into the forest before the guards could stir from their dreams.

It was a precaution for them. Taylor was faster and more observant. He could catch nearly anything in his field of vision, be it moving or still. His senses had been sharpened by years of hard battle and survival. It took seconds for him to scan a city, a blink of an eye to capture an image of a small town at top performance. Taylor was tired now, but in a second, he had the village surveyed.

He fired a plain arrow in an arch over the village, visible from the barracks entrance. The coast was clear for the guards when they finally arrived.

The archer jumped from a tree to the top of a house and lastly to a small garden. The crops were trampled, burnt, and scattered around the dirt. A trail of footsteps, two big pairs, one small pair, led over them from the back of the house, but stopped at the gravel road past the garden gate. Just outside, there was a pile of charred black wood, a sizable chunk of a collapsed watchtower.

He got up and approached the pile, noticing an equally charred arm under one of the beams. It was a child's arm, small and thin. Taylor held his gut still and his temper on a short leash. There were no footsteps leading into or out of the fallen tower. The child and its family had burned to death.

Taylor willed away the dark thoughts. It was time to investigate the buildings.

Counter-clockwise would work best. Taylor dashed to the side of the burnt pile, avoiding a few live flames.

He examined the first house. The roof was caved in and the door was blocked from the inside. The only entrance was the hole in the roof. Taylor moved on, noticing similar details of the other buildings. Most were inaccessible, the boors barred or walls collapsed from the outside-in. Others had holes burned into the walls, allowing him a quick glance inside to see ruined furniture and burnt bodies. With no reason to enter, he left those homes alone, and moved on to the next buildings.

As he walked through the town, he saw no bodies in the streets. The fire must have started in their sleep, leaving no time to smother or quench the source.

Taylor followed the burn pattern towards the back of the village. It led down a winding path past a garden and graveyard and stopped at the front door of a church. The stone was stained dark by ash and smoke, and all the wood was burnt to black splinters. The once massive doors were thin and fragile to the touch. Taylor put his weight against one, and it crumbled into a pile of sharp planks at his feet.

Suddenly, a rotting, pungent smell wafted up to Taylor's nose. It was stronger than the charred bodies.

Taylor saw the culprit. A charred, smoking pile of dark ash was laid on top of a spot of hellish red stone, aptly named hellstone. Taylor had seen it a few times before, but his memories were foggy. The smoke, the fire, the ash, all familiar. Something was missing, though. Taylor leaned in close, looking around the hellstone. In a perfect circle, small runes were burnt into the ground.

Taylor rummaged for paper when wood clattered, and the second church door collapsed.

He strafed to the side and vaulted over the altar. His hand grazed the ash-stained marble as he turned 'round, facing the door, drawing his bow and two poisoned arrows, aiming for the intruder to the church.

The man raised his hands defensively. He had no weapon, no apparent reason to attack Taylor, but when his bare arms flew up, Taylor saw the brown stubble of his chin, his brown eyes under his brown fedora, and his adventuring vest, shirt, and cargo pants. Taylor knew him. He knew him from the many Games they played together, from the rivalry they had kept live and lively for the past few years.

Taylor sighed in relief, withdrew his bow, and walked down the aisle to greet Paul Soares II.

Taylor growled, "Warning next time. I would have killed you."

"Like in the Games," the adventurer pointed out, and they quickly shook hands. His smile faded when he faced the red stone near the altar. "I saw the smoke from the west ruins. I got here when the fire died off. I found this place first and thought I should keep track of those runes."

He handed Taylor a roll of paper and a stick of charcoal.

"Took me a while to run back here with it, but go ahead," Paul invited him, and gestured to the floor.

The archer took the paper and set it down over the first rune. Taylor worked clockwise, rubbing one rune at a time onto the paper. While he recorded each symbol, Taylor studied the runes. The placement was typical for a summoning, but the symbols themselves seemed more familiar than that. Paul had the same impression, staring at each rune, growing increasingly frustrated.

"It's there. I've seen them before, but where?" Paul growled. He ran his hands through his short hair, pulling beads of sweat off his scalp. "Taylor."

"Busy," the archer answered. He was down to the last few runes and working on the opposite side of the paper.

"It's getting hotter. Finish up so we can get out of here."

"Quit complaining," Taylor snapped. "Only a few more."

On the last rune, Taylor finally noticed the smoke pouring into the paper. He pulled back just before the floor ignited, the hellstone spread, and a reverberating groan with rhythm and beat wailed from the ground up. The ceiling trembled, its tiles and beams shaking and breaking apart.

Taylor and Paul shared one glance and ran for the doors.

The church began to give under the groan. Stones fell from the ceiling, pews were crushed into ash, fires sparked along the outer walls, the heat shattered stained glass windows into thousands of tiny multi-colored fragments. Taylor caught one sharp shard to his leg, giving a wounded cry as he collapsed onto one knee. It stopped Paul at the arch of the door. He looked back, about to call for Taylor.

His face contorted in fear. Paul backed away from the door, staring beyond Taylor.

Clutching his wound with his pant leg, Taylor spun his torso towards the altar, and fell backwards in shock.

The ashes were moving in the shape of a man with empty white eyes. He was groaning the awful, echoing sound that tore the church down around them. It brought the word 'song' to Taylor's mind, though Taylor knew neither the word nor the meaning behind it. It was familiar like the runes, a gap in his memory that triggered something deep and profound, something that gave him a name Taylor had never heard.

The man walked forward ('singing,' Taylor's mind told him). His form became solid, whole, and shaped as lean and tall as Taylor. His robes were made of shadows. His hood, long and trailing from his head, cut short. The thin shadow that remained of the trail exploded into whispering, black runes, the same as the ones now spreading hell throughout and desecrating the church.

The name repeated, this time with a cut of familiarity.

'Jordan'

Then the 'song' died, the shadows burned into sunlight, and the church collapsed on Taylor's head.