The man awoke, well before the townsfolk had risen for their daily chores
in the feilds, and long before the first bird's song broke the early
silence of the still morning. He wetted a cloth and wiped his sword from
the blood and grime of last night and slowly sharpened the crooked, wavered
blade. It gleamed eerily in the dark candlelight of the still dim room. It
played off the walls, causing strange shadows and dim shapes to grow and
diminish against the far wall and flicker in synch with the gentle
candlelight.
He then set about the task of unpacking his belongings, the sun on the rise, he had finished before it's startling light graced the roofs of the sleeping town. Horrific, demonic items were scrawled about the room, on the small dresser peice on the far wall, across the writing desk lay tomes and scrolls of far-off and forgotten languages, and a dozen vials of forebodding liquids and mixtures littered the far corner on a make-shift stool. However, far beyond these evil, arcane items, there were even more blasphemous, disgusting artifacts.
A human skull, full to the brim with a dark, reddish liquid glittered in the light, it's brain cavity having been polished over and sealed inside by glass, the ominous substance danced eerily in swirls over the eye cavities. Against a far wall a greater evil lay; the mangled and twisted pieces of a human corpse hung from a peg high on the wood, the stench of decay held back by the evidently complete and seamless cotton and gauze wrappings covering the devilish outline. They were worn with age, and brownish red in the dim, blocked light of the shuttered windowed room. The Necromancer had arrived.
After the sun had risen and the men and young women had tended the feilds for the morning and prepared breakfast, the hero staked down the stairs into the kitchen after having locked his door tightly and whispered a severe hex over the knob. No one would enter the room but he. The townsfolk gathered in the Inn that morning eyed him warily, (they were mostly men, cautious of the tavern women seated on thier laps,) and most merely sneered at this traveler's rather lithe frame, and continued their noisy discourse and meals. The sorceror glided among these wretches to seat himself in front of the tender.
"Have you eggs of poultry and Yorkshire ham?" he asked, his voice gruff yet somehow melodious.
"Aye. . ." responded the nervous tender, happy to turn away from that suspicious face and go about the action of cooking.
Indeed the man had a frightening countenance; a scar ripping the youthful features of his tan face and running from his silvery white scalp down to the area above his right eye, dividing the eyebrow in a neat, pink seam, and continued on the cheek below the right eye, travelling through his thick beard growth and down to the sharp angle of his cheekbone. The eyes were, as the hair, a pale, silvery hue, but also as the hair, it could be inferred that they had not always been that way; some grave evil or fright had this man seen to earn the white and grey he wore, some profound and distinguished horro had graced his eyes, and lurked in them still, as he stroked his black scruffy chin-growth and peered about the room around him, without reserve.
"Oy!" cried a man nearby him, muscular and large. "Just what are you so damn happy about? Think you showed yourself a fighter, eh? 'Cause last night? Shaw! No thing was that, no thing at all; so wipe that little look from yer young lip, or I'll add some more white hairs to your pretty head!"
The Necromancer peered slowly across at the man, and the bemused smile that had been growing on is face since the man first addressed him now stood firm upon his face.
"Say as you please, my grotesque and angry freind, but be wary; I am not that you think I am." He said, his voice, no longer rough, sung beautifully over the silent crowd. The women, even of the less respected class, lifted thier heads from the shoulders of their customers in order to hear the sound of this new man's voice as it sung the song of warning across to the furious brute along the bar.
"You'll eat that, you will!" He bellowed, his eyes aflame with fury, and he smashed the glass he had been drinking from. "I'll swear to any man I'll kill you for that!"
The white-haired stranger cocked his head, the smile growing an inch, and said;
"Next time you threaten someone with death," he said, the voice enchanting the listeners, "make sure they are someone who fears it." The room awed and mummered excitedly. A fight. . .
The other man pulled his sword quickly and stood up straight.
"Thats the final bit, that is!" He cried, and swung a powerful blow at the smirking man opposite him. But the Necromancer was too quick and it was air that was cleaved by the mighty blade. Then the sorceror attacked.
Moving with blinding speed, the stranger's hand whipped out his curved and winding blade, and the cold steel gleamed devilishly in the room's cramped space. Holding the blade overhead in the classic dagger-style, he began whipping it in rapid, arcing figure eights and advanced with amazing speed towards the startled brute. Two deep gashes ripped into the aggressor's cloth shirt, and red blood stained the cotton spreading rapidly outwards and down the garb. The man's sword dropped, and he cried out loudly as he fell backwards onto the bar.
"No! No! Not on the bar! Get out! Get out!" screamed the small bartender. The sorcerer, shrugging, grabbed the terrified opponent to his feet and threw him with astounding streghnth out the doors. The aggressor landed with a thud in the dust and struggled to turn over onto his back as the Necromancer stalked up to loom silently over him. He was chanting softly, and his blade still whipped around in steadily closing figure eights.
"Please! No!" pleaded the defeated man, somehow too weak to even lift his hand. "Don't kill me!" but the sorcerer cast a dark hand over the pitious creature, and his face contorted in pain as he stiffened and fell back rigid onto the ground, his terrified eyes bolt open and gazing horrified. The sorcerer chanted loudly now, in a language long forgotten.
"Halo grash, giglash granath O'ileith!"
"Please!"
". . .Forgarthla! Grandushkindibada! Krushkurdagaglash! Korumar! KORUMAR!"
"N-n-noooo. . ."
"NO!" screeched a woman's terrified voice, and thin fingers wrapped around the sorcerer's free wrist; the bartender's daughter had erupted from the tavern and fought through the crowd to stay the stranger's hand. Her eyes went wide open when she touched him; the skin was cold as ice! And the woman stepped back as the chanting stopped and the necromancer whirled upon this insolent meddler.
"What do you want?" he spat, the sweetness being replaced by a stinging, hateful voice. The crowd shrank in his fury.
"Please, good sir. . .do not slay this man. He is not worthy of the blade!" argued the woman, sheilding her eyes from the enchanted gaze.
"And why," asked the voice, losing it's fury, "is he deserving of anything but the hottest flames of hell?"
"Because," replied the woman, "He is the father of my child." She breathed.
The sorcerer scoffed in amusement. The startled woman looked up quickly at him.
"What makes you think I give a damn about that?" he laughed evily, and lifted the blade once more. The crowd gasped and the woman shreiked pitifully. "Help!" came voice suddenly, "Help me!" the sorcerer looked up from the crowd, and frowned in annoyance. "Somebody help meeeeeee!"
He then set about the task of unpacking his belongings, the sun on the rise, he had finished before it's startling light graced the roofs of the sleeping town. Horrific, demonic items were scrawled about the room, on the small dresser peice on the far wall, across the writing desk lay tomes and scrolls of far-off and forgotten languages, and a dozen vials of forebodding liquids and mixtures littered the far corner on a make-shift stool. However, far beyond these evil, arcane items, there were even more blasphemous, disgusting artifacts.
A human skull, full to the brim with a dark, reddish liquid glittered in the light, it's brain cavity having been polished over and sealed inside by glass, the ominous substance danced eerily in swirls over the eye cavities. Against a far wall a greater evil lay; the mangled and twisted pieces of a human corpse hung from a peg high on the wood, the stench of decay held back by the evidently complete and seamless cotton and gauze wrappings covering the devilish outline. They were worn with age, and brownish red in the dim, blocked light of the shuttered windowed room. The Necromancer had arrived.
After the sun had risen and the men and young women had tended the feilds for the morning and prepared breakfast, the hero staked down the stairs into the kitchen after having locked his door tightly and whispered a severe hex over the knob. No one would enter the room but he. The townsfolk gathered in the Inn that morning eyed him warily, (they were mostly men, cautious of the tavern women seated on thier laps,) and most merely sneered at this traveler's rather lithe frame, and continued their noisy discourse and meals. The sorceror glided among these wretches to seat himself in front of the tender.
"Have you eggs of poultry and Yorkshire ham?" he asked, his voice gruff yet somehow melodious.
"Aye. . ." responded the nervous tender, happy to turn away from that suspicious face and go about the action of cooking.
Indeed the man had a frightening countenance; a scar ripping the youthful features of his tan face and running from his silvery white scalp down to the area above his right eye, dividing the eyebrow in a neat, pink seam, and continued on the cheek below the right eye, travelling through his thick beard growth and down to the sharp angle of his cheekbone. The eyes were, as the hair, a pale, silvery hue, but also as the hair, it could be inferred that they had not always been that way; some grave evil or fright had this man seen to earn the white and grey he wore, some profound and distinguished horro had graced his eyes, and lurked in them still, as he stroked his black scruffy chin-growth and peered about the room around him, without reserve.
"Oy!" cried a man nearby him, muscular and large. "Just what are you so damn happy about? Think you showed yourself a fighter, eh? 'Cause last night? Shaw! No thing was that, no thing at all; so wipe that little look from yer young lip, or I'll add some more white hairs to your pretty head!"
The Necromancer peered slowly across at the man, and the bemused smile that had been growing on is face since the man first addressed him now stood firm upon his face.
"Say as you please, my grotesque and angry freind, but be wary; I am not that you think I am." He said, his voice, no longer rough, sung beautifully over the silent crowd. The women, even of the less respected class, lifted thier heads from the shoulders of their customers in order to hear the sound of this new man's voice as it sung the song of warning across to the furious brute along the bar.
"You'll eat that, you will!" He bellowed, his eyes aflame with fury, and he smashed the glass he had been drinking from. "I'll swear to any man I'll kill you for that!"
The white-haired stranger cocked his head, the smile growing an inch, and said;
"Next time you threaten someone with death," he said, the voice enchanting the listeners, "make sure they are someone who fears it." The room awed and mummered excitedly. A fight. . .
The other man pulled his sword quickly and stood up straight.
"Thats the final bit, that is!" He cried, and swung a powerful blow at the smirking man opposite him. But the Necromancer was too quick and it was air that was cleaved by the mighty blade. Then the sorceror attacked.
Moving with blinding speed, the stranger's hand whipped out his curved and winding blade, and the cold steel gleamed devilishly in the room's cramped space. Holding the blade overhead in the classic dagger-style, he began whipping it in rapid, arcing figure eights and advanced with amazing speed towards the startled brute. Two deep gashes ripped into the aggressor's cloth shirt, and red blood stained the cotton spreading rapidly outwards and down the garb. The man's sword dropped, and he cried out loudly as he fell backwards onto the bar.
"No! No! Not on the bar! Get out! Get out!" screamed the small bartender. The sorcerer, shrugging, grabbed the terrified opponent to his feet and threw him with astounding streghnth out the doors. The aggressor landed with a thud in the dust and struggled to turn over onto his back as the Necromancer stalked up to loom silently over him. He was chanting softly, and his blade still whipped around in steadily closing figure eights.
"Please! No!" pleaded the defeated man, somehow too weak to even lift his hand. "Don't kill me!" but the sorcerer cast a dark hand over the pitious creature, and his face contorted in pain as he stiffened and fell back rigid onto the ground, his terrified eyes bolt open and gazing horrified. The sorcerer chanted loudly now, in a language long forgotten.
"Halo grash, giglash granath O'ileith!"
"Please!"
". . .Forgarthla! Grandushkindibada! Krushkurdagaglash! Korumar! KORUMAR!"
"N-n-noooo. . ."
"NO!" screeched a woman's terrified voice, and thin fingers wrapped around the sorcerer's free wrist; the bartender's daughter had erupted from the tavern and fought through the crowd to stay the stranger's hand. Her eyes went wide open when she touched him; the skin was cold as ice! And the woman stepped back as the chanting stopped and the necromancer whirled upon this insolent meddler.
"What do you want?" he spat, the sweetness being replaced by a stinging, hateful voice. The crowd shrank in his fury.
"Please, good sir. . .do not slay this man. He is not worthy of the blade!" argued the woman, sheilding her eyes from the enchanted gaze.
"And why," asked the voice, losing it's fury, "is he deserving of anything but the hottest flames of hell?"
"Because," replied the woman, "He is the father of my child." She breathed.
The sorcerer scoffed in amusement. The startled woman looked up quickly at him.
"What makes you think I give a damn about that?" he laughed evily, and lifted the blade once more. The crowd gasped and the woman shreiked pitifully. "Help!" came voice suddenly, "Help me!" the sorcerer looked up from the crowd, and frowned in annoyance. "Somebody help meeeeeee!"