It was sunset at Briarfield Abbey on the day of blood and fire, and the sun cast its rays through the stained glass to fall upon the cacophonous congregation within. Townsfolk screamed at monks, monks screamed back, and the abbot orated unheard and unheeded over the top of it all. Three of the holy men gathered about another fallen on the floor, the skin of his forehead split by a thrown glass bottle, his eyes unfocused and far-away. A bearded, stocky man with a red hat that gave him the appearance of a mushroom pointed an accusing finger towards the mass of white-robed monks and yelled “You’ve brought death to us all! Three are dead because of you! How many more will there be?”
A monk with a face that was too thin for his body yelled back, his arms retrained by his calmer-headed colleagues. “We did nothing that God did not intend! Nothing! None of us are free of sin! What we did we did to save your souls! All of our souls!”

At this, the bearded man sprang forward, muscling his way through the pack. He seized a spike dagger from his belt and fell upon the thin-faced monk, ramming the weapon into his chest again and again. Each strike buried it to the hilt. The monk screamed in pain, startling the others holding him. They released their grasps in surprise and both the assailant and the assailed became one chaotic mass of arms and legs and blood upon the floorboards.

Horrified townsfolk, their cries of protest drowned out by the din of the mob, clawed the attacker off his victim. The monk lay leaking on the floorboards, soundlessly choking, dying a bad death. The mass of townsfolk erupted with the clatter of weapons being drawn and the desperate pleads for temperance from its less bloodthirsty members. They were in vain.

Swords severed arms from bodies. Heavy, uprooted chairs split foreheads. Pitchfork tines dripped with rusty blood. Brother fought against brother, and neighbor against neighbor, and before long the sides didn’t matter. The abbot, growing more panicked by the second, hollered and stamped his fist into the wood of the pulpit, though his cries were swallowed by the sounds of weapons clashing and the cries of the dying. In one last effort, he drew himself to his full height and held his holy book high. In that moment, an arbalest bolt struck him in the chest.

He folded like paper, falling behind his lectern and knocking a candle to the floor. The flames licked the threads of a saintly tapestry hanging from high on the wall, then started to climb into a dancing pillar of fire.

Amidst the chaos, the sallow-faced monk stilled his writhing on the floor and hacked up a fowl-smelling bile which splattered on the faces and clothes of a few close onlookers. “God’s will be done! On earth as it is in Heaven!” His back arched in pain, as if the mantra was twisting his spine into a knot with every utterance. “God’s will be done! God’s will be done! God’s will be done!” Smoke filled the hall like blood in water.

It was too late for most of the people in the church. By the time the smoke and flames had been noticed by the throng, they only had time to panic and stumble and trip over the dead and dying as they wedged themselves in the entrance way, choking on smoke and crushed by their fellow man as they tried to muscle through the crowd. Those who managed to escape fled like wounded dogs into the dimming twilight. Some ran for home. Some just ran.

Come the morning, the fire was out. The hollow stone shell of the hall stood like an abandoned henge, the entrance packed with the blackened and still crackling remains of those who perished in the furnace of the church. Packed as they were in their final moments, it was impossible to tell where one shriveled, burnt thing ended and another began.

The fog rolled thick in the street outside, as if the town has been suddenly populated by lost and wandering spirits. If one were to have been watching, they may have even seen human and inhuman shapes forming and dissipating, swimming in the mist, until one finally emerged. It was not a ghost, but not quite human, either. He resembled a man, youngish but not young, tallish but not tall, with a serious face and locks of stormy black hair. He rode a black draft horse whose shoulders topped the heads of most, and a forest green cowl fell from his collar, the hem fluttering around the stirrups. Atop his head sat a low and wide-brimmed cap of simple straw. Dew dripped from a spot where the fiber had split.

He may have been mistaken for just a traveler, if not for the sheathed longsword peeking from underneath the cowl, or the eyes that seemed to glow with the crystal blue of the deepest arctic caverns, or the inexplicable sense that lightning coursed through his fingertips, and could be unleashed at any second.

The lazy clatter of the horse’s hoofs seemed muffled by the fog. They loped along the cobbles until they at least reached the short stairs leading up to the hollowed cathedral, where the sorcerer in green swung off of the saddle and walked cautiously around the ghostly structure. Then, finding a spot where to wall had fallen in, he stepped over the rubble and into the hall.

Not a sound could be heard among the still-smoldering ruin, as if the world itself had gone silent in memoriam of the dead who still clogged the doorway. Still, the sorcerer’s sword stirred in his sheath. Gently, almost casually, he placed a hand on the hilt, as if to comfort a nervous hound.

“Show yourself.” His voice rumbled through the stillness. “I mean no harm.”

At this command, there was a stir behind the soot-blackened altar, and a pair of sallow eyes peeked out from atop it.

The sorcerer took his hand from his sword hilt and spread his harms wide, parting the cloak, displaying his holstered weapon and empty hands. He removed his hat as well. The light of early morning shined upon his pale skin and groomed beard. “Hello, there. Feel free to come out. I’m no brigand.”

“Who be ye?” came the response from behind the altar.

“Mahkell,” replied the sorcerer, “a wandering magician. Seems I’ve wandered a little too much, though. I saw the signs for the abbey and followed the road here to ask for directions.” He looked around. A crow came and perched atop a blackened wall. “It looks like I’ve come at a bad time.”

“Aye,” said the frightened man, a little less so now, “about as bad as it gets.” He stood to his full height, which wasn’t all that tall. He was little more than skin and bones, aged beyond his years by the sun’s harsh rays, balding and sunken in his cheeks. He held a collection of three or four soot-marred baubles to his chest like a mother holds a child, a smallish golden cross being the most recognizable among them.

Mahkell lowered his arms, letting his cloak fall around him again. “Do you need help? Are you a survivor of the fire?”

“Me? Nay,” said the man in his old, raspy voice. The sorcerer could see gaps in his crooked teeth. They made a faint whistle with every word. “I’ve just come to clean up a bit. I know what happened, though! Not a soul around who don’t by this point.”

“Oh? So it wasn’t an accident?”

The man nodded his head. The motion caused one of the smaller gold items to slip from his grasp, but he didn’t seem to notice. “The fire was, far as any can tell, but what led to it, aye, that’s another thing. You’re a magic man, ain’t ya’? You know protection circles? Charms and the like? Keep evil things at bay. Understand?”

Mahkell thought for a second. “I passed a statue on the side of the road around two miles back. Stone, around the height of two of me put together. There was a sad-looking bearded face carved into it. Does that have anything to do with it?” The sorcerer remembered the way the hollow eyes seemed to follow him, nothing more than a trick of the light, but a good trick.

“Aye! That’s one of them! Whole valley is ringed with them. Magic ring. Nothing bad gets in, least it didn’t.”

“Until…?”

“’Till one of ‘em gets knocked down in the middle of them night and a family is torn to ribbons. Folks say it was a bear monster, a bakraclaw, but I knows the work of a grave ogre when I see one.”

Mahkell nodded, though the names of these spirits were unfamiliar to him. “Whatever it was, it sounds like it made a mess.”

“Sure did.” said the man, no longer looking so nervous. “Word gets ‘round, and before the day is done people start sayin’ that some monk here been taking credit for knocking the stone down, saying something about ‘God’s will’ and all that. Then, they grab their swords and cudgels and hay forks and come up the hill to kill him. Don’t know much after that. I weren’t there. They do say the monk who was bragging been killed, though.” He glanced at the corpses. “Couldn’t tell you which one his is.”

“And what do you think?” asked Mahkell. “About the protection circle, I mean.”

“I like em! Folks put food at their feet. Got me though a fair few harsh winters, that has. Guess we know for sure they were keeping things out, now.” The man’s voice turned a little sad. “Liked the church, too. Let me stay here some nights when it was storming or cold. Have to find another place to sleep when the snow starts up.”

Mahkell smiled knowingly. “Is that why you’re picking through the ruins for their gold? To return it to the survivors?”

The man looked down at his armful of dirty treasure. “…Aye. That’s just it.”

“Right,” said Mahkell. “If you show me the way into town, I’ll give you a lift. I’ll find someone who can draw me a map, and you can make sure that gold gets into the ‘right hands.’” The sorcerer tapped the side of his nose.

The man chuckled. “It’s a deal. Mahkell, ya’ said your name was, yeah?”

“Yes, and what’s yours?”

“Folks call me Scrunge.” The man whose name was Scrunge stepped down from the dais on which the altar’s remains sat, treasure clanking dully, and followed Mahkell out through the toppled wall and into the courtyard where his horse stood. “Not a pretty name, I know, but I’m not a pretty person now, am I?” He chuckled again. “I say I got a face only a mother could love, but a stench that made sure she didn’t.”

Gracefully, Mahkell swung up into his saddle. On a horse as big as Buckeye, it was a feat of athleticism. He scooted forward to make room behind him. “Don’t be so quick to speak ill of yourself. Others will do that for free.”

“Yeah, but they don’t do it nearly as well, if ya’ catch my meaning.”

But Mahkell wasn’t listening. The hairs on the back of his neck and all up and down his arms stood on end, and there was a feeling at the base of his neck like a great pressure was straining to break free. The feeling screamed “danger” the way a low growl in a dark room does, or a moonlit flash of steel in a stranger’s hand. The sorcerer’s eyes scanned the tree line at the edge of the courtyard. Dark and mist starred back. The trunks of lodgepole pine and fletcher’s willow rose like black columns out of the fog blanketing the forest floor.

Something tall, lanky, and horrendously fast flashed in the space between two trunks, and was gone again as quick as it appeared. It made no sound.

Mahkell’s sword stirred in its scabbard again. He didn’t settle it this time. “Scrunge,” he said, “take my hand. Quickly.” He held it out towards the man.

The coot’s easy smile dissolved, and he did just that. “Why? You see something out-“

Sudden and sharp, Mahkell hauled him up and into the saddle behind him. The sorcerer snapped his heels into the flanks of his horse and yelled an urging “Yah!” The black draft horse took off like a bullet from a gun. Scrunge nearly toppled off, but just about managed to get his arms wrapped around Mahkell’s waist. The sorcerer’s hat, however, caught the wind like a sail and flew from his head.

They rode into the forest, as that was the only way there was to go. The mist seemed to part in front of them, a gray wall racing to stay just ahead of their eyesight, revealing first a cobbled road, then a dirt path as they ran further from the abbey. The trees on either side raced past, gnarled and bare branches reaching into the roads like the hands of leppers. “Which way to town?” yelled Mahkell over drumming of Buckeye’s hoofs.

“West!” Scrunge yelled back, breathing hard. “Then ya’ go south at the old stump!”

There was another flash of movement out of the corner of Mahkell’s eye, there and gone again. He focused and attuned his ears to the quiet of the forest, honing in on those little sounds that boarder on silence, and he heard it. It parted the mist like a ship parts water, throwing up hissing wakes which crashed between the trees. Its footsteps, as fast as they were silent, beat the earth with the power of a sledgehammer. The soft whisper of its breathing echoed and flared like a furnace at the hand of the bellows. He spurred Buckeye again.

The road diverged once, then twice. At each intersection Mahkell steered west. He heard the thing in the woods circling behind, running from one side of the road to another and back again. Then the hammering footsteps suddenly stopped.

The world slowed down. The hairs on the back of the sorcerer’s neck crackled. He jerked the reigns to one side and Buckeye steered, throwing up dirt from her hooves.

A dark shape crashed onto the road where the horse and riders were only a fraction of a second ago. There was barely enough time to register its incredible immensity of muscle and fur and horns and bloodred eyes before it was gone back into the tree line again. Scrunge screamed a curse. Mahkell’s sword leapt into his hand.

The footfalls returned, faster now, invigorated, excited, hungry. When they stopped again, Mahkell once more jerked the reigns. It fell closer this time, the musky heat of its breath briefly felt on the riders’ necks.

Mahkell’s sword flashed through the air, tracing a silver half-moon in the morning light. It found the shape, but struck a horn. It made a sound like a hammer striking an anvil. The weapon reverberated in the sorcerer’s hand. He struck again, but the blade whistled through open air. The footsteps continued. It wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore. Twigs snapped from trees as it passed, and the fern and shrubs of the forest floor rustled like snakes. Even Scrunge, frenzied with fear, was able to hear its path.

Something emerged from the mist up ahead, a tree that had fallen long ago, its stump overgrown with moss and covered in carvings and superstitious spots of paint. The old stump. Mahkell began to steer his horse south as they approached, but heard the footsteps, the thing in the forest, circling wide that way. It knew they would be heading for town. Not knowing where he was going, Mahkell steered north instead.

A roar, the sound of metal scraping against metal in a deep and dark cave, echoed through the forest. It was angry now, and the footsteps redoubled in their effort.

Buckeye was breathing hard. Before long she would slow, then the chase would be over. Mahkell had to end this fast.

The footsteps stopped, and Mahkell, thinking himself crazy, pulled back on the reigns. The horse and riders fell into shadow. The shape, massive and lanky and unnatural, arced over them. Time slowed again. Mahkell’s sword whistled through the air, tracing a line along the monster’s underbelly, parting fur and skin like shears splitting wet paper.

All at once, time seemed to race to catch back up. The creature toppled on the road in front of them. Buckeye steered to avoid it, but that proved unnecessary as it righted itself and once again dashed into the woods, leaving a scar in the earthen path and a spotty trail of dark blood.

The woods parted from around them like the curtains of a stage, revealing a bright and green meadow. The sun’s rays had found their way over the low, golden, autumn hills, and were at work dissipating the low fog which only persisted in scattered banks and undulating puddles. Mahkell hauled Buckeye to a stop. Her hooves skidded on the path and she reared herself up onto her hind legs and neighed, turning in place.

Mahkell breathed heavy, savoring the feeling of the air passing his lips, the precious silence at the base of his skull. He held his dripping sword out towards the trees, ready, waiting.

Nothing came.

“Did ya’ get it?” asked Scrunge, speaking quicker than he meant to.

Mahkell nodded slowly, still looking into the tree line. “Save your celebrations for later. I don’t think I hit anything important.” He produced a cloth from a small bag hanging on his belt and went to wipe his sword clean. He ran one side of the blade over the towel, then stopped. He held the sword up in the light, turning it so that the sun flashed on the steel. The creature’s “blood” was red, but only at the edges of the splatter where the fluid was thinnest. Everywhere else it was black as ink. It shimmered with a pallid viscosity. Mahkell touched a finger to the liquid. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. It did not dry and flake like blood, but instead stained his skin a rose-petal red. “Strange,” he said.

“Eh?” said Scrunge. “What’s that?”

“Nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing.” The sorcerer ran the blade over the cloth a few more times, then, satisfied, tucked both away. “We’ll dismount here for a minute, let our hearts settle before continuing into town.”

Scrunge looked towards the trees nervously. “Aren’t ya’ scared it’ll come back?”

Mahkell hauled a foot over the saddle horn and slid to the ground. “Whatever It was, I hurt it enough to give up the chase. I doubt it’s forgotten about us, but it will need some time to retreat and heal.” He offered a hand up to Scrunge and helped the old man dismount. “I’m only guessing, though.”

“Reassuring,” grumbled Scrunge.

“Honesty rarely is.”

Mahkell stretched, his joints creaking like old metal. Hard riding always stiffened him up. He breathed in the autumn air and scanned the meadow. The dispersing fog mingled with grass, which was browning at the tips, and dark late-season wildflowers which swayed in the slightest breath of a breeze. The hills danced with light scattering in the oranges and yellows of maple and willow, and resting in the comforting deep green of pine, fir, and cedar. A neat row of vibrant poplar trees stood like soldiers at the edge of the meadow, suggesting that it had been a farmer’s field not too long ago. One of them had been knocked askew slightly. Down at its base was a large square stone resting against the knotted trunk.

Curious, Mahkell ambled towards it. Not wanting to stray far from the arm that held the sword, Scrunge followed. The stone, around ten feet tall, looked much like the one Mahkell had seen riding into town. A face had been carved into it at the top, and shapes suggesting hands at either edge towards the bottom, except now the bottom was on top and the top was at the bottom. At what once was the base, the stone was dark with moisture and dirt, having been buried about two feet deep. The stone’s “head” was partially buried in a crater of freshly-churned earth. Golden poplar leaves, knocked free by the impact of the figure against the trunk, littered the ground like the tiles of a mosaic.

“Is this the defaced statue?” asked Mahkell.

“Aye,” said Scrunge. “I’ve not been here since it happened, but this be the one they say was broke.” Indeed, a long crack split the stone down the middle. It still held in one piece, but only just.

The sorcerer thought for a few heartbeats, the fingers of one hand against his chin. “Can you show me where it was before?”

Scrunge led him over to the other side of the field where a rectangular hole lay in the ground, the perfect size to house the base of the figure. A small footpath connected the road to the site. A handful of rotten vegetables and an overturned bowl marred the grass, which was trampled and short in an uneven circle around the hole from semi-frequent traffic. Mahkell looked into the hole, walked around it, then did another lap in a wider circle before looking back at the poplars and the stone. He held a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, and made a mental note to go back to the abbey later to look for his hat. “You said a monk claimed credit for this?”

“Aye,” said Scrunge, “he did.”

“He’s lying.”

Scrunge cocked his head to the side. “Why do ya’ say?”

“How did the stone get all the way from here…” Mahkell gestured at the hole, then swept his arm wide to point at the polars, “to there?”

Scrunge shrugged. “Said there was a buncha’ them who were in on it. Maybe they carried it?”

Mahkell was already shaking his head before the sentence was out. “No, no. They would have had to tip it over first, but look here. The ground isn’t indented like it should be. It’s as if it was pulled straight out. Right out of the ground, like a fencepost. I thought they could have used a crane, but that would have to be hauled out here on a wagon, and there are no wheel ruts away from the road, and it doesn’t look as if they set it up anywhere in the grass, either. It’s all untrampled except for in this small circle, and even if there was a crane involved it would have been a village-wide project to move something that big, I’ve seen houses that were smaller, and why would they go through the effort when just digging it up and knocking it over should have been enough?” He was speaking to himself more than anything else now, lost in the labyrinth of thought. “Plus, we both saw how deep it was in the ground, and how far it knocked that tree over. No, it was thrown, thrown from here, and unless this monk is some sort of Hercules it wasn’t by him or any of his friends.”

“I don’t get it,” said Scrunge, deep in thought himself. “I mean all that I get, but why’d the monk lie about all that? It don’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Mahkell walked another slow circle around the hole.

“So, if it wasn’t that scrawny git, then who done the deed?” The old man sounded afraid to ask.

“I think you know what I think.” Mahkell parted the stunted grass with a curious hand, revealing a faint but visible imprint in the moist soil. It was a heel print, but not any left by a man or bear spirit or grave ogre. It was longer than the forearm of even the tallest man, and thin like the foot of a hare. They both felt certain that if they were to go back out along the road, they would find such foot markings in the earth where the creature had crashed into the dirt. “I think you know very well what I think.”

The mist had evaporated completely by the time they loped into town. By a stroke of luck that didn’t even begin to make up for the horrors of that morning, a tradesman was there. He had set up his traveling-cart-turned-market-stall across from one of two timber bridges that crossed the stream running through the village. Nestled close to the water were less than two dozen wooden buildings, none more than two stories, their flat fronts decorated in peeling paint and sporting imported glass windows. The few shops had the largest windows, showing the wares inside, sweets, tools, clothing, meats.

The oldest of the buildings were little more than log cabins while the newest bore upper rooms than hung over porches and stairs leading up the sides to reach upper doors for when the snow fell too deep to use the one in front. There were even some short, railed bridges connecting the upper balconies of adjacent buildings. Off in the hills, Mahkell could see other buildings, homesteads and farms and estates, and the ant-like dots of people walking into and out of town for their day’s work.

The name of the town was “Road Narrows,” after an old sign which now hung in the courthouse. Most residents called it “The Narrows,” or just “Narrows” if they were in a hurry. Some walked in the streets. The busier ones drove carts that delivered to or took supplies from shops. They were dressed in everything from the worn and sun-bleached dungarees of farmhands to the lavishly colored suits and dresses of wealthy estate owners. In keeping with the style of most places west of the Badlands, most every hat worn among the citizens was flat all around except on one side where it rolled up like a crashing wave and was set to the crown with a pin or feather. The wealthy men wore white or light-colored loose outer shirts secured with a belt, often with a sword, and brighter colors underneath, showing most at their collars and sleeves. The ladies wore similarly vibrant dresses which were form-fitting above the waist, but not tight, and loose in the skirt. The working men and women wore variations of loose short-sleeved shirts and pants that were loose at the ankles, calling over the tops of flat-toed boots. More of them than not wore knives, swords, or axes at their belts. Winter was coming, and the flocks and herds in their care would need protecting from opportunistic wolves and hill bandits.

A cart was just then leaving to collect the bodies in the church from the night before, laden with shovels and pickaxes and workers who would bury them right there in the churchyard. Even more carts were stacked high with personal belongings, the passengers expecting to never return home. They would sooner try their luck in some other town than risk their skins to the monster that had breached the circle and tore apart those homesteaders.

Scrunge sold the golden trinkets from the church to the peddler for much, much less than they were worth, and Mahkell asked about roads and routes and pointed with the merchant at his parchment map until he had a good idea of where he needed to go next to get back on the road to his destination. The sorcerer thanked him for his help by buying a vial of mineral oil and a lump of boot wax.

Scrunge went off to spend his pittance, and Mahkell to board his horse. The sorcerer led Buckeye by the reigns down the busy earthen street. The tall, black draft horse drew some eyes, and Mahkell pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head, draping his face in shadow. He was halfway down the road, between a haberdashery painted in blues and greens and the whitewashed front of the general store advertising six-cent candles, when his eyes were drawn by the fluttering of canvas and the thrum of muttering onlookers.

On the side of the road opposite the stream, a recess in the walls of buildings gave way to a sort of courtyard, literally so in this case. The courthouse, a brick and timber structure with tall windows and a peaked roof that looked to be among the oldest in town, stood at the other end of the clearing. At this time of year spaces like this would be used for harvest gatherings and festivals, but today a group of white-robed men were hard at work erecting poles, tightening guidelines, and draping canvas. The only one of these robed figures not at work was an old man who sat hunched in a chair. A long beard fell from his gaunt face like a waterfall, tied at the end with a small cord. His robe had been pulled off of his shoulders and hung loose from his waist, exposing a tight but gaunt musculature, crisscrossed with old scars and bound about the chest with soiled bandages. An attendant changed the blood and sweat-soaked wrappings, tightening news ones about his chest. Even from this distance, Mackell could tell that the old man’s breathing was labored, not from age, but from pain.

A small crowd of people who had enough time in their day to gawk had gathered to talk amongst themselves in the lowered tone that only gossip lurks in. Their voices were stretched tight, strained by fear and sorrow and loss. Most of them, if not all, had lost friends and family in the blaze at the church. They mumbled about the fight, and the abbot, and how he was injured in the abbey by a bolt from a crossbow, but survived through the grace of God, or pure luck, or the workings of evil spirits. They passed whispers, details from the survivors, contradictory and jumbled. They wondered aloud if the statue could be fixed, if the magic was gone forever, which of them would be next, what manner of spirit or monster or ogre or ghoul had pierced the broken circle, whether they should leave town while they still had their lives.

They looked for reassurance in the company of neighbors, and found none.

With a tugging of ropes and a tightening of canvas, the monks finished their construction of the tent. The abbot, who Mackell knew from the gossip bore the name was “Scowler,” waved his attendant away and stood. Even hunched over and supported by a snarled staff, he struck an imposing figure, tall and slender and pale, like a whale bone on a long and desolate shore. The crowd quieted, as if waiting for him to speak, but he only turned and shuffled into the tent. The attendant picked up the chair and followed him in.

The muttering crowd dispersed as folks rejoined their routines. Before long, the sorcerer, wrapped in his green cloak and holding Buckeye’s reigns, stood alone. He chided the curiosity within him, reminded himself that he was on a journey and he should get back on the road, especially with the oncoming winter threatening to block up the mountain passes.

Then, he remembered the “blood” that the creature, that hare-footed and stag-horned monster, had left on his sword. He remembered what it meant. Without another thought of doubt, Mahkell told Buckeye to stay put and stepped into the tent.

The interior was dim, but not dark, the fabric thin enough to let through a rusty and pale sort of sunlight. This was just as well, as no candle or oil lamp or sconce burned to ward away the gloom. It seemed that this congregation had had enough of open flames.

A few scattered brown-robed monks straightened beams and fastened ropes inside. The abbot and his attendant moved between them like a ghost through graves, hobbling through them to a place at the back near a barrel whose placement suggested it was to serve as an altar. There, the attendant placed the chair and gently guided the abbot to sit.

Mahkell pulled the hood from his head. It would do no good to antagonize these men by covering his face in a house of worship. He unbuckled his sword from his waist and leaned it against the sturdy fabric of the tent before approaching the abbot

“Father,” he greeted, slightly bowing his head.

The abbot studied him with watery, sunken eyes. “Your face…” His voice was like sand in a sea wind, soft and coarse all at once. “It is one that is unfamiliar to me. You are not of the Narrows.” It was not a question.

“I am not,” said Mahkell. “I only arrived here this morning, at the abbey.”

The abbot cast down his eyes. “Then you have seen our desolation, the destruction by those who do not know God’s love.” He winced as the attendant wrapped another layer of cloth over the wound. It made a sickening squelching sound, like a sponge soaked in honey. “If they just listened, just heeded our warnings, our pleas, they would have known. They would have known that a tree which rots in its roots can only give putrid fruit, known nothing good could ever have come from pagan superstition.” At this last word his voice hardened and he practically spat it out.

Mahkell tried to keep his eyes from wandering to the oozing wound. “From what I heard, it was an abbey boy who told folks that he broke the circle.” He lowered his voice slightly. “People might be forgiven to think that ‘God’s Love’ was the matchstick in the barn fire, so to speak.” He thought on his words for a moment, then bowed his head. “Forgive me, that was an uncouth run of phrase, given the circumstances.”

If the abbot took offence, he didn’t show it. “The circle, those statues, they were false idols, their protection a dangerous illusion. Their purpose was only to lead people away from the light of God. There, and only there, true protection may be found.” He seemed to grow sad, his eyes and voice softening. “I do not approve of Godless practices, but I did not authorize anyone to destroy that idol. What those men did, they did against my judgement and without my knowledge. Things got… out of hand…” He hesitated, his mind far away, before he snapped back into the moment. “It saddened me to hear of the death of the Millwright family and the destruction of their home. It saddened me deeply. They were good people. But maybe this is what the men and women of the Narrows needed to see that salvation and peace can only be found in God’s embrace. Maybe this will be what it takes for them to let the past and its barbaric antiquities die.”

Mahkell nodded, not in agreement, but in acknowledgement. From the chatter outside, it didn’t seem that many people were eager to trust the judgment of God and his earthy representatives. “I heard that the boy who claimed credit for the vandalism was killed in the fight. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yes, and he wasn’t the only one.” The abbot looked about the room. “Less than half of my flock remains, and I don’t know which are dead and which are only missing, or if there’s even a difference. Among those who remain, I cannot find a single one who conspired with Petrus.”

“Petrus,” said the sorcerer. “Is that the name of the one who defaced the statue?”

“Yes,” replied the abbot. “His end was more violent than most.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head. “May his spirit be at peace.”

Mahkell bowed his head as well, and something caught his eye. As opposed to the low-rise cloister shoes donned by the other monks, the abbot wore boots, black and sturdy-looking, their toes marred by streaks of red clay. It was not the pale, dusty earth of the roads, but the ruddy, moist loam of a streambed rich in red iron. Mahkell could practically taste water and metal just by looking at it.

It was probably nothing. The abbot probably trod through a stream while running from the blaze, or slipped while fetching water, or went fishing, or any number of things what weren’t suspicious in the least.

Still…

Abbot Scowler’s brow furrowed. He looked Mahkell in the eye. “Forgive me, I forget myself in my grief. What is your name, my son, you who is so full of questions?”

“They call me Mahkell,” said the sorcerer. “I’m a traveler.”

“And are you a man of god, Mahkell?”

After a moment’s consideration, Mahkell chose honesty. “I can’t say I am, no.”

The abbot nodded slowly, as if expecting this response. “A shame,” he said. “Such an… inquisitive demeanor you have. It makes one wonder what you seek in all your questioning, if you are not of the Narrows and not of our heavenly order.”

“That’s just how I am,” said Mahkell, “how I have to be. I didn’t mean any disrespect. When you’re traveling as much as I am, you never know when some tiny detail can mean disaster if it goes unnoticed. A quieting of the birds, a scent on the wind.” He chuckled slightly and motioned towards the abbot’s boots, pretending to notice them for the first time. “A spot of mud on a boot. Catching crawdads, father?”

The abbot looked down at his boots and chuckled himself, a papery sound, like a wasp nest. “Yes, yes, in the creek just outside. Your eye is keen. Enjoy it. When you get to my age, it may not be so.”

“I’m a might older than I look, father.”

Mahkell turned at the sound of the tent flap being pulled aside as another figure entered. She wore a muddied gray-black cloak, and fear smoldered in her eyes. Her entrance was not a welcome one, it seemed. Every monk who saw her enter affixed a cold gaze upon her, and a broad-shouldered, bald-headed monk nearby straightened from where he was affixing a line in the corner floor and moved to confront her, but stopped as the abbot held a hand aloft.

“Let her enter,” he commanded. The bald monk nodded, but did not step away, shadowing her like a bodyguard as she approached where the abbot sat. Scowler faced Mahkell again. “I do apologize for cutting our conversation short, but I must attend to business. Thank you for bending an ear to an old man’s grieved ramblings.”

Mahkell bowed. “It was my pleasure. I give my best wishes to you and your flock.”

“And remember,” said the abbot, “a soul’s salvation can only be found in God’s forgiveness.”

“If I run into anyone with a soul, I’ll be sure to let them know.”

As he turned to go, Mahkell caught a look at the woman who had entered the tent. She was young, but already her face was showing the wear of many a hard day’s work in the sun. She looked like she had been crying. Her cloak, a heavy woolen fabric which seemed to hold her to the ground like a paperweight, was wrapped around her like a blanket on a cold night. Her hands stuck through the slit in front of her chest, cinching the two sides together like a clasp in white-knuckled grips. Dried blood peeked from under her fingernails.

Mahkell reaffixed his sword belt as he pulled the tent flap aside and stepped out into the street. Buckeye, ever loyal, had stayed right where he left her. He gave her a reassuring pat before grabbing her reigns and ambling down the road, looking for a stable. As he passed a spot where the homes and shops gave way to a view of the stream, he made a point to look down the short bank into the water. It was all gravel and round river rocks, from the edge to the water’s center, no red clay in sight.

An hour later the sun was high in the sky, and all remnants of the morning’s chill had been banished to the earth’s dark corners and deep places to patiently wait for nightfall. The main street of the Narrows no longer thrummed with traffic as everyone fell into their routine, though once in a while a wagon would roll by as another family made the decision to pack up and go. The abbot wanted to save this town from the occultism he feared so much, thought Mahkell, but another one of those attacks and there may not be much of a town to save.

After finding a stable to house Buckeye for the day and night, the sorcerer had carried a saddlebag and horse blanket up a hill on the north end of the narrows. With the towel laid out in the grass and a small fire in a circle of stones, it made for a cozy scene. A black iron pot the size of a fist and shaped like an urn boiled with something pale and viscous in the flame. Mahkell alternated between stoking the fire and watching the door of the church tent in the town below, a rhythm that was soon interrupted by the arrival of none other than Scrunge, who trudged defeatedly up the hill towards Mahkell. The coot wore no shirt nor shoes nor pants, and his shriveled manhood swung like a metronome.

Mahkell took a break from his lookout. “What happened?” he asked casually.

Scrunge shrugged, looking anywhere but the sorcerer’s eyes. “Dice not on my side today,” he mumbled. “Saw yer fire up here. Thought ya’ might have grub to share.”

The sorcerer uncorked the vial of mineral oil by his crossed legs and poured a dollop into the pot. Green smoke arose like a lace ribbon. “No food, only elixirs, draughts, potions. Your stomach wouldn’t take kindly to it.” He looked up at the old man, his pitiful frame and sad, ashamed eyes, and sighed. “There’s a spare set of clothes in the saddlebag, a couple apples, too.”

Scrunge mumbled a “thank you” and opened up the saddle bag. Before a minute was out he was dressed in a pair of felt trousers that were a size too big and a white shirt that cinched at the middle. He took one of the two apples Mahkell had bought for Buckeye and bit into it with ravenous zeal. Mahkell continued his vigil, watching the town below.

“What’cha looking at?” asked Scrunge between bites of apple.

“I’m waiting to spot someone,” answered Mahkell, “a woman in a black cloak. She’s been in that tent by the courthouse for a while.”

“She important?” The coot picked a piece of skin out of his teeth with a yellowed fingernail.

“Maybe.” Mahkell furrowed his brow, then turned to Scrunge. “Do you know where I might find red clay around here?”

Scrunge thought for a moment. “Up the mountain on Clunker’s Creek be the only spot I know of. I done go there sometimes to wash away from town. The mud stains my toes, it does.”

“Interesting.” The sorcerer took the pot off the fire with a bare hand and set it aside to cool in a small mound of loose dirt he had prepared beforehand. “Scrunge, may I ask you something?”

Scrunge swallowed his mouthful of apple. “If you don’t mind me answering.”

“What keeps you here?” asked Mahkell. “You don’t seem to own much other than the clothes on your back, and now not even that, and I’d wager no friends other than gambling buddies who would strip the cloth off your back, so what keeps you from leaving? Starting new somewhere else? You don’t look like you have a lot here.”

“Aye,” said Scrunge, looking at the ground, “but here’s all I got.”

“But does that not appeal to you?” Mahkell gestured to the estates on the hills across the river. “I mean these folks have reason to stay. They got families, land, all that stuff that ties you down and keeps you in place. Most of them will even stay as their world crumbles around them and monsters attack their neighbors in the night. Do you-”

“Of course it appeals to me!” snapped Scunge. He breathed deep, stuffing his frustration back within him. “Of course it do. Always has. I wasn’t born here or nothin’. Grew up in a city, I did, a shining gem where sea meets land.” Sadness tinged his voice. “It’s many-a mile from here. Don’t even know the direction. I done traveled all over. I seen things that few have seen. I done things that… that I would much like to do again. No, this isn’t where I’m from, it’s just where the dice hooked me.”

A silence passed between them. Even the fire seemed afraid to crackle. “I’m sorry,” said Mahkell, almost in a whisper. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean anything by it. It just pains me to see people this way.”

Scrunge shrugged lazily. “All’s forgiven, Mac. Truth be told, many are unhappier than I. I say the only thing sadder than a person nailed down is a person who has nothing to keep him in place, ya’ see?”

Mahkell felt a pang of heartache. It passed quickly. “I see.” He prodded a coal out of the flames with a stick, then back into it. “If it’s alright to ask, what took you on the road in the first place.”

“Aye, it’s alright.” Scrunge fiddled with the wisps of his scarce beard, remembering. “I… was a poet, or I wanted to be. Left home to find beauty, I did. Wanted to find truth, too. Think I found both, though it’s hard to say where. It’s all so… far away, now.”

“Do you remember any of your poems?”

The coot’s brow furrowed.

Emerald beech and aspen fair
Scents alight the morning air
Into damp and dark they seep
To waken me from my sleep
And upon my rousing find
To clear the cobwebs in my mind
A span of forest gold with light
No trace remain of the cold of night
And I breathe and breathe in deep
And ponder how and wonder meek
Betwixt the lands of here and there
Should I find a place called everywhere

Finished, Scrunge shuffled in place. “Went something like that, I reckon.”

Mahkell smiled, a good, honest, pure smile that one finds them doing only so often, one that makes a person’s eyes bright and lifts their heart as if it were connected by wire to the corners of their mouth. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

Scrunge chuckled. A faint blush shined from behind the wrinkles of his sun-worn skin. “Ah. It’s a work in progress is what it is.” Bashful and averting his eyes, he looked out over the town. Suddenly, his brow furrowed as his eyes honed in on something below. “Who did you say you was looking for?”

Mahkell realized he’s been so wrapped up in the conversation that he hadn’t glanced at the town in a fair few minutes. “Woman in a black dress. Dark hair.”

“That one down there?” Asked Scrunge. “The one in a hurry?”

At that moment the sorcerer saw her. She wasn’t running, but she sure wasn’t walking. With hurried steps she crossed the eastmost bridge, the one that Mahkell and Scrunge had crossed a few hours earlier, the one that led back towards what was left of the abbey, her hands wrapped around something small. She looked around nervously, head twitching side to side like a duck in a pond. If she was trying to be inconspicuous, she wasn’t doing a very good job. Mahkell couldn’t judge her. It’s a charmed life to live without fear, and all the better for her if she didn’t have the practice in secrecy that only a fearful life can give you.

“Shit.” Mahkell shot to his feet and kicked the fire out.

They hurriedly stuffed his alchemical supplies back into the saddlebag and wrapped it in the horse blanket before stowing it in a hidden place at the base of a gnarled oak where the roots had widened into a hollow. As they ran to catch up and keep the suspicious woman in their sight, Mahkell explained what he had seen in the abbot’s tent, the boots, the blood on the woman’s fingers, the coldness with which the other monks had treated her. Scrunge didn’t know what to think of it all, but agreed that something was going on, something more than the simple narrative of a monk overturning a statue and letting a monster into the circle. Too many things didn’t add up, and it wouldn’t take the folks of the Narrows long to figure that out, too.

The sorcerer didn’t tell Scrunge everything, though. What he knew about the creature’s “blood” he kept to himself. With luck, scrounge wouldn’t have to find out.

They tracked her up the road through the woods, the character of the forest changed by the dappled light shining through its yellowed and reddened leaves and the evergreen canopy of conifers. At first, the pursuers took care to appear like people traveling about their business. After all, the best way to trail someone is by making it look like you’re just going the same way irrespective of their own path. It was early in the afternoon, and there was plenty a reason why one may be on the road. Mahkell made small talk about things he’d seen on his travels, and Scrunge had tales to one-up nearly all of them.

Before long, she made a sharp off the main road and they followed her down a winding and narrow path. Her form became indistinct among the trees as Mahkell and Scrunge lagged far behind, ducking below low branches and parting curtains of hanging moss. The sorcerer wrapped himself in his cloak, becoming little more than a shadow among the trees, and when the woman looked back towards him she saw nothing but what she expected to see. When she would move forward again, he would motion Scrunge to come forward.

In time they lost sight of her, but they never lost her trail, and before long it led the two to a mill, old and broken down. All but one of the blades of the windcatcher had long ago snapped off and been reclaimed by the soil. The one remaining hung from the axle like the hand of a sad, broken clock. Evil-looking brambles with thorns the color of dark wine crept up the stone foundation and wound between wooden posts and boards. The scant wind bade each timber fixture to creak and rattle, sounds like small feet moving under floorboards. It was one of those dank, unknowable places that seemed to make the sky darken when you looked at it, and radiated a coldness that pierced the chest and clenched the heart in the grasp of an endless winter. It was one of those sleeping places that is best to take care not to wake.

Scrunge shrunk in the mill’s shadow. “Do we have to go in there?”

“I do,” said Mahkell. “Stay outside if you wish. I won’t be long.”

Scrunge looked around the palid shrubland that used to be a workyard and into the trees beyond, the dark between them. “Nay,” he said. “Best I be in yer company with that… thing about.”

The mill became no less horrible as they approached, but a flickering and sickly light shone around the edge of the square wooden door at its front, barely noticeable in the building’s shade. It was only when they were an arm’s reach from the door could they see the dark bloodstain streaked down the front. Mahkell pushed the door open. It creaked and squealed on its one remaining hinge. The sound reminded him of a rabbit caught in a snare, desperate and shrill.

A lone but bright candle cast a parliament of shadows which undulated on the mill’s walls. At first glance Mahkell found it hard to distinguish between the shadows and the room’s flesh-and-blood inhabitants. There were only two. Standing closest to him was the black-cloaked woman, her eyes wild and a knife held in both hands like a pistol pointed towards the intruder. On her far side, stretched out on a millstone in a way that could have made one think he had been dropped there from a great height, lay a pitiful figure draped from head to toe in soiled rags and bandages. His ragged breath mingled with the creaking of the ancient building.

Slowly, Mahkell unstrapped his sword from its spot on his waist, just as he did in the abbot’s tent, and leaned it against the doorframe. As he stepped forward, the woman in black thrusted her knife forward. Her arms trembled, as did her voice. “Stay where you are.” She steadied herself and repeated, her voice steadier now. “Stay where you are. I won’t let you have him.”

Scrunge peered in from over Mahkell’s shoulder. “Careful, Mac.”

“If that’s who I think it is,” said Mahkell, taking care to make his words soft, “then I only wish to speak to him, and to you, too.”

“We won’t be speaking no more,” the woman said. “He can’t. Not after what they did to him. Were you there last night? Did you see what they did to my Petrus?”

Mahkell shook his head. “I’m a traveler. I only arrived this morning.” He looked to the figure splayed out like a pinned insect upon the millstone. “Petrus. So that’s the monk, there.” The bandaged monk’s breath, like sharkskin scraping along granite, dripped from his mouth and hung in the air like dew. “I can’t believe he’s still alive at all. Even in this state it’s a miracle.” He looked towards the woman, lowering his voice slightly. “I don’t mean to be rude by asking, but-”

“Yes.” Her voice was calmer, though she still kept the blade raised. Her trembling hand betrayed her nerves. “We are lovers. Have been for a long time now.”

“The other monks and the abbot,” said Mahkell, “they don’t approve?”

“So what if they don’t?” she snapped. The wind blew, rattling the rafters above. She gestured to the door with her weapon. “Leave. Now. I do not wish to talk of this with you.”

Mahkell stepped forward, Scrunge wringing his papery old hands in worry behind him. “I only wish to...”

She thrust at him with her dagger. An unpracticed but quick strike, it pierced through the air like a whistling arrow towards the sorcerer’s heart. Time seemed to freeze. The blade halted as it struck resistance. The feint light of the candle glinted off the sweat on the woman’s face, and gleamed across the knife’s edges. Scrunge gawked in the corner, eyes wide. Slowly, she released her grip, leaving her weapon suspended in the air, the tip held by Mahkell’s thumb and forefinger.

“What’s your name?” He said, humorless and cold.

“Willow,” she stammered. “Willow Byers.”

“Willow,” said the sorcerer, who had not moved. “I must talk with Petrus. I will do so, then I will leave.” He held the dagger out in offering to the frightened woman. “You love him very much. Anyone could see that, and I’m sure he’s glad to have you here to protect and comfort him, but we are not your enemy.”

Willow timidly took the dagger and held it close. She said nothing, but stepped aside for Mahkell to pass. He moved across the floor like a specter hovering above a cemetery. The shadows seemed to grow deeper. “Have you given him anything?” asked Mahkell in an expressionless tone.

“A tincture,” said Willow. “The abbot made it. He said it would take away the pain.”

Petrus still looked very much in pain. Now that Mahkell was closer he could see the monk’s eyes peeking from behind the bandage cloth. They were bloodshot and lined with yellowed crust around the edges. His pupils moved erratically in small motions like a quivering leaf in an autumn breeze. Mahkell kneeled down so that Petrus’s head was nearly level with his own. “Petrus,” began the sorcerer, “I am here to help, but first I must know something.” His voice was like ice, ice that hung from windows and trees in deep winter and turned the whole world into something alien and sinister. “I need to know if you truly knocked over the stone in the clearing.”

Petrus said nothing, only staring up with those tortured eyes. It was Willow who broke the silence. “He already said he did.”

Mahkell looked stared down, waiting for an answer from the monk. None came. He took his hand and moved it over Petrus’s forehead. Heat radiated off of it like a fire had been built right between his eyebrows. “Scrunge,” said the sorcerer, “go find some cool water. Find something to put it in and bring it back. If you can’t find a bucket or bowl, soak some clothes.” Scrunge nodded and scurried out the door, glad to be out of that room of disease and death.

Mahkell scanned down the length of the monk. “Believe it or not, I’ve seen worse. Willow did a good job of keeping you alive. We will have to get you something for the infection, but-”

The monk’s voice was barely a wiper, but it cut through the air like a door creaking in a dark room at night. It was sharp like a rusty nail, and strained like a frayed rope keeping a desperate climber from falling to their death. “I just…” He took long pauses between phrases to breathe. “I wanted... to be important.”

Mahkell was stunned into silence, if only for a moment. He collected himself. “How do you mean?”

“I wanted to be… important.” He repeated.

Willow spoke up softly from the shadows. “You were important to me.” If Petrus’s voice was a creaking door, hers was a churchmouse.

Petrus continued. “Didn’t see the harm… a little lie… ain’t nothing… ain’t no harm…”

Mahkell made sure he was done talking before he spoke again. “So you didn’t knock over the statue?”

“No,” croaked the monk.

“Do you know who did?”

“No…” He raked in a breath that made his lungs shudder like an ill-fitting windowpane in an ice storm. “No one knew. Didn’t like… like me much. Looked at me funny. Me and Willow.” The bandages around his eyes had grown damp. “They didn’t… they didn’t know who done it. I wanted to…” He choked, swallowed, and tried to force the words out again. “A little lie… to make them like me…” Like an animated cadaver from a grave, he groped out with a blooded arm towards his lover. “I’m… sorry.”

Tenderly, Willow took Petrus’s hand and held it close, her face pale with sorrow. The shadows danced on the walls as they shared their last tender moment.

Petrus’s back suddenly arched, and a short breath hissed past his lips before it was cut short. Then, he began thrashing as if he were bound by invisible chains of hot iron that burned his flesh. His hand fell from Willow’s and contorted, twitching. Small chocking sounds bubbled up from his gullet. “Petrus?” pleaded Willow, panic rising in her voice. “Petrus! What’s wrong?”

A black liquid far too thick to be blood pooled in the monk’s mouth and trickled from one corner in a thin stream. He coughed, spewing the bile in an arc to splatter over the bandages on his chest. It leaked from his lips, his nostril, from the corners of his eyes. His eyeballs, wide and sightless, looked as if they could burst out at any second.

Mahkell shook himself from his shock and horror and grabbed Petrus by the head. He turned it to the side in an effort to let the black liquid drain, but the monk’s orifices were like a faucet. A dark pool grew on the floorboards like a hole opening up beneath the sorcerer’s feet. Rats and spiders and mice living in the space between the boards and the earth fled out into the open air. Those that were too slow stiffened and died.

Petrus thrashed in Mahkell’s arms. He arced his back, screamed a silent, breathless, deafening scream. The world fell still and noiseless around them. Then, Petrus slumped, to move no more.

Scrunge was just coming back towards the mill carrying a rusty bucket full of water when Mahkell pushed the door open. Willow’s sobs briefly echoed out before he closed it behind him. Scrunge shifted on his feet, unsure of what to do with the water. Mahkell motioned for him to set it down.

“Is he…” croaked the old man.

“He’s dead.” Mahkell’s eyes were downcast in sorrow and contemplation. “The potion the abbot gave her. I had Willow show me the bottle. I recognized the smell.” He carefully buckled his sword back onto his belt, taking care to knot the loose length of its tail so that he would not step on it. “It was devilsand in oil. One spoonful of the stuff will swell a hundredfold if it touches water. It filled his lungs and suffocated him.” There was a flash in his eyes, an almost imperceivable furrowing of the brow. An edge of red-hot anger entered his voice. “He told her it was medicine.”

Timidly, Scrunge spoke. “Mayhap he were mad he broke that statue.”

“He didn’t.” Mahkell started walking away at a brisk, important pace. Scrunge followed at his heels.

“Well someone done it. Monster had to get in somehow.”

“Not if it was already inside when the circle was built.” The sorcerer rested his hand on his sword. It stirred in his sheath. “Show me where Clunker’s Creek is. We’re going to see what the abbot’s been up to.”

Clunker’s Creek could would have been more accurately described as a gully. Steep walls of red clay flanked the stream, which was only as wide as a man is tall at its widest points. The water carried the pigments of the clay, swirling into entrancing spirals in the pools and striping into flowing lines of strata in the riffles. The steep banks made it so the only way to travel up the creek was by navigating through the water, muddying their boots in the vibrant hues of the earth.

As Scrunge led Mahkell further and further upstream, it became terraced as the slope became steeper. They had to climb and scramble up rocks at points to reach the next shelf on which water pooled and ran off in short scarlet waterfalls.

Something else about the landscape changed, too. Unnatural things began to appear in the creek bed and embedded in the banks. What may have been mistaken at first glance as stones were revealed to be rusted hunks of iron, jagged lengths of pipe, bolts with their threads hidden by eons of corrosion. Mahkell tripped over what he had at first assumed to be a branch from the trees faintly visible above, but was in truth the exposed edge of an unseen structure buried in the clay.

“Ever been this far upstream before?” Mahkell hauled himself up and over the lip of a ledge. His hands had been stained a vibrant red by the trek. Scrunge was a fair few paces ahead. Despite his wiry, almost gaunt frame, he moved fast over uneven ground with practiced grace and efficiency. Mahkell was having a hard time keeping up with the old coot.

“Nay. Never,” said Scrunge. “Didn’t have no need to. Plenty of crawdads down low.” He looked up at the stream, which narrowed a short distance ahead. “What you expect to find up here?”

Mahkell straightened himself up. He had rolled his cloak into a tight bundle and stuffed it in the back of his belt to keep it from catching and tearing on the rocks. His sword and scabbard he had unbuckled from his hip and begun to carry in his hand. “I hope I know it when I see it.”

Scrunge nodded, but did not take his eyes from the view upstream. “I hope so, too.” He squinted and moved his head in a way that reminded Mahkell of an owl trying to size something up. “Cave,” he said finally. “Up there on the left.”

Mahkell peered upstream. Sure enough, a depression in the steep cliff face was just barely visible amid the rubble where two trees had fallen into the canyon. Even as far away as they were, it was apparent that it went deep, the dark of deep shadow seen through the debris. The two scrambled up the final stretch of the steepening stream, and soon stood before the cave entrance. It stood tall and round like a mouth frozen in the midst of a tortured scream. Red clay rimmed the opening where water had carried it over eons past, giving an impression of raw lips and bleeding gums.

“You don’t have to come with me,” said Mahkell. His voice was as heavy and serious as stone. “In fact, you probably shouldn’t. There are things I have been keeping from you, things I must keep from you, but I will tell you that beyond this threshold is only pain.” He swallowed and continued. “And if what I fear has happened has happened, then it can only be oblivion in the future of the Narrows. If you have any misgivings, I bid you to turn back now.”

They booth stood in silence, listening to the soft rush of the stream, staring into the dark. Sometimes, when one finds themself alone at night and fearing the dark, they may think themselves foolish and scold themselves for succumbing to such a childish fear. It did not feel foolish to fear this dark. This dark was not the mere absence of light, but the outright rejection of it. It was not the dark of a shuttered room or a buried grotto. It was the dark of the cold and indifferent eternities that separated the stars, and whose majesty and terror could only be glimpsed in pale and lesser impressions in the night skies.

The old man took a deep, contemplating breath. “All my long life I done took risks, but I’ve never been brave.” Steel entered his voice and his eyes hardened. “I want to live once more.”

Mahkell nodded. The two stepped forward and the cave swallowed them.

The dark was complete. Moving through it Mahkell could almost feel it pushing against him like a slurry, as if he were walking upon the sea floor. He lifted an unseen hand and snapped his fingers. At once, the dark was cast back. It did not withdraw instantaneously as the dark usually does when a light is struck, but rather scuttled back like a mass of spiders spread across the walls. A bright circle illuminated Mahkell and Scrunge, centered around a brilliant white flame dancing atop the sorcerer’s finger like a candle.

Scrunge gawked reverently, but stayed silent. They continued through the stone corridor. The floor was far too level to be natural, and before long the outlines of worn and faded tiles could be seen in the flame’s glow. The tunnel cut straight and unwavering through the earth. The silence weighted upon the travelers like a stifling quilt, but it was broken every so often by a soft clattering rumble which seemed deafening in the otherwise soundless voice. When this happened Mahkell and Scrunge would stop in their places, tense and staring into the dark, and wait for it to pass. The sound made Mahkell think of iron gates and heavy chains, churning machines and narrow walkways above bubbling vats. Every time it rang out, it was louder.

Almost as if it had jumped out at them, they came to a place where the tunnel opened up to a cavernous room. Mahkell’s witch’s light extended only a little ways in, but he could make out the gleam of metal in the dark, suggesting the hulking shapes of trolley cars sleeping upon their beds of rails.

They followed the wall off to their right, fearing that they would get lost among the clutter hidden in the dark if they were to venture into it. Before long they came to a short stairway made of metal with holes perforating it in a regular pattern. This led up to a balcony, also made of metal, which extended into the dark. A boxy structure on their right side jutted from the stone wall, and was also made of a strangely rust-free iron. A door was set in this structure, nearly flush with the wall. Torn, scorched metal betrayed the place where a latch once was, blown away by a blast of great force.

Mahkell pushed the door ajar, the creaking hinges swallowed by the silence. The irregular appearances of the far-off clanging and clattering was much louder now, and every instance made them both jump. He poked his head inside, scanned the dark, then exclaimed a soft, satisfied “Ah!” as he reached around the door frame and flipped a small switch. There was a sound like a great cat yowling in the mountains crossed with a swarm of angry hornets, and Scrunge beheld a wonderment beyond his dreams. The room beyond became instantly bathed in a bright and unwavering light, illuminated by a pair of rods spanning the length of the ceiling. From their blinding, white brightness they appeared as if they must have been so hot as to turn the small room into an oven, yet the damp cold of the cave air persisted. Any lamp or lantern or torch Scrunge had ever seen seemed pale and pitiful in comparison to these marvels.

Yet, Mahkell seemed unfazed. The sorcerer strutted into the room the moment it was lit, not even glancing at the ceiling.

Inside the room was a collection of items that appeared alien to Scrunge at first, made as they were from unfamiliar materials and expertly shaped metal, but as he timidly stepped in those shapes unraveled into more commonplace items: a desk, a chair, a set of shelves. The shelves were cluttered with bits and pieces of metal, organized by their shape and, the old coot assumed, their function. Spiderwebs covered every surface like a cloth covering a cadaver.

On the desk sat a boxy apparatus with a black square set in the front, taking up most of that side of the cube. Laid in front of it like a rug before an altar was another device, this one flat and filled with buttons displaying symbols on each of them. Scrunge recognized some of the symbols as letters, but others were unfamiliar to him. Mahkell pressed a button on the front of the box, and seemed mildly disappointed when nothing happened.

“We’ll have to go in further.” He peered out the doorway, into the black abyss and the behemoths within. The dark seemed full of crouching monsters.

Scrunge swallowed his fear. “What is this place?”

The doorway threw a long rectangular light into the cavern, its center dominated by the silhouette of the sorcerer. He seemed one with the dark, as if he could at any moment return to it and merge with the void like a drop of water slipping into a pond. “It is a relic.” His voice betrayed a mix of soft-spoken anger and reverence in equal measure. “A monument to hubris. It is an iron spike in the heart of the earth. Should all such foul temples fall to rubble and fill with sand.” He fidgeted his thumb over the pommel of his sword. “The spirit of this dingy hole has proved more resilient than most. Its dark has persisted while others have dissipated. I had hoped not to face one like it again…”

It was clear that there was more left unsaid, but Mahkell strutted into the dark. He lit his finger with the flame once again. Scrunge followed along.

The wall curved in as they followed it, Mahkell lighting the way and Scrunge following behind, hand tracing along the stone. They traveled in this way for what could have as easily been hours as it could have been minutes. Then, without warning, Mahkell halted.

“What?” Scrunge whispered.

“We’ve been noticed.” Mahkell scoured the dark with his eyes. The light in his hand grew no dimmer, but the circle of illumination it cast seemed to shrink back, as if the light itself were afraid. “Be ready to run.”

Though nothing had obviously changed, there was a sense that the dark was welling up in front of them like a wave building near a shore. It could not be seen with the eye, but rather felt in the raising of hair on the arms, the feeling of ice in the blood, the sudden awakening of that voice in the back of your mind that spies a snake hidden under a nearby stone and urges you to flee yet at once compels your feet to stupefied stillness.

The terrible rumbling sounded again. It seemed like the breath of a monstrous creature bearing down on their necks.

Scrunge waited for the moment Mahkell would tell him to run, the moment he would draw his sword and face this great dark mass with gleaming steel. No such moment came.

The sorcerer stood inhumanly still, and the old man was beside him in a hairpin state of statuesque petrification. The light shied back further. The dark moved around them, a mountain lion pacing before its prey, a chill in the air before a long and deadly winter. Mahkell, slow as he could possibly be, widened his stance slightly. His hand hovered staidly over his hilt. Leather creaked faintly as his sword stirred in its sheath, loyal and eager.

The light receded once more, a tiny island being swallowed by a rising dark tide. Mahkell lowered his chin, and his hand moved a hair closer to his weapon. Scrunge felt his petrification teetering on a needle’s point. Sweat saturated his shirt, and his breaths seemed loud as a bellows before a roaring furnace. Any moment he would break for it. It was not up to him. It was simply inevitable. When he did, he had no doubt he would be swallowed up by that dark. It would strip his bones and rend his soul so that no part of him would ever see the sun again. It would destroy and devour him completely. The light flickered and wavered. Scrunge felt a scream welling up in his chest like hot blood in his lungs.

The dark receded. The circle of light expanded to where it had been moments prior. The clattering sounds rang out again, further away this time, mercifully so.

Mahkell stood still a moment longer before beginning his stride again. “Let’s move. We won’t be that lucky a second time.”

“What was that?” whispered Scrunge, voice trembling.

“It has no name,” answered Mahkell.

They hurried along, their pace quickened by fear, and soon came to a place where the wall gave way to a tunnel like the one they had passed through before. Mahkell ducked into it, Scrunge on his heels. It was short, only a few paces deep, and a door sat at the end. It, like most everything in this ancient and strange place, was metal. It hung open, the latch broken.

Stepping through, Mahkell found another switch on the wall. Flicking it brought light to the room, but it was not so complete as the other switch they had found. The ceiling was much higher, the room much larger, and only one of the three rods along the ceiling flickered on. The light it gave off sputtered, and the rod hummed eerily. Now that the room was illuminated, what Scrunge saw made him almost prefer the dark.

The room was larger than any single building in the Crossing. The ruddy iron walls, dripping with rust where groundwater had seeped between the metal panels, stretched out and away from the door like a wide and imposing hallway. Along one wall, tall silos of fluted steel stood to the ceiling like a row of ancient trees, pipes tangled between them and stretching up to the ceiling like a canopy of branches. The pipes ran along the ceiling, organizing themselves into rows to trace down the opposite wall. There, they split again and connected to what Scgrunge could only compare to tables or cots of some kind. They were shaped roughly like beds, only like everything else here they were metal. They each had something laying on them.

On each table, surrounded by a cadre instruments and machines, lay an emaciated, inhuman thing.

Their torsos seemed human enough, only covered with a thick coat of matted brown fur. On each side two arms lay, much too long. Their hands, laying with their palms up, each had three fingers and a thumb, all slender and claw-like. Their haunches and feet were like hares, as were their heads. Long snouts bristling with whiskers pointed to the sky. Their black, unseeing eyes probably looked no less dead in life than they did now. Their heads were topped with two ears like boat oars, and crowned by a set of antlers, far sharper and more vicious than the ones that grew on any elk or deer or caribou.

They were in various states of decay. Some lacked eyes. Some displayed their ribs beneath curtains of eroded flesh. All were still as statues.

Only one table lacked a cadaver. Mahkell approached it, looking around. The devices surrounding the empty cot, each on the end of a long, many-jointed metal arm, lacked the cobwebs and dust the others were covered in.

“What has the Abbot been up to?” whispered Scrunge, fearing that he already knew.

Mahkell reached out and pivoted one of the instruments, which he knew to be an electric drill, on its perch. The rusty sound of the hinges echoed off the hard, metal walls. A drop of water fell on his shoulder from above. The sorcerer looked at the wet spot on his sleeve, then up into the tangle of piping above. In a moment his sword was in his hand.

Hidden in the dark recesses between the pipes, a pair of hateful eyes smoldered like coals in a dying fire. They belonged to a crouching figure, identical to the ones laid out like autopsy subjects below, though this one was very much alive. Strings of saliva dripped from its toothy jaws. Whiskers on either size of the muzzle flicked and flittered quizzically. It squatted on a beam like a child inspecting an insect they had found under a rock, and would soon kill.

A raw gash arced across its chest, clotted with red-black blood.

It leapt from its perch and fell towards Mahkell, who stepped back out of the way at the last moment and cut upwards, sword held in both hands. It landed just as the beast crashed to the floor, denting the metal ground. There was a sharp ring of metal and a flash of brilliant sparks as the blade struck the creature’s antlers. It dashed forward and swiped wildly with its claws. Mahkell fell back, bringing his sword up just in time to save himself from disembowelment.

Scrunge, frightened into a stupefied daze, backed into the wall of silos and pipes and valves, his mind afloat on a rolling sea of panic and terror, struggling to keep its head above water. Eyes wide and mouth agape, he helplessly watched the creature put Mahkell on the back foot. The sorcerer parried each incoming blow with expert precision, and cut back when the opportunity presented itself, but each deflection was a hair slower than the last, each clash of claw on steel displacing his blade a little more. Before long one of those wild swipes would get though. Then, after Mahkell had been disposed of, Scrunge would likewise die in shame and anguish. His heart felt like it had stopped stone dead in his chest. He knew with grave certainty that his final moment was fast approaching.

Except if he ran. Then he might have a chance.

Scrunge looked towards the door. If he were to dash through and follow the path out the same way they had come in, he might just make it. He wasn’t fast, but if Mahkell could keep that thing busy for long enough…

Mahkell struck at the creature. Gleaming steel arced though the air. The honed edge whistled. The cut was good and true, seeking its target like a well-aimed arrow.

The creature caught the blade mid-swing.

Mahkell’s eyes went wide. Red-black blood dripped down his sword. The creature could not grin. Its mouth muscles were not able to take on the right shapes. If it could, it would have then.

The beast wrenched away his sword. It skittered and clattered across the ground and crashed to a halt against a silo. Seeing no other way, Mahkell closed the distance, rushing into the creature’s body and grabbing handfuls of fur. Magic flowed within the sorcerer, and fur smoldered and blackened where his fingers dug in.

The creature screamed and bucked forward. Strong as Mahkell was, and he was stronger than most, he was thrown back against one of the beds. Rotten meat and crumbling bones pillowed his fall as he collided with a dead monster. The bed rattled under the impact, and underneath ancient machinery churned to life.

Breath like steam from an engine washed over Mahkell as the beast loomed over him. He scrambled to his feet, but was thrown to the side again as a clawed hand slammed against the side of his head. It didn’t draw blood, but Mahkell could feel his skull rattle.

Mahkell waited for the final blow to come, but instead heard a sound, frail, fragile, and very frightened, from across the room.

“Ey! Ugly!”

The creature whipped around. Scrunge stood on trembling legs, holding the sorcerer’s sword at the end of his outstretched arms. Its tip was pointed directly out at the creature, and it shook as much as his voice. “Warning you! Keep your hands off him!” His speech was high and crackly, betraying his fear and uncertainty, but most of all his courage.

Everything was still for a moment as the creature regarded the small old man. A moment was enough.

Quick as a striking serpent, Mahkell leapt up and looped his arm around the creature’s neck from behind so that its head was on his shoulder like a bag of grain. His sight was full of its harrowing pointed antlers. The moment his feet hit the ground again, he bent the creature’s back like a tree in a gale and wrenched his body forward, throwing the whole of the monster over his shoulder to fall on top of its decaying kin. The body squelched, liquefied meat oozing from under the creature’s prone figure.

It was not dazed for long. It scrambled to try and get itself onto all fours, but its paws slipped on the slick viscera coating the table.

“My sword!” Called Mahkell.

Scrunge threw the sword with all his strength. Everything seemed to slow as it spun through the air.

The creature righted itself and screamed its terrible scream. Its red eyes blazed with rage. Saliva rained down on Mahkell. Its lips moved in unnatural undulations as it started bellowing “KILL! KILL! KILL YOU!” in a guttural, bubbling voice that was as far from human as possible.

Mahkell caught his sword. It thrummed exaltingly under the grip of its master. Then, in one graceful swing, he cut the creature’s head free of its body.

Silence fell over the hall as the roars of the monster echoed and faded away.

The monster’s head rolled to the floor, trailing a ragged line of red-black fluid. Its eyes bulged, thrashing as if they were being boiled out from within, then fell still. The body slumped across the bed.

“Christ alive.” Scrunge was talking very rapidly, adrenaline still coursing within him. “What was that?”

Mahkell stuck the point of his sword in the bleeding stump of the creature’s neck, nudging aside flesh and viscera until a metal joint, cut through at the top, gleamed within the gore. “It’s an automaton,” he said. “All of them are. Machines in the shapes of monsters. It may be hidden under tissue and faux-muscle, but at their cores all of them are but steel and hydraulic fluid.” Such a fluid still dripped from the point of his sword, black and red. “Smart enough to follow orders. Fast enough to chase down a man on horseback.”

“Strong enough to lift and toss a boulder,” whispered Scrunge.

Mahkell nodded. The monster had not entered the circle after it had been broken. It was already inside the circle, and had destroyed the statue itself.

“Why would anyone make something like this?”

“First to ease their lives…” Mahkell stood and peered over the row of comatose, hare-headed creatures. “Then, to end the lives of others. They joined metal to flesh and used magic to fill in the gaps, and in the end it destroyed them. In a just world, this place would have stayed buried.”

The headless carcass of the monster shifted and stirred. Mahkell jumped back, sword held high, but the corpse did not stand. It shuffled like a rug thrown over sleeping drunk. Mahkell cut into its metal spine, to no effect. He was lifting his blade to hack at the monster again, when the Scrunge’s panicked voice caught his attention.

“Mac? They’re getting up, Mac!”

Mahkell looked up and froze, not quite believing what he was seeing. All down the row of tables, the dead were waking. Half-finished, decomposing, pieces falling away like wax off a candle, they rose from their eternal beds and fell just as quickly as their legs collapsed under them, dragging themselves across the floor like lepers, leaving trails of thick viscera, pink and yellow and gray. Their eyes, blind and white and leaking a clear fluid, they searched with slow, grasping claws. Their breaths came in shuddering grasps from collapsed lungs. Motors whined and metal creaked softly within them. Before long, the room was awash with the hobbling, feeble forms of the hare-creatures, clawing, rotting, searching.

Scrunge and Mahkell made themselves scarce.

The journey back through the tunnel was tense, but uneventful, and when they reached the canyon again the sky was dark with the soft shades of twilight. Mahkell lifted a log that had fallen from the forest above and used it to barricade the opening, then stacked another on top of it to complete the seal. He did this sorrowfully, and without comment.

They walked back the length of the canyon and to the road in silence. It was dark by the time the two were approaching town. Only then did Scrunge speak up.

“What’re we gonna do?” he said, trailing behind the dark silhouette of the Sorcerer.

“I don’t know,” said Mahkell.

The night was filled with the rustling of trees and the quiet murmur of an early-winter’s wind, but as the lights of the Narrows came into view, another sound joined the symphony. Curses and shouts pierced the night. A steady thrum of exited tension emanated from a crowd gathered in front of the town hall, where the abbot’s herd had erected their tent.

It was, in actuality, two crowds, each facing the other. The abbot’s congregation gathered in a mass around the front opening of their tent. Robed and hooded monks mingled with townsfolk who had thrown their lot in with the church, the faithful, the true believers. Some were armed with swords or clubs, others with farming tools or knives. They Flanked the abbot like bodyguards. Surrounding them was a crowd twice the size, similarly armed. They bristled with rusty iron and barely-contained anger. The frenzy sparked by the fight and the fire the night before was growing to a fever pitch. Everyone was scared and lost and looking for answers. The pious ones surrounding the abbot hurled insults and professed the light of the church, and received vitriol in kind.

The abbot’s voice rang like a bell above the din. He stood on a stool so that he stuck out from the people around him from the waist up. “Brothers! Sisters! Do you not see the chaos you bring upon yourselves? Lay down your arms and repent!” His voice was strong but with an edge of pleading. The abbot barely had the conversation under control, and he knew it. “Last night’s events were a woeful tragedy. Let us not revisit that pain tonight as well.”

“We want you out, padre!” screamed a hairy man with a thick coastal accent and a flat cap hat sitting crooked on his head. He gestured with a broken table leg held like a cudgel. “You’re no good for us!”

“I am the greatest good you have!” called back the abbot. “Do you not recall the family torn to shreds just two days ago when your primitive superstitions failed to protect them?”

“The circle worked just fine,” yelled a woman with freckles and pair of stained overalls. “Kept us safe since forever, until one of your fellows thought he knew better!”

At this the mob erupted into a chorus of renewed shouting.

“Where is the fucker?”

“Hiding in that tent, I bet!”

“String them up! String them up and watch them swing!”

“Blood is on your hands! My son’s blood is on your hands!”

The abbot’s ramshackle bodyguards tightened their circle around him while he stuttered and tried to regain what little control he had. “The fact remains! The fact remains that the light of our lord is the only true protection we have from the dark that surrounds us! From the beast in the night! From the hatred in our hearts! That fact remains!” His sweat glistened in the light of the torches of the crowd. “Who among us can truly say what happened, anyway? Who among us will dare to cast the first stone?”

“I will.”

Mahkell’s voice was not loud, but it was strong as steel and clear as the purest ice, truly the voice of a sorcerer. At those two words, the crowd quieted. All heads turned to the two newcomers. Mahkell stood in the dark at the edge of the torchlight. His cloak flickered about him in the night breeze.

Scrunge stood beside him, back straight, unafraid, unshrinking.

“At least, I can guess what happened,” said Mahkell.

The sorcerer began to strut forward. The fall of his boots seemed thunderous in the sudden quiet. The crowd parted before him, clearing a path towards the abbot and his entourage.

“You,” said the abbot, his voice like a stone dropping onto the earth. “I should have known you would be a thorn in the side of righteousness, nosing around where it’s none of your business. Out with it, boy. What slanderous accusation have you come to lay before me?”

Mahkell stopped before the abbot’s flock. “Your guilt is evident in every word, father. You fear that I may know the truth.”

“You don’t know the first thing about truth,” spit the abbot.

“Been up to Clunker’s Creek recently, father?”

The abbot’s eyes hardened, but he remained silent.

“Before your abbey, before the narrows, before the rise of any extant nation, a dark seed was already planted in the recesses beneath these hills. I don’t know how you found it, but you found it, and you figured out how it worked. You entered those caverns and you found a monster, a monster that you taught to answer to you.” Mahkell chuckled humorlessly. “It must have been hard. It must have been damn hard to figure out how to get those old machines running again, but you did it. You figured it out and you brought that monster to life and you taught it to hate and kill and destroy and fear the light, everything a good little demon needs to know.”

“What’s he saying?” said someone in the mob.

Mahkell looked at the source of the voice, who he recognized as Willow. Her eyes were still red from tears, and she clutched her dagger in front of her chest.

“Scowler created the beast to terrorize the narrows. Through old and powerful magic, he created a perfect monster to stoke your fears. It broke the circle and slaughtered that family. The abbot wanted to show that the circle, your pagan magic, would not protect you, so he created a threat from within to destroy the statue and sow chaos. Then, he would sweep in and bring you all to the side of his god. He would offer you salvation, peace, safety.”

Mahkell reaffixed his gaze on the abbot. “But it didn’t go to plan, did it? Petrus wasn’t in on it, and he controlled the narrative before you had a chance to. He wanted to show his devotion, needed it, so when a symbol of pagan magic came up destroyed, he took the credit. His story didn’t hold water, but it didn’t need to. It was enough to give people something to blame. Petrus may have been a fool, but in the breaking of the circle he was blameless. Nonetheless, him running his mouth turned your tight little scheme into a monster itself, out of control, until it ended in your abbey destroyed and your good reputation shattered.

The sorcerer allowed a tinge of anger to enter his words. “In the end I guess you got your revenge, though. Devilsand. Very expensive poison. Can’t help but wonder why you kept it handy.”

A heartbeat passed in silence.

“Do you have any proof of these ridiculous claims?” said the abbot, expressionless.

“I have a witness,” said Mahkell, motioning Scrunge to step forward.

The old man did so with a confident stride. “I seen what he says. Tunnels below the earth, monsters half-finished, the way the statue been tossed. I reckon it’s all true.”

“And my Petrus!” came Willow’s voice from the crowd. “He confessed it before the potion the abbot gave me killed him.”

Agitated murmurs pulsed through the crowd. The abbot scoffed. “Are we supposed to take these two on their credit? A drunk and a temptress?”

“Never known Scrunge to lie,” said a member of the abbot’s congregation timidly. He was young and dressed nicer than most, with a smart coat and a clean bandana. “What makes him such a bad gambler. Always been good on his debts, too.” The crowd muttered in agreement.

“And Willow was as faithful as a partner as any can ask for,” said Mahkell. “She stayed by Petrus’s side, broken as he was, until the abbot’s poison took him.”

“Where is the monster now?” called out an older woman with dark, curly hair. “Is it safe to be out in the dark like this?”

“The monster is dead,” said Mahkell. “We killed it, but no, you’re not safe.”

Dead silence.

“The monster was only a part of what Scowler awoke underground. It’s not just a place. It’s a siphon. Once those engines restarted, the Narrows was doomed. Within a year, the water will be undrinkable. Within two, livestock will choke on their own blood and birth offspring without skin. Within a lifetime, everything within a day’s journey of here will be infested with such creatures as to make these last few days seem like a pleasant daydream. It will be hell brought to earth, a wasteland of barren soil and ash and miasma.” The sorcerer sighed. “It’s old magic, terrible magic. It’s how those who created it perished, and it took millennia for the earth to heal itself before the abbot came along the repeat their folly.”

Even the wind quieted. Torches flickered, the sky starless in their glow. “The Narrows is already dead. Now it will only rot. You will all have to leave. I hoped it would be different, I really did. I’m sorry.”

There was a moment more of stillness, then the abbot burst into a renewed frenzy. “You can’t actually believe this, can you? You simple, feckless folk can’t actually be believing this.” He wrung his hands as he orated, their knucklebones straining under his skin. “You don’t know. You can’t imagine the things I’ve done to keep this town safe. You can’t imagine the things I’ve seen. Men eating the flesh of their kin. Babies howling atop bonfires, their skin carved with bloody sigils. I’ve seen it! I’ve seen what pagan superstition can lead to! If God had not found me then I would have been lost, lost like my home was lost, my family, my friends. I couldn’t let the Narrows forsake the light of salvation, too. I could not let blasphemous idolatry turn my neighbors into monsters again!”

“I only see one monster here,” said Mahkell.

Scowler grimaced. “Enough of this.” He stepped down from his stool and yanked a sword from the hip of one of his guards. “If the word of God can not win this day, then his strength must.”

The abbot leapt forward, his sword cleaving down towards the sorcerer’s head. Mahkell stepped back with one foot and pulled his own sword from his scabbard, catching the abbot’s weapon before his own blade had even cleared the sheath.

Mahkell thrust out his other hand, and filled the abbot’s face with white-orange sparks. Scowler screamed and dropped his sword, burying his head in his hands.

No one came to his aid, even as he sank to his knees, his screams tapering into sobs.

Mahkell lay his sword back in its sheath. “Do what you will with him. It’s time I get back on the road.” He turned to go, but stopped when Scrunge spoke up.

“Then what?” he said. “Where will we go? What will we do?”

“You’ll live,” said the sorcerer. “You may not live here, but you’ll live. Wait out the winter here if you must, but then leave as fast and as far as you can, and tell your children what’s buried is buried for a reason.”

Scrunge nodded sadly, but then his eyes shot wide. “Look out, Mac!”

Mahkell spun to see the abbot, his face a mask of rage, eyes watering, teeth bared like a boar, charging with his sword held high. This time he wasn’t fast enough. Mahkell had only enough time to place his hand on his hilt when Scowler’s blade bit into his right arm halfway between the elbow and wrist. Mahkell cursed and jumped back, clutching his wounded limb.

Fluid seeped from between his fingers, black and red.

His arm jittered, convulsed, sputtered. Motors whirred and gears grinded within.

Mahkell looked up to see the abbot, Scrunge, everyone backing away from him, horror on their faces. Even to those who had never seen the monsters in the tunnels, it was clear that the sorcerer was something other than human.

“He warned me about you,” said the abbot, eyes wide in amazement. “He who was so knowledgeable of the old machines. He of the black boots. He warned me there was another like him.”

Mahkell had no time to think about this. “Get away!” he called. “I can’t-“

He lost control of the limb and the magic coursing within. Flames shot from his fingertips, engulfing Scowler in a ball of fire.

The abbot staggered back, howling in pain, burning like a wicker man. People in the crowd screamed and scattered. Some fell and were trampled under the feet of the panicked mass. Scowler’s inhuman howls faded as he fell backwards into the entrance of his tent. The dry canvas caught fire quickly, and the flames spread like blood across silk. Some tried to gather water from the stream to douse it, but it was already far too late. Fire licked at the windows of the town hall, then spread from timber building to timber building until the Narrows was alight.

Of the Narrows there is no more to say.

Some hours later, in a field a short distance away, Buckeye ran from the plume of smoke rising into the night sky. Her fur reeked of the blaze, but she was unharmed save a couple scratches.

She ran through the grass, leaving a trampled trail, but stopped when she heard a familiar sound, her ears perking up. She turned and sprinted towards its source, crashing into the treeline, breaking, searching in the dark. There, she found Mahkell. He slumped against a tree, right arm dangling limp. In his wound had stopped bleeding, and metal gleamed with the faint light of the half-moon. His saddlebags lay by his feet.

Seeing Buckeye, he smiled weakly and cupped her muzzle in his hands. He pressed his forehead into her snout and stroked her fur to calm her.

Then, he hauled his bags onto Buckeye’s back with one hand and mounted the saddle, and with that they rode off into the dark, dark night. The sorcerer did not look back.