Aslauga, The World Tree

The Province of Vinterlund

The Jördlands

 

Later That Evening…

 

Standing at ten-feet-tall once again, Aslauga watched on as her subjects worked around her—talking amongst themselves as they did so—to tend to and clean what they could of the wreckage and debris in the woods where the Blood Knight had been chased off.

As the sun descended, and twilight had properly set in, Aslauga struggled to stay standing properly. The fight from the previous day had taken more of her energy than she had thought, and her legs were swaying and stumble, against her will. The more rational part of her mind wanted her to retreat to her tree and rest. However, there was no telling if the Blood Knight or his thralls would return while her people were tending to the area, as per her commands. And so, she stayed with her people, just beyond the borders of their home and did her best to not show the strain that she was under.

“Milady?” came Ingrid’s soft whisper. “Are you sure you’re alright? You seem a little…well…tipsy, milady. Shall I tell them to fetch a throne?”

Aslauga sighed. As much as she enjoyed her handmaiden’s service, she had long since been irked because there was little that escaped her gaze. “No…no that’s fine, Ingrid. I’m fine. Thank you anyway. Yes, I’m sure.”

In truth, this moment of weakness was more chronic than most knew. Part of this was due to age—she was, after all, several thousands of years old…but there was more to it than that too, and she silently cursed the Fae of the previous Age for whatever illness it was that they had inflicted upon her so long ago.

“My Queen,” came one Lundi woman’s voice. “There’s a cave nearby that I think you should have a closer look at.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“There are several strange large vines blocking the mouth of it—vines I’ve never seen in the area before. But I tried having a look through the gaps of the vine and…I think I saw it. The coffin that the others said was on the black coach. It was dark in there, but I think I saw it.”

“Show me.” Said Aslauga. “Lead the way.”

As the entourage went to follow the the woman, Aslauga took a step forward herself, and the world spun—not terribly so, but enough for her to nearly lose her balance and wobble uncomfortably once again.

Finally—and a little grudgingly—Aslauga quickly whispered to Ingrid, shrinking down to match her height and haphazardly grabbing her arm. “Wait…help me, please.”

Her handmaiden quickly looked her over and said, “Of course.” Then Ingrid placed her arm under the Dryad Queen’s fur coat as subtly as possible and held her side as Aslauga gently leaned on her as they followed the crowd onward.

 

*

 

When they reached the blocked cave in question, Aslauga told the crowd to stay far back as she, Ingrid, and one of the Lundis approached the mass of roots that were blocking the mouth of the cave. The roots were so large, in fact, that they almost looked like tree trunks in themselves—tree trunks with hundreds of large, razor-sharp thorns.

Aslauga waved her hand, silently commanding the roots to recede back into the earth…but they barely moved. There was a defiance in them that surprised her—a resentment towards her that was very much unfamiliar within her realm.

On her second attempt, Aslauga put more force into her command, and slowly the roots untangled themselves, revealing the strange contents inside: contained within the large cave was a strange looking, make-shift graveyard. There were several gravestones that were all huddled close to each other, as if the whole thing was one mass grave site, and the gravestones themselves were just someone’s sloppy attempt to note who was buried there.

She couldn’t afford to spend much time to dwell on that matter. What really drew her attention was the item that the woman had told her about. The crimson coffin stood on the back wall of the cave, like she had mentioned, behind all the tombstones.

“Is that it then?” asked Ingrid. “Is that…is that a vampire in there?”

“It certainly looks like it,” said the Lundi woman with them. “I don’t know who else would be in there.”

“Something’s not right, though.” Said Aslauga. “If the vampire that was lying inside of that coffin was in fact their leader and is still in there…why would the Knight leave them alone? Why would the vampire allow the Knight to leave them alone? Alone and very much unprotected, no less.” Surely they knew a few roots wouldn’t get in my way, Aslauga thought to herself.

Aslauga made a move to step into the cave before Ingrid pulled back on her.

“No, you mustn’t!” Ingrid hissed. “We don’t know what other defences they might have set up to protect this cave. We don’t even know whose graves these are!”

That was when Aslauga heard the whispering. It was like a leaf blowing on the wind, travelling all around and in-between the three of them.

“Do you hear that?” Ingrid asked. “What is it? Where’s that voice coming from? What’s it saying?

The Lundi shrugged. “I dunno. I can’t make heads or tails of it. It’s…it’s…”

“It’s Gibberish.” Aslauga turned back to the crimson coffin and separated herself from her handmaiden’s grip, willing her hands to extend into massive claws of bark once again.

Seemingly in response to her battle stance, the wind picked up, and the whispering became an angry chanting. There was no mistaking it now: the incantation that was on the wind was coming straight from the coffin itself. Soon, the ground rumbled, and the tombstones trembled where they stood.

A withered, skeletal hand burst out of the earth in front of one tombstone—twitching and clawing out at the air as it worked clumsily to dig the rest of its body out of the ground. Another more skeletal hand burst out in front of another grave, then another, then another. Within seconds there were five rotting, putrid, undead thralls shuffling towards them in tattered armour and clothes, and even then the earth still shuddered as if it were still ready to regurgitate another corpse or two.

“Get out!” Aslauga said to the other two. “Get out and keep the others back! Tell our fighters to send the defenceless back to my tree and to ready themselves for battle!”

Aslauga covered the other two’s retreat by hacking away at the corpses with her massive bark claws. As she re-morphed her cloak of man-eating tree fur back into her battle armour, the corpses found back by slashing at her with the swords and axes that had magically risen out of the earth alongside them.

Once they were clear of the cave’s mouth, Aslauga quickly called upon the roots that she had dismissed earlier and commanded them to rise once more to keep the undead in the cave.

“My Queen,” one warden had run up to her just as the roots had settled into place. “Your citizens are on their way back to your tree, as you commanded. What’s your plan for—”

A large THUD came from the other side of the wall of roots, then another THUD, then another, and another still. With an inhuman roar and an explosion on par with a barrel of whale oil that was lit aflame, the roots were shattered and burst out in all directions. It happened so fast that Aslauga had no time to put up a defensive barrier. As a result, the flying, thorny logs and other pits of wood hit several of the wardens, with some men being knocked out cold after being hit in the head. And just like that, Aslauga’s already unprepared fighting force was reduced to less than a handful of souls.

An enormous mass of a creature shuffled its way out of the cave with a mighty roar. The unholy creature rose to be fifteen feet tall, it had a body of a giant man made of worm-filled soil and rotten flesh, protruding out of its back were several of the tombstones that were in the cave, and acting as the monstrosity’s head was a large statue of what Aslauga could only have guessed was the broken off head of a grinning, baby cherub statue that had black tear stains running down its face.

As the smaller corpses started shuffling out of the cave from behind the larger corpse golem, Aslauga turned to the wardens still standing and said, “Get the wounded to safety and—!”

Something hit Aslauga hard, knocking all the wind out of her and sending her flying backwards and tumbling into the snow. When she looked up, Aslauga gasped and had to force herself to push through the searing pain and leap out of the way of the corpse golem as it dive bombed the spot where she had landed. Aslauga put up a claw to shield her head from the dirt that flew from the resulting crater.

As it rose to its full height, Aslauga saw that the corpse golem now had chained to its back the red coffin which no doubt held the vampire necromancer and leader of this undead army. Aslauga couldn’t fathom the origin of the strange incantation the beast chanted while raising its hands and face to the sky, but its intent became clear almost immediately: an earthquake began as the ground seemed to spew up a mess of meat and bones that fizzed and sewed itself all together to form a beast that Aslauga had not seen in many an age. Then the beast roared at her, and the entire forest seemed to go still as the sound echoed through its boughs.

One warden still standing cursed at the thing, and then said, “My Lady, is that…is that what it looks like?”

“Yes.” Aslauga responded flatly. “It’s a dinosaur. A dead one. Gather up whoever’s left and prepare yourselves for battle.”

The warden nodded and then head off to help some of his wounded fellow warriors.

The army of undead, occupying more than half of the clearing, created a haunting spectacle as wisps of steam rose from the previously sealed cave. The air was thick with the stench of decay, and to Aslauga it seemed that there was a smirk chiselled onto the stone face of the corpse golem, one she decided in that moment she was going to wipe right off its face.

The world spun as the pain in Aslauga’s head pounded thunderously. With few options left, and upon seeing that all her remaining fighters were fully embattled by the corpses that were getting ever closer to backing them into a corner and hacking them to pieces, Aslauga turned back to the border of Vinterlund and screamed.

This was no average scream of helplessness. This was a bellow that boomed from her chest with the force of a hurricane. It was the howl that rivalled that of a dire-werewolf; it was the shriek of a murderous banshee, and the battle-cry of a hardened Jörd. When her bellowing was done, the forest echoed with its remnants, and within minutes, they answered her call.

From the forest came running many forest creatures, spirits, and monstrosities that were in the eternal service of the Dryad Queen. On each of their faces was a look of battle-ready ferocity as they seemingly materialized out of nowhere and jumped into the clearing to rally around their matron, causing the golem to stop dead in its tracks as more undead soldiers from the cave rallied behind it.

And as her reinforcements readied themselves for war, Aslauga cried out, “DRYADS! ANCIENT ONES! ENTS OF MY FORESTS! GUARDIANS OF OUR GROVES! Our lands have been tainted—our sacred home defiled! Charge onward to meet these foul foes, cut them down where they stand, and banish them back to their unholy graves from which they came!”

With a unified battle-cry, Aslauga’s army charged forwards as she struck the ground with her claws and called upon several man-eating trees to burst from the earth—spawned specifically to gobble up every walking corpse that stumbled too close to them.

With claws, talons, and weapons of ironglass, the dryads and woodland creatures defended themselves against the relentless onslaught of rotting flesh. Meanwhile, it was the ents of the forest that fought with the larger corpse golem—and its pet zombie dinosaur—alongside Aslauga. Such a large force was necessary for the one monster, as the golem had sprouted new arms—each as massive as the original two—and from all of its limbs it began hurling bolts of some unknown malignant curses that lit up the night and bathed them all in emerald green light. Smaller mouths formed all over the monster’s body too—each one howling, roaring, or spitting acidic goo on, however, got too close.

The moment an opening in the clashing appeared, Aslauga charged the beast and sunk her claws into its stolen flesh so that she could scale its mammoth-sized body. As the corpse golem roared and tried to reach at her with its many hands, Aslauga sunk her claws into its shoulders and poured all her might into flooding its body with her power of magic nullification. The magic that was binding all the stolen flesh together then unravelled, and one-by-one the limbs of the monster fell off to land on the snowy ground, each with a loud THUD.

Just as the beast was about to crumble, a spearhead pierced through Aslauga’s breastplate, sending a searing pain radiating through her chest. The forest was filled with her anguished screams as she took in the horrifying scene. The air grew heavy with the stench of decay as saw that the culprit was a skeleton, towering over the fallen body of one of her wardens. A tremendous fiery explosion abruptly halted Aslauga’s intention to command a dryad to pursue it. This explosion, triggered by a curse embedded in the spear, engulfed her, while the golem swiftly swatted her off its back with its last remaining limb.

Aslauga collided with the snowy ground for the umpteenth time and writhed in pain as the spear continued to pour fire into her veins. When she finally got to her feet, she broke the spear and pull it out of her body, only for another spearhead to be thrusted into her lower torso, creating a fresh wound of its own and pinned to a tree that was behind her. When she cried out and looked up to see who had served her this fresh agony, Aslauga was met with the eyeless skull of a dead woman. Only this one was different somehow.

Through the searing agony that was still engulfing her body and mind, Aslauga could just barely make out something ethereal about the corpse. There was something lingering within it that shouldn’t have been there. It was something dominating and assertive, something proud and enraged—it was a strange, venomous presence. That was when the corpse shocked Aslauga, and spoke.

“You…you are in my way!” hissed the ethereal voice through rotten lips.

“I know you…I recognize this presence.” Aslauga coughed. “I know what you are, you who would speak and fight through rotten flesh. You are the vampire that was in that coffin in the cave. I should have set you and your coffin ablaze the moment I laid eyes on you!”

“Yes…you should have. But then again, you turned out to be an incredibly dim-witted dryad.”

“I will never let you lay hands on my grove, or on the people who call it their home!”

“I do not want your grove, and I don’t give a fig about your stupid little villagers!” spat the corpse. “Just as long as they stay out of my way, they will live…and then what was stolen from me will be reclaimed.”

“I’ve taken nothing from you, abomination.” Aslauga spat back at it. Then she winced and gritted her teeth as the undead woman twisted the spear in her chest.

“The vampires—the ginger ones!” the voice bellowed. “Them and their grey elf companions. That is who you have stolen from me! I will take hold of them all and drag them back with me to the Dark Province!”

“AGH! …Why?! What is so important about…no, why am I bothering to ask? I will take the answers I need from you by force, mosquito!”

Aslauga placed both hands on the skull of the undead corpse, blocking the vampire’s presence from leaving it with her anti-magic. Then she thought through the pain, blocked out the thrashing and angry protesting of the corpse, and peered into the vampire’s mind.

Most of the images that flooded her mind were merely shadows—the Dark Province was literally a land that sunlight hadn’t touched in centuries. Something like dread washed over the Dryad Queen. It was coming off of the vampire in waves as she threw up mental block after mental block in a futile attempt to hide something from Aslauga.

But what are you hiding, monster? Aslauga thought to the vampire. What could be so important that—Aslauga gasped as she arrived at the answer in the vampire’s mind in a series of memories: a vampire king and queen handing the young vampire woman a large mug of crimson red blood. They were telling her something important—something secret.

It was the elves—their blood. That was the secret to the Blood Knight being able to walk around in sunlight. And the one in the coffin—the presence that Aslauga had trapped in the corpse. She wasn’t in the coffin because she was avoiding the sun; she was merely in there and letting her minions handle matters out of convenience. But she could also walk in the sunlight, and Elven blood was the key…lots of Elven blood. The blood of hundreds of elves per vampires. That was their secret. That was why the vampires were willing to hunt these elves down across the Greater Wilderness and even into the Jördlands…it was because they needed every drop of Elven blood that they could get, and there wasn’t enough of the elves in the Dark Province to begin with.

“So you’ll leave the Province.” Aslauga whispered aloud. “Soon you’ll all leave the Dark Province once you’ve run out. And then every unsuspecting elf in Tesardess…oh no.”

“NO!” screeched the corpse. “You weren’t supposed to know! You weren’t supposed to know that!”

The undead woman—egged on by the rage of the vampire’s presence—began ripping the spear out of Aslauga, reigniting it with hot blue flames, and then repeatedly began slashing at Aslauga. She even hacked off Aslauga’s massive clawed hands—each with one decisive CHOP.

And Aslauga was helpless to stop her. Completely drained by the fighting and her intrusion into the vampire’s mind, the Dryad Queen was barely hanging on by a thread.

At some point, someone had pulled the corpse off her, burned it to ash, and began trying to speak to her. When her vision cleared enough, she could finally make out the face of her last remaining Lundi.

“We’ve lost, milady!” the man said, with blood streaming from his mouth and countless other wounds. “We’re done fore, but you need to flee! Go back to your tree, tell Runolf what happened here and tell him to prepare for an attack! If they weren’t guarding the coffin, then they must be on their way to—ACK!”

The last thing that Aslauga saw before fading away was a whole, rotting fist bursting from the Lundi’s chest. And as her essence faded away and back to her tree, Aslauga wept over the loss of all her people who stayed behind to fight by her side, and over how all of her efforts to protect them and fend off their enemy was completely and entirely in vain.

 

*

 

Sylvi Narin

Drachenhold Prison

The Jördlands

 

“So that’s it then.” Said Krundy. “Drachenhold Prison…you see the guards, right?”

“Yeah, something’s not right.” Said Maja.

“Hold on!” Sylvi called out from the wagon. “I’ll come see in a minute!”

The section of the road they stopped on was on a cliff-side that was still a way off from the prison, and they had only gotten there about a few minutes ago. Over the past hour or so, Sylvi had been using the Sceptre of Clan Narin to try to magically view the inside of the prison, but something was blocking her. The only thing that her mind’s eye could see was a white blur—it was like she was stuck in the middle of a blizzard and couldn’t see anything through it. For some reason, the whole attempt had given her a terrible migraine by the time that she gave up, and her nose had started to bleed.

“Whoa. Are you alright?” Maja asked, as Sylvi finally hopped out of the back of the wagon.

“Yeah…I’m fine.” Sylvi massaged her temple. “I just tried to see if I could just find the prisoners on my own, but…something about this place is blocking my magic…something that wasn’t there before. What were you saying about the guards?”

“Some of them are dead—draugr…no…a lot of them are undead and shuffling around the place.” Said Krundy, his eyes still locked on the frozen structure.

Sylvi said nothing. For the first time, the frigid wind hit her hard, and the cold went down to her core. She wasn’t prepared for dealing with draugr—or any undead—but what choice did she have? They hadn’t come this far just to turn around.

As the night cloaked the tundra in its star-speckled shroud, Sylvi’s breath crystallized in the frigid air. Ahead, under the ethereal dance of the northern lights, a daunting structure emerged from the icy desolation. The prison, a monolith of stone and ice, stood as a chilling testament to desolation. Its walls, jagged and coated in a thick layer of frost, seemed to gnash like the teeth of a frozen beast against the howling wind. Even apart from the movement of the creatures guarding the prison, the eerie luminescence of the aurora borealis cast ghostly shadows across its facade, giving the illusion of otherworldly movement, as if the very stones were shifting restlessly. The wind, slicing through the barren landscape, carried a menacing whisper that seemed to echo the despair trapped within those icy ramparts. Each second that she stood there staring at the place only filled Sylvi’s heart with more and more dread—the prison’s foreboding presence a palpable force in the hauntingly beautiful wilderness.

“You see those runes carved into the walls of the prison? That could be what’s blocking your magic.” Said Krundy.

“But why didn’t that block the prisoners from contacting me in the Dreamwilds?” said Sylvi, turning to him.

“Maybe because you don’t need magic to get there. Not really.” Said Maja. “You just dream yourself there. Magic might help with controlling the dream, maybe. But other than that, it’s not really necessary.”

“Unfortunately,” said Krundy. “This probably means that, unless you’re ready to take another nap sometimes soon, I doubt we’ll be receiving much aid from our acquaintances from here on out.”

“…If you two want to take the wagon and head back,” Sylvi started. “Then that’s…that’s ok. I don’t…it’s fine. I’ll manage on my own.”

“No, we’re going to help you.” Said Maja. “We just need to find a way in.”

“Just point us toward that barred window you were talking about,” said Krundy. “And we’ll be right behind you.”

“Ok…ok then.” Sylvi said. “Start heading over then.”

Choosing to avoid using the rest of the road and simply ride down to the front gate of the prison, the group climbed down the small cliff, stuck to the shadows, and trudged towards the ominous silhouette of Drachenhold Prison. A heavy silence fell upon them, each step echoing their unvoiced apprehensions. The four moons—pale and red sentinels in the sky—casted an eerie glow over the frozen landscape, deepening the shadows that lurked like silent watchers. Sylvi’s heart pounded in her chest, a rhythmic drum of both fear and determination. Around her, the night seemed to thicken, the air heavy with the weight of unsaid promises and the spectral chill of the unknown. With every breath that misted in the cold, a deep, unsettling realization settled within her: she had never considered that she might not return from this little quest of theirs.

She had never considered that she should have hugged her Nan goodbye, just in case.