Runolf

Outside The Throne Room

The World Tree

 

“What’s going on in there?!” Runolf bellowed. “Answer me! What’s going on in there?”

He had arrived back in the throne room in the middle of the night when word had reached him about Aslauga returning injured. Runolf pushed through the crowd of villagers that had gathered outside of her throne room doors and shoved his way in, with some help from the guards who had opened the door for him.

“Where is she?” Runolf had grabbed hold of the arms of one guard. “Where’s Aslauga? Is she alright?”

“Runolf!” Ingrid had run down the hall into the foyer to meet him. “She’s in her bedchamber, come!”

“What happened, Ingrid?”

“There was a graveyard that someone found in a cave—”

“A graveyard?”

“And then there was that coffin you were all after laying on the back wall of the cave. There was chanting coming from it and then the dead came to life! Aslauga sent us villagers away and the next thing we knew, she reappeared slumped in her throne just over an hour ago and…Runolf, I don’t remember the last time I saw her in such a bad state…come, the others are with her now.”

Ingrid opened the door to her bedchamber, and they were both met with a scene akin to a battlefield medic tent. The only difference here was that, while there were several medics and attendants all stuffed into the well-furnished sleeping quarters, there was only one patient.

If he was honest with himself, this wasn’t the only time that the Dryad Queen had taken his breath away, but this was the first time she had done so in a way that had left him feeling gutted.

Much of Aslauga’s body was burnt to a crisp. The only thing that seemed to have been spared was her face; the regent’s diamond face—which was previously framed with her shoulder-length black hair—was now framed with deep burn wounds. Her man-eating tree fur robes were gone, her battle armour was heavily damaged and pierced in the torso, and her grey eyes were now filled with tears.

And it was upon noticing this last detail that Runolf’s blood boiled.

“What…happened?” Runolf demanded, as he grabbed hold of the nearest healer.

“We don’t know.” Said the healer. “She just appeared here, and a handmaiden alerted us. Now please, I must help them.” The healer pulled himself free of Runolf’s grip and promptly returned to working alongside the other healers—each of them applying an assortment of different salves, soils, and other solutions that Runolf had little comprehension of.

Aslauga herself was merely staring up at the ceiling of the room, seemingly in a daze, as tears streamed down her once flawless face. Then she suddenly jerked her head and their eyes locked.

“They are coming…” Aslauga’s words came to his mind, unbeknownst to everyone around them.

“Who?” Runolf thought back to her. “The other vampire? The Blood Knight?”

“…Yes. The coffin…the vampire inside of it is a powerful necromancer…but she was a distraction, Runolf. I can feel them coming. They wouldn’t…they would not have left the crimson coffin alone unless she had ordered them elsewhere…to here.”

“But why here? What gripe would a bunch of vampires have with—” Then the answer stuck him and Runolf remembered the Pendle family, the rest of the grey elf refugees, and those blasted, vampire gingers.

“Yes. Them, Runolf.” Aslauga thought to him, obviously reading his train of thought. “But there’s more…”

Aslauga eyes glowed dimly and images flooded Runolf’s mind: In the chaos, there was outrage over the fact that the Magnusson vampires had dared to flee the Dark Province at all. It wasn’t much of a surprise to Runolf that many vampires would view their homeland as a prison of sorts. But when the truth of how they planned to break free of the sun’s oppression on their kind—and the massive cost of blood that the Elven peoples would have to bear in order to see that freedom realized—Runolf’s mind was as resolved as it was incensed. The Magnussons, the Blood Knight, and his mistress—he would ensure that all the vampires would be slayed by the time all of this ended.

“No.” Thought Aslauga, decisively. “You must let them go. If we’re lucky, the Blood Knight will follow them and chase after them. We cannot waste our time with them. We must protect our people here, Runolf. We must protect the elves here. I will not allow them to be slaughtered like lambs to help free those abominations.”

Aslauga let out a yelp of pain as one healer had just tried to adjust one of her arms.

“Be careful with her you dolt—!” As Runolf strode towards the healer that had injured her, his foot crashed into something that he hadn’t realized was laying there on the floor in front of Aslauga’s bed.

They were a pair of giant wooden claws—Aslauga’s claws. For the first time, Runolf realized that her hands he been chopped clean off. He was about to pick them up off of the ground, but then Aslauga raised the stub of her wrist as if to stop him. Then her eyes glowed dimly once more. She pointed her mangled wooden arm at her severed hands, and Runolf watched as they both shrunk and hollowed out at the same time. Now they were not just claws, but massive gauntlets of the toughest wood.

Runolf looked back up at Aslauga and noted the pleading look in her eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked, his blood running cold at the thought of the answer.

He hadn’t realized that he had said this aloud until everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked towards him to see who he was speaking to.

“…I can’t defend them.” Aslauga answered shakily, redrawing everyone’s attention. “Our elves—all of our people—need a defender…and I need my champion…will you answer my call, Runolf?”

Several moments passed between them as everyone observed the scene in silence. Eventually, Runolf looked back down at the gauntlets that had just been crafted for him and picked them up in his hands.

Almost all of Aslauga’s champions had their own signature weapons to mark them as such. His own grand uncle had been given a scythe that the people learned to call, The Jugular. But for Runolf, the World Tree had given him her hand—both of them.

For the first time in a long time, Runolf could feel goosebumps rise on his arm as all eyes were firmly locked onto him.

Then, without answering her call to arms aloud, he looked at Aslauga, looked around the room, then looked back down at the gauntlets, and said, “Very well, my lady…I will answer your call.”

“…Do you swear to uphold the laws of the land and to do so fairly as my chief emissary?”

“…I do.”

“Do you swear to stand by my side and defend my tree until your death?”

“I do.”

“Then take my hands, my champion, and claim with it all that is rightfully yours.”

 

*

 

Mox Magnusson

The Prison Halls

The World Tree

 

Mox had lost track of how much time had passed since the guards had locked her back up in the prison cell. At that point, her mind was consumed with nothing but hunger as her stomach growled loudly. The prison cell offered no solace, with its cold, barren walls and the lingering smell of despair. Even the glowing blue veins of tree sap that ran through the wooden walls of her cell strained her eyes and added to her headache, pulsing in brightness whenever she looked in their direction which, unfortunately for her, was nearly every direction.

Desperation took hold of Mox as she tried to recall the last time she had eaten. Was it yesterday? Or was it days ago? Time had blurred together in that confined, sunless place, making it impossible to keep track of such things. The guards, indifferent to her suffering, continued to revel in her weakened state. And even if they had been willing to give Mox the time of day, they weren’t even there to do so. Confident in their beloved tree queen to keep them all safe—or perhaps too afraid to stay anywhere near the vampires for long periods of time after Mox grabbed hold of one beforehand—they had left the area to check on some other region of the prison halls.

She could feel her strength waning, her body growing weaker with each passing moment. Mox’s thoughts became clouded, her vision hazy, as the hunger consumed her every waking thought. She could almost taste the imaginary meals in her mind, her mouth watering at the mere thought of sustenance.

With a heavy sigh, Mox slumped against the wall, her body feeling frail. She knew she was losing her mind when she saw the hazy image of a person walking up to her cell before sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was expecting it to be one of the guards, perhaps finally coming back to mock her once again. Instead, she was met with a familiar face: sitting before her once again, just beyond the ironglass bars, was a fuzzy image of a woman whose face was covered by a wooden, smiling, cat mask. Her skin was faded, like a ghost’s, and the faded portions shimmered like her whole body was woven with the stars themselves. Seemingly a perfect blend of a human and a living constellation.

“…Muh…Muddles?” Mox muttered, calling out to the High Muse of Dreams.

But when Mox rubbed her eyes, the muse was gone, and in her place was a completely different figure—although not an unfamiliar one. This new figure was an entirely overbearing one and filled with bitterness.

Suddenly, a tidal wave of telepathic energy throttled Mox’s mind, causing her to slam her back flat on the floor as her entire body seized.

The presence’s identity resonated with absolute clarity in Mox’s mind. The sheer force of her anger towards the Magnussons’ betrayal of their people caught Mox off guard. By fleeing the Dark Province with all of those elves from their home village of Frustum, they could feel the weight of the diminishing Elven blood pressing heavily on their hearts. With the decline in the chances for vampires to get sufficient Elven blood, their chances of escaping the Dark Province diminished. Opinions about the land only increasingly varied among vampires, with some regarding it as a playground and others as a prison.

This presence was that of Calantha, Princess of the Kingdom of Alvein, and an old family friend turned ruthless hunter. The sight of the princess’ hair, once carefully styled and luscious, now messy, tousled, and kissed by a gentle snowfall, took Mox by surprise. With her head tilted to the side, her small, pointed nose was slightly raised in the air as she looked down at Mox, her silver eyes filled with curiosity.

“Is this really where you’d rather be, Mox?” said the princess. “Stuck here, in this prison? Your family rules over people like this, Mox. But now look at you…completely at the mercy of Imagebearers and Frost Elves.”

“Buzz off!” Mox hissed. “I know what I’m doing!”

“Do you? So you all knew what you were doing when you left without even saying goodbye?”

Mox looked up at the clearing image of her old friend as the pain of the princess’ words struck at her. “That’s not fair. It’s not like we had time to send an owl with a scroll or something.”

Calantha then rose to her feet and started inspecting the ironglass bars of her floor. “It’s strange, don’t you think? That there’s anyone in the Jördlands who would be this prepared to deal with the threat of our kin? Imagebearers or otherwise. Truthfully, they’ve made the job of collecting you all rather annoyingly difficult.”

“Well, if you really want to catch us all that badly, then I’m all ears on ideas to get us out of here.”

“Oh, it’s not going to be that easy, Moxy. I’m talented, but as it turns out, these Jörds—these Lundi—have been fighting our kind longer than you know. Longer than I would have expected too.”

“What does that even mean? How many vampires could even be out here—outside of the Province, aside from us?”

Princess Calantha smiled coolly as she raised her hand in the air. “Here, let me show you something.”

The world around them both quickly transformed, and Mox found herself in a mirage resembling a bustling cavern within the World Tree’s wood, filled with the lively sounds of chatter and movement—Branch’s End proper. The moment she stepped into the presence of the wooden structures built within the walls that were their homes, the unique scent of aged wood and the sense of history and heritage emanating from the intricate runes and carvings overwhelmed her. She took a breath, and the air became saturated with the rhythmic echoes of drums and the mystical sound of a flute.

In the quiet of the late hour, Mox observed the Lundi people, their heavy fur garments intricately woven with images that depicted stories of survival and resilience in the harsh tundra. Each piece of clothing and tapestry she saw seemed to carry a tale, woven with intricate symbols that whispered of ancient legends and primal fears. Among them, she noticed depictions of eerie night-monsters, their presence in the artwork seeming almost alive…there were even examples of what Mox quickly recognized as subtle vampiric motifs.

But where would they have even seen those marks? How would a proper society of vampires even survive outside of the Dark Province? Do they simply only come out during the night?

As she moved through the crowd, Mox observed the bartering system in full swing. Goods exchanged hands—furs, wood, crafted items—each trade a small ritual in itself. Despite the lively commerce between any two Lundi haggling with each other, it was clear to Mox that there was a strong undertone of order to it all, even if she couldn’t understand what they were saying.

“They’re a quaint people, no?” said the Princess. “Such simple lives that give little evidence of proper battle skill or hardship. Unless you know where to look, that is. Did you see the vampire vigils and motifs woven into their garbs? And have a look at those children over there.”

Mox turned around just in time to see the group of small children that Calantha was pointing at running past her; the one child that was running away from the others was clearly supposed to be dressed as a vampire—he smiled and laughed with a set of fake vampire fangs in his mouth. Meanwhile, the other children chasing after him were all dressed as warriors wearing helmets that were much too large for them, and cloaks that had the image of a sun with a snowflake detailed at its centre.

“That mark is of a group of warriors from this province that called themselves, The Dawnfrost.” Said Calantha, as her incorporeal form stalked around Mox. “They made themselves legends in the eyes of their people here by slaying vampires.”

“So there are other vampires societies out here then?” said Mox. “Who, though? And how do you know all of this?”

“I know this because while you lot have been running around and playing in the snow, I was doing reconnaissance. And I don’t know the name of the vampire who fought against them, or the name of whatever house he ruled from. Not that it’s even worth remembering, given a human beat him.”

Mox was about to say something to this, but she forgot what she was going to say when all of a sudden, a person appeared right behind Calantha. It was Muddles again. Before Mox could even react, though, the High Muse placed a finger to her lips, gesturing for her to stay quiet.

Why, though? Won’t Calantha be able to see you, anyway? What do you want from me?!

“So,” Mox went on, trying not to sound like anything had distracted her. “Why are you telling me all of this? What’s the point?”

“I want you to see just how determined these people are to keep you here. Even if you were to break out of your cell, they don’t fear us enough to just lie down and submit to you—to any of us…not yet, at least. You need my help to get out of here, Mox. Just agree to stop being difficult and then we can work together to get you all out of there. Then we can go home.”

“And then what? I just watch as you turn our friends into cattle? That’s not going to happen! And you’re wrong about these Jörds. They feared me plenty when I nearly put my fangs in one of them.”

Calantha shook her head as the surrounding scenery changed once more. “Mox, your friends have always been cattle. And no, the people of this province don’t fear at all. You just caught those men off guard, that’s all. There’s only one thing—one being—that these people truly fear, and they’ll stand united and strengthened by the courage He gives them no matter what.” Then, the princess gestured up to something on her left and said, “The only one they really fear is Him.”

The two of them were then standing in an empty courtyard of Branch’s End, and what Calantha was gesturing at was a large ivory statue of a human in full armour; His helmet, shaped like a magnificent faun, featured a striking crown of thorns. His breastplate proudly displayed the face of a lion, while in His hands, there was a sword that emitted flickering flames, casting an eerie glow in the surroundings.

“The White Faun?” said Mox, turning back to look at the princess. “So, they’re a bunch of faunors. So what? Why should that stop you?” And as she said those words, Muddles had re-appeared in front of the statue, and quickly gestured to Mox to not say a word.

“Can’t you feel it?” said Calantha, as she circled Mox. “Even now, even though my body is far away from this tree, I can feel His Weirdlight radiating from it.” Calantha was gesturing to the World Tree itself. “Many of our people believe that the White Faun doesn’t exist. But mark my words, Mox: if you and your siblings stay here for much longer, it won’t be long before the Father of these Jörds notices you’re here…assuming He hasn’t already.”

Then, just as Calantha dissolved the illusion and Mox’s prison cell returned into view, Mox quickly stole another glance at Muddles and found the muse to still be rooted in place with her head slightly tilted to the side.

Only Calantha must have noticed this time, for she quickly swung around to look behind her and said, “What? What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” Mox lied, but noted the subtle tone of worry in the princess’ voice. “I’m not looking at anything…although, you sound uneasy, Calantha.”

“Of course I am!” Calantha bit back. “Didn’t I just tell you we risk being found out here by a higher power?! Come back willingly with me, Mox! Don’t make me—”

“I don’t care what you do to me, Princess,” said Mox, sneering the title back at her old friend. “I’m not giving up the elves to you, and I’m not going back to play a part in the butchering of our elves back home!”

If Mox was being completely honest, she hadn’t really consider the effect their leaving home without saying goodbye would have on Calantha. A sentiment that she knew Calantha could feel in that moment. But she refused to go back on the decision now, as bad as it felt to toss away an old friendship. She had made her bed, and she intended to lie in it as happily as possible.

Calantha then raised her phantasmal hands and suddenly Mox was raised in the air by her throat and then was slammed against the back wall and pinned in mid-air. Mox did her best to claw away at the invisible force that was choking her, but it was entirely in vain.

“Guards!” Mox managed to cough out towards the hall. “GUARDS! Help!”

“Stop struggling, Mox.”

“Calantha, please! Just let us go!”

“How?!” Calantha demanded. “How can I let any of you go when you’re putting everything at risk?! What do you think will happen if the Jörds realize how you’re able to survive in the sun? What happens when word of that spreads to the Dominions? To the Elven nations of the continent?”

“We won’t tell anyone, Calantha!”

“Orn? Mox?” came their brother, Halldor’s voice from a cell down the hall. “What’s going on over there—ACK!”

A loud CLANG came from down the hall, and Mox could just barely make out that Halldor had also faced the same fate as her. Then Orn, roused from his slumber, gargled and spat as he too was wrenched from the floor and from his dreams and up into the air.

“Stop it!” Mox croaked at Calantha.

“If you won’t return home, then I’ll…I’ll have to do this.” Said Calantha. “You’re not leaving me any choices, Mox. You should consider yourselves lucky that this is all I could do. If I hadn’t placed my physical body in a state of hibernation, and if the natural defences of this tree and its dryad were any weaker…well, then I’d doll out the full punishment that almost certainly awaits you back home by this point.”

As the world around her started to fade to darkness, the words of Mox’s old friend turned adversary started to become less and less clear.

“Hmm…what will you try to do to stop me, I wonder?” mocked the presence. “Something reckless, no doubt…perhaps you’ll try casting me off with a spell and send yourself into an insatiable bloodlust in the process? Oh, how amusing it would be to watch you devour the very humans you desperately wanted to start off on good terms with.”

While she had to admit the tempting thought had crossed her mind, Mox did her best to ignore the taunt. A shared condition plagued both her and her siblings; any use of magic ignited an unquenchable blood-lust that could last for hours. That was not an option. Not here, not ever.

With her last ounce of strength, Mox concentrated intensely, visualizing multiple psychic wooden spikes in her mind. She hurled them at the telepathic presence with lightning speed, causing Calantha to howl in pain before collapsing to the floor.

The psychic spikes wouldn’t be enough to kill her—not like real wooden spikes would—but it would cause her enough telepathic pain to banish her for now.

Or so Mox thought.

Quickly, the vampire princess shrugged off the psychic spikes and moved to lunge at Mox, only for her to freeze in mid-air, her phantasmal fangs only inches away from Mox’s throat.

“No, I think that’s quite enough out of you, young lady.” Said Muddles from behind the princess.

Mox fell to the floor coughing—and could hear her siblings going through a similar, pained sort of relief—and watched as the expression in Calantha’s eyes flickered back and forth between one of anger to another of terrified confusion.

The High Muse of Dreams then snapped her fingers loudly and the phantasmal presence of Princess Calantha of Alvein was set ablaze in a roaring ball of blue flames, sending her mind-shape screeching back to wherever her body was being stashed away.

“Wait! Stop! Where are you going?” Mox called after the High Muse, who had turned as if about to leave them. “Why are you following us? Why are you helping me? And why am I trapped here?! I did as you asked! I rescued the elves and brought as many of them out of the Dark Province as I could! Why have you left me to—”

“What do you want, Mox?”

“…What?”

“I asked, what do you want?” Muddles just stood there, staring at her from beyond the prison bars. Or at least that’s what Mox assumed she was doing from behind that mask of hers. “Now that you’ve seen how other races of this world beyond your own react to your presence, do you still want the same things? Do you still want to live amongst them? Do you still think it’s wise to do so—to even try? You’ve had the privilege of being able to reach the age of a hundred whilst being quite naïve, Mox. However, you are in the real world now, and thus, you must change with your circumstances and change your expectations for what can be accomplished whilst amongst foreigners. To a certain amount, at least, if you wish to stay with your Elven friends once you’ve found a safe place for them. Keep this in mind when you continue to search for your ‘land of endless daylight’.”

“Is that it? Will you not give me any more advice than that? Why not? Why show up at all then? Answer me! I deserve answers! I deserve—”

“Nothing.” Muddles interrupted. “You deserve nothing, little vampire. You have forgotten yourself entirely. I am a muse—a messenger and agent of the Lord. Meanwhile, you are a vampire—an agent of the grave—and we are enemies by nature. So no, Mox, I do not owe you anything, and neither does my Lord, for that matter. The only reason I guide you as much as I have is because He has commanded me to assist you as much as I can, but I cannot force myself upon your life, Mox. If you want His help—His full help—you’ll have to ask Him into your life directly.”

“Why though? Why can’t he just break me out, get us food, and get us away from Calantha?”

“He’s not a genie, Mox. He wants more than just a transactional relationship with you, and because of that, He’s not just going to grant your wishes—”

“Then what good is He to me?! If you aren’t going to give us what we want—what we need—then just leave!”

Muddles fell silent for a minute. Then she simply said, “So be it.”

Then Muddles disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving Mox to think about what she had said. However, giving the muse’s words much though, would prove to be easier said than done: as the sounds of all of Mox’s siblings coughing on the floor continued to travel to her cell, she did her best to massage and soothe her own sore throat. But even as the pain in her throat faded and her vision became clear again, Mox’s stomach rioted.

Taking up all of her thoughts at once, her stomach roared as if threatening to eat her from the inside-out. That’s when the smells assaulted her again—the sweet, savoury smells of Mr. Fritz’s poorly tended to wounds from the day before. As she salivated and drooled at the smell of the poor man’s blood, she noticed something that sent the animal-part of her brain into a state of absolute glee: there in the old, thick wood of the wall that separated her cell from the old elf’s was a hole. It wasn’t large—rather, it was the size of Mox’s fist—but it was large enough…

Mox pushed herself to her feet, made haste for the wall, and began hitting it, clawing at it, and doing everything in her power to make the hole as large as she could.

“Lady…Lady Mox?!” came the old elf’s voice. “What are you doing? What are you doing?! What’s the matter? Why do you have that look on your face?”

“Mox?” cried Orn. “What’s going on?”

Mox ignored them both.

Above the ravenous growls of her stomach, she could faintly hear herself giggling as the hole in the wall grew louder and louder. When it was finally large enough, Mox burst into an explosion of screeching bats that swarmed it.

Mox’s bats swarmed the screaming elf as both he, her siblings, and all the other grey elves held in the dungeons with them begged her to snap out of it. She could barely even hear them. Instead the bats slashed at the elf—cutting him and occasionally landing on him whenever they could avoid being swatted at. And whenever they landed they would lap up the dripping blood from the fresh wounds.

Suddenly, a scorching pain seared through the bodies of the bats. They all squealed as they collectively recoiled and fluttered into a corner of the cell. As they reformed back into the ginger vampire, Mox bared her fangs and hissed at the old elf that had somehow managed to grab hold of a torch that was on the wall outside his cell and throw it at her.

“I’m…I’m sorry.” Said Mr. Fritz. “You left me no choice! You were trying to…to…”

Mox rose to her full height. Her hair was dishevelled and covering much of her vision, her fingers were fully extended into claws, and she no longer saw the elf at all; the only thing before Mox was a mass of blood waiting to be set free and gush from their fleshy prison.

Then Mox locked her dead white eyes on her target and spat, “You…shouldn’t…have done that!”