103 - The Witching Road

Magnus wandered the burnt out fishing village calling out and calling out in vain - there was to be no response, he knew that, he knew it from the very first. There was no sign of life to be found.

He called again and again until his voice grew hoarse, yelling "PA!" and "UNCLE!" out to the birds and the sea, and before the last of the day's light faded he saw it - the thing he'd most been dreading.

There, at the edge of the village, just above the beach and the ruined fishing boats was a patch of earth that had been dug up and turned over then stomped flat.

A chill wind blew across his heart - reaching out, piercing the earth with a strand of Elemental Logos Magnus easily saw what lay beneath.

Not even buried all that deep, there were maybe thirty bodies, scraps of clothing and flesh almost entirely consumed by insects and worms - they must have been buried for a good few months now . . almost as long as he'd been gone. They must have been killed only days after he'd left, killed and thrown into a pit.

Magnus trembled, the whole world shook - he felt as if he was suddenly standing on the deck of a ship in stormy weather - entirely unable to keep his balance, the taste of rancid bile rising in the back of his throat.

"Pa . . . Uncle . ."

He couldn't see straight - the strand of Logos dissolved in the air - he couldn't even focus to control it, just letting it fade into the earth.

In the pile of corpses . . amongst the men and women and children all buried beneath the beach he was certain he'd felt a familiar resonance - two piles of bones . . oh gods . . two rotting corpses that were all too familiar . .

Magnus blinked and, on unsteady legs, left the beach, left the village, went up the coastal paths and by a half-moon light found that he'd wandered to the ruined gates of Kloster.

Kloster . . home . . home . .

Even in the darkest of nights Magnus could now see clear as day - with the light of the half-moon he saw every detail of the town he had once called home.

The gate of Kloster, broken - smashed - claw marks so fierce they'd left deep welts in the stones of the town walls and torn up the cobblestones. The gate house burnt . . the houses near the wall all reduced to rubble - smashed and burnt and stained with blood and black bile.

Everywhere . . everywhere he looked, everywhere his eyes wandered - devastation. At the time he and Pa Lund and Uncle Willis had gone over to Doohama there had been a vast swarm of black skins - he'd known it at the time, known it . . but to see it for himself . .

A bakery - Ma Bindle used to break her back baking bread for Seamaidens every morning here - she'd had a giant oven made to make giant sized loaves - Magnus and Rolf had more than once snuck in round the back of the bakery and stolen handfuls of fresh baked bread from beneath the massive rolls that had been left on cooling racks before delivery . . .

And here, just at the corner of Main Street and Mill Lane - there was Thocks house . . the poor sod . . he was just a bit older than Magnus and Rolf and had a first class core - they had been so bloody jealous! He had been amongst the third batch of Giants, along with Christa . . he had died that week on the beaches.

Christa said he was bloody useless, said he couldn't even balance to swing a cudgel - no better as a boy then he was as a giant too, he and Rolf could easily have Thock on his back and crying seven ways to sunday before Thock even knew what hit him . . but Thock had the core and they did not - that had made Magnus so damned mad! So damn jealous! Why did Thock have to be the one to have a first class core? Why couldn't it be Magnus?

Ah hells . . hells . . Christa . . sis . . and Egil, brother . . oh . .

Magnus found himself before the husk of his family home - a twisted anvil, stomped by giant feet, lay half buried in the dirt. His father's shop, the courtyard and two story house . . all that was left was stones and dirt and rusted iron . .

Here - right here, that was where Jorn would stand, anvil in had - Magnus would watch Egil help father hammer, clang! Clang! All afternoon until the bit of molten metal was fashioned into the shape he wanted - Ma Malene and Christa would both be busy, Ma with the shop side of things, and Christa running deliveries . .

That was before the whole bloody thing started, weren't it? Before the first black skin ever came - back in a time when Pa Lund was part of the old Lords guards, and when Uncle Willis would visit every so often, bringing them trinkets from up and down the Iron Coast . .

Magnus and Rolf had almost been wildlings then - that was what Ma said, anyhow - she said that he and Rolf might as well have been raised by wolves. Every day they would leave Kloster and run the hills and cliffs, run even so far as Perry's Gulch and the far farms at the lower slopes of the Umar Hills . .

That was a time when they could roam free - when there wasn't a danger of a black skin sneaking in from across the stretch of water and hiding and leaping out and tearing you to pieces! How many times had that happened? Magnus couldn't recall - too many times . . twenty, thirty - maybe even fifty people were torn to pieces in the first few months, before the Alchemist came to Kloster.

Yeah, there had been such hope, hadn't there? Festus - announced by Lord Tygis he was, right in the harbour square - Lord Festus, our saviour - an Alchemist from on far who has taken pity on us all and will help us in our war against the evil witch in Doohama . .

Ah hahahaha hahah . . . .

. . . hahah ahaha ha . .

. . . How? How had they believed that? How did no one question it? Not Pa, not Ma, not Pa Lund - hells! No one, no one even thought to say a damned thing! No one thought that something might even be wrong!

We fell over ourselves, didn't we? Who didn't want to be a bloody giant! Amazing! Strength! Power! Respect! The black things wouldn't stand a chance!

But . . .

On and on - the years went by . . more and more of our brave warriors fought and died below the cliffs of Kloster - Thock, on his first outing, dead . . Christa, after a year of fighting, dead . . . Egil, oh Egil, brother! He made Pa so proud - he became a sentinal - one of the biggest giants in all of Kloster, standing guard day and night at the cliffs and swatting down black skin after black skin and . . and . . at the end, slipping from the cliffs and falling head first into the rocks on the beaches below.