A cool winter night settled across Kaiyumi as the bite of winter’s seductive kiss wisped along the air as travellers gathered at a small roadside inn. A quaint hovel with a warm hearth and cold drinks that welcomed all into its warm candle light contrasting against the dark starlit night. The sounds of cheers and companionship filled the air, giving some warmth to the cold night itself.

Yet one was uninterested in this warmth, casting it aside and took pleasure and joy in the freezing cold; a cold that was as hot as fire compared to his veins. This man, with heavy footsteps approached the inn and pushed his way through the door, assaulted by the sounds of a late night celebration; men and women cheering and eating the hearty foods.

The man, cloaked in a tattered dark blue robe that covered his face, made his way to the bar and sat down, annoyed by the assault on his senses of this merriment. A big man on the other side of the bar came towards the cloaked man.

“Getting in out of the cold, are ye?” the man asked in a heavy voice and stroking his thick black moustache.

“I would rather be in the cold,” the man replied in a strange accent. “The bosom of the freezing night is welcoming compared to this ruckus.”

The bartender laughed and placed an empty mug next to the cloaked man. “What’re you looking to drown then?”

“I’m not here for the drink,” the man replied. “I’m looking for information. I heard a couple months ago, a man and a woman defeated a group of bandits in the Khoras region to the southeast. What do you know?”

“Little I’m afraid,” the bartender replied, willing to indulge the mysterious man. “I heard there was a battle that nearly burnt down the mountainside, nothin’ else.”

The cloaked man groaned, as if pained by the bartender’s ignorance. “What about a tall man wearing black armour journeying with a young woman with long brown hair?”

“That doesn’t narrow it down, mate,” the bartender replied.

“You would know the man I’m talking about,” the cloaked man replied. “He would have had red eyes.”

“Ah, that would be Vahsmorn’r,” the bartender answered in realisation.

“And where would I find him?” the cloaked man asked, his patience wearing thin.

The bartender thought about his response carefully. “Are you a friend of his?”

The cloaked man groaned and the bartender watched as the man’s arms twitched, as if the muscles themselves were convulsing from the thought.

“I would think not,” the cloaked man replied, his voice full of disgust as he began to rise from his seat.

“Now now hol’ on a minute,” the bartender instructed. “Now, it would be bad for my conscience if I told you where he was when you mean to pick a fight with an innocent somebody.”

The cloaked man’s muscles continued convulsing as he tilted his neck, as if the words themselves were vile. His groans turned into shuddering growls as he tried to stabilise his breath.

“For your own good, I would keep silent if I were you,” the cloaked man warned the bartender as he reached for his right arm, trying to hold it to the counter as it convulsed more violently.

The bartender looked on and began quietly reaching for a dagger under the counter and as his hand went down to the blade, the cloaked man’s hand followed the same motion down to a sword at his waist. The two men grasped the hilts of their blades at the same time and eyed each other down as the cloaked man’s arm continued to squirm and convulse, making strange sounds like the muscles themselves were tearing and the bones were snapping.

“Don’t do this,” the cloaked man warned, shaking his head.

The bartender considered his next actions carefully. He looked down to his arm with the dagger, examining the carving on the hilt; a spiralling design circled by runes. A gift from his former Khymr Master, as if reminding him of where his allegiances lie.

He made up his mind.

He pulled the dagger from its sheath and brought it up towards the man’s face and time slowed as he saw the blade dig into the man’s cheek and begin tearing towards his lips. Yet the bartender saw the man’s blade out and cutting through his arm.

In a single instant, the bartender reeled away as his arm fell off, grasping the bleeding stump. He turned to face the man and saw the man standing still with a large hole ripped into his cheek and black blood dripping down his face.

All of the men sitting at the tables in the inn got up and took out their swords and approached the cloaked stranger, ready to cut him down for shedding innocent blood. The bartender laughed under his breath; even if he loses his arm, the man will still not win.

Yet the man smiled.

One of the men came forward with his sword high but in an instant, his wrists were separated from his arms and he hit the ground. The cloaked man then brought his sword down and through the back of the man’s head and out through his mouth.

The men and the bartender looked on, in awe of the sheer speed of the stranger. The cloaked man pulled his sword out of the limp corpse and lay it toward the ground, leaving himself undefended.

Two men worked up the nerve to attack and ran towards the stranger, but the stranger was faster. One of the men got a sword hilt to the gut before getting a gash cut across his stomach, howling as his entrails poured from the gash. The stranger then appeared behind the man and in a single strike, cut his head off as if the flesh and bone held no resistance for his sword. The other man gawked in horror and the stranger kicked the fresh body towards the man, hiding behind it.

And then the stranger’s blade pierced through the corpse and the chest of the terrified man.

The stranger withdrew his sword and waited for someone else to come forward, swaying from side to side with limp arms, like a corpse held puppeteered by strings.

Another man got behind the stranger and went for the attack, but the stranger was faster. The stranger turned to the side and broke one of the man’s arms and slit open his throat in a blinding motion. As the body hit the floor, the stranger once again stood still, swaying as before.

The men were on the cusp of surrendering. This man, this thing was too much and none of the veteran Khymr present could figure out just what he was.

One of the men found an opening and he ran his sword through the stranger’s back and out of his chest. Another took aim with a bow and quickly shot two arrows into the stranger’s heart and one in between the eyes. The first man withdrew his sword, expecting a lifeless body to hit the floor.

But the stranger stood still, like a defiant tree.

The man’s arm twitched and convulsed before lifting his sword up and hurling it towards the archer, running it through the archer’s chest as he fell onto one of the tables behind him. The stranger then elbowed the first man in the face followed by a series of rapid fire punches that broke bone with each strike before taking the man by the neck and slamming his head into the bar counter enough times to crack the solid wood counter and letting the man’s lifeless body fall to the floor.

The bartender could only look on as more of the men approached the stranger with swords high. He then ducked his head below the counter to hide and could hear the screams of the other men being killed by the stranger, possibly in more violent ways.

After a few agonising minutes, the sounds of fighting went silent. Then footsteps began to approach the bar. The bartender prayed that one of the men got lucky and killed the stranger.

But his heart sank when he saw the cloaked stranger approach behind the counter and come closer to the bartender. The bartender crawled away, whimpering all the while before the stranger pointed the tip of his sword to the bartender’s heart.

“Tell me where to find Vahsmorn’r,” the stranger demanded. “Lie to me, and I’ll know it.”

“I can’t tell you anything,” the bartender spat back. He was not about to sell out a Khymr Lord to this monster.

The stranger groaned and the muscles of his arm twitched. He then reached up and lowered the hood of his cloak, to the bartender’s horror. The man was middle aged with pale skin, thick grey hair and warm green eyes carrying a calm fury. The man was almost a spitting image of a beardless Arylos.

“You will tell me where he is,” the stranger demanded as his cut cheek was slowly piecing itself back together, like threads lining up and being weaved into cloth. “He owes me a debt of his life.”

The bartender felt fear for the first time as a cold chill ran up his spine. “Mornyr Khai,” the bartender whispered. “He’s in Mornyr–”

The stranger’s arm convulsed and his sword launched forward and ran through the bartender’s chest and out the back, cleaving his heart into pieces. The stranger pulled out the sword, as if shocked by his own action and knelt down to look the bartender in the eyes.

“Now what did I tell you about lying to me?” the stranger warned as the bartender’s vision began to fade.

In his final moments, the bartender knew just what this man was and the horror set in that he and his men never stood a chance. He could only pray that Arylos had the strength to cleanse the world of this monster’s presence.