Silent Heart: Part 1

It was a hurricane.
         The dark, swirling clouds that raced around the peak and the crackling purple lightning that smashed down onto the stony surface of the mountain. It was all reflected in his eyes.
         Irises that shone grey like a lamp in the fog, keeping the black pupil set in the center. His eye was the eye of the hurricane, the eye holding all of the storm’s terrible fury and power back so that this single circle of peace and silence hovered in the middle of the destruction.
         The swirling clouds of the storm over the mountain traced the lining of his iris, the dancing lightning snapping from the iris out to the edges of the whites of his eye. He could not hear the winds, he heard nothing, heard almost an absence of sound, as if trapped underwater. He felt the winds on his hands and arms and face but they were not really there.
         The winds of dying breath from a friend’s mouth or the winds of a scream from a friend’s throat. The hateful winds from an enemy’s cursing glare or the winds that guilt pushes through your brain from a betrayed brother. He could feel those winds, and he knew that he was the one all of them were blowing towards. He could always feel them blowing about his hands or upturning his short, bristly grey hair.
         More than just these winds, though. He could feel the winds of time racing towards him, blowing around, slowing things down, then zapping, blasting, speeding up.
         The winds of change were right on the tail of time, as it always is, and that is what people really feared.
         A faint cry, carried on the true winds of the earth, snapped Weln back from his thoughts. He was leaning against a cold pole of his tent, the brisk winds from the clouds over the mountain carrying the rain scent, the one that always promised worms and puddles. The sharp din of the camp around Weln mixed with the bounce of ivory on a table behind him, followed--occasionally--by a curse. The ground beneath him was dusty, lingering ash from the burned down farming past of the valley. Weln had seen these mountains and lands before, but the sights were different, the smells, then of dirt and flowers, now of steel and sweat, had changed, as had the sounds.
         The new sound that Weln now heard was carried by a young boy, small feet slapping on the dirty ground, yelling the warning with youthful energy. The cry carried with good speed around the mercenary camp, reaching all ears: “Attack!”
         “Blast,” Tern muttered inside the tent. He scooped the dice back into their bag and dropping the bag back down his shirt, to rest against his large chest, then lifted his giant axe and sighed.  “Looks like we’re going to have to continue this later. Right now-” His clear blue eyes flashed. “-It‘s time for exercise.”
         Weln stepped into the tent. Flyn didn’t notice, because his mouth was moving before Tern’s ever stopped.
         “What kind do you think? Zombies? Skeletons? Disembodied Hands?” He shouted, floppy brown hair bouncing up and down. Weln jabbed Aern in the ribs and the swordsman jolted awake.
         “What’s going on?” Aern said. Weln held up three fingers. “You always have to wake me up,” Aern groused. “Why can’t you just do this one without me?” Weln checked his bow and regarded Aern with his emotionless grey eyes, gazing out from under hair of the same unforgiving color.
         “Dream about Arabell again, Aern?” Flyn asked. Weln nodded knowingly. He was looking out from under the tent flap, scanning the field around the large camp. A growing dust cloud could be seen.
         “We’d better go or all the good ones will be gone. And you boys,” Tern patted Flyn’s stomach, “need your exercise. Remind me to develop an exercise plan for you when we get back,” Said Tern as he headed out from under the large tent. The mountain rose in the distance, black clouds hovered over it and daring lightning, tinted with purple, slamming into its surface. Several other battle groups had collected on the edge of the camp, watching the approaching cloud of dust on the horizon.
         “Bones and meat,” said one wiry man, holding a long lance.
         “I wanted hands,” Flyn grieved, developing a mock pout. The groups got their positions, and checked their weapons again. Flyn with his flashing spells, Tern his titanic axe, Aern his acid-sharp sword, and Weln his lightning-fast arrows.
         The mob of monsters was upon them in instants. Tearing claws and pummeling fists were deflected by sword and axe. Arrows flew into eye sockets and magic blasts destroyed skeletons. In all reality, the battle was standard. Though a lot of them, the monsters were nothing the four hadn’t faced before. Just as before, the monsters would attack, the men and women of the camp would defend, the monsters would fall, and the camp would move on, as it always did, as was its duty.
         Tern, wild blond hair and beard mussed, roared and laughed wildly, all the while swinging his massive axe down upon one unsuspecting monster or another. The decaying flesh of the zombies split easily and the brittle bones of the skeletons smashed like glass under a hammer when his axe connected.
         Flyn’s smile widened continually as he dashed zombies to the ground with stones summoned from thin air and sent skeletons whirling with tornadoes of his own creation. He didn’t even seem to be his meager eighteen years, as every spell he fired off gave him a extra laugh, every rotting corpse or bony body destroyed giving him happiness as a new toy would a child.
         Aern and Weln fought back to back, in close concert. With Aern’s arm and sword able to dazzle everyone from the youngest child to the oldest farmhand, there was nothing that slow lumbering bodies could do to either avoid, or stop, the strokes that cut them down. Aern’s challenge was to keep any monsters from assaulting Weln’s sides.
         Weln’s right arm buzzed, snapping back to his quiver and locking the arrows onto his yew bow, his powerful left arm bracing and aiming the ancient bow, passed down from Weln’s father. The arrows went diving into the enemy with what seemed like reckless abandon, but every shot was placed with a painter’s patience, each shot sent through a limb to trap it, or a neck to sever it, or a torso to blast the body away. Every shot was aimed by eyes that had seen lives and years go by with the speed of a falling snowflake.
         As the four fought, they chided the monsters, though they knew their words fell on deaf ears. They joked and danced, goading the monsters into a weak position. Flyn used a spell to take temporary control of a particularly wide zombie, using it to scoop up several others and fling them away, howling with laughter. Tern swung his axe in a brisk arc, the head of the axe mauling a half dozen creatures before the swing finally stopped. Aern disassembled one skeleton, chopping the arms, then the neck, then the legs, and finally kicking it away when it fell to the ground.
         But slowly, barely noticeable, the force of monsters became stronger. More of them surged forward.
         “Kind of weak, aren’t they?” Flyn said, setting a zombie on fire with glee. He watched it stumble to the ground and set another ablaze.
         “Maybe,” Aern said, calmly cleaving a zombie in half, “Maybe they need an exercise plan.”
         “It’s more like,” Flyn paused to disintegrate a zombie, “they need less meat. More vegetables.”
         “That‘s for your own good and you know it!” Tern panted, dividing a lurching zombie. He deflected a blow from a one-armed skeleton and sliced through its waist, sending it clattering to the ground in a pile.
         Weln reached around to tap Aern’s shoulder “What is it?” Aern asked. Weln held his thumb between his index and middle finger. “Already?” Weln nodded. “Weln’s running out of arrows!”
         A sudden wave of enemies rushed around them, threatening to push them back.
         “What’s going on? There’s never been this many! I can’t keep up! Tern, help!” Flyn shouted
         “Where are they all coming from?” Tern yelled. Skeletons swarmed around them. Limbs and body parts–connected or not–flew past them. Aern stopped and stared as a pile of bones rose up in the air and reformed into a one-armed skeleton. The skeleton charged towards Tern, whose back was turned.
         “Tern, look out!” Aern shouted. Tern turned slightly and moved to block the skeleton, but the skeleton’s razor-sharp fingers caught him in the chest, piercing his leather armor down to his heart. His clear eyes clouded, and his axe slipped out of his grasp, clanging on the ashen earth.
         “No! Tern!” Flyn shouted. He screamed in fury and blasted a line of skeleton. Aern, desperate to get to Tern, sliced a zombie’s arm and spun around, jamming his sword under his arm into the zombie’s chest. He was smashed on the back, and he fell to his hands and knees.
         Weln yanked the creature off of Aern, and stared into the empty sockets of a one-armed skeleton, evil grin never faltering. Weln’s eyes flashed furiously, old memories of bodies dancing through his mind. For a single brief instant, one moment of rage and pain, Weln let go of his control and embraced his legacy. He reached out and crushed the skeleton’s skull with his bare hand, reducing it to powder. The bones fell to the ground and shattered, erasing the skeleton from all existence. The unholy army around them turned and ran as one, retreating toward the mountain in the distance.
         Flyn, his face streaked with sweat, saw the encounter. “Weln, what did you do?”
         Weln fell to his knees as heat rushed into his face and strength fled his limbs. His heartbeat forced blood into his brain, the flood of fluid dimming his eyesight and nearly taking him to the ground.
         Instead, Weln began to crawl. He dragged himself forward on his hands and knees towards Tern’s body. The ground-up dirt and stones below him cut into his palms, but Weln felt nothing. He could barely move his legs, instead dragging them through the battlefield, leaving ruts. He finally got close enough to reach Tern, and he stretched out his hand to feel the flesh of his friend.
         Tern’s body, slain by the monstrosity, had lost its heat. As soon as Weln touched the fingers of his friend, the chill of death told him there was no doubt.
         Aern walked up behind Weln, sword sheathed. When Weln heard the crunch of Aern’s approach, he pointed to Tern’s body, clasped his hands over his heart, then touched his lips and pointed to Tern again.
         “I’ll tell her. With Tern gone, I’ve got seniority of our group,” Aern said. “She’ll just be glad we’re all right. Let’s cancel his gambling debts, eh?” Weln nodded while tears streaming down his face. He was staring at the mountain in the sky. He stood up, pointed to Tern and touched his wrists. Aern shook his head. “She won’t blame you. She couldn‘t.”
         Weln pointed to the mountain on the horizon, and then pointed to himself. Aern sighed. “We are very close,” Aern looked at the mountain, a tombstone for their fallen friend.
         “You can’t blame yourself, Weln,” Aern said, clapping Weln on the shoulder. Weln shook his head and pointed to his steel-grey eyes. “They follow you because you are their master.” Aern smiled. “You got the point across with that one-armed fiend.” Weln smiled. “We’ll give Tern a proper burial. The monsters won’t be able to touch him.”
         Weln turned back to Tern’s corpse. He closed his eyes, and interlocked his fingers. Aern translated.
         “Peace in death, Tern.”

         “Are you sure we should be doing this?” Flyn asked with a waiver in his voice. The three men made their way toward the imposing mountain slowly, with Weln in the lead. He pretended he hadn’t heard Flyn’s question.
         “You can go back if you want. I’m staying with Weln,” Aern said from in front of Flyn. They traveled a little while longer, and the mountain grew in front of them. The odd purple lightning reflected off of Weln’s bright grey eyes. Only a few hours ago, those eyes had shed tears for a dear friend who was killed, and only Weln knew it was because of him that he was dead. Nothing was going to stop him from doing this.
         They continued to travel, Flyn’s cloak flapping incessantly in the wind. It wasn’t until the mountain towered over them did Aern pick something out from the distance.
         “Weln, they are coming.”
         Weln worked his bow off his shoulder and adjusted the quiver, recently filled. “They have a warlock with them,” Aern said, turning to Flyn. “Your expertise.” Flyn nodded, white-faced. Aern drew his scimitar, the clean metal gleaming in the purple flashes.
         Aern mercilessly carved the first zombie and an arrow was flew by him, catching another in the neck. Flyn raised a defensive spell around himself as he made his way towards the warlock, whose rotted cheeks and bulging eyes glimmered in the cloud-forced darkness. The monsters swarming around him were strong, but none of them could break a magical barrier.
         Behind Flyn, Aern and Weln again stood back to back, following Flyn and picking off any monster that provided a target. The monsters lacked any real thought, so it was easy to outsmart them. But it was then the two realized that the monsters had other things in their favor.
         Aern witnessed, for the second time in a single day, a heap of flesh and bone rising up from the ground and binding together to create the leering visage of something he had already cut down. Weln noticed this as well, and began pumping arrows into the crowd of fiends. It did little, as the creatures could, and would, simply form again and attack once more. The swarm closed in around them.
         Flyn noticed none of this, focused as he was on the grinning face of the demon warlock. Thrusting a palm outward, the warlock summoned a pillar of black energy, horizontal, and pushed it at Flyn. Unable to get out of the way in time, Flyn let the pillar smash into his shield, shattering it. Before the spell could be totally undone Flyn was moving, casting a spell of his own. He completed it, and thorny vines sprang up from the ground, clamping around the warlock and squeezing it.
         The warlock merely laughed; a grating, harrowing noise that made Flyn flinch, and with a rush of the warlock’s cloak it was gone, speeding along the lines of magic to reappear in front of the mountain, still close by. Laughing again, it lifted its hands to the flashing purple sky, then slammed them to the ground.
         A faint rumbling coursed through the ground, growing into a full quake. Flyn toppled to the ground and watched, in horror, as a white dome began to poke through the soil in front of the warlock, climbing into the sky with each shake of the ground. A huge bleached head broke through the ground, also freeing an arm and pulling itself out, fully revealing a monstrous skeleton, white teeth smiling at Flyn, its target.
         Aern and Weln hacked and slashed brutally at the hoard around them. Weln had long ago run out of all but a single arrow, but at this close range it would be useless. He instead pulled out a short sword and did what he could to cut down the monsters in front of him. Aern was having more luck, his sword easily cleaving through any monsters that Weln couldn’t reach. The two battled back-to-back, two arms of the same cutting, chopping body.
         Sharp claws tore down Aern’s cheek, leaving thin trails of blood. They would have continued down to his neck, but Aern responded with a swipe of his single claw that sent the offending skeleton crumbling into a pile. Weln took a thunderous blow to his stomach from a zombie to his right. He snatched the arm with his left and sliced the short sword down, chopping off the arm at the elbow. The arm let off no blood, but Weln didn’t take notice. He drew the sword across the neck of the zombie with maddening speed, then kicked the body away.
         Flyn clambered up and jumped back in time to avoid a giant white fist slamming into the ground, crushing a rushing zombie instead. The skeleton swept an arm across the plain, missing Flyn once again but smashing three normal-sized skeletons. Flyn fired a shocking spell, barraging the super sized skeleton with thousands of tiny bolts of lightning, causing it to roar in agony. It stomped down, but again missed Flyn, flattening a zombie in his place.
         Displaying intelligence uncommon of their dead state, the monsters surrounding the giant skeleton and Flyn moved back. Slowly at first, then faster, turning and fleeing. Aern and Weln, bleeding and bruised sighed with exhaustion. The only monster still near them was the massive skeleton, but the two combatants saw that the other monsters were hanging around, watching the battle from beyond the range of any weapon, even Weln’s arrow.
         With the other monsters gone, Flyn had the space to let loose. His mind sharpened and a flurry of spells swarmed through his memory until he came to the one he wanted. Reaching into a pocket of his robe he revealed a match, and stuck it. He whispered a single magic word and blew on the match. It released a stream of flame, scorching the giant and blackening its frame. Its eyeless sockets focused on Flyn and it bellowed in fury. The mage once again released the tiny bolts of lightning onto the monster, but his strength was waning, taxed by the powerful spells he was performing, and the skeleton showed no real signs of weakness. Flyn decided to take the chance and began to perform a final, destructive spell.
         Aern took advantage of the open field and covered the distance to the warlock. It was flapping its fingers, controlling the skeleton, but it spotted the swordsman quickly, and pelted him with tiny stones. They caused little damage, if any, and Aern grinned in apprehension. The injuries he had sustained weren’t much more than flesh wounds, and he could feel adrenaline beginning to flow through him. Reaching the warlock, he slashed his sword along a jagged path on its body, a killing blow.
         But the warlock was made of tougher stuff than that, and it did not fall. Instead, the monster grinned wider and summoned another pillar of black in front of him, forcing it towards Aern. He rolled, dodging the pillar and coming up to his feet in a crouch as the gargantuan skeleton thundered by, angry at the tiny speck that had caused him pain.
         Flyn dodged and weaved, preparing the last-attempt spell that would hopefully give him some freedom from the skeleton. He lifted his hand, and the skeleton stopped, quite understandable, for all of the air had left a large area around its head, leaving a vacuum.
         Flyn panted, tired from the battle, and collapsed the vacuum, crushing the skeleton’s head.
         The skeleton teetered on its heels, and fell towards Flyn, all the weight of the remaining bones dropping at him. At the same instant, the warlock gave a gravelly, grating cry, Aern dropped his sword and covered his ears, the yell invading his head and sending tears to his eyes. With the sound of the warlock’s cry, the monsters around them charged again, rushing in to surround the three men. Aern noticed, and Flyn noticed, but Weln did not.
         Weln witnessed the skeleton’s ponderous fall, and remembered a fall similar to it, the slumping form was too similar to Tern. The flames remaining on the body brought him to the past, where images broke through the haze of consciousness: a burning home and small, blackened bodies. Fury lanced through his head, everything in his vision but the skeleton blurred, left. Weln let out his best attempt at a scream, a mere pulsing in his vocal cords, and again he could do nothing but release all of the stored power residing in his body, stopping the skeleton dead in its fall.
         Flyn gradually opened his eyes. His arms were held up protectively, and they dropped when he realized that he remained alive. Weln threw his arms out towards the skeleton, smashing the giant backwards with all of the force he could muster. Around him, as if pushed by a huge plow, the skeletons and zombies were dashed to the ground and thrown into the air in a circle spreading out from Weln, moving as fast as the wind.
         The hairs on Aern’s neck rose sharply as a hum overtook him. He had just recovered from the throaty cry of the warlock just as he was overtaken by the flood of creatures, now the creatures were being thrown around him, and the cold pit in his stomach was telling him to run.
         He never got the chance.
         A shadow loomed over him, blocking out all light. The giant skeleton descended directly on top of him, throwing him and slicing his skin. He landed harshly, and from the shoulder down his right arm grew numb. He winced in pain when he heard the snap from his shoulder, and the pain followed quickly. He fell to the ground, onto his back. The grey sky wavered in front of him, and a blurry figure appeared in front of him.
         “Aern, are you all right?” He heard Flyn asked tentatively. He shook his head.
         “We have to go back!” Flyn said. “You can’t go on. You’re hurt.” Aern shook his head again. He opened his mouth to talk but closed it again, he could not trust himself to speak correctly. Weln appeared next to Aern. “Weln! What happened? What was that?”
         Weln went through a set of hand signals. It was easy to lie with them. Flyn looked to Aern for a translation, but the injured man was still to weak. He gulped and took several deep breaths. Finally:
          “Weln says a spell of the warlock’s must have gone wrong, thrown all of the monsters away. Flyn, they kept-” Aern trembled as pain danced down his arm. “The monsters kept coming back. They wouldn’t die.”
         Flyn nodded. “I know, I saw it too. It’s very bad for us, we need to get back and tell the camp about it. Weln, we need to go,” Flyn said, looking at Weln.
         Weln saw the pleading in Flyn’s eyes. Aern was hurt and he needed medical attention. They had all suffered many small wounds, some of which were still bleeding, and might become infected. Then he looked towards the mountain hanging over them, violet lightning sparking around it and dense clouds hovering over it. He turned back to Flyn and slowly shook his head.
         “But-”
         “I agree with Weln, Flyn. I can go on, I just need some time.”
         Flyn appeared torn between Aern’s safety and Weln’s need, but he made his mind up. “Aern can’t continue on like this!” He said, touching Aern’s shoulder. Veins stood out on Aern‘s neck as he gritted his teeth against the pain. Weln responded with a flurry of hand signals.
         “Weln says,” Aern said, after he had gulped more air, “that he must continue on, and that we should go back.”
         Flyn whitened. “You can’t do that!”
         But Weln’s face said enough. The cold, unblinking eyes and the set, silent mouth told Flyn all he needed.
         “At least take this,” Flyn said, taking his white cloak off of his back and handing it to Weln. “It has magical properties. It’ll help. Don’t lose it.”
         Weln expressed his thanks, and clipped the edges of the cloak to his shoulders. The cloak was brilliantly white; the two places that Weln had attached were connected by a thin chain going around the front of his neck. In the middle of the chain, a pearl was suspended.
         Weln turned to leave, but stopped and gave Aern a hand signal.
         “What did he say?” Flyn asked.
         “He said ‘I’m sorry.’ Weln, what-?”
         But Weln was already heading towards a cave at the base of the mountain, the purple flashes of lightning illuminating his retreating form.