be marginally true, that sword he carries still terrifies me.”
“Yes, but just think how our enemies feel.”
When they reached the meditation garden, Sir Maximus was easily spotted. At a towering nine feet tall, Maximus looked as if he could easily weigh a solid 700 pounds. His fearsome suit of plate mail was forged from black steel, fashioned with wickedly sharp looking spikes in functional locations. He wore no cape, and slung on his back was the sword called Judgment, a massive greatsword that was a mere two feet shy of being as long as he was and roughly two feet wide along the blade. Appearing to be little more than a sharpened slab of black steel affixed to a long ebony handle, the vicious nature of the sword itself had left it pitted and scarred—no easy feat considering black steel’s indestructible nature.
Maximus sat on a stone bench with an almost ominous tranquility, the way one would expect an instrument of war to lay idle between battles. He never removed his helmet or armor—at least, not that anyone knew of—and sat facing a large statue of Mithos, his back to the two as they approached. Thunderclese halted before Vlishgnath did, Vlishgnath walking right up and addressing the imposing Maximus as the old friend that he was.
“Hail, Sir Maximus! How go your daily meditations, my friend?”
With a grumbling sigh, Maximus stood from his bench, glanced back at Thunderclese, then responded to Vlishgnath in a deep, guttural voice. “Tiresome. More often than not I end up napping. I hope you have an assignment that gets me out of this garden. Judgment grows restless.”
Thunderclese took a slow, measured step further back.
Vlishgnath chuckled, still laughing when he gave his reply. “We’re riding for Drenton, and I talked Vogoth into letting you come along. We may meet some resistance, and we’re escorting an exorcist into the village. Sound appealing?”
Maximus slowly nodded his approval, then glanced back at Thunderclese again. “Your friend seems awful skittish. Is this his first assignment?”
“No, my friend, he’s just never seen you this close before,” said Vlishgnath.
Thunderclese smiled nervously as Maximus let out a dark sounding chuckle.
“So where will we be meeting this specialized cleric?” Thunderclese asked casually, having been very careful to put Vlishgnath between himself and Maximus as the three of them made their way towards the stables.
“Apparently he’ll be meeting us at the stables,” said Vlishgnath. “Your horse should be fed, watered, and ready to head back out. Maximus’s horses should be yoked to the cart with the relief supplies.”
Thunderclese quirked a brow. “Horses? Plural?”
Vlishgnath grinned. “You don’t honestly expect a single horse to haul Maximus and all of his equipment, let alone on its back do you?”
As they reached the stables, a young novice brought Thunderclese’s horse around, and another brought the pair of monstrous war horses that normally pull Maximus’s personal cart. The horses wore heavy armor akin to that which Maximus wore, their huge muscled legs suggesting they were bred for pulling power in lieu of top speed. They were hitched to a heavily-reinforced supply cart filled to capacity with food and barrels of clean water.
As Thunderclese took the reins of his dark brown horse, he looked around momentarily before addressing Vlishgnath in a puzzled tone. “I don’t see your mount anywhere, Sir Vlishgnath.”
Vlishgnath grinned at Thunderclese, digging into a belt pouch and retrieving a small figurine of a silver eight-legged horse with gleaming red eyes.
Thunderclese looked upon the statuette and chuckled in genuine amusement. “Oh, I see. And how exactly do you propose to ride that to Drenton, let alone out of the stable yard?”
“Simple,” was Vlishgnath’s response, holding the figurine up close to his mouth so he could whisper his command word quietly.
Immediately, the small figurine erupted into a rapid growth, practically springing from his hand as it grew into a full-sized war horse in resplendent armor. The creature still looked to be made of the same luminous silver, with glowing red eyes and eight legs. It looked around indifferently, turning its gaze upon Vlishgnath as he drew near, and seemingly bowed its head to him.
Vlishgnath addressed the creature in a respectful tone. “Aramus, we ride for Drenton. We’ll be escorting a cleric and supplies. Are you rested?”
In response, Aramus turned sideways and positioned itself so Vlishgnath could climb up.
Thunderclese looked upon the scene in awe, then laughed. “Since when did the church start issuing such amazing trinkets?”
“Oh, you mean Aramus?” Vlishgnath smiled, then slid his helmet down over his head. “I found him at the cleansing of Dire Hill Cemetery.”
Just then, a slow and purposeful set of footsteps signaled the arrival of the cleric. Standing almost a full head taller than Sir Thunderclese, the cleric wore no surcoat over his plate mail as clerics customarily did. His left eye was a solid white with a small black pupil dotting it, his right eye a sky blue glossed over in milky white. His upper lip seemed permanently split in a healed-over scar through which his teeth were visible. His bald scalp had a littering of scars where it had been lacerated and stitched back together. His plate mail, forged from dark grey adamantine, looked severely gouged as if something had tried to claw its way through it. Slung at his side was the most sinister mace any of them had ever seen, crafted as one solid piece from adamantine with a strip of brown leather wrapped around the shaft to serve as a handle. He bore no shield and led a horse as black as midnight by the reigns. He didn’t look directly at Thunderclese, but instead stared intently just off to Thunderclese’s side as if transfixed on something directly behind him.
For what seemed like a long, awkward moment, he continued to simply stare just behind Thunderclese thusly, Thunderclese shifting uncomfortably and even briefly glancing over his own shoulder. When the cleric turned to Vlishgnath, however, he immediately made eye contact and began signing with his hands in the unspoken language of the deaf.
Vlishgnath furrowed his eyebrows at first but then began to translate for the others. “He says he is Cleric Euronymus, and he is honored to be on this assignment with us.”
It was Thunderclese who asked the seemingly redundant question. “So . . . he’s deaf, then?”
In response, Euronymus looked towards Thunderclese again, shaking his head at something behind him before turning back to Vlishgnath and signing again.
“No . . . he can hear just fine.”
“Then why does he sign with his hands?”
With a toneless sigh, Euronymus reached up and pulled the layers of clothing under his plate mail away from his neck. What they saw underneath was truly disturbing to behold. The cleric’s throat appeared to have been rent open completely by someone or something using a vicious set of jagged teeth, the throat cauterized shut so he could continue to breath. Vlishgnath’s eyes widened slowly. Thunderclese gagged and nearly retched. Maximus simply chuckled, shook his head and climbed up onto his cart, the reinforced wooden structure still groaning in protest.
As the men made camp before their arrival in Drenton the following morning, they couldn’t help but notice the unnatural silence that had gripped the Drenton countryside.
“It’s as if the animals refuse to get any closer,” said the burly blond Thunderclese, poking absently at the fire. “And why does Euronymus always retire to his tent so early?”
Vlishgnath, seated on a stump with the sword Retribution lying across his lap, shook