Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter One
Verse Six: An Ass Transformed
The wendigo didn't so much run as it scrambled across the ground- Marion thought that thing was trying to run on all fours, but was being hampered by the proportions of its body which were still nominally human. The creature seemed bled dry, both of colour and of body fat. The Wendigo was so thin it might have passed for an Egyptian Mummy, save that it was very rapidly closing on Marion.
Marion took a moment before a thought occurred to him. Vision or not, tumour or not, he should probably be running right now. The wendigo was now close enough that Marion could count its teeth and smell its acid breath. That was enough of a preview for Marion.
Marion fled from the Wendigo.
The grey clay mud underneath Marion's feet didn't make flight easy and he scrambled along, not to unlike the Wendigo getting covered in grey as the paint like liquid clay sprayed up from his thrashing attempts to flee.
As he ran he heard bits and pieces of conversation.
"Is that a Wendigo?"
"The Knights of Purity will kill it."
"Who is that it's chasing?"
"Must be a savage, might turn into a Wendigo at any time."
"Maybe a spy for Blackhart?"
"Doesn't look like part of Blackhart's tribe."
"We should kill it just to be safe. Blackhart's raiding parties will starve us all."
"Maybe we should try to make peace?"
"Don't say such things, the King will send the Hound for you."
"He should send the Hound for Blackhart."
"The Hound can smell fear. It will cleanse the heathen and the infidel."
"I don't think Blackhart feels fear."
Most of the people's faces remained a blur as Marion ran through the muddy streets. Nobody got in Marion's way. But he did notice a woman dressed in considerably better than the undyed grey wool clothing of the other villagers. she was dressed in black with red bird-like patterns lining the sleeves and hemlines. Her appearance seemed ageless, she might have been thirty years old and might have been eighty. Her hair was raven black with a streak of grey running through it. Her eyes bore the hard expression of somebody who was used to being under attack and she used those eyes to stare Marion almost to a stop. She looked at Marion, and nodded with an expression that one might use for a business acquaintance or a distant relative.
The snarls of the Wendigo reminded Marion that he should be running. Beside the woman, three Soldiers turned and noticed the wendigo and the fleeing stranger. They were dressed in white tabbards with white leather plates visible underneath. On the tabbard in black was a sword engulfed in flame. One of the soldiers looked distinctly older, one was built like a large fat toad and looked unsettlingly familiar and the third was tall and thin as a paper cut and looked just like Percy Wheately.
"Lady Morrigan, we must destroy the monster." The eldest of the three soldiers said.
The woman nodded and the soldiers joined the pursuit without another word. Marion didn't look back to see how far behind the wendigo the soldiers were and simply ran on.
"Rule number one about horror movies: When running from the monster, don't look back and trip." Marion gasped to himself as he ran. But the grey mud under his feet was hard to get any traction on, and Marion found himself sliding and stumbling for more than he would like to be given the circumstances. He rounded a corner and found himself staring a stone well directly in his path. He tried to swerve and found he feet slipping free from the sloppy surface beneath him. His legs kicked skyward and his swung his arms wildly in a desperate attempt to first regain his balance and then, belatedly, to break his fall. His chin hit the ground first and he bit his tongue. His vision and his hearing faltered, and Marion found himself in a brief sea of white light and distant ringing bells, and then he was aware that he was lying in the liquid grey clay. As his hearing returned, Marion noticed the sounds of battle: the metal clang of swords, the the yells and grunts of physical exertion, the snarl of a cornered beast.
Marion pulled himself to his hands and knees, aware of the taste of blood in his mouth and feeling that blood trickling down his chin. Marion looked behind him to see the soldiers locked in combat with the wendigo, which they had back against the earthen wall of a nearby hut. The wendigo was unarmed, but even with just claws and fangs the monster was keeping both soldiers firmly on the defensive.
Marion tried to gather himself, and as he wobbled to his feet he noticed that a crowd had gathered. And again Marion became aware of bits of conversation from the crowd.
"Look at the savage. Look at the blood on his mouth. Who did he bite? He'll turn for sure."
"No, he has to actually eat them, otherwise every overactive lover would turn."
"It's not about eating, it's about the symbolic act of cannibalism. A person has to devour something of value, a betrayal of their people."
"That's rubbish, you watch. he'll turn any minute now."
A man screamed in pain, and Marion turn his attention back to the fight. The Wendigo had ripped out the throat of the fat soldier and taken his sword. The wendigo was not a skilled swordsman, but the extra ferocity of his attacks drove to two remaining soldiers back. The tide of the battled had clearly turned against the remaining two soldiers.
Marion shook his head. The soldier weren't winning. Marion wasn't sure they that they were going to survive. Marion glanced around and saw the crowd had dispersed. Now the villages cowered behind doors and peered over window frames. They weren't going to be helping any time soon, and Marion didn't see other soldiers nearby.
"At least in the first dream like this one I had my Tomahawks. What were they called: Victor and Edgar? Weird names, okay- but that fits my brain. Either way it would be nice have them so I could help."
As he was speaking, Marion noticed that his hands had closed around two cylindrical objects. He looked down and discovered that he did in fact have the tomahawks in his hands.
"More proof that this is a hallucination. But maybe I can win the hallucination." Marion said to him.
He sized up the Wendigo, now spattered with the soldiers' blood. It didn't look friendly. But at least compared to his last hallucinated battle, the odds were good here. Marion clenched his teeth and joined the fight. He didn't know how to fight, but he made the most of his position. The wendigo had pushed the soldiers back and Marion was now behind the creature. He charged silently and swung both tomahawks down onto the Wendigo's shoulders, cleaving into the creature and causing both its arms to fall limply to its sides. The Wendigo spun around to face Marion, arms pinwheeling like sock puppets, and the Wendigo lunged teeth first and Marion, causing him to stumble back and fall hard to the ground. The impact of the fall drove the air from his lungs, and Marion looked up in terror at the advancing Wendigo as Marion struggled to force air back into his lungs.
The Wendigo now had it's back to the soldiers and they took advantage by thrusting swords through the back of the wendigo, metal triangles protruding from the creatures chest pinning it to the sky above Marion as it thrashed and frothed and slowly died.
Marion scrambled out from under the quivering wendigo, and the eldest soldier placed a booted foot on the creature's back and pushed it loose from the two swords to land in the liquid clay.
Marion started to thank the soldiers, but stopped short noting that they were staring at him with expressions that didn't scream gratitude. Marion suddenly noticed people whispering about his tomahawks.
"I saw him summon those weapons."
"A wizard."
"Those are the weapons of the savage."
"A witch."
"A wizard."
"He'd have slit our throat while we slept."
"Worse than a Wendigo. We're probably lucky the Wendigo flushed him out." The Mr. Wheately Guard muttered
Marion shook his head as the soldiers began to advance upon him with their swords pointed forward.
"I've got to get a rabbit's foot or something. This luck is going to kill me."
Marion spun his heel in the mud and grabbed the well for support and then bolted. Soldiers gave chase. Marion could hear them behind him. They were armoured, and Marion noticed that they hadn't caught him and the Wendigo until he had fallen. Maybe he could outrun them. Although where he would run, Marion was entirely unsure. He didn't know the layout of the town, and he expected that the soldiers did.
Marion couldn't see any street signs and the repeating collection of mud house, log house, sod house quickly blurred in Marion's mind and he found himself running wildly down slippery mud streaked gaps between buildings that all looked alike.
"I'm lost in a hostile dream town in the middle a hallucination, any minute now I'm going to find myself in my underwear." Marion gasped between ragged breaths.
Marion had been right about being faster than the soldiers, but he was starting to wear out. And to make matters worse, the Soldiers clearly knew the town well and had ambushed him several time by popping out in front of them. Marion had scrambled down a different alley each time, but he had the distinct sense that he was being funnelled and there was little he could do about it.
Marion's fears were confirmed when he scrambled out of an alley and found himself staring a vertical log walls on three sides, trapped against the wall outside the bailey of the castle.
"I see you're in danger Dreamer. Perhaps I can help." Marion turned to see the woman from earlier leaning over the wall to look down at him.
Marion shook his head, "Who are you? How do you know me? I mean besides this being my hallucination brought on by a brain tumour? Should I be doing this, having a discussion with my hallucination about the brain tumour causing that hallucination?"
"I am Morrigan. This is not a hallucination, this is a vision of the Shadowlands. This is story. That is how I know you, you are one of the Storytellers, and I need your help."
Marion heard the sounds of armoured bodies moving towards the corner where he stood, "What kind of help?"
"Aid my children. They need the help of the Storytellers. Dreamer and Walker are the ones that the story says will guide them to their destiny, and without the help of the storytellers, they will never be free. This is the price of my help. Decide quickly."
"I don't have much other option, unless I want to find out what it's like to die in a hallucination. I don't much like that option. In those dreams where you're falling, you always want to wake up before you hit bottom. So alright. If I ever meet your children, I will help them."
"You swear on your role in the story?" She asked.
"I hear him." One of the soldiers whispered," He's talking to somebody."
"Yes, fine. I swear."
She clasped her hands and drew a symbol in the air and then leaned down to tap Marion's forehead. Marion's vision went black for a moment and then he blinked and found himself standing where he had begun. He looked down, he clothes were unmarked by the mud.
"Yup," He said quietly, "Hallucination."
He grinned, and felt a slightly crackling on his lip and chin. He reached up and wiped cracked and drying blood from his lips.
"okay, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that." He whispered.
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