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[Isk]

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The heavy stink of unwashed bodies lingered in the air of the stuffy and cramped hut. Isk stared at the painted men and women which sat around the central hearth looking at him. Their leader, an overly skinny man of no less than sixty years watched as his much younger and fatter wife applied healing salves to the deep wound at Isk’s side. Their nakedness and lack of hygiene disturbed the Magnate’s senses. White coated children peeked through the canvassed entrance at the strange foreigner.

Isk had entered the settlement only a few days ago. As he reflected back on the day Isk remembered a feeling of anxiety which had build up in his stomach, ‘butterflies’ as people called them. Never had Isk felt it so strong, not when speaking to crowds, not before battles or duels, only then…only when the revelation of his parentage was, as he thought, moments from being revealed. Now the only feeling was one of pain and discomfort. Turning to his uninjured side the Magnate vomited to the animal skin covered floor much to the delight of the watching children.

“My mask” the Magnate mumbled as he suddenly realized it was missing. “Where is it?”

The fat woman shushed him. She spoke something in a tribal tongue, a primitive language of clicks and unrecognizable words. Seeing the look of frustration on Isk’s face the woman laughed. Her teeth were hideous and yellow, her fat white lips like those of a monkey.

Naked without his mask Isk covered his face with his blood drenched hands. His heart sunk and in his weakness he nearly brought himself to tears. In the background the old man rummaged through the contents of Isk’s backpack. Mockingly the fat woman placed her hand over Isk’s and attempted to peal it off. The salve on her hands caused his eyes to water all the more with the strength of the vapour. Still physically strong Isk nudged her off. As the obese woman toppled to her side the other men in the tent rattled their wooden spears. His side knew those spears all too well. Nauseous he looked over to the old man and saw him pull a familiar object out of the backpack.

A sudden cry of shock rang out from the room as the wrinkled white old man dropped the helm to the floor. Without regard for physics the helm rolled past the feet and knees of the stunned observers and rested at Isk’s side. Frightened, the fat woman crawled backwards in a hurry and pressed herself to the side of the hut, causing the structure to tilt momentarily.

As one the assembled savages cried out. Clicking their tongues against the tops of their mouths and making protective symbols with their painted fingers the natives displayed their superstitions. Afraid, weak, and exposed Isk gripped the helm with shaking hands. Driven by the need to cover his face he put it on…

[Now we are one]



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The night was young but the early moon had risen high enough for its silver threads to be felt. The tops of the mighty oak trees basked in moonshine, shimmering with the dew of a recent rainfall. The carefully curved branches caused droplets of water to continuously fall to the land below. Nearby the footprints of woodland animals dotted the moist grassy soil. Wedged in the corners were redcap mushrooms, perhaps tossed away by a father lecturing his son on the edibility of the local fungi.

In the background there was a hill and beyond that a small village where the streets ran red with blood and a weak man gave in to the devil.