-

There was a very short, old woman sitting at the steps of the stable, wearing a hooded cloak. The long rich dress she had underneath it, arranged neatly in a pool around her gathered legs. A wrinkled hand, flesh loose on the old bones and sagging, fingers crooked, but with nails perfectly painted a garish red, holding a thin silver pipe. Its aromatic smoke made him pause mid-step unsure and stoop to examine that shaded weathered face more closely.

Sam had envisioned a quiet night in a tavern, listening to bards sprouting their tales of heroes past, whilst drinking cheap ale, but his gut told him that just gone out of the proverbial window.

Are ye fuckin’ kidding me?

“Time to get out of retirement ‘valiant swashbuckler’ hehe,” the old woman cackled annoyingly in ‘dead’ Flix’s voice. “Find the sister you’ve promised, didn’t you? Close the circle. You better get moving chop, chop. What was that fool’s saying? Time to get the band back together.”

Sam Mathews

The Wraith of Gish Lament

Part III

-Abrakas daughters-

Aberrations, mutants and plain plaguing monsters.

Accursed place.

Sam cleared the campfire, burning dry branches crunching and breaking underneath his scissoring legs, boots sliding on crumpling ancient seaweed when he landed, hot embers exploding outwards with his knees smarting. Elaniel gasped, pain distorting her lovely face, a hand clasping the left side of her chest and kicked out catching the long-limbed Ticu that had sneaked up on her at the ribs.

She shoved it back two meters, the fish-eyed creature clacking with its mouth once seeing the arriving adventurer. The Ticu had the very long black hair and dark green skin of the youngling. A mature woman’s well-shaped breasts with prominent dark blue nipples, three razor thin fin-like protrusions out the knuckles, tough as nails. Silver patches of scales gleaming at the elbows, knees and ankles, the same gills arches bellow both her naked breasts and skin free of any other blemishes. Just like the unresponsive youngling, this female-shaped creature didn’t have a single piece of clothing on.

Sam grabbed Elaniel’s arm to keep her upright with his free hand, the Zilan’s eyes flashing at his sight, swung his sword with the other to keep the Ticu away. The Mermaid sneered showing him two rows of thin pointy teeth and an arrow whistled an inch from Sam’s left ear and smacked her right at the sternum, dipping in to the fletching’s.

A shrilling inhuman sound blew out his eardrums, the ground vibrating and his teeth rattling, blood vessels breaking in his eyes. He gasped, the badly lit former hall suddenly filled with moving shadows.

“THEY ARE INSIDE!” Maeriel yelled and Sam twisted around to check on the injured Elaniel. The young ranger put a hand on his lips, the touch clearing his vision and whispered breathlessly her teeth red.

“My valiant, Sam Mathews.”

He grunted, Elaniel dropped on her knees and further to his right two Ticu popped out of the shadows. Cole who was still standing guard at the gaping entrance yelled a warning, but Marlo who was running towards the campfire at the center of the hall hesitated, the manic scowl on his face almost comical.

“MOVE!” Jinx snarled standing above the wall and fired an arrow outside. “I’ll help Cole!”

Ah, gods darn it, Sam thought and reached for his dagger. He stepped forward, his sword tracing the movements of the first long-haired Ticu, the short blade the other. They split to circle around him, hands and heads twitching constantly excited that clacking sound chilling. Sam licked his lips, tasted blood on them and frowned, but didn’t have time to dwell on it as the sea creatures attacked him.

He slashed diagonally, missed the sneaking Mermaid to his right, but opened a bleeding cut on the one moving to his left with his dagger. The wound gushing blood out the sea-creature’s left thigh. Sam twisted around, his long blade lashing out, but the Ticu jerked away again, its speed uncanny.

More unpredictable, than fast, his mind cautioned him.

Snap out of it.

The adventurer faked a high attack, the Ticu reacted to it, black soulless eyes flickering and the tip of his returning blade caught it flat at the right ankle and shattered it.

“Ah,” Sam grunted excited and moved in for the kill, something landing on his back stopping him. He faltered forward under the weight, a breath in his ear smelling of fish, brine and a whore’s nether regions.

Fuck.

Sharp teeth pierced the skin on his neck, cold lips and a long scaly tongue lapping it out. Sam recoiled in panic and tried to stab backwards with his dagger, in an attempt to dislodge the Mermaid from his back, whilst stumbling on his feet.

“I’ll have you,” she purred in his ear, arms and legs snaked desperately around his torso freaking him out.

Good grief, he thought his knees almost giving away.

“STOP FOOLING AROUND!” Maeriel blasted him arriving and kicked the Ticu hard. Sam went one way the creature the other, boots fighting for purchase and bleeding down his neck. Maeriel hissed, seeing Elaniel knelt with her head hanging, long cobalt hair covering her face and shot an arrow without aiming at the lunging Ticu he’d injured earlier. She got it on the right shoulder, but the creature kept coming and slashed at her with his left arm. Maeriel sidestepped in the blink of an eye, aromatic incense burning, reached with her free hand, ripped her arrow out of the Ticu’s shoulder, flipped it once with deft fingers and plunged it deep into its black eye.

Damn, Sam thought nigh impressed, just as he managed to stabilize himself and take stock of what was happening inside the lighthouse’s ruined first and only floor still standing. Jinx had fired half her quiver, but was now on her back and cursing like a drunken sailor, a sneaky Ticu climbing the wall from the outside, tripping her. The creature jumped on the ledge, straight black hair billowing in the wind and then went back down again skewered through the neck by Maeriel.

“Mathews! You need to kill it!” She hissed irate and Sam blinked seeing the Ticu smiling in front of his face, her mouth all bloody.

“Mine,” she told him sounding feverish and Sam found himself half-grinning sucked into her morbid alluring black pools. Elaniel’s blood on his lips breaking the spell and leading him out of his haze again. His arm jerked and the dagger punched into the Ticu’s right temple to the hilt, gory tip coming out the other.

The pain on his neck blinding and his stomach turning, when he came back to his senses fully. Sam sidestepped, the creature collapsing lifeless in a heap and made to run towards Cole, who was getting overwhelmed at the entrance.

He was intercepted not two strides later, a Ticu tackling him and sending him sprawling down. Sam rolled on a hurting shoulder, dirt in his tearing eyes and slashed outwards, blade clanking on the cracked tiles, to keep his assailant away. A breath and he stood on a knee, the young Ticu clacking his teeth approaching him, afore its body crumpled, ribs snapping, black blood gushing out her gills and broke almost in half.

One moment the small Ticu was standing in front of him and the next Soren’s bewildered mug had taken its place, bloody fist still clenched the size of a small mellon.

“Squishy things,” the Nord told him nigh perturbed and Sam realized he’d a Ticu clasped on his meaty thigh from behind, sucking on his blood with orgasmic delight. Soren reached with a gory arm, grabbed the protesting creature from its head, long fingers covering it fully and dislodged it with ease. “Soft boned, alike eggs,” the giant explained and closed his fingers in a fist again, the Ticu’s kicking and jerking head still in it.

Sam was never a queasy dude, but felt vomit clogging his throat when he heard the crunch.

Lynch Cole cut a Ticu down with his heavy blade, but another caught him with a swipe across the face, peeling everything bellow the left eye down, flesh and skin tearing away and revealing the white of his teeth.

“NOOO!” Hush screamed and desperately hurled a shortsword she wielded, the blade revolving twice afore smacking his assailant just below the nipple, the breast deflating in an explosion of gore. She stooped over her partner of many years and tried to pull him away, another Mermaid lunging for her feet and bringing her down as well. Marlo intervened, leather boot kicking the creature’s pretty face into a distorted mask, the neck snapping the wrong way.

“What’s wit the bloomin’ tits fuck’s sake?” He grunted sounding befuddled, parring a claw like hand away, Jingo’s axe severing the returning arm away just above the elbow. Marlo glanced at Cole’s ruined face and shuddered, spat down and then pushed his blade into the quivering shrilling Mermaid’s chest, using a knee to keep her at bay.

Sam approached them, a hand on his bleeding neck and stared outside, but saw nothing moving. He breathed out, caught his left arm shaking and cursed under his breath.

“They just stand there,” Jinx said from atop the wall and Sam heard Soren approaching. He grunted and turned around to return near the fire, passing by a sobbing Hush, trying to revive a badly injured Cole.

“Stupid fool,” the woman kept muttering over and over.

Sam clenched his jaw, the cut on his neck smarting and marched near Maeriel. The Zilan ranger stood next to Elaniel, her eyes gleaming in the dark, but set on Jinx, who the adventurer heard coming after him.

“How’s—?” he tried to say, but Maeriel stopped him putting a hand on his chest.

“The bone pierced her heart,” she told him clinically. “No potion can mend that. Only a witch’s magic.”

Ah, ye sweet girl.

Sam felt his knees weakening and the lights dimming.

His body numbed all over.

“She sang for you when her soul left,” Maeriel said soothingly. “It was a young love, but it was all she could give.”

Gods.

Sam slapped her hand away, not wanting to hear it and immediately felt worse. “Keep yer spells away from me,” he told her in a hoarse voice, mouth dry and feeling angrier than he’d ever felt before. “You should have come clean up front. I won’t soon forget it,” Sam added, glanced at the lifeless still knelt Elaniel and turned around, fearing he’d lose his composure and do something rash.

“She chose the path Mathews. Her calling,” Maeriel told him serenely. “We all did. Serving the Monarch comes at a cost. Always has.”

Plaguin’ fatalistic bitch.

“Keep tellin’ yerself that,” Sam grunted through his clenched teeth.

Jinx’s worried face froze, when she reached them.

“What…?” the Gish said, but Sam just grunted and walked away to return to the entrance and the others.

“Cole?” Sam asked a scowling Marlo and the experienced adventurer grunted, busy cleaning the gore from his blade with a dirty cloth, an eye out towards the darkness of the docks.

“Not lookin’ good.”

Damnit.

“See anything big fella?” He asked Soren. The Nord shrugged his massive shoulders, eyeing a sobbing inconsolable Jinx trying to bring back what Gods had taken away. Hush’s silent mourning adding to the gravity of the situation.

“They are just standing there,” Soren said in his baritone voice. “Some are still in the sea.”

“Can’t see a plaguin’ thing,” Marlo griped. “What do you think Jingo?”

The stoic Issir was stooped over a butchered Mermaid, his fingers examining the hardened fins protruding from her limbs.

“Mmm,” he said simply. “They’re retracting.”

“Right,” Marlo commented. “Gratitude for yer fuckin’ input mate. Because I needed that image in me brain fuck’s sake.”

“We need to light up the perimeter,” Sam decided. “Make that fire bigger Marlo. Dig out any ligthstones you have and bring them here. Attached on torches, or plain.”

“Ye know they charge a plaguin’ gold for ‘em right?” Marlo complained. “Fuckers has sucked us dry of coin in Goras.”

“Corpses need no coins, but two pieces of copper for the ferryman,” Sam reminded him, his tone grave and Marlo scrunched his face, but then puffed out yielding.

“Come ye weirdo,” he told Jingo, slapping his shoulder. “I’ve pulled something and those bags are heavy.”

Hapless Cole died before they reached their horses.

Maeriel had dressed Elaniel’s body in a sheer black shawl. The thin cloth very long, it wrapped around her three times, but for the face. Jinx had helped clean the slain young ranger and was now standing next to her cocooned body in silent mourning.

The rest of them had done their best to enlarge the fire, burning anything they could find that was dry enough. Sam had found eighteen lightstones in their saddlebags, eight of them slotted into torches and had arranged them outside the four sides of the lighthouse. It had fittingly returned the ruined building some of its former glory, its illuminated carcass still shedding its light into the port.

The Ticu watched everything from a distance, especially those standing near the entrance, a few of them occasionally singing eerily into the night.

“Why not burn them?” Sam asked Maeriel when she returned to stand next to them at the walls, with another glance at the corpse of Cole, laying not that far away left unadorned.

“Zilan don’t do that human. But I won’t let her fall into their hands,” she replied, a hand at her wooden quiver counting the arrows still available. Maeriel had retrieved most of them, but not all were usable.

Sam nodded with a grimace and the former Imperial Huntress glanced at him.

“Elaniel’s vessel will return to the earth, near the roots of an ancient tree, so she can always have company.”

Sam rubbed his tired face with a hand, a heavy sadness creeping up on him.

“I’ll talk to them,” Maeriel added.

“Ye think it’ll work?”

“I won’t plead,” she explained haughtily and stooping she murmured into his ear. “I’ll threaten.”

Have ye lost yer mind?

“What did she say?” Marlo asked him, when she walked away towards the entrance. Sam glanced back to their fire and Jinx that had stood up alarmed, seeing Maeriel going outside. He sighed deeply and rushed after her.

At least eight Ticu were standing across the lighthouse, several others occupying the sandstone dunes and many more still swimming in the port's black waters. Five of them moved as one, when they spotted them coming out of the gapping destroyed entrance. These were taller, also with long black hair and female bodies, skin appearing oily in the light, but striking features that differed from one another.

They were also dressed sort of, atypically elongated half-dried scarves of different colors and of an odd material loosely hanging over their curvy bodies. Some even had their rich hair tied up, or braided, leaving those narrow, fish-eyed faces uncovered.

Sam breathed once deep, sword in hand and wounded neck leaking through his bandages.

“Now what?” he rustled to the scowling Maeriel and one of the Ticu standing five meters from them heard him and tipped her head to the side. Another clacked, thin sharp teeth snapping together, huge black eyes watching them reflecting the light on their surface.

Glassy dark pools. As if they were already dead inside.

A Ticu started humming from the back, Sam grimaced sucking at the inside of his cheek nervously and Maeriel touched his arm softly. She wanted him to sheathe his blade. The adventurer licked his lips, eyed the Ticu watching them warningly and did it puffing his cheeks out.

The Ticu nearest to them turned around casually, whilst stepping aside, leaving impressions on the dirty tiles and stared at the impressive female specimen standing behind her questioningly. She gave her a nod, large regal forehead hugged by elaborate thin braids adorned with colorful seashells.

The younger Mermaid blinked in acknowledgement.

“Mother Nerisea shall talk with the faithless,” she announced in passing Common.

Sam narrowed his eyes and the Mermaid winked at him brazenly alike a bloody port harlot and in retrospect like Jinx habitually did. The latter subsiding his censure a bit.

“Eledra is familiar in your ways,” The Ticu Nerisea explained, her voice leaving notes hanging from each word, interlacing with the light breeze of the sea and the waves behind them.

“We wish to leave Mussel,” Maeriel said calmly getting straight to the point.

“Mussel is gone,” Nerisea replied looking at her.

“This ruin,” Maeriel added. “Without further bloodshed. Spare your children. This road will lead you to ruin. I counsel against it.”

Nerisea blinked. Sam thought that there was no mistaking her being a leader, though mother seemed too personal a term. He caught out of the corner of his eye Eledra looking at him ravenously and gulped down.

“This ruin is our nest, the gloomy one’s gift,” Nerisea told her, the Ticu listening in whirring in unison. “The youngling’s you killed Huntress know no other home. You’ve laid waste to Abrakas daughters. Your threats hold no weight here.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“These were no—”

“They didn’t know,” Maeriel cut him off. “Why sent them, in the first place?”

“We have no kings, but we listen to our god,” Nerisea replied sternly. “We need no queens, but a brood mother’s insight to tell us, this is a group of slayers paying us a visit in the middle of the night. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way,” she added cruelly.

Maeriel licked her lips.

“We didn’t come to harm the Ticu,” she announced switching strategy and Sam frowned unsure, despite following her outside to stop her from getting herself killed, he was keen on putting the hurt on them for slaying his friends.

The adventurer felt conflicted.

“Why the lights? Why the lies?” Nerisea droned. “A huntress lure ever cruel. You’re running out of spells though, oh ye ‘spirit of the woods’, perhaps you should have stayed there,” she added mockingly. “You just can’t stay away huh? Don’t you witch blood?”

“You took our people!” Sam growled, his heart thundering. Eledra gasped and made to approach him.

“Stay,” Nerisea ordered her. “Echonia, Dialeh, Vivirah. Please restrain your impressionable older sister,” she smiled a matron’s smile. “She’s easily aroused when near humans.”

The meaning ambiguous on top of creepy.

“What is your answer?” Maeriel asked frostily and the Ticu cackled.

“The night is fading away,” Nerisea replied blankly. “You’ll travel in the day, but you won’t go far away. If its mercy you seek, then you shouldn’t have killed Assara for being curious. Terror you’ve brought into the Realm and terror thou shall receive.”

Sam clenched his jaw hard, whilst Eledra raised her long arms, bony fins retracted to assure her sisters she’ll behave. It caused those well-shaped breasts to spill out, the detail disturbingly distracting to the frowning adventurer. The alluring Ticu paused to smile intrigued.

What the fuck are ye doing? Sam admonished himself furious, just as Jinx’s haunted voice broke the stalemate.

“She survived,” the Gish said and Nerisea blinked rapidly, her mask of indifference breaking for a fraction of a second.

“A ‘Skilled one’ still serving her masters’?” she asked noticing the disheveled short figure of Jinx standing behind them. “Why did you stay out of the sea’s embrace young Gish? It’s been hours, yet there you suffer amidst the tree and sludge dwellers, resisting its calling. What do you hide there?”

Jinx grimaced and then stepped aside to reveal the young bandaged Ticu they had first encountered. Assara’s pale face turned to the Gish and she touched her naked shoulder comfortingly.

“Elaniel’s talents kept her alive. Her songs and potions,” Jinx said her voice breaking, as the young Ticu walked towards the Matriarch. “She died to stay by her side. Hers was a healer’s calling led astray.”

Assara hugged Nerisea’s body tight, arms clasped at her waist, the matron’s large black eyes on the Gish.

“You’ve a debt to pay,” she announced and Jinx nodded. “Yet you risk approach those that serve the depths father to save them? Abrakas isn’t sentimental Gish.”

“I know,” Jinx replied steadily. “But these are my friends.”

“I see,” Nerisea said and allowed Assara to run shrieking to her expecting four sisters arms. “Eight children I’ve birthed, three of them I’ve already lost,” she revealed in that singing unnatural voice. “Cold are the depths of the Scalding Sea, its caves and canyons riddled with the kraken’s bones and the dragon’s teeth, but a mother’s cured sewn skin holds a warm heart in it. Remember this Gish of the Sinking Isles, those you serve have their hearts blackened and eaten away by greed’s rot. To save themselves, they’ll ruin everyone else. Abrakas gullet stands unpretentious in comparison.”

“You’re wrong, but ye can turn a phrase I’ll give ye that,” Jinx retorted. “Wit bonus points for the motherly tits.”

Nerisea snorted and clacked her teeth once, but then a smile formed on her face.

“Eh, love blinds the young,” she yielded and glanced at her daughters. One of them stepped forward shyly. “Yes, Vivirah?” Nerisea asked patiently.

“You’re letting them go?”

“I am. Are you going to rat me out?”

Vivirah stilled her eyes on her. “What about me?”

Nerisea let out a human sigh and glanced at Sam. “Is any of you familiar with the Circle?” she asked.

“Ahm,” Sam grunted unsure on where they stood and what was the right answer here. Starting a fight with them all over again had lost its appeal, now that his adrenalin had burned out.

“You don’t,” Nerisea decided and glanced at Maeriel. “You’re not sure hmm,” she then spared a look at her daughter’s scowling face afore adding. “You come upon the one ‘living in shades’, you tell that wicked cunt, one of her killers owes my daughter a lover. I intent to collect.”

Sam had envisioned several ways that meeting would go and eventually end, but this caught him completely off guard.

It would take the adventurer years to figure out the Matriarh’s cryptic words throughout the whole conversation and by then, almost everyone in their group was long dead.

read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms

& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms

Scribblehub https://www.scribblehub.com/series/542002/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms/

& https://www.scribblehub.com/series/547709/the-old-realms/