Hatred Cast

[BubbaCornbread]

At once a wash of death and decay assailed my senses, causing me to real back as breathe caught and mind reeled. I retreated several paces to gain some respite from the foul wreak and that is when I saw her. She still wore the blue silken dress I had given her on our first anniversary, the one replete with golden flowers. Her hair, that red lustrous cascade, yet tumbled down past her shoulders in chaotic profusion. Her emerald eyes looked at me with longing, with love, with tenderness.

I blinked and the illusion was shattered, pieces falling, strewn about the dust choked room! What I now glimpsed, as I could not fully put sight to the horror manifest within the doorway, was a tumble-down creature. It was wearing a torn and filthy dress, dull lifeless hair falling away as it stumbled forward, hands outstretched, claws gleaming in the dull light. Its malignant red gaze locked upon my form and a low moan escaped, the stench of putrescence boiling forth as if from the ninth level of hell.

This was not Vanya! This fiend was not the Elf I had bonded, the woman I had loved with all my being. The creature now stalking me was a remnant, a cruel parody of the beauty that had once graced my life. With a choking sob, I strode forward and brought my sword across my body. My tears fell upon the blood encrusted blade as it swept across, crystal spheres cast from an already world weary soul.

As the beast's head fled from slumped and desiccated shoulders, the eyes blazed forth in maniacal frenzy and then slowly glazed, the green of life replacing that of horror. I at once sank to my knees, my blade falling from now lifeless fingers, eyes clouded, brow furrowed, pain manifest in so many ways. I raised my hands in supplication, my eyes rising to the wood beamed ceiling.

"Why," I asked. "Why did you take her from me? Had I not been faithful to root and bough? Had I not cared for hearth and village? Was it not enough; was all my striving for a better place for naught?"

I screamed, a sound of pure torment, my soul rattling in its bone encased prison! I slammed my metal shod fists into the dirt floor, hammering to release my rage and pain. I was just then about to grasp my loved one for a last embrace, when an odor I had never before encountered intruded upon my agony, something primal, a smell that boded ill for any that experienced such a taint. It was such a fetid stench that I at once lost any ability to breathe, my lungs instantly shutting down as if to protect from further injury.

I looked up and to the doorway, watery eyes only dimly perceiving motion. I fumbled about for my blade, my numbed fingers at the last caressing the well worn hilt. It was with difficulty that I clamped hand upon leather, gathering the sword to my breast.

"What was that misshapen figure in the doorway," I thought as I fought to stand. "It does not look like one of the zombies I have encountered this day."

It was not a zombie.

[BubbaCornbread]

The green and grey creature that stumbled forth into the brick layered room was the very substance of nightmare. I looked into its soulless red-rimmed eyes and knew true terror for the first time in my life. It was as if I was caught up in some cruel jape, an unseen audience laughing at my failures. Come; look down upon the sorrowful Elf, the one that could not keep safe home and hearth. Let us provide one last bit of entertainment, sit back and experience his agony, savor the torment as his soul is laid bare and then plucked to be tormented forevermore.

I could only look sidelong at the fiend; the horror that bound me could let me do little else. The beast was perhaps five feet in height, all spindly legs and arms. Its head was large for its small size, the skeletal face displaying fangs at least an inch long. There was no delicate nose standing firm within the face, but merely two black holes. Hair, green tendrils, hung limp about its cadaverous head. The creature's entire body glowed with a green pallor and radiated a stench from all about its emaciated form, causing my pulse to race, my heart to hammer, and my eyes to water. When it once again pierced me with those red swollen orbs, I could but stare in dread fascination, for I knew my death in those dark pools.

It took one dainty step, as would a princess upon entering the dance hall, knowing that all eyes were at that moment attentive, watching her every move. A mad cackle followed a piercing noise that cut right through me, causing me to pull back in pain and loathing. Another step and a twitter, a third and a jittery caper; the creature was enjoying my terror. As I glanced off its mad capped eyes, I could see that it was feeding off the waves of nauseating fear, the tendrils of dread that rolled off me in panic stricken waves.

The brute gave one last hoot and was on me. Quick as thought claws sought my eyes while a powerful hand fumbled for my throat. The strength of the ghoul was almost overwhelming, its limbs as steel springs, coiling about my form, trapping one arm and pushing me relentlessly back. It was all I could do to brace, to prevent my collapse and doom. We struggled thus for I know not how long, all I can remember are glimpses, nightmarish panels draped in crimson. Here a slash, there a chortle, a punch, or a kick.

Slowly, ever so slowly, my fear turned to anger, my pain turned to resolve, and my weakness to strength. I was Erolith Mornmist and I would not be gainsaid vengeance! No creature would take from me the proper duty of husband and kinsman. No, I would not submit to this foul beast, give way to despair, fall and become some undead filth! I screamed in rage and defiance as I burst up onto my feet. No more would this beast spread its malcontent about the High Forest. No more would terror spread forth from its mottled soul. I grasped the spindly neck with my left hand and struck with all my strength with my gauntleted right. At the last, as cheek shattered and teeth split, I thought I saw fear in those inflamed eyes, that terror had wormed its way the other way this time, that horror had finally come home.

I took Vanya's ring before I set her and my kinsmen alight. I could not countenance one or more of them coming back from the brink, their undead corpses yet walking, their moldering bodies spreading fear and disease throughout the High Forest. No, they would rest forever, their souls finally home, feasting and revelry till the end of days.

[BubbaCornbread]

I staggered, slipped, and fell. My unkempt hair whipped about my hair as the tempest raged around me. I knelt there, rain pouring down from the heavens, a deluge I had not encountered in many years. I raised my face and screamed in defiance. My fists clawed at the rain slick slope once and again, gouging the rock and dirt strewn path, mauling the once sacred ground. Gaining my feet, I raised my arms to the storm, my pain-filled bellows instantly drowned, dispersed by the tempestuous winds tearing at my sodden cloak, trying with all its might to once again topple and overwhelm, to bring me low, to make me kneel to all its fury!

There, under the marshalling clouds and night dark rain, I gibbered and capered like a fool. I bellowed in bawdy form, twirling as if in some macabre dance. All control slipped away that dark and foreboding night. It was as if something inside had at the last broken free, that sanity had fled, to never again darken doorway, home, and hearth. As I danced motley, lightning streaked, thunder crashed, and water poured as if from the favorite blue porcelain pitcher of my dear Vanya, everything vanished - Erolith was no more.

How long did the storm seethe, boil, and rage, I cannot tell. I do know it scoured my soul, wrenched all identity, and boiled away what had once been. No longer was there conscious thought, emotion, presence. The cauldron I had been caught within brought about a staggering transformation, culled all until only the primal lingered, a beast with no thought but base survival. I was rock, root, and soil. When the last vestiges of wind and cloud dispersed and the moon rose in full brilliance, a howl arose among the jagged crags of the Lost Peaks, a mournful dirge that skirled about the many denizens of forest and mountain, and they knew fear.

Rumors began to spread of a mad creature, half Elf and half fiend. It was said to have claws and fangs. They told tale of blood and bone, sorcery and deviltry. Each telling grew, fantastical musings spread about home, pub, and camp fire. Guards were posted where none had existed before. Mothers scolded their children and used the creature of the crags to temper their actions. Yes, that became my moniker, my nom Daguerre - creature of the crags. It was an apt appellation, for I had become a beast, near mindless in torment and rage, fury building and then fleeing, leaving me breathless, numb, and bereft of any but the basest feelings.

I wondered the lonely peaks thus for I know not how long. It could have been a year or thirty, my mind cannot unravel those times, will not conjure images of my tortured existence. I would quickly unravel and madness would once again hold dominion, once again hold the scepter and sit upon the throne, cackling into the darkness. No, I will not relive those days gone by, so far past as to be another age, a pit devoid of light, love, and laughter.

They began to send warbands into the moss covered stones, all in search of the crazed Elf. I had become such a legend that many wished to test their mettle, to gain fame and fortune, or perhaps to protect what they held dear. It was all for naught, for you see, I was a cunning beast, guile my sole companion. It was not for some mere Elf, Human, or Orc to kill me, no, I had some higher purpose that had not been illumed, something held close to my breast, yet not fully revealed. No, they would never catch the creature of the crags; never hold aloft a bloody trophy, the headless corpse hanging upon a gibbet, swaying in the gentle breeze of spring.

It remained so until the day a sunrise changed my life forevermore.