Chapter 2

Lilith, first wife of Adam, contrary to popular belief, was the first woman in creation. She was also the first to be cast out of the celestial gardens, banished from Eden eons before the creation of Mother Eve. Lilith became the goddess of the Dark Arts, from her roving about the faces of the seven continents and the depths of the seven seas- much became known to her. Mother of all Sin, doer of despicable acts, she was the refuge that Kaen sought after he was banished from the realms of men; more accurately, Lilith sought him out, for her own banishment was of a worse kind, doomed to be forgotten, never to be acknowledged in any Histories. And she became the consort of Kaen, Mother to Son, a taboo among men, but perfectly legal among the Mayaken; and she bore Kaen many strong ones. Before the great flood, when Murs-Malael taught magickal arts to the sons and daughters of men, Lilith attended to the ageless ones, and learnt much from them, but most of all from Murs-Malael, whose consort she became also. And she grew in sins and iniquities, and though her real name lasted but a season on the tongues of men, she was known forevermore as Mother-Magick and Lady Sihn, goddess of the Dark Rites.

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SkollWodin Castle

(Inside Skollvurn Forest)

Odo Radagastius continued to stare through the slit-window of the crown chamber of the tower. He had inherited SkollWodin, and with it command of the other two fortresses upon his majority at age 30. Well before that however, he attended his father Vastius's councils, and was given nominal command over the keep of SkollWodin itself, just as he had bestowed Siberius with command of the SkollWodin garrison and its compliments, when Siberius was just 16 summers old. Throughout his own time at council, and now, at the head of council, there had never been the shadow of the scale of confrontation they now broached with Neinart; the biggest incursion into the Low Countries by the Neinart was in the time of his Grandfather Odo Grenrir- that had seen 100 Neinart advancing vigorously into the hinterlands of the fortress lines, and the massacre of at least four villas and their inhabitants, some released to death, others taken away forever. That invasion had been concluded on the field of battle, as SkollWodin arrayed 200 of its finest with compliments of 50 each from Verdenstadt and Bruuksfurt; the 300 had shattered the 100 so completely, none survived and their remains were nailed to great trees on the border between Flanders and the Low Countries, as a warning to Neinart. The great war of Odo Fenrir against the council of Neinart, before the erection of the tri-forts to guard the twi-valley system at the Low Countries border, was almost taking on a mythological aspect to Radagastius whose great-great-Grandfather Fenrir had been. Such a full-scale war, involving thousands on both sides and all the darkness of attrition in war, could be hardly imagined in the lightly shaded groves and swamps of the Skollvurn forest, and all who lived around it were mentally sheltered by several generations of a wasting, languishing peacefulness; an attempt to rouse such people to war may be more immediately fatal than any battle itself.

But Radagastius knew without a doubt that a huge conflagration was imminent in the woods of Skollvurn. Out at sea, his inhuman sense of smell perceived only a deep, trackless darkness hovering over the waters but seeming to come from it; this shook his indomitable will more than at any other time in his existence, for while they appeared peerless as warriors on land, the garrisons of the tri-forts were utterly helpless at sea and with nautical arrangements. Radagastius knew not whether to approach the sea, to further inquire after his own premonitions, or to quit the fear in his heart, so new to him, and focus on halting the advancing hordes of Neinart. Siberius' watch reported more than a total of 9 score (180 or so), so it was plausible that Neinart had advanced with over 200 this time around. A fortnight ago, upon first news of the new incursion by Katwulf, Radagastius had ordered half the garrison of SkollWodin to dispatch to the surrounding villas, over 50 in number, and man each villa, ten to one. The same orders had been relayed to fortress Verdenstadt and fortress Bruuksfurt. Now he had ordered that battle-lines be drawn according to the ancient customs of Odo Fenrir and his band, with the protection of the twi-valley in mind; he would have to justify himself and this level of agitation to lords Villi and Bruuk. But he couldn't even justify it to himself yet.

***

Road to SkollWodin

(Skollvurn Forest)

The month of ErdSkialf was fast approaching and that meant more reddened leaves carpeted the valley floors, eerily resembling a bloody road leading to the height of SkollWodin Manor on the knoll. Now that they were nearing their destination, maybe because of the near-imperceptible alteration of their elevation with every step they took, Rollo began to feel the evening chill closer and closer to bone. The sun had started setting a while back, and now that they were on the final stretch to the summons of their Liège-lord, the autumn colors shone in the day's last radiance; yellows and light greens, browns and deep maroon, making the grey stone of the Manor house and its walls stand out starkly in the deepening gloom. They had been walking all day, since just before sunrise, Rollo and his Da, taking turns on the oxen Brigelda; Rollo thought they had made good time, his Da grunted his approval with eyes fixated on the keep ahead. Till they coerced Brigelda through the gates of the keep, Rowalder couldn't feel completely secure; the oxen was a huge part of his livelihood and how he fed his family and he wasn't too amenable to the whims of lord Radagastius and his warrior-band. He sensed his morose state of mind was affecting the youth's mood as well, and so he looked up at Rollo as the boy swayed to the gait of the climbing oxen, "At least you'll get to eat at the lord's table today! What a feast it'll be, eh lad?" he smiled up at Rollo, not entirely convincingly. "When last I was here, there were a dozen different meats served and cooked with spices from the Great Centre Sea. Some tasted so good, your uncle Haswalder forsook the company of the lord's maidens for another leg of braised ham!" at this, there was a crack of a cheeky smile on the youth's face, and he laughed as well, encouraging the humor. "That's why uncle's got a pot already, though he barely visits the alehouse or drinks from the tankard" snickered Rollo, now looking at the keep with new eyes for the first time during the entire journey. It wasn't just a lamentable excursion to him anymore; perhaps he'll gain some trifling experience or witness some events to accompany his life from thereon, maybe he would tell it to his own son just as Da had told him now.

"Very perceptive, young lad" said Rowalder "I'll need you to be just as attentive when we're up in the keep, and speak to none unless spoken to first, ok Rollo?"

"Jah" came the traditional response from a minor to an elder, and Rollo continued to look upon the keep of SkollWodin, not necessarily dreaming of sweet meats and such, but thinking of what wonders could be housed for his young mind within such high, impregnable walls.

***

North Sea

(Waters off the coast of Northern Saxony)

On some barren coast of the North Sea, a dark ship rocked gently back and forth in icy waters. While there was no visible anchor-line trailing into the depths below, the ship barely moved along with the currents but stood still as a sentinel, its prow facing the shore at all times. Above it, dark and billowing thunderheads boiled and roiled in the sky, illuminated intermittently with flashes of lightning and doomsday-like cracks of deepest thunder- yet there was barely any activity on the ship; no crews ran here and there attending to the minutiae of navigational necessities, but one lone figure stood behind the serpent-headed prow, keeping the same vigil as the ship, looking towards the shoreline. Birds that dared to fly near the man quickly settled near his figure, with the bolder ones roosting on his shoulders or head, so that the foredeck was cloaked in dark birds of the carnivorous kind- crows and ravens, even a vulture and some albatross maintained a silent vigil with the man, not so much as one beak squeaking against the sound of the waves and the storm above. The smell of the man, revolting to all who are living, was particularly inviting to the carrion-birds, and his milky, putrefying flesh was a delightful sight to them. But he stood as one of the living, and his eyes glazed as they were with the film of death still had the aspect of sight as his head turned and watched every little movement of life on the opposite shore. Thought there was no rainfall yet, his clothes dripped a black pool of water around his naked feet. Here and there, where his filthy, clogged rags he had on as raiment exposed his dead flesh, the most horrendous wounds could be seen, no longer bleeding but an angry purple-bluish color, signifying dead and rotten flesh; a massive wooden stake, at least 2 feet long where visible, protruded from his back- he had been impaled once.

As he watched the shore beneath the gloom of the storm clouds, at last 3 wraithlike figures emerged from the forest lining the shore in every direction. Several yards from the tide, they stopped, standing just as still as the man on board that dark ship. And for a moment the air seemed to be filled with light hisses and whispers as of a rising wind, so that some of the carrion-birds were disturbed and flapped noisily about the rotting man. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning that illuminated, for the briefest of moments, those figures standing on the shore- there were two women and a man amidst them, with skins of the palest white hue, looking for all intent like the dead themselves. At the boom of thunder, the watcher on the ship suddenly turned and marched steadily back below decks, through a recess before hidden by the congregation of carrion-eaters, who now discharged en masse in a miniature black cloud of wings and beaks and talons. At that signal the three figures on the beach turned and disappeared back beyond the woods of the forest.

***

Town of Flamenorum

(Borderlands Plains, Fields of Flanders)

In the twilight between sundown and nightfall, a child stood on a promontory overlooking a lush purple field. In the evening light, the world seemed only grey and purple, as the far off mountain vistas were cast in deeper shadow but the vast fields of poppies as yet unripen, retained their bright hue, just before the blanket of night rendered all colorless and unseen. She would have been a beauty of highest magnitude if her skin were a more colorful hue than the stark white that it was, though this in itself in no major way diminished her aspects; she was still an enchantment to behold with sensuously rounded eyes and lips, and features tending to the miniature rather than bogus or protruded. As she was, her eyes were half-lidded like she had just awoken from slumber or had been drugged on some potion or elixir-she could not have passed for more than 13 summers old. She stared drily at the landscape before her, her marble-like face displaying an equally stony demeanor ; fields, rolling on an on for miles, with the barely discernible silhouettes of woods, though as clear to her as from a few feet, just before the point on the horizon where the mountains rose. Behind her was some kind of crevice into a sheer cliff-face, black as a shard of night on the earth's surface. The ground beneath her feet, which jutted out about 10 yards into the air at a 45 degree angle, glowed with a pale white luminescence which complimented her skin color, so that the short, knee-length undergarment she wore, seemed like a stain, swaying on an image of moonlight. She was in some abandoned Romani marble quarry, from the times of the Old Empire; if she remembered correctly, the adjoining town to the quarry was named Flamenorum, after the greater city at the heart of Northern Flanders. They were a long away from blu... "We're a long way away from the Bluuten Fields, yes" came a barely audible whisper from behind her, hardly distinguishable from the soft breeze off the North Sea. Where behind her had been empty space, now stood an ancient looking man, that is, in comparison with the angelic cherub whom he now towered over; he looked to be in his mid-forties, a feat in and of itself in those times, but because of his excessive height and his emaciated, lean form, he appeared far older to the eye. His hair was greyish-white, a mutation proving his Nordic roots and except the loose, black woolen cloak he slung over his shoulders, he appeared especially neat, for he was clean-shaven and almost preening, for one who appeared to be a vagabond in life. Adding to his ghastly appearance was his skin, every bit as pale and bloodless as the little girl's and his bone white claws which now came to rest calmly, almost assuring, on the delicate shoulders of the girl. They curved like hooks, two inches long, into the girl's shoulders, through her cotton garment- there was no blood.

"And I, with a host such as have never before been assembled by a single Maester, march on SkollWodin to exact retribution from Odo Fenrir, for our fallen brethren. 10 score summers, has been a wait long enough to avenge our fallen- and the children of Kaen shall wreak a bloody revenge and invite in utter desolation upon the places of the Skollvurn. So do I wish, as Martel Merovich of the clan Neinart, lord of the Bluuten Fields Coven of the Maya-kith, and so shall it be."

As he spoke, many other wraiths, like himself and the little girl before him, all of the palest white skin, poured out from the black crevice in the marble hill. They spilled out, more and more, all alike wearing a simple undergarment or a dark cloak, like they were dressed for the grave, filling the quarry with an eerie silence not before present; the very wind seemed to hold its breath as more than a thousand wraiths came forth in a great circle around the promontory upon which stood Martel and one of his daughters. And atop the diminished quarry where some trees, at an elevation of some 80 feet where the marble cliff ended and soil began; the old remnant of a prominent hill overlooking the town of Flamenorum. From that height, as the eagle soars, one can see a clear, trodden-path winding its way down to the heart of the little town of Flamenorum. Usually a little bustling and busy borderlands town, tonight Flamenorum was quiet and without a single source of illumination. The town looked like a storm had raged through its eastern gate all the way across and up the back of the old quarry hill. And through that debris and chaos, trees and roof shingles shattered and layered about, chunks of brick and mortar littering, a quiet file of people walked, up the little hill overlooking the marble quarry. Among them could be spied all ranks and file of normal Nordic society, both Slavs and Freemen, in all shapes and sizes and of all ages, bearing the most ghastly and brutal assortments of wounds and injuries to the self- they all one seemed immune to these horrible accidents, and not a single moan or cry could be heard among the people as they gathered up the hill. It looked like another half of the original 4000 inhabitants of Flamenorum lay as broken corpses in the chaos around and about the town and its perimeters. The dead lifeless bodies of relatives and comrades, loved ones and acquaintances, looked on without apprehension on the equally lifeless mass that now shambled past and accumulated slowly and surely on the hill overlooking the quarry and its wraith-like occupants.

Down on the marble surface, now glowing a little more due to the darkening of the night in degrees, one of the pale-faced approached Martel and the girl on the promontory; stopping 2 yards away from the lord and his lady, it bowed. In that uncanny whisper of a voice, it announced "Master Martel, contact has been made by Sea; your envoys have returned and reported of contact with 'the Mother'. How do you wish to proceed?"

The tall man seemed to purr deeply, with a low steady rumbling, and then he smiled, revealing two rows of pointed glass-like fangs, almost sparkling in the marble-light. "In the past, Romani armies had always marched on enemies with auxiliary forces in tow and other allies in place. It would appear those conditions have been met and I have found favor with the gods." He smirked wider, knowingly.

"There are no gods, Merovich, we are the gods" said the little girl, in a voice that sang like a soft breeze through glass. At this the old man laughed a bubbly, rich laughter. Then he spread his arms wide apart, as his ghastly, toothy smile spread even more across his stretched face "We march, as the avengers of Neinart. We march on SkollWodin." Then he and the little girl, with a puff of marble powder, disappeared from sight, seemingly gone with the wind. A moment later, the congregation of pale-faced, over a thousand strong, with a force like an immediate gale of wind, and a great rush, all disappeared from sight in a cloud of marble chalk. Then the Flamenorii crawled and leapt down the sheer face of the cliff, continuing their silent march across the fields and plains of Flanders.

***

Murle'Wood Swamps

(2 miles from fortress Verdenstadt/ Southern edge of Skollvurn Forest)

"It is Barwulf, the name. Graeculus Barwulf" said the dirty, pale-faced man. His left stump still jammed into its trunk, held aloft the felled tree, and he and the giant wolf continued to circle each other in the Murle'Wood swamps. Over a distance of just about two yards, Barwulf and the wolf danced a circle as imminent of danger as the bodies of two great grey wolves, broken and strewn about, or Barwulf's severed palm in the clearing between both combatants. The lead wolf sustained a menacing, baleful growl, filled with teeth and dribbling boiling spittle and eyes that sang of unspeakable rage and savagery. Graeculus Barwulf maintained his smile, filled with pointy, dirty teeth. As night fell, the groves grew to a degree of darkness hardly achievable anywhere else around Skollvurn, because of the dense growth of the swamps and their overhanging, crisscrossing vegetation. They could have been underground for all the light there was; and yet the combatants saw each other clear as daylight, as though they were showered in light. Barwulf looked for a fragment of a moment, upon his severed left palm, as it lay facing up on the swamp soil, like a piece of broken marble. As his eyes ascended back up to fixate on their quarry, he just caught sight of a shifting blur as it zipped past his left side, incredibly quickly, even for his eyes. In the same moment, he felt the hand of death ever so lightly tickle the hairs on the back of his neck; with no space for fear, he leapt with a great bound to the right, swinging his tree-laden arm backwards and heavily, as he moved through the air. Just in time, as just then, the great wolf had appeared behind him, snapping for his neck and shoulder, with a maw as wide as his forearm. He again saw that blur of shadow, just a shade lighter than deepest night, dancing over and under the tree in motion, now approaching his person with frightful speed. He felt the weight on his left side increase rather than see it, as he instinctively reacted again, lashing out in a savage blow with his whole right arm. It was a terrible gamble, to lose both arms, to the same wolf no less; it paid off and his knuckles connected with wet snout, sending the great wolf tumbling and spinning a few yards back through the tree-lined darkness of the swamps. It recovered mid-air, landing and sliding back a meter or so, on its legs like some nimble kitten. Apart from practically erupting venom in the eyes of the great grey wolf, there was no other damage apparent that it had suffered from the blow, which had sent a shockwave of air running out from the point of impact. It snarled a deep guttural snarl that seemed capable of peeling the bark off the ancient soggy trees. Graeculus Barwulf caught his breadth- he was panting. When last had an enemy filled all his bones with such tension on the field of battle, he wondered to himself. Not since the emperor Titus in his campaigns in Judea some four hundred years ago, which he and his ilk had followed, as a side attraction, on a longer voyage to Egypt. Barwulf could not take his eyes off the wolf till it was dead now, the creature was too dangerous. Perhaps the most fatal he has seen yet.

In a low, thundering rumble of a bark, Barwulf heard the wolf utter the words "Phaly Forma" as its bone structure shifted and danced like water in a bowl, or a shimmering haze on a hot road. In moments, the wolf, big as an ox on its four legs, towered over Barwulf; it rose to over 10 feet in height and stood on two legs like a man. Its musculature was bulging and grotesque, involving a vastly different physiology, but echoing a man-like stature. Now Barwulf's eyes were literally glued to the apparition before him; with a crash his left hand which had still held the entire tree's length aloft with no apparent effort than holding a blade, drooped from alarm or just utter surprise. In that moment, maybe because of the noisy distraction of the tree's fall, the wolf-man blurred from sight yet again. But Barwulf could hardly react in time, such was his astonishment. A moment later his head sailed through the night, easily decapitated by a massive arm with claws at least 10 inches long; standing closer to Graeculus Barwulf than at any other time in their short, eventful, altercation, the wolf-man brought its arm back before its face, covered in grizzled flesh and now holding aloft the medusa chain that had hung around the now immobile man's neck. "Lycans are the fastest of all Therians, foolish son of Kaen" muttered the wolf into its mane, in the deepening darkness of Murle'Wood, as it regarded the chain with eyes now filled with pain and weariness.

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