4.6 - Nightly Harvest
“I’ve got one here!” Rivkah yelled to Lewy the cart runner who was leaning against the tunnel wall, tossing a stone in the air. He threw the stone aside and picked up the handle of the cart, rumbling down the narrow tunnel path towards her. She gently chipped away around the plump orange body of the coaling until enough was exposed to get her hands around. She tightened her lambskin gloves and curled her fingers around the body of the wormlike creature. She immediately felt the heat of the coaling through her padded gloves. It wiggled in a half-hearted attempt to break free from her grasp, but she managed to pull the entire thing out of the stone wall.
“That’s a big one!” Lewy exclaimed, swinging the cart around next to her.
“Biggest one this week, I’d say,” Rivkah said. She felt the heat of the worm on her chest and face as she lowered it into the cart. It curled up affectionately next to the five other coalings already resting on the stone bed of the wagon.
“Another one here!” Kezia’s voice echoed up the tunnel from around a bend.
“Looks like it’s going to be a busy night!” Lewy said as he pivoted the cart and took off in Kezia’s direction.
The tunnels extending off of the Osterhold caverns were abuzz with activity. A healthy nightly harvest of coalings would typically be counted on one hand. They would easily reach double the usual tonight. Something was spurring the coalings towards the surface. Rivkah was glad for a bountiful harvest, and the Saorin residents of Osterhold would surely be as well. That said, she was concerned. When The Barge of Souls speaks, it’s best to listen as closely as you can. It was speaking clearly through the emergence of so many coalings. They were either being forced out, or they were running from something and Rivkah didn’t know which one she feared more. For now, there was nothing to be done but make the most of it. As the older Carshgans in Osterhold would say, best to dig before the soil gets heavy.
Cam
Rivkah, Kezia, and the rest of the harvesters returned to the central cavern of Osterhold three hours early with twenty-six coalings, more than doubling their previous record. Rivkah could already imagine the face of Heveil, leader of the haulers. Even a cart of seven or eight made him grunt and complain. Three and a half carts full of coalings may nearly kill him. The trek from the caverns of Osterhold to the town center wasn’t a long one, but the snow was heavy and constant this time of year, and the heat of the coalings tended to attract all manner of wildlife, some more insidious than others. They would need to triple the security detail for this haul.
The divide between Carshgans and Saorins in Osterhold was purely physical. The Saorins lived in the cold fields where the original settlement was built, while the Carshgans lived in the caverns surrounding the settlement. The Carshgans provided the settlement with coalings to heat the buildings and enclosed farm systems, and the settlement returned the favor with food and supplies. All the residents of Osterhold scoffed at stories from other cities around the Barge of Souls, where Saorins and Carshgans clashed at every waking moment. When faced with the relentless elements of the untamed wilderness, there was no time for such pettiness.
“What in Ysopra’s name have you done Rivkah?” a heavyset man with a dark knotty beard and scarred leather cuirass caught the harvesters as they descended the last turn of the switchback trail leading into the central cavern proper.
“Good to see you too Heveil,” she answered. She let down her side of the wagon she was helping Lewy pull and let another harvester take it up. “Can I speak with you in private?”
Heveil nodded and stepped off to the side of the road that led to the center of town. Dinnertime was upon the Osterhold cavern and the air was filled with the smell of smoke, meat, and rosemary. Just enough to momentarily cover the ever-present smell of wet stone. The town itself, all manner of structures and tents assembled in what Rivkah would call orderly chaos, was lit with torches. Above them, however, just where the torchlight faded, was a blooming sky of midnight blue lights. Of course, it wasn’t the sky at all. Dardoracks were owl-like creatures that burrowed into the cavern at night to escape the cold. With them, they would bring tendrils of luminous moss from the surface. The dardoracks not only provided natural light to the Carshgans, they also kept the insect population manageable. By padding their nests with glowing blue moss, they attracted the insects of the cavern and feasted on them.
“Something is wrong,” Rivkah said, keeping her voice low. “I’ve never seen the coalings like they were tonight.”
Heveil unfolded his arms and with one hand, stroked his beard. A movement he only did when he was anxious.
“The air is heavy but the ground is light,” He said. Another Carshgan saying that was typically reserved for the time before a battle or a storm. “The dardoracks are fewer tonight, and they do not speak to us.”
Rivkah hadn’t noticed it with everything on her mind, but Heveil was right. The dardoracks had a soft coo that would flicker through the cavern for the first few hours of the night, but the only sound she could hear was that of the people in town.
“It feels like they are running from something,” she said. “I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but I feel that we should set lookouts and guards for the lower tunnels tonight.”
Heveil nodded.
“I’ll speak with Archturos,” he said. “We can delay the delivery of coalings until tomorrow, and reallocate the resources to guard duty.”
He took a deep breath and melted back into his disgruntled posture.
“Go on and get yourself a meal, I’ll handle this once-in-a-century coaling storm you’ve saddled me with,” he said. He slapped her arm and filed in line behind the last cart of coalings as they disappeared into the town streets.
In the center of town, a stalagmite spiraled upward nearly thirty feet. It was used as a gathering place, with long thin canopies tied from the top of it and spread out in each direction like a maypole. Beneath the canopies were several banquet tables for gatherings, but more often than not, they were used as a playground for the children or a place for the people of Osterhold to work on projects uninterrupted. It had been a long time since Rivkah had seen each and every table covered in food. Word of the haul had spread quickly. Gomesonda, the chef of Osterhold, prepared a simple meal each night for anyone in town with no means to feed themselves, or with no family to dine with. Due to the haul, however, she had tripled her recipes and made enough for practically all of Osterhold to enjoy. In the time it had taken Rivkah to head home and change her clothes, Gomesonda had gathered what looked to be practically the entirety of the Osterhold cavern together for the feast.
“Rivkah! I have a seat for you.” Gomesonda called out. She was one of a handful of irilocs who chose to live in the caverns and not in the settlement outside. She was originally from the town of Wolf, a day’s journey to the southeast. After making the journey to Osterhold, she lived in the settlement for a few years before deciding the cavern was her true home. Her head was hairless, instead covered in indented patterns and ridges, all of them radiating a pale violet color. It was brighter than usual tonight, a sign of joy from an iriloc. She raised an arm and motioned Rivkah over towards the end of one of the tables. Rivkah took her seat and graciously accepted the overflowing plate handed to her by Gomesonda. Sauteed mushrooms, roasted buffalo covered in melted butter and rosemary, and fresh tomatoes from one of the heated greenhouses on the surface.
“Each meal seems to be the pinnacle of your craft, and yet the next always puts the last to shame,” Rivkah said after eating a forkful of mushrooms and a bite of buffalo. Gomesonda smiled and waved the comment away.
“The mushrooms are oversalted. It could have been better,” she said, then put a hand on Rivkah’s shoulder and leaned in close. “Even so it’s a damn fine meal, you’re right.”
They both laughed and Gomesonda bid Rivkah farewell as she continued her rounds, greeting latecomers and refilling plates and mugs around the tables.
Just as the food was settling in her stomach and her muscles were beginning to relax from the night of work, a cry rang out through the cavern that chilled Rivkah’s blood. Heveil was sitting across from Rivkah and immediately leaped up from the bench. They exchanged a brief glance, while everyone else sat frozen in place as if they were unsure the scream was real. The doubt melted away into unmitigated fear as Rebin, one of Archturos’ guards assigned to watch the western tunnels, stumbled into the gathering area covered in blood and pierced through the shoulder by a sharp white object that looked like a bone.
“The...the tunnels...they are...they’re coming from the lower tunnels,” he stammered, out of breath and coughing blood into his hand. Heveil cleared the edge of his table, sending half-eaten meals and dishes clattering to the stone. He and one of his newest haulers, a young woman named Soshin, grabbed Rebin and lifted him onto the table.
“Where is Xeyil!?” Heveil shouted.
“Here! I’m coming!” Xeyil, one of Osterhold’s doctors rushed through the stunned crowd to Rebin’s side. “Do not remove the weapon from his wound! He’ll bleed out. We need to stabilize him first.”
“Rebin look at me,” Heveil took the guardsmen’s face in his hands and gently turned him. “You’re going to be alright. We’ll take care of you. Where are Joro and Kafda?”
Rebin coughed up more blood on his chin.
“They’re dead. All dead,” he said. “I tried...I did...I couldn’t help.”
His body began to shake violently on the table.
“His body is violently rejecting whatever this is,” Xeyil said, sopping up blood around the weapon protruding from Rebin’s shoulder. “His organs are shutting down.”
A second cry echoed out from the tunnels to the north.
Rivkah pulled aside Lewy, Kezia, and Soshin. The three of them were just as terrified as the rest of Osterhold, frozen in place.
Cam
“We need to get everyone out of the cavern,” Rivkah said. Lewy flinched as Rebin shouted out in pain from the table. “Lewy look at me. We do not have time for fear. None of us do. Kezia, run ahead to the pathway, I need you to keep a headcount. Lewy and Soshin, gather everyone here and take them topside. Make for the settlement as quickly as you can. Keep the children and the elderly in the middle, with everyone else surrounding them. Can you do that?”
The two harvesters and one hauler nodded at Rivkah.
“Okay, I’m counting on you,” she said. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”
The three of them did as they were told, taking each other’s hands and closing their eyes. One heavy deep breath. Rivkah took one along with them.
“Now go!” she shouted.
Kezia made for the path while Lewy and Soshin jumped into action, getting people out of their seats and heading for the switchback trail out of the caverns. Ten years had passed since the Highroyal Barbarians laid siege to Rivkah’s home city of Cuthwaite, but time hadn’t worn away her experience. Rivkah the harvester was gone and in her place was Rivkah the scout commander, the one always first to the scene of the Barbarian's latest brutal show of force, the one responsible for each and every outrider who would turn pale as a ghost and lock their knees in the face of hatred. They were memories she wished she could pull free from her head, but all the same, they always kept her present when the walls crumbled around her.
Xeyil worked frantically on Rebin, but the guardsman looked lifeless. The table was covered in blood as if it were an altar to a bestial god, steady streams of it poured off of the sides in thick channels onto the cavern floor and the shoes of Heveil and Xeyil. One last muted cry and Rebin ceased any movement. Xeyil shouted out in frustration and slammed a fist down on the table, splashing blood onto his face and neck.
“He’s gone Xeyil,” Heveil quietly muttered. “You did what you could. We need to go now.”
“Heveil, help get the others out of here,” Rivkah said. “We’ve heard screams from the west and the north tunnels, but nothing from Archturos in the east. I’m going for him.”
“You shouldn’t go alone,” Heveil said, shaking his head. “I’ll come with you.”
“None of these people are fighters Heveil, you know that,” she said. “They need your experience.”
“She’s right,” Gomesonda spoke up. In the commotion, Rivkah hadn’t realized that the chef had stayed behind. “Besides, I’m going with her. She’ll be fine.”
Rivkah smiled and nodded at her.
“I would appreciate that very much.”
After darting through a few alleyways towards the eastern tunnel, Gomesonda broke the nightmarish silence between the two of them. The quietness of two living beings in a crypt.
“What is coming, Rivkah?” she asked. “What bubbles up from below?”
Rivkah paused for a moment and caught her breath, then slowly shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But The Barge felt it. The dardoracks, the coalings. They knew it was coming. It feels as if we are perched atop a boiling pot, and it has begun to overflow.”
“Who set the pot to the flame?” Gomesonda asked.
“I pray to Ysopra that we discover the answer to that question before death takes us,” Rivkah said. They stood for a moment, eyes locked. What felt like moments ago, Gomesonda had been laughing and handing Rivkah a plate loaded with food. Now they stood on the precipice of something neither of them understood. Gomesonda took two butcher knives from her belt, still stained with residue from the roasted buffalo. She wiped them clean on her apron and handed one to Rivkah, tightly gripping the other. Without another word, they both turned and continued on toward the tunnels.
Archturos stood like a war-crazed goliath at the mouth of the eastern tunnel. His scimitar was shining silver and clean of blood, but he wasn’t so lucky. Splatters of it coated his leather armor in frantic patterns, some oozing from open wounds, others appearing to be from an outside source. Three bodies lay on the ground around him, two of which Rivkah identified as Palan and Cursh. The third was too mangled to identify. Archturos was staring into the blackness of the tunnel with his back to the city. His shoulders were shifting up and down with each labored breath. Rivkah called out his name, and he turned his head for a moment. Just then, a horrifying ripping noise echoed out from the tunnel, followed by a whistling sound through the air. A bonelike spear, identical to the one that killed Rebin, shot out of the darkness and plunged through Archturos’ thigh. Unlike Rebin, however, it fully pierced through and clattered to the dirt, leaving a massive bleeding hole in Archturos’ leg. He screamed out in pain and fell to his knees. It was then that Rivkah and Gomesonda saw their enemy for the first time.
Cam
A scuttling sound rattled through the tunnel entrance, and from the dark, a creature crawled through with madness. Long human arms stretched outward from its ragged pale white torso, arms long enough to grip the walls on either side of the seven-foot wide tunnel entrance. The face of the beast swirled together like a whirlpool of skin and cartilage, eyes and teeth, and a tongue fusing and separately rapidly. It wrapped its gnarled and cracked fingers around the stone and propelled itself forward, swinging its legs and lower body into the air. The creature was naked, but no human anatomy was identifiable. Between the legs of the creature was what looked like another being emerging from its skin. It opened its mouth as its host swung forward and the smaller creature ejected a bonespear at Archturos, hoping to finish off its prey. If only the beast had known what it was hunting. Even as he knelt before the lake of death, feeling the water pull him out, Archturos was no simple target. He was raised in the wild mountains outside of Osterhold, and nothing in the mountains died easy. With more speed than he had any right to still possess, he dropped to the cave floor and let the bonespear rattle overhead, then pulled himself up to one knee and met the beast blade to chest as the momentum of its swing carried it forward. His scimitar pierced clean through, and with the last energy left in him, Archturos howled and pushed the blade upward until the head of the beast was cleaved in two. Not an ounce of blood was spilled, and the creature barely made a sound. Its body swiftly evaporated into a cloud of blue-gray particles that rested in the still cavern air, small clumps fluttering away whenever the air was disturbed.
Rivkah stumbled forward, willing her legs to move. Her whole body felt numb, paralyzed by what she had just witnessed. She knelt down next to Archturos hoping to ease his passing if she could, but the slaying of the beast had taken the last life from him. His last breath was taken in defense of Osterhold. Gomesonda prayed over Palan and Cursh, then the body that was too disfigured to identify. Rivkah began a prayer over Archturos. She only knew him from a few passing words here and there, more related to hauling coalings than anything. She never learned much of anything about him. And now she was the one delivering his last rites. He deserved better. Before Rivkah could finish her prayers, the tunnel erupted in sound. Three bonespears exploded outward from the darkness, two flying over Rivkah’s head and the third colliding with the cavern wall to her left. Gomesonda grabbed Rivkah by the shoulders.
“We have to go now!”
“I haven’t finished the prayer,” Rivkah said, holding tight to Archturos’ armor.
“Ysopra will understand,” Gomesonda said. “And if they don’t, they are no god worth praying to.”
With more strength than before, the chef yanked Rivkah up and pushed her back toward the outer edge of the city. If they were lucky, they could skirt the buildings and make it to the path upward before the evacuation was complete.
Nearly the entire city was outside by the time Rivkah and Gomesonda made it out into the moonlight. Steady snow was falling, light enough to see through but heavy enough to build. The fields between the cavern entrance and the settlement of Osterhold were covered in two feet of it. Rivkah could see Lewy and Soshin a short distance from the caverns, doing their best to guide the survivors through the elements.
“We’re missing twelve guards and fourteen residents,” Kezia said. “We did what we could to get everyone out.”
Rivkah nodded and grabbed Kezia’s shoulder.
“Thank you. Let’s join the others and get clear of the tunnel. Hopefully, we can lose whatever those things are in the fields.”
Just as the words left Rivkah’s mouth, she felt the ground beneath her shake and buckle. Between the fleeing survivors and the entrance to the cavern, a pocket of earth exploded upward. A creature twice the size as the one Archturos had killed erupted from the hole. Its skin was the same ghostly white shade, but that was where the similarities ended. This one looked closer to a roach than a human, with large spiked hind legs, a bulbous domed head, and blade-like horns protruding from its torso. It scrambled up out of the hole, and Rivkah made a horrifying realization. It wasn’t the same ghostly pale color as the other creatures. Its back was covered by them. One by one, dozens of the humanoid beasts peeled themselves off of their vehicle and leaped towards the terrified throng of Osterhold citizens. Rivkah, Gomesonda, and Kezia charged toward the fight, but the snow was heavy and Lewy and Soshin had led the group well, creating quite a distance between themselves and the cavern entrance. Rivkah could only watch as Heveil took up first defense at the rear of the caravan and was immediately swarmed. He disappeared beneath three of the creatures. A sound like shredding leather echoed through the field and whips of blood splashed across the snow all around the huddled mass of creatures. Another two creatures propelled themselves forward into the center of the crowd, flailing wildly. The snowfield became a nightmarish tableau of blood. A wide clean canvas splattered over and over with red paint.
The roach beast, disinterested in the slaughter, turned its attention towards Rivkah and her companions. With alarming speed, it scurried towards them, kicking up snow-like waves on either side of it. Gomesonda took the lead, wielding her butcher knife as a sword. As quickly as she approached the beast, it dispatched her. With one quick swing of its horns, it speared her and tossed her aside. She slid ten feet through the snow, leaving a long trail of blood in her wake. Gomesonda was an iriloc, gifted with immortality as long as the aegis, a creature living inside her body, still had life left in it. But it took time and energy for the aegis to heal lethal wounds. Rivkah knew it was only her and Kezia now, in the face of a seemingly insurmountable enemy. The beast reared back on its hind legs, bearing its underside as it prepared to launch itself downward into the two of them. Rivkah hurled herself at Kezia, taking them both to the ground and covering Kezia’s body. She felt the beast slam down where they had just been standing. She rolled over, crunching snow beneath her body, and clutching Kezia’s hand. Staring down at them was the beast, preparing itself for another lunge. Behind it, a bright light flashed. Then another. And another. The beast paused as a voice pierced the air.
“No longer will I wait in the void of time between time,” the voice spoke so powerfully that the falling snow blew away from the source, somewhere behind the roach. “I cannot bear to see my snow ruined with blood and death.”
The roach turned and dropped low to the ground, looking for the source, but behind it was nothing but falling snow. Then, in the blink of an eye, Rivkah saw it. Flickering in and out of the snow was a being, similar in size to the roach. It stood on two legs, with an armadillo shell covering its back. It unfurled long sharp claws that reached nearly to the ground. A heavy tail dragged behind it, in the shape of a hammer. Then it was gone again.
“Dissolve away into the air, and feed the other parasites of the planet with your poisonous being,” the voice said. The roach spun furiously, looking for its target, and then, with a flicker, the armadillo creature reappeared and brought down its tail on the roach, breaking its body in two. Another flicker and it was gone. The roach, just like the creature Archturos had killed, popped into a blue-tinted cloud of dust and dissipated into the wind. Rivkah and Kezia watched as the flickering being dispatched each and every creature still besieging the caravan. Its claws cleaved through them with mechanical precision. One of the creatures had Lewy by the throat, and the armadillo severed its hands and separated its head from its body without touching the frightened hauler. He dropped to the snow, terrified but intact. After only a minute, there was silence. No beasts remained. Only a fraction of Osterhold was left alive, surrounded by blood and bodies. A line of torches from the settlement illuminated the far end of the field. It was far too late, but at the very least, the settlement hadn’t abandoned them.
The armadillo creature flickered in and out of the falling snow. Once it was satisfied that the beasts were fully dispatched it disappeared. The voice echoed out over the fields one last time.
“Abandon the caverns, you who remain. There are long-forgotten pathways beneath this land that lead to the God’s Pearl. When your lords declared the end of the Central Kingdom infection and the sealing off of the God’s Pearl, they deceived you all. I am one of an assembly of beings given to this world for your protection when the very ground you walk on was young. We have been in hiding since The Collapse when you split the God’s Pearl and spilled its poison. Time serves as a hiding place for many things. Three of my companions are awake, but two more have lost their way. I must find them. Bury your dead and weep if you must, but heed my warning. War is upon you, and death will be as common as the snow. Prepare yourselves. I will return to you when the fighting begins.”