The Kingdom of the Emerald Hills

The flash of lighting lit the black night as day. It was the constant drip on his forehead that woke him up.

He shifted from underneath the stony overhang he couldn't manage remembering hiding under.

He eyes stung, seemingly glued shut, wiping his forearm against his eyes he could make out the blurred shapes 2 ft in front of him.

Sutra kneeled for a moment to regain composure. The smell of the liquid smelled disturbingly familiar. Blinking hard he strained to see what it was. It had the distinct tinge of cooper to it.

Rubbing the viscous fluid between his fingers he frowned realizing it was blood.

He didn't remember stopping to rest or even sleeping.

Standing on the black earth he looked up to where the heavens were supposed to be. Where he last remembered the sun to be. Even this new darkness betrayed the moon.

The darkness gave way to some sort of ambient light, ungranted by the burning spheres above. Something else produced it. The clouds raced above faster than those in a wyvern’s gale. The sky was no longer intangible, in turn; it seemed to be a pool of writhing blood. As far as the eye could see, this new place defied all things logical. His heart seemed to stop, for fear of living in this reality.

It was a nightmare. Wake up sutra, wake up.

The wailing split his ears. He realized he stood on a cliff, slowly and angrily he approached the lulling screams.

Below him, for hundreds of leagues wide and hundreds of phantoms across, he could make out the pulsating earth. He stared at the vile image. Was it maggots? An infinite number of maggots, for what?

No, he focused and he could make out limbs. Human limbs. Arms and legs, heads and torsos. Not a graveyard for dismembered people, they were alive, in their entirety. Men and woman, children even.

They squirmed like trapped fish, screaming and biting, kicking and punching. Sutra realized he did not feel pity for the masses. He knew that without his newly lost compassion, he was what he had once tried to escape.

'....Bauhaus....'

The verbal hook plunged into his flesh, a familiar sensation he had forsaken eons before. He grit his teeth fully recognizing the owner of the voice. Slowly he peered further into the ocean of the damned.

There, on a dark throne sat the darkest of them all. The one with no name. The one before the creation. He could not put into words describing what horror sat on this throne. Sutra wanted to run yet found himself where he was supposed to be.

The figure, taller than any mountain he had ever imagined and deeper than the depths of the darkest seas, spoke again. If one could call it a mouth, it purged a cascade of filth and corruption that made the assassins mind reel.

He realized that those closest to the figure, sitting like sores at his feet filled their goblets with the repulsive bile. They drank deep. They lusted for their masters 'words'. He remembered.

Within moments, the pale deathly figures pushing behind those who had their filled swooped down upon them and ripped them to pieces, consuming the flesh and breaking the bone. Sutra screamed in repulsion.

His voice did not carry further than his lips.

The cannibalistic minions soon picked up the empty ownerless cups and begged their master to speak again. To impart on them his loving wisdom of the ages.

It would never end, he couldn't remember the beginning, but it was indeed the cycle he had once witnessed.

'...Bauhaus...'

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"MY GOD!"

Sutra leapt out of the tree and feel 8 feet flat on his stomach. The feeling of forced exhalation was a blessing he realized.

Painfully shifting his weight to his left side, he rolled over. He could make out the late morning position of the sun.

Panting, he laid almost motionless for a moment before regrouping himself.

He had to be in Tanglewood Forest in 4 days.

That is when the moon would tell all.

S
[cont]

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The general who advances without seeking fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do service for his sovereign, is the jewel of his kingdom. -Sun Wu

The Baron had sold his soul to the queen. Her power seemed to aptly indulge even the most callous minded.

He sneered as he patted the object, wrapped in a shawl a dear friend had gifted to him only months before. Its darkness so complete, it kept light from reflecting, making its appearance seem almost invisible.

The 'borrowed' horse made its way through the familiar roads leading back home. Back to Midnight Sun.

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Hanging high in the midnight’s sky, the full moon sat still for a moment. The cool breeze was relieving. His dry hands dipped into the cold spring water. Quickly, Sutra buried his face into the icy stream and bellowed out an indiscernible name. Without opening his eyes, he did it again. Water rushed in and out of his nose and mouth. He felt alive.

He dipped further until his ears reported the surreal sound only water could produce.

The heartbeat echoed. It was not his own. Mother's heart sang rhythmically.

'...sutra...'

Eyes slowly opened as he recognized the familiar voice. It was not mothers, not his own. It belonged to a darker spirit still.

Before he could reply, the skeletal visage had materialized nose-to-nose, orbless eyes gazing back up at him. Panic and despair were absent.

Slowly pulling his head out of the water, Sutra peeled wet hair from his eyes and sat patiently.

Pulling the large inanimate object from his pack, he produced a large and indulging sight.

The features were not of surprise or shock. The burrowed eyebrows expressed an incomplete anger. The snarl on the swollen lips could kill legions. Black flesh betrayed this mans once natural tone.

Sutra grinned.

'An offering to you Sir. May those who perished that day have their vengeance...'

He placed the head of the chaos baron on the surface of the waters and waited.

Slowly, the ghostly apparitions came. The faces did not break the waters glass serenity. And as quickly as they appeared, they were gone.

A skeletal hand broke the silence. It gripped viscerally at the baron’s tussled red hair. A death grip and a motionless moment spoke volumes between the dark squire and his master.

Slowly, the head began to submerge in the black swirling waters.

Sutra peered deep into the rippling reflection. Chin, nose, eyes, forehead and finally the top of the head were gone.

Squinting, he realized the glazed eyes on the head rolled back into the skull.

Sutra blinked.

The barons head, skull, faces were gone.

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Daybreak proved worthwhile as he made his way towards the Barony of Midnight Sun.

He had risked much as he made sure to fulfill his Champion duty of protecting the Baroness.

No regrets.

Soon, he would enough to eat and stories to tell among familiar faces back at the pub.

He would not worry about the Royal Forces and their march upon Finders Keep. It was sure to be a skirmish, worthy of passing tales.

Soon.
S

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The general who advances without seeking fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do service for his sovereign, is the jewel of his kingdom. -Sun Wu