Chapter 7: The Longmeadow
Sogbottom’s wagon creaks down the dirt path which winds its way across the grassy expanse. The purple-reddishness of the sunrise emanates from the horizon, beginning to gain the upper hand in its daily battle against the night.
Novanostrum and Sogbottom sit on the wagon’s bench while Zanther and Madra are (presumably) sleeping inside on the fold-out bunks. Sogbottom holds the reins to the distemperate horse.
“So how much farther is it to Port San-torus?” Novanostrum asks.
“If we make camp somewhere at the end of the day, we can likely arrive by noontime tomorrow,” Sogbottom says as he takes a hit from a bottle of tonick.
“What’s in that stuff, anyway?”
“Little of this, little of that. Mostly alcohol, the blood of a seagoat, and a few choice herbs.”
“You got any more of it?”
“Until I get to the Port and purchase the ingredients required to brew more, this bottle is all I’ve got. Here, try some.”
Novanostrum takes a drag of the potent potion. His eyes widen, he coughs, and twin tongues of flame shoot from his nostrils.
“Neat trick,” Sogbottom says, impressed.
“So when do you plan on telling the other two your little secret? I imagine Madra will be particularly displeased.”
Sogbottom scowls. “Not much gets past you, does it, wizard? I gather they’ll figure it out when the time is right.”
D’kassar wakes to find a pair of yellowed eyes hovering just finger-widths above his own. The eyes are attached to a daemonic face covered in black rags.
“Where did they go?” asks the rasping, singed voice.
The ex-monk feels a warm dribble creep down his thigh as the contents of his bladder are involuntarily loosed.
“S-San-torus,” he says, clinching his eyes closed and praying for a quick death.
D’kassar takes a deep breath, waiting for the end to come, but it doesn’t. When he opens his eyes, the daemon is gone. He catches a faint whiff of something he assumes is brimstone until he directs his eyes toward the stain on his sheet.
“A nightmare,” he says to himself, sighing in relief.
Above the wagon, a skyship plies its way across the clear sky. The Longmeadow stretches out before them, its monotony of tall grasses broken only by the occasional brook or tree. In the distance, they can see a cluster of tiny houses.
“We should stop and fuel up the horse,” Sogbottom says.
There are five houses facing each other in a pentagon shape. The houses themselves are tall triangles of plank wood with rounded front doors. Tattered cloaks hank on the drying lines strung between the houses. Sogbottom ties the horse to a post and knocks on the nearest door.
There’s no answer.
Madra hops down from the wagon and walks to the marble fountain erected in the common space in the center of the houses. There’s a pile of supplies stacked next to the edge of the fountain--a barrel of feed, a barrel of water, and a sack containing hardbread. Attached to the barrel is a wooden placard which reads, ‘Take what you need’.
Zanther and Novanostrum try knocking on the other doors, but there is no answer at any of the other houses. The last house they approach has a sign on the door which says, ‘Feel free to stay in this house for the night’. They walk back to the others.
“So what do we do?” Madra asks.
“I vote we stay,” Zanther says, “Professor, your thoughts?”
“It appears they have made their hospitable intentions clear. I see no reason not to take them up on their charitable offer.”
Novanostrum rolls his eyes. “I don’t like it. How do we know they don’t have this all set up so they can rob people in their sleep--or worse. It’s quite obviously a trap.”
“Nove,” Zanther says, “I’ve seen you kill hundreds of ravenous monsters in one shot. Are you telling me you’re afraid of some houses and a few barrels?”
“Fine. We’ll stay. I’ll keep a watch while you sleep.”
Zanther, Madra, and Sogbottom head into the house and settle themselves on three of the four beds inside. Novanostrum sits on the rocking chair on the front porch, gazing at the ominous dual full moons shining in the sky. From inside, he can hear the vigorous snoring of his three companions.
He maintains his watchful demeanor for a few bellchimes, but nothing happens.
The horse whinnies, and Novanostrum snaps his head in the direction of the commotion, but sees nothing. He walks over to the horse, but continues to see nothing.
A breeze stirs the grasses and a crow caws somewhere in the distant night.
“Nove, you’re being paranoid,” he says quietly to himself. He steps inside the house and locks the door behind him. He sits on the bed, feeling an intense fatigue he hadn’t noticed before. The storing of the others is cacophonous, extreme, and he blinks in surprise at the ferocity of Zanther’s snoring in particular because, because...
“Zanther, you don’t snore,” Novanostrum says.
Novanostrum rolls out of bed and into a defensive crouch.
“Hey! Wake up!” he shouts.
The others don’t stir.
Novanostrum plucks his staff from his sleeve and slams the end of it onto the floorboards, rattling the house’s foundation and calling forth an ear-shattering sonic wave audible for thousands of man-lengths in every direction.
They continue sleeping.
It’s now when the scratching starts. Scratching at the windows, scratching at the door, scratching on the walls. Novanostrum swears he even hears scratching inside the room. He can hear the scrabbling of tiny claws on stone coming from the direction of the chimney.
A bat falls out of the chimney, squeaking and seizing on the flame in the fireplace. It chirps as it zips out at Novanostrum, sinking a few claws into his forearm and causing him to drop his staff. What the wizard doesn’t notice is the viper positioned just behind his ankle, poised to strike.
With a snap, the viper clamps its jaws down on his calf. Novanostrum shrieks in pain.
While the wizard is busy trying simultaneously to stomp on the snake and swat at the bat, the windows at each end of the house are shattered as pale, skinny bodies fling themselves inside and surround Novanostrum.
One of them picks up his staff and flings a fireball at him, blasting him across the room, where he lands with a thud between Zanther and Madra’s beds.
On his back, Novanostrum tries to produce his own fireball, his own earthquake, something. Whether it’s due to the viper’s poison or the incapacitated state of his left arm, he doesn’t know, but his magick is not forthcoming.
“Time to go back to the basics, I guess,” he says, picking up Zanther’s longknife and charging into the crowd of invaders.
They bare their sharp canines at him and cluster themselves around him.
“Nosfers! I knew it!” he says, finally realizing the extent of his predicament.
Novanostrum tries to beat them away with the longknife, but they begin to overpower him. One of them grabs the wizard’s arm, inadvertently twisting the outer ring on the Ristwatch.
Time slows, and Novanostrum suddenly finds himself able to move with great celerity. The powerful blade comes down again and again, each time severing a Nosfer head from its body. With the undead dead, he hacks the snake into pieces. He picks up his staff and flings a fireball at the bat slowly flapping around the room, blasting it through the shattered window and halfway to Rhea.
The temporal balance restores itself as the wizard collapses onto the empty bed. Outside, the first traces of dawn are visible, giving every indication that this sunrise will be a brilliant one. The first sunbeams of the day enter the room, seeking out the bloody, contorted Nosfer remains. Upon contact with this sunlight, the bodies and heads melt into ash.
Zanther stretches his arms and gives a powerful yawn. He sits up in bed and yells at Novanostrum.
“Hey!
Thought you were gonna stay up and keep watch, and here you are, asleep on the job! You’d never cut it as a guard.”
Zanther is shocked to see his longknife sail across the room, zipping by his head and lodging itself into the wall.