Six Warriors

Lord of the Skulls - (Ethan)

That place had a gloomy vibe that Ethan didn't like, in fact it was the most depressing place he'd ever been. All that the place exuded was death and decay and this was not a place he would even consider passing, even worse would be to spend the night there.

"Let's go." Ethan said seriously.

When Ethan and Elza were about to turn and walk away, the boy heard a scream, a call and when he looked in the direction of the sound he saw a young man coming towards him, a young man in a sorry state. The young man hobbled over to Ethan quickly, as if he was so scared and desperate that he used his last strength to get there, he then grabbed Ethan's shoulders to keep from falling and also to warn him of something. That guy wasn't just a random stranger, that guy was one of his teammates, Mario Julian!

He looked battered and was quite pale.

"No…" he gasped, "no…the people here…didn't welcome us…don't trust!"

"Hey man, calm down" Ethan asked, "just tell me what happened."

"The village... they... are the servants... lord of death..." he spoke with great difficulty, "they... don't want your help... don't trust! The villagers are... not good... living."

"What happened? Hey! Where's Aretha?"

Julian unable to speak, just pointed towards the village. Ethan tried to ask more questions but Julian just blacked out without strength.

"He seems to have lost a lot of blood." Elza said.

"We can't leave him here like this," Ethan said and then looked around the village, "not to mention that my other companions are still there, Aretha and that big guy. I wonder where they are and what happened. Elza, I will understand if you want to leave, but I have to investigate their whereabouts, I can't leave them here like this."

"And I'm going to make this way back all alone? No way, Ethan! Not to mention it's also dangerous for you to be in this place alone, we can't part. By the way, how could you defend yourself? Your magic is still flawed."

"Very well then." Ethan gave a smile, "let's stay together."

They entered the village, Ethan carrying Julian holding his spleen over his shoulder. Most of the houses were made of wood, there were animals scattered around, and the floor was dirty and muddy. People wore faded clothes and looked at the two as if they were criminals.

"I feel weird" Elza whispered in Ethan's ear "they look at us bad. We're definitely not welcome."

Ethan was also annoyed. That place was ugly and devoid of hope, at the end of the village, there was a hill from which a small castle rose.

"Travelers," said a man who looked fifty, with a pipe in his mouth and a pickaxe in his hand. He was dirty, wore brown overalls, and had a brown and gray beard, which was grimy. "You better get out of here, this isn't the place for you."

"Why? We just want a place to spend the night and help our friend recover." Elza said.

"I'm warning you, leave! Leave before HE notices your presence."

"What are you talking about? He who?"

"He who governs us... who governs us, even beyond the grave." Ethan and Elza looked at each other, the old man then began to make a very ugly face, as if he was in a lot of pain, Ethan started to go help him, but the old man scolded him to move away. "Go away, you unwanted ones!" Yelled the old man still in pain, "Go away, nobody wants you here!"

All the villagers looked at that scene, all those pale, sickly faces, like walking corpses, like people who didn't have much life left in them. Ethan had a strange feeling about him, and even stranger, he began to hear a ringing of bells, not a joyous ringing of bells like a Christmas carol, it was an eerie ringing of bells like a funeral. Where did those sounds come from?

"Come on, come on, don't mind old Brew," an old woman said, appearing there like an apparition, appearing almost out of nowhere. She was very stooped and almost bald, her nose was very hooked and her features reminded Ethan almost of a vulture. "Come, follow me, he's just a crazy old man." But the old man continued to feel pain that seemed unbearable, he fell to the muddy ground and screamed madly for Ethan and Elza to leave. It was a sinister scene and the pale faces of the villagers continued to stare at Ethan and Elza, the boy continued to hear those bells and it was driving him almost mad.

"What was wrong with him?" Elza wanted to know.

"Don't mind my little girl, like I said, he was just a crazy old man, he's treated like a crazy dog by everyone here, don't worry. I'm Lyubica, the owner of the inn, come, come with me, I'll make you some hot soup tonight for dinner."

The inn, like all the houses in that village, looked shabby, but still, it looked a little more comfortable than the other ordinary houses. Lyubica told them to feel welcome and as she didn't usually receive many travelers she didn't want payment, the payment was the company of those young people from so far away, with so many stories to tell. They put Julian on a bed in one of the inn's empty rooms (all the rooms were empty, they were the only guests there) the lighting was basically candlelight and Elza and Ethan put their things away and sat down at a table while the old woman cooked the soup in a large pot that looked like a cauldron and sang a popular song from that land that looked old and looked very sad, actually She was talking about a ancient knight of an order of chivalry who lived a love story with a peasant woman from distant lands, he was tricked by his brothers of order to go on a mission, because his beloved had something of interest to the order, the woman suffered the consequences and died, and when Bedwyr the knight returned, he found his beloved no more. Ethan only remembered some parts of the long song.

"...Bedwyr was hoodwinked

By their loyal brothers

But they're not law formers

They are some killers wicked

They said fought for justice

But Bedwyr's spouse is missed

So she suffered a cruel injustice

The knight so gone mad

And he could not forget

Bedwyr then decease

But he never rested in peace..."

After a while the woman would switch songs and just hum, but even those songs without lyrics had a rhythm, a beat of a sad waltz or something like that. The old woman then brought two bowls of steaming soup, it was brought in a kind of bread gourd and it looked good.

"Thanks Lyubica" Ethan thanked and Elza too, "by the way, I know you might not know anything, but I have to ask, have you seen any other travelers around the village these days? A girl with blonde hair and a big guy, for example?"

"Sorry my dear, but you are the only adventurers I've seen in months." Lyubica replied with a smile.

"Ah, I understand, it's just that that colleague of mine, the one who's passed out, said something about my other companions being here in this village, I thought you, as an innkeeper, might know something."

"No dear, he must have been delusional, now eat something, you must be hungry."

"What did that man Brew mean by the one who rules you even from beyond the grave?" Elza wanted to know.

Lyubica's expression seemed to change from a kind grandmother who wants her grandchildren to taste her soup, to a stern lady who wants to punish naughty kids.

"Honey, I told you, that man is crazy, but if you really want to know... can I tell?" Ethan got the feeling she hadn't asked the two of them if she could tell, it was almost like she was asking permission from something or someone.

"Yeah, must be a... curious story."

"Our current lord, he's been our lord for only about two years and he got the post by removing our former lord from office, apparently he did it using macabre powers, sinister powers, powers of darkness."

"What do you mean?"

"So... it's what the legends say, and people here say it too, although hidden and also all the sinister aura and all the cruelty of the current lord, lead us to believe that he is a vampire."

Ethan almost spat out the soup he was swallowing.

"V-vampire?!" Ethan asked and Lyubica nodded her nearly bald head.

"And one of the mighty ones, our former lord was a relatively strong paladin and had a magical sword with him and was easily dethroned. You must have seen the crucified bodies along the road. They are the former lord's soldiers, the woman with the children in the cage is the wife of the former lord and his two children."

"This is horrible!" Elza exclaimed in horror.

"Yes, yeah, he can be cruel, but I believe he's just a human, the story of vampirism is a legend, he's a very, very evil human."

"What about the bodies the gravedigger was burying?"

"Sorry?"

"When we got close to the village, we saw a cemetery and there a gravedigger was burying the dead."

The old woman got up from there and turned as if to go back to the kitchen.

"I'll…get more soup." And then she walked out of there. Elza and Ethan looked at each other, wondering what had gone wrong.

"But man, I was really hungry." Ethan said to the girl, "You know, the hunger was making me almost as crazy as those bells that keep ringing all the time."

"Bells? What bells?

"Those stupid bells that have been ringing since we got here."

"I didn't hear a bell."

"You're kidding, right? Those bells didn't stop ringing for a second."

Elza looked at him like he was going crazy. The subject was interrupted when they heard a weak moan coming from there.

"No…not that!" Said Julian weakly appearing there, he walked leaning on things, as if he couldn't still stand on his feet.

"Julian?" Ethan asked when he saw him standing there, "man you should be resting, what are you doing?"

"This food…" Julian walked over to Ethan and Elza's table.

"Are you hungry? Well, I suppose so, but..."

"Don't eat this food!" Julian snapped, slamming against the table and knocking over Elza and Ethan's soups.

"What are you doing, your filthy little worm?!" Snarled the old Lyubica with a very sinister expression, as if she were an old hag.

Julian turned to Lyubica, he seemed to take a firmer battle stance despite his still weak physical condition.

"Get out of here! I'll take care of her!" He growled.

"But…" Ethan would object, but Julian cut him off:

"Go! Before that damn soup takes effect!"

Realizing how determined he was, Ethan and Elza left, Lyubica gave a very sinister insane scream and said something about the outsiders fleeing, she attacked Julian and a fight seems to have started, but Ethan didn't stay there to see. When they left the inn, Ethan and Elza noticed a few things, like night had fallen and a handful of the villagers' pale faces were there waiting for them like an angry mob wanting to lynch some thieves, they carried torches and work tools, their faces didn't show fury or anger, their faces were almost empty of feeling.

"Get them, come on, get them!" The crowd screamed, Ethan and Elza ran away, for some reason, the boy started to feel his legs heavier, it was difficult to run, as in a bad dream.

"Ethan…I…I'm not feeling very well." Elza told him with an expression of someone who was feeling sick. Ethan wasn't feeling well either and the crowd was soon on his heels, he then turned and focused all the magic his condition, which was starting to weaken, could manage.

"SPARKLING WALL!!" The boy roared like a lion and a crystalline and luminous wall appeared in front of the crowd that backed up a little before the magic effect. Ethan supported Elza on his shoulder and he headed for one of the only stone buildings there, a place that looked like a chapel and was in a kind of square. The luminous wall he had conjured earlier fell apart, the crowd again following him, meanwhile he and Elza approached the square, where there was that strange chapel hidden in smoke. In that square, as they approached, a figure was rising, as if the mist melting away created the effect of a somber painting being painted live and instantly by a mad artist. It was a man covered in full armor and somewhat worn, he was standing and carrying a big sword, one of those called claymores holding it by the hilt and pointing it down with the tip of the sword resting on the ground and behind him there was a kind of wooden pole on which a flag was placed. "Help us!" Ethan asked, but the man did not move from his place. Ethan ran over there and in a sudden fierce spirit that he doesn't know where it came from, he simply pulled the sword from the man's hands by the hilt and the sword lit up in a reddish glow. The villagers, seeing that, stopped running for Ethan for a while and even took two steps back as the sword's glare increased. For a moment, the young man admired the beauty of the sword, a double-edged blade, the cruciform hilt set with a ruby on either side of the guard, and on the pommel was an engraving, a small painting of a beautiful woman, along one of the sides of the blade had peculiar characters carved into it. Ethan heard someone clap.

"Very well traveler, I thought this day would never come." Someone said haughtily nearby, "You have unsheathed old Richard Bratsliev's sword, only a very honorable warrior would be capable of such a feat." He was a young man, appeared to be in his mid-twenties to early thirties, face clean-shaven, hair neatly combed. He, unlike the other residents, wore colorful and clean clothes. A blue silk tunic with white ruffles and a red rose in the pocket. Inside he wore a shirt of bright red, and wore green breeches. on his feet he had pointy shoes of a darker green. "Stand aside, ye wild barbarians!" Shouted the young man to the villagers, who began to stampede. "Welcome to Murdar Village! My name is Vald Sepet. I am the Lord of this village and lord of the Fort of Skulls, to whom do I owe the honor?"