Turcen Helk's Lore

Two Skulls

Turcen Helk's Story

Originally posted in December 2023

- Chapter I -

A cold wind blows as the icy weather assaults the ground in large swathes. The wind moans through holes in small wooden houses and causes frozen fences to creak from the crushing blows. A small scattering of wooden structures are filled with farmers that have long since closed their doors to the terrible and ungrowable weather. The people inside pray for warmer and more hospitable weather while they hope the food they have stored will last them through the winter and next spring, until more crops can seed and grow. Hopes and prayers might not feed them, but these things can distract the people here from the monotony and boredom between meals. The groups of buildings sit between two larger forests; a frigid and miserable land surrounded by sinister-looking thin trees. The flat lands around the houses are covered with knee-deep snow with occasional fence posts peaking their heads out through the tall drifts of icy waves.

A door creaks open in a forgotten inn on the outside of the little town. The inn was once located on a busy trade road that showered the owners with prosperity and comforts. When the trade road was bypassed with a larger merchant road, the inn quickly became just another building on a road that no one outside of the local farmers used. The previous inn-like structure is now mostly used for grain storage for horses and for storing root vegetables during the winter. The grain and veggies feed the horses to keep them working in the fields to help produce more grains and vegetables. The cycle continues on and on behind the eyes of Turcen as he passes through the doors, seeing the years of experience reflected from the surface of the dry, flaking wooden walls. It is not his choice, he wishes he could push the magick out from his view for even a moment, but it swirls around in his mind like oil trying to escape a rain puddle.

"Hello, sir." says a man that's built like a long corridor. He stands there tall and thin with clothes hanging off from his limbs like a scarecrow that's lived in a field for years. The man's face is a droopy mess of dirt and skin. His features seemingly slapped onto his head quickly and from a distance. Turcen slowly stares up from under his robe’s black hood, his bandaged face covered in wisps of ice crystals and tar, the lower half of his face below his mouth wrapped in amber bandages obscuring most of his jaw and his entire neck down to the collar. His hand slightly obscures his deformed face as he enters the inn from the awful weather. He stands up to his full height, then cracks his back slightly and hunches back down again from the aching pain in his bones. The man with back issues is of middling height and a thinner build covered in delicate gray and black clothing held together by cheap leather straps, all of which are covered by a messy cloak and a tattered dark robe. The clothes themselves do nothing other than cover his body. Turcen holds a large grimoire under his thin bandaged arm hanging at his side, the only other identifying object hanging from his ghastly humanoid frame is a large burlap sack haphazardly slung across his shoulder and positioned in front of him. He doesn’t carry a lot, but what he does carry seems to be kept very close to him. Could simply be for the warmth in weather like this.

"Good evening sir,” a short voice like scraping the bottom of a tin can rasps out from Turcen’s mouth. “My name is Turcen and I am looking for lodging for the night." He closes the wooden door with a sigh, "Lodging only."

“Of course sir, please do come in and away from the door. Warm yourself by the fire.” A large circular stone fireplace poses in the center of the room to both serve as the main light source and a central heating element for the majority of the rooms at the inn.

Turcen brushes off some of the snow that has taken up residency on his shoulders and pushes his mouth into a small smile under all of the facial bandages, “Doubt that will help,” he whispers as he walks closer to the counter the man is standing behind.

“Heh, what was that sir?” The man sets down a piece of smooth, hollow wood and a small wood-carving tool.

An abrupt shuffling sound comes from Turcen’s bag and the bag almost lurches out of his bandaged hand.

“Aghok!” Turcen makes a sound like a wooden spoon hitting a dry thigh bone, “Ahem, just shaking off the weather is all. It’s dreadful out there and I’m just shoving off the shivers.”

The man looks down, glares for a moment at the bag, realizes that he’s staring, then quickly stares back up to Turcen’s gaunt and hidden face, “Ah, sounds about right sir, I do apologize for that and for the terrible state of things here at the inn, heh. Not quite the same since that new merchant road was laid down. Had to convert it into a horse stable all and all.” Turcen looks around and does in fact see a horse poking her head in through one of the stable doors munching on some hay in a bag that looks very similar to Turcen’s bag hanging from his shoulder. Turcen grasps his bag slightly tighter. The man continues, “I do also apologize for the smell. Try as I might I can’t seem to get these horses out into this weather, smarter creatures than us sir, heh.” The man ends his sentences with a dry and humble chuckle and Turcen was beginning to wonder when this man last spoke to another living creature that wasn’t the horse.

“Indeed. Times are certainly difficult.” Turcen replies without entirely listening to the man’s words. “How much is it for the ni–”

“All of it sir.” A short pause while Turcen’s sunken facial features rise a few centimeters. “I’d say it nearly took all of our business with a single season's worth of work on that road. I remember–” A quick wordless exchange shuffles the man’s face around and causes him to bring his hands up and enter a defensive pose. “I am indeed sorry sir, heh, I got myself ramblin’ again about that darned merchant road. You were asking about the cost for the evenings lodgin’.”

“I was indeed, kind innkeeper.”

“Nothing more than a few coppers sir, and I’ll set the bedding up for you and bring you some heated veggies and soup right away.” The innkeeper adjusts his long overalls and begins walking out from behind the counter.

Turcen tries to clear his throat and can’t, “Just the lodging please sir. I have my own food.”

“Ah, you’re right you’re right. Look at me forgettin’ already talk–” A quick jerking motion erupts from the burlap bag and Turcen is forced to hold it down against his hip. The innkeeper now solely focuses on the bag in Turcen’s wrapped hands.

"What's in there, heh?" The innkeeper points to Turcen’s moving bag which is drawing far too much attention to itself for this conversation to continue.

"...Nothing."

"Well 'nothing' seems to be moving around a whole lot, heh."

"Nothing that will cause anyone any harm." The innkeeper not seeming to believe Turcen takes a step forward. "It's a dead chicken!" Turcen spouts out quickly.

A pause. The farmer takes a step backward and places a hand on the countertop. The bag shifts and Turcen puts his elbow into the side of it. "A headless chicken."

"A…headless…chicken?" The innkeeper repeats simply to just clarify, not truly wanting an answer to the question.

"Yes. I cut it off hours ago and it's still wriggling around in there. You know how those things keep on going on and on for years- Hours! I mean hours after they've died." Turcen’s voice now sounding more and more exhausted with each word he forces out between the bandages loosely wrapped around the lower half of his face. A crackling sound comes from the fireplace as the innkeeper stares at the bag, Turcen stares at the innkeeper, and the horse stares into the middle distance.

The innkeeper clears his throat and pushes some of his drooping facial features up with the back of his hand. He knows he can’t turn his only customer away, but he makes a note of the odd features of his new guest, “Makes sense to me sir, got to travel with your own food sometimes on these roads, heh. Not much hunting can be done around here with all this here snow.” The innkeeper fully steps out from behind the counter and makes his way towards the staircase leading up into the loft rooms, giving Turcen and the bag full of moving dead chickens a noticeable and wide distance.

Turcen makes his way behind him as the innkeeper unlocks the door and pushes it into the room. The innkeeper, understanding that this customer is going to be a weird one, doesn’t say anything else to Turcen as they end their interactions for the evening. The innkeeper makes his way back down the stairs and over to the counter, “Another weird one, ey Esmer?” The horse gives a general horse sound in return and goes back to eating her hay. The innkeeper looks down to find his wood-carving tool, the smooth wood piece, and three small copper pieces with bits of dried blood stuck to them on the countertop.

Turcen slides the lock on the inside of the door over to the locked position and makes his way over to the oil lamp on a small table. He pulls some of the hand bandages down and rubs his thumb and the first finger together to create a magical spark and lights the lamp. Turcen then sets his bag down and his friend, a long-dead bleached human skull with eyeballs, rolls out. "Nice cover story back there Turcey, I almost started believing I was actually a headless chicken kicking around in a burlap sack."

"Silence Stale, they'll find you if you don't stay quiet," Turcen says, not for the first time today.

The head somehow rights itself by rolling back and forth on the hay bedding, "Stay quiet? Talkings all I got left in this world. It's literally the only thing I can do. Well, except for that other thing, but you won't let me do that anymore since that kid di–"

Turcen puts a hand up and silences Stale. The bony skull stops moving and rolls its undead and re-animated eyes around in its cavernous head, “Fine.”

Turcen closes the wooden storm windows, "We're staying here for the night. We leave in the morning. Nothing else to be said."

"Easy for you to stop talking. I talk to stay sane," Stale whispers very loudly.

Turcen unrolls his blanket and lays his withered and bandaged body down. "Interesting. The more you talk, the more I feel my sanity slipping away from me."

"I didn't do that Turcey. I wasn’t the one reading from forgotten and forbidden tomes deep in a well. You did that all yourself."

Turcen purses his lips as much as a decomposing skeletal head can and lets a long sigh out through his nose holes, his facial bandages slightly flapping. He tightens the bandages around his head and tries to settle himself deeper into the bedding.

“Just go to sleep, Stale. All of this talking is sapping my energy.” Turcen stretches his spine out and hears a worrying pop sound from his lower back. “We have a long road ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Sleep well my poor prince, don’t let the severed chicken heads bite,” Stale whispers with a snicker.

- Chapter II -

A giant pig-headed man screams, “With this! The decree of the roya-”

Snap.

“I can't hear you any longer Turc-”

Snap!!

“I just want to be ha-”

SNAP!

“It would have been easier if you'd just have left.”

SNAP! SNAP!!

Turcen opens his eyes slowly and begins to come into consciousness. His face feels loose and wet, while his body is tight and achy. His eyes can’t seem to focus as a large white object is jostling right in front of his face. Another loud SNAP sound hits Turcen and he instinctively pulls his head away from the noise and the object. Blinking and trying to focus now on the object, he sees Stale slowly inching its way closer to his face by grinding and nibbling its teeth together. "Stale! No!" Turcen pushes away from the bedding and rolls up to his side. Cracking a few bones requiring him to settle them back into their rightful spaces, the bandages loosely holding them in place again.

"Sorry buddy, but you had a flap of skin hanging from your cheek that looked delicious."

Turcen closes his eyes again and tightens his decaying facial bandages, "You're a disgusting little severed head Stale, you know that?"

Stale rolls its eyes and drops its lower jaw flat to the bedding. “I told you Moon Ash, you owe me a copper.”

Turcen adjusts some of his clothing, “What are you talking about Stale? You shouldn’t even be talking this loudly while we’re in town…" Turcen then notices that the door is unbolted and slightly open. He jumps to his bony feet and tosses Stale into his shoulder bag.

“MERFF! FLNFER!” Stale shouts from within the bag. Turcen then sees what he fears most while in small towns like this, a child.

The girl sits on the edge of a table in the corner of the room kicking her dangling feet and absentmindedly staring at Turcen while pinching and rolling her lower lip between her thumb and forefinger. She's about seven or eight and dressed in thick cloth rags with mismatched patterns and designs on them, "Hi mister."

Turcen recoils from the words like the child drew a blood-dripping knife. He stumbles into a side table and drops the burlap bag. Stale rolls out and comes to rest in a divot on a wide floorboard between Turcen and the little girl, “There she is. The little thief that owes me a copper.” Stale says with almost admiration in its voice.

“We never shook on it Stale.” Turcen visibly shudders each time the child speaks, worrying that she will scream at any moment and call in the royal guard. And wait, how did she know Stale’s name?

“Haar. Har. Har. You know you’re funnier than you should be for a little creep.” Stale continues its conversation with the girl.

Turcen finally speaks, and almost yells, “Who are you!?” Turcen covers his mouth slightly due to that being far too loud for this time of morning, but also because his facial bandages are falling off and exposing part of his skeletal form, they need to be changed again.

Stale and the girl exchange glances and then stare back at Turcen. Turcen quickly glances at the slightly open door expecting the royal guard to kick it in fully and explode him with a Greater Fireball spell. “Umm, that’s Moon Ash.” Stale finally answers Turcen.

“Monash. It sounds like this," she draws the words out with her finger, "Mun…Ash…” The girl makes an exaggerated expression for Stale to get it right. Turcen can see that this is not the first time she has explained this to Stale and that worries him even further. How long have they been talking? How long was he asleep? What does this Monash girl know about them?

“Right, whatever. MUN! ASH! That’s Monash. She’s been keeping me entertained while you’ve been sleeping your everlasting life away.”

Turcen shakes his head furiously and takes a step towards Stale, “No! I mean what is she doing in our room and talking with us? How did she get here? Who is she? Who is she working for!?”

Stale laughs a dry clicking laugh that only a skull full of necromantic magick can pull off, “‘Who is she working for?’ Ha, this is rich, even for you Turcey. I don’t know Moon Ash, who are you working for?” It continues to laugh even after asking the question.

Monash thinks for a few seconds and continues to roll her lower lip between her fingers, “I don’t know. I guess myself.”

“See! She’s a freelancing mercenary child. That clears it all up!” Stale snickers again.

“That is not what I meant.” Turcen finally walks over to the door and closes it as gently as he can. He notices that Monash doesn’t seem disturbed by his movements to the door or by his exposed skeletal appearance at all. He just recognizes this even though both of them have been talking with an undead skull with eyeballs for the last few minutes. Turcen removes his hand from the door handle and turns to Monash, "You're not disturbed by my appearance?"

"Nope. Hey, are you a wizard?" Monash asks as she jumps down from the edge of the table.

Stale is busying itself trying to turn towards the conversation by chattering its jaw against the floor. It seems to be stuck in a knot of wood though and is making its struggle very apparent.

Turcen smiles, "No little girl, I am not a wizard," he answers as he reaches down and twists Stale free from the knot in the floorboard and turns it towards the conversation. "At least not in the sense of the wish I can see behind your eyes. Very few actual wizards are left in this world."

"Ah! Finally." Stale cracks its jaw back in place, "Thanks for the history lesson there Turcey, but Moon Ash doesn't care about that. She just wants you to teach her a magick spell."

Turcen creates a clattering cough that could be misconstrued as a laugh from his bony frame. Releasing the rest of the surprised tension from the beginning of the conversation. "What purpose could you possibly have for any magick spell I teach you? No, I don't think that is a good idea."

"That's two coppers you owe me now kid. You're going to be broke by the end of this." Stale does its best to sneer, but it doesn't have the right facial equipment for that.

"Why not?" asks Monash. "I'll tell you about the Secret Entrance if you teach me a magick."

"Woah. Woah. Woah." Stale shoots a piercing gaze at Monash. "You had a 'Secret Entrance Story' this whole time and you didn't tell me?"

"Stale, please." Turcen puts his hand up to silence Stale again. A performance that he's attempted hundreds of times and it rarely works. "How about this Monash, you answer some of my questions and I'll teach you part of a magick spell for each question you answer. Fair?" Turcen can see that this may be the most candid conversation he could possibly have in a small town like this during this season. Cold weather tends to put people into defensive mentalities and this child seems to be more open-minded than the past fifty people he has encountered while traveling south.

"'Part of a spell', wow, big spender over here. Turcen the great and renowned magickal teacher of parts of spells." Stale jabs at Turcen.

Turcen recasts his 'Hand of Unworkable Silence' at Stale.

"Deal." Says Monash, twisting her lip in excitement.

Turcen extends his wrapped hand, "I believe a shake is in order. This is how you wiggled out of the last deal, is it not?" Monash stops fiddling with her lip, reaches out, shakes Turcen's hand, then quickly returns the hand to her lips.

"Alright, whe–" Turcen is cut off quickly.

"Spell part first."

Turcen and Stale exchange glances. "She's a tough negotiating partner, trust me Turcey."

"Understood." He says, knowing the conversation won't continue otherwise. "I will teach you the Firelight spell." Turcen moves over to a small stool by the window and sits down. Monash is directly behind him as he turns and Turcen jumps as he notices how close she is. She is also holding Stale as it tries to nibble on her fingers that aren’t behind its mouth. “Ahh, just over there is fine, thank you.” Turcen motions to the end of the bed. Monash sits on the edge of the bed, puts Stale next to her leg, and rests her forearm on its brow.

“Alright Monash, I need you to close your eyes and focus.”

“On what?”

“Nothing. True nothing.” Turcen also closes his eyes, “You need to focus on the absence of everything. Clear your mind and make room for the thing you are about to focus on.”

“Classic Turcey. Using all these words to say next to nothing.”

“Stale, be quiet.”

Monash giggles.

“Breathe deeply and clear your mind. Focus on the empty space in your mind.” Stale begins to mutter something, but Turcen cuts it off, “Silence.”

Turcen feels a small well of magick begin to form within his mind and he exhausts it before it can become anything else, “There. That is the first step to casting any spell.”

Monash opens her eyes, “Nothing happened though.”

“That is kind of the point. You need to clear the slate before you can write something new.”

Monash stays quiet and begins thinking of nothing. It begins to bore her, so she starts thinking of other things. “Alright, you get one question I guess.”

Turcen doesn’t miss a second, “When was the last guard patrol through this town?”

“Wait! Wait! Wait! That’s what you ask?” Stale chatters beneath Monash’s arm, “I want to hear about this secret door!”

“It’s the Secret Entrance Stale.” Monash clarifies.

Turcen sighs air from his skeletal chest and glares at Stale. Monash blinks at Turcen and just answers his question, “They haven’t been through town for months. No one comes here except a hunter every once and a while during the cold months.”

“What do you mean a hunter–?”

Monash begins twirling her lower lip again between her fingers, “Nuh uh, only one question.”

Turcen smiles beneath his bandages and recognizes that this is the first genuine smile he has worn on his face for months, “Very well my young lady.”

“Hey! Why didn’t I get a question?” Stale attempts to wrestle the conversation back to itself.

“Because you aren’t giving me magick spells.”

Stale attempts to bite Monash’s fingers again, but can’t get to them since she, very intelligently, placed her forearm on Stale’s head keeping it in place.

“Close your eyes again and enter the Nothing.” Turcen realizes that he is speaking to this child as his old teacher spoke to him. He recognizes that this child will never be able to cast a spell at her age, but he can at least teach her the art of mindful preparation. “Breathe in deeply and focus. Now, the same as when you can feel hunger in your stomach or tiredness behind your eyes. An intuition, Monash. That is how you can feel you are ready to cast magick." Turcen focuses on the little girl’s face and feels a depressing sadness in it. Far too much sadness for a child this young.

“Now what?” asks Monash, breaking Turcen out of his insight.

“Now, pinch your fingers together. No, your other fingers.” Monash pinches her fingers together above Stale’s head. “Think of a bright light illuminating the darkness of the Nothing in your mind. Find the source of this light and call to it to brighten itself.”

Turcen begins to cast a small spark spell between Monash’s fingers, but he is stopped dead when a tiny match of firelight comes to life between and above her pinched fingers before he can even begin his incantation. Turcen sits with his eyes wide staring at the girl’s hand and at Stale’s eyes behind them.

“I did it!” Monash jumps off the bed and runs over to Turcen grabbing his knees and jumping up and down.

Stale rolls into the center of the bedding and tips upside down, “Hey!”

Turcen begins the same clattering cough of a laugh he’s done now twice in the same day. Turcen ruffles Monash’s hair as she giggles with excitement.

The innkeeper creeps back downstairs, avoiding the older worn stairs that creak, and signals to a man standing by the door dressed in frosted black cloth. He holds up two fingers on his right hand and one shaking finger on his other.

The man dressed in black nods.

Esmer stamps her hoof.

- Chapter III -

The winter sun begins climbing over the hilltops around the creaky wooden town. Slivers of light jab in through Turcen’s window as the three guests continue conversations and incantations. Turcen rests in a chair on one side of the small table as Monash continues, successfully, to learn the Firelight spell. Stale rests on the bed and busies itself by trying to pry one of its teeth out from its lower jaw with its gross tongue.

“I am honestly beyond impressed Monash. Your aptitude for casting this spell is quite amazing.” Turcen does his best to smile at the child. His face wrappings have now been completely taken off and he lets his true face show in the darkened room. The sun just barely illuminates the ceiling and lets enough light in to ruin Monash’s Firelight spell from lighting up the whole room on its own.

“Thank you Master Turcen.” Monash smiles dryly knowing it will upset Turcen and get a rise out of Stale if it’s paying attention.

A small toothy, “HA!”, comes from the bed.

“Now now, there is no need for that. I am not anyone’s master and you sure don’t need one. Look at how far you’ve come in just a few short–” Turcen stands up and sees the sunlight coming in from the closed window slats, “...hours.” Turcen cracks his back and settles some bones back into their sockets, “My my the hours just poured right by us didn’t they? I bet your parents must be worried about you, Monash. It’s nearly dawn.”

Monash looks down at her feet and gets very silent.

Turcen kneels down beside her, “I apologize Monash. I did not mean to uh…” Turcen’s ribs crack as he exhales deeply through his nose holes. There is a long pause as even Stale doesn’t want to break the deafening aura that is now permeating the room.

“It’s okay,” she sniffs. “Father died when I was just born and Mother never really recovered enough to take care of me.” Monash absentmindedly flicks her fingers and sparks trickle down her legs.

“I am truly sorry Monash.” Turcen says with a solemn look in his eyes. “This world is a cold and dark place, and to travel it alone is–” Turcen abruptly stops and looks towards the door. Monash continues to stare at the ground, but her hand has returned to rolling her lip between her fingers. Stale finally gets one of its teeth loose and is trying to show it to Monash victoriously, possibly to cheer her up or possibly to disturb her.

Turcen furrows his brow and glares at the door, he can sense the presence of something awful on the other side of the door in the hallway. A whisper begins shifting in the air, and then a creak in the floorboards from the hallway. The door to Turcen’s room folds in half as a heavy axe crashes through the top half and makes it all the way to the floorboards. Turcen instinctually pulls his cloak around his lower face and dives for Stale and his bag. As he darts across the small room he drops a small bright orb on the ground that bounces, twists, and then bursts into a hundred shafts of light. Whoever was looking into the room drops to the floor in the hallway grabbing at their eyes and scrambling to get away from the room. Turcen held his eye closed and tossed Stale into the burlap bag so they were both safe from the blinding radiant light. Turcen makes for the door but then turns to see if Monash is okay from the spell, he knows that the effects are temporary, but he still doesn’t want to hurt her. To his surprise he doesn’t even see her in the room. He doesn’t have time to question it since the intruders are starting to make their way up to their feet. Turcen pushes past the axe-wielding maniac in the doorway and turns left out of the room to make it deeper into the inn, hoping there is another room with an open window. He feels a sharp pain shoot through the side of him as a small dagger sticks between his ribs. Looking back down the hallway he can see a man dressed in all black with cloth wrapped around his face only exposing a small slit for his eyes to see through. Turcen pulls out the dagger with a ‘splurch’ sound and tosses it to the floorboards, black ichor dripping from his exposed wound and down the side of his robes. Turcen can see the smile in the man’s eyes as he turns to face the small group of four finally returning to their feet with their weapons in hand. He may not know these men and women, but Turcen definitely recognizes the brown and red emblem etched into the handles of their weapons. The Royal Huntsmen.

A small standoff occurs as the hunters staredown Turcen, seemingly all alone.

“Everything alright up there?” The innkeeper's voice bounces up the stairway and triggers the charge of the front two hunters towards Turcen. Simultaneously Turcen casts his own Firelight spell but engulfs his entire hand in the spell causing it to light up the entire hallway. “Halt.” Turcen says in a calm and demanding tone. The front two hunters stop dead in their tracks as they watch what Turcen has growing in his hand. “Not a step further, or else the entire inn burns.”

The two front hunters hesitate and then look behind them. The man in black steps between the hunters and makes his way to the front of the pack to face Turcen. “Now now, I don’t believe that you’d sacrifice yourself. This is a bluff if I’d ever seen one.” His voice a bit higher and more nasally than what Turcen was imagining, but then again Turcen’s voice doesn’t quite fit his frame either.

“Go ahead and believe what you will, but some of us would easily walk out of here after an inferno.” Turcen’s bag slightly ruffles with some incoherent noises.

The man in black stares a bit more closely at Turcen’s face and then finally sees that he’s a rotting corpse of what was once a man. “Heh, looks like your math was off old man.” he shouts down the stairway. “We have two abominations with the little girl. Speaking of,” he twists his sleeves up and starts to roll them, revealing rows and rows of daggers strapped around his forearms, “grab the brat and bring her out here front and center. I want to test the mettle of this would-be human.” he gestures towards Turcen with a flick of his wrist that seems very insulting to Turcen.

"Interesting. When do you stop being human? Is it when you die? Because I haven't died. I'll live forever." Turcen says this with a burden under his tongue, but the Huntsmen perceive it as a threat and raise their weapons slightly in anticipation.

“No one else inside, boss.” One of the hunters says as she peers into Turcen’s old room.

“What!?” The man in black rushes past the hunter and into the small room. There is a brief moment of Turcen facing the remaining hunters in the hallway where both sides are a bit confused. Turcen flares his Firelight spell a bit more just in case the hunters forgot that it was there. The hunters grip their axes and swords a bit tighter and both parties seem happy with the results of their attempts at menacing the other.

Turcen hears Monash’s voice creep through one of the slightly open doorways behind him, “Use the Secret Entrance.”

Turcen does his best to speak out of the side of his skull, “You never told me where it was, I–”

The hunter’s boss returns to the crowded hallway with a renewed vigor, “Okay,” he struggles to say while pushing through the others, “where is she demon? Huh? I bet you chopped her up and stuffed her in that bag, you vile creature.”

Turcen’s bag shuffles more and an audible clacking emits from the bag, one of the Huntsmen in the front jumps a bit from the other-worldly sound. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what’s in this bag. Plus, I don’t think I count as the vile demon here, you’re the one who was just proposing to use innocent children as human shields.” Turcen begins backing up slowly down the hallway.

“I am beginning to get annoyed here. Where do you see this going?” asks the man in black as he withdraws a small dagger from his forearm sheathe. “You can’t possibly escape this hallway, and even if you did, you couldn’t possibly escape all of us in this weather.” He grabs the front of the blade between his fingertips as if he’s about to throw the dagger. “We have the building surrounded.”

“Ha!” Turcen catches the man off guard with his coughing laughter, “Now who’s bluffing? Royal Huntsmen are allotted exactly three apprentices to their retinue. One, two, three,” Turcen then points a fire-soaked finger right at the man with the dagger, “Four.” The burlap bag around Turcen’s shoulder shuffles more as a wet object begins shifting back and forth from inside. “Furthermore, I know you are a long way from any outpost, so you must have come with a specific target in mind, I can only assume that that target is me.” The bag begins to glow a dull and dark green. The eyes of most of the Huntsmen are now focusing on the bag and not paying attention to Turcen’s monologue. “But since you are clearly out of your depth, let me inform you of the constraints that you…uhh…you… Hello?” Turcen notices that everyone in the hallway is now staring slightly below his face, he then peeks down at his bag, “Stale! No!”

A crack of dark green energy sizzles from within the bag.

“Stellknew?” The man in black asks as Stale casts a column of black ichor and flames around itself and through the wooden floor below them. Turcen and Stale fall down in a rain of tinder and crash into a large crate of apples and other vegetables. The apples go rolling all over the first floor and a few make their way in front of Esmer. She happily bends down and eats one of them.

Stale rolls out of the now-burnt open burlap bag, “Oof, sorry Turcey, I thought I was casting that forward instead of downard.” Stale clicks its jaw back into place, “Stupid tongue didn’t behave how it was supposed to there. Plus it’s so dark in the bag.”

Turcen sees a few of the hunters peer down the newly formed hole and hears them running on the floorboards. “Not now Stale!” Turcen picks Stale up from between two cabbages and starts running for the front door to the inn. He heaves his bony shoulder into the door knocking it open as he ducks into the blistering cold weather. The sun is up and Turcen begins to run through the snow towards the closest forest he can see, holding his skull close to his chest.

- Chapter IV -

Turcen knew that his only chance of escaping the Huntsmen would be to go south and get out of the snowy weather. Turcen and Stale traveled all day and into the dark evening as far as they could. Neither of the travelers could enjoy the weather warming, but they could see the snow getting thinner on the trees and exposing more wet wood with the morning light. The ground became more visible and more easily traversed as well. With the cold wet ground not affecting him or Stale, Turcen’s mind was able to think and wander all around his skull. ‘The Huntsman. All the way from Tenacity and out here in the middle of nowhere. Why come after me now? Who would finance such a tedious expedition? The Royal Executioner perhaps, simply out of spite or petty malice. The damage has already been done and I have surely paid more than my fair share. The family wouldn’t care, they have all forcibly forgotten him.’ Turcen continues to walk well into the evening.

“I’m bored.” Stale says with as little effort as inhumanly possible. Turcen had to fashion part of an old leather belt into a rope to hang Stale from his waist while he walked. The belt looped into one of Stale’s eyes letting Stale swing indiscriminately in the wind as Turcen quickly walked. Stale didn’t mind because it always liked swinging around.

“That isn’t high on my priority list currently, Stale. I am truly sorry.” Turcen says with as much cold sarcasm as he can possibly muster at this moment.

“You see Turcey, that’s your problem.”

“THAT? THAT, is my problem Stale?”

“Yeah, you should be looking on the bright side of things here.”

There is a long pause as Stale needs to wait for his leather belt to swing him around to be able to look up at Turcen again. Turcen is walking briskly and quietly forwards without looking down.

“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, Stale. I heard you. It seems to be something that I am very good at nowadays. Listening to reanimated necromantic undead skulls that tell me to simply be happier and forget about the multiple groups of hunters that want to grind us into bone dust and scatter us into their gardens.”

There is a short pause as Stale needs to swing back around, “...Was that a joke?”

“Somewhat, yes.”

“See! We’re having fun already.” Stale says as it spins freely from Turcen’s waist.

Turcen only hears part of what Stale says since he sees a shifting object on the next hilltop, about 500 feet away. The shape moves back and forth like someone walking towards them. Turcen’s entire skeletal form somehow tenses and he completely stops. The road has shown itself completely now and they can see deep grooves in the hardened mud from heavy carts that have frozen over since the sun went down.

“What’s the matter Turcey, find something fun in the mud?”

“No.” Turcen utters with a cold push of air from his chest. “Someone is walking towards us.”

“Ooh, new friends to chat with. Turn me ‘round, turn me ‘round.” Stale says as it tries to wiggle around to see in front of where Turcen is standing.

“Not a great idea, Stale. Not only do most people not enjoy a talking skull on a rope, but we also have people hunting us, remember?”

“Yes, true. About both things.” Stale finally swings itself around and sees the person walking towards them off in the distance, “But aren’t they coming from the opposite direction than we were being chased from?”

Turcen rubs the center of his forehead. He wasn’t even aware enough to think of that. He was very very tired after walking for almost two days straight. “That is a valid point Stale, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of you being a–”

“Undead skull on a stick bla bla bla. I get it.”

Turcen starts walking again and wrapping himself up to be more presentable to general humanity.

“Tell you what Turcey, I’ll pretend to be a headless chicken in a bag. That one worked out really well for us last time didn’t it?” Stale lets out a grinding and cackling laugh again at Turcen’s expense. The figure is about 200 feet away from them in the dimming light of the sunset.

Turcen ignores Stale’s comment and folds a bit of cloth over his companion, “Just try to be quiet. I know that it’s very difficult for you, but, okay they are close enough now, be quiet.” Turcen pulls off to one side of the road and tries to avert his gaze from the stranger, but keeps an eye on them. The woman has shoulder length red hair that is being tossed back and forth from her brisk walking. A strap of potions and a large basket of herbs and other flasks clank around as they both hang around her shoulder. She’s dressed in a white and red robe strapped down with leathers and pins. Turcen sees her face and it is filled with a tiresome annoyance, like someone being woken up at dawn to pull a cow up a flight of stairs. Turcen doesn’t even realize what is happening until it is fully over. The woman just walks right by him, without even a ‘hello’ or ‘good evening’. For a moment, Turcen forgets about all of the fear that is coursing through his remaining veins and just thinks that was a very rude thing for her to do. You are always supposed to greet fellow travelers on the road. Then he remembers that he also did not greet her and begins walking faster to get away from the entire embarrassing and horrifying series of events. He hears a muffling from his lower right thigh and remembers that Stale is still covered by a piece of cloth.

“Sorry about that my friend.” He removes the cloth covering, “I think we are in the clear.”

“Oh, boring. I thought we were going to have to kill again.”

Turcen scans the horizon as they begin cresting the top of the small hill the road leads up, “I don’t seem to remember us doing anything like that Stale.” Turcen puts heavy emphasis on the ‘us’ in the sentence.

“Hmm,” Stale thinks out loud for a moment. “Maybe that was the other one I was traveling with. Oh! Yes, it was. She was a lot more fun than you by the way.”

“Wonderful to hear. We need to find shelter for the night. I don’t feel like wandering out in the dark on the road again. Last night was thankfully uneventful, but I have heard there are specters that roam this part of the countryside.”

“Thbbpppt.” Stale eloquently states with its gross tongue sticking out between its decaying teeth, one of them still missing. “Specters don’t bother me. Hells, half of em’ have great stories to tell! I say we find a few of them and chat them up for the evening!”

“No Stale.”

“Then at least let me bounce around out here and see if I can attract a few!”

Turcen finds a small, enclosed wooden structure off in the distance and starts walking towards it as the last bit of sunlight touches the top of the hill he is standing on, “Wonderful ideas as always Stale, and as I always do, I will not be listening to you and we will be doing what we need to do instead.”

“You’re a wet cloak, you know that Turcey.” Stale says as it continues to swing around Turcen’s waist.

They make it to the wooden structure and find a hinged door that is closed but clearly not locked. Turcen opens the door and peers inside. The building must have been used as storage for hay or other crops from the surrounding fields. In the darkness, Turcen only sees a pile of leaves that appears as the most beautiful bedding he has seen in his entire undead life. "Oh, how I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years…" He leans forward and his head hits the leaves as a pillow and falls into a deep rest immediately. Stale frees itself from under Turcen’s robes, but still attached to the belt, and bounces around on its jaw trying to get outside again, like a puppy on a leash.

- Chapter V -

“--keyup hugh hewror!”

Turcen blinks his eyes open and groggily shifts under a carpet of wet leaves, shrugging off the waking world and then closes his eyes once more. The damp cold has penetrated through his bones and he can feel the stiffness echo through him as he twists each of his limbs out from their resting place. He felt like something abruptly woke him, but he doesn’t hear anything now. A large part of his rotting brain questions whether or not he has to get up from this cozy little pile of compost or not. Forgetting the outside world momentarily. Maybe he could just roll over and sleep another few–

“I said!”

Turcen finally hears the voice and feels a short set of footsteps outside.

“Wake up!”

A loud crack of wood splinters away from some large double doors in Turcen’s view and the entire structure wobbles like an ooze. Turcen bolts upright and frantically pans around the leaves for Stale, but it’s gone.

“Get out here and face us creature!”

The door Turcen came through in the night is slightly ajar and in the daylight it appears to be the back entrance to this wooden building. The main front double doors are opposite his entrance and they seem to be bowing under the weight of a broken piece of wood used to bar the doors from the inside. Turcen’s brain is still exhausted from the sudden alarm and very quickly starts to fully comprehend the facts:

Stale is gone.

He’s trapped in a large wooden storage shed somewhere in a field surrounded by Royal Huntsmen.

He’s cold.

Stale is gone

 Oh no.

He realizes that he needs to say something to the Hunstmen to keep them from knocking the entire structure down on top of him, “Uhhh-hhh,” a terrible rasping creeps out from his throat, “A-hum-hem. Uhh, coming!”

Turcen doesn’t feel too confident in that delivery and he’s baffled as to why he would calmly tell his would-be captors that he’s coming out to meet them. Steps recede from the structure outside. His bones creak together and settle in the approximate positions to where they are supposed to. He rises from his coffin of leaves and scrambles around the immediate area for something that resembles a defensive weapon.

Boxes.

A grumpy rat.

Empty sacks.

Rotting apple cores.

Wet hay.

Nothing useful jumps out at him and he ends up just clutching his book of spells closer to his hip, breathes in as deeply as he can and walks towards the back of the building, sneaking out the open door.

In the morning orange light the field begins to burn off the dew resting on the grass and hay, large piles of leaves shift gently as creatures begin their day’s work, and a man dressed entirely in black dangles a necromantic skull from a leather belt in front of a wooden structure with four other silhouettes surrounding him. Stale still hangs from Turcen’s belt, but seems to have twine rope wrapped around it multiple times. Clearly to try and stop the thing from casting any other devastating spells. It looks like a flail made from household goods.

The Royal Huntsman is clearly tired of waiting and gestures to one of his apprentices to kick the wooden structure again, “Alright!” He loudly announces to Turcen inside the building and adjusts the belt in his hand, “This is it! We’ll just have to pick the pieces of you out of the rubbl–” He cuts his voice in half as he sees Turcen calmly walk around the outside of the building. Turcen looks as if a heap of rags has come to life and is shambling towards the Huntsmen, his face is covered again but some of his shoulder wraps have come loose and are dangling down below his waist, giving him an ethereal specter look. The three Huntsmen apprentices form ranks on either side of the Royal Huntsman dressed in black as they brandish their weapons in front of them, preparing for an unfair fight. As Turcen sees the same fight ahead of him, he begins to notice the Huntsmen’s weapons and prepares to empty his thoughts. His attempted magickal preparation is halted abruptly when his mind fills with a sharp awareness of a shorter shadow being cast. Of Monash.

The man in black open-hand slaps the closest Huntsman on the back of the head, “Never thought to check ‘round the back for another entrance did you?” The Huntsman takes the hit and never removes her eyes from Turcen. Turcen can sense the lust for death in the air between himself and the Huntsmen, they are weary of this contract, all of which is easily telegraphed by their drawn weapons and their hunched backs. Turcen peers at the group in front of him, but can only see Monash with her head down staring at her shoes, one hand extended towards the ground and the other playing with her lip. She looks cold. His chest pulls upward and tightens knowing that he brought this young girl into this mess. He’s seen hostages before and knows how little they can mean to the hostage taker, a simple currency to them. Turcen is going to need to keep the focus of the Huntsmen towards him and away from Monash at all costs. His mind creaks open to reveal the ideas he’s been trying to avoid. He thinks of the wizard. He thinks of the map. His dry eyes blink within the tombs of his eye sockets and he understands his next move, no matter how much he hates it. If he plays this right he might be able to walk away from here with the girl’s life intact as well as a plan to rid himself of Tenacity all together. The silence has waited long enough for someone to speak, and then they do.

“Well here–” “I tol–”.

Both Turcen and the man in black speak at the same time, verbally tripping over each other and then both stopping simultaneously.

“I don–” “Figur–”.

The man in black shifts his weight, draws a dagger from his sleeve, and points the weapon at Turcen, “Shut it!” The tip of the dagger points directly at Turcen’s eye, and Turcen absolutely believes that this man could hit the mark from this distance. “Now, I’m exhausted from chasing you through this horrid countryside, and I know my men are too.” He gestures to the two men and the one woman Huntsmen. Monash barely moves outside of her fingers rolling her upper lip back and forth across her mouth. The man in black pockets the knife and reaches out to touch Monash’s head. Turcen tightens his legs and has to think of a diversion quickly.

“Is that my belt?” Turcen waves a skeletal hand towards them to distract the man in black, and he drops his hand. He brings up the wrapped skull-on-a-leash to the height of his chest. A muffled clacking comes from the dangling belt and he shifts it further away from himself. He’s acting as if he’s afraid of it touching him, even in its current state. Turcen cocks his head slightly, “Is that my skull?”

“Oh,” the Royal Huntsman says, “this thing?” He wriggles it back and forth and everyone can hear a horrible grinding sound emitting from inside the cage of twine. “This is called leverage.”

Turcen thinks again of the wizard’s stronghold and the map that lives in his memory. He knows this is the only way to appease this man and his lackeys enough to free himself, Stale, and Monash. But the negotiations are starting. Turcen knows very little about this man. He knows he is a part of the Royal Huntsmen. They are not without their corruption, which could be beneficial for his plan, but he also knows that gold speaks better than most. Turcen decides to get some more information before he makes the only offer he can, “What is your exact contract for me?”. He asks the man, trying to avoid the conversation around either Stale or Monash at the moment.

“My my, the creature wishes to know the specifics of his death warrant. Very well, ahem,” The man in black clears his throat and lets Stale fall to the ground while still holding onto the belt, “As per the Royal Executioner, the soul Turcen Helk is kindly requested to return to within the city limits of Tenacity where he will be hanged until dead and put on display for all to see and fear for his crimes against the crown.” The man bows slightly, “I added some of my own verbiage in there just for you my putrid pal.”

Turcen was really beginning to hate this man. But, his little monologue did answer quite a bit of questions he’s been having recently. It was the petty Royal Executioner that still wanted their day at the gallows for Turcen, and that the man in black didn’t give the contract amount. Turcen began pulling together a plan, well, more of a scheme, and then answered, “Two things: A. You’ll never get me back to Tenacity alive, or dead for that matter, you’ve made that abundantly clear by waiting to attack me. And B. You never said how much the contract was for.” There is a short pause as the rest of the Huntsmen realize this conversation isn’t going to end anytime soon. One of them even sheathes their sword in a sign of frustrated disobedience. Turcen takes a single step forward, “I think we can make a deal.”

The man in black stamps his foot down, “Listen you reeking cadaver, I know what you are!” And then in a polarizing emotional shift, the man opens his arms wide and by his waist, “But I can also be an accommodating man when gold is on the table.” He swings the captive Stale slightly in the wind. Stale might have actually enjoyed this if it wasn’t bound ten times around by itchy rope. “First, a simple question: What is your life worth?”

Turcen doesn’t miss a beat, “What is the contract for? That seems to outline it quite well.”

“Hmmm,” The man in black looks towards the sky for a brief moment, “2500 gold.”

“You lying thief.”

The man in black smiles wryly. “By all means my fiendish friend,” he gestures towards the road back north, “Go check with the local constabulary. They will outline your contract and copy it in triplicate for you and your records.”

Turcen understands it’s a better use of his short time given to outline what they are selling first. Turcen angrily cracks his knuckles as he balls his hands into fists and then tilts his eyes down towards Monash, he loosens his grip and softens his eye sockets. “I’ll double 2,000 gold to make it an even 4,000, and that’s me being generous. That’s for my life, my skull, and the life of the girl.” Turcen feels a heatwave of shame wash over him as he realizes he is now haggling with a killer over the life of a child. “You release all of us here and now. Then report back to the Royal Guard that I have been killed and the body was not able to be recovered due to a collapsed building.” Turcen knows that this will not go over well with this man. Men like this need to win, they need to feel as if they have reduced their competition down, even a little. They all want a deal.

“No deal.” The man in black says obviously to Turcen. “8,000 gold, we keep the skull and the girl as collateral until you return with the gold.”

Turcen decides on a new tactic, “10,000 gold. I walk with the skull and the girl. You’ll get your gold when I return.”

The Royal Huntsman’s eyebrows betray him and they rise slightly, “How exactly are you acquiring this large sum of gold? Not like you could be carrying around hundreds of pounds of gold in that raggedy costume of yours.”

Turcen knows of a place that he was hoping he could hideout in, but he has dreaded the topic since he started traveling south. “I know of a place.” Turcen sighs, knowing this isn’t going to be easy, “There is a stronghold closeby. I will gather the ransom from there.”

“Sounds easy enough.” The man in black says so sarcastically that Turcen wants to punch him in the mouth, “Tell you what. Why don’t we just go there and grab it ourselves then and kill you along the way?”

“I already told you that you won’t take me anywhere. Alive or dead.” Turcen bluffs again. “Plus, you would also be destroyed in the first room of this dungeon. It is not for the weak of heart.”

The man in black ignores the insult. “Hmm,” he is already counting his gold, “This won’t make the executioner happy.”

“I don’t care.” The man has changed the topic, he must be appreciating the idea.

“Neither do I. I hate her. Hells, it might actually be a positive point on your side of the bargain that I’ll get to upset her.” He swings the Stale flail around his hand in an arc, “We keep the skull and the girl though.”

“No.” Turcen says with a simple amount of authority that leaves a small vacuum between himself and the Royal Huntsman. “The skull goes with me.” That same wave of shame hits him as he prioritizes Stale over Monash. He doesn’t think the Huntsmen would actually harm her, but he doesn’t want her to suffer any more than she already has for the simple choice of existing around him for one evening. He can’t leave here without Stale though, he knows this.

“Then the girl stays with us until you deliver the gold.” The man in black dangles a knife above Monash’s head as if Turcen needed any indication.

Turcen doesn’t like that the Royal Huntsman seemingly agreed to this deal so readily, he thinks the plan is continuing to grow in the man’s head. Turcen reaches into his robes, cracks off and pulls out a small piece of his rib. The pain is excruciating, but he attempts to play it off as if he is immune to the damage. He tosses the rib to the ground between himself and the other Huntsmen, “For the executioner and the story.” The man in black swings Stale, visually thinks, and then tosses it approximately to the same spot on the ground.

“Toss what gold you have on you down as well. I ain’t leaving here empty handed.” A gesture of faith, or one last attempt to extort even more from Turcen.

Turcen walks towards the loot on the ground and hoists Stale by the belt, a struggling ‘mhmphurer’ is emitted from within. He grabs a pouch from inside his robes and tosses it to the ground with a sad clink sound next to his broken off rib. Turcen avoids looking toward Monash at all and begins walking away further south. He’ll be back for her.

Turcen walks away soberly on the road as he unravels his skull from its cage.

“You three,” the Royal Huntsman says pointing at the Huntsmen, their cowls and face coverings removed. A bearded man of about 30, a woman in her late 20s with a slight headache from the hit on the head earlier, and a younger man that couldn’t be older than 19. “Follow the two of them to this mystical stronghold and then wait for the rancid creatures to come back out with the loot. We have a contract to sign in Tenacity before they come back out of there.” The Hunstmen look tired from the road and are annoyed that they need to follow two skeletal creatures to an odd crypt for an indeterminate amount of time. The man in black turns and begins walking towards the roadway back north, “Come along Mun.”

Monash trots up to the back of the man in black and grabs his hand as they walk together, “Yes father.”

– The End –