Bran let his bleak gaze wander as he glanced at the faces of the men and women who hung on his words. "We then heard a strange sucking noise," he continued, "and a wind came up. Wind! But it was not a natural breeze. It did not come from the entrance of the hall; it came from the Ravager. We beheld the unbelievable. The Ravager had opened its mouth grotesquely wide, sucking in the air and, with it, the insects Jon had spawned. It was like a maelstrom, and he devoured the swarm in seconds. However, we did not wait for him to finish."

Aaron could see anger and pain glitter in the eyes of the old man as he spoke.

"Borgar lifted his mighty sword, Silverblaze-the legendary weapon that only he was strong enough to wield-and charged. It was one of the Weapons of Old, a blade crafted thousands of years ago during the Forgotten Ages. It was said that such a weapon could destroy anything, be it dead or living. He was intent on putting this to the test! I also gripped my trusted old friend tightly"-Bran gave the rune-covered staff at his side a nod-"and together he and I flanked the massive monster, which had just finished its grisly meal."

"What happened next?" asked Titzo and Tark at the same time, their eyes gleaming feverishly as they usually did when there was talk of combat. Considering the circumstances, Aaron found their behavior disgusting.

"We attacked," replied Bran, "and while we charged the fiend from two sides, Adelia cast a stream of powerful magic from her delicate fingers. It was the same color as the molten steel below our feet, and it had a similar power: it burned the flesh of the now-weaponless Ravager. The brute stumbled back-but only for a moment. It shouted a strange word, and suddenly the axe had returned to its hand. The stream of energy was sucked into the weapon, vanishing like water flowing down a drain. We had to act quickly! Borgar and I had almost gotten close enough for a simultaneous strike when the Ravager leaped. It leaped! High and far, more than a dozen yards and toward Adelia, its black axe held over its head to split the wizard in two."

A sad smile appeared on Bran's wrinkled features. His eyes lit up for a moment. "She was something special... Adelia. Clever. Resourceful. Her magic had saved our lives dozens of times. She did not panic when the behemoth leaped at her. She stayed calm, shouting an incantation that I had heard often before. Suddenly the air around her rippled and seemed to become as sluggish as water, the effect extending several yards from the spot where she was standing. I knew this magic would slow down arrows, bolts, and everything else that entered the field. Time would run normally for Adelia, but not for anything close to her. The spell would give her the edge needed to dodge and withdraw. It had worked in countless battles... but not this time. We had never faced a monster like the Ravager. The fiend wouldn't be stopped. It wouldn't be hampered by magic. Like a meteor from the sky, it crashed down, its axe chopping in a wide arc, right through Adelia."

Bran's voice was angry, and spittle flew from his lips as he continued. "The Ravager split her from north to south, killing her instantly, but the magic would not cease!" He looked into the faces of the audience, his features twisted by anger and pain, his eyes wide. "Have you ever seen somebody get killed in a field of magic like this? It was as if it had happened under water. Everything was slowed down! Even the blood seemed to have a will of its own. It flowed. It looked so..."

Bran stopped, his remaining hand shaking as he lived through the moment once more. He retched and leaned over, dry heaving. Aaron awkwardly tapped him on the back, while the others watched the display of horror in silence. After some time had passed, Bran stopped and used his sleeve to wipe a trickle of bile from the corner of his mouth. He looked weak and was as pale as the snow.

Feeling pity for the old man, Aaron whispered to him, "You don't have to continue. You must be tired and-"

"No," interrupted Bran, an almost desperate tone in his voice. "No, I have to tell you everything. It has to be told. I... I just need a few moments to recover; the memory was just-"

He didn't finish, and he didn't need to; the pain in his face said more than words ever could...

***

"Come on, Bernard," Leonard urged his brother. "At your age a man should not need more time to piss than he needs to fuck!" He grinned, looking over his shoulder toward where his brother had gone to take a leak. No reply came. "What happened, Brother? Has the cold shrunk it so that you can't find it? It was pretty small to begin with..."

He turned around; his brother was still standing in front of the fir, his hands holding his best part, his face toward the sky. Leonard had to laugh. "If your little man is as stiff as you, no wonder nothing is happening."

Again, no answer.

Now Leonard was getting a bit worried. Compared to him, Bernard was the quiet kind, but completely ignoring Leonard's brotherly insults was not like him. Had he offended him?

Leonard stomped toward him through the snow. "Ahh, come on. You know I was just making a joke..."

He reached his brother and stepped beside him, keeping a respectful distance in case he had planned an assault.

"What's the matter? Cold froze your-"

Shock silenced him. In the light of his lamp, he saw his brother clearly now.

His face was frozen in an expression of relief-frozen like the stream of urine that was forming a crystalline ice bridge to where it connected with the fir.

"Bernard!" he uttered. He reached out, grabbing his brother's shoulder. He was as hard as ice.

"Brother?!" he gasped.

"Brothers?" He heard a whisper behind him. He spun around, astonishment overcoming him a second time as he found himself confronted with a stunning half-naked woman. She wore nothing but a leather brassiere and a shroud of black cloth around her slender hips. She looked as if she was from a dream: tall, with golden hair caressed by the wind and skin as white as alabaster. She would have been beautiful if not for a long scar held together by bad stitches that ran vertically down her face and over her body before it disappeared under the shroud. It looked as if a giant blade had split her north to south. But nobody could have survived such a blow...

I must be dreaming, he thought.

"Brothers? Different like fire and ice..." she said cryptically. Her voice was like honey, and a lopsided smile appeared on her scarred face.

A nervous smile, a mere physical reaction, appeared on Leonard's face as well. It froze as the woman tilted her head in what would have been a cocky gesture had her whole head moved... As it was, only the right half, the one with the smile, did. The other remained stiff and cold, and a cleft appeared, through which he could see the moonlit snow behind her. It looked as if the stitches that held her together had stretched between the two halves of her face like strands of a thick spider web.

Leonard opened his mouth to scream, going for his weapon.

A flicker of disappointment flashed over her smiling half-face, and green fire flashed up in her eyes. The same green fire suddenly filled Leonard's lungs, raging up his throat to escape his mouth and claw at his face. The pain was excruciating, but only for a moment; then his mind ceased as his brain boiled from his ears and the flesh of his features melted to sludge.

"Uneven brothers... like fire and ice," Adelia whispered, and with a flick of her hand she was gone.

***

After several minutes, during which the others around the fire discussed what they had heard, Bran regained enough of his strength to continue.

"She opened like a flower," he began, and the others quieted. "The two parts of her glided to the ground. And we could do nothing. Nothing! We couldn't enter the field! We would be affected by it. We could only wait and let our anger be fueled by what we had to witness. The Ravager just looked at Adelia's torn body as a man might gaze at a beautiful sunrise, ignoring us. However, we could see that Adelia had indeed wounded it. Her magic had disintegrated the flesh of its chest, revealing raw muscle and even bone. Yet unable to act, we had to endure patiently. When the Ravager lost interest in its grisly kill, it seemed content with staring at us. We waited, waited for the magic to dissipate. It felt like an eternity..."

The old monk grabbed the cup of tea at his feet to take a sip, emptying it before he continued in a weak voice. "The waiting was horrible. It was even more horrible with the corpse of a friend lying on the floor in front of us. The sheer insanity of the situation got to me, clawing at my mind... So, when the field collapsed, what little control I had left snapped like a twig, and I attacked."

Aaron and the others leaned forward. The old man shook his head.

"I was a fool! I should have let Borgar strike first. The Ravager would have had to counter the huge two-hander with its axe, giving me time to use my staff to the best effect, distracting the Ravager so that Borgar could deal the killing blow. Instead I charged it like the fool I am, all my years of training forgotten, my mind filled only with thoughts of revenge."

Bran touched his shoulder where his arm once had been. "I managed to drive my staff through the monster's flesh, deep into its abdomen, but it hardly cared. The Ravager ignored my attack, its axe descending upon my head. It took all my skill to avoid getting killed instantly, but I could not move fast enough to escape the blow completely. And so the cruel blade bit deep into my arm, severing it at the shoulder, but that was not the worst of it! As the axe carved through my flesh, I could sense something in the dark metal that was more terrible than anything I had experienced so far: an endless hunger, a cold clawing at the very fabric of my being."

"What was it?" asked the captain, concern in his eyes.

"I could not say," answered Bran. "It was something old and dark, timeless and angry. It touched my soul, crippled it as it crippled my body. As the vile edge took my arm, images filled my mind, images of the very hall we stood in. I saw a... a great darkness trapped in a circle of radiant magic, and a hooded man standing in front of the eerie anvil, hammering at the glowing steel of an axe. And with every strike, the darkness inside the circle screamed as if it had been struck itself, and it faded, little by little, while the steel of the weapon darkened bit by bit. Finally the shadow was no more, and a midnight-black axe was lying on the anvil, humming with the echoes of what was imprisoned within."

The old man stared at the surrounding men. "After that, it all became blurry. I remember lying on the floor, screaming, trying to stifle the flow of my blood. I saw Borgar fighting the Ravager. They looked like raging titans wielding enormous weapons, demonic iron clashing against blessed steel. And then it happened... The Ravager struck my comrade, opening his belly. Yet even though the life was pouring out of my old friend, he didn't falter. By taking the strike, he had put himself into the perfect position for a devastating blow, and with the power of a doomed man, he brought down his mighty sword. The Ravager tried to block it with the axe, but Borgar's strike was too forceful. It bit right through the iron shaft, and the silver blade of the sword buried itself into the thick skull of the brute, splitting its head!"

An outburst of relief washed through the listeners; only Aaron remained silent, the news of his hero's demise weighing heavily upon him.

Bran lifted his hand, silencing them. "But this was not the end," he said, his voice shaking. "My friend had killed the fiend, but in doing so, he had also destroyed the axe. He released what had been imprisoned within! While I lay there, my blood pouring through the grid into the molten steel below, I saw darkness rising from the broken remains of the cursed weapon. A darkness that deadened the light of the room like a storm cloud... It hovered over the dead bodies of my friends and the Ravager, seemingly gazing at them, and then laughter exploded from inside its whirling mass. All around the chamber, the lurking creatures that had been waiting in the shadows came closer, closer to me. As did the darkness... And then... and then..."

Bran stopped, his voice breaking, tears streaming down his face, which he quickly covered with his hand. An awkward silence filled the camp, disturbed only by the weeping of the old monk and the crackling of the fire.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Author's note:

Hi there.

I'm glad you are still with me. :) Do you enjoy the way the characters are portrayed - the mix between the past and present?

I hope you enjoyed yourself. As always, I would love to get your feedback.

Also, please show your support by voting. :)

- M.