A GIFT FROM ERESH

Hello everyone.

The response to my work has been so positive, I thought I’d share a little more. This is from Chapter 15 of SET GOLD SKIES ABLAZE. It’s a fairly self-contained chapter that follows Ylia Hart, one of my favourite ever characters to write.

You don't need to know much about their former adventures to understand this chapter. But I hope after reading it you will be curious to learn more!

As always, I welcome all comments, critiques, compliments, and feedback. Plus, let me know what you’re reading, especially if it has a fantasy flavour!

With love

Joe / The Mindflayer

Ylia had always thought of herself as tough. She had suffered under the Wagemaster from a young age, and that’d strengthened her mind. She’d worked hard all her life, and that’d given her physical strength too. When running her House in Yestermere, she’d had to deal with unpleasant patrons more often than not. Of course, she had Urgal to back her up, but even then, befriending the felidae was itself a testament to her strength of character.

She had never, however, thought of herself as someone who inspired fear.

But that is precisely what arose from the inhabitants of Wayfarer’s Rest when she, and an army of two-hundred battle-slaves, marched into the port-town. Sat high atop her Daggerfoot, she could not help but look down upon the wide-mouthed explorers below, who scrambled to get out of her way as though she were the wild queen of some feral kingdom hitherto unknown to the bustling world. She was all-too-aware of the bow slung across her back, the weight of The Avenger about her neck. A millstone of death, she thought sourly.

Jubal and Julya caused their own ripples. The huge theront, horned head gleaming in the blistering sun, with the god-hammer slung in the leather satchel across his back, was naturally a fearsome sight to behold. He held the esoteric wand in his hand which drew on the battle-theronts the way that a hypnotist’s charm draws the eye. Julya, though not possessing any kind of arcane weaponry, nonetheless held herself with the steely pride of a noble, projecting an aura that commanded respect.

Only when it became clear that this was no invasion did people settle, though still giving the trio and their warriors a wide berth.

The theront army assembled by the House, standing in eerie silence that made them seem statues in some Emperor’s tomb, rather than living creatures of flesh and blood. Even Gorm’s golem possessed more personality, she thought with a spike of ice through the nape of her neck. Even the machine-man had more freedom, more life.

Ylia, Jubal, and Julya all dismounted and tied off their Daggerfeet on the available posts outside the tavern. The horses tied in similar fashion eyed the sharp-beaked birds with apprehension.

“If Quen Yu has any spies here,” Jubal said. “He will know shortly what is coming his way.”

Julya laughed.

“He is truly mad if he paid to have spies in this backwater. But I think we need not worry too much.” Julya lowered her voice, “Qala is not with us, after all.”

Ylia and Jubal nodded. Ylia was beginning to see the wisdom in Qala’s decision, though it still pained her to be parted from her friend. It would certainly throw informants off the scent.

She cast her eyes about the way-station. Men, women, and even one or two theronts were coming to and from the wharves. Ships listed at anchor, caught in a stern breeze blowing from the north. The sight of the sea was a strange comfort to her. It marked the end of her time in Memory, and now that she saw an end, she knew she would be glad to leave. The jungle was a painful place, suffering and war too deep in the soil for there to be any chance of healing. Her past was tied here. Her father, buried, along with things she had seen in the battle against the Daimons she would rather forget. Better to leave it behind, she thought. Though it seemed likely her future held more bloodshed—more death, more loss.

“I hate waiting,” Ylia admitted. “How long do you think Xheng will be?”

“If he left port as soon as he received the summons,” Jubal began. “Then perhaps ten days. But it’s likely he spent some time gathering his strength. An armada cannot be readied overnight.”

Ylia nodded, seeing the truth in his assessment, but also hating that it meant she would have to wait longer.

“I suppose we shall have more time for archery lessons,” she said through a forced smile.

***

The first day and night passed without incident.

Then hell came to Wayfarer’s Rest.

It came aboard a ship called The Flawless Pearl, which like any ship’s name worth its salt contained a shred of bitter irony.

At first, there was nothing untoward. The Yarulian galleon—too large to dock at the wharves—arrived and laid anchor out to sea. Its crew rowed a skiff to shore. They were suntanned men—not a woman among them, in fact—grinning with the black teeth typical of Yarulian sailors who were over-fond of sugar. They had traded Yarulian hounds to the Qi’shathians, a prized commodity for which they had received significant recompense, and then traded the Qi’shathian treasures to the Aurelians, becoming within a mere four months wealthier than some of Yarruk’s most storied houses. They were here to sell the last dregs of their plunder and enjoy a night of excess on the long road home.

Ylia learned all this because proud men loved nothing more than to talk to beautiful women of their conquests. They swarmed her like clouds of sharks to the spillage of blood. She wished, in these moments, she still had Urgal with her. One sight of the felidae’s bared teeth was enough to make most men retreat. Now, she had to stand up for herself, she supposed. At first, she was polite. By the end of the evening, however, after one too many a sailor had drunkenly draped their arm about her waist, she slammed the Avenger down on the table.

“The next man who touches me gets this to the face,” she snarled.

After that, she received no more crude solicitations. They may not have known exactly what it was, but they knew enough to know it was not of human origin, and she was not to be trifled with.

That night, the House did not quieten until dawn. The dancing and shrieking song was so incessant Ylia gave up on sleep, and instead went out to the wharves, and sat watching the darkness and the water blur together. The stars overhead were white coals in black flame. She thought of Telos, as she always did when looking at the stars. The world seemed colossal and frightening and beautiful all at once.

Even as dawn showed herself, there were still a few sailors drinking, albeit this group were older, more subdued. They played cards, smoked Goldleaf, talked of distant friends, or escapades together, or hopes of the future. Meanwhile, another group of sailors puked their guts off end of the wharves, turning the crystalline seawater bilious. Is this why Nereth hates us?, she found herself wondering. If we were more civilised, would she spare the fire?

But if legends were to be believed, the gods were just as prone to disgrace, if not more so, on a grander scale than human imagination could reach. Folly, all is folly. She knew such thoughts were hopelessly negative, but that is where her mind was.

The true warning signs came the following day, their third in Wayfarer’s Rest. Ylia leapt up suddenly from her seat at breakfast, pointing at a huge insect scuttling across the floor of the House. Jubal stamped on the thing. It was grey, about the size of a rat. Its insides were a putrid beige, like porridge that’d congealed in the vague semblance of organs. Before Jubal’s foot had unmade it, it’d possessed a host of scuttling legs, and two feelers on its head. It might have been a louse, but its size belied Ylia’s ability to categorise it as such. It’s nearly the size of a Rynu-dragonfly, she thought, remembering the huge, buzzing pests of Yestermere.

“That’s a Festerbug,” Julya said, quietly. Her eyes flashed as she stared hard at the sailors, a handful of which had made it to breakfast, and were crowded around a nearby table. “It appears you had a stowaway from Qi’shath.”

One of the sailors—wearing an indigo sash denoting he was the captain—shrugged.

“So what?”

“These creatures carry plagues.”

The captain shrugged again.

“There isn’t a ship that doesn’t carry rats, or lice, or these bugs, or some fever from somewhere. I wouldn’t worry yourself.” He smirked at Jubal. “Might want to wash your foot, though, bull-man. Or buy some shoes.”

The sailors guffawed at this.

Jubal stood, nostrils flaring. Ylia feared that the hammer of Beltanus was about to be put to uses for which it was not made. Then the anger went, as suddenly as it had come, and Jubal let out a derisive laugh.

“My feet are too big for shoes, little man,” Jubal said. “Unfortunately, you would not know what it is like to be big enough for anything.”

The captain stood, which only served to emphasise that he was two feet shorter than Jubal, and scrawny as a scarecrow. The other sailors quickly rose and pulled him back into his seat with remonstrations of, “He’s not worth it, Captain”, and “Think of the girls we’ll get back home,”, thus allowing him to save some face in what would clearly have been an unequal contest.

Jubal now got to be the one to smirk, though his bovine teeth made the gesture more threatening than funny.

“My appetite has been spoiled,” Jubal said. “I wish to take a walk.”

Ylia and Julya nodded and followed him out of the door.

***

They saw two more of the Festerbugs. One scurried across the sand for the shadowed line of the trees; the other snooped around a pile of vomit not yet picked clean by kites. The warning in Ylia’s heart grew like an Engine flame being fed Daimonsblood. But it was not until later that day that her deepest fears were confirmed.

They heard a sailor shrieking from the outhouse. When they came over to him to see what was wrong, wondering if he had been attacked by some creature or even one of the battle-slaves gone rogue, they saw him writhing on the ground, scratching at himself so viciously he was drawing blood, rending great gouges in his flesh. He had boils all over his skin, every inch covered in red, ripe welts. Some had burst, leaking a pustulous fluid that was eerily reminiscent of the insect’s insides.

Julya’s words came back to Ylia, sinking into her with the slowness of a malignant knife. These creatures carry plagues.

What had The Flawless Pearl brought with them?

***

Soon, it became apparent.

The name of the plague was unknown. It was not the Kiss of Eresh, for which they could feel some gratitude, but it was virulent, infectious, and repulsive. By the fourth day, half of the sailors had fallen ill with it. They could be heard nearly a mile away from the port-town, shrieking in their beds. The barmaids were put to work changing their filthy sheets and rubbing primitive ointments on their wounds, overseen by an eagle-eyed Julya who it seemed knew more about medicine and disease than anyone Ylia had ever met.

By the fifth day, however, the maids had caught the plague too. The House stopped functioning as a tavern and simply became a place for people to lie down and scream in pain as their boils burst. Some men scratched their flesh so manically they had to be tied down, lest they do themselves serious harm.

Ylia feared for herself and the others. But most of all, she feared for the battle-theronts. She feared not because she cared about them as living creatures (though she dearly wanted to, it was hard when they behaved like automata) but because if they fell sick, all of Qala’s plans would come to ruin.

But the theronts, it seemed, were immune to the plague. Qala had mentioned something about them healing more rapidly, and Ylia could well believe it, for not a single one acquired even the smallest spot or boil. Silent, as always, they stood vigil, as the rest of the town fell to pieces, the sands painted with blood, pus, and the bile of disgorged stomachs. The House of Rest, that’d once welcomed them with song and warmth—that’d been where Ylia and Telos made love for the first and only time—was turned into a prison for the diseased and deranged.

And then on the sixth day, Ylia saw the boil on her arm.

“Oh gods,” she whispered.

Jubal and Julya put a brave face on it, told her they would tend her and that all would be well, but she knew they were afraid. She could see it in their eyes. None of them knew, yet, what this plague precisely was, or whether any of those afflicted were going to survive.

By the seventh day, Ylia lay abed screaming and ranting just like the rest. The itching beneath her skin was like a thousand insects trying to hatch at once.

Ylia had always thought of herself as tough.

The gods, it seemed, wanted to put that to the test.

Thank you for reading this tale from the world of Erethia. I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of what has become a huge story. If you want to read more there are currently 246,000 words available to read on Royal Road for FREE!

You can also check out my other dark fantasy novels over on Amazon.

Once again, thank you so much for stopping by and reading my work. May a star shine over our next meeting!