Found Wanting
by Matthew Wasik
The caravan rattled and groaned, venting steam as it’s engines propelled it forward. Using the guardrails, Ujarak carefully ascended from the lower deck. The caravan went over a sudden bump, causing the lightly-built Torchlander to almost drop his rifle.
His friend and platoon-mate, Gunther, awaited his arrival up top. Easily more than six feet tall, most of it muscle, the Üraganheimen looked more like a bouncer than a trained Torchlandic soldier.
“Vell?” he asked, “vot did zey say?”
“Vell, at least ve can appreciate ze beautiful scenery of ze Torchland!” said Gunther cheerfullycheerily, gesturing to the unappealing landscape.
“Mmnagh,” said Ujarak, non-verbally expressing his disgust, fidgeting even more restlessly than usual.“Forests, forests, swamps, and more forests. I can’t wait till we reach civilization.”
“Ja.” agreed Gunther soberly. “Vell, it has been safe so far. Zat is a blessing, at least.”
“Yeah.” agreed Ujarak, resting two fingers on a coyote pendant slung around his neck. “I’ll ask Coyote for the trip to stay that way.”
“I vill ask The Giver ze same.” said Gunther, nodding. He grinned a little. “Maybe after zey have fight to see whose god is best god.”
“Coyote would win.” riposted Ujarak lightly. “He doesn’t fight fair.”
“Zis I have heard.” replied Gunther seriously. He then leaned slightly to the right to see around Ujarak, focusing on another approaching figure.
“Regulus!” said Gunther cheerily. “Enjoying ze lovely scenery?”
A soldier with heavy-lidded eyes and an unhealthy grey complexion blinked, slightly taken aback. “No.”, he said, dry and humorless. “The scenery is terrible. And I have bad news.”
“Yeah?” said Ujarak, a little nervously. The caravan was too close to the forest for comfort.
“There’s a blockage up ahead,” said Regulus emotionlessly. “We’re going to have to go through the forest.”
“Oh shit.” said Ujarak, biting his lip and looking nervously at the treeline, his fingers drumming restlessly on his leg. Behind him, Gunther looked grim.
“That’s what I said” replied Regulus. “Relax, Captain Mathias knows what he’s doing. If we stick to the roads, we should be fine.”
Gunther peered at the Captain, on the other side of the caravan. He was a swarthy, battle-scarred man, and a seasoned veteran. Gunther relaxed a little, and said “Vell, for all of our sakes, I hope you’re right.”
Regulus nodded sharply, and returned to his post.
“This is not good.” said Ujarak, unslinging his rifle. As he spoke, the Caravan began to divert, headed towards the forest. “Not good at all.” he repeated. Around him, soldiers hurried to their positions, checking their rifles and ammunition. Shenna, the platoon’s assigned mage, readied her Divination equipment with short, sharp movements.
“Ja.” agreed Gunther, rifle at the ready. “Ve should pray to both of our gods, I think.”
The loud noises of the caravan were sorely out of place in the quiet forest, the rumbling of the engines and the short, sharp hisses as they vented heat were unsettling in the stillness. The caravan had been travelling for a little more than an hour, and despite the uneventfulness of the trip so far, everybody was on edge.
“I do not understand,” said Gunther to Ujarak, his voice wary, “zis is a forest, vere are ze sounds of animals?”
“The caravan is probably scaring them away.” said Ujarak, his eyes darting around, watching every shadow. “I can’t wait until we get out of this damn forest.”
“I agree.” replied Gunther, nodding slightly.
Just then, a sound was heard, quiet and distant. A booming howl, deep and disquieting.
“What was that?” asked Ujarak nervously. “Did you hear that?” other soldiers aboard the caravan were asking each other the same question. The noise came again, slightly louder.
“Steady, soldiers.” called Captain Mathias. “Shenna, scout ahead of us, find out what that sound is.”
“Yes sir.” said Shenna. She picked up a small brass sphere with several interlocking iron rings around its circumference, which fit comfortably in the palm of her hand. She whispered a word, and released the sphere. It began to glow and lift off the ground, its rings spinning around in a blur. Shenna closed her eyes in concentration, maneuvering the scout sphere, and the ball shot off into the forest ahead, towards the sound.
“I don’t like this.” said Ujarak, his foot tapping anxiously. “What if we’re hearing a pack of dr--”
“Do not say it.” said Gunther severely. “Do not jinx us.”
“Right.” said Ujarak, touching his Coyote pendant and muttering a quick prayer.
There was perhaps a minute of tense, nervous silence, as the sound rang out twice more, louder each time.
Suddenly, Shenna’s eyes snapped open, and she sprang to her feet in a panic, readying her rifle. “Rotborn!” she shouted, her voice shaking in terror. “A pack of Rotborn, coming straight for us! Arm yourselves!”
Everybody on the Caravan started shouting in a mix of fear and confusion.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.” chanted Ujarak to himself. “We’re dead, we’re all dead.”
“SILENCE!” roared Captain Mathias, and the uproar died down. “Shenna, what’s the terrain ahead of us?”
“Th-th-there’s a clearing ahead of us.” said Shenna, stuttering in fear. “Maybe a hundred feet across. There’s a s-s-steep hill on the north side, they’ll have to climb up it to get to us.”
Captain Mathias nodded sharply. “We’ll stop in the clearing, that way the bastards have to cross open ground to get to us and we’ll all have clear shots. Ezwood, tell the engine operators to stop in the center of the clearing, then join us with rifles ready.”
Ezwood nodded, and hurried to the lower levels to inform the operators.
“All right, men, I don’t want anybody to start shooting until they clear the treeline! After they do, put as many bullets in them as you can without missing!”
“Giver preserve us.” said Gunther fervently. “Preserve us.”
In a matter of minutes, the caravan had stopped in the clearing. The howling of the Rotborn was nearing, and it was becoming apparent that the sound was coming from several throats at once. The caravan had stopped parallel to the source of the sound, so that all of the soldiers could line up their shots. The soldiers were lined up in a row across the top of the caravan, rifles trained on the forest. Ujarak was terrified, his hands shaking violently and his rifle wavering.
“Ujarak,” said Gunther, seemingly collected. “Steady yourself. You vill kill no Rotborn like zat.”
“Right,” said Ujarak, taking several deep breaths and controlling his trembling. “Okay, I’ve got this. Just...just aim and shoot.”
The howls grew louder and louder as the soldiers fought to control their fear. Shenna nervously drummed her fingers on her copper wand, the runes inscribed upon it glowing as she held a spell in her mind. Dark, twisted shapes became visible amongst the trees, charging towards the caravan. Then the shadows burst through the foliage, and the Rotborn were in the clearing.
They were truly massive, the very shortest standing 8 feet tall at the shoulder. There were more than a dozen of them, their forms human no longer. The Rotborn had grafted the corpses of many animals to themselves, and some had done the same with dead and rotting trees. The dead tissue had been animated with the most foul of magics, granting it a twisted semblance of life. There was no rhyme or reason to each of their forms. One resembled a huge scuttling insect, dripping black ichor. Aanother would resemble a walking humanoid tree, if not for the raw exposed muscle that peeked out from cracks in the wood. Yet another was a mass of fur and feathers, matted with blood, its head resembling an owl’s head constructed out of many disparate corpses, with beady eyes glinting with hatred. Each was screaming in rage, their grafts distorting their voice and turning their screams into a nightmarish cacophony. The creatures were having little trouble scaling the hill, their mass giving them purchase on the slippery dirt.
“FIRE!!” bellowed Captain Mathias over the din. Shots from all across the caravan rang out, bullets finding their marks. The furious screams of some of the Rotborn turned into shrieks of pain, a few fell to the ground as several bullets converged upon them. The soldiers worked the levers on their rifles and fired a second volley, and then the Rotborn were upon them.
They hit the left side of the caravan first. One soldier, a blond youth freshly recruited, reached for his sword only to have it knocked from his hand by the the tree creature. The force of the blow broke the man’s arm and knocked him to the ground. The tree creature let out a mighty roar, picked up the screaming recruit in one huge hand, and began smashing him against the roof of the caravan over and over until he was nothing but a bloody, pulped mass. Elsewhere, the insectoid Rotborn descended upon Shenna, only to be driven back by a blast of pure force from her focusing rod. Shenna snarled in defiance and fired blast after blast, driving the Rotborn back further and further, and blasting chunks out of its chitinous hide… until she was ambushed by a Rotborn who had circled around the back of the caravan. The Rotborn lept and bore her to the ground, tearing her to shreds with freakishly long, bear-like arms.
Ujarak and Gunther were both firing at the Rotborn with the zombified owl head to no avail; rotten flesh sloughed off with every hit, but wherever the creature’s brain was seemed to be protected. The rifles of both Ujarak and Gunther clicked on empty chambers just as the Rotborn reached striking distance. It raised one huge talon to strike, it’s voice screeching in a grotesque parody of a bird. Ujarak nimbly dodged out of the way, but Gunther wasn’t fast enough. The talon severed both his arms and cut him in two almost to his waist. The creature shrieked again, flinging Gunther’s limp corpse off its talon and turning to Ujarak.
“THAT WAS MY FRIEND, YOU BASTARD!” screamed Ujarak. He hastily drew his revolver and fired a shot without aiming. Fortune favored him in that instant, as he scored a lucky shot and hit the creature in the eye. The owl-like Rotborn screeched in pain, reeling back and covering its eye with one of it’s talons. Ujarak, teeth clenched in rage and sorrow, cocked his revolver and deliberately aimed at the creature’s other eye.
“This is for Gunther, you son of a bitch.” said Ujarak, and fired. His shot hit the mark and blinded the creature. The Rotborn’s shrieks redoubled, and it blindly advanced upon the caravan, slashing with its talons.
Ujarak was no hero. He had joined the army as a naive youth for the glory and the women, and to see the world outside his small hometown. He hadn’t signed on for pain and sorrow, and this was the last straw. He lept off the caravan, and started tumbling down the hill. He reached the bottom, got to his feet, and ran, not bothering to check on the battle behind him.
Ujarak ran until he was exhausted, putting as much distance between himself and the caravan as he could. He finally slumped down against a large stump in a forest clearing.
“They can’t find me, they can’t find me,” he chanted to himself, shivering in fear. “I ran far enough, I ran far enough, they can’t find me.” he began reloading his revolver, hands shaking violently. “Can’t find me. Can’t find me.” His shaking hands dropped some ammunition, and he frantically scrabbled on the ground to pick it up.
“THIS ONE IS WEAK, EVEN FOR CITY-FILTH.” said a booming voice, too deep to be human. Ujarak shrieked and pushed himself against the stump with his feet, aiming his revolver at the noise.
“Yes, weak indeed.” said another voice, buzzing and quavering in nauseating tones. “Sludge Fox is a harsh god, city-filth. And he finds you wanting.”
“No, please!” said Ujarak, his voice desperate. “Please!”
A chorus of voices began, the voice of many Rotborn, circling and surrounding Ujarak. “Sludge Fox finds you wanting.” they said in unison. “Sludge Fox finds you wanting.”
“No!” screamed Ujarak! “No! Coyote, please help me! Help me!”
“Sludge Fox finds you wanting!” the Rotborn were emerging from the trees, twisted forms forming a nightmarish tapestry. “Sludge fox finds you wanting!”
“Dont’!” said Ujarak, pressing himself against the stump. “I’ll give you anything! Anything you want!”
“Sludge Fox finds you wanting! Sludge Fox finds you wanting! SLUDGE FOX FINDS YOU WANTING!”
“NO!” screamed Ujarak. “NO! NO! NO!”
“SLUDGE FOX FINDS YOU WANTING!”
There was a single futile gunshot, and then there was only blood.
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