Bowhunter – Chapter I

The Mane, Fohalin, Thilso Island Chain, Southeastern Province – Typhon Resurgence, Day 8

I common joke Renata Zeman had heard as a child, when her parents travelled around the countries of the Poet’s Sea, began with, “A Dytrentian, a Maytoni, and a vampire walk into a tavern…” At the time she didn’t get. Not because her parents would cover her ears to protect her from a racy punchline, but because, why a Dytrentian, a Maytoni, and a vampire?

A quarter of a century later, and she was all too familiar with why there was a Maytoni nationality present in the joke.

Her people did get everywhere it turned out.

Renata’s primary evidence for this was herself, currently in Fohalin when not drinking herself into numbing bliss in Nauberta, the pirate capital of The Mane – her new home since her exile.

Even within a chaotic, dangerous, hive of pirates and other miscreants, the reputation of a Maytoni had found its way within the taverns, dens, brothels, and ships. Maytoni holy scriptures mentioned many promises of its people traveling with the security of the Gods, often wrapped up in parables, and with examples from the Maytoni exodus. Despite preaching many of these stories herself, Renata found the reality dizzying when her presence within Nauberta was actually welcomed. In part she felt as if the words she had preached in her former life were but hollow sermons, that her own understanding and faith at those times made her unworthy to say such things.

Representing a nation that made history by gutting the pirate presence of within the Poet’s Sea, liberating the surrounding countries, Renata assumed she would be an enemy, refiled. Rather her perspective on pirates had been challenged as to their social and moral diversity.

It had been three years since Renata’s exile, and two years since she made the decision to travel as far as The Mane. Since arriving in Nauberta, the disgraced Pastoral of Maytoni, she had in an odd way, found her people.

As a youth, she had poured through every single holy parchment, tome, and scroll available to her in the Maytoni Grand and Holy Library. Knowledge sustained her when at the age of thirteen her world had – for the first time – been thrown into a whirlpool, warped, and reshaped. Like a dehydrated gazelle desperately lapping up water, Renata sought understanding.

As much as Renata was building a foundation for herself, she was also making sure that she had the knowledge to minister. By the time Renata was in her early twenties, a Pastoral proper, she prided herself in having an answer to every query, and every need she could find before her.

Only in recent hindsight did she realise that there was a Chasm of a difference between knowledge and wisdom. And that the Gods could surprise her still.

The natives of Nauberta sought her out. Yes, they were for the most part, scum. And many of them would be in jails back in Maytoni for the things they did. But, in the past two years Renata had become something of a mediator within the pirate capital, a singular figure and authority to measure and watch all other authorities.

The Maytoni.

The Pastoral they called her, despite no longer owning the title due to excommunication. It didn’t matter to those seeking her advice, and if Renata was discerning her current state of affairs correctly, it didn’t matter to the Gods either. Whilst her identity as a Pastoral had fallen away from her like a shawl in a storm, the Gods had found it and draped it over her again.

Her recent record included, establishing seventeen treaties between pirate crews, three trade agreements between mare-persons and land-folk, finding solutions to two boarder disputes between Siren communities and mare-persons, unionising the sex-workers of Nauberta and helping to build a security force for their protection, and the building of a neutral court system in which further disputes can be handled without violence.

In all, Nauberta had made the leap from a wild state to something just outside of civilised since her arrival… Or something that was closer now to being civilised, than the barrelled-up chaos it had been. Its inhabitants were after all still pirates.

Whilst her identity as a Pastoral clung to her, Renata couldn’t help wondering what just what it was to be a Pastoral now. Whilst doing good for its own sake was a foundational tenet of the Pastoral Order, for Renata it had always been her nature – and what resulted in her excommunication and exile.

Sounding out like an alarm bell, the natural disaster to hit Fohalin in the north had moved Renata to action. Without knowing all the facts, or even any of the rumours, Renata persuaded the captain of the somewhat ironically named Wilful Station to take her to the island nation, to help however she could.

Whatever the disaster to the east of Fohalin had been, it was a boon to the pirates of Nauberta in the south. Shipping lanes coming into the mid-riff of The Mane had been rerouted to avoid Fohalin, and the pirates of Nauberta could hardly help themselves.

On her way to Fohalin, burnt-out husks of ships and islands of debris turned the waters into a graveyard. In place of the scent of salt in their air, came the acrid tang of dying fires, with that striking, murky tang that was unmistakably death. Even the crystalline surface of the water had turned to a pallid, sickly mire as if taken ill from the stresses of everything that had happened.

Renata’s spirit matched the waters surrounding her. They hanged pirates back in Maytoni, and now they were her drinking partners, dancing partners, and general company. As the charred corpse of a merchant vessel, wallowing in a pathetic state, plumes of black smoke leaping into the sky, passed by, it was not the first time that Renata came to resent the company she kept.

Just what am I doing? She had thought, looking into the colourless water, her own reflection not wishing to look back.

That was several days ago, and Renata had shaken off the ire of her compatriots since, focused on other dire matters. She had arrived in the southeastern province, and the captain of Wilful Station would go no further for fear of being caught by the navy. Renata didn’t hold it against him and thanked him and his crew for their efforts before moving further inland.

Whilst Maytoni sat above the equatorial line, is was a hot and stuffy place away from the coast of the Poet’s Sea. Further south, with Fohalin sitting just beneath the equatorial line, the heat brought with it a humidity enough to suffocate her, compared to the seemingly milder, and dry heat in Maytoni. Renata had not known what hot was until travelling to Fohalin.

If the surge of panic filling the air in the southeastern province was overwhelming, it was only a fleeting breeze compared to the despairing, maddening setting that was Fort Gorjin.

Aimless shuffling bodies, citizens from the southeast were trying to push through the fort to get away from whatever disaster was ongoing. Gorjin named for a long dead volcano, was six walls of volcanic stone, with three vast towers built into the north and western sides. Jagged darkness contrasted with the vividness of the rainforest besieging it and was overwhelmed by the brilliance of the azure bay at its southern walls. Frankly it looked more like a thorn puncturing through flesh, something to mar the landscape, Renata had thought.

Either way, the fort built for a few hundred had been overwhelmed by a few thousand refugees. Wanderers passed through the east and west portcullises each day, the flow unceasing. Many looked haggard, the brightness of their eyes dulled by a lack of sleep, as they shifted forward with the same kind of aimlessness as the undead. They must have been travelling for days. Some even resembled walking corpses, with open wounds, not having washed for days. Renata had seen nothing like it. A vast channel of desperation, hopelessness, all shame abandoned. Within the flow there was nakedness, and many of the refuges were not even stopping to relive themselves. Frankly this fort had become a mordent pit out of myth in which the dead awaited entry to some form of purgatory. The soldiers upon the walls looked down upon these creatures with something between pity and disgust.

At first Renata couldn’t breathe. Each breath was a lumpen, thick stew of affluence and decay. After arriving at the fort, she had run into the foliage by the south walls to retch and did so like she had never retched before.

Finally, Renata was able to make entry to the most south westerly tower. Her washed demeanour had set her aside from the river of filth, intriguing the guards at the door enough to listen to her.

Before the fort’s commander, captain Maroz, Renata made her case, which did not require as much discussion as she had thought. The moment the captain had caught a hint of Maytoni about Renata, he rose and thanked her for her compassion.

“I can’t imagine how or even where you could start,” he had said. “Our orders are to keep the gates open and keep the flow going… Easy enough orders on parchment, but out there it’s like keeping a sewage trench from overflowing.”

“Those are people, captain,” Renata had snapped suddenly. “They’ve lost everything. If your home and means of providing for yourself was taken from you, it wouldn’t be too long before you’d resemble anyone of them.”

The captain held a dull expression, before a dour smile formed. “You’re right, I’m sorry. But this has been constant for almost a week. I can no longer see individuals out there. Just a mass of filth.” His tone was weary, his spirit clearly marred by the scenes of wretchedness inflicted upon him.

Renata was not about to give him any sympathy.

“You would be surprised what a sliver of hope can do, captain, if only you would try.”

“We’re soldiers, ma’am. I will protect the people out there, but I can’t fight a natural disaster. Give me a sword that can cleave the winds of hurricane, or a bow that can knock back tidal waves, and I’ll take my garrison into the east.”

Renata hesitated for a second before replying. “Rena will do, thank you.” Anything remotely authoritative in terms of a title repulsed her. It was a hangover from Maytoni life, of course. Whilst Moraz obviously didn’t believe in her Gods, Renata never accepted the idea that a Pastoral’s words were sacrosanct and being seen as some sort of authoritative figure galled her and rattled her confidence. She was still as flawed as anyone else in the world.

“Is that what’s happening? A storm? I didn’t see anything on the horizon when I sailed up here,” Renata continued.

Moraz was noncommittal and gave only a despondent sigh. Even he didn’t truly know what was happening.

“Not to sound ungrateful for your voluntary charity, Rena, but I must ask that you keep to providing medical aid, and…” A hand stirred the air for a moment. “Stick to more general words of encouragement…” His dark eyes settled on her own.

Of course, Renata thought, a sly smirk sharpening her thin lips.

“I’m aggrieved general. Evangelism in Maytoni is illegal you know. We’re not permitted to preach or otherwise enforce our beliefs on foreign nationalities, inside or outside Maytoni. Evangelism disgusts me. The idea of judging someone for something they are not, and seeking to ‘correct’ them, by hounding them no less, is repulsive. It does far more harm than good. And frankly, anyone from any religion, anywhere in the world, who claims to be an evangelist, will be a frigging bore.”

Sharp, gassy laughter broke from Moraz. “People always say such pleasant things about the Maytoni. You’re the first one I’ve met, and I think they must be right.”

Renata shrugged. “I mean some of it is true.”

As she was leaving, Renata caught Moraz muttering to himself, “A Dytrentian, a Maytoni, and a vampire walk into a tavern…”

Thus, Renata had been given freedom of the fort to assist the refugees however she could. Over the past few days, Renata had been using her medical talents to treat wounds. It was all she could muster. At first the Pastoral had burrowed deep into the tunnels and basements of the fort, looking for any surplus – blankets and food. But found nothing other than mouldy scraps of cloth, claimed by rats.

But the vermin provided useful. As food. Renata with her bow and arrows skewered many, the fattest, and slowest. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing.

Rats in Maytoni were favoured animals, due to their resilience. In the case of the arid lands further east, their presence often meant that there was an absence of snakes, due to holding a natural immunity to their venom.

Thankfully fresh water wasn’t sparse; there were rivers and pounds through the islands, and Renata knew that if not for those there would be no refugees, only corpses.

Magic was forbidden in the Pastoral Order. Its use risked false representation of the Gods’ power, and perhaps the Church worried people might seek mages and other magical practitioners for help instead.

The temptation to learn the very spells that can cure illness, and infection had been too much for Renata’s delicate soul to endure. Too often the Gods failed to act.

“The venom is what makes it sting,” she said, daubing a scratch on small child’s hand. “It burns you see.”

Thankfully the five- or six-year-old had stopped wailing, though their tears had done a good job washing away the grime caked over their face.

It was one of the less problematic wounds Renata had had to treat today. Most of the refugees had broken bones, deep lacerations, and animal bites, or rashes and sores from the toxic plant life. Yet it was starvation that was most common, and there was nothing Renata could do about that.

Closing lacerations, removing infection, and realigning bones was simple spell craft. Enough to reinvigorate those passing through and keep them going.

“I needed the honey, I was hungry,” the little boy said, meekly, apologetically.

Renata looked into his eyes, still so bright despite everything. She tried to match the brightness with a smile of her own.

“I know, sweet boy, that’s okay. You just need to be more careful.” As she spoke, Renata soothed out a quick and simple healing spell across the streak of glaring punctures. Another act of heresy. The relief shone through the boy’s whole demeanour, and he relaxed the arm, smiling with a touch of giddiness. Enough to make the swampish mire coating his naked torso fade even.

There was nothing like a pure, reactive smile. The kind that just happed; a bodily response that couldn’t be helped. Renata wore that beautiful feeling now.

“There you go, my brave little traveller,” she said. “You stay brave for me, okay? This won’t last, and you’ll have a home again.”

The boy nodded eagerly, each word prophecy, a certainty as far as he was concerned. Hopefully it would turn out true. Her faith was all she had, and as it turned out, it was all Renata needed.

The boy returned to the heap of ruined rags that was his family, and they soon blended back into the river of disparagement moving through the fort.

Sitting upon the blocks of masonry, her medical station, Renata buried her face into her hands and wanted to cry.

Before her the tides of despair continued to flow.

“Madam Pastoral,” a rough voice called from her left.

Its authoritativeness stole Renata from her self-pity, and she swung her head around to see a guard, a cloth wrapped around his face to keep the foulness of the mass exodus out. Like the rest of his compatriots the guard wore specially woven leather and linen armour, black and orange in colour.

“It’s Rena, my good man,” she replied, standing for the first time since sitting down that morning. Her head buzzed as she had not eaten anything yet, and her arms and legs wobbled.

“Oh, sorry. Rena, the captain wants to see you.”

Back in the south-western tower, Renata was taken up spiralling steps, past arched windows revealing fleeting glances at the glistening bay and its frothy swells. Still the there was an absence salt, undermined by the air of waste hanging over the refugees.

Over the past few days Renata had tried to find out just what kind of disaster was forcing so many to flee, and to do so with such haste as to bring little to nothing along and to move on broken legs, ankles, and bleeding feet.

Thus far Renata had heard talk of quakes powerful enough to obliterate cities, drought as the waters receded and tides died away to nothing. Or the opposite as floods claimed whole villages and drowned more cities, with tidal waves reaching into the sky and coming in with the force of a hurricane to flatten everything in its path.

Maytoni suffered cyclones twice yearly in its coastal region by the Poet’s Sea, and Renata had seen the power with which such events struck. However, Maytoni was used to it, and so its cities, buildings, and people were ready for such trials. Casualties were few and the devastation limited.

As was always the case there was talk of divine wrath. Though Renata knew as much about Fohalinian dogma as a blind atheist, she made sure to quell such talk for all the harm it could do to a person’s spirit. There was no pain in the world, Renata was sure, to equal that of feeling forsaken by your Gods.

And weaving its way through the hearsay was another kind of unhelpful rumour. Some people were speaking of a gigantic beast, coming from the ocean and destroying the cities and smaller islands. It was likely some form of hysteria. The mind had peculiar ways of handling trauma.

“Are we any closer to discovering what is going on?” Renata said as they took the steps.

Over the past few days, she made the effort to get to know the garrison, and minister to their needs too. Most of them were scared, though did well to hide it as professional soldiers. Never had they seen such a sight and never had they felt so helpless to do anything. Their world had been warped and twisted with no warning, and they were expected to continue upholding their professional visage.

“I’m afraid not. We know a large fleet went out to the eastern sea, but have not heard anything from them… Or from the governors,” he replied.

“I’d trust your commanders over politicians during a time like this. They’re the ones who’ll take the fall if everything goes to Chasm.”

They came to a wooden door, behind which was a medical chamber. Renata assumed she was entering alone, given her escort had halted by the stairwell. Prior to entering, she looked back to the youth, and said, “Stand up straight, and look beyond your own needs. Everyone passing through is seeking not just safety, but something that resembles the world they have lost. They need to see you looking confident – and look them in the eyes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the solider replied as if a senior officer had just given him an order. He nodded before disappearing back down the stairwell.

“Call me that again and I’ll do to you what the all-male Arthren warriors do to each other for fun,” she shouted after her escort.

Sighing, shaking her head, Renata entered the chamber. Within was captain Moraz, leaning against the far wall by an arched window, arms folded and wearing an expression of concern. On the other side of the room was another soldier attempting to subdue and calm a bloodied figure, who looked as if they had been drowned a swamp. What parts of the man’s body that were not smeared in mud were bleeding and bruised. This wild figure was strewn upon a bed, writhing as if in agony, as the soldier attempted to restrain him.

“Good mercy,” Renata gasped coming to a halt. She looked to Moraz whose expression had shifted to one of perplexity.

“Terrific, you’re here. This fella came staggering in with the refugees earlier, shouting a great peel of madness even over the wails of those around him.”

Renata felt a chill, made more poignant by the sticky humidity.

“He was crying out to see whoever was in charge, and claimed to be a sailor with the navy,” Moraz explained, his dark eyes on the flailing, incensed figure. “As you can see, we’re not sure how to calm him down, or settle him enough to explain what he wants. I was hoping you would be able to… Do something…” He waved a hand about, embarrassed at not being able to elaborate on what he believed to be Renata’s talents.

Renata returned a bemused look, then approached the overwhelmed soldier attempting to restrain the sailor.

“Hold his head up please,” Renata said, rising her voice over the wails of the sailor.

The soldier took a greater hold of the sailor, managing to lock his arms across his chest, restraining him. Renata swiftly cracked the sailor in the face with a fist. The sailor’s eye exploded with brightness before going vacant. And all was blissfully quiet.

“I’m not one for overcomplicating matters,” Renata said, turning back to Moraz, shaking her numb fist. “Odd not doing it to someone trying to contradict my sermons.”

“I’d pay attention to you, that’s for sure,” Moraz added.

The sailor was gently set back down upon the bed, and Moraz approached. Renata looked on from the other side of the room, pacing delicately and shaking her fist. Ordinarily a great sense of relief followed when thumping someone, yet here lay someone who was likely going to make everyone’s day far worse.

“Sailor!” Moraz barked, kneeling next to the bed. “You said you needed to see me. I assume you have vital information.” The sailor was panting as if he’d just run up a mountain, with a look in eyes as if there was an axe over his head.

Outside the window Renata caught a number of dark birds soaring across the bright sky.

“Sailor, the more time it takes you pull it together, the more lives we are losing! You’re a member of the Fohalin Military, stand tall!” Moraz snapped on the verge of slapping the sailor. “What do we say to danger?”

The ferocity of the words caught something within the frantic mind of the sailor, as his petrified eyes looked into Moraz’s darker glare. “Nothing. We show it our steel and our resolve,” the sailor managed to respond.

“Exactly. Now, give me your report.”

“I… I… There’s nothing like it… I didn’t know such things could exist…” The sailor began to weep.

To Renata’s surprise, Moraz now sat patiently, letting the sailor gather himself, giving him the time to gather the right words.

Outside more silhouetted shapes filled the sky, overlaid by a tumult of sharp caws, and shrill shrieks. Larger shadows became more common. All flying in the same direction, the same direction as the refugees.

“It was a colossus… Surely the ocean isn’t large enough to hold such a thing… A Typhon.”

With the mention of the name the humidity in the room died. Stagnant cold behind came in its wake. Pattering fingers of cool air rippled over Renata’s face, and down her spine. She was rigid, frozen on the spot. Surely this was just hysteria.

Despite all colour having left his face, Moraz asked the sailor to continue.

Through the arched window, the brilliance of the sky had been consumed by countless species of birds, griffin, and wyvern.

“Our fleet was destroyed… In minutes. None of the ships managed to get their cannons firing… Not that it would have mattered. I was thrown overboard when a wave picked my ship up and capsized it… I woke up on a rocky shore… Not alone, there was…” The sailor’s face scrunched up, his eyes pouring with tears again. “There was more than just me… Nine of us, survivors.”

Moraz’s face softened. “What happened to them?” He asked gently.

The sailor took in a few deep breaths, swallowing, before looking off into the depths of the room. “It was more than just this beast… You know smaller fish travel with larger beasts, scavenging scraps… What do you think follows in the wake of something like a Typhon? Everything east of here is theirs now. All the land and cities, filled with water and all manner of monstrosity… Creatures in the water, and even on land, pursuing us… They died screaming, in the maws of animals I couldn’t give a name to… I’m the only one left.” There was a sharp break in the sailor’s voice, before a heavy silence fell over the room.

Only now, in the mournful quiet, did the torrents of shrieking birds, griffins, and other flying animals reach Renata. She couldn’t believe the number, the sky lost to their ebon silhouettes. So thick were the colonies of flying animals, that the afternoon had become late dusk. Worst of all there was nothing majestic or glorious in the sight. A dank, forlornness sank deep in Renata’s stomach. She knew a mass exodus when she saw one. Even the animals of Fohalin were joining the refugees in their flight.

A shudder wavered through Renata, and it was a moment before she realised it was not a result of her nerves. Faint dust trails wafted down from the ceiling. Tables and chairs rattled softly on the spot. Before Moraz could comment, the sailor leapt from the bed, screaming. “It’s here! It’s come!” He crashed into the door, fumbling with the pull ring before staggering out into the hall.

Another quake came, this one stronger, forcing Renata to brace herself on the window frame’s stonework. Among the clatter and shattering of fallen objects Moraz was howling orders as her staggered into the corridor. Soldiers rushed by, collapsing and faltering as the world around them contracted violently.

Renata was certain the tower was about to come down atop her and braced herself by coarse stone frame of the window. Through the portal she saw the purity of the bay water swallowed up by a disturbingly dark shadow. A few hundred meters away, the sandy shores created a natural gateway for the bay. Sprouting from the banks, the glorious palms collapsed in their dozens before a raising wave of sand and rocks, buried within a tidal wave of debris tall enough to reach the sky. This she saw was only a devastating prelude, as ink-black waters surges over and through the wall of debris, to break over the bay. Over the surface of the darkening waters Renata could see the echoes of the shockwaves rolling toward the fort. Each of these juddering waves shook more life from the fort, dagger sharp shards of volcanic rock breaking away from its base and ramparts.

This was no natural disaster Renata knew of. As the bay collapsed in on itself, she managed to steady herself enough to move. Yet, just as she had begun to act, her whole body froze once more.

A string of language most unbecoming of a Pastoral fell from her slackened jaw.

Even through the thick walls of the tower Renata could hear the cries of sergeants and officers calling their charges to the battlements. Every roar crested the screaming of the refugees from outside – a carnage Renata was desperately trying to keep from her mind.

Around Renata the air was shaking, the muffled wails of those outside breaking through the stonework bearing down on her like a landslide. She pulled the cords on her lumpy travel bag and practically dived into it to retrieve what she needed.

“Gods I’ll have to be more organised after this!” She raged, fighting with tangle of items to free her bow sheath. “If I survive of course… Goodness sake!” With a wilful pull Renata freed her bow sheath and tumbled back onto her side.

Scrambling back to her feet she sprinted from her chamber and took the stone steps to the overview two at a time. Muscles burned and her legs threatened to seize as she moved with more fury than she had ever done before. With the straining agony in her thighs Renata wondered how she was going to find the strength to draw and steady her aim.

Finally, scrapping her frame along the curved wall for support, she met the door to the overview and collapsed through it, losing her bow and scattering her arrows across the balcony. For Renata archery had always been a meditative affair; something to still her mind, and calm her emotions, enough to let the words of her Gods reach her spirit.

Whilst gathering up her arrows, a shriek capable of splitting rock crashed into the fort. Blood froze, and muscles atrophied. Quivering, her soul shaken numb by the shriek, Renata looked up and beyond the balcony towards the civilisation ending horror.

A Typhon.

The kind of beast everyone knows through myths and rumours but never expects to see.

Renata had witnessed miracles; withered limbs of those afflicted with paralysis forming muscle and growing before her eyes; those born blind given sight; terminal diseases disappearing from a persons’ body or mind.

What rose before Renata now, had her doubting her own eyes and sanity.

Hundreds of feet of gold and bronze scales writhed into the sky, each scale stealing the light to ordain itself further. Sinister shades of shadowy gold squirmed and twisted around and up the colossal body towards its hooded head. Fiercely flaring wide, each hood, worn together like the crown of an ancient ruler, shone with molten gold and dark abyssal energies. Cracks of hot-white and searing gold lightning raged along the length the beast’s crown. Each spark, as violent as lightning punching into a volcano, sent a rolling sheen of terrible light across the Typhon’s star-hot green eyes, eyes cut vertically by a darkness as frightening as the Chasm Renata believed awaited the evil of this world.

Even a good five hundred meters away it was truly titanic. A terrifying testament to the size and spread of the seas across all of Anordaithe, as if they were truly eternal in their depths. Its maw could take galleons whole, its fangs great enough to split warships.

Between the fort and the beast, a sink whole yawned swallowing the bay waters.

In the air projectiles of steel and flaming rock soared towards the gigantic, rearing Typhon. Their impacts across the bodily scales were impotent, like mere twigs in a mild breeze. Across the southern walls Moraz was seeing to the loading of lines of trebuchets and ballista emplacements himself. Tremendous, wall felling devices, capable of obliterating fortresses and armies, they were all found wanting in the presence of this Typhon.

Inside the fort, the refugees trampled one and other through panic. Mounds of fleshy matter lined the western wall, countless limbs, torsos, and legs tangled together into something grotesque. People clambered, blindly, franticly, over the fallen heaps only to stagger and add themselves to the horror of it. Such a sight arrested Renata’s heart, stabbing through the muscle as if she had been cut through by a shard of volcanic rock.

The world trembled once more, shaking loose some of the fear assailing Renata – enough for her throw her quiver belt around her waist and pick up her bow. From the taut linen covering of the grip, a measure of confidence bled into Renata. The Pastoral was aware that her own arrows were miniscule sticks compared to the javelins and boulders soaring towards the Typhon. What was there that she could do with them? However, like the crews manning the trebuchets and ballista emplacements so vainly assaulting the beast, Renata knew she just had to do something – anything.

Forcing herself to her feet, Renata braced her knees against the quakes as the Typhon slithered into the sinking bay, closer to the fort. As the beast shifted colossal amounts of water and land in its path, the sinkhole in the bay collapsed further, under the southern walls of the fort. With the foundation to this portion of the fort gone a hideous landslide of dark volcanic rock and human bodies poured into the swirling, roiling whirlpool. Even the rise of grainy, bleak dust clouds could not hide the hundreds of bodies falling, forming into a fleshy, bloody flow to be consumed by the black waters beneath them.

As the sinkhole widened, the tower groaned and its base grumbled. A loss of balance had Renata throwing herself against the balustrade along the balcony. Coarse stone scraped her palms, and the hard edge plunged into Renata’s chest with enough force to wind her.

A sudden jolt, a forlorn groan of grating stone, and the tower ceased its collapse, pushing Renata further into the hard edge of the balustrade. Her midriff was crippled with sharp cramps. Staring down into the roiling pit of black water and flailing bodies, the horror of the Chasm made manifest, Renata realised she was lying at an odd diagonal along the balustrade, the tower now teetering at a precarious angle.

With grit embedded in her hands, and a tongue thick with the taste of copper, Renata pushed herself up, bracing a knee against the balustrade for support. All the humidity in the air was sucked away, stolen along with the sun’s light as the Typhon’s shadow fell over the tower.

There it was, the deathliness Renata associated with the finality of the Chasm’s soul obliterating power, only a hundred or so meters away. Fangs, sickly white and tinged with an ill-coloured venom unfurled from the Typhon’s maw as it made ready to unleash an acidic stream of rancour across the remains of the fort.

Renata’s bow, short with curved limbs, was a composite of hard and soft wood, Maytoni Yew and Reywhern Maple – the latter a controversial choice. Autumnal reds from the maple diffused, like blood within water, into the pale beige of the yew highlighting the poetry Renata had inscribed upon the front of the bow. Cloudy grey jackalope antlers made up the limb tips, with a thick brown linen cloth wrapped around the grip. The cloth held the significance of coming from a shawl worn by a long dead ancestor – though not directly related – of Renata’s who was also a Pastoral.

Raising the bow, Renata cursed herself for not taking the time since her exile to study the minor spell craft related to bow and arrow making. Her bow was devoid of anything remotely magical. Even her arrows, exquisite in their artistic design, were devoid of enchantment. Though Pastorals regularly practiced archery, this was for mediative or sporting purposes, not for warfare, and rarely for hunting.

Growing up on the boarder of the arid lands, Renata knew where snakes loosed their venom from – the fangs. If this was her last act upon the Gods’ own world of Anordaithe, then Renata wanted to enter the presence of her Gods wielding boldly Their chosen instrument in defence of the helpless.

Stilling her thumping, aching heart, Renata drew the string with her thumb, pulling the arrow back until the glossy flights gently tickled her ear. Her eyes narrowed, her bile rising at the sight of the sickly coloured fangs. Her thumb opened on the string. The arrow sprang into the air like a bird released from a trap and quickly disappeared into the darkness overlaid by the beast.

There came a wicked crack, and the beast’s advance stalled. It took a moment for Renata to realise that the noise had come from the Typhon. It pulled its head back, lowering its mouth and began shaking its head side to side as if trying to dislodge something. Snaps of white-hot bioluminescent light fell to a simmering charcoal around its hoods, and to Renata’s mind – racing, frantic with confusion – its eyes winced in pain.

Enraptured to the point of complacency, Renata stared at the subdued beast. Disbelieving, dumbfounded, and detached from her own actions, the Pastoral watched as the Typhon turned its wounded glare towards her.

The wickedness of the Chasm in its eye slits shook her back to the moment.

It shrieked, loosing a furnace of wet pain directly towards her.

Stalwart, the Pastoral roared back. She roared through the furnace of blistering, stinging heat, with all the bitterness and pain of her exile. The roar became a cry, and she cried until her throat became as dry as the arid lands of her home.

As the Typhon twisted and ground its girth within the pitch-black, debris choaked water, the land trembled, and the tower rattled around Renata. With a final lurch, the tower’s foundation cracked and crumbled, and the edifice toppled away to the side. Killen hot air rushed Renata, as a sticky, muggy dark consumed her.