There's no Easier Way

<<His eyes were filled with horror now as he spoke to Caligari the witch of the frozen north. "A sacrifice has been prepared out there in the snow, souls of man and beast that linger... it is a foul thing that has been done but use them you must to link this blade to the realm of death, to the throne of Hel itself. I will carry the guilt for this act and I will pay the price when the time comes.">>

Cali laid a gentle hand on Jorrik’s forearm and stood close to speak quietly, but also to enjoy a few last moments in the heat of the forge. “This I already knew, Dulcet Knight, but I’m glad you know it as well. When the time comes, soon I might add, I promise to make it a noble act.” She gave him a quick pat then turned to the others.

“I will step outside to convene with the recent dead and call them back from their journey to Hel. If you are easily spooked or quick to sick, I’d suggest you make yourself scarce. When I return to this forge I will not be alone and there will not be sufficient room for us all. Balar, you and your helpmate must wait outside. And warn the others. Please.” She remembered that courtesy almost too late.

Caligari walked out into the biting cold and removed one of the horns from her headdress before handing the headpiece to Balar for safe keeping. “Try not to squeeze it; there are sharp things in there.” She began moving from corpse to corpse, squatting at each to mutter harsh words in an unknown tongue and collect small scraps of flesh and blood. The weather had preserved the remains, making their time of death indeterminate, but Cali had poked her fingers through far worse, had done far worse. In fact the hardest part was discerning where one body stopped and the next started; so many had died. Into her hollow horn she placed the chunks and gore and juice. As she continued from one to the next she realized they’d all been slaughtered in similar means. Certainly the wounds were on various locales, but the weapon used for each was identical. Had one person killed them all?

She found a space near the center of the worst of the massacre and staked the horn into the snow. From the bandolier of skulls she wore as a sash she retrieved a pouch and sprinkled the white power into the blood and guts within the horn. She used the bone claws on her left hand to open up her own wrist and began to pace the ground, dribbling her own blood in an intricate pattern of circles and lines, all the while scraping out that harsh speech of the dead.

The dead didn’t speak common or any other language in use by the living. No matter their walks in life, the dead all spoke a shared tongue and it was not comprised of a body of words or linguistic systems that anyone in their right mind could fathom or duplicate. None would want to. So there was no such thing as a completely sane necromancer and as a dark witch, bound and haunted as she was by the dead, Caligari had traded part of her mind just to be able to communicate with them. The mind would always try to make sense of its surroundings, in this case the voices whispering in and out of each ear. She had to be able to understand them and talk back or they would have driven her mad. Some might mistake this as a voluntary transaction, but it had never been her decision or within her power to forestall. She tried as a child and it nearly drove her bad shit crazy. It was only when she gave herself to the hysteria and madness that she’d found the ability to cordon it off in areas of her mind that she could more or less access at will. There were unavoidable side effects, but she had little choice.

By now the contents of the horn were bubbling like a tar pit, black and red. The white magnesium she’d thrown in there did not react well with the blood or magic. And it was going to taste awful. She knelt and scooped up a handful of snow which she threw into the mix. It fumed and sputtered, but was now at least of a temperature she could stomach. Cali snatched up the horn and squared her shoulders with a sigh. Before she should bemoan the decision any further she tipped the mess into her mouth and drank it down in large, chunky swallows. She almost retched twice and closed her eyes as she finished the last of it. She shook the horn emphatically behind her for someone to take it from her then re-walked the patterns in the snow, marking the air before her in tendrils of green that mimicked her hands’ movements and lingered. The coils of necrotic energy formed into spheres as she passed then shaped themselves into bodies as she named them. All said there were thirty of them and they were not all human, nearly half being the large wolves of these riders. She spoke to the spirits of the dead in that dread tongue that made the skin crawl.

“You give me no quarter from your incessant wailing and sorrows for a life unfair. I hear you and give you the means to remedy your loss. I bind you to this place, confined to a weapon for but a moment in time so that we may steal into your domain and dethrone its queen. I compel you to submit to this cause, but thank you for any success you have in understanding our need. I will release you all when the job is done or surrender my own soul to your desecration should we fail. You have no choice, but there are the terms.”

As she spoke to the ghosts they were visibly perturbed; stomping their spectral spears and gnashing their phantom teeth. But they swarmed around her and moved with her as she approached the building with the forge at its center. The ghosts followed and preceded her inside where their presence illuminated everything in an eerie green glow despite the red hot fires of the furnace.

“Dwarf, I hope your work is finished; I cannot hold these spirits for long. Elf, prepare your shadows, these spirits will seek the path of least resistance, be it the physical doorway or your own substance.”

<<"Witch it is now or never." Jorrik called over to the enigmatic Caligari and Tiella gasped as she felt the power begin to build within the woman.>>

Cali looked to Tiella, wondering that the woman had chosen to remain and witness the forging of a new weapon. No doubt Tiella’s own dagger with its unique properties had something to do with that, but Cali knew nothing of the dagger. She laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder and moved her back towards the wall, holding a clawed finger to her lips to signal she was to remain quiet. Cali had blood and bile beginning to dribble from the corners of her mouth as she twisted her hands in the air until she was grasping a ghostly hammer, smaller in size than Dyvia’s.

“Hold it steady,” she said to Dyvia. She lifted her phantom hammer and called out the name of one of the dead as she struck the blade. The names came out in a voice deeper than Cali’s and the walls of the building struggled to contain the rumble. One by one she called their names and bound them to the sword with a single strike. One by one the ghosts were pulled through the air kicking and clawing at nothing and everything only to end up in the blade. Cali’s hand was shaking almost uncontrollably as she bound the last ghost to the blade. The hammer in her hand disappeared and she stepped back from the forge to lean against the wall next to Tiella where she closed her eyes and held a hand to her stomach. Her voice was weak and her lips trembled as she pointed to the blade.

“I name your prison … Hofund … may it be the key to our release.”

Caligari’s stomach heaved, her guts wrenched and she rushed outside to collapse in the snow where she vomited the foul contents of her belly. It was times like this she hated being a witch.