by
Peter Welmerink
Part One: New Prospects
Eirik checked himself as he approached the inn. From the battle in the forest, the loose fitting edges of his garments, torn and bloody, made him look a dirty beggar. No wonder the farmer pointed me to this inn, Eirik thought.
The Black Dragon Inn was a massive place. Gazing up at the roofline high above his white-haired head, the magical eye under the gray-leather patch began to itch. Eirik didn't bother to look through THAT eye for he sensed, with the dark magic tingling in his head and making it ache, that there was something different about the place.
As he neared the entry, the large double doors opened inward and into the waning daylight, a tall dark-maned man stepped forth. The man was easily almost a daggers-length taller than Eirik's 6-foot height and his dress hugged and outlined his powerful body. The man looked like he could wrestle a mountain bear…and win.
“Greetings, friend, welcome to the Black Dragon Inn. If you are here for a friendly stay and a safe haven from the night, you are invited in,” the tall man said. Eirik noticed one of his hands rested on a large longsword belted to his hip. “With no ill-will, I would suggest you come in anyway for there are things in the shadows and the night that welcome no man.”
Eirik's skin itched insanely around the eyepatch as he gazed at the large man. He raised a finger and scratched, revealing the Eye of True Seeing but for a quick breath, then letting the patch slip back down as he had caught a glimmer of this big man at the door.
“Are there stranger things inside than out…old man?” Eirik said with a sly smile curling up the corner of his face. He sensed no danger from the man, but there was something magical about him. The Eye had revealed a very ancient human being, yet the big man looked only to be somewhere about 30 summers or a tad more.
“I am Karl Strange, proprietor of the Black Dragon Inn. Old one? You are the one who looks of age, yet you stand as a strong youth,” the big man said putting a hand out to Eirik.
“I am Eirik, Eirik Wolfsbane. I did not mean to offend. I have a strange affliction that makes me see things a certain way,” Eirik said taking Karl's big hand and shaking it. “And things do seem different here, friendly so far as this locale is, but different. And I think my companions and I have already run afoul of the shadow beasts in the woods.”
“Then you must come inside quickly. I feel some guilt as it is with knowing my people are in danger. Visitor's deaths don't create a welcoming view to my inn and Talos Valley,” Strange said as he moved aside for Eirik to enter. “If you don't have enough money to spend the evening, I am sure something can be arranged.”
Eirik looked down at his tattered clothing and the dirt and dried blood upon himself. He realized the big man thought him a vagrant.
“My companions and I have coin, though I doubt you'd find my friends welcomed by the common folk here. If you could put us up in your stable, if that is safe from these shadow beasts, we would be gone by sunrise,” Eirik said as he glanced over his shoulder into the dense woods to the west. Though he couldn't see his traveling mates within the cloak of deep green, he could sense their eyes upon him. “I'd just as soon pay for a stable room than cause any commotion to you and your other guests.”
Karl Strange brought a sun-bronzed hand to his chin and stroked it thoughtfully.
“We have a coach house round back that isn't being occupied right now. We can see to it that some mattresses and blankets are brought out. I would like to meet your friends and find out more about you, Eirik Wolfsbane.” Karl said offering a hand to Eirik again. “Mayhap there is a service you may render for me. If you and your companions are good with sword, I may seek your employ if you are available.”
“That is possible,” Eirik said. His coin purse was getting low. It had been a long trek with little to do but fend for oneself. People typically didn't walk up and ask a bunch of strangers—especially the strange crew Eirik walked the road with—for assistance, especially assistance that paid or fed and housed them.
“Go fetch your friends. I will send some of my staff to settle you in,” Karl Strange said as he turned to head back inside the large inn.
#
The two young men stood with their backs against the wall, hugging the flimsy straw mattresses and linens against themselves as if they never wanted to give them up. Their eyes were wide in fright and they visibly shook in their boots.
“Mmmm, zuch zucculent morzels. Your fear makez you zo tempting,” the red-haired seductress cooed as she hovered above the two men, her leathery wings slowly sweeping the air. Her green eyes shone brightly with an eerie light of their own. The scant gown she wore—a silver scale mail corset and a skirt of brown silk—hardly concealed her ample bosom and long shapely legs. Her skin was red, like that of someone who'd been out in the day's sun too long. The long nails of her fingers looked like tiny white daggers. Her wanton smile revealed prominent fangs for canines.
Sharissha would make a striking woman…if she wasn't a daemon from the stygian depths of Jekar, the plane of all things dire and evil.
“Woman, come away from those innocents,” Eirik called with a smirk, knowing the she-daemon was simply playing with the two young gents.
The two innhands relaxed as Eirik came into view, waving a hand at the crimson-skinned woman, summoning her back down to the floor of the stable.
“I waz juzt playing with zem, my huzband,” the she-daemon said. She folded her wings and floated down to the floor.
It was now Eirik's turn to be stared at. He wasn't sure if it was his strange countenance: the white hair, the eye patch; or the large tattoo of a black sun upon his chest, or the two blades which glowed with magical power hanging at his belt, that the two men looked at him with wide eyes.
“S-she's your wife?” one of the men finally blurted, verbalizing his reason for being awe-struck.
Eirik peered over his shoulder at the busty red-skinned succubus as she stood disregarding them and combing her talony-nails through her crimson mane. He chuckled, leaning close to the two innhands.
“Not quite. But that's a long tale,” Eirik said.
A knee-high kobold stepped around the corner of an open stable. Its lumpy, dark green skin went from its small alligator-shaped head to the tip of its stumpy, ridged tail. Its underbelly consisted of small leathery plates of lime-green skin. A tiny swordbelt hung about its mid-section. It wore a necklace made of small bones about its neck. It carried an obsidian-tipped spear, about the length of a man's arm.
“Gads! Kobolds!” one of the innhands shrieked, dropping his bundle and drawing the sword at his hip.
Eirik stepped before the man, putting a palm to sword edge and drawing the weapon down. “Dekin? No, the creature is not a threat, in fact, he's a friend of mine,” Eirik said as the poor man stood tense and looking upon the kobold with obvious trepidation.
“Master, I sensing things again. Not good things either,” Dekin the kobold said trotting up to Eirik. The small creature stopped and looked at the trembling man.
“NightStalkers. Evil creatures that assault us at dusk and in night's blackness,” the trembling man said, shaking his nervousness at the kobold's presence, and gripping his sword the tighter. “They won't bother us within here. They avoid the light.”
An eerie howl sounded outside the coach house. It was followed by another, and then another. Something clambered and clawed up atop the roof, running the entire length from front to end.
“Shadow beasts, like the ones that assailed us on our trip here,” Eirik said pulling his sword from its sheath at his hip. The magical blade of Frostfire glow a dull blue and the air fogged up along its edges, streaming upward like tiny phantoms.
The rear doors of the coach house, bolted as they were by a large plank of wood, strained inwards. The wood unable to hold from the great force upon it split with a loud crack. The double doors flew open and large black forms stepped into the light within the building. Fangy teeth gnashed. Horrid eyes of deathly intent focused upon the small group standing within.
“It seems the monsters that caress the night no longer fear the light,” Eirik said as he set his feet and gripped Frostfire with two hands.
The forms of black death roared and raced forward.
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