An Unexpected Summoning
SPULBER WAS THE OLDEST of them. He took it upon himself to stand guard during the icy winter night. The frost had not been as bad last year, he remembered. The wind had been whistling all night, covering the still-cracking sound of the rocks bursting from the cold.
Under his large, thick sheepskin covering his back and his lambskin cap pulled over his ears, with the campfire still toasting his cheek and his blood simmering in his veins – his own kind’s blood – Spulber’s teeth were still chattering.
On the mirror-clear sky, the stars over the hilltops were dying out, one by one, the sky turning dark purple, and the first shapes of the spruce trees began to crawl out of the dense mist.
‘Not long now,’ he thought to himself.
This thought seemed to slightly ease his shaking, as if warm oil had been poured over his bones. As he sat on the rotten, stiff trunk, he turned to his left, squinting over the lake’s gleam, trying to pierce the darkness. It would have been barely noticeable to the ordinary folk’s eyes, but his were used to night-gazing.
The lake was still, as he expected. And not because it was frozen, for ice would not dare spread over its surface – but because fish would not dare live in it.
Just as he stabbed the mist with his sharp eyes, he pierced the air with his ears too, closing his eyes and focusing far in the distance, over the other shore of the lake. He finally heard the boots making their way with a muffled screech through the untouched, crisp snow that lay around the hill.
Down in the valley, there was a village. Before the sunrise, on the 6th day of every new year, the folk would gather at the wooden church they had built there. Their priest would then take the lead and make way to this lake, with his herd in his footsteps.
‘Wake up, Bârsan!’
He kicked one of his younger brothers’ coat-covered backs with his leather boot. He did not whisper, yet his voice sounded low, his chin still in his chest, covered in a steamy cloth.
‘Put out the fire and wake the others,’ he instructed.
Bârsan, visibly grouchy, turned away from him as he stood up, relieving himself in the pure snow near the camp, scratching his eyes with one hand. He spat in the pool to crown his deed.
Bârsan listened to his brother. He knelt next to the fire and covered it in snow, with a long hiss that somehow took the night’s veil with it. Once he shook the other men out of their dreams, he turned to his older brother, who stood right at the lake’s edge. The daylight was still ahead of them, but it was just as grey as it would be for the rest of the day anyway.
‘We do not owe him this!’ he reminded Spulber. ‘Our brother died for this man. We should tear him to pieces instead.’
‘Shhh,’ whistled Spulber between his teeth without turning.
He could see shadows moving on the opposite shore. Then a torch loomed. That was when he finally decided to break his silence. Turning to Bârsan, with a strange, foreboding amber flicker in his eyes, he said:
‘Our brother did not die for him; he died as our elders did. He lost his life in battle, like a warrior. We believed he was the weakest of us, yet in the end he proved us wrong. I would readily die as he did, if fate had it. It is how I can honour him.’
He rested a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
‘The time has come!’
‘Oh, Holy Trinity above nature!…’
The guttural, melodious voice echoed in the gorges. Some crows fluttered their wings, leaving the nearby branches as snow shook down from the spruce trees.
‘The powers of angels serve You,’ the hymn carried on through the mist above the black water, ‘...and the ranks of archangels bow down before You.’
All around the shore of the lake, a few four-legged silhouettes patrolled, winding out with their muzzles while their amber eyes scouted the edges. They did not approach the small crowd that gathered in the far corner of the glade, keeping a safe distance, masked by the milky fog, so as not to scare them away. The five beasts acted as one, following their leader’s movements, looking up to it, while the greater creature, marked with a heavy dark-grey mane around its big head, gazed towards the middle of the lake, which was as dead as ever.
The folk’s shepherd continued his holy conjuration, seconded by his vicar.
‘The many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim, they all hide in fear of Your glory…’
They both wore black robes, standing out like stains of tar on a white stone wall. Coats of thick leather covered their backs from the winds. The preacher’s head was covered in his dark kamelavkion1, while the vicar held a thick book open in front of him, on a sheaf of dry weeds.
During the ritual, when the preacher summoned his god’s might, he raised his right arm into the air, his voice reverberating through the hills.
‘You blessed the waters of the Jordan, sending down your Holy Ghost from heaven, and crushed the heads of the demons that lurked there,’ he recalled.
‘Therefore, oh King, descend your Holy Ghost once more and purify these waters!’
Concluding his prayer, the preacher dipped his hand in the lake, disturbing the mirror-like glare and sending silky-smooth undulations across its whole surface.
‘Crush the demons…’ he repeated, making the sign of the cross with his hand while in the water.
‘...Purify these waters!’
The great wolf’s eyes followed each sinister wave created by the preacher’s touch as they dispersed into the shore, mud seemingly churning right under the lake’s surface and then spreading like smoke. Its muzzle caught the sickening scent of the depths. The warm, musty smell of rotten vegetation pierced his nostrils, breaking the water and emanating steam in the brisk morning air.
A low screeching sound that only a wolf’s ear could pick up on brewed deep at the bottom of the shallow lake. Turning their heads to their brethren, the wolves moved closer to the water’s edges, omen-bringing growls birthing in their throats.
‘Make this water a source of holiness, a healing of diseases, the destruction of demons, and the ousting of evil powers,’ the priest sang.
The waves he made had long disappeared. Yet, here and there, new waves arose from within. And shadows slithered beneath. The beasts’ growls revealed teeth as their legs bent in the snow, ready to scuttle at the first threat.
The sunlight, obstructed by thick, ashen clouds, fell bloodless on the preacher’s cross. A wooden cross, framed by silver, flickered as the light hit it from above. Through the fog, it looked as if the cross was floating in the air, carried by branches of the same dry weeds the vicar held, tied to it. The priest raised the cross with both hands above his head, in uninterrupted praise.
‘To You we raise glory, thanksgiving, and worship,’ his voice broke.
‘Now and forever, and unto ages of ages, Amen!’
And at that moment, he sank his precious cross into the lake. The lake’s bed whimpered anaemically, and the mist swept off its surface as if the lake suddenly rejected its touch. The chaotic waves hastened, and the shadows twisted violently, swarming away from the point where the cross sliced the water.
A howl suddenly broke in the hills. This was a warning, one that travelled quickly across the other side of the lake, making the small crowd’s blood turn to ice in their veins. The women and children cried out as their shepherd and the vicar urged them to turn back to the village at once.
‘Our cross was to our Lord’s liking; it shall forever bless the lake!’ he swiftly forged a lie.
‘Abandon ye search, flăcăi2!’
One could see the young lads swimming quickly to the shore, grabbing their garments, and following the priest down the hill, barefoot through the snow.
Another foreboding howl echoed. It was done. The chatter dispersed into the wind, leaving behind the now boiling lake. An evil lurked in there, and the wolves, no matter how brave they were, had their threatening snarls entwined with uncertainty.
The wolf barked, impatient. This evil did not want to abandon its sloughy nest. But no matter if one believed in rituals or God’s power, the wood and silver cross that sank at the bottom of the marsh appeared to have turned the lake into an effervescent cauldron. The evil was then forced to leave it.
A dark, serpentine shadow sprang out of the water unexpectedly, slithering through the snow and melting it as it tried to distance itself from the shore. The great wolf barked, and another scuttled from his patch of mud, racing to break the shadow’s run short. Its teeth sank into the dark asp’s snake-like body, and tar flooded the snow around them. The creature tried and failed to twist around the wolf’s neck. A paw on its body, a jaw on its head, and with a sudden head movement, the wolf snapped it in half.
But this was not all there was. Just as the first dark snake appeared, with venom gurgling on the melted snow, many others followed soon after, all at once. Yelping, the wolves scattered in all directions. They ran towards the black, legless lizards, crushing them under their fangs before they could reach further into the pine spruce woods. Their claws sliced them open, their sizzling innards tainting what was not too long ago a pure white blanket.
From the simmering broth of water, a deep bellow shook the earth under the pack’s legs. The wolves raised their heads and pricked their ears. They dropped the remains of their prey on the ground, with their muzzles drenched in black slime. They searched for their leader, scouting over the filthy field. The grey wolf barked at the churning waters, stepping back without taking its eyes off them. Then, with barely any breath between, a sudden wave of the same serpents broke out, seemingly slithering in the same direction, driven by one mind.
Every wolf ran towards it, trying to break it. But no bite and no laceration could cease its unstoppable whirl now. The shadows twisted fluently like a swarm of snakes, ploughing through the wolf pack. Their eardrum-grazing hisses soon harmonised, becoming one. Their bodies stuck to each other, growing heavier and grinding the earth beneath as they trailed through the muddy shore. They exposed roots, frostbitten leaves, and weeds beneath, dragging them into their body. A devil’s concoction of flesh, blood, and vines slithered further through the snow, leaving behind a trail of sludge and gut-wrenching poison.
The giant, unholy slug rested as its shape continued to change. A hole opened at one of its ends, and from the frothing, red-glowing mouth, another throaty roar escaped. The wolves circled it, stunned. They kept their distance and soon grouped behind the grey wolf. It took only a few steps back, revealing its fangs and sticking its tongue out in a blend of fear and anger. From all the earthy alloy, arms began taking shape, dragging the rest of the headless body through the split ground.
The hill had been a grave for animals for many years, and now, bones were sticking out from the frozen earth. The head of the bull the villagers buried here not too long ago resurfaced under the black claws of the creature. Half-rotten, its eyes and tongue eaten out by worms, the bull’s head had become the monstrous visage of this newborn abomination. Through the nearly hollow eye sockets, blazes came alive, and blackish ooze fell like tears over the exposed bone under the wet fur. Its ivy-riddled neck twisted unnaturally toward the wolves, and a blood-chilling growl left its throat.
The grey wolf howled in return, and before the monster could finish its thunderous roar, the wolf lunged at its neck. With an unexpectedly quick move, the massive arm of the demon struck the wolf in its side, sending it flying into the water with ease.
The other circling wolves responded almost immediately by ploughing into the creature at full force, sinking their teeth into the thick, wretched newborn body. The monster screeched, and its voice thundered over the mountain lake. The folk must have caught its echoes, as clamour could be heard from the valley – when all they needed to do now was hide in their cellars and lock the doors.
The bovine-headed apparition threw two of the wolves away, just as it had with the first, removing them from its throat; yet, this gave way for the others to dig into it even more grimly.
And just when the fight seemed to turn against the creature, a stout and naked, pewter-haired man emerged from the lake where the grey wolf had been cast. In his hand was the silver cross the priest had thrown in.
Without any more time to waste, the man charged at the beast to aid the pack and plunged the cross’s base into the monster’s side, between the roots that served as its ribs. The monster roared with double the intensity while white light burst through the wound. In desperate fear, it shook off its attackers and made a run on all four of its putrid, hoofed legs toward the closest possible hideout: the forest.
(This is a short preview of my work-in-progress novella ‘Hailbringer: Crossroads’, coming on Amazon on March 15.)
a tall brimless hat worn by priests and monks in some Eastern rites
(in Romanian) lads, young men