Swords & Heroes Story #11

The Widening Waste by Mario Carić

Oct 15, 2024

I’m excited to share via this platform a story by Mario Carić who has been quite active as of late in the S&S community, with a number of stories appearing in some great magazines and collections. Most of his tales feature a ‘Marked Mercenary,’ a Northman named Glain who has a kind of Second Sight that penetrates the Beyond. In this week’s adventure, the sellsword is accompanying a strange and secretive chest into the vast wastelands that have been encroaching upon a neighboring kingdom. What Glain discovers about this chest is quite sorcerous indeed. I think you’ll enjoy the surprising encounter as much as I did. + Ed.

The Widening Waste by Mario Carić

A scream cut through the night.

Glain stirred from his sleep. As his hand sought the leather-bound handle of the slender blade that slept within the scabbard, his spectral eyes—irises of frosted stone wreathing all-white pupils—snapped open, glancing at the enveloping dark. Clad in mercenary garments and shrouded by a mantle of the blackest plumage, his gaunt appearance was further obscured by trailing, raven-hued hair and a black, flowing beard. Combined with the gnarled stump of a tree, which he used for back support, Glain appeared like a vengeful vulture of some ancient tale.

Not far off, in a small dead grove, his pale steed snorted as if in response to an unspoken question. The remaining three horses were silent.

The smoke from the hearth had long been extinguished. Two heaps of blankets lay behind the circle of stones. Buried under them, without a care in the world, the Yatteranese soldiers were fast asleep.

Above, the starless sky was as monotonous as the ashen grounds that stretched for miles in every direction. No sounds of life permeated the barren surroundings. It had been so for most of the trip through the Widening Waste. Even though the cursed region had for some period been under the Yatteran Empire’s control, the Aladrian resistance was a constant. So far, however, the four-man party had encountered no obstacle, living or otherwise.

Another wail penetrated the stillness.

Despite his best efforts, Glain could not locate the source of distress. Then, noting the soldiers’ slumber continued unbroken, the realization struck—the cries were coming not from here, but from the Beyond.

With catlike agility, and clenching the still sheathed blade, the man in black rose, his phantom glare scouring the premises in ways unfathomable to commoners.

The bone-chilling bawl erupted anew. There was a certain substance to the shriek—a shape, almost. One that felt . . . human?

The echo reverberated from the Other Side, directing Glain’s consciousness to the grove. Careful not to alert the soldiers, he made his way toward the mounts.

Heads hung low, the horses’ muzzles sniffed here and there without success. The now empty bags of hay their masters had provided lay ruffled and stomped on the side. The beasts paid no attention to Glain as he glided past, an apparition.

Strapped down by two wide belts behind the driver’s seat, the large, heavy, ebony chest sat on the cart. Though invisible under current conditions, Glain knew that the container’s thick surface was etched with lush, gilded floral details that betrayed its southern origin. The box was old, or at least appeared such, with untold chips, cuts, and scratches. A massive lock secured the contents inside, which he had asked nothing about; but even without a preternatural gift, one could sense an air of eldritch energy hovering about the artifact.

The tall silhouette standing next to it seemed to be enwrapped in that potency.

Draped in a bright, multi-colored habit with a narrower but taller headdress than those worn by the sleeping soldiers, the Yasar Priest gazed at the chest. Long fingers lingered above the keyhole. A thin mouth muttered something in an ancient southern language. The priest’s almond eyes were erratic behind the lids.

The whines in the ether persisted as half-formed thoughts, until they were given sense: Open it.

“Open it,” repeated Glain in Trade Tongue.

The Yasarite snapped around, concentration broken.

The sole glimmer in the night, its shape specific to the distant north, a single-edged sword appeared in Glain’s firm grasp.

“You overstep your boundaries, my friend,” purred the priest. A subtle note of threat laced through the syllables of the Trade Tongue embellished by a southern accent.

“I said, open it.”

“This is not your concern, sellsword.” The Yasarite’s words shifted into hisses. “You were paid to provide us safe passage, not meddle in our affairs. Stand back. I shall pacify this disturbance.”

The cries persevered. Swelled. Became unbearable. The terror seemed to seep through the chest and into the Northman’s mind, a threat to his very sanity.

Glain winced.

The priest’s arms flayed up in an attempt at an incantation, but before anything meaningful could be uttered, the flash of the lean blade slashed his larynx. Blood gushed from the gaping throat as the Yasarite’s knees buckled and the lifeless body smashed into the powder-covered ground.

Cries exploded. This time not from the chest, but from the more immediate surroundings. Glain wheeled, peered through the ash cloud raised by the dead sorcerer.

He avoided the oncoming cut at the last moment and then sidestepped again before another attack from a second blade. The two Yatteranese soldiers lunged at him, spewing war calls and curses and growls. The cacophony proved an effective method of distraction, for Glain had to invest greater effort into parrying the dancing scimitars that sought his head. To make matters worse, whatever lurked within the chest provided an additional pressure on his strained faculties.

The flurry of movement forced Glain backward a few paces. He grabbed the long handle of the sword with both hands, deflected a savage slash, and ducked another. An opening appeared in that instant, and Glain’s crystal-clear steel lodged itself between the soldier’s ribs. The Northman used the Yatteranese’s corpse as a shield and catapulted it at the remaining opponent, who dodged it with grace. Yet the lost second was more than enough for the sellsword to free the blade, regain his footing, and launch a counterattack. His strike blew the scimitar aside whilst another cleaved the man’s chest and the bicep that got in the way.

Peace lasted for but a moment, for Glain’s mind was once again the subject of a preternatural onslaught. The yowls were still there, beckoning, their pull unabating. Glain’s teeth gritted beneath his thick beard. Try as he may, he failed to wrestle away from the strange force; its hold on the mind was too powerful to be denied.

Glain edged toward the chest. His vision—including the Second Sight—blurred. It was as if all the pain in the world had become physical and was then sealed inside the container. Bottled up, the suffering grew and festered and wanted to burst.

Driven by an alien will, the blade descended upon the leather straps that fell aside, useless.

The wails stopped, replaced by whispers that seeped through the keyhole: Open it.

The slender weapon slashed through the ancient metal with a single stroke. Glain pulled up the cumbersome lid. A jolt of mind-numbing pain sent him to his knees.

~*~

Images come and go in flashes.

The dead lands of the Widening Waste cover everything: rivers, pastures, hamlets. Wherever an inkling of life—Aladrian and Yatteranese alike—death claims all, leaving ash in its wake.

Branches aspread, reaching skyward, a single oak—big, wide, powerful—gives off the most emerald of colors, a testament to its enduring existence among the encompassing decay.

Beneath the tree stands a thin woman in a tattered dress, her appearance covered by long trails of matted hair.

She looks up, and her face melts.

~*~

When he came to, Glain’s hand grasped for the blade. Upon not finding it, he snapped upward, swept his head left to right.

Though the night still reigned, his phantom eyes enabled him to discern through its veil. Everything remained where he had last seen it—the corpses, the wagon, the horses. Even the chest that now gaped open.

Glain spotted the gleam of Talon nearby. He exhaled a sigh of relief and went for the sword.

“You are not like the others.” The voice was soft, familiar, though Glain had never heard it, at least not in its audible form. He had known it only in its primordial shape.

A boy of about six stood some twenty feet away, staring at the dead ground. Gaunt, sporting short, unkempt hair, he was draped in tattered, loose fitting gray clothes; one of countless such peasant offspring seen everywhere in the war-stricken land. Even the face, smeared with a touch of dirt with a small, potato-shaped nose, thin lips, and sunken eyes, was unremarkable.

But the boy had not been standing there a moment prior.

He turned to Glain. “You’re like us.”

Glain’s spectral gaze wavered as he reacquired the sword, hesitated a second to witness the boy’s reaction and, when he found none, replaced it in the scabbard. Then he faced the chest and reached it in two heartbeats.

A skeleton of a child no older than six years of age lay crumpled inside on an old blanket, covered by dried feces and crumbs of food.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said the boy without emotion. “I knew you were of us when we touched through the Beyond, but I had to be sure.”

“What is going on here?”

The child’s face remained placid. “They wanted to bring me back to her.”

“The witch,” grunted Glain. He had a lurking suspicion the entire job was about her—what else could it have been? She was the sole reason for this desolation.

“She is my mother,” said the boy.

Glain’s dark brow rose.

The ghost child faced the bleak plain. “She promised she would find me, no matter how far they’d take me. She said we’d be together again.”

Glain beheld the dead men then returned his gaze to the subadult skeleton. He had heard the tales of the expanding Widening Waste; of a witch by an ancient tree that spread her fury like wildfire, engulfing everything in its wake. That the land had been affected by the Beyond was certain, yet the truthfulness of the story had eluded everyone. Until now.

“So, it was the Yatteranese’s doing,” he spoke after a while. “They burned her and took you with them.”

A shadow passed over the boy’s stoic features. Glain indicated the ancient sarcophagus. “But when the curse of this place reached the Empire’s borders, they thought they’d appease it by bringing you back.”

“Yes,” said the witch’s son.

“Why didn’t you stay your anger until you neared the destination?” asked Glain.

The boy held his stare. “Because I don’t want to go into the Beyond. Not yet. I’ll finish what my mother began. I’ll kill every single one of them. But I need her power to do so. And you’ll help me get it.”

“Boy . . .”

“You’ll take me to her.”

As soon as he reached for the blade, another wave of crippling pain shot through Glain. He groaned, was knocked back down, arms cushioning the fall.

For a while he lay there, unmoving, between consciousness and oblivion.

“You’ll help.”

~*~

Alone on the vast plain, the wide oak stretched its earthen-hued branches, verdant leaves the sole sign of life in the entire Widening Waste.

Like the leaden skies above, the woman in gray stood motionless, tatters of the gown blending with the dead earth in the most seamless fashion. Dark hair fluttered in the gale.

The croaking of the wheels shattered the stillness.

Hunched, Glain drove toward the tree, his spectral glare piercing the faded vista, set on the foreboding figure in front. His hands were loose on the reins. The horse that pulled the weight progressed at a slow pace. Fastened to the back, two steeds—Glain’s pale one, and a sorrel—trotted behind the cart.

The massive box heaved above him.

When the procession reached about thirty feet from the woman, it came to a languid halt. Sunken eyes beheld him. Thin, bloodless lips were motionless, whilst the protruding cheekbones lacked any sense of life.

“This is for you,” said Glain.

A pointed chin shot upward, intrigued, yet there was nothing human in the move. Then, sensing something surpassing ordinary perception, the woman glided forward as if on ice. Her stare flashed at the chest behind the sellsword.

Glain released the reins and jumped down, raising ash. He sidled along the cart.

Focus unwavering, the witch’s skeletal hand hovered above the lock, inspecting the air. By its own volition, the metal dropped onto the floorboards with a dull thud. Another swipe and the lid creaked open.

“Here I am, mother,” said the voice, flat, emotionless.

The mute snapped about in a swift motion. The boy stood behind her. Tears ran down her tortured face. Skeletal arm extended toward the child.

The wagon blew up into shards, each one a lethal projectile. Swept off his feet, Glain was tossed twenty yards away. The mounts’ brays were muffled and then silenced by the squall, their forms disappearing in the thick whirlwind of ash and dust.

A growl broke through Glain’s throat as a wooden splinter almost the length of a forearm logged itself in his thigh. Cursing, he grabbed the piece and snatched it out with another snarl and pressed the wound.

The air had become sparse, the skies dark with a strange presence. Up ahead, the son and the mother were two unmoving silhouettes in the raging chaos. Whilst the chaos, in part, reflected on this plane, the main battle—or whatever it was—took place in the Beyond.

Not far away from where the wagon had been, the half-buried chest lay in a man-sized crater.

A wail that shattered even Glain’s focus reverberated through the ether. The witch’s shadow lost consistency and crumpled. The mother could not—would not—hurt her child. Fueled by years of torture and resentment, the boy, on the other hand, had no quarrels about bringing the world to ruin. Yet to do so, he required the mother’s strength, for his essence was bound to the origin of his suffering; much like she was tethered to her own place of death—the tree where her existence, at least in the mundane sense, had ended.

There was no time to spare.

Dragged back by the violent currents, Glain wrestled with the devil-wind to unsheathe his blade; then, with equal effort, stabbed the slender sword into the soft earth, trying to crawl forward, snake-like.

The force of the clashing powers was overwhelming. The bone-chilling yowls added to the overall feel of despondency.

Blood poured down Glain’s leg. Pain seared into his brain. Thoughts slow, he fought to maintain progress with all the might he could muster, free arm acting as a shield against the unrelenting push. The closer he got to the eye of the storm, the harder it was to advance. But a fire of defiance surged through his cold veins. Using the blade both as a crutch and an anchor, he pressed forward, every pull a fight in its own right until—at last—the chest came within reach.

Another blast from the Beyond knocked him back, but Glain used the chest’s edge as additional support. He discarded the sword, gave everything he had to yank the box out of the pit. Once done, he busted the container wide open. Small bones rattled in response.

Glain picked up the pieces, gathered them in the middle of the old blanket, tied the ends together, and pulled out the feather-light bundle.

Helpless before her son, the witch’s lithe form twisted and stretched in agony until—in a blink of an eye—it burst into a cloud of dust. A living thing, the formless matter swirled about the boy, latching onto the small silhouette. His shape swelled, taking the form of the man he should have been.

As curses seeped through clenched teeth, Glain threw himself toward the pit and dropped the sack inside. He moved the ashen soil over it as fast as he could until no trace of the bundle remained.

The gale’s end was as sudden as its beginning.

To the ordinary senses, the place had become as desolate as any part of that ruined land. Even the old oak was now nothing more than a snag, barren and hollow—a shell of its former self. To those with the Second Sight like Glain—whose pupils spilled across the irises, leaving only faint outlines and snow-white orbs behind—the image appeared quite different.

A radiant figure walked across the green pasture in a bright dress. Serene, perfect, she was the epitome of beauty, with flowing, lustrous hair and eyes the color of lakes set within the most feminine of features.

Crouched, the six-year-old cowered in fear, closed off to the world that had hurt him.

The mother kneeled. Her gentle hand landed on his small shoulder.

“Let’s go home,” she uttered.

The boy’s head shot up as his arms coiled about the slim figure.

The apparitions melted into the Beyond.

As Glain averted his Sight from the Other Side, he saw his wound had stopped bleeding.

Here and there, blades of grass sprouted from the gray ground.

The Widening Waste © 2024 by Mario Carić (2800 words) All rights reserved. You may restack this story via Substack but please do not republish elsewhere. Banner and sword illustrations by Gilead, used by permission.

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