The Sixth School.

Chapter Eighteen: Dark Crawlers…

Nolruk stood on the far end of the cave looking at his father who was bare-chested and on his knees. The older man was kneeling before a small altar that he had set up to commune with whatever higher power he’d come into contact with. The man swayed from side to side, leaning far enough on each side that, by all logic, he should have fallen. However, some strange force seemed to be holding the man in place regardless of how far he leaned. The older man’s form appeared weak and emaciated, almost like a stiff breeze would knock him over. Only Nolruk knew how wrong this assessment of his father was. He had seen the power that had been granted to the man, and it was by no means trivial.

Nolruk was certain that if this man wanted to, he could take out anyone in the village with barely any effort. Which was why he couldn’t understand his hesitation to go on the attack. They had watched Roka go hunting for four days straight, and done nothing! Nolruk could readily admit that he’d been wrong about Roka. Even the best of the hunters that the town had, couldn’t guarantee that they could hunt down a three-tusk boar successfully for four days straight. Frustratingly, neither he nor his uncle had seen how Roka had done it. While the scrying pool could look through the eyes of the animals in the forest, it couldn’t control them. When the scrying pool linked with any given bird or animal, the creature would settle down and start to observe the target that the one in control of the scrying pool was interested in. If, however, the target of observation moves out of the limits of the creature’s visual range, they can’t get the animal to follow. Nolruk suspected that there was a way to get the animal to follow their target. They, however, didn’t know it or just weren’t powerful enough to pull it off. By the time his father would switch to a new creature closer to Roka, the three-tusk boar would already be on the run and Roka moving after the beast. From there, it became almost impossible to keep track of where he would go as there was no predicting in which direction the boar would go.

CRACK!

The quiet but incoherent mumbling of his father that had filled the cave for some time now was cut short when the sound of a whip cracking drowned it out. Nolruk hadn’t been touched in any way. Just the sound of the whip alone, however, left him twitching with phantom pain. A cry of pain was torn out of his father’s throat as a wound running from his right shoulder down to the left side of his waist opened on his back. Watching it open was like watching ink slowly spread in water. It started as a straight line running diagonally across his father's back. Slowly, however, it started to spread far apart beyond what any normal whip could achieve. Worse still, it wasn’t in the straight line that it had initially been. Nolruk could only imagine that this was how it would look if someone was patient enough to watch cracks slowly spread across a wall. There was the first main wound, and from it, hairline wounds spread out to cover a large section of his father’s back.

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

Nolruk couldn’t help the violent shaking of his own body at the sound of the invisible whip cracking three more times. His teeth were clenched tightly and without noticing, he had crouched low to hug his knees, trying to make himself as small as possible. Despite the fear he felt, however, he never took his eyes off his father’s back. Anyone keen enough who took the time to look into the boy’s eyes would notice that there was something else in there. Beneath the fear, the was a cold savage glee that shone deep within the boy’s eyes. All his life this man had beaten anything even remotely close to love out of him. At first, Nolruk tried to appease his father. The man, however, had a heart colder than the peaks of the mountain they were on. All his attempts failed. When appeasing didn’t work Nolruk tried to fight back to defend himself. All this earned him was an even worse beating.

When appeasing and fighting back didn’t work, Nolruk settled for understanding. His only desire had been to try and understand why his father acted the way he did. Why he didn’t seem to love him the way other fathers seemed to love their sons? To this day, however, he was yet to arrive at an answer. In the end, Nolruk just avoided his father whenever he could. Unless he was left with no other option, the boy would avoid his father like the plague. The only thing that had drawn him back to his father wasn’t any kind of love for the man, but the promise of power that his discovery of the staff promised. The cries of unmitigated agony that filled the cave were like the sweetest symphony to Nolruk. His body reacted instinctively with fear, Nolruk's heart, however, exalted in the chance to see the man suffer the same pain he had caused him on several occasions over the years.

It was ten minutes before his father recovered enough from the pain that he could continue muttering in the incoherent way he’d been doing before. Nolruk's gaze had never left the ghastly wounds that had been left on his father’s back by the invisible whips. As such, he was quick to pick up on it when what he thought to be just wounds started squirming. At first, it was the main trunk of the wounds that started to twist and turn almost like squirming worms. Eventually, the hairline cracks that spread out from these main trunks began to merge into what Nolruk could easily recognize as centipede-like legs. Nolruk couldn’t help the chills that coursed through his body as he watched the wounds on his father’s back morph into centipede-like creatures and start to crawl all over his father’s torso. At their head, his father’s skin split open as they moved forward. Behind their tail, however, the skin came together leaving behind not even a mark that would show that there had been a wound there.

From the way his father’s mumbling was coming out through gritted teeth and his body involuntarily jerked from time to time, the moving of the wounds was no less painful than the whipping itself. The crawling wounds were initially the bright color of blood. The more they moved, however, the darker that red color became until it was practically black. This went on for another three minutes, by which time, the four whip marks that his father had suffered had fully morphed into four black centipede-like creatures. On these strange creatures' heads was a pair of pincers that were about twice as long as the things' heads. On its tail end was a curved stinger that left Nolruk with a back soaked in a cold sweat as he imagined what pain the thing could inflict. His father, who’d so far been doing a good job of keeping his pain suppressed, let out a sharp hiss when one of the centipede-like beings crawled onto the base of his spine just above his waist and started to crawl upwards.

All through the few minutes that the things had been crawling around his father’s torso, they had been flat and indistinguishable from a drawing on his skin. However, Nolruk now watched this strange creature start to bulge out, the higher it climbed on his father’s spine. By the time it reached the base of his father’s skull, the creature had gone from a moving mark on his father's skin to a corporeal entity crawling onto the top of his father’s head. The man, however, barely noticed as the second centipede crawled onto the base of his spine and started to follow the same trail that the first centipede-like creature had followed. The first centipede-like creature had already crawled down to the ground by the time the second one made it to the top of his father’s skull.

Nolruk could feel his heart hammering in his chest as he looked at the creature on the ground. It now occurred to him that, as terrifying as they had looked while they had been on his father’s skin, it was nothing compared to the real thing. The thing was about three feet long and as thick as his arm. Its carapace had a metallic sheen to it and was completely black from one end to the other, making it next to impossible to notice in poor lighting or at night. The legs of the thing, which hadn’t made much of an impression while it had been on his father's back, were the first thing that Nolruk noticed. The floor of the cave was made of solid stone that wasn’t easily broken through. And yet, the sharp pointed claws of the creature casually broke through it with each of its numerous sharp-tipped legs. Nolruk doubted that the creature was even doing it on purpose, the thing was just crawling around as if it was trying to familiarize itself with its current surroundings. And yet, with every step that the creature took, sharp-tipped holes were left in the ground.

The representation of the pincers while they had been on his father's skin didn’t do it justice just as was the case with its sting. Every time the pincers snapped shut, the sound of two blades brushing against each other was produced. There was very little doubt in Nolruk that if one of his limbs was caught in between those pincers, he would be one limb short. And if that wasn’t bad enough, a black liquid kept dripping off the things that produced a harsh sizzling sound when it came in contact with the ground below. Not only would the pincers take off a limb, but the black liquid left behind would eat away at the stump of the lost limb.

The sting on the rear end of the creature curved into a long and narrow appendage that Nolruk suspected could punch through the leather armor most hunters in the town wore like it was nothing. The sting was long enough that, if it struck the top of his head, he was certain that the tip would come out below his chin. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the inside curve of the sting was sharp enough to have the appendage double as a sickle-shaped blade. In other words, if the sting went through the top of his head, it wouldn’t stop at just skewering his brain, it would cut his face in two, cracking his skull in two like a walnut. The same black substance that was dripping off the monster’s pincers was also dripping off its stinger. But unlike what was the case with its pincers, the substance coming off its stinger wasn’t dripping onto the ground but onto the creature’s own back. However, while the ground sizzled every time it was touched by the liquid, the creature’s carapace barely even reacted. The defense of the carapace was such that, one would have been forgiven for thinking the stuff coming from the stinger to be harmless as they watched it ineffectually roll off the monster’s shell.

By the time Nolruk was done assessing all the scary features of the first beast, three more had joined it on the ground, each one moving around his father like a loyal guard dog. If his father had looked bad before, now he looked positively haggard. Forget muscle mass, the man looked even thinner than what an average man would look like. His ribs stuck out prominently against his skin making the man look like he’d been starved for days on end. Clearly, it had taken a lot of vitality from the man to call the four creatures around him into being. Still, the man calmly pushed himself up off the floor and turned in Nolruk’s direction. On the face of the man, there was no indication of the torture that he’d just been put through. Instead, there was an almost maniacal glee at the four creatures around him. Nolruk could only make vague guesses but had no real way of knowing just how powerful the summoned creatures were. By the pleased look in his father’s eyes, however, Nolruk was certain that he wasn’t that far off the mark by assuming that the things were really powerful.

When his father looked his way, there was a bit of disdain in his eyes when he noted that his son was crouched down and hugging himself in fear. Nevertheless, he said nothing about it. Instead he uttered three simple words. “Let’s go hunting!”

***

Watching the dark crawlers hunt was a nightmarish experience that Nolruk knew would haunt his dreams for years to come. Dark crawler was the name of the creatures he’d summoned, according to his father. When his father had told him that they were going hunting, Nolruk had assumed he meant that they were going after Roka. As it turns out, he’d been wrong, they really were going hunting for wild animals. According to the man, the four dark crawlers, big as they were in Nolruk’s opinion, were still juveniles. They’d need a lot of nourishment before they grew to full size. Once that happens, no one in the town should be able to stand up to him. Nolruk had never been happy to be around his father. That was even more the case with the dark crawlers around. He, however, knew that more than ever before he needed to avoid displeasing his father. And so, despite his misgivings, he calmly walked beside the man, not letting any of the fear he felt show.

Given the fact that the three-tusk boar territory was the area in which Roka usually hunted, they avoided it, going around it and deeper into the forest. His dad didn’t want to leave any traces that might alert Roka to what they had in store for him. And no wonder, the toxin that dripped off the creatures' pincers and stings caused everything within a meter of where it dripped to wither within minutes. And that was to say nothing of the destruction they wrought as they moved and the many sharp pits left by their legs. In other words, one didn’t have to be an expert hunter to pick up on the trails of the damn things. In fact, someone who only had a very rudimentary knowledge of hunting and tracking would have to be blind to miss the tracks of the dark crawlers.

It took them three hours of moving to get to where they’d been going. They were currently standing on a tall cliff, and below them, almost a kilometer from the cliff, there was a herd of red-horned bisons. Unlike the three-tusk boar which was a common hunting target for the town’s hunters, no one in the town was brave or crazy enough to go after red-horned bisons. To begin with, unlike the three-tusk boars which usually formed herds of perhaps ten to twenty boars, red-horned bisons usually moved around in herds that numbered in the hundreds, sometimes even more than a thousand bisons could be found in one herd. And if this wasn’t enough of a deterrence, there was the fact that, unlike the three-tusk boars which usually abandoned an injured member of the herd that was too badly injured and bleeding, red-horned bisons never left one of their own behind. Forget a living one, even if one of their own was killed, they will hang around the dead bison for more than a week until it was thoroughly rotted. Whether this was out of solidarity with one of their own, or out of spite for the killer, no one had ever been able to puzzle out.

And if you were the attacker and one of the herd members happens to catch either sight or scent of you, then you should just spare yourself the torture and kill yourself. The stubbornness with which they can guard a corpse is the same stubbornness with which they shall pursue you. And big as the bisons are, they are by no means slow. Add that to the fact that they can run at full speed for a day and a night without tiring, and you’ve got yourself a stampede of nightmarish proportions. And should you think yourself clever and just climb a tree, then you’ve doomed both yourself and the tree. First, they will surround the tree, and then the heaviest males, which were usually more than a thousand kilos, will make it their business to bring the tree down and you along with it. In other words, the bisons will transform into battering rams that weigh more than a ton with nothing on their mind other than felling the particular tree you are on.

The reason they had stopped more than a kilometer away, was because of how sensitive the senses of the bison are. Given what his father seemed to be planning, they didn’t wish to risk having the herd mark them as aggressors. “Go!” The simple command came from his father's lips. Not needing any further prompting, the four dark crawlers charged forward, crawling down the face of the cliff with the same ease that they exhibited when crawling on flat ground. Unexpectedly, when they got to the bottom of the cliff, all four dark crawlers that had so far been moving above ground, immediately dove into the ground. Barely five seconds after their front claws started to dig at the ground, their whole bodies had gone underground. “Come on,” His father calmly called out in a placid tone as he turned and walked off. Unable to visually track the dark crawlers while they were underground, Nolruk turned and walked after his father.

After about ten minutes of walking, they came to a stop beside a gently flowing stream. His father raised the staff in his hand as he muttered something under his breath. With a firm ‘thud’, the staff was brought down on the ground. Rather than a small round indentation from the staff as Nolruk had been expecting, a large concave depression about a meter wide, formed on the ground before them. The surface of the depression that had formed wasn’t flat but rather was marked by several strange symbols. Most others wouldn’t recognize what they were looking at. Given that he’d been staring at one for the past four days, Nolruk quickly and easily recognized that these were the same symbols that were in the scrying pool back at the cave. With another movement of the staff towards the stream and more incomprehensible words, the water in the stream rose into the air of its own volition, making an arch and starting to fill the temporary scrying pool that his father had just made. When the scrying pool was sufficiently filled, the stream resumed its normal course while his father closed his eyes and started channeling through the scrying pool looking for a suitable target to link to the pool. It didn’t take him long. Soon enough, a bird that had been perched on a tree close to the herd of red-horned bisons was chosen, and the pool began to show everything the bird was seeing.

It only took a few minutes of waiting for chaos to break out within the herd. Nolruk didn’t know if it was a coincidence, or if his father held a connection to the dark crawlers that allowed him to know, but the bird that they’d linked the scrying pool to was looking at the spot where the first attack went down. A bison was leisurely grazing on a patch of grass when, suddenly, the four dark crawlers shot up from the ground with their pincers opened wide. Nolruk couldn’t help wincing when the four sets of pincers closed around the four legs of the bison. Given how sturdy an animal the red-horned bisons are, and how high up on the limbs the four dark crawlers had attacked, Nolruk had expected them to face some resistance. If not from the tough flesh of the bison, then at least from its bones. The four sets of pincers, however, snapped shut like a trap that had been set off. Both flesh and bones were cut through like they were nothing! Before the bison could even register what had happened, it was on the ground and unable to move, and the dark crawlers back underground.

Naturally, Nolruk knew that animals could feel pain. He, however, had never heard such a desperate cry of pain come out of the mouth of a beast as he did from the bison that was now on the ground and unable to move. Nolruk had assumed that the black liquid coming off the pincers of the dark crawlers would be corrosive, given the fact that it sizzled violently any time it came into contact with the ground. However, when looking at the stumps of the bison on the ground, he couldn’t see any signs of corrosion, which left him confused and uncertain. All around the fallen bison, the other bisons had started to crowd around it. From the way they kept huffing and pawing at the ground with their hoofs, it was clear that they were worked up and ready to attack at the slightest provocation. Unfortunately for the bisons, their foe was underground. Red-horned bisons were a menace that no one would want to mess with above ground. When it came to digging, however, they were sadly ill-equipped for the task. As such, even though they were worked up and ready for a fight, all they could do was impotently paw at the ground while they bellow in indignation.

The cries of the fallen bison grew more desperate with every passing second. Its eyes were opened wide, almost bulging out. It was almost like the pain that it was suffering was continuously increasing. Nolruk would never, in his life, have ever thought that he would see and understand the plea for death in the eyes of an animal. Looking at the bisons bulging eyes, however, he was certain that there was nothing that the creature desired more at that moment than the sweet release of death. Nolruk couldn’t help but wonder if the black liquid from the pincers of the crawlers was the reason for the suffering of the animal that seemed to be increasing with every passing second. However, in the next second, he noticed something that caused his hair to stand on end and cold chills to run up and down his body.

The abdomen of the bison started to bulge out from time to time almost as if something was moving inside it. It didn’t take a lot of thinking for Nolruk to work out what was happening. The first thing the dark crawlers had done was to take away the ability of the bison to move before disappearing back underground. Without its legs, all the bison could do is lay on the ground. With its body in contact with the ground, all the dark crawlers needed to do was burrow right under the poor animal and right into it. Blood started to flow out the fallen bison’s mouth as it was devoured from the inside out. By the increasing distress the herd was showing, it was clear that they were aware of what was going on. However, they were even more powerless to act now as compared to when the dark crawlers were underground. They had no way of getting at the dark crawlers without first tearing apart their fellow bison.

One of the largest bulls in the herd slowly stepped forward toward the downed bison. Despite the rage and distress it exhibited, the bull was still an animal. If it had even half a human's intelligence, it would have known to get as far away from the victim bison as possible. It, however, was driven by the natural instinct of red-horned bisons to watch over their injured and dead until they were either recovered or completely decomposed. The bull only managed to get within a meter of the dying bison when it happened. Despite being a kilometer away, Nolruk couldn’t stop himself from jumping back in surprise when the dying bison’s abdomen burst open and one of the dark crawlers inside struck out. Before the bull could even register what was going on, a bloody sting came down on its head. A red-horned bison can ram its head against a tree for hours on end without even the slightest sign of disorientation or being adversely affected. The sting, however, seemed to face barely any resistance as it sunk into the bull's head. Nolruk noticed the last segment of the dark crawler that had stung the bull shrink. Clearly, it had injected the black liquid directly into the bull's head. The effects didn’t take long to show.

A look of confusion, fear, madness, and agony seemed to flash in the bull's eyes as it raised its bleeding head toward the sky and let out a deep bellow. Before any of the other bisons could react, the dark crawlers were back underground and the bull that had been attacked was charging at the bison closest to it. Nolruk could feel his knees grow weak when he noticed that the dark crawlers were now much thicker and almost twice their initial length. It was just one meal and yet, the things had already doubled in size, and they didn’t seem like they were even close to being sated. He had already been scared of the things when they were small. However, with increasing dread, Nolruk was starting to realize that he hadn’t even scratched the surface of what kind of horror they had summoned into existence. More and more bellows of pain, fear, rage, and madness rose from the herd as they found themselves victims to the stings of the dark crawlers and their corrupting poison.

It felt like a block of ice had settled in the pit of his stomach as, over the next three hours, Nolruk watched the dark crawlers grow to the point that one of them could wrap itself around a bison three times and crush it with pure strength. The things had gone from the length and size of his arm to being as thick as his torso and about five times his height in terms of length. Their armor had long ago become sturdy enough that they no longer feared a full-on charge from the bisons. The strength of their tail and the size of the sting were now such that the things could decapitate a bison with a swing of their tail. The same held true for the  pincers on the heads of the dark crawlers. From being about the length of two of his palms, the things had grown to the size of two swords. The herd of over five hundred bisons lost close to half of its population before it became clear to the rest that there was just no fighting the four dark crawlers. For the first time in their lives, both father and son got to see a red-horned bison turn and run for its life.

“Come back,” Nolruk heard his father say.

The words weren’t shouted or loud in any way. However, through the scrying pool, Nolruk noticed that the four dark crawlers paused whatever they were doing when the words were uttered. His father didn’t have to repeat himself. The things started moving in their direction. Their multiple legs were a blur as they covered the kilometer between them in less than three minutes. Nolruk could feel the ground below him shake with the approach of the four monsters. Even if he had tried, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his heart from hammering in his chest as he looked at the creatures that now towered over his head. Glancing at his father, however, Nolruk could see a cold and maniacal look of excitement. The man walked forward and, much to Nolruk’s disbelief began to pet one of the dark crawlers. “Roka won’t be able to escape us now,” The man declared. “We can now finish the sacrifice…