Cry Havoc

The climb was arduous, made no easier by Oen’s blindness in the night.
Despite his extensive training, he was completely unprepared for this.
The icy wind of the winter solstice was a flail whipping against his skin,
stabbing and beating him at the same time. Every breath was a struggle,
his heart was beating frenziedly against his ribcage, demanding to be
free, and there was the mountain. Oen could think about the heaviness
of his pack, his longing to be home with his wife and fireplace, or
anything else he wanted, but there was always the mountain. The
mountain surrounded him, controlled him, and sustained him. He
climbed, and the mountain grew, he walked, and there was a rock
conveniently sticking out to trip him over. The mountain invaded his
thoughts stealing his joyful ones and punishing him with all of his
mistakes. The mountain attacked Oen in his mind, the only place where
his skill with a blade was meaningless.
After a few short hours of climbing Mount Xenos, Oen felt quite certain
that he had lost his mind. However, no matter what happened, Oen
would not allow himself to give up. He knew that he could plant his
banner higher than any previous Kj’kala1. Every hour or so, Oen would
rest, consuming a small portion of his supplies, trying to hold on to
what was left of his mind as best he could. Oen thumbed the simple
gold stud in his ear, given to him by his bride, a twin to the one she now
wore. Her name was…Elisa? Yes, Elisa. Oen could practically feel his
memories slipping out of his grasp, so he grabbed onto them with all of
his strength. He picked up a branch, snapped off a twig and began to
draw in the dirt. He began with her hair, her beautiful auburn hair,
gleaming in the light of the afternoon sun, just as he left her only hours
ago. He drew, picturing her almost lupine eyes, her oh-so-very slightly
upturned nose, and her child-like smile. The picture he had created
resembled Khaddir, the fat, pockmarked chieftain of their village, more
than it did his beautiful bride, but Oen didn’t care. He could remember
her now, and her beauty acted like a beacon in the darkness.
---
For Oen, hours, days, weeks, even months passed, his sense of time
utterly decimated by the mountain’s monstrous presence. While his
brain knew that it was still the same night, his mind was telling him
something different. Every so often his mind drifted towards a slightly
more rational place, knowing that he had to climb, had to be the best.

1 – One who climbs the mountain

He needed to uphold his family’s honour. He knew all of this, and yet
the altitude was giving him the Vir-kosh-ka, the sickness of height. He
wasn’t getting enough air into his brain, so the Vir-kosh-ka was making
his thoughts too blurry to understand. As the sickness progressed, Oen
began to simply keep going. He didn’t know why he did, or if he even
cared, he just kept going. Of course his body did not like this idea, so
when it became too tired, after a lengthy argument with his mind, it
pushed what was left of Oen’s tattered mind to the side and forced him
to collapse onto a fairly smooth, flat rock and rest.
---
Oen jerked awake when he felt a cold, wet surface lightly touch his
nose. He sat up and looked with hatred upon the creature that had been
the cause of his awakening. It was just a harmless green-backed
squirrel. Somewhere, lost in the depths of his insanity, the Kj’kala
registered that this kind of squirrel arose just before dawn. This
normally trivial thought caused his broken mind to snap back into
place, becoming whole once more, bringing back his memories of Elisa,
the day of ascendance, not to mention the terrifying fact which both
hung over his head, and hovered just below the horizon. The morning
star, Solace, was about to rise, condemning him to a lonely, worthless,
pitiful life filled with nothing but disgrace.
Oen rose and began sprinting as though the very earth below his feet
was becoming a blazing inferno, the flames burning everywhere he
stepped. He needed to go as high as humanly possible, higher even, to
make up for the time he had lost. With dawn only moments away, Oen
began discarding anything that was weighing him down. His pack, his
sword, his jacket, until he was running with nothing but the clothes on
his back and the spear in his hand. Solace began to creep over the hazy
horizon, light flying along the ground towards the mountain at an
alarming rate. Oen took a flying leap forward, his thoughts on what
would happen if he were too late. If his banner was not firmly planted
in the mountainside by the time the light hit him, his life would be over.
His family would be humiliated, Elisa’s father would force her to
divorce Oen, and he would never be given any chance to redeem
himself. His blood pumping, muscles straining, Oen stabbed his
standard into the stone of the very mountain that strove for his demise.
At this point, two things happened: There was an ear-splitting ‘crack’ as
the blade of the spear split the rock thanks to Oen’s gargantuan effort;
and the entire mountain began to quake with such ferocity as to knock
Oen off his feet, which was not an easy task.
---
Deep below the mountain, a being that did not exist, and had not
existed for nine thousand years opened its eyes.