Lost in the Pines I. The Nocturne II. The Jortuuk III. The Tunnel in the Trees (Feat. Evergreen Rupe)
from Hark! The Whispering Dead of the Burial Lake by Fen Walker
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Cassette + Digital AlbumExperience Fen Walker's masterpiece and immerse yourself in the land of Ur! This complete package includes Hark! The Whispering Dead Of The Burial Lake on transparent purple Super Ferro cassette encased in the beautiful art work from Brendan Elliot. A full 11x17 poster of the album art and a Fen Walker pro-sticker. A hand made 4 oz. "Barrow Musk" candle to burn as you set out on your journey. Plus a hand bound booklet with the whole story, including artwork and a map with the characters paths lined out for you to follow while you listen!
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Cassette + Digital AlbumThese are artist copies of the Lamp and Dagger release of Hark! The Whisper Dead of the Burial Lake. This bundle includes a pro-dubbed cassette with O-card, a hand-crafted candle, a poster, a story booklet, and a die-cut sticker.
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lyrics
Woja was glad her sister had joined her on this venture. Though her grumbling was tiresome, the litter bearing their mother’s body was more that she could have managed by herself. In the few days they had been together, Woja had noticed changes in her sister, her ever flowing skepticism in her mother’s past had seemed to dry up. Their daylong journey across the Barrow Lands had brought her to tears. That had been the first great revelation. The second had been the procession of spirits they watched glide across the waters as they waded from the island to Ur’s mainland. The latter, the Scire could never explain.
“I don’t understand,” Soja had said that evening, as the sister suns, the girls namesakes sank below the horizon, Woja, pale and strange, followed by Soja bright and fiery. “The explorers father sent before we were born never told of this land. They said they found nothing but endless ocean.”
“Our step father kills those who fail him, and they failed. They were frightened, so they did not tell the truth of their defeat. Did mother ever tell you of the defilement of the barrows?”
“No.”
Woja began. She told of the airships and the men who ransacked their ancestor’s precious riches. Of their mother who snuck aboard and struck a fatal blow to the flag ship, of a sprit storm that tore the fleet apart. The two remaining ships returned home, the vessels consigned to scrap, the crews, terrified of reprisal from their Jarl, bound to an oath of secrecy.
When she had finished, she watched Soja stare into the flames of their campfire. A procession of cold moons, like the sprits they had witnessed earlier that day, chased each other across the night sky. Woja stood and walked to where land ended. She looked across the waters to the Barrow Lands. On those distant shores a campfire burned. Pjorlar and Kyllar no doubt. She smiled, her sister had been less discreet with her markings than she thought. Kyllar was here no doubt to save his neck, and reclaim his wayward charge, Pjorlar to reclaim his love. Brave, stupid Pjorlar. He would make a good husband one day. He had always believed her mothers stories. She liked that about him. With sudden inspiration, she wadded out into the sea towards the distant shore of the Barrow Lands.
Night was falling and the pines were growing thick. Kyllar swore as he hacked away at the reaching branches with a small hand axe. Pjorlar had been unusually grim all day and it was bothering him to no end. There had been none of his songs, or usual fooling. Something had happened last night after he had fallen asleep. Before, they had sung songs and danced about the fire, quite drunk. Perhaps a throbbing head ailed him.
They camped in a clearing they found after tunneling with axe and sword through a particularly vicious patch of brambles, a guttering oil lamp their only source of light. It was a strange patch of ground, a near perfect circle with a wall of brambles all about. It reminded Kyllar of a pen, for some kind of animal. There was a hole in the ground at the center of the clearing, with a stream running into it. Neither of them liked the looks of it. It was deep, for the water made no sounds where it landed somewhere below.
The two men were asleep when the Jortuuk crawled from the blackness of the pit. It was hungry, but not enough to eat the flesh of a man. It breathed deep of the air, there were mothers near. Not with child, but they would do. It turned from the slumbering figures and loped through the tunnel made in the brambles. They had freed him, and would awake to the dawn, never knowing what they had unleashed upon the lands of Ur.
“Beware, my little stars”
They both heard the voice born upon pine scented winds.
“Mother,” Soja whispered then shook her head. No, she was dead, her body wrapped and motionless upon the litter. Woja set her end down quickly and rummaged through her satchel. Her hand returned clutching The Fang. With deft motion she twisted free The Tooth and attached the new, longer spear head to the shaft. Soja, also feeling the approach, set her side of the litter down, un-shouldered her rifle and loaded it.
No sooner had she raised the weapon to her shoulder that it appeared between the trees. A kaleidoscope of forms comprised of vileness and malignancy, a thing of teeth, eyes and tongues, circling slowly from tree to tree, waiting for its moment.
Soja’s finger twitched, the rifle’s hammer snapped forth sending the flint home. The shot bellowed from the barrel and sank into the soft bark of a tree a meter from The Jortuuk. It leapt. Woja slashed with her spear. It cut strange flesh. A resounding scream forced both girls to their knees with hands over ears.
The Jortuuk chuckled. The part of it that had once been human urged the monstrous rest back into the woods, but that other, ravenous half refused to listen. It crawled, its twisted, fleshy mouth close to the earth, ready to taste flesh. Then it heard familiar words, words of horror and pain from long ago. Words that seemed to flutter as moths, and to which no amount of swiping or batting of mighty arms could repel.
At the center of The Fang, a glow blossomed into a blinding flower of light. Woja stood, spear raised above her head, The Fang bright as a star. The Jortuuk cowered before the mighty, purifying refulgence. Woja struck.
Soja had wondered how her sister knew the path to their destination. Their mother’s sprit was with them, aiding them on their journey. She had warded off that creature with runes of banishment, given power to The Fang. Even now Woja muttered quietly, but this conversation had another party, and it wasn't Soja.
The trees about them were converging, weaving. Bark surrounded them. A rooted cathedral. At the end of this tunnel, the light of morning streamed.
“I don’t understand,” Soja had said that evening, as the sister suns, the girls namesakes sank below the horizon, Woja, pale and strange, followed by Soja bright and fiery. “The explorers father sent before we were born never told of this land. They said they found nothing but endless ocean.”
“Our step father kills those who fail him, and they failed. They were frightened, so they did not tell the truth of their defeat. Did mother ever tell you of the defilement of the barrows?”
“No.”
Woja began. She told of the airships and the men who ransacked their ancestor’s precious riches. Of their mother who snuck aboard and struck a fatal blow to the flag ship, of a sprit storm that tore the fleet apart. The two remaining ships returned home, the vessels consigned to scrap, the crews, terrified of reprisal from their Jarl, bound to an oath of secrecy.
When she had finished, she watched Soja stare into the flames of their campfire. A procession of cold moons, like the sprits they had witnessed earlier that day, chased each other across the night sky. Woja stood and walked to where land ended. She looked across the waters to the Barrow Lands. On those distant shores a campfire burned. Pjorlar and Kyllar no doubt. She smiled, her sister had been less discreet with her markings than she thought. Kyllar was here no doubt to save his neck, and reclaim his wayward charge, Pjorlar to reclaim his love. Brave, stupid Pjorlar. He would make a good husband one day. He had always believed her mothers stories. She liked that about him. With sudden inspiration, she wadded out into the sea towards the distant shore of the Barrow Lands.
Night was falling and the pines were growing thick. Kyllar swore as he hacked away at the reaching branches with a small hand axe. Pjorlar had been unusually grim all day and it was bothering him to no end. There had been none of his songs, or usual fooling. Something had happened last night after he had fallen asleep. Before, they had sung songs and danced about the fire, quite drunk. Perhaps a throbbing head ailed him.
They camped in a clearing they found after tunneling with axe and sword through a particularly vicious patch of brambles, a guttering oil lamp their only source of light. It was a strange patch of ground, a near perfect circle with a wall of brambles all about. It reminded Kyllar of a pen, for some kind of animal. There was a hole in the ground at the center of the clearing, with a stream running into it. Neither of them liked the looks of it. It was deep, for the water made no sounds where it landed somewhere below.
The two men were asleep when the Jortuuk crawled from the blackness of the pit. It was hungry, but not enough to eat the flesh of a man. It breathed deep of the air, there were mothers near. Not with child, but they would do. It turned from the slumbering figures and loped through the tunnel made in the brambles. They had freed him, and would awake to the dawn, never knowing what they had unleashed upon the lands of Ur.
“Beware, my little stars”
They both heard the voice born upon pine scented winds.
“Mother,” Soja whispered then shook her head. No, she was dead, her body wrapped and motionless upon the litter. Woja set her end down quickly and rummaged through her satchel. Her hand returned clutching The Fang. With deft motion she twisted free The Tooth and attached the new, longer spear head to the shaft. Soja, also feeling the approach, set her side of the litter down, un-shouldered her rifle and loaded it.
No sooner had she raised the weapon to her shoulder that it appeared between the trees. A kaleidoscope of forms comprised of vileness and malignancy, a thing of teeth, eyes and tongues, circling slowly from tree to tree, waiting for its moment.
Soja’s finger twitched, the rifle’s hammer snapped forth sending the flint home. The shot bellowed from the barrel and sank into the soft bark of a tree a meter from The Jortuuk. It leapt. Woja slashed with her spear. It cut strange flesh. A resounding scream forced both girls to their knees with hands over ears.
The Jortuuk chuckled. The part of it that had once been human urged the monstrous rest back into the woods, but that other, ravenous half refused to listen. It crawled, its twisted, fleshy mouth close to the earth, ready to taste flesh. Then it heard familiar words, words of horror and pain from long ago. Words that seemed to flutter as moths, and to which no amount of swiping or batting of mighty arms could repel.
At the center of The Fang, a glow blossomed into a blinding flower of light. Woja stood, spear raised above her head, The Fang bright as a star. The Jortuuk cowered before the mighty, purifying refulgence. Woja struck.
Soja had wondered how her sister knew the path to their destination. Their mother’s sprit was with them, aiding them on their journey. She had warded off that creature with runes of banishment, given power to The Fang. Even now Woja muttered quietly, but this conversation had another party, and it wasn't Soja.
The trees about them were converging, weaving. Bark surrounded them. A rooted cathedral. At the end of this tunnel, the light of morning streamed.
credits
from Hark! The Whispering Dead of the Burial Lake,
released November 27, 2020
Evergreen Rupe- Throat Singing
Evergreen Rupe- Throat Singing
license
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Fen Walker Portland, Oregon
The music of the barbaric and sorcery scarred lands of Ur.
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Aug 2019
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