Bladeshire 17

By David C. Daoust

Hindal was not who he was meant to be. He had played a game with the darkness, one that left a mar across his existence. It was here in this black pit that he was to meet his end, he knew now. He had memory of it all, all that he had lost. Now that he was within the hour of his death, his adversary took the time to gloat.

The old man could not move, his body would not answer. He was paralyzed. A searing pain in his arm seemed to throb; the very place the creature had chomped down into his flesh. There was no light to see, pitch black around him seeped into his very being.

The creature had come, ripped him from the light above and dragged him to this darkness. To be devoured. The old man was not alone. Each elder in turn had been dragged into the hole. The group of them had set about not just building that kiln, but a fire. They’d opened a keg to while away the evening hours. They planned to make a night of it. The heat of the fire pulled the attention of the beast. They were well in their cups before it made its first appearance.

It was fast and fierce; the old men never had a chance.

Hindal recognized this as his end… this was the end he’d won. The end of the life of the Collier. The Collier with an incredibly long life. The Collier with no son to carry his legacy. Nothing but daughters he would have. For all his life and times, he had been content with this fact. Yet, now, here, in the grips of this darkness, it was all too bleak.

The light flickered to being, silhouettes were thrown. Whatever had a grip on him, lost some of its hold. He could see the others around him. Each, unable to move. He could not say who yet lived. Where the light came from was a mystery as well, but the light– that light in the dark gave him hope.

Another voice joined the darkness, a fairer voice. A familiar voice that reminded him of all the good he had experienced in his life. Reminded him of all his daughters faces, their children… of his wife. She had had a long life as well, just not quite as long as his. It was his wife’s voice, he realized, that tried to assuage these foreign thoughts. He weighed their life with the regrets.

It was not quite done with him yet. The darkness claimed his son. Whispered that it had taken the life with the loss to some game that did not make sense anymore. Hindal was not sure what was real. His wife’s voice assured the darkness never had such power… convincing him. But the truth hit even harder when he realized she was saying the same as the dark… his son never was.

The light receded; the darkness enveloped him again.

This time the darkness had form; it was hideous and ugly. It was there to gloat, to laugh. A being, an entity. This time it claimed Hindal was to be a great Archon, a king among kings, but the darkness stole that future before he was born. It licked his face as it let the facts set in. He took on the life of the Collier… he took all the years of his life as a consolation prize. It was enough just to hold him in stasis. To keep him from ever being a threat to all the ills of the world. The darkness showed him all his losses. Every piece of his life where he was not equipped to defeat the very thing he was born to crush. The darkness had won from the start. The anguish would surely erupt from Hindal, if he had had the agency.

In a flash, the light rose up above and cast the darkness to the far corners of the den.

The entity vanished…

Hindal was free of such thoughts as the two children, torch held high, searched for answers within the creatures’ den. They checked each man in turn, all the while aware that they had not yet seen the beast.

But Hindal knew there was far more than a shrew hidden in this darkness. Something was here to drain them. Drain them of hope, of their happiness. Of their very will to live. Yet the old man could not move. He could not warn them away. Whatever was down here, was insidious, the horrible shrew barely a catalyst.