* * *
The Silver Knight always had a feeling that something wasn’t right in the woods. In his many encounters with the Evil, he could not shake the feeling that he would never triumph. It wasn’t a fear, for he feared nothing. It was, however, becoming a certainty. The dark lord had powers that the knight had no offense to counter. Ancient evils imbued into his very skin that prevented even the most fearsome strikes from drawing blood. But the knight would not give into his doubts. His past failures were in the past. Lord Stansbury’s power could not hold against his assaults forever.
His current attack had been meticulously planned. Every detail had been accounted for. He knew that Lord Stansbury’s center of power was the bridge itself and while his past attempts to bring it down had always ended poorly, this time it could not stand. He had destroyed too many models and damaged far more than that in his need to be certain…that chance could not intervene and once again keep him from his quest to rid his lands of this evil that had lingered far too long.
He approached Lord Stansbury’s Abomination fearlessly. It stood as always, spanning the small placid lake and seeming to sit on the surface of the water without support. Red like nothing in nature and like no other bridge. It never faded and it had a glow that was intensified on days like these where the lake reflected it perfectly. From a distance, it bore some similarity to others of its type, but the Silver Knight had studied it and knew its construction was like no other. Its struts and braces bent in impossible angles and were inscribed with arcane symbols that had no known meaning. It was only open on the ends and what light might enter was blocked so that to look through it, one could only see darkness and nothing more.
It was from that darkness that the Evil called out to him. “You come again to battle. You come again to fail.”
He once again held his ground as the Evil came forth. It was as if the darkness had become flesh and armor and extended its black essence from the shadows. Its eyes did not glow nor was it accompanied by flames or smoke. It simply was the dark come to life and even its words seemed to extinguish the light around it.
The Silver Knight had learned long ago that to bandy words with the foul creature upon the bridge was useless. With the grim determination that is only born of thwarted desire, he hefted his great axe and let loose a mighty swing and roared out his fiercest war cry.
Lakebridge: Spring (Supernatural Horror Literary Fiction) Page 5