Dark Age

by Felix O. Hartmann

  Terric unleashed his two handed sword from his back and spun around at Yorick. Like a snake Yorick dodged with lightning fast speed and stood unharmed next to Terric. With all the pain that filled his heart, Terric kept slashing out for Yorick. The death of the chief and the loss of the chance to peace distracted him too much to beat Yorick, whose focus was never better than in battle.

  “I always knew that you should not be first-in-command,” growled Yorick who drew two battleaxes from his belt and spun them in his hands. The guards had finished the villagers off and set the last houses on fire. At last they formed a circle around their two leaders. Sparks flew into the air when the axes clashed against Terric’s sword in full swing. As the axes’ edges interlocked with the sword, Yorick ripped the sword from Terric’s grasp with a tug.

  Without wasting a second he let the sword go and pulled two one handed swords from his belt. For a few seconds they walked in circles waiting for the other to attack. Yorick insulted Terric with every step they took, yet the latter kept composure. Once the first swing landed, chaos erupted in a quick and wild exchange of blows.

  Blades clashed, weapons were dropped, and quickly replaced by others found on the ground. The fight was long, yet rushed by so quickly. No one had seen a fight this flawless in performance, yet filled with such emotional intensity. Their swords crossed up close and a battle for the upper hand began. Both colossal men pushed with all their might against the blade of the other. With an outcry Terric pushed Yorick’s weapon to the ground and rammed him with his shoulder. Yorick staggered backwards, almost losing balance, while Terric clenched his teeth, and stabbed his blade at his opponent’s throat. His arm was fully extended, yet the tip failed to pierce his enemy’s neck. Inches lay in between.

  With utter control Yorick pushed the tip of the blade to the side and ordered his men loudly, “Detain them.” From all sides guards swarmed onto me and Terric. He tried to fight them but was knocked to the ground. From all around they kicked and hit his defenseless body. Resistance was only an excuse for them to kill us. I wanted to help him and pushed through their blocking bodies, but was immediately knocked unconscious.

  Chapter 23

  I awoke in a dim lit prison cell. A shiver ran down my spine, cold touching me all around. My clothes were moist from the wet stone floor, amplifying the freezing feeling even more. Except for the lampion that stood outside my cell, complete darkness consumed the room. For a moment I thought I was alone until I found Terric, beaten and bloody, on the floor next to me. I whispered to him but received no answer.

  I could not tell what time or even day it was. The cell must have been somewhere beneath the ground offering not a single ray of light. My near naked body screamed for warmth. They had stripped me off everything: Armor, weapons, tools… even the eagle necklace, my last memory of her. The only thing they had left me was a shirt, now covered in dirt and blood.

  Terric never said a word, lost in a state of muteness. He did not even look at me until the day they took him away. I was awoken from my sleep to the creaking of the cell door. Five guards pulled Terric out of the cell, and dragged him up a flight of stairs. For but a brief moment he glanced back. He did not say a word or signal me anything. He just left the prison as a broken man. The eagle had lost his wings.

  There was nothing to do and nothing to say. I was lost in that prison cell thinking and thinking until I wished I could just stop thinking for once. I started resorting to sleep; long forced sleep, where I would close my eyes, whenever awake, until I fell asleep. After a while the concept of time had been lost, as it felt like one endless painful day that never ended.

  Every now and then a rat scurried through my cell. In my delusion I tried to befriend it, seeing it as the only living thing around me. My wish for friendship was only broken when I found my tray of food havocked by the little creature while I was sleeping. My delusion turned into rage. I chased it down the cell with the burning desire to eat it; dead or alive, I just needed to fight my horrid hunger.

  When I noticed myself slimming, I began to work out again. My hunger barely allowed me a complete set of exercises, but it was better than letting my physique entirely crumble. After I broke down in exhaustion, I stared at the dark dungeon ceiling and was carried back to the many times I watched the night sky with Katrina and Janari. It was almost the same, but Orion was no longer watching over me.

  The more I delved into my past the more I began to question the turns my life had taken. “What if?” I asked myself. What if I had killed the Inquisitor that one night? What if I had run off with Janari? What if I had just worked with Yorick? What if I had never dropped my necklace and never went back to find it and meet Janari? With my current situation all scenarios seemed to lead me somewhere better than I was at right now.

  When the dreams became too painful I forced myself to stay awake entirely. I decided to count seconds to regain my sense of time. My goal was to count through a whole day. It was a difficult task to stay focused for so long, but it helped me to think less of all that had happened. Every now and then I drifted off, but my mouth kept counting. I found that three hours had gone by when it felt like just fifteen minutes had passed. Other times the reverse was true. The only useful observation from the counting was that I received one tray of food a day and many hours later a bowl of stew with a piece of bread. I figured that the two signified breakfast and dinner, thereby giving me an idea of when it was morning and when it was evening.

  My beard and hair had already grown out. For all I knew I was locked up for ages.

  When I was ready to receive my supper one night I was surprised by familiar voices I had not heard in a long time, “Adam!” it whispered commandingly, “Wake up!”

  Peter and Nigel stood outside the cell with their fingers wrapped around the bars, “We don’t have much time. We didn’t know you were being held here. When we found out we tried to break in multiple times, but couldn’t get passed the guards. We bribed them to let us in for a few minutes.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “That was what I was going to ask you,” he said with a frown. “Well, Yorick and his men successfully destroyed a savage camp. Rumor has it that you and Terric were there, but that makes little sense. Anyhow, when the Inquisition learned from Yorick’s achievement, they put him first-in-command. After Terric had healed, he left the hospital and rode into the woods with a few men. The men returned and said he disappeared. Nobody has seen him since,” explained Peter.

  “Terric wasn’t in the hospital, he was right here next to me. This all doesn’t add up. Why am I here? How long have I been here?” I asked hurriedly trying to understand the blanks in my memory.

  Nigel looked at Peter worriedly, “Ya have been in here for a year now,” he said. “But look at the bright side. One year less where ya could have been killed out there.”

  “Don’t you remember Adam?” asked Peter interrupting Nigel. “You were convicted and detained for poisoning Jacob. He nearly died after drinking from that flask you gave him. He was in the hospital for weeks, nobody saw him. I knew you wouldn’t have done it, but there were so many witnesses attesting that you gave him that flask.”

  “It was all Yorick!” I protested intending to explain myself.

  “Listen, Adam. We don’t have time for explanations. You can tell me all about it when you are out.”

  “But how?” I asked, still trying to comprehend all that had happened.

  “We will get you out of here. I wrote an anonymous letter to the Inquisitor and put it in one of the carts of a recently deceased guard. If everything works out they will find the letter and deliver it to the Inquisitor. I heard that was one of the many ways Yorick communicated and traded with the city,” explained Peter with a calming voice.

  “Why would the Inquisitor do anything?” I asked.

  “Yorick had created this prison beneath the officer building without the knowledge of Terric or the Inquisitor. You have not seen the worst parts. When Yorick
took over command he changed the rules on discipline and authority. Men that do not subordinate themselves to Yorick or disrespect him are tortured in public. A whole set of tools only the devil could have invented stand in front of the common-hall. Just being here could earn us a flogging,” he said with a worried glance to the stairs. “I wrote the Inquisitor that we have a shortage of men, and pointed out that some were being detained, which appeared rather wasteful. Knowing the man, he won’t send us any resources to help, so requesting the prisoners’ release will be an easy way out for him.”

  A sound came from upstairs. Nigel tugged Peter by the sleeve, who let go of the bars and took a few steps back, “Our time is running out, stay strong Adam. We have to leave.”

  Before I could say any more they were running up the stairs and I was once again consumed by the darkness of my prison cell. One thing was for sure. When, or better if, I got out of this cell, I needed to control my spite for Yorick. I had to act my part, and make him believe that I was one of his men.

  The next few days I resumed my training in the prison cell and used every minute to get back in shape and focus my mind on the task at hand: Survival. I had to make it through less than six more years to return to the city.

  Within that same week, a group of guards led by Yorick came down the stairs and unbolted the prison cell.

  “I don’t know how you did it, but you are free to leave,” Yorick said slightly bothered.

  “Thank you, Master,” I responded obediently.

  He nodded pleased, “Seems like sitting down here has given you some sense. For your information it is January 7th, 2160 and it is Monday. It is fairly late, so you are free for the day. Go wash and shave, I don’t want any more letters to the Inquisitor about prisoner treatment. Tomorrow your camp is expecting you.”

  I nodded thankfully and added, “One last thing Master, where can I find my armor, weapons and other things I was carrying when I was detained?”

  “Your armor and weapons lie ready in the cottage at your new spot. As for the other things,” Yorick looked towards his men, “they must have gotten lost over the year.”

  As much as I wanted to give him a feisty response, I contained my anger, remembering my plan to befriend Yorick. At last I had made my deal with the devil and as we ascended the stairs finally returned from hell back to the land of the living.

  Chapter 24

  “Almost done,” said Peter as he finished cutting my hair.

  “It’s useful to have a barber for a friend,” I remarked, looking at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was wavy and almost down to my shoulders, while my beard was cleanly trimmed with only a light shade remaining all around.

  “That’s it,” he exclaimed triumphantly, energized by practicing his profession. “Now you no longer look like a drunken homeless man. Go and get ready, the others are eager to see you. You deserve a nice dinner and drink after that pit you have been rotting in.”

  “Oh, and one more thing,” he said pulling something from his pocket. With a wink, he tossed my eagle necklace into my open palm, “I found it around the neck of one of the guards whose hair I cut. I knew it belonged to you, so I snatched it.”

  In times of peril, having good friends was invaluable. Peter and I had been close friends already in the city, but after getting me out of that prison and even looking after my memory of Katrina, he had proven to be far more than just a friend. He was a brother to me.

  “He has returned!” exclaimed Stephan upon seeing me enter the common-hall. They all huddled around me, greeting and embracing me one after the other. Some of them had changed over the past year but most looked nearly identical as the day I was taken.

  It seemed as if the whole Guard had known about my incarceration. Word must have spread quickly. Except for the men I deemed friends most other Guardsmen looked at me with suspicion and distrust. I could sense the people at the other tables spreading rumors about me. It was then when I recognized the totality of facts surrounding me. Not only had I supposedly attempted to kill Jacob by poison, but many saw me nearly beat a handful of fellow guards to death in order to protect Janari.

  “It’s been almost five years now,” announced Peter. “I want to give this toast to us all. The five of us have been strong throughout and not allowed any of the others to fall behind. Many of the men we trained with have passed away, but thanks to each and every one of you, we are still right here. To you James, who always holds us back from doing too many stupid things. To you Nigel, who makes sure we still do enough stupid things to enjoy the Guard. To you Stephan, who always steps up and has my back when things go wrong. To you Adam, who always tries to find ways to die by doing what most are not man enough to do. To us, and to immortality.”

  “To immortality,” I repeated, thinking of the doom that wish had brought upon mankind a century ago. Our mortality gave this moment value. As we bumped our mugs together in the center of our circle, I looked at each and every one of my friends. I cherished the moment because I knew that our luck would not last forever. I never would have thought that the day I went out to bring peace could have been the last time I saw Terric or Janari. Life had its unsuspecting turns. For years it does not move, almost like a still painting, and at once the whole consistency changes wildly, like a drop of blood falling into a glass of water spreading by the seconds until it discolors the entire substance.

  A guard with a stern look rang a tiny bell at the entrance of the common-hall. Immediately the whole company finished their drinks and rose to leave. “Let’s go, out here!” yelled the man at the door.

  I shot Peter an inquisitive look, “Yorick set up new curfews. Nobody is allowed to walk outside the cottages after ten o’clock,” he whispered.

  Like a herd of sheep we were led outside the common-hall and given a glance at the row of torture instruments. Even now a man was being pulled by his limbs on the rack, filling the air with violent cries of pain. There had never been enough criminal behavior to torture at least one guard a night. It seemed rather haphazard how Yorick chose his criminals just to set examples every day. I had to make sure I did not become one of them.

  Winter had come and so had the snow. With its icy claws the cold cut into our skins and stole the warmth from our core. When we could not escape the freezing pain for hours it began to meddle with our psych.

  I marched down the snowy trail towards our camp with the others at my side. The sounds of our movements were muted by the thick layer of snow that crackled lightly when our soles pressed down on it. After a short time my boots were soaked by the snow and my feet began to freeze.

  “Let’s get out of here quickly,” said Peter leading our group of six. “We cannot stay outside for too long but we have to finish our job. We need to cover at least a third of our zone. Shake the snow off the trees to make sure it does not weigh too heavily on them. But do everything quietly. You don’t want to wake any of the animals in their hibernation.”

  “After all, we wanna eat them and their children the coming years,” remarked Nigel with a grin.

  “Also if you see a dead tree, cut it down. When they freeze below a certain point, they burst and potentially crush some of the younger trees.”

  For a few hours we delved deeper and deeper into the woods, until we grew tired. Taking a rest however was never an option. Jacob, who by now had finished his service, once told us about a Guardsman who stayed behind his group, saying he would only rest for a moment. He was convinced he would get up any moment until he couldn’t. His muscles had grown too tired and weak because of the cold and so he froze to death leaning against a tree. Winter indeed was a devil in disguise. In its white crystalline beauty and silent tranquility it hid from the eye the destruction it caused. Deer were starved to the rips or never awoke from their sleep, trees burst in their core as the cold soaked up all the liquid within them, and men got lost in the white maze after the snow covered their tracks.

  “Alright, we’ll do one more hour,” Peter said unrolling a map of
the woods. “We covered the southeastern and eastern quadrant, let’s finish northeast and we can go home.”

  We strolled out in between the trees and drove up north. The sun had passed its highest point and had halfway set at the horizon. Up ahead bright yellow lines on a row of tree trunks marked the end of our zone.

  “Let’s make it a race! We can check the trees on the way back,” said Nigel. “Whoever gets there first gets a free drink from the others.”

  Before we could take the bet he bolted towards the markers. Immediately we chased after him. Peter was right next to me trying to outrun me. He bumped me in the side and laughed wholeheartedly when I fell behind for a few seconds. Nigel had almost reached the markers closely followed by John. Igor and Marc slowly trotted behind us, disinterested in our little challenge.

  Peter and I slowed knowing that we had no chance of catching up to Nigel or John. With inches of separation Nigel touched the tree and spun around with a triumphant smile. John was bent over with his hands on his knees gasping for air.

  Something in his expression changed. Alarm and terror spread across his face while Nigel still celebrated his victory and boasted about his speed.

  John jumped up and tried to push Nigel aside. By the time his hand had reached him, an arrow flew through the air and pierced Nigel into the chest. My mind flashed back to the chief as I saw Nigel standing in the snow with all expression sucked from his face.

  The moment slowed as Peter and I ran towards our friend. Nigel’s eyes glazed in pain. His skin paled. His body trembled out of fear; the fear of death. John took the bow from his shoulder. He stepped back. With shaking hands Nigel touched the spot where the arrow had hit him. The chainmail was penetrated with the tip inches deep in his flesh. Frightened he lifted his hand and collapsed. It was covered in blood.

  Igor and Marc saw the red pool on the white snow and ran off. Trying to fetch an arrow John reached for the quiver. His hands trembled, breaking an arrow by accident.