Dark Age

by Felix O. Hartmann

  Peter and I were almost there. He looked at me with a mortified glance. I knew he saw the fear in my eyes. The shot seemed fatal but I could still hear Nigel cough.

  I turned to see the archer.

  It was Janari aiming for my head.

  Chapter 25

  My feet froze in the middle of my sprint. The adrenaline that had pumped through my veins moments ago vanished into nothingness and left my body motionless. The moment our eyes met, her arrow left the string. It was in that moment that she recognized me, and it was that moment, that the dark gloom in her eyes disappeared.

  Numbed by the unexpected encounter I did not even notice the dripping wound in my left shoulder until the warm blood touched my hands. Janari let her bow sink as the two of us gazed into each other’s familiar yet estranged faces. With clenched teeth I broke the arrow off and started running towards her. She dropped her bow and rushed down the forest floor. Her face was pained. It was not until now that she saw the monster she had let herself turn into because of the pain she had suffered from the Guard.

  My feet carried me like the wind toward her. Her eyes were fixed on me.

  “I’ll get that witch for you, Adam,” John yelled.

  Mere feet from Janari, I turned my head toward him. His left arm was extended clasping his bow. His right had already released death.

  I screamed for it to stop. Unknowing of what was coming her way Janari jumped towards me.

  The moment I caught her all noise ceased, leaving nothing but the muffled voices of the others. Our warm bodies were like one entity in a sea of cold.

  A snowflake fell on her forehead. Gently I brushed it away.

  “I…, am sorry Adam,” she whispered, her angelic voice consumed by pain. Her hands pressed on her stomach, where the arrow had entered her flesh. “I always wanted to be different and bring change,” she said slowly with tears running down her cheeks, “but we are all the same.”

  “Shut up,” I said with a lump forming in my throat. “Don’t go. Fight it Janari. We can run off to Africa.”

  “We will meet again, Adam. I just hope it will be in a world brighter than this one.”

  “Please,” I begged her to live.

  With a smile she closed her eyes, and left me behind. I bowed down and gave her paling lips a kiss. She had killed Nigel, but she was no murderer. In the end she was the victim. A victim of timeless hatred.

  “I shall see you again,” I whispered, “when this never-ending night passes and the day breaks.” I lowered her still body into the soft snow. “Go gently my love,” I said, and let her go.

  A violent scream emerged from behind me. Her brothers had come to revenge their sister. John lay dead in the snow, his eyes wide open, filled with the terror of surprise. They cut us off from the direct route back to the settlement, driving us deeper into the woods. Perhaps more of them awaited us there. Peter pulled me by the arm onto my feet. I grabbed his shoulder and ordered him, “Go! Warn the others, I will hold them off while you make a run for it!”

  “I am not leaving you here!” he yelled back at me with the same commanding tone.

  I wanted to slap him and give him a beating so he would go. The fool had risked his life too many times for me. But in his eyes I saw that no word or act could make him leave. The twins were almost in front of us, giving us just enough time to draw our swords and stand shoulder to shoulder.

  I did not want to fight them. After all they were Janari’s brothers. I pleaded them to hear me out. But as much as I tried to appease them in their language, they would not listen. It was them or us. And I knew it had to be us.

  The ground underneath our feet shuddered to every step they took. Each stomp sent a shiver down my spine, as the two monstrosities approached us. Once their grotesque heads loomed above ours, I found their bodies more disturbing than I had observed from far. Despite all I had learned about them, it seemed difficult to accept them as humans, yet so easy to mark them as monsters. Their statures were hunched yet enormous; their movements were jerky yet powerful; their expressions were empty yet cold. If I wanted to beat them, I could not think of them as humans.

  An axe, as big as our heads, greeted us, slashing down with immense speed.

  The imminent threat wakened me from the pain of my wounded shoulder. My teeth clenched, my hands formed fists, my eyes focused in on the enemy. When both prepared to strike out at us, I jumped through the void in between them. Peter distracted the two leaving their backs vulnerable to my blade.

  I lunged at the one with the missing eye. My sword cut across his back, evoking a painful cry. I expected the birds to flee at this noise but all the wildlife had long ago deserted us.

  My benefit of surprise did not last long. Right after I attacked the cripple, it spun around, viciously hitting with its club into empty air. It had neither the instinct of an animal nor the intelligence of a regular human. With inches separating me from death, it missed my head just a second before Peter rammed his sword through the monster’s back.

  It cried out into the forest sky so loud that I almost went deaf. The scream alone was a powerful weapon. The distraction made it harder to dodge their blows. To our despair the one eyed cripple kept fighting.

  All my muscles tensed and I could feel the sweat soak my clothes and armor from underneath. But compared to those creatures I still smelled like heaven.

  Peter and I stood back to back, as the monsters walked in a circle around us. The stab began to take its toll on the cripple. More and more blood left its body. When it was ready to lunge and strike me, my arm shot out and slit its throat. Like dead weight, the large body collapsed in my direction. I jumped aside, but it was too late for Peter. With his back towards me it had caught him unaware and knocked him to the ground. The remaining brother of Janari, the one with the deformed hand, lifted up his axe to give Peter the final blow.

  My bleeding body raised itself from the ground. With all the strength I could muster I slashed my sword against the descending axe, cutting off the blades from the shaft. In its anger the monster growled at me and dropped the stick. With an immense blow using the crippled hand, it struck me so powerfully that I lost hold of my sword.

  The game had changed. The sharpness of our weapons and our skill in wielding them no longer mattered. It was down to raw power.

  Walking in circles around the cripple, my fists danced in front of my face. Its punches went straight for my head. Sweat dripped down my entire body, mixing with the blood that oozed out of various bruises and cuts. In disgust I spit the blood that filled my mouth at the monster. A few more punches and it would have cracked open my skull. With all I had left in me, I charged at it and grabbed it by its wrists, while ramming my knee repeatedly into its stomach. Ringing for air, it collapsed to its knees. With a forceful kick I hit its head to the ground. A deep exhausted sigh resounded and the monster closed its eyes.

  My thoughts raced back to Peter. I immediately returned to his weak body that had been buried under the other creature. Had he not exhausted himself so much in the fight, he could have freed himself, but the body was just too heavy. With shared strength we rolled the cadaver off of him.

  His eyes had little luster, but so had mine. We barely escaped our death, yet all that we cared about was living; standing on our own feet and still having an ounce of blood in our bodies. What I cherished more than anything in that moment was our chance to still live out our dreams and one day return to the city. It was a privilege indeed, I thought, scanning the ground that was filled with blood, corpses, and lost souls. Nigel and his happiness had left our world forever. He was never going to return to marry the girl that bore the child he never met. John as much as I hated him now, died due to a mere misunderstanding. And Janari… will never see Africa, never see peace, and never see me again.

  Peter and I fell into each other’s arms, thankful for another and thankful for life. He had saved my life, and I had saved his. Our friendship had made us brothers.

  His grip tightened
and his entire body tensed. Ruthlessly he pushed me to the ground and picked his sword up from the floor.

  I turned my head in confusion as I hit the floor. The one handed monster was back on its feet. With a full thrust it rammed my lost sword into Peter’s front. That same moment Peter extended his arm, letting the Monster run into his blade. The scene froze as both parties stood motionlessly there, staring into nothingness.

  It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I got to my feet and grabbed Peter’s sword to finish the dying Monster off, just before I caught my collapsing friend.

  His breaths were slow and heavy. The sword dove into the chainmail so forcefully that the tip still severed his skin and flesh close to his heart.

  “We did it, Adam,” Peter said in a voice as faint as a whisper.

  The wound did not appear to be fatal, letting tears of joy run down my face.

  Then his shirt caught my eyes. In less than twenty seconds it had turned from a solid grey to a dark red. The blood was leaving Peter and so were his spirits.

  “Go ahead, you need to get your shoulder fixed, I’ll be right behind you,” Peter told me as if he were waiting to enjoy the sunset. He could mislead me with words, but his tone was unmistakable.

  “Quit the talk and let me slow the bleeding,” I said while taking off his armor. His upper body was scarred, beaten, and weak, unlike the warrior I always knew him as. The wound had cut deep and was a few inches long. It severed a major vein, but just a little closer to the heart and it would have immediately killed him.

  I had minutes at best. With a handful of pearl white snow, I cleaned his wound, and pressed it closed with pieces of John’s shirt. Once I had covered up the injury, I tied Peter’s shirt around his chest to keep the other cloth in place. It was far from ideal, but all I could do in the circumstance.

  “Can you walk?” I asked.

  “I’ll try,” he responded weakly with flickering eyes and put his arm around my neck for support.

  We made our way back through the forest, but our steps progressively slowed. His power faded and my shoulder began to burn. To make things worse, the walking raised his heart rate and made the bleeding stronger. Either we walked slowly, risking him bleeding out, or we walked faster, causing the bleeding to speed up as well.

  At one point even those two options left us. Before I could grab him tighter, his arm slipped from my shoulder and he fell onto his knees. His eyes looked down, away from mine.

  “Adam, promise me one thing,” he began.

  With sharpened ears I waited, resentful for what was about to come.

  “When you return to the city, tell all the pretty girls how heroically I died, so that when they go to heaven, they come searching for me,” he chuckled painfully in a bittersweet tone. He slowly lifted his face, and I saw tears rolling down his cheeks, “I’m scared… brother.”

  I had a million things to say to him. Goodbyes, wise words, apologies. All that I brought forth was, “It’s not your time yet.”

  I knelt down next to him, grabbed his legs and head under my arms, and pushed myself to my feet. The pain in my shoulder exploded, causing me to fall back down to my knees. I wanted to pull the rest of the bolt out, but while it was my curse it was the one thing that kept me from bleeding out.

  All the pain shot an urge to vomit through my body, but I had to keep composure. I could not tell which pain was the worst. While the bolt burned in my shoulder, the fear of Peter’s death, after losing Janari and Nigel, torched my soul.

  With powers unbeknown to me I picked him up and set him on my healthy shoulder. Without delay I ran as fast as I could. Body and mind were strained to the fullest, as my calves tensed at every step and my brain fought the idea of losing Peter.

  His body turned limp as no muscles seemed to hold it together. With vigor I pushed through the thicket and entered the plain. The outer wall was in sight, promisingly outlined by the colorful fading sunset.

  “Help!” I cried. With tears in my eyes I screamed it over and over. Every second I did not see a guard rushing my way, feelings of loneliness and helplessness consumed me.

  Finally, in the distance, guards exited the outer gate in quickening steps.

  As they closed in, my power faded. I broke down into my knees and Peter rolled off my back. Gasping for air I lay in the snow facing him. His eyelids had halfway covered his emerald green eyes. Dizziness multiplied the pain all over my body. My sight became blurry and the running feet of the Guards approached me like thunder. With my last word I cried out his name.

  Chapter 26

  A shudder as cold as ice shot across my skin. With wide eyes I sat up and found myself in a dark room. Just a faint square of light shone through a tiny window above my head, giving outlines to everything around me. As my senses returned, so did the pain. A bloody bandage covered my burning shoulder, while the rest of my upper body lay bare.

  Someone had already taken out the arrowhead and the wooden splinters to clean the wound and prevent infection. Luckily no bone felt broken.

  I pushed myself onto the corner of the bed and collected my thoughts. The images of Nigel, John, and Janari’s death passed in front of my eyes. They were still fresh and so incomprehensible. It stung thinking of them. Their memory burned so much harsher in my heart than any arrow could have.

  Rising from the bed I walked over to the door. An instant dizziness clouded my head, like a million needles pricking my forehead. My hand found support at the wall as I opened the door to the floor.

  An absent minded looking old man, wearing a white cloak, walked through the corridor with a book in his hands, while Yorick descended the stairs from the officer quarters with loud steps.

  “Doctor, why is the guard on his feet, shouldn’t he be resting,” he asked angrily.

  “Where is Peter?” I demanded before the doctor could respond.

  Yorick gave the doctor a harsh glance and then focused back on me. He looked me straight in the eye, “By the time the guards picked the two of you up, Peter had already been dead. There was nothing we could do, I am sorry Adam.”

  My eyes scanned the many doors, expecting Peter to pop out as a surprise. But no such thing happened. Unlike anyone else, Yorick gave me the news cold, hard, and fast. It took a minute until the reality registered in my mind.

  As the first tear rolled down my cheek I kicked the door slam shut. In all my anger I punched the wall so forcefully that my knuckles bled. I was never a loud person but I needed to release my anger. Ignoring the damaged shoulder I knocked over the chair, and flipped over the second bed in the room.

  It all just did not make sense… all of them dead. Peter, Nigel, Janari. The little stability, the few friends I had, wiped out from one day to the next.

  Yorick entered and observed me carefully, “The best thing to do now is to get rest. We need you back out there as soon as possible. If the doctor allows it, you can bring him to the city tomorrow.” He paused for a moment, receiving no reaction but my slowed breathing. “Who were friends close to Peter that we should notify?” Yorick asked.

  “Nig…,” instinctively I wanted to say Nigel, but recalled the arrow darting through his chest. “Stephan and James were his closest friends,” I corrected myself. “Stephan works in the mines and James on the fields.” Before I turned away I swallowed the lump in my throat, and added with some composure, “Thank you, Yorick. If there is nothing else I am going to go back to my bed. I think I need some quiet.”

  Throughout the night, haunting images of Peter, Janari, and Nigel kept me awake. Some showed me their dying moments, others were completely harmless. But the innocent dreams hurt the most. Seeing myself with Peter and Nigel talking around the campfire or teaching Janari words while watching the stars, was just another reminder of the moments I would never be able to relive again.

  The morning drew closer as I lay in bed with open eyes. A fly entered the room and joyfully buzzed through the air. With nothing better to do, I observed the little creature in the hope to fa
ll back asleep. Its relaxed flight was many times suddenly interrupted by frantic fear. With a touch of madness it flew against the window repeatedly in the attempt to get out. Eventually it resigned, only to try again a few minutes later.

  When the doctor came in, the little creature escaped the room through the door. From one of the shelves he fetched a large role of bandages and took a seat next to my bed. Carefully he tied them around my arm and shoulder, forming a sling.

  “The arrow pierced into muscle tissue,” he said knotting the bandage at my back. “You will have to wear this restraint day and night from now on. Otherwise your shoulder will be damaged permanently. It needs to grow back together, and that may take a few months.”

  It was time to bring them to the city. Peter lay peacefully and undisturbed in one of the body carts in front of the officer-building. Dressed in full armor, his hands joined at his chest holding a sword facing down. His rested face morphed in my mind back to the boy that had talked to me at my celebration. Looking at him, our many memories flashed before me from our days in the city to our years in the Guard. From our first fight in training to that final fight.

  The wagon beside him carried Nigel, whose sun tanned skin had turned pallid. His mischievous smile was wiped away by a frozen look of anguish.

  By the time they had found John’s body, it had been mutilated by the beasts so much that Yorick decided to just bury him and send in a stone. The third wagon therefore held a tombstone with John’s name, birth and death date.

  Igor, who had abandoned us along with Marc the moment we were ambushed, reported that the bodies of the savages had vanished by the time he returned to recover Nigel and John. Somewhere in the woods, Janari too would be buried and disappear from the surface of the earth forever.

  Stephan and James stood at my side with pained but compassionate faces. Without words we hugged another, barely able to suppress our tears. We all had seen death, yet it had never been so real and close to us.