Dawn of Darkness: Book 1 - Full (Where The Shadows Stalk)

by Adam Watson

  Greegan washed his face, it felt good to feel the cool water splash against his skin. The voices in his mind were quiet this morning, keeping their mumblings down to a low murmur. If he didn’t know better, he would have said that they too had had a restless night. He left the room and went over to the tavern area.

  He ordered a drink at the bar, then sat down in one of the secluded booths to give himself some time to think. Hopefully the voices would give him some guidance as to why he was here. The Innkeeper walked in from out the back and upon seeing Greegan seated at the booth immediately rushed over.

  “I’m … I’m terribly sorry My Lord, have you been sitting there long. Is there anything I can do to help you … anything at all?” For some strange reason Greegan didn’t think it odd that the Innkeeper was calling him my Lord, something had changed when he arrived here, he wasn’t sure what, but something had.

  “Well … I am hungry. Is there anything I can have for breakfast?” The Innkeeper nodded his head vigorously.

  “Yes, yes, of course, breakfast … how stupid of me to forget. Please forgive me, My Lord. You’ll be wanting the special breakfast; I’ll go and organise it straight away.” The Innkeeper quickly rushed off, as if he had suddenly found himself behind schedule.

  The voices seemed to awaken at the Innkeeper’s words. ‘YES! YES! YES! SSSSSPECIAL BREAKFAST!’ Oh, the special breakfast did excite them immensely, didn’t it? To Greegan it sounded like they were dancing and celebrating in his head. I wonder what it is … this ‘special’ breakfast.

  Whilst he was waiting for the Innkeeper he looked around the tavern. It was quiet now, which was to be expected at this time of the day, but he did notice a rather large and rough gentleman eyeballing him from the bar. Now what? He had been in town less than a day, and already the people here had a problem with him. Greegan decided to ignore him and set about studying the grain in the table he was sitting at.

  He could see the man drinking from the corner of his eye. Great. That was just what he needed, to deal with a drunk first thing in the morning. The large man downed the rest of his ale and proceeded to stagger over to Greegan.

  “You’re new in town, aren’t you stranger?” Greegan looked up at the man; his eyes were watery, his breath stunk, he was unshaven, and he looked as though he had come here straight from the mines.

  "That's right," answered Greegan. The drunk leant down on the table, his beer breath wafting into Greegan’s face.

  "We don't like strangers in this town." Greegan closed his eyes, the voices were going crazy. 'KILL HIM!', 'GOUGE OUT HIS EYES!', 'BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND!' Oh, they didn’t like people confronting them, did they? Kill him maybe ... but I'm not gouging his eyes out. The voices laughed and screamed like that was a hell of a joke. Greegan shook his head, the voices had guided him well so far, but sometimes their demands were completely unreasonable. Gouge his eyes out?

  "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but look, I promise I won't make any trouble."

  "You need to get out of here ... NOW!" Greegan was beginning to think that maybe gouging his eyes out wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He was just about to stand up when the Innkeeper walked back into the room. When the Innkeeper saw what was going on, his heart almost jumped into his mouth, and he rushed over as quickly as he could.

  "What is going on over here?" he demanded. "What are you doing Olav, you're not disturbing my guest are you?" Olav turned to Innkeeper drunkenly.

  "It’s all right Pascal. I'm just telling this stranger that he needs to move on." Pascal looked at Olav in horror, turning as white as a ghost.

  "Olav, you fool!" cried the Innkeeper. "Don't you realise that you are disturbing the current occupant of Room Eight?" Olav turned to Greegan, a look of horror on his face. He looked back at Pascal as though confirming his worst fears; the Innkeeper simply nodded back.

  "I ... er ... please forgive me My Lord" The drunk fell down to one knee and bowed his head. I-I didn't realise it was you." Greegan looked at the two in disbelief, the Innkeeper was on his knees now too. What was he supposed to say now?

  "I ... um ... forgive you." The two didn’t move, but continued kneeling, like they were waiting for something more; the Innkeeper didn’t even look like he was breathing. "Both of you." Both of them visibly relaxed and inhaled taking a deep breath.

  "Thank you, My Lord," said the drunk, he bowed again and quickly rushed out of the inn as fast as he could. The Innkeeper stood up and wiped the sweat off of his brow.

  "I’ll make sure that you are not disturbed again, My Lord." With that, the Innkeeper quickly rushed off again to check on the special breakfast.

  ***

  A short time later Greegan was busy eating his special breakfast when he sensed a figure standing in the corner of the room; his eyes squinted as he tried to take a closer look. There appeared to be a teenage girl watching him. Greegan continued eating the breakfast, and when he looked up again, she was still there staring at him.

  “Excuse me!” he shouted, across the room. The girl jumped, startled. “Are you watching me?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” replied the girl. Greegan scooped another forkful into his mouth.

  “Why?”

  “I’m supposed to be making sure nobody disturbs you.” Greegan nodded his head in contemplation. Fair enough.

  “What is your name?”

  “Romy.”

  “Romy?”

  “Yeah, Romy.” Apparently, Romy wasn’t a big talker.

  “Romy come, sit down. You’re making me nervous watching me from the shadows.” Romy smiled, she didn’t realise she was ‘in the shadows’. She came and sat across from Greegan in the booth.

  Greegan continued eating, whatever this special breakfast was, it was delicious, it seemed to be waking him up and filling him with energy. Romy eyed it with a look of distaste of her face.

  “That doesn’t look very nice.” Greegan woofed down another forkful.

  “It’s great … you should try some.” Romy shook her hands out in front of her as though warding off a great evil.

  “Oh no, no, no way. Master Pascal told me under no circumstances should I eat it, he said one mouthful could kill me.” Greegan stopped dead, the next forkful halfway to his mouth. He looked down at the plate, he had eaten almost all of it, but he still spat out what he had in his mouth.

  “He said WHAT??” These townsfolk were mad. First, they wanted to fight him, and now they’re trying to poison him.

  “It’s all right, don’t worry, you can eat it,” Romy said, with comforting tones. “It’s made for your kind.”

  “My kind? What’s that supposed to mean?” Romy sat still unsure of what to say. Her eyes darted from side to side, maybe she had said too much. Greegan was about to question her again when the Innkeeper entered the room. He took one look at Romy sitting with Greegan in the booth and immediately rushed over.

  “No, no, no, Romy no! I told you to watch from the corner to make sure nobody bothers our guest, not to sit there and natter away in his ear.” He quickly pulled Romy out of the booth and turned to Greegan. “I’m terribly sorry My Lord, there’s just so much to prepare and so little time.”

  “What are you preparing?" The Innkeeper looked at Greegan as if he had just made some kind of fantastical joke.

  "The Ascension of course, My Lord ... The Ascension." The Innkeeper then looked down at Romy, whose shirt he still had firmly in his grasp. "Let's go, Romy," he said, dragging her out of the room. "We have work to do." Greegan watched them leave. The townsfolk here were very strange, to say the least. And what was 'The Ascension' supposed to be?

  Greegan looked down at what was left of the special breakfast. What was Romy talking about? It still looked great, and he was hungry. Poison? He felt fine, if they were going to poison him, then he'd probably be dead already. Besides, the voices didn't seem to have a problem with it. 'EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT! BREATHE DEEPLY AND INHALE THE DARKNESS!' The last voice was always a bit more extreme than the others. Gree
gan scooped up another forkful and put it in his mouth. Oh yes ... it was nice, wasn't it?

  ***

  Heimel had worked in these mines most of his life. It was brutal work, considered backbreaking labour by most, but he didn’t mind it. The hard work had strengthened his body to a point where it now looked to be twenty years younger than his actual fifty-eight years of age. He smiled at the thought. Ah, if only his face had aged like his body - he'd still be a young man. Still, he couldn’t complain, he had been in the mines for forty-two years. It was dirty, it was dangerous and extremely physical, but he enjoyed it.

  Some of his fellow workers said he was crazy, that he was mad to enjoy such a hard job the way he did, but he didn’t see life in the mines the way the others saw it.

  He liked to imagine himself as one of the dwarves in the stories his father used to tell him when he was a little boy. Instead of mining ore as he did in real life, he imagined he was building a great underground city; carved from the rock and stone itself – what a sight that would be.

  His crew was working the 204 branch of the southwestern iron mine. It was the deepest, longest and most isolated part of any of the mines in the mountains - it was also considered to be the most dangerous. Until the crew had the support beams in place, the roof and surrounding walls were unstable, but the danger is what Heimel loved about the job. Nothing got his blood pumping faster or made him feel more alive than when he knew that he could be crushed by tonnes of rock at any second.

  He loved the feeling of being on edge; it scared him, but it also heightened his senses and so he dug, just like he had for the last four decades. Yes, he had heard all the stories, and yes, all the villagers said that the mountain was cursed, but in reality, he had seen nothing out of the ordinary for over forty years of working in and around these mountains. They’re just superstitious fools, he thought. If anyone knew these mountains, it was him.

  Chipping away at the ore, he became lost in thought. CHIP, CHIP, CHIP. He began to think about what had happened this morning. He had popped into the tavern for a quick ale and some quiet conversation, but all anyone would talk about was the fact that someone had booked into Room Eight. So what? People booked into inns all the time. And what? No-one’s ever booked into Room Eight before? He had said as much in the tavern. The argument he received back was that the occupant had clearly and specifically requested a room with a view overlooking a field.

  Were they for real? That was their argument? A man walks into an inn and asks for a room with a view, overlooking a field, and everybody starts acting like a rift to the Fifth Hell just opened up. Heimel laughed softly to himself as he chipped away at the rock. CHIP, CHIP, CHIP. What a morning, what a day, but even as he had that thought a most peculiar thing happened. CHIP, CHIP, CHIP, SPLOOG …… What was that?

  He tapped again; it wasn’t hard, it was soft. He leant closer to the rock face and examined the spot where he had been digging. There was a little splodge of red on the wall face. The light down there wasn’t the best, but there was definitely a red splodge on the wall. He lifted up his pickaxe and examined the point - that too had red on it. Odd. Heimal had no idea what it was.

  He turned back to the red spot on the surface of the wall. Was there something embedded into the rock? Was there something buried down here? And whatever it was, how did it get there? It was bizarre, to say the least. He lifted up his pickaxe again and started chipping around the red to see if he could expose more of … whatever it was.

  CHIP, CHIP, CHIP, CHIP. The rock fell away exposing more and more of the crimson object. What the fuck is that? Soon a two-foot section of the red was exposed and he still had no idea what it was, in fact, unveiling this thing had only deepened the mystery.

  “Gunthar, Rorgas, come quick and look at this.” Concerned, Heimal’s two mining companions rushed over to Heimal’s calls.

  “What is it Heimal?” asked Rorgas, as he approached.

  “Come here and look at this. Have you ever seen anything like it?” Gunthar joined Rorgas, moving his torch closer to light up the rockface. What they saw was even more bizarre than they could have imagined.

  “What in the Seventh Hell is that?” Gunthar asked, turning back to his friends; the look of bewilderment on their faces was a reflection of his own.

  “I have no idea.” Rorgas knelt in closer so that he could get a better look. He was about to run his hand across it, but then hesitated; for some reason he was afraid to touch it.

  “I’ve been in and around these mountains almost as long as you Heimal and I’ve never seen anything like this.” The fact that Rorgas couldn’t identify it was enough of a reason for Heimal feel uneasy.

  "It-It looks like flesh." Rorgas could hear the fear in Gunthar's voice, and there was no doubt in Heimal's mind that it did indeed look like flesh, but worse than that - unskinned fleshed.

  "By the gods, what could it be?" Nothing that came to Rorgas's mind made any sense. The trio stood staring at the fleshy object, they had only uncovered a small portion of something that seemed to be much larger.

  “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAHHH!” A voice, deep and foreboding tremored through the mountain. The earth shook, dust fell from the ceiling. The three of them stood still … silent … unblinking … they couldn’t take their gazes off of it. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAHHH!” The mountain shook again, violently. Pillars holding the ceiling creaked, rocks fell and rolled across the ground. The monstrous voice echoed in their minds, and it shook their bodies when it spoke.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWAAAKKEEENN!!” It was like the mountain itself spoke to them. Neither one of them moved an inch. They stood as if tranced and caught in a hypnotic snare from which they could not escape. The mountain was trembling; somewhere far in the peripheral of their minds, they could hear the screams and shouts of their fellow miners. Inside their minds, a voice could be heard - a loud booming voice, commanding them over and over again.

  ‘RELEASE ME! RELEASE ME! RELEASE ME!’ Heimal’s eyes could not move from that spot. The flesh … of the mountain. The very mountain in which he had spent most his life was demanding to be released. They all knew what they had to do. They grabbed their picks and starting hacking away at the fleshy wall and as they did a sanguine liquid flowed from the gashes and seeped into the ground below.

  The voice called to them, urging them on, commanding them to dig at a furious rate. They dug like demons possessed, covered in blood, their appetite was insatiable. They needed the blood, they needed it to flow. It was written, it was destiny - they could not be denied.

  Like a dam on the verge of bursting, the blood began to pour through the holes the three had made. A trickle turned into a stream, and still they hacked and hacked. ‘RELEASE ME!’ The voice screamed in their minds, they could not stop, they couldn’t help themselves, even if they wanted to. The wall burst open sending a flood down the tunnel.

  The crimson wave swept through the mine, washing away and destroying everything in its path. An unstoppable force, nobody stood a chance; death and destruction awaited all it encountered.

  That day Heimal, Gunthar, Rorgas and everyone else inside that mountain were obliterated and drowned; their bodies lost or washed out of the openings - the trio’s digging didn’t just start a flood, but a cataclysmic event.

  The blood veins of the mountain had burst, killing all those inside. It had filled and filled until it overflowed, spewing crimson rivers out of all entrances and deep into the valleys below.

  Now the blood pools had returned to Hagen’s Tooth and what was once just a myth had now become a reality - for this was not the first time that these mountains had bled.

  18. MAGMUS: JEUT’TAH’S CROSSING

  The party travelled through the night, not stopping until the daylight rose again; even then they only stopped for two hours. They still travelled the road to Tiet K’rea, tired and dishevelled, but they would not rest again until they reached some kind of civilisation. As the coach slowly ambled further and further south,
the party travelled in silence. It wasn’t until late in the day when a wheat field was spotted did their spirits rise.

  Wheat! Sweet wheat! The ears of grain that stuck out of the ground, creating the light-yellow fields that covered the countryside, had never looked so homely to Magmus. Wheat fields meant farmers, farmers meant homesteads and where there were homesteads there was bound to be a township; all townships had an inn. Inside the inn would be safety, safety from Lurkers and other things that stalked in the night.

  The first township of a reasonable size, that being a few hundred people turned out to be a small rural village known as Juet’tah’s crossing. It seemed to exist for the purpose of supplying the local farmers with goods and produce, and as a place where they could gather and barter in the local market. It also had some silos used to store harvested grain for the winter.

  Through the middle was the main street, this was also the road that led to Tiet K’rea in the south and Amalicia City in the north. To the sides, there were some streets that Magmus presumed contained housing. The general store was located on the main street along with an inn called the Berkley Tanklar. The coach pulled up in front of the inn, and both Magmus and Cassandra got out.

  “You two stay out here and guard the coach,” Magmus said, pointing to Randall and Erwan. Magmus looked to the top of the coach where Torvar was still perched. “And keep an eye on him … we’ll handle this.” Magmus proceeded to enter through the door of the inn with Cassandra following close behind.

  “This place looks seedy,” Cassandra whispered, with a tone of concern. Magmus nodded, yes it was run down, but what did she expect … the grand palace?

  “It has to be better than camping out.” With that comment, Cassandra had to agree. She thought back to the slimy green creatures with their flat frog-like faces and shuddered. Then she thought about the explosion and went strangely silent. No, she didn’t want that to happen again. When they reached the front desk, the Innkeeper greeted them.

  “Greetings travellers, how may I help you?” The tone of his voice had an air of happiness about it. Magmus smiled, it was good to find someone so welcoming after the previous night's ordeal.