by Lee C Conley
‘Perhaps he has somewhere better to be?’ said Fergus.
‘We should follow and see what is up there,’ said Arnulf. After a pause he said, ‘Perhaps he is leading us somewhere?’
Fergus’s cheerful face turned suddenly serious.
‘It could be some trick, a foul creature in disguise, trying to lure us to where it wants us.’
Arnulf looked at his old friend.
‘Only the gods know?’ replied Arnulf. ‘Perhaps it is as you say and we are here to be tested.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t fancy coming back up here again if I don’t have to. I mean to follow that track and see where it leads,’ said Arnulf before steeling himself, and then tracing the wheel ruts that led into the trees, he followed after the great hound.
The track led them deeper into the woods. It was overgrown and littered with stones hidden in the undergrowth. The hound padded gently between the two wheel ruts which were often the only sign that they were following a track at all.
The trees grew squat and twisted. Arnulf ducked low looking under the foliage. He could see little more than the expanse of thin tree trunks disappearing into the thick tangle of branches above, like the columns of a low vaulted hall. He could see little else before the gloom of the forest beyond obscured his view.
Behind, Hafgan walked beside Fergus and they were talking quietly of the horse’s refusal to follow with Erran. The young lad was the son of a horse breeder, he knew his horses. Other than their quiet mutterings all was silent, not even the call of birds which Arnulf noted with some unease.
Before long the trees began to thin out slightly to reveal glimpses of ancient crumbling masonry amongst the undergrowth. Strange carved stones lay in ruin, weathered by countless years of wind and rain. Ancient vistas of paved stone now overgrown and covered by moss could be made out between the thickets of brambles and twisted trees.
The hound padded on, occasionally turning back and awaiting his wary followers before again moving off ahead once more, following the wheel ruts that wove through the mysterious emerging ruins.
‘Arnulf, we must tread lightly,’ called Fergus. Fergus walked behind and peered around at the strange crumbling walls that were now visible, giving only a hint of their former design.
‘This place has a grim feel. I think we would do well not to awaken the spirits that slumber in this place,’ continued Fergus.
‘Indeed, m’lord, old spirits must certainly haunt this place,’ added Hafgan.
Arnulf clutched at the charm hung at his neck.
‘Aye, we will not linger, but I must know where this great beast is leading us,’ said Arnulf, nodding at the hound ahead.
The great grey dog was again sitting on his haunches ahead of them. His tongue lolled from his mouth, panting, seemingly awaiting their approach. No doubt waiting to again slink off ahead, leading them deeper into the ruin. The hound instead left the cart track and disappeared off between the crumbling masonry.
‘Arnulf!’ exclaimed Fergus. ‘Where has it gone? I don’t like this. It feels like we are being watched. This creature is leading us to our doom. Haf, tell him.’
Hafgan stepped forward so the others could not hear. Warily looking around, he said, ‘Lord Fergus is right, Arnulf. There are unfriendly eyes on us. I can feel it. They could spring their ambush at any moment.’
‘Lord, we will follow you, you know that. But I advise we turn back and leave this place or at least prepare ourselves. They could be hiding anywhere amongst this,’ said Hafgan, with a gesture to the overgrown walls that now surrounded them. He eyed the nearby stones suspiciously and held the hilt of his sheathed sword in readiness.
‘Sound council, Haf,’ said Arnulf clasping the big warrior’s shoulder. He turned to the others behind who had followed the track with them.
‘Men, unsling your shields, arm yourselves, be ready in case…’ His words trailed off as the hound appeared once more on the track.
The great hound sat beside a fallen down section of wall that seemed to form an entrance to a derelict enclosure beyond. The hound turned and disappeared back out of sight.
Arnulf motioned his warriors forward. They moved quietly, shields on arms and with axe or spear in hand. Astrid and her formidable women formed up around their lord, alert and ready. Fergus had only a handful of warriors now, the others, guarding the deserted camp or scouring the nearby woods, only a horn blast away.
Astrid stood at the front of her warriors, her shield on one arm, an axe hanging in the other. She swept a fierce gaze into the gloom of the ruins.
Erran stole a lingering glance at the famous shield-maiden. Hafgan clasped the young warrior by the shoulder.
‘Stay sharp,’ he whispered harshly in Erran’s ear.
Hafgan led the guardsmen forward and cautiously approached the crumbling gap into which the hound had disappeared. Erran took one last glance at the forbidding warrior woman and followed.
The young warrior moved past and ranged ahead of Hafgan. He waved the guardsmen back and approached the gap alone. Hafgan shook his head at the young warrior. The youthful display of his mettle was obvious to his older eyes. Hafgan wondered if the lad would be so brazen if the Death Nymph were not watching on.
Arnulf watched as the young warrior peered over the tumbled stone after the hound. Erran turned back bewildered.
‘Lord,’ he called in a hushed voice, ‘come and see this.’
CHAPTER fifteen
The Cursed Ones
He found himself in a low wooded hollow within the thicket. The branches gnarled and twisted around him and undergrowth grew thickly amongst them. A large flat rock created the space he now occupied. He perched upon it, peering from his hiding place. The air smelt of earth and dead leaves. A beetle scampered away across the grainy rock. His hand shot out, and then the hapless beetle crunched between his teeth.
He emerged from the thicket crouching low, and clambered up onto another rock laid between the boles of tall trees that stretched up high above.
He sniffed the air. He could smell it again. He sniffed again. Blood. And something else now, something strangely familiar, yet nothing he had ever smelt before. His focus was ensnared by the strange new scent, his mind wrenched on a tether by a terrible urge, there was no resisting it. That new smell, he would find it.
A dull rage still seethed within him. He had found himself pounding the floor or smashing the boles of trees until his hands were bloody, unable to vent his inexplicable spiteful malice. He felt calmer now, but still the anger simmered within him.
His arm no longer felt any pain. The wound, the bite, had blackened. The dark discolouration was spreading up his arm in dark tendrils beneath his skin.
He couldn’t remember things. He had killed; a face he knew. He had been a friend once, perhaps? The man’s name escaped him now. But he remembered the taste, and his mouth watered.
His memories had been slowly consumed by the darkness. Each time he fed, less and less remained. His own name had even become hard to recall, it seemed now a distant memory. His very being, leached away by the hungry whispering blackness that had seized him. Now a wretched creature remained in his place, a grotesque mockery of the one once known as Darek.
He flinched at a sound. She was following him, he knew. He caught her scent a while back. He would have killed her. But, her eyes, he saw it had her, too. The darkness, hidden deep inside her eyes within the glare she transfixed on him at the farm. She smelt of it, smelt of the darkness. And now, she followed, her scent growing stronger as she slunk closer along his trail.
Yet this strange new scent…was not hers. It was different to the scent he was now catching on the breeze. Could there be another one?
He had left none alive, just her and the boy at the farm, and they had fed with him. Until the dead ones had awakened, and disturbed our feed. Then the dead followed on to the moor but were easily lost behind him now. They were slow. She seemed to have slipped away from them, too.
He knew the moor was not
safe. He had seen the flickering torches in the dark, caught the scent of horse. Men were on the moor, too many. It was not safe there.
Skulking across the gorse strewn moor in the night, he had now descended into the woodlands beyond as the sunlight of dawn began to break through the trees. He would be safer here, many places to hide.
She emerged from the undergrowth behind him and sniffed the air before fixing her gaze upon him. Her hair bedraggled. The stink of blood wafted from her, she stank of death. Her hands and tattered clothes stained with blood and covered in filth. She crouched low, resting her hands on the ground. Her face, smeared with crusting gore. They regarded each other in silence.
He caught whispers murmuring inside his head, fragments of her thoughts leaking in to his own through the darkness. It had her, too. He had watched as she fed on her own kin, unable to stop herself. It had taken them both.
She approached and sniffed at him. Her eyes were dead, the darkness dwelt within. It had taken hold. He bared his teeth with a deep growl from his throat, and she sank lower submissively. Yes, he was the biggest, the strongest, he would lead. He would accept this one.
He watched her as she sniffed around him submissively. He surveyed her with an impulsive carnal eye. Her clothing was torn and dishevelled revealing her exposed skin beneath. Her shapely figure, the curves, the glimpse of breast, filled him with a sudden bestial lust. He would mount her and take her. She would be his now.
She looked up suddenly and seemed to catch a scent on the breeze. She sniffed the air. Yes, she smelt it too. The scent of blood. And yes, she could likely smell that strange scent mingled with it; the other. But it could wait. He would have her first, here and now.
***
Grey clouds rolled overhead and a heavy rain lashed down. The rain hammered on the rocky ground in a thunderous cacophony. The thinning canopy of ruddy coloured leaves clung to the trees in earnest overhead and dripped streams of water to the floor.
Two skulking figures emerged over the crest of the ridge. Creeping close to the ground and slinking over rocks, they walked using their hands, a gait more ape than man. Defiled and now only echoing the form they once held.
A scatter of thin grey trees grew perched on narrow ledges and thrusting out from fissures in the rock of the steep terrace that fell off into a basin below. The pair moved between the trees, clinging to boles and branches in their descent. The scent was strong, even through the rain. Peering over a ledge they beheld the one they had been stalking.
A dripping figure crouched below in the basin. A prostrate form of another sprawled out on the ground before it. The basin had become a charnel scene of ghastly slaughter. The rain had done little to dilute the cruor of the butchery. The ground splattered with blood, a pool of crimson leaking out from the body on the floor.
The crouching figure suddenly looked up from its victim and at the pair watching overhead. Whispers of frenzied engorgement and blood lust pervaded their thoughts as they stared down upon the figure. He had sensed their presence, their scent, as they had his. They had found the other one.
The lurking watcher, once known as Darek, knew this face. It was the one they called Thom, a guardsman once like him. The man-creature below hissed and snarled up at them. This was his kill. He would challenge these newcomers.
The two males regarded each other for some time, gauging each other, low growls rumbling from their throats. Suddenly without warning Darek leapt into the basin, landing deftly into a crouch. He screamed a roar of defiance in answer to the bold challenge of this pitiful creature.
With a bounding lunge he slammed into the one known once as Thom. The overwhelming strength of the impact sent the guardsman reeling into the rocks. Thom yelped, and then slowly rose, hissing and circling on all fours but made no move of reprisal. Darek roared again, baring his teeth. He was the strongest, the first one.
The smaller creature, once known as Thom, moved away to allow the larger fiend to feed. Darek voraciously tore into the mangled corpse. The body was once a farmer, or a woodsman perhaps, it mattered not.
***
Thom had been unable to stop as he stalked his prey through the trees, overwhelmed by a dark hunger. He had struck from behind with callous fury. The man never saw it coming. Thom had watched, trapped behind his own eyes, powerless to stop himself as he killed the stranger with his bare hands. And then, horrified by his own deeds and still watching on helpless, he dragged his kill to this secluded place where a gruesome urge had overtaken him, and he had begun to feed.
***
She watched from the ledge above as the two clashed below in the basin. Her mate had easily driven the smaller one away and usurped the kill. She watched the other as it slowly circled and cowered. It was still very much man, the change still fresh. It had killed and fed, and so he would soon begin to forget, as she had.
Her other life was already fading. Her memories, clouded in her mind. She had watched on as her loved ones fell around her to this malevolence. She had a husband, and children, all gone now. She had other names, Wife, Ma…she had been called Mother, all gone now.
The guilt of what she had done consumed her. She had murdered them. She watched as they fell lifeless to the floor. Her instincts torn asunder, her children, who looked to her for protection, for love, betrayed. Killed by her own hands. She had eaten them. Trapped watching, screaming in her mind, trapped in a living nightmare, watching it all unfold. She had eaten them. Her love, replaced with a terrible rage as her spiralling descent into madness consumed all that she was. Perhaps it was easier to forget, to fall deeper into the darkness, to leave guilt and grief behind.
This other one was no threat but it was like her, one of them. She watched her mate feed. The hunger once again overwhelmed her. Her mouth watered in anticipation. She descended the slope and crouched close to the body waiting her turn. Her mate turned, his mouth dripping with gore and having taken his fill, he motioned for the others to feed.
She sprang forward and tore into an arm lying limp on the ground. Tearing chucks of dripping flesh free with her teeth, she gorged herself. The flesh was going stale, no longer warm, but it was bloody and tasted good nonetheless.
***
The trio flinched back as the body began to twitch. It was awakening. To its snarls and growls, they backed away, watching as the corpse slowly rose to its feet. Its entrails spilled from the cavity they had torn into its soft belly and coiled to the floor with a wet splatter.
The dead man suddenly lurched towards them. The three turned and fled, scrabbling up the slope to escape its grasping dead hands. Darek paused and turned around, staring back at the dead one as it struggled to gain a purchase on the steep slope. The dead man stumbled and fell snarling, before awkwardly rising to try again. The basin would hold it for some time.
The creature, known once as Darek, turned to see the other two awaiting him. They squatted motionless in the rain. He looked them over – his pack. He was the leader, the strongest, the first one amongst them.
They would need to feed again soon. They needed prey. Perhaps they would create more of their own from the ones who were not killed, expand their pack – become stronger.
He stared up at the heavy sky. He felt the rain against his face, and then regarded the other two once more.
Then it came to him. Yes, Darek knew just the place. A place he once knew well, a rich hunting ground full of prey. A place he once called home.
CHAPTER sixteen
A Watcher in the Dark
Arnulf prepared himself for another grisly discovery but what he saw was quite unexpected. Rising from amongst the ancient masonry stood a large dishevelled marquee.
It was well hidden and seemed to have been built using the decayed walls of the enclosure as a shell, over which a canvas structure had been erected with timbers and rope. Before the marquee, the rest of the enclosure formed a crude courtyard in which Arnulf could see a tangle of cart tracks in the churned mud ahead. The marquee loomed up dark and
foreboding. Its entrance gaped open, just a flap that hung and swayed in the cold breeze being blown down from the craggy peaks above.
Arnulf`s gaze could not penetrate the shadow beyond the gaping entrance, but instead his eyes flicked about, surveying the surrounding rocks for any sign of trouble. It seemed quiet. His warriors crouched around him, nervously peering over the old stones into the strange compound before them.
Arnulf nodded his men forward. Together they crept into the muddy courtyard and drew closer to the sinister gloom of the marquee entrance. Arnulf could see the canvas was mildewed and water marked, a sign of many weeks of rain and foul weather. The sides had been closely pegged to the ground and the canvas had been patched in places.
The afternoon had grown late, the sun slowly disappearing behind the high crags to the west. There was still yet light enough to investigate. Hafgan pulled the tent open, spilling light inside. Nothing stirred. Arnulf threw a glance at Hafgan, and then without word, they stepped inside.
It smelt damp. Arnulf could see shafts of light perforating the gloom. Light spilled inside as other warriors entered, cautiously peering around. There were separate tents within the marquee clustered around a fire pit. Beside the fire was a large table, upon which were several burnt out candles.
Beside the fire pit sat the hound on a rug awaiting them. To his surprise Arnulf noticed there were thick rugs upon the straw floor. Hafgan opened one of the smaller tents with the tip of his spear and peered inside. He shook his head and moved to the next. Other than the hound, the marquee seemed deserted.
The warriors began rummaging through the barrels and provisions as Arnulf examined the curious trinkets of one of the larger tents. The tent was lavishly decorated. It seemed quite out of place in such a remote place. The rugs were fine and expensive, there were shelves full of curious things and there was a bed. A small table covered in many burnt candles sat in the corner and it was stacked with scrolls and bound books. Ink and a set of quills sat in a small wooden rack. Arnulf noted the chair, it was ornately carved and its seat had a fine fur skin draped over it.