Into the Dark

by M J W Harrington

  “No. They come so that we can kill them in front of you if you lie. Get him down.” the last statement he directed back over his shoulder, not breaking eye contact with me as a second, less well-dressed but no less ugly ogrin did his best to squeeze past his boss, almost stepping on Clara in the process. He moved out of my vision and there was a lurch as I suddenly found myself no less wrapped in chains, but still no less unable to move or stand. As he heaved me onto his shoulder like a sack of grain, the ogrin turned his head to me, giving me a lungful of his foul breath as he spat out a few short words.

  “No struggling.”

  “Fair enough, but it’d be much easier if you just let me down…”

  “No.” Fair enough, I supposed. It’d be a challenge trying to run without being able to do more than wiggle my feet, but still, it was worth a shot. Dirg heaved Clara and the Architect to their feet.

  “We go to the cave, you show us the mushrooms, then we let you go into the dark.” Dirg stated, less an offer, more a statement of fact. He didn’t feel the need to elaborate any further because he knew as well as any of us that we’d die anyway left alone in the dark with no gear and no light source. As the ogrin marched us, or in my case, hauled me, outside, we found ourselves somewhat unsurprisingly on the fragments of a wrecked ship, repurposed into a series of the same crude houses we’d seen elsewhere in the ogrin village. Nearby the slave pens sat filled with the same forlorn figures dressed in rags we’d seen from a distance, studiously avoiding looking our way. As our bizarre procession wound its way past, Clara and the Architect tied and shuffling awkwardly to keep up with Dirg as he led the way, occasionally urged onwards by the brute carrying my inert form.

  My vision was limited, bound and luggage-like as I was, but as we wound our way through the shanty town I caught sight of more angry ogrin faces as the residents took note of our passing. There were far more of them than I’d estimated at first, I hadn’t even realised that ogrins lived together in such numbers, and the thought of what so many in one place could do chilled me to the bone. We paused briefly as one of the huge figures tried to get past Dirg, snarling hatred in my face. I dimly recalled him as one of the ogrin I hadn’t killed in my frenzy leading up to my capture. Dirg calmly put a hand to the ogrin’s broad chest and shoved him back.

  “No.” he stated firmly in that deep, oddly soothing voice of his.

  “He killed them! Now I kill him!” the ogrin raged, heedless of the huge, mail-clad figure standing between us.

  “No.” Dirg stated again, and with the inexorable gathering momentum of an avalanche he slowly raised a hand, slamming it down with alarming speed into the other ogrin’s head as he moved to push past to get at me. Dirg looked around at the surrounding houses, where other angry ogrin waited and watched. “The slayer is mine. I decide his death. I decide your deaths. This one may live because he was the first.” he gestured down at the still form of the unconscious ogrin at his feet. “The second will not. I have spoken.” With that we started moving again, my vision bouncing as my ogrin porter stepped over his fallen comrade.

  “Gee, thanks boss.” I quipped to the back of Dirg’s head. He didn’t turn as he responded.

  “Didn’t do it for you. You still get to die. Did it so that they listen to me.” He stated it calmly, not justifying himself, simply explaining a fact. “They listen to me, we grow strong. We survive. We take many slaves and live. Their way, without thinking, we all die eventually.” I blinked. Dirg’s speech wasn’t the most eloquent, but it was clear to me that this was no common ogrin. I began to doubt my loose plan. Sure, against an unthinking brute it might work, but against a cunning leader? I swallowed as best I could and did my best to keep up the conversation.

  “So you have to do that often?”

  “No. They mostly stopped trying.” Fair enough, the other ogrin hadn’t exactly looked ready to get up any time soon from that one swing, and I’d been on the receiving end of Dirg’s hammer enough to know I didn’t want to be again. Despite my attempts beyond that to draw him into conversation, the huge ogrin didn’t respond and my bearer gave me a short shake to get me to stop talking at the back of his head. After that I spent the time we walking to work out a way to adapt my plan to make it work a little better, but every time I came up blank. I looked at the back of Clara’s head, her short hair dirty and matted from the mixture of dirt, sweat and blood that our trip in the dark had provided in equal measure, and at the top of the architect’s wizened little dome as they trudged in front of me. I racked my brains harder. This sort of thing is so much easier when you don’t have other peoples’ lives that you care about to worry over.

  As we approached the main square before, the bonfire blazing brightly, I noticed that its kindling looked oddly similar to a pile of butchered ogrin corpses.

  “Eleven.” Dirg stated, finally turning to meet my eyes. We stopped, the grisly display threatening to turn my stomach, but the lack of contents kept me from ruining my ride’s boots. If he was wearing boots. I couldn’t turn my head enough to see. I swallowed, meeting Dirg’s eyes and nodding slightly to show I understood. Dirg cocked his head and gestured off to one side, his gaze not leaving mine.

  “One.” he stated, and I watched as a slave, a short young woman with surprisingly clean curly hair was dragged into the square as she screamed and raved against her captor. He threw her into the flames. I heard Clara shout a protest but Dirg quickly backhanded her, slamming her against the wall of a nearby hut.

  “Two.” He rumbled again, and the dark pattern began to form. Another slave, a man this time, was led into the square and thrown screaming into the bonfire. He screamed with agony as the fire ate at his flesh and tried to throw himself clear, but he was pushed back in place with a long spear like a fire poker keeping him pinned in the flames until he stopped thrashing.

  “Three.” So it continued, the faces and screams of their victims, now my victims etched themselves into my brain. Over and over another was marched out, and I thrashed and strained against my chains, no longer able to restrain my fury but clamped in place by the sturdy metal that prevented my every move.

  “Six.” I watched as the latest victim died, a dusky skinned older woman who barely put up a fight until she caught aflame and reflexively started thrashing in agony.

  “Sev-” The next statement was cut off by an unearthly roar that forced its way free of my mouth, shaking the air around me. Rage consumed me for a moment, but I had no outlet. Dirg nodded with satisfaction and went to continue. “Seve-” again a roar rocked the world around us, this one more powerful than the last. But this time, it was not from my mouth.

  -The other is here. It begins.- the voice in my head snarled, and I shook my head with confusion. Dirg looked around, the beginnings of fear in his eyes, and for good reason. The roar we had heard was one we’d heard before. One we’d thought we’d left behind. One filled with horror and screeching, whilst being as deep as the earth and stone beneath which it had slumbered for thousands of years. The beast was here.

  And it was pissed.

  Chapter 14

  Chaos erupted around us as screaming and shouting arose from the way we’d entered. Dirg readied his hammer and turned to face my trusty steed.

  “Wait here. Guard them. Send any who pass to me,” he snapped, and a deep grunt of confirmation from the ogrin holding me shook my chest, even through the thick chains. Without further word, Dirg strode towards the chaos erupting on the edges of the village, bellowing loudly to attract the attention of the ogrin in the surrounding area. A small band joined him and together they sprinted towards their deaths. The darkness inside of me roiled at the sound of the occasional unearthly screeching bellow, but was curiously silent.

  “Spill.” I muttered to myself as the ogrin propped me up against a wall the moment his leader disappeared out of sight. I somehow heard silence in response, not a simple lack of reply but the sensation of silence itself. “Suit yourself,” I did my best to shrug before raising my voice.
“Hey, ugly?” the ogrin turned to me, a surprisingly hurt look on its face.

  “Who ugly? You ugly!” I’d clearly struck a nerve, and for a moment I actually felt bad.

  “Nothing, just wanted you to look this way so that- Oh never mind, hey Clara.” As the Ogrin’s corpse fell away I took a moment to appreciate her standing atop the bloody corpse with her glowing blade in hand.

  “Hey.” She nodded to me and turned away, slicing through the Architect’s bonds with a dextrous flick of her wrist.

  “Excellently done. Might I suggest we run away now?” he complimented her and nodded away from the square. Clara agreed and turned to me.

  “You might want to hold still.” Without further warning she lashed out, her blade cutting deep into the chains but not severing them all the way. It was enough though, and I strained and flexed my inhuman muscles to burst through the remaining links. One of them split and spun in Clara’s directly but she narrowly dodged aside.

  “Oops.” I went to apologise but she was already moving.

  “Time to go.” She was right, the roaring grew louder as more ogrins joined the fray. For a moment I was conflicted, nobody deserved the deaths I’d seen, not even ogrins, but as I considered it briefly, I felt a surge of agreement from within me.

  -Yes, we must go. Only we can stop it.-

  OK that sold me.

  “Yep, time to leave! Let’s go, let’s go!” I began to jog and my friends fell in behind me.

  -Wait, what?-

  “I’m not an idiot, voice in my head, I’m just insane.” I let out a nervous chuckle as we ran. “Anything you want me to do that doesn’t involve blood and death cannot be good.” I felt the nervous glances going on behind me so I called back to the two behind me. “Just talking to myself, don’t mind me!” I regretted looking back almost immediately. In the distance half an ogrin flew over the rooftops, and when I say in the distance I mean ‘actually far closer to where we were running than I wanted it to be’.

  “Dav, look!” Clara pointed over to our right, where I could see the slave pens from before, the slaves within roused by the shouting and roaring and milling nervously around the gate. I looked to the Architect, who nodded and as one we diverted towards them.

  “Stand clear and get ready to run!” I yelled out above the crowd, and without waiting for them to move, I literally smashed through the gate, shattering it with my body and coming to a skidding stop in front of the closest man, who just so happened to be Harkin.

  “Thank you,” he said, with tears in his eyes, but I turned and started moving back towards the gate.

  “Didn’t do it for you. Now run!” I took a moment to look back towards the chaos, and the sounds of screaming and splintering wood were far closer than I’d hoped. “I’d suggest running quickly…” I trailed off as Harkin tapped me on the shoulder. “What?” The old man wordlessly held up a bundle that looked suspiciously like most of our packs and gear, including my beloved pocketed jacket. I took it and threw the Architect his bag.

  “I went looking for them, wanted to slip them to you somehow in exchange for your help escaping so…” Harkin shrugged and I grunted as I slung my jacket over my shoulders, feeling whole once more.

  “Thanks, but we need to move.” the howling, roaring screams echoed ever closer and I caught the occasional glimpse of the abomination coming towards us. Around me, slaves were slowly stirring into action, grabbing the few children that dotted the small crowd and beginning to run towards the exit. The Architect dug through his bag frantically as Clara directed the stream, helping the occasional malnourished slave who fell in the rush.

  “Quickly now, go!” she ushered them on and shot a helpless glance towards me. Not only was the sound and chaos growing ever closer, but now our escape was clogged with the thin forms of the escaping slaves. Finally though, the last left the pen, and we followed closely behind.

  “Not fast enough, not fast enough…” the Architect muttered next to me, still digging and throwing the occasional nervous glance back.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked, agreeing with him, the pace we were moving barely qualifying as a scurry, let alone a sprint.

  “I think I can slow it down. If it’s still here…. Aha!” he crowed triumphantly as he pulled out a small handful of orb-shaped relics. They looked familiar, scaled down versions of the light orbs we’d used to great effect previously.

  “Lights?” I asked, just to confirm.

  “Yes. I was working on these as a way to quickly spread more light over a wide area, but they kept sticking together so I discarded the plan.” He shrugged as he ran, his little legs working hard but somehow finding the breath to lecture me. “I kept them as a reminder, but now… please hold out your hand.” I complied and instead of handing me the tiny balls as I’d expected, he plucked something from the glovelike device I’d recovered from my pack.

  “Hey!” I protested, as the metal immediately felt looser on my hand.

  “Oh be quiet, I’ll make you a new one.” With that he pulled a small tool from his bag and began to twist and turn at the small rod he’d just removed, tinkering on the run. Casting a look behind us, I finally caught a full view of the beast from the city, no less hellish or horrifying in visage than before, and no harder to describe. Everywhere I looked my mind continued to reject what I saw, giving me nothing but a flash of dark eyes and tentacles, claws and maws. It threw aside the large forms of ogrins like they were dolls or sickly children, and smashed through ramshackle structures as it made a beeline directly towards us.

  “I guess we pissed it off…” I muttered as we ran, the slaves to the back of the crowd screaming as they saw what was coming and pushing into the backs of their fellows. That statement immediately felt wrong to me, however. I knew we’d pissed it off, but something inside me began to feel compelled towards the beast as it grew ever closer. A deep hunger from the darkness within me that I realised I’d felt the faintest hint of before, when the creature had chased us in the city. Except now it was stronger,

  -The other half comes for us, and we are not strong enough. You are not strong enough. Oblivion in the whole is better than your weakness.- The voice within me hissed with pleasure as the beast grew ever closer and I found myself involuntarily slowing as I half-ran sideways, my eyes locked with the beast.

  “Dav?” the Architect drew my attention to him as he held up the small mass of balls, now clinging tightly to one-another, presumably drawn by the same force my glove compelled when it drew distance objects towards me. “You might want to put some distance between yourself and this.” Without further word, he threw the device back towards the roiling mass of horror behind us. Despite his warning, I was unable to pull myself back away thanks to the siren song of darkness sounding inside of me. Pain erupted as the small orbs flew apart to form a massive web of light that immediately did its best to enclose the beast. The green radiance slammed into me like a physical force and I staggered, letting out a gut-wrenching scream. I felt myself pulled backwards by hands and did my best to keep running with them. I could feel my eyeballs regrowing, which is not an experience I’d wished to repeat after the witch had tried it, but I was thankful they could do that. Behind us, the beast echoed my screams in a voice that sounded disturbingly human, as if to mimic me, to mock me, but I knew that as far gone as that creature was into the darkness, the pain I felt was nothing compared to the beast.

  Eventually I regained the ability to see and almost lost it again as I encountered pure, blessed sunlight streaming into the tunnel ahead of us. Most of the slaves had already made it out, but we were some distance behind them, slowed by my stumbling blindly through the tunnel. I cast a glance back, and found the street behind us worryingly empty, the light of the orbs clearly burning out just after they’d blinded me.

  “Where’s…” I trailed off as with a heavy boom the beast landed in front of us, its huge form blocking the light of the sun, and we staggered to a halt. For a moment, we stood there, regarding eac
h other, its many eyes locked on mine. A realisation dawned within me, and without looking away, I slowly separated myself from my friends. “Clara, take the architect and the moment you get the opportunity, run.” I saw her grip her blade out of the corner of my eye and I could tell she was considering something stupid, much like I was. “Clara, don’t. Bron wouldn’t want you to die like this.” She broke her gaze from the beast and her weapon lowered slightly.

  “Dav, what are you-”

  “He’s not here for you. I see that now.” I interrupted her calmly, as every step I took away from them increased the odds of only some of us dying, and the beast grew ever closer, moving with me. “He’s here for me, aren’t you?”

  The beast didn’t respond but it did pause, the insanity in its inhuman eyes flickering but being replaced only with a deep hunger.

  “Dav, do not do this. I can think of something,” the Architect called over to me, but his heart wasn’t in it. He knew as much as I did that there was no chance here.

  “Too late, buddy. Time to go.” As I said that,without giving them any opportunity to respond, I lunged back towards the town and the beast gave chase. I didn’t see if my friends took the opportunity, but I had other things to care about, calling names, wordless screams and generally trying to make sure the beast’s full attention came my way.

  “Your mother was a hamster!” I screamed over my shoulder, finally running out of coherent insults, and the beast’s response was a huge tentacle that lashed out, arresting my movement and throwing me through a building. Fortunately, I’d had a lot of experience being thrown through buildings recently, and it left me unbroken. I clambered to my feet and pushed back through the buildings, heaving myself over a heavy beam that looked like it’d been stolen from a farmhouse somehow.

  “Is that all you’ve got, brother?” I yelled, the name drawn from within me but feeling oddly like it fit. “You followed me all this way and you’re just going to throw me around a bit?” the beast roared and came at me again, but this time I was waiting, and so was a large part of a barn. I swung the huge beam like a club, and it smashed against the beast’s undefinable shifting form, causing it to stop and rock slightly but barely noticing the impact.