Ely edit 29 Jul 2021:
1-6 qps, depending on length and quality.
Potential +1 qp: if part of a series: x
Total: 8 qps
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Into Darkness
Darkness had fallen over the town. It was not a large town, but not a small town either. Merely a town, only significant to ice pepper dealers and wool merchants in the south east of Saldaea. A normal town with normal people, people who knew the dangers of the Blight, but people who had also not seen trollocs or even a half-man in over a two dozen years. Wagons carrying the wool to Maradon and beyond left the palisade gate in the spring and the ice pepper merchants came to inspect the harvests in fall. In the winter the hills surrounding the town turned pristine white, and in summer the apple trees provided all the shelter the towns children wanted. Everything was going as it had always been going, and the people were happy. But all that had changed… per today.
Darkness had fallen over the town at daybreak. The sleepy gate guards guarding the main entrance gate to the town had just begun their watch as a wave of steel, teeth and horns broke upon the gate. Frantically they had tried to close the gates. The onslaught however, was to great, to fierce, and to unexpected. Alarms were raised throughout the town, and its men, women and children were woken by the screams of the dying gate guards. Over half of them had fallen within the first moments of the battle and now the other half fought desperately to retake the gate that the trollocs had rushed in the first dawn of day. Fathers, brothers and husbands hurried out of their homes carrying anything they could find and sped to the gate. Nothing is as fierce as a father defending his children, or a husband protecting his wife and homestead. And for a moment it seemed as the gate would be taken back from the trollocs. But as the trollocs were pushed back inch by bloody inch, the gates were pushed open one more time. Fear was struck into the defenders hearts and bewilderment gripped their minds. A new élan seemed to grip the Dark One’s horde, for the darkness had just ridden through the gates and even the sun seemed to hide itself behind the dark clouds.
The Half-man had waited patiently outside the gates with the other half of his fist. The plan was as simple as it was brutal: wait until all of the town’s defenders were committed in retaking the gate, and when their victory seemed imminent.. strike. As the cries of the humans became ever more hopeful, he simply nodded at the trollocs who surrounded him and spurred his stallion through the gates.. As he followed the bloodthirsty reinforcements through the gates, two trollocs lingered behind. The fade drank in the despair and terror that gripped the human defenders as the heavy gates swung shut for the last time behind him and were locked with a loud click.
This would be a good day…
At noon the battle was over. Flames licked the sky and the cries of the still living seemed to drown out all the noise. But they could not drown out the voice of the Great Lord that had reverberated in the Myrddraal’s head for the past week. For a week now this myrddraal had heard the same missive drone through his skull:
FIND IT
What he was looking for he did not know but he would know it when he found it. He had driven his fists through the lands looking for it, drawn ever closer to it with every mile they covered. The fade realized he was ever so close now. He let his eyeless gaze wander around as he slowly walked down the middle of the street. Houses were left and right, some still standing, others burning. The Half-man knew that soon they would all burn, he had razed many human dwellings in his lifetime, and he knew that his trollocs would not be sated until nothing would remain untainted. He stepped past 2 trollocs who were butchering an old man. Judging by the screams he was not entirely dead yet, but the 2 were not bothered much by it. Quick slices parted arms and legs at the joints, one slash spilled steaming bowels into the dirt. Sounds of fangs tearing flesh from the bone accompanied him around the corner.
Suddenly the drone in his head grew to a roar and his gaze was drawn to a small reed-thatched house to his left. He stepped over a large man who lay sprawled on his back and looked him in the eyes. Blue eyes, blank and dead, blindly staring up at the darkness looming over him. A small middle aged woman, still wearing her nightgown, was pinned to the doorpost by a short trolloc spear. The Myrddraal looked into her one surviving eye trying to see whether she was what he was looking for, but neither her eye, nor the ruin of her face where a trolloc battle axe had hit her could give him any answers. Almost effortlessly he shoved the woman aside and pushed past the ruins of what once had been the door. Entering the gloomy house he saw the ravages that the plundering trollocs had caused in this once tidy home. 2 children lay still in the far corner of the living room, their injuries hidden by the shadows from human eyes, but not from the gaze of the Half-man.
The roar in his skull rose to a crescendo as he looked the 2 dead children into their dead, staring eyes. They seemed to look accusingly at him, but the Myrddraal did not care. In his mind was only room for the words of his Great Lord. He entered the kitchen behind the living room and gazed around once more. He was so very close now. His hands moved without thinking as the fade reached out for the large storage cupboard in the back. Before he could open it however, the door burst open and a boy, hardly high enough to reach the Half-man’s chest burst out gripping a short sword. Instinctively the fade whipped out his blade and flowed to the side.
As he stood over the youth’s dead body the myrddraal realized he had his thoughts to himself once more. The Great Lord had left his mind, and the only sounds he heard were the shrill screams that drifted in through the open windows. Could this be it? He knelt down and cupped the boy’s chin with his free hand, holding his dripping blade in the other. Just a boy, nothing special, not unlike any of the other boys he had killed. The fade snarled wordlessly, a fit of rage shortly distorting his emotionless face. This could not be it, not this boy, there had to be something else. He threw his gaze around the kitchen once more, penetrating even the deepest shadows.
Then he saw it. He saw HER.
The small girl had huddled in the back of the cupboard, trying to hide behind a large bag of potatoes. She must have been 4 years old, at the most. Petrified by his gaze, the girl could not move, nor scream, as he picked her up in his arms. He carried her outside. Past her siblings, past her mother, past her father and as the myrddraal looked into her soot-stained face he smiled… For the first time in his existence.
2 days later a column of Saldaean cavalrymen cautiously rode into the still smoking ruins of the town. They discovered what had befallen the last surviving townspeople. They had been driven close together into the town square, where they had been butchered to the last woman, man and child by the hungry trollocs. But there was a sole survivor..
They found a small girl, unscathed, in the middle of the square, exactly where the darkness had left her…
Into the Heart of Darkness --- &RPaward
Re: Into the Heart of Darkness
A Flight Forward
She pressed her back against the door as the sounds of pursuit grew louder in the alleys. Her little room here was warm and save. At least it had been save for months since she had discovered it in this derelict warehouse. It had always been here when she returned from her nightly forays into the city. A hard, narrow bed was in the far corner, and a small, wormbitten chest that she had dragged here held her few possessions.
The girl forced back her tears as she rested the back of her head against the hard wood of the door. The last rays of today’s sun fell through the small window that her room had. She was so tired.. so very tired. She had been avoiding the search parties all day long, and now it was almost night. She never could sleep when the sun was down, not since those 2 days she had spend in the smoldering ruins that had once been her home town, almost 14 years ago now. Dreams came to her in the dark, the faces of her relatives, friends, neighbors and always the face of the Darkness. She always woke up from those dreams, screaming wordlessly, soaked in sweat.
At first she had lived with relatives in Maradon. But bad luck had followed her around. Her uncle had died in a freak wagon accident and 2 of her cousins had short after died from a fever. Her aunt had send her away shortly after. She had been passed around between foster parents for a few years, but wherever she went, her past had followed. Darkness seemed to lurk around her, and it didn’t take long before she had a reputation as someone who brought bad luck to the roof she lived under.
She ran away when she turned twelve.
Since then she had wandered the streets, never knowing where she would spend the next day until dusk and the next night would drive her out of her shelter again. She had gotten used to wandering the streets at night, trying to find something to eat, steal or beg together enough money to provide in her basic needs. She tried not to interact with anyone, for she knew only ruin could become anyone close to her, just like it had become her family and the whole town she had lived in. Her brother had only been 11 years old as he had tried to fend of the Darkness with fathers old sword....
She had never understood why she had been spared, and she could not stop thinking about it. Day and night the question tumbled through her head, and she found herself yelling at the shadows in the night time streets. People looked at her warily then, and she hated herself even more. However a few months ago she had found this little room. Her own place to hide during the day. With an old but strong door, and a little window high in the wall opposite to her bed so that the room was always lit during the day.
Lit and safe.
She felt at ease for the first time in years within her own hideout. And as fall turned to winter she had remained there. She had found a chest to store her belongings in during the night, and even an old, raggedy horse blanket. It had been thrown out with the junk, but it still had a bit of embroidery depicting a sunburst on a field of white.
She loved the sun.
But winter had been harsher then she could ever remember. People were having a hard time, and had nothing to spare. Not even the fat grocer in the cobbler’s district would give her any left over food no more. She could not remember not being hungry. She could not remember not being cold. She could not remember the sun…
Yesterday she had sold her body.
She had not known what else to do. No one would help the crazy girl who wandered the streets at night. No one wanted to help the girl with the Dark One’s bad luck hovering over her like a dark rain cloud. The merchant guard from Andor had not known about her, nor would he have cared. He also did not care about her being skin over bones. He did not care that she was dirty either. When he was done with her in the ally behind the Dancing Cow she had cried, but she had held on to the silver he had given her.
She never saw his fist the first time he hit her.
He had tried to take back the money, and his fists seemed to come from everywhere. She screamed and wrapped her hands around the silver that would feed and clothe her for weeks to come, but famished and weak as she was she was no match for him.
She passed out for a few moments.
When she regained her senses, she found the silver lying next to her, and her assailant pressed against the far wall of the alley, staring at her with huge eyes. She blinked the blood from her eyes and looked around into the shadows. The Darkness seemed to smile at her, and she scrambled to her feet and ran for the main street. Halfway down the street she remembered her silver. She warily returned to where she had lain, keeping an eye on the man, who kept following her every move with his eyes, still unable to move.
She had begun to run once she made it past the corner in the alley. All she wanted was for the day to begin and to sleep. She stalked through the still dark streets, scowling at the shadows, at times yelling at them to leave her alone. People avoided her again, and she ran on, hot tears streaming down her bruised cheeks. It was so unfair, she had no one. Everyone had been taken from her by the Darkness. Sobbing she picked up a rock and hurled it into the dark.
That was when she had heard the hounds.
Hopefully the men would not find her now she was back in her secret place. After having barred the door she wrapped herself in her once white blanket, and caressed the sunburst. She was so tired. All day she had walked the streets in the gloomy winter sun. All day she had escaped the men of the Watch that had been send out to find the crazy girl that was in the centre of so many disturbing rumors. She had gotten no sleep, and the combination of her injuries and fear had exhausted her even more.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked herself as she sat on her hard bed. The hounds were scratching at her door now. An axe bit at the old wood. She was so afraid, and it felt like all those years ago again, when she and Doran had sat in the cupboard. But then she had not been alone. He had whispered to her in there, had told her he would protect her, that everything would be all right. He had lied to her.
Everyone had lied to her ever since. Her aunt. All her other foster parents. The fat grocer when he said he had no food. The merchant guard.
The men shouted at her through the door. The hounds bayed and snarled. More axes joined the first one. The sun set. Terror gripped her. She could not go outside, but her fear could not let her stay inside as the night set in. Still a bit of light fell through her little window, but she knew it was a matter of minutes before the room would go as dark as night. She would be all alone in the dark.
She was tired of being alone. She was tired of being afraid. She was so, so tired…
She pressed her hands to her ears and screamed as loudly as she could to drown out the noises coming from the other side of the door. The shadows crept towards her and the sun rays withdrew from her slowly as the sun dropped below the horizon.
She sat in darkness now.
She dreamed waking. She relived those two endless days. She heard the trollocs baying and shouting again outside her door. She heard axes biting at the door like all those years ago. But now there was no one to hold her. No one to comfort her. No one to take her fears away. No one to lie to her…
She screamed again.
She opened her eyes and stared into the blackness around her, unable to see anything. The howls outside the door rose, the axes bit deeper and faster now. She drowned in her fear for an eternity and resurfaced within mere seconds. She had realized she was not alone.
She was no longer afraid.
The Darkness smiled that special smile for her, that she had seen for the first time on that fateful day. She spread her arms, and the shadows took her in.
When the Watch finally battered down the door to the old basement underneath the run down warehouse, they found it empty. They searched the room, but found no clue where the crazy girl had gone. Many blamed the Dark One, and the commander of the Watch ordered the warehouse to be burnt to the ground.
She pressed her back against the door as the sounds of pursuit grew louder in the alleys. Her little room here was warm and save. At least it had been save for months since she had discovered it in this derelict warehouse. It had always been here when she returned from her nightly forays into the city. A hard, narrow bed was in the far corner, and a small, wormbitten chest that she had dragged here held her few possessions.
The girl forced back her tears as she rested the back of her head against the hard wood of the door. The last rays of today’s sun fell through the small window that her room had. She was so tired.. so very tired. She had been avoiding the search parties all day long, and now it was almost night. She never could sleep when the sun was down, not since those 2 days she had spend in the smoldering ruins that had once been her home town, almost 14 years ago now. Dreams came to her in the dark, the faces of her relatives, friends, neighbors and always the face of the Darkness. She always woke up from those dreams, screaming wordlessly, soaked in sweat.
At first she had lived with relatives in Maradon. But bad luck had followed her around. Her uncle had died in a freak wagon accident and 2 of her cousins had short after died from a fever. Her aunt had send her away shortly after. She had been passed around between foster parents for a few years, but wherever she went, her past had followed. Darkness seemed to lurk around her, and it didn’t take long before she had a reputation as someone who brought bad luck to the roof she lived under.
She ran away when she turned twelve.
Since then she had wandered the streets, never knowing where she would spend the next day until dusk and the next night would drive her out of her shelter again. She had gotten used to wandering the streets at night, trying to find something to eat, steal or beg together enough money to provide in her basic needs. She tried not to interact with anyone, for she knew only ruin could become anyone close to her, just like it had become her family and the whole town she had lived in. Her brother had only been 11 years old as he had tried to fend of the Darkness with fathers old sword....
She had never understood why she had been spared, and she could not stop thinking about it. Day and night the question tumbled through her head, and she found herself yelling at the shadows in the night time streets. People looked at her warily then, and she hated herself even more. However a few months ago she had found this little room. Her own place to hide during the day. With an old but strong door, and a little window high in the wall opposite to her bed so that the room was always lit during the day.
Lit and safe.
She felt at ease for the first time in years within her own hideout. And as fall turned to winter she had remained there. She had found a chest to store her belongings in during the night, and even an old, raggedy horse blanket. It had been thrown out with the junk, but it still had a bit of embroidery depicting a sunburst on a field of white.
She loved the sun.
But winter had been harsher then she could ever remember. People were having a hard time, and had nothing to spare. Not even the fat grocer in the cobbler’s district would give her any left over food no more. She could not remember not being hungry. She could not remember not being cold. She could not remember the sun…
Yesterday she had sold her body.
She had not known what else to do. No one would help the crazy girl who wandered the streets at night. No one wanted to help the girl with the Dark One’s bad luck hovering over her like a dark rain cloud. The merchant guard from Andor had not known about her, nor would he have cared. He also did not care about her being skin over bones. He did not care that she was dirty either. When he was done with her in the ally behind the Dancing Cow she had cried, but she had held on to the silver he had given her.
She never saw his fist the first time he hit her.
He had tried to take back the money, and his fists seemed to come from everywhere. She screamed and wrapped her hands around the silver that would feed and clothe her for weeks to come, but famished and weak as she was she was no match for him.
She passed out for a few moments.
When she regained her senses, she found the silver lying next to her, and her assailant pressed against the far wall of the alley, staring at her with huge eyes. She blinked the blood from her eyes and looked around into the shadows. The Darkness seemed to smile at her, and she scrambled to her feet and ran for the main street. Halfway down the street she remembered her silver. She warily returned to where she had lain, keeping an eye on the man, who kept following her every move with his eyes, still unable to move.
She had begun to run once she made it past the corner in the alley. All she wanted was for the day to begin and to sleep. She stalked through the still dark streets, scowling at the shadows, at times yelling at them to leave her alone. People avoided her again, and she ran on, hot tears streaming down her bruised cheeks. It was so unfair, she had no one. Everyone had been taken from her by the Darkness. Sobbing she picked up a rock and hurled it into the dark.
That was when she had heard the hounds.
Hopefully the men would not find her now she was back in her secret place. After having barred the door she wrapped herself in her once white blanket, and caressed the sunburst. She was so tired. All day she had walked the streets in the gloomy winter sun. All day she had escaped the men of the Watch that had been send out to find the crazy girl that was in the centre of so many disturbing rumors. She had gotten no sleep, and the combination of her injuries and fear had exhausted her even more.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked herself as she sat on her hard bed. The hounds were scratching at her door now. An axe bit at the old wood. She was so afraid, and it felt like all those years ago again, when she and Doran had sat in the cupboard. But then she had not been alone. He had whispered to her in there, had told her he would protect her, that everything would be all right. He had lied to her.
Everyone had lied to her ever since. Her aunt. All her other foster parents. The fat grocer when he said he had no food. The merchant guard.
The men shouted at her through the door. The hounds bayed and snarled. More axes joined the first one. The sun set. Terror gripped her. She could not go outside, but her fear could not let her stay inside as the night set in. Still a bit of light fell through her little window, but she knew it was a matter of minutes before the room would go as dark as night. She would be all alone in the dark.
She was tired of being alone. She was tired of being afraid. She was so, so tired…
She pressed her hands to her ears and screamed as loudly as she could to drown out the noises coming from the other side of the door. The shadows crept towards her and the sun rays withdrew from her slowly as the sun dropped below the horizon.
She sat in darkness now.
She dreamed waking. She relived those two endless days. She heard the trollocs baying and shouting again outside her door. She heard axes biting at the door like all those years ago. But now there was no one to hold her. No one to comfort her. No one to take her fears away. No one to lie to her…
She screamed again.
She opened her eyes and stared into the blackness around her, unable to see anything. The howls outside the door rose, the axes bit deeper and faster now. She drowned in her fear for an eternity and resurfaced within mere seconds. She had realized she was not alone.
She was no longer afraid.
The Darkness smiled that special smile for her, that she had seen for the first time on that fateful day. She spread her arms, and the shadows took her in.
When the Watch finally battered down the door to the old basement underneath the run down warehouse, they found it empty. They searched the room, but found no clue where the crazy girl had gone. Many blamed the Dark One, and the commander of the Watch ordered the warehouse to be burnt to the ground.
Re: Into the Heart of Darkness
Naming the Beast
Like a limp piece of raw meat she saw her own tongue dangle between cruelly pointed plyers. Gagging, she tried to hold back the salty, warm flood of her own blood pouring down her throat as she was unable to scream due to the blinding pain. The harsh rusted metal contraption that forced her mouth open bit deeply in the soft tissue of her cheeks. She tried to scream but all that escaped her was a wet spluttering gurgling sound. As nausea overcame her due to the blinding pain and ingestion of large amounts of blood, she thought nothing worse could happen to her anymore. Then her tormentor grabbed a hot iron poke from the firepit and walk over to her. As he casually gobbled down her still dripping tongue the trolloc grinned with bloodied fangs and pressed the white-hot iron into the still gaping wou…
The woman woke with a choked gurgle to the darkness around her. Gulping in air she tried to scream.. In vain as only a few mangled sounds escaped her mouth when the stump of her tongue wriggled into thin air. Panting heavily she lay there on her back. The same dream had been haunting her nights ever since that day when the Dark Master had come into the pens and selected men and women akin and carried them away to his dark lair. She had not been the first to have her tongue removed, nor the last. Many had died from infection and loss of blood in the days after the crude procedures, and every morning their trolloc guards had made their rounds past the rows of huddling prisoners, picking out those that had died during the past night.
She considered those the lucky ones.
However things had improved slightly afterwards as less prisoners meant that there was more to eat for the survivors. Slowly their strength had returned to them in those shadowy pits under a roiling, maddening sky. One morning they had been brutally lined up by their trolloc guards and they were driven down a dark staircase untill they entered what had become their new home ever since.
As she tore herself from her reminiscing she looked at the hourglass and saw it was almost time for her to get up. Things sure had changed since the Lady had suddenly arrived in these dark halls underneath Tkakan’dar. She hurried down the eerily lit gallery, past the ancient banners underneath the wrought iron chandeliers hanging down from the ceiling on heavy iron chains. Even if the chains dissapeared into darkness high above, the dim light that the chandeliers spread was welcome to her after the deep darkness of her sleeping cell.
She exchanged a short handgesture with Knobby, an old borderlander, whom she had dubbed such so because of his knobby knees which poked through the holes in his trousers. He and his companion Owly came from night duty outside the Lady´s chambers, as usual. She had to hurry.. The Lady would be in a foul mood if she woke up and didnt find her garments laid out for her already.
In passing by she wondered what others called her sometimes in the silence of their own thoughts. Talking was impossible and any hint at written communication had been harshly punished in the past. She felt that every one of the serfs in these wretched halls was living out his or her own desperation in lonely silence, while performing the tasks set upon them by the Dark Master and the Lady. She still clinged to her memories of those small moments of happiness from the past: the morning breeze in spring, her brothers and sister and above all the memory of the warm summer sun… Oh how she missed the sun in these dark, damp halls filled with darkness and despair..
“I am so unlucky,” she thought as she made a clicking sound with her ruined tongue. Entering the old library on the far side of the gallery she saw that there was already light shining out from under the door that led to the Lady’s bedchambers. Hurriedly she crossed the small study filled with books, most of them with unintelligable script running down their backs. Stealthily she opened the door and pressed her back against it while closing it softly. “Perhaps she hasn’t noticed yet.”
She had noticed. And it had taken her the better part of the day to forget about it.
Normally one was able to sneak out between shifts and have yourself replaced by someone else standing on beck and call for the Lady, but today the Lady had not averted her gaze from her long enough to make that happen. Without having had anything to eat since early morning she had been forced to tend to her every need and watch her eat breakfast, lunch, supper and dinner. She was exhausted. Ever since the pregnancy of the Lady had become visible, her moods had become more and more capracious and the punishments had become worse and worse. Today was a lucky day. “Atleast I get to walk back to my cell on my own two feet,” she thought as she stumbled back though the dimly lit gallery. Not for the first time she looked up to the banners lining the halls, both ancient and new, some still fresh and some already fading into decay. These were the trophies of the Dark Master’s conquests in the service of Soulblighter, but today they once again served to cheer her up with giving her a hint of color and beauty in this drab world.
She stumbled into the messhall. Offcourse it was not a real messhall, but it was where the kettles of unintelligable slop were dropped for the serfs to feed from. Once a day the trolloc guards brought them in and dropped them here, and after that it was comes first, serves first. Only three kettles had been brought today, which meant that some would go to bed hungry. Including her, for only a few morsels remained under the rim of the cast-iron kettles for her to dine on.
“Resignation,” she thought, “Death will come to me sooner or later in these halls.. Oh Light… Please let it be soon!”
Days turned into weeks turned into months. Serfs dissapeared and new wretches were brought in to replace the lost. The lost and the damned, that was how she called herself and the other silent slaves in these halls. Today was her turn to bring the Lady her food. The main kitchens were off limits to the regular serfs of the Dark Master and his Lady. Only a few were “chosen” to work there permanently, and it seemed to her on the few occasions that she was sent there to collect the Lady’s food that they were expended faster then the regular serfs. Haunted eyes followed her through the door as she left the kitchens with plates of steaming meat and hot piping bread. She felt the hairs on her forearms prickle as she felt their gazes on her back as if they were watching a blessed soul, because she was able to leave those kitchens when they were not.
She quickened her step..
The Lady had gotten very large with child lately and her demeanor had gotten worse and worse. Demands were rained down onto her hapless serfs. Tempestuous moodswings competed with almost eerily sweet moments where she almost shyly asked one of the female staff to rub her big belly. “It does feel nice to feel a new life moving underneath my hands,” thought the woman as she slowly moved her vingers, still recalling the soft movements they had experienced, “Any life at all.”
“Could the Lady be lonely as well?”
“Could she also be a prisoner of some sorts, living in these dark halls by order of her Dark Master?”
She quickened her step more now. All her thinking had made her forget the time and she feared being late with the Lady’s food. Plates rattling she hurried into the Lady’s chambers, convinced she would get a birching once again… at the least.
When she entered the Lady’s chambers, however, she immediatly felt something was different. The serfs moved around even more cauteous then they already did normally. Seeing the two grizzled trollocs standing guard outside the Lady´s bedchambers she knew something was wrong even before she heard the muffled cries come through the heavy door. She knew instinctively what was going on. Keeping a wary eye on the leering trollocs she inched her way towards the door and grabbed the knob with shaking hands and started to push. The door however opened by itself, pulled open from the inside.
She stood face to face with the Dark Master..
The Dark Master was the only fade she had ever seen smile, and she had seen many of the creatures during her imprisonment… to many. Yet today he smiled more triumfantly then she had ever seen him smile before. Behind him she saw a lifeless body sprawled out on a large bed. The Lady looked awfully young in death, too young. Then the myrddraal’s eyeless gaze fixed itself on her.
She stood petrified, caught in his eyeless gaze.
Only then did she notice the babe he held in his arms. A freshly born baby girl, still warm from her mothers body. Her eyes wandered around the room without any of the unfocussed awkwardness that babes normally have after being born. Beautifull eyes, soothing and lucid, settled on her and she lost herself in them.
She never noticed the myrddraal order all the prisoners to be killed.
She never saw the desperation in the eyes of Knobby as he tried to run it.
She never heard the soundsless screams of her fellow serfs…
…She never felt how she was dragged to the ground by harsh trolloc hands.
Her eyes never left the angelic, innocent creature that was being held in the arms of that myrddraal.
“I do not want to die nameless, no one knowing..” she thought as she felt an axe bite into her back, somewhere far off.. “Oh, Light.. And neither should you, little one. I’ll name you and we’ll die named alike.. akin.. alive..”
Tears streaming over her cheeks she slowly mouthed her name at the babe. Her vision slowly fading to black and her thoughts going blank, she could have sworn that she saw the little girl smile at her.
Like a limp piece of raw meat she saw her own tongue dangle between cruelly pointed plyers. Gagging, she tried to hold back the salty, warm flood of her own blood pouring down her throat as she was unable to scream due to the blinding pain. The harsh rusted metal contraption that forced her mouth open bit deeply in the soft tissue of her cheeks. She tried to scream but all that escaped her was a wet spluttering gurgling sound. As nausea overcame her due to the blinding pain and ingestion of large amounts of blood, she thought nothing worse could happen to her anymore. Then her tormentor grabbed a hot iron poke from the firepit and walk over to her. As he casually gobbled down her still dripping tongue the trolloc grinned with bloodied fangs and pressed the white-hot iron into the still gaping wou…
The woman woke with a choked gurgle to the darkness around her. Gulping in air she tried to scream.. In vain as only a few mangled sounds escaped her mouth when the stump of her tongue wriggled into thin air. Panting heavily she lay there on her back. The same dream had been haunting her nights ever since that day when the Dark Master had come into the pens and selected men and women akin and carried them away to his dark lair. She had not been the first to have her tongue removed, nor the last. Many had died from infection and loss of blood in the days after the crude procedures, and every morning their trolloc guards had made their rounds past the rows of huddling prisoners, picking out those that had died during the past night.
She considered those the lucky ones.
However things had improved slightly afterwards as less prisoners meant that there was more to eat for the survivors. Slowly their strength had returned to them in those shadowy pits under a roiling, maddening sky. One morning they had been brutally lined up by their trolloc guards and they were driven down a dark staircase untill they entered what had become their new home ever since.
As she tore herself from her reminiscing she looked at the hourglass and saw it was almost time for her to get up. Things sure had changed since the Lady had suddenly arrived in these dark halls underneath Tkakan’dar. She hurried down the eerily lit gallery, past the ancient banners underneath the wrought iron chandeliers hanging down from the ceiling on heavy iron chains. Even if the chains dissapeared into darkness high above, the dim light that the chandeliers spread was welcome to her after the deep darkness of her sleeping cell.
She exchanged a short handgesture with Knobby, an old borderlander, whom she had dubbed such so because of his knobby knees which poked through the holes in his trousers. He and his companion Owly came from night duty outside the Lady´s chambers, as usual. She had to hurry.. The Lady would be in a foul mood if she woke up and didnt find her garments laid out for her already.
In passing by she wondered what others called her sometimes in the silence of their own thoughts. Talking was impossible and any hint at written communication had been harshly punished in the past. She felt that every one of the serfs in these wretched halls was living out his or her own desperation in lonely silence, while performing the tasks set upon them by the Dark Master and the Lady. She still clinged to her memories of those small moments of happiness from the past: the morning breeze in spring, her brothers and sister and above all the memory of the warm summer sun… Oh how she missed the sun in these dark, damp halls filled with darkness and despair..
“I am so unlucky,” she thought as she made a clicking sound with her ruined tongue. Entering the old library on the far side of the gallery she saw that there was already light shining out from under the door that led to the Lady’s bedchambers. Hurriedly she crossed the small study filled with books, most of them with unintelligable script running down their backs. Stealthily she opened the door and pressed her back against it while closing it softly. “Perhaps she hasn’t noticed yet.”
She had noticed. And it had taken her the better part of the day to forget about it.
Normally one was able to sneak out between shifts and have yourself replaced by someone else standing on beck and call for the Lady, but today the Lady had not averted her gaze from her long enough to make that happen. Without having had anything to eat since early morning she had been forced to tend to her every need and watch her eat breakfast, lunch, supper and dinner. She was exhausted. Ever since the pregnancy of the Lady had become visible, her moods had become more and more capracious and the punishments had become worse and worse. Today was a lucky day. “Atleast I get to walk back to my cell on my own two feet,” she thought as she stumbled back though the dimly lit gallery. Not for the first time she looked up to the banners lining the halls, both ancient and new, some still fresh and some already fading into decay. These were the trophies of the Dark Master’s conquests in the service of Soulblighter, but today they once again served to cheer her up with giving her a hint of color and beauty in this drab world.
She stumbled into the messhall. Offcourse it was not a real messhall, but it was where the kettles of unintelligable slop were dropped for the serfs to feed from. Once a day the trolloc guards brought them in and dropped them here, and after that it was comes first, serves first. Only three kettles had been brought today, which meant that some would go to bed hungry. Including her, for only a few morsels remained under the rim of the cast-iron kettles for her to dine on.
“Resignation,” she thought, “Death will come to me sooner or later in these halls.. Oh Light… Please let it be soon!”
Days turned into weeks turned into months. Serfs dissapeared and new wretches were brought in to replace the lost. The lost and the damned, that was how she called herself and the other silent slaves in these halls. Today was her turn to bring the Lady her food. The main kitchens were off limits to the regular serfs of the Dark Master and his Lady. Only a few were “chosen” to work there permanently, and it seemed to her on the few occasions that she was sent there to collect the Lady’s food that they were expended faster then the regular serfs. Haunted eyes followed her through the door as she left the kitchens with plates of steaming meat and hot piping bread. She felt the hairs on her forearms prickle as she felt their gazes on her back as if they were watching a blessed soul, because she was able to leave those kitchens when they were not.
She quickened her step..
The Lady had gotten very large with child lately and her demeanor had gotten worse and worse. Demands were rained down onto her hapless serfs. Tempestuous moodswings competed with almost eerily sweet moments where she almost shyly asked one of the female staff to rub her big belly. “It does feel nice to feel a new life moving underneath my hands,” thought the woman as she slowly moved her vingers, still recalling the soft movements they had experienced, “Any life at all.”
“Could the Lady be lonely as well?”
“Could she also be a prisoner of some sorts, living in these dark halls by order of her Dark Master?”
She quickened her step more now. All her thinking had made her forget the time and she feared being late with the Lady’s food. Plates rattling she hurried into the Lady’s chambers, convinced she would get a birching once again… at the least.
When she entered the Lady’s chambers, however, she immediatly felt something was different. The serfs moved around even more cauteous then they already did normally. Seeing the two grizzled trollocs standing guard outside the Lady´s bedchambers she knew something was wrong even before she heard the muffled cries come through the heavy door. She knew instinctively what was going on. Keeping a wary eye on the leering trollocs she inched her way towards the door and grabbed the knob with shaking hands and started to push. The door however opened by itself, pulled open from the inside.
She stood face to face with the Dark Master..
The Dark Master was the only fade she had ever seen smile, and she had seen many of the creatures during her imprisonment… to many. Yet today he smiled more triumfantly then she had ever seen him smile before. Behind him she saw a lifeless body sprawled out on a large bed. The Lady looked awfully young in death, too young. Then the myrddraal’s eyeless gaze fixed itself on her.
She stood petrified, caught in his eyeless gaze.
Only then did she notice the babe he held in his arms. A freshly born baby girl, still warm from her mothers body. Her eyes wandered around the room without any of the unfocussed awkwardness that babes normally have after being born. Beautifull eyes, soothing and lucid, settled on her and she lost herself in them.
She never noticed the myrddraal order all the prisoners to be killed.
She never saw the desperation in the eyes of Knobby as he tried to run it.
She never heard the soundsless screams of her fellow serfs…
…She never felt how she was dragged to the ground by harsh trolloc hands.
Her eyes never left the angelic, innocent creature that was being held in the arms of that myrddraal.
“I do not want to die nameless, no one knowing..” she thought as she felt an axe bite into her back, somewhere far off.. “Oh, Light.. And neither should you, little one. I’ll name you and we’ll die named alike.. akin.. alive..”
Tears streaming over her cheeks she slowly mouthed her name at the babe. Her vision slowly fading to black and her thoughts going blank, she could have sworn that she saw the little girl smile at her.
Re: Into the Heart of Darkness
Good work eyeless one! 
Re: Into the Heart of Darkness
We definitely need "likes" feature to this forum!
Re: Into the Heart of Darkness
shameless bump, I think there is quest material in there
Re: Into the Heart of Darkness
Started reading stuff from this forum and this one is great!! Razhak please continue this - what happens to her?? Who is she? Why did the fade select her???
I need to know
I need to know
Re: Into the Heart of Darkness
I'll +1 that. The storytelling here is fantastic, Raz.