Both still stood firm, for, to them, what had seemed like hours. Neither gent really knowing why, but simply doing so as if by some unspoken rule. It was only with the sudden blanketing of shadow that either tore their eyes away and began to survey the environment.
To Riley the darkness was unsettling, regardless of its abruptness it almost appeared to be...pulsating and writhing about them. Far-off, distorted voices howled throughout the wood, and a stampede of bizarre strides grated against the gravel, unseen to Dempsey.
His right arm rose shakily in the direction of the fellow man. In what seemed a futile attempt to bridge the eight foot gap between both. As he did this he was turning his head about trying to follow the encircling movement, hearing taking up the slack where eyesight now fell short.
Pick on the other hand was only distracted by the light for a moment. His gut twisted as his mind made a connection almost instantly to the one thing that had changed recently, and so his attention became fixed on the shadowy stranger before him. For a moment, Pick thought to light the lamp on his head but instantly thought better of it as he remembered the last time he’d tried to see in the dark. The sound of his guts spilling onto cold stone echoed within his mind and he shuddered, still refusing to remove his eyes from the stranger. “Puzzle piece,” he muttered, a mix of pleasure and disgust in his words.
In a serious and stern voice he muttered just loud enough for the other to hear, never letting his head turn from the direction of the noises. “We are being stalked. Do not pick up tail and run…”.
Riley paused for a moment before speaking again in the same tone, “This...thing is not too small, take your spade in hand...then slowly get up against my back.”
He was acting on old instincts, a mental muscle which was still very taut. As memories grew clearer again both hands slowly but surely made for the two daggers sheathed behind him. He took one upright by the grip in his right, and the other flipped to the blade, taking a stance as if ready to hurl it. Initially this movements where not all his own but as clarity returned he remembered the sort of man he was and still must certainly be.
Pick listened to the man’s request, a grin now spread across his face as the aching in his back began to flare up again. “Yeah, so you can kill me instead of whatever’s out there. Right?” he accused, his breathing becoming uneven once more as he took his shovel in both hands. Pick lifted the shovel over his head as he prepared to cave in the man’s skull, ready to strike him down for being stupid enough to turn his back in expectancy of cooperation. Before he could swing though, Pick’s eyes caught a glimpse of the tangled mass he had in arrogance mistaken for part of the trees. He’d become frozen, shovel still over his head but eyes fixed on where he had last seen movement. Whether the thing had become still or moved fast enough to now be part of another shadow Pick had no idea, and nervously swallowed as memories of the last thing he’d met in the dark continued to flood back. “Okay. Okay puzzle piece, for now you have my back,” Pick muttered, eyes darting about fearfully as he turned around so he felt a pressure in his ribs. The handle of the tool in his back pressed lightly against the bare flesh of the other man, pushing the tool at an odd angle which elicited a grunt of pain from the larger of the two.
Riley omitted a soft growl, "Good to see you're hearing reason. No sudden moves, keep your senses sharp.", still facing away from him.
Muttering. Muttering. The two had begun to see some sort of reason, to unite against that which would be their killer. But the beast was not a hunter of opportunity, and would rather strike it’s foes in a moment of zealous fury than wait for them to show fear and to run. Swiftly it strode between the umbral shapes of trees cast upon the dirt, twisting between light and dark inwards to the centre of the dead arboreal circle - where the two men conspired to survive. They watched.
It watched.
Both knew of the others’ presence.
And for a moment, there was silence.
…
Quietly, it edged through the murk. With one spindly and unimaginably long arm that had been furled between folds of dirtied flesh, it struck to the side to distract the shovel-holding man before dashing forward to strike the other.Dempsey heard the assault long before it was seen; the dirt kicking up behind its frenzied lunge. Moments, precious moments taken to judge the direction, cogs beginning to slowly gain momentum in his head. His body was twisting left, before he even knew it, as the arm wound up in preparation. The man at his side was blindly swinging now, far off enough to not bother Riley's movements, but still haphazardly. A stone cold gaze met their attacker's; if there was enough time to think, he would've thought about how ghastly the creature was. Yet there was not.
"EeeeerrRRRRGGHH.", was the only thing to leave his throat. In part to sheer mindless frustration and also due to having to force sore muscles into movement.
Riley's comrade was just coming to the realize their enemy’s new route, slowly turning his head. Eight...nine...eleven...some uncountable number of eyes met two eyes, both filled with a different sort of fury. The beast was extended to deformed arms towards his torso, trying to disable Dempsey, but the left arm was a few seconds quicker; launching the dagger in full force careening for the main body. It quickly cleared the two meter wide distance well before the abomination could. Riley watched and waited as seconds ticked by ever so slowly, formulating contingencies and counter attacks to be used on a seconds notice.
Within seconds the beast was upon the faster man, who had impaled the beast through the rib with a small blade which had brought forth a small torrent of thick, black ichor which did not quite seep due to its viscosity, rather it bubbled forth from the wound, consuming the hilt of the dagger almost entirely. But this was but a flesh wound, one that would do little to subdue the madness and hunger of the creature that was upon them. Using its full force in the realisation that it had lost the element of surprise, it crashed into the assailant, slashing and stabbing with all of its wicked limbs in some attempt to rend the man into slivers. It was far larger than he, and would be nigh on impossible to push it from his body unassisted as the two exchanged torturous blows. If nobody were to aid him, he would surely be killed…
But he was not alone. The beast did not care to consider the second man. To anyone person not versed in fighting, the scene would’ve been that of something alike to a frantic dance. The one on one battle was not long lived but was quite the rare sight. Riley could barely throw himself to keep up with the beast as his ally stood frozen by the sight for some moments. The creature in its full stature was at least a few heads taller, and nearly as fast as the worn down man in his prime. He twisted about the ground maneuvering around the beast’s thrashing appendages, while occasionally parrying off an arm with a quick swipe by his right hand blade.
He turned to the dumbfounded fellow, “OI!”, he looked back to the monster, then back to Pick, “By the lor-”, he dodged left of a shooting limb, “HELP ME KILL THIS, LAD!”.
Pick’s mind swam, the tangled mass of shadows before him bringing back the most unpleasant of memories. It was the shadows, all this darkness belonged to the creature and they had broken one of it’s rules. They wouldn’t tolerate rule breaking- no, if you did one thing wrong that was it.
It wanted them dead- they were dead- they…Pick screamed as the fear in his belly boiled up through his being, charging forward and shouldering aside a set of grotesque flailing limbs. They paid no proper mind to him, moving almost independently of one another while the majority of them focused on the puzzle piece they had bellow it. “IT’S MINE!” Pick screamed, grasping his shovel tightly before driving it upwards into the creature’s side. He’d hit a sweet spot; the shovel dodging bone and pushing through the horrid mass of flesh like it were soft earth as hot ooze bubbled from the massive gash. The spade was gone, inside the creature, and trying to do something helpful Pick tried using this leverage to push the thing off or away. The creature’s life blood spat from the wound with the application of the force, splashing out over Pick’s arms and onto the ground as he desperately tried shoving the thing off.
-
”Pock!” came a voice from afar, lost in some hazy shadows that obscured the source of a familiar utterance.
”Prack, are you there?” it called out frantically.
The beast wailed and thrashed in pain as the black lifeblood poured from multiple gashes across its central mass. Slashing, slashing, striking, punching. But it seemed to recoil from the voice every time it pierced the night as though it struck the beast like an ethereal blade. Its resolve weakened under the heavy presence of the Hermit’s voice which now seemed to echo with the raw power of elemental thunder.
”Pick!!” he called once more, emerging from the darkness, his gaunt frame accentuated with thin slivers of light that danced from dewy reflections of the black sun from the dampened mud underfoot. His undeniable shuffle advocated the truth of his presence, but upon laying his eyes upon the brutal scene before him, his entire demeanour changed…
”Foul beast, lay not your hands upon these men!” he cried with a fury unbeknownst to those he sought to aid. The voice he shouted with was not one associated with him normally, instead taking on the form of a much more youthful, intimidating man. It rumbled and shook the rotted trees, and the air seemed to shimmer in response to him. His walking stick glowed dimly, washing away a thin field of the darkness with a dull, dusky amber light. The beast that was upon the younger men was flung from its position of power, as though it were swatted away by a much stronger, unseen force, slamming against several trees, smashing their rotten trunks to pieces.
When the beast had been slung away, Pick’s shovel had almost gone with it and in an effort to hold on he was dragged forward a few feet which left him stumbling to avoid falling flat on his face. “Edge pieces,” he gasped, rolling his shoulder to be sure it hadn’t popped from it’s socket while the one hand that still held the shovel clenched. The black ooze squelched between his fingers, running down the length of his spade and onto the cold, dead grass beneath it. “Corner pieces are important,” he murmured, thoughts beginning to haze as he looked on towards the creature which was now softly illuminated by the light of the Hermit’s staff. It flailed wildly among the bed of shattered bark that had been created for it, many of it’s limbs working to try and right itself while a select few grasped tenderly at it’s open wounds.
Riley stood there as the beast writhed about on account of the elder’s presence. In the minute that the beasts attention had been averted from ripping him a very fresh new one, he had simply observed it, almost totally unfeeling. But as he watched it squirm, an animalistic rage had welled up inside him. To tell truth he would normally never be too crossed with a beast like this, it wasn’t anything personal he guessed, just a bloodthirsty ghoul acting on instinct. But his rage seemed far off, miniscule, it was anger directed to his own frailty, weakness. He wanted this thing dead. He needed this thing torn asunder by his hands alone...he needed to watch it squirm under his blade. Thoughts of shoving aside the old man and lunging for the final blow came to mind. His features tightened, a blood thirsty scowl bearing the tiny canines of man stretched down to his chin. Eyes shrank away under the furrowing brow; his face showing signs of a return to instincts. An energy unlike any before reinvigorated his body; he felt taller, stronger, keener, and hungrier than ever in his natural life.
“Bloody- fucking- mess, this is,” Pick groaned, trading the shovel between his hands as he tried to shake off what blood hadn’t yet dried over them. For the moment he ignored the man he’d been sent to find, looking towards the hermit and smiling for a reason that wasn’t hilarity for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “Thank you. I should have said so earlier, but thank you,” Pick told him, believing still that all this was mere delusion. Whatever mental trap he’d fallen into, inside this world that defied possibility, Pick believed perhaps escaping only required the right pieces to fill in what was missing. The hermit was one, an edge piece, like those on a puzzle that you always find first. This other man had a part to play too; otherwise, Pick reasoned, his mind wouldn’t have constructed such a character. “It’ll all fit together,” he breathed, his words nearly inaudible even to him. He felt relieved, and now that his mind had time for other thoughts Pick’s attention was drawn to the other man who’d now noticeably tensed. “You okay there, puzzle piece?” he asked Riley, placing his free hand upon the man’s shoulder.
The voice of a kins-men...a hand held by reason, Riley remembered what he is and what he had always been. Hunger shrank away, leaving him with only the exhaustion. Riley’s entire body relaxed as his senses came back to him.
Slowly he nodded his head, “I’m..aye yeah I’m alright.”, turning, he looked to face the other two members of this small triage. “I s’pose we should make way from here then? If it is a ,“we” ,then?”
From there, the Hermit shuffled from the dark, the illumination of his staff fading back into the gnarled wood. He seemed to have returned back to his old self, not one wracked with some arcane power of the most eldritch kind.
When it was visible, he pulled a crooked smile, his sparse teeth forming a somewhat heartwarming grin.
“Hello young’uns!” he cried. “It looks like we should get going! Shall we make haste to the canyon? At least before the Spider awakens again from its slumber?”
“Gladly,” Pick replied, his joy having faded as his mind once more became occupied with the riddle of this land. Despite the ache in his back and the vice on his mind, he was still feeling somewhat better though. As the hermit started his shuffling once more, Pick began to follow after, feeling lulled into a sense of compliancy that allowed him time to think. Briefly he looked back to be sure the man they had retrieved still followed, but otherwise let his eyes rest on the invisible path ahead.
I never really liked puzzles, he thought to himself, huffing in displeasure at the thought.
The Turncloak could not remember, for one reason or another, why the star hanging there, so lonely, captivated him so. Even amidst the chaos that encapsulated the scene so rapidly and without warning, he took more than a few moments to watch the darkness swirl across the star, like a drop of ink dropped into clear water. It consumed, devoured, swallowed the light. Just like that, they were plunged into darkness. It was a familiarity that the Turncloak did not wish to recall. He had died once when the light had begun to turn. He remembered that much. But maybe once in a time where he was not of this land, he had died whilst the sun had fallen just below the horizon; shadows marking death. Shadows.
Death.
He furrowed his brow, still unfeeling to the situation unfolding around him. He stood there like a bulwark as the trampling of hooves and crashing of rocks sounded closer and closer by the minute. Screaming, growling, hungering.
He had always felt like his memories had been on the tip of his tongue, a half-remembered dream whose content was but a single prompt away. And perhaps this darkness, surrounded by so many, would be the prompt he so desperately required. he closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly shut as if to cast away the chaos, if only for a moment so that he may clear his head for what was about to come.
A cloak flapping in the wind of some highland plain… At a sunset. Darkness falling. Beside another.
”I give myself to you…”
His voice would sound. He knew this.
“Until the end of time.”
“Are you sure,” she asked. “T-t-“
"͏̲͎͎̗T̨̮͇̹̣͚h̨̙͓̦ḙ̩͚r̬̤̖e͖̬͔͓͠ i̠̳̦̪̙̲̦s̹̖͉ ̺̲̩͉̤̯̫n̻̗͍o̶͎̤͔̠͈ ͉͍̱̯́ǵ̠̮o̹̰̠̠i̪͖n̲̯̹̺͝g̴̯̠ ̱̳̀b̰̙̺͙͖̹͔a̹͙c̳͇̬̥k̭͖͇̦"̪ ̤̘̠̺̣͕͓
͔͍̤"̘͕͚͈͠D̴͖o̷̯͓̺̱̠ ̴͔̘͕͖̭͍̰y̬̹̩̰͘o̥̻̮u̧͖͔̺͈̝̺̜ ̹̩̹̭̬̝r̘̗̹͍͡ͅe̱͔̻̟̖ͅn̨̦̪̙̘ou͚̭͝n̟͖͇̝̞̮c͢e̲̘͓ ̛̪̗̳̥͔̬y̦͎̝̜̝͟o̢͇͚̬̹u̘͚̮r ̖̹͖̖͉͓͢ͅK̴̮̤̟i̝͇̰͕͇̝͞ņģ͍̦̹̳̖ ̞̰̖̥̲̻̺f̜̞o̺̳̖͜r͓͟ ͔͙͚͇m͓̞̥̹͉͈̻e̟͜?̮͓"̺̳ ̨
”I do” he had said, and then… nothing.
No. No. This was not right. This memory was not his.
Think. Think!"DO YOU RENOUNCE YOUR KINGHOOD FOR ME"
"I DO"
He opened his eyes, the chaos now flowing all around becoming once more a part of his mind. But it all seemed to flow so slowly, as though his epiphany had overshadowed the the relatively insignificant matter of the Turning Light. How could this be? Was this memory his? This memory was his. He cast the doubt away in his mind, for a false memory and a real one felt different inside one's self. It was like a puzzle piece missing from his mind and his sanity. Everything had become clear. The mountain.
The mountain. The key.For him, this was not to be. But the others could have a chance if they were to be set on the right course. Maybe they would be the ones to break the cycle. Loyal subjects and kingslayers alike, those Men and Women who were to break the flow of eternity and death, to break free from the encroaching darkness. He knew what had to be done. He would not see them all die. Not here. Not now. The Blood Golems had arrived.
They snarled with inhumanity and evil, blazing down the valleyside walls from the puzzled haze above. They were huge and fearsome, unlike the weakened and frail empty men of the land. Their arms were adorned with vicious weapons of bone, sharp as razors. The fury in their vacant, black eyes spoke verses of their intent to use them. They circled the group as only pack hunters could, their heads lowered and their jaws slick with saliva, hanging open in expectance of the meal to come. The Turncloak King raised his halberd, stabbing it into the ground as a sign of defiance, and unbuckled a yet-unused shield from his back. He raised himself to his full height, and step forward from the group, whose panic was evident in the face of such brisk danger.
"You must leave this place!"
he cried to those he had gathered.
"Do not trust the Hermit!"
"Find what I have lost."
he shouted even louder, urging them onwards.
"Find the Crown, find your way home!"
He turned his head to face the three Golems now threatening his life and those who had followed him to the canyon. He raised his blade, and brandished his shield.
"Tell me, creatures of the Empty Land...
Which King do you serve?"
