Rend the Dark Read online

  Ferran fought with the first creature, stabbing with his spear and swinging the length of chain while Warden Aker and Riffolk desperately cut at the two other spider-things that cornered them. Mireia charged in, swinging her lantern and smashing it into the head of one of the creatures. It screamed in pain and lashed out viciously.

  Amidst the cacophony, Hil heard a different sound. It was a scream, but unlike the sound of madness that came from the spider-things. This was much more human, full of life and fear. Hil tried to see where it was coming from as the light from Riffolk’s lantern swung crazily about.

  There. Behind a pile of bones near one of the corners, Hil saw a young woman. She was pale and covered in filth. Her eyes looked wild and frightened and almost feral with terror. The girl saw him and shrank back at first, but then she seemed to realize he was human and struggled to get up.

  Despite his own fear screaming at him, Hil darted across the open room toward the girl. “Please,” he heard her whisper as he came close. “Please.”

  She reached up for him, and Hil pulled her to her feet, holding her at his side and bringing his blade out before him. The girl clung to him desperately as Hil began to move around the edge of the room and toward the exit tunnel.

  “Hileon!” Mireia’s voice cut through the chaos. Hil turned toward her and saw her staring back at him across the length of the cavern, her eyes wide.

  Hil felt the girl he rescued clinging to him tightly, and it was only then that he realized in a moment of cold horror that he felt more than just two arms embracing him. He looked down at the face of the girl and saw her mouth open impossibly wide to reveal row upon row of sharp teeth. Her body stretched and swelled in his arms as she reared up over him, covering him with her shadow.

  “A blessing,” Hil said, his eyes wet, and then the creature lowered her fanged maw to his face and fed.

  ***

  Ferran stood amidst the carnage of the cavern, staring down in guilt and shame at the body of the young magistrate. The final notes of Mireia’s chant died in the echoing cavern, leaving only a heavy silence. Riffolk knelt down at the side of Hileon’s ruined body, tears streaming down his face, and his head shaking back and forth.

  The Ruins had been killed. Their bodies had twisted and shriveled after death, ultimately melting away into nothingness. Such was always the way with the creatures of the Dark. They faded away, leaving only their victims behind.

  Warden Aker stood back by Mireia. He shook his head as he looked around the nightmarish space. “Why could you not sense them?” the old warden said.

  Ferran walked over and picked up a piece of the broken wooden plank with the strange curved markings upon it. He held it out before him, and his voice was tight with anger. “This,” Ferran said. “This is no mere charlatan’s false hope. These symbols somehow have the power to cloud our sight.”

  “When it shattered, I was able to see them,” Mireia said, still kneeling. Her face was pale, and it seemed an effort for her to remain upright.

  Ferran watched her closely, concerned for her as she dealt with the torrent of grief and pain from Hil’s death. The death of the innocent always seemed to affect her powerfully, more deeply than it did him. No, he corrected himself. Not more deeply. Differently.

  Mireia felt loss. Ferran felt rage.

  Riffolk spoke without looking up from the body of Hileon. “What does that mean?” he asked. There was none of the earlier strength and boldness that characterized the young man when Ferran had first met him. The death of his friend and the maddening horrors seemed to have shaken him to the core.

  “It means we now know the face of our true enemy,” Ferran said.

  Mireia nodded. “I have no doubt now. The mindless state of our attackers this morning made me suspect, but the descriptions in the accounts of the Order correspond exactly to what we faced here. Shokrul. The Weavers of Betrayal.”

  “Have you faced these things before?” Warden Aker asked.

  “No. Nor has anyone in the Order. Not for hundreds of years,” Mireia responded.

  Ferran shook his head. “The Shokrul are parasites. They inhabit their victims, taking on their memories and mannerisms, living amongst family and friends who have no idea there exists a horror in their midst. Normally, we would be able to see their darkness through even this disguise, but…” Ferran held up the piece of splintered wood with the strange symbols and threw it against the wall of the cave.

  “Ferran,” Mireia said, her voice low. “With those wards in the town, there could be any number of the creatures there. There could be a queen.”

  Riffolk looked up at them. “A queen?”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Warden Aker said. “We need to leave now and return in force. Call in more acolytes, and I will arrange to have the village cordoned off and the surrounding area put under quarantine. This infestation cannot be allowed to spread.”

  “No,” Ferran said, and all in the cavern looked to him. “In the time that will take, it will already be too late. These things are old and cunning, but above all, they are survivors. If there is a queen, it knows we are here and that we have discovered it. It will make the hive disappear, and before it does, it will take as much food as it can.”

  “Groveland Down,” Mireia said, concern clear on her face. “I can contact the Order spiritually. But even with hard travel, it will be three days before they get here.”

  “And Groveland Down will be a gravesite by then,” Ferran said.

  The warden frowned with a look of grim consternation. “You cannot mean to return to the village without reinforcements,” he said. “To what end? The priority must be to not let it get away, lest the rest of the march, perhaps the entire ward fall to this.”

  “The order will know, I promise you that,” Mireia said. “And they will track it. But Ferran is not wrong. Once it is gone, the village and all its people will be gone as well.”

  “If we strike now,” Ferran said. “If we are fast enough, we may be able to take the creatures unawares and save the people.”

  Still the old warden stared at him, and Ferran shook his head, searching for a way to make the man understand why this was something he had to do. “You know Mireia’s father, Cadell.”

  The warden nodded. “For a long time now.”

  “Years ago, an old man came to an orphanage and stood against terrible horrors, fighting so that a group of children might live through the night,” Ferran said. “We were nothing, my friends and I. Merely orphans, forgotten and discarded by everyone. And yet in our most dire moment, he came for us. Delivered us.” Ferran clenched a fist. “This is the debt I carry, Warden. If I cannot do for others what Cadell did for me, then I may as well have died that night.”

  “And what if there are no innocents left in that village to save, acolyte?” Warden Aker said.

  “There is at least one innocent left,” Ferran said. “That girl had the sight. If she had already been taken, then she would not have seen such things or spoken to me of them. Even if she is the only one. I will go back.”

  “I will go with you,” Riffolk said, and they all turned toward the magistrate. He had covered Hileon’s body with his cloak and now stood, wiping a forearm across his eyes. “Hil was never what you would call brave, and yet his last act was selfless and courageous. In a way, he was like the man at the bottom step you told him about,” he said, looking over to Mireia. “Hil died so that we would know of the danger and so that others might live. If we just allow the village to die…” Riffolk took a deep shuddering breath and then steadied himself. “If the village falls, then my friend will have died for nothing.”

  Warden Aker looked from the young magistrate and back to the two acolytes. Then he shook his head and pulled out a scrap of cloth. He began to meticulously clean the blade of his sword as he spoke. “With those symbols in place, you will have no idea what is waiting for you there. You will be as blind to these creatures as we are,” he said, gesturing to himself and Riffolk. “We must d
estroy the runes first, then you can spot the disguised shokrul, and then we take them before they can regroup and escape.”

  “We?” Ferran said, a grim smile beginning to form on his face.

  The warden did not look up. “Contact the Order by whatever means you have. If we fail, they will have to pursue these creatures. We will see to saving what lives we can.” The warden thrust his sword back in its sheath. “You are not the only one with a debt to repay to old Cadell.”

  “Or Hileon,” Mireia said softly.

  “Or Hileon,” Ferran said, and the others rose to their feet.

  4

  As the setting sun reddened the sky overhead, Ferran stood at the fence just outside the village. Mireia had finished contacting the Order. Warden Aker had seemed relieved at that. It was a comfort, he said, to know that should they fail here, others would come to avenge them. Ferran had nodded in response, but he had said nothing. He did not intend to fail.

  Beside him, Riffolk was breathing heavily. He had his sword out, and was gripping it so hard his arm was shaking. Ferran could feel the tension coming off the young man. “You know what to do,” Ferran said, not asking the man, but more reminding him what they had talked about.

  Riffolk nodded mechanically. “Break the symbols wherever we find them. Kill anything that you and Mireia point out. Get the innocent to safety. Break the symbols wherever…” He repeated the steps of his instructions over and over. The words were numb and hollow, recited like a litany, a prayer against the darkness he knew was coming.

  “Riffolk,” Ferran said, cutting through the repeated words. “You’ll be alright.”

  Riffolk’s eyes grew slightly wider and then he laughed. “No. No I won’t. I’m frightened,” he said. “More than I ever really have been before.” He licked his lips nervously. “Hil. He was the timid one. I used to give him a hard time about it. He was scared of everything.” He shook his head once, hard. “I understand him much more now. I wish I had been a better friend to him.”

  Ferran stared out at the dying sun across the length of the village. Before them, people went about their lives as the day drew to a close. “When I was a child, I lived with fear as a constant companion. I saw things that no one else did, and eventually I began to question what I was seeing.” Ferran shook his head, remembering those dark days. “I did not know what was worse. That what I was seeing wasn’t real. Or that it was. But when I joined the Order, I learned an important lesson about the true nature of fear. Would you like to know it, Riffolk?”

  “I would,” Riffolk said, swallowing hard.

  Reaching back, Ferran pulled forth his spear and held it loosely in one hand while the other produced the length of heavy chain. “The opposite of fear is not courage. We tell ourselves this, but it is a falsehood. Courage is merely a means to an end. No, the real opposite of fear is power.”

  Ferran’s face broke into a tight, feral grin. “When you killed the shokrul in the cave, you learned you could have power over it. When you accepted the possibility that you could die today, death lost its power over you.” The hard smile grew wider and Ferran extended his arms out in a shrug. “So what reason is there to fear?”

  Ferran put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You can’t change what’s past. For Hileon. Or for yourself. But you can change what happens now,” Ferran said, then, looking across at the others, motioned to them and headed down to the village.

  As Ferran walked past the outer fences and into the actual village proper, he felt the others at his back. He came to a stop in the middle of the main thoroughfare, his spear resting on his shoulder. The warden moved over to one of the wooden boards with the strange, blasphemous symbols on it. It was the one Ferran had studied their first time in the village.

  Ferran gave the warden a nod, and the warden drew his blade and smashed the wooden icon.

  Immediately Mireia’s eyes burned with a feverish light. She spun swiftly in place and then her hand lashed out, a finger pointing at a group of workers returning from the field. “There!” she shouted.

  As Ferran followed her direction, he saw one of the crowd looked different now. Oily black shadows like living tar flowed over his body in the unmistakable stain of the Dark. Ferran locked eyes with the creature that had disguised itself as a man. “No more hiding,” he said and charged.

  Immediately as he attacked, the tainted thing changed. It erupted from its human guise in a shower of blood and viscera, spraying it over the shocked and terrified workers. Its bloated, spider-like abdomen swelled, and it thrust it forward, shooting threads into the heads of two of the nearby workers.

  The two men gasped and jerked and then slowly moved to try and block Ferran’s path. Ferran darted past the hapless workers to get in close on the creature. Ferran smashed it in the face with a chain-wrapped fist and felt its fangs break under the blow. He wedged the length of the spear under the creature and tossed it to the ground. It screamed as its segmented legs skittered and kicked at the empty air. Ferran reversed the spear and stabbed down, pinning the creature to the dirt of the road.

  Even as it finished its death throes, Ferran was up and moving, his eyes scanning the faces of the now-terrified villagers that streamed past in a panic for any sign of the Dark. Behind him, Warden Aker gathered the threaded men, who now with the creature killed were already shaking off its effects. Riffolk caught up to Ferran as the body of the creature began to melt and dissolve. Ferran looked at the magistrate.

  “Ignore the threads, go for the creature itself. Kill it and you free its victims. Do you understand?”

  Riffolk nodded, and Ferran looked back toward Mireia. Her lantern was out before her, and it held a dim glow. “Nothing more here. We move on,” she said, her voice strong and clear. She pushed forward, moving up beside him.

  With the commotion from the first fight and the panic from the villagers who had witnessed it, the tranquil evening sleepiness of Groveland Down was quickly turning to chaos as men and women came out of their homes.

  The warden fell behind to deal with the freed villagers, and Ferran tasked Riffolk with finding and destroying more of the corrupted sigils. Riffolk caught sight of one dangling from the eaves of a small house and rushed forward, shattering it with a blow from his sword. As he broke the symbol, Mireia’s lantern flared brightly and her eyes glowed.

  Before she could speak, a man exiting a house with his wife and young son threw his head back and screeched an ear-shattering sound and then erupted into the monstrous form of the shokrul. His family staggered back and screamed.

  Chaos erupted in the street as three more villagers shifted violently, shedding their human guise in an eruption of blood. They began to shoot forth the terrible threads into anyone that was close enough to be a viable target. The possessed victims shook and twitched, then began to advance on the group. All around, villagers ran screaming.

  Riffolk charged the creature nearest him. It skittered backwards on its segmented legs, hissing at him with its fanged maw from behind the screen of its controlled victims. Lashing out with the long length of silver chain, Ferran caught the creature around the leg, sending it sliding down to the ground. Riffolk lunged forward, hacking away at the thing with his sword.

  Ferran then spun, stretching out with the spear and slapping the length of it across the face of one of the creatures coming for him. He continued the motion, allowing the whip-like swing of the chain to snap toward the monster. It screeched in horrific pain.

  Over the wailing of the creatures and the panicked screams of the villagers, Ferran heard the familiar notes of Mireia’s chant. Her voice rose, the ancient words ringing out in the clear, clean music of her song. The shokrul shook and writhed as the words struck at them and tore at the darkness they were made from.

  Ferran moved around her, the bright light of her lantern flaring as he lost himself in righteous fury. One of the creatures fell before him, and as it died, Ferran could not wipe the grim smile from his face. Today, these monstrous horrors
would learn what it meant to fear.

  Beyond the melting corpse of the shokrul, Riffolk finished off the creature he was engaged with. The magistrate was covered in gore and was screaming in rage as his blade rose and fell, again and again, even as the monster began to dissolve. Around him, the possessed villagers who had been clinging to his arms began to shake free of the creature’s domination.

  But the other two creatures began to scuttle away, climbing up onto the nearby roofs as they fled from the burning light of Mireia’s lantern and her painful words. Ferran yelled for the others to follow him, and he began to chase the things through the paths of the village.

  As he crossed the main square, he saw Warden Aker running his way. The warden had a cut along his forehead that dripped blood into his eyes, but he wiped it away as he caught up with Ferran. “It went this way,” the warden said, pointing with his sword in the direction that Ferran’s quarry was moving.

  Ferran nodded. “The ones we fought as well.”

  Riffolk gasped for air beside him, his eyes wild. “Where are they going?”

  They rounded the last house of the village, and the magistrate’s question was answered. Before them was the village graveyard, and in the dying sunlight, Ferran saw three of the shokrul crawling over the large hill at the center of it. The white stone of grave markers shook and fell over as the ground shifted. The creatures on the hill began to keen and screech, their human faces a mixture of rage and ecstasy.

  Ferran watched as the earth gave birth to the monstrous form of a shokrul queen.

  The green grass and moss-covered hill fell away as the bloated, festering horror arrived onto the surface. Its body, larger than a whole section of the village, was a writhing riot of fleshy sacks, each with a human face that screamed into the growing dark of the evening with a sound that hurt the very mind. There was no front or back to the creature, only mass, and the shifting tortured faces that made up its body. It was a creature made as much of madness as it was of flesh.