| Subject: Hehe. Well, here's what may be the last part of the tale, I'm thinking of stopping, so here's it is... Inside. |
Author:
Sekin Brightfall
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Date Posted: 03:36:00 10/23/03 Thu
In reply to:
Jade da sort of freaked out now
's message, "Now it's normal again but my post showed up blue!" on 11:10:40 10/22/03 Wed
The town of Prock was a fair-sized settlement, almost large enough for a city in the changing times. The houses were huge, whitewashed buildings, some of them rearing impressively two stories high. But, under a second, more scrutinizing search with open, penetrating eyes it was evident that the houses were crumbling into ruin. The doors hung haphazardly on rusting hinges, slamming shut then open, in the probing breeze with muted slams. Glass littered the street under the house’s eaves, glass from the shattered windows. The empty niches stared mournfully out into the night, like twisted mouths opened jaggedly wide in a soul-wrenching howl of pain, the glass underneath sparkling like teardrops in the silver glow of the moon. Some of the buildings bore wounds, scorch marks on their white surfaces like the streak of some giant, black brush, deep grooves in the brick, wide enough for a man’s hand to lay flat in, and strange words in the hideous tongue of Dama’zark scrawled in the blackening red of victim’s blood. Most of the once luxuriant houses were this way, fouled and stained, broken and abandoned. All but a few whose doors still were firmly shut against the wind and whose windows were whole and unbroken. No lights shone in the few hospitable houses, the few inhabitants were wrapped up in the peace of sleep, for a short time, forgetful of the death that surrounded them until the horns sounded in the morning. The black horns.
Grisen moved quickly through the decaying houses, not seeming to hurry, but not appearing to lag either. He moved with the graceful flowing movement of a hunter about to lunge on its intended prey. One step flowed into the next almost like a dance, his boots making only a slight crunch on the bones.
One hand clutched the hilt of his sword to his chest, covering the shimmering pommel stone in a black gloved fist. The other hand was held ready at his side, to slam into an unexpected attacker. He was in a half crouch, stepping so fluidly; he seemed to flow from one place to the next, one step melting into another. This was how a Falkhan traveled, with that graceful prowess, ready to lunge, like a spring coiled and ready to be released. He was Falkhan; he served the memory of the Blade of Light. He rolled the phrase around in his mind, savoring it. Falkhan. He was through pretending. Pretending had not saved Elanin or Amas. It had only turned him into a sniveling wretch that only groveled and watched his daughter and his wife die.
His face tightened, his eyes suddenly as bright as the blade he held to his chest to stifle the moonlight’s gleam. Those keen, piercing eyes traced furiously over the jagged, broken outlines of the houses, darting and weaving through the thick, foul, entangling script of Dama’zark. There was only one word he could pick out from the scrawl, the only one of that foul language that he knew and wished he didn’t. Tamorac. Even speaking the word in his mind, it seemed to grit against his thoughts horribly. Tamorac. Shadow.
Through the abandoned, ruinous houses the Falkhan moved, in that deadly crouch, flowing into his next stride, bright blade held ready. Soft whispering crunches emanated from where he stepped almost mockingly. Turning into slow, hissing, brittle laughs in his raging mind.
Grisen’s blood was boiling, he could hear it pounding in his ears, could hear the dull roar as it swept through him. His eyes shone brighter, glittering, almost seeming to reflect the moonlight. He could hear his ragged breaths as loudly as if he was shouting them.
Outside on the streets it was close to being silent, inside him, Grisen could hear enough noise to attract all the Darkborns in this accursed city. The drum-like pounding of his blood, the great shuddering breaths, and the rising, mocking laughs formed by the sickly crunches, roared in his ears. The noise escalated into a raging torrent of sound as the street ahead of him split into two. One street curved to his right, the other one continued straight on ahead. The children’s laughs grew louder, but still retaining a sheen of twisted slickness and deliberate slowness that made the Falkhan want to clap hands over his ears to shut out what was coming from within him.
“Hehe…hehe…hehe.” Slow and slick, greased with twisted joy. Grisen’s face tightened even more as he surged down the street leading straight. Stop! He thought desperately. Stop!
“Hehe…hehe…hehe.” Ghostly whispers of laughs mocking him. I couldn’t do anything!
“Heehee…heehee.” I couldn’t! The thought beat at his mind like a bird in a cage. The fluidness of his motions dissolved and he staggered forwards. The laughs became more frenzied.
“Heehee!…Heehee!” Grisen tripped over his own feet as he staggered and fell flat on his stomach. His haggard face was eye to eye with a broken skull, the top jaw wrenched horribly to the side. The laugh escalated. “Heeheehee!” and then died, faded to nothingness, as Grisen scrambled to his feet in a flurry of bright steel and small bones. Backing away from the disfigured skull, the blood still pounding in his ears and trickling from his wounds, he stared at it, lying harmlessly in a puddle of moonlight as the echoes of the laugh faded from his mind. He looked at it for a long time as the blood stopped beating that tattoo inside his head and his breaths deepened. When he finally managed to wrench his eyes away from it, something was flying towards him on the backs of the shadows.
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