Shadow
Snowflakes waltz in a magical serenade, each dance a unique ballet in the sky. The tiny pearls of fragile snow fall into a somber gaze that peers from beneath a cavernous, hooded cloak.
at the sky, the swirling snow blinding his sight. He shields his eyes as the tiny pearls cling to his thick eyebrows. His matted autumnal hair peaks from beneath his green hooded cloak, a meager curtain to block the frigid gale. Charcoal clouds glide above him, casting shadowy apparitions onto the freezing moors. The ghoulish wind whispers with a thousand distant wails.
Three turns of relentless march, trudging through the coming winter. Curse the moors and rains, which came untamed. Copper veins freeze with the thin veils of the coming winter; beneath the fine ice, mucky waters trickle, clinging to autumn’s dwindling flow.
The soldiers’ march on, slogging across the boundless wild moorlands of peat, squelching bogs, and thick heather. Their footfall, a rhythmic cadence, and a shared heartbeat in the desolate landscape.
Aldard marches at the forefront of the collum, his boots sinking into the sodden earth and his breath forming ghostly plumes in the frigid air. His voice cuts through the howling gusts, “pick up the pace, and we’ll make camp at the Standing Stones before nightfall.” His voice is stronger than he feels. Fickle faith. A soldier’s duty.
“Aye, general,” the soldiers mumble, their voices drowned out by the moaning wind.
Aldard presses on, his men following without complaint. His captain, Algwain, pushes the troops from the rear, with words of encouragement in the somber silence.
Occasional arrows whistle overhead, thudding into the tender flesh of wild hares and late-season pheasants. Dusky clouds part above the marching soldiers, and the falling sun’s kiss brings a welcome blush of dwindling warmth.
“General,” a broad Galtish accent calls from the scout ahead, “the Standing Stones.”
Infectious laughter and chatter spring among the soldiers as they approach the giant circle of looming stone pillars. Conversations are rich with the promise of hot food and a fire-warmed night.
The ancient Standing Stones of Galt come into view, a welcome sight and home for the night. Fragile rays of waning sunlight filter through the towering stone pillars, their spiraling concentric walls battered by time. The colossal stones lean inward, with unfathomable roots buried deep within the earth. They reach upward, grasping for celestial power. Faded runes adorn their tips where sunlight illuminates the stone peaks with gargantuan stone faces. Neither man nor beast, their weathered features obscured in history, retold in folklore. If the ancient stones could speak, they would recount bygone wars fought by creatures lost to time.
Aldard leads the soldiers through the Standing Stones; his gaze meets that of his men with reassuring nods. Aldard brushes his fingers across the damp lichen on the megalithic surfaces. He marvels at the intricate carvings, tracing the lines of ancient men and giant beasts carved into stone. Captain Algwain strides alongside him, and they exchange relieved glances as the men fall into the rhythmic ritual of making camp.
The marching formation breaks as Aldard dumps his pack onto the stony floor. He glances around the weathered stone circle, his memory drifting back to thirteen great cycles ago. “On the eastern edge, under the pile of slate, you’ll find firewood and kindling wrapped in woolen blankets. On the outermost southern circle, you’ll find skins of wine stashed under the stacked boulders.”
The troops spring into action, dashing between the spiraling walls. “General, there’s kindling and firewood. It’s damp, but it’ll serve,” calls a soldier from the distance. “General, six skins of wine,” responds another with a giddy laugh.
Aldard sighs with relief and salutes his luck. He pulls a thick woolen blanket from his leather sack and surveys the camp. A pair of soldiers pile small handfuls of dry brush atop firestones. Stones clack together, and with a gentle breath from a soldier’s lips, a fragile fire takes life, spitting firefly cinders into the turbulent sky. The camp cheers as they gather around the fire, warming their weary hands on the feeble flames.
The soldiers skin hares, pluck feathers, and portion scrawny birds ready for the pot. Others nurse the fire as one would a child, feeding it little by little until it burns bright with independent light. Captain Algwain drifts around the camp, making morale-boosting small talk, laughing and joking, and patting the troops on the back.
Night descends upon contented men crammed together around the meager fire. They huddle together for warmth and kinship, sharing tales and humorous anecdotes from their past lives. A warming sight in the bleakest of nights. The soldiers roast hare on the tips of their blades. The aroma of slow-charred flesh fills the air, smoky and sweet. Their faces illuminated by the flickering flames.
Aldard leans back against his pack and smiles to himself as his men chatter and eat, sharing wine as equals. He taps the leg of Captain Algwain, who sits beside him.
“What is it, bear?” Algwain takes a glug of the strong wine and passes it to Aldard.
“Bear?” Aldard takes a swig of wine and says, "That was a long time ago, and it was a small bear at that.” Aldard rubs the lucky bear paw hanging around his neck. “Shot with an arrow. You can’t wrestle a bear and win.”
“The men believe what they want to. You will always be their general who wrestled a bear.” Algwain reaches for Aldard’s neck, mimicking strangulation.
Aldard wipes tears of laughter from his eyes as they lock arms at the shoulders. The two men have a striking resemblance, as tight as brothers and honest as the wind.
“General,” Aldard pats Algwain on the back, his voice brimming with jovial command, “give the orders; the troops are yours.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Algwain’s eyes narrow.
“I hope this will be my last command. A father of three, with two sons I’ve never seen. I’m too old with too many winters.” He gazes through the dancing flames lingering on each soldier’s face. Some he knows, but most are strangers. He leans closer to Algwain and speaks in hushed tones. "The truth is, I am tired of soldiering. There is a small farm waiting for me—a quiet life. The men will follow you. Tonight, the troops should see their future general.”
“The great bear! A farmer?” Algwain bursts into mocking laughter. “You’re fecking with me? Drink more wine and tell me how you feel about it in the morning.”
Aldard takes another gulp of wine, savoring the taste on his lip and then signals for Algwain to issue the orders.
“Men of Galt,” Algwain rises to his feet with a slight wobble. The soldiers look up, their lively faces aglow with intoxicated merriment. “I’m in command for the night.”
The troops cheer and drum on their legs.
“Feck. Cover your arseholes, lads. Captain wants some warmth for the night.” Banters a voice amid howls of laughter from the joyful soldiers.
“Men of Galt, my brothers.” Algwain takes a deep, mocking bow and says, "It's another three turns of easy marching to Castle Galt, with good old Galtish hospitality along the way. Keep the fire going and take it easy on the wine. There’s not enough to entice me to your filthy arseholes.”
The soldiers cheer in response.
“I’m famished.” Algwain strides to the fireside and snatches a brace of plucked pheasants by their necks. “Get the stew going.” The men drum their legs in anticipation as Algwain points to a metal pot the size of three helmets. “Well, don’t just sit there. Fetch water. We got pheasants to stew.”
An eager soldier grabs a metal pot and slips through the standing stones. A heartwarming smile graces his face as he hears his brothers’ yarn tales of home, reuniting with loved ones, and getting blathered in the taverns. His ears tune in to the faint flow of trickling water. Cruelty comes quietly, creeping up behind him, sneaking in the unforgiving darkness, slithering in the night.
Aldard squints through the smoke of the mesmerizing fire, his concerned gaze drawn to the shadowy depths of the Standing Stones.
The temperature drops, and the wind falls into an eerie silence. His hair bristles, and his senses heighten as sooty black shadows roll like morning mists on the edge of his sight.
Aldard clambers to his feet, and the camp falls into dreadful silence. The fire blows out, engulfing the camp in utter darkness. The clouds gather above the camp, extinguishing the ghostly moonlight, plunging the Standing Stones in an oppressive darkness. In the murky half-light of the night, vile voices chitter and chatter with slithering cackles and squelching rhymes. An unsettling stench of sulfuric rot saturates the air.
The soldiers' faces freeze in fear, their breath catching in their throats. Some skittish troops scramble to their feet, reaching for their blades and grabbing at scattered bows and quivers. They fall into a misshaped defensive formation, consumed by the half-light.
Cruelty strikes in a sudden wave of shadow, slaughtering them in the night. The savage Umbal attack in a swarm, clawing, biting, and tearing through flesh and bone.
Arrows fly and blades slice as the soldiers fight back, parting through the wraith’s bodies like a gust of wind through smoke. Chaos reigns as the camp is overrun. Moonlight peaks through the clouds, casting an eerie glow upon the soldiers, their silhouettes battle for survival within a living nightmare. The troops’ dying screams pierce the night.
The relentless Umbal press on unscathed by any arrow or blade, attacking the troops with inhuman speed and devastating ferocity. Butchering at will, with claws that flay skin from flesh and bone. The soldiers wail with gut-wrenching screams as the swarm of Umbal consumes them. They beg for mercy as the Umbal burrow into their butchered hides, devouring them from the inside out.
Algwain spins to his left, where a soldier cradles his severed leg like a babe. He sobs into the joint of freshly butchered meat, tears washing down his face as a wave of galloping Umbal tears away his skin. The soldier’s sobbing, wailing pleas for death fall silent to the sounds of teeth sinking into his squelching meat.
The Umbal slither and glide everywhere, crawling up the soldiers’ dying bodies and seeping into their noses and mouths.
A soldier stands to Algwain’s left, frozen with fear, a torrent of piss streaming down his leg. An Umbal slinks towards him, silent as the moon, before its razor-sharp shadow claws tear into his wailing face, flaying it from his skull.
Algwain spins, looking for his general, Aldard.
General Aldard is on his knees beside the smoking fire. An Umbal clambers on his back, tearing away clumps of his flesh, his back arching in pain as his horrified stare meets Algwain’s. Their eyes lock as the Umbal’s vile, inky tendrils seep into Aldard’s nose; he gags as the Umbal creeps into his mouth.
Algwain sprints to save his friend; their bodies collide, sending Aldard rolling on top of the dwindling fire pit. The faint hue of an orange glow clings to life in the fire. A tiny spark takes a breath of life as Aldard scrambles to his feet. The flames lick up his cloak, turning it into a blanket of fire. Aldard removes his burning cloak, enraged, and wields it at the attacking Umbal. In a whipping tornado of orange embers, the flaming cloak slices into the Umbal with a furious whip-crack.
The Umbal screams in pain, branded by the flames, with lines of orange scorched into its shadow chest. The horde of Umbal slinks back into the shadows of the towering stones, away from the firelight.
Algwain rises to his feet and joins a handful of surviving soldiers. His men crawl and scurry towards the flames. Their eyes tell the unspoken grim realization that this is a fight they cannot win.
General Aldard’s orders cut through the fear. “Keep the fire burning. Keep it bright. Soldiers of Galt, form a line; hold your ground.”
The Umbal peer from behind the giant stone pillars, lurking in silence, concealed within the depths of the darkest shadows. Aldard sees their faces—neither man nor beast. Cruel, bent, and broken, they stare back at him with cursed, lifeless eyes.
Algwain stands in dutiful friendship beside Aldard; he looks around the fire at the handful of troops. Their faces are full of fear and confusion as they cower around the dying fire.
“Strip the dead, gather anything that burns, and feed the fire.” Aldard points to the scattered dead.
The remaining troops throw all they have into the fiery blaze, piling on the last of the firewood and the clothes of the dead. The fire roars into life, sizzling on damp clothes and crackling through the wood.
A man in a mountain of abysmal black armor strides from the darkest shadows of the Standing Stones toward the camp. The Black General wields a giant black head-cleaving blade, forged from ominous black steel, towering at the height of a grown man. “Hold,” the lofty Black General’s voice echoes from within his enormous great helm, his haunting eyes lost in the metallic darkness. His rolled, hardened steel armor is as black as the darkest night, the sigil of Galt, the flying dragon, carved into his breastplate. He wears a polished black plate cuirass with tassets, black pauldrons, and black garniture on his arms and legs. “Soldiers of Galt, we mistook you for common livestock thieves,” the once Lord Gosen’s voice rasps from a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. “Return to Castle Galt. We have no further quarrel with you.”
The camp falls into silence as their wild eyes scan the surrounding carnage. The mutilated limbs and bodies of their brothers scattered to the earth like autumn leaves amid rivers of blood.
All eyes turn to Aldard.
General Aldard licks his lips and takes a deep breath, seeking composure. Dawn is still half a night away as the first drop of rain plops onto Aldard’s face. His steely eyes meet the Black General’s. “What devilry is this?” He draws his blade and points its tip at the Black General. “We return to Castle Galt to seek the king’s justice for the evil you have done.” His voice is as hard as stone.
“So be it,” the Black General strides forward with unthinkable speed, his blade falling with a butcher’s precision. It plunges into the nearest soldier’s skull and explodes out of his mouth, the blade grating over his shattered teeth. He then cleaves the soldier in two, from tip to toe, in a single overhead cleave.
A pair of soldiers enter the fray, flanking The Black General front and rear. He sidesteps the first attack and cleaves a soldier’s arm off at the shoulder, then takes his head in a single, ruthless swing. The soldier’s bewildered eyes blink in confusion as his head hits the earth.
The Black General’s wicked blade then pendulums around, taking the other soldier straight through the gut, buried to the hilt. He lifts the soldier from the ground with one arm above his head, gutting him from belly to ribs under his own weight.
The rain begins to fall, and the fire clings to a precarious life.
“The men are yours, general. Lead them well.” Aldard turns to face Algwain and rests a parting hand on his shoulder. “I’ll give you what time I can, but remember, time is no man’s friend.” He turns his back to Algwain and rubs his lucky bear paw. “Black knight.” Aldard’s challenge rings out as the rain hammers down.
Algwain freezes, looking eyes with his best friend.
Aldard turns his back to Algwain with a parting nod, then glances over his shoulder and says, "General, run.”
“Run!” Algwain’s ears attune to the clash of singing metal as he leads the surviving half dozen troops, sprinting for their lives, into the depths of the night. His feet stumble on gnarled moorlands and splash through pools of frigid water. He thunders through the heather, slipping and sliding over the wet peat.
The heavy footfalls of his men follow behind him, along with the chittering and chattering of the hunting Umbal. A wave of hunting shadows consumes a soldier to his rear. Over his shoulder, a wild shriek of pain pierces the air, the soldier’s dying scream echoing through the night.
A pair of stalwart men sprint on Algwain's flanks, Eindred and Eifear, as a faint orange glow catches his eye in the nearing distance. The whistling air carries the faintest smell of burning dung, peat, and heather. He rushes toward the amber doorway, stumbling as the slick moorland transforms into gravel and larger stones. In a mighty leap, he hurdles over a crumbling stone wall into a pen strewn with slaughtered livestock and twisted human bodies. He hurdles another ramshackle stone wall and bounds toward the open doorway, which slams shut in his face. Algwain shoulders the wooden door with all his might, smashing it from its fragile hinges. He then falls into a small room, landing face-down before a tiny smoking hearth.
The pair of flanking soldiers burst through the broken doorway behind him. The Umbal drag a third soldier back into the night by his legs. His fingernails claw at the inside of the door frame as he clings to life. The soldier, resigned, stares up at Algwain, and with sorrowful eyes, he gives a departing nod. He releases his grip on the doorframe, and his last moments of resistance fade into wailing screams and the sound of cracking bones and sloppy meat.
The two remaining soldiers grab the broken door, pulling it upright with the weight of their bodies, pinning it back in place. Out of three dozen men, only two survive. Their clothes hang in tatters, torn to ruin, and their legs and backs are shredded to a pulp. They gasp for breath, uttering incoherent words as they hold the broken door in place.
Algwain scans the small, run-down farmhouse. It contains a pair of wooden slat beds and a small wooden table. On the table sits a loaf of half-eaten, stale barley bread and a few slices of salted mutton. The tiny hearth pops and crackles, flames licking through piles of dried goat dung. Algwain takes a seat on a small wooden stool by the table, his head sinking into his trembling hands.
A small girl cowers, beneath the table, curled up in a ball. pale as winter frost, dressed in rags, her knees tucked under her chin. Algwain bends down and extends his hand to the girl. She flinches away, tears streaming down her muddied face, crowned by bright auburn hair.
“Where are your parents, lass?” Algwain’s voice is hoarse, sounding distant to his own ears.
The girl’s eyes drift toward the broken door. The soldiers look at Algwain and shake their heads.
The Umbal climb on the walls of the farmhouse and scuttle across the patchy moss and timber roof. Long shadows creep into the room as the flames from the hearth dwindle.
“No matter what happens, don’t look." Algwain reaches down and pulls the girl to her feet. He wraps her tight in an old, musty blanket, covering her head, and sets her on the floor between himself and the doorway. He then hurls the small wooden chair onto the smoking hearth. “Soldiers of Galt, keep that door shut.”
“Aye, general.” A unified duty, a soldier’s faith.
Algwain smashes the rickety wooden table and slat beds into pieces and finds piles of stale clothes and dirty rags—anything that will burn.
The Umbal advance, their shadowy limbs reaching through gaps in the roof, howling in frustration, held at bay by the firelight.
Floorboards and ceiling rafters all feed the fire. Desperate, Algwain flings his own boots into the flames. The farmstead burns bright, popping embers, setting the roof ablaze. Fire and smoke fill the night.
Hope remains with the coming of the light.