Children of a Sunless Land (The Deaf Swordsman Series No. 1)
Page 2
into the darkness of the forest. I have no choice.”
“Well, I see now that I cannot turn you astray,” said the woman. “But if you must go, I must tell you this, rider--don’t go following the dark. It’s perilous. Whatever you hear--that is, feel--be weary of it. It’s best for you to do what you can in the light of the sun. I would seek shelter for now.”
Vohro just nodded in compliance.
“Come on, you old goat,” said the woman as she took her husband by the arm and led him back to the carriage. Seconds later, they rode off, passing by the dark traveler on his horse, wishing him well. “Take care, stranger!”
Vohro watched them disappear into the arms of the starry sky, left alone to contend with the unwelcoming behavior of the angry moon. Minutes passed, and the rider stood frozen in time, almost becoming shadow, and he studied his surroundings with his great, unfathomable eyes. He felt as if something was out of place; the conditions were ripe for the mixing of his world and the unseen. A shiver began to overtake him as if his blood had turned to ice water, and he made the decision to wait for dawn to roll over the sky before breaking inside the forest’s gates.
Vohro’s horse stirred a bit, moving his limbs sporadically.
“Easy now, Dahkar,” said Vohro, patting his companion’s long mane. “The moon is getting to you; it’s getting to me as well.” He searched the surrounding terrain, looking for a nice place to camp. “What do you think, good horse? Should we build a small fire near the woods and wait out the moon’s watch?” His horse nickered in agreement.
But then he saw it--a ghostly image up above like someone blew a puff of smoke and let it linger all the way to the stars.
“Look up!” said Vohro to his horse. “It’s her. I see you, girl, but what are you trying to tell me?” Vohro followed the extent of the smoky trail until it ended--straight into the heart of the forest. “I have to follow, Dahkar--whatever the cost.”
But then he remembered the old woman’s plea, Do nothing now that can be done in the light of the sun. Vohro contemplated his actions and resolved to wait until morning. But yet again, as if the night had felt his inner wars, it spoke to him, but this time in a form of a boy standing at the edge of the forest’s grasp.
Vohro’s flowering eyes honed in on the child, and he was as detailed as a greek sculpture. The boy gleamed as if the moon had come down and spit the child onto the earth like a shooting star of silver moon-fire. He had on bluish-gray pajamas--the color of twilight--and he was pale in the face as if white makeup had been applied to cover up some unwanted darkness. He appeared around the age of ten, had hair of a bright metallic blue, and had long strands of hair shooting up in the air as if he was constantly falling from something. His eyes sparkled like diamond-encrusted corneas, and his mouth was covered by shadow.
Vohro approached the boy, and as he got closer, he began to feel stabbing pains reaching into his center mass. He had felt this pain before but not like this; this feeling was a piercing of a thousand blades; it was the boy’s laughter, a cackle that shuttered the surrounding trees. Vohro halted just a few yards from the strange child.
“Come into the forest, rider,” said the boy.
“Who are you?” said Vohro in that muted tone he was known for.
The boy’s face fell as if a great sadness had suddenly come over him, and he spoke in a false, sappy tone. “Please, mister, my family has been taken by shadow. I ran away. They need your help.”
“Your family?” said Vohro. “Where is your family?”
“My house is just beyond these woods. Come follow me. I’ll lead you to them. I’ll lead you to the shadow.”
But then Vohro caught a glimpse of the boy’s mouth and it had a gashing scar crossing his lips as if the boy had suffered a horrendous cut that had healed hideously, and the mouth was malformed, like nothing he had ever seen.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth, boy?”
“Why would I tell such lies, mister? Why would I want you to follow me into the darkness? Do you think me evil?”
“Yes, boy, you are strange,” said Vohro as Dahkar started to fidget and move about.
“I’m going into the forest now,” said the child, now with a malicious tone.
“And I won’t take the bait,” said Vohro. “So go back into the caverns you came from.”
“If you wish,” said the boy, disappointed. “And of that little girl, the one you seek? What of her? Will you not listen to what I have to say?”
“What do you know of her!” screamed the warrior as if a giant bear had been abruptly awoken.
The boy shot into the forest, but not before letting out a ghastly cackle that catapulted the many nightly birds into the air like a shotgun blast spraying in all directions.
“That boy is going to lead us to nothing but horror,” said Vohro to his horse. “Dahkar, if you don’t want to follow, I’ll understand.” But Dahkar replied by stomping his hoof on the ground, followed by an angry squeal, as if insulted by his master’s remark. “I see, horse. Then, into the darkness we go.”
Though the rising sun was hours away from him, Vohro kept the sun’s fiery rays harboring inside his soul, to light his way through the festering shadows of the forest. So onward he went into the battling ring of aging twine and shadowed limbs. The forest met him with open arms.
He saw the boy up ahead, moving like lightening from one end to the other. He felt another cackle pierce his chest. The boy laughed into the whole of midnight as if the laughter came from something transcending the totality of the night. And the boy kept on, and Vohro followed him down the forest’s path, onward and farther, only guided by the boy’s cackle, drumming into his chest like nails being stabbed through his coarse flesh.
Vohro looked to the top of the trees and saw them wrestling with each other as if some eternal duel had been waged before mankind. He felt the trees bellow out moans, and he could have sworn that their branching arms moved, grappling with one another, fighting to the death, crackling and snapping twigs, dead leaves falling to the ground and bursting into puffs of air all around him. But he rode on, following the boy into the belly of the forest.
At last, he came upon a large clearing across the darkened trees. He saw the boy standing just a few yards from him, swaying with the night, like a blue icy flame dancing back and forth with the wind. The boy pointed towards something up ahead, and after an odd gray mist had scattered from the mountainous formations of shadows, Vohro saw a tall, thin house in the distance, about a hundred yards away.
It was made of stone like an aged castle and was about six stories high with light breathing out of the many open-air windows. But it was curved, that is, it leaned slightly to the west, and it appeared as if it could have fallen over at any given time, but it didn’t. It was secured; solid. Vohro found this quite disturbing; he had never run up against a curved house before and wondered what type of beings would lurk inside such an abnormal structure.
“My family,” said the boy with a sad voice as he turned to the warrior. “They’re in there, where the children are.”
“What children?”
“Those who run towards the house,” said the boy in blue.
“But I don’t see any--”
And as if the boy’s words were like a hocus pocus, immediately interrupting Vohro’s speech was a sound of laughter echoing throughout the surrounding space. And the sound was followed by the numerous sounds of feet trampling on hard ground.
Vohro’s eyes unfolded into the night’s sky, and his vision clarified. He saw, breaking out of the forest’s grasp, a crowd of children being lured towards the curved house. With their breaths out of control, the children darted with open arms and wide grins, all making their way to the front door, bursting into the horrid structure.
“No, children!” said Vohro, sensing the house to be of pure evil. “Don’t be lured in! Come back!”
“They came for us,” said the boy in blue as he turned to Vohro.
“Who came, b
oy?!”
“They took us. They wanted me. I ran, but my family is in there.” Carelessly, without further thought, he rushed inside.
“No, child!” said Vohro as he reluctantly followed. “Come back lest you suffer the same fate!”
The rider warily approached the suspicious, curved house and stood beyond its door. The door suddenly opened to him, and it let out a skin-crawling creak as if a hand grabbed Vohro by the leg and clawed itself to his chest. And he saw, synchronously gliding down with the creak of the door, an arm exposing itself from the bottom right of the entrance, slouching downward as if someone had taken their last breath and dropped their arm like a felled tree.
The stench of death was near, and the warrior became transformed. The darkness of his gauntly bones stood upright, and his muscles flexed across his face as they would always do before death came to those foolish enough to threaten the rider whose secrets were unknown. And he revealed himself to the night with a flick of a wrist and a snapping of a clasp just below his neck. The dark sleeveless garment flew off into the air, forcefully taken up by the moon’s breath and quickly buried in a darkly gloom.
All that was left on the horse was a man with a battle-scarred body, glistening with muscular architecture--and a leather vest harboring a symphony of steel. It was the color of night, sporting an image of a giant silver-sun neatly stitched right in the center of the coarse leather. The