Lost on the Downs - a Hobbits tale

[Perren_Shrenymir]

I pen this journal in the form of a narrative. A tale..., a speculation! It is so written as to be read around winter's campfires, on the darkest of nights...

It is apt to be a little tall in the telling. As for its length, well, please accept this humble narrators most abject apologies!


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Expedition to The Downs

The two sat atop an incline in the plain, camping above the nighted tomb-entrance.

They had set a small fire to ward darkness and cold; darkness that weighed down with malevolent presence, and cold which seemed to emanate from the low gathered luminous mist that forever seemed to cling to this plain with not sign of lifting. It eddied, swirling particularly thickly by the ancient stone lintel doorway which led to the utter darkness festering at the heart of the hill.

Their gutting fire was well tended and fuelled, but they had to bound it with small rocks to retain both flame and heat. These rocks, piled in a rough circle, were little more than broken debris, chippings of the greater stones that they had found rooted in the scrub atop the mound. They did not want to think about the purpose of the cairn stones from which they had carefully removed the smaller rocks. The living had more claim on these stones now than the dead. There also, in the Tor's shadow, they had struck a tent to rest. Although sleep would have been welcome after their hard days labouring, and despite the late hour, still they sat about the campfire, guarded, tense and watchful with no comfort gained from the small spluttering flames. For this was no ordinary plain on which they ventured, no ordinary time or place that they had chosen for uncomfortable respite!

The man was grim faced and resolute in the darkness, cloaked and crouching with sword unsheathed, it lay by his side, while naught but the firelight illuminated his set features. Ever he watched the valley below, clenched fist checked and keen eye darting from boulder to mound to plain, scouring every shadow for traces and signs. The woman had stood now, stretching and walking apart from the camp, she straightening her garb and held her meagre light aloft. She was a sentinel. A single point of light, rigid and unmoving, she stood atop the small declivity that they had chosen for its defence, spluttering torch casting flame and smoke over the mound, casting weird shadows which writhed in the mist. Both carried the trappings of adventuring, both watched warily waiting for a dawn long in coming.

The man stood suddenly, alerted by the sudden tensing of his companion's stance. He quickly grasped and levelled his weapon, ready for whatever was to come. She had seen…, something. Quickly looking over her shoulder to him, she motioned, pointing a shaking hand to he small valley below, just one mist filled depression between the many mounds that populated the Downs. He slowly drew nearer to her, swinging a well practiced shield to his arm. He could see now that something was approaching the camp from below. It came nearer, stumbling and lurching through the darkness as sickly-green mist swirled about its naked feet...

To their eyes the fumbling stranger in the mist below seemed like a small child. Lost and weary, the child blinked in the revealed torchlight and now stood motionless at the base of the mound, looking up. It appeared not to notice them at all, but seemed more to be staring at the flame which the woman held in her hand, he was a lost bruised moth, looking with broken hope towards a maiden’s candle. She gasped, not trusting what she was seeing, expecting yet another attack from the evil that haunted the Barrows of Tyrn Gorthad. Her first thought was that this was some lure to make her abandon the advantage of height, camp and companion, and approach the valley floor. Standing still, looking down at the apparition, she was finally able to pick out the features of a grime-streaked and anguished face. Why, this was not a child at all, though he was young! She saw that it was the face of one of the Shire-folk: A hobbit lad, lost and wandering. His vacant, red-rimmed unseeing eyes were framed by the ghastly pall of his visage, his clothing grime-etched and dirty. She could see livid bruises about his arms, legs and face. He seemed to be completely oblivious to all, softly sobbing to himself, tears riling down an angry clenched face.

She saw him and felt pity. A wretched creature lost and tortured. Gently, she called to the hobbit.

“Ho there, Shire-born! If a Shire-born lad you be and not some phantom! Are you lost? What is your business here on the Barrow Downs?”

The hobbit seemed to flinch at even these softly spoken words, as If he had not heard kindness spoken to him in a hundred years. His tear-filled eyes snapped into focus, and he wiped his face as he looked up to the woman, then to her grim companion. As if speaking for the first time in a lifetime he cried out with rasping, strained voice.

“Be you spectre or Fay, my lady? For you stand upon an evil mound, this is an evil place and I am lost and without hope.”

“Why little one, would spirits of the Barrow Downs have need of these torches?” she called to him smiling and beckoning, “we are simple travellers such as you. We will hold our bows and you shall come up. You look bruised and lost, so you shall warm yourself by our fire.”

The man relaxed a little, sheathing his sword and placing his shield next to the tent, then withdrawing to the fireside to prepare for their unusual and unexpected guest, as the hobbit climbed the mound with some difficulty, and approached the camp and its warm safety.

“I have climbed to your camp,” the hobbit said sitting him by the fire. With a sudden clarity and resolve he spoke again. “I have a tale to tell…, if you would hear it.”

The companions seated themselves by the unusual hobbit, who had settled by the fire. While its low flame cast shadows upon all of their faces, turning them oft’times to grotesque masks, they noticed that the hobbit’s sobs had quietened somewhat, and he stared to the embers of the fire as if he had stared too long at it’s glowings and they had captured his gaze as if to mesmerised him.

After a time and an awkward silence, the man cleared his throat to speak.

“I am Feredir, and this is my companion in arms Canendula. Who are you? Do you know where you are? Are you lost?”

The hobbit smiled grimly to Canendula. He answered between gasps and sobs, and yet, responded in an unusual cryptic fashion.

“I know…(sob) exactly… where I am, but…(sob) I am… lost all the same!”

Canendula smiled with pity, seeing the hobbits pain, and spoke softly to him. “What has happened to you, little one?”

The hobbit, now gathered his thoughts, catching his gaze back from the fire’s base, and frowning, began to relate a sad tale.

“My name is Perren Shrenymire and I hail from Archet; a place of warmth, light and fellowship. I was venturing on the downs with my cousin Rosie, at the behest of Captain Bence of the Dunedain. We were to find the source of the evil that haunts this plain, if it were possible, and report back to his camp, so he had hired our services. He thought that as we had local lore we would make good scouts, and he could not spare the men. Oh, my Rosie! A more innocent and beautiful lass you could not care to meet!”

“Present company excluded of course,” Feredir added with a faint smile. “Where is this Rosie of whom you speak?”

“Far from here, Sir, is where she now abides. She is far from the harms of this cursed spot!”

The hobbit began to cry anew, tears streaked his face with the remembered pains of his past trials.

“Rosie and I were exploring a nearby tomb. The tomb of Elythion. The door had already been opened and we felt that it was an easy essay in scouting the land and finding the information that Bence and his Ranger-folk needed. Ah, but tragedy! The door had been left open by greatest guile and evilest intent, and Rosie and I had entered a vast web. Like flies we were, caught in those fearful, dust choked corridors, where the earth presses down on flesh and bone alike as if to grind the will and crush the spirit. Cornered and ambushed, we were, by the most fearsome of phantoms. They were dressed in black shrouds, evil wights, with a touch from a bony hand that freezes the skin and numbs the soul! I screamed as my Rosie fell under their pressing attacks. Madness must have consumed me! If she was slain, what cared I for my life! My dagger, ancient and imbued with the craft of those men of the Westernesse, bit home again and again, until the evil about me dissipated and receded. But too late! My poor Rosie!”

TO BE CONTINUED!

[Perren_Shrenymir]

The hobbit wailed his pain and rocked back and forth, clutching himself in horror and distress.

“Calm yourself, Master hobbit. It does your tale no good to get excited” Feredir urged, with worried mien, placing a small silver flask of liquor into Perren’s shaking hands.

“Thank you, sir,” Perren replied between heartbreaking sobs, “I shall have need… of this restorative…, for I come to the hardest part to tell.”

Canendula smiled sadly at Perren. She could see the suffering in his eyes and was moved by it. How much more could this hobbit’s shaken senses take? Perren took a deep tot of draught, and another deep breath and tried his best to continue.

“This I would have sworn on everything sacred and green! I would have sworn she was slain! She lay upon the dirt floor of that vile tomb, as cold as clay... lifeless, and I wept beside her all happiness and hope driven from me. Yet through my tears and grief I felt the icy-cold of the tomb increasing. I knew that death himself sat by my side, waiting. And I waited too, uncaring, for the end that was sure to come in his unnatural presence. I then beheld a strange sight. Though I wept, I saw through tears the darkness itself formed anew and shifted about me, a darker black against the night, more an absence or a void than mere darkness, moving against the natural shadow. It was formless and shapeless, less it’s staring red-crimson eyes. Those eyes! Gads! It was searching, cruel, evaluating me! And it spoke to me. Whispered…, to me it did, in the darkness…! Awful things it said.”

Canendula was aware that as the hobbit had spoken a chill tone had entered his voice, as if something -else- watched and spoke from behind this hobbit’s countenance, something lonely and cold. She was chilled and frightened by the strangeness of the hobbits demeanour. Speaking as quietly as she could ask him, she whispered “What did it say?”

“It said,” Perren began hesitantly, “that it could return her to me if I would do it a…, service. I then…, I then agreed to its demands...”

Perren smiled grimly, whispering to himself, not talking now to the companions, but perhaps to this other that had taken possession of his very soul.

“…and I am damned for it.”

Feredir frowned, feeling clammy, clutching his cloak about him, unhappy with the cold tone that the conversation had taken. The warmth of the fire had died, and his mood had not been improved by the hobbit and his grave talk. He thought back to conversations he had had with Captain Bence himself, and why the companions were currently on the Barrow Downs, and wondered if this hobbit would cause him mischief or upset.

Presently Feredir gave form to his thoughts and asked “How could you make such a deal with tomb spawned?”

At this Perren jumped-scared, and stood, illuminated by the faint glow, moving away from where Feredir had sat at his side, by the fire.

“Please sir, do not judge me harshly. You must understand. I did it for the love of my Rose! I had no choice!” Perren, pleaded, sobbing heavily again.

It was obvious that the Hobbit was becoming more agitated and animated as he talked. His speech and breath was coming quicker now, more and more erratically, as suppressed horrors and mania bubbled to the surface of his conscious mind, screaming for release, threatening to overcome his very sanity.

“Yes! You KNOW don’t you, good Sir! Yes! I made a pact with the fiend. As we agreed it, the thing swept across my Rosie and her eyes did flicker and she drew breath and lived! By my pact SHE LIVED! By my pact she is no longer cold and still. No longer would she dream of sleeping on a stony bed surrounded by the wealth of the lord of the mound! But now I roam these barrows in servitude.. ah… yet my Rosie is safe. Safe and well at home! Far beyond that thing’s reach!”

Feredir now also stood, flexing. He feared that the Hobbit was losing control of himself, and this was no place for raving! He moved to Perren’s side, trying to calm him and help him back, but the distraught hobbit danced swiftly to the left, beyond his reach, moving slowly further away from him, backing into the darkness.

“Come back and try to be calm, Perren,” Feredir said slowly trying to re-focus the hobbit’s thoughts on safety, “Yet, I believe the lady asked you a question, what service were you to perform for the Thing with which you made your pact?”

At this, the Hobbit shrieked, his whole body trembling, shrill and terrified.

“I had no choice! I must now obey!”

“Calm down, Master hobbit,” Canendula pleaded, seeing the terror overcoming this poor lost soul, “we cannot afford to draw attention to ourselves here!”

“Yes, you are right. I must leave you! Yes.., I must. You’ll be safer that way. No choice! But, before I go into darkness again, I must ensure that this truth is told to others. That is why I have come to you and to your camp. That is why you must remember me! And trust not the Spirit Alrazon, as I have done!

The hobbit then turned and disappeared running crying into the darkness of Tyrn Gorthad, and there was nothing that Canendula or Feredir could do to stop him.

They stood a while looking into the nights depths. They heard Perren’s voice call from far away, but only once more. It was a small and frightened sound which echoed across the plain, eventually fading and falling into the darkness of the heath, covered over by the clinging mists… but the cry had been too quiet and neither could understand the final words which Perren had spoken to them.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[DM_Alatar]

Excellent stuff mate! Great read, and welcome to the server! :)

[the-small-print]

A newbie who can write! Christmas has come early! *much waving of flags and general jubilation*

[Jarmov]

Thankee, sai! Very good, very good indeed!

[Dakota Strider]

Wow, you made it sound like I rp'd Feredir even better then I recall! Great stuff.

[Dm__Sauron]

One is pleased to see such displays. One will keep a watchful EYE to see that the pact is honored.

//OOC Fantastic, nothing is more rewarding than to see a player take ownership of a mini event like the one you are telling so well. It has been a pleasure to watch you and your Rosie play. However, if my torments bear such fruit, I see little choice but to continue haunting you .

[Perren_Shrenymir]

//OOC Thanks guys. That means a lot.

“Come ON, Perren. This will be fun!”

Perren had always had the greatest amount of difficulty refusing his cousin anything! Rosie had always been the life and light: the bright centre of Perren’s family. As the youngest, she was doted and spoiled, and had the rare knack of being able to get away with just about anything! Perren had always marvelled at her many narrow escapes and quick wit, that cunning ability of being able to twist any of the Shrenymire clan around the daintiest of little fingers, and her sheer gall! She was quick to act, quicker to offend and quickest to fight! She was easily as rough as, and much more adventurous than, any of the swaggering hobbit-boys from Archet’s less refined and civilised families. Rosie had scandalised her family on more than one occasion by coming home with a bloodied nose, but it was noted with some concealed pride by her uncle when he was in his cups, that those who had tried to tackle “Our Rose” had often came off the worst! Most hobbits of the older generation just ‘tutted’ and shook their heads. Hardly the behaviour to expect from a decent hobbit lass!

Of course these qualities were most endearing to Perren, who greatly admired her resilience! Of all hobbits, to Perrens reasoning at least, it was she that was quickest to laugh and make sport, and she always shared all her unusual plans, ideas and adventures with him - alone. As strange as her thoughts were to him, Perren loved her dearly for them.

They had lived with Perren’s father. Old Patrus, or Pa Shrenymire as he was known to kith and kin, owned a small smial in Archet and for as long as Perren could remember, the Shrenymire clan had been happy, healthy and numerous. The numbers of these most respectable hobbits of Archet had increased considerably up till Rosie’s birthing (some of more reprehensible rumours that circulated the village had even suggested ‘exponentially’). All of the Shrenymire family, extended and otherwise, still lived at the Shreny’s now very cramped burrowing.

It was known quite widely, or leastways, known widely in this corner of the world, that Rosie was afflicted, to the hobbit reasoning and sensibilities, with what was commonly referred to as “the wandering spirit”. The girl had ‘Itchy feet’ and no word from her elders and betters would settle her down! She often prompted the frowns of the more established hobbits that farmed around Archet, with talk of far-off places and times and her intentions to travel! They saw no good at all in a future full of shuffling hither and yon amongst the big folk. Many a good farming hobbit had taken the opportunity to tell Pa their opinions on the matter, too!

Rosie’s mother and her father (may the soil rest lightly on ‘is bones this five year past) had come to live with Perren’s family before she had been born. As the two had grown together they had become as close as brother and sister. Rosie and Perren were inseparable! She had an adventurous streak, always wanting to explore the bounding Midgewater Marsh, to test her catapult and reflexes against the pale quivering spider-lings that multiplied prodigiously on the insects and marsh-flies that buzzed and flitted amongst the stifled weeds and stunted thickets.

And of course Rosie had convinced Perren to go with her, against all of his better judgement.

Both young hobbits, coming of good Stoor stock bred north of Bree, had always been more affable than most “shire-born” hobbits to the ways and wanderings of men. Tall folk were seen to come and go in the village and Rosie never missed an opportunity to question, pry and glean information from these travellers who explored and worked the northern woods. It was noted that even “Pa”, as set in his ways as he was, was wont at times to go into Bree to sample some of Barliman’s fine ales at The Pony and to hear any strange news.

The Stoor lineage will out!

However, life northeast of Bree had been comfortable and had not provoked much in the way of upheaval, unrest or undue excitement. And Gentle-hobbits, even here, were still expected to follow in there sires footsteps and work the fertile soil of the farming communities of the Northern Chetwood. But of late, more strange folk were seen travelling the Greenway, and fewer had stopped at the village. Those that did stop to pass the time, told strange tales of shadow that grew and gathered far to the south. A Shadow whose reach might grow very long indeed in time. Rosie had been indifferent to tales of suspicion and war, of course. Here was another opportunity for adventure!

All this changed the night that Perren and Rosie entered the barrow.


TO BE CONTINUED!

[Perren_Shrenymir]

And now Perren was alone.

The darkness was almost palpable upon the Barrow Downs. It's twisting fingers, touched Perren but lightly, and yet made him shriek and cry. All thoughts of fire, safety and companionship had been left behind him. Perren stood twitching in blackness before the ancient stone lith, fear and desperation filling his very bones, as he attempted to fathom its mysteries and plumb the secret of its opening.

The ancient stone had stood here on the downs since times unremembered. This Lith-marker, pointing skywards, greater than two tall men's height combined, had marked the passing of great kingdoms, and had witnessed the fall into eternal-slumbering of all of the lords who had shone here so brightly in times past. It had originally stood in reverence of their sacrifices and suffering and had marked where they had been interred with great ceremony and circumstance so that they would never be forgotten by the men of the lines they had sired. It had witnesses those times when Tyrn Gorthad had flashed bright and blood red with war. It had witnessed their struggles, decline and their fall into darkness.

The stone had then stood sentinel till dark times had come. Crouched and cowed by weather and time, it had watched fearfully as a dread-shadow had stolen its way across these downs. It watched helpless as many lords who had thought they had earned their eternal slumbering were compromised: saw their eventual corruption by shades and phantoms that had journeyed at the behest of a Greater Shadow. These phantoms had come to mock the living that still remained and gave reverence to their great lords and their bloodlines. The stone had witnessed this Greater Shadow gleeful fall upon the barrows, smothering all with its taint of wickedness! It had stood silently when those things that should rest for eternity on biers of stone had stood, walked and festered in the darkness of the hill tombs. It was these evil spirits, these “Wights” that had eventually carved blasphemous runes into the lith’s livid rock with tools of antique bronze and dagger-tips of steel. Even the stone itself had been infected by the downs miasmic loathing and it now held a fell purpose in it's eternal watching. The Barrow Downs had become a place of renowned malevolence; and it and the lith were one, joined in evil!

Perren had panicked, staring about himself, swiping at rolling fog and mist. Wide-eyed, he searched and scoured the darkness, first one way then the other, to no avail. Sweating and clammy, he eventually turned his attention again to the stone. There HAD to be a way to discern its function! What was its use? Why could he not enter this greater barrow until the riddle had been solved? Perren suspected that this ancient stone was the means to entering the greatest barrow. This was a stoic barrier to accessing the deepest mysteries of the barrow downs itself, but to Perren's fevered brain, already racing and wheeling, very close to tilting itself over into a maddened abyss of terror, the ancient lith's secrets continued to remain elusive.

"Think Master Perren, THINK!"

The hobbit spoke to himself in gasping breaths. Then startling even himself with an abrupt ululative cry of desperate frustration, punching the rock till it smeared red with small hand-prints, bleeding fingers. His howl raised itself higher to the moor-tops, a ragged animal moaning, a voice for a voiceless downs born of the moors desperate infection, a cry that could have been issued from the yawning tombs themselves.

The noise hung as if suspended on the mist-choked air, only dissipating slowly, clinging to the downs hills and low hummocks before returning in echo to Perren. To him it seemed it answered his frustration with a returned mocking laughter, a malicious gloating. His cry had seemed to metamorphose in Perren's unconscious into distinct words, a twisting chant, whispered and sibilant. Those words were returned to Perren from the cold dark places inside himself that he most feared. Vile words filled with hatred.


A great pitiless black shadow has passed
Now fate hears laments from all those who are lost
We shall make their hope stagnate!

This land has demanded of us never to rest
Now warily we wait for cryptic hints in darkness
Of hope and life miscarried!

Whisper discord then note, touch bone hand to cold, still heart
We crouch, gloating, unseen and unspeakable
With loathsome claw we rend hopes fragile throat!


The hobbit reeled at the bitterness of his own words. He knew now that the origins of these phrases were writhing within himself, that part of himself that was still bound by his word to the spirit Alrazon! In knowing this, Perren realised that he would never be free of the coldness within himself while his debt remained. Finally Perren understood the function of the stone - in witnessing Perren’s utter despair the stone had seen into the hobbit’s very heart, had recognised the bleakness there. It realised that he was indeed ready.

It opened the final barrow to him, a grating of stone on stone and Perren stepped beyond the lintel, down the cold flagged jutting steps, into the blackness of the tomb.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[Perren_Shrenymir]

All within the tomb's entrance was darkness.

Perren peered and squinted in its gathered gloom. He stood shaking with revulsion and shock on its periphery. He had tried to resist, did everything he could to turn his steps from this unwanted darkness, this most lonely of paths. He did not know what awful force had driven him onwards, but knew that his soul was compelled to explore the rotten innards of this cancerous mound. It was as if the vault itself was holding it’s breath, waiting for Perren to pierce the blackness, propel himself forwards into the resisting membrane of night and shadow that was waiting to engulf him. Perren knew that the darkness here hung shroud-like. It was a malign and mildewed tapestry, watching for its opportunity to fall in ambush upon him and choke him with its dry and lifeless presence. Perren knew that the tomb waited for him to enter, was a trap for the unwary, and yet he was still unable to stop himself mechanically stepping forwards! He felt that his will must now be guided or driven, pushed onwards by that coldness that had taken the very core of his being! He knew that he had no other choice but to enter the Barrow and accept whatever fate awaited him there. Feeling the cold stone steps below his naked feet, Perren observed all as if he were dreaming. A nightmare! Suffocation from which he felt he would never awaken. He perceived all but dimly. He beheld the cold and chipped stone steps, and the razor cuts that their edges administered to even the hardened leather of his feet. He witnessed the low ceiling and the entrance stairway corridor that was encrusted with moulds and fungi, and its puffball spores, which bloomed, spouting clouds in his passing wake. He inhaled that rancid air, feet kicking more of the thick covering of dust upwards: a dust which covered all. Perren though to himself in a rare moment of clarity, that no one must have passed this entrance in many, many years.

He tentatively took another step, the ancient carved stairway leading him ever downwards, now well under the lowest level of the most mist-clogged valley of the downs, and with every small step the air was becoming more cloying and fetid, turned foul and sour, as he vainly gasped for breath: that thick foul air that struggled to make it’s way to Perren’s heaving lungs, making him feel increasingly nauseous. He felt contaminated by its tang, its stale flavours mixed on Perren’s parched palette with the faint smell of nitre, the odours of charnel. The air clung to his throat making him choke and gag. Perren’s head was reeling, and he took another blind step forward into the blackness…, before plunging headlong down a broken slipway!

Perren felt his entire being tilt forward, as protesting his terror, he fell downwards into the void of space… before coming to a painful and abrupt rest on the sepulchre’s musty dry flagged floor.

The impact had dazed and winded him. For a long time he had lain in the darkness afraid to even move. Perren lay face down in the dust and rot of an age, spitting his frustration, gasping through his pain, yet weeping relief that his fall had not been prolonged. Slowly, turning his aching head to his left, he looked with rising fear over his shoulder, hoping to see anything that might give him advantage or hope in this most dire situation. Perren then smiled at the sight he beheld, a smile formed of a grim twisting of his lips, more akin to a wince. Perren saw framed in the exit way of the barrow a welcome sight! A leprous moon cast about the barrow downs now, and was framed there within this tombs portal, a wan aperture, now lit by sickly and pale luminosity. The moon stretched its stifled pallid fingers of corpse-light downwards, even into this night-abyss, there painting the floor of the tomb with grey-silver sheen.

Perren’s luck had held. He wasn’t yet lost to the darkness.

TO BE CONTINUED!

[Perren_Shrenymir]

He turned painfully, and then slowly lurched, first to a pain-wrenched knee, then standing uncertainly on bleeding feet, steadying his swaying against the tombs cold stone wall. Perren quickly checked himself for broken bones or addition wounds. His bruises ached with a soreness redoubled, his clothing was torn and tattered, but his movement was unimpeded.

Flexing tired legs and arms, then looking back to the jagged stone stairway, which led down into this antechamber, Perren could see that he had not fallen too far. There was but four feet of intervening space between his tumble forwards into supposed void and his abrupt halt upon the Barrow’s interior floor. Perren ached. Rubbing life back into a heavily bruised shin, he surveyed by moonlight the chamber into which he had mis-adventured.

The barrow chamber was an ancient circular construction forming a room, its walls made of compacted flint and basalt-rock, and floor interspersed with occasional stone flag. The ceiling held higher here than the entrance, still wreathed in darkness, yet due to his diminutive size it afforded him to walk upright in comparative comfort. Illuminated by the pallid moonlight, the tombs interior had an eerie reflected cast; a faint glowing that failed to penetrate all but the tombs most ill concealed secrets – much was still hidden in ever threatening shadows.

Reaching for his pack, Perren quickly removed a pitch torch and tinder with awkward shaking hands. Perren felt palsied by his fear and the oppressive darkness that surrounded him and knew that as soon as the moon was gone the tomb would have him in its grasp of night! Striking his small flint to tinder, Perren hurried the small spark to the pitch coated top of the torch; he then managed, with judicious and well practiced blowing, to coax the sticky tar and rags into combustion and held the now smoking, pitch dripping light source with out-reached arm. Moving the torch to his left side, he cast his gaze about the newly illuminated tomb, looking about himself for any signs of concealed danger. Unwilling to take his eyes from the flickering shadows that now illuminated sections of the tombs back wall, Perren felt blindly at his side with grasping chill-fingers for the hilt of his dagger and the protection it represented.

The weapon had hung by his side at all times. He felt his fear renew, despite the radiance now at his command.

The dagger was no longer there!

Perren panicked in his defencelessness and cast his gaze back to the stairs in the hopes of escape. He could not venture forward without his weapon; that weapon which had served him well in his defence of Rosie. A dagger of the Westernesse! It flashed and danced in his memory, and he remembered that those past evils which had threatened to take both him and his cousin and had indeed subsided in the wake of it’s lethal dance! Desperately he cast about his gaze. It must be here somewhere!

Then he saw that the dagger lay at the foot of the stair’s steps, where it had jarred away from him on his untimely impact with the barrow’s floor.

Perren retrieved the dagger with considerable relief, stroking and dusting its makeshift scabbard, rubbing and removing what he could of this grave’s clinging mould and dust against even his own clothes, and somehow again felt comforted by its mere presence. Placing the smoking torch in a niche momentarily, he nervously eyed the barrow’s interior as he re-attached the torn leather tassles to his heavy buckled belt, hanging the scabbard loosely by his side, and withdrew the dagger. Perren gazed at its razor brilliance, reflected now in flickering torchlight. Ahead he saw an ancient stone doorway, beheld carvings and fell runes, barring his entrance further into the heart of the hill. This then, was the path that he must travel! Now he was ready to face the dread inhabitant of the Barrow. Now, he felt, it was time to replay his debt.

TO BE CONTINUED!