Alone

The dark has fully gripped my soul. This sadness is far greater than I could have imagined and my anger boils just below its surface. They have mixed to drive out any hope left within me. My spirit is veiled in this black and daybreak will not come again.

I have no more tears left to shed. I now just glare at him through my drawn cowl, knees to chest sitting against the center beam. The beam is the only feature in this old, desolate wooden shack. No hearth to stoke, no soft place to rest. There is just this beam and the sharp stick, barely more than a twig, which he flails recklessly even now. 

He is speaking again but I no longer listen. I have not listened in days now. There is nothing he could say that could undo what he has done.  I will retreat into this well of grief and I will endure it alone, as long as we still live. 

He pauses his endless babble when the howling starts again. It sounds as if it is in the very room with us. Vicious scratches at the door signals that it might not be long before it is.

They are Wolfgaren. Larger than a great northern bear with enormous fangs and the intelligence of a Dalar familiar, they will not cease until they have acquired their prey. One would be a match for three fully trained soldiers. A simple farmer and his wife stand no chance against an entire pack of them waiting just outside. Rotting wood and dust provide us a bastion of safety but it will not hold them for long.

“Your determined silence is worse than the death that awaits us, Mae,” he says pointing to the door. “If we are destined to meet our end in this wretched place, I cannot bear to enter the next life without you by my side. Have I lost you for good?”

“Lost?” my voice is a dry whisper. “You let go. You… let her go.”

“You say this as if it were intent,” his voice quivers slightly. “I bear this burden by lot not by choice.” He turns his face away from me. “As I chased after you across the ridge my footing…, she fell from my back. I grasped her by the arm with all the strength I had left.”

“And then you chose to let go,” I finished. 

“I did not,” he pleaded. “I heard their sound and looked up for but a second..” then in a whimper “she slipped from my hands.”

“That is how you may comfort yourself but it is not the truth.I saw evrything. I saw only fear. You let her fall to save yourself. You left our child so that you could buy a few more minutes of life in this ruined shack.” I bury my face in my knees again. I can no longer stand to look at him.

“You think so little of me, do you? You believe me to be a coward? If I had a wish, I would that she were here with you now and I would be at the bottom of the ridge,” he said.

“I would wish it, too,” I reply.

I hear him move in the other direction. Peering through my cowl once again, I see he has turned his back and is walking the length of the abandoned shack. I had truly lost them both in the same instant. I could never look at him through the same eyes of affection. Two decades of bliss no longer held sway in my heart. It was only dark now. I would only ever see him as the man who let go.

The howls and scratches become increasingly more urgent. It will not be long now. A thud at the boarded window and a sharp crack. Here they come. 

He was to the window before I could even get on my feet. He was faster than I have ever remembered. He braces the rotting wood with his shoulder, desperately buying a few more moments of life. I quickly move closer to brace the other side. As soon as I touch the wood, his side explodes inwardly. A chuck of wood scrapes across my face leaving a gash at my cheekbone. A mammoth paw pushes through the opening and clamps onto his shoulder. 

He screams out in pain as he is lifted off the ground and he drops the sharp stick from his hand. I scramble to the floor to retrieve it. Reaching out, I just touch it with my fingertips but it rolls from under my reach. He screams again as the wolfgaren thrashes back and forth attempting to drag him through the hole in the window. 

I crawl on hand and knee to grasp the stick again. Splinters from the window boarding have cut my arms and legs and fresh blood flows down each. I rise up and, with two hands on the stick, plunge it through the opening and deep into the neck of the beast. It is even sharper than it looks. The monster howls through its clenched teeth but does not let go. I pull back and stab again and a third time. The beast cries out in pain with each hit but its grip does not fail. 

As I reach back for a fourth blow, the rotten board blocking his shoulder snaps and he is wrenched through the opening. I freeze, staring at the motes of dust that occupy the space where he stood. Frantic claws, teeth, and fur push their way into the open hole, but the rest of the boarding holds for now. Regaining my urgency, I stab furiously and strike another beast, piercing its paw. A whelp of pain as it and the rest of the bloodthirsty animals pull back. I breathe deeply in this small respite. 

My gaze drops from the hole and then creeps around the vacant space. The sudden silence is overwhelming. I am now as barren as this forsaken room. Why should he obtain the sweet relief of death while I endure savage loss? He has abandoned me just as he abandoned her. I know this is an irrational thought, but it keeps me from the great remorse of how we spent our last hours together. I collapse to the floor and tears flow once again. What reason is left to fight?

I cry until I am spent and then look up and glare at the door. From the depths of the dark, a pinprick of light emerges in my heart. While I have breath, I have choice. If I am destined to die here today, it will be on my terms. I will not wait to be preyed upon. I will take my fate and subject it to my wishes. I rise from my wallowing and walk toward the door, steeling my will against what lay on the other side. Is this courage or folly? Does it matter?

With one hand on the door latch and the other tightly gripping the stick, I take one deep breath, then another. I swing open the door to face my tormentors and take a large stride into the clearing. The pack stands motionless, surrounding the door. Huge creatures salivate and snarl as I emerge. 

I take a step toward the center of the beasts and the world around me shimmers slightly. Brandishing the stick in front of me, I head toward the closest one. Another step and the images around me start to blur and shift. My stomach turns at the motion, but I continue forward, intent on taking one of the beasts with me to the grave. 

At the third step away from the cabin, the spell loses its hold and the glamor falls from my eyes. My head feels heavy. The foreboding figures of wolfgaren melt away and left in their place…men. Men in armor with brightly colored cloth visible at the waist and arms. I stumble forward a few more steps. The farther I separate from the cabin, the more my mind returns.

Clarity brings recognition. I am no mere farmer’s wife and I am not prey provided by happenstance. I am Maelowyn, Daughter of the Order of the Serene Blade, knight-captain of the great city Jourain. These who stand before me are my men.

I look back to the bewitched cabin as the door slowly closes at its own command. I feel the malice of this place even at this distance. My fear fades with the tortuous delusion. The wood creaks. It seems to sense the loss of its captives.

“Sir,” I look over and see the man speaking. He is the man I was with inside the shack. I thought him to be to be my husband but I recognize his face now, not as husband, but as my loyal shield bearer Tomas. He must have been at my side when I entered this evil place. I look around for my little girl. I begin to panic realizing she is not with the others. I search but she is nowhere in the clearing. Then my mind grasps that she was part of the deception. Only alive in a world that did not exist. A memory of a life never lived. This loss is almost harder than the first.

“Sir,” Tomas says again, this time drawing my full attention “Are you with us or against us?”

I notice all my men are still alert with hands on hilts, ready. Behind the row of soldiers, a man lies crumpled on the ground, dead from his wounds. Three punctures to the chest and neck. I look down at my hand and see the arrow. Blood flows down my forearm, over the shaft, and drips off the tip. 

Behind me, a child cries within the cabin. I refuse to turn and look. I know now that it is not flesh and blood. This place attempts to lure its next victim.

 I drop the arrow to the ground, “Burn it down.”

End