Galen had trouble believing Ellis’ tale at first, but the night was long and slow and there was plenty of time for Ellis to elucidate on the fine details of life in twenty first century England and, with his vast experience of life in Shadow, Galen had to conclude that either Ellis had a very good imagination, or he really was from another world. After that the conversation devolved into a string of confusing questions from Galen and Ellis’ best attempts to answer them. Max and Theo merely slept.
After a while the conversation grew thin. Ellis was feeling particularly uncomfortable, surrounded as they were, by darkness, wild plants, ruined buildings and a chorus of mysterious beasts. As the questions trailed off the sounds of the animals of Blackfeather seemed to grow louder and louder, their unfamiliar notes inspiring Ellis’ imagination to all new heights of terror-inducing creativity. As Galen stared out at that darkness, tightly clutching his knife, Ellis realised that more conversation would be required.
“So, uh, you’ve seen a lot of this world, then?” he asked eventually.
Galen’s gaze swivelled towards him and the older man tried on a grin for size. It didn’t seem to fit. “Yeah. Me and my brothers have got around, that’s for sure.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“What’s to tell? I could try to describe the three weeks I spent lost in Labyrinth until Max found me, half dying of thirst and living off rat meat; or I could tell you about the time we climbed Greyrock to reach the Graven Mausoleum and nearly got torn apart by zombies; or I suppose I could indulge you with a tale of my youth and how my father took us all fishing on Lake Stillmists and our boat was torn apart by a Razorfin, but none of them are going to give you what you need right now, are they? Am I right?”
“I thought you said that your business had been successful? What about all the glamorous nobles and luxury tours?”
“Well, yeah, that happened. We’ve rolled in and out of the lap of luxury a few times, but look at me – look at my face – do I look like I’ve lived the lush life?”
Ellis examined the map of scars and shook his head.
“We may moan about this trip, but we’ve been here before – I mean, not here as such, but we’ve been through worse.”
“Yeah, I think I get it,” Ellis said sadly, then he shivered, “zombies…”
“Actually,” Galen said suddenly, “there is one tale that might cheer us up. It’s pretty intriguing, without being out and out scary.”
“Oh?”
“A few years back we got this really strange commission from one of those genuine eccentric types, you know, always rambling on about some insane scheme or other, trailing off into nonsense, that sort of thing. He had us investigating the underground passageways beneath certain high profile Borough properties, breaking into crypts and generally procuring some really weird artefacts for him. I’ve honestly never seen such strange things. The crypts were ancient and covered in weird symbols and the artefacts – all made of the same strange black metal, almost like crystal and carved with writing, symbols, you name it…”
“What do you think he wanted them for?”
“I don’t know, but it all seemed to be tied in to some noble house or other and I’m guessing the guy had a lot of history with that sort of thing. The nobility have the most bizarre secrets sometimes. I’m not one for conspiracy theories generally, but that one really got me thinking. Not that it’s done me much good,” he laughed, almost choking as he did so, “I’m not expecting any answers in this lifetime.”
“I still can’t get my head around this world,” Ellis said, “it’s just so different. I even feel different when I’m here. It’s all so strange.”
“Well, I think that’s only to be expected. You say you’ve only been here two days? I think it takes longer than that to settle somewhere new, even when the new place is just down the road from where you live.”
“But I don’t want to settle. I just want to go home.”
“Don’t we all, kid. Don’t we-”
There was a sudden whistling noise as Galen spoke and then the explorer jerked as if he had received a sudden shock. A silver arrowhead protruded out of his chest.
Ellis had never seen so much blood. It was bubbling out of Galen’s mouth and spilling down his chin. It was pouring from the arrow wound and dripping to the ground like out of some sort of grotesque gutter-pipe. He stared at it in shock, unable to even think about what he was seeing, never mind react to it, and then he realised that Galen was trying to say something. His lips were moving and although there was no intelligible sounds audible over the bloody gurgling, the older man’s eyes conveyed the message clearly. Wake my brothers and run!
There was another whistling sound and Galen jolted twice in quick succession before his body flopped forward to reveal the three arrow shafts sticking up out of his back.
Ellis blinked, his eyes burning up, his heartbeat seeming to slow down as the world around him froze.
Then everything came rushing back and he was on his feet and screaming at the top of his lungs, “Max, Theo, wake up! We’re under attack!”
The two remaining adventurers roused slowly and uncertainly, blinking at Ellis with confusion, then Max turned and saw his brother’s corpse and let out a wail of anguish. Theo stood and spun around to see what the commotion was and then fell to his knees in simple grief.
“No, guys, there’s no time. Whoever killed Galen is still out there!” Ellis shouted and, as if to make the point clear, he knelt down, retrieved Galen’s knife from his cooling fingers and then made as if to run.
“It’s the damn Stoneskins again,” Max wailed.
“We have to run!” Ellis yelled and the Horne brothers finally seemed to listen.
The act of running was easier screamed than done. In the darkness, with only the faint violet light of the moon filtering through the flora, it was almost impossible to keep up any kind of pace without crashing into walls or the trunks of trees. The animals of the forest had fallen silent, but there was enough noise coming from elsewhere to compensate. Ellis could hear his own frantic breathing, various liquid processes within his head, throat and chest and the crunching and crackling of the undergrowth beneath his boots. He could also hear the stumbling footfalls of the Horne brothers and Theo’s breathless sobs. Beneath all of that, he was sure he could hear a low rumble, as of many heavy feet in pursuit. Then there was a roar and Ellis recognised it as a variant of the kind made by Grinders.
“Oh, bloody hell!” Max cried and Ellis heard him picking up the pace and overtaking, meanwhile Theo seemed to be falling behind. Ellis could just about hear words in amongst his agonised, breathless moans.
“Galen… always looked out for us... Father put… in charge… …can’t do all this… without you…” and more to that effect. Ellis felt a pang of sympathy for him, but it was tinged with frustration.
“Come on, Theo, keep up the pace. Galen would want you to keep moving!” It felt like he was speaking to a toddler, not a man two or even three times his age, but he guess that alcohol and grief could do that to a person.
There was another roar and then the air was filled with the whistling sound of arrows. Ellis ducked and heard the soft thud of arrowheads landing in mud as well as a vibrating thunk as one embedded itself in a nearby tree trunk. He turned back to check on Theo, but the explorer was face down in the dirt, having fallen victim to even more arrows than his brother.
Ellis cursed, picked himself up and then started running once more.
“Max,” he called, in between breaths, “Max, where are you?”
He could no longer hear the one remaining explorer at all.
“Max? Max!”
There was another whistling volley and this time he rolled in front of a wall until the last arrow had clattered against the stone, then he was on his feet again.
The thundering sound of pursuit was louder and he knew that every time he stopped to hide from the rain of arrows they would catch up just that little bit more. Before long they would be upon him and he would be too tired and too poorly armed to do anything about it. He glanced back over his shoulder, but couldn’t see anything. His only hope was that they couldn’t see him yet either.
As he ran he felt along for one of the lower ruined walls and as soon as he found one at the right height he climbed up and started to balance along the top. It was a precarious business and the stones he was walking along weren’t so solid as to inspire much confidence, but the top of the wall steadily rose upwards and, with a bit of deft climbing here and there, Ellis found himself rising up into the canopy. When he felt a particularly sturdy branch blocking his path, he climbed on to it instead and made his way in amongst the tree’s other limbs and began to ascend higher still, using the knife to gain purchase at times when the bark seemed too smooth.
There was a rumble beneath him and he froze automatically, curling up into a ball, nestled between a large bough and the tree trunk. Glancing down he could see several orbs of fire moving purposefully across the forest floor. It didn’t take long for Ellis to understand that they were the burning eyes of his pursuers. He pulled back further into the tree and tried to breath as quietly as possible, without taking his eyes off those bright markers.
More followed, some of them milling around beneath the tree in a manner that made Ellis exceedingly nervous, but gradually, as the sky about began to lighten towards a pale green, they all began to move on, deeper into the forest. Ellis stayed curled up, holding tight onto Galen’s knife, and did not move, not even when he heard a distant scream which could only have been Max.
Eventually he fell into an uncomfortable and troubled sleep.
“You’re a coward, Ellis Graves,” Sarah told him, standing at the top of the hill in the shadow of DUSK, with her arms crossed, “you’ve run away from reality and now you can’t even face up to your own insanity with any dignity.”
Behind her, a dozen flaming eyes fizzled in the rain.
“You’re hollow, Ellis. There’s nothing inside you. You’re a shard of silvered glass, a reflection of those around you. You have no substance.”
The eyes moved forwards, revealing the rocky, skeletal frames of creatures Ellis had never seen before, with teeth like sabres and a cool intelligence obvious in the way they looked at him.
“You are a no thing, Ellis, and soon you will be nothing at all.”
The creatures advanced and the rain dripped off their fangs the colour of the blood.
AUTHOR COMMENT: And that's the end of those characters and after such a brief appearance. A shame, perhaps. I have considered writing them a spin-off, or, at the very least, a few flashback episodes. Opinion?
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