Penumbra - Book 1 (9)

It took her a long time to even look about her, such was the pain in her head and the ringing in her mind. But slowly, over who knows how long, she came to the awareness that she was lying on the ground, and that the ground was grassy. Noises came to her then, movement about her, low voices she could not decipher, not close nor far, and quiet crackle of fire. She breathed in and inhaled the scent of burning wood, mixed in with other, less pleasantodours . Slowly, she turned her neck to try and look about. It hurt tremendously to move, and she felt her bones ache. With the movement came the shock that he body was numb, numb with the cold, and as she moved the numbness broke somewhat, and the coldness hit her with such shock that she was almost driven back intounconsciousness . As you've perhaps already gathered Alys was simply not accustomed to the cold, and while she had found the penumbra uncomfortably chill, she found this new depth of temperature nothing short of agonizing. Pain that takes time away, makes a minute feel like an eternity. Pain that makes you wish for death, if you didn't think you were already there. Blinding pain. Her eyes could see what was in front of her, but her mind was in such agony that it did not have the mental energy left to interpret what she saw.

Time passed, and the numbness returned. Perhaps the pain was so much her body simply overloaded on it, decided to ignore it. As it subsided, her vision returned, and she began to make out what was around her. At first she saw bodies, lined up beside her. She did not know of the rest of them, but the man who lay immediately beside her, less than half a foot away, was dead, his skull smashed into a pulp, his one remaining eye staring at her sightlessly. Her focus shifted furtherafield and she saw a low fire, the embers off what was once a great conflagration. It took a while for her addled and confused mind to dredge up the memories of the battle, but she recognized thesmoldering ashes as the remains of the watchtower, and realized that she was still on the battlefield she had fallen on- the night had simply passed over her. Alys was no fool, and realized that perhaps she was not dead at all, simply on the other side of the veil. To many of her people these concepts would have not been vastly different, but her father's story gave her strength, and hope, and her mind began to race with possibility. Perhaps it was not too late to catch up with the sun, if Atrius...but now. Alys could see that in the line of bodies she lay in, horse carcasses lay also. She could not see if Atrius was among them, but knew thatwith his leg as damaged as it was, even if he was here they could not escape together.

Alys lay still for some time, listening to the soft voices she could hear talking just on the edge of earshot. She was not sure where they were, but she thought she occasionally saw figures crossing between her and the fire, temporary blurs in the shimmer of orange light. Were they the cleanup crew in the aftermath of battle? Had they lain the bodies of her and her fellow warriors in order to be buried, or would they simply leave them there to be consumed by whatever carrion crawlers populated the realm of darkness? Perhaps the Enemy themselves feasted on the flesh of their defeated opponents, their victory celebration a bloody banquet of the dead, or still living. Should she stay where she was, and hope that the Enemy would move on into the night, or should she attempt escape now, before the night overtook her by such a degree that she knew not what way the sun lay, and she would be deep in the territory of the Enemy. She knew it must be now, as soon as possible. She steeled herself against the pain that lay beyond the numbness, and slowly tried to lift her head.

I could tell you at some length of the pain she endured in the next few minutes, but it would be pleasant for neither you or I, so let us simply say that it was extreme, and that she fought her way through it through sheer force of will, and that it did eventually pass. Yes, the cold bled into her bones and stayed there for a good long while, but as with many things which at first seem insurmountable, one can become accustomed.

Alys first rolled herself into a position where she could see around her more clearly. In most directions there was simply darkness, nothing at all, which was unnerving of itself, but at least the fire gave her a point of reference, so she was not as disoriented as she had been in the fog. Still lying as flat as she could, she looked down the line of bodies towards the fire, and saw that there were indeed figures by the fire, and their spindlysilhouettes betrayed them as the Enemy, thin arms and legs moving about like wisps of smokes themselves. They were moving along the line of bodies, searching them, stripping them, lifting them, and throwing them into the fire. She had made the correct decision, if she had lain there much longer she would have awoken in the burning embers. So this is what happens to you when you are lost to the darkness, she thought to herself, you are burned. Strangely, as she considered this, she was unafraid, almost amused. Maybe some part of her had died, after all.

She began to shuffle forward along the ground, keeping her belly to the dirt, trying to avoid any kind of profile that may alert the Enemy. Who knew what their vision was like- maybe they saw as well in the night as she did during the day? She had crawled past at least a dozen bodies, recognizing some as men from the tower, not recognizing most, when she came across a face more familiar to her than her own. It was Atrius, and he was dead.Grief overcame her and she put her arms around his cold, dead neck and wept hot tears into his mane, his beautiful eyes closed but something gone, something missing from him. She breathed him in and knew that she was alive, and alone. In her sadness, she let out a moan, and immediately heard the low voices behind her pick up in agitation. She snapped her head up from Atrius and looked behind her. The two figures were making their way up the line much more rapidly than they had before, checking the bodies they passed by jabbing them with a sword. She had to move, and fast. Trying to keep to a low crouch, she started to move more swiftly up the line. To her alarm she realized that her hip was not working right, perhaps she had broken it when she fell from Atrius' back. She was limping severely and every second step was difficult to take.

Her mind struggled to recreate the battlefield as it had been when there was still light to see by. Was there anywhere to hide? She seemed to recall a copse of trees somewhere to the sou'west of where the tower had finally fell, but because the tower had sped up and she had not noted when it had fell, it was difficult to make an accurate assessment of where they had been. If she could find them, perhaps she could hide from the Enemy until...until what? She looked again. Now that the fire was no longer dimming her line of view, she thought she could see a dim band of light on the horizon, in the direction the sun would have been. The penumbra was still visible, if far away. This made sense, as it was not fast-moving, and the twilight that surrounded it took at least a month to pass over completely- but ofcourse she would never be able to catch up with it, even if she had not wounded her leg. She expected to feel the pangs of desperation overcome her, but again she felt nothing, just a cold certainty that she had to survive.

She had now hobbled past the last of the bodies and looked behind her to see that the two scavengers were now ignoring the other bodies, running up the trail as fast as they could. They had seen her and were pursuing, moving in the strange, insectoid gait that seemed to come with such fragile limbs. Alys broke into a loping gait, pushing herself forward as quickly as she could. She gritted herself against the pain in her hip and she pushed herself faster and faster, but she knew she could not be outrunning them, and it would only be a matter of time before they caught up with her. She had no weapon. She was wounded. She could not see a way out.

From out of the darkness ahead, she saw the first outlines of the copse of trees. She must have been dragged to the other side of the tower-fire, bringing her closer than she had dared imagine. They were not far. Looking behind her, she saw that her two pursuers were not as close as the treeline, but were gaining quickly. She pushed herself ever harder, forcing her body into a run. Adrenaline coursed through her, spurred on by the sudden renewal of hope the trees represented, dulling the pain and giving her a fresh burst of energy.

She closed the distance to the copse, running faster even than the Enemy behind, and reached the first tree, pulling herself around it with her right hand. Her feeling of accomplishment and happiness flew out of her in a gasp as she almost ran directly into a pale, ghostly face, standing calmly just beyond the treeline, watching her intently. She stood shocked for a moment, half expecting to be run through with a sword immediately -just as she had done- not knowing whether to turn, or fight, or collapse, and instead doing nothing, simply standing, gasping at the Enemy before her. She had never been so close to one without being in the midst of a fight, and her mind took the figure in. It was not behaving in any aggressive manner, in fact it seemed to stare at her with an intense curiosity. She took a breath, and then took a small step back. It continued to regard her. Then it did a very peculiar thing. It smiled. Thin,translucent lips pulled back over white teeth and red gums, which should have seemed horrible to her, yet was very clearly an amused grin. Then it held up its index finger to its lips, indicating that she should be silent, and with a gentle hand it pushed her back against the tree she had run by, before disappearing to her left and stepping out into the plain to confront her pursuers.

Alys stood deadly still, shocked silent by her odd encounter. Right behind the tree she stood against she could hear her two followers finally catch up with her, but the creature she had just encountered stopped them with a few words in its strange tongue. They both spoke back at once, two harsh voices overlapping each other, but again the quiet one spoke, in soft tones, and at some length. It went back and forth in this fashion for a while, voices barking, followed by smoother intonations. Alys stayed where she was, trying not to even breathe too loudly, lest she draw her two pursuers around the tree. After a while the voices stopped, and she heard footsteps leading away from the copse, back towards the fire she had run from. A moment later, the head of the smiling Enemy came backaround the tree slowly, and again it gazed at her in curiosity. Alys backed away from the white face, deeper into the forest, but her adrenaline surge had faded, and she now paid for pushing herwounded hip too far, and it collapsed under her, sending her onto her rear with a thump. The creature did not attack, or snarl, or circle. It smiled again, that odd rictus grin, and held out one thin, bony white hand to her.

She gazed up at the odd person looking down on her with both fear and curiosity. Which is understandable, as it was what I was feeling as well, as this moment. For it was the first time I had seen a person from the light side, and as odd as I seemed to her, so too she seemed to me.