Chapter 4

The sweet oblivion of nothingness faded away, like the dripping of a willow tree after a heavy rain. Archen was standing in the middle of a dense forest, on all sides surrounded by endless autumn foliage, with fiery golden leaves overhead and underfoot. It would have been achingly beautiful, were not every tree trunk smeared and dripping with blood.

The whispers began softly, gradually, first on the left, then up ahead, behind him, swirling about his head. “Too late…it’s too late.” A fleshless voice, quite close, behind him, “Run, run away.” He whipped around, but saw nothing, just the ghastly soaking trees. Then the mad laughter, ringing out, “They’re coming.”

He ran instinctively, driven by the frantic pounding of his heart, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. The voices were on all sides of him now, louder and persistent.

Then he saw it, up ahead. Not twenty paces away it stood, peacefully, under a heavy bough, and watched him steadily. Archen tripped, pitching forward to the ground. Consciousness rose up to hit him hard, throwing him into the inky blackness of the bedchamber. Get out, get out! He stumbled, awake, but still firmly in the grip of terror.

Somehow, he fumbled to the door, threw it open and dashed down an unfamiliar, deserted hallway. Panic shadowed him at every step, nipping at his heels. Ahead, a dim light showed under a door. He rushed to it.

Outside, the crisp night air filled his lungs and sent clarity buzzing in his head. Archen bit the inside of his lip, relief flooding him at the answering pain that meant he was, in fact, awake. He fought to steady his breathing and take in his surroundings.

The sky above was littered with stars, providing ample light to see the kind of garden, or courtyard, where he stood. A little to his left he found a low wall, which he succeeded in scrambling over with only modest difficulty.

Something was wrong.

Archen made his way down a wide lane. In the distance, an orange glow lit up the sky and an odd burning smell filled his senses. But it wasn’t the glow or the smell that puzzled him. Clearly these were the result of a fire. No, what puzzled him were the people.

At every new road he turned onto, weaving his way towards the fire and what he supposed to be the center of town, he encountered more and more people. Some moved quietly and purposely as he, others simply stood about as if in a trance. A baby’s wail cut through the air, unanswered by a parent’s soothing hushes. On a street corner crouched an old woman, rocking back and forth, moaning wordlessly.

He turned and came into a large open square, and here he stopped. The sickly burning smell was overpowering, making him gasp for breath. In the middle of the square was the fire, blazing thirty feet into the air. Archen watched as every few moments, one of the townspeople approached and threw logs on it.

No, not logs, Archen realized, his stomach clenching. Bodies, and pieces of bodies.

He remembered in a rush all the questions they had asked him earlier, about the Ty’Goth, the creatures that had invaded them and against which he was expected to help them. These were their bodies being flung on the fire, their burning stench filling the air. He leaned his back against the cool stone wall, close to fainting, and waited for his head to stop spinning.