Something to Prove - Part 4

Former Chapters: (1), (2), (3)

Moonlight lit the ground in all directions as Astryon and Terrence peered from the unfamiliar opening of the Dungeon. The light was no familiar, sweet silvery glaze, but a baleful crimson that cast bloody shadows upon the ground in all directions. Vines twisted around the tunnel mouth and spread out across the ground, gradually shifting from ashen black to what was probably a more familiar dusty brown. They would have remained obscure in nature were it not for the globular ruddy-orange forms of pumpkins dotting the landscape as far as the eye could see. 

Astryon took the first brave steps out into this strange garden, his split hooves hardly making a sound on the soft loamy soil. Neither he nor Terrence said a word as they explored the eerie garden, perhaps because there seemed to be shadows and barely-there figures slipping through the hedges just out of the corner of the eye. Neither of them saw anything directly, but there was no denying the uneasy sense of a presence the moment one’s back was turned. 

The hedges, like the vines, seemed to twist and contort into peculiar and vaguely threatening shapes, offering no sense of security or the familiar in all this morass of night-dark, red-lit greenery. Several times Astryon stopped, graceful ears flicking backward before he turned, expecting to see someone tailing them, and finding the path behind them empty. Each time it was as if whomever had been there slipped out of sight just ahead of Astryon’s gaze. 

Finally, the Heraldic stopped. “Do you feel that?” He asked Terrence, stamping one hoof in frustration. “It’s like someone’s breathing down your neck, but no matter how quick I turn, there’s no one there.”

“It’s creepy.” Terrence agreed, his voice barely above a whisper. “I keep thinking I see something moving out of the corner of my eye, but of course there’s nothing there, either.”

“You sense the shades.” Came a third voice, sonorous and sombre, like a deep-toned bell. 

The two Coursers started, Astryon leaping back and to one side as if poked, and they both peered around, neither able to immediately place the source. 

A flicker of movement through the hedge drew the eye, and both Astryon and Terrence pivoted toward it, catching sight of a shape through the leafless verge. With great caution, and no small measure of fear, they slipped around the nearest corner, coming face to face with a massive hunched figure wrapped in a billowing cloak. 

The creature was much larger than it at first appeared, as it squatted over a patch of bare earth that looked for all the world like a fresh-dug grave. It’s body was covered with a mis-matched assortment of clothing and armor, much of which could have been salvaged from the human remains that were so common in the Buried Kingdom. It carried a long scythe with an unusual haft. As Astryon took it in, he realized what was so peculiar… knobby projections were spaced along the length in a ladder-like fashion and after a long moment his brain finally caught up with his eyes. It was a spine! Or possibly several? The bones were fused together and joined with a wooden shaft and sweeping arc of a blade, then gilded over with bronze or gold, it was hard to tell in the uncertain light. None of this was the creature’s most distinguishing feature, however. At first glance, it appeared the being wore for a helm a massive pumpkin, carved with the mockery of a humanoid face. Then the creature spoke again, and it was revealed that the raw gaping mouth and hollow eyes were not a mask but the creature’s face. 

“The dead follow the living in this place. It is they who haunt your steps. Would you aid me in my work? Would you aid me in ferrying these wayward souls across the veil?” Though they were closer now, the creature’s voice was not louder, in fact, it seemed softer, almost a whisper. “There is much work still to be done, and little enough time to do it.”

Astryon looked to Terrence and the pair shared a questioning glance, full of uncertainty. Astryon’s tail lashed once, soundless whip-crack motion, as he made up his mind.

“We will.” He declared. “If you will tell us what it is you need for us to do.” He lifted his head in a display of bravery that he didn’t especially feel. Whatever this horrifying being, Astryon had never once denied aid to one in need and he would not begin now. And, since Terrence had gotten him into this mess in the first place, the other Courser would darn well be right alongside to help get them both out of it. 

“Come then, Equines, come and meet the restless dead.” And the creature began to move.

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