A Land in Shadow by Daniel Whitman

Author:Daniel Whitman [Whitman, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781095708088
Published: 2019-05-10T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The two Shadowfriends marched through the forsaken land. One was frail and thin and wore light armor. The other, the fresher of the two, was still bulky and strong, and donned a heavy plate mail. Around them, night hung thick like a shadowy blanket. They hardly noticed, as the night was all they knew. Ahead of them, there was a ruined village hidden among the surrounding hills, out of sight. Yet they knew it was there. They had traveled this path many times before.

They were summoned not hours ago. For what, they could only guess. To ask too many questions is a quick route to an early death in the Shadow, especially for Shadowfriends — the lowest of the low in the Shadow.

The thin Shadowfriend sighed. How he yearned to gaze upon the purifying light of the sun once more. How he dreamed of basking in the warm embrace of the Light, away from the endless abyss of the Shadow. How he wished to hear the musical sound of his name being spoken once again. The Shadow cared little for names. They were worthless, mere objects that were to be discarded like filthy waste. And he had made his choice. He was a traitor, ridiculed even by the groveling cultists. He had long ago forsaken his Inner Fire, and his name, to the glory of the night, and there was no turning back.

Better this than to be dead.

So be it. He had made his choice.

The robust Shadowfriend at his side had only recently succumbed to the Shadow and was still optimistic about his situation. He would trot along merrily, his mind filled with the promises the Deathspeakers had given. Promises of power and wealth. They were all empty. The only fulfilled promise was survival. Even so, that could all too easily be broken.

What a fool.

The thin Shadowfriend snickered under his breath. Many a time had he been witness to a Shadowfriend falling to the wicked blade of a cultist, or the flanged mace of a Deathspeaker. Yet still he survived.

Hardly.

He was nothing more than a loose tatter of skin and bone. The Shadow had not been kind, and there were many nights where he would go hungry or was beaten by a mob of cultists. Yet his promise still held true.

Better this than to be dead.

The two Shadowfriends marched on, not daring to say a word to each other. Making friends was never wise, as sooner or later, they would become nothing more than another rotting corpse in this land of decay. Their mission had brought them together, and that was enough.

As the night wore on, they finally stumbled across the ruined village. It was nothing more than piles of destruction strewn about the rolling hills. Any signs of life that once lived there had long been scrubbed away with the relentless comb of death.

Entering the devastation, the thin Shadowfriend studied the surrounding shadows. They were not alone. Cloaked cultists emerged from among the fallen buildings, their hollow eyes mocking the pitiful Shadowfriends.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.