When night came, they were chasing her again. Through the twisting alleys that wound between the decrepit houses, empty windows leered menacingly from rotted walls and doors hung loosely from rusted hinges. Through the abandoned streets, strewn with the detritus of the lives that had called them home.
Her breath burned in her lungs and her legs screamed torture but she could not, would not stop. The sword in her hands weighed her down, ruined her balance but she could not let it go, even though she lacked the strength to swing it. She risked a quick glance behind her and sobbed as she saw them boiling from the shadows in pursuit. They were gaining. They were always gaining and she knew how this would end.
Still, she ran onwards, stumbling and careening from walls as she fled blindly through the darkened alleys. Tears mingled with the sweat pouring down her face as she pushed herself ever onward, staggering now instead of running. Behind her she could hear them; shrieking and cawing as they drew closer, as though they knew their sport would soon be at an end. A misstep sent her crashing into the corner of the building at the mouth of this next labyrinthine alley. Rotted wood and brick crumbled beneath her and long splinters gashed bloody furrows in the pale skin of her arm. She sobbed, fighting to catch her breath, as ever her hunters drew closer.
A despairing wail tore itself from her throat as she saw the shade of him step out from a shadowed empty doorway. The shade seemed to pull itself from the surrounding gloom, blackened chains stretching back into the darkness contained within the building. It was he she feared most, try as she might to outrun her pursuers, he would always find her. Blood so dark as to almost be black dripped from the palms of his hands as the shade took a faltering step forward into the alley. The blackened chains rasped as they were pulled further from the house and seemed to tauten. The shades mouth moved, as if speaking to her but she would not listen.
She span and staggered onwards down the twisting alley, forcing herself onwards through the gloom. Her arm was limp and bloody, useless from the collision and she sobbed as pain spiked through it.
‘Use it…’
It was barely a whisper, barely heard at all beneath the laboured sound of her breathing and her sobs. But still, it brought her headlong flight to a halt. She span, eyes straining against the gloom but she could see nothing but the forlorn decayed buildings that hemmed her in.
‘Child…’
Behind her. She span, trying to raise the sword she gripped desperately in one hand. Then there was nothing except the white hot lance of agony driven through her chest. Her sword was buried deep into her, blood blooming slowly like a red flower against the white of the shift she wore. She stared into the eyes of the shade who had impaled her with her own blade, chains and blood weaving from its hands to the hilt of the sword. Dimly behind her she could hear the shrieks and screams of her pursuers as they closed on her and the graveyard stink of them filled her senses. She found the strength to scream then, as the first of them reached her and plunged cold dead talons into her yielding flesh, and as the dead torn her down she heard the whisper of the shade again.
‘Pain. Fear. All can be mastered. All can be used. Here endeth the lesson.’
She woke with a start and a barely stifled scream. The cloisters of the Abbey were silent but dim light crept from the edges of the window, hinting at the closeness of dawn. Her skin was slick with sweat and unconsciously a hand rubbed at her chest where she had felt the dream-blade pierce her. Already she knew that a scar would form there, joining the others she had found these past few nights. She was exhausted still, sleep offering no rest or respite but she knew from bitter experience that she would find sleep no more this morning. Sighing and rising from her simple cot, Tattersail prepared herself to face another day.
Subject: Order Of Illumination - When Night Came