*Note from Baelnorn: The highlighted text was what was written from the previous two rounds.
Nestled among old oaks, the cabin sat deep in shadow and rumor. No sun balm graced the walls. The protective vine and its pale blooms were nowhere in evidence and yet the smallish building appeared in good repair with sturdy walls and a moss free roof beneath a straight and unmarred chimney. It was not the residence one would imagine belonging to an elderly woman eschewing the society of others.
It matched the descriptions whispered by the locals over the occasional ale when Dorn found himself staying a night at the nearby town. He glanced over his shoulder at the woman sitting in the back of his wagon. In the shade of the trees, the scars running down the side of her face and neck appeared darker and more prominent than the vast network of wrinkles etched across her visage.
Warrior, some posited: the dark ones more wary of her than she was of them. Dorn found this difficult to reconcile with the frail woman shifting uneasily beside the kegs of cider. He’d been born into a time of relative peace, prosperity and expansion, where tales of the night terror’s assaults were the province of retired soldiers and painful memories. However, it was no less crazy and inviting trouble to live in the woods alone these days.
Grass and dead leaves choked the old wheel ruts into complete obscurity for the last ten meters, but he drove until he was near the door before pulling on the reins. Clyde stopped with a pronounced snort and a shake of his thick head. Bracing herself against the nearest barrel, Gowan hoisted herself up with a soft grunt and an unsteady step. Dorn jumped down from the driver’s bench, hurrying to the back to give her a hand down.
Her leg crumpled as she stepped down and Dorn half caught her amidst falling. It took a few heartbeats for Gowan to get her legs underneath her and right herself with a heavy sigh. “I’m afraid I have another favor to ask of you.”
He wanted to turn his back on the forest and continue on his route, but hesitated. The bowed woman didn’t await his reply, shuffling instead towards her house as soon as she released his arm.
“As you will, mum,” he agreed, trailing after her.
“Let’s hope so.”
He stepped inside a tidy and unremarkable one room cabin. A pallet bed, a cabinet, a pockmarked table surrounded by chairs, a side table with a water pitcher and basin: nothing appeared extraordinary until she lifted a large pouch hanging on the wall above the pallet bed and opened it. Even in the dim light of the enclosed space, the clawed, black thing looked gruesome. He took an involuntary half step back, bile rising to his throat and smothering the question that might otherwise have emerged.
“The right hand of Tenebris.”
He swallowed with difficulty, asking, “Tenebris?”
She shook her head. “Their chieftain,” she explained before tying the hand to her belt.
At the sight of the cord threaded through the sinews of the desiccated wrist, Dorn lunged for the door. Splatters of vomit dotted the threshold, but his sick mostly landed outside. By the time he wiped his mouth, she was right behind him. “We leave your horse. Trek into their domain on foot.”
“You’re insane.” Dorn shuddered from sick, fear or some unsavory combination.
“My neighbors called me worse. They nearly killed me too.” She stepped around him, oriented herself towards the darker depths of the woods and tottered forth.
Dorn strode back to the wagon and climbed onto the driver’s seat. Taking the reins in hand, he watched Gowan slowly and deliberately pick her way over the uneven ground. Stumbling, she braced herself against a tree trunk. With a huff of frustration, he set down the reins and took the time to unharness Clyde before jogging to catch the old woman.
“Much obliged,” she commented without a backwards glance, before he reached her side.
“You’re not expecting me to fend them off, are you?”
What started as a chuckle, ended with a rasping cough that further hunched her shrunk frame. “You’re here to deter the coyotes,” she gasped in reply.
Every minute dragged the length of an hour as he lent her a hand to traverse the occasional protruding root or uneven scree. At first, he suspected they wandered aimlessly, but the further they delved, the more often she paused and, sighting a particular landmark, adjusted her trajectory.
An infernal screech pierced the quiet forest choir, silencing its participants.
*(Note from Baelnorn: The author did not separate the above sentence with the next paragraph, they were in one paragraph, but limitations of the website wouldn’t allow me to highlight the sentence alone.)
Dorn’s chest tightened as Gowan stopped and a night terror bounded towards them on all fours before standing erect before them. She shrieked at it, it gestured at Dorn with a clicking noise, and after a brief exchange of squeals and clucks, Gowan turned to Dorn.
“The sprig of sun balm tucked inside your coat: leave it here.”
His eyes darted between demon and woman.
“Leave it here or we leave you. They’re terribly allergic to it, but the bit you have will only irritate them,” she said when he remained motionless.
The goddess’s blessed protection bestowed upon her children: an allergy. As much to prove the goddess’ power as to avoid being abandoned without hope of retracing their path, he reached into his inside pocket and drew out the dried bloom. The devil did not recoil at the sight. Lifting its arm, it covered its snout, obscuring its torso with a veil of thin flesh. No account mentioned wings. His hand shook as he dropped the sun balm.
The dark one pivoted and walked away with Gowan falling into step behind it. Every one of Dorn’s nerves felt electric and every shadow of the forest appeared sharp with menace as he trailed after them.
“You understand them?” He whispered.
“I understand little and speak less. Our ears are as ill-suited to their language as their tongues to ours.”
Up close, it was dark and spiny, yes, but a mottled black and this one walked upright, contradicting every story he’d heard. They weren’t exactly wings stretching between wrist and torso. He wasn’t sure what they were. As it led the way, it emitted two shrieks and a click, that was repeated ahead of them, and again, further away.
Gowan bent and picked up a couple stones. “Pick up as many as you can”, she said, rattling the rocks in her hand. “Should have thought of this earlier.”
He’d filled one pouch with palm sized rocks by the time they stepped into a clearing ringed by dark ones. They all stood upright, most a head taller than him, and broader across the shoulders by half. Their guide strode a half dozen paces into the clearing, heedless of the sunlight, before stepping aside.
“Gaaaaoowa,” the one standing in the center screeched and this time Dorn heard it: a loose approximation of the woman’s name. This one stood, a brute among giants, with a stub where his right hand should have been.
Gowan shrieked and the chieftain clicked once in response. Taking the rocks from her pocket, she proceeded to stack them on the ground. “Help me.”
The monsters loomed unnervingly still as the two of them worked. In the end, a fair pile of stones sat among the grass and Gowan rested one hand atop the stones while placing her other palm on her chest. She looked to their leader, but it was the smaller one beside them that broke into a series of squeals and chittering.
One sharp scream from Tenebris and their guide lapsed into softer, incessant clicking, as Gowan stood up. Another shriek from him and it fell silent. Dorn’s stomach dropped when Gowan cast a sympathetic gaze towards the dark one beside them.
Detaching the severed hand from her belt, she extended it towards the chieftain. He clicked twice and lifted his left hand to his mouth, pantomiming biting his hand before thrusting the stump of his other arm towards Gowan.
She clicked twice and hovered her free hand over their pile of rocks.
Two short screeches from Tenebris and Gowan’s shoulders relaxed.
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