The town of Pondfall sat nestled at the edge of the western forests of Aglamand, enjoying good sport in the trees during the spring and summer, and relatively kind weather in the fall and winter. They were farmer folk, sowing their fields on time and bringing in the harvest on the same day every year, and the children played freely in the streets without worry of any advancing army or roaming bandits. The capital city of Aglamand kept them safe from any brigands that may have roamed the far fields, and no advancing force from the east or south could make their way through the thick, green trees of the forest.

  The people here knew no real hardship. Even when the immortal king came and conquered their capital, their brick and wood homes remained untouched, and their way of life had not changed whatsoever. They enjoyed their peace, they enjoyed their drink, and their get-togethers, and their abundance of food and tobacco. It was a good thing to raise your children here, at least, that was until a young girl no older than five had disappeared in the dark of night.

  There was no sound or sign of an intruder. Her bed remained exactly as it did normally, as if she had gotten up and made it before walking out of her home and into the dead of night. Her brothers, who normally slept in the same room as her, heard nothing the night before, in fact, they slept as soundly as ever the night the young girl disappeared. Nobody knew why. The parents had sent a request via hawk to the capital to request the help of Aglamand officials, but none had arrived, and the very next week another child went missing.

  A curse had come to Pondfall. And the town didn’t know why.

  ~~~

  The trees of the forest were thick and old, and their trunks measured the size of some granaries Gillion had seen in his youth. The moss grew in large patches on even larger stones, and the soft dirt beneath his worn shoes felt nicer than the rocky terrain he had crossed to gain entrance into Aglamand’s territories. It was midday in the midst of summer, a time where the air and the sky should have been increasingly hot, but due to the shade of the forest the heat was not as harsh. It was cool and nice, and for the first time in years, Gillion felt at peace.

  He led his old mule—a small beast he named Govrin after his uncle—by the mouth to ensure the poor thing didn’t get caught in any thorn bushes or large, overturned roots. He passed wildflowers and other densely packed foliage on his way through the trees, and he took a deep breath, smelling the earth and the wood and the nature that surrounded him. He just wished that there was a stream or pond nearby, somewhere he could bathe.

  It had been around a year since Gillion had last gotten to really clean himself. He allowed the rain to rinse him, but that was only when it did rain, and in the summer it was particularly rare. So, he begrudgingly learned to coexist with the filth that had built up on his face and cloak, and he had long since forsaken the art of shaving. He looked more like a vagrant than a prince now, more like a vagabond or roamer than any man of noble lineage, and if he were honest with himself, he might have preferred it that way. It was better people think of him as a failure than a royal failure.

  How far until the next town? Amorada, his blade, asked. He kept the handle covered with a black cloth nowadays. Gillion didn’t want people knowing that he carried a talking sword at his waist.

  Of all the filth that covered Gillion, none of it touched anywhere near the scabbard that held Amorada. The sword was obsessive about that. She would whine and moan and groan until he wiped it down, complaining the entire time that the prince was too rough with an item of such heritage. The damned thing wouldn’t even allow him to draw it without it whining about something.

  “Not far.” Gillion said.

  But how far?

  “Not. Far.” Gillion grumbled between gritted teeth. It was no easy feat traveling with such a talkative companion. Still, he couldn’t imagine the last fifteen years without her. He had come to think of the blade as a person rather than a weapon, and truth be told, he would rather die than lose his only companion. “A few more miles, maybe?”

  A few more miles. The sword scoffed. A few more miles dangling from your waist is a few more miles with a headache. Pick me up would you?

  Gillion ignored the blade. She continued to groan about this and that, continued to complain about the way he walked or how tight the scabbard was, all the while he and his mule continued forward. It was about evening when Gillion decided to stop and make camp for the night. He tied Govrin up to a thinner tree near a small clearing in the woods and allowed him to graze on the grass and foliage that grew there, and he himself went to go look for firewood. When he had gathered a sufficient amount for a fire and he had gotten it going in the center of the small clearing, he unhooked the sword from his belt and placed it in the grass, then laid back and stared up through the trees. A few twinkling stars were out tonight, though most were blocked by the tree canopy over his head.

  He enjoyed his time out in the wild like this. He enjoyed being able to focus on making camp, or focus on travel, or focus on anything but his memories. In the darkest nights, when the sword was silent and the stars were covered, he couldn’t help but remember that day on the battlefield. He thought of it constantly, it flowed through his mind like a river breaking through a dam. He had replayed it a hundred times, playing out every possible scenario where he managed to dodge the arrow that ended his horse’s life, where he managed to save his father and uncle from their deaths. He succeeds every time in his imagination. He lives a happy life every time in his imagination. Why was reality so different?

  He knew the answer. The arrow had struck Saltruin in the eye, and he had been knocked unconscious underneath it. He just didn’t want to think about it. So, he looked up and looked at the little amount of stars he could see through the trees. He traced out the constellations with his fingers, telling the histories of old to Amorada as he had done a thousand times, and when sleep had finally snuck up on him he welcomed it gladly. As the peace and darkness washed over him, he closed his eyes and drifted off into a deep slumber.

  Gillion.

  Gillion’s eyes shot open. His hand instinctually grabbed for the handle of his blade and he threw the scabbard off of it, holding Amorada out in front of him. His years on the road had proven that the world was not kind to vagrants. Whether brigands or creatures of dark magic, Gillion had encountered a number of threats along the road, and now he wielded Amorada as skillfully as his father once did. Usually, he felt no fear when facing his foes. But this night, this night his heart pounded in his chest.

  His eyes shot through the darkness, eyeing every dark corner or gap between trees that could be hiding something. The campfire he had built was now dying, and the darkness was growing braver by the second, almost swallowing the clearing whole. It grew up the trees and into the night sky, and anything that wished to hide amongst the ranks of the shadows would find the task easy.

  There is something in the darkness.

  “Where?” Gillion whispered. He gripped Amorada tighter now, and slowly rose to his feet. “Where, Amorada?”

  I don’t know. The sword said. It conceals itself from me. Be wary.

  A sudden braying came from just beyond the darkness, maybe fifty feet from where Gillion now stood. The unmistakable sound of a frightened animal, the sound of his mule, Govrin, crying out into the night. Gillion wasted no time rushing toward the dreaded noise.

  He crashed into the darkness, caution leaving him as he roared and swung his blade precisely, taking care not to cut his loyal animal as he did so. His blade found nothing but air, and his eyes saw that the rope that had once tied Govrin was gone, along with the mule.

  “What is this?” Gillion asked, anger rising in his chest. “Where is he?!”

  Just then, another braying noise from the darkness fifty feet ahead of him. Again he rushed forward, cutting at the air with Amorada, and finding nothing. He was growing more and more frustrated as time went on.

  It leads you off the trail, Gillion. Whatever it is, it’s attempting to lure you to it.

  “It succeeds.” Gillion said, stepping forward. “I will not lose my mule.”

  Another sound, this time from far, far deeper in the trees. As Gillion took another step forward, the remaining light from his campfire finally died out, and the darkness swept in around him. In the night, the trees surrounding the man were illuminated only by the moon and stars, which offered little to no sight for the ragged prince. He breathed steadily, calming himself as he closed his eyes to listen.

  Strangely enough, he heard nothing. Nighttime in the forest was not supposed to be this quiet. Where were the crickets? The buzzing of fireflies? The hooting of owls and the scurrying of forest mice? In the darkness, Gillion heard nothing but the sound of his heart beating tensely in his ears, the wind blowing through the trees, and… ragged breathing from his left.

  He ripped the cloth off of the handle of his glowing blade and swung quickly, connecting with something hard and fleshy in the dark. Amorada cut true as it always had, cleaving through whatever creature he had hit and coming out the other side in an instant. In the brief flash of light that came from his blade, he could see only what looked to be a large, wet, bony hand about the size of his torso, and as soon as it met with the blade the creature let out a wild, savage cry. It sounded like a high-pitched whistle mixed with a hundred men and women groaning in unison, and Gillion had to cover his ears to stop from going deaf. It retreated at a speed Gillion couldn’t match, and though he tried to follow it with his eyes, the hand was gone before he knew it. This time, there were no more sounds from the dark. Whatever the creature was, it had gone for now.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Gillion fell to his knees in both relief and anger. Whatever the creature was, it had succeeded in taking his mule, and it had almost succeeded in taking him. The glowing handle of Amorada lit up the forest around him as well as any torch, and he allowed himself to rest there on the soft forest floor for a time.

  He looked down to the blade of his sword, where a black ichor had clung to it, and he wiped it off in disgust. Then he turned toward where he struck the creature. A finger the width and length of his arm had been severed, and was now leaking black blood onto the ground.

  “Amorada.” Gillion said, staring at it. “What is that creature?”

  Not one from our lands, Gillion. It moves with the dark, as if spurred on by sorceries. This is no normal enemy.

  Gillion looked toward the sky. It had begun to turn to day, with the darkness of night slowly fading into the west.

  “Can we hunt it during the day?”

  I don’t know. But I don’t think Govrin will live for very long if that creature has taken him.

  Gillion slammed his fist into the ground and screamed. He would find that creature if it were the last thing he ever did. Nobody stole from Gillion. And nobody was permitted to touch his mule.

  It was late in the evening when Gillion finally made it to the small town of Pondfall. He had spent the entirety of the day searching for any sign of the creature that took his mule, to no success. He searched for miles, walking the length of the forest's deep brushes and sunlit glens, and through it all he found no trace of the creature or his animal. There was nothing. It had come in the night, taken his mule, and disappeared so totally and completely that it was almost unthinkable to him that it had happened at all. Had he not kept the creature’s finger in his possession, he would have believed that the whole encounter had been a dream, and that Govrin had just walked off into the night.

  Pondfall was empty, strangely enough. The narrow streets of the small village were devoid of any travelers or passersby, and where he had come to expect children playing he found only empty yards and silent alleys. The town itself was not as small as he had been led to believe by the maps, indeed the houses were all two-story and wide, but even those large family homes were silent and closed up. The sun was shining brightly, the weather was fair and the air was cool but not cold enough to chase the citizens indoors. Where was everyone?

  The sound of a creaking rocking chair caught the prince’s attention, turning him toward a tall townhouse with a large wooden porch and intricately carved floral patterns crawling up the wooden beams that were holding the house upright. On that porch sat an older gentleman, a man no younger than seventy and blinder than any Gillion had come to know. A cane propped up against the chair told Gillion that wherever the rest of the town had gone was too far of a journey for this man to make on his own, so he was abandoned while everyone else gathered someplace else. Still, the man was well taken care of. He was not scrawny in the least bit, and laugh lines etched into his aged face told Gillion that he had led a life of joy and happiness. It made the prince wonder what his own face would look like when he was at that age.

  “Ho! Elder!” Gillion called, approaching the porch. “How is your age treating you?”

  “Worse and worse these days.” The man said gruffly. He tilted his head toward Gillion, though his eyes never moved. They seemed to look eastward, toward the forest Gillion had come from. “Yours is a voice I don’t recognize. Who speaks?”

  “I’m a traveler.” Gillion said, hand resting on the handle of Amorada. “From the east. The hospitality of your great town seems to have left with the townsfolk, grandfather. Where are your people?”

  “Had I the strength, I would rise to greet you.” The old man reached for his cane, but was stopped by Gillion.

  “I kid, grandfather. Do not rise, save your strength for a day when you might need it.” Gillion always felt somewhat awkward speaking to people over double his age. He wasn’t sure whether to regard them as he would any other, or with greater respect. “Where is your family? Where has the town gone?”

  “They’re gathered in the Meethouse, at the center of town. These are dark days for Pondfall, Traveler.”

  “What has happened?” Gillion said, grabbing the handle of Amorada even tighter.

  “Four kids have gone missing in the night. Taken without a trace from the arms of their parents. We fear we may never see them again.” The elderly man said, rubbing his forehead. “Good children, too. They used to play in the street there.”

  Gillion reached into his pouch and ran his fingers over the large, severed finger of the creature he fought the night before. “Without a trace, you say? And nobody has seen what took them?”

  “Nobody.” The old man leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone, as if speaking of it called to his location the presence of evil. “But I think it’s the work of Old Song profanity. Sorceries. Dark magics and the like.”

  Gillion remembered the words of his blade. The creature did move strangely, and its form was elongated and stretched. What little he saw of it should not have been possible, but nevertheless it existed, and he couldn’t deny that the entire event reeked of Old Song.

  “You may be right, grandfather. But never fear to hope for the survival of the children, however dangerous magics may be.” Gillion gave the old man a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and started off toward the Meethouse. “And certainly don’t fear to speak of Old Song trickery. It strikes when its presence is unknown, and when all have forgotten how powerful it really is. Only through knowledge of it can men choose to fight against it.”

  His trek through the rest of Pondfall was uneventful. Him and Amorada shared words about the nature of the creature, about what it could be, but neither knew enough about sorceries to form a coherent theory on the matter. Dark days over Pondfall indeed.

  The Meethouse was a large community center at the exact middle of the town. The entire settlement was seemingly built outward in a circle around the building, and a good hundred feet of clearance was given on any slide of it, which only made the three story building seem that much more grand compared to the rest of the brick and wood residences that surrounded it. Even from thirty feet away Gillion could hear the clamor coming from inside, and as the sun was setting on the town of Pondfall, Gillion threw open the large doors and stepped into an uproar.

  “It’s not right!” A man screamed, yelling from a standing position at the back of the room. “Why aren’t they coming?!”

  The room Gillion had walked into was large enough to fit every adult member of the town, and even still it was crowded. The parents, fearing for the safety of their children, did not want to leave them alone even for a second, and so the entire town had brought not only themselves, but their many, many descendants along as well. Babies cried in the back corners, children ran about, weaving between legs and chairs and laughing all the while their adult parents argued and fought over the well-being of their community. Windows sat in the wooden walls about halfway up, and though torches had been lit, the dying light from the setting sun casted dark shadows over the procession. Gillion could smell the agitation in the air, and he wanted nothing to do with it. But, if he ever wanted to find Govrin the Mule, he would have to brave the dangers of an angry mob.

  The crowd screamed and yelled and argued with a panel of six older men, who all sat behind podiums at the front of the room. They did their best to quell the crowd and keep things under control, but the impossible task was seemingly too much for them to bear, and their words had died down to mere whimpers as the volume of the townsfolk had continued to grow. No more were the days of peace in Pondfall. At least, not in this room.

  “We sent for help weeks ago!” A mother yelled. “Has Aglamand abandoned us?!”

  “It’s a new government these days, Marda…” One of the elders said. “Our request may have gotten lost in the… bureaucracy of it all.”

  “Bureaucracy he says!” Another woman hollered. “Four children taken and not a peep from the capital!”

  “The capital has its own issues to deal with, folks.” Another one of the elders said.

  “Oh yes, moving statues, they say! It’s all a bunch of lies to me!” The crowd roared in agreement. “So they get to play pretend while our children die?!”

  This comment sent a loud procession of more screams and more yelling throughout the room, as Gillion just stood at the back and listened. There would be no calming this crowd, it seemed. Without results given to them this instant, without news to report or information to give out, they would never be calm. He sighed and turned to leave the room, and stumbled over the small leg of a young boy sitting just across the doorway.

  The boy was no older than eight, with black hair and dark eyes and deep bags that made him look far older than he should’ve. He sat in silence, not playing with the other children, not speaking to anyone else. He just stared off into space, as if staring at something far, far away. Gillion knelt down and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Children should be happy.” He said, giving the kid a reassuring squeeze. “I can’t help but notice that you are not.”

  The boy looked up at Gillion, then back down to the floor.

  “I can’t sleep.” The boy said.

  “Well that’s not good. Young boys need their rest.”

  “That’s what my mum says. But when I go to sleep I end up having nightmares, and then I just wake up again.” The boy rubbed his eyes and yawned. “It’s not like I mean to, you know? I want to sleep. I just can’t.”

  Gillion looked up to the crowd, now roaring even louder than they were before. The children at the back of the room had stopped playing in fear of the aggressive mob now in front of them, and some of them had even started crying as their parents and older siblings screamed at each other without end.

  “What kind of dreams?” Gillion asked, his eyes never leaving the crowd.

  “Oh I don’t know.” The boy said. “Dreams of the forest, I suppose.”

  “And what do you do in the forest?”

  “Usually I’m walking.” The boy closed his eyes and tried to remember, but had to start himself awake again as he started to drift off. “Then I come to a house in the trees, and there’s a lady there. She’s pretty, but she stinks like the fields after manuring. And… the children are there. In that house with her, but they’re all sleeping on the floor, and the woman asks if I’d like to join them.”

  “And what do you say?” Gillion asked. He glanced down to the handle of Amorada, which glowed slightly under the black cloth.

  “I say no. And then I wake up.”

  “Good lad.” Gillion said, rising from his kneeling position. “Never enter that house, no matter the temptation.”

  The kid nodded, and Gillion looked back up to the crowd in front of him. They were screaming at the tops of their lungs now, shouting three arguments at once at the town elders, who just slumped back in their chairs, defeated. Only one elder, a slender man in his fifties, still attempted to answer the townsfolk's complaints, but nothing he said made it through the wall of noise that was being shouted at him.

  Gillion pushed and shoved his way through the crowd, causing those he passed to break free of their anger and stare at the ragged stranger that had arrived in town just a few hours prior. The loud yelling calmed down the closer to the front he walked, and as he passed under the windows the shadows danced over his face and eyes as if he himself were a part of them. When he finally came to a stop in front of the elders and in front of the crowd, all was quiet.

  Gillion, compared to the rest of the townsfolk, was tall. He stood about six-feet tall compared to the average man in the crowd behind him, who stood only about five-foot-four. His towering presence over them and the elders gave him the silence he needed, and he reached into his pouch and pulled out the large, severed finger he had taken from the creature the previous night. He threw it forward in front of the elders and it landed with a soft thump.

  “There is a monster in your woods.” Gillion said. “And I’ll kill it for you.”