Darkin A Journey East - By Joseph A. Turkot Page 0,12
old man’s advice, should be made after a brief rest. Go, sleep upon my soft bed there. When you awake, return to your plantation and gather the slaves you left for the wilderness. Tell them of your war, and let your own eyes see who will stand with you.” Krem pointed in the direction of a pillow-filled mat near the cave wall. Adacon didn’t protest the chance for sleep, and he quietly lay down.
It seemed that nearly no time had passed at all when Krem’s voice woke him from deep slumber.
“It is time now, lad. I have let you sleep too long. The sun is failing, you must go.”
“Alright—I’ll go,” Adacon replied, startled to realize the old man hadn’t been just some strange dream after all.
“I’ve no idea how far the next tower is from my farm, so there’s no way to know if the farm has been found already by the lords. I mean Grelion. His men may already guard there again.”
“Not yet, I don’t think,” Krem said.
“Do you know if more towers are near?”
“There is always a sentry tower nearby in this age, and that is why you must make all haste. Once you’ve recovered those slaves who will take to your cause, return here to my home amidst the dunes. We shall assess your next move then,” Krem ordered. Without any more words, the old man led Adacon out of the pond room and back up the ladder into the main living hall on the first floor. He walked, still in awe over the magnificence of Krem’s home, a marvelous cave palace encompassed in a sand dune. Krem gave a gruff farewell once they reached the green door, and he swiftly departed, thanking the old man once again for the food and rest.
III: THERE AND BACK AGAIN
The sun was slowly setting in the western sky. Adacon felt that at any moment he would awaken from a dream. His whole world had been flipped upside down, but when he contrasted the negatives against what his former life had been, he felt some happiness.
Shadows grew long and thin as he trod down the path, walking alongside shrubs that became small bushes and trees. The Red Forest formed along the shoulders of the dirt road, and soon the nocturnal animals hidden there began to make festive chatter and haunting calls into the dusk. He eyed the woods warily, expecting at any moment for a giant creature to come sprawling out onto his path. Slave lore told of wood golems, massive hulks known to be very territorial. More than a few runaway slaves were thought to have died by way of golem hammer, axe, or fist.
Darkness finally swallowed the sun, and there were few stars. The night looked mean, and he took his sword into his hand and decided to keep it there until he arrived at the farm. The woods were becoming denser as in the distance he could make out the dim light of the guard tower. He could hear no human sounds coming from the path ahead, and he wondered if the other slaves had already run off, perhaps into the wilderness of the Red Forest. A poor idea, he thought, as that would get them mercilessly killed by wild wolves or bears. But the farm gate drew near, and he prepared to enter his former home once again.
The entrance greeted him with dried puddles of blood on the dirt. The silence was almost eerie, and he did not move any farther into the farm. He looked around the corn field in broad angles, searching for any changes he could recognize in the scenery.
There were none; nothing had been changed, it seemed. And better yet, the lords, or Grelion, had not discovered the farm’s downfall yet. He rejoiced, as a small piece of a large puzzle seemed to fall into place in his mind. Lord Grelion wouldn’t know of the farm’s downfall, he hoped optimistically, until the morale monitor rode in on horseback from what was called the Dark City. That wouldn’t be for roughly a week, he calculated quickly in his head.
“Hello! Fellow slaves, can you hear me?” he called. There was no response for a long time, and then a whistling noise shot out into the night air, startling him. “Who’s there? Who is it?” he yelled, tightly gripping his sword with both hands.
“It’s not wise for you to shout so loudly—certainly not the fellow slave bit, at any rate,” came a deep voice from a