Darkin A Journey East - By Joseph A. Turkot Page 0,13

small distance away. Adacon looked in the direction the voice had come and saw the source emerging from a trail that led into the crops. It was a tough looking slave he recognized, an older man he knew to have worked on the other end of the farm. The man was greater in height and girth than Adacon, dwarfing Adacon’s frame by comparison. He had long black hair that was tied back with string, a beard and mustache, and two black eyes set under thick black eyebrows. His cheek was slightly scarred beneath the left eye, and his features were sharply defined. They had never spoken before, Adacon realized.

“Hello brother!” Adacon said in an emotional yelp, realizing he may have found his first ally.

“Brother what? Have all your thoughts been brewed, as well as your concerns for safety? You should not talk so loudly sire, not with all the dead bodies about,” the man responded.

“I have come to gather those who are willing to fight together with me for freedom; those who would rather die tomorrow than wake up a slave for the rest of their lives. It is that—a passion to break the oppression—that burns inside me. And I have met one so far already, outside this farm, who is on my side,” Adacon replied in a quieter voice.

“No doubt then; you are responsible for the spilt blood I see here. Remarkable feat I daresay. I am impressed,” the slave said. “And if what you say is true, then all that I dream of has come true, and the beginning of the end is at hand for the foul lords of Darkin. But I am more fit than most men, and I should account for the first ten of your army, I suppose. I cannot believe this day is come…” The man seemed extraordinarily enthusiastic about meeting Adacon now, and he wept happily.

“You want it as much as I, then. And you’re willing to die?” asked Adacon.

“I have always been willing to die, if it meant a real chance to destroy the lords. And yes, if you are to lead this attempt I shall follow you, even if to death,” the man spoke.

“I am Adacon. What is your name?”

“I am Erguile, to those that knew me. And you, Adacon, are the only one who knows me still. And so I pledge my life to destroy the lords, though I’ve no longer any weapons, nor any treasures to barter with. I have much in the way of a will to fight though, rest assured, and more skill with a sword than any man,” Erguile boasted. Adacon reveled in the respect Erguile was bestowing on him. Respect was something never to be shown if you were born a slave, and the fact that Erguile was his elder made it more dignifying.

“And that will be all you’ll need. I’ll find weapons for you, and all who join me. Before I return to more pressing thoughts, I must ask where the rest are?” Adacon asked.

“They fled when the new batch of sentries arrived on the farm, randomly striking down slaves,” Erguile said.

“New batch? You mean there has been word of the massacre here already?” Adacon gasped.

“You had no idea all the while? Hah, thought you’d gotten off plain free. No, I don’t know how they did find out, but I believe it was in the earliest hours of the morn—they were running up and down the farm, just let the bodies of their own men lay and forked down slaves left and right. Then, after seeing the rest scurry away into the woods, they followed after to hunt them down. The whole lot of them except me gone into the Red Forest, save for those slain before they had a chance to run,” Erguile said, lowering his voice and speaking closer to Adacon’s face. “I suppose that is our favor, though, as the lords’ men will never return from that horrid place alive.”

“You too believe in the lore of the forest?” asked Adacon, sidetracked at its mentioning.

“I do not believe that any human ever to live could create such tales as it has without drawing from some truth.”

“But what of the tales of elves? Have you read about their utopian cities, hidden deep in the forests, untouchable by man? And what of magic and the lore of mana? Have you ever felt those tales as well to have some truth?” questioned Adacon.

“I believe faery tales are just that—faery tales. I think you might