The Fall of Arnon

Chapter 20

The moon blinked lazily in its bed of darkness and the stars twinkled brightly down upon the country below. Father Thomas stumbled heavily, but was pulled back up by the buff arm of the woman walking stiffly beside him. The events of the night had suddenly come crashing around him, and his body felt exhaustion course through it. They had long ago left the cold loneliness of the tunnel and come out into the cold emptiness of the open prairie. A chill wind crept almost imperceptibly through his thick woolen cloak, and he had finally given up attempting to contain the shivers that racked his body. Instead, he let them burst through him, wave upon wave.

There are very few times in life when death will loom like a cloud over you ready at any moment to snuff out the small flame that still burns beneath.To see your own demise standing like a sentinel, barring the afterlife, its eyes glowing red, its smile gleaming in the deathly still of the future is not a thing for the faint of heart. But, the priest was not one to be faint of heart. In fact, his heart was quite a solid, sturdy thing.

The edge of the forest loomed closer and closer, formidable against the night sky. Father Thomas had never believed in the fairytales that had been spun out of old wive's tales all descending from the Forest of Othelio. Only the other day a new one had begun to suspend the beliefs of many a young mind around the city. There seemed to have been a demon that had somehow been conjured up amidst the misty hollows and dark, dismal reaches of the forest. One boy had bravely defended himself as well as an older knight against the ravages of its terrible fangs and red, blazing eyeballs.

But, it was not demons the priest feared would be his ultimate demise as he was led through the tangles of the wild, unheeded grass that bit into his legs stinging them with their innocent green blades. There was no wind, no sound of an owl or the swish of vegetation being brushed by the tender comb of the air. Only the ever-watchful sentinels of the trees looming high above them.

The coterie of women soon began to melt into the woods, their lights fading into the bitter blackness. Father Thomas felt himself being pulled, not by anything physical, but by something else. Something pulled him into the dark depths of that wretched place. He could almost hear it calling to him as he himself wafted into the canopy of iniquity.

His feet barely felt the earth beneath nor did he see the foreboding trees watching the procession he had had no choice but to join. Only a few yards and they came to a clearing. Father Thomas looked up, hoping to see just one more glance of the free, eternal sky, but all he could see was inky darkness. There was no more light, but the flickering ones all about him that danced a vile dance around his sorry face.

"Now, my sisters. Blood calls for blood." The leader spoke out. "Beating for beating." She looked around at 'her sisters'. "Death for death!" She cried so loud the trees seemed to shake in fear. "History tells us we are nothing! But, without us, there would be no history! Without us, there would be no life! But, what have we received in return? Nothing!"

Throughout her tirade, the crowd stayed silent, but at every sentence, each woman simultaneously nodded their somber heads.

There was something in that voice, Father Thomas thought. Something he just couldn't quite... Then suddenly he was swept through the crowd to the place of honor. A mound of hay had been piled high around a large stick, pointing into the sky. Father Thomas looked at it and found his fears confirmed. He was going to die. Martyred like so many men of old.

Then, a miracle happened. Father Thomas had seen many things in his life that could be described as beautiful or wonderful, but not once had he been the witness to a real miracle. A scream rang out into the night. Not the shriek of a terrified woman nor the wale of a banshee, but the majestic, piercing scream of an angry horse. Like vengeance, the streak of white flew into the clearing. Behind it, the embodiment of night flew from the grim forest in a flash of ebony.

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Lerendo and Sir Ryan came to the door of the house to which they had been directed. Sir Ryan flung the door open, ripping its hinges clear off the rotted wood that held it there. He bellowed his friend's name into the minuscule living space but was answered with an innocent silence Sir Ryan refused to believe. 

"Thomas!" he cried urgently. "Thomas, where are you?"

Lerendo kept silent as he took in his surroundings, the same ones an unsuspecting priest had seen only hours before. It didn't look like the sort of place one would immediately suspect to be one of a kidnapper. It was tidy and well kept although a little broken down. 

Sir Ryan rushed through the room, tossing earthenware to the ground, the pieces splicing through the air as they escaped his ever-increasing wrath. Then, he saw the door standing amidst the wreckage his anger had wrought. He threw it open, shedding light into the room behind. Crate upon crate were stacked high up to the ceiling. Barely an inch of space could be found in the tiny closet. 

Unwilling to concede defeat, Sir Ryan tore his sword from its scabbard and swung it. With a sickly crunch, a box split in half, spilling forth from it a fountain of small white candles. 

"What is that?" Lerendo spoke from behind him, straining to see over his substantial shoulders. 

"Candles. A box of candles," he said. His sword went up again and Lerendo dodged quickly away from him, and it fell against the hardwood of the next crate. Again, white candles rolled out onto the floor. Again and again, he hit them and one after another revealed another hundred candles until all that could be see were bits of broken wood and thousands of little candles.

"That's a lot of candles," Lerendo whispered.

"But, why?" Sir Ryan kneeled down and picked a candle up, placing it in front of his eyes and surveying it as if it had some secret script upon its wax skin that could give him the answer. 

"I don't know, but we may find some answers through there." 

Sir Ryan turned to see what Lerendo was talking about and followed his finger to a small, almost unnoticeable latch hidden beneath the floor. With a jerk, he was down on the floor, scraping candles to the side. Soon, he had uncovered a small, hidden door amid the creaky wooden floorboards. 

He pulled the old, rusted latch and found himself staring into a deep, dark hole. 

"Here, give me the light." He thrust out his hand to Lerendo. The boy carefully placed the lantern into his outstretched hand and he let it flood the place with light. It was a little way down. A rope ladder stretched down to the dirt floor below. 

Without a second thought, he pushed his towering frame into the small tunnel. Thin boards had been tied together to create a kind of ladder, and they swayed awkwardly beneath Sir Ryan's body.

His feet hit the soft dirt, and he held out his lantern. Just a short way in front of him, he spotted a strange scene. 

Lerendo climbed clumsily off the ladder and turned to peer down the tunnel.

"I think I may know what those candles were for," Sir Ryan said, fear welling up within him.