Part of this is a rewrite from "The Thunderbolt Chronicles" I did. You can find that in the Fantasy Fiction short story section.
Prologue
Eldron knelt down by the side of the pool and splashed some murky water on his sweaty face. Hours he has been running around out in this blasted forest searching for food, and, like all the others before him, found none. The forest that a few weeks ago was teeming with animals, tall trees and green plants was now a bog-ridden wasteland as the mysterious disease swept down from the mountains, devouring every green thing. With this drastic change came also the disappearance of food... and those who went to find it.
He scooped up some more water with cupped hands. The water was dirty and rather unappealing, but his throat was parched. He rose his hands to his lips and sipped, then immediately spat it out. It tasted slightly sweet, sickly and faintly metallic. Blood. Slowly, Eldron raised his head, still crouching by the side of the pool. Many yards away a bloody body lay face down in the shallow water, a long wooden shaft protruding from its back.
In the corner of his eye, he caught a sudden movement in the pools reflection. Adrenaline began to pump through Eldron's veins. Instinctively, he rolled to one side. A crude wooden spear, a brother to the embedded in the corpse, thudded dully into the mud where he had been crouching seconds before. He stood up quickly, drawing his hunting knife and facing his attacker.
It was a cave goblin. Its ugly, pointed face further disfigured itself into a snarl, baring pointed, blackened teeth. Its skin was a mottled grey, like a dirty rock, and covered with pockmarks and warts. It was garbed in clumsily made leather armour. It drew a cruel, curved blade and charged at Eldron, flapping its arms wildly.
Eldron stood his ground, tossing his knife experimentally from hand to hand. It wouldn't be any good against the goblin's short sword, no matter how brittle and badly-made it looked. Waiting until the goblin was close enough, he spun away from the goblin's clumsy swing and promptly slipped in the mud and fell flat on his face. It took the best of his quick reflexes to dodge the next few blows that came. Somersaulting backwards and standing up, he ran toward the dead body, and pulling free the spear embedded in it. The badly made head snapped off, leaving him with a disappointing pointed stick.
Eldron thought, however, that if he lost his life to a goblin in hand to hand combat then he didn't really deserve it, anyway. Bracing himself, he held the pointed end of the spear shaft out to the goblin as if the head was still intact. The goblin, sensing victory, stopped and gave a snorting laugh at what he could see as desperate prey. Eldron seized this moment to hurl his hunting knife at the goblin's neck, whose derisive laugh caught in its throat with a gurgle. It sank to its knees, hands at its throat, then keeled over in the mud and moved no more.
Eldron breathed out the breath he had not been realizing he was holding, and relaxed. He dropped his stick and walked over the goblin to retrieve his knife. He yanked it clear of the goblin's neck, then dropped it again, disgusted. It was covered in a sticky, black, tar-like substance. Goblin blood. His hunting knife was not worth trying to wash that stuff off. Besides, he had others.
Turning over the corpse that was lying in the water, Eldron gasped. He recognized the man's face. This was one of the noble hunters that had been sent to find food out in the Darman Wastes. After reciting a short burial prayer, he gently closed the man's eyelids, dipping his finger in the man's blood, drew a cross with a circle around it on the man's face, the symbol of Tarz, the god of death. Another warrior had fallen for the sake of the village.
Chapter I: Bad News Back Home
Another barefoot walk through Deathknell. Clear never understood that name. The forest was anything but a crypt. It was loud, and sweet-smelling and full of life. There were no sticks or stones or any nasty things of that sort, so she could walk barefoot without it being uncomfortable. And it was green. So very green. How long had it been since she had walked through this forest? It seemed like ages, but really it was only yesterday. She had done it the day before that too. It was her morning sun shining through the dull, overcast skies of her life.
Clearwater Ringwood was Chieftain's Daughter, meaning that she was a very important political figure in her tribe. This meant, as you could probably guess, she had to live up to the standards that her title set for her. She had to dress properly, talk properly, eat properly, smell properly, walk properly, and simply BE proper. She found all these rules and traditions drove her a little mad. It was infuriating not to be able to act how she wanted or talk how she wanted. She thought that without these barefoot extrusions into Deathknell, she would go insane.
Looking up, she noticed that dark, purple-grey rainclouds were beginning to creep their way across the sky. Strange. The sky had been bright and clear this morning. Why should it rain now? Besides, Clear was the kind of girl that didn't mind a little rain. She just had better make sure that no one caught her coming back to the village soaking wet. But she had a knack for getting past people without their noticing.
So she continued to walk deeper and deeper into the forest. The further in she went, the darker and more ominous the sky became. She decided that it would be best to turn back after a flash of lightning tore across the sky, followed shortly by a rippling peal of thunder. She began to turn back along the path she came, when another flash of lightning illuminated the forest (the sky was quite dark now). What Clear saw made her gasp suddenly.
It was an ancient and giant oak tree. But there was something very wrong with it. Instead of having strong boughs and healthy green leaves, its leaves were black and sickly, as if coated in tar or thick black paint, and its branches were thin and hung down sadly. The trunk of the great tree itself was twisted and sick-looking, and coated in a most horrible sort of fungi. It was like regular shelf mushrooms one expects to see on an old tree like that one, but only slightly. It was much larger, and horribly black and sticky looking. They made such an odour that it was almost unbearable. And they were moving.
With a nasty, squelching sound the fungi were pulsating like some vile diseased organ and sliding ever so slowly up the trunk of the great tree (they had not yet covered the entire trunk). Where the fungi moved away, the tree was left withered and dead-looking. Another flash of lightning lit up the forest. Clear almost screamed. The strange mushrooms were everywhere. Trees were left withered up, not quite dead, but sickly and blackened and thin. Bushes and shrubs were reduced to bare, bunches of twisted branches, coated in a sticky, tar-like substance. But the most horrible thing of all was the body.
At the foot of the oak tree Clear had first seen lay a skeletal figure. Strange black tentacle-like roosts wrapped all around it. The dried, yellowing skin hung off of the bones in folds. There was still armour on it and a sword in its hand. Worst of all was the eyes. They were so bloodshot and sunken that they were almost completely red. And they stared at her. Then the mouth moved, and it spoke.
"Please, daughter. Help me or kill me. Please daughter..." it spoke with a rasping, pathetic voice, like a person very near death.
Clear screamed. She turned and stumbled, then began to run. She ran as fast as she could away from the body, and the horrible black fungi. She ran back toward the village. Small twigs scratched her and thorn bushes tore at her clothes, but she did not notice. She only wanted to get away from that body and its feeble cries for mercy.
************
Review please! I'll post the next Part soon.
Help?
