Hellsborough Chronicles - Hellsborough and The Dark Peak
The semi-mythical Van Hallam's adventures in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak.
The finished version of Dark Peak: Hellsborough Chronicles Book One, is now available in Kindle and paperback formats from Amazon -- or you can download the first 7 chapters for free in ePub or Kindle mobi format from Hellsborough Library
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Introduction » Chapter 1 » Chapter 2 » Chapter 3 » Chapter 4 » Chapter 5 » Chapter 6 » Chapter 7 »
Haha, get this Pip -- I was to learn very quickly!
The xin smile is a rather indifferent thing, and their laugh is a not at all like ours -- Those green mean's ideas of humour are nothing like our conception of glee. The death agonies of a fellow being are, to these strange creatures, provocative of the wildest hilarity, while their chief form of amusing themselves is to inflict death on their prisoners of war in various ingenious and horrible ways.
It was then that Siltibog advanced toward me, holding out one of his arms. I didn't know what he was about to do, but I was not long in finding out. The chieftain clearly wanted to see what I looked like behind my mask. Siltibog like a conjuror, his arms dodging left and right, distracting me, swiftly removed my psycmask, before I even had time to object or raise my own hands to stop it happening.
At this point, I gasped, and emboldened by the amount of ale consumed, I interrupted Van with a question. He paused his monologue and looked at me strangely, but directly in the eyes.
In answer to your question, he continued after a lengthy pause, nothing happened, at least not at first. The assembled warriors and chieftains examined me closely, feeling my muscles and the texture of my smooth skin -- a complete contrast to their warty hide.
It was only after several moments of being subjected to this inspection, that I then began to wheeze heavily, and fear must have shown so abjectly in my eyes, that Siltibog returned the mask to me and with some trouble due to my now extremely laboured breathing, I was able to refit the thing onto my face. That restored some energy to my legs, which were trembling to the point of collapse -- and then I did hit the ground, as they collapsed from underneath me.
I was roughly jerked to my feet again by a towering fellow who had laughed most heartily at my misfortunes. As he banged me down upon my feet his face was bent close to mine, and his leering smile and raucous laugh, rather than scare me, made my blood boil and the adrenaline surge through me veins.
I would have to say that I'm a little embarrassed about it Pip, but I did the only thing you might do under these circumstances of brutality, boorishness, and lack of consideration for a stranger's rights -- I steadied myself and swung my fist squarely at his jaw.
Hah! And he went down like a sack of spuds. I wheeled around with my back toward the nearest desk, expecting to be overwhelmed by the vengeance of his fellow men. I was determined to give them a good fight, even though I knew the unequal odds likely meant the end of life for meself.
It never happened though, as the other xin, at first struck dumb with wonderment, finally broke into wild laughter and applause. I didn't recognise the applause as such, but later, when I had become acquainted with the xin's customs, I learned that I had won a minor victory, and a little bit of their approval.
Siltibog and the chief exchanged a few words, and the former, calling to a young female among the throng, gave her some instructions and motioned me to accompany her. I grasped her arm for support, since my legs were still a bit wobbly, and together we crossed toward a shack on the far side of the village square.
My companion was around three and a half feet tall, having just arrived at maturity, but not yet to her full height. She was of a light olive-green color, with a warty, dull hide. Her name, as I afterward learned, was Fenimoss, and she belonged to the retinue of Siltibog. She took me to a small room in the shack looking out onto the village green, and which, from the litter of sackcloth and furs upon the floor, I took to be the sleeping quarters of several of the natives.
Fenimoss indicated that I should sit upon a pile of sacks near the centre of the room, and, turning, made a peculiar hissing sound, as though signalling to someone in an adjoining room. In response to her call I had my first sight of a new monstrosity. The thing sidled in on its six short legs, and squatted down before her obediently. It was about the size of a wooltard, but its head bore a huge pair of sharp mandibles -- jaws as sharp as razors. Fenimoss stared into its wicked looking eyes, muttered a word or two of command, pointed to me, and left the chamber.
I expect, said Van, you can imagine what my friend Shad here, to whom he pointed with a wizened index finger, thought about that thing!
I nodded trying to understand. But, Shad's dead, I said.
Indeed he is, returned Van. But you see, such it is that when we was out in that Wisewood and we was bound to its floor by the briars and the thorns, trussed up like animals, you could say, we became mighty close. Closer than just the physical closeness, we already had from bonding over our fight. This was more, this was a connection, some sort of meeting of minds, of souls maybe, if we believe that they exist. Something happened out there, maybe it was that unknown creature in the woods, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was something altogether more supernatural than that. I don't rightly know to be perfectly honest. All I does know, is that when Shad was impaled on that spear, a part of me was crushed, like part of my own soul had been ripped out.
Now Shad here, said Van, is a good and kind hearted creature, but he probably has the intellect of a two year old child, human child, I might add. But deep down, or not that deep actually, he is a wild animal. You have to remember, it is not all that long ago in the evolutionary scale of things that he was once a ripperthroat, and it is only through domestication by us humans that barkers have become the kind hearted, obedient and loyal companions that we know them as today.
I nodded again, understanding where Van was coming from with this, but not entirely sure where he might be going, but urging him on all the same, to find out the next stage in the story.
So Shad here, just being a loyal and faithful guard to meself, he arrives in that room that night. I didn't have a clue how he'd got into that room, nor even how he's managed to follow me back to where I'd been taken, but then barkers are renowned for their sense of smell, so back then I put it down to that. And Shad, well he goes for the throat of this wooltard like looking thing which the girl Fenimoss has brought into the room. Shad presumably sees it either as a threat to me, or maybe he was just hungry and in need of food, I thinks at the time, or maybe, regardless of either of those things, he is just a barker and saw something that he thought in his two year old human brain might be prey and decided that his instinct was simply too much and he had to go and take a chunk out of it. I dunno. If barkers could talk, we'd know the answer to these things, but alas, they do not talk so we can only speculate about why Shad decided to try and take the head off this poor creature that had just entered the room at the calling of out new friend Fenimoss.
Caught by surprise, the creature -- I later found out it is known to the locals as a dyapnid -- did not put up much of a fight -- at first. It went down as if to Shad's command. But its leathery hide must have been able to withstand Shad's penetration, for after it had feigned death long enough for Shad to release his death grip, the creature reared from the floor where it has laid prone, and in a reversal of Shad's attack, clamped its mandibles onto Shad's neck and clean ripped out his throat.
It all happened so relatively quickly that all I could do was grasp poor Shad as he fell away from those razor sharp mandibles and cower in the corner over his body, as the last gasps left him -- again, as it were. The dyapnid paid no heed to my sobs simply staring into my soul with its soulless eyes. But then to my amazement, the murk seemed to volumise in the shack, and Shad was up again and growing larger and more shaggy, his eyes the size of saucers, the colour of the moon. He howled madly at the dyapnid, and launched himself at it, his teeth ripping into its head. The dyapnid reared up to defend itself, but then under the pressure of Shad's onrushing force, toppled onto its back, exposing its belly. Shad's rabid teeth cut fresh wounds that squirted turquoise blood.
That was when I knew Shad was a barghuest -- an undead hound sent to protect me -- and when he's not doing that, get himself up to some serious haunting. I now knows we got this bond that was capable of crossing the void that lies between the planes of life and death, and Shad was just attracted back to me by this bond forged in the darkness of the Wisewood.
After that, Pip, said Van, draining what was left of another pint, my soul seemed to be restored for the better.