Despair and Shadows by octopus_fool  

Haleth strode out of the house and along the length of it towards the stable at the other end.

Her heart raced, and her ears pounded, but she took a moment to calm herself before entering, since the horses did not take well to ire. There was snorting and stamping as she entered nevertheless, only her dear Mori pushed his head against her shoulder, snuffling for treats. She found a small apple in her pocket.

"Come, Mori. We are going to find Haldar, no matter what our esteemed leader says."

She saddled Mori, put on her leather armour, and grabbed her sword and bag before leading him out of the stable.

Her usual sparing partner Mirleth saw her as she rode towards the edge of the settlement.

"Did Haldad give you permission then? I didn't think he would."

Haleth muttered something non-committal.

"I'll come with you, if you like," Mirleth said.

Haleth hesitated. "I truly appreciate your offer, but this is my mission."

It was one thing to put herself in danger, and another entirely to pull anyone else into this. Because it was dangerous, even though her father insisted that the region was safe enough, at least until Haleth wanted to ride out to figure out why Haldar had still not returned yet, even though he had said he would return before evening, and that had been the previous day. She knew in her very bones that something was wrong, and she would not let herself be dissuaded, even if it meant she had to ride alone and without permission.

She gave Mori the sign to speed up, and they cantered out of the settlement.

The forest was peaceful enough, the late autumn birds singing as the sunlight attempted to break through the mist. The maples were turning the forest into a flaming sea of yellows and reds, slowly drifting to the ground. The beeches were also turning golden, and the leaves of the oaks were starting to lose their deep green.

Haleth and Mori startled a group of deer not two hours away from the settlement, and Haleth made a mental note of the area for future hunting expeditions. Especially since she had a feeling they would be avoiding the hunting grounds she and Haldar currently preferred.

The sun lost its battle against the clouds and mist around midday. Haleth ate a piece of bread without stopping, even though she had little appetite. What had promised to be a pleasant day suddenly felt damp and chilly.

She reached the area where she and her brother liked to hunt in the early afternoon. The chill was lodging itself in her bones, and as she rode through the dense beech forest, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck started standing on end. Haleth stopped briefly to light a torch.

Before long, she realized that the chill went beyond the mere weather. She had come across similar sensations in the woods before, and left as soon as possible. Now, she gritted her teeth and sought out the feeling. At least it would make it easier to find Haldar. She just had to overcome her instinct to run in the opposite direction.

As they stepped into a clearing, Mori snorted, then refused to go on.

And then, Haleth saw a figure lying on the other side of a clearing. She recognized her brother with the sureness with which she would recognize her own reflection. A dark shape loomed over him as Haldar tried to scuttle away from it. Oh, how Haleth hated orcs!

She dismounted, drew her sword and advanced on the pair with her sword in one hand and the torch in the other.

"Get away from him!" Haleth shouted as she closed in. "You will regret it if you harm him."

"Haleth…" There was a terror in her brother's voice that she had never heard before.

She expected the orc to snarl at her and then attack or retreat. But what turned towards her was no orc. The despairing emptiness of the void washed over her as she saw the black mist where the face should have been. Utter silence filled her mind, crowding her thoughts until she was sure she would be consumed by it.

In an attempt to put anything between herself and the void, she brandished her torch at it. She felt it shirk back more than she saw it. Of course. Fire worked against creatures of the darkness. Her mind grasped at the thought just as her hand grasped the torch, and that alone seemed to clear some of the despairing emptiness that had engulfed her earlier.

A short scuffle between her and the creature ensued, but in the end, it retreated into the forest. She could feel it drawing further and further away from the way light and air seemed to return to the clearing.

"Haldar, are you hurt?"

"Haleth…"

She crouched down beside him and noticed the angle at which his left leg was lying. That certainly explained why Haldar hadn't been quicker to move away from the creature.

"I fell while hunting. After I had lain here for a while, everything became cold, and… and… I couldn't get away. It will find me, find us, and everything will be lost. The cold… the darkness…"

"It is gone now. I will find something to splint your leg, and then we will go home and everything will be fine." Once again, Haleth was glad that their father had taught them some of the healing craft that had been part of the reason he had been chosen as the leader of their people.

"No, you don't understand. The darkness will find us… find us all… cold… emptiness…"

"I will be right back. Don't move," Haleth said, then immediately remembered that he wouldn't be able to anyway.

She did not like leaving him alone in his panic and despair, but she needed to get him fixed up enough to move him if they wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

It didn't take Haleth long to find and cut two branches that were suitable as splints, but by the time she returned to him, Haldar was only mumbling.

"Cold… dark… emptiness is coming! Darkness… cold…"

"Haldar, look at me. It will all be fine. I will splint your leg, and then we will leave. Everything will be fine."

His eyes were glazed and unseeing. "Darkness… cold…"

Haleth tried not to shudder, and instead splinted his leg. The grass where the creature had been had withered, and it crumbled to dust when she knelt on it. She did not want to be in this place when darkness fell.

"Haldad, can you hear me?" she asked when she had finished.

He did not reply. His eyes stared into emptiness and his breath was harsh and ragged. She could not leave him like this, or he was unlikely to survive the trip home. But she had never seen anyone in this state before, nor had she had to deal with someone who had been attacked by such a creature.

A wraith. That was what the dwarves from the mountains called them in their tales of caution. And by the advice of the dwarves, her father, and she by following his example, always carried a sweet-smelling weed of unknown properties with him. "Against despair," she recalled one of the dwarves saying, though she had at the time wondered how a plant could help against something that was not even a physical symptom.

Still, it was the best idea she had. Haleth quickly took it out of her pouch and ground it, mixing it into a paste with some water from her flask. She scraped the mixture into her brother's mouth and helped him swallow with more water from her flask.

"It will all be fine," she told him, trying to convince herself as much as him. "We will return home, and you will finally find the courage to ask Taril to become your wife. You will have many children, become the chief of our people after father, and live a long and happy life. It will all be fine."

To Haleth's surprise and relief, Haldar's breathing calmed and his eyes closed. If she had found him like this, Haleth would have believed he was sleeping.

With a bit of coaxing, Mori was willing to come over, though he was clearly still nervous about the spot where the wraith had been. Finally, after a lot of effort and the help of a rope slung over a low-hanging branch, Haleth managed to get Haldar onto Mori's back.

She mounted behind him, drenched in sweat from the effort.

"If you can hear me, Haldar, hold on. We're going home."

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