Dusk Over Arcath

Prologue

Every shadow curled like the edge of a posed blade. A single ray of white moonlight pierced the blackness through the swaths of swooping tree branches that sealed in the night. Dripping with shadow, the gnarled bows of the Elderwood trees stooped under the weight of the mysterious forest's breath.

It was only by the light of a smoldering torch that the shrouds recoiled off the trees and foliage saturating the forest. The branch of grey Elderwood fumed with orange light of coals at its tip, casting a timid light upon the forest and the man who wielded it.

His face was in most respects fair, if bearing the marks of his middle age. Hair as brown as fresh tilled soil clad his furrowed brow and sharp chin, though patches of silver dotted the brown. Leathery skin masked a handsome face whose rich green eyes glared into the night in an expression polluted with torment.

A smooth breeze kissed his skin, sending a shiver down his muscular frame. Whether it was for the absence of a cloak over his torn tunic or a more sinister reason that he trembled goes untold.

"Eneus... Are you there?" His voice threatened to crack under the desperation that glistened in his eyes.

"I'm here," a voice rasped from the shadows to his left. "Pheor, I'm... I'm here..."

Leaves crunched under the man's feet as they darted toward the voice. Whirling his torch, his eyes scanned the ground under his torch's scanty light. "Where? I can't see you. Where are you?"

"Help," the man's voice repeated. It came from where he had previously stood.

Soft thuds testified to Pheor's frantic footsteps as he returned to the ground he could only guess was where he had stood a moment before. "Where? Can't you see the light? Come - come here."

A tingling feeling had begun to crawl up his throat. Spiders of terror began a slow, meticulous ascent from his feet, stalking the shadows that licked his body. The chilling cold of draining courage captivated his mind. His eyelids screamed voicelessly to close.

But it was not what he saw that terrified him - rather, it was what he could not. The dying coals of the torch could only set a feeble light on the mystery of the wood that served to do little more than feed his imagination. Foe or friend might inhabit the space before him. A demonic creature of slithering deception or a companion ready to embrace him waited in every darkened step. Like a drowning bather hopelessly treading water in a murky mire, the night flooded around him. What stared back was neither the fear of an enemy nor the fear of the dark. Only the fear of the unknown.

A shriek shattered his thoughts.

"Please!" the unseen man's voice screamed. "Please," he groaned, "help."

"I'm trying!" Pheor hollered, spinning this way and that as his eyes attempted to penetrate the blackness. "Where are you?!"

"Here - I'm here!" the voice replied. This time it was so faint it could have been a league away. 

"It's almost got me! Pheor, please."

Another scream of agony cracked the stillness of the silent night.

The woodsman spun, his torch whirling. "I'm coming!" He ran as quickly as he might through the trees. Branches and thistles tore at him like the talons of unseen hands. It was not until his tunic was shredded and his leggings in tatters that he stopped. "I'm here! Eneus, are you alright?"

"Fine," the voice answered calmly. Pheor froze. The voice came from not three feet away. Every tone of pain and anguish had drained from its voice. Instead a taste of disdain soured its call. Pheor crept around. "I'm trying -"

The last curl of white smoke drifting like a cold breath from the end of his torch cut him off. A flicker of orange coals coughed noiselessly from its blackened stub before dying in the shadow. The night that he had a moment before been treading through washed over him. Its fleshless fingers gouged his eyes and flowed in a choking torrent down his throat until he found himself on his knees. His hands dropped the useless branch and covered his eyes in a vain attempt to hold back the night.

"I can't," he whimpered. "Eneus, I don't know -" His voice caught as the unknown assaulted him. The emptiness shattered his courage until he was left crouching in the husks of his clothes. "I don't know where you are..." His voice escaped in little more than sob.

"Oh, Pheor," the voice replied beside him. A hot breath tingled across the cowering man's neck. "I'm right... here."

A dull thud broke the murmuring of the wood.