The Clearing--Age of Sigmar Flash Fiction
Leaves
of dead corn and frost biting at his bare ankles, Derren shoved his way through
the Villowscythe Forest. In the summer, his surroundings would be ripe for
harvest and foraging, veritable Azyrite paradises. Now, at the height of night and
winter, the farming fields and orchards lay dead and defiled—only the occasional
rabbit or rose brush persisted against the cold. Derren only added to that desolation
as he ran, sweat freezing across the rim of his eyebrows, breath sculpting
mannequins in the air—he had no time to pay heed to the wilderness as he
trampled it. Only one thought remained, and that was that he had to run.
He could
still hear the voice scratching in the distance behind, and on the occasion,
reaching out to the back of his head, burrowing in and out of his thoughts. He was
becoming increasingly aware he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to see—that no
one was supposed to see—that the mortal brain hadn’t been forged to
comprehend. But unlike the heroes in the fairy stories, what he’d encountered hadn’t
maddened him. He’d been transfixed for a moment. And then he’d bolted.
He passed
cabbages and cornfields, tree stumps and tombstones. With every metre, he
worried the newly formed cuts across his feet were going to give the game away,
their scent would attract something worse. But as the moments passed, he grew
relieved. There was a clearing up ahead, he remembered when his father had
taught him to snare a deer as a child. Not far from there, there lay a small
meadow where sheep grazed in the spring. He would hide there amidst the dead
flowers, wait until the first hint of daylight allowed him the security he
needed to return to the city gates.
A fence
post grazed his arm. Before Derren, in the distance—there was the low growl of
hounds. Hounds! Human-owned hounds! What he would have given a night prior to outrun
such ravenous dogs. Now he embraced them, a sign of humanity and safety.
The forest
disappeared behind him. He found the clearing, and with it, the hounds—half a
dozen of them, forming a semi-circle to encase him. Derren felt no relief,
though.
They weren’t
like the butcher’s dogs back in the city he’d grown up with. These, though
similar in size, were malnourished and their eyes glowed white long after the
moon passed behind cloud.
Had it
just been them, Derren likely still would’ve embraced them. But the dogs weren’t
alone. Standing behind them, there was a small gathering of townsfolk—farmers,
traders, carpenters, standing silent in the frost. But, like the dogs before
them, they were unmoving, just watching him, their eyes too made white. He didn’t
recognise any of the faces, but by the way they stood, their pitchforks and
holy wards held high, it had been as though they were expecting him.
Fear exited
him, and there he waited, moments passing by, for a response.
When it
was clear none was coming, he whimpered to himself and shot a look back to the
forest, the dark. Whispers. Something was coming for him—chills down his spine.
He turned
slowly back to the crowd, noticing they were ever so slightly closer. Without having
moved. They had grown more numerous somehow, too.
Cold breath
against his neck, hounds baying quietly, Derren stepped forward to join them.
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