The screech was sharp, short, and it felt like it shot right through my body. Feeling the screech end rather than hearing it, I dropped my hands from around my ears that I hadn’t even realized I had actually done. Suamalie and I shared a look before we hurried and looked over the edge of the wall. The swimming mass of shadow began noticeably writhing, and rather than thinking it to be a trick of the eye, I could actually make out shapes of individual bodies. Those shapes I saw quickly re merged back into the writhing mass, but the more time passed, the more individual shapes and forms I could see. “BRACE FOR FIRST CONTACT!!” Suamalaie shouted. In response, several horns bellowed out from across the wall. Looking down the wall, I could see spear tips starting to emerge from near the bottom of the wall, causing the bottom of the wall to start looking like a pin cushion or like a creature I had read about in books before called a porcupine.
It started off as a trickle initially. Drops of shadow here and there, breaking away from the amalgamation and rushing towards the defenses at the bottom of the wall before being swiftly dispatched by those behind the spears, the archers joining in only when they were certain that they had a shot. For the first few minutes it went on like this, a trickle here, a sputter there, but no real forward motion from any one area. But the trickle steadily turned into a line, which turned into a stream. By this point the archers weren’t having to wait to take their shots as they were at least garunteed to hit something given the size of the group that now surged forward. About thirty minutes had passed at this point as each area had sent at least three people up to this point, but something was bothering me about how this battle was going. Not that I doubted the capabilities of the fighters present or the lethality of the monsters trying to get in, but there had been continuous fights and death on the side of the shadows, but the piles of bodies at the bottom of the wall… they weren’t the size they should have been. Yes there were piles, and yes those piles were made up of bodies, but the amount of bodies in those piles considering the non stop fighting that had been going on did not add up to what should have been there.
“Where are the bodies?” I asked out loud to no one in particular.
“What do you mean ‘where are the bodies?’? They’re right there. Piling up by the second. I swear, outsiders have no common sense…” came a retort from an officer who was overlooking the fight alongside several other personnel here to assist Suamalie. His retort didn’t sit long before Suamalie looked over the side of the wall as well. “No… there should be more there…”
Moments later, a runner appeared from the floor level of the wall. “Status report sir! No Change, holding strong, over!”
“Good news at least. Runner, before you head back, take this with you and make sure it gets to Captain Lala.” Suamalie handed the runner what looked like a rolled up leaf. “It is vital that Lala see this, and tell him I expect an update to these orders on top of the status changes he’s sending as well. Dismissed.”
The runner did what I inferred to be the Gaian salute of crossing arms and touching shoulders before turning and running back down to the first floor.
Watching the runner disappear down some stairs, Suamalie turned her attention back towards the sounds of battle coming from the bottom of the wall. turning my attention that way as well, I do my best to look at the fallen rather than the moving tide. After a bit of time, I saw two different ways the bodies disappeared. The first way was the most common, and it involved a swarm of shadow beasts falling over the fallen and somehow picking them up in the process, a process I don’t understand because none of the shadows stop to pick anything up. The second way was far more uncommon but left permanent bodies. This way usually involved the monster keeling over randomly, but its never just one monster at a time. When this second way happens, no less than ten monsters randomly drop dead, and whatever the shadows are that surround them disappear. When that happens, I can make out that the bodies consist of at least gobose and some dog looking monsters.
Being the fact that I had no idea what was causing either of the phenomena I noticed, I was not going to voice my opinion in the slightest. The last thing I needed to cause was everyone to focus on something that could possibly end up being completely unimportant, especially when I saw at least two people die while trying to observe what happened to the bodies. One of the deaths was due to the person having to firm of a grip on their spear; the shadows grabbed a hold of said spear in between being impaled, and in one motion successfully pulled the soldier through the hole they were defending. The poor person didn’t even make it to the ground from the bottom of the wall before they were… relieved of their extremities. The shadow gobose definitely enjoyed that, or, well, I assumed they did considering I heard twisted cackling as said extremities flailed wildly, spraying blood everywhere. The other death was much less gruesome. A shadow thrust through a different opening from the first one, and a small fountain of blood followed as the shadow retracted. I’m assuming that one was fatal judging by the fact that I could see the blood spurting out from the hole from the top of the wall.
“I think that shadow is recycling its corpses…” Suamalie spoke almost under her breath. Glad to see that she noticed that as well.
Waiting to see if she had any other thoughts she wanted to voice, I waited before interjecting my thoughts. “Be that as it may, its not picking up every body that gets killed. I’m not sure what the difference between the bodies that do get picked up and the ones that don’t, but if we can figure out that difference I think that we might be able to turn this fight into our favor.” Without skipping a beat, I grabbed one of the many unlit torches that were scattered along the walls, lit it using a candle on the make shift desk that we were next to, and threw it over the edge into the shadows.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I almost expected something to happen, but when nothing did after the torch made contact, I released the breath that I didn’t know that I had been holding. “Not going to lie, I was expecting something to happen when I threw that… You know, with them looking like shadows and whatnot.”
“If you were part of the army, I would have you reprimanded for that,” Suamalaie said, putting a hand to her forehead and letting out a heavy sigh. “But since you’re not, all I can do is ask you not to waste my already stretched thin resources. On a side note, I was also expecting something more to occur… wait… here’s a thought. If that didn’t work, being that torch was both light and heat yet that shadow showed no reaction, maybe that down there isn’t a shadow?”
“Not a shadow… then what else could it be?”
“I don’t know, especially since a being like this has never attacked the walls before. However, I have heard stories of a darkness so deep so as to never let any light escape, and if you look at the torch you threw down there, you can see the torch but nothing around it is illuminated save for those dead bodies not absorbed back. The stories, meant to scare the young ones and deter them from venturing to far into the forest, call this darkness “o lē ‘ai”. In words that you’ll understand, we call it “The one who eats”. It’s meant to serve as a warning of the many dangers of the forest and how they are always looking out for any sign of weakness, intentional or otherwise. The Gaian faith might follow survival of the fittest, but unnecessary deaths are seen as a waste of potential. Deaths happen, and often at that, but we try our best to make sure that any deaths that do occur happen with knowledge in mind that it may happen to begin with rather than it coming as a surprise.”
“Nice little history lesson aside, ‘o lē ‘ai’ is a bit hard for me to even think of saying often. However, using a story in line with the one you just told me, I think I’ll call this thing ‘Abyss’. It takes in everything and doesn’t want to let go of anything. By the way, is there a reason you felt like explaining why you have your own parables? Now’s really not the situation for that, is it?”
“You’re right about that, you really are. I did that as much for your information as much as I did it to take my mind off of worrying about this battle. I’m out of my depth here, but until another commander who has more seniority that I do shows up, or better yet one of Gaia’s Gracefelt, I’m stuck leading this defense. And I am so far out of my depth with this fight, the only thing I can try to do is keep the ‘o lē ‘ai’ at bay.”
Silence enveloped the distance between us once again as we continued to look out over the swarming mass of darkness. The occasional notification of death from those at ground level made its way up to Suamalie, alongside a notification of “no change” and the occasional special update concerning the deaths of the ‘Abyss’ that actually stayed dead. There was seemingly no pattern to the deaths that Lala has reported on thus far, simply that most don’t stay dead and those that do stay dead seem to fall in groups but at irregular intervals. This continued on for a few more reports, and by this point Eon and Lily had been brought up to speed as to what was happening and were sent to separate sections to attempt to help out while being out of the way.
Looking out over the mass of black before me, a thought suddenly occurred to me. One that I hadn’t had to this point before because I never really had a reason to. Divinity. I have the ability to sense and see divine powers. We, being Suamalie and myself, know that this is not the doing of Gaia. Be that as it may, I know that Gaia’s divinity appears to me as shades of green that seems to proliferate from those who wield it. “Suamalie… I need you to do me a favor. Put something over my head, I don’t need either Eon or Lily to see what I’m about to do. And by the Gods, I hope that this isn’t actually as stupid as it sounds in my head. I need to activate my ‘Moon’s Eye’, and the last time I did I lit up the interrogation room.”
Without skipping so much as a moment and not bothering to ask questions, Suamalie all but tore her overcoat off from her shoulders and put it over my head and shoulders before making a motion like she was attempting to comfort me. Leaning forward with me, she started whispering to me. “This should buy you a bit of time, but not a whole lot. Whatever you are doing, do it quickly and try not to draw attention to yourself.”
Good. Time acquired, now to see what Luna see’s, shall we? Or… I? Shall I, that one. Satisfied my literature lessons with Bright Daphne had started to pay off, I tried my best to focus on the spot of my forehead between my eyes. When nothing happened, I realized I was just focusing on my forehead and not trying to actually move my granted Divine Power through that point. Whoops. I really need to start working with his a bit more. Feeling like I mentally reached down to the spot between my stomach and heart, where I felt my divinity pooling, I brought it forth and up to my forehead. A slightly warm feeling following the motion of the moving divinity. Feeling it reach my eye’s and the ‘Moon’s eye’, I opened them to look at the black mass before me and was shocked to see not a black mass, and far less creatures than what I saw mere moments earlier. Each creature I saw had traces of divine power covering them. Rather than green divinity, it was black divinity; and rather than seeming to propagate from their center, it appeared constantly break and shatter and be rebuilt. Not a clue what God that belongs to, but I can say with absolute certainty that Gaia had no hand in this particular attack.
While observing, I finally saw what caused the group deaths that spontaneously occurred. Among the arrows and melee weapon fired and swung, one seemingly lucky arrow struck a black covered gobose through the chest. This caused a dark, and sudden, burst of… something, to surge forth in multiple directions. When that happened, the burst forced the divinity I was expelling back towards me with such force that I caused me to get sick as it forcibly shut off the connection between myself and the ’Moon’s Eye’. At least, that’s what I assumed as I retched what little food I had consumed over the side of the wall.
“Adamas… what exactly did you do to cause you to break the one thing I told you not to do?” Came the worried voice of Suamalie.
Gathering myself as I looked over at the sea of black, I could tell that it wasn’t moving. Bringing my divinity to one eye to see things clearer, I saw that every creature in the field in front of the wall had stopped any and all activities that they were doing, and were looking at a singular spot. They were looking at me.
“Well… I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”