The next morning, Arwen and her retainers breakfasted in the relatively empty dining hall. It seemed as though the soldiers and women who had been present the night before had stayed up late into the dark hours and were mostly all asleep this early in the morning. Its lack of people pleased Arwen, for last night left such a negative impression upon her that she had dragged her heels to the mess hall today. Cai had thankfully not taken the girl he was talking to back to their room and had instead bid her a flirtatious farewell when Arwen rudely interrupted their conversation to return him to their room after the meal.
Silently watching them eat with a polite smile was Wynn, though the man made no moves to acquire any food for himself. Gwyn had offered some of his bread and butter, but Wynn simply thanked him for his consideration before denying. When they all finished eating, the aide still yet waited, letting the group initiate conversation. Cai spoke up first, glowing in stature after his ego-boost yesterday night. “So, what can you tell us?”
Wynn quickly began to inform them of the current situation. “Firstly, I wish to apologise on behalf of our mayor. He was unable to make your acquaintance at this time, but rest assured we will meet this afternoon. Now, I will operate under the assumption that you know nothing, for the sake of being as descriptive as possible. In the past three weeks, we have been experiencing some brutish attacks by an unknown entity that we have yet to identify, capture, kill, or even injure. I had initially hoped we could sort this out ourselves, but the attacks have lay claim to six- possibly seven- lives; four soldiers, two civilians, and another not yet confirmed.”
“Sounds like you’re under attack.” Gwyn asserted with a frown.
“Yes, that was our initial assumption, however…” Wynn hesitated. “What the guards were telling me was… strange. Apparently, these attacks were not the work of a Helvetian task force or a raiding band of thieves but a lone individual. The soldiers claimed the attacker was an ‘indiscernible black humanoid mass’ that had blood-red eyes and wielded a semi-transparent sword which illuminated its surroundings.”
Arwen spoke up immediately. “Wait, why was there no mention of this to the King?” her tone was accusatory. “He was not given this level of detail of this attacker, right?”
Wynn was taken aback by the Princess’s sudden aggression. “I am sorry, truly. But this creature certainly is not human, and I feared that describing it to the King the way I did to you just now would be cause to label us as exaggerating fools. I very much could not risk the possibility of King Blayney refusing to send aid, unlikely as you may perceive it to be.”
“So, you made it sound like the Helvetians could be behind it?” Arwen kept up the pressure, refusing to let the man off lightly. Her retainers were giving her strange looks, confused at her level of ferocity, but the Princess had just been travelling four days and did not appreciate being lied to.
“Not at all!” Wynn sounded genuinely remorseful. “I made sure to stress in my missive to King Blayney that it was highly unlikely to be a Helvetian invasion. I apologise to the upmost of my very soul if my ability to transcribe this detail onto paper was lacking.”
When no one immediately answered, Wynn continued. “I am scared,” he admitted. “People are dead and no one here has any idea what this monster could be. Our old mayor has gone missing and we are at unstable times as it is with the possibility of the northerners attacking. I could see no other recourse.”
When it became obvious that Arwen would not reply, Cai changed the subject and scowled deeply in thought. “A black humanoid mass wielding a glowing sword, you say? I know of nothing that can explain such a bizarre description,”
Wynn nodded in agreeance. “Neither do I, hence why I took it upon myself to join the guards upon the wall each night until it attacked. While I was admittedly quite tired and fatigued at the time, I concurred with the guard’s description. The thing was as they had described it. A few nights later was when we lost two soldiers to it,” Wynn bowed his head. “A deep tragedy.”
“You’re certain this isn’t Helvetia, man?” Gwyn clarified.
“The being, which has been named the ‘Dark Entity’ by the soldiers, is certainly not human. Whether or not Helvetia are somehow controlling it is another matter entirely.”
“Can you not just fire arrows at it?” Owen asked. “I mean, if it only wields a sword, it must be easy to maintain distance atop a wall.”
“That is what we have been doing, yet while our arrows bury deep into its inky depths, it does not seem at all bothered by its injuries. I truly believe at this stage that our weapons do little to harm it. As for its lack of long-range attacks, it wields that sword with a feral strength. You have not seen the full extent of the walls surrounding Alaru yet, but many small portions have been collapsed by its wild strength. Most of the time, the soldiers can reposition before the wall beneath their feet topples, but some have been caught out. Twice, it managed to breach the wall and smashed its way into the houses, killing two civilians overall.”
“How do you drive it off then?” Gwyn posed the obvious question.
Wynn hung his head in shame. “We do not. Most of the time we pester it with arrows until it leaves. Its levels of aggression vary from attack to attack, too. From my personal observations, I am struck with the impression that it does not attack out of malice… instead, it almost reminds me of a wounded animal. There is also something just… wrong with it. I feel as though it is in some sort of discomfort, or is otherwise suffering.”
Cai cocked his head. “Truly? How so?”
“It hobbles, by no fault of ours, and seems to suffer violent, uncontrollable twitches,” Wynn explained with a grimace at the recollection. “It also… speaks, though we cannot tell if what it is saying are words or incoherent noises. Some of what emanates from it sound eerily like sentences, though no words can be discerned. Mostly, it grunts and screams in a terribly scratchy and inhumane voice.”
Arwen was starting to grow awfully worried. This thing seemed out of their pay grade. Just what had they stumbled onto? And it was her first ever assignment, too! Was no one else as concerned as she?
“Well…” Gwyn sighed after an extended period of silence. Thankfully, both he and Cai also looked a tad uneasy. “I wouldn’t request aid from Glannau. The soldiers probably couldn’t do anything yours can, and we’d only be feeding it more bodies.”
Wynn nodded along. “I agree.”
“We’re obviously going to need to lay eyes on this ‘Dark Entity’ ourselves. When was the last time it attacked?”
“Ah…” Wynn seemed to hesitate. “You see, it has not attacked for over a week now. This has been the first period of respite that has lasted more than two days since it first appeared.”
Cai intervened, leaning into the table. “Any changes on its last attack? Did you try anything different? Was it behaving oddly?”
“No more than it already did,” Wynn refuted. “And we acted as always. It was a particularly brutal attack, however. It managed to break through another section of the wall, forcing us to evacuate the nearby residents. It was then that our… previous mayor, disappeared.”
Gwyn’s eyebrows furled “What’s this about the mayor?”
The troubled expression on the aide’s face grew sombre. “The mayor was one of the residents displaced by the entity’s attack. While evacuating, five or six townsfolk reported that they had spotted the mayor fleeing from one of the town’s entrances. He never returned, and as the entrance he used to escape was close by to the wall breach, it is possible that he was accosted by the Dark Entity and killed. Many think he simply ran away and abandoned Alaru, however. This has put our current mayor, the old mayor’s son, in a precarious position,” Wynn waved dismissively, “but I will not bother you with politics.”
“Wait… so,” Owen spoke up with a confused look, “why doesn’t it just use the entrance instead of trying to break through the walls?”
“That I do not know,” Wynn said slowly, as if pondering the same question himself. “It attacks from the north and the west, never from the south or east, and comes to a random section of the wall each time. On occasion, it wanders close to an entrance, and though we do ensure the gates are shut at night, it has never tried to break through them.”
Arwen hadn’t considered that herself. The way this ‘Dark Entity’ thing was being described, it reminded her of a book she had read in her youth depicting mindless corpses reanimated by an evil warlock with a dark artifice. The creatures attacked people ruthlessly and without any thought, but to attack a wall in this scenario? It didn’t seem right to her. It just didn’t add up. “It has only killed after breaching the wall?”
Wynn swayed his head. “You are partially correct. It is certainly hostile towards us, but does not discriminate between soldier and citizen. Its attacks are mostly focused on the wall instead of the archers above it. Killing us appears to be an afterthought for it, as if we are distracting it from some unknown goal.”
“Right, then… I think our first move would be to spend the morning assessing the wall surrounding Alaru, and then plan and carry out a search in Coed’s Forest to try and locate where it may be living.” Cai mused.
Arwen wasn’t so sure she agreed with the strategy. Cai was acting as if it was an animal… and perhaps it was, but could the thing even be found? The Princess couldn’t think of anything else worth doing, however, for her inexperience betrayed her in this situation.
“An excellent idea,” Wynn, conversely, approved. “I must inform you that I had already attempted to send out search parties for the Dark Entity, but with no luck. Of course, you are welcome to try yourselves, but please abide by the same two rules I bestowed upon the soldiers; return to Alaru by the first sign of sunset and, if you locate the entity, immediately return and inform us.”
Cai nodded. “We would likely do those very things anyways, so that will not cause issue. Are we able to speak to the soldiers who conducted the searches?”
“Yes,” Wynn stood. “I will compile a list for you by the afternoon. For now, I must inform the guards of your arrival and let them know they are to cooperate fully. I also need to prepare the mayor to meet you by noon. May I ask you meet us at the town square? It features a sundial you can use to tell the time, if needed.”
“We’ll have a look around the perimeter and then meet you and the mayor.” Cai agreed.
“Fantastic,” Wynn bid his farewell. “I will leave you to it, then.”
Once the mayor’s aide had departed, Gwyn stood up rubbed his hands. “Right, shall we get to it?”
Arwen stared. The boys all seemed raring to go, despite the sheer strangeness of this investigation they found themselves in. Was she the only one unsure of herself?
-cut-
After retrieving their weapons from their room, the Princess’s retinue set off to Alaru’s wall, where the guards graciously allowed them up one of the many circular outputs that granted access to the top. Arwen was finding Alaru pleasant enough, however her uniform was still somewhat soaked, making the dagger tucked into the small of her back bulge oddly behind her uniform shirt.
The full walk around Alaru’s walled perimeter took just over an hour, featuring the occasional stop to assess damage that had either been hastily repaired or was abuzz with activity from workers aiming to clear the debris and rebuild. The walls felt solid under Arwen’s boots, made of stone brick and just wide enough to allow two men to pass each other if they narrowed themselves slightly. She had occasionally given the floor beneath her a firm stomp, testing if it as in any way hollow. It wasn’t.
The concern that had been festering in her gut grew. The power needed to blast through a solid wall of this thickness spoke to this Dark Entity’s strength. No human could ever hope to achieve such a feat. Perhaps its strength lay inside the glowing sword it supposedly wielded?
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Could a vampire punch through a wall this thick?” Gwyn asked Eryk, who had also followed her train of thought to a potential lead.
Eryk’s sky-blue eyes creased as he considered his question. “Perhaps, with enough blood feeding. But it would take an incredible amount to reach such strength. In my opinion, based on Wynn’s description of this thing, the entity can’t be any sort of vampire.”
The rest of the party had stopped when Gwyn had asked his question. “Could its red eyes signify magic?” Owen asked in his typical low and monotone voice. “Wynn’s soldiers claimed it had glowing orbs of red for eyes.”
Indeed, the soldiers they had asked all but mimicked Wynn’s description of the entity. New facts were gleaned from their descriptions; however, their usefulness was limited at best. They now additionally knew that the Dark Entity stood about seven feet tall and was too broad to ever be human. Interestingly, the soldiers reiterated the same unease Wynn had mention in regards to the creature- that they felt as if it were somehow suffering. The sword it wielded was of great talk for the soldiers, who fiercely claimed was simply not possible to have been made by a human. It glowed a white colour and was apparently semi-transparent, which the soldiers likened to glass, yet they insisted it never broke or shattered in spite of its use as a battering club against Alaru’s walls. This had led to a rather obvious question, asked by Cai as he considered their descriptions. “Have you ever tried disarming it?”
But the soldiers replied they never dared. Wynn had forbidden them from attempting to leave the walls to approach it during any attacks, and for good reason. The soldiers could personally attest that, whenever one fell from their safety atop the wall, it was unlikely that they survived. “We also don’t know whether touching it is a good idea…” one of them had also wisely added.
“Magic associated with red eyes does not exist, at least I think…” Arwen answered Gwynn’s question on magic. “And even if it did, the level of power needed to completely eclipse the whites of your eyes is immense. Even my father’s magic limits its colour-effects to his irises, same as me.”
“The sword it has bothers me,” Cai added. “My sword will glow when enchanted with my light magic, but not the way the soldiers described. If the Dark Entity’s sword was enchanted by a light mage, it would burn a radiant white fire, which would make it impossible to ascertain the material of the sword. They claim no human could’ve made it, and I’m inclined to agree. What else could make it glow the way they say it does?”
Arwen considered this. “Well… this may be a long shot, but what if it was wielding an artifact?”
All four pairs of eyes turned to her. “What do you mean?” Gwyn asked.
“Nobody look me in the eye.” Arwen reached into her pocket and palmed the iridescent Light Gem. “Notice how it fits the description of that sword?”
“Semi-transparent and softly glows…” Cai whispered.
“It’s not an exact match.” Gwyn said carefully.
“But it’s close!” Arwen genuinely thought she was onto something. “What else could survive such a battering against a solid wall like that?! Please tell me you think I’m right!”
“Alright, let’s not freak out.” Gwyn soothed. “How would we know it’s an artifact?”
Cai shrugged. “We would have to see it, I suppose. But can anyone of us truly identify an artifact by eye? The fact it doesn’t break means nothing, either. Many of the world’s artifact and artifices are breakable.”
“But some are also unbreakable.” Owen pointed out.
“True,” Cai conceded the point. “But artifacts are incredibly rare. Therefore, the chances this entity wields one is also rare. Besides, all of Lye’s artifacts are supposed to be healing items. Why would he craft a sword?”
Arwen pocketed the Light Gem again, fighting the unease in her chest. She feared they would not be able to figure this mystery out. This was absolutely beyond her, who had never seen much life outside of her castle walls. “Let us continue.”
The rest of the walk revealed nothing of note, neither did the soldiers they came across whilst doing so. Once they had completed the full circuit, they decided to take a break. “Forgive me if I speak out of place,” Eryk spoke up once they once more wandered the streets. “But may I suggest we find somewhere to clean Princess Arwen’s clothes? She looks quite miserable in that uniform.”
“We are all a bit… smelly,” Gwyn interjected when Arwen grew red with embarrassment. “We should’ve brought spare clothes with us.”
“We’ll buy some,” Cai suggested. “The stipend King Blayney gave us before departing is very generous. We have plenty to spend.”
“We might as well put all our uniforms in for cleaning.” Owen piped up with a shrug.
“It is decided, then.”
Before putting in their clothes into the local launderette, they group all invested in new clothes for themselves at market near Alaru’s town square. It cost quite a bit of money, but at least the stall owner who sold them their clothes had a squared-off curtain to change in private. Peeling the sodden uniform off of her skin, Arwen felt grossed out by having to insert herself into clean clothes with the sticky cling of grime and sweat still enveloping her skin, but it was infinitely better than remaining in her uniform.
When everyone had finished changing, the boys took a moment to examine themselves. All had bought demurely green tunics and grey patched trousers, and looked the part of some sort of gang with Eryk, who opted to remain in his black overcoat and thereby appeared to resemble their vampiric leader. None of the shirts the stall owner sold fit Arwen, so she ended up in some sort of yellow floral-pattern blouse with a frolicking yellow mini-skirt dangling from the hem, partly obscuring the black trousers she wore that made her legs feel incredibly itchy. Hanging limply from her neck was a hood she could use to protect her head, marking the blouse as the oddest piece of clothing she had ever laid eyes on. She felt stupid, and the material felt scratchy and coarse compared to the smoother texture of the uniform, but at least it was wearable. “Not going to clean that big coat of yours?” Gwyn asked the vampire.
Eryk shook his head. “I don’t think it requires one. Besides, I’d rather have it with me. I very much dislike the cold.”
“Hard to imagine the Princess of Cyfoeth under that bright yellow thing,” Cai remarked to Arwen while the vampire conversed with Gwyn. “I think it complements your hair.”
“The sooner the uniforms are cleaned, the better.” Arwen retorted in a grouch. “I don’t look too bad, I hope…”
Turns out the expense of cleaning official Cyfoethian uniforms was exorbitant, enough so that Arwen wanted to argue with the lady attending the shop, but Cai merely interjected and paid up the full amount. It was then agreed that a full day was needed to fully clean and dry, and so the group would have to return tomorrow.
“That seemed expensive.” Arwen muttered once out of hearing range of the shop owner.
Cai seemed confused. “It was actually pretty well priced I thought.”
Arwen cocked her head. “Was it? I wouldn’t have been happy about what she was asking for.”
“You know she was charging a fair price, do you not?” Cai was growing even more confused. “It is expensive to maintain those uniforms, five of them especially.”
“And we have the money to throw around like that?” Arwen asked.
“Yes, we do…” he replied slowly. “I told you; King Blayney was very generous.”
Arwen’s face creased. “I know you did… and don’t talk to me like that.”
Cai’s bemused eyes met her own. “Like what…?”
“Like I’m an idiot,” Arwen mumbled. “I hate it when people speak to me like that.”
Owen leaned in to Gwyn and whispered lowly. “Mum and Dad are arguing again.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Cai appealed to her immediately. He almost reached out to grab her shoulder, like he often did with Brynne when they were younger, but he stopped himself. “Are you okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You seem…” Cai seemed to consider his own next words. “Touchy…”
“I’m not touchy!” Arwen protested, her harsh reaction even surprising herself.
Cai’s expression dimmed. “Alright… I didn’t mean to imply it.”
A very tense silence ensued, for a brief moment.
“It’s no big deal,” Gwyn decided to join in on the conversation. “We all get a little angry with things from time to time. It’s normal.”
“I’m telling you,” Arwen insisted, leaning slightly into her words for emphasis. “I’m not touchy. Do I look touchy?!”
“No, you don’t Princess.” Owen, surprisingly, had the most placating words of them all. “I think you look as well put together as a Princess should right now. Unfortunately, we’re just tired from travelling and are projecting our own emotions onto you.”
No one else appeared convinced by that, least of all Cai, but while Owen’s words were said so neutrally it almost reached the point of sarcasm, Arwen was nonetheless soothed by his statement.
-cut-
Arwen’s sour mood once again resurfaced when none of the soldiers they approached would answer them anymore. Turns out, instead of Wynn describing to them their facial features, he had taken the smarter route of informing them to answer truthfully to anyone in the red and black Cyfoethian uniform. Now that she was in her stupid shirt-skirt thing and trousers, and the boys in their plain clothing, the soldiers couldn’t recognise them as an authority to answer to.
“She is Princess Arwen Blayney,” Eryk appealed to one of the guards on her behalf. “Surely you can recognise her by sight? Black hair and blue eyes are a rare pair on a face.”
“Shall I give you a jolt of lightning to prove my magic?” Arwen added sarcastically.
The poor guard went beet red, their unintentional good-soldier bad-soldier routine working rather effectively. He clearly appeared torn, but remained steadfast. “I’m afraid I can’t answer your questions unless you’re in the red and black uniform.”
“Yet you recognise Arwen as the Princess?” Cai asked.
“… I do…”
“As Princess, she has authority over Alaru’s mayor and aide,” he argued. “Therefore, you are obligated to answer any questions she would ask of you.”
Sweat poured from the guard’s face, but he finally caved in. “Alright, alright, I’ll help out.”
-cut-
Arwen and the others sat by the sundial not long later. Unfortunately, the questioning of the soldiers who could recognise Arwen didn’t add much to what they knew. One thing was clear, however, the guards were terrified of this Dark Entity and interpreted its lack of attacks almost entirely negatively. They thought it was winding itself up for something big.
“Anything useful we got from that?” Cai asked as he leaned back on his bench, soaking up the sunlight with his face.
“No,” Gwyn replied. “What we know is what we have. Hopefully the new major can shed some light on this situation.”
“The dial says its noon,” Owen said. “So, hopefully they’ll arrive soon.”
They would wait another dozen or two minutes until Wynn arrived flanked by an edgy-looking young man. The assumed mayor was of average height, though his hunched posture impressed a shorter stature upon Arwen, and walked demurely with his hands tucked into his pocket. A mop of light brown hair bobbed lightly under his heavy footfalls while frowning blue-grey eyes blearily scanned Arwen and her retainers before him. At first, the pair seemed to be deep in some sort of terse argument, but Wynn quickly recovered once he entered their earshot. “Greetings,” Wynn spoke first, smoothing his expression into a blank canvas. “I must confess I did not recognise the lot of you at first. It delights me that you have taken it upon yourself to try out the markets in Alaru. Now, I shall introduce you to the current mayor of Alaru town. Please meet Hefin Mostyn.”
A polite set of nods were directed at the mayor. “A pleasure,” Cai took the lead and greeted him diplomatically, extending his hand but retracting it when it became clear that the mayor wouldn’t take it. “My name is Cai Huws, retainer to the Princess of Cyfoeth.”
“I’d have been ecstatic to meet you in the past,” Hefin ignored the knight and focused his glassy eyes on Arwen. He spoke in a slurred, low voice and slung a half-filled bottle of something strong smelling around in his hand in some sort of weird gesture. “But meeting you now doesn’t impress upon me any particular emotion at all.”
Arwen scowled as a retort bubbled on her lips, but Wynn turned to the young mayor first. “Hefin!” he scolded. “I thought you better than that shocking behaviour. I am ashamed of such an insulting greeting to the Princess of Cyfoeth. Your Teyrn, please accept my deepest apologies. The mayor has had a rough couple of weeks.”
“Why don’t you just become mayor, then?” Hefin confronted his aide, almost stumbling on himself. “It’s not like people like me, anyways. I’m just the son of my cowardly father to everyone.”
“My condolences to you.” Gwyn bowed his head respectfully. “It really sucks to lose a loved one.”
Hefin scoffed. “Don’t be stupid. My father got what was coming to him. I hope he’s dead, in fact. I hate him with all my heart. He left me with a bunch of people who think I’m as cowardly and meek as he was.”
Wynn’s face filled with a smouldering anger, the first sort of expression Arwen had ever seen cross his countenance, but he remained silent. “Can you tell us what happened?” Cai asked him.
Hefin shrugged. “That- that evil thing attacked us one night, and a couple of guards burst into our house and told us to evacuate, so I left the house and ran. I thought my father was with me, but it turned out that coward took off out of Alaru completely.”
Arwen wasn’t sure if a father could simply do such a thing, but some of the stories she had read sometimes alluded to such instances. She had always thought them fiction, for her own father had always been loving and devoted to her, but now she was doubting herself. Could a man really leave his own son behind? Cai had the same question on his mind. “How do you know he didn’t go to help the guards fight it off?”
Hefin made a tutting noise and shook his head, though more so at his recollection of his father than at the knight. “Loads of the townspeople saw him run right out of that gate.”
“And you trust the eyesight of scared townsfolk who were likely tired and were seeing in the dark?”
“I do,” Hefin nodded in a drunken anger. “Because I saw my father run, too. He never even looked back at me, that bastard… just ran full sprint out of those gates and into the forest.”
“You father never returned after that?” Eryk asked. His reply from the mayor was a sarcastic look.
“Are you dumb? Of course not! He left me here, all alone. Now I have to run a town filled with people who don’t like or respect me. They think I’m a coward and a weakling too. My father used to be liked and respected, but it turns out a legacy only dies unless overwritten by something scandalous.”
“Doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a coward.” Gwyn argued.
“Yeah?” Hefin turned to him. “Why did he run, then? If it was any other reason than escape, he’d have returned by now. He’d have told someone. He’d have brought someone with him. But no. He simply left without a word and never… came… back.”
Apparently having enough, Hefin turned and skulked off without another word, tilting his head back to take an impressive swig of whatever he was drinking. Wynn was left standing with an awkward smile. “I apologise once again for his behaviour.”
“Wynn, you would’ve been quite close to the mayor, would you not?” Gwyn asked after a brief pause.
A nod affirmed his question. “Yes, I was.”
“Did the mayor even mention anything odd to you in the days or on the day before he ran?”
Wynn’s face twitched slightly at the word ‘ran’, but he answered politely. “No, he did not. I feel I would have remembered if Myrddin mentioned anything to me on or before that day. He had been acting strangely of late, impulsive almost… but that was long before the Dark Entity ever made its first appearance.”
“Is Myrddin the mayor’s name?” Cai asked for clarification.
“Yes, it is.”
There were a few seconds of silence at those present digested the information. Arwen wasn’t sure if they were all wasting their time. Then, just as she was about to suggest they move on, Cai gave his opinion. “The same night the mayor runs away ends up being the last time the entity attacked Alaru in over a week. Pretty odd coincidence, don’t you think?”
Wynn frowned. “You believe the mayor has something to do with the Dark Entity’s silence as of late?”
Cai stared the aide straight in the eyes. “I do.”