Darkness: Chapter 4 - Abyss

It shrank. With each time lost moment, the blinding shape, that circle of light that grew smaller as the descent hastened. Walls of slick, moist rock shot up around him on all sides, reaching up from the darkness as they grasped at nothing. Humid air rushed through his open hands, his ears alive with its howl. Ancestors only knew when he would hit the ground.


He tried to call upon the spirits of air, to plead with them to slow his fall, begging that they spare him from a deadly impact, but he heard and felt nothing. His prayer beads would often help him call on their aid in times of sudden dire need, but in this place it felt as if his plea fell upon deaf ears and a muted voice.

Mala’kal...

Laughter, a choir of chortled laughter echoed from above, piercing his ears like knives in his back. The walls vibrated with the sound of their mockery and contempt, growing fainter and fainter as he plummeted and the shadows around him grew.

Spirits give me strength!

And then it struck, though it was not solid. The landing had no trauma but all the pain of a thousand blades as he was swallowed . A mass wrapped around him, and in that moment he thought he had been thrown to some dread beast, until sense hit him hard with realisation. He had landed in water, icy cold and piercing his hide with its torturous fingers. Flailing he gasped then choked on fetid freezing water, searching for the surface while bubbles and muck filled water entered his nose, mouth and eyes.

As his body rose and his head exploded above the surface for that sweet, desperate breath, he ceased his flailing and paddled for the edge of the water twenty feet away.

Curse them! Curse their dammed cowardly hides!

Growling and snarling, with the rage of the Trolls murder still simmering in his chest, he scrambled with slick hands onto the water side. With haste he quickly surveyed the area revealed by the distant light above. He could see the area around him for brief, fleeting moments. He was at the bottom of a cavern, with the entrance nearly a hundred feet above, and down here a wide space surrounded by many smaller cave mouths curving off in various directions, all leading outwards or down.

He took a moment, gasping haggardly. The fall and landing had surprised as well as taken the wind out of him. Then a noise followed, echoes of commands from high above. Mala’kal was giving out orders, but what?

Likely adding insult to injury.

Krogon bared his fangs, his eyes narrowed. Then he saw it. At first a shadow over the entrance, then a shape, then a second shape. Both grew, both span, swaying this way and that as they fell.

Splash!

Splash!

Water erupted from the pool as both struck, waves ascending as the objects sank, rose and bobbed, dark swirls of crimson fanning out into the dark brown water. They had thrown the dead trolls in after him.

Have they no honour!?

He clenched his hands, the rage intensifying as his bare muscled fists formed and compressed.  The body of Nal’aka rolled, her face still contorted with rage while her features were smeared crimson. They would be avenged, and he would see it so.

With a wince and cough he rose to stand, icy tendrils of water dripping off of his blood and mud soaked body. He would first have to figure out a way out before he could pay give them any proper burial rites--

...Snort, Snort...

Krogon’s body stiffened, his eyes darting to the source. In the mouth of one of the small caves he could see the shadow of someone, or something watching him. It snorted, like a pig, it shuffled on hooves as its eyes glared at him. A Quilboar?

Then more, the sound of smacking lips and subtle hissing. He turned his head to look behind himself, another shape dangling from the opposing tunnel mouth. A troll, male, tilting its head this way and that, from Krogon to the dead in the pool. To the side of newcomer, atop an out-thrust ledge high above, popped two shadow masked heads, snarling, their eyes gleaming as they looked the Blademaster up and down hungrily.

I’m not alone down here then...

He cracked his knuckles. These fellow ‘inmates’ may not be so hospitable to newcomers. His ears twitched as words escaped the lips of the prowling troll...

“Looks like we be eatin’ –meat- tonight, boys...” It purred, lapping saliva from around its mouth.

Krogon tensed, his jade eyes narrowed ready for a fight. However, all that was pre-empted by the spine chilling sound of scraping stone, and the dimming of distant light. High above, the Kor’kron had begun to push the boulder back over the entrance. Very quickly, and with the clank of completion at their task, the laughter of Mala’kal and his minions ceased.


Thus all fell to Darkness.