Devil's Gulch
On the first night of winter
The Borderland
On the last night of autumn and across the frozen highlands Rorick, half barbarian, lord of the western frontier, ruminated. Instead of celebrating with his right hand Toros, and the soldiers which served under him throughout the long years of war across the kingdom.
Rorick’s thoughts kept reeling for the best option to cross into the lands beyond the towering, and fog set mountains, in order to aid his king. Who, mired in the wars across the eastern country. Now lamenting his decision to cast the undefeated lord into the forsaken frontier just a year earlier. However effective Rorick had been, defending that place against the moving tribespeople. And a lament of his own, the half Gott would soon carry. At the end of the following night.
But aside that, his free time in days before, were spent talking with his captain Toros, to no clear action of journey. And advice from local merchants, how few there were. In order to find a fast way through the glooming mountains by crag or crevice. Though no man or woman gave any answer to suffice, just vague stories of the stalking’s or vanishings of the superstitious people he had lorded over loyally, but unwillingly in that short year.
Rorick, in all his active perception hated the look of them. The black granite mountains, even covered in clear sun gave him a looming feeling, as with night, in a vast wilderness of tress. That grew beside creeks filled with frozen water, at the edge of the known world. A feeling everyone caught, even spoke of, in stories to scare unwanted folk away. Only on the name of one place his subjects dared not speak, least they have a lanthorn in hand, or prayer at their tongue.
Devils Gulch, it was called by outsiders. And only one man knew of its path. By Rorick’s own hand he was captured, and with God as his witness Rorick would find his way through. By loyalty of his liege and force of arms if necessary.
With fervor and six armed guards Rorick entered the cobbled dungeon beneath his wooden fort. Carrying torches, spatha’s and crossbows for good assurance, they entered the dank cellars. Rorick leading, unafraid of the Chieftains look of indifference to unspoken tragedies. A sight mirroring the Gott’s own, on certain pitch like nights wanting, of even the palest light.
“Stand up, all of you! And walk into the light.” Said Rorick to the gleaming jewels of eyes on the opposing side of the iron. They came forth the tribesmen and their Chief apparent. Solamon, a short man with matted hair, an exile, accoster and supposed butcher of his own son.
Though eased with mature age, Rorick’s civil side flinched under his skin at the man’s gaze, before he spoke. “With grit and force of arms I’ve beaten and humiliated you. As such I demand one last thing.” Rorick uttered, his voice lowering and now dulcet under the wet cobblestones. “What would that be?” Solamon responded nigh on immediately, already sick of him. As Rorick took a deep breath, like beginning to explain a mistake to a stern father. “Lead me, and two score of horsemen, through devils gulch.”
Just then, everyone, even his own backed away from Solamons long and low laugh. More so to himself, for allowing himself to be beaten by such a dimwit. “Foreigner, you know not what you ask. Or you have just let victory go to your head.” Solamon stood like a statue as Rorick stood near the bars, his impatience growing. “Maybe, but if I die it won’t matter in any way to you. Cause you’ll likely be coming with me.” Rorick said, though he, on the inside hoped that wouldn’t happen. For he tried to avoid that side of himself in these latter years.
“Hmm.” Solamon sat a moment, thinking on that place that seemed to redraw memories. Before his words came as falling gravel. “That Gulch has killed greater men than you. And all that ride with you. Be gone and leave by a less idiotic way.” Solamon then turned to look away and think not on such evils, as the iron door swung open and his kin coiled in threat.
Solamons indifference then turned sharply to fear, and the guards to a silencing stance. As Rorick’s fist hit the man and the thump of knuckle against flesh rang in the ears of all. “Tell me you scraggily bastard!” Shouted Rorick, from the half he had let slip temporarily. “Or I’ll do it, I’ll have all your people here killed. And you’ll soon see the man I used to be in battles before!” Rorick’s men kept their weapons fixed on the dark forms of Solamons kin. All the while Solamon began to hoarsely murmur curses in his native tongue whilst it slathered with blood.
“What say you?” Rorick begged in disgust, as the curses died into a harsh cough. Then, Solamon sat up, and spit blood onto the masonry beside him. “Fine then. And maybe it’ll please you, to say that gulch is no trap… More so a place that will repulse you to begin with.” Solamon’s words, without knowing then, would endure in Rorick if one was so unawares to speak to him of that place years after. “Release them, and I’ll lead you, whenever you call…”
Later on, after Rorick departed from his new guide. He went to inform Toros on the decision, as a common draft came down from the mountains. Giving him a shudder he hadn’t felt in years, once a voice came from the back of his head. “Don’t go…” It said as if it were a warning. Something he swore to have heard once in such a similar, longing, way.
And weighed on him until the noise of celebrious talk filled the air. With the voice of the valiant Toros joining, in the talk of family matters back home. “…Well, wish I could say the same. But my mother’s been gone four years. Still, good luck on your fortunes.” Toros responded in conversation Rorick had all but missed in his deep thinking.
“My lord.” Toros bowed humbly and then stared as Rorick gave a singular nod. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost sir.” Toros gave a short smile as the wind was a welcomed relief to him from the festive fires. “It’s about our road eastward… We’ll be taking the gulch way, tomorrow.” Said Rorick, as Toros nervously gripped his belt, something, he usually did to his horse’s reigns before battle or a quick witted reply. “Then, you have at least talked to one!” And Toros’ eyes failed to match the worried smirk on his face.
“It was Solamon so, you’re not far off.” Rorick always failed to not sound serious. “He’ll be guiding us early tomorrow and late into the night, so I’d advise you to get rest.” And Toros could read no tensity in the Gott, so he bowed again loyally, but no less uneased from the coming task. “I understand my lord. Shall I inform the rest?” He said as Rorick turned away. “No, that’s my job. Since I doubt, I’ll sleep tonight. See you in the morning.” Rorick left with the crunching snow under his boots. As a shudder came and went again under his surcoat, thinking again on those faint words. “Don’t go…”
Empty, and shudderingly still
Came the entrance to Devil’s Gulch on its first night of winter. So utterly pitch dark it was. Its moonless black showed clearly beneath the helms and behind the shadows of each soldier, old or green. As the wind whispered the faint past of the few who came before through the remaining tress. Like a burning memory to the hardened, and woe, to the young of the group.
That’s some, of what Rorick beheld not long after they entered. Their softened light of lanthorns and sputtering torches, doing little to grace their hastening trot, as the moon above hid her face in dreadful waiting. Every now and then, even before the night truly began, she peeked through the clouds in a morbid curiosity. like a child, hiding their eyes from an open doorway in the middle of night. All the while that Solamon had led them. Uneasily, by Rorick’s reckoning, a strange departure from the man once of seething indifference and dislike towards the easterners. Something of tragedy lurked inside his skull undoubtably, as did strange things beyond their torchlight.
“Even the moon and stars show little tonight.” Solamon’s panting words fell on no one else, as they felt miles off, while mounted on their horses, listening to the cold, oncoming draft. “They are watching us they can see our thoughts. We must leave… We must turn around!” His finishing words rang amongst the rimrocks. And with what hope remained in his use of guide, vanished there in the growing draft.
“Don’t leave us…” It said to Rorick, individually. Before Solamon’s shout roused them in all, as the wind left only the lights of their lanthorns.
And brought on a greater terror, as the whispers rose from the mind, and into the wind in great howls. Leading the horses to bolt now, in more natural wit, than the whole party since they left.
Men flew this way and that, their shuddering turned to outright panic, leaving Rorick alone with Solamon. And a dreadful choice in his hands, as his own worry gave rise again to violence. “Stop him…”
“Snap out of it and lead us out of here! Or else I’ll act on my promise and remove you!” The winds only grew stronger, with snow biting at Rorick’s skin, already frozen cold.
“It’s too late…” Came Solamon, after a muffled cry, more of man grasped out of the darkness in one last plea. Leaving Rorick in the shortsighted rage of his Gottish kin. Lifting up Forko to swing, as Solamon murmured one last time. “I’m so sorry my son… But I had no choice!” He begged, before the sword of Rorick found his vocal cord, silencing his distress. And he died as the wind did quick, and suddenly unspeaking. Being taken away by the returning moon, as if to see what she missed.
Rorick drew out a curse in his returning reason, spitting out an odd bit of blood. “Toros! … Anyone?” His anger turning fast to regret, as no response came from the night. But the edge of it receded beyond his lanthorn, and a dozen odd figures emerged out of the faint moonlight. Whilst holding Forko, Rorick nearly dropped it. As Toros came in at Rorick’s bidding, with a half of the party in tow. “What happened?” He said, and saw each of their faces, nearly blank, a recollection to those of battles long passed, but still remembered in full.
The Gott sat, dumbfounded, as one by one they ignored him. Trampling Solamon’s body beneath, in the crunching snow. And rode on past in vain hope of escaping the gulch that begun to enclose. Save Toros, who stopped before his lord of long years, and many victories. “My mother was out there; I could have sworn to hear her… Solamon was right.” Toros said, holding in much more. As he gripped the reigns once more, but that nervous excitement, which came along, and before countless battles, never came again. And they spoke no more, bestriding into the next pass of the whispering wind.
“Don’t leave us here alone.” It came in a chorus of many hopeless voices, doomed to haunt Rorick all his days after. And he did not doubt Solamon and Toros now. Cursing the strike, he laid so mercilessly on their guide.
“Work, you damn nag!” Rorick nearly gouged the spurs into the sides of his horse in anger he put on himself. Whilst the rare tears lashed against the sides of his aching temples. With the tunnel vision, now shrinking his horizon to a few footfalls, as the moon dipped away in a breath, akin to one before an arrow is released. Then both riders lost sight of the enclosing mountain sides. But what had worried them more came with the loss of everyone ahead.
Causing their horses to quail, then rear, as most prey does when cornered against something which gives chase. Forcing the last lanthorn from Rorick’s hand, casting both men in darkness with only the cries of their restless horses to accompany them. Or the new wails of their remaining comrades, echoed through the canyon in defeat beyond humiliation on any battlefield.
“I never even said goodbye…” Toros’ voice barely rung through the weighted air in the baleful dark. “Mustn’t say such things now, come on!” Rorick said, feeling with his right hand for Toros to strengthen him. Meanwhile, Solamon’s blood froze into the gauntlet of his left. “I don’t want to die here my lord. But I see nothing else!” Rorick found his friend’s arm, nearly crushing it. As Rorick, could not say the same for the latter.
One could say, Toros to be blessed at that moment, despite the pain. For the look on Rorick; the half barbarian and renowned captain. Displayed then, fully frozen as just pulled from ice, a look of whole shock. That someone might make if their close loved one, stood from their deathbed and, began walking. And the thing occurred to him, as such kinfolk, though pallid, or hardly with any bodily form. But wearing the face of an, off, Gottish warrior, that need not any axe or round shield now. For, the steeds of its prey dare not move.
It took Toros by the opposing arm in a short tug of war. That one could find almost funny, if told by an old vagrant, on a well tread street in the east. But here, it left the Gott’s own hand empty, with a bloodcurdling cry to ruminate on, and to silence a room over. If only he could escape that gulch in time to tell it to any fool who dare listen.
“You cannot leave… We see you.” They told him, with every word cut one by one from his memory, all at different times, across the grim moments of his life. “C’mon, go!” Rorick leant over the back of his horse, and it dug through the snow with its head turned either in pain. Or in fear of what lay ahead that Rorick could not see then. Still reeling from what he saw that stole Toros and led him to God only knows where. Until it forced him again to behold its work on those that dared to ride ahead.
One lanthorn dimly lit the murk, showing the treaded snow around their final resting place. And from what Rorick could tell in his hurried speed. Their shriveled bodies lay beneath a haze, or corpse light, aided from the lanthorn. Akin to what one would call ‘saint Elmo’s fire’ in a more pragmatic age.
But they surrounded it from the outside. They, that were above criminals in their deed. And beyond reasoning to know why they did it. Appearing as Gott’s of yore, their winged helms following Rorick in a taunt like a painting would give. Three to the left, and three on the right. With one more, waiting before Rorick with a similar appearance, holding axes in both arms of deep grey.
“No, wait-!” Came the only words he had time to shout, before the form cast his horse to the ground, sending him through the air. The armor driving into flesh as he hit the ground and lost Forko in all that snow.
“Look familiar?” Came seven voices of men, which the Gott had spent many months trying to forget. Just as he tried to avoid their faces of everlasting deception. “Please I… had no other choice.” Rorick’s nails dug into his face, looking up at them. Then shut his eyes, as that one lie reflected in the gaze of theirs. “You had, one.”
Their voices rang in his head as the gulch drew another deep breath. Their last word, droning on and on, until Rorick severed it with a shout. “Forgive me!” He said, a face red with cold and anger toward what he had done all those years ago. But all who stood to listen was the gulch, with the grey light of the full moon over it all. As he sat there alone and dazed from the fall and the last lanthorn glowing clearly beyond.
Rorick cared not to know where his comrades of old had gone, in the gulch that now sat as quiet as ever, if even they were truly that. He only cared to leave at once, hoping to his comrades of late, that they found escape in their own way.
Finally turning eastward, Rorick’s heart skipped a beat, with a gape across his face. For there the egressing gorge stood in the midst of the moonlight. And without thought he ran toward it, the clouds skimming across the surface of the moon. Turning his run into a bolt, whilst the droning wind let go at last, with a word of warning to never return.
Running into the hill country beyond, the sky cleared completely as pale light rose on the horizon. And with the snow, now sparse under Rorick’s feet, he thought what they might say at home. Thinking only to respond with lies regarding the harsh weather. To his liege, and the families of the fallen. A lie he wouldn’t dare to break for as long as he stayed loyal, for the rest of his days.
The End
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read my first horror story! (Especially from someone that writes historical fiction.) Still, it means a lot to the point where I’d be more than happy to read your work, just post it in the comments! Thanks again.
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