Dark Soul Silenced - Parts One & Two

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Daniel had tasks to deal with while the family slept. He stood and walked over to his horse, who nuzzled his hand.

“Are you hungry? Let me see what I can find.”

A search of the saddle bags produced two apples which the horse quickly devoured, before nuzzling him again. He smiled.

“That is all for now…”

He stumbled to a halt, unable to recall the horses name. He hoped he could remember it soon. Calling the horse ’boy’ would grow tiresome very quickly. He had hope the name would return. Other things were coming back already. He knew that most of the bags over the horse had belonged to him, though two smaller sacks secured tightly to the saddle hadn’t.

He started with his own bags first, finding the contents a mixture of the familiar and the unexpected. Spare clothes, needle and thread, a waxed coat and other mundane items felt familiar. So did the cooking implements.

Other items rang no bells at all. He wasn’t sure if that was due to his memory loss or because they had belonged to the bandit leader. Amongst those items was a small, collapsible crossbow, two knives with ornately carved bone handles and a pair of shining metal wrist guards with intricate runes traced across them. Most surprising of all was a small but thick leather-bound book. Daniel pulled it out and examined it, letting it fall open at random pages. Either the writing was in a language he didn’t know or his mind was still scrambled, he couldn’t make any sense of it. None of the characters looked at all familiar. He flicked through many pages looking for any pictures amongst the densely packed writing, but found none. Only the writing changed, clearly it had been written by different people at different times.

Replacing the book he finished checking through the packs. Secured beside them he had already found a stout staff and a small spade. He removed both.

Stepping away from the horse and the family he used the staff first, tracing several characters and then words into the sandy dirt. Being able to form the characters was a huge relief, as was being able to recognise the words. He knew it could be that the characters he formed were incorrect, that only he would recognise them and that only because of his illness, but it didn’t seem likely. That made the book more of a puzzle. Had he been carrying it, and if so why? If it belonged to the bandit leader then what was he doing with it? It didn’t seem that valuable. Had the leader been able to read it?

Putting those thoughts aside he turned to his next job, sighing deeply as he did. The dead bodies of the leader and his henchman needed to be cleared away before the family woke. First Daniel searched them for anything useful. The leader had a bag nearly full of coins, and wore several rings and other bits of jewellery. Daniel stripped them all. At first he worried about what he was doing, worried it might open the door to the darkness again, but somehow it felt right. The bandit leader had almost certainly stolen it all anyway, or paid for it with stolen money.

Next he recovered his scabbard. It and the attached belt were both covered with thick trails of the leader’s blood. Daniel took them down to the sea, washing them clean in the salty water, then returned to the corpses. The leader wore thick, good quality boots. With a start Daniel realised he recognised them, right down to the broken eye part way up the left boot. He removed them then washed them off in the sea too. They had no blood but the thought of wearing them without first cleaning them turned his stomach.

Next he turned to the other body. He removed several gold rings, a tinderbox and a plain handled but sharp knife. The crossbow the dead man had used to shoot at Daniel still lay nearby. Daniel collected it and the spare bolts, deciding to give it to the family. Even in untrained hands a crossbow was an impressive weapon, enough to make someone stop and think twice.

The last item he found was a locket, secured on a chain around the dead man’s neck. As soon as Daniel touched it he knew it was different, that it had belonged to the dead man and that it had meant a huge amount to him. Opening the locket he saw a portrait of a pretty young woman with long dark hair and a bright smile. Suddenly he felt dizzy, his vision blurred and he found himself staring at the young woman, not a portrait but at the woman herself. The image was static, though, unchanging, and overlaid with several very strong emotions. Love… loss… anger.

The image swirled and changed again. This time he held the woman in his arms, carrying her towards a small cottage. She stared at him with eyes full of love. She wore a traditional wedding wreath on her head, made of willow and flowers. Daniel realised it wasn’t him she stared at, that somehow he was seeing the memories of the dead man. Year after year of the man holding the locket while these images played through his mind had left an imprint.

The image swirled again. Now she was standing outside the cottage on a bright, sunny day. She was clearly pregnant. Her hand rested on her bump. Daniel thought she must be six or seven months.

The image swirled once more. As it cleared Daniel cried out in horror, dropping to his knees in anguish. This image must have been soon after the last. She was still pregnant and the bump looked no larger. Nor would it ever be. She lay collapsed on her back just outside the cottage, blood pooled around her head where it had poured from a jagged wound to her neck. Three soldiers dressed in bright red uniforms were leaning against the nearby fence, joking and laughing. One was cleaning blood off a long knife. The feelings of loss and anger were overwhelming with this image. Daniel felt tears pouring down his cheeks.

Once more the image swirled. Now he sat by the woman with her head in his lap. The strong feeling of love remained, but the feeling of loss was far stronger, overwhelming it. The anger was banked, burnt low for the moment but never to be gone again. On the edge of the image three bodies in bright red uniforms lay crumpled in the dirt.

The image swirled again and Daniel found himself back on the beach, kneeling in the sandy dirt and still staring at the locket. With a shuddering sob he closed it again, lifted the dead man’s hands and closed them around it. He wept – not just for the woman he had seen, but also for the dead man whose life had been ripped apart.

Once the tears stopped he realised he had to change his plans. Before, he had only intended to drag the bodies down the beach a way, to bury them under sand. It wouldn’t protect the bodies for long but would spare the family from having to see them. Part of that choice had come from his belief that the outlaws deserved nothing better.

Now he felt differently. He had no doubt the man with the locket had committed atrocities, had maimed and killed for profit or enjoyment, yet the matter was no longer black and white. The man had known great love and suffered great loss, the events Daniel saw in the vision had lit a burning anger at the world. Daniel felt the man deserved peace in death. He’d had no similar feeling for the leader, but he now realised that there too the situation was unlikely to be completely clear-cut. He wasn’t in a position to judge, and even if he was would he have the right to?

Instead of walking further onto the beach Daniel walked away from the sea, until the ground was firm dirt. Then he started to dig. Despite using the small spade he soon had two holes several feet deep, his new strength making it easy to dig quickly even in the hard ground.

Returning to the men he faced a dilemma. Dragging them across the ground felt disrespectful, yet picking them up would mean getting his own clothes covered in blood. In the end he settled for taking their arms and lifting, his strength meant only their feet dragged along the floor.

He laid each body in a grave, arranging both men’s hands on their chest – once again placing the locket in its owner’s hands. Then he paused, feeling that something needed to be said but with no idea of the words he should use. He considered just filling in the graves but that felt very wrong, he felt an almost physical revulsion at the idea. Finally he spoke.

“May your souls find the peace and honest joy you never enjoyed in this world. May the damage and the pain you undoubtedly caused be reduced by time. May you rest peacefully.”

The words were simple, but heartfelt. When he finished speaking he knew they were enough, felt it deep in his bones. With a final glance at each man’s face to fix them in his memory he started to fill in the graves.

Once he finished he studied the mounds of earth, wondering if he should mark them somehow, with a branch or stones to form a cairn. After a few moments he dismissed the idea. Out in the wilderness anything identifying the mounds as graves would quickly lead to them being dug up, desecrated in search of money and valuables. Before the vision Daniel would not have worried, would have felt the two outlaws deserved no less. He saw things differently now. He took some time to make the area as flat as possible, to hide any sign that the earth had been disturbed.

Returning to the sleeping family he stroked the horse’s nose again then unloaded the bags from its back. The wind had freshened while he buried the men, blowing in off the sea, and had a chill edge to it. Driftwood littered the high tide line of the beach, much of it dry-looking. He set to work collecting large branches and smaller sticks creating a large pile and a small pyramid of twigs and dry grass. The sandy dirt was bare of plants so he felt no need to dig a fire pit, there was no risk of the fire spreading.

Once he was happy he crouched down by the pyramid, took out the tinderbox and struck stone against metal. Small sparks flared but blew away too quickly to start the fire. After several frustrating minutes he settled back a little, considering the problem. The sparks were too small and too quickly blown away. He needed to shield the area from the wind and somehow strengthen the flame. Remembering how he had drawn energy from his surroundings while helping Maria heal her father he once again reached out, picturing both shielding and strengthening the sparks he struck from the tinderbox as he did so.

It worked – far too well. He had to throw himself back as the entire pyramid erupted into intense blue flame. If he’d been any closer he was sure he’d have lost his eyebrows, if not his whole face. The small pile of wood was almost exhausted already so Daniel quickly grabbed some sticks from the pile and added them to the fire. Within a few minutes he had a steady and completely natural fire burning. He then moved the three sleeping members of the family closer to the fire, ensuring they didn’t grow too cold. Only the mother stirred and she didn’t wake. The other two were too deeply asleep to even notice being moved.

Finally he sat down, enjoying the warmth from both the fire and the sun. With the sound of seagulls in his ears he stared out over the ocean, for the first time in many days feeling truly relaxed and at peace. Smiling slightly he let his mind drift.