Tristan woke hours later and now it was already time for his watch. Following Laanimere's advice he had slept. So tired he was from the day... a day he didn't even remember most of.
He did one last check up on his master's sleeping figure, and headed out to the bell-tower. The hallway of the temple- his way to the ladder- lay empty like always. Everyone had already settled in for the night.
Above in the tower, he didn't do a look out, hadn't for days. And why would he? It was not needed, the temple was safe. His master's ward was impenetrable. No one knew that but his master and him, and they kept it that way. Let the villagers spend the night in fear, which at least kept them somewhat grateful to him. Instead, he practiced. Burning magic, summoning spells and reciting the chants that he only knew by their sounds and not what they meant. They were his master's... Nowsen's teachings over the years. No one in the village knew about it and Nowsen had ordered him to keep it that way or Tristan would get no more lessons. Learning magic and its fee only to keep his mouth shut among his friends and family, Tristan could do that. He liked none of them enough to talk to them, anyway.
His lessons had somewhat ended by now. With his master's sickness and his own limitations, all he could do was practice of what he knew and indeed 'practice' it was what he did. Every night alone in the tower, making tiny balls of light in between his palms that could barely light up his face. Useless. But that was more than anyone else around him could do.
***
Sometime around midnight it had come, their monster. That filthy lump of decaying corpses that nearly wiped off his village. Massive in the dark of the night like a moving mountain, its skin was oily slick that sloshed along the ground like hundreds of wet sheets dragging. It had moved slowly through the dark fog like a floating island in a sea of clouds. Tristan hadn't paid attention, he hardly ever did. The temple protected them and the monster always stayed away from it, waiting for the occasional fools that would run out after they got tired of life.
Like every night, he had heard laughter, gleeful but lacking a mind behind it. Just a sound and nothing else. Tristan had heard stories of a faraway animal that could imitate the sound of a baby's cry, so the monster having laughter wasn't farfetched. But when it laughed with the voices of the ones it consumed, the people went mad. Searching for their families, their wives, their children; folks jumped into the dark night and never returned, their laughter becoming the part of the monster forever.
Nearly half the village was lost like that.
Because of the temple's barrier, Tristan had never seen it up close, only from far, a dark silhouette of something wet and slimy. It did not seem to have a fixed shape. One night it was tall, the next, round. Only its head remained somewhat constant. If they didn't see it change its shape right in front of them, they would have thought a new one came every night.
It was huge, towering over anything in the village except for the temple itself. The base of its body hid in the dark mist and spread far, blanketing the ground and grabbing anyone or anything it could with clawed fingers and slimy tentacles. So many were weighed under him, Tristan's own family... his mother and sisters. They had screamed, all of them that were caught together, in horror and in pain of being ripped apart and melting into the monster. And all those times it just laughed and laughed. Tristan sometimes could hear his mother, Dew and Sanah's screams behind those unfunny howls. His father was driven mad by the voices and joined the chorus soon after.
But last night, the laughter was cut off abruptly. Then a loud crack of something breaking and rumbles of something huge falling over the rocks came hurriedly from the North-East. The temple had shaken and with it the tower too. Ancient rocks had groaned and grinded against each other. Dust had fallen around him and the bell had swayed. Tristan had held still while tugging on his rope. The ball of light had disappeared as his concentration had been broken. He had been more annoyed than afraid then, at that sudden disturbance. He remembered getting up, not thinking of what it could mean and then freezing staring into the darkness. The twin moons were dim and their light was reflected from the surface of the sea of fog that had swallowed everything and It was nowhere to be seen. The dark shape that stalked the temple, slowly crawling around it, a giant mass of rotten skin and bones, wiry tentacles and cruel laughter he couldn't see it. Something had happened to the monster. He searched frantically with his wide eyes, his heart had almost jumped to his throat and he had felt his stomach turning inside.
Something or someone had stood at the roof of the temple. Small and dark... the silhouette of the girl he vaguely remembered. Her green hair bright under the moons looked like they were burning. For a fleeting moment she had turned toward him and their eyes met, green orbs of fire in the darkness of her shaded face. The laughter rose from the fog, everywhere at once. Frozen in place, Tristan had felt warm wetness down his legs and the girl, she jumped down into the dark mist below.
At that time Tristan wasn't sure what he had just seen. Was the girl really there or was he just seeing things?
The night after was a blur, scared he had waited but nothing happened. It was not difficult to dismiss it as a dream or a vision with how unreliable his memory had been the day before. He also had interacted with the girl once when he was completely out of his mind. He should have asked someone before he came to the watch, but whom? One by one he was listing people in his head that he could tolerate and found that there was none he would want to approach, save for his master. He hadn't had time to talk to the old man since yesterday.
***
Looking down now, the fog was only about a foot and a half above the ground and slowly sinking into the ground. Lazily, he climbed down by the ladder along the tower. There in the village the proof would be if it was a dream or not. He looked back to the tower; he always rang the bell at sunrise to rouse the villagers. Checking the sky, he still had time; he could do a quick search. So he ran, down the roof and the slope to the village. Walking through the knee high dark fog, but it was lighter now, slowly dissipating. He could see the ground beneath, if barely.
Tristan entered his village, so similar yet so different. How many days had it been since he walked these lanes? It was like looking at the dead and dried version of it. The houses, the market stalls in the square, the tavern, and the shops all looked like an old memory. Everything silent and still except for the mist that covered the ground.
Tristan's eyes searched and found it. There it was. The gap. Abor's house. It had been standing the day before but nothing remained now. One surviving pillar of stone was smeared in dark slime. He did not get close. There were other signs. A bit farther away... rubbles and ruins grounded to dust and pebbles.
He went farther, looking at more signs, everything looked like a violent storm had hit it. Did it all happen last night when he was hiding in his little tower? Was the girl no older than him here and facing it alone? It couldn't be, he-
There was a sound. Of hoofs on stones, somewhat familiar but one he hadn't expected to hear at all and out here. But there was something different about it. It was something heavier and more legs than four and coming toward him.
Tristan ran and hid bind a broken wall.
Clip clop... it came. Slow and heavy. He could feel the weight of it on his back. Whatever it was, it was just behind the wall and Tristan felt its heavy breathing as though it was right above his shoulders.
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