‘The fight is suicide. Yet, they stand beside me ready to fight for all they hold dear. Trust. If only they knew what I do, would they trust still? Creack – boom! It comes. Creack-boom, chink – chi – chink, clunk – duff – clunk! Gurgling cries of lost souls, hope, shattered dreams and the images of a future breaking against steel; blood – sweet, pulsating, rich, blood smearing my lips, splattering my face. Fallen. Failed. They die – they die. Oh god – they die. Taste it Neven – TASTE IT!’
NO! My eyes opened to darkness. I felt the hot, chocking feeling against my chest ease as the calm of night gradually pieced together my reality. It was just a dream.
‘Ssh!’ Kalia moaned from her cot. I sat up about to apologise until I noticed Kalia’s eyes were still closed, deep in sleep.
‘Kalia?’ I waited for her response but after awhile of not getting anything but snores pushed myself up and swung my legs over the edge of my cot.
The dream bugged me. Why the same one over and over like a spinning wheel? I couldn’t help feel a sense of being there, where there was. Is that why I can’t remember who I was? Did I survive a battle? No one has said any sort of war is happening around here. Certainly, I haven’t heard or seen evidence of any.
‘Ah hellbore,’ I breathed out and stood in the chilling night, exposed. ‘Brrr,’ my lips sounded instinctively and pressed closed to trap escaping breath. I fiddled around my cot for my blankets to wrap around my shoulders.
Neven
I froze with my blanket in hand and body still exposed to the night elements.
‘Ish see yousee.’
A snake-like head emerged from the night. Holy mother of crap! I wanted to scream but found my mouth frozen shut with the rest of my body.
Yes, keepsee quiet. Don’t want to wake dems do yousee?’
The head came closer so I could trace a network of reddish veins around a papery neck and gaunt cheeks.
‘W -Who are you?’
‘Ish be Lazareth, they best and Ish thank yousee for releasing me.’
Releasing – what the hell? How could I’ve freed this beast?
‘Yousee gave me key. Thanks yousee.’
It sniffed in air and sighed with eyes rolled back to savour the smell of real life; a rush of memories flooded my mind on waves of nausea. It sped through cycles of family life, royalty, simple stupid peasants to the most knowledgeable sorcerer. ‘Conquer, control, bleed, burn, masacre, shatter, destroy…’ It rolled through its wants with a dazed voice. Seeming to catching itself, snapped its head back and returned to my view with clarity in its piercing eyes.
‘Ah to taste Neven, to taste. ‘ He cocked his head to one side and peered at me with shrewd eyes. ‘Or should say Ser – ip – hyn.’
I gulped back the nausea and faced Mikhalz square on, no idea what he/it was talking about.
Moans and scratching on rock outside caught the lazareths attention.
‘Ah yousee hear that? Ish go and leave yousee a mark of this moment.’
It reared its head back into the obscurity of night and was gone.
I held my breath, waiting for something terrible.
