Following the chilling success of their first collection, Lady Eckland, Glenn Riley, and new collaborator, Bella Darkwood return to guide you through the shadowy corridors of fear with their second compendium, *Whispers In The Dark 2*. These master...
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The fog crept in slowly at first, tendrils of mist swirling about the bases of trees and winding lazily through the undergrowth. Marcus Aurelius Pullo, decurion of the Ninth Legion’s First Cohort, watched the haze advance with a wary eye. He disliked the lack of visibility; it reminded him too much of battle, of blood spilled in the impenetrable gloom. The scattered ruins that surrounded the cohort's makeshift camp were little better, ancient pillars of weathered stone jutting at odd angles from the forest floor like broken ribs. This place did not sit well with Pullo. More than once he had awoken to the strange sensation that he was being watched, only to meet the wide-eyed stares of his own sentries.
Yet for all his misgivings, there had been no sign of the pint-sized savages that had harried the Ninth to the brink of destruction in Caledonia’s northern highlands. The last residual bands of the Caledonian Confederacy and their vicious painted allies, the Picts, seemed to have faded into the hills that marched away to the west. Perhaps they had given up the chase, turning their attention back to easier prey. Either way, Pullo would take the fog over fighting the tribes anytime.
"I can’t see a damn thing out there,” a rough voice complained. Pullo turned to see Gnaeus Verpa, princeps prior of the First Century, emerge from the mists. The camp, an ordered collection of tents laid out in standard fashion, was little more than irregular silhouettes swirling in greyness. Only the furthest sentry, peering westward into the fog from atop a crumbling stone wall, retained some clarity of form.
Pullo shrugged. “Could be worse. No enemy would be mad enough to attack in weather like this anyway."
Verpa's lips twitched. "No sane enemy perhaps."
Despite himself, Pullo felt a chill. The Ninth had borne witness to savagery unlike anything they had seen before on this ill-fated venture beyond the frontier, a fetid corner of empire not even the most ambitious conquerors had bothered claiming. Tales abounded amongst the men of Picts adorned in woad and animal bones charging heedlessly into Roman shield-walls, hewing off limbs and heads in their frenzy even as they were ruthlessly cut down.
Others spoke of dismembered Ninth Legion soldiers found hanging from trees by their own entrails, of entire centuries flayed alive and left to die a slow death...
A sudden shriek split the stillness. Pullo's head snapped toward the sound, his hand automatically closing around the worn hilt of his gladius. Verpa tensed, gritting his yellowing teeth.
"Just a bird most like," Pullo said after a moment.
Neither man relaxed. That had been no bird. The cry was too sharp, too shrill...too human. Verpa turned toward the nearest sentry, chest swelling as he prepared to hurl questions, admonishments, orders—but his mouth snapped shut.
The sentry was gone.
Silently, calmly, Pullo slid his sword free. The Ninth had endured too much to die whimpering in the fog like frightened children. If death had finally come to collect its due, then he would greet it like a soldier. Verpa growled an oath, stalking into the mist with his own blade bared. Pullo moved to follow, then hesitated.
