The Obsidian Pillar

Chapter Three

The silence that greeted me when I woke was anything but peaceful. It rang in my ears: a cold reminder of the malevolence that had taken place. My head was still throbbing with the echoes of a pounding headache, racking my skull as I turned my head. I refrained from moving in an effort to stop the aching. My stomach felt empty and bloated at the same time and I knew that if I got up too quickly I would be sick. I dug my fingers into the ground beneath me, clawing at the mud and grimacing as my nails bent awkwardly from the force. I just needed to feel something, anything that would indicate that I was alive. That I had survived. That it wasn't all just a horrible nightmare. It took me several minutes to realise that the frenzied screams and cries for help had stopped. Everything had stopped. There was nothing, and it unnerved me.

The sky was not quite dark enough to be called evening. It felt as though I had been in a very deep sleep, but I couldn't have been unconscious for more than several minutes. What was I doing lying here when there could still be time to help?

I heaved myself into a sitting position and surveyed the ground around me. The calm river that gently flowed stirred memories of that afternoon. I fixed my blurry gaze upon the three men who were lying prostrate and face down on the ground. I had almost forgotten about them. I tentatively nudged Jarret, who was closest to me, with my bare foot and breathed a sigh of relief when he did not stir.

I crawled closer to him, keeping a careful eye on the other two bodies, should they come to life and catch me unawares. I would hate to find myself dead because I wasn't vigilant. It took all of my strength to heave him onto his back, but when his weight finally acquiesced and rolled over, I regretted my curiosity.

His dull eyes were opened wide and staring passively up into the sky. Thick tracks of ruby-red blood had flowed from his nose and ears. It was still wet. He would have seemed unharmed were it not for the ghastly trails of bright crimson. Most intriguing and disturbing of all was the small, purple scorch mark at his temple.

I clawed my way over to the other bodies, unaffected by their deceased status, and checked each of them roughly. Again, each bore the scarlet tracks of their own blood and a small scorch mark at their temples, as neatly placed by the hairline as Jarret's.

It didn't take long for me to struggle to my feet. Whether it was from that movement alone or the sight of the three dead men, I retched in repulsion. My own conflicted feelings sickened me too; it brought me relief to know that I had survived their attack, and that they were the ones lying prone on the ground. Not me.

I leaned against the narrow trunk of a young birch tree and stared at the river's never-ending flow, mesmerised by its movements which were unaffected by the brutal events that it had just witnessed. I stroked the tree's bark, wanting to console myself, but not knowing how. My gaze was drawn back to the dead men. I was unharmed, but they had perished. Who, or what, had killed them?

I closed my eyes; the bloodcurdling screams, that had plagued me in the horrific moments before I had fainted, unsettled me. I suppressed a sob. What was I going to find within the forest?

I heard the jingle of a bell above me in the leaves of the birch tree that I was leaning against. I ignored it, wrapped in my own melancholy, but when it rang more urgently, I looked up. The crow gently lowered itself towards me, landing on my shoulder as though it were domesticated. I froze when its talons gouged into my shoulder and met that beady gaze with unreasonable fury. It squawked back at me, as though it didn't like me either. After all, I was delaying his meal.