Title: Nightfall
Date: January 24th, 2025
Author: Z. E. Wayland
License: CC0; To the extent possible under law, Z. E. Wayland has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
Though the sight of these snow struck hills are beautiful, nobody could forget its danger. Nobody knows this more than the exiles. Banished to the edge of the maps, they flock in the night to survive. Brenna sits on a high perch tower with weapons nearby. An owlreturns to its spot along the wooden tower’s low wall with a new piece of prey, an unfortunate mouse, between its claws. “Share?” She asks. The owl promptly ignores her. It is not her owl, after all.
“Odin doesn’t know you well enough for that, Brenna.”A second owlsays as it perches next to her. It unfurls its wings, feathers transform to fingers, talons to feet, owl to Cyrene, the exiled druid among them. “Takes time for an animal o get used to you. Even if it is comfortable being around other people.” The two, and the owl, on the high perch keep their eyes watchfulfor dangers that stalk the night. Brenna, distracted, could not take her eyes off the village itself. If it could even be called a village.
“Why do we struggle,” Brenna begins, “when even the snow could blow over, bury these huts and tents beneath its wrath? No amount of my arrows, your magics, or runes could stop that. Perhaps we should return to the tribes. Ask for forgiveness in our impatience.”
Cyrene holds her gaze skyward to the cloudless night, where she knows they shall go when they meet their ends. “Is the struggle itself not a reason to marvel at? Behold, though this gathering small, it was built of near nothing. To hold fast to our ideals, our truth, not accepting of that false chieftain. This is what our struggle is for.”
“Yet,” She disagrees, “I cannot ignore our own hunger and cold. Once the fires of our revolt cool, we will have nothing remain to stave the elements from our death.”
“Then, a choice. To die free, to live subservient.”
Brenna, along with the other exiles, all know where their old home once was. Far west, cross the Blank River. From that direction, she spots movement and draws up her bow. Large enough to shake the trees, hide made of bleeding night stolen from the sky, a Monster in the truest sense of the word. One blow of the druid’s horn and the entire encampment stirs towards battle. Brenna is swift to place her arrow into a flame, wrapped in cloth, before she lets the flaming shot loose towards the Monster. A signal to all that doom approaches.
Cyrene and her owl take flight with feathered wings. They dart through the dark and arrive at the open walls of the Runesmith where the children have gathered in its warmth. “There’s Odin! Follow him to safety. Orngar, keep them safe.” So, the owl takes off with a pack of children while Cyrene remains, her feet touching the snow as she shifts back to her naturalform. “A Vyrrka. Larger than usual. Probably seven runes.” She looks upwards, finding the empty sky, and hastily helps in drawing the missing constellation on the runes.
The Monster roars and stomps, rampaging through the sparse trees. Brenna’s arrows drive themselves into the Vyrrka’s skin. She had no hope in felling it. Allshe could do for her fellows is slow it down. And even then, the Monster keeps lumbering forward, halting only to pull itself from traps dug into the snow. It inevitably reaches the encampment, flinging tents and shelters as other warriors sink spears and blades into it. Its absolute darkness swallows Brenna. Its form towers over even her as the archer hastily attempts to descend down her tower to escape it. A large mass, a claw, a talon, a jaw, it matters not, crushes the tower and rains splinters like snowflakes. Brenna would have been crushed to had Cyrene not swept in, carrying her in a half-owlshape.
Both of them tumble into the snow as the Vyrrka slams against them.
Brenna sees Cyrene unmoving. “Is this what we choose to struggle for?” She asks, wobbling up to her feet. The Vyrrka is still, frozen at the foot of the Runesmith’s perimeter. A stone rune presses against its face, but even she could see that stone crack, unable to hold for long. The archer runs over, taking another stone rune, the size of her hand, ties it to a rope and flings it across the Monster’s back. Each carved constellation glows as brilliantly as newfound hope. The able, inspired, join. Each rune across it hums with energy as the Vyrrka shrinks and shrinks and becomes nothing. Its body, like a lightless comet, shoots back up towards the sunless sky, back to its home. The spot ofstars in the night missing return.
The encampment reconvenes. Odin brings back those tucked away in safe spots. Injured peoples, two of them, one of them including Cyrene, are set upon bed to rest. The dead, two recoverable, a third missing, will be buried. Snow and frost would preserve the bodies. By the morning, Brenna sits by Cyrene who is watched over of the owl. “Look at who we saved,” says Cyrene. The encampment is being rebuilt. The tents are pitched, cabins are rebuilt, and warmth returns to this cold land.
“Look at who we lost,” says Brenna. Her eyes upon a hasty procession. The frost froze the ground, so the dead will have to be burned instead. “I cannot within the heart of my heart say that they had given their lives to something grand when we must scrounge of the skin and dust of this world to survive a single night.”
“What I see are those who have sacrificed for others to live how they wish, just as I was willing to do so for you.” Cyrene says, bound to her bed, only able to raise her arm. Though you may not have believed, they died for their beliefs. It is by this choice I would do the same.”
“Then, I must make my choice as well. To leave.” She holds Cyrene’s cold hands between hers. “And I know it fruitless to convince you to come.”
“And for you to stay. AllI ask is for you to remember us.”