March, you worthless old bastard!
A pair of boots once so shiny and well-kept were stained with blood and Light only knows what else. Arduous grunts and
laboured breathing were a constant reminder that he hadn't been young for decades now.
The moss welcomed the man-at-arms as his knee buckled under the weight. His lungs burned like he was being hanged,
the old rapier wound he'd received in Troyes over a wench's favor felt like it was about to tear open and the arms that had once lifted the carcass
of a fallen horse off of a pinned comrade's legs felt feeble and powerless as the burden bent over his shoulder threatened to slip loose.
A little behind him, one of his band called for him.
"Caunter!?"
Dudley reached him, holding the weight on his back upright just long enough that the older man could catch his breath and straighten his legs.
Sodbury growled menacingly at something in the darkness, the faithful hound's tail stiff and tucked between it's legs. Apart from the rough start with the rosbif, the old veteran couldn't have been happier with his given companion.
A greedy, hypocritical prick, the first impressions he'd had of the englishman had been what he'd come to expect from the people of the kingdom across the canal.
That had been, until roughly a week later a forage into the ruins surrounding the manor had lead to the death of the small band Caunter had been leading down there to cull the unholy ranks of the reanimated corpses.
Foolishly they had tried to clear a blockage of stone with haste and carelessness to breach one of the rooms marked as treasuries in the map, only to find the cave-in had not been merely that, but the very pillar holding up the stones above their heads. Stuck under the rubble and struggling in the darkness for hours, he had been forced to listen to the maddening moaning of the rotters and the indecipherable gibbering of the madmen that worshipped them.
He had never considered himself a praying man, but in his desperation he had submitted himself to the Light for salvation. After an hour his prayers were answered when he had seen the light, watched it inch itself along the walls, closer and closer to him. Before he could even see the torch rounding the corner,
a shadow had quickly sprinted to him, the tail-wagger licking his face eagerly. That one merchantwoman in his group had apparently crawled out of the wreckage, not even bothering to find out if anyone else had survived it. A selfish rat if he'd ever seen one, she'd even taken their supplies with her back to the Hamlet.
Dudley on the other hand had sprung into action immediately upon hearing of the collapse, gathering a small group of volunteers to find survivors and turn the dead ones' pockets. Soon he had arrived with another excavation team and plenty of shovels, that blessed mutt's keen sense of smell leading them to him. Dudley was someone you could trust to watch your back during a skirmish it seemed. Men like him were few and far between in this crusade.
"Caunter, we cannot stop!" The man's broken, english-accented french was even less comprehendable than usually now that he was panting.
Sodbury started barking, only the years of training imposed upon the beast by the houndmaster keeping the frightened animal from bolting in one direction or the other.
If it couldn't fight or flee, at the very least it was going to make it's herd very aware of the encroaching horrors of the weald. A shot rang out in the distance behind them.
No. No resting. Cannot. Won't. Have to march.
The old man grunted loudly, securing the unconscious man from falling off him. Exertion ached his muscles as he rose up from the mossy bank, his short break may have not recovered him his strength but he'd be damned if they'd lose another man tonight. Another shot in the dark, this time closer. Caunter turned around to glance behind him.
There was movement in the treeline past the clearing.
It didn't take long before the pistoleer stumbled into the clearing, eyes widened in panic. Shortly behind him their vestal, Bonner, crashed through the bushes, landing on all fours as she scrambled to get back up.
"DUDLEY! SIE KOMMEN!" Stieber screamed. Caunter didn't need to wait for a translation, as a dozen figures shuffled past the treeline into the pale moonlight. Hideous, contorted forms of creatures that may have once been human were now covered all over by growths and fungi. The sickening tint of their yellow skin was the only reason the one-eyed veteran could even see them from this far.
The first and fastest of the horrors, a man scurrying on all fours with a large pulsating sack of flesh on his back reached Bonner. Before either Dudley or Caunter could shout a warning, the woman gritted her teeth and spun around, her trusty mace falling down upon the skull of her pursuer. There was not even a crack or a squelch, the head simply caved in on impact like an overripe pear. The vestal quickly twisted away, shielding her mouth and nose from the greenish yellow cloud of smoke that exploded out of her crushed foe.
"ICH GEH- I'M GOING BACK TO VILLAGE TO GET HELP!" Their houndmaster yelled something foul after the fleeing highwayman, but he was already gone.
Muttering his anglicisms and foreign swears under his breath Dudley unhooked the baton from his belt and let out a few short whistles.
Sodbury, up until now standing ready with it's body held low, rushed forward with explosive immediacy, tackling one of the shambling grotesgueries to the ground.
Another, longer whistling cut across the air and obediently the hound jumped off it's victim, backing away from the horde that had just become interested in the dog.
Bonner stopped in her tracks, facing yet another of the sickly creatures.
"THE LIGHT IS MY SHIELD AND I AM IT'S SWORD!" She shouted hysterically as she swung her mace into whatever passed for a head on the walking corpse shuffling towards her.
The momentum of the hit sent the creature sprawling on the loam and while the fiend tried to get back up on it's feet, a couple more marched over it to take it's place.
Dudley pushed back one of the things before giving another whistle to his faithful companion. They'd managed to split their enemy, but they were all exhausted from earlier, physically and mentally.
They wouldn't last long if they just fought them.
Caunter gasped as he nearly lost his footing on the slippery rocks of the stream. He'd have happily joined his friends in this fight, but the bout was merely to buy time for him.
What they faced now were unspeakable horrors to the common man. But after a few trips to that cove, the warrens and finally, what ever Light-forsaken hellrealm they had stumbled into today, these things were not hard to comprehend, or to combat. Atleast these ones stopped moving once you hit them hard enough, atleast for a short while. Long enough that you could make an escape.
Turning away from the fight, the old soldier quickly shifted his shoulders to make sure his unconscious ally wouldn't be slipping loose during the hike to the Hamlet.
Boivin. It wasn't surprising they'd chosen him for the carrying duty. Bonner was surprisingly strong for a woman of faith, but not strong enough to carry an
armored man for a mile. Dudley had the same problem and Stieber... well, putting your trust on that cowardly cutthroat wasn't all that great of an idea.
"And the moment I lost my shield and bludgeon, it was no longer a debate." He chuckled bitterly inbetween the panting, not expecting a reply. "Think you could wake up soon, Boivin?"
The unconscious bountyhunter groaned atop of him, a welcome sign. Atleast he's not dead. He'd promised Bonner and Dudley that Boivin would be safe. A promise he wanted to keep for more than his own honor's sake.
The two of them and that mutt could keep the horrors busy long enough that he'd reach the side of the Hamlet, before falling back. They were younger and faster than him, they could take the longer route around the clearing. Bonner and that rosbif would be just fine.
But will I be?
The dim lights of the distant Hamlet shined through the woods, but the promise of safety did not outmatch the dread he felt when he heard it.
Snapping of the twigs, the rustling of the underbrush, sounds of pursuit. Converging on him. Something was following him.
More snapped twigs made him turn around to glance at the forest that was, other than his pursuer, silent as the grave. Staring into the trees behind him, the moonlight just barely illuminated the area,
but the motion caught his good eye easily enough. He saw yellow. That one shade he had particularly come to loathe whenever he had the displeasure of touring these forests.
No. Not pursuer. Pursuers.
After just a few of the fungal abominations came into his view, he let out a weary sigh. The denizens of the weald were nothing if not determined.
He grunted loudly as he pushed himself through the foliage onto the road veering by the forest, a straight line to the hamlet, but by no means safe haven. Not for several hundred metres.
March you miserable git!
The feeling of the cobblestones of the road was pleasant compared to the guesswork and caution he had to put in every step as he'd trampled his way through the darkness of the forest,
but he could hear that same easiness in the steps that came from behind him. The forest slowed them down just barely, but at the very least back in there they'd kept their distance, if only because the blind monsters must have been
tripping and falling over every single obstacle mother nature could put in their path. Now those steps were slowly gaining on him. Now he could almost hear their whispers and hissing as they slowly covered the distance between their target.
The Hamlet's right there. Keep going. Keep him safe. March.
His muscles begged him to stop. The hellfire scorching his lungs was agonizing, his old heart felt like it was trying to burst out of his chest. The cold air he inhaled held a distinct tang of copper.
No. You'll rest in the Hamlet, you useless old man. Now you'll march.
"A-AH!" He yelped in surprise as something barreled into his backside. As he fell forward, Boivin landed rough onto the cobblestones right infront of him.
Even if his most capable years had gone and passed him, his reflexes were just as sharp as they once were, forcing him to get off the floor in to a kneeling crouch. He turned around to find himself staring down in to the eyeless sockets
of a travesty whose resemblance to the person it had once been was now but an insult to that poor soul. Caunter rose from his knees, patting the side of his belt before the reality of the situation dawned to him.
He was unarmed and it wasn't alone. Barely a stone's throw behind it, two others of it's kind limped towards him slowly on their gangly, diseased limbs.
The old tactician wondered just what exactly he could do here. He struggled to catch his breath.
I could hold them off. It wouldn't be a bad death.
It would be an unpleasant one however, not to mention probably pointless. He wasn't keeping his hopes up about the highwayman returning with those reinforcements.
He was on his own. The creature infront of him seemed to tense what remained of it's muscles, looking like it was about to make another leap.
"HRAAAH!" He yelled as his fist reeled and burst forward, hoping the desperate haymaker hurt his opponent even a quarter of what it had hurt his hand.
The horror shook but didn't fall. It gave a low hiss before it lunged at him a second time, it's lanky arms groping for his head. The old soldier shielded his face with his left arm, shifting the creatures balance by diverting it's lunge to his side. With a grunt he pushed hard into the creature's wide open side with his right shoulder, barely managing to stay standing from his own tackle. Same could not be said of the creature as it fell down on it's arse, unhurt but dazed.
Standing over it, he brought his boot down hard on the thing's neck. Once. Twice. He lost count after that.
It's mangled limbs tried to grab his leg in futile retaliation, but after a few more presses and a sickening squelch, to his pleasant surprise the creature's body went limp.
Caunter quickly returned to his companion, dragging the man with all that remained of his strenght. If they could just get within shouting distance of the Hamlet, they would get help. Backpedaling while dragging the bountyhunter by his armpits, he had an excellent view of the enemy. A view perhaps a bit too close for his liking. In a matter of seconds the two walkers would reach their fallen brother,
who had already begun lazily twitching as the fungus within that wretched being worked to mend the battered cervical vertebrae.
Truthfully he hadn't even been aiming at paralyzing the creature, he had simply meant to hamper it's breathing so it wouldn't catch them quite so soon.
Lucky for him that these creatures were so sickly, had it not been disabled, he'd have received an unkind reminder that not all the things they fought drew breath.
- BANG! -
He ducked after hearing the gunshot from behind him. The creature closest to him twitched as the round punched a hole in it's chest, but other than taking a second to stop, it appeared unaffected.
"STIEBER!?" He shouted over his shoulder. He kept his head low as the air whizzed slightly over him. A bolt struck into the bulging head of the shambler, embedding itself right up to it's feathered tail, but once again the creature didn't seem to mind injury as it strode onwards.
His heart raced as suddenly Boivin grunted and made an attempt at getting up.
"Hah! It seems there are miracles, though I am no saint." Caunter laughed.
They stopped for a second, just long enough to get Boivin on his feet. Another shot rang, this time close enough he could tell it wasn't a mere pistol.
With a heave he lifted the injured man's arm over his own neck, his other hand working to grab him by the armpit. Boivin wasn't contributing to the walking as much as he could have been, but atleast he could follow a lead. They were still slower than the creatures breathing down their necks,
but perhaps the small increase in speed would be just enough.
Something whizzed past their heads and judging by the fluttering of the air the projectile had been larger than a simple bolt. He knew better than to turn around and slow himself down to find out, though. Whatever it was, the clattering and the loud smack told him it had not only hit but also tipped over it's target and that's all that mattered to him.
So close. Don't stop. Rest. Not yet. Soon. He panted and grunted as he steeled himself for the final hundred metres. The lights of the Hamlet shed light upon his saviors, revealing them.
A little over- a dozen or so of the villagers armed with pitchforks and axes, they did not interest him. No.
The ones leading their charge did. Another shot from the musket momentarily lit up the face of the redheaded woman in adorned leather regalia. Her slouch hat shook from the kickback of the long rifle.
On her right, another woman ran past her, clad in almost as heavy armor as he was himself. The two sharpshooters and their mob rushed towards him, reaching him about the same time as the fiend did.
He could hear his well-worn armor creak as the creature grabbed him from behind, pulling him backwards, but before it could bring him offbalance, the musketeer had sidestepped on next to him, brandishing her sidearm. Being so close to the firing end of her flintlock, the gunshot was deafening.
Caunter gritted his teeth at the ringing in his ears. The bullet punched a hole into the creature's face, and while the shot yet again failed to drop it, it did seem to take some displeasure from the injury, reeling back and letting out a sibilant hiss as it's arms let loose of Caunter's backside. The peasants and townsfolk flowed past him,
stabbing, smacking and stomping the downed creature in a frenzy. A couple of them stopped and stared at the man by Caunter's side.
They muttered something or other, before a dark skinned woman pushed herself through their ranks to Boivin and him.
"Shut your traps and let me tend to him!" The woman they'd come to call the arbalest shouted, the origin of her accent still as much of a mystery to him as it had been the first day they'd fought together.
She laid Boivin down on the mud, checking him for signs of bleeding, before motioning a few of the men around her to carry him back to the sanitarium. They did not look happy to be taking orders from her but followed them without a delay. A survivor of many bouts, the authoritative tone of her voice rivaled even Caunter's own. With Boivin out of the way, she stepped over to the old soldier, her eyes roaming all over his frame, before a satisfied smile appeared on her face.
"How're you feeling?" While asking this, she quickly checked his pupils.
"Burned out like a candle." He replied inbetween the attempts to catch his breath. Not just physically, he had seen enough horrors to last a lifetime earlier today. He wouldn't return there ever again.
As he tried to get up, the arbalest's hand came down on his shoulder, the other appearing from behind her back, pushing a waterskin into his shaking hands.
"Stop pushing yourself, you're safe." She barked. It took him a few moments to realize the sounds of fighting had subsided, the frenzied slicing and angry shouting had declined into the occasional half-hearted swing the townsfolk took to keep the fungal horrors from getting back up. A few of them were carrying logs. They were already readying the pyre to dispose of them with. Dropping his shoulders, he indulged himself to a sip of the cold water.
"Thank you." He let out, relief palpable in his ragged voice.
"I think I owe the two of you a stiff drink. Stieber too." He watched as the workers and farmers carried the wood into the pile,
while occasionally in the back someone's axe or shovel raised and lowered upon their stubborn enemy, the poor souls would have to wait a few more minutes before their inhuman torment would come to an end. The redheaded gunner was helping with the construction of the makeshift inferno. In the back, he also spotted a few other familiar faces, but the german was nowhere to be found.
"Where's Stieber?" He queried. The crossbow-woman lifted her gaze from her trusty weapon that she had been inspecting.
"I don't know, I last saw him ten minutes ago." She said.
"When he ran past me in the tavern, up the stairs. Once he returned from his room with a bag, I asked him where he was going. Said that you people had forgotten to bring enough food for your trip."
Caunter let out a bitter laugh that the dark skinned woman joined into with an amused smile, no doubt having figured out what was going on.
He rose up from the mud, leaning onto the arbalest's shoulder in support as they started to slowly walk towards the Hamlet's gates. Looking into the crowds passing them, every few moments Caunter thought he had caught a glimpse of some unnoticed enemy amongst them, but whenever he focused his gaze the sight was quickly unseen. It must have been the adrenaline.
"I heard a rumor your lot went deeper than anyone else. What did you find?"
Oh how he wished he could forget that damnable place. Just thinking about it made his heart pound in his chest out of fear. The entrance was less than a furlong under the manor, but behind that massive gate was an impossibly large city,
whose crimson pillars had reached higher than any man-made structure could dare to ever dream of. Just walking there had felt wrong, but then they'd started exploring the twists and turns of that horrifying, blood soaked labyrinth.
The old tactician had always recorded his paths in these places on paper ever since he had gotten lost in the warrens that one time, but when he had tried to map out those cursed corridors, the paths traveled had seemed impossible on paper, diverging and converging through each other with no change in elevation.
He had given up trying to make sense of the place after trying to use one of the walls as an easel to hold his paper on, only to realize the paper had bent upon it in an unnerving angle. He returned to the situation, realizing he had been walking in silence for a good minute now. The arbalest noticed his return as well.
"I see. How many did you lose?" She sighed. He thought he'd never catch himself thinking this, but considering the magnitude of that city and it's horrifying inhabitants, them losing just two people in there was not only acceptable, it was a miracle.
"We lost Reynauld. Ferdinand too." He replied crestfallen. The woman gave a disappointed, weary sigh. Reynauld had been one of the first,
the spearhead of this crusade against the dark forces seeping from under that manor. Yet, just like that, the man had lost his footing and fallen into the depths of that place,
never to be heard of again. A death befitting of an untrained whelp perhaps, but not him. Just goes to show that no one is immortal, least of all those of us who seek their deaths...
Ferdinand. He was gone too. The leper on the other hand had died a death worth one of those songs the drunkards bellowed offtone by the nights. That probably wouldn't be much for conciliation to the poor man though.
He'd never much spoken with the disfigured warrior, but the few talks they had reflected an unexpectedly wise and positive look on life. Such a pity he had to die in such a place.
The man's final words spoken before his sacrifice still clung to Caunter's mind.
The way he had turned to look at the congregation of mad cultists and twisted horrors rushing towards them, just a stone's throw away, before casting aside the mask that had for years covered his hideous features.
Caunter remembered vividly the way Ferdinand's face had twisted into a somber smile as he stepped on the other side of the almost closed gateway.
"How I have longed to die... And yet now I long to survive." His bitter chuckling was soon drowned in the sounds of his efforts as he began pushing the doors shut with all his might.
Just before the two heavy slabs of metal had met, the man shouted an agonized taunt to the horde behind him.
"COME THEN, LET US TRADE WOUNDS! I WON'T LEAVE THIS LIFE AS THE MOST SCARRED CR-"
Then the gates had closed with a loud crash, the tolling bell of the leper's death sentence echoing in the dark chamber for what had felt like a small eternity.
The leper had certainly served his duty exceedingly, and as the man-at-arms watched the physicians rush over to help Boivin, he knew he had too. His heart warmed up.
"Need to sit down and rest a bit, old timer?" The arbalest asked, though the jeer lacked actual malice. The old man didn't respond, simply clenching his eyes shut.
Yes.
"Caunter?" She asked again, this time with increased urgency. He didn't let out a word as his legs failed him. He did not even bother to groan.
You have done well, soldier.
"CAUNTER?!"
Rest now.
/-/
Hope you enjoyed this, six or seven people reading this, I certainly did writing it. I think it's rather odd that a game like this has so few stories written of it here, but then again, perhaps while the material lends itself well to a few certain
types of a story, those story types really don't interest enough people that they'd write something for it? Oh well, hope to see some more written for this particular game, preferrably finished too.
Funny thing, I was a bit iffy about having the Musketeer appear during this chapter, as I was not sure how the community feels about the character as a whole, do they consider her canon, is she frowned upon because she is a
class exclusive to backers? I didn't even know about the particular class of hero, until I looked up a list of all of them in an effort to figure out who else other than the Arbalest I could introduce during the road scene as long range support.
But anyways, I simply got an interest in writing a bit about Darkest Dungeon after finally reaching... The Darkest Dungeon. Or rather, finally having heroes with high enough level that I could atleast hope they'd survive past a room. I really ended up liking the first mission and wanted to write something with a bit of combat, a view of the life in Hamlet and something vague about the 4th final mission of the game,
though perhaps my interpretation of the place is a bit more... grand than what it actually is shown in game.
Thinking back to it, I'm fairly sure the place actually had a roof, but hey, alien geometries and stuff. Those pillars can poke the sky even if they are underground. Boggles the mind and all that jazz.
Another chapter coming soon enough.