This is the story of the clock ticking, working its way up to twelve, counting down. Characters racing up to the starting post, led by a set of seemingly inconsequential events which throw them into a chain reaction, when the clock strikes twelve
Prequel chapter has arrived! This was like trying to get blood out of a stone, hope the clumsiness doesn't put you off, it'll be well worth it. Trust me. Would love to hear some of your conspiracy theories about the ending. Albeit happy or sad I haven't decided yet, MHAHAHAHAH! Badpenny out!
Memories of Damson
Her dreams were always cosy and comforting, but unrecognisable to her when she woke. They were homely, snug, wrapped in thick wool against someone's soft body. The images in her head were a confused mix of pictures- snapshots of fictional scenarios. Damson just thought it was wishful thinking, her mind trying to escape to a happy place.
Toasted almonds with a sweet herby mixture swam around her head. Damson would pretend she could feel the gentle fluff of lamb's wool blankets, the light thump of a heart beating next to her. She never saw any faces but there was always a constant sound running through her mind, a melody, light and pleasant. It was her melody, hers and hers alone.
Then she woke. Jerking her body out of her blankets, she shook herself awake, yawned, and started downstairs to get on with her morning chores. With the hearth cleaned and swept; she made a fresh fire and place a cauldron of water above it.
Morning light dawned through the murky windows of the tavern; she heard the soft shuffle and heavy methodical stamp of footsteps above. Mareak and Helga entered the kitchen a few minutes after, mumbling and groaning about their poor bones. They sat hunched by the fire, reaching out their withered hands towards the fire, while Damson spooned thick grey porridge into bowls for them.
The decades had not been kind, their withered bones and skin shrunk till it was leathery and wrinkled. Helga's hair had been a thick beehive of blonde locks, now it was wiry and grey. Mareak had gone bald years ago. Mareak and Helga had been pillars of the community, but as they got older and the threat of Orc attack steadily grew, they were viewed more and more apprehensively, as old mystics and eccentrics. But Laketown only had one tavern and the locals loved their home brewed mead. Over the fifty, maybe more years she had lived with them and they were now dying.
She didn't remember her younger days really, mermories were confused and muddled up unitl her twenty fifth year,when her beard had been cut, sickenly close with a straight razor. Even now she could still feel the ghost of it running over her skin. it had never grown back, much to Helga's relaief. But the story of her arrival in Laketown was infamous, turning almost into legend by mothers to children at night, it was whispered when bad omens arose and it was preached.
It had been weeks of bad omens. Birds fled on mass in every direction until the sky was a seething dark blanket of feathers, black smoke and ask blotted out the sun and frost covered the ground. It was a dark and stormy night, dogs howled and tugged on theirs chains, and a group of travellers pulled their hoods up against the howling gale. Stumbling in the mud towards, thunder rumbled and lightening cracked through the sky like shattering glass, suddenly silohetted against the bleak skyline a child dragged itself through the mud, the travellers watched in horror as the spectre drew closer. Pale and skeletal, covered in blood, its lips moved wordlessly, collapsing unconscious at their feet. It was there curse the gods had laid on them, Helga told her frequently, as the Travellers had placed her into her arms, running into the hills despite the bleak weather. The Gods had pushed her on them for reasons unknown, Damson was their burden to carry.
The Blood Oak tavern had been her home since that day. Day in and day out it was the same trudge and toil but she had food and shelter, she would not complain, she was lucky to have anything at all. She had been taken in and fed, clothed and housed, and all she had to do in return was work and care for Mareak and Helga as they aged.
The clock outside chimed as Damson began to stoke the fire in the main bar lounge, she wiped down tables and pulled back the shutters, letting dawn shine through the dirty windows. Patrons soon started to enter, hunkering down with their beer. Damson was still small and child like, only reaching 4 foot 4, she couldn't see over the counter, so Mareak still had to shuffle behind the bar pulling pints.
Laketown was a busy, traveller and traders were always calling; they were usually well mannered and talkative. Men mostly; that Damson had the problem with, it was bad weather and ill omens that brought the rumours and lies on. A group gathered in the corner, hunching over their glasses, their eyes glared up at her, as they murmured.
She was use to names whispered about her; the dwarf bastard, balrog slut, the cursed bitch. She'd heard them all. Sucking in a determined breath; she went to clear the men's table. Middle aged and grumpy, they stared icily at her as she approached. Damson reached for of a tankard, when a steely fist seized her wrist painfully like a vice.
"I'm not finished with that, Dwarf whore," the men growled, twisting her wrist and painfully pushing her away. Damson stumbled back, grabbing an empty table for stability; she curtsied to the men and fled. Mumbling at Mareak quietly, she hung up her apron and retreated into the deep wine cellar. She sat on the last step, steadying her nerves and trying in vain to hold back tears.
Growing up, Mareak had sent her out of view in an attempt to placate the customers. Given free reign of the town and the surrounding woodland, she ran through the trees until late at night, she actually enjoyed the days were she could let her mind wonder to the distant land of the elves or to the far west to the great sea that lay beyond.
Damson waited until she heard the noise of scuffling boots and the sharp crape of chair legs above to make her get back to work.
Later that evening, as the storm drew in, the fire crackled in the hearth as a few patrons finished their beers and left. Wind rattled the window panes as Damson wiped down the dirty beer stained tables.
"Damson, Don't forget to make sure the cellars door is barred tight, weather is a demon outside," His grizzled voice barked from the stairs. Shutting the shutters, she did one final check that everything was put away before heading down the corridor to her small dark bedroom.
Changing into her thin white shift nightgown and settling in the snug nest of blankets that made up her bad. Rubbing her bare feet together for warmth, she yawned and tried to drift off to sleep. But sleep wouldn't come; it hardly ever did at first. The house creaked above her and mixed with murmurs of the wind outside. The only way to sleep was to allow her mind to sink into the faint stillness of her dreams and her imagination, humming her lullaby softly as she snuggled deeper into her blankets, gradually drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
During these pleasant dreams, her world started to constrict around her, narrowing and distorting until she awoke with a rakish gasp escaping from her lungs. It felt like someone was stamping on her lungs, pain and lack of air scratched the inside of her windpipe. She pressed her face against the wooden floor in a desperate attempt to find air. The world was thick with clogging acid smoke, which blinded her and choked her; she went stumbling to her feet, colliding with foreign objects that she couldn't make out.
She was moving dragging herself, tripping, stumbling, falling but always moving. In front of her eyes the world was fire, scorching her skin, she searched desperately for an inch that wasn't a flame. There! The cellar door was open and clear. Throwing her unwilling body towards the dark abyss of the cellar, enjoying the soothing coolness to her lungs for a moment, the stairs down rose to meet her and her ribs collided with each one. Leaving a resounding crack, echoing in her ears, but she didn't care she didn't realise. Fingers tearing, nails torn, she scrambled madly, savagely for the cellar door that she had forgotten to lock.
Spilling out into the night, lying in the warm mud of the street and fire flickering off its water logged service. Mud soaked into her clothes and hair as she pressed her face into its cooling wetness, rising to her hands and knees she listened. Screams of anguish rang through the air, saturating even the smoke filled sky, making tears spill down her ash covered shaking face. Against the dark and the smoke and the flames, children were screaming. Torturous and hoarse and desperate; Damson crawled trying to reach them. Maddened with fear, Damson would never forget them and in all her days to come she wouldn't sleep one night without hearing them scream in her skull.
All around her flames licking at the rafters, they spilled from the windows and out into the street. And suddenly she was thrown backwards as the windows exploded from the Blood Oak, throwing her backwards in a surged of burning ash and timber, sending shards of glass high into the air. Under the roar of them inferno were the gurgled screams of Mareak and Helga- Damson could smell their flesh as it burned.
There was movement to her left and as rise looked, rising from the acid smoke and flying debris; silhouetted against the flickering skyline a huge white Orc bellowed and raged in blood lust at the sky, raising its ugly bloodies hands and muzzle, snarling a terrible war cry and shaking a chilling blade over his head. She would remember that face, contorted snarl, the blood of her neighbour's smeared over his hands. In the murky dimness their eyes met for a second, pits of fire glared into her and in that moment she took a silent vow. A vow of retribution; she would live on, she would fight and she would never forget the White Orc in the smoke.
Deep voices shouted and muddy boots squelched in the quagmire of mud, bandaged forelegs impeded her gaze as she exhausted body sagged.
"And what if they return?" One voice shouted louder than the others, other murmured in agreement, nodding their heads and shifting their bodies.
The only ones left alive, the only ones who hide well enough or who could run faster than the person beside them. A hotchpotch of wiry survivors made up a town council in the cities square, smoke lazily rising from ruined houses under the light patter of rain.
Laketown didn't have fighters anymore: merely survivors.
"Orc's always return, always want more, more gold, more blood, more of our blood!" the man's voiced paused while the crowd shouted agreement. "How many children's lives have been taken by Orc blades? Ever since the high King Thror fell from the gods grace at Erebor the Orc's have multiplied, growing in strength and number that will soon surpass our own," These were old words to a new tune. Terrified men looked at their wives and daughters, fear in their eyes.
Suddenly a hushed silence fell over them, from the inner circle of jostling bodies, the Crone- now the only remaining village elder- hobbled into the circle.
With shaking hands, she threw bone runes into the air, racking her long yellow nails down her arms until she drew blood. "The gods seek vengeance on us. The Dwarves of Erebor thought that their Aüle and Malal weren't as good as their Arkenstone. For their greed and vanity they were smited!" her voice rose shrilly with raucous agreement of the crowd. They never spoke of Erebor or its lost Dwarves, it was considered bad luck. If Damson had been in any fit mental state she would have been listening intently, but as it was she was curled in a ball, rocking gently in the mud: humming her lullaby.
"But why do they still target us?" a faceless voice called out with nods of agreement. The Crone cast her eyes about, her hands outstretched, as if trying to feel for the answer.
Her face was a wrinkled bag of leather, haggard and thin with grief, her cold sunken eyes suddenly halted in front of Damson. And under the weight of the old hag's gaze, damson lifted her head. The Crone sucked in a breath through her papery lips. Pointing with a withered sausage finger, she mumbled words, repeating them until they grew to a steady crescendo.
"The Dwarf Bastard, One of Durin's People, One of Erebor!" the followers began to chant now, a mindless drone, their eyes cast unseeingly down at her. Mad hands grabbed her and hauled her to her feet, propelling her forward by the back of the neck. She sprawled in the mud as the Crone screeched for rope and fire. Before Damson knew what was happening, she was lifted, kicking and screaming with all her might, but rope now bite into her wrists, wood and kindly piling around her.
She looked like a baby bird wriggling in a nest. Gagged and bound, all her shout were muffled by fabric and the horde terrible chanting.
Suddenly out of the flickering darkness, torch light blinded her and above her the Crone's face appeared, and leaning down she pressed her wrinkled wet mouth to her forehead as Damson tried to wrench herself from the Crone's touch.
"Your mother was the whore of Erebor and you shall be punished for hers and your peoples crimes," Standing tall again, she raised her hand for silence. A fist sized lump rose in her throat as tears welled in her eyes and she let out a fry painful sob. Her mother... Secrecy and mysticism passed down in Laketown tradition dictated that an orphans parents should not be spoken of, even if they had known who they were, lest it call their vengeful spirits into being.
"As the dragon burned and set Erebor ablaze with fire from his belly. So shall this child, anointed with fire, her blood and bone will pay homage to the land and pacify the gods!"
The rest of Damson's life was hinged on these next seconds. She "Saw" her flesh melting from her bones and the smell of the smoke and her baking fat. Long after the morning came, her body would be left for wild dogs and crows to peck over; her body would go unburied and her spirit left to wonder the wilderness alone forever.
But they had given her a fire within her, hotter and brighter than any flame, they had given her a purpose for surviving. Erebor. The name beat along with her heart. She fought, her body fought to stay conscious against the smoke and rope. Her bonds ripped at her skin until it was torn and dangled in a mass of blood and mud from her wrists. Fire burnt her hair, making her eyes water from its acid smell, sticking to the back of her throat.
Screaming against her gag at the demons surrounding her, who lurked behind the wall of flame, with herculean effort she wrenched her body against the rope at a wild attempt at freedom.
In the future Damson wouldn't believe in gods or miracles but this was surely both, the ropes gave way, as if all fibre had been lost into the air around her.
Tumbling in a whoosh! Of air and all consuming heat, Damson rolled her body through the fray of fire. And then she was running blindly. Using the last of her strength concentrating on exhaling and inhaling; keeping her legs moving underneath her, running into the wild black waste lands, out stumbling into the night, leaving the crumbling town behind her.
She kept herself moving, pushing pain from her mind. Survival was more important. Adrenaline and fear can make people into animals, and that's what Damson became, animal instinct to survive. Instinct to forget the pain, forget the words running over and over in her mind, forget the ghosts in the flickering firelight, save the One who she had sworn a blood oath to kill. Instinct to just simple forget the past.
The last of her strength had gone hours ago, in the dim dawn light, she crawled now: hands and knees, she crawled until she could crawl no more. The bloody trail behind her would be easy for any dogs, easier still for Orc's. All her fight would be in vain.
Falling; she expected hard stone but silvery coolness engulfed her and rocked her to sleep, melody soothing her wounds.
Falling; succumbing to sleep and falling lifelessly into the freezing waters. She fell head first into the rushing river, strewn with ice and leaves; her unconscious body was swept away into the mountain wilderness.
It may not make sense until the next one arrives but bare with me it'll be so worth. Next addition will see the rating being changed to M {things are stepping up a notch and not in a good way} and the introduction of an anti hero, who is So evil, you have no idea.
For all the wonderful people who take the time and comment, Thankyou! I will always reply with a PM, so inboxes at the ready!