The child sat on a dark Thundersteed, which was a cross between something like a Clydesdale and a Longhorn bull, with an upward-curving horn on its head. The boy now appeared as an adolescent, and he wore a full, metal-plated armor of a metallic blue, very form-fitting and flexible. His face was paler than ever, and his hair was still upright but now split into three long groups of hair like a jester’s hat. He gave Vohro a comical gaze, and the warrior could now fully see his teeth and saw that the child sported two sets of them, two rows on the top and two on the bottom, both sets of rows in a layered fashion. In the boy’s hand was a lance made of ivory and steel, and on the point was the dripping blood of the newborn he had recently slain.
“Again I ask you, do you think me evil, deaf one?” said the boy.
“Did you do this to them?” said Vohro with his blade held up to him. “You killed the baby. Why?”
“Those children who I call and don’t come to the shadow will ultimately be slain,” said the child.
“Why lead me here?” said Vohro. “What do you want with me, beastly child?”
“Oh, because I have a gift for you,” said the boy, “a most precious one.”
The boy reached for his helm, which hung on the right side of his steed, and let it slide down his head as if crowning himself king. The helm was shaped in the form of a spider’s upper torso with the head of the spider lying just above the boy’s forehead. Six long and thickly-wired legs hung about his head in different contorted gestures like the shape of fingers scratching the surface of a chalkboard. The mouth area of the helm was exposed, allowing his clownish, disfigured mouth to compliment the abhorrence of his armor.
The child gave a tug at his steed and it rose up in the air, bellowing out the sound of a large animal being butchered. Without saying anything else, he darted away from Vohro.
“Why do you flee from me!” said Vohro. But it did not take long for him to get an answer.
On the heel of his words, he began to feel some type of vibration, starting faintly from his rear and then zipping up to his side. And the zipping sound got louder, though he could not hear it but only feel it. Curious, he turned to the beastly child fleeing in the distance and saw that there was something attached to the back of his steed; it was some type of line, and he followed it all the way back--to him.
He saw a thick rope passing by him vigorously. Alas, the rope ended and revealed what was attached. As the bound object reached Vohro, it suddenly became like slow motion, so slow that he could intricately detail everything known about this object. Beside him, just inches away, was a little girl bound and tied, with a glowing dark-almond mane covering her bruised face and her immaculate linen dress soiled by the brutish mud. She passed by him like a flaming arrow, and both man and child caught each other’s eyes; his were of a weary sort, bogged down by immense tragedy, and hers were alive and spirited, as if she was in complete and utter horror.
“DADDY!” said the child as she screamed in pain, for the razor earth cut deep into her soft skin while being dragged along the forest clearing.
And as if someone came upon Vohro and struck him behind his knees, the warrior fell to the floor, his life beaten out of him. But he did not have time to wallow in shame. Vohro called out to Dahkar, and in no time, mounted the horse and put himself in pursuit of his daughter. Though the Thundersteed was twice as fast as Dahkar, it did not deter Vohro, and the warrior moved like a runaway locomotive, fueled only by anger and one simple goal: to take back his daughter and kill all who stood in his way.
This unmitigated anger was what gave him the ability to gain ground on the boy and finally close the gap between him and the rope dragging his daughter. As soon as he was able to spot a good patch of rope, his eyes bloomed and cracked like a canyon splitting open from a terrible earthquake; his vision was that of a preying bird’s, and he mechanically, without thought, flicked his hand up and lobbed the blade on his right hip towards the length of rope lit up by the cosmic sky. “Enebran, show your teeth!”
The Davinian blade sung through the wind and effortlessly ripped apart the rope as if cutting through soft fruit. At the foot of the cut, the rope lashed out high in the air and stopped the girl from being dragged along the earth’s skin. Vohro tugged on his horse’s reins, and both came to a deafening halt, allowing Vohro to catapult himself off his horse and swiftly land next to his daughter’s body on the ground.
He reached out and took her in his arms, but before any tears were shed, he dropped the body on the hard earth, and it made a sound so distinct that one could only figure it was coming from solid wood. He had now realized that what the boy dragged behind him was a wooden likeness of his daughter. He had been tricked by the ultimate of tricksters, by the pale-faced shadow sitting on his horse near the forest’s barrier.
A trembling began to shake Vohro inside his soul, and like a wounded wolf, he howled to the moon in an unnerving, muted scream, “What trickery is this!” His head began to spin, and he could feel himself lose feeling on the tips of his toes and fingers. Sweat engulfed his brow, and he stood up with all his bones aching.
He unsheathed his long blade from his back and raised it to the beast in the distance. “Raise your lance to me, boy!” he shrilled.
The child in the distance heard his cries. “Why come and fight you, Davinian?” he said with an ugly grin, “when I can have someone else come and do it for me?”
As he said those words, a hole of a shadow broke in two inside the blackened forest, and out came another Thundersteed, this one dark in color and more elegant. Atop the steed sat another child, dressed up in full armor, of shades of ivory and emerald green. The child carried a steel and emerald-laced lance, and it approached the Davinian warrior with an air of arrogance until it was about a few yards away from him.
“Father?” said the child, a girl of around eleven years of age. It was her, the child he sought, the daughter that had been taken.
“Vahla?” said Vohro, and without thinking, he rushed up to her but was suddenly met by a lance being thrust into his shoulder. Vahla had caught him off guard, and Vohro fell to the floor with one hand on the lance and the other holding up his massive body. He raised his head up to her and saw that the moon had revealed her face. She had her hair up in a ponytail, and her face was covered by shadow except for her left eye and parts of her left cheek and mouth.
“What have they done to you?” said Vohro. “You’re shadow.”
“Yes, father,” said Vahla as her armor glistened while she moved about on her steed. “I’m no longer yours. My shadow and I are as one. I belong to the sunless land now, and I serve only the Queen. We are many, and you who are left are only but a few that have foolishly remained loyal to the sun.”
“I didn’t mean to abandon you, daughter,” said Vohro as he stood up and reached for her.
“Save your apologies. I’m no longer your child. You had a chance to protect me a long time ago, before I was taken and seduced by the army of children. I have crossed beyond the threshold, and I cannot be turned back. Turn away and make your way home, and do not come seeking for me. Will you heed these words, Davinian?”
“I can’t and I won’t.”
“Then, I’ll have no choice but to come to you when you least expect it, in a child’s dream, where those things of the seen and unseen intertwine--and I will take away all your future offspring.”
“You will do no such thing!”
“It is inevitable,” said Vahla. “All children will come to the darkness.”
Immediately following her words, there was a ruckus coming from the forest behind them, and as if the forest itself was spewing black sludge all along the border of its entrance, shadowed human-like forms began to seep out of the forest like swaying puffs of black mists with hands and feet; and their heads were like black flames moving about as if a strong wind had taken hold of a candle’s blaze. All the forms began to wobble in a pendulating motion, and concurrently were singing with muffled, moaning voices.
?
??Come, little children, come, little children,” they sang. “Come to us. Come dance with us.” The forms kept on, exaggerating their dancing, moving their legs, hips and arms. “Free yourself, yes, free yourself from the sun. Come now and be one with your shadow.”
“They call, father,” said Vahla with a malicious smile.
“No, stay with me,” said Vohro.
Vahla rode up to him and abruptly yanked the lance out of his shoulder. “This wound you have made yourself.” She turned around and rode off towards the forest.
“Come back!” said Vohro, but the pain from the lance kept him at bay, huddled close to the ground like an animal caught in a trap.
The Thundersteed rode off into the distance and every pounce of its hooves pummeled Vohro like being beaten by many fists. She broke into the barrier’s forest, passing the shadowed forms who called out to her.
“Welcome, sweet child of ours,” they sang. “We will always welcome you.” And with that, the forms dissipated into the blackness of the trees.
The boy in blue gave Vohro one last look, snickered and jetted into the forest, and all that was left was a silence of misery, with only the night owls speaking softly into the echoes of the night.
Moments passed, and Vohro managed to gather enough energy to pull his body upright. He knew that if he wished to pursue, he