A Lost Soul Treads Here...

The first thing Damian noticed was that running; secondly, that it was cold.  The kind of cold that cut straight through his armor and chilled him to his core.  The wind was bitter and blew icy snow and sleet right into his eyes, which stung and brought tears to him.  Worse, yet, Damian could hear something chasing him… no, hunting him.  Something—deep and primal within him—told him that he was being hunted.  It was gaining on him, snarling, slavering, singularly focused on trying to rip him apart.  Something in his gut told him that he dare not turn back, or stumble, or even think of what was chasing him, or he’d be dead.  The rushing of adrenaline through his body deafened him to everything else.

He ran further and further, for what felt like hours, in the frozen valley, slowly realizing that he was running towards a looming structure he could not make out in the blizzard.  His body was on fire, he was dying, slowly, he was sure of it.  It was only a matter of time before he slumped over from exhaustion and froze to death, or he was killed by whatever it was that wanted him dead.  A flight of stairs led up to a courtyard before some sort of… some sort of gate.  He ran up.

The blackened steps slowed his ascent.  He knew this place.  His heart quickened with a worse fear.  This is where Alexander died… would he stumble over his body by treading there, he wondered.  Would he be killed here, too?  Yet, when he reached the top of the second flight of stairs and saw the spiked gate of Angrathar itself, there was no army—no ruby flames, no sickening cloud of blight—to greet him.  It was empty, except Damian, and his hunter.  Panic drove him to the mouth of the gate, which he pounded on, to no avail.  The thing was gaining on him.

He heaved, trying to open the gate, trying to escape… when he knew that there would be no running away from this one.  As the creature grew closer… and Damian gripped the great-hammer on his back and drew it forth.  If he was to die here, in the same spot where his first love breathed his last… he would not go quietly, nor without a fight.

“Not without a fight,” he murmured, waiting for the critical moment.  As the creature lunged directly towards him, he used what was left of his strength—and spun around, swiping his hammer in a wide arc, eyes shut tightly.  But the hammer struck nothing, toppling from his hand and thumping against the snow.  He opened his eyes… to see nothing, in the blizzard that raged about him.

And, yet… there was some calm about him.  Some peace.  The biting wind and stinging ice seemed to slow to crawl, then stopped completely, suspended in midair all about him.  A ray of light broke through the thick clouds, before him… and he heard a voice.  Not one laced with shadows and deceit… one he had heard, a long… long time ago.  Calming, tender.  Beloved.  It uttered one word, one that reverberated throughout his body.  

“Come…”

Damian shrugged the hammer over his shoulder, the last thing he’d need before he set out.  The whispers in his head seemed somewhat displeased by this course of action, and warned him that he’d die out there, alone and afraid.  They wanted him to stay here, where it was safe… and warm.

“If I die…” he muttered to himself, “So be it.  I’m tired of hiding.”

He glanced over the quiet, darkened apartment one last time, making sure he’d done everything.  The parchment he’d rolled up in a scroll and tied with a little satin string rested on the pillow on his neatly-made bed, where he’d be sure Cameron would find it.

He took a deep breath to steady himself at the door… and then he pulled up the hood over his face.  He knew that this journey would either save him… or it would kill him.

“So be it,” he repeated, under his breath, one last time, stepping out the door and pulling it closed behind him, the idle click of the lock falling into place preceding the metal thuds of Damian’s boots on the wooden hall.  He thought of how he had started the letter, a quiet, bitter smile on his lips.

Dear Little Bird...