The Prologue?
Oh yes this is just the beginning of it all... Enjoy
Tome: When the Night Falls
Prologue Continued...
Dead Weight was his name, he stood again, back against the wall, shadows enveloping his form. More men were piling in with every moment but he had no quarrel with them now that they were here. Those before were unfortunate to be the first to pass his gaze.
He passed the cloth along the blade cleaning it of the slick blood than ran down its black, hazy blade, once he was finished there were many more, paranoid, trigger-happy soldiers. Their untrained eyes passed straight over him without them even noticing.
Under the ski-mask, Dead Weight couldn’t help but smile. The shadows were his allies. Nobody could hope for any help from that.
Sheathing his sword as quietly as he could, Dead Weight passed his hand over his form and waited until he could feel the shadows pressed hard against his face, suppressing some features and enlarging others.
Then he waited. Waited until nobody was looking and then he stuck in the most silent way possible. Dead Weight walked out of the shadows and nobody noticed him, they looked at him and nodded or someone said something to him but he didn’t say anything back. Maybe nodded or a simple smile as someone joked.
He was leaving without anybody noticing.
Shadows were amazing things before Necromancy had to get involved. In the shadows, light was nothing. It was a place where the darkest of people could slink away and cower or use it as their ally to attack.
Necromancy took this to the next step. Shadows cannot be touched but using Necromancy gave the user to touch the impossible. The touch shadows is to touch the very start of death itself, the gateway to that cold, cold land beyond. Dead Weight knew… he had been… he had witnessed rebirth again… twice.
Touching death, he had placed its eternal coldness over his body like a suit. He was no longer Dead Weight, but another soldier. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He passed by the enemy easily, unhindered until suddenly a firm hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him back.
“And where the hell do you think you’re going?” the man asked looking Dead Weight straight in his mechanical eye.
For a moment, Dead Weight thought that he had seen something in that reflection of the mechanical eye. Something that he had missed when he had looked over the bodies, something that was out of place. Maybe it was the absence of the sound of the ticking mechanical eye.
Shadows could replicate physical objects but were totally absent of sound or being able to mask sound. Was it this that the man saw or was it something else?
He didn’t attack him. He didn’t do anything.
Dead Weight answered in the shrewdest interpretation of one of the soldiers, almost sure that he would be caught once he had said the words: “I’m going to make sure that the Clockwork Watchman is safe…”
The man looked hesitant as if unsure of whether to slap this man back to his post or congratulate him for his quick thinking.
Then he answered, “Go. I think he’s down in the Archives.” Then he rushed off into the crowd and started ordering people about again.
Dead Weight sighed and he pushed his way past two more soldiers brought to the calling of the dead. The Clockwork Watchman. Dead Weight didn’t know what a Clockwork Watchman did but he knew what they could do.
Die.
Scream.
Scanning across both sides of the hallway, Dead Weight took the opportunity to remove his shadowy skin. Its energy dissipated and he breathed heavily, glad to be out of that tight skin.
Powerfully, Dead Weight ploughed on, sticking close to the walls. Every time he passed under a light they dimmed as the residue Necromancy clung to the light. It was what shadows did best: cling to the light and destroy it.
The lights brightened as the shadows died out.
The light however (almost) always won…
This time, Dead Weight would make sure that the shadows won, determined, exited movements fuelled his way forwards through the corridors. He had a vague idea of where he was going but it was slow. Every time he took a wrong turn it took more time to get back on the right track.
Voices. Loud voices. Joking. A steaming kettle boiled. He could hear all of those sounds. A door was swung wide open and the steam from the kettle poured out.
Dead Weight pressed himself hard against the wall and listened intently to the voices.
“Five guys, dead… how did the guy do it?” Dead Weight took pride in his work.
“With a lot of skill and luck. Soldiers of the Cult of the Mechanics are not cowards,” another said.
“Yes they are,” Dead Weight thought.
“What about the Clockwork Watchman? Is he… safe…?” another asked.
“No,” Dead Weight thought.
“I’d better go and check on him,” the same voice said.
Dead Weight swore quietly.
He pressed himself harder against the wall and threw the shadows up. The work was quick and shoddily done.
A man walked out and Dead Weight groaned, he would notice and he would shoot him. It wasn’t anything that he couldn’t deal with of course but he would rather that this stayed quiet. The soldier looked straight at him but ignored the defect in the wall and carried on.
Dead Weight waited until he was around the corner and let the shadows drop, the lights above flickered a little and he hurried away before any more walked out from their break.
Waiting until the soldier had turned the corner, Dead Weight sprinted down the corridor and continued like this, being led back along many routes that he had come obviously showing his complete lack of a sense of direction.
Long ago he had an augmented sense of direction. All of the things that had made him perfect but now he was human again, Dead Weight could feel the hot blood run over his skin. The thrills. The shamefulness. The scares.
He adored it all. Dead Weight adored life.
And he didn’t want to go back to death again, that was the only thing that he truly feared.
The man stopped and flicked through his keys to open the doors. Dead Weight watched him with great intent, waiting until he opened the doors.
His hands moved so slowly. Everything took an age for him to move until finally the door clicked open and Dead Weight made his move.
His hand clamped over the soldier’s face and he grabbed his gun and pressed it to his head. “Shhh,” Dead Weight hissed. Then he snapped the man’s neck and let him fall weakly to the floor. He did not stir. He did not get up.
Satisfied that the man was never going to get up, Dead Weight opened the door and walked in. The room was dark, dim blue lights illuminated the room and in it Dead Weight could see one silhouetted man in the darkness.
“You have come to check on me then?” the man asked.
“I have.” Dead Weight’s answer was blunt
“You haven’t…” the man answered. “Who are you?”
“I am a Soldier of the Cult of the Mechanics,” Dead Weight came closer towards the silhouetted man.
“You are not,” he roared and the lights flared into activity and illuminated the room revealing the man at its centre.
Dead Weight hid his eyes from the light, his black, skin tight suit reflected some of the light and he cast a casual hand across his form dimming the lights with his Necromancy.
In this light he could see easier, more accustomed to the shadows.
The man’s face was lined with deep wrinkled recesses and it was pale. Paler than what was truly humanly possible. The life had been drained from his form by two long pipes that glinted lightly with a slight blueness. His eyes were void of life and yet his voice boomed as if he were ten years younger than his body was.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
“To kill you,” Dead Weight drew his sword, the dark haze instantly drew any light away from his form.
The man let out raucous laughter and then he rose slowly, painfully from his place on the floor, “Do you really think that you can kill me? I am the incarnation of a God. The Machine God.”
“And I am going to kill you, God or not,” Dread Weight rushed forwards holding his sword high above his head and when within striking distance could feel the power of a punch being forced into his stomach and then a furious force of invisible energy throw him back against the wall. Hard.
He rolled out of the dent that he had made and landed pushing himself up off of the ground. He had dropped his sword far away from the place that he had landed.
The man started to rise off of the ground, gravity nothing to this entity as his eyes shone the same bright blue as the lights on the wall.
“I am the Clockwork Watchman and this is my place,” he roared.
Dead Weight ran forwards picking up his sword as he ran forwards and attacked. The Clockwork Watchman deflected the blows of the strikes with something invisible. Some force that Dead Weight could not be see. It didn’t stop his attacking, thrusting. Hoping to draw blood from his enemy.
Then the invisible force found a way past his defence and cut into his suit and skin. Blood ran and he almost dropped his sword, refusing stubbornly to make any sound other than to grunt in pain.
Dead Weight rushed back unwilling to be attacked by that power again. It was like no pain that he had felt before. With every passing second it burned and boiled his blood with every second that passed. And it spread, up his arm until it reached his shoulder.
“Why do you wish to kill me assassin?” the man asked.
“You killed someone… close to me,” Dead Weight said.
“I’ve killed many assassin. Remind me…” the man said.
“The Noble Alliance,” Dead Weight told him.
The mans’ eyes widened, “Who are you?”
“Your worst nightmare,” Dead Weight held his sword high over his head feeling the burning spread through his body and over his form until his whole body burnt.
Finally screaming, Dead Weight brought his sword back over his head and threw it forwards straight towards the man. It sliced through one of the pipes and cut it open. The powers of a “God,” flooding out over the floor, thick gas rising up and into the air. The sword fell to the floor and rang as it slid across the ground.
The man fell to the floor his power gone and bleeding energy.
Dead Weight walked forward towards the man, he looked even older now as the life left his body. The man took a knife from his belt but Dead Weight battered it away and looked down at the old man.
“Machine God save me,” he wailed aloud.
Dead Weight grabbed the man by his throat and lifted him up high and slammed him against the wall.
“Shut up,” Dead Weight roared. “Four years, four bloody years,” he seethed, “It feels like an eternity…”
Dead Weight held him higher and watched him squirm and rock as wriggle as he gasped for air.
“Cale… I’m going to kill you,” he said finally and he waited.
Dead Weight waited until he heard the pop of his lungs and airway exploding. There was no way back from that.
Cale had been a Necromancer once but after the fall of Necromancy the Necromancers had dispersed. Cale had suck out the Cult of the Mechanics and learned their ways rising through their ranks quickly, very quickly. Some thought too quickly but Cale had his ways with rising to power. Dead Weight knew this well.
Dead Weight clutched the heart pendant that hung around his neck, “My love…” he said but the words trailed off. Someone was coming. The door swung open and there was Dead Weight with the dead Clockwork Watchman at his feet.
“You!” the man who walked in said.
Dead Weight was upon him instantly…
Dead Weight the killer. What did Cale do in the past that was so bad? Why did Dead Weight kill him? What will the Cult of the Mechanics do?
Stay tuned for Chapter 1 where Dead Weight's story continues...
Dead Weight the killer. What did Cale do in the past that was so bad? Why did Dead Weight kill him? What will the Cult of the Mechanics do?
Stay tuned for Chapter 1 where Dead Weight's story continues...
Robbie
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