Death will come, riding on a black horse, to swallow the world in his shadow. They and he of the five will bind together, and the sixth will defeat the darkness.
Jeck Henly took pride in keeping his little house clean, which included sweeping any leaves from the path leading up to his door. He was an old man and had long since retired as a bookkeeper, so keeping his place neat was as much of a way to pass time, as a care for cleanliness. As the wind picked up, it lifted the cap from his balding head and he reached up to grab it before it got away. Placing the hat back on tightly, Jeck went back to sweeping as if it had never happened. It was almost a game to him; a sense of stubbornness, that he would outlast the wind that day, and when the wind finally died away, he felt a growing satisfaction as he continued sweeping the remaining leaves from the stone walkway. Half way down the path he stopped with a curious wonder.
The sky to the west looked as if it was noon, which it was, but the sky above him looked as if it was dusk. There was not a cloud in the sky, and yet the day continued to grow darker even though the sun should still be high. Others were noticing the strange scene as well, as they stopped what they were doing to look around in a curious fashion. Soon, every eye became fastened to the eastern sky, its near pitch dark crawling toward them.
It was only a few hours before the village was covered in darkness, as if it was night, and every person had a lamp and was outside talking to one another, giving their opinions of what was happening. The moon had moved to block the sun. No, it was not the right time or year for that. The sun had gone out like in the stories of Marythos and his adventures. No, they could still see the sun shining in the distance to the west. The theories for the eerie darkness were numerous and each was expelled with nothing more than common logic.
Old Jeck rubbed his chin for a moment before deciding on one fact. He would trust his instinct and get away. He was an elemental, though be it a very weak one, and very few knew of it. Nonetheless, his ability was in spirit and he had long ago learned to trust his feelings. Especially when they grabbed at his stomach even half as strong as he felt them clenching it now. Not only was something not right, something was dreadfully wrong, and he could feel it in his core. Henley’s first reaction was to try and warn the others. He tried to tell them something bad was coming, but his warnings fell upon deaf ears. The few he tried to tell only laughed at him, accusing him of being afraid of the dark, so he ignored them as he went inside and quickly packed. They should know better than to ignore his warnings! Did he not warn them to bring their crops in early two years ago before a swarm of locust destroyed them? Did he not warn them not to go out to sea to fish on the dreadful day last summer, before rough waters took three boats? Twice they have ignored his feelings, and twice they had paid dearly and still they laugh at him again! Wrapping his gnarled fingers around his pack, he lifted it over his shoulder and went back outside.
The others were now joking about the strange shadow covering their town and a few laughed as he walked with his bag to the stables and saddled his horse ‘Clops’. More joined in with jaunts of their own as he rode out of the barn and out of town, but he ignored them every inch of the way. The western ground rose steadily for two hundred paces and he was just topping the rise when he heard a distant scream behind him. Turning Clops around, Jeck watched in horror as small winged creatures began attacking the people. The creatures had legs and arms like humans with wings of bats. The people screamed as they ran from them or tried in vain to fight them, but there were too many, far too many to fight. Where someone would fall, the creatures would converge on them and moments later would be off again looking for their next victim, leaving behind them a scattering of flesh wrought bones. Writhes, with their ghostly cloaks were there as well, snatching the souls out of the dying and the living, the death hounds attacking any spirits of the dead that might try to get away. He could not see the souls of the dead. He did not need to. Everyone knew what the Writhes and Hellhounds were about, though he had never heard of a writhe attacking the living unless the living tried to interfere. Lamps were turned over or smashed, the flames spreading quickly through the village creating a hellish background to all of the chaos. Yet, out of this entire unbelievably nightmarish scene, it was not the fire or the people dying or the winged beasts and writhes that attracted Jeck’s eye. It was the rider that seemed to go untouched that commanded attention. A man in a dark cloak riding on a black horse moved slowly among the carnage, surveying the handiwork; his cloak swirling around as if caught up by a breeze when there was none. He and his black horse moved right through heavy flames and neither rider nor horse ever showed any sign of noticing the flames or the heat.
Suddenly, the rider’s head swung to look in Jeck’s direction and a thin pasty white hand lifted and pointed at him. Some of the winged creatures turned and started to fly towards him and still it took Jeck a moment to move, for it was difficult to tear his eyes away from the dark clad stranger. Spinning Clops around, he dug his heels into the horse’s ribs and rushed away. As he sped on, the darkness slowly began to give away to light, but behind him he could hear the flapping of the featherless wings gaining on him quickly. The darkness was fading still, but too slowly he thought. He would never make it to the light in time.
“Damn my blasted curiosity!” Jeck said to his horse. “I had to stop and watch, didn’t I? Now I might be torn to shreds just like all the others!”
As the creatures came closer he started to hear more than just their wings. They began to utter words at him in thin scratchy voices, though whatever it was that they were saying, he didn’t understand a word. They were speaking in a language that sounded harsh and foreign to any he had ever heard before.
Urging Clops for more speed, Jeck began to fear the worst when he realized the heavy beating of the wings were no longer getting closer. They were now only keeping pace with him, and then a moment later they began to fall back. Risking a look behind him as he sped away he could see them hovering at what must have been their limit, their hands clenching and unclenching as if upset he had gotten away. One of the creatures tried to continue, but it didn’t get far into the light before it began to scream just for an instant before it exploded into a cloud of dust. Pulling Clops to a halt, Jeck sat his saddle and watched them for a moment before realizing they were not hovering but they were moving slowly towards him. Their speed seemed coincided with that of the growing shadow.
The air near the flying creatures began to shimmer like a mirage for a moment, and then formed into a larger beast that was now standing amongst them. This one did not have wings to fly and its body was heavily muscled with thick arteries showing through its leathery skin.
"That one, Clops”, Jeck had a habit of speaking to his horse like it was his best friend. “Would not have needed any help from his friends to pull off our limbs.” Jeck spoke the words quietly as if afraid to hear them himself.
Realizing the shadow was now moving faster than it had when it first hit his village; Jeck decided he had best keep moving. There would be villages ahead of him that would need to be warned. He was sure they would not listen to him. Nobody ever did, but he would give them that chance anyway. As he turned Clops to the west, he could hear the larger beast shout from behind him. Again he didn’t recognize the language, but somehow, he knew what the words meant as if they had been uttered in the spirit just so he would understand. “You cannot run from Death!”
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