The Dark Stone Read online

  After a while he opened his eyes and looked upon it once more, wondering on what he’d found, until the rustling of leaves broke his absorption and he almost fell backwards off the log. He stuffed the stone back into his pocket, safe from prying eyes, only to see a badger snuffling around the undergrowth with its stripy snout. It momentarily fixed Sam with a beady, black stare before bowling back into the trees and out of sight. The light was beginning to fade from the forest floor and Sam jumped down from his perch and slowly walked back to the clearing, deep in thought about his stone and the secrets it held.

  All the others had already returned and were crouched with their backs to the fallen tree. When Sam came into the clearing they turned to face him. “Where have you been?” asked Elle eyeing him up and down, and then with, with a frown, “Why are you smiling?”

  “No reason." Sam didn't realise he was smiling and quickly checked himself, changing his expression into one of hungry disappointment.

  "Did you find anything?" she asked without much hope in her voice.

  He shook his head. "You?"

  Elle also gave a small shake of her head. "The children came back with a few bits. But we don't know what they are." On the ground in front of her were a bunch of bright red berries, a handful of acorns and two types of fungi.

  Sam had a closer look and then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know either." he said.

  Once the sun sank below the horizon the temperature started to drop, but thankfully it wasn’t yet the full chill of autumn. Under a waxing moon and the watchful gaze of Orion the hunter, the circle of child-refugees huddled together. Their attempts at fire-lighting proved futile, having not been able to find any wood or kindling dry enough to catch a spark. They were all damp and shivering.

  Elle and Sam wrapped the children in blankets, together in twos and threes for warmth and Sam gave his up for them to lie on even though it meant him staying cold. Eventually, when nearly all of them were asleep and the ones that weren’t tossed and turned against the uncomfortable ground, Sam began to regret his altruism. It was then that Elle, who was lying near his feet, opened one eye and lifted the corner of her blanket. He didn’t need asking twice and clambered in next to her.

  They wrapped their arms tightly around each other and pulled their bodies close. Lying cheek to cheek, the wispy down on his young face was not yet bristly enough to cause her any irritation. She sighed and for a moment, with the dark of the forest all around, they found solace in each other’s embrace.

  Soon she was asleep while Sam savoured her body-heat radiating into his. Gently, he kissed the top of her head and nuzzled her hair. Without waking she smiled and tightened her arms around him. Her breasts pushed against him, gently rising and falling with each breath, above her gently beating heart. One of her legs rested over his and he could feel her breath on his neck.

  There was a stirring beneath his robe and although he didn’t want to, he pushed away from her and reached down to touch himself. He'd grown hard and took it within his closed fist; lying on his back and looking up at the stars, knowing he wanted her.

  25

  He awoke from the throes of a nightmare. Beside him Elle was snoring softly and in the instant he looked at her, his dreams were forgotten. All that remained was a feeling of uneasiness he couldn’t shake.

  The sun was yet to rise but Sam was too cold to try going back to sleep and crawled from under the blanket. He could almost hear his seized joints creaking back into life.

  Trying to light a fire wasn't an option; even if the twigs had been dry, he didn't know who had the flint and it was too dark to look for it, so he sat and waited for the sun to come up. Somewhere distant a barn owl let go a blood-curdling screech. He looked down at Elle and could just about make out her form as a dark shadow, half beneath the fallen tree. He contemplated climbing back under the blanket but she was sleeping soundly and he didn’t want to risk waking her. Instead he pulled his robes more tightly about himself and paced the clearing in the dark, trying not to trip over sleeping children.

  Moving didn’t help as much as he'd hoped. Dawn was around the corner and the stars were beginning to dim as the black sky gradually turned grey. The cold and damp were unbearable; Sam was shaking uncontrollably and pushed trembling hands into his pocket where they touched upon the stone. It was warm beneath his fingers and he squeezed for a while before pulling it out to look at.

  The tiny glyphs which covered its jet black surface glowed with an odd green phosphorescence and even in the half-light of dawn, he could see them perfectly. Mesmerised by the strange letters, he didn’t notice he’d stopped shivering and the cold had retreated from his bones.

  He blinked and snatched his gaze away when he realised somebody was speaking. “Pardon?” he said.

  “I'm hungry.”

  Sam looked at her blankly.

  “Is there anything to eat?” the girl repeated from where she crouched by the tree.

  "Jenny isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Jenna,” she replied.

  “Sorry.”

  “Close enough,” she said, peering up at him.

  "We'll find something to eat today," he said. "There'll be somewhere just on the other side of these woods.

  "A house?" she asked.

  "Yes. We'll find a house, or an inn, or just some kind people who won't let us starve.”

  Jenna smiled a pitiful smile though her dirt streaked face.

  Above them, black clouds amassed to blot out the watery sun. Leaves rustled overhead, falling in ever greater numbers as a gusting wind shook them free of their branches. Then came the rain. A few fat drops at first which quickly turned into a deluge.

  The trees offered some protection from the elements but not enough, as water gathered and slid from the canopy in torrents, soaking those below. The noise became unbearable, as the wind strengthened and rustling became a din. Boughs creaked and the rain hammered and sploshed. All the children were quiet as they squelched through thick mud which clung to their shoes in clods. Somewhere behind him a girl began to sob.

  First Sam lost one shoe to the mire and then the other but he pushed on through it, as they all did. The smallest children kept stumbling and were all caked in mud. Half walking, half stumbling, they made slow progress until eventually the path opened up onto a track wide enough for a horse and cart to pass along.

  Sam collapsed onto the narrow strip of grass between the puddle-filled ruts, with his upturned face catching the rain. It wasn’t only the ruts which were filling with water; a good many and recent boot-prints had churned the road to slurry. Sam looked up and down the track. In one direction lay nothing but forest but the other way, a church steeple poked up from above the trees.

  It didn’t seem too far and the sight of it gave renewed impetus to the children as they climbed out from the mud and began to lurch toward it.

  No one mentioned the footprints but Sam was sure they belonged to the men who’d sacked St Peter’s and the Mount. A knot formed in his stomach at the thought they might still be at the church and had the lure of shelter and warmth not been so great, he might have voiced his concerns. As it was, he was too cold and too hungry to care and swallowed down his fear, angry he needed to feel it at all.

  When they reached the church, all was quiet apart from the storm which raged around them. They huddled beneath the wooden porch, out of the rain and squeezing together to avoid waterfalls cascading off the slanted roof. When they were all together, Sam opened the door. The iron ring on the outside turned easily and the catch opened with a clunk. Sam pushed the door wider and stepped over the threshold.

  He wasn't surprised to see someone had been there before them. Pews lay overturned and smashed, as did anything else which held little or no value. Gold and silver artefacts were obvious in their absence and slumped in front of the pulpit was the priest. Spreading out from his body in all directions was a tacky black puddle of dried blood and fluids. Innards trailed out of the holy man’s torso, from wher
e he’d been sliced almost in two across his midriff.

  Elle gasped and ushered the children back outside onto the porch, but in the instant they'd walked into the church, the image had been burned into each of their minds.

  With a grim resoluteness, Sam strode to where the corpse lay and only faltered when he saw the priest’s eyes; open, glassy and lacking most of their colour. With his fingertips, he pulled down the lids whilst depictions of angels gazed down upon him from stained glass windows.

  Sam then took hold of the priest under each armpit and pulled with all his strength. With a sick peeling sound the body separated from the stone floor. Moving it was tough for the already weakened Sam and rigor-mortis made the job no easier, but he did it in short bursts with bloody-minded determination to give him strength. Entrails dragged behind, leaving long smears across the stone flags and when he reached the door he needed to retrace his steps to gather them up. The noxious stench of blood and waste was foul enough to coat his tongue as he heaped the innards as best he could in and around the body

  All eyes followed him as he marched back outside into the rain. Weaving around gravestones and yew trees, Sam made his way around to the back of the church. A small cottage lay across the graveyard, just beyond a moss covered wall and Sam made a mental note to investigate it later.

  Tucked against the back wall of the church stood a ramshackle old outhouse. It had no door to speak of, just a few old slats which had long since rotted to stumps. Sam poked his head through the opening and in the gloom, amongst a jumble of other cobweb covered tools, he saw a shovel. Without hesitation he took it and marched back around to the church entrance where he found a patch of undisturbed ground and started to dig.

  Not long after he'd begun, it started to go darker still as daylight began to wane. Torrential rain lashed down and turned his hole to mud. Sam worked without respite through gritted teeth and never once contemplated rest, even after the skin rubbed from the heels of his hands, leaving bloody smears on the shovel’s handle.

  All the time his anger was building as he puzzled about who was responsible for the attacks. Whoever it was and whatever the motives, he vowed to make them pay. Not only for the massacre at St Peter’s but also for the priest and most of all, for shattering the illusion of safety he’d been feeling for the past two years.

  By the time he was clambering out of the hole the rain had eased to spits and the sun was beginning to poke out from between retreating clouds. Most of the children lay slumbering in the doorway, wrapped together in blankets. Elle was amongst them. Too tired to speak, Sam nudged any who were in his way with his foot as he went back inside.

  It took gargantuan effort to drag the priest the rest of the way outside and to the grave. Elle was on her feet and trying to shield the youngsters who were awake from the macabre spectacle but a good few stared on aghast and more than one of them turned away, retching into the brambles.

  He tried to lower the body in gently, but ended up rolling it over the lip of the grave so the priest splashed into the muddy puddle at the bottom, trailing guts in after it but Sam still had to nudge the rest of the entrails in with his feet.

  With the priest in the hole, Sam bowed his head and made the sign of the cross on his chest before heading for the cottage he’d seen. All his strength and will were spent and he left the grave open with the shovel lying on the ground next to it.

  Just outside the cottage door he noticed a well, but was too exhausted to raise the bucket. Fortunately, a half full pail of water was sitting on the ground next to it and Sam removed his sodden robes and stood naked in the morning sun. He splashed the water over himself as best he could before trying the door, which was thankfully unlocked.

  26

  Sunlight streamed into the room through open windows, illuminating particles of dust so they glittered like stars around the low ceiling beams. Sam opened his eyes and for a moment struggled to remember how he’d got into bed. In the hearth, embers still smouldered and in front of the fire stood a chair; his robes draped over the back, where they were best positioned to dry. The cottage was filled with the aroma of fresh baked bread. Throwing off the blanket, Sam tentatively sat up and swung his legs to the floor. His whole body hurt as muscles creaked back into life, moving but not without protest. He planted his palms on the edge of the bed to push himself up, but quickly retracted them as the rough wood pressed into his calluses and blisters.

  Eventually, and with a groan, he stood and shuffled through into the pokey living area, hardly taking stock of his surroundings as he focussed on the door opposite, which led to outside.

  The morning was chill but not frosty and cool air refreshed Sam’s naked skin as he stretched his arms out wide and over his head while standing on tip-toes in an attempt to coax seized muscles back into life. He yawned. His breath hung as a plume of white mist in the air.

  The handle to raise the bucket from the well was stiff to start, but once he’d got it turning moved more freely and soon there was water in his hands. Sam raised the bucket up above his head and tipped it up before giving himself the chance to think about how cold it would be. As the water collided with his skin he sucked in a sharp breath, holding it in until he was sure he wouldn’t squeal before letting it out in another jet of fog.

  Just as he’d managed to fill the second bucket and was about to begin washing himself, Sam had a feeling of being watched. Elle had been standing in the small gate to the churchyard for some time but when he turned around, she pretended to have only just arrived. Both of them blushed. Sam covered himself with a cupped hand while Elle turned away.

  “Sorry,” she shouted, “I’ll give you a couple of minutes.”

  “Thanks,” he replied and scuttled back into the cottage to fetch his robes.

  He met her at the door, waving her into the cottage where they each took a wooden chair to sit on.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Much better for a few hours’ sleep,” he said, although his joints were still stubbornly resisting any movement. She gave a small laugh and he couldn’t help smiling with her. “What’s funny?” he asked.

  “It’s been a bit more than a few hours.”

  “What do you mean?” The sun had been rising when he’d gone into the cottage, and still shone in through open windows. He guessed it had to be some time in the mid-afternoon.

  “You’ve slept for a whole day and night, and this morning,” she said, quickly followed by, “You must be hungry?”

  He was, and the smell of bread only made him more so. As if to answer for him, his stomach let out a loud rumble.

  Elle rose from her chair. “Wait there.” She went to the kitchen as if it were her own and opened the pantry door. From within it she removed some butter and a knife, taking them to where the loaf was cooling on the windowsill. Sam craned his neck to try and see what else might be in there but her body was in the way.

  “Thankfully this place wasn’t looted,” she said, flashing him another warm smile.

  He ate greedily. “Where’s everybody else?” he asked between mouthfuls, spitting crumbs across the room. “Sorry,” he said, remembering his manners and using the back of his hand to wipe his lips.

  “They're about; we got out early to let you rest."

  “Thanks. That’s good of you.”

  Elle was looking at the ground and shuffling her feet. “We should be leaving soon,” she said after a pause.

  “Oh,” he said, looking at the floor. “I was hoping to be spending a little more time here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I need a few days’ rest.”

  She looked confused. “But we’re all tired,” she said slowly.

  “After all that’s happened, I need a little bit of time on my own; a few days’ solitude and prayer.”

  Elle was fidgeting with her hands, looking hurt. “I could do with a rest too,” she said. “But we don’t have the luxury with the little ‘uns to look after and all.”
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br />   Sam slipped his hand into his pocket and for a brief moment panic came over him when it didn’t touch the stone. He quickly glanced around the room and was relieved to see it nestled on the windowsill. “I’m truly sorry,” he said, “but head along the road, and I’ll catch you up in a day or two.”

  “Oh come on. After me and you, Fredrick’s the eldest, and he’s only twelve. How am I supposed to manage the children on my own.”

  “I think I’ll be more of a hindrance,” he said without conviction. For a brief moment he felt a pang of guilt and knew he should go with them, but the urge to spend time alone with the black stone was too great. “I know you can do it and I’ll pray for you all.”

  Although hurt and baffled, Elle could see he wouldn’t be dissuaded and shook her head, resigning herself to the idea of him staying behind. “I think Princeton’s not far from here, maybe two days. We'll go there.”

  “Princeton?”

  “Yes. Hopefully they’ll let us in and someone there will help us.” She looked through him, her mind deep in thought.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” he said, rising from his chair and going into the kitchen to open the pantry door, “Help yourself.” There wasn’t a great deal of food left, but the few preserves and a small sack of grain would keep the children going until they reached safety.