The Dark Stone Read online

  Sam rounded the corner just in time to watch Joshua run headlong into a figure coming the other way. He yelled wordlessly in surprise as arms swung closed to catch him and pull him close. Sam couldn’t tell whether it was man or woman, such was the disfigurement left by disease. Long, lank hair hung around its shoulders and down its back, clinging to yellow skin, oozing boils and open sores.

  It moved its head closer to Joshua as if trying to whisper something in his ear through cracked, bleeding lips and although he fought his hardest to escape, his kicks and punches had little effect. In their minds, the thing had no intention of speech, only to tear out Joshua's throat with blackened teeth.

  Sam raced forward and used all his momentum to punch the diseased thing square in the face. Its nose burst, spraying all three of them with bloodied pus. It trickled down Sam's sleeve but he hardly noticed. He'd lost enough people he cared about and didn’t plan on losing any more. Rage engulfed him and he jumped onto the figure’s back, raking his fingernails across its face while paying no mind to the boils and scabs which ripped off and caught beneath his nails.

  One of his fingers found purchase in an eye socket and Sam pulled with all his might, scrabbling to find the other eye with his other hand. The man, or woman, screamed and released its grip on Joshua to claw at its own face and the boys seized the opportunity to escape.

  Further down the street, another figure lurched toward them but it was slow, clumsy and easily dodged. The boys didn't stop running until they'd passed through the city gates and the shanty town and were in the fields beyond. Breathing hard, they collapsed to the ground with their backs propped against a dry stone wall.

  When they'd both regained enough breath to be able to speak, Joshua produced the money pouch they’d taken from the tavern. Sam watched as he opened it, wondering what he was going to do. He cleared a bare patch of dirt and upended the bag, tipping the contents into a neat pile on the floor. There was more money than Sam had ever seen, which wasn't a difficult feat.

  "Here," said Joshua, splitting the pile of coins into two. "This half's for you. You'd better go and hide it." With that he scooped up his own half, tipped it back into the pouch and hopped over the wall, walking back towards the shanty town via the fields.

  Sam rose to follow.

  "Find your own place," shouted Joshua over his shoulder.

  So, Sam wandered slowly along the wall, kicking and tugging at stones, trying to find one which was loose, but he didn't come across a place he thought good enough until he stopped his search at a gnarly old tree. Halfway up its wide trunk was a hole where a branch had snapped off and left a hollow split in the trunk. The cavity was more than big enough and without a second thought, Sam clambered up and dropped his coins in. Craning his neck to see inside, he found something satisfying about the glint of gold against the dark, damp wood and moss.

  After he’d finished admiring the gold he jumped down off the tree and met Joshua half way back to the wall where, realising they were both exhausted, they lay in long grass looking at the sky. As Sam's mind slowed to a more usual pace, his head reeled at how much his life had changed in such a short time.

  Joshua read the look on his face. "Forget about it," he said. "It's much easier to live in the here and now."

  Sam nodded in reply and watched thick black smoke rising up over the city. As darkness fell, it blotted out the stars in half of the sky, its base lit up with an orange glow.

  7

  With no idea of how fast or how far the fire would spread, they decided it would be much safer to spend the night outside the city walls. Besides, and despite Joshua’s reassurances they were too slow to hurt them, their encounter with the diseased people had left Sam shaken. Joshua's old house would provide shelter enough for two boys in need of a bed.

  Joshua paled when he entered and Sam had no need to ask what was bothering him, knowing all too well what memories the small, one roomed shack must have bought flooding back. So he didn’t pose any questions and just looked around quietly.

  The shack was roughly circular in shape and cobbled together from pieces of scrap wood, mud, straw and dung. In the centre was an open hearth; cold, black and damp from disuse while a hole in the roof above it served as a chimney.

  Around the edges of the room, four crude straw beds had gone to mould. Joshua indicated to one while busying himself tidying and returning some semblance of his former home. Sam left his new friend to his thoughts and memories while he contemplated sleep and inspected his bed. He didn’t ask who it used to belong to and opted to curl up on the floor next to it rather than spending a night breathing in damp spores.

  With his mind racing like a cartwheel turning at full gallop, Sam thought he'd never sleep. The fire they'd set was raging unchecked through the city and he wondered how much would be destroyed and whether they’d ever be held to account for their actions. And what of the poor folk who'd attacked them? He knew they were once whole, stripped of their faculties by disease and he pitied them, but any feelings of empathy were overruled by fear. He and Joshua would have to be more careful.

  A thud on the roof above them, quickly followed by another told of fat, heavy raindrops and a downpour to come. A rumble of thunder shook the night as if in reply to his thoughts before the heavens truly opened. Rain came as a dull roar, bouncing off the roof while a gusting wind rattled the meagre door in its frame. The small hole in the ceiling flashed white with lightning and thunder split the night in two. Wrapped in the noise of the storm, Sam drifted into a deep sleep.

  Joshua was shaking him awake. "Come on. Let's go," he was saying, excited about something.

  "What?" Sam rubbed his eyes and although his body ached from lying on the floor, staying where he was seemed much more comfortable than getting up.

  "Come on." He prodded Sam with his toes and headed out of the door.

  Irritated, Sam rose to follow. The storm had passed, leaving azure skies and a warming sun. Clouds towered on the horizon, stark against the pale blue, their edges embossed with silver gilding. The air smelled of stale bonfire and wisps of smoke and mist hung over the city. Sam stretched and yawned. "What's up?"

  "Let's go and see," came the reply from Joshua, who hardly seemed able to contain himself.

  Far from Sam's house, where they'd set the fire, the devastation was all too apparent. It had spread far and wide, but would have been much worse were it not for the storm, and the deluge it brought to dampen the ground and buildings. On the edge of the destruction, a house still stood and at a glance it appeared relatively unscathed, but beyond one proud and intact end wall, it was nothing more than a blackened shell, open to the sky.

  As they picked through the wreckage, moving from one pile of rubble to the next, charred stumps which had once supported whole buildings stood pointing skyward or leaning at crooked angles like giant tombstones amidst piles of ashes and charcoal. But even those became few and far between as the boys moved toward Sam's house. Smoke and steam still rose in patches, giving rise to low lying mist and an otherworldly appearance to the city. Progress was slow and more than once they were forced to change course because of hot spots underfoot, indistinguishable from the cooled earth until the ash above them was disturbed, causing glowing embers to reignite. Careful as they were, both boys still ended up with singed legs and blistered feet.

  As they wandered towards the epicentre, Joshua flitted from the remains of one house to the next with his eyes gleaming, looking for anything of worth left intact. Every now and again Sam watched as he bent to pick something up, before wiping it on his trousers for a better look and slipping the find into his pocket.

  Sam had no heart for foraging, especially as he kept coming across blackened bones and burnt remains, in some cases still smouldering. His eyes came to rest on the bottom half of a skull, the top half nothing more than a small heap of fine grey ash, indistinguishable from the burnt wood it rested in. He looked away and hoped his sister had been fully cremated.

  “Look at
this,” Joshua shouted from where he was prodding in the burnt remains of what might have once been a solid table. In his hand was a small, black chain with a misshapen lump at one end. At first Sam didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking at, until Joshua gave it a wipe on his sleeve. Beneath lay the unmistakeable glint of gold. “The fire’s done most our job for us,” he exclaimed. “Now we don’t even have to break down doors.”

  A jewellery box must have once graced the table for necklaces, bracelets and rings, although blackened with soot, remained in a neat pile for the taking. It was a rich enough cache for Sam to be distracted and Joshua could barely contain his excitement.

  Footsteps, crunching through the ruins tore their attention away from treasure and both boys snapped their heads toward the sound. Not far away and moving toward them, came one of the grotesquely deformed figures who’d attacked them the day before, lurching slowly but surely in their direction. There was no way of knowing whether it was actually one of the same ones but Sam doubted it. For a brief time, while they both stood staring, Sam wondered how many of them there were in the city. The boys didn’t think the figure had spotted them, but before it did they came to their senses and without a word, crept away as quickly and as quietly as they could, taking refuge behind a short section of ruined wall.

  It didn’t offer much in the way of cover but it was just about big enough for both boys to hide behind and peer out to see if they were being pursued. The figure stumbled closer, ambling along at the same steady pace as when they’d first spotted it. It neared the wall they were crouched behind, crunching through debris and kicking up clouds of ash where the fire had burned too hot for the rain to dampen. Sam could hear it’s ragged, gargling breath and held his own breath, praying the beating of his heart, so loud within his own ears, would not give them away.

  As the thing passed by them, close enough so Sam could have reached around the wall and touched it, Joshua leaned over and tugged on his sleeve. With a nod of his head, he signalled he was going to make a break for it and wanted Sam to follow. Sam dared not speak his reservations and so, as Joshua leapt to his feet and started to run, Sam faltered slightly, caught between the impulse to stay hidden or to follow his friend.

  The figure turned at the noise of their scurrying and for an instant Sam froze, looking deep within its eyes. Behind torn flesh and weeping sores all he saw was pain and he found himself unable to move. That was until the figure took another lurching step toward him. All the fear which had been building, pent up inside him, suddenly exploded and gave flight to his legs. Before long he’d overtaken Joshua as he vaulted broken walls and timbers, sprinted through the remains of people’s homes and tripped more than once, sprawling face down on the scorched earth just to rise and run some more.

  He didn’t stop until he reached the centre of Riverford and was standing on the bridge. On one side of the river, the buildings were untouched by fire but over his shoulder, in the direction they’d run from, hardly a wall was left unscathed. He leaned on the balustrade, catching his breath and trying to comprehend the enormity of their arson.

  “Weapons.” Joshua came panting behind him. “We need weapons.”

  Sam could only agree.

  8

  Joshua and Sam continued over the river and into the un-burnt city beyond. The deeper into the warren of streets they moved, the more the acrid smell of smoke and wet bonfire faded and was replaced by the all-pervading sweet stench of decay. They turned to follow the course of the river and it didn’t take long for them to find the blacksmiths, nestled in an alleyway just off a wide avenue. It was not by accident that they’d come across this particular place. Before disease had annihilated the city, Sam’s father had laboured there and sometimes Sam had gone with him simply to watch Pa work and to keep out of Ma’s hair for a little while.

  Above them swung the blacksmith’s sign. The paint still looked fresh but Sam noticed the ironwork already showed signs of rust. It had always been kept immaculately oiled in the past. The gates were open a crack and the two boys slipped into the small yard without a second thought. Feelings of longing came over him as memories of Pa came flooding back, but he forced himself to swallow them down and carry on.

  The yard was floored with packed earth, which in places still had a littering of straw although now it was brown and soggy. The door into the workshop and forge, also with a freshly painted sign hanging above it, was locked but proved no obstacle as Joshua picked up a hefty hammer, which had been leaning against the wall and using both hands, swung it at the lock. The first time he missed, jarring his arms up to the shoulders and leaving a semi-circular dent in the wooden frame. The second time his aim was truer, the lock flew apart and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

  Inside was windowless and dim but with the door open they could see well enough to find their way around. Light shone through in a wide beam, illuminating the anvil in the centre of the room as if it were an altar. Tools of the trade hung neatly from the walls, pincers, hammers and the like, all neatly stashed away. The forge itself lay cold. Logs were stacked neatly beside it, as if at any moment the smiths would come walking in through the door and resume their day’s work.

  The workshop contained little of interest for the boys and Sam quickly beckoned Joshua to another door with hardly a glance around. The room beyond was darker still but even through the gloom, the glint of steel was obvious. They’d soon lit one of the lamps hanging from the wall and stood gawking at the sight in front of them. None of the walls was bare. Swords and axes of every size hung from racks, every one of them reflecting the yellow lamp-light until it dazzled. In the corners of the room stood four full suits of armour. At their feet, metal gauntlets and helmets with full visors were arranged neatly to best show them off. In the middle was an oval table; a functional rather than beautiful piece of furniture, made of solid wood which had split along its rim from age. On it was spread a selection of daggers and knives of all descriptions, more types than either boy thought possible.

  “They make all the weapons for the city here.” Sam tried to sound casual, as if it were somewhere he had used to come often but in reality, he’d never entered this particular room before, and had only heard Pa mention it once or twice in passing.

  Joshua’s mouth hung half open. And then he began to chuckle. “Look at me,” he said, lifting one of the helmets onto his head. It rested more on the top of his arms than his shoulders and with the weight of it, he struggled to stand upright. “Shame they’re too big,” he said about the suits of armour.

  “Can we just get something and go?” Sam was feeling uneasy.

  Joshua flung off the helmet and let it crash to the ground before heading for the largest broadsword he could see, which hung in pride of place, dead centre of the back wall. “Fit for a king this one.” He tried to lift it, standing on tiptoes to unhook it from the rack by pushing up on the ornate guard. It too clattered to the ground, point first where it made a spark.

  Meanwhile, Sam gazed around until he spotted a short sword he thought might be manageable. When he took it down it still felt heavy in his hand and clumsy in his grip but he thought he’d be able to get used to it. Joshua too chose himself a slightly more sensible, if still large, blade and immediately turned his attention to the table of knives. His face had taken on a more serious air as he caressed, in turn, the flat side of a few weapons before tucking two into the back of his belt. Sam chose himself a solid, functional knife which he thought might be useful for more than just defence.

  On returning back into the workshop, Joshua swung his new sword in an arc high over his head and at the pile of firewood. It sank deep into the top log and when he lifted the sword, the log came with it. He was giggling as he bashed it against the wall, first one way and then the other to try and free his sword until eventually it came loose enough so he could place a foot on the wood and yank the blade out. When he’d finished pratting about, both boys took their new found weapons to a large grind wheel in t
he corner and proceeded in turn to hone their steel. The blades didn’t really need sharpening to be effective and after a few minutes they’d both tired of the hard work, after only succeeding in taking the shine off the steel.

  Whilst they’d been inside the wind had turned from brisk to biting and as they walked, Joshua was swinging his sword aimlessly, practicing his moves and keeping warm. When after a few minutes they came across a tavern, he didn't hesitate to swing his blade at the lock, which flew apart on impact. Sam followed him inside, glancing at the sign swinging above the door as he did, telling them they’d entered The Coach and Horses.

  They had only been outside for a few minutes but it felt good to be sheltered from the wind. With reddened cheeks it was declared they needed something to warm themselves and Joshua opened a bottle from the large store of brandy they quickly found behind the bar. At first it made them both splutter and wince but after two or three glasses it had the desired effect and Sam felt warmth spreading throughout his body, from his tummy outwards.

  Joshua disappeared further into the building to ransack the place. It sounded like he was knocking and chopping things with the sword as if it were a new toy. Sam had no stomach for it. Going to his father’s workplace had bought on a sudden glut of grief and instead he sat with the bottle in front of him, drowning his sorrows. It wasn’t long before his head was spinning and he rested it on the bar.

  “There’s comfy beds up here,” Joshua shouted from upstairs. He sounded a long way away from where Sam was. “And there’s no dead people.”

  Sam felt sick.

  A few moments later, Joshua came barrelling noisily down the stairs. “Come and look at this, it’s great. I think we can stay here. I’ve got the big room because I found it.”