(Adventure Adrian and the Kings) The Herald Quest

Chapter Eighteen

EIGHTEEN

And so we cautiously approached the small stone bridge that led into this gloomy town. The sunlight had faded by now and even though the sun had risen only a few hours ago, it felt like dusk. I peered upwards to read the battered, wooden welcome sign that swung in the ever-increasing winds.

Welcome to Quilchester.

But this place didn’t look welcoming at all. In fact, there were so many piles of bricks and wood scattered over the cobble pavements that it felt like a scene from some horrible war.

“I never thanked you back there Jay,” Grace said softly with a rare, warm smile and awkwardly played with her hair as she spoke. “You really saved me from that Heretic and well…”

“It’s cool,” Jay replied humbly. “Not bad for a peasant though…hey?”

Jay ran on towards the bridge. Grace was clearly embarrassed by having to thank Jay for his bravery. But it had clearly made her think differently about him and I hoped it had changed her opinion of people whose lives were harder than hers. Grace and I did our best to keep up with Jay’s bounding and eventually walked onto the bridge ourselves to join him.

“Hey…where did all the water go?” Jay asked as he peered down into what must once have been a flowing stream. Yet now all we could see was a soil trench. The banks were covered with yellow, dried grass and the riverbed was nothing more than random murky puddles.

The three of us wandered further into the town and through the narrow cobble streets but all that greeted us were glum faces and scowling stares. The local residents slowly emerged from the run down houses and they seemed zombie like in a weird way. Their eyes were a milky white and they groaned constantly. I looked up to the sky to see the sun was now lost behind ever thickening storm clouds.

“What time is it?” I said uneasily.

“It must only be lunch time,” Grace guessed. “But it’s…it’s so dark!”

 “We’re moving into the Shadow aren’t we?” I gulped hard. And even though the other two feared the same thing, none of us dared admit it.

“The closer the Shadow looms, the stranger the days become,” a wild-eyed, elderly woman ranted at us before throwing a bucket of sludge into the street. We tried to jump and dodge the muck but it still sprayed all over our feet. “Day and night get tangled together!” 

The deeper we walked into the middle of town and the harder the people started to stare. Each of them began to sniff the air as if we smelt of something stale and mouldy. We’d been travelling for a while without being able to wash but I didn’t think we stank that badly. Hoards of townsfolk started to crowd in a circle around us and before long our group were trapped in.

Suddenly one of the women grabbed at Grace’s arm. I pushed the pale hand away but then another stranger took hold of me from the other side. I shrugged him off too but it was no use and within seconds, several hands started to tug us in all directions. We were in real trouble here!

It was then that a man appeared from a small house just behind us and was holding a brightly burning lantern into the air. He was a little scruffy and dirty looking but compared to the horrid people around us, this stranger looked more than normal and his skin was glowing with health. I glanced at his tiny stone house that was decorated with at least thirty night-lights of all different shapes and sizes.

As the rays of light from the glass boxes touched the townspeople’s stony faces, the crowd instantly moved backwards and started to groan louder. It was as if they were in pain from the effects of the lantern or afraid of the light in some way. In his other hand, the stranger held a large sword and used it to wave us towards him.