Bleak: The Voice

Purplish blood threads through the black water toward the hovel, tugging faintly at Eldjhartað’s greatsword. The scrape resumes ahead, deliberate and measured.

The boy remains at the alder opening instead of returning home, his patched tunic dusted with snow. Fresh boot prints circle a widened chamber beneath the hovel.

Tool marks score the chamber walls, neat cuts through old earth and stone. Ash has been packed into the grooves, while a caretaker’s discarded shovel lies beside the drain.

The imitation draws nearer without a body appearing. Each copied breath comes from beyond the chamber, where fresh boot prints vanish into a dark passage beneath the house.

Eldjhartað closes the distance to the boy in two strides. His large hand clamps across the back of the child’s neck, forcing him downward as the boy’s boots scrape through the snow.

The pressure leaves the child limp and quiet without blood or spectacle. Eldjhartað lowers him beside the alder roots, where his patched tunic blends with the trampled snow.

The boy’s breathing remains shallow but steady. His footprints end beneath the roots, while the caretaker’s trail continues into the dark passage beneath the hovel.

Purplish threads recoil from the chamber wall, drawing toward the passage. The discarded shovel lies ahead, its handle marked with fresh black moisture.

Beyond the chamber, copied breathing fades into the earth. The route beneath the hovel waits open, and the dark presence withdraws just far enough to be followed.

Eldjhartað enters the passage slowly, placing each boot between the caretaker’s prints. The cramped earth presses close, and black moisture beads along the shovel’s handle.

His careful step finds a loosened stone instead. It shifts beneath his weight with a dull crack, and the sound rolls through the passage toward the hovel.

Eldjhartað stops, but the passage floor gives way beneath his forward boot. He drops hard against one knee as packed earth spills into a narrow side shaft.

The fall carries him below the caretaker’s trail, yet exposes a low channel sloping away from the hovel. Pale ash marks its stones, untouched by the dark moisture.

The main passage now lies ahead, disturbed and listening. The ash-marked side channel offers a quieter route beneath the alder roots, while the child remains still behind him.

Eldjhartað turns back through the cramped passage. He reaches the boy beneath the alder roots and presses his hand firmly against the back of the child’s neck.

The child’s warning fades as his body slackens into unconsciousness. Eldjhartað lowers him carefully beside the roots, where shallow breathing confirms he remains alive.

Eldjhartað returns to the ash-marked side channel and enters without answering the presence. His greatsword scrapes stone once, then settles into a ready grip.

The channel slopes beneath the alder roots, narrowing around his shoulders. Ash symbols dim along the stones as black moisture gathers ahead, forming a pulsing darkness without a visible body.

Beyond it, the passage opens into a buried chamber. A caretaker’s tools hang from the walls, and the dark presence withdraws toward the deepest corner, waiting within reach of his blade.

The buried chamber crouches beneath the hovel, its walls ribbed with roots and ash. Caretaker’s tools hang untouched, but no keeper stands among them.

The pulsing darkness retreats into the deepest corner, gathering around a cracked stone basin. Its edges imitate the outline of a crouching body, yet remain without face or limbs.

Ash symbols flare beneath Eldjhartað’s boots as the chamber tightens with a dry whisper. The greatsword’s edge passes through the darkness, meeting sudden resistance.

The resistance slips away, leaving the blade buried in the cracked basin. Beneath the stone, something knocks twice, then drags itself toward the chamber wall.

Behind Eldjhartað, the quiet channel remains open toward the alder roots. The child’s shallow breathing is distant but steady, while the unseen presence waits within striking distance.

Eldjhartað returns through the ash-marked channel to the alder roots. The child lies where he left him, breathing shallowly, and the passage remains free of any keeper.

He leaves the boy behind and takes the quieter route back into the buried chamber, shoulders brushing roots and ash-blackened stone. His greatsword stays raised.

The darkness gathers beside the cracked basin, imitating a crouched figure without face or limbs. No keeper appears among the hanging tools or beneath the roots.

Eldjhartað advances on the corner and swings, driving the blade through the shapeless outline with all the force his cramped stance allows.

Steel strikes the basin and splits its rim. The darkness tears apart around the blade, spilling purplish threads across the ash symbols before recoiling toward the wall.

A seam opens in the chamber wall, revealing a deeper passage beneath the hovel. From it comes the caretaker’s copied breathing, while the wounded darkness withdraws beyond reach.

The seam yawns wider, exhaling the caretaker’s copied breath. Eldjhartað pivots toward it, leaving the cracked basin and wounded darkness behind without slowing.

He rushes into the deeper passage, greatsword held ready. Roots scrape his shoulders, and ash flakes from the ceiling as the breathing retreats ahead.

The passage bends beneath the hovel, opening into a narrow vault where old timbers brace the earth. No keeper waits there, only fresh tool marks and a dark shape slipping along the far wall.

Eldjhartað closes the distance and swings. The blade cleaves through the retreating outline, striking a timber with a splintering crack as the darkness folds beneath the floor.

He follows at once, boots hammering across the vault. A concealed stone gives way beneath the fleeing presence, exposing a steep shaft that drops into colder darkness.

From below comes the caretaker’s breathing, answered by a second rhythm that imitates the child. The dark presence descends beyond the sword’s reach, while the shaft walls tremble.

Eldjhartað reaches the shaft’s lip and lowers his center of gravity. Far below, the dark presence slips along the stone, while the caretaker’s breathing echoes from unseen depths.

He tests the first foothold with his boot before transferring weight. Loose grit rattles downward and vanishes into the cold, leaving the shaft silent for one measured breath.

Eldjhartað continues down, one hand braced against the wall and the greatsword angled across his body. Ash marks interrupt the stone at regular intervals.

A foothold crumbles beneath him. He catches himself against the shaft wall, steadies his weight, and listens as the fragment strikes something far below.

The shaft widens beneath his boots into a cramped landing. A narrow tunnel leads onward, its floor marked by fresh drag lines and dark moisture, while the presence retreats ahead.

Eldjhartað enters the narrow tunnel by the quieter route, greatsword ready. Dark moisture streaks the floor, and fresh drag marks lead toward a bend beneath the town.

He advances slowly where the stone narrows, testing each foothold before committing his weight. The shaft behind him exhales cold air, but no keeper follows.

A dark shape flickers around the bend, low against the stones. Eldjhartað lunges after it, blade raised, while the tunnel answers with a shower of falling grit.

The shape slips through a split in the wall. Eldjhartað reaches it and drives his shoulder into the stone, widening the crack enough to reveal a buried chamber beyond.

Inside, old timbers brace a hollow crowded with roots and ash. A human man’s severed glove hangs from an iron hook, but the caretaker himself is nowhere visible.

Eldjhartað reaches the iron hook and tears away the severed glove. Inside, a withered hand remains clenched around a splinter of blackened stone, preserved by ash and old sorcery.

He turns the hand beneath the chamber’s dim light. Fine cuts mark the palm in the same pattern as the ash symbols, and the fingers twitch toward the deeper tunnel.

The hand tightens around the stone. A breath like the caretaker’s leaks from its ruined throatless silence, while darkness gathers beneath the roots and reaches for the fingers.

Eldjhartað raises his greatsword and brings it down upon the hand and stone. The impact shatters the ash-marked block, scattering black fragments across the floor.

The deeper tunnel convulses. Timbers groan overhead, and a cold draft rushes toward the town as the wounded darkness slips beyond the chamber, still without a body.

The shattered stone rolls into the deeper tunnel. Beyond it, the wounded darkness surges through the roots, fleeing toward the cold draft and the town above.

Eldjhartað follows the quieter route at a measured pace, greatsword held ready. The floor slopes sharply, and each loose stone drops into unseen depth.

The passage opens onto a narrow shaft crossing the tunnel. On the far ledge, the dark shape gathers around a ladder of roots and begins climbing.

Eldjhartað runs after it, boots striking stone, blade angled forward. The shaft wall shudders as the creature reaches for the upper passage.

He catches the darkness at the ledge and drives the greatsword deep into its shifting mass. Purplish threads burst across the roots, and the copied breathing breaks into many voices.

Eldjhartað wrenches the greatsword free and strikes again, severing the rootlike strands binding the shifting shape to the shaft wall.

The darkness collapses inward. Its crouched outline turns dry and grey, cracking across the roots as purplish threads stiffen into brittle veins.

The grey shape sheds fragments into the shaft and twists toward a narrow upper passage. No keeper appears, but fresh tool marks scar the stone beyond it.

Eldjhartað rushes after the retreating mass, blade ready. The passage climbs sharply, forcing him to slow where loose stones crumble beneath his boots.

Ahead, cold air pours through a break in the earth. Beyond it, faint voices answer one another beneath the hovel, while the grey fragments drag themselves upward.

Eldjhartað reaches the upper break as the grey fragments crawl through it. Cold air carries the hovel’s voices upward, overlapping in frightened imitation.

The creature’s rootlike strands sag behind him. Its dry outline cracks slowly, shedding brittle pieces that tumble down the shaft and vanish into darkness.

Eldjhartað drives forward through the break, greatsword ready. The last grey shape twists toward the earth above, dragging itself through fresh tool marks.

He follows at a measured pace where the shaft narrows, testing each foothold as stones crumble beneath him. Far below, the dead fragments settle without movement.

At the upper passage, Eldjhartað rushes again and thrusts into the retreating mass. Steel pins the fading shape against the roots as its brittle body folds inward.

The creature dies slowly around the blade, grey veins splitting into dust. Its final breath imitates the child, then disappears, while voices continue above beneath the hovel.

Eldjhartað climbs through the upper break and emerges beneath the hovel’s warped floor. Snowlight filters between boards, revealing overturned stools, packed ash, and fresh tool marks.

He crouches and surveys the cramped room. No caretaker stands among the scattered straw, yet several footprints circle the hidden opening before vanishing beneath the threshold.

Below, the last grey dust sifts through the shaft. The deeper voices continue, borrowing frightened tones from the hovel and answering one another in the dark.

A board creaks near the doorway. Beyond it, snow lies undisturbed around the hovel, while the town’s distant roofs show through the whitening air.

From beneath the floor comes a careful knock, followed by another farther east. Something has begun answering from beyond the house, and the sound travels toward the town.

Eldjhartað rises beneath the warped floor and studies the hovel. Ash lies packed beneath the boards, and every fresh footprint points toward the threshold and the town beyond.

He steps into the open snow, greatsword ready. The hovel’s crooked walls lean behind him, while the distant timber town shows dimly through the whitening storm.

Eldjhartað moves toward the old road at a measured pace, boots sinking through fresh snow. Behind him, knocks pass from house to house beneath the frozen ground.

At the alder field, the child remains unconscious beneath the roots, shallow breath barely stirring his patched tunic. Eldjhartað does not turn toward him.

The road east descends toward the fortified town. Along its buried edges, small patches of snow collapse one after another, marking something moving beneath the earth toward the walls.

Eldjhartað runs along the buried road, greatsword ready. The collapsing snow marks the creature’s route toward town, while the hovel and unconscious child vanish behind the storm.

The trail breaks beside a sunken culvert. A dark shape climbs from the earth, bearing a scorpion’s body, mantislike claws, and a beetle’s armored head.

Eldjhartað rushes it and drives his blade deep beneath its plated thorax. The creature recoils, dragging rootlike strands from the frozen ground.

He wrenches the greatsword sideways, severing the roots that bind the thing to the earth. Its limbs falter, and its dark shape turns dry and grey.

The creature dies slowly, claws scraping furrows through the snow as brittle veins spread across its body. At last it collapses and crumbles into grey fragments.

Eldjhartað climbs above the culvert and surveys the surroundings. The old road descends toward the fortified town, where distant roofs blur beneath the whitening storm.

He moves toward town with the blade ready, walking instead of running. His gaze follows every disturbed patch of ground, but nothing he has seen resembles this reaper.

The road dips toward the fortified town. Beneath the snow, several disturbed trails converge, not toward the gates, but toward scattered animal burrows and abandoned sheds.

A fox crawls from a ditch, its movements stiff and unnatural. Black filaments pulse beneath its fur, guiding its head toward Eldjhartað before it turns toward town.

The fox’s jaw moves with a voice too deep for its small body. Behind it, a dead crow jerks upright, black threads tightening through its wings.

Farther along the road, a bundled serf stumbles from the storm. His posture is rigid, and dark lines creep beneath the skin of his throat as he turns toward the gates.

The revelation settles across the road: the presence is not merely calling through earth. It is seizing animals and people alike, using their bodies as mouths and moving them toward the town.

The possessed fox springs first, black filaments tightening beneath its fur. The dead crow beats upward beside it, while the bundled serf lurches toward the gate.

Eldjhartað’s greatsword flashes through the fox’s path, then turns against the crow. Both bodies collapse into the snow, their dark threads slackening.

The serf lunges with rigid arms. Eldjhartað’s blade strikes him down without pause, and the buried lines beneath his throat fade as he falls still.

More movement stirs near the abandoned sheds. A pair of lean hounds emerges from the storm, heads twisted toward town, black strands pulsing beneath their coats.

Eldjhartað rushes them. Steel drops one, then the other, leaving blood across his blade as both bodies collapse among the trampled snow.

He continues toward the fortified town, walking ready and studying every disturbed patch of ground. The thing he hunts resembles no crawler or Bog Wight he knows, but perhaps a reaper, waiting beneath the road.