The Quest...Part 1 Of 2 Poem by Shaun Cronick

I dream...

And a journey begins.
I wayfare.
Venturing onwards.
Always forwards.
Never stopping.
Never stumbling.
Never tiring.
Always focused.
My senses sharpened.
A determination.
Always,
Always,
Onwards.
To reach a point in time.
A destination.
My destination.
My fate.
Perhaps, my final fate.
Time will tell.
Urged by something.
Something deep inside.
Something hidden in me.
A mystery.
I'm alone.
It's day.
Perhaps early evening.
Hard to tell.
Clouds obscure the sun.
My clothes are like that,
Of a medieval serf.
I feel no surprise.
For they're made to fit.
A part of me.
I look down on a valley.
What a view.
Then look down at my leather sandaled feet.
As they brush against something.
Something I feel,
That was made for me to find.
I pick it up and examine it.
A sword and leather belt.
I wrap the belt around my waist.
And again view the sword.
It's short about two foot long.
Rusty, chipped and old.
So old.
Ancient even.
No matter.
I tuck it my new found belt.
That feeling haunts me again.
Telling me I will need it.
Telling me not to lose it.
Telling me to have a little faith,
In what awaits ahead.
As I venture on.
At the base of the valley,
There lies a white church.
I enter and hear sobbing.
God! What pitiful crying!
Monks.
Maybe twenty of them.
They look at me.
I ask them why.
What happened here.
They chorus to me the reason why.
Not here.
But of what they all saw in the woods on its trail,
And all were too shocked and scared to do anything.
For they are monks not knights.
And about a missing, expected treasure.
And with that,
I make them all a promise.
And I leave.
Even more determined than before.
It's getting darker.
As I enter woodland and keep to the trail.
And there up ahead strewn across its trail.
Bodies!
So many bodies!
What the hell happened to them!
Evil beyond belief!
Armoured Knights and innocent monks,
Slaughtered like cattle and carrion.
Parts of them everywhere.
I feel the ground drenched in their blood.
The knights armour and heavy iron swords,
Broken, twisted and like these poor pilgrims,
Mangled.
Pulled apart like warm bread.
And the treasure they were to deliver and protecting gone.
Stolen.
I now feel stronger and make a torch,
Draw my sword and look around the trail.
There's nothing there.
Nothing that I can see.
Just blackness,
Darkness.
For night has fallen.
I light a fire.
And with my small sword I dig shallow graves.
For the pitifully slain.
All of them.
It takes me hours but the soil is soft.
All the time a feeling.
Like I'm being watched.
Evaluated.
Rated and weighed up by unseen eyes.
It's just the darkness I tell myself.
Or is it.
Be wary.
Be very wary.
Stay alert.
That feeling in me tells me.
Strange,
I don't feel tired after my exertions.
I make a simple wooden cross.
Plant it down and say a prayer for the dead.
And as soon as finish it.
That feeling of been watched swiftly returns.
Observed by something evil.
There is something out there!
Just beyond the light of the fire.
Clinging to the darkness.
Something drifting.
Something moving.
In the pitch blackness.
Maybe it fears the fire or its light.
It is a pure hatred and pure evil out there.
As I notice now, not a single sound from any woodland creature.
As if they have succumbed to death.
And as my fire quickly dies.
I see it!
It reveals itself to me.
In it's true form!
A vile, murderous evil now rushing towards me!
My inner voice clarions...
Defend yourself!
And Fight!
Defeat it!
Kill it!
It's nearly upon you!
Fight!
You can win!
You WILL win!
FIGHT! ...

Concluded tomorrow night in Part 2.