The Silence of Stillwater: A Short Story

The Silence of Stillwater

The late afternoon sun slanted across Stillwater Meadow. It was thick and golden like melted butter. It glazed the wool of the sheep in honeyed light and turned the tall grass into a sea of fire tipped blades. I hummed a half remembered tune from the Harvest Festival the previous year. It was the kind of tune that made fiddlers stomp and old men slap their knees. My crook rested against my shoulder. My mind had already wandered past the sheep and the meadow straight into the heart of the festival. I could almost taste the roasted pork and hear the berry pies bubbling in their tins. I felt the thrum of music vibrating through the soles of my boots.

And Sean. Lord above there was Sean.

I saw him clear as day. He laughed near the cider barrels with sleeves rolled to the elbow. That easy grin tucked beneath his sunburnt cheeks. I wondered if he would ask me to dance this year. I had practiced just in case. Not in front of anyone. I practiced in the barn when the sheep were too busy chewing to judge. My cheeks warmed. It would be grand. Truly grand.

A flicker of white broke the daydream. Daisy. That little devil. She trotted toward the stone wall like she had business with the dead.

"Daisy you menace," I said to the air. I moved toward her. She was the youngest of the flock and the most determined to test my patience. I loved her. I loved all of them. But some days I swore they held secret meetings to plot their escapes. I adjusted my grip on the crook. "One more stunt like this and you are dinner. Do you hear me?"

She slipped through a gap in the wall. Her tail flicked like she had won something. I followed. My boots crunched through the dry leaves that had gathered like forgotten letters. The cemetery always felt older than the village itself. It felt like it had waited here long before we arrived. The oak tree loomed ahead with branches thick and tangled. It cast shadows that did not quite match the angle of the sun. I hesitated at the threshold. The air was cooler here. It was like stepping into a room where someone had just whispered my name.

I pressed on. Sheep. I was tired of sheep. Wool in my mouth and wool in my bed. Wool in places wool had no business being. Cows made more sense. Sean had cows. They were calm and predictable and generous with their milk. I could see it now. Me and Sean with a small herd and a warm kitchen. Children with muddy boots and berry stained fingers.

Daisy darted behind a headstone. It was one of the older ones with a name worn down to a whisper.

"Think you are clever do you?" I asked. I picked up speed and rounded the stone.

I stopped.

She was gone.

No bleat. No flash of white. Just grass and moss and the heavy hush of the graveyard pressing in. My breath caught. It was shallow and quick. The silence deepened. It was not just quiet but hollow. The world had forgotten how to make sound.

No birds. No wind. No forge hammer ringing from the village. Just me. Just the oak. Just the graves.

A chill slid down my spine. My heart thudded loud in the stillness. I turned to leave. I wanted to run back to the noise and the light and the living.

The ground groaned.
***

Soil cracked open like a wound. A hand burst from the earth. It was grey and shriveled with fingers curled like claws. It clamped around my ankle with a strength that did not belong to something dead. I screamed but the silence swallowed the sound.

My body pitched forward and hit the cold damp earth. The grave widened beneath me. A dark mouth opened where the hand had torn through. A torso clad in bronze plating rose from it. It was dusted with soil and verdigris. A Draugr. It was ancient and armored. Its second hand lashed out to seize my other leg.

Panic seized me. I clawed at the mossy headstone. Nails scraped stone. I needed purchase. The graveyard gave me nothing. Only dust. Only cold.

My eyes darted. I searched the area. The missing sheep stood beyond a row of weathered markers. Its wool was impossibly white against the grim stones. Daisy blinked once then turned. She trotted back toward the meadow to rejoin the oblivious flock grazing in the golden light.

The Draugr pulled. Soil rained down and obscured my struggle. My scream fractured into silence as the earth swallowed me. The grave collapsed back. It sealed itself. It left only loose dirt.

The meadow beyond still glowed golden and serene. The sheep grazed. The festival song lingered in the air as if nothing had happened at all.
***

Sheamus walked faster. His jaw was tight. Katy was gone and the silence of the cemetery crawled beneath his skin.

He spotted the flock first. They grazed near the stone wall. Her crook lay behind a moss covered headstone. The familiar wood felt wrong. It felt as if the years of use had been leeched away to leave it cold and heavy. He scanned the area around the colossal oak tree. It loomed like a pillar of bruised thunder against the fading light.

Then the air shifted. It tasted sharp and metallic. A voice slithered into his skull. It was thin and strained and echoed with a terrible familiarity.

"Father! Help me! It is so cold! Please the ground has me!"

His blood ran cold. He knew that cry. He knew that raw fear. He lunged toward the corrupted oak. His fatherly instinct overrode reason.

But the voice changed. The metallic tang thickened as black sap bled from a gnarled branch high above. It spattered the earth with wet drops. The stench was foul. It smelled of old grease and burning sulfur.

"Come closer Sheamus. Come to the tree. I need your warmth Father."

It was not Katy. The certainty hit him like a blade of ice. The pitch and tone were flawless but the joy in the terror was a horror beyond life. This was not a demon seeking his soul. It was a hungry cold thing. It was not human and not alive. It craved the essence of the grief of a father.

"You cannot have me," he said. His voice shook but was laced with resolve. "Release her you rot eating parasite! What have you done with my girl?"

"She is quiet now," the mimic purred. It scraped across his nerves. "We share her sorrow. Her fear. Soon we will share her silence."

He advanced with agonizing slowness. He was torn between the instinct to retrieve his child and the primal urge to flee. He avoided the dripping sap at the base of the ancient tree. The ground beneath the corrupted roots pulsed. He prodded the disturbed soil with the crook.

The reaction was violent. Three roots thick as torsos and slick with ichor exploded from the soil like serpents striking from a pit. One swept the crook from his hand and splintered it against stone. Another lashed out and sliced the air where his head had been a heartbeat before.

He threw himself backward. He hit the cold earth. The roots retracted. They sank back into the soil as quickly as they had sprung.

Sheamus scrambled. He crawled away from the polluted ground toward the rough stone wall that marked the perimeter of the burial ground.

The ground shook.

It was not an earthly tremor but a magical percussion. Tombstones rattled and pitched. Shallow cracks spidered outward and groaned across the consecrated soil.

"You will not leave. You will not escape the sorrow," the voice shrieked. It was now layered with a chorus of dry cold whispers.

Grey desiccated hands thrust up from the soil. Shriveled fingers clawed blindly. They multiplied until the ground itself seemed to breathe hunger. They clung to his boots and trouser legs and forced him to crawl on raw knees.

He did not look back at the monstrous oak. He looked only forward. He dragged himself through the cold soil and pushed past the desperate hungry hands.

The wall loomed ahead. Rough stone marked the edge of the burial ground. But it was not the wall itself that saved him. It was the narrow gate. It was half rotted and hung crooked on rusted hinges. He scrambled toward it. His knees were raw and his boots were tangled in clawing fingers.

He crashed through the gap with a final lunge. He sprawled onto the grass beyond. The hands fell away the instant he crossed. Their power broke at the threshold. The tombstones stilled and the soil quieted. The corruption could not seep past that broken gate.

He lay gasping. He stared back through the opening. The cemetery writhed inside. The rocking stones and the clawing hands and the oak pulsing with malicious victory. The air outside was clean. The silence was natural. He was just beyond its reach. He balanced on the edge of horror like a man staring down a cliff into darkness.

Sheamus forced himself upright. He steadied himself against the wall. And then he saw him.

The necromancer.

The figure wore the shape of a man but it was wrong in every proportion. He looked too young. Skin stretched taut over something ancient. Dark worn leather clung to him. A gnarled staff was crooked in his hand. A sickly cloud of flies circled his head like a crown while pale maggots writhed at the seams of his jerkin. They crawled in and out of the folds. He reeked not of simple rot but of death itself. Foul and enduring and unwashed antiquity.

The smile of the necromancer unfurled. It exposed teeth that were too long and too white. They looked like bones polished for display. His expression held no malice. It held only a detached satisfaction. He raised one hand in a mock salute then slipped back behind the weeping trunk of the corrupted oak. He vanished with fluid silence.

Sheamus staggered away from the gate. His heart hammered. The image of that smile burned into him like a brand.
***

Sheamus didn't stop running until he reached the outer palisade of Skaldenhold.

“My Jarl!” Sheamus gasped, collapsing before the dais. “The cemetery! The oak is corrupted! A monster took my daughter, Katy! There are hands, foul sap, and the dead are walking!”

Jarl Karn listened, his face hardening as he processed the sheer terror in the shepherd's voice. He nodded slowly, acknowledging the grim reality of the situation.

"I hear the fear in your words, shepherd, and I do not doubt the horror you witnessed," he rumbled, his voice measured. "But this is not a matter for my Ironkin. The dead rising, spirits clinging to the earth—that is a terrible sickness, a spiritual blight."

Karn paused, letting the weight of his command settle. "My laws are forged in iron. They cover war, defense, and keeping the kingdom safe from mortal threats. This dark magic, this corruption of the soul—it lies outside the scope of my military doctrine."

He slammed his fist onto the table, his final judgment sharp. "I will not waste the lives of my people fighting shadows we cannot kill with an axe. Seek the priests, the lorekeepers, those who know the ways of spirits. For now, Skaldenhold cannot bleed men into graves we do not understand. Go. We have a war to plan."

A silence hung heavy in the hall. Then, from near the door, a young warrior stepped forward, his voice hesitant but clear. “My Jarl… there is the shrine in the lower town. The Shrine to the Voidwalkers. If the shepherd’s tale is true, perhaps the spirits will hear him there.”

Karn’s gaze snapped to the warrior, cold but measured. “You speak out of turn, boy. Yet… you are not wrong. If Skaldenhold has any shield against such shadows, it lies with the Voidwalkers, not with my Ironkin.” He turned back to Sheamus. His tone final. “Go to the shrine. Make your plea there. If the spirits answer, then perhaps your daughter may yet be found.”

Sheamus bowed his head, shame and desperation warring in his chest. He rose unsteadily, his plea unanswered by warriors but redirected toward something older, darker.

As he reached the doors of the hall, a voice called softly behind him. “Shepherd.”

The young warrior who had spoken of the shrine stepped forward, glancing nervously toward the dais to be sure the Jarl was not watching too closely. In his hand he held a small coin of tarnished silver, its surface etched with a faint spiral sigil. He pressed it into Sheamus’s palm.

“This is a token kept by my family,” the warrior whispered. “It bears the mark of the Voidwalkers. Take it to the shrine. Place it in the stone and speak these words: ‘We walk in fear, and the silence is our enemy. My life for a shield, my grief for a sword.’ The spirits will know the plea.”

Sheamus stared at the coin, its weight far heavier than its size. “Why give this to me?” he asked, voice hoarse.

The warrior’s jaw tightened. “Because I have seen shadows myself. And because if the Ironkin will not fight them, someone must. Go, shepherd. Make your plea. The Voidwalkers listen when blood and truth are offered.”

Sheamus closed his fingers around the coin, the sigil biting into his skin. He nodded once, unable to speak, and turned into the night.

The night pressed close outside the hall. The palisade loomed strong and unyielding but Sheamus knew its strength meant nothing against the corruption festering in the graveyard. His daughter was still inside that darkness and no Ironkin would come. Yet the mention of the shrine and the silent watch of the priest whispered that not all had turned away.
***

He ran through the lower town until he found the Voidwalker sanctuary. It was a single monolithic structure of black unadorned stone. It rose from the earth like a shard of night. Its surface swallowed torchlight. Its silence was heavier than the palisade walls. No carvings marked it and no priest stood guard. It was a place meant to be feared not visited.

He approached the shrine. He clutched the tarnished coin the young warrior had pressed into his hand. Its spiral sigil gleamed in the moonlight. A grated opening lay at the base of the stone. It was worn smooth by centuries of offerings.

Sheamus knelt. His voice trembled as he whispered his plea into the dark. He gave a broken account of the corruption of the cemetery and the disappearance of Katy. He spoke of the foul sap and clawing hands. His words faltered but desperation carried them forward.

He drew the coin across the grate. He let it vanish into the unseen hollow. Then he produced a small sharp hunting knife.

"We walk in fear and the silence is our enemy," he whispered. He recited the plea of the commoner. "My life for a shield. My grief for a sword."

He cut across his palm with a grim breath. It was deeper than he wished and sharp enough to make him cry out. Blood welled thick and hot. He pressed his hand against the cold stone and smeared crimson across its surface.

"Help me," he whispered. His voice broke. "My daughter is taken. The cemetery festers with corruption. I beg you. Hear me."

The blood glistened for a heartbeat. It was stark against the black stone. Then it sank. It was absorbed without a trace. Sheamus gasped. He stared at his hand as the wound sealed. The pain vanished. It left only a faint scar where the blade had bitten.

He froze. His breath was shallow. The silence pressed in heavy and absolute. Did it hear me? Terror and hope warred in his chest.

The cold deepened. It pressed against his bones. Shadows along the sanctuary wall stretched unnaturally. They bent toward him as if drawn by his plea. The stone beneath his hand began to hum. It was low at first then resonant. It vibrated through his chest like the toll of a distant bell. The air thickened heavy with the scent of iron and ash until exhaustion dragged him down. He slumped against the rough stone and his eyes closed.
***

He was jolted awake not by sound but by the cessation of the cold. The hum stopped. The shadows stilled.

Emerdor Voidwalker stood over him. He was tall and cloaked in shadow. His presence was not that of a man alone but something greater. The air bent around him. The stone seemed to lean toward him. His eyes gleamed like embers in the dark.

"Rest shepherd," Emerdor commanded. His voice was low and resonant and carried the weight of the echo of a cavern. "Your plea was heard. Your offering accepted."

The gaze of Emerdor moved from the frightened face of Sheamus to the sheen where blood had vanished. Then his eyes lifted. He turned past the shepherd and past the sanctuary walls as though he could see through stone and night alike. His stare fixed on the direction of the cemetery. It was unblinking and heavy with knowledge.

"I walked in shadow to answer your need," Emerdor said. His voice was like distant thunder. "And I found the corruption you described. Grave magic anchors the cemetery. It has taken more than your daughter."

"You saw her?" Sheamus asked. Hope and terror collided in his voice.

"I saw the handiwork of the necromancer," Emerdor corrected. His tone hardened. "A cunning trap built upon your grief. I broke the anchor but the sorcerer fled. His work is not finished. Tell me everything shepherd. Tell me from the moment the voice changed to the last thing you saw by the wall. We have no time for sleep. We have a life to find."
***

Emerdor and Sheamus returned to Stillwater under a shroud of silence. The Voidwalker moved with purpose. His eyes scanned the desecrated ground until they fixed upon the corrupted oak. Its bark was blackened and scored with crude necromantic runes that pulsed as though the tree itself bled sickness into the soil.

Emerdor raised a hand to halt Sheamus at the edge of the graveyard. "Stay here shepherd," he commanded. His voice was low but absolute. "This fight is not yours."

Sheamus nodded. He clutched his torch. His breath was shallow. He lingered at the boundary. He was unwilling to disobey yet unable to look away.

Emerdor stepped forward alone. He produced a silver medallion with a surface etched with spirals that caught the torchlight. He raised it before the oak and began a low guttural chant. A Rite of Unmaking. Each syllable ground like stone against bone.

The earth shrieked the moment the ritual words left his lips.

The runes flared sickly green. The ground around the tree convulsed. Soil and stone and bone fragments erupted outward. They coalesced into three Draugr. They were armored in bronze with hollow eyes burning with malevolent light. The trap of the necromancer had been sprung.

Emerdor let the medallion fall. His hand already closed around the hilt of his Hollow Forged Blade. Dark steel whispered free with a flash. Its edge gleamed like a shard of night.

Sheamus flinched from the boundary as the first Draugr lumbered forward. It was massive and wielded a rusted axe. Emerdor sidestepped. He let the axe bite into the earth. His counter was swift. The blade drove into the chest cavity of the creature. A sickening hiss escaped its armor. The light in its eyes extinguished. Its body collapsed into brittle bones and empty bronze.

The second and third Draugr surged together. Emerdor met them with calculated precision. He caught the swing of the second on his armored forearm. The impact rang like iron on iron. He used the momentum to pivot even as the axe of the third descended toward his spine.

Emerdor spoke a single guttural syllable. A whisper of the Rite of Unmaking. The word cracked the air like thunder. A shockwave of pure spiritual disruption struck the third Draugr. It froze the axe mid swing. The light in its eyes flickered.

Emerdor spun. He drove his blade into the core of the second creature. It dropped. Armor clattered as its bones turned to dust. He turned to meet the final Draugr whose charge was blind with fury. Emerdor dodged the clumsy strike and answered with a brutal upward slash. The Hollow Forged Blade cut through bronze and bone alike. The last undead warrior fell. It was annihilated in a single stroke.

Silence reclaimed the graveyard. The fight had been swift. It was a demonstration of the absolute mastery of the Voidwalker.

Sheamus stood frozen at the boundary. His torch trembled in his grip. He had not moved or dared to breathe as Emerdor dismantled the Draugr with ritual and steel.
***

Emerdor sheathed his blade. He surveyed the quiet desecrated graveyard. The silence was broken only by the crackle of the Ashwood Torch and the soft patter of earth collapsing back into the pits. His gaze lingered on the corrupted oak. Its runes were dimmed but not destroyed. The trap of the necromancer had failed yet its presence confirmed the depth of the corruption.

The quiet of the desecrated cemetery was an invitation but he refused it. The necromancer was a coward of the Path of the Scalpel. He would not meet him in the open. The Draugr were bait. The true weapon of the necromancer was the fear and grief he had sown.

Emerdor stood before the colossal oak. His eyes fixed on the black weeping runes scored into its bark. The corruption was rooted deep and drew power from the sacred ground. He knew the sorcerer was tethered nearby. To draw him out Emerdor would destroy his anchor.

He raised his Ashwood Torch. Its silver white flame was resolute against the encroaching gloom. He began a new chant. Not the Rite of Unmaking to sever the link but a Scouring Rite designed to inflict pain upon the corruption itself. His voice was guttural. The syllables cut the air like stone on stone.

The Ashwood Torch flared with cold brilliant light as he chanted. Emerdor plunged the flame directly against the black runes scored into the oak.

The sap shrieked as it vaporized. The tree convulsed and its massive trunk shook. The earth beneath Emerdor shuddered and pitched him off balance. Hands shot up from the disturbed soil around the oak. They were more numerous and frantic than before. They clawed not at Emerdor but at the tree itself in an attempt to shield the pain.

Emerdor ignored the grasping hands. His resolve was absolute. He continued the rite. The chilling intensity of the Ashwood Torch burned the runes from the bark one by one.

Then Emerdor felt it. A sharp psychic backlash cold as the grave struck his mind. A voice clear and layered with cold whispers roared directly into the stillness.

"STOP! You violate my work! You destroy the heart of my harvest!"

The necromancer materialized. He did not crawl from a hole. He coalesced from the shadow that clung to the far side of the massive oak. He wore the pale youthful face Sheamus had seen yet his appearance was intensified. The cloud of flies around his head buzzed with furious static. The foul odor of death rolled across the graveyard like a suffocating wave. He carried his gnarled staff. Its tip pulsed with a sickly green light.

He was focused not on Emerdor but on the burning runes. His face was a mask of cold fury. He saw his anchor under attack.

"You are a fool Voidwalker," the necromancer snarled. His voice was a sibilant layer of whispers. "You meddle in affairs that are not yours. Your pathetic vows mean nothing here." He pointed his staff at Emerdor. "You have sealed your own end. The harvest is mine!"

The ground split open one last time from the base of the corrupted oak. No Draugr emerged this time. Instead Katy was thrust upward.

She was pale and dirt streaked but alive. Her simple wool dress was ripped and soiled. A thin strand of white hair had already appeared in her dark braid. Her eyes were wide and vacant. They were a terrible haunted grey. She was still tethered. One arm was pinned back as if bound by the grave magic that pulsed from the soil around her.

"Katy!" Sheamus screamed from the perimeter. He took a desperate step forward.

"The anchor is secured," the necromancer said with a chilling smile. He ignored Sheamus. "She is tethered to the harvest. Now you will die and I will grow forever young."

The duel was on.
***

Emerdor did not flinch. He lowered the Ashwood Torch. Its flame guttered but remained resolute. He drew the Hollow Forged Blade once more. The steel drank the torchlight and its edge shimmered with shadow.

"You hide behind grief," Emerdor said. His voice was steady and the guttural syllables were woven with ritual cadence. "But grief is not yours to harvest. It is a weapon and tonight it is mine."

The staff of the necromancer pulsed. Runes crawled up its length like veins of rot. He slammed it into the earth. The ground split and skeletal arms clawed upward. Emerdor answered with a single word of unmaking. A syllable cracked the air like thunder. The newly summoned corpses froze mid rise. Their bindings severed. They collapsed into dust.

The necromancer hissed. His youthful mask flickered and revealed the gaunt hollowed face beneath for an instant. He thrust his staff toward Katy. The grave tether tightened. Katy's small body convulsed as the malicious magic pulled at her spirit. Sheamus cried out from the perimeter but Emerdor ignored him. He raised his blade and chanted in counterpoint.

The Hollow Forged Blade glowed with shadowlight. Each syllable of the Rite of Severance bound to its edge. Emerdor advanced. Every step was deliberate. His voice rose against the cold whispers of the necromancer.

The duel was brutal. Staff and blade clashed not with sparks of steel but with eruptions of spectral energy. The necromancer hurled curses. Each word was a lash of shadow. Emerdor met them with syllables of unmaking. His voice cut through the corruption like iron through silk.

Katy screamed. It was not her own voice but was layered with echoes of the dead. The sound vibrated with the pain of a soul being pulled apart. The eyes of Emerdor flicked to her. He knew the tether had to be cut now or her spirit would be lost to the corruption forever.

He feinted. He let the staff of the necromancer crash into the earth then spoke the final word of Severance. The Hollow Forged Blade arced upward. Its edge blazed with shadowlight. It struck through the glowing invisible tether that bound the arm of Katy to the soil.

The grave magic shrieked as it unraveled. Katy collapsed. She was freed. Her body was limp but she breathed. The necromancer staggered. His staff splintered and his youthful mask shattered into ash. Emerdor pressed forward. He drove the blade into the chest of the sorcerer.

The scream of the necromancer was layered with a thousand voices. A final chorus of the tormented that was then silenced. His body dissolved into a plume of dust scattered by the cold wind.
***

The graveyard fell silent. The corrupted oak stood blackened and scarred. Its runes were extinguished. Its bark still wept faint traces of foul sap. The Ashwood Torch guttered in the hand of Emerdor. Its flame dimmed as the ritual concluded.

Sheamus broke from the perimeter. He stumbled to the side of his daughter. He gathered her into his arms. She was breathing but it was shallow. Her skin was pale and cold. A streak of white ran through her braid. Her eyes fluttered open. They were a terrible vacant grey.

"Papa," she whispered. It was brittle.

Sheamus bent close. Tears stung his eyes. The overwhelming foul odor of raw death and corruption filled his nose. He needed her first words of freedom.

The words were cold and soft and utterly alien. "The songs are gone Papa. Only silence. And it is so cold."

Katy lifted her face. It was pale and dirt streaked. Her eyes fixed not on him but on the piles of Draugr dust and scattered bronze armor. They gleamed with an unnerving metallic joy.

Her gaze darted to the soil beside the boot of Sheamus. A fat pale maggot dislodged from the grave pit wriggled in the dirt.

Katy leaned forward with sudden disturbing speed. Her fingers trembled with unnatural quickness. She snatched the maggot and brought it to her lips. She swallowed. A sharp smile spread across her face.

"The ground is hungry Papa," she whispered. The cold contentment in her voice was worse than any scream. "But I think I am getting used to the taste."

Sheamus staggered backward. The living warmth in his arms was replaced by a dread that chilled his soul.

Emerdor stood over them. His blade was sheathed. "She is free," he said. His voice was low and carried the weight of ritual. "But scars remain. She will never be as she was."

The wind scattered the last of the dust of the necromancer across the graves. Katy whispered one last time. Her voice was dry. "He is still watching."

Emerdor turned. His cloak shifted like smoke. "Then I will walk the shadow until he is not."

The smile of Katy lingered. It was sharp and chilling as the wind carried the last of the necromancer’s dust away. The cemetery was quiet once more. But the silence was not peace. It was the silence of war yet to come.

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