Doraunthil, Shadowmaker, Bloodking of the Undrowning Lakes
A very short story written for a Reddit story prompt
"Do you not know me?"
The woman, gray and weak and liverspotted, did not answer. She only poked at the burning logs beneath the kettle.
Anger flashed in Doraunthil. Insolence, he would not stand for it. He rose, fury a red rose blossoming in his chest, only to fall back into the feathered bed the woman had dragged him into. He winced. The pain was thin white fingers burrowing up his side.
He cursed the blade and the hand that wielded it. Hrothnir, so-called Hero of the Northlands, had snuck it between his ribs. Coward as he was, the man had not finished the task, claiming justice and trial as he called for chains.
Chains!
The word alone was a deeper cut than Hrothnir's blade. How could any hope to confine Doraunthhil, Shadowmaker, Bloodking of the Undrowning Lakes, in chains?
Bravely, even with the mortal wound in his side, Doraunthil had scooped up a fistful of sand and dashed it into the insolent eyes of Hrothnir. Memories of the man's cries brought a wicked smile to Doraunthil's lips. He had made his escape — not a flee, no — into the gnarled woods of the Jourain Forest, a land that he had nearly razed with his forces, when they were still legion. None remained alive there, only the shadow he left in their wake.
Surely, they would follow, but he was Doraunthil, Shadowmaker, and no easy hunt. He would heal and they would be crushed underfoot again. He would rise once more. His armies would be rebuilt. He would —
"Have a drink of this now."
It was that damned woman. In her wrinkled hands was a cup of some steaming liquid.
"You mean to poison the Bloodking?" asked Doraunthil. "Such a ploy is wrought with folly, shrew!"
"Tsh," she chided. "You'll tire yourself out with all this nonsense. Have a drink, now."
She pushed the cup to his lips. It smelled of honey and other sweet things. Doraunthil scowled at the woman, but she did not cower. She pressed the cup on him and before he could protest further, command her to cease her actions, the liquid filled his mouth.
It was warm and soothing. He could feel the pain receding from his side.
Greedily, he snatched the cup from her hand and drank of it deeply.
"There," she said, nodding happily. "I'm sure that makes you feel a bit better."
"Do not presume to tell me of my feelings!" Doraunthil roared — or tried to roar, as best he could manage.
"Hush now," chided the old woman. "Drink that up while I get you another blanket. You need rest, not anger."
Fool, he thought. He would watch her burn. But first, he would finish her drink. She had made a great mistake. Whatever poison she had used was too weak to finish him off. He chuckled to himself as he downed the rest of the brew and sunk back into the bed.
Yes, she would be sorry she hadn't done him in when he was weak. Her wicked tea had only made him stronger.
She returned with a blanket and laid it over his legs. "There now," she said, "how's that?"
"Your poison was too weak, crone, I grow stronger," said Doraunthil, though his eyes were growing heavy.
"Aye, the tea seems to have given you a bit of your color back, now hasn't it?" She pulled at the blanket and tucked it snugly beneath his feet.
"Fool," Doraunthil spoke through a yawn. "You must know who you now house... the great lord that now sits in your ... in your ..."
Sleep took the words from him. He dreamed not of vanquish, as he always did, but rather of verdant fields of brightly colored flowers.
When he woke, Doraunthil, Shadowmaker, Bloodking of the Undrowning Lakes, was warm. His side no longer ached.
The old woman sat beside him, a small bowl in her lap.
"Ah, back among the living are we?" she asked with a kind smile.
Doraunthil looked at her warily. He felt much of his power returning. He could rise now, crush this woman beneath him and then Hrothnir next.
But he didn't.
Instead, he took the bowl from her and sipped from it. Soup. If it was poisoned, it was weakly done.
"How is it that you still live here?" asked Doraunthil, looking around the woman's small cottage.
"This is my home," she said. "You don't abandon your home, no matter what happens."
Through her modest window, Doraunthil saw the twisted shapes of the trees, the very trunks his work had corrupted and made to stoop and bend to die in such hideous ways beneath black clouds which never lifted. Yet, the sun now seemed to be streaming through the glass.
"Do you not know me?" he asked the woman again.
She reached out her withered hand and grasped his own. Her touch was warm, like the soup which now filled his once-empty stomach. "Of course I do," she said.
"Then why nurse me when I was so gravely wounded? Why let me live?"
She smiled at him then and he felt a tug in his chest that he never had before. "Because there has been enough evil in this place for a thousand lifetimes," she told him. "And it is such a small thing to be kind."
Doraunthil's fingers curled around the woman's palm as they both watched through her tinted glass the dawn spread across a forest that had long forgotten its touch.
Artwork by Ural Koçak: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/weZqV