TotW 261: Dark Souls - WINNER'S CIRCLE!
Congratulations to Alwyn, winner of TotW 261! Winning story is here:Under an apricot sky of a half-dawn, the last Knight of the Cathedral stood ready to face the approaching foes. The monks of the Abbey, which had been created by digging tunnels and chambers under the ruined Cathedral, used to tell stories of a great, lost human civilization. In the past, people could communicate with others on the far side of the world or summon any piece of human knowledge in an instant. As human societies struggled to adapt to rising seas, deeper floods, expanding deserts and stronger storms in the late 21st century, humanity depended on its energy for fewer and fewer sources, until finally they relied only one: the Sun. Then darkness came.
The monks used to say that the invaders – the Embers - came from a giant city above the sky, a city which could move between worlds. The monks used to say that the Ember city was between the Sun and the Earth, leaving humanity’s birth-world with little light. The monks used to tell how the food-crops failed and how humanity’s modern devices lost power, one after another. Each human generation was smaller than the last; each generation lost more land to the encroaching Embers. The monks used to explain that humans had tried to use modern weapons against the Embers – and those humans were burned to cinders by some sort of advanced technology which the enemy possessed. That was why the Knights of the Cathedral had to rely on weapons from the pages of history books: bows, swords and pikes. Now, the monks said nothing.
The Abbey had been created as a hiding-place for human survivors and a repository for human knowledge. The Knights of the Cathedral guarded the Abbey’s hidden entrances, kept watch for Embers and showed refugees the way to the Abbey and other human sanctuaries. When the Abbey fell, the Knights had been horrified to see who was attacking them: not Embers, but a mob of frenzied humans. Some humans were so desperate to survive that they now fought as auxiliaries for the Embers. The monks of the Abbey had joined the Knights, giving their lives to buy time for others living in the Abbey to escape. The Knights and monks and fought bravely until all of them were dead – except one survivor. Now, the last group of people who had fled the Abbey were crossing open ground. The darkness of night had hidden them; now, the half-dawn would betray their location to the frenzied mob. Would they reach the relative safety of the line of trees before being seen by the mob? No – frenzied attackers burst from one of the Abbey’s hidden entrances and charged towards the fleeing civilians. The last Knight realised that there were only a few attackers left; they wore no armour and they were wounded, while she was fresh. If I am very lucky, she thought, I might survive this.
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