Dullahan 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story - Part Eleven (sfw) (Patreon)

Wow, well I have stepped back from the rabid chaos and panic today, and I've got this 5300 word part done and edited for your delectation! I'll pop it up on Tumblr tomorrow. I hope you like it!! The last instalment was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, with finding and freeing Will, and then D getting critically wounded. 

The vote was close, but people chose to send him back to the fae realm with Ten, so that's what happens! The emotional ride continues a bit in this part, but hopefully you'll enjoy it.

“You’re right,” you said. “Take him. Heal him. And when he’s better, bring him back to me? Please?”

Tenacity nodded once. 

“Tell him I love him…” you said. 

“He knows.”

“But tell him anyway!” you sobbed, your throat closing around the words, choking your breath on your raging emotions. Your harsh voice scraped on the rough-hewn walls of the tunnel around you. “Please.”

Tenacity softened and adjusted her grip on him as he lay in her arms. “I will. Be careful, won’t you?” she said. “You’ve been bloody stupid so far.”

You ground your jaw and stared furiously back at her. “You shouldn’t have given me the power behind your name then, should you?” you challenged. 

Her eyes flared up. “He’s in this mess because of you!” she hissed. 

Then D’s right arm twitched and he reached blindly out for you. As you caught it, his soft, wheezing voice murmured from every direction, “Don’t… fight,” and another wracking sob tore itself involuntarily from your chest. 

“He’s right,” you told Tenacity, and you summoned every last scrap of your remaining courage. “Take him out of here. Take him home.”

And you squeezed D's hand one last time before Ten closed her eyes, and the pair vanished like smoke from where they had been standing. The gaping void which their sudden departure left in your life rocked you to your core, and you stared at the spot where they had been, eyes locked on the spatters of D’s phosphorescent blood on the tunnel floor. 

Kravik’s approaching footsteps barely sounded above the wild pumping of your blood in your ears, and it took him actually reaching for your hand for you to come back to your senses. “You going to be alright?” he asked hesitantly. He’d simply been standing there, waiting for you to rally, and when you hadn’t, he’d helped you as he always did. 

Your fingers clenched reflexively around your best friend’s hand and you swiped tears and rock dust from your face. “Gods,” you rasped, blinking furiously to clear your vision of tears. “I must look a mess.”

“We all do,” he said, looking down at the mayor. “What are we going to do about her?” 

Your eyes followed his gaze and you tried to scrape your brain back together to form a coherent plan. The shivering of the rocks around you reminded you of the most pressing matter. “We need to get her out of here. The whole mine could collapse now. And Will too; I’ll go back for him. You run back out to the entrance and fetch Vhorn. He can carry her out and we can decide what to do with her as a whole town…”

He nodded, clearly trying to ignore the choppy way you spoke and the wild light in your eyes. “Hey,” he murmured, giving you one last squeeze. “Thank you. Will’s and my people might well have died without your intervention.”

Your smile was weak as you blinked back at him. “Like I said before, Krav, I’d do anything for you. I just… I just hope…” He didn’t need to watch your gaze flicker back to the green blood on the stone to catch your meaning.

“Yeah,” Kravik agreed. “I hope so too. He seems strong though. And he’s in good hands. Come on, standing here isn’t going to help anything.” And with that, he headed back up the tunnel towards the daylight.

You watched his retreating back melt into the shadows of the passageway in a matter of seconds, drew a long breath, and then began to feel your way back down the tunnel. Without the lights of the dullahans’ combined essences to illumine the path, it was slow going, but you staggered and stumbled your way down the passage, managing to avoid trampling or tripping on the mayor as you passed, and came back to the main cavern and study without getting lost. 

The lights of her enchanted lanterns still glimmered on the walls as before, and after a brief glance around, you saw Will standing at the desk on the right hand wall. His long, goblin-like fingers were leafing through various disordered piles of research notes, and he had his back firmly set to the open cell door on the left hand wall of the cave. 

“Will?” you called softly to him. “Will, we need to get out of here. All those explosions… This place isn’t stable any more.”

“I know,” he said, his tone tense and grim. “I just wanted to gather enough proof of what my mother was doing. And… you never know if there are going to be any side effects of what she did to me. We might need her research notes.”

“You think there might be more in the lab?” you asked, eyeing the now open and un-warded laboratory door at the far end of the cavern. When he nodded slowly without stopping or looking up, you said, “Go and have a look in there while I search through the things here. We will be quicker that way, and then we can leave.”

Will moved, but he didn’t turn to go immediately to the laboratory. Instead, he looked up at you with his enormous, black eyes. His skin was the dark, smoky grey of a goblin’s, but his features were as much human as goblin. He licked his thin lips briefly as he tilted his head up to look at you. “Thank you,” he said in a broken whisper. “You risked your life to free me. And… And that dullahan… he… he might…”

“Don’t,” you hissed, perhaps a little more harshly than you’d intended. “Don’t finish that.”

“Fine,” he said. “But I know I’ll never be able to thank you for what you’ve done and what you’ve risked.”

“You can thank me by grabbing everything that’s useful, and then following me out of here,” you said quickly as the cavern rumbled ominously and the terrifying clatter of small stones showering to the ground made itself known to you. A small trickle of dust landed on your shoulder and you flinched. “Hurry!”

Will nodded seriously, and trotted off to the laboratory, leaving you to rummage around frantically on the desk. You grabbed anything that looked like research notes, an odd amulet, and a tome on magical mineralogy, but you left the bag of runestones and the crystal sphere, the carved gnoll skull, and what looked like a sacrificial knife, and yelled at Will to hurry up as the cave reverberated with another horrifying rumble. 

He bolted out a moment later, a lantern swinging from one arm, and said, “Yup. Come on. I don’t like the sounds I’m hearing. We need to leave, immediately.”

The pair of you scarpered for the exit, darting up the tunnel, and as the swaying light of the lantern washed over the massive form of Vhorn, grumbling as he picked the mayor up and dumped her over one enormous shoulder, you nearly screamed in shock. He’d looked like some kind of rock demon, disturbed by all the explosions.

“Come on,” he growled. “Whatever the hell you’ve been doing down here has nearly brought the whole mine down. Run!” 

And with that, you all sprinted upwards towards the light. 

No sooner than you had reached the last few yards of tunnel than the whole mine folded in on itself behind you with a terrifying, thunderous cracking and rumbling of rock. You just got clear enough of the entrance not to be blasted by the rush of billowing dust and debris that exploded out behind you, and you tripped, falling face first in the grass, the mayor’s research notes scattering onto the ground beside you. 

Kravik was at your side in an instant. His quick, deft hands touched your shoulder gently and he pulled you over onto your back. “Hey, you alright?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

You shook your head, unable to think. 

“Here,” he said, cradling your head in his hand and lifting it so that you could drink. “Wash some of the gunk out of your throat, eh?” he smiled. 

You took a long pull from the waterskin, rinsed your mouth out, and spat to the other side. 

“More?”

With a nod from you, he raised it again, and you drank the water down this time. 

You struggled to sit up fully, and as you set your hands down, your palm came into contact with a smooth fragment of stone that had been carved and inlaid with small runes. The gold glinted in the sunlight, and you gasped. “This is what kept the dullahans out,” you murmured, turning it over in your hand. “It must have broken the wards when the mine began to collapse. That’s how they got in.”

Before Kravik could answer, Vhorn came stumping over, having deposited the mayor somewhere for now, and his massive, orcish frame blotted out the sun above you as he came to a halt. “What the hell happened down there?” he asked. “I thought you were fumigating for beetles, not bringing down the town’s livelihood around you!”

Kravik stood protectively at your side, but you set down the runed fragment of rock, took a deep breath, and then stood. You barely came up to Vhorn’s chest, but still, you faced him calmly. “The mayor was using the silver mine as a cover for something else.”

“What? Impossible,” he snorted. 

“Hear me out,” you said firmly, holding up a hand. “She used a substance called ‘phorosnykum’, which is poisonous to goblins and gnomes and other stone-bound creatures in its raw form. But she refined it, and then tattooed it into her half-blood son’s arms in an attempt to awaken the magic in him. It amplifies a mage’s power, apparently, and she hoped that his human blood would be enough to activate it, and that his goblin blood would no longer keep the magic from being dormant in him.”

Vhorn growled and turned to look at the mayor. She was lying on two large, wooden crates, still unconscious from Will’s blow to the head. You knew you should probably look at that, that a head wound could be serious, but because of what she’d done to D, and to the goblins, and to her own son, you couldn’t find it within yourself to care quite enough to do it immediately. You couldn’t do much until she woke up anyway, you knew. 

Vhorn was breathing heavily, and the sound of it rasping in and out of his flattened, orcish nostrils made recalled you to yourself. “She poisoned my wife, my beloved Minna, so she could torture her son?” 

“Pretty much,” you said with a shrug. “I think we should take her to the town cells, and Will and I can show everyone the evidence. Let the people she screwed over decide what to do with her.”

“If this were an orcish clan…” he began, but you laid a hand on his massive forearm. 

“Vhorn, it’s not,” you said quickly, stalling him before he gained any momentum. “I know what swift and true orcish justice looks like, but I think we should talk about it. All of us. As a town.”

“What’s to talk about!” he bellowed, drawing the attention of the onlookers, and for the first time you realised that there were goblins there who had been mining phoros until very recently. Were they alright? You should be tending to them, not arguing with the overseer. 

“Vhorn, we’ve got sick people to deal with. Help me get them to the healing house to be checked over.”

The sound of running feet, and possibly also of hooves, reached your ears, and you turned to see a small party rushing up the hill from the road below. Among them was Erik, his long-handled axe strapped to his massive back and his minotaur’s hooves pounding the earth as he ran beside Orin, a large bay centaur, and with them came Nuari, a frankly enormous gnoll. The three of them were woodcutters and had obviously come running from the glade not far away at the sound of the mine collapse. 

Erik took one look at you, and then at the billowing dust still lingering and drifting in the air between the pine trees, and his eyes went wide, his nostrils flared, and he barrelled at you. Your friend picked you up and held you in his huge arms. “Gods, what happened? Are you alright? Is anyone still trapped inside?”

You shook your head. “No one is inside,” you said with certainty. “We got everyone out. Put me down, Erik, I’m fine,” you added with a wheezing chuckle. “We do need a hand getting a few of the miners to the healing house though.”

Your knees felt weak as water after everything you’d been through as you and Kravik organised the safe transport of everyone to the healing house, distracting Vhorn by asking him to help as well. You and the goblin exchanged a look if satisfaction and relief as the orc walked away from the mayor to begin helping to carry the coughing and shaken goblins and other miners down the hill towards the town. 

“Nuari,” you called, and the big gnoll looked round and came padding over to you. 

“You alright?” he asked, subtly snuffing the air around you. 

You smiled. You’d not really had much to do with him in the past, but he occasionally shared a drink with you, Kravik and Erik in the inn. More recently he’d taken a shine to a hunter who had moved in on the outskirts of town. “Yes,” you confirmed. “I’m shaken, but alright for now. Would you help me take the mayor to the town hall? I’ve looked her over, and apart from dizziness and a bit of sickness consistent with a concussion, she’s alright. There is a holding cell we can keep her in there until we can put her on trial…”

He nodded. “Of course,” he said with a somewhat grim and toothy smile. 

Nuari unceremoniously pulled her to her feet and growled at her to stay silent, and you walked by his side as he led her away with a firm grip on her. Through the trees ahead, you saw Orin returning with Erik, having transported the disorientated goblins to the house of healing. There was no sign of Vhorn, thank goodness, but Erik’s little brother, Calum was with them. Erik was still signing rapidly to his deaf brother as they drew level with you, Nuari, and the mayor, clearly filling him in on all that had happened, but as your head began to spin and points of light sparkled across your vision, he broke off and darted forwards. 

Taking deep, steadying breaths, you tried to fight off the dizzying weariness, but as you swayed perilously, he looked up at Orin, who grinned. “Pop her on board,” the big centaur smiled, turning broadside to you, his big, feathery shire’s fetlocks dancing and swishing. 

“Thanks, Orin,” you whispered, mortified. You couldn’t help the gasp of surprise as Erik hoisted you easily up onto the centaur’s back. 

“Hold on,” Orin grinned. “I’m taking you home. You need to clean up and relax.”

The ride back to your cottage was short, and honestly passed in a complete blur. Erik thanked Orin and led you inside while the others saw the mayor safely to the cell. Erik seated you on a stool while he gave you a drink and a piece of nut brittle he found in your pantry for a quick blast of energy. “There,” he smiled, kneeling down in front of you. 

A sudden wave of gut-wrenching loneliness washed through you. The feeling of D’s fleeting grip on your hand, the warmth of his palm on your thigh, the flickering light of his phosphorescent lines: it all filled you with a deep, gnawing terror, and you couldn’t tell anyone about it. Kravik knew, but he was busy seeing to his people. 

“Hey,” Erik murmured. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. I’ll get some water heating for you so you can wash up, and then I want you to lie down for a while, alright?”

You nodded mutely, allowing the big, dark minotaur to take care of you while you simply sat there, trying not to cry. 

It seemed like a long time later that the water was hot enough for you to take a bath, and even longer until you were lying down on your bed. “I’ll get Krav to come and find you later,” Erik said as he made his way to your bedroom door. “Try and rest a bit for now. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.” 

“Thanks, Erik,” you smiled weakly. 

The big minotaur just nodded again and backed slowly from the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. 

Alone in the stillness of your bedroom, you tried not to let your thoughts and fears run rampant through your exhausted mind, but it was utterly futile. Taking a deep breath, you pulled the covers up around your ears, and let the bone-deep tiredness soak through you. Your last thought as you slipped under into unconsciousness was of D. 

The mayor’s trial was a sad affair. Will testified against her, looking so small as he stood up in the little town hall. It was hardly a formal courtroom like they had in the big cities, and there was no precedent in this backwater trading town for trying the mayor of the town itself, but everything was noted down and recorded properly, and the town council passed the final sentence. The mayor had caved in and admitted everything when you had stood up and spoken of the damage she had done to the bodies of the goblins she had used to extract the phoros from the mines. She was sent under guard to the city where she was passed over to the guild of mages, along with all the documents of her crimes. 

Life slowly returned to normal in the town, but your victory still felt hollow without D by your side. 

You worried every night about him, and with no word from Tenacity, you began to fear the very worst. If anything happened to him, would Tenacity come back to tell you? Or would she just move on to the next place that called for a dullahan’s justice?

Two weeks passed, and you tried to occupy yourself in caring for the remaining goblins who still couldn’t quite shift the hacking coughs from the phoros powder. Minna recovered fully, and you laughed for the first time in at least ten days when big Vhorn swept his tiny wife up and held her in his arms, nuzzling his tusked face against her neck and kissing every inch of her that he could reach. 

“Careful, Vhorn,” you chuckled. “She’s still on the mend.”

Minna, still in her husband’s arms, had thanked you profusely, and her dark eyes had then slid to Will who was standing on the far side of the room, watching the display of affection between goblin and orc with fondness in his sharp features. The young half-goblin, it seemed, had an interest in horticulture and medicine, and had assigned himself as your apprentice since leaving the mines. He was staying with Erik and his enormous family, sleeping in the cosy attic room above their wood store, and he seemed to be slowly blossoming back to life under the boisterous minotaur family’s effervescent love. His tattoos still glowed blue and pained him from time to time, and you suspected he might need to travel to the city to see a mage about them one day, to make sure they were safe, but for now, he was content with a simple country life. 

If only you could be. 

Winter hit the forest hard that year, with storms tearing up old trees, and a flash flood ripping the great water wheel right off the side of the mill building downstream. As spring finally staggered in and the weather settled while the little flowers began to poke their noses up through the layers of fallen leaves, the whole town pulled together to get everyone back on their feet. A new mill wheel was built, houses were repaired, and the people got back to living instead of just surviving. While you spent the cold season treating the flu and the flux, colds and agues - maintaining that a minotaur with a head cold was one of the most pathetic sights you’d ever seen - you felt increasingly empty inside. 

You had come to accept that neither D nor Tenacity would come back to you. You guessed that D hadn’t survived, and that with nothing to tie her to this place any more, Ten had simply abandoned you. The pain of that was almost as unbearable as the thought of D being dead. 

On the night of the spring equinox, during which the town celebrated the advancing season with drinking and dancing, you found yourself quietly alone in your little hut, reading by the fire. The tramp of several pairs of feet up the stairs and the stamp of a centaur’s hooves on the gravel outside, announced the arrival of a small and rather rowdy bunch of well-meaning friends, come to chivvy you out of your little dark corner and into the light of the approaching spring. 

It was Kravik though who simply barged into your hut while the others - Erik, Will, Valka, Orin, Nuari, and Erik’s little brother Calum - all stood outside, laughing and stamping their feet against the lingering chill in the air. 

“Oh no,” Kravik exclaimed melodramatically when he saw you bundled up in a shawl with your feet tucked up underneath you. “Oohhhh no. No, no, no. No you don’t,” he went on, shaking his head and waggling a long, knuckly finger at you. In a quieter and much more empathetic voice, he said, “You aren’t going to hear from them. It’s been months. You know you need to let him go.”

“I can’t, Krav,” you said. “I… I know we didn’t exactly make any promises to each other… But he… I don’t even know if he…”

“I know,” the little goblin said, covering the last few yards between you and putting his hand on your forearm. It’s colour wasn’t dissimilar to that of D’s skin, but where D’s hand had been big and powerful, ending in vicious, obsidian talons, Kravik's was skinny and light, but the touch of your friend was no less kind than D’s had been. “Come on, we’re taking you out. You’re not allowed to stay in and mope on equinox. You’ll bring bad luck and the blues on the whole town if you do.”

“I think we’ve had our fair share of bad luck for a lifetime,” you muttered darkly, but he cut you off with a hushing gesture. 

“Don’t say that!” he yipped playfully. “Now you’ve got to come before you jinx everything. Come on, get up and get your fancy dancing clothes on.” Conspiratorially, he leaned in and said, “Orin would like it if you came dancing…”

“I bet he would,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “He’d like to dance with anything in a skirt.”

“Ah, come now,” Kravik laughed, stepping back as you got to your feet with a grunt. “That’s not true. He’s just… He… He just… appreciates a…”

You cocked an eyebrow. “A good woman when he sees one? Shut up, Kravik,” you laughed. “And let this particularly good woman get dressed.”

“Yes!” he said, pumping his fist in the air in triumph. You shook your head as he scuttled back outside and hollered, “She’s coming!” and was met with a chorus of cheers. 

Ah, they were a good group of friends. And despite your heartache, you did find yourself enjoying the evening. 

A group of travelling musicians provided the entertainment, and the dancing even spilled out of the Highwayman’s Secret, the inn which stood on the main street through town. You and Kravik danced, as well as you and Erik, and Will, and even Nuari asked you for a dance, leaving his hunter on the bench talking to Orin and Valka. The banshee only used Sign, but she made herself understood well enough.

As you came back for one final dance with Kravik, he smiled up at you. “Pick me up,” he said at the end of it.

“What?”

“Pick me up. I wanna hug you, and I hate hugging your leg like some little dog.”

“Can I sit down?” you laughed, and he nodded. You made your way off the dance floor and eased yourself onto a comfortable bench. Kravik sprang up onto it and sank into your lap as he had used to do when the two of you were a bit younger. His arms snaked around your neck, and he leaned in close to whisper in your ear, “I’m so glad you came tonight.”

“Thanks for making me,” you replied, hugging him back. 

The fierce intensity of his friendship suddenly shattered the calm in you, and the dam which had kept your emotions in check that night cracked and splintered. His bony spine beneath your palms was intimately familiar to you, and the lines of his body were an old comfort to you. He knew the shape of your soul the way no one else did, and tears suddenly welled up and you began to cry into his collar. Sobs wracked you as you sat there, wailing behind the cover of the music. 

“I miss him so much,” you choked, and he held you all the fiercer for it, stroking your hair with his long fingers. “I miss him so much,” you said, over and over. “Justice,” you whispered, no longer speaking to Kravik. “Justice, I miss you.”

A moment later, an odd prickling ran all the way up your spine, making the hairs rise on the back of your neck, and you looked up sharply with a wheezing gasp, expecting to see someone standing close. A second cold shudder rippled right through you, and you stared blearily around, searching for the cause of your unease. 

“You alright?” Kravik asked, pulling back. “You look like you’re going to pass out… Come on, let’s get some air.” With that, he clambered off your lap and held his hand out to help you to your feet. 

Erik was outside with Orin when you two emerged, and when they saw the pink in your eyes, and with an exchanged look, Orin asked, “Want some company?”

“Sure,” you sniffed, and the small group of you wandered through the chilly spring night, heading gradually back to your cabin the way a compass needle points north. The dark outline of Nuari loomed out of the night, coming back from walking his partner home, and when you asked why he hadn’t stayed, he flattened his ears and growled, “Argument.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you mumbled. 

He shrugged. “We’ll be alright. I hope. Mind if I join you?”

You shook your head, and the gnoll slipped into place between you and Erik, who was none-too-steady on his hooves. 

As the noise of the festivities faded behind you, and the sounds of the night reached prevailed on the susurrating breeze, you let out a deep sigh and found your eyes unfocusing. 

“You alright?” Orin asked after a little while, pulling his long, dark brown ponytail forward over one shoulder and fiddling with it. “You’re not angry we made you come out, are you?”

You looked up at him and shook your head, smiling, despite your roiling emotions. “No, Orin, I’m not angry. I had a wonderful time, and you’re all very thoughtful. Thank you.”

His huge shoulders slumped in relief and the thick woollen jumper he was wearing over his human torso sagged under the motion. 

“You really didn’t have to escort me home, though,” you added. “I could have walked fine alone.”

“Erik’s had way too much to drink, so he needs to walk it off,” Orin commented, giving the minotaur a playful shove and making him stagger so far that he nearly flattened Nuari, you, and Kravik. The gnoll dodged and snatched you out of the way, and little goblin barely leapt back with an indigent shriek in time. Orin clopped forwards to catch the tilting minotaur before he fell flat on his face. 

“It’sss true,” Erik slurred. “Sorry. I normally don’t drink coz of looking after mama and the others, but tonight Orin said I should so I did and now the world is all over the place.”

“No, that’s just you,” Kravik grumbled. “Orin, why did you have to get him so drunk?”

The centaur laughed. “It’s not like I meant to get him this sozzled… He did that all on his own!” 

“Can’t you just sling him over your back and take him home?” Kravik added sourly. 

“And face the fury of a minotaur mama for my efforts?” Orin chuckled. “No thank you! Like I said, he can walk it off a bit first.”

You were all laughing as you came around the bend in the road that led to your hut, set slightly apart from the town and separated by a stand of pine trees and a little meadow, but the laughter died in your throat at the sight that greeted you there. 

Standing patiently outside your house was a very familiar black horse. 

“Midnight?” you gasped, eyes going wide, feet stalling. 

Kravik murmured your name and laid his hand on you to steady you. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

Nuari began to growl and instinctively dropped to all fours, hackles raised. Your hand shot out and landed on his furry shoulder to reassure him. “No,” you whispered. “No, it’s fine. Really. It’s fine.” You turned to look at Kravik, knowing your face was a picture of wonder and disbelieve. “Krav, it’s him!”

Nuari twitched beneath your hand and you flinched back to stare at the cabin. It was unmistakable: D was walking down the steps of your hut. 

He froze when he noticed the small party all staring at him, clearly wondering if he still had time to use his innate dullahan magic and disappear. 

“What the hell is that?” Orin breathed, shuffling his hooves nervously. 

“Whassswat?” Erik scowled vaguely. “I don’t see anything.”

Nuari was still growling. “I don’t like this.”

“It’s… It’s…” Your tongue stalled. You saw two options ahead of you. You could lie to your friends; tell them it was nothing and say you’d like to go back to the town and give D a chance to get away, or you could forget them entirely and run to him. 

You’d never felt so torn. Dullahans were secretive, and often payed vicious vengeance on those who stared too long at them, and D was still standing there motionless. When Midnight noticed you, she reared and screamed a neigh into the night. D startled at the sudden sound and went to her, patting her neck. 

Then your heart dropped as he stepped into the stirrup and swung up onto her back. He reined the horse around, ignoring her snorting and head shaking, and nudged her into a slow walk down the road away from you. 

“D?” you hissed. 

“A messenger?” Orin asked. “That didn’t look right though… something was… off about them.”

You didn’t know how much they had truly seen, after all, Tenacity had disguised herself successfully as a human being and had been granted access to the mayor’s house. 

D and Midnight were disappearing into the shadows of the forest. 

Your breathing quickened. You glanced down at Kravik and he nodded at you.

You made your decision. 

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