The Promise

By Daniel Fellows

When an invading army sweeps through his village destroying everything he loves and holds dear, he thinks his entire life is over.  Until he makes himself a promise.

 

Garek is a patient man.

 

For eighteen years, he waits to exact his revenge on the man who took evrything from him.  

 

For eighteen years, he holds onto his promise

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Fellows
• Release date: Apr 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215909898

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The dream is always the same.

He is walking in a dark and damp passageway. Flickering torches are too far apart to be of any real assistance in navigating the darkness. Garek is walking slowly, his hand on the roughly hewn stones. Using the wall as a guide, his fingers are wet from the dampness seeping from the ceiling above. Every so often he can hear the groaning of the roof of the tunnel as the weight from the earth above exerts its weight on the ancient blocks. Garek cannot help but think the entire tunnel will collapse in on him, burying him, forever barring him from glimpsing what he truly needs. Never allowing him to ever see his one and true goal. But the tunnel remains firm and it remains intact.

Garek can never remember how he discovers the tunnel system, he is never afforded this knowledge, but this doesn’t concern him. He simply appears here, time after time. Only his quarry occupies his thoughts.

He knows this is a dream as he has dreamed this many times over the years. Too many to count. It does vary in some small and insignificant ways but never where it counts. Sometimes he is carrying a torch, its flickering flame causing his shadow to bounce along the floor of the tunnel and his face to grow hot from the flame. Others he is atop a mule, the only burden for the dumb beast. In another dream, Garek is running from creatures stumbling and ambling after him in a crazed fury, moaning and grunting after him. It isn't until later does he realise these creatures are the slain from his village and they persue him because he escaped. No matter how the dream starts, the end is always the same. Garek cannot remember all the other times he has awoken in a cold sweat, heart pounding in his chest as his mind tries to come to terms with his failure.

I am a failure, Garek murmurs to himself. I should have saved her. I should have saved her.

Those words reverberate through his mind like a lost, yet relentless, echo. Garek knows he is not to blame. The invasion, the battle, the razing of his town was beyond his control.

Yet….

In the distance, far beyond the reach of the closest flickering torch, a light appears. It doesn’t appear at once, but gradually. At first he isn’t aware of it, but as the seconds pass, and with each passing step, the light grows stronger and brighter.

He knows this part of the dream as he has seen it many times over the years. Garek’s heart starts to beat faster, like a drum leading its followers into battle.

Garek quickens his pace. This is the part he hates the most, the memory of his daughter moments before her death, and yet this is the part he needs. To see her, hear her speak his name, despite the failing life he hears escaping from her lips..

Garek’s bare feet splash in the small puddles of water but