Dark: And the Boy in the Hole: The Prodigy Series, #1

By M.A.Batten

Having been imprisoned in a deep stone pit by the tyrannical King Baltus for as long as he can remember, the Boy With No Name is unexpectedly set free by the last living minotaur, the albino Grim. Together, they escape into Myrr Wood to join the few remaining monsters of the Old World – a ragtag bunch of goblins, trolls, bendith, harpies, a wendigo, and the only lykkan left in the realm – all hunted by humanity to the brink of extinction. When the Nightlings discover the boy can mimic anything he sees, including their own fantastic abilities, they are ready to follow him in an uprising against the world's greatest monster: mankind. However, there is a traitor among the Nightlings, traps have been set, and the King has a deadly new weapon that could wipe out the creatures of the night once and for all. War is coming. But first the boy must decide if he is human, or monster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mr Chicken
• Release date: Apr 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9780975640517

M.A.Batten

M.A.Batten is an award-winning writer of fantasy, science fiction, dark fiction, and twisted horror. During a successful 25-year career in advertising, M.A. amassed over 150 creative awards before deciding to return to his childhood dream of telling stories, but without brands or their ridiculous reasons to buy stuff you can't afford and don't need. His stories have since won four First Places in NYC Midnight, two Shortlists for the Hammond House Literary Prize, and a Finalist at Page International Awards, and his screenplays have won awards and official selections at film festivals around the world. As M.A.Batten writes, a hedgehog called Camden sits on his desk.

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DARK: And the Boy in the Hole

M.A. Batten

Mr Chicken

Copyright © 2024 M. A. Batten

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.  The names,  characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.  Any resemblance to actual persons,  living or dead,  events or localities is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.  Without limiting the rights under copyright restricted above,  no part of this publication may be reproduced,  stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,  or transmitted,  in any form or by any means (electronic,  mechanical,  photocopying,  recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

To request permission,  contact [e-mail]

Cover,  map and design by M.A.Batten

Some illustrative elements developed with AI

Edited by Taalor Brodigan

ISBN 978-0-9756405-1-7

First Edition,  2024

Published by Mr Chicken

Sydney,  Australia

www.mabatten.com

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to everyone who took the time to ask,

What’s happening with your writing?

especially friends, family, my editor Taalor Brodigan,

and all the connections made on social media.

My answers may have bored you senseless,

but your interest kept me going.

To my wyf,

silently enduring the wait for this to come to fruition,

and D’Arcy,

the creator of characters more mythical than any found here

Map

CHAPTER I: THE BOY IN THE HOLE

The boy in the hole didn’t know his own name.

He probably didn’t even have a name. He had been in the hole for such a long time that he had only ever been called ‘It’ or ‘Thing’.

Or ‘Boy-in-the-Hole’.

He had no idea how long he had lived in the waterless well, held within its stone walls and kept from the world above. Everything he remembered of his life took place at the bottom of the cold pit. Every memory he ever had was confined within the darkness of the hole in the ground.

He did not even know how old he was.

Deep and dark, the cold walls of the hole bore the dank scent of a thousand years and sometimes the boy wondered if he had been there all that time. Since he knew of nothing else, it seemed possible that he was a thousand years old. Perhaps older, as though he had been in this exact place before there was even a hole and the earth had grown around him.

Even his dreams were of a life at the bottom of a hole.

Stale water seeped and dripped from the walls and made a small puddle to one side of the pit floor where a small iron grate no larger than his hand let the water flow away to some unknown destination, carrying with it the dirt and mess and filth left by a boy who spent his entire life in a hole with no toilet.

The boy’s muck escaped from the hole. But not the boy.

At the top of the pit – a long way up – was another, much larger, iron grate blocking the way out. As wide as the hole, it was a criss-cross of a hundred iron bars with gaps just wide enough to let in light from the world above. Or muffled sounds or scents. Sometimes food scraps.

And taunts. From the people who did not live in the hole.

Over his lifetime, the boy had learned to carefully claw and climb his way up the ancient stone walls, picking out the gaps in the stonework with his fingers and toes. Wending his way up the slippery surface, stone by stone, brick by brick, he could reach the top of the hole. His dirty fingers could poke through the gaps in the grill and his face press against the underside of the iron bars to feel the fresh air caressing his grubby cheek.

After the difficult climb up the walls, his muscles burned from the strain and struggle, but he bore the pain to let the air tickle his skin and a world of foreign scents fill his nostrils.

He had been in the darkness of the hole for so long that the light in the world above would hurt his eyes and nearly blind him. He could only sustain a squint for a short time before his head began to ache.

He didn’t understand why the world above constantly changed from light to dark and back again, over and over, but he chose those darker times to claw and clamber his way up the ancient stones. When there was no light in the world above to blind his eyes, he could see perfectly through the dark of the world beyond the hole and its impassable iron-grilled ceiling.

Beyond the iron bars, the boy could see his hole was in the middle of the floor of a vast building. During the times of light, the place above was noisy, filled with clatters and clangs, and the hustle and bustle of many people who spent a lot of time doing nothing but living noisy lives.

Noisy lives that were not in a hole in the ground.

The enormous room above his subterranean world was made with stones bigger and smoother than those lining his hole. Around the room, gigantic carved columns taller than his hole was deep, and twice as wide, reached up to support a great arched ceiling that stretched out in all directions.

The walls were decorated with countless hanging cloths in a multitude of bright colours, each one picturing a different creature the boy had never seen. In one, a great scaly beast belched a stream of fire into the air as a victorious knight thrust his sword into its belly. Another showed a proud king on horseback, followed by two soldiers carrying a long wooden pole from which hung the bloodied body of a half-wolf half-man. And yet another depicted a line of brave knights riding into battle against an army of small, deformed men with green skin.

Between each of the ornate hanging cloths was a tall, narrow window looking out to the sky. Beyond these walls the boy could see such deep blackness and a thousand scattered lights, so tiny and white and farther away than anything else he could see. Often, he longed to be as far away from this hole as those beautiful sparkling lights.

Sometimes a billowing veil of smoky air drifted across the sky, high above the world of his hole, and wiped the twinkling dots from his view.

Occasionally, he saw Her.

She was a beautiful silvery white orb with soft blue-grey swirls and a gentle glow that came from within. She drifted slowly across the sky, peering her face down upon him through one window then the next. She didn’t speak, but neither could the boy in the hole, so they shared silent thoughts, he in his filthy wretchedness and She in all her magnificent beauty.

His Mother.

Or so he thought She must be. For She was the only thing he knew that was not cruel. Never taunting. Or vicious.

She made him feel seen, and he loved her.

With a longing sigh, he hoped that one day She would break through the solid stone walls of the great building, tear the iron grill off the hole and gently lift him into the world above, to be with her.

One darkness, as the boy clung to the caged roof of his pit and breathed in the sweet air of the dark and silent hall, a small creature came scurrying across the floor of the room and stopped when it encountered the boy’s fingers poking into its path. Slightly larger than his open hand, its grey fur puffed out to make it appear bigger than it was. The creature’s pointed nose twitched, nostrils flaring, and its beady eyes remained focused on the boy.

While there were thousands of them living within the walls of the castle, none had ever before appeared in the Great Hall which was almost always in use and most often guarded by two ravenous dogs who would quickly make a meal of a rat.

Slowly, the boy stretched one finger and gently stroked the animal’s cheek. Its ear turned this way and that, constantly alert to all around.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, the creature scurried on its way, across the boy’s hand and along a single bar of the grill with perfect balance.

Over time, he faced the creature more often, always when the hall was unlit and quiet.

And one day, it spoke.

It didn’t use the words of people, instead making short squeaks and timid clicks but the boy somehow knew what it said. He could make sense of its voice. Sometimes the chatter was about the creature’s incessant nervousness and fear of every tiny noise, every little movement, every shadow. But mostly it spoke about food it had eaten, wanted to eat, or was about to eat.

Eventually, the boy tried talking back with a series of squeaks that he assumed meant, ‘I’m hungry too.’ And the critter suddenly cocked its head sideways, twitched its nose, wiggled its little round ears, and then hurried off.

When it reappeared, a small morsel of bread poked from its cheek. The boy thanked it for its generosity with a squeak and a click, receiving a pleasant squeak in reply.

That’s OK, boy in the hole, he understood it to say.

For the first time in his life, the boy had made a friend.

The visits became more regular with deliveries of crumbs of dry cheese or a shred of stale meat, until both the boy and the rat decided it would be best if they just lived together. The boy was able to pull free a loose stone from the wall near the bottom of the pit to make a small alcove lined with moss comfortable enough and safe enough for a rodent to sleep blissfully.

Every night, the boy would make the climb to the top of the hole with the rat clinging on his shoulders or in his matted hair, and let it scurry through the grate in search of food. Sometimes the scavenger would return with nothing, having been chased from the kitchens by the dogs, but usually it would drag back tidbits to share with the boy. On a more adventurous outing it managed to find some string and a discarded scrap of fabric the boy was able to fashion into a crude pair of shorts.

Once, it even returned with a shiny silver ring, the most delightful treasure the boy had ever seen, but he dropped it while climbing down the wall and it disappeared into the tiny grate at the bottom with a clink and a rattle. His fingers couldn’t reach in to retrieve it and the rat refused to squeeze through into the filth and muck beneath for something that wasn’t edible.

Through their chats, the boy learned of things beyond the Great Hall, but it was mostly focused on what food could be found, where it could be found, and when it could be found. The boy pressed the rat for other information, such as what lay beyond the walls of the Great Hall, where did the people go when they were not in the Great Hall, were there other boys in other holes in the floor of the Great Hall, and things that seemed curious and important to the boy. But the rat did not understand what could be more curious or important than food.

After much chatter, peppered with the locations of various food sources, the boy managed to learn of several people who did not live in the hole, such as the cook, the kitchen hands, the maids, and the butcher. Through their activities and the increase in food supplies it became possible to predict when the Great Hall was about to be filled with many people.

The people who did not live in the hole would sometimes gather in great crowds of laughter and feasting to a melodious noise made by people holding, hitting, blowing and strumming all manner of strange objects. Climbing to the top of the hole to watch the festivities, the boy was always careful his fingers didn’t poke through the grill or someone would tread on them, sometimes intentionally trying to make him fall.

Usually, the people forgot he was in the hole beneath their feet, but sometimes they would remember and stomp on his grill, shouting taunts. For amusement, they took great delight in dropping food scraps to him, emptying their cups onto his head or sometimes worse.

At times they played a game in which they poked sticks or swords through the grill to try knock him from his perch on the wall, sending him plummeting back down the hole. They succeeded once and he had been unable to walk or stand for a long time without his swollen foot shooting a spike of pain up his leg.

After that, he was always careful to avoid being noticed in the hole. With practice, he became better at dodging the probing weapons whenever the people did notice him or suddenly remembered he was at their feet. He even learned to quickly leap from one wall of the pit to the other, or to loosen his grip on the stones and instantly fall down the hole a little way before latching onto the stone walls again just out of their reach.

Of all the people who lived above the hole, there was one whose taunts were harsher, his games more wicked, his cruelty crueller.

On one occasion, the Great Hall hosted yet another party attended by many people dressed in fine clothing and masks, eating sumptuous food from a table that ran the entire length of the room. The unknown aromas of roast boar, baked vegetables, stew, fresh bread, pudding, cakes and biscuits wafted deep into the pit, curled into his nostrils and made his stomach complain. The people sang and laughed and talked and generally didn’t notice the hungry boy beneath their feet.

At one end of the room, people whirled and moved to music while men in colourful clothing flipped each other into the air, balanced on each other’s heads and entertained the partygoers with tricks and merriment. The boy was so focused on the dancers and the jesters that he hadn’t noticed the man sneak up on him.

Before he could let go of the grill and drop down the hole to safety, a heavy boot stomped down on one hand and held it fast. At the same instant, the other hand was grabbed by the fat fingers of the wicked man. The boy snarled and growled like an animal, his body thrashing about below the bars as he tried to wrench his fingers free.

The rat, sitting securely on his shoulder, buried into the boy’s thick mess of hair and hid.

‘Look what I’ve caught,’ the man boomed to his guests, and they all stopped to gawk and laugh. The boy could smell wine and ale on the man’s foetid breath as he leaned close to grin and stare through the grill, his eyes mad, his teeth stained, his beard filled with crumbs of food that had not made it to his mouth.

The man called for the poker to be fetched from the hall’s enormous fireplace. He raised the red-hot poker to his lips and blew on the glowing orange tip to produce a curl of smoke. It sizzled from the drops of spittle that flew from his breath.

‘It’s time I had my pet branded,’ he sneered. ‘How else shall anyone know he is mine if he ever escapes from his cage?’

He poked the glowing tip of the iron bar through a hole in the grille and pushed it closer and closer to the boy.

‘I should warn you,’ he whispered, ‘this will hurt like hell.’

It struck the boy’s shoulder and, even though it was just a light touch and only for a second, it burned and sent the searing pain of a thousand daggers tearing through his flesh. His body thrashed so wildly his fingers tore free of his captor’s grasp, and as the boy fell to the bottom of the pit his tortured scream was drowned out by the wicked laughter from the crowd above.

This man owned the Great Hall and all its ornate finery.

He owned the hole and everything in it.

He owned the very earth that swallowed the boy.

He even owned his own name.

King.

CHAPTER II: THE KING ABOVE

King Baltus stormed into his Great Hall with a voice like thunder.

‘Crowl!’

When the King strode across the large iron grill of a hundred bars in the middle of the floor, he did not notice the two beady eyes peering out of the dark below. He walked to the end of the room and climbed the six steps onto a raised platform where an enormous wooden throne sat, then settled into it.

Two shaggy, grey dogs dutifully followed him. One flopped down beside its master. When the other tried nuzzling the King’s leg, it received a stiff kick and went slinking off to the side of the platform.

Out of the shadows behind a great pillar, a figure emerged. Crowl.

With a large, hooked nose and dark-rimmed eyes, he was King Baltus’ royal advisor. Bald on top, a lanky curtain of greasy hair spilled over the shoulders of his red robe and his smile was like a sack full of broken bones torn at the seam.

His hands were always clasped together in front of his belly, only the occasional knuckle visible between the cuffs of his long sleeves. And when he moved, it was almost as if he floated slowly across the floor.

Crowl drifted to the front of the platform and gave a slight bow to the King.

‘You called, my lord?’

He spoke quietly. That is not to say he whispered. A whisper is when you intentionally mute the volume of your voice, speaking on a breath. Crowl didn’t whisper. He simply spoke like a cold breeze through a graveyard.

‘You know damn well I called you,’ the King spat. ‘Where is this man?’

He clearly had no love for Crowl, but he tolerated the man’s advice for it was never wrong.

‘I believe he shall be here momentarily,’ replied Crowl.

‘He should have been here half an hour ago. I’ve a mind to execute him for keeping me waiting.’

‘I would advise against that, sire. For this one brings something of great interest to you.’

‘What? What does he bring?’ Baltus asked, impatiently.

‘In your lordship’s constant search for more effective weaponry, we have entertained engineers with machines of somewhat varying degrees of effectiveness.’

They recalled the inventor whose catapult somehow flipped over on itself. And on the inventor. The King chuckled.

‘I thought it was time we looked to other… sciences.’ Crowl hovered on the last word for a moment.

Baltus had indeed met with many merchants of war, all offering their deadly wares. Some arrived at the King’s court with plans and sketches they rolled out on the floor and discussed in detail the intricate machinations, while others brought only themselves to give enthusiastic speeches about the awesome power of their inventive devices, brashly claiming the many ways in which their weapon can turn the tide of battle to outright victory.

‘Then where is this scientist of yours?’

At that, the doors at the far end of the Great Hall opened and royal guards marched in two straight lines, their boots beating a rhythm on the flagstone floor. Their tabards bore the King’s colours of green and black, emblazoned with the emblem of Igrador: the white crow.

Between them walked a man in foreign clothing of purple and gold, and a pointed hat with a brim wider than his shoulders. His long confident stride betrayed his bowed head in a show of humility. As he crossed over the iron grill in the floor, an unnoticed shadow moved in the darkness below.

When the two lines of soldiers reached the platform, they split and doubled back to encircle the stranger. At once, the beating rhythm of their boots stopped.

After a moment of silence, Crowl made the courtly introductions.

‘His highness, King Baltus of Igrador, ruler of all land from Castle Underock to the Madragol Mountains in the East, The Deep Wold in the West, to the North beyond the White Forest and as far South as the great River Tiberon.’

The stranger leaned forward to hear Crowl’s soft voice. Even though he missed most of what had been said, he swept his hat from his head in a flourish as he bowed. When he stood, he smiled with a mouthful of golden teeth.

Crowl continued, ‘This is Lh’Peygh from across the Tyolean Sea.’

‘Greetings, your Kingliness. I respectful thank you for time taking to graciously receive a trader humble like me. I am from far across the sea have come to offer your lordship a most wonder weapon.’

He spoke with a halting tongue, and many words were said improperly or in the wrong order. Sometimes when he stumbled over words, the merchant would bow apologetically and mutter to himself as if practicing how best to speak.

‘Go on,’ instructed Baltus.

‘My weapon not use wood or steel, rope or spring. Your lord is guaranteed be killed every time.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ The King huffed.

Crowl interjected, ‘I think Mister Lh’Peygh means to say you shall kill your enemies every time.’

‘Yes, yes,’ the man agreed in earnest. ‘Lh’Peygh know your force in South still not cross Tiberon River to capture great city Troha. Lh’Peygh know army of the Padogin have stop you. For many years. And they just men riding bear.’

Even though Baltus hated to hear it, Lh’Peygh spoke the truth.

Six years ago, he sent his army South to seize the lands on the other side of the great River Tiberon that snaked westward across the land from the foothills of the mountains all the way to the coast. Where the river wasn’t a churning white froth that smashed against the stony banks, it was so wide and deep that the waters seemed still. On the far side, the three kingdoms of Culdiheen, Varhaus and the Padogin constantly defended the many attempts of Baltus’ army to cross the river.

Currently his army was encamped near the ruins of an age-old stone bridge that had long ago connected Igrador with the ancient city of Troha, the former capital of Padoga. The bridge had stood there since the Age of Coin, when Troha was a wealthy city of trade, but after the bear-riding Padogin stopped Baltus’ army from crossing the bridge they smashed out the central keystone, causing most of the expansive arch to collapse into the river below.

Now, with no way to cross the river and defeat the Padogin, Baltus’ army might eventually concede defeat. And that was not something the King was willing to do. Ever.

‘Can I see this miraculous weapon of yours?’ Baltus asked, quickly moving the conversation away from his current failures.

The merchant reached into his robe and withdrew a small clay jar stoppered with a cork.

Fearing poison, Baltus reeled back and covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, but the merchant gave an odd little chuckle.

‘May I suggest we outside for demonstration, your lordiness,’ he offered. ‘One handful could bring roof down and Lh’Peygh wish not be dead today.’

Before Baltus could speak, the merchant turned away, pushed through the guards and walked down the long hall carrying the flask before him. The King paused a moment then rose and hurried after the foreigner, Crowl and his guards in tow. They followed Lh’Peygh through the doors, along corridors and out into a large courtyard in the middle of Underock Castle where several soldiers stood around a small brazier, warming themselves against the evening shadows.

Lh’Peygh shoved one soldier aside and waggled his fingers at the others to shoo them away.

‘Go, go. Be away,’ he said. ‘You not want be here.’

The merchant turned and faced the King, grinning broadly. His gold teeth sparkled in the sunlight.

‘Beholding!’ he declared, mustering some showmanship with one arm held wide. The King just stared at him. No applause.

Lh’Peygh uncorked the clay jar and tipped a little of the contents into the palm of his hand. The onlookers could see it