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The winner of the short-short story contest, 500-word bracket.
Reckoning
by Jacob Schlabach
The village people did not treat Astrus well. “No gratitude,” He thought to himself. “Save the entire village and get put to death for your trouble.” As the villagers slowly led him to the gallows he recalled entering the house.
The floor creaks loudly beneath Astrus’ heavy boots. Food on the table looks about two days old, the stench streams into his nostrils; flies float lazily around, darkly delighting in the fetid feast. The stairs louder even than the floor below. Yet he had a purpose. Down the hall, ignoring the child’s room, though in the corner of his eye he sees the wet, red walls and the shape of a boy slumped against a chair. He heads straight for Thatinus’ room. This is where it would all end. The room is dimly lit, sickly candles flicker as he enters. The wife, Elanor, is nailed to the ground. A pentagram painted with her blood surrounds her. Thatinus stands with some dark grimoire above her, slowly chanting and swaying, oblivious to the intruder, who slowly and soundlessly unsheathes the knife hanging at his belt. In a moment Astrus has crossed the space between them and the knife sinks silently into Thatinus’ neck. Thatinus looks up from the book, surprise on his pale gray face. Astrus watches the would-be necromancer slowly sink to his knees, trying to make a noise. Thatinus’ last act is to point a thin finger, now glowing with black-purple energy, at Astrus’ chest. He sees a ribbon of energy pass from that finger into his breast. The next thing he knows, he is laying on Thatinus’ floor and angry villagers are all around him, calling for his head.
As the noose passed over Astrus’ head and settled snugly around his neck he snapped out of his reverie. He was going to die. No amount of explanation would dissuade his fellow villagers. Thatinus was an acolyte; the lich king would have taken over the town had he not intervened. But the villagers said that Astrus’ bloody foot prints had been found in the child’s room.
“Preposterous,” Astrus thinks, “I walked right past that room, and the child was already dead by the time that I got there.”
The recurring pain in his stomach returned as he stepped onto the trapdoor. A sharp pain that twisted, causing him to double up. His mind momentarily shifted, and he had a vision of walking into the child’s room, knife in hand, the boy sleeping peacefully.
Then the pain was gone and his head cleared. “No… No… That was a lie planted by the villagers. In a vision, Medivh said that Thatinus was an acolyte.”
He heard the village priest intoning prayers for his forgiveness. He started laughing. He wasn’t going to die, Medivh would come rescue him. It was all so clear to him. The hangman pulled the lever, and the trap door beneath him opened. He felt the ground disappear beneath his feet. Medivh was coming to get him. Medivh was-
End
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