Sleep is something I remember, but it now seems to be so distant that the memory of a full night of sleeping is fading into my past. The dreams began with simple glances of faces. Passing faces in a crowd, a glimpse of their darkness within otherwise pleasant dreams. But they grew, like a building storm as the winds rise over the mountains, they grew slowly, menacingly. It reached a point where I could no longer bring myself to sleep, for the dreams would come. The twisted faces, watching me... The faces of those that have fallen to bow and blade, fallen to my bow and blade. Always there, always watching me, waiting, waiting for the time to judge me as I once judged them.
Fatigue has taken me of late, and to this end the dreams that only came in slumber, now haunt my sight within the waking hours, of which I have many. I see them, where others see a shadow, or a dimply lit corner. I see the fallen, staring at me as if I have no right to life. Their arms often outstretched, offering an embrace I fear will lead to my passing.
This will probably be my last journal entry for some time, and of late I have not written in these pages for the lack of will, and the want of writing anything other than the doom that stalks my every step. No longer do I see just a glimpse, or a shape within the dark shadow of a woodland... At times I see places where I am not. I could well be stood looking out from the west gate of Bree, but to my eyes I see the woodlands, dark and brooding, and amongst the burning trees I see them walking, the dead, the fallen... The ash shifting about their footsteps, trailing behind them as a cloud of ill will that gathers again on the ground in waiting for the next footstep.
What once was a simple and swift ride to this home has taken me this day the best part of a whole morning. The path I rode from Bree is wide and open, free of foe and light of air. Yet to me it was a torture beyond the imagination of even the most drunk and twisted mind. Friend and foe I saw mingled together in my sight. Their hollow eyes always watching. But this time their voices came to me, cold empty voices, begging me to ride out with them.
Is this madness to last? Is this the madness my father vowed would take me? Is this the darkness that Cae saw laying before my path? I fear for my love, and my Son... What if I am to strike out as I have so longed to do? What if I strike out with blade at what I see to be a taunting wraith of one who has fallen, but what really lays before my mad eyes is Flannery, or Dern? If this madness takes me within the Inn, how many would I wish to drive a blade through before I was myself struck down?
I cannot stay to find out. I will not tarry in madness where I could hurt the ones I love. In the moments of calm and normal thought, I know I must leave to seek an end in some way to the voices and sights that fill me so often now. I shall leave my bow and my blade upon the table in the house. A bag of coin ample enough for many a year of living, and the maneless horse trinket that has been passed down by my Fathers before me. For if I am to escape this dark cloud in my mind, or find rest beside my Fathers in the mounds of the East Emnet, I must ride out through the shadows that fill my thoughts 'till I find light once more.
