The Last Sacrifice: A Short Story

By Valerie Gaumont

The last survivor of of a fallen people is offered as a sacrifice to protect her adopted village. Surviving will lead her to the truth of what happened to her people, her death will see them lost and forgotten forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valerie Gaumont
• Release date: Dec 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215309681

Valerie Gaumont

Valerie Gaumont is an evil genius whose mission is to take over the world. Her latest efforts were thwarted when her flying monkey army discovered beer. Currently they are in Rehab because no one likes a drunk flying monkey. (Thank you for your cards and letters of support.) When she is taking a break from villainy she can often be found with a pen in her hand. Yes, sometimes she is doodling, other times writing fiction and discovering new and interesting ways to combine reality with the outré. She has had short stories in the Violet Ampersand Anthology, Poetry, Prose and Other Voyages to the Edge, and the online Journal, Gothic Fairytales for Melancholy Children. In 2007 she was listed as a finalist in the William Faulkner International Writing Competition in the Novel-In-Progress category.

Book preview

The Last Sacrifice

By Valerie Gaumont

A Short Story

License Statement

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Understanding dawned. Ilia’s eyes widened. No, she said, her heart lodged in her throat. She looked at the circle of faces around her. No, there has to be another way.

Some looked at her with sympathy. Others would not meet her eyes. No one was going to help.

The matter was settled.

Ilia glanced towards the door, towards escape. Before she could do more, she was grabbed from behind.

A heartbeat later, Ilia was bound and hefted over the shoulder of Trandio. She fought, but it changed nothing. The bonds were too tight. He was too strong.

He bounced her as he walked, shoulder pummeling her stomach and knocking the breath out of her. With her arms and ankles tied, she knew she was caught, but Ilia couldn’t stop trying to fight the bonds. Her mind knew it was useless, but she couldn’t let herself just give up.

Accept it.

Her fighting didn’t change anything and soon enough Trandio was lowering her onto the ceremonial platform. Ilia was made to stand, her arms lifted, looped by their bindings to a hook above her head. She clamped her teeth tight refusing to whimper, to cry, to beg. She hated that couldn’t stop trembling.

Hated the others knowing she was afraid.

The others gathered round. A few murmured words of thanks for her sacrifice, a couple of the townspeople threw flowers onto the platform and smiled sadly as though already missing her. None would meet her eyes or look at her directly.

Ilia never attended one of the sacrifices before. She was not born in the village of Fenawolk and thought the sacrifice barbaric. Somehow, she thought there would be more ceremony. More ritual.

More time to change their minds.

The platform began to lower into the caverns below, her hands and feet still bound. Terror crashed over her and Ilia thrashed against the bindings, not thinking of escape, just not wanting to go into the pit bound. It seemed somehow worse to die trussed like an animal for slaughter. She twisted and turned only succeeding in rubbing her wrists raw, not loosening the bonds.

When only her bound hands stood above the rim of the pit, Heorna leaned down. She stilled when she saw his blade. He cut the bindings on her wrists. She lowered her arms and rubbed the raw flesh of her wrists even as the platform continued downwards. She looked up. Heorna was not known for his kind acts, so Ilia was confused by his show of mercy.

He likes them to fight, he whispered. There was evil glee in his face. The rewards are always so much greater then.

Ilia looked away trying to hide her fear. She heard him chuckle softly as he drew back and knew he saw it. Knew he would savor the memory of her fear throughout the winter months until a new sacrifice was chosen the following spring. The platform lowered below the surface of the ground completely and the lid to seal the tunnel into the caves slid into place. The sound of the bolts locking into place rang in Ilia’s ears.

There would be no help from above.

She felt a small spark of relief that there would be no audience. Her death would not be a spectacle. The spark was extinguished as the waves of fear came crashing back. Ilia knelt down on the still lowering platform and with trembling fingers untied the cord from her legs. She wanted to be free when the platform finally came to rest.

The pit was dark, but not as pitch black as she feared, small chinks of light pierced the cavern from above where fissures ran through the stone. Despite the village tales, the beast it seemed, did not require complete darkness. There were some who doubted the existence of the creature, but she inhaled and knew something lived in these caves.

Ilia was not alone in the darkness.

Her eyes adjusted to the low light. She crouched low on the platform trying to peer into the shadows. Knowing any chance of survival depended on her mastering her own fear, Ilia tried to calm the panic with remembered lessons even as her eyes searched the cavern. She picked out the vague shape of rock formations and looked for