The young brave was dying.

The medicine man could see it in his gait, his limping step, as he threaded his way across the field, between the deep wounds in the earth, the rents in the rocky soil where the dead had clawed their way back into the land of living man, their very presence slowly choking the light from the sky.

He had fought well, as all of them had. Never considering running from battle, never flinching from the horrors that rose from the oily blackness below.

The brave settled beside him on the rise, his breathing ragged. Together, they gazed at the ruined plain, the soil, the withered plants, all turned pale gray by the darkness that had been visited upon them.

Would everything grow again, the brave asked? The medicine man told him that he did not know. There were things that were never meant to walk the land. Their intrusion left scars, marks that might not ever fully heal.

But the battle, it was done. Yes? The brave sought assurance that their efforts, the deaths of the men and women who had fought with such courage, had not been in vain. It was finished, the shaman assured him. The dark spirits that had sought to make this place their home had been turned away. Those that remained, and those that fell, could now rest.

And the shadows, the brave asked, the shadows had all been slain?

At this the medicine man paused. He looked to the young man, his expression one of reassurance. The shadows had been vanquished. Of this, there was no doubt. But darkness was eternal. It was an inseparable part of all that was, just as water, the wind, and the sun and moon were. Where there was light, the dark would remain.

No, they were not dead, the shaman explained gently. The shadows, as all things in the land must, from time to time, had merely gone to sleep.