By The Sword - Homepage
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The world flew around me in a blur.
Bump after bump and bruise after bruise, my all-too-tense body was dragged through the woods. I clutched my sword tight, feeling the strain in my muscles as I desperately tried to just keep my grip.
I closed my arms in, trying to keep my cloak from flying off into the dirt. Its warmth hugged me still, even as the cold ground transferred its curse onto me. I bit down, forcing my neck to stay up.
Everything whirled around me, heartbeat after heartbeat. Trunks, leaves, and the whole rest of the brush all sped past at impossible speeds. My eyes flicked around, every once in a while coming into perfect focus on one specific part of the blurred world around me.
One moment it was a specific open section of the woods where the moonlight shone down just enough for me to see a birds nest lying in a tree. The next moment it was little more than the furious rustling of a bush as something—presumably just as scared as I was—ran desperately away from the thing dragging me off through the night.
My neck screamed at me as I forced my head up. My eyes stared at the thing, little more than a black blur as it dragged me away. I forced my eyes to hone in, forced them to focus. And it just barely worked.
In a moment frozen in time, a sliver of moonlight pierced through the forest and painted the thing with its light. I caught its shape, one vaguely humanoid from the top-up. I could see its dark surface, what looked to be horrifying scars of silvery grey decorating all over its body. I tried to move my eyes down, tried to look at the rest of it, but I couldn’t. As soon as I tried to look, its weaving twisted me again, whirling me off to the side. My body flew in the air for a moment, feeling the howling wind brushing up across my back before my body once again slammed into the ground.
A sharp breath escaped from my mouth, accompanied by the horrible shaking I felt on the inside of my body. My arm was flung backward, the grip of my sword slipping ever so slightly through my fingers. I latched on hard, not letting it—not even for a second—escape my grasp.
Gasped, stilted breaths entered my lungs as the cold wind washed over my face. My eyes snapped closed. The scraping sound in my mind continued, raking a horrible rhythm against the side of my skull.
I knew I should’ve listened; I repeated it to myself. If I thought it often enough, it had to become true. Jason’s warning played back through my head, a fearful thrum accompanying every word. He’d told me to ignore it. It had taken advantage of my mind. But I’d only aided its efforts. I’d been the one to walk closer, the one to put my life on the line.
And yet I’d still been tricked.
A roaring storm of anger brewed just under the surface as memories surged up. Swirling thoughts chastised me, taunted me with the all-too-recent past. One crystal clear, crippling message rang out through it all.
I was weak.
Terrible things flashed in my mind. Fears, worries, terrors, they all surged up. All of the possible gruesome ways to die walked right into my thoughts and just made themselves at home. The swirling, frantic fear greeted them at the door, only helping them get settled further.
A horrible, unreal cracking sound echoed in my mind—and only in my mind. It brought up more memories, each one more horrible than the last. Memories of fights sped past on my eyelids, memories of killing, memories of pain. Each one of them echoed a similar sound: the horrible gurgled last sounds right before death.
But the memories eventually slowed, giving way to the one single moment I hated more than the rest. The cracking of bone echoed in my mind again, this time echoing out in a clearing near my home, one that I knew all-too-well.
The beast’s face stared at me, its cracked, bony lips inching upward into a smile. I saw the darkness in its eyes flare out, edging in from just beyond my vision. Its scythe flashed movement in my vision and a sound rang out in my ears. A familiar clattering sound echoed through my mind and solidified the worse thought floating around in my head.
I was weak.
A bony hand reached out. It moved at me in a second, registering the deep, dark memory that I so wanted to repress. Its hand touched my shoulder, the bony extensions of its fingers penetrating into my soul. I felt my body go limp and my vision fade to black.
I kicked out, and my body went tumbling. I snapped my eyes open, the dark forest canopy quickly staring down at me. I felt the cold dirt underneath me tremble as my kick altered the course of our trip. The cold hand on my ankle let up for a moment, adjusting its grip. It couldn’t have been off for barely more than a second. But that was all the time I needed.
My legs kicked out again and I grasped desperately for the ground. The cold hand reeled back, leaving my leg yet unshackled. I drove it into the ground, feeling how my metal boot scraped along the ground. The nightmare slowly receded as I regained control.
I slashed at the thing, my arm bringing back all the energy no longer trapped in my mind. The blade came down, slicing cleanly through the night, and struck where the thing’s arm should’ve been.
The only contact I got was that of my blade striking the ground, but even without a hit, I still gained something. The dark, cold hand had released my other leg, hissed right at me, and retreated into the night.
I felt the thundering of my heart pumping straight power through my veins as I picked myself up. The dull pain in my back and all over my arms was drowned out for the time, the feeling instead replaced with the anger still growing in my mind.
The once all-encompassing fear finally had a challenger as rage seethed under my skin. The scraping had stopped, with the vile sound along with it, and I lifted my body.
Standing up came with clarity though as I scanned the trees around me. Sparse rays of moonlight poked their ways through the leaves, decorating the sparse brush below. My eyes flicked over the gnarled trees, barely making out their forms in the dark. I didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t know where my fellow rangers were either. The image of Jason’s face flashed in my mind, his gaudy, smug smile staring me right in the face.
Just because I’d been tricked didn’t mean they had too. They were still out there, I told myself, somewhere deep in the woods.
Howling wind stung at my ears and my skin. The chill of it felt far too close. I hugged my arms in trying the wrap my cloak tighter, but with another blast of wind, I found that it barely helped. I looked down at myself, barely catching the newly-ripped section in the once-good coat.
I groaned to myself, almost letting the sound slip from my lips. I bit the groan back though and snapped my head up. The now quiet and dull—but still very solid—blade of fear hunkered in the back of my mind. A storm of rage and the pure instinct to survive had pushed it away, but it was still there.
And that thing was still there too.
I gripped my sword tight. The shiny silver blade fell down by my side, its length just enough to only barely scrape on the ground. Maneuvers flashed in my mind, ones I readied myself to enact. But not yet, I thought, reminding myself of the silence. Not yet.
I took a step forward, looking around yet another tree. I could see vague forms in the night, barely illuminated by the dim, ambient light. Each one of them scared me, sending my mind through a spike, but the bursts of fear never lasted.
My long, deep breath rang out in the woods. All I could hear as the sound of my breath faded, was the blood in my ears, the howling of the wind, and… something else. The final sound that I heard was different from the rest. It… echoed and whirled, as if right in my ear, and its soft sharp sound was oddly familiar.
My neck twisted and my head whipped around. I recognized the noise in an instant. It was coming from inside my mind, I realized. The soft, incessant scraping of fear was back and it was hard to ignore.
It was close.
My eyes scanned between the trees, straining themselves for even the slightest movement. I saw nothing in the trees, nothing rustling in the brush. It looked like it was barren, not a thing around for thousands of paces in any direction. But, as the crackly scraping reminded me, that’s just what I’d thought before.
I took another step forward, feeling the cold of the air seeping its way through my clothes. A little voice in my ear—one that spoke in tune with sound chipping away at my skull—told me to run. It showed me the safety of the lodge; it showed me how far away I was. It wanted me to leave, to make myself vulnerable and give it a chance to strike. But the voice was still soft, and I knew better than that.
Another few steps forward brought me between two new trees. I looked behind each of them, my blade ready. The terror striking in my mind sharpened, and I did the same with my eyes.
The softest sound lilted to my ears, overpowering the rest of the distant ones that I heard in the forest. I recognized the noise in an instant, spawning a demonic grin on my face. My fingers flexed on the sword, tension slipping in and out.
I took another step forward, bringing myself closer to the sound. It repeated again, telling me everything I needed to know. And as my next step fell down, my body surged forward, my blade coming straight down into the bush.
A loud crack and a hiss split the night, sending me blinking and reeling back. I felt the contact from my blade and I knew I’d hit, but it had hit too, inside of my mind. I shook off the ringing in my ears and focused again.
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In front of me in the dark was the same black form that had dragged me through the night. Its form was still humanoid, but being able to see its bottom half, the term barely fit. Below the humanoid half that was covered in thin silvery scars, its loose form started to fray. Where I’d expected it to have legs, ones that matched its top half, I instead saw a horrifyingly scattered mess.
Bile rose in my throat as I watched its form shimmer. What it had for legs looked more like the bottom of a spider than the bottom of a human. The tendrils—which is the best term I could put to them— presumably allowed it to move as quickly as it did. But the idea itself mystified me because, instead of regular feet of any kind, the bottom of its tendrils each ended in the form of a human hand.
A shriek escaped from my lips, splitting the night for a moment before I got it under control. I heard footsteps and rustling echo out somewhere in the distance. I took solace in the sound, trying to focus my mind. Pulling from the tactics in my mind, I surged forward toward the thing.
My hand angled to the side, forcing power into the hilt of my sword as I sliced in toward the side. From what little I could see of its form in the dark, it didn’t have a weapon of any kind, so I just pushed forward full force. As my feet beat on the dirt, its hand reached out and aimed right for my head.
I ducked low and pushed off to the side. My sword’s strike came through, cutting deep through its dark surface. The stilted feedback in my arm gave me more confidence than anything else.
Ignoring the cries of absurdity and the incessant murmurs of fear in my head, I twisted myself around and focused on the beast. Its vague humanoid shape with small, grey eyes twisted toward me and tilted its head. Just where my sword had slashed, there was a shiny grey liquid seeping slowly from its body.
My brows angled uselessly, displaying a terrible confusion that no one would ever see. The wound I’d just inflicted closed in an instant, but it wasn’t healed. The slash became silver, a shiny grey mark to match the dozen others decorated all over its form.
The shimmering tendrils from its bottom flared out for a moment and my heart skipped a beat. Horror stories from my childhood instantly filled my mind, each image that I saw accented by the rhythm of the chipping at the edge of my skull. But the tendrils didn’t come at me, they didn’t wrap around my sides, squeezing in on my ribs and choking me until I died.
No, the tendrils didn’t do any of that. Instead, they collapsed in and reformed into something new.
I stared in complete horror, the absurdity of the scene not lost on my mind. My hand gripped tight on the handle of my blade as I watched, stepping back on instinct.
In a movement that I didn’t know was possible—movement that shouldn’t have been possible—the humanoid beast formed regular human legs. The silver scars on its body condensed, flaring and twitching as they decreased in size until they were but thin lines all over its skin.
It stared at me with interest. I stared at it in horror. Whatever it had just done seemed to break my mind, to break all the laws of the world that I’d learned since birth. I quickly came to learn that the opponent I was facing was one unknown to me.
A comment fell on my tongue, one I’d repeated many times throughout my life. But I couldn’t remember the words. They fell… just beyond my reach.
The human-shaped thing raised an arm, gesturing toward me. I took another step back. Its fingers extended, turning into dark tendrils much like the ones it had used for legs.
My eyes widened and I clutched even tighter on my blade. What it was doing wasn’t allowed, I reasoned with myself. It shouldn’t have been possible.
But my mental complains proved futile against the cemented certainty of the moment that had occurred just seconds ago. I stared at the beast, my eyes connecting with the light grey dots on the part of it shaped like a head.
As my confusion deepened, the words from before finally broke through and fell perfectly on my tongue. I recognized them all in an instant. They were my father’s words.
There is no greater fear than the fear of the unknown.
I shivered, the memory of my father’s warning breaking through in my skull. I remembered the moment well, in almost perfect clarity. It had been the day that his market stall had burned down. He’d come home dirty, covered in sweat and soot, and he’d been as honest as he could. He’d told me the whole story, the horrors of it that haunted him all the way until his death. And by the end of it, the famous warning had come. After the stall had burned down, we’d lost our source of money, and he didn’t know how he was going to support us. The future, then, had been unknown, and I’d been scared for days. But with his words repeating in my head, I’d known I wasn’t alone.
A soft, distant rustling sound accented by feet pounding on the dirt ripped me back to the present. The sounds cemented the same sentiment that my father’s words had and all the memories of him faded back into the past. I remembered where I was, what uniform I was wearing. And as I continued to walk back, watching the thing with intent, I remembered what was happening and just what I should do.
I screamed. A loud, ear-shattering scream rang out through the woods. I heard it echo in the trees for multiple whole seconds before it died in the distance. I took another step back, keeping the beastly thing in my vision and strained my ears.
From where I’d heard the sound before, the one that had given me hope, more rustling reached my ears. The sounds gave me comfort and I latched right onto them. They were coming to save me, I told myself as I walked further back. That had to be what it was.
I’d come into the forest because I’d thought they were the ones in trouble. But looking at the horrid black form that kept fear scraping at my skull, I knew the clear and solid truth. I was the one in trouble, and they needed to come save me.
Images of Jason, of Myris, even of Carter, rose up in my mind. I saw them in their uniforms, stalking through the woods. They’d be alert, I told myself confidently. They’d know to listen for a scream, it was the ranger’s most desperate signal. They’d hear me. And they’d come to my aid.
The images of my fellow rangers quickly faded as the fear scraped again. It was getting louder in my mind, despite the growing distance between the thing and I. It still screamed at me to run, to find safety from the woods. But it didn’t give directions. It hoped I got lost.
Silvery scars glinted in a ray of moonlight that spread over its form. The thin scars were moving, writhing and twitching on its horrifying surface. I scrunched my nose, about to finally tear my gaze away, but movement flashed in my eyes and it stayed right where it was.
The shiny scars grew, ripping across its dark surface. The awful scraping in my head quickly turned to banging and the sound only grew in my ears. It drowned out the thundering of my heart, the howling of the wind, the distant footsteps coming ever-closer to me. I twitched in pain as images once again flooded up.
I saw Jason’s smug smirk, flashing brightly in my eyes. My legs froze in place. I saw Myris’ stare, the way he looked at me with disapproval. I saw Carter’s confusion, millions of questions in his eyes about why I hadn’t followed their warning.
Guard duty, a distorted voice yelled at me from inside my mind. I could only barely recognize that it was mine. All I’d had to do was stay by the lodge, watch for danger, and listen to their instructions. But I’d disobeyed the warning. I’d been lured into the woods.
I was weak.
“Agil?” I heard Jason ask, his voice ringing inside my mind. “I gave you the order for a reason. You got lured into the forest. How could you? You’re weak.”
The words stung me deep, poking at worries I carried deep inside. I stared blankly at the air, not even noticing how horrid beast crept toward me.
“Agil?” came Myris’ heavy voice. “You’ve only ever caused problems for us. You’re not truly a ranger. I always knew you were weak.”
My breathing accelerated. The insides of my lungs stung with frigid air. With my mind so preoccupied, I didn’t even see how the thing’s hand reached toward my face.
“Agil?” Carter’s voice rang in my head. “These things aren’t to be played with. You had to stay behind because they’re dangerous. You had to stay behind because you’re weak.”
The cold hand of the thing brushed up against my chest. The chill from its presence bled through my cloak and my tunic instantly, settling against my skin. I felt the cold, and my instincts screamed for me to react, but I didn’t. My body stood motionless as images cycled in my mind. I didn’t even hear how close pounding steps on the dirt had gotten to me.
“Agil!” someone said, almost ripping me from my stupor. I blinked and shook my head, already stumbling backward.
My eyes adjusted to the dark, focusing again on the horrid creature staring at me with its blank, grey eyes. A familiar twang came from behind me, one that sent a jolt of relief straight to my soul. An arrow streaked through the air, whizzing right past my face and puncturing the beast right in the chest.
“Dammit,” I heard a voice say. It was low and a bit gritty. I didn’t even need to turn around to know it was Myris.
“Have to save you again huh?” Jason said, his smirk catching my gaze as he ran past me. His sword was raised in his hand, orange sparks already flying off the blade. I watched uselessly as he ran at the beast.
It raised its arm to pick out the arrow still stuck in its shoulder, but Jason didn’t let it. He raised his arm high, an incredible amount of force being pushed into the blade, and he slashed down.
A loud, popping hiss split the night as the beast shrieked in pain. I caught the sound of Jason’s hitched breath as the thing touched him, but he kept his mind sharp. A large silver scar formed quickly, ripping down the horrid thing’s shoulder.
Jason leapt back, his feet already shuffling around into a new position. Even in the dark of the night with my brain slowly clouding with pain and exhaustion and fear, I still had to respect Jason’s form.
“Get back,” Myris said, grabbing me by the shoulder. He pulled me toward him, my body following the order far more calmly than I would’ve liked. The serious, grey-haired man stared down on me just as I’d imagined he had, but he kept his mouth shut.
Carter rushed past me in a flurry of brown hair and blue cloth as he joined Jason in the fray. Multiple knives were sent screeching toward the thing, moving right behind Jason’s movements and lodging themselves in the thing’s blank chest. Another hiss of pain split the night.
The scraping fear faded from my mind as the thing became more occupied. I stepped back again, watching the fight from a distance. Arrow after arrow left Myris’ bow in calculated precision. Jason’s blows were quick, flashy and effective. And the sounds of hissing pain that continued to escape its form only got louder and louder as its life ticked away.
Good, I thought to myself, remembering the fear that had gripped me only minutes before. It had manipulated my mind, it had dragged me through the forest, it had reminded me of the fears of my youth. And I still didn’t know even what it was.
The seconds bled into minutes as exhaustion set in my bones. My fingers still twitched on my sword, the desire to add to the flurry of fighting sounds nearly getting the better of me. But I didn’t, I just watched. I didn’t have the energy to.
A flash of orange light split the darkness as sparks once again jumped off of Jason’s blade. He rushed at the grey-eyed thing nearly panting and plunged the blade deep into its head. The awful hiss still came out despite the area of the strike, but the sound died out quickly. The fiery light faded from the forest, leaving us once again in the dark, and the horrifying beastly thing fell lifelessly to the ground.
Jason’s smirk flashed in my vision, seeming to overpower the sharp fear hiding in his eyes. I smiled, almost finding the energy to laugh.
Myris let out a sigh, lowering his hand from his bow. Moonlight glinted off his grey hair and cast light onto his face. I saw the tense lines, I saw the disappointment. As he opened his mouth, I didn’t even want to know what he would say.
“What were you thinking?” he asked. “You were supposed to be on guard duty.”
Anger broke through in my mind. I found the energy to scowl. “I didn’t—”
“You didn’t nothing,” Myris cut in. “This is serious.” He glanced back to Jason and Carter, the two rangers breathing heavily as they stood over the corpse. “The terrors are way worse than normal…” his voice came out almost as a breath. “And now you’ve left the lodge undefended. We told you not to go into the woods.”
Jason turned his attention back to us. I saw his smirk fade and his eyebrows raise in the dim light as he stared at us. He rolled his arm, waving his sword through the air and grimaced in pain. I cringed at myself, realizing the gravity of my mistake. But when I looked back to Myris, seeing his hard, disapproving eyes, I couldn’t have admitted it if I’d tried.
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“No,” I said again, more firmly this time. “I didn’t even know why I couldn’t go into the woods. You wouldn’t explain anything.” I took a step toward the older ranger and stared him right in the eye. “I don’t even know what the fuck that is.” I pointed at the blank, now completely still thing lying on the ground.
“It’s a terror,” Myris spat. From the corner of my eye, I saw Carter removing his knives from the terror’s body. “And that’s something you should already—”
“No,” I said, finding the energy to cut him off. I was tired of his excuses, tired of the way he treated me. And I was tired, period. The image of the lodge rose up in my mind, the warmth of my covers clashing with the reality of my slowly freezing skin.“We need to get back.”
“Of course we do,” Myris said. Jason nodded along, for once, holding his tongue. “We’ll have to cut this mission short.”
I gave him a half-nod, the sting of regret still very present in my head. “But once we get back,” I started, anger seeping back into my voice. “I just have a few questions.”