To be a Ranger, one needed a certain mindset, they were almost always pulled from other branches of the army rather than being specifically trained from the start to be Rangers.
This did lead to one issue however, foot soldiers and sailors tended to lack the required survival skills to be a Ranger.
The cadet got another splinter from carrying firewood.
“If you wore your gloves you wouldn’t have this problem, Thyma.”
“Fuck off, Viktima.”
“Shut up and pack your share of the wood.”
They returned to the campsite, where Seth, their instructor, was just whistling away.
Few would teach new Rangers, other than of course, old Rangers.
A retired one was like finding a unicorn, so they just pulled them from duty every now and then for the job.
In this case, he was in his 30s with messy black hair and sunken eyes.
“I hope that next time you take so long to gather wood, you at least have a good excuse.
You two are out there screwing, are you?”
“Like I’d let this limp dick anywhere near me.”
“Cadet Viktima, talk with respect when dealing with superiors, this isn’t the navy here.”
“Apologies.”
“Being a Ranger is more a mindset than a set of skills.
That does not mean I am going to let any of you be promoted if you can’t show the skills to match that mindset. Viktima, bring another bundle of wood, but no help this time.”
“I thought we were here to learn how to fight monsters, not pick up sticks and make ropes.”
He tossed the knife in his hand at her feet, pulling another from his belt and going back to whittling and whistling.
“You thought wrong. Bring me a bundle of wood.”
“We have a dozen bundles alread-”
He threw another knife and pulled another from his belt.
Viktima moved back through the woods with her standard issue axe in hand.
She hated being out in the woods alone, it was part of why she joined the navy in the first place.
And were it not for her leaving being not really voluntary, she would still be running transport ship defense missions.
If she was going to be a Ranger, she was going to get a pet.
She wouldn’t ever tell the others, because it was stupid and childish, but she wished that she could find a wyvern egg and raise it.
Sure, most people who raised wyverns ended up being eaten by them because wyverns are just general pricks, but she thought she could do it.
Viktima gripped her axe harder the farther she got from the camp, the wind blew dry leaves into one another, and the rustling set her on edge.
When she heard a branch snap she tossed the axe, nearly taking off the ear of her fellow cadet.
Instead, she just clipped some of his dirty blonde hair.
She saw that it wasn’t an animal, at least, not by common views.
“Korban? Don’t sneak up on me.”
“How did you get past Seth?”
“I was out with Ofiara hunting and I said that I’d owe her a favor if she let me sneak off.”
“I’m going to end up owing that bitch a favor.”
“Nah, I said that I would be the one who owed her.”
“It is so cute that you think she won’t make me do something. We are both going to end up blackmailed by her for this.”
“Sorry?”
“That isn’t a question. Now drop your pants, might as well get some alone time.”
“I brought a flower for you, I thought that-”
She had already bent over the tree and his mind went blank.
White life flowed onto the forest floor.
The couple pulled their pants back up.
“Alright.”
She grabbed her axe and walked away.
“I love you.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Viktima got her wood, properly processing it by removing the sap on the inside and using bark fibers to make a simple rope to bind it.
The wind and birds had gone silent, no longer could she hear the rustling of dead leaves.
A shadow moved in the corner of her eye, something was there.
She drew her sword and readied a fireball.
She wasn’t going to let this thing get her.
“Korban, if that’s you again you better say it right now before I roast you.”
“HELP, HELP, HELP.”
Her blood ran cold, that same wrong feeling she had years ago was back, and she wasn’t going to stick around to confirm it.
Viktima could hear it behind her as she rushed for the woods, but no other animal made a sound, the wind was still dead.
It got closer, and she saw the edge of the clearing, the camp was right there.
She launched the fireball and swung her blade.
The flames blocked her vision, but she was sure that she cut something.
Viktima didn’t look back, she just kept running.
She rushed out of the woods, and the sounds rushed back to her ears.
“Cadet Viktima, what the hell are you doing?”
“THE MONSTER, IT-”
“What monster? I don’t see anything. You just came out of the woods screaming like a banshee.”
“You had to hear it, I cut it just before I got here, and I hit it with a fireball.”
“I didn’t hear anything. Cadet Thyma, did you hear anything?”
“No sir, I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary.”
“But I got it with my sword it-”
“Your sword is clean. If you can’t even get me some wood on your own because you are so scared of the forest, you are never going to be a Ranger.”
“No, really, I saw something, it was chasing me, I barely got away.”
“I don’t want to hear anything more. I read your file, I know why you are afraid, but get the fuck over it.
I’m gonna take a nap, help Cadet Thyma with supper.”
She was deathly embarrassed, she was certain that she saw something, she knew that she heard it right behind her.
But did she?
That silence was all too familiar to her, that voice that sounded almost exactly human.
“That time of the month?”
She didn’t respond, she just nodded her head and whispered that she was sorry.
He half-expected her to lunge at him, her being meek was just wrong.
“You really saw something, didn’t you?”
She immediately perked up.
“Do you believe me?”
“I don’t know. But I think that you believe you saw something. Let’s get the water on to boil, and while that is happening, we can check for signs of whatever you hit.”
“Thank you.”
The cadets had only known one another for a month, but seeing a side of her that wasn’t rude, anti-social, and threatening, well, it was a surprise.
Thyma and Viktima didn’t need to search for long to find where it happened.
They found a piece of white flesh and droplets of blood that were thick and dark, like a blood jelly.
Along with the signs of what she cut off, they found scorched leaves on the ground, whatever she hit wasn’t a tree, it was standing up and took the fireball like a champ.
“We’re only what, 50 feet from the camp? We should’ve seen this.”
“I swear, I was farther away when this happened. I thought I was running for five, ten minutes.”
“Get the lump. Maybe Seth will know what it was.”
When she picked it up it squirmed, it felt like maggots on her skin, but she didn’t mind much.
“This is still alive.”
The pair both noticed it, their sixth sense tingled, something was watching them.
“We move back to back and rotate, most things won’t attack if you are looking at them.”
They got back to camp at the same time as Ofiara, never seeing whatever was staring at them.
“What were you two doing?”
“There is something in the woods. Wake up Seth.”
But the man was already up, eating an apple as he sat on his favorite stump.
Viktima was holding the lump of white flesh.
“Cadets, have any of you been alone at any point today before the attacks started?”
“What?”
“Have any of you been alone today? Viktima, I know you were, Thyma, you were in the camp, which is less likely, but it could’ve come in and gotten you. Ofiara, you were hunting with Korban, where is he?”
“He said that he would carry back the animals, so he should be right behind me.”
“If he isn’t here in the next five minutes, I’m going to start asking questions you won’t like.”
She called out to him and he replied back rather quickly, he really was basically right behind her.
“Korban, were you and Ofiara apart for any length of time?”
He rushed to speak, and was a man with a very guilty face.
“What? No, we were together the whole time. But, if we were, why would it matter?”
“When where you apart?”
“What? No, I mean, we weren’t together for-”
Seth punched him in the gut and the atmosphere changed.
“How long were you apart?”
“Cadet Korban and I were apart for 16 minutes and 9 seconds while he went to have relations with Cadet Viktima.”
“Thank you, Ofiara. Did you notice him acting any differently?”
“We didn’t share many words, as we were hunting, but he seemed no different than before.”
Once he was done giving them stares that they feared would actually set them on fire, he over and stirred the pot, adding in herbs and vegetables.
“Give me that chunk of flesh.”
Viktima tossed it to the instructor.
“Yep, metamorphic flesh. I’m going to call it in.”
He went in his tent, and then came back out after a few seconds.
“This is very bad.”
Korban was the first to start panicking.
“What?”
“My communication amulet is gone.”
“Shit.”
They tore apart the tent, but he really only had a bed, a table, and a bedside table with a drawer.
“Well then, I guess this means that any of us could be a Skinwalker, or, it could be just a wild one.”
Ofiara raised her hand.
“Couldn’t we each cut off a finger? That Skinwalker flesh is clearly not human.”
Everyone looked at her and then to Seth, who looked to be considering the idea.
“Nope, if it is in human form then it would have the properties of human flesh.”
“Oh, alright then. Now, you said that we were all potentially Skinwalkers, but each of us has separately been apart from one another with an opportunity to kill a fellow cadet, yet the only one who has been attacked directly was Cadet Viktima. I think it is more likely to be an outside force rather than an invader.”
“Fair. But, when dealing with Skinwalkers, you don’t want to get too comfortable with the idea that someone isn’t one. They are fairly smart, so they can cast doubt to tear groups apart, and spare people to make themselves seem less likely to be the monster. They do all of this without knowing that they are Skinwalkers.”
“Instructor Seth, do you have experience hunting them?”
“One or two hunts, but only by chance. They won’t show themselves until they get hungry, they hate standing out. So, either we stay here for a week for the resupply, and call in backup from there, or, we take a walk to the nearest base, which will take about 5 days.”
“Considering the circumstances it would seem more sensible to remain here, as leaving would require us to do away with our already stored equipment and food.”
“Does anyone have an issue with Cadet Ofiara’s suggestion.”
“Fuck that, I’m not sitting around and waiting for that thing to butcher me in my sleep.”
Viktima was clear that she was freaked out and didn’t want to spend another second there.
“Great, so five days through the woods, we’ll camp at night, and everyone will sleep in the same tent in shifts.”
She deflated, hating the idea of having to go through the forest more than staying in their clearing, even if it was for an extra.
“That’s what I thought. Let’s get supper finished, eat, and then we can go over a few more things.”
With them all sitting around the fire with stew in their bowls, Seth spoke up again.
“Until this thing shows itself, nobody is allowed to go anywhere alone. Viktima, Ofiara, when you need to take a piss, go together, same with us men.
If you need to wake the other person up, or interrupt their work, then do it.
We will sleep in four hour shifts at night, and fully rest during the day.
Three of us need to be up at all times for safety.
When fighting a Skinwalker don’t let it get close, the claws can shear steel.
Use ice, they don’t like being cold, and they shrug off fire unless you’ve already cut them.
Now, anything for you to say?”
Ofiara raised her hand.
“There are five of us, three person shifts would require that one person must stay up for two shifts.”
“I can stay up, just let me rest during the day so if I need to stay up for a long time I can.”
“I also suggest that Cadet Viktima and Cadet Korban not be awake at the same time during the night.”
The aforementioned cadets stared at her harshly.
“Those two have already shown a willingness to shirk their duty to have relations with one another, that could be potentially dangerous.”
“Shut up, just because you can’t-”
“Cadet Viktima, Ofiara is right. Korban, you, Thyma, and myself will be the first shift, Viktima and Ofiara can be the second shift.”
There was grumbling, but they couldn’t really ignore a direct order backed by some sense.
When it was time for bed, they moved towards their tents, but Seth loudly whistled and they all covered their years.
“FUCK, how was that so loud?”
“I’m good at whistling. Everyone is sleeping in my tent since it’s the largest. Grab your bedrolls and come in. We are sleeping together in my tent.”
He eyed each of them, looking for anything out of place.
“Oh, and before we all get together, everyone strip, sometimes a Skinwalker fails to copy birthmarks or they can carry over from one victim to the next.”
Ofiara started right in the open.
“In private, you don’t need to show yourself to everyone.”
“That may be fine for others, but I wish to do so anyway.”
Seth said that nobody was allowed to talk until two hours after the girls went to sleep so they wouldn’t be disturbed.
The men played cards to keep from getting too bored, Seth saying that it was quiet and they already knew all of the rules.
At exactly two hours, Seth tapped on his mouth, and Korban started talking.
“I’ve been thinking, if the girls are going to go to the bathroom by themselves, isn’t that dangerous?”
“If they come back and I’m dead, that means it is a wild one. If only one of them comes back, then the other is probably the monster and I’ll kill it.”
“But then you or one of them is dead.”
“And the rest will be alive.”
Thyma seemed taken aback.
“I’m fucking with you. I’ll go with the girls. If I come back and you men are dead then we know it isn’t any of us and that will make defense much easier.”
He chuckled and played his hand.
“Royal flush.”
“Again? Are you…”
“Cheating? Of course. As a Ranger, most of your supplies will be acquired in the wild, so you’ll want to cheat at games when you get to towns for some extra things, salt, alcohol, things that you can’t make yourself easily in the field.”
“How are you cheating? I’ve been watching you, there aren’t any cards missing, and I haven’t seen any come out of your sleeves.”
“The same way Thyma is.”
Korban looked at his fellow cadet who just shrugged.
Now that everyone knew that the others were cheating, the game had changed, and winning wasn’t enough, one had to do it without being caught.
“So, how is Viktima?”
“What?”
“I mean when you are stirring up her guts.”
“I don’t-”
Thyma grabbed Seth’s hand, where he had been trying to slip a card into the deck.
“Just because you can frazzle the pretty boy with something like that, doesn’t mean you’ll distract me.”
“Good work. Most cheating is sleight of hand, you get someone off kilter for a moment or you draw their eye somewhere else, and you can do just about anything.”
“Don’t bullshit him with a lesson, I caught you, you lose this round.”
“Fine.”
Thyma and Korban reshuffled the deck once each and now sat across from one another on the ground, rather than in the triangle position they used for a three man game.
Seth sighed.
“What?”
“We haven’t been betting, and that just seems wrong.”
“We don’t exactly have much to bet other than jerky and berries.”
“I agree, how about we bet secrets?”
“I don’t think that-”
Put a hand on both men’s shoulders.
“I’ll be the one giving out the secrets, none of that pansy shit where you say your favorite color and food.
I read all of your files, and I’ve been keeping my own tabs.”
“Maybe we could-”
“Perfect. I’ll be the dealer, I won’t even cheat. Rules are simple, if you get caught or fold, I’ll share something I know about you, but I’ll start small at least. If you win, I’ll throw in something a bit juicier.”
“I’m guessing it’s too late.”
“If you drop out, I’m just going to tell Korban whatever I want.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“A man needs to find his own entertainment in trying times.”
Korban caught Thyma trying to use his earth magic to transport a card underground for later use.
“Thyma sleeps with a scrap of fabric his mother gave him.”
Korban didn’t snicker or mock him, he just put his cards back and waited for Seth to shuffle it, which he did with quite a bit of flare.
Though in that flare, Thyma caught Korban trying to steal one of the cards.
“Korban has a 14 inch cock.”
“No fucking way.”
“Fine. He picks the mushrooms out of his food and hides them because he doesn’t want anyone to think he is a picky eater.”
They went through more little secrets, Korban liked to dance with himself in private, Thyma had a weird birthmark on his ass that looked like a perfect star, just oddities of the other.
Then Thyma went all in.
“Are you sure? I’ve got a pretty good hand.”
“Don’t try to bluff me.”
Korban put down a royal flush, and then Thyma did the same.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
So they settled it with by each drawing one more card.
Korban got a 6 of hearts, while Thyma got a 10 of spades.
“Alright then, time for a big one. Korban is the bastard son of a noble who wanted him to be a Ranger so he was far away from the politics of home.”
“Blonde hair… is that from your mom or your dad?”
“Shut up and let’s play again.”
“Korban, just answer the question.”
He was less than happy with Seth, who was eying him.
“My father.”
“Alright.”
Royal Flush again, but this time, both sides had the exact same cards.
“Tiebreaker, you both know the other cheated, how do you prove it?”
“I knew from the start this time, all of his cards have been colored over with illusions.
Now, you went all in, and I caught you, that means you need to reveal a big secret.”
“No, it means I have to reveal a big secret of his.”
Seth tapped his hands on the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“Drumroll. The secret is… that Thyma… is the Skinwalker.”
The two men pulled their swords, though rather than at one another, Thyma pulled his on Seth.
There was a tense minute before Seth said anything.
“Alright, he isn’t the Skinwalker. I just figured I’d give it a try, if it thought I knew what it was then it would drop the pretense and try to kill me for knowing the secret. Anyway, Thyma was given the option to be a Ranger or face a court martial.”
“Why?”
“Rushed ahead and got his team killed. Through dumb luck or skill he survived and finished his mission.”
“I didn’t rush ahead, I just didn’t see the traps. Fucking bastards couldn’t accept that my team died and I didn’t.”
Korban tried to put his hand on Thyma’s shoulder, but it was slapped away.
“Yeah, I’m not here to talk out my feelings or some shit like that.”
With perfect timing, Ofiara sat up.
“I now have four hours of sleep, and I need to use the bathroom.”
“Wake up Viktima and let’s go. You two probably shouldn’t go to sleep until we are back.”
“If you are worried about them falling asleep, and thus victim to the monster, they could come with us as well.”
Thyma was the first to whine.
“It’s cold outside though.”
Viktima didn’t seem to mind digging a hole with a little earth magic and relieving herself, but Ofiara at least wanted a tree for cover, so they moved to the edge of the clearing.
Nothing seemed wrong
The two men laid down as soon as they got inside and Seth said to play cards to pass the time in silence.
And then just as before, he explained how they should cheat.
“Ya know, poker just isn’t the same without betting on something.”
“I do hope you are not suggesting strip poker, as that would be against military guidelines, since it could be seen as unsavory interaction between a commanding officer and a soldier under him.”
“I’m not saying anything like that, I’m just saying.”
“Princess might not like it, but I’ve got some jerky and clean water to use as substitutes for anything of value.”
“We should maintain whatever supplies we have just to be avoid being wasteful in an uncertain time.
If I was going after a stronger force alone, I would sabotage their food and try to wait them out.”
“Well, I don’t know what else two girls would have to offer as bets unless you count gossip.”
He had to push a little harder than with the men to get where he wanted.
Ofiara side eyed him, but without her making any expression, it was hard to tell if she agreed or not.
“I’ll be the dealer, I’ve read your files and I’ve been keeping my own tabs on you.”
“That would be highly unethical, those personnel files are confidential.”
“Seth, deal.”
They ignored Ofiara’s objections.
After several games, Ofiara had yet to lose a hand.
“All in.”
“Are you sure? I mean, what if I have a really good hand, you would be forced to reveal some big secret.”
“From left to right you have the 6 of hearts, 8 of spades, 3 of clubs, a jack of hearts, and a 3 of spades.”
“How the fuck do you know?”
“If I revealed the method of my cheating, I would be effectively forfeiting this game as well as the games after this.”
“Fuck it. Just tell her something.”
“This is just depressing. Seems the ice woman has ice in her veins as well. But anyway, Viktima’s father was killed by a Skinwalker, and that is why she is afraid of being alone in the forest.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, you have my condolences.”
The emotionless tone and matter of fact way she stated it, on top of the losing streak, infuriated Viktim.
She tried to slap Ofiara, who grabbed her wrist and twisted it before forcing her face down on the ground.
“I cannot let you harm me, any infighting could lead to a breakdown in trust, or me holding a grudge, and that would be dangerous to the mission at hand.”
“Just get the fuck off me.”
“Alright.”
“Another round?”
“So you can just tell her everything about me? Fuck that. Let’s do blackjack.”
“Alright, if one of you hits 21, I give a big secret, if I hit 21, I’ll get to ask a question and you can’t lie.
Over or under just means a small secret.”
21, 21, 21.
Viktima wanted to tear the pretty red hair from her own head, but Ofiara said not to tell any more secrets.
“You can’t possibly be cheating now, you aren’t even touching the cards.”
“My father was a gambler, he taught me how to count cards, mark them with mana, slip them up and down sleeves, and throw them as weapons when caught. Bu I have not cheated in this, all I have done is kept a memory of what cards are left, and gambled based on the chances of a good card being given to me.”
“No way.”
“She’s telling the truth, our little snow queen comes from a long line of murders and degenerates.”
“My brothers all died violent deaths, my mother overdosed on hallucinogenic drugs, and my father tried to sell me to pay off his debts.”
“He tried?”
“I left home and joined the army. Seth, you may chime in with whatever you believe is relevant. You are after all revealing these things so you can find a gap in the memories of the Skinwalker, right?”
“You left out that your father died when you got away.”
“I cut his throat as an initiation to the gang which he owed these debts to. Children are judged less harshly, so they make better criminal pawns. I did many awful things during my time before the army.
This was all in my file, was it not?”
“True.”
“And there was no reason to doubt the men during this game of yours?”
“Not that I saw. I’m going to say that the only possible Skinwalker is myself.”
“I disagree. I was away from Korban for as long as he was away from me, but he went to see Viktima, so he has a witness and thus a shorter time when he was away from another person for less time than I was. Viktima, did he ejaculate?”
“What?”
“Skinwalkers, even if they are in human form, start in a larger form, the volume of semen would’ve been greater.”
“I’m not tracking that.”
“Oh, unfortunate. I once read a book on Skinwalkers, it was one suggestion, along with blood letting.”
“If we can just measure blood, then why haven’t we done that?”
“I did not bring up this method because without knowing how large the monster is, we couldn’t know how much of a difference in blood there would be, and I doubt any of us know a transfusion spell, so we could be greatly weakened by blood loss and easy prey for it.”
They kept playing blackjack, but he stopped quizzing them on their secrets.
In the morning, they found that their supply tent had been cut into from the back.
It was inside the camp, just across from them, and not one of them noticed.
“What about the other boxes?”
“Everything, salt, vegetables, herbs, dried food. But it didn’t get into our tents, I’ve got a stash of stuff I can share, fermented berries mostly.”
“Good thinking, Thyma.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“We’re avoiding being torn apart by a monster and cut off from support, you can drop the sir part, we’re just Rangers right now. Ofiara, what is your opinion now?”
“I do believe it is now reasonable to take what we can here, and then leave for the base. It would be a five day trip if we went straight there, but is there any other civilization such as a road which we could travel along?”
“We’re in an area designated for training, you won’t find anything close to here but trails that nobody uses unless they are coming here.”
“That is very unfortunate. I believe that the resupply team is still our safest option.”
“I agree, we don’t know what it can do, how old it is, what its victims knew.
If it isn’t in human form, then it knows it is a monster and it will use what it has gained from all of its other lives until now. Regardless, we need to get a dear or two today so we have food now rather than just hunting what we need.”
“Shall we all go to hunt then?”
“I don’t feel comfortable leaving just two people here even if I don’t believe any of you are the monster, so we don’t have a better option.”
They gathered around and locked down everything that was left behind under arrays and wards to prevent losing anything more.
Since none of them saw anything wrong, they simply fanned out slightly and started searching for signs of deer or other prey animals, but they always stayed within eyesight and earshot.
They all heard the snap of rope and looked for the source, the screams made it easy.
“NOBODY MOVE, THERE COULD BE MORE TRAPS.”
Seth used a burst of wind to push aside the leaves and search for more of them as he made his way to Thyma.
When he got here he moved the man’s hand away from his eye.
“Barely a flesh wound, you’ll be fine.”
“Really?”
“No, but this isn’t going to be fatal. Now, this next part is going to hurt, a lot. Can you see out of your eye at all?”
“It’s dark, but it was too short to hit my brain. It doesn’t hurt that much, maybe it looks worse than it is.”
It was worse than it looked, when Thyma realized he stepped on something odd he jumped back, but the spike was already inside of his eye and his jumping meant that the eye was ruined, looking like someone cut a grape in half, and there was a large gash down his cheek.
One of these could be fixed by Seth.
“Well, it’s good that you are in shock, so you can’t feel how bad it is. Can you see this?”
“See what?”
Rangers had to be healers, hunters, demolitionists, warders and everything else that would stop them from dying under some tree because they got stuck in the guts and it was infected.
But, they weren’t always great healers.
Seth knocked Thyma out with a shock spell and pulled the eye from its socket before severing the optic nerve.
He didn’t know how to heal an eye, but if the eye was gone, he was good enough to prevent it from getting infected.
Had it been left in, it would’ve just rotted away, he’d seen it happen before.
With Thyma still blacked out, he cleared a path back to camp and dragged him to the treeline.
Then he did the same for the others, even if they walked back their exact path, he still wanted to be completely sure.
Everyone was shaken by how quickly it happened.
“What the fuck kind of Skinwalker sets traps?”
“I’ve seen those before, basic Ranger handbook shit.
We got lucky that it screwed up, Thyma jumped back at the last second and the spike was too short, the tension wasn’t set right.”
“So what the fuck are we supposed to do? The woods are all boobytrapped, it destroyed all of our food last night, it-”
Seth slapped Viktima.
“Rangers don’t panic, they get the job done.”
She rubbed her cheek, he didn’t hold back much.
“What do we do?”
Ofiara raised her hand.
“We could just burn down the forest.”
“Oh, great, we can die a fiery death instead of being torn apart and eaten.”
“The smoke would be visible for dozens of miles, and someone would come to put it out.”
“How about no.”
He paced back and forth for a minute.
“Or I could hunt on my own.”
“You just said it probably killed a Ranger already.”
“Yeah, a shit Ranger, couldn’t even beat a Skinwalker.”
Ofiara raised her hand.
“You don’t need to raise your hand when you want to speak.”
“I will continue to do so. Rangers often die due to acts of bravery and pigheaded stupidity.
I believe the idea of you going on your own would fall under the latter.”
“Fine, Korban, you can come with me. We were all awake last night, and those traps weren't there before, so that means we are dealing with a Skinwalker that isn’t one of us. Two man teams should be fine.”
“While you are away, may I be in charge?”
“No, you are weird and the others don’t like you.”
“That seemed rude and uncalled for.”
“I said the others don’t like you, but I do.”
She cocked her head to the side.
“I dislike the way you said that.”
Seth just shrugged and dragged Korban away.
When they reached the treeline Seth used a spell to make his hands sticky, and he climbed right up a tree, followed by Korban.
“You know, if we don’t suffer horrible deaths and end up with our souls devoured by a shapeshifting monster, I think I’ll go to one of the academy, let them teach me how to fly.”
“Can you at least phrase that better?”
“No. Watch out for traps in the trees, but they should be much easier to spot. And don’t jump around willy nilly, if you fall to the forest floor and land on something I’m probably going to leave you as bait.”
Korban chuckled at the dark humor, but when Seth didn’t join in or react in any way, he wondered if it was a joke at all.
With just the two men traveling by jumping from tree to tree, they didn’t find any traps, and they managed to find a few animals that stepped into the monster’s traps.
Before going down to grab a boar that was struggling and hung by its feet, Seth fired a blast of wind to clear the leaves.
“That fucker knew that we’d try to grab the boar, pitfalls all around it, and I’d bet you the disturbed dirt right under it is another trap, probably going to be a razor vine, something omnidirectional.”
“That was a really big word for you.”
“I said you guys were Rangers now, but you are still my junior. Let’s jump to the tree it is hanging from, cut the rope, slice the neck, bleed it, gut it, then I’ll carry it back on my shoulders.”
“I’m a bit larger than you, and I’m younger, I think that-”
The woods went silent, the panicking boar was suddenly frozen in fear.
After a few minutes, it was gone.
“That is bad for my heart.”
“What even is that?”
“Skinwalkers are mental monsters, soul devourers, products of Fae. Anyway, let’s get that boar, even between the five of us, that will be enough, we aren’t looking for much, we just need to avoid starving to the point where we get weaker.”
They double, and then triple checked, but the boar hadn’t been poisoned by it.
When they were done gutting it, just out of curiosity, Seth tossed the stomach down to the patch of disturbed dirt.
“Ha, I knew it would be a razor vine.”
Each of them carried half of the boar back, securing it with ropes they brought with them.
Half-way back, Seth stopped Korban from making a jump.
“What?”
“Look at the next branch, it’s been cut, if you landed on it I’m sure it wouldn’t hold your weight, fresh pitfalls down there too.”
“Shit. Why doesn’t it just attack us like a man?”
Seth raised his eyebrow.
“Not to state the obvious, but it isn't a man, it’s a monster, and secondly, think of who it attacked before and when.
It didn’t attack you or Ofiara when you were alone, it went after Viktima, who is the smallest of us.
It lacks confidence that it can kill us in a straight fight.”
When they got back to camp, nothing was on fire and nobody was dead, Thyma was unhappy however.
Still, he decided to be the bigger man and shut up, nobody was exactly thrilled with what was happening.
“We’ll eat some of this now, but let’s put the rest in the ground and put up some chilling arrays so it doesn’t rot. How’s the face?”
“Ofiara showed me with a water mirror, it’s going to leave a pretty bad scar, but she let me eat the fermented berries, so I’m a little tipsy.”
“Those Frontier women love a good scar, say it’s from a Skinwalker and they’ll be gushing.”
Ofiara, cold as she was, sneered at the man.
Seth, childish as he was, stuck his tongue out at her.
Two days passed, it was coming at night, it wouldn’t attack, but it would scream at them in an inhumanly loud voice just to wake them up and prevent them from keeping a proper schedule for the guards.
It was dangerous in a different way, but Seth let them set up silencing wards so they could sleep at least.
On the third night, they heard the silence and two spears in one after the other came through the wall.
It knew the schedule now, and it knew exactly where the women were sleeping.
But Ofiara knew that it knew that, and suggested that they don’t sleep in the same spot every night, rather than injuring or killing the two of them, the spears hit dirt and everyone rushed outside to fight.
The book which Ofiara had once read years ago failed to capture exactly how it looked, clearly the author hadn’t seen one himself.
It was gangly, its skin was taut and its bones were almost piercing through it.
It had a mostly human shape, other than the double joints on its arms and legs, its hunched back, and the claws like shortswords, and the teeth that glinted under the moonlight, and that it stood 10 feet tall.
Other than these changes to the human form, it was technically mostly human as the book claimed.
Thyma rushed at it before Seth and Korban could stop them.
It seemed unfazed, this thing was not small, there was no way it was avoiding a fight because it didn’t think it would win, but Thyma was less than happy at losing his eye.
It was too late to grab him, to stop him.
His shouts met Thyma’s ears just as it slashed its long double jointed arms like a whip.
Thyma saw the one from the right and tried to block, but he was blind on his left side, and the other claws hit him.
Luckily, Ofiara threw a rope at him, magically having it tied around the man, and he didn’t immediately die.
She dragged him into one of the other tents while the other three went to fight off the monster.
Seth cast the largest spell of them, turning the ground to quicksand, while the others just tried to hit it with frost bolts.
The design of a Skinwalker wasn’t naturally stable, its form was better suited for going on all fours, which it did.
Instead of falling back and being vulnerable, it twisted its hands and ran away, hopping like a cricket, laughing all the way as it dodged everything they threw at it.
Once it was gone, they checked on Thyma and Ofiara.
She folded his hands over his chest and closed his glassy eyes.
“We should put his body in a grave and boobytrap it, when the Skinwalker tries to devour him, it may be injured.”
Seth had to hold Viktima back.
“YOU FRIGID BITCH, HE’S NOT EVEN COLD AND YOU ALREADY WANT TO USE HIM?”
“I think that he would appreciate getting some vengeance against his killer. I believe I knew Thyma well enough to say this. You disliked him greatly, and I do not feel it is right for you to go against me on this.”
Korban held her back as well, and she realized she was outvoted, or at least they didn’t want the two of them beating one another while that thing was still out there.
“Viktima, she’s right, a Ranger must use every resource they have, especially if they are in a pitched battle against a greater force. This thing isn’t hunting us the way it is because it can’t handle a fair fight, it is hunting for sport.”
“I can’t believe you people.”
She stormed off to Seth’s tent to get some rest and Korban went with her.
Seth and her combined their earth magic to bury him, then went inside and dug another tunnel where it couldn’t see them that connected under the grave.
“You knew him well enough to think he wanted this?”
“He had the eyes of a murderer, but I saw remorse as well.
I’ve seen men like that before, normally they just kill themselves. I don’t think he cared that much about living anyway, so he shouldn’t care about what we do with his body either.”
“You really are fucked in the head, aren’t you?”
“I have been told that before. I think that you are right. The leader of the gang I was part of said that perhaps because my mother had used illicit substances while pregnant with me, something never developed properly. I think that is likely.”
“Did you and him have a sort of father daughter thing, or were you just another worker?”
“I was a worker, then I got older, and he tried to sleep with me, and when I said no, he attempted to rape me, so I bit his penis off and cut his throat.
I left after that, I don’t think that the other workers would like it if I came back.
I don’t like fathers, I never met a good one, he called me his little girl a few times, and that made me feel good, then it became upsetting. I think I like you, do you want to have sex?”
“Considering your other story, I’m going to say no.”
“Alright then.”
He felt a chill up his spine, which turned out to be her hand.
“What are you doing?”
“You are warm, I would like to lay with you tonight, it is cold, I dislike the cold.”
If he wasn’t already sure that she wasn’t a Skinwalker, then all of the alarm bells in his mind would make him kill her in her sleep just to make sure.
When they left the tunnel, Korban and Viktima were drowning their fear in themselves, worried that they wouldn’t get a chance later.
They didn’t stop when the pair entered the tent, so Seth put up a veil to block the sound along with the sight.
The two of them were just left with that awkwardness.
“Oh, I think I left my dagger in the tunnel, I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, those two are like rabbits, and they are in a veil, so you need to watch them. I will be safe in the tunnel.”
He knew that she didn’t leave her dagger down there, but he figured that whatever she was doing was fine.
She crawled back up 40 minutes later.
“I misplaced it rather severely.”
“It is a 5x5 tunnel less than 30 feet long.”
“Quite severely. I would like to come into your bedroll now.”
“Alright. But we can’t go to sleep, those two are going to wear each other out eventually.”
“I am alright with staying up throughout the night.”
Sitting with her in his lap, grinding against him now and then, there was a tingle on the back of his neck that something was terribly wrong, but he didn’t know what to do about it, normally his sixth sense was a little more specific than this.
They hadn’t noticed it the night before, but the Skinwalker had found the remaining meat and soiled it by cutting open a deer's stomach and colon over it.
“When in the hell did they even find time for this. Did they walk past the tent, do this, then back up and throw the spears?”
“It would make sense, perhaps killing Thyma was only a bonus, and it once again wanted to attempt to force us into the woods for hunting. May I go with this time?”
“No, if I leave those two here they won’t do anything but fuck and that thing is going to walk right in and kill them both.”
The men were more careful than ever, when they looked down it seemed like every inch of the forest was covered in traps and half of the branches had been partly cut.
Back at the camp, Ofiara and Viktima just sat in silence.
The one didn’t want to talk to her, and the other didn’t want to speak unless spoken to.
The next two days were harsh on their nerves, as it didn’t appear at all, it didn’t scream at night to keep them up, they didn’t get the feeling that it was watching them at all.
“You don’t think it left, did it?”
“No, they are creatures of obsession, it knows that we saw its real face and that must be driving it mad, it can’t help but try to come back and kill us.”
Tomorrow they would finally be resupplied, and since it was being done by a teleportation gate directly into the camp, they didn’t have any worry that it would be hit on route or delayed.
If they just made it through tonight, they’d be home free by noon.
It was just past three in the morning when a blast filled the area, nearly pulling the tent’s stakes from the ground.
The scent of dirt filled the air, but not the rot and iron one would expect from a grave with a body still in it.
Seth and Ofiara were ready, they had been sleeping for most of the day so they could stay awake the entire night; they kicked Korban and Viktima on the way out to wake them.
Yet she didn’t go to the monster, but rather to the treeline.
It was over confident in its victory, its mind had been dulled by past victories, it thought little of the easy win being given to it.
It didn’t even think much of missing much of the protective leathery flesh on its body.
The Skinwalker’s flesh was hard to cut as an elephants, and despite what it looked like, it wasn’t skinny, it had multiple sets of bone and flesh; Skinwalkers didn’t grow up, they grew more layers to themselves.
It rushed at Seth, who just dodged and wondered what the hell Ofiara had gone out to do.
He didn’t think for a second she would abandon him.
A ring of fire engulfed the campsite, her 40 minutes alone in the tunnel had been drawing up a rune in the ground, all she needed to do was finish drawing it and then release the basic mana gathering arrays that she set up to almost immediately charge it.
Now it had nowhere to run, even a good 70 feet away near the center of the camp Seth could feel the area getting warmer.
It let out a howling laugh and pointed at Seth.
“You are trapped.”
“I didn’t think you talked when you looked like that.”
“Victory is mine, you can’t kill both of us.”
Ofiara was behind him.
His heart was beating in his chest.
“Hey, Ofiara, you aren’t a Skinwalker, are you?”
She dropped her sword, going for an axe she had hidden inside of Thyma’s tent with some runes carved on it.
“Don’t assume that I am on its side.”
He nodded at her and the Skinwalker looked dissatisfied.
The pair circled around it, and it rushed towards Ofiara first, getting some of Seth’s knives in its back as a result, yet they didn’t slow him down.
Getting hit in the head by a hatchet thrown by Viktima did however.
“HEY.”
It was only a moment, but when its eyes left Ofiara, she sunk the axe into the exposed flesh of the Skinwalker and froze it in place with a quick frost blast.
It yelled with fury and backhanded her to get an attack out as fast as possible just to get some space.
She got close to the fire as she rolled across the ground, only being stopped by Seth moving to help her and put up a stone wall.
“KILL IT, LEAVE ME.”
She was bleeding from her head and one of her forearms had snapped like a twig when she raised it to block the attack.
Seth rushed back to help the other two.
It was shockingly fast for its size, but the axe was acting as a lightning rod, and when the bolts coursed through its body, muscle contractions slowed it enough to barely avoid its long arms that cracked like whips.
“BASTARD HUMANS.”
It smashed the axe with its fists, taking out a solid chunk of flesh, but making it easier to dodge their lightning afterwards.
Seth came from behind and tried to wedge his blade in its spine, but it flipped down like it had before and started to jump around.
It wasn’t easy to attack when it was like this, but it also had a hard time attacking with its claws.
If only that was its plan.
It jumped towards Ofiara.
Each of them was fast, but with one good bound it could cross the entire camp.
In the air it twisted itself and was back to a configuration better suited to combat.
“OFIARA, RUN.”
His voice wouldn’t reach her faster than it would, but it didn’t need to.
It saw her smile widely, and it realized that she had expected it to come back for her.
The one in front of him was an illusion, and a length of rope had become tied to its waist.
With a harsh pull and some magic, the Skinwalker ended up in the flames.
They heard the screaming, it had never suffered such indignity before.
Yet the monster wasn’t injured to the point where it might be slowed.
It took a short time for it to rush out of the fires smelling of roasted pork which was left in a damp cellar for a month.
And when it rushed out, it came right for Ofiara, who was standing by the tents.
She tossed one of the tents at the monster after setting it on fire.
The monster moved in a flurry shredding the tough canvas like paper.
Smoke obscured both vision and scent in that brief moment.
“Hey.”
It lunged at the voice, but instead of piercing her skull, it saw a card with a rune drawn in blood.
Just as Seth told Thyma and Korban, most cheating was sleight of hand, and if you drew someone's attention for a moment, you could do anything you wanted.
She put her hands on the ground, the distraction gave enough time for a better earth spell, and the dirt became like a liquid before returning to solid earth.
It was stuck, and could only lash out as it tried to break free.
Seth drove his sword between the ulna and radius of its second forearm and then stuck his blade into the ground.
At the odd angle it couldn’t get any leverage to pry it and Korban was told to hold it in place.
When he repeated the same attack using the Korban’s sword on his other arm, it couldn’t even resist as Viktima and Ofiara walked towards it with axes.
It stared at the white haired girl.
“WAIT, WE COULD-”
She swung upwards, splitting its jaw in two and stopping it from speaking.
While the two men kept its arms bound, the two women swung down, bone and flesh were cleaved away as they went through the layers until they finally hit the last skull.
It had been reduced to half of its size, rings like a tree showed its age as being around 80 years old.
Ofiara stopped Viktima from finishing it.
“You want to finish this?”
“For Thyma.”
She grabbed a smaller hatchet and cleaved at the skull horizontally, prying off its skull cap and freezing the brain with a cone of frost.
She felt like she had earned this.
They saw it slow in its struggles and then go limp.
“Now we can hunt the other one.”
“What?”
“Clearly there must’ve been two of them, some of these things just don’t make sense unless there were.
Probably a much smaller one, though I’m unsure how they reproduce. There is no way that we would’ve missed that 10 foot tall one coming into camp, and with its giant claws there is no way it could do the delicate handiwork to make traps.”
“Oh, fuck me.”
The ring of fire was rather simple to turn off, they waited half an hour for the power to wain, as something so hot used up far more mana than was just in the air, and then Ofiara broke it from underground.
In the early morning hours, after the forest fire had burnt itself out and cleared the forest of traps, they followed the tracks of the Skinwalker back to a cave, where a much smaller monster was inside.
The favorite call of every Skinwalker was for help, most people, good or bad, would at least look at someone screaming for help, if they took a womanly form, it let them get close enough to devour them.
This time however, it was a genuine call as it was being backed towards the wall.
They walked forward and when it tried to escape past them, Seth drove his axe into its head.
“Tough little bastard.”
It writhed on the ground and they all started swinging, not stopping until it was nothing but a mess of squirming flesh.
They burned it for good measure and collapsed the cave.
When the resupply team stepped through the gate they saw a scene of chaos, the frosty body of a positively massive Skinwalker without a brain, and past it, the smoldering scene of what was a forest fire only stopped by the damp fall conditions and burn resistant trees.
He stepped back through the gate and got a team of soldiers who started searching the other tents for survivors.
One of them lifted the flap to see a woman laying on top of the older instructor.
One day, far from those people, after a round of drinks with his fellows, the soldier would remark about a peculiar sign on the woman’s butt, a perfect star.