“Damn this forest.” Tsugi muttered, her warm breath rising into the cold air as she ushered the horse into a gallop. The others followed suit, trying to make their way through the forest as fast as they could.
The creepy trees that look like hanging men amongst the fading moon and stars, the eerie air that seemed to carry death within it, and creaking of the branches like wailing creatures were just like Tsugi remembered it to be.
It was as if she never left the forest that day.
Summoning her daggers, she held them firmly in her hands along with the reigns – her eyes darting from the branches of claw-like fingers and hanging men to the dark sky that had begun to fade into a reddened hue to the first light of dawn.
She’d be ready this time, especially with so few of them she was sure the weegan’s would try and attack.
When light finally penetrated the dark forest, she glanced back and saw that everyone also had their weapons ready, just in case the weegan’s decided to attack. There were fewer of them this time, so the chances of an attack is most imminent.
Just like last time, the weegan’s were following them, swinging from creaking branch to creaking branch, raining down colorful leaves upon them. More and more began to follow them and their chit-chatter sounded like laughing hyenas.
And when she gazed at the trees this time, the weegan’s were indeed following them, swinging from tree to tree with those hungry amber eyes. Seeing as how they didn’t behave like this last time, Tsugi slowed down to Lugo and handed the reins to him. “Take her and stay close to the wagon.” Then turned to Elli. {Stay close to the wagon.}
Ellie nodded in response.
Tsugi hopped onto the saddle and leapt onto the back of the moving wagon. She began swinging her daggers through the air into her forcefield, sending it as wide as she could, without injuring anyone. The blades sliced through the air in a deafening whirring sound, sending up dust and dead leaves around them as if they had been picked up and was now being juggled between the blades and chains.
The weegan’s began to screech louder and louder, sounding more angry as if they were chanting, riled up from Tsugi’s move that had seemed to threaten them. The last few remaining dead leaves that floated down from the branches, were turned into confetti upon reaching Tsugi’s forcefield - turning into bits and dust floating in the wind.
The sun was high in the sky, but Tsugi was still keeping up her forcefield, although with much more effort this time. The salt of sweat stung and she did all she could to swing with only one eye open. Afraid she would accidentally hit Elli, who was now in her blindspot, she quickly moved to wipe the sweat from her eyes with her shoulder.
A loud screeching sound followed by a few thuds of a weegan falling onto the ground behind them.
“Are you okay?” Lugo yelled, his voice full of concern and worry.
“Yeah, just wiping the sweat from my eyes!”
“It’s cold out! How the hell are you sweating?!”
“You try swinging for five hours straight!” She barked.
Could he not understand how exhausting it is?
“If I wasn’t paying attention you could’ve died! They took advantage and threw a thorn right at you! You got lucky I was able to teleport it back to them!”
“Okay, so you want to come up here and wipe my sweat for me?!” She hissed. She was sure that her exhaustion and hunger was getting to her seeing as her temper was getting harder to control.
“Just…at least warn me next time so I can keep an eye out!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Tch.” She sneered, rolling her eyes in irritation.
Her arms were getting tired and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it up. Surely they should be nearing the exit soon.
“How’re you doing?!” Lugo called out. The forest was turning dim with dusk soon approaching. The horses were exhausted and they too were struggling to keep up the pace – frothing at the mouth. If it wasn’t for Ellie constantly healing the horses, they probably wouldn’t last much longer, but Ellie too was using too much of her energy just to keep the horses stamina up. If any of them were to actually get hurt –
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up!” Tsugi grunts.
Just then, a quill made it through her forcefield, Lugo quickly averted it back to the weegan’s, dropping another one to the ground with a thud.
More and more quills began to break through, causing Lugo to have to step in and deter them away, dropping a few more weegan’s off the trees.
“Get ready!” Tsugi grunted, her arms weren’t going to hold out much longer, she had reached her limit. The blades dispersed and she dropped to her knees, her arms dropping at her sides, trembling horribly from overuse.
And the weegan’s charged, their quills sent in millions – way too many for Lugo alone.
Ellie swung her staff through the air and returned as many quills as she could, or hit them to the ground. Maki sent out a stream of flame toward the trees, setting the weegan’s aflamed as they screamed and scurried away. She burned the quills into ash before they could advance any further and sent them flying with the wind.
Aylin shot droplets of water at the quills with precision and accuracy, breaking them in half and dropping them to the ground. Lugo parried some of the quills with his sword and deterred some of them back with his magic, dropping many more weegan’s off the trees.
Tsugi tried to summon her daggers again, but she was too exhausted – they were but a disappearing mirage in her calloused hands. Her arms shook tirelessly and she could barely lift a finger let alone her arms.
Damn it.
She gritted her teeth, angry at herself, that even after all these years, she still felt so weak.
She gasped a quick intake of air as a quill pierced her side, knocking her onto her elbows. “AH!” Another sharp pain of a quill nailed her leg to the boxes on the wagon.
“Fuck! Tsugi!” Lugo glanced back at her, watching as she crouched, barely holding herself up on the wagon.
“I’m fine!” She said, not wanting to worry anyone. And she was fine – this was nothing compared to all she had been through.
She took a few quick breathes and pulled the quills out of her, watching as blood poured on top of the crates. She quickly mustered her energy and pulled life from the plants they ran past and healed herself, just enough to stop the profuse bleeding and allow her to at least defend herself.
A hard hit to her side and she tumbled off the wagon. With a last desperate grasp, she held onto the straps of the luggage, feeling it burn and rip the skin from her palms as it slid through. Her feet dangled and dragged on the floor with a weegan clung onto her foot, dragging behind her.
“Let – go!” She screamed through gritted teeth and kicked the creature in the face, but it refused to let go. Instead it opened its mouth and clamped onto her foot. She bellowed, feeling its teeth sink into her bones.
A portal opened up right in front of the weegan’s face and a quill pierced it right in between the eyes. It released Tsugi and rolled onto the floor – a lifeless bundle left in the dust.
She sighed in relief and looked up. Everyone was still busy trying to ward off the weegan’s attacks. Using all the strength she had left in her arms, she pulled as hard as she could, slowly climbing up the ropes.
A quill snapped the rope with a loud thud as it hit it square on, piercing into the box behind the rope. Tsugi’s eyes widened with fear as she saw them continue down the road without her like time had decided to let her see her final moments – to take in what she will never see again.
She took one last look at Lugo, his face stern as he focused on the weegan’s around him, oblivious of her demise. For the first time she had regretted not telling him the truth about herself and the real reason why she wouldn’t go to the bathhouse with him.
She hit the ground with such force, it knocked the wind out of her and she could feel the scrapes and cuts on the surface of her skin. The loud thuds of the weegan’s came rushing toward her and she knew this would be it. She mustered as much energy as she could to heal whatever wound she could, to buy them enough time to escape the forest.
She gave them one last glance – a wistful smile on her face. At least they will make it.
Firing up her hallucination, she brought down a giant wyvern, three times the size of the one they fought last time. She had made herself scarce and used the wyvern to attack them instead. They crawled and climbed onto the wyvern, but she shook them off, flying into the air and diving back down to the ground, blasting them off with every hit. She bit off their heads and pulled their spines out of their backs. Strings of flesh and tendons dangled from her mouth, dripping with blood as she crunched on their bones like potato chips.
They threw their quills but it was no match for her hard scales. The quills clinked against her and piled up on the ground beneath her feet. Rearing her head back, she blew a dark purple flame at them, igniting the whole forest up in flames. The weegan’s screeched and cried, their skin burned and turned into ash right in front of them. She prowled through the forest and ate each of them, leaving none to spare.
After ensuring they were all dead, she ended the hallucination and found herself buried in a pile of weegan’s who were paralyzed and could no longer move a muscle besides their fear filled eyes. She summoned her daggers and with much exhaustion, she minced them into a pile of blood and ground meat spread through the darkening forest.
She had used too much energy as she could do nothing but lay on the ground, panting and gasping for air.
The ground started to shift underneath her with the setting sun.
“Shit!”