“That was crazy! What does that Skill do?” Jack had risen from the ground and was unbuckling the armor along his arm.
“It’s a Talent. Let’s me burn up Stamina to increase the damage of my next hit, like a spellcaster going nova. Once I use it, there’s a delay before I can do it again, though,” she wobbled on her feet a little.
“You ok, hon? You look a little… spent,” Layla wrapped both her arms around Erin’s elbow, and the taller woman leaned on her.
“Yeah. Yeah, I just spent most of the Stamina I had left on that hit. I’ma need a nap. Or at least a sit. Maybe some pancakes,” she winked at Jack, then sat down in the dirt next to the giant red bird.
“Would you settle for chicken?” he laughed.
“Oooo… mystery chicken and waffles,” her mouth formed a pursed O, and she half-collapsed, half-laid on Layla.
“Jesus legs, when did you get so heavy!?” Layla fell over as Erin’s weight dragged her to the ground.
“Fifty pounds of armor and twice as much Strength as when we got here,” she grunted and leaned back.
“UNGHHHFFF… dying… can’t… breathe… slowly, lights, going… dim… goodb-,” Layla wheezed, flailing under Erin’s weight, then suddenly fell silent.
Erin shot upright, pulling herself into a sitting position, fatigue suddenly erased.
Rory was twenty feet away, inspecting the trail ahead, when his head snapped up, and he stopped in his tracks.
For less than a second, Jack was mystified by their sudden silence and weird behavior, until the sensation rolled over him like a tide of black doom, a palpable sense of predatory dread. It hit them one by one, stealing their breath, then lessened and vanished.
“What the unholy fuck wa-” Layla started, but immediately fell silent again when the sensation returned, somehow more intimate and intense.
Again, like the tide, the wave of terror and pressure rolled in, then receded.
“-s that… holy shit,” she finally finished.
“I don’t know, but it feels like it’s coming-” Rory started to reply, but the pulse of thought-crushing menace washed over them again.
“That is disturbingly regular,” Layla spit out, trying to beat the next surge of adrenaline and awe. She looked over, to see Jack counting down with his fingers. When the final finger folded into his gloved fist, the surge of dread returned, peaked, and faded.
From the south, a series of thick, staccato cracks echoed across the trail, then returning to their ears again after reverberating from the mountainside.
“We have to fucking go, right the fuck now,” Jack began swiftly packing the mess kit he had begun to set up and kicked over the pyramid of deadwood and tinder he had built.
“Why? Wait, what? What happened? What is that?” Erin struggled to her feet.
“That was the sound of green trees being snapped over and knocked down. And anything big enough to knock a full-grown tree over is gonna step on us and roll in the fucking mush. We gotta go,” he finished packing the kit, shouldered his pack, and hauled Layla up onto her feet. “Rory! We are leaving! Right now!”
Rory rushed back to the party, “What the hell is going on Jack?”
“Whatever that is to the south-” the rolling flood of dread returned, but Jack gritted his teeth and continued. “Whatever that thing is, it’s getting closer, and it just knocked over a bunch of trees. If it can do that, there won’t be anything left of us when it steps on us.”
“I dunno mate, I think you might be overreacting,” Rory put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and opened his mouth to speak again, but the rough, bone-breaking snaps of another set of trees stole whatever reasonable explanation he had.
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“Nevermind,” Rory gave Jack an apologetic grin and started jogging northwest along the trail.
Half an hour later, they chose to cut north a quarter-mile to a small rocky ridge, where Jack and Erin would scale the high ground and try to get a look at the creature they had fled. Jack set a small fire and a few snacks for Rory and Layla, and started climbing. Erin stopped to grab a bite before taking off after him, rapidly ascending the ridgeline on brute strength alone. In contrast to Jack’s more careful style, she bounded from handhold to handhold, making spectacular jumps and nearly flying up the fifty-foot rock face.
“Jack,” Erin grabbed his pauldron and gripped it, pulling him up from the edge of the ridge and more than a bit off-balance.
He righted himself and clapped the dust from his hands, “Mm?”
“Is that a fucking dragon?” she stared, still holding him with an iron grip.
His head snapped around to look south, where his mouth fell open. It wasn’t a dragon, per se, his gaming experience mildly droned in the back of his mind, but it was absolutely close enough. Based on the treeline, the creature was thirty feet tall at the shoulder, but the serpentine neck and jagged, spined head rose another fifteen feet. It was basalt black, save for the brilliant white horns and spines, and they could see the bat-like wings sweep back from the forearms. The wingspan must have been a hundred feet across. The creature’s head swiveled to and fro, searching for something, until the spines suddenly flared out, revealing a massive spiked frill, and the beast darted forward, tons of flesh and iron-hard scales moving faster than Erin’s charge. The head plunged below the treeline, and the crackling burst of trees being torn to splinters rang out again. The massive neck drew the head back above the trees, where the jaws clamped down on what the two of them assumed to be a fully grown nightstalker, a dark purple beast the size of a draft horse. The jaws opened and snapped shut again, a spray of blood and viscera raining into the trees below, then the wyrm slung the great cat a dozen feet into the air and swallowed the broken body whole.
“So, I’d say you were right about skedaddling,” Erin finally let go of Jack’s shoulder plate.
“Thanks for saying so,” he smiled at her. “But we’re not far enough away.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I have to agree with that. More running. Running is good,” she shook herself.
The wyrm turned to the East and the massive head dipped into the trees again, seeking more prey.
-----
That night, Jack awoke to the sound of gentle sobbing, which broke and dried into a short sniff and the sound of cloth wiping away tears. The fire had guttered during the night, and only embers illuminated the camp. To his right, Erin’s snuffling snore and tiny wheeze of exhalation brought a smile to his face. Across from her, the outline of Layla’s wing twitched against her blanket.
Which left, “Hey buddy, you ok?” he whispered into the darkness. He cast Nighteye by whispering the spell’s name, and watched Rory lay against his bedroll, pretending Jack hadn’t woken to the sound of him crying.
“I know you’re awake, Rory. I can see you,” he whispered.
“You know mate, that black-eyed thing is creepy as hell,” Rory whispered back.
“You can’t even see me,” Jack chuckled and rose to go sit by Rory’s bedroll.
He leaned down on one elbow and yanked the smaller man into a hug.
“Jack, you don’t have to… I mean…” Rory started, stuttering at the sudden physical contact.
“Shut up. You’re my best mate, and we’re a trillion flight paths from home, Rory. A hug isn’t gonna hurt either one of us,” he whispered and crushed Rory against him again.
“It’s hard to believe we’ve only been here, what, ten days?” Rory sniffed and wiped at his nose, his arm awkwardly trying to get around Jack’s bear hug.
“Ten days is a long time without someone you love,” he stared into the darkness over Rory’s shoulder.
Rory’s face crumbled and he buried his head in Jack’s shirt, silent sobs wracking his shoulders as he finally let go and mourned.
“It’s ok, buddy. I’m gonna get you back to him. I fucking swear it to you. Even if I have to climb up and drag the sun into the ocean with a fucking rope.”
Jack couldn’t see his own face, but the blackness in his eyes swirled and pulsed, crawling across his face in great tenebrous veins, as he pledged himself completely to the Night.