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The Ghostly Shade
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With a soundless step out into forest with the emerald crowns covering the sky, Xe’Reth moves carefully, too carefully. The cave entrance stands there behind him with its dark sloping tunnel. The way down to the valley is also sloping, though, the valley is a plateau, raised from the ground with the mountain. If it was to be measured with the regular landscape, the valley would be fifty meters higher.
While moving downwards into the heart of the valley, Xe’Reth places his steps with precision. No twigs cracking, no sliding down, no rocks disturbed, nothing that can make a sound. He’s crouched as he descends into the maw of complete worry. He had seen four different footsteps and paw prints, but since they were spread out, he couldn’t really make any sound conclusions because he isn’t a tracker. But he’s sure that the human footsteps belongs to eight distinct feet.
Since the ground was still wet from the rain yesterday, it was rather easy to see the tracks. Maybe a mistake on their part? Amateurs perhaps?
‘Dammit. Why now of all times. I wonder kind what people dare come into my domain…’ Xe’Reth thought with ice-cold eyes since the rest of his face is covered in darkness.
There is a path that leads down into the heart of the valley, but Xe’Reth of course wasn’t going to take that risk in being caught there waltzing down the obvious lain ambush, which the people must have lain, because if they’ve seen the garden, then it is too precious to not lay traps. For those kinds of herbs can cost a lot of money from just one single leaf. Though, people needs connections to sell them, which Xe’Reth doesn’t have. So he has stocked up the Yran’Gilis flower for his own use.
As Xe’Reth stalks down through the thick sloping woods, he begins to see an opening in the trees that shows the entire valley, which has grasslands in quantity and no trees. A small lake is also stationed there with small ripples of canals that leads to Xe’Reth’s garden, which he has made himself.
The garden is surrounded by thin wooden fences that’re covered in vines which’re in a square formation. The Yran’Gilis’s amethyst color shines as the sun lusters down upon them, but there isn’t only the Yran’Gilis there. There’re also many diverse flowers in different sections in the garden, but the Yran’Gilis is in the majority.
Xe’Reth is standing there behind a tree while he’s on the edge leading out into the valley, he stares out as he sees his shed where he stores the flowers to dry them up for later use. The forest is quiet, no birds twittering, no critters jumping around, only the bluecoat attire of the DLO’s agents and their stalking hounds are there.
They’re there rummaging through Xe’Reth’s place of salvation, a place that he needs to keep his mother from dying, so she doesn’t start thinking of the end... The end which seems so tempting sometimes. To drift off into the darkness, to never wake up again.
There are two men, one woman, and their hounds. The hounds has a long noses, large bodies that reaches to the chest of a regular man; those pointy ears that’re raised in a guarding stance of complete hearing, the range of a simple mistake can cost Xe’Reth his end. They’ve long sturdy legs with paws of terror that can rip someone asunder like their sharp long teeth that shows in their panting mouths while their tongues hangs out from them.
Its main body is smaller at the back, but as it comes closer to its middle, it begins to grow larger. The dogs’ thick stretched skulls can crush a man’s bones with a snap of its jaws.
But they’re the kindest creatures to their owners. Total loyalty is what these hounds are known for, though they’re also known for their utter ruthlessness since they give the hunted no rest, no time to cry for help, the end of a simple crackling bite to the neck.
They have dark eyes and their fur of mixed dark brown and light brown color. They stand there alert while their masters searches the garden. Setting up traps that can break a man’s bones in two.
Xe’Reth breathes like a ghost, nothing, he has held his breath for three minutes as he stared with deathly eyes ajar upon those agents of the DLO. A stare of hatred, anxiety, and utter cold-bloodedness.
Xe’Reth has no other choice than to murder them for his mother’s sake. But should he? Maybe he should ask for Malinda’s help? No, he can’t be relying on her all the time. He won’t be a money grabber. Sure, he’ll get things from her, surely, though, he won’t be selfish like all of the other nobles. He doesn’t want to live a quiet life of riches, he wants power, that insatiable hunger for power, and with power comes wealth, which’s unavoidable when a person reaches the top.
No blinks, no breathes, no movement. He sits there like an ornament statue that watches from the cathedral’s high construction, gazing with deathly stares of utter motionlessness.
The DLO agents themselves wear their bluecoats of slight black stripes. They’re older folk, around their thirties or forties, but their backs are turned so Xe’Reth’s deathly eyes can’t see their faces. But as they continue, they inspect while one person is writing down the specie of the flowers on a parchment with ink and a quill, which the woman holds. A DLO writer, the one who has the brain in their team, and also the one who’s the leader.
The two other DLO agents are inspecting the shed that has dried flowers which hangs in bundles upside down while they shout out what type of flowers they found to their writer.
One is a sturdy old man with muscles bulging out from his bluecoat with a sword hanging at his waist, while the other one has a lean build, he fits like a custom-made glove in his attire which also has a mantel hanging down at his back, reaching almost the ground. A spear also leans at the shed, a spear which isn’t Xe’Reth’s.
The other two also has mantels that flutters as the breezing winds hits them.
The woman seems to be the youngest of the agents. ‘Beginning of her thirties,’ Xe’Reth thought as he inspects the writer, carefully, because she's the leader of the team, but as deadly as any other member of the DLO.
The hounds’ stands there alert while they wager their tails as they wait obediently.
Xe’Reth breathes out through his black-covered nose, making him feel the warmness from his gathered air on his bandana. He closes his eyes as he disappears behind the tree to sit down.
‘Should I kill them or shouldn’t I kill them? Yes I must… Forgive me, but you’ll have to die for my mother’s sake,’ Xe’Reth though as he opens his eyes with a quick flick of his eyelids, showing the malice in his ebon globes.
But he’s worried about one thing… Their standard issue of crossbows which can fire off bolts, one after the other, because they’re in a chamber. If one bolt is shot, another one is placed in its slit to be fired off again while the rope of the crossbow is easily drawn back with a quick pull.
It’s the deadliest weapon that a human can bare in Ellenoria. Though it is only for the DLO’s use. For the DLO was made by a Divine Queen.
The ones who rule other than the Inquisitors, is the royal family. Must alike the magicians, they only keep the best for themselves and their most loyal organization: The Department of Law and Order.
They’ve even began to administrate out one-handed crossbows, for the technology is rapidly advancing. The society, the people, and the entire kingdom has risen from the dark ages. To bring forth the advancements of the greatest minds. To aid the kingdom, though as the royal family is, they hold back that technology from their people, the people they love yet chain with Divine beliefs. In the process slowing the evolution of their kingdom.
But no one-handed crossbows are there by the three people that now stands talking to each other, only the regular crossbows are lying there by their feet.
“This is a great haul to take back to Tertinum. Huhu, boys, we’ll probably gain a raise when we bring this back,” the woman said with a chuckling smile on her lips as the inscription of the inventory is now finished, and she’s beyond pleased. “Now, we must wait for the criminals to return, then apprehend them. Everything finished boys?”
“As best as we can possibly do, writer!” the muscly man shouted as he responds to their leader’s question with a salute, which the writer nods in approval of. “There will be crackling bones to be heard, haha!”
“We should head to cover and await for them, then take them out as they come back… but…” the lean man said while he gains a frown on his sharp eyebrows, “It is weird, I can’t see any traces of anyone being here for… for some time. Sure, the rain might have lessened the leads, but never has everything been removed. There should be walkways, but there aren’t. Even the garden is flawless of traces, nothing. As if a ghost is taking care of this place.”
“Peculiar indeed,” the writer said while watering the tip of the quill as it goes down to the inkwell that hangs around her waist with a cork tied to a small string which’s hanging loose. “Gather everything up, and let us find a camping spot further up the slope to await their return.”
“But writer—.”
“No buts, I gave you an order. Follow it,” she retorted as she shut the lean man’s comment in his mouth. “I will not take this unserious, we must catch the criminals at all cost. Then, we’ll be famous for finding such a site of drugs here in Tertinum, and so close to the Ebon Wall, too. I promise I won’t take all the credit for myself, so now, gather the equipment and let us find a good vantage point.”
“What about Werana?” the muscled man asked with head turning to look towards where they came from, “She’s still watching the cave entrance. Shouldn’t we get her?”
“Easy, *Whistle*,” a loud shriek sound comes out from the woman’s mouth as she forms her lips and tongue to perform such a feat. But as she gets no response, she whistles again, but nothing. “Prepare the hounds, we’ve company.”
‘So there was someone watching the cave entrance after all… Dammit, there was four different footprints! Dammit, dammit! I was too preoccupied to notice the missing person!’ Xe’Reth thought as he heard the distant voices while turning his eyes vigilant.
He has been utterly careless.
Xe’Reth sits leaning at the tree as he scans the upward slope for anything that might be his doom, but nothing sounds, only the silence itself. ‘Dammit, I’ve never been in a real fight for my life before, only those many brawls of me bowing my head, that time I killed the hungry rat that broke into my house, and that rat’s brother who was killed by my orders. It’s fitting that they’re now lying in the same graveyard, very fitting indeed...’
*Whistle*
Xe’Reth’s head jerks towards the shrieking sound of the returning whistle, which came from… his north-west. A perfect line between the whistler, Xe’Reth, and the whistler’s team. He is caught between them!
“ATTACK.” “ATTACK.” “ATTACK.”
Three voices resonates at the same time, and those voices are from the agents who tells their hounds… to attack.
The hounds’ charges to where their masters are pointing at. But in front of Xe’Reth comes an already charging hound out from between the sloping trees, thirty meters in front of him. It would be hard for anyone to notice the hound, but Xe’Reth sees it clear as day.
Xe’Reth leaps off of the ground and sprints towards north, because they might have lain traps where the path leading down from the cave is. His head turns sharply as he sees a silhouette following him further up the slope, a dark emerald shape.
But as Xe’Reth grasps ahold of his rattling equipment, he sprints away from his pursuers while more whistling sounds comes from behind him, probably indicating that Xe’Reth disappeared. Though… the scent, the scent is still there on the tree where he leaned at.
Both parties then gathers up at the large sapling where Xe’Reth was seen last. A woman comes out from the woods, silently as death itself while a hound follows obediently right next to her, panting from the running spurt. The hound is like the other three, but with weird braces on its paws, as if to make it untraceable and silent as its master.
The woman is very slender with a small short build, but the air about her says that she’s a hunter, a hunter that stalks down her prey. She too has a crossbow, but she didn’t shoot it since she could’ve killed the one she saw, if she were to miss. And she has another color on her coat, dark emerald so she can blend into the woods.
“Werana, you lost them?” the writer asked as she watches the silent woman coming towards them, while the woman herself has an annoyed frown upon her brows. “How many were there?”
“One…” she muttered while shaking her head to herself for being outplayed, “Only one. It’s a man. Around one-point-eight meters. Clad in all black. He was wearing a bow around his chest, a cloth-covered quiver on his waist, and I couldn’t see anything else since he went too far away from me. But he was fast, too fast. He disappeared like a ghost when I took my eyes off of him for a split second.”
“Like a ghost…” the lean man whispered with such a frown while he thought about what he said before.
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“Well, where was this…ghost... when you whistled?” the writer inquired while writing down the details of this black-clad man.
“Actually, right where you’re leaning at…” Werana said sharply as she points at the tree’s roots.
With a whistle of commands, the writer’s hound comes to sniff, and so does the other three. While three hounds looks in two different directions, the hound of Werana goes and sniffs the air which’s the correct path. The other hounds follows its lead as they begin to walk and stand in the direction of where Xe’Reth went, wagging their tails for being so victorious.
“Listen up, I say we should spread out and take him by surprise since I think the cave entrance is the only way out, but… one of us needs to guard the cave so he doesn’t escape. But who?” the lean man asked while pondering as he looks at his teammates, with slight lowered eyebrows of worry. He’s also holding onto his spear which was the one Xe’Reth had seen.
“A sound plan,” the writer said, nodding as she writes it down, “One man shouldn’t be able to escape from us.”
“Do not take him for a mere man, writer. But I think I should be guarding the cave since… he was too silent when he came out from it, so silent that I almost didn’t see him. Which’s why I should be the one, because you’ll let him flow through your grasp.” Werana said with a serious unmoving expression. “I better get moving so he doesn’t circle around us, perhaps he has already escaped while we stand here figuring out a plan.”
“Done,” the writer said as she inscribes the decision, then she wraps it up in a roll and slides it in a container that’s fastened to her back waist. She pops on the cork on the inkwell while removing her quill, to start the hunt for… Xe’Reth.
“Let us go…” the writer said as her hand raises and takes ahold of the crossbow that’s on her back.
“Be careful, it wasn’t normal for anyone to run like that,” Werana warned as she turns around, then as she looks at her hound which’s now beside her, she begins to run towards the cave entrance.
……………
‘I overly underestimated those hounds. No, that hound, it had weird gear on its paws. The only way to… No, wait a moment…’ Xe’Reth thought while he sprouts forth such a grin under his black bandana as he thinks about something while looking down at his hardened-square-leather bags.
“Sigh… I guess it is the only way. It will be hard and tricky to make it work, but I don’t really want to kill them. They’re only doing their jobs in finding criminals like me,” Xe’Reth said as he tilts out behind a tree while staring at the path where he came from.
He takes out his bow and removes the cloth piece from the quiver to prepare his bold but sympathetic plan. While taking out four arrows, he holds them in his hands as one arrow is nocked in place and drawn too. Then, he waits… and waits for the coming of the storm, which is actually seeping over the colossal mountains that connects to the Ebon Wall.
“Great, exactly what I need…” he said while standing there like a complete stone, behind the tree, peeking out while he looks up at the crown-covered sky. The dark brooding clouds are moving in from the south… from the Ebon Wall.
With that, the rain began to pour down, which isn’t good for the hounds, but with the tree crowns covering the droplets of water to some extent, the scent still remains. It guides them while the hounds sniffs the ground and sniffs the rain scented air, feeling Xe’Reth’s aroma that makes the hounds feel something, but that feeling is washed away as soon as it appears in their animal minds.
*Growls*
The hounds begins their horrible growls as the scent starts to get stronger and stronger.
“We’re closing in on him, be alert for arrows,” the writer said as water drips on her hair, soaking it, while her crossbow turns in different directions in a slow moving aim. “The hounds wouldn’t be growling this much if he wasn’t around here.”
The hounds starts to go in different directions, but stops. They sniffs around the area but they can’t find the source. It’s as if the criminal had ran around the whole area, just to try putting the hounds in a clueless state.
“Tsk, that man knows their weaknesses, and this rain isn’t helping at all…” the lean man said while crouching down as he stares into the forest, which isn’t sloping, but it goes up and down, here and there. Small tree-covered hills. “We should’ve spread out like I said… Whatever, we should send out the hounds instead so we can take that man down quickly.”
“We’ll do no such thing…” the writer retorted while giving him a pointing index finger as she frowns. “I’ll not have my puppy going to its death.”
“You’ll have to choose then, your puppy or your raise. Think about the fame, leader. You can breed another hound up if it were to die. And fame isn’t exactly growing on trees nowadays, as a matter of fact, it doesn’t grow on trees at all. We’re but a regular team in a haystack of other regular teams. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in the woods risking my life… for mere herbs and lawbreakers,” the lean man said as he glares at his leader angrily. “If you just hadn’t been so damn proud. We could’ve already been office workers, but nooo, you just had to go and make the Inquisitor mad, in the process she lowered our rank. I’m really starting to get sick and tired of your shit, leader.”
“We’ll take this another ti—”
*Shrieeek*
An arrow pierces through the air, through the woods, and with a noise that sounds like snapping splits of bones, it imbeds itself into the lean man’s lower leg. Making the arrow travel in and out from the other side while a scream of such pain echoes throughout this rain filled forest. Which makes the lean man fall to the ground, feeling that his leg is sorely out of place, dropping his spear in the process.
“Ah… AHHHHHH!” the man cried as he stares in horror upon the leg that’s bent.
“Leader, take cover!” the muscled man yelled as he dodges to a nearby tree while the writer, the leader, does the same while the lean man keeps screaming out in utter pain. The arrow had come with such a force and such angle that the bones themselves broke upon impact while the arrow went clean through, making the arrow stick to the earth.
“Where is he?!” the writer yelled, not daring to peak out from her cover while hearing another arrow getting stuck at the tree with a thud which she’s hiding behind, then another by the muscled man’s tree, and another closely by the lean man’s junk, scaring him to death upon seeing how close it come to his private part.
“From there…!” the lean man yelled while pointing with a shaking hand of agony. “The arrow’s direction from where it land… Is from over there! ATTACK!”
As he yells ‘attack’, his hound leaps forward, then runs with such speed towards where its master commanded him to run, to attack, to kill. The hound disappeared into the trees leaving them there, covering, feeling pain, and the growling of two hounds that’re also ready for their command.
“Damn,” the writer said as she peeks out to see her team member lying there on the wet ground, and upon seeing the twisted leg, she yells out, “ATTACK!”
“ATTACK!” the muscled man followed suit as he heard his leader giving her hound the order to tear its victim to shreds.
While being further away from the agents, Xe’Reth stands there with a frown. He had missed his shot. Xe’Reth was only supposed to hit his flesh, and not the two bones that’re in the lower leg, which’re at the moment broken. With that shot Xe’Reth has probably crippled him for life. But he doesn’t have time to give him any pity.
As the first hound comes while barking with a clutching jaw that opens and closes as that horrible sound comes out, Xe’Reth springs to his feet again. He must keep that hound at bay so he can get all three of them together.
Xe’Reth doesn’t want to kill the hounds because they’re peaceful animals… for the most part at least. So he runs while looking behind himself, griping onto his equipment as he moves. And since the barks from the closest hound sounds out, the two other ones aren’t that far behind.
The barking comes nearer and nearer as Xe’Reth slows down his speed, and as he turns around, he sees the hound a couple of meters in front of him. The hound leaps off the ground to aim for Xe’Reth’s neck, but with its flying momentum, Xe’Reth dodges it with a jump to the side.
As the hound comes again after it lands, it comes running for Xe’Reth instead.
But now he’s running towards the other two hounds, making the other one follow Xe’Reth as the barking resounds from behind and in front, though this goes according to what Xe’Reth wants. To gather them up… To take them out from the game of: Hunt the ghostly shade.
Right as the two incoming hounds’ leaps at him like the first one, Xe’Reth dashes to the side, while in the process as they land on the ground, he has now gathered them up to form a clunk of three. The hounds are really fast, so fast that Xe’Reth was slightly worried about the one that was behind him before. But now, the hounds’ runs with those clutching jaws of theirs, frothing as their tongues are drawn in so their mouths doesn’t bite them off from all of the barking.
Xe’Reth runs up the slope with leg after leg, raising one after the other in such strength, because the way up is tilting somewhat greatly, so he has to also use his arms. But instead of doing that, Xe’Reth climbs rapidly up a tree, then leaps off of it, to jump on to another tree while he climbs up then jumps again.
For every tree that’s leaped off of, he gets higher and higher up the slope, while the hounds are panting and panting from the upward chase of total exhaustion since the tilting is making the hounds tired, which Xe’Reth wants.
With that, Xe’Reth turns around as he lands on the sloping ground, then sprints down the slope as he leaps above them while the exhausted hounds tries to bite his soaring feet, but they also turns around to follow him, rather they stubbles down the incline as stones and soft earth hinders their movements.
Making one roll down, one that hits an incoming tree face first, and the last one flips about as it tries to gain a somewhat footing. Through its tilting they sustained some injuries that slows their chase for Xe’Reth.
Xe’Reth heads further away so the agents doesn’t pursue along with the hounds, though the speed of them has decreased significantly upon coming down onto the flat forest. But they’ve been given a command, so they keep on following Xe’Reth as if their lives depends on it.
Upon coming to a small cliff face that goes up a couple of tens of meters, Xe’Reth turns around while standing completely still, having his hooded head lowered so they can only see his survival in those dark abyssal eyes that stares with such a force and cunningness. The hounds too has stopped, but they growl with low noises as their maddened eyes wants to rip this dark-clad man asunder, to taste his blood, to gnaw on his bones until nothing is left.
With one carefully placed paw after the other, they stalk closer to Xe’Reth, because he’s trapped.
Nowhere to escape, but if the hounds were to see his smiling expression under his bandana, they would be cautious in making a move, because that grin of his shows that this is all a part of his plan. Of course, Xe’Reth could’ve done this plan even with them being fully alert and not in this panting tiredness that shows on their flustering stomachs as they sweat out their worries with those tongues of theirs.
But it is easier to subdue a tired animal than an animal at its peak.
Xe’Reth’s hand flows slowly as it goes to one of his hardened-leather-square bags that’re on his waist. With a slight click, the button opens and reveals some kind of round ball, while the hounds are oblivious to Xe’Reth’s slow moving hand which now grasps onto it.
The bow and the arrows had been placed back to its positions on his back and in the quiver. Only the mysterious ball is in his grasping hand.
“It is time for a well-earned rest. Have a goodnight, my beauties…” Xe’Reth said as he raises his hand, and with a piercing throw it lands straight beneath the hounds while an exploding mist covers them whole as it spreads out. Xe’Reth leaps and climbs up the cliff to not be caught in its tranquilizing feeling of pain receivers dulling down and the unavoidable sleep that takes over them.
Just like that, the hounds snoozes on the ground as the mist breezes away in the rain filled forest, revealing that they’re completely unconscious, but Xe’Reth has disappeared long ago, nowhere in sight.
To continue with his plans.
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Hope you liked the different setting of a little action! Continuing on next chapter, but I am busy tomorrow so it'll come out the day after. December fifth.
Don't forget to voice your thoughts!
Yran'Gilis dust in a ball, efficient yet... wait, there are no drawbacks! Well at least if you stand to close when it goes off, that can be a drawback. This world's drug sniffing dogs that the police handles. DLO is just nowadays police, but set in a medieval-ish setting. Crossbows, who doesn't like crossbows?! Fast shooting ones too. :D
I'll come back to fix grammar mistakes. Hopefully I didn't forget to Italicize any of the thoughts... It can be such a pain, hehe. :D
Until next time!
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