The Plague. Nobody ever wanted to talk about it, nor cared to see it. The normal reaction was to run away and hope for the best, leaving behind anyone too slow to escape.

From the very start of my life I'd heard the stories. It was unstoppable and unquenchable, a force of nature which demanded others to give their lives to it. When people were left to die in the open the Plague stepped in and removed the corpses, when people were buried the Plague arrived and dug them up.

The only way to avoid the Plague was to burn the dead. Nobody was buried, the only known burials spoken of involved royalty from ages long since past. The only way to kill the infected was to cause severe trauma to the brain, spine or heart. There was no way to cure the Plague, once it infected you it was over.

Most people who became infected opted out on living, they took a knife to their own heart and ended it then and there. A few tried to fight it, they'd use anything possible to stave off the slow crawl of the curse mark. Some even gave themselves to the Empire as experimental fodder, only to suffer far worse fates than infection before the Empire killed them.

During my childhood I learned why my father was so rarely around, he was constantly called upon to stop the Plague from destroying towns. Anytime a large group of Plague were spotted he was dispatched along with elite members of the Legion, a task that most of the legionnaire both feared and considered a great honor. Whenever the Legion attempted to destroy the Plague alone they suffered heavy casualties, and so my father had become a man they relied on consistently.

There had been a legend of a female warrior who once single-handedly ripped through the Plague, a phantom that was cursed to know only war and death. Those who had tried to fight against her learned quickly they were nothing, and wherever she went everyone had given way. She had vanished before my birth, some claimed she died and others said she simply stopped fighting. In a sense she was an ideal for me, I strongly wished to be as powerful as her.

The one time I saw the Plague I had reacted entirely based on the advice of others. I did not even think about my course of action, I turned and ran so fast and hard that by the time I collapsed I had covered miles. Since that moment I had never encountered the Plague again, though I had heard of small groups of five or ten who moved throughout the continent.

The bell tower rang loud enough that it could be heard even outside of Vicna, the warning signal used by all towns in the continent to mark the appearance of the Plague. To the north I could see a massive cloud of dark birds, crows I believed, that descended like dread onto the town.

Taryn was not nice, he roughly threw me into the back of the wagon where I landed hard next to Skara. There were no more crates in the wagon, Shorty had apparently sold all of the goods and acquired a few bags of supplies in exchange. From behind Taryn leaped into the air, after which he landed in the wagon and gently put Wumi down.

Shorty had watched this all before he nodded his head and turned to face the front. He shook the reins while he yelled at the horses, which both started forward at a strong pace. The wagon bounced as it moved off of the cobblestone path outside of Vicna and entered once more onto a dirt road.

Skara clung with one hand to the edge of the wagon, while his other grasped his sword. "Nice to see you again, girl," he said as he grinned at me. He looked in the direction of the crows, then laughed. "Looks like the plan worked, doubt we'll get chased by that group."

"I told you it'd work, I used it at Legrant to get away from some legionnaires," Shorty called out, his eyes too focused on the path ahead to spare looking back at us.

"Are you guys idiots? You brought in the Plague! THE PLAGUE!" I yelled at them, I wanted to beat them but the unstable wagon that bounced randomly made it near impossible to even stand, let alone punch anyone. "If one of them gets into the town it could kill everyone!"

"Calm down girl," Skara said, still with that grin on his face. "The most we did was bring in maybe eight or nine of them, and Vicna has solid walls and legionnaires. Hell, even the regular town guards with some bows can probably stop that amount without a problem."

Then he laughed loudly, before he continued on. "And even if they can't who cares? It's a slavers paradise. Trust me, it'll be better for the Empire either way."

I shuddered at the casual way that Skara talked about the end of a city. I looked at Shorty and saw he had not the slightest hint of distaste for the idea, and the face of Taryn was still and unreadable. Wumi had huddled up into a bunch of the supply bags, nestled in like some small rodent.

"Where'd you get the slave?" Skara asked, as he nodded his head toward Wumi.

"Taryn stole her after he knocked the guy out," I said, I settled down against the interior wall of the wagon and watched as trees began to slide by.

Taryn had not once looked at any of us, his eyes were locked on the horizon in the direction of the Plague. His face had begun to grow unhappy, something clearly bothered him but I had no urge to ask. He would either share or remain quiet, I already understood him well enough to know that.

"Taryn?" Shorty asked, confused. "Wait, you mean the silver-haired weird guy who won't talk?"

I blinked, then realized that so far Taryn's name had yet to come up in any conversation. In fact, during the entire escort mission Shorty had failed to get the close-mouthed idiot to even talk in private with him once. "Yes," I hesitantly said, though why I paused I wasn't certain. "So we just spent the rest of the day and night hiding on the rooftops."

"Oh, a night time rendezvous with the mysterious gentleman," Skara said, before he chuckled.

I blushed at that, then yelled at Skara. Even Shorty had begun to laugh, which only made my face grow redder. Throughout it all Wumi watched on in silence, her eyes half-closed due to fatigue from the antics of the previous day.

"Quiet," Taryn commanded, rather than asked. In my mind it was because his manners were atrocious, though if I had paid proper attention I would've figured out that he had a proper reason for it.

All three of us went quiet, though I had little interest in following Taryn's commands, and Shorty kept his gaze locked forward while Skara and I turned to look at Taryn. His gaze was not directed at any of us, but behind and so the both of us couldn't help but look as well. It was back toward Vicna, and even from this distance we could still hear the sound of the bell tower. The almost inaudible screams that followed us told us something we didn't want to think about.

That wasn't why he told us to be quiet though, it was the louder noise which was important. The footsteps, the shrieks, the exhalation of hunger from starving monsters. As we watched a small group of the Plague pushed out from the forests, they chased after our wagon even though it moved at a pace unmatchable by the normal person.

Each of them had pale skin, their hair scraggly and in some cases absent. The clothing they wore barely remained, most of it had been lost either from combat with the Plague while they lived or via decay over time. Their eyes were what caught my attention, pure white eyes that looked so alien I cringed in fright.

"They shouldn't be chasing us! The Plague don't chase the living this far!" Skara declared, he refused to accept what he was seeing even though it was plainly obvious that it was indeed occurring.

Shorty glanced over his shoulder, shuddered at the sight of the Plague, and then shook the reins and demanded more from the horses. The pace quickened but it would prove unsustainable for long, none of the horses had been bred for such harsh treatment. The worst part of it was that it did little to help the situation, the Plague merely ceased gaining ground and instead continued on par with our rate of progress.

"Why, Nixi?" Taryn murmured so quietly I could barely hear it, before he stood up flawlessly in the wildly bucking wagon. He turned and looked at all of us, one hand rested on the handle of his sheathed sword.

"I'll be getting off here, take Wumi to the town of Shiadone, then find Alise's orphanage," he said. He didn't wait for objections nor comments and instead promptly leapt off of the wagon.

Before he hit the ground he had already crashed foot first into the face of one of the Plague and sent it sprawling. The others braked hard, one of which flipped and collapsed before it could completely come to a stop. Why? Why was he doing this? That idiot!

"Wish I could say I was going t-hey wait!" Skara said before he stopped and shouted, one hand lifted up toward me.

I had already leapt off of the wagon, hit the ground and rolled. I ended up a good distance from where Taryn was in his fight due to the speed of the wagon. "The only person who gets to kill that moron is me," I muttered darkly as I stood up and started to walk toward his direction.

♪ ♫ ♬ ♫ ♪

Why did I decide to jump off the wagon and run to the aid of an ill natured, moronic and far too punch-happy criminal? When I look at that point in my life I realize I had come to a crossroad, if I stayed on the wagon I'd be safe and happy and get to move on and not worry about Taryn anymore.

Yet if I hadn't gotten off of the wagon would I have felt happy to have lived because he sacrificed himself for us? Out of that small group of people I had met in Fisk two had died, and the others I had grown to have a trusting feeling toward. While we didn't talk often, didn't know much about each other we believed in one another when the going got tough.

To make matters worse I was part of the Rose family, the infamous warriors of the Empire who fought the Plague whenever and where it was required. Turning away from a fight with them out of some cowardice, or petty distaste for another, would be a disgrace to the family name. The final reason, and perhaps the most important, was that I felt leaving him to die would haunt me for the rest of my life.

So when I stood up I snapped my fingers and formed a long, thin sword out of the Shatterblade. It had a hilt that was two feet long, the blade itself six feet and the thickness almost non-existent. When I reached the first of the Plague, the one who had fallen due to clumsiness, I swept the Shatterblade into the skull and cut it in half without a moments hesitation. No matter how thick or thin the Shatterblade was, it was a magical tool and thus inherently more durable and sharper than almost any other type of metal.

I kept up my forward pace, another Plague turned at the sound of my approach and reached out a hand while the mouth gaped open. A hiss spilled out from the creature that made me grimace, yet I whipped out my sword from a safe distance. The blade sliced the arm off, then I twisted and delivered a horizontal slash that cut the spine of the Plague in half somewhere around the stomach level.

Taryn had already dispatched the few other Plague who had been near him, well placed punches and kicks were all he needed to cave in their skulls. As he stood there he shook the guts of the monsters off of his fists, and looked at me with a look of raw anger. His green eyes looked darker than normal, almost brown.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he roared at me, it was the first time I had ever heard him so upset in our time together. I took a step away from him, blade half-lifted as though I feared he was about to strike out at me.

"I wasn't going to leave you to die!" I told him, even as I cringed away from him.

His hands curled into fists, he breathed heavily as though he had exerted himself far more than normal, and he turned away from me and yelled loudly at the sky. Then he turned and pointed at me with a single finger. "Stay away from me during this, I might kill you if you get too close," he told me.

"What? We killed the Plague, they're all dead," I said, as I looked at the corpses about us. The dark blood that slowly oozed out of them smelled far worse than any rotting body ever could.

"Nixi is here, I hope you're ready for this," he stated cryptically, and did not explain what he meant. He reached down with one hand and rested it on the hilt of his sword. "Don't let them bite you, if they manage to infect your blood you'll start to turn. When you start to turn there's no hope, scratches are fine and blunt damage is okay! Just don't let them bite you no matter what!"

He didn't wait for a response, his fingers curled tightly around the handle of the sword and he slowly pulled it out. The noise of the forest about us went silent, the trees felt like they shuddered while the grass curled beneath our feet. Out from the old scabbard came a blade that shone white.

When I say it shone white I do not mean that it simply glistened, I mean that the blade itself was white. It had a brilliance, an ambient glow that made the white blade all the more alabaster. The weapon was not all too long, an average length sword, but the edge looked sharp enough to stand a chance of cutting my own Shatterblade.

He lifted the sword up, then took a standard fighting stance with one foot forward, while two hands gripped the handle and held the point low. He breathed in deeply, closed his eyes and went so still I felt like he would vanish from my sight.

"Two hundred seventy four," he stated before his eyes opened, and the noise of the forest began to resume once more.

I looked at him, perplexed, while I shifted the Shatterblade into a standard short sword. "What do you mean?"

"That's how many are coming, we baited the worst possible group," Taryn growled. "It's my fault, I should've stopped them."

Taryn's eyes narrowed while the sound of howls and rapid footsteps started to resound throughout the whole of the forest. The foliage began to fall as the vibrations of an uncountable amount of steps began to rock the trees, and the sound of birds and other animals running was barely audible over the oncoming horde.

"Stay back! Further!" Taryn called out to me, though he did not spare any attention. His gaze was locked in the direction of the noise, teeth clenched tightly.

I listened to him, I stepped far enough away from him that there would be no possible reason for him to worry about our proximity. When it was all said and done I stood some fifteen feet from his spot, and could only look on in horror as the first group began to emerge. They looked very much like the others, the corpses of random men who had fallen prey to the Plague.

"NIXI!" was all I heard as Taryn leapt with a roar at the nearest Plague. His sword hummed and the creature collapsed, already sliced through. He began his one-man assault as more and more Plague poured out of the trees like a river which had burst through a dam. Half of the monsters barely managed to stand as the ones behind pushed through and over with such eagerness that all I could hear were bones snapping.

Taryn went at it with such eagerness it was almost revolting, his sword sang time and again while he twisted through the crowd of the Plague. Up his blade went and an arm went flying, down the blade sank and a Plague followed it to the ground. The sword slashed in, it dipped around and it danced with ease through the whole group.

For a while all I did was watch, it was almost mesmerizing to see as he effortlessly slipped past the reaching hands, into close range with the Plague and then tore them to shreds. His beautiful blade which had started out so white began to darken, black smears of sickened blood started to cling to it much like the hands of the Plague on Taryn's body.

Too many, far too many, I thought to myself as I began to run toward him. I changed my Shatterblade again into a long-handled thin battle-axe, and I called out my challenge to the beasts.

Some turned, though most ignored me as they too seemed entranced by Taryn's dance of death. Those who turned charged at me with a single-mindedness, there was no intelligence in their actions and so I easily swept through the first few. My axe had enough range that they couldn't even get close enough to touch me, so I began to feel quite secure in my actions.

I swung my axe, a head flew off of one of the Plague's bodies and the remains crumpled down. A second one moved in immediately to fill the space I had created and I struggled with my body to do a return swing. The axe slashed into the skull, then stopped as it hit a second head a second later. I hadn't used enough force to clear two skulls, and was forced to desperately try to dislodge my axe.

A few more of the Plague pushed in toward me while I struggled, and I ended up shifting the Shatterblade into a different weapon. A scimitar, designed for close range and flourishes, I turned away from the still distant and slightly beheaded Plague to the far greater threats. My scimitar cut into the upper chest of one, pierced the heart before I withdrew it in the blink of an eye.

I sidestepped the hands of the second Plague, my scimitar swept up and I calmly chopped the front of the face off, before I twisted and drove the scimitar back down into the remains of the head and finished it off. A quick step away, with a tug on the scimitar, and I was free.

Something shifted, the Plague around me began to move differently. I don't know when I realized it, but I leapt up into the air and grabbed a low hanging branch as Plague swept in from all directions at once. It was a coordinated effort on their part, something that required intellect.

Intellect the Plague were not supposed to have. I frowned, but had little time for thoughts as they all looked up directly at me and began to try and leap after my hanging form. I grunted as I swung my body, then loosed my grip and hurtled through the air to a clear spot not too far from my leaping point.

I caught a glimpse of a bloody Taryn through the cluster of the Plague. His clothes had started to be shredded, his pale skin shined almost as badly as the Plague themselves. His sword continued to swing, yet had started to slow and a bit of blood began to seep from his mouth.

I tightened my grip on the Shatterblade, and focused it into the form of a whipblade. It was a weapon not heavily favored by the Empire, so when I went to learn it I had to spend time with a Vharani mercenary. The desert folk favored the weapon, while most others viewed it as too unpredictable for safe usage.

I cared little for that at the given time, and twirled the length of the blade. The individual bladed parts of the whip separated and the overall length reached some ten feet in totality. I swung it with a certain degree of expertise that would've impressed my teacher, and instantly realized that this was an amazingly good weapon for the Plague.

The Plague had softer bodies than most, and their bones were also a bit too soft for their own good. So when I whipped my weapon into them I expected to do some good damage, possibly cut off a head and then have to retract it. Instead the whip snapped into and through two Plague instantly, and a third was staggered by the final motion of the whip itself. I twisted, lifted my hand and drew the whip into an overhead swing.

I snapped it down, and sliced a Plague directly in half vertically, the two parts of the body fell to the side to reveal that a second Plague who stood behind the first had lost a shoulder along with the arm. I backed up as the Plague charged in, even as I pulled the whip back toward me.

I held it at a side point, then snapped it out in an almost casual way to the nearest Plague. It caught the blade, or at least tried to, and lost the hand along with half it's head in the process. The whip cut through the squishy creature and sank into a second with such suddenness that it simply died without resistance.

Yet while I was having no issues with those in front of me there were more Plague who had begun to once more surround my position. They ran toward me with a speed that was shocking, for I had forgotten the acceleration they held. In fact, throughout the whole of the fight the Plague as a whole had moved at a very slow rate...which was starting to change.

With no time to respond I shifted my Shatterblade again, my mind screamed in protest at the exhaustion I had forced upon it by doing so. It warped, becoming two arm guards with blades built into the ends. The arm guards consisted of layers, overlapping metal pieces, while the blades were thin and long enough to outreach my fists.

I had no time to think as the Plague swarmed toward me with more speed than before, their hands grasped toward me. I swung my arms out, and began to try and fight my way through with hand-to-hand skills. The blades sliced in and cut off many a body part, yet few heads managed to be decapitated. I turned, delivered a strong side kick to one Plague in the chest, and then had to retract my leg and backhand as hard as I could at another which gripped at my shoulder.

The Plague continued to pile in, their hands always reaching and their mouths gaping wide open. Shrieks would come at random, growls and groans were far more plentiful. I elbowed a Plague that was directly behind me, then shifted my weight forward and punched my blade square into the chest of the one in front. I dropped down, swept out my leg and caught two of the Plague with a leg hook. While they fell I jumped up and sliced with my right bladed armguard at random behind me.

Again and again I struggled, and the Plague kept moving in. I did not bother counting how many I had killed, I merely continued to move through the crowd as best I could. I jumped and kneed one in the jaw, then drove my elbow square into it's nose so hard the face caved inward. I used my arm guards to fend off as much as I could, but fatigue had begun to grow in my limbs.

It was a minor mistake, I didn't lift my arm up high enough and a single hand got in close to my face. A nail, long, raked along my cheek before I managed to correct my error and chopped the offending body part off. Still the cut was enough, I began to bleed and my already quickened heartbeat started to pound even harder. To make matters worse the Plague did something strange.

They backed away from me. They all stood or crouched at about four feet from where I stood. Each one watched me, their eyes dull and white as always while they moaned continually. I could feel the blood that welled up from the cut on my cheek, but I ignored it and constantly looked about in confusion. The Plague did not stop, they fought until they died!

In that moment of temporary silence I caught another glimpse of Taryn and his fight. His blade was pitch black, his body pale and his eyes seemed to have been stained by blood. His mouth hung open as he roared in fury and carved his way through one Plague, then used his own teeth to rip the throat of another off. I could only watch in fear, and perhaps awe.

Before I could figure out what was happening I heard the Plague from behind me start to stir, and then they all leaped. I turned to try and fend them off, yet the rest who had remained still surged forward with such speed that I couldn't even follow it. Life was in no way as fair as stories often made them out to be, and the Plague took full advantage of their numerical advantage.

I screamed in rage and pain as teeth and nails cut into me. I whirled, anger erupting from within and decapitated three in one attack. Blood started to spread all over my clothes as I charged into the Plague, I gave over the concept of defense and focused entirely on destroying them.

How long did it take? I'm not sure, yet by the end I stood over a massive mound of dead Plague who were all sickeningly offensive to the nose. Their black blood smeared me from top to bottom, the forest itself had been stained and perhaps would never return to normal. I gasped in air over and over again, I had lived and did not expect to do so. I looked up to the skies above, I smiled at the thought of my personal victory.

eat..

A small voice, effeminate, filtered in through the air. I frowned, then cried in pain as a sensation of a million knives stabbed into my left arm. I fell to my knees and looked down at my tattered form and body. Blood crept from numerous wounds, my clothes were more or less nothing more than rags that barely covered anything.

My left arm had changed. A small black dot had appeared near the wrist, one that started to creep upward on my arm. Every second that passed a new dot appeared, connected to the last, and after a minute it had taken on the form of a vine. All the while pain continually pierced my arm, my ability to reason started to falter as all I knew was that horrific sensation.

eat..

The female voice again whispered in my ears, I blinked and looked around and realized I was alone. Like a phantom of the past I could almost feel it, it was not there yet I could still feel the weight of someone who pressed in close. Her skin was soft, her voice beautiful, and almost intoxicating. She began to whisper more and more into my ear, she slipped her hands over my face and body and constantly begged me to do one simple thing. That single word that never stopped, that one word which kept on coming.

Eat!