Chapter 9:

27 Days After Winter’s Beginning

233 Days After The Ra’tok Attack Amia Village

The Valley of Ivory

East Face of Valley

Luran takes his hat off and runs a hand through his wisps of hair, “How could this have gone so wrong? This is meant to be a low ranked area, the hunters make sure of it! We even filed an trip out into the forest with the Clan.”

Taras shakes his head and stands up, “There have been reports of missing hunters recently, but nowhere near this area. My guess is that they were killed by a Sacred Beast, and it moved into this area for new prey.”

There is a difference between a Sacred Beast and a animal.

Sacred beasts usually have a aspect of something not found in nature, sometimes a completely new type of katra. But they also have to have ranked up, and started actively cultivating katra. One thing is certain though, beasts evolved when they cultivated and ranked up, becoming both stronger and smarter.

The thing that sets Sacred Beasts apart from normal animals the most is that they actively cultivate katra, absorbing vital aura.

I look at the claw marks, there are two, but whatever they belonged to scratched out my Xs. It was also smart enough to put scratches on other trees, to through us off.

“We will just have to head deeper into the valley, hopefully we can come out somewhere near Tarna,” Taras says as he starts walking. But now he holds his sword in hand, strapping the metal shield that was on his back to his arm.

He hands Luran a dagger.

Luran takes it and nods, “I didn’t bring any weapons. I thought this was going to be like any other trial. How foolish of me, my mind seems to addle with my old age.”

Taras pats him on the shoulder, “It’s not for you to feel bad about. We thought it was safe here. Now we need to get moving. Kardin, keep a lookout for anything approaching us from behind. I will scan ahead with my Silver sight. Luran, you make sure nothing comes from our sides.”

Taras starts leading us onwards.

I scan behind me every once and awhile, peering into the darkness for any movement. I can’t help but think of my dreams. Of being that creature, gorging myself on others’ katra.

It couldn’t have been real.

But what is it? What if it is related to my Gray katra?

I remember eating the katra, growing stronger. How my wounds clotted and healed with gray katra.

That's when Luran shouts, “There’s something in the trees!”

We all freeze, brandishing our weapons. Both of the Talri warriors weapons crackle and spark with electricity.

I move a bit of katra from my core, preparing for a boost of strength. I bring my spear up, ready to hit anything that jumps from the tree tops.

There is a weird chirping growl, as something skitters through the canopy, shaking the leaves.

Taras’s hand crackles with blue lightning, and he launches it into the tree and instant later. There is a loud crack as the lightning whips the air, and a shriek. Something falls out of the treetops with a thud.

“You got it,” I say, trying to discern what it is on the ground, but I can’t through the darkness.

We approach with caution, our weapons at the ready.

Taras jabs the corpse on the ground with his sword, bringing his shield up to block. The body doesn’t twitch.

Luran and I flank him, I hold my spear at the ready and Luran has a small ball of crackling teal green energy in his hand.

Taras grabs the corpse and drags it into a beam of moonlight. The creature is small, about the size of a small dog. Smoke comes off a blackened hole in its side.

It is a grotesque amalgamation of animals. It has the tail of a lizard, and bat wings for arms. But two hook like claws sit at the top of the wing arms, and it has the back legs of a lizard, only with larger claws. It has the head of a wolf, but with a beak instead of a snout. The entire thing is covered in scales, with patchy sections of feathers and greasy fur.

“What in the 4 hells are you?” Taras says, nudging the thing on the ground. His eyes flash neon blue and he activates his Silver Sight. He chokes a bit as he looks at it.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I watch Luran activate his Silver Sight. He flinches, taking a step back.

“Everything about that thing is wrong!” Luran says, peering at the dead monster.

Taras prods the creature, stretching out one of its wings. “These are a fruit bat’s wings, and these-” He points at it’s back legs, “Look like varanus lizard’s hind quarters. It’s like it’s a patchwork of different beasts and animals. And it has the katra to match.”

I look at the grotesque creature, “What’s its katra?”

Taras just shakes his head and looks at me, “I don’t know. But it looks like a mashup of different types, like fire and plant. There are too many in its body to tell. It’s core is a patchwork of different katra, but it feels fowl. Rotten.”

Luran throws his dagger with pinpoint accuracy, striking the monster in the head. There is a crack and pop as the dagger embeds itself in the creatures skull. “It’s still alive!”

Both Taras and I jump back.

Prepare to stab with my spear, but stop in confusion of what I see.

The corpse seems to be melting. I watch in disgust as the skin slophs of it’s bones, and as it’s organs liquify. Then it’s bones start to melt too. It quickly becomes a puddle of gray goop, a multicolored core.

I start to relax, but then the puddle starts to move. It stretches out tentacles, pushing itself away from us. It is surprisingly fast, swiftly moving deeper into the foliage.

Luran and Taras both hit it with lightning blasts, but the thing only stops for a second, shuddering, then it doubles it speed. In the blink of an eye, it is gone.

“Follow it!” Luran hissed, as he starts running after the gray slime. He passes by where it melted, grabbing his dagger from the ground, Taras follows on his heels.

I am still reeling from what just happened, but quickly come to my senses. I start to run after them, but hesitate.

Grab the core.

I scoop up the twisted surface of the multicolored core. I start running after the warriors, empowering my legs a little.

As I chase after the warriors, I can’t help but think, Why are we running after the monster?

Luran is surprisingly spry for his old age, jumping over rocks and logs as he chases after the slime, Taras on his heels. The gap between me and them grows slowly wider, as their enhanced endurance and constitution overtake my empowered body.

I am feeding a stream of katra into my legs, boosting my speed, but it is still no match for their Steel bodies.

I briefly consider stopping, but I don’t want to be lost in this forest at night.

Luran unleashes a bolt of lightning, yelling something. Taras barrels next to him and swipes at something I can’t see.

As I approach, I can make out more twisted beasts.

There are three and before I can even reach them, Taras and Luran have killed them all.

They all look different, various parts of different animals melded together. The bodies start melting, turning into gray slime that speedily moves away. In their places are multicolored cores.

Luran runs on, following the creatures. Taras spare a second to glance back at me, then runs onward.

I follow them, picking up the cores they leave behind from killing the creatures. It goes on like that for at least twenty minutes, maybe more.

As I am running after them in the dark, I dump the twisted cores into my bag.

Glancing up, I see Luran stooping and crouching down, Taras stops barreling through the brush and slows, crouching next to the old man.

A minute or so later, I arrive huffing for breath. I try to stay quiet as possible, sneaking up next to them.

Taras puts a finger to his lips, pointing ahead and down.

I realize that we are standing at the top of a small, rocky ravine. At the bottom I can see amany moving pillars. It takes a second for me to understand what I’m seeing.

A giant, gray ooze sits in a puddle at the bottom of the gorge. It reflects moonlight dully. Long, tentacles rise from the pool, moving in the air slowly. A large on in the center stands completely still.

What in the gods’ names is that?!

The smaller gray slime sloshes down the rocks, coming up to the puddle, the other slimes following it. The tentacles reach out to it, and the large one in the center shifts closer. The small slime makes a high pitched chirping sound, the other ones following suit shortly after, then it oozes itself into the pool. The small slimes seems to meld with the bigger one, sending ripples across the surface of it.

The ones that the warriors killed earlier all follow after the small slime, melding with the bigger one.

“It was a scout,” mutters Luran, he swipes a hand through his thinning hair.

The night is still for a second, then the giant gray slime shudders. Then the air is filled with a high pitched chirping, echoing through the trees.

“I don’t like the sound of that!” Taras says as he stands up, holding his shield in front of him. Luran brandishes his dagger.

I ready my spear, looking down at the giant puddle.

The entire thing shudders gain, and the tentacles on it whip the ground around it. They leave small blobs of gray slime behind.

I watch in rapt attention as those puddles tighten in on themselves, forming skeletons, then muscle and skin. Grotesque monsters form, all different from each other.

It all happens over the matter of seconds.

“Holy hells!” I say, stepping back from the edge of the ravine.

The monsters are still for a second, then they all let out a assortment of roars, all with the underlying chirping noise. They all turn to us, then start clawing their way up the rocky slope.

“Retreat!” Luran orders like a commander, taking control of the situation. We turn and run back through the forest at high speeds.

As we start to put distance between us and the monsters, I huff out between breaths, “Where… are we.... going?”

Luran, not even out of breath says, “Somewhere with a strategic advantage to us. Preferably easily defendable.”

I am already starting to lag behind, but Taras efforts picks me up. He swings me over his shoulder, while I let out a shout of surprise. He doesn’t even falter in his running. Speaking to me he asks, “How many are behind us?”

I squint into the dark, my vision being jarred by Taras’s running. I can make small shapes moving on the ground, some hopping from tree to tree and a few flying. They are steadily eating up our head start, gaining on us startlingly fast. I can even see something farther back, it’s larger and slower, but still running as fast as I was before Taras picked me up.

Trying to count, I give up after reaching 30. I shout over my shoulder at Taras, “Alot! And there's a big one!”

He only grunts, following Luran as he curves off from where we were originally going. The trees start to thin as we appear at the edge of a stream. Luran deftly jump across it and follows it upward.

Taras follows after him, both running at peternatrual speed. The trees blur past as we follow the stream back to its source.

I watch as the monsters burst out of the trees, running after us up the stream. Many of them try to run through and against the current of the stream, and start to lag behind.

But the flying ones are still gaining and I can see the larger shape at the back speeding up.

“Their gaining!” I yell as Taras’s shoulder wedges itself painfully in my ribs.

“Almost there.” Luran says as he reaches a steeper, jagged and rocky slope. He deftly climbs up it and stops at the top. He reaches down and Taras practically tosses me up.

Luran grabs me by my bag, hauling me over the edge. He groans slightly at my weight, but then moves and helps Taras up.

He points further up, were the slope gets rockier and harder to climb. “We need to get up there so we can pick them off from range.” The old man starts climbing higher, and me and Taras follow behind him.

My fingers dig into the jagged rock, hauling myself over the boulders. When we finally stop, we are some 60 meters up, on a flatter portion. We are on the easter face of the valley, near the bottom of a wide cliff. I can see over the treetops, and the lights that mark Tarna in the valley. The horizon is twinged a rosy pink as the sun starts to rise, silhouetting the western face of the valley.

If I wasn’t in danger, I would say that it was a beautiful sight.

Both Taras and Luran move to the edge of the flat rock we stand on. I move behind them, looking down.

The monsters that can’t fly have slowed tremendously, struggling to get up the rocky slopes. But the flying ones are scarily close.

“Kardin, protect us while we hit them from afar,” Luran orders as he starts forming lightning bolts and launching them at the mass of monsters bellow us. Taras shortly follows, unleashing more powerful bolts.

I ready my spear, watching as the first of the flying monsters nears us. I take a deep, calming breath, clearing my mind. I pour Gray katra into my body, empowering it.

I’m going to have to hit hard and fast.

The first flying monster reaches us. It is a mix between a bird and cat. It lets out a chirping squak, bringing it’s four clawed feet up.

I block it as it attempts to take at my face and push it back. My spear takes it in the chest, I twist it for good measure, pinning the monster to the ground.

I bring an empowered foot down on it’s skull, crushing it.

Swiftly pulling my spear out, lanc it into another flying monster, this one a bat hybrid. My spear takes it in the wing, ripping a large gash in it. The monster lets out a chirping yelp, falling bouncing off the rocks and farther down the slope.

I bat, slash and stab at the flying monsters as they approach both Taras and Luran, who are intently focused on firing on the hoard bellow. The night is filled with chirping roars, flashes of light, and the crack of thunder.

The hoard has started to thin, but it’s gotten dangerously close to us.

I can feel my stamina waning, I’m breathing heavily and covered in sweat, adrenaline rushing through my body.

“I'm going to blast them, cover me!” Taras says as he puts his hands together. Lightning starts crackling between them, forming into a ball much like what Vicar did when fighting the Rage Drake.

The ball crackles, whipping at the air. Taras pushes it forward with a grunt, launching it into the quickly approaching mass of twisted nightmares.

It erupts with a massive boom and flash of blue light. I squint my eyes, looking away from it.

The light quickly vanishes and I flinch at how close one of the flying monsters is to my face. It lets out a chirping shriek, arachnid eyes and dog like face trying to bite me.

I bat it down the slope, looking at the devastation that Taras wrought.

There is a large, sroched and smoking rock, shattered into pieces. The ranks of the monsters lie around it, many of them dead or dying. The dead ones start to liquify, streaming down the hill.

“Did you get them all?” I ask, squinting into the darkness.

“No,” Taras states, standing up. He is covered in sweat and breathing heavily, but not nearly as much as me.

Luran wipes his brow and points, “There’s a big one.”

From the smoke and darkness lumbers out a true monster.

It is covered in thick gray scales with tufts of dark gray fur. It walks on two powerful, thick legs. It has giant, long arms, with human like hands, but they end in wickedly curved claws. A crocodile's tail drags on the ground behind it, it is hunched over, massive shoulder on both sides of its head. The head is a repulsive mix between a frog and human. It’s bag and shoulders are covered in a thick pelt of gray fur.

The thing opens it’s mouth, revealing knife like teeth, it lets out a gurling, chirping roar. Then it starts running at us on all fours.

“He’s a right ugly bastard,” Taras says, readying his shield.

Luran speaks, “I’ll hit from afar. Taras, keep his attention on you. Kardin, focus on crippling it, aim for it’s legs. If we can immobilize it, we might be able to kill it.”

I nod.

As the monster approaches, I get a feel for its sheer scale. It stands probably about 8 meters tall, and about 7 when it is on all fours.

I move to the right of Taras, who has crouched down with his shield raise in front of him. Luran moves further up the ridge, forming lightning in his hand. He shoots it at the monster as it approaches us, but the creature doesn’t even flinch as it’s sides are scorched.

As it nears a couple of feet away from the flat rock we stand on, its muscles tighten. With a roar, it launches itself into the air.

The twisted beast brings it’s long, scaled and furry arms up above it’s head. It sails through the air, reaching the peak of it’s jump. Then it passes over the ledge and lands right in front of Taras with a boom.

Dust flies into the air and obscures my vision of what is going on. There is another roar and the clang of metal.

Then the dust clears and I can see Taras moving his shield to block the monster’s attacks. He takes swipes at its arms, but it ignores them.

The wounds on it clot with gray slime, quickly repairing itself.

A katra lightning bolt collides with the side of it’s frog face, eliciting a chirping roar from the monster.

It smashes a fist into Taras’s shield, he takes the brunt of the punch, grunting.

I run at it from behind, jabbing my spear at it’s thigh. The spear meets resistance, but slides into the leg. I pull it out after a second, dodging a backhand swing.

If that hit me I would be dead!

I was starting to realize how dire our situation was. We were trapped here, besieged by a horde of unknown creatures, and we could only keep up for so long. If we didn’t escape soon, we wouldn’t be able to fight for long.

The frog crocodile monster try to turn to look at me, but Taras smashes his shield in the side of it’s head, discharging electricity into it. It returns its attention back to him, shrugging off the bolts of lightning from Luran.

I stab at it’s other leg, aiming for the ankle.

My spear enters higher up, in it’s hamstring. I twist it, to deal the maximum amount of damage I can.

Jumping back, I get out of the monsters reach.

Taras stabs the twisted beast in the stomach, sending a current of lightning through it. Sparks fly from it’s wound and the smell of burnt flesh fill the air. The monster locks up, muscles tightening.

A blast of lightning strikes it directly in the face, charing it.

I stab the creature with an empower blow, right in it’s eye. I drive my spear deeper, against the resistance. Then there is a pop and my spear puncture through it’s head, entering the brain.

The grotesque creature lets out a whimper and fall to the ground.

Taras pulls out his blade and swing his blade at the monster’s short neck, decapitating it in two hits.

We are all breathing heavily.

Luran walks down from above, pale and covered in sweat. He mutters, “I’m getting to old for this.”

Taras forces out a laugh, “Too old to die yet?”

Luran laughs a little but says nothing.

I lean on my spear heavily, gulping for air. My muscles ache as the rush of adrenaline slows.

Looking at the monster, I watch as it’s flesh melts, then it’s bones, into a gray goop. The slime oozes off the ledge we are on and flows down the rocks, following the stream and going back to whatever the thing that spawned it.

It leaves in its place a large, multi colored core.

I walk over it it a pick it up. The thing is misshapen and barely fits in my hand. Inspecting it, I can’t help but think it looks like a bunch of different sized beast core mashed together. The colors are subdued, mixed in with grays.

Is that Gray katra?

I look closely at the small swirls of gray.

“We need to move. I don’t think that slime is going to give up hunting us.” Luran points at Tarna, “If we get to Tarna, we should be safe behind it’s walls, and be able to warn the people.”

Taras grunts and starts climbing down the rock face, “Best get going then.”

I put the large core in my bag with the others I gathered. I would look at them later.

I follow Luran and Taras as we quickly pick our way down the rock face and follow the stream.

We set a quick pace, but slow enough that we can keep going without breaks. As we run through the forest, I can’t help but think of my days in the Jungle of The Gods, running from all manner of beasts.

I consider telling them about my dreams and my Gray katra, but decided even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything. I want to keep any possible cards I have close to my chest, and I didn’t want to be permanently stuck in the Clan because they didn’t want to let me go.

From what I had gathered from using my Gray katra, it held potential to be something incredibly powerful. I'm not strong enough yet to effectively protect myself. So I will just keep quiet and grow in strength.

My muscles are aching, and my bones feel like mush. Exhaustion lays itself on my body like a heavy cloak, slowing my movements and thoughts.

Can’t stop now, or else I’ll die.

I steel my will and push through it, following behind the two warriors.

We are making good headway, and I think that we may be a third of the way out of this forest.

As we run, I can’t help but notice the lack of sound. It is eerie, and even unsettinglingy now that I know what is behind it. There is no chirping of birds, no sound of animals scurrying through the brush, and even the wind seems to have stilled.

Light slowly start to peek it’s way through the treetops.

That's when the chirping starts. It is not the chirping of birds, but the garbled and twisted sounds of the creatures.

Both Taras and Luran stop, as I near them, I join them. They bring their weapons to the ready, Luran forming lightning and Taras’s sword crackling with electricity.

We stand back to back, looking around us.

“Where are they coming from?” I ask, scanning the forest, looking at the tree tops. The treetops are shaking, leaves rustling under the passage of the monsters.

The problem is, that all the leaves are shaking.

“Everywhere,” Taras grunts.

There is a shriek and a sharp lunges out of the treetops at Luran. He reacts with speed faster than I can follow.

His dagger flashes silver in the light and plunges into the twisted monstrosity. He pushes it away, kicking it several feet farther.

I slash a hybrid rat and parrot from the air as it lunges at me. When it hits the ground with a thump, it skitters at me, squeak chirping in rage. I stab it through the head with my spear.

Taras shoves something that looks like a mix between a cat and snake away, cutting it in half.

The sun is slowly creeping up over the horizon, lighting the forest in a soft glow.

We are surrounded on all sides by the monsters, a veritable horde. All twisted and mutated, all making sounds with chirps intermixed in them.

I don’t think we are making it out of this.

Prodding a monkey dog back, I keep the creatures at bay with the range of my spear. Taking stabs and slices at them when I can.

They surround us on all sides, roaring in rage and filling the hair with a clamor of noise. The ground rumbles with their combined movement, the sounds they make are deafening.

Then the sun reaches over the lip of the valley, streaming into the forest. It streams through the branches, lighting the forest completely.

All the creatures fall quiet, no longer moving.

“What… are they… doing?” I ask between breaths.

The creatures are all swaying, their heads turned to the light. They have seemingly completely forgotten about us. They softly chirp, doing nothing else.

“I don’t know…” Luran says, looking at the monsters.

Taras says with a hint of hope, “Whatever their doing, it’s distracting them. This is our chance to escape.”

He walks carefully out of our formation, with his shield and sword at the ready. I follow behind, with Luran bringing up the rear.

We walk slowly between the swaying monsters as they bath in the sunlight. All my muscles are tensed, taught with the expectation of the monsters crashing all attacking at once.

I nearly collide with the shoulder of something that looks like a boar, snake and beetle hybrid, but manage to twist out of the way.

We are soon past the horde.

Nothing as to be said, we break into a run. I glance over my shoulder at the monsters, but they are still where they were before.

Now that I can see them in light, I find their appearances even more disturbing. They are all colored in shades of gray, looking almost like realistic charcoal sketches, pasted over the world.

None of them are breathing, like inanimate objects. They almost look like frozen puppets.

When I can no longer see the creatures, I ask, “How close are we to Tarna?”

Taras shakes his head, “I’m not sure, if I had to guess, maybe a couple miles.”

I nod, running behind him. I keep my eyes peeled for any more of those creatures, but the forest has fallen back into eerie silence. The trees sway slightly in the breeze, but that is it.

Those things must have eaten all of the beasts. Probably scared off a good amount of them too.

I think over the monsters and that weird slime.

There's no deny it. I am connected with these monsters, somehow.

My arms and legs burn from the small wounds the horde has inflicted on me. My cloth pant legs are shredded and covered in my blood stains.

We trek through the forest for hours, crossing over rotten logs, through meadows and over streams. No sound is made by us, we don’t talk, just keeping a tense lookout for anymore of those creatures.

After hours, I’m running on the fumes of my endurance, legs ready to give out. We have stopped to a walk, but I have already started to fall behind.

Taras and Luran look exhausted, but not as much as I am.

I really need to get to Steel.

The trees have started to thin, and we stumble into the basen of the valley. We are still some ways away from Tarna, but at the sight of it, I feel elation.

Almost there!

Taras doesn’t even bother looking for a road, just walking through the crop fields, which are now almost fully harvested.

We walks for a while, the sun above beating down on the back of my neck.

Stumbling onto a road, Taras flags down a passing cart.

“Armsmaster!” The man who is steering the cart says with a hint of surprise, “What are you doing out here? What is it I can do for you?”

“We need a ride into Tarna, as fast as possible. It is important we go as fast as possible,” He commands, hopping into the back of the wagon.

“Of-of course Armsmaster,” Says the farmer as he waits for me and Luran to get into his cart.

The back of the cart is filled with crates of corn and cabbage. All look fresh, still covered in dirt.

The cart lurches forward quickly as the farmer whips his reins, urging the mule that pulls it to go faster.

Taras looks at me, he whispers into my ear, “Don’t say anything to the man. We need to keep this information quiet. We don’t want to cause a panic.” He looks at the farmer meaningfully.

I nod, laying down.

I hold my aching sides, my breaths short and quick. My legs and arms burn from the cuts, the paint twisting up them like thorny vines.

My eyes start to become heavier, exhaustion pressing down on my consciousness.

Before I know it, Im falling into the soft embrace of sleep.

***

I am in the forest again, but this time I’m not myself. I’m the creature, or a creature. One of them.

I bask in the warm embrace of the sunlight, taking it in. I can’t move, the warmth is too calming.

My insides burn from the pain of my mutilated katra, but the warmth of the sun dulls the pain, soothing it.

I know that if I move, the sun will not help.

But I can feel a pressure on my mind, something urging me. A link seems to form from the pressure, and it transfers the desire to follow something.

Against my will, with painfully slow movements, I turn away from the sun. I look in the direction that Tarna is located.

I can see blobs moving away, three humans.

It takes a second to seperate my mind from the monster’s.

It is a weird sensation, being in something else’s body, watching through it’s eyes. But I can’t seem to escape whatever this is. I am stuck for the ride, like every other dream.

Those people are us… I realize.

The monster, resisting the force that is driving it, tries to move back to the sun. But it can’t, whatever this ‘force’ is, it has control over the monster.

The force drives the monster to follow my retreating back. The creature moves reluctantly, but stalks a good couple meters behind us.

The monster follows us as we move through the forest towards Tarna. Staying far back, and avoiding standing in the sunlight for too long, sticking to the shadows.

Eventually, it has to stop.

After hours of following it’s prey, it can’t anymore.

I can see myself following Taras and Luran out of the forest and into the fields, which are bathed in light.

It is weird to see myself. I am covered in dirt and blood, my clothes soaked in sweat.

Tarna is a mass of neon blue katra in the monster's eyes. Pulsing and shifting with the movement of people.

It hungers for the massive amount of katra, even more than the sunlight. But it doesn’t follow, only retreating back at the behest of the strange force.

I can’t help but feel fear. Whatever these monsters are, I can see through their eyes. And I can feel hunger from the strange force.

It wants the katra in Tarna.

It wants to devour.