By The Sword - Homepage

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We crept through the woods, huddled together as a defiant pocket of humanity among the cold, suffocating darkness.

Howling winds blew over my ears, stinging my fresh skin. I hunched over further, hoping that more of the brush would catch the deathly howls before they collided with my face. I pulled my arms in, feeling the warmth of the new cloak around me. The cloak I had on this time was thicker, and had the welcome absence of any holes.

Movement flashed in my vision as Kye moved up. Her form was little more than just a closer shadow against the dark, ominous background of the forest. My feet itched to catch up with her, but I let her go ahead. After all, she was one of the only reasons we knew where the hell we were going.

Looking around again, the gnarled and shadowed forms of the trees around me still looked foreign. They looked similar to trees I’d seen in the forest before, but with their jumbled order and the increasingly pressing darkness around me, I couldn’t recognize them for my life.

I was just glad I was hunting with the two best navigators the rangers had to offer.

“How close are we?” Kye asked in as soft of a tone as she could manage.

Myris’ grey hair gleamed in some stray moonlight. “Close. Just a few dozen paces further inward will take us to where saw it last.”

My gaze flicked through the night, moving between my two hunting companions. They were both wearing the same cloak I was, the warm fabric draped over their ranger uniforms, and they both had their bows out.

I rolled the hilt of my sword against my wrist, twisting the blade through the air. A stray beam of moonlight streamed down through the canopy above, illuminating the brilliant silver surface. My lips curled up as I walked on, tightening my grip to keep me sharp and focused.

I didn’t want a repeat of last time.

A shiver raced down my spine, one only spurred on further by the cold. The memories of that night bubbled up in my mind, sending the phantom sounds of scraping to my ears. I gritted my teeth and gripped my blade tighter as I pushed them away. I had to keep my mind sharp. I had to keep my wall up.

“Remember, when we get to the clearing, there will probably be one of them there.” Myris’ voice was little more than a hiss in the night. He glanced over to me. “If there’s a manageable threat, Agil will go in first to occupy them. We’ll support you from here.”

I nodded as Myris’ words played over in my head, reminding me of exactly what I had to do. It was really a simple plan, and one that would probably work, but I couldn’t afford to mess it up.

After Marc’s announcement, a plethora of things had changed. Between the skeptical excitement of the town, the dozens of knights and officials entering from far away, and even the frustration of my own fellow rangers. Kye’s statement rang less and less true as the days went on, more and more things changing in a way just subtle that nobody was angry, but just noticeable enough that everybody was suspicious. And as it turned out, the person I’d most expected to be angry was actually the one who cared the least.

The day after Marc’s announcement, Myris had come back from his daily hunting trip in a different mood than normal. He’d actually been excited. He’d claimed to have found the source, or at least that he had a lead on where it was, and he’d disregarded all of the changes around him, instead focusing only on the one thing that had consumed his life for the past week or two.

At the time, he’d immediately asked Kye to help. She was the most obvious choice. She knew the forest better than probably any of the other rangers. After Kye had agreed, though, he still needed another person. Kye had suggested that I go with them, but from what I’d heard, Myris had denied that request in a second.

It didn’t surprise me. Myris didn’t like me to begin with, and it didn’t help that my last experience with a terror had almost resulted in my dying alone out in the woods.

After denying me, they still needed another ranger. But most of the rangers—besides me—had other assignments. Jason had a specific hunting target that Lorah had given him, Lionel and his group was supposed to acquaint themselves with the new knights in town, and even Carter was busy doing some bureaucratic work. It was almost like Lorah had conjured the perfect storm of tasks that had left Myris wanting, and my plate completely empty.

The look on Myris’ face when he’d asked me to help him out was priceless. He’d drawn it out, trying his very best not to sound like he needed me. But with Kye standing right behind him, her face revealing everything he wasn’t, that hadn’t been the easiest task. He’d said that I could only come on the condition that he got to prepare me beforehand. And remembering with anger just how unprepared I’d been in my first encounter with a terror, I’d agreed in a second.

The rustling of leaves ripped me back to the present. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the darkness again as I scanned over the woods around us. Kye stiffened up in front of me, drawing an arrow from her quiver silently and watching the trees.

I felt the darkness pressing in on us, its cold, desolate atmosphere almost feeding off of my fear. I closed my eyes, making sure my wall was as sturdy as I could make it. The night may have felt like it was feeding off my fear, but the terrors actually would. And I had to be ready for that.

Concentrating on what made me who I was, with Myris’ advice running through my mind, I reinforced my mental wall. I focused on my sword, feeling it like an extra limb. I focused on my muscles, feeling the power coursing through them. I focused on my memories, feeling each and every one of them as clearly as I could. Those were the bricks of my wall.

Kye’s body jerked in a sudden movement, her bow facing off somewhere into the trees. I shook my head in confusion.

“What is it?” Myris asked my question soft enough that I almost couldn’t hear it.

Kye sniffed the air, her face contorting into a scowl. “Do you smell that?”

I stopped, squinting into the darkness and flaring my nostrils. I felt the bitter cold wind slap against my nose, sending jolts of freezing pain onto my face, but I didn’t smell anything else. All I got were the standard, hollow smells of nature. There didn’t seem to be—

A new, softer blast of wind cut off my thoughts and carried an all-too-familiar smell straight into my nose. The cold, metallic stench pulled memories up in my mind and I scrunched my nose. A bitter taste fell on my tongue.

“Is that what I think it is?” Myris asked. I nodded, even though I knew he hadn’t been talking to me.

“It has to be. I wouldn’t mistake that smell for anything,” Kye said. Her ears were pricked and her nostrils were flared as I crept closer. And as I felt the cold air around me lighten a bit as Kye concentrated, I knew exactly what she was doing.

“How close is it?” I asked in a hushed tone.

She sniffed the air again and held her head out. She notched the arrow in her hand into her bow and readied it, pointing into a small clearing. “Very close.”

I swallowed hard, my grip ever-tightening on my blade. I pulled it closer, watching its bowed silvery surface cut the air in front of me into pieces. My sword was what grounded me. It’s what kept me protected. As long as I had my sword, I would always have a chance.

The words echoed out in my head as I continued forward, following Kye’s lead. Her steps rang out impossibly quiet, but then again, so did mine. It was as if the world was holding its breath in anticipation of what was about to happen.

Maneuvers, stances, and attacks all played through my head. I made sure my wall was sturdy, and, pushed on by the vile, rotting smell of blood on the wind, I readied myself for what was coming.

As we moved closer, closer to the small bush at the edge of the clearing that had come into view, the seconds seemed to stretch on forever. The cold air pricked at my skin and I clenched my jaw. I was ready.

Kye glanced back at me, meeting my eyes with a nod. I didn’t need her to speak to know what she meant. I glanced back at Myris, making sure the older ranger met my gaze, and I gave him the same firm nod. He nodded back, his eyes flaring with energy as he drew an arrow from his quiver and notched it in his bow. Kye, making good on her nod, walked the last few paces toward the bush.

The horrible smell of rotting, coppery blood wrinkled my nose again as I watched Kye draw her arrow back even further and look over the bush.

In a frozen moment in time, cold fire pumped through my veins, Kye’s eyes widened, and she let the arrow loose. My feet were moving before I even really knew what was happening.

The twang of Kye’s bow was still ringing in my ears by the time I reached the bush, my eyes desperately scanning around. Just behind the bush, exactly where we’d expected the source of the bloody smell to lie, was a buck deer. The deer was whimpering and slowly dying, horrible fear stricken in its eyes and a large, bloody gash running down its neck.

In almost any other situation, I would’ve stared at it longer, appalled simply by its existence. But with my brain working overtime and cold fire seeping into my veins, I didn’t have time to waste. As my eyes tore away from the dying, fear-ridden deer lying in the dirt, I saw something much, much more terrifying.

Scurrying away from the deer with an arrow sticking out of its form was a pitch-black, half-humanoid creature with a plethora of legs. The shiny silver scars ornamenting its body told me exactly what it was, and before my fear could even start to yell, I rushed at it.

It was retreating. It had been hit. The horrid fear that scraped the inside of my skull had barely even begun. And I was going to take advantage of that as much as I could. It was a monster that we were here to hunt, and I planned on doing exactly that.

Forcing focus onto my face and keeping my wall up, my legs vaulted over the bush and toward the scuttling terror moving away through the clearing.

My feet slammed on the dirt ground, sending loud thuds ringing through the forest, but I didn’t pay them any mind. Tensing my grip on my blade, I held it out front, making it look like I would go in for a stab. From what I knew, terrors weren’t particularly quick, but that didn’t mean I had to let up even a bit.

The terror’s blank twitching form scurried further away from me, but it wasn’t fast enough. By the time I was on it, one of its humanoid arms raising to catch me mid-run, I was already gone. My feet pushed sideways, dodging away.

My blade came down, streaking through the air with as much force as I’d dared put into it, and cut into the terror’s form. I felt a loud thud of fear-fueled mental pain as the silver blade cut through its chest, leaving a fast-forming shiny grey scar in its wake. I shook my head, dancing my feet backward as I retracted my blade.

It turned toward me, the hollowed sockets in its humanoid face staring right into my eyes. I squinted for only a second, confused as to what it was doing, but as I heard a loud cracking sound echoing against the wall in my mind, I regretted even waiting that long.

I forced my wall back up. It hissed into the air, and I heard the voices of my hunting companions splitting the night, but I couldn’t pay much attention to them. I flicked my gaze over, studying Kye’s movement for only a moment before I rushed back in. It didn’t matter if my conscious mind knew what she was doing because by the time my body was hurtling at the terror again, my instincts had fully taken over.

Silver metal split the howling wind as I forced a downward slash into the terrors back. I ducked under its grab, remembering the horrible chill it would’ve set into my skin. Then, I pushed myself backward, away in the opposite direction.

More maneuvers flashed and with the short time I had, I went through them in my mind. After picking exactly what I would do next, I tried to force my legs into motion, but I found myself shackled. My legs tried to move, but as I felt an impossibly cold presence wrap around my ankles and another cracking scrape echo out in my mind, I could only curse into the wind as my body was dragged to the ground.

Another twang and an arrow streaking through the air accented my pain. The terror hissed again, and the frigid hands let go of my ankles. Blinking rapidly to clear the blur from my vision, I only barely caught sight of the arrow sticking out of the terror’s chest before it broke it off and returned its attention to me.

Terrors were usually slow, but it moved quicker than most, focusing back on me within the span of a few seconds. Those few seconds, however, were all that I needed.

I ignored the fear still bashing against my mental wall and gritted my teeth. My eyes flicked to the bottom of the terror, watching its myriad of skinny, flat, tendril-like legs shimmer terribly in the winter air. Then, swallowing the pure disgust that rose up in my throat, I did the only thing that made any sense.

My body scrambled away as my blade went up, stabbing directly through whatever the thing was made out of. My sharp, curved blade tore into the terror, ripping a path of destruction through most of its body. The vile, intruding fear stopped scraping in an instant as the world around me became little more than pops and hisses.

The terror’s sounds of pain drowned out my fellow rangers as they spoke in the distance, and it even drowned out the wind. It staggered forward, trying to get closer to where I’d scrambled off to as I tried to get back up. But as the large, twitching grey scar formed across its underside, it was clear that it wouldn’t make it.

I took a heavy breath, feeling the cold sting in my lungs and the aftermath of its touch on my ankles. The padding on the inside of my boots did little to help the impossible cold it had left.

Kye and Myris were still talking in the distance, their whispers quickly turning into yells, but I couldn’t focus on that. The terror was still standing, its tendrils slowly coalescing into more basic humanoid legs, but it was staring at me. Its black eye sockets seemed to peer into my soul, and the grey scar that I’d left streaking across the underside of its body seemed to twitch in tandem with the blood pumping in my ears.

The scraping returned full-force, making me wince. I tried to keep my wall up, to keep the horrible fear out of my mind, but it only half-worked. Images flashed in front of my eyes, images that I wouldn’t have dared see for myself. For only a moment, I saw flames—horrible, red-tinged flames that set the world around me in a blaze. The scene in the image looked familiar, as if it was my own home, but I didn’t dare thinking about it further.

Rebelling against the fear that I knew wasn’t my own, my body surged forward. I gripped my blade tight as I rushed at the crippled terror. It hissed into the air as I pushed against its influence and it scurried back away. It may have been quicker than other terrors, but it wasn’t quicker than me.

Its arm stretched out again in one of its signature moves to try to catch me. I ducked under it easily. My blade sliced up, cutting its murky, blank arm clean off. An inhuman hiss split the air next to my ear.

My mind running on automatic, I slammed into the terror with my full force, hoping to knock it down. It was a classic duck-and-disarm move that I’d made hundreds of times. But as I felt the frigid cold seeming into my shoulder and an arm that it hadn’t had before grabbing onto me, I knew I’d made a mistake.

The terror and I went tumbling through the frigid air. We hit the ground in less than a second, but by then, I was already shaking off its grip and my blade was already on its way directly through its chest. Another horrid hiss accompanied the formation of the next silver scar.

“Agil!” a voice called as I brought my blade up once again. I didn’t have time to even recognize who it was. “Get off it! Myris is—” she was cut off by blood pounding in my ears “—I’ll finish that one, there’s another—”

The voice tried to continue, tried to warn me about something else, but I couldn’t hear. As another, softer hiss stung at my ears, my blade dug through its chest and I pushed off it with my feet. I tried my best to ignore the painful cold as I sprung back up.

The terror was still alive, somehow, as I took a step back. I felt the scraping again, the screeching bashing of fear against my mental wall, but it cut off soon enough. Before I even knew what was happening, an arrow lodged itself in the terror’s head and a small flash of orange sparks cemented its final breath.

“Fuck,” I muttered to myself with a tinge of actual pride. I shook off as much of the pain as I could and turned back over by where Kye and Myris were. When I looked though, I only saw Kye, and she was rushing away. There was an arrow notched in her bow, a stern expression on her face, and she was running toward multiple forms that I could barely see.

After a moment, Kye’s eyes flicked back to me, meeting directly with mine. “There’s another one!” she yelled before turning back to chasing the two forms ahead of her. I squinted for a second, processing what she’d said as I inspecting the things she was chasing. I was confused. Only one of them seemed to have silver scars.

My contemplation, however, was quickly cut short as my breathing quickened and the soft scrape of fear returned to my mind. I blinked, tearing my gaze away from Kye and her targets. My gaze landed back on the terror I’d just fought, its blank form still lying on the ground. But on its humanoid body, the scars had stopped twitching. It looked dead, and as the scraping in my mind only got louder, that scared me more than anything.

My body tensed up and I readied my blade. I could hear shouts in my mind, my instincts desperately trying to get me to do this or that. But I responded a little too slowly because, as I turned around to scan the trees again, the hulking, frayed terror was already rushing toward me.

In the few moments I had before it was on me, I tried to get an idea of what it looked like, but I didn’t end up with much. Its body was similar to the other terrors—a blank, pitch-black surface adorned with thin silver scars—but it was also completely different. Where the other terrors at least looked humanoid to some extent, this one looked more like a beast. Its hulking form was hunched over and had a wide back, looking like something that would no doubt have been an apex predator.

Its beastly hand swiped at me and my eyes widened, already feeling the frigid pain. But thankfully, my instincts were still working and my body ducked low. Feeling that I hadn’t been hit, I furrowed my brow and focused again, forcing my wall back up.

The terror continued to barrel toward me, but I dodged to the side. My blade came from the side, cutting shallowly into the side of its chest as my feet beat on the ground. The terror hissed, stumbling into the place where my body had just been. A thin silver scar ripped through its surface exactly where I’d cut in.

It turned its head to me, the blank, beastly thing nearly latching onto my eyes. I breathed heavily, feeling the continued burn of the cold air, and started to doubt myself. My limbs were already tiring even before the cold, and it didn’t seem that I was getting any help. The sharp fear intruded on my mind once more, causing me to step back further, and I didn’t know whether I could win the fight.

The hulking form was intimidating, to say the least, and it looked more powerful than the other terrors I’d seen. But, I noticed quickly, it was also covered in silver scars. It had been wounded many times before, and I knew it could only take so many of those scars before it couldn’t take anymore. I just had to last until then.

Gritting my teeth with new resolve, I pulled an attack up in my mind and latched right onto it. I ran at the terror, pushing back as well as I could against its invasive fear. It was manipulating my mind. But at least now that I knew what it was and what it could do, I stood more of a chance of resisting.

My body surged forward. I tried my best to shrug off the frigid air. The hulking terror stared at me, stepping toward my movement as if taking an invitation. It would swipe at me again. I knew it would. Then, as its pitch-black form fulfilled my mental prophecy, I pushed off the ground.

Straining my body to the limits and hoping it would obey my call, I pushed off to the side, flinging myself off through the air. Its grabbing motion sliced through the air, nearly touching my cloak. But just as I’d hoped, it missed and my attack was free.

My blade came down with force, digging deep into the back of its flesh. I felt the contact in my bones, and used my sword as leverage to pull myself further around. The horrid sound of its hisses only spurred me on as I dug the blade in deeper and ripped across its beastly back.

By the time my feet were stable again, beating against the dirt ground, it was writhing behind me. I didn’t even need to look back to see the immense silver scar I’d left in its body.

“—it has moved!” a voice yelled out in the distance, filled with fear. I pricked my ears, my attention being dragged away. “What if it keeps moving? What if I lose it? What if I never find it?”

I squinted into the air, straining my ears to focus on the sound. It was coming from just outside the clearing—from the direction Kye had just been travelling. And as I played the words back in my mind, remembering the gruff voice that had spoken them, a new worry gripped my heart. The distressed voice that I’d just heard had belonged to Myris.

I twisted on a dime, my eyes quickly scanning the trees beyond. My gaze moved over the brush, not even stopping on the still dying deer, and latched onto movement I saw deeper in the woods. For a moment, my own worry drowned out the foreign fear in my mind, and it seemed to feed on itself.

What was he talking about? Why had he sounded so distressed? What if we got split up?

Questions repeated in my head, only fueling the fearful flame. I knew I shouldn’t have been asking them from somewhere deep in my mind. But by the time that part of me actually took hold, the hulking terror to my left was on me again.

I turned to it and brought my blade out, hoping to ready myself for the incoming attack, but my body hadn’t moved fast enough. It had taken just a few too many moments for me to leap away, and it had caught me mid-jump.

As soon as the inconceivably frigid touch spread onto my legs, I knew I’d messed up. And my swings at its arms did little to help the pain as my body tumbled through the air and slammed back into the ground.

I cursed loudly, my words echoing in the forest.

Its large, hulking form stood over me, staring down into my eyes. Fear spiked in my mind, slamming against my slowly-cracking mental wall. From somewhere in my memories, I recognized the situation. It felt familiar, like I’d been in the same place before—lying uselessly on the forest floor as a beastly thing loomed over me from above. But no matter how many times I tried to grasp at the memory, to try and find out what it was, my own fear got in the way.

My immense breathing drowned out all other sounds as the corners of my vision darkened. The terror still lorded over me, looking at me with more interest. I only cursed back at it. I tried to swing up, tried to make my muscles move, but I was near-paralyzed with fear.

An image flashed in front of my eyes. I saw plains, wonderful fields shining in moonlight. As my eyes moved over the fields, not entirely of my own volition, the light gleamed off more and more things. Dozens of people stood there in the plains, staring up at the beautiful sky.

I recognized Kye, Jason, Lorah, and multiple other rangers. I tried to call out to them, to force my mouth open, but I couldn’t. I was forced only to watch. As I scanned over the rest of the field, more people were revealed and my heart skipped a beat.

I recognized Lynn, the woman who I said I would love forever. I recognized my mother, her brilliant blonde hair shining perfectly in the night. I recognized my father, and my vision quickly froze.

For a moment, nothing happened, complete silence gripping the scene. Something in my mind was yelling, telling me to doubt what I saw, that none of it was real, but I could barely even hear it in scene frozen in time. Then, however, the moment unfroze, and I wished I could’ve heard the voice.

In a flash of impossible movement, a dark wisp of gas sped across the fields. In an instant, it condensed into a horrible hooded figure with only bones for its body. I recognized the beast of the end in an instant. It brought its scythe up, the metal gleaming in the moonlight, and massacred every single body standing in the plain.

Before I knew it, my body was rushing forward, a blade raised high that was engulfed in white flames. It didn’t feel like my body, but it was mine nonetheless. Thoughts spawned in my head, each and every one about how I had to save them, but I was all-too-slow. By the time I got to any of them, they were all lying on the ground, and one single thought was sticking out in my mind.

I was weak.

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I shook them away. No, I told myself as firmly as I could. I’d heard that sentence before. And I knew it wasn’t true.

My eyes blinked rapidly, trying to rid the blur of my vision. A cold blast of wind struck my bare face, ripping me back. I felt the sharp blade of fear as if it was probing my mind. I rebelled against it, trying as hard as I could to keep my cracking wall up.

The terror standing over me tilted its head and reached its arm out. Fire pumped through my veins and my blade lashed out. My blade cut through the terror’s arm as I tried to scramble away. A hiss attacked my ears as I tried to pull my arm back.

My arm felt resistance and my heart nearly stopped. Continuing to push myself up until I could find decent footing, I pulled even harder until my blade ripped free. My eyes widened in terror as I saw the beastly thing still stumbling toward me, ignoring the silver scar nearly cutting its arm into two.

You feed so good, a voice said. No, it didn’t say it, it thought it. Or, at least that was the best explanation I could come up with as the hissed words echoed in my mind. I blinked, squinting at the terror in a new light.

You’ve been touched… You taste just like her…

I swallowed hard, trying desperately to process the words. They echoed in my mind, splitting and splintering against the sides of my skull. They’d come from the terror, right? That was the only explanation I could find. They seemed to meld with its sharp blade of fear, but they were still distinctly different, and I couldn’t place my finger on why.

“Myris!” a voice called out, less distant than before. “—don’t!” My mind latched onto the voice, ripping me away from the terror. I knew that voice, I told myself. That voice belonged to Kye.

“I have to!” a more distressed and masculine voice called out, from way deeper in the forest. “I can’t lose it again.”

I tried to latch onto the new words—tried to figure out who they belonged to. But as the dark form of the terror lunged back toward me, my thoughts were abruptly cut off. Its bulky body moved on me slower than before, but midst my own thoughts, I hadn’t noticed it in time.

“Son of a—”

In a heartbeat, I recognized Kye’s voice as it split the night again, but her words were again cut off from my ears by my own focus.

Having just barely enough time to even dodge, I ducked low as it tried to grab me again. I felt painful numbness grip my shoulder as its arm just barely grazed my cloak. I ground my teeth and let my instincts drive my movements.

My blade shot up, slicing through the horrid things arm. Then, as the black tendril-like thing that had been attached to its body fell uselessly to the ground, I started to run around it, bringing my blade with me.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a movement that I recognized. It looked like someone was drawing an arrow back in a bow, and that simple fact spurred me on.

I brought my blade through swiftly, ripping another shiny grey scar in its surface. It hissed, slowly turning to me, ready to attack. But as a twang split the night and an arrow went streaking through the air, its attention couldn’t focus on me. The terror writhed and hissed in pain as the thick silver liquid drained from its eye socket and formed a scar in its wake.

Footsteps beat on the ground and I turned to them. Kye was running toward me with incredible speed, cutting across the clearing in mere seconds. Then, in another ridiculously fast movement, she drew a knife from her belt and flung it directly at the terror.

The twitching, writhing, fear-making form of the terror went flying to the ground.

As Kye neared me, the air around me lightened with her use of magic. But even knowing that, my jaw hung open. The hulking form that looked like a mythological beast had gone flying half a dozen paces just at the throw of a knife. And as its body slammed loudly to the ground, silencing the fear in my mind, I had no doubt that it was truly dead.

“You okay?” Kye asked, breathing hard.

I nodded, my eyes tearing to her. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied, trying my best to ignore the cold, numb exhaustion I felt in my bones. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Kye nodded, disregarding my thanks with a flick of her wrist. “Get up,” she said, despite the fact that I was already standing. “We’ve got to—”

“Where’s Myris?” I asked, the question just slipping between my lips.

Kye glared at me, clenching her jaw. “That’s just what I was getting at.” She turned back in the direction she’d come running in from. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” I asked, my eyes scanning the same trees she was. Just barely, way more distantly than comfortable, I saw a human form weaving through the trees.

“Yeah. The source wasn’t here, so it must’ve moved. And he wanted to go catch it.”

“Catch it? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” she started, grinding her teeth as she looked back to where Myris was still running off into the forest, “that our little hunting trip isn’t over just yet.”