Chapter 5

Eons prior

*

From shadows dark to oceans deep,

They sung of him like a maiden’s dream

Swinging low, swinging high, heads over heels, mother’s cry

Yet into this realm of savage beasts was he tossed further than a lover’s lie

When it passed, time denied, his anger grew, sword shined

Until his slumber finished quickly, did his rage grow, oh ever so quickly

Song of a maiden.

*

Damarus Kane sat comfortably in the room of essence, blue light flooding in through tall, stain-glassed windows, casting a kaleidoscopic filter across the furniture in the room. Outside, on the floating isles, flocks of brilliant, white birds gathered on certain boulders, eyes peering towards the massive building in the most centre island.

Opposite him, leaning across the wall was Horus Kane, his brother and elite General of the Preservers army.

“The hostility expressed by the Alatus is unfathomable; it crosses the border of heresy,” Damarus expressed idly, as if desperate to breach the silence which manifested itself.

Something crept upon Valnaar’s face; his disposition changing like a hurricane’s destination, “This bloody and fruitless feud between the three creations of Order is a waste of time and resources. If not for your Preservers declaring open opposition to the Alatus, Origis would’ve never came to back them and pursue this holy war.” The king of Titans- or gods- had a way with his words: Damarus would not blame someone for believing his lips spouted subterfuge, exclusively.

“You think I had a choice? Weakness sprawls and breeds amongst us; long ago was the time of purity. Now, we council each other like the puny creations of the Origis.”

“I…” Valnaar started, his stature heightening, “I allowed the Origis their manifestation to quell jealousy and promote unity.”

“Unity…” Damarus said through grit teeth, “Unity is a lie. Strength; an iron fist over those who are weaker, is the truth.”

“You speak of truth, yet you Viris all think of is domination. I did not create you to dominate; I created you to be subordinate!” Valnaar slowly stood up, his temperament dangerous.

“You wish to be a God, yet you’re too weak to control. You and your sister, Alecias~”

Something cold gripped Damarus’ neck, squeezing the words from his neck and replacing it with brooded fear. It rippled across him, breaking him, distrupting him. He forced his own mantra outwards, to repel the invisible mist which perpetrated yet his resistance was futile. The air slowly escaped from his lungs, and his vision grew hazy.

“Be careful what you say next, Damarus- your rise in the ranks of the Viris is respectable, but you are nothing. You will forever be nothing, except a tool.”

The General’s eyes grew at this and he growled silently, a cold energy emerging from his palms, rippling outwards.

Valnaar raised a hand, and an invisible force smashed into the General, crushing him against the wall, fragments of stone cascading down, cracks arching outwards. Valnaar was surprised at the strength of resilience from the man; if he had extended his wings, perhaps a stronger brawl would’ve developed. But Valnaar’s cunning speed foresaw this.

“Adonis Daidric…” Damarus whispered through panicked scraps of air.

“What?”

“He and his General- he found out Daidric’s secret, his involve-involvement with the… the mortal realm.

Valnaar’s eyes bulged, “The mortal realm?”

*

Space between the realms, Chains of Prosperity

The chains of Prosperity swung slowly in the high-altitude wind, gargantuan, mechanical arches shifting entire kilometres at a time. They reached higher than any other structure, or land feature; a sprawling link of thousands of metallic chains, electrical energies pulsating through the indented metal. It creaked slowly, a deep rumbling that echoed outwards, thousands of kilometres across the border of the immortal realm and the mortal one, clouds dispersing every so often.

The dilapidated masses of High-creak’s castle lay outstretched amongst these chains, straggles of outer wall defences dotted around, castle debris floating around idly. After War of the Disbelievers, 120 years ago, much of the Outer-rim castle defences were lay siege by Valnaar’s troops, him and Mar deeming it necessary to remove all history of the conflicts between the Origis and their creations.

But now, it was the battlefield for war.

“I never expected you to betray the Order of Chaos. I followed you, as the other seven, and yet now you sit on your throne, wooing a lapdog of Valnaar? You work with the mortals, aiming for something; aiming for peace? You have grown weak with age, Lord.”

Adonis, standing on a link of the chain, eyed his former General, Radonus Daidrus, who he remembered creating, looking after. He was the youngest of the eight, and probably the most eager to serve, like a soldier’s son. But the old, excited face was gone- it was replaced with one of anger, not the good type, the helpful one, but the enraged type- encouraged by others. Adonis was angry: not at Helena corrupting him, but for at himself, for not being good enough.

“I trusted you, master, I followed you, followed you through the fucking realms of the humans and beasts, believing you would bring Infernum to glory! Yet…yet here we are, no longer allies. I am not here to discuss trivialities. I am here to remove your being from this Order.”

Radonus grinned, and in his gauntleted hands, a spiralled sword manifested, thousands of embers collecting in his hands, black smoke enveloping itself infinitely, like some trickery spell. Yet, he felt its heat, even a couple hundred meters away, the unbearable heat it bellowed was like a devouring wildfire. Embers radiated upwards, following the wind, like the base of his coat, ends fluttering backwards, his body hovering and bobbing.

“Are you done?” Adonis’ voice was quiet, cunning-like.

“W~what?” Radonus hesitated. His first mistake.

When Adonis appeared in front of him, it was not like he had teleported; no, despite legends, the Lord of Hell had no such powers. In fact, Radonus clearly saw the sonic boom escape from his legs, clouds evaporating. But no dark blur like the speed of others; there was nothing, no glint of light to give his position.

So, when Adonis grabbed his hair and threw him hundreds of meters downwards, into the side of High-Creak, he felt his ribs break and puncture his lungs. The defence magic he had planned to initiate was not fast enough.

Adonis didn’t bother to follow up and dart downwards, and instead hovered in the same place he had thrown his general.

Radonus coughed up some blood, and smiled, broken teeth shown. “Have you forgotten, Lord?”

Suddenly an explosion, and Radonus was behind Adonis, leg back for a kick towards the neck. “The phantasm you gave me; regeneration.” He slammed his leg forward, like a lightning bolt and it exploded towards the base of Daidric’s skull. Yet Adonis saw this, and twisted round, grabbing Radonus by the foot, and swung him, throwing him backwards.

“Your treachery is inexcusable; rot you liar, rot!” Radonus bellowed, stopping himself from spinning and booming forward, swinging his sword round to meet Adonis’ right arm.

Adonis swept to the right, and as he did so, he felt the heat of the steel burn the air next to his ear, coal-tinted embers singing the side of his skin. Another swipe, this one followed by a jab, jutting forwards, faster than an arrow shot. Adonis back-pedalled, back facing the surface of Luthadel, his legs kicking him backwards through the air.

“Stop dodging, and fight, you traitor!”

Adonis flew back, and above his shoulder, a sword appeared and burst forwards, metal gleaming in the sun. Radonus met it with a smash of his twisted sword, the clash of swords ringing like the boom of a volcano. Another class, and sparks of red jutted out. The sword controlled itself, like it was wielded by an invisible swordsman. Tens of meters back, Adonis floated, hands in pockets, watching with petulant eyes.

The swords clashed again, but this time the free sword skidded across Radonus’ underbelly, through his legs, and spinning- like some saw-blade- round his back, grazing him all over. It shot back to Adonis’ shoulder, before whipping round, slamming itself into Radonus’ stomach, blood spurting out, like a warped waterfall.

“Y-you, coward,” he rumbled in between shallow, raspy breadths, his lips smothered in blood. But already, despite the sword hanging from his stomach, a bit of guts spilling out, his flesh started to regenerate before his eyes.

“Give up now, and your I will excuse your stubbornness and give you a general’s death,” Adonis stated, his eyes cold.

Radonus smirked, spitting out a tooth, “I am no general of yours.”

“Very well.”

Above him, metal weapons started to manifest, lines upon lines of gleaming, magical weapons, floating in accordance to each other, pointed towards Radonus. Ten, then twenty, but they kept on forming, cascading higher and higher, all sorts- swords, spears, axes- they didn’t stop. All were different metals, but all slowly rotated towards Radonus. Daidric stopped creating them now, but tens and tens of meters above him, more than a hundred weapons floated, a metal whirr buzzing near-silently.

Radonus saw this, and hesitated, eyeing all the weapons. And then he shot forward, hands behind, him head first. When the first axe shot forward, metal streaming from its back, Radonus smashed it with the side of his sword; another came, this time he twirled to the right, accelerating in speed. But he did not see the third one, a smaller dagger, which whipped upwards, and spun round, slashing him in the side of his shoulder. He lost his balance, and twirled to the right some more, his sword starting to slip out. A great-axe, slammed down, catching him on his back; he spun forwards, like a flip, and attempted to come to a halt, but a spear shot forth, and embedded itself into his right shoulder. He screamed and lost grip of his sword. More jutted forwards, from all directions. Another short-sword shot straight forwards, a sonic-boom rocketing before it, and it ran through his leg; a metal flail rocketed forwards, led by a spiked, metal ball and smashed into Radonus’ face.

But now, he hovered there, his stability much worse, multiple weapons jutting from his body.

“Y~you…” he started, but he found no strength to continue.

“You, and Helena- Damarus too. You’ve disappointed me. I attempt to prevent catastrophe, and you repay me by betraying me?”

“You speak of a fair fight, so I shall reward you with one,” Adonis spoke, now a foot away from Radonus, who was on the cusp of consciousness. Adonis made a fist. Radonus’ eyes looked up, with no hint of regret.

And then he shut them, curling into a ball, and hoped Lord Daidric would finish him quick.

*

Present time, Galgador, Fang Manor

You’ve grown weak, it growled, an immense vibration rocking the earth.

Damien looked around, his vision distorted, and his hands useless. He dragged himself across the floor in panic, but this planet he was stuck on, the sharp and jagged rocks of this land was too rough, and he stayed in place, on the floor, peering up in useless plea.

Something is here Damien. It wants to consume you, it growled again, so high above, its head must’ve reached the sky. The darkness around enveloped both, and all Damien could see was the ground and the dust.

The thing in front of him; he could tell it immediately. It hungered for flesh. Even now, Damien’s body rippled with the sense of pure dread. His spine felt cold, a painful, icy cold, like he was under the clench of Luzrack.

Damien opened his mouth to respond, but instead, blood spilled from his mouth, drenching his teeth. Hands shaking, he clawed at his mouth, clenching his jaws shut; but still, blood seeped through the holes in his skin, onto his hands. He backpedalled, screaming silently, blood spewing everywhere.

The thing chuckled, a resonating sound. Even in this state you fear everything. Pathetic. Your lineage calls.

A pair of eyes; deep, fiery orbs of light which split through the darkness, unbearable gleams of blinding light, casting some sort of shaking disease over the boy’s body. It roared across, like a spurred fire, claiming him, leaving him no air to breathe. His throat itched unbearably, his eyes watering to distorted vision. The hot, metallic feel of blood lingered on his tongue.

Do you hear me? Done are the days of false history; your legacy, it is built upon lies, lies of the selfish. Claim it. Claim it, before they do.

Claim what?! Who? He wanted to scream. But his mouth screamed silent words. He reached his hand, as if to grasp the light that those eyes emitted. Words, words of fear; of fury, hung in his throat like dead men off ropes.

Smoke rose from below the eyes; deep, thunderous breathing.

You still have nothing to say? It laughed, like crackling thunder. Your insolence is surprising: your insolence will grant you nothing but pain, however. Your selfishness; your lack of preservation will not go unwatched: you, and your ways, will burn in the fire.

Slowly, fire dripped from what seemed to be its mouth- like molten magma, cascading downwards. Hundreds of teeth, giant, rugged hunks of metal spikes exposed; gaping like some sort of shark. It leered forwards, more magma and rock flowing out, its tongue frothing in excitement.

Damien tried to move back, but he was paralysed, his eyes facing it in horror.

It will burn; all of you, it will burn!

Damien roared in perpetual silence. Silence that was broken by the clattering of some vase. His sister burst into the room.

“Damien?!” She glanced quickly around the room, looking for threats.

“N~nothing. It’s…” He trailed off, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. His chest still heaved- that dreadful numbness still lingering within his fingers, his insides curling in ever prominent heat. The hair on his neck still stood up, and in the pitch blackness of the night, only disturbed by the candle his sister cradled, that penetrated the darkness with its shed pool of light.

“Nightmare?” She shifted next to him, setting the candle on the bedside.

“Yes,” he lied. It was worse- no nightmare had him screaming in indefinite fear; no nightmare left his past existence sprawling in the void, to leave a mourning awakening.

“What was it?”

He opened his mouth, but he spoke silent words. Nothing could describe the piercing eyes of the beast; its neck taller than any church tower, skin composed of silver scales, like rows of razor sharp knives. Teeth bigger than a man’s forearm. But it was the wings that got him. In the fading dematerialisation of the dream he saw a glimpse of the wings; its wingspan must’ve spanned an entire castle-worth’s. Like a bat’s, edged and rugged, but its magnitude put a giant’s girth to shame.

“I don’t know, Juliet. I don’t know.”

*

The snow-raven arrived sharp at 10, when the sun’s embrace only started to fornicate with the sky. It landed on the balcony’s railing, red eyes too similar to that of last night’s nightmare. It’s white feathers, edged with silver pearlescence glinted nicely in the sun, like mirror glass. Strapped to its leg was a roll of porous paper.

“My lord,” the servant held the paper to Howard Fang, who picked it up almost cautiously, and eyed it in superstition.

“Odd, most send a messenger on a rider.”

Damien glanced across the room, stopping conversation with one of his cousins, Martin, who also looked over in interest. A couple seconds of silent reading and a smirk spread across his father’s face.

“Well sorry son, didn’t realise you had such in you,” he chuckled glancing over to a blushing maid.

With a confused and slightly startled look, he grabbed hold of the note.

On it, sprawled in neatly refined closely-packed writing was no doubt, Amber’s pen, issuing him to come meet her. ‘issue’ was really the wrong word, but she had a way with passively-aggressively telling him to do things. She addressed the site, as the usual, simply because it was somewhere they would regularly meet to talk, away from her palace and what she worded ‘shit-eating guards’. If that wasn’t enough for validity, at the bottom, instead of a signature, was her magical glyph, a unique element, bound to the Origis family.

Martin rolled his eyes laughing, “What have you got up to this time?”

Damien replied with a coarse laugh in return, shaking his hand. “Nothing probably, you know how the girl is.”

As he walked off, he heard Martin roughly said, “Er, not really?”

*

Walking suited Damien better than chariot, carriage or horse, simply because he was inept. Horses seemed to have a personally fuelled vendetta against him, for every saddle he sat upon would not only dig into his crotch, but the beast beneath him would often roar in anger at his mere presence. Plus the manor which the princess would temporarily reside in during times of her father’s negotiations, was not far enough to warrant the trouble of controlling a horse.

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Orders of your father,” he returned, hand constantly on hilt.

Although horses, war stallions , could be feared for their ferocity, Ser Jorgan would be because of his ruthlessness. He was one of the kind who didn’t rely on swordplay nor magic exclusively- he liked to mix it to an extent whereby his fighting wasn’t considered a legitimate style. Senator Maximus himself publicly denounced his combat experience, and claimed him as a soldier without ‘honour’.

A light sword in one hand, spell on the other.

“I know how to fight,” he quipped, rather stubbornly.

Jorgan scoffed, and when Damien turned at him, he waved his hands, pointing to his neck. “Fly.”

Damien smirked, rolling his eyes, hands in his pockets.

“W’dyou do then? Ya relationship with this Princess girl,” Jorgan asked, his words dancing lightly round the topic. His accent was reminiscent of west Galgador.

“Friends I guess. Our fathers have been friends since war of the Nomads.”

“’Friends I guess’”, he repeated in a mocking tone. “The sooner you get your fingers wet, the sooner you stop thinkin’ bout her.”

“Oh for fucks sake Jorgan; seriously?” Damien said louder, half between a laugh and a growl.

He shrugged his shoulders, “Jus’ sayin’.”

A few minutes of silence passed, as they walked in couple, down a local market, and through the backstreets of the blacksmithing main street, keeping close to the shadows. Being royalty- near-royalty anyways- meant consideration of hundreds of different elements. Damien could travel in carriage, with an escort; but bringing attention to himself in the various small settlements on his way to the Princess would only be assassin bait. He preferred travelling with one or two competent guards, keeping it quick and inconspicuous. He was not strong enough to defend against even a intermediate level magician.

Walking through the wake of the sewer systems at their feet, and the high walls of the outer gate of Eremos town, his mind trailed back to his first meeting of Jorgan.

*

5 years prior

“You’re shit, even for a kid of Fang, Damien,” Camilius rubbed his fist, crackling his knuckles, horrid popping echoing through the empty courtyard.

The sun had started to retreat, clouds congregating in flocks, rain begging to flow downwards, ridding dirt of its dust and replacing it with sludge. The small trees around fluttered ominously, leaves rippling in the half-dark.

Behind Camilius was Brutus, and one of his lackeys and close cousins, Natan Dagger, good-sized, ferocious like his brother, the Warden. The two laughed, not even forced- which pissed Damien off- and seemed to stretch round Damien’s side, as if there was a need to team up on him.

The courtyard was empty, apart from them, the particular Manor emptied for an assembly that would occur later at night.

Another fist piledrive into his stomach. Something hot and nasty lathered in his throat. All he could do was groan. His eyes rolled back, and tears welled at his eyes, his teeth digging into his lip. He knew nothing to defend him- Dad, had only planned to contact a ‘Ser Blem’ at a later date to train him. But now, he knew nothing.

Lightning crackling above; flashes of deep, tinted blue roars of Gods within the pits of these black monsters. Like the Gates of Hell.

“You see, what’s funny, is that you accepted. Why the hell would you do that?” Camilius giggled, his short stature shaking. “The thing is your daddy’s pretty strong- strong enough to be friends with Mr king. But you’re not. You’re not strong, Damien.” He hissed. So much hate for a young boy.

It was true though. Damien’s honour led him by a leash, his common sense left pissing somewhere in the forest. He would rather die than admit his loss to this bastard. This bastard of Dagger. Avoiding fantasies of his sister, or his mother, his father, Raphael too, told him: the apex always rules. He’s the big one; the one you tell your children to avoid at night time. There’s a food chain in life- if you’re at the bottom, you best be damned, or you scramble.

“I…I will not scramble,” he said through grit teeth, on his hands and knees, hair hanging down.

The rain was strong now, pattering down, relieving the ground’s quench. It soaked his clothes, made his hair uncomfortably wet. The blood on him mixed horribly. The rain on Camilius, however, evaporated at touch.

“Don’t get me wrong cousin, beating the bastard’s pretty fun, but I told some Talon girls I’d play with them later. Could we…?” Natan trailed off, his dangerous blue eyes looking somewhere else.

“Idiot!” Camilius hissed, turning around. “It’s about sending a message.” He picked up Damien by the collar, struggling to at first, until bigger Brutus came around, and forced Damien up.

“Your daddy’s relationship with the King is temporary… Swear allegiance to my family.”

Silence, apart from the pattering of rain.

“Swear it. Promise to me.”

“I…” he started, through grit teeth. He stood now, straightening his back. He did so fully, and looked down at Camilius. At ten years of age, a beardless lad, he stood a good two inches over Camilius. Fists clenched, he kept his eye contact, despite rain and blood blocking half of it. For a second, in that wolfish face of Camilius he saw hesitation; fear. But as quick as it came, it dispelled.

Camilius whispered a spell, and flames burst from his palm, rippling across his forearm. Brutus’ eyes bulged, and he barely managed to grab a hold onto Camilius’ arm as he burst forward.

“I’ll burn him! I’ll turn him to ashes!” he roared.

“We promised no permanent scars; the boy would snake us otherwise!” Natan said with a worried look.

Camilius ignored this, and broke free, rage in his snarling face, wide-eyed, and fire across his body, hand sprawled and reaching for Damien’s face.

An explosion. The sorts that sent air rushing in your face, blowing back your hair, drying you immediately. The kind that sucks air out of you. Ears roaring, Damien fell on his back, glaring upwards, hazy and disorientated.

Craning his neck up he saw it: Jorgan, no armour nothing, with his under-garments, only his gauntlets. In his right hand, Camilius’ hands, fire still roaring, slowly melting away at the metal. Camilius was equally as shocked, until it turned to rage. Jorgan was a monster: not that he was big for a man, but to the youngsters he was a goliath.

Only big Brutus didn’t seem fazed; he was fourteen, if Damien remembered correctly. Massive for a fourteen-year-old, almost big as Jorgan, thicker too. Biceps like a man’s leg.

Camilius backpedalled, glancing to Brutus, realising he had no chance at Jorgan directly.

“Fang scum,” he whispered, looking at Brutus advancing, drawing a small sword.

Jorgan rose an eyebrow at this.

“Y…you’re really gon’ attack me? A knighted defendant of Fang? On peaceful lands?” his speech slurred.

Brutus hesitated, his big, dumb face going through some sort of basic acknowledgment.

“And attackin’ son of Howard? Ye kids retarded or summat?” He chuckled.

“It was a duel.”

Looking at Brutus and Natan he said, “Don’t look like it.”

“Screw it. Let’s leave.”

Leaving him humiliated in the ground, the three left, their footsteps shallow trenches in the mud.

“Damnit…” he muttered.

“Damnit, indeed.” Jorgan smirked, wiring the water from his thick locks of black hair.

“How’d you find me?”

Jorgan mumbled to himself for a few moments, his balance off somehow.

“Jorgan?”

“Hmm? Oh! I knew you were one of the irky bunch. Lot of rascals you richies are; after I went to take a piss outside the bar, I’d reckon you’d probably run off.”

He was drunk. No surprise there. “But how did you know I’d come here?”

He chuckled again, coughing a little bit. “Word been round that you’d accept the cat’s duel. Didn’t know when, bu’ I knew you would. Your scent’s easy to track.”

“Scent?”

Jorgan ignored that and helped him up, wrapping his large arm around Damien. Shivering, Damien nodded with acceptance, about to continue, before Jorgan threw a cape much too large over Damien. He looked up, at Jorgan who was now starting to get drenched, his under garments sagging, hair sticking to his forehead. A tight smile on his cheeks.

“T…thanks.”

*

Thinking back, he’d only faintly met with Jorgan, the inconspicuous knight. He always seemed threatening, that deep scar that round on his neck. The thick eyebrows, and dark brown eyes, sharper than a snake’s. But the more he was forced to be accompanied by him, due to his father’s orders, the sooner he realised he was the sort of man you could rely to guard your back while you took a piss, half-drunk.

“Damien?” Jorgan pushed.

“Yes?”

“We’re nearing the place; I think. An odd place.” He said, lifting up a half-broken wooden fence, Damien crouching underneath. Most of the area was farm land, much desolate, only a few inhabitants here. The border of the small town was mostly a smaller sprawl across the hill’s horizon.

“Yeah,” he said absent mindedly. What did the princess want to speak about? He had heeded Marthax’s warnings- he had stayed away from her. Forcing himself too. Angrily, he hesitated, halting in his tracks. He was so scared, so pathetically scared it made him feel sick. And then furious at his own weakness. But he couldn’t just ignore a request from not even the princess, but Amber Origis herself?

“Nothin’ going to happen, Damien. I promised your father, and I ain’t willing to disregard that promise.”

In silent and mutual understanding, they breached the border of the woods. The darkness usually strike quickly when he entered, solitary. But now, accompanied, it felt sluggish- horrifically slow. That cacophony of birds often heard was quieter too, less of a stretching crescendo, more of a subtle ambience. The air was noticeably colder. Winter had arrived, but the snow it brought did not. Yet, the icy bearing of it was of the subtlest and fingering stealth outside the drop of a snowflake.

“It should be here, by the fallen log. That’s where it always was.”

But the silence that accompanied them was wrong. It was doubtful in itself. The leaves scraped across the floor in packs of hundreds. Jorgan opened his mouth, turning to speak but something interrupted.

Up close, Damien had never seen anyone get killed before. But seeing it so close, less than two meters away, the amount of blood was unbelievable. It was as if a fountain had erupted from Jorgan’s chest, so much blood shooting out, painting the ground, smothering Damien, getting on his clothes, his face, his eyes. Jorgan’s face remained motionless, his body falling, in what seemed slow motion to the ground, a hunk of steel far too big to be an arrow protruding from him.

The piercing ringing struck Damien, his eyes bulging, stumbling back over a fallen branch. Something else roared, back behind the concealments of the trees; the low, powerful rumbling of magic. A powerful boom, the tree next to Damien’s feet exploding, wooden shrapnel blowing everywhere.

Silently screaming, he scrambled to his feet, glancing at Jorgan one more time. He didn’t have it in himself to apologise to the corpse. He was disgusted with himself.

Foreign growling, somewhere in between far and close. Damien ran.

Tears blocked his vision, and he rubbed with dirty hands, his side banging into a tree. He twisted through a clump of thorns, shouting in pain as hundreds embedded themselves into him, gouging into skin.

Shit, shit, shit!

He could feel it- them- in close pursuit. They were nearing. There were droves of them. Must’ve been. But he ignored the premonitions that tore his mind and sprinted as fast as he could, jumping through trying to out run them. But the fatigue got to him. He stumbled slightly, only a slight misstep, but as soon as he collided into it he knew he made a mistake. Something scraped by his eye: a sudden sharp and intolerable pain struck him, shooting out like a snake bit. He screamed, but bit into his tongue.

He ran, considerably slower now, something strong and numbing attacking his legs. His hand clamping his eye, the pain spread, quicker than before, so much, that the vision from his right eye was simply a garish sprawl of colours in darkness.

He tripped. There was an expanse in the woods he came to, a little river to the right, an opening in the trees, a pathway back to the edge of the forest. But whatever had struck him left him paralysed, his body screeching, eyes hazing, and lungs aching.

The shapes materialised into two in front of him.

“Nal?” One of them said.

“Nal Borak. Mi’ishnell por favnolar.”

Both draped in black robes, the bigger one approached. Bandana’s concealed their lower faces, only their eyes exposed. Damien couldn’t make them out now, just rough visions of people. He knelt down, the rough shape of a knife in his gloved hand.

“Milak!” He looked back, and they both started chuckling.

“…” Damien opened his mouth to speak but he couldn’t. His body was left spread-eagle on the floor, defenceless. Useless.

But he realised something. He was crying. All else ceased, but tears rolled down his cheeks, the salty taste entering his mouth.

As the two lifted him up, all his mind could draw back to in its distorted, warped haze was those eyes in his nightmare. The eyes of the midnight beast. It had warned him. It had cautioned him.

His consciousness was slipping now, his head drooping to the side, eyes slowly shutting. The robed man slapped him lightly, jolting him.

“You have to understand. This is not personal. It’s a reckoning. An end to futility and weakness if you will.” He spoke quickly, soft words in muddiness of the forest.

Help…Someone…

The other one looked to the other and said something, smiling. Damien couldn’t hear, the sounds all confused groanings.

The robed one’s hand tilted Damien’s head.

The darkness was strong now. Too strong to comprehend. Only a little light entered his vision now.

“Look. Look!”

And he looked. He saw it. The figure was distorted, warped; a jumbled mass of moving parts. Confusion. But he saw it. He saw her face. He saw the two guards beside her, standing still. It was her: Amber. The princess. And she seemed to be smiling.