"Us?!" Gregorio held his dagger up, swearing in his native tongue as he began looking frantically around them, "Did it just say 'us'?!" The mists roiled around them, as if stalking their every move, eagerly waiting for the kill.
Throne did not reply, instead brandishing his axe as he began circling around the hideous creature, taking cautious steps, readying himself from any sort of attack.
The creature followed Thorne closely with its head, twisting at an unnatural angle, one limb poised in mid-air, pivoting on all fours like a spider.
"Die!" Gregorio hurled his dagger, the blade making a curious whistling sound as it sped towards the creature, burying itself on the thing's shoulder with a dull THUNK! The creature flinched, hissing and crying out as it jumped towards the injured gypsy.
Thorne chose this moment to strike. Grabbing the handle of his axe with both hands, he rushed forward, intercepting the beast and spinning around quickly, placing all his weight, and uncoiling from the waist with ferocious strength, burying the head of his axe into the beast's ribs with the sound of snapping bones.
The thing's claws swiped mere inches from Gregorio's face when Thorne's axe wedged itself into it's ribcage. Thorne followed through with his blow, swinging his axe and dislodging it from the creature's ribs, leaving a gruesome chest wound that spewed vile black ichor even as it thrashed about, drowning in its own blood as it filled its lungs. The mists responded with a low moan, seeping towards the thing's corpse, concealing it with gray-green vapor.
Thorne turned to look at Gregorio, who fell down to the ground, clutching his wounded leg. Already the flesh near the wounds had begun to turn into a vile shade of purple.
"Hold on." Thorne said, picking up the smaller man and hauling him over his shoulder, "I'll take you to a healer." Taking one last look over to where the beast's corpse lay shrouded in mist, Thorne began making his way through the forest back to the town of Allensburg.
As they left, six other figures crept out of the mists, jerky limbs and misshapen heads creeping down from the treetops. The largest, with a body of a hairy spider and the face of a beautiful woman, watched as Thorne left, her eyes gleaming with a hungry glow.
----
"Hail, Jonas Ervin." Joanna intoned, completing the summoning ceremony, and regarding the ghost of the slain cobbler.
Jonas was a slight man, whose form betrayed a lack of any kind of martial training. His hair was blonde at some point, though the spectral pallor that shrouded his image left many details bare. He appeared as he had died, his ribcage torn open, and shreds of his intestines hanging out, dripping ghostly blood.
Kwairen kept alert. He had been with Joanna long enough to know how some of her magic worked. The Keepers of the Dead are loathe to allow the slain to return to the lands of the living, and many of the denizens from beyond follow such summoning trails in the hopes of attaining an extended stay in the mortal realm by slaying the summoner.
He was Joanna's shield.
"Speak to me of the beast that slew you." Joanna stated her voice clear as a church bell, "Tell me of the Lycanthrope."
Jonas' dead eyes fixed upon her, and another wave of cold wind assaulted them, "They were not Lycanthropes." he spoke, his voice distant and hollow, "Ghastly misshappen creatures, composed of parts both animal and man, yes, but not shapeshifters."
Joanna narrowed her eyes, misshappen creatures? This was not something they had encountered before. The Confessor must be informed. "How were you slain?" she forced herself to speak, suddenly realizing that she had very little time to maintain the spell.
"They came to my home." Jonas replied, "crawling through the fireplace, the windows and the doors. Claws and teeth. Claws and teeth held me down for their mother. Their mother, beautiful and horrid feasted upon my innards..."
"Beautiful and horrid?" Joanna raised an eyebrow, "what do you-"
Her question was cut short when she heard it. A low piercing wail coming from the depths of the graveyard soil, the very ground quaking in fear.
Kwairen looked sharply at Joanna, making a cutting motion with his hand. End it! Now!
Joanna began chanting then, unweaving her spell, her voice rising with urgency as she felt them, the Keepers of the Dead, clawing their way to her enchantment, using it as a lifeline to locate the spirit of Jonas and draw him back to whatever fate awaited him in oblivion.
The ground shook harder as the wail turned into a scream. Kwairen dropped into a defensive stance, ready for anything that could possibly appear.
Joanna unweaved her spell, her heart beating furiously in her ribcage as she felt the Keepers sniffing out her spell, tracking her down. Words of power and binding tumbled out of her mouth as she weaved symbols with her hands, sweat beading her brow. A tearing pain in her mind told her that the Keepers were near, the agony threatening to break her concentration.
Joanna fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face, her hair falling over her features as she gasped out the final syllables of the spell, and Jonas' ghost faded into nothingness. The lights in her eyes told her that she was just on the verge of passing out, and she felt Kwairen's strong hands helping her up.
"Kwairen," she gasped, "We must warn the others."
-----
"It was Annabelle." the priest spoke, his voice quaking with fear, the effects of the spell still lingering in his mind.
"Annabelle?" the Confessor released the priests collar, watching the wretched holy man sprawled on the pew.
"She... was a local midwife." the priest said, his voice steadier now, as he tried to sit up, "We caught her enacting a pagan ritual."
The Confessor did not reply, waiting.
"You do not understand me." The priest said, his eyes pleading, "She was praying to those before the gods! To her woodlands deities and spirits! Abominations! Jonas was the one who saw her, following her out into the woods one night."
"And what crime did she commit?" the Confessor asked.
"Crime?" the priest asked, dumbfounded, "She was a heretic! Her worship is not that of our people and her ways are not in our understanding!"
The Confessor was impassive, "To be different is not a crime. Did she use her magics to harm anyone?"
The priest was silent.
"I thought so." the Confessor gave him a disgusted look, "And you cursed her? You used your own holy abilities to punish her simply for being different?"
The priest's eyes were haunted by shame.
"That is all I need to know." The Confessor turned to leave, his boots clicking on the empty Church's floor tiles. "Now I must put an innocent woman to death, for your curse has turned her into a monster."
The priest merely followed the Confessor's figure with his eyes.
"Know this." the Confessor said, "Her crimes are marked on your soul." With that, the Confessor stepped out into the night, his hand tight around his black iron staff, tricorn hat pulled down, and heart weary at the thought of the task ahead.
-----
Hey guys! Just finished part 5. I'm dedicating this one to my kitty, whose birthday is today! :) Happy Birthday! :)
Anyway, as always, I'm open to suggestions and comments. This is the first attempt to do action for this series, and I'm eager (and nervous) to see what you guys think about it! :D
Hope you guys are having a great evening!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment