****
Dark bounded stealthily through the forest, staying ahead of the unicorn that followed him. He would have stood and faced any of the People except a unicorn. Unicorn powers nearly matched his, and he wasn’t currently prepared to face one. Very soon he would be, however. He would not venture here again without being fully prepared. Very soon all their power would be his. Then this world and many others would be his to consume.
While the People had remained withdrawn and hidden, Dark had infiltrated humans and devoured their life forces by the hundreds. Life was too precious a thing to waste, it was better that it be devoured. But that was only a hint of what would soon come. After he had consumed the People and their human allies, he would consume all humans.
Ahead of him along the obscure trail that he followed, he sensed a human, moving on the trail in the same direction that he was. Lopping along wolf-like, Dark rapidly gained on his prey. “Ow-ooooooo,” howled Dark, as he sighted the man in the moonlight. It was a uniformed Tribe member, a police officer of some sort. Instead of running, the fool actually stopped and was speaking excitedly into a hand-held radio.
With a scream, Dark attacked, barely swerving in time to avoid being skewered by the unicorn, which suddenly materialized in front of the terrified human with its sharp horn lowered to meet the charging werewolf. Blue lightning crackled from the horn and enveloped Dark, slamming him away and against a huge tree trunk.
Screaming with rage, Dark pushed away from the tree and leapt at the unicorn, planning to dodge the horn and sink his jaws into the neck of the creature.
His jaws closed on empty air, however, as the unicorn completely disappeared and then reappeared a few meters away, with its horn again aimed squarely at him. He screamed again in anger and frustration, and in pain, as another bolt of power from the horn struck him down.
He was slower to get up this time. It had been a very long time; he had forgotten how difficult and dangerous unicorns could be. This one was unusually large, powerful, and skilled.
He recognized his foe as he regained his feet. “Baldor,” Dark hissed. “Your name is Baldor, unicorn. We have fought before, more than once.”
“We will fight still more unless you leave this place, Evil One,” replied Baldor.
Dark said nothing but sprang snarling towards the terrified and cowering tribesman. He was again met by the unicorn, as Dark knew that he would be, but this time he expected the unicorn stallion to make himself solid and vulnerable, to stop him from striking the human. Dark twisted to avid the horn and slashed deadly claws at the flank of his foe, only to find air, but at least his momentum carried him into the tribesman. He expected to crush and slash the human to bits, but was surprised to pass also through the man as though the human wasn’t there. Another unicorn trick, of course. The unicorn had moved the human, leaving an image to fool him. A moment later a bolt of blue lightning again flattened him.
“Interesting, unicorn, but how long can you do this?”
“An eternity. But my patience is less enduring. I would rather not destroy you, but I will if you force me to. Your presence and actions here will not be tolerated. Leave this place. This is your final warning.”
Always it was the same; they always rejected him, though they were kin. In frustration and rage, Dark flung a powerful lightning bolt of his own at the unicorn, but quickly realized that this was a totally useless tactic. The bolt was completely absorbed by the unicorn’s horn without bothering it in the slightest. Manipulating power was a unicorn specialty, Dark recalled. No, there was only one thing that really bothered unicorns, and luckily some of it was lying right at the feet of the cowering human. Dark grasped it in a clawed hand and swung it at Baldor with all his immense strength.
The steel rifle barrel struck the side of Baldor’s head with such force that the unicorn was knocked off his feet. Howling in triumph, Dark grasped and raised the rifle in both hands with the intent to thrust the barrel into his foe like a spear. He was howling in pain a moment later when a lightning blast from Baldor’s horn struck the rifle and the clawed hands that held it. The blast melted then vaporized the rifle almost instantly, exploding in Dark’s hands and knocking him away and to the ground once again.
By the time he regained his feet Baldor was before him, floating a meter above the ground, body as well as horn glowing brighter than the sun, terrible black eyes fixed on him, horn lowering towards him.
Dark had seen this sort of unicorn behavior before, only a few thousand years earlier, and knew exactly what to do. He ran. As fast as he could, with all thoughts of stealth or prey or continuing the fight gone, he fled, so fast that he plowed through several small tree trunks in his haste. He didn’t stop until he was ten miles away, where he stopped only to get his bearings before running another five miles at a more leisurely pace.
Finally he stopped and rested. He hadn’t expended this much energy in centuries. Worse, he had come uncomfortably close to his own death. The unicorn had been building up to a titanic release of power, one that could have destroyed him had it struck him, and would probably have destroyed the unicorn as well, and half the Mountain. Most surprising, the unicorn’s extreme reaction had been provoked by his attempt to attack a mere human.
That intrigued Dark. Was a random human so important to the unicorn that it would risk its own immortal life? It certainly seemed so. That was good; it was yet another unicorn weakness that he could possibly exploit.
Perhaps it would be prudent for him to leave the entire area, but Dark had decided to stay. He was going to do something that he rarely did; he was going to take yet more risks. He calculated that now was the time to win it all. He would finally play the end-game that he had long been preparing for. The People would soon be no more, and he would control a prize that they no longer understood, a prize that would allow him to attack other worlds once he was done destroying this one.
Secrets of Goth Mountain Page 53