by Jeff Gunzel
Liam found it hard to go back to sleep. Not because he was concerned for his own safety, but because he had meant it when he told Viola they would need to talk in the morning. She had the right to know the origins of her bloodlines, and this talk was long overdue. But how to approach such a thing? How could one so innocent and childlike be spawned from such evil seeds?
Eyes wide open, he lay there trying not to think about it. And of course, it soon became the only thing he could think about.
*
Liam woke to the crackling of a bonfire. He must have dozed off within the past half hour or so. He glanced at Viola briefly, her blanket rising and falling with the steady breathing of deep sleep. Deciding not to wake her just yet, he grabbed a change of clothes from his bag and quietly slid out the back.
The other two were sitting near the fire, each rotating a piece of meat on separate metal pokers. Silently, Liam walked over to join them. Both looked dressed and ready for travel, the hunter wearing his full battle suit, double crossbows mounted at the back of his shoulders. Taking a seat, the mystic stared at the fire for a long while before speaking. “When she wakes, I will tell Viola what we know of her origin,” he said bluntly. “She must face the truth, and then we must all decide how to deal with it.”
Owen pulled his meat from the fire, rotating it under his nose as if considering whether or not it was done. “Did you hear what I just said?” Liam asked. “Are we going to just keep pretending she is not a danger to herself as well as others? If we do not address this soon, it threatens to tear our group apart.”
Owen took a careful bite, eyes wandering upward while considering if he should cook it longer. “Ever stop to think that she may already have the answers we seek, old man?” he asked calmly.
“What do you mean?” Liam asked.
“She is not exactly a newborn,” Owen explained, glaring at his meat, now having second thoughts about its doneness. “There is no way she could have remained hidden for this long unless her affliction had somehow been controlled. I mean, she hasn’t exactly been feeding on human blood for nineteen years. Hell, she seemed so unsettled last night, I’m actually suspicious as to whether or not she’s ever killed a living creature. I’m betting that was her first.”
“I believe you are correct,” Liam agreed, snapping his fingers.
“Aye. So before you try explaining to her that she be a natural-born killer, maybe you should ask her how she’s kept it in check for so long,” Owen said, jamming his stick back over the fire. Xavier just listened in silence, hood pulled low over his face.
“I’ll go wake her. The four of us are going to figure this out right now,” Liam replied, already standing to go get her. Suddenly, Xavier leapt to his feet, hands slipping underneath the back of his cloak. “What? What is it?” said Liam, eyes scanning the tree line for whatever had drawn the apprentice’s attention.
“Wake the girl,” he replied, eyes staring off in the distance. “We have to go. Now!”
Liam bolted towards the wagon calling to her, but Owen didn’t move a muscle. He tore away another bite of his meat, then threw the rest into the fire. “It’s too late,” he grumbled, Xavier glancing in his direction. “They be here already here.”
“Viola!” said Liam, giving her a harsh shake.
Disoriented, she sat upright, head twisting this way and that. “Wha-What’s going on?” she asked, trying to get her bearings.
“I’m not sure,” Liam admitted, snatching his staff before taking her by the hand. “We have to get out of here. Leave your things. We’ll come back for them if we can. Now come on!”
He hopped out first before helping her down. What began as a dead run towards the others quickly slowed to a light jog. Liam didn’t like the look of this. If there was trouble nearby, why were the other two just standing near the campfire? With Viola by the hand, his staff clenched in the other, he approached them cautiously.
“Why aren’t we going?” Liam asked. Stoically, the other two just stood there in silence.
There came a blur of movement from the tree line. In a flash, a tall figure stood before them. With a ghostly white appearance, his eyes were red and his lips black as night. Large ears rose into points on the side of his bald head, and his face appeared compressed, eyes squeezed down near his nose. Several more blurs flashed into the camp, each moving with impossible speed. Before they knew it they were surrounded. At least a dozen stood strong, and who knew how many others lay in wait.
Had Liam seen these mystical creatures even a week ago, he wouldn’t have known for certain what they were. Such beasts were thought to have gone extinct long ago, and little was known of them even then. It was only due to his recent research that the image of these vile creatures was fresh in his mind, if only through literary descriptions and crude drawings. These were full-blooded laberaths!
Grinning wickedly, the first began clapping his hands, a slow, taunting beat as he glared at Owen. “Orm’rak is impressed, human,” he said with one last loud clap for emphasis. “We trust it wasn’t too hard to acquire the girl?” Owen said nothing, his blank eyes staring right through the creature.
Clutching Liam’s shirt in fear, Viola looked up for an instant, hate-filled eyes landing on Owen. “You betrayed me,” she hissed, her shadowy voice echoing in all directions.
“So these are the friends you spoke of,” Liam accused. Viola buried her face in his shirt once more, arms clutching him tightly. Seething, he turned his attention on the laberath. “I don’t know what deal you and the hunter have, but she will not be leaving with you.” Gently pushing Viola aside, he stepped in front of her, hand fingering the blade at his side. “You shall return to your master empty handed, or stay here and perish at my hand. I leave the choice up to you.”
Ignoring what he perceived to be an idle threat from an inept human, the laberath turned his attention back to the hunter as the others laughed. He tossed a black pouch at Owen’s feet. When it landed, what looked to be tiny cut diamonds scattered across the ground. “Your payment as agreed,” he said. “Now, we’ll just take what’s ours and be on our wa—”
Owen kicked the bag, sending it tumbling back towards the laberath, clear jewels scattering in all directions. Too small to detect, a fortune’s worth of gems now lay hopelessly scattered among the tall grass. “I see you failed to deliver my last message,” Owen growled, gaze sweeping across their ghost-white faces. “Perhaps your severed heads in a box will make my point more clear.”
Hands hidden beneath his cloak, Xavier watched the tense standoff unfold, his senses on high alert. He and his master had worked on silent communication extensively in the past, and now they needed to get on the same page. He watched Owen carefully without openly staring, waiting for one of the many signs they had worked on with tireless repetition. Hands fingering his hidden blades, he waited...waited... In a movement so subtle only his trained eyes could have ever seen it, the hunter tapped his right heel twice.
Xavier’s grip on his blades loosened, and with all the speed he could muster, he charged Liam and Viola, knocking them to the ground. He lay on Viola, keeping her pinned down.
In one smooth motion, the hunter rolled his shoulders, both crossbows clicking down his arms, locking around his wrists. With a roar, he swept his arms across the laberaths, his weapons unleashing a flurry of energy projectiles firing at a staggering rate.
The sound was thunderous, blinding orange flashes consuming the area in a flickering light show. Trees splintered into nothing, the ground itself churning up as the violent energy assault peppered the soil. Laberaths caught in the onslaught were shredded, their bodies tearing into unrecognizable strips of flesh long before the first drop of blood ever touched the ground. But their speed was virtually unmatched, and many still managed to evade, blurs of movement scattering about.
“Get off me!” Viola shrieked above the weapons’ deafening sounds. She squirmed and pushed back, even trying to bite Xavier. Liam lay only a few feet away, face down, ha
nds covering his head as energy bolts sprayed all around. “I trusted you!” she cried, fists pounding up at his chest. Xavier grasped her wrists, easily turning her back onto her stomach. With a sudden pressure on the back of her neck, her face went down hard into the soil. Gasping a last breath, she stopped her futile struggling against the much-stronger assassin and closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable blade that was sure to sink into her back. “I hate you,” she whispered, figuring those would be her final words.
She felt something click against the back of her neck. The collar snapped open, the two sections falling on either side of her head. She felt his breath as he moved close to her ear. “I swear I didn’t know,” he said. “Run. You have to get out of here!” He rolled off her back, allowing her to get up. She watched him rush away, a wheeled blade flashing in each hand. She glanced at Liam, the old man rising up from the ground.
“They’re after you,” he yelled, staff twirling in his hands. “We’ll hold them off as long as we can. Go!” He, too, rushed past her, streaking headlong into the fight. With the collar off, she felt her energy returning, legs responsive and nimble once more. Driven by terror, she bolted away into the forest.
Owen’s crossbows ceased, tiny rotors winding down with a slowing ticking sound. An orange gem ejected from each. Their energy spent, the steaming jewels bounced along the hard ground. The hunter rolled his shoulders back, prompting the weapons to ride back up his arms with a clacking sound, reseating themselves at the rear of his shoulders. With a rasping hiss, he slid two silver blades from his back.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he called out, eyes scanning what was left of the tree line, massive trees reduced to kindling, their charred thick trunks releasing spirals of black smoke. Xavier and Liam stood by his side, each gazing about for signs of survivors. Blurs of movement streaked back and forth across the ruined portion of forest. “If you bloody imps stand still like your friends here, I promise you the same gift of eternal sleep!” He kicked a steaming head across the ground. The bloodied stumps of legs and arms lay all around them.
“Xavier!” Liam said, not daring to take his eyes off the trees. “You follow Viola. Who knows how many are in pursuit of her as we speak?”
“I am needed here,” he replied, whirling a circular blade in each hand.
“Go after her,” Owen ordered, his own swords high and readied. “Liam and I can handle things here. They must not take her! Understand? Now go!” After a slight hesitation, the apprentice turned and bolted away. Owen’s eyes narrowed as he scanned back and forth, distracted by the flittering streaks of movement. “Come to me, demons,” he growled under his breath.
A streaking blur came right at them, sending Owen into a sideways roll as it blurred past. A flash of steel swiped the air where he had just been standing. Completing the roll, the hunter was on his feet, blades out and ready. Warrior’s instinct alone had thwarted that attack, but he couldn’t continue relying on reflexive instinct against an opponent with such freakish speed. Sooner or later, cold steel would bite his heart.
Liam backed away, mumbling something while holding his staff in the air. A second blur streaked from the forest, heading straight for the mystic. Reflexively, Owen threw his sword with all the speed and accuracy he could manage. The tumbling blade glanced off the streaking laberath, doing little damage but still redirecting its charge. Stumbling at a high rate of speed, it tumbled forward, just missing Liam, who seemed to hardly even notice the close call.
“If you’re not going to help, at least get out of the way,” Owen called to the mystic, quickly retrieving his second sword. He stood in front of Liam protectively, twirling each blade in long, sweeping circles. “Are you all afraid to fight like men? Feel free to come taste me steel!” he roared. Multiple streaks blurred from the forest, each heading straight for him. He braced, preparing to swing blindly and hopefully take out a few before they inevitably overwhelmed him.
“Go teh blathra!” Liam boomed, his thunderous voice carrying on the wind as he slammed the butt of his staff into the ground. There came a brilliant flash, quickly followed by a silent explosion, felt as opposed to being heard. A low, vibrating boom like thunder with no sound rattled the entire area.
Knocked to the ground by the soundless impact, Owen scrambled back to his feet. Disoriented, he gazed around at a world he no longer recognized. Reality itself seemed to bend and bulge, like looking through the bottom of a finished glass of ale. Warped. Twisted. His eyes could hardly focus. A tiny movement at the side of his face drew his attention.
He glanced at a dragonfly somehow suspended in midair. No, not suspended. It was indeed moving, only in slow motion. Tiny wings swept up and down, completing a single beat every few seconds. Impossible that it could stay airborne while moving so slowly, yet somehow it did.
He looked up to see Liam moving towards one of the laberaths, it, too, moving at an impossibly slow pace. Face contorted with rage, its body leaned too far forward to possibly remain upright. With no hesitation, Liam ran his sword right through its neck. Its expression never changed. Owen suspected it would be at least a minute before it knew it was dead. Liam yanked his blade free in a spray of gore, already turning to eliminate the next.
“Leave one alive,” Owen said, grinning with satisfaction. “We’ll want to question him.” He walked over to the mystic, then jumped back as Liam slashed another’s neck, the blood spray nearly speckling his armor. The old man obviously wasn’t disturbed by the prospect of death. Owen patted him on the back. “See, I knew sooner or later you’d be useful to me.”
*
Viola ran through the forest. With her speed and agility returned, she weaved between trees as if her body were liquid, ducking under low-hanging branches with ease. Blasting through another bush, she saw a shadow of movement from the corner of her eye. But glancing in that direction, she saw nothing. There was no way to be certain if she had really seen it, or if her fear-ravaged mind was playing tricks.
She looked up, then leapt into the air. Spinning, her body distorted into a black funnel of flapping black birds, the living twister spiraling upward onto a thick tree branch. Coming out of the twist, her body reformed, melting birds churning within a cone of liquid black.
Perched, she remained perfectly still. Holding her breath, she listened carefully to the sounds around her. The wind whistled through the leaves, a rattling clatter that echoed through the treetops. She turned quickly, startled when a pinecone bounced from branch to branch on its way down to the forest floor below. A trickle of sweat dripped down from her temple, the icy cold bead racing towards her chin.
Suddenly, two black funnels blazed up beside her, perching on either side. The flapping black swirls melted into humanoid bodies, red-eyed faces grinning at her. She shrieked, leaping from the branch, spinning back into her whirling black bird form, then landing on another perch a fair distance away. Cackling with glee, they happily gave chase. Black funnels swirled through the treetops, each materializing on its latest perch before spinning away again.
Each time she stopped, a funnel blurred up next to her, laughing, taunting its prey. Escape was futile. No matter which direction she chose, she was quickly cut off. Exhausted, Viola dropped to one knee. Tiptoeing across the surrounding branches, the laberaths began closing in. Surrounded, there was nowhere left to run. “Orm’rak wants her alive,” one reminded as they drew closer. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with her on the way back.” A shrill cackling of agreement followed.
A flash of spinning metal blazed across his chest. Stunned, the laberath glanced down at the gaping cut, blood running freely down his front. The wound began to smoke. White sparkles appeared on the sides of the wound, quickly engulfing his entire chest. He lurched his head back to scream in agony, but all that spewed from his mouth was a fountain of white glitter. Like ants devouring a carcass, within seconds his body melted, glittery white liquid dripping down to the ground below.
The circular blade boo
meranging back, Xavier caught it in full stride as he streaked towards them. He released his second, sending it whistling up towards another laberath. Now alerted to the pesky human, the laberath easily dodged the whirling blade. To their eyes, such a cumbersome attack was remarkably slow.
“Xavier!” Viola shouted, whirling down from the treetop to reform beside him. He snatched his returning blade out of the air, then refocused his attention on the remaining four creatures. They whirled down towards him, black funnels taking shape at his front and back.
“Kill him but don’t harm the girl,” one of the four commanded, clicking his blades together in some kind of taunting song. In a blur, the laberaths began to race around them, two moving left, the other two moving right. No doubt they were planning some sort of timed attack. Xavier could hardly focus his eyes on one, yet alone all four.
“On my mark, drop to the ground and don’t look up,” the apprentice said, clanging his own blades together in rhythm, trying to get some sort of timing down in his head. Viola said nothing, her head whipping back and forth, trying to catch a glimpse of the lightning-fast enemies. She could even feel the wind produced by their speed. He clanged his blades once, twice... “Now!” She dropped, hands covering her head.
He sent his weapons twirling into the spinning circle, effectively leaving him unarmed for the moment. Throwing his shoulders back, his cloak fluttered to the ground, revealing rows and rows of handled blades strapped across his chest. There were at least twelve, possibly more. Clack, clack, clack, clack... he touched each handle with one of his rings, then threw his hands up.
Time stood still as half-moon blades floated up into the air, each attached to a silky magic thread. The puppet master had unleashed his true talent. Ten blades whistled around with only the slightest twitch of his fingers, each directed with purpose and precision. The streaking laberaths had easily evaded his thrown weapons, but they were nothing but a distraction, buying him the second he needed.