Staying crouched she turned, hoping moving in the opposite direction of the noises would keep her undetected, but it didn’t. She froze again as she saw two guards appear from around the corner. Dressed in purple, both of them had helmets that were crafted like crowns. Each possessed a shield and spear, but more importantly they both had eyes and they were staring directly at her. The fortress may have been filled with foreigners, but even amongst them she stuck out, like an orange on an apple tree. Vulshin Vy stayed stooped and the two guards kept staring, unsure what to make of this woman with wings.
She however knew warriors well enough to know what they did when they couldn’t figure something out and so she stood, her wings widening on her back. She had hoped to ascend into the air and fly to freedom. But as quick as she was the guards were faster. They launched their spears towards her in tandem, the weapons as in sync as the horns of a bull. Her wings fluttered before her, forming a shield that kept the rest of her body safe. The spears stabbed so deeply into her wings that they appeared quite stuck, looking like branches upon a tree. No blood oozed from the wings although the spearheads had certainly been swallowed within the feathers.
That is when the feathers began to move, fluttering as if caught within a strong wind. A slurping sound struck the air then as the sound of wood cracking cackled into the air. The two guards watched as the spears sank deeper and deeper into the wings and with each passing moment their eyes and mouths grew wider and wider. The wings appeared to be quite literally eating the spears the way one eats spaghetti. When the wings were finished not so much as a toothpick remained of the weapons. Her wings, having finished their meal, drew back from her like curtains revealing her eyes were as wide as theirs.
The three of them just stared in a strong silence before the two guards bellowed, unleashing the swords at their sides. Vulshin Vy raised a single hand as if the two men were growling dogs and she was trying to calm them. It didn’t work, if anything the two men only gathered speed as they swung their swords upon her. She showed her own swiftness, dodging both blades a number of times, turning and twisting her body in ways most women couldn’t. It was the very embodiment of close quarter fighting, even though every direction Vulshin Vy moved her body was in a defensive way.
Amongst the fray her wings whirled around her shoulders, striking forth. Both men blocked with their shields and both men were battered onto a single foot each, breaking the momentum of their attack. As they struggled to find their balance, her right wing battered the back of one of the shields with enough strength that the strap snapped and the shield was sent into the closest wall. It bounced off of the stone work and spun towards her. In the same moment her wing retracted out of the shield’s path where she caught it and used it for what it was made for. She blocked both of their blades, holding it like it was a large plate as the sound of steel upon shield was reminiscent of rain ripping up the ground. After batting the blades away she soon struck the shield out, bashing it upon a guard’s armored face. A sound then screamed into the air, one that made everything seem very still and silent. The guard’s arms seemed very still as if stuck in the air by invisible shackles.
Even with her strength it took some effort to move the shield back. When she had done so, she could see the damage for herself. The guard’s helmet had been hit so hard that the steel had spilt, stabbing into his face. It looked like his armor had grown teeth and such teeth had torn into his features. The man then fell in a way that only the dead could fall. Vulshin Vy stayed still as she stared into his lifeless eyes as if by doing so she could somehow bring him back to life. Her mouth widened as if moving to apologize. But that was before the other guard swung his sword.
In that moment she had forgotten about the other fighter and had almost paid with her life. She moved just enough that the sword didn’t slice her face in two. But the blade did cut under her eye creating a crimson curtain to consume her cheek. Her eyes shifted, not just to look at the guard, they shifted in how they saw the world and more importantly how the world saw them. Going from wide and worried to narrow and nightmarish. The change was that drastic that the guard just stood staring, looking more like a frightened child than a formidable conqueror. Her hand lashed out, there was no other way to describe it, wrapping itself around his wrist and dragging him towards her. She drove her head into his with all the grace of a bull goring a dog. The sound of blood and broken bones burst into the air as the man’s face broke open, the wound widening every time her face found his. Her head moved back and forth like a bird, as hungry as it was hellish, pecking the ground open. The steel of his helmet was no match for the skin of her face as her nose nailed away his faceplate and punctured his features over and over again.
When she was finished there was more of his blood on her face than there was on his own. He hadn’t screamed, his facial bones far too fractured to allow such sounds. But he was dead, his arms dangling from his sides like leaves in autumn. Yet she didn’t let go of him, she just kept staring as if wanting him to come back to life just so she could kill him all over again. She even drove her head into his face one more time with such force that he would have felt it in the afterlife. She then let go of the corpse, the way one lets go of scrap paper. With his blood still billowing on her face, she did nothing to clean herself of the crimson as if his blood belonged on her cheeks.
“What!” though the word was whispered she heard it all too well, turning to face another woman, sallow skinned with a strong stance, the woman was only partially covered in rippling red armor, as if the steel had somehow taken on a silk like quality. Vulshin Vy didn’t know how much the woman had seen or heard, but nevertheless she had come prepared. The woman wielded a morning star with spikes as dangerous as daggers. This time Vulshin Vy didn’t raise a hand, her wings widening like a lizard extending its frill, filling the woman with fright.
She may have been frightened but she was still a fighter, the woman stood her ground moving the morning star like she had been wielding it before birth. Yet Vulshin Vy didn’t so much as blink let alone back away. She was as calm as a corpse and that chilled the woman beyond her bones. The woman made her move, sending the morning star directly towards Vulshin Vy. The spiked sphere moving like a ravenous guard dog, caring not about the chain around its collar.
Suddenly Vulshin Vy’s leg rose up, her foot bending inward as her toes turned like claws catching the mace head as if her foot was about to maul it. It wasn’t just that she caught the weapon with her foot that was freakish, it was how the rest of her body hadn’t moved, like she had become a doll possessed by the darkest of demons. Before the woman could even gasp Vulshin Vy bent her knee, bringing the woman towards her like a trout caught on a fishing line. As the woman stumbled towards her screaming her other leg leapt up, the foot finding the woman’s face the way a snake found an egg. Both skull and sphere shattered within her feet’s grasp. As the corpse and chain clattered onto the ground, her feet remained in the air for a monstrous moment before calmly claiming the ground once more. While the sounds of the skull and steel shattering had been quite loud, Vulshin Vy remained quiet, eerily so, like when a forest, once full of chirping and crawling suddenly becomes silent. The green in her eyes was giving way to painful purple, like a dead spider’s skin being broken apart by a newborn wasp.
The purple only continued to pollute her eyes as the sound of a slamming door shifted her gaze. A man had appeared from one of the nearby dwellings, one hand holding an axe the other pulling up his pants. As he grumbled in anger, the dwelling’s door closed behind him, but not before Vulshin Vy saw a naked boy on a bed. She didn’t need to see how sweaty the man was to know what sick acts he had been engaging in. Unlike the woman who showed concerned, the man gritted his teeth, grasping the axe in both hands as he mumbled about punishing her for the interruption. Like a blade of grass in a tornado her head bobbed back and forth, her ears touching her shoulders each time as her eyes remained on him. He got within several feet of her before the fury in his fac
e changed to agony, the axe dropping from both of his hands as his arms wrapped around his ribs as if fearing something was going to burst through his stomach.
He was now moaning more than mumbling, his teeth clenched so tight blood began billowing from his mouth. His muscles began to move, but not in the way muscles should, as a look of utter terror tore the colour away from his face. Like pus whirling out of wounds, worms began wriggling through his skin, bringing blood forth from every exit. He barely managed a single scream before they infested every inch of his skin. When he died, he left behind a pile of worms in place of a corpse. As disgusting of a death his was, Vulshin Vy still didn’t blink, although her head became as still as death, only turning when the sound of marching swallowed all other sound.
She turned fully, her wings spread, her eyes becoming purpler with each passing second. A collection of combatants, so diverse in both skin and armor colour they looked like a living rainbow, had arrived. They appeared both ferocious and frightened like a pack of lions backed into a corner. She was obviously outnumbered and yet when her plum coloured lips moved it wasn’t in a scream. She made sounds as throaty as they were terrifying. “Bowk, bowk, bowk,” the sounds left her mouth like new born snakes slithering out into a world they were capable of swallowing. Hearing such sounds, the group of warriors fell on their swords and spears quite literally. They moved their weapons solely in suicidal gestures, goring and cutting themselves into corpses. Not even the mass suicide was enough to make her blink, not even when their blood rushed across the ground towards her like a raging river.
There was no emotion in her exiting of the street she moved around the corner like the world had been washed away by the bloodshed. No longer did she crouch when she passed a window, no longer did she try and hide her wings, she barely even breathed let alone blinked as she made her way further into the fortress, in the direction of where the second group of guards had come from.
She may have appeared emotionless but that didn’t mean she had become mindless. She had come to this place to find a certain someone and she would not leave until they were face to face. It didn’t take much thought to realize her target was within the tower in the center of the fortress, why would one pay for so many mercenaries for protection while not hiding in the most protected place in the entire fortress? They wouldn’t, and so she walked towards the tower, neither her eyes or head shifting from its closed off entrance.
As she reached the door it opened slightly and not by her doing. Within she could see a woman, peering out. She had probably seen Vulshin Vy coming, but because of the lack of light, she had considered it an illusion and thus had opened the door to get a better look.
It was a foolish thing to do.
Before the woman could slam the door closed Vulshin Vy’s hand was upon her throat, lifting her like she weighed as much as a lemon. Vulshin Vy stepped inside and the door closed behind her with the ghastliness of a coffin lid closing on someone who was not yet dead. Torches encircled the first floor of the tower like jewels within a crown, revealing her to the many men and women inside. Her face was so consumed in blood that her now completely purple coloured eyes pierced out like stars from a wet crimson sky.
She crushed the woman’s neck like it was a clot of dirt. The body smacking upon the floor and the head rolling away from her hand. Some of the mercenaries bellowed, while others just shrieked, but they all made a sound upon seeing her. As they lifted their weapons she flapped her wings a single time, summoning a wind that cut through torsos and torches alike. They all died in darkness as even then, with the light extinguished, her eyes glowed so brightly they cast shadows upon the blood battered floor.
She didn’t admire the annihilation at all before moving across the room and walking up the stairs. They had been built in a spiral, keeping what was on them a secret, save for the firelight of further torches. The conflagration crept around each turn of the stairs as she ascended them. She didn’t stop at all, not even when soldiers struck out at her. She dispatched them quickly and bloodily, each soldier was slain with a single strike, whether they were thrown out a window or smacked so hard into a wall that their skulls shattered, it was all an equal extinction. As she reached higher the hellish trail of entrails enlarged behind her as more and more bodies covered the stairs like blisters upon a body.
When the last step was within her sight a man that made mountains seem small came from around the corner, his spear the size of a ballista bolt. With both bear like hands holding it he thrust the spear towards her face. She grasped its shaft, single handily with as much effort as it takes to catch a twig. Astonishment ate away the anger and adrenaline from his face as his mouth opened in a silent scream. He tried to pull his weapon free from her grasp, but it remained as still as her eyes were. Considering she capable of this despite being barely a third his size he began to scream and scream loudly. These weren’t the bellowing sounds of a battle hardened brute, but of something very small and scared. Still with a single hand she forced the spear tip to lower, thus making the shaft raise higher. It soon got to the point where the bottom blunt end of the spear was between his eyes and that is when she pushed it backwards. The sheer strength of the blunt force broke the spear into his skull and he was thrown off his feet, his back hitting the ground like a boulder sized piece of hail. She stepped over his body as casually as one steps over a crack in the road.
Before her now was a metal door, thicker than a tree, sturdier than steel. It was the kind of door that kings kept upon their vaults, the kind meant to withstand any and all outside attack. Using the same hand that had stopped the spear she struck out at it, her fingers forcing themselves inside the steel, clutching onto it like a claw. In one single motion she pulled the steel door off the frame and tossed it a side like the door was as protective as paper. She entered the room like an eagle entering a pigeon coop, without fear and ferocious intent.
There was only one man inside, probably the only person in the whole fortress without a weapon. Though he was healthy and handsome, compared to her he was as formidable as a flower in a heavy storm. As soon as the door had been ripped away he had scurried back from the table, knocking over a jug once full of wine. He paid little attention to its redness as it rushed down the table and onto the floor, considering how much its crimson was reminiscent of blood and he could see enough actual blood upon her.
She stepped forward into the light of his hearth, its heat unable to combat the chill that cut into his body. He stood, grasping onto another jug of wine, the only thing he had to defend himself with. When she took a step forward he took three back. When a drop of blood descended off her face, four drops of wine spilled because of his shaking hands. She remained silent as if breathless while the man took so many breaths it was like he was compensating for her lack of inhaling.
She took another step and he took another three, placing himself behind the table, its wooden frame now the only thing separating the two of them. Vulshin Vy dealt with that by destroying the table, smacking into splinters with a single strike. That is when the man threw the jug forward, the wine splashing upon her face, washing away the blood, but not wounding her. Her face may have been free of blood but remained blank, a zombie showed more expression than she did as she stalked towards him, forcing him to flee into the corner of the room. With nothing else he could use as a weapon he quickly crouched as if hoping he could make himself so small she could no longer see him. But her eyes remained on his, they remained as purple and piercing as a lavender coloured lance. As her shadow swallowed him he rose his hands, his eyes trembling and tear-filled.
“No please don’t!” he begged, the words washing over her. Upon hearing them she stopped and finally began to blink, slowly at first, every time her eyes closed the purple became less and less, like dust being batted out of a rug. Her final blink was as fast as it was fresh, vanishing the purple and returning the dull green. She looked down at her own body, like it was the first time she had ever seen it, surprise and shock sw
elling within her eyes. She could smell the blood in the air, could taste it in her mouth, could see it upon her frame.
Her eyes returned to being widened and worried, but soon narrowed again as she looked back upon the man although they hadn’t returned to be nightmarish, at least not yet. That voice, she knew that voice, it was the voice of the man she had been seeking for far too long.
“You’ve changed,” she said in an accent that everyone in the fortress would find foreign, it made her sound as if she was chewing peanuts. The man said nothing, but she knew it was him, his hair was a different colour, brown instead of bright blonde, his face was clean shaven, instead of muzzled by an intricate mustache, but he was whom she sought.
“But I know you,” she said. “Even if you somehow grew ten feet tall and became a woman, I would know you.”
9 Tales From Elsewhere 7 Page 5