The Law of Seven Book 1: Blood Walker

The Fifth Movement: Rhone

The crowd flees as I draw my silver treated blade. The thing—the Ellestra Allmy—chugs black smoke from gaps in the ragged leather it wears. Perhaps the monster has run low on flesh to burn, lying in wait in an agar grove, hoping it would be an effective location to ambush a new prospective host. In making myself its only option, I will force a confrontation and slay it before it can flee. It is the only way to be sure.

As I approach, sabre ready, it tilts its head as it stares at me, a strikingly human expression.

I continue advancing with caution, each step to my nerves like a spanner turn to an already over-tightened bolt.

I am but a score of feet away, yet it does not react.

My heart speaks to me, pumping worry into my mind.

Yet then—finally—the thing begins to adopt a more offensive stance.

I strike, letting the weight of the potential consequences go.

The moment of decision crystalizes, a ward against any future self-judgment.

The blade whirs, strike set to cleave through the collarbone and set holy fire to the inner—

I... stop.

Something is wrong here.

Something is very wrong here.

Blade a mere foot away from the thing's neck, I pull back.

"Help," the thing says in a thin, raspy voice, the vulnerability in it enough to give me pause.

What transpires?

I feel as though I am an observer, pulled from the reality of my own presence. Instincts clamor, insistent, but speaking in gibberish.

That voice... like a thousand tiny whispers speaking as one. I felt the words—felt them like worms under my skin.

Confusion takes me, like the tooth-rattling ringing of a city bell when too near; this is far beyond the realm of my expectations.

"Who are you? —what are you?" I ask—plead, almost.

"I...," it replies, voice faint. "Weak."

Then, in an unexpected action that startles me, I feel a gentle, springy push. Goot leaps through the air and lands on the thing's face, attempting to sink his fangs into the skull. He fails, having no more success than a person would be in attempting to disprove the trueness of a dense osmium imperial with his or her teeth. The spider bites the skull frenziedly several times and, failing, looks up at me, glistening eyes apologetic.

"Your friend..." the skeleton says, its thousand-tongued laughter making my skin crawl.

Goot, suddenly terrified by all the voices around him, jumps off the skull, retreats up my chest, and hides behind my shoulder, hissing in a most frantic fashion.

"Courage," the... the skeleton adds with a warmth I would not have imagined possible.

The spider partially advances from behind my shoulder, pulling my hair and making a sort of "kill that" gesture with emphatic fervor.

The skeleton laughs weakly—laughs long and genuine like one on his last breath—the sound horrifying in its gravely texture, yet oddly heartwarming in its genuine joy.

What is...? What?

I am lost.

"Fleshthing," a voice behind me says in a tone of address. I turn, somehow less threatened now by the Ellestra Allmy; something in me trusts this... thing—this Ellestra Allmy that laughs with... joy.