A Different Fantasy: The Sorin Chronicles

Chapter 3: Pastures New

(I do not own the photo above, if you know who does inbox me so I can provide proper accreditation)
The wind howled like a wild animal as I Huddled shivering in my bedroll. The fire has long since been blown over, as it was not snowing but the wind was mighty and relentless. I could take no more of this and thought back to my tomes to see if there was anything that might help.
The white book did have something, in fact. "Warming cloak" is what it was called. I used a flint and steel to light a lantern and retrieved my book from my bag, flipping the coarse pages until I reached the spell. Holding my wand to my chest as instructed, my mind once again conjured the blobs to mold into letters. However, things in this instance were different and I senses a few loose energies around me, not dissimilar to the blobs except more...descript somehow. I turned to look at them and gazed in horror at the sight of what appeared to be dead men and women... They emitted a horrendous haggard breathing and gargling sound from their inhumanly hanging jaws. These...things...Glowed a pale white even among the snow, anf their arms dangled limply into the snow, their legs creaking and shaking as they ambled forward. The first one I noticed raised it's long, emaciated arm and pointed a long bony finger at me emitting a horrendous shriek that chilled my blood and rattled me into immobility. This shook me out of the spellweaving state and forced me to stare off into the darknesd. Where I saw they once stood and was now forced to stare was nothing, however the sound remained, trudging closer and closer. The haggard breaths getting more and more fast and louder as if to become more excited. Then, all of a sudden all fell silent. I was still frozen in fear and the wind still chilled me to the bone.
Suddenly, 4 long fingers wrapped around the entrance to my small tent, and a face peered inside inching closer and closer to mine. The haggard breaths resumed, and suddenly I was seized my by neck and dragged quickly into the darkness as the ghostly creature soared among the trees, cackling loudly with its rhaspy choking breaths.
Suddenly I was dropped from a height that knocked the wind out of me, which likely would have killed me if not for the massive pile of accumulated snow. Slowly I regained my mobility, and began to feel around me. Beneath the snow felt rough, and after groping in the darkness a little longer I was able to determine these were bones. I'm not certain what kind but given my predicament I reckon they were likely human.
The haggard breathing was still around, all around in fact. Several sources this time, all still closing in, all indicated by two pale glowing lights that I assume were their eyes.
I felt all over my person to see if I possibly had something to defend myself with, but didn't have such luck. I was backed into a corner and soon figured out why this place was so littered with bones. I was, in all likelihood, going to meet my death...but I wasn't going to face it without a fight.
I felt around the ground until I found a good sturdy bone that felt like a femur and raised it as if it were a sword.
"Well then, I haven't got all night. COME ON!!" I bellowed, ready to clobber anything that came near enough to me. The shriek rang out again, to minimal effect, only giving me the shakes this time, and one began to rush me with both of it's skeletal hands outstretched towards me.
I ducked between and took a swing at the dreadful beast's head...to no avail. What should have been a blow, strong and true sailed cleanly through the thing's head as if swinging at nothing but air.

I was doomed.

Quickly I was once again seized by the neck, this time feeling the beast's nails sinking into my skin. The beast cackled, then raked it's claws over my fact. I felt the warm crimson flow drip down my face, followed my a long, slimy tentacle-like appendage sweeping over the wounds as if to lap it up. I assume (and hope) it was his tongue.

The sharp nails began pressing into my chest, sinking in like daggers.
This is the end...dated to fall so quickly in my adventure.

A loud bellow came from the woods, and the sound of glass shattering followed by a blinding silvery glow lit the area.
"HANDS OFF YA WEE GANGLY BASTARDS!!!" Yelled an angry voice, which sounded deep but feminine.
The beast's quickly shrunk away from the light, and it was then that I realized the creature had damaged one of my eyes. I couldn't move once again, but I could tell I was wounded and bleeding bad.

"Fucks sake not another one..and a wee bairn at that." She took me up into her arms. I couldn't make out her appearance but I could feel as she Carried me that she was quite strong and lifted me with almost no effort.
"Come then, lad. Let's get you someplace warm and cozy and tend to those wounds before you bleed to death." She said in an oddly comforting tone despite the discomfiting words. She dashed at inhuman between the trees, deftly avoiding each one until she reached the mouth of a cave, the smell of a camp fire and spiced roasting meats permeating the air.
She entered the cave, layed me on a soft pile of furs, then went to a side if the cave with what looked like tons of baskets with indistinguishable items within.
She returned once more with what appeared to be cloth and herbs. Painfully, she applied the herbs to my wounds and bound them roughly with the cloth.
"These will heal you up, right as rain dearie. You lay back and relax awhile. I'll be back soon." She said gently, covered me in a light linen, then walked away again, her footsteps rattling the cave as she went. I could not make out her appearance, all I knew was at the very least she was very tall...inhuman tall. I suddenly began to feel quite tired and numb, but comfortable. It did not take long for me to drift into a deep and powerful slumber, where I was awoken to a wet crunching noise. I attempted to sit up, but the pain in my chest was too deep.
So instead I propped myself up. One eye was still bandaged a d covered but through one other I saw a tall, extremely muscular but slender woman with what appeared to be great horns protruding from her head. She was very much naked, covered in blood and butchering a large deer over a bucket.
"Ah! You are awake!" She said excitedly, cutting off a front leg from the deer, shoving it into a bucket of salt, then hanging it from a hook. It surprised me a bit that she had no Shame in her nudity, and I tried not to stare.
"Those wraiths did quite the number on you, I'll be there in just a moment to clean and redress your wounds. They'll heal quite quickly, compared to on their own and won't get infected but they will still take quite some time to heal.
She stepped outside the cave for a time, and came back wet and clean of blood...she must have bathed.
"Now let's see to those wounds."
She grabbed more linens and herbs. as she applied them, was very close and her soft, supple breasts pressed up against my body...she must've noticed my breathing quickened and commented
"Oh dear...you're flushed! I hope you haven't gotten an infectio-...oh." she looked down and noticed my somewhat obvious "affliction" and walked away chuckling to herself.
"I'm... sorry..." I said sheepishly

"No..noo...I'm sorry lad...I haven't spent much time with humans in recent time and I often forget about such things...let me get some clothes. I'll be sure to wear them from now on."
She walked away and pulled on some brown pants, tied them on with a rope belt, then put on a faded blue cloth tunic.
"There, all dressed."
She then grabbed a knife and cut some meat onto a plate alongside some fruit.
"You still need to eat." She said, grabbing a two pronged fork and cutting the meat into bite sized pieces.
"I will help you until the wraith's venom wears off you get your strength back." She said matter of factly, as if this was just another day in her life.
"V-venom??" I said shakily.
She cocked her head in slight confusion, then nodded.
"Aye, venom. The wraths get you with debilitating venom in case you run off after their screams wear off, on account of the affects of the scream only working on a target once. It freezes you like the snow and makes you immobile, then they rip your heart out and eat it. You, lad are lucky I arrived when I did."
She then put a couple chunks of meat in my mouth with the fork, and I got a better look at her face. She looked ambiguous of age, not young, but her face was almost cherubian. Her nose and cheeks were dotted with freckles, and her eyes where a bright green with a soft countenance to them. Her lips were soft and full looking, with a gentle smirk as a resting face. Then we're the horns, like that of a bull except scaled and quite sharp save for one, which was chipped at the top.
" I can do this on my own, you know..." I said slightly indignant.
"I doubt you could grasp anything right now, lad. This isn't a moment to be proud, this is something that needs to be done."
Once all the food was gone, I once again felt very tired and drifted into a heavy, dreamless sleep.