Fate and the story of blood

Chapter 16: Rising of the ancient one

Behind the wheel of the horses, Gardenia struggled to manage, my left arm was held onto by Arthur, he was providing me instructions on how to correctly use the blood arts he had put in such high esteem. Closing my right eye to adjust for better aiming while occasional bumps of the carriage against the rocks put me off balance, I soon got the gist of the thing he was trying to teach me.

"Now, aim towards the direction you had in mind and concentrate on the cut at the tip of your index finger. You should be able to properly form an object based on what you have in mind in your imagination. Try starting small, a needle for example in this case..." He said quickly as he moved to let go of my arm to try it for myself.

Taking in a deep breath, I imagined a metallic point along with its thin structure and before long I opened my eyes to see the red object floating close to the finger it formed from. Now the first step had been accomplished, then came after the procedure I needed to put to test. Trajectory, distance and charge, I thought of these factors that would bring about firing it. Upon finalizing the process, it went down the path from where we came cratering into a river along the road; the firepower causing the waters to be temporarily pushed apart.

"Well done, fantastic seeing as how it's your first time. Though the firepower seems a little excessive, try something less when it comes to projectiles this small, quantity matters when it comes to these types." Arthur suggested as he slammed my back with his hands which were supposed to be a pat for a job well done.

Suddenly, the entire carriage we rode on then the entire vehicle then shook to an impact where Gardenia was. Quickly turning to see what had happened during the time we looked away, it soon became apparent that the witch had managed to crash our ride into what appeared to be a tree of sorts at the side of the road.

"What the- What happened? Are you alright Gardenia?" I asked her, getting out of the carriage to assess the damage inflicted on the wooden base of the carriage.

"Yeah... It was odd, the horses suddenly moved to turn back into the direction we came from when we approached the place up ahead. It looks like they didn't want to appear anywhere near the area we were headed towards..." She explained as she put a hand on her head to look for any injuries she might have sustained.

Looking over to the two horses, I noticed that they were fine after going off the road seeing as how they were grazing the grass on the grasslands. Turning back onto the road, I noticed a sign-off to the side that told us we were just a stone's throw away from the destination we had in mind. A thought then came into my mind, thinking if there was something on the road ahead that made our carriage pullers be deterred to move forwards or if it was the place we were going towards.

Taking a few paces ahead and adding that with another set of steps, nothing could be seen other than the shrubbery and more greenery that stood up ahead. Walking back towards the two, I found the vampire trying to pull the horses back on the road but they immediately stood their ground; presumably afraid of whatever was up ahead but wasn't when it came to where they stood.

"That's odd... there wasn't anything ahead, could it be underground?" I spoke my mind, a finger to my chin as I pondered the possibilities in this whole conundrum.

"It is certainly strange, we might have to leave these guys here and go ahead. They aren't moving an inch from there..." The old man spoke while pulling onto the snapped-off leash they still had attached to them.

"It's only some distance away, I don't mind walking a little. All this sitting in this horrendously bumpy carriage has made me sore~" Gardenia added as she started to push the vehicle off the road for passersby to proceed through.

"Hmm... I guess there's no other choice, we'll proceed in foot them." I said, deciding on the best course of action and thought that we could have a horse wrangler come to pick them up and check on them for anything weird.