Tales Of The Continent - Part 5

Chapter 1

I veer off the path following my dogs, as they start to bound towards the forest, clearly picking up on some sort of scent. Right now they're following the scent of blood and rotten flesh from an arm we'd found a few miles back. Hopefully we'll track the night creatures soon enough. We enter the forest. With the sun setting, visibility was getting harder and the more my dogs got closer, the further they ran from me. We'd been in full sprint for about three days now, going through days and nights, only taking brief rests to drink and eat. We get deeper and deeper into the forest, the canopy overheard removing more light until we are practically running in darkness. Following only the sound of the steps of my dogs' paws in front of me, I suddenly feel a shudder in my head. I instinctively jump, but I wasn't quick enough, the tip of my foot hits a rock and I go flying over, falling face first into the ground. Clearly not sleeping for three days and nights have me moving a bit slow. I get up but the footsteps of my dogs have now disappeared into the trees,

"Knash... Indy!"

Nothing. After a few more minutes of silence I begin to panic as the quiet continues. Putting my hands together into a triangular shape I let a familiar energy flow through my fingers into one another focusing solely on my dogs and what they where tracking, closing my eyes as the warmth becomes ever-present, coursing through my body. I see a warm light growing stronger from behind my eye lids. And then I heard it, a bark coming just to the right of me about half a mile into the forest. And so I set off at a sprint.

I must've been running for about ten minutes before the tress started to thin and light returned to my view, the moon now viewable through the trees. I found my dogs, they where crouched behind a bush just to the side of a lake. The moon, now at its highest point, glittering off the lake's surface. In the middle however, was the head of a night creature slowly sinking down into the lake. After a few moments it disappeared, with nothing but a few bubbles left on the water surface.

'Shit,' I thought to myself, 'where did they go... and how do I get in there...?'

I walked to the edge of the water and, kneeling down, I stuck my hand into the water. But before I had even fully submerged a finger, I got an ice cold sting running up my body, as if someone had just briefly frozen my insides. I jumped back from the lake. 'So its impossible for me go in without being frozen alive,'

My dogs were now circling the lake on opposing sides, Indy with his pure brown coat on the left, Knash with his black coat with small white spots on the right.

'This could only have been done by a sorcerer...' Disturbed, I thought to myself, if all this was the work of a sorcerer then I'd definitely received less money than I should have. 'Surely she couldn't have created the night creatures, no sorcerer had created them for a hundred years, since the purge of their race... unless... no,' I pushed that thought out of my mind, I had one job to do, track down this herd and destroy them. Suddenly, I heard a bark come from Indy, his nose was directed towards the ground and he was pawing something within the dirt. Once I reached him, I pulled back a bunch of bush leaves to reveal a small stone. Unsure of whether it is the right thing I pick it up. Almost immediately at my touch, the stone turns blue wherever my fingers are on it. I flip it around in my hand and notice an engraving, a line down the middle with two curved lines protruding from the top of the first, 'A masking stone'.

This means some sort of sorcerer was definitely involved. I now hold the rock between my two palms. Closing my eyes I concentrate all my energy on the masking stone. As I start to feel that warm familiar feeling I focus on it, pushing it towards the stone, my hands now tingling. I then hear a small fizzling sound and I open my eyes - the markings on the stone were now glowing blue. Almost immediately the water started to swirl downwards in a vortex, leaving a basin of dirt and mud, except after a few minutes, the water seemed to have gathered at the very bottom. But it was now glowing and swirling inwards, yet no more of it disappeared. I grab a nearby piece of wood and throw it in, instead of rising back up to the surface like it would in normal water, it goes straight in and I lose sight of it the moment it's fully submerged. 'Gods!' I motion to Indy and Knash and all three of us jump into the swirling blue.

We landed face first onto a soft mushy piece of ground, like a swamp, my dogs quickly scrambled up. I take a little bit longer to get up, but as I do, I notice Indy whining and pointing his nose towards Knash. Across his left shoulder was a cut, but it was unlike any cut I'd ever seen. It was green around the sides and the blood pouring out, although it was red in colour, left a dark blue stain along his coat.

'Shit, what the fuck caused that,' I rush over to him and start stroking his head placing my other hand over the cut, visualising it sealing itself. Clearing my mind, I had never been good at healing spells, but now wasn't the time to think about that. I sense that familiar feeling coursing through my arms, projecting out of my palms and into my dog. Only about thirty seconds had passed before I felt a wet tongue on my face and I opened my eyes to see Knash attacking my face with his tongue and his tail wagging. 'Thank god,' I thought to myself breathing a sigh of relief.

Only now however, did I see where we were, I was standing on ground that felt squashy and almost bouncy underfoot, but it was a deep colour of purple. Around me was an endless void of that same colour, looking as if it carried on forever and ever without an end. The strangest part of all this however was the church in the middle of all of this, standing all alone. Its white exterior shinning like a beacon through the fog. 'A spectral plane,' This meant I was dealing with not just night creatures, but a powerful sorcerer. Never have I come across something like before, 'Definitely should have asked for more money.'

I walk up to the small little church, its candles glimmering in the fog. My dogs walking beside me now hunched over bearing teeth, 'They must be able to sense something,' I instinctively put my hand to the hilt of the short sword on my waist. When we get to the door Indy and Knash show only their teeth, and a massive booming voice comes out of the fog, "HUNTER!" The ground began to tremble with a thick layer of fog obscuring my vision of the purple way around me,

"YOU DARE COME TO MY HOME, COME AFTER MY CREATURES," the voice was ear splintering, like it was coming through every bit of fog around me, "YOU WILL DIE HERE!"

All of a sudden the fog cleared and revealed a whole horde of night creatures encircled around me, the church now having disappeared completely from the landscape. My dogs were growling and bearing their teeth in every direction, my short sword raised. Suddenly my dogs are barking incredibly loud and I felt a ripple through my head, behind. I turned around just in time to see that behind me was a giant night creature, the size of one and a half men, with a human like figure except for bat wings protruding from his back and the lack of a head. It was holding a spear with two other blades coming from the top of it. Drawing back its weapon in a big arch, bringing it down towards my body. I hit the floor instinctively and as soon as I felt it pass just above me, I shot upwards, driving my sword into the knees of the creature, and then just as they were trained to do, my dogs grabbed both sides of its neck, sinking their teeth in and pulling the flesh and bone out of the creature, allowing it to fall to the floor lifeless.

Out of the about the forty night creatures that remained, five stepped forward, all luckily from the same side. I put my other hand to my hips, gripping a tight leather handle. With one swift motion I bring my whip out from its holster, I then bring it backwards behind me, whilst at the same time throwing my short sword towards the central creature. As it leaves the tip of my fingers, I begin to bring the whip forwards. With a flick of my wrists, I bring it sideways towards the night creature. As I did so, the central one was hit directly in the face, with my sword becoming limp and lifeless. The others were hit in slashing motions, with the first one being stroked at the neck and the last one at the knees. At this point my dogs were already in full swing, dividing up the creatures between them that had fallen over and not been killed straightaway, either going for their heart or their neck, whichever was closer. I recalled my whip back with a single flick, leaving it just to the side of me. My dogs also ran back, Indy with the hilt of my sword in his mouth. After this however it became a free for all. Every single creature was now running towards us, scrabbling over one another to try and get there first. It quickly became a blaze of blood and noise. I was cracking my whip any which way, either dealing a deadly blow or one that stops them enough for my dogs to finish them off. Any that I missed I would then finish with my short sword, driving it up and through their heads after dodging nearly fatal attacks, the ripple in my head alerting me at all times. At one point I threw my sword up into the air, then I swung my whip towards the handle, the whip gripping the sword handle, bringing it down forcefully into the head of a creature and through its body, until it split into two halves.