The Sky Demons Part One: Journey

Prologue

Three girls are running through a forest of thick, dense trees, each of them carrying a weapon and a very heavy looking bag.

Serefk'na jogs to one side, her bedraggled white hair streams behind her and snags on the feathers of her slightly burnt wings. She takes a deep breath, and looks towards the friend leaning on her arm, the constant dark shadows of worry and fatigue on her face conflicting with the shine of her wide, mismatched eyes.

She almost trips up and pulls both of them to the floor, forcing her to quickly return her attention to the path before them and not the girl with the injured leg she is doing her best to support. There are many small scars running horizontally along the length of one of her cheeks, forming strange symbols that look something like characters in a runic alphabet and she rubs at the itchy scabs crusted over them with a free hand. Voices sound behind them and Serefk'na's wolf-like ears twitch nervously, one of her hands hesitantly gripping the crescent moon shaped hilt of the sword strapped to her waist.

As the voices call again, another quiet noise answers them: the scrape of steel against wood as Senka pushes herself away from Serefk'na and partially draws the hidden blade out of the star-decorated staff she is clutching. She totters slightly on her injured leg but recovers her balance and brushes sandy curls of hair out of her face to stare into the forest with narrow, dark eyes. She chants something barely audible in her quiet, but even voice. The forest shimmers for a moment and the voices yelling behind them go soft and then fall completely silent. She turns back in their direction, evading Serefk'na's outreached hand before she trips and curses, finding herself accepting the help anyway.

The third girl pushes them forward again from her position behind them, her double bladed scythe drawn and held ready to slash at anyone that reaches swiping distance. Tigre's bright yellow eyes blaze as fiercely as the sun that is emblazoned on each of the blades and her plumed, tigrish tail whips impatiently from side to side as she takes on the tasks of urging on the two in front of her and keeping an eye and a cat-like ear behind them.

Her carefully picked outfit is torn and her dark brown face is scratched from the fight she just flung her friends and herself into: the surprise attack against the town rangers before they could hit them first. Except that they hadn't been planning to hit them, turns out they hadn't known the girls were there. And there was a whole lot more of them than the three could cope with, hence the leg injury and almost immediate strategic retreat. Oops.

Serek'na huffs, her tail between her legs and wolfish ears pinned back as she hauls Senka's arm higher on her shoulder. "They're not going to let up, we can't outrun them like this Tigre!"

Tigre growls and grips her scythe harder, "We need some other way of getting away."

"There might be a spell," mutters Senka, "Serefk'na, try page 245 of the book. We'll lend you our ketan, you do the chant."

"R-right."

The girls stop, Serek'na flicking hurriedly through the pages of the book and almost missing the page.

"Ah, I see," Serek'na murmurs, " a spell only we would be capable of casting. They won't be able to follow us like this."

Hands joined, the girls begin chanting.

Behind them their pursuers sense that they have halted and dare to think that they have finally won, the outlaws that they have been pursuing have given up the fight, and for people like them to give up the fight- as far as the pursuers are aware- is to lose it forever without hope of help. Little do they know that their bounty has disappeared indefinitely and without a trace, perhaps never to be seen or heard of again. Perhaps.