For Random Adventure

On a Cursed Road

Genre(s):
Fantasy (Adventure)

Written for:
Prompt 14 (Feb 24, 2017) of "Contests" by Fantasy_Community

Additional Guidelines:
3000 words or fewer, reference to a headwear item with a black feather, reference to kintsugi (Japanese pottery repair)

Due By:
March 12, 2017 at 11:59pm EST

Status:
Completed; Presently unjudged

Final Word Count:
2663

- The Story Itself -

The frozen rain gnawed at Gida's hood as she stumbled through the wind. The front of her robe clung tight to her breasts, crackling and stabbing her with its frosty shell.

The young witch tensed and arched her fingers like usual, but her magic had long since faulted. More accurately, her stupid amulet broke. The evil ice cracked it right down the middle, and the magic it held had flown away with the wind.

She braced herself against the storm, hoping it wouldn't blow her off her feet again. The dark woman ducked behind yet another burial mound, shivering this time not from the cold, but the chill. More than once on her journey, the graves had come to life.

Gida gripped a dagger to her chest with nearly-numb fingers, praying she wouldn't need to use it again, but she heard only the loud clank of ancient armor as response.

She should have known better, really. The people of Epskia called it the Cursed Road for a reason.

The silver blade sang in high-pitched bell-tones as Gida held it between the corpse and herself with a chant of power dribbling off her near-frozen tongue. "By Bequna, I swear it! By Açura, now kneel! No further shall you come to me, lest chains you shall feel!"

Of course, the undead have a way of seeing through a sworn heretic, even one so well-versed in the Writ as Gida Dorezi. The dead man lunged at her, and his frozen fingers narrowly missed her face as she drove the dagger into his throat using his own momentum.

The beast's armor rang like bells as he thrashed against the searing burn of purified metal. Gida's nimble arm twisted away from her body, and the bonewalker's heavy form went slack when the blade finally sliced through his spine.

The exhausted widow backed up quickly as her attacker-turned-victim fell to the snow, but she almost felt sorry for him. He was no different from she, once upon a time. Both were doomed to walk a cursed road toward their only redemption. Both had faced the same storm and the same monsters. The only difference was that Gida had prepared better.

She huddled along the edge of the cairn, unable to pull her black eyes from the body. He couldn't move; she had made sure of that much.

But he wouldn't die, either. He couldn't, with her there to feed his body with her spirit.

She forced her gaze ahead, readjusting herself to the all-too familiar scenery. In the storm, it was nearly impossible to know which direction she was actually going. Her footprints had vanished under the snowfall, forcing her to reenact the fight in reverse just to reorient herself.

Gida huddled her cloak tighter around herself and walked in a direction she wished was north. The Cursed Road had been designed with the express purpose of keeping people away, and it did its job well.

Maybe a little too well.

When she reached the next fork, she swallowed a handful of snow to ease her parched throat and tried to trust her instincts. There were fewer burial mounds down the left path, but the other way called out to her body.