A storm came in the evening which Crow thought would become more and more frequent in the mountains as the storm season progressed. The day had been long and Jack thought they might’ve gotten a good 10 miles in. The trip had been surprisingly dull, at one point Jack had found a wagon that was old and abandoned but Crow had said it wouldn’t make it out of the mountains and in a way Crow was right. So the day had been dull and now they camped under a mild rain and common thunder. The night drew down on them and after Crow ate, he slept.
They traveled for three days without any disturbances from the Man Eaters and within that time, Ellis thought he might die of boredom. The mountains made him queasy he’d quickly found out and eventually he’d gotten tired of seeing nothing but the hot sky and the rough terrain.
But the three days past and then they were on their fourth day. It’d been a lot more stormy than usual and the entire sky had been grey. They were walking for maybe an hour when Crow signaled for them to stop and he’d ducked.
“Get down!” He snickered in a whispered muffle and the three behind him did so. The others fell into the crouch as by sight and hand signals. They had been prepared to enter a valley of sorts where there was lots of high ground and after Jack really stressed his eyes to see, lots of bones on the trail.
“The hell.” He murmured but Crow signaled him for silence. The impatience grew large as the fellowship stayed there for at least three hours and then Jack saw it, a peaking native’s head from the high ground. How many had there been? How many had been waiting for them this entire time. Jack’s mind raced but eventually got to the point where he was staring for another Native. Crow must’ve seen it because he suddenly had one of his crossbows in hand; resting on a stone and after another long expanse of time he’d aimed the crossbow.
“Gather your brothers and go to the right crevice with your weapons drawn and then tell the others to wait out the left side.” Crow glanced at Jack after a moment and then nodded to him. “GO.”
Jack went and Crow tested the wind with a toss of dust and glanced up at the stormy sky. Let there be few that die this day, he thought and it began.
The Man Eater stood, not like a man but like a beast, like a predator. His skin was painted with black tattoos that riddled down his toned muscles and a grim face looked through the rocks. His eyes met Crows and as two predators looked at each other across the valley of death, he screamed with a sudden fury. Crow shot and the cannibal dropped into the veil and screams erupted all around them! He sheathed the crossbow and drew two sharpened blades from their scabbards.
“AHHH!” He heard from the distance but Crow was scaling up a rock away from the screams! Two savages were beating their chests with tight fists, one of them scrawny and one of them with chunks of wood for muscles. In the surprise that his presence made, they both looked at each other, drew their weapons, which consisted of sticks with a bear claws and slivers pointing out of the ends of them, but they didn’t get a chance to attack with them. While they were picking up their weapons Crow had slit the scrawny one’s throat and before the strong one could get his weapon gripped just right, Crow was stabbing him in the gut over and over. Neither of them died before he was onto the next well of cannibals.
He trampled over hard rock quickly holding the forte of one of his blades above his shoulder and tossed it bluntly into the first of the natives that noticed him charging into the trench. He felt the wind of the blade and a gust of air blew through the area as soon as the blade struck into the cannibal’s chest. His face was filled with pure fury and then he was charging at Crow full speed with a short sword wobbling in his flesh but he had his own weapon drawn and- The cannibal was dead before Crow could slash him down. Jack was where Crow had entered the trench and had a fine crossbow aimed at dead man’s head. Crow stepped over the dead one to began slashing at the others, one after one of them fell limply at their feet, sometimes not so limply, sometimes tense and constricted, their hands out grasping at the fresh air they’d leave behind but it was no use because-gods-their legs were slashed off and hell, Jack had been the one to do it. One of them managed to lunge a dagger, crafted of obsidian, it was a blunt and dull thing that peeled into Jack’s calf flesh slowly and painfully without much precision but with force, so much force. Jack felt it and was immediately sloshing his blade in and out of the cannibal, hating him, gone mad for the little while before Crow clenched his shoulder. And after Crow clenched his shoulder all of it came back, his sanity of course.
Screams and the sounds of blunt sword swings hitting flesh came from the hills behind them the entire time this was happening. Every so often a Native would leap out and toss a few daggers which clanked past them or against what little armor they had on, leaving only mild bruises later but one had gotten Crow good in the arm and when Jack thought he’d scream in pain, Crow had tore the dagger free and suddenly it was in between the Native’s Pecs and when he tried to yank it out he’d screamed instead of extracted it and then Jack shot him with the crossbow and he’d fallen bluntly into the trench from his spot on the rock above. Arrows flew into their trench after a while but with no real accuracy, none that Crow feared and so it was none that Jack feared. The ranks of the untrained and shaky Cannibals were surprisingly weak, Jack thought as he looked back at the trail of dead or near dead bodies.
“Stay at my side Jack.” Crow snickered and he did. They were crossing through the rocks at the opposite side, where the valley ended and you could reach the other trench. Silence now came and all the two of them could hear was the quiet rain and the occasional clashing of weapons in the entrance of the valley.
“For Mors!” A cry began but it was from the wrong direction! Crow turned but not before Jack did. A spear was being thrusted towards him in the hands of a crazed Man Eater and without much thought about what they couldn’t do, Crow did just about the only thing he could do. His hands grasped Jack’s shirt and tossed the Baxter into a decline where rocks became a slope of grass and weed. He screamed as he fell but Crow was moving the spear as it jet past him and pushing a knife, past the thin layer of skin and into the Cannibal’s guts. He didn’t scream or cry out but only fell off the knife and dropped the spear. Crow took the spear in his spare hand and let it fly into the Native directly behind him who was almost to the ready point of assassinating Crow. It crunched into his chest and he flew backwards with it. Another stepped past him and averted Crow’s strong stab and was instantly in Crow’s face holding the hunter’s neck in one hand and a knife in his other. He didn’t hesitate; the stabs went in and out of Crow’s arms which were desperately trying to keep the blade away from going into his core. He eventually caught the hand doing the stabs and looked the cannibal in the eyes as he turned the blade on him and Crow’s nostrils flared as he took the knife, still in the native’s hands and plunged it in and out of ishhis
his arms which were trying to protect his core as well but Crow felt the blade pierce the savage’s stomach once and saw the Native’s eyes grow wide. And then he took the Native’s arms and threw him off the decline but his fall landed on a piercingly long drop into rock! Crow turned, breathing heavily and feeling the sting, that awful sting in his arms where the flesh had been torn open and blood now drenched his sleeves. He was weak but ready for anymore to come.
None did and when none did, he vomited over the edge where he had heard the crunch of his foe hitting the ground. Blood began seeping from his eyes, his nose, his mouth and even his ears. He slumped against the edge of the rock and felt the piercing red veins return within his arms and- That’s when the last of the Native’s crawled out wielding a shredded edged axe, he was just a boy. He screamed as he jumped at Crow whom was feeling the full effects of the disease at the time and used all his strength to catch both of the boy’s wrists. He was yelling all of the sudden, not the boy but Crow, with a fierceness that bled out all of the pain in his arms and he took the hand not holding his axe hand but the other and snatched one of the many stones from a crevice below him as the boy began to punch Crow’s jaw with his now free hand and then began to work at Crow’s other hand to fully free him and then the much older Demon Hunter slapped the stone over the kids head.
The strength fell out of Crow as fast as the stone fell out, which it flew with the boy as he fell over. He didn’t know if the boy was still alive or not but what he did know was that he hurt.
Crow felt the red veins climb up his neck and around his upper throat and then eventually to his lips and that’s where they finally stopped. He could hear the others calling when he finally went unconscious, calling out for Crow, but not only Crow, for Jack.
YOU ARE READING
THE LAST GATEKEEPER
FantasíaDeath is the omen that follows Crohan. Not the heart changing of Greed or the deceit of Envy but Death which arrives for all of his companions and none of him.
