Curse of the Jackalmen

Blood on the Riverbank

Not as shitty but still shitty.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and my stomach clenched in fear at the deep growl. My hands slid to loosen my knives from their sheaths. I snapped my eyes to the reeds that the growl had emitted from.

Without further warning, a black blur launched itself at me, tangled, we rolled down the bank, it leapt.off and I tumbled to a stop. Catching my breath, I snatched for my dirks, only to find one missing. I rolled sideways and saw it, lying on the sand just beyond my reach.

Despite my better judgement, I grabbed for it anyways. My hand predictably fell short, and before I could heave myself up to grab it properly, a clawed mass of flesh collided with me once more. A faint cry left my lips as I rolled into the shallows. I pulled my remaining knife ready and lunged at the monster.

The thing appeared just as it did in my nightmares. Spectrally foul, it had the same pointed snout, with sharp teeth bared. The snout sloped to a large forehead with all too human black eyes. The furred, triangular ears pointed straight ahead, probably listening to my panicked heartbeat. The neck was widened by a thick ruff, and a gold band akin to a collar wrapped about it. The body was lithe and muscular with little fat covering the lean flesh. Powerful limbs supported it, and a crescent tail swished behind. Gold bands wrapped around the base of the tail, above all four paws, and at the base of the muzzle.

It nimbley dodged my knife, the blade sliced through it's shoulder, and it raked its free paw across my exposed side. I hissed in pain as ruby beads of my blood splattered onto the ground. Its eyes seemed to laugh at my weakness. Kyrapatri's beating had not left me in peak condition.

I rolled onto my back, breathing far harder than I should have been. It lept at me again, but this time I was ready. I swung my knife into it's side behind the armpit. This would normally be a fatal blow, but these creatures were far from normal. It fell sideways, its breath coming in short pants. It was wounded, but no where near death. It had its eyes focused on something beyond my shoulder, with cautious foreboding I turned my head and met the eyes of another black-furred monster.

This new creature leapt swiftly at me, knocking me sideways, its gaping jaws hovering near my neck, a strand of salivia slowly oozed down onto my neck. I fought nausea as the warm slime trickled down, the foul scent filling the air. My brown eyes met the thing's black, and I moved.

I swung my knife up into the belly of the jackal like beast. It dropped its head and clamped it's jaws into my right shoulder, biting with its last energy while I gored its gut. Hot blood and fluids whose origin I had no interest in dripped onto my knife-wielding hand. I swung the blade wildly inside it, willing it to die before it ripped a chunk of my shoulder out. Luckily, it did. A chunk of intestine fell onto me as the jaws grip slackened and then disappeared entirely. Suddenly, all that was left was a quickly dissipating cloud of ink black smoke.

I heaved a sigh of releif and sat upright. Grimacing, I peered worriedly at my mangled shoulder. Red had created an expanding stain from the shoulder, the skin and exposed flesh throbbed. I cautiously lifted my other hand and probed with my fingers.

The other creature came silently up behind me and stabbed a claw as deep as it could into my side right above my left hip.

I had just made a possibly fatal mistake. Before I could react, the thing died and disappeared into smoke, leaving a four inch claw embedded in my side. Only then did the pain hit me. And it was more pain than I'd ever experienced before.

I completely forgot Hemite during my frolic with the other boys. I won nearly all our races, and beat many other boys at wrestling. My exploits kept me distracted until now. A faint cry drew my eyes to the bank. The sight that met them filled me with guilt.