A Master Is Born

Untitled Part 5

                                                                V

The flames are like shape-shifting fingers. Reds and oranges and bleary yellows tongue at the sky, as the black smoke curls. The wood trappings crumble, the doors are bashed and the windows shattered. The men fight valiantly but they lose. They are outnumbered. They are unprepared. They know not what to do.

The women and children can only cower, and scream. They struggle to stay silent but the dark figures rushing in always seem to win. They rip through cupboards, kick in doors, and toss aside furniture and beds. They yank the children, the women, whoever is innocent and helpless, and they kill them. Some they set on fire, laughing as their bodies contort in pain. Others, are held up and slit across the neck, the blood spurting until their dangling feet go still.

One woman, impossibly beautiful and cornered, is saved for last.

                                                                         #

The darkness was shredded by screams.

Roscoe sprung from his dream, already sweating, his heart jacked. He could make out loud voices in the adjacent rooms of the inn.

Leaping from bed, he looked to the side. The room was empty—Jeremiah had never returned.

Throwing on his pants and shirt, Roscoe quickly located his beloved book and stuffed it into his pocket. He was already in the hallway a second later, shooting looks down both directions of the candlelit floor, when it happened.

He froze. The noises that pierced his ears were not normal noises. They did not come from the building, but from the outside, like the screams. But unlike the screams, they were not human.

"This way," came a voice from his left. Roscoe turned to see a small, robed figure moving toward him. The hood was up, hiding the bowed head, but the white drab with the strange symbols was enough to tell...a magite's attire.

They rushed down the stairwell and into the lobby, where there should have been people. But there was nobody. Roscoe breathed. Except, there was somebody. There were many bodies. They were sprawled on the ground, mangled, bloodied, some unrecognizable.

Roscoe gulped as the stench and sight made him shake. He had left his sword upstairs.

"Wait," came the voice.

Ahead, the massive horned wolf was trembling in the corner, its razor teeth borne like a trap of blades. It stilled for a moment, with its malformed bones practically bursting through the flesh. A black, viscous fluid descended from its gums.

"Don't move," Roscoe whispered.

The creature seemed to pause, its head turning as if to consider his words.

But then it roared. That tortured, strangulated roar. And then it stormed, forward and fast as Roscoe yelled, before the scantily lit room exploded with an incandescent light.

Roscoe was blown back as the thunderclap hit the air. The fenris went down. It rolled on the floor, its sharp talons skittering, before it burst through the front door and into the night.

"That was... you," Roscoe breathed. His chest was tight. He climbed to his feet as he appraised the small figure with the wizard drab. "What.." he gasped, "in the world was... that?"

The figure nodded and pulled loose the hood. Roscoe felt his heart do a jump. It was the girl, the beautiful one from earlier. Her hair was shoulder length and shining, its brightness rivaled only by the glow in her eyes. She smiled, ever demurely, as she raised her right hand. Her fingers still tingled with milk-white flares.