Alone in the Dark

Double Trouble

It had been surprisingly easy for Nerini to remember how to track a target, combining her skills as a rogue with those she had learned as a child, hunting with her father.  She had been following the twins deeper and deeper into the woods, listening to them clamour through the trees that angled away from the road for a couple hours already, noticing the shadows getting long, and then finally starting to fade as the light started failing.

Cocoa became jumpy again, but he stilled under her hand, picking his way through the snow that was thinner this deep in the woods because of the tree cover.  Nerini was intent on the fact that Cocoa's ears were swivelling incessantly, as if the forest was alive with sounds that she could not hear.

The two boys ahead of her may have been trained by Keana, but were uncharacteristically oblivious to the danger they were wandering into. Nerini couldn't decide if they were just bad pupils of the rogue, or if they weren't as innocent as she had initially assumed. Grown men had died in groups, and the boys were unconcerned with the falling of night around them. Were they leading her into a trap? Had she judged Keana and his intentions wrong?

It was those doubts that kept her from stopping the two young boys and ordering them back to the village before dark.

And before she could get past those reservations, the sun finally fell to the night, which blanketed the forest in a sudden, smothering leap. With the darkness, an unnatural silence filled the woods. Nerini's lagging night vision reduced her world to a small bubble around her and her mount, who had become decidedly opposed to continuing forward. He pranced and sidestepped, his nostrils flaring as he shifted his attention to watch everything at once.

Nerini cursed silently to herself and her horse, urging Cocoa forward another couple steps just as a blood-curdling scream ripped through the woods and sent Cocoa into a rear. Nerini's horse spun on his rear legs and tried to bolt back the way they had come and she had just managed to turn him around, when a riderless horse streaked through the trees past them, screaming a sound that chilled her blood. Horses only screamed like that when they were mindless with terror.

The world slowed as her brain froze in panic, Nerini's eyes focusing on the flight of the horse through the darkness. It took every ounce of her self-control to turn back in the direction where the screams had come from.

"C'mon! Forward!" Nerini yelled as she forced Cocoa to plunge into the darkness, despite his well-honed self-preservation instincts.

It was a battle, but he charged through the woods, sending snow spraying around them. From the darkness that Nerini could not see through, a clearing came into focus, though what she was seeing made little sense to her rational brain.

A horse lay dead, its head and neck torn free of the body and scattered on either side of the clearing. One of the twin boys was curled into a ball on the ground, frozen in fright as his brother's body was ripped in half by what looked like a shadow come to life. The creature was half turned away from Nerini, gorging itself on the human blood and flesh, and did not notice her arrival. Its form twisted and shifted in the dark, though she could make out claws and the flash of teeth every so often.

Nerini tore her eyes away from the dark mass as she dismounted from Cocoa, who was eerily calm as he watched the monster. Nerini leapt over the corpse of the horse to gently pick up the scared boy, relieved to see that he was relatively uninjured. He tensed as she picked him up, but thankfully remained silent as she carried him back to Cocoa and threw him up into the saddle.

She paused then, to look back shadow monster. The creature remained distracted with what seemed to be its meal, though it scattered more blood around it into the snow than seemed to pour down its throat.

"Ride! Ride! Go to the inn, they'll know you and send help." Nerini whispered as she stepped backwards and settled herself to the idea that she would have to fight whatever this thing was.

Alone.

The boy didn't acknowledge that he heard her, his eyes distant with fear. Luckily Cocoa seemed to understand and bolted back towards the road that would take them to the village. Nerini didn't stop to watch their progress hoping beyond hope that there weren't more of these creatures out there to catch them. She had to believe that the creature was alone, and that boy would make it to safety. She wouldn't hold her breath that anyone would know or want to come to her aid if he made it, however.

She felt an odd peace, as if the constant pull and draw she had felt her entire life had finally stopped, bringing her here to face this monster. She felt released, free. Deep in her soul, Nerini knew that she had found what she had been hunting these past few weeks. Possibly longer.

With a wry grin, Nerini sent a throwing knife into the thing's side and settled her stance to prepare for the upcoming fight of her life. "Hey! Asshole!"

The shadow beast dropped the mangled remains of the second boy and spun, straightening to its terrifying height. It loomed at about twelve feet tall and though it sometimes appeared insubstantial, the creature's body was similarly proportioned to that of a well built human. Nerini could see a mouth that sometimes bared blood-stained teeth, though sometimes it would disappear back into the shadows of its form and she would lose track of its facial features.

Nerini shuddered as the glowing yellow eyes, which did not seem to stay in one place, turned to narrow sharply on her.

Nerini had barely managed to draw her swords when the creature attacked. Its movements were so quick that she didn't have time to react before it hit her violently. Large claws ripped through her leather armour as the force lifted her from the ground and threw across the clearing.

The pain running through her body was just starting when she a kick caught her mid-fall and lifted her body several feet. Like a helpless doll, Nerini felt a hand slash through the air and throw her against a tree. The monster moved with such devastating speed that her abilities counted for nothing.

This was how it had ripped apart Kannein's guards.

As a slow, cumbersome human, Nerini did not stand a chance.