Terry Simpson - Etchings of Power

“No, these two had nothing to do with this,” said Innkeeper Callan who stepped out from the back door. The pear-shaped man shouldered his way through the guards. “They were upstairs when the screams began.” His eyes shifted when he looked at the body on the ground, and he wrung his hands before wiping them on his soiled apron.

The pit-faced guard strode by Ancel and Mirza, water swirling around his boots. He sheathed his sword and signaled to another soldier. Together, they flipped the merchant’s body over.

Ancel shivered more from the sight than the cold rain beating down on him. He’d never seen such terrible wounds before. Entrails hung out, and steam rose from the corpse. The man’s face was an unrecognizable mess. Not even Charra could do such damage.

“Seize those young men,” the old guard ordered, his voice drowning out the rain.

Rough hands snatched Ancel from behind. He twisted, and a fist as hard as a brick struck him on the side of his face, and his sword clattered onto the cobbles. Stars danced in his vision coupled with the ground rushing to meet him. Before he could muster a coherent thought, he found himself struggling to catch his breath as a boot mashed his back and kept his face pinned into a rancid puddle among the broken cobbles. His eyes stung from the bilge. Sputtering to catch a breath served to fill his nostrils and mouth with the foul smelling and even worse tasting runoff.

A loud growl echoed in the alley.

From somewhere in his stupor, Ancel heard the frantic cries of the guardsmen. He thought he recognized Danvir’s deep bellow. Was that the sound of steel clashing against steel?

As Ancel regained his senses, the man above him cursed. The weight of the boot against Ancel’s back lifted. Retching up the filthy water, he crawled to his knees. Sure enough, the metal clang of swords and the shouts and grunts of exertion sounded all around him. Mixed in were moans, plaintive cries and Charra’s snarls and growls.

Head down, eyes still stinging, Ancel could just make out armored legs stumbling about. He reached out blindly along the ground until he felt his sword hilt, then he struggled to his feet. Lightning flickered, brightening his surroundings. Thunder rumbled and drowned out the noise of the rain drumming against the slate roofs and pattering on the cobbles.

Danvir and Mirza, swords in hand, stood over the bodies of two dead guardsmen. Charra cooed next to two others, their armor pierced in over a dozen places by his bone hackles, their blood pouring like the deluge.

The daggerpaw’s gaze was locked on a slim figure dressed in clinging gray pants and a shirt. A black cloak hung limp as the person inspected the corpses of the other soldiers. Honey colored hair spilled down the figure’s shoulder and back. There was no mistaking the dual short swords that seemed to drink the light from the alley’s lamps.

The bells of the Streamean temples tolled.

Lightning skittered across the sky once more, casting the alley into daylight for several heartbeats. The killer turned to them.

Sword held out before him, Ancel edged closer to Charra. How didn’t I recognize those eyes earlier?

“Come,” Kachien said, sheathing her black weapons. “We have to leave now if you wish to live.”

Ryne Shimmered across the field.

Decades had passed since he last used this ability. So much so that he’d almost forgotten the rush it brought. Every time he Shimmered, it felt as if he stood at the edge of a precipice and flung himself into the depths. His stomach clutched with the sudden falling sensation. The light beam where he would land pulled until it swallowed him, and they became one. To a person without the power to see, he would vanish and reappear at the location he targeted. To those who could see, he simply moved at blinding speed.

“Go! Kill, tear, maim, destroy. The world is at your fingertips. Take them, they deserve death. They killed yours. You kill theirs. One good turn…” On and on the deep voice droned whenever his Scripts drew in more Mater, the energy caressing his ears with vengeful whispers.

His head filled to the brim with the words as his body embraced the need to kill. The voice built into song. A chaotic opera with blaring instruments playing a rousing rhythm. Sakari had named it his kill craze, and rightly so. Ryne cackled with the thought. A maniacal sound he didn’t recognize as his own voice.

The second voice attempted to find purchase, but this time it gibbered. “No. Calm yourself. Harmony. Seek it. Calm. Kill only if you must. Draw back, peel away. Subdue the power of the Scripts.”

Ryne sneered. He slammed his thoughts shut against the second voice’s pleas.

Heat exploded from him like the mouth of a volcano, an insane cackle erupting from him once again.

A grin splitting his features, he reached the middle of the field and spun to face his pursuers. He’d yet to meet man or beast who could hold onto Mater longer than he could without losing their sanity or dying from the pressure on their mind and body. The languishing shadelings proved no different.

Across the myriad copses, rutted trails and open fields, the shadelings now ran instead of Blurring. As expected, with their long leaps and bounds, the wraithwolves had separated themselves from the darkwraiths in the long chase. They continued to open the distance, so lost in their own murderous frenzy they no longer ran as a pack.

The first beast leaped across the trail to Ryne’s field. Ryne Shimmered to the wraithwolf before it landed in the knee-high grass.

He drew his sword with his right hand. The Scripts triggered. Light raced down the blade as if a fire chased fuel, and the sword rose in a backhanded slice to meet the leaping wolf.

Green eyes winked out as the creature’s head parted from its shoulders. Before the slice reached the highest point, Ryne was already drawing the weapon down and sheathing it. The wraithwolf’s flesh dissipated like ash blowing on the wind, the powdery substance never reaching the ground, the smell of roasted meat filling the air.

The next wolf gained the field. Ryne repeated the same attack. With each kill, the pressure from his kill craze eased a miniscule amount. Clouds scudded across the sky as the sixth wraithwolf managed to land among the grass while Ryne was finishing off the fifth.

Black fur ruffling with the wind, the shadeling bounded through the grass, muscular arms and legs pumping, its eyes ablaze, snarls issuing from its gaping jaws. Ryne relaxed as the beast drew shade, Blurred, and emerged within reach of him. Hot breath and froth from the shadeling’s maw brushed Ryne as its jaws snapped. Long, poisonous claws slashed.

Ryne stepped around the attack, and within the same motion, he called on the Scripts of the twin moons. His arm flashed up in a circular motion and back down, the move mimicking the shape of the moons. The wraithwolf’s left arm went flying into the night followed by a pained scream from the monster. Ryne sheathed his greatsword.

The shadeling retreated, circling him tentatively. Ryne dropped his sword arm, inviting it in, and the wraithwolf took the bait. It Blurred once again, swiping and snarling at his right side.

This time, Ryne pictured dust swirls carried on the wind and moved with his Scripts. He spun beyond the slashing claws in a full rotation. His sword came out and up. The strike lopped off the creature’s right arm. The wraithwolf mewled in terror with the loss of two limbs as it stumbled forward and fell, the acrid aroma of its burnt flesh rising in smoky wisps.

As the twin moons cleared the clouds, their silvery surfaces illuminating the field, the wraithwolf struggled up onto its legs. Smoking stumps were all that remained of the arms. No blood flowed from the wounds. Ryne’s lips twisted into a hideous smile with the knowledge that the cauterized wounds wouldn’t allow any living appendage to grow back.