Suddenly, it was all too much for Kat, and she began to cry tremendous choking sobs as her tears streamed down her soot-smeared face.
"What was that, Elysia?" asked the harsh voice from somewhere nearby.
Kat choked back sobs as stealthy footsteps approached. Something blotted out the sunlight streaming into her hiding place, and she looked up at the face of a girl framed by long black hair and wearing a pair of cat ears, who stared back at her with eyes with vertical pupils which, Unlike the evil eyes of a beastman, they reflected nervousness, weariness, and for some reason, disappointment. Kat found herself staring at the sharp point of a long sword, the blade etched with faint marks.
"Come out slowly" said the unknown girl, whose soft and educated voice was then cold and without a trace of mercy.
Kat crawled out into the daylight, realizing that she was near death at the time.
She stood up and saw that the girl was much taller than her and was dressed like a bandit. A faded wool cloak was thrown back to free her right arm and shoulder, where she handled the gun. Her clothes were stained, patched, and travel-worn, and her tall leather boots were cracked and scuffed. The girl looked around her with a nervous wariness, which seemed usual for her.
"She's just a girl," she yelled over her shoulder. "Perhaps a survivor."
The figure that lumbered into view beyond Mr. Hof's bakery was, in its own way, as terrible as the beasts had been. He was a Nord, but one who bore little resemblance to the merchants she had met at the inn.
His height was enormous, he was the tallest man Kat had ever seen, the bandit girl barely reached her chest; The Norseman was very stocky, perhaps as stocky as Jan the blacksmith had been, and certainly more muscular. With a hand as big as a ham, he held the largest sword she Kat had ever seen. His body was covered in an imposing armor of black plates edged with silver at the joints; Unlike the demon-like black armor of the woman he had seen the night before, the Norseman's black armor gave him an aura only a champion could boast.
What Kat had before her was, a legend, a being taken from a myth, the protagonist of a story, a dark hero.
The dark hero gave him a fierce belligerent look. His person was surrounded by an aura of barely contained power, which was desperately frightening, and he did not manifest the fear that was evident in her mate.
"What happened here, girl?" she demanded sharply, and her voice sounded like two stones had been rubbed against each other.
Looking at the slit in the helm where the dark hero's eyes were presumably located, she watched as an inhuman red flash was released. Kat couldn't think of a reply, and the catgirl touched her shoulder gently.
"What's your name?" she inquired in a kinder tone.
“Kat. katherine. It was the beasts. They came out of the forest and killed them all. I hid, and they left me alone.”
Kat found herself babbling the story of her encounter with the beastmen and the woman in black armor to the utter amazement of the two adventurers. The moment she finished, the dark hero gave her a weary look. Her intimidating posture had softened a bit.
"Do not worry child. You are safe now.” I declare the dark hero.
♦ ♦ ♦
"I don't like these trees." Frei said. “They make me want to take them down with sword strikes.”
Nervously, Elysia looked into the shadowy forest. On all sides they were surrounded by huge melancholy trees, ominous presences, whose branches joined at the top of the path, entwined like the fingers of a giant in prayer; they blotted out the sun to such an extent that only a single shaft of light illuminated the path before them. Moss covered the branches, and the scaly bark on the trunks resembled the dried skins of dead snakes. There was a stillness as old as the primeval forest around them, broken only by sporadic movement in the bushes. The sound spread through the silence until it faded as mysteriously as ripples on the surface of a lake, and here, in the ancient and evil heart of the forest, not a bird dared to sing.
Elysia was forced to admit that she agreed with Frey, that she had never really liked the woods, that these forest lands were frightening places for her, home to beastmen, trolls, and nightmarish creatures from the darkest legends, in addition to the place to which those who had the mark of darkness were banished. Deep inside her, she had always imagined werewolves and witches dwelling, and fierce fights between mutants and other followers of the Evil Powers.
Up ahead, Frey jumped over a log that had fallen across the path, then turned to help Kat climb over it and lifted the girl easily with one hand.
Elysia stopped before the obstacle seeing that she was rotten and stained by a strange fungus. Segmented insects scuttled across the surface, blindly burrowing into the foul-smelling mold. Catgirl shivered at the feel of the wet wood as she placed her hand on the log to jump. As her boots nearly slipped on the damp moss on the other side, she had to reach out to keep her balance, and as she did so, she touched her fingers to a spider web that stretched between the lower branches; she quickly withdrew her hand and tried to brush the sticky substance from her skin.
No, Elysia had never liked the woods. She had hated the summers when her owner's family retired to their manor house in the woods, and she had loathed the pine-walled house surrounded by the forest land from which the raw material for the wood-making business was derived. cars and boats that the owner's family had. During the day she wasn't too terrible if she didn't stray too far from the buildings, but at night her ever-overactive mind populated even the open farmland with monstrous denizens; the goblins and demons of her mental creations found a perfect home under the swaying branches of the trees.
She both envied and pitied the fur-clad lumberjacks who tended the estate. She envied her bravery because she saw them almost as heroes facing the terrors of an untamed land, and she pitied them for having to live constantly on guard. It had always seemed to her that anyone who had to dwell in a settlement situated within the forest lived in the most precarious environment she could imagine.
She remembered that she used to go to the window of her room and look at the greenery that she imagined stretched out to the very end of the world, to those wastelands where the loathsome followers of the dark gods roamed. The strange noises and the clouds of fluttering moths attracted by the lights in the house did nothing to lessen her concern. She was a city slave, an urban scion for whom getting lost in the woods was a nightmare, a recurring one on those long nights.
Elysia stopped in her tracks and sniffed the air, then glanced at Frey, who tilted his head questioningly. The cat girl gestured for her to be quiet, causing Frey to frown as if he was concentrating to better perceive a distant sound.
Frey knew that the catgirl's senses of hearing and smell were better than his, and he waited expectantly, but Elysia shook her head and started off again. Elysia was noticeably nervous, that was obvious.
What they had seen that morning justified anyone's fear, since it indicated that these forests harbored powerful enemies of humanity, and Kat's account confirmed it. Elysia looked down at her hands and saw that they were shaking.
Elysia considered herself a strong woman, but what she had witnessed in the fallen city was enough to make even the strongest tremble.
Something had ravaged Kleinsdorf like an angry giant would an ant mound, and the little town had been ravaged with terrifying malevolence and thoroughness. Not a single building had been left untouched by the attackers, and none of the inhabitants had survived except Kat. The sheer senseless brutality had stunned her.
In that place she had seen things that she knew she would see again in her nightmares. A bonfire raised in the town square, on which skulls were piled; charred ribs, sticking out of the hot ash like unconsumed branches. A sickening smell of burning meat had filled her nose, and she had tried not to lick her lips for fear they might contain windblown ashes.
She had been left stunned in the silence and desolation of the ruined city, where everything around her was ash gray or sooty black, except for the few fires still burning here and there. She had jumped in alarm when the roof had collapsed on the devastated town wall, something that had seemed like a grim omen. She felt like a tiny atom of life in an endless desert. Slowly, in small fractions, her memory of that moment had carved itself into his memory.
High on the hill stood the castle, its fire-blackened walls like a stone spider clinging to the summit with withered rock feet. At the opening left by the shattered door, men dangled on the ends of ropes like flies caught in a single-stranded web. The village below seemed like the playground of demonic children, giant idiots who had grown bored with their toy town and reduced it to splinters.
The street was strewn with small objects, like a broken pitchfork whose teeth were smeared with dried blood; a bell that was half melted among the ruins of a crumbling temple; a child's rattle and a smashed crib; some printed pages of an Unfinished Book floating in the breeze; traces of bodies dragged through the dirt of the streets that led to the central bonfire; a beautiful dyed dress, that nobody would wear anymore, thrown in the street; a human femur that someone had split open to suck out the marrow.
The catgirl had seen the effects of violence before, but never on such a colossal scale and never in such senseless stupidity. Even the carnage at Fort Von Deyl had been due to a battle waged by forces with specific reasons. However, what she saw before her was a massacre; she had heard of such things, but facing the stark reality was a very different thing. Making sure such things really happened, she had scared her. How could any of the gods allow such a thing?
She was also unsettled by the fact that Kat had survived. Looking at the girl walking before him with slumped shoulders, filthy hair, and soot-stained clothing, he wondered how her life could have been spared. That didn't make any sense either; Why had she alone of all the inhabitants of that sleepy community saved her life?
Was she a corrupt offspring, a slave to the Darkness leading them to their deaths? Were she and Frey escorting an evil being to the next set of victims? In a normal situation, she would have dismissed such a thought as utterly ridiculous; it was obvious that she was just a frightened child, that she had had the good fortune to survive when others had died.
Yet here, in the gloom of the deep forest, it was easy to entertain such suspicions. The stillness and silence of the environment affected the nerves, and engendered mistrust of strangers.
Only the dark hero seemed unperturbed; he walked boldly while avoiding the roots that clung to the trees and that emerged threatening to trip him, while his comfortable walk devoured kilometers.
Frey moved with extraordinary stealth for someone so stocky and stocky; somehow, he gave the impression that he was in his element among the shadows of the forest, for he seemed taller and sharper. In no case did he stop; instead, Elysia stopped to look at the undergrowth whenever she heard movement or detected a strange smell. Frey seemed quite confident in his ability to stand against any threat.
The catgirl sighed as she recalled the arguments she had had to use to prevent Frey from further investigating the remains of the city. At least the girl had provided a useful excuse to move on and find a safe place to find shelter for herself. It had been that and the possibility that the creatures were on their way to the next town that had convinced Frey.
Elysia stopped, obeying some hidden instinct, and completely still, she strained her ears to hear anything that was out of the ordinary. She, perhaps, was nothing more than her imagination, but it seemed to her that the very stillness of the forest constituted a threat. She hinted at the presence of ancient evil beings waiting for the opportune moment, waiting for their victims. In those long shadows she could stalk anything, and she knew something was watching them.
She was starting to cool down. A slight darkening of the gloomy surroundings indicated that night was falling on the bed of leaves, and catgirl turned to look over her shoulder, afraid of silence, but even more so of sounds that indicated pursuit. When she looked ahead again, Frey and Kat had disappeared around a bend in the path. Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled, and she hurried to catch up.
The catgirl looked up at Frey, who was in front of her, sitting against the trunk of a fallen tree and staring into the depths of the fire; he watched the flickering flames as if he could divine some mysterious truth in them. His hands played idly with the flints he used to light the fire; lit from below, the severe angles of his face seemed as roughly carved as the granite wall of a cliff. The oscillations of the fire made the shadows chase each other across her cheeks. The light reflected off the pupil of her eyes, which shone with inhuman sparkles like a star. Beside him lay Kat, motionless and breathing regularly, apparently asleep on Frey's crimson cloak which was spread out on the ground.The sight of Frey taking care of Kat brought a strange question to Elysia's mind. What would Frey be like as a father? If they had children, how would he treat them?Frey felt Elysia watching him, and she looked up at him."What's troubling you, Elysia?"Catgirl av
"You have failed, my love," said Salthor, a Demon Lord in the service of Baal, the dark god of Wrath, despair, and vengeance, calmly. He looked at her through her usurped eyes, and Jasmine felt a shudder run through her to the core of her being.She backed away, for he was well aware of the punishments her patron could inflict on him when he was displeased. Instinctively, her fingers closed around the ruby hilt of her black warsword. She shook her head and her great mane of white-streaked black hair ruffled. She felt helpless. Even though she had a small army of beastmen at her service, she knew there was nothing they could do to help her. In the presence of her boss, no one could help her, no one. She was glad that the old beastman shaman, Grind, and his acolytes had withdrawn beyond the Altar when she finished the invocation, for she did not wish to have witnesses to her defeat."Everyone in the village is dead, as we both decided" she lied, knowing it was useless.
Jasmine made her way through the throng of her followers to take her place on the carved wooden throne, and once on it she rested the bare sword across her on her legs and faced the mightiest of the ranks. horde. The sword was to all present a reminder of how she ruled, a naked symbol of her power. She had the favor of the Baal, the dark god of Wrath, despair and revenge; and the expression of that favor was the power she wielded. The beastmen might not like her, but they would have to put up with her until one of them, according to her early code, could best her in single combat. And none would challenge her if she had any sense, for they all knew of Salthor's prophecy, made when she was promoted to the ranks of the Demonic Knight. They all knew what the demon had said: that no warrior would ever defeat her in combat. They had all witnessed that truth, though they were beastmen anyway, and defying their leader was an instinctive purpose for them.That night she almost wished
“Wake up, Elysia! Something is coming!”Elysia came out of her doze, her mind still cluttered with remnants of haunting dreams, shaking her head to clear it, her neck and back aching from lying on the cold forest floor. The chill had broken through the insulation provided by the leaves of the trees and drained the strength from her body. She got slowly to her feet, rubbed her sleepy eyes, and, as quietly as she could, drew her sword and looked around her.Frey stood close to her, like a solid statue frozen in the dim light of the dying fire. The red glow of the embers reflected on the blade of the sword, and it seemed that the dark hero held a blood-painted weapon in his hands.Elysia looked up at the sky, and saw that the moon had almost set. Fortunately, dawn was not far off."What is it about?" she asked, but her voice caught in her throat and came out as a raspy whisper. She didn't need to see Frey's alert posture to know that something wa
Kat moved under the bushes. She didn't want to, but the fascination of horror made her look outside again. She knew that the beasts were coming, she could feel it, for the air carried the same sensation that she had felt the night before. She looked at her two benefactors of hers and felt sorry for them, because they were going to die. Although her appearance was frightening, they had tried to help her and they did not deserve the death that the beasts would give them.She looked at Elysia and saw that her beautiful features were torn between hopeless fear and savage exultation. She understood how that could happen, because she had felt the same way when Karl had driven his car too fast down the path full of sprouting roots; she was kind of itchy, excited, scared and happy at the same time. However, Elysia did not seem very happy, and that was the difference.The dark hero did look like it, as he laughed slightly in a psychotic way. Kat was sure that she had noticed hi
She was still alive. Elysia repeated that phrase to herself like a mantra.She had passed through the terror and out the other side, and her enemies, the monsters who had wanted to kill her, were dead. And she was still there to feel the sun, draw in her lungs, and watch Frey and Kat as they moved cautiously down the hill, putting their feet on the stones that protruded from the mud of the steep, slippery path.Her senses had been heightened and she felt more alive and energized than ever; it was as if she had leveled up. It was just a delight to be the sensation.Cobwebs glittered with drops of early morning dew, birds sang, and everywhere the bustle of life filled the forest. Small animals moved through the undergrowth, and Elysia paused to let a snake cross the path without making any attempt to kill it. That morning she had a clear notion of how precious and fragile life was.The fight with the beastmen had made him understand how precariously he clun
The arrow struck the trunk of the tree next to Elysia, and he stood there vibrating. The catgirl looked around with fierce eyes, sniffing the air and probing the tall grasses. Had the beasts come back to catch up with them? Why hadn't they just killed them?Elysia looked at the black feathers on the arrow's tail, and thought that the spear couldn't have belonged to a beastman, since it didn't look like the kind of weapon one of them would wield, and Kat hadn't mentioned seeing one armed with one. bow. Goosebumps rose at the threat of danger, and she strained her senses to see if she could hear anything; but all she heard was the wind in the branches of the trees, the song of the birds and the noise of the distant river."That was a warning shot," she yelled at them in a harsh, uneducated voice. "Don't come any closer."Upwind, Elysia thought. “The goalkeeper is upwind. Very professional." Her own thought had no doubt just occurred to Frey when he glared at
An old man sat cross-legged on a reed mat near the door of a log cabin, smoking a long curved pipe. He and a boy were playing checkers with pebbles on a board drawn in the dirt. He raised his eyes from the game and regarded Elysia with a woodsman's heightened suspicion of strangers, before blowing several columns of smoke rings into the air. Messner nodded to him, and the old man responded with an elaborate wave of his left hand. "Is he warding off the evil eye?" Elysia wondered. “or communicating something to the other through sign language?” He surveyed the small town with interest, paying special attention to the burly men carrying large two-handed axes. Their faces were covered in multicolored tattoos, and their eyes were narrow and watchful. They stomped through the muddy streets in their tall, fur-trimmed boots; they had the arrogant confidence of a champion of the Theocracy but without their distinguished chastity, for they sometimes stopped to gossip with the fat mer
“Take the sword!” Elysia yelled at him.But the stunned Frey was in no condition to heed the advice, and besides, he wanted to spill blood. He took an unsteady step toward Oleg, who was standing where he had left him, howling as he clutched his nose. Then, hearing Frey's staggering footsteps, she looked up and let out a tremendous bellow of anger and pain. He rushed toward his foe, crouching low and arms outstretched, intending to once again ensnare the dark hero in a deadly embrace. Frey remained where he was as the monster charged into a thunderous race towards him, as unstoppable as a runaway horse-drawn chariot.Elysia didn't want to look… The mutant was big enough to crush Frey, but she couldn't look away in horror.Oleg reached where Frey was. His massive arms began to close, but at the last second Frey ducked and dove between the monster's legs, then spun around and lashed out with the chain, which wrapped around the mutant's ankle. Fre
"Ulber?" I ask. Ulber Roger?"Do not call me that way!" The man's voice approached the scream. "Address me as 'Sir'.""Do you know this idiot?" Frei asked.Elysia nodded. Ulber Roger was a philosophy friend of Elysia's owner before the catgirl had murdered her mistress and escaped from her. He had been a quiet young man, very studious and could always be found in libraries according to his mistress. He had probably never exchanged more than a dozen words with her in the two years he had been friends with her mistress. He also remembered that Roger had vanished. There was a bit of a scandal… something to do with some missing library books, and he also remembered that some Inquisitors had shown interest."Stop!" Roger yelled at him in his thin, irritating voice. "You are my prisoners and you will do as I command for the remainder of your wretched lives."“Will we do as you bid us for the rest of our worthless lives?” Elysia looked
Elysia noticed that all the patrons were looking at the innkeeper strangely, as if he had spoken at the wrong time, or said something they had never expected him to say. But she dismissed that thought. Maybe they were just scared. Who wouldn't be with a servant of the Dark Powers housed in the castle that overlooked the town?“He is wicked like a dragon with a toothache. Isn't that right, Helmut?"The peasant the innkeeper had just spoken to froze in place like a rat staring at a snake."Isn't that right, Helmut?" the innkeeper repeated."It's not so bad," replied the farmer. "Considering how evil warlocks are.""Why don't you storm the castle?" Frey asked, and Elysia thought that if the dark hero couldn't guess the answer from the beaten-dog looks of those louts he was more stupid than he looked."Because the monster is there, sir" replied the farmer at the same time that he dragged his feet and looked at the floor again."The
The idea must occur to readers of these pages from time to time that my companion and I were under the influence of some curse.Without any effort on our part, and without any desire on my part, we managed to meet all manner of worshipers of the Dark Ones. I myself often suspected that we were really doomed to oppose his plans without ever understanding why; but such speculation never bothered the Dark Hero.Frey took all such events as they came, with a groan and a resigned shrug, and dismissed any such speculation as that of a useless and vain philosopher.However, I have thought long and hard on the matter, and I have the feeling that if there is a power in this world that opposes the servants of evil, perhaps it was the one who sometimes guided our steps and even protected us. What is certain is that we often stumbled upon some of the most outrageous and malevolent schemes perpetrated by the most unlikely of evildoers...Elysia, 'The Adventures of the
The desire to kill reverberated through Jasmine's brain, and the darkness rooted in her soul threatened to overtake her completely. Madness bubbled through her veins, and bloodlust flooded her as if she were a drug; her carnage gave him ecstatic pleasure. She wanted to find the black-armored warrior and kill him, for of all the enemies she had faced, he was the most powerful: a worthy offering indeed to the god of Wrath. At the last second, when she was about to brush aside his sword and kill him, her fate, in the form of her own idiotic followers of hers, had intervened to separate them. She wanted to find him again and finish the fight.And then she saw the girl. As if against her will, she gazed at the frightened little face that peeked out from where she was hiding. He knew what he had to do, because it was time to end this once and for all, to take the first step on the path that would end in eternal life, to take advantage of the opportunity offered to him of a glorious
Jasmine watched as the great cannon blasted the third breach in the city wall, then decided enough was enough. They had to save powder for the next fortification they came to, and the gaps were big enough for their soldiers to squeeze through. The defenders were tired and bewildered, so the time had come. She signaled to the bugler, and he sounded the advance blast. Marching to the beat of the human-skinned drums, the beastmen sprang into motion.Jasmine felt the thirst for blood rise within her, and with it, her desire to offer souls to the god of Wrath. She that night she would make him a great offering.♦ ♦ ♦Elysia watched as the tide of beastmen surged across the grounds, and archers began firing from the ramparts. They chose their targets calmly, methodically, and efficiently, and fired. Arrows pierced the darkness, piercing chests, throats, and bestial eyes. As the infernal drums beat, the relentless bloodthirsty beastmen continued to adva
Elysia watched the clouds overhead, racing across the sky like a mass that twisted and undulated in a strong wind. The color of the forest had changed from a light green to a darker, more ominous hue; she seemed as if the trees, like everything else, were waiting.She was standing on the parapet at the top of the wooden wall, and she was looking across the fields, straining to catch any sign of movement in the undergrowth. By her calculations, it was the end of the afternoon. Next to her was Frey, who was looking at his sword with disinterest. Every ten paces along the wall there was an archer, one of the woodcutters, men who could hit an ox's eye from two hundred paces, and measuring the distance between them and the line of trees, Elysia realized. realized that this was a slaughterhouse. Any attackers would get bogged down in the plowed fields and be easy targets for archers.She tried to let that thought reassure her, but she couldn't. Night in the woods was not lik
Elysia looked up at the ornate golden hammer that gleamed in the early morning light streaming through the open door of the temple. The runes etched into the Hammer's head reminded him of the ones adorning the blade of her own sword, but that didn't surprise him too much. Her sword had been the most prized possession of an Order of paladins and it seemed only fitting that the sword be engraved with holy signs.There were few people present; only some old women who were sitting cross-legged on the floor and praying. The babies with their mothers were outside, getting the cool while they could, and Elysia guessed the air might be unbreathable in there with the doors closed.The temple was a simple sanctuary with a simple altar, except for the presence of the Hammer, which was used to bless marriages and contracts. The Father, The Mother and The Son were not very popular deities there, since most of the woodcutters looked to Belial, Lord of the Forests and God of the Eart
Kat hurried toward the base of the watchtower because she felt the need to be alone. She had grown tired of sitting by the large central bonfire, and not even Frey's presence reassured her. She felt very alone in the midst of all those busy adults; in reality, there was no one with whom she could talk, and for the first time she realized that she no longer knew anyone in this world and that she had no place in it. Her flames reminded him too much of the Kleinsdorf fires. The ladder barely creaked under her bare feet as she climbed toward the trapdoor with the agility of a monkey.Elysia was sitting alone, and she was looking into the darkness. She had long since set the sun like a bloodstain on the horizon; the moon had risen through the sky, its silvery light bathing the surroundings. A gentle breeze cooled Kat's cheeks and made the forest whisper and murmur ominously. Elysia watched him mesmerized, lost in her own thoughts, and she hurried across the tower and sat down besi