The Greatest Fear 6
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She sighed and sat down on a stone wall, watching the spots sunlight that managed to pass through the trees overhead and play over her bare arms and feet, and shaking the white red-tinged hair out of her eyes when it fell forward to cover her peripheral vision. It was over a year ago that she had wandered into the village, not understood a single word spoken to her, and her hair had grown a lot longer. Since then she had learned everything GoldenEye had to teach her, even the magic he used so frequently to stop their meals from burning.
She still kept her eyes half shut, not quite knowing why, but knowing that there would be dire consequences if she showed them to anyone. Even GoldenEye knew nothing about what her eyes looked like. Speaking of GoldenEye where was he? He was supposed to have been here more than an hour ago. She leaned forward and looked both ways down the road. She shrugged, pushed herself off the wall and began to pace down the packed dirt road, moving her feet in different patterns watching her shadow shift on the dirt, in the direction he had been headed when he had left a few days ago.
She had been walking for a few miles when she heard the horse scream, and the roar from something she had never heard before. She began to speed her pace until she smelled the metallic scent of blood. A memory of a night a year ago surfaced and she shook it away hurriedly. She couldn’t afford to be distracted now. She crept closer, the brush at the side of the road, looking at the situation, seeing if it was wise to fight or run.
Her eyes widened out of their normal position as she took in the scene before her. The horse lay on the ground, the bite mark on its side so deep she could see most of its ribs from where she crouched. She turned her face away from the almost dead animal and looked for her friend. She blinked when she saw what had taken the bite out of the horse.
A huge creature, easily twice her height, stood with its scarred, old blood-colored back to her, shaking something that she couldn’t see. It was talking in a voice that she had heard only once before. It was the voice she had heard in her head that had urged her to kill the man who had attacked her the first night she had come into the village, and it was asking whatever it was holding “Where is she? Where is she?” as it raised its left fist time and again, hitting whatever was in its right hand as the fist fell. Each time the fist disappeared from view she heard a dull thud, sometimes a crack, and a moan. She pulled her left hand back, finding a knife-pocket and pulling the knife free. She pushed herself free from the brush and launched herself at the creature, holding the knife above her head with both hands, stabbing down at the thing’s back as she hurtled through the air. As she neared it she heard the words it was speaking and her eyes opened wide again before she struck.
It was speaking a different language, a half-croak half-roar, but she understood it. The knife she held struck it full force, and the creature whirled around dropping what it had been holding. She cast a quick look at it. It looked like nothing but a bundle of blood and black cloth; but a part of the cloth fell away, what remained of GoldenEye’s favorite hat, and his eyes looked at her for a split second before sliding up into his head.
The laugh-light the dark amber globes usually held as he talked to her, taught her and answered her floods of questions with was gone, and the irises themselves were floating in blood. Rage fueled her actions then, as she slashed again and again at the creature, pulling knife after knife out of their pockets as the old ones became stuck in the putty-like flesh of the whatever-it-was.
It cried repeatedly at her “Sister wait! What are you doing? I have been searching for you! Why are you attacking me?” Pain was flaring in the left side of her face, but she paid it no mind. Suddenly what it had been asking earlier made sense. She stopped her attack, one knife stuck in the thing’s forearm. “What do you mean, you’ve been looking for me?” She looked up into its eyes; hers still wide open with shock and rage. And froze. “NO!!!” she cried slashing up in an arc with a free knife, slicing neatly through the jugular vein then curving the blade into its skull, the sharp blade cutting through bone like a knife through butter. It was dead before it hit the ground.
She hit the ground with it, her knees buckling from the shock. She got up the instant she hit the ground, walking unsteadily over to her friend. He was breathing and his life-signs were strong, but he was coughing blood which she was pretty sure wasn’t a good thing. Remembering what had happened to her on the first night in her memory, she placed her left hand on his chest, over his heart. Blue light poured like water out of the tattoo on the back of her hand and over GoldenEye’s body soaking into his face and chest, into the veins beneath the skin, flowing with the blood, healing all wounds they touched. After a few minutes he stopped coughing and his breathing quieted into that of one deeply asleep.
She breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the body of the horse, the liquid light still streaming from her hand. She knelt down and placed the still glowing hand on the horse’s side, feeling the pulse of its life fading slowly. She put her will in the magic pouring from her hand. She watched as flesh knitted over the bare ribs, as skin folded over the mix of muscle and fat. White fur grew in the place where a few moments before there had been nothing but bone.
She looked approvingly at her work, though the white fur was a different color from the light tan that covered the rest of the horse’s body. She sighed and closed her eyes and a wave of tiredness swept over her. She leaned forward and rested her head on the sleeping horse’s shoulder, curling up into a half-formed ball, her back against the horse’s warm stomach, inside the protective circle that the horse’s legs made against the slowly darkening night’s sudden chill. The last thing she saw were the creature’s eyes that looked exactly like her left one floating among the stars.
She sighed and sat down on a stone wall, watching the spots sunlight that managed to pass through the trees overhead and play over her bare arms and feet, and shaking the white red-tinged hair out of her eyes when it fell forward to cover her peripheral vision. It was over a year ago that she had wandered into the village, not understood a single word spoken to her, and her hair had grown a lot longer. Since then she had learned everything GoldenEye had to teach her, even the magic he used so frequently to stop their meals from burning.
She still kept her eyes half shut, not quite knowing why, but knowing that there would be dire consequences if she showed them to anyone. Even GoldenEye knew nothing about what her eyes looked like. Speaking of GoldenEye where was he? He was supposed to have been here more than an hour ago. She leaned forward and looked both ways down the road. She shrugged, pushed herself off the wall and began to pace down the packed dirt road, moving her feet in different patterns watching her shadow shift on the dirt, in the direction he had been headed when he had left a few days ago.
She had been walking for a few miles when she heard the horse scream, and the roar from something she had never heard before. She began to speed her pace until she smelled the metallic scent of blood. A memory of a night a year ago surfaced and she shook it away hurriedly. She couldn’t afford to be distracted now. She crept closer, the brush at the side of the road, looking at the situation, seeing if it was wise to fight or run.
Her eyes widened out of their normal position as she took in the scene before her. The horse lay on the ground, the bite mark on its side so deep she could see most of its ribs from where she crouched. She turned her face away from the almost dead animal and looked for her friend. She blinked when she saw what had taken the bite out of the horse.
A huge creature, easily twice her height, stood with its scarred, old blood-colored back to her, shaking something that she couldn’t see. It was talking in a voice that she had heard only once before. It was the voice she had heard in her head that had urged her to kill the man who had attacked her the first night she had come into the village, and it was asking whatever it was holding “Where is she? Where is she?” as it raised its left fist time and again, hitting whatever was in its right hand as the fist fell. Each time the fist disappeared from view she heard a dull thud, sometimes a crack, and a moan. She pulled her left hand back, finding a knife-pocket and pulling the knife free. She pushed herself free from the brush and launched herself at the creature, holding the knife above her head with both hands, stabbing down at the thing’s back as she hurtled through the air. As she neared it she heard the words it was speaking and her eyes opened wide again before she struck.
It was speaking a different language, a half-croak half-roar, but she understood it. The knife she held struck it full force, and the creature whirled around dropping what it had been holding. She cast a quick look at it. It looked like nothing but a bundle of blood and black cloth; but a part of the cloth fell away, what remained of GoldenEye’s favorite hat, and his eyes looked at her for a split second before sliding up into his head.
The laugh-light the dark amber globes usually held as he talked to her, taught her and answered her floods of questions with was gone, and the irises themselves were floating in blood. Rage fueled her actions then, as she slashed again and again at the creature, pulling knife after knife out of their pockets as the old ones became stuck in the putty-like flesh of the whatever-it-was.
It cried repeatedly at her “Sister wait! What are you doing? I have been searching for you! Why are you attacking me?” Pain was flaring in the left side of her face, but she paid it no mind. Suddenly what it had been asking earlier made sense. She stopped her attack, one knife stuck in the thing’s forearm. “What do you mean, you’ve been looking for me?” She looked up into its eyes; hers still wide open with shock and rage. And froze. “NO!!!” she cried slashing up in an arc with a free knife, slicing neatly through the jugular vein then curving the blade into its skull, the sharp blade cutting through bone like a knife through butter. It was dead before it hit the ground.
She hit the ground with it, her knees buckling from the shock. She got up the instant she hit the ground, walking unsteadily over to her friend. He was breathing and his life-signs were strong, but he was coughing blood which she was pretty sure wasn’t a good thing. Remembering what had happened to her on the first night in her memory, she placed her left hand on his chest, over his heart. Blue light poured like water out of the tattoo on the back of her hand and over GoldenEye’s body soaking into his face and chest, into the veins beneath the skin, flowing with the blood, healing all wounds they touched. After a few minutes he stopped coughing and his breathing quieted into that of one deeply asleep.
She breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the body of the horse, the liquid light still streaming from her hand. She knelt down and placed the still glowing hand on the horse’s side, feeling the pulse of its life fading slowly. She put her will in the magic pouring from her hand. She watched as flesh knitted over the bare ribs, as skin folded over the mix of muscle and fat. White fur grew in the place where a few moments before there had been nothing but bone.
She looked approvingly at her work, though the white fur was a different color from the light tan that covered the rest of the horse’s body. She sighed and closed her eyes and a wave of tiredness swept over her. She leaned forward and rested her head on the sleeping horse’s shoulder, curling up into a half-formed ball, her back against the horse’s warm stomach, inside the protective circle that the horse’s legs made against the slowly darkening night’s sudden chill. The last thing she saw were the creature’s eyes that looked exactly like her left one floating among the stars.
posted by Elie at 4:42 PM
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