Fae’s Dark Prophecy (Clash of Realms #1)
Chapter One - Rhea
They didn’t teach me to bait a trap with my own flesh and blood at the citadel, and surprisingly, this was proving to be a terrible oversight. Of course, I could have employed the help of some of the village folk, but they’d all been terrified enough in the safety of their own homes. I couldn’t imagine what great price I’d have to offer to have them sit and wait for the beast.
I was in this damn outcropping of civilization in an attempt to line my own pockets, not empty them, anyway.
The High Priest would have a fit if he could see me now, trying not to flinch as I drew my dagger into the fleshy bit of skin in my side. If all went well tonight, this would be the only fresh scar I’d add to my collection.
“Mara fucking wept, ” I ground out as the knife severed a two-inch-long strip of skin from my abdomen. I held it in front of me and winced, then tossed the bit of myself into the middle of the chalk-marked circle I’d drawn on the cobblestones.
My hands shaking and sweating, I drew out a small vial from the leather strap that crossed my chest and looped around my shoulder. Flicking the stopper out with my thumb nail, I swigged the bitter contents back in one swallow. The liquid flowed like fire down my throat and through my veins.
The pain in my side flared for a moment, turning white hot and unbearable. I took another of the seven gods’ names in vain as the pain spread through me then began to lessen until all that remained was a tense ache. A glance at my side revealed the elixir had done its work true. The gash was scabbed over, looking more like a week-old wound than a fresh one.
“Right,” I barked, shaking my head and pushing off the ground to stand. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
With a check that took no more than the span of three heartbeats, I knew my daggers and sword were secure and easily within grasp. I threw back another vial of elixir, this one sending my every nerve into a wired frenzy, each coiled muscle of my body suddenly ready to strike.
I shook out my hands to relieve some of the tension, then took my place behind the bit of ruined stone wall I’d decided on earlier. The beast would not be long in coming, if the accounts of the villagers were to be trusted. The scent of fresh human blood would drive it mad with hunger. But instead of another wounded farmer or wife on her birthing bed, it would find its own doom.
A small smile drew across my lips at the thought, the heat in my veins driving my own thoughts near mad with the lust for blood.
And at that moment, the wendigo screamed. The sound had my heart racing at an unnatural speed, something deep in my primal soul recognizing the sound of a predator on the hunt. It had caught my scent, and it was coming for me.
I drew my silver short sword from the scabbard at my hip, hunching as low as my leather armor would allow and slowing my breathing until it came in slow, even waves.
It wasn’t long until the sound of breaking branches and panted breath came from the dark line of trees at the end of the clearing. And then, the world went silent.
No cricket chirped, nor did any bird take flight. Even the wind itself slowed in anticipation. A lone breeze brushed my face, stirring a tendril of golden hair that had vexed me by refusing to stay in place in my braid. The heightened senses granted to me by the elixir running through my veins caught a strange scent in that breeze. It was surely not that of the beast stalking from the shadows but something else. Something intoxicating.
In my momentary state of distraction, I didn’t catch the shift in the atmosphere. And had it not been for the instinctual release of my crouched muscles, I’d have been caught by the black talons that swept for me. Instead, I sprang into a roll, jumping to my feet just as the wendigo again screamed, this time from mere inches away. The sound was deafening, and I nearly dropped my sword to cover my ears from the assault.
It rose on haunches that were bowed and sharp like a canine’s and threw back its massive horned head to the dark clouds above it as it bellowed. I swallowed back the familiar fear that tightened in my throat as I brought my sword to the level of my eyes.
It was more terrible than its reputation had made it out to be. Standing as tall as a horse, it fell back to its front legs, digging black talons into the stones at our feet. Its face might have once belonged to a massive deer, but now the skin was so gaunt and stretched over the bone that it could hardly be recognized as any beast of the living world.
Its back drew a curved line from the base of its skull to the swatch of tail that flicked behind it. Flesh and fur and skin hung from its bones like curtains draped over an abandoned bit of furniture in a home left to rot.
Twitching and foaming, it held its position as it stared at me from two dark pits in the sides of its skull.
“I don’t suppose you’d settle for just a bite, would you?” I asked the shivering creature, nodding my head sharply at the bit of my flesh and blood on the cobblestones. “You’ve such a lovely figure, I’d hate to see you ruin it by gorging yourself—”
My words caught in my throat as the wendigo shrieked and drew back to swipe at me once again. Dipping to the side, I drew my silver sword in a flash at the ugly hand that groped where I’d stood not even a heartbeat before. With a sound like meat searing in a pan, the blade found its mark.
I smirked as the creature let out a pitiful wail. So, they were vulnerable to silver. I said a quick prayer to Mara. My luck was certainly with me tonight.
Cradling its ruined arm like a mourning mother, the beast curled in the corner of the stone wall that surrounded the courtyard. I took the brief respite to regain my position, moving up a trio of stone steps to secure the high ground. In times like this, I had to thank not only my Gift of Luck but the long hours of tortuous training that had honed my body into a weapon, one that operated automatically, it seemed at times.
“Lick your wounds all you like, love, but know my next strike will land somewhere no amount of nurturing can soothe,” I threatened with an air of nonchalance. I wasn’t sure if the beast could understand me, but in these long months of hunting monsters, I’d never stopped trying to offer them a choice. Maybe it was just a way to soothe my own wounds, the ones that came along with every life I stole with the edge of my blade.
“Or, should you have some sense, you will leave this place and bear that scar as a reminder of what awaits you should you ever return.”
I flashed a smile as the creature muttered something incoherent and turned back to look at me. Its black eyes were full of nothing but hate as it slowly reared up to its full height. I brought my sword up defensively as it stalked across the stone courtyard and watched as it glanced down. There in the circle of chalk was the bait it had been drawn to from miles away.
A long, gray tongue spilled from its maw as it lowered its head to the ground. My stomach tightened as I watched that tongue curl around the bit of my flesh on the ground, then recoil back into the beast's waiting mouth. Its eyes blazed as it tasted me, a red drip of my blood spilling from the boney side of its face only to be caught by its roving tongue a moment later.
Fear gripped my heart tightly as the creature shuddered and let out a sound that was all too close to a human groan. It had taken great pleasure in its first taste of me, and as it reared back on its hind legs, I knew it would not rest until it had fully gorged itself on the rest.
Before I could react, it had cleared the courtyard. My legs were swept out from under me as I blocked my upper body in preparation for its attack. The damn thing was learning.
I only felt the searing pain that broke out in the back of my head for an instant before it was eclipsed by another bout of pain from the side of my hip. The wendigo had sunk a talon into me there and was holding me down against the stone step.
The creature squealed in delight and clicked its teeth together in rapid succession as it crawled its way onto me. I screamed in fear and rage and thrust my sword between its teeth before it could sink them into the soft skin of my abdomen.
There was a clatter as it bit the silver, even as blood began to drip from the corners of its lips. The blood hissed and boiled where it touched my blade, but the beast was a slave to the hunger now, and I knew no amount of pain would stop it. Nothing would stop it now but death, mine or its own.
A sweet wind, one I knew all too well, tickled the bit of hair that fell over my left shoulder. Holding the gnashing maw away with all the strength I had, I took the chance of looking over to my left.
There, somehow, one of my silver daggers lay. It must have come loose when the beast threw me to the ground.
With a shout and a powerful thrust, I threw the wendigo off of me. In the split second it took for the beast to recoil and throw itself at me once again, I had grabbed the dagger and raised it to the level of my eye.
The beast fell upon it, my arm swallowed up to the elbow in its massive jaw where my dagger thrust up through the roof of its mouth and settled into its brain.
A startled, choking noise broke out around my arm. Then the wendigo slumped its full weight upon me.
I groaned in disgust and discomfort as blood oozed over me. With a grunt of effort, I managed to dislodge my dagger and pull myself from the mouth of the corpse.
Dripping and shaking with exertion, I sat heavily on the stone wall beside me. Black blood pooled at my feet as the shakes that came with heavy use of elixir racked through me. I took three steadying breaths of the crisp autumn air and listened as the sounds of the forest slowly returned to the world.
A feeling of eyes watching from the shadows drew the damp hairs at the base of my neck to attention. Again, that scent drifted to me on the gentle breeze, just barely detectable now that the effects of the elixir were wearing thin. It smelled of the ocean and of the electricity of a nearing storm. But as it had been for the last week, even my heightened senses could detect no human for miles.
I wiped the blood from my cheeks and then began the methodical process of sawing the head from the shoulders of the beast.
“Should’ve chosen option number two, old girl,” I muttered to the slack-jawed head as I worked it free from the shoulders that held it. “I would have, if I were you.”