The three knives:
Shi: the demons Katana
Prologue
The small craters sent up jets of flame above the rocky cannon as the army of three thousand men assembled. They were the elite the best of the seven hundred thousand men in the army of ********. They looked up at the general and starred in open mouth amazement as they were told their enemy was a small group of children. There was a rumbling sound above and some small rocks above fell down to the ground. They all focused their attention on the small outcrop of stone. A ragtag team of six boys and a girl all in their early teens stood up there. As the leader looked between the three thousand men and his group one thought entered his mind: this isn't going to be a fight it, will be a massacre.
"What will we do?" the youngest asked.
"We fight them." The leader answered
"I know that but do we really have to kill them?" The youngest asked.
"We must." The girl answered coldly. "Mercy is a luxury we can't afford."
"As much as I hate to admit it, she's right. We must end this." The leader answered. In one swift motion to fast for a human to make, he leapt off the outcrop and drew his knife. He felt the familiar feeling of it turning into a silvery liquid and hardening into a sharp, 65cm Katana.
"Well Shi, ready for a slaughter?" he thought as he as he fell through the volcanic air. When he landed from a height that would kill a human, he sliced through the armor of the nearest soldier and cut him clean in half.
"C'mon" he shouted as he killed the next man. His pack leapt down to join the fight all howling the way only animals had the right to.
CH. 1
Eric Slowly opened his eyes and yawned. Once again he tried to recall what his dream had been about. Once more he tried to remember anything, before the day the villagers found him half dead in the woods. After a while he gave up and climbed out of the bed, wincing as the four chainless manacles he had on bit into his skin, one on each limb. He had tried everything to get them off the last six months. He yawned again and looked around his room. He stretched and finally climbed on all four legs and trotted over to the table to see if Rachel would give him any food. Today WAS her birthday after all so she would probably be in a good mood. When he got over to the table he saw she wasn't there but gramma was.
"Well hi there Eric" she whispered. Because of an accident when she was younger she could almost never talk. To her it felt like she was shouting across the room. "How are you doing today?" she asked to quietly for a human to hear. Eric responded the only way he could, he trotted over too her chair and gave her face a quick lick. "You know it feels like you can understand every word I'm sayin." And he could of course, but she didn't know that. "I keep expecting you to just get right up and talk, you smart little wolfie you." Eric had to growl at that he hated when people called him wolfie. "Just kiddin darling" gramma assured him "sure you look like a wolf but, whoever heard of a wolf with fur blacker then a ravens wings. And those eyes darling, they aint normal eyes on you, your eyes look like an emerald monsoon and I mean that literally. I keep expectin them to start swirlin together like one o them tropical storms down in south Anozira. Look at me ramble boy you're probably lookin for Rachel aint ya? Well she's outside with them other youngsters. Now you get I think old reverend Burn's gonna have em pickin those little blood berries again." Eric's ears picked up at that there were only three places around these parts where those damn berries grew and all those were around that hellhole that those koala bears called home. Joseph was probably with em but Eric would have that fake minister by the balls, if Rachel got hurt out there, if gramma didn't beat him to it. He left the little shack he, Rachel and gramma called home and headed of to church real quick to see The Box. The Box was the thing Eric had with him the day he arrived in this quaint little village on the eastern end of the world.
He wasn't sure who was more surprised that day, six months ago, him or Rachel. She was being chased by one of the koala bears when she stumbled on his nearly dead body. The koala just stared at the black canine lying on the forest floor before it ran away like a bat out of hell. Rachel crawled up to the unconscious body and noticed it was curled around something. Try as she might she couldn't get it out from under him. And yes it was quiet obviously a male, thank you very much. Any way she checked to see the koala was gone and ran back to the village. Eric came to just briefly enough to catch her scent before passing out again. Then she did something he never would have thought a human capable of: she came back for him. With three men to carry him back to the village, they still couldn't get The Thing from him. So they made a stretcher and hauled ass back to the village before the koalas could come back. Those things are scary dammit. I learned later that Rachel told every one that I fought off the bear for her because that was the only way she could convince them to come get me. So they carried me to the village, which was named Acinut, after some random hero I'm supposed to know. Any way after they got me back there they had to shave all my fur so they could operate. That wasn't difficult, I barely had any left, and no, I'm not sure why. After they shaved me the doc, who is a rather brilliant surgeon, was appalled. Apparently my body had more cuts then skin, and only my fur, I still don't know how or why, kept me from bleeding to death. So once they shaved me my body went into shock. Once again if Rachel hadn't saved me I'd be dead. She brought some healing gel her grandmother makes from blood berries, against the ministers wishes of course. Apparently in his obscure religion those berries are sacred.
Anyway the gel reformed the skin and mixed with my blood and changed into my blood. They aren't called blood berries for nothing. I spent the next couple of days drifting in and out of awareness. Rachel was their for them all. Now that I could get a good look at her I saw she was about six or seven year's old, dark skin, darker hair. Like me, I thought anyway after a couple of days I finally woke up for the first time in a long while, no I don't know how long. My fur started growing while I was asleep and didn't stop growing. It was back to full length in a week. I was as surprised as them. Also I couldn't uncurl from the Thing I was guarding, and yes I was guarding it… I think. It was like my muscles were locked in place. A couple nights later, I felt it change. It started to grow, harden and change color. My muscles relaxed and I was free, I looked to see what I was guarding with my body for the past week (?) and it was The Box. It was Large, gold and red with silver trimmings and inscriptions of death on it. There was a man surrounded by demons, and he was wielding a sword I immediately identified as a katana, an assassin with a bleeding hand and a hollow knife filled with crystals, and an archer with bow and arrow, the bow seemed the weirdest to me because it was the most ordinary, next was a human standing a midst a thousand dead bodies without any sign of a cause of death and the bottom was just pure gold. They all had same body and each of their faces was just a little obscure, but the eyes were all the same: dark green and swirling no solid irises but the pupil and iris are mixed together no whites of the eyes either. I may be color blind but that doesn't mean I'm deaf. The townsfolk just love to talk about it. Also each had different expressions, the man with the sword had a look of joy as the demons surrounded him, not like he enjoyed killing, just fighting. The assassin's face was uncaring and his eyes were cold. The archer just had a lazy look on his face, like he was dozing in the shade of a tree. Death, as I decided to call the one without weapons just looked tired. Each had his own side of the box and they all freaked me the hell out cause I felt as if they should mean something to me but I can't seem to remember what.
Aw well got to see if Rachel and the others got attacked by those damn bears again. Just made it past old William's house, he was an old geezer but he scared the crap out of me sometimes, anyway just made it past his house when I smelled death, Joe's death and it was close. That is never a good sign so I sprinted the next three miles to the lake, and found Joe dead, my heart froze for a second and didn't let go till I realized Rachel wasn't here. I'd mourn him later…
Wait, a heart beat Joe! He's still alive, although only barley. I was so pissed, after Rachel's father was killed a couple years ago Joe took care of us, he just couldn't die like this. I don't know why I did this, almost like instinct, but I reached down and bit his neck and I immediately began to drool. It stopped as soon as it started and before I knew what was happening it all fell on his neck were I just cut open. But then something weird happened, his neck began to heal! And the smell of death around him went away. I didn't have time to figure this all out so I caught Rachel's scent, she smelled like honey for some reason, and tuned out the rest of the world as I sprinted to it, one mile, two miles, damn how far did these guys go? Oh shit I passed them.
I double back and just now start to get my bearings. The forest is mostly gone and we're on a plain full of rolling hills and waist high grass. I am just over half the grasses height so I should blend in but they might see the trail through the grass. Aw well I can't quite catch any body's scent for some reason, then I see why and I almost, Almost. Lose hope: prairie wolves. I don't know why they are called that, they don't look any thing like me or any other canine. They have no fur, their skin is cracked, and oozing green pus(DON'T ASK) they are a little under two feet tall about three feet wide oh and their mouths are eight inches wide and filled with three layers of teeth about three inches long and half an inch thick, also they travel in packs of twenty five. Always. This is not gonna be fun. They hurt my tummy.