The haunting call of an owl slid through the night air, blending into the ambient noise of the darkness. The trees, standing silently on each side of the small dirt path, rustled restlessly as a cool breeze disturbed their leaves. The shadows twitched and danced, creating and instantly destroying images which flickered across the ground. One of the shadows fluttered and stretched outward from the tree line, but failed to dissipate as its brethren did.
The soft moonlight struck the shape, spilling over its now-apparent contours, and revealed it to not be a shadow at all; rather it was a small figure, draped in a long black cloak and making its way toward the path which marked the division of the two sides of the forest. The shape paused for a moment, looked up and down the path, and started toward the west. As the cloaked figure trudged down the little road, its footsteps were quickly obliterated by the shroud which dragged along behind and left a shallow trough in the dust.
A soft crack echoed from somewhere distant, giving the phantomlike character a moment's pause. The hood swiveled towards the path leading in the opposite direction and hung its gaze there a moment, soundless. After a few seconds, the hood turned back and upward, towards the moon. From within the darkness shined a faint glimmer of an eye, scanning the starry sky slowly, almost without purpose.
The moment ended as quickly as it had begun, and the vagrant resumed its journey. Another distant snapping sound pierced the silence, and the figure's pace quickened. Had it known what was to come, the drifter would have broken into a run.
Regardless, it was too late.
The soft noises which had seemed so distant just minutes ago suddenly erupted into a cacophony of shattering horror. The figure flinched and turned just as a tree behind it exploded, sending fist-sized shards of bark flying through the air like splintering bullets and the ancient branches hurtling into the ground. Instinctively, the shadowy form threw itself toward the ground just as a huge slab of metal sliced the air where it had been standing. The brutally sharp edge barely caught the figure's back as it fell, ripping the cloak away like paper and sending a thin veil of red liquid to splatter against the dirt.
The uncloaked figure gasped harshly and sprawled into the dirt. Coughing dust, the individual that could now be identified as female quickly rolled into a ball and sprang to her feet, which shook with adrenaline as she stared into the blackness just beyond the destroyed tree.
She appeared young, in her late teens at most, and stood at about five feet tall. She could be considered attractive, though possibly not in the most traditional of senses; she had a somewhat thick build resulting from the combination of her height and the fact that she was much more muscled than most women. In short, she had the look of someone who had been forced to fight to survive.
Her head was draped with a violent shock of bright red hair that flew in numerous random directions and fell about halfway down the back of her neck. Two crimson braids fell down the right side of her face, seeming out of place among the bed-headed mess of the rest of her hair. Her face was slightly rounded, and freckles were scattered across her cheeks and short nose. And that ended the normalcy of her appearance.
Sprouting from the hair of the left half of her head were two small horns, each slightly curved and pointed. Her eyes were a glowing shade of yellow and resembled cat's eyes in that her pupils were vertical black slits rather than circles. Also like a cat, the eyes seemed to shimmer and take on an eerie glow in the moonlight.
The girl's clothes were similarly unusual. She was dressed in a frayed black kimono that at once seemed to small and too large for her; the front of the dress was closed low on her chest, revealing a wrapping of cloth bandages which encircled the lower half of her torso and restricted the more "feminine" aspects of her figure. The left sleeve of the outfit was slightly longer than her arm, so that her hand was hidden within. The cuff of the sleeve was embroidered with a design resembling red and yellow flames. The right sleeve was simply missing; it had been ripped off just below the shoulder.
Below her chest was tied a large blue sash, tied into a bow in the front and decorated with sewn cherry blossoms. Under this was the lower half of the kimono, which acted as a skirt and came about halfway down her thighs. The same bandages that wrapped her chest created makeshift undergarments below that.
A small trickle of blood ran down the back of her leg, and she shivered in the now piercingly cold night air.
"Who?!" she shouted, her voice high and hard. "Who attacks me?! Show yourself!" Her voice went up sharply and cracked as she spoke.
The darkness of the forest grunted and heaved a tree at her.
The girl's eyes widened and she managed to move almost an inch before two hundred pounds of wood slammed into her like a runaway horse. It hit the girl diagonally across the chest, knocking the wind out of her and breaking two ribs in the process. Upon impact, her body flew backwards until she hit the ground once, bounced, and rolled to a stop like a ragdoll about fifteen feet away from where she had been standing.
Her prone body shuddered and coughed, and a little more blood was added to the forest's soil. She tried to push herself up and take a ragged breath, let out something that sounded like it was trying to be a scream of pain and failing miserably, and collapsed in a small cloud of dust. The girl's chest rose and fell weakly, indicating that she was, for now at least, breathing. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the forest's blackness, and the creature that now began to emerge from it.
It was a man, and a gigantic one. He appeared at least eight feet tall and was wrapped in a thick layer of bulging muscle. He was dressed like a barbarian, with huge leather belts strapped across his chest and a belted loincloth around his waist. His bald head bulged with pulsing veins, and two milky white eyes peered at the comatose girl from over a thick metal mask that covered the lower half of his face. A six-foot battle axe hung from one of his colossal hands and drug through the dirt as he walked.
The beastly man let out a laugh, a deep, rasping growl that emanated from the depths of his massive chest. Without changing his pace he hefted the axe above his head, spun the blade around, and slammed the weapon into the ground with enough force to bury it to the bar and send a tremor through the ground. His grip on the axe released and it stayed where he left it. Now standing directly over the girl, he reached down and grabbed a handful of her kimono's shoulder and picked her up like she weighed nothing at all.
The girl strained to face the brute and opened her mouth to spit in his face. A fist twice as large as her head smashed into her cheek, causing her vision to flash white before coming back, albeit noticeably more blurry than before. When she was focused enough to see anything at all, she could tell that the monster was now sneering wildly. Without warning, he reeled back and buried the fist in her stomach.
Just a little more blood.
The girl's body refused to allow her to slip into unconsciousness. As a trickle of blood ran down her chin, she managed to jerkily return her face to his. The man looked somewhat surprised at first, his brow furrowing. Then, suddenly, his face broke into what could only be described as pure malevolent elation. That laughter, that horrible laughter, came roaring back as the barbarian grabbed the other shoulder of her dress. The girl squeezed her eyes shut tightly and gritted her teeth.
"Give me your soul…"
The huge man's grip lessened but did not release, and a strangled noise leaked from his throat. Cautiously, the girl opened her eyes and, despite the pain involved in the action, took in a sharp breath. The point of a gigantic blade hovered just centimeters away from her nose, its base erupting from the man's chest like a stalagmite. The thing shone red in the moonlight, but not simply because of what was covering it; the back of the object was covered with a strange fleshiness, almost as if whatever it was had a life of its own. Then, with a sudden, wet noise, the point withdrew and disappeared into the man's chest.
The girl felt the burly hands completely lose their grip and she dropped back to the ground. Somehow, she managed to keep her footing once she landed; she stumbled slightly and managed to look up again just as the man's gigantic frame slumped thunderously to the ground. Her vision was far too blurry and swimming to make anything out reliably, but the last thing the girl saw before drifting off was a warrior; a knight, clad in shining blue armor, with a huge sword gripped in his hand.
The girl had no recollection of staggering forward and pressing her face against the knight's cold, metal chest.