History Always Repeats
Chapter Two: A Living Nightmare
By Nanaki RedXIII
The swirling night air was wonderful. It was the soothing salve to the day's horrible burn. The heat and stiff air had disappeared, as if by magic, and was replaced by a breeze and a much welcomed drop in temperature. The farmers were working again, a little late, but still working. The Cooks and Bakers were catching up on their missed time, baking and cooking feasts to commemorate a most momentous occasion: the cooling of Redmont Fief. Baron Arald himself would be attending.
It was also the perfect night for a hunt. No matter how hard you looked, the moon was nowhere to be found. So the only light that graced the dark, shadow-filled earth were the stars. Not enough for a human to see by on a normal evening, but the Kalkara also had the advantage of the skies, which had clouded soon after dark. It was if today the world was one of opposites. The day had been one of the hottest recorded in Redmont Fief, and then, suddenly, it became chilly. Quite amazing.
Despite these perfect hunting conditions, however, the Kalkara was having problems finding its meal. Perhaps something was wrong with its scent glands. Or maybe it was being too loud, or its prey had found out about its presence. Normally, a human scent was easy enough to pick out. They were the foulest creatures to ever set foot on this earth to date-with their hideous, hairless bodies and strange proportions. Something that odd and foul was sure to have a matching scent.
The beast growled its aggravation and shook its giant head. Where was the prey, the food, the silver? Its demonic scarlet eyes scanned the ground for any sign of prey. There seemed to be nothing, however. The world was dead, just as the sky above. Was the whole forest conspiring against it? No matter how hard it peered into the deep shadows, no matter hard it sniffed for its prey, the Kalkara saw nothing, smelt nothing. Nothing but the trees-but of course those weren't edible. Or made of silver.
The Kalkara let out a defeated grunt; its version of a sigh, and began its rounds through the woods. It moved silently, despite its bulk, and unless you were some kind of supernatural being it would be almost impossible to pick it out from the eerie cloak of night. The Kalkara was just another flickering shadow. Except, it wasn't harmless, as shadows tend to be. One wrong move and you would be dead. Killed and devoured by a living nightmare until all that remains of you are memories and bloody, broken bones.
A most horrible way to die, one would have to agree.
If it couldn't find prey easily, like it could most nights, it would just have to find its prey the hard way: it would have to search. Searching was such a bother though... and most nights when it had to search, the Kalkara had no time to look for extra silver. That put it in a bad mood for quite a while, which wasn't good for the surrounding villages. At all. When it was in a bad mood, the Kalkara would need extra food. And everyone knows what that means.
More disappearing farmers.
It would be so much easier if the villages sent it tributes of meat and silver. But, no. Instead, it had to hunt. Which, of course, could be fun. If executed in the right way...
Something was wrong.
He lay still, keeping his breath steady and deep, to match that of a sleeping man. There was no need to let the intruder know he had noticed his or her presence. Though, it was odd. Will recognized what he was feeling as... something watching him. There lay the problem. It was a something. Somehow, he was sure it wasn't a human. It was a something he had encountered before, too. But he couldn't place what exactly it was. No matter how hard he dug into his memories, he couldn't figure it out.
Most likely, it was an animal. Maybe a wolf; though, it would be odd for Will to feel only one set of eyes boring into him if it were a wolf. Loners weren't a common sight, and if there was a pack around he would have seen the tracks. Any other animal Will could think of, he would have seen the tracks of. It was, of course, a possibility he had missed the tracks all together. But that was highly unlikely. Before stopping in the clearing, he had checked to make sure it was a reasonably safe area to camp.
The only predator he had identified was an adolescent fox. The intensity of the gaze locked onto him right now was that of something more... powerful-more substantial-than a fox.
Judging by the almost nothing amount of light that was filtering through his eyelids, Will Treaty guessed it was night. That meant his enemy, whatever it was, had the advantage. It knew where he was, where as Will... all he knew was that something was there. Somewhere. And he had no idea where. Sitting next to him, already knocked, was his longbow, but unless he knew where his target was it would be useless. Somethings probably weren't scared of longbows, because somethings probably weren't that smart. Hopefully. If they were, then Will was in for one heck of a night.
As discreetly as possibly, he cracked one eye open. Just a little. It took quite a time for the eye to adjust to the minimum lighting, but once it did Will's gaze was darting from tree to tree, shadow to shadow, not seeing anything but darkness. It seemed useless, his looking. A futile effort to find an enemy that was rivaling a Ranger in the art of concealment. Thinking that it would be dangerous to leave his eye open any longer, he closed it again and instead focused on his hearing.
That was when he truly became worried. He couldn't hear any of the normal nighttime noises. No crickets, no faint hoo, hoo, of the owls. It was if the forest had died as he had been sleeping. Really, all he could hear were the eerie creaks, moans and rustles of the wind as it played its little nighttime games through the trees. Not a comforting sound, when one was paranoid as he was at the moment. Of course, in the dead of night, there were few comforting things.
One of those things would be the moon, which, when he had been scanning the area, Will had noticed was not in its normal place above as guardian. A perfect night for this secret something to attack.
It was silent. And then, suddenly, there was noise.
There were several loud thumps of beastly feet hitting the ground that sent Wills heart racing with fear, the daunting roar of a starving monster, the terrified neigh of a frightened horse, and then the blood-curdling crunch of snapping bones.
When Will opened his eyes, a scream of horror was torn from his lips as he watched as a shadow attack his companion, his friend for many years now. He couldn't make out what the creature was, all he knew was horror as the horse's tortured neighs were cut off along with its head.
Will watched, failing to suppress the torrent of tears that had been building up, as Tug was killed and devoured in front of him by a nightmare incarnate.
Authors Note: Okay, this chapter is most certainly better than the last. And a bit longer, too! I worked harder on this one, methinks. My goal is that every chapter has to be around a page longer then the last. That's probably not going to happen, but still. It never hurts to have a goal!
Yeah... you probably all hate me right now, for killing off Tug. But... History never repeats exactly the same, and in this story you'll notice that. I'm not going to completely rip off the book's storyline... -cough-cough-
Anyway! Thanks to my reviewers and alert people! You guys were the motivation for this chapter! If I hadn't gotten any reviews, this chapter probably would have been put off for a week! Thanks!
Lady Maeror: I noticed some of the errors right after posting the first chapter. Hopefully they should mostly be fixed up in that one, and this one too! If you notice any, please tell me. I fail at grammar... And thanks for being the first to review!
Bookworm73: Thanks for reviewing! It's just my fail attempt at coming up with a fanfic plot, not being able to, so NOT COMPLETELY -cough- ripping off the book's plotline. But if you think it is a good idea than you are right! The customer is always right, and you are a customer now! So your right! Unless you don't like the story, then you're wrong...
Um... okay, that was a long AN. I'll try to make them shorter next time! Maybe! IDONTOWNRANGERSAPPRENTICE KTHANXBAI!