Kamakazi

Dirk stood at the banks of a river, frowning at his reflection on the water's surface. His last encounter with the heart hounds nearly crumpled his best tunic and ruined his favorite pants. From his bag, he retrieved a matching pair of light, black pants, comfortable for travel, and a shirt with drawstrings at the sleeves. Then, he traded his cape for a sturdy, yet lightweight hooded cloak, which doubled as a hammock (for one will never know where they will stop for the night). After changing, he folded the pants and tunic, and stored it away in his enchanted bag. He wrapped the cloak around himself to ward off the early chill, and of course, to maintain a level of mysteriousness.

He peered into the swiftly moving water. A disapproving face in the water gazed back, lined with two scars; one ran from his forehead, through his right eye, and ended directly below his cheekbone, put there many a years ago by a fortuitous cut from an enchanted blade. Another more recent scar he obtained from a stray arrow ran horizontally on the opposite cheek. As he raised a hand to finger he scar as he often did, the rippling figure in the water mimicked him perfectly. He caught himself and picked up his bag and staff, following the water downstream.

Before he had taken a single step, however, his head spun and his vision blurred. When it all cleared out, there was a tugging sensation in his gut. Dirk inhaled a deep breath, breathing in the scents of the river and forest intermingled. It has been years since any of charges has chosen a bearer and initiated the sequence of feelings he halfheartedly dubbed as "the call of prophecy" or of "destiny," not his destiny, but the other individuals'.

"They better not die before I reach them," he scowled.

The last person a weapon bonded to met an unfortunate end before Dirk reached him. The backlash was not pretty to say the least. After the person died, Dirk reeled as if recoiling from an invisible punch to the face. Immediately, it was followed by extreme vomiting, and a pressure- like force being applied to the chest area. Not pretty at all.

He was bonded with the creations he carried, and was not their true owner, but their carrier, and wielder in the most extreme of conditions. The weapons bond to certain people whenever they undergo certain circumstances, which can be best compared to prophecy, for in another fork of a prophecy, a person will make different choices, and will undergo different circumstances.

He closed his eyes and followed the tugging. Its path slowly diverged from the river; he can smell the scents of the forest gradually crescendo-ing and heart the burbling of the river slowly receding. He took another step forward… and

*WHAM*

He smacked into a tree. Frowning, Dirk took a step back and almost comically with wind- milling arms, fell flat on his back. He ruefully got back on his feet, dusted himself off, and began to follow the feeling again, only this time, with his eyes open.

He cut through the Upper Ven, walking farther and farther from the boundary, straying from the paths and roads. The tugging he felt in his gut led him onward without pause, bringing him to the outskirts of Hartland, and which he slowly realized, also in the direction of Trunt Lake. He was puzzled, however, for no-one lived near the lake and deduced that the person would likely be a traveler passing through the area. Nearing the shores of Trunt Lake, he spotted a young man outfitted for hiking the woods, leaning against a boulder, panting. The man turned his head to the sides slightly, unfocused eyes raking at the trees near where he was, or... his eyes were focused to the distance at Trunt Lake. The man suddenly crouched and started sprinting down the path.

Disregarding the man for just a moment, he scanned the area where the man was facing, and was facing the exact same scene what he assumed the man was. There was a woman, a woman in a dress. There were four men, in hooded forest cloaks, shadowing her, but hanging back some distance. They moved stealthily, from tree to rock to tree. A quad. And from the looks of them, pureblooded Dharans. His gut feeling was pulling him towards the woman, as if they were connected by a unbreakable line.

He made an immediate decision to follow the men. He crept along behind them, moving silently, drifting from one shadow to another. As the sun rose higher, crawling to its pinnacle on its journey in the sky, the road became rockier; the footing more treacherous. The four men suddenly veered off the path, sprinting into the forest, abandoning all previous attempts at stealth. Dirk followed silently, but quickly, following the path of carnage the men left by blundering through the bushes; snapped branches, trampled leaves and patches of tall grass and other plants marked the way, and gently pushing past broken branches, not letting them out of his sight or hearing, while a part of his mind was paying attention to the tugging in his gut.

The path these men followed was slightly leading them away from the woman, but the meandering forest road would soon intersect their paths. Traveling directly through the forest allowed the quad to close in on the woman, and maybe buy them enough time to get into position for an ambush. Quickly, the tugging grew stronger, meaning soon, the trap will be laid.

Up ahead, the quad grounded to a halt. A man; the leader it seemed, gave some hand gestures, probably commands, and sprinted forward with another following. The two men left, turning right. Dirk ran the scene through his head, and quick conclusion; he would follow the leader. Following the tracks the leader's heavy build made, he saw a rope tied to a gnarled tree on the side, and stopped in his tracks. What had been grass and mud gave way to solid stone and … thin air. He tentatively peered off the edge. It was an old footpath cut into the side of the sheer cliff who- knows- how- many years ago, and barely wide enough to support two people to walk side by side. Turning his head, he saw the Dharans in his peripheral vision rounding a corner, and disappearing. Following the edge, he slowly slunk forward. Squinting, he spotted the man along with the woman who was chosen. Somehow, he managed to convince her to follow his plan, however foolish it may have been, since it involved leading her to this bleak and precarious mountain path. Then again, the woman probably didn't have many options to choose from.

As the leader turned the corner, the man and woman turned, as if making to run, but quickly stopped when the other two dropped from the cliff.

"You may pass, boy," he heard the man grunt. The voice was rough, uncultured and uncivilized. "Our business is with the girl."

He picked up the man whispering something with his acute hearing, but could not discern what was said, and was too far away to read Richard's lips even with his heightened eyesight.

"Be on your way, boy." The man's voice was harder, filled with steel. "Last time offered."

"We will both be passing." Dirk chuckled to himself. The boy was brave, but like his plan, foolhardy.

"Not on this day," came a callous reply.

Soon after, ringing of steel resonated throughout the air as swords and daggers cleared sheathes. When battle cries sounded, he made his move. Dirk swung down the cliff behind the leader, and landed on his feet, and quickly tucked into a roll. Wasting no time, he ran towards the fray, somersaulting over the heads of the group and landing near the woman. She was his priority. While still in the air, there was thunder with no sound. When he landed, he quickly worked his jaw, and turned to look at the woman.

Blue eyes met green. Deducing from how wide her eyes were, she probably had an inkling of a guess to who he is. Breaking off the connection, he grabbed the nearest closest unfortunate man. With a twist and a push, he ran the Dharan through on the sword of the man beside him. With a flourish, he pulled the Dharan off the sword and hurled him off the side of the cliff.

He turned to the next member of the quad, palming a dirk. Ducking underneath the wild swing of the short sword, he punched the man in the solar plexus, the spun one-eighty degrees, and while crouching, slammed the dirk in an upwards slant, directly underneath the man's armpit, slicing a major artery. Dirk grabbed the Dharan by one of his numerous buckles and chucked him down the cliff with the first.

He turned to the leader, just in time to see Richard grab the leader's wrist and the knife hurtling towards Richard. Without a second thought, Dirk sprinted towards the last member of the quad. With a great leap, he tackled the leader, sending them both hurtling off the side into the boulders below.

Cliffhanger! =) my favorite. What do you think will happen to Dirk =O? I think next chapter I will include some history into the characters.

Until the next update,

Kev