Chapter 1: Death Reappears
He stepped sideways, quickly, thrust his wooden sword to his right, a twist then slice to the left with a cross over swing--boom! He fell onto the roof of the abandoned building his family had recently inhabited. He lived with his mother and sister; their father had been killed in a hunting party that came upon a war party that was on edge.
He had loved to play with his father's sword when he was young, but now that he was gone, all he had was this little wooden sword.
He had been spying on the local sword masters gyms in town, and he got lessens for "free". He left his sword on the roof, he wouldn't need it inside. His sister was just 4 years old; too young to know how much trouble they were in. His mother was rocking in her chair, counting the money in the "jar", were they held the money to repay their fathers debt. He had a gambling problem, and when it finally caught up to him, he was penny-less. He then joined a fur trading company that was going out for hunting, and needed able men. His father had gone but-"are you ok? I heard you fall up there" said his mother
"I'm fine, one foot just hit another."
"How is dinner, I'm starting to get really hungry?" she asked putting the jar away in a loose floorboard in the corner of the family room. It was about two feet long, six inches wide, allowing the jar a perfect fit.
" it will be an hour or two, it is just roasting in hot water." he had caught a nice rabbit with his bow running through the autumn leaves this morning; it had scared him into shooting early, but he still hit it. He wasn't too surprised though, that had been happening a lot lately.
"I'm going out, but I'll be back soon."
"Ok. Be safe, it is a big city, and you are only 10" she said, giving him the look she sometimes gave to all of his father's old possessions when he found her crying in her room. Sometimes he hated his father for dieing on his family and obligations, but no matter what ran through his head, he would always love his father for the memories he left him.
"Mom, I'm bigger than half the first years here, and I have another three years till I take my vows to the gods and my new lord accepts me to study under him for a year." A first year took a vow to local lord to learn the basics of battle, literature, reading, writing, etc. For a whole year he would became a part of another family and learn everything he needed to know to live. " You know I can watch out for myself" and with that he was gone.
Jed, named then shortened from his dad's oldest brother kraithjed, a dark necromancer who would have been the most enthusiastic and powerful of his kind would have done great things, if he had not given his life in vain to save Jed's father.
He liked roaming the streets at sunset, the horizon reminded him of blood spreading across the floor, or the spray of a fresh five inch deep gash across a mans chest. He used to be afraid of the thoughts he had, but they happened so often now they seemed like a part of him.
He did not look forward to leaving his only family for a couple of days; he didn't know what he was going to do about having to leave for a year. The thought of leaving his sister and mom for that long was agonizing on many mental levels for him, even with the visits every other month.
He watched the exercises of "The Hand is quicker than the Eye", in which the master caught the student by surprise with a sudden burst of speed and wood that knocked the first kid unconscious and sent a few others away in stretchers. The kids loved it though. If you weren't a weaver of magic or a warrior, you weren't considering anybody of any importance to any race or territory. You could not become a lord without one or the other. That is why the kids could put up with getting carried out in a stretcher with a genuine smile on their face.
He looked at the stars in the sky and realized he had been here longer than he meant to be. Mother won't be happy if dinner is burnt tonight. He had just started jogging home when he noticed the cries and the smoke in the distance.
"Dear gods don't do this to ME!" he said as he broke out into a flat-out sprint back to his house. Directly towards the fire.
As he came within a mile or so of his house, he noticed there was no noises accept the distant roar of the flames, with smoke driving miles into the air.
As he turned the corner leading to his house, he nearly fainted from what he saw. His home was a thirty foot wall of searing, burning memories and… Then came a feeling and thought he had never and couldn't prepare himself for. His family. As that reality burned itself into his brain, he started to tunnel vision. He was sinking inside of himself. He was running towards the door, and he had just about lost consciousness, when the next most horrific site he would ever see stepped out of the house.
He froze, unable to think and barely able to breathe, and saw what could only be Death.
A massive, human shaped form stepped out of the threshold, bleeding shadows and killing even the dead wood of the door way that its massive form took over. It was made from what seemed like black mist, but totally solid in a way that water is fluid. Tendrils of black smoke moved, touched, and assessed everything around the beast.
A ripping sound alerted the tiny bit of mind jed still possessed, that the monster was now looking at him, and somehow he knew he was what is had been after. By then the full shock of that had and was happening hit jed hard, and he lost control of his body and mind to what used to be a foreign presence, but that jed now knew long enough to accept; but this time the presence didn't sooth or try to make jed happy, it took complete control of his body and ran. Jed was barley alive, so didn't notice the gasps as his body sped through the crowds at unbelievable speeds, dodging tendrils of black smoke and water with the grace of the greatest dancer. He had no way of knowing he was the last of the ancient, "almost" immortal, Skrull.