Chapter Nine: Dreadspawn, Part Four
Far ahead was a frail figure crossing the plains with a bundle tossed over its back.
The figure itself hunched forward like an old man, yet its long limbs had a thin, lean quality that hid surprising strength. Its legs, too, were long and strong. Using its thick knuckles in conjunction with its leaps, it moved quickly in a style similar to that of an ape.
Clare's eyes locked onto the figure nonetheless. Her senses told her it was a yoma. The shape of the creature reminded her much of the weaker variations, those that relied on their disguises to hunt. At the same time, it was different—thinner limbs, a larger head, and much larger eyes. What those differences meant, she didn't know. All she knew was that the creature seemed weak enough for her to kill. One less yoma in the world was never a bad idea.
"Clare?" Raki called from several steps behind her. "What's wrong?"
"I'm going ahead for a bit."
Raki understood when Clare drew her sword. She ran ahead, her steps biting into the dirt road as her speed made short work of the distance to her target.
The yoma flinched, whirled, and screeched before taking off.
Clare clenched her teeth and drew upon her own reserves of yoki. Her speed increased as the energy flowed into her legs, warping her musculature until her legs moved faster.
In an instant, Clare rushed ahead, her weapon singing as it cut through the air. The arc of the swing caught the neck of the yoma, beheading it neatly beneath its jaw. As the corpse fell backwards, the bundled package it had carried fell with a soft thump on the ground at its feet.
Clare's weapon hovered over the bundle warily as Raki caught up with Clare.
"W-what is that?" Raki asked.
"I do not know. I do not sense any yoki from it."
Hesitantly, Raki approached the bundle. The depressions in the cloth suggested the contents itself to be long and relatively thin. He noticed it moved, as if breathing. "It's a person." As he began unraveling the bundle, Clare maneuvered her weapon and cut open the cloth. Raki's guess was correct; as the strips fell away, they revealed the unconscious form of a woman inside. "She's alive. What's a yoma doing carrying a woman? I thought they ate people, not capture them."
"I... do not know. The behavior of the yoma as of late have been erratic." Her face contorted slightly in frustration.
"What do we do with her?"
"Wake her."
"Should we bring her with us?" Raki asked as he tried to shake the stranger awake.
"Perhaps."
A low moan escaped the woman as she stirred from unconsciousness. Her eyes opened slowly before focusing on Raki. "Wh-who are you?" When she noticed Clare, the woman nearly jumped. "A witch!" she hissed as she looked about frantically. "Where am I? Where did you bring me?"
"A yoma was carrying you off," Raki said.
"A yoma?" Her hand brushed against the yoma corpse. She looked at it and screamed.
"Please calm down, lady. It's dead."
The woman crawled away from the corpse, screaming until she ran out of breath. Raki turned to Clare with a silent plea for help. Clare watched on indifferently as the woman began hyperventilating.
Seeing his companion unwilling to help, Raki stepped up his own efforts to placate the woman. "Lady, you're going to be fine. Where do you live?"
"Live. Live! Where do I...?" The woman shook her head. "Sandro."
Raki frowned. "That's a few days from here."
"Why did the yoma abduct you?" Clare asked.
"I-I don't know! I didn't even think there would be yoma in—"
"Umm. Clare, I think it's best if we just brought her back to Sandro. It's in the direction we're headed, after all." Raki smiled awkwardly at the stranger. "You're welcome to come with us, lady. Clare is... she can kill any yoma that tries to eat us. She had saved me, too."
"I can't trust a witch."
Raki's smile faltered. "Clare is trustworthy. I promise."
"I, n-no... no! I can't. I'll go back by myself."
Raki's smile strained. His struggle to get the woman to accept Clare was embarrassing. When his uncle and brother were still alive, they told him stories about the silver-eyed witches. 'If you see one at night,' his uncle had said once, 'run back home. Or, if you can't, cross a river. Those witches can't touch water. If you let them catch you, you'll end up dead. Or worse. They might catch you, drag you back to their coven's home in the woods, and stew you for a meal.' Of course, Raki knew it to be nonsense now after sharing a camp for a few nights with Clare—but clearly this woman believed in the old dogmas regarding the witches.
"We're going in the same direction. It'll..." Raki paused. He had an idea. "Actually, may you lead us back? I've never seen these lands before. I'm afraid I might get lost."
The woman looked confused. "The witch is—"
"Clare is... for my protection. My family hired her to accompany me on my... pilgrimage to Rabona. I hope you understand."
The woman pondered before nodding. "I suppose."
"Wonderful! Umm." Raki offered his hand. The woman accepted it. "My name is Raki."
"Mine is Bethany," she said as she brushed the dirt off her clothes. "Now tell me: what kind of no-good mother would let her child leave with a witch?"
Clare remained unaffected by Bethany's scathing remarks.
After obtaining a description of the missing woman named Bethany, Shirou and Shirley had left Sandro with refreshed supplies and a pressing drive to succeed. The problem was that neither of them had any idea which direction to go until an aging woman—probably in her early fifties, what passed as ancient—recounted a tale of how she had seen a hobbling old man carry his belongings off in the direction of the Brandt. In the dark she hadn't seen his face, but the only elderly man in town was still there; as such, Shirou had a lead, even if the testimony was unreliable at best.
They were a quarter of a day away from Sandro when they set up camp beneath a large, green grove. As the fire flickered, they sparred, their shadows jumping over the trees.
"Keep your guard up," Shirou said as he struck.
He controlled the speed of his swing enough so for Shirley to react, but only just. She responded by parrying the swing along the blade of her sword, pushing the strike over her head clumsily. Before the ringing of steel ended, she struck back with a quick thrust of her own weapon.
"Ha!" she shouted as she exhaled sharply.
The transition was sloppy, and her footwork needed much more practice. Occasionally she would stumble by her own feet, though she never fell. She focused too strongly in the clashing of arms, forgetting her surroundings or her opponent's tricks. However, her progress satisfied him enough; she did her morning exercises obediently, ate her fill during meals, and pushed herself to her limits during their mock fights. To ask more would be unreasonable. She would be a respectable fighter in the years to come. Now the girl was still green—as expected in a week's practice.
In thinking so, he never expected her to draw the knife he had given her from her belt after he disarmed her. She was two steps away, and with one she was well within his guard. He took it in stride, catching her arm with his free hand and shoving her back.
She stumbled backwards and fell on her rear. "Ouch."
"Good thinking with that knife. It caught me by surprise." He lowered his sword and gently kicked Shirley's sword back her to her. "Another..."
He smelled it then. Blood. It hid under the cover of smoke, and nearly escaped Shirou's notice.
"Shirley," he said, his sword still in hand. "Stay close."
She rose weakly to her feet, glancing about the trees as the flames kept the darkness at bay.
Reinforcement sharpened Shirou's sight, increasing his eyes' sensitivity to light as his searched the grove with the moonlight to aid him. Past the blinding light of the fire, he spotted figures moving in the dark. They were thin figures, nimble even with their hunched forms. Their eyes were disproportionately small compared to their heads, and their teeth were abnormally sharp and plentiful.
"A-are there yoma?" Shirley asked as she backed herself towards Shirou, her sword at the ready.
"Yes. A number of them. Twelve... fifteen. Nineteen." A knife materialized in his free hand. He hurled it upwards in the air. As it reached its peak, Shirou's sword quivered as its form shifted.
The longsword widened, lengthened. The grip grew for both his hands to use.
The knife shattered before it plummeted. The shards were flickers before they exploded into motes of light, each shining like miniature suns. Shirley gasped, straining her eyes against the glare but maintaining her guard despite her shock.
The light shed by the knife illuminated the grove around the camp, revealing the creatures stalking the night. And Shirou met them, greatsword carving onto the neck of one.
A collection of growls, hisses and roars urged the creatures to charge. Shirou's greatsword swung true and cut apart a group of three that lunged at him as one, and they fell to pieces together. Others dogged at him, snapping at him with their jaws with loud clicks and nimbly evading his swings. He caught sight of a pair herding Shirley away from where he was.
But Shirley was holding her own. As one tried to snap at her, she pulled back half a step to avoid the teeth, and thrust her sword forward to catch it in the soft of its throat.
The other struck at her, and Shirley had to abandon her weapon to avoid injury. Haggard as she was, she stayed out of the monster's swipes, bites and leaps with evasive rolls until it leapt upon her. She whipped out her knife at that moment. The short blade found its mark on the creature's shoulder, and cut across to its opposite shoulder like wet paper. It screeched and tried to scramble away, only for Shirley to plunge her knife into its back and cut a deep wound down its back.
She drew deep breaths as she stared at the unassuming knife in her hand.
"Did you expect I'd leave you with a simple knife?" Shirou said as he returned to her side, his greatsword covered in gore and dark ichor. "Good work."
She flushed, smiled and got back on her feet.
There were bodies all over their camp. The surviving creatures retreated beyond Shirou's magical light, hissing and growling. Already, Shirou could see more descending upon them from further beyond with his reinforced eyesight. There was a steady stream of them, in fact. A quick study determined that they matched the description the woman from Sandro gave him about an old man wandering towards Brandt.
But still, it is odd how they are gathering here. It's not a horde of them. Not quite. And yet, they keep coming. It's like a line of them marching in—ah.
"There are more coming," Shirou told Shirley.
"Wh-what do we do now?" she asked, her stutter betraying her unease. He didn't blame her; even adults would be afraid, and Shirley was but fourteen-years old. That she hadn't broken down into a blubbering pile of fear by now solidified his opinion of the girl—she was brave.
"These yoma match the description the woman in Sandro gave us. Perhaps if we push forward, we can find the missing woman. What was her name again?"
"Bethany."
"Yes. Her. Get your sword. We'll be pushing back hard."
Her eyes widened. "I-is that a wise idea?"
"Probably not. But we can't sit here and let them attack us, can we?" He let a reassuring smile creep upon his face. "Watch my back, okay?"
Her flush grew redder as she yanked her weapon from the yoma's corpse. "Of course!"
They're marching in this direction. They're after the people in Sandro. Bethany had been taken before, and now it is likely these were going to raid the village. It means that I should take out as many as I can, or at least get all of them to chase me. And if my guess is right, at the other end of the line is where I'll find some answers.
He turned his smile towards the yoma, where it turned grim. "We'll leave our things here. We'll be on the move all night. Hopefully we'll find them still here when we're done."
"Okay."
He moved then. Not too quickly, but certainly steadily. As he left the light, the monsters descended upon him, as if hoping the loss of light would make him more vulnerable. It didn't—and the creatures that attacked him suffered for it. The ten that had survived the initial encounter at the camp had become fifteen with their reinforcements, only to drop to eleven. They drew him forward, forming a loose semi-circle with him and Shirley at the center.
Shirley stayed at his back, her sword and knife lashing out once or twice when a yoma tried to flank. The cuts she inflicted drove them back. Shirou's greatsword cut them down.
When it became obvious to the yoma that Shirou was too strong, they retreated.
He followed.
The creatures that followed the initial spearhead of yoma found their comrades running back. A moment of hesitation brought them swift death as Shirou made short work of them. A trail of corpses marked his pursuit of the yoma deeper into the grove until the grove became a forest. As Shirou strayed from the beaten path to Brandt, he smelled with growing disgust the stench of yoma in an almost unbearable concentration.
It reminded him of that dawn in Rabona, when the gigantic yoma charged at the Holy City's walls.
"Shirou!" Shirley called when she caught up. "What's wrong?"
"It's a big one. Like that day in Rabona." Shirley froze. Shirou caught this, managed another smile, and pat her on the back. "We'll be fine. Keep light on your feet," he said, pushing her sword into her hand, "and keep your sword in your hands, and you'll be alright."
She swallowed, nodding. She steeled her resolve, drawing upon herself strength from her beliefs. That day haunted her dreams, brought her nightmares, but she would not let it control her.
At the very least, Shirou believed she could do it. And she trusted him.
"I understand," she said. She took her fear and killed it with her will to survive.
"Good."
When they continued on, the shapes of the yoma were long gone among the trees. Instead, Shirou followed the smell in the air, wandering until he knew in which direction the smell grew stronger. When he did, he pressed ahead, Shirley grasping his hand as he did, until the trees grew scarce and the pair emerged on the other side of the forest to find—nothing.
Nothing, as there was only a gaping hole in the ground.
The earth long collapsed into the depths of the hole, as had whatever trees or stone that once stood there. The smell disgusted Shirou. Cautiously, he stepped to the edge of the hole and peered down.
Down below, at the bottom of a sixty-foot drop, he saw paste-white flesh.
The horde of yoma contrasted with the dark of night, and even without his reinforced sight he could see them whirl in his direction one by one. When he reinforced his vision, he saw more; the traces of blood trickling down the mouths of a few of the yoma; the mangled bodies beneath the creatures' feet; the pulse of movement that beat below the earth.
At the center of the horde, past the hissing and snarling monsters, was a swell in the sea of flesh.
There rested a creature different from the hunched creatures that surrounded it. Its head was round and its eyelids wrinkled. Its upper lip split into two, its mandible into four. It twisted itself before crying out, its voice like an infant. One of the lesser yoma rushed to it and spewed a black liquid into the waiting mouth of the beast. The act seemed to give the larger creature strength, as once it finished eating it opened its eyes. It opened its eyes and turned them straight at Shirou.
It wailed.
The earth shook. The lesser yoma scrambled as the larger yoma opened its mouth—and kept opening. The lesser yoma fell into the monster's jaws by the hundreds until the ones scrambling up the walls of the hole lost their footing and plummeted.
The earth kept shaking as it began to split.
"Run!" Shirou shouted.
Shirley obeyed. Her sword lit with a soft glow, and to her surprise she darted back into the forest with a speed she could not have possessed. Shirou reinforced his legs and followed.
The earth rumbled as it broke, and a mountain of flesh surfaced. The yoma howled into the night, looming over the trees until its very figure blocked the moon. The great slag of its flesh ended with hundreds of worm-like tendrils, each ending with a fleshy circle of teeth.
It lurched forward out of its hole and pursued.
In a camp beside the road running between Brandt and Sandro, Clare raised her head from her knees. She stared at the mountain of flesh in the distance, too close for comfort.
The sheer yoki radiating from it made her wonder how she had missed it.
Raki noticed the creature as well. "Clare," he began, uneasily, "what is that?"
"A yoma," she answered as she got to her feet. She donned her armor, and took her sword from the tree it leaned upon. "I will investigate."
"W-wait! You don't have to—!"
"Yes. I must."
Without another word, she took off towards the yoma.
The monster's wails filled the night.
a/n: Hello! Hello! Hello!