Night fell fast and none of us were ready for it. We had gotten deep enough into the forest that turning back to spend the night in a city wasn't an option, but not deep enough that we could travel to the other side of the forest. We were in the center of the forest at the dead of night.
"Good night," some unrecognizable voice said.
"Good night," another voice mumbled.
"Night," someone growled.
"Good night," Selene's soft, recognizable voice cooed.
"Night," I called back, finishing the "good nights" and letting the sleeping start. Little did I know, I wouldn't be able to get much sleep that first night.
Screaming awoke me. I sat up and looked around. Lelantos and Selene had just waken up because of the scream too, but the old man and Carnage were missing. I tried to listen to the voice and guess who it was while I stood and took my sword from the satchel hanging on the side of my horse. Recognizing the voice as the old man's, I began pumping my legs as hard as I could, bringing myself towards the cry. Lelantos stood too and was running not to far behind me. When I found them the old man was on the ground, cowering away from Carnage who was thrashing a tiny, sharp object towards him. Carnage turned towards me, a wild look in his eyes. All I could do when he lunged towards me, the sharp thing held out in front of him, was jump out of the way. Lelantos was then there, holding Carnage and smashing the object in a huge fist. He held Carnage like a trophy.
"What do I with him?" he asked turning towards first me, then the old man. I turned towards the old man too.
"Kill him," the old man sneered with obvious hatred for the goblin. Lelantos turned towards me for confirmation, but I just remained silent, still in shock. Lelantos closed the fist that held Carnage, making it look like he had no neck to begin with. I turned away from the gruesome display and saw that the old man watched with a smirk on his face as the goblins body went limp. Lelantos dropped Carnage.
"What happened?" Selene was suddenly standing there asking, with her hands over her mouth.
"He tried to attack me," the old man mumbled, "tried to steal from me and run away in the night. He never actually wanted to help us, he only wanted to steal from us and go back to his life," when he finished his smirk had become a look of disgust.
"Well, what do we do now?" I asked.
"Keep going, we have no other choice. Be more careful, and don't die," Lelantos said. The old man nodded in agreement. I turned towards Selene who I could also see agreed. And, oh though it was still dark we gathered our things and began walking again.
The city on the other side of the forest was smaller, but more civilized. Everyone knew each other and trusted each other. Everyone hated outsiders.
"Here to bring the badness of the world to our quaint little city?" we were greeted by a man sitting on the ground.
"No, we're here for a place to eat and sleep," I called to him, not even paying attention to the man himself. Soon we found an inn called "The Great Woods Inn". It was an elf inn, people wouldn't like it that we were staying there, but we didn't need any of these people to like us. As soon as we entered the inn Lelantos went to get a drink. The elves were scared of him because he was so large, and them so small so they quickly began serving him drink after drink. Me, Selene, and the old man went and sat at a table. Right when we sat down though, the old man said something that startled me.
"We don't know Lelantos, maybe we oughta leave him behind." I looked over at Selene to make sure this startled her as much as it did me. It had, her eyes had become angry.
"We'll need more than us three to stop Eos!" Selene cried across the table at the old man, "And if we didn't I'd think it be smarter to get rid of you, the weakest of us!" She stood and left to go get a room in the inn. The old man just sat there, calmly.
"Fool," he mumbled, "she doesn't know that a traitor like that goblin can end us before we even me up with Eos, we oughta get rid of everyone but you and me Plutus," but I stood and left too. I was not going to sit and talk to this crazy old man any longer than I'd have to. As I was leaving I heard him shout. "You're making a mistake Plutus! Together, we'd be unstoppable!" I didn't look back, just went to my room.
I lay on my back in the soft inn bed and think. How was it that the group I had handpicked to kill the greatest wizard of all time, was a thief, a vampire, an conspiring old lunatic, a warrior with no heart and myself, a useless fighter. What had made me think this was a good idea?
"I do. You're right. What kind of survivor would I be if I didn't want revenge? But that doesn't mean I need to plan on actually one day getting it."
"And why not?"
"Because we never will."
The old man, the old man had convinced him that despite the fact that it wouldn't work, it was the hunger for revenge that would keep the plan going.
"Having trouble getting to sleep?" Selene suddenly asked from my door way.
"You too?"
"I doubt Lelantos and that old fool are getting any sleep either," she said as she walked over and sat on the side of my bed.
"Do you think we should just give up, do you think there was never a chance of success in the first place?" I asked her.
"Those are two different questions," she answered, "We shouldn't give up, but was there ever a chance of success? The definite answer is no. We were just not meant to win." I sat up and looked into her solid black eyes.
"If there's no chance than why not give up?"
"Because there's also no chance we'll be doing anything else with our lives." I stared at her. I saw that girl I could've killed but didn't. I took a small golden dagger from the dresser next to my bed. "What's that?" she asked, moving her head to face the shiny weapon.
"The dagger I was going to kill you with, that night we met. It was made to kill vampires. I kept it and fought with it. It's weak against humans but that didn't stop me," I whispered to her.
"Are you going to kill Eos with it?" she smiled.
"Hopefu-" something thudded against my door. We both turned towards the noise. I put away the dagger and drew my sword, she readied her fangs. I kicked the door down and a body leaned against it went flying. I recognized it as the elf that had served Lelantos. The entire hall was littered with elves. I ran down the hall where, at the bottom of the stairs, I found Lelantos, dead too. Me and Selene both knew who had done this. Eos.
We ran out of the inn and into the forest, following laughter.
"What do we do when we find him?" Selene asked nervously. Suddenly, a flash of blue light came down from the sky towards me. I looked up just in time to see, the old man, floating in the air, the light coming from his outstretched hands. Then Selene jumped in front of me and took the impact. Just like that she was gone. I looked up again, now that the blue light had disappeared. The old man floated there, grinning. Eos floated there, grinning. Eos had been with us all along. Had killed an innocent Carnage, had killed Lelantos, and now, Selene. I threw aside my sword and drew the tiny, golden dagger. Eos shot another bolt of light.
I ignored the shouting behind me. I ignored the blood that came out of my nose, my ears, and my mouth as I ran through the blue light. I felt like I lost all control of my body but the arm holding the small golden, jeweled dagger stayed up, ready when I reached Eos. But suddenly, the blood was gone. The shouted was silenced. I regained control.
No comments:
Post a Comment