I left Igna's body as it was, her eyes fixed on the horizon beyond. If she had been a properly mature nymph - or one that hadn't been tainted as she had been - roots and whatever wildflowers native to the woods would have already sprouted to cover and protect her.
But if I listened closely enough, I could hear the soft, distinct breathing of the woods; I could even feel the slight confusion pulsing beneath my feet as the living and spirit alike struggled to grasp what, exactly, Igna had been.
Nature's obvious hesitation to guard the precious body was just added proof that what Igna's mistress had done to her was very, very wrong.
So I left her behind as is, not even bothering to turn her so that her face would gaze upon the clear sky above as most ceremonies would have called for. Logically, it was the smartest thing to do - best to leave the blood of a cursed figure alone - but I couldn't help the shitty feeling stirring in my chest as I moved deeper and deeper within the fog.
You've done worse, before.
I didn't have much choice.
You always have a choice.
I wondered how long it would be before someone else hunted me down as I did Igna and succeed - if I'd even be free by that time, or killed just before.
"Do you know what you'd do with it?"
The voice was low and cutting, like a sharp breeze I could barely feel.
"Become a hermit," I replied without pause, not bothering to look over my shoulder. The voice behind me snickered.
"I do believe the proper word you're looking for is 'recluse'."
"You heard me correctly."
I ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, eying a small rodent black fur glaring down at me with piercing purple eyes.
"You would dedicate your freedom to the gods?"
"I'd dedicate my freedom to cursing the gods."
"Don't you do that already?"
"No. I'm not free."
"I don't see any chains."
I grunted as my unwanted companion snickered once more.
No, not unless I deny a contract.
"Why are you here, Bogdan?" I stopped, taking a moment to glance around my surroundings without looking directly behind me.
My companion released a mocking tut-tutting sound with his tongue.
"Won't you face me, Songbird?"
Bogdan was an annoying, pesky spirit - a wayguard, bounded to me by the very council that controlled my life just enough to make things difficult.
I shook my head, continuing my pace with an added weight to my steps.
"I don't have time for this."
Just then, a creature darted in front of me from the side, leaping out from the shadows and fog like a hellhound sent loose. Streaks of white and gray ran down its massive, bulky sides, while its snout - which was wrinkled in a vicious snarl, revealing glistening yellowed teeth longer than my middle finger - contained ominous reddish-orange markings of symbols I'd only ever seen in one other place.
It barked, fixing its set of gleaming white eyes on me.
How'd a grayver get all the way out here?
"Oh, fu-" I muttered, barely having the time to pull my cloak around myself when the beast lunged at me. I stumbled upon contact, holding back a startled yelp when it locked its jaw around my arm. Thankfully, my cloak was made of schetten, a rare, flexible silk-like material that could withstand most tears and abrasions the world threw at it. It was as expensive as hell, but entirely worth it when one dealt in my line of work.
Without it, I was entirely confident this beast would have snapped my arm in two by now. Still, I could feel the pressure building, and I knew I didn't have much time before the grayver decided to give up on my arm and go for my neck. I tripped over myself, falling back with a brutal thud! that had me seeing extra stars. Perfectly pinned beneath the monster, the thing snarled through my cloaked arm, shaking its massive head in an attempt to dislocate my poor limb. Pain shot down my shoulder at the movement, and I gritted my teeth as I struggled to get my other arm free from beneath me.
The woods around me broke out in ear-shattering screeches and hollers from other observers lurking within the trees, excited to watch the grueling bloodshed they clearly anticipated.
My fingers managed to grasp the hilt of a dagger on my left leg when the grayver released my arm with an impatient growl.
In that split second, as my cloak fell back, I rammed the palm of my abused arm against the side of its nose as I awkwardly brought up my blade beneath its chin.
The grayver was close enough for me to feel its hot, reeking breath against my face as it let out a pained grunt. Watching the life flicker from its eyes, I struggled to breathe, all too aware of the stinging cut alongside the bottom of my palm from where it had slid against one of the monster's teeth.
Can't stop now, I thought grimly. Somehow, I managed to use the momentum of its body falling to get it off of me before it crushed me.
Meanwhile, as I stammered to my feet, Bogdan was hunched over, wheezing from laughter he didn't bother trying to hide. Through the fog, I was able to make out his dark, shadowy form struggling to balance himself against a tree.
"Oh - oh, that's great. You-"
I stumbled away from the dead grayver at my feet, ignoring the spirit. The woods quieted like a candle's flame being pinched, and for the first time all night, a steadying sense of fear surged within my chest.
I needed to get out of here. Fast.
Pausing only to grab my dagger, I turned tail and fled, trusting my instincts to keep me from accidentally running into any trees. The only sounds I could hear were the poundings of my pulse in my ears and the frantic steps my feet made against an otherwise soft, needle-covered ground.
Not good, not good, not good-
"AWROOOO!"
The sharp, merciless howl cut through the silence like an arrow seeking a heart.
What might have been a pig scampered out in front of me, fleeing something that was lurking in the fog. It released a shrill scream when my foot caught its flank, and for the second time in the past five minutes, I found myself plummeting back on the ground. Only, this time my hands and forearms scrapped against the needly surface.
The pig toppled over, almost landing on my foot. I looked over my shoulder to see another one of those fucking grayvers charge through the fog and tear into the pig's belly without further warning, its body half-hidden by the fog.
The squelch of flesh being stripped and the agonized scream of the pig was all I needed to quickly be back on my feet, hauling ass in the direction of my safe haven: an abandoned mineshaft that had been left for well over a century.
More howls reverberated throughout the woods - it must be an entire pack, and they all sounded like they were trying to close in on me. Am I the target?
What the hell did I do to attract grayvers?
Streaks of movement from my peripheral vision told me that I wasn't going to make it to the mines without further incident. I stopped running once I hit an open clearing - the same clearing Igna and I had passed through earlier. At this point, it felt like the fog itself was moving in around me, and I wasted no time bending down to draw a rune that consisted of three horizontal lines and one vertical down the middle into the dirt. Then I fumbled for the satchel hanging next to my hip, knowing that I was going to hate myself later for what I was about to do, but decided that I'd rather live to hate myself than to not live at all.
Hidden in a small pocket sowed within the inside of the satchel was a solid black ball with eerie, dark blue streaks moving around the surface.
"Come face me, you red-muzzled demon spawn," I shouted at the trees, spinning around - though I was careful not to scratch the drawing.
They all came at me at once. Nine giant grayvers from all directions, snarling and barking in that creepy, raspy sound of theirs. I raised the small glass ball above my head.
"Draek re mir!" I bellowed out, which roughly translated to something along the lines of "darkness take me" or "darkness guide me", depending on the context.
I slammed the ball to the ground, shattering it against the rune as I felt a grayver's hot breath against the back of my neck.
There was a series of books cataloguing most people's misadventures when it came to dealing with otherworldly creatures located at the Torgo Library. Anytime I had to step foot in the Audfrendian capital, I also headed there to comb through the ancient books in hopes of learning something new.
Most of the time, I did, but almost every single one of them had a small, infuriating detail that I despised with all my being. Anytime any of those authors wrote about being in a perilous situation like this, they claimed that time slowed, as if they were being blessed by the very gods that cursed them to die in the first place.
Time didn't slow for me. It never did. I had to trust my body to move the way it should, trust my instincts to work in ways that would get me out of these situations alive and whole. I wouldn't be able to recount every exact detail.
I wished time slowed. And it was these very reasons that made me believe that all those so-called experts were so full of shit that I'm surprised they didn't get any of it on their pages.
One moment I was bent at the knees, bracing for impact in case this didn't work, cursing every single god I could think of for setting me to die when I was so close to having my freedom.
Indeed, the next breath I took was nothing short of pain, but for reasons aside from teeth ripping into flesh.
Where the glass ball shattered, white, thick powder exploded up from the ground, filling my nose and mouth as if it was trying to replace the air in my lungs. A violent, tingly sensation surged beneath my skin.
I felt like I was burning from the inside out.
Shadows surged around me. Distinctly, I could hear the grayvers' growls and startled yelps, which quickly turned to tight, pained gurgling sounds as the seconds dragged on.
I couldn't see. It hurt to close my eyes. It hurt even worse to keep them open. A part of me knew I was moving, fumbling forward with the frantic urgings of the living darkness surrounding me. At some point, I was fighting something off, and a sharper, hotter pain registered itself into my brain.
Arm. That's my arm. But I was too much a distorted mess to focus on the thought.
"Idiot girl. How'd you manage to survive this long?" a familiar voice hissed in my ear, although I couldn't recall his name.
Suddenly, I was falling. I've long since lost control of my limbs, although I was conscious enough to gather that I was being dragged through several feet of harsh stone and broken rock.
Until I wasn't.
~ 1936 Words ~