By Michael D. Griffiths
Everything
hurts. I can barely lift my arms to type.
They
found us. The Darcarre, the Darcarre and their army of the damned. After my
night with Hannah, well… I guess I was a little distracted and got a little
sloppy. It’s hard to focus when you are happier than you have been in months.
Head in the clouds and that whole thing.
So
it went something like this. I was just getting a damn soda, when a brace of
Darcarre blocked my path. How did I know they were Darcarre, the wearing black
from crown to boots is always a giveaway. They said something along the lines
of, “How long did you think you could hide from us Primus?”
I
might have done something like flip the them bird, before a broken broom and a
rusty knife filled my fists. I was about to utter one of my witty comebacks,
when my world went to hell. Now you have heard about people getting hit by a
car, but usually that is when someone is driving it. Nope, that wasn’t
how it went down this time, I was hit by a car, a huge SUV, that was being
swung like a weapon. I barely saw the Xemmoni before my life become a tangle of
broken bones and red pain.
It
might have been a Caradon. The man had tattered dripping flesh pouring from him
in sick matted waves and was as tall as a house. The Darcarre only laughed as
the Freak moved in for the kill. I tried to get onto me feet, but it is hard
with multiple compound fractures. I managed to use the healing spell Phillip
had taught me, but it wasn’t enough; I had never been more wounded!
With
a snarl, the Caradon raised a sportscar over his head to finished the job
and that was when Hannah drove her car through his legs! They snapped like twenty
foot twigs and the car came pummeling down onto his skull.
She
might have shouted something like, “get in, they are coming!” but I was barely
conscious. Seeing their ally down, the Darcarre were moving in. Screaming as my
severed bones ground together, I somehow made it to her now battered ride. With
a tear of smoking rubber, Hannah raced from the parking lot as weapons
shattered the car windows. Some type of Bestow, probably Black Veins hit
me and I, well I almost passed over.
Somehow
Hannah got me out of there. She is my new angel and has gone for medicine and
supplies. We are safe for now, but how long will that last???
Hopefully
I’ll have a chance to heal and hopefully you will hear from me again.
JP
***
I’m
still hurting. Even with my healing skills, broken bones take a long time to
mend, especially when you have to fix all of them.
Hannah
is my angel. She is the only thing that is helping me get through this hard
time. Without her care, I’m not sure I would be making it. She had gotten me
food and medical supplies and well, everything else a man could need.
Still,
I hate to put her in danger. I don’t know what I would do if she was hurt. I
just need to heal, before we can go, but we are playing a deadly game. The
Darcarre can track like no other race of Xemmoni. If they find us, before I am
ready, you might not see another post. Okay, Hannah is back, thank Yig she is
safe.
Fight
the good fight out there everyone, that’s it for now.
Jack
***
I was healed about
the time that we began to run out of cash or at least I did and I’m not the
type of guy to want to run up a lovely woman’s credit card bill. Hannah has
turned out to be such an unexpected angel and without her help, I might not
have been able to get through this. Although, as I get attached to her, I
feel uneasy. I’ve had bad luck mixing my Stalwart duties with the fairer sex.
That was when the
blizzard hit. Heading out of Ouray was now an impossibility. Seeing as we were
stuck there, the hotel owner took some pity on us and allowed me to extend our
stay with the unusual currency of a few pieces of gold. We joked that we had
inadvertently taken the tender back to what the mining town was like a century
ago.
The snow washed over
the town in white, silent waves. They kept the main streets of town clear, but
the Million Dollar Highway quickly became a hopeless cause. We were snowed in,
trapped. I had hoped that this would keep the Xemmoni from being able to get to
us.
I was wrong.
I was sitting in one
of the small pubs the high mountain town had to offer. Hannah and I were trying
the hedge around the issue of whether we are going to stay together after our
escape, when she suddenly went pale. I had been sitting so I could come my eyes
on the street, but the villains have come in through a side door.
Turning, I was
shocked by what I saw. I had been hunted by the Darcarre, almost toasted by a
Caradon, but these, these were flippin Glooms!!! I grabbed Hannah’s hand and we
were able to duck around a corner before they could spot us. I wanted to try to
make it to her ride for more weapons, but I saw two more patrolling the
street. “They travel in packs of 6. 2 in back, to out front, that still
leaves another two.”
Outside the driving
snow was mixing with a rolling gray fog. I cursed. “Why didn’t I notice this
before?”
“So you are saying I
distract you?” she joked with a smile.
Reaching into my
pocket, I grabbed a little chunk of gold. The cook quickly realized he had
nothing to loose, even if the gold was a fake, and let us back through the
kitchen. We are hiding back there while I type this, but I’m not going to
hiding for long. These bastards want a fight? Well, they are about to get one.
Say that is a nice looking butcher knife.
The cook seemed less
thrilled parting with a brace of butcher knives, but Hannah talked him into it.
She is proving as useful as she is beautiful. She might even be Stalwart
potential–as long as I don’t get her hurt first.
So we are making a
break for it and I might not be able to write for a while, if I really have to
mix it up with these freaks. I hate the flippin Glooms, but then again I guess
I hate all of these damn Xemmoni. But the question remains… It was weird enough
seeing a Caradon working for the Darcarre. Are these Glooms just a coincidence
or could they we working with the Darcarre too? Phillip told me that Xemmoni
alliances were rare at best. Something really awful could be going on. I could
be at the crest of humanity’s doom right here in the snowy mountains of
Colorado and not even know it.
So we still have two
Glooms inside the bar, two out front and probably two out back. We need to
start evening the odds before any more Xemmoni show up. I have this butcher
knife, A broken, and now sharpened, mop handle, a few throwing knives, a war
dagger, and my hand axe.
“Hannah, would you
like the war dagger?”
How can she be
smiling? “Sure Jack, I always feel safe around you. I know you won’t let them
hurt me.” I love her sweet confidence in me, but I can’t help but remember that
my track record says otherwise.
” Ok Hannah and I slowly crept out of the
back of the Pub. Fog mixed with the falling snow to a point where visibility
was only six feet. I figured the bastards could sense us, but I had a few
tricks too. After enacting my Detect Darken, I sent my ability out into the
storm. I was right; there were two Glooms waiting in the alley. Although they
were still a good distance away, they were coming for us and from what I could
tell, it appeared that they were summoning the others.
“It’s battle time,” I
whispered to her. “Stay behind me. The ones from the tavern will be here
first.”
So I quickly moved us
behind where the door would open and put Hannah between me and a recycling
dumpster. Then, like a blast of smoke, the first of their gray tattered
form was rushing out the door. He took a sharpened mop handle to the guts for
his trouble. It snapped off as he tumbled down the stairs. Since it left a
jagged point, the second guy got it just above the knee.
He fell as well, but
as he toppled over I heard a cute grunt. I can’t tell you how surprised I
was to see Hannah on the ground, beside the first one, slicing his throat open!
This surprised me more than seeing the Glooms. Something was going on. No sweet
young woman starts slicing throats so quickly, no matter what has happened over
the last few days. There were things she hadn’t told me, but as long as she
stayed on my side, I would let it slip for now.
Before I could let
this all soak in, Hannah had elbowed the second Gloom in the face. I jerked him
off of her and lifted the sucker over my head. He was barely able to
struggle before he came head first onto the side of the dumpster. Then I threw
him aside. “This is one piece of trash that isn’t good enough to be recycled.”
Sorry, I had to say it.
The two Glooms were
now heading towards us from both sides of the alley. We each started scrambling
to pick up the stray weapons. These Glooms favored odd cold iron sickles for
weapons. Their sickles, what was left of the mop handles, and a few daggers
went flying at the two Glooms to the west and then, just to piss them off, I
headed back into the bar.
Hannah’s hand was in
mine as we raced through the kitchen. We rushed by our table just in time to see
the waitress about to take my pitcher. I snatched it from her hand and downed
the rest with a single gulp. Hannah threw a credit card at the poor startled
girl and yelled, “give yourself 20%, I pick up the card later!”
Seconds later, we
were bursting through the front doors. I spied my motorcycle at once. “Hannah.
I have an idea. It will be dangerous, but for some reason I think you you are
up for it.”
She nodded and then
asked, “what do you need me to do?”
“Okay, You ready.”
She only nods. “Here goes. Time to strike back!!!”
***
Hannah didn’t seem
extremely pleased to be used as bait, but she was willing. This was another
point towards her being more than just a pretty face. I just hoped she
was a Stalwart and not some other race of Xemmoni that hated the Glooms more
than I did. Wait, I’m not sure that’s possible.
Like a cloud of
pestilence, the Glooms road their rancid fog towards her. She stood in the
center of the street as snow danced around her slim body. The scene was half
beautiful and half tainted, for as the foul corrupted fog reached her, it
turned the thick flanks a polluted gray.
Their voices began a
taunting whisper and I saw Hannah clench her knife until her fingers were as
white as the snow that covered her.
The Glooms drew in,
their sickles held high. They had no love of her beauty or will to live.
They were fools, in
more ways than one.
With a roar, my
motorcycle exploded out of the alley. One of them was run down before the
others even knew what was happening. The second took my knife and at the speed
I was going, it passed through his head until it burst out of the back of his
skull.
One thought enough of
himself to attempt to run towards me. I hoped off the bike and let it ghost
ride over the bastard. The last one attempted to escape, but Hannah was all
over it. She tackled him from behind and for the second time, I saw her get
down to business in a way no cute little blonde should, for she had slit his
throat so wide his head was nearly taken off.
But someone was
coming. The Glooms had alerted the Darcarre to our presence. My bike was still
okay and I’m rattling off what has happened in case there are any Stalwarts in
the area that can help us. We went back to our room to collect our meager
supply of weapons.
But they are coming.
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