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Twenty-Three
Baine
A massive shadow beast bit the head off the first agent who went through the portal. His comrade had just enough time to scream before the clawed hand of a darkthing swatted him fifty feet into the air. With a quick glance behind me, I could tell the way home had closed.
Wails and screams echoed around me. The sounds of the dying clashed with the hungry cries of the darkthings swarming the camp. Blackened shadows of death converged on their prey as I stood alone in the center of this flesh banquet. Still in my wolf form, I vaulted off the muddy ground and at a creature whose maw was bigger than my head. The electric surrounding my fur in a chaotic cocoon arced around the beast as I tore into its sinewy flesh, ripping it into shreds.
Someone’s bloody limb flew past me, another soldier minced into a bloody mist as the shadow creatures eviscerated what little resistance was left, decimating soldiers as they ran franticly over the sea of dead. I didn’t know where I had landed, but one look at the horizon told me enough. Even though the Rift was still miles away, its maleficent eye pulsed with shadowy cumulous far in the distance.
I was now in the Borderlands, and from the frenzy surrounding this outpost, it was being overrun.
Activating my speed, I zipped from one beast to the next, letting my magic sizzle, electrocuting anything in the vicinity, but it wouldn’t be enough. There were no more men, nothing left but the broken remains of those who had fought and lost. Fear pushed me forward, forcing my rage to control my movements without thought. My anger was the only defense against the despair washing over my thoughts. Terrified at the fact that with no way home, Rosalie would meet a similar fate.
This is what Lord Demious had planned for the females? This was the certain demise he would send them off to.
If I survived this onslaught, he would answer for this bloodshed. I could no longer serve such a depraved man.
With nothing left alive, the darkthings converged on me, too many to differentiate. Using my speed and magic, I leapt around franticly, biting and clawing my way through the roving tides of decimation, never staying in one section too long. My only chance of surviving this encounter would be to run out of the battle and toward the base camp which would be miles in the other direction. However, I was deep behind the enemy lines as this forward camp was no longer a bastion of safety.
A flash of red and orange erupted on the back of a monstrosity to my left, boring a hole which sizzled through its chest. To my surprise, a figure wreathed in flames, slowly walked forward, fire leaping from the inferno engulfing him, igniting everything in the area. Jumping back before I was caught in that deadly stream, I watched the man sweep a torrent of flame from his outstretched hands, incinerating a score of the vile aberrations that were converging on my flank.
Using the distraction, I continued my own fight, zipping around the blaze and tearing through the dark ones who got too close. Slick with vital fluid, human and abomination alike, the ground was saturated in its mixture, forming a black ichor. My paws slid across the tainted ground which had been fused into glass, the raging furnace beside me had melted the sand into a smooth surface. The blood shed made the grounds extremely slippery, but I stayed in the fight sliding wildly as I fought alongside this flaming creature. A beast with no eye and only a round hole with teeth slammed on top of me, snapping at my face.
My reserves were low, but I had enough magic left in me for one more jolt. Electric current crackled from out of my fur, the voltage electrocuting the monster on top of me. It howled, collapsing upon me. Struggling beneath its oppressive weight I strained to crawl out from under its dead body. Panting and pinned, I focused on the remaining darkthings, who were converging in a swarm of death. Changing back into fae form would be risky without my swords which were back in Farrow’s Gate. I’d have to keep fighting. Wriggling wildly, I fought to free myself from the overbearing mass. It was too late as the horde of slaughter dove at me, fangs dripping with hunger.
Heat slammed into my back and my yelp mingled with a thousand cries as the air shimmered orange and red. A nebulous of flame roared loudly, engulfing those cries silencing them forever.
Darkness swallowed me and I thought I was dead, but the smell of my own burnt hide assured me that this wasn’t the case. Shaking franticly, the pile of ash encasing me dissipated into the desert breeze. Soot covered and singed, the body which had trapped me in a certain death, had become my shelter. Its wispy remains floated off the last bit of static energy that danced on my chard fur.
Turning around, a naked man sat on his knees, head hanging low, smoke wafting off his skin. He lifted his head, smiling like a mad man. His wild red hair reminded me of another human who wielded fire.
“Well, hello there, pup. How did you get here?”
I growled at the word pup, and he chuckled. “Okay, wolf, my mistake.”
He sighed and stood, black ichor covering most of his skin. “I need to get back to base camp and tell them what happened before more of those things come. I used the last of my magic taking care of this little incursion.”
The man bent over, and I turned my head, not needing to see a full few of his backside. Through the years, I’d learned that humans tended to speak freely around animals, always expecting them to be just what they appeared. Unlike the fae who would never say anything incriminating in front of a fly for fear it was a spy or worse.
A thump made me turn around. The stranger lay on his side, either passed out or dead. He had managed to steal a pair of pants off a soldier before falling to the ground. Nudging his shoulder with my nose, I attempted to wake the man. I could have left him to his fate, but besides the fact he reminded me too much of another human, he had just saved my life.
More forceful, I shoved my head under his arm, forcing him to his feet.
He grabbed my fur, and I shimmied my body under his chest until he shifted and climbed on to my back. If he could hold on, I could get us out of here.
“Run fast and straight,” he whispered, gripping my sides. “Another minute and we’ll be swarmed.”
Glancing back, a shadow moved across the horizon. A swirling mass too far away to discern. The Rift in the Never created an everlasting portal from the shadow realm to here. Every living being with ill intent ended up in the Shadow Realm. A place of never-ending torment where souls perished for eternity and twisted into madness and darkthings. The malice of that place encroached on us now and I would not fall to its murderous grip.
Sprinting, I made haste for the base camp. My newfound companion held on, though as I ran over corpses, his grip on me lessened. The cloudy hazed sky made it difficult to see the sun, but I knew in hours this place would be covered in night with a darkness to match the Rift. There was no way to know how far I’d need to run to get us back to camp or worse, if the magi would even let me enter.
Tents scattered the forward camp, trampled and some burning from magic or thrown torches. The entire camp had been decimated, nothing lived, not even the monsters who had attacked this area. What happened here? How did the darkthings converge on the magi’s camp and win? Lord Demious had mentioned the magi were close to a spell that would close the Rift for good. Could the creatures in the Never sense that?
A mass of shadows writhed in the distance ahead of us. The acrid smell of death permeated the air. Going forward to the base camp was no longer an option. I’d have to veer left or right and stay far from that unknown horde.
I’d never been to this area of Saol and knew little about the Borderlands. Glancing up at the sky, I searched for the sun, hoping its position would give me the right direction to head in. The hazed sky told me nothing. Sniffing the air, I searched the winds for any scent other than death. In my wolf form, I could smell for around two miles. The air to the west had a slighter better air quality. I couldn’t decipher anything specific other than a tinge of cleanliness.
An unnatural howl emitted from the mass converging ahead. The time for decisions was over and I sprinted to the west, following my senses to a safer area. The human on my back didn’t stir as I ran, the growing darkness fading into the distance. Even with my magic, I wouldn’t be able to run far, and I would have no energy to fight any threat that might come upon us.
My muscles strained against the weight of the human on my back as the run took all that I had. Day switched to night and the hazed sky darkened. Shadows of gray past us in the night and I shook the dizziness from my head, knowing I was almost at my limit. A salty breeze wafted in my nose, and I pushed myself harder, faster, eager to reach the cleaner air. The barren grounds shifted, turning from areas of dead wood to soft patches of grass and thin trees that filled the area and birthed a new woodland with foxtail that swayed with the wind.
My paws sunk into the sand as I crested a hill and was greeted by the vicious waves of the Aegis Sea. Slowing to a trot, I found an area on the sand near a large broken piece of driftwood. Lowering myself to my belly, I shimmied back and forth until the sleeping human rolled onto the sand. Nudging his shoulder with my head, I rolled him onto his back.
Far from the Rift and safe for now, I laid on the soft ground. The waves crashed against the shore, the sound soothing and oddly comforting. The man beside me snored, and somewhere between his wheezing and the melody of the sea, I closed my eyes and drifted off.
