Adrenalin saw the man go on, tired of fighting Kes’tral at every turn. Let her sense or lack of it consume her, he thought. He ran, muscles warmed up from all of the walking they had done, making it easy to do so. He recalled a moment from his youth, as a child, running with his friends after a flat leather ball, fresh off his boot, a heavy kick sending it aloft. The particular moment that sprung to mind was akin to this moment only in that he had glanced to one side then, just as he was now, to marvel at the world moving in slow motion, even as he sprinted, flat-tack.
You can’t leave her, a small voice called, a very small voice, one which was easily silenced throughout his life. Wendell kept running, chancing a glance backwards to find Kes’tral had tripped. She needs you, the voice nagged, she relies on you, she's blind and you’re leaving her to die!
He groaned, reaching back for his bow with one hand while the other blindly fumbled for one of the elemental arrows the four-armed people of Eyota had sold him. Wendell turned, stringing an arrow in one swift motion. He took aim and fired, sending the deadly torpedo into the crowd of eldritch creatures that gave chase. The arrow cracked and fizzed as it cut through the air, leaving a glowing streak of electric blue in its wake, waves of energy sparking away from the point to mix with the surrounding warm air.
There was an explosion of lightning as the arrow hit the ground. Though it had missed pinning any of the many spiders, the jolts of energy that rang from it displaced all of the creatures surrounding it, flipping them on their backs. A handful of the spiders ceased all movement after that, dead where they lay.
Wendell nocked another arrow as the pair closed in on his location. He met the gaze of the stranger who had stopped to help Kes’tral to her feet. The pirate offered a knowing nod, indebted to the woman for saving his friend, before taking aim once more. This time his arrow struck one of the lead creatures, sending it backwards into those who followed too closely behind. A low sound tore through the air, like a peal of thunder, seeming to vibrate around the zone of impact. Wendell gave the women a few seconds lead, allowing them to pass as he loosed a third arrow, this one of fire, causing another wall of flames to rise up and consume the tall grass a few metres in front of him, once again slowing the spiders.
Those who tried to round the flames were surprised to run into yet another ball of fire, born of another flaming arrow. The circle was almost closed, though his fourth and fifth shot had been too slow, allowing some of the hoard to escape the ring of fire the majority had become trapped in. Wendell threw his bow over his shoulder. No time to think. He took up his axe and blade, preparing for battle, readying himself to face off against the handful of spiders which had escaped before the circle had been completed. This, this was why he hated Kes’tral’s stubbornness.
The first of the creatures lunged at him, cast aside with the swing of his axe. A second met the blade, but it was the third who got lucky. Springing at the man, Wendell was unable to avoid the heavy blow, which knocked him off his feet. He dropped his sword, closing his fingers instead about the spindly leg of the beast trying to rearrange his face with razor fangs. Another went for his legs and he kicked blindly, trying to fend it off. His axe cut away a few stick-like limbs, but did little to slow the creature hovering over his throat.
Was this the end? He stared into its frightening maw, looking death in the face. Mentally, he froze, though physically nothing had changed. His body kicked and struggled, fighting to get away from the spiders at his boots. Slow motion, everything was in slow motion, he had a split second to realise as déjà vu struck him once more. There was going to be no escape this time.
He stilled, his fight done. His vision went black and who or whatever he was, consciousness, switched off. It was the beginning, a sensation he had experienced only a handful of times, one too often followed by gaps in his memory, thoughts, sights, sounds, and smells that never returned to him. The manifestation of the beast, of a creature with a soul purpose to hunt and destroy, always made itself known when things were dire, such as now. The creatures of the void drew back from the growls and groans of the man, bones cracking and flesh peeling away as he transformed, no longer a man but a beast, a creature more fearsome than what gave chase.
The scuttling was silenced as the thing got to its feet, thrown forward on hands that where no longer hands at all, replaced by claws, bones and knots of twisted flesh. When it rose further still, what had once been a man, just shy of six foot, was now a towering, dark and malevolent thing. Senseless, cannibalistic and supernatural.
The thing stood at least eight feet tall, hunched, gaunt to the point of emaciation, ash-grey, desiccated skin stretched tightly over its jarring bones. Its eyes were sunken, embedded deep within their sockets, shrunken and glowing a frightening shade of blue. The suppuration of flesh left the points of ribs exposed to the open air, stinging and raw. An eerie odor carried on the breeze, that of decay, rot and corruption. Death walked the plains, but not as they knew it.
White antlers lay bare, stark against the strips of putrefied black flesh that hung from them. Lips curled away from an exposed jaw to reveal what appeared to be the skeletal structure of a stag’s head. The ground around the thing turned to ice, the air seeming to crystallise in place, as if this monster sucked all of the heat from the plains, leaving the area cold, perhaps colder than it had ever been.
It made short work of the spiders, not because the were good or bad, friend of foe, simply because they moved and anything that moved, met a swift end in this creature’s path. It turned its eye on the pair, staring at the two women for a brief moment before advancing. They no longer need worry about the void-bugs, trapped now in the shadow of something even more fearsome, the wendigo.
