The Frozen Moon - By J.D. Swinn Page 0,45
he had been able to tell all of them. She feared his attention would not be drawn for much longer. These seconds dragged on with a meaningless dribble of speech, and yet they flitted by like the lightest of insects or butterflies with complete disregard to her desire to grip them tightly. She felt like a child chasing the butterflies through a field of flowers. She remembered rarely laying hands on them, but crushing them unintentionally from zeal. She brushed the white powder from her hands and moved on; it was time to fight.
It could be delayed no longer, and any attempt would be useless. Now was the time to kill or be killed. She did not know which, though even if she did, it would not change her course of action. Even if she were sure this battle would be her demise, Nameh still would have fought. When one has nothing left in this world, one can always fight.
She thought for what had to be no more than a second or two about all the time she had wasted, and everything she had let pass by. She didn’t think death would be that hard, after all they had faced together. In fact, she imagined it was one of the easiest things to do. Living was difficult, dying was easy.
But it didn’t have to end that way, she mused. They were going to fight, she thought, and there was always hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: WAR
She couldn’t remember how it started, even now, moments after it had begun. Someone would have moved first. Someone would have struck first. Someone would have died first. But it didn’t matter now.
Bodies blurred around her, overwhelming her senses. Metal clashed with that unworldly sound, that resounding clang which rattles the bones and fills the mind with lust. She felt her muscles tensing, urging the sword through and through, on and on. The flesh she carved through seemed endless, coming from all sides. Unrelenting.
She stood encircled by the figures, who were still cloaked in darkness. Their pale faces shone in the setting sun, revealing the dark circles under their eyes, which were barely visible. She could not tell if they were man or woman, old or young. She simply fought, fought as though there were nothing left to live for.
From time to time, she would spin about and catch a glimpse of her comrades, or hear a cry from them. But they were separated, fighting multiple foes, and utterly lost. There must have been around a hundred of them, and they were clearly not as well trained as Nameh had originally thought, for they fell like flies about them. Still, the situation was not bright. She had lost sight of Daniel, and she knew that could not be a good sign. She was frankly unfamiliar with the deep workings of dark magic, and she knew not exactly what he was capable of. Countless enemies still remained, and her body grew weary. Her sword and arms were dripping with blood. Human blood this time.
She drove the blade through the chest of one of the figures and immediately felt a jolt shoot up her arm and through her chest. She thought she surrendered a cry, but could not be sure. A blocking spell, she supposed, but she was unused to fighting enemies like this. It had been too long since the Guild had been at large, and their ways had fallen into obscurity. She pierced a hole in the side of the nearest man, who was really a man judging by his broad shape. The blood poured from it willingly, as if it no longer had a desire to remain in such a corrupted body, and relished the chance at escape. The thin leather they wore was poor armor, but allowed for better mobility. The man’s face contorted with pain before going still altogether as he slumped to the ground at her feet. His life dripped and stained the ground with angst, it almost seemed, mingling with the dewy grass and earth. It streaked across the autumn scene she had not long ago admired, distorting its image. The crisp Fall air was now tinted with the metallic scent of freshly-drawn blood. It was then she remembered just how human these people were. Or had once been.
It was the impact she felt first. Strong, well aimed, and right between the shoulder blades. The pain from parting of skin did not come until a moment later, when it had registered through her