If no one saw the bow, was the arrow ever fired?
If no one saw the blade, was the man ever cut?
If no one saw the woman, did she ever exist in the first place?
If she lived in the shadows, on the peaks of towers, in long castles high above towns and cities. If she was never seen... Then did she ever fire that arrow?
---
"Tusk... It is just like Sariel said... You're coming for your revenge."
Tusk looked up from the sand, his hand bloody and cut as he held up his black and golden sword. Its edge glistening in bolts of blue sparks as he looked out into the darkness.
"Caroline... How long have you been hiding here?"
They stared at each other through the darkness. Tusk's red eyes glistening in the black as her dark brown eyes sat softly behind her long dirty blonde hair. She lifted her three-fingered archer glove to the tight bowstring and pulled back on its crackling black bow. The limbs bent and swayed as she pulled further and further until the two sides touched. She then pulled out ten arrows from the makeshift basket and placed them each firmly on the bowstring.
With all her strength, she pulled back to the furthest the bow could bear and let go.
THWUNK!
Poof-poof-poof-poof-poof...
The arrows passed through the sky at sound-breaking speeds, their whistling echos turning into ear-piercing sirens as they flew across the moonlit sky.
Tusk looked up as he gripped tight to his lighting katana.
"I only have any energy left to block. Using that shock wave again will leave me drained."
The arrows came down at speeds faster than Tusk could imagine. Speeds so fast that they broke the sound barrier and the barriers after that. Speeds so fast that not even lighting could keep up.
Tusk closed his eyes and listened deep to the sound in the darkness around him.
Whooosh-poof-fwoosh-sumpsh!
The ten arrows came down on him like bullets.
He extended out his sword and swung at five of the spiraling arrows. He cut three but the other two struck right into his leg.
"Shit-"
He fumbled forward as five more arrows came down on him even faster than the last.
"Thunderstrike!"
His sword exploded out in lighting, creating a wave of blue and yellow shockwaves that exploded out into the sky disintegrating the five arrows in an instant.
"Hmmm... How much longer can you last Tusk?" grinned Caroline as she reached down into her almost empty basket of arrows.
Tusk stood up, his left leg bleeding as he slowly drifted along the sandy fields. His body swayed in the cold nightly wind as blood dripped out from his metal armor. He looked out at the moon-lit sky as it shined down on a small hill in the distance.
"She's on that hill."
He looked down at his leg. It was bleeding, numb, shaking, barely able to move. He looked back at the hill, at the small black figure named Caroline who was getting ready to fire another barrage.
"You better work leg!"
He tried to step forward but he collapsed under the torn muscles and skin. He fell to the ground as the arrows piercing his skin cracked and broke apart.
"Huf... Huf... Fine then... I'll do this the hard way..."
He pulled the two arrows out, grabbed his sword, and stabbed himself in the leg.
Slink!
"Thundershock!" screamed out Tusk as his sword lit up in hundreds of electric pulses.
The pulses flowed into and across his muscles and ligaments. It restarting his cells and forced his tendons to move on their own again.
He stepped forward.
"If I can't move... I'll move myself!"
He forcefully stumbled across the field of sand with his sword piercing into his leg and sending shock waves across his skin and muscles.
In the meantime, I was watching the whole thing play out from the hill behind Tusk. All the blood dripping from him, the arrows flying down at him. I watched from the slight shine of the moonlight. The electric lights flickered in the distance...
Why is he going so far? Why is he pushing himself so much?
Two arrows pierced into his shoulder and left arm.
It was the same with the Devil Dog and fighting those monsters on our way here. Why does he fight like that, why does he fight so hard? For what?
He swung his sword at more incoming arrows, he slashed and cut, trying his earnest to defend himself while moving forward.
Why is he fighting like it's his last stand like this is his last enemy? What is behind those red bloody eyes? Death? Hope? Loss? Sadness?
Tusk walked across the field of sand as arrows rained down upon his shattered armored skin. Arrows one after the other. Piercing into his black armor, piercing into his arms, his skin, his cloak. And yet he moved, his sword controlling his body as he walked across the sand.
As he walked across the sand...
Why does he... Why? Why? Why did he save me back then? Why did he kill my master, his wife, his children? Why did he let me live? Why did Sariel let me go free? What led to all this? His revenge for what? For who? For when? I need to know...
Tusk reached the top of the hill... His body pierced by multiple arrows, his left arm limp and swaying back and forth, dripping in crimson as his left leg still moved through the pulses of his sword.
"Your a monster Tusk... You know that?" asked Caroline as her right arm twitched with exhaustion from firing so many full-powered shots.
Tusk didn't answer. He just pulled his sword from his leg and swung at her. Caroline quickly jumped back while pulling a small dagger from the back of her belt. She threw it at Tusk, but he quickly deflected it and jumped at her again.
"So you still have enough strength to move like that?"
"I have enough power to kill you," he said back swinging his sword horizontally across the air with only the power of his right arm.
Tink!
Caroline pulled up her black metal bow deflecting the attack from Tusk's black and golden blade.
She stumbled backward a few feet as Tusk inclined over his legs, as his left arm and left leg collapsed to the floor. He looked up at the standing Caroline as she huffed to the sound of her arm and legs buckling from fatigue.
"You still have that silly bow?" he asked while supporting his unmoving ligaments with his sword.
Caroline stepped back and pulled an auxiliary arrow from her belt.
"And you still have that sword," she responded while cocking her arrow onto her horsehair bowstring and pulling back.
"You were always the weakest at close quarters combat!"
Tusk swung his katana vertically as Caroline quickly pulled back on her bow and fired a rapid shot at him.
Slice!
Tusk cut the arrow perfectly in half as the two split ends spun out in perpendicular directions.
"Shit!"
Caroline in a split second decision jumped at her basket a few feet away to grab her last remaining arrows. But Tusk in an even faster split-second decision lifted his katana up over his shoulder and threw his sword at the basket.
Crash!
He hit the basket destroying all the arrows and cutting Caroline's hand as she reached in.
"You only know how to shoot arrows," he said while quickly limping forward.
Caroline looked up at him as she clutched her right hand in pain, "and you only know how to kill. You monster."
She quickly ripped the horsehair string from her black metal bow and flipped her right bleeding hand to the bottom of the limbed staff.
"I've learned to fight and struggle over these past years. I'm no princess anymore!"
She extended out her bow like a staffed sword.
Tusk tried to deflect with his right hand, but his body couldn't move well enough to doge or swing. She smacked him with her blunt weapon directly on the shoulder where an arrow previously pierced.
Tusk fumbled back clutching his shoulder as Caroline quickly bolted at him again. She smacked him across the neck, the chest, the stomach, the legs. She hit him with the blunt bow over and over again. Hitting and hitting, smacking and knocking. And Tusk fumbled back, every hit bruising, bleeding, damaging... But nothing was killing.
He powered through it all. Every hit. Every attack. Every bleeding bludgeoning smash. He took it all in. And with the pure red rage in his eyes, as Caroline swung with her tired arms, he grabbed the blunt bow with his right hand and ripped it from her hands.
"Oh fuc-"
He pulled her close and grabbed her by the throat.
He lifted her off the sandy hill and held her suspended purely with the force of his strength and grip.
"Did... She... Really... Mean that... Much to... You...?" she tried to mutter under her chocking breath.
Tusk closed his bleeding eyes and took in a deep breath. He then opened them up again and looked at Caroline's struggling arms as she ripped across his ripped skin. He watched as she tore into him like a dying animal, as she struggled to find a weapon.
He looked at her crying eyes.
He clenched his large hand around her neck.
"Yes..."
Snap!