He howled and shouted. He picked up the thickest branch and lit it on fire and ran into the forest.
"Wait!"
The twins of Paros were also agile. Quickly, they took each other's hands and followed the Leopard-headed warrior. Guin was fast, but the twins managed to keep up with him.
Guin seemed to be guided by something invisible, or by an intuition that only a wild beast could have - through the forest of ludes, where the black trees stood like blunt skeletons, he turned easily to the right and then to the left, picking up a path that had been lost for hundreds of years. He turned to the right and then to the left, picking up a road lost hundreds of years ago.
"Guin--Guin, please. Where are you going?"
Remus gasps and screams.
"Don't talk to me. It'll wear off faster."
Guin shouted back, scolding him, but ,
"Fort Staphorus!"
I was brief.
"Linda, he is!"
Remus screams in fear. Linda lets out a small scream as a grass snake suddenly snakes past them,
"He's right! We can either take Staphorus or we can wander miserably through these woods and die. I'll take what he can do."
I whispered back, still panting heavily.
"Don't talk to me. If you want to live, just run to Fort Staphorus."
Guin yells.
"Guin!"
Linda screamed.
"Guin, listen! It's a horse. It's a horse!
"What?"
"If only horse, the knight of Gora, were in the meadow where we fought earlier!"
"Good."
Guin looked left and right for a moment, but then, with beastly judgment, he took the road to the left.
"If those horses haven't been eaten by the monsters, we can make it to Fort Staphorus before the storm."
Linda said, but her legs were getting tangled, as they should. Every time she breathed heavily, as if she might be left out of the light of the torch held in Guin's hand, a strange, horrible creature's breath would come to her neck, causing milia to form on her skin. Remus reached out and grabbed Linda's hand and pulled, but it seemed to slow them both down.
That's when Linda let out a desperate little moan and tried to crawl onto the grass.
Suddenly, she was lifted up easily.
"Guin! No, put me down!
"Hold on to your torches, unless you want to get eaten."
was Guin's barking reply. He let Linda perch on his left shoulder like a small bird, and with a weight no greater than a sack of cloth, he ran through the trees to the meadow ahead.
"Bloodsucking vampires are falling from above. Use the torches. But don't let the fire go out."
"W--okay. Guin."
Now all the darkness had bared its fangs of hostility. In the darkness beneath the trees of the past, countless eyes glowed red and watched them, and the night was filled with murmurs and the lives of the dead. The clouds were swiftly moving across the sky, and even the pale light of the moon, the goddess Iris, their last ally, was drowned out.
"Hey, kid!"
Guin paused, then growled.
"It's really here."
"I think. But why ..."
"Hold up the torch."
Linda was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed immediately, but she was not accustomed to being given orders - even arrogant orders like this. But there was something in the leopard-headed warrior's voice that compelled her to do what he said, and so, without feeling repulsed, she stretched out her torch downward, wrinkling her nose in anticipation of the horrible sight of dead and dying on all sides.
Remus, who had followed the warrior closely, uttered a low cry of astonishment.
"No! There's nothing."
The fire of the torches dimly chased away the darkness and illuminated the area, the bushes of the two Vasya trees with broken branches, the black headgear lying around, the broken greatsword, even the blood, it was apparent that it must be the same place where Linda and Remus had been hunted down by Gora's knights and saved by Guin's appearance. The same place where Linda and Remus were hunted down by Gora's knights and saved by Guin's appearance.
But there was not a single corpse of the Black Knights there, which should have been there.
The corpse Guin smashed, the corpse he beheaded with the big chopper-- none of it.
Of course, there were no horses tethered to the trees, anxiously scratching the ground with their hooves or sticking their noses in the grass.
"Guin--!"
Linda whispered in a faint voice.
"They've been eaten, haven't they?"
said the warrior in a grave, roaring voice.
"What, Guin, did you do this--"
"It's either them, the wolves, the rats, or something else."
"Oh--!"
Linda squeezed her eyes shut and clung tightly to the head of Guin's Leopard with the hand that was not holding the torch. But as she wrapped her arms around the Leopard's neck and rubbed her cheek against its smooth fur, she felt a deep sense of security that no matter what demon attacked her, she would be safe. .
Guin let the girl perch like a bird on his shoulder, and blinked as he pondered. horse was lost, and Fort Staphorus was still a long way off. It was not a great distance, but it was too far to risk a storm. To face a storm in the middle of nowhere, at night, is the first experience that no brave man would ever wish to have as long as he lives. The night of the frontier is the world of demons, but there are still some rules that keep humans and demons apart - and the storm makes a mess of all those rules.
The wind began to howl and the trees creaked with screams. In the distance, a voice that sounded like a woman's cry, ominous and fierce, trailed off - it must be a weeping fairy or a mountain wolf.
"Guin--"
In a whisper, the boy whispered.
"Something is ...."
"I know. It's them."
Darkness was gathering in dense clusters, and was beginning to encircle them. It was a dank and lurid connexion of darkness and gloom, and all that protected them now was a pitifully faint torchlight that barely illuminated their surroundings.
"Child."
Guin said in a low growling voice.
"Get around my back. Girls, hold on tight to my neck. Boys, grab the inside of my cloak, my belt, and do as I say. I am a living man of warm flesh and blood. As long as I'm fighting, they can't touch me."
"But when the storm comes--"
"And when you do, you'll beg for Yarn's pity."
Linda shuddered and clung tightly to the Leopard again. As she did so, she felt that although she did not know what kind of past Guin was burying in the valley of oblivion, he had certainly gained experience in this world, and he must have wandered the frontier alone and survived more than once. Now the only thing the twins of Paros could rely on was Guin's experience and his sword.
The scream of the wind grew worse. In the darkness, lurking among the trees, a malevolent and terrifying presence now clearly surrounded the three of them, waiting for an opening.
And suddenly, the darkness parted!
Linda screamed.
And the thing that came to them from the midst of the darkness, as if it were oozing out, suddenly flew into the air, and it had no hands, no feet, no body!
It was a raw head with white eyes and a grudge. Its bared teeth clicked in search of blood and warm flesh, and its eyes, which showed nothing, were two murky orbs of misery. It was as if it were a huge ball of life, hostile, with a white thread of nerves trailing in its tail, and it was coming at the battlefield, ready to sink its teeth into Linda's shoulder.
"Caw!"
Linda nearly slipped off the warrior's shoulders. Guin picked her up again, snatched the torch from Linda's hand in his free hand, and struck her full on the neck with it.
The sickening smell of dead flesh and the deafening sound of coyote laughter. The creature with the burned-out eyes and neck retreated into the darkness with a taunting laugh.
"It's a food guzzler."
Guin said briefly. He took the torch in his left hand and pulled Dan Ping out.
"Oh, my God, it was just my neck."
"They ate the corpse and took over. Normally, they only eat dead flesh, but they ate a horse, got a taste of raw blood, and are getting bigger."
Guin's voice was calm.
"Here it comes!"
The head flying in the air struck again. The torchlight revealed its crunching mouth, its burned half face. And from behind it--
"Shit!"
Guin cursed. The darkness was now filled with its horrible scouts. It was a dreadful horde of the dead.
A headless corpse. He who is split in half from back to waist, with blood gushing out. Their torn arms roam at their fingertips, crushed by heavy weapons, and they yearn for corpses in the shape of strange and hideous caricatures of men. They were all the corpses of the Black Knights of Gora whom Guin had fought, and they were all monsters that had been set in motion by the foul life of darkness. Among them was the hulking form of the captain, with his neck snapped back and white bones protruding from his throat. And behind him, a group of pale, glowing horses, their skeletons only, moving like shadows.
Among the trees that cowered in the blackness of the coming storm, those infernal creatures growled faintly and pale. They were generally lowly creatures without sight, hearing, or perhaps any of the five senses, but in their soundless murmur, in their cold, hot craving, it was clear as day that they were in the grip of a horrible, eternal hunger that was gnawing at them and cursing them. No matter how much dead flesh they devoured, they would never be satisfied, and they could feel the waves of insatiable dissatisfaction and greed. They came upon me suddenly, writhing with a desperate appetite.
A beastly scream escaped from Guin's mouth and shook the air around him. Guin raised his greatsword and cut down the werewolves left and right. As if cutting through butter, the polished sword snapped the heads of the oncoming corpses in half, cut the twisted corpses in two, and slashed the heads of the horse skeletons. As he did so, Guin had to be nimble to keep the torch in his left hand. It was the only protection they had now, and the fiends knew it, for they kept their right hand off the sword and turned to the left, hoping to seize the torch. Guin turned to the left and then to the left, constantly cutting down the demons. It was an easy task, for they did not try to defend themselves at all, but only came at him in torrents.
But--
"Damn you, you damned corpse-eaters!"
A horrible roar came from Guin's throat. There was a good reason why the ghouls did not try to defend themselves. Whether their heads were cut off or their bodies were ripped off, the ghouls did not seem to feel any pain. The one who was cut in half became two and the one who was cut in three became three malevolent assailants, and they only came at me again after I had turned away.
"Guin!"