Chereads / Against Shadows And Steel / Chapter 20 - Chapter 20: Embeds Of Evil

Chapter 20 - Chapter 20: Embeds Of Evil

Rays of the sun pierced hard onto Lina's eyes as she surveyed the tree tops of Blood Forest.

She was walking through the forest with Yiss and Kti. Looking back, she thought of her whole life being left behind her.

Her work. Her family. Her home.

Everything she ever knew was becoming further and and further away with every step she took.

She grimaced with a saddened expression and continued her walk.

"Why is my life like this?" she murmured.

"Why?!—" While she was still talking, Kti stopped and raised his hand to signal that they shouldn't move.

He turned to them and said

"You people didn't expect us to leave this place without problems, right?"

Yiss and Lina shuddered as they heard wild bears approaching.

Kti drawed his sword and said

"These bears, don't think you can out run them." 

His words shook them and they were ashened as there came into their sight five large grizzly bears.

Their legs began to shake as the bears approached them with the intent to kill.

Kti raised his voice and turned to them

"These things, they want to kill! Will you just stand there?!"

Even though Kti was a skilled swordsman, he too couldn't help but be ashened.

His hands began to soak his grip in sweat and his heart began racing. 

Turning to look back again, he saw that Lina and Yiss were still inactive as if waiting for him to defend them.

"Darn it Yama! You left me to do everything!" He murmured to himself as his fellow Rogue member, Yama, left him to look after Lina and Yiss.

He inhaled deeply and rushed towards the bears in front of him and swung his sword all over it.

As if remote controlled, the others left Lina and Yiss and went for Kti's direction.

Which left Lina and Yiss in absolute shock.

"What do we do? Run?" Yiss asked.

Lina, looking around baffled, with shaky arms replied

"I don't know! Why did Yama leave us like this?"

Kti managed to take down the bear in front of him, but as he turned, four other bears were closing in on him.

Noticing from behind Lina and Yiss looking helpless, he grimaced in dull disappointment.

Before he could react he noticed one of the bears fell to the ground.

Then the three bears in front of him stopped. The sight made Kti to grin and slashed all the necks of the bears that froze.

Keeping back his sword, he noticed the bear he didn't kill had a small dagger through it's head.

He looked at Yiss and Lina and said

"Did you throw this?" He asked troubled.

Lina and Yiss were disturbed as they looked at themselves and nodded in the negative.

Lina said stammering

"I-I was going to help with some stones...B-but how this happened, we don't know."

Kti looked at them with his eyes enraged as if he was about to go ballistic.

Until his act made them confused.

He only turned and screamed away from them

"Aaahhh!!!"

Then he closed eyes and before the doctors could ask him anything, he waved his hand to keep them silent.

Then he opened his eyes wide in fear

"Put on your hoods and get your weapons!"

He said in a eloquent but low tone

"We are not alone!"

"How do you know?!" Yiss asked as she grew worried of his demand.

Before any reply, several people in cloaks with daggers emerged from behind tree tops.

***

Tye was swimming through a river in utter darkness.

Having falling off a path from metres up above, he had no idea where he was going.

He had lost his torch and was now at the mercy of the river.

As he swam his way through, he noticed the water began to lose its depth.

And before him was a cave that led to an outside place.

Now reaching the end of the river, he got up to his feet completely drenched in water.

Filled with tiredness, his gaze was blurred from the swimming and fatigue.

Rubbing his eyes, he noticed that before him was a cave.

At his sides were walls that went high up, he was virtually in a hole that had two caves. One in front, another behind.

"There's no way I can go back the way I came..." 

He said as he looked backwards.

"And I can't climb up."

He thought as the walls were so high up.

He looked at his side and all he had left was his sword from his side.

Looking onward, he entered into the cave and saw two paths.

In the middle, read:

"Great greed grown. Grown without gold."

Tye tilted his head at the writing and shrugged.

As he took the left path, he looked to his sides and the smell of corpses injured his nose.

The bodies made his body to shudder and his legs were shaky as he walked onwards.

Looking forward, his eyes widened when he saw a woman that looked as if she was burying a person.

But no one was there. She was digging no ground. She was holding no shoving equipment.

Just running back and forth, holding nothing and stuffing nothing into a ground that hadn't been dug.

Tye gasped at the woman, and the smell of corpses made him sick.

About to back off, he tripped at a body and fell on the floor.

Sitting up, the woman in front of him was gone.

Turning to his right, a woman with pale and thin skin, with deep sunken blood red eyes was right next to him.

Tye looked at her frozen in fear.