My hand is trapped under the pillow, gripping the wolf-antler. Her blade tingles along my neck, cold steel on skin. I breathe in. Then, with one fluid motion, I press my feet at an angle into the bedding needles and kick up, launching myself away from Sorina.
Her blade slices my neck, but just barely.
She hesitated. Her mistake.
Hands now free, I roll forward and spin back, planting my empty palm on the ground and adopting the fighting style of the eldritch wolves: down on all fours. Snarling.
She stares at her bloody dagger, then at my neck, eyes wide at my recklessness. Before she can spout another word, I sprint crawl towards her and spring up, slashing the antler down. My mind is in that same animalistic fight or flight mode that the tower used to elicit. Sorina raises her dagger and expertly parries my blow aside, stepping away and delivering a cracking kick into my sternum. I am knocked against the stall wall, crashing halfway through the wood, breath stolen.
But I have dealt with monsters. She is just a… well I don't what the hell she is but I intend to find out. The thin gash across my neck is already closing. It seems a full stomach helps me heal faster. I leap again, aiming low for her legs. She nearly pulls the same slash-and-kick counter, but I hook my arm across her ankle and drag her to the ground. Her head bounces off the nettle, her lute dislodging from her back. Why'd she even bring that? I try not to think about it as I wrench myself upon her, antler raised to maim her at the least.
Then, she screams.
And the sound is so piercing that my eardrums pop and all noise goes faint, blood trickling down down down. I back away, groaning in pain. What the hell? Covering my ears, I see her standing up. She is mad – some siren incarnate screaming my ears off. I don't know how she does it. Maybe through some spirit magicks?
The lute, I realize. Don't let her grab the lute.
Her screaming halts and she grabs at her chest, coughing up some blood. She has a limit it seems. Through the pain, I shoot for another takedown, scooping some nettles with my free hand and flinging them up as a blinder. Yet, rather than standing tall, she drops low and meets me head on.
"I should've known they'd send a monkey-cursed immortal at me," she snarls. I slash for her shoulder. She jabs for my neck. She is much faster, and her blade pierces me, a sharp and suffocating pain in my throat. I stumble back, falling and choking on my own blood as it gurgles and stirs.
She's a damn warrior, a damn soldier. She's trained. The way she stabbed me is too telling. Slowly, hands shaking, I grab for the dagger in my throat. It is curved up to my inner jaw, scraping against the flesh. Red hot pain.
I groan and watch as my worst fears are confirmed because she does lunge for the loot, strapping it to her once more and strumming her fingers along its strings. From her robes, she procures another curved dagger and sets it against the lute as a playing pick.
In a panic, I rip the other dagger out my throat, screaming out as blood drains out from my neck. I try forcing my legs to move. They don't listen, instead floundering beneath me.
She begins to play.
She picks at the strings with her dagger, delicately forming a simple, catchy tune of Eastern influence. It sounds like a tune from the clans.
I need to get my amulets. They lay behind her, in a satchel. I should've gripped one of them under the bed rather than this useless antler, but I was too afraid of using them so recklessly.
With each note she plays, the air itself seems to bend to her will. It swirls around her violently, picking up the nettles and hay and twirling them in small whirlwinds. And, after playing twelve notes in rapid succession, the air itself shoots towards me and I am pierced in my shoulders and chest. My body is flung back, crashing up and out of the shed's rooftop, flinging dirt and dust into the air as I soar into the starry night, over the black spirit-berry fields. What? That's all I can think of, for pain steals every other rational thought away, sharpness digging inside of my throat, in my body, from my regenerating ear-drums.
Then, I am falling.
…
"Hello!"
One slap.
I blink.
"Are you awake yet?"
Another slap, harder.
My eyes are wide open. In front of me is half the body of a monster, its fin raised to slap me once more. I yelp and scramble back.
"What in the name of —"
"Oh good, you're finally awake," the monster says. "I nearly thought I killed you by catching you with my teeth. Erot would've yelled at me for that." Its head is flat, eyes bulging and black on the outskirts of its head, like the eyes of a hammer. The monster's mouth hangs open with fangs of wood peaking through its maw and its wooden body curves back, planted in the ground, its back fin sticking out sharplike.
The creature is a hammerhead shark in its spirit form. Specifically, a wooden hammerhead shark spirit.
"You're — you're that spirit aren't you? The one that guards farm."
"Ah, so you've heard about me. Well, my name is Umbrahorn," the shark says, its mouth cracking into a woody smile. "Pleasure to make the acquaintance of Erot's new guest. He told me about you before he slept." He makes a grand bow, fin upturned, leaning low.
I sigh. My body aches and my wounds have not yet closed, meaning it has not been long since I fell.
A lute's song echoes through the night.
I hear the air hissing and the soft, slashing of crops.
My eyes widen.
"Do you know what's happening?" I ask. "You protect the farm right?"
"Well, I was hoping you could explain. I don't particularly like music this late at night."
I'm talking to a spirit. I'm talking a spirit! Spirits can talk? Maybe I hit my head too hard — maybe my brain is regenerating. I close my eyes. When I open them, the shark is still staring at me, face oddly sympathetic looking. I rub my eyes and slap myself. Focus. This thing might be your only shot —- Sorina is too strong.
"Do you know mayor Sorina?"
Umbrahorn's smile broadens. "Yah, old Sor eyes. She's visited us a few times; she's funny."
"Right now she's not very funny: in fact she's incredibly angry."
The sharks face contorts. Then, he points to the directional sound of screaming: "you're telling me, that she's doing that?"
"Yes! She attacked me in the middle of the night."
Umbrahorn scratches its long head. "Hmm… that is troubling. But, it doesn't seem like the Sorina I know."
The music is getting closer. The sound of wind blades escalates. She's searching for me. I need my damn amulets. I eye Umbrahorn's fin and stand up, approaching the shark spirit.
"What are you doing?" It asks, backing away from me. Its lower body slides underground, shifting the dirt behind it as the shark backs away.
"Let me ride you," I say.
Umbrahorn turns his head. "I'm flattered but—"
"Not like that! I mean, let me physically ride atop your back; you can get me back to the shed quickly and I can grab my amulets. With them, I can stop her."
"I am a great spirit," the shark spouts. "And great spirits are not to be … ridden. In either sense."
I close my fists: "look if you help me, we can beat her?"
"Beat her? Please. Erot told me you're new here. We don't beat people. If this truly is Sorina, I'll just talk to her and sort it out. Trust me."
"RAITEN! STOP HIDING!" a voice screams, the music now crescendoing. The wind is violent now, swaying against the tall black stalks of miasma-bearing spirit berries that hides us.
"That must be her! Stay here, I'll go talk to her," Umbrahorn says.
"No wait!" I yell, reaching my hand out. But the shark dives underground, kicking up soot and hard dirt. The ground itself rumbles as the wooden spirit travels towards the sound of Sorina's music, its fin peering out of the ground and moving the dirt above it — it's as if the shark is swimming underwater.
I run in the direction it went, following its path of dirt and dust. The stalks are bent around Umbrahorn's path, making it easier for me to traverse.
My left hand grips the antler dagger.. In my right hand, I hold the dagger that Sorina jabbed into my throat, soaked in my blood. I silently thank whoever's up there for my rapid regeneration: that throat pain was horrid.
I did not like drowning in my own blood.
I'll make her pay for that, I promise, though I don't quite believe it.
As I run, I hear voices ahead of me, past another crop of berries. Before I can maneuver them, something comes flying out of the crop, soaring past me and crashing into the ground. It is Umbrahorn— pierced by Sorina's musical wind. I run towards him as he rolls and tumbles into two more crop stalks before finally coming to a stop. When I reach him, I see the poor spirits' fins and body are cracked.
"I take it that talking didn't go too well," I say.
"Raiten?" It asks after a moment.
"Yes?"
"You said if you get your amulets, you can beat her, right?" Its black eyes stare at me, not indicating any emotion. But its voice is low and Umbrahorn's maw is set in frown.
"That's right."
With a feral grunt, the shark picks itself up and halfway re-enters the ground, its head and fin peeking out the dirt.
"Then jump on. Let's kill this bitch."