Snow raised his arm and pulled the string as far back as he could, taking aim. He held his breath and released the smooth arrow he held between his fingers. It whistled softly as it cut through the air and, just instants later, it hit right in the center of the X that MenTar1Literally men (lake) + tar (wind) had carved on the tree in front of him.
He’d gone from twelve shots to twenty-five in no more than a week and, from the twenty-five he’d just shot, seven had actually hit their mark. He could still shoot a few more, he considered, even though his arms were already aching. But MenTar never allowed him to practice with the bow to exhaustion, arguing that he had to conserve enough strength to comply with the second part of his training.
“You’re getting better really fast,” MenTar complimented him with a smile when Snow handed him back the arrows. There were ten of them, now, which allow him to lose less time, constantly going back and forth to retrieve them.
They were by the bank of the stream, that, in the last couple of days, had increasingly become shallower and wider. As a result, a large quantity of white, round boulders had accumulated everywhere, over time.
Their pretext to leave camp that day had been the pile of dirty clothes resting on top of one of said rocks. Leaning his bow against it, MenTar looked around as if searching for something. Finally he pointed another, smaller rock, even though its size was still considerably intimidating.
“Try lifting that one.”
Snow looked at the round boulder that reached his waist and the impossibility of the task at hand immediately filled his thoughts. Still he did as he was told, walking up to it. Bending his legs, he tried to stick his fingers beneath it as far as he could, before trying to pull it up. He pulled, and pushed, and even kicked it, until MenTar was laughing so hard that Snow wished he could kick him instead.
“Your face is so red that you’re starting to look like a tomato!” he mocked and Snow gave him a critical look, straightening his aching back to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Fine, fine. Since you obviously can’t lift it, try rolling it around,” he condescended and Snow looked at the rock.
Why couldn’t he just choose a smaller one?
With a sigh he went back to pushing it, using his full weight, and the rock actually shook a bit.
“Use your legs as well! Don’t just lean on it!” MenTar told him and Snow tried to understand what he meant, firmly planting both feet on the ground, trying to use his whole body to move the rock.
When he was finally able to shake it enough to make it roll to one side, he was already short-breathed, but ecstatic with his own achievement.
“Good! Good! Have fun with it,” MenTar told him, still laughing, and went to occupy himself with washing the pile of clothes he’d brought.
Snow managed to push the rock around a few more times but, soon enough, he was so tired that all he wanted was to sit down and breathe.
MenTar was extremely creative, where finding different ways to train his muscles were concerned. He’d held water flasks and pieces of wood, he’d hanged from tree branches by his hands, he’d uselessly pulled on a rope tied to a tree, and had had to hold MenTar’s sword above his head for what felt like an eternity. And now this.
Looking at his rock, Snow couldn’t help feeling a bit of animosity towards it, but he still took a deep breath, and went back to pushing it with all his might.
He didn’t really now what caught his attention. Maybe it was the breath of wind that washed over his face, or the rustling of the leaves above his head that suddenly sounded louder than normal.
Raising his head, Snow looked towards the trees to his left, his heart suddenly beating faster against his chest.
There was nothing there, his mind told him what his eyes saw, but he still straightened his back, trying to see farther than that.
An almost inaudibly rustling sound reached his ears, and the smell that permeated the air made him take a step back. It smelled like something rotten and dead, he concluded, slowly stepping away from those trees, the hair on the back of his neck standing on edge. He would never forget that smell as long as he lived. Even after they’d managed to clean the entire village, even after they’d left it behind, it still had clung to the back of his throat for days.
“MenTar …?” he whispered softly, still watching the trees, silently backing away towards him. But MenTar was in the process of rubbing wet clothes against a rock while happily muttering a song, and so he didn’t hear him.
“MenTar!” Snow whispered again, this time a bit harsher, and the other man finally lifted his head to look at him, a bright smile on his face.
“What? Tired all ready?” he asked in a playful tone, to which Snow simply shook his head.
“We should go …”
“Go? Go where?” he asked, still smiling, until he finally noticed the boy’s alarmed expression. Dropping the wet clothes, he rose to his feet, following his pale gaze. “What? What did you see?”
Snow shook his head again. He hadn’t seen anything. But he could feel it. A deep disturbance. A big error. A huge fracture in the world around him.
“We really should go …”
MenTar watched him for a moment but ended up nodding, quickly grabbing his bow and pulling it over one shoulder while he collected the arrows with the other hand. There would be time to come back for the wet clothes, later. He didn’t care if the kid was right or wrong about whatever he had seen amongst the trees. Making sure he was safe came first and foremost. Afterwords there would be more than enough time to carefully investigate the situation.
“Let’s go!”
Snow nodded, turning to quickly follow him back to camp but, only a couple of steps later, that rustling sound returned, this time sounding much louder. Now he could clearly see it with his own eyes. All the plants and grass around them suddenly turned black and withered, twisting over themselves until they became an unrecognizable mass of blackness.
Seeing his path suddenly cut, MenTar stopped and swiftly pulled out the sword strapped to his back, the long, metallic blade shimmering under the sun. Glancing at it, Snow immediately noticed that it was engraved with beautiful, delicate symbols that look very much like markings.
Holding the sword with one hand, MenTar raised his other hand towards the sky. And out of the trees around them came a small, blue bird that landed on his fingers, flapping its wings to regain its balance. Lowering the small bird to his lips, he softly whispered something to it. And then the bird was flying away again, quickly disappearing amongst the trees.
“Stay close to me, all right?” Snow heard him say and nodded. In his mind, however, he was already planning ways to defend himself, even to attack whatever was hiding in those trees. Maybe he could make the trees grow like he'd done before, he considered, looking right and left. And then he finally saw it, not one or two, but dozens of red eyes peering back at him.
First he thought that what he saw meant that they were surrounded by several feimao2Literally fei (raging / furious) + mao (beast / monster). Raving beasts that appear in unbalanced, ungoverned lands. They possess destructive markings that in turn corrupt the land even further. Hard to explain in just 2 lines -_-; Anyway. Bad, vicious things that need to be killed.. But then, when those red eyes moved, he couldn’t help think that something was wrong about his first assumption.
Slowly circling them, the red eyes moved all at the same time, all at the same speed, as if they actually belonged to one single being. And then a huge mass of darkness rose amongst the trees, and they immediately rot away, falling down with loud, screeching sounds, raising clouds of dark, horrible-smelling dust as they hit the ground. Soon Snow had to tilt his head back to look up at it, at all those red eyes. And he had to quickly covered his mouth and nose with his arm, when a blast of wind blew all that dark dust towards them.
To his surprise, an equally windy ring formed around them, pushing the dust back again, forming a revolving, invisible wall in front of him. And he couldn’t help look up at MenTar, standing right beside him.
With an unusual serious expression on his face, green eyes glowing coldly, MenTar had stuck his sword on the ground and was holding the bow instead.
Pulling his arm back, he aimed at the dark creature, his black hair thrown back and forth by the strong wind. Even though he hadn’t been holding an arrow, one soon appeared on his hands. As restless as the windy wall protecting them, it was long and lean, and transparent, even though Snow could clearly see it. The sound it made as he released it reminded him more of a sharp, screeching scream. And even before it could hit its target, MenTar had already armed another one and released it as well.
An explosion of blazing red immediately captured Snow’s attention, and he couldn’t help gape when the dark mass with the red eyes was suddenly covered in equally deep-red markings, the sheer force of them stealing his breath away.
MenTar’s arrows screamed all the way to their mark, but an explosion of darkness quickly devoured them, consuming the earth and the air, and the entire world around them, like an unstoppable wave.
