Gravel scattered under his boots as he rushed around the corner. He spotted his companion Godfrey wrapped around a tender young morsel, pressing her softness against the splintery side of the building as his fingers eagerly sought to drain her flesh.
Darvade snatched him as he ran past, ignoring his friend's loud curses.
"Huntsmen!" was all Darvade said as he ran on. Suddenly Godfrey passed him, long legs carrying him along like an antelope. Darvade heard the Huntsman gaining, impossible as it seemed. But they were near the end of the alley…
A lithe black-clad warrior blocked the mouth of the alley, hurling star-shaped blades at them. Darvade and Godfrey leaped upwards, crisscrossing off the alley walls in mid-air as the blades hummed underneath.
Darvade grasped the edge of the inn roof and hoisted himself up. The clay tiles were covered in snow and ice, almost causing him to slide right back off. He managed to right himself and ran across the rooftop without looking back.
Something landed beside him. He whirled, snarling in rage before realizing it was Godfrey.
"You should have gone the other way. It's better if we split up."
Godfrey shook his head, his eyes wild. "No, we stay together. We may have to fight them."
Darvade argued no more, and the two never flagged in their run, leaping from roof to roof. They landed lightly several streets over, looking about warily as they made their way to the stables. The horses inside whinnied nervously.
"We have to leave town now, make for the woods." Darvade peered into the darkness as he opened the stable doors. "We can lose them in the forest."
He threw himself aside with a wild curse as something sharp and gleaming grazed the side of his head. A Plainswoman emerged, attacking with the ferocity of a wildcat. A bejeweled eye patch covered one of her eyes. Her remaining one was narrowed in hatred as she swung a short sword in whistling arcs, so swiftly that both he and Godfrey had difficulty avoiding the vicious cuts.
Darvade broke out in sweat. If they could not take the madwoman out, the other Huntsmen would catch up to them.
Thought became action as he snatched a long razor from the band of his breeches. His hands blurred as the razor sought to strike the arteries he knew would end things quickly. As the woman parried desperately, Godfrey snatched a pickaxe from the stable wall. It would be over in seconds…
Something roared.
The horses reared and whinnied in panic as a bear tore the door off its hinges. No, not a bear — a man. A great hulking mass of muscle and rage with a double bladed axe in his burly arms. His hair was fiery red, and his beard all but smothered the roaring mouth. A Norlander without a doubt, one of those fighting men from the Norland Alpens who lived to fight, brawling their way through life with no care for the size or form of the enemy. The savage swing of his axe nearly took Godfrey's head. Godfrey ducked at the last second, snarling as he buried the point of the pickaxe deep into the Norlander's upper leg.
The big man didn't even notice. His beefy fist shot forward, knocking Godfrey back with a crunch of splintered ribs. Only then did the Norlander pause to yank the pickaxe out with a grunt. His thick eyebrows almost buried his eyes when he glared at Godfrey.
"You'll pay for that, wraith."
Darvade finally managed to bring himself within the arc of the woman's furious sword thrusts. He snatched her sword arm down, and as she fumbled for one of her daggers on her vest, his other hand brought the razor to her lovely neck.
Agony exploded in his left shoulder. He turned to see a feathered shaft protruding. The Huntsmen from the alley ran toward them. The smaller one already had another arrow nocked to his bow.
"We leave now!" He shoved the woman hard. She sailed back and slammed against the stable wall before hitting the hay-covered floor.
Godfrey leaped over her and landed on the back of a screaming horse. It reared wildly and nearly threw him off. Darvade focused Coercion as he mounted another, soothing the steed immediately.
He turned to Godfrey. "Get that beast under control!"
The Norlander closed in, his battle-axe whirring. Darvade focused Transference as he pointed at the Norlander. He was not strong with the Craft, but the ripple of pure force knocked the big man completely off his feet. At any other time, his startled yelp would have been amusing.
Darvade felt the ripples of Eler as Godfrey focused Scintilla, the Craft of fire.
The lamppost next to the approaching Huntsmen exploded in a ball of flame so bright and blistering that they were flung to the ground shielding their faces.
That was all the time Darvade and Godfrey needed. They spurred their horses forward, galloping hard down the road leading out of town. Luck. They would need more of it if they were to make it through the night alive.
They had a good head start, and their horses ran in sheer terror. The beasts could sense that they had not men on their backs, but something that filled their animal senses with dread, spurring them forward ever faster. Darvade looked over his shoulder. The Huntsmen were swift to mount the remaining horses, but they were not gaining. It looked as though he and Godfrey would be able to lose them in the forest.
When they reached the outskirts of the woods, a terrible scream rent the air. The sound was unearthly, reverberating all around them, crawling across Darvade's skin like insect legs. His horse reared with a terrified whinny, unseating him. He hit the ground hard, cursing. When he rolled out of the way of the stamping hooves, he looked up at the apparition that rode from the fog and darkness.
The face of Death stared back at Darvade, a black-armored giant with ember eyes flaring from its massive horned helm. The ominous figure sat atop a terrible steed that billowed gouts of fire from its nostrils. Darvade had never seen a Reaver or a Night Mare before, but he knew of them through legends that were still fearfully whispered ages after the last sightings.
Yet it was no ghost that towered over him, no translucent specter that unsheathed a double-handled black longsword and rode a beast so monstrous that it could scarcely be called a horse. The heavily-armored death knight was terrifying real, its appearance far more dreadful than any legend could describe. The Night Mare screamed again, exhaling sulfuric fumes and streams of living fire.
Darvade screamed as the flames ate him alive.
Postlude: Masiki
The Eidolon were beings from a different Age, a time when the boundaries between worlds were still malleable. Spirit, specter, phantom, ghost — Masiki had heard her ghastly guardians described by many different labels. The misinterpretation was reasonable. Only the thinnest layer of dry, crusted skin prevented their faces from being bare skulls, and their sockets flared with glimmering, unearthly light in place of eyes. Their loose-fitting robes and cloaks were beyond white; iridescent light flared from the garments that never stood still, but billowed and fluttered as though stirred by gale winds.
But they were not spirits, nor were they undead creatures somehow bound to the living world. They were experiments, punishment inflicted by the Man with Mirrored Eyes upon his enemies, betrayers, and traitors who dared to turn against him in his time of need. Instead of profiting from their treachery, they suffered the consequences: their forms altered, their minds enslaved so their every thought was of pleasing their lord and master. In the end, they served him far more loyally than they ever did when they were human.
Their employment came in many forms: vigilant guardians, ruthless assassins, or zealous hounds that tracked their targets across worlds if necessary. There was little that could harm the Eidolon, and even less that could destroy them. They were more energy than anything else: dark puissance in decaying flesh, cloaked in radiance, locked in subservience.