Page 7 of The Nightmare Queen
I turn my head slowly to see the pile of bodies I made was-rustling?An arm that was dismembered and left off to the side moves along the ground until it finds its original owner. “The creatures are piecing themselves back together and reanimating…what. the. fuck?” I breathe out, my hand closing around Will’s arm to stand him up with me.
“They don’t fucking die?!” He shrieks, drawing his sword again. I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how I am going to get us out of this, especially when turning around isn’t an option.
If we want to have a home to go back to, I need Obsidian.
I drag Will behind me shoving him into the flank of his horse, the two of us scrambling to mount them. We take off at breakneck speed before the monsters can fully put themselves back together.
Thankfully, the ground is more flat, making it easier on the horses to gallop through the forest. “How long do you think we can push the horses?” Will shouts.I don’t know. I think. I don’t want to push them too hard and risk losing our ease of transport through the outer territories.
“Just a few more miles.” I shout back. The woods sound with strange yipping noises, and every so often I swear I see pairs of red eyes staring straight at us, unease washing over us.
A few more miles turned into several. We only stopped when we heard the sound of water running. It was daylight again when we saw the river come into view. It’s water so clear you can see the stones glittering at the bottom. Will and I both hop off our mounts, guiding them to a slower part of the current. The two steeds greedily lap up at the liquid. Feeling some security under sunlight we set our things down, stripping of our dirtied and bloodied clothes and step into the frigid water.
The stones underneath our feet are smooth. Slick and sleek black stones line the bottom. I reach down to pick one up and look at it under the light. Veins of red shine through it like blood under the surface of skin.
“Obsidian.” Will notes.
“What?” I ask, opting not to turn around and see the bare body of my guard.
“The stones, they’re Obsidian.”So they are, I say to myself.
I toss the flat stone in my hand, before skipping it across the water. “Appropriate I suppose. Considering the name of the kingdom we’re in.” He hums in response. The sound of the water splashing as we wash away the grime taking over the conversation. Suds flow down the current. I’ve never been more grateful for the foresight to bring soap along with us, even if it only lasts us this one wash, as it scrubs away the black sticky reminder of the creatures we fought only hours ago.
Will and I set the fire up afterwards, shivering under thin blankets, waiting to dry off. Our meal is a measly one of bread and dried jerky. Not much to fill our stomachs but enough to get us through next few hours. “Ha. Ha-ha-ha.” Will’s laughter cuts through.
“Wh-what are you laughing at?” I sputter. He’s gone into a fit. His blanketed arm banded across his stomach as a deep belly laugh roars out of him. “Wh-ha. What is so funny?” I ask again, not being able to help the laugh infecting me as well.
“Ha—” he tries to catch his breath between hiccups. “Ha- it’s just so insane. Phew.” He says, his hand swiping across his forehead. “This whole plan. This whole day. We weren’t inside the border for more than a few what? Hours?”
“Y-yeah, maybe.” I laugh.
“Before something tried to kill us? I mean here I was worried about being on your father’s list to kill. But…by the looks of it Obsidian will do the job for him.” He slips back into his fit and the two of laugh at the absurdity of the hand I’ve dealt us. He’s right though, hate it as I may. We barely scraped by that last fight, and if they reanimate then I’m not sure what we can do.
“A-hem. I’ll get you back home Will.” I say, he’s hobbled over to his pack, digging through it for his mat and some dry clothes.
He shrugs, throwing his shirt over his still damp hair, shaking it out as he does so. I wish I could convince him of that, but I’d have to first convince myself of it. His snores don’t take long to drift from him. I maintain first watch as he gets undisturbed rest, it would be wasted on me anyways.
Thankfully, the creatures didn’t find us that night. The next however I unfortunately couldn’t say the same. We heard them earlier this time, it was a smaller group, but no less vicious. These ones looked more monstrous, their features were practically melting off their skeletons. The noises that left them were animalistic. Screeches and guttural moans emit from their gaping maws.
Will and I cut left and right, spinning around each other. I watch each body that fell for movement in their chest, and sure enough no matter which way I stabbed, sliced, or cleaved, the fucking things keptmoving.
“I counted twelve bodies.” Will states.
I circle around the pile of limbs and torsos, “it won’t be long before they reanimate again. But—” My feet stop short at a pair of shoulders with its disfigured head resting a few feet away. My knees bend forcing my body into a crouch.
“What are you…” I lift my hand, silencing him. My eyes squint staring hard at the chest cavity. I wait for the unusual rise and fall of their uncoordinated breathing.Nothing.
I jump to my feet, raising my sword to the body to my left, cleaving the head clean off.THWUMP!
“What the?!” Will shrieks, but I can’t stop myself. I run around the pile finding every intact head and shoulders I can find and hack into them, their sludgy blood splattering across my body and clothes. My feet stumble back, my eyes fixed on the carnage. No chests moving, no bodies reanimating.
My sword clatters to the ground. “The heads. They can’t reanimate without their heads.” I say between pants.
“How in the bleeding gods did you figure that out?” He says, his shoulders slumping.
“I-the first time, I stared at their chests. I wanted to know if they could breathe. I tried—” a frustrated sigh leaves me as I drop to pick up my sword, wiping the blade clean with the edge of my shirt, “I tried to Wield, I was going to poison them…but, it failed. I couldn’t control it and I wasn’t going to be responsible for your death. When I noticed the one without it’s head lying there, I crouched down to see if it was breathing. It wasn’t so…” my hand sweeps out to motion at the pile.
Will’s bobbing his head up and down. “So you decided to go manic and hack all their heads off.”