The raven-haired girl’s face rose from atop the hill.
“Blood,” she said, sweet voice booming over the fields, “Blood.”
Doris froze from underneath me, and Aixel tried in vain to urge her forward, but she would not move.
I watched as the girl then began to rise from the red, then further still, as the rest of her body was revealed. Beneath her chest, what was left of her own body stopped and continued into a strange crude mass of red and metal. She rose, higher and higher, until her giant form shadowed almost the entirety of the field. The red of her body came not from blood, but flowers, millions of red flowers, cascading down her body like a dress, held together by the strange metal underneath. She raised her thin pale arms, and thousands of metal arms, hidden beneath the flowers of her dress raised in unison.
I strained my eyes trying to understand what I was seeing, and even the knights behind us halted in their chase. The metal arms were armored limbs, gold, silver, copper, making tiny clanking noises in the harrowing silence.
Aixel was at full panic now, pulling Doris’s paralyzed arm as she stared at the strange giant seer faced creature.
“Please, please,” he begged.
But her face remained frozen, staring back into the creature’s small face as it grew, higher and higher from the red field.
I held my breath. I knew I could not run in this state, and the last place I wanted to go was back underneath the grass.
Suddenly, the worm-like creature stopped, at a height almost at the clouds, and there was another groan beneath the ground met with the same horrid rumble. This new noise seemed to finally break Doris from her temporary spell as she once again began to move, slowly at first, away from the creature.
I then watched in horror as the towering creature then began to fall forward, swiftly, straight towards us.
“Doris - Go!” screamed Aixel.
My stomach dropped as the creature then began crawling, aided by thousands of arms, over the hills like a frantic snake, sending a cloud of red flowers, dust, and grass in its wake and barrelling towards us. I watched in horror as a plume of flowers exploded around one of the running knights, dragging them downward into the red grass. Doris’ slow start was enough to let one of the knights grasp her long tail, as they frantically tried to escape, holding tight as she whipped it left and right in agitation. The knight’s additional weight was too much and she slowed to a stop.
I turned, trying to push him off with the heel of my boot, and to my surprise, he reached his other arm around and grasped around my ankle. As Doris flicked her tail a final time, the knight flew into the air, and I with him.
Smash.
I was once more beneath the grass, gasping for air, with eyes now fogged in pain with vision beginning to darken. In the distance, I heard the rumbling of a thousand metal arms making their way to me.
I turned my head and through the grass, I was met with the crawling golden knight, desperately making his way through the dark towards me. I dug my heels in the black soil, pushing myself away as fast as I could bare, each tiny move rattling pain through my body. But the knight was faster than me, and stretched forward, grasping my outstretched leg and pulling me towards him. I lifted my other boot, pushing my heel into his helmeted forehead, trying to escape his grasp.
As my heel caught on the ridge of his visor, the entire helmet came off, falling backwards with a sharp clang against the back of his armor, revealing a sweated, matted mass beneath. The woman’s eyes were wild, shining wet with fear unlike any I had ever seen. She pulled me closer, then suddenly took my blackened hand. Shaking, she placed it to her forehead.
“Please… Take my magic. I don’t want to see… I don’t want to see…”
“What? Stop -What are you doing?”
Was this some sort of trick?
The woman’s eyes widened, and I heard the steady clamor of the monster coming closer. She then suddenly reached behind her back to grab a dagger from her belt. I tried to free myself from her grip, but she once again pulled me closer, before lurching forward at my throat, blade in hand.
Automatically, I moved my blackened hand, and before she reached me, her form began to dissolve into sparkling white, swirling into my lungs. The armor fell to the ground, and the freed blade clamored against my chest plate.
As I was filled with the familiar warmth, I was met with a unique feeling. Beneath my chest armor, my sore breaths began to ease and my sight began to clear. As it swirled inside me, the warmth cradled my core, expanding and mending my body as it washed over me. And with this newfound strength, I was able to sit up, and began to search for my blade, grasping the small dagger with my good hand as backup.
It was then that the rumbling suddenly stopped. I took a deep breath and braved a peek above the grass.
I was met with the face of the seer, mere steps away from me, with giant clinking body in ominous shadow weaving behind her small form. I froze. Even with this newfound strength, I would not be able to escape the great beast. I began to shake, trembling in the face of death, and my mind went blank. This great beast was unlike any creature I had ever known about.
The seer was obviously just a puppet to this creature - and there was no beast I knew that was this size nor making. I stared at the thousands of metal arms sprouting from the flowers, and began to notice something. These arms were not unique. Stamped into armplates were tiny crests, each unique but equally familiar.
A two headed fox.
House Tarin.
A dragon with a trident.
House Gaileot.
Twin maidens on silver armor.
House Ventas.
The insignias of the ancient houses. These were the knights of the first age.
“What… are you?” I whispered, taking a cautious step backwards.
The creature crawled forward slowly, legs like a millipede, as the seer's face came even closer.
“Blood,” she said once again, as her arms stretched to the side, as if to embrace me.
“I… No… No thank you,” I whimpered, taking another slow step backwards, afraid to break eye contact.
The creature then lunged towards me with thin arms, and I swiftly ducked under its arm, only to be met with thousands more reaching from its body. I grabbed hold of what was left of her robe, just out of reach of the armored hands and clung to her back. The mass flung itself backwards, trailing upwards with the long body towards the sky, and I held on as tightly as I could.
The seer’s arms flailed about, reaching towards me and trying to pry me off its back, all the while the worm-like body stretched upwards, propelled by the arms, sending us both towering towards the clouds. Below, I could see Aixel, atop Doris’ back, frozen and staring at me with the remaining knights nowhere to be seen.
I strained, dodging every grasp as the great beast began to whip side to side, trying to buck me off like a horse. Suddenly, it began to fall forward again, and the winded pressure was almost enough to make me lose my grip. I shut my eyes tight as the ground became closer, then closer, before a final earth shaking slam into the field below.
I opened my eyes and took the chance to rearrange my grip, dagger somehow still tight in my sweaty hand, and I looked upwards to see Aixel before me, downed with the impact. Doris was nowhere to be seen. There was a heavy pause as the great beast seemed to gather itself, slowly starting to raise itself again.
“What are you doing?” Aixel screamed, seemingly seeing the dagger in my hand. “Kill her!”
I steadied my breath and raised the blade to the seer’s neck, and felt her cool fingers slowly wrap around my wrist. The raven haired girl then twisted her head upwards to look at me, and my eyes met hers. She didn’t look scared, no. She looked hurt, confused even. My mind began to race.
“Kill her!” screamed Aixel again from below.
I froze. Met with the young girl’s eyes, I couldn’t do it. As terrifying of a beast as she or whatever it was controlling her was, she had not hurt me. I gave a hard swallow and closed my eyes. With a final sigh, I decided to trust my instincts and drop the blade.
“No! What are you doing?!” Aixel screamed below.
I felt the creature then slowly unwrap its fingers from my wrist as it slowly pulled me off its back and into its arms, cradling me like a child.
For a moment, I almost smiled. But, as I turned back to the young girl’s face, I noticed something strange. There was a thin line, starting at the middle of her chin and stretching down the base of her throat down her chest. The line began to darken, widen, and to my horror, began to split. Beneath the line was a mouth, full of teeth. Rows and rows of teeth spiraling into infinite blackness.
It took me far too long to comprehend what was happening, and before I could resist, the creature pushed me inside its mouth, and to the muffled sounds of Aixel’s screams, I was swallowed whole.
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