Chapter 22: Sky Mountain – part 10

D’Argen had not seen colours in a very long time. The red was so startling that it took him too long to realize that it was blood. Even longer to realize that the white blur coming at him was not Thar.

When Thar called his name again, it was from the side. The man’s voice was filled with fear. The call was a warning.

The white blur rushed at D’Argen and the runner drew his daggers. He crossed his arms in front of his body. Shifted forward a few steps. Grounded himself in a defensive crouch. Abbot and Lilian were still unconscious in the snow behind him. The edge of his blindfold fell and the white and red blur disappeared behind the dark cloth.

When the impact came, it felt like he had run full speed into a wall that he could not pass. It threw him backwards. He landed in snow that was not soft enough to hide the sharp rocks under it. All breath in his lungs left him and something cracked. The nausea was enough to make him expel his guts but his blocked sight helped calm it.

Before he could get back up he heard another sound. A thump. A curse. A sword singing through the air. No follow-up attack came.

D’Argen threw his blindfold off but kept his eyes closed. Only once his stomach calmed did he dare to open one eye. All he saw was bright, bright, bright white. It did not look like it was night at all. He opened the other eye. There was a bright flash in the corner that stabbed deep into his brain. Then he heard a roar and a grunt. The sound of a sword singing through the cold air. Cloth tearing. Thar moaning in pain. Something heavy fell to the ground.

One section of white pulled apart from the rest. Then split apart in two. Half of it was covered in red. The other half was only stained. As D’Argen watched, the red blurs became stains. Thar’s white robes took shape, swinging through the air in long arcs as the man twisted and danced. D’Argen’s sword sang through the air. It was obvious Thar was not used to holding such a small sword. His attacks were brushed off.

The creature standing before Thar was a shack demon. It was huge, standing taller than Thar, with light blue skin—blue!—intercepted by patches of white fur. It did not have the bone wings growing from its sides though. Its long claws were covered in blood as they swiped at Thar. It moved too slowly. Almost clumsy. Thar was able to avoid most of the attacks and block the rest with the sword.

As Thar turned, positioning himself between the demon and D’Argen, all D’Argen saw was red. A beautiful colour. And then it registered why D’Argen was seeing red. The back of Thar’s white robes were ripped apart and completely covered in blood. In a flash of movement, D’Argen could have sworn he saw pale skin. Or it could have been bone.

The shack demon roared, large mouth opening too wide, and it chomped at the air. Thar’s head was there a moment ago.

The sound of the roar was not right.

Then the screams started again.

D’Argen shot up to his feet with a groan. He turned to see a group of bark demons running up through the snow. They started off as dark grey blurs that took shape the closer they came. The flash of orange on one’s skin startled him only for a moment. Thar grunted, already wounded and engaged with the large shack demon. D’Argen quickly glanced back to see that Abbot and Lilian were still unconscious. Another glance through the snow did not reveal where Yaling was.

D’Argen flipped one of his daggers so it pointed out while the other was crossed against the length of his armguard. He reached for his mahee and it stabbed right back at him, refusing to cooperate. Without his speed, D’Argen was an average fighter.

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When the first of the bark demons were on him, D’Argen slipped out of the way and then slashed with one dagger. Hot blood sprayed out and landed on him. He slid to his knees to avoid the second bark demon and then spun in the snow to slash at the third. His dagger passed so close to the demon’s scale collar that it could have cut through it. Sparks shot out and one of the orange scales—orange!—fell off. He watched its arc through the air in wonder but lost sight of it when the fourth bark demon jumped on his back.

He landed hard with the demon on his back and lost one dagger in the snow. He flipped immediately, throwing the demon off.

“D’Argen!” Thar screamed his name in alarm.

“I’m good! I got this!” D’Argen scrambled up to his knees just in time for another bark demon to come at him. He slid out of the way but left his dagger behind. It slipped off the scales and into the creature’s tree-bark skin, digging in too smoothly. It ripped it open. The demon yelped, twitched, and died. The other three backed up as if wary.

D’Argen may not have been the best fighter but he could finally see again.

One of the bark demons screamed at him. Its mouth was too wide for its face, running from ear to ear and filled with rows upon rows of tiny sharp teeth. It looked like it was smiling when it was not screaming. But the screams… they still sounded so human.

The three bark demons left alive circled him slowly. They put more space between D’Argen and where Thar was still fighting the shack demon. Thar was a good fighter. Even wounded, even with a strange sword, he should have been able to kill it long ago. A shack demon’s weakness was the fleshy sack of mucous on its back between its bone wings. A quick glance revealed that the shack demon’s back was covered in blood yet it was still attacking ferociously.

The look was a distraction. Another of the bark demons rushed at D’Argen. He jumped out of the way and right into the path of another one. Its mouth did not come that close to his face but D’Argen could have sworn he felt its putrid breath. He slashed with his one dagger and twisted out of the way.

A scream and D’Argen was knocked down again. This time, he saw the demon’s mouth as it closed down on the air right above his leg. He felt sharp and long teeth digging into the flesh. The other two bark demons came at him. One of them went for his neck and he immediately lashed out. His dagger passed through the air right in front of the demon’s flat face yet it yelped and backed up immediately. Red blood bloomed on its face and covered its eyes. It started shaking its head.

D’Argen shook his leg but the teeth were digging in deeper even as the demon only shook the air above him. A kick with his free leg had the demon yelping and letting go, backing up and hunching over. The two remaining bark demons circled D’Argen slowly with arched backs. The demons’ arms were as long as their legs and they were on all fours. The shoulder blades and hips both protruded out of their backs in sharp angles, tipped with bones that merged into the long line of bones sticking out of their spines.

As they passed one another, staring right at him, D’Argen noticed something off. A lot of things were strange. They had tails. Their skin was dark green instead of the usual brown that matched a tree, their namesake. The orange collars of scales were… shimmering. A tuft of grey fur twitched between the scales. Their faces were much longer than a bark demon. They were growling and that sound was definitely not one a bark demon could make.

D’Argen poked at his mahee to try and consume the sound but, like the screams the entire time they were on the mountain, his mahee refused. It could not consume the sounds. They were wrong. As D’Argen watched one of the bark demon’s tails disappeared, fading away into the snow as if it was never there.

And then something much more important registered. Beyond the wound on his leg that he had not seen being made. Beyond the sounds that made no sense. Beyond the fact that he could suddenly see so clearly and see colours on top of that. It was the fact that demons did not bleed red.

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