Jarryd: Chapter 7
Jarryd left the inn and was glad to see that the two he’d thrown into the street had either stumbled back to their camp or been carried by their companions. There was no one in sight. He didn’t think they’d come back, but he’d made sure Kath barred the door behind him. He considered going to the camp and making sure no one was thinking about returning. He could see the glow of campfires down by the creek. But he decided it wasn’t necessary.
He headed for the farm, replaying the scene in his head. He’d acted without thinking, but not thoughtlessly. It had all seemed to happen in slow motion. He’d come home hoping to never have to use his abilities for violence ever again, but tonight he was grateful he had them. He shuddered to think what might have happened if he hadn’t been there.
When he got home, he was still too wound up to sleep. On a whim, he decided to try something.
He put his old, battered leather armor on, retrieved his sword from under the bed and strapped it on.
Then he summoned a shadow door and stepped through.
He found himself standing on the same wooden footbridge. The cold started to bite immediately, and he had that familiar feeling of suffocating emptiness. The Borderlands was not a nice place. He really should learn to do what Gran did with the mists. It would be a lot easier. And safer.
He ventured deeper, every sense alert. He hadn’t gone far when he sensed the first ones. A small number of them, coming fast.
He waited, eyes straining to penetrate the darkness.
There were three of them. One had a body like a goat, but instead of a head there were four snakes, and it had leathery wings. The other two swam like fish, rather than flying. They looked like eels, if eels were as big around as horses with mouths filled with needle-like teeth.
Jarryd set his feet and waited for him. Maybe there weren’t as many monsters in this place as he’d thought. Maybe he could make a few trips in here and kill them off over time.
The snake-headed thing reached him first. Jarryd sent a surge of kriyana into his sword. It lit up with blinding white light, causing the snake heads to hiss and recoil.
His first swing took two heads. The remaining heads shrieked in pain and rage. The creature’s momentum carried it past Jarryd, who pivoted and cut off another head. But as he did so, the final head struck at him.
Desperately, Jarryd twisted, trying to bring the sword around to parry, knowing he wouldn’t make it in time, even with his enhanced speed. The snake bit him, but its fangs caught only his armor. Jarryd chopped the head off an instant later.
The eel things attacked simultaneously. Crackling chaos power radiated out of their open mouths.
Jarryd threw up a kriyana shield. The chaos power crackled against it, rapidly eating through it.
Jarryd released the shield as he skipped to the left. The chaos attacks tore two chunks in the footbridge.
An orb of kriyana shot from his free hand, hitting the closest eel-thing in the face, rocking the thing as it exploded. It reeled off, injured but not dead.
The last one circled around and resumed its attack. Jarryd threw an orb at it, but it twisted, and the shot missed. Chaos power crackled from its mouth, but Jarryd stepped to the side and deflected it past him.
It bore down on him, mouth gaping. Jarryd struck it with his sword, slashing across the bestial face. Right before his blade struck, a purple glow appeared on its face. There was a popping, crackling sound as kriyana and chaos power met. His first blow bounced off harmlessly.
But Jarryd had been expecting that. He dropped to one knee as the thing’s momentum carried it over his head.
Then he stood up, driving the kriyana-enhanced weapon into the thing’s underbelly. The blade bit deep. The thing screamed, wrenched free—almost tearing the sword from Jarryd’s grasp—and disappeared into the darkness.
Jarryd stood there, breathing hard. He’d killed the goat creature, but the eels were still alive. If everything in here was that tough, he was going to have a hard time cleaning it out. And he’d used quite a lot of his available store of power.
More were coming from below. He took a step back the way he’d come.
There were a lot of them. At least a score. He could sense other packs coming, not too far behind them.
He ran back to the shadow door, opened it and dove through.
Back in his home, he made sure the shadow door was closed, then dismissed it. He wiped sweat from his forehead. He was simultaneously sweating and shivering. He’d forgotten how fast the cold in there sank in.
He put the sword back under the bed and took off the armor. That did not go well. There was no way he’d last in there on his own. He remembered how hard it had been when he’d had three other Knights with him.
He was either going to have to learn another way to travel, or he was going to need a lot of help. As for the first, he could call Gran, but he didn’t want to do that right away. He couldn’t go running to her every time he had a problem. He needed to see if he could solve this by himself first.
And he couldn’t reach his help. Namely, Kathor, Ficken and Hamisi.
It’s too bad I can’t turn into a gold dragon again, he thought. That would even the odds.
It looked like a problem he would have to solve another day.
(Are you enjoying Jarryd's tale? Would you like to read his adventures before this, when he fought the Dragon Queen? Just click here to check it out!)
Leave a comment