The Return - Part 5

"What is happening?" Octavia thought as she looked around the ruined building they were in.

The beginning of the night had been calm, even though it had been accompanied by haunting silence. But that soon changed as the night dragged on.

She had expected to hear the sounds of wolfs howling into the night, or some frightening noises from nocturnal creatures as they started their day. But what she heard in the village was just strange. And very frightening.

It started with the sound of metal sliding against metal. It was faint but still distinctive, and the first thing that popped into her mind was that of a sword sliding against another sword.

Getting up, she readied her poleaxe, fearful that there were other people in the village. This was highly unexpected given the remoteness of the village, but not out of the realms of possibility. But, as soon as she heard it, it stopped, silence flooding the place again.

For a short while, she heard nothing again. No blades, no one was even talking, and you would expect that if a few people had turned up in the village.

After a while, more sounds of blades hitting blades cropped up. There was more metal sliding against metal, clangs that sounded like a blade bouncing off of armour or another weapon. It was terrifying as it sounded like there was a battle going on. Yet no one was speaking while it was happening. There weren't even footsteps. It was solely just weapons hitting other weapons.

Throwing caution to the wind, she moved over to one of the shorter walls that surrounded them, and slowly raised herself up on what remained of her now healing tail. She gained just enough height to see over the ruined stone and saw…

Nothing.

"What?"

Yet the sounds of a battle still continued.

It was so strange. Could it be the sounds were being carried by the wind from somewhere else? They were faint, and a blade hitting another would be a very loud sound indeed, so it could be that it was happening some distance from them.

She looked all around from her vantage point and all she saw was complete darkness. People wouldn't be able to fight in that anyway. They would need some form of light source to see what was going on. That is assuming they were not all beast-kin that had night vision. But even then, surely, she would be able to see something if a group of beast-kin were fighting nearby.

Putting that theory to the test, she activated her thermal vision, and just saw a cool blue hue everywhere, very quickly putting that theory to rest. There were no humanoid shapes anywhere. There wasn't even anything animal like in their vicinity either.

Just in case there was something up with her vision for whatever reason, she turned to Sylvia, and saw her form as a mix of orange and yellow. So thankfully there wasn't anything wrong with her.

But this just begged the question. Where is the noise coming from?

…

As the night continued, the sounds of battle grew louder, but still, there was no one around them. It was freaky and it was starting to get to Octavia a little.

Was she going crazy?

Was she hearing these noises in her head?

The only way she could know for sure what to wake Sylvia up.

Which is what she did when it came time for her to take over watch.

"Sylvia. Sylvia! Get up."

"Uggh. No, it's too early to travel. Wake me later."

"Sylvia, you need to get up."

It took a while, but she managed to rouse sleeping beauty from her slumber.

"Is it time to take over the watch?" Sylvia asked as she rubbed her eyes.

"Yes. But first. Can you hear that?"

"Huh. Hear wha-"

She started to speak, but stopped when she heard a noise. The sound of a sword hitting another.

"Are people fighting in the village?" she asked with a worried face.

"Oh, I'm so glad you said that. I thought I was hearing things." Octavia said with a sigh. She wasn't crazy…unless both of them were. "But no. There is no one out there. I have no idea where its coming from."

Sylvia felt like she had to check herself. It was one thing hearing from Octavia, but with how loud it was, it sounded truly like a battle was happening nearby. So, she headed over to the lowest portion of the wall and tried to look over it. She wasn't however tall enough, so Octavia gave her a boost.

"There isn't anyone there."

"I did say," Octavia replied with a huff.

"I know. I know. I just had to see for myself."

Dropping back down, they both sat by the fire, as the sounds of a roaring battle drew on.

"What is going on?" Sylvia asked,

"I don't know. I thought, with it being so quiet, people were fighting somewhere in the forest and the sound is travelling. But the volume is as if they were fighting right next to us, so I don't see how that is the case."

They both sat there trying to figure out what this was. Octavia should have been heading over to sleep herself, but there is no way she could get a good night's rest with things the way they were.

As they thought long and hard about it, the sounds all eventually stopped. It became dead silent as if nothing had happened.

Both of the girls held their breaths for a while, expecting something else to happen, but nothing did. It was like the night had returned to how it did before.

Octavia tried to go through her knowledge from Earth to see if anything came close to explaining what had happened. But the only thing that did was something she had always been sceptical of.

"Ghosts."

"Ghosts?" Sylvia replied.

"Yeah. It could be ghosts. Or spirits or something."

She had never been a believer in ghosts. All the ghost shows that were around didn't make her one. They only made her more sceptical, many being there just to give you a freight in some way. Plus with technology these days, she always wondered how much in those shows had been manipulated.

This was all her opinion, obviously, but either way none of them had ever engendered her to believe ghosts existed. But in this world where magic was all over the place, it could be possible that such a thing is true.

"People have spoken about spirits before. But I've never heard about them doing something like this. It's mostly people saying they can feel a loved ones spirit around them, or how a spirit made them do something." Sylvia said.

It seemed similar to back on Earth for the most part. Which meant even for this world of magic, having a group of spirits fighting each other was just far-fetched as well.

So, could it have been spirits fighting? Or was it something else?

This hadn't happened anywhere else to her. She had slept in the cabin before, but nothing like this had happened. Could it be something to do with the village.

Could it be remnants of what took place here all that time ago.

And if so, would it happen in any of the other villages.

Granted, she hadn't seen anything when it was going on. But, there was always a chance that when they found the next village, if they stayed awake for the night, they might learn something about what happened to the Lamia's.

It would be terrifying, she was sure. But it might be necessary to figure out what happened to her 'ancestors'.

But that was for another day, and in another place. Right now, however, with silence now blanketing the area, Octavia headed off to get some sleep, leaving Sylvia to carry on her watch.

…

As the sun rose, so too did Octavia. There had been no more disruptions through the night, which thankfully meant she could get a good night's rest, even if it had been quite short.

Removing the furniture at the doorway, they headed out into the village and it was exactly the same as it had been the day before.

"That was so strange last night."

"Yeah. We shall have to see if something like that happens in the next Lamia village."

The blood drained a little in Sylvia face as Octavia said that.

She had never bothered to care about spirits and the like, as it was always something that was talked about, but never seen. Or heard for that matter. But now that she had been confronted by it. Even though they were not completely sure this was the case. It did scare her a little.

She also saw it as knowing a monster was in a cave and then running into it out of curiosity. You would have to be an idiot or a hero to do so, and Sylvia was sure that they were neither. Well, Octavia saving her life was hero-esk, but still.

Both also had no clue whether the next time they came face to face with it, it would be dangerous. Sure they hadn't seen anything, but they were also in one of the buildings. If Octavia was all for seeing what was happening to try and understand what was going on, they might end up outside in the village and end up in the thick of it. Who knows what could happen.

Either way, they had plenty of time before they would actually need to do any of this. Which meant Sylvia had plenty of time to talk her out of it. Whether she would be successful was unlikely though, so that also meant she would need to use that time to reside herself to her fate as well.

With all of that to look forward to, they started the day, doing their usual routine of exercise, eating and then packing everything up. They had a long journey ahead of them, starting by travelling to the nearest village. A journey that hopefully wasn't fraught with dangers.