Chapter 20: Bandits

Another devilish snarl tears through the forest as another set of pattering paws on the dry leaves steadily dart towards me. I hold my ground, feet planted in the soil as I ready my blade. It's silver appearance glows orange with the light of the crackling fireplace behind me. I see a large dark shape, almost like a shadow tear across the forest floor like a ghost. Adrenaline floods through my veins like an icy fire as I lock eyes with the dog's mindless stare. It growls and lunches at me while I hear the low cries of men flood through the trees as they approach. The loud clanking of their armor overtaking the silence that was surrounding us moments before. I feel the weight of the dog smash into me as it leaps at me. It snaps it's jaws at me. I block it with my sword. The cold metal blade holds sturdy against it's fangs. I shove it to the ground.

"I think I'm more of a cat person." I grumble, the dog leaping at me again. I quickly move the the side out of its path. The dog spins around on it's haunches, leaping forward again. It catches a piece of my cloak in it's mouth and with that it begins to thrash it's head about. It yanks me to the ground. I let a nasty kick fly to it's head and it releases me, whimpering as it staggers back. It's cries of pain quickly shift back to it's fixation of rage. Amber eyes glowing with violence as it approaches. I scramble to my feet and aim my blade at it. The further this fight goes on the more I realize that in the end, one of us must die. I can't be the loser here, despite it taking quite a bit of my morality to even hurt these animals.

"Kill, Darwin Bright and you will be most powerful." My sword whispers. I shake my head, I can't risk letting myself be overtaken by bloodthirst. I clutch Locke's blade tightly.

The black dog launches itself off the turf at me. I let the weight of Locke's blade fall down, lodging itself into the dog's open jaw. The animal can't stop it's leap and so the blade makes quick work of piercing through it's skull. It whimpers, flailing it's massive body for a moment before falling limp. I scrunch my nose and look away as I slide my blade out of it's corpse. I inhale sharply through my teeth as I glance down at my arm in the darkness. I hadn't realized the severity of the gash my forearm from the first dog. It oozed a dark substance, one that I could only imagine to be blood.

"Stop right there!" A man's voice yells from a few feet away. I freeze instinctively, though every cell in my body screams at me to flee.

"Drop your weapon." He orders. I let my bloodstained sword fall out of my hand. I watch the group of ten or so men walk up to me. To my surprise they looked rather scraggly in appearance. Unkempt facial hair and light armor. Nothing knightly which I had pictured in my head as they approached. I can just make out the curvature of their twisted grins as they walk up.

"Take a look at this bloke, looks like he might have something nice for us ey fellas? One of them laughs, flipping a knife in his hand.

"What the hell do you want?" I say cautiously, holding my hands up to the crowd.

"Shut up. You talk when we say so." Someone grunts hastily. I hear the chorus of malicious whispers circle around me. Every so often I catch one of the men flash me a devious grin. I swallow hard as I feel the sweat on my brow begin to drip down the side of my face.

"You know where you are bud?" A scrawny man with a sparsely grown beard approaches, his short sword pointing directly at me. I nod.

"This is Crestia?" I reply. The man laughs hysterically, the others chime in like hyhenas.

"Mhm, but you know what being in Crestia means for people like you?" He hisses, holding the cold steel of his blade to my throat. "It mean's it's our territory and we can do whatever we want to you." He chuckles, beginning to press the sharp end of the blade into my throat. "Now empty your pockets."

I nod rapidly, my breathing growing faster as I begin to toss anything on my person in front of me. Small pouches of trail food, a knife, nothing too special. The man picks up my belongings and inspects them. He shoots me an angry glare. "The hell is this? You worthless piece of shit." He screams, kicking the ground as he looks over at the two bodies of the dogs on the ground.

"You can't give me anything worth my time and you kill my dogs?" He yells, drawing his blade again. The other men circle in close, I really can't get out of this one. "Strip him boys, case he's hiding somethin."

In a flash of laughter I feel the poking and prodding of a hundred hands grabbing my body. I scream. My reaction is only met with a punch to the face. I flail, kicking and punching anything I can get in contact with. I feel someone tug my cloak off my body and it's followed by multiple gasps. "Boss, look at this sword!" They exclaim, tugging it forcefully off my belt to bring it to the shaggy man. "Oh boy it's so heavy I can barely lift it."

"So you were hiding something." He grins. "Looks like it's worth quite a bit. We'll be taking it from you." He beckons the rest of the men to stop searching me. One of them kicks me in the ribs then face and laughs before wandering off. I writhe in pain as I feel a hot trickle of blood leak from my nose. I groan, reaching out as if I'll suddenly have the strength to go after them. I pull my hand back in my direction; the dark eye printed on my hand staring back at me. It seizes in a hungry pain.

"Kill, Darwin Bright and you will be most powerful." The voice echoes in my mind, getting quieter as they get further from me.

I can't die here. Cynthia and Stella still need me. I still need to kill the demon king get home. I can't be so weak to lose to some filthy bandits. I push my hands into the soil. My arms tremble as I push myself off the earth. I slowly get to my feet as I feel the surge of dark pressure flood through my body. I pick Locke's sword off the ground and charge after them with a terribly battle cry that fills the forest. The men stop and look back towards me as I dash down the slope. Their eyes wide with shock as they watch me.

I scream and dive in for the closest member, digging my blade between his shoulder blades messily in a blind rage. My swings and maneuvers are nowhere near as polished as when I'm using my other sword. I struggle to cleanly cut through his bones, I continue to dig around until I hear the crunch. He wails and falls to the ground with a thud before the other men let out a shrill of cries before beginning to run. I dart after them like a starving predator. The mixture of blind rage and hatred course through my body as I let my emotions take over. My blade meets flesh once more as I hack away at them one by one. Blood spatters on my cheeks and stains my hands as I let out a crazed chuckle. The thud of their worthless bodies hitting the floor only drives me with more need to satisfy my vengeance. I wipe the blood from my eyes and slowly approach the last man, the leader.

"You're different aren't you boy." The shaggy man grumbles, struggling to carry my blade.

"Seems like you have something of mine." I scoff, kicking a corpse aside as I approach. My blade dripping with the blood of his friends. "Come on, hand it over." I chime. The shaggy man shakily clutches the blade to his body.

"O-Only if you spare me." He stammers, attempting to sound nonchalant. I grin and he puts the blade down. I pick it up and put it back in it's sheath.

"Thank you, but you had no intention of sparing me and I only really like to keep things... fair." I lift my sword above his head as he falls to his knees.

"This is goodbye." I say coldly, delivering a hearty blow to the top of his skull. He doesn't scream, instead a weary smile contorts on his face. His eyes filled with pain and regret as they gloss over. I sigh, pulling my blade back and tossing his body aside. What a moron.

I lumber over, sitting myself on a rock as I come back to my senses. I didn't know the swords influence worked without me using it. I take a rag and begin wiping my blade clean. I catch a glimpse of my reflection on it's shiny surface. Man I look rugged. I pull the purple sword from my belt and wring the bloodied rag onto it's surface. The blade glows with a bright light once again before subsiding into nothing. Maybe this will keep it at bay for awhile. I get to my feet with only one thought on my mind.

I need to find the girls.