Shadowood Ch. 14

by Patrick in my house...

 

Chapter 14: Oolra

What Dasint, Gar and Ingaut hadn’t realized is that while they were discussing their plans to go the mountain tribes, there was someone watching. Rather, something. While the trio walked up the mountain, a bat-like creature flew above them. It flew to a nearby cave, where it transformed into a large creature with bat wings. It had a green head that was padded with scales. Two fangs shot out of its mouth. He had clawed feet and hands. He held two scimitars; one in each hand. His eyes glowed red. There stood a shadowy figure in the deepest corner of the cave.

“What is your report, Antra?” the figure asked. Antra, the bat creature, kneeled before his master.

“Master, I have found three newcomers to Mount Daeing. I know that they seek the mountain tribes. They will satisfy you, master,” he hissed. The shadow figure grinned.

“Oolra is satisfied,” he snarled, “Bring them to me.”

“But Oolra-,” Antra began.

“Don’t use my name!” Oolra roared. Antra bowed again.

“Forgive me master. I cannot bring them to you; they will soon be safe within the tribes. We must lure them out here.”

“No, we shall wait. I sense great power within them, and so will the tribes. The tribes will send the newcomers to me, to defeat me,” Oolra laughed, “Foolish, yet smart. The tribes’ people are cowardly. Destroying them will be a pleasure, to watch them run in fear. Follow the newcomers and see what they are capable of.”

“Yes, master,” Antra bowed once more and transformed into a bat. He flew out of the cave and into the air.

The trio found the tribe, before dark, surrounded by huge walls. Two sentries were positioned at the gates.

“Who’s there?” the guard shouted as he pointed a beam of light down to reveal Dasint, Gar, and Ingaut.

“We are travelers, seeking help from the tribes,” Gar yelled up to them. The two guards spoke amongst themselves for a moment, and then opened to gates. The trio was lead by one of the guards to the tribe’s leader. The leader lived in a large den up the mountain. The tribe was cold, wet, and depressing. People scurried here and there to get back to there house and dens.

“What happened here?” Ingaut murmured thoughtfully, “Everyone’s so depressed.”

“You mean you don’t know about Him?” the guard stopped to ask.

“Who is Him?” Gar asked.

“He’s a demon that lives in the mountain. He’s a bat creature that preys on the people of this village. No one knows his name,” he replied. Gar shot Dasint and Ingaut a ‘I told you so’ look.

“The bat creature takes people away and their bodies show up in the river with no sign of how they died, except for a scratch on their arm the next day. They all have that in common,” the guard told them gravely. Dasint shivered. They group continued to the leader’s den. The guard then left them to speak with him. They proceeded to face the leader and ask him for his tribe’s help.

“Resistance, hmm,” the leader considered, “OK, we’ll help you.”

“Great! Thank you-,” Gar began.

“If you help us,” the leader said, cutting Gar off.

“Fair enough, what do you need us to do?” Dasint asked. The leader paused before saying: “We need you to get rid of the demon.” Ingaut gasped.

“What? Get rid of the demon?! We know nothing about him!” Ingaut raged.

“Neither do we! I sense great power within you three. We have no one who could take on the demon. Why do you think we’d be so desperate to depend on three newcomers to take on the demon?” the leader shot back. Gar answered,

“Alright, we’ll fight this demon of yours. Where can we find him?”

“We think his cave lies north of here, by the river. That’s were he dumps the bodies of his victims,” the leader informed them. Dasint nodded.

“It would be smart to leave by morning while the demon sleeps,” the leader finished.

“We’ll spend the night here, then leave tomorrow and be back for you help in the resistance,” Ingaut told him determinedly. He nodded.

“I’ll show you where to sleep,” he informed them.

After a long night of worrying about the demon, Ingaut, Gar, and Dasint awoke to find a guard waiting for them and to show them the way. They exited the tribe and the guard left them at the river. The trio ate breakfast along the way. They walked up the river for awhile, until the all noticed that it was slowly getting darker.

“How long have we been walking anyways?” Dasint asked no one in particular.

“It’s only been an hour or so,” Gar answered.

“How is it getting so dark so soon?” Ingaut asked confusedly.

“Probably the demon’s curse,” Gar told them gravely, “Demons have special abilities and this darkness is probably one of them,”

“This is bad,” Dasint pointed out, “He’ll have the advantage of the dark, and we’ll lose the light.”

“I’m sure even in the dark, we’ll still be way stronger than him,” Ingaut said to the others.

“Don’t underestimate him,” Gar warned Ingaut, “He must have found out that we were coming and cursed the area to make it dark.” As Gar spoke, they saw a body float down the river, dead and pale.

“We must be close,” Dasint said, “Quiet down, we don’t want him to hear us.” They three spotted a cave along the riverside and started to creep toward it. By now, it was almost pitch black.

“We’re going to go into the cave, so be alert,” Dasint told the two, but mostly to Ingaut. He was the worst fighter out of the three, but he still had some potential. They both nodded. Dasint went first into the cave as she pulled out her knife. Ingaut followed and Gar came last. The cave smelled like a graveyard and was just as depressing. There was no sign of life anywhere.

“No one’s here,” Dasint said aloud. Suddenly, they heard a loud cackle echo through the cave. A bat figure stepped through the entrance of the cave. He held two scimitars in either hand. His fangs chomped in anticipation of the hunt.

“Now what do we have here?” Antra, for it was he who the bat creature was, asked.

“Who are you?” Dasint shouted at him, “And why do you kill innocent people?”

“Antra is my name,” Antra informed them with a bow, “And it’s not me who does the killing.”

“If you don’t kill the tribe people, who does?” Ingaut asked him.

“I do,” a voice said from behind them. The three spun around to see another demon, shrouded in shadows.

“Show yourself coward!” Gar demanded courageously.

“Whatever you wish,” he said as he released the shadows around him. There stood a creature hunched over that had scales covering its body. He had clawed feet and had one hand that was covered in what looked like long, poisonous teeth. The other hand had a claw and held an amulet of some kind. It glowed a red hue. His mouth had sharp teeth and he had pincers protruding the sides of his neck to the front of the mouth. What shocked Dasint the most about the creature were its eyes, for it had none. Coming from the empty eye sockets were two blood red claws.

“My name is Oolra,” he told them, “I think you deserve to know who you are about to be killed by.”

“You’re not the one who’s going to do the killing!” Dasint roared as she charged toward Oolra. She struck him with her knife, drawing blood. Suddenly, a barrier appeared with Oolra and Dasint on one side and Ingaut, Gar, and Antra on the other.

“The first to draw blood shall lose their soul!” Oolra hissed in delight.

“A demon curse!” Dasint suddenly realized. Oolra struck out with his clawed hand. Dasint dodged to the side, but one claw pierced her arm. The mark burned with the intensity of a white-hot fire. She cried out in pain and she clutched her arm.

“She has been marked!” Oolra said triumphantly, “Your soul is mine!”

On the other side of the barrier, Gar and Ingaut fought Antra. Antra’s swords blocked Ingaut’s staff and Gar’s bombs. He parried their attacks and struck down Ingaut. Ingaut’s staff flew out of his hands and lay feet away. Gar stayed strong, but soon began to grow weaker.

“He’s too strong!” Gar yelled.

“I never grow tired in battle!” Antra crowed.

“It must be a demon charm that he has enchanted himself with,” Ingaut muttered to himself, “We need something that will weaken his powers.” Ingaut slowly and painfully reached into his bag while Gar fought on. Ingaut searched through his bag until he found what he was looking for: a white horn. Ingaut put the horn to his mouth, and blew. The sound echoed around the room and reached Antra. He put his hands to his ears and cried out. He was barely able to dodge the bomb Gar through at him. Antra began to weaken through the battle. Ingaut kept blowing his horn until Gar blasted Antra. Antra flew back and hit the barrier that separated them all. He screamed in pain as electricity shocked him to death. He fell to the ground and dissolved out of the mortal world. When he left, there was a bracelet lying on the ground where he just was. Gar picked it up and immediately sensed its power. He fashioned it onto his wrist and walked over to the barrier.

“We need to get to Dasint, and I have a plan,” Gar finally told Ingaut.

Dasint watched helplessly as Oolra crept over to where she laid. The mark burned even more intensely as he grew closer. He pinched his pinchers and bit Dasint’s neck. Strangely, she didn’t feel any pain. Suddenly, she felt her self grow weaker. Oolra slowly pulled upwards and pulled parts of her soul out with him. Dasint suddenly thought of a plan, but she was too weak to move. Dasint stopped struggling, for she knew her life was over. A sudden sound of a shatter of glass stopped Oolra from feeding on Dasint’s soul. Oolra released Dasint’s neck. She gasped. She was still alive and planned to use the distraction to its full extent. She rolled over and pulled out the arrow that her teacher gave to her so many years ago. Dasint notched it onto her bow, and released. It hit Oolra with great force. He stumbled for a moment, and then fell to the ground, dead. Dasint got up to see what the distraction was and saw that Ingaut and Gar had somehow killed Antra and shattered the barrier.

“W-what happened?” Dasint asked. Gar and Ingaut grinned at her.

“We did it,” Gar said, “We defeated the demons, all thanks to Ingaut and his horn.” Ingaut stood proudly.

“It’s the horn of a minotaur,” he said, “I snatched it from one of the goblins back at the Stone Village.”

“Nice going, another moment with Oolra and I would be dead,” Dasint told him.

“The darkness curse has been lifted as well,” Gar observed.

“We should be getting back to the tribes,” Ingaut said.

“Yeah, we should be getting back for their help,” Dasint agreed.

“Let’s go,” Gar instructed.

Meanwhile, Tyther and Rathis trained with the sage for a few more days. After three days of hard work and training, the two said their last goodbyes and left. From the bog, they began to travel back to the Sky Village where they would meet Ingaut, Dasint, and Gar. They travelled for two days without trouble. On the third day, they a messenger sparrow flew to them with a note from Gar, Dasint, and Ingaut. Tyther read the note aloud:

“Greetings. We got help from them. We fought monster. Speaking like this for security reasons. Change plans. Meet at s’raG place,”

“Who’s s’raG?” Rathis asked.

“I don’t know,” Tyther said slowly, “But it has to be someone’s who house I know about. The name s’raG backward spells Gar’s place! We’re going to Gar’s house!”

“You know where that is?” Rathis asked.

“Yes, actually, it’s closer to us than the Sky Village. It’s only about a day away,” Tyther replied.

“OK, but it must be serious if they had to change plans,” Rathis observed.

“Let’s hope it’s not bad,” Tyther said grimly.

The next day, Tyther and Rathis reached Gar’s house. They arrived only minutes before the others. They all greeted each other for a minute, and then they got down to business. Dasint explained why she changed the meeting place.

“I had to change the meeting place because I think we’re being followed.

“Followed by who?” Rathis asked.

“Well,” Dasint began, “After the Assassin was killed, she said that her sister would come finish us off. I think if her sister is half the killer she was, she’d find us at the Sky Village.”

“We can’t do anything about her for now,” Tyther said, “But what will we do from here?”

“I think we should sabotage Hatreisk’s weapons and supplies,” Gar suggested.

“I think we should go into battle!” Rathis said determinedly.

“No, that’s too dangerous,” Ingaut told her, “We need to see what we’re going up against.”

“So we’re going to sabotage Hatreisk’s supplies and weapons,” Tyther said.

“Exactly,” Gar answered, “We’ll leave at dawn.”

See more stories by Patrick