Kemba couldn't pinpoint the moment she had stopped pursuing and had begun fleeing. The line dividing the two seemed indistinct, the moments between action and reaction smearing together, time robbing her of the details. She had certainly entered the cave with the arrogance of a predator, her years of training bolstering her confidence. She had been convinced that should would be the one to bring an end to the night raids. When had the roles shifted? The specific moment was lost to her, but the result was obvious- she needed to get out.

Crouching, she strained her ears, listening for the sounds of movement, a rubber footpad crunching gravel or the scrape of metal against rock. The only sound that she could hear was the drip of her blood as it ran, hot and thick, down her side and onto the cavern floor; the sound of its impact was added to the symphony of plips and plops echoing around the humid enclosure. The dankness of the cave rose up to assault her nose as the thousands of tons of rock pressed down on her overhead. The space seemed to compress as she knelt there, taking stock. The earthy smell of fungus and decay and lack of daylight crawled behind her hunter's mask to tickle at her nose. She reached up to scratch at the sensation but the large mask deflected her hand. The headgear would protect her from the vengeful spirits of her dispatched prey, but at times like these she wish for nothing more than to fling the cumbersome thing into some forgotten chasm and be finished with it. And maybe she should, considering she had become the dispatched prey in question. The spear at her back, however, she would keep. Even a mouse can bite.

Her body tensed without explanation to her brain. Legs previously bent in a resting crouch swiveled smoothly into a lunge just as coiled muscles exploded into motion, carrying her towards the mouth of the cavern. She heard a thump of something heavy landing behind her, but didn't turn to look as the irregular beat of it's steps began to pursue. She was a plains rabbit fleeing the wolf, except her refuge would be escaping this forsaken, dark hole she had so willingly climbed into. The decision to come seemed increasingly suicidal as the sounds behind her increased their arrhythmic tempo and blood oozed from the wound at her side, quenching the hard stone under foot. The council had refused her entry, and her brother, Saire, had tried to stop her sneaking in- she would never get to apologize for that black eye if she didn't pick up her pace. Legs began to scissor in a fluid grace as her fear evaporated. The stampede behind her ceased and there was a moment of silence followed as vast as the sky. Kemba realized how still the air in the cave was; she could see the individual motes of dust and spores as they hung in the air, motionless as stars. Then she was pitching forward, her feet flying up behind her as a clammy synthetic noose seized her ankles. Kemba twisted as she fell and her back hit the bare rock hard, the air burst from her lungs. Her vision shattered and vignetted as she struggled against the pain of her wound to pull air back into her lungs. And then she was falling- or being lifted– the pain shrieking through her body didn't exactly allow for a distinction. Blood from her side began to drip onto the under side of her chin and her mind seized the information and used it. Other sensations rushed to her awareness: a noose biting into her hoisted ankle, the stomach acid pooling in her throat, the ground coming into focus a few feet from her head, and a broken spear shaft lying in a smear of red, they were all puzzle pieces for her bruised mind to assemble. She was upside down. As she made the realization her body started swiveling around, the rubbery vine wrapped around her ankle twisting her away from the cave's opening and towards the black she had tried to leave behind. The creature appeared like a grotesque sunrise, slowly coming into view as she was turned to face it.

ToBeCont..?

Story by: Russell Lee Nasrallah
Art by: Alex Joseba

The earth convulsed violently; it seemed to be flinching in pain at every blow of the Stoneguard’s feet. Each step the massive creature took drove the its feet dozens of meters into the soil, searching for the hard bedrock deep below on which to anchor itself. Raim flew close behind me as I gazed up the length of my arrow and loosed. I watch the arch of the shaft and its white feathers as they riffled through the air, and then it tilted towards a huge pillar of stone- the knee if I had to guess- and vanished in the eclipse. The titan did not give the barest hint of a reaction. It’s leg rose in a slow, inexorable motion, reached its apex, and came thundering down like an meteor.

BOOM.

It was absurd, of course, to expect these simple arrows to do any harm to stone and metal. I knew what I had to do, but I had sustained some hope- or delusion rather- that I would’t be forced to that final act.

The shaking had been growing steadily worse since the night before. The buildings in Telaru had first rattled, then trembled, then succumbed to the increasing tremors and lay in alternating heaps of rubble along the streets; the sturdiest among them: the chapels and temples, ironically, were serving as shelter for the refugees. I could hear their frenzied invocations as I left Master Artificer Eichnor’s study,  riding hard towards what I perceived to be the epicenter. The beats of Zephyr’s hoofs pounding the cobbled street in a counter point to the deep bass boom in the distance.

BOOM.

The ground shook and Zephyr struggled to remain standing. My hand instinctively reached back to grasp another arrow, but is met only with empty air. Terror drove into me as surely as those terrible feet dug for the hard stone beneath the soil. I held my breath as a panicked hand groped frantically at my quiver. My fingers bump clumsily into two shafts, one of which began to cause my arm to go eerily cold. I recoiled from the sensation and drew the other, it’s wood grain shaft feeling comfortingly familiar beneath my ungloved fingers. I fit the arrow, pull my bow, an fire. Raim following the arrow up and dangerously close to the Stoneguard’s body. I call her back but she does not respond. Somehow, through the creaking of its colossal joints, I hear the sharp plink of metal arrowhead meeting stone and see Raim diving quickly downward. Old friend. Clever friend. She is retrieving my spent shafts, a trick I had taught her on our first hunting expedition ten years prior. As she dives to intercept the falling arrow I barley have time to react. The towering leg closest to where she flies rises with an impossible speed and crashes into her leaving only a cloud of feathers drifting in wide circles to the ground.

BOOM.

The implosion of my heart or another wretched step of this disgusting automaton? I care not anymore. My hand is steady and firm as I pull the rains on Zephyr, dismounting. I stare up the length of the massive body, and for a moment I think the creature is looking down at me. I sense its stare in the same way one might feel the presence of a full moon or the great eastern ocean. There is nothing human in it, only power and implacability. I send Zephyr off back to Telaru, they will need him there after this is all over. I reach my hand back to my quiver and feel the brush of steely feathers on the end of the shaft- dragon’s feathers, I remember reverently. Master Eichorn's expert work and the cities last hope. My hand grips the shaft and withdraw it from the quiver. Immediately I feel a deadly cold crawl up my arm like snake ivy while at the same moment the tip of the arrow begins to glow, and them shine brightly. The chill diffuses through my chest and into my torso as I fit the arrow to the bow. My eyes are watering at the brightness of the arrow tip now, I look away as I draw the arrow back to its full length. The ice begins to wrap its way around my neck, like the hands of a corpse seeking to strangle me. I take aim at the cold pricks of light in the head of the monstrosity and am surprised when I can see through the radiance of my arrow and directly to my target. It is as if I am standing only feet away, yet I know I am still firmly on the ground. As I loose the shaft I shout the name of my fallen ally as mingled grief and exultation close over me,

"RAIM!"

And I feel myself leave myself, ripped from my body on the wings of a name. I am flying through the skies just like she would, but oh so much faster. I streak like a bolt of lighting upwards and see the golem's eyes, and in them I see something one would never see in the great eastern ocean, or the full moon. I see puzzlement, and then a split second before impact, I see fear.

Story by Russell Lee Nasrallah

Art by Chad Gowey 

Source http://fantasy-art-engine.tumblr.com/

The waves rose up on the river’s surface like the hair on a frightened body. The air stirred and churned the branches above which fluttered gently and whipped stingingly in turn. Moule turned to his neighbor,

"This breeze bites like winter. Only week or two away now."

His neighbor might have nodded, or it might have been the wind tousling his hair. He said nothing.

"It’s out of the east though, and that’s a wind of fortune; it cuts straight across from the other side." Moule continued smiling earnestly- hopefully. 

Again his friend did not respond. Instead he continued to stare out over the rippling, broken surface. Their boys had crossed the great blue expanse with promises of grain enough to last them through the starving time. They had promised to keep each other safe, had promised to come home. That had been a month ago, and for the last two weeks Moule had followed his friend out to the Willow’s edge.  

The wind rose to a whistling, howl. Moule could feel its nails piercing his jacket and velvety fur, he shivered convulsively. They would have to go before the dark closed in, obscuring their trail and inviting the hunters that day-dreamed of mole morsels to come out and meet them. But Moule would give his friend a few more moments. A few more glances across that stained blue ribbon. A last moment of hope to last until tomorrow evening. 

Story by Russell Lee Nasrallah

Art by Gelrev Ongbico- “The Wind In The Willows”  

Source: http://septagonstudios.tumblr.com/

I awoke to the smell of smoke and lilacs, my nose detecting the latter buried beneath the cloying odor of burning timbers and charred fabric. My body instinctively tried to rise and follow the familiar flowery aroma, but was thwarted by the thick cords which bound my wrists and ankles. I writhed against the bonds, my muscles straining, but the ropes remained knotted around my limbs, smugly nonchalant in their success. This shape did not have nearly the strength required to snap the thick bindings. A glance around the smoke filled room revealed no knife or shard of glass with which to cut the ropes;there was nothing but an flames dancing behind a veil of thickening gray fog. The heat crushed against me, allying with the smoke in an attempt to asphyxiate. I ignored the discomfort, trying hurriedly to piece together what had occurred. My memories, fortunately, were clearer than the room at the very least. Visions of the mob storming the house began to coalesce in my minds eye.The congregation from town whipped into a frothing sea by their ignorance and fear… they had taken her to do god knows what- and in these cases God not only knew what, but had, in fact, been the one to mandate the act. She’d burn soon if I didn't free her. Smart of them to sneak up and knock me out first. Too bad I hadn't stayed unconscious long enough to let the fire do their murder for them. As if on cue, a timber in the far corner of the room failed spectacularly, its fire gnawed length creating a firestorm of debris as it collapsed. I needed the ropes off soon and I could think of only one way of doing so, but it would be risky. Suffocation would likely be the result, but my end seemed to be destined for that end regardless of my decision. I gritted my teeth and prepared for the change.


My body began to flow. Bones swam under my skin like fish rippling the surface of a lake and muscles settled into new shapes. Skin swelled and shrank and twisted. Fur began to erupt from me, making the heat crowd in closer. Some ropes fell away, their knots meant to bind larger appendages; still others strained and snapped, falling to the floor with wet thuds, their coarse fibers streaked with blood and hair. As I changed my senses sharpened and the smell of lilacs bloomed, intensifying like the light before dawn, brighter and brighter until it eventually blinded me. I howled, the noise ragged in my chest. The cry echoed through the house, the woods, and into the village. That sound was a warning to the kidnappers- their only warning. They had taken her and that had been a mistake. The even bigger mistake, though, had been not puncturing me from head to toe with every piece of silver in the town before they took her. I shrugged off the remains of the rope, shook soot out from my fur, and bounded out of the window. Falling through the night, I thought for a moment that my nose sensed the trail splitting, one clear distinct path leading out before me, the other small and modest leading back into the house. I hesitated for only a moment, before speeding of, away from the burning house.


The smell of her drew me like an iron filing to a lodestone. The trees whispered with the velocity of my passing, a cloud of fallen autumn leaves creating a tail of fire behind me. The nearer I grew to the city the more powerfully the scent compelled me. I blew through the city like a dark squall and followed the scent to the church in empty town square. The lilac path up to the window below the steeple couldn't have been more obvious to me if it had been painted in gold. Ignoring the stairs, I bounded up from the lower roof to the second floor and in through the window, shutters banging open upon my impact, drowning out a shout of fright. I scanned the room, ready to tear the throats from any defenders that thought to bar my way. My vision fell over a form stretched upon a bed.


It was not her.

The room swam with her perfume, its source a familiar bottle spilled upon the a nearby table. My head clouded, the animal in me struggling with the obvious dichotomy. I smelled her all around me, but in the bed lay a stranger. She gripped a crucifix in one hand and was shackled to a bedpost by the other. I had been tricked, and this pathetic creature had been left as a sacrifice.




“Puh-puhlease don’t…,” she said but could not finish and was forced to averted her eyes, such dreadful sight I was to behold.



It was in this moment of rage and confusion, with the smell of lilacs- the smell of her- swimming in my head, that I heard the scream. It rent the night like a black satin curtain, coming from the direction of the house, burning now as second sunrise in the distance. As ghastly as the sound was, there was a quality about it which I recognized. A quality which drew me towards it… like iron filings to a lodestone.

Art by Jon Foster

Story by Russell Lee Nasrallah

*Edited 11/16/2014