Realm of Wings

Jade, being forced to listen to Connely:

“I’m not going to repeat myself!” Connely said while one of his men kept a gun pointed towards Miria.

I hate to have a weak spot, especially for this little girl. But despite her being little, she has helped me on more than one occasion, and she doesn’t deserve to die like this. Besides, she is growing on me, more than I’d like to realize. So, I put my hands through the cart’s cold bars and wait for another one of Connely’s grunts to shackle me.

But instead of doing that, Connely put my compass in my hands and took a look at where we were supposed to be heading next.

He frowned for a moment, gazing into the direction of where we were heading at first, but now looking towards where the pointer was directing us now. It frustrated me that I couldn’t read his mind, as he kept those glasses on his head all this time, but I could clearly notice that he was confused why the compass would show him a different direction now.

He grabbed the compass out of my hands and whistled loudly before everyone changed position and we were on our way again.

It didn’t take long for us to reach our destination, but as we had been travelling on open plains for a few hours now and the sun had made our vision clear again, I could see what Connely’s group consisted of.

Thirteen men, all wearing full Kevlar suits, bound with leather straps that had a container on their back for either a sword, mace or large gun, and on their waists, they wore belts with daggers or knives and their holstered handguns. And along all of their legs, their pants had deep pockets, probably holding ammo or food, but ready to face a long time of battle. Some had beards, another wore a black baseball cap and two had shaven their heads where one of them had tattoos all over his bald scalp.

“They look weird.” Miria thought and I had to chuckle.

To me, they looked like standard-issue hirelings, stupid but well dressed, but to her, they must have been looking really out of place with their strange attire. What these men were wearing, was nothing compared to what Fae, Aether or normal, wore at any time.

“They are not from this world.” I said in a normal voice, as this information wasn’t something that had to be kept secret.

“Are they from where your house is?” She asked, using words in a manner that made me realize that she is still a very little girl.

“Yes, how did you know?” I asked her.

“They have no wings, like you.” She said and I nodded.

I told Miria to take a nap, as we had a long night behind us and would probably not have enough sleep the next night either. She had fallen asleep in my arms, while I sat in the corner, watching where we were heading, hoping that Kallan would have found Charlie by now and that the little creature would find its way back to me as he had done in the first place.

After about an hour more and me dozing off a bit as well, the cart started to rock back and forth as the ground it was riding on, was filled with grey, stone slabs. The uneven placed rocks were forcing the wheels of the cart to jump up and down and wake us in its path.

Another loud whistle from Connely, made the caravan stop and I went to sit up to look at our surroundings.

I could see that the stone slabs were forming a path - wide enough to fit two Kuddos next to each other - and the sides of it were adorned by white statues standing on pedestals. Countless creatures, Fae, demons and beasts were masoned out of white stone, where the position of each statue varied. Yet, somehow they all shared the same facial expression.

I didn’t even realize that Connely had opened the cart for us to step out until I was standing at the beginning of this path, where Miria suddenly clutched herself against my leg.

“I don’t want to go there.” She whispered in fear.

I could understand her emotion as the statues weren’t all that comforting to look at, but I guess that wherever the compass had led us, the next orb would reside. So, I guess I have no choice but to go and walk in between these faces of fear. Not that I’m afraid of them, but their creator had given them all a look of fear, towards any who looked upon them.

The creator of these statues was a marvellous genius into sculpting these images with immaculate detail, but he or she was just crazy to make them with these fearful faces too. Who would want to create dozens of statues, while their faces looked up in horror to whatever fiction they would have been fearful of?

I picked up Miria and held her in my arms, while Connely’s men held several guns towards us. Connely was walking in front, guiding us to where this path would lead us to. The path even elevated, following the curve of a little hill and right now we were walking down from it again, on the other side. Every now and then, Miria dared to look from under my jacket, which she had hidden in, to see if there was another statue that was looking in her direction. But with each new creature we passed, she duck away again… until she didn’t.

Take me for a superstitious being, but I trust a child’s judgement when it comes to speaking the truth or showing emotions. They hardly ever held back in what they wanted to say or ask, and as she wasn’t hiding in my jacket now, as we passed by a creature with a double set of arms, I willed myself to look up and see for myself why she wasn’t afraid for this one in specific.

“He doesn’t look scared.” She whispered and I agreed with that.

A muscular male humanoid that stood tall at about ten foot something, of which I would not know its origin, had a blade in each of his four hands, standing in a position to be ready to attack. His face was not showing fear at all, he was showing a small grin and a determination of that of a warrior.

But as soon as I looked directly into his eyes, Miria suddenly jumped back into my jacket and I switched my gaze back to the floor.

“Hold on tight.” I whispered to her, at which I felt her arms surround my neck and her legs curled around my waist even tighter.

It wasn’t for another few seconds that I heard some stone gravelling and grinding noises start to wake up from right behind us. I took a few heavy steps, quickly trying to gain myself some ground to get me in front of some of the men that had captured us.

Apparently, they hadn’t heard the gentle noises or had seen the change of facial expression on that specific creature. Nor had they seen, that as soon as we gazed upon his eyes, his face suddenly moved to look me in the eyes, straight back!

No one had thought that these white sculptures could have been in fact, living statues, until it was too late for us to realize! By now, we had ventured a long while walking across this path, without even thinking there could have been one inch of danger here! I just thought that this path would lead us to a place where the next orb would be, like a house or a cave or whatever! But nothing gave me the idea that our danger would be right here, outside!

A sword the size of that of a horse came crashing down right behind us and took out the first two men that stood right under it. Miria screamed, upon me slipping on the ground as the impact of the sword had made huge indents on the ground and thus shaking me to nearly fall over!

Instantly, I used my energy to create a shield to keep both Miria and me safe from any incoming danger. “Miria, listen to me!” I commanded of her, while she kept screaming in my arms. “Miria!” I yelled again and she became quiet. “I’m going to put you down and you are going to keep looking around, and when you see one of those other strange-looking faces, tell me oke?” I told her but she kept her head tucked in my jacket.

Another sword came crashing down and I had to jump away, while Connely’s men had started to fight and shoot the white being upon its movement just moments before.

“Miria,” I said while putting her down. “I need you to be a brave little girl right now. Can you do that for me?” I asked her, trying to be gentle. She wiped away her tears and shrieked when she saw something behind me.

I took hold of her body and swirled myself to the side once more, turning and using my shield for cover. Another sword had swiped its way over to us and clashed against my shield, scraping the edge of it until the arm was shot off by a railgun from one of the bigger hirelings.

Quickly, I turned towards Miria again and placed her by a statue that looked frightened and not ready for battle, before I asked her again to alert me when for another one waking up. This time she nodded and wiped away her tears, hiding behind the pedestal but fiercely looking up towards the other statues to see if they had changed their expression.

Good girl!

Of course, I had the chance now for me to run away with Miria, as all of Connely’s men, including Connely self, had been busy with fighting off the ogre – for the lack of a better name – that had awoken earlier.

But something was telling me that this wasn’t the first of our encounters as the path seemed to look like it could go on for ages until we would arrive at where it would lead us, so I could use the extra hands to fight off anything other than this white piece of stone.

The grinding of stone was continuing as the creature wasn’t keen on stopping this fight or losing for that matter. Even though he had lost one arm, as he so carelessly was focusing on me instead of the others, he still had enough vigour left to keep fighting.

He wasn’t made of flesh and bones, so no blood was pouring out of the missing limb, hence the reason he could just continue with his endeavours.

“Give me a sword!” I shouted towards Connely as he was throwing out commands to his men.

“No!” He shouted in reply, shooting at the creature’s face which only made some stone chip off, without him getting slower.

Why are men always this stupid and stubborn?

“I’m not going to fight you! I want the creature down!” I explained while I kept my shield up, avoiding getting hit by any loose white stones. But he wasn’t responding to what I said, he was just too stupid to let me help him. Maybe I should just go and take Miria with me, after all.

But I wanted my fourth orb as well…

Fuck!

In the back I could see the two men that had been attacked by the first swipe of a sword, initializing the attack, but they were lying on the other side of the creature that was walled in by a row of other statues.

With no time to spare I took a sprint and made myself slide underneath the legs of the white attacker and kept my shield up to keep myself safe from falling dick… as that part was sculpted in precision as well…

Then I went over to the two unfortunate souls and took what I needed. A gleaming claymore which was heavier than I would like to, but had no choice in using, revelled under my burning energy and started to glow orangely bright under the heat I was using. The two-handed blade was sharp and empowered by my magic, but was slower than my old blades, so I had to change my fighting style a bit to adjust myself to use this one.

Connely’s men were strong and agile, showing off the induced magic that made their skin sizzle just a bit, but even so, four more had perished under the weight of the strong ogre and his swords. The guns they had were of no use as they didn’t have the right effect for a stone creature. For this creature, you had to either use water to diminish the strong statistics or use fire to make it crack.

Well, I’m no blue Fae and thus can’t use water, nor do I have fire, but my energy should have to suffice for now. My slicing skills using my energy have never faltered, so I hope that this won’t be any different.

I charged forward and hit the creature on one of his wrists, not entirely slicing right through it, but enough to knock the sword out of his hand. Two arms down, two to go.

Unfortunately, this action was a one-time-only kind of thing as I used the element of surprise to hit him with it. He had changed its target and used his focus solely on me now, which was both a bad and a good thing. Bad, because this monster is three times as tall as me, is made out of stone and is fucking strong, but good because now the other men can find a way to get rid of this creature and plan a targeted attack. I just hoped that they were smart enough to come up with one.