The Hunter Between

            The Heavens burned. Demons and angels fought with the ferocity of desperate men. Battle raged all around. In the sky. On the walkways. Above and below. The scent of battle filled his lungs, the sounds made his heart race. But the battle was not near him. Nothing was. His legs burned with the strain of running. The weight of his armor dragged him down. His shield pulled at his arm, his weapon heavy in his hand. And still he ran.

            Ahead he heard the sounds of a battle that were familiar. Demons roaring and screaming in pain, the raised voices of angelic warriors, and the smaller sounds of crossbows being fired. Always ahead. There were never any bodies, only traces of dark blood or ash. He kept running as a feeling of dread took hold. Some of the walkways were marred by char as well as the corruption. Never did he see the fight. Never did a demon drop from above or leap up from the edge to attack him. Only the sounds drawing him onward.

            Lungs burning and legs painfully pumping, he at last reached a stairway. The dread grew when his foot fell on the first marble step. Halfway up, the corruption spread like a cancer over sparkling stone and grew thick. When he stepped upon it, it gave like one substance he never wanted to see again: the foul ground in the crater of hell. It moved just enough beneath his feet to slow him, make his run more difficult. He pressed onward even as it grew thicker under his feet and completely obscured the stone.

            Sound faded. He sensed the fight continuing elsewhere, but ahead...he no longer heard the demons dying. He did not hear the sounds of the battle he was striving to reach. There was only a silence that made the sweat forming between his body and armor cold in comparison to exertion-heated skin. And just as he felt the first hitches of lungs ready to give out from the strain, he reached the top of the stairs. The sight alone shocked him. He crashed to his knees, barely catching himself on his hands as he stared with wide eyes.

            It was not a battle he reached, it was a massacre. Angelic warriors were strewn across the taint-covered dais. Whether they had fallen on their backs or fronts, stood or lain, their bodies were suspended off the ground by viciously barbed black-red spikes impaling them. Their shining armor was fouled, glowing through gore and corruption as the light from their wings struggled against the darkness bleeding through it. They all lived. Even the ones trapped against the once pristine columns. Those angels struggled as futilely as insects, and they were weakening.

            She was there. She was among them. Her crimson armor was broken, bent. The mail-lined hood had fallen free and her black hair spilled over the ground. There was no sign of life, not even the rise and fall of her chest beneath the light armor. Catching a sharp breath to cry her name, the sound never made it past his throat. As he struggled to rise and get to her, her chest rose. She stirred as her arms jerked. It was enough to roll her slightly more onto her back. He heard a sound from her.

            Just as hope flared, it was consumed by horror. Her body arched upward suddenly as she jerked. A scream he hoped to never hear again burst from her open mouth as the tip of a wicked-looking spike burst free of her chest high near one shoulder. Another broke through her waist above the hip. The third caught between her ribs on one side. They lifted her from the floor up into the air just like the angels. Beneath her the corruption boiled upward to form a familiar altar-like base.

            Her thrashing became stronger. Her screams continued. Unlike the silent, struggling angels, she did not give up. Blood trickled and flowed down the dark spikes to pool on the slight hollow formed beneath her body. Darkness began to bleed from the wounds, spreading over her body from the spikes themselves. Watching that foul corruption spread made his stomach twist with revulsion.

            Again, her name came to his lips. And again, before he could give it voice, the horror grew. The vicious altar burst into flame where her blood pooled. It hungrily raced up the spikes to her body, igniting her struggling form as her head thrashed back and forth. It burnt away the armor but only spread the corruption faster, further, until she was a charred, burning thing of black, red, and flame. Her screams deafened him as if something had torn into his chest to rip his heart out.

            "SHANDRA!"

 

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            Kormac gasped, bolting upright in the bed. Wide eyes stared incoherently at the far wall. His heart pounded frantically in his chest as he tried to catch his breath. Panting, gasping, he slowly began to remember where he was and pull himself together. Already the dream was gone, leaving only the fear and horror behind. Where his mind did not remember the dream, his body certainly did and it expressed what his thoughts could not.

            Something hot stung his cheeks as he struggled to calm his breathing. When his hand touched his face, it came away wet. The tears barely blurred his vision as he tried to grasp what it was that terrified him so, that left his heart aching, that left his stomach tied in roiling knots. For the life of him, he could remember nothing of any dream. The only thing he knew was that everything he felt came from something he had dreamt.

 

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Author's Note:

            This was a fractured blurb that I have hit a writer's block on and decided it was ready to toss out here since after days of trying to expand it, nothing is forthcoming. This is also a small attempt to make up for missing last week's posting with the last chapter. More to come next week if all works out!