![]() The girl froze, eyes sweeping the ruined landscape. The air itself shook as a monstrous roar reverberated off the buildings. Death watched her back but didn’t make a move it was obvious she was skittish and if her presence meant what he thought it did, he didn’t want to make an enemy of her. She didn’t stop moving as she slung it over her shoulder, keeping the rider under a suspicious eye. Feeling his eyes on her, the girl rose and backed away slowly, cautiously, only turning her back on him long enough to pry an old hunting rifle from where it had become wedged beneath the debris from her tumble. She yelped as she was unexpectedly dropped from his bony fingers and landed on her backside. “Well, are you gonna kill me, or not?” she shifted uncomfortably, doing her best to keep the zipper at bay, “Cus if you’re not, than I’d appreciate it if you put me down.” She gaze darted to the gap between the ground and her feet, then up and down the street, then back at him. “I hardly think you’re in a position to be making demands,” he replied, fighting back the temptation to give her a good shake. She seemed to have recovered from her shock and was now staring with a rather annoyed expression. “Put me down,” it took the rider just a moment to realize that the quiet reedy voice came from the girl. There was a hardness beneath the frightened blue, one that he had similarly seen in the eyes of those who lived through traumatic events. The girl, still hanging from his grasp, held her collar back with one hand and held a smoking handgun in the other. He had just heard the click of a loaded gun when the head of yet another one of the Swarm exploded just behind his shoulder. She peeked a lid open to see one of the muscled arms of her captor reaching behind her, the hand gripping the shaft of a short scythe whose blade protruded from the neck of the undead behind her.ĭeath yanked back, tearing the blade from undead flesh. The pain of the blade ripping into her never came, but instead she heard the guttural screams of one of the Swarm and felt hot blood splash against her back. She squeezed her eyes shut, cursing luck and angels and demons and the universe for whatever it was she had gotten herself into. The sound of moving metal made her freeze, her eyes growing wide at the sight of the wickedly curved blade being brought about, slowly and deliberately. “Well, what have we here?” he pondered as the girl wriggled and kicked, breath heaving beneath snarls and whimpers. Her fingers tugged at the front of her black jacket, desperately trying to keep the collar from digging into her throat as she twisted in an attempt to break free. Blue eyes were wide with primal fear in a thin dirty face framed by short unkempt brown hair. She was small, just barely into womanhood, her feet dangling a good foot and a half above the ground. It let out a rough, though distinctly feminine scream as it was lifted effortlessly off the ground.ĭeath’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the young human girl that squirmed in his grasp. The rider got there first, stooping down and wrapping bony fingers around a cloth collar. Hearing the heavy tread of the rider, it flinched and stumbled, trying to regain its feet. The figure was a little blotch of black against the ground, curled in on itself as it recovered from its fall. Curious now more than cautious Death slowed his gait. Strange.įinally, with a shriek, it tumbled and hit the ground hard, skidding to a stop to lie still. His own ease contrasted greatly with his prey who seemed to lack the alien animalistic grace of the fallen horde in fact, it moved with ungainly desperation, tripping over cracks in the hot tarmac, just barely maintaining its footing. Not wanting to risk what was potentially a scout escape to bring the horde down upon him again, Death bounded after it, moving fluidly over the debris covered streets, swiftly gaining. A heartbeat passed before the figure bolted like a startled animal. Though its details were hidden behind the city’s perpetual haze, Death felt eyes locked with his own. Nerves still on edge from the battle, the rider turned, weapons in hand, in time to see a small shape frozen among the debris. The clattering of loose stone was loud in the sudden silence. Dust cawed to him from a distant streetlight and Death turned, fighting back his mounting frustration. The unending Swarm was slowing him down, the pieces of the Rod of Arafel still lost among the ruins of the Third Kingdom. He sighed heavily, hanging the duel scythes at his sides. The cry of a Suffering pierced the stagnant air and the remaining corpses of the Swarm fled from Death at the call of their master. Death ripped the point of a scythe from the flesh of a fallen undead. ![]()
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