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Remington -> Hellsingr (5/15/2010 19:27:25)
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-CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER-
A dark figure rode in black atop a dark horse. The figure resembled a man: the resemblance wore pitch black clothing, the firm brim of his hat almost paper thin. His cape and hair blew in the wind as he rode across the dark wastelands of the Earth. What was strange about this man was not his cloth or his cape. It wasn't the long slender arc sword slung across his back, nor was it the young unchangingly handsome and emotionless face that was partly hidden by the shadows of his hat; it was the horrible thoughts that clouded the virtue of his mind, the sickening aura that filled the air when he walked by. It was the horrid past that left mental wounds; his mind screamed out when he thought of these memories, many of which seemed just out of reach for him to recall. This was no ordinary man in appearance. This was no man inside.
The world of which this man rode across was a barren waste. It seemed as though he was the only one left to taste the sick breeze which blew across the earth, a silent wind on which hung the strong vomit inducing, pungent odor of the dead. In these parts, the sky was almost always dark. The ground was dark as well, tainted with the blood of men. The blood had darkened and so had the land with it. As well, the ground was cursed from the nuclear ravaging and carnage of past wars; was it still capable of being called earth, even if no longer could it harbor the life of insects and plants?
This man traveled deep into these wasted lands, scorching deserts, cursed valleys, and dark foreboding forests; but why? It certainly couldn't have been his noble will and honor that led him; surely it wasn't that, for who now would waste their time helping the few poor people of this world? So what could it be that drove him, this dark figure? The dark figure himself probably didn't even know; but maybe that was it: the insatiable will to seek and destroy something that could give him an answer. It couldn't have been some noble code that guided him. Or maybe it was both?
Throughout the ring of His Story, Monarchs and Dictators have robbed men of their freedom and promised them security. The men were left with nothing, wallowing in filth, surviving by their wrongful deeds and the grace of the more fortunate. Now, long after the bloody wars that scarred the earth, after the cries of terror that shook the land and the whistles of horror as impending doom was dropped from above to ravage the lives that ran from it; a surviving evil rose from the waste and wreckage that remained of the once great human civilizations. It had lived in the stories and nightmares of men all along, but now walked the earth in a mass as un-living as the dreams of happiness and delusions of grandeur that once filled people’s minds. The Higherorcs had taken their own place in His Story.
Before him, the dark figure met a lonesome and dusty town where he would rest for the day that was soon to come. He held hateful wishes of traveling by day, by the light of the sun. Something made him hate that light so vehemently and yet still something made him fond of it. It was a distracting conundrum the dark figure chose to deal with as little as possible. This dark figure rode into the town slowly on his steed. The streets were completely empty, void of any motion, any life. The dark figure found an unwelcome feeling lingering in the back of his mind; a feeling he often knew well on missions such as this: he knew someone else of a similar caliber (but in this case far less) was there, but someone, possibly, with fouler intentions than himself.
Through the darkness of night, out of the saloon to the dark figure’s front left, a lifeless body flew several yards through the air hitting the ground on its side, sliding through the dirt as though it had been beaten to a pulp then thrown from the battlefield inside. The man was assuredly dead. The dark figure dismounted and walked his steed over to tie him up. He then slowly made his way inside the saloon.
There he found a wrecked room with bodies all around in crumpled heaps and buried under the wreckage of tables and chairs. In the center of the room there stood a giant of a young man. He was at least eight feet tall, had short gray blonde hair, wore nothing but jeans and a sleeveless ornate jacket, and had noticeably large fangs in his mouth. His muscles were massive.
"Have you any last words?" the dark figure, new to the fight, said coolly.
"What the hell are you talking about, punk? I'll drain every last drop of blood from your body for even thinking you could take on a Higherorc! How dare you insult your lord like that, dammit! Humans! You have no respect for the one’s who protect you and offer you immortality!!" replied the wrecker in a cocky and angered tone, as though he could feel the man before him was far more skilled but did his best to ignore the simple fact.
"It seems you don't understand, boy. I am a Noble Hunter, a killer of our kind."
"What do you mean? NO, wait! You can't be him can you? NO, NO,-"
And with a streak of light, gore spewed from the vampire’s throat as he fell backwards lifelessly. If any normal blade had made this cut, even on a vampire as weak as him, he could have recovered in a few seconds-but not from the wound of this dark figure's sword. No one had seen him unleash the beautiful sword, but the now the unanimated and lifeless vampire had once felt the cold steel run across his skin.
The dark figure slowly walked over to the large body. "If I had gotten here sooner," he said to the bartender who was just arising from behind the bar where he had been hiding. “Then there would be a lesser body count. Since I was late, I take it that these deaths were my fault, so I shall dig the graves and bury them all as a small burden, unless you would rather have them burned to make certain of no return."
"You don't have to do that. Just take care of the Higherorc there. I'll let the families take care of the rest, that is, if there are any left. The fight in here didn’t take too long, so I suspect he made short work of everyone else as well. It’s a shame no one noticed this any earlier. I’m not quite sure what all has happened myself: I’ve been here all day, working. You had better be on you're way kid."
The dark figure picked up the giant and left quietly. He carried the hulking body into the middle of the road where he had seen the first of the dead men. The body of that original man was now gone, but the figure in black paid it no mind, for he knew what had happened and that he must hurry with his job. He lay the vampire's body down and pulled a can of salt from his horse's saddle. He poured the salt all over the corpse and lit a match from his pocket.
Before he could drop the match to incinerate the body, he noticed the throng of corpses surrounding him. The sick air snuffed out the flame of the match. The scene was still covered in moonlight, but the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon. The dark figure simply stood in the icy air. It seemed that the vampire's curse had already worked its way through the entire town. All it really took was one minion to start spreading it, and the Noble Hunter now stared dozens in the face. Stillness.
The hunter rushed back into the saloon as the throng made a pounce for the body in front of him. Inside, several corpses were surrounding the man behind the bar whom he had just spoken to. There was a streak of light and circle of gore splattered on the floor around the shadowy figure. The corpses fell apart from the three massive cuts that had been made across each of them.
"When the sun rises, every one of them should be incinerated. All we have to do is wait it out until then," said the dark figure.
"It's sad: the whole village is dead isn't it?"
"Probably."
"I wonder where I'll go after this. Tell me then hunter; what is your name?"
This dark man stood there quietly, ready for battle. Within moments, the doorway was being forced apart as dozens of the animated bodies tried to cram through all at once. They all had pale skin, and some of them rotting flesh. Most of their clothes were rather clean looking for the dead, but their eyes rolled back into their heads and their gray flesh were no deception for what they truly were.
"I am..."
The dark figure simply stood in that same spot in front of the bar, sword in hand. He only had to last a few more minutes in the dark. The mass of dead, tired of standstill of trying to cram through the doorway, busted down almost the entire front wall, dozens of them hammering their way through. But the dark figure still stood motionless. When they drew closer, he raised his sword with an unwavering hand.
He pulled it back, as if ready to thrust. When they were within arms reach, the man unleashed a flurry of slashes, hacking entirely through at least 15 of the recent humans. Arms, heads, and legs flew everywhere as bodies and the guts from them covered the floor.
"...Hellsingr."
There was a flash in his eyes. Hellsingr prepared himself for another strike as the corpses moved faster and prepared for another assault. This time three of them jumped in the air one after another, but all hit the ground simultaneously with entrails spewing from the cadavers. This man was fearless. His skill was stunning. Not one of these poor slaves could challenge him, and neither could all of them at once. Hellsingr sheathed his sword not having to wipe a single drop blood from the shining blade: it was his speed that kept it so clean. There were still at least sixty walking corpses left before him, but the sun would now take care of them: it was finally beginning to rise.
"Hellsingr?"
Light poured into the one room building. The sun had already turned to ash everything outside, and now it took care of all the animated dead inside. Screams rang out from the tortured monstrosities. Their skin boiled and sparked, blistering and popping beneath the light of the sun. A sickening white smoke rose from each of the slaves. The sad ending to their sad story had come: each of them slowly burned away to ashes. Hellsingr hurried outside. The body of the vampire he had just slain only moments ago was gone. He would have to continue hunting him, seeing as how his minions had moved him elsewhere. How could he be bested like that from such a young and foolish vampire? That Higherorc knew little of their true power. Oh well, if Hellsingr ever found him, he would have no trouble putting him back down; it was the one who had organized this whole event who really took prominence in his mind. Someone had rescued this corpse for some sick reason yet to be known. Hellsingr could only guess it was another of the Higherorcs’ sick pseudoscience experiments that broke the laws of both magic and nature.
Hellsingr slowly walked back inside to see to the bartender. “Forgive me for not being more efficient with my job sir," the dark figure apologized in a deep and solemn voice that would quickly bring to focus any wondering mind and still keep it lost in deep meaning. “Do you require anything to make your way to another town, or perhaps you plan on staying here? I will be following the trail north."
"No, I should be fine- but if you wouldn't mind me traveling with you for my protection, hunter, I can pay you well. The road ahead of you is dangerous, and I'm afraid I'll have no chance of fighting of those monsters and fiends like you will, nor could I possibly make it to any other town. I’m afraid that is the only direction I can go for survival"
"Very well, no pay will be necessary, consider it me making up for my own failure. But believe me when I say this; a moment will come when you will wish you had not decided to survive."
"Such is the work of a hunter, isn’t it? Handling situations no one else has the guts to go for. Alright then, just let me gather anything I may need, and feel free to scavenge the town for anything of use to you."
The short balding man shoved some things from behind the bar into a bag, and then made his way to his house across the street to finish gathering. He put it all into a wagon and hooked a horse up to it. Meanwhile, Hellsingr searched the town for any items that may be of use. He gathered some salts, silver, stakes, crosses, dried food, water, two metabolic pills, some money, some swords he could sell, and some other weaponry he gave to the traveler. This included a rifle, four pistols, two crossbows, a shotgun, and one burst rifle that was solar and electrically powered.
Now as prepared as they could be and yet possibly still ill-equipped for the terrors that await, the two men set out on their way north to the next town. They moved along the highway never traveled, Hellsingr hiding as much of his body as he could from the sun. The road ahead of them was long and dry, a desert lacking of any life. There would be no water for miles in any direction. It was the door of death that the two men knocked on, but they had to; no time could be wasted waiting for the sun to set again.
The two men had been traveling for hours when Hellsingr began to feel the effects of the sun. This was in way good. He began sweating and grabbed his canteen. Sweating wasn't something Hellsingr usually did. It just wasn't in his blood to do so, and when he did, it usually meant he had been in the sun too much in the past few months. Some times it would take years for him to hit another heat spell, but not in the perilous desert he now crossed. The water was still icy cold, chilling as it ran down his throat. Hellsingr felt better, but he knew that wouldn't be for long in this heat. He would need to rest soon or be forced to suffer an intense dehydration that could easily lead to death. The man next him was sitting under a shade on his wagon. He had plenty of water and ice, and would probably spare some if Hellsingr needed any.
"I am reminded that I have the knowledge your name hunter, but you don’t have mine. I'm Stan," said the old man, breaking the silence.
"Can you tell me why that noble was in your village?"
"No, sorry, I can’t give you any facts on that. I think he was just there to cause trouble myself. You know, just hungry like the Higherorcs get."
"He wasn't very old. Do you think there maybe a stronger vampire around here?"
"Well, I heard the next town has trouble in it. Since only one person every few years or so comes from there, I would say it's pretty rough. The road there isn’t a cakewalk either. So, simply based on that knowledge and what you know that I don’t, we could assume that we are going in the right direction."
"Tell me, why did you come?"
"Because, if I went any other, I would end up dead, of course, and you needed to take this road, so I figured I'd tag along and stay alive a little longer. Those are my only reasons. Nothing more: I really have no wish for this hunting business."
"I'm sorry to get you into this kind of trouble. I'll be honest, you may end up dead, all that depending on the strength of the Higherorcs we are about to face."
"Hmph, yeah, I know I'm about to die, but all my life's been spent in that small little town. I would rather die following a hero like you around than in bed back there as the sick old man I will soon become. I've only got seven years left until I turn 80. Out here, the last of my life may be shorter, but at least I can say I did something worthwhile with it. Maybe it will make up for the other 73 years I spent making this gut!" He laughed.
‘So, he has more reasons than he knows,’ thought Hellsingr.
After that, the journey was silent. The two travelers rode for at least six more hours until the sun started to finally die away. The heat disappeared, and cold night air swept across their faces. The sweat on their bodies made them even colder.
Hellsingr gave his horse a kick, and flames burst from its mane and ankles. This was to ward off any unwanted cohorts and keep Hellsingr's body from tensing up. The cold air and moonlight were better for him than the blaze of the sun and the hot thick air of the daytime, but too much of it made him a little shaky, like too much adrenaline rushing through one’s veins. He needed to stay calm and steady to reserve any strength he could as well as safeguard his mind. On through the dark and cold wasteland the duo traveled, already tired and beaten.
LINK TO DISCUSSION PAGE
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