Finally, after a few more agonizing strides, Lyra halted. She turned slowly, the movement stiff, as if her joints were protesting. The setting sun cast long, dramatic shadows across her face, obscuring her features, but Sami could feel the weight of her gaze.
"I'm leading us as far away from civilization as possible," Lyra stated, her voice taking on a melancholy tone, "because the monster my team died fighting, if not stopped, could disrupt the kingdom."
Sami was taken aback, almost tripping over a stick as he stumbled backward. "M-m-Monster?" he stammered.
Lyra stopped again, turning to fully face Sami. Her brow furrowed, her gaze sharp and assessing. The faint glow of her damaged armor seemed to intensify slightly in the deepening twilight.
"Monster?" she repeated, her voice laced with genuine confusion. "Have you not heard of the attacks plaguing our lands?"
"I have not heard of any recent attacks," Sami replied, his voice shaking as he tried to stay calm. "Our city rarely has anything wrong with it since we have one of the highest amounts of merchants and people coming to and from the city. Maybe a year ago we dealt with a bandit raid, but that was it."
She tilted her head slightly, as if trying to decipher a strange puzzle. "Where... where are you from?" Her eyes scanned his simple clothing, his wide, bewildered expression.
Sami shook his head slowly, his mind reeling. "I... I live in the city called Astrum. It's located near the capital," he explained, his voice still trembling slightly. "The only monsters I've heard of are from old tales, myths to tell your child about."
Lyra's expression shifted from confusion to a deep, troubled frown. "Ten years," she murmured, more to herself than to Sami. "Ten years since a whole farming village was destroyed."
She looked back at Sami, her gaze now sharp with a mixture of disbelief and a dawning, unsettling understanding. Her voice began to grow with anger. "To think he would allow a city so close to the capital to remain so ignorant."
A frown creased his brow as the memory of his destroyed village surfaced. "I... I'm a librarian's apprentice and have just recently begun to read up on the history of the Oyran Kingdom. To hear that those stories are real is a little concerning."
She shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "A little concerning, huh? Is that all you have to say? While my friends, while they were torn apart by claws, you were just reading. Not even knowing the real state of the world, the sacrifice we make to keep everyone safe."
Her gaze hardened as she looked at the ground, muttering under her breath, almost to herself, "Mercer, these lands are under your protection, what the hell is going on."
Sami's head shot when he heard the name Mercer. "What do you know about Mercer?" he questioned, his mind racing about how his grandfather could be involved.
"Mercer is a general in the King's army," she replied, her eyes now looking at Sami. "Due to some issues, the King granted General Mercer his own lands, along with the responsibility of training and handling all warriors in the western half of the kingdom."
"Is he that important to the King?" Sami asked, his tone full of longing.
Lyra glanced at Sami, wondering why he was asking such questions with the impending monster attack. Sami, noticing the look, began to fidget under the scrutiny, not really understanding what to do.
"Mercer is the King's right-hand man," she answered. "He was owed a lot by the King, but now is not the time to talk about this when we need to discuss how to survive the Gbahali that's hunting us."
Lyra's gaze remained fixed on Sami, the urgency of their situation etched on her face. The revelation about his grandfather seemed to have momentarily taken a backseat to the immediate threat.
Sami's mind was racing. He wanted to know more about his grandfather but asked, "What in the hell is a Gbahali?"
Before the warrior could answer, a sound ripped through the air – a raw, almost primal ROAR. It wasn't just loud; it vibrated in his bones, shaking the ground violently beneath their feet. The trees around them seemed to shudder, their leaves rustling in a sudden, unnatural gust of wind. The air crackled with a palpable sense of dread.
Her eyes snapped away from Sami, her earlier frustration instantly replaced by her warrior instincts. She whirled around, her hand instinctively moving towards the hilt of a weapon Sami hadn't yet seen clearly beneath her cloak.
"A Gbahali is a large hairy monster with very sharp claws," she growled, her voice tight with urgency. "They are very fast, and in the case of this one, it is also very strong. We have run out of time to run. If you see a chance to leave me, take it. I'll hold the monster back for as long as I can."
Sami was too scared to speak and just nodded his head as his body began to shake. Compared to Lyra, whose arms held her sword ready to defend from the direction the monster's roar was heard, Lyra didn't seem worried, as if she knew that she could win this fight. Sami was barely standing, his legs felt as if they were made of lead due to the fear of dying.
The sounds of the forest stopped; even animals couldn't be heard as the seconds ticked by. Soon a blur passed by, but Sami was quickly pulled out of the way by Lyra as the attack came from the opposite way of the direction they were facing.
Lyra was already facing the Gbahali as Sami stayed where he was pulled. Slowly he turned around to see the monsters. His mind was still trying to comprehend Lyra's quick instincts.
Sami let out a shriek as he glanced upon the horror he saw, as the Gbahali smirked at the fear he was showing. The Gbahali was even more monstrous than Sami could have imagined from the warrior's brief description.
It was a hulking mass of muscle and fur, easily twice the height of Lyra, with gleaming red eyes that burned with a predatory light. Its long arms ended in claws that looked like obsidian blades, and its teeth were a terrifying array of jagged points.
The creature moved with surprising speed for its size, a blur of motion as it charged towards them. Lyra didn't hesitate. With a fierce cry, she shoved Sami backward with surprising force, sending him stumbling several feet away. As he fell on his butt with a loud thud.
"Stay back!" she yelled, her voice barely audible over the Gbahali's deafening roar. In the same fluid motion, she raised her weapon, a long, slender sword that shimmered with a faint, silvery light, into a block.
The Gbahali's first attack was a sweeping swipe of its claw, aimed at where Sami had just been standing. The force of the blow ripped through the air, and even from a distance, Sami could feel the wind it generated. Lyra met the attack head-on, her sword flashing as she parried the Gbahali's strike. The sound of metal against claw was a screeching, jarring noise that made Sami wince.
The sheer power of the Gbahali was evident in the impact. Lyra staggered back slightly, her feet digging into the earth to maintain her balance. The ground where the Gbahali's claws had struck was gouged and torn, leaving deep furrows in the dirt.
Sami, still reeling from the shock and Lyra's shove, watched the scene unfold with wide, terrified eyes. He wanted to run, to hide, but his feet seemed rooted to the spot. The reality of the monster, the sheer violence of the attack, was far more terrifying than any story he had ever read.
He watched, frozen in terror, as the monstrous creature pressed its attack, its red eyes fixated on Lyra. He saw the strain in her movements, the way her sword arm trembled slightly with each block. Then, a sickening crack spiderwebbed across the silvery surface of her blade as it absorbed another brutal blow.
Suddenly, a voice, clear as a bell yet seemingly inside his own head, cut through the chaos. "Power... I can grant you power..."
"W-Who is there?" Sami questioned.
"You... need... power. Right now you are weak," a loud baritone voice echoed in his mind.
Battle could be heard around Sami as he shook his head, scared that maybe he was hearing things. "The power I can give you is real. I can help you with your revenge." The voice echoed once again.
"I don't care about revenge," Sami screamed.
"Come to me," the voice commanded.
Before Sami could reply, the world began to turn gray and dark. Around him, everything seemed to slow, the frantic movements of the Gbahali and Lyra stretching into a bizarre, sluggish dance. Sami, finally being able to see the battle which before was nothing but a blur and loud noise.
A faint, ethereal room materialized around him, bathed in a soft, otherworldly light. In the center of the room floated a simple, unadorned ring, pulsing with a gentle energy.
"Take it," the voice urged, insistent now. "Take the ring."
Confusion warred with fear in Sami's mind. "What is this? Who are you?" he whispered, the world around him now a timeless place.
"Your destiny," the voice replied, a low, resonant hum. "Embrace your birthright. As the next ring bearer, you are my heir."
"The heir to what?" Sami screamed, his voice strong though full of fear.
"The heir to everything, maybe you'll even find the truth, the Kingdom's truth, with my powers," the voice sarcastically implied. "Does it matter? Your death is all but imminent.
Sami looked around the room confused, shouting, "What do you mean by my death?"
"Do you think you could win?" the voice chuckled. "My power, child, your friend, is losing. You, a weakling, do you think you could stand a chance to win without her? Once she dies, he'll soon catch you and then slaughter your entire village."
"Why are you telling me this?" Sami screamed out. "Do you think my death is funny, asshole, huh?"
"Yes, that anger, my heir, use it. Embrace your destiny as the next owner of the ring. In turn, you'll be able to save your friend," the voice replied.
Save her? He looked back at the distorted image of Lyra, her face contorted in a grimace of effort. He didn't understand. Rings? Destiny? It sounded like one of the fantastical tales from the library, the very stories he now knew were terrifyingly real. He hesitated, a deep-seated disbelief holding him back.
"She will fall," the voice pressed, a note of urgency entering its tone. "Embrace the power, or watch her die."
As if to punctuate the voice's words, time outside his ethereal prison lurched forward. He saw Lyra misjudge her block, the Gbahali's massive claw tearing across her arm, ripping through her armor and drawing a crimson line of blood. Lyra cried out in pain, stumbling backward.
The sight jolted Sami. The fear for the warrior, the desperate need to help, overwhelmed his disbelief. He extended a shaky hand toward the ring.
"Yes..." the voice purred, a sound of dark satisfaction. "We will speak again soon."
The moment his fingers brushed the cool metal of the ring, the ethereal room vanished. Time snapped back into place with brutal speed.
The Gbahali, its red eyes blazing, was poised to bring its massive claw down on the defenseless Lyra.
"NO!" Sami screamed, an instinctive cry of terror and dawning power. He shoved Lyra with all his might, sending her sprawling out of the monster's path.
The Gbahali's claw crashed down where she had been a fraction of a second before, tearing a deep gouge in the earth. His hand went right through Sami as if he wasn't there. The Gbahali brought its claws back in confusion as it tried again to damage Sami, with it once again going straight through Sami's body.
The monster roared in frustrated fury, its attention fully on Sami. Sami, though scared, the ring on his finger grew bright as it sensed the danger in the area to its host.