The long forest, dark and foreboding. The only light was the streams of sun shining through the cracks in the canopy, and those occasional torches lit with holy fire to drive away the demons of the dark. The trees where thin, their bark however was as hard as dragon eggs turned stone by the ages. The bark of these trees would shatter any ordinary steel, even with the softest of contact. The trees only branch out at the top and the leaves of the branches are small yet still so many per tree that they can block out the sun and keep in the cold.

Crack.

Deer? Squirrel?... Shadow?... Crack.

A figure moves across the path, left to right, blending in with the darkness.

Crack.

“Keep calm Tom. Keep calm.” He reassures himself.

Days after days at a post here can drive a man mad. Tom tried to focus on the path, the dirt is cold, he can feel it through the soles of his boots. The paths swerves around a tree and is then consumed by darkness. The tree is small and branches out at the bottom, yet it wasn’t there a couple of days ago, the last time he took this route on his patrol.

Crack. It’s close. The sound of running is picked up by Tom’s sensitive ears. Whatever it is, it treads with care and tries not to make a noise.

Crack...Crack.

This time it brushes past Tom and his body goes cold, sending literal shivers up his spine.

Snap. (the sound of a breaking branch)

It’s comes from his right.

Crack.

From his left. It’s circling him.

“Where the on the bloody earth is Christian?” Tom said outloud. He looks toward the two torches, lit with holy fire, mounted on either side of the path in front of him.

Crack.

This time from behind him. He swivels round, instinctively with his bow draw. Nothing, but trees and the dreaded darkness. A wind picks up and abruptly stops.

He turns around. The light from the torches is gone, smothered in a malodorous tar-like substance. The darkness is coming.

He can’t run, he will never make it. The edge of the forest is at least 15 miles away, his stamina isn’t great, and the shadows will easily catch up to him.

“Christian!” Tom makes a full three hundred and sixty degree turn and if as on cue he appears out the darkness.

He’s dead. A voice inside his head, not his, not Christian’s. He’s dead. Tom looks at Christian. “Christian?” Tom asks, no reply.

No movement either.

It isn’t Christian. It’s his soul… A shadow.      

That's when the bright, blood-thirsty red eyes appeared from the darkness. No one made a movement, not even Tom.

Crack.

From behind him. "Gods help me," Tom says, the fear, of what stared at him, destroying him from inside out.

Tom slowly turns one hundred and eighty degrees, hands in the air, surrendering to the shadow.

The shadows rip through his body, turning his heart to dust. He falls to ground. Dead.

This was her fifteenth night on horseback. Riding along the cold moor, the heather was covered in mildew that sparkled in the rising sun of the morning. You could feel winter all through your body, from your toes to your ears, no matter how many layer of fur and leather you put on.

She was a courier, nineteens years old or was she twenty, it was hold to keep track of time when you were constantly travelling. With the NNCS (Nation Northern Courier Service) you could end up anywhere in the north, from western coast of Lamret to the mountain walls of Froston.

She spotted a whitetail elk about thirty feet away from her, it’s long legs allowing it to move through the heather with ease, occasionally dipping it’s head into the moor to eat the purple flower. It’s silhouette was so pretty against the orange sun. She was hungry, he supplies were low and she could use another layer, other than a blouse and a fur jacket.

She hated to kill the poor thing but her hunger overwhelmed her to pull back the string of the bow and let the red feathered arrow fly. The steel tipped arrow hit the creature in the neck, a quick death.

She pulled on the reins of her horse, giving the beast the signal to stop. She dismounted the horse and unsheathed a hunting knife, the blade still had the dried and stained blood of a the last rabbit she came across a few days before.

She turns to look at the elk. It’s still standing. It’s not moving. Thats when she notices that the wind has stopped and the heather didn’t sway. The world was still.

She ran towards the elk, through the heather and poppies of the moor. The whole world had gone cold, colder than usual. The arrow was inches away from touching the neck the elk. she touched the arrow it and it instantly dropped to the ground. Cutting the heather and her finger.

Blood slowly dripped from the cut. Each drop stopping just before it the ground defying gravity.

A darkness suddenly blocks out sun. It crawled along the ground, and it smelled of death, the goo crawled through the heather infecting everything it touched, turning it black with death. The poppies wilted and the heather shriveled up. It consumed the elk.

It was metres away from her. She couldn’t move, she was absorbed in fear. The goo was wet she could feel it soak through her clothes and soak her skin, it slowly climbed up her leg, the web-like goo wrapping itself around her leg and up her torso, around her arm and strangling her neck then consuming her vision in blackness, then the rest of her head.

Then goo was gone and her clothes were dry. But she was no longer in the moor.

A surface rubbed against her back, it was rough, like bark. It was completely dark. Several figures stood with ter back to her. Her brother stood in front of them, Shadows.

She tried to move but something held her to the tree. The Shadows closed in on her brother, they flew through him, some raised sword and consumed him. He fell to his knees. Black blood fell out of his neck, he was gone. “Tom!”

He fell to ground, lifeless, his corpse pale and his face, the expression of pain.

A dark, cold hand blanketed her mouth stopping her from screaming. Thin curls of smoke rose from the hand. Fear absorbed her. She knew what it was. The shadow pulled out a knife, it was black and like it’s hands and smoke also filled the air around it.

She tried to scream but she couldn't, the hand sucked in the sound like a void. The demon moves the knife toward her neck. Hopelessness fills her.

The knife is dragged across her neck, slitting her throat, drowning her in her own blood.
The rope that was binding her to the tree had gone. She fell to the floor dead.

Jack sat at the round table. The room was lit by candle light, a very dim setting for a very serious game. The wooden floor was old but well kept and regularly polished, the gangster obviously played often.

Jack checked for the flintlock at his belt and the ace of spades up his sleeve. They sat at either end of the wooden table, blanketed with green felt made from a combination of lion fur and dye made from a mint.

He c***ed the pistol, as quietly as he could, the click still sounded and the gangster obviously heard it, as his ears twitched.

“We need to get the piping fixed Charles,” The gangster looked at the man in the doorway. The gangster himself must of been thirty, he was only fourteen. The gangster looked back at him giving him a smirk.

The dealer, his friend and partner in this operation, gave him a worried look. Jack just nodded, a signal to start the game.

“Gentlemen, the game has now begun,” The dealer said, the worry showing on his face. He dealt them two cards each, which slid across the green felt.

Jack looked at his cards. A queen and a king. He pulled the king out and replaced it for the ace in his sleeve. No one noticed.

“Please place your bets” His friend said, the concern showing. Jack pushed in all his chips, keeping his poker face on. No expression at all showed on Jack’s face.

The gangster attempted to read his face but no information would come out. He also put in all his chips. Together they are worth 15 million jins. Enough money to move his family out of this wretched city and start a new life.

“Gentlemen, please show your cards,”

The gangster showed first “20,” he replied with a smirk on his face. But then smirk faded when Jack smiled.

“Blackjack, 21,”

“I win,” the gangster replied.

Jack pulled his flintlock pistol and aimed it at the gangsters face. “You obviously don’t understand, I got blackjack, Mack pull your gun,” But the dealer didn’t pull his gun on the gangster. But on Jack. When Jack turned his head he was looking down the barrel of his friends gun.

“Sorry Jack, self-preservation.”

“Mack, your sister, you can free her with the money.”

“The Gang released her two days ago, in exchange for your life.”

“Mack don’t do -”

“Sorry Jack, It’s nothing personal, just self-preservation.”

And with those final words from Mack, he pulled the trigger. The lead ball ripped through Jack’s chest. Jack also pulled his trigger and his bullet flew through the air and into the smart mouthed gangsters face. The bullet swam through his right eyeball and into his brain leaving a giant exit hole and mess at the back of his head, leaving his brain splattered on the wall painting it in blood.

Pain exploded in his own chest, the bullet ripped through his ribcage breaking multiple ribs, it then swam into his lungs and ripped his heart.

The pain ran through his nerves and overwhelmed the his brain. The blackness blanketed his vision then he collapsed. Dead.

They both faced each other, both perfectly balanced on the mountain ridge. Frode was dressed in blue robes, robes made of silk and lined with silver thread. Gared faced him dressed in red robes also made from silk, golden thread lined his.

They both felt the cold shoot up their robes giving them goose bumps which covered their skin. They felt the snow, which blanketed the mountain, under their bare feet. They held their bamboo poles, which had grips made of string. Both the poles had a fresh layer of snow on top of them, there was also a light dusting of snow on top of their hair, making it look white with age, though they were both only twenty years old.

They were both champions of rival houses of the mountain, but only one would be a sacrifice to it.

They stood there, staring at each other. Death awaited one. They were 20 metres apart, quite a distance to cross the thin ridge.

A gong sounded. It had begun. Gared took the first steps, shuffling along the edge not looking down. Frode was next, walking one foot in front of the other, nearly slipping and falling of the mountain with in seconds of the Duel beginning.

  They both carefully balanced along the ridge with care. The cold always grabbing at their feet trying to pull them to their doom.

Gared slipped as a gust picked up. His feet went out from underneath him, he was now holding onto the ridge by his hands. Frode took this as an opportunity. He launched at Gared, jumping five metres along the edge, a risky move. He kept his balance but Gared hit his shin his bamboo pole. Frode loses his balance, and slips on the snow covered ice. Frode’s feet hang over the edge, he put his weight forward, keeping his balance.

Gared uses this time to recover and he pulls himself up back onto the ridge and regains his balance. In seconds he swing his pole around to hit Frode in the stomach. Frode barely manages to keep his balance. He turns this time facing Gared.

Gared raises his pole above his head, bringing it down onto Frode, Frode blocked the strike from Gared. Frode brings his pole round, bringing Gared’s pole with it. He strikes Gared in the chest, pushing him backwards. Frode sweeps at Gared’s legs.

Gared kicks the pole out of Frode’s hands. The pole snaps into pieces as it descends down the mountainside, hitting multiple rocks on the way.

Frode is in shock. He blocks Gared’s pole as it come around the side of his head. The pole stings his forearm. The pole cracks. Frode grabs the end nearest to him and snaps the pole in two.

The end of the pole was sharp. The two halves clash as they both go for a strike to the head. A powerful fist makes contact with Frode’s cheekbone as Frode kicks out at Gared’s stomach making contact as soon as Gared hits him. Frode spits blood. The red fluid falls and hits a rock on the mountain edge staining it red.

As Frode spat, Gared kicked him in the chest sending him sprawling across the ridge. He got up and Gared’s pole hit him in the side of the face sendinging him off the mountain and to the depths below.

Victory for Gared wouldn’t last long.
There was a glint of metal across the other side a the ridge. An explosion sounded. Pain shot through Gared’s stomach, the lead ball penetrated his bowls and sent him off the edge, clutching his stomach. The mountain had claimed two sacrifices.