#his malevolent glare as the beacons are lit is just ?????????

[anghraine]

I'm still boggling at a defense of film Denethor I saw the other day.

I have some disagreements with takes on film Boromir, and disagree strongly with defenses of film Faramir, but at least I get where they're coming from. Film Denethor is the worst.

[pilot-boi]

Fall For Me: Chapter One

Has Jaune ever really talked about what happened the night of the Fall? Well maybe not, but he's decided the universe thinks it's time for a fall of his own.

Now if he could try not to lose everything this time, that would be fantastic.

(I dunno, this just sort of came to me. There's a dragon for reasons. And those reasons are that dragons are cool.)

The Jump

He remembered Falling. He remembered the light. And then darkness. Not this light, not this darkness, but the difference was suddenly so very, very small…

AO3 LINK

Don’t worry about it.

The grappled shivered and whined under Jaune’s fingertips as he steadied his extended arm again, blinking sweat out of his eyes. He felt the far end of the line snap into place near the top of his second pillar and tugged at it carefully. It seemed solid enough, although the occasionally dubious reliability of Atlas’s hastier designs was another thing not to think about. 

But these seemed to work, so that was a relief at least.

He glanced over to where Oscar was standing guard, legs apart and staff in hand, glaring out across the plain with a look of freckled determination. So far, there hadn’t been man Grimm heading their way. Yet. 

They had both seen the change in the movements of the dark figures when the first pillars had blown, as the howls of unearthly fury increased in response, but most of the activity seemed to be further away, back towards the mountainous end of the plain.

Exactly what was going on over there was… well, it was yet another thing not to think about. Jaune shook his head, as if that would push aside the shards of broken thought that snapped and stabbed across his mind, or the way his heartbeat was keeping a dread rhythm in his chest.

“You doing alright, buddy?” Oscar glanced back and the concern in his eyes felt like a punch. Jaune nodded, turning away so the boy wouldn’t see his expression. This meant he was staring down over the edge of the cliff, and he had to bite down on a fresh surge of nausea.

The canyon here was wider than below their first pillar and more uneven, as if something had torn its way up through the sheets of blackish stone from underneath, leaving a gaping wound in the rock surface, with the pillar hanging in its center like a last failed suture. 

Broken ledges and splintered layers stuck out from the walls, giving the plunge into oblivion a twin pair of ragged edges. Jaune looked back up quickly, fixing his wavering attention back to the spinning brilliance above.

Right. No chickening out now.

He hit the grapple mechanism again, bracing himself for the lurch that came as the gears bit down, and it yanked him forward and upwards, shooting across the inverted sky like a very guided sort of comet. He brought his legs up, getting ready to cushion his impact against the vertical obsidian ahead.

The second roar hit when he was halfway across. This was a new sound. It still boiled with the terrible fury of before, the wounded malevolence that had poured out of every sliver of this world in a poisoned sonic tide. But this one had a new edge to it, something altogether much worse. It held triumph.

Jaune twitched, a violent shiver that wrenched him hard against his airborne pose, and rammed his gloved fingertips back into the unfortunately sensitive grapple control. Gears screeched, choking out an acrid metallic smoke as the little machine clamped to an abrupt halt, sending him jerking to and fro with aborted momentum.

As he tried to steady the swaying, as the horrible sound twisted fresh coils of whispering darkness into his mind, he turned, and he saw the dragon coming back.

Don’t worry-

The sound bore down like a tidal surge, spilling out ahead of the oncoming nightmare, and Jaune froze. He had to move, had to move, as the huge shape dove towards him, its wings scything out like their own horizon. But all he could do was clamp down, tightening his fingers around the grapple line until his gloves creaked.

Breath curdled in his throat, then broke apart in wordless yelp of disbelief as the dragon suddenly swung upwards, letting out a fresh howl. And this time there was something like pain in the sound.

Jaune saw the smaller form, highlighted against the vicious violet sparks that sprang from the creature’s skin as Ruby shot across its back and down along the jagged spine. The reaper twisted this way and that as the titanic shape rolled beneath her, dragging the flame bright blade of Crescent Rose between the scales. 

Dark clouds boiled up into the air as the dragon swiveled, snapping back at the assaulting figure, and the spinning battle was so close that Jaune could see each movement with horrible clarity.

Then the crystal above him erupted in howling brilliance, and Jaune couldn’t hold back a scream. He ducked down between his own arms as the spiraling beam thundered out overhead. 

Close, so close, why was he so close?! Oh gods above.

It lit up a new corona of purple fractals that snaked across the dragon’s chest, following the marks of Ruby’s frantic slices, and the oil-slick flesh drew closed beneath the too-bright beam.

Spillover magic sent freezing, electric prickles scattering across Jaune’s exposed skin, clawing at him with a much less benign effect than it had for the roaring monster overhead. He gritted his teeth, trying to focus on the pain there, the real pain. But memory was swarming around him.

It surrounded him like blackened flies, and the now of it was so hard to find. The endless, hungry fall of that red-black oil beneath him seemed to drag down against him, pulling at the tiny grapple that shook and shivered on his arm. It would be so easy to fall, so easy, with the screaming incandescence blazing out overhead and oblivion reaching up to claim him back.

He remembered the light. And then darkness. Not this light, not this darkness, but the difference was suddenly so very, very small…

And then the bright beam winked out, the dragon swept past above him, and the bottom dropped out of Jaune’s tentatively hanging world as the creature’s barbed tail sliced through his line like it was little more than string. He held on tight, more through terrified instinct than any actual plan.

As the alien gravity tightened its fingers in his stomach, there were several long horrible moments of swinging weightlessness. Then he slammed into the side of the pillar with like a pendulum on a clock and he tried desperately not to throw up. Motion sickness was terrible at the best of times, and this wasn’t even close to the best of anything.

He was running out of time. The thought spun in his mind, whirling up every other attempt at coherence into its ever tightening embrace. The knight tried to feel the grapple under his shaking fingers and untangle the fragment of him that was still in the present.

Focus. Focus.

Painfully slowly, Jaune managed to raise his head up and force his eyes open, squinting up into the ominous brilliance above him. He was barely a few feet below the top of the pillar, which did make sense, when he could push aside panic long enough to think about it. 

The grapple was making a strange whining noise against his arm, and the line was quivering in a way it hadn’t done before. But his grip was reasonable enough and he began to haul himself upwards.

One hand after another. If he didn’t allow anything else to exist, if he filled the whole of every second side to side with the inching repetition of climbing-

-if I lose everything-

-Then it wasn’t so bad. One step at a time. A they’d always done, when everything had seemed at its worst. Just one step at a time.

His fingers grazed the clear space on top of the pillar, just as the grapple mechanism gave a high pitched scraping sound, accompanied by the scent of burning metal, and he felt the grip of it start to give.  Jaune lunged, pinning the line tight between his feet as he thrust himself upwards.

Jaune managed to get a hand clamped fully into place on the lip of the pillar before the metal teeth of the device failed entirely, falling slack against him and blood screamed in his ears. He was suddenly, silently, immensely thankful for the augmented attributes his Semblance would provide in moments of crisis. 

It strengthened his hold as his extended arm shook madly, almost in time to the slam of his heartbeat. One hand’s grip away from falling.

Breath, Jaune. Oh boy...

His entire world seemed to have narrowed down to the pressure on his left wrist, and it took a remarkable effort to figure out where his other arm was. Hanging loose at his side, with the limp thread of the wire still gripped in his shaking fingers. And it took even longer to remember how to move it.

Come on man. Up you get.

He’d done worse than this. Much worse than this. Maybe not over the infernal bloody goop of the Grimmlands, but over enough icy cold water that it might as well count. Clutching Nora’s equally battered form against him, stumbling as they kept each other upright and the ground had buckled and cracked underneath them.

Or leaping from one precarious footing to another in the crumbling ruins of Beacon Initiation. With his heart in his mouth, and the dreadful depth beneath yawning its invitation.

Or clinging to fraying rope in a cursed storm, hauling his own half frozen body up the degrading rigging as Weiss shouted frantic instructions at him. Her words whipped away in an instant by the hungry winds, never to reach his ears.

In comparison, hanging by one hand from a glassy pillar, over an endless drop into literally evil primordial soup was… Well, certainly not better, but at least on some kind of horrible par. Jaune gritted his teeth and swung up, grasping desperately at air until he managed to get another point of purchase on the polished stone.

His shoulders were screaming beneath his armor but, accompanied by his own muttered litany of curses, he eventually managed to pull himself up. He lay flat for a moment, precarious still on the edge, as the slice and shimmer of the spinning crystals whirled by a few feet from his head.

Okay. Okay.

The bomb was gone. His fingers scraped at the empty space at his belt, but the awkward wedging of the explosive device hadn’t survived the last flailing moments. After a few false starts, he managed to pull himself upright.

Body shivering with tension as he tried to keep his footing against the slick stone surface beneath, he looked up through the glowing haze, very pointedly not looking down into the vertigo inducing drop just behind him. Even in the strange over magnification of this place, it was difficult to make out exactly what was happening in the battle overhead anymore. 

But the bright slices of impact came again and again, behind the shadows of twisting wings.

Ruby was fighting it. Jaune reached up, jamming his fingers into his scalp and tugged at his hair until the roots stung. Memories skipped and broke open around him. Suddenly so close, so real, and he tried not to be sick again. What kind of plan was this? Ruby was fighting it now, and the sword at Jaune’s side seemed to be pulling against him, echoing a strange hollow itch down into his fingers.

The bomb was gone. He’d failed. They were out of time, and it was his fault. Again.

If he had only been faster. If he hadn’t spent so freaking long worrying. Always worrying, and what was the point of that, the point of him? He was always just too slow, and people always died.

“I’m sorry-!”

An old cry, cut off abruptly by his own whimper as the crystals flared again, hurling another dazzling spiral beam up towards the battling shapes, and nearly taking his balance entirely. He could feel his Aura straining as he had to lean into the wind of it, angry magic spillover biting into his skin, scattering his breaking thoughts.

What now, little knight? What do you have left?

The sword was so heavy at his side. He was only dimly aware of himself reaching round, of his fingers tightening into their long-habitual grip, as the world began to fade away around him. Leaving nothing but that screaming, searing pillar of twisted brilliance, inches from his face. His cheeks were wet, but right now he couldn’t remember why.

I’m sorry, guys. This was the best I could do.

Jaune swung his sword.

And there was light.

[empresskatariah]

Prologue

Fomorians were sea-folk, though they hadn’t always been, and those that took to land were often weakened by the absence of water. There was enough of their previous form left to give them proper legs and a means of breathing, but not even their tremendous reserves of magic could keep their skins from drying out. Containing one was simply a matter of waiting until dehydration set in and slowed it up.

But tonight the stars were hidden behind a thick layer of clouds that kept dumping torrents of rain. The air was heavy and humid, dank with the stench of wet asphalt that had been dry for too long. Oz surveyed the cityscape from his perch atop a high-rise for some bank or another, one hand stuffed in the pocket of his raincoat while the other held onto a small radio. His slitted pupils dilated as he scanned the streets for any sign of activity, then narrowed slightly as the radio crackled.

“Do you see anything?” came the query, a masculine but youthful tone.

“Nah. Sky’s still pissin’. Don’t bode well if it’s the Fomoire about.”

Oz’s voice was a stark contrast to the one from the radio. He spoke quietly but gruffly, with the barest hint of a lilting Scots’ brogue. Baritone with a growl, someone had said once; Oz didn’t disagree with that assessment.

“You never know, maybe it’s just another Kelpie and someone overreacted. It wouldn’t be the first time. I mean, how many years has it been since one of the Deep Ones came ashore?”

Oz’s face scrunched into a scowl and he opened his mouth to retort, but then his jaw clicked shut without a word. It was moments like this one that made him feel tired, or perhaps old was a better word for it.

“Three decades, give or take a couple years. Doesn’t feel that long to me, though.”

“Cheer up, old man.” A laugh came through the speaker. “Odds are we get to finish up here soon and then we’ll go to Waffle House, my treat.”

Oz’s eyes widened. Suddenly the promise of Waffle House shone like a flaming beacon in the midst of this dismal murk, beckoning him onward. He leaned forward, peering out at the desolate vista with renewed interest.

“Better be ready to pay dearly, then,” he said slyly, one corner of his mouth pulling upward in a toothy grin, “because I haven’t had waffles in–”

A scream cut him off. It was a man’s shriek of terror, a raw and desperate sound that cut through the muggy air like a knife. As if on cue, lightning lit up the sky and a clap of thunder followed merely half a second behind.

“What was that?” the radio demanded.

“I’m on it,” Oz grunted, stuffing the radio into his pocket as he lunged.

The ground was many stories down, at least twenty floors, but Oz hurled himself over the edge with no hesitation. For a moment he was flying, in the next he was falling – he plummeted carelessly as the air roared past him, his raincoat flapping noisily as he went.

He closed his eyes. Wondered how big of a splat he’d make if he just stayed like this and hit the ground. Wondered how long it would take to come back from a mess like that.

I always land on my feet, he thought absently, and dissipated into a cloud of black smoke.

When he reformed he was standing where he’d envisioned going splat, on a curb surrounded by loose litter and dead leaves. A large plastic bag full of waste lay nearby with several stray cats helping themselves to its contents. When Oz passed them by they stared at him, heads turning in unison as their eyes tracked him.

“It’s the King,” one of them murmured in cat-speech, amazed.

“Not anymore,” Oz growled, continuing on his way without pause.

He was glad for the lack of human presence on a night like this. It meant he could move faster than any human should without attracting unwanted attention. A man of his appearance had no business sprinting up Seventh Street at the speed of a cruising car, and yet he did so with ease. When he came to a large puddle he cleared it in a single leap, never losing his balance for an instant.

It should be around here, I know I heard it coming from this direction…

He skidded to a halt as another scream sounded. It echoed from the dark recess of a nearby alleyway, where a single electric light flickered intermittently. Immediately Oz felt an oppressive aura emanating from the shadows, a force of sheer wrongness permeating the rainy haze and causing his skin to prickle into gooseflesh. He only realized he was clenching his teeth when his jaw began to ache. Slowly, carefully he took the radio from his pocket and pressed the button.

“I know this stench,” he said quietly. “It’s one of Them. Put everyone on high alert.”

“A Deep One? A real Fomorian?” Oz could tell his comrade was truly afraid. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“Aye.” Oz drew in a deep breath, then let it out in a weary sigh. “Listen. Perce. You’re a good kid. A brave one. But I’m tellin’ you, you need to sit this one out. Let me handle it. I’ve been at this a lot longer than you and believe me, you’re better off stayin’ where you are.”

“Like hell I am,” Percy scoffed. “I’m your handler, Oz. You’re my responsibility. As if I’d just let you face something like that on your own. I’m coming and I’m bringing backup, all right? You just wait for–”

Oz turned the radio off. Tossed it aside. It skittered over the pavement and clanged against a metal trash can.

“Backup,” he spat, shaking his head as if the notion was ludicrous. “Guess I’m to hurry, then.”

Advancing into the alley was like pushing through a series of disgusting membranes. It was completely invisible, even to fey sight, but Oz could feel the presence trying to ward him off with a field of pure thought meant to dredge up his every fear. To a human it might have been overwhelming, perhaps enough to induce insanity, but to Oz it was an annoyance.

The closer he got, however, the worse it became. When he looked down at his hands he was greeted with the illusion of being covered in a horde of slimy things that pulsed and quivered like disembodied intestines. When he breathed it felt like swallowing bile. His sanity remained intact, his intellect coolly refuting the falsehoods, but it was still monumentally unpleasant.

So distracted was he by the psychic onslaught that he failed to realize he had found the crime scene until his foot stepped on something soft instead of pavement. When he looked down he saw a hand. Just a hand. The blood leaking out of its stump of a wrist was still fresh.

“Oh,” he said aloud, and dared to lift his gaze.

The sight that assaulted him was something not meant to exist. It was a creature whose composition had been dictated by mankind’s fear of the unknown, specifically man’s fear of what lay hidden beneath the ocean. It was vaguely humanoid but obscenely inhuman, a conglomeration of gills and eyes and tentacles that inflicted itself upon reality with malevolent iron will.

It was a Fomorian. And it was still eating what appeared to be a homeless man.

Oz considered his options. Ending this quickly meant going all-out, but going all-out meant his compatriots would have… difficulties dealing with the aftermath. The rain was still falling in copious amounts, meaning this beast wouldn’t run out of hydration anytime soon. It would be a long and ultimately costly fight that would likely decimate this part of the city.

You are afraid to give in to your true nature?

Oz hissed and covered his ears with his hands, though he knew it was a futile gesture. The question had been projected directly into his mind.

“I’m not afraid,” he snapped, unwilling to give the Fomorian the satisfaction of conversing as it wished to. “I’m just pissed off. Why are you here? There’s nothin’ for you here on land.”

I could say the same for you, the entity replied. Its tone was flat and emotionless, much like the text-to-speech voices human devices produced. Why do you continue to play human, Irusan?

“Don’t call me that,” Oz snarled. “It’s complicated. And you’re avoidin’ the question. Why. Are. You. Here?”

He awakens soon. No longer will we be imprisoned Below in the ruined depths of Atlantis. We shall walk the Earth again as we did in the days of mighty Balor. We shall shed these cursed forms and reclaim our land from the Usurpers.

At the mention of Balor Oz’s glare deepened and he clenched his hands into fists. Tufts of black fur were beginning to emerge from beneath his sleeves. As he bared his teeth at the enemy, he could feel that his canines had elongated.

“Fuck Balor,” he declared, “and fuck you. I’m giving you one chance to go crawlin’ back into the depths and that’s it. One. Or I’ll tear you apart and turn you into pâté.”

The Deep One tossed aside what was left of its dinner and regarded Oz with what could be presumed as contempt, since its features were unsuited for expressing emotion. It was a smaller variant compared to others of its kind, but it still filled the entire alleyway and towered at least two stories.

You should be our ally, it complained. Your behavior is illogical.

“I’ve never been much good at doing what’s expected of me,” Oz growled, stooping down like a coiled spring ready to unleash, sharp claws emerging from the tips of his gloves.

“OZ!”

A shot rang out and the Fomorian recoiled as it was struck by an iron bullet. Vile vapors billowed from the wound and it loosed a psychic scream that brought Oz to his knees. He could hear cries of anguish behind him as the human personnel who had come to aid him were assailed by mental violence they had no way of fighting against. Despite his own pain, he managed to turn and saw Percy still upright, albeit on one knee.

“Percy, you fool,” he managed.

The man whose face was still that of a boy scowled and raised his handgun. Blood was trickling from his nose and ears but he stubbornly persisted, firing off another shot at the eldritch being.

“I called for more backup,” Percy yelled, his teeth stained red. “I told them to bring everyone. I–”

His eyes bulged and rolled up, showing only their whites, as his body began to tremble. The hand holding his gun swayed left, then right, then planted the weapon’s barrel firmly against Percy’s temple.

Human puppet, the Deep One rumbled. Die.

Oz reached out toward Percy, fingers spreading in vain as Percy’s life ended in a bang and a spray of red mist.

A memory flashed through Oz’s mind unbidden, a crystal-clear remembrance of the day they had first shaken hands.

Hi, I’m Percival Ainsley. You must be Oz! I’ve heard so much about you. I think we’ll work well together, you and I.

As he watched the young man’s body crumple to the ground, Oz felt the last tether that had been holding him back snap.

“I’ll kill you,” he bellowed, his voice deepening into a roar as he turned to face the enemy. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill...”

The sound of meat being skewered cut him off. The realization didn’t set in until Oz’s eyes followed the tentacles that had extended into his own torso, one shoved directly beneath his heart while the other had stabbed through his right side. The pain was oddly distant, save the immediate annoyance of his left lung collapsing.

“Kill you,” he wheezed, grabbing hold of one protrusion with both hands. It was strong but so was he; rage fueled him as he twisted the tentacle in an effort to remove it.

You have become weak, the Fomorian noted dispassionately. And with that it lifted him and slammed him into a brick wall with enough force to break through, sending up a cloud of dust as debris scattered.

The next few minutes seemed to last for hours. Oz slowly became aware of many things: the bitter taste of blood in his mouth, the pain of several broken ribs, a burning sensation that might be a punctured organ or two, and the fact that his right arm had become completely dislocated. His head felt wrong, as if his skull had cracked open like a walnut’s shell. Instead of getting to his feet as he wished to do, he could only struggle as his body refused to do more than thrash around feebly. A killing rage still burned in his chest, but it burned in vain.

“Dammit,” he swore, coughing violently. “Damn you.”

He’d been too slow. Too indecisive. Too willing to give a monster a chance to stand down, too attached to old allegiances that meant nothing now…

Percy. Lad. I’m sorry.

His left hand reached out, trembling, but grasped nothing. Then it fell and hit the floor with a dull thud.

Sounds of battle drifted to him from what seemed a far distance, though he knew they were mere meters away. Reinforcements had arrived. Oz had no doubt they would be able to kill the Fomorian, or at least harass it until it decided to flee back to the sea. But he could no longer muster the energy to care about victory or defeat. Simply breathing was a Herculean labor now.

Not again. Not again...

His last thought, as his heart ceased to beat and one last breath passed through his lips, was of waffles.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Evil in the Eyes

The campfire glowed in a bright orange and warmed the two people sitting there. The long shadows cast by the fire danced around them, thrown from cacti and dusty rocks. Their camp was set near the bottom of a gorge, close enough to the Colorado River that the sound of flowing water mingled serenely with the occasional crackle and pop of the fire.

The brim of Ezrah McPherson’s hat bathed his face in darkness. A crumpled cigarette drooped out of the corner of his mouth and occasionally flared up with its own tiny glow whenever he took a deep drag from it. He cocked his head and scratched the stubble on his chin while he stared into the flames, lost in thought.

Across from him sat Warner Watkins, garbed in black and wearing a wider-brimmed hat. He grabbed a steaming bowl from its seat next to the fireplace and dug in with a battered old spoon. One of the horses whinnied, and he looked back over his shoulder at the beast, giving it a long glare. The horse neighed louder and reared away from him.

Revealing matted greasy hair from the long days and nights that had led them here, Ezrah took off his hat and placed it on a rock next to him. He folded his hands and hunched over, leaning onto his knees. He focused his gaze and full attention on Warner. The man in black chewed his bean stew, and the sound of his metal spoon making contact with his teeth rung out to Ezrah in a way that grated on his nerves. In a way that felt wrong.

Warner finished chewing another mouthful and audibly gulped it down. His spoon rested in the bowl when he spoke up and asked, “I am curious. Why pay a man like me to accompany you all the way out here?”

Ezrah sat there while a long silence followed that question. Not taking his eyes off of Warner, he unlocked his fingers from each other and removed the cigarette from his mouth after taking a final drag from it.

“Three days,” Ezrah said. He flicked the butt of his cigarette into the campfire as if to accentuate the words. “Three days, and you never asked me once. I told you that we’re not ridin’ out here to chat.”

Warner took another greedy spoonful of stew into his mouth and stared back at Ezrah. The irritating sound of the metal and Warner’s teeth connecting unnerved Ezrah much more than the man in black now smacking his lips and chewing loudly. It was almost as if he was trying to provoke Ezrah by being obnoxious.

“I told you back in Cochise County, and the job hasn’t changed. We’re here to find and kill a man,” Ezrah said.

With half a mouth full, Warner stopped chewing and asked, “Revenge?”

Ezrah’s facial expression darkened, and he slowly nodded.

Warner swallowed again and dropped the empty bowl onto the dusty ground between him and the fire. The spoon clattered around in it. Demonstrating how isolated they were out here and suggesting how far away any living souls might be, Warner swiveled his head around and swept his gaze over the dancing shadows around them.

“Nobody out here. Just one stupid man who pays another to do dirty work for him,” he said. Following the words, Warner smirked.

Ezrah sensed something sinister behind that smirk and fought the urge to let his hand wander to the holstered gun by his side.

“Maybe Navajo. Is it one of them you want to kill?”

Ezrah’s only response to that was a slow shrug. He stared dead into Warner’s eyes. He had now spotted what was off about the man. Something tangible. Until now, it had just been gut instinct. But this, this was something.

Warner had the wrong eye color. For the past few days, Warner Watkins’ eyes had been an icy blue. This Warner’s eyes were a deep, dark brown. They also had more awareness, more wit behind them. And something evil.

Ezrah drew his revolver in a flash and pulled the trigger. The weapon just emitted a useless clicking sound. It fired nothing. The smirk on the face of the man in black widened into a grin—one that was far too wide for his face, with more teeth than what a human mouth should naturally display.

A deep chuckle resounded from Warner’s throat and it transitioned into a guttural, unnatural laugh.

“Got your bullets right here, little man,” Not-Warner said at the end of the inhuman laughter. He dug a hand into his pocket and produced a handful of bullets which he dropped on the ground.

Before Not-Warner could even attempt to draw his own pistol, Ezrah had flung himself over the fire at his enemy. The flames licked at him but found no purchase. The disturbed firewood caused the flames to spill in different directions and a cloud of embers rose into the sky like a swarm of fireflies dispersing into the night. The horses whinnied and strained against their bonds as the beasts tried to break free and flee.

Ezrah grunted and struggled to wrestle Not-Warner to the ground. They rolled over each other, and the human-looking creature broke out of Ezrah’s chokehold. Before he could get back up, Ezrah kicked the weapon out of Not-Warner’s hand. The gun flew away in a high arch and disappeared into the darkness.

Not-Warner’s eyes followed it, and they flashed with a strange light when the campfire’s light reflected off of them mid-movement. Spotting this strange phenomenon froze Ezrah in his tracks for just long enough that he was caught off guard. Hands with super-human strength clamped down around Ezrah’s neck and Not-Warner started strangling the life out of him. Malevolent, monstrous eyes stared into his soul while he gasped for air.

Ezrah gagged and choked and lashed out in a sudden surge of power. Fueled by despair, he threw his weight over the edge of the rocks nearby and dragged Not-Warner along with him, sending them tumbling down the slope towards the riverside. Not-Warner snarled when he hit his head, and the death-grip around Ezrah’s neck was released.

Driven by survival instinct, Ezrah pushed himself off the ground. The pain of being strangled and possibly breaking a rib only now faintly registered in Ezrah’s conscious thoughts. He scrambled back up the slope and felt a hand grip his right boot.

“I killed your brother, and I killed your companion, little man,” Not-Warner hissed. “Now you die.”

Ezrah’s fingers got bruised and bloodied as he dug them into gravel and dirt while the creature dragged him back a few steps. The thing had the strength of a horse. The lone man kicked blindly with his free leg and felt his heel connect, followed by a loud crunching sound. The hold on his ankle released and he continued to scramble back up the slope.

Not-Warner screeched and spat and then howled a horrible howl that curdled Ezrah’s blood. It only sped him up, and he reached the campfire. He did not even dare to look back. Ignoring and leaving behind anything he had set down there, he ran to his horse and unfastened it from the trunk.

No second too soon, Ezrah had mounted his steed. In a burst of speed, he rode off into the night. He heard inhuman growls behind him, triggering more panicked neighs from his horse. The man looked over his shoulder and saw Not-Warner giving chase, keeping pace with the horse galloping at full speed—the thing that pursued them did not move like a human. What little Ezrah could glimpse of it revealed hands and feet that looked too large and like they had grown knife-like claws. Not-Warner moved on all fours like a wildcat. Ezrah’s heart almost skipped a beat when he saw that flash again, that stark white light in the creature’s eyes as it stared at him. He sensed the intent of murder in its eyes. He felt like prey.

He gave his horse the spurs and felt at least as much panic as his mount. They ascended from the gorge and crossed the desert. Not-Warner had gained on them during the ascent but was now falling behind. Ezrah prayed that the thing was getting winded and that his horse could outrun it. When he noticed a warm light in the distance, he steered the animal in that direction, hoping he might find any sort of help.

Mound-shaped huts lit with fires inside of them became Ezrah’s beacon of hope. He figured they might be Navajo homes. As they neared, he saw he had guessed right. A group of three hogans stood there amidst the sprawling desert. Before he had drawn close enough to slow his horse down, Ezrah looked over his shoulder and saw that the creature had stopped chasing them. It now prowled at a distance, pacing back and forth in patterns like a hungry predator preparing to pounce.

Another flash of light from its eyes flared up as it stared at Ezrah. He failed to tear his own gaze off of it and tried to calm his horse, having it come to a halt just outside the hogans.

An old man with a red bandanna around his head and an elaborate-looking necklace stepped out of one of the hogans, and he raised a hand in greeting to Ezrah. Curious eyes of other people peering out from the other homes observed quietly. The old man then looked past the rider. His wizened face fell, and he narrowed his eyes as he stared out into the distance.

“Come inside, stranger,” the old man said with an unusual intonation. He did not even look at Ezrah as he spoke, his gaze instead focused on the thing out there. “A skin-walker troubles you and us both, and together, we will find a way to end it.”

Ezrah’s heart beat so fast that he wondered if it would explode. The blood rushed in his ears as loudly as the river in the gorge had earlier. Even though this old medicine man exuded an air of calm, he still feared for his life and remained wary of the creature out there. Ezrah dismounted and guided his horse over to the old man. They both looked back out into the darkness.

A pair of white eyes flashed again, and a ghastly howl echoed through the desert.

—Submitted by Wratts