Making good progress on Raw VII! Here’s the first chapter.
You can read the second chapter here, if you are a 1$/month Patron.
The rest of the chapters will start posting starting tomorrow, twice a day, until completion, if you are a 3$/month Patron.
It was in that moment Jak realized he had never experienced real terror.
He’d faced down horrifyingly lethal monsters and an army of karn and certain death from a dozen different ways, but the only thing that had even come close to touching how he felt right now was during his first few days, when he heard Niri scream his name in fear, calling for help.
Everything hurt. His head, his body, his limbs, everything ached and the sick feeling was lingering, but none of that mattered right now.
“Move!” Jak yelled as he raced forward towards his village.
It sounded like madness up ahead.
More screaming, more crying, more horror.
The others hurried to keep up, following in his wake through the dead forest and the snowfall.
Jak wasn’t sure at what point he transitioned over into his heightened state, but he knew that he arrived at his village in it and took everything in with an awful clarity.
It was like stepping into a nightmare.
There was blood in the air, the fresh-spilled blood of his tribemates, and something was burning that wasn’t a cooking fire. One of the nearest huts had collapsed into a heap of raw materials. People ran screaming from the…
Corrupted. He realized at once that he was seeing a corrupted being, but not like the others. This was a corruption of the magical kind, what was clearly an instant process. He felt terror rip at him once more as he felt a fresh wave of pain roll through his body.
Was the corruption now inside of him?
His bond-mates?
Jak shook that off. Right now, it didn’t matter, he couldn’t do anything about it. But he could do something about this situation in front of him, even if it was going to be brutally painful. He had somewhere to be, something to do, and several someones to save.
Energy burning within him, Jak drew and threw two knives in rapid succession, his movements smooth and fluid. Each one buried itself in the eye of a recently corrupted tribemate who were both in the process of attacking their non-corrupted brethren.
There was chaos in the village, over a dozen different small skirmishes having broken out. Jak drew his adze and moved.
He moved like a beast made for the hunt in its absolute purest form.
Everything else was slow around him, and it was easy, so worryingly easy, to run up and bring his blade down or around in a tight arc, removing tribemate after tribemate from life with a spray of blood. And that only made it worse as he did it.
Knowing he had to do this, that there was no obvious way to bring them back, knowing they would kill and kill and kill if he didn’t kill them, didn’t help ease the agony.
His adze tore into a man’s neck, a hunter who had joined fairly recently. His name was Ket. His eyes were full of black light and his face was smeared with blood. He went down to join the dead in the dirt and Jak moved on.
He pushed himself faster and harder, knowing that every instant he had not completed this task was another instant that someone could, and likely would, die. And he moved ever forward through the huts towards his cave, hunting desperately for his lovers.
Every person he came to, every face he saw, he feared the worst.
But finally, as he saved another tribemate from a pair of corrupted closing in on her, Jak hurried out between two huts that would finally put him in view of his own cave, and there he saw Rylee. She was healing someone and Niri was standing over her, a bone blade in each hand, looking pained but fierce.
“Jak!” she cried.
The relief he felt was immense. They were still alive, still fighting.
His relief didn’t last long as he heard a shout come from behind him. Turning back around, he saw that the fire from earlier had grown.
“Jak, what is happening!?” Niri yelled.
“I don’t know!” he called back. “Keep guarding Rylee!”
“All right!”
She’d hardly gotten her response out before he was off and running again, his ability still burning so brightly in him, forcing him to action. He dodged in among the huts, his absolute need to help his tribemates burning as furious in his head as the power that thundered within him. Jak dodged between two huts and saw a small group of people had coalesced near the fire, trying to handle the situation.
Some were helping the wounded, some were trying to put out the fire, some were standing guard against further corrupted.
There weren’t enough.
“Get the wounded to my cave!” he snapped, appearing beside them. “Sena!” he yelled, staring at the fire. “Here! Now!”
Jak had no idea if she was here, he only knew that he had no obvious way to deal with the fire. It had spread to three huts now and looked to be getting worse. He sensed movement to his left and saw Sena running towards him through the falling snow.
“Can you deal with the fire?” he asked.
“I...I think so,” she replied, studying it uncertainly.
“Try! I have to–”
He reacted on pure instinct, barely registering the sound of heavy paws beating the ground in rapid approach. Twisting to his right, he saw a wolf, eyes full of darkness, frothing at the mouth, coming right towards him.
It leaped into the air, jaws open wide.
Jak snapped forward, driving his fist into the corrupted wolf’s mouth without thinking about it. His fist parted the top of the wolf’s head from the rest of it, sending it flying through the air. He jerked forward in the next instant, hitting the wolf’s corpse with his shoulder and deflecting it away from Sena.
It hit the ground and rolled a few times, twitching occasionally as blood burst out of its ruined head.
More were coming out of the forest, dark, low shapes advancing on him through the snowfall.
“Deal with the fire!” he snapped, and ran forward.
This was getting worse faster than he could deal with it.
No. He could handle it.
He’d handled worse.
Probably.
Jak moved, settling into the flow of combat as four wolves advanced on him with a sinister grace absent from the other corrupted. What were the rules with these? Were they the same? Were they even corrupted?
It didn’t matter. They were a threat.
They needed to end.
He hurled his short spear in a single motion, didn’t even watch it punch through the skull of the nearest wolf, simply knew that it would in the heat of the moment. He was already drawing another thin bone knife and throwing it overhand at the eye of the next wolf. It collapsed, twitching violently, as Jak fell upon the others with his adze.
They were dead in a matter of a few short, hard chops.
But even as the blood was landing around him, darkening the snow that had fallen and gathered, he saw more wolves emerging from the treeline. And there were other creatures behind them. He saw a giant spider, a few uncertain human or elven shapes, and at least two blade-toothed tigers. All of them with glowing dark eyes.
Something was wrong.
They were moving with too much purpose, too coordinated.
“Jak! I can’t stop the fire!” Sena yelled.
He glanced back briefly over his shoulder and saw the fire was spreading further, despite Sena’s efforts. Several of his tribemates were backing away from the flames, looking around anxiously. It was falling apart like dry earth in his grasp.
Something whirled through the air out of the village to his left, sailed past him, and wrapped around the legs of a wolf, tripping it up. Almost at the same moment, a spear came flying through the falling snow and punched through the skull of one of the blade-toothed tigers.
Nessa, Keeza, and Zora appeared, jogging forward to join him.
“Nessa! Zora! I need you to get with Rylee and Niri and get everyone out of here!” he said. Then he raised his voice, calling to the village. “Take the wounded and get to the North Outpost as fast as you can!”
“I’m not leaving you here!” Nessa snapped immediately.
“Nessa, I need you to do this.” He tossed a quick, impatient glance at the corrupted creatures encroaching on them. They were getting closer. “I’ll stay here and hold them off. It has to be you leading them, Nessa, you’re the greatest warrior in the tribe after me.”
She stared at him, her chest and face splashed with blood from the fighting and sprinkled with ash from the growing fire.
“You had better be there, fast,” she said finally.
“I will, please make sure you get everyone out. Check the caves!”
“I’m on it, come on, Zora.”
The two women immediately began passing out instructions to those in the nearby area, organizing them with the speed that came from a well-managed village and competent leadership. Nessa fell quickly into her element, pointing and snapping out orders.
Their tribemates moved hastily to follow, grateful for a clear goal.
He didn’t know if the North Outpost was safe, but it was the second safest location, and it was farther from the Barrens.
Of course, he realized, in a sudden wave of fresh horror, that he had no idea how far this...spell? Whatever it was, how far it had reached.
“What about me?” Keeza asked, stepping up to his side.
“You owe us nothing,” Jak replied, eyeing the corrupted.
He hurled another bone knife and dropped one of the corrupted humans, someone he tried not to recognize in that moment.
“Oh yes, let me just go back to my cave in all this!” Keeza snapped.
She picked up a nearby spear and threw it with amazing accuracy, punching it right through the skull of another corrupted man.
“If you’re willing to help, then I’ll take it. Help me kill them! Buy my people time!”
And then he was off, a club in one hand, the adze in the other.
More corrupted were spilling from the forest.
How many were there?!
He ignored the question as soon as he posed it, knowing that it didn’t really matter. He would fight on for as long as he had to.
And he did, moving among the corrupted with a weapon in each hand, striking with blows and attacks that killed in an instant. Even freshly made corrupted couldn’t stand against him, at least not one on one.
Time passed, blood flowed, the village burned.
Jak’s own body was burning up already from using his ability so soon after the last time. He knew the only reason he wasn’t suffering a lot more was because he’d managed to get at least some rest in between then and now.
This couldn’t go on forever, though.
He felt his hope returning to him, though, as he saw his people moving with purpose. And Keeza. She was a warrior in her own right, and as he watched her tear through half a dozen new corrupted wolves, he suddenly wondered about his assessment of Nessa being second only to him.
Well, that was a thought he’d keep firmly to himself.
He kept going, arms swinging back and forth, delivering devastating blows with the hardened club and lethal chops with the adze, cleaving through flesh and bone like water. He put his great strength and speed to use, and Keeza did hers, and they killed and slaughtered and murdered.
And still the corrupted came out of the forest.
Enough time had to have passed. He no longer heard the voices of the others. He no longer heard anything but the roar of the fire and the awful sounds of the ever-advancing corrupted.
“Keeza!” he shouted, yanking his adze free of another skull. “We have to go! Follow me!”
“Go!” she replied, disengaging and running towards him.
He turned and ran into the burning village, moving clear of the fire that had taken over half a dozen huts now, and tried not to feel the rage and horror that was building steadily in him. The rage and horror that grew worse with each body he stepped over.
This was their home. They’d spent over a season building it, living in it, making it theirs.
And now they were forced out by impossible circumstances.
They got around the burning huts and came to the cave entrances.
Jak pointed to a section of the rock between the two entrances. “Climb!”
“What are you doing?” Keeza replied.
“I need to make sure everyone got out!”
“Jak, let me help you,” she said after an instant’s hesitation.
“No, just get out of here and get to the North Outpost,” he replied. “I know you know where it is.”
She sighed. “I’ll climb, but I’m waiting for you up there.”
“Fine. Go. Hurry,” he replied.
Jak hurried first into his own cave, still burning through that energy. He couldn’t drop out of his heightened state until he was clear of the village and somewhere relatively safe. Having Keeza around would help with that. She could watch out for him while he got his bearings back.
He looked around his cave and found that no one remained. He took a moment to snatch up a new batch of throwing knives, a trio of short spears, and a fresh waterskin. Looking around, he could see that the women had already grabbed whatever important things they could.
His eyes caught on Niri’s nearest painting.
He felt his whole body shudder with rage but pushed it away yet again. No time, never any time to feel, only to do.
He raced back outside and into the communal cave. Running all the way to the back of the tunnel, he checked the spaces where people might be hiding. Nothing in the back chambers, but he could see a lot of packed away food and supplies. He hoped it survived the fires, but there was nothing to be done for it now.
Running back into the central sleeping area, he looked around and his heart skipped a beat as he saw a lone figure laying near the center of the room. He hurried over, already seeing that they were still breathing, and dropped into a crouch.
“Ezzi…” he muttered, seeing she’d taken a blow to the head.
She’d probably wandered in here during the fighting, fleeing or maybe trying to grab something important, and passed out from the wound.
Scooping the slim elf up, he hurried back outside.
The corrupted were among the village now, and...they were keeping their distance from the flames. They were definitely smarter, a lot smarter.
And they looked right at him as he emerged, roared, and began coming for him.
A rock fell from above, hitting the nearest creature, another wolf, cracking its skull.
“Jak! Come on!” Keeza snapped.
It wasn’t easy, but he managed to clamber up the rock face one-armed. The other arm held Ezzi securely, slung over one shoulder.
Keeza took her as he neared the top.
“Come on,” Jak said, “we have to get somewhere safe and rest a moment.”
“Fine,” Keeza replied, “lead the way.”
They hurried off into the frigid darkness, snow still falling in huge, silent flakes around them, oblivious to everything that had just transpired.
