The Soul Keeper

That sight alone was enough to wake me up. Whatever remnant of sleep had remined disappeared as another arrow flew by and struck the ground.

"Wake up!" I shouted as I dashed towards Vincent. Laying on the ground, he was an easy target for archers. As the others crawled out of their tents, clearly sleepy and not aware of the situation, I stepped in front of Vincent. 

I raised my hand and gathered the winds in my palm. If I could just blow the next volley of arrows away, we could still stand a chance. 

For a moment, the wind resisted me. I gritted my teeth and focused – our lives depended on this. I couldn't fail, not now of all times. I could hear the low whistle of the approaching arrows; I could see the glint of moonlight reflecting off them. 

A sudden wind, more powerful than I intended, swept the incoming arrows away. If I were a fraction of a second late, we'd all be dead, or gravely wounded.

"Wake up!" I shouted again. 

"What's going on?" Joshua's sleepy mumble did nothing but annoy me. 

"Grab your brother – we need to get going, now!" Without knowing how many enemies there were, we couldn't risk simply attacking them. We didn't even know who was attacking us – were they demons? Ereth? Some other faction we knew nothing about?

"Vincent!" Erik grabbed the young fighter before Joshua could even react to my words. "Take care of Alina!" The Paladin's words finally got to Joshua. He blinked once, then quickly grabbed the confused and scared Alina's arm and guided her to the woods, away from our assailants. 

I followed them moments after – I couldn't afford to lose sight of them right now. We dashed through the woods while Joshua tried to convince Alina to heal Vincent. The young priestess didn't understand him at first and when she did, she was exceedingly slow at doing what she was told. I could see how shaken she was.

"Who the hell are they?" Erik asked me as we hid by some tall bushes. We were waiting for Alina to heal Vincent. I shook my head; I didn't have any guesses. "What do we do?" Erik asked me, wide eyed. I hesitated. What could we do?

Honestly, we had three options. We could keep running and try to lose them. I doubted this would work though, since I had counted at least fifteen arrows fired simultaneously. Losing such a large and at least somewhat organised group would be quite the challenge.

Our second option was to find a place we could defend and put up a fight there. While this sounded nice in theory, without knowing who or what we were facing, deciding what kind of a place was 'easily defendable' was nearly impossible.

Our third option was to turn back and charge at them. That was… a stupid idea at best. While I was quite sure I would survive simply because I have so many options at my disposal, I couldn't say the same about any of the others.

"Kai?" Erik insisted. "What do we do?" I snapped out of it and glanced at the young man. His eyes were wide with fear. I bit my lower lip. The weight of deciding my friends' fates threatened to paralyse me. 

"We find a place we can defend. Then, we fight." I finally said through my gritted teeth. "I will find a place, keep heading north in the meanwhile." Wings appeared on my back as I leapt into the air. I burst out of the treetops and headed up. Arrows followed me. I glanced back, but I couldn't see the archers. All I could tell was that the arrows were enchanted. These were no ordinary people – they had magic at their disposal.

I flew up, just high enough to be able to dodge their arrows and looked for a place where we could put up a fight. Most of this area was just endless woods and open fields. I wanted a place with a narrow entrance. It took me a while, but I found it eventually.

It was deeper into demon territory, but it was the best choice we had. It was a hill, surrounded by cliffs. The only way up or down was to either scale the cliffs or walk up a fairly steep, grassy path. As long as I could keep the arrows away, we could easily defend this place.

I folded my wings a little and quickly descended. I landed not too far from the others. Thankfully, they didn't question me, or try and argue with me. We soon set off in that direction, though it took quite a bit of effort to hide how unsure and worried I was. 

"What do we do when we arrive?" Vincent asked. Alina had finally healed him, though he was still somewhat pale. 

"We defend." I said simply. There really wasn't much we could to until we figured out how many people were attacking us, who they were and how much power their wielded. "And when we find an opening, we attack." 

He nodded. 

We continued to run until we reached the place. The group hesitated when they saw the narrow path leading up the hill. "Wait, this place?" Joshua asked, his eyes wide and his face red with what I assumed to be anger. "We're basically trapping ourselves!"

"DO you have any better ideas?" I hissed through my gritted teeth. "Because if you do, I'm all ears. But if not, then hurry up and start climbing cause they're going to be here very soon!"

The young man hesitated. In fact, everyone had stopped moving. I took a deep breath – now was not the time to lose my calm. "Alright, let's head up." I said and led the way.

Arrows soon began to rain on us as we climbed the narrow path. Once again, I used my wind to blow them away. I was glad to have spent some time learning to control the winds. If I hadn't, I would be trying to burn the arrows right now. Needless to say, that wouldn't be nearly as useful.

Only once we climbed up did the rain of arrows stop – they couldn't see us anymore. 

"So, what happens now?" Vincent asked. We were all crouched as to remain at least somewhat hidden. "Do we wait for morning or…?" 

I hesitated. "It depends on what they do. If they decide to wait in the woods, we have no choice but to wait. If they attack, we will defend." This could turn into a siege situation very quickly. Lack of food, and most importantly water, could very well bring our demise.

"Can't you, like… burn the woods with your magic or something?" Joshua asked. I raised my brows. 

"I'd rather not." I replied. "That would leave me with no resources for the actual fight." My mana wasn't infinite, after all. I couldn't afford to waste it, not now, in this situation we had found ourselves in.

"That doesn't give us much choice, does it?" Erik mumbled. I nodded, there wasn't much we could do but wait.

And so, we waited. Minutes turned into hours, and the end of about three hours, I noticed something. Shadows, moving in the cover of the trees. Cloaked shadows, silhouettes that clearly didn't belong to demons or Ereth.

A thought gnawed at the back of my mind. I pondered for a moment, entertaining that though. What if… No, that wasn't really possible, was it? Even if it were, how could they have found us?

"Something's happening!" Erik pointed at the woods. Snapped away from my thoughts, I directed my gaze to where he was pointing at.

A group of people were leaving the woods, weapons in hand. Behind them, in the cover of the forest, I could see more silhouettes moving about. Just how many enemies were there?

"I know that guy!" Vincent said, drawing a sharp breath. "That's the guy that hates Erik!"

"A player?" I asked as the fact that my suspicion was right wrenched my heart. Vincent nodded while Erik could only stare at the man leading the approaching group, wide eyed.

As the group arrived at the foot of the hill, the archers still hidden in the woods fired a volley of arrows at us.

"Look out!" Almost as if they were waiting for my shout, the group began their charge and our group prepared to defend. 

I raised my hand and created a gust of wind to swipe the arrows away. My eyes let out a purple shine as my wings formed on my back. Crimson flames began to dance on me. My scythe materialised in my extended hand. 

I could feel the souls within me stir – some with anger, others with sorrow. I raised my arm, holding my scythe and swung it towards the bottom of the hill. A wave of flames extended, threatening to burn those climbing the path.

"I will not let you through!"