Maledictus Terra Book 2: Sanguifex Part 93
Introduction
Welcome back to Maledicturs Terra. This is a Chain Story between myself and @lex-zaiya, meaning that we each write the parts alternatively.
If you have not read Maledictus Terra Book 1: Mortis Custos yet, it starts HERE at Part 1 and ends at Part 101 HERE. At the end of the Part 101 post you will find links to all 101 Parts!
The previous part by @lex-zaiya can be found HERE.
Part 93
The man stopped on the dirt path that he was on and listened intently. This was a lonely and uninhabited part of the world and there were no cities or even small villages for day's worth of travel from where he stood.
He had wanted to get away from other people as much as possible.
He looked down at his right hand. It was a hand that had been sworn to protect those who could not protect themselves and to slay the injust and corrupt. It was a holy duty and his hand had laid low many a tyrant, murderer and sinner.
But now the hand seemed to be stained in blood.
He had found a stream yesterday at the bottom of the valley he was in and had washed and scrubbed at this hand for hours in the cold mountain waters. The water here was pure and untainted by humans or other creatures.
Yet after all that scrubbing he was no closer to getting the hand clean of the stain he saw on them.
Across his skin there was a red-brown stain. In the corners of his fingernails and under his fingernails, caked and red. He knew that it had been more than a week now since the last time he...
But it was still red... bright red and there seemed to be very little he could do. He had tried vinegar and sand. He had tried all sorts of foul concoctions he found in a village at a healer woman's hut.
The memory of the woman's screams made him shiver. I am a monster.
And yet he could not die.
He had attempted to cut himself and he had been stopped, his body had rebelled. It had not been cowardice. He had prayed to his Lord and he had offered himself as tribute. Yet his limbs had betrayed him and he had turned as he had done with the healer woman.
His muscles had contorted like powerful cramps. It had hurt, the pain had almost made him black out. But that was not the worst of it... he wished that the cramps were the only bad thing that would happen.
He shook his head to clear his mind of the thoughts.
Purity in isolation. That is why he traveled to this place. It was yet to be touched by mankind or any of the other races of the world. He looked up at the mountains and considered their heights. he shook his head.
He had tried to do that too.
To leap over the edge and drop an impossible distance and shatter his body on jagged stones. He had managed to get over the edge and then the cramps started. His descent had been halted by his deformed hand catching hold of the edge and pulling his body upward.
He had been forced to watch as his body failed to respond to his commands. He had ran... loped... charged to the nearby village that he had seen from his vantage point... and when he reached it...
A tear ran down his cheek at the memory and the images burned his mind. He had been forced to watch and he could not stop his hands...
... and then he heard the most dreadful sound. One that sent a cold shiver up his spine.
The laughter of children. Humans, nearby... travelers?
They were up on the path ahead of him. He turned and began sprinting in the opposite direction...
... but it was too late. The cramps in his legs and back had begun. He could feel the nails on his bloody hand lengthening and becoming sharp claws.
No!
He lept out, off the path to throw himself off the slope. It would not kill him, but the momentum and tumble would give the travellers time and slow himself down.
As he jumped out over the side of the path, he descended and his muscles twisted and burned. A tree flashed past him and his right hand struck out and his clawed hand dug into the tree, stopping his fall.
He looked up and saw them now. A family, the father evidently a merchant.
He tried to scream, to warn them. Yet he could not. The cramps were in his chest and neck.
It was happening again and he would be forced to watch once more.
Not again! Someone help! Someone end me! Mortis!
Over to @lex-zaiya for the next part!
Here is an explanation of Chain Stories and here is the current Chainstory Library
Mortis Custos
Sanguifex
The Reader List
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Oh dear, poor Robert, what are we going to do with you?
!LOL
!LUV
!PIZZA
!HUG
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He'll stop at nothing to avoid them.
Credit: reddit
@lex-zaiya, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of zakludick
(3/6)
Farm LOLZ tokens when you Delegate Hive or Hive Tokens.
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