Page 71 of Marked By the Dark Lord
Iblinked awake.
That was the first surprise. I was alive. Somehow. Hadn’t I died? It was all a bit blurry, but I could recall the pain in my side—
“The sword!” I yelped and looked down at my side.
My unblemished side. There was a giant hole in my shirt where the blade had pierced it, but my side was pale and unharmed. No sign whatsoever of the gaping wound that should have been there, filled only by the steel of the sword that had plunged into me.
But it was gone. That was surprise number two.
In the distance, a haunting cry filtered through the air. It was cut short as the unmistakable piercing screech of a predator silenced it. I shivered, sitting up and looking around.
The first clue that I wasn’t in The Place Behind anymore was the sky. It was a dim purplish hue. There was no sun, just a violet hue filtering through the numerous clouds.
I could hear the sounds of water burbling nearby, a river or stream of sorts. The noise was partially blocked by the trees, however, making it tough to discern from where it was coming. The trees were a sickly orange color, with leaves of red and brown that grew in hexagonal shapes.
The entire place gave me shivers. Unfortunately, I’d woken up in a clearing in the middle of an entire forest of the things, which meant, regardless of where I went, I would have to go through them.
Shapes moved in their shadows, high up among branches, and more than once, I picked out eyes that gleamed in the dull light. Watching me. Perhaps waiting for me to enter their clutches.
“WhereamI?” I whispered. The ground under my feet was soft and almost spongy, a far cry from the hard sand and rock of The Place Behind. I wasn’t there, but I also wasn’t on Earth, that much I was sure of.
“Think, Mila,think,” I urged myself, trying to come up with a plan.
Another shrieking cry of a hunter sent shivers down my spine. It sounded close and rather large. I didn’t want to get caught out there in the open by whatever beast belonged to that cry, that much I knew.
I snatched a rock from the ground, holding it tight, my only line of defense against anything that might try to—
A blur of light zipped out of the forest and past me, blowing my hair out behind me as it went.
“What the—?” I yelped, spinning to follow it as the ball of light stopped and buzzed past my face again.
“Stop it!” I snarled, trying to strike it with my rock.
I might as well have been trying to stop spilled milk with a colander. It was pointless. The thing dodged all my attacks with contemptuous ease.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” it squeaked as I spat at it. “That’s fucking nasty!”
My eyes bulged right out of my head. “You talk?”
The blur of light slowed just long enough for me to realize it was a person. A very tiny person, no more than six inches tall. He wore a loincloth and not much else. His thick black hair was pulled up in a messy topknot, revealing extremely smooth facial features and a sharp nose. Both ears ended in pointy tips instead of rounded curves.
Sprouting from his back were four tiny wings, beating so fast I could barely see them.
“What are you staring at, bigfoot?” he piped, hovering in front of my face. “You got something to say, you overblown sack of water?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
The little guy darted in and socked me right on the bridge of my nose, toppling me back onto my ass in a rush of pain that had me blinking back tears.
“That’s right, ya crybaby. Don’t fuck with me, got it? I’ll mess you up.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Will you now?”
The little thing came at me again in a rush—and I exhaled the breath I had been holding, sending him tumbling backward.
“Peace,” I said softly. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“Of course not,” he said in what was most definitely a snarl, not what I would call a cheep. Not to his face, at least, unless he continued to talk shit to me. “You know I’d fuck you up, you crusty hag.”
