The Gryhon Knight Order

84/05/04

If the first night was as calm and relaxing as the ones in the Gryphon Kingdom, the five next days gave me a taste of Tartarus.  The sky became dark with heavy clouds blocking all light to the point that night and day became indistinguishable.  Strong winds hurled against the wall of the tower with such strength, it was as if they were trying to tear it off from the ground.  The pressure was so intense that even with all my might I could not make the door budge.  With this came the rain, a rain so heavy and strong, I feared for a moment that the world might be flooded.  The plicking sound of the impact of thousand of raindrop was maddening and only covered by the roaring and shattering bang of thunder.  The brief flashes of light coming from the many loophole in the tower and indicating a lighting were in almost perfect synchronisation, indicating very close strikes.  In this cacophony, the only sleep I was able to get was in the form of two minutes long unconsciousness when my weaken body would gave up.  One second more and the deafening cracking of thunder would force me awake.  Also, it was not only the thunder who would wake me up, but a profound sense of dread and danger.  It was like the forest in itself knew of my presence and wanted me gone.  Seeing that I had already ate all of my food, it was much more likely that I would just die.

Of course, at first I was not worried.  I continued to explore the tower and the large depot under the tower.  Inside was, it felt like, everything.  Miles of cords, hammer, nails, planks, bolts, arrows, large crossbows and bows, long spears with strange heads, grapples heads, stone tool, ink, papers, compas, saddlebags, sheaths, bandage, needles, wire for surgery, maps, drapes, sheets, clothing, leather piece of armor, plate armor, chain armor, utensils, whetstone, and many other strange things.  For exemple, barrels of a strange dry dark powder.  I played with it a little and, the moment it came in contact with the flamme of my candle, it intensely burst.  Good thing it was only a small dust amount.  I left the powder alone in the little room I found it rather than risk an incident that would send me back home into a million pieces.  There was also ranks after ranks of colorful potions stored on multiple shelves.  For a second, I thought about drinking one before realizing it could as well help me than kill me.  In fact, there was only one things missing from this treasure of usefulness, food.  It would have been mostly irrelevant in pretty much any situation.  But, after the second day with nothing to eat or rest, it became a real problem.

I tried to occupy my mind, distract myself from the absence of food in my stomach in anyway possible.  Again, it was easy at first.  I tried the crossbow, they were harder to arm than I thought and the recoil was heavy against my shoulder.  However, the bolts perceid through the planks I had set up with a satisfactory sound, enfoncing themselves up to the feathering.  I was pretty sure they could even have perforate the skin of a manticore or the softer scales of a dragon belly.  Then, I tried the armour suits.  The full metal ones were all impossible to wear in their intirety, either the legs were too small  or the torso too large or the head was too tight and such.  I suppose these things have to be custom made.    The chainmail was different though as size almost did not matter and an adjustable harness was needed to divide the weight.  Of course, the weight was a problem for both of these kinds of armours and wearing them was almost an exercice in itself, not mentioning flying.  It was then I understood the meaning behind the three hours flight with weight I had done.  The lightest set was the leather armor one and, at the same time, the most comfortable.  In the end, I assembled a mix of mail, plate and leather.

My front legs were protected by leathers sleeves composed of numerous superposing slices which would start at my wrists and end up over shoulders.  They had less protection but more freedom of movements, kind of important when you are wielding a sword around.  On my body I wore a chainmail which covered my back, belly, base of my neck and stopped at my hip.  Over it I put a tunic of blue color and bearing the insignia of the order.  The coat of arms was a vertical sword under a diamond shape shield, shiel which was bearing an eagle in the top and a lion at is bottom.  This blazon was placed on my back just between my wings.  Completing this ensemble was a steel gorget adding  protection to my throat, part of my neck and some of my upper chest.  The total amount of metal on my body was quite cumbersome, especially at first.  To adapt to it, I started wearing it constantly.

All of that, of course, was during the first twenty-four hours or so.  After, the lack of sleep really started to take is toll.  At first, my walking began to deteriorate and I started to stumble on the stairs and trip against the furniture.  The pain was initially bothering, then, my mind simply stopped noticing it.  The second sign of weakening appeared when my vision, ironically, became troubled.  The color tones seemed to shift slightly every time I posed my eyes on a different part of the environment and the distance distorted at my every move.  This was aggravated by the weight of my armor which slowly sap my strength and reduced my speed to a slow crawl.  Thirdly, my empty stomach became a source of constant pain during the second day and transformed every second into a fight to forget about it.  I tried reading some of the books I had found but the words turned into a sloppy mess in my head.  It turned out I could not even remember the first word of a sentence I had just finished.  My memorie became frayed, fragmented and shattered for a moment before reorganizing itself and then broke down again.  I suppose it was only normal then that the next step of this descent into hell were hallucinations.

The wind passing through the small openings were the first to change.  From annoying sound to strange whispers.  It started with wandering words passing by my hears, mixed letters forming loosely into what seemed like names and callings I could only try to interpret at the best of my mental capacity.  Which, of course, were not at their highest at the moment.  Strange names of old became my daily companions, “SharOw” “SyGar” “WidRid”, making me looking behind my shoulders at every seconds in the search of the invisible speakers.  On the fourth day, the whisper grew to complete sentence, becoming louder and clearer to the point even the loudest of screaming from me could not mute them.  Reproach and reprimand from unseen voices started to surround me, constantly muttering at my ear and shredding at my will.  The few moments of rest I had got even shorter as the hallucination became stronger.  In the last day, vaporous shapes appeared in the corner of my eyes, passing in front of doors, sliding behind me with haste.  They took the form of gryphons in armours with the voice of my family, their movements creating a light clicking sound of metal, or was it the sound of my chainmail, I do not remember.  I had tried to take it off before but I could not muster both the mental and physical strength to do it.  The scraping became another maddening sound bouncing in my head and breaking my mind.  I started running around in the tower, waving my sword at the forms and tumbling on everything in my way.  From the underground to the top I stroke at the air, cursing the world and the apparitions.  Of what I remember, my shoutings must have been something like that.

-Hey!  You!  Come back here!

I would then run at the shape, trying to hit it while it floated away.

-Son.  You mustn't stay here.

-I said stay here!

The laugh was hollow and would sent shivers down my spine.  Also, is words shone a new light at the expression : words like daggers.

-oNly Knight can be here.  You're too weak.

Then the smoke shape would dissolve through a wall, leaving me alone for a second before appearing again in mt back.  Immediately I would start hunting the new shadow with scream and threat of death.

Finally, my completely exhaust body simply collapsed to the ground, half on one of the bed and the other on stone floor.  I was out of strength but the voices in my head, which could also have been the wind, would not let me one minute of rest.  My mind was at this edge on the border between reality and insanity were the smallest of push would sent it on an endless madness.  The only thing holding me was my will and, at this point, the idea of lunacy was more appealing than the one of staying sane.  I am pretty sure that I would have given up if not for my sword.  I was still holding the handle with my claw against my body and my eyes fell upon the inscription on the pommel.  I do not know if it was due to my current state of mind or some old magic, but the letter engraved on the white ivory where glowing with a soft dark blue light.  Mindlessly, I started reciting the oath I had taken only five day ago, again and again and again.  I continued to repeat the lines without tinking until the voices started to lessen more and more up to the point they had dissappeared.

It was really strange, again, as I did not consciously fighted the madness but rather entered a kind of trance.  When I awoke from this state, the wind had stop hurling around the tower and the light coming from the loophole had lost his dark gray color.  Instead, I could see ray of moonlight falling on me and giving the air a soft and luminescent tones.  Instinctively, I started crawling into the spiral staircase toward the top of the tower and the exterior I had not seen for what seemed like forever.  My armor was scraping and grinding on the stone steps as I drag myself up to the metal door and the free air.  Once there, I directed my gaze to the stars and moon, bathing in their shining radiance.  It felt as if they were gaving me strength and rest, another strange thing of the Everfree.

Hunt

84/05/09

I stayed immobile under the sky for a long time, enjoying the moment.  In fact, I was so still that a little robin approached me.  First landing on top of the rampart, looking at me with curiosity, then coming closer with little leap, slowly closer, closer, until I suddenly grabbed it by the neck and broke it in one snap.  With a fury fueled by hunger, I ripped out the raw flesh from the fragiles bone, violently opened the chest by plunging my claws between is tiny ribs and snatched the head from the rest of the body.  My beak cut right through the nerves, tendon and muscles, letting a little river of crimson blood flew in my mouth and throat.  I licked it to the last drop like my life depended on it, which was probably the case.  Next, I crushed the bone into piece to reach the delicious marrow, the little there was.  When I had finished, the only things left of the robin were blood stain on my claws and beak, a beak, inedible organs and a couple of feathers.  I felt invigorated by the blood and meat slowly being digested in my stomach, but I knew it would not last.  The first thing I had to do was to find food because I felt that if I was to fall asleep, I would  never have woken up.  Rapidly, I picked one of the crossbow, strapped a quiver to my back and took off.  Well, not really took off because I was not so energized that I could fly.  Rather, I deployed my wings at their maximum, attaining a total wingspan of six meters and sliding trought the air.  I went for the longest possible time before landing in a tree and positioning myself on a branch.

The forest was bursting with life and I could hear it all around me.  I knew it would not take more than half a minute before a creature would come around and I was right.  What I can only assume was some kind of savage chicken came hopping awkwardly under me.  Is brown feathers were rough and wild and is built was bigger than the ones kept by the ponies and griffins, probably because of is life in the Everfree Forest.  At some point in the future, I should probably start raising my own chickens, as much for their eggs as for their meat.  But for now, I was satisfied with only eating him.

The crossbow vibrated  when I pressed the trigger, releasing a swirling bolt which sprung through the air almost faster than my eye could see.  It penetrated the soft body of the animal with strength, going right through it and sticking into the muddy ground.  Impaled on the wooden stick, the little chicken struggled for a moment before realizing it was dead.  Swiftly, I descended from the tree and started to devour the pack of bloody meat.  Again, I tore the flesh from the bone and ripped it into shreds, not caring for the fragile feathers I was crushing at the same time.  I drank every ounce of blood, sucked the marrow to the last drop and swallowed up to the last bit of pulp in my hunger, covering my face with even more scarlet stains.  The metallic taste of the red liquid seemed to be permanently imprint on my mouth and I could feel it warmth running through my veins, kepping me awake and alive.

However, I did made one big mistake that could have killed me as sure as the lack of food.  While eating I lowered my guard, and that, was the best way to end up dead in this place.  That and being hungry or sleepless.  Two things saved me, the relative stupidity of my opponent and the energy boost given to me by the blood.

A heard the sound of a brushwood being crushed behind me, sending a electric shock along my spine.  It was only then I became aware of the heavy breathing, rotting breath and stomping eclipsing the sound of the forest around me.  For a second, I considered not turning toward the new menace.  If I refused to acknowledge is presence, maybe it would just go away.  But this was just my exhausted mind rambling stupidity.  When I finally turned, it was a spectacle of horror I never had expected to see, even here.  Now, I am starting to doubt that it would not be the last time unimaginable horrors would leap from the shadow to try to kill me.  The monster, this time, was a pack of what seemed to once have been timberwolves.  I could still saw the wood from which there body were originally made,  the dark brown strong timber which composed is legs, the even darker ones making is body, the small beige sharp teeth, the littles green leafs over there sick yellow-green eyes.  Thought, all of this was partially hidden by large chunk of bleeding flesh which seemed to have been tied to the wood with large black chains.  Onto the flesh, a patchwork of different furs had been sewed at random with what looked like fresh nerves.  The final product was a disgusting amalgamation, wood covered by rotting meat from which white fat maggot were already emerging and falling to the ground, shredded pelt forcibly sticked to the sickening rotting bloody pulp and exposing part of it, a crimson soaked wood face with disturbingly, almost dark, green eye.  To add to this image taken directly from some unknown hell, the bloodwolves, even as I watched, would attack each other in an attempt to tear off part of their dripping and infested body covering.

The pack of five and me watched each other for a moment that seemed to extend into many minutes, even so it probably only lasted for about two seconds.  At this point, I could either flee or fight.  The idea of fleeing was nauseating to me, but I knew that fighting these monsters in my current shape would only end up with the lost of my sword and my death.  In better conditions, with a loaded crossbow and not half dead from sleep exhaustion I would have stayed, in those ones, I ran.

There was no road or trail for me to follow and, anyway, it would have helped them as much as me.  In front of me was wild bushes, low brach and sharp thorns scraching my face.  Under me was muddy ground, tracherous roots and edgy trembling stones.  Around me, the dark night under the tree of the Everfree  Behind me, the bloodwolves were on my heels, albeit, as much preoccupied by chasing me as by eating one another.  It may seem stupid of them to not use their number to cut my running or their obious temporary physical advantage to catch up to me.  But, I am sure they knew of my state, and, why run at your maximum when you can simply wait for your prey to fall dead.  It was only the mix of adrenaline and blood that was allowing me to continue and it would not last forever.  This explain why I was so much surprised when they suddently stopped.  I could no longer hear their heavy footstep crushing the vegetation and making the soil tremble, or the sound of their hungry sream or the slamming of their jaws an hair from my back leg.  I continued running away, turning my head for only a brief moment to assess the situation.

This brief moment was exactly the one the forest in front of me chose to open and the ground under me to drop.  The already blurred and dark world became a maelstrom of shape, colors, tones, movements, vague impression and such.  I tumbled down a rocky slope, completely losing any sense of direction, smashing my back and belly, even through the mail, while losing feathers until I finally reached the end of this hellish fall.  I crashed on the denuded roots of a old tree and, unfortunately, it was my left wing who absorbed most of the impact.  I heard the familiar sound of bone snapping and a explosion of pain through my body while I let a groan escape my throat.  My vision became warped and hazy, though the last was more due to the fume occupying this new place I had landed into than the waves of pain scourging my body.  It was not the first time I had had broke something, but this time, with my weak body, I was not sure it would end as well as before.

I pulled myself from the root, sliding to what I tought was solid ground only to sink in a heavy opaque and putrid swamp.  The shallow water was reaching my chest, making even the smallest of movements an laborious effort and sapping even more at what was left of my strength.  Adding to that was the awfull smell coming from the foul water, the buzzing flies surrounding my bleeding wound and the certain diseases I just had caught by being here.  I stood silent for a moment, my eyes fixed on the troubled reflexion of me I could see on the dark water.  My face was a mess of wild and broken feathers on wich I could see two crazy blue hollowed eyes filled with red veins and a mask of fatigue.  My body was barely hold together by the armor, I had no idea were I was, how to get back or anything at all.  If it was not enough, while I was looking down on the sick mirror, smelling bubbles pierced the surface and were quickly followed by what seemed to be the rotting skull of a once white unicorn.  The horn was protruding from the forehead, the base still surounded by patch of long dead skin slowly eaten away by the water of the swamp.  One of the eye was still in is socket, punctured flat.  At this point, it did not even surprised me.  I only wonder how it at got here for a second before forgetting about it and starting to wander.  With my broken wing, there was now way for me to fly away or climb up the slope and thus I was reduced to roam the swamp aimlessly until death.

I had no more illusion, I was going to die here.  My resting place was going to be a shallow and putrid water dump filled with heavy green smoke and the large roots of giant trees emerging from the water.  I was too weakened, wounded and crushed to look for an exit anymore and my best hope was a honorable death at the hand of some giant creature.  With my recent luck, it would not be too difficult to find.

And thus, it founded me.  Rather, they founded me.  I first felt a rough caress against my front leg, a swift brush that I dismissed as the degrading of my mind.  Quickly, the caress transformed into multiple harsh bitting that pierced the skin of my back legs and drew even more of my blood.  I was okay with dying in a fight, but I wanted to at least see my killer.  I climbed on the closest interweaving of bare roots and unsheathed my sword, readying myself the best I could.

What sprung out from the opaque water was some kind of large snake with the maw of a crocodile and six set of three clawed fingers legs.  Bigger than my arm and measuring over than two meters, the creature latched onto my arm and stuck is sharp teeth in the heavy leather padding of my arm.  I felt the pressure compressing my flesh, but luckily the monster was not strong enough to pierce my armor.  Angrily, I smashed his head against the trunk of the tree till it burst and became nothing more than a bloody pulp of flesh and bones.  I threw the still shivering body at another of the creature who had try to caught me from behind and sent them both back to the mud.  I only had the time to raise my sword that another had jumped on the roots with me and was hissing at me.  I chopped his head in one swing, causing a burst of blood in the air and on my coat.  Of course, another one used this moment of distraction to lauch himself from the swamp at my neck.  His sharp fangs hit the metal of my gorget without any effect and a slash from my blade was enought to almost chop him in two, leaving him with a gaping hole from which his intestines and other organs started to leak.  Again, I had no time to reflect on that before two news centipede snake, Centisnake, jumped at me.  I slashed at the first one and left him with half a face in less but the other landed on my tunic and tried his luck at biting me.  The chainmail did is work and I felt one of the creature tooth break on it.  I grabbed the raging creature by the tail and swung him a little before throwing it somewhere in the swamp.  It was clear now that they could not get through my armor and that their scales could not stop my blade.

-Really, is that everything this swamp has!

In reflexion and even if it would probably not have made any difference, I should have shut up.  The many Centisnake I could see swam around the roots and violently stir the putrid liquid only one second age had suddently vanished.  Then, it is the entier suface of the swamp that started to shake and be riddled by waves.  At first, I did not understood the source of these disturbance, not until I felt little drops of water on the top of my head.  I raised my eyes upon the new creature which I can simply describe as the giant version of the ones I was just fighting, a giant Centisnake.  His head was as big as myself, hovering over me through the low branch of the tree.  The drop were in fact his saliva running down from his giant maw which was full of teeth the size of a book and as sharp as my sword.  His giant body was almost the size of the trunk against which it was resting.

-Well.  At least you seem to be a decent death giver.

He stoke fast.  I only had the time to take a step to the right before he crush a part of the roots.  He broke the heavy wood like it was paper, shredding it into splinter.  I tried to strike at his neck, but it only bounced of.  I do not know if it is was because of my current lack of strength or the thickness of his scaly skin, probably both.  The result anyway was a shock through my arm and a swung of his head which sended me flying away.  I landed against my broken wing and another trunk.  Pain cursed my body and tried to drag me into unconsciousness, though, I could not let it happen, not before dying or killing this monster.  I forced myself awake, yet, I could not dodge the next attack of the giant Centisnake.  His fang closed on my body and raised me in the air.  Even they could not cut through the metal rings of the chainmail, but, they did not need to.  The raw strength of the monster maw was enough to crush me inside my armor.  I could already felt the bones of my chest slowly being compressed and the pressure against my organs.  Again and again I mauled the scales with all of my decreasing strength without any effect until I luckily stabbed him in is large white eye.  The orb started to leak a dark foul smelling pus who tainted my arms and feather while the Centisnake let out a shrinking scream of pain.  Doing that, he freed me from his grasp and let me fall to the ground, ground being here a frail notion, but it was still better than between the teeth of the creature.  The impact of the fall send another wave of pain through my body and was accompanied by the cracking sound of some of my ribs.  Over me the creature continued to balance his head and scream in pain, his mouth open and my sword still stuck into is eye.  I knew it was my only, if not last, chance to do something to him.  The crossbow was still strapped to my back and mostly intact with only a couple of scratch and teeth mark.  As fast as possible, I loaded it with a bolt, put the hilt against my shoulder, aimed and shot.  I felt the shock of the cord being released when the mortal projectile swift through the smoky air and push itself in the soft flesh of the upper roof of his maw.  The metal head and wood stick thrust into his brain, stopping his scream.  For a brief moment, he stayed up, his limbs slightly trembling as the message of his dead was slowly transmitted to every part of the creature.  Then, it stopped and fell into the swamp, I just had the time to withdraw my weapon from his punctured and now forever closed white eye before he had finished sinking into the disgustingly vile water like so many creatures before him.

Alone again, I staid immobile with a sword in my right hand and an empty crossbow in the left.

-I suppose it is enough.

While I spoke those words, I felt a wet liquid filling my mouth.  I wiped it with the back of my hand, covering it with a darkened blood.  One of my broken rib had probably puncture one of my organs, maybe a lungs or something in the like.  The blood flooding my inside was impossible to stop and it would not take long for my body to collapse without the fight adrenaline supporting me,  I could already feel it dissolve, all the fatigue suddentelly rushing back into me.  I did not even had the strength to talk at this point, the energy given to me by the moon all gone, my blood filling me from the inside and escaping from me onto the swamp, my will was reduced to ash and my body was broken.  I was tired, so tired, tired to the point I simply closed my eye and let it got.  Immediately, my mind went blank, so fast that I did not even felt the shock of my body hitting the roots, sliding into the shallow water and starting to sink in it as the Centisnake before me.