Luminescence 2

The hut was old and worn, its thatched roof hung and dribbled in pieces, nothing added or repaired in years. This land was Malin occupied land and everything had burned at least once in the last year as their guns and men had swept through the plains. Everything except this hut.

            There was no door, only a slip of hanging reeds intertwined.

            Marcus slipped through his spear leading the way, his stance low and readied as he inhaled the sharp tang of blood and magicke assaulting his senses.

            She was old and worn, covered in reeds and blankets, bracelets and bones littered across the hut, a femur bone clutched in her grasp. She held a likeness to his people setting the hairs on Marcus’s neck dagger straight. The thing rocked a subtle movement but made no further move as Marcus Ambruge entered the demon’s lair.

            “I could smell you long before human,” its voice was oily thin. “Your scent rides the wind. You smell like them but you are not, I feel it in my bones,” its grip on the femur bone tightened and splintered.

            Marcus Ambruge made no move as he ignored the familiar dialect lash against his ears. It was not real. She was not real. “They told me to come here if I needed help,” his caramel voice inflected the same dialect he’d known almost all his life, the same language he swore he’d forgotten so long ago. “They told me to seek out the woman in the hut.” He lowered his spear slackening his arm, a strategic move to show her he thought she was just an old woman in a hut.