"Hey, imp! Ready up, we're moving!""It's Loki, sir.""To hell it's not, you don't get a name till you earn it."Loki grunted with dissatisfaction, yanking his things off the waiting table and running towards the three ATVs parked on the tracks, like they could stop the train when it came barrelling through.The military hybrid drilling rig—using piston and hydraulic engines—at the forest's edge had suffered some damage from enemy insurgents and needed quick fixing.Loki wasn't a handyman, but he managed to convince the man in charge to let him tag along, on the condition that he spare the engineer the task of fetching his weapons himself. So he was a handyman, of a lesser kind.Each ATV had two militants assigned to it: one a driver and the other a combat escort. That alone told him what he was in for, but he had to go through with it anyway.For the majority of the world's populace, of which he was no exception, a few quid was a treasure, and the engineer had been generous enough to

If he was going to get back to his prospective grave, he couldn't do it on foot. Luckily, he had taken an ATV before leaving. Driving was hard, but the streets taught him things. And more importantly, he needed to know what his shadow was about, and what it could do.He had never seen a lord in action, so he didn't know what to expect from his experiments, and rightly so. Even the rumours couldn't prepare him since every shadow was different. Still, there were common points of origin for shadows, so a few things were the same nonetheless; like functional immortality and the movement of the shadow, not in the regular way, but as a different entity entirely.He had overheard the affiliates of the lords mention once before, while he was cleaning their horse stables, that the latter was the holy grail of battle prowess, but still, the former interested him more.Loki wasn't going to start with a knife in his chest, just in case he was wrong, but he could work his way up there."Hey, do yo

The first rays of sunlight escaped the horizon, bathing the world in its promise of hardship, and to some, early morning vitamin D.Loki didn't see it. The dense canopy of trees filtered light down to bare twinkles, and the oppressive atmosphere blended it and other nasty things to create gloom thick enough to cut through.Loki should have been here sooner, but the worst of luck had aided him in taking an ATV. It jerked and smoked throughout, requiring constant cranking to keep active.And yet, it still failed to carry him the whole of the way, dying at about an hour to the forest's boundaries. And on legs, that equated to almost three hours.The journey had beaten Loki more than any beast ever could, and that just gave more fuel to the doubting voices in his head. He trudged forward nonetheless, knowing that he wasn't just doing this for ego, and was too.His steps came across as cautious, hoping to hunt and not be hunted. The forest was the definition of all things unholy, dark and

"Why are you here, kid?""Who the hell are you?""Did you kill this beast?"The questioning voices sounded deep and distant. His body shook, swaying left and right as his vision blurred, and slowly, his consciousness did too.---Camping in nature was supposed to be a fun weekend activity, or something of that sort. But this was just diabolical.Loki woke up on the wet wooden floor like a fish on the butchering table. His hands were tied behind his back with strong ropes, and he could already see some body marks as a sign of improper handling.Worse, he was in more pain than he had ever been in his life, so much so that he almost felt like his body wasn't his. But where was the sense in that?The entire thing was unreasonable, maybe not to normal people, but he had already grown slightly accustomed to having numbness instead of pain.Every square inch of his flesh felt like it was being pounded by hammers, having him struggle to remain awake.He turned his head slowly, relieved when h

Loki had his head down and didn't dare move it. His breaths came painfully slowly, not enough to fill the oxygen his body's activities created.He could hear the fast-paced steps; he could see figures whizz by, although his peripheral vision censored them with nebulosity.Loki was lying in grass, face down, hoping to wait out the search. After killing the two militants, Loki had tried to curve to the side and avoid the eventual cavalry, but the militants had been too systematic in their approach.He ran, and they didn't, but yet, he was cornered now, betting his survival on hide and seek.The grasses were high, but the recent rainfall had washed them down, making the task of spotting him much easier, but still...---Loki groggily stirred, unable to realise what was going on for a moment. He was strangely nervous and soaked in sweat despite the cool weather. Pieces of grass and dirt clung to his face, itching his skin so badly.Then it hit him.In the middle of his dilemma, where he w