Lords of Shadow

"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 get him something bigger than a few quid.

Aside from the six men from the lord's army, there were a lot more people than he had expected: five individuals in civilian clothes, and two engineers other than the one he had met.

This meant that the rig was either really big, or there were three of them. The latter sounded more probable for obvious reasons. But it still left questions as to what the army was dealing with in the Trojan Forest.

The ATVs started with a dull stutter, creaking off the tracks and towards the gloomy skies. Some of the others had people at the town's outskirts waving them goodbye and calling out to the lords to ensure the safe return of their loved ones.

Loki wondered how that felt. He didn't have anything to be sorrowful for, contrary to what might have been thought. He never knew his parents, if he even had parents.

As far back as he could remember, he had been raised with unethical methods by an insane woman. Wonder not why his brother had died young.

Anyways, those were things to be thought of while he was in Yharnam, not here, not where he was going.

The Trojan Forest was plagued with beasts. Some abominable, some having shadows. Very scary place—scary enough that the lord's army couldn't guarantee protection.

Despite that, they would spend at least a week and a half there, till the work was fully concluded.

And armed with the knowledge of this bleak expedition, someone still had the guts to fall asleep.

Extremely weird, and not for the right reason. The road to the forest hadn't been tarred, so every few metres, the ATV jerked from side to side.

As if that wasn't bad enough, he would have to sit and stomach the gut-wrenching smell of the man to his left throughout the three-hour journey.

It sounded boring, and it was. Everything he did to entertain himself quickly grew monotonous, but that was about to change. Except it wouldn't be for entertainment.

Eventually, after settling on his sack of packed items, he had been so engrossed in checking the contents and rearranging what was already arranged that he didn't notice when they pulled up at the forest docks.

The ATVs had stopped—or rather, his had—and the others were waiting for it to move out of the way.

"Why'd you stop?" the combat escort asked the driver.

"The guys, they said they'd set up flags to lead the way. I can't see any."

"You don't know the way to the outpost?"

The driver let go of the steering. "The rig isn't at the outpost."

"Well, just get us to the outpost instead. Tomorrow we'll head to the rig from there. The sun isn't exactly up again, so I'd appreciate it if you'd step on it."

The driver did step on it, but with how messed up the roadability was, even their haste couldn't help them outrun the end of daylight. And like the start of all horror tales, they were left wading through the infamous forest in the dark, with no connection to anyone who wasn't about to become something's next meal.

Loki had no idea how long it was to the outpost, so he could only wait and hope the car battery didn't die.

"Don't worry, kid. These men know what they are doing," said the engineer as he observed Loki's fear.

"Oh shit, you just jinxed it. Things always go south when an elderly dude says it won't."

The engineer blinked, baffled. "I'm sorry?"

Just then the tree ahead splintered, hurling a large chunk of itself at the bonnet of their transport vehicle. It bounced up and smashed against the glass, leaving a thick crack right where the combat escort's head was.

That was the warning.

"Back it up! We're under attack!"

Now would have been a good time to beam the headlights, but unfortunately that stuff hadn't been invented yet. Cars didn't use lights, fuel, or seatbelts.

The ATVs screeched back, turning the vehicle line into a row of bumpers as the combat escorts leaned out of their windows and aimed their crossbows.

Again, guns hadn't been invented. Well, they had, but they were still in development.

Something flashed by.

They let their mechanical crossbows loose on it, firing futilely in hopes of hitting the whizzing figure.

"On my mark... look alive," the escort of Loki's truck said as he looked through the metal scope.

What he saw was faster than his eyes could track, leaving him unable to let weapons loose. As if in a race with sound, the whizzing figure boomed into their view, grabbing the front bumper and flipping the car over with ease—or so it seemed.

Unfortunately for Loki, it had chosen his ATV to make the statement with. He crashed against the backseat as the vehicle flipped, throwing his hands around himself to cushion the impact.

"Damn y—" Loki got cut off as the ATV landed on top of the next, throwing all in it onto the ceiling.

The next second had something spark hard from the one before, splashing embers of machinery through their broken window.

The crossbows shot again, longer than before, but Loki didn't need to be a prophet to know that it didn't hit anything.

He rolled onto his back and grasped the sledgehammer that had fallen loose from under the driver's chair.

The driver pushed against his seat, snapping the recliner and allowing him to fall too. The space between him and his controls had been so little it had kept him wedged up there against gravity.

As he landed, he slammed his shoulder into his door, tipping the ATV, but it tipped back. He tried again, and with the help of the escort, forced the vehicle off the other one.

But it didn't land topside. The driver climbed up out of his door, helping the escort do the same.

"Stay in the vehicle!" he roared as they both grabbed their crossbows and started shooting for whatever had ripped a hole in their formation.

The thing whizzed past again, tearing the head cover off the second ATV as it passed by.

This time, the arrow of one of the militants did hit. It was small, and probably wouldn't kill it if it hit somewhere non-lethal, but that wasn't the arrowhead of the attack.

The arrows were partly grated, allowing poison to seep out and into the victim. Would it be enough to take down the attacker?

Maybe not. It never was in any of the stories Loki remembered his mother telling him. Yet again, that could have just been the rambling of someone with mental illness.

The scream of someone in the third ATV jarred him out of his thoughts. He looked out his window and saw blood. A little of it, though—not enough to confirm anything.

This wasn't a case of trying to beat the enemy; it was now about trying to see the enemy they were fighting.

The figure flashed by again, passing a tree diagonal to their position. It fell with little warning, catching the attention of the driver and escort at the last possible second.

The tree slammed against the door, sending the escort falling in, but the driver hadn't been so lucky. The weight had flattened his dominant hand and left him hanging over the side.

"Joan! I'm sitting ducks out here!"

The combat escort, or Joan, didn't hesitate to spear into the broken windshield and crawl out. "All soldiers, on me, we hold this point and give no ground."

Loki couldn't help but admire the valiant effort of the man. And couldn't help but feel lucky. In relation to the others, that is. No one would feel lucky to get hunted by myth with fangs.

Anyways, if the militants fought at the escort's point, who was apparently their leader, it would leave them most protected and the others easy pickings.

Maybe it wasn't the best call, but he wasn't going to hate on it.

The other militants moved forward, rallying around the driver with the crushed hand. One of them struck a stick against a strap on his leg that looked like the side of a matchbox and acted like one too, because sure enough, the stick lit up and became a torch instead.

He threw it in front of their formation, increasing visibility. With more light to work with, they caught sight of the figure the moment it left the shadows.

The machines whirred as they fired arrow after arrow at the attacker. And the success rate on this one was quite high.

The figure couldn't keep up with its dashing movement after two dozen arrows had bitten into its skin. But make no mistake, it wasn't even shrugged off by it.

For an instant, it stood in the light, swaying eerily. Loki caught the look. It was a minotaur that had completely transformed and gone full beast, having zero resemblance to a human.

Or the current humans. Who knows what people looked like when its kind was rampant.

But more importantly, it... it... it had a shadow!

Loki's eyes widened. A shadow was much more than a myth; it was a privilege that was born out of the presence of those destined to change the world. It was a commodity that no currency could buy, and the basis for the Lords that ruled the world.

But that wasn't what bothered him so much. What did was the fact that those who possessed shadows were immortal.

Beasts with shadows were exponentially weaker than humans with it, but still too much for them to handle. One shadowed beast could take a full company, and there were only six men able to fight here.

The militants saw it too; Loki could tell from the tremble in their legs.

Then the beast moved again, and someone in the formation did something unexpected but logical.

He ran.

The beast had bolted at them, and the break in formation let it through, pushing through the formation forward into their vehicle. The ATV was snapped in half rather cleanly, and luckily no one had been in the way.

"Husk! Do that again, and I'll have your head before it does!" Joan roared.

Husk gulped and pushed forward to meet his colleagues. No one stared disdainfully; they understood the predicament and why he chose to be cruelly innovative.

Loki, as well as the engineer and the other man in his ATV, crawled out and hid behind it. Since it had been proven unsafe and ineffective in protecting, it was stupid to remain in its constraints and risk a limb.

The shadowed beast lunged out again, going for the militants themselves. It was smeared with blood, and definitely not its own. The potholes in Joan's plan were beginning to become visible.

It shrugged off the arrows and struck the chest of the escort from the second ATV with enough force to shift a cargo ship by a degree.

The victim went dark instantly, skidding across the ground with white eyes and a deflated chest.

Some down, some more to go.

In the moment it slowed to send its victim into the embrace of death, one of the militants latched onto it, thinking he could hold it in place.

Foolish thought.

Futile attempt.

It moved and dragged him along like a cape, smashing him into whatever it smashed through as it fought. On the bright side, his incessant screaming let them know exactly where it was at any given time.

The problem? It was almost nowhere and everywhere at once. They'd shoot at it and they'd miss, and shoot at air, and somehow hit it.

Loki felt his cover raise as the beast lifted it and launched it at the people in the second ATV.

So fast, so brutal, nothing anyone was going to do about it. It crashed into the vehicle and ended the chapter of life for the three people seated in it.

The ATV went up in flames, shedding more light on the painful situation.

The people in the third ATV ran out of it, trying to protect themselves from the same fate, but jumping into a bigger fire, literally.

Just after another militant fell, the third engineer screamed, "Run!"

Loki was young, but immediately saw how naive that was. The figure flashed twice as they spread, and so did two heads of the civilians.

In total, they were eight now, but he couldn't count the disabled driver as part of the fray. But could he count himself? Or anyone here for that matter?

The shadowed beast was just toying with them, just like his mother toyed with her food.

The beast moved again, this time for the engineer nearest to Loki. A well-aimed arrow caught its leg before then, causing it to stumble into the man.

The engineer gritted his teeth and held it against the ground, trying to pin what a whale couldn't. Just before it freed itself, Loki picked up the sledgehammer and rushed for them.

And then, with all the power in his lanky muscles, he brought it down on the beast's head. And strangely, his weapon squeaked.

"Who makes a sledge out of rubber?!"

The beast pushed up, launching the engineer off it and dirt into Loki's eyes. Loki staggered and fell, wincing as tears streamed down.

He didn't see what happened for the next thirty seconds as he swiped furiously across his eyes to get the crumbs of Mother Nature out. Then, he saw.

The driver was lying over him, having dived to cover him as the beast struck. His spine had been split, but he had saved Loki. What a selfless act, one that would be remembered by everyone who died in the bushes.

As he groaned and grew still, Loki looked beyond his ripped shirt. Two militants remained, and the stinky man.

He would have liked to pretend to be dead under the weight of the dead driver, but it seemed like the beast could smell the living, because it was still coming for him with all its viciousness.

He pushed the driver off and stood, feinting left on autopilot. Unfortunately for him, he lived to take another breath.

The stinky man picked up the crossbows of one of the dead militants but somehow managed to shoot himself in the foot before knowing which way was which.

He turned it and let loose on the beast, but by then it was already too late, and he had a snapped neck and was lying lifeless where he had stood.

Strangely, good riddance.

The beast turned and grabbed Loki by the neck and squeezed. He wasn't going to last ten seconds under the force of a hydraulic press, but before his veins popped, the beast was whacked across the head by Husk, with the same rubber sledge.

Then it swung brutally across its jaw, splitting it, and as Loki fell, he landed in the shadow of the beast.

Suddenly, something rushed through his body, and the shadow of the monster did too. In that instant, it realised it was vulnerable...

And it ran.