Until This World Ends

Ch5:Asher's Heart

Blackwood forest was not his goal, nor were the plains at the end of the journey. Not today. He needed to pay a visit to another city along the way.

The 1st old prophecy wasn't the only one he had unearthed after years of loneliness. The idea that they were prophetic still made Valentine chuckle in the dark. His voice startled him a little. Both the lack of a living response and the uninterrupted gruff and sinister laugh.

Here he strode through the scarily dense forest that left no room for man to move on the dimly lit path. That saturnine mockery echoed off trunk and limb, a cacophony of voices mocking him from the inky depths of tightly woven limbs.

If that wasn't enough to lift his hair on end, nothing would.

It scared him because wood absorbed sound, and here it was amplifying it. But it all sounded like him, not another living thing. A deadwood threw his scarcely living self back at him.

Valentine forced his mind off the forest and back to why he came here, suppressing a shudder. A direction was more comfort than the deadwood.

One story in his faith called for walking to the ends of the world to bring everyone home. The thought almost made him miss managing migraines. Valentine was certain that he was the last person at an end of the age of man. Now, he was traveling towards it's dawn, where the Goddess declared animals to be men. He knew that place to be in the great plains to the west of Asher's Heart.

It was renamed Asher's Heart because Loric pierced it in their chapel. She bled out the power that man wielded in the fight against demons. It was the first time Loric wielded wings and Valentine became obsolete.

He didn't know he was discarded then. Then, for 2 decades, he was certain.

Now? Now he wouldn't know what to think until he held the spear that pierced her in his hands.

If it was a spear.

It was one of the many things clouded with age. What had Loric called it? Mankind's right to rule?

At least there would be no more trees mocking him from the depths of the forest in Asher's Heart.

The dogs glowed as they scouted ahead. Between the finely sparkling lights dancing above them, his company, and the narrow options of the road? All pointed to the justness of the path he trod.

Valentine laughed again, a bit more like he oiled his old armor's joints. This time the dark didn't answer back.

He refused to dwell on it. Chasing the dark led to battles. That thought led to how heavy his home had been on his shoulders and overwhelmed his caution. It almost turned the laughter to tears, but he couldn't change the past.

They traveled this way for eternity, as there was no way to tell time in this twilight world. But he was alive. He was doing something, not marking the time until his death.

It was the closest thing he had to perfection...

Until they reached the first clearing.

The carcasses were fresh enough to stink of death. Offal had an earthy smell in demon. Ichor was more like bog butter: cheesy, with a hint of mold. Their flesh most often reeked of urine and pigs. It left a sense of unease, as the smell was within edible range, yet spoiled. It wasn't supposed to be the mix a fresh kill should smell like.

There hadn't been demons anywhere near their size in 6 years. Here was a whole field of near misses to the human realm. Every one of them was Riders, mostly beheaded. Their deaths were within days of his travel.

It was dead Th'Thee everywhere...

Lark.

He had her with him for so few years and so damned long ago that he forgot what she even looked like. It was a very visceral reminder of her and their people's failure to survive. Whatever got them was big enough to kill an old battleaxe that had no business in a fight anymore.

Not like he intended to avenge demons. But he was certain that whatever it was, it was not another human. Not with the way the Goddess called mankind home. She rent them in two by the very seat of the power she gave them.

His knees hurt at the thought of a serious clash. That was the first joint he tweaked in a good battle. In a bad one? He sometimes wondered if he would walk off the battlefield under his own power.