Master Goshu - The city was locked in a timeless state. Snow tumbled without falling. My limbs were trying to tell me something, but I was suspended in an invisible gauze. Through the numb silence I heard it again. The crying sound. The screams of a baby? — No, the power and fear was too strong, too loud. I managed to round the corner of the inn in time to see a black shape melt into the night sky. The screaming was louder now, not human at all. I raised my arms to see that I still held a blade in my hands. The weight of my tanegashima rifle pressed on my back.
My training and instinct were all that was managing the length of steel in my hands. I drew nearer the streaking sound. When my eyes gathered enough of the scene, they puzzled together the horror of what I was seeing. A beautiful mare lay on the ground pawing against reason. Its eyes wild with terror. The shrieking turned to a gurgle as its throws began to lessen. A spilled quiver lay in the bubbling stew. A single fletchless arrow disappearing into the toxic lake.
The thrum of a bow string loosing an arrow focused me instantly.
“Saretha!” I shouted.
Running in the direction of the sound, the pain of my condition threatened to overwhelm me. Thats when I saw a flash of color. I turned my head to see a radiant creature before me. It took a moment for me to register what I was seeing. A scaled horse with a crimson mane and tail, its sentient eyes gazed into mine and I quickly understood his intent. He launched from the road like a giant cat. His wings grabbing at the air and tossing frozen flakes like fireflies. He climbed higher clawing at the side of a building before hovering near a second story window. Then I saw what I feared in my heart. My wife climbed onto the beast with three arrows clutched in one hand and her bow in the other. The light from the street lamps played across her moistened eyes. I called out to her. I couldn’t tell of she saw me or not. A moment later the two of them climbed skyward. Just as I thought they would climb out of view, the darkness enfolded them as a fallen shroud. Leathery and serpentine they spun like tangled ropes in a gale. Rain began to fall. Not a rain of natural origin, but of blood and acid.
I was as hollow as a clay pot.
I could feel myself running toward the floating nightmare. My armor hissed and smoked as I drew nearer. Pulling the ornate long-arm from my back, I sighted down the barrel and squeezed the metal latch until it slapped against the ring-frame of its housing. The night sky painted orange; obscuring all. The fire-fog drifted away from the firing pan.
More rain.
An an unearthly hissing sound. Then it came again. Washing over me this time. A pain so intense that the invisible gauze returned once more, this time distancing me from light and sound. I was content to hide from the pain. Though distantly I wondered at the outcome.
Balled in my cocoon, I let dream and night enfold me.