Darkness, Jack Montgomery [ebook reader macos txt] 📗

running down the side of his head disappearing into the folds of his cloak, and his hair was muddy brown. His eyes were the same as before except for one thing. His eyes had a strange look to them. He looked down at her, and she was able to recognize what that look was: protection. “You still haven’t lost any of your skill Richard I’ll give you that much.” Lauren looked back at Aldron. He was now standing away from the wall. He and the rest of his men had now drawn their swords and grinning. Jack bent down and helped Lauren up, while still keeping his eye on Aldron and his men. Lauren could tell that Jack was scrambling for a way out. There were no alleyways except for the one behind them, and all the buildings around them, were locked. Lauren reached into the folds of her dress and felt the familiar cold steel of her sword. If need be, she would use her power to get herself out of her. Laurens mind was having a war with itself. On one side, her mind was telling her that if she did use her power, she should take Jack with her. The other side was telling her that Jack would just slow her down, and that if he knew, he would try to turn her in. She turned towards Jack. He was looking nervous now. His eyes kept shifting from each of the berserkers. Lauren turned back towards the berserkers. Aldron looked at her. “Here Richard, I’ll make you deal. You give me the lady, and I’ll let you live. What do you say?” Lauren looked at Jack. He wouldn’t do it would he? As far as he knew, she was just another lady in the city. Though, wasn’t he an ex berserker? Jack looked at her. His eyes turned sad and he looked down, and in that moment, Lauren thought that he would give her up. Then Jack looked up, and Lauren saw in his eyes a strong determination. Jack looked back at the Aldron and said, with a voice filled with a controlled anger, “What, so you could just rape her and throw her to the side like a beggar? I changed Aldron. Bring it. By the way, my names not Richard. Sorry about this Laruen.” Lauren looked at Jack. What did he say? Suddenly Jack picked her up, and threw her into a nearby building. Lauren saw him run back out, and draw his two swords again. Lauren staggered to her feet, and went to the door post. She saw all the berserkers charge at Jack at the same time. Lauren wanted to look away, but something kept her watching. The first berserker reached Jack, but when he did, Jack simply spun around and cut the berserkers legs out from under him. While the berserker was falling, Jack backhand slashed the berserkers back. Before Lauren could see anything else, Jack was swallowed up in a flurry of arms, blood, and metal. Before Lauren could go and help him, her vision darkened, and she fell to the ground. Her last thought was that head wound must be worse than it felt. Then everything went black.

Chapter 2
The last thing that Lauren could remember is Jack being swarmed by the berserkers. Laruen knew that she should go out and see if he was okay. The only thing was that it felt like her head had been trampled by the kings marching group. Summoning all her strength, Lauren staggered to her feet and lurched towards the door. As she looked around the room, she noticed that it looked an earthquake had ripped through the place. When she looked outside, it was dark outside. Lauren decided to change back to her Elf form. Sure, it was taking a big risk, but she had to see if Jack was okay or not. As she changed, her vision perfected and she could see perfectly in the darkness. When she could see in the darkness, she wished that she could just forget everything she had seen. Apparently, an earthquake had come through the city. There was rubble everywhere; entire buildings had collapsed in on themselves. Though Lauren could not see them, she could sense that there were many bodies under all of the rubble. She looked where she had last seen Jack. Where she had last seen him, there was what looked like an entire building on top of him. Lauren ran over to the collapsed building and tried to find a way either into it or under it. She finally found the door and, after she had removed the rocks off of it, she opened it and entered the building. Looking around, she saw all of the berserkers that had been charging towards Jack, before the earthquake had come. As she was looking around, she noticed an odd thing: there was a medium sized rock in the middle of the collapsed room. As she approached the rock, she saw that it looked like a statue, a very detailed statue. She reached over to touch the statue, but as she was about to touch it, it started to crack. Lauren jerked her arm back, just as the cracks on the statue spread over the entire thing, and the statue started to crumble. As the stone fell away, Lauren could not believe what she was seeing. Exactly where the statue had been, there was Jack, kneeling there just like the statue. As he started to fall over, Lauren ran over to catch him. As she stared in amazement at Jack, she was struck with the fact that as far as she could tell, he was fine. That was when she felt warmth running down her arms. As she looked down, she saw that there was dark red blood, running down her arms. Stunned, she turned Jack over and saw something very disturbing. His entire back was covered with blood, which looked almost black. With her enhanced vision, Lauren was able to see the wounds running all across his back. From the amount of blood, she knew that the wounds were serious and needed immediate attention. Before she could do anything though, she heard outside, a multitude of voices. Jack would have to hold on for now. Lauren stood up and slung Jacks unconscious form across her shoulder. Using her elfin speed, Lauren sped up out of the building, through the gathering crowd, and out the city gates. Everybody who saw her said that it looked like the night sky streaming past, so fast that a few seconds later, only then was there a dust swirl.
Chapter 3
Lauren stopped and looked up. Healing Jack was taking longer than it should. Usually healings took about 10-20 minutes, but Lauren had already spent two hours trying to heal him. Her strength was wearing thin, and it was getting darker outside. Lauren stood up, and walked over to where she had dumped the supplies earlier that night. She had not yet looked into Jacks supplies, since she wanted to respect his privacy. It was nearing the time though when she would have to look into what supplies he had. Lauren herself hadn’t really brought any food with her, and even though she had a fair amount of gold, they couldn’t risk going into the cities or towns to buy things, for fear of being caught by the guards. Lauren bent down to retrieve her water skin from the ground, when she stumbled down into Jack’s pack. As she picked herself up, Lauren noticed that almost all of the contents of the pack had spilled out onto the cave floor. As she hurried to pick up all of the items, she took stock of what had spilled out: there were three cloaks all tightly wrapped around themselves, four leather pouches full of gold, four books (all rather large), a set of oddly shaped keys, ten foot long daggers, a set of ten throwing knives, a grappling hook, a map of the area with a black circle around the city where she had been, and a small leather pouch. Lauren opened the pouch and looked in. In the dim light, she could just barely make out four different colored stones. Lauren dumped the stones out onto the floor. As she looked at the stones she noticed that they weren’t normal stones you could find just anywhere: one was crimson red, very much like blood. The second looked like inside the stone, a fire raged. The third stone was black as night, with little white spots distributed around it. The fourth stone looked almost like a normal tan rock that you would find on the side of the road. On the stone though, there were what looked like veins of metal, running through the stone. Lauren bent down to pick up the earth colored stone, but as she did, she felt herself transported back to the city at the time when she and Jack had been ambushed by the berserkers. Lauren found herself looking down on her and Jack surrounded by the berserkers. She saw herself get grabbed by the two berserkers from behind, and Jack dispatching them with an inhuman speed. Lauren saw Jack look around, then grab her and throw her into the building. Lauren then found that she could move around in this dream like state, so she moved down so she was to the left of Jack. As the berserkers charged at Jack, Lauren moved back up, above Jack so she could see better what was happening. She saw the one berserker charge in front of the group, straight for Jack, who then dispatched him quickly with his swords. Lauren then saw the rest of the berserkers charge straight into Jack, and surround him. Lauren tried to turn away, but some invisible force held her looking down on the grim spectacle. Jack was killing as many of the berserkers as he could, but there were simply too many of them for one man to take care of, and they kept hitting Jack in the back with their swords and clubs. Suddenly, Jack back slashed two berserkers standing behind him, and as they fell, Jack jumped out of the ring of berserkers. Jack swiftly brought his arm down to his side and five of the berserkers fell, six inch spikes buried into each of their chests. That seemed to cause several berserkers to just stop and look at Jack. The lead berserker shoved two of the berserkers forward, and with that, the rest of the berserkers charged again at Jack. Jack then did something very strange: he stabbed both his swords into the ground, side by side and, crouching down between them. He then jumped up into the air, and when he came back down, he slammed both fists into the earth. Lauren was stunned at this spectacle, and suddenly, something inside her clicked. Looking back down on the scene, she saw a large crack forming down the middle of the street. When it had reached the end of the street, the crack stopped. Suddenly, the ground shook, the buildings started to crumble and shake, and the berserkers had lost their angry faces, replaced by looks of sheer terror. Jack looked up at the berserkers and smiled. Then suddenly, a building started to fall towards Jack. Lauren screamed out, “No!” and reached for Jack. Just then, she found herself back in the cave, falling towards the hard cave floor. She braced herself for the impact, but when she hit the floor, she didn’t hit hard, unforgiving rock. Opening her eyes, she saw that she was lying on a mound of soft dirt. “That’s twice I’ve saved your life now, Elf.” Lauren looked towards the voice. It had come from Jack, who was now standing at the mouth of the cave, giving no sign of the deep cuts that he had received on his back.