Shadow Slave

The Chalice Knight resembled a human wearing a tattered suit of ancient armor that had turned green from rust. He towered at around two and a half meters of height, but seemed even taller because of the deer antlers attached to his closed helmet. The rusty helmet itself was fashioned to resemble the snout of a snarling beast, with deep darkness nestling in the crack of its visor.

There was moss growing here and there on the battered armor, and a ragged cloak, too weathered to retain any color, hanging from his shoulders like a torn banner.

The creature was holding a frightening battleaxe in his hand, its blade large and heavy enough to easily split a human in two.

The Huntsman... was like a dead knight that had crawled from under the roots of the forest that had claimed an ancient battlefield, ghastly and imposing enough to make Rain shudder.

Worse than that, the dark crack of his visor was already staring directly at her.

Her souls seemed to squirm under that gaze.

'Crap.'

Rain nocked another arrow on the string and prepared to draw her bow...

But before she could, the Huntsman had already reached the base of the tree that served as her sniper nest.

His dreadful battleaxe rose and fell. That dreadful strike was enough to make the mighty trunk of the ancient tree explode into a hurricane of splinters, obliterating a whole swath of it.

But, a moment later...

A sharp arrow fell from above and lodged itself into his knee. It struck precisely at the narrow gap between the bottom of the abominations's cuisse and the top of his poleyn — which were the armor elements responsible for protecting one's thigh and knee, respectively.

A pretty decent shot, considering the situation.

But Rain did not have any time to celebrate, because the tree was already toppling... and she was falling with it.

After a moment of weightlessness, the rope tied around her chest drew taut, and she found herself flying through the air.

themselves a path of retreat. Rain had never considered

of terribly tall trees at

whistled in her ears,

going to

dissipate the shock of colliding with another tree at great speed. The other end of the rope was tied around one of its highest branches,

skull, which was a relief, but her feet were in agony. Ignoring it, Rain immediately

tree, two things were waiting for

motion, Rain grabbed the arrow and spun around,

toward her, so fast that

still, he wasn't faster

enemy. So, she did not

air, striking at his other

time, Rain's aim was a few millimeters off. The precious arrowhead struck the edge of the

of Rain's arrows were made from the bones

and the arrowheads were of the same Rank... but she herself was not. Strangely enough, that made her arrows weaker

what it meant in practice was that she

did not waste time

Rain...

ran as fast as she

such thing on the battlefield, only strength and weakness, life

was not at all dangerous for a creature of his Rank and Class — a joint was

to take a sizable chunk of flesh out with them.

better if both

Because, now...

she would be able to escape his

'Run... run!'

quiver of arrows she had hidden up ahead would be useless without it. But she had to sacrifice something, and her javelin seemed