CHAPTER TWO: Stampede of the dead

Young stood looking relaxed as the man geckos surrounded him. They formed a circle around him and stopped when they saw he made no attempt to move. One of them seeing this opened it's mouth and fire out it's poison at him but he simply dodged without much of a struggle.

The rest seeing this growled at him and then all of them leapt at him at the same time. However, Young had already expected this and had leapt high into the sky and flipping in the air landed behind them who had all crashed into each other.

Where they were was an open field for Young as he retrieve his kunai rope from his bag while tying it in a position where it wouldn't be a disturbance.

He holded the rope and started swirling it as the man geckos got their composure and readied themselves to strike once again. Two of them had ran forward spitting out their venoms at him. With an amazing speed, he swong the kunai slicing apart the the substance and then turning around with a powerful swing of the kunai, the blade had met the head of the one at his left and had taken it off in a clean cut. The other had dodge and had slowed down a bit while the others ran forward seeing their colleague.

Young drew back the rope and got hold of the kunai. It was a long rope attached to a short black blade while it end had another shorter pin like blade to it. He ran forward throwing a dagger at the one who led in front. It had leapt out of the way making the dagger go forward and hitting the one behind right in the middle of it's forehead almost tearing it completely open. As he approached them using his left hand in holding the rope and with his right he swong it in a cross sigh sending and driving the hilt of the blade towards the neck of the one in front of him.

Not giving any the chance to them to even rethink their actions, he dealt with the remaining two quickly killing them of in an instant. As the last one slumped down in his last breath after Young had continuously stabbed his neck with the blade, he took out a piece of clothing and wiped of the blood stains and retrieved his dagger. He looked once more at the bodies on the floor before moving forward back to the hut.

The attacks had gotten frequent since the past two weeks. It had become an ordeal to fight a multiple amount of monsters and beasts on an every day basis. It wasn't much to him before though he had had a lot of escaping death at the last minute.

He couldn't be prepared for everything that came his way and when they were the more powerful ones, he had little chances of defeating them and certainly had to flee in a way or two. However lately the attacks had worsen to a terrible point.

It hadn't been so bad today but the days before had been terrible with fighting none stop. If not for his knowledge and trainings, he would have been dead a long time ago.

The forest had become darker and more terrible and he had a really bad feeling in his gut that something terrible was about to happen.

The day had reached the evening hour and the sun was just about to set.

He had taken the branches and little sticks gathering them together while walking to the hut. His eyes moving around constantly with his mind being more alert at any sudden attack. Luckily, he didn't encounter anything until he reached the entrance of the open field where his hut was.

He had set huge and bone crushing traps all around the place so as not to receive any disturbances. With all the knowledge he knew about the beasts, monsters and even demons that came around few times, he had built traps all around the open field that suited every different species making them into a number of three in the case of one not being able to finish of the creature, the other will end the job.

He having being the one to put them all, he had no problem navigating his way around the huge traps which made was like a fence around though it took sometime as he had built even his way to enter and exit to be very tough and complex so that it took him some weeks of excessive training to get the hang of it and become perfect.

After entering, he looked around as he walked towards his hut as his eyes glanced around as he looked for his horse, the only creature he had with him ever since he departed from the human lands. He was his best friend and was no normal horse. It was a specie of a beast that was hardly known to most humans. The horse had proved to be a powerful adversary and very trustworthy ally. They had a special blood bond and the horse even as having a mind of his own and was stubborn and one to usually like doing what he liked as he was one considered as an alpha of his species and was hard to be tamed, he was always at Young beck and call and had saved him a countless times in his life and death situations.

Once again he had gone off on his own. He had trained alongside Young in the ways of getting in and out traps since it was a beast as well. Alpha as Young named him and a name he certainly had a huge liking for might be a mighty beast but there were also others in the forest that could kill it in two heartbeats and he knowing his horse, Alpha wasn't one to back down from a fight when he got a feeling he could win it. The beast was just stubborn, a character born with the fact of him being an alpha.

Young didn't worry not only with the fact that he knew Alpha to be too clever for his own good but also because he knew not how to do such things. The certain thought had brought back a memory as he reached the entrance into his hut making him halt in his stride.

Her lovely features and nakedness joined with the beauty of her replayed in his head as it brought a sweet sensation on his body. His eyes closed as he remembered the lady in the river and his body fired up.

Even if it was just a little while, he let the sensations take him over as he thought on every detail of her innocence and he swallowed at the rough and corrupt thoughts that followed with every thing that filmed in his mind. Then suddenly another thought crossed his mind.

A darker one than the ones that he was having.

One which took away everything else.

In an instant, The emotionless and completely plain Young returned and all thoughts before disappeared. He dust his shoes kicking them off his feets and striding towards were his mat layed sprawled out on the floor. He pulled of his jet black iron made armour and the leather linen long sleeves underneath placing them on the floor next to the mat. His body was bare revealing a monstrous amount of scar marks and cuts around his body. The long rectangular mirror which stood on the wall reflected back at him the evidence of his sufferings.

Every mark and scar all having a sad or life threatening story of the horrors he had experienced through out his life, the torments he had to go through both in mind and body. They told truth of a dark past he had no intention of remembering or dwell on.

Putting his bag where he kept his belongings, he walked and sat on the mat as he spread his legs placing his hands on them, his fists folding as he closed his eyes and started clearing his mind of all thoughts. He started meditating and everything around him disappeared as his mind slowly went blank. It took a little while but with the fact of every where being quiet, there was nothing to distract him. He was tired and wanted to take some rest from all the fighting and troubles. He wanted to sleep a little and to do that he had to completely blank his mind of all thoughts and memories also making sure to have nothing disturb him.

Ever since that horrible day, he never slept a night without having nightmares over and over again. The nightmares was a constant happening and it took a huge toll on him. At that time, he was still young, a little bit wild and uncontrollably. His emotions got the better of him constantly and one which nagged at his bones frequently was fear, a terrible companion to him at that time. Countless times he had to go days without sleep afraid of the outcome of it. It was worst when he could not bear the torment no longer and fallen asleep mistakenly. There was a time he had fallen asleep after a whole week of avoiding it and he couldn't even wake up having no strength to do so and had to suffer through out the night. He had cried bitterly in his sleep and after he had awoken two days later. At that time he was extremely weak and seemed to have no redemption at all.

But all that changed when he met his master who had taught him to harness the ability to clear his mind from any thoughts. At first, it was difficult. When he had slightly mastered it, he felt like a living dead but his mind didn't completely disappear and seem to alert him of any dangers. After getting better, it had been his only hope and way to solve his problem of sleep. However the fact that every where had to be silent for him to be able to truly concentrate was a struggle to him as his ears were sharp and hardly ever let any noise escape him. This was also what had assisted him in becoming devoid of emotions since then till this day. This was just one out of the many sufferings he experienced and unlike some people who thought life too harsh to mistreat him in such way, Young didn't think he deserved it.

He knew it.

Finally after the process was done and achieving his goal, Young layed back on his mat and finally was able to close his eyes and escape the world and everything going on even if it might be for just a little while.

A few hours passed and the sun was no longer in the air. The day had started to darken little by little and the little curve of the moon have little to no light to the surroundings.

Young had opened his eyes, stretched and stood up from the mat. He walked out of the hut after he had put on some slippers. He looked around once more to check if Alpha had returned but there was no sight of him anywhere. He thought to blow the whistle and call it from wherever it was, a special ability he had been granted the day he had tamed the horse but decided not to.

Was that a vibration he had just felt beneath him? He became alerted at it as feeling the vibrations, he could tell it wasn't something little.

As if something warned him, Young rushed back in and went for the armour he wore earlier. After putting it on, he made haste putting all his belongings together and carrying them outside. They weren't much as he has just two big bags, one holding his clothes and the other, his weapons. He didn't carry anything else for there wasn't anything else useful for him to carry. Equipping himself fully with daggers all around his belt and a long two edged gold sword hanging on his left side tied to his waist. His kunai rope on his right side and a huge sword on his back. Whatever it was that cause such powerful earth shaking vibrations, Young knew well that escaping it's wrath was better than having to face it.

With everything on him, a normal average man couldn't run quickly but Young steps seemed not to slow down even a bit as he made his way to the entrance of the trap. On reaching there however, he was met with the sight of dead men. Ones which numbers was quite an hefty bunch. It seemed they didn't care about the traps and had ran straight into them causing their deaths while still dealing a lot of damage to his traps. Looking at the men, he instantly knew what they were.

They were stone warriors.

Known to be dead men who had died in battle and were suddenly resurrected by an unknown power, Stone warriors were extremely skilled and wicked men of war. They had no control of their mind and urged for just one thing. War.

A little bit surprised, Young wondered on how they had gotten to the dark forest. They were usually found in the sand lands and desserts, a few in mountains but that was miles away from the forest.

Having no time to figure out what was going on, Young went over them exiting the traps and getting to the parts of the trees. He started running forward as he made to take out the whistle to call his horse. He stops however as his eyes were greeted with the sight of approaching storm of warriors on horses and foot moving in great speed at him. They were a huge crowd and the ground shook at their ferocious stampede, suffering bitterly and the dust filling the air.

Young immediately ran towards his left faster than before moving incredibly as he ran his way around the trees. He hadn't expected such a thing and had already blowed his whistle calling his horse. Their numbers large, Young had managed to scale pass some few ones here and then dodging the long spears they threw at him frequently.

Through the run and trying to fight of ones on his tail, he had little time to take notice of a spear coming at his face and dodged it in a last second manner. However the strong hit of one of the horses picked him from the floor sending him flying backwards in great speed stopping only after his back had hit a tree.

The force was so strong it made him dizzy and a cut appeared on his head as blood rushed out of it. He didn't know were he had gotten the strength to move as another spear was sent towards him once more sticking itself inside the tree just beside him, he had moved again only to be hit once more by another. He staggered at the pure strength and his head was all wavy.

Was he going to die like this. Young thought as he lost his footing and his back hit the floor. His bones felt like they had been shattered and he could barely move. Horses were close and could have ran on top him.

Yet at the last minute, Alpha arrives and scoops him forcefully off the ground and landing on his back.

In a speed impossible for the naked eyes to see, Alpha moved past all of the other men in horses and was able to escape from them as it ran in a different area. He was extremely fast, it was like he was the wind.

Young vision slowly started to fade as the pain took control as his horse ran with him on his back away from the Dark Forest.