It was late at night when Knot woke up from the crunching of the branches and the tingling of his scars. The darkness was total, not a single beam of light from the Moon crossed the leafy forest. Knot slept leaning on a tree in the clearing where he had decided to camp, the fire had withered away and in spite of being dressed with his cape to be able to endure the cold nights of the ancient forest, he could notice the tremor in all his extremities and the hawkiness of his teeth. As always, he slept hugging his steel sword (a simple sword with a wolf's leather hilt), aware of any "intruder" who might want to disturb him.
It had been only two days and two nights since his departure from the village but his fear had not diminished. Knot hadnt slept very well, such was his concern that he woke up every few minutes continuously for fear of being attacked while he was sleeping, so he could not said he had actually slept, even though he had not been attacked so far. He thought that it would be difficult to get used to sleepless nights but that he would have to get used to it.
Knot did not get up immediately, that could make the "intruder" jump on him to attack and devour him. Instead, he opened his eyes and without moving a single muscle, He waited. While his eyes got used to the darkness, a minute has passed until he heard the creaking of the branches again. As he had done before, he had prepared his "camp" for those surprises. He had plucked the branches from various trees and watered them around the clearing to be able to perceive the movement of the "beasts" more easily, and had hung a dozen of small bells from the septum of the old forest before leaving the village, tied to ropes from the trees near him.
Another couple of minutes passed when the crunching sounded again, it was closer thai time. Knot sensed the intruder approaching directly in front of him, with a slow and silent pace. Knot held on to his sword with greater strength. The scars itch him.
The intruder advanced again and this time, Knot, with his eyesight already accustomed to darkness, could see the figure of the beast. It was a shadow about one meter high, apparently quadripedal without a head to identify and with thick legs.
Another minute passed and the beast advanced, knot remained motionless and the icy sweat began to fall from his forehead and his scars, normally the scars dont bother him, but that night he felt an intense tingle. He could distinguish the beast better, it was hairy, very hairy. with a totally black coat like the night, perfect for a night hunting.
He advanced again, now much closer than before and this time he could distinguish its head. It was round and hairy like the rest of the body, with a long neck like a turtle. It had no appendages, no ears or noses or breathing holes and above all, no eyes. The beast looked like a black spot except for the jaws, where it could see teeth as white as the moon and sharper than his sword. This made Knot more tense, completely forgetting the cold of the night. The scars began to itch him more.
Knot had heard much about demons (not as much as he would have liked) from his Master and the soldiers who protected the outer parts of the village from the entrance of demons, and he knew that those who were blind were dangerous. True, they lacked sight and most likely hearing, but they made up for it with a fearsome sense of smell. They were probably able to sense prey from several meters away.
The beast advanced again and was now on top of the dead fire. The demon had passed without much trouble under the bells, which were not close enough to the ground, He would have to remember this for later. The scars began to bother him.
Another step and the demon was so close, he could smell it. A repulsive fragrance of wet animal hair and blood and intestines so strong that it made Knot's nose itch, but on top of that he could smell a little more subtle, a smell like the spicy condiment that the village loved so much and for which Knot did not have much appreciation. This time the scars started to hurt him.
The demon was closer, only about two meters away from knot when he could see the demon get on two legs, like a dog doing a trick, but with its head and neck bent forward and its front legs carried to the side. Knot observed how the paws were longer than he had thought, more than the hind legs, they ended up in quite long claws, much longer than any wolf's. He could see how from the jaws came out torrents of saliva and foam with a nauseating smell. Standing on two legs, the demon seemed much taller and more intimidating. He was hairy, but also skinny, almost looking skeletal, probably due to lack of prey being so close to the center of the ancient forest.
Knot began to feel a strange sensation, a sensation of absolute fear with excessive excitement, which almost caused Knot to smile, it was a strange sensation. Combined with the pain of the scars on his head and the awful smell of the devil, it caused a whole new experience, one that he knew would become his daily routine.
Knot was holding tightly to his unsheathed sword (he always carried the unsheathed sword at night just in case) with his two hands, when the demon began to contract his body in a strange way, perhaps an innate way to prepare himself to attack or perhaps to frighten his prey. Either way, Knot knew it was ready to attack and just at that moment, before the attack, Knot lost all fear, all discomfort, all repulsion for the beast or excitement, Knot found himself in a state of total calm. He knew that everything would end in one blow, whether it was from the demon or from him, a battle with a demon was never long, they usually killed their prey in one blow, but Knot did not worry about it, his calm was total.
Then it happened, it happened all in a second and before the demon attacked him, Knot got up quickly and jumped forward, to position himself in front of the demon (standing half a meter higher than Knot, despite his two meters of height), with his head bent and his sword in his hands. He lifted and brandished the sword with all his strength, cutting quickly and cleanly through the demon's neck until his chest, the blood gushing out like a waterfall, filling his whole body with blood. Probably the demon did not even realize that knot had passed through him, because he did not make any movement, did not react to the blow or scream of suffering. Knot looked at the demon, which was totally stiff with its sword pierced, and for a second he was not sure whether he had died or not. Knot withdrew the sword after about five seconds without movement and stood back. The demon fell forward, and lay stiffly on the ground without moving, with the black blood of the demon forming a puddle around the corpse and making the earth infertile, as always do the demon's blood, one could even see how some whitish colored organs were sticking out of the wound. The blind demon was silent even when he died.
Knot then remained watching the demon lying on the ground and after a few seconds he began to recover his senses, but not all of them, not the fear or the stress or the cold at night, only the excitement. He had killed a demon, his first time, he had been wanting to kill one for years, almost all his life, and at last he had succeeded. Years of training to go outside, to break the taboo of the village and to get out of the forest, training with his master, learning to fight, but not against people, but against beasts. The excitement was one that Knot had never felt in his life, it should be comparable to the first time in sex, but Knot thought that nothing could be as satisfying as that feeling. The excitement was such that Knot almost started to scream with joy, but he held back. Although the battle had been short, Knot felt tired and did not want to face other demons in his state, so he decided to leave his celebration for another day. He knew there would be other battles, probably much more difficult and stressful, but that didn't take away Knot's joy, this was his first time, and therefore it was special
Knot decided then to sit down leaning on the tree, embrace his sword, wrap up his cloak and start to sleep; he had to rest as much as he could, since the journey would be long and the hours of sleep short. That would be a night he would remember for a long time, but it would only be one of many nights and days, days of battles and carnage against demons, of the smell of blood and excitement that would become his normality. His day to day, his long battle for the extermination of the demons, for those who had perished and for those who hide like turtles, in their villages and small towns waiting to be killed by the demons, too afraid to travel the world. He would become the terror of the demons, he would hunt them down to the end, even if he had to go to the depths of the hellish Valley of Wailing or to the legendary lands ruled by the dragons, he would hunt them down.
-Only the first blood of many -said Knot, immediately afterwards he fell asleep, not caring about the demon's body or his body filled with blood. This time, he could sleep, as he had not done since he left the village, he slept like a baby.
And in his dreams he saw the silhouette of two people, two like him, looking at him with faces of joy and sadness and pronouncing some words that knot could not hear...
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