Shade Stone

Kiseron felt drawn to the thing. Like any somatosensory creature can identify exactly where the itch is on their bum, he knew where the thing was without needing to see or smell it. This super-natural sense of his was exactly why he had been assigned to this mission in the first place. Kiseron was an unconventional breed of dragon, Smaller and with no wings to even indicate the hope of flying. But what his kind did have was a lovely necroplasmic sense for all things even remotely associated with death.

However, despite how the thing he sensed smelt, it was curiously far from any kind of association with death. It was tucked away among the undergrowth. And he instantly detested it.

The thing was a human child. It had probably been hidden away in this dense forest in anticipation of the impending decimation of the small mining town that now stood smoldering behind them, just beyond the tree line.

The wretched baby looked right into Kiseron’s dragon eyes, totally unbothered. Kiseron could have sworn it was even on the verge of giggling. He bared his armada of razor-sharp teeth and flexed his claws at the ignorant child. The little fiend didn’t seem to care.

After what had just occurred in now decimated mining town, the fact that this child was here and alive was probably significant, Kiseron knew. He and his companions had hoped to arrive before such reckless, sinister groups. But alas, the so-called “Shade Stone” this town had discovered and dug up was too heavy a motivation for their enemies. They had lost that race.

The child had probably been hidden here for hours, which made it even more impressive that this child had also managed to survive the more present, disembodied threat of the Shade. The Shade were ghastly creatures. Wraith-like entities, with knife-like fingers that hung low at their sides. They stuck to the dark, enclosed parts of the world, exactly like the forest around them.

True, the Shade seemed to be drawn solely by blood that touched the air or—to the annoyance of dragons everywhere—by fire. But as numerous as the Shade were, having one mindlessly float into you was also not uncommon. A single touch from one of these creatures was a death sentence to the unlucky victim.

They were the dark souls of the revenant dead, a scourge started by necromantic powers, but now baffling immune to the same such powers. And they were everywhere. Kiseron could make one out floating dumbly only meters away even now. They were a persistent threat the world simply had to adapt to.

How this mewling pile of stink had avoided them was sheer, annoying audacity.

Disgusting, Kiseron thought to himself. With that, he opened his mouth wide and lowered his gaping jaws over the thing’s massive head. Meals that bled needed to be consumed in one bite, lest any blood that touched the air send an open lunch invitation to the Shade nearby. Luckily, this little tot was easily bite size.

With a jolt, Kiseron felt something that made him pause. The tiny toddler had gleefully wrapped its two tiny, fat fists around Kiseron’s bottom canines. It was tugging at them like they were fun new toys rather than the tools of its impending doom.

The absolute nerve, thought Kiseron. Despite his annoyance, he suddenly felt his disgust give away to something else. Something that bordered a respect for the child and its fearless, oblivious style.

“Kiseron!” a voice shot at him in an urgent whisper, “the hell...?”

Lothnar. The hero-mongering leader of their stupid mission, back from reconnaissance. He was undeniably talented with planning and combat, but also unbearably pretentious in everything else. Kiseron rolled his eyes as Lothnar navigated the forest.

Lothnar was followed by Djinn, his consistent companion. Though why that was, Kiseron couldn’t guess. She was actually a force to reckon with. Twice as skilled at killing things and not nearly as annoying. She would have had no issues with him eating the small child. She’d probably even see logic in it.

“Is that a…baby?!” Lothnar said, trying to maneuver his head to get a view at the thing through Kiseron’s teeth. “Shadows, it is! Kiseron, you can’t just eat a baby, especially not now!”

Kiseron didn’t move, despite Lothnar’s point. They had just watched Sighaeris, the ultimate necromancer wannabe and supreme bastard that beat them here, do some cryptic-ass ritual to absorb all the children found remaining in the town. Which made him a virtual lighthouse to Kiseron’s necroplasmic senses.

So yes, living children were now a rarity in these parts. Though the child wasn't releasing its meaty vice-grip on Kiseron’s canines. The more he tried to pull away, the more the pile of mush giggled and pulled back, being no help whatsoever.

Lothnar looked at Djinn as if imploring her to back him up. She pushed her hood back, revealing short, spikey hair and elegantly pointed ears, and took stock of the predicament.

She stepped swiftly toward the child entangled in Kiseron’s teeth and, easily breaking its unyielding grip, pulled it free from the deadly points. The child watched Kiseron fondly as Djinn pulled it away and up.

Djinn held it easily but also awkwardly and at arm’s length, as if it were a significantly large maggot she'd just pulled from the corpse of a giant.

Lothnar sighed and strode toward Djinn, gently taking the child from her. “Come here, ya little squit,” he said, holding the kid in a way that pointedly seemed to tell them, ‘Look how great a mother I am.’

The child began to fuss.

Djinn glanced at the forest around them. “The Squit is going to give away our position if we don’t make it silent,” she said in her smooth, deliberate cadence that left no break between words.

Lothnar started doing an appalling little dance with his upper torso, bouncing Squit—apparently that’s what they were calling the now weepy toddler—along with him. Squit continued to squirm and Lothnar cast a worried glance toward the edge of the forest.

Smoke was still rising from the devastated town. Sighaeris probably initiated his march here as soon as he heard rumors of the Shade Stone. Children here were somehow capable of controlling the Shade via some unknown interaction with the aster-colored crystal found in the village mines. The town had traded away most of the rare mineral or dumped it in the river where it dissolved into ground water before they realized its connection and value, but they surely still had a few samples left in the town. Even the potential of capturing such a force as the Shade brought Sighaeris running. Once he arrived in force, any townsfolk that hadn’t fled were swiftly rounded up to be killed and anyone below the age of eighteen was promptly subjected to Sighaeris’ soul absorbing rituals. He was no doubt trying to obtain whatever Shade-influencing ability these children had for himself.

Which would have been a very bad thing. Thankfully, seeing that the Shade had remained as undisturbed and uninspired as ever, he apparently hadn’t unlocked that power. Yet. Though Sighaeris most definitely had captured any Shade Stone left in the town. Shade Stone that Kiseron and Co. were now, in turn, intent on stealing from him.

Lothnar shifted the struggling Squit in his arms, bouncing him even more violently with his unnatural upper-body undulations. “Well, we can’t just stick it back under the bushes now, can we?” he asked.

Kiseron cast a side glance and Djinn, which she met. They looked back at Lothnar in unison.

“No, we can’t,” he said to them, sternly answering his own query. He shifted Squit again and proffered his finger to the child in an attempt to quell its whimpers. “If Sighaeris finds it, he’ll—uhh!"

Lothnar stopped short, suddenly tearing his finger away from Squit and shaking his hand as if he'd been burned.

Kiseron suddenly felt another unexpected sentiment toward Squit, this time of adoration. The child had just chomped down on dear Lothnar’s finger. Kiseron had always wanted to bite Lothnar, though pretentious was his least favorite flavor.

Lothnar examined his finger and his eyes suddenly went wide. A scent wafted to Kiseron’s keen nose. Blood. It was in the air.

A single Shade shot furiously from where it lazily floated, toward the scent’s origin. Djinn whipped out one of the two long, silver daggers that she kept lashed to her lower back. The silver blade swiped through the Shade's intangible mass and the creature evaporated. Not gone, but temporarily inert.

Silver was one of the few known defenses against the Shade, but it wasn’t a fix. The Shade's sheer numbers and speed proved that the best practice to survive potential encounters with them was to run the absolute hell away. And run they did.

It was an awkward fleeing, a mix of running for their lives and trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to alert any of Sighaeris’ soldiers nearby.

Lothnar worked quickly to get his bleeding finger under wraps, handing Squit off to Kiseron. Kiseron accepted the squishy package, suspending it from his mouth by its strange, all-encompassing garb, as he ran on all fours. He tried to avoid bouncing Squit off any trees too hard as they fled, but he needn't have worried. The wretched creature seemed to be enjoying this terror fueled activity.

As they ran, Kiseron reached out with his necroplasmic sense, seeking any Shade still in pursuit now that Lothnar’s wound was bound. He could curiously still sense the smelly little human as necroplasmically active, something he would have to unpack later. There were Shade as well, but those in pursuit were slowing significantly. The Necroplasmic beacon that was Sighaeris also registered, but further away toward the town. Good.

A happy coo erupted from Squit, snapping Kiseron from his necroplasmic scoping. The toddler was reaching out in front him, gesturing at a bone-light lantern just ahead.

Kiseron abruptly halted, backpedaling as his momentum nearly carried him skidding right into a large encampment, the edge of which was outlined by multiple similar bone-light lanterns erected as a barrier to deter any wandering Shade from entering the camp.

Djinn and Lothnar stopped milliseconds before slamming into Kiseron, Djinn gracefully and Lothnar wheezing as if his lungs where actively bleeding out and about to die.

“Are they…they still…on us?” Lothnar panted.

Kiseron shook his head in response. The Shade had completely given up pursuit.

Lothnar took a deep breath through his nose and, putting his hands on his knees, let it out slowly.

“The camp of Sighaeris,” Djinn said peering over Kiseron’s shoulder.

Lothnar, still breathing hard, looked up at the camp ahead. “Oh, excellent,” he breathed, “Sighaeris isn’t here, is he?”

Kiseron shook his head again.

Despite unadvisable means of getting here, this was serendipitously exactly where they needed to be. Whatever Shade Stone Sighaeris recovered from the town and not kept on his person would be here. They simply had to find it, grab it, and disappear into the maze of trees and Shade.

“Elegant,” Lothnar said, “let’s make this quick.”

He surveyed the camp. It was an efficient setup with a military order to it. It had been set up in a clearing, the open space serving as a double deterrent with the bone-light barrier against the Shade. Still, no fires were lit. Anything that would remotely attract the Shade, despite the defenses, would not be permitted.

Lothnar nodded toward the center of the encampment toward a trio of larger pavilion-like tents. One had a set of permanent guards, independent of the roving guard patrol around the camp.

“Let’s start there,” Lothnar said. He looked at Djinn, “stealth first, I’ll get you a distraction if you need but Let’s try not to start any fights this time.” He turned toward Kiseron and the toddler still suspended from his teeth. “You good to, uh…babysit?” he asked, a slight smile touching his lips.

It was one of Lothnar's cavalier plays on words, Kiseron knew. What Lothnar was really asking was that Kiseron stay put and be their back up. Kiseron wasn’t so arrogant as to not know that his build—and general appearance—wasn’t suited for this part. Still, he detested sitting on the sidelines and the pun made him want to turn Lothnar’s skull into decorative broach he could gift his grandmother. Instead, he gave Lothnar a flat stare, efficiently communicating his consent and annoyance simultaneously. He’d be the best damn babysitter his companions or Squit-The-Tourist had ever known.

Lothnar flashed him a winning smile, which made Kiseron want to crawl into a hole and prematurely decompose. “Try not to let that thing bite you, or…giggle, or whatever else babies do. We’ll figure out what to do with it later.” He looked back at Djinn and, in their silent, understanding way, moved away along the edge of the clearing.

Kiseron watched them closely, doing his best to keep his keen eyes on them and the various guards stationed around the camp.

He lowered Squit to the ground, a soft grunt emanating from the tiny person. Squit instantly started writhing there with pitiful determination, like a worm that God forgot to gift with effective self-mobility or coordination abilities.

“What are we going to do with you?” he muttered at Squit. Then in his mind amended, not in a cute way, but actually. What the hell are we going to do with this thing?

Brining the child with them just kind of…happened. He supposed it was the right thing to do, as leaving it alone in the woods for some wild creature, or worse, the Shade…or worse, Sighaeris and his melodramatic hunger for the souls of children, would have been…well, worse! But what now? There was little hope that the child’s caretakers were still alive, do they just carry this thing back with them, into the anonymous, vagabond lifestyle of their faction?

Kiseron watched the dirty child grab a fist full of dirt and put it in its mouth. He didn’t know what the best thing to do was, but he had made up his mind on one thing. In finding this child and deciding not to eat it, Kiseron now had a stewardship over the thing. Which meant he would not leave it behind. He would protect it, try to do right by it, whatever that might entail. It was a liability, yes, but their band was now comprised of four.

Kiseron grimaced. Gone from nearly eating it to now swearing fealty, he thought to himself. What dark magic is this? And what fantastic maternal instincts you have.

A commotion from the camp snapped Kiseron from his musings. Men had begun shouting. The guards on routine patrol around the camp were running toward the large central tents.

One of them was slowly collapsing in terrible anticlimax and Kiseron could make out Lothnar’s taunting tones over the commotion. So, Business as usual, thought Kiseron.

He pulled his gaze from the commotion and looked hard at the guarded tent—the two men standing guard at its entrance now distracted. In a flash, Djinn appeared there and melted into the tent, hardly disturbing its flaps.

And just like that, the hard part was over. Getting out was never as tedious as getting in. As long as they were faster or more chaotic than whoever would inevitably pursue them, it didn’t really matter how the next part went. Kiseron moved to pick Squit up in his customary fashion, preparing to run soon as he saw Djinn get out safely with the stone.

Suddenly, a sinister sensation ran down Kiseron’s spine. Necroplasmic energy had just been pulled into the tent Djinn had entered.

As Kiseron watched, and to the surprise of the standing guards, Djinn stepped slowly from the tent. Only she wasn’t stepping at all. She was...floating.

Immediately following the suspended Djinn, a hand emerged from the tent, palm outstretched towards Djinn’s back. Then, the hooded owner of the hand stepped from the tent. An ametrine-colored gemstone roughly the size Squit’s sticky fist was tied around his neck on a black cord. If ever there was a magic stone capable of strange, Shade-taming properties, it was that one. Kiseron could feel it.

Thankfully, this was not Sighaeris. Nor, according to his necroplasmic aura, someone nearly as strong. An acolyte of the old night boss, perhaps? Whatever the connection, this complicated things. Significantly.

The figure flexed their pale hand and Djinn’s entire body tensed, mirroring the movement. A sharp protrusion of bone began to blossom from the acolyte’s other hand.

And then, as if egged on by an internal monologue of tedious, epic poetry, came Lothnar. He emerged from the still confused bundle of collapsing tent, his retractable, silver-plated spear held above one shoulder.

He leapt toward the necromancer. Wound up for a mighty hurl. And…was promptly pelted with various bone fragments shooting from the figure’s finger tips. The fragments grew in size and mass as they flew, becoming large, thick bands of osseus matter that quickly bound Lothnar, knocking him down and holding him fast.

Babysitter, my mum, Kiseron thought, using his thick tail to brush the ambivalent Squit under a bush, out of sight. He then leapt into the camp.

A single guard, who unfortunately decided to stand between Kiseron and the newbie necromancer, was the first unfortunate to encounter Kiseron’s rescue efforts. He pounced on top of the man, effectively crushing him into the ground. Kiseron felt bones crunching under his powerful limbs as he leapt off the fallen guard, toward the figure now holding both Djinn and Lothnar captive.

The necromancer hardly had time to react to the dragon bearing down on him. Before he could brace himself, Kiseron body-checked the eerie figure.

Djinn fell free from the Necromancer's hold. She gracefully landed on the ground and pulled her two silver daggers from her lower back, instantly ready to face the oncoming group of soldiers heading for her.

The necromancer rolled into a recovery with surprising agility. Kiseron pounced at the man again, swiping out with a clawed hand. The necromancer feinted out of the way, but Kiseron still managed to snag the cord holding the Shade Stone with a talon. The strap around the figure’s neck snapped, flinging the gemstone into the air, away from both of them.

The necromancer kept his eyes locked on the stone, diving after it as it made its return to the earth.

Kiseron turned to Lothnar, who, disappointingly, was still on the ground struggling to remove the thick bands of carapace that bound him. The guards in his direction had untangled themselves from the tent collapse and were nearly on him.

Kiseron reached him first. Rearing up, he came down hard on the bands of bone holding Lothnar with his front feet. Lothnar cried out as the captivating bones, and possibly some of his own ribs, snapped.

The first of the guards reached them, announcing himself with a lance swipe across Kiseron’s side. The blow glanced off Kiseron’s thick skin, but still, it hurt like a top-notch bitch. Kiseron spun, reflexively swiping out with a clawed hand in the direction of his assailant.

Kiseron’s talons raked the brave, albeit foolish soldier who just tried to ram a spear into a dragon. The stunned soldier looked down at his torn uniform and armor. Deep gashes on the verge of turning red and gushing blood appeared on the man’s torso. The soldier’s look was one of terrible anticipation of the pain that was about to shoot through him.

As blood met air, Kiseron threw the soldier through the bone-light barrier with a toss of his head. The Shade were on the man in an instant, furiously delving into him with incorporable yet somehow still razor-sharp fingers and teeth. The man’s cries were audible above the camp chaos.

Kiseron silently hoped that the bone-light barrier didn’t have any unchecked breaches. The only thing that could make this cluster even worse would be Shade joining the party.

Lothnar grabbed on to Kiseron’s body and painfully hauled himself up. His eyes suddenly went wide. “Bone!” he shouted.

Kiseron leapt back and Lothnar crouched as an ivory spear of bone flew between them. The necromancer was back on the offensive.

Lothnar recovered his own spear and turned to face the oncoming soldiers approaching from their back. Kiseron turned once more toward the cryptic occultist.

Kiseron charged. He pounced at the necromancer, slashing out again with a taloned forefoot. A shield of bone blossomed into existence at the necromancer’s side, making Kiseron’s deadly swipe glance off ineffectively.

The necromancer made a lunge at Kiseron’s underside with the razor-sharp, elongated carpal bone still protruding from his hand.

Kiseron danced back, barely avoiding the blow. As he did, he noticed the necromancer’s other first, now covered in a bone exoskeleton, gripping a bulging object. A flash of deep purple exposed it as the Shade Stone.

Kiseron knew their situation became bleaker by the minute. The Shade were gathering at the barrier in droves, they were totally outnumbered and out powered, and if Sighaeris suddenly came charging back, they would all really be fantastically boned, pun and all. It was high time to get out of here.

Kiseron made another jump at the necromancer, who danced nimbly out of the way. The necromancer spun elegantly into a low twist that put him right under Kiseron’s abdomen and drove his bone-reinforced fist into Kiseron’s underside with a strength the defied the man’s slight build. Kiseron felt his own skeleton shudder as a few of his ribs popped. A strange tightness blossomed inside his chest.

Kiseron stumbled, going down on a forearm. From under the necromancer's hood, he could see a twisted smile looming over him.

Quick as a whip—a whip made from the hard wood of a mediocrely sized tree trunk, that is—Kiseron’s powerful tail plowed into the necromancer. The figure flew forward, hands thrown out by the momentum, and let the Shade Stone sail through the air once again. It landed neatly next to Kiseron.

Kiseron scooped it up in one forepaw and trapped it there with a prison of talons. Eager to get away, Kiseron angled himself to where he left Squit, ready to do the fastest grab-and-go he could possibly manage.

A terrible scream made Kiseron's blood go cold, freezing him in place. It was Djinn, the uncharacteristic cry denoting a level of agony that was almost contagious.

She was in the air, suspended once more by the necromancer. A pile of unconscious soldiers lay in a ring beneath her.

“Drop the stone!” the necromancer spat at Kiseron, “or your friend gets separated from her nice, dense, manipulative elvish bones.” He emphasized each adjective, as if to indicate how completely Djinn was at his mercy.

Lothnar danced back from the guards he was fighting, now more concerned about Djinn. He moved quickly to Kiseron’s side, taking in the necromancer and guards slowly surrounding them.

Kiseron looked at the bone-light barrier, confirming how fantastically screwed they were. It was now teeming with Shade, eager for more fresh blood.

Lothnar followed Kiseron’s observations, teeth gritted in his ‘this-really-sucks-and-I’m-desperate’ look. He turned to Kiseron, as if trying to communicate a last, desperate plan.

And Kiseron knew exactly what that desperate plan was. It was the same plan that just popped into his own mind. And it was bad. With no further collaboration on the worst idea either of them had ever had than that look, Lothnar turned and hurled his spear at the bone-light barrier.

Like a flash of lightening, the spear broke through one of the barrier lanterns and brought it crashing down.

The barrier was breeched. Kiseron let loose a breath of magma-like dragon fire from deep inside his throat.

The Shade went absolutely mad for it. They poured into the camp, quickly overcoming the ranks of guards, who were now fleeing in all directions.

Djinn dropped as the necromancer took in the oncoming onslaught and likewise tried to flee. Kiseron and Lothnar didn’t stay to watch. They rushed to Djinn and, pulling her up into a run, headed for Squit’s hiding spot among the trees.

Except Squit was not there.

Kiseron frantically batted away the brush around where he stashed the toddler. Still no Squit. That absolute worm! Kiseron thought.

“Leave it!” Lothnar called over the noise of screaming and fleeing soldiers. He and Djinn, supporting each other, continued to run in the one direction not swarming with Shade: toward the ransacked town.

Kiseron cursed. The child couldn’t have gone on its own, which meant it must’ve been taken. He felt out with his necroplasmic sense.

Squit was alive! Kiseron could still feel the child, but only faintly, like a voice getting farther away. And, unfortunately, getting closer to the raging necroplasmic aura that was Sighaeris. Kiseron’s eyes flew open, and he furiously began his pursuit toward the town, the tightness in his chest and the Shade Stone still in his clutch hardly slowing him down.

He burst through the tree line and into the limits of the devastated town, Djinn and Lothnar close at his side. The camp flames rampaged behind them, the screams of those being consumed by the Shade still audible.

The fleeing guards that burst from the forest continued running toward what awaited them there, though the same thing made Kiseron and his companion's stop short.

It was an army. Sighaeris, the gloom king himself, at its head. And bouncing in Sighaeris' arms, oblivious as ever, was Squit.

Kiseron’s innards summersaulted. Out of the fire and into the gaping, molten pits of hell, he thought to himself.

Sighaeris smirked at their pathetic trio. He held out his arms, releasing Squit but keeping him suspended in mid-air. Squit cooed happily at the sensation.

Read the damn room, you bag of tiny bones, thought Kiseron.

Sighaeris extended his hand over the floating Squit, palm and fingers flexed over the infant’s bulbous head.

“You’ve got something of mine,” Sighaeris said, his voice whispery, but firm, “and I believe this child is significant to you. Give me the stone, and the child remains unharmed. Hesitate, and I take the essence of this oblation into my own.”

Kiseron did not hesitate, despite logically knowing that he probably should. He tossed the stone to Sighaeris, who caught it easily in his free hand without so much as a tracking glance.

Sighaeris’ mouth twitched and Squit floated easily back into his arms.

“Alright, you’ve got it,” Lothnar said, “give us the child.”

Sighaeris’ eyebrows lowered in an expression you might give to a confused student. “You mistake,” he said. “I’ll keep my word, the child will not be harmed, but it stays with me I’m afraid.”

Sighaeris fondly handed the ever-curiously grasping child the Shade Stone as if it were a fun plaything for the toddler to distract himself with. Squit took it in a meaty hand and shook it carelessly. He brought it up to his wet mouth and began sucking on it, biting it with the nubs of teeth that poked from his enflamed gums.

They were lucky to still be alive, Kiseron knew. They probably shouldn’t push that luck by trying to argue. Yes, their mission had failed fantastically, but they could regroup and fight another day. Still, Kiseron wracked his mind desperately for some other contingency.

Lothnar pulled softly at Kiseron’s shoulder, urging him to go. Without a word, the trio backed down from under Sighaeris’ challenging gaze.

A sudden crack broke the dejected silence.

All eyes looked toward the origin of the sound. All eyes looked at Squit.

The crystal Squit had been chewing on was…breaking. Purple dust coated the infant’s mouth and only a partial crystal remained in his meaty grasp.

Sighaeris cursed, dropping the child while tearing the remaining crystal from its fat hand.

Only Squit did not fall to the dusty ground. He remained floating. The shock on Sighaeris’ face made it obvious that this trick was not his doing.

Then it happened. The infant's eyes took on a slight purple vibrancy and the Shade, in all their twisted ranks, began to stalk swiftly from the tree line and into the open, desolated town.

Kiseron had never seen Shade move so deliberately. They flowed toward Sighaeris and his army, intentionally giving Kiseron and his companions a wide berth. Before the army had a chance to think or flee, the Shade began to fall upon them.

Soldiers attempted to defend themselves with silver weapons. Sighaeris tried to avert the wave of oncoming wraiths with constructs of bone. But the sheer number of Shade rendered both efforts fruitless.

The army and Lord Necromancer, in all his dark aura and abilities, were gruesomely overcome and devoured by the ubiquitous, monotonous Shade scourge. All under direction of a tiny chunk of a person with only basic instincts.

Squit gleefully floated back to the ground in the wake of the carnage, the glow going out of his eyes.

Kiseron exchanged a glance with Lothnar and Djinn and, after a slight, stunned hesitation, quickly bounded to where Squit sat hitting his meaty hands together. Kiseron scooped the infant up by its drool-soaked garb and the small band ran from the town clearing as fast as they could fathom.