(I want to apologize for any spelling mistakes as I'm posting from a new computer which lacks any programs with spell check. *Edits 'apologize' for spelling.* To NSO readers: I'm just taking a bit of a break is all. ) The sun sweeps across the landscape bringing the dawn of a new day. Just like it always does, always has, always will. This time I woke in the prairie North of the small mountain range where my old home was. I snapped fully awake once I realised where I was, then climbed to my feet and gathered my belongings. I'd been running for two day straight and must have passed out from exhaustion. The sun was up now though and I had to keep moving. I threw the large broadsword over my back, picked up my small scorched pack along with my smaller longsword and headed north along the nearby dirt road. I ignored the injuries I'd taken. The ache of nearly every bone and joint, the burns and cuts covering my skin, none of them were enough to slow me down. As the permanent noonday sun beat down from above I tried to remember again. The escape was still a blur. The aliens, I didn't know their species at the time, considered my sentence of a seventeen year exile to be a pittance by their measure of time. Close to two years ago now I'd unknowingly helped to foil some attempt at taking control of the region, and while doing so killing someone of importance. They tracked me down, sent assasins and hunters and when that wasn't enough they sent a small army. Normally I just lead the hunters away and killed them in the mountains but they must have gotten tired of that trick. They surrounded our village and threatened to burn it to the ground if I wasn't brought forward to participate in what I think they called a 'blood hunt.' It was something that they did for prisoners back wherever they came from. I didn't particularily care, except that if I retured to my village while this hunt was still underway they'd kill everyone instead of just me. I didn't really have much of a choice. At best we had perhaps twenty men in the village that had fought at the shoals, myself among them, but they had more than a hundred. It didn't help my case any that I was an outlander, a stranger who'd been dragged into the village five years earlier half dead. The only help I'd ever really had was from another stranger to their town, a non-human girl that I eventually married. And then I'd been forced to leave. To just run away from it all litterally the day after my son was born. A thunder like rumble followed by a high pitched sound shook me out of my reverie. I knew they'd found me. As the noice increased in volume I started to run faster and glanced over my shoulder. An almost egg shaped vehicle made of dark metal streaked down out of the sky and began firing at the road. I threw myself into the natural ditch that had formed on one side of the dirt road. The weapon blew holes in the dirt surface, each shot causing the dirt to gyser up in small clouds of fire. The craft slowed before it could fly past my position and began to decrease it's altitude. I was up and running in the blink of an eye. It's weapon fired three more times but I was moving erratically enough that only bits of gravel pelted me. It started moving a little diffriently after that and I didnt realise why until it was nearly too late. When it passed above me four hatches on the underside opened and some of the tall thin limbed aliens dropped down. All four hit the ground slightly ahead of me with weapons drawn, a thick curved obsidian blade and an energy pistol. These were the same sort of hunters that had been sent to kill me before and I knew most of them had to be fairly young. I never slowed as I ran straight at the closest one, both hands on the sheath of my sword. With my right hand I swept my longsword out and caught the hunter's blade, sweeping it aside. With my left hand I drew a dagger and slashed the side of his neck. On the backswing I made sure to cut the front of his neck to be certain he went down. The dagger stuck so I let go of it. Grabbing the front of the hunter's clothing I wrenched his body arround to use as a shield. Just in time too because the other three trained their pistols and fired. One of the orange energy beams that lanced out missed entirely, probably trying to miss his comrade. The other two hit the body and burned a pair of craters in it's back. I threw my sword at the next closest hunter and the blade stabbed him in the upper chest. With a hand free I scopped up the pistol my first kill had dropped and fired at the other two. Both dodged away from each other and a few more shots hit the body I was using for cover, one burning clean through. I threw the corpse in the direction of one and rolled away, shooting at the other. My second shot burned off an arm above the elbow so I tracked fire at the other one. I dropped and rolled to avoid any shots and drew my remaining dagger. Beams struck the ground near me as I rolled but I was still able to throw the dagger, catching the previously uninjured one in the hand. Both remaining hunters, having taken hits to their pistol arms, charged me with their blades. I aimed at the armless one who was closer and pulled the trigger but my stolen pistol failed to fire. With no other option I blocked the incoming sword thrust with the pistol, the front guard and the energy cell cracking from the hit. I grabbed the hunter's wrist and elbowed him in the throat, and we both went down wrestling for the sword. I smashed the broken pistol into the other man's face and he went limp. The last hunter had waited for us to stop before striking. His sword came down as I rolled away slicing into my forearm. I kicked his nearest leg out from under him and he went down. I didn't bother going for any of the other weapons lying on the ground, I just jumped him and started punching. I slammed his sword arm against the ground until the weapon dropped from his hands and then hammered his face with my elbow. My right fist caught him in the throat just as he stabbed me with the dagger I'd put into his pistol hand. The hunter went limp. I`d stunned him enough that the dagger hadn`t penetrated far but it still hurt. I pulled the dagger from my back and slit the hunter`s throat for good measure. I grabbed my pack and tied off the wound to my arm but didn`t have any way to treat the cut to my back. One of the pistols still worked for the moment and my sword was intact so I retrieved it and my daggers. Just as I was about to startf off down the road again I heard the same echo of thunder and a slightly deeper whine than previously. I spotted a larger slower moving vehicle made of the same dark metal as the previous one. This one descended towards the road just south of me and began droping hunters much like the smaller ship had. This one dropped twenty though. I ran.
