Eritance - Chapter 12

At this point, I was thinking that the pain from the dire wolf hanging on to my arm was driving me crazy. Besides, now that I thought about it, I was only hearing Ross in my head. This probably meant that if I could kill the other dire wolf, the voices in my head would go away.

With that, I knew what I had to do. I immediately stabbed the dire wolf in the eye. A yelp could be heard from the dire wolf as the knife went into its eye. However, the dire wolf did not let go. Instead it dug its teeth in deeper to my forearm. “Aghhhhhh” I couldn’t help but yell out.

At that Ciara, grabbed a large branch and swung it at the dire wolf. With a loud crack the branch could be heard slamming into the dire wolf’s side. This of course, did little damage to the dire wolf. Instead, it merely annoyed the dire wolf. The dire wolf continued to focus on me. At this point, my arm was bleeding profusely, and I was in quite a bit of pain. “Don’t be such a wimp, it’s only one little dire wolf. If I were still alive I could kill twenty of them myself” the voice of Ross said. “Shut up” I mumbled to myself. “What are you even saying?? I wasn’t even talking. Excuse me for trying to help!” Ciara grumbled at me.

I didn’t want to bother trying to explain to Ciara that I was hallucinating the voice of my dead friend Ross. I focused on trying to get the dire wolf off me. An idea struck me. As the small knife was already lodged in its eye, I decided to try to hammer the knife in more. With each swing of my fist the wolf yelped, and the knife dug in a little bit more. After several swings the dire wolf couldn’t take the pain and ran off with the knife deeply lodged in its eye.

I breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed on the ground. “You need to stop that bleeding, or it will get worse” Ciara said. “Hold on” she continued as he tore of a strip of her clothing. She tied the strip around my arm. I felt very awkward as she did this. I didn’t expect someone from the Somers mansion to be kind enough to do this, especially not his daughter.

“Thanks” I mumbled stiffly. “What, are you too shy to speak to girls? Didn’t I teach you anything?” the voice of Ross chimed in. “Huh, this is really weird” I thought to myself. I had thought that as soon as the dire wolf stomped chomping down on me and the pain lessened I would stop hallucinating. “I’m not a hallucination you dolt” the voice of Ross shouted at me. “I can hear your thoughts you know”.

Becoming somewhat alarmed I tried to ignore the voice of Ross, really thinking that I was falling further and further into a crazed state. “Calm down, you’re not hallucinating. However, I’m not exactly Ross anymore either” the voice said.

“How do you have Ross’ voice then?” I inquired, deciding to play along with my own delusion. “Didn’t you pay attention? You inherited the power of the relic. However, during that time, as I was dying, part of my soul was absorbed and transferred into you as well”. I thought things were getting really crazy now. “What relic? What power?” I couldn’t help but think.

“The box you had found. It turns out it was a relic. However, it wasn’t just any relic. It was a relic of the beast warriors” Ross said. I of course, had heard of relics. These were mysterious powers that took various forms that had been passed down from ancient tribes. Relics were not very common at all. Perhaps only one out of every one thousand people had a chance to get the power of a relic. The powers usually varied depending on the tribe that the relic belonged to. I had never heard of the beast warrior tribe before. “So, will I get unlimited magic power, the ability to fly, and telekinesis?” I asked Ross. “Of course not, this is the beast warrior tribe’s relic, it isn’t that kind of tribe”. I couldn’t help but feel dejected. After all, while learning magic was possible, those who found relics that belonged to magical tribes usually had a great boost in their magical capabilities, they always stood out as extremely powerful mages. The emperor himself had discovered an extremely ancient and powerful relic that gave him vast magical powers. With the power of his relic he was able to unify the lands and set himself up as emperor.

“So, what do I get then?” I asked Ross with a sigh. “If they weren’t famous, how strong could the beast warrior tribe be?” I thought to myself. “The beast warrior tribe is a proud and ancient tribe that no longer exists today” Ross started.

“The tribe mysteriously went extinct thousands of years ago. However, the relic that you got from them is indeed powerful.” Ross said. At that I perked up a bit. If the relic really is strong, I might be able to forge my own path soon after all. Inwardly I began to jump for joy. Thinking about the name, I wondered if it meant I would have the strength of many beasts, or if perhaps I could talk to animals and make my own beast army. “The beast warriors relic gives you the power of absorption. You are able to absorb some of the power of beasts that you slay” Ross said.

“I was shocked. It was more powerful than I could even have imagined. I envisioned myself slaughtering millions of horned rabbits and gaining ultimate power. I smile spread across my face. However, this was of course too good to be true. “Of course, there are restrictions that come along with this. You can’t exceed your body’s capacity for power” Ross said. Instantly, my dreams were shattered. So, there were limits after all. “What a rip-off” I thought. “This must be the weakest tribe ever”.