England, West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
Woods of Dartmoor
5 November 1898, 10:00 p.m.

There was a loud rustling sound. Something was moving away over the telltale rustling leaves that at this time of year screamed out every movement like a bell-bright alarm. Kyle took a half step back, feeling the Doctor's larger back behind him. It was of the same tension that made Kyle's heart sprint, as hard and unyielding as a tree. It helped to tame his increasingly frantic heartbeat a little. It made him feel safe and Kyle had to admit to himself that every mage could use a man like Archer to shield one's back while he formed the formulas from his memory.

Another crackle of dead leaves, this time on Kyle's side. Instantly his mind was away from Archer again, its advantages and the danger of the present. Kyle raised the lantern. The light made the shadows swing aside and at the same time pushed far deeper black spots elsewhere. A few leaves still moved, one sailing to the ground from a thin branch. Something moved in the thicket, then it was at Dr. Archer. His arm shot toward the spot like a snake intent on snapping at a mouse. A wild storm of tension swirled inside him and Kyle pointed the staff into the darkness. Again the laughter swung up, then rustled again.

"It's circling us!" hissed Kyle. His fingers tightened around the piece of wood, longing for a way to finally release the pressure inside him! The most terrifying part was the draining seconds before the attack happened or the cursed curtain of uncertainty was finally lifted.

"What do you want? Who are you!" blasphemed Kyle into the darkness.

But again only derisive laughter answered. All at once, the darkness seemed to draw darker, as a waft of dense fog accompanied by biting cold moved in, causing the temperature around them to drop furiously. Kyle felt the sting of the countless needles on his cheeks, the unpleasant tug of the winter chill that had risen all too suddenly. Frost formed on the trunks around them, drawing up its white diamonds and shimmering flowers of shimmering ice crystals settled on leaves and bushes. The bog waters crackled under the sudden drop in temperature as a layer of thin ice stretched across them. 

The glass of their lanterns and the metal groaned, the flames in the glass cases desperately fighting to go out. White clouds now rose into the air in front of their mouths from their heated bodies, evaporating until the next breath condensed a new breath. Icy shivers, one after another, flowed over the men's skin, raising the fine hairs beneath clothing that all at once failed to warm the body and soul beneath.

"Where is the girl?" Dr Archer's voice thundered irritably into the darkness. Laughter rang out again, as mocking as if he had said something terribly stupid.

The wisps of thick fog drew tighter and tighter around them like a circle of lurking hunters moving in the shadows beyond. Ready to strike from ambush at any moment. Kyle clenched his jaws. Something in the air changed. It rolled over them like an invisible wave, at the same time pressing them down relentlessly. Kyle felt the grinding of his rows of teeth shifting over each other as his body and mind alike rebelled against it. Pressure rose in his chest, making his pulse tighten and his palms damp and clammy under his leather gloves.

"Kyle." The doctor's voice had an alarmed, dark tone. The mage knew what he was about to tell him even before the soldier spoke further.

"I know." He pressed out, trying to breathe calmly and concentrate. It was the same sickening feeling as when he had flown over the forest. The light of their lanterns flickered before his eyes and Kyle could hear his breath and heartbeat even louder than the sounds of danger around him. Was he wrong, or did it smell like sulfur and pumice?

"Dark art." Kyle hissed, at the same time racking his brain as to what sinister spell it could be. Whether he knew it and how he could break it. As if he hadn't asked himself that question dozens of times before without finding an answer. Yet his mind just wouldn't give up. Almost as if the answer lurked somewhere behind one of the winding corridors of his memories.

Then a loud wolf's howl sounded, swinging into the night on the moonlight hidden behind pines and mist. Another joined it, then another, all around them like a chant to their doom. The approaching sounds and silhouettes made his thoughts shatter like glass.

Was that a wolf in the thicket there? Or a human? Kyle could hardly interpret the shadows, for in the next moment they had simply disappeared again, rushing their gazes from one spot to the next. Dr Archer's irises were also literally jumping back and forth, trying to keep up and be ready at the right moment should an attack occur. His fingers tingled hotly and his index finger was already twitching on the trigger of the revolver.

"Who I am. Who I am. Who I am." it chanted from all directions. In the voice of a child, in the voice of a boy, in the voice of a man, in the voice of an old scratchy woman. Sometimes it sounded as if several voices were speaking at once in an unequal chorus. It rasped across her nerves like the shrill sound of a suffering violin over which an unpractised child drew the bow too roughly and tortured everyone within range of the sound with it.

Where before it had been deathly quiet, now sounds struck her tense nerves. The rustling of dead leaves. Cracking of wood. Smacking of mud as something crossed it. In the shadow play of lantern light and veils of mist, a massive figure flitted through the thicket just a few meters past them. Then something flitted lithely like a snake along between two trees. Kyle felt his muscles tremble from the overload of all those impressions and the constant tension.

"I am your death!" it hissed all at once in a childish voice, laced with the sickening baritone of smoky darkness. Far too close. Almost as if the speaker was standing directly behind them, hissing his words directly into their ears.

Kyle and Dr. Archer both wheeled around out of reflex, making the mistake they should never have made: they turned their backs on the forest.

They realized their mistake the moment they looked into each other's eyes. Both big and full of realizing terror. They drew in their breath sharply, but it was already too late for remorse. Then a loud, shuddering growl sounded behind Benjamin. The sound of massive jaws snapping open with a grunt, ready to snap and dig into the flesh of their prey.

The booming bang of his gun shattered the soundscape as Dr. Archer wheeled around and the shot from his revolver fired the bullet towards the enemy with a deafening rumble. The smell of gunpowder permeated the air with the metallic note. The brief flash of light announced approaching death like a flare. The bullet flew. It tore open the dense clouds of mist as if they were water, which receded to the side, and the bullet punched a hole in the trunk of a fir tree. Wood burst and splintered.

All at once, dozens of ravens screaming loudly rose from the dense crowns of the mighty fir tree that adorned this place like the center of a clock. It was impossible to tell whether the beasts had just been summoned or had only been startled by the shot. The black shadows fluttered around the two men as a dense swirl of a disorderly storm.

It was a single, deafening tangle of feathers, wing beats, sharp beaks, and the flashing of small claws that tore at their clothing. Again and again, sharp beaks pecked at the men. At their necks, their faces, their necks, and their hands. The ravens drew their circle ever tighter. With each swoop and attack, they grew bolder as if they had tasted blood. Kyle blinked, but there were only terrifying, fluttering wings, beaks, and talons everywhere. Fabric gave way tearingly, claws stabbing like tiny blades through their coats again and again at points.

Both could feel blood running down their necks and hands from the spots torn into their flesh. Heat seeped over their skin under their clothes. The beasts tangled in their hair pecked at their faces and especially at their eyes. The beats of wild wings hit their heads like slaps. There were only shadows and black feathers everywhere, so they raised their arms and flapped wildly to stop the attack. In this tangle, it was difficult to hear one's thoughts at all amidst the pain and thumps in one's chest.

The beasts were completely beside themselves. They had no regard for their own lives, shooting at them again and again. When they missed, some of them hit one of the surrounding trees or crashed to the ground, writhing with shattered wings. There just seemed to be no end to it, no matter how many eventually fell to the ground dying.

Another shot cracked, and one of the accursed beasts fell like a stone into the depths. He hit the forest floor and lay there motionless.

"There are too many!" roared Benjamin in a battle frenzy, trying to drown out the wild noise of all the flapping wings and formless screeching. There was no point in shooting, it was just a waste of ammunition. Benjamin had quickly realized this and so he struck at the bastards with fist and gun. The metal of his weapon clanged ironically as it smashed against a raven's body, throwing the bird a little away in mid-air. Unlike Kyle, who was flailing his arms at nothing, the doctor seemed far more successful. Despite the beasts' chance of catching him in the brief pause, he lunged more deliberately, hitting a feathered critter or two as they trundled in flight. Some caught themselves again, and two or three fell to the ground where they twitched and crowed disorientated with broken wings. Twitching bodies clustered around his feet. Feathers tumbled all around them, black as coal-blackened snow.

A raven tore at Kyle's hand with its curved talons, slicing through the leather to the back of his hand, and with a scream, the lantern fell from the mage's hands. Clattering, the glass shattered on the floor. The glass casing tilted and the light went out instantly, smothered by a frosty breeze.

Somewhere without direction, Kyle thought he heard a smoky, sinister laugh.

It was watching them! It was taunting them and toying with them! He let out a yelp as razor-sharp claws loosened the threads of his coat, the sleeve flipped open and sharp claws dug into his shoulder like pointed forks. He struck at it and the beast, close to his eye, tore the flesh of his temple down to his cheek. Hot pain shot into his perception, overlaying all the screeching and screaming of the black messengers of death. He felt the warmth of his blood flowing down his cheek and dripping from his chin as it stood out seething hot against the stinging cold.

'That's enough!" it flashed through the mage's mind in dark anger. A dark shadow overlaid the clear blue of his eyes and poured sinister ink into his thoughts. His nose wrinkled and he bared his teeth like an animal as he gripped the staff tighter and pulled his other arm in front of his face. Closing his eyes, he blanked out the eerie screams. Then the near growl. He opened his lips, raised his wand in the air, and was about to begin reciting the formula when all at once the laughter died down and the haphazard attacks stopped. As if his enemy had guessed what was about to follow. Like a whirlpool of living smoke, the swarm fluttered higher in an upward-spiraling circle.

Then Kyle felt it again. His heart stopped, and his body paused in mid-motion and every thought. Icy claws reached directly into his chest, burrowing beneath the surface, and he gasped as they forced all the air out of his lungs.

Dr. Archer seemed to feel the same way, because he also stopped moving, breathing noticeably harder all at once. But Kyle was visibly harder hit, and under the pain, in his chest, he pressed a hand to his chest.

Then a dull thud sounded. Then another. Feathers rose, and something hit Kyle in the shoulder, then in the head, and with widened eyes he stared at the bodies of ravens writhing on the ground, twitching madly as if electrified.

"Look out!" groaned Dr. Archer hoarsely and breathlessly as a rain of dead bodies came down on them abruptly. Drumbeats of dead bodies and falling feathers mingled with mist and cold. The dull thuds hammered them as they fell from the sky. Dozens of ravens fell like discarded dolls at their feet, piling up in bizarre heaps.

Kyle pressed his arm in front of his face, though it took away his vision. Again and again, a feathered body hit him. Everywhere, like punches whizzing down on him. He felt the shower rain down on them and heard one or two birds' necks crack from the impact. His heart accompanied each of those erratic downfalls. Dodom. Dodom. Dodom. Rapid as a crescendo gaining speed. So rushed that cold sweat was on his skin and he could barely force a breath into his lungs. Twitching and quivering, the dead cadavers landed at their feet like a blackened carpet of shining coal. Eyes were large and black, while the final convulsions finally brought their bodies to a halt and the deafening cawing to silence. A single image of horror and death.

Then it was silent again and only the wild throbbing in his chest rushed with his pulse in his ears. Breathing heavily, Kyle raised his head. The blood on his face smeared on his arm, tracing an obscure war paint of his blood across his skin. He immediately let the staff travel forward again, ready for the counterattack or in anticipation of the next attack. The formula was on his lips, ready to burst out and catch the next enemy that would come into his view.

But the white-grey mist alone closed him back into its tight embrace and Kyle's breath caught.

"Benjamin!" he groaned out. But there was no one left to hear him.