"Dytanis, Chapter 1"

{Note from the Author: I've been working a little bit lately on some Fan Fiction from the Diablo universe. I have some ideas on how to extend it a little bit more with one or two other characters, but I though I'd post this little bit now and see how it fares. I'm hoping to post more on this website as I revive it (again).}

The blood was still fresh on the arrow. With daylight fading, keen eyes inspected it from tip to knock. His instrument of death was nearly intact. Only a few splinters on the shaft from scraping against demonic armor, and a few drops of blood on the fletching were the only visible damage. The arrow seemed to drink in the blood, becoming a dark red and quickly caking the entire shaft. It wanted more. The arrows always wanted more. The weight of the crossbow that fired it hung on the archer's waist, balanced delicately between protection and accessibility. He wanted to keep it close enough for a proper reaction, but far enough away so that he would not accidentally knock it against his belt buckles or reinforced armor. The touch of the bow was delicate. It sometimes amazed the hunter that such a fragile thing was capable of so much death. Then again, he had seen the Wizard at work. Her short stature and delicate features hid a fierce and capable warrior that rivaled the barbarians of the North.

Dytanis tossed the arrow aside and flipped the corpse over. His quiver would no longer need used arrows, and he was done scavenging the dead bodies of his prey. The Brotherhood had given him a quiver that was magically imbued, refreshing itself with arrows as quickly as he could empty it. His victim spouted more blood from the mouth as it rolled, adding more to the river of red that was quickly forming in the ditch in front of him. A few drops of rain landed on his hood. Without even looking up, the Demon Hunter shook his head. It was always raining in this forsaken land. The ground seemed saturated with it, and it choked out the plant life more than the dense, persistent fog that had enveloped this land in recent times. And though it killed the plants that clung desperately to life, it seemed to suck him into the earth, as if plant life was not enough. Even the very earth was trying to swallow him; a forsaken hunter, in a cursed and forsaken land. It was only fitting, he thought, still trying to shake those ageless memories from his head, for a man such as himself to die here.

It took only another half moment to realize it wasn't raining.

Dytanis turned quickly and pitched forward, but the spine from the quill fiend perched in the tree still hit. High in the shoulder, a mostly glancing blow. As he fell, the bow silently appeared from below his waist and into his hand. In one swift motion, he knocked an arrow to the middle of the drawstring. A quick pull of his muscles and the arrow was loosed. All of this was before he even had the target in sight. As his head moved around, he saw the beast in the dim fog. It was a long creature, about the size of a fox, but completely devoid of hair or fur. A long jaw with sunken and enraged eyes gave way to a long snout and a mouthful of teeth. It's bare skin revealed a stripe of quills on its back, enveloped by folds of large muscle and sinew. In a motion that Dytanis could only describe as sickening, quill fiends rotated their muscles and ejected the spines from their body at the target, tearing a small amount of flesh from the connective tissue. The spike would re-grow in time, but one could detail the number of victims these creatures took by the density of scars on their back.

"Always know your enemy," one of his teachers had told him once, "even when he is dead."

The arrow flew true to its mark. Dytanis' master had forced him to practice shooting bow, crossbow and spear from sitting or standing, and any position in between. A sudden memory flashed across his mind then. One of a thousand repetitions of standing, loading, crouching, firing, loading, jumping, firing. Over and over until his lungs burned from the exercise and his body cried out in exhaustion.

"Your enemy will never stop until you are dead," he once again heard his master's voice through his own labored breath, "better that you die on your own accord than give him the pleasure."

The thud from the impact of the arrow and the shriek that followed was enough to convince him that he hit his target. Dytanis did not have enough time to wonder if his target was dead. He trusted in his abilities with his life. Killing was second nature to him, like a woodsman knew how to cut birch or a chef knew how much herb to add to a soup. Assassination, trickery, death. Those were his ingredients. And tonight he had prepared a feast. Landing hard on his wounded shoulder, he knew that he had to ignore the pain. Quill fiends did not hunt by themselves. There would be more, and they craved a feast of their own.

He continued his momentum sideways and rolled once more feeling the air expand quickly and the sound of another quill missing its target. He quickly sprung to his feet and loosed another arrow in a fluid motion and stopped, his crossbow out in front of him and aimed toward the beast. The arrow ignited in an angry red color and hit its target, piercing straight through a quill fiend on the ground. It entered just below the shoulder at a low angle, piercing the heart. It traveled quickly through the beast's body and exited just above the tail, the arrow caked in blood. Dytanis noted how the arrow seemed almost human like in its hunger for blood.

The demon hunter stood perfectly still, yet another one of the beasts snarling to his right. As it's muscles tightened and it began the frighteningly quick process of expunging a quill from its back. However, the fiend never fired a true shot. The same arrow shot only a moment before turned in mid air and impacted the back of the beast's neck. With an enraged desperation, the beast vainly tried to launch a quill as its brain lost control of its muscles. A weak quill shot toward Dytanis as the demon died, and the hunter swatted it idly away, snorting in contempt.

Dytanis listened for the breathing of more enemies, his eyes and ears sharp. When none came, he allowed some of his muscles to relax for a moment. Slowly reaching over his shoulder, he winced as he touched the spike protruding from his armor. The leather mantle had lessened the impact somewhat, and it didn't go as deep as he expected, but he should have been more careful. He grabbed the end of the quill and felt along the small part of the shaft that was still exposed. He gripped it gingerly, but then his eye color changed. Shifting from a dark brown to a bright, blood red, Dytanis yelled in pain as he jerked his hand upward. The quill sprung free, and immediately the wound began to bleed. Dytanis smiled through gritted teeth as the arrows in his quiver shimmered a slight dark red.

"Becoming lost in your thoughts, even for a moment, can get you killed," he whispered, remembering the words of his master and tutor, "there are plenty of things from the darkness outside of your head that haunt you." Dytanis shrugged, disappearing into the deep woods as the rain finally appeared. The hunting would have to wait until after he got this injury tended. His true prey would be allowed to live for one more night.