Shredder
Gerard leapt over the fallen log with a nimble plant of one gloved hand, his lean form arcing through the moist morning fog. His bare feet absorbed a great deal of the impact as they pattered to the mossy earth in rapid succession. The mists consumed the remainder of his passage, clamping down on the noises with a choking undulation. Even Gerard’s labored breathing was lost amidst the gray waste that floated around him. The thrumming in his ears was paramount. That rhythmic hammering of his nectarine sized heart, rapid firing in his chest.
The sweat soaked Halfling wasn’t sure how long he had been running. The first day was clear enough at the time, but the ceaseless pursuit over the overgrown barrens was dissolving his sense of time and place. The perpetual silver hue and the lack of any disturbance in the stagnant weather made travel in the darklands difficult under the best of circumstances. That is, after all, the task for which he was trained. This mindless fleeing, a thin shadow blurring through the bland backdrop, was an altogether different matter. Many seasoned travelers had navigated the dead zone perimeter and had wandered into their final nightmare.
Gerard wasn’t about to join them.
He was raised a sight craftier than the average explorer and had taken a great shining to the wilds when presented with the opportunity to explore them. One of his trainers, a grizzled Barbarian named Uhrtok, had commented on Gerard’s uncanny knack for picking up trails and tidbits that others overlooked.
“A keen eye, that one,” the burly Human had grunted, “Almost makes you wonder if he’s bewitched!” The comment had garnered chuckles and jibes around the circle of the Rangers’ fire where Gerard had received a great deal of his preliminary training.
Nearly two years had passed since he had crossed words with Uhrtok, and the lifetimes of travel in between had set a great distance upon his heart, as it often did with his ilk. The Rangers of the lowlands tended to be solitary, serving the greater good of the trails, rarely embracing their wards with anything but the most rudimentary of social graces. The Ranger crossed more places, faces and trails than most would see in several lifetimes, and while the network of natural phenomena was highly comforting to those that called them home, the dens and ways of the civilized were often lost on the free spirits of the wilderness.
The fleeting thoughts of his recent adventures whipped across Gerard’s mind as smartly as the thin branches of the surrounding underbrush. His arms shielded him from the bulk of the flesh searching foliage, but he could not prevent all of the tendrils from finding purchase in his weathered skin. Rivulets of perspiration seared into the tiny cuts, serving to remind the Halfling that true pain awaited, eternal pain, should his legs falter. Pushing on with astounding stamina, his mind again found its way back to the recent turn of events.