Umbrag gazed out at the byway from underneath the shade the autumn foliage provided. He was quite enthused to be back in the Overworld, where sustenance was not only plentiful, but fresh. As if contemplating could make it so, he immediately noticed something coming down the path, and bared his canine-esque teeth in anticipation. Practically drooling at the fact that his upcoming morsel did not know it's imminent fate, Umbrag waited as his unsuspecting prey drew closer and closer. She would never even see what had ended her mortal existence.
**********
Down the road, not thirty paces in front of her, was an overturned cart, with its contents strewn about the area. The horse's throat had obviously been cut, but most of the blood seemed to have been cleaned from the area, and judging from the creature standing over the poor farmer's girl, she had no doubt the blood had been licked up. The creature loomed over the still warm corpse, its feast interrupted by Änater's arrival. "Oh God and Tribunal! Is that a Demon?!" she screamed inside her head, "It can't be; Demons haven't been seen in centuries!" Demons are also well known as beings born of flame, whereas this one seemed to radiate darkness and shadow. No, it seemed to be sucking in the light, and the area around it was dim, even for an overcast Fall day. The creature straightened suddenly, and took a step forward, causing Änater's horse to bolt away in fear. "Well, well, what have we here?" the creature asked in a condescending tone, "A Shield from the local barracks perhaps?" Änater was stunned, in all of recorded history, there were no tales that mentioned that Demons could speak; as far as she knew, there were no tales that said Demons could do anything other than murder and raze anything in their path. Finally she shook herself of her unbecoming hesitation, and answered with a clear voice, "I am Shield-maiden Änater, Second Lieutenant to Captain Prasule, who protects these lands, and you are not welcome here creature." "I am Umbrag," he responded with a cruel grin on his face, "and whom I serve is unimportant, as you have doubtless not heard his name. What is important, is that you are about to die."
She drew her sword, glowing with holy light, and hefted her shield in front of her, "Come then, foul beast." she challenged. With that, the Demon, for he could be nothing else, seemed to melt into the shadows around himself and disappear. Änater started, and began to search the shadows for him, but almost as soon as he was out of sight, suddenly he was right beside her, slashing at her with darkened bloody claws. She managed to raise her shield in time, but just barely, and was nearly knocked off of her feet by the force of the blow. She slashed at Umbrag as she backpedaled, but he avoided the clumsy swing easily, though he still shied away as it swung past him, and disappeared into nothingness as quickly as before. "He seems to not enjoy the light my sword brings," Änater thought quickly," Perhaps I can startle him with more of the same." She called upon the Tribunal's might as she had been taught, and light of the purest white exploded in an ever expanding dome through the area, seemingly knocking Umbrag out of thin air, and tossing him with ease to the ground. Änater nearly collapsed with exhaustion, she had not called on that much power in a long time, but she could not show weakness in front of the Demon, that would be death. She ran over to where he lay, and leveled her blade at his face, "Tell me Demon, whom do you serve, and are there more of you about? Answer!" He leaned away from the brightness, and replied, "You will know soon enough mortal woman, and you will wish I had killed you here and now. I will say nothing else." "Then die!" she roared as she raised her blade for the final blow, but before it could land, Umbrag evaporated into smoke. She looked around fastidiously for several minutes, convinced he would jump at her from some unforeseen angle, but he did not return. "I must make haste to the barracks! They must know what has happened here!", but as she turned around, she was hit with a wave of weariness. She collapsed in the road, and knew no more.
OK, so for anyone who missed the first post for some reason, I am fairly new to writing for anything besides schoolwork, and am using this blog to practice. Feel free to critique or offer advice, I honestly could use a lot of that, but please remain polite both to me and to other commenters.Two questions I specifically have, 1) Does anyone know how to indent the first word of each paragraph? I didn't spend much time looking, but I couldn't figure it out. Also, do I need to? It feels natural to, but I haven't noticed any other blogs doing it. 2) For the asterisk break I put in, is there a better way to do that? I wanted to distinguish that I was going to another point of view, and didn't think that just a paragraph break was sufficient. I have seen things like this used in books before, but nothing I tried here felt right, so any suggestions are welcome.
