Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 2

Kaduress, energy-lance braced against his hip, fired twice into the undergrowth without aiming, and Medaa followed that with a more precisely-directed shot from his hand-lance. That third shot coaxed a snarl of pain from amongst the trees, but that was all, and nothing like enough to stop Sterrmas's killer.

The creature that crashed into view was a Cursed, but one like nothing either hunter had seen before, with heavier, darker scales, terrible dead-white eyes and a mouth filled with wicked fangs, streaming with fresh blood...

Kaduress didn't have the chance to fire again, falling under the monster's hooves and crushed into the dirt before he could cry out. Medaa shouted to the Cursed Gara-Morsa to flee, but the words died on his lips as the toughened barb at the end of the monster's saw-like tail slashed across his chest, opening two of his lungs to the air. He staggered back, clutching at the bubbling wound, the breath escaping from his body before he could benefit from it...

Medaa slipped in the mud, and fell backwards. The last thing he saw the monstrous Cursed, looming over him, dripping the blood of his friends onto his face - then everything was washed out by a flood of crimson, accompanied by a fiery warmth, that quickly faded into icy blackness...

His last thought was that he would never know what the Gara-Morsa Cursed looked like in her natural form. He got the definite impression she would have been a real beauty...

I will never take my powers for granted again - not after seeing the carnage I could have prevented had I been in full command of my psionic abilities. Kaduress, the one who'd been so eager to help, was dead before I'd fully realised what was happening, and I think Medaa was trying to tell me to get away before the dark-scaled Cursed, more dragon than horse, cut him down with its tail... then crushed his chest in its jaws...

...and started to eat him.

The Cursed is deserving of the title "monster", a nightmare vision in every respect, with those cold, dead-seeming eyes staring out of a narrow reptilian face bulked out by a layer of thick, horny scales, crowned with not the usual two horns, but four - two short horns just above the ears, the main horns, above the first pair, great curved swords, with saw-like "teeth" along the upper edge, like the creature's long and deadly tail. This one is stockier than Asor, built more for power than swiftness and agility, but he's clearly capable of enough speed to catch hunters off-guard...

The monster looks up, gory strands of flesh hanging from his jaws. "Don't think I've forgotten about you, dainty one", he growls, "and don't shed a tear for... these. Hunt or be hunted, that's the way out here..."

The Cursed throws his head back, gulping down the dangling entrails. "...and if you can't handle the blood and pain, stay in the city, where you obviously belong."

The beast turns away from his meal, and starts moving towards me. "But before you go, pretty one", he snarls, licking the blood from around his mouth, "I think I'm owed something for my efforts. After all, I did save you from those Gara-Morsa weaklings - don't know why they didn't finish you off when they... had you..."

Those awful white-on-white eyes narrow, and I have no doubt left that there's a double meaning to what he's saying. In his mind, there's no other payment I can possibly offer, other than myself. Normally, my response to such advances would be something along the lines of "In your dreams", but normally I'd have power to back up my resistance, and right now, this monster has all the advantages - I can run, and perhaps outpace him, but one wrong step and any hope of escape is lost.

I back away, glancing this way and that for the safest way out of my predicament, but there are rocks everywhere, and undergrowth to all sides, perhaps hiding all manner of natural pitfalls. My retreat then comes to a sudden halt as I back into a tree, and I have nowhere left to go...

"You don't find many females alone out here", murmurs the monstrous Cursed, sniffing the hot air that billows from my nostrils as he comes close enough to almost touch me. "It's been a long time since I last mated..."

I'm going to fight. He gets any closer, I'll rear up, and bring my hooves down in his face, hopefully blinding him. In his panic, he'll hopefully leave me an opening, and if I can call up a cloak of invisibility, I stand a chance of getting away...

His nose passes close to my ear. "Submit", he whispers. "I wouldn't want to hurt you - too much."

I feel his stinking breath against my neck - he's going for my mane...!

The monster is suddenly hurled to one side, before he can take a hold of me - knocked away from me by a sleek, pale shape, mane and tail-fringe flowing in his wake. "No, Zserreth!", roars my saviour. "You will leave her alone!"

Asor. Praise The Goddess, it's Asor...

My fellow Guest of The Keepers, my dear, wonderful friend places himself between me and the other Cursed - a brave gesture, given that this "Zserreth" is broader, heavier by maybe a third, and has that more substantially armoured skin, on his head, and down his neck, tail and the front of both pairs of legs...

"I was here first", mutters the blood-spattered monster, holding his head low, and looking up at Asor in a rather menacing manner, as though he was a snake, poised to strike. "I risked injury to save the female from hunters..."

"And what makes you any better than them?", demands Asor, tail lashing back and forth angrily. "They are dead, and you were about to force yourself on a complete stranger, who is clearly lost and confused..."

"And how, dare I ask, do you know anything about that one?", snarls Zserreth, jerking his head upward, in my direction.

"She is my friend", declares Asor, mirroring Zserreth's moves as the blue-grey-scaled monster edges sideways. "She finds herself here through no choice or fault of her own, and I will defend her with my life."

I'd prefer not to have Asor put himself in danger on my behalf, and my mind is reeling as I try to come up with some way to help him. I have expanded my magical knowledge in recent months, through my own studies and tuition volunteered by Talona, and so there are quite a few "spells" available to me, many of which I haven't had the chance to try in the heat of battle. I've used a Spectral Blade spell in the past, during the "Helfyre Incident", but without hands to guide it, such a conjuration could be a bigger threat to me than to any adversary. I may have to be more inventive, maybe even attempt to shape some magic of my own...

For now, however, there seems to be some kind of stalemate, Zserreth and Asor both holding their ground. Understandably, Asor seems agitated, glancing back at me every now and then, and scraping at the ground with his back left hoof...

Could... could he be trying to tell me something...?

In the end, it's Zserreth who makes the move. He relaxes, lifting his head so that his gaze is level with Asor's, then he walks over to where Kaduress's crumpled body lies. "I will withdraw", mutters the monster, dipping his head to sniff at the corpse of the hunter, "but I am still... hungry. You will not, surely, deny me sustenance?"

"You disgust me", snorts Asor. "You, and your kind, disgust everyone..."

"I take this", growls Zserreth, "and I leave you both in peace. Deny me my prey, and I will always be on your tails, all the way to civilisation - if you get there in one piece. One way - or another - I will be... satisfied."

Had I any meaningful say in the matter, I would demand the Gara-Morsa's body be left unviolated, so that such a charitable soul could perhaps be laid to rest in a dignified fashion, but Asor only has my safety in mind. "Take your... prey, and go", mutters my friend. "If there's any scrap of civilisation left in you, you'll leave my friend alone..."

Zserreth says nothing more, picking up Kaduress's body in his jaws, as easily as a child picks up a doll, and heading back into the undergrowth - but not before he glances back at me, with pale, narrowed eyes, his expression letting me know that I haven't seen the last of him.

Asor holds his position for some time after his monstrous adversary vanishes into the under-forest, then he turns away, and moves to my side. "Didn't you hear me?", he asks. "I tried to tell you to get away, up the slope..."

"I didn't hear anything", I reply. "If you were expecting me to pick up your thoughts, I can't - my powers... they're not working..."

Asor looks back at the bushes and young trees into which Zserreth disappeared with his prey. "We're safe for now", he says, anxiously. "We have to get back to the city, as soon as possible."

"But my things...", I mumble, helplessly. "My boots..."

"We don't have the time", Asor tells me, firmly. "I'm sorry - it's too dangerous out here for us to worry about anything like that... I'm sorry..."

My friend rubs his nose against my neck, then he moves away, and starts walking up the slope of the hill, plainly expecting me to follow, without delay. I start to follow, but I can't stop myself from looking back at the clearing, and the boot hanging in the branches of one of the trees, swinging in the stiffening breeze - if that bastard Zserreth dares to show himself again, I'll make him pay...

Having spent much of the day overseeing another practice alert, Sector Security Co-ordinator Bralzis was almost looking forward to getting back to his desk in the main civic defence complex of the Gara-Morsa city of Tol'Latla, but there was too much paperwork stacked up there for him to even consider relaxing. Sighing heavily, the aging Gara-Morsa warrior sat, peeled the top sheet off the stack of reports and requisition forms nearest to his right hand, and scanned through what was written - much to his regret.

"Another bunch of missing hunters?", he sighed, slapping the report back down on the pile from which it had come. "If they come crawling home drunk come sun-wakening, I'll bring 'em up on charges. If not, I may just consider sending out a patrol - I just can't waste anyone on a false alarm, not with all that's happening..."

Bralzis's eyes strayed towards the window, and the military base on the edge of town. The military were unusually active lately, and there was clearly something significant going on over there. For now, he was prepared to tolerate constantly being told that his security ranking was insufficient for him to be told what was happening, but there would come a time when he would have to be told.

If it was going to be an attack on the Gara-Laserma, it couldn't come too soon. More and more of the hunters who actually made it home were coming back with stories of nightmarish discoveries in the forests, and encounters with creatures that sounded just too horrible to be real...

...to be continued...

Posted at 16:44 on 22.04.2009


~ o O o ~


Previously...
Mane-of-Night And The Watcher From Beyond - Chapter 1 - 21.06.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 14 - 17.05.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 13 - 15.05.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 12 - 13.05.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Dark Child's Descent - Chapter 11 - 11.05.2009