"Why?" Aesmin heard Enmon snap, nearly spitting out the word. She sat next to what was left of their night's fire and did her best not to look over to the quiet conversation going on a few strides away. Well, quiet until now at least.
"The Mage almost killed you. In fact, he did! Why the fuck would you go back to him?"
What?
Aesmin paused, her mind running to catch up, the cold of the morning air forgotten. The mage, as in magic? Surely not. Maybe 'Mage' was the name of some gang leader? There were such groups in the slums. That was part of the reason why she spent much of her time outside of it.
That would make sense, she thought. She could certainly see Enmon being a part of one. Y'rid, on the other hand, didn't quite fit. He wore the clothes of a commoner, not an alley rat. And he lacked that look Enmon had in his eyes. The same look she had seen in many of the other people living in the slums. The kind of look that said he was expecting the worst and that the worst was late.
She picked up the largest stick that was left of their firewood from the previous night and pushed around some of the remaining embers in the firepit.
"He can help me regain my memories—"
"You mean the memories he wiped out in the first place? The memories of scratching out a living in the gods be damned alleys of the city? The memories of barely having enough to eat to stay alive, of watching others like us drop off with each cold spell? Those memories?" Enmon's voice rose with each statement, ending in a shout.
The stick in her hand slowed.
"There is something else." She heard Y'rid say. "The mage's spell left some residual damage. It has to be fixed, or it'll just grow worse."
With that, Aesmin's movement halted entirely. Were they actually talking about a real mage? She forced herself to continue with her task of rearranging dying embers.
"Let me guess, the mage told you that? And of course, he is the only one that can heal you, right?"
The sarcasm in Enmon's voice was overpowering.
"No, I discovered it myself. In fact, I didn't want to go to the mage, and after I did, I was the one to ask for his help."
She did look over to them then. Enmon seemed taken aback by Y'rid's words. He stared at their other companion for a while before shaking his head. "You are walking into the mouth of a beast."
With that, he turned and walked off. Aesmin saw Y'rid looking after with a regretful expression. She turned back to the firepit as he sighed. The stick she had used had blackened at the tip and started smoking.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Y'rid move over to where he had slept and pick up his sword. "You heard all of that?"
She stiffened. "You weren't exactly quiet."
"...No, I suppose we weren't. I'll not be joining you for a part of the day's walk," he confirmed anyway.
Aesmin hesitated but then spoke. "You know I joined this group with the idea that we all work together to find food."
Y'rid strapped on his swordbelt as he spoke. "Don't worry, whatever you two find while I'm not there is split between the two of you. Fair?"
She looked at him. They were barely getting enough to keep going as it was. And with the increase in people foraging, they had to go out further and further and search the entire day to get what they did. And he was willing to give up a part of that?
"You can ask," Y'rid interrupted her thoughts as he stared off in the direction Enmon had walked. "But I'll most likely not give you the answer you're looking for."
Aesmin nodded slowly. She decided to throw out a question anyway. "So are you off to meet the mage?"
She kept her voice lighthearted, and Y'rid chuckled.
"No, not yet. I'm going to train with the hunter teaching me first."
Right. The beastblighted.
Aesmin watched as he walked off, wondering exactly what she had gotten mixed up with.
----------------------------------------
Lerann went over the symbols he had jotted down on the parchment. They weren't runes though, having no active reagents that could channel one's spirit. No, these were mere markings of ink. A way to run through the ideas in his head.
He reached over and picked up a thin, leather-bound notebook. He traced a hand over its worn cover, it was the very same one he had taken with him when he fled all those terms ago. A copy of the rune array for resurrection. It was also in ink, of course, scrawled across many pages in extreme detail so that it could be used as a reference for the inscription. He flipped through the pages and stared at the black lines, as though doing so might give him the understanding that had eluded him for much of his life.
He had thought he had gotten close, and in a way, he was sure he did. His own version of the ancient spell had managed to bring back someone from the dead. An altered version of resurrection that still worked was unheard of, and even more impressive when considering the changes made. But the damage done to the subject's spirit was not something Lerann had expected.
Once again, he scanned over the lines, trying to figure out exactly where the safeguards were. Each rune had a purpose, like the strings of a lute. And like those strings, they could be played and combined in so many different ways.
Half of the problem was simply how skilled the mages of old were. Runes could be connected to others in different ways. The most elementary of these was to just start the next where the previous had ended, stringing them together into a very simplistic array.
This was, however, horribly wasteful. Both in terms of reagents used to inscribe the array and, more importantly, in terms of spiritual strength needed to use it. This made it viable for only the smallest of arrays. A far better way was to combine runes in such a manner that similar parts overlapped, allowing seamless transition from one to the other with minimal strain. This was the mark of an experienced mage.
Rune arrays from the Golden Age, however.... they were so intertwined and interwoven that one couldn't tell where one rune ended and the next began. Everything blurred together in a mass of scribbling madness, one that seemed to form a single massive and impossibly intricate symbol instead of an array.
Copying and inscribing such an array was one thing. Actually understanding what you did was another entirely.
The first step would be to puzzle out what all of the components were. A daunting task, considering that no one knew all of the runes. Mages tended to guard their knowledge with fanaticism and only traded them for things of equal value. It was a ridiculous practice in his opinion, one that left everyone a little more ignorant. It also meant that there were many runes that he wouldn't even know existed. One could be staring him in the face, and he would dismiss it as part of another.
The second step was to figure out how they worked together. What the function of each was as part of the whole. Even after so many terms of studying a single array, he hadn't succeeded at either.
He had finally felt that he knew enough for a few trials, however. Enough to puzzle out the rest as he went along. Honestly, he didn't suspect the spell to work as well as it did, spiritual damage notwithstanding. He had suspected he would be running fruitless tests for at least another couple of terms, changing runes here and there to figure out what the effects were. The first eight trials were exactly that, ending in the death of each subject without even so much of a twitch after.
He glanced over to the side, where a stack of rough and uneven pieces of parchment lay. On them were the practice arrays Ivy had made. There was barely any overlapping. Where there were, it was done in the hesitant hand of an apprentice. Easy to read and understand.
What he would give to get his hands on such scribblings of an apprentice from the Golden Age...
It had always struck him as ironic that the greatest find from the past would not be the rune arrays created by masters. No, it would be the practice drawings of their students.
The things he could learn...
Unfortunately, those were most likely done on the same quality of parchment that he gave to Ivy and handled with the same lack of care. In the thousand terms that had passed since The Fall, such pieces would have turned to dust. Those that weren't would be far from legible.
What a waste.
A knock came from the front of the caravan, where the driver's bench was located outside. The sound shook him out of his thoughts.
"Yes?" He asked, projecting his voice just a little to be easily heard through the walls and over the turning of the wheels.
"Master Lerann," came the muffled voice of his apprentice. "They are here."
A smile touched Lerann's lips. "Send them around to the back."
He stood up with the eagerness of a child expecting a present. He quickly strode over to the door, before pausing and composing himself. He didn't care much for propriety and such things, but his station made it difficult to ignore them entirely. People tended to react badly to an overenthusiastic mage.
Lerann opened the door, his eyes landing immediately on the red-eyed hunter who was keeping pace with the moving caravan. He still wasn't sure as to the man's purpose.
His attitude certainly wasn't that of a scholar, and his status as a Thalsman suggested that he wasn't a spy for another mage. He carried himself with that relaxed arrogance that Lerann had seen in some younger men who believed themselves to be invincible. He would have been willing to write it off as just that—arrogance—were it not for the hunter's eyes. There was something that lurked behind them, a peculiarity of his Order. Having the hunter here as the master of his subject made matters a bit more complicated but not by much.
His eyes moved from the hunter to the subject in question. He couldn't believe his luck when the young man had asked for what he did. He could only be grateful that the injury had manifested in a delusion that would drive the man to such desperation for his 'memories'.
"Come in," Lerann said and moved back to the desk, stepping over the disk that was already placed on the floor. He sat down on the chair and faced them as the two climbed into the caravan. The young man turned and helped up the boy that had trailed after him. Lerann realised he hadn't even noticed the boy, the same one from the previous day. He pushed the matter from his mind. It was not important.
"Remove your shirt and sit on the disk," he said to the subject.
"Moving a bit fast, aren't we?" The hunter asked with a grin.
Lerann felt his eyebrows twitch but kept his attention on the subject. "So. As per our agreement before you left yesterday, I'll restore your memories, using the array on inscribed below you, and you'll indulge a few tests from my end. The results will be of use to you as well, I am sure."
He said it again to ensure they had no false expectations. As far as he knew, any attempts to heal spiritual injuries had failed. That had been one of Alenin's fields of study. And if that man didn't have any success in all of his many terms, then Lerann certainly wasn't going to in this short period. But there was an opportunity here to learn more about where he had gone wrong in his spell.
The young man nodded. "Where do you want to start?"
"Well, knowing how the injury interacts with your body as well as magic will be the focus. A good place to start would be healing."
"I thought you couldn't heal the markings."
"I can't," Lerann said. "But that's not what I am talking about. We'll start off small, a cut on one of the markings. Nothing too big. I'll try to heal this with the same spell I used yesterday. If that doesn't work, we will switch to the array on the disk." – He tapped a finger on the desk. – "We also need to make another cut and see if your body can still heal it naturally. But that can wait for after we're done."
"Why wouldn't it," the man asked, concern leaking into his voice.
"The healing spell I use accelerates physical healing. Since it doesn't seem to work, which we'll confirm in a moment, there is a small chance that your body is simply incapable of healing itself in places where the markings have appeared."
Lerann saw the man give the hunter next to him a glance, to which the hunter shrugged.
"Could be useful to know," the hunter said.
The subject sighed and nodded. "Any specific place you want the cut?"
Lerann shook his head. "Anywhere on one of the black spots would do."
The hunter pulled out a knife and handed it to the subject. He placed the tip of the blade against the one of the blackened spots on his skin and winced as he drew it slightly across. A thin line of blood flowed down the skin.
Still red.
Lerann didn't waste any time, nor did he bother with inscriptions; he had memorised the spell a long time ago. He brought up the array in his mind and reached within himself, taking hold of his spirit. A familiar tension settled upon his body, as if he was holding up a breath. It only took him a moment to shape his spirit and extend a tendril of it to the subject's chest. And only a moment longer to mould the anchored point into the array he held in his mind.
Each rune plucked at the extension of his spirit, sending vibrations back through it to himself. His magical sense was refined enough that he could 'hear' the faint tune of his spirit as it ran through the array, the song it sung causing reality itself to bend to its will, even if it was ever so slightly.
The tension in on his body increased, almost as if he was running out of breath. It urged him to stop, to release. But he knew he was far from his limit. He never took his eyes off the small cut and, within a heartbeat, the spell's influence had spread over the subject's chest and encountered the markings.
Then he felt it.
It was a feeling he couldn't easily describe. Uncomfortable was certainly one way. 'Falling away' like his apprentice had used was another. Yet, it was more than that, and it seemed to leave him with less. Almost as though a tiny piece of his spirit bled away into some dark whirlpool. More than anything, it felt wrong.
He held the connection for an instant longer before severing it. Tension flowed out of his body, a spiritual relief that left him feeling lighter. But he paid it no mind, his focus on the markings. It was just like the day before.
What kind of spiritual injury could leave a person with such... 'holes'? It seemed impossible. But then again, so was the injury itself. Lerann frowned at the cut that was still there on the man's chest, showing no change in it at all.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
On to step two, then.
"Right. Let's see if the array can heal the cut," Lerann said for the benefit of the subject and his teacher. There was no reason it shouldn't, but then again, they were dealing with something completely new here. "As before, I'll run through the spell to see what further effects it has. If you feel any sensations. Pain, discomfort, nausea let me know. Anything that might help us figure out the nature of the injury."
The subject nodded, seeming almost eager.
"And of my memories?"
Lerann spared it a thought. The delusion would be subject-specific, merely the way his mind interpreted the damage done to his soul. It was, for all intents and purposes, the least important part of the test. Still, it was the only reason his subject was here, so he refrained from saying so out loud.
"I'll not ask to intrude on your privacy. If you happen to remember something that you think might be of use, then do not hesitate to speak up. Otherwise, a broad description should suffice. Are the memories scenes of pain, remorse, joy—things like that."
The man nodded, and Lerann once more took hold of his spirit and extended a tendril of it, this time to the centre of the disk. He felt the same tension as before settling into him as the rune array began to light up, in the precise order and way that it was made to. The value of inscriptions quickly showed itself. No mage could hold the array of nearly a hundred runes in his head without making a mistake somewhere.
With each passing instant, more of the array lit up, and the tension on him increased until the entire disk glowed. The strain was far greater than with his previous spell and, the longer he held it, the more it would grow.
Even so, he kept his focus on the black spots on the subject's chest. He watched with fascination as they grew, becoming larger with each passing moment, even as the small cut knitted itself closed and faded entirely.
What could have caused such a thing? He had seen many spiritual injuries before, they had been a common sight when he had studied under Alenin. Most of the time, they affected the entire body. Localised injuries were rare and, when you did find them, they seemed entirely random. Markings spaced out evenly as this? It hinted at a purpose. One he very much wanted to understand.
The marks had grown perhaps twice as large as they were before. The subject was supporting himself with one hand pressed against the floor, his eyes seeming to stare past it.
Lerann cut the connection between himself and the disk, the strain finally having grown too large to continue to ignore. The array on the disk was extremely well-crafted, but it was still very draining. Not as much as his own resurrection spell, but close.
"How do you feel?" Lerann asked of the subject, holding out a bit of hope for some kind of insight.
"I feel fine," he replied. He traced a finger over the now healed area where the cut was. "The spell worked, the memory was... peaceful."
Not what I asked.
"Good, good. No pain, sensitivity around the markings? Any strange sensations caused by the spell?"
The man hesitated. "The healing spell from before felt warm, like a heat rising in my chest. This is different. It felt as though my skin was crawling, and my muscles and bones were itching. But nothing special around the markings."
Lerann nodded. It was what he expected to hear, if not what he wanted. "Fairly common for healing to feel like warmth. As to the other sensation, I'd say it is your body undergoing small changes to reflect your spirit."
He thought of it some more, comparing the description to others he had heard. Even to the few times he had experienced it himself.
"So, what is next?" The man asked.
"Well, since we know the affected areas of your body can be healed, that gives us a bit of room for more... thorough inspection. I want a sample of that blackened skin, to see if there are any changes when it separates from you. But as for the next step... that would be finding out how deep the injury goes."
"...And how do we do that?" The man's words were hesitant, and the worry on his face showed that he had caught up.
Lerann carefully kept his expression neutral. "We'll have to cut you open."
----------------------------------------
Gase felt a weight settle in the pit of his stomach as he stared at the mage.
"I'll heal it soon after, of course," the mage said. "And you'll regain more of your memories with the spell."
He knew the mage was dangling his past in front of him. He felt a bit of anger at that, he felt even more to himself for the impulse to leap at the chance. It already irked him to be examined and to have spells tested on him. A few of the ones the mage had his apprentice carry out the previous day had been far from pleasant. The cut he just made with the tip of Holin's knife wasn't exactly fun either. But to actually and purposefully cut himself open?
"You want to keep yourself from becoming someone else," the mage said after a short silence. "And I want more information on the injury you bear. This is the solution to both. So far, I've only seen the skin affected. I need to know if that is all of if there is more. And if so, how much more."
"Don't you have some spell that would allow you to see without doing this?" Gase tried.
The mage gave him an even look. "We have already established that the injury somehow interferes with magic. Normally I could numb the pain. But, unfortunately, for the same reason, that also won't work."
"How deep do you need to get?" Holin asked from the side.
"As deep as it goes. At least deep enough to confirm that it stretches further than the skin and muscle. Preferably get a look at the bone and organs underneath the markings as well."
Holin glanced at Gase. Or at his chest, to be more precise. He pointed at a black spot near the centre of his chest. "That one. We can cut along the rib, down to the lung. You sure you can heal that?"
The mage nodded.
Holin paused and looked at Gase. "It's going to hurt. A lot."
Gase took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He dragged a hand through his hair. "Fuck."
He wanted to refuse, but he didn't know how far he could push the mage before the man just declined to help him outright. This was a transaction. If the mage didn't get what he wanted, then he wouldn't help him. He had implied so much quite clearly. Getting a new subject to experiment on shouldn't be hard for him, after all.
He thought back to what the mage had said the previous day. He needed the mage's help. He would slowly fade away if he didn't do something, his self lost as what was left of Y'rid changed him. Hell, some pieces of himself were probably already lost.
As unwilling as he was to go along with what the mage said, that thought scared him even more. It struck him hard. Some of his memories he would never get back. Now it was just a matter of how much he lost and how much he could regain. He looked up at the mage.
He nodded. "Alright."
"We could probably knock you out," Holin said.
Gase looked up at him, and the man shrugged.
"The array on the disk would cause him to awaken as soon as is used," The mage said. "But that is only for the healing afterwards..."
Gase honestly considered it for a moment before he shook his head. "No. If we're going to do this, then I might as well see what the damage is."
He tried to smile. He wasn't sure if he succeeded.
Holin suddenly froze and tilted his head to the side. Gase caught the gesture and looked at him questioningly.
"What's—"
Holin held up a hand. Then he went to the door of the caravan and opened it, staring out down the line of moving refugees. Gase frowned and joined him. Far at the end, where the line disappeared behind trees as the path bent, he could see some kind of commotion starting. Distantly he could make out a couple of shouts, too far to make out anything.
"Beasts," Holin said and stepped out of the caravan, dropping down onto the ground.
Gase stared after him before his mind registered the word. He jumped after Holin, pausing long enough only to shout for Hadi to stay here. Had the horde caught up? The thought rang through his mind as he chased after Holin, who was loping back along the line.
"What's going on?" he shouted at the hunter.
The man gave him a glance. "Sounds like a group of beasts attacked the line further down. We'll know soon enough."
The commotion up ahead was spreading quickly. Gase could now hear the shouts more clearly, and he saw a couple of people at the back start running forward. A few armed ones also ran back.
It didn't take them long before they were in the thick of the crowd, who was trying to push the other way. Gase stayed close to Holin as the crowd parted in front of him. The sounds of the fight reached them soon after and Gase was reminded of the flight from the fallen city.
People were yelling at each other in panic and confusion, and some were dragging others along as they ran forward. The first sign of the battle passed Gase, a man with the front of his shirt stained in fresh blood. Given the amount and the fact that he was still moving, it was easy to guess that it wasn't his.
A figure caught his eye. A man with a spear who was constantly glancing over his shoulder.
"Enmon!" Gase shouted, and the man's head snapped towards him.
"Yri!" Enmon yelled and hurried over. "Where are you going? We got to leave!"
"What happened?" Gase asked and cast a glance at Holin's back, torn between trying to keep up with the hunter and getting more information.
"Fucking beasts, is what happened!" Enmon shouted over the noise of the retreating crowd. "Now come on!"
Gase glanced at Holin, who disappeared between the people running their way. He hesitated for a moment longer before slapping Enmon on the shoulder. "You go! I'll catch up later!"
He turned and ran after the hunter as Enmon's voice reached him. "What? Where the hell are you going?"
The statement was followed with a curse and Gase glanced back to see Enmon at his back, running with him.
"You don't have to come," Gase spoke as he ran.
"And let you get yourself killed?"
Gase didn't answer him. Maybe because he didn't have an answer himself. He didn't quite know why he was going himself. It just felt wrong to stay back.
They caught up with Holin as the crowd cleared and the fight came into view. A large part of the road had turned into a skirmish as teams of hunters, guards and mercenaries hacked at groups of sleek four-legged beasts.
The beasts' forelegs ended in sharp claws, and their sinuous bodies were covered in dark green scales. Their necks merged into heads that seemed to be mostly jaw and teeth sticking out from large overbites.
Around them, Gase could see corpses, human and beast alike, lying unmoving in the dirt. The creatures seemed mad with bloodlust as they attacked without hesitation, just as the horde did back in Riversedge.
As he watched, one of the beasts charged into a hunter's spear. Instead of pulling back, it pushed further, snapping and twisting as the weapon dug deeper into it. Gase could see the hunter starting to panic as it came closer, doing her best to keep the thing at bay, but her hands were already as far back on the spear as she could have them. Just before it could reach her; a man in chainmail stepped up from the side and swung his halberd down onto the beast's back. The creature collapsed under the blow in a flood of red. Even on the ground, with its lower half unresponsive, it still snapped at the air a few times before it was killed.
At another spot another hunter was holding onto a net as a beast charged at him, blood glistening off its scales. The man taunted the beast though there seemed to be no need for that. Just as it closed on him, the man flung the net and dove to the side. The creature's legs tangled through the holes in the net and it fell to the ground. The hunter's companions were upon it immediately, stabbing it as it tried to free itself.
In front of him, Gase saw Holin grin and draw his sword. He dashed forward to where one of the creatures had pinned a woman to the ground and was busy tearing into her with sharp fangs. The beast heard his approach and jerked up, small beady eyes locking onto the hunter as it tensed.
The tip of the hunter's sword was pointing to the ground behind him in some variation of ward that Gase hadn't seen. He slid to the side as the beast jumped at him, cutting upwards from underneath as it passed. The blade tore into the beast's side glowing faintly as a torrent of blood followed it out again. The cut ended with the hilt coming smoothly to rest next to Holin's head in zeal. The hunter wasted no time and thrust forward, the blade piercing through one of the beast's back knees even as it landed.
The wounded leg folded under the creature's weight. It snarled and frantically pushed itself around on its three working legs. Holin moved with it, keeping to its bad side as he flowed from one sword guard to the next. He drew another bloody arc across its rump before his blade found the other hind leg and bit into the back of its ankle. The beast's other leg dropped and it only its front remained off the ground. It snapped at Holin as he moved in front of it. He stepped back and kicked the beast under the jaw as it bit. Its head shot up, and his sword flashed across its throat.
Gase drew his own sword and looked around him. The hunter clearly didn't need his help as he moved on to the next beast, so Gase looked around for somewhere he might be able to assist. Near him were two hunters, both were in bad shape and stood over the corpse of one beast while holding off another. One had a spear driven into the side of the creature with which he tried controlling it as the second brought his long-handled axe down onto its head. The axehead struck a glancing blow, forcing the beast to the ground but still very much alive.
"Behind!" Gase shouted and ran forward as he saw another creature heading for the two. He heard Enmon curse behind him. The axeman turned and swung at the approaching creature to force it back. The beast on the ground continued to struggle, keeping the first hunter tied down.
Gase hoped he could keep the creature down for now and joined the axeman. He paused, unsure as to what to do. Luckily, the axeman didn't have any such reserves.
"Flank it!" The axeman shouted. One of his eyes were shut and deep, bleeding grooves ran across his face. Still, he darted to the beast's left. Gase hesitated only for a moment before going right. The beast lunged at the hunter and Gase swung his sword. His hastiness worked against him as the blade met scales and was turned aside, leaving only a gash on the creature's flank. It snarled and turned on him, launching itself forward. Gase jerked back, but the axe thudded into the creature from the other side. The effect was much greater than his own strike as the beast was pushed off balance, enough for Gase to raise his sword and knock the beast's head aside with the flat of the blade.
He scrambled back a few steps, before forcing himself to calm as he took the rigour guard, the sword hilt at his hip, tip pointing up and forward. The beast leapt at him again. Gase dropped the tip of his sword and thrust forward. He met resistance before the mindless creature's momentum did its work as it impaled itself on his sword. It didn't stop there, the force behind its lunge driving both of them to the ground.
Somehow, even with the sword halfway buried into its chest and a massive slash to its side, it still managed to latch onto Gase's leg. He cried out in pain and surprise as teeth pushed through his leggings and into flesh. He tried to pull his leg back, but the beast didn't let go. It shook its head, wrenching the limb painfully as Gase was shaken on the ground.
There was a sharp yell, and then the jaws released him. He pulled back his leg and saw Enmon's spear above him. One of the beast's eyes had been torn open. The beast tensed with a mad fury in its remaining eye. Before it could retaliate, the axe from the hunter came down in a massive overhead chop, sinking deep into the beast's back. It must have severed the spine as the creature dropped. The hunter stood over it, breathing heavily. The dying monster spasmed a few times and gave cries somewhere between a snarl and whimper before it went silent.
The hunter looked to Gase. In the next instant, a blur shot from the side and bowled the hunter over. Gase's eyes widened in disbelief and began pushing himself up. As he did so, he saw the spearman from before lying on the ground. The man clutched his arm to his chest, the limb a mangled and bloody mess.
Gase had no time for guessing what had happened. He got his good leg under him and reached down to pull at his sword that was still stuck in the dead beast.
"Help him!" He shouted at Enmon. But when he looked the man's face was ashen, his spear clenched in a white-knuckled grip.
Shit!
Gase gritted his teeth and began yanking at the sword, pulling it out bit by bit with each tug. The axeman struggled, but it was in vain as the beast managed to get around his arms and clamp its jaws shut onto the man's neck. The beast shook its head violently, followed by a loud cracking sound. The hunter stilled.
With a frustrated yell, Gase finally managed to pull out his sword. The sound drew the attention of the beast, and it dropped its now still prey and turned to them. Its entire side was coated in blood from the spear wound earlier, and it was starting to move a bit sluggishly, but the way it tensed was unmistakable.
"Enmon!" He shouted. "Ready that spear. Now!"
Gase's shout seemed to pull the man out of whatever shock had him, and Enmon pointed his spear forward with a yell, bracing it against his side. The beast didn't hesitate and leapt. Flesh met sharpened bronze, and both went down.
Gase frantically pushed off his knee, wincing as he placed weight onto the wounded leg. He shoved the pain to the side and half jumped, half fell towards the beast. Guided by foggy memory, he steadied the blade of his sword with his off-hand and used the weapon as a small spear. He thrust the tip of the blade into the creature's neck as he threw his weight against it.
They tumbled and, somehow, he ended up with the beast beneath him and his sword in its neck. It gave choking snarls as it struggled to free itself and he held on for dear life. He didn't know how long it was, but it couldn't have been more than a few moments before Enmon was beside him again stabbing a broken-off spearhead into the beast's face again and again.
Gase heard a hoarse scream and found out it was his own when the beast finally went still. He shoved the blade a bit deeper but got no reaction. Strength seemed to flee from him then as he slumped against the creature. From the corner of his eye, he saw Enmon push himself back and drop the bloody spearhead.
They locked eyes and Enmon gave him a wide-eyed stare, one tinted with a hint of madness. Gase didn't know if he looked much better, but he doubted it. A strange mixture of elation, relief and disbelief filled him. He was still alive.
Remembering where he was, Gase quickly pushed himself to a seating position, grunting as his leg reminded him of its state. He looked around. More hunters and guards had joined the skirmishes, and most of them were over, with the remaining fighters hurrying to join the few still going on. Even as they watched, the last of the beasts fell under superior numbers, surrounded and hacked to bloody lumps.
He looked over as the wounded spearman stumbled over to the axeman's corpse. He seemed to have wrapped a belt around the top of his arm and was pulling it tight with his remaining hand. The man dropped down next to the corpse of his companion and simply stared out at the last of the battle. He didn't say anything.
It struck Gase then how easily he or Enmon could have traded places with the axeman. If the beast had decided to attack one of them, they'd be dead.
Gase looked over the bloodied earth and regained his breath as the struggle died down. As the adrenaline began to fade, the torn flesh on his leg turned from dull ache to sharp agony. He looked down at the leggings that were soggy with blood. He followed the hunter's example and took off his belt to wrap tightly around his leg above the wound to stem the flow of blood. He cried out through gritted teeth as he did so.
Enmon came over and helped him to tie the belt off, and Gase laid back against the corpse of the beast, trying to keep his mind from the wound.
Between the pain and the numbness that followed the fight, his mind seemed to shut off. Enmon sat down next to him, and for a while, they just stared out over the macabre scenery in front of them.
Eventually, a shadow fell over him, and Gase looked up to see Holin. The man still had his sword out, the blade entirely covered in blood, as was the front of his leather armour. He seemed unharmed and glanced at Gase and the beast he was resting against.
"Taking it easy, are we?"
Gase glared at him, feeling an irrational urge to shout at the man for his casual attitude. The hunter laughed at the look Gase gave him. Then he nodded at the beast. "Your work?"
There was a bit of surprise in his voice, and Gase shook his head.
"Ours," he said and nodded to Enmon and the two hunters, one of which would never draw breath again and the other would probably lose what was left of his arm.
"Well, of course," Holin said lightheartedly, an amused smile on his lips. "I didn't think you did it on your own."
"Still," the hunter said and looked around. Something else entered his voice, but Gase was too tired to figure out what it was. "...Well done."