Flying demon! The one who kidnapped cubs! He was here! He was after them! Annie gave the cub to Sveta, standing her ground. A true hero gives his life for others. She was a hero… even if she was a hero who wet herself from horror. She had to kick Sveta to make her run when the stubborn girl tried to stay with her.
"Think about the cub, you selfish prick!" Annie whinnied weakly, trying to escape the shadow that was closing in on her. Sveta, looking at her sister with despair, took a few steps before stopping.
The claws hit the ground before Annie, who dodged more by miracle than skill. She whined in fear once more and slashed, leaving a small cut under the eye of the demon. The demon swiped again, but then jumped in the air as shards hit him across the back.
"Cubs! Here!" Milera, the black-furred former wolf hag, called them. She gathered a few males, including her own sons, around her and built a makeshift barricade near the exit of the village, helping young and injured wolfkin escape to the bridge as others tried to fight back. Milera herself was sitting on the chair, holding a shardgun in one arm. She had lost one leg and an arm in wars, and half of her snout was missing, revealing yellow fangs. She refused mechanical limbs, becoming one of the Crippled, Wolfkins who survived thanks to the charity of the villages and shamans.
Annie liked Milera; the old lady was always busy training cubs and preparing them for pits. Sveta disliked training too much, but Milera always pushed her, claiming that otherwise the pits would be Abyss for her. Annie often told her not to worry, claiming she would protect her sister no matter what.
A female Wolfkin took the cub from the arms of Sveta, crying her thanks. Milera snapped at her, and the woman ran toward the bridge, covering several meters of distance with each jump.
"What are you two waiting for? Run for it! The former wolf hag snapped at the males, Annie and Sveta.
"But what about you?" One of the males asked.
"But Mommy is…" Sveta started asking, but Annie grabbed her by the sleeve of her jacket, dragging her toward the bridge while others were arguing.
Dad gave the order! Dad knows it all! Survive, then all will be fine! Annie rushed toward the bridge, repeating these words over and over. Once they cross it, all will be fine. Mommy and Daddy will be alive. just a few steps until the bridge. They will play again and…
A wooden beam hit Annie across the side, and she fell, holding the sleeve of Sveta’s jacket in her paw. On impulse, Sveta ran to the bridge before turning. Her eyes became round as she saw blood on the left side of Annie. The cub took a few steps to race toward her sister, but a huge shadow slammed into the bridge, breaking the wooden construction.
"No! We won! It’s not fair; we won! Don’t take her… Don’t you dare take her from me!" Annie screamed in rage and despair, trying to stand up in vain. The demon arose in the air above the ruins, spreading his leather wings and screeching with a guttural voice, turning his head to the left to look at the cub with his black eye. It took a moment for Annie to understand that the creature was laughing.
There will be no escape. Annie understood this with horror when the Wolfkins near the bridge wailed mournfully, holding their young ones close to their chests. A murky white substance hung near the barricade for the briefest of moments before something truly big charged forward out of it. A figure whose head resembled that of an ancient alligator. Bone ridges ran across the back of the head of the monster, running all the way to a wide tail, which ended up with a grotesque, scorpion-like sting. Each hand, larger than a Wolfkin male, had only four fingers, thick, mighty weapons of murder, grasping air in anticipation. Bones were growing on the chest of the creature, protecting it like second armor. Two green eyes, with no pupils in them, gazed at the defenders. The figure smiled, showing fangs. There was no mere hunger in the eyes of the creature. There was malice in these huge eyes—malice mixed with barely held anticipation. The nostrils of the creature shifted, inhaling air with the sound of a raging sandstorm. The creature was enjoying itself. The skin of the creature resembled unrefined iron more than the skin of a living, breathing creature. Numerous sores covered the mighty hide, and a murky, white mist seeped from them.
"Food," the beast said, licking his lips with a purple tongue. Drool fell from his mouth, stopping in midair. It splashed against the monster's bone chest when he took a step.
"To Abyss with you!" Milera shouted, throwing a grenade at the creature. Despite lacking an arm and a leg, Milera was strong. Annie saw her each morning doing one thousand pushups with her single hand. Her throw was strong as well; there was no mistake in this. And yet… Her eyes widened in surprise as the grenade hung slowly within the mist that covered the creature like a shroud. The wicked smile widened, and the behemoth stepped forward, no longer charging but instead moving with regal pride, slowly, as if a king had arrived at a feast. Its thunderous steps caused the wooden beam on Annie to jump up slightly. She groaned when the beam hit her again. And again. The pain was accompanied by the footsteps of the monster.
Behemoth smiled at the grenade before him. It was still moving, barely, slowly turning in the air. The monster pressed his left arm to his chest, laughed, and backhanded the grenade away with his right hand. The grenade moved away as if throwing water, slowly turning around as it approached the mist's edge. Once it left the mist, however, it flew away at an incredible speed, exploding among tents.
Milera raised her shardgun, firing into the smiling snout of the being. Annie felt hope rising inside her. Nothing can survive the mighty shards! Nothing… She whimpered when she saw how the shards were almost frozen upon entering the white mist that was seeping from pores in the monster’s hide. Still smiling, the monster walked around the shards, closing in on Milera. She tried to stand, but when the mist touched her, her movements also became slow and sluggish, as if she were sleeping. The behemoth opened his jaws wide, revealing a maw filled with teeth that ran all the way across his throat.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The creature bit Milera's back. Annie felt tears running across her cheeks as the old woman who taught her so much was now crying like a baby as her spine was being chewed upon by the cruel jaws of the monsters. The sons of Milera tried to kill the monster, but a swing of the tail killed two of the males, and with another motion, the creature impaled the third Wolfkin, raising his screaming form in the air. The behemoth stopped eating briefly, raising its snout to the sun as its tail moved a screaming man toward his open mouth. This whole gesture resembled a cub who broke away from dinner to eat a treat. Only this time, the treat was a living, breathing human.
The creature swallowed the man whole, breaking the male’s back in two by closing its maw. Annie heard the horrible sound of snapped bones and saw the Wolfkin's legs and arms jerk wildly one last time before the behemoth sucked him into its maw. She saw the gaping wound on the back of the slowly dying Milera. She witnessed the monster slowly devouring the former wolf hag.
Her gaze became murky as horror and blood loss made her slowly lose her vision, making her slip closer to the realms of unconsciousness. Two creatures moved toward her, opening their mouths wide, and Annie pissed herself once more from fear.
An explosion hit the behemoth from behind, and he roared in anger as his mist failed to fully stop the explosion of a grenade underneath his tail. The monster stumbled aside; the bone armor underneath his tail was torn, and purple blood was leaking from several cuts on his body.
Marva stepped forward, firing a shardgun twice, killing the malformed who threatened her daughter. Annie gasped as she saw her mother fight. One after another, creatures charge at her in a seemingly endless wave of limbs, tentacles, bone blades, and sharp teeth. Despite this, she weaved her way around her attackers, killing one with a precise shot before moving on, dodging, and firing again. Marva, one of the two remaining warriors in the village, was without her armor. Her soft paws, which had held Annie and Sveta in their embrace while dad read them stories at night, were now covered in scratches and blood. Mommy was fighting the entire time. And she was suffering.
The demon swooped behind her, and Annie tried to scream to warn her mother. Yet it was too late. The left hand of the demon pierced the back of Marva, the back that carried Sveta and Annie on it during their games. Marva gasped from pain; the wound on her back was fresh, yet a foul smell instantly came from the wound. Black rot was spreading from all sides around the edges of the wound, and blood flow soon changed to a sickly-looking pus. Marva fell to her knees while the behemoth walked towards her, enveloping her in the mist.
The last thing that Annie saw before losing her conscience were the jaws that closed on her mother’s head.
****
Annie woke up in the back of the wagon, looking at the fabric roof of the cart.
"Hurry! We have to…"
"Where was the shaman? If she would just…"
"She was at the Gathering… Worst time possible."
"Eighteen cubs… I saw them being ea…"
She heard worried voices outside when her father looked inside the wagon. One of his eyes could barely be opened because of a large slash across it, a finger on his right arm was missing. He tried to smile and asked:
"Small one. It’s okay; you are safe; everything will be okay." Annie looked down and saw that her side was tightly bandaged. She could barely feel the thing, but when she tried to stand, a searing pain hit her. Her father asked with worry, "Annie, what do you remember? Where is Svetlana?"
"Dad... she fell from the bridge," Annie forced herself to say, her eyes welling up with tears with each word. "The demon crashed into the bridge, and she had... We have to find her, we…"
"But… I asked you to…" He stopped, leaving words unsaid, pressing one hand to his mouth in horror at what he was about to say.
But Annie knew. She knew what he was about to say. She knew that he was right.
She was at fault. She allowed Sveta to be… To be...
Annie snapped out of her thoughts at the scream outside. Her dad turned around and tried to find his shardgun on his belt with tired and bloody paws.
The behemoth of bone and rage came into view. The arms of the creature were molded into two gigantic bone blades; not a single finger was in sight. The long, boney tail moved across the sand and stone behind the creature. All around its body, from its pink skin, came bones, covering it like a second skin.
It leaped at the wagon, raising the blade. Gilho roared in rage, standing before Annie. Never before had her father looked so beautiful as he did right now. His opponent was twice his size, yet Gilho took the swing meant for the wagon and Annie with his right hand. Despite the fact that the bone blade had almost reached the middle of his shoulder, he made the weapon come to a halt.
Something akin to a smile came onto the face of the creature, and it pulled the weapon back, slicing Gilho's arm clean. He screamed when his right arm fell onto the stone road. Dad fell on his knees, trying to stand up and charge at the impossible monstrosity before him. The monster raised its blade yet again. From the dust of the road behind him came other malformed creatures, and Annie looked at them with hate. She was no longer afraid. Be what may be, she will never, ever be afraid of them. If she could, she would kill them all. If she can’t, she will at least deny her fear.
A round hole appeared in the head of the bone monstrosity as a beam of darkness hit him in the temple, emptying his head. The upper half was burned away immediately as the beam fully speared through his head, hitting the side of the road. Behind their fallen champion, the creatures stopped in uncertainty, looking in the direction of the shot.
It cost them their lives when a giant figure rose behind them, a blade in each hand and four more blades in a sheath behind her back. The blades and arms of the figure turned blurry, such was the speed at which the newcomer moved. The sound of her movement resembled a cry of thunder during the sandstorms. The creatures stood no chance; the blades pierced through their hides as if they were made of paper; their bones were sliced apart; and life left the bodies of their enemies, along with their blood and insides. Blood was once again spilled across the field of stone and sand, but this time it was creatures who were dying.
"We have wounded!" The gigantic figure yelled. She was wrapped in a cloak of darkness, with golden trimming around the edge of the cloak. In a hurry, the figure tore off her cloak, revealing expensive-looking armor that covered the Wolfkin from head to toes. A mirror-like helmet of utter darkness was on the head of the savior. Annie thought she saw energy running across the edge of the long rifle at the back of the figure in black armor. The length of this marvel was insane; even her dad looked small compared to it.
The figure used her own cloak as a bandage around Gilho's lost arm, stopping the blood with the help of some ropes. A second giant came before the wagon, and smaller Wolfkins in power armor were charging behind her. The figure in an ancient-looking blue armor hit the air with her blades, throwing blood off the edges, and put the weapons in their sheaths. A simple move like this left two deep cuts on the stone ground, yet Annie was sure that the blades never reached the ground.
"Secure the survivors. We are heading back to the village. Retribution awaits," the figure in blue armor commanded, turning away from the wagon. Her helmet's blue lenses locked on Annie for a split second.
This was how Annie met warlords Zero and Dragena for the first time.