PART PART VII: HEARTBROKEN RETREAT
“Reynard!” Callie called, spinning as she brought her bow to bear, an arrow appearing. But there was no sight of him, just fading ripples on the water.
The other Rangers spun and readied their own weapons, Shul’an summoning their bow from the storage pocket under their skin. Celeste turned, Flashstepping to the water’s edge as Tazrok’s huge Hellhound form leapt over them all, landing in the water with a splash, looking for whatever had taken the Ranger trainer.
There was a splash a half-dozen meters away, Reynard breaking the surface with a gasp. He had a dagger in one hand that he was driving madly into the head of something still latched around his leg. The red of blood mingled with the dark waters as the creature thrashed back and forth, shaking the Foxkin wildly. Reynard was grimacing in obvious pain, but pushing that aside to concentrate on simply staying alive.
Tazrok-the-Hellhound turned and leaped again, water thrown in all directions. He must have landed on the creature because it immediately was pulled under, Reynard pulled with it. Tazrock’s head came back out, part of the long body of some Eel-like thing in his mouth. He shook his head, tearing at the creature's hide and pulling chunks of flesh from its body. The Eel’s head emerged from the water again, Reynard still in its mouth where he was continuing to stab at the head holding him in its vice-like toothy grip.
Realizing the larger danger, the Eel twisted, releasing and flinging Reynard from its mouth to face the Hellound threat. The Ranger trainer flew towards the shore, landing hard and tumbling through the muck, a stream of blood spraying from his leg. It took only a moment to realize that almost everything below Reynard’s right knee was completely missing, blood rapidly pooling at the end of the mangled stump.
While Lhawni and Ambria sprang into action to aid Reynard, Tazrok smashed the head of the Eelthing as it tried to bite him with the mace-like end of his tail, a solid thump sending the creature’s toothy head flying back. The Hellhound’s jaws ripped and pulled, throwing chunks of flesh and meat in several directions. The toothy Eel was being held down against the bottom of the swamp and whenever Tazrok’s snarling head dove into the water, it emerged with another piece of it. The monster tried to fight, but every time it tried to bite Tazrok, the massive sledge of the Hellhound’s tail would smash it aside.
Callie and the Rangers had no clear shots with the giant Hellhound in the way. Unsure what to do, Callie looked to Celeste for guidance, but saw immediately she was wincing in pain, her muscles still cramped from the petrification spell.
“I’ll get it!” Pixyl yelled as she leapt from the shore, flapping her wings for control as she slowly flew high over the fight.
Seeing her friend flying out over the water, and knowing how much harder that was than normal flight, Callie had a moment of worry that Pixyl would quickly get exhausted. Her head refocused, though, and she repositioned slightly in the hope of getting a better angle on the fight.
Almost before she had arrived at the fallen Foxkin, Ambria was in the final moments of calling forth a Coagulate spell. She could see the blood pumping from Reynard’s leg, spurting out around the torn meat and jagged ends of bones. The spell was sloppy, Combat Medic battle-healing, but it was fast and it was good and it was exactly what was needed to save his life. Any other healer would most-likely need to stem this level of bleeding with an old-fashioned tourniquet first, before being able to start stitching things back together. She dropped to her knees, slamming her hand against the shredded, bloody wound and was able to feel the blood vessels rapidly clotting themselves closed.
Lhawni dropped a new Totem, but held off on casting anything for the moment until she had a better read on how bad the injury was, besides obviously really bad. She knew Ambria would concentrate on the bleeding and the pain, which gave her the briefest of moments to see if there were any other obvious injuries.
Reynard had the wind knocked out of him when he landed, and gathered his senses just as the Faun landed on the ground next to him. Then the pain hit him again as he saw a spurt of blood from the end of his leg. The end of his leg! Legs should not have an ‘end’! He fought to hold in a scream of agony, and completely failed as Ambria applied her first spell.
Tazrok was slowly backing towards the shore, throwing his head side to side with the Eel still in his mouth. The creature appeared dazed, and you could see areas on its head where it had been pummeled by the Hellhound’s tail, several teeth smashed from its mouth.
Pixyl was hovering overhead, looking for exactly the right moment, her arm extended. The strain of flying over water was creeping up on her rapidly, but she held position. Tazrok threw his head to the side once again, the Eel flipping upwards out of the water. Pixyl let loose the Ethereal Blast she’d had at the ready, and the magenta ball of energy slammed into the side of the creature’s head, disintegrating the top half of it away in a shower of color. As the Eel flopped back to the water, Pixyl casually turned, diving back to land on the shore, where she dropped to one knee, exhausted from even those few seconds over water.
“Don’t knock me out,” Reynard hissed at Ambria, grabbing her arm. “Just deal with the pain.”
The Faun had been about to put a sleep spell on the Foxkin, but aborted in mid-casting. “Are you sure? This is bad.”
“Keep me awake!” he snarled again.
Despite knowing she should probably ignore his orders, Ambria grabbed Reynard’s neck, pushing the strongest and longest-lasting pain block she could into him, followed immediately by a Stabilize spell to help keep him from going into shock from blood loss. “Lhawni, keep him alert and Diagnose for other injuries,” she said, moving out of the way to take another look at Reynard's leg.
Tazrok was still ferociously tearing at the Eel he had pulled up on shore. It was assuredly dead, just a few post-death flops of its tail still occurring. But the Hellhound was in a rage, snarling and clawing at the monster, oblivious to anything around it and certainly not comprehending that Pixyl had basically blown its head off.
The Major and the Rangers simply gaped as they watched Tazrok rend and rip. Celeste finally recognized what she was seeing, and quickly pushed everyone back. She had no doubt Tazrok had triggered some kind of a Berserking skill, and as a result would be single-minded in his task until something finally got through his clouded head. You didn’t want to be in the way during that time, lest you get mistaken for another threat.
“There’s not much I can do here,” Ambria said. “The bleeding is stopped, but there’s not a lot to actually heal.” She looked up to Lhawni.
The Goblin pushed a quick Refresh spell into Reynard to help keep him awake and took a look. The sight of the mangled leg almost made her retch, but somehow she kept it together. “That’s going to need proper attention back at camp,” she finally said.
“Reynard!” Major Celeste exclaimed as she ran up, still wincing with cramps, having left the other Rangers with directions to give Tazrok as much space as they could. “Healers! Report!”
“Pain numbed hard at the neck. Severed leg below the knee,” Ambria recited automatically. “Bleeding stopped.” Then she looked at Reynard. “It can be regrown, though.”
“He’s also got a cracked collarbone and a lot of bruising," Lhawni amended to the injury report. "There could be more, but I didn’t have time to look fully.”
The Foxkin winced at hearing the additional report. “Just slap-heal the end of my leg, and then wrap it.” He looked up at Celeste, grasping her arm tightly. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
‘Slap-heal’ was field slang for applying the fastest, most powerful heal to a wound you could. There were no attempts at subtlety, no attempts to prevent scarring, and no attempts to prevent long term side-effects. You cast what you could, as hard as you could, as fast as you could, to save the person's life, before moving onto the next task or person. Ambria powered up her touch heal and dumped as much magic into the end of Reynard’s leg as she could. Muscles and skin and bone, healing hyper accelerated by the spell, almost instantly knit themselves sealed. Or they would have.
As if she encountered something pushing back, Ambria found the healing being resisted and then it began to be almost denied. “Somehow it’s not working very well,” the Faun hissed.
“Are you infected? Already?” Celeste asked. “Damn, that’s fast!”
“I must be.” Reynard pulled a red Healing potion from his side. “Just dump this over it and then wrap it. We need to get out of this swamp.”
Ambria took the potion, popping the top off with her thumb. She poured it over the end of Reynard's leg, seeing some more of the open flesh start to seal, but also seeing it was going much slower than it should. “We need to cure this parasite!”
“Once we’re on top of the ridge! It takes too long.” Reynard snapped.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
The Rangers were watching Tazrok-the-Hellhound continue to savage the Eelthing, now nothing but a ragged corpse. Dozens of chunks were missing, along with most of the head that Pixyl had blasted off, yet Tazrok showed no signs of realizing the fight was over.
“Tazrok!” Callie finally scolded loudly, stomping her foot on the ground with a light, muddy splash. In mid-rend, the fierce Hellhound turned to look at her, the yellow eyes showing a hellish rage in them as blood dripped from his face. “Enough! It’s dead!”
The Hellhound shook his head a couple of times, as if to clear it, and then looked back at the mangled creature. Suddenly, his shoulders drooped, almost as if he was ashamed of his behavior. With a warble of magic, the Hellhound melted back into the form of an Ogre. Tazrok put his hand to his head, shaking it again, still trying to clear the remnants of his Berserking state from it. His head was covered in blood and goo, as was most of his armor, and he was soaked with stagnant, infected swamp water.
The fire of the Bogwhump nest had largely settled, no longer a rocket-like inferno, instead reduced to mere scorching flames. Shul’an braved the still hot area, grabbing the Major’s charred backpack and tossing it roughly towards everyone. They then tried to pick up the two pickaxes, but found the ground under them was now brittle, and it broke, the tools dropping out of sight into a hole that quickly filled with water, the hot metal hissing as they sank.
“Leave them. We need to go!” the Major called out.
Callie looked around, taking in the scene. Tazrok had summoned an ongoing stream of fresh water in his hands and was using it to wash his face and chest of the Eel guts. Jesca and Thucax were watching for anything that might come charging again. Reynard was obviously down, being tended to, and Pixyl was walking towards them, looking tired but otherwise fine. Celeste was basically one-handed, but seemed to be overcoming whatever remnants of cramping pain she was feeling from earlier.
“Is he able to be moved?” Callie called out.
“I think so,” Ambria answered, looking back at the Gnome. “But carefully!”
“Ok, we’re going,” Callie said, nodding towards Celeste. She pointed at Tazrok. “You, carry Reynard. Healers, you stick close to him in case he needs help. Major, you take the lead. Pixyl, get in the air and direct her if you see anything coming. It looks like the Drakelings still seem to be hiding. Rangers, watch for anything but keep an eye out for any Drakelings coming back out. Jesca with me in the back.”
Despite the seriousness of the moment, Reynard couldn’t help but smile as Callie threw out her orders, completely unphased by the moment. He caught Celeste’s eyes, seeing the same brief smile on her face as well. He hadn’t been sure that Xera had done the right thing, handing this mission to Callie. Despite how clever she was, and her run at the training course, it seemed way too much, too soon, for a second week recruit, especially with her memory loss. He had to admit though, at minimum she was rising to the responsibilities. Despite everything that had happened, she’d kept calm and managed to keep everyone else calm as well.
“Pixyl, you’re exhausted,” Callie said, gesturing to the Pixie. “What do you need?”
“Just Stamina,” the Bladeweaver responded, fumbling for a yellow potion on her belt.
Ambria and Lhawni had finished wrapping Reynard’s leg in the clean bandages from their Healer packs. They weren’t sterile, but would offer a little protection while they moved back to the ridge and got reorganized. Tazrok, mostly clean of Eel innards, gently picked up the wounded Foxkin, easily carrying him. Reynard grunted as a little of the pain got through the block spell, but he muscled through. Together, they all started moving towards the hallway of reeds that would lead back to the hillside.
As she walked by, Callie took one last look at what was left of the Eel monster. Before being savaged by Tazrok-the-Hellhound, it must have been at least five meters long, and its jaws had been filled with dozens of dagger-length, needle-like teeth. The top jaw was gone now, blown away by Pixyl’s spell, and of what was left on the bottom, more than half the teeth were missing, having been smashed out by Tazrok’s heavy Hellhound tail. Absently, she bent down to touch one, and finding several loose, twisted three off, looking at them closer. They were a good fifteen centimeters long and no more than one or two in diameter at the larger end, and needle-sharp at the other.
“Let’s go!” Celeste called out with a whistle, everyone waiting.
Callie absently reached behind her, dropping the teeth through an opening into her backpack, and started to walk towards the rest of her team, detouring slightly when she spied Reynard's Ironwood bow. “You’re right,” she said, handing the bow to Reynard to unsummon. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll stop at the top of the hill.”
Celeste took point with Pixyl flying air cover, and they made their way forward towards the valley’s exit. Occasionally, Pixyl would call out something approaching, and the Major would Flashstep to intercept, completely effective despite having only one usable sword. As a group, they didn’t run, but tried to move quickly, eager to leave the swamp behind them as soon as possible.
Bringing up the rear, Callie and Jesca watched for anything that might be following them, and occasionally they would need to shoot something that would step on to the trail before making a beeline for them. At this point, all the creatures were small and fairly harmless, except in their rabid tenacity. They were easily felled by the two Rangers, hardly even needing to use enhanced arrows at this point.
They had gone about four-hundred meters when the sound of hoofbeats were heard again. It didn’t seem as loud or heavy as the horned Buffalothing from earlier. But, now that they were closer to the rock walls of the hillside, the echos resounded all around them, making it difficult to figure out the direction.
“Where is it, Pixyl?” Callie called out. “Do you see it?”
“Not yet,” the Pixie responded, turning in circles to look.
Callie called for the other Rangers to fan out and get ready, as Jesca did likewise, so they could cover all approaches. Celeste stepped up next to her, ready to help. Callie mentally prepared for a Rapid Fire and Piercing Shot combination, but didn’t want to cast it yet lest the casting expire before she had a target. She’d only need a couple seconds, and hoped she’d have enough time.
“Anything, Pixyl?”
The Pixie pushed herself higher, trying to see where the sound was coming from, but saw no sign of bending reeds or motion. Then she caught it, a glimpse of something towards the smoking Bogwump nest. “There!” she yelled, pointing.
It came tearing around the corner, charging down the hallway of reeds towards the retreating team. Callie gasped at the sight. “Is that a unicorn?”
Callie stood in a state of momentary confusion. The creature charging them looked like a unicorn, but at the same time, it was not completely right. Like one would expect, it was pure white, with a very evident silver horn, but after that, things were just a little bit off. The unicorn’s head was not-quite horse-shaped, while its not-quite horse-shaped body was somewhat similar in shape to Tazrok’s Curvax travel form, or the donkey-sized animals used to pull carts back at the camp, but bigger than both. Interestingly, when running at high speed, a Curvax would, for lack of a better word, retract their center pair of legs, holding them tight against their body and running on only four legs. The incoming unicorn had done the same thing, charging at them in an all out rabid gallop on four white legs.
“Callie, take the shot,” Reynard said calmly from Tazrok’s arms.
Layering up a Piercing Rapid Shot, Callie snapped the bow into shooting position. Zooming in with her Eagle Eye skill to get a better aim, she could see the telltale signs of blackened blood around the unicorn’s mouth and eyes, obviously showing Bogwump infection. She aimed carefully and … couldn’t shoot.
“But it’s a unicorn!” Callie whined.
Even charging in a rage straight for her, the animal was so beautiful. Despite looking not-quite-right, it instantly made Callie desperately homesick as flashes of Earth unicorns danced through her head.
“Callie!” Reynard said, a firmer, warning tone in his voice this time.
“Shoot it,” Celeste said in equal warning, tensing slightly.
Callie tried to loose, but stopped. “I can’t! It’s a unicorn!”
“It’s already dead, Sergeant,” Reynard hissed, “it just doesn’t know it! Take it down!”
She didn’t really realize she actually shot. Simply one moment the beautiful and now deadly creature was charging down on them, its hooves thundering as they threw mud and vegetation, spitting black blood with every exhale. The next moment, the unicorn was tumbling forward, a quintet of magical arrows bringing it down. Callie watched in slow-motion horror as the beautiful animal rolled one last time before sliding to a stop only a half-dozen meters away. The unicorn let out two final exhales of breath before it lay still and silent.
Callie stood there simply stunned as a childhood memory washed through her. It was of her father, reading a bedtime story to her about a unicorn, the very last unicorn in the world, who quested to find others like her, only to be turned into a human and discover the pain of love and regret. She had made him read that story to her at least a half-dozen times over the years, a few chapters every night. Young Callie could tell he had grown tired of it, but he dutifully read to his daughter night after night, and she would fall asleep to the visions of magical horned horses of white in her head. She even had a poster from the movie on her wall, until she outgrew such silly, childish, and obviously make-believe things as unicorns. And now, Callie had killed one.
Oblivious to what was around her, Callie began to walk forward. Celeste put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it away.
“Callie?” Jesca and Lhawni both called. Callie ignored them, too.
The little Gnome walked the short distance to where the dead unicorn lay, storing her magical bow away inside her body as she did. In her head, Callie knew the beautiful creature would have hurt them, maybe even killed someone. In her head, she knew it had been sick and suffering and not in control of its actions. And in her head, she knew it was at peace now, no longer slowly-dying food for the nest of Bogwump hatchlings. But she also knew that she was the one that had killed it; she had killed a unicorn. Was that a sin that could ever truly be forgiven?
“I’m sorry,” Callie said quietly, kneeling down. She hesitantly extended a hand, before resting it on the side of the unicorn's still-warm head. She looked into the vacant, half-closed eye before reaching up and closing it the remainder of the way. “I am so sorry,” she whispered one final time.
Gingerly, Callie did the one thing she had dreamed of doing as a little girl, and she gently touched the unicorn’s horn, still glowing with a faint silver light. A flood of radiant warmth washed through her. She had no significant wounds needing healing, just scrapes and bruises. Yet, they faded and healed nearly instantly, torn skin weaving anew and bruises simply vanishing. Callie was still hurt though, still in pain over what she had done. It was a pain that even this magic could never heal; the pain of love and regret.
“Come on,” a voice next to her said quietly, and Callie turned to see Pixyl standing there, her hand extended.
Callie took her sister-friend’s hand and stood. “My dad used to tell me stories about unicorns when I was a little girl,” she said wistfully, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand.
Pixyl squeezed, looking up into Callie’s beautiful purple eyes. “Mine did, too.”