Running through the mud, Endya thinks back to that potentially fatal encounter.
A demihuman, damn it! Damn!
I have to run. I have to run!
She's going to eat me!
She's going to eat me like she did to my brother!
Cursed!
Damn monsters!
The deluge masks the crying of Endya, a vigorous young man who runs. He runs down the slope along an abandoned path. On one side the rocky wall, on the other the overhang on the lower terrace.
Endya hits some rocks, risks slipping in puddles, but doesn't stop.
He can't stop.
Stopping would be the end.
I have to reach Vanoge and warn everyone! We must rush to arms!
That harmless little face... but who cares!
I saw that creature has an ancient weapon! Only the most bloodthirsty hunters are allowed to hunt with firearms!
Damn! But how did she get from there? There shouldn't be anything in that direction...
The spiders in the woods didn't do their job, she must have gotten around them. It's like that, it's…
“Aaaah!!!”
Distracted by his whining, Endya slips. The muddy ground does not maintain grip and the boy is unable to grasp anything with his hands.
The fall is inevitable and…
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“AAAH!”
Platch!
Slime splashes everywhere. It is a smelly mass, which makes the boy grimace.
I’m alive?
Shocked, raising his arms, his torso, Endya checks that he is still in one piece. The fetid, brown mass turns out to be a puddle of poop.
How disgusting... At least the downpour softened it…
Going out, Endya tries to clean herself in the rain. His head spins from the difference in altitude and he drops to the ground, trying not to pass out.
…it went really well for me. But… I left all my tools behind…
Ah! The master will scold me!”
And not just him… everyone will want to know what I was doing on the plateau alone… ah… well, at least I wasn't eaten alive…
“Hey! Endya, ENDYA!!!”
Ngh! The voice of that man-eating monster comes from above. If Endya can hear her despite the rain… it's close!
Steeling himself, still a little bedraggled, Endya gets up and starts walking again. He doesn't know exactly where he is, he has never crossed a middle terrace. He usually climbs on it with the master and returns to Vanoge, at the foot of the fjord, without stopping in the intermediate areas.
It's forbidden.
Dangerous.
Well, it wasn't my fault after all…
He tries to reassure himself as he tries to orient himself in that context. The rain is so heavy that it reduces the view to a few tens of metres. Fortunately, the Vanoge lighthouse is visible and the road seems clear.
It seems.
⁂
Help! But what have I done wrong today!?
The predator came out of nowhere, hidden by the weather. With the first slash, it almost decapitated Endya.
The young man, reflecting on what happened, wonders how much luck he has left to spend on that day of bad luck.
Even though he is young, good-looking and accustomed to the dangers of the outside world... that being is too much even for a group of three or four men armed with blades.
“MBREEE”
The goatmantis roars behind him. A guttural sound, a guaranteed death knell.
Endya slips, and the marshy ground makes him stumble, ending up in the mud.
Its front legs resemble a toothed sickle, the transparent wings on which the rain bounces.
The beast with curled horns, a ruminant and predatory mouth with large oval eyes and lateral jaws.
The goatmantis is a hybrid between the mantis and the ancient goat species. Prey and predator of humans at the same time.
Endya thinks back to everything he knows, terrified. But his naturalistic knowledge no longer stops the downy predator.
Help…
Help…
“Somebody, help me!”