Chapter 223_Forging his own destiny

Edited by Solyom

The order was simple – to kill the beast that was leading the front guard of the dwarven army. The monstrosity, no matter how twisted it was, had extraordinary senses that allowed it to find every ambush squad we had prepared. It was also moving through the mountains without much of a trouble. The questions remained – where did they manage to find it and how did they tame it? Having such a cute-teethed-pet would be convenient.

Still, an assassination is what trolls like the most. Especially those from the Night Clan. We prepared a special poison which we used to cover our arrows. All we needed was one good shoot and the beast would eventually die. It could take minutes, maybe hours, but the creature would surely die. Slowly losing its strength, falling into slumber. The more it would move, the faster the poison wound spread across its body.

Still, ours bows’ quality is… let’s just say that there are better weapons in the world. Greenskins are not the best craftsmen. Most of the weapons and tools that the horde is using has been scavenged from plundered cities and caravans. And dwarfs are not using bows – mostly because they are short as hell! The bows’ power is often measured by its size – small dwarf equals to small bows which equals to small power. No, they were using crossbows! Tools too small to be used by ogres and too heavy to be used by goblins. I mean, come on! How do you even pull the string!? I personally saw a dwarf pulling it with one hand! ONE! As we tried doing the same thing, poor Gha’zhri almost lost his fingers!

Now. As we already knew that the dwarfs do not make bows, it meant that we had to create them on our own. And these can barely shoot straight! Poor bow quality, and thus poor accuracy means that we need to wait till they would stop moving. So we were waiting till they would attack our next outpost. Our brothers were informed about the new orders, they decided to sacrifice their lives to give us this opportunity. With pain in our heart we watched as our comrades, our family, were being butchered. They remained brave till the very end.

Just as we thought – as they were done finishing our comrades they stopped for a moment to regroup. That was our chance. I quickly gave the sign to Gha’zhri –our best marksman – to shoot. He raised from the dirt, pulled the string of his bow, stopped breathing, and released the arrow.

It flew wonderfully, especially taking in consideration the quality of those bended sticks we called bows. It raised in the air and started falling.

The creature stopped, its ears twitched few times moving in all direction. It must have heard the whizzing sound of the air around the arrow. My heart skipped a beat. Monsters have good instincts. They usually have two kind of reactions – either jumping to the side or turning back, to confront the possible danger.

To my great relief, it started turning around. Not fast enough though, the arrow buried itself deep in its back.

The monstrosity let out a half angry, half annoyed, growl-like hiss as it completely turned in our direction. Ha! He won’t find us! The red clay we used to cover our body makes us invisible for almost every creature! Our color and shape is same as rocks around us, we are odorless and we can even silence the beating of our hearts!

And the poison is already spreading across its body!

What will you do? Ha? Move out? Or try looking for us? Anyway, your fate is already doomed so… what? Why is it moving its mouth toward that huge lizard-lady? Is it… talking? Is it not some kind of tamed beast but an intelligent being? That would explain how could its actions be so precise… still…

… what is that? That red, shiny thing between its paws? It’s getting bigger? And brighter? And it’s coming our way? HOLY FU…!!!

An explosion hit the ground near Gha’zri. His body was sent flying a few meters in the air before it fell on the rocks below. His limbs were bent under him in weird angles. As he was standing the closest to the target, the dust that raised from the ground after the explosion disturbed the vision of a few of us – those who were hidden behind the main marksman’s position.

With the corner of my eyes I saw that the goat riders are moving onward to the next location. He hid their position so they could escape without being shot down by our archers? Not a stupid idea! In the end it could not know about the poison, thus relocating away from the archers range is wise decision…

… I saw the dwarfs riding away, I saw that tall lizard-girl… but where is the monster? The dust had settled already, yet the creature was not th…

- “GWAAH!” I heard the scream of one of one of my men from the side. Something slashed his belly open. Yet, there was no one there. Or so I though. For a moment there, I saw something, as if the rocks were moving by their own.

Impossible! How could it put on a camouflage in such a short time! Also, its body was big, twice as big as a troll’s, it is simply impossible for it to remain invisible! We would have noticed a one-meter in radius rock moving around! He can’t magically become smaller…

Or was it a completely different monster? When another one of my men cried out in pain, I managed to get a glimpse on the new attacker. Some kind of weird… lizzardo-froggo-bug? It’s body was long, but almost completely flat, it’s legs were shifted perfectly on its sides, so it actually moved faster by sliding across the dirt – like a snake. The rocky area was almost completely covering it most of the time.

Still, the question remained – HOW WAS IT ABLE TO SPOT US? No vision, no sound, no smell, no heat… how?! HOW!?

I got up from my position and started running – faster! Behind that rock pillar! My other assassins started forming two-men squads. Great, if one would be assaulted, the other one would be able to attack it, protecting his comrade!

I could only start climbing on the pillar; from it, I could look from above at the surroundings and maybe somehow regain our advantage. In our job many things could go wrong. Some stick could snap under our feet, the clouds on the sky could disappear, making the moonlight fall upon us, revealing our position… But what was happening right now? Have you ever heard about a target of an assassination, that after being shot, turned back on the attackers and started fighting with twelve skilled murderers? BAH! And to actually succeed in doing so?!

Of course that I became nervous, and yes, the rocks and dirt would escape from my grip, making me fall down few times, wasting precious seconds. Another scream. DAMN IT!

Eventually, I managed to climb to the top, and what I saw froze the blood in my veins. Previously, I called it long. But only now could I truly witness what we were fighting. Normally, I would never acknowledge that this is the same target as before – if not for the small wound on its back. If it would be a humanoid, then location of the wound would be more or less on its upper back – the place where Gha’zri hit.

It was a few, maybe a dozen meters long, and it was using both ends of its body at the same time. It would surround the squad, then started using the tip of its tail to distract the trolls – if something is killing your friends there is no way you would ignore something knocking rocks around you. After the assassins would turn in the direction of the tail, it would attack from behind.

I have never seen something like that – it looked as if it had two lower jaws, when it opened its mouth, they would move to the sides, showing their insides filled with dozens of needle-like teeth. One bite was enough to tear off an arm, and that’s what it was doing.

Four men down, within two minutes it managed to kill a third of our forces.

Cursing nastily, I took the bow off my shoulder and started aiming. But where should I shoot? On its lower body to reduce its agility? It was covered in some ugly, overlapping scales, on the other hand, near its head, its form was partly humanoid – I could clearly see some primitive torso and arms – still, instead of hands, it had sickle like limbs. That part was not covered in natural armor, but as it was moving in all direction, the chances that I would hit it directly were constantly decreasing.

I can’t risk it. I aimed at its tail. If I could pin in it to the ground and regroup as a team, then we could finish it off by a tempest of weak attacks from all directions, wearing it down with arrows!

That was what I told to myself in my head as I fired an arrow and pulled another one from my quiver, reading for another shot.

But the projectile simply bounced off. The monstrosity raised its head, looking for the source of the attack. Looking for me.

Our eyes met. Its mouth twisted into a savage grin after it spotted me, just before it returned to finishing off another bowman. His comrade threw his bow aside, picked a serrated dagger from his side and buried it in the creature’s side, between the scales.

Its tail quivered in pain. The naga like beast, paying almost no attention to the attacker, started looking for another pray.

- “JUMP AWAY!” I yelled. “MAG’RAGR! FALL BACK!”

All in vain, it was too late. By “paying no attention” I didn’t mean that beast did nothing to its opponent that repeatedly stabbed it. Its tail moved from behind as it imprisoned the other greenskin in a tight grip.

Mag’ragr kept struggling for a few more moments, but slowly, his movements were losing their vigor. His expression showed his pain and his eyes were almost popping out of his skull. Then a quiet “snap” proclaimed everyone around that his spine has been broken. Paralyzed, he felt on the ground.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

- “TAKE THISSS!” They were not idiots. In normal situation, they would never scream at the opponents while attacking. But this was not a normal situation, after the creature shattered their formation, after it slaughtered half of the team and completely dominated the battlefield, my men became desperate, they made mistakes that even rookies should never do.

The beast opened its mouth and spat out some kind of liquid. It must have fallen into the attacker’s eyes, since he fell on his knees with his palms on his head.

What could I do? I kept firing, yelling commands that were either ignored or executed clumsily. Most of my arrows were missing their target. Why? I was never that bad in shooting! Ah, my hands are trembling.

So this is how terror feels like?

Once again, I witnessed as the tail grabbed the leg of one of my man, raised him in the air before throwing him on the rocks. The mountains were naturally red. Rusty-red. After the body hit the ground its red color became more… fresh, hypnotizing… alive. Scarlet-red. The beast didn’t stop pulverizing the body, until it was no longer recognizable. If a traveler would be moving across this place, he couldn’t tell if that specific carcass belonged to a troll, a human, a dwarf, or an animal. It was simply a puddle of red meat and bones.

And then it started moving in my direction, swaying its body to the sides in this awful snake-dance-movement.

I pulled the string and shot. And missed.

I pulled and released again. The sickle-like arm hit the arrow as it was still flying throwing it away.

I pulled again. The arrow dug in its lower body, yet it did not stop.

- “Why?” I fired again. “How?!”

I tried releasing another projectile, but the monster already reduced the distance between us and snatched the bow off my hands. I saw my main weapon being crushed.

I pulled my dagger… but I didn’t use it. I couldn’t move. I was looking into his deep, weird, reptile eyes. So strange. So weird. One blue, one green. With vertical pupils… yet, the rest of its eyes wasn’t white, like dwarfs’, elves’, humans’ or greenskins’. It was unnaturally yellow. Toxic yellow. Angry yellow.

Dead yellow.

- “How?” I didn’t even know if it was me still asking, as my heart kept beating furiously. My vision started playing tricks on me, i couldn’t breath properly...

...And then, there was darkness.

Zari’s POV