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Chapter 37: A Battle With Snilbogs
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"The roaming tribes of rei beasts come in near infinite variety; indeed, it is foolish to categorize them simply as "rei beasts," for in many cases they are intelligent creatures with whole societies, cultures, and governmental organizations.* see footnote. Though they may be intelligent, the naive among you who believe that they might be reasoned with need only to look at the example of history; every attempt to make peace, every effort to come to terms, has failed. The common practice has become extermination and eradication quests when their activities encroach too far upon townships, and avoidance when the territory they occupy is of no use or is reasonably worth giving up to avoid the inevitable cost in lives to reclaim." ~ Excerpt from Professor Juae, Lecturer at the Noan University of Adventuring Arts.
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Arrows sliced the air between them coming from their left flank, flying past with audible whishes and whirs. The silence of the forest erupted with a cacophony of guttural screams and shouts from their left as more arrows zipped past all around them. One caught Logan in the shoulder, grazing the steam fish scales and deflecting off. It knocked him sideways and sent a shooting pain into his arm that faded into a dull throb.
“They’re on the left, find cover! Ryan, with me! Protect Huck!”
Logan drew and fired arrow after arrow, shooting at anything that moved in the waning shadows in the near middle distance. Short figures scurried and moved behind branches and beside trees, their harsh staccato shouts followed by a bristling black arrow sent leaping towards Logan. He threw himself to the side, landing hard on his side then rolling to his feet and sprinting towards Huck a few meters away. Ryan was already next to his father, sending arrows flying towards the hidden snilbogs with a speed and precision that Logan could never hope to rival. He recognized the arrows as the ones that Huck had gifted him when they first set out into the forest together, and their gleaming metal heads glistened with a wonderous, terrible beauty that thirsted for blood. Every one he fired seemed eager to leave his bow, disappearing from sight as soon as it was fired and invariably resulting in an earsplitting shriek of pain from the tree line a moment later.
Haggard and hobbling, Huck leaned hunched over against a small sapling, short sword gripped tightly in his hand, groaning. He was bleeding from his leg, a short arrow lodged deep in his thigh. Fuck Fuck Fuck. We have to get to cover. More arrows shot past them, some passing inches from the trio’s bodies. A roar shook the ground and the battle seemed to pause momentarily, all attention focused singularly on the sound. Pug lifted his pudgy face to the canopy above and bellowed, then charged towards the tree line and the sea of snilbogs.
“Ryan, use gas arrows, we’ll make a screen to distract them. This is our chance to find cover, hurry!”
Ryan didn’t respond with words, but the next arrow he fired left a cloud of green mist a few feet in front of the nearest trees. Logan fired one too, then another, then finished with a blue blood arrow which ignited them, causing an explosion that lit up the darkness and revealed at least ten short, green shapes draped in leather and bone and wielding crude spears and jagged swords charging across the no man’s land between Logan’s team and the tree line. Five broke off to intercept Pug, who was now half way to reaching the snilbog archers and pin cushioned with black shafts. The others ran towards the trio, closing quickly.
“Ryan, hold them off, Huck come on!”
Logan stowed his bow and looped his arm around Huck’s torso, placing the older man’s single arm around his neck and hefting the man up. Huck groaned in pain, placing his weight on his one good leg and standing awkwardly. This isn’t going to work. Damn it! “Logan, pick him up!” Mikey shouted in his head. Of course, why didn’t I think of that. Logan’s hands shook as he unwrapped Huck’s arm from his neck and stooped to place his shoulder into Huck’s pelvis, hefting him over his shoulders and standing. Huck was heavy, but Logan had grown far stronger since coming to Tiris, and the man’s weight felt far less than he’d have imagined.
Logan hopped slightly, positioning Huck’s weight over him, then began to run forwards towards Synec, who was forging a path in front of them with his sword. Ryan followed, back pedaling after Logan while firing arrows at the quickly encroaching snilbogs with a grimace on his face.
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Tarn chased after the llort who’d entered into a frenzy, thrashing wildly at the snilbogs surrounding it, prodding at it with long spears. His robes billowed behind him as he ran, and he unfurled Jakar, transforming its head into a javelin and sending it rocketing towards the nearest snilbog in the circle, chains rattling as they trailed behind the projectile. The snilbog’s back was turned, and Jakar speared through his thin leather armor with a crunch.
“Atar!”
Jakar yanked back towards Tarn, the chain becoming taught and retracting with a forceful tug that cast the snilbog screaming, falling backwards into the air. The sudden death of one of their comrades gave the snilbogs pause, and they began shouting at each other frantically, jabbing at Pug with renewed vigor. Pug caught an incoming spear in one meaty hand and yanked it free from the snilbogs grasp, sending the warrior tumbling forwards into his reach.
The snilbog looked up at the llort who stood a few feet taller than him, and cowered backwards, glistening sharpened black teeth bared and empty hands raised helplessly. Pug swung the spear like a bat, sending the pole haft crashing into the helpless snilbogs skull. The spear split apart with a crack, and the snilbog’s head cracked inwards around the impact as he was thrown to the side, his body arrested by the momentum of the swing.
One of the three remaining snilbogs dropped his spear and sprinted towards the archers still firing from the tree line. By then, Tarn had reached the llort and his aggressors. He quickly dispatched one with a swipe of Jaber in hook form, and Pug caught hold of the other. The llort palmed the snilbog’s head in one hand and smashed it several times into the forest floor, then released its limp body. “Atta boy puggie! Come on!”
The llort roared again, then followed Tarn in a charge for the trees and the archers therein.
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An arrow grazed Ryan’s side, punched a hole in his cloak, and continued into the dirt behind him. The pain was a searing fire, but he grit his teeth and released a blue blood arrow into the snilbog's face, covering it in blue goop that burned and sizzled, melting and burning the cretin’s green flesh. The snilbog, only feet away, screeched and croaked, a sound gurgling and bleating from the creature’s throat as it clawed at its face and stumbled, collapsing to the ground. Another trampled over its fallen companion, then leapt onto Ryan, knocking him to the dirt.
The weight of the snilbog was atop him, pinning him, the bow stuck between them his only protection from the snilbog’s clawing hands. Ryan strained against it, shouting wordlessly as he pressed the bow upwards, rolled, and flipped the snilbog off of him. The snilbog’s sword scraped across Ryan’s forearm as it rolled over, cutting through the membrane of his armor and raking his flesh. Hot blood poured from the wound and Ryan scrambled to his feet, reaching under his cloak for a knife strapped to his chest. His heart pounded as blood pumped from the cut, but he didn’t have time to worry about that. He threw himself towards the snilbog, knife in hand.
It scurried away, but not fast enough to avoid Ryan’s knife in its leg just below the knobby knee. The snilbog shrieked, and beat down on Ryan’s back with the pommel of its sword. Ryan let go of the knife and tackled the snilbog, wrapping his arms around its small waist and dragging it to the ground. The sword fell out of the snilbog’s hand and Ryan found himself atop the creature, his hips over the snilbog’s bare green stomach. The snilbog snarled up at him, squirming under Ryan’s weight, but they were evenly matched. Spittle flew up from the snilbog’s mouth between short, sharp teeth, and its beady eyes glared hatefully over its long, pointed nose at the human sitting on top of it. The snilbog lurched under him, and Ryan lost his balance, falling forwards. He pinned the snilbogs arms with his own and tried to push himself up, but a blazing, fiery pain erupted above his shoulder just below his neck, causing him to cry out and slacken his grip on the snilbog’s wrists.
The snilbog’s black pointed teeth sunk into the flesh of Ryan’s trapezius, and it bit down hard. Red blood gushed from the bite, and Ryan fell off of the snilbog. He was flipped onto his back, the snilbog atop him. Releasing the bite, he began to claw at Ryan who desperately fumbled for another knife. Claws raked his face, cheeks, nose, forehead, leaving trails of blood and pain. Blood splashed into his eyes, blurring his vision. He tried to hold the snilbog off with one arm extended straight in front of him while the other searched for the knife. His fingers closed around a hilt, and he pulled it free, cutting across the snilbog’s cheek.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The snilbog reeled and Ryan tossed him off, leaping atop it once again. He stabbed down at the snilbog, sinking his knife into hits head and throat over and over again, screaming, dripping blood and sweat from his own face and the seeping wounds at his forearm and trap. His body shook with pain, but he pushed it down, burying it in his mind, walling it off. He had to protect his pa he had to…. He pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his bow from where it’d fallen some feet away from their struggle, and tried to line up a shot on the snilbog slashing up at Huck.
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“Logan! Behind us!”
Logan sprinted faster, Huck bouncing up and down as he ran, dodging and weaving to avoid both arrows and the roots that snuck up from the ground, impeding their path. He twisted his neck and shoulders, trying to look behind him, summoning a dagger in the hand that wasn’t holding onto Huck’s cloak to keep him stable. A snilbog was closing in on them, sword in hand, another a short distance behind it with a spear. They wailed a cruel hunting cry, their hideous faces alight with fervent glee at the chase. He didn’t have time to set Huck down. Logan threw the dagger, catching the snilbog’s hip but barely slowing. Where’s Ryan? He couldn’t see the boy at all.
His mind raced for a solution, but the snilbog was upon them. Huck batted it off with his short sword, but couldn’t strike at it well from atop Logan’s back. Logan dove sideways to avoid the snilbog’s sword, and sent Huck tumbling off of his shoulders and rolling into the dirt where he collided into a rock with a thud. Huck lay motionless, sword dropped nearby. Logan looked towards him and shouted, but was cut off by the snilbog, arms reaching overhead to deliver a finishing blow to the fallen, crippled man. A moment later an arrow struck the snilbog’s back and exploded into a gout of blue flame, consuming the snilbog in a plume of roaring fire and guttural, inhuman shrieks. The snilbog ran a few feet away, careened into a root, and fell onto his face, twitching and burning.
Logan ran to Huck’s unmoving figure, knelt beside him, and turned him over, feeling at his neck for a pulse. He was alive, but unconscious. He looked over his shoulder intending to search for Ryan but was met with the sight of another snilbog, this one taller than the last, charging at him with a spear. The snilbog’s armor, a leather jerkin adorned with rows of small bones sewn into stacks that extended from over its shoulders and chest down to its knees rattled as it approached. The snilbog stopped in place, raised its spear in one hand towards the sky, and bellowed up at the moon. The sound chilled Logan’s bones, and he reached into his inventory for a longsword, gripping it tightly in two hands and getting to his feet. The snilbog lowered his gaze to his prey, his beady black eyes glowing faintly red. His thin green lips pulled back into a snarling smile, and he spit on the ground in front of him.
“I RAXAR. HUMAN DIE, I KILL YOU NOW!” The words were garbled, mispronounced, and barely intelligible, but Logan understood that this snilbog, Raxar, must be different than the others if he could speak their language at all. The snilbog lowered his spear and charged at Logan. Logan clenched his jaw and waited until the snilbog, Raxar, was just a few feet away. He leapt to the side, his stats giving him a speed and dexterity far beyond what he’d been able to achieve on Earth. He swung his sword up, catching the spear and lifting it off center, knocking Raxar off balance. He transitioned the momentum of his sweep into a swing for Raxar’s torso, but the snilbog anticipated the strike and hopped backwards, then thrust at Logan. Logan barely had time to lift his sword, catching the spear with his cross guard just inches from his head.
Locked into an awkward position, Logan desummoned the longsword and let the spear fall to the ground. A long knife appeared in his hands as he charged forwards towards Raxar. The snilbog yelped in surprise, but reacted quickly by dropping the spear and drawing a pair of jagged knives that looked crafted from the jawbones of some animal Logan had never seen. Raxar parried Logan’s thrust easily, then slashed at his side with the serrated edge of one of his knives. It scratched and slid against the steamfish scales of his jacket, but was unable to penetrate the hard armor. Raxar snarled and kicked Logan in the torso with a bare foot, his heel connecting with Logan’s liver.
Logan dropped his knife and staggered backwards, a hand pressed to his side. Raxar swung at his head, but a tall rectangular shield appeared between them obscuring Logan and catching his blade as it imbedded into the wood. Raxar roared in frustration and flung the shield aside, raising his other knife to strike down at Logan. The shield toppled to the ground revealing Logan, crouched, halberd gripped in both hands. Logan thrust upwards, impaling Raxar beneath his sternum. Blood spurt from Raxar’s mouth, dark maroon, oily, and greasy, running down his chin as he gurgled. He swung in vain down at Logan, but the distance was too great, and his strength was quickly fading. He wriggled helplessly on the halberd, his movements becoming weaker and weaker, then began to slide down the shaft, blood coating the wooden polearm as he slid. Logan heaved the weapon, tossing it and the dead snilbog aside, then looked about himself frantically.
In the distance he could hear the llort’s bellows and saw Tarn’s chain blades flashing in the trees; he made out the lumbering grey mass of Pug’s bulk waving a large branch and sending smaller green blurs of snilbog flying with each mighty swing. Arrows had ceased coming their direction, and now the cause was evident. Ahead of him, the sound of clanging metal, blade on blade, and the shrieking cry which he’d come to assimilate with the death of snilbogs rang out, a distant uproar of violence. In his immediate vicinity, there was stillness. The burning snilbog from before still sizzled and popped, his body slowly being eaten away by the festering blue flames, and Raxar lay dead, bleeding into the dirt on his halberd. Huck lay unconscious, face up beside the rock, and Ryan was nowhere to be seen.
“Ryan!” Nothing. “Ryan!!” Logan cupped his hands to his mouth and called out behind him. He could make out the faintest of sounds, a croak from a bush a handful of yards away. “Over there, Logan!” Mikey cried out, and Logan felt his vision shift and fixate on a form on the ground, directed by Mikey’s attention. It was a booted foot peaking out from behind a bush.
Logan summoned his shortsword and ran over, carefully rounding the bush. Ryan sat propped up on one arm, the other clasped on his collarbone. His bow was lying discarded on a patch of grass beside him, and the quiver had slipped from Ryan’s shoulder and fallen at his side. Blood coated the boy’s fingers and pulsed out from the wound between them, covering the pale skin in bright red.
“Ryan!” Logan knelt and dropped his sword, retrieved a roll of bandages and a tin of ointment, and began wrapping tight circles under Ryan’s armpit and over his collarbone, then around his chest in a T pattern, trying to staunch the bleeding. “Come on buddy, you’re gonna be alright, I’m here, I’ve got you. It’s okay.” Ryan reached up and touched Logan’s cheek. “Logan?” The words were a whisper, barely audible against the backdrop of Logan’s heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Tears streamed from his face as words poured out of his mouth, tumbling over one another as his shaking hands fought desperately with the bandages, wrapping them in a sloppy fervor. The beige cloth immediately soaked through with dark red as he wrapped layer after layer over the wound. “Please stop bleeding please stop bleeding please stop bleeding please fucking stop please fucking stop stop stop stop stop.” Ryan’s hand fell away, falling limply to the ground.
Logan began to hyperventilate, his breathes coming rapid and shallow. Mikey tried speaking to him, but the words sounded far away. “Logan, calm down, wrap the bandages and—” Alex’s eyes were open wide, the eyelids burned away by the fire. His skin was charred on the left side of his face, but on the right side it was a milky white, paler than printer paper, and miraculously untouched by the flames. Dried blood caked his forehead even as new, dark red blood trickled from an open wound where a chunk of flesh had been ripped from his temple. His eyes stared up into Logan’s, clouded and unseeing, lifeless but condemning. Logan rocked back and forth, stroking his brother’s matted hair, the car roaring on fire behind him, sirens blaring in the distance, a woman crying, a man shouting from the highway above. “shhhh, it’s gonna be alright Alex, it’s gonna be alright, It’s gonna be okay, shhh.” A secondary explosion went off in the car and Logan flinched, hugging his brother’s head to his chest, smearing more blood and entrails from his missing lower half against the tall, uncut grass of the highway’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, you’re okay,” he sobbed, his voice muffled by his brother’s hair as Logan pressed his face against his brother’s scalp.
“Ryan, stay with me buddy, it’s okay,” he said, lifting the boy up. His face had grown deathly pale and his skin cold, but he nodded lethargically as Logan helped him stand. “I’m going to carry you, okay, I’ll carry you.” Logan hefted Ryan over his right shoulder then stooped and quickly touched the discarded bow and quiver, adding them to his inventory. He stood and hurried to where he’d left Huck. Ryan was light on his shoulder, an almost negligible weight, like carrying a pillow. I’m strong, but he’s small. He’s so small, he’s so young, he’s too young, I— Logan stumbled, tripped over a root, lost his balance, and almost fell, barely catching himself. His eyes went wide, his breaths came faster, but deeper, he felt himself growing light headed. He’s gonna die, they’re gonna die, because of me, because I— “SNAP OUT OF IT LOGAN!”
Mikey’s voice cut through his brain fog like a knife, jarring him awake and dousing him with ice cold water. “You’re going to protect them right? Then snap out of it! Ryan is bleeding out and Huck is all alone, unconscious. Tarn and Synec are fighting hard to make an opening for you to get away, so move!”
“Mikey—thank you.” Memories of Alex, his mom, and the burning car tugged at him, yearning for his attention, but he pushed them away. He looked up at Ryan’s head dangling over his left shoulder, eyes closed, and sucked in air through his teeth. Okay. It’s up to me. Come on. You have to do this.
He crouched and did a double take of the area around him. No snilbogs. He rushed over to Huck and Raxar’s corpse, making good time. He lay Ryan down next to his father and retrieved his halberd from where it lay in a pool of dark blood and muddied dirt, stuck through Raxar’s chest. He returned to Huck and Ryan, knelt down, and lifted Huck over one shoulder. His legs dangled in front of Logan’s right side, his hips by Logan’s head. Logan looped his arm up and over his waist, holding him as securely as possible. He knelt again and did the same with Ryan, hefting him over his left shoulder, and looping his arm around his waist. He stood, shoulders raised, holding one with each arm beside his head. His shoulders ached from the strain of keeping them from rolling off, but he could do it—he had to do it.
Logan looked beside him towards Tarn and Pug, then in front towards Synec and the snilbogs he was engaging in that direction. He couldn’t contribute anything to the fight in his current condition, and he had to get these two to safety. Making up his mind, he turned away from them and took off at an angle that would lead him away from Tarn and off to the right, diagonally passing Synec to his left. He’d get Huck and Ryan back to Woolam if it cost him his life, then come back for Tarn and Synec. That was the best he could do.
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Krayznak watched the battle unfold from atop Aracaer’s carapace back, perched upside down on a string of webbing, dangling from a branch that reached out high above the forest floor below. He watched with smug satisfaction as Raxar, that arrogant, self-serving shit, died to the rei user. I’ll be the one to kill him, before even Graknul. I’ll take his position next to Barr Amar in the tunnels; I’ll bring back the human’s head and claim my rightful place as a chieftain.
Krayznak looked on as the rei user lifted the small human onto a shoulder and the larger, broken one onto another, encumbering himself. The rei user looked around, then scampered off away from the battle and towards the forest’s edge and the human village beyond. Krayznak lifted a hand to his mouth and blew through his fingers, whistling to the other Sparasida Calvary spider riders. A soft click-clacking sound grew from the forest’s silence as the great spiders scurried down the tall tree trunks from their hiding places, forming up around him.
“After that one,” he said, gesturing with his lance towards the rei user. “Today we hunt humans—today, we hunt a rei user!” The snilbogs under his command raised their voices in shouts and jeers of excitement. The thrill of hunting humans was a rare one indeed, but to hunt a rei user? No one in their generation had had that honor, not since the General had slain the Great Archer rei user decades ago. He raised his voice in revel with them, then barked out the command to charge. Aracaer climbed up the string of webbing and took off down the tree branch, speeding towards their prey below.