The soft crunch of snow as the lizard took steps backward followed by the crackling of ice forming under the animal was all I could hear as I hid behind the bushes and snow, intent on seeing some combat or even magical abilities of this world. The duo of enemies slowly backed towards my hiding place in the snow, and all I can hope for is that my white scales keep me hidden enough in this landscape and they continue to walk on past me.
Noticing that I’m not immediately in danger, I found myself taking in more details of each individual. First, the lizard who’s like me but red. He wore what seems to be wearing furs stitched together into clothes, with leather armor portions over that. Leather chest piece, pauldrons, arm guards, and perhaps more I couldn’t see. I also see him wielding what seems to be a large dagger, with proportions that somehow seem wrong. If I had to guess, the dagger was not made for someone of our size and seems a bit large in his hands. Or… in his claws, I guess?
As for the beast slowly crawling towards him, looks like some strange lynx. The fur is snow white, with tinges of grey. All in all, looked to be a normal animal. Except upon my closer look there was a strange white pulsing underneath its fur inside it’s body. Somewhat faint, not like it was emitting white, but it reminded me of what happens if you shine a light through your palm by pressing a flashlight against your hand. The white glowy bits would move around inside its body, a majority of the pulsing appearing to be moving in its front legs where the snow was becoming ice as it moved. Maybe this is a normal animal with something inside it? Is this an animal using magic? How does this work exac-
My thoughts are cut off as the beast lunges at the red lizard, forelegs striking the man as he raises his left arm in defense, aiming his bracer to absorb the blow. Time seems to slow down as combat begins, or perhaps I was just lost in the moment of watching an actual fight in front of me. The next moment, I watch as his bracer takes the claws of the beast and then rapidly begins frosting over, cracking as the leather freezes and becomes brittle. The lizard lets out a screech of pain as his arm is coated in frost and ice around where the beast’s clawed paws landed on him.
The warrior then rapidly thrusts the dagger into the chest of the beast with his right hand. Each stab pulls away with blood on the dagger that drips to the snowy ground slowly, almost looking more like a thick slurry than normal blood flowing from a wound. He then positions the blade near his left shoulder as he swings upward, cutting into the beast’s face. But the swing must have been weak, as the attack is shallow. It does, however, get the beast to stumble a step away from him as it falls back trying to dodge or lessen the facial wound. It stands for half a second with the dagger stabbed into part of its face, the glowing areas concentrating near its face and mouth as ice seems to seal its wounds.
The lizard doesn’t give it the chance to recover, however. He dashes forward, getting both hands on the blade’s handle. Even if one arm looked quite damaged, he still manages to pull the upward with both arms with surprising strength. I find myself cringing and rolling back where I’m hiding in the snow as I watch the lynx lose it’s right half of its face. The sliced off flesh hits the snow beside it and seems to be radiating some strange mist. The lynx’s body collapses in the snow, its facial wound very slowly filling the damaged areas with glowing ice, with whatever magical effect is within it.
The snow behind me squeaks since I moved in my hiding place, and the warrior’s face snaps back to look for the noise. My eyes meet his as he spots me, me reacting from seeing the gore gave him enough of a clue to spot where I was - even with my body blending in. He glares at me, and I can’t seem to move myself. If he’s an enemy, I may have screwed myself. Even if my memory of before all this is cloudy or somewhat blocked, I was never a fighter. I prepare myself to stand as the lynx’s body erupts into movement once again.
The beast’s face replaced the sliced open half with just strange assortments of jagged ice. With neither mine nor the warrior’s attention on it for that moment, it must have prepared and leaped at the other lizard. Whatever remained of its face had its mouth open and in what should’ve been a leaping bite, instead just appears to be a mangle of ice and fleshy bits flying towards the lizard’s head.
His eyes, still aimed at me, go wide as his head snaps back to pay attention to the creature as it dives onto him. He leans his body back and sinks into the snow as the pounce of the creature reaches him, and it begins pinning him to the ground. As it thrashes about on top of him, its movements seem much less animalistic, and more like its limbs are being puppeted in an effort to attack. Its mangled head is now more ice than flesh, ice pouring out of its wound, slowly forming into a rough mouth and fangs. It then begins throwing this slowly forming head at the warrior, trying to force these newly created weapons into the lizard’s body. The red lizard’s arms both support the large dagger which he has sideways in its mouth, pushing the monstrosity’s face away from him.
Still mentally frozen where I was sitting in the snow, I look at the chaotic fight between the warrior and the now obviously monstrous… whatever it is in the animal’s body. I slowly pull myself to my feet and turn and see that I have every chance to just escape. No other monsters or animals nearby. This isn’t my fight. I’m still naked aside from the scales on my body, and I doubt my little claws could damage the thing…
But I’m also somewhat scared that me distracting him caused this lapse in concentration on his fight and may end up killing him. I look around the area quickly. Sticks, too weak. I doubt an ice monster would be distracted by snow thrown at it. I step once or twice as I try to quickly find a weapon, and my foot hits a small stone underneath the snow I’m now standing in… hopefully that’ll do.
I reach down into the snow and pull up the rock, which is large enough to fill out my small hand. I then look at the monster, the animal body slowly being consumed by ice growing out of other areas, perhaps old wounds… And I sprint at it as well as I can in the deep snow. I find myself yelling incoherently as I do, trying to force myself into a braver attitude. I pull back my arm as I approach the beast, and quickly swing my arm forward with the momentum of my entire body turning. I didn’t aim for any specific spot, but the beast’s head rises as it notices my screaming approach.
*SLAM*, followed by the creaking and snapping of ice.
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The rock collides into the side of whatever the icy construct is that turns to me, and I see cracks spread across it’s form as my rock slams into what used to be the face of a lynx. My arm erupts in pain, as it feels like I broke something in my arm when my attack landed.
The creature stumbles a few steps back before gaining its composure and turning to me again, its form vastly worse than the lynx from earlier, who’s body still functions as the back end of the monster. The entire front end is slowly being reinforced or replaced by whatever the magic glowy bits inside are. The forelegs once used to attack the warrior are now supported by layers of ice creating larger and much more dangerous looking claws. The head of the lynx hanging to one side of the creature as crude icy replica of its head is sticking out of the wound the warrior made. Whatever cracks formed from my attack slowly fill and reform.
My arm throbs in pain as I look down at my hand and notice the rock I used had crumbled in my grip. Now weaponless, my attention returns to the monster, only for me to freeze in fear as I see the creature pouncing through the air at me.
And yet a moment later, I find myself alive as the creature suddenly flies to my left, a brown and red blur of scales and armor diving into the creature’s midsection mid-pounce. I almost died… I could’ve ended my little adventure right there if this lizard warrior hadn’t continued to attack the monster. I am definitely no fighter. I hear the other lizard yelling out stupid things like “Forget about me?” but my focus is not on them for the moment.
Fighting back my cowardice in the face of death, or at least as much as I can, I look around for another weapon. Rock won’t work. Need something harder. More solid. My eyes drift around the area as I try to search for a way to help in this fight, but nothing seems to come to mind immediately. I kneel down into the snow and waste a few seconds as I begin pushing it away so I can see the forest floor hidden beneath. Perhaps even a rock would work as a distraction as the warrior does his thing, but I need anything. Maybe…
My hands stop pushing the snow and pull the detailed iron medallion off my neck, letting the chain hang loose as I hold the item in my hand. About the same size as that rock I used before. Certainly harder and sturdier. I make up my mind and turn to run towards where the warrior is wrestling the elemental creature. To any gods my tribe worshipped and devoted this item to, I’m sorry. But it’s my best option right now.
I find the scene of the two locked in combat much more chaotic that before, the lizard warrior using one hand to push the creatures head against the ground while the other was busy stabbing into the creatures midsection. His breastplate was shredded to pieces where one newly icy clawed limb could reach him, and small amounts of blood could be seen flying here and there between their attacks on each other. Both types, chunky and frozen lynx blood, and fresh warm lizard-whatever blood.
I once again, without any knowledge of how to better attack with just a round hard object, sprint at the beast and slam the medallion down onto its head. *SLAM* This time, however, the ice actually gave way to my improvised weapon. Portions of the face that were pinned by the warriors free hand crumbled away as my assault began, and this time I didn’t let the pain in my arm stop me. I know the feeling of adrenaline pumping in my body, and apparently this lizard body of mine has it. I saw the lizard warrior react in astonishment as well as I began to wail my medallion against its face. He pulled his arm away to give me more room to attack and began holding down a clawed foreleg instead. My wailing was weirdly effective as I gave up any thoughts other than shattering this monster to pieces.
*SLAM*, *SLAM*, *SLAM*. My arm just repeatedly brought the hard object down the creature.
Once the new ice head was in pieces, I began smashing off the new claws and the reinforced bits on the forelegs. And then… Well, I just kept swinging. I had been yelling this entire time as well.
Eventually, after my medallion began impacting more and more fleshy bits, the warrior’s good arm catches my hand midair. I look up at him, just now noticing my eyes slightly watery. I had been attacking repeatedly in a panic.
“It’s dying, little one. Stay your hand.”
His eyes were full of concern more than anything, piercing red like his scales. I relax my arm slowly, as his grip on my hand lessens and lets go. The faint dripping from the medallion is heard, with the item now covered in loose fur and semi-frozen lynx blood.
I slump onto the ground, just sitting in the snow and looking at the monster. Whatever glowing bits it had within the ice are now diminished. The body of the lynx remains mutilated by the stabbing attacks and wherever my swinging arm could reach, while the frozen areas begin to thaw. The area around is still cold and freezing, so I watch in wonder as the icy form that grew out of the lynx corpse melts away to seemingly nothing. Not even water remained of the ice.
“So what brings a little one like yourself this far down the mountain? You Kornix folk never leave the peaks around here.” The warrior speaks up again, his snout afterward bending into a smile that showed off all his sharp teeth within.
I just look back up at him, unsure how to respond. I move my snouted mouth in a few ways, trying to copy his movements from how he spoke, but all that comes out are strange combinations of growls and hisses. I’m still not entirely sure how I’m understanding him, and I’m certainly not understanding anything out of my own mouth.
His eyes narrow, the vertical pupils staring at me with a new intensity. “Now that I get a look at you… You seem way too young for a trip this far down your mountains.” He studies my form, slowly walking around me, before I notice his gaze focusing on the medallion in my hand, and I turn my attention to it as well. I slowly brush the gunk and fur off the face of it, revealing the medallion underneath.
It's unblemished. Other than being covered in disgusting lynx bits, it looks identical to before I used it for a beatdown. My eyes focus on it, trying to find scratches or any damage of any sort.
“Well. Damn. You don’t even know what you’re holding. You’re a hatchling, too, aren’t you?”
I looked up at the warrior, unsure what to make of any of this. He just smiles in response, but there’s hints of pain in his eyes. Not physical, even though he is still somewhat bleeding from his torso, but more emotional. He watches carefully as I slowly slip the medallions chain around my neck once again.
“I suppose we will have to make camp. I know a cave near here. We will rest, and I’ll make sure we can communicate. Then I’ll need to know what happened to your clan.”