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Glen
Mister Garth
Hardir O’ Fardor
Hardir O’ Fardor
Part II
-The Wyvern’s Name-
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> Oh, that good ole Elas the Wise had a secret thorn, an evil blister,
>
> A shrewd lass that wasn’t the most fair, nor rumored to be kind.
>
> Folk said even her dreams were cruel. Horrors and whispers tied in a bind.
>
> Loyal repulsive shades were her lovers and her closest aides.
>
> In her tenth named year she journeyed the ever dark Cydonia.
>
> In its darkest pit she made a Circle for her blades.
>
> Caged in it a piece of living light, in blissful horrifying catatonia.
>
> When the King of Kings asked Elas to end her reign,
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> Oh, that vain ole fool up ‘n refused, for the evil cunt was his twin sister.
>
>
>
> Elas Folly
>
> Ancient Zilan Bard’s song
>
> First Era
Anfalon shoved him aside, an arrow breaking on the Hoplite’s thorax the next moment. Glen twisted around, found his footing and run for cover, arrows zipping angry right and left.
A Zilan went down with a gasp of horror, a female, skewered through her head. A Horselord dropped from his horse, three arrows in his torso and the others charged the scrabbling Zilan head on with sabers drawn.
Glen glanced back to find Outlaw, but a Zilan reached him and had to duck under a swing, sidestep a return slash, then parry a cut aimed between his legs.
Ye son of a bitch.
Glen blocked another attack, run his sword down his opponent’s blade, sparks flying between them and cut away the guard. A part of his hand along with it. The edge on his new blade wicked. The Zilan hissed and lost the grip on his sword, as ye can’t hold shit wit two fingers and stumbled away from him.
Glen swung around, the cries of pain mixed with the clanging of blades everywhere around him. Anfalon smacked a sword lunge down with his spear, killed the Zilan that had attempted it using the sharp edge of his shield like a cleaver and pulling his arm back hurled the spear with so much force it went clean through the Zilan that was helping Pelleas pull back to safety and nailed the Priest through the thigh as well.
Uh.
Jinx screamed a warning and Glen barely dodged the flaming arrow, part of his hair burning away above his maimed ear. The old injury healed but clearly visible. He dropped to a knee and Pyriael came at him with a shortsword. The Ranger attacked three times in less than a second, but Glen pulled back each time waiting her out. When she slowed down -the spell spent- Glen burst forward and attacked her aiming to put Angrein’s blade to the test.
Pyriael blocked once, Glen kicked a leg out to break her ankle, but she pulled hers back, only to get punched in the face brutally, her cheek caving in. Pyriael recoiled stunned and Glen growled in mind-numbing pain, two of his fingers broken right below the knuckles. The glove he wore there hiding the worst of the injury.
He stumbled away groaning and sporting a manic part-grimace, part a half-smile on his strained face. All around him Zilan, Gish and humans were fighting savagely trying to get the upper hand. Very few amateurs in the ranks. Almost everyone knew how to handle a blade, or bow. Those that didn’t had pulled back, or were already dead. Anfalon especially was cutting through them trying to reach the badly injured Pelleas, but the Hoplite was slowly getting surrounded from all sides.
I should have brought everyone, he thought.
Glen glanced back to where Jinx and Maeriel were standing, the ranger taking potshots at anyone standing out. Flix was nowhere to be seen and Alix was helping Angrein hold two Zilan warriors at bay. The blacksmith was using his sledgehammer as a deterrent and the hiding behind him Gish had managed to wound one of them with a dagger.
Fuck it, Glen decided and went to help Anfalon himself.
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The Zilan warrior, or a dude that wore stuff he found laid about, sensed him coming and twisted around to block his attack. Glen flipped the sword in his hand and went for a downward slash, the blade howling when it met his opponent’s and broke it. The Zilan managed to jump away, but not afore the blade’s sharp tip opened up the front of his armour, cutting through hardened leather and ruined his lungs.
“Ah,” Glen gasped and stepped away from the blood spraying out of his opponent’s ravaged chest, his heart still beating when he went down on his back and popped out of the grotesque wound.
Having no time to dwell on it, Glen shoved a female sneaking up on Anfalon away and got knifed in the ribs, the blade going through his armor, but only taking a large piece of skin away, as he managed to twist away from it. He stumbled back, grinding his teeth, hand and ribs smarting something fierce and avoided another attack from Pyriael, the ranger hissing in frustration for failing again.
She switched weapons seeing him jumping away, sheathing her dagger and getting her bow out in the time it took Glen to draw a panicked breath. Pyriael had already released her arrow the next moment –probably using another haste spell- and Glen felt it punch through his armor and shove him back violently a full two meters.
> Luthos opened a heavy drunken eyelid.
“Curse ye,” Pyriael snarled realizing he wasn’t hurt, the steel tip stopping on the lightstone pendant he wore underneath it. “Luthos harlot.”
Glen spat down a mix of saliva and a bit of someone else’s blood and checked on his wound with his hurt hand.
“Best of three?” He taunted her and Pyriael hissed reaching in her satchel to cast another spell. Biscuit landing on her putting a stop to that. The Zilan had tried to jump out of the way, but the Wyvern had played that game many a times with Glen and got her good. Pyriael was hurled five meters away, left hand broken in several places and blind in one eye. She crashed between two other cultists freeing Anfalon of the bind he’d found himself in.
The Wyvern looked about him curious at all the violence and then rose onto his hind legs and let out a shriek that made Glen proud.
RRRRRRREEEEEE!
“Taras,” Pelleas growled in horrible pain, from behind the mass of cultists stepping away from the Wyvern and a muscular Zilan warrior stepped forward, wearing a cuirass and carrying two blades and two spears. “Kill the Wyvern. Bring me its head.”
The Beast Hunter nodded, his face missing an eye, an ear and part of his left cheek and got one of his steel spears out. The others rushed Anfalon, all but two that attacked a seething Glen instead.
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Fuck.
Glen parried a blade away, then pivoted on a foot to block another, the first one returning with a vengeance in an attempt to gut him like a pig. He smacked it away with his vambrace, the edge opening his hand from thumb to index finger cutting through the glove. Glen wished he had a shield at the near and Emerson’s glowering face appeared to admonish him for being a right idiot.
He disengaged twirling back, swung once wild to keep the Zilan away and glanced about to assess the situation. Biscuit had gotten a wound on his chest by Taras, part of the broken spear still in him. The Hunter danced around the Wyvern on the balls of his feet a second spear ready, looking for another opening.
Fuck.
Anfalon blocked a blade with his shield, another with his helm, stumbled back to get his kopis out and got pierced through the ribs with a spear… almost. He’d downed his arm seeing the danger and grabbed the shaft stopping it from going in fully. His opponent growled furious and tried to get his spear back, but got a head-butt from the Hoplite instead, the steel heavy helm pulverizing his facial features.
The Zilan died on his feet with a cracked skull and Anfalon stepped back, got the spear out of him, spun it on his palm and skewered the Zilan standing next to the dead one through the mouth. The Zilan dropped dead with the spear protruding out of his face and Anfalon cut hard left behind his shield, blocking three blades at once and then stepped back to draw his sword.
Eh, you’re fine, Glen decided and attacked without warning the sneaking Ranger, whipping his blade out like a cobra. The Zilan ducked under it and got a devastating knee blow right at the jaw, the broken piece severing his tongue and sending him tumbling down. Glen stepped over the flaying Zilan and gave him a boot in the face breaking the rest of his teeth and distorting his features permanently. His friend came at him, but he’d warmed up now and turned a block into an attack to finish it quickly. The second Zilan jumped away and reached for his satchel.
No ye don’t.
Glen slashed the leather strap away, blocked his opponent’s shorter blade and pushed it aside. The Zilan hissed seeing him holding the dagger and tried to stop him raising his left hand. Glen just stabbed right through it, the blade vibrating afore piercing his opponent’s palm and pushing it back towards his own face. It nailed it below his jaw severing his carotid artery. Glen pulled the dagger out, gore spaying the front of his armour and the Zilan went down holding his bloody neck.
RRRRRRRRREE
The Wyvern screeched avoiding Taras’ second attempt and kept moving away on all fours. The Hunter tried again and again, but he kept failing. Glen started his way a permanent scowl on his face. He made two strides in and stopped to defend himself against another warrior carrying Anfalon’s spear. Cursing under his breath Glen retreated, the long weapon lunging at him dangerously close each time.
Pelleas was standing behind the warrior, looking worse for wear and pressed a strange coil on his mouth and blew at it. The sound coming out ridiculous and barely audible amidst the chaos of the scrap.
WHUOA
HUISSSSS
Until it wasn’t.
What in Luthos badly-cut toes was that? Glen wondered and seeing his opponent had frozen distracted at the strange horn-hissing sound, he sneakily stepped forward and run him through with Angrein’s sword. The Zilan gasped clutching at the blade and glared at him accusingly.
“This isn’t a tourney friend,” Glen told him defensively and gave his torso a good kick to get his sword out. Then the strange creepy sound came again and everyone stopped fighting, those that were still standing that is. The former thief felt the ground vibrating under his feet and took a step back alarmed to assess the situation. His instinct was telling him something was horribly wrong. The Wyvern screeched in response to the strange sound and Taras tried to take advantage of it and sneak an attack in again, which forced Glen to move.
Finish the battle, find out what’s going on later.
So he went after the Hunter, running as fast as he could.
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Taras hurled his spear at the Wyvern, but Biscuit sensed him and twisted on his axis, the spear tearing a hole at his left wing, the damage minimal. Granting, it must have hurt a lot. The Wyvern shrieked and lunged forward opening his jaws wide, but Taras rolled away unsheathing both his swords from his back and set his feet to try again. Glen reached them at that moment and made to attack the Hunter, stopping when he realized the Zilan was dead on his feet and his skin had turned a light bluish-green.
Good job buddy.
Biscuit snorted behind him and retracted his tail, just when a huge serpent’s head descended on them out of the thick vapors. A blend between a lizard and a viper, the ears of a very large bat on its scaly head. The massive head the size of a male lion, from mane to tail.
Glen rolled one way and out of trouble on pure instinct and ear-popping adrenalin, with the Wyvern going the other using its wings to lift off, not as gracefully as before. The horrifying serpent’s jaws opened up after the near miss and spat a viscous substance in a two meters radius, before letting out another earth-quivering baritone hiss that was answered twice from somewhere near.
How many of these cunts are out there?
Are ye plaguin’ kidding me?
A freaked out Glen ended his roll and grabbed a spear before turning to face this new threat. He quickly realized a couple of disturbing things. There was a long scaly neck, turning into a huge snake’s body attached to that monster’s head. Very long, as the head had risen higher now to observe the battlefield, five meters above a gawking Glen and with a dark red line running down the length of its dark green scaly neck.
Fuck, he thought again with a shiver.
Anfalon who had gotten free from the Zilan bothering him -via the time-tested manner of slaying them to the last- stood up and yelled at that point, managing to snap Glen out of his dazed state.
“A mature Hydra,” The Hoplite continued calmly after he'd gotten his attention, as if he was reading an army supplies monthly report. At some point he’d retrieved his spear. “I’ll distract it, whilst you kill it Hardir. We must protect the others.”
Glen went to nod at his words at first, but paused midway through and glared at the ancient Zilan. What manner of bullshit is that fool sprouting out?
His thoughts interrupted by the screeching Wyvern that came flying down and landed on the head knocking it back. Anfalon hurled his spear skewering it through the neck, when it tried to turn towards the flying away Wyvern and Glen grinding his teeth and cursing every god in the pantheon old and new, charged the injured beast’s head.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
He run the small distance in a haze and with ears ringing. The smell of rot on his nostrils. The Hydra’s cranium hit the ground with a thud alike a granite boulder, Anfalon’s spear lodged in the torn skin and bleeding.
No soon that it did that though, it started rising again apparently not as badly hurt. The beast’s white-yellow snake eyes saw Glen rushing it with the spear and opened its jaws impossibly wide, gelatinous pink interior behind the shortsword-sized elongated fangs and coughed up another blob of that viscous material out. A bucket’s worth of it.
Oh, for slovenly fuck’s sake.
Glen was already committed and he clamped up from arsehole to eyebrows expecting the worst. Whatever that worst may have been. He got his wind knocked out of him, a rib cracking on his left already hurt side and was swatted away from the foul liquid.
Jinx’s mess of a hair on his face.
“Gah,” Glen mumbled and pushed the young Gish away. “Have you lost yer mind?” He growled, his gawking eyes spotting Hydra’s hideous head approaching half-hidden in the lake’s vapors behind her.
“MOVE!” Alix bellowed appearing out of nowhere and bumped a stunned Jinx out of the way, the Hydra’s monstrous jaws snapping shut on him. It swallowed the Gish’s head and most of his right shoulder, along with the arm, lifted him clean off the ground and then tossed him away like a toy.
“NOOOO!” Jinx screamed blowing Glen’s eardrums off just as he chucked his spear, managing to almost dislocate his shoulder in the attempt, but nailing the beast’s left eye. The steel tip sunk into the scaly eye-socket, the orb dissolving and pouring out. The Hydra hissed and recoiled trying to get away in deep pain, another two otherworldly hair-raising and horn-like calls answering from somewhere near.
“DON’T LET IT GET AWAY!” Anfalon boomed and rushed past him, Glen staring at the running Zilan dumbfounded.
The Hoplite slashed at the retreating and shuddering head, taking one of its fangs off. He hacked at it again, before another head appeared, an exact copy of the first one to smack him so hard, Glen heard bones snapping from where he stood.
“Alix, oh my god,” Jinx cried running towards the place the hapless male Gish had ended up, just as Anfalon went down as well, his arm broken and part of his armour wrapped at the chest. Biscuit landed on the injured head, as if he was riding a horse and started tearing at its other eye with his claws.
Seeing the second head of the Hydra turning its attention on the Wyvern ravaging its twin, Glen rushed ahead and slashed at it so hard, he almost lost the grip on his blade when it connected with the hardened scales at the base of that long neck. Almost a meter large piece of it came off, revealing red jellylike flesh underneath that stunk like Rida’s clogged sewers. Hydra’s head paused its attack on the Wyvern and turned nimbly around to glare at Glen.
“Ah,” Glen gasped and went to hack at the exposed flesh again.
“Garth!” Kalac roared seeing the Hydra lunging at him, but Glen couldn’t flinch out of the way this time. The desperate former thief did manage to deepen the wound though, his blade connecting fully and sort of saved his own skin, as the Hydra snapped her jaws shut in pain at the last moment and smacked Glen’s chest with its scaly nostrils instead.
It was like getting hit by a fully laden supply wagon.
An unresponsive Glen found the ground with his back, losing his sword, a tooth lodged in his tongue and gulping down his own blood. Through his blurry eyes he saw the Wyvern letting go of the blind and shredded head, then rising in the air, not five meters away, flapping its long extended wings slowly up and down. More magic, than skill. The sound made that of a giant windmill’s blades turning.
Woomph.
Woomph.
> Pain and primordial fear all mixed in.
>
> A number of other sounds peeking behind the curtains.
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> The clang of a gold coin leaving the dead King’s hand.
>
> A baby’s wail and the smell of sulfur inside the bedchamber.
>
> Nenderu…
>
> Turlas and sweet Ovinet, the man said reminiscing, then sounding almost insulted.
>
> I have her offspring! What need have I of you?
>
> Best thief, Zestari’s sister snorted. Nothing to pride about.
Check your pockets, the Wyvern told him.
> Huh?
>
> The memories clearing up.
>
> A scalding breeze pretending it was another, reached the Shallow Sea.
>
> A yellow slit in a sea of burgundy.
>
> Don’t open the note now, Jinx had said. Only if something happen’s to me.
The Wyvern was staring at him.
Time had stopped.
Woomph.
“Rav’ Naure,” Glen gasped the ancient command and time moved forward again.
Hydra’s huge head paused over him sensing something was wrong. Behind them the Wyvern’s eyes flashed once like torches, the burgundy in them turning even more vibrant and difficult to look at. The sound of wind sucked inside a deep tunnel was heard suddenly, covering all other sounds near and far. The distant thunder of waters dropping inside the lake. The Hydra’s hiss and wails. The injured men’s groans of pain. Jinx’s grieving sobs and the beat of Glen’s heart.
Then came a horrible rumble.
The Wyvern’s long neck glowed and expanded, black scales turning transparent for a moment showing burning lava under the sheer skin, black mouth opening wide and then a torrent of fire blasted out. It struck the rapidly turning Hydra’s dead on the snout, the heat on it so great, the mist dissolved along with half the beast’s face.
It took the Wyvern a mere second to boil the Hydra’s head completely. The next that grotesque head exploded when its brains turned to liquid gasses inside its skull, sending pieces of skin, gooey boiled flesh and bone fragments in a ten meter radius.
With a desperate wail of pain the Hydra pulled away towards the lake, using four stubby fin-like legs, its massive body the size of an elephant now sporting only one remaining head and clearly visible as the fog had retreated as well. The Wyvern went after her still blasting that bright gold and red fire out of its mouth everywhere. It burned everything it touched to a crisp. The muddy ground and the dead. The rocks and even the lake’s waters that retreated in panic.
The Wyvern caught the Hydra in the middle of the boiling lake and roasted its massive body alive. The flames burning over the waters, the temperature abruptly rising at least twenty degrees. The Wyvern turned around when it finished flying sharply over the lake’s waters and returned to the smoking banks, his shriek coming more ominous now. The sound starting with a horn like hiss, as if it was mocking his defeated opponent.
RRRRREEE
The Wyvern hovered unnaturally a meter above the lake’s surface staring at the people slowly moving away from its burning banks. With a loud snort, he opened his mouth again impossibly wide that glow returning twice as bright and a torrent of fire came out aimed at the lake’s banks.
And those still standing there.
Oh, crap, Glen cursed in horror and tried desperately to get on his feet seeing the catastrophe approaching.
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“UVRYCRES!” Glen roared and the Wyvern snapped its jaws shut and glared at him. He slowly approached and landed in front of the injured former thief, everything around them engulfed in flames. The land black and smoking.
Glen could feel the heat coming out of the Wyvern’s body, Uvrycres standing at almost seven feet on his hind legs. He dropped on all fours and brought his horned scaly head near Glen’s face, letting out a low guttural and protracted growl that made every bone on his body vibrate.
Glen reached with a shaky hand and touched the scalding glassy skin, felt the beast’s hot breath on his sweaty face. It smelled of brimstone and burning coal.
RRRRR
“It’s over,” He told him. “They are not a threat,” Glen added reaching for his dagger. “They are not a threat,” He repeated holding it, just to be sure Uvrycres had understood him.
The Wyvern snorted and bumped him once on the chest with its forehead, where Glen’s armor had wrapped. It was a playful bump but the pain from his broken rib almost send him down. Glen stumbled back a step and glared at the unnerving smile that had formed on the mouth of the young Wyvern.
“Heard you the first time,” Uvrycres told him in a surprisingly rich baritone voice. “But I’m hungry, oh, ‘ye route between the valleys’ and I need to heal,” Glen had to pick up his jaw from the floor hearing him talk.
“Wait… the fuck is that? What route?” He croaked.
“What Glen means in Cofol. Your mate murmurs it in her dreams all the fucking time whilst she touches herself. It made for an interesting watch.”
Eh, what?
“No, it’s just a name,” Glen insisted numbly. “Short for Glenavon.”
Uvrycres stared at him thoughtfully for a moment. It was unnerving.
“Hadn’t you just made that shit up on the spot, back then?” He finally queried with a grunt, his speech pattern heavily influenced from Glen’s vocabulary.
“How do you know?”
“I read your memories?”
Uh.
Right.
The former thief slowly rubbed the back of his head, greatly stunned at this new development and still in too great a pain to process it. The conversation’s topic had weirded him out. He’d also something stuck on his tongue that bothered him a great deal.
“Well, you can’t eat people,” Glen mumbled finally, after finding the tiny culprit and spitting it down. A part of a tooth, the hole left behind still bleeding in his mouth.
“Hahaha! Of course I can,” Uvrycres guffawed, his words turning into a roar. “Look at all this fine food!” He looked about them to spot the still burning corpses. “Food,” The Wyvern repeated reverently, reminding him of Gimoss.
Plenty of those around.
Glen had stumbled back a couple of steps not expecting the sudden roar and groaned at the implications, whilst trying to calm his heartbeat down.
“No,” Glen said sternly setting his jaw, after he managed to get himself under control.
The Wyvern blinked its large burgundy dragon eyes, the transparent lid rising and lowering instead of the other way around.
“Yes,” He replied after a contemplating moment, maintaining eye contact with him.
Glen sighed and hanged his head.
“Since when do you talk?” He asked too tired to solve this right then and there. Glen felt completely drained from all the exertion.
You have to talk to Whisper my dude.
Stop dilly dallying.
“I never stopped. Not my problem you couldn’t figure it out,” Uvrycres replied, then paused and clicked his forked tongue a little unsure. “You got any biscuits stashed away? I think that snake’s flesh was foul, or something. It messed up my innards, but I had to taste it. Right?”
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Glen hobbled back to the survivors from both groups. Lymsiel who had followed them against his orders was tending to a scowling Anfalon, with a pensive Maeriel standing over a crying Jinx, kneeled next to Alix’s body. Some of the Zilan that had survived the Hydra, because it had attacked them both indiscriminately, had gotten burned alive by Uvrycres, who had done the same in a sense. Those that had escaped that fate were trying to get their bearings back, few amongst them uninjured.
He caught Pyriael stumbling about dazed, her arm and knee ruined, the broken bones visible under the skin and clothes. Glen went towards her, trying to avoid facing Jinx. She had saved his arse again. Jinx had kept on doing it since Oakenfalls, then on the ship. Again and again the Gish put her life on the line to protect what she considered family. She also kept losing said people right and left and Glen felt responsible for that.
Soletha had come out of a group of Zilan that didn’t carry weapons. The solemn faced priestess walked slowly towards the remnants of the cultists, most of them heavily injured, or dead. Glen counted over fifteen of them. The other Zilan followed her at a distance.
Soletha reached Pyriael and stopped to look at her.
“Where is he?” She asked her in that half-Common half-Imperial dialect they talked and Glen had slowly started to understand. “Where’s Pelleas?”
Hmm.
Glen hadn’t seen the Cultist leader since that creepy bastard had summoned the Hydra and he walked towards them to learn more, grimacing on every stride.
Pyriael scrunched her bloody jaw this way and that and then smirked, showing her teeth to a grim faced Soletha. One of the ranger’s eyes was bloodshot.
“He got away, hehe,” The Ranger said and Glen noticed, as he neared the two of them and the group of silent Zilan watching the exchange, the priestess had a large rock in her right hand. Held tight enough to make her knuckles turn white. “If he makes it to Snake Mountain, then a bird will reach Elas Bridge in less than a week. Pelleas keeps many.”
“Why Elas Bridge?” Soletha asked her tensely.
“Lord Rothomir has assumed command. The Favored had flocked to him and he has Paeris endorsement. It’s been decades now. You’ve lived a secluded life Priestess.”
“A fort’s leader, with the seal of approval from a long dead king’s lover,” Soletha hissed. “Authorized this wickedness?”
“Lord Rothomir is in command, Abarat the last city standing. There was no wickedness, for your Goddess is the villain. You favor a cannibal, a vile bitch and a practitioner of forbidden Magic. The Lord’s word is law in these lands and Pelleas is his friend, tasked to bring—”
Soletha smacked her viciously on the side of the head with the basalt rock. Glen flinched hearing a crack, but by the time he tried to grab at the Zilan, the Priestess had stricken Pyriael again twice as hard and sent her sprawling down half-senseless. Soletha jumped on the thrashing ranger, grabbed the hefty bloody rock with both hands and started pounding her head and face repeatedly with it.
She didn’t really have a pattern, just a lot of uncontrolled rage. Soletha started screaming incoherently while she smashed Pyriael’s head into a pulp and the rest of the Zilan attacked the rest of the injured cultists taking their cue from her.
The savagery reached disturbing heights and Glen had to back away, when Soletha dug the dead Ranger’s heart out of her ravaged chest with her bare hands and started eating it raw, blood running down her jaw and neck, her eyes wild with grief.
And a hefty dose of ecstasy.
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Glen hobbled away from the atrocities committed on the defeated cultists, a good number of them getting parts of their bodies eaten whilst still breathing. Pyriael was lucky at that at least, he thought. Not that she deserved any luck, but Glen couldn’t wish this fate on anyone. Seeing Alix’s broken body and half-destroyed face, made him rethink it. Who worship’s a murderous beast? He wondered, Jinx’s swollen eyes glancing his way.
Who the fuck is in the right here?
“It won’t work,” The Gish said looking at him hopefully. “Flix’s potion. We need a fresh one.”
Glen didn’t think a fresh potion could put Alix back together. The Hydra had almost cut him in half and the fall had taken care of the rest. The worst part of it was that the miraculously still clinging to life Gish, appeared to be poisoned on top of everything else. His skin was a dark green and mauve color, full of leaking blisters and his blood diluted and watery.
He turned his head away, not wanting to deliver her the bad news and spotted Flix standing at the edge of the lake village, where the forest ended. The old Gish had his hood down, aged face unadorned, cut short and washed out pink hair thinning at the top of his head. He was waiting for a tall Zilan to approach. She had come out of the woods. The female walked gracefully, long legs covering the distance without effort. Her feet barely left marks on the muddy ground.
Aenymriel paused to touch the old Gish’s face affectionately, her eyes going from Glen’s group, to the savagery committed a bit further away and Uvrycres blissfully feasting on the corpses. Her lips formed a content smile and whispered something to a very emotional Flix, who nodded with his head.
Aenymriel approached Glen next and stopped to check on the injured Alix with a frown.
“You’ve made it,” Glen rustled and Alix opened his only working eye to the sound of his voice. “Funny how our paths didn’t cross.”
“As did you and our paths have crossed,” She replied courteously. “How can I be of assistance to Hardir O’ Fardor?”
“He needs healing,” A distraught Jinx said quickly.
“Let me see,” Aenymriel said and kneeled next to the injured thief. The Hydra had taken away most of the skin and flesh from his shoulder, along with a part of his face. Everything had just melted away.
“Indigo… Divinity,” Alix croaked with difficulty, half his mouth deformed and not working. Glen looked away, the image disturbing. Jinx hugged his torso tight and started crying with silent sobs.
“As you wish,” Aenymriel said and Glen turned to watch as she stooped and kissed that ruined mouth, for an uncomfortable long time. When she finished and rose up that unnerving smile was on her lips again and Alix had stopped breathing.
“What happened?” Glen asked. Despite his tendencies he liked that stupid Gish and Jinx knew Alix for a long time. Seeing her be a mess about his loss was unbearable to the former thief.
“Your friend chose death,” She said simply and Anfalon who’d approached, despite being seriously injured let out an angry grunt at her words.
“You could have saved him!”
Huh?
“A life of misery and ridicule. As I said. He made his choice,” She repeated cryptically. “He left this realm happy.”
Hmm.
Aenymriel nodded at Glen after her reply and then walked gracefully away, but not before pausing again and patting Anfalon’s cracked thorax once in a familiar manner. The Hoplite crooked his mouth in a grimace and grunted.
“What was that?” Glen asked him, but he got no answer back.
> Being in a weakened state and dead tired, with Jinx hanging on him and too scared to let go, Garth opted to let the matter rest and deal with more pressing matters. Like how to stop the remaining Zilan from murdering the injured cultists. By the time he decided to do something about it, no one was left breathing and other matters had ushered his attention away.
>
> In hindsight, he should have pressed the ancient Hoplite more, but then again no one really knew what really was in Garth’s head. Some things he just allowed to happen.