The daylight above them poured into the forest, bathing them in rays of golden hope. Rays that glimmered in the rippling waters of shallow creek before them, the same creek that washed its waters over the slumbering, foetid form of the Protoataphoi.
It was just as gruesome and surreal as any other ataphoi Soleiman and Rumi had come across during their trek, carrying with it the signature features of necrotic black-blue flesh and rotting, useless skin that hung lazily atop its emaciated form. But it was large. Very large.
Even though a good half-metre or so of its body had been submerged in the glistening glowing waters, they could tell that it was easily about twice the size of even the largest stallions- though not quite as tall. A fitting comparison, given the fact that its form was somewhat alike that of a horse and that it wore the skull of one on its head.
Pallas, standing directly to the side of the Protoataphoi, looked behind her. She confirmed that the three groups of spearmen had held their position hidden behind the trees, prepared to emerge onto the riverbank in support of her once the battle had begun. Further back, she saw very subtly the forms of the two groups of archers and Rumi- positioned far enough away that the Protoataphoi would have to put up a serious fight to even have a chance at reaching them. She looked up, making eye contact with Qingxi- sat quietly amongst the tree’s branches. And finally, she checked in with Soleiman- positioned just slightly behind the leftmost group of spearmen.
He nodded.
Pallas stopped twiddling the hempen cord she’d been given, firmly gripping it to feel its blood-reinforced firmness with her own two hands. She tugged on it slightly, making sure it had been properly anchored to the tree directly behind her.
She breathed in, and then breathed out. Her heart thumping within her as blood worked its way out of her skin and onto her arms.
She shimmied slightly, the weight of the ceramic and the spear affixed to her back shifting about her as she did.
And for a moment, the world fell silent.
Suddenly, the sound of several arrows singing feverishly through the air shot out from the woods behind her, barreling into the black form of the Protoataphoi with incredible speed. At once, the serenity of the moment shattered in its entirety, the beast engulfed in lilac flame as its horrendous roar tore through the forest silence.
Pallas shifted, clenching her fists before her as she heard the waters splash about, leaping back just as the skull of the beast emerged from the smokescreen.
She pulled herself along with the rope, anchoring herself against the tree as the Protoataphoi slammed its jaws shut on nothingness. Just as the beast surged to clamp its jaws down on the tree’s deciduous flesh, she leapt outwards- positioning her directly behind it.
She rolled the ropes about her wrists as she took the spear from her back. At once, the blood soaked within the rope yanked her back towards the tree, working in conjunction with the tension within the fibres to bring her in at breakneck speeds towards the beast’s exposed nape.
The tip of the spear then split its way into the neck of the beast, burying itself deep in its soft flesh. Flesh that suddenly petrified under the stress of the attack, encasing the end of the spear in rock-hard muscle.
The eyes sunken deep into the Protoataphoi’s sockets rolled about to look her in her face as the flaps of fur that cloaked its form fluttered about to reveal a thick arm had wrapped itself about where its neck would’ve been- absorbing the attack.
In the corners of her eyes, Pallas could see as the two groups stationed immediately to her sides rushed forward. It was then that a myriad of other hands grabbed ahold of the spear, seizing control over it and entangling it within the length of her rope- tying her arms down together.
She was lifted from the back of the Protoataphoi, her legs swinging out as she was slammed against the tree’s trunk, its woody bark unyielding as her back and spine slammed against it. Ceramic shattering in place of her bones.
Rocked by the impact, Pallas felt herself shift as the world faded to black. Suddenly, she was drawn into a spiral, her eyes fighting for vision again as she saw the group of spearmen from the right suddenly whip into her vision.
She slammed into the bodies of the men, sending them scattering across the earth before herself colliding with Soleiman, sending both of them sprawling.
Turning to face down the group from left as it did so, its jaw swung wide open once more as it threw itself forward, its sweltering maw filled with decay and death and disease drawing ever closer to the men until-
Qingxi came thundering down from the treetops above, fading into a blur as she fell with incredible speed. Her boots made solid contact with the unyielding bone of the Protoataphoi’s skull, ploughing it into the dirt as she slid across the grass in preparation for a retaliatory attack.
It looked her dead in the eye, the air around it suddenly engulfed again in lilac flame. Flames so bright that Qingxi threw her arms up to shield her eyes, her ears twitching and swivelling to keep track of the beast’s hoofsteps as it scrambled within the smokescreen.
At once, she sprung into a dead sprint left, bound for the archers. Not long after, the beast emerged from the smoke, lunging forward with the ferocity and speed of a horse galloping at full tilt without even so much as a hint of a run-up.
“Pallas!”
The Chitite boosted herself forward, sliding across the dew-covered blades of grass. She shot across the earth, picking up speed by the moment before blasting herself straight through its wide open gait.
Swinging her axe clean through one of the thing’s spindly legs.
The Protoataphoi collapsed onto the ground, skull once again buried in the dirt. Qingxi now scrambling to right herself as she slid away, she looked up to see it had risen to its feet again, improvising and using a hidden arm from within its cloak to prop itself up.
It was then that Pallas dove from above, lasso in hand, driving her feet hard against the top of the beast’s skull and forcing it back into the muddy embrace of the earth. Leaping off of it using her momentum, she threw the hoop of her rope onto its skull as it bounced out of the dirt, drawing it tight and using her blood within it to ensnare its jaw in a vice grip.
She dug her heels into the soft earth below, bracing her entire form and flooding the fabric underlayer of her armour with her warm blood. She forced herself backwards, heaving the beast along the ground and bringing it back down whenever it tried getting up.
“Shoot it!”
The archers, off in distance, hurriedly knocked their bows again, with one last arrow left in each of their quivers.
Soleiman quickly rallied his men together, positioning in between the archers and the Protoataphoi, placing another obstacle in its path.
The Protoataphoi suddenly surged forward from having been sprawled out across the earth, shadows of a myriad of twisted arms and legs and gnarled limbs of all sorts apparent underneath it just before they vanished under its furry cloak.
It threw its head forward, Pallas just managing to slip past it to avoid getting hit.
Again and again she jumped and slipped and shifted and weaved as it tried ramming her repeatedly.
Then, she felt as if several fingers dug through the gaps in her armour around her shoulder. Gripping her.
Suddenly, she felt as the beast bashed its entire skull into her, pulverising the ceramics of her chest and abdomen and knocking the wind out of her collapsing lungs as it sent her flying off into the forest.
Qingxi rushed forward, axe in hand as she swung the heavy iron blade out in a wide arc- set to cleave open the right temporomandibular joint that held the beast’s jaw to its skull.
But before she knew it, the thing had shifted in place, perfectly aligning itself with the blade and letting the axe cleave its way through the bloody hemp that sealed its maw shut.
Qingxi stepped back, lungs heaving, some of the beast’s vicious carnivorous teeth spilling out onto the grass before her.
It heaved in place, jaw slowly falling open.
Qingxi could see in the corner of her eye as the men Soleiman had brought forwards began to falter.
All of a sudden, the wind about the beast erupted into chaos, black blood spraying forth as a pressurised blade of air tore through its flesh.
At once Qingxi leapt forth again, rolling to slip under a blind flailing attempt to crush her with its jaws. She slid across the grass, using her winds to lift herself back up to her feet as she blasted forward with a renewed vigour- headed directly for the beast’s exposed neck.
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But when she landed the killing blow, she felt as her axe dug into solid stone.
The beast made an attempt to entrap her within its jaws, though the Chitite strained against its movements, digging her axe further in to pin the several arms it had buried itself within. She called upon the winds of the forest, using it to force herself against the beast, blasting away any arms that reached for her from within its cloak and aggravating the wide gashes that stretched across its neck and body.
“Help me!” she yelled out in exasperation, straining against another heave from the beast as she did so.
The beast’s flank opposite her was suddenly lit by a massive cloud of blinding purple light, and Qingxi could sense as the vestiges of her blade’s magic hung about the air. And it seemed that not a single arrow had made contact with the beast’s hide.
“Sorry!”
Grimacing under her sweat-soaked bandages, she forced herself against the beast, planning to break free from the engagement when-
The thing suddenly broke out into a deafening roar of sheer screaming pain, the group of five Qingxi had initially saved having arrived and buried their flaming spears into the side.
Pallas shot out from amongst the trees, droplets of blood left in her wake as she tore through the air. She threw down one end of her last rope, affixing it to the beast’s back with a thick wad of viscous blood as she pulled on it, hard.
The very earth seemed to then quiver as her boots slammed into the thing’s spindly spine, collapsing it onto the ground with such ferocity that Qingxi and the spearmen could feel the crackling of bone through their weapons.
Qingxi took the opportunity to break off from the engagement, tearing the axe off and bringing a few limb fragments along with it.
Suddenly, the thing seemed to convulse, rolling with incredible speed onto its back and throwing some of the spearmen out in a great arc towards the archers and forcing Pallas off.
Pallas grabbed tightly onto the rope again, planning on rushing in for another attack on the thing’s broken back, when it stood up.
Perfectly, as if its spine was still in perfect condition.
It let out a thunderous roar, the flaps of flesh about its skull and its sickly worm-like tongue flailing about as it did so. The cloak of fur that hung loosely about most of its body began lifting, revealing the myriad of arms and legs hidden beneath- each one grabbing a hold of the other to hold the beast together. Even in between those blackened, ashy limbs covered in knots and bone spurs and ebony thorns, they could see as little pink bits of intestines pulsated about, squirming like maggots on putrefying meat.
The entire battle fell still, and the three girls looked on in frozen trepidation at the twisted form of the Protoataphoi. The very culmination of the woes of the fallen.
“Are you okay? Can you get up?” They could hear as Soleiman said, tending to one of the men whose bodies had crumpled against the ground after having been thrown.
The beast began twisting, its skull rolling about again and again along an impossibly long distance as the limbs about its body rotated in synchrony. It was wringing itself dry, unfathomably stretching and pulling its foetid, plastic flesh like a towel as it fixed its sunken eyes upon the Chitite.
“Qingxi!”
It leapt forward with incredible speed, Qingxi only just managing to throw herself out of its maw by reacting on instinct.
She readied herself, pulling her axe back in preparation for the retaliatory strike before having to immediately blast herself back again- this time only narrowly avoiding a vicious clubbing from a gnarled fist the size of her head.
And then again, and again. Fist after fist and claw after claw came hurtling forth from behind the beast as it surged forward in a tornado of limbs and legs each one vying for her throat.
She slipped, dodged, stepped and parried each one, but alas there were too many.
She was sent sprawling against the grass, axe out of hand. And the Protoataphoi leapt upon her.
But above her, the beast suddenly erupted into a cloud of black mist as it and its form was struck off course and sent sliding across the earth to her side. The gaping wounds of her Xiafan blade etched now twice into its hide.
“Now!” Pallas screamed.
From where she lay, Qingxi saw as Pallas soared up into the air, two fire lances in hand, her silhouette like that of a falcon descended upon its prey.
Just as the beast roared back to life and rose back to its feet, the air about them was immediately lit by purple flame as another volley of fire arrows found home in its flesh- obscuring the entire area in smoke and soot.
Pallas then fell upon the cloud of smoke, burying her two lances into the flesh below her.
Sinking their blazing ends uselessly into the dirt. For even as the smoke began to clear, the beast was nowhere to be seen.
Qingxi’s ears twitched.
“To your left!”
Just in time, Pallas leapt back to avoid the maw of the Protoataphoi as it emerged from the smokescreen. Then, from above her came down a colossal arm- its size matching that of her entire body.
Only just managing to shield her head in time, the arm bore its weight down upon her as her body collapsed under its horrific pressures. Like a pillar of stone had been dropped upon her, she felt as the ceramics of her armguards shattered- followed not long after by the popping of her vertebrae and the cracking of her joints as she sunk into the earth. Carving within it a sizable crater.
But she would not give.
Qingxi sprung into action, blasting from where she crouched on the ground and grabbing her axe before rushing towards the Protoataphoi. Its hide now parted from its form and its limbs outstretched, she could see full well where she needed to strike. The very source of that arm’s power, its lateral’s muscular bundle rife with rot.
She vaulted over the beast, entering a mid-air pencil roll as she threw the axe out from her spiralling body- burying it superficially within the fibres that corresponded to the arm.
Pallas rose slightly.
Steadying herself as she dug her boots through the wet grass and the mud, she fired off another blast of wind to send herself careening forwards, throwing the entirety of her momentum into the axe- forcing it deep into the muscles that kept Pallas down.
At once, Pallas sprung forth from beneath the beast’s arm, throwing it limply to the side as she rose in glorious triumph. The obstination of mankind.
Emboldened, blood coursing through every space in her body and permeating every gap between her cells, she leapt forwards, grabbing the beast’s jaws with her hands so thoroughly coated by viscous, tar-like blood that her fingers stood no real risk of being cut.
With every ounce of power she had within her, she wrestled with the beast, turning and twisting as it thrashed about- centering its force upon her as she kept it locked in place and fought against the muscles in its jaw. Tearing it open, bit by bit, fibre by fibre.
“Qingxi, its jaw!”
The Chitite pulled her axe from the thing’s body.
And there it was. Victory.
They pierced flesh, the muscles about them going limp with pain as the wounds robbed them of their vigour.
The Protoataphoi’s jaw slackened, and Pallas fell to her knees.
Because from the beast’s sickly, rotten, putrid cesspit of a mouth- a singular spindly figure had emerged. Two of its long, sharp-nailed fingers having found home in Pallas’ chest.
Just by her heart.
The figure disappeared back into the beast’s jaw as it hurriedly shuffled back, holding the jaw shut with its own two hands.
“Pallas!”
Qingxi rushed forward as her fellow collapsed onto the earth, her blood spilling out and painting the verdant blades below them a dull, dirty red. Blood and rot and grass and mud all mixed into one.
And the Protoataphoi scampered away, limbs dragging across the earth as it did so. Vanishing into the depths of the forest.
Pallas lay still upon the warm, moist earth. Feeling as it grew all the warmer with each beat of her leaking heart. The fountain of blood spilling out over her chest and onto the grass.
“Soleiman! Move the archers forward, I’m going after it!”
Pallas saw as two other figures shifted into view, their blurred silhouettes made recognisable by her golden hair and his tenugui crown.
“What? No!”
The golden haired figure quickly kneeled down before her, her face and radiant mane soon obscuring most of Pallas’ field of view, with nothing short of sheer horror etched onto her vague face.
“Pallas!” she yelled. “Pallas!”
The second time sounded a little more distant.
“Hurry! Get them before they start up and leaving!”
“No, Qingxi! We can’t risk-”
“It’s going to escape!”
“Qingxi, listen!” he pleaded. “We can’t chase it down. We can’t! Rumi’s out of charges, Pallas is bleeding out and the archers haven’t restocked their quivers yet!”
Pallas heard grass squelching, then felt the coolness of a small palm as it laid gently upon her cheek.
“And? Are we supposed to just let it leave?”
“Wh-”
“It will return, Soleiman!”
The gushing of blood began to slow and her mind began to sink further below the waves. The darkness of the unconscious depths enshrouding her vision and muting the voices about her.
“What then? We fight it without Pallas?”
“We-”
“Call the archers!”
Pallas felt the hand leave her cheek as her head was lifted off the ground and placed atop the gold-haired figure’s thighs. Her hand found its way to the now-sealed hole in her chest, the violent beating of her panicked and pierced heart just barely held back by the hastily aggregated clots now forming all over her chest.
“You’ll be okay, Pallas,” she said. “She’s okay-”
“No!”
The world felt silent.
Pallas wasn’t sure if it was because of the bloodloss.
And as the last vestiges of light faded from her vision, the sounds of the forest growing ever more distant, she heard one last thing before falling into a slumber.
A singular, piercing, crack.