Without a word he charges at me, but compared to last time I am prepared. He spins and tackles with his spear fast and precise, each strike deflected by my blade or barely eluded with a quick work of my feet.

Right, left, back.

Fighting is much more than swinging a blade or slamming a hammer. It is a deadly dance where the one who moves better and faster wins. Sparks fly with each strike, and my arms vibrate and hurt from the immense strength behind his attacks. The very snow around us was pushed away by the speed and ferocity of our fight.

I want to speak to him.

Each swing I make is meant to defend myself, I do not want to kill him. I just want to save someone from that time. To fix in some way what my naivety brought...if I had thought better...if I had been better.

My chest bleeds and burns as Dubby slashes at it, my thoughts getting in the way of my movements. My arm moves almost on its own and manages to cut his left arm we both jump away.

"You will kill him, you know it" No, if I can prevent it I must try "You, are only good for killing, aren't you ROKAN? Have you forgotten what it means?"

"I don't want to fight" I have to ignore the voice, its taunting makes my blood boil, and the rage threatens to take over "D-Nomkur. I don't want to kill you"

"I want to fight" He replies, glancing at the open wound on his left arm "I want to kill YOU!"

The exchanges return. Each strike is harder to block than the one before. Relentless, he pushes me around with ease as each passing second the voice grows louder. Its influence seeps into my veins as the poison of my wrath takes more and more control away from my actions. It makes me faster, it lets me fight him better.

But I see him less, and less. Gone is his enraged expression, replaced by the furs he wears, suddenly no longer am I fighting against Dubby, but rather, I'm fighting against another nameless, wild beast. I have returned to the woods, to the winter when everything changed.

I can hold it in no longer.

My strikes change their targets and I push back against him, losing myself in the heat of battle as our bodies turn into barely perceptible shadows dancing around. The loud mayhem from the fighting around us pales in comparison to the loud clang from our steel.

A deafening scream strikes at me from the back and though it stunts me, it's for a brief moment, the fire within me too much in control to let pain take over. Without thinking twice I throw my blade at the harpy who moves away but loses her arm in the attempt to evade my blade. I take out my daggers as Dubby tries to impale me.

Spinning and slashing his way to me I can't get close enough to dig my steel into his flesh. The length of his spear keeps me far from him as he pushes me back and cuts me once more at the side of my torso, this time the armor managing to prevent a much larger gash into my flesh from being made.

He then grunts as a bolt hits his leg, one of my men drawing his attention long enough for me to run and finally get inside his space. I stab him in the neck and under his ribs, his warm blood warms my hands as our eyes meet, wide open in shock.

And his spear impales my body.

I stagger back, letting my daggers fall as I hold on to the worn wooden shaft of his spear. It goes right through my chest. I look around at the battlefield and Lina stares at me for a moment, is she shocked? Surprised? Amazed? Whatever her expression is, it stays there even after a harpy forces her to focus her attention elsewhere.

Glancing at the obelisk I see the group around it, my men sharing Lina's expression too. Thorum is hammering the stones back to where they belong, with a hammer that practically blinds with each strike it does, a bright blue light blasting away from a collection of runes on its bronze surface.

Then, I look at Dubby, who grabs his neck as blood pours out from both the wound and his mouth. On his knees...but then, I hear a howl, it is monstrous and loud, I know it comes from the devil beast he rides. And then I notice it.

How his irises turn from gold to a bright red. How his nails turn into black claws, his body grows, getting more muscular and heavy as black fur begins to cover his forearms. Of course, if he has made a deal with a devil, he too has its strength...And so do I

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I pull the spear out from my torso, and in two pulls it's completely out, my blood paints the dirty snow deep red. Then I can feel it. My claws, my teeth, my horns, and my tail. My body grows stronger, my senses somehow much better, and all pain and tiredness I had is gone. Dubby screams in fury as new harpies leave their nests, awaiting his call.

Their feathers are brown, but with a single glance, it becomes clear that they are different from the others. Their bodies are more muscular and with necklaces and earrings. As well as their feathers, which almost seem to shine with every stray ray from the sun that manages to pierce the thick clouds from the fierce blizzard.

The wound in my chest closes in a second, as all the scars I have ever had reappear. With the spear now in my hands, I stand in front of Dubby once more, now truly more beast than man. My mouth waters with the anticipation of battle. And we charge.

I see why he didn't bother to keep the spear, as it shatters into a hundred shards when I fail to both hit him and stop my advance from hitting the ground. He tackles me to the ground, digging his sharp teeth into my shoulder as he crushes me with his might. I yell in anger and pain as I reach for one of the daggers I dropped and stab him multiple times, forcing him to release me.

We take distance from each other as I manage to grab the other dagger. Dubby moves around with the help of his arms, like a beast, he runs on all fours with incredible speed, and his claws easily tear apart my plated vest with one swing as I jump to the side, avoiding being tackled to the ground once more.

Gone is any sort of technique, or planning, replaced by pure, raw aggression from both of us. I cut him open with my claws and he does the same, I break his leg and he breaks my arm. This is the madness my body craves, the freedom of animalistic fury, exactly for what I was born, I continue my assault, ignoring all pain, all breaks are-

A scream.

My hazy mind clears enough to know who it came from and where it comes from. I turn around and see Lina fall to her knees, with brown feathers the size of large daggers stuck to her right leg and shield, with more somehow stuck to the stony ground. It is the new harpies who throw their feathers like deadly arrows.

In that split second of distraction, Dubby tackles me to the ground once more, and I fight to prevent his jaws from tearing my face off. I glance at Lina and see the fear in her face as she limps trying to hold her shield above her head. One of the harpies flies down and scoops her from the ground, I can only stare in silence as I look at another one die, as I see her being taken up until the harpy simply lets go of her.

Try as I might, Dubby is holding me with too much strength. If I let go of his head he will tear my head off, I can't hear her scream as she falls, only see her hair furiously rattle as she falls. But it doesn't come.

Indri manages to reach her in time and jumps to grab her, taking all the force of her fall for her. Quickly she gets to her feet with Lina still in her arms and runs back to the group, her black obsidian arm punching any warg that tries to get in the way, and the brown feather bouncing off its surface each time the harpies try to attack her.

The rest of the men with her are either dead or following her with Indri to the rest of the group. And the harpies then focus on me.

I push Dubby up as the feathers are shot from their wings, and they strike both the ground around us and his back, causing him to scream in pain and let go of me. The already chaotic battlefield grows even more wild as Dubby jumps several meters up, snatching one of the harpies and slamming her into the ground when he falls, a feast of entrails and blood exploding with the impact.

Now the harpies fight against his wargs and attack Dubby from all directions. I don't waste time.

He is exhausted, his wounds no longer closing as soon as they are made, and so am I. Dubby and I look at each other for a moment, he wants to keep fighting, and so do I. But his devil strikes me from the back, similarly to how he did the first time, his horns pierce and tear with ease my flesh as I'm thrown away.

Dubby quickly loses all of the changes he suffered after I stabbed his neck and gets on top of the devil. He is breathing hard, but holding on to the mane of the creature, it forces it to look at me. My wounds are closing, but so slowly that it may take minutes for me to stand up, and my necklace commences to vibrate as occasionally flames appear and disappear, engulfing parts of my body at random. My skin turned to its true color briefly.

My horns disappear, along with any other change. The rage leaves, bloodlust vanishing as quickly as it came, maybe the exhaustion, or the insane amount of blood that I have spilled, but either way, my mind thinks much more clearly once more.

The devil roars as a few feathers stab him, before charging at full speed towards me, to finish me.

I raise to my feet, still bleeding and with my entire body hurting, a single dagger in hand. If I'm going to die in here, I won't be laying on the ground as if I had given up. No, I will die on my two feet.

A loud bang together with a bright light halts the devil's charge a few meters from me and almost knocks me off my feet. It came from the obelisk.

The light disappears and the obelisk is now repaired, the black stone in place with bronze plates in each segment with blue inscriptions that glimmer with magic.

"Anaid!" I hear.

It's Loretta, who holds on to her friend, who trembles as blue flames quickly begin to consume her, forcing her friend and anyone nearby to move away, or risk burning. It's not only her, the other witches too shake and fall to the ground, the flames eating them whole, only Anaid remains standing. She looks at the sky and grabs her neck with both hands.

A massive magic circle forms from her hands, and in an instant, all flames around her are sucked into her mouth, then, she lets it all out as a thousand balls of blue fire shoot out from within. They strike every harpy, every wargs, even some of my men are hit by the flames, and so is the witch's friend.

Some hit the devil and some hit Dubby.

The last thing I see is one of them hitting me.