Once more the two combatants crashed together with savage intent, inchoate rage driving them to a fury that left no thoughts but to rend and flay. At close range the axe was useless and Asgyr tossed it aside, resorting to a long bladed knife, trying to slash and stab with it as Aedmorn’s claws ripped.

Soon blood marred both and yet they continued on, ignoring it as they sought to land a killing blow. Cuts and contusions bloomed across their body, with crimson dripping. As some ran down Asgyr’s chest from a raking wound from Aedmorn’s claws, it flowed across the golden gem that he wore there. A glow seemed to come from within the gem, growing in intensity as further flows seem to soak into it, feeding on the life blood of Asgyr.

Brighter and brighter yet it became, like a flaming beacon, and Aedmorn stepped back from it, shielding his eyes. Asgyr grasped it tight in a hand, dropping down into a squat; the light seeped out through his fingers, seeking escape. He laughed, the laugh of a mad thing, laughing almost to the point of weeping so that those listening could not tell if it was one or the other. His tongue ran along his lips and his eyes went wide.

As all there watched, a change almost seem to come over the man, as his tongue reached further and further out and his laughter changed, to a more hollow, deeper sound, one that reverberated about.

Then the laugh turned into a scream, an agonised wail torn from the depths of Asgyr, the light of the gem soaking into him so that his whole body began to glow with it. His whole body contorted, a shudder taking him. His face changed, and not his face alone, limbs twisting and body compressing. All turned their heads at the brightness of the light pouring forth, unable to look, almost afraid to watch the changes being wrought unwillingly upon Asgyr.

The sounds of screams faded away, followed by a deep, booming croak, and with it the light also dimmed so that once more they could look upon Asgyr.

He was no longer there, not in the form of a man. Where he had once been now sat a giant frog, one almost as large as a man. The gem that he had worn lay on the ground before him. No one stirred for a time, so taken by the transformation inflicted upon Asgyr as they were. The moment was broken when the giant frog let out a deep croak and sprung away, headed towards water.

All at once there was a clamour of voices, and the cultists were hastily reading weapons, some moving threateningly forward towards the gem. Despite all that had happened, the shock of Asgyr’s fate, there were many of them, outnumbering Aedmorn and Ivkarha, and Aedmorn had been wounded in the battle already, his once white furs now stained red.

Ivkarha bellowed a cry and dashed forwards, to stand above the gem, to challenge all that came at her. Aedmorn loped forward, snarling, fangs bared as the cultists began to spread out, to ring the pair, so that they could come at them from all sides, and so strike where they could not defend at all times.

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A spear flashed through the air, taking a cultists in the back, dropping him as he was transfixed by it. From out of the growing darkness and the bushes came Jenat, running forward, snatching up his spear once more, tearing it from the slain cultist, to rush at the next. Shocked by the suddenness of his surprise attack, the cultists were thrown into confusion, and this advantage Aedmorn and Ivakrha took. Aedmorn bounded forward howling, to leap upon a startled man, maw closing upon the man’s neck, to tear it open in a spray of blood. He tossed aside the bloody, mauled corpse and bounded on as Ivkarha followed, her spear flashing though the air at another man, running him through. The man twitched and flailed as she wrenched the spear clear and he staggered back before falling to the ground in convulsions, blood spurting from the wound.

It was all too much for those left, the savage fury that they had been met with, the feral man-beast rampaging among them, the death and mutilation; they were woodcutters and hunters, not warriors and they scattered rather than stand and fight. Aedmorn loped off after them for a while, chasing them off into the growing dark before he returned to where Jemat and Ivkarha stood near the fire, the guide wary as he watched the blood stained creature that Aedmorn had become.

Aedmorn growled and shook himself, as he did the beast flowing out of him, returning to the man, one weary and wounded. He reached down and picked up the golden stone off the ground, raising it to look closely at it.

“Best not to mess with objects of power you don’t comprehend,” he stated. “Shaman Reebor has his revenge in the end it would seem.”

Ivkarha laughed and shook her head. She cut a scrap of cloth of the body of one of the dead men and passed it to Aedmorn; he wrapped the gem up in it, storing it away.

“I thought you weren't going to get involved,” Aedmorn said, turning to Jenat.

The man shrugged. “Wasn’t,” he said. “Not until Asgyr turned into that thing. With him gone, well, the danger had passed. Will he stay that way?”

“Probably,” Aedmorn told him, smiling wryly. “If he survives.”

Jenat chuckled quietly. “A frog that size is bound to attract attention. It would be something of an irony if he ends up being hunted because of that.”

‘A terrible shame,” Ivkarha added.

“Come,” said Aedmorn, “We need to find a place to camp for the night, preferably away from here. There has been too much death here, and it may be that some of those we chased off may find their courage again during the night. Tomorrow we return the stone to the krithik.”

“And then?” asked Jenat.

“Then we depart, far from here,” Ivkarha responded. “I feel the need for a place that is not so wet; it is little wonder that Asgyr went mad. A greater wonder still is that more of you haven’t followed him.”

“Perhaps we all are a little mad,” Jenat replied, “But what choice do we have in a world such as we live?”

“What choice indeed.”