Life called to him, life unending, life vibrant. He felt it call to him, and he opened himself up to it. Weak it might have been in that place, where the dead were laid to rest and darkness had taken hold, but life enough for his needs.
A spasm ran down his arm as the change came upon him, his body reshaped. Fingers lengthened, nails growing sharp and white fur began to from across them, his face twisting into a form more bestial to observe, eyes aglow. A hint of a muzzle showed and teeth elongated into fangs. Cracking, popping, testing sounds accompanied his transformation yet there was no pain, merely a mild inconvenience. It was not complete change, not in this place, for not enough power was present, but enough for his needs, to affect a partial change, a mix of man and beast
Ivkarha stepped back as she watched the warping of his body, eyes growing wide. “You are a shaper?”
“Yes,” he growled, voice deep and low. He flexed his clawed fingers. “Blessed I have been by the Green Goddess.” He bared his fangs and snarled at the abyssal creature. It had removed the spear from its maw and came at them again, bleeding ichor that trailed behind it.
With a leap of a coiled hunting beast, Aedmorn sprung forward, slashing with his claws, a mighty leap far beyond that which a man could achieve. Above the tentacles he soared, to land upon the floating skull, driving claws into its flesh, tearing at it.
Tentacles arced up, to grapple at him, lashing at his back, tearing bloody scores in it. He tossed back his head and howled but did not relent in his assault, shredding flesh with each strike.
Sensing her moment, Ivkarha gripped her sword tight with both hand and leapt forward, hewing at the tentacles that assaulted Aedmorn, carving deep wounds into them, sending white ichor spraying. It stung and burnt as it touched her skin. Tentacles began to fall away as her sword bit into them, to drag align the floor. Strange sounds came from the beast, a cacophony of cries and mews. A tentacle caught around Aedmorn’s leg and tugged hard, causing him to slip. He held on tight, hanging on by claws dug in deep.
With a roar he tried to climb upwards but the tentacle denied him and his grip fell away, sending him crashing back to the ground, all wind driven from his body. Another came lashing down, slamming into his chest.
Sword flickered and the tentacle lashed as it was cleaved apart, spilling more white ichor across Aedmorn. He roared at its touch as flesh burned and smoked. Lurching to his feet, one arm cradling his chest, he loped back into the fray.
Most of the tentacles were down, dragging along the floor, and the demonic creature began to back away from them, headed back into the corner whence it had come. Ivkarha kept a relentless advance up, forcing it back, sword flickering in silvered arcs as she harried at it, driving it ever back.
Aedmorn loped up to join her in the assault, racking with the claws of his hand, driven by a bestial rage that had welled up in him, vision reddened, focused on but one thing, to rend and tear and rip. All thoughts but that were subsumed beneath the beast that had come to the fore, a snarling, devouring animal blinded by the rage.
Trapped in its corner, the abyssal creature could do nought else but to fight, and so, driven by desperation, or what passed at that for a creature from the depths, it turned on it assailants with a forlorn fury.
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Weakened, though, it could put up but a feeble resistance as Ivkarha pushed in closer. With a sudden fearsome roar, she gripped tight her sword with both hands and drove it deep into the maw of the beast, burying it up to the hilt.
The beast shuddered at the strike, its remaining active tentacles thrashing through the air, one catching Ivkarha a stunning blow, sending her tumbling, sword hilt torn from her hand. Aedmorn kept up his relentless clawing even as the beast crumpled, sinking to the ground, the tentacle twitching a last few times before all was still. Even so, Aedmorn kept at it, tearing further chunks of flesh from it, shredding until his clawed hands ran white with ichor, the pain from it barely registering.
Ivkarha staggered back to her head, shaking a head left ringing from the blow. As she blinked and righted herself, body aching from the various blows that she had received, she could see Aedmorn lost in his feral rage.
“It is done!” she called out. His head snapped about and she could see no recognition in his eyes, lost as they were in the depths of the beast. “Aedmorn! It is done!”
He started towards her, hobbling, one leg cut open and blood seeping down it, arms still cradling his side, fangs bared, a snarl coming from deep in his throat. Slowly she began to back away, and fears grew within her that he would not stop, that he saw her as little more than a foe to battle, just as he had gone at the creature they had defeated.
Yet, on the verge of pouncing, he stumbled and as she watched, the beast left him, body twisting once more as he returned to his natural form, a film lifting from his eyes as humanity return to them.
He staggered up against the wall then slumped down, chest heaving, clothes torn and body marred by many wounds, blood stained and battered. Ivkarha walked across to the slain beast an wrenched her sword free. Raising the blade, she could see that it was pocked and corroded.
She leant up against the wall beside Aedmorn and slid down it. “Fah! This blade is beyond saving.” She tossed it away and it clattered across the floor. “That blood of the beast was a hazard of itself.”
Aedmorn nodded, wincing as he did. “Aye, that it was.”
“Your wounds?” she started to say, “They are many. We needs tend to them.”
“In time,” he said. “Let me rest for now. The animal I become, it takes it out of me. I apologise as well, for the rage is consuming, leaving me blinded but for the fight. It is a struggle to return to myself.”
“I will remember that.”
He laughed weakly. “I hope that you will not need to.” He shifted and looked to the demonic form that lay still. “A terrible beast that.”
“What is it?”
“I do not know precise what, only that it came up from the darkness and flames, the abyssal realms. A seed found its way here by means unknown, and here it lingered, growing in strength, hiding in the dark, unseen by eye, though its effect could be. The dead reacted to its touch, their rest disturbed.”
“To what end?”
“It would turn this place into an unholy site of the darkest kind, where the dead walked and plagued the land, slowly spreading its corruption to the surrounds, ever growing in strength.” A wry smile followed. “We were lucky that we managed to find it in a weakened state.”
A questioning row twitch from Ivkarha. “That was a weakened state?”
“Aye, it was still growing, still feeding upon the dead.” He sighed and pushed himself up, wincing as he did. “We may have defeated its physical form, but we are not yet finished here. If our efforts are not to have been in vain, we must complete what we have begun here.”
Standing to join him, Ivkarha’s expression was determination itself. “Then tell me what needs doing and my people can return to their rest in peace.”