Rell had a small moment of regret whilst the shockwave travelled toward him, too quickly to really prepare against.
*Boooooooooom*
Like the crack of the electric clouds in a storm, strong enough to push him backward as he put his hands up to his ears. The sound bounced around in his head with force, so much so that even with his eyes closed, small flashes danced around in his vision, he took another step backward and fell onto his behind. Rell opens his eyes and watches from the ground, confused at the lack of any sound to accompany the scene before him.
The Stonehound has its jaw wrapped around the shoulder of one of the Watchers wings as they shoot past Rell, locked in a quickly spiralling flight. The Watcher had clearly rammed itself into the hound and lifted it off the ground, to hold it in front of itself as they crash through a thick white tree trunk. The hound dropping down to the ground as the Watcher lifts higher into the sky, grasping a large chunk of the newly felled tree in its claws to bring with it.
Almost into the canopy now, it seemingly stops in mid-air to turn its body back to the ground and with another flap of its powerful, glowing wings the bird blurs in Rells sight to plummet toward the ground, releasing another smaller warped sphere in its wake. Rell stands shakily to his feet as the white blur releases its payload and shifts its flight parallel to the forest floor, a large hunk of timber about to strike the hound at ridiculous speeds.
I need to go, wow, I really need to run now. His thoughts clearing a little through the high-pitched squeak in his ears, he pulls his hands down face slowly, feeling the warmth of his own blood running down his face, he looks down at them to see the fingers of his right hand painted crimson. Facing back up toward the direction he knows is his way home, he watches the glowing claws of the hound strike the wooden missile and sees it explode into charred and burning splinters, flying mostly in the direction that the bird has gone in.
Rell starts to move toward the beast, planning to make his way around it from behind and continue his escape, as the bird is closing back in on the black and grey, land-locked creature. He flinches at the soundless sight of the hound flicking a cone of vitrified soil into the air in front of it, coating the giant owl in dark, grey, bubbling mud and driving its flight into the ground behind it. Its attempt to regain flight arrested by the hound’s pounce and a brutal melee between giants begins.
Putting the battle of the monsters before him out of his mind, Rell changes his path slightly to further avoid them, this is not a battle he can take part of and either side as the winner will mean his death if he is still around to see it. Passing by them to slip into the woods, he takes a glance at the disaster he is leaving behind. He quickly throws himself to the side, landing hard on the ground as a bullet passes over him unaccompanied by the screech of its travel. The hound has not forgotten him and even went as far as to open itself to attack to finish him, the Watcher taking the advantage before it to grasp the shoulders of the rock-beast, and with a pulse of grey light, lift it off of the ground with a flap of its wings. The downwash of the bird’s wings rolling Rell along the ground, he uses that momentum to right himself and start a painful jog toward home.
The hearing in his one ear coming back a little, he can hear the sounds of the struggle, like a stone hammer hitting steel as the hound’s jaw tries to pry the owls legs from its body. Rell hadn’t really had the time to check before but as he struggles his way further toward the edge of the wood, his hand roams his hips to feel out the place he was struck by one of the hound’s stone missiles, finding the gash that is hampering his flight the most.
Struggling with the idea of stopping to draw the healing sigils onto his hand, his decision is made for him as the owl can’t hold the thrashing beast in its claws any longer, and it is sent plummeting to the ground not ten meters to his left. I can’t stop. I just have to keep going and I will see Elder Varen to be healed when I get back to Rodar.
The owl continued its flight over Rell’s head, the beast already on its feet to his left, it spots his form making its way to the short plains beyond the woods, only a couple hundred meters away now. The beast was injured now, gritty blood flowing from both shoulders where the bird had picked it up and it was keeping weight off of one of its rear legs, but it hadn’t forgotten who had brought the bird down from its perch in an attempt to kill it, and it was a vengeful, powerful hunter, it would get its prey in the end.
Rell pushed past the pain to quicken his pace back into a run. With blood flowing down his leg and a vicious predator to his left, he forms another ring on his hand to launch. Seeing the bird on its way back and the hound ready to pounce on him he launches another blade, much to his arm’s dismay, at the ground in front of him. The force of the blade at such close range lifts enough dirt from the ground to obscure him, and he runs inside it just as he sees the hound launch into the cloud as well. Rell dives to the ground on his left side, if it had been a moment later the claw that ripped his shoulder in passing would’ve instead been once again on top of him.
The dust cloud did its job perfectly and he had passed underneath the jumping hound, the beast still in the air as a wing sliced through the obscured area, clearing the air and colliding with the creature’s front. The Stonehound’s claws found purchase on the wing and body of the owl and they crashed once again into melee on the ground, Rell already rushing for the plains he could see between the trunks of the furthest trees, his firing arm hanging limply to his side.
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The woods are thinning out, barely a tree within ten meters of another and even then, only Rell’s width or thinner. He has made it onto the plains and the solid, grey wall that surrounds Rodar is in his sights, guards of the race of men point him out to their fellow comrades and prepare to see him back into the town, the white open tip of the ever-present harvester visible over even the three-man tall wall and the swivelling launchers that mount it.
Even at this dire time, Rell couldn’t say he was glad for the sight in front of him, but it is the sight of safety nonetheless. The screeches of the raging battle behind him still carry on and he refuses to slow his pace, his limping run clearly putting the guards on edge, most of them flinching at the sound of a seemingly triumphant roar coming from the forest and the sight of a giant, white bird with a gash across its chest, trailing blood further into the woods. How did that stupid thing chase off the Watcher? Shit!
Once again pushing himself to sprint despite his pain, he sees the guards that didn’t flinch at the bird laughing at his wobbly paces and flaccid arm, while he holds back tears of pain and frustration at needing his inhumane captors’ help. The sound of falling timber holding back his pride, “It’s still coming you idiots! Get over here and help me!” Rell calls to the guards as they continue their laughter.
“Stupid fucking half,” an older human with a missing eye spat, “we just seen it fly off, I don’t know how you hurt the bastard but you’re lucky you didn’t bring it back here!” Rell could feel his anger overcoming his rational mind, why his people ever allowed these humans to rule them he would never understand. “Get on the launcher! There’s a hou..”
Interrupted by the sound of a tree snapping and being launched toward him, Rell looks back at the form of an angry, bleeding hound of stone, outpacing him even on three working legs, l iquid earth flying out behind the powerful strides of a beast finally able to run unimpeded by its surroundings.
There was still two hundred meters separating him and the hound, and he was closer than that to the wall, but now that they were on the plains his chances of making it before the beast caught him were nil. He could hear the one-eyed man sorting the movements of his company, “Jerome, on that launcher now! Ed, pick up your shield, in front of me!” his men rushing to heed his command as he ran toward Rell, “NOW, ED! The rest of you soften the ground around the wall, and get men on the launchers.” Rell had covered another fifty meters now, and this sight had made him grateful that these men weren’t completely useless. We are slaves, but not all the humans here are slavers Rell. They are taught they are above us, but some still have the truth of right and wrong in their hearts. Everyone deserves a chance for your respect Rell.
“Shut up” Rell forces the voice of his mentor out of his head, cursing his wandering mind. I’m almost there, don’t lose focus now.
The man, Ed, had overtaken his captain and was only thirty meters from Rell now, “Wake up kid, keep moving.” He called to Rell as his shield started to glow, markings becoming illuminated that he didn’t have the time to inspect as a brittle, chilling blade began to grow from the sword hilt that his captain held tightly in his hand as he ran.
The sound of paws ripping up the earth sounded like the tolling of the bells of death in Rells ears, ten meters away from the guards. The building glow of the launcher on the walls falters, and a massive lance of unformed, unattuned magic rips into the ground forming a crater behind Rell and sending him spinning forward toward the guards, his heart nearly stopping when he sees just how close the hound was on his rear and how close he was to being slain. Rolling to a stop on the ground, the hound recovers from the blast of the launcher and lunges at him. Ed’s foot lands on Rell’s side, it feels as though he has put his foot inside him as Ed launches himself off Rells body, with his shield in front of him, ready to take to beast’s lunge head on.
The Stonehounds muzzle collides with the shield, and instead of the thunderous crash Rell was expecting, the sigils on the shield flash and the light pulls into itself from the edge of the glow to the centre, turning the force of the blow to little more than a shove. Ed pushes his shield, and the head of the hound, to his left and jumps to his right as his captain jumps over Rell with his long, blue sword held over his head. He brings his sword down with a roar as the hound brings its head back to the front of its body, the attempted slash at its neck turning into a glancing blow off its face in the movement. With the tip of his sword in the ground the claws of the hound shoot up at the captains chest, the captain pulling at his blade and angling it so that the force of the blow will knock him into a spin, to strike the beasts other front leg as Ed moves back in to be his captains shield.
The beast jumps back and digs its claws into the ground as Ed gets in front of his captain and plants the bottom of the shield into the ground. A cone of destructive molten earth rains onto the shield, the captain picking Rell off the ground and thrusting him toward the wall, “Get. Out. Of the fucking. Way!” He shouts over his shoulder, His hands on Eds back, preparing to push forward through the barrage when Ed lifts his shield. The shield comes out of the ground and they start to move forward when a loud whistle is heard from the wall, another round from the launcher is ready.
Holding their position until a break in the barrage comes, the hound seems to understand they are able to withstand the onslaught it is unleashing and brings its paws down to coil its legs, ready for another pounce.
As the beast launches forward at the two armoured men, they both jump to one side, the captain landing on the ground, Ed landing on him with his shield over both like the shell of a turtle, in time for a streak of magic, blinking from the wall into the beast falling upon them. The ensuing explosion sending rock-like flesh and muddy blood thumping into the ground and the shield.
The men rise quickly, before Rell has even recovered from the sound of the launchers strike, and rush up to finish their enemy, that now lays on the ground with one less leg and a giant hole in its side near its neck. Unable to lift its body, it tries to attack the only part of the soldiers that it can reach with its head, the shield of Ed. He barely even registers the weak death throes of the dying Stonehound as his captain’s blade drives into the hole on its shoulder to pierce its heart.
Rell slowly limped toward the captain of the guard, relief plain on his face, “Thank you. I never would have been able to outru..” *thum* Rells vision swam as the force of the punch drove him to the ground again for what felt like the hundredth time today.