He assessed his current disadvantage in strength, weight, and weaponry when compared to the ton of muscle and sharp teeth. Then, he chose the best option for his situation. He ran, Ren sprinted to keep up with him.
He made it off the walkway as he heard the spikemaw explode onto the dock where it had last seen him. It crunched into the side of the wooden wall that was the dock quarters. Then turned towards his fleeing form. Enraged that its prey wasn’t where it had last seen, it bellowed again and charged after him.
Thankfully the beast was unable to make tight corners when on land, giving Renata and himself a head start. He sprinted, legs churning out all the speed he could muster along the dockside, heading towards the nearest guardhouse. The large cobblestone walkway held a wall on his right and was open to the docks on his left. Sprinting past ships, he heard more bells as they began to ring and a general call to arms was being made. Most called out that there was a beast attack in the port.
The guardhouse came into view as he rounded the corner, spikemaw still lumbering behind him. Guards with long pikes were gathering into a front line while their backline finished loading crossbows. A man in the back knelt on the ground in concentration. The commanding officer shouted at the group to get in position.
“Spikemaw!” was all he was able to yell as he barreled towards them. A guard on the wall side moved out of the way to let him pass by. Ren darted through the opening first while he basically threw himself through the gap in the formation of people.
He looked behind to see that the spikemaw had slowed its enraged charge to size up the scene in front of it. The glistening points of the well armed guards were braced and ready to receive charge. The captain watched stoically while the final crossbowmen finished loading and leveled their crossbows at the beast in front of them.
“Alright! Let’s end this maneater before it decides to run for it!” the captain ordered. “It’s blood is up! Aim for its midsection! Crossbows! Fire!”
The strings of the half dozen guard’s crossbows all snapped forward at the same time as the guards shot. Most of the bolts flew forward and thumped into the beast’s inner hide, while the others flew off or scraped off its thickly scaled sides.
The beast let out a pained grunt and then bellowed back at them as it charged towards the group again. The captain bellowed for the pikemen to prepare to receive a charge while the crossbowmen grabbed javelins that were set in holes next to them and prepared to throw them.
That’s when he felt power surge from the kneeling man in front of him, condensing in front of the charging spikemaw. A collection of forearm thick spears of stone thrust from the ground, impaling the beast before snapping off under its weight as its momentum carried it forward. Its impact with the ground sent the shafts further into the spikemaw’s torso, killing it outright.
“Face seaward! Prepare to receive charge! Half of the crossbows reload!” The captain immediately called out orders. He grabbed him by the scruff and drug him around behind the defensive formation while thrusting a spent crossbow into his hands.
“Watch me and do as I do to reload this,” the face looking out from the open faced helmet brooked no argument. The captain quickly placed his foot through the front loop on the end and then bent the butt back to bring the string back in place.
He had never used a crossbow before but followed the captain to the best of his ability. He strained to bring the heavy string back but did, albeit a little slower than the rest of them. The other guardsmen that finished loading their weapons stood at the ready with them facing the sea while the other half bent and began reloading theirs.
The mage, a medium sized man with bronzed skin, was roughly a head shorter than he was. He busied himself by loading his own crossbow. The mage saw that he looked at him confused and smiled before explaining.
“Magic ain’t always faster or easier than good ol’ technology. At least, not for me.” He said the last bit almost apologetically.
“We all have our strengths Ian. Just keep yours ready as long as you can. Let’s hope we get reinforced soon,” the captain admonished.
“Shouldn’t we be making our way out?” He asked, Ren whined in agreement.
“Order’s say to secure our area first then patrol and make sure they don’t harm any other citizens,” the captain answered.
“What about escorting civilians away from danger?” he replied fearfully.
“You’re not injured. Just stay within our ranks and shoot that crossbow at any beast that gets to close. I can tell you haven’t used one before. Just hold it to your shoulder, it’ll line up the upper tip of the quarrel head with your eye that way. Make sure it’s only about 20 meters away otherwise you probably won’t hit anything. Then just trust us to do our job protecting you while you reload.”
The captain noticed his eyes as he glanced towards the nearest gatehouse. “And if you end up running out on your own you may end up picked off by the beasts before anyone else can save you.”
The captain finished speaking, looked around to see that all of his guards were ready and then motioned to the men to move along the wall side towards the other guardhouse. Back the way he had just come running.
Fear fluttered in his heart as he moved along at a brisk walk with the rest of the people. They kept a constant vigil while near the water, always looking for dark shapes to be lurking near the boats and ships. It had only been a few minutes since he had sprinted through the area, so most of the crewmen from the ships were still waking up and attempting to get a handle on the situation.
They approached his room by the dock that Otto had given him and where Ol George had died. They heard a splash and scraping of heavy claws on stone, from multiple sources. The captain ordered a quick movement forward and everyone shuffled forward. He sat in the middle of the group, feeling fairly secure as he was surrounded by this combat ready and competent group.
As they rounded the corner to his area of the port, they saw two spikemaws had just crawled out of the sea. Standing on the few empty docks, they gazed around to see if there was anything edible to eat. Their beady eyes flared with their nostrils as they caught the scent of blood from where Ol’ George had died. The captain quietly made hand motions to a few of the men and they set up a defensive position.
Ian knelt on the ground again as they set up their positions. Power thrummed through the earth around them and the holes appeared next to each man. The frontline pikemen slotted the pikes into the slots and braced themselves. The crossbowmen placed their javelins into the slots next to them for easy access. The captain calmly sighted down his crossbow and let loose one of his bolts at one of the creatures.
The bolt whizzed across the distance of fifty meters and struck one of the creatures in the side of the shoulder. The shot glanced off the spikemaw’s tough hide though it still served its true purpose, to get the beast’s attention.
He felt his feet grow a little numb as both beasts let out a roar and came charging at them. Their scaled hide glistened with remnants of seawater. The guardsmen in front braced in their formation. The captain, crossbowmen, and himself all took aim at the beasts. Ian's power thrummed through the stone beneath them. Ren growled, then barked, though not at the beasts in front of them.
“Fire!” the Captain roared.
The crossbows thumped, his included. Simultaneously, spears of rock shot from the cobblestones, seeking to impale the berzerk beasts. They were aimed in the middle however so as to hit both of the beasts and arrest their momentum. The charging spikemaw’s roared in pain. They stumbled as first, the stone spears and then, the crossbow bolts pierced them. Both creatures stumbled from the impact, though both were too large and moved too fast to be completely immobilized by the fist volley.
“CHARGE!” The captain ordered and drew his sword, changing up the battle plan due to how well the first part went. Both beasts were handicapped completely on each side that had the spikes protruding from their midsections and the quarrels sticking from their softer undersides. A hard charge would end them quickly.
The men followed up with battlecries of their own and the pikemen surged forward to meet the beasts. The crossbowmen now threw their javelins at the beasts. The deadly barbed points sailed over their frontline and smashed into the monsters, almost completely stopping them in their tracks.
He bent to reload his expended crossbow. Hearing Ren barking, he looked over towards the water just in time to see another spikemaw erupt from the sea. It sailed over Ren, batted him to the side and clamped its great toothy maw onto Ian’s bent form.
The mage was so lost in his magical concentration that he didn’t even know what was happening. The beast severed his arm and head from the rest of his body in one bite. Leaving a half eaten corpse spilling blood on the ground near him.
He spasmed in pain from being smacked to the side by the spikemaw. The blow of the beast’s massive arm, though only a blunt force attack, left his chest seizing up and unable to breath. He watched as the massive reptilian smashed into the seawall with the force of a battering ram. It was dazed for a moment as it shook its head back and forth to clear it. Then it looked to its left and saw him.
The pikemen had reached the two beasts that had initially been their targets. The blades of their long spears plunged into the battered monsters and they began to finish the beasts. The crossbowmen had noticed the new beast enter from behind them and either drew their swords or tried to reload their crossbows quickly.
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He looked to them and saw them all hesitate to step into melee with the beast. He knew then, as the sword wielders merely stood in front of the crossbowmen, that they would not come to his aid.
There would be no one that would save him as he sat there, barely able to move. The weight of the world he thought he had left so long ago now came back to put its full force upon him. It acted as though to tell him to just lie there. Accept his fate and die as the nameless soul he had always been.
So he laid there, giving up. His own body wouldn’t even give him the air he needed to run away. As he wheezed, desperately trying to get his air back, the monster moved forward to end his life.
The faces came back to him again, sneering, degrading, unloving faces. They looked down on him as though he was unworthy of living in this world. He was less than a footnote upon this world. So much so that no one would even risk themselves for his sake. He was nothing.
And then, the one being who truly cared about him, put her small body in front of that eternally vast presence of death. Ren stood in front of that skull of glistening bone, that great herald of the end and growled. The growl reverberated through the air and told death that it would not take her fellow outcast, it would not take her friend, her family, from her. Not while she still breathed, not while there was life left within her.
He tried to cry out to her, to tell her to get away. His breath was only now, shakily returning and it came out as a pained gasp. The weight held him down still, shackled to the floor. Secured in his fate to die. Even if he fought, what would HE be able to do?
Ren’s growl appeared to physically vibrate the air around her as she stood before the beast. Then she charged, intent to save her friend. No matter the cost. No matter the obstacle, she would not let this kill her friend. Her friend meant too much to her to let that happen.
The lumbering beast, intent on its kill of the human before it, paid the smaller Ren no mind. It learned it’s mistake as she met its weight carrying, front leg with her jaws, blowing the muscular limb straight out from underneath it. A concussive crack sounded out as she pulled with all her might and sent the spikemaw face first into the stone floor with more might than should have been possible.
The beast yelped in pain and surprise as it tore its arm free of her jaws. It raged as it came at her for having disturbed its hunt. The spikemaw moved to smash her with its clawed fist and sent it crashing down. Ren jumped to the side, braced against the seawall and shot at the monster’s scaled back, power seeming to come in waves off her small frame.
She latched onto its back, scrabbled her way to the top of its head, and ripped out one of its beady eyes. The monster was sent to the ground and scrabbled for purchase. It leapt back at her as she came to rest on the ground. She tried to move away from the beast but she appeared spent from the sudden use of the power she wielded.
The spikemaw’s arm lashed out, catching her small frame with its monstrous claws and raked her side. The force of the blow smashed her into the wall, leaving a splash of crimson on the impact. Whatever strength Ren had summoned seemed to have left her. She slid weakly down the wall to crumple onto the floor, as she whimpered in pain.
The guards finished reloading while the sword wielders seemed to have roused themselves from the sight of a dog taking on a spikemaw in solo combat. The men released their crossbow bolts into the monster as it was about to charge Ren’s whimpering form. This caused the monster to turn towards them as the bolts pierced into its sides and underbelly.
He looked up from the ground as he saw his only friend lying still against the wall and let out a cry of rage. The weight was still heavy upon his body, but it no longer shackled him to the ground. He moved forward and reached Ian’s corpse to grab the still loaded crossbow beside it. He held it up, sighted upon the monster’s last remaining eye and fired.
The bolt flew straight and true, taking the monster’s remaining eye. This allowed an opening for the swordsmen to close with the beast and begin to hack it to pieces. With it being blind, they were able to cut the leg muscles, rendering it immobile, while they each stabbed into its chest until it finished spasming.
He moved towards Ren. As he did he heard another few dreaded splashes from further out on the docks.
He looked and saw three more spikemaws as they joined from the depths of the ocean and hauled themselves onto the docks. Then, a final, even larger spikemaw raised itself from the seaport and onto the stone walkway, just as he made it to Ren. The final one’s thick scaled hide and muscle bound forelegs endeared it with an indomitable presence.
“Gather weapons and form up against the wall!” The captain took notice of the arrival of the latest monsters and began to rally them into a defensive formation. “Begin to load all crossbows and ready for a volley shot!”
One of the crossbowmen called back to him, “We’re out of javelins sir! And Ian… He’s dead sir.” The man dragged the half corpse over. The captain paled but helped to collect the mage’s body. Then he formed the men in a half wall around Ren’s whimpering form.
His best friend lay whimpering before him. He knelt down beside her and cradled her shivering body, horror gripped his heart. Blood pumped from her slashed side, slowly exhausting what precious moments were left of their time together. A new weight began to settle upon him now. The weight of fear coupled with the dread of loss.
The heaviness of being alone.
Renata had changed his life completely in these last few months. So much so that it felt as if the time before had been nothing but a dream. It was an insignificant footnote before his life with her. Before he had met his first, and only friend. A friend that had bettered his life. A friend made him no longer feel alone. A friend that had become family.
Family that was about to be taken.
Ren had stood up to that colossal force of death while he had been too afraid to even get up and stand by her side. Her courage had shaped a new fate for him while he couldn’t even help fix her wounds. She had summoned magic he had never before seen her use, to force death’s hand from her beloved friend and companion.
So death had chosen to take her instead.
What chance did he have against a being such as death?
Despair deepened his heart and forced him to feel the intense emotion as he looked upon the form of his first and only friend. It made him watch as she became his last friend.
“I’m so sorry Ren,” he began to repeat to her. Tears fell in rivers down his face, weighted as if in a race to meet the blood soaked fur of the body in his arms. As he held Ren’s body tight, he began to weep gut wrenching sobs. He pet her damp and bloody fur, almost clawing at it. unable to give her up, unable to let her go.
“I’m sorry lad,” the captain said, hopelessness filling his tone. “We’ll do our best to hold them off. I shouldn’t have dragged either of you into this, forgive me.”
The spikemaws began to close in on the group of men. They took each step confidently as they stalked forward despite the dead bodies of their fellow monsters littering the area around the guardsmen. The presence of their alpha assured them of victory and a full belly. What hope could mere humans have against superior evolution?
As if in response to this unasked question, a sword fell with the force of an avalanche atop the leading spikemaw. The weight of a mountain followed as a heavily armored man pinned the monster further into the dock. The man stood up from the monster’s back, ripped his sword from its hide and the wooden dock beneath it, and promptly cut its head off as cleanly as the sharpest guillotine.
The next nearest spikemaw to the man roared its displeasure at him, preparing to strike with its heavily muscled arms. Its face cracked into the ground, swiftly cutting off the roar, from a hide bound woman’s earthen fist. She followed the strike up by spearing her other hand between the creature’s eyes, killing it.
The spikemaw between them and the alpha looked startled and backed up a half step. Only to have a foreleg encrusted in ice up to its shoulder. A third figure revealed themselves from atop the nearest ship’s stern, a blue and red ship, followed by a fourth figure who trained a large bow upon the alpha.
The heavily armored man looked back at the captain, “We’ll handle the alpha if you can finish the rest off.”
“Gladly!” Relief flooded the captain’s face before he steeled himself for violence again. “Crossbowmen, cover us while protecting the lad! Pikemen! Move in and finish the rest!”
The men took up their spears, reinvigorated by the monster hunters who reinforced them. They moved in quickly to finish off the rest of the beasts while the crossbowmen settled into a defensive position between himself and the beasts.
Yet, this whole scene of events quickly blurred by as he once again looked down at Renata. She looked up weakly into his eyes as she shivered from the blood loss that plastered her brown and black coat to her side. He took his shirt and wrapped it around her and held her close so as to give her warmth.
“I’m sorry, Ren.”
The horrible weight settled heavier upon his shoulders.
“I’m so sorry.”
It bent him over her small frame. Tears fell down his face and onto hers as she looked up into his eyes.
“Please… don’t leave me.”
Her whimpers shattered his heart, causing each piece left to shatter smaller and smaller. Each time cutting him deeper and deeper inside his soul.
“I love you Ren! Please, don’t leave me! You’re all that matters to me in this life!”
He began to shout, as the largest weight he had ever experienced began to drive him into the floor. He felt so helpless, so useless, like a fish caught in the jaws of a giant predator. There was nothing he could do to save her
“No! You can’t die Ren! I WON'T LET DEATH TAKE YOU FROM ME!” he screamed in frustrated grief, hard enough to feel blood in the back of his throat.
Maybe there was something he could do. Something he hadn’t ever been able to do before. But he’d heard all sorts of people tell stories about people being able to do things when things really mattered. So he laid her gently on the ground and held a hand at each end of the deep claw marks. He’d seen healers work and they always seemed to do it this way.
He drew a deep breath, remembering what the old mages had told him when they had tested him for any magic. Your mind is the gateway that links you to magic. Form your gate and open it to the mana of the world. Through this method you will unlock your potential for magic.
And so he tried. He tried something he had failed his whole life to do. He did it for his friend. He built that doorway in his mind. Grabbed the handle and hauled with all his mental might.
And yet the door would not yield to him. The world refused to open to him. It refused to accept his control and remained shut, for it was chained shut. Bound in great lengths of chain, too heavy to remove.
And so he pounded upon the door until his mental fists were bloody. His nose ran with a small trickle of blood. His eyes began to weep red tears as he focused on forcing his way through. And when his rage burned out, the tiredness came back. And with the tiredness came that old presence of heaviness.
He stared at the labored breaths of Ren, loss and hopelessness beginning to overwhelm him. This couldn’t be the end for them. This was only the beginning. Death couldn’t be this cruel. Taking something from you just as it gave you hope. What kind of monster was Death to do something like that?
Renata sensed his sadness and grief even at the very brink of death, and attempted to move closer to her friend. She was so weak from blood loss that she merely shifted in her spot upon the cobblestone dockside.
He gathered her into his arms again and cradled her to his chest. Her dark eyes looked up at him, full of care and concern. Renata licked his bloodstained cheek a few times, smudging his bloody tears to comfort him. She then nuzzled into his arm, as she had done when they laid down to sleep at night, and released a final contented breath.
Renata died, trading her life to save her friend.