Chapter 16 - Scourgers

“That’s not the Scourge. How come there are so many scourgers!”

“We—we can’t fight that!”

“Everyone! Evacuate immediately!”

Everyone was panicking around. Their attention was on the eleven towers of light surrounding the island, and those things coming out of it, that they have forgotten Mill who was on his seat.

It took Mill a few seconds to come back to reality. Seeing that everyone was running around and Zomeng and the others were busy shouting orders, Mill took the chance to escape.

He stood up from his seat while everyone was distracted, the title bar in his right hands, his other hand holding on the wooden seat. He took a step to the side, but a burst of pain attacked his body, particularly to his gut. He dropped to the ground and vomited bile.

He took a deep breath, endured the pain, and stood up shakily. He did not know where he get the energy but he burst into a run.

He had just heard Zomeng ordered someone to secure him inside when he was already a few meters away from them.

It did not take long for the Dabomens to notice he was running away.

He took the chance and his distance to them, to run as much as he could but not a few seconds later, someone tackled him to the ground. He was only able to raise his arm to guard his face when he slammed to the ground.

Fueled by adrenaline, he turned himself around with much force and grappled the neck of the tackler. It was Zandro.

Zandro, who Mill held by his back, elbowed him to the side. Anticipating it, Mill endured the pain and then with his right hand, slammed the title bar on Zandro’s head.

He heard a thud sound and Zandro visibly slacken within his hold. He was still conscious as Mill could feel him moving but Mill knew it must have an effect on him as he really slammed it hard.

Mill was about to let go and run but that amount of time he was grappling with Zandro was enough for the Dabomens to reach him and point their weapons at him.

Four Dabomen cornered him from both sides and he saw Zomeng walked to him in moderate but forceful steps with a sword poised to his side. Mill did not move and stared hard at the steps Zomeng made. It was the first time he saw someone break the ground they were walking with only their footsteps.

Zomeng finally reached him and raised his sword, ready to slash him.

Mill did not quaver and instead held Zandro above him as a shield.

He did not need to as suddenly, a white object shaped like a human slammed towards Zomeng.

It was the johaman.

Zomeng flew a few meters away together with the johaman and Mill took the chance.

He stood up with Zandro with him and he pulled him backwards.

Two of the Dabomens went towards the johaman and Zandro, but the other two stayed. Upon seeing Mill backing out, they immediately raised their weapons, both short lances or a spear, and aimed it at Mill’s feet.

A Dabomen poke the lance towards his right foot but Mill nudged Zandro’s body to that side immediately. The Dabomen stopped but the other Dabomen did not and had sneaked up to his left, just out of his periphery, his lance ready to pierce his side.

In that short moment Mill felt a danger coming above him, in that split second he saw a glimpse of something diving towards him. It felt danger.

So instead of evading the lance in his side, he pushed himself towards the lancer’s direction.

It was fortunate that the lance did not pierce him and only missed him by a few inches.He collided with the lancer and the flying object dove to the three of them.

He felt something slamming towards his body, throwing both the three of them a few meters away.

The object who slammed them, who happened to be a giant black crow, with a fat belly, was the size of a human person.

The giant black crow jumped to the air again, hovered in it, then darted at a fast speed towards theml, with its claws first.

Mill, with Zandro in his arms, rolled to his left without a thought and slammed to the lancer’s body beside him.

The bird reached them and clawed at them. The lancer raised his lance to the bird but midway to it the bird already swiped its claw at them, swiping the lance away with its force.

Mill heard a sound resembling a flesh being slashed then heard the lancer screamed of pain.

Mill felt something sliced at his arms too, but as he had two people covering him, it was only a surface wound. But it still hurts.

The bird hopped to step on them and Mill avoided it by rolling to the side.

He jumped to his feet then without much thought, grabbed the lance that was at his feet and plunged it to the birds side.

Instead of piercing it, the bird swiped his feet towards Mill as if it had eyes at its side. It threw the lance to the side but Mill was also caught by its claw so hard it threw him in the air.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He was lucky that the bird used the back of its claw, causing only a blunt force that the lance took most of.

He just flew for a few meters anticipating a fall to the ground when he slammed into a feathery surface midair. He grabbed his hands into it to stop his falling motion and realized it was another giant black crow passing by, or probably heading to him.

Feeling that something was holding on to its body, the giant bird flew faster and it started to rotate.

Mill saw his surroundings turned into a kaleidoscope but he held on to the bird.

He was rotated for a few seconds that It did not take long for his hands to drop the title bar it was holding in order for him to hold on tight to the bird.

A few turns later, he felt his grip loosened and it only took that moment for him to lose his grip entirely on the bird's feathers.

He felt himself falling, then he hit a leafy surface, and he was rolling on what seemed like a sloped surface.

He rolled into a bush that was mixed with rough leaves and small branches, and stopped halfway into it.

He groaned hard from the various pains and aches in his body, as well as the burning and tender scrapes he got on his face and shoulder.

He felt himself blacking out despite how dim his surroundings already but he forced himself to stay awake.

The feeling of danger—dancing everywhere in his senses—helped and he forced himself out from the bush.

He laid himself on the sloped rocky ground and took a breath. The pain was still overriding his senses and he let himself rest and let it decrease on its own.

Fifteen seconds passed and he felt the pain bearable. He sat up, looked around and found himself on a slopey place, full of bushes, trees and plants.

Judging from his fall, he guessed he must be on the side of the plateau.

Just as he was about to stand up, he heard some faint voices above him, and immediately froze. The voices were faint at first but they went stronger the more time passed, till he heard someone shout.

“Galvin! I found a title bar here. It’s blue.”

“That looks like the name title bar. Gimme that.”

“Should we look for the owner?”

There’s a pause. “Someone saw him fall from those birds, he might be dead already. What’s the point?”

“But delra Zomeng ordered to—”

“If you want to look, then do it alone. Everyone’s evacuating already. I have— delra Kosner!”

“You found the boy?” It was Kosner’s voice.

“Not yet, someone saw him fall to the side of the mountain,” the one called Gavin replied.

“The title bar?”

“Uh…”

“Don’t try lying now. What are you hiding in your habin? Give it to me.”

“Yes, yes. Here. I wasn’t—”

“Look for the kid,” Kosner interrupted.

Mill did not wait to hear what they said next. Enduring the pain, he stood up and planned to scale the mountain immediately.

He took a step out of the bush to the side and found the sloped ground viable for walking. The stars were shining brightly with the moon, making him still see around, albeit a little bit.

He took another step and he felt the ground he stepped on give in and his left foot slipped in front of him.

The accidental split gave another burst of pain from his other leg but he had no time to feel it as he felt gravity pulled him below, sliding him from the sloped surface.

The pain forced him to contort his body causing him to twist around to a sitting position and it made his sliding faster. With his bum below, he slid from that side of the mountain.

Leaves and small branches from bushes he passed occasionally whipped on him but the pain of his bum scraping on the rocky surface took his attention more. He gradually sped up, and the sloped ground full of stocked lumps of crumbled soil helped more.

He expected to slide on his death but a bush came on to his view and just as he passed it, he reached his arms to it and stopped his sliding motion.

He hugged that part of that bush and took a breath. It’s dry bark grazed on his chapped hands but he did not care. He could even kiss it as a gratitude.

After a few seconds of breathing, he touched his bum and found a part of his scrubs in that area chaffed. He was glad he had pants inside it and it was still fortunately intact, though it did not lessen the pain from sliding from stones and bumping on a hard surface.

After calming down, he crouched on the ground and tried to scale down the mountain by gripping the plants around him. He took a step below him while grabbing anything around him for purchase.

Little by little he scaled down the mountain like that. But a minute later, he missed a step on the ground and then he was sliding his body again. He was able to stop himself with the same technique but after continuing walking, or more like crawling, moments later, he slipped again and slid.

He scaled the mountain like that, part walking and mostly sliding. He did not know how many scrapes and scratches he had acquired because at some point the pain just stopped bothering him.

He continued like that for what felt like a long time until he reached the stable part of the mountain where even if he fell he would not roll or slide anymore.

He was now able to walk properly and after a few slips that had no sliding included, and a few stumbles from outcropping rocks, he finally reached the bottom of the mountain where the ground was finally flat.

He continued walking looking for a safe place to stay. Fortunately he did not hear anyone chasing him, but he did not know if they just hadn't found him yet.

He did not know which direction he went. He continued walking till he saw a huge fallen tree with a bush on its outcropping root. He sat beside the bush and laid his head to the fallen tree.

He closed his eyes and shivered from the cold. He closed his hands into a fist and closed it so tight that his nails embedded itself into his palm. A sob came out of him next, then a mirthless laugh. He sobbed again and stopped. He was tired and hungry—and going crazy.

*****

A few miles away, a group of Dabomens were huddled inside a wooden house as they watched a group of jumping black pigs circling around the house. The black pigs, four feet tall but seven feet long, were jumping aimlessly everywhere as if they were just playing. But seen from the injuries of the ten Dabomen inside the wooden house, with their broken arms and armors, the pigs were nowhere near harmless.

“Why are there so many of them? And what are those? I never saw them before,” a breathless young man with a gash on the side of his mouth whispered inside the house. He was looking outside from the slats in the windows.

Another young man with a whip in his back looked at the bespectacled man leaning his back to the wall, his right arm broken. “Delra Gilte. Should Coline heal you?” he said and pointed to the sweat-soaked woman in the middle of the room with a pale face. “I ask the other Faith Priest and Priestess here, they have enough faith to heal you,”

“No,” delra Gilte replied. “D-don’t use any satna. I don’t know what’s wrong with these scourgers but they seemed blind to the crystal altar energy. They react to any sign of satna in the air. The crystal altar…” He shook his head. “S-so if you want to live, don’t.”

“But it’s faith delra, not—”

“Look outside!” the young man with a gash in his mouth shouted.

The Dabomens looked through the slats of the windows and saw the black pigs were hopping towards the center of the island. A minute later there were nothing left around the vicinity of the house.

A woman broke the silence inside the house. “Delra, I talked to the 13th dacotan, they said those black pigs were heading to the 20th dacotan area—” she paused and pinched the white seashell in her ears. After a few moments, she spoke again. “Reports came from the 1st dacotan and 5th dacotan, their scourgers were heading to the 20th dacotan.”

“What’s going on?” the man with a whip asked around. “That was not the crystal altar’s direction. They were also ten times their number than it should be for a cohei mainland. They were also not attacking the crystal altar. What if they did not go away after a day? What if they stayed?”

No one gave him an answer. All of them were confused too.

Delra Gilte looked at the central mountain’s direction where the crystal altar was and whispered, “What did they do?”

Inside him, he also wondered what could be in the 20th dacotan for them to go there.