Chapter 20

The sound of the loud smack rang throughout the bar as Chris was knocked unconscious yet again. Zayne’s hand rested above Chris’s seat as Chris slumped on the ground with broken bits of cup, the bar keep looked from the unconscious man to Zayne then back again.

“That might have been a little over the top don’t you think.” The bark keep said coming off as a little off put.

Zayne, with very little people skills stared back at her blankly. The helmet remained on his head obscuring his face so the keep couldn’t look at it, instead she looked at the untouched drink and then back to him.

“You lost another didn’t you, you don’t have to say it but I can tell by the way your becoming harder on the new squires. And that you haven’t touched your drink, god Ogre. You have been chasing a pipe dream trying to raise another in your stead. Cant you just take solace that we have you and no other, if you weren’t around then this kingdom wouldn’t be as safe as the other knights would like us to believe.”

The middle-aged women leaned forward grasping ahold of Zayne’s hand looking him where she thought his eyes would be. “I, we don’t want to see you lost to us.”

Feeling uncomfortable, he pulled his hand away. Zayne stood up to look around the empty bar not finding anything to anchor him to this moment he decided to get it over. He pulled his machete out and took a calm swing at the bar keeper lopping her head off in one quick movement. Blood splattered across the inn as the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon. There was no screams, no cries, only the sound of the limp body hitting the floor. He stood there for a time looking over what he did, not feeling any remorse of guilt of what he did. It was just him being him, like the old saying went about the scorpion and the frog or was it the fox. He couldn’t recall what Foulness had said but it was him being him. He looked down at the pain in the ass man on the tavern floor, unconscious without a worry in the world as he laid there.

He felt the urge to kill, not like he has been but what he did originally. He needed to get back to his roots, that he knew for sure. He picked up Chris heading up the stairs to place him in one of the rooms, the first one on the left. It was locked but that didn’t matter to Zayne, he simply kicked it down blowing the door off the hinges. He walked into the simple room with a straw bed and a bucket in the corner. He dropped the man on the bed unceremonially, taking his leave.

He jumped out through the window.

The town that was known as Farmington wasn’t that big of a town, roughly 500 people that mostly own land to farm food and herbs. They didn’t know what kind of night was going to visit them but it was one the neighboring towns would remember as the slaughter of Farmington.

A small family lay settled at the center of town, just off the corner of the bar. The Harald’s were a quiet family that were proud to call themselves farmers for the past 5 generations. Pa was finishing his meal when little Jim who was no older then 10 dropped his plate on the floor making the wooden platter bounce off and roll to the wall where it slumped with mash potatoes still on it.

Mr. herald or Marven as his wife and friends called him, was a patient man. Or he liked to think himself as one. This was the third time this week that Jim had dropped his plate using the excuse as an accident. Well, it was high time to pluck this weed of a bad habit.

“Damn it Jim! That’s the third time this week. I’ve let the other times go but not this time. What would you have done if that was the livestock we had, or the milk you spent all morning milking. I know you don’t like your vegetables but that isn’t the way to go about doing it. Your sleeping out in the barn with the other livestock.”

Marven got off his chair and grabbed his son by the wrist as he started to drag him out of the house. He made it halfway before there was a loud crash of glass, Marven turned his head to the bar but found nothing but a broken window and the said glass on the dirt road.

“Go to the barn, your not getting out of this just because some drunk smashed a window.” He pulled little Jim along opening the barn doors so he could help get his son settled. The farm by the bar wasn’t the largest one, it was in fact the smallest one that focused on milk and beef if they had too many calves that year. The town enjoyed the fresh milk as it could be ordered at any time in the day, the excess was made into cheese or butter.

As Marven got little Jim settled he heard another window pain break off in the distance but this time it was accompanied with a scream. Racing out of the barn Marven was greeted by a large knight with his sword drawn. Blood glinted off the blade from the light of the streetlamps. He recognized the knight as sir Ogre, the one knight that truly had the people’s best interest at heart. He must be fighting something, Marven thought.

He turned back to the barn to collect his child when a rush of air passed him and a pain that was so intense came rushing through his body. Blood was coughed up as he looked down at the pain in his chest, red streaked across his hemp shirt as he fought the urge to throw up. There he found a sword had been plunged it to his chest.

Marven turned his head back around to stare at the culprit but all he found was the knight with his arm outstretched holding the very sword that had ran through his chest.

Zayne had just started his little escapades of his nightly slaughter but there wasn’t much fan fair like he was used to. He had jumped out of the window mist stepping as he did so coming across a small family right next to the inn that he was keeping his troubled friend at. The women was easy enough to kill just as the man before him had been. There was no satisfaction of killing something so easy, like stabbing a dead corpse as he did on previous occasions. His machete was sucking the life essence of the farmer as it had done to the wife so he simply stood there letting the thing do what it wanted.

A few seconds passed and the body fell limp to the dirt, a small scream accompanied it as Zayne looked to the barn where the man was headed. The son of the man stood there at the front of the barn gazing at his now dead father, the night was starting to take on a chilly aspect but that would bother Zayne in the least.

“Better to leave no survivors, don’t want the child to be too lonely now that it has no parents to keep it company.” Foulness whispered into Zayne’s ear.

Zayne moved on to the small child, the kid didn’t move as he came close picking the kid up by its neck. Lifting it off from its feet the machete was quick in it work as Zayne stabbed the kid with no hesitation. The body slumped in his hold as the sword began its work on taking another eye. He had notice it with the mother and again with the father, the machete claimed every left eye of the victims Zayne killed. It didn’t do anything else but gain another eye so Zayne didn’t feel any consideration for it.

The machete stopped vibrating when it was done and soon there was another smaller eye next to the two new ones he had gotten. The three eyes stared up at him as he inspected it then started to look around. Yep, nothing like a good work out for his new machete. Zayne went on to the next house that was to the left of the farm. The light had just came on and he was starting to get back into the rhythm of his nightly visits.

The home that was next to the farm was a new family that had the parents living with their kids and grandkids, the Jeffersons. They didn’t do any farming but trading, they just like their family behind the wall were merchants. Taking the produce and other things the farmers did in the area and selling them to the 5 other human kingdoms.

Grant was the son of Tim, who had lived in this town for the past 10 years. He was the head merchant of his family as his wife kept to the bookkeeping. His 6 kids were currently screaming his head off as he looked around the house at what had scared them. His wife and he had heard the sound of smash glass and a scream that had woken everyone up. The scream had been a call to his children to start screaming as well because he couldn’t get them to shut up.

“Grant, all I am asking you to do is to go next door and check on our neighbors and make sure they are all right.” Gretchen was asking him again to go to those milkers and soil his hand getting them dirt. He didn’t want to lower him self to do it but he didn’t want to go down the road of an angry wife sleeping next to him.

“Fine back can you please put on a clean pot; I want to have a cup of tea after I come back.” He used the excuse of tea but his wife knew that he would use the hot water to wash his hands off after he had come back. It was just the polite way of saying it.

Grant left his home and started to wander around to the front of the farm, the trip was quick given he lived next store to them about 20 feet away. The first thing he came across was the body of Mr. Herald, with one eye. Blood had pooled around the dead body giving it a ghastly sight with the lamp light dancing off from it. the sight gave the man pause as he tried to figure out what he was looking at but for the life of him it just didn’t make sense. They lived close to the keep were the patrols were the most frequent but before him was his dead neighbor.

Grant ran back to his him in a rush slamming through the door with out stopping, the slam of the door scared his wife and his parent who were busy trying to calm down Rebeca, his youngest daughter. “Call for the watch, there’s a dead body and I think its Marven our next store farmer!”

His wife rushed to their bedroom going through the top shelf to find the alarm horn they and every cetacean had. Finding the three curled horn she brought it out to the guest room where everyone was. She was greeted by a large man in knight armor speckled with blood, his sword was currently stuck through her youngest, the white glint in Rebeca’s eyes told her that it was already too late to save her.

Finding the courage to defy this intruder, she put the horn to her lips and blew. The call went through her house and out into the night, but that didn’t stop the thing in front of her. The killer strolled to her silently, not making a sound in the suit of armor as it craned its head to the side staring at her.

“Its over! They will come for you” Her word died on her lips as the blade sank into her head breaking off any will she had left to speak. The machete started to vibrate harder as the I was pulled from her head beneath her scalp. Skin closed over the whole as the eyeball traveled through her head to the blade where it fused to gather slipping the new decoration along other smaller eyes. The eye of hers was no bigger than a pea, as it came next to the other smaller eyes of her children.

“That makes 13, whoop lets go boy!” Foulness said with enjoyment with his throaty purr he gave off every now and again. His voice still had a guttural sound to it like an old smoker with a wet throat.

The victory was short lived as another sound rand through the night, with more joining them. “Fuck, I think its that night watch shit that bitch was talking about.”

“That bitch just died trying to protect her family, the least you can do is show a little respect for her!” Jiminy lashed out.

Foulness to a second to go over Jiminy’s words before he retorted back. “She didn’t die protecting, it was more of a revenge thing. Speaking of, you think were ever going to get our revenge ark?” Foulness asked.

“How the fuck are we going to get something like that and with who? His parents are long dead and this fucker is damn there god tier in strength.”

“But he got his ass kicked by that long-eared bitch.”

Foulness let out a long sigh, “that was only due to Zayne not taking this seriously. That and if he really wanted to, he could have just ghosted step that bitch as he plunged his blade into her back, do you remember the battle of small river? It would be just like that.”

“The battle of the small river was nothing like that, it was full of week monsters and humans that couldn’t keep up with him, That long eared human was just as fast as he was. And lets not forget that she can do magic, Zayne cant-” Jiminy caught himself before he could utter another word. Zayne had been listening as he made his way out and killed a few more villagers. But at the word magic and him he had stopped entirely as he listen to the two voices bicker about him and magic.

“Listen buddy, He didn’t mean it. Who needs magic when you can ghost step all over the place or summon chains to strangle people. Right?” Zayne not being able to do magic was something of a sore spot for him, and it irritated him when they brought it up.

Foulness tried to calm him down about the whole not needing magic thing but it didn’t help. This night was ruined thanks to those two, now he just felt like taking a nap and forgetting this whole conversation. He was on the outskirts of the village, killing people and livestock alike as he ran though but now he started to head back to the inn were his friend slept. Sorta friend or whatever.

He turned back around to the head into town when something caught his attention, the smell of blood was pungent in the night air but this new sent was overpowering. The smell of sludge and muck riddled the air around him as lights from the north came pouring in. Something out in the woods was coming and it was big, enough to shake the ground. Clicking came in distantly as the sound of horse hoofs accompanied it. It would appear the knights and something else was making their way to this small farming town.

“Holy shit that smells like shit!” Foulness the ever scholar.

Zayne having his night ruined didn’t feel the need to confront them so opted to leave for the inn, if either of the two things decided to come at him then they would be in a world of hurt.

Sprinting though the left-over carnage he had wrought, Zayne made his way back into town. Bodies lay all over left from his nightly run, the smell of the muck was getting worse but he didn’t feel the need to address it. What he needed was his sleep.

The knights were currently presupposing that the bodies on the edge of town were killed by something near them. The muck monster was bringing the stench to heights that he couldn’t ever imagine, Zayne decided that before he went to bed he would watch the show unfold.

Night captain Margellio lead a team of 40 knight into the small farming village, the smell of dead bodies was burning his nose hair. He and his men had determined the dead were still fresh so the thing that had killed them was near. The marks of the bodies suggested that it was caused by a blade or something close to it but there was so many things in this world that had the ability to make its victims appear that they were killed by blade that he didn’t bother to figure it out. He would wait till they had found a monster before judging if it was that or something else.

He was looking around the silent town when one of his men, Lieutenant Dans, came up to him with news. “Sir, the forest is silent but the smell of sewage is coming closer and closer, We think it a brood mother with all of this forest gumping up with dead bodies, Sir.”

The look of terror was plain of night captain Margellio, as Lieutenant Dans family had died every generation to a creature such as this. A brood mother is a type of creature that is a big as a modern-day trailer, the creature is a slug type that expels white sludge. The victims that it eats don’t ever die but are instead molested in the monster’s gullet as they get turned into a smaller male counterpart. The creature they are turned into then helps the brood mother with providing seed for it to give birth all while being in one of its five stomachs. The victim is expelled out with the offspring to go on and bring more victims to the brood mother, the sludge in question is the excess of the victim’s body being expelled along with the birthing sack.

Lieutenant Dans family had died to such a creature for the past 6 generations, in the hopes of killing one and breaking the chain of the never-ending cycle.

Night captain was at a shock that such a creature was this near to the kingdom but that didn’t change the matter of killing it. He only wish that he had brought siege equipment with him.

“Rally on me men, take anything we can and bring it to the center of town so may burn it. The light will help spot the white creatures but we make our stand here and now. Steve, send a raven and get a message out, I want the rest of the knights here as soon as possible.” Night captain Margellio rushed to the nearest home and started to break the furniture apart as he brought it to the center. He started a fire there as flames dances across the center.

“Form ranks as soon as we see it, I want all archers on the top of buildings. Knights, your horses wont help with this one. Send them off back to the keep. This maybe our last night here alive.” The 40 men went to work crushing and breaking apart anything they could get their hands on feeding the flame as they did so. It wasn’t long before the sight and smell of the creature was spotted off to the south of them. The brood mother made its way to them slowly but with every wiggle, assuredly.

The crab like things that were its young and latest victims grouped around the brood mother as they cared dead bodies to it. The slug had more of a worm like mouth on it as its throat extend out of itself and clamped down on the dead. The white fluid singed anything it touched as it pooled around the brood mother.

“Loose arrows!” the ten archers weren’t much to do any real harm to the brood mother but Margellio thought that if you stabbed anything enough times that the blood lose would cause anything living to die. The arrows sailed through the air at there target, not as powerful as what Zayne was used to but that didn’t matter to him. He was here to watch the show and that was it, as he slowly forgot about the comment Jiminy and uttered an hour ago.

The tips of the arrows sank to the fletching as they pierced the brood mother, causing a terrible cry to come out of it. Its flesh was soft but the under belly was were its real armor held, but none knew that.

The sight of the first opening volley brought excitement and confidence to the knight of Ravago as they rushed to the creature. Night commander Margellio tried and failed to bring them back into line but it was al ready too late. The knight that rushed to the thing were quickly met by the white fluid as small orifices appeared from its body pumped out and spraying the white slugged melting anything but it and is children. The night commander watched terrified as his men slowly melted away.

Margellio spun around and ran back to his keep taking this as a lose and nothing else. The archers on the wall watched what had happened and continued to pump arrows into the beast not knowing that their commander was already fleeing.

Zayne had watched the battle all of 5 min. and was unimpressed by how the humans had dealt with such a thing. Honestly, it was something he found disgusted by which was a new feeling for him entirely.

“You think we should get involved?” Foulness asked

Jiminy spoke out before Zayne had the chance to, “Fuck yes, save the town and become a hero.”

“But, he already killed the town.” Foulness said confused by the statement Jiminy had just said.

“That’s true…” Jiminy thought long and hard on that for a few seconds. “I guess save Chris. That thing is headed to the inn that he is currently sleeping in.” Foulness started to cackle at that.

“Fuck that guy, he hasn’t helped out in any way. All the things he has told us was something we were already figuring out on our own. Why save that incompetent jack ass when you can go out and kill anything that you want.”

He had a point but lets face it, Zayne had more fun when he was with that guy then he had by himself. A notification popped up in front of him.

Congratulations: Your friend had taken the interest of Tolfa, the god of bad luck. He is awarded with the trait: Monsters bitch. This can not be seen by him or any other but his closes friends.

Trait: monsters bitch, the sent of one with this trait attracts any and all monsters within a mile radius. Cannot be cured.

"Great, now we have this to deal with.” Jiminy spoke quietly.

To the south of the kingdom of Ravago, the orc encampment was busy making preparations to attack the human settlements. there was no love there for the humans only hate and disgusts as the worriers prepped the battle siege weaponry. The chief wasn't one to flaunt his titles but being the 7th son of the war leader of their nations, Guts was more then happy to show his mount off. He was a orc hybrid and ogre. His mount in question was the fabled donkey of the lutes.