Elephant Pond 7:

Blood for the path (2)

The Bloodless

Ayva stood up from her soldier’s fresh corpse, as she watched her soldier’s chest grow still as she breathed her last breath. The chameleon shaper that killed her was already long gone, another problem that Ayva would have to deal with, largely on her own, prompting her to sigh. She looked over to where her other soldiers faced the Rot Tusk, at the center of the village. The most of the houses were partially destroyed, exposing bedrooms and kitchens and Knots who hadn't thought to fled to the forest, while some had completely collapsed, and small craters were littered all around the village where the Rot Tusk had smashed the ground in an attempt to crush his attackers.

Even with its dark wooden armor renewed, the dual-headed boar still struggled. It had been immobilized by Leona’s charged slash to its left thigh so it was forced to kneel on its right knee, swatting at Leona and Wayard who were now tiring of dodging lethal blows themselves.

“Status report!” Ayva called. Even from where she stood she could have sworn she heard Leona grumble.

“Last charge!” she yelled through clenched teeth.

“Last charge!” Wayard answered.

“Out!” answered the archers simultaneously.

Ayva could see where the archers had spent their charged arrows along the shaper’s leathery grey body but not any evidence of damage to it. The only thing that seemed to bother it was the deep cut in its thigh and the gash in its belly. The cut in its stomach had been partially exposed again by Wayard’s endeavors to chip the renewed armor away. Neither cut was deep enough to be fatal but dark blood still leaked from either wound whenever the beast attacked.

It didn’t look like Leona and Wayward had the strength or means to finish the fight but they would have to hold out, at least till Ayva could find the druids helping the beast, and stop them from assisting him further.

“Follow from a distance behind me and see if you can spot anyone watching me,” Ayva commanded the blade and he nodded.

Ayva began searching again, sprinting at full speed, glancing between houses and into windows, while keeping a safe distance from any walls in case the chameleon shaper chanced another attack.

Eventually she picked up the sound of footsteps and chased them, catching glimpses of a brown haired woman carrying a druid’s staff, darting between the cover of houses, as Ayva gradually gained on her. When she was close enough, Ayva glimpsed her face and she was the exact druid her soldiers had described, the one she needed to question. She glanced behind her for the blade that was supposed to be tailing her but saw no sign of him, so she decided to go in alone.

Ayva drew and threw four daggers at the rebel’s legs, just before she could slip behind another house. Three of them found her left calf and she rolled to the ground clutching a wooden staff.

She wasted no time and got up again, supporting herself with her staff and immediately began chanting unintelligible whispers, just like what Ayva had heard before. Ayva threw more daggers as she ran towards her, forcing the druid to dodge them but she maintained her chanting even as Ayva closed in. Just before she could utter the final words Avya threw two daggers right at her face, hoping to force her to dodge and break her concentration. She stopped chanting and ducked and Ayva tackled her through the glass window and into the house behind her.

They tumbled onto the floor of a bedroom, showering the ground and themselves in glass. Ayva climbed on top of the druid and produced a coil of chain from her belt. The woman kicked and flailed as Ayva tried to wrap the chains around her arms to bind her.

“Greyum!” she screamed.

Ayva heard heavy footsteps, someone sprinting toward them to answer her call.

“Ray?! Where are you?” the man's voice called.

“Grey-!” she started to yell out again but Ayva cut her off with a punch to the face that left her dazed on the floor.

Before Ayva could finish wrapping the druid with the chain, the man burst through the wall to Ayva’s left, or rather he seemed to meld the cobbled stone onto his left side like stone armor.

It took him barely a second to process the situation before he swung a massive single bladed axe at Ayva. She ducked and it swept by where her head was a second ago, and sunk into the other wall. Before he could wrench it free, Ayva lunged from on top of the female druid and kicked him square in the chest with her full strength, where there wasn’t armor. He tumbled backwards through the door, the stone armor still intact as he landed on his back outside. He got up and hastily clutching his chest as Ayva walked to meet him outside. From the pained expression on his face she must have broken something.

They sized each other up, the sounds of yelling and stone shattering, echoing to them as their comrades fought in the distance. He had long curly brown hair, an unkempt beard, and the various symbols of the druid tattooed along his bare arms.

Even without their blood drives Harcovians were faster and stronger than Plain-walkers or any other tribe for that matter and now that he was unarmed, he was in an even worse position. But his stance told her that he was already keenly aware of that and devising something else as he began chanting.

“Commander!” a voice called from behind Ayva.

She expected to turn and see the blade she’d told to follow her but it was Darriyon running up to her instead.

The druid tensed and stopped the chanting as the brute came up to him, which Ayva took note of.

“I’m requesting permission to engage the shaper.”

“Leona and Wayard can hold it off till I get there. It's not a battle you can fight. I’ve already seen one too many brutes crippled for the day.”

“That’s exactly why I need to be the one to do it. Dale is refusing to return to camp for treatment and demanding we let him back into the fight. I don’t think he’ll go if we don’t kill it, better yet if I did.” Darriyon’s tone was obviously and plainly desperate and eager. His pride in himself, Dale and their house was hurt by Dale’s loss and revenge was a thirst Harcovians could never quench with common sense or even the likelihood of defeat.

Ayva sighed again.

“Fine,” she relented, “Let the archers take Dale back to camp and get that arm off as soon as you put that boar down.”

Darriyon nodded and sprinted back to the battle, shrugging off his armor and beginning the change as he ran. His skin bloated and took on a red tinge as his body produced massive amounts of excess blood that flooded his muscles.

Ahead of them Leona had pulled off her helmet, long dirty-blonde hair wet and shiny as she gasped for breath, her forehead slick with sweat. She leaped away as she narrowly avoided a back hand that would have knocked her head cleanly off and answered with a shallow stab to the Rot Tusk’s forearm. She grunted in frustration, she didn’t see an end in sight.

That was until she heard heavy footfall and the sound of stone scraping against the ground and glanced behind her to see Darriyon, a full-sized brute, dragging behind him the stone club the Rot Tusk had discarded. The Rot Tusk squealed a blaring, shrill battle cry as if accepting the challenge, and when Wayard and Leona tried to charge in once again to assist, it smashed the ground with both arms, warding off the soldiers before dropping onto all fours again to race past them toward the brute.

It barreled toward Darriyon, its left head opening its jaws to bare rotting teeth at Darriyon, silently taunting him with his uncle’s defeat. But with its injured leg it was considerably slower, slow enough that Leona caught up to it, sprinting hard on its left side. The paste-chewing head’s beady black eyes met her glowing crimson glare and then widened in realization as Wayard appeared on its right and Darriyon closed in, in front of it.

Leona observed the Rot Tusks gait and timing for a second, and then made the first move. She leaped forward and plunged her charged blade into the Rot Tusk’s left hand nailing it the ground and stopping the beast dead in its tracks. It squealed as dark red blood oozed out from its massive hand and then snapped at Leona.

She rolled out of the way and when it reached with its right to continue its retaliation, Wayard cracked his hammer down on the other hand with a shockwave, the impact flattening it into the ground. The Rot tusk collapsed forward, onto its belly just as Darriyon arrived and swung at the tusked-head with all of his strength and momentum. The blow lifted the beast meters off of the ground, with a resounding, sickening crunch. And when it landed pieces of long yellowed tusks clattered onto the ground as the head hung bloody and lifeless.

Darriyon lifted the club, holding it over his head and the shaper in his shadow. The shaper didn’t beg for mercy, nor did Darriyon look willing to consider it. They simply waited in grim acceptance as Darriyon brought the club down onto the final set of loathing eyes.

The Oath-sworn

Maya stared at the pirate’s outstretched hand, as she held Tory and then glared up at his wide grin. He wasn’t smiling in a smug way to rub in their defeat. Worse than that, he smiled the way the starving bared their fangs over warm meals piled high, with his hand outstretched from the row boat beckoning Maya forward, as if to take the plate. Maya swam forward, and motioned Morgan behind her, putting herself between the smiling pirate and her family.

“Fear not, mother. You and your family are our honored guests,” he said with the same grin. “Ransom at your service, Captain of the Burning Lady,” he said pointing to the grey ship behind them. It was the same one that had shot their boat to pieces with harpoons mere minutes ago.

“Of course, I could tell by the way you almost killed us,” Maya retorted.

“Mother, please,” Ransom soothed, he had the coarse voice of a man too fond of cigars, but the tone of one who attempted to butter his words anyway. “We were simply giving you the invitation, as our...benefactor asked us to,” he said, as if easing a child’s worries.

Maya glanced at Morgan treading water with her husband, at Tory on the brink of tears in her arms and back at the pirates. They shifted uneasily in the boat, clutching their weapons more tightly than Maya held her daughter, but Ransom held up a hand to ease them.

“I’m afraid anything you try now will be pointless, mother dearest. There ain’t nothing you can try that your tribesmen haven’t. Ain’t nothing you can do that won’t end with our harpoons in your backs, unless you come with us peacefully.”

Maya’s glare intensified.

“I know you won’t try anything,” Ransom said confidently and then looked at Tory. “Right, girl? Not when her blood is with her. If we’d caught your mother alone or even with your father, they would have chosen death already. But they wouldn’t dare risk you or your brother’s necks; no parents could ever put their children to death, even if it costs theirs. I guess we were just that lucky enough to find you all as a matching set.” The pirates behind him snickered.

“Enough theatrics, we’ll come quietly,” Maya scoffed. As she swam forward to accept the pirate’s hand, Morgan watched her produce a piece of the boat no bigger than her palm, from within her clothes, the rune read seek and was still glowing. Was she actually going to stab him?

But she simply tucked it back into her clothing and accepted Ransom’s hand.

They pulled them on board as the pirates in the ships surrounding them cheered again. Then they rowed them up to the light brown bulky ship that lowered two ropes that ended in hooks. The pirates attached them to either side of the boat’s midsection and they were hauled up via pulley.

When they stepped onto the deck, they were promptly searched and took almost all of their belongings like Morgan’s bag of materials he’d forgotten at his waist and the piece of wood hidden with his mother’s clothes and her jewelry.

They were greeted by a crowd of smiling pirates all of them observing the family intently; their movements, their unique clothing and mannerisms.

This ship’s crew was noticeable smaller than the others and was visibly cleaner as well. They wore gold and silver earrings and had silver pocket watches tucked away in open shirts, but it appeared much less incidental on them than Ransom’s crew, because of the considerably finer clothing they wore.

At the head of the ship’s crew a large bald man, bigger than even Morgan and his father, with rich dark brown skin stepped forward. He was dressed in a similar fashion to those behind him, a simple beige shirt with dark green horizontal stripes that looked tailored to fit him. But he was set apart not just buy his stature but largely by the fact that he was uncannily clean. His shirt and trousers were spotless and uncreased and the assortment of bejeweled rings on his fingers shined like they’d never been touched by dust.

He walked towards the family, tilting his head as he examined each of them. But when he finally spoke, it was to Ransom and his crew behind them.

“Ransom,” he called, “What are you doing on my ship?”

“I’m just making sure the new cargo got to you safe and sound.” he smiled.

“You are too kind,” he stated matter-of-factly. “They’re secure here; go back to your Burning Lady so we can finally leave these damned isles.”

Ransom frowned at the orders, but begrudgingly obliged, returning to the row boat with his crew. The crowd parted down the middle and one of the pirates opened a hatch that Morgan guessed lead to the lower decks.

“Go on.” the man said.

Morgan’s mother let go of Tory’s hand to help Morgan with his father, and they walked, the pirates staring at them all the while.

“We’re gonna be rich! No, the richest.” one of them laughed.

“We finally did it.” another said.

“I thought they had gills?” asked a genuinely confused voice, as the four of them were ushered below deck.