It wasn’t too hard to hold the leader of the late-night assault as a harmless hostage once he’d passed out from the blood loss. Once we’d stripped his special-looking armor and bound his handless wrists together and mouth closed, he wasn’t much more than furry luggage.

Under his armor and fur, our prisoner was particularly muscled, but, strangely for a warrior of his prowess, lacked any sort of scar tissue. The only injuries he ever seemed to have sustained was the loss of his hands to me. A small part of me wondered at it, but the rest of me simply didn’t care, and the khatif part of me laughed at the skilled but untested warrior. He must have been trained by those who didn’t dare to inflict any sort of harm on him, and couldn’t believe that a foe would go for crippling blows.

I idly noted that it had been a long while since my khatif side had made itself known, but I was frankly too pissed to care at this point. I’d made it abundantly clear that we’d simply wanted to pass by peaceably, and instead my largesse had been exploited to carry out a pointless night assault. The more I thought about it, the more incensed I became, my fists clenched at my sides, my teeth grinding, my heartbeat thundering in my ears.

The bastards. The Dulvroc begotten, scaleless, friisht. I was going to make them pay.

With a wordless clicking shriek, I called the swarm forward, my anger bubbling over. No, not anger. Rage.

Seething uncontrollably, I channeled my magic into my throat, my magic flowing in a new way I’d never even thought of, an indescribable fury burning like a flame out my throat, immediately rubbing my throat raw and burning like my own out of check emotions. The expected flashing thing in the corner of my eye appeared, but instead of acknowledging its existence, I set off at a loping run towards the walls of Shandr.

“You’ll go no further, beast. Return Atik and his pack to us and continue on your way.”

A somewhat wolfish figure appeared in the treeline ahead of me, flanked by a dozen of its fellows, his voice strident and commanding. The cadre stood, weapons borne and bared at us, but I didn’t slow down.

“Get out of the way or you die.” My voice was surprisingly level as I hissed out in keelish, “Slaughter any who don’t clear the path.”

I continued my implacable run as we closed the distance, 30m, 20m, 15m, 10m. Finally, as my swarm hissed their battle cries and I readied my spear to throw, the enemies realized the immediate, mortal danger they were about to encounter, and scattered out of our path. Good.

Our journey was not too long, just the work of an hour’s run. Often, physical exertion would calm me, but this did nothing to dull the edge of my manic, consuming rage. I noted and didn’t care that the pack we had blazed past were now flanking the swarm as we approached the city, calling howls to each other and obviously sending communications ahead. The closer we got to Shandr itself, the more visibly antsy they became, before they were loping ahead of us, maintaining their distance while also placing themselves between us and the city itself. Once the city was a mere 500m or so away, I called for the swarm to stop, and with a thundering of running feet, they did.

“Retreat to the walls.” I spoke simply to the lupine beastkin in front of me.

“Not before–”

“Now.” I simply raised my spear’s tip to “Atik”’s neck and poked it in hard enough to elicit a pained whine from the mostly unconscious prisoner.

Visibly discontent, the cadre did as they were told, stopping about 50m away from the walls themselves. As they did so, I gestured for the other three prisoners to be brought up to where I was. Sybil stood close, and quietly whispered, “Are you sure about this?”

“We were irreconcilable from the moment they allowed for this to happen.”

She nodded and whistled for the wolfstag pack to approach. The rest of the swarm subconsciously gave me a wide berth, their deference and slight fear obvious. I could see glimmering plate armor appearing on the walls, and knew it was time.

“Drolick… It seems you have a less secure hold over your people than you promised.” Behind me, a group of keelish under Sybil’s direction brought forward the bodies from the Misti Hawar’s ambush. Eleven bodies were laid before me, limp and dull in the moonlight, and my anger cooled and steeled itself at the sight. “I told you I wanted to pass peaceably and without the shedding of blood. I saw it wasteful to attack your people and sustain mutual losses in so doing, so I suggested a peaceful passing. Apparently, you didn’t care as much about life’s preservation as I do.”

From the city’s walls echoed a faint voice, panic threading the tones, “What are you planning? There’s no reason to extend the amount of suffering tonight. It’s a tragic thing, but there is no reason to prolong tragedy!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Drolick. Only I have suffered a tragedy. You have suffered an inconvenience at most. But you will witness a tragedy.” I lashed out with my spear and opened the throat of one of the panicking captive’s throats all the way back to his spine. His gurgling cries of pain and panic quieted as his body spasmed and collapsed to the ground, his two conscious companions beginning to struggle madly to escape. It was to no avail, as they were smashed to their faces in the dirt, piled on by three keelish each, and Drolick’s voice carried out from the city.

“Now we have to kill you here to protect the rest. You’re an idiot.”

“You certainly seem to think I am.” My voice thundered out over the clearing to the walls. “Atik here will live and will be delivered to you safely after the circle is complete. Additionally,” I motioned at the wolfstags, who readied a volley of watery arrows, “I have ways to ensure that nobody approaches beyond the level of my comfort. Fire.” The flight of sharp water lanced forward and let loose a veritable explosion at the impact site. The dust cleared, showing a series of pockmarks made in the ground by the magic.

“Drolick. This is an unfortunate consequence to these fools’ actions.” At my words, I plunged my spear down again into the back of the second captive’s neck. He spasmed only once before going still. “At least I’m more merciful than these ones were. Their deaths are quick, guaranteed, and relatively painless as well as being deserved, unlike our own.”

The final victim was forced up to his knees, his face exposed. Tears began to run down his face, sniffling sobs wracking his entire body as the fear of mortality was settled onto him forcefully. “I-I-I-I’m so-so-so-sorry. P-P-P-Please don’t–” I didn’t let him finish begging for his life as I reached down with my left hand and ripped a 10cm section from his throat.

“Now you have suffered the tragedy of your subordinates slain before you for a reason you cannot quite understand. If you will excuse us now, we will retreat to the forest line, where we will leave the still-living Atik. If you begin to approach the forest before we have, as an entire body, retreated, he will die. If you try to have your lurking scouts in the forest slow us, they will be slain. If you follow us, we will flee, kill as many as come close, and return with greater numbers.

“Let the cycle end here.”