I lowered my shoulder, and strode through the wisps of mist that clung and writhed, pleading in silent voices for me to reconsider, to retreat while I still could. Now, battered and wounded, my heart sheared in two by grief's glacial blade, I recall their unspoken warning often; perhaps I should have listened.
The monster lunged, its cowl of scarlet flesh rippling grotesquely, its claws of glinting steel fading into an indistinct blur as it struck; I retreated before its assault, giving ground readily and daring not pause even for the most desperate of blows; to so much as stutter now, was to sign Death's warrant. Or'do smashed his slender blade against its protruding ribs, striking a damp note from the monster's abdomen. It pivoted, slavering jaws gaping wide in a deafening howl of furious hunger.
No sooner had it turned, than I was already moving, sliding beneath its crooked, emaciated legs, and dragging the razor edge of my battered sword against the sickly flesh that drooped and quivered along its belly. I did not pierce deep, yet I earned its attention nonetheless. My comrades showered in in steel, blades biting deep into its body, and helpless, battered, overcome with anger that it could not release, that monster surged to its feet, rising upon twisted hind legs, its foul muscle bulging like braided steel beneath the thin pall of sickly skin.
Clotted and revolting, strands of poison exploded outward from its flesh, showering us in ropes of filth, piercing our skin and fouling our blood. I retched and crumpled forward, poison thick in my veins.
"Take this!" Or'do did not wait for me to so much as glance his way, merely shoving an antidote between my lips as he passed. "Rise, Aleorn. We've prey before us!" I saw again that frenzy in his eyes, yet this time knew that it was he who ruled that mighty body.
His hammer swung in a broad arc, turning the air to a deafening malestrom as like the blade of lightning a tempest coughs forth, it struck the monster's flank, crushing bone and throwing the beast to its knees. Turning, using the weapon's own momentum to augment his own, he met its weak charge -a pitiful scrabbling of useless back legs that merely turned its face toward him- with a second, even more powerful blow that resonated through the cavern with a horrible, sickening crunch somewhere between autumn leaves ground beneath irreverent heel, and the moist hiss of a boot caught in mud's greedy grasp. It had not time in this world to howl or yelp, merely slumped to the flagstones and lay motionless until light blazed out from its ravaged frame, and it returned to the nothingness from whose foul womb it had sprung.
The monster lunged, its cowl of scarlet flesh rippling grotesquely, its claws of glinting steel fading into an indistinct blur as it struck; I retreated before its assault, giving ground readily and daring not pause even for the most desperate of blows; to so much as stutter now, was to sign Death's warrant. Or'do smashed his slender blade against its protruding ribs, striking a damp note from the monster's abdomen. It pivoted, slavering jaws gaping wide in a deafening howl of furious hunger.
No sooner had it turned, than I was already moving, sliding beneath its crooked, emaciated legs, and dragging the razor edge of my battered sword against the sickly flesh that drooped and quivered along its belly. I did not pierce deep, yet I earned its attention nonetheless. My comrades showered in in steel, blades biting deep into its body, and helpless, battered, overcome with anger that it could not release, that monster surged to its feet, rising upon twisted hind legs, its foul muscle bulging like braided steel beneath the thin pall of sickly skin.
Clotted and revolting, strands of poison exploded outward from its flesh, showering us in ropes of filth, piercing our skin and fouling our blood. I retched and crumpled forward, poison thick in my veins.
"Take this!" Or'do did not wait for me to so much as glance his way, merely shoving an antidote between my lips as he passed. "Rise, Aleorn. We've prey before us!" I saw again that frenzy in his eyes, yet this time knew that it was he who ruled that mighty body.
His hammer swung in a broad arc, turning the air to a deafening malestrom as like the blade of lightning a tempest coughs forth, it struck the monster's flank, crushing bone and throwing the beast to its knees. Turning, using the weapon's own momentum to augment his own, he met its weak charge -a pitiful scrabbling of useless back legs that merely turned its face toward him- with a second, even more powerful blow that resonated through the cavern with a horrible, sickening crunch somewhere between autumn leaves ground beneath irreverent heel, and the moist hiss of a boot caught in mud's greedy grasp. It had not time in this world to howl or yelp, merely slumped to the flagstones and lay motionless until light blazed out from its ravaged frame, and it returned to the nothingness from whose foul womb it had sprung.
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