Born a Monster

450 350 – The Muck

“There are a large number of hobgoblins nearby.” I said.

Black Snout scented the air. he said.

Darkness thought.

Lesser Sister pouted.

Radiant Sister concurred.

“This home is full of food.” Elder decided.

Darkness hissed.

Black Snout said, raising high into the air.

The arrow struck him in the snout, shattering as though it had struck solid rock.

.....

Lesser Sister asked.

“Those are weapons!” Darkness shouted. “We are under attack!”

Radiant sister looked shocked, then panicked... and then angry? “Rainbow Shield!” she cast.

The shield was not solid, nor always there, but arrows that struck it ignited and burned away; arrows that did not seemed only to break uselessly against the hydra’s thick scales.

Darkness snapped in my direction. “Did you do this? Did you betray us?”

“He JUST warned us there were hobgoblins nearby.” Lesser Sister scolded him.

“I see them.” Eldest said. “We are too strong. We’ve eaten plants with more resistance than these will offer.”

“Get me closer.” Darkness said. “My Hellfire Strike doesn’t have that much range.”

“There are many.” Black Snout said.

Lesser Sister thought.

“They trample into our swamp.” Eldest said.

“Burned goblins make the plants grow.” Darkness said.

“I do like eating plants.” Black Snout agreed.

Darkness thought,

“Goblins are cowards.” Eldest said. The feet of the hydra began moving. “One, perhaps two combat spells.”

Lesser Sister asked.

“Let me unleash Hellfire upon them.” Darkness said. “Goblins always run from the Hellfire Strike.”

And in a book, in a play, in ancient song, that would have been that.

“Spirits of fire, children of the rising dawn sun, it is I, Durushkali, the Sun Bow. Come unto our arrows, feast on them while they are in flight. Burn our foe with your radiance! Sunbow – Squadron! Now, brothers, unleash and BURN IT!” There were eleven of them, and those that struck the shield vanished. The others...

“AAAAAA IT BURNS!” Lesser Sister said.

“Those hurt!” shouted Black Snout. “We should dive.”

“We should burn them back.” said Darkness.

“Hm.” Eldest said. “No, they have magic. This is how we lost the Eldest who was older than me. We need to retire, and rethink our strategy.”

The hydra dived into the muck, and I could track its passage by the movement of nearby island-mounds.

“There!” someone shouted. “I see the unholy one!”

I smacked my lips together. The hydra wasn’t the only one who could swim away from danger.

#

It is said that those who fight and then run away live to fight another day. Maybe so, but those who stay a bit longer than others probably get more Combat XP. Also, don’t stand on a mound just out of bow shot and mock an army.

First, they didn’t follow me or become reckless. They just formed a line, and then a line beyond that with spears, and both lines advanced to the only slightly off beat of three drummers. Behind them, archers.

And with their care, slow as it was, and their noise, they drove off or drove deep those creatures that could have been picking them off one by one.

I stopped going south-east once I realized that about a hundred lizard riding Kathani were on that side of the Muck. I made my way south, thinking to escape through the river. I found a Vulf-ven village; not on any map, but they were Vulf-ven, the wolf people, and did not care.

Their set-up was intricate; tree trunks filed with runes made up the outermost barrier. Not on top of each other, but more like a lattice. The mud was thick against this barrier, but much thinner beyond. The next two walls were nets, one a broad mesh for catching fish, the other a finer mesh, almost a cloth.

Beyond these wards was the village proper, built on and across and on both sides of the stream. And that would have been all well and fine; I didn’t particularly need that stretch of river. Except:

“FOOOOOooooooOOOOOD!” howled one of their sentries. And if anyone disagreed, they did so quietly and while releasing arrows.

I dived, of course, but they put out patrol boats, and land patrols with spears and bows. (And, I noticed, a few children with slings.)

In the diminishing light of another evening, I made my way first north-west and then west.

I suppose if I had made my way directly there, I could have escaped. Instead, I found patrol sweeps, four squadrons of hobgoblins strong, interspaced with towers or towers under construction. These had two archers each on top of them, and two melee troops below.

They had cut off my exit routes from the Muck. I almost protested the unfairness of it, but on some level, I knew they were just seeking vengeance.

Shame on me, for having not died.

At night they lit fires and set out bowls of flaming oil. Yes! I know. Wasteful. Or dedicated to their cause, if you prefer.

a spirit asked. It was one of those improbable hybrid forms, the head of a duck, the body of a snake, and the fluked tail of a tropical fish, but in a boring tone of stone-gray.

I sighed. If I were evasive, the spirit would pester me all night, keeping me awake.

it genuinely looked sad.

“Dang it!” I said, rushing past the spirit to a tree.

“Dead tree, once of Nature, now of Death. I am Rhishisikk, Dreamwalker and Shaman. Hold this hostile spirit, if only until the last rays of sun touch you. Bind Spirit!”

The spirit, pulsing and gibbering, didn’t resist going into the husk of the tree.

I fled, getting almost back to the water before the tree exploded in splinters and fire and ice and at least one set of purple flowers, whose petals cut like glass.

I flew through the air, and splashed into the muddy water, where I lay [Stunned] for several critical seconds.

Amphibian lungs, complete with mud puppy adaptions. Oh, a mud puppy is an amphibian, like a newt, about as long and wide around as a summer sausage from Lavin Buscala. Not the ones they trade, but rather the ones they sell within their family groupings. A breed can be found in the Muck, but the one I’d adapted from had come from the main river of the Black Thorn.

How odd, how ironic, how proper, that a beast from their own polluted waters kept me from smothering that evening. I usually don’t like karma, given the number of bad or stupid things that I do that come back to me. But... sure, I’ll call that easy bit of survival a piece of karma.

[You are no longer Stunned.] my System informed me, as I began heaving deep breaths of muck-water.

Thanks, System, you are SO helpful.

But I thought this while paddling away with all of my strength and the last bit of my fatigue. A quick peek cured me of any delusions of escape. One bowl of oil in four had a spirit of fire bound to it. Scattered about in seemingly random fashion, rune-stones had spirits of earth listening. In the air, spirits of Frost and Wind and Storm lazily passed between towers.

What the actual seven hells, I wondered. Had these few hundred been doing anything other than training to contain and capture me?

Now I know what you’re thinking; a real hero would have just used Transformation to become a giant bird or one of the riding lizards, or faked being a vulf-ven or hobgoblin. Well, I hadn’t even turned into a bird yet, much less one of my size. Any attempt to fly off into the sunset would not have gone well.

In truth, I escaped just by swimming between camps of the pursuing infantry.

Do you want three nights filled with nightmares, where giggling trees try to hug you so they can explode, while a black tree of three times the size tells you you’re GUILTY, and sometimes takes a swipe at you with a branch that trails drops of blood as it swings? I still don’t know the name of what I upset that dusk, but boy, was it mad!

They had done other things, of course. But those twelve hundred, the arcane, the divine, the other mystics and mundanes, most of their time had literally been about how to contain and capture a magical creature. And it was almost, almost by the smallest of ear-hairs, enough to actually catch me.

Yes, I had no clue the sheer number of people in the Blazing Forge of Vengeance unit. I never saw them all at once.

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