Laughter.
Laughter rides the wind, hews our minds, splits our ears.
Laughter—high and low, obnoxious and melodious, but most of all…
Ecstatic.
The Elk opens its mouth and laughs with the voice of a demon. And the warlock too, begins to chuckle.
“Yes… Yes, oh yes. This is IT!” the warlock spouts, his voice slowly building in power, as if he too is realizing the magnitude of what he’s just accomplished. “Oh this is perfect. Beast of eldritch and old, heed my command. Find and kill—”
Baroth’s levitating body falls to the ground with a heavy thud, cracking the hard dirt, spraying up chunks of dry molded mud. His legs twitch and his missing appendages grow back to their full number. The holes and rips in his body, wrought from Raiten and rot from death, now regenerate with frightening speed. The skin knits itself together expertly till the Elk is whole once more—asymmetric wings of an angel and a demon now splaying out in horrid beauty. The Elk raises its head and blue fire rings along the antlers that crown it.
“It's astonishing,” the Elk begins. “Before, when I assumed this form, it was magnitudes stronger than me. But now? My body in the Hells has surpassed it. No matter—it will still be enough.”
His eyes rove over us, hunting.
I shudder.
The Duke falls back, hands clenching the grass. He scrambles to me. I would laugh, but fear rules all now. The soldiers watch the Elk with baited breath, some white-knuckled hands now grasping blades.
The temperature drops.
Our breathing frosts despite the rising sun.
The warlock clears his throat. “Beast of eldritch—”
“Where. Is. The. Boy?”
The warlock’s hands tighten. “Elk. You will heed my words.”
“Will. Will? Will,” the Elk mocks, as if tasting the words. “I see. I see what I see. What do you see, little wizard?”
The warlock finally opens his cowl. I don’t know why he reveals himself now—maybe out of anger or frustration. Not that it matters for me—all I can see is his long mane of lion-esque hair, brown and curling around his shoulders. The man’s skin is fair—he’s probably Catolican. I expected him to be monstrous and old for some reason. But he’s young from what I can tell. Maybe even handsome.
My tormenter steps forward, towards the Elk.
“Elk, I revived you. I gave you life. You are bound to me—”
Baroth raises up on his hind legs and kicks the warlock with his front hooves.
The young man flies past us, nearly clipping the duke’s head, before smashing into another soldier, the two of them bouncing along the muddied grounds until their bodies slam into the walls, sending a scattering of debris in their wake.
A few hundred swords are drawn in nearly an instant.
The Elk’s mouth hangs agape once more and his voice erupts forth.
“BOUND HE SAYS? AS IF I COULD BE BOUND. NO, HEAR ME NOW: THUNDERWATCHER! I COME FOR YOU!”
The duke points a fat finger at the beast, his whole body shaking.
“K-k-kill it. Kill it now!”
My heart sinks. They don’t understand—if he could do that to the warlock, the same damn warlock who made my heart beat out of my chest, then…
We are all going to die.
One brave, stupid soldier charges. Another crossbow man from the ramparts fires off a bolt.
The projectile slams into the Elk from the side, penetrating the skin, but Baroth doesn’t even flinch. The charging soldier skids to a halt.
Fear in his eyes.
Blue in the irises, reflecting the fire of the soul, the flame of Baroth.
The Elk sniffs at the soldier before pointing his antlers down. Between them, a great ball of soulfire forms and it makes a sound like a roaring wave cracking against the shore, eclipsing all other noise.
The soldier starts running back.
Before he is blasted into negative nothingness, for the blue fire leaves only black and gray in its wake.
The other soldiers begin yelling. Scrambling. Some try to organize, some try to flee, but all panic as the Elk turns his attention to them, blue fire charging up once more.
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“Free me,” I hiss.
Rothbore turns to me, eyes wide. “Wha-what—”
“Free me idiot! I’m one of the only people in this base with magicks—I can at least buy us some time!”
“Just do it Rothbore!” Pamela yells. I notice now that she is busy untying Riddeck.
Rothbore hesitates. His fat, fleshy lips form something between a sneer and a look of utmost disgust. However, when his eyes turn back to the dying men, to the laughing Elk, he nods, and sets his fingers about untying my ropes.
Some archers organize on the ramparts, hailing the Elk. Baroth extends his wings and flies into the ramparts, breaking them upon impact, collapsing the wall. The archers die screaming, impaling upon the broken structure as Baroth whips into the air, now going for the watchtower, now blasting through it, now eviscerating the men who flee out of the fortress gates.
A plank of wood bounces towards us just as the duke frees me. I kick off the ground and push Rothbore away with my legs. He rolls back just in time to avoid the wood that skims our heads.
At first, anger comes to his eyes. But when he sees the plank snap against a soldier’s waist and nearly split the man in two, I think I witness Rothbore’s first time feeling some semblance of gratitude. An antler goes through the duke’s eyes two seconds later, a third protruding from his mouth. The extended antlers lift the screaming, impossibly-alive man up into the air, some of them now bending with the weight of Rothbore’s girth.
“By the Eleventh Circle, you are a fat bastard aren’t you?” the Elk says, catching up to his antlers now. “No matter. You are the leader here, correct?”
Rothbore screams.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear that: what were you saying?”
The antlers extend once more, this time circling Rothbore out and around to the Elk’s ear. The creature nods expressively, as if listening intently to a friend who speaks of their woes.
“I see, I see. Do you see what I see? I suppose you don’t, actually. Since your eyes are… unavailable.”
The duke’s body flails.
“I don’t think it's even worth using soulfire on you. You see, my flame will burn away the soul and make you a hollow husk—a shell. You would feel nothing. Yet, I quite like this display: this dance macabre, eh? Can you tell me something, you pathetic man-thing: Where is the boy?”
Screaming.
“Right, I forgot. You will need your mouth for that. I suppose I can extend my healing to you, for a moment. Be grateful. This is quite an honor.”
Two of the Elk’s eyes close in concentration. The other four dance around the fortress, perhaps doing a count of the men who remain. Not that he needs to—his azure flame has savaged most of our troops. The walls burn bright blue and crack and turn negative swirls of black and gray. While Saegor might’ve warded the fortress against regular fire, evidently, soulfire wasn’t a consideration. The soldiers wail on the fortress grounds in wounded packs, burning and screaming till their souls wither to ash.
The duke screams. “I CAN’T SEE I CAN’T SEE—”
Baroth sighs. “What did I expect?”
With that, the antlers tug up and rip the duke’s head from his body. The flesh peels like stretched cheese. Then, there’s a hard jerk before a series of wet crunches marks the climax—as if the body itself accepts that it must let go of that which compelled it. Rothbore’s headless form flails still, even as it falls. Then the duke’s body thuds to the ground and ceases all movement, dripping gouts of crimson.
The Elk raises Rothbore’s head to its mouth, hollowing out the inside of the neck with its antlers. Baroth lifts the head up like a goblet of wine, drinking plentifully of its sweet redness.
My ropes slacken. Fall away. I turn to see Pamela’s hand, offered in haste, her eyes affixed by the horror above. Riddeck is now sawing at Yasna’s ropes. The poor old woman is terrified. Her eyes meet mine, pleadingly.
I take Pamela’s hand and pull myself up—pull her close.
“Run.”
“But—”
“The men are lost. This fortress is lost. We have to leave—while he’s distracted”
Pamela just stands though, frozen. Her eyes dilate as she stares at the Elk. I shake her.
Nothing.
There’s a thud behind me and the ground quakes. A dry, otherworldly growl rattles me to the core.
Riddeck marches forward to help me, but I shake my head.
“Get them out of here. Please.”
He looks between me and the frozen form of Pamela. Yasna holds his arm for support.
I have no weapons. So, I grab the ornamental blade in its scabbard from Pamela’s belt.
“Princess…”
“Go Riddeck. Save your Queen.”
He opens his mouth. Then, he looks past my shoulder and just nods. Yasna protests, but he drags the old woman away, along with Pamela, whose eyes continually fixate on the creature who patiently awaits me.
For some reason.
But I think I know why.
I turn to face the beast, eyes downcast, now remembering Raiten’s tale.
Pamela is hypnotized because she looked directly into his eyes.
Focus on the body.
“I recognize you, girl. I saw you with the Thunderwatcher.”
I take a deep breath and unsheathe the Queen’s Blade: it is a Sword of State, meant for ceremonial purposes. Its hilt is gilded in green gems and gold. Unwieldy. But still sharp enough for my purposes.
“You are brave, I’ll give you that. But look around: do you see what I see?”
I can't keep my eyes from flicking about the fortress. This place was fully manned only moments prior.
Now it is burning blue, turning gray and black, filled with the dead and dying.
And the soon to be dead.
“Face your enemy as if you are already dead, and nothing can hurt you.”
My husband said that once. I don’t know why that line comes to me now, but I take the advice regardless.
“I’ll kill you,” I spit.
“Don’t be so rash. My quarrel is with your lover. Where. Is. He?”
“He’s dead.”
“That’s a lie. I can smell him in the wind. I will find him, eventually. But if you tell me where he is now, I will spare your life.”
I spit. “That’s a lie.”
The Elk’s lips curl into a nasty grin.
“Brave and smart. Good. That will make this interesting. Perhaps you can give me a good warm up then. An appetizer. Then, when I flay your body and present it to him, he can fight me to his fullest.”
My hands shake. My heart thumps even louder than when I faced the warlock.
But nonetheless, I point the blade at him.
“Do your worst.”
“That’s the spirit.”
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How My Bear Defeated God [Book 1 Complete]
Drama Grimdark Progression Mythos Action
[Updates: DAILY, 9.09PM (GMT+9)]
In the freezing and unforgiving realm of Ferria, talent isn’t just nurtured - it can be stolen, sold, or carved into flesh.
Forten has nothing: no bloodline, no talent, no future. His mother is dying. His father vanished on a mission that was never meant to succeed.
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