paranoianovel The Hunt in the Mist II
The Hunt in the Mist II
The Hunt in the Mist II
Kyembe! Wurhi shrieked.
The monster mauled his arm, pulling him from his feet with hideous strength. The other darted behind him to grasp his throat as he struggled to pull a knife from his belt.
Wurhi went for her own short sword to use against the brute, but dismissed the small weapon immediately. Drastic measures. Reaching deep into herself, she let the animal haze consume her mind.
Then came the agony.
Her bones split and knit back together, altered. A shriek of rising pitch burst from her lips as fur erupted from her olive skin. Jaws cracked, her face lengthening into a rodents muzzle, her large front teeth exploding into a rodents shovel-like incisors. A rat-like humanoid now stood reborn where the Zabyallan once was.
The instincts of a cornered animal urged flight, but enough consciousness remained to push herself to fight instead. With a high pitched chitter, the rat-humanoid surged toward the hound and sprung upon the beast. Wet fur, rot and old blood stung her nostrils as she crawled over its back, the sharp claws on her fingers biting into its hide. It yelped and growled, bucked and snapped its deadly jaws, but the transformation flooded her with savage power.
Her grip was iron on the beasts back and her jaws latched onto its neck.
A rats bite was a fierce thing, made many times worse by her size. Her incisors, like twin spades, punctured the top of the beasts powerful neck as though biting through rotten cheese. Spine parted like thread on a blade and a muffled yelp signalled its collapse. Wurhi jumped free as it fell twitching onto the forest floor.
She looked up to see Kyembe stab his dagger into the other hounds right eye. The point skewered the beasts brain, and its body convulsed with a choking gasp. The Sengezian rose with gritted teeth, clutching a bloody forearm torn to shreds and shattered at a grotesque angle. From his grip issued golden light, caressing his wounds and knitting the flesh. Blood-loss stemmed, but the bone remained broken. My magic cannot mend the bone. He looked uneasily at the trunk. I do not know if I can
The sounds of the pursuers closed.
He grit his teeth. I will have to make do with help of the vines. He started for the tree while Wurhi bolted forth and skittered up the trunk. Kyembe struggled to follow one-handed. It was a testament to the strength of his nimble frame that he ascended at all, but his progress was agonizingly slow.
All too soon the rest of the dog pack crashed through thickets and leapt at him. Their monstrous jaws snapping mere finger-widths from his feet and their fetid breath raked across his heels. The rat-thing that was Wurhi regarded him with beady eyes while he laboured after her. The dogs circled, barking and snarling while their masters crashed in after them.
There! A bull-voiced woman pointed at them. Bring them down!
Several trackers raised short limbed bows.
Whish! Whish! Whish!
With staggering reflexes, Kyembe strained to pull himself over one of the great branches just as a stone-tipped arrow shot past. He hid there in cover, clutching his arm while projectiles cracked on the branch below.
You five! the leader pointed her spear at the tree. Get up after them! You four! She pointed to the next tree. Get on a branch above them and pick your shots! The rest of you form a circle! Dont let them escape!
Kyembe cursed between breaths and resumed his climb, but he was slower than before. The agony of his arm drained his strength and withered his endurance. His belly churned and his head swam. His skin was cold.
Whish! Whish! Whish!
Arrows flew at him, but he was higher up and the mist was thick, spoiling their aim.
Men in bronze helms and wrapped in hides began pulling themselves up the trunk, daggers clenched in yellowed teeth. They closed on the Sengezian. Thinking quickly, he muttered words of power to his ring and channeled magic - not hellfire to burn the tree - but another illusionists trick.
He screamed as he let his broken arm drop, directing the spell downward.
The air filled with that scream, echoing endlessly.
A cacophony joined it. The shouts of Wurhi. The roars of their pursuers. The barking of the hounds. All of it amplified until he was sure half the forest heard it.
He saw both the trackers and the hounds ignore the illusions. That confirmed his suspicions. Some demon or spirit protected them. He feverishly made for the next branch. If he could grasp it with his legs, he could draw his sword with his healthy arm and-
Too late.
Raaaaaaaargh!
A terrible roar bellowed through the fog.
The cries of their pursuers died in stunned silence.
Another roar shook the forest. Then another and another.
Crash!
Immense bodies burst through the brush in the fog below.
Alarmed screams and shouting rose up.
Kyembe smiled viciously and cut the illusionary sounds with a wave of his ring. His intention with this illusion was not to confuse or frighten their pursuers. Instead, hed sought to attract the owners of the monstrous footprints.
Ooooogres! the leader cried from in the mist. Regroup! Now! Dont let them surro-
Squelch.
A heavy impact splintered bone and pulped flesh, cutting off her orders. More impacts and screams soon followed.
Whoosh!
The front half of a great hound - trailing entrails - crashed through vines and branches to plummet like an enormous fish into the river beyond.
Whoosh!
A boulder the size of a mans torso shot from the mist, sweeping the archers from their neighbouring tree, shattering them to mangled, crimson pieces. One agile soul leapt free of the boulders path and caught a low hanging vine, but it sagged beneath his weight, his feet kicked uselessly in the air.
A giant, hairy, grey-skinned arm reached up from the fog.
The enormous hand - fingers clawed like a beasts - wrapped around the mans thigh and ripped him from the vine.
Canine yelping diminished southward as Avernixs great hounds fled like suckled pups from the slaughter.
Whooooooosh!
Another boulder.
Kyembe and Wurhi screamed. It bore right for their branch.
Crack!
The Sengezian gripped his sword as the branch broke and lurched sideways. Rat-woman and half-dark elf plummeted through the air, their world careening.
They clutched at small branches, desperately grabbing for giant vines to slow what seemed like unending descent. The canopy beat and raked their bodies with the enthusiasm of a driver of a donkey caravan. Abruptly, they hit the rushing water. Icy water cut to the very marrow of their bones.
To the two southlanders, the sting of fire ants would have been more welcome.
The river carried them away.