Kapitel 247: Chapter 244

It wasn't too hard to hold the leader of the late-night assault as a harmless hostage after he'd passed out from blood loss. Once we stripped his special-looking armor and bound both his handless wrists together and his snout closed, he wasn't much more than furry luggage, and I personally threw him across my shoulders as we trekked back to Shandr.

Under his armor and fur, our prisoner was particularly muscled, but, strangely for a warrior of his prowess, lacked any sort of notable scar tissue. The only injuries he ever seemed to have sustained was the loss of his hands to me. Curious, I'd taken a look at another of the "Misti Hawar", wondering if maybe they just didn't scar, but all three were patterned with ropy white witnesses of past battles. 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 so he couldn't believe that a foe would go for crippling blows.

There were all sorts of observations and thoughts that warred for my attention as we hiked, but I was frankly too pissed to care at this point. I'd made it abundantly clear that we simply wanted to pass by peaceably, and instead my largesse had been exploited by these four fools 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 Nievtala forgotten, scaleless worms. I was going to make them pay.

With a wordless clicking shriek, I called the swarm forward, my anger bubbling over. No, not mere 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 somewhat 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, 100 feet, then 50, and 20. Finally, as my swarm hissed their battle cries and I readied my spear to throw, our foes realized the immediate, mortal danger they were standing in the way of, and scattered out of our path. Good.

Our journey was not too long, just the work of half an hour's run. Often, physical exertion would serve to 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 our "escorts" became, before finally they sprinted around the swarm, and 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 thousand or so feet 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 wolfish creature 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 150 feet 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, "Show them who we are."

"We were irreconcilable from the moment they allowed for this to happen." I agreed

She nodded and whistled for the wolfstag pack to approach. The Voltaic did so immediately, while the Wave Wolfstags flanked Joral and began subtly channeling their magic. The rest of the swarm subconsciously gave me a wide berth, their deference and slight fear obvious. After only a moment's wait, I could finally see glimmering plate armor appearing on the walls, and knew it was time. I drew on my sonilphon's depths and shouted out, my voice reverberating across the clearing.

"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 keelish bodies were laid before me, limp and dull in the moonlight, and my anger hardened and steeled itself at the sight. "I told you I wanted to pass peaceably and without the shedding of blood. I saw it as 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, high pitched 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 commanded Solia and Hala to burn. Two spears of flame pierced into the trapped Misti Hawar, and he screamed as his fur went up in flames. He spasmed and collapsed to the ground as his hoarse screams pierced the air; his two conscious companions began to struggle madly to escape. It was to no avail, as they were smashed to their faces in the dirt, piled on by three khatif 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." I screamed, my voice thundering out over the clearing to the walls. "Atik here will live and will be delivered to you safely after the circle of suffering 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, a mere 50 feet from the pack of people standing outside the walls. The dust cleared, showing a series of craters made in the ground by the magic.

"Drolick. This is an unfortunate consequence to these fools' actions." At my words, I plunged my hand down again and the Voltaic Wolfstags, under Sybil's command, sent lightning coursing through the female Misti Hawar. She spasmed wildly, her body jolting as the lightning quickly took her life and left the corpse jittering on the ground. "At least I'm more merciful than these ones were. Their deaths are quick and guaranteed, 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 five inch section from his neck before throwing it down my throat.

"Now you have also 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."