Chapter 29: Attack of the killer plant
Yozak groaned as he and Koren rode quietly through the deepening gloom of Wyrfen Forest. He guessed it to be about noon; however, it was really hard to tell since the Mage Storms had warped both the land and the Animals that lived there. The forest had once been deciduous, and Yozak would have had little trouble gauging the time from beneath the forest bowers, but now there was nothing but thick branches overhead, effectively plunging them into darkness.
He ducked a low hanging branch with ease. This forest had once been full of wild and feral boar, and considered very dangerous because of these and other creatures that it housed. Now it was home to a whole slew of change-boars, which effectively made the forest even more deadly than before.
They had ridden into a small village on the fringes of the Ashkevron territory just this morning, and the panicked villagers had immediately informed them of a Change Boar that they were calling Twelve Tusk – for his numerous tusks. Apparently Twelve Tusk had taken a liking to human flesh and even preferred the softer meat of young children. To make matters worse, a few of the village boys had gotten into a fight yesterday afternoon. Two young boys had been shadowing their elder brother, trying to act exactly as he acted and in general just pestered the older boy. Annoyed with his siblings and the teasing of his peers the boy had – somewhat imperiously – informed his little brothers that they were too little to do anything and that he would not be seen with them until they'd done something notable (or by adult standards something notably stupid and potentially life threatening) like spending the night alone in the woods. The older boy truly had no ill intent, and had never expected his little brothers to actually do it, especially not with Twelve Tusk dragging young helpless victims into the forest almost every two days like clockwork.
Sadly, the boy had underestimated the reverence his younger siblings had for him, and ran off with his still jeering friends, blissfully unaware of the fact that his brothers were about to put themselves in mortal danger.
He closed his eyes briefly, trusting in Jissa to keep him safe during his brief moment of inattention. What had occurred was not an uncommon thing between siblings. He remembered the many times and many ways Conrart had tried to prove he was just as good at, just as brave as, or better at something than Gwendal. It was all youthful idiocy, and Gwendal had been old enough to recognize it for exactly what it was by the time Conrart was old enough to idolize his elder brother, and definitely old enough to understand it for what it was by the time Wolfram started. As such, he was also well aware of just how far his younger siblings would go in pursuit of his respect, and made absolutely sure to carefully steer them away from anything that could have resulted in their deaths.
These three boys hadn't nearly been as lucky.
Ryan, the eldest, was only nine, and had been completely certain his four and five year old younger brothers would never do anything as stupid as what he had rather sarcastically suggested. If anything happened to the two boys, their elder brother would likely never forgive himself.
Abruptly Yozak ducked his head and crouched lower in the saddle as the wind whistled with the passing of something large overhead. He opened his eyes just in time to see the huge green, modified leaf vanish into the canopy above. He hollered a warning to Koren - if he was having trouble seeing through the din, the other Herald had to be nearly blind – as two more vines, each with their own snapping leafs, shot out of the canopy.
He clamped his legs tightly around Jissa's barrel as the mare shied violently to the side, barely avoiding the snapping leaf that was now buried in the ground right where they'd been only seconds before. He dropped the completely useless reins, drew his sword, and severed the modified leaf blade from its petiole in one fluid movement. Green slime sprayed from the severed stem as the hissing plant withdrew back up into the canopy.
Damn, he hated Change-beasts!
Or in this case Change-plants.
He glanced down at his sword; the blade was coated in that thick green slime. With disgust, he rummaged through his packs for a scrap of cloth to clean his blade as Jissa started forward again. He'd only just managed to wipe the blade clean when something that just felt distinctly wrong pressed in on him. Jissa reared immediately, pivoting sharply on her hind hooves to face the new threat. Beside her, Amanda did the same.
He reached out with his Animal Mindspeech, searching for the creature that felt wrong; experience had taught him that Change-beasts felt different than the ones that hadn't been touched by twisted magic.
: Talking Food. :
That was the only warning he got before the enormous boar charged, launching itself into the air in an attack that would bring his tusks in range of their chests. Jissa and Mandy danced to the side, trying desperately to keep their Heralds out of the reach of huge tusks and the many sharp quills that adorned the creature's neck. Yozak tossed his sword lightly into his left hand and slashed at the creature as it flew past. The tip of his blade did astoundingly little damage to Twelve Tusk's hide.
Jissa had gotten far enough away that neither she nor Yozak were more than scratched; Koren and Mandy however were closer to the beast to begin with, and Yozak noticed blood oozing down Koren's Whites and across Mandy's tack. He quickly assessed the other Herald's and Companion's wounds with the practiced eye of a well trained spy and a soldier who had survived the frontlines of an extremely bloody battle. They didn't look too bad; a few of them were very deep but most would stop bleeding on their own before too much blood was lost. The others would need to be stitched or at least bandaged.
Yozak shifted slightly in his saddle and relayed his thoughts to Jissa, who in turn relayed them to Mandy, and maneuvered herself around so that the two of them were a living shield between Koren, Mandy, and the boar. He sheathed his sword in one fluid movement and pulled his bow free of its bag. Hooking the bottom arm against one booted heel, he bent the weapon until the string slipped into place. Then he pulled an arrow from his quiver, notched it, and waited, with every sense alert for the Boar's next move.
When Twelve Tusk burst out of the brush again, he aimed and fired.
He was only mildly surprised when the beast swerved sharply to the left, and the arrow embedded itself in one well muscled shoulder and not his target, which proved again how much more intelligent this Change-boar was from a true boar. Yozak swore and pulled three more arrows from his quiver, holding two of them in his teeth, aimed, and fired again. The boar dodged.
But the second and third arrows were already in the air, and headed straight for their target. All the while, he kept careful tabs on the wind. He didn't have Conrart's fetching gift, but an arrow was subject to the wind it flew through. If it came down to it, the very wind could be his weapon.
The first arrow struck the thick hide of the animal's haunches and stuck slightly; the second imbedded itself in the creature's flank.
The third imbedded itself into the flesh at the base of the neck, blending in with the quills at the animal's neck almost perfectly except for the fletching.
Twelve Tusk screamed in rage and deviated from his original course. Yozak smiled—if there was one thing he'd learned in his short (by demonic standards anyway) life it was that if you got your opponent angry enough, they would abandon all sense and come after you with raw rage, which in turn gave you the upper hand. People who fought with their emotions made mistakes, and mistakes got you killed on the battlefield.
The boar had been going for Koren since the injuries he and Mandy had sustained made him the weaker more vulnerable opponent. Yozak knew this and deliberately set out to enrage the beast, hoping to turn its attention from his injured mentor to him. He fired another arrow before Twelve Tusk got close enough to render the arrows ineffective.
He drew his sword and clung to Jissa with his knees. Jissa half-reared in warning before rearing to her full height, and twisting around to present the smallest target possible to the angry beast. Yozak slashed at Twelve Tusk as he blew by, tearing a thin shallow gash through the boar's tough hide.
:Hold on.:
That was the only warning he got before Jissa pivoted around, slammed her hooves to the ground, and lashed out with her back legs in a vicious kick that caught the enraged animal firmly on the rump. The boar pivoted and came at them again with murder in his beady red eyes. Again Jissa reared up to evade the animal's attack, and he lashed out with his sword, tearing another strip out of the boar's hide.
As the boar blew past, Jissa dropped quickly to all fours and danced to the side, putting them further out of the enraged boar's reach. The boar charged once more, and again he was met with a slash of Yozak's sword along with a vicious kick from Jissa. Twelve Tusk wasn't stupid though; he kept himself firmly out of effective firing range, and now he was simply too close for Yozak's arrows to be effective against his tough hide. But Yozak was content to slash that hide into shallow ribbons until he could get off a shot.
The arrow came out of nowhere. One moment it was gone, and the next it was imbedded in the boar's haunch, right in the middle of one of the gashes that had opened up in its hide.
Koren had rejoined the fight, peppering the boar with arrows while Yozak and Jissa slashed at his hide and darted out of range again.
After a moment Twelve Tusk, now deeply enraged, turned and went after Koren again. The older Herald fired off two more arrows before he was forced to draw his sword. Amanda dodged to the left, shying and rearing sharply as she did her best to evade the enraged animal's deadly tusks. The boar was now more of a physical threat to Koren and Mandy than he was to Yozak and Jissa, particularly since Mandy wasn't nearly as agile as Jissa.
This was a good turn of events.
Koren's sword was longer than Yozak's (not that they'd ever compared), but the half demon was the better marksmen.
Yozak sheathed his sword, grabbed hold of his bow, and drew three more arrows from his quiver, firing in rapid succession.
The arrows landed in a cluster at the base of the boar's neck, and the last one struck dead center between the first two.
Twelve Tusk dropped to the floor, squealing his rage and hate, no longer in control of his own legs.
Yozak sighed and hung his bow from his saddle horn before dismounting. He never had it in him to watch something slowly bleed to death. So despite the fact that it would likely have been safer to just stay in his saddle, he calmly made his way over to the boar and drew his knife as he did so. It would be kinder to slit the animal's throat than to let it bleed out.
He reached for the animal with his mind and tried to sooth it. Nothing deserved to suffer that much as it died.
He slit the animal's throat in one swift movement, but before he could rise to his feet –
- Two sows charged him.
He swore and rolled to the side, just in time, drawing his sword as he sprang to his feet. Jissa trumpeted her rage and flung herself into the mist of the two enraged beasts in an effort to keep them away from him. With Yozak on the ground and Jissa a swiftly moving mass of white battering her way to his side, Koren couldn't fire his arrows. The risk of hitting either Herald or Companion was too great.
Cursing under his breath, the (physically) older man drew his sword and charged into the fray, clinging easily to his own Companion's back as the mare made use of her deadly hooves. Yozak didn't have a chance to get into his own saddle since the physically smaller and heavily armored sows were faster and more agile than their enormous mate. Heralds didn't carry boar spears, and since two young boys were lost and in danger in the woods, their first duty had been to find them, so they didn't have time to waste in riding out to get the large weapons.
It was proving to be a dangerous necessity, but a necessity nonetheless. He worked desperately to bring down the crazed animals, but they refused to see reason. He countered their every move with vicious and calculating swipes of his sword. One of the sows squealed in pain as his sword sliced into its haunch. He was so involved in staying alive long enough to find out what had happened to those two little boys that he didn't notice them until a flying rock struck one of the boars in the shoulder.
"You weve the nice Herowd awone, you big fat meany head." The little boy shouted, stooping down to grab yet another stone.
Yozak swore heavily—of all the times to find the kids, it had to be now. He turned sharply and managed to land a lucky strike which tore a strip from one sow's side, severing the nerves in both the front and back legs. She went down squealing in pain, bleeding profusely. With the nerves on one side of her body severed, she was unable to get back up, and thus was no longer a threat. As much as it pained him to let anything die a slow death, he didn't have the time for a mercy killing, especially when the other sow was headed straight for the two little boys.
"Jissa, the boys!" he shouted, horrified. There was no way he'd be able to get to them in time. If Conrart had been here, his friend would simply have fetched the two little boys out of harm's way. He however didn't have that option. He paused, coming to a dead halt, and called the Vrondi. The wind roared forward at his command, knocking the sow off course, and the two boys bolted in opposite directions.
The elder of the two bolted to the left and was almost immediately scooped up out of harm's way by Herald Koren. Yozak kept his attention on the sow and the terrified four-year-old she was currently chasing. He lashed out at the creature again and again, knocking it off course repeatedly with hard gusts of air. Abruptly he realized exactly where the little boy was headed and fear lent him a swiftness he had never thought possible.
He dropped his sword, giving no thoughts to the sow or even the fact that without the sharp weapon he was basically helpless. His outstretched palm connected with the space between the small child's shoulder blades, and shoved the small boy out of the way of the rapidly descending leaves of the carnivorous plant just in time. Then he watched in shock as the second leaf snapped up the vainly struggling boar, and he had just enough time to appreciate the irony before darkness closed around him.
Well Conrad, he thought sarcastically, I went to Luttenberg with you despite your protests, and came back one of the only two survivors. I spent more than 25 years as a spy, and even survived life in that village before you and your father rescued me the day we first met. I walked into Belar's castle to retrieve you and came out alive. How funny that my death would come at the hands of a bit of vegetation.
He felt himself going limp because there wasn't any reason to fight. He was calm, comfortable, and strangely giddy. Briefly it occurred to him that euphoria was an odd emotion to be feeling when one was about to be eaten by what amounted to an impossibly large arboreal, hanging Venus Fly trap. However, the thought only lasted less than the span of a second before it too was lost to the euphoria.
:Chosen!: Jissa's mental voice rang through his very being like a bell. : Chosen, fight, damn it all! Yozak, you need to fight! :
Fight? Why would he want to do that? He was comfortable and warm. Nothing could hurt him here. Everything was perfect, there was no one to protect, nothing to fight against, and everything was warm and good.
: You must fight! : But Jissa's mental voice was rapidly fading away.
Memories of his life, of happy times when he'd been a carefree child flashed across his mind's eye. He was a young child scarcely older than 19 chasing his best friend across the palace grounds, with peals of laughter ringing through the wind. He was up a tree in the woods beyond Covenant Castle, with Conrart in his arms.
Then the world spun sharply. It was getting hard to breath, but he couldn't muster the strength to care beyond the all consuming euphoria.
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Koren swore to himself, trying vainly to find a way to free the other Herald from the man eating plant. Jissa reared, screaming with mind and voice, battering the trunk of what was likely the host tree with her hooves. His Mandy stood silently off to the side with the two small, badly shaken boys occupying her saddle. He could try climbing the tree Jissa was currently battering, but there was no guarantee that it would be the right tree. And even if it was, there was no guarantee that Yozak would even still be alive.
The boys would be safe enough with the Companions. With his decision made, he sheathed his sword and began to climb.
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A.N Okay another Chapter done, hay please review. Please my muse could use a kick in the pants and maybe it will make The Grammar Nazi hurry up and edit the next chapter so I can post it. OooH Cliffy. Also should Conrad n Yozak's demonic gifts only work in Valdemar? Or should they work in the demon lands as well. I leave that up 2 u. so review.
