Chapter 52

Avalina stared in shock and fear as the Horned King fell, watching with huge eyes.

'What are you waiting for? Run! Run, you idiot, while he's down!'

The rational side of her mind shouted at her.

'Run home! You won't have to worry about him hurting you or anyone else anymore! He's finished!'

Listening to it, she turned back to her mount, grabbing Mitternacht's reins and a fistful of mane, placing a hand on his withers, preparing to swing up, but her heart whispered softly at her to wait.

'Stop!' It whispered. 'This is wrong.'

Avalina stared at Mitternacht's back in front of her, her emotions conflicted.

'You can't do this to him.'

'Oh yes you can!' Her rational side shouted. 'After everything he's done to you, to Prydain, to everybody. All those people he killed. . .'

Avalina flinched at that thought.

'But yet,' her heart whispered softly. 'He saved you.'

Avalina glanced over at his form, lying prone on the ground, motionless.

'He saved me. But why?'

Avalina glanced at Mitternacht's back, looking so inviting, so promising. . .then back at the Horned King, and felt her heart ache.

'I can't leave him here. I can't.'

'Him saving you does NOT justify all those people he's slaughtered down through the years!'

Avalina warred with her own emotions, logic and reasoning on one side, morality and her own tender heart on the other. She lay her forehead against Mitternact's shoulder as she leaned on him, trying to stay up herself, shaking uncontrollably as the adrenaline left her system.

She stood there, trembling, as her screaming side of rationality inside her head warred against the still, soft voice in her chest.

'Do you seriously think he'll be grateful for you helping him?'

'He helped me. If he hadn't intervened I would be dead right now, and Mitternacht would be as well. The least I can do is return the favor.'

'When he wakes up, you are going to pay! You disobeyed his order, broke your promise, hurt him, what do you think he's going to do?'

'My mother always told me to listen to my heart. I think it's telling me to help him.'

'You're still in shock, you're delusional. What you're contemplating is suicide. He'll kill you when he wakes up, don't you know that?'

'But if he was, why would he go to the trouble of saving me now, nearly getting himself killed in the process?'

'Its impossible to know how that madman thinks. He's not even a man! You said so yourself, he's a monster! A *heartless* monster!'

'But. . .he saved my life.'

'Just leave him and quit making it hard for yourself. Forget everything that's happened and go home. You know you want to.'

Avalina felt the tears build as she thought of her family, but she choked them down.

'I just can't leave him here to die.'

'Grow a backbone! Are you seriously going to help this, this *murderer,* this *monster?* Do you KNOW what he is?'

'If I go home, I would never be able to forget that I willingly allowed somebody to die.'

Avalina's chest clinched painfully at the thought.

'And if I left him here, I would be no better than he is. I would be just as guilty of murder as he.'

'Stupid, stupid girl! Just get on the horse and ride off. That's all you have to do! He deserves everything he's got coming!'

Looping her horse's reins over a branch, ignoring the rational side of her brain, she carefully approached him, watching for any sign of movement, ready to leap away if he so much as twitched. Her terror grew the closer she got to his prone form.

He lay face down on the forest floor, facing away from her, covered in a red substance that was not his own.

The bodies of every single wolf the Mad Pack had been compromised of lay lifeless all around. Not one had survived. Every foot of ground was awash with blood. So much blood. . .Avalina fought to keep from gagging as she walked through it, her boots sinking slightly into the gory mess.

Cautiously, she came slowly closer, kneeling at his side, ready to leap away at any second.

She stiffened and willed herself not to get sick as his aura twisted around her body again.

Reaching over, she pulled back a moment, before touching his shoulder hesitantly, cringing at actually touching him, even if it was just his robe.

"Sir?" She asked softly, hardly above a whisper.

"Sir?"

Looking over him, she took his condition in.

His clothing shredded beyond recognition, hardly more than rags now, they barely clung to him, revealing the horrors underneath.

Lacerations, gashes and puncture wounds covered his arms and nearly all of what she could see underneath his shredded robe. A thick, blackish substance oozed out of the injuries, slipping over the edges of the wounds to run down his body to the ground, contrasting sharply with his algae-like skin tone.

Avalina retched and fought to keep from bringing up her breakfast, closing her eyes tight, covering her mouth with the hand she had not touched him with.

After a few moments, she regained control of herself, more or less, and, bracing herself, carefully pushed him over onto his back and ripped the few strands of fabric that still held his right sleeve on off, hearing them pop.

One good thing the wolves had done was rip his robe into strips already, as she had no knife with her and the fabric was very strong and hard to tear.

After she had clumsily bandaged him as well as she could, (It looked like a disaster) she slowly got up, cringing at the wolves' blood and that odd black substance on her hands and clothes, she went over to lead Mitternacht over to where he lay.

Mitternacht blew loudly and snorted at her as she came near, sniffing her carefully.

"Its alright, boy," she told him softly. "But I have a job for you you're not going to like."

Untying him, she began to lead him slowly over to where the Horned King lay.

Mitternacht froze and huffed loudly, arching his neck and twitching his ears forward, taking in the thing on the ground with utmost caution.

Avalina let him take his time, making sure he had plenty of slack on his line in case he bolted.

The smell of Death and Decay covered that thing, and Mitternacht wanted nothing to do with it. Avalina didn't blame him in the slightest.

After much coaxing, reassuring and firm leadership, she managed to get him within six feet of the Horned King, right as he finally shied backwards and bolted in the opposite direction.

Avalina had been half expecting this, but in her injured state she couldn't move fast enough, and the yank Mitternacht gave her good arm traveled all through her body and made her cry out in pain as he jerked her forward, causing her to fall in the bloodsoaked leaves.

Nearly screaming in pain, she stayed in that position for some time, until a cautious whinny caused her to look up.

Mitternacht stood at the edge of the clearing, his ears flicked towards her, carefully moving in her direction, obviously ashamed of himself for hurting her.

Anyone that said horses couldn't feel guilt had clearly never bothered to listen to them.

"Its ok, boy," she told him weakly. "I'm not mad. I understand exactly what you're feeling."

The horse, encouraged by her voice, came nearer until he stood directly over her, sniffing her over.

Getting a fistful of his mane, she managed to pull herself to her feet.

"Look, Mitternacht," she said, the realization that she had acted the same way around the Horned King ever since she had met him making her understand what her friend was going through, "I know you don't like this either. But I can't do this by myself, and I need you to help me here. Please. He saved my life, and by extension, he saved yours."

The horse flicked his ears forward slowly to listen, watching her face.

"And now I need to save his. And I can't do it alone. Please, Mitternacht. . .I know you trust me, and I trust you. I would never put you in a situation where I knew you would get hurt if I could help it."

The horse blew softly and nuzzled her chest, the words themselves lost to him, but the meaning was understood perfectly.

Avalina rubbed his neck. "Alright, come here."

She slowly led him back over, letting him take his time, watching how he constantly flicked his ears.

After another five minutes of soothing, she got him to kneel for her, and, telling him to stay, went around to the Horned King.

After some hesitation, she touched his shoulder again, not sure if she wanted him to respond or not, but there was nothing. The only sign he was still with them was his breathing.

She studied his face for a moment, able to do so for the first time without him staring back. It looked like the only place on him that hadn't gotten injured by the wolves at some point.

The bones jutted out sharply from his face, every one pronounced to such a degree that it looked like they might actually break out of the skin. His cheekbones were the best example of this.

The rest of his face was gaunt and sunken in, the most noticeable of this being the space between his cheekbones and jaw, which was practically nonexistent, and his eyes. They were sunken so deeply into his skull that his brow ridges and cheekbones kept them layered in shadow.

Mercifully for Avalina, they were closed now, but she noticed for the first time that the skin around his eyes and his eyelids were a slightly darker green that the rest of his face.

His nose was nonexistent. Avalina couldn't think of any other way to put it. It was just gone, and in its place a grotesque hole he presumedly breathed through. She could almost see the bone under the skin here, it was stretched so tightly.

His mouth was full of teeth that were never covered at any time, as he didn't exactly have any flesh to cover them with, anymore. Twin pairs of long, sharp fangs, definitely not human, were positioned at the corners of his mouth.

His large horns curved out grandly above his head, branching off in several smaller stems, and if Avalina ignored what lay below them, they would look almost noble.

His face also looked like it had been burned or injured rather recently, as the skin seemed to be raw and extremely sensitive. (As raw-looking as you could get with a complexion like algaed-up pondwater)

All in all, he looked exactly like a decomposing corpse crossed over with a beast of some sort.

The fact that he was covered in blood and that odd black substance that Avalina had decided was his own equivalent of the crimson lifeforce every mortal carried did not help.

Avalina nearly threw up, but after looking away for a moment to draw deep breaths and compose herself, she gritted her teeth and took his left elbow in her left hand, carefully pulling him up just enough where she could slide her arm. . .her bad one, unfortunately. . .underneath his shoulders.

She should have started on his other side where she could use her good arm, but she was not about to move Mitternacht again. She might never get him back to this position.

As she moved the Horned King, Mitternacht stared at her fearfully and rolled his eyes, showing the whites all around them.

"Its alright, boy," she whispered. "Please stay there."

Closing her eyes tightly as a wave of pain swept down her right arm and shoulder, she pulled the unconscious Horned King into a sitting position, his head lolled back.

Saying a silent prayer that Mitternacht would not move from his kneeling position, she got to one knee and, after putting his arm over her shoulders for a better grip, (Shuddering horribly at the sensation and nearly retching again) held him around his shoulders with her other arm.

After a silent count, and bracing herself for the pain she knew was coming, she heaved herself up on both feet, taking the Horned King with her.

Stifling a scream of pain, she walked the three feet to where Mitternacht knelt, every muscle in his body twitching.

Murmuring soothing words to him, she carefully lay the Horned King's right arm over the horse's neck.

Mitternacht blew loudly at this in terror, his nostrils flaring wide, as Avalina whispered to him and rubbed his neck in an attempt to calm him. Whether he was doing this simply for her or he was simply too afraid to move remained to be decided.

Grunting, Avalina held all the Horned King's weight for a moment on her arms, before her own legs gave out and she was forced to lower him to the ground, all that headway lost.

For a skeleton he was completely, unreasonably, illogically heavy.

Frustrated, she realized she couldn't get him on by herself, and she bit down a stab of terror as she realized she'd have to wake him.

Not knowing how else to do it, she simply shook his shoulder.

"Sire, wake up. Can you hear me?"

A soft growling snarl made the horse start.

"Mitternacht, stay," she pleaded to the horse.

"Sire?"

His empty eyes slowly came open, freezing the blood in her veins as she made eye contact with him.

"You need to get on my horse, alright?"

Avalina told him, terrified he'd strike at her.

"I can't get you on by myself. You're going to have to help me, understand?"

Avalina pulled his left arm back over her shoulders, having no idea if he really understood what she was saying. Probably not.

"Alright, come on."

It took three tries, but with their combined effort, they finally got the Horned King's right leg over Mitternacht's back and the lich more or less lying on the horse's neck and withers.

Avalina went around to the other side and carefully slid up behind him, knowing she had no chance of walking. Her energy was spent.

With tremendous effort, she pulled the Horned King up into a sitting position in front of her, reaching around him grab Mitternacht's reins.

"Alright, boy," she softly clucked to him.

Mitternacht rose with a jolt to stand trembling, his ears flicking like mad and his eyes rimmed in white.

Avalina spoke gently to him and, holding the Horned King on in front of her (Who had lost consciousness again) she turned Mitternacht's head west. They would find the castle there somewhere.

Gripping his sides tightly with her legs so she wouldn't fall off herself, she kept her arms wrapped around the Horned King's waist, Mitternacht's reins in the very tips of her fingers. If he bolted now it was over.

"Walk on, boy," was all she murmured, right before Mitternacht headed out at a steady walk, his terror showing in every tiny movement.