Another 2 dec'11

Disclaimer: G-boys are not saru's... and saru already forgotten the details of the anime too.

chapter 6

"Demon...!"

"Hey!"

"...Heero!"

A flick of a lizard tail answered the man.

Odin snorted and urged his steed to walk side by side with the lizard.

Lix looked behind at him with a lizard-frown, knowing what he was going to do.

"Shut up, Lesard!" Odin muttered while grabbing Heero's belt from behind his small waist and pulled the demon to sit in front of him. The horse neighed once but didn't seem to object having a demon on its back, it snorted at the lizard when Lix gave a stare.

"What's with you being so self-conscious, all of a sudden?" Odin frowned in annoyance.

The demon kept silent.

The man blew out a breath.

They rode like that for a couple of hundred meters more, in a picnic-pace, although the lizard looked to be too tense to be in a picnic-spirit, glancing back and forth at the dirt road ahead and its rider on the back of another animal walking beside it.

Odin stared at the lizard's head, a few too many times tilted at his side to catch a glimpse of the demon; when their eyes met, the lizard's visible eye perked up and he knew animals had more honesty in their eyes compared to humans. The lizard was asking him when he was going to give back its rider; Odin pulled the ends of his lips downward and the lizard ignored their arrangements for awhile longer.

Heero hadn't uttered a sound since the moment Odin woke up that morning.

The man was a little appalled when he found the demon was already waiting by the lizard's side outside the cave, ready to continue with their journey; while he thought he was conscious enough with the demon's every little movement when they're sleeping together.

Shortly speaking, that was the first time the man learned that the demon could slip away from his embrace without him even realizing. So all this time, the demon was just acting submissive; waiting the man to wake up and order him around every day.

A little mind whispered to his anxiety, if suddenly the demon wanted to stop being submissive, then would that mean he would want to walk away from their... 'sleeping arrangement' too?

Heero snorted. "Stop worrying; you'll attract beasts this way...!"

Lix rumbled in agreement.

Odin tsk-ed. "So what should I make of yesterday's event?"

"Forget it."

"Right. You had me worried more than the past years' worries collected together...!"

"That's why I said forget it, it won't happen again...!"

Odin couldn't see the demon's face but he could hear a pout in that last sentence. He wanted to ask more but not wanting the demon to feel that he's prying, although that's exactly what he's doing. He waited for some breaths span.

". . . so, who's 'mine'?" he asked conversationally. He could see the demon's head turned downward a few millimeters and his shoulders pulled up rigidly a little.

The lizard glanced at them with worried lizard-face. Odin glanced back at the lizard; he thought he heard the demon's teeth grated together for a moment. He didn't really care whether the demon answered him or not, so as long as the demon knew that he had asked that to him.

"...'life'?" Odin continued.

The demon's body was slumped forward and he was pulling the flaps of his fur hat down, like he could stop his ears to hear that way. "None of your business...!"

"You're going to hurt your wings like that..." Odin patted the top of the fur hat. "Besides, you can still hear me, anyway; so that 'mine' is like what...? Your fiancé?" the man ignored the demon's growl. He had his opening, the one that he didn't know existed in so many years, he's not going to back down now.

The man's evil side was tickled, but he reined it in a little; he didn't want to chase away the demon.

Odin grinned, he knew the demon felt it too; "You missed your fiancé so much, enough to leave welts on my back...!"

The demon's body jerked down more, Odin didn't want to use the guilt-trip, but he paid his due so he thought he deserved at least a little explanation. He was satisfied enough that it seemed to get to the demon, so he waited in patience for that guilt to sink in.

A meter down the road more, the demon slumped forward with both his shoulders sagged.

A couple meters down the road more, the demon's body already stooping forward like a drunk man on a horse.

A few meters down the road more, the demon's body was literally on the horse, flat.

Odin's brows pulled up with a skeptic stare. "...are you that embarrassed...?"

". . . shut up...!" the demon gave a hoarse bark. And Odin melted.

The man chuckled warmly and tried to pull the demon to straighten up; "Really? But it's alright...!"

"-No! I said forget it...!" The demon fought the man's arms in almost panic.

"Hey, it's alright! It's really alright, Heero...!" Odin was a little surprise that the demon fought his hands at all, but he couldn't let it go now.

"-No! Just shut up-...!" Heero's hoarse voice had tears in it and Odin instinctively wanted to check it.

The horse neighed in worry.

"I said, it's alright; calm down a little and hear me out...!" Odin covered the demon's eyes with his open palm; his other hand circled around the smaller body and pulled it to recline onto his front. Heero let out a long exasperated moan mixed with an angry growl at the end, and grabbed Odin's hand from his face.

"I'm sorry!" Odin said fast, "It's not my place to pry at that matter; I'm just being concerned. I won't pry anymore, so it's alright...!"

It seemed to work, the demon let out a choked sob, and his shoulders slumped immediately; with head still casted down, the upper halve of his face was covered by Odin's large palm; his hands trembled gripping at the hand on his forehead. Eventually he shrunk on his seat, resting the weight of his head on Odin's palm; in the end it's like he was using the man's hand to hide himself. He almost looked like he was praying on Odin's hand, like it was the form of an offered salvation to some regretful sinner.

The man silenced for some moment, noticing that the demon's body trembled a little; it wasn't embarrassment, it was fright, he could see it now. 'Mine' was someone he wanted to protect even from a far away land; someone he didn't want any human to find out. The reason he kept living, his life.

"Heero... I'm not interrogating you. Please don't be like that..." Odin tried a calming tone.

There was no answer.

"Heero?"

"Can't you forget that I'm a human for a moment? I'm really concerned... please?" the man tried again.

Lix rumbled its concern too.

The horse snorted low.

The demon tilted his head slowly, peered at Odin with an accusing eye.

Odin stared at the demon visible eye, there was something new there, shining fire that was swirling lazily in the blue depth; it was almost like hatred. Odin blinked... it was jealousy.

He didn't back away from that accusation; Odin smiled a little, taking it in; everything the demon ever threw at him for being human, he took it whole. That's why the demon followed him.

"Calmed enough...?" he asked after he noticed that the fire had died down to some extent.

The demon looked away from the man's face, pulled the man's hand from his forehead down to his chest, looking like he wanted to be embraced with both arms.

". . . . . . Life's not here. . ." he mumbled silently after a long pause, tilting his head to the side as if feeling the breeze whispered on his cheeks, and then closed his eyes.

Odin stared down at the long eyelashes on the ghostly white face at his front. The demon ended up resting his tilted head on his left upper arm, while holding the embracing hands around his chest. It's not every day his demon acted like a cat; a little mind in his head whispered that it's a premonition of a storm coming.

"...where?" Odin asked, he was just being playful with his curiosity at the beginning, but as his demon gave his opening in such form, he just said to any storm to come down but he's not going to let this moment pass in a waste.

"...back there." the demon said silently.

Odin frowned to himself, he didn't know if he'd threaded a political affair; so he wanted to know his safe line.

"Why?"

The long eyelashes fluttered open.

"Why not here with you?" Odin asked seriously to the deep blue eyes that were reflecting the sky like a mirror.

Heero stared at Odin's face for a few seconds, and then pulled the end of his lips up a little. "Why not... I wonder."

Odin's mind just blew up in his head. Whaaaaat-? -that was such a SHORT evasive line-it didn't even need the effort to think of fiiiirst...! He kept his cool on the outside, though.

The demon closed his eyes in closure, like sighing but not really; and then let go of the man's hands and straightened his body. Odin's little mind was in frantic screaming 'the moment's gooone!' in his head, so he followed the urge and asked whatever came down to his mouth from his blank head.

"Does your Life know you're here?"

To his almost relief, the question made the demon pause his movement; so it's not passed yet...

"No."

...but the answer he got almost made him regret ever asking that.

"Mine... wasn't around for a very long time..." the demon's silent voice didn't waver, but sounded lonely enough; "...not knowing I was sent here, and..."

The demon tilted his head, "...not knowing... how much time had passed..."

Lix tilted its head to the demon the whole time.

"...but it's alright."

"...'Life' is not supposed to be here..." the whisper sounded distant.

Then the demon nodded once, as if hearing another person's voice reassuring him; although it might just be what he'd done to cope by himself all these years, Odin thought; seeing the dejected head from behind made Odin wanted to stroke the pelted head again.

". . . so, why don't you want to make babies yourself?"

The level toned question stopped his hand mid way. So last night's cycle of thought came back; he wondered why the topic went back to that again...

Odin chuckled, hiding his uneasiness; his idle hand sought the water bottle from the saddle bag instead.

"Why?" Opening the cap, he took a swig to close his question.

The demon's hands circled behind the man's body, catching the loose cloak ends and circled the cloak to the front to cover himself.

". . . in the crystal cave... you did drink from the fertility spring, didn't you?"

PBFFFFFFFFFFTTThhhhh...!

The lizard shied away from the sudden shower; the steed neighed in complaint.

Odin coughed and choked but still asked anyway, "I-...what?"

Heero let out an unexcited snort, flapping the relatively wet cloak to the sides before letting the ends go. "You didn't know what that place was?"

"...-whaaat?" Odin was still slobbering his chin and in turn took the cloak to wipe his mouth in reflex.

"Hmph. Well, it's not like you're going to get pregnant, since you're male." the demon's level tone didn't help calming down the man's nerves.

"PREGNANT?" -so that's why the cycle always came back to babies.

"I said you're not." the demon repeated.

They both silenced for some long seconds.

Lix peered curiously at them from their side.

". . . at least you should be able to succeed making babies in time comes."

"AAAAAAAGHHHH! I'm not going to make babies or planning to make them in time comes...!" Odin yelled in exasperation.

The demon arched his shoulders a few millimeters up; "Your choice."

"YOOOUU shouldn't have brought an innocent naive man like me to such a place without warning first...!" Odin accused. He'd rather be sent to a brothel, his mind quipped... well, just for guarding some dignitary's VIP room still would be alright.

The lizard let out its lizard-laughter rumble again. Odin glared at it.

"IIIIII... shouldn't...-" he blinked, "...didn't drink from the spring in the first place...!" he realized and changed his tone right away. "Riiiight, I was just cleansing myself a little by the spring; I didn't consume the water!" he grinned victoriously.

"Oh. That's a waste. Don't you know people of old-wisdom came to that spring to have babies?" Heero snorted.

"By people of old-wisdom, you mean like the wizards or witches...?" Odin frowned, pulling his lips tightly downward. "...Why did you bring me there?" he asked suspiciously.

The birds chirped along the way.

The winds blew softly.

Some insects and butterflies flew nearby.

...So much for things to notice in such a pause.

"There was such a place back home too..." the demon said softly.

"Ancient-demons came to that place and make demons..."

Odin's brow twitched at the last part.

". . . that's where I started." the demon admitted.

"I missed Life so much; in such place where life energy centered from all the surrounding places and came flowing freely..."

The demon sighed.

"I just thought perhaps I could feel Mine, there..."

The man imagined the demon had said that with a melancholic sad smile, but he didn't; the demon suddenly stilled, the lizard leaned its long neck forward on low, as if by doing that it could see more clearly with its round eyes, its blue tongue licked the air slowly. Odin instantly alerted by their sudden changes; his steed rejected to walk any further down the road.

"What is it?" the man asked with an alert frown, one hand already at the hilt of his sword.

The demon tilted his head to the sides, as if feeling uncomfortable; "Thick..." he answered silently.

Lix frowned and barred its lizard's neat lines of small pointy teeth, like a dog sensing danger ahead.

The steed kicked the dirt a couple times, shaking its head in discomfort.

The demon held out his tongue a little, tasting the air; the wind didn't come from their front but he could taste it anyway. "...blood"

"Blood of fear..."

A pair of jet black round eyes watched them from a higher view. Odin pulled his sword from the scabbard a little.

"-I... I can't fight...-!" A frightened whisper said in trembling voice. It was a young soldier with blood all over him; he was hiding with two of his comrades in a cranny hidden by the thick bushes.

"Shhh! They could hear you...!" said an older soldier.

"...It's useless hiding here... they sensed blood!" the young soldier said in doomed tone; "...-and I just got married, too...!"

Another soldier was going to admonish him, but a sharp rustle alarmed them; they gripped whatever weapons they still had in their functioning hands tightly and prayed although with their blank minds.

A large head emerged from the thick bushes; the older soldier covered the wounded young soldier's mouth with his bleeding hand to keep him from screaming hysterically.

"...a snake! -a giant snake!" the young soldier mumbled as he was petrified when his mouth was released; while the older soldier looked a little relieved. It's the Palace's Sauria.

"How many of you at first?" a level silent voice asked.

"-the... the snake taaalks...!" the young soldier said in panic and the older soldier instantly covered his mouth again.

"8 soldiers on horses." answered the older one.

"Where are the other five?"

"So... somewhere in the woods near the intersection down there...!" the other soldier quipped and pointed somewhere northeast, he wanted to give a more accurate report but his mind didn't comply.

"There's an intersection with roads leading to Cessca Town, Midridge Fall, and Eld Village; between the roads leading to the fall and Eld were cliffs; some of them are not that visible... We were attacked by the cliffs..." the older soldier reported.

The lizard let out a silent rumble and left.

"Wait-!" the older soldier called back, "...there's someone else with us, he should be the priority...!"

"Understood." and a flick of a lizard tail fanned out in an instant left them.

"Shouldn't you tell him what attacked us?" the other soldier asked in half bafflement.

The older soldier looked uncertain a little, but said; "...it's alright...!"

"We have to go back there and retrieve the master, or the General will hang our hides on the atrium's walls for everyone to see...!" the fourth soldier said in haste; he was hiding in a cave behind some collapse stone fragments making a natural barrier at its entrance.

"Are you crazy? Look at how we're bleeding all over the place...! Those creatures will definitely mince us on the spot if they find us!" his comrade argued.

"We're bleeding, so those creatures could trace us down anytime! If they finished with their hunting they'll going to devour us too!" came the reply.

"But it's not us they after...! We're wounded, we could say that we've tried our best to do our task but we failed, anyway! Let's not talk about gallantry right now; I have family back home, I'm not going to die here for someone I barely knew...!" the fifth soldier reasoned. The fourth soldier tsk-ed but he didn't find anything to counter that reason.

"...guys...!" the sixth soldier who had been sitting in the inner part of the cave called out, he was sweating a lot and trembling visibly; "...this is bad!" he smiled worriedly at his comrades when they turned their attention at him, "...I don't feel right; ...I think I've been poisoned...!"

"What...?" his comrades crouched down to him, and he dodged their hands.

"Don't touch my blood...!" he said fast.

The fifth soldier looked at the fourth, "Is it deadly? Can you tell...?"

"...heartburn!" the seventh soldier at the innermost cave cut them; "...can't you feel it, too? I think everyone's wounded got it...!"

The first two reflexively touched their chests; it's true, they've been having that unpleasant sensation for some time, but passed it as being nervous. They paled.

"We're not going to make it home, aren't we...?" the fifth soldier asked.

"I see, so that's why they didn't chase us; we're already dead on our feet. They just have to trace the blood scents back to our dead bodies later...!" the fourth said. "So at least we could go find the master and finish our task before that..." he stared his comrades in their eyes. No one appeared to have as much courage nor strength left to follow him.

He nodded in understanding, and sighed; "Well, at least I'm going to do it. Take care of yourselves!"

The man stood up and pulled out his twin swords from their sheaths, but the fifth soldier pulled at his tunic; "Wait, Lieutenant. You can't go alone!"

"You said you wouldn't risk your life for some stranger...!"

"No, no; that's not what I meant! I mean, we should go home together...!" the fifth soldier pleaded.

The Lieutenant snorted; "I'm making a diversion so you could get away, too. Go safely!" With that the man stormed outside the barrier rocks, leaving the other soldiers gaping.

About a couple of breaths span later there was a clang heard from the outside; the fifth soldier jerked to mobility and ran after his Lieutenant. He was ready to see the monsters which had attacked them, but when he's about to pass the barrier he heard a swish and felt the sharp wind on his right cheek and reflexively pushed himself back onto the rock as a dagger stuck on its surface about an inch from his face.

Monsters didn't throw knives.

"Lieutenant Cail! Gallant as ever...!" A greeting said with a big grin.

"Commander Odin...!" the Lieutenant was blocking Odin's sword with both blades, he had a deep disturbed frown on his face. "You've been eavesdropping from the outside...!" he accused.

Odin chuckled. "Fancy meeting you here...!" his grin showed too many teeth, with almost condescending stare in his eyes. He liked toying with this man.

"Commander! You've brought help...?" the fifth soldier's voice was too expecting.

"Huh?" Odin glanced at the man and pulled his sword back; "No." he answered and tilted his head behind one shoulder. "More like I brought your monsters here." he added calmly.

"What?" the soldiers who stuck their heads from behind the rock barrier asked in unison.

Odin sniffed at the back of his right hand. "Must be the scent of the demon on me...!"

"-. . . Commander!" the Lieutenant tried to hold back his anger. He appeared to be around late twenties or early thirties, with dark hair, and cleaner feature; quite the opposite of Odin's appearance, he was (to everyone's disbelief) almost 50 years old, eventhough he looked much younger with his very fit looking body, but gave out a savage aura around himself. If Odin didn't wear his attribute, people most likely mistook him for a ruffian; that's what the demon always said about his appearance.

They usually acted hostile towards each other; in Odin's part, he specifically liked bullying this man. The soldiers thought of them as each other's archenemies, too. The only thing that made them alike was that they both didn't have surnames; they started literally from nothing.

"I'm not letting you jeopardizing my men!" the Lieutenant snarled.

"Relaaax; I got the best help you can get...!" Odin waved his hand and sheathed his sword. "You better come back here before you got tangled in the fight!" the man called out as he walked to the cave entrance to check on the soldiers.

"-...aaaaaahh!" the soldiers gaped at the closing monsters surrounding the space outside; Odin really brought the monsters tailing him to that hiding place.

"Ugh...!" the Lieutenant took a step back but he considered his men's situation and decided to stand his ground and perhaps they could use the time to escape.

"Hey, Cail; I said come here!" Odin called out again; "You can't fight those things with your weapons!" he added matter-of-fact-ly.

You're the one bringing these things here! Cail thought, but he didn't voice it. He gritted his teeth, the trees before him slithered closer; his ears heard a series of rattling hiss from behind his back and realized the spiky tentacles had cut off his escape route.

"...Commander!" the soldiers pleaded frantically in one whisper.

Odin stared them down with level face; "My weapon's the same with yours, it can't cut down those things!" he reasoned.

"We're going to die here- we're going to die here...!" one of the soldiers chanted with tears ready to flow from his eyes.

The monster-trees were about 3 meters in height, from walking-roots to foliages; not included the leafy branches that were long enough to drape down the barks. They had spiky long tentacles with poisonous stings, and a large flower-like mouth placed vertically at the middle of the bark, with lining teeth circling the opening in several layers. Although they really resembled trees, they were actually a type of animal close to arachnids; a different kind of mites, only hundred times bigger and hungrier, and with a different diet preference too. The barky-shells were very thick and hard that usual weapons couldn't cut; wizards used to shepherd them into a specific place and sealed the area with magic so that they won't devour humans. They were thought to be extinct nowadays... well, not anymore.

The Lieutenant readied his swords; one of the closing trees, the one closest to him, was about to open its flower-mouth; his logics thought that the thing must be vulnerable from the inside, so if he could launch an attack at the opening he might have a chance...

Odin snorted his sigh with a dissatisfied frown; "It'll be too late if that thing already opens its mouth...!" he muttered, ignoring the blanched soldiers beside him.

A sudden sharp rustling sound and a mouth opened very wide shooting out from the high bushes; Cail only had enough time to widen his eyes, and before he could realize what happened, a whip-like sleek thing threw his body to the cave direction. The flower-mouth opened and splashed the rocky ground with a slimy liquid that melted it with a hissing sound.

Cail's body landed on a shrub on the cave's back, and slid down the sloping ground to land on four in front of the cave entrance. He still didn't lose his alacrity and instantly looked at the place where he previously stood. He gaped in disbelieve; there, between the smoking fumes and flailing spiky tentacles and whipping branches, a large animal was doing a rain-dance.

...Or so it looked like to him.

"That's an extremely bored Sauria venting out its annoyance getting hyped-up...!" Odin said behind the Lieutenant. You're lucky the lizard still remember to throw you away from that spot, his mind thought but kept it to himself.

And it actually kind of raining slime at the time, so the men took refuge behind the rock barrier.

Lix was, true enough to Odin's choice of words, getting hyped-up venting out its annoyance; it was bordering to frustration, actually; and the monsters coming out of nowhere making its rider told the lizard to separate itself from him after finding the three soldiers previously was setting it off. Letting out its lizard war-cry endlessly, Lix bit and chopped and stomped and slashed the poor trees again and again; determined not going to stop until anything stopped moving.

"See the crest and the fan-like fins on its head making iridescent colors?" Odin started, "It showed how much the lizard gotten hyped up. Basically, you should run immediately if any lizard started to make those color-changing."

". . . . . . I'm not trying to sound like I'm being ungrateful, Sir; but isn't the Sauria is more dangerous than those trees?" the fifth soldier quipped, looking like he shrunk more than before the lizard came.

Odin pulled his lips downward, staring at the men gaping at the battle sight.

". . . She's kind of beautiful, though...!" the seventh soldier said a little dreamily; which made his comrades' faces blanched at him.

"What? Don't you see...?" the man said in defensive tone, "Those scythe-like part of her front legs, the sharp teeth, the strong claws, the crest and fringes, the masterpiece-of-weapon-worth tail... every part of her body is made for fighting...!"

"Killing preys...!" Odin corrected half-caringly, "And all Sauria are both; if you can't decide to call it a 'he' or a 'she' then you could just classify them as genderless."

The soldiers turned wide-eyed at the Commander; "We're not classified as 'preys' too, right, Commander...?"

Odin looked annoyed for a moment, but he realized today's generation were not equipped with instinct to fight monsters just like the olden generations before theirs; he stifled a sigh. "I don't think the Lesard eats humans...!" he stated.

Lix's lizard war-cry had changed to irritated quacking now, the lizard let it out every time it stomped a still moving bits of slimy remnants of the monster-trees. Its lizard tail held up like a victory-flagpole while its hind legs doing the whatever-dance-left persistently. The end part of the tail fanned open, letting any spectators to see the eye-pattern similar to peacock's tail-feather on the luminescent membrane, opened from the fork-like end of the inner-tail; some people would be reminded to a wizard's staff, and some would say like a flower bud because the outer-tail that covered the inner-tail split open usually to three-quarter of the tail's length, looking like a pair of sepals above and underneath the fanned membrane. Unlike the common lizards that cut their tails to divert the predators, the tails of Sauria were the deadliest part of them; they held the powers which humans could only gain through magic, such powers like storm, heat or frost, depending to what species the Sauria was; some story even said that a certain type of Sauria could turn its opponents into rocks.

That was what most feared by humans that they classified Sauria as natural nemesis; while the demons, knowing the lizards' abilities and how to tame them, had used Sauria since centuries prior; which in time made the humans' prejudice against the lizards as 'demonic animals'; although most of the stories now were mostly too far exaggerated from the truth.

Odin sighed watching the lizard had finally calmed down; though Lix was still off-handedly stomping a large piece of tree daring the thing to move. The man didn't have prejudice against the lizards, but from the stories he heard since he was a dreamy child, he'd prefer a dragon if he could choose an eccentric-ride to have.

"-I... is it over?" the soldiers wondered out loud, eyes still glued to the lizard looking angry enough at the monsters.

'AAAAACKKK~! Kreeee! Kree! Quaaaack~!' Lix landed a series of kicks to the remnants it's still had a grudge to.

"It looks dead enough to me, Lesard...!" Odin said walking to the angry lizard. Lix turned its head to the man sharply and let out a long low rumble. "Your rider told you to stick with me, huh?" Odin tilted his body to the side when Lix extended its long neck to stare at the man closely.

"You're all slimy...!" he grimaced, "And it's poisonous, too. Go get bathed somewhere...!"

Lix shook its body with a long 'humming' rumble, closing its eyes like a cat; "Hey...!" Odin complained when the slime got splattered around him and he had to dodge some of it.

The lizard che-ed in its own lizard-way and took off to find a river or spring, its ears could hear the sound of falling water somewhere around the area, so it planned to just take a dip and immediately find its rider.

Odin stared the swaying tail vanished behind the tall bushes, and looked around wondering why the demon hadn't make appearance there.

"What were you doing in this place before the ambush?" he asked to the soldiers. They had caught looks on various levels and seemed like they had a hard time forming their answers.

"Hmph!" Odin turned and decided to find out by himself, he just had to trace back the blood drops, like what he'd done before to find the men in that cave. "I see; you messed up an important task, huh?"

To his delight (of his evil side), Lieutenant Cail silently followed him with an extreme discomfort on his face. Odin chuckled as he glanced back at the man.

"Master... just leave me here..." the eighth soldier pleaded; "...you should run...!"

"Stop flailing about; I have to stop the bleeding!" the person in a dusty-purple cloak said admonishingly and tried to push the man to lie down again.

"But, sir...-" the soldier tried and coughed up some brownish blood.

The master tsk-ed and took a small bottle from under his waistband, pulled the cork with his teeth and poured the content to the deep slash on the soldier's stomach that was gushing out bubbly black colored blood. There was a hissing noise when the clear bluish liquid poured down to the open wound; the soldier cried out in pain and tried to stifle it to a hard moan, though he didn't have the strength left to thrash about.

"I'm sorry..." the master said apologetically, "The pain should be better now...!" he added comfortingly.

The soldier breathed hard for some time, still feeling the echo of the excruciating pain, but he did feel that it lessened significantly. He nodded as he tried to take deeper breaths.

"I should take you to a village to get you better treatment, the poison is not nullified yet...!" the master said while pouring some red powder onto the wound and bandaged it with the soldier's torn cloak.

The soldier moaned and tried again; "Master, please leave me... My comrades will come back to find me, ...you should safe yourself...!"

The master made a dissatisfied frown, and gritted his teeth; "The amulet I put at the entrance will only work to keep beasts away if it's close with me...!"

The soldier opened his mouth again; but before he could say something, a big enough shadow landed in front of the cave entrance. In a swift, the shadow flung the amulet that was set on both sides of the entrance connected with a small chain onto the cave floor near the lying soldier.

The master instantly stood up but stopped charging when he saw it wasn't any beast standing at the entrance, it was a demon about his own height.

"You're the beasts' target?" the level tone was more of a statement than a question. The master gaped for a second and the demon instantly grabbed his wrist and pulled him out.

"Wait! What are you doing-?" the master yelled trying to pull his hand from the demon.

"He'll get help; you shouldn't be in the way." the demon said still levelly and pull the master with enough force to take him to run.

"I'm sorry! I'll divert the beasts away from yoou...!" the master managed to shout to the baffled soldier in the cave; then they both vanished by the cliff. A series of long cries heard and some large beastly shadows followed them down.

Loud thunderclaps heard as the lightning flashed in the sudden darkened sky.

Odin looked up as the wind got drastically stronger and the heavy black clouds stirred up in the sky. The man frowned.

"What? The storm's really coming...?" he asked skeptically in displeasure. He heard the beasts' cries not far away; as those shrieks sounded getting further and further, he knew his demon was not going to anywhere near him.

saru's note:
saru-the-fever-monkey got down with typhus for about a month, just when we got another genre illustration order, too; it's for adult readers...! but not that-kind of adults! (chuckles) used the time to type-type-type instead of resting; but at first, we didn't thought it was something big too, saru is used to having fever, almost every-other-day if you asked Oni-tan(-the-monkey-on-the-bridge)...

type-type-typhus? it kind of works together! (lame, right?)

after three weeks of high fever (specially at night) saru considered checking it to the Doctor when saru couldn't get up at all one day at HQ (Oni-tan's house, near a bridge but not ON it), and we were a little stunned when he admonished us.

"fever shows infection occurred in your body, if it heightens at night it means the infection is in your stomach...after 3 days with fever, you should check yourself to the doctor, don't wait too long; what if it was typhus?" or so he said, we wondered if he treated saru like a kid and Oni-tan as the substitute of mother (but, hey... we're just two weeks apart! what the...?)
and what if saru told the Doc that saru played with Mom's hamsters everyday at home despite having fever?
anyway, we told the Doc that saru got the fever up and down for a week, while in truth it was already passed three weeks; wondered whether he'd be angrier if we had told him that... hahahahah

the blood-test ripped us off; though the result astonished us-monkeys.
"You got six types of typhus-germs...!" the Doc said, six from the list of eight from the blood-test result sheet.
tsk! should have scored it all for that fee...!

anyway, saru wanted to post at least one chapter every month, but the sick-leave kind of a present for the monkey too, so saru just give this as Christmas present... hehehehehhh (sorry if there's any mistakes in the writing, saru was having fever when typing this...honestly.)

Merry Christmas and happy new year for everyone!

thanx for reading