Chapter 4 – To Barter with Beasts
by Scott S. Combs
Tocs Duloss opened his eyes but darkness was all he could see; a piercing chime was all he could hear...
"What happened?"
He felt the cold, wet sand against his face; the rapid chills of the raindrops on his back offset by a warm pulse at his side...
Seeing Pegon's strike into the Shogun's wound, Kurocyn quickly took up a vial from his shoulder plate. He gave the vial a quick shake, then locked it into a cylinder at the front of his bow. A subtle hiss from the bone needle piercing the wax seal...
Tocs' vision returned with a flash of sparks over him and his hearing to the screech of steel across steel. His body ached and his arm felt ablaze, but rolling to his side and seeing his son stalwart versus this monster, he smiled...
"Burn..."
The blast caught him off guard. First came its light; the brilliance of a new day's dawn harnessed by hunter. The roar of a wyvern; the cry that dwarfs thunder and shakes men's hearts with its power. And fire fierce enough to shatter steel and wyvern scale alike...
Reflexes snapped Tocs' arms up to cover his face, but only one arm responded...
Where the beast once stood, cold night air shimmered in the residual heat while falling rain boiled before ever touching the now glassed sands. Two deep trenches led back several feet to where Pegon now stood, stance regained, his shield steaming from the proximity of his fire. A slat of steel jutted from his gun-lance, rapidly venting superheated fumes.
The Shogun collapsed to its left side, blown off-balance by the force of Pegon's attack. Right arm and front leg gone, the creature raged, the remaining claw cutting deep arcs into the sand. Black ichor flowed from the horrid cavity and running over the remnants of the shell nearest the wound, boiled into a noxious smoke.
Kurocyn knocked another shaft; a wide brush at the base of the loaded cylinder met with the blade of the arrow. Drawing the string, the brush traversed the arrow, lining it with the viscous fluid. He aimed for the smoke...
"Father, can you hear me?" Pegon shouted over the Ceanataur's cries.
The familiar sound of steel against steel rang out as Pegon's shield met with the flat of a claw...
Tocs didn't respond.
With no shell to hinder the blow, Kurocyn's arrow erupted out the Shogun's flank. A thin wisp of purple mist trailed from the wound and vanished into the smoke. Another arrow found the Shogun's core, and another...
With each arrow, the dying beast's movements slowed, Kurocyn's poisons were taking hold. The black fluid from the Shogun's wound now a binary sludge of blood and toxins.
Pegon advanced cautiously, his guard held firm. The Ceanataur had stopped attacking, now laboring only to breath. Moving between the monster and his father, he watched as its life faded. Once cold black eyes clouded over into dull gray, and swift, mechanical movements gave way to a lifeless shell...
"Pegon, tend to your father." Kurocyn said gently, putting a hand on Pegon's shoulder. "I'll tend to the Shogun."
Pegon turned and knelt over his father. "Hiro! Bring a litter!"
With his father safely back on the ship, Pegon approached Kurocyn who was crawling around in the cavernous hole in his kill.
"Those last arrows, what did you..."
"Distilled Rathian venom." Kurocyn interrupted, tossing a empty vial out of the Shogun to Pegon. "It expands and thickens the blood, causing slow bleed outs through open wounds, eventually stopping the heart."
Pegon glanced between the vial and the mounds of gelatinous blood strewn over the sand...
"Will the men be able to collect the body safely?" Pegon asked as he handed the vial back.
"The toxin degrades quickly and has to enter the bloodstream to effect you. If the crew wears gloves until its stowed on board and any exposed wounds away, they'll be fine."
"I know it's your kill Kurocyn, but can you leave that severed arm be?"
"Sure, why?" Kurocyn grunted, pulling away a charred piece of the shell.
"He took my father's arm, I'll take his."