Hey guys! Welcome back to Hear a Tale! Got a long one for you guys today, but before we do anything else, let's take care of reviews, shall we?
Thanks so much to CitrusChickadee (Everyone knows that purple = thief! Therion's snark is always fun, as is poor Cyrus' complete and utter bewilderment once he finally realizes he's been messed with XD) and Guest (Poor Cyrus didn't know what hit him...and neither did Therion, in a way XD) for reviewing!
With that, on with the tale!
Relevant Events: H'aanit's Chapter Four
37. Eyes
H'aanit pulled the front of her furred cape up over her mouth and nose, squinting against the errant sand and dust that drifted through the stale air of the Grimsand Ruins. The way the particles swirled even before she and her companions drew anywhere close to them unnerved her. By all rights, such secluded ruins should have been still and undisturbed. The fact that they weren't only confirmed the presence of the fearsome beast that had made its home amongst the crumbling columns and time-worn walls.
"This place is givin' me the creeps…" came Alfyn's voice from behind her. He was only whispering, yet his words still echoed eerily through the cavernous catacombs.
Tressa and Cyrus both made soft noises of agreement, neither of them daring to speak any further, lest they disturb the heavy, dark presence that H'aanit was sure they could all feel permeating the area. The huntress, for her part, remained silent, only tightening her grip on her bow and moving forward, Linde prowling uneasily by her side.
The herb-of-grace wilt worken, she told herself silently in order to calm her pounding heart. This monster shalt not defeaten us.
The four travelers and the snow leopard carefully climbed a set of old, half-broken stairs, passing a landing on which a stone statue of a winged woman was illuminated by a shaft of sunlight spilling in from the cracked ceiling above. It was likely the first actual statue they had seen since entering the ruins - the rest of the stone figures they had passed had all clearly been victims of the beast known as Redeye's petrifying stare.
H'aanit paused only briefly to look up at the gentle sunbeam before lowering her eyes and continuing on. She inwardly prayed that this would not be the last hint of the light of day that she and her friends would ever see.
The destruction in the area past the statue was worse than it had been closer to the entrance of the ruins. Jagged claw marks littered the walls and floor, and the travelers had to pick their way over and around collapsed pillars in order to advance.
Clearly, they were drawing close to their quarry.
"Alfyn," H'aanit murmured, keeping her alert gaze fixed in front of them, "thou hast the herb-of-grace solution ready, correct?"
"Y-Yeah, sure do," the apothecary answered, patting the side of his satchel nervously. "It's all mixed up and ready to go…um…but just in case, you know, I get taken out first or somethin', it's the light green potion at the top of my bag. If someone gets turned to stone, all we've gotta do is smear a little bit of the stuff on their lips, and they should be right as rain."
The possibility of all four of them becoming petrified before they had a chance to heal each other went unspoken, but still hung heavily in the air around them. Not a soul dared to acknowledge it aloud, but H'aanit knew that the others were trying just as hard as she was to banish that dark thought.
'Tis why we left the others to waiten outside for us, anyway, she thought firmly. They can still saven us if we were to fallen.
"Good," was all she said out loud, "letten us keepen moving."
The travelers soon made it past the worst of the rubble, coming to a more open area at a relatively high point in the ruins. The stone floor looked marginally more stable here, but if there had once been any supporting walls or guard rails lining the platform, they had fallen long ago. Instead, the floor they stood on now overlooked a sudden, precarious drop to the far-off ground below.
Even more pressing, though, was the sight of five stone statues directly in front of them, all armed men frozen in their fighting stances.
H'aanit stiffened, her nails all but digging into the wooden surface of her bow. "These are the guards from Marsalim," she whispered, though it didn't really require pointing out. She heard her companions shifting uncomfortably behind her, as well as a small, quickly-smothered squeak from the back of Tressa's throat. At H'aanit's side, Linde's hackles rose, and a low growl began to rumble from her tensed form.
Wordlessly, H'aanit stepped forward, her soft, fur-lined boots silent on the stone. Linde padded at her side, tail lashing back and forth in distress. The other travelers followed, but each of them kept their eyes in a different direction, certain that something was going to descend upon them at any second.
And, just as H'aanit laid a hand on the closest guard's petrified shoulder, something did.
A terrible roar rang out through the ruins, its powerful echo causing it to sound as though it was coming from every direction at once. The strange cry was nothing like that of any beast H'aanit had ever encountered before, sounding at once like a demon's enraged screech and an eerily humanlike wail of agony. A bolt of fear coursed through the huntress as she heard it, and she was overwhelmed by a sudden, all-encompassing feeling of wrongness. She did not even have to lay eyes on the creature to know that it did not belong in the natural world.
Behind her, she heard Cyrus swear under his breath and abruptly take several steps back. When she turned to face him, the scholar was paler than she'd ever seen him, and he was staring, wide-eyed, at something in the shadows atop a nearby ledge.
"By the gods…" he whispered faintly, almost instinctively pulling Alfyn and Tressa back with him. "What in the hells is that!?"
Pushing past the dread that threatened to consume her, H'aanit slowly followed his gaze until she too had a clear view of what had frightened the professor so. At the sight of it, she drew in a sharp breath, her heart missing a beat.
This was Redeye.
Jagged, misshapen claws gripped the edge of the ledge on which it stood, leaving deep scores in the crumbled stone. Its body was a spindly mess of limbs and exposed ribs; its arms and legs were disturbingly long and skeletal, and there appeared to be nothing to conceal its too-large ribcage and the strange red light that glowed within it. Its feet were as long as a rabbit's back paws, but ended in bird-like talons, and there were scraps of old, white cloth that clung to its ankles and shins. It looked as though it was wreathed in black flame, though it could have been fur, or reptilian skin, or even thick slime that dripped off of it in globs. As mangled and strangely amalgamated as the creature was, it was nearly impossible to tell.
Most horrifying, however, was its face.
Black skin - or fur, or flame, or whatever it was - was stretched taut over its skull so tightly that it gave the impression that it would cause the monster incredible pain simply to exist. It had no nose or ears, but most of the space on its head was filled by a gaping, tongueless mouth that seemed incapable of closing all the way. The mouth was filled with rows of blunted teeth, as well as the same red light that emanated from within its chest. It slavered and heaved with every breath, as though it was constantly struggling to draw air into whatever lungs could lie within its horribly twisted form.
And its eyes…true to its name, its eyes were a stark, burning red. Empty of any pupils whatsoever, the round, scarlet voids stared out from sunken sockets, glowing faintly. It lacked lids, lashes, or brows of any sort, and it seemed incapable of blinking at all.
Those were the eyes that had paralyzed Z'aanta, the guards from Marsalim, and so many others with the dark power they held. This creature, whose very existence was a vision of suffering and horror, had smothered the life force of all who had encountered it thus far, trapping their souls beneath a veneer of solid stone.
And H'aanit was going to be the one to put an end to its terrible rampage. Now that she had seen the creature from herself, she knew that failure was simply not a viable option. She would not let this thing of nightmares continue to roam freely.
Clenching her teeth against the wave of nausea and disgust that grew stronger the more she looked at Redeye's ghastly body, H'aanit held up her bow and nocked an arrow. Instinctively, she narrowed her focus, intending to read the beast's heart as she did with all of her quarries, though she dreaded what atrocity she might find there.
To her surprise, however, she couldn't sense a thing at all.
"I…I doe not understanden…" she murmured, half for the benefit of her companions, and half to herself. "This creature's heart…I cannot readen it."
"H-Huh?" Tressa stammered, glancing in the huntress' direction. "You can't? But…what does that mean…?"
H'aanit shook her head grimly. "I can sensen the feelings of every beast, every monster…but from this one - nothing. 'Tis as though…it hath no heart to speaken of."
Alfyn gulped as he shoved one hand into his satchel, no doubt clutching the herb-of-grace potion tightly. "S-Somehow I'm not all that surprised by that…that thing, it…it's not natural, whatever it is…"
"Mhm…still, my task remaineth the same." H'aanit drew her bowstring back, aiming at the creature that continued staring blankly in their direction. "Thou hast taken people from us - and we shalle have them back!"
She let her arrow fly.
It whizzed through the air, landing squarely in the side of Redeye's slack jaw and sticking. The beast howled in an earsplitting mixture of both agony and rage, and its malformed body began to thrash about. It moved like some odd caricature of a spider, spindly legs flashing as it scuttled down off of the side of its ledge, lurching its way onto the platform on which the four travelers stood.
H'aanit felt a surge of adrenaline course through her being as Redeye came barreling towards them. For her master, for her friends, and for herself, she would prevail.
"Comen!" she snarled, readying another arrow. "If thou darest."
Beside her, Linde snarled and lowered herself in preparation to pounce. Tressa and Alfyn readied their spear and axe respectively, while Cyrus formed twin spheres of flame in both of his outstretched palms. The fear radiating from each of H'aanit's companions was palpable, but was overtaken by the determination that shone through in their eyes. Not a single one of them turned and ran, even though they would have been well within their right to, considering the horrific creature they stood before.
H'aanit's heart swelled with something like pride, or perhaps gratitude. How lucky she was, to have befriended some of the bravest, most loyal people in all of Orsterra.
Long as its limbs were, it did not take long for Redeye to reach them. The creature screamed yet again, and an ink-black substance that might have been blood seeped from its punctured jaw, spattering on the stones below. H'aanit sent another arrow hurtling in its direction, but the projectile went wide as Redeye swung its head around to stare at her. Conscious of its petrifying gaze, the huntress threw her arm up to shield her eyes, pulling the hatchet from her belt with her free hand. She listened carefully for the swish of Redeye's arm as it slashed its claws in her direction, then fell to one knee and swung the hatchet skyward so that it bit into the gangly limb.
As Redeye howled in pain, Tressa and Alfyn took advantage of the momentary distraction, charging in to flank the creature on either side. Its strange, scurrying movements caused Tressa's spear jab to just barely miss piercing its torso, but Alfyn managed to bury his own axe deep into the monster's back.
Unfortunately, it refused to be slowed down so easily. Redeye bucked and kicked out with its rabbit-bird feet, catching Alfyn in the chest and sending him tumbling backwards, having lost his grip on his axe's handle. He managed to cradle his satchel close as he fell, protecting it from any harm, but was left weaponless and with the wind knocked out of him as Redeye wheeled around to face him.
Just as the beast was rearing up in an attempt to bring its claws down on the stunned apothecary, however, it was suddenly engulfed in two jets of flame that streamed from Cyrus' hands. The fire was not able to fully melt through whatever it was that Redeye's hide was made from, but it still seemed to cause it immense pain, judging by the way it writhed on the ground, clawing at its alight skin. Tressa took the opportunity to dash to Alfyn's side, grabbing his hand and dragging him to his feet before turning and unleashing a gust of powerful wind magic that fed and strengthened Cyrus' flames.
All things considered, the battle was going well at the start.
Almost too well.
Though she knew how skilled she and her allies were, H'aanit felt a sense of foreboding creeping up on her, even as she loosed several more arrows into Redeye's skeletal torso. The four of them were landing plenty of hits on the monster - powerful blows that would have turned any ordinary creature to ash already. H'aanit's first arrow through its face should have at least slowed it down. Alfyn's axe should have severed some part of its spine - if it even had one. Cyrus' flames, bolstered by Tressa's winds, should have incinerated its entire body.
And yet there it remained, fully intact, barely bleeding, growing angrier and angrier the more they hit it. It was as though Redeye thrived on the pain, drawing more and more strength from its own increasing agony.
If that was the case, then the fight had only just begun.
Linde sensed it too, it seemed, pacing nervously in front of H'aanit, her tail lashing with a renewed intensity. Thanks to Cyrus' relentless fire, the snow leopard could not attack Redeye herself quite yet, but she appeared unable to sit still in the interim. H'aanit, of course, knew exactly why - she could sense the workings of Linde's heart as easily as that of her own, after all.
Something was wrong. And both huntress and snow leopard shared the premonition that they were all about to find out exactly what that something was.
Suddenly, amidst all of its pain and burning, Redeye seemed to experience a single moment of clarity. In a split second, it whirled on Cyrus - the source of its most intense, immediate suffering - and lashed out with a twisted, clawed hand. Unlike H'aanit had been earlier, Cyrus was not swift enough to dodge. He took the full force of the attack, his flames immediately fizzling out as he was thrown off of his feet. The worst part of the attack wasn't the shallow claw marks left on the scholar's abdomen, nor the pained cry that he let out upon hitting the floor. No, the real, most pressing concern was the fact that momentum sent Cyrus skidding across the platform and partially over the edge, and it was only his quick seizure of the nearby remains of a pillar that prevented him from plunging down into the ruin's depths. Still, from the waist down, he hung precariously over the ledge, and even as he began struggling to pull himself up, Redeye began bearing down on him.
"Cyrus!" Alfyn shouted, taking off running. Though he was still without his axe, he sprinted towards the imperiled scholar in order to provide aid. Still, Redeye was exponentially faster than the apothecary, and would certainly reach the edge of the platform long before Alfyn ever did.
Which was why H'aanit needed to act even more swiftly than the beast's large, clambering steps.
The huntress drew back another arrow, this time imbuing its tip with a jolt of lightning magic. There was no time to line up for a better shot at a more vital area, so she settled for loosing the arrow towards the most substantial section of its lanky body - its back. The magically charged arrow flew true, lodging itself into the spot between Redeye's shoulders and discharging its stored electricity full-force into the creature.
Redeye reared back, its body writhing and spasming as the lightning magic coursed through it. The substantial delay in its progress granted Alfyn an opening to charge past it and grab Cyrus' arms to start pulling him up, but H'aanit knew better than to rest on her laurels. She slung her bow over her shoulder and retrieved her hatchet instead, rushing in to slice at the monster's legs before it could regain its footing.
To her dismay, her blade did not cut nearly as deep as it likely should have. Redeye's skin was unnaturally thick, and only small globs of its black blood periodically spattered against the floor beneath them. Still, she kept swinging, hoping to be, if nothing else, a distraction irritating enough to draw Redeye's attention away from her vulnerable friends.
Once its seizing had subsided, Redeye shot back up to its feet - and hands? - and whirled on the huntress, swiping at her with malformed claws. H'aanit leapt backwards, feeling the rush of air from its attack brushing her face, then switched her hatchet out for her bow once again. She fired arrow after arrow as she moved steadily backwards, goading the monster into ignoring the others and focusing solely on pursuing her.
Her plan worked, perhaps a bit too well.
Enraged, Redeye suddenly darted forward with frightening speed, catching H'aanit in one clawed hand at last and slamming her hard into the floor. The air fled from H'aanit's lungs in a startled wheeze, and her bow flew from her fingers, clattering to the ground several paces away. Dazedly, the huntress distantly registered Tressa's panicked scream and Linde's furious yowl, but those pinpricks of noise were nothing compared to Redeye's slavering breaths directly over her head.
As she gasped for air, she struggled to reach for the hatchet at her hip, but one of the beast's claws dug into her shoulder, keeping her thoroughly pinned. H'aanit winced, nearly gagging as pungent, black blood from the wound at Redeye's jaw dribbled onto her cheek. One of her legs was free enough to kick out at its exposed ribs, but even H'aanit's exceptional strength was not enough to crack them, or even to cause the creature to flinch. Though she could already hear the pounding footsteps of her companions rushing to her aid, for the current moment, Redeye had her trapped.
Belatedly, H'aanit remembered that she should have been closing her eyes.
Her breath caught in her chest as the beast lowered its head, its impossibly slack jaw hanging loose as it stared blankly down at her. It did not attempt to bite her - this was not an animal that killed for the sake of food, but a monster that thrived on pain and despair. Instead, it simply locked gazes with the huntress, its hollow, lidless eyes glowing that faint, titular red.
H'aanit tried to drag her gaze away, but whatever dark magic roiled inside of Redeye latched onto her and held fast. She felt its curse wash over her in a suffocating wave, and her madly kicking leg soon dropped to the floor with a thud that was far too loud to have been made by flesh and boot alone. When she tried to kick out again, the leaden limb refused to move.
She was in the process of meeting the same fate that her master had. When the realization came, it was surreal and almost muted. Somewhere, in the back of H'aanit's mind, there was a constant thrum of fear, but it was drowned out by the empty static that filled her ears. The huntress felt as though she was merely a spectator hidden somewhere deep within her body, staring silently out at the horrific beast that pinned her, when by all rights, she should have been screaming. Perhaps it was all a symptom of Redeye's petrifying curse.
Or perhaps this was simply what going into shock felt like.
Idly, she wondered how Z'aanta had been able to shake his fear long enough to pen a letter to her before his entire body had turned to stone. Though, she supposed, writing was likely much easier when one did not have a foul, slavering beast pinning them to the ground. Perhaps when facing her master, Redeye had simply cast its curse and run off, not bothering to take the time to watch its victim solidify. Was it only watching her so intently now because, somewhere in that primal, rage-filled mind, it recognized some thread of connection between her and its past prey? H'aanit did not know, and doubted she would ever find out.
Time felt as though it was dragging slower and slower with every passing moment - though it had likely been less than a minute since Redeye had slammed her to the floor. Already, numbness had spread across both of H'aanit's legs, and she found herself unable to move anything at all below her hips. Irrationally, she wished for a moment that she had carried a dose of the herb-of-grace concoction herself, but in her current predicament, it would have done her next to no good. Her left shoulder was held in place by the claw that pierced it, and her right arm was pinned to her side by the rest of the monster's misshapen hand. Even if she'd had the potion with her, she never would have been able to reach it, let alone get it up to her lips. As much as it pained her to admit, there was no other option open to her aside from waiting for her companions to free her and administer the medicine that would purge the curse from her body.
As it turned out, however, she would not have to wait for long.
No sooner had the thought come to her mind than a spear point hurtled into her field of few, piercing straight into one of the monster's gleaming red eyes. Remarkably, the sockets weren't entirely hollow after all - the tip of the spear struck some strange, sunken, featureless eyeball, and in doing so caused black blood to spurt from Redeye's face as the crimson light emanating from that spot flickered out. Redeye howled in agony, jerking its face away from H'aanit's as it threw its head back and clawed at its own eyes.
Tressa - brave Tressa, who had charged straight into the face of a creature of nightmares in order to rescue her friend - grabbed H'aanit under the arms the moment the huntress was no longer pinned. She dragged H'aanit as far away from the writhing Redeye as she could, even though she audibly cried out with the effort of pulling the weight of H'aanit's fully-stone legs.
"I-I've got you, H'aanit!" the merchant stammered between shallow breaths. "A-Alfyn gave me the potion, s-so…we'll have you b-back up in no time! W-Whew…okay…Alfyn, now!"
"On it!" came the apothecary's answering cry. Evidently having succeeded in his attempt to rescue Cyrus from a terrible fall, he now ran forward, his outstretched hands glowing blue with ice magic. He released a surge of power from each palm, one aiming at Redeye's legs to freeze him in place, and the other forming a frigid stalagmite that shot up from the ground an into the beast's remaining eye. As Redeye screeched with the onset of a new wave of pain, Alfyn darted up to its back, where his axe was still lodged. With every thrash of the creature's spindly yet powerful body, the ice encasing its lower half cracked, but Alfyn was fast enough to wrench his weapon from its spine with a spray of black blood, then quickly retreat backwards with a shout of, "All yours, Professor!"
"O ice, pierce them through!" a disheveled, yet upright Cyrus proclaimed, calling upon an even greater surge of ice magic in order to bombard Redeye with an onslaught of razor sharp icicles. The ice shards did not tear the beast to ribbons as it would have any other creature, but they did contribute a copious amounts of cuts and slices across its body, with a few of them even lodging deeply into its flesh and remaining there.
As H'aanit watched her companions assail the blinded Redeye with countless attacks, she became dimly aware of Tressa fiddling with the bottle containing the herb-of-grace potion beside her. The stone had crept up above the huntress' waist by that point, but the merchant was still able to prop her up into a sitting positon and bring the small bottle to her lips. H'aanit wasn't so far gone that she couldn't drink the concoction, so rather than needing to smear it against her mouth, she merely took a small sip of the cool liquid and paused to let the medicine do its work.
A bolt of energy rushed through her, and as the stone flaked away from her her legs, H'aanit gasped and sat straight up, no longer needing Tressa's steadying hand. It was as though the life that had been steadily draining out of her had suddenly flooded back into her body all at once, and she found herself instinctively springing to her feet.
"Tressa," H'aanit panted, looking back down at the visibly relieved merchant with a crooked smile, "I thanke thee. Thou hast shown much bravery on this day."
"Aw, well…I'm just happy to help!" Tressa bounced to her feet as well, brushing off her dress and grinning. "Ready to finish this?"
"Indeed." At a light bump against her leg, H'aanit looked down to see Linde standing at her side, tail swishing in anticipation and H'aanit's bow held gently in her mouth. H'aanit smiled softly and took the weapon from the snow leopard's jaws, scratching her behind the ears briefly in the process. "And mine thanks to thee as well, Linde," she said. "Wouldst thou helpen me to landen the final blow?"
Linde chuffed her assent, then took off running in Redeye's direction. With both of its petrifying eyes destroyed beyond repair, it was easy for the leopard to dart around it, snapping at its limbs and drawing streams of black blood. As Linde carried out her own assault, H'aanit pulled three arrows from her quiver, nocking them all simultaneously in a line. Lightning magic poured form her fingertips, engulfing the three arrowheads in a bright yellow glow, as well as locking the shafts together so that they would all fly as one.
Drawing in a slow, deep breath, she waited for the perfect opening.
Redeye was clearly in a panic, its arms and legs flailing for purchase as it lost more and more of its dark blood. Its sight had been stolen, and it lacked any sort of visible nose or ears - could it even rely on other senses, or were sight and touch its only ways of recognizing the world around it? For a split second, H'aanit almost felt sorry for the clearly terrified creature, but when her gaze briefly flicked to the stone forms of the guards that had come from Marsalim, her heart quickly hardened once more.
This monster had stolen the lives of all that had encountered it, Z'aanta - and nearly H'aanit herself - included. Now, it was time for it to give them all back.
Master, H'aanit thought, watching Linde pounce on Redeye's back and cause it to rear back in surprise. Z'aanta. Or…Father, perhaps. I will see thee again very soon.
The huntress' focus narrowed in on Redeye's exposed neck. Though her pierced shoulder burned with pain, she drew her lightning-imbued arrows without wavering.
Returnen to hell, beast. Where thou belongest.
The arrows flew true.
Just as Linde jumped clear of the ensuing chaos, the magic-strengthened projectiles surged as one through Redeye's throat. Their tips tore at its jugular, and lightning arced through its grotesque, unnatural form. It spasmed and shrieked, though its monstrous voice was now garbled by the black blood burbling out of its ruined throat. The crimson light illuminating its maw and ribcage flickered erratically before extinguishing completely.
With one final scream of pain, rage, and something else that H'aanit could not quite place, Redeye finally fell to the floor, collapsed in a heap of too-long limbs. When its body crumpled and went limp, H'aanit got the distinct impression of a long-suffering soul finally breathing a sigh of relief. As the last echoes of its cries faded into the depths of the ruins, Redeye's form dissolved into slate gray dust that scattered loosely across the floor.
Finally, the Grimsand Ruins were silent once more.
H'aanit lowered her bow with a long exhale, exhaustion crashing over her in a wave as the pain in her injuries fought to make itself known once more. Her mind was still elsewhere, however, as she gazed at the ashen remains of the nightmarish creature she had just killed.
"What evil was this…?" she whispered to herself. Whatever Redeye had actually been, it had not truly belonged to the natural world. She could not read its heart, it had appeared to be in terrible pain simply by existing within its own twisted body, and upon death, its corpse had been rendered nothing but dust. The huntress had never seen anything like this beast before - and she adamantly hoped that she never would again.
But dwelling on the monster's strange attributes could wait for another time. For now, there were far more pressing matters to concern herself with.
Resting a hand on Linde's head, the snow leopard having returned to her mistress' side once Redeye had vanished, H'aanit turned to observe the statues of Marsalim's guards that had been left standing on their own during the battle. "Doth this meane the curse is lifted?" she mused, idly sensing her companions all following her gaze.
As they watched, the stone soldiers began to shift, their joints cracking and popping as their petrified bodies returned to true flesh. They gasped for air once their faces had regained their color, some falling to their knees in bewilderment. The man in the lead, presumably the general, had been frozen mid-attack, and his sword now finally finished its swing, only to clang onto the stone floor with an impressive reverberation.
"The devil take ye, monster!" the general cried, the words that had been stuck in his throat for so long finally bursting free. In the next moment, the man's eyes widened, then darted around to take in the sights of the battle-weary travelers standing before him, his men gradually regaining their proper forms, and his own restored body. "Hm!? I-I can move again! I am saved!"
H'aanit smiled. Exhausted as she was, she could still take pride in the notion that her and her companions' actions had set these men - and likely many others - free from their stone prisons. Even more, her heart swelled at the thought of what she knew was occurring in a quiet, forest clearing in the Spectrewood.
Another man, returning to flesh. A direwolf leaping up to lick his softened face. A spark of pride lighting the man's eyes, for he knew full well who had saved him.
I will be there soon, Master.
The huntress straightened, addressing the guards with a serene smile.
"The beast is slain."
See you guys next time for Tale 38: Abandoned!