Huan Strongarm: A Bartfort Folktale

by Vergil Creiger

In which a simple delivery to Holfort goes horribly horribly wrong.

19. Pitch Black

Huan had done it. All he had left to do was deliver the book, and Zefnat the Scholar would tell him what he wanted to know. Only one obstacle remained in his path.

Huan Strongarm: A Bartfort Folktale, by Lufas Maphaahl

Pietru grew to her natural size, ignoring the Aspirants as they tugged at her fur. "C'mon. I'll give you a ride."

Many of the younger female monks were bidding farewell to the three love interests; they kept glancing at Olivia to see if she was becoming jealous, but she was ignoring them in favour of saying goodbye to Miala, Qelah and Bilan. Leon leapt onto the Elder Dragon's back to avoid Wid and Sama, who were both wearing shirts over their robes with the words 'Huander Twins' written on them in glow in the dark letters. They must have been very appreciative of his help, as they were now officially his biggest fans.

"Thanks for doing this," he sighed gratefully. The wolfdog flopped onto his belly, snuggling cosily into her warm fur. "You're saving us a lot of time."

"It's fine," she said blithely. "You've been carrying me on your back since we got here; it makes sense that I returned the favour."

"Perhaps the exercise will help you lose the excess fat?" Moz suggested, taking full advantage of the fact that she could no longer understand him. He fit loose enough around Leon's ankle that he had been able to use him as a sheathe for the freezing axe; for reasons he chose to attribute to the witch Silver, the weapon's biting cold was nowhere near as uncomfortable as it used to be. "Also you smell. You must bathe irregularly."

"Lord Huan!" Leon stuck his head out of the Dragon Reaper's fur, immediately inspiring cheers from his adoring fans. Abbot Laurent stood on the terrace looking up at him, flanked by the Six Masters of the Monastery. "Are you sure I can't convince you to stay? Everyone here understands you when you speak, and we were planning the mother of all keggers to celebrate your visit."

"That's fine, thanks." Truth be told, part of Leon dreaded returning to Holfort. It had been nice having more than one person who understood him. "I'm just sorry we had to leave before Lady Canaria woke up. Say hi for me."

"Will do!" The monks gave a final cheer as the Versa Pietru took off, all five of Leon's party now on her back. Olivia shrieked with glee as they soared through the air, while Chris nearly lost his glasses in the take off. Julius found himself laughing helplessly as Jilk's hair and Leon's jowls flapped in the wind.

The sun was setting, ending the day that had begun with Leon pulling a carriage up to Thasch Mountain. As Mylene had summoned them back they had decided not to stay the night, instead opting to return to the carriage and have Leon pull an all-nighter. As she was still under the Saint's compulsion, Pietru couldn't leave the Blood Barrier and thus couldn't carry them the entire way: instead she dropped them off at the valley they had used to enter in the first place.

"I guess this is goodbye," smiled Leon ruefully. The White Dragon had been fun to hang out with, and had a sense of humour similar to his own. Also she sort of reminded him of a cat, and Leon had always been a cat person. "It was fun."

"It was a good day," she agreed. He half expected her to nuzzle them goodbye, but of course her massive horns would have gotten in the way. Pietru turned to Olivia with sweet, nostalgic eyes. "Take care of yourself, fairy. Be mindful of how you use those powers."

"I will," smiled Olivia. "I'll definitely visit. I'll bring Huan too… or maybe even Mr Leon!"

The Elder Dragon made an odd noise that was probably supposed to be a laugh. "If you bring Mr Leon instead of the dog, then he probably wouldn't understand a word I say!" She turned to the three humans, who smiled up at her expectantly. "The three of you… were also here."

"You too," said Julius emotionally. Jilk gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder that was rife with homerotic subtext, while Chris discreetly wiped a tear from behind his glasses. Pietru rolled her eyes.

"Morons."

With a beat of her wings she flew away, leaving the merry band to hoof it. "I'm here too, you know!" Moz shouted after her. "Your tail makes you look like a Maine Coon!"

Much as he did on the way there, Leon was careful to make sure that no one figured out what they were walking on. All of them, even Olivia, were naive enough to believe that he was simply growing on them. "I'll be glad to be out of here," he mused. "I'll bet Mylene misses me."

"Is she your wife?" Onemore asked curiously. Leon was about to say she was when Olivia coughed, quickly making him do a verbal backspace.

"She's really more of a girlfriend," he lied instead. "We've been in a relationship for a few years and had a few kids, but we're both worried the fire might go out if we tie the knot." He had been hoping to make her laugh, but the fairy just ignored him and coughed again. "Olivia? Are you okay?"

She was now coughing so hard she could no longer walk, doubling over and placing her hand on his back to support herself. "Huan," she gasped. "I can't… I can't breathe…"

Olivia was healing her lungs in real time, which was why she was doing so much better than the other bipeds; Julius and Chris had fallen to their knees coughing, while Jilk was valiantly trying to help the Prince even as he went blind from his eyes tearing up.

"What's going on?" Leon panicked. "Is there a vent leading to a volcanic layer of the dungeon or…"

Then he saw it, so fine it was almost invisible. His human eyes would never have seen them in the fading light; tiny particles of purple mist that floated from the sky like poisonous snow. He sniffed the air, the mist burning his nostrils like disinfectant. He could smell nothing else; the hyperawareness he usually enjoyed was gone, his radar picking up nothing but the toxic mist.

It was definitely UnFae.

"We need to keep moving," said Leon urgently, grabbing the shaft of the freezing axe with his teeth and flinging it into the air. It began circling over the trees ahead, but didn't seem to notice anything suspicious. "Moz, help me get them onto my back. Hold them in place and try to keep a cloth over their noses. They all have handkerchiefs, I've seen them use them."

"Sir!" Onemore barked, morphing into his true form and searching the pockets of the bipeds for what he needed. They had a difficult time keeping them from falling off Leon's back, wasting precious time as the purple mist thickened. When they were finally ready he took off through the trees, heading for the outpost where they had left the carriage in a straight line.

Leon remembered that when the first Warmother had attacked, the woods had been picked clean of life; at the minute he could still hear the sounds of birds and other woodland beasts, though they were clearly suffering from the poison mist. Then, one by one, then went quiet. For some it was sudden, for others quiet; Leon almost thought they were succumbing to the gas, until he heard the telltale sound of two predators fighting over a piece of meat.

Something was here.

Something was systematically hunting down every living thing in the area and tearing them apart.

The Warspawn.

By the time they arrived at the outpost the sun had gone down; between the night, the overcast clouds and the dark mist, visibility plummeted until they could only see in a small circle illuminated by the glowing sword and armour of Sir Onemore. It was well and truly pitch black.

"Get them down," hissed Leon. The bipeds were coughing less with the handkerchiefs over their mouths, but were still in no shape to fight. Jilk in particular had almost passed out, presumably having pushed himself too far helping the Prince. Moz carefully helped them down onto the soft grass, keeping his shield up in case of attack.

"They're in bad shape, sir," he remarked. "We need to get them out of this mist. If we can get to the carriage-"

"That won't work," interrupted Leon. He could hear the axe whistling overhead, the aimless way it whistled back and forth suggesting it had lost track of them. "We're surrounded."

Sir Onemore paused. "Excuse me?"

"They came out once the sun went down. Go ahead: wave that sword around."

The Comet General did as he said: the soft light of his sword revealed countless gnashing jaws in the dark. They briefly screamed in pain before withdrawing into the blackness, too quickly for them to get a decent look. He almost dropped his weapon in fright. "What the-"

"There's more of them this time," said Leon grimly. "Way more. Either the Warmother was born earlier and had time to have more Spawn… or we were right, and there's just a lot of variation between specimens. In that case the Warmother probably just has a more rapid birthing cycle."

"They were afraid of the light!" Moz realised. "They retreated as soon as I… Wait." He looked into the abyss, his hands shaking from the utter certainty that something was looking back. "They're out there, aren't they? Just outside the circle of light?"

"Yep." The great wolfdog hunkered protectively over the bipeds, afraid to grow too large for fear that part of him might poke into the dark. "I can hear them."

"How many are there?"

"Thousands."

He could hear them, even if couldn't see or smell them. Their claws skittered off the reptilian hides of their fellows as they constantly crawled over one another, hissing and spitting at an almost inaudible range. There were two other noises he couldn't identify: one he realised was their batlike wings, the other he assumed to be the swish of long tails.

Unlike either of his two prior encounters with the UnFae they seemed to have actual life cycles: the Spawn of the Queen-Mother were born live, while the Warspawn of the alien scorpion had spent split seconds in eggs before hatching into fully grown adults. Far above were infant versions of the unseen predators; creatures the size of bats whose whispering voices deepened as they grew to maturity over the course of minutes.

Leon strained his ears, trying to detect if the Warmother was nearby, but the seething mass of horrors covered up any noise their parent might have made. All he could hear was the black. All he could smell was the mist.

The wolfdog gave a single, harsh cough. Mighty as he was, even he was starting to be affected by the sheer amount of poison in his system.

"Are you alright?" Moz asked shrilly. "I… I'm not affected, I don't breathe! I can… I-I can…"

"You need to get them inside," said Leon hoarsely. He now had an itch in his lungs and throat that got worse with each breath, making it harder and harder to speak. "I saw their skin burn when the light touched them; that should be their weakness. It should give us an opponent to get to cover."

They began awkwardly shuffling through gloom, both of them desperately fighting to keep the coughing bipeds inside the circle of light. The artificial darkness completely threw off Leon's sense of direction, but he was able to find a building to hide in when heard the sound of claws scraping against the stone wall.

It was one of those buildings with a cellar with an outdoor entrance; Sir Onemore yanked the doors open with his free hand, revealing a dusty storage filled with crates and barrels. There definitely wasn't any Warspawn inside, or else they would have fled at the sight of the Comet General's blade. "We need a… We need a torch. Can you make one?"

There was a barrel of oil in sight of the cellar door; as soon as the bipeds were inside Moz grabbed a lantern off a shelf, filling it and lighting it by using his shield and fist as a makeshift flint. "There! That should keep them at bay!"

"Perfect," sighed Leon. Not a lot of mist had made it into the cellar, and already both the wolfdog and the bipeds were starting to breathe easier. "You stay here and keep them safe. Keep multiple light sources lit to avoid making too many shadows, and whatever you do, don't open the door until I give you the all clear."

Sir Onemore couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Master, you can't possibly intend to fight those things by yourself! You'll be killed!"

Leon just gave him a sad, resigned look. "This isn't where I die. Trust me."

Moz remembered what Leon had said to the Harp of Dreams - about the Greatest Wolf to Ever Draw Breath - and he understood. As he pulled the cellar door shut the wolfdog turned to a stack of crates to his left, growing large and knocking them over so that they barricaded the exit.

Then there was no light, and the unseen monsters descended on him like a great wave. For a moment Onemore stood where he was and listened: he could hear the hissing and snarling of the Warspawn as well as the furious barking of the wolfdog, which became increasingly shrill with pain and panic. Above it all was the sounds of violence, as the giant beast and its countless attackers fought like the savage animals they were. The building above his head was quickly destroyed - though the ceiling held it rained dust down on his head - and as the battle raged back and forth he could hear the sound of trees being uprooted and destroyed.

Moz arranged the four teenagers so that they would be more comfortable, as all of them had passed out as the coughing subsided. He lit a few more lanterns and arranged them around the room, then stood over his charges with his sword and shield in hand.

Moissa Onemore was a knight. Leon had entrusted him with their safety, so he would believe in his Master and stand vigil.

Far above, the freezing axe heard as the fighting started. It immediately noticed the pain and fear in Leon's voice, but didn't bother trying to help: the night, the clouds and the mist had formed a perfect storm of darkness, creating the very real danger that it might hit Leon by mistake if it thoughtlessly swooped in.

Luckily, it knew a guy. The axe spun away towards the Orklands, the sounds of battle fading slowly behind it.

Pietru had settled into her nest for the night when the axe arrived, whizzing past the mountaintop she called home and scaring the hell out of her. While her knee jerk reaction was to murder whatever was intruding on her airspace, she paused when she recognised it as Leon's messenger.

It looped around, skipping awkwardly across the rocks before landing with perfect balance on its shaft. "You're with the fairy and the dog, right?" She felt like she needed to clarify, just in case. "Did they forget something? Do you need me to, like… like introduce you to the monks or something?"

The axe shook its head from side to side, not immediately certain how to communicate. While Leon and Iven had gotten fairly good at guessing how it was feeling, actual discourse was a whole new frontier. It attempted to point itself in the direction of the UnFae attack, which was difficult to do without once again taking to the air.

The Dragon Reaper had started to realise that it was trying to tell her something. "Do you want me to come with you?" The axe turned back to her and bobbed its head gratefully, attempting to imitate a nod. "Wait, are they in danger?" There was another nod, more urgent this time. "Well let's go then!"

The White Dragon took flight as the freezing axe led the way, only for the familiar mental block to kick in; just as she was about to soar out of the Blood Barrier she found her wings locking in place, preventing her from crossing the invisible threshold. Pietru's wings beat slowly as she hovered in place, already able to see the part of the woods covered in dark mist.

"I'm sorry," she spat frustratedly. "I can't go any further." The axe whizzed around her head, giving her the impression it was panicking. "Believe me, I'd help if I could! It's just… It's just that the Saint compelled me so I couldn't leave the mountain range! I've tried so many times for hundreds, literally, hundreds of years and I just can't… I get to this point and my brain just stops me from moving, okay!" While her hearing wasn't as good as Leon's, she could still hear his screams of pain in the distance.

For just a moment, the centuries of loneliness won. Pietru blinked as her eyes teared up.

"I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm so, so sorry."

By this point, the Zholochai encampment behind her had finally lined up their shot; the Elder Dragon had been so focused on saving her friends that she had overlooked them entirely, giving them time to prepare a trebuchet loaded with rocks. The payload took her completely by surprise, hitting her in the back and knocking her out of the sky. The White Dragon bellowed as she found herself spiralling helplessly, hitting the ground hard and carving a long rent with her weight.

"Assholes!" Pietru snarled, angrily spitting the dirt out of her mouth. "When I get my claws on them I'm going to… to…"

Her voice trailed away in awe. For the first time she could remember, Pietru was outside of the Blood Barrier. She had landed at the foot of the mossy valley, the ground having ruptured beneath her to expose the ancient Ork skeletons beneath. She had been so used to being trapped that she had forgotten the nature of her imprisonment: the Saint's hold over her was entirely psychological, and there was nothing physically in place that prevented her from leaving.

It had never occurred to her to simply arrange to be pushed.

"Booyah."

Leon screamed in agony as the mutant UnFae bit out one of his eyes. It felt like some of the smaller ones were trying to bite through his skin and eat him from the inside, so he used the strategy he had originally developed for use against the Qurio; first he rapidly shrank, crushing everything inside him as his body contracted. He then immediately grew back to maximum size, causing the Warspawn to be blown back by the shockwave. This bought him enough time to regrow his eye, which didn't matter much considering he still couldn't see shit.

There were no words to express how frightening, how lonely and how demoralising it was to fight in the pitch blackness. All he could smell was the airborne toxins. All he could hear was the hiss of invisible monsters. All he could see was darkness. The only sense he could trust was touch, and all he could feel was pain.

At least they tasted better than the last Warspawn. Bubblegum flavoured, if you can believe it.

He had totally lost track of where he was; the building where he had stashed the four teenagers had quickly been levelled, and he had no idea if anyone in the basement had lived. He had crashed through what may have been a few trees, but otherwise the hurricane of violence had robbed him of all spacial awareness. There was no option to rely on his healing factor as the savage creatures were literally eating him alive as they fought, and could overwhelm his ability to regenerate at any moment if he lost his concentration.

Leon had felt despair many times since arriving in Holfort. He knew what it felt like. This wasn't it. Leon felt pissed.

It was as if Abbot Laurent had lit a fire inside of him. At first, the things he had said had simply made him feel better about his inevitable fate; somehow, it had come to mean so much more.

Abbot Laurent.

The Prioress, Ukham the Wanderer.

Master Ean, the Chamberlain.

Lyene, Keeper of the Gate.

The young Aspirants playing in front of the great mural.

The older brother plagued by octopus spirits.

Sister Miala of the Iomani.

Sister Qelah of the Muthavi.

Brother Wid.

Novice Sama.

Sister Bilan.

In his memories, Canaria Monastery was a slow-burning pit of madness and despair, but visions of his exploits had changed them. Inspired them. Leon knew that somehow, somewhere, somewhen, a monk was gazing into the fog of history and seeing this moment. He no longer lived in the present: he lived in the future. Someone's future. And what they saw was going to inspire them to push through the soul crushing visions to a happier, healthier tomorrow.

Somehow, the fact that these irritating creatures were trying to rob those good people of their hard earned happy ending made him even angrier than every wound they had inflicted on him put together.

So Leon kept fighting. He ripped and he tore. He never slowed down and never got tired. And would never, ever give up. Because the only thing that scared him more than the UnFae was the idea of letting those people down.

The punchline was that the monks were watching the entire battle in real time. Abbot Laurent had set up a giant, magical, floating TV screen that broadcast everything the wolfdog did with the purple mist edited out for a better viewing experience. The kegger Laurent had promised was in full swing, and most of the monks were roaring drunk as they shouted encouragement he couldn't hear.

No matter how badly Leon was overwhelmed, none of them doubted him for a moment.

At last, the Versa Pietru arrived; she swooped from the sky like an avenging angel, her roar blowing back the mist in billowing clouds. The Warspawn screamed in agony as they scrabbled away, their bodies burning in the light that poured off her form.

When she landed beside him Leon snarled at her, which actually caused her to flinch slightly. It took him a moment to recognise her. "Pietru?" Leon rasped, his throat sore from barking. "How? I thought you… I thought you couldn't…"

"I was pushed," was all she said. "Details later." The Warspawn were now fully visible; they had flat heads like hammerhead sharks, with no eyes and reptilian mouths. Each had two legs with long raptor claws and a pair of batlike wings, with three long tails tipped with long stings swaying behind them. They had been used on him many times already; they weren't even venomous, just very sharp and painful. "What do you say we fuck these fools up?"

Leon made a noise halfway between a laugh and a cough. "That's the best damn idea I've heard today."

The White Dragon and the Black Hound stood back to back, snarling their defiance at the horde. The Warspawn recoiled in terror, literally burning up and disintegrating in the light. Back at Canaria Monastery, the crowd went wild.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!" Laurent cheered, hugging a random person beside him. "THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"

The two kaiju began shredding the monsters like confetti. While their numbers were still immeasurable, the light emanating from the Elder Dragon was keeping them at bay. Now that he could actually see, Leon noticed the raptors had bright blue blood.

It wasn't only the light that was helping the visibility; every flap of Pietru's wings sent the purple mist billowing away, finally allowing Leon to regenerate his lungs. The Dragon Reaper crushed one of the raptors under her paw, goring two more on her forward facing horns. Even as they dissolved into motes of light she took a deep breath, spitting a barrage of energy balls into the swarm.

The Warspawn screamed as they were blown apart, the landscape reshaped by the blast. Unfortunately she didn't particularly try to aim, and accidentally obliterated the remains of the outpost. As the dust cleared the cellar door opened, allowing Moz to stick his head out.

"Pietru, you dumb blonde! You're going to hurt someone!"

The White Dragon coughed tiredly; the light emanating from her body was now slightly diminished, emboldening the raptors into approaching. "That winded me a little," she wheezed. "I can't recharge without a source of light."

"And take a bath! I can smell you even without a nose!"

"I need the sun, the moon, the stars: anything!"

Leon had continued to slaughter the Warspawn the entire time; he had been fighting for much longer than she had and wasn't even out of breath. Once she tuned into it, it was actually a little intimidating. "Wait, would the stars be enough?"

"Sure, but only if there were absolutely no clouds-"

When Leon threw his head back and howled, Pietru didn't immediately realise what he was going for. But as it dragged on and on, increasing steadily in volume, she found herself backing away.

The ground beneath his feet began to crack, causing long fissures to snake their way through the grass. The sound became focused through his snout into a concentrated sonic blast, causing the cells of the raptors circling above him to vibrate and explode straight out of their bodies.

The clouds above him began to distort, pushing upwards into a dome shape before finally bursting outward; a great circle was formed that widened by the second, acting as a window to the sea of stars above. After the pitch blackness the starlight was blinding, illuminating the countryside and decimating the Warspawn; they screamed in pain as their flesh began to burn, disintegrating before they could make it to cover.

Through it all, Leon howled. The trees around him were blown back from the force, and every living thing on the continent either cowered or fled.

Miles away, Roland and Mylene had retired to bed; the Queen was reading a novel about a Princess with a sarcastic but loyal knight who whisked her away from her arranged marriage to a life of debauchery. The King was reading a magazine entitled 'Monster Girls of Holfort: Slutty Dungeon'.

They both looked up as the distant howl echoed through the walls, causing the furniture to rattle ominously.

"Fucking dog," said Roland, and went back to his porn.

Eventually Leon stopped for breath; Pietru had been fully recharged by the flood of starlight, and was staring at him in something resembling awe. "Well that wasn't in the goddamn mural!"

Leon noticed something over her shoulder; something was crouched against the rocks, and was incredibly hard to see thanks to its dark scales. Between Pietru and the returned sky, it was finally exposed; the creature resembled an ordinary lizard, only bigger and longer than two horse drawn carriages end to end. It had pitch black scales to aid its camouflage, with bizarre feet with two toes and a long tail.

Its head was unspeakably strange; it had no eyes or any other features besides its mouth, which was lipless, tongueless, sideways and had only molars for teeth. A constant stream of the tiny raptors were being ejected from its back, where they were immediately incinerated by the starlight.

"Warmother!" barked Leon. "Kill it!"

The monster puked purple gas at him as he lunged, proving it to be the source of the toxic mist. Leon dove into the smog without hesitation, clamping his jaws around the lizard's throat and throwing it over his shoulder. The Warmother was impaled on Pietru's forward horns, thrashing and howling impotently.

Curiously, the Warmother seemed to have no means of defending itself besides its breath. Leon had noticed that the raptors were much more dangerous than the amphibians from the previous night; perhaps the lizard had placed all of its skill points (so to speak) in the quality of its children, which was why it was so weak compared to the alien scorpion.

Pietru ignored the Warspawn as they crowded around her, shrieking furiously as they tried to save their parent; instead she took a deep breath and fired a beam of crackling white energy into the impaled lizard, causing it to scream with pain as it was cooked alive. The force of the attack blasted it off her horns, causing it to crash helplessly into the trees.

Leon caught it before it could come to rest, sinking his fangs into its body and gripping it in his mouth like a bone. The Warmother squealed as purple blood gushed from its wounds, tasting strongly of asparagus, for some reason. The raptors' attempts to save it were to no avail, as the fading of the mists and the dispersal of the clouds had bathed the land in light; they were burning up like matches, and the few that reached him disintegrated beneath his massive muscles.

The lizard thrashed as Leon shook it from side to side, its bones shattering from whiplash. With a final crunch it went limp, and at long last the infant Warspawn stopped popping out of its back. Leon spat the creature contemptuously onto the ground, smacking it experimentally with one paw to see if it was alive.

"Yeah!" he barked. "Who's the man!"

Pietru eyed the body warily; she swiped at it in a vaguely feline manner, then when it didn't react she pinned it with one paw just to be safe. "So that was a Warmother," she remarked. "How did it compare to the last one?"

"It was actually much weaker," admitted Leon. "But the Spawn were way worse. The camouflage thing was clever; I tend to go into most fights thinking that there's nothing that escapes my detection, but this thing shut down all my senses one at a time. If you hadn't shown up, then…"

"Don't thank me." The freezing axe spun out the sky, whizzing giddily about the wolfdog's head. "Thank your friend."

"Thanks lil buddy." Leon turned to shout over his shoulder. "Hey! Moz! The coast is clear!"

The Comet General stuck his head out for the second time. "Okie dokie!" He very carefully carried Olivia into the open air, one of the boys slung over his shoulder like a spare jacket. When they were both lying on the grass he returned for the other two, tucking them under his arms and bonking them carelessly against the scenery. "Never doubted you, boss!"

"There's so much to smell out here!" Pietru gushed. With the UnFae dead and the mist gone the air was fresh and bracing. Leon could smell trees, and grass, and flowers, and the small, fortunate few that escaped being devoured by the Warspawn. "And it's all so beautiful! This is amazing!"

Leon gave her a happy, doggy smile. "I'm happy for you."

The carriage was thankfully intact, but had been tipped on its side at some point; Leon effortlessly righted it with one paw, then sat off to the side with Pietru as Moz began loading it with the unconscious teenagers.

"So what now?" Leon asked, having received a brief explanation as to how Pietru escaped the Blood Barrier. "You have your freedom, and the state religion loves you enough that the human population won't be a threat. You can do whatever you want."

The Elder Dragon almost squealed with glee. "I want to fly! I want to fly wherever I want without staying in a tiny little cage! I want to see it all!" A thought occurred to her. "Wait, you… Do you need my help?"

The question threw him for a moment. "With what?"

"With this. The UnFae. Whatshisname… the guy no one respects. Do you need help tracking him down?"

Leon wasn't expecting her to offer this, but he appreciated it anyway. "Actually, yes. I'm probably going to have my cure by tomorrow, so I'll probably spend the day making sure the kids are okay. Once I'm sure that mist didn't leave any side effects I'll go after him at sundown; if you're fine waiting till then, why don't you spend the day stretching your wings and we'll meet up then?"

Pietru felt a purr building deep in her chest. She knew that Leon was being considerate, and had to stop herself from trying to nuzzle him. "Thanks, Huan. You're a good boy."

"I have my moments."

By then the four bipeds were loaded onto the carriage; Leon shrank himself to the size of a horse and allowed Moz to fasten the harness, complaining crankily about the shredded, uneven ground. Sir Onemore was ordered to remain in the carriage, just in case the boys woke up first and tried some gross puberty shit while Olivia was asleep.

"Farewell, Versa Pietru," called Onemore, waving to her through the carriage window. "I know you can't understand me, but I want it on record that I am his retainer, not his slave. Also your horns look like the tusks of an anorexic boar."

"Let it go, Moz."

Pietru's wings shivered as the carriage trundled out of sight. For the first time in centuries, she could go and do whatever she pleased. She was free.

She was free!

She felt a warm surge of gratitude rising up within her; not just towards the wolfdog, but also the fairy, the humans, the sapient axe and even the pretentious knight. It was thanks to them that this was possible… well, them and the-

Pietru's heart leapt into her mouth as she looked down at the Warmother: at some point the lizard had completely separated from its tail, leaving it pinned beneath her paw as it fled into the woods. She realised that the creature had never died, but temporarily stopped reproducing to give the illusion of death.

Pietru didn't care how dangerous the first Warmother had been: the lizard's stealth, as well as the prolific spawn rate of the raptors, made it by far the deadlier predator.

She took to the sky in pursuit, never stopping to consider how Leon's superior senses might aid in tracking it down.

Later that night, Elodach was rudely awoken in his evil lair. One of his two remaining UnFae had shaken him awake, alerting him to the return of the second Warmother. He found it waiting in the woods nearby, while the wounded alien scorpion sobbed behind a tree.

"What the hell are you doing here?" The lizard cringed pathetically as the abuse began, still leaking purple blood from its injuries. "Where is the fairy? Can you do nothing right? Can none of you do anything right?" The creature cried like a child as the semi-immortal began ruthlessly stomping on its injuries. "Can none you worthless fucking failures… What are you doing?"

The Warmother had abruptly burrowed underground, disappearing beneath the earth so quickly it was like it was swallowed up. Elodach looked at the depression left in the earth, then at his remaining UnFae.

"What was all that about?" Both UnFae shrugged. The other Warmother flinched when he looked at it, but then suddenly ran back towards the base. Elodach and his other minions stared blankly as it fled.

Then a mighty roar split the night air, a rain of energy balls exploding all around them. The legendary Versa Pietru soared out of the sky, raining holy hell all around them.

"Who dies first?" she roared. Elodach and his UnFae fled in terror, the Dragon Reaper in hot pursuit.

Boss: The Earth Dragon and the Bioraptors

Summary: The Warspawn are based on the Bioraptors, primary antagonists of the film Pitch Black. Between them, the Mud Demons and the Head Takers, that means all the main Riddick aliens have now been introduced.

The second Warmother is based on the Earth Dragon, a boss from the game Neo Contra for the PS2 and the second appearance of a Contra boss overall. Because of how deadly the Bioraptors are and their reliance on the dark, I wanted a Warmother that was less focused on combat and more capable of using stealth to take advantage of the dark environment while the Spawn did all the work. Leon defeated the first Warmother by tracking it down with his enhanced senses, which is why I wanted the second to be specifically designed to counter his winning strategy.

Warmothers Active: 2

Cocoons Gestating: 0

Remaining UnFae: 2