Author's note:
The following chapter was commissioned by my commissioner. If you'd like to commission a story of your own, details are on my profile. However, don't wait, as the delay in my schedule due to holiday sickness will only afford you a small window to get your commissions in before prices go up like I've been threatening to do since fall of last year.
Also, as I know from experience that some people have sensitive vocabularies and imaginations, even if they think they don't, I thought I'd prepare you all for the manner of villainy in this chapter by quoting this exchange from the movie "Blazing Saddles":
Hedley Lamarr: "Qualifications?"
Applicant: "Rape, murder, arson, and rape."
"...You said 'rape' twice."
"I like rape."
"Charming. Sign right here..."
Leina, to her credit, needed no prompting to wake up. She detached herself from Rowin's body and sat up.
"Who's there?" she called.
Rowin quietly grasped Finnean, but didn't unsheathe him. Instead, he started sliding to the edge of the bed, glancing to where his belt, coat, and chainmail hung off the back of the wooden rocking chair.
The door burst open and a woman in a red cloak rushed the bed. Rowin and Leina rolled away as a massive serrated-edged sword, like a meter-long bonesaw, tore into their bed and split it in two. Rowin unsheathed Finnean and went for his other sword, but it was snatched up in the jaws of a massive, snarling, gray-furred wolf. Its teeth were like a row of daggers, especially the two fangs protruding from the rear of its mouth. Its near-white mane was like a lion's. Its glowing yellow eyes shone from beneath a metal faceplate.
"The lady asked you a question," Rowin said as the woman in red turned her sword towards him.
"I'm the Demon-Hunting Little Red Riding Hood: Zara," said his attacker, "the last opponent you'll ever face."
His retort about why she'd mistake him for a demon was cut short when Zara lunged at him. His counterstroke, aimed at hamstringing her, was caught by the wicked-looking metal of her left hand's gauntlet.
Ow, ow, ow-! Finnean's pained cries compelled Rowin to drop him. With that, Zara lost interest and tossed Finnean aside.
With no better option, Rowin darted over to the chair and was about to go for his throwing knife when the wolf reared up. Rowin whipped his chainmail up like a kite shield and caught the wolf's massive paw on his forearm. It was crushing, but the chain blunted the razor-sharp claws, so Rowin was able to reach out and yank his cutlass out from its scabbard.
The wolf dropped the useless scabbard. Its jaws snapped at Rowin and pulled the chainmail off his arm. He retrieved his knife and, while it wasn't the ideal two-sword style, it only had to last him to the door behind the wolf.
"His demon smell is pungent." The wolf's deep voice echoed from behind its toothy snarl, sounding awfully demonic itself. "The room is full of it."
"I might not've bathed in a while, but demons?" Rowin said, shuffling to the side, waiting for his moment to run. Leina had already done so; she was no longer in the room. "That's pushing it."
"Wit won't save you, demon," Zara said, approaching him slowly, her gauntlet bared and her sword drawn back to strike. The light from the window cast a glow on her red hood and the fair skin of her bust. "We've been tracking you since the massacre."
That complicated things. Getting to the door would've been easy. Getting there without having to kill over a case of mistaken identity? That was the real conundrum, even for Rowin. Wait…
"What massacre?"
The wolf lunged and all hell broke loose. Rowin spun away and was about to start counter-attacking Zara when Leina came barreling in from the hallway, sword raised and ready to chop. Zara caught Rowin's sword with her gauntlet and raised her saw-sword to block Leina. The window shattered inward and Leina hastily brought her blade into a guard, shouldering Zara aside and deflecting a long, toothy spear thrust inside. Zara pulled and nearly twisted Rowin's sword from his grip. Leina managed to hook her buckler behind the spearhead and pulled, but was yanked off her feet and pushed aside by a red, boney claw.
Rowin's eyes widened. "Babau!"
"Demon," the wolf growled. The beast leapt and Rowin managed to fling his throwing knife at the red hand holding the spear. Its spinning blade slashed the red wrist and spattered thick red slime on the blade before it clanged off the wall. The demon hissed and vanished in an implosion of red light, just as the wolf's paws crashed against the window frame.
"We're not done, Wolf!" Zara called, still wrestling for control of Rowin's sword. Wolf, to its credit, sniffed the slime spatter and snorted.
"We were deceived. That red demon is the one we're after."
"Look out!" Rowin shouted.
From above, the red skeletal demon dropped down and slashed Wolf's back with its claw. Wolf howled in pain as Leina recovered and swung wildly at the demon. Its long spear clanged against her sword and buckler in a double-block. The demon leapt at Leina, claws outstretched.
Rowin saw the attack going at Leina, saw how her gear was snagged on the spear's barbs and unable to block properly. He rushed into a headbutt to Zara's temple. While she recoiled, he parked his hand behind her shoulder and whirled, wrenching his sword blade along her gauntlet and forcing her fingers open. In desperation, he finished his spin and flung his cutlass at the demon, but it wouldn't reach in time.
What would, however, was Echidna's serpentine sword. It caught the demon's clawed hand at its fingers and their combined momentum nearly turned those fingers into pointy flying sausages. The demon snapped at Echidna with its teeth but she calmly swayed back, her eyes watching its spear and other hand. Leina's sword hacked at the demon's emaciated red leg, and it vanished again.
Zara, to her credit, didn't attack Rowin while his back was turned, but still glared at him. "He still smells like chaos and violence."
"That sums up our last few days," Leina remarked.
"Awww, and I missed most of it," cooed Echidna's sultry voice. Leina gave her the cold shoulder while Echidna examined her S-shaped sword. Red slime from the demon had turned the metal an off-color, like a stain.
"How long were you standing there?" Rowin asked the scantily-clad elf.
"From when I watched her run in here," Echidna replied, nodding towards Leina. "She's my job, after all."
"What about the red demon?" Zara groused, rolling out her roughed-up shoulder. "It escaped."
Now that Rowin could get a good look at her, he was mildly surprised to see she was yet another knockout beauty. Her fierce blue eyes pierced the shadow cast by her red hood and ash blonde hair, her mouth hidden by a high crimson collar. The collar gave way to a black suspender-like thing; it covered her trapezii and appeared to be fastened to her red cloak. The shoulders of her cloak covered the short white sleeves of her blouse, which the suspenders held up around her curvy bust. A red bow with a blue jewel in the middle held the blouse closed. Holding up the bust itself was an armored leather corset, her white blouse visible at the midriff where the corset, ironically for something intended as armor, failed to shield her stomach.
Her short red skirt masked a frilly white underdress, though Rowin was hesitant to call it any kind of dress as it barely reached past her groin. If Zara bent her knees to 90-degree angles, she'd probably expose her underwear. Starting at mid-thigh, her legs were covered by long white stockings with red tassels at the top. Her high-heeled shoes looked impractical for combat, but he wasn't about to argue with someone who'd claimed to have tracked the babau for what sounded like quite some time.
Finally, there was her clawed metal gauntlet, which reached up past her elbow, but all she had for "armor" on her sword hand was a frilly lace wristband.
"Stop staring at me," said Zara.
Rowin blinked. "Sounds like it didn't come alone," Rowin said, moving to the window. Outside, several village buildings were ablaze and a group of armed villagers were fighting and losing to a gang of horned abominations. He retrieved Finnean and hastily threw on his chainmail and coat.
"Echidna, come with me," Rowin said. "We'll find the others and fight these things off."
Echidna stretched, her firm bust stretching the fabric of her cropped vest. "You're cute, Rowin, but I don't work for free."
"Fair enough," Rowin said, after his gaze left her olive-skinned cleavage. "Leina, come with me. Zara, too, if you like."
"I will not follow someone who smells like demons," Zara stated.
"Innocent people are being attacked and Rowin wants to help," Leina said to the hooded woman. "You want to help, too, right? Let's help each other."
Leina fell in behind Rowin. "I'll follow your lead, Rowin."
Echidna did, too, after he flashed a devious grin at her. She returned it with a smirk; it seemed as if she'd wanted him to compel her cooperation.
Zara was left in the room alone as the wisp of Echidna's dark green ponytail disappeared around the doorframe. After a few moments, her sword shrunk to the size of a cheese knife, and her wolf shrunk to a foofy green-eyed puppy, its metal faceplate and the wound on its back both gone.
"We'll help, but we'll keep an eye on him," Zara said. She tucked her weapon into one of her corset's straps as Wolf hopped into her arm.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Laila hated being lectured to. She could never stand when her father did it when she was a little girl, she couldn't stand it while Hachiel had been mentoring her, and she couldn't stand whenever the Head Angel did it. She wanted to retort, to object, to speak her piece whenever someone said something that she knew wasn't true, or when they talked down to her like she had a brain made of wet sand.
However, the Head Angel had commanded her not to speak, in a particular way only the Head Angel could.
"Your infatuation with the human is growing concerning," said the Head Angel, seated atop her marble-like throne with her six white wings spread behind her. "If you are to officiate the Queen's Blade, as you asked, then you cannot be derelict in your duties, Laila. Don't forget: you requested to be an official. Hachiel vouched for you in that regard. Yet, not only do you tarnish your own reputation, you also tarnish your superior's."
Worst of all, Laila could hear Nanael behind her in the clouds, snickering.
"Do you truly wish to be a part of this great honor?" the Head Angel asked. It was rhetorical; Laila still couldn't talk. "Many angels wished for the opportunity to prove themselves and advance their standing in Heaven. You must take your duties more seriously, and not allow yourself to become fixated on a human."
The Head Angel leaned forward, her fingers interlocking. "Is everything alright, Laila? Is there something you wish to tell me?"
Laila's true wing curled around. She nervously stared at her wingtip as she fiddled with the feathers. "No, Head Angel."
The Head Angel waited a moment for-
Evil. Pure and simple, from beyond the mortal realms.
"Head Angel! Head Angel!"
Another angel, one whose voice Laila didn't recognize, burst through the cloud wall of the Head Angel's "chamber" and put herself in front of Laila.
Laila didn't wait for what the angel had to say. She was already speeding away, grabbing the Holy Milk Thrower from where she'd been commanded to drop it.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"What a dump."
The tall, blue-skinned man turned towards the fierce red portal behind him, larger than needed for himself and most of his raid party. He wrinkled his lip, creasing the silky smooth skin around his mouth. "Something wrong with it, son?"
His red-toned offspring shook his horned head at a local building, one of the few adjacent to them that was still standing despite the whims of the brimoraks. He itched at his neck, where the claws of his wings formed the 'clasp' of his 'cape'. "Look at the locals, father. They're so weak and poverty-stricken that they build their houses out of dead trees, not even the kind that could kill. What good women could possibly be found here?"
"Jewels grow in the rocks and the dirt," said 'Father', folding his muscular arms. He blew a strand of silky silver hair over his ebony horns; it was hard to hide them on his forehead. "Peasant women are more obedient and docile, and often have better stock. Your mother wouldn't have lived long if she'd been some weedy aristocrat."
'Son' snorted. "Humans are so fragile."
"Which is why we need plenty for the lust pit." Father grinned as the size-setter for the portal emerged from it. The lanky creature's long tongue drooled as it hung past its sharp teeth. Its enormous leathery wings, unfolded, fluttered excitedly. To humans, it looked like a monstrous cross between a bat and a werewolf.
"Now remember," said Father, "kill, gorge, but no eating the women."
The nabasu slurped its tongue back into its mouth, only for it to fall out again when it spoke. "What about their legth?" it rumbled. "They don't need thothe."
"No, no, don't eat their legs!" protested Son, his red wings flaring up. It was foolish; the nabasu was stronger than either of them. It wouldn't be intimidated. "If you have to eat something, eat their arms!"
"Armth are tho thpindly, though."
"Yes, but they can't fight back without arms," Father pointed out, then shook his head. "No. Bring us the most haunchy, delicious-looking ones, in body and soul. Once we've had our pick, you can have all of the rest, arms included."
The nabasu sighed. "Not even a nibble?"
"You won't stop at a nibble," sneered Son. "It's no good if they bleed out and die before they're properly raped."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Rowin's curved longsword bisected an obese little dretch before it could finish despoiling the corpse of a dead villager. Its two equally ugly companions turned at the wet squelch of their cohort's death, only to be met by Echidna and Leina's blades. The metal cleaved into the dretches' shoulders and sprayed foul-smelling blood. They shrieked and clawed the blades out of themselves, falling down and scrambling to get away. Leina thrust her sword through one dretches' back, while Echidna expertly targeted the wound she'd caused and cleaved it in half.
Leina's wasn't dead, though. It was pinned to the earth by her sword, finished off when Rowin stabbed its skull with his cutlass.
A groan of pain drew Leina's attention to the corpse. She felt herself growing sick when she realized it wasn't dead yet, despite the skin and hair on its face being clawed down to the meat of its muscle and its eyeballs nowhere to be found. How was this human being still alive? Its tunic was covered in blood and filth, its chest torn up to where Leina couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, and-
Rowin stabbed it through the empty eye socket.
"Rowin!" Leina was aghast.
"Kindest thing to be done," Rowin said grimly. He wiped the blood and brain juice on the corpse's sleeve. "Expect a lot more of that before we're through."
Echidna said nothing, her expression unreadable as she stared at the mutilated corpse.
Leina stared, too, at Rowin. She didn't know him anymore. The happy-go-lucky fellow she'd befriended had just charged a demon from behind without so much as a murmur, killed it, then finished off an innocent person with the same amount of sympathy that a Vance house servant showed while sweeping the floor outside Leina's bedroom.
"Leina?"
She realized Rowin was talking to her, and shaking her shoulder.
"I know this is hard to swallow, and I don't like it, either."
"This is war," Echidna said, looking down the street where more abominable forms ran about, setting fires, cutting up doors and people alike. "You shouldn't like it."
Rowin said nothing in response. Instead, he reached to his belt and pulled out a vial that drew Leina's attention.
"Is that…?"
"Holy water," Rowin affirmed. "Same stuff I used on that big mummy."
"Behind!" Zara shouted. Six small goat-men rushed the group, swinging their flaming swords and leaving burning hoofprints in the ground. Their eyes glowed with red malevolence and wisps of noxious smoke puffed from their mouths with every breath. Zara snarled and counter-charged, taking the right-most one head-on and shoving her clawed gauntlet right into its eye sockets. Before the rest could surround her, she braced the flat of her now poniard-sized sword to its neck and ripped its face from its skull. Its corpse flopped limp. Foul-smelling smoke billowed from its open trachea and made her wince.
Rowin's longsword flashed and quickly wormed its way around another goat-demon's blade, stabbing it through its heart. Rowin ripped his sword free and sidestepped the spray of hissing blood. Echidna caught another's weapon in the cleft of her sword's large and small tongue-like blade. She twisted it aside but the demon tried to stomp on her foot with its flaming hoof. Echidna simply backed up and bashed its face with her buckler.
"Watch out for their blood," Rowin said as he clinically stabbed another demon through the chest. To his point, blood sprayed and he quickly backed up to avoid it. Zara ceased dry-heaving long enough to shake the blood from her gauntlet.
Leina hacked at the remaining unwounded one but her swordplay wasn't as precise. It blocked her two swings, deceptively strong for a creature only three feet tall. It blade-locked with Leina, as did the one Echidna dueled. Both demons took deep breaths.
Rowin pointed at them. "Look out!"
Echidna gave way and dove aside. Leina swept her opponent's sword aside and went for a slash. Both demons projectile vomited a geyser of steaming red from their mouths. It hissed on the dirt where it landed and sprayed all around Leina's breast plate. Leina cried out as drops burned her exposed skin. Echidna finished off her demon with a sharp stab through the eye while Leina jammed a prong of her buckler right through the goat-things's snout. It roared and tried to batter her with its blade, but Leina's parry met the meat of its arm instead of the steel of its weapon. Now defenseless, it was a simple matter for Leina to slide her sword under its jaw and slice its head off.
More foul smoke rose from its neck stump. Between that and the burning blood, the full cost of Leina's engagement hit her right in the nerves. She collapsed back and whined in pain, but Rowin was there to wash her off.
"Those things are called brimoraks," he said. "Fire demons. Not only their swords, but their blood and guts flare up, too. They can even yack up their blood the way a dragon breathes fire."
"Aa-ahh…" Leina whined as the pain spread but subsided, the blood washed away by Rowin's holy water. "Thanks."
"You seem to know a lot about these demons," Zara noted. She swayed a little, a queasy look still in her eyes. "These dretches, and these brimoraks, and you called the red demon a babau when it attacked us.
Her eyes narrowed. "How convenient that you're so knowledgeable."
Rowin smiled at her. "You're right: that is convenient! Would've told you about the brimoraks if they'd given me a chance to talk."
"Is that what those things are called?" came a spunky, sexy, familiar voice.
From between two cabins with smoke leaking from a window, Shizuka and Tomoe shimmied out.
"If you've experienced fighting these things," Tomoe said, her white robes covered in dirt and soot, "perhaps you should take the lead, Rowin."
"Won't come down to much on our end," Rowin said, pulling out more vials. "Say, Tomoe, you got techniques for, uh, evil spirits and stuff, right?"
Tomoe reached into her left sleeve and produced a paper talisman. "I have these, and my sword is the bane of evil."
Rowin raised an eyebrow at that. "In that case, you take the lead behind Leina and Echidna, and chop up anything that jumps out at us." Rowin held up his longsword. "I'll manage any more rear attacks."
Echidna turned and faced front, showing Rowin her naked rear while looking over her shoulder. "Sounds fun."
"Hey, get in line," Shizuka chided halfheartedly. "Think I'll scout around. There's bound to be some who're cocky enough to be alone."
"Just don't try your luck by yourself," Rowin warned.
"Don't worry about it! I'll be fine."
"The babau could disappear and reappear at a distance," Zara warned the ninja. "Other demons might do the same."
"I said don't worry about it," Shizuka said again. She grinned, the orange glow of distant fires cast on her pale skin and ivory-white teeth. "I can do that, too, you know."
"Sneak attacks won't be enough, though," Rowin said. He offered the half-empty vial of holy water to Shizuka. "Here. Drizzle some of this on your weapons before you fight. Anything less than a coop-d'graw, and these things are libel to just shake it off."
Shizuka slipped back in the gap that she and Tomoe had emerged from, and disappeared into the chaos.
From there, it was a matter of closing ranks and pressing forward. Rowin had a general idea of where the demons were coming from, as did Tomoe. She could sense the evil pulsating from across the village, like a bleeding wound in her mind's eye.
As they continued, it was clear that the village was unlikely to survive the onslaught. Buildings that weren't on fire had been ransacked and torn apart, corpses of men, children, and animals left gnawed on to rot. Small bands of dretches fled when they stumbled upon the group, but they were quickly chased down and butchered like the scum they were. Then a band of tall, gaunt, hunched, grey-furred goat-men decided to try their luck against the five.
Seeing the twisted tridents and halberds they carried, Tomoe let her talismans fly. "Evil spirits, begone!"
The talismans exploded among these taller goat-men, blasting away their fur and revealing their lean but muscular bodies beneath.
"Quick!" Rowin said, charging in. "Go for their legs!"
The women followed him in and the reach of the creatures' weapons was quickly negated. Leina, Echidna, and Zara did as Rowin instructed while he and Tomoe started splitting skulls and stabbing hearts. Of the eight that confronted them, seven were lying dead when they were done, each of their corpses seven feet tall. The last, though, recovered enough to leap atop a burning hovel and get away.
"It's going back to the source of this evil," Tomoe said. "Is it hoping to regain its strength?"
…
"Rowin," Tomoe said, turning to where-
-a nearby corpse lay sprawled next to an overturned wagon with a massive, bloody cavity where its head and neck should have been, the top part of its jawless head having rolled under the wagon. Rowin was inspecting it, though using the flat of his cutlass to prod and pull at the exposed flesh and organs.
Leina laid a hand on her armored stomach. "I think I'm going to be sick…"
Tomoe looked just as disturbed, as did Zara. Only Echidna and Rowin were unfazed.
"Really hope that's not what it looks like," Rowin muttered under his breath. "Disgusting little maggots…"
"Rowin? Leina? And…"
The two named persons recognized Nowa's youthful voice. The young elf girl was rounding a corner from behind a burning barn when out of that barn burst a brimorak. She expertly blocked its sword with her staff, but the flaming metal bit deeper than Airi's scythe had. Her counterattack to its ribs was shrugged off, and the brimorak kicked her leg with its flaming hoof before Rowin or Leina had a chance to get to her. Nowa cried out and collapsed to one knee, tearing up from the searing pain as her skin pinkened and blistered.
Luckily, as the brimorak prepared to split her in half at the waist, Echidna beat her allies to the punch. She parried the brimorak's sword with her own, then a pair of throwing knives flashed down from across the street and struck the brimorak right in its glowing red eyes. It fell back, dead, as the rest of the group caught up.
"Are you alright, Nowa?" Leina asked.
"Get away from her."
Leina was startled by Alleyne's hostile tone, but the seasoned blonde wasn't addressing her. No, the glare that sullied her otherwise calm facade was directed at Echidna, who stepped back from Nowa and reversed the grip on her sword.
"Is that any way to show gratitude?" Echidna asked, feigning coyness. "I did save her life, you know."
"Hey, now," Shizuka said, landing near the group, "who's the one who killed it?"
Alleyned ignored the ninja and knelt before her injured student. She produced some elven medicine, a poultice smeared on a special leaf, and gave it to Nowa, who pressed it to her circular burn. Nowa whimpered, as did her concerned monkey Ruu.
"You didn't let excitement cloud your awareness, but you fell into old habits instead of remembering what this battlefield taught you," Alleyne said. "For that, you scored a 60."
"Yes, Captain…" Nowa sighed, the sting in her features having subsided.
"Nice to see you, too, wife," Rowin said sarcastically, squatting down next to Nowa, looking at Alleyne. "No, my night's been rotten so far, but thanks for asking."
"I said I wouldn't press it upon you." Alleyne turned in such a way that Rowin was now looking up her skirt and at the leave she wore as underwear. Suffice to say, he wasn't looking for long.
"And I said I might as well have fun with it," Rowin replied, staring at another corpse with a similarly large emptiness in its torso. "Yeah, that's gotta be."
"What caused that?" Nowa asked.
"Giant maggot-thing called a vermlek," Rowin replied. "Long, white worm that seats itself into a fresh corpse and walks around in a man-suit. Freaks me out."
"There was a trail of them we were following," Nowa said, shakily standing on her injured leg. "Bodies, I mean. They were horrible."
"Heal faster," Zara said, looking around. Up until now, her sword hand had clutched Wolf to her, still in its unassuming puppy dog form. Now, she let Wolf down and drew her saw-like dagger, equally unassuming with how short it currently was.
The rest of them took stock of their surroundings and realized: the distant sounds of fighting and screaming had ceased. The rumble of distant flames continued, but only the sparse cry of an unfamiliar name or encouragement to hurry gave any sign that any villager still lived.
Their surroundings gave a clue as to why. Encircling them were dozens of dretches and brimoraks on the ground while more of the taller, non-flaming goat-demons appeared atop the roofs. Burning or not, these demons didn't seem to care; the flames licked at their cloven hooves but left their fur unsinged. One such building collapsed, the goat-man leaping effortlessly to the adjacent one, also on fire. Behind this collapsed build was revealed a huge portal like a tear in reality itself. At the foot of this tear were a score of whimpering, crying women, their bodies toned and curvy from their strong peasant stock and a lifetime spent working with their hands, eating bread and cheese. Why these women were lying there instead of running for their lives, none could say as of yet.
The group's attention was drawn to the massive winged shape that crashed down from the night sky and landed atop the burning rubble. It bore a resemblance to the stone gargoyles that adored the cathedrals in Gainos and County Vance, but its ragged and bestial features were far from the smooth stone faces of the holy places' silent guardians. Its elongated limbs gave it a height to tower above all but the grey goat-men, though they'd be taller if they weren't hunched. Its boney hands drew silent comparisons to a falcon's talons, the way its sharp nails curled past its fingertips.
Its tongue, hanging from between its needle-like teeth in its wide mouth, sprayed murky, viscous liquid on the ground as it spoke.
"Hrraaa, tathtyyy," it breathed, its eyes flitting over each of the women. Its enormous, triangular, almost bat-like ears twitched, and its long, rat-like tail drew figure-eights in the air behind itself.
Behind it landed two more winged forms, these looking more humanoid and, loathe as the humans and elves were to admit, handsome. One had blue skin, the other had red, and both stood taller than the bat-gargoyle-demon who was staring at the group like a hungry coyote.
"Control yourself," said the blue-skinned one, his rich, deep voice dripping with an uncomfortable amount of eagerness. The ravenous look in his eyes was nearly identical to the gargoyle-demon. "Remember: no eating, not until we've split the meat from the chaff."
"Hrraaa, mmeeeat…"
"Speak for yourself, Father," snickered the red-skinned one, his voice young and reeking of self-entitlement. "I'm only half you, yet these women set even my loins alight."
"Maybe jutht one?" rumbled the gargoyle-thing.
Rowin pointed his sword at the trio, who seemed like the leaders of this rotten bunch. "Step over here and I will cure all your ills, you beady-eyed freaks."
"Excellent idea," said 'Father'. His wings flapped. He drew a jagged-looking scimitar from behind his back and leveled it at Rowin. "Nabasu, eat him first."
Author's note:
As always, leave a review or shoot me a PM if you want to talk, about commissions or anything in them. I always enjoy conversing with my readers.