I like to write.
This is a story, set in a world I'm developing.
There's a moderate amount of violence, and some darker stuff in it. Not even remotely enough to warrant a warning, but mentioning it now means it can't bite me in the ass later.
EDIT: Incidentally, I really wish there was a better way to format things in forums, but this is the least painful way to do it, both effort-wise and reading-wise.
EDIT DOS: Now that I'm more lucid, maybe I can give this story better context. Essentially, Faremor is the epic fantasy world I've been tinkering with for the past few years. It's a world of politics between peoples, civil wars within races, and trying times for many people, all overshadowed by the looming threat of a greater darkness that wishes consume the world.
I'm not going to try to win any originality awards for the story, but I think the overall plot and the characters that drive it are good enough to warrant putting down in text, so that's what I'm doing. I'm looking for criticism on writing and style and grammar more than anything, but any comments are appreciated.
The world of Faremor is a single continent (sans several small islands), and has somewhere around eight or more sentient races, depending on how you define "race". This first story is part of a sequence of short stories I'm writing to flesh out the world and its denizens in my mind, because for the most part, I'm making up their customs and quirks as I go.
---
This first story involves the Yaruug, a tribal society of beetle-men who live in the Drasil forest on the southeastern corner of the continent, and the Mal'Arakni, a race of spider-people who practice necromancy and shadow magic, and dwell in the jungle to the north of Drasil, seperated by mountains.
The Web of War
A Tale of Faremor
---
Ambushed.
They had been ambushed.
Szark bounded through the treetops of the Drasil forest - his homeland.
And there were enemies in his homeland.
The events of the past hour were constantly rushing through his mind, like a crashing river. His hunting party, made of the best trackers his village had to offer, were stalking some of the big game that dwelled within the sprawling woods. They had found a mammar: a huge, horned herbivore. It had been placidly devouring some small saplings when Szark’s party had come upon it. No party of humans could have hoped to take it down without taking casualties, but then again, humans weren’t yaruug. Szark and his party were.
The beetle-men of the forest were nimble and quick, able to wield a weapon in each of their four hands with amazing dexterity. The vestigial, wasp-like wings they possessed could allow them to glide, for a time, and the yellow, chitinous carapace that covered their bodies made for excellent natural armor - except for their faces, which were made of rough, gray, exposed skin. Generally, yaruugan warriors wore face guards, but rarely on hunting parties.
Szark had found himself wishing he had. They managed to bring the hulking beast down, but it injured one of the hunters, Yorg, in its death throes. Szark was busy treating his comrade’s wounds, when he heard an bizarre rumble behind him. Craning his neck, he found that the dead mammar had risen up. The monstrous creature gave an earthshaking bellow. Utterly baffled, the yaruug had just stood there as the once-dead beast tramped its broad feet on the ground, lowered its horn-crested head, and charged.
Szark was the first to move, diving to the side. One of the uninjured members of his party, Graug, followed suit; however, Yorg and last hunter, Taklu, were frozen in place with terror. The huge beast lowered its head and gored them both with its massive horns. The two hunters flew through the air like children’s dolls, the holes torn in their chests spouting yellow-green blood.
Howling a cry of sorrow and hatred, and ignoring Szark’s shouts of protest, Graug snatched his spear from the ground, vaulted into the air, and drove the weapon straight into the mammar’s skull. For seconds everything in the forest seemed still.
And then the mammar swung its head violently toward a nearby tree. There was a sickening crunch. Graug dropped to the forest floor, and lay still.
The beast turned on Szark, and the lead hunter reached for the arms he kept on his belt, curved wicked blades known as zar‘vreki. He gripped one in each of his four hands, the coppery metal they were forged from glinting in what light the canopy let through. The mammar opened mouth to roar - and then crumpled, as if someone had crushed its skull in. Szark waited a long minute, and when the beast showed no more signs of stirring, he sheathed the zar’vreki, exhaling. The hunter wasn’t sure he could have killed the creature on his own.
On his own. Szark fought back tears. Men he grew up with, learned to hunt with, men he called friends, were dead today. It must have been his fault; perhaps he didn’t check the beast thoroughly enough, or maybe if he had been quicker about binding Yorg’s wounds, they could have avoided the charging mammar.
The hunter shook his head. No, there was no point in laying blame, at least not yet. He could blame himself when he got back to the village. Right now, his clan mates deserved to know what happened to their brethren. Szark turned toward his village to leave…
And heard a hissing, raucous laugh.
He ran. The hunter bounded through the trees, on the ground, wherever there was safe footing. He hadn’t stopped running since. That laugh, that malicious, rasping laugh, explained everything. They had slain the mammar - however, the beast had been reanimated. It explained why Graug’s spear hadn’t lobotomized it. All of this could only mean one thing - there was an age old enemy of his people here. So close to home. He had to warn his clan.
Szark was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice planting his foot on a weakened branch. The limb gave way, and the hunter went tumbling towards the forest floor. He cursed, trying to use his wings to stabilize his descent, but he was falling at too awkward of an angle. The yaruug hit the ground in a clumsy roll, only coming to a stop when he collided with a great old-growth tree. The next few minutes passed in a daze, Szark weakly fumbling around on the ground, trying to find his balance. When he finally tried to rise, his left leg refused to hold his weight, and the hunter collapsed to the ground again. Pain lanced through his body.
His ankle was in searing agony. Szark looked down at his left foot. It was bent at an unnatural angle. He hoped it was just a sprain, but doubted it. Getting back to the village would be far more difficult with a broken ankle. He rose again, this time putting all the pressure he could on his right foot. There was still pain from the left, but he blocked it out. He had no chance of outrunning his pursuer now. There would be a fight. The hunter drew his four blades and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. That same hissing, vile laugh erupted from the underbrush in to Szark‘s left. The hunter pivoted on his good foot to face the direction the sound had come from. The foliage ruffled, and a nightmare stepped into view.
It towered over Szark, and the yaruug was nearly 7 feet tall to begin with. From the torso up, the creature was humanoid, but it was supported by six evenly-spaced legs, spread in two semicircles around its body. The chest and abdomen had similar physiology to Szark’s own, minus the carapace, but it only sported two wiry arms that ended in massive, clawed hands. The creature was covered completely by stiff, grey hair, which twitched slightly with every shift of posture. Its head, much wider than a yaruug‘s, was dominated by two massive black eyes, with six smaller ones arranged on its forehead in an almost ornamental manner. Its wide mouth was wrapped around four large fangs, two protruding up, two down, and at the moment it seemed to be turned up into a sickening grin.
The spider-like monster wore an oddly fitting robe of a dark, velvety material that seemed to consume all the light that touched. It also wore a headdress made of yaruug carapace, a necklace of yaruug bones, and wielded a staff topped by a yaruug’s skull.
Mal’Arak. A mal’arakni necrolite.
“So, you finally stopped running, did you?” The arachnid spoke the yaruugan language with a hissing accent. “It is about time. I was getting bored just chasing you.” Another raspy cackle escaped its mouth.
“Unholy beast,” Szark growled. “Blight upon the land. There is no repentance for what you‘ve done this day.”
The necrolite chortled. “You yaruug are all the same. So noble and heroic…” It spewed a webby gob of saliva on the ground. “Zzax spits on you.”
Szark ignored the necrolite’s statement. “You have slain three brave hunters this day - my comrades - with your dark magic. May the Eyes of the Wood judge you thusly.” The yaruug adjusted his grip on the swords.
“How prideful you must feel,” Zzax said with lidded eyes, “talking about vengeance for your precious clansmen. A brave speech for someone with a broken ankle.“ His expression turned to something akin to amusement. “I wonder though…” The necrolite raised his staff and brought it down on the ground with a loud clack. “What would they would say to that?”
The brush behind the necrolite shuddered, and Szark felt a mounting horror. Out of the forest emerged three yaruug hunters…two of which had holes in their chests.
Szark’s jaw dropped and trembled. His hunting party. The necrolite had risen them as he’d risen the mammar, and now they brandished their weapons toward their former leader.
The necrolite howled with malevolent laughter. “What is your honor now, faced against your old comrades? Can you fight them? If you do not want to, you could always join them.” Zzax raised his staff. “I promise, you will be quite comfortable.”
Szark felt his arms trembling. “Yorg? Taklu? Graug?”
“They cannot hear you, insect. They cannot hear much of anything, now…except me.” The necrolite bowed his staff toward Szark. “Kill him.”
The risen yaruug hunters shamled toward their erstwhile companion. Szark took a limping step backwards.
This couldn’t be happening. They were his childhood friends. Despair mixed with fear in Szark’s mind. There was no way he could fight them. He tore his eyes from his undead comrades, and focused on the mal’arak controlling them. He felt a spark of anger deep inside.
That spark was all he needed. He focused on in, built upon it, fed it. This was all the necrolite’s, this Zzax’s, doing,. He killed Szark’s companions. He was the one using their lifeless bodies as weapons. The spark of anger grew steadily into a flame of hatred.
Szark’s arms stopped trembling. His friends were dead. The mal’arak had killed them. These were just husks, puppets. The hunter shifted his stance slightly, readied all four of the zar’vreki he wielded. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.
The nercolite noticed his change of stance, and raised his staff. The sockets of the skull pulsed with a sickly light. Szark felt a new wave of fear and despair wash over him. So, this Zzax was using his dark power to amplify his fears and doubts.
Szark sneered, eyes still closed. “Futile.” His concentration deepened.
He waited. The shuffling of his ersatz companions grew steadily louder. Szark let the power he was concentrating on build up to his very breaking point. And then, he released it.
A massive gale of wind exploded from the hunter’s position. The corpse-puppets were sent flying backwards, landing in awkward, disjointed positions. The squall sent rotting leaves and other detritus flying in every direction, and Szark hovered in the center of it all, wings buzzing.
“No more,” he snarled. “Never again, you monster. It is time for you to perish.”
A look of mild surprise crossed Zzax’s face. “Really now? You are a Wind-Dancer? This should be far more interesting than I thought.” He flicked his hand in Szark’s direction. “Attack!”
The corpses of the hunters charged at a pace that was inconsistent with their wounds, hardly placing their feet on the ground. They danced around the hunter, less like living creatures, but more as demented marionettes. Szark gathered the innate power of wind that came with his caste, and prepared for the onslaught.
The puppet-Yorg’s halberd hurtled down at Szark with monstrous speed and strength, and the false Graug’s spear thrust forward in an lethal, impaling motion. The Wind-Dancer caught the halberd at the base of the weapon’s head with one sword, while twisting his torso to avoid being spitted upon the spear. He hacked downward before the puppet-Graug could withdraw its weapon, slicing the point cleanly from the haft.
Something heavy slammed into Szark’s side, and he went tumbling through the air, barely able to keep aloft. After regaining his balance, he noted that something inside his chest felt broken - several ribs, the hunter surmised. The puppet-Taklu stood brandishing the massive iron club he used in life. Szark reoriented himself toward the trio of corpse soldiers, still slightly dazed by the attack.
The disarmed corpse of Graug charged forward, all four arms stretched out. Szark gathered wind behind one of his blades and drove forward with lightning speed, running the charging puppet through with the weapon, all the way to its hilt. However, the reanimated husk didn’t even slow down, and cracked its plated horn against Szark’s face. Blood sprayed, and the he was fairly sure some of his teeth came lose. The Wind-Dancer released the hilt of the impaling zar’vrek and threw himself away from his assailant.
This was a losing battle. If he wanted to neutralize his former comrades, he’d probably need to hack all their limbs off, and there was no guarantee that would even work. No, fighting the puppets was useless. To end this he’d have to kill the puppet master. However, when Szark tried to edge closer to the Zzax, the necrolite’s staff emitted that sickly glow again, and the manufactured terror’s grasp tightened. There was no way to get close to the enemy without being reduced to a trembling madman.
And then Szark had an idea. It was risky. It was stupid. It was also the only way out of this he could see. There was only going to be one shot at this. He began to gather wind behind another sword-wielding arm. The corpse-puppets shuddered, as if someone had shaken their strings, and lurched forward to advance. Szark raised his blade, covered in a miniature whirlwind. He bowed his head, and made as if to charge…
…Then snapped toward the necrolite and hurled the zar’vrek at him, with all the power he could muster behind it. It hurled through the air like a saw blade, the force of a hurricane propelling it. Zzax’s jaw dropped open, and he moved to shield himself with his staff, but the defense was too slow. The sword struck the necrolite’s forehead with a wet thunk. Black blood oozed from the wound, and for a moment, the mal’arak just stood there. Then, he simply crumpled, and with him, so did the puppet corpses.
Szark let out a long breath as exhaustion washed over him. It was a wild shot, and he knew it. Even with the additional precision his wind magic gave him, there was a high chance that it would have missed. However, it didn't. The necrolite was dead, and his friends were free to rest in the Great Wood that lay beyond the grave. The hunter crossed all four of his arms and said a prayer, then he studied the surroundings intently for a few moments, so he could lead back some clansmen to collect the corpses. Finally, satisfied that he could find his way back to the area, Szark turned and started to hobble for home.
Thock!
Now that was an odd sound. Suddenly, Szark’s vision seemed a little blurry, and when he looked down, he saw something pointed sticking out of his chest. He didn’t remember that being there. When the hunter lifted his hand to his mouth, it came away sticky with blood.
A harsh, hissing laugh came from behind him. Szark’s eyes widened, and he stumbled awkwardly to look behind him.
There, through his dimming vision, he could see hundreds and hundreds of mal’arakni, spreading out through the forest for miles.
This wasn’t a raiding party.
This was an invasion.
A mal’arak that was hanging upside down from a tree gave a rasping chuckle, plucked a javelin from a container on his back, and hurled it down, toward the hunter. It struck slightly above the first, and the impact forced Szark off his feet. The fall to the ground felt like an eternity and more, and the cacophony of rasping laughter echoed in his mind all the while.
His people’s most ancient and dreaded enemy was on the move.
It was war.
The Yaruug needed to be warned.
Szark hit the ground, and felt no more.
This is a story, set in a world I'm developing.
There's a moderate amount of violence, and some darker stuff in it. Not even remotely enough to warrant a warning, but mentioning it now means it can't bite me in the ass later.
EDIT: Incidentally, I really wish there was a better way to format things in forums, but this is the least painful way to do it, both effort-wise and reading-wise.
EDIT DOS: Now that I'm more lucid, maybe I can give this story better context. Essentially, Faremor is the epic fantasy world I've been tinkering with for the past few years. It's a world of politics between peoples, civil wars within races, and trying times for many people, all overshadowed by the looming threat of a greater darkness that wishes consume the world.
I'm not going to try to win any originality awards for the story, but I think the overall plot and the characters that drive it are good enough to warrant putting down in text, so that's what I'm doing. I'm looking for criticism on writing and style and grammar more than anything, but any comments are appreciated.
The world of Faremor is a single continent (sans several small islands), and has somewhere around eight or more sentient races, depending on how you define "race". This first story is part of a sequence of short stories I'm writing to flesh out the world and its denizens in my mind, because for the most part, I'm making up their customs and quirks as I go.
---
This first story involves the Yaruug, a tribal society of beetle-men who live in the Drasil forest on the southeastern corner of the continent, and the Mal'Arakni, a race of spider-people who practice necromancy and shadow magic, and dwell in the jungle to the north of Drasil, seperated by mountains.
The Web of War
A Tale of Faremor
---
Ambushed.
They had been ambushed.
Szark bounded through the treetops of the Drasil forest - his homeland.
And there were enemies in his homeland.
The events of the past hour were constantly rushing through his mind, like a crashing river. His hunting party, made of the best trackers his village had to offer, were stalking some of the big game that dwelled within the sprawling woods. They had found a mammar: a huge, horned herbivore. It had been placidly devouring some small saplings when Szark’s party had come upon it. No party of humans could have hoped to take it down without taking casualties, but then again, humans weren’t yaruug. Szark and his party were.
The beetle-men of the forest were nimble and quick, able to wield a weapon in each of their four hands with amazing dexterity. The vestigial, wasp-like wings they possessed could allow them to glide, for a time, and the yellow, chitinous carapace that covered their bodies made for excellent natural armor - except for their faces, which were made of rough, gray, exposed skin. Generally, yaruugan warriors wore face guards, but rarely on hunting parties.
Szark had found himself wishing he had. They managed to bring the hulking beast down, but it injured one of the hunters, Yorg, in its death throes. Szark was busy treating his comrade’s wounds, when he heard an bizarre rumble behind him. Craning his neck, he found that the dead mammar had risen up. The monstrous creature gave an earthshaking bellow. Utterly baffled, the yaruug had just stood there as the once-dead beast tramped its broad feet on the ground, lowered its horn-crested head, and charged.
Szark was the first to move, diving to the side. One of the uninjured members of his party, Graug, followed suit; however, Yorg and last hunter, Taklu, were frozen in place with terror. The huge beast lowered its head and gored them both with its massive horns. The two hunters flew through the air like children’s dolls, the holes torn in their chests spouting yellow-green blood.
Howling a cry of sorrow and hatred, and ignoring Szark’s shouts of protest, Graug snatched his spear from the ground, vaulted into the air, and drove the weapon straight into the mammar’s skull. For seconds everything in the forest seemed still.
And then the mammar swung its head violently toward a nearby tree. There was a sickening crunch. Graug dropped to the forest floor, and lay still.
The beast turned on Szark, and the lead hunter reached for the arms he kept on his belt, curved wicked blades known as zar‘vreki. He gripped one in each of his four hands, the coppery metal they were forged from glinting in what light the canopy let through. The mammar opened mouth to roar - and then crumpled, as if someone had crushed its skull in. Szark waited a long minute, and when the beast showed no more signs of stirring, he sheathed the zar’vreki, exhaling. The hunter wasn’t sure he could have killed the creature on his own.
On his own. Szark fought back tears. Men he grew up with, learned to hunt with, men he called friends, were dead today. It must have been his fault; perhaps he didn’t check the beast thoroughly enough, or maybe if he had been quicker about binding Yorg’s wounds, they could have avoided the charging mammar.
The hunter shook his head. No, there was no point in laying blame, at least not yet. He could blame himself when he got back to the village. Right now, his clan mates deserved to know what happened to their brethren. Szark turned toward his village to leave…
And heard a hissing, raucous laugh.
He ran. The hunter bounded through the trees, on the ground, wherever there was safe footing. He hadn’t stopped running since. That laugh, that malicious, rasping laugh, explained everything. They had slain the mammar - however, the beast had been reanimated. It explained why Graug’s spear hadn’t lobotomized it. All of this could only mean one thing - there was an age old enemy of his people here. So close to home. He had to warn his clan.
Szark was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice planting his foot on a weakened branch. The limb gave way, and the hunter went tumbling towards the forest floor. He cursed, trying to use his wings to stabilize his descent, but he was falling at too awkward of an angle. The yaruug hit the ground in a clumsy roll, only coming to a stop when he collided with a great old-growth tree. The next few minutes passed in a daze, Szark weakly fumbling around on the ground, trying to find his balance. When he finally tried to rise, his left leg refused to hold his weight, and the hunter collapsed to the ground again. Pain lanced through his body.
His ankle was in searing agony. Szark looked down at his left foot. It was bent at an unnatural angle. He hoped it was just a sprain, but doubted it. Getting back to the village would be far more difficult with a broken ankle. He rose again, this time putting all the pressure he could on his right foot. There was still pain from the left, but he blocked it out. He had no chance of outrunning his pursuer now. There would be a fight. The hunter drew his four blades and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. That same hissing, vile laugh erupted from the underbrush in to Szark‘s left. The hunter pivoted on his good foot to face the direction the sound had come from. The foliage ruffled, and a nightmare stepped into view.
It towered over Szark, and the yaruug was nearly 7 feet tall to begin with. From the torso up, the creature was humanoid, but it was supported by six evenly-spaced legs, spread in two semicircles around its body. The chest and abdomen had similar physiology to Szark’s own, minus the carapace, but it only sported two wiry arms that ended in massive, clawed hands. The creature was covered completely by stiff, grey hair, which twitched slightly with every shift of posture. Its head, much wider than a yaruug‘s, was dominated by two massive black eyes, with six smaller ones arranged on its forehead in an almost ornamental manner. Its wide mouth was wrapped around four large fangs, two protruding up, two down, and at the moment it seemed to be turned up into a sickening grin.
The spider-like monster wore an oddly fitting robe of a dark, velvety material that seemed to consume all the light that touched. It also wore a headdress made of yaruug carapace, a necklace of yaruug bones, and wielded a staff topped by a yaruug’s skull.
Mal’Arak. A mal’arakni necrolite.
“So, you finally stopped running, did you?” The arachnid spoke the yaruugan language with a hissing accent. “It is about time. I was getting bored just chasing you.” Another raspy cackle escaped its mouth.
“Unholy beast,” Szark growled. “Blight upon the land. There is no repentance for what you‘ve done this day.”
The necrolite chortled. “You yaruug are all the same. So noble and heroic…” It spewed a webby gob of saliva on the ground. “Zzax spits on you.”
Szark ignored the necrolite’s statement. “You have slain three brave hunters this day - my comrades - with your dark magic. May the Eyes of the Wood judge you thusly.” The yaruug adjusted his grip on the swords.
“How prideful you must feel,” Zzax said with lidded eyes, “talking about vengeance for your precious clansmen. A brave speech for someone with a broken ankle.“ His expression turned to something akin to amusement. “I wonder though…” The necrolite raised his staff and brought it down on the ground with a loud clack. “What would they would say to that?”
The brush behind the necrolite shuddered, and Szark felt a mounting horror. Out of the forest emerged three yaruug hunters…two of which had holes in their chests.
Szark’s jaw dropped and trembled. His hunting party. The necrolite had risen them as he’d risen the mammar, and now they brandished their weapons toward their former leader.
The necrolite howled with malevolent laughter. “What is your honor now, faced against your old comrades? Can you fight them? If you do not want to, you could always join them.” Zzax raised his staff. “I promise, you will be quite comfortable.”
Szark felt his arms trembling. “Yorg? Taklu? Graug?”
“They cannot hear you, insect. They cannot hear much of anything, now…except me.” The necrolite bowed his staff toward Szark. “Kill him.”
The risen yaruug hunters shamled toward their erstwhile companion. Szark took a limping step backwards.
This couldn’t be happening. They were his childhood friends. Despair mixed with fear in Szark’s mind. There was no way he could fight them. He tore his eyes from his undead comrades, and focused on the mal’arak controlling them. He felt a spark of anger deep inside.
That spark was all he needed. He focused on in, built upon it, fed it. This was all the necrolite’s, this Zzax’s, doing,. He killed Szark’s companions. He was the one using their lifeless bodies as weapons. The spark of anger grew steadily into a flame of hatred.
Szark’s arms stopped trembling. His friends were dead. The mal’arak had killed them. These were just husks, puppets. The hunter shifted his stance slightly, readied all four of the zar’vreki he wielded. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.
The nercolite noticed his change of stance, and raised his staff. The sockets of the skull pulsed with a sickly light. Szark felt a new wave of fear and despair wash over him. So, this Zzax was using his dark power to amplify his fears and doubts.
Szark sneered, eyes still closed. “Futile.” His concentration deepened.
He waited. The shuffling of his ersatz companions grew steadily louder. Szark let the power he was concentrating on build up to his very breaking point. And then, he released it.
A massive gale of wind exploded from the hunter’s position. The corpse-puppets were sent flying backwards, landing in awkward, disjointed positions. The squall sent rotting leaves and other detritus flying in every direction, and Szark hovered in the center of it all, wings buzzing.
“No more,” he snarled. “Never again, you monster. It is time for you to perish.”
A look of mild surprise crossed Zzax’s face. “Really now? You are a Wind-Dancer? This should be far more interesting than I thought.” He flicked his hand in Szark’s direction. “Attack!”
The corpses of the hunters charged at a pace that was inconsistent with their wounds, hardly placing their feet on the ground. They danced around the hunter, less like living creatures, but more as demented marionettes. Szark gathered the innate power of wind that came with his caste, and prepared for the onslaught.
The puppet-Yorg’s halberd hurtled down at Szark with monstrous speed and strength, and the false Graug’s spear thrust forward in an lethal, impaling motion. The Wind-Dancer caught the halberd at the base of the weapon’s head with one sword, while twisting his torso to avoid being spitted upon the spear. He hacked downward before the puppet-Graug could withdraw its weapon, slicing the point cleanly from the haft.
Something heavy slammed into Szark’s side, and he went tumbling through the air, barely able to keep aloft. After regaining his balance, he noted that something inside his chest felt broken - several ribs, the hunter surmised. The puppet-Taklu stood brandishing the massive iron club he used in life. Szark reoriented himself toward the trio of corpse soldiers, still slightly dazed by the attack.
The disarmed corpse of Graug charged forward, all four arms stretched out. Szark gathered wind behind one of his blades and drove forward with lightning speed, running the charging puppet through with the weapon, all the way to its hilt. However, the reanimated husk didn’t even slow down, and cracked its plated horn against Szark’s face. Blood sprayed, and the he was fairly sure some of his teeth came lose. The Wind-Dancer released the hilt of the impaling zar’vrek and threw himself away from his assailant.
This was a losing battle. If he wanted to neutralize his former comrades, he’d probably need to hack all their limbs off, and there was no guarantee that would even work. No, fighting the puppets was useless. To end this he’d have to kill the puppet master. However, when Szark tried to edge closer to the Zzax, the necrolite’s staff emitted that sickly glow again, and the manufactured terror’s grasp tightened. There was no way to get close to the enemy without being reduced to a trembling madman.
And then Szark had an idea. It was risky. It was stupid. It was also the only way out of this he could see. There was only going to be one shot at this. He began to gather wind behind another sword-wielding arm. The corpse-puppets shuddered, as if someone had shaken their strings, and lurched forward to advance. Szark raised his blade, covered in a miniature whirlwind. He bowed his head, and made as if to charge…
…Then snapped toward the necrolite and hurled the zar’vrek at him, with all the power he could muster behind it. It hurled through the air like a saw blade, the force of a hurricane propelling it. Zzax’s jaw dropped open, and he moved to shield himself with his staff, but the defense was too slow. The sword struck the necrolite’s forehead with a wet thunk. Black blood oozed from the wound, and for a moment, the mal’arak just stood there. Then, he simply crumpled, and with him, so did the puppet corpses.
Szark let out a long breath as exhaustion washed over him. It was a wild shot, and he knew it. Even with the additional precision his wind magic gave him, there was a high chance that it would have missed. However, it didn't. The necrolite was dead, and his friends were free to rest in the Great Wood that lay beyond the grave. The hunter crossed all four of his arms and said a prayer, then he studied the surroundings intently for a few moments, so he could lead back some clansmen to collect the corpses. Finally, satisfied that he could find his way back to the area, Szark turned and started to hobble for home.
Thock!
Now that was an odd sound. Suddenly, Szark’s vision seemed a little blurry, and when he looked down, he saw something pointed sticking out of his chest. He didn’t remember that being there. When the hunter lifted his hand to his mouth, it came away sticky with blood.
A harsh, hissing laugh came from behind him. Szark’s eyes widened, and he stumbled awkwardly to look behind him.
There, through his dimming vision, he could see hundreds and hundreds of mal’arakni, spreading out through the forest for miles.
This wasn’t a raiding party.
This was an invasion.
A mal’arak that was hanging upside down from a tree gave a rasping chuckle, plucked a javelin from a container on his back, and hurled it down, toward the hunter. It struck slightly above the first, and the impact forced Szark off his feet. The fall to the ground felt like an eternity and more, and the cacophony of rasping laughter echoed in his mind all the while.
His people’s most ancient and dreaded enemy was on the move.
It was war.
The Yaruug needed to be warned.
Szark hit the ground, and felt no more.