kreios
don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leashThe lamb has returned.
I feel my breath catch in my throat and the hoof I had raised to take another step towards Lucrezia remains frozen - suspended in midair as my gaze meets that of the seven-eyed lamb. It knows, I realize, it knows why I am here - why I have accepted.
Once, I might have shirked away. Once, I might have lowered my head in shame at my own lack of drive and fearlessness when confronting the terrifying. But not anymore. Bloodlust and love of battle do not drive me in the way they drove my parents, drove my brother. That had shamed me once, that lack of drive, but no longer.
I had accepted not because I thought myself strong enough to survive the end of the world, but because by accepting I hoped to give the others a better chance of making it through.
The lamb stands, and though I am still wary I resettle my raised hoof and watch. I mean to keep my eyes on the lamb, but instead my attention is drawn (unwillingly) to the seals. I have never seen a seal before, but somehow know their purpose. This is tied to the lamb, I think, but I have no time to ponder that; the seal is exploding.
I turn away, instinctively shielding my head, and I hear the rush of wind as a hoof-sized chunk of stone flies past the place my left eye had been only a millisecond before. When I look back the lamb is gone and silence reigns once more. Lucrezia seems unharmed, but before I can look toward Weaver, Elve, and Rhonen, he appears.
I know things that I had not known a moment before, and while my heart clenches with an emotion I know well (fear), I know that to kneel is to die, and I will not die easily. The creatures that accompany Conquest are monstrosities almost worse than the rotting, yellow-eyed stallion. He is the leader though, and so my attention (that little bit that does not eye Lucrezia beside me and the foals across the clearing) remains on him. I watch as he charges after the grey mare who spins around and seems to flee, and an enormous millipede follows after them.
The millipede and the grey mare do not return; I assume she has been disposed of.
I try to follow Conquest’s movement, but a ferret comes rushing towards me, the rabid froth in its mouth unable to entirely hide the razor sharp teeth that are far too big for its mouth. A tail like a scorpion swings behind it, and I jump away as it leaps for my foreleg. I raise a hoof high and bring it down on the weasel with backbreaking force. It is fast, so fast, and I have managed to crush only its hind end. Before it can twist around and bite again though, my hoof has become a paw, and a thick claw pierces the weasel's neck, and at last it is still. I doubt that it is truly dead, but at least the immediate danger is past. I look for Lucrezia and see Conquest laboring over the back of a tobiano mare that had been in our assembled circle. She seems pleasured, and I label her a threat.
The green and red filly is slipping away, but a python stalks her. I move toward them, and as I close my wildcat teeth on the thing’s tail, I see a bit of seal. I could reach it, just let go and grab for the stone instead of the snake – it would be so easy. But the girl is running towards a large bird and I can’t leave her face two monsters. So I bite down harder and swing my head with feline strength, tossing the snake away. It could have chased me – it should have – but it sees easier prey in Warship and I spin around to try and find the other children and Lucrezia, who I have lost in the melee.
A little girl screams and I see a bay mare attacked by the grey who I thought dead. Another threat. A mare saves the little girl from the bear, and the chestnut boy runs to them. They are safe enough, I know; someone is looking out for them.
In the madness I have forgotten Conquest, but when I turn towards Lucrezia I see that he has not forgotten me.
He stands before me, rotting and putrid, and a wave of nausea roils inside me. He smells of the aftermath of a lost battle, of an encampment of failures who lie moaning in defeat. Conquest means to make the whole of Beqanna into a battlefield full of dead and dying, and we are all that stands between that dark future.
Gathering the shattered seal is all well and good, but why not kill the beast rather than trap it again?
“Don’t bother”, he says as I tense my muscles to attack, “Resistance is futile. You a coward. You cannot save them. You are weak.” A decade ago, those words – so close to those of my own father’s – would have broken me. They would have been true; they are not true now.
I mean to yell back, but the words that emerge are a wildcat’s scream and I lunge forward. I raise my left foreleg to the side (far more flexible than any horse), and swipe a clawed foot the size of a dinner plate across Conquest’s face. I feel the give of rotting flesh beneath my paw and for a moment feel triumphant.
Then the paw begins to burn.
I pull it back with a hiss as Conquest laughs. I feel my neck pull to the left, the muscles shortening of their own accord, and though I try I cannot make them stretch out again. Snarling, I swipe again with a paw, but the burning pain is too strong and I pull back before I make contact. I expect Conquest to attack but he only laughs and turns away, and my neck is twisted the other way. Following in this condition would be foolish, so I do my best to fight the tight muscles with the little ability I have. Shifting fully has never been possible for me, and it is even harder to change in this grey world. Still, cat muscle to horse muscle and back again is a change, and the tautness eases as I stumble towards Lucrezia.
A bear, roaring in fury from being attack by the black stallion I had swung the snake toward, has begun charging towards her. She cannot see it, I realize, it is charging from her blind spot, and with the cacophony of battle I doubt she will even hear its snarling. I bolt toward her, hampered by my burning foot and the muscles in my own neck which pull my head away from where I try to move it. I slam into the bear and feel the iron of its armor slice into my right shoulder and along my side. Lucrezia is to my left now, safe from the bear, who I shove at again, ignoring the blood that rapidly turns my pale coat a bright red.
The bear turns its attention to me and I am grateful that it has been injured by previous combatants. Nevertheless, it is strong, and the next time I slam against it, it shoves back, knocking me over so that I roll across the grey grass, growing dizzy. I am on my back, looking up at the bear that looms over me on two feet, and I wonder if perhaps this is how I will die.
The bear drops quickly, clearly meaning to pierce my exposed chest and belly with its knife-like claws. I buck upwards with my hind legs, trusting the catlike flexibility of my spine and hips, and my hind claws pierce the bear’s belly and rip downwards, spilling putrid innards across my as I struggle to my feet. I stumble, and see a piece of shard only inches from my face. With a choked breath I grab it between my teeth, and bite down.
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Tl;dr
Kreios kills a rabid ferret with a scorpion tail, grabs a snake to stop it from chasing Elve and accidentally tosses it toward Warship. He is confronted by Conquest and after swiping at him gets some sort of burning rash on his foot and cervical dystonia in his neck, causing the muscles to shorten on their own. He saves Lucrezia from the bear that everyone else has been fighting, and literally stumbles onto a shard. Feel free to use him as you will, preferably in the way that involves the most self-sacrifice :P
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