kreios
don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash With my attention on Conquest, I hardly notice the change in my wounds. Only when he turns to run to the woods do I realize that that the blood no longer slides easily down my skin, but has begun to clot and scab along the still-fresh wounds. I am left with aches but the stabbing pain of recent injuries has quickly begun to fade. Magic, I know, but I am wary of whatever incentives the source of the magic might have. Is it helping us? Or is it simply toying with us, making us stronger only to tear us down again?
I have little time to think on it, for just as the sickly green light begins to flicker I hear a rustling in the grass behind me. I turn, knowing that nothing here means me well, and am confronted with an an ox.
It is no normal ox, just like none of the other creatures have been normal, and the six legs that support its massive body are tipped with claws that put the knives on the feet of the armored bear to shame. Blood drips from slavering, yellow-toothed jaws, and when it bellows in fury I see sharp teeth that could easily wrap around my neck and crush the life from me in a single snap.
Tamping down the terror that rises like bile in my throat, I readjust my position, bracing my feet in the grey and blood-red grass. The ill tension in my neck has all but faded, and the burn in my paw is nearly gone.
When the ox charges towards me on the right, I dart left, kicking out with my hind legs at its oily black rump. It bellows again, turning around in a large circle to come back for another charge, but I am quicker with only four legs, and spin before rearing up to slam my weight down on the claw marks i so recently made. The ox goes down with a groan, and I jump over it, lashing out one last time where I know its head was.
The ox dispatched, I look back towards the trees where the yellow-eyed Conquest disappeared, hearing the yell of the little black and white filly as she races past me. I do as she says, finding and stomping on a bit of the seal nearest me, and feeling it absorb into me the same way the first two had. This one seems to settle lower, further from my center than had the seals of War and Conquest, and I shake off the eerie feeling and follow after Weaver.
There are others beside us - my allies, I suppose - but I am focused on the red and yellow fires that flash through the woods: the first two demons. The green light is more obvious now as I watch it, and as I race through the trees (darting around slavering beasts as necessary), I feel the strangest sensation in my belly. At first it seems hampered by the seal I had absorbed, but as I run further into the woods the scant protection it offers fades away.
I am no stranger to hunger - even to famine on the sunbeaten lands between Beqanna and the Otherlands - but this is not the same. My stomach is empty and my throat is dry, and I feel as though my ribs and hipbones must be visible through my skin. I need food, I need water, I need everything. I need land, a herd to protect, a mare beneath me. I could curl up and scream, but the sensations are so strong that they override instinct: this is not natural. This is not real.
I can see the other horses through the trees, and the green light is flickering between them. A demon faces them all but does not attack, and I know that this is the source of my hunger - this is Famine.
The black mare and filly I guarded earlier stand beside the black stallion. The bay and orange mare who had given herself so easily to Conquest is there too, but my attention is drawn to the red and green filly (sometimes there, sometimes gone) who lies curled on the ground. It is to her I go toward, stepping over her small body until she is entirely beneath me, shielded on all sides. I cannot let her die. Famine has seen me - his eerie green eyes miss nothing - but he does not approach, walled in by horses as he is. The hunger he causes continues to tear at me, but with a low snort I turn my head away. I trust my physical presence to block him, and keep my eyes on the woods behind the gathered lot of horses, watching for an attack from the rear.
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