Creature Feature - Locutians/ Elder Race

Due to a new arrival in the family, our baby sitter has had her hands full so we didn't have a play session two weeks back to inspire the next chapter of Draconic Shenanigans. Therefore, as we are approaching spooky season, we will have another Creature Feature of the now-freak-out-and-panic type. The Locutians are hungry... (can you guess where they attach to Draconic Shenanigans.)

 Creature Feature

 

 Type: Humanoid Cephalopod Parasite

Location: In terms of territorial spread Locutians are highly secretive but it can be gleaned from appearance, physiology, life cycle and what of their history they have been willing to share that their settlements, known as Hives, are coastal in nature and at least some distance from those of other sentient beings, though never too far due to dietary need and inclination. They seem to be most common in the warm tropical seas and there is evidence for at least two Hives for certain in the waters around Jamhodan. As such the coastal areas of Jamodan are home to some very disturbing rumours, legends and folk tales. Dismissed by authorities as peasant superstition, the Locutians watch the shores with calculating eyes, using ignorance and arrogance as their weapons of choice.

Appearance: The Locutians are taller than average humanoid beings of an anorexic bent but there the resemblance to humans ends. Locutians have bony, scaly feet, marked by having three toes of which the middle toe is the longest and broadest, with the other toes flanking it. Each toe is equipped with a large horn like nail that is some where between a talon and a hoof. The toes are also webbed and can spread in water to aid swimming, giving a clue as to the Locutians amphibious life style. When on land Locutians often wear boots to disguise their nature.

Only their feet are scaled, above the ankles a Locutians flesh is rubbery and smooth in texture, unmistakable to anyone who has seen it before. They lack gender or reproductive organs as understood in other species, instead being a hermaphroditical race but the act of mating appears to have no emotional connection for them and neither does mating bring any pleasure to them. To Locutians mating is nothing but a moment needed to seed the next generation.

The anorexic appearance and destain for physical exertion that Locutians display is actually misleading as they possess a speed and strength at odds to their appearance. This is due to their physiology having been reduced down to pure twitch muscle during their metamorphose into their adult form. Their fingers are longer and more delicate in appearance than most humanoids. Again this is a deception as their fingers are immensely strong and end in long, moon curved nails. These nails taper to a very narrow point and are thicker and more horn like than human nails. Though useless for the slashing damage of true claws these nails are highly adapt at gouging damage. If a Locutian is forced into a corner and all other weapons have failed it will come out swinging at its attackers face and neck, aiming to either puncture an eyeball or at least collect a large amount of genetic material under its nails.

The most distinct changes in appearance and physiology occur in a Locutian's face and head. The skull of Locutian is elongated to resemble a cuttlefish. The most distinguishing feature of this skull is the fact that the sutures between the bones are not fixed. Indeed the skull structure of a Locutian is similar to that of a human infant, being comprised of mostly cartilage, although they lack the open anterior fonanelle (also known as the soft spot) of an infant. This is due to the fact a Locutian's brain continues to grow throughout their entire life span, requiring a skull that can continue to expand to contain it.

In older specimens that have absorbed more experiences the head develops protective plates of chitin on the skin starting above the brows; these plates also helping to balance the head over the neck by adding weight to the front as it continues to elongate out the back. A Locutian's brows are heavy and broad above eyes that are further apart than a humanoid's. Despite this Locutian's have excellent depth perception and periphery vision as the eyes muscles joining the eye to the skull are stronger and more numerous. Indeed, Locutians regularly seem to be rather bulgy eyed but this is so that the eyes can swivel forward for enhanced depth perception or side ways for greater field of vision. They also have a higher number of retinal cells as well as the tapetum layer to enhance low light vision. Their pupils are also horizontally slit, allowing greater vision field. Despite the rather goatish look this 'letter box' pupil produces the Locutians are most definitely carnivorous.

The mandible is fussed to the skull in an open position and lacks teeth in the jaws, with the Locutian mouth being akin to that of a hag fish. Where the jaw should hinge to the skull Locutians possess a set of siphons, one to each side, which exhale the air or water sucked in through the mouth. Internally Locutians possess two sets of lungs, one designed for air breathing, which collapse at depth to make way for the other set of lungs which are more adapted for fluid respiration.

 Around the Locutian mouth is a set of face tendrils. These are fully mobile, being structurally similar to an elephant's trunk, although lacking in nostrils. Instead the underside is studded with suckers like the legs of a starfish. All save one of these tendrils can also flatten at the end to make a pad about the size of a human palm. At the centre of this 'palm' is a barbed thorn of chitin that is hollow and only loosely attached to its flesh. When a Locutian slaps with this 'palm' the thorn lodges in the flesh of the target and is left behind after contact breaks. At the base of the thorn is a membrane sack that contracts on contact with oxygen and forces a dose of neurotoxin into the target's blood stream causing instant paralysis. However, this is usually only used as an attack of last resort as the toxin is energy intensive to produce.

Lastly, it should be noted that Locutian skin contains pigment sacks that are under the control of a highly developed nervous system. The expansion and contraction of these sacks results in many different shades being exhibited on one individual. These shades do seem to have an emotional tie and can be used to judge the Locutians general emotional state, though there is the possibility that they could potentially lie with their skin pigment.  Various shades of purple appear during a resting or contented state. Blue is a show of frustration and annoyance. Acid yellow reveals a deep disgust or apathy towards the focus of the Locuians attention. Throbbing red is tied to outright anger and aggression while pulsating green exposes deep fear and maybe even terror. Grey is rarely seen as a skin tone among the Locutians but is considered to denote a deep despair.

Diet and Hunting Techniques: The Locutian diet is unfortunately tied to their psionic ability and extremely short gut. For a Locutian to survive they must feed upon a source of highly concentrated lipids, proteins, enzymes and vitamins that is psychically active. In short they have to feed upon the living brain issue of intelligent beings that have sentient level thought patterns. This unfortunately rules out most animals, though some are suitable.

This diet immediately stokes a source of conflict with other sentient races and is one not easily over come for obvious reasons, though some Hives are experimenting with trying to create psychically active animals that have a large enough brain mass to be a suitable replacement.

When it comes to hunting Locutians use their psychic abilities to stun, confuse or disorientate their chosen prey so that they can close within striking distance with little to no risk to themselves. Once within striking distance the Locutian wraps two tendrils around the target's neck to control them while the rest engulf the head. The mouth rasps an injury through the scalp, enabling the face tendrils to burrow underneath the skin and secure a grip directly on the skull. The skull is then pulled apart at the sutures, like a starfish prying open the shell of a mussel, before the brain is extracted and devoured. Not only does the Locutian digest the physical matter of the brain but it also absorbs the thoughts, memories and knowledge of the brain, though this does not seem to lead them to understanding the emotional lives of those that they feed upon.

Lifecycle: Locutians, as mentioned before, lack reproductive organs as found in other animals. Instead the face tendril that is thornless acts as the producer of their seed and they engage in extremely brief hermaphroditical relations to pass their seed between individuals. Both individuals will then produce a batch of eggs that is deposited in a nursing pool under the direct care of the Grand Director of the Hive. These eggs then hatch into larvae that will feed upon each other and what food the Grand Director gives them. This results in only the strongest and most mentally dominant surviving to maturity. During this time the Grand Director will psychically mould the larvae's personality and loyalty o the Hive.

Upon maturity the larvae with be implanted into a suitable host via the left nostril. That ensures that the larvae have the shortest distance to reach the left frontal lobe and begin the metamorphise into adult form. By this stage the larvae's body is primarily brain mass, its other organs having atrophied to make way for neurological tissue. Upon implantation its outer layer disintegrates and is absorbed while the neurons unravel, where upon the larvae's bodily tissues act more akin to a fungus, spreading out, infiltrating the host's brain and replacing their neurons with its own.

At the same time it is releasing stem cells and chemical markers that totally override the host's DNA, remodelling the body into the Locutian adult form. During this time the host's body will neither eat nor drink and it can take as long as month, hence why the body is reduced, one could say consumed, down to pure twitch muscle. It is also why Locutians favour heavy, one could say over weight, hosts as the extra mass gives the best chance of the body surviving the process. Indeed, death by starvation during metamorphosis is a risk factor the Locutians have to consider when attempting to reproduce.

The adult Locutians, for the most part, will have access to the host's original memories but they will be a separate set of data from the Locutian's personalty, the host's personalty having been shredded and destroyed by the process of metamorphosis. In many cases the host's original memories are forgotten quickly.

History and Society: The Locutian's have a history stretching back millions of years for the simple reason that they were a created race, the source of the oddities in their appearance and life cycle. Their creators, from what we can glean from Locutian racial memory, were a truly ancient civilisation that was never the less riven by war. Indeed it appears that the Locutians were created to be infiltrators and saboteurs of enemy personnel as well as resource gatherer's of biological matter from the deep sea. This was done in as practical and brutal manner as possible - the Locutians were a food source for their creators. Indeed, it can be implied from what they have been willing to share that they were considered the 'poor man's delicacy' by their creators. Instead of being resistant to this fact of life, the Locutians whole heartedly embraced it. One cold say that they are the living embodiments of two scriptures, the first being "the clay has no right to say to the potter - why did you make me like this?" and the second being "you should honour your father and mother all the days of your life." Indeed the Locutians revere, one could say worshipped, the very memory of their creators and hold them in the highest esteem.

 Therefore, it was a great racial trauma when their creator's civilisation died.

It is unclear whether it was an accident or deliberate act but it appears that a super weapon was developed that pulled an asteroid into an unstable orbit around the planet, ultimately resulting in it crashing down into a shallow coastal sea, resulting in massive tsunamis tearing across the globe, earthquakes and a debris field that blocked out the sun for several decades. The way that it has been described by the Grand Director who was willing to share the knowledge of their racial memories is "As if billions of voices cried out at once and then, one by one, fell silent."

 For the Locutians who survived in the deep sea there was a time period of close extinction as population pockets turned on each other in the desperate need for resources. It was during this time that the position of Grand Director came into existence. Grand Directors are Locutians mentally strong enough to dominate a group of other Locutians around them, thus creating the Hives. When a Grand Director is dying, be that from old age, injury or on rare occasions disease, there will be a brief but intense mental war as the surviving members of the Hive battle for dominance. The conqueror will devour the previous Grand Director's brain gaining access to all of the dying Director's memories. Thus was established legacies of generations of Grand Directors. However, many further upheavals and disasters have resulted in the number of Grand Directors who can remember back to the birth of their race to being only a handful.

Eventually the Locutians were able to organise and rediscover the surface world, along with many of the ruins of their creator's civilisation. As they exploded they regained much of their creator's science and technology and this drove the resurgence of their own race. They finally mastered the process of creating new races, just as they themselves had been created. Finally the Locutians were able to control their own destiny as well as the destiny of others.

First were the orcs - strong of back, tough, resilient to damage but with minds easy to dominate, the perfect bulk lifters to harvest the raw stuff that empires are built on. After them came the dwarfs - smaller in stature but equally hardy, minds and fingers more nimble, able to take the raw stuff orcs harvested and form it into art and archeture, device and relic.

The humans were in many ways the Locutian's greatest achievement, rapidly breeding but with minds flexible enough to understand agriculture and basic metallurgy to support their artificially increased population, thus providing the Locutians with a stable food source. The elves were the last - highly intelligent, with superbly increased lifespans, the perfect hosts for the larvae.

Even after the first few decades, during which the Locutians had to husband their new stock carefully, they were still careful to glean what they needed with great restraint, selecting the specimens least likely to cause disturbance to the populations. Indeed, despite their physical needs, many Locutians display attachment to members of the stock they have under their direct care. When one considers the attachment displayed by a human farmer for his favourite prized bull or a favoured old hen in the yard that does not end up in the pot one has to ask if the sentiment is not much the same.

Thus the civilisation of the Locutians increased and flourished, with many Hives becoming so large that they were able to split and seed new ones, or some Hives banded together to found semi aquatic coastal cities. These cities were eventually connected by great thought resonating chambers, founding the great city of Locutus, a city of many locations.

Beautiful and mathematical, it was the central hub of a civilisation that had no less than two thousand years of peace.

To the Locutians' horror they were to face a second extinction event.

It is still a source of pain to the Locutians that their creator's true and natural descendants have lost not only their hands but also their minds. They are clever enough to learn to mimic sentient speech but with no understanding of what they say. Therefore, it was logical to the Locutians to expand their creation program to attempt the recreation of their own creators.

When the project was deemed a success some Locutians believed that they had improved upon the original design. Vast in maturity, naturally armoured, winged and able to harness elemental magic instinctively, the dragons took to the skies the same way the Locutians ruled the waters. For the Locutians it was their golden age - they drove to the depths of the sea to build vast underwater palaces and soared to the heights on the backs of the creators reborn. To have a again their creators, minds equal to their own, true companionship... none of the younger races may believe it but Locutians are capable of love and they loved, wholly and completely their creators reborn.

And it was the dragons who fomented and led the rebellion against the Locutians.

In a single day and night of misfortune the city of Locutus fell beneath the waves, never to rise again.

A Special Note:  Lastly one must mention the Locutian Apostates. These are individuals who suffered a malformation during the metamorphosis into adult form. They are rare, only about one in a hundred metamorphoses will be damaged in this way.

Instead of the Locutian personality completely dominating and erasing the hosts original personality, pieces of the original personality remains. This can be as little as the subconscious humming of a snatch of music, a habit easy enough to suppress and repress, or it can be as devastating as a near complete mental survival.

Those able to repress the original host's personality are able to remain within the Hive but are often the ones sent out on the most dangerous assignments as they are not wholly trusted by their fellow Locutians and are therefore seen as expendable. For those where the majority of the personality survives then there is only one fate - exile from the Hive.

Often able to disguise themselves to begin with due to survival mode, eventually the Hive will track the source of mental disturbance it sense and the Apostate will be discovered. What follows is harsh in the extreme.

The Apostate's barb-less face tendril will be clipped off at half length with a none too sharp pair of sheers and then capped with a golden cup screwed into the end of the tendril to prevent it from regenerating. They will then be driven from the Hive, cast out into a world that will welcome them no where.

Many run mad. The Locutian personality, moulded from the moment of its hatching to know that to be without a Hive is the worst thing that can happen to a Locutian, struggles to adjust to being disfellowed from its collective of birth. The Host personality, torn from home and family, having run on survival mode, possibly for years, struggles to adjust to the changes in instincts, urges and the fact that to look in the mirror is to see horror looking back at them. Those that go mad will kill and feed without thought of consequence or method and are usually hunted down eventually by the prey settlements and destroyed.

This has lead to a negative feed back loop. Because to Locutians are so secretive the only regular contact the younger races have with them are the insane Locutian Apostates. Because the only contact with the Locutians is via the Apostates gone mad, the young races hate and distrust the Locutians, often swearing vendettas and vengeance on them, forcing them to be more secretive. Because of this secrecy the only contact with the younger races is through the mad Apostates and so the cycle repeats.

There are reports of at least one Locutian Apostate that has managed to maintain their sanity after exile but at the moment the Grey Clerks have been unable to ascertain the truth of the existence of Louis Mahroe. Investigations are on going. 

Draconic Shenanigans - Episode 43

Chapter Forty Three: Familiar Issues (Part 2)

 

(Artwork not mine, created by Bionic Fusion AI)

 "He won't," Estella noted, "His type never do know when to shut the frack up." She widened her stance, the talismans protesting but beginning to wheel once more. They were struggling to keep up the focusing effect but they would not abandon their mother. The red cardinal twittered with worry as Estella began turning her hands again, gathering the power, feeling the motion of the water table deep beneath her, the hidden streams of the world responding to her call. This was what she had been born for, her talent hidden, buried by a place, a people who did not want to have to adapt, to grow, to accept that she could be as strong as anyone of them. Didn't want to have to put the effort in to stay superior by growing up themselves but she was not there any more, she was here, she was now and she wasn't afraid any more. Valodrael grinned even more widely as he felt her resolve thrum along the connection between them. His hoard, his queen was magnificent. He paced forward, eyes like the death of stars locking on to his next prey.

Estella's talismans were not the only ones to realise that this battle was going on longer than they wanted, or indeed needed, it to. As the werewolf Mutant circled, Thorian twitched his fingers on the hilt of his sword, wincing as the bones in his wrist crunched together. He could feel the damage joint trying to heal but it wasn't going quite right and he frowned at the squirmy feeling somehow inside his skin. The Mutant growled, circling, twitching its ears as it tried to decide how the battle was going, the smell of blood on the air but it could hear that the wounded were still on their feet. The werewolf Abomination that had attacked from the East whimpered as it looked from the headless body of its last pack mate to Thorian to the grinning Valodrael who was stalking closer. It whimpered again, ears down, tail low, breath coming hard and fast in little gasps. Thorian grunted and shook his blade again, scattering droplets of werewolf blood across the forest floor. The Werewolf Abomination turned and ran, bolting for the edge of the forest. Valodrael lunged, neck stretching impossibly long, teeth clashing a finger length behind the Abomination's hind most leg but it leapt forward with a scream, vaulting out of his reach, plunging forward without looking back. Valodrael growled but didn't pursue. A true dragon does not abandon his horde.

"Yeah, run little doggy!" Thorian shouted after it, not looking away from the Mutant as he did so, "Yah can't even be loyal to yah team! Runt! Pushalog! Spider leg!"

 The Mutant growled again, pacing backwards, lips rippling back, teeth clicking in a threat display, warning Thorian off. Thorian growled back.

On the other side of the battle field Quenril, straightened, ignoring the burning pain across his stomach, lashing out to keep the werewolf Abominations that had come down out of the North away from his brothers. His sword cut high, cut low, hissed passed muzzles and cut passed eyes. The Abominations contorted their unnatural bodies to avoid the stinging edge of his blade, keeping out of the way but only just. Their frustrated snarls echoed round the clearing.

"Just how come these things are so damn tough to hit?" Ulrich protested, "I'm being to think that recklessness must be the answer to these things."

"Oh Trakanhini please don't let him start that again," Tasnar prayed and then realised what he had just said that out loud.

"I'll take that under advisory," Ulrich grinned even as he kept the Abominations at bay and Quenril breathed a sigh of relief and then, as an Abomination took it as an invitation to attack, whipped his sword up and across its muzzle. It stumbled back, squealing and lashing out. Its claws raked across the face of a pack mate. Said pack mate roared in pain and shock and struck back. It appeared to be a taboo or it had broken the fragile bounds of pack that ruled the lives of werewolves. Within seconds the Abominations were ripping at each other, jaws crushing and claws tearing, hands twisting limbs and necks until they broke. The forest floor was well watered, turning the leaf litter red and by the time the Abominations regretted their frenzy only three of them were left standing. They seemed slightly stunned about how far it had gone.

Thorian grunted, nostrils flaring as the Werewolf Mutant darted its eyes from side to side. It made the mistake of focusing on Estella for too long.

"It's Thorian time!" Thorian's roar made the air tremble. His heavy blade thrummed in the air and the Mutant's head bounced across the earth, rolling to a stop, still clicking its teeth in last muscle spasms. A white wolf turned its head as Thorian smashed into its pillar, blade whining with abuse as it scored the surface of stone. Thorian grunted as his chest slammed into it and he bounced off with a bruise that ran the entire length of his sternum.

"Hold. The. Spell!" Greely the Domilii commanded, the blue light over laying Greely the Werewolf's original face still flickering on one side between the human face of the Domilii and the other visage that turned Kaelin's stomach if she looked at it for too long. She didn't have a choice though as Nanny Tatters lumbered another step towards the glowing circle of runes, Ulrich was bogged down in the two squads that had come barrelling down out of the North and Thorian and Valodrael were not going to have time to circle round the outside of the spell to reach the mastermind pulling the strings on this pack of werewolves and possessing the worst of the lot. She turned and pumped for height, wings thumping against the air, chest muscles straining. She levelled, rolled, dropped.

"Greely! You rutting frack face!" she roared as she plummeted, the wind clawing the fur along her muzzle.

Greely the Domilii turned, darkness writhing around one clawed hand, a curse on lips of flesh and lips of blue light but Kaelin had timed it well. He didn't have a chance to finish the hex as Kaelin's claws punched into his sternum and her fangs found his throat. The crack and rip echoed through the night.

Greely's body hit the dirt within the runic circle, blood erasing the carefully prepare lines, the blue light flickering and whining as the hateful glow faded from his eyes, lips still rippled back from fangs as the last cough splattered into the night. Writhing and curling the soul form of the Domilii lifted from Greely's flesh, revealing the split body of the deputy of Kaelin's grandfather, rent by new wounds and scars still pink from their clash in the Citadel of the Snake Clan.

"I told you then and I told you now," Kaelin said from atop the stone pillar she had knocked him off, "I already have a pack and it is not yours. My pack doesn't force me to bend to their will and when I say no they accept that I don't want the attention. You never understood that."

She went to turn away in contempt and then she realised that the blue light that made up the Domilii wasn't dispersing.

"Oh double Shite," Estella muttered taking a step back, the shine of the glamour round her hands fading slightly, "This cannot be good." And then Valodrael's bulk was before her, shielding her as her friend roared a challenge to the wraith that twisted and tangled in the air above Greely's corpse.

The Domilii's soul rose higher into the air, wriggling, writhing, a fish out of water but this fish would have made a deep sea monster swim back to its hole and beg to be passed by, the human and the corruption spawned monstrosity coiling and splitting, ragged, uneven, disharmony made spiritual form, dragging the ragged ends of the broken spell with it. The scream was a high pitched whine that shredded over the nerves, a defilement of a baby's scream of pain mixed with the gobbling of some oozing slushy thing. Then it dived and undulated over the ground, the runes flaring and burning out behind it as it crashed into Nanny Tatters.

"Oh golly!" Tikrumpdel yelled as the Crone dragon beneath him heaved and rippled, odd things happening within her flesh, its structure becoming more like the branching fans of fungus somehow over laying each over and still acting as muscles, the pasty white hide she had grown over the last few weeks as Jeremiah had allowed her to consume prey with her time devouring breath weapon, darkening and becoming webbed with veins that bulged with a fluid that was definitely not blood. The flesh of her dreadlocks split at the ends to become grasping hands with too many fingers. Her wings creaked as flesh over grew and over grew until they seemed to be made of flat mats of vegetable material like the roots of a plant left too long in one pot so that it became bound in on itself. The dark poured across the surface of her eye, chasing the blue ahead of it until the colour was reversed, a solid globe of black with just a tiny dot of blue in the centre dominating her face.

"I'd like to see you do that to this vessel!" the Domilii's voice, no longer competing with Greely's growl, was the spite of an old tyrant losing his mask of affability. Piloting Nanny Tatters body he went to rear back and swot Kaelin like a bug... only to buckled under Tikrumpdel's weight.

"What? What is this?" he growled, head twisting to look over his own shoulder, "How dare you? Get off me!"

"Not likely," Tikrumpdel dug his claw in, "not when you are going to hurt the ones carrying my hoard."

The Domilii roared and beat his new wings, fanning the smell of something musty and damp around the clearing, the stench of sloughed off reptile skins rotting in an abandoned cellar.

Ignoring the thrashing possessed Crone dragon behind him Weatherall tried once again to grasp the werewolf Abomination before him. It ducked and swiped out at him, scratching its claws along the hard shell of his massive claw.

Valodrael's head wove from side to side. Trying to line up a shot at Nanny Tatters' bucking form but every time he thought that he had it and started drawing in the breath to create the Chill of the Void, she would shift and Tikrumpdel would swing either wing or tail into the target area. Valodrael growled in frustration but he respected the old Lava Dragon and would not willingly break their accord. If nothing else, though he had youth and mobility on his side, he was also crippled by Domilii's experiments while though Tikrumpdel was old and gross with self abuse, he was also experienced and the very fat that crippled his wings was also defence against many attacks and would make hitting his internal organs difficult in the extreme. It would also take only one blast of flame to melt Estella like a candle in a bonfire and that he would not risk. Peter whistled in distress as the second half of the werewolf Mutants that had attacked from the north started to charge, trying to coalesce with their fellows and run the giant centipede and Marmaduke under. The Chill of the Void howled through the clearing with the scream of tortured ice and shattering glaciers. Mutants toppled and shattered mid-stride, the Domilii screaming from Nanny Tatters' throat as her tail froze and splintered as it swung, the white werewolf on the top of the pillar closest to that side of the battle shrieking and falling as its fur stiffened into icicles. Ironically it was the one the Domilii had forced to stay when it had considered running out of the battle earlier.

Jeremiah smiled as he considered the battle below him, stroking his beard, even as he circled on his dragon like wings. Picking a spot he began to mutter and gesture, weaving the words of the spell.

"Oh dears gods, no!" Kaelin's eyes widened and span on the pillar top, throwing herself off and thumping her wings with the effort of gaining height. The white werewolves twitched their noses at her retreat, confused and wondering what they were supposed to be doing now. Their leader was down and not down at the same time, only now there was something going on with the dragon that the spell was supposed to be focused on. Unsure as to whether or not they had succeeded in their efforts, they waited, wondering which one was going to make the move to become pack leader first.

Reality buckled between the pillars that were at the ten and eleven positions if the circle was a clock face seen from above so slightly north east of were Ulrich was fighting and flailing, for his life. The moaning came first and then the shadows writhed up off the floor, lanky bodies and spindly fingers groping blindly as their milky white eyes stared out of distorted heads. Again they were deadset in the middle of the uncanny valley and the sound of them made Kaelin falter in the air as she clapped her hands over her ears to try and block out the noise. She felt sick, she couldn't catch her breath properly and cold sweat slicked down her fur and hair. Somehow, somehow the white werewolves were able to look upon these crawling horrors and not go numb with terror. Instead they lifted their voices and howled, long, drawn out calls to the pack that wavered up and down the musical range. It would have been beautiful, except that it was calling for more of their kind to come to the feast. It would have been dangerous, except that no one answered that call. They howled again but again, silence was the only reply even as the shadow things Jeremiah had summoned unravelled and sank back into whatever hell they crawled out of. However, their appearance had done some good, even if not on the target Jeremiah had originally intended. The half pack of werewolf Mutants Peter and Marmaduke were facing down flinched and took a step back, their attention distracted by the writhing things even as the shadow beasts faded out of existence. Peter tried to take advantage of that flinch, biting at the nearest one but his mandibles clicked together as it slapped him back. He whistled in annoyance, his compound eyes whirling.

He wasn't the only one struggling.

"Just what is it going to take to kill these things?" Ulrich demanded as an Abomination once again avoided his every strike and blow.

"Too damn much," Kaelin replied as she swooped low, trying to break up the pack by feinting at them.

Sabal spat an Ash Elf curse that was somehow elegant for all the bile and venom with which it was spat. His gaze, irises whirling with pulsing colours, didn't seem to be doing anything to the werewolf Abominations and the blood was tickling from his shoulder down to his fingertips, the wound a ragged mass of torn flesh. He only just managed to duck out of the way of the clashing fangs that came for his face. He shivered as he straightened, which was not a good sign. If shock and blood loss were setting in, he didn't have long before he went down.

Nanny Tatters' body bucked and jerked, trying to dislodge Tikrumpdel off of her back but he was proving to be a sticky burden and he wasn't coming off. Pounding the air with her wings, the Domilii managed a half rear but Tikrumpdel dug his claws in and clung on, even taking a step or two forwards towards the base of her neck, shifting his weight and therefore moving the centre of gravity closer to her front legs, forcing her back down.

Nanny Tatters' face snarled. It appeared that the old theory of mind following form was true. Though the Domilii had complete and utter control of Nanny Tatters' body, wearing it like a suit made out of flesh he was paying a price, the veneer of civilisation, the mask of the refined gentleman splitting and peeling back to reveal the raw brutality of his true nature. He forced Nanny Tatters' body to heave again, fighting to shift Tikrumpdel's weight off her/his back. Tikrumpdel reared up as well, wings thrashing to lift him. A grin that was not her own twisted Nanny Tatters' lip as the weight lessen and the Domilii prepared for the final effort to dislodge his unwanted passenger and then Tikrumpdel slammed down, the biggest galumph in the history of galumphs smashing the breath from Nanny Tatters' lung and driving her to the ground, joints cracking as the Domilii tried to resist the weight.

Coughing, winded, single eye wide with the shock of being hurt after so many years of being invulnerable, the Domilii managed to brace one arm under the Crone Dragon's body, giving himself enough space to drag breath after punishing breath into Nanny Tatters' abused lungs. As Marmaduke missed the werewolf Mutant before him yet again, the Domilii tipped back Nanny Tatters' head and screamed the words of a spell.

Kaelin ducked and twisted in the air as the runic circle flared to life, not on the ground but hovering in midair, the wheels of sickly light grinding against each other as the stench of ozone washed across the battlefield. With the sound of rotten leather tearing the airborne runic circle collapsed like a spider's web folding in on itself, like a bloodline gone corrupt and stale. What dived through that gash in the flesh of reality spread bat like wings that stretched twelve feet across, each.

"Oh double shite!" Estella breathed as Thorian lowered his great sword a moment, mouth agape and Jeremiah drifted aimlessly, wings locked in a glide as he stared at the unravelling spell, the last of the winged werewolves that were coming through yelping and snarling as it lost a toe as the rent in what was real clipped shut behind it.

"Stuff this," Estella muttered to herself. Seeing as Thorian and Valodrael had pretty much cleared the threat attacking from the East and Ulrich and his companions finally seemed to be gaining he upper hand over the last of the Abominations so she focused on the werewolf Mutants still hammering at Peter and Marmaduke. Though Peter was doing a lot of his shrill whistling screaming, it did appear to be all ire rather than pain. Marmaduke, on the other hand, was definitely battered, sparks fizzing and crackling within his chest.

Estella changed her stance and took her time building up her power, hands carving slower but more graceful arches, weaving together the shape of a rune of Kronzyn, held suspended within the circle of power. Her talismans settled, their flight more sure, less frantic, their song smoother, finding the harmony in the darkness.

The Mutants yelled twisted, turned! Teeth clashed, claws struck, hackles stood up straight like a pack of cats. The sound however, was the bedlam of a dog fight, a dog fight in a meat packing factory. Heavy limbs churned the forest floor, thick necks strained, the thuds of barrel chests smacking into each other echoed across the clearing.

Peter stepped and in the case of a giant centipede that was a lot of step, stepped back from the battle, breath whistling through multiple breathing pores, antennae drooping, mouth parts chattering with both anger and more heavily, fatigue. These Mutants seemed to be a different breed to the ones they had faced in the Capital City of the Dwergs, much tougher and more wily, able to avoid his bites and slams. Under his hardened shell, Peter was feeling beat for the first time since Ulrich had tamed him in the Underworld. Part of him was tempted to run but he wasn't even sure he'd make it that far before he ran out of energy. a strange ripple travelled his length. Peter the centipede was running out of strength.

Tikrumpdel on the other hand was feeling just fine as he galumphed slightly higher up Nanny Tatters' back, the Domilii wheezing and grunting under his weight, malformed muscle tissue straining and bulging as more and more webs of whatever it was that now formed it grew and grew again, making her hide rippled in ways that made the stomach roll and the throat ache to watch.

Tikrumpdel snorted and started grunting and muttering, deliberately bouncing up and down on the spot to keep the Domilii distracted from the spell he was mumbling. The Domilii hissed and then let loose a gasping cry as a vertebra shifted out of alignment to its fellows.

Tikrumpdel burped the last words to the spell and the air groaned as Nanny Tatters was flattened to the forest floor, Tikrumpdel's expanding bulk shouldering the wind aside as he doubled in size. He was suddenly the size of a farmer's prized bull at the shoulder and must have been even heavier. He also had dentistry that no bull had ever had.

The Domilii screamed with Nanny Tatters' voice as Tikrumpdel's fangs sank into her shoulder and worried back and forth. The noise from her body was not however, the ripping of flesh but rather the sound of something more vegetable, like the sounds of tree branches being torn off in a monstrous gale. When Tikrumpdel yanked back, lifting meat from bone and skin from flesh, she did not bleed; she leaked something that looked like liquid resin and stank like corruption.

Tikrumpdel turned his head and spat, ignoring the boneless hands of her dreadlocks that tried to slap him, flinching away from the exposed muscle of the deep wound he'd inflicted as it squirmed like a nest full of maggots.

"What the hell are you?" Tikrumpdel spat again, shuddering at the taste lingering on his tongue.

"I AM A GOD!" the Domilii roared, eye blazing with dark fire.

Jolted by that sound both Quenril and Sabal missed their strikes, the only saving grace being that so did their foes, the sound knifing through their ears and overwhelming nervous systems as it shook internal organs.

As the shock wave died away, Jeremiah dived out of the sky, stumbling and skidding to a very undignified stop behind the ragged battle line of Estella, Thorian and his own Undead Ash Elf puppet.

"Shoot them!" he commanded it, pointing into the sky, "Shoot them!"

It gazed at him, savagely carved nose accentuating its blank expression, then turned and raised its hand bow. The bolt whistled wide of the mark.

"You idiot!" Jeremiah barked, smacking the Ash Elf over the back of the head, causing it to stumble forward. At a lose of how else to combat the air borne menace, he spread his fingers wide, muttering the prayer to his darksome god to unshrink Tikrumpdel and crush Nanny Tatters' mortal remains beneath him.

There was a thunder clap of air and Jeremiah smiled, right up to when he opened his eyes. He frown as he tried to understand why Thorian seemed to be bigger than he used to be, first wondering if his god had grown Thorian as a joke on his most loyal and trustworthy servant. He frowned deeper, noticing that everything seemed to be in proportion with Thorian and not with... He tripped on the folds of his dragon hide robes that were now stunningly too big for him. Jeremiah's roar of anger and disbelief echoed round the clearing as he fought the robes that had been perfect for his man sized frame but now that he was the size of a dwarf... Jeremiah's howl of indignation challenged Nanny Tatters' bellows.

Distracted by the yelling little man thing, one of the werewolf Mutants took Marmaduke's blow high on its shoulder. It stumbled and grunted under the blow, its hide bruising but its constitution too tough to take the damage that Marmaduke was dishing out.

Thorian sniffed and slammed his sword point down into the turf, leaving it standing on its own as his rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles. The white werewolf on top of the pillar rolled its eyes and turned away, leaving the petty green thing to do what it wanted. Turned out that was a mistake.

With a deep throated, building roar, Thorian slammed into the pillar and put all his shoulder and weight behind it. For a second it held and then, almost imperceptibly the pillar began to tilt. Thorian braced his feet and kept pushing, muscles along his arms bulging, chest heaving, veins standing out up his neck. The stone creaked, the turf around its base lifted, the werewolf, snowy white and gleaming looked back over its shoulder with a frown.

Thorian lifted one foot, the other taking the whole of the strain, putting his entire weight into the pillar, effort cording through him, sweat standing out on his brow and running down his back. The stone shifted, grinding, the turf tore, the werewolf yelped... and gravity took over, the pillar falling faster and faster, thundering down to the grass, the boom of its landing almost drowning out the wild howl of the white werewolf. It windmilled its arms as it tried to balance on the top of the pillar, then, as the tipping point was reached, it threw itself forward into a dive roll, coming to its feet with a twist so that it could snarl at Thorian. Thorian didn't say a word, just reached out and seized the hilt of his sword and yanking it from the turf, the blade singing as it came free. The white werewolf laid its ears back and rippled its lip.

Above them Kaelin span in the air, wings flicking half beats, almost closed to give her just the wing tips, speed her only ally as the flock... pack... whatever of bat winged werewolves hammered after her, their wing limbs making a chorus of tortured sounding wind. She dived, they followed, she rolled and pulled up, fighting to climb to the moon, they followed. She closed her eyes and rolled backwards closed her wings fully and dropped like a stone. The air clawed at her, pulling tears from her eyes even with them nearly squinted shut, roaring in her ears. Twisting her wing tips out she pulled up level and inverted, rolled left, inverted again and pulled up into another climb, hearing the yip and snarl behind her that said they were still on her tail though the distance was finally opening up. She reached the top of what she could gain in a straight up climb, levelled and slip streamed to the right, curving and dropping into a second inversion, turning left, turning right, rolling up into a full loop, crossing underneath her pursuers, inverting to the left, climbing only to instantly drop again in a stomach kicking hump back manoeuvre, entering a climb to the left that inverted to the right. Behind her the snarling turned vicious, the pursuit breaking up as the fragile bound of shared prey was tested as her wild flying snared them up, the front fliers crossing paths with the trailers as they tried to keep on her tail and maybe cross her loop. There were yelps and growls and the sound of meat hitting meat as they turned on each other mid flight but she didn't dare look back. She knew that there would still be a few on her tail, those that would avoid the collision and knew that they now had a better chance of bringing her down themselves.

 Valodrael felt no such concerns. He might not be able to use the Chill of the Void without risk to Tikrumpdel but Nanny Tatters was a much closer target, much bigger and now he didn't have the werewolves bothering Estella.

Valodrael's roar was many voices howling as one, pain, rage, fear, despair, all there, all layered and tangled round each other in a terrible chorus that was the dying shriek of an entire Continent that had burned for one man's greed.

The Domilii screamed as Valodrael's still expanding teeth sank into the other shoulder and ripped back and forth even, shredding the soft hide and the squirming muscles beneath. Tikrumpdel flinched back from the younger dragon's fury as Valodrael ripped fleshy dreadlocks free, smashed Nanny Tatters jaw hinge, broke her wrist and plunged the lengthening, glowing length of the fore-claw of his left hand into her side and seared open a rift the whole length of her. Tikrumpdel did not understand the language Valodrael was screaming but it did not take a genius to guess the content as the galaxies rippled and burned across Valodrael's hide. Kaelin had once screamed her hate of her grandfather; Valodrael's hatred was something unholy that made the night tremble with its intensity. He wasn't going to kill Nanny Tatters, he was going to rip her to pieces, one shred at a time, he was going to break her bones and tear her flesh and leave her inner most organs intact so that she would take hours, maybe even days to die and he'd enjoy every second of watching the Domilii trapped within that breaking flesh, finally feeling a measure of what Valodrael had experienced as the God Machine had flailed his soul from his body. He didn't want the Domilii destroyed, he wanted him to BURN, burn for all eternity and never be able to escape it. And he would enjoy watching the Domilii suffer every damn minute of it. Even as Valodrael snagged Nanny Tatters battering wing with his teeth, snapped a finger bone and ripped a great flap of the matted matter free he was grinning wide at every shriek the Domilii uttered.

Peter charged again, bulk rippling, not trying to bite this time but instead shouldering werewolf Mutants off their feet, bullying them over, trampling and tangling them in his mass of pointed feet. They snarled and scrambled over, teeth snapping and lips rippling but Peter was already smashing into another, knocking them flying.

Tikrumpdel didn't bother trying to distract the Domilii from the spell he started muttering this time, seeing that the Domilli was more than distracted by the mauling that Valodrael was giving Nanny Tatters' body. The young dragon had lost any attention for anything but utterly wrecking his foe. Tikrumpdel could understand that, he had felt much the same, once upon a time, for the upstarts that had murdered Gaudis, before time and self abuse had numbed the pain and made him accept that sometimes vengeance was beyond even him. Now he spoke carefully the words of the spell to cancel the shrink spell that had been cast on him.

Valodrael stumbled back, shaking his head, ear fines ringing with the thunder that echoed off the mountains. The Domilii's scream turned thin and high as Nanny Tatters' ribs cracked and deformed under Tikrumpdel's sudden weight. He pushed right through being the size of a hippopotamus and into being the size of one of the white whales that haunted the icy seas of the North, his weight capping out in the ton range and it was all baring down on Nanny Tatters' lower ribs, shifting her spine and constricting her lungs. The Domilli screamed again and spat frothy blood as broken ribs tore lung tissue.

Ulrich laughed and struck out at the werewolf Abominations that had survived the pack's attempt to destroy itself. He should have kept his mouth shut until he had finished the job, the Abomination he targetted not only ducking his blow but also Weatherall's flow up blow. It sniggered back at Ulrich, ears standing tall as it performed a very rude gesture with a claw.

"I beg your pardon!" Ulrich exclaimed. Grinning it lead the charge against Ulrich and the Ash Elves, claws raised. However, what was good for the goose was evidently good for the gander, as Ulrich, Quenril and Tasmar ducked and wove through the fight, every clawed hand missing, every clashing set of jaws coming up short.

"Looks like you could have done with three arms rather than three legs, "Ulrich cat called.

The Abominations snarled and rounded on him.

"Oh, aren't you learning yet?" Ulrich grinned, "Or do you want even more members of your pack to die? When are you going to realise that we are too expansive for you?"

Apparently he was talking in words too big for the werewolf Abominations to fully understand as they just snarled more and circled, trying to find a weak point, somewhere, someone who would break the herd's ranks so they could get in passed the herd's metal claws.

If the Abominations weren't taking the hint then the Mutants left on the field were seriously considering it, what was left of them bunching up together, fangs turned outwards as they glared at the King's Special and their allies, the noise of the battling dragons ringing in their ears. The prey was not what they had expected, was not the tender flesh they had been planning to chew on and the sharp scent of confusion filled their noses.

The white werewolves snarled and spat as well as the smells of blood and meat and the din of battle over rode the orders they had been given and they dived off the pillars, claws gouging up the leaf litter as they raced towards the strays of this enemy pack.

Estella screamed, high and thin, as she saw them coming, though her expression was more calculating than terrified, as if she was considering how best to grab someone's attention when they were hyper-focused on the foe before them and it turned out that she had picked the correct method.

Valodrael slewed round from giving Nanny Tatters yet another mauling to throw himself in the path of the white werewolves, standing between them and Estella, wings up, legs braced, a roar sheering through the night.

The white werewolves who had been knocked off his pillar by dint of Thorian knocking his pillar over leapt, teeth bared, claws out, a howling cry echoing in the woods. Thorian didn't flinch, his sword raised high and then crashing down, splitting the werewolf from stem to stern. He half turned as the pieces smacked down in the dirt.

"Stupid Doggy," Thorian noted and then shook some of the mess off his blade.

Free of Valodrael's attention, Nanny Tatters' body gave a huge heave as the Domilli let lose a desperate yell. Bones crunched, writhing tissue squasmed, split hide shredded further but the Domilii was back on Nanny Tatters' feet and then rolled suddenly side ways, spilling Tikrumpdel off, making the forest shudder. Birds flew squawking from the trees, another stone pillar tumbled sideways, unseen in the dark the crack of falling timber echoed through the night.

"You dared to strike me!?!" the Domilii's voice was fury and promised pain. A claw came up, aimed for Tikrumpdel's many chins. Kaelin dived, grabbed one of the wriggling, grasping hands that had once been one of Nanny Tatters' fleshy dreadlocks and pumped her wings. The Domilii yelled as the fleshy appendage snapped. He turned Nanny Tatters' head intending to bite Kaelin from the sky and she slapped him with the sticky end. He roared with wounded pride.

"Someone needs a lesson in humility," Tasnar muttered as he ducked another blow, sword only just keeping the Abominations at bay, struggling to make up for his new blind side, where blood and shreds of his ruined face had covered his eye, "Or to at least quit this battle with grace."

"Actually would be better if we could be done with him now," Ulrich called as he tried to guide Weatherall into actually hitting something for a change, "If he escapes then we'll never know when he's going to come back for a second go. His sort are always more dangerous if you give them time to rally their resources."

"Good point," Tasnar gasped as he ducked another blow.

Estella took a deep breath, trying to find her balance as she turned her hands, pulling on the water she felt in the ground below her, pulling on the love her talismans gave her, even Valodrael's angry, savage shape giving her security, letting her know that he would guard her back while she did what she could try.

The shimmer glowing paths built around her as she wove power and will, movement and intent into a single cohesive form before unleashing it at the back of the Domilii's head.

Nanny Tatters' stumbled, snorted, shook her/his head and gathered the strength for another attack.

"Oh for pity's sake!" Estella snapped as her hands stung.

 Lacking any further instructions Jeremiah's undead Ash Elf, having slowly worked its way though recocking and reloading its hand bow, took another shot at the winged werewolves circling above. A winged werewolf twitched an ear as something buzzed passed on its right but it paid it no mind. Lacking any frustration thought patterns the Undead puppet returned to trying to, ever so slowly, recock its weapon again.

Above the winged ones circled after Kaelin again.

"Frack this for a life," she muttered, pushing for height again. They clamoured after her, snarling and spitting. She reached the top and banked left into a turning drop and inversion, going so fast she could barely breath as she corkscrewed through the air, pulling up into another turning bank. They thundered after her, staying on her tail as she looped over and inverted to the left. Blood thundered in her ears as her pinions battered the air, trying for more speed as she twisted and turned, the wind roaring over her wings, no time to grab a breath.

It seemed the werewolves on the ground were finally beginning to realise that they had made a mistake, giving ground as Quenril and Marmaduke drove them back, swing after swing, blow after blow. Marmaduke still made odd, grinding groaning noises in his chest but the warrior of metal seemed to be rallying, his blows more smooth and sure, almost as if he was healing.

Valodrael drew a breath that swelled out his chest, making the constellations of dying stars dance and flare across his hide. The air screamed as it contracted like a fist, the cold punching through reality, frost crackling into existence and snow falling as water froze out of the air.

It seemed that the Domilii had some idea of how Nanny Tatters' had died because he threw up the damaged wing heartbeats before the wave of cold struck. He scram, oh how he screamed, high, reedy, agonised as the matted vegetable matter that made up his wing froze and burst at the cellular level, fractures and cracks of blue white ice spider webbing across the surface and wrapping around the arm bones and fingers of the wing as the bulging veins solidified and resisted the pumping of whatever it now was inside Nanny Tatters' chest that may have once been a heart. He screamed but he kept screaming, battered, rent, leaking in a dozen places as lumps and chunks of frozen wing snapped free and thudded and thumped to the forest floor, but still screaming, still alive, if possessing an undead Crone Dragon counted as being alive.

Valodrael's breath ran out and he stood, panting and gasping, glaring, supernova eyes blowtorch hot, a snarl rising in his throat as the Domilii jerked Nanny Tatters' frozen wing, sheering it off, the twice dead tissue shattering on the forest floor. The two dragons faced off, ignoring Tikrumpdel's efforts to roll back upright, history curdling and rotting between them, centuries of pain and hate and destruction, spinning down to meet at this point.

"It's Thorian Time!" the orc cross breed roared, launching himself up, his sword glowing with a power unnamed and unknown as he held it over his head with both hands.

The Domilii flinched back, confused as to how this little thing dared attack HIM, Nanny's Tatters' mouth opening in a warning roar, the stump of the destroyed limb twitching as if it would swot Thorian out of the air... only said limb was no longer there to swot with.

The Domilii screamed again as Thorian's sword sank deep, ripping and splitting. He straightened Nanny Tatters' battered hulk and spat a stream of words at the small green bug that caused him such pain.

Thorian... Thorian he said, "Baaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"

Tikrumpdel, still being smaller than Nanny Tatters, could see underneath her and what he saw was a sheep with moss green wool battering its head against Nanny Tatters' rear leg, bahing all the while and trying to glare out of a sheep's letter box pupiled eyes.

Tikrumpdel tried, he really did try to be fair to him, but it was no good. His flame trickled and popped into the air, billowing more smoke than anything of destructive force as he burst out laughing. He wobbled, shook, shivered like a sackful of jelly as his laughter bubbled and rang in a discordant counter point to the fury and dim of battle. He threw a wing over his face, took several deep breaths, just about had control again and then looked... again.

His howls of laughter echoed and re-echoed as the green sheep began to wander over the battle field, shaking its head slightly as if it had a headache.

Estella frowned, fitting a stone into the cradle of her sling, staring up into the sky and letting fly. She did miss Kaelin. Unfortunately at the speed the fliers were going she also missed every other one in the air. She frowned and sorted out another stone.

Unfortunately, she was not the only one distracted by Tikrumpdel's merriment as the Werewolf Mutants began to rally, to become bold again, distracted from their fear or maybe infuriated by the Lava Dragon's bellows of glee.

Still bleeding and damaged, Tasnar ducked the blow from an Abomination, scored a cut across its third leg and tried to grab its wrist as it flinched back but his ungloved hand missed the catch and Ulrich had to over reach to protect him from a follow up strike that very nearly had him. Thrown off balance by his riders movements Weatherall also failed to strike, his heavy claw just thudding in the dirt.

"Oh this is ridiculous," Ulrich muttered.

A long, drawn out scream of "Sssssssssssssshhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiittttttteeeeeeeeeee!" flew passed his head.

Kaelin's face was pulled tight, not in a snarl of anger but in a grimace of pain. Pain and just the tiniest dash of fear. If she failed a turn at these speeds it was gong to more than hurt, it was going to break internal things and possibly a few external things as well. It was only by clamping her jaws shut she was able to focus on breathing and wing beats, fighting to keep steady. She dived, steep, wind roaring in her ears, banked right, then left, inverted climbed for height, arrowed down again, banked left and up, inverting as she did so. Damn it, they were still on her tail and they appeared to be getting better. Far from running out of speed or becoming tangled in each other's flight paths again they seemed to be learning in real time how to stay with her, how to not give her any quarter. Double damn it, but they were pushing her, her muscles were only going out of sheer force of habit and the knowledge of what would happen if she stopped. It was probably only the hours of flying she'd done in the last few days that were giving her the chance to keep one step ahead of the ravening claws.

She pulled into a tight left hand bank and angled it ever so slightly, turning the bank into a climbing spiral, wings shredding the air. Gasping for breath, she pulled as tightly as possible, climbing rapidly, hammering her pinions, the pack snarling after her. It was a wall of death reaching up into the night sky, then, quite deliberately she fouled her own wing, bunching it up, almost closing it. The focus of the downward snap turn to her left almost, almost wrenched her bones out of alignment but it was not as uncontrolled as it looked. Instead of tumbling her through the air, she was suddenly diving through the centre of the upward spiral, threading the eye of the needle, striking out left and right as she plummeted. She heard squeals, growls, snarls behind her but she didn't dare stop to look, relying on the smell of blood to tell her that she had been successful in hitting some of them. Only, as she pulled up she didn't see any spiralling to the ground, their wings trimmed and broken. She clenched her fangs and pushed on.

Below her Jeremiah opened and shut his mouth at the sight of his Dragon Scale Robes, hanging loose and baggy round his much diminished frame. It was insulting, it was derogatory, it was... it was... infuriating! His god was laughing at him, laughing at his most high priest and his most high priest, Jeremiah, couldn't do a damn thing about it. He couldn't fight his god, the One True God could not be argued with or defied but how could he do this to Jeremiah? How could he treat Jeremiah this way when Jeremiah had been nothing but loyal? When Jeremiah had preached his word and spread his will and served him faithfully. How could he?

Jeremiah drew himself up to his full height and snarled the words of the prayer. He could not argue with the Will of his god but he could drive the terror of the One True God into the minds of these pathetic, worthless savages.

An Abomination hesitated from the strike it was about to launch at Ulrich, stepping back as a piece of one of the fallen twitched. Abomination and Mutant alike stepped back ; even Peter the Giant Centipede was distracted, pausing, waving his antennae, hissing a question his mind lacked the words to frame as the bodies of the dead trembled and twitched, rolling across the ground, writhing and rippling.

"What the dickens?" Ulrich's eyes were wide.

With a liquid sounding rip the carcass of the nearest dead turned inside out, bones shredding and shedding their fleshy cover, the hard lengths of calcium frames tearing their way free of the meat that had hung from them. Whistling like missiles the skeletons of all the dead, free of their wet coverings shot through the air, clicking together in new configurations, snapping together to form pillars and joints of bone, cracking and snapping as they jostled to find their place in the two new forms that were being built before the eyes of the King's Special.

The Abominations stumbled back, their slick hides bulging where hackles should have risen. Others were not so restrained with their expressions of their opinions of Jeremiah's new toys. As the bone golems straightened up to their full twelve feet of height Estella doubled over, shoulders shaking, teeth chattering, throat rasping as she heaved and heaved again. The smell of ruptured bodies rose from the leaf litter and small things that wiggled and crawled began rising, brought to the surface by the smell. Estella heaved again. The Abominations whimpered.

"Gaze upon the glory of the One True God!" Jeremiah bellowed, his diminished frame shaking with the force of his roar.

Quenril sniffed as he spared a glance in that direction.

"If you call that glory," he noted, "I'd hate to see horror."

Thorian the sheep bleated in apparent agreement and shook the leg that corresponded to his injured wrist and as he did so the bones cracked as they realigned, grinding together for a moment and then popping back into lace, ligaments sliding into their true positions as knicks and tears in them smoothed out and became whole. His bleat sounded much happier.

"Glad someone's happy," Ulrich raised an eyebrow as Marmaduke tried and once again failed to land a decent hit on the Mutants in front of him.

"Just why won't these things die?" Ulrich continued, "Or failing that just run away. Go on, go! Run away! Shoe! Shoe!"

"Sandal, boot, flip-flop," Valodrael grinned as he looked from white werewolves to the quivering bulk of Nanny Tatters, deciding which one he was going to rip a lump out of next.

Jeremiah's Undead Puppet fired another bolt at the winged werewolves again and this time it hit, at least partially, piercing a wing and passing straight through, leaving a hole that whistled with every beat. The winged ones turned, distracted, the flock circling and milling around as they tried to locate what was making the noise that was suddenly in  their midst.

Below, Tasnar struck out but failed to hit the Abomination before him. It snarled and struck back, almost hitting Tasnar but suddenly Sabal was there, knocking aside its blow, meeting its eye. It froze, captured by the shifting kaleidoscope of Sabal's gaze. Sabal didn't blink, holding it with his stare alone, letting the power he'd been trying to suppress rise to the fore, allowing it to begin to take, to steal, to devour. The Abomination whimpered, beginning to shrink down on itself.

The white werewolves didn't see their pack mate in trouble, they didn't even see the horror of the process that had created them, all they saw was a couple of huge heaps of bones that glistened with the marrow still trapped within them. In short, they saw two heaps of walking dinner and their brains completely shut down. They slammed into one, claw grabbing, teeth snapping, trying to yank thigh bones and arm bones free, gnawing and growling. The bone golem ponderously lifted a foot and took a slow step backwards, its foot crushing an area the size of a table top. The thump echoed and re-echoed around the clearing.

The Mutants drew back even more, eyes wide, mouths slightly open, quiet whimpers beginning to rise from some of them. This was beyond them, this wasn't what they had signed up for. Greely was dead but some how not dead all at the same time, the dragon who they had been meant to be defending was some how dead and not dead all at the same time because something of Greely had moved into her as he'd died. Several of them snorted, trying to puzzle it out, heads aching with the effort. The chain of command was breaking down, the pack leader was down and the second in command wasn't taking charge. They backed up some more.

Kaelin came down to rest in the top of a tree. She was soaked with sweat, her chest ached and her breath came sharp and hard but at last the pack of winged ones were distracted, circling on someone other than her. She took another couple of breaths and straightened, unslinging Haggis. She blew and blew into his wind bag, inflating him fully.

The noise that burst forth shook the trees and echoed to the mountains and back, a haunting strain that was more ambient sound than music, a coiling of notes and hum that made the bones shudder, the scalp crawl and the bowels turn to water. The pack of winged ones burst apart, scattering all directions, yelping and yipping, each fleeing its fear unable to name the fear's source.

Distracted by the howling sound that could only just be called music by dint of a huge wedge of generosity the Abominations looked up, tracking the disorganised flight of the winged ones. Weatherall's massive claw crashed down, smashing one of them off its feet and rattling its brains.

"A Hit!" Ulrich beamed, "A Hit to me!"

Except that it was the crab that did the hitting and not you," Jeremiah pointed out.

"The strikes of the mount count towards the total of the rider," Ulrich corrected, "That is why lists are used in a joust, so that the mounts cannot confuse the tally of the riders."

"Oh I stand corrected," Jeremiah's tone was sarcastic as usual.

 "That's alright old chum," Ulrich called as he struck out right and left, "It is the duty of civilised people to see to the education of others, wot!"

Jeremiah glowered.

At Ulrich's side Quenril struck out again, not hitting any of their foes but keeping them at bay.

"My Lord," he called, "I seem to remember an instrument you played when we were seeking egress from the Underworld. It had a marked effect upon the Lady Kaelin. Would it have a similar effect upon these beings?"

"By Geogre I think you're right," Ulrich eclaimed, "I should have thought of that ages back. See if you could keep these uncouth chaps out of my hair for a minute, would you old boy?"

"You heard Sir," Quenril called, "Give him space!"

"Like we haven't been trying that all this time," Sabal grunted and then stepped up his attacks, compensating for his wounded shoulder. Ulrich ignored his rudeness. After all, Sabal was bally injured and pain was known to make a chap short tempered. Besides he had the more important issue of finding that bally tin whistle in his pack.

Behind him the Domilii grunted in Nanny Tatters' throat, a nerve scouring creaking groaning echoing across the clearing as what appeared to be a branch burst from the wound where Nanny Tatters' wing had been rooted. With the noise of a glacier in pain it grew and split, forming the foundation of a new wing.

 "You going some where?" Tikrumpdel asked, his merriment finally under control, "Shame. I have to say that the sheep trick was rather amusing."

Nanny Tatters' head swung towards him, the Domilii's snarl warping her face. Her mouth gapped and her breath rattled as she drew it in, Tikrumpdel caught in that time devouring stream. He bowed his head, eyes closing as it continued, his scales becoming darker and the black colour seeping down over his sides, a hot coal going cold. His hide began to deflate around his shoulders and haunch, his sides no longer so massive.

Nanny Tatters' shut her mouth, tongue working as if she was enjoying the taste of something, the Domilii's face over laying the Crone Dragon's stabilising into the human, a cruel smile twisting his lip.

"Say hello to death for me, old one," he sneered at the ancient Lava dragon.

Tikrumpdel lifted his head slowly, opened his eyes and... He sneezed, snorted and rubbed his snout with the back of a hand. 

"Sorry, did you say something?" he asked. Nanny Tatters stepped back, the Domilii's  shock stamped across her features.

A shrill shriek rang in their ears. Ulrich had found the whistle and wasn't even trying to play it, just blowing through it as hard as possible.

The Abominations reeled back, screaming, the one already down thanks to Weatherall's blow grabbing its head ad then rolling over, blood trickling from its ears, eyes glazing over as it perished.

"Bah!" Thorian the sheep cried out, but whether that was in encouragement or confusion it was hard to tell. Sheep seem to be confused most of the time any way.

The Mutants, also being close to the source of Ulrich's 'tune' also cried out and flinched away, shaking their heavy jawed heads, barking in pain.

Kaelin flinched, the blow stick falling from her lips as her ears tingled. She couldn't tell if it had affected the winged ones or not, as they had already been spiralling thanks to her music. She did not think that it was vanity if she considered her music to be of better quality than Ulrich's especially as it seemed to be having the opposite to intended effect on the white pack leaders. Instead of cowering, they seemed to be inflating, their fur standing up as stiff as needles, chests expanding as growls like saw blades echoed through the night.

Valodrael clashed his teeth at the Domilii, confident at the white werewolves were preoccupied by the bone golems. The Domilii must have expect the attack as he was already flinching away before Valodrael bit. The Crone Dragon body the Domilii was riding was riding twisted, trying to wiggle free of the pincer movement Tikrumpdel and Valodrael were completing between them, beating her wings impotently, lopsided, asymmetric, the wooden bones of her right wing still bare, unable to bare her weight into the sky. The Domilii whipped her head back and forth as he tried to calculate the way out of the trap.

"Karma, give that globe to Estella," Jeremiah commanded, swooping low, then pulling up to land on one of the pillars of stone, well enough away from Nanny Tatters but still in her line of sight.

"Well, this does seem to be something of an inconvenience," he called out, "I wonder - how are you enjoying your new home?"

"You maggot!" Nanny Tatters the Domilii spat, lunging forward, only to be slowed by Valodrael clamping on to her bare boned wing, "I am a GOD! You think I need this wretched husk? She is a tool, a thing, something that was useful for a while. That's all she's ever been. I could snap her like a twig with my bare will!"

"Talk is cheap," Tikrumpdel interrupted, "Doing is more expensive. You think you can exist without your puppet? Prove it, 'cause I reckon you can't. You Sir, are nothing but an over stuffed blow bag with a jumbo size opinion of himself."

"How dare you?" Nanny Tatters the Domilii rounded on the old Lava Dragon, "You dare question ME? You are nothing! You are dirt! Your mate died because she was ashamed to be rutted by filth such as you! Every time you crawl upon her she begged to die rather than submit to your touch one more time! You disgusted her! You made her vomit! She was just too afraid to admit it. She begged me to release her from the torment you visited upon her. Your very presence defiled her. She wanted to be dead rather than bare you one more clutch of egg and I, being a merciful god, granted her wish. Your mate died because she allowed them to kill her. She wanted to be dead and I granted her wish, her wish to be free of you!"

Tikrumpdel's roar was more force than sound, the very air rippling away from him as he screamed and the Domilii... the Domilii laughed at him, laughed at his pain. Tikrumpdel roared again, a wall of sound so vast it knocked the bone golems off their strike and caused Peter to twist round and stare with his big, bug eyes.

The Abominations took advantage of everyone's distraction, the last pair pouncing on Tasnar. He screamed as he went down, muscle tearing under claws, the red beading and running over leaf litter. Sabal lunged.

One of the Abominations reared back, its ribs cut to the bone. The other snaled nd howled as Sabal grabbed it by the ears and twisted until it jerked its head up, meeting his gaze. As Quenril kept the other at bay Sabal locked stares with the one before him, hands wrenching its ears, forcing it to not look away. It snarled and brought its claws up to rake the bowels from its prey, only to falter,  a chill spreading through its muscles. Sabal's eyes were entrancing, deep, deep pools that the Abomination could fall into, fall forever into those mesmerising depths. Too late it realised the trap but by then it was far, far too late.

Sabal straightened and grinned at the last Abomination as he pushed its companion out of his way, new pale skin showing through the rents in his shirt over his shoulder. The Abomination he had just stared to death thudded into the turf and settled like an awkward statue, its every limb locked into place. Sabal stepped passed it, still wearing that death's head grin that would have done Valodrael proud. Like some sort of mad creature the last Abomination didn't take the hint that now would be a good chance to run away, instead snarling as it faced Sabal down.

On the other side of the battlefield Estella fitted the globe marked 'For insects' into her sling and started whirling it. The globe whistled through the air and smashed beautifully on the rump of one of the wings ones. It yelped and twisted in midair, the rest of the path flinching and turning away from it. One could almost see the trail of stink being left behind it as it flew, the winged pack pack having spotted Kaelin and set off in pursuit.

"Oh come on," Estella protested, her shoulders slumping. The winged one's very speed was keeping the shock of how it now smelt away from its nose, thought was half way amazing for those who had time to watch as the rest of the pack increased their number of rolls and inversions to stay out of the stink trail that it was leaving in the air behind it.

"Seems they have a little skunk in them as well," Estella observed. Despite the fact that it wasn't exactly what she's planned, it still work to a degree.

Kaelin threw herself out of her tree top when she realised that the pack of winged ones were thundering towards her. Once more she corkscrewed in a tight circle, climbing for height with each and every pump of her wings. And when the winged ones pulled into a straight up climb after her, she did the same, out pacing them at every moment, pushing until she gasped. All she needed was a little more...

She reached the top of her climb and winged over into a perfect, shrieking dive, her only just controlled plummet ramming up her speed until the wind made her eyes water and deafened her ears. Her stomach seemed to be trying to retreat all the way to her toes and she could barely breath but then she was among the swarm like a falcon among pigeons. She smacked into the first her claws meeting its head with her elbows locked and its neck gave way with a stomach turning crack. The second two were too close together to evade her plummeting speed and her claws first raked, the red fountaining into the night air, and then caught and twisted.

The winged werewolf trailing at the back due to its now rotten miasma flinched and twisted aside as its pack mates plummeted passed, one screaming with a broken wing until the ground broke its fall and snapped its remaining bones at the same time.

Kaelin pulled up and levelled out blasting over the tree tops, pine needles raked into the air behind her as the wind of her passage boomed across the forest. She didn't even try to slow her speed for several minutes until she was able to finally dare to bank sideways and curve back round, trying to spot the blue glow of Nanny Tatters' form in the dark. She tilted her wings more, trying to quiet the rush of air enough that she could hear the din of battle. In that effort, she was aided by the werewolves' pigheaded, idiotic stubbornness. A natural predator would have recognised that the pack had taken loses they could not sustain, a natural predator would have turned tail and run. The Abomination reared back and roared at Sabal, the threat challenge of a human, bound and stupidly determined to fight to the death for nothing but sheer brainless fanaticism.

"I guess that this is what Kaelin meant by werewolves being the very worse of both species," Ulrich noted as Weatherall stamped his pointed legs in the leaf litter as he turned, wiggling his eyes stalks, "Though that says nothing complimentary about the human race."

"Bah!" Thorian the sheep bleated but whether that was in suport of Ulrich's statement it was hard to say.

The white werewolves hurled themselves at the bone golems, crashing into their tree trunk legs like surf upon the shore, their claw raking and gouging but the golems barely rocked, bone faces made up of many skulls turned down to gaze at the white tide of rage wasting their strength against their legs. A bolt whistled and smacked into the leg of one of the bone golems but it bounced off harmlessly, missing the white werewolves even on the rebound. Jeremiah's Ash Elf puppet walked forward before lowering its hand bow to recock it one more time, its face still devoid of any sign of frustration or anger.

Ulrich raised his tin whistle and blew again. The Mutants retreated some more, knocking into one another as they whimpered and yelped, some falling to the floor to paw at their heads, their ears ringing. Unfortunately the second time seemed to work less effectively than the first time as they were the only ones affect, if anything the sole surviving Abomination seemed to be even more enraged than ever, flinging itself forward with a roar. It leapt at Ulrich, claws outstretched... Only to jerk to a halt mid air. Weatherall had finally made the catch. He lifted the Abomination high in his massive claw, ignoring its howls, ignoring its kicking, ignoring the raking blows it was gouging over his arm and claw. The Abomination snarled and then gasped as Weatherall increased the pressure. It screamed, three legs kicking more wildly, claws more desperate then Weatherall squeezed some more.

The Abomination came apart in a burst of red with a final scream.

"Did you have too?" Estella asked, "That was disgusting." Her shot was off as it scorched through the air towards the last of the winged ones.

"Be not of faint heart," Jeremiah councilled, his voice falling into the booming tones of the trained public speaker, "But look upon the works of the one True God and know that he is with us. His gaze watches over us, his strong right arm protects us, we are always in his thoughts. He can make the frail of heart whole, he can make the weak arm strong. To those that stand against his way and defy the truth and justice of his Will he is holy and righteous punishment. He smites the wicked and plunges them into a fiery pit but to his worthy and righteous servants he is gentle and provides guardians forged from the bones of their enemies. So strike true in the name of the One True God Klu..."

"Don't say the name!" Thorian bellowed, his bones cracking and snapping as he stopped being a sheep and straightened back up. He scratched his ear and looked around, wondering where his sword managed to run off too. He was sure he had it to hand a moment ago. Where could it have run off to? He turned around and around again. It had to be somewhere around here. Ah there it was!

Paying no mind to the Bone Golem's Thorian stumped over to where his sword laid in the mud and picked it up, shaking leaf litter off of it before glancing round. The big boney fellers seemed to be in a bit of bother with the white doggos. The boney fellers were smashing the ground with their big nobbly fists but the white doggos were quick on their feet, biting and slashing as they nopped and dodged round the blows.

Thorian stretched and loosened up his neck, swung his sword a couple of ties to limber up and then ducked round the big boney boy's swings but for a different reason to the white doggos, using the motion to trap two of the white doggos between him and the boney boys.

"Oi, dog breath!" he shouted. One of them turned, eyes red with fry and both it and the one beside it squealed in pain as Thorian's sword trimmed their ears. They reeled and howled, clawed hands clapped to their heads, the red staining their white fur in its crimson hue.

"How you like them apples?" Thorian barked back.

"Delicious!" Valodrael grinned as he drew in a breath that swelled out his ribs.

Nanny Tatters the Domilii shot a terrified look over his/her shoulder and whipped the tail she had regrown when she devoured some of Tikrumpdel's life force round Valodrael's neck, trying to throttle him.

He grinned at the Domilii's efforts, the oily black substance that made him straining to hold the power he was metastasising within even as Nanny Tatters strangle hold slipped through his unnatural flesh, the loop of tail sinking through Valodrael's neck with the noise of a chain being dragged through silt.

Valodrael's eyes narrowed and he tilted his head slightly to check with a quick glance what he thought he saw beyond the bulk that the Domilii was possessing.

"Estella?" he grunted, struggling to hold the power in check, "Sink her?"

Estella frowned, wondering how he had known she'd give up on her sling and was calling up the power one more time, her talismans circling, helping her to channel the power. Then she grinned as she figured out what he was planning. She crouched, lowered her arms, clenched her fists as if ceasing heavy weights, widened her stance and heaved skyward.

Nanny Tatters the Domilii cried out as the water surged up from the water table, smacking him from below like a sudden geyser and in the same moment Valodrael unleashed the Chill of the Void, the icy cracks and bangs of flash freezing water ringing out across the clearing. Nanny Tatters the Domilii thrashed and wrenched, a back foot smashing free of the frozen prison.

"You think this will hold me?" the Domilii demanded, twisting, the ice squealing as it flexed.

"Long enough," Valodrael grinned.

"What?" the Domilii snapped and then his head turned the other way towards the volcanic bubbling noise.

The fury that was twisting Tikrumpdel's lip was incandescent, much like the massive, soggy, inflated barrel of his body. He was still sucking in breath after breath, smoke curling from mouth and nostril, eyes aflame. His hide creaked from the internal pressure, every scale backlight by flame, straining to hold together, the flesh showing white between them. He sucked in again, stoking the atomic fire within.

Nanny Tatters screamed with the Domilii's voice, bucking and twisting, ice splintering apart, shattering with a bang like thunder. The Domilii's screamed again, struggling within Nanny Tatters' flesh, even as her wing reformed from matted material and she reared into the hind quarter crouch with her wings up, the prequel to launching herself skywards.

It was poetry in slow motion.

Nanny Tatters lunged for the open skies, the roiling cloud above promising escape, legs just starting to uncoil when Tikrumpdel opened his maw and let the chains on the fire within loose.

The noise was like the end of the world, the detonation of an entire valley that was the mouth of a volcano all along, the light the dying throws of an ancient forest consumed by flames. It wrapped around Nanny Tatters for a moment, smothering her screams, whipping and sheeting in the air as she twisted, licking her wings turning them to ash. Then it wasn't swaddling Nanny Tatters any more, it was inside her, her ribs standing out in relief. The flames jetted from her mouth, streamed from her ears. Her single massive eye goggled in absolute agony for a moment and then it flashed away in a stink of steam.

The silence as Tikrumpdel clicked his teeth together and then panted rang and then what was left of Nanny Tatters crumpled. In truth about the only things left were her lower half, her arms and her blackened skull and even that had been burst open by the furnace that had consumed her. The rest was just so many blackened sticks made brittle by the heat. They crumbled as the more intact lower half toppled backwards.

Jeremiah's Undead Ash Elf puppet didn't even glance up as Nanny Tatters skull tumbled down and then it vanished, crushed below the mass of bone.

Jeremiah sighed but consoled himself that one had to admit that it was a worthy way to die the second time. Far better than becoming such a stinking mass that it liquefied when he lifted his Will from it. He straightened smiling as the skein of power trickled out from underneath the bulk of cooked bone.

The thing that rose from Nanny Tatters corpse was not human in either appearance or sound. It spiralled up, shrieking, screeching, twisting like a coil of smoke that was some how trapped in hell. Estella clapped her hands to her ears as it screamed, the animalistic sound of a bag of cats being slow roasted over a fire and even Kaelin winced on the wing.

It howled, the air around it groaning as it tried to hold the warped mad thing, then it pounced on the spilling stream of power.

"That's mine!" Jeremiah protested but it was too late, the shrieking screaming thin that was the Domilii either consumed the skein of power or infected it, the two lights blending and merging as the soul fragment rose into the air, spinning and twisting. Still screaming and babbling it suddenly exploded, only it didn't at the same time. The light snapped outward, pushing sound before it in an unfelt shock wave that silenced the battle field, the blue flames carving sigils in the air that flared and twisted for a moment before collapsing inward, leaving after images dancing across the retina as the soundless lightning strike snapped and jagged across the sky arching away towards the eastern horizon.

"Now that's entertainment," Valodrael rumbled into the shocked silence. He turned and inclined his head to the panting mass that was Tikrumpdel. Struggling to catch his breath, the older dragon gave a short nod back, wing membranes flushed bright as he sort to dump the last of the excess heat he had created within his guts. He groaned and blew a stream of smoke rings from his nostrils.

Jeremiah frowned, his eyebrows beetling, sensing something had changed, something within himself. There was an itch at the back of his mind, a sense that something was missing, the sigil of his god spinning within its twisted cage of antler flaring a slightly different shade and he thought he could hear his god's amusement in the back of his skull. He sniffed and banished the thought, after all he had more important things to concentrate on, like his reduced height. Having his robes pool on the ground around his ankles was really undignified and needed correcting. He drew himself up and began... His mouth hanged open, eyes wide with shock. The words to the spell! He couldn't remember the words to the shrink spell! His roar of fury echoed off the mountains as loud as a dragon.

One of the werewolf Mutants jerked its head round, snarling, the small, screaming human as easy target in the confusion of the Crone Dragon's demise. It lunged, charging towards its prey... And Marmaduke's blade found its neck, snagging the flesh with the point of his sword. The Mutant's momentum carried it forward but it slithered and crashed in the leaf litter, gasping and croaking as its heart galloped while its blood pressure dropped. Critical collapse was reached in under two minutes and it lay still while over head Kaelin and the last remaining winged one twisted and turned, the air ripping and booming as Kaelin chased it through a dizzying course of brake stops and snap turns that strained her pinions to the limit.

The last of the Mutants turned tail and bolted, yelping through the under growth, Peter nipping at their heels while Marmaduke slapped their rumps with the flat of his blade to speed them on their way. Ulrich was not so restrained, his elf made blade catching one on the turn and piercing its lung before it could get away.

"Well hit, my lord," Sabal congratulated as it gasped and bubbled its life out at Weatherall's feet, "Now please remind me, how many does it usually take to deliver a message?"

"Usually only one, why?" Ulrich answered with a question.

"Good," Sabal smiled. His handbow thumped. There was a crash from the dark as a werewolf Mutant fell, the bolt buried deep in its hide.

"Nice shot," Tikrumpdel commented then turned to Jeremiah.

"Do you mind if I damage your new toys?" he asked, "It is just I am not going to be able to target those white nuisances without catching at least one of your skeletons giants in the flame."

"Excuse me," Jeremiah put his hands on his hips, "I ruddy well do mind, I've already lost one servant this night, I don't want to lose more!"

The white werewolves had heard enough. Turning tail they bolted off towards the forest but that turned out to be a tactical error.

Tikrumpdel's flame slashed through the air one more time, lightning the trees with its lurid glow and the two white werewolves nearest to him, now exposed away from the cover of the Bone Golems' bulk fell as a pile of ash and charred bone. Tikrumpdel burped.

"That's better," he sighed, the flush on his wing membranes finally calming to something more normal. Even as he said it the white werewolf Thorian had just struck landed, in many places. Estella counted over there and over there and up there.

The last one hurtled on, diving into the blackness, its panic increasing as it heard something thundering after it, smashing through the trees with the sound of a torrent of water.

After a few moments Valodrael swaggered back into the clearing, licking his lips.

"We'll not have to worry about it rallying more of its kind," he reported, the silently screaming face bulging under his hide baring witness to his statement as Kaelin settled to the ground, the last of the winged ones a whimpering shape disappearing into the gloom of the horizons, leaving a trail of stink behind it.

"They were tough," Thorian noted, cleaning his blade and slotting it back into its scabbard.

"Do you think this is more of your grandfather's work?" Ulrich asked Kaelin, "Do you think they are all going to be like this from now on?"

"Gods of the wilds I hope not," Kaelin drooped muscles already aching, "I'm hoping that Domilii character co-oped the cream of the crop. He really wanted Nanny Tatters back on the board."

"Are you surprised?" Valodrael asked, "A self motivating tool is much easier to use than one you have to directly puppet. If Nanny Tatters had been resurrected he could have moved on to other schemes and left her to tidy up the loose end you represented. She already hated your existence, tormenting and torturing you would have kept her fed for decades."

"Well, we don't have to worry about her any more," Ulrich smiled as he cleaned his swords.

"Maybe not her," Valodrael's serial killer's grin faltered, "But we will need to beware her master. He will not forgive this."

"Oh old boy?" Jeremiah managed a smile as he hitched up his trousers, "Surely you just? We have just seen this Domilii destroyed in his own fire. He..."

"No!" Valodrael snapped then repeated more quietly, "No. He is not dead and he is not fleshless either. That was a possession spell like none other and I have no doubt he will feel the pain for a long while but dead? Not on your nelly. He's not dead, not yet."

He paced over and flicked what was left of Nanny Tatters with a claw.

"By ice, by fire, by an unknown path," he rumbled, "And I still have work to do before I face him one more time."

After a moment Estella stepped up and laid a hand against his hide. He turned his face to her and in the silence Quenril crumpled to the ground. 

Draconic Shenanigans - Episode 42

Chapter Forty Two: Familiar Issues (Part one) 

 

(Artwork not my own, created by AI Creator)

 The night was calm and peaceful, the walking hut brooding over the members of the King's Special and their allies, watching the play of moonlight and cloud shadow over the ruins until the sky began to lightning with the first shifting colours of dawn.

"Whoop," it muttered, putting its head under its own wings, "Whoop."

Thorian snorted, sniffed, rolled over and stretched. Scratching he sat up and looked around. Quenril and the other Ash Elves were already rising, hurrying to roll up their sleeping bags and get out from under the walking hut's wing. The changing sky was a fascination to them and they were developing a habit of making sure they could watch the sunrise before they had to pull down the brims of their hats to protect their eyes against the glare. Used to the dim lights of the Underworlds, the hats that the dwergs had made them had proved invaluable, shielding their eyes as they adjusted to living top side of the world.

"Sir Ulrich?" Quenril called softly, "Will you be joining us?"

"Ummmm," Ulrich rolled over with a yawn, "In a minute, you go on ahead." He started to relax again... and then a lump under his legs humped. "Er what," Ulrich mumbled. The lump humped again and wriggled, bouncing up and down until Tikrumpdel's many chinned face snuffled and snorted out from under the now folded over bed roll.  His yellow eyes glared and he snorted a puff of smoke. With a sigh he wiggled and heaved until he managed to get one clawed, tubby paw out from under the sleeping bag. He paused, puffing, and then wriggled again, reaching with his one free paw, digging his claws into the turf to gain purchase and until his could yank the other leg free. He paused again, glaring over at Ulrich's sleeping bulk.

 "When I'm back to my more normal size I'm going to lay on you and find out if you like it," he grumbled and then set to wriggling again. With a final heave he popped free of the smothering folds, chin smearing the floor, wings flapping out and back feet and tubby tail winding up in the air.

"I hate you," he grumbled and galumphed round to wrinkled his snout at Ulrich. Ulrich dozed on, unperturbed by the dragon's ire. Tikrumpdel sniffed and wriggled his snout as he considered it. He could bite Ulrich, he could indeed but at his present size that could end poorly for him. At his present size? Something about that thought tapped the back of his brain. At his present size? At his present size he could...

Tikrumpdel grinned, stretching and flexing his wings. Ulrich mumbled and pulled the sleeping bag up to his nose as the breeze ran chill little claws round his chin.

"Five more minutes," he mumbled rolling on to his back, pulling the bed roll higher and the breeze didn't give up. He frowned in his dozing state, a strange flapping, almost clapping noise echoing under the wings of the walking hut.

The weight crashed into his breast bone, driving the air from his lungs and startling him awake with a smack. His eyes flew open as he tried and failed, to sit up. Tikrumpdel's snout filled his vision as the dragon puffed smoke straight in his face.

"Tikrumpdel," Ulrich coughed, waving a hand to try and disperse the vapours, "As much as I appreciate the wake up call..." He dissolved into another fit of coughing. "As much as I appreciate the help getting up, I don't need a cigar this early in the morning." He coughed again.

"Oh? Are you awake?" Tikrumpdel asked, head cocked on one side, "Oh goody. And here I was thinking that you rolled on me because you were still asleep."

"Wait what?" Ulrich asked, still trying to make all the gears line up in his head. Too late. Tikrumpdel galumphed off of him, taking the longest route to do so and somehow smacking Ulrich in the face with his tail as he turned round on Ulrich's chest. By the time he was off and away Ulrich was fighting to get his breath back and wondering if he had a cracked rib or two.

"Whoop?" the walking hut asked, looking in at him, "Whoop?"

"Yeah, some watch dog you are," Ulrich muttered, struggling out of his bed roll.

"Whoop," the walking hut sounded reproachful and withdraw, shuffling but not standing as Ulrich struggled to roll up his sleeping bag.

Outside, as the sky lightened towards the misty purple of dawn, Tikrumpdel galumphed across the ground and eyed up the still empty fire pit. He belched quietly and started sniffing the rocks that had been placed in a line around the outer edge. He knocked one, two, three into the middle of the fire blackened circle and then knocked one the other way.

Kaelin came winging down out of the tree where she had spent the night, shaking her pinions straight as she watched Tikrumpdel start circling wider and wider around the fire pit.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he started scratching at the dirty.

"More," he muttered, "Need more." He clawed up a sone and sniffed it. He snorted and rolled it away. Kaelin watched him for a few more moments and then started gathering stones for him to sniff.

Altan was walking down the wing vanes of the walking hut, tugging his shirt straight even as he frowned at the vaguely flat topped pile of rocks that had taken the place of fire wood in the fire pit, when Tikrumpdel decided that he'd found enough. The miniature lava dragon started sucking air like he was trying to inflate himself and then stretched his jaws wide. The flame roared in the early morning air, dancing in the colours of a bright Sunset Daylily over his pile of selected stones. Tikrumpdel kept exhaling, eyes narrowed, throat flexing as the beam of flame narrowed and brightened, shifting through yellow to white to blue, the noise of it going high and thin, almost a whistle.

Tikrumpdel clacked his teeth together and shook, dog like. The stones in the pit glowed a dull orange and the heat shimmered in the air above them.

"Alina?" Altan called, half turning the to walking hut but Alina was already coming down the wooden vane steps, Ulrich's kettle held in one hand. Altan held up a finger and quick stepped back up into the walking hut, emerging a moment later with a pair of long handled tongs.

"Is it not up to standard?" Tikrumpdel sniffed, eyes unhappy.

"Up to standard?" Altan asked, "Oh, it is up to standard, but if we put the kettle on any of these rocks directly it will melt the bottom out of the metal. We need to put something of a buffer in for it." He carefully lifted a rock out of the centre of the mass and replaced it with a cold one. A few minutes after Alina had carefully set the kettle on it the steam started pouring from the spout and the whistle started building.

"Now for that sound I will admit that I am awake," Ulrich emerged from under the wings of the walking hut, "I am awake. Repeat until convinced.... I'm not convinced."

Altan on the other hand was looking at Tikrumpdel.

"Told you that you might want a better version of your old forge," Tikrumpdel beamed.

"I'm convinced," Altan smiled, "The question remains though over payment and the going market rate of where we are heading."

"I've been thinking of that as well," Tikrumpdel stretched with a satisfied roll of his shoulders, "It seems to me that this King must have a fairly good grasp of logistics and strategy. Therefore he must have some sort of defensive force and Ulrich did mention something about the Northern Cuirassiers. Where there are soldiers there must be a need for equipment and where there is a need for equipment..."

"There's the need for a blacksmith," Altan smiled back, "And a blacksmith who can forge dragon tempered weapons can state his price and someone will pay it."

"And I'm sure that you will share your rewards with your draconic partner," Tikrumpdel stated, tongue flickering and tasting the air.

"Only a fool would try to make it another way," Altan inclined his head as he stabbed a slice of bread on to a toasting fork and held it out to the glowing rocks.

"Um," Ulrich frowned as he sipped his cup of tea, "Aren't you a little small to be guarding a hoard?"

"I won't always be small," Tikrumpdel flumped around to look up at him, "And even if I am, it might actually be an advantage, I'll be able to hide my hoard in a smaller space and if I can't guard it on my own, I'll hire some guards to help me out. It will be a wrench to have to pay them but if I consider that to not be a proper part of my hoard I might be able to do it. There is something to be said to having small people on your side, many eyes and all that."

"You could try hiring out some of your hoard to people on the understanding that they have to give it back within a certain time frame, with interest, or they become your servants and have to work for you," Jeremiah suggested.

"Oh lord," Ulrich put a hand up to his forehead, "Don't tell him about interest and what you just described is slavery, not servitude."

"Interest?" Tikrumpdel asked, "What is interest?"

"Oh lord," Ulrich muttered, "Here we go." But Jeremiah was leaning in with a smile and exampling about simple interest and compound interest, principal amounts and the tactics that could be used to keep someone in debt and therefore paying perpetually. By the time he'd finished, Tikrumpdel's thick tail was beating a tattoo on the soil while his eyes shone and sparkled.

"To start this off I'm going to need some extra money, aren't I?" he asked, "I can't barter a loan, can I? From what you are saying people want gold coins when they are negotiating a loan, not a barrel of cinnamon."

Ulrich choked and spat his tea across the heat rocks. Thorian frowned and shock tea off his hand but didn't say anything as Ulrich continued to cough and choke while Estella pounded him on the back.

"Oh, is cinnamon important?" Tikrumpdel blinked innocently. Ulrich tried to answer but turned red and started coughing again.

"You might as well ask if gold is important," Kaelin said wryly.

"Oh," Tikrumpdel lengthened his neck as much as possible, wings twitching, "Is cinnamon really that valuable to you little folk?"

"Let's put it this way," Kaelin folded her arms, "I once stole a handful of cinnamon sticks and I traded them two at a time to several different merchants. The money I got fed me for a month."

"And that from a handful?" Tikrumpdel's tail wasn't just beating on the ground, his whole body was bouncing up and down, his eyes seeming to whirl with colours.

"Just..." Ulrich began, coughed, swallowed a mouthful of tea and tried again, "Just be careful to not flood the market in one area or the price will go down. Kaelin did right be selling off her... supply a little at a time."

"This does bare thinking about," Tikrumpdel rumbled, "This does bare thinking about a lot." He wriggled around a little.

"I still would wonder how you are going to protect your gains if you remain this small," Jeremiah noted.

"I'll figure something out," Tikrumpdel shrugged and galumphed at the same time, making his body move in  interesting ways as he rippled towards Estella. "Beside," he crawled into her lap and rolled over, "I'm beginning to enjoy being this size, it certainly has its advantages." He half closed his eyes as Estella scratched his tummy. "I don't suppose you'd consider sharing this one?"

Estella's left eye turned black.

"Would you consider sharing your barrels of cinnamon?" Valodrael asked flatly. Tikrumpdel made a show of considering it as Estella's right hand continued scratching his belly scales.

"I guess not," he sighed, "Still, I don't suppose you'd consider employment?"

"Meaning?" Valodrael asked, cocking Estella's eyebrow.

"Well, whether or not you regain your own flesh and blood, you could really do with a place to settle your hoard," Tikrumpdel  stretched and shifted so Estella could more easily reach a particular itch, "To do that among the small people you need some money. If I employ you to guard my hoard you'd have some money and I wouldn't ask that many questions about how you kept the thieves away or how you disposed of any, ha, inconveniences, shall we say." 

"You do know that would be obstructing the course of justice," Jeremiah smiled nastily, "King Tatsuya has a dim view of such things, though I'm sure that Lady Estella would make a delightful permanent addition to the King's Special."

"And why would King Tatsuya be worried about a few low lives suddenly no longer bothering the kingdom?" Tikrumpdel rolled over and yawned, stretching luxuriantly as Estella scratched between his wings, his eyes half lidded as every muscle unwound, "After all if there is no trace of them trying to break and enter my hoard then, well, plausible deniability is a wonderful thing, quite... delicious."

Above him, on Estella's face, a smile that was all dragon and all hunger twisted her mouth. Valodrael hadn't had breakfast the previous day, in fact he hadn't eaten the previous day.

 "Now I'm just plain worried," Ulrich muttered.

"You don't have to be, as long as you are not planning to steal from me," Tikrumpdel seemed on the verge of going to sleep again, "I may even be willing to give you a loan towards future expenses, though we'd have to work out how you were going to get the repayments back to me. Hum...." He seemed to drift further off, eyes almost covered by the nictitating membrane nearly covering them. "Maybe a courier service, armoured carriages, heavily armed guards, that sort of thing. If all their arms and armour belong to me as well then, that would be even more of my hoard and an advertisement of mine and Altan's craft work..."

"Why are you thinking of working as a blacksmith's bellows if you are running a money racket?" Jeremiah demanded, shocked.

"Because I want to do something where I can earn the money as a piece of the hoard that is never loaned out," Tikrumpdel's eyes opened up more, "Because I want to see if I can. Because it will be good advertising for my services. And because, unbelievable to some though it is, if I work my flame, I may just lose some of this flubber!"

 He bounced slightly in Estella's lap and Valodrael's darkness faded from her eye as she winced. There was a cheep and Tikrumpdel squeaked, trying to twist his head over his shoulder to glare at whatever had just nipped his tail tip. He lifted a wing, scowling.

Estella's red cardinal talisman cheeped again, hopping in the dust. Tikrumpdel swished his tail further away from it and then yipped, twisting to give the evils below his other wing. The black Devil Flower Mantis talisman reared high, arms up, wings out, quick stepping from side to side and rubbing her knee joints against her thorax to make a high buzzing sound, not unlike a cricket.

Tikrumpdel went to swish his tail away from her and hesitated. The black Devil Flower Mantis darted in and punched with one arm before darting back, straining her arms high and shaking back and forth. Tikrumpdel twisted, turned and galumphed round in Estella's lap. The black Devil's Flower Mantis backed up, her arms still high, fizzing her wings.

Tikrumpdel narrowed his eyes. The way the black Devil's Flower Mantis was tapping her antenna and flicking her mouth parts made it look as if she was rasping her tongue at him while knocking herself on the head.

Tikrumpdel bunched and then threw himself off of Estella's lap,thumping into the dust and charging off on his belly after the talismans. The black Devil's Flower Mantis jumped and fluttered backwards towards the wooden wing vanes of the walking hut and then jumped again, dancing lightly over the dust that Tikrumpdel had to charge through. He was faster than expected but his endurance wasn't up to much. He stopped, panting, glaring at the little wooden figurine as she flitted over the ground. He squeaked and glared round as the bat cat nipped at a wing tip before bounding away to her insect sister. Tikrumpdel snorted and puffed smoke, hot eyes regarding the two teasing talismans before flinging himself forward again. Watching him struggle up the stairs trying to get at them was entertainment in itself, although a few of them were nursing sore ribs by the end of it, having nearly cracked them trying to not laugh out loud at the tiny dragon's predicament. He had said that he wanted to lose some of the blubber and it appeared that the talismans had taken his words to heart. The rest of the day passed with a fair number of smiles as the King's Special and their allies tried to travel and do their chores while also trying to watch a small, over weight and under fit dragon chase half a dozen flying wooden animals who were all only six inches tall. Every time Tikrumpdel gave up the chase, putting his chin down on the boards of the circular walkways to lay panting and flapping his wings slowly, flushed with the efforts of his exertions, the talismans would give him made five minutes peace and quiet at the most before one of them would nip at his tail or wing tips again. With a squeak or a squeal Tikrumpdel would round on them again, snapping and growling as he tried to catch them, claws gouging at the planks as he hauled his weight after them. Under the cloudy sky it was something to brighten the day and made everyone feel just that little more relaxed as they pushed on away from the ancient ruins towards the last few passes that would lead them home to Nether Wallop.

By the mid morning drink stop Tikrumpdel seemed to be reaching the end of his endurance as the phoenix hovered just before him but he barely lifted a head to look at its flaring wings, all eyelids closed. He didn't even flinch as the purple toad flicked its long tongue on his ear fin, just grumbled and rocked his head slightly. Altan's staff came tap, tap, tapping, along the balcony floor. Altan's staff came rap, rap, rapping, along the wooden boards. Tikrumpdel paid it no mind, apparently going to sleep. It was strange how Altan's staff could apply the boot without having a foot to wear it upon. Tikrumpdel grunted, snorted and rumbled, a little volcano getting ready for some serious action. Altan's staff tapped away, hop-scotching from one board to the one beside it. Tikrumpdel glared as he shuffled round, snorting like a stallion in a fighting mood. The staff landed and leaned from side to side. Tikrumpdel did the biggest push up they had ever seen him do and trashed his wings, rearing up until he was on his back feet, paunch hanging to his knees. The staff wavered and then began retreating as Tikrumpdel started jumping after it, wobbling and bouncing but still jumping, glaring after his wooden adversary as his weight thumped and bumped along the walk way as the walking hut started pacing forward again, wings buzzing with the noise of the frantic bee in their efforts to hold him up right so he wasn't galumphing but rather bumping along with a bizarre jumping gait.

However, after lunch the talismans and their big brother finally relented and allowed the tubby little dragon to curl up among the plants growing from the walking hut's china sides and sleep, smoke coiling lazily from his nostrils. Whether he was any thinner was anybody's guess but he was certainly worn out as he slept without twitching.

Kaelin flapped off ahead, watching the road. Nothing seemed out of place, as such, even as the drizzle set in but something, something was nagging at her. She landed in a tree and spread her wings to the rain, having a good preen as she watched. Something, something was off and she couldn't work out what. She watched as she ran her fingers over each and every feather, making sure the rain gave each one a good clean. By the time the others had caught up with her the drizzle had stopped but the nagging feeling hadn't left her.

As the sun set that evening, Yaga Tuf lifted her hooked nose and sniffed.

"Leaves will be turning soon," she stated as Tikrumpdel managed to drum up the energy to crawl down the wing vane steps and curl up in Estella's lap.

"Surely you jest," Ulrich noted.

"Nope," Kaelin agreed with the witch of the mountains, "The world is turning again, I can... smell it." Her eyes went wide as her nose finally told her brain what she'd been picking up on all afternoon. Ulrich frowned at her as Kaelin stood and walked away from the fire, nose going hyper active as her hackles rose, the wolf bubbling just under the surface.

"Kaelin is there something the matter?" he called.

"Family," was all Kaelin said and then she spread her wings, beating up into the tree tops, balancing somehow in the very top most branches, her weight somehow held up by twigs.

"Is there something we need to know?" Yaga Tuf asked, gnarled hands knotting on her stick, her eyes sharp in the fire light.

"Yeah," Thorian stood and pulled his sword from his scabbard, resting the flat on his shoulder, "Trouble."

"I'm afraid that Kaelin has some interesting family problems," Ulrich admitted, "She's blood to the one leading the pack of werewolves allied to the Bat Clan Ash Elves. Her grandfather is a less than pleasant creature and I for one would not be surprised if he turns traitor on his allies."

Altan didn't wait for his mother-in-law to say a word, standing to help his wife and daughter to their feet and get them back inside the walking hut.

"Whoop?" it called, head twisting back and forth, quicker and quicker, "Whoop?"

"I see," Yaga Tuf noted, flicking her fingers at the fire, causing it to sink and extinguish, "In that case I suggest that you bed down on the walk ways of the hut. It won't be as warm and it has no shelter if it decides to ran but it will give you the high ground, if family comes calling tonight. We can serve food inside the house. Good job none of you went hunting tonight, we don't have anything too big to try and cook in the oven."

"Thank you for your hospitality, great lady," Ulrich stood also. Peter rippled over and attached himself to a wing of the walking hut as they all started up the steps. Unfortunately there really wasn't anywhere that Weatherall and Marmaduke could either fit on or in the walking hut or not break the walkways with their weight in Marmaduke's case. Once they were all on board the walking hut stood but did not walk, standing guard as it waited further instructions.

Nanny Tatters also seemed affected by the werewolf pack in the area. As they sat crowded round the table inside the walking hut to have dinner Nanny Tatters paced and shifted outside. Jeremiah frowned, catching glimpses of her activities through the window as he ate. She stood up, turned round, sat down, rocked from side to side, stood up again, turned the other way, sat down again. She stood up, turned round and laid down but her tail beat an unsteady rhythm against the dirt as her head wavered on the end of her neck. Her great single, goggling eye blinked and rolled in her head as she stood up again and paced round the walking hut. It turned its head watching her, flapping its wings restlessly, Peter moving to its stumping fail with a whistle of protest. Kaelin, perched in her tree, spared Nanny Tatters a glance but was too focused on trying to pin point which direction her else while family was lurking in to pay it much mind.

Nanny Tatters sat down and bum shuffled about before standing up and pacing more.

"What's up with you?" Kaelin muttered, trying to concentrate, "You got worms or something?"

Inside the walking hut Estella had also noticed Nanny Tatters' twitchy behaviour.

"Do you think she sat on a thistle?" she whispered to Alina.

"That or a hedgehog," Alina whispered back, watching Nanny Tatters standing up again, "A frowning hedgehog."

Jeremiah frowned some more, not quite hearing what the girls were whispering about but casting a glance at his fidgeting puppet out of the window. He wondered what had got up her tail but shrugged it off. After all they didn't call them the unquiet dead for nothing.

After dinner, Jeremiah went back to his lounge chair, which had the added advantage of being at the highest point of the walking hut's back. If Kaelin's family did come a calling then he'd be the safest out of the lot. That and it meant that the others had to spread their bedrolls of the wooden boards below him so he was going to be the most comfortable out of the lot.

Kaelin did not join them, eyes narrowed as she peered at a patch of forest about quarter of a mile distant. There was something about that area that was tickling the back of her brain. She had learnt to listen to her brain tickles. As she peered at it, she sensed a large presence walk up to her shoulder. Nanny Tatters stood there, almost still at last but rocking slightly like... Like someone listening to music.

"Um," Kaelin said, looking from Nanny Tatters and back to the patch of forest that she was now sure was beginning to glow with a blue radiance that echoed the colour of Nanny Tatters undead eye.

Kaelin spread her wings and flitted to another tree, slightly deeper into the forest and more importantly out of the direct line of sight between Nanny Tatters and that blue glow. There was something going on here that Kaelin didn't like and it wasn't just missing her dinner. She shifted Haggis and held his bag up against her throat, humming into his soft grey fur. He seemed to take her meaning though as a shiver passed over her skin and when she glanced down at her hands she could barely see her outline in the dark.

She was just in time.

The crash shattered the peace of the night sending birds shrieking into the dark and bats skimming away like stones flicked across a pond. Underground was trampled, branches shattered, trees smashed to the ground.

"What! Where?" Ulrich jolted awake as Jeremiah fell off of his lounge chair just in time to see Nanny Tatters tail tip snake off into the dark. Standing with a huff, he tugged his robes straight and glided down to the broad path of destruction Nanny Tatters was cutting into the forest, wings cupping the air and then folding away into place. She wasn't that far ahead as she thrash through the undergrowth, not taking the easiest route but the straightest towards... where ever she was going. Jeremiah started strolling along the edge of the trampled line of destruction, tugging at his beard as he pondered a proper punishment for running away from the disciple of the One True God.

"Oh dat not good!" Thorian exclaimed, vaulting the railing and dropping to the road below, hurrying to catch up with Jeremiah and his run away dragon.

"Where is she going?" Jeremiah muttered as he paced along, wings occasional to keep his balance as he picked his way over the wreckage of the forest Nanny Tatters was leaving in her wake.

Ulrich took a little longer to survey the problem before he acted, which gave time for Yaga Tuf to join him.

"Oh gods," he muttered, "We're all going to die." He whistled and Peter came scurrying. Ulrich swung on to his back.

"Down!" Yaga Tuf snapped to the walking hut as Peter flowed over the rail and down its wing vanes. There wasn't much of a drop thanks to Yaga Tuf's reaction but it still made Ulrich's stomach lurch as they took it, the Ash Elf kin running after them, landing lightly on their feet, Estella following with Tikrumpdel in her arms, ignoring Alina's cry. Perhaps it was Estella's cry to Weatherall that distracted Ulrich from the pray he was forming as they plunged into the dark.

"Trakanhini," he whispered in his mind, "Please, we need your help. We run to face that which is unknown and I believe to be uncaring. Guard us this night and guide us true. Steady our hearts and keep us safe from that which would attack our minds. Keep us calm in the face fear and guard our minds against the horrors that would take them."

He wasn't not sure if his knew goddess had heard him as the clouds obscuring the stars above rolled and curled but it made him feel better for the trying. Perhaps that was all that was really needed.

Their destination was revealed rather suddenly, the forest falling back into a wide circle, boarding the smaller space contained with in the pillars of white stone.

Weatherall waved his eye stalks as he scuttled to stop at the edge of the trees, just behind the rest of the King's Special. Estella stood up on his shell and stared at the circle of ground within the standing stones that had been scrapped clear and then cut with lines and runes, the bare soil weeping blue light as the white werewolves balanced on the top of the stones whimpered and twitched their claws.

"Pretty colour," Thorian noted.

"I thought we'd killed him," Ulrich gulped as on the far side of the circle of standing stones, Greely grinned and barked the incantation, claws spread wide as he bared his fangs.

"Apparently I didn't throw hard enough," Kaelin spat as she landed beside him. Greely grinned but didn't grin at the same time, the blue light around him twisting in odd ways, as if a second face was laid over his own, a face with a noble baring twisted into cold arrogance and scorn.

"Isn't that...?" Ulrich began.

"The Domilli!" Valodrael's voice ripped from Estella's throat, her face warped with a hatred not her own. She leapt from Weatherall's back and deposited Tikrumpdel on the ground, a terrible snarl echoing from her, a sound her body should not have been able to produce.

Nanny Tatters had slowed now but was still marching forward, her gait unsteady but with the slow determination of a glacier heading towards the sea.

"Nanny Tatters, come here," Jeremiah said, eyes narrowed.

She stumbled a little but stepped towards the circle.

"Nanny Tatters, come here!" Jeremiah demanded, glaring at the werewolves.

She shook her head, still stepping towards the muttering, snarling werewolves and the magic they were channelling.

"Nanny Tatters, COME HERE!" Jeremiah commanded. She shuddered down the entire length of her body but only faltered for a moment. Greely threw back his head and barked a series of sounds that were not quite words but a second voice spoke with him, the polished tone of a public speaker weaving into the base animals growls to create something that was both civilised and primal, a calling to the ancient magics that formed the bedrock of the world. Nanny Tatters kept walking towards the circle.

Jeremiah drew himself up and raised both hands. He clicked his fingers and Nanny Tatters thudded to the dirt, a horrible rattle resonating within her as blue light spilled from her gapping jaws, coiling through the air, pooling in Jeremiah's eyes. He smiled as the blue light faded, absorbed within him. Then his smile faltered as Nanny Tatters creaked to her knees. Her hide, scaleless and smooth, was split and rent but she stood and resumed her walk.

"Oh poo," Jeremiah muttered the crude expletive as the blue face over laying Greely's smiled at him.

"She's not mine any more!" he yelled to the rest of the King's Special, "I can't control her!"

"And what gave you that hint?" Kaelin snarled, fingernails pushed aside as her claws erupted out of her fingers.

"Oh gods," Ulrich muttered and then corrected himself, "Oh Lady of Moonlight."

He pushed Peter sideways with a knee and scooped Tikrumpdel up off the ground, tucking him under an arm.

"Sorry chum," he cried, "I know you don't like this but needs must."

Tikrumpdel growled but Ulrich ignored it, turning to keep his eyes open whilst trying to compose a prayer to Trakanhini.

"Oh glorious Lady of Midnight," he began. The growling, snarling chanting of the werewolves interrupted his thought train.

"Oh glorious Lady of Midnight," he tried again. There was something in the bushes crashing towards them.

"Oh glorious Lady of Midnight," Ulrich frowned, trying to find the next words and squeezing Tikrumpdel in his frustration. The fat, little dragon squeaked and started leaking flame, bright yellow light battling with the sickly blue glow leaking from the runic circle of the werewolves.

"Oh... oh blast," Ulrich admitted, reaching for one of his swords as Peter reared and shrilled a challenge to the night and the werewolves.

Kaelin pocked haggis' blow stick into her mouth and puffed, cheeks swelling as did Haggis' furry wind bag, the tartan pattern in the brindle swelling as she blew. Haggis roared. It wasn't quite as deafening as it had been when they were underground as they were not enclosed but it still rang through the air, nighttime creatures of the forest fleeing in panic as the sound shattered the quite of the night. On the tops of the pillars the white werewolves lost the unified chant, whimpering and squealing, tugging at their ears in pain as Haggis' droning thunder sawed through the air and shook their brains.

"Keep the spell!" Greely barked but it was not his voice that issued from his throat, the polished voice becoming more pronounced, "Focus your minds. Prove that you are worthy of being pack."

The blue face was becoming more pronounced, over laying Greely's more completely, the werewolf becoming lost in the glow. Valodrael snarled as his one time tormentor drilled into Greely like a screw worm in the heart of a deer. The desire to throw himself forward, to charge, to rip and to tear boiled through the pain wracking him, the need to feel the Domilii bend beneath his teeth and claws was almost overwhelming but he felt Estella's whimper as her knowledge of his pain peaked and reined it back in. If he charged, if he threw her forward or worse, left her and charged in, she would be vulnerable. A true dragon would never leave his horde. He may have had his wings cut but he was still a true dragon, still a dragon and vengeance was not more important than his horde.

"Ready?" he asked in the vaults of her mind as they turned and looked to the forest, the smell of something rotten and vile coming to them.

"Ready," Estella steeled herself, bracing for the coming contraction. It always hurt but there was always an end in sight and if she concentrated on that then she could manage it. The harder she pushed the sooner it was done.

"It's Thorian Time!" Thorian bellowed, a huge grin spread across his face as he limbered up his arm. He didn't understand what the hairy, ugly boogers were doing, he didn't understand what all the blue glow was about and the strange sounding words. He did understand  that Kaelin didn't like them, that they were doing stuff that was making everyone afraid and that the funny man, made out of blue light, was not a nice man. He also understood that he might not know the words to stop the funny blue light but he could stop it any way, he could make it stop by shutting up the big white, ugly dogs standing on the top of these big rocks. The easiest way to shut them up was to hit them, hit them real hard. He could do that, he could do that real good.

"It's Thorian Time!" he roared again and charged, club like sword raised above his head. Sparks flew as the edge crashed down on rock of the nearest pillar, gouging the rock and making the white werewolf on the top yip and turn its head. A second later Thorian's shoulder slammed into the rock, making it wobble and rock in its earthy socket. The werewolf yelped and crouched to grip the pillar top tight.

"Focus on the spell!" Greely the Domilii commanded, "Keep the chant going. Let the others deal with these insects." The sneer was surprisingly impressive, seeing as it was twisted through wolf muzzle and human lip.

"Others?" Tasnar asked, staring round at the dark forest, elegant fingers in their gloves dropping the bolt into the grove of his handbow even as he spoke, "What others?"

Quenril turned his head, skin turning dark as he concentrated on listening, not with his ears but the other listening ability he now had.

"Here they come!" he called, bolt skimming off into the dark. Something yelped but it was drowned out by the howls that rent the night air, echoing and rebounding from the trees, making small creatures that could not flee cower in their holes and whimper under the leaf litter.

"You just had to ask," Ulrich noted.

The horrors came snarling out of the undergrowth, slimy hides glistening and disjointed limbs churning up leaf litter, the smell of them gag inducing.

Ulrich's brain clicked into military thinking. Four squads, two from the north, two from the east, the front running squad of each platoon made of the five limbed Abominations, slick black hides rippling in the glow. The following squads where the Mutants that looked like werewolves that had been crossed with bullmastiffs, their heavy shoulders surging, their claws punching holes in the forest forest as they charged.

"Thorian, Valodrael," Ulrich ordered, "Take east. Everyone who hasn't got wings with me to the north! Air force, targets of opportunity! Take them out before they complete the ritual." 

Estella took a deep breath as Valodrael stepped back from dual control, her eyes half closed as the Abominations attacking from the east charged towards her. Despite what was coming she smiled slightly as they charged, seeing nothing but easy prey. It was so like the attack in the prison of the Citadel of the Snake Clan she nearly laughed. Instead, she opened her mouth and heaved. The thick, oily rush spilled from her, the Abominations slowing, some skidding as they slammed the brakes on, their three feet scrabbling in the loam of the forest floor. The mound of gloop twisted and writhed, wrapping about itself, thick worm like tendrils spiralling and branching, embracing each other, smoothing out into limbs and wings and scales. Valodrael's eyes, the colour of dying stars, shone at the werewolves as his maw opened and his tongue flicked over rippling gums. The noise he produced was the sound of hunger. The smarter of the Abominations took a step back. Valodrael grinned at them and then swung his head.

"I heard that you were still alive," Valodrael 's tongue lolled and his claws flexed, gouging deep wounds in the forest floor, "Let's fix that, shall we?"

The look on the Domilii's face was some what sick, the startled recognition shifting towards a worry that he was trying to mask. Valodrael grinned, an expression that promised the Domilii a return, in full, of the pain he had inflicted. Behind him, Estella settled her stance, her talismans whirling around her head, helping to channel the sparkles that fell from her hands and drifted in the wake of her motions. The circle shimmered into being before her. Estella punched through the centre of the circle and it rushed forward, splashing against the front rank of the Abominations and fading in a burst. One of them sneezed, shaking his head.

"Oh bother," Estella muttered.

"Hold the spell!" Greely the Domilii commanded the white werewolves, "Hold it! Or I swear by the wilds you worship I will kill you myself!"

They flinched from his snarl and then straightened. One of them darted its eyes at the forest, its gaze calculating the distance between the drop and the edge of the trees. Greely the Domilii hooked the claws of his right hand and the doubtful one choked, hands going to its neck where nothing was seen but its breath came short and hard as if a noose had suddenly tightened round its throat.

"Hold the spell!" Greely the Domilii snarled again, the werewolf briefly rising in the ire but quickly subdued by the entity riding within his shell.

As one the unpunished white werewolves lifted their heads and howled. Nanny Tatters lifted her head higher at the sound, great single eye blinking as she paced forward again.

Under Ulrich's arm, Tikrumpdel sucked in breath after breath, his tubby body growing hot.

"Ah!" Ulrich cried out as the hair on his arm started to curl in the heat coming through his clothes, "Tikrumpdel! Now is not a good time to distract me!"

The front rank of the Abominations coming from the north reared back to put their whole weight behind the blow.

Tikrumpdel's jaws opened and the flame roared in the night, a bonfire, a forest ablaze, the heat scorching air and blistering loam. The Abominations screamed, the squad, mob, pack, Ulrich still couldn't decide what to call them, reeling back, four of their number caught in the inferno, shrieking, spinning, cracking, crumbling, falling to the ground. Their still living kin, drew back on either side of the path of destruction, whimpering and wet, eyes wide, claws raised in panic.

"I still got it!" Tikrumpdel grinned, smoke curling between his teeth.

Still blinking dots from before his eyes Tasnar levelled his handbow and pulled the trigger but the shot went wide and thudded into the leaf litter.

"Blast," he muttered, working the lever to recock the weapon. A blast of wind did indeed rock him as Kaelin's pinions lifted and then she slammed into the air, wings  pumping to lift her high. As her momentum ran out she rolled over and dropped, claws leading as the air screamed over her feathers.

The white werewolf, crouched on the top of the pillar that Thorian had attacked, looked up at precisely the wrong moment. Kaelin's claws struck, their split flesh, they passed through. The white werewolf toppled backwards off the pillar, claws trying to stem the flood erupting from the second mouth Kaelin had carved across his neck.

"I'll say this only once more Greely," Kaelin shouted as she came to the top of her spiralling climb and hovered, "I already have a pack and IT IS NOT YOURS!"

Greely the werewolf managed to shoulder aside the control the Domilii had on him.

"Stupid bitch!" he bark, "You are mine! You have been mine since you were born! You only lived because I chose you to be mine! You are mine and if you won't accept that like the good bitch your Grandfather taught you to be then I'll make you choke on it the way your mother did until she learnt her place! You'll scream one way or another!" 

"Rut you Greely!" Kaelin screamed back, "Rut you with a barge pole! Rut you with dragon fire! Rut you 'til you choke!"

 "Ulrich," Jeremiah shouted, "Throw the dragon!"

"What?" Ulrich blinked, twisting his head to glance at Jeremiah.

"Throw the dragon at her," Jeremiah pointed, his other hand already twisting the ribbons of power round his fingers.

"Gotta!" Ulrich nodded, grabbing hold of one of Peter's antennae. The giant centipede whistled in shock as Ulrich performed a little hop to get both feet under himself and stand on his mounts back.

"What are you doing?" Tikrumpdel demanded as Ulrich hefted him like a rugby ball.

"Time to use those wings old chum!" Ulrich grinned and lobbed Tikrumpdel in an over hand throw. The little dragon squealed like a punctured tire but his wings buzzed like an angered hornet and he smacked down in the centre of Nanny Tatters' back. She didn't even notice him dig his claws in.

Jeremiah grinned and gestured with his other hand as well.

Tikrumpdel shuddered and gasped as he went from the size of a small house cat to a large hunting dog.

"Now that's a little better," he grunted, bracing his feet either side of Nanny Tatters' spine.

The Domilii forced Greely back into the shadows, his face of blue light overtaking the wolf's muzzle but now the mask of culture and refinement was beginning to crack, the eyes flashing with anger, the mouth tight with frustration, the truth bubbling behind the control. He spat a stream of words, sharper than swords, faster than arrows, hooking into what was left of Nanny Tatters' mind, dragging her forward.

Sabal took aim and pulled the trigger, the quarrel thudding home in an Abomination's chest. It reeled back but then grasped the bolt and yanked it free of its flesh. Surprisingly little blood flowed and it snarled.

"Begetters damn you," Sabal flicked his fingers in the motions of a curse.

"Meatshield, come here," Jeremiah commanded, beckoning his undead Ash Elf puppet in front of him as the werewolves closed the distance. There was no need to be unprotected.

The werewolf mutants attacking from the east crashed into Thorian like a wave breaking but if they were the ocean then Thorian was the lighthouse standing firm upon its rock. He swung his sword in one glittering lateral blow. Two of the mutants became four, their pieces landing over there and over there.

"It's Thorian Time!" Thorian bellowed again as the mutant pack broke in two.

Quenril's finger tightened on the trigger and the bolt thudded home into an Abomination. This one didn't even bother to pull it out, roaring out its anger at being hurt and charging on.

"This can't be good," Quenril muttered.

One half of the Mutant pack that Thorian had battered turned aside and flung themselves into the air, teeth snapping at Kaelin's heels, clawed hands grasping and grabbing at the air but failing to make contact. They snarled as their feet thumped on to the dirt again.

Thorian's back swing whipped passed the noses of the rest of the Mutant pack that had attacked him. They flinched back, claws swiping out at him but their fear of his strength had opened up too much of a distance between them and they batted ineffectively at each other like cats having a game of patty paws.

Peter tugged against Ulrich's grip on his antenna. Ulrich glanced round to see that Weatherall was hesitating to join the battle.

"Are you going to be good?" he asked his bug. Peter whistled and tugged towards the werewolf Mutants that were bringing up the rear rank of the northern attack.

"Alright," Ulrich yelled, "Go to it! Marmaduke, help him out!" And threw himself off of Peter's back, dashing across and swinging up on to Weatherall's shell.

"Alright, old chum?" he asked, "You seem a little lost so I'll help you out. The battle's that way!"

 Free of his burden, Peter charged forward, rearing up so that his mandibles clashed and sheared a hairs breath from a Mutant's face but it held him at bay, head twisting from side to side to avoid his venomous bites. Beside Peter Marmaduke was also having trouble, the werewolf Mutants moving too fast for him to hit. And then he stumbled as the second group of the Abominations left from the pack that had charged from the north slammed into him. Something in his knee popped and ground and then talons punctured his chest plate with a steely rasp, the metal crumpling like foil. Marmaduke staggered and whirred in distress, things sparking and fizzing inside of his mechanisms.

The werewolf abominations attacking from the east slammed into Thorian  and the first one that jumped was faster than he expected. Thorian staggered back, yelling as its jaws closed around his wrist and its teeth dug in. His bones creaked under the force of it, feathering towards the cracks that would herald the breaks as its claws sort and found the elbow joint of his armour, piercing into the joint. However, his other hand was still free.

"Get! Off!" he roared, punching it in the ribs over and over again. Something inside cracked and it backed off, growling and snarling.

Beside him Valodrael's breath rattled as he sucked in a breath, eyes locked on the Mutants that had survived Thorian's attack. They were beginning to rally, clustering for another charge in two smaller groups. Valodrael smiled as he stepped forward, focused on the nearer group and then his jaws opened. The sound was the Arctic gale as it cut over the ice sheet, driving all warmth before it, burying all life below it.

The nearest of the groups of Mutants reeled back a step but a step was all they got. The front rank died without a sound, daggers of ice erupting from within their ears and noses. The second rank fell, screaming and gagging on the ice crystals clogging their throats before the Chill of the Void ruptured their lungs with red ice and their feet stopped kicking in the dirt. Only the one furtherest back survived, sheltered by the bodies of his pack mates. He crouched, belly to the earth, whimpering in submission.

"You, Karma!" Jeremiah ordered, "Do something useful, find us a light stick."

Karma the Vigor pack barer swung down his heavy load and opened the pack, rooting through it slowly until it extracted one of the long cylinders marked 'Light-Emergency'. Eyes half closed, it seized the string at one end of the cylinder and yanked. The orb of chemical light exploded from the end of the cylinder and... Thudded into the forest floor fizzing and popping and smoking, the light half buried in the leaf litter.

"Oh can't you do anything right?" Jeremiah snarled, snatching the empty cylinder from Karma and only just stopping short of beating him over the head with it, "Klu'ga-nath remind me why I keep you!"

The werewolves, both Mutants and Abominations alike, whimpered and cringed back as the glow of the spell stuttered and turned a sickly yellow. Even the Domilii reeled, face warping as if nausea was vicing his internals, the white werewolves screaming with pain.

"Trakanhini protect us!" Ulrich cried out as the hideous unlight of Jeremiah's god flared and danced across the clearing. The clouds above shifted and roiled as if they were about to part but then Greely the Domilii straightened and lifted a hand. The words that dripped from his lips made the teeth buzz and the skin crawl, no, the skin ran screaming for the door and didn't care if the rest of the body came with it. The clouds settled and the white werewolves straightened up again, picking up the chant to keep Nanny Tatters walking.

The other werewolves straightened up as well, snarls rippling their lips back from their teeth. The Abomination that had injured Thorian took a step forward and then stopped, nose twitching. The blood pouring from the elbow joint of Thorian's armour had slowed to a tickle and then to a drip and then stopped all together.

"Gotta!" Thorian grinned and then brought his sword crashing down, wounded wrist ignored as the blade jarred as it bit through bone, shattered the skull, split the neck and sheared the shoulder off. A second Abomination reeled back, blood running from a deep gouge on its leg where the tip of Thorian's sword had scored it. The Abominations parted before him, dividing into two groups in their desperation to avoid his swinging blade.

Greely the Domilii muttered and beckoned Nanny Tatters. She lifted her head as she stepped between two of the stone pillars, her massive single eye seeming to finally focus on what was before her.

"Oh shite!" Estella muttered, "This can't be good!"

"Did you just say 'shite'?" Valodrael asked over his shoulder, even as he weighed up what should be his next target.

"Yes! Yes, I said shite!" Estella snapped, the sparks of her power dancing around her as they grew brighter, "Shite buckets butt slap shite! I was the good girl, I was the one who never fought back, I was the one who froze and held still whenever father was angry and what did it rutting well get me? I'm in the middle of trying to save the world when I'd much rather be at home with my family because some selfish jackass who wants to burn the world to hell has to fiddle with an undead dragon, which isn't just stupid, its also outright perverted!" A werewolf Mutant growled at her.

"I was talking!" Estella screeched, the punch echoing in the air and in the ground. Her knuckles didn't physically connect but the water in the forest floor did, smacking it in the face before being reabsorbed by the leaf litter. It wasn't enough to do damage but it was enough to make it gasp.

"Er?" Thorian asked as the Werewolf Mutants from the north ground their teeth on Marmaduke, "Have you got her in the family way?"

"Hardly," Valodrael flashed him a look, "I'd need my own flesh and blood for such an activity. Just one more thing I owe his lordship up there. I'll get to him in a moment." He slinked off after the werewolf Mutants that had fled from him. The group of them that had avoided the freezing touch of the Chill of the Void had dashed off, following Kaelin on the ground. She spiralled higher into the air as they leapt and snapped at her, trying to climb up each other to get to her. She avoided them all and stuck her tongue out at them while waggling her fingers on either side of her head to infuriate them as much as possible.

The Mutant on its own suddenly burst out of the dark, having circled back and round to get to him once Valodrael was out of the way. It leaped, Thorian swung. It landed and skidded in the leaf little, claws raking up twigs as it twisted to face him.

"You're good," Thorian admitted, settling his stance and lifting his sword over his shoulder, "Let's see how good you are." The Mutant snarled.

Jeremiah rolled his eyes. Really, despite all their time on the road and their training in the city of the dwergs his companions could still only be described as rank amateurs, especially that giant crab who seemed to be trying to pat the werewolves on their heads rather than crushing them to pieces. It was embarrassing, especially before a fellow devotee of the higher path.

"Find me another light stick," he commanded Karma and snatched it from the Vigor's hand before the little freak could miss use it again, his draconic wings flicking open, cupping the air to drive him into the sky. He yanked the string free and tossed the light stick to the right of the pack of Mutants that had come down out of the north, only to then swoop to the left of them, muttering the prayer to Klu'ga-nath as he did so. His path took him over one half of the diminished pack of Abominations that had been charging a head of the Mutants. Remembering how beautiful it had been in the city of the dwergs, Jeremiah opened his mouth and let loose the full glory of his god.

The noise destroyed the world, or did the world destroy the noise? It was hard to tell as reality buckled and distorted around the light that should not be. The Abominations he targets opened their mouths to scream but their cries were silenced by the light that left only pure statues of perfect salt, mouths open, eyes wide, every rippling hair intact until the damp of the forest floor dissolved their feet and sent the statues crashing to the ground, bursting in sprays of white that sank into the ground and vanished as if they had never been. The Mutants, warned of Jeremiah's approach, dived out of the way but then the strategy of his throw seconds before was revealed, the light stick exploding in their midst, blinding and shunning them, leaving them reeling and distracted.

Quenril ducked and turned under the attack of an Abomination, jerking his arm back to crack his elbow against the back of its head. He slashed out at another and turned the blow into a spin that planted his boot in the stomach of another. A cut at a foot made another flinch back. Quenril heard, saw but every whip, every spin, every slash and cut was part of the flow. It was beautiful and it was deadly. A kestrel in flight among falcons would have understood this dance between life and death in a heartbeat. They were both predators and only skill, speed and luck would decide who was the alpha and who was the meal.

Peter shrilled and snapped his jaws again but the Mutants were blinking the spots from in front of their eyes. They also had their noses and their ears. To them it was easy enough to keep away from Peter's snapping jaws.

A second was all it took. Quenril gasped and stumbled, pain, bright and lancing, burning across his stomach muscles, not quite deep enough to gut him but deep enough to hurt, his skin becoming a kaleidoscope of green fear and white pain. Behind him Sabal cried out as a werewolf's teeth buried into his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and managed to wrap his free arm round up and round the werewolf's back, an embrace almost like a lover's only this end with his thumb buried in the flesh behind the werewolf's ear, grinding into the beast's nervous system, shorting it out. The claws went slack, jaws sprang open, dropping Sabal to stumble back, clutching his bleeding shoulder. Only then Sabal's head came up, his eyes beginning to glitter, the colours of his irises intensifying, seeming to spin. And he was looking directly at the werewolves, not down at their feet, not at their hands and chests, which was what had betrayed his skill and left him open to being bitten in the first place. He was looking at them and something was stirring in the depth of his gaze, a hatred that hadn't seen the light of day since the Matriarch burned in the burial chamber of the Citadel and it was focused. Before Sabal had hated anything that was not Ash Elf, the emotion had been spread thing. Now? Now it was channelled, hardened, focused, forged into a precision weapon for use against targets that truly deserved it... and it had found its first target.

To the east, one of the groups of Abominations targeted Thorian, thinking he was distracted by the Mutant that faced him. They charged at his blind side. Thorian's ear flicked. The Abomination raised its claws to strike... Thorian span, his sword flashed, the Mutant twitched, the instinct to leap pulled back in. Thorian was already facing it again while behind him the Abomination's body hit the forest floor, its head landing six feet away and its surviving kin falling back in shock.

The other half of the surviving Abominations from the east tried to swarm Valodrael, biting, clawing, kicking, tearing. They may as well have been punching water or worse. The claws that gouged at his hide pulled away slowly, the teeth struggled to release, the black tar of his form sticking to teeth, wiggling over tongues, trying to force its way down throats. He grinned as they reeled back, clawing and spitting, trying to dislodge him before he could begin to colonise them and devour from the inside out.

The vigor pack bearer, left to his own devises, followed the last orders he had been given, digging through the pack again, though whether through bad luck or some attempt at disobedience, what it drew forth was not a light stick but a globe of glass, within which swirl a yellowish gas, marked 'for bugs'. The Vigor threw it with no direction in mind, the glass shattering near one of the pillars but too far away from anyone to do any real damage.

Thorian sniffed and wriggled his nose.

"Did one of you just fart?" he demanded. The Mutant he was facing looked confused. "Dear Gods, man!... Wolf!... Thing!... Smells like something up yah butt!"

The Mutant growled.

Tasnar whirled through the pace of the battle, one step ahead but struggling to match the Abominations that clawed after him. The length of steal in his grip didn't feel any where near enough. The gloves weren't helping either. He hadn't really had time to get used to fighting in gloves and the difference it made in the feel of the hilt was messing with his concentration. He had a bad feeling that he wasn't getting out of this one unscathed. He ducked and turned and kept them at bay but his breath was coming short and hard.

Valodrael had plenty of breath and the will to use it on the fools that had attacked him. The death cold rattle of the Chill of the Void scored across the forest floor, edging every fallen leaf in daggers of frost that pierced flesh like thorns. The five limbs of the Abominations twisted as ice ruptured muscle cells and cracked open joints. Valodrael's world ending eyes focused on the last Abomination, where it whimpered and shook, backing away from the tortured ice statues that were what were left of its pack. Valodrael slowly lifted a clawed hand and smashed one of the frozen Abominations with a casual flick of his wrist, grinning at the still living one's terror.

Kaelin rolled in the air, gazing down at the battle field. The white werewolves were struggling to keep the chant going, their minds torn between what they had been commanded to do and what they wanted to do, their feral instincts distracted by the battle. Kaelin considered and then tried something she had never attempted air born. Her flight wobbled and wavered as she let the wolf out fully, her skull bones bubbling and warping, jaws lengthening, fangs springing forward with the sound of nails being slammed through a plank. She tilted forward and dived.

Greely the Domilii looked up at the sound of the wind over her pinions. The crunch and rip of flesh was defeated only by the twin voiced scream of pain. Kaelin pulled up as Greely turned on his pillar, one werewolf eye glaring, the other side of his face a ruin of torn tissue. The Domilii's face of blue light was flickering in and out of focus on that side as well, magical feedback having lashed his real form. As Kaelin spat Greely's blood from her mouth she realised that the Domilii wasn't out of focus, he was flicking between two forms on that side, his human face and something else that was so far from human she didn't have a name for it. The sight of it made her stomach roil, the wolf groaning with the sensation that it as just not used to. Wolves see meat or threat, they don't understand horror or disgust, Kaelin's human mind understood horror only too well and she floundered in the air as her wing beats went all off.

"Oh Greely," she muttered, "Just what have you bargained with this time?"

Estella turned away and drew a deep breath, counting on her fingers to control her stomach. She'd figured that the Domilii was not a good man, who ever could do what he had done to her Valodrael could not have done the Day of Detonation by accident but actually seeing his outer appearance become as ugly as he was on the inside was enough to turn her stomach. She was quick on the recovery, having a pack of werewolves howling for your blood kind of does that for you and settled her stance as though she was riding a horse. Her hands traced the circle, her talisman helping to channel the power. This time the Mutants reeled back, snapping and snarling at things that were not there, the sparkles in their eyes blinding them to reality, making them see enemies that were not there. Estella grinned, fists shadow boxing, keeping the spell going, water rippling, rising, falling, flowing round her feet as it responded to her will, her motion, her power. This was what she was born for, shite to being small, shite to being the quiet one, shite to being the one that held still while she was punished for her existence. She was done with being small, she would be as big as she wanted to be. Valodrael smiled as he looked back to his host, she was magnificent, she was perfect, her broken edges just made her all the more beautiful where they caught the light. As much as he would fight Tikrumpdel to the death over her, he could understand why the older dragon wanted her in his hoard.

The Tikrumpdel in question was scrabbling about on Nanny Tatters back. No matter what was going on, he was fairly sure that it would do his health no good if she crossed into the circle and she was ignoring all his efforts to try and get her attention and turn her around. He did consider using his fire but on a fellow dragon that was unlikely to have much effect.

"Just what do you want me to do up here?" he squeak, "Just what am I supposed to do?"

"Grow you draft thing, grow!" shouted Ulrich.

"Well how can I? I... Oh doh!" Tikrumpdel slapped himself on the head with his own wing. He had not done this to himself but he did remember a fairly universal breaking enchantment spell that had the potiential to work. Why hadn't he thought of that before? He slapped himself again. Those four centuries asleep hadn't done his brain any good at all. He started muttered, eyes screwed shut as he dug through his memory library. It had to be in there somewhere. He belched as his bones grew and stretched and the rest of him filled out to take up the right proportion of space. It made a cracker sized bang as he was suddenly the size of a Great Dane rather than a German Shepherd. Nanny Tatters stumbled, the sudden weight in the middle of her back making it bow and creak.

Marmaduke brought his buckler shield up and Mutant claws raked off it. He lashed out with his sword, leading more with the fist that held it. The Mutants dodged back, snarling and rippling their lips at him. Speechless and impassive, Marmaduke stamped after them, even as things glowed and sparked within his metal chest.

Facing the Abomination that had bitten him Sabal dropped his sword and it lunged with a triumphant bark. Sabal caught the hilt in his other hand and slapped it across the muzzle. It reared back and he slapped it again, driving it back until he stood beside Quenril, helping to defend his side as his cousin fought to catch his breath through the pain. Behind them an Ash Elf handbow twanged but it was Jeremiah's undead puppet trying and failing, to hit the last of the Abominations that face Thorian and Valodrael.

"Tally-ho!" Ulrich hefted his sword as he guided Weatherall into the stumbling group of Abominations that faced his Ash Elf friends. His sword flickered in the blue light, shining darts of glory round the clearing, dazzling his foes but the results were some how lack luster.

"If the Favourite of the Matriarch is willing to listen to advice," Sabal called, voice tight with pain, "More substance! Less flare!" 

It was advice Ulrich could have done with listening to as a scream rang out. Tasnar stumbled back, one hand holding the side of his face together as an Abominations claws raked down it and nearly took his eye out. It was only by chance and quick reactions that he managed to dodge the follow up attack that nearly tore his throat out.

However, that was the only Abomination that managed to do damage at that moment. One of the last groups of those that had attacked from the East threw themselves at Thorian screaming and howling. Thorian shrugged and stepped and turned back to watching the pacing Mutant that faced him. The Abominations climbed to their feet spitting mud. Their last pack mate whimpered and crouched down, trying to press its belly to the ground in submission but its triple legs were getting in the way. Valodrael's world ending eyes had it locked in place, even as its mind screamed to run. Its mismatched limbs wouldn't response, its central nervous system locked in place as the Void Dragon padded closer and smiled at it.

Nanny Tatters slowed her pacing, her head trying to turn, trying to fight the spells control over her to see what it was on her back that was weighing her down. It was hurting her back and it was distracting. She had to know what it was to try and tell it to push off. Her tail twitched with frustration.

"Karma? Karma give Estella that globe please," Jeremiah suddenly called, "Karma? Karma do as you are told! Karma don't make me... There's a good boy."

Estella took the globe with a frown and held it up to eye level, watching the yellowish mist swirl within it. She gave it a good shake and then looked away from its turning shades, nose pulled over sideways as she wondered which one of their enemies she should throw it at.

Greely the Domilii spat a series of words that curdled in the air like venom in milk. Nanny Tatters head was yanked round like a dog on a chain and she shuddered, shaking her chin, trying to throw off the control. The words would not let her go, pulling on her, reeling her in as the glow brightened.

Estella leaned back, bent her knees, held the globe marked 'For Bugs' by her jaw, lifted her left hand straight out before her with two fingers pointing, took two hopping stepping forward and lobbed the globe as hard as she could towards the group of Werewolf Mutants that threatened to catch Ulrich broad side. They screamed as the globe shattered in their midst, some jumping one way, others jumping the other way, leaving the one whom had been at the epicentre of the burst writhing and choking on the forest floor, shards of glass imbedded in him were he had fallen on the broken globe. Lungs full of the gas, he foamed at the mouth and lay still.

"Nice one!" Ulrich congratulated as the Mutants stumbled and swirled, disorientated by the attack.

Grinning fit to split at hearing his Estella praised by another, Valodrael lunged on the trembling Abomination before him, jaws opening wide. The Abomination screamed and then its legs kicked in the air as Valodrael lifted his head and gulped, the Abomination sliding by degrees down his throat, its last struggles visible through the oily substance of his flesh. Its feet were still kicking as they disappeared between his teeth, their spasmodic twitches visible in his throat. He grinned as he turned his eyes on Greely the Domilii.

"You think that you can harm me?" Greely the Domilii spat, "You are pathetic! You should be grovelling for my mercy!"

"What mercy?" Valodrael snarled, "Do you think I was deaf when you ordered the total destruction of your own army because Hartseer finally realised who you truly were? You think I don't remember the pain when the God Device activated? HELL has more mercy than you!"

"I made you!" the Domilii spat, "You wouldn't exist if it wasn't for me. You are immortal because of me! You exist because of me!"

"If this is immortality then you can keep it!" Valodrael spat back, "I'd rather have a limited life than this eternal pain!"

"You ungrateful aberration!" the Domilii flared.

"It is fairly common around here I am afraid," Jeremiah noted, hovering above the battle, "None of my creations are as grateful as they should be."

"You, you dare speak to me?" the Domilii sneered up at him, one half of his face, still flicking in and out of the two forms, human and something else.

"Well seeing as we are the only two here who understand that what others call morality is just a chain, I thought we could swoop notes," Jeremiah some how managed to hover and shrug at the same time, palms open, "So what do you say?"

"You really think that you are my equal," the Domilii mocked, "You are nothing, a broken god's plaything, the pathetic servant of a prisoner. You don't even realise what you've sold your soul to. You are a speck, a mote, a bit of dust in your god's eye, here and gone in a blink. I? I am a god! I never sold my soul for power, I took it! I seized power by the strength of my hand and arm alone! I never bargained with the useless remains of a past world, I ripped what I wanted from its rotted heart and it begged me to stop before the end. I do not kneel to worthless leeches sucking off the worship of their followers, I make them bow before me and they cower at the very mention of me!"

"Yes of course," Jeremiah looked away, twitching his fingers, "That's why the Tomb Dragon who destroyed the Isles of Albion is remembered and still feared and you are nothing by a minor foot note in history, ignored by everyone save the Tiansin Empire and even they fear the storm clouds more than you."

"What!" the Domilii roared. Jeremiah whipped his hand up and unleashed the pray at Tikrumpdel. The thunder rolled this time, it rolled an eleven, as Tikrumpdel swelled in an instance until he was as tall at the shoulder as a Prizzly bear and even heavier. He probably weighed the same as one of the long toothed seal that Prizzly bears where known to hunt. Nanny Tatters' grunted and bent to her unbooted knees.

"Now this is what I'm talking about," Tikrumpdel galumphed around on her back to drive even more of the air from her lungs and made her bones creak even more, "That's for shrinking me, Witch!"

The Domilii lifted a hand, human half of his face twisting as he muttered words that made the grass around the base of the pillar wither and die...

Kaelin smacked into him from behind, nearly knocking him off the top of the pillar and rattling his control. When he straightened up Greely's face was showing through the blue again.

"You dare shrike me/a God?" the twin voices of Greely and the Domilii demanded.

"I don't need anyone's permission to wipe up filth," Kaelin could sneer as well as the Domilii.

Tikrumpdel gave her a nod of approval and then galumphed about on Nanny Tatters back a little more, surveying the battle field as she grunted and groaned. Jeremiah's puppet and Marmaduke were continuing their streaks of not being able to hit for toffee, the puppet's bolt burying itself in the loam and Marmaduke's blows keeping the Mutants at bay but failing to thin out their numbers. Tikrumpdel considered it but not only Marmaduke but Ulrich as well were in his line of fire, whereas on the other side the pack of Mutants that had attacked from the East were leaving off trying to pull Kaelin out of the sky and looked like they were going to try and swamp Estella under by sheer force of numbers. Tikrumpdel liked Estella, she gave good belly scratches. He opened his jaws and a roar that sounded like a mountain exploding echoed through the night as the fire bleached the blue light to insipid drips. The Mutants didn't even have the chance to scream, they didn't even char they  vanished in stinking smoke and dusty ash, their bones cracking with the heat and their fangs blackening. The last of their mortal remains crumpled to the floor, held together by black gristle, their heads smoking through the holes were the skull plates had been forced apart by the temperature within. Tikrumpdel nodded with satisfaction as the fire calmed down to a trickle between his fangs.

Unfortunately, the burst of light had distracted Weatherall so once again his blow went a rye and missed the Mutant he was aiming at.

The Abominations that was spitting mud turned and tried again to slam into Thorian, claws spread wide as they howled. Thorian sighed and swung his sword. One of the Abominations stumbled to a halt and looked back over its shoulder in time to see its pack mate crumple to the floor and its head roll off into the under brush at the edge of the clearing. It whimpered as it realised that it was finally on its own.

Ulrich also finally managed to up his game, smacking two of the Abominations that had come from the North over their heads and making them stumble back, shaking and snorting as they tried to see in a straight line. Peter shrilled at his side as he still couldn't land a good hit on the Mutants trying to flank the Ulrich. Peter reared up and shrilled his temper at them.

Wounded, bleeding and gasping for breath, Quenril, Sabal and Tasnar folded their battle line, elbow to elbow, forming a triangle, protecting each other's injures and guarding their backs.

"This does not look like we will be making it out this night," Sabal observed, the arm hanging limp from his bittern shoulder.

"It does not," Quenril agreed, one hand holding his stomach, "So we may as well die expensive. Sabal, look at them, let your eyes do their work. Tasnar? Take off your glove if you can."

"My glove?" Tasnar questioned, "Oh of course, my glove!" He gasped as he lowered his hand, his face flapping open, but then he had the cuff of his glove between his teeth and he yanked it off his fingers, spitting the glove away. "Come to Tasnar now, you stupid beasts." The Abominations snarled.

"Hold the spell!" Greely the Domilii commanded.

"I really wish he'd stop saying that," Ulrich observed.