Five more men rushed in front of him, disappearing too quickly in the night.
Remember your training.
A cold fury coiled in his chest, and Memphis allowed more of his ability to course through him, and for the first time in his life, he allowed himself to become the monster his parents had claimed him to be.
Move. Move. Move.
The power was intoxicating as he snuffed out each creature’s mental stability, his ability like a poison. Memphis relished in it. Their executed blows became sloppy, giving them the upper hand. Tadeas clapped his hands, as he revealed his ability. Wind roared over the land, circling the monsters in a cyclone. Thousands of droplets of water rose from the bloodied earth, as Tadeas roared, the water collecting into one in the cyclone—drowning the creatures.
“Memphis!” Alby’s yell cut through him as his friend flickered in view beside him.
There was a crack that was deafening, and hot pain laced through his back. His body was dragged down and then back. Dirt and blood filled his mouth, as his scream ripped from his throat. A thick muscled tail wrapped around his torso. The snarling creature dragged him closer.
The creature’s voice was silken as it rattled throughout the folds of his mind, “You are not like the others. You have pieced together that we are here under our new ruler’s orders.”
Memphis flung his weight back, kicking, trying to twist out of its tight hold. The creature chuckled. Its eyes seemed to grow brighter the harder he resisted.
“The true King has come. We grow hungry and tired in the darkness, always skittering to the shadows. The era of your kind is coming to an end.”
He dove through the creature’s walls. His consciousness was sleek and dark, no kindness, no humanity to be found. Only a hunger for death.
Memphis snapped down their mental connection. “What are you?” He was now pinned under the monster, its saliva coating his face.
“We are the dabarne, centuries ago we roamed Kiero freely, but with the Great War dark magic fell—as did we. The fey warriors of Nehmai bound us in the shadows, but what they never foresaw was that darkness would rise again, and us with it. Our King not only freed us but promised freedom to roam once again, if we started with your camp.”
All Memphis felt was the creature’s dark joy as Memphis honed in on its features. Its long serpentine body flexed, supported by its muscular legs. It surpassed the size of a horse. Its wolf-like snout inhaled his scent, pointed ears flush against its skull. Thrashing back and forth was a whip like tail, pounding against the bloodied earth.
One word came to mind demon. This dabarne unlike anything Memphis had ever seen before. The dabarne pushed its giant paws into his chest, lowering his teeth, snapping and vicious...
There was a flash of golden fur and immense relief as the monster was ripped free from Memphis’s chest, leaving him wheezing and his lungs crackling. Brokk flipped it on its back, the dabarne screeching, withering under his friend’s pin.
And then silence.
Brokk bared his teeth at the lifeless form before loping back to him. His giant muzzle nudged Memphis’s shoulder, and he could practically hear what he was saying.
He had to move.
Warmth spread as blood trickled down his back, energy draining with his movement. The chaos of the fight reigned around them, swords meeting flesh, bodies being lost in the darkness of the night. Memphis heard men crying, their curses, their pleas for mercy.
He endured their inner most thoughts as they died, grief gripping his chest.
Taking deep breaths and with shaking hands, he gripped Brokk’s heaving side, hauling himself onto his friends back. Brokk didn’t delay. Charging through the carnage, Memphis gripped his fur, taking in snippets of what was happening around them, as if his mind couldn’t process it fast enough.
His panic was in full bloom, choking him, making his world spin, his ability roaring around him as he soaked up the destroyed camp. Absorbing the monsters’ rage, he swooped in and destroyed their sanities. Each dip down into their consciousness as it resonated within him, and he realized that the dabarne were all thinking in unison, as if their minds were linked. Memphis broke through another iron wall.
We work for the acclaimed King.
And another - We turned to the darkness and were shown that you were coming.
And another - We know you are coming to kill him.
And another - So, we will kill you first.
His mind was reeling. Brokk twisted, almost throwing him off as they avoided a roaring dabarne. Cesan had used these dark creatures to flush them out. It wasn’t a rouse for Cesan at all but a trap for them.
Memphis searched in the night, for anyone they recognized. The air rippled with slithering bodies and glowing eyes. Tadeas. Iasan. They were nowhere to be seen.
“Memphis! Brokk!”
Alby ran full tilt towards them, covered in blackened blood that wasn’t his. The tents around him crashed to the ground as the dabarne that was hunting him roared, charging forward.
Their friend flickered in between visible and invisible, undulating in fear as he sprinted through the destruction, and Memphis noticed that his weapon had been discarded. Brokk growled, but they were across the camp—they wouldn’t make it in time. Brokk ran, but Memphis knew he couldn’t carry him and run at his full potential.
Do something. Anything.
The world tilted, and Memphis prepared to shift his weight, throwing himself onto the ground so Brokk could make it there. He felt the ripple through the air, like a charged electric shock.
There was the pounding of hooves, then a blinding white light as Nei Fae appeared from the night. She galloped into the heart of the fight.
