“Hey, Janus!” Arol waved over to me, a smile on her blood-covered face. Eyes glistening with happiness glee like a child who had just been given an early Christmas present, she blurred and glitched, teleporting in front of me in an instant. I fought down the urge to flinch as her wide eyes sparkled all while she pushed her fingers through a severed Kobold head, and dragged out the insides. “Kobold brains! Tah-dah!”
“That’s… distasteful.”
“You’re no fun.”
“I’ve seen enough massacres for one lifetime.”
“But have you seen… this!”
She held out something long, bloodied and phallic. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Kobold dick!”
I opened my mouth, feeling my mind struggle to come up with something coherent. “Why do you have that?”
“I’m going to use it.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer one that was attached to something living?”
“Not for that stupid.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to make a necklace for you. A necklace of kobold dicks.”
“Ah,” I said. “And what have I done to deserve that honor?”
“You don’t have a dick, but with my necklace, you’ll have twelve, all large and thick and hanging from your neck.”
“My how tremendously generous of you. And here I thought you lacked empathy.”
“I can tell when you’re being sarcastic you know.”
“That’s a useful skill. It’ll certainly make it easier for us to understand each other.”
“Arol, Janus.” Wunder arrived before Arol could ask any more questions. The Barbeast was surprisingly clean. Far cleaner than Arol at the very least, with much less blood covering his form despite doing the lion’s share of the killing. Despite being clean, there was a more serious disposition on his face that was not there previously.
“We need to head back to Fort Zyvar as soon as possible.”
“What’s the hurry?” I asked.
“Too many kobolds.” He said, his tone not pleased. “This was a scouting party.”
“Who sends a small army just to scout?”
“A force that can afford to sacrifice a small army,” Wunder replied. “They plan on overwhelming the Fort.”
“How viable is that? If you two alone are capable of doing this,” I gestured to the bloody, organ-scattered, remnants of the kobold forces. “Shouldn’t the rest of you in the Fort be much stronger combined?”
Arol and Wunder glanced at each other as one, before turning back to glance at me. I could tell that I was missing something.
“You’ve never seen a Horde before have you?”
The term was not unfamiliar. “A massive gathering of monsters… nightmares?” I said. “How many are we talking? A hundred? A thousand?”
“Higher,” said Arol.
“Ten thousand?”
“You’re getting there,”
“…a hundred thousand?”
“Closer,” said Wunder.
“You can’t be serious.” They can’t be serious. “Two-hundred and fifty thousand?”
“Double that, and you’ll have half of the average expected number.”
My mind could not accept it. “That’s absurd. The logistics would be a nightmare. Just thinking about the amount of food that’ll be needed to –” the answer came to me as soon as the question left my mind. I remembered their ‘rule’ on what was considered food and not considered food. “Ah, so cannibalism?”
“Is that the name of a plant?” Wunder asked.
“It’s when you eat a member of your species.”
“There’s a word for that?” Wunder said. “Strange.” The Barbeast shook his head. “Regardless, we should get going. Erzili needs to know what we’ve discovered.”
Wunder stopped. “…Where’s Arol?”
My gaze swept the area. There was no sign of a red-cloaked, rabbit-eared girl within the vicinity. “She was right here –” I pointed to the spot. “Right here a second ago. I could have sworn…”
A vulture, familiar-looking, swooped from the sky and latched onto the eyeball of a dead kobold. My body froze as I stared at the vulture. It was the same species of the vulture that Oblivion had possessed. This one was different, rather than black and red it was white. Pure white. Albinism, I recalled was the name of that trait. The albino vulture latched gobbled the eyeball, swooping in the air, and perching unto a disemboweled corpse.
“Oh, not this again.” Wunder took in a deep breath. “You don’t need to hide every time you see one of these things. They’re just birds!”
“That is not a bird!” Arol’s voice came from my cloak and almost startled me. Grabbing the hem of the garment, there was a loud cry. “Watch where your hands are touching!”
I let go as if I had been burned. The absurdity of it all stunned me. “Are you… inside my cloak?”
Wunder let out a sigh. “She does this every time. Her possession trick.”
“It’s not a bird!” her shrill voice came from the cloak. “That’s a curse! A curse!”
I turned to Wunder, waiting for an explanation. Then I realized I was a skeleton wearing a mask, so there were no facial cues to indicate I was waiting for anything. “Want to explain why she’s possessing my cloak?”
“Some silly myth her people believed.”
“It’s not a myth!” she cried. “Bloodfamish vultures are drawn to places where the soil will forever be tainted with blood. Once they eat and devour without end, they channel the voice and aura of an Anathema, driving whoever hears the words it speaks insane.” My cloak shuddered and rustled. “If you make the mistake of helping one, you will be shadowed by them forever! Forever! And you can’t stop it until you die!”
Voice of an Anathema? That was not what I recalled. I had heard Oblivion’s voice. Was that why Oblivion spoke to me using the bird? The creature could be used to channel powers?
“Ignore her,” Wunder said, waving his hands. “Leporinians are an odd lot with unusual beliefs.”
“How unusual?”
“Very. And the majority of them are very… vocal about it.”
“I still remember the five-hundred and fifteen chronicles of Haresen the Most Wise, Lord and Founder of Leporinians, as recorded
