Dann attempted to nock another arrow, but the creature caught him with a vicious kick to the chest. Calen thought he heard a crunch as Dann’s knees buckled, and he fell to the floor in a heap.
His mind was racing. Every fibre in his body burned in a symphony of exhaustion and pain. He didn’t know if Dann or Rist were alive. Neither of them moved.
The massive Urak placed one hand on the body of its fallen companion. Then, with a terrifying display of strength, it yanked the limp corpse free from the spear as if pulling a splinter from a block of soft butter. Blood fountained over Calen as the creature held the corpse above him. Then it tossed it to the ground a few feet away, without even looking to see where it landed. There was no sense of loss on its face. No sobbing, no whimpers.
Calen’s heart pounded like hammer on anvil. Slow, methodical thumps echoed in his ears.
The creature’s chest lifted and dropped in heavy breaths. Its mouth twisted into what could almost be called a grin. Its tongue dripped thick beads of saliva down its jagged teeth. The massive half-moon blade glittered in the pale moonlight, a mix of beauty and misery forged in steel.
With its gaze fixed firmly on Calen, the Urak whispered something in its guttural tongue before raising the axe above its head with both hands. Its horrid red eyes burned into Calen’s skull. Time slowed down as the blade fell. Calen saw what it did to the wolfpine, and he would fare no better.
The panic in his heart gave way to a sudden sense of acceptance. He had always heard that your life flashes before your eyes in the moments before death. It’s what all the bards and storytellers said. How they truly knew, Calen wasn’t sure. It was not as if they had fought in the wars they sang of. It didn’t matter either way. He didn’t have long to look back on, but he would like to see Haem’s face again.
A blinding light filled the space around the hulking shape of the Urak, a flash as bright as the sun. Calen heard someone screaming, shrieking, as if the very noise was burning their throat from the inside out.
The axe never fell.
The massive creature dropped to its knees, the ground shaking as it did. Its arms sagged down to its sides. The axe rang out harmlessly as it fell from the Urak’s lifeless fingers.
Swaying where it knelt, it collapsed on its side with a heavy thud. Smoke and the repugnant smell of burning flesh filled Calen’s nostrils as it wafted back and forth in the wind, emanating from a horrid scorch mark on the creature’s back. The previously ashen-grey skin had been melted and disfigured into an oozing, pitch-black liquid.
Calen retched as the smell hit the back of his throat. Coughing violently, he peeled his eyes away from the charred remains of the Urak that had attacked him, searching for whatever had brought that behemoth to its end. He squinted to see. The mixture of smoke and exhaustion stuck his eyes together.
“Rist?”
CHAPTER 7
Seeing is Believing
Rist dropped to his knees. Exhaustion ached throughout his body. His legs felt like reeds in the wind, and he didn’t have the strength to keep himself upright.
He had been knocked unconscious when the smaller of the two creatures caught him in the chest. When he came to, all he saw was that beast standing over Calen, that monstrous axe raised over its head. Something just took over. He felt a fire burning in his chest, moving up through his arms, and searing pain consumed everything as the fire moved. What did I do?
Beads of sweat cascaded down his forehead. His shirt was stuck to his back. The smell of charred flesh permeated the air, causing his stomach to turn. He held his hands out in front of himself, turning them over and back again, trying to find something, anything. There wasn’t a single mark on them. Nothing.
“Rist?” Calen’s voice was weak and tired, but it dragged Rist out of his own head.
Looking up, he saw Calen on the ground a few feet from him, propped up on his arms. His clothes were ripped and torn, decorated generously with blood. Beside him were two large bodies. One was soaked in blood, with a gaping wound in its neck. The other was a charred, crumpled mess of burnt flesh and smoke. With a sudden retch, he vomited on the ground.
“Rist!” Calen’s voice pierced through the fog in his mind. Rist was finding it hard to focus on anything. He was exhausted, as if the energy had been leeched from his bones. His thoughts danced through his head like girls at the town square, paying him no heed, always just out of reach.
Calen stood over him now, struggling to carry the weight of his own body. “Rist, are you okay? Did you see what happened? It was standing over me… that axe…” Calen glanced at the axe, lying on the ground by the body of that monster, its wicked half-moon blade slick with blood from the wolfpine. “I thought I was dead…”
Rist took a deep breath, attempting to collect his thoughts. “I’m okay,” he sighed. “Dann?”
Panic spread on Calen’s face. He sprinted to Dann’s side as fast as his legs could carry him. He collapsed to his knees beside him, more from exhaustion than by choice, by the looks of it. “Shit, Dann… Dann? Dann, please be all right!”
Rist pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he stood upright. His entire body was battered. The wound in his leg burned brightly.
