Chương 30: The corrupted

Aaron gasped for air as he ran. He felt like his lungs were exploding. But still he could barely keep up with Paige. She was surprisingly fast for her build. A grey haze began to fill around them, blowing in with the wind. It darkened the area and bits of dirt flew into his eyes, making them water. Aaron grimaced at the foul smell as he ran, it was like egg and decay with a likeness to rotten meat. It took less than a minute to sprint the final distance to the house. Aaron pushed hard to keep up with Paige.

She ran with an urgency which made Aaron feel uneasy. He'd never seen her look so worried. Aaron was wheezing heavily by the time they arrived. The sprint must have taken a minute or two but the pace was enough to wear him out. Paige, however, looked like she had only been for a leisurely jog. Tim and Giddeon were at the house already, frantically carrying bags onto the carriage and into the hold. The cart was now attached to a strange contraption unlike anything Aaron had seen before.

It had two wheels, but they were attached together by a metal rod in the middle. The rod had a large wooden cog in the centre similar to those in a mill. It fed into an intricate mechanism protected by a wooden hood. Reins fed out of the box up onto a seat on the front of the car. Aaron scratched his head inspecting the device. Everything he had seen with cogs had been powered in some way, usually by the force of a river or mules walking around a mechanism in circles.

He couldn't see anything which could move a heavy carriage.

"Quit staring and get in, we need to leave now." A rushed looking Giddeon gestured to Aaron to get in. In his fascination, he hadn't noticed that Tim and Paige were already in the car. Aaron hurried along and climbed in, filling the last seat, opposite the keg of mead. A loud whirring vibrated through the carriage, like wind through a cave. Peeking through a small window at the front of the car, Aaron could see Giddeon channelling a spell.

Blue mana was flowing out of his fingertips and into the box above the wheels of the device.

"He's creating a storm spirit in the chamber above the wheels. It creates a powerful flow of air which turns the mechanism." Paige explained. The whirring got louder and the car began to creek forwards.

"Like the spell you cast on the sandwich?"

"Kind of," she said, " except his spell is powerful enough to move a carriage at speed which weighs thousands of times more than a sandwich. AND he will do it for hours."

"He's pretty strong then," Aaron said. His dislike of the man didn't prevent him from feeling impressed.

"Yeh, you could say that," Paige said with a severe look still on her face. The whirring was so loud at this point that they had to raise their voices to hear each other. The carriage had manoeuvred out of the house and with a tug on one side of the rein. It effortlessly turned to align with the main road. The cart picked up speed quickly, easily surpassing a horse-drawn carriage's top speed. It felt almost reckless in a built up town, but the road was completely empty. Eerily empty.

The bells were still tolling from all directions and the houses were locked down with their lights off. The shutters Aaron had noticed earlier that day were pulled across the houses. Each house looked like it would take a lot of work to break into, although it wasn't clear how difficult it would be for a corrupted creature. They would need to be strong enough to break planks of wood the thickness of his legs to get past the shutters.

Terrifying shrieks echoed through the streets, even over the bells and the whirring sound of Giddeon's wind spirit. They sounded inhuman. The noise sent shivers down Aaron's spine. Tim was staring at Aaron with wide unblinking eyes. The cart made a high pitched screech and halted to a dead stop, almost throwing Aaron off his seat and onto the keg of mead opposite him. He barely managed to catch his weight by pressing his arm out in front. The impact against the wall hurt his wrists.

He heard a loud shouting in front of the car. Screaming in fact. A dart of black shot past the cart. He just about saw it through a gap in the wood. He stood up to get a better look through the small slit in the door. A man had tripped and fallen. He was sitting up and scrambling backwards with a look of sheer terror on his face. A beast approached him. It had fur, black as pitch and the body of a dog, but with claws the size of a human finger.

Aaron didn't get a good look at its face, but he heard it making terrifying whistles as it approached the man. Aaron banged on the front of the carriage and shouted, "we need to get out and help."

"No time," Giddeon dismissed. The whirring noise started to crescendo again. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Screw this Aaron flung the door open and jumped out. Now in full view, a black dog stood two strides away from the man on the floor. Its mouth was packed full of long, jagged fangs, each facing in a different direction. Its jaw was unnaturally large and wide, so much so that saliva fizzed out the side of its mouth, leaving a blackened trail on the cobblestones below.

The distorted shape of its face made it look like he was harbouring a menacing grin. This was only worsened by the jarring lack of eyes.

"If you go, I'm leaving you!" Giddeon shouted behind him as he continued to ramp up his spell.

"No you won't," Tim said, as he stumbled out of the car, holding onto Aaron's shoulder for support. Aaron was filled with pride. They had their disagreements this past week, but it felt good to know they had each other's backs. Giddeon grumbled and muttered something that Aaron didn't hear, but presumed it was a profanity. He didn't stay to listen and had already started walking towards the beast. The weight of his decision hit him as he approached the creature.

The beast was larger than a typical dog and closer to the size of a wolf. Its teeth and claws were easily big enough to chew off an arm. Aaron was unarmed. Giddeon had refused to give them knives or anything useful to defend themselves for that matter. And even if he had a knife, he didn't know how to use it. Not well enough to take down a creature this size anyways. He had some spells, but they would probably be ineffective.

He had never used manipulate on a non-willing creature, except when they were severely weakened or intoxicated. He'd discovered a Dominion over Undead talent, but wasn't even sure if the dog was even undead. Sure, it was black and unnatural, but it didn't have patches of rot or decay like Cuthbert. He had his Absorb Remnant, but a hostile creature would be likely to resist it. And he wasn't even sure if it had mana to drain. Maybe he didn't need to overpower it.

Instead, he just needed to distract it long enough for the man to escape and then get back into the carriage in one piece. He remembered what Giddeon said about the corrupted; they don't like heat and light. There was a brazier at the edge of the path, just off to the side of the man on the floor. The foul wind was stifling it, making it dimmer and weaker, but it looked bright and hot enough to ward off the beast. The dog was locked on to the man and prowling forwards.

Triplet scrape marks were left on the cobbled floor under each footstep where its knife-like talons had dragged through the path. The man was frozen in terror. Aaron bolted at full speed off to the side of the dog and towards the torch. The dog locked onto him like a prey animal and sprinted off in pursuit. The beast was twisted and corrupt, but still had its animal instincts. Aaron sped up as the screeching of the beast intensified. He could hear its talons scraping the floor and panting as it chased him.

Aaron grabbed the brazier hard with both hands as he ran past. His shoulders were yanked backwards as his momentum carried him past it, but the tension gave as he ripped the brazier out of the floor. Aaron stopped himself and spun round. His boots scraped to a halt. He swung the lit end of the brazier towards the beast. It missed. But it didn't matter, the dog dug its claws into the floor, stopping dead in its tracks.

An awful high pitched noise rattled through Aaron's ears as it opened its toothy mouth and screamed at him. Aaron flailed the torch towards the dog's face in a series of overarm swings. The light of the flame revealed more details of its twisted anatomy. The mouth was wide and upturned at the sides, in the appearance of a jagged toothy smile. There were no visible eyes, only blackness.

Jagged prominences, ribs and shoulder blades were visible through the front of its chest, surrounded by black striations of bulging muscle under its deep black fur. The beast swiped with its paw underneath the torch, clipping Aaron's leg through his trousers. The intense stinging made him yell out in pain.

"Aaron!" Tim shouted in the distance. He had helped the man to his feet and was standing a few paces away from the beast. The man was running off into an alley, away from the main road. The creature stopped swiping and turned towards Tim. Aaron's heart raced, adrenaline kicking in. The pain in his leg vanished as his chest filled with dread. It took slow insidious steps towards Tim. Aaron knew he had to act fast. Giddeon was still sitting in the car watching.

He hadn't moved at all and couldn't be relied upon to help Tim. Paige was also still inside the carriage. He needed to try something to get the dog's attention again. If he swung the brazier, it might just anger the beast and speed it along toward Tim faster. He wasn't sure if the corrupted were undead or not, but he had to try something. Aaron took a long, deep inhale and focused his spirit. His mana went cold and his chest froze.

"STOP!" He shouted. His mana flowed through his body and out of his mouth. The backs of his teeth ached from the cold, giving him a sharp pain in his head. The brazier extinguished, fizzing and letting off a small plume of smoke as if it had been dumped in water. The dog turned its head and looked at Aaron with its evil toothy grin. It looked pacified and inquisitive, like it recognised his voice. He took a shallow breath and focused on his next command.

Before he could speak, a gust of wind came in and swooped in a circle around the dog, lifting it off the floor and suspending it above the path. It's expression changed back to aggression and it frantically bit and slashed at the air. It was above Aaron's head. The wind was so powerful that the debris carried became visible as it rapidly spun around the animal. Aaron shielded his eyes from the grit caught up in the wind and took a step back.

The dog ignited into a ball of blue fire, blowing intense heat into Aaron's face. He ducked down to brace himself, but his ears burned from the energy radiating off the flames. Pained screeches and howls erupted from the fireball. They were so high pitched and loud that it felt like his ears were about to bleed. But of course, they didn't The fireball dissipated into the air in an instant. A blackened skeleton dropped down and shattered onto the floor.

Aaron looked up and saw Giddeon with an arm outstretched from the car towards where the dog once stood. KREEEEEEEE Shrieks burst out from the town around him, they were distant and muffled, yet still painful to hear. Aaron wondered if he had summoned them with his voice or they were alerted by Giddeon's spell. Either way, it wasn't the day to find out. Tim was already climbing into the coach. Aaron sprinted. But not before picking up one of the beast's talons off the floor.

Giddeon had already powered up the contraption and the car was moving slowly before he even got in. Tim was holding the door, as he jumped into the moving vehicle and slammed the door behind him. KREEEEEEEEEEEEEE The shrieks were louder. Aaron looked out the back window. Several dogs had gathered in the distance and began to charge towards the carriage.