Chương 70: Birds of a Feather

They ran across the sands toward the black fortress looming in the distance. From above, the sound of massive wings shifting air grew closer, and a name was still burned into their minds. Yarok, Glutton of the Black City. To their left, the ruins of a larger structure jutted out of the sand, large pillars of black stone tilting like broken teeth.

"Let's get behind that!" Wretch shouted. They dashed behind the black rock as another shriek from above rattled their eardrums.

"Maybe we can fight it off!" Elenya said between heavy breaths.

"Listen to me," Wretch hissed, trying to recall the pages of the monster compendium left to him by his father.

"I remember its Blessings. It can breathe a deadly miasma, but only once. It can shoot feathers like steel knives and is strong enough to shred any armor."

"It's diving at us!" Elenya answered, peeking up toward the sky, shielding her eyes with her only hand. The black dot above them was growing in size, and he heard it whistle through the hot air.

"Get ready to dodge!" A sense of imminent death washed over him, urging him to freeze in place. He broke out of the curse with a shake of his head. A moment before impact, it spread its wings, blotting out the suns. Like a comet, the creature crashed into the ruins, and the two hunters threw themselves to the side in a cloud of dust. Wretch had fallen into the sand, and Elenya ripped him up to his feet. Pillars from the ruin fell onto the ground as two black, feathery wings stretched in the dust.

A beak several meters long and curved peeked out of the cloud, serrated, with a long tongue slithering down its length. Two fiery eyes lit through the veil of sand and blowing dust. Whatever it was, it was massive.

"Run!" Elenya said. It gave another caw, and with a single beat of its wings, it launched itself toward them, forcing the dust to push against the ground. It was like a massive crow, larger even than Grendel's hound. A plume of black feathers stabbed outward from its neck, and from its chest stretched four black human-like arms of massive proportions with white fingernails. Wretch dashed to the left while Elenya dashed to the right. A moment later, a black beak pierced deep into the sand where they had stood.

It shook its head fiercely, giving off a short caw, and crawled toward Elenya on its feet, hands, and wings. Wretch made a sharp turn and rushed toward it. Every meter he got closer, a sense of deep and piercing dread filled him, not just the primal fear a Blaze induced but something else. Something that urged him to be still and accept the imminent demise. That's the fourth Blessing. It wasn't mentioned in the book, he thought. It turned its head, and a large fiery eye looked straight at him.

There was an intellect there, tricky and fickle. He was in the open. With a fluid spin and a beat of its wings, a hailstorm of black feathers flashed toward him. The sleet of feathers shot out in a cluster, leaving him no place to dodge. Instinctively, he grabbed onto Milley's form. Human arms twisted from his skin to wrap tightly around his body. Feathers as hard as steel dug into conjured flesh and he stumbled backward. He had protected his vitals.

Though he couldn't see the creature, he could hear it drag itself across the sand toward him. Wretch's extra arms slithered back into his body and he threw himself to the side. A moment later, a black beak pierced the ground. He tried to get back on his feet, but the black hands ripped at the sand and the beak pierced toward him again, forcing him to roll and crawl in a cloud of scorching sand. The closer it came to him, the thicker the anxiety and feeling of inevitable death in his chest.

It had him cornered, out of position and struggling to dodge attacks that could end him with only a grazing hit. Suddenly, its onslaught stopped and it lifted its head as Wretch drew a breath in relief. From behind its neck, Wretch saw a glimpse of red hair.

"You lunatic!" he said under his breath. The bird cawed in pain and spun around. Elenya was crawling on the bird's feathery backside. The Blinking Blade, lodged deep into its feathery skin. Elenya's skin danced shades of red, and she rammed the blade into the flesh. Struggling to hold on, she still ripped open a pulsing wound, spurting red blood onto the dunes below. It unfurled its wings, and with a beat it flew into the sky. Elenya tumbled down onto the ground. Wretch was quickly by her side.

Struggling to get her up. A furious caw came from above as the bird hovered, its wings beating the sand away in a storm.

"Let's move!" Wretch said, hauling the girl upright. From the beak of the blessed bird, a black miasma spewed out, like a heavy, dark steam that upon hitting the sand, burst outward like a smokescreen. They took off, running down the dune as the black smoke followed. The boot he had used for water storage was tied to his belt. With a snap, the shoelace broke and it fell into the sand. He glanced back to see the black miasma smother it. The leather cracked and wrinkled, deteriorating and mummifying in seconds.

A bead of sweat ran down his forehead. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Hold on!" he called. Two massive arms grew out of his back. Jonah's form. He grabbed Elenya with his regular arms as the two heavy hands pummeled into the sand. He lifted them both into the air and used the oversized arms like stilts to run in long strides. Elenya looked into his eyes for a moment before climbing up onto his back. Above, the black bird circled with hungry calls. He ran toward the black citadel. It was close now, barely a few hundred meters away. But his flame was being spent at a furious pace.

"You're too heavy, drop the cleaver!" Wretch called. The massive weapon was fastened to Elenya's back but had been rendered almost useless with the loss of her arm.

"No chance," Elenya shouted from above.

"It's diving again! Go to the left on my call." The massive arms slammed into the ground and he pushed to move faster while his actual body dangled beneath a web of conjured muscles on his back, giving him no vision above.

"Got it!" he called back. Something whistled toward them from above. A dread grew in his chest as the creature was no doubt closing in. The aura of death grew stronger, and every fiber of his being urged him to dodge or freeze. He bit down on his tongue, steadying the rush along the sand and ruins. The pressure grew, his nerves itching to react before it was too late.

"Now!" Elenya roared. Wretch threw himself to the left with a sudden push of his conjured claws. The ground beside them exploded as the creature slammed into the dune with a tremor and a shriek.

"Faster, to the city!" Elenya shouted from his back. He gritted his teeth and moved, crashing through decrepit ruins. He came over the top of a dune, the black fortress rising behind it. A few dozen meters away, protruding from the sand was a set of stairs, forty meters wide, leading up to a gate and archway of black stone. Two flat blocks that must have served as doors lay half submerged to the sides.

"We are almost there," he called, putting every fiber of strength into his burning muscles. Even though the enormous arms weren't a part of his real body, the sensation of fatigue and the hot sand was as real as anything.

"It's above. It might shoot at us!" Elenya said. He rushed up the steps as a shadow moved across the sands. He saw it beat its wings, and a cluster of feathers shot out from the shadow. He planted both of his oversized claws into the ground and jumped, launching himself and Elenya toward the gate. She flew off with a yelp as he pivoted in the air. A massive hand grabbed her and pulled her close as the other bent and covered them like a shield.

Still in the air, black feathers peppered both him and the surroundings, cutting into his new flesh. With a thud, they slammed into the stone of the city's entrance, sliding across the slick black rock. Wretch's head cracked against the ground and the world spun. He felt something tug at his torso, and a voice pierced through his blurry consciousness.

"Ditch the arms!" He obeyed, drawing them back into his body as she dragged him to the side. He Funnelled the last of his flame to his head, regenerating the concussion, and the world snapped back into place. Elenya dragged him through an empty doorway at the side of the gate. A black hand shot through after them, a feathery body crashing against the outside wall with enough force to shake sand from the seams of stone. The fingernails, carved with symbols, were centimeters away from her exposed back.

It was too large, its size not allowing it to fit through. Elenya flipped both of them over some kind of counter, and they tumbled to the floor. He blinked as she lay on top of him. She gave him a look and held a finger to her lips, gesturing for silence. A low coo came from the entrance, and something sharp scraped against rock. Still on the floor, he looked to the side. A jolt shocked him as a mummified face with black holes for eyes stared at him. A body, dried to a crisp, lay shriveled beside them.

Something moved by the entrance, and with a slam the entire building shook, dust sailing down from the ceiling of the guardhouse. Whatever the black walls were made of, it was tough. A caw echoed through the room. Elenya and Wretch kept deadly silent, lying huddled together in a jumble of limbs, neither daring to breathe. Another string of ground-shaking slams rattled the room, followed by an ear-piercing shriek.

After a few seconds of silence, a gust of wind brushed over them followed by the sound of beating wings disappearing into the distance. He sighed in relief.

"It's gone." Elenya nodded and got off him.

"You hurt?"

"Just a few cuts and bruises. But I am low on flame, barely a fifth left," he said as he stood up.

"I've got to say, you make a decent beast of burden," she said, brushing the red hair from her face.

"I am just glad it did the breath attack earlier, or we'd have been done for. I recognize it from my Hunter's compendium," he answered, looking over the interior. The room had no door, but the remnants of metal hinges still hung in the stone. Parts of furniture were spread around the space, rusted metal contraptions and a few pieces of wood smoothed like driftwood from sand and time.

The only things remaining intact were those made from the black stone, the largest of which was the counter they had hidden behind and a square-shaped locker that had fallen to the floor. In each of the corners, a thick layer of yellow sand nestled against the stone. Wretch crouched down next to the corpse behind the drawer. It was lying on its side, its mouth frozen in a scream.

"This guy looks human to me," he said and stood up as Elenya searched through the drawers.

"First let's see if they have any water lying around," she answered and together they snooped around the room. Searching the locker, he found an empty bottle made entirely of the same black material as the rest of the fortress. Unfortunately, it was empty. A slight movement by Elenya's feet made him raise his head. He turned around, leaving the obsidian canister in its place.

"Doesn't this room look like that guardroom at the inner gate of Nov Yanosk? It's about the same size," she said. Wretch grew pale as a wrinkled, petrified face peeked up behind Elenya's neck, the leathery mouth opening unnaturally wide. The corpse from the floor had animated.

"Behind y—" She must have seen his shock, because even before he had finished, she spun around. The shriveled corpse gasped as its head shot out in a bite toward her throat. She sidestepped the attack with ease, a knee shooting forward. It hit its ribcage with a crack, and it gave a raspy moan as it staggered backward, raising its head just in time to come face to face with a red fist. Elenya slammed her knuckles against the skull, sending the corpse flying like a broken, discarded doll.

With a thud, it crashed against the back wall, and Elenya walked over with a sour face.

"Sneaky, are we now?" she said. The living corpse struggled to push its skeletal body up from the floor. She stomped on its head, and it exploded into shards of bone and leathery skin.

"We might not be big fish out here, but we are still Firelings," she said with a cruel look. Wretch crouched down to inspect the dried-up body again.

"It's not Blessed. There is no coal."

"And?" Elenya answered, rubbing her knuckles against her stump.

"So then they should be the product of a Blessing. Like the corpses of the guy under the spires with the Death Flame," he continued.

"Let's worry about that after we aren't dying of thirst," Elenya said. He nodded.

"You have a point." Carefully, he peeked out of the guardroom. To his right, the stairs led down into the ruin-filled dunes. To his left, they kept ascending between black buildings and archways, climbing toward the massive black tower looming above.