Chapter 21.
Heart racing and panting for breath Lysaria sprinted towards the tree line, she had 100 yards of open field ahead of her to reach the relative safety of the thick trees. spanning to the left side of her the walls of the ravine towered over her leaving her in shadows. She channels essence into her sword spinning around using her momentum to slash a crescent of essence towards the monster at her heels.
Her attack went wide of its neck clipping the shoulder of the lumbering giant, light take her she cursed under her breath, scrambling backwards she gasped for breath. the monster screamed as its skin parted and bubbled her slash eating through its thick hide and corroding its soft insides. She slipped stumbling as her focus was solely on the monster, glancing behind her she grimaced, somehow she turned towards the wall. Glancing to either side she realized there was nowhere to run she, what a dark cursed idiot she thought.
the monster bellowed in excitement, she channelled essence into her weapon and power her aura, she wasn't going to just let this monster kill her. The Monster filled her vision, its horn extending in front forming a glimmering spear of the essence, She felt her body come alive with excitement as it lowers its head and charged her. lysaria channelled her essence and prepare to block the attack, light takes her the thing was big.
her aura formed a shield, a dome of essence forming around her in a dark wildly spinning haze. she pushed her aura out to 10 yards in front of her, pushing to her limits. Moments after she created her aura the monster slammed into her swirling aura shaking the dark wall, The horn parting her essence as though it wasn't there, lysaria confidence faltered, how? She waited until the last moment and lept to the side holding her sword away from her as she rolled, burning pain exploded from her leg as the monster's shoulder sent her tumbling.
Crash! the monster slammed past her into something hard, lysaria grunted scrambling backwards, groaning she lay on her side looking at the monster frantically trying to pull its horn from the wall it charged into. Its long clubbed tail flailed wildly slamming the ground, she clambered to her feet, frantically searching for her sword. After a moment she spotted the weapon under the monster in between ints feet.
Lysaria channel more essence, if she could make her aura dark enough she could hide from the monster. He aura darkened as darkness oozed from her body filling her aura with more essence. She pooled an orb of darkness in her hand and shot at the exposed side of the monster, Lysaria winced limping away as the monster bellowed flailing its head free before stumbling away from the wall.
The monster turned its head side to side and swung its tail wildly, freeing itself. she gained distance and charged another essence orb, The monster charged her previous position. powering her essence orb she aimed at the eye of the monster as it passed slamming the orb of dark essence into its weak spot. The monster's legs tripped from under it as it fell to the ground flailing wildly.
She smiled as the monster slid past her only feet away, she failed to dodge its death throws as its tail swung around catching her in her leg crunching into her loudly. She tumbled away from the monster rolling out of control from the strike before coming to a stop her head spinning wildly. eyes watering and leg throbbing she held back a scream, If the monster got back up she didn't want it to know where she was.
In her pain she failed to realize the monster had already died, its thrashing form stilling as it succumbed to injury. She stares at the monster while clutching her leg, waiting for it to rise, after all, if it were dead wouldn't the monster turn to the essence?
Lysaria! Lysaria, She heard someone yelling, she looked at the monster, her aura shrouded her and the hulking giant, the darkness swirled wildly. Her head throbbing she glanced spotting Dakar cupping his hands around his mouth shouting from the edge of her aura. It took her a moment to realize she was keeping him away, judging by his pale expression the other fight wasn't going well.
breathing through her nose she coughed, spitting blood, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand which came away in an inky black bloody mess. Her darkness made everything around her hazy, but she had no trouble noticing her lifeblood and even Dakar through the oozing dark. She willed her essence to return pulling the swirling darkness back.
In a rush, her power flowed towards her funnelling like water down a drain until all of her essences were safely inside her body. Dakars face snapped to her, He smiled at her, She smiled back, He glanced at the monster and his face blanched turning pale. Glancing back she notices to reason for his distress, all the skin of the monster bubbled smoke rising from its corroding leather skin, even the ground steamed and sizzled in a ten-yard circle around her just from being in contact with her essence.
Lysaria said," I need help, My leg, it hurts," Dakar, said," I can't come to you, crawl over here, if I walk on this it will eat through my shoes and maybe my feet too." Lysaria said," It's not hurting me you will be fine." Dakar scowled, He said," that's because of the accursed Dark." Dakar cut himself off but it was too late, Lysaria drooped her head feeling ashamed, it wasn't her fault she had this power.
the ground around her hissed and steamed, She reached out willing the dark essence corroding the ground to return, after a moment a haze lifted from the corpse of the monster and the bubbling rocks around her as the hazy dark essence drifted towards her before disappearing into her body.
She said, "There, now you can approach me, I hope you aren't too disgusted by me to heal my leg." Dakar flinched from her comment but walked across the damaged dirt." Dakar said," I am not disgusted by you, I am disgusted with the dark inside of you." Lysaria gestured towards the monster, She said," The Dark may be of the enemy, But I am not a demon, I am of the light and will use this darkness to fight for the light."
Light take her, If she could use this kind of destructive power to fight the dark, then she could show everyone that she was worthy to fight for the light. Dakar walked across the corroded ground and bent over examining her leg gently pulling at her pant leg, She felt a flush run up her neck and her cheeks turn a dark shade as he used a knife to cut her pantleg above her knee exposing almost all the way up her thigh. He gently examined the knee and her calf taking care not to cause her much pain, Dakar channelled his essence wrapping it around her exposed leg, the power seeped into her skin burning at the contact.
Dakar said, "it looks like you have a nondisplaced fracture in your fibula and tibia." Dakar pulled back his essence, He said," stop that" Lysaria stare up at him from her sitting position, he kneeled next to her his long hair framing his wide shoulders and well-defined jaw. lysaria said," I'm not doing anything," she watched as bright essence flowed from his fingers into her leg, she felt a slight burning in her leg but after a moment nothing." Dakar said," you are not doing that on purpose? your essence keeps corroding my power before I can fix your fracture."
Dakar rubbed his chin tilting his head to the side, He pulled his leather pack off his back and pulled out long strips of cloth, before wrapping her foot from her toes to her knee making her keep her leg perfectly still. Dakar looked around searching for something, before walking to the walls of the river bed. His essence streamed from his hands a stream of golden light liquefying some of the grey layers of the mud-wall.
he trudged back the floating grey mud hovering beside him like a loyal pet, Lysaria opened her mouth to ask what he was doing but stopped as he held up his hand. The mud flowed down and wrapped around her cloth-wrapped leg. The mud-covered her leg from her toes to her knee and after a moment changed from a liquid to a solid. Her leg throbbed but was stuck in place wrapped in cloth and hard clay.
She knocked her fingers on the clay, her hand clanking against the firm clay as though hitting wood. Dakar said," there now you have a cast, I would prefer using something else to brace your leg but we shouldn't need it for too long, I couldn't call myself a healer if I let you walk with a fractured leg."
Lysaria gestured to her Khopesh, leaning on the shoulder of Darkar she gripped firm muscle, she tried not to admire his well-muscled physique telling herself he not to delve deeper into that line of thought. Dakar smiled up at her, She could swear he flexed just at she leaned against him, men and their vanity.
She noticed him glance over the nearby corpse and was brought back to reality, after all, Dakar would never consider someone accursed by the Dark like her, not to mention he was in a different clan than she was. Lysaria straightened up, limping along using her new leaning post to shuffle over and pick up her khopesh.
They trudged slowly back down the hill, she could hear the enraged monster ahead of her but wasn't too worried, The hole she had made was deep and wide, she was certain it couldn't escape. She limped slowly through the trees Dakar walking beside her acting as her other leg. The wall they made by the pit came into view, and so did Thana and Hectar.
they both hid behind the wall, a thundering bellow shook the ground as the monster in the hole slammed into its dirt cage. one edge of the hole caved in making a ramp down into the hole, Lysaria gaped as the monster clambered out bellowing in triumph.