"That was..."
"No way!"
"Did he just..."
"Was that lightning!"
"It happened so fast!"
"It came from his sword!"
"His sword?"
"His sword!"
"Don't tell me that sword is..."
"The one from the legend!"
"I've never seen one before..."
"A sword of Feun?"
"A sword of Feun!"
"Which one is it?"
"There are twenty right?"
"That one shot out lightning. It has to be the lightning one..."
"But which one is that?"
All the remaining mercenaries surrounding the valley began whispering and murmuring to each other. The thundercloud of smoke and blood ached from the mouth of the Devil Dog as Tusk stood alone at the bottom of the hill, his sword still extended out. His left shoulder leaked in blood and pain as he looked around himself. All the staring faces. Greed, gluttony, fear, confusion, hate, need, want, more, they wanted more, they wanted it, they all instinctively wanted his Sword of Thunder.
"They say one sword can go up to fifty million brells!"
"I heard they give the wielder powers like a god."
"I've never seen one before."
"I heard all the kings in the land are looking for them."
"Maybe I can snatch one myself..."
"I want one too."
"I want his!"
"I'm gonna go steal it. That guy already looks half dead."
"This is easy money!"
All the mercenaries eyes turned evil. So filled with a never-ending avarice they strung their weapons high and prepared themselves to kill.
But this wasn't no sudden change, it was a change of the needy, of the wanting, like Lin, like humans. The mercenaries hated what they couldn't hold, what they couldn't obtain, and when they saw something they wanted they needed to have it.
It was selfish...
One by one all the mercenaries stepped over the ridge. Their weapons strung from hand to hand as they individually slid down the steep hill, their armor shackled in dry monster guts and blood.
Tusk turned around. He looked at all the sudden faces of hunger behind him, in front of him, coming down on him. He then turned back to the still cloudy face of the Devil Dog.
The mercenaries screamed out!
"Get him!"
"That sword is mine!"
"Don't let him escape!"
Five mercenaries jumped down from the sandhills. They swung out their weapons trying to take out the injured Tusk with one swift attack.
Tusk looked at the Devil Dog... At the human attackers.
He then said in a mumbled sigh, "this is not good..."
He raised his sword up to his head and swung.
Slice!
"Huh?"
The first mercenary who tried to attack Tusk stood frozen. The other four mercenaries all turned to their singular friend who stood at the front of the group, his bulky silver armor slowly coated in a veil of crimson.
"Marku?"
"Help..."
"Marku!"
Flop...
In an instant, Tusk had swung his sword across the horizon, chopping the head off of the first mercenary in an instant. He watched as his head slid off like butter, as the blood from his neck shot across the sky, coating his friends.
"Wha- Marku! Marku! What did you-"
Tusk held out his bloody sword to the other mercenaries as they surrounded him. Ten from behind, five from the front.
He then said in a very earnest and tired voice, "all of you... Listen to me... Get away from here... If a Devil Dog drinks blood it will-"
"Get him!!!"
Slic-
Tusk swung his sword across the sky to cut off another man's head in an instant, but just before he made contact with his next victim's neck, he felt a sudden chill down his spine. The chill of hot monster breath, the chill of a heartbeat lying in pain, the garbled blood from below its esophagus bubbling up into a puke of death and mucus.
All the other mercenaries stopped and felt the same feeling. They were so fueled by greed, so blinded by egotism, just at the sight of a single black and golden sword that they were enchanted to believe that the Devil Dog was dead. That it wouldn't come back to life. And Tusk felt the same. But nothing in this life was easy. Death was always entangled with fate and destiny. And no one who treads that line is safe.
And as I watched from up above I also thought the Devil Dog was dead. But from sitting up here I could see something that the others couldn't. As the thunder-smoke covered the entire head of the monster no one could see what it was doing. And most of us were focused on the sudden man-to-man fight off to the side that we couldn't really tell what was going on with the Devil Dog. But when I felt Ceauli tug on my shirt, and point to the monster, I instantly knew that something was off, that something wasn't right.
The Devil Dog had eaten a random mercenary that had come to attack Tusk. At it was healing. It was breathing. It was strong...
Ceauli looked across at her friends, at her brother. She watched as they looked at her in the same fear. Then within seconds. Blood and bodies across the skies. All the mercenaries were instantly flung into the sky. The Devil Dog swung its large spiked tail across the battlefield.
But unlike the others, Tusk jumped back with his sword out straight. And he managed to block the first strike of the tale as it whipped across the blood-filled battlefield.
SMASH!
Bodies were hit, cut, smashed, bashed, all into the sand, into the gravel, into the sandstone, into the sky. Their brains were destroyed, crushed, blown apart by this monstrous red tail that seemed to almost act and look like a mace.
All the bodies were sent flying across the sky with incredible force. But that wasn't the end of it. The Devil Dog swung again. And as Tusk held out his sword he wasn't able to fully block the attack. He was sent into the sky. He was able to nullify most of the upfront damage with the strength of his sword and armor, but his body was still sent flying across the empty desert above.
He glided at fast speeds, his limbs tucked in as he bounced off the sand, like a skipping stone in an endless sea.
"ROAR SCREECH!"
I quickly grabbed Ceauli by the hand and pulled her away from the edge of the hilled valley as the monster looked up at the remaining thirteen mercenaries and civilians that still watched over it. That included Chinin, Lin, and Minda.
"Wait, Hoefen, we have to go back for them," cried out Ceauli as she turned back to her family and friends on the other side of the ridge.
But I pulled her close and kept running, "just run! It's better to split up. The monster will have fewer people to chase, which will give us time to distance ourselves from the others."
Ceauli looked out at one of the distant towns nearby. She then turned back to the Monster as it let out a loud screech and roar from behind us.
I quickly started picking up the pace as she pulled me toward the town, but I pulled back to another way that wasn't immediately present to her.
"Where are you going?!" she sneered angrily as I kept pulling her farther and farther away from the safest place to hide.
"We're not going toward the town, we'll be caught out in the open before we even get there," I replied determined to survive.
"Then where are we going? We're just going around the valley at this point," she said back.
I looked out into the distance. I was sure it landed here. I was sure I saw him along with the others. His body, his eyes, I couldn't forget what he looked like even if I wanted to. He was my only hope.
This was it...
This was what I dreamed about. After all those years of remembering the fate of my past, but not predicting the fate of my future. I always dreamed of controlling it like a God. Making up my own destiny. I always wanted to have that power. The power to see my fate, or to control it. But this was the best I could do. The best I could do was run toward it. Toward my fate. That kindle, that flicker, those red eyes in the sand, followed by a layer of thick blood. I wasn't one hundred percent sure if this was right if this was even my fate or destiny. But I was sick of that unsureness, I was sick of thinking that I needed to know everything, that I needed to have all the power, that I needed to have control. I was sick of waiting.
I wanted to run!
I was powerless back then, and I'm powerless now. But instead of hiding from that powerlessness, instead of rolling away from my past, instead of becoming what I hated.
I decided as I ran that I could change fate...
No, that I could escape it!
I stopped at Tusk, his red eyes of fire, of warmth...