The beast sunk its claws in the ground and roared, each step it took made its front paws plow the soft ground.
The beast was majestic and in certain aspects, reminded Arthur of Smite, but the elegance and finesse of his lost sword was incomparable.
Bast unsheathed her dagger, a weapon dwarfed by the animal's beak both in size and radiance. She was looking at the steel feathers that could block contending attacks and help the animal cut through thunderclouds.
Even though she was facing a predator, she refused to stop for a second and shielded Arthur who had yet to close his mouth.
Another shriek from the beast resounded as thunder struck it, the nearby spears absorbed the frantic energy, but not the deafening crash nor the blinding flash.
Only the shape of the wyrmfolk could be distinguished in the distance, Bast jumped at the griffin and slashed her dagger at its bird-like claws before it had the time to rear up. She then pushed her hips to their maximum to jump at its face in a rotating motion, but she failed to touch the animal with a kick.
Deception had no time to settle as her reptilian tail slapped the griffin straight in the eye, a mix of translucent and red liquid gushed out, and a stone-head arrow struck the other the instant it backed up. Unlike the blunt hit, the projectile sunk deep in the wound and triggered the rage of the griffin in a firework of entangled bolts.
The wood of the arrow burnt, and the flowers in the area decayed at an appalling rate.
One of the thieves fell to the ground, lifting a small puff of dust on its landing, Ardgal neared him to check the man's pulse and immediately started a cardiac massage in front of the roaring threat. As the beak of the beast neared the defenseless rescuer, Loke stomped the ground and used the flat of his broadsword to deviate the attack.
A bolt bounced back and forth between the animal and the orc, making the warrior faint on the spot. Two other thieves rushed to save their fallen friends.
Arthur hadn't moved at all, he was frozen in space, repeatedly opening and closing his mouth without letting a word out. It mattered to no one that he was mind-talking with the ghost, unwilling to leave and urging him to run away.
'Lance... I've seen the Tadg brothers do the same... Am I attuned with the darkness element? Is this some sort of necromancy? Are you real? Come on... Be real...'
His hand shyly reached for the ghost, he was millimeters away, one split-second away from finding out if the apparition was solid.
He lost the ground under his feet as Bast dragged him away to let go of his wrist when she found a fine zone for him to land, a pile of compost that looked spongy. She forced her dagger into his hand and asked him to fight back if it was his sole option, her two fiery slits shook him more than her insistence.
As soon as he wrapped his fingers around the handle, he let go of it. When the ghost's face distorted, it reignited the gruesome last memory he had of his mentor, his mind was sent to a wreaked oblivion, leaving only a screaming, scared boy near the battlefield. The tip of his fingers and nails alike scratched the surface of his eye in an attempt to get rid of his torment and a thick white foam leaked from the corners of his mouth.
Another slash directed at the bird-like paws of the monster cut a massive chunk of meat off the limb. Jaya's arrows flew straight to their target, their shape and copper head split the air with a high-pitched whistle before penetrating the lower back of the beast.
The griffin roared anew, its mane puffed up and with a neck-breaking speed, a twist of its head sent flying sharp yellow feathers that sunk into wood or flew over their head, the aim was bad and hadn't harmed anyone.
Loke woke up, out of breath, he stared at the mutilated griffin before shouting at his legs. "Hurry up! Hurry up and move!"
After slamming the pommel of his broadsword against his knees, a shadow moved in between the monster and himself, shielding him from a deadly attack. Ardgal had a deep wound from his elbow to wrist, so deep he almost lost his hand in the process.
Bast distracted the beast by running in a half circle around it, it gave Jaya another opportunity to strike the remaining eye. The stone-headed arrow did not penetrate as much as the first, but the job was done for them.
"Retreat! Retreat!" One of the thieves screamed at the top of his lungs.
The mad teenager was dragged at the last minute before the griffin called for another lightning bolt, alas, without its steel claws to link his body to the earth, there was no more escape for the massive amount of electricity coursing through its feathers.
The few alloy arrowheads in its body gathered the electricity and burnt the meat from the inside, cooking the bird on the spot in a blinding roast.
It fell, lifeless, as the thieves caught their breath in relief.
"Fuck! Fuck!" Bast shouted at the flat remains of her guild mate. With both her hands, she gathered as much as she could before realizing it was already mixed with the fertile soil. It was pointless, neither her strength nor her maximum caution was sufficient against the hostile forest.
She took a look at every remaining thief, none stopped breathing even though they lost a lot of blood.
Finally, she paid attention to the still hallucinating child. His fingers were twitching and he was still talking with an invisible person, his gibberish was too hard to decipher and they were already out of time and resources.
Loke was next to him, carefully observing his insane behavior, the orc was whispering what he thought best to encourage the boy to make important decisions.
"Are you proud of yourself? Mevelin died because of you... Because you led us here because you are defective. And now Ardgal might not be able to use his right arm until his death. You better not disappoint me, you better not betray our leader..."
Loke was staring down at the boy, he saw the terrible wound at the back of his head since he was much taller, he looked at the terrible shape it had and the stitches that couldn't hold the scalp properly. Because Arthur lowered his head, he was stretching the skin and unknowingly triggering the bleeding.
His cyan eyes met Loke's. It was no mean glare, it was an attack.
"Defective?" He asked as all of the hate he had toward his father was redirected toward the resentful orc.
Except for the two blue marbles, all the colors of the world suddenly turned off. It all became shades of grey and greyer. Loke's face went pale and his throat was so dry he failed to swallow his saliva. He choked.
"Enough!" Bast shouted to make her underling stop.
She managed to snap Arthur out of his reverie with a strong pinch on the back of his hand.
Instead of reacting to the red landscape, to the gigantic burnt beast leaning next to them, or to the charred scent that engulfed his nostrils, he sedately turned toward her and held his head like a lunatic.
"I'm slowly turning into my father." He said with a strangled voice, biting his lower lip.
Bast saw despair in his eyes, she partially understood what he meant, however, the sentence echoed in her mind, making her step back out of surprise. Her eyes locked mid-air for a brief instant before she listened to a casualty report.
Arthur hadn't moved one bit since the apparition of the monster, yet two steel feathers stuck his cloak to a tree and a third one pierced through his spice pouch. The wyrmfolk helped him to get up and readjusted his hood once more after pointing out how bad was their luck.
"Sure, we can sell its corpse for half your bounty, but doing the same trip twice might cost us as many lives as the first one if not more." Said Jaya, poking the griffin's corpse with the tip of her bow.
"It's... It's important, we have to follow Lance." Bast said with half her usual determination. Although their job was one of the most dangerous to take, she hardly accepted her sudden loss.
She saw how sad were her friends, and her family, the trust that bound her to Arthur was severely weakened by their loss. She cleared her throat to get their attention and made an announcement. "I want men to give Mevelin's family half the money you can get with the golden griffin. The task won't be easy since the lizards ran away toward the city, you'll have a lot to do. Who volunteers?"
Out of the twenty voters, five raised their hand.
"Six it is." She said, unconvinced of the righteousness of her choice. She knelt next to Arthur and moved her mouth to his ear, her eyes veiled with tears, she whispered.
"I'm going back to Tash. I'm just like you, I don't want to make the same mistake my parent did. I can't abandon my child, Hampter needs me. Stay strong Lance, because you are the only one who can decide who to become. I'll make sure they help you carry your mission, so give it your all."
The sudden tidal wave of stress twisted the boy's diaphragm, he was about to argue when he felt rain pour harder.
The drops that fell down the sky were heavy, and the quantity of water soaking his boots and pants started to drop the average temperature of his body. Nonetheless, under his feet, there was something different than he had never experienced before, a perpetual slope that gradually led to the highest peaks of the kingdom.
He was at the lowest of the Titan's claw, he was already hiking his way up when they fought the monster, he was closer to his objective than he thought. In the end, he was thankful for Bast's guidance even though he wanted to keep her company for a little longer.
Sitting under a tree, caged by their spears, those who weren't cutting down the animal while waiting for the riders to come back were fixing branches to have a makeshift roof over their heads.
"Chief, why are we so sure about our quest?" One that lazily sharpened a stick asked.
Arthur cut Bast short and dryly replied. "We are not." He paused a few seconds until the whispers stopped and continued. "Either we find what we are looking for, or either my family pays for the time your guild was recruited."
Money was a good way to make friends out of thieves, but the opposite was true too. 'Better be generous or they'll pull my arm once I give them my hand.'
There was no need to hide his noble background, if the royal guards had let go of him, he was in trouble already, the only thing left to conceal was who's noble blood he carried.
One hour later, he leaned on his uncomfortable, he was talking with the ghost that kept him company, the creature wouldn't even blink even with strong winds that could make the steel-veined trees bend.
'Am I defective, Lancelot?' He asked with a worried frown.
No response.
He fell asleep to an entire night of nightmares in which he went through every of Uther's wretched attempts to awaken his mageroot. Under the castle, in the Tadg brother's laboratory, he was strapped tight on a quartz table. One after the other, the omnimancers brought scissors, blades of all horizons to better take a look at the issues.
They were scientists and medics, they were body experts, and the sum of all their experiments resulted in utter failure.