Since we were short of money, we decided to return to the Kingdom of Lothal and look for some paid work. The return from the fortress-city of the Five Peaks had not been easy. The weather was atrocious, the landscape was inhospitable, and my companion was in an even more irrational mood than usual. Whereas we had traveled into the gloomy mountains in comfort and safety relative to being part of a large caravan protected by armed men, on the way back we had no help or means of transportation other than our own legs. . The people of the few villages we entered were wary of two armed strangers, and the provisions they sold us were expensive and of dubious quality.
Perhaps it was unreasonable of me to expect a reprieve in the seemingly endless chain of adventures when we returned to the realm, since the dark hero and I seemed predestined to permanently encounter envoys of the Dark Powers. Still, I would hardly have believed the extent of his sinister influence had I not witnessed it with my own eyes. Furthermore, I was destined to fight alone against the forces of Darkness for some time, since a strange event befell the dark hero...
Elysia, 'The Adventures of the Dark Hero', vol. I,
Printed in Riverheim.
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"Shit! What was that? Frey bellowed, as he turned around and raised his sword defiantly.
As the next slingshot stone whistled past her ear, Elysia reflexively ducked, the sharp stone splintering against the nearest rock, where she left a mark on the gray-green lichens that covered her. covered. The catgirl quickly took cover behind the rock and peeked out with frightened blue eyes searching for the point of origin of the attack.
The valley at the foot of the mountain pass was calm, and he could see only tree-choked hills rising toward the massive mountains of the rondo. Silently, she cursed the large rocks that littered the valley and blocked her line of sight.
Suddenly, a movement caught Elysia's attention. From the top of the slope to her right came a tide of misshapen bodies, causing a small avalanche of pebbles and loose earth. The bestial figures came down the hill towards her, uttering maniacal cries and leaping with the agility of mountain goats, while the long low note of a hunting horn pierced the air.
"No, not now" Elysia heard a voice say and, to her surprise, she recognized that it was hers.
She was already very close to civilization, for the long and hard path from the fortress-city of the Five Peaks to the southern borders of the Kingdom of Lothal was almost at an end. She had fought goblins in the hills near the ancient dwarf city, and skirmished with the bandits that roamed the ruins of the fort. She had endured the frigid heights of the Mountain Pass and shivered on the snow-covered trails that led to the ancient dwarven routes under the peaks. She shuddered as she remembered the shadowy beings that lurked there, running many-legged through the darkness. She had come so far and endured so much…, and then she was within the borders of civilization, and yet she continued to be targeted. That wasn't fair.
"Stop shrinking, cat girl. They're just a bunch of fucking mutants!" Frey thundered in a deep raspy voice. The dark hero removed his helm with quick movements as if to denote his confidence and made a mighty intimidating roar.
Elysia gave the dark hero a nervous glance, at the same time that she wished to share Frey's trust.
Frey, despising the cover the rocks could provide, boldly exposed herself on the open ground at the bottom of the valley while he carelessly swung the sword through his mighty fist. He seemed completely unconcerned by the rain of stones raising clouds of dust around his feet, an insane smile contorting his brutal features and a raging glee burning in his eyes. It seemed like he was having a lot of fun.
It was typical of Frey, who only seemed happy in the middle of the fray. He had smiled when the goblins ambushed them, for he took pleasure in the prospect of violence. He had even laughed out loud as the bat-winged monstrosities with the faces of beautiful children, thirsty for human blood, descended upon them on the River's edge. The worse things looked, the happier the dark hero seemed, for he looked with delight at the prospect of his own death. At this time, Frey hit his chest with a fist.
"Let's go!" he roared. "My sword is thirsty. He hasn't had a blood drink in weeks."
A slingshot whistled past his head, but Frey didn't even blink.
The catgirl thought that the dark hero's solid, stocky body offered a much easier target to hit than Elysia herself, but she simply seemed immune to projectile hits; his frenzied comrade probably didn't take such things into consideration. Elysia returned her attention to the attackers.
They were, in effect, mutants; humans corrupted and transformed by the strange magic of dark powers. Some said that this was because they had a trace of corruption in their blood; others claimed that they had been secret followers of some Dark Lord, and that their appearance had altered over time to reflect the corruption within. A few sages held that they were innocent victims of a process of change that encompassed all of humanity. At that exact moment, the catgirl didn't care at all which of the explanations was the correct one. She had a secret horror of the loathsome creatures that grew larger each time she encountered them, and that fear filled him and gave him the impetus to fuel a murderous rage.
They were close enough by now that the catgirl could make out individual members of the group. The leader was an enormously fat giant who wore a belt full of daggers around his bulging belly. He was so obese that his body seemed made of bread dough, and undulating folds of flesh swayed up and down with each step he took. Elysia was surprised that the ground did not shake with her monstrous gait. The leader's scowling baby face was full of jowls and nearly toothless. In one stubby hand he wielded a massive stone-headed mace.
Alongside the leader ran a lanky creature, taller than the poet, with one ear missing, probably from a terrible bite received during a fight within the group itself. A long, thin strip of hair hung from the top of its narrow, almost entirely shaved skull, and the creature howled in defiance as it raised its rusty scimitar above its pointed head. At that moment, Felix could see that his incisors were like the fangs of a wolf.
A moose-headed giant paused to raise a large, twisted horn to his lips. Another thunderous bugle blast echoed across the withered landscape, and then the mutant dropped the horn, dangling it from a chain around his neck, and charged again, head down, antlers first.
Behind them ran a horde of ragged, sullen-faced followers; all showed some mutation. Many were marked by festering sores; others had the face of a wolf, a goat or a ram; some had claws, tentacles, or huge bone clubs instead of hands. One's head protruded from the belly, and the neck was a mere stump; another had a hump on its back, from which a huge mouth gleamed. The mutants wielded a motley assortment of crude weapons, such as spears and clubs, and jagged scimitars, which they had scavenged on forgotten battlefields. Elysia estimated the number of attackers at between more than ten and less than twenty. There was no way she could rejoice, even knowing Frey's astounding physical prowess.
The catgirl cursed silently. They had come very close to escaping the Shadow Mountains and reaching the lowlands of the southernmost province of the Kingdom of Lothal. From the highest point of the pass, the night before she had distinguished the lights of a city of men and she had hoped that this same evening she would be able to enjoy a warm bed and a cold mug of beer. At that moment, fear coursed through her veins like ice water, and she would have to fight once more for her life. Involuntarily, she let out a low moan.
"Get up, cat girl. It's time to spill some blood. Frey said, after which he spit out a huge phlegm on the rock at his feet and placed his left hand on his neck to crack it; the hinged plates found on her neck tinkled softly, in strange counterpoint to the insane roar of her laughter.
With a resigned sigh, the catgirl slung her faded cloak over her broad right shoulder to free her arm for action, then drew her longsword from its ornate sheath. Reddened dwarf glyphs shimmered across the blade.
The mutants were now close enough for the soft footsteps of their bare feet to be heard and words uttered clearly by their harsh guttural voices. Elysia could see greenish veins in his jaundiced-looking yellowish eyes, and count the rivets on the edges of her shields. Reluctantly, he stood up, stepped out from behind the rock that protected him, and prepared to fight.
She looked at Frey and, to her horror, she saw a slingshot stone hit the dark hero's head. She heard the snap, saw Frey sway, and was terrified. If Frey fell, he knew that he would have no chance of surviving against that group of attackers.
Frey staggered, but stayed on his feet, and then put a hand to his head to touch the impacted place. An expression of surprise crossed his face as he felt a trickle of blood run down the side of his head; however, instantly he was transformed into terrible anger. The dark hero let out a tremendous roar and charged at the mutants, who were cackling with high-pitched laughter.