36th Day of Ash, 122nd Year of the Age of Steel
He bit down hard on the hand that held him. His hollow cobra teeth injected what venom they had and the grip slackened, the mercenary drawing back in reflexive shock. Masagh beat his wings and felt the grip fall away. Seizing his moment Masagh went tumbling and flapping across the courtyard in an attempt at escape.
“No, don’t let it get away. That thing is spying for them!” He heard Temishi bellow. Masagh felt the ground fall away as his wings gained purchase. It was an odd sensation, trying to fly with the cobra head. His neck required him to flex it to be able to see straight, and the weight dispersement was drastically different. He managed though, flying with a clumsy gait. Turning his snake head back he looked down and saw as he left the courtyard of the mansion that Temishi was staring daggers at him.
Then a familiar circle appeared beneath her hand and a pair of reddish brown turtles crawled from it. They had spiky, ridged shells and vicious beaked maws. Temishi pointed her saber up at him like the stroke of a guillotine. The turtles burst from the ground to give chase, their thick fins cutting the air as easily as they would water.
Shit, shit, shit. Masagh turned his focus back on his flying. Desperately he climbed in an effort to gain distance. The moonlight shone against the twinned turtles below, their glowing eyes boring into him. One opened his mouth and there was a wild surge of power. A steaming spear of fire shot through the air and past Masagh’s left wing. He felt the warmth roll across him as the flame dispersed somewhere ahead.
They breath fire too, perfect. Masagh thought wryly.
The turtle were gaining on him, swimming through the air with their otherworldly abilities. Their eyes burned red against the blacks and greys of nighttime Gel’Grandal. Both mouths opened and more fire shot forth. Masagh tucked his wings and dove out of the way. Flames roared overhead and he plummeted.
The wind roared in his ears as the well manicured lawns and private gardens of Southside Gel’Grandal loomed below him. Their spirit flight was more than a match for his underdeveloped skills with the pterincus form. He needed to think of some way to kill the turtles before they burnt him from the sky.
Spreading his wings, Masagh caught the air current and surged forward. Behind his short tail more fire chased. The amber runes along his right wing gleamed, familiar from another limb he owned. The aether burned from within him and he let the invocation surge outward. The ghoulish blade materialized in the air next to him and the Dancing flipped it behind him.
He arced through the air, angling his wings to turn to face the two turtles. They turned to charge him. Fire burned from their throats and Masagh dove again, striking out at the flames with his sword. The ghoulish blade dispersed one flaming spout while the other shot wide. He threw himself into a charge and the claymore tore through the air. It clashed against the nearest turtle’s shell with a ringing thud.
Then Masagh was tearing past the pair and his sword dragged off the shell and trailed after. The sword’s victim dipped down in the air, the impact shaking it out of its trajectory. The other spun in the air to give chase again. The turtle face did not leave room for much emotion, but the burning eyes were perpetually enraged. Masagh clasped his tiny claws around the now large hilt of the blade and tucked his wings.
There was a pause in the air as the he and the sword began to fall, then the rune gleam burned in his wing again. The sword spun and flew through the air, with Masagh clutching onto it. It shot through the sky toward the pursuing turtle and the spirit shot more fire at him. The dancing claymore spun through the air and cut through the flames with all the skill of his two hundred years. Then the tip drove thought the spirit’s mouth.
Masagh was thrown through the air, the hilt jolted from his pterincus grip. As sword and turtle spirit fell through the air, Masagh scrambled to catch the wind again, wings wavering in the air. He battled with fear for control of his mind as he spread his wings and angled gradually out, arcing low through the air. The turtle dispersed into aether and spirit dust while the sword remained.
There was an ethereal roar and Masagh turned his cobra head to see the second turtle pelting up towards him. Masagh flew towards the now falling blade, invoking the rune gleam once again. The sword tumbled in the air, blade catching the moonlight, and spun up to meet him. It was like some grisly, over sized arrow pelting through the night sky. Then it was with him and Masagh reached out and gripped the cross guard on either side with his claws again.
He tucked his wings and let the dancing blade carry him towards the second turtle. The spirit send fire at him as its twin had done, but Masagh directed the blade to dip down. The fire coursed above him, his reflexes a hair too slow. The magical flame singed his back and his wings. They seared in pain, blistering immediately. Masagh directed the blade up and into the turtles softer belly shell. It drove home with a sickening wet squelch. The turtle screamed in pain and began to dissolve as they all fell in a mass to the ground below. The wind extinguished the weak flames the dying turtle tried to spew at him as it dissolved to nothing.
Then it was just Masagh and the sword falling. As the ground approached he spread his wings. Immediate pain racked his pterincus form and he reflexively tucked his wings again. He flung his will towards the falling blade, guiding it towards the earth instead. This was the first time he had ever used the dancing evocation such, and clinging to it while he tried to bring it gently to the ground was not as easy as simply holding on while he skewered spirit turtles.
He and the blade crashed into a line of shrubs slow enough to not cause permanent damage but quick enough to rake through them. A multitude of tiny twigs and leaves left cuts across his form and scraped at the blistered flesh of his back. He came to rest with his face in the soil and his tiny body tangled in a bush. The claymore was sticking out of the earth between the next two bushes.
For a moment it was all Masagh could do to lay there and groan. His entire body ached. The blisters on his back seared and the cuts of the bush stung him when he moved. On top of all that his shoulders ached with the deep burn of flying.
He rolled over and used his head to push himself up. Frustration boiled within him and he evoked the rune gleam once again, relinquishing his forms for the original. Red eyes closed as he surrendered to the magical transformation, like releasing a tether in a strong river current. His physical form was swept away and the shift to the ghoul he had been born as came.
It was a long two minutes later when he was gasping on the ground as Masagh the ghoul. The blisters were still there, and being agitated by the wool of his tunic and the leather of his armor. Masagh struggled to his feet, staggering over to the blade. He drove it home and found his mind being drawn back to what was said in the mansion.
Temishi’s attitude had indicated they had mistook her for being the one calling the shots. A worm of worry twisted in his gut as his mind settled on the real danger. Alsariph. The perfumed noble had made himself seem harmless and blundering, but they had said he was indeed the mastermind behind the operation. If he had lied about that what else could the elf be withholding.
He could not risk leaving the man in the Compound with the rest of the house. Masagh glanced around to get his bearing and began to make his way back to Triforge Square and the secret well entrance. Preoccupied with the dire situation, he was hardly keeping an eye on the side streets and alleyways. They had brought a snake into their home, and what was worse, he had fooled all of them.
“Halt!” A voice rang with authority behind him. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, citizen?”
Masagh turned and found a pair of Gel’Grandal police standing and staring at him suspiciously no more than ten feet behind him. As he turned and his gaunt and torn visage became clear to the two, he saw their eyes widen in shock. One pulled at some sort of brass firearm at his waist, the other hefted a pike.
Masagh redacted without thought. His blade was in his hands and the rune gleam burning bright on his palm. Deflecting the head of the pike to the side, Masagh ran his blade down the length of the weapon as he charged the man. The second fired a shot from his cumbersome weapon and Masagh yanked the started pikeman in front of himself to block. The shot rang wide, breaking a window across the street by the sound.
Masagh snarled and bit into the man’s throat hard and deep. Warm blood filled his mouth and the bite of iron quenched the hunger of his soul. He felt the wounds and blisters fade in their ache vas well. The man convulsed and collapsed as his partner threw the firearm aside and yanked at a sword at his waist.
Masagh’s ghoul-faced blade was tasting his heart before he had drawn it halfway. He planted his foot on the man’s chest and yanked the sword free. With no time to spare, he left the patron bleeding out on the street. His legs burned as he sprinted full on back toward Triforge Square and his home.
Back to where his family may be in danger…
