25 Continuing the Slaughter

Numerous eyes turned towards the source of the bloodcurdling scream. Forest Tree and Fire Earth tribe members alike were appalled by what they saw: a black snake, sitting on the chest of a Fire Earth warrior, with an ensanguined trachea in his mouth.

Blood and gore dripped from the body part, that was still bound to the twitching dying man that it belonged to by many fragile lines of muscle and cartilaginous tissue.

Everyone, even the most furious between the raging berserkers, was left without words before such a grim and macabre scene. Some fights completely stopped, leaving people on both sides looking at the spectacle given by Darkscale and feeling cold terror running down their spines.

There were many questions that surfaced in the mind of the spectators. One of the more pressing, especially for those that were in the area near the creature, was a doubt on the beast identity. Not only from where the beast came out, but even what it was.

No one seemed able to recognize it. Those strange violet eyes and the violence that it was demonstrating made it very hard to connect the creature to the docile animal known as black collar snake. Plus the snake had a grey circle around its head, with that no one even thought about the possibility that the vicious beast could be a simple feeble black collar snake.

The fact that they weren't able to recognize the creature, made many people start to move far from its position: it was a snake, a snake that had already demonstrated that it was able to kill people. How? Nobody had actually seen how it did it. Probably poison.

Who wanted to deal with a poisonous creature that nobody could identify? If you couldn't tell which species of snake it was, how were you even going to find a way to cure its poison?

Moreover, the serpent was incredibly particular: it didn't seem interested on consuming the body that it had slain. No, instead he severed the lines of organic material that still bound the bloody body part to its origin and then began to move randomly on the ground dragging along with it the bloody trachea.

No one could tell what it was doing, but everyone was left with a growing sense of unease watching that creature happily dance around on the ground next to a dead human warrior.

"Who was that?" wondered a Fire Earth warrior with a long bifurcate beard not too far from the serpent, asking a companion about the man that was slain by the beast.

"I think it's the guy that was called out by the chieftain" said, the bald man next to him, with a fatigued voice. They both had just managed to defeat the little group of Forest Will people that had tried to band together to survive their attacks. They had prevailed in the end, but it took them time and energy.

"He didn't seem strong at all..." began the long-bearded man, cleaning the blade of his ax on his clothes. His eyes moved on the little snake, narrowing with interest. He didn't see how the creature managed to slay his countryman.

"but still, it was one of us" he continued. It wasn't easy to slaughter a Fire Earth Tribe member, even a weak one that was mainly in charge of scouting.

"Do you think that is poisonous?"

"Yeah, most probably...look how small it is"

"I agree... hey look there, near the cadaver. Those hairs..." suddenly said the first warrior, pointing with his blade towards the immobile figure of a young maiden on the ground.

She was looking with a vacant expression the dancing snake, not moving an inch. Not even blinking. Her dress, once the color the purest snow, was now drenched with dark red blood. However, she seemed to not notice that, nor everything else that was happening in the lousy battleground all around her.

Her only interest seemed to be the movement of the black serpent before her, that she observed from her supine position.

The bald warrior slapped the shoulder of the bearded one, snapping his tongue pleased by his companion's discover.

"A Leaf! From the Main Line!" he immediately added, starting to move towards the position of the green haired beauty and the black colored snake. What if the snake was dangerous? He wasn't a coward! He killed red wolves barehanded, wrestled with moon oxen and hunted great deer without weapons!

Why should he fear an overgrown scaled worm? Who cared about poison? He just had to kill it before he had the chance to bite him! No big deal.

"Let's go! We need to put our hands on her first! We can split the profits from the price that we'll get from her after!" he encouraged his companion. He immediately talked about sharing the profits from her sale. Why? Simply because he wasn't a complete moron. He knew that a prize that valuable would make even the closest members of the same tribe kill each other if no accord was stipulated from the beginning. He didn't want to get stabbed in the back by the other Fire Earth warrior.

The other warrior didn't wait for the proposal as he was already moving towards the lady. He then stopped when he heard the words of his companion. He looked at him, admitting to himself that entering into a fight against him it would only create an opportunity for the Leaf to escape. Plus, the Chieftan would surely demand an explanation at the end of the battle if they started to try to kill each other during an assault against an enemy convoy.

If it this wasn't an attack against another tribe he would have immediately stormed his companion and tried to kill him as fast as possible to be the only one able to claim ownership of the Leaf woman.

However doing so now would only mean making an enemy of the chieftain and he didn't want to do that: he wouldn't be able to maintain his prize, plus it was very probable that Godermo would call for his public execution. Not a great trade-off.

"Ok, but we need to get rid of the serpent first!" he said, moving the ax between his hands. There was something of dangerous coming from that little reptile, but the greed of the two warriors made them ignore their basic feelings.

They moved rapidly, almost afraid that someone else would notice the green haired girl and would want to compete with them for her capture.

When they reached the zone where the black reptile was around the corpse of their countryman, they noticed that there was a strange symbol on the ground. It was some of the complex mark, created in a dark red marker. No, when they arrived close enough they even immediately noticed that it was blood!

Not only: those marks weren't causal! They were carefully drawn with insane precision. By whom? That was the strangest part: it was the serpent! The creature wasn't randomly dancing around as they believed from distance: it was drawing on the ground using the bloody body part from one of their people.

The two warrior stopped their movement when they realized that, feeling like that they just entered the lion's den. That snake was drawing mystical sign on the earth using the blood of a Fire Earth Tribe's warrior.

Gulping in shock, the two warriors started immediately to retrocede. One thing was fighting against a dangerous beast armed with some strong or even mortal poison. Another completely different thing was to fight against a demonic creature that used the bloody bodily parts of humans to draw complex symbols on the ground.

Even if they didn't understand their purpose, they could tell that it wasn't anything good for them.

"This is not worth it... let's go back!" called the long-bearded man. The bald warrior immediately agreed: although he was thrilled about the presence of a valuable prize like a member of the main Leaf bloodline, he didn't want to die for a slim chance of obtaining it.

"I agree, let's wait around here... maybe the snake will lose interest and go away!" advised the bald man.

However, it was in that moment that the serpent, until that moment completely engrossed in his drawing project, suddenly raised his little head to look directly in the eyes of the two raiders. There was a sarcastic sentiment visible in those two vibrant violet flames.

"I won't... however, thanks for coming!" laughed the creature, while a silver pulse shined from a small circle carved on his body.

The two warriors were even more petrified: a snake that talked? What absurd thing was that? No animal could talk! It was impossible! Only human and... an idea flashed on the mind of the warriors that immediately began to tremble.

There was only one case in which an animal could talk human language.

"Cultivator!" said the long-bearded man, paling.

"Now that you're here, why don't you stay?" murmured a cruel voice inside their minds.

"Yeah, you should really stay here... forever!"

The snake abandoned the bloody item and darted towards the two warriors with nefarious intent.