BOOK

Malbore's blood was red. Leto didn't know what exactly he had been expecting but the elf's skin was black as pitch and his hair white as spider silk so why not blood of ocean blue or crisp leaf green? But no, it was red as rubies and apples. The blood ran from his mouth down his his chin and dripped toward the floor, time seemed to be moving so slow and Leto took the whole moment in as he watched that blood drop to the ground, as it fell it passed a glint of metal that for just a moment reflected it so that two drops of blood fell in unison. At this point Leto's vision widened to take in the sword jutting from Malbore's chest, then the ragged state of his robes that showed a fight, the scorched room, and finally the armored man standing behind the dark elf. It was a human of average height, maybe just a hair on the tall side, with long dark hair reaching just past his chin. He had a grim set of eyes that looked like they only knew how to scowl and a manic glint bordering on glee. When a sharp motion pulled the sword from Malbore with a sound like meat being ripped off the leg of a boar, Leto had dined near a few Orcs who had a tendency for loud eating, the Dread Lord gave a strangled grunt before his legs gave out and he dropped to the floor. The man who saved the satyrs and fought a war for all the people that the world wanted to hate and revile dropped to the ground as the smoke from his burning home rose up and slowly filled the room.

The human wiped his sword clean on a dark red cape and glanced up at Leto only when another voice said something. Leto couldn't be sure what was said, his eyes just watching the large expanding red puddle on the floor. He'd seen blood before, spilled it, stepped in it once or twice. He knew what it looked like when someone bled to death. But he had never really taken the time to watch it happen and there was just so much more than he was expecting in the body. When a satyr died the watcher wasn't looking at blood, at least Leto wasn't, they were memorizing the lines of the face and shape of the horns. Trying to hold every memory they had with that person and make them clear and crystal in their mind. Honor and keep them as the elder's used to call it. When an enemy died you didn't stay and watch either because even if you hated them there was really never time to just watch. Always someone else to fight and it was more important to survive than paint a mental picture of what one more dead human looked like. Leto found it odd that this was the first time he ever really watched someone just... bleed to death. Malbore groaned and shifted but made little progress as the knight stepped forward and pressed a heavy boot down on the dark elf's back.

It was such a cruel thing to do that all of Leto's focus fell on the man. He looked like a knight, he had the heavy armor and the cape, but he didn't look like one of the human nobles. Leto knew how they looked from his time on the field. They wore the heaviest shiniest armor and normally stood in the rear shouting at everyone else. Their hair was always soft and pampered and they were more often than not on the fat or soft side. This human looked lean and strong, his hair was a mess but that was probably from fighting Malbore if the state of the destroyed room was any indication, while his armor was certainly heavy but also well used. This wasn't some pomp noble playing general but a real Knight. Someone who had earned their title fighting people like Leto. Well, not like Leto. Probably more people who had remembered to bring their weapons with them before walking into a room with an angry armed human. Leto clutched empty air as he suddenly realized how out of it he had been when walking up those stairs.

There came another shout and Leto looked over, there where two more humans he could see in the room. A man in thin breezy robes that made Leto assumed he was one of the human's shamans, wizards or whatever they liked to call themselves, and the woman in prayer robes that had poisoned Raona. Leto's vision went red at the sight of her and he started to step toward her with no real idea what it was he would or even could do to her. If he could somehow reach her past the knight and wizard then she was sure to get him with her blades. Just a scratch would probably be enough to kill him but maybe it would take a few seconds. Maybe that much time would be enough to... to hurt her... to make her know a bit of what Leto felt ripping away in his chest. He needed to do something- she killed Raona! Before he could start bounding toward her though the wizard said something, his eyes had a strange far away look as his face twisted in panic.

"DON'T LET HIM GET THE BOOK!" The wizard said suddenly, turning to the side.

Leto glanced the same direction more just out of confusion than anything else. As soon as he looked for it he saw the book in question. A thick leather tome he had seen Malbore carrying around a few times. Leto didn't care about the book, he wasn't much of a reader, and all he wanted was to attack the poisoner woman. Yet even as upset as he was he doubted he could get to her before the others stopped him, that book though... The knight was closer to it than Leto but all that heavy armor. The satyr jumped before he had even really decided to grab for it, a half second later the clang of a dagger striking stone rang out from behind him. The woman was quick to throw her knives it seemed. The wizard started chanting and, Leto assumed, waving his arms around in vague mystic gestures so the goatman pushed off as hard as his hooves would allow him. The Knight hefted his blade and swung horizontally to try and cut Leto clean in half. That was stupid. Maybe this knight hadn't fought many satyrs. It would have cut deep into an orc and would have beheaded a goblin but a satyr? Leto just bounded right over the blade and the knight in a single leap. The extra height threw him off a bit so he landed on all fours like a beast. It was only because he ended up so low to the ground that he noticed it.

The air was cleaner and clear. How much smoke was filling the room? Scrambling forward he managed to put his hands on the book. It was cold to the touch, like wood left out in a freeze and them brought inside. Far colder than it had any right to be and its weight was wrong. Too heavy perhaps for its size or maybe the balance just felt off. To be perfectly honest there was just a bit too much wrong with it for Leto to fully know just from picking it up and certainly too much to bother with given the circumstances. He tucked it tight to his body, the feeling of cold pushing through the shawl that had once been Raona's skirt, and seemed to burrow into his chest. Leto started to run as the wizard broke his chant to just shout a dismayed cry seeing the book picked up. Leto planned to run for the stairs next but another knight walked up the stairs, this one older and grizzled but clearly ready for a fight. Leto kicked his hoof hard into the ground to turn away but just as he did pain blossomed from his right leg. He fell back and looked to see an arrow shaft sticking from his thigh. A young boy, elven by the look of his ears, was at the opposite end of the room looking smug with a bow in hand.

If there was one thing a satyr feared it was being hunted and made lame. The young and old knight stalked forward while Leto tried to crawl back, kicking with his good leg and free hand. He clutched the book to his chest in spite of the cold. He didn't want this, it wasn't supposed to be like this. Adlas, Raona, gods knew how many other satyrs. Malbore... The war effort... was it all lost? Did it even matter without his best friend and the fire-haired girl he had finally gotten to dance with? Without the feared "Dread Lord" to lead them would the Orcs and Goblins even keep fighting? Leto glanced back and saw the knights even closer now, they weren't in a hurry... they were walking. They knew what Leto was trying so hard not to know, there there was just simply no where for him to go.

"Give us the book." The younger knight said.

"Don't bother sir, its just a beast." Said the older as he raised up his sword with a single hand.

- look inside -

Leto stared with terror of any animal cornered and about to die. Like a beast they said... a beast they would just look inside and see offal and meat that they could cook and sell. Or more likely just leave to rot.

- look inside -

Leto's eyes looked back and forth between the two knights, their mouths hadn't moved just then.

- Look. Inside. -

The words were took close and too soft to be from either of the knights. The confusion that crossed Leto's face seemed to give some pause to the two knights for a half beat before they kept stalking forward but it was the next scream that set them all to real action. A deep bellow from the wizard in the back. "STOP HIM NOW!" he said. The knight started to throw his blade down as Leto threw his own arms up, the book dropping to the ground in front of himself. The leather bound book hit the ground at its spine with a heavy thud. It cracked the stone. That sound that was what made Leto look down instead of just clutching his eyes shut in terror. A book landed so hard that it cracked stone. The spiderweb pattern that sprawled out from where the book dented in the floor spread well under Leto and the cover fell open to several inked pages. Not inked with words but inked literally black. The only reason Leto knew the pages weren't meant to be completely black from the beginning was the pages edges that remained a stained paper yellow. Solid black pages.

- LOOK. INSIDE. -

The pages did not fall even, but instead flipped between several different leaves of paper before settling. Each and every page was completely black. Black as a cloudy night. Black as the pupil of a dying man's eyes expanding out. Black as Malbore's skin. The sword struck into Leto's right antler, cutting in deep and then biting into his wrist. Yet no deeper. Instead it was like the force of the strike pushed Leto down. Down down down. Into the cracks in the floor, between the stones, where the shadows expanded and the world gave way. The book fell with him into the ground, into the webbed stonework, into the darkness. All he heard as he fell was the shout of the wizard and the shocked surprised of the two knights.

Then there was only the dark. And the water.