Close Call

Once outside, Arawn was met with a dozen or so mages sending a hurricane of attacks at him. They glanced off his body, leaving nothing more than a few scratches on his skin. The force of rocks hitting him irritated his burns, but it was a minor ache.

"That's him! That's the beast those Mairyan dogs sent for our king!" a loud voice screeched, and Arawn turned in its direction.

Before him was a large group of well-dressed nobles. Their choice of wardrobe was very varied and their skin colors were different, which made it almost certain that they were foreign dignitaries.

Among them were only a couple Bretian nobles surrounding the king. He and the archmage stood at the back with calm expressions. Despite the chaos around them, they were unperturbed. The king even smiled slightly when he saw Arawn pause and look their way.

"Look! We escaped this far, even going to the back entrance, and it's still after us! Having someone self-destruct wasn't enough! Those Mairyan dogs even sent a beast after our king!"

In an instant, Arawn understood what was happening. His self-destruction had foiled the king's plans, but the king wasn't a man who let his schemes go to waste without a fight. He actually dragged all the dignitaries to the back of the castle and blocked Arawn's way out through the castle to ensure that it looked like he rushed out to attack all of them.

Such dogged stubbornness might be admirable in some cases, but Arawn was tired of being used as a tool. He still didn't understand why his beast form was so special in the king's eyes, but he was getting tired of looking for answers in this place. Every time he expected something, he was thoroughly disappointed and used as a tool to further the king's goals.

The soldiers caught up from behind, and Arawn rushed forward. His main task for the moment was to drag out the confrontation to give Val time to find a place to hide, but that didn't mean Arawn had to waste that time just dawdling around. A certain thought had emerged in his head some time ago, and now he had become certain of it—as long as the king lived, he would not have peace.

Thus, he pounced in the king's direction, surprising the man for the first time. The king glanced at the archmage who sent a barrage of ether into the ground under Arawn's feet.

Arawn didn't plan to risk it and while mid-pounce dragged one of the dignitaries down with his right paw. The man served as his landing point where the mage had dug a hole, and the swiftly built up wall was no match for Arawn. He smashed through it like it was a pile of leaves.

His path was then blocked off by three nobles. In the few seconds that the archmage had slowed Arawn, they had pulled out their swords and come to stand before him with their weapons raised.

Not caring about them one bit, Arawn pounced forward again. If there was anyone in the world that truly deserved death, it was the king. There was nothing sacred for him, and moral right and wrong were laugh-worthy concepts in his eyes.

'You'll pay for what you've done!'

A searing pain in his back leg stole Arawn's breath away. It stopped him mid jump. He tried to catch himself, but it was too late, and he fell in a pile of squirming and screaming bodies.

The nobles on whom he had landed had ear-splitting voices, but his bigger concern was the pain in his back leg. What had happened to it?

A quick look back told Arawn that someone had stabbed a dagger into his flesh. His skin was almost impenetrable, but the self-destruction had burned it off in many places. This left him without his best defensive tool.

One of the three men used Arawn's distraction to advance on him. The blade flashed in the sun and fell on Arawn's shoulder. He growled in real anger at that moment and caught the sword between his teeth. With a clench of his jaw, the blade shattered into pieces.

Arawn spit the shards at the man. The brave warrior looked down at the sword hilt still in his hand, gulped, and backed away with the speed of a rabbit who had stumbled upon a wolf behind a bush.

Such a show made everyone pause for a moment and reevaluate their opinion of beasts. While they were busy doing that, Arawn sat down with great pain and grabbed the hilt of the dagger in his back leg with his teeth. Pain surged through him and blood shot out in a swift stream, but there was no time to deal with it.

With a grimace, Arawn got up to face the couple people who had found their bravery. The crowd had scattered by then, and most people had ran away, but not all. As if mocking Arawn's ability to threaten his life, the king stood in his original position and did not move.

"I won't back off just because some Mairyan dregs sent an assassin," the king said in a righteous manner to his advisor who was advising him to evacuate. His voice was loud and audible to everyone. "They kidnapped my daughter and now came to kill me? What a joke! Am I such a pushover for them?"

With those words, he rushed forward to attack. Surprised, Arawn tilted his head, but that didn't mean he wasn't ready to fight back. His claws extended on instinct, and he snarled, revealing blade-like teeth.

"Men, to me! We shall get rid of this cursed creature!"

The three people from before flanked the king. At first, Arawn thought they were just random nobles, but after the first serious exchange, he knew that was a lie. As he snapped his jaws near the king's side, they attacked him with speed and accuracy, aiming for all the places where he was already injured.

A sense of danger rose within Arawn, and he turned to face them, swiping his claws in their direction. Yet just as one retreated, another on the other side went forward. They danced around him like a group of well-practiced… hounds! They were hounds!

And as if three weren't enough, Arawn heard more coming. In his peripheral vision, he saw a man rush through the backyard at the speed that no sane man would use to get closer to a beast. He should be using it to run in the opposite direction.

The moment he reached the soldiers, he ordered them to stay still, since they would only be a nuisance. Yet when he turned to join the hounds fighting Arawn, a small shadow appeared behind him.

"Found you," Mutallu whispered and stabbed his dagger into the man's back.

Yet the man seemed to have supernatural reflexes. He avoided the direct hit to his heart and shifted his weight so the dagger only struck his shoulder. His next action was to call upon the ether, but Mutallu was no slouch either. Balls of fire crashed into the man, burning his hair and skin.

They duelled for a moment before the soldiers reached them and Mutallu was drowned out in a sea of bodies. Arawn tried to hear what was happening, but he had his own problems. The three hounds were like mosquitoes buzzing around him incessantly while the king used attacks that looked fancy and dangerous but actually did nothing.

The king was simply acting out a play. He came close to Arawn, but not close enough to endanger his own life. Whenever there was even a hint of danger for him, the archmage would use the ether to subtly change the ground or blind Arawn.

When he realized what was happening, Arawn would close his eyes before it happened, but it still left him without vision for a moment. This meant that the king could get far enough away from him until he was perfectly safe again.

Such obvious disregard for him grated on Arawn's nerves, but he really couldn't do anything. The three hounds seemed to have trained specifically to fight beasts. They couldn't kill him with ease, but he was accruing a wide array of injuries. If nothing changed soon, he was going to bleed out to death.

'I'm not going down without you,' Arawn growled and rushed forward despite the three men. Their blades instantly fell on him, worsening his injuries by a large margin, but he rushed past their encirclement.

Without even thinking about it, he turned on the king. A single pounce was enough to reach him, and Arawn's claws extended to tear his back apart. Before he could do more damage, however, ether coalesced into a bright sun before him. If he didn't dodge, only a burnt corpse would be left of him.

While dashing away, he heard a mass exhalation in relief. It was such an unfitting sound in his battle that his head swiveled in the direction of the sound.

A couple meters to the side, Mutallu lay on the ground. A soldier sat on top of him and was choking the last remnants of life out of him. The kid was fighting back with all he had, but one of his legs was held under the soldier's knee, and the other was empty of any weapon.

His dagger was in a corpse nearby. More than ten of them lay in disarray on the ground. Some of them had their throats cut and some had been burned to death.

Mutallu's face was swiftly turning purple, and Arawn knew he didn't have time. Despite how the youth had acted, he was still one of Corwal's children.

With a powerful leap forward, Arawn appeared next to him and struck the soldier. The man's joyous relief turned into surprise before shifting to pain. He took in a large breath in preparation to scream, but Arawn did not give him the chance. A single strike was enough to put him out of his misery.

On the ground, Mutallu gasped for air like a fish out of water. His coloring was atrocious, and his hands shook with weakness.

There was no chance he could stand up, let alone walk. If anyone came at him with the intention to kill, there would be no fighting back from his side.

Arawn glanced over at the king who sat on the ground with lingering horror in his eyes. The archmage was by his sides, pouring healing ether into his back. When one of the hounds came over to help him up, his hand was slapped away.

"Useless filth! I should feed you to the dogs! So much training, and you can't even take down a single beast! Fucking morons! Did you want me to die?"

As he continued to curse, Arawn looked away. If he had made another choice, the king might not have been able to say a single word again, but...

Arawn picked Mutallu up by his clothes and threw the kid on his own back. Mutallu wavered a few times, but managed to find purchase without falling off. His face was ashen, but his grip surprisingly strong. There was still a will to survive alive in him.

'Till next time,' Arawn said to the king in a growl and turned away to leave.

Not much time had been won, but Val should have already found somewhere to hide. If not, well, Arawn couldn't do anything more. If he stayed, Mutallu would not make it out, and if he went to look for Val and his sister, he would only lead all the soldiers to them.

'They're gonna be fine. Val knows what he is doing.'

It was only a hope, but that was all Arawn had at that moment. With no one daring to obstruct his path anymore, he rushed to the wall and bounded up the stairs to its top. The height of ten meters was no laughing matter, but he jumped down without a moment's hesitation.

The impact rushed through his body and made him kneel, but the pain passed in a flash. Arawn had a feeling that even if he lay with his insides out, he would not feel no more than a minor irritation in his stomach.

The city was a ghost town after the chaos at midday, and Arawn had no trouble rushing through the many streets. His energy started to wane soon, but he didn't stop to rest. The king would not be happy once he regained his senses, and Arawn didn't want to be in the capital at that time.

There was no destination in his mind besides away from the castle. It was certain that he would not be able to hide for a long time, but even until his wounds healed would be good enough. If not for him being injured, the battle with the three hounds would not have posed him such a challenge.

They would be hard to kill, but it wasn't within their power to stop him. They were nothing but flies buzzing around his head.

As the kilometers disappeared under Arawn's feet, he finally reached the city wall and frightened the guards into letting him pass. When they fell back in fear, he tore the lock on the small gate and rushed out.

Once outside, he breathed in the fresh air of freedom. Yet its taste was bitter. He had nowhere to go and no one to call upon. Corwal was dead or with the king, Rain and Betty were rushing back to their mercenaries, while Val and his sister were still in the castle or already being brought to the dungeon for the next execution.

The weight on his back reminded him of Mutallu's presence, but it was a small consolation. He had never gotten along with the reclusive boy, and his mercenary band was only second to the king on the list of people Arawn didn't want to meet at that moment.

He missed a step and almost rolled over his head. Exhaustion was making itself known, and he slowed down a little so as not to kill himself or his charge.

For years, he had been used to being alone, but somehow, it sounded like a cruel punishment at that moment. He wasn't sure what had changed, but he didn't like the idea of having nowhere to go.

Even when he had planned to leave Corwal, it was with the idea of meeting him again. Now, however, he wasn't sure either of them would be up for that. What would they talk about? How Arawn had killed his mother, half-brother, and attempted to kill his father? That would certainly go well.

There was a loud thump as a heavy object fell on the ground, and the weight from Arawn's back disappeared. He instantly stopped and found Mutallu out cold. There were many wounds on the youth's body that Arawn had missed at first, and once the danger passed, the kid simply passed out.

With a sigh, Arawn lifted him onto his back again. The youth could no longer hold himself steady, so Arawn lay him down like a sack of potatoes. It would be good enough for the time being, and he set off once more.

This cleared his mind of the previous haze. Whatever came next, he still had some unfinished business. First, he had to ensure Mutallu survived. Second, he had to heal himself and find a way to change back. And third, he had to free Ayersbert from its king. People like him couldn't be allowed to exist. Even the Gutter's crowd wasn't as vicious or murderous as him.

With the new resolution in mind, Arawn aimed for Val's father's estate. It was the closest place to the capital he knew, and it had the only doctor with whom he was familiar.

Once they were all healed, he could think of how to proceed next.