Elephant Pond 6: Blood for the Path (1)

They took off downhill from their camp on horseback. At a gallop they'd arrive at Cask village on the other side of the forest within the hour.

The path was just wide enough to facilitate their standard formation: three rows of three with Ayva at the center of the middle row. The formation was more formality than necessity.

The Wax forest as it was called had no bushes or shrubs to hide in; there was only short uniformed lush grass and ridiculously tall, slender trees with polished wax-like bark. There was no cover for an ambush to hide behind and the sparse layout of trees allowed them to see deep into the forest in either direction, unhindered. Despite that the perpetually manicured look of the forest made most uneasy, like they were setting foot in a forest that was made, rather than grew.

"Pardon me, Commander," a rough voice called from behind Ayva. Their iron helmets only revealed eyes within the visors, but his voice and polite tone revealed it was Dale, the eldest and most experienced of her guard, a brute of house Thanick.

She turned to face him, "Yes?"

"What kind of resistance are we to be expecting? If you've brought this many of your personal guard, rather than sending a few blades, should we expect an ambush?"

Leona interjected, yelling up at them from the rear guard, "We're to expect a good time! Don't get yourself too worked up old man. Just take all the beatings for yourself while we blades do the real work." Other soldiers shouted their agreement or just laughed.

It had been more than a few weeks since Ayva's squadron had seen any battles, so she could understand the giddiness, even she had an itch.

"I am not worried," the middle aged man grumbled, "I only wish to be prepared. Some of us actually intend on winning our battles and living to the next one."

"Our Commander wouldn't drag this many of us out here to kill just any rebels, if we're here then it's necessary. Have some faith in the head on our shoulders," Leona said nodding to Ayva.

Ayva wasn't sure if it was Leona's lust for battle or her loyalty that made her say it but she was satisfied with the result regardless.

"Maybe you should focus on preparing that nephew of yours, wouldn't want your house to lose a good brute," Leona jeered.

The nephew in question, Darriyon, turned and looked back from the front of the convoy but gave no response.

The village was promptly on the other side of the forest. It was small even by what most would call a small village and consisted mainly of small cobblestone houses with thatched roofs, with one or two small mills and a well at its center. The village was essentially just a clearing in a forest of regular trees, at least compared to those behind them, giving the area a peaceful tone, apart from the convoy's welcome.

"Order," Ayva commanded and silence fell over the group once again as they stopped just before the village's entrance.

The villagers must have spotted them before they arrived because they were waiting. They watched each of the red-caped soldiers dismount and take their weapons from their horses as they brandished hoes and pitchforks in turn, but they seemed obviously unwilling to face them. Harcovians didn't take kindly to killing the weak; it was almost demeaning to them, so a fight favored neither side. Ayva had left Viccard at the camp to oversee the other soldiers while she was gone, although it was situations like this where she needed him and his silver-tongue the most.

"Go back!" one of them shouted.

"Leave, you savages!" another yelled and they continued until Ayva stepped forward from behind her soldiers. They'd never seen her before but they recognized a commander's attire.

She walked up to them alone, while her eyes scanned the village. She saw no one with Druid's tattoos nor any obvious signs of rebels but she was sure they were here.

"We aren't here to fight you," Ayva began, "we're looking for a young woman in her mid-twenties and her younger brothers, both have brown hair. If you bring them to me, and we confirm they aren't with the rebels, then we'll leave."

"You're invaders in our land and you expect us to trust you?" a man said stepping forward to the head of the group.

"I'm here just to do my job. If you show me who it is I'm looking for, I can deal with them and leave."

"I don't care if it's your job. You and your people have been terrorizing us and stealing our lands for decades. How can anyone's orders justify that?" He looked to be in his mid-thirties or early forties and spoke clearly with no signs of mental deterioration. He clearly hadn't spent his years as a druid or shifter.

Ayva locked eyes with him and he scowled at the indifference in hers. "You misunderstand; I am not trying to justify what I or any of my soldiers are here to do. Nor do I need your trust or your cooperation to do it. I'm simply giving you an opportunity to oust the rebels in your midst, because my soldiers would rather not sully their blades just for farmers' blood."

The Knots gasped and grimaced as outrage and terror erupted in the crowd behind the man, many of them looking at him for some kind of answer to the threat. But Ayva caught others stealing glances at someone else in the crowd with the same expression. A black haired bearded man no older than twenty, who locked eyes with her rather than sharing in the crowd's unease.

"You need to leave. They'll make you regret coming here." he answered meekly.

"Thank you that was all I needed to hear." Ayva said and drew her blade.

The young man within the crowd began to change; his flesh ballooned as he rapidly took on muscles mass as well as a thick grey leathery hide that emerged from his own skin. He began growing several feet taller and the Knots around him scattered into the village and beyond.

Ayva's guard ran forward but she stopped them from engaging, he was already far enough into the transformation that he was dangerous to approach without determining the shape he was taking.

His shoulders extended further and further apart from each other as he grew, until a lump erupted from his left shoulder next to his head, bone and flesh shifting to accommodate a second head, as his own face thickened and darkened even further to resemble a boar's.

His mouth extended out too far from his head and ended with wildly over grown tusks, like thick yellowed branches. The other mouth followed but instead of tusks it appeared to be eating or rather perpetually chewing a mysterious black paste.

As the shifter completed his shape he stood at 8 feet tall, a double-headed humanoid boar with a pot belly and arms several times larger than most men. Branches and vines erupted from the ground below his feet, crawling up his new form. They bunched and fused over the colossal boar's torso, coalescing into dark brown wooden armor. Then a stone club sprouted from the ground in front of the boar, its business end as thick as a tree trunk and the Rot Tusk hefted it onto its right shoulder gingerly.

The armor and club had to have been made druids somewhere in the village relatively close to them.

"Dale and Darriyon stay back, let the blades handle the Rot Tusk," Ayva commanded.

She had to find them quickly else the battle would drag on and they'd suffer heavy casualties.

"You two with Me." she said beckoning two blades to follow her.

The five remaining blades engaged the Rot Tusk. Two of them fired arrows too weak to penetrate past the beast's thick rubbery hide, while the other three: Leona and another wielding swords and Wayard a hammer and tall rectangular shield began their assault. They slashed and hit the Rot Tusk, gradually destroying its wooden armor but never injuring it enough to draw blood. The shaper swung tirelessly in response, crushing stone beneath club and fist alike, each blow potentially to his attackers but a second too slow to land.

Ayva and the two soldiers ran further into the village, looking inside and between houses for the shaper's accomplices but they saw no one. They searched for several minutes, until they heard footsteps, running just ahead of them so they gave chase, running between Knot houses trying to catch up, while Ayva threw an eye on her soldiers' battle.

Leona finally slashed a deep enough gash into its stomach that dark blood spilled out and the boar man squealed in agony and rage. As the blood frenzy set in, Wayard leaped over Leona to smash his blood-charged shield into both of the Rot Tusks' heads. The impact joined with the shockwave from the charge, sent it staggering several feet back and toppling onto the well at the heart of the village.

The rest of them facing the beast entered their blood frenzies as well, blood red eyes shining within their helms and weapons aglow with the same sinister crimson, but Ayva was too far away from the spilt blood. They ran forward, their speed enhanced, trying to catch the shaper while he was down.

In a last ditch effort the Rot Tusk swung the stone club at a house next to where it lay, shattering a wall and sending rocks darting through the air toward the soldiers. The soldiers covered their eyes and shielded their faces and the Rot tusk seized the opportunity, dropping on all fours and charging.

It closed the distance instantaneously and swatted the first soldier away with a meaty back hand. They went flying with a resounding crunch both as the initial blow connected and caved in his armor and once again as he collided with a house. Then it lunged forward towards Leona, dual jaws open.

Dale intercepted it, grabbing it by the shoulders just in time as the Rot Tusk snapped its jaws just shy of her face. With his blood frenzy, as a brute he was now a foot taller, armor left behind in place for blood that solidified into a superior dermal armor below his skin, giving him a red tinge.

The Rot Tusk, elbowed behind him into Dale's chest, pushing him off and then followed up with a backhand, knocking Dale onto the ground. Before he could get up, the beast was wailing on him, hammering him into the ground with blows that the older soldier blocked with his forearms. Dale pushed the beast back with his legs and managed to get himself out of the crater he'd been pummeled into and started returning blows.

The beast took his massive fists head, on with surprising ease, and simply pushed him down again and when Dale raised his right arm to stop more blows the shaper grabbed it and both heads dug in. Tusks pierced and then hooked into his upper arm as the other head's rotting black teeth sunk into his forearm.

Dale grunted and then yelled as he smashed his massive fists into its faces over and over but its jaws were locked. His cries shocked Leona awake from the shock of the close call and her blade flashed red as she slashed into its right leg. She had intended to cut the leg completely off with her charged blade but it only opened a deep gash in its thigh. Still it was enough for the Rot Tusk to fall onto its other knee, releasing Dale who promptly ducked behind a nearby house.

"I said to stay back!" Ayva called.

"The beast was about to get her, I couldn't just stand by and watch her die!" Dale yelled back as he nursed his arm. The puncture wounds on his upper arm had already clotted due to his power as a brute but his forearm was rapidly darkening where the second head had bitten into him, decaying right before their eyes as Dale shrunk back down to his normal size.

Ayva watched as the wooden armor over the shaper's stomach split stomach regenerated, stopping the bleeding.

She turned around and looked among the spaces between the cobblestone houses again for any sign of the druid. She didn't see anything but heard chanting. They were just behind the houses in front of them.

The three of them ran toward the sound. The other soldier rounded the corner first and Ayva heard a short gasp and then nothing.

When they rounded the corner themselves, they saw that there was a second shifter. A stone grey chameleon the size of a hound clung to the side of the house, almost perfectly camouflaged. The only reason Ayva spotted it now was because it's long leathery tail was wrapped around her soldier's throat, squeezing the life out of her. A single grey eye ball rotated in its socket to look at her while the other stayed locked onto its flailing victim.

Ayva drew a throwing dagger from her beneath her cape and threw it with her left hand, hoping the concealed blade would be fast enough to catch it off guard. But it narrowly avoided it, and dropped the soldier before scurrying away along the wall. But the damage was already done. Dozens of slim, long black quills protruded from her neck, as she dropped to her knees, her cheeks flushed dark blue.

She locked eyes with Ayva, eyes silently pleading for her help as she fell on to her back as stiff as stone. Ayva knelt next to her, and watched as froth began bubbling up from between her lips.

"Blood for the path," Ayva whispered and in one smooth motion, she drew another dagger and slit her throat.