Cheep!?

Chapter 167

         The Dawr Warlord, Ak’tash Bloodchild, held his hand tight to the still bloody, tender wound on his chest. That he’d even sustained it shocked him to his core, the fact that the bloody tier three bird had managed to injure him so severely was nothing short of a miracle.

         Or a curse, given the creature had been capable of using The Bloody Father’s gift against them. He grit his teeth, wincing even as he took in the remains of his war horde. Tens of tribes had joined him on this attack, and less than a tenth of that number yet remained. Of his own tribe, he saw scant few traces, and that burned more than the dozens of still-healing injuries on  his body. His most trusted confidants had perished in the battle, Burbuk and Grimmer having both been taken down by the blasted thief and her friends. A part of him raged at that, and craved vengeance, but the pragmatic side of him knew that there would be no vengeance today.

         ‘Never, maybe,’ Ak’tash’s simmering rage cooled, chilling down into something approaching a false calm. ‘How many of my tribe will remain after the infighting? How many will follow now?’

         The thought struck him with an immense fatigue, a sort of lethargic tiredness that had doggedly pursued him in his twilight hours for years now. It was the same kind of thoughts that made Ak’tash wonder if he even wanted to deal with being the tribal leader. To be certain, he enjoyed the perks as much as any other Dawr would, but it wasn’t him in the way that he wanted to live. He lived for the fight, to seek out others of strength and challenge them to single combat. That was not how a warlord fought.

         When The Bloody Father’s voice came to them, Ak’tash had jumped at the chance of something new. Some quiet, almost smothered corner of his mind whispered that he’d made a mistake, that he could have just… left instead.

         Ak’tash didn’t smother that part of himself immediately, instead letting the thought sit like a hurt animal in the corner, hissing and spitting at the pile of ‘responsibilities’ he had as warlord.

         Over the next several minutes, he and the rest of the Dawr kept a cautious eye on their surroundings. Several had abandoned their procession, either racing to be a part of one of the ‘winning’ Dawr tribes, or evacuating the battle in full. Ak’tash could feel in his bones that there was no victory to be had in Riizen, not now. Something was about to change; the beasts of Sliver Peak had taken too long to join the battle. The Dawr from the other tribes had not pressed through their walls quickly enough. Most of all, he’d been bested by those a full two tiers beneath him, never mind that they’d had numbers on him. As much as his nature sought to blame it all on others… he was no fool, and he’d long become aware of his bad habits.

         ‘We failed.’ He accepted the fact that everything had been for nothing, ‘But we’re alive. We rebuild, we survive.’

         Ak’tash had no thought of returning to Riizen. The strange ache in his heart aside, at the thought of his lost minions and confidants, the warlord was rapidly letting go of the need to seek vengeance. Though the thieves would certainly remain on his list, it was not something he would bother to pursue any longer. They’d survived his wrath, and his barely-healed knot of flesh that could perhaps passably pass for a functional heart attested to how close he’d come to being in the  past-tense. His old belongings now officially belonged to them, that was just how it worked.

         Dawr came in closer to him, several he recognized as being either a part of his own tribe, or those that had been close to their own. He didn’t miss the way they looked at him, looked up to him, and in spite of the tiredness in his heart, Ak’tash could already feel the mantle of ‘Chieftain’ being foisted upon him. The Dawr Warlord took a deep breath at that, feeling that strange ache in his chest grow alongside the growing desire to just… run away.

         ‘Why bother?’ Ak’tash looked over the gathering; feeling the loose connection of essence they held begin to reach out to him. It would be utterly invisible after the initial bonding, but these Dawr would soon be his tribe, his power… But they would also become his responsibility, weigh him down, become the shackles keeping him from the freedom that he hadn’t realized he dearly missed.

Once he’d been just another Dawr, rising from mere goblin hood by fighting things he had no business fighting, and he’d won. It was exhilarating, and when he’d grown powerful enough, at some point, he was suddenly in charge. All he’d wanted to do was fight, his patterns were all dedicated to singular combat, to bring down one worthy foe. He didn’t care about the rest of it.

         Heat built in his chest as he riled himself up further. He didn’t care anymore!

         Before he could think any further about it all, he decided to do something very Dawr.

         He was going to be very selfish, instincts to lead be damned.

         Ak’tash fanned the blood energy in his body, burning it at an alarming pace as he forced it to heal his injuries. Willpower pressed against the energy, pulling it within him, and mending his flesh. There was a significant amount of power there, even with what had been spent in reinforcing his body. It was grotesquely wasteful, burning almost the entire reserve to restore his body to top shape. He didn’t care about that, though, he planned on leaving, and shedding whatever extra he had to the rest of the Dawr. It was, perhaps, a slight dredge of responsibility that persuaded him to help his kin any further at all, but Ak’tash was fine with that. With a heave, pulling hard with his essence, he pulled on the bloody energy. It was easy to pull most of it out, but as he got down to the dregs, he found the action becoming harder and harder. When the very last of it was left, he almost let it be, but frustration and stubbornness demanded that he at least not be bested by this.

         He grappled it with his own essence, feeling like he was trying to rip off his own leg with his bare hands. Finally, he felt something give, and almost stopped with the sudden agony that lanced through him. ‘What is this? Why is it like this!?’

         Now worried, Ak’tash mentally bore down on the strands of energy he held even tighter, and yanked. He could feel within his body as deep roots of blood energy were being pulled up, writhing as they did so. A wave of revulsion rolled through him as more and more of the energy was being drudged up, and his body began actively attacking the energy. Heaving and sweating, Ak’tash didn’t mind the looks of worry and barks of questions from the other Dawr, now suddenly very interested in getting whatever this was out.

         Lancing pain like being stabbed repeatedly in the gut radiated out from his core, before one final heave ripped out the last of the blood energy. The metaphysical mass of power hovered in front of him, writhing less like essence, and more like a tangled thing of bloody meat. It wasn’t physical, but even so, he couldn’t help but put his guard up at the sight of it.

         One thing was certain; he didn’t want anything to do with The Bloody Father anymore. His path had been one of borrowed power, and apparently something else too. Ak’tash realized then that his thoughts were clearer, as though a haze had been dispelled that he wasn’t aware of until that moment. Ak’tash frowned at the realization before feeling at his core, at his image, and grit his teeth hard enough they almost cracked.

         The bloody energy had enhanced them, certainly, but he could feel how his essence pathways felt more brittle, and Ak’tash felt almost as if they’d fall apart if he exerted himself at all. Alarmed, he sensed his own image, a bloody battlefield, one wrought for one on one combat, felt tainted, weakened, though he expected at least that much. He’d accepted borrowed aid, he had done so with his tribe, and with The Bloody Father. What he didn’t expect to see was the nearly imperceptible cracks that reeked of blood energy, something that had been masked the entire time that he’d been wreathed in the energy.

         “What the shit is this!?” The Dawr Warlord snarled, distraught over the state of his body, the damage within his core that had come from deeply boring tendrils of whatever that was.

         Then, he and the Dawr all around him shuddered as the awareness of something settled on them. He felt his chest grow heavy, like a vice had been clamped around his entire body, ready to squeeze down. His mind swam as the presence regarded him, alien thoughts that roiled around and brushed up against his own. One thing above all others was clear; this being held nothing but animosity and rage in its heart. Ak’tash could recognize the presence, he realized, though only through proxy.

         The Bloody Father was paying attention to them.

         The air rippled as a supreme sense of annoyance and disappointment flowed down upon Ak’tash. He felt small beneath that regard, like he was about to be crushed, and yet, he felt his own fury build at the sentiment he could barely feel behind it. Ak’tash was not one to appreciate being looked down upon by anyone, or anything.

         Then, the blood energy that hovered in the air began to reach out, like it was beckoning to the other Dawr. Ak’tash watched on first in confusion, then growing horror as each of them began screaming, as their own blood energy was being ripped from their bodies. Some very few possessed precious little, the goblins for the most part, but others possessed far more. There were exceptionally few champions, but there were a fair number of hobs within this group. Streams of blood energy were pulled from them, first in the flowing reddish form that Ak’tash was familiar with, and then finally as though flesh and veins were being torn from their bodies, not dissimilar at all to what Ak’tash had pulled from his own body.

         Unlike with him, though, many of the hobs and champions had something else happening to them. It almost looked like they were being desiccated, ruptured open and fully exsanguinated. Ak’tash stared in wide-eyed terror at the sight, like some invisible force was simply ripping the cardiovascular system of over half of the gathered Dawr up into the air, towards the swirling, ever growing ball of gore overhead.

         This continued for a minute that felt like hours, as Ak’tash couldn’t move. He’d personally extracted all of his own blood energy, and he felt as if that might well have saved him. ‘Why is this happening? Did… I cause this?’

         The question went unanswered, and his attention remained fixated on the ball of gore as it began to compact tighter and tighter, glowing with a deep, rippling internal light. He could feel the sense of annoyance from the godly presence, as if to say that all of this was a shame, before the sphere contracted more and more, all the way up until the essence of the world was torn open behind the ball. It was momentary, but the sensation of weight magnified several fold, and Ak’tash was driven to his knees, completely and utterly unable to move. The others were all driven further, laying flat upon the ground and unable to so much as whimper.

         The bloody ball zipped into the crack unceremoniously, and just as quickly, the rupture vanished. With it, the presence vanished entirely, leaving the remaining Dawr able to breathe as if everything that had just happened was a dream.

         Aside from the desiccated and shredded corpses all around them.

         Ak’tash panted heavily as he took stock of his surroundings. Of the original group, now only a quarter seemed to be alive. Some had survived the extraction, but that presence was just too much for those so weakened. No goblins remained alive, and even of the hobs and champions, more hobs had survived than not. Likely, the champions had had too much blood energy in them.

         In fact, only one champion remained alive. Ak’tash wondered if he himself would have been a casualty considering how weakened he was and how much power he’d had.

         Though, it was likely his own act of removing that thing that had prompted the reaction in the first place. With his body aching fiercely, Ak’tash pulled out one of the few tier five essence crystals he had and popped it into his mouth. The solid melted almost instantly, tickling his tongue and tasting simultaneously like many of his favorite flavors one after the other as his body greedily absorbed it.

         Ak’tash paused as he closed the pouch on his chest, before sniffing once more.

         ‘Odd…’ He sniffed a few more times, ‘I smell like… mushrooms?’ Ak’tash thought back to the battle, remembering the flask of liquid he’d been hit by early on. He’d ignored it, blasting straight through it, since he didn’t feel any warning from his image in regards to it. It’d certainly seemed harmless at the time.

         ‘Did they stink bomb me?’ He scratched his head in bewildered confusion, before a single chuckle escaped his lips.

         Then another, and another before he was cackling at the sheer ridiculousness of everything.

         He stopped laughing as he heard a crash in the underbrush nearby, as a familiar mushroom covered axolotl-lizard came into view. Ak’tash froze, not sure whether to laugh more or cry, as he realized that this thing was looking right at them.

         And was a tier five no longer. The damn thing was tier six now.

         “Run!”

         He and the other Dawr scattered, fleeing for their lives as the furious Mush-lizard-thing opened its toothless jaws, and a sudden wave of teeth protruded from soft tissues along with a piercing roar. As he ran, Ak'tash suddenly realized what the stink bomb had been for…

P.S.- The audiobook for Cheep!? is releasing tomorrow! The links are here: Amazon, Audiobooks.com, so feel free to go for either one!