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Slayer or Layer 20

For Lorvianne

By Draconicon

Running over root and rock, over earth and river, was harder exercise than the wolf had put himself through for days. He had been unable to hunt, unable to fight against his usual foes, so his body was softer, more tired than it should have been. The only thing that kept him on his feet as he ran through the forest were the long orgies that the lizardmen had put him through, training his body to keep going no matter how tired he was.

In a way, he supposed he could thank them for keeping him in shape, though it was entirely their fault that he was mostly out of shape to begin with.

At any rate, Lorkos reached the edge of the village before the stealth unit, and he leaned against one of the trees just out of sight to catch his breath. He knew from experience that it wouldn't be long before the army launched their assault, the distraction unit pulling the warriors from the village so that the others would be undefended. When that happened, a squad would come around, well-armed and sneaky, and would take their chance to kill as many of the tribe quickly and quietly as they could.

After that...well, then it would be down to luck whether they took hostages or not, depending on how the battle went, how submissive the tribals were...

There were many different variables, and he didn't like the chances for his daughter and the females of the tribe. They were unlikely to survive.

It just means that I have to be quicker and better.

The wolf pulled his sword free, turning it in a quick examination of the blade. Still sharp. Perhaps freshly sharpened, even. If that was the case, then someone in the village definitely liked him.

Lia...

Shaking his head, the wolf forced the memory of his daughter down. There was no time to be thinking about her, or worse, worrying about her. He needed to focus on the killing today.

The first shouts in the distance reached his ears, and he heard the returning shrieks of the village, the warriors spilling out towards the east. They'd be heading right for the hunters, eager to join in battle. He waited to see if the shaman was leaving with them, and sighed as he saw the white-scaled lizard join the fray.

That would make things more interesting for the hunters. If the shaman was as strong as he was supposed to be - strong enough to remove a dragon's curse - then the hunters were going to be in for a hard time. Might even be enough to slaughter them if he was able to stop the hostage-takers from doing their job.

He wished that there wasn't a part of him that hoped for that. The secret would be easier to keep if the hunters died.

Shaking his head, he moved forward, keeping low in the forest undergrowth. The wolf was experienced with moving through the woods, having hunted enough forest dragons to know how to keep himself quiet and unobtrusive.

In fact, he was so good at it that he managed to sneak up on the stealth unit before they were able to enter the village.

Lorkos paused, staring with jaw dropped at the dozen men that were just ahead of him, each of them armed with a sword, at minimum, and some of them with spears or worse to do the job. They were all facing the village rather than checking their surroundings, and he knew that they hadn't noticed him.

One of them, a panther, waved his hand for attention.

"Keep quiet," the feline said. "Kill everything on the outskirts, move in from the south and west. Try and drive anyone trying to escape towards the battle."

Drive them towards the bloodbath, in other words. He shook his head, his hand clenching on the grip of his sword. The wolf had only fought against bandits before, not other hunters, but in the face of this...

He kept himself from growling, but only barely. He had to remind himself that they were here to hunt down those that were dangerous to other people. The males...the males, that was fine, but the others...

"Hey, boss," one of the others asked. "Think we'll get the chance to enjoy some of the females?"

"You never know," the panther said. "Do it fast enough, and I won't say anything if you don't."

And just like that, any hesitation that Lorkos had about killing some of the hunters faded away. It was one thing to hunt those that you thought were monsters. It was another thing to look at them like fuck-meat.

They deserved some punishment, some...education.

The wolf stepped forward as the stealth group lunged towards the village. Lorkos stabbed one - a weasel - in the back, and grabbed another hunter by the throat. As the stretched-out hunter hit the ground, clutching his deathwound as he died, the wolf brought his sword up to the neck of the second one, holding the edge of the steel blade to the feline's neck.

"You came to the wrong village."

"Nngh?"

"And you asked for the wrong prize."

He slit the lion's throat, throwing the feline to the ground before following after the other ten. It was a small start, but barely that. There were so many others that were looking for death and pillage and plunder, and he needed to deal with all of them.

ALL of them.

Speed was his friend. The stealth unit had to be quiet at first, and that meant that they had to be slow. He didn't. He could afford to move fast, could afford to be seen, because it would set off an alarm.

As a result, the wolf could dart hither and yon, throwing himself into the narrow spaces between huts and tents, stabbing into a hunter before pulling back, disappearing again and giving himself time to put together another plan of attack.

In and out, in and out. He killed another four of them before someone caught on.

It was just bad luck that the bull in question spotted him before he could land the deathblow. The big guy shouted 'Traitor!' before going down, and the whole camp was alerted, as was the rest of the stealth unit. Scaled heads poked out of huts and tents, only for some of them to be immediately cut off by opportunistic hunters.

After that, the bloodbath really got started.

"Out of the tents! Out of the huts! Run to the south, the south!" Lorkos shouted at the top of his lungs.

Some of the females were already dead, but the rest were smarter, cutting their way out of the leather tents and escaping through new holes. The hunters were in chaos, spread out further than they were meant to be and left with too many openings between their ranks.

As they tried to come together, their sneak attack broken, Lorkos darted among them. His sword danced, clanging off of the blades that they carried, and the wolf was pushed back as the stealth unit started coming together, their cohesion enough to keep him from making easy kills.

Six of them. Two wolves, two foxes, a horse, and a ferret. They were all together in the middle of the village now, standing back to back as they waved their weapons, keeping the lizard women from getting anywhere near them. Lorkos pulled back, hiding between some of the huts, waiting for an opening.

"Anyone got the horn?" one of the hunters shouted.

"Davis had it!"

"Well, where the fuck is he?"

"Dead!"

"Fuck. Okay...Find his corpse. Get it and blow."

They were trying to run, he realized. Find the horn to announce a failed mission, then run back to the main host. They'd be able to get free, too; the females weren't armed, and the hunters had a good enough formation to be able to cut their way free. It would mean a great deal of deaths in the process for the females, too.

Lorkos tried to think of his victims, trying to guess which had been Davis. There were three that might have had a horn, but only one that would have been trusted with it.

The bull.

He backtracked around the village, finding the body of the bovine. He could just see the tight circle of the hunters circling around the tents toward it, which meant that he only had a few seconds to decide what to do.

It was an easy decision, really.

He darted forward and pulled the horn off the bull, holding it in hand. The group twisted around, and the ferret facing him went wide-eyed.

"You!"

"Yes, me."

Lorkos held the horn, turning it between his fingers.

"You want this, I think."

"Give it! They'll kill us if we can't get free."

"And you wouldn't have killed them?"

"They're scalies."

"Scalies that don't do anything..."

He couldn't believe he was saying something like that, particularly to those that would be more than willing to rat him out if they got out of this alive. If the lizard females didn't kill them, he would have to. Lorkos put the horn down at his belt, shaking his head.

"It's too late for you, now. You're going to die."

"You...you...traitor!"

The ferret broke ranks, rushing for him. Lorkos punished him for the mistake, slapping his spear out of the way and stabbing under the tube-rat's arm, pulling his bloody blade free a second later. As the ferret hit the ground, dead before he collapsed, the other hunters closed ranks again.

Shaking his head, Lorkos pointed to the horn.

"You're not getting out of here without this. The other hunters are going to hold that battle, aren't they? Just keep it going until you come through with the hostages. They're not going to rescue you. So...Do you want to try and take me down? Or do you want to try and cut your way through a very angry village?"

"..."

The horse was the one that finally spoke. The panther leader had been one of the first killed by the wolf, so he imagined that the horse was akin to a second in command. The stallion glared at him.

"Why?"

"Why?" He shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't. I should be on your side, but..."

He shook his head again, looking down at his sword. It was stained with blood. Mammal blood, blood that he shouldn't have been spilling. But it was too late to regret it now. He'd made his decision.

"But not today. Not here. Not now."

None of the lizard females had taken his command to heart. All of them were still there, all watching what was happening. They provided a wall of scales that kept the hunters pinned in place, kept them from running off, at least. And -

There was a red blur. It darted from one of the huts to a pile of firewood near it, then ran towards the cluster of hunters. Lorkos's eyes went wide as he saw the spiraling horns on the side of the assailant's head.

Lia.

Crack!

The horse went down, bleeding from his ears from the hard hit. The remaining four hunters scattered, and other red blurs darted from tents and huts, seizing weapons as she had done. Sticks, logs, thick and heavy enough to block the blows of sword and spear were used as battering rams and clubs, and with numbers and strength aplenty, it was more than sufficient to deal with the hunters.

Lorkos stared in awe and disgust as the females defended themselves, with Lia at the forefront. His daughter...

She can fight, he admitted. No, he admired. She was only a few weeks old, if that, and she could fight as well as he could. Not as skillfully, but as quickly and with greater strength. It was...impressive.

The fight didn't last long. A dozen dead hunters compared to four unlucky lizard women that had been decapitated when they had stuck their heads out of their tents. It was...not as bad as it could have been, but still not good.

His daughter smiled at him, shaking her head as she dropped the log.

"You came back..."

"I didn't want to...But I couldn't just..."

He sighed.

"I can't stay."

"I know. We'll have to run."

"Run as far and as fast as you can."

"We will. And you...you'll have to run, too."

"Yes, but not with you." He reached into his pack, pulling out the egg that he'd laid. "Please...take this. I can't...I can't."

She nodded, taking it. Before he could leave, though, she gestured for him to wait, reaching behind her head. For a moment, he thought that she was itching at something, but then she grunted, pulling something free. She held out her hand, a red scale that was bigger than the others resting in the palm of her hand.

"Take this...take it, and remember what you are, Lithia."

"..."

He had little choice. He took it, and he tried not to think about the way that she looked at him, how the other dragon-children stared at him and whispered the same word. Most of all, he tried not to think about the urge to take them with him as he sheathed his sword and ran to the north-east.

There was one more thing that he needed to do before he continued his journey.

The End