The Hunter's Song

3: Black Glade (Mourning Crow)

Damn, he's not wasting any time!

The black-scaled lizard man skittered through a tower of spindly black arms like an irritable tarantula.

He was surprisingly agile, despite his hulking build.

It's nice he finally stopped trying to hide from me.

His black-on-black scaled-skin was vastly more appealing than a frail sweaty human pelt.

Now, now, don't get attached.

Let him be useful and soften up the outer layers. He'll go out fighting the way he wants to.

Although, generally, it turned out worse when the newbies survived.

I swung with my chain sickle to hack away at the central tower of arms rising from the church's steeple.

This Graven was an especially goopy sort.

I'd encountered blades, mucus, metal, ash, and crystal-based. All different sizes and gradients of madness, but the extremely toxic ones, like this gelatinous lump, were the gluttons who loved exhausting their food source and almost always wound up forgotten and allowed to fester.

Why do they always have to be soo weird and layered in waves of freakish monsters?

And how is this guy even handling all of this? Most people never survive this long. The average scrub freaks out and runs away screaming in terror.

Not everyone had the nerve to walk into a Graven lair and lay it all on the line.

An explosion startled me from behind. It was the hissing lizardman punching explosive charges into the base of the giant arms.

Fuck yeah! Here's a tasty piece of eye candy who listens and comes prepared!

However, it begged the question, what were his intentions for me if I hadn't introduced myself after killing the bear?

"Ha!" I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

More explosions followed and the outer layer of black arms started to wither, freeing me up shred their numbers from the top down.

Same as the minion arms in the forest, we only needed to severe the pressure at the base of the central artery.

We've got this! Him with his bombs and me with my trusty chain sickle piercing, strangling, and slicing away.

The black tower trembled and I howled for us to move. In a heartbeat, the lizardman was clear of the oncoming carnage as the surface layer of black arms came tumbling down.

How long had it been since I had the pleasure of fighting alongside someone who could stay on task and do as they're told?

The tower flopping appendages crashed and filled the air with droplets of acidic decay, forcing us to wait for the debris to settle before returning to the battlefield.

Across the way, atop one of the few remaining clear stone outcroppings, I spotted the lizardman busily typing something into his gauntlet while glaring at me.

His black scales glistened in the overcast sunlight.

There were two tones and textures; glossy onyx coating his shoulders, back, calves, and outer forearms, converging around sooty muted black glazed over his palms, neck, and muscular belly.

He had the build of an extremely hunky male razkur, but considerably more jagged. Every muscle was visible, and the sway of his sleek tubular quills was mesmerizing.