MereHuman

Chapter 3

Our captain made the decision that we needed to keep the half of the warriors at the trade city there since no orders would be coming from the false counsel again to lure more troupes out. He hoped that some warriors still remained at the northern miner's village. We took a day to scour the city finding what little we could for food. One of the lions turned up with five rats somehow and we made a poor stew out of them for that night. In the night our captain succumbed to his wound, it festered and rotted faster than any wound we had ever seen. His body did not turn to ash as he died so we buried him in the morning. The eldest bear was now captain and he agreed completely with the old captain's ideas.

We marched north, the crafty lion was the one that kept us fed as the week of travel went by. The girl took to each of us like older brothers and with her I learned more of the bear and lion crafts. Time and again we would pass completely empty villages with either all the buildings burnt or none of them even touched. When we finally crossed the rise to see the northern mining village, we were greeted with a welcome sight. An encampment of warriors was at the foot of the rise a short march from the village.

The smell of warm foods overcame most of us and we found our way to the cook's tent. He looked up from his preparation and gave us each a bowl of gruel, which was often the fare of warriors on the hunt. Our new captain took his bowl and went to report to the commander of the camp. We dug in to the first full portion of food we'd had in what seemed like a month. The commander of the camp was still following orders of the false counsel and daily he would send troupes into the mines to route the enemy. None of the troupes had ever come back. The commander was an old lion and viewed the failure of the troupes he sent in to return meant that they were not up to the job of quelling the enemy. One troupe at a time made sense to him however since the tight quarters of the mine would make it harder for a larger group to assault the enemy.

Our captain tried to explain the situation in the countryside and the false counsel, but the old lion was set on his course of action. Until he met our small companion, he knew her and had been to her village often enough to call it his second home. She thought of him as her grandfather even. His heart broke at her story, it was clear on his face that he knew she would never tell him anything, but the truth. He took three days to consider a new plan and each night a full guard was placed at the mouth of the mines. Two guards a night would vanish from those watches. Our troupe lost a wolf and a bear to one of the last watches.

On the dawn of the third day all the lions save three went into the mine. Our troupe's second lion was the only one to return and he had the burning wound. The apothecary watched as the wound burned the lion away. All the remedies she tried failed. After taking a sampling of the wound and a day of work she said she might have a remedy that will work, but someone will have to be wounded again for her to check it. The next day we sent in five bears and ten wolves. Our captain didn't come back and only one wolf did as well. He was wounded and the cure saved him, but he was severely weakened by the ordeal and couldn't be raised to any sort of activity in short order. That is how we ended up with just my troupe remaining. Three wolves, the crafty lion, and a bear. We greeted the dawn with bleak hearts as we knew we were headed into the mine. This enemy must be stopped. The Cook another old lion was the only one to stay behind with the girl and the resting wolf. The commander took the head and the apothecary joined us in the middle, she had brought her remedy to see if immediate use would stave off the side effects of the burning poison. 

The mines were dark and cramped, a musky smell somewhere between freshly tilled earth and rot greeted us. The apothecary took notes by candle light as we made our way down. With every twist and turn of the path we felt the enemy's eyes, but none were found. It was the apothecary that noticed first. It was getting warmer the further we went. What first seemed to be the breath of the person in front of you wafting back became a light breeze of warm and pungent air. A dim light could be seen coming from ahead, it seemed like it could be the sun, but we were deep and it was not a clear glow, but a red pulsing. 

We turned a corner and there it was a pulsing ring of what I can only describe as red fire hanging  between two stone pillars and through this ring of pulsing fire was a landscape the likes of which I had never seen rivers of fire and mountains of red rock, some of the shadowy fire creatures in a more physical form darting from one outcropping to the next. It was what stood before this scene and directly in our path to the stonework that drew our attention. A beast like none ever seen, it stood as a man and was poised for battle. In the dim light you could see healed over wounds some fresher than others. It's skin was a pale red and where there wasn't skin there was fur or scales in no conceivable pattern. It didn't seem to breathe as it stood there silent and still, were it not for the wounds one might have thought it a statue. It had no face or even mouth to be discerned on what might be called a head, but horns or spikes a plenty.

Suddenly it moved its arms swinging back and an inaudible roar shook the cave. There was no sound, but the pressure was immense. The apothecary cried out and the beast lunged for the closest one of us. The commander fended off the first claw with what seemed like unbelievable skill. The second claw found him belying the luck with which he had survived the first attack. He was torn in two by the force of the blow and a sickly smack was heard as he hit the roof of the cavern. My brother wolves fended it off for a short moment and then they were also gone. As the third body fell a wave of the Shadow creatures poured from the ring of fire rolling over the bodies. In that moment I knew we would only survive by going through the ring of fire into a more open area, where we might get away from this monstrosity.

I yelled as I dragged the apothecary with me toward it. The bear and lion saw and understood. It was instinct, if a battle can't be won run, hide and attempt to win it another day. I passed through the ring and felt the roar of the monstrosity again. The landscape across wasn't just red it was hot, hotter than what I imagined the deserts to the south to be at the time and it was dry. In the head long rush through the landscape none of us found our bearings. We only stayed together, because of the pack tactics I had taught to the other two. The apothecary was unconscious and we barricaded ourselves in a cave after we were to exhausted to run any more.