The Relistar

The Relistar | Ch. 8

"Pull back!" a helmeted knight shouted into the monsoon from a ways back, hidden behind a trader's wagon. Another knight reached Serkukan too late to hear. A blood-slick claw cut him down.

  A red glow stood statuesque amidst the growing storm. Bodies littered the ground around him.

  "How many has he taken?" the commander asked again, shifting so that the golden ornaments on his pauldrons dangled visibly.

  "At least thirty knights. Lambert counted twenty-six Hunters so far, not including those already attended to by healing mages." the caramel-skinned knight in casvian dress stepped up to his side.

  "What about our injured?"

  "Our medics are on them."

  "They're not pulling back. Why aren't they pulling back?"

  "Knights are stubborn."

  "HEY!" he shouted as another pack of Knights marched out to suffer the same fate. "Five more to the count already..."

  He rose slightly from their position, clutching his sheathed claymore in his left hand.

  "You're not thinking of fighting?"

  "Only thinking. Holy Caloria, what manner of daemon is this?"

  A golden-eyed man with pale skin and long, silvery hair approached from behind. "A dragon."

  The knight pulled his helmet free to stroke the bushy brown mustaches that stood too high and too wide upon his rounded face. "Lambert,"

  "Salvatore. It's time you routed your knights away. This matter is far greater of an issue than our squabbling."

  "I concur, but they've forgotten themselves. Did you say a dragon? Not like any I've ever seen..."

  He hesitated. "That's because you've never seen a dragon. Not an Etherian dragon."

  The woman turned to him. "Etherian?"

  "If you're so sure of your own army, why haven't they killed the bastard?" Salvatore huffed.

  "They can't. They stopped attacking about as soon as my mages could detect such a being. We're here for... Cedric Castelbre, isn't it?"

  "Ehm..." he looked away and could only recall, most recently, being too drunk to stand.

  Lambert wandered past their cart and inspected the demon for a long moment.

  "Well? What do you see with those special eyes of yours?"

  "What's Castelbre's warrant about?"

  "Uhh..." Salvatore started.

  The woman interjected, "Murder of a Hunter and a few strange deaths surrounding him, though they're unusual enough that it's hard to say he personally murdered them. It's suspected he's traveling with a pack."

  "Examples, please."

  Salvatore coughed sputum into a fist, watching more knights charge to slaughter.

  "Most recently there was a group out in Siln who had their mouths fused shut, and a Hunter dead with a hole in his chest... we didn't have much of a file on him, but what we did have lacked any mention of magical affinity."

  "How did you confirm his involvement?"

  "He was nearby the scene of the Hunter's murder just moments before it happened, and our psychics confirmed contact with the other victims. Not to mention..." she procured a document, and held it out toward him.