Against the Wind

12.3 || Corvin

A horrid dark pool bored a hole into the human man's mangled torso, seeping outward to stain the sand red. The pearly sheen of a broken bone poked up from somewhere within the mess. He'd died quickly, that was certain, but not without time to feel the tremendous pain etched into his frozen expression. Crimson prints trailed on beyond him, an easy path to the beast still rampaging on, eyes black and slitted, crazed with vengeance. Weapons carved of beasts' bones littered the sand. More would die. More were already dying. An awful numbness crept from Corvin's fingertips to the core of his ribcage, bleaching out his senses until a ringing awoke in his ears. The roughness of the sand against his skin felt very far away.

It struck him that he was gazing upon an old childhood dream that he'd had, one illustrated by another and filled in with more and more colour the older he became. It lost all its beauty when painted instead by the raw brush of reality.

Another voice, one closer by than the chaotic chatter of the men, snapped him from his cold reverie. One of the mages—the girl who'd been attacking Meag—now knelt by the dead man's side. Smoke curled in ribbons through her potent gaze. Something bright and muffled flashed within it, something dangerous. She stood with the slow stiffness of unfurling scales.

Realisation choked out a gasp. Dizziness forgotten, Corvin scrambled to get to his feet, but there was nothing he could do but watch the scene unfold.

Dust singed the air. He flinched at the sight and the sensation of it; it tasted like the rust it stole its colour from, and had a metallic shimmer as it clustered, flecks of it mirroring the black shades of midnight in blinks and flashes. Like an army in miniature, it surged forward. It only took the hazy form of a blade a moment before it pierced the beast's side.

The shape shattered on impact, dissolving into meaningless clouds and then nothing at all, but the damage was done. Blood welled from a wound like a crater, and the beast stumbled, his anger abruptly flattened, his thrashes stilled. As the remaining men limped into retreat, it fell.

Meag squealed. The desert rocking like a roughed ocean beneath his feet, Corvin turned. A luminous whip had lassoed her foreleg—the one this mage must have injured, given the way she stumbled on its support and cried out as the rope scraped through her matted fur. The other mage tugged on its end, reeling her closer.

Her face was all sharp angles and a split focus glare, its exact features wiped out of clarity. "Not kill!" she bit out—or something along those lines. The words were fuzzy and distant, difficult to translate. "You know that!"

A dark hue lingered in the eyes of the closer mage, the one who'd killed. Her fists were curled, her jaw set, coldly remorseless. "It killed first," she said with a voice like slate—flat and cutting. Corvin felt it scissor his throat. He couldn't breathe.

"Yeah," the second mage sighed. Her tone was somewhere between exasperation and sadness. "We have this one. We need to get back to the city while we still can."

"Wait." The first mage's cloak rippled as she moved, pale in the starlight. "There's a Feralite here."

It hit Corvin, numbly, that these humans couldn't see as well as he could in the darkness. Heart humming like a pair of swift wings, he stepped backward, then realised his mistake. The sand crunched beneath his feet. Predatory gleam alight in her narrowed gaze, the mage swung around to face him. A grim smile crawled to her lips.

"I see it," she said.

It. The choice of word was purposeful. His bones were rough under his skin, his limbs small, his scars loud and red and aching. He shrank into himself, a snarl rumbling behind his bared teeth.

The other mage's breathing had quickened. Corvin could hear it scrape in and out, tense with fear; his ear twitched. She yanked harder on the rope that bound Meag. "Nyla, run!" she snapped. A darkness seeped into her tone, drenching it like rain. "We've lost enough here already. Let's go!"