Fireborn

Chapter Nine: A Song of Death

She was alone in this, she knew. Other than their screams, these creatures were horrifically silent, trailing the forest floor like shadows with low, whispering snarls that failed to warn their foes before their throats were torn open and their blood rushed with scoring venom. Their kills were the very silence of death.

It looked up at her and blinked slowly, a lolling gray tongue rasping over its dagger teeth. There was still blood on its snout and bones crunched under its paws as she stepped forward.

Oh shit. She forgot her axe. Oh shit.

It snarled at her and lashed its tail. A shroud swirled around it, smokey and thick as it stepped towards her. She backed away, her heart locking in place. The last time she'd fought a wolf wraith, she'd been armed and she'd had backup, but being completely alone with a walking shadow chilled her blood and stole her breath.

The creature lunged for her throat.

She jumped back and she was close enough to it to feel its icy spittle sting her skin. Its paws hit her chest and knocked her on the ground. The twigs and pine needles dug into her back and her neck. The creature loomed over her with widened eyes that glowed with excitement, if something so deeply dark could ever glow, alight with the delight of taking the life of another. She tired to push it back, but it was larger than any wolf and for something so silent, it was shockingly heavy.

The venom would scorch through her veins and rush to her heart, stinging in her blood, seemingly ripping at her skin, it would be agonizing, and slow, and the wraith opened its jaws again. It bit down.

Somehow, she wasn't dead. The jaws were locked around her neck, but its fangs hadn't sank into her flesh, pumping her veins with the inky venom. Suddenly she remembered that she had her dragonfire, and her fear dissipated as she planted a hand against its huge pitted eyes and flared up, sending the wraith flailing back and thrashing around, pawing at its face.

She leaped up and reached to her neck, where her fingers collided with something solid.
It was warm and sleek, like a sheet of metal. Dragonsteel, she thought. She knew it would show up randomly at some point, and she would be able to summon it or dissipate it at her will. It was the armor of a dragon. Her armor.

The wraith stood up and staggered towards her. There were deep marks along its eye hole. The tiny flick of white had gone out. It had clawed at its burning face, ripping its own misty skin and its blood spilled slowly from the lacerations. She knew she could hurt it now. She knew that her fire would burn it.

But they needed it alive. Perhaps if she could burn its other eye? Agren readied a second blaze as she stared it down. Her teeth bared and her wings flared up. Height would help. She launched into the air. She wasn't the best at takeoffs, but she somehow managed to keep herself up, beating the breeze. Now would be the perfect time for the rest of her dragonsteel to shimmer into existence.

Instead, the metal had closed around her neck and nowhere else, but a gorget and steel scale mail was enough to fight off a wraith's fangs, so perhaps it wasn't that bad.

It jumped up with snapping jaws to try and tear into her leg, and she was about to strike its eye. Her moment was interrupted by an arrow cutting into the wraith's side, sinding it sprawling on the ground.

"Bitch you stole my kill."

Luna huffed. "I didn't kill it, you know, I just, um, shot it. In the side. Where some of its vital organs are... Wait I-I screwed up didn't I?" To prove that it wasn't dead, the wolf wraith struggled to stand, hacking and snarling. A spurt of blood gushed from the wound.

"Wait, no, unfortunately, it's alive." Agren stared at the squirting black blood. Was it the same as human blood, rich and filling and satisfying? She circled around the creature and ignored its snapping maw ad she scooped the blood into her palm lik one would do with water from a fountain on a summer afternoon. She tasted it. It was sour and cold.