RavensDagger

  Chapter Eight - The Undignified

  51st Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden EraShorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

  There was something very inhuman about croug over the corpse of a dead dog, her chest opened up and siphon stabbed down and slowly filling with the essence of the thing they'd killed.

  Green noticed her siphon no longer pulling anything and tugged it back. She hadn't even been sure that they could all use theirs at the same time, a... here they were. Her ter now read 148. Dogs were more than fish, it seemed.

  She pushed off and away from the body, Red and Blue doing the same a moment ter.

  They stared at each other, framed by the fog and the dipidated buildings of what might have been an abandoned down, three monsters made of wood and steel over the corpse of another, its blood staining all of them.

  Green poi the creature between them. "Dog," she said.

  Red stared back, then a moment ter, she started to speak. "E e e e e," she said.

  It took a moment freen to realize that Red was ughing.

  Her own shoulders shook a little, and she joined in. "He he he," she said, the slow, artificial ugh only making it all stranger and funnier.

  Blue looked betweewo, then shook her head. "Un...dig ni fied," she said, slowly and deliberately.

  Green ughed even harder at that, not that it really showed in her voice. It was still the same tinny sound, at the same volume, but Blue speaking up for the first time to say something like that...

  With a sp on the ground, Red reached up as if to wipe her eyes, then seemed to realize that she didn't o, so she just shook her head and picked up her sword. "Mmm..." she began. "ore. Mmmmore."

  "Dogs?" Green asked, and at Red's quiod, she stood up herself and sed the vilge. There weren't any dogs that she noticed, but there might have been more around. "No," she said after a while.

  Red heured with her sword. She paused, as if to talk, but after a moment of stuttering and failing to say anything, she merely shrugged some more and started to walk further into the vilge.

  "Blue," Green said as she turowards the other puppet. "Go?"

  "B...blue?" Blue asked. She poio herself. The small versation had Red pausing to stare back at them.

  Green poio Blue's chest. "Blue," she said. Then to Red. "Red." Finally, to herself. "G...greeeen."

  "Reed," Red agreed. It was close enough, at least acc to Green.

  Blue, however, seemed to think differently. She shook her head again. "Un-digni-fied," she said, carefully pronoung each sylble.

  Green shrugged. It was descriptive enough, and Blue didn't seem ready to volunteer better names just yet.

  "Dogs," Green said instead while waving her sword deeper into the town.

  The other two sidered it before nodding. And so they pushed in. The road they were oually reached an interse with a much wider, more travelled road. There were several carts left along the sides, and the homes here were split evenly between shops and houses.

  Red raised a hand for them to stop, then lowered herself slowly o some crates by the side of the road. They were filled with the rotting remains of fish. Green imagihat they stank, but she didn't have a o tell.

  L herself as well, she crept up o Red, then peeked out ahead.

  There were people walking along the middle of the road.

  They seemed like normal peasants from afar, with the wafting fog hiding them. At least, they seemed that way until they started to move. The three of them walked with a slow, unsteady shuffle. One was dragging their leg behind.

  There was a dog with them as well. It was limping aloo the group, and had what looked like a sira limb protruding from its back.

  "Shh," Red said.

  They remained quiet. All three of them huddled behind a few chests as the vilgers came closer. As they did, Green was able to make out more of their forms.

  They ws. Their clothes torn apart and open at the chest to expe, scarred emblems burned into their sternums. All three had fkey scales growing over their skin in rough patches.

  It was their eyes that arrested her, however. They were twisted in pain, and it seemed like all three were g.

  She finally noticed that they wereirely quiet either. The three were muttering, speaking in low tones. Green shifted slightly, to better cat to ohe man in the middle of the trio was saying. "Aurynth, oh, Aurynth the Golden, why have you left us so?" he mented.

  She had no idea who or what that was, but the three seemed very upset about it.

  Green was sidering leaving them be, when Red moved and the dog in the group started to growl.

  All three peasants stopped moving. Their eyes started to glow faintly, golden light spilling out. "Oh! Aurynth! Oh! Great dragon baron of the Yellowfields!" one of them shouted.

  The dog barked, then rushed forwards.

  Moving fast, Red shifted her sword around and brought her free arm up. The dog leapt, and when its jaed on her already-chewed arm, Red was quick to start stabbing it in the chest.

  It didn't go down so easily. Green turned and stabbed it from the side, and Blue did the same.

  The dog shook, growling and g at Red as best it could, but with all three of them pung it full of holes, it eventually went down.

  Green spun towards the three peasants, afraid of what they might do.

  One of them fell onto his khen raised his arms high above his head in supplication. "Aurynth! Great dragon! We are under assault! Blessed be your servants that we may carry out your divine and golden will!"

  The man caught fire.

  Green staggered backwards as the man's clothes burned away and his skin, scales and all, turned indest. Somehow, the fire seemed to avoid the other two, who stumbled forwards, their eyes glowing and their faces twisted in horrid anger.

  The burning man's scream was a terrible, otherworldly sound. His form lit the fog around them in flickering shades e and gold, casting grotesque shadows of the remaining two vilgers as they lurched freen could only stare for a moment, transfixed by the impossible fire that ed him but didn't reduce him to ash.

  Red didn't hesitate. She lu one of the advang peasants, her sword cutting through the fog with a faint hiss. The bde struck true, biting deep into the vilger's side. A strange, golden ichor spilled from the wound, the man staggering but not stopping.

  Green stepped forward as the same man reached for Red. He was g at Red with glowing, cw-like fingers. The edge of her bde sliced into his elbow and he screamed as something broke and glowing blood sprayed out of him.

  The burning man, now fully engulfed in fmes, stood still as though in a trance. His arms stretched skyward, his face a grotesque mask of agony aation. The golden glow from his body pulsed, and Gree a wave of heat wash over her. The air shimmered unnaturally, and the other two vilgers seemed to grow stroheir movements more precise, their eyes bzing even brighter.

  Blue finally mao down the first peasant with a clumsy strike at his knee. As he fell, Red stumbled over his body and started to plunge her sword into his back with repeated, meical motions, like a sewing mae punctuating flesh.

  The sed vilger screamed and lu Green. She almost fot Sir Jorvin's lessons, but some parts came back to her.

  She stepped back, making room, then swiped at eye-height. She didn't expect it to nd, but it did, cutting across the bridge of the vilger's nose.

  Still, he reached out and grabbed her, and somehow his emaciated arms were strong enough to pull her in. The vilger started to punto her chest with his free arm. Three blows in, and she started to hear wood splintering.

  Then, suddenly, he went down, and Green found herself looking at Red as the puppet removed her sword from the man's back.

  All three of them turo the man on the ground. He had ged, the fire burning back skin to reveal scales, only... they were malformed and misshapen, and the man was left folded in half with his face pressed to the ground. He was wheezing, bleeding from his eyes even as something shifted uhe skin of his back.

  They didn't wait to see what that was. Instead, they moved closer and all three of them started stabbing.

  When it was all dohey sed the area, but the street was still empty.

  Shorefarm was far more cursed than she'd beeo believe.

  ***