Chapter 81

“How do I aim?!” he shrieked.

“No need, leave it to me!” There was the sound of bone snapping against bone and one of the skull’s teeth pinged free from its jaws, a small shaped-bone crossbow contraption built into the skull’s mouth snapping flat, a canine firing forward through the air in a straight line. The small fragment of bone struck true and the Hellhound yelped as the tooth smacked it directly in the eyeball. It teleported away out of instinctive surprise and Opal rolled up, viciously headbutting the Imp straddling her with a crack, blood spraying up between them as Opal let out a cry of anger of her own.

Red grabbed up the bag as he leapt free from it, hauling ass across the cobble as he raced toward the girls, skull held firmly underarm. The tiny crossbow contraption in the skull’s mouth swivelled and turned, peppering the Imps with extremely accurate stinging boney projectiles eliciting yelps and cries of Impish outrage. The Kobold jumped into the air, bag held high, opening stretched wide and scooped the stumbling sheep girl into it in one go, top to bottom. The Imps did not like this in the least and immediately swarmed him. Unfortunately for them, his scales weren’t flesh and their teeth and claws slid off the smooth surface struggling to find a grip. He fought his way through the horrible biting clawing swarm, repeatedly screaming his mantra of determination “Just think of the goooooold! Think of the gooold!” all the while the miniature crossbow kept firing over and over keeping the worst of the Imps at bay.

A furious Goblin girl currently trying to beat to death an Imp on the cobble was ahead of him. Dashing forward he flipped the bag and expertly scooped her up without even breaking stride. Then, his little legs still pumping furiously, he ducked down and then shoved his own head inside the bag, followed by his shoulders, then chest. He couldn’t see where he was going now of course and crashed blindly through the crowd of Imps, now just a pair of Kobold legs ending in a bag at the hips. The pair of kobold legs ran with a fury born of pure unbridled terror, pumping like a pair of pistons, the kobold legs bounced, jumped, and then leapt into the air, the legs fully disappearing inside the bag. The pair of kobold legs had become just a bag spinning through the air, a bag that fell into a giant outstretched paw.

Rain’s foot slid out as he spun, his entire body torsioning, then torquing back as hard as he could manage, with a roar his paw whipped around and the bag slipped free, rocketing from his claws and launching up over the rooftops, and far up into the sky. The bag was gone in an instant. The ones he cared for were out of this evil Ranker’s reach he could at last fight him on his own terms without having to worr-

He turned to find the Ranker crouched down, his hands deep in a mound of earth.

“Found it.”

The Ranker twisted in a mirror to Rain, except what the Ranker held wasn’t a bag, but a blade, his blade, that barbaric near seven foot slab of pitted Iron. The mound exploded as he ripped it free, his upper body twisting as his legs slid out for optimal leverage

Rain snapped his arms tight, holding them up to his chest, there wasn’t anything else he could do as time seemed to slow to a crawl, the oncoming chunk of metal an inevitability. His eyes traced it, the metal had truly seen better days, its edge heavily blunted and worn and chipped, dirt and dried blood scarred deep across its surface. The thing was, it didn’t need to be sharp, the amount of force behind it meant it was more important that the blade could hold up under the extreme forces that were being exerted on it. The Ranker didn’t change weapon because there was no other weapon, he didn’t change because everything else snapped like a twig under his raw strength.

The edge smashed into Rain’s held up arms like a meteor from the stratosphere, fractures shooting up his arm bones and into the ribs behind as they were slammed up against him. Then his feet were ripped from the ground as he was folded around the blade, the blade not slowing in the slightest as it swung, his body tearing apart under the forces moving him until it swung fully around and he was launched up from the edge.

He tore through the air entirely out of control and smashed into a nearby building, through the wall, then the room, then another wall, another room, through the exterior wall, across the street, into the exterior wall of a second building, through it, destroying the rooms inside, then lastly crashing up against the exterior wall, his body embedding in the stonework, the wall, disintegrating around him. He fell from the second floor, half the building collapsing atop him, an avalanche of masonry. He came down in the garden below, half-buried in rubble.

A long pained wheeze escaped his lips, and then a gurgled wash of blood that spilt down his chin. He slowly, agonisingly, lifted his brutalised shaking arms from his chest, it felt like someone had spent the entire day pounding rocks over every inch of them, making them numb and dead. He looked at his paws and willed them to move. They jerked and twitched then slowly curled, barely responding to him. The sword had done more than just damage his flesh. He was thankful his body was so tough, had that hit a normal person he suspected they would have been spit in half, blunted blade or not.

He couldn’t wait for the time needed to heal this injury, He was coming. Desperately struggling he managed to half sit up. Looking around he found the backside of a building, or what remained of it, the entire exterior wall seemed to have fallen out exposing the interior rooms to the open air.

As he watched an Imp came into view, peering down at him from where it crouched on the edge of the second storey’s exposed floorboards. It grinned at him, its eyes alight with a hellish malevolence. It wouldn’t be long before others came, he needed to go, Now!

He moved his shaking arms downward and lifted himself, elbow walking back, shifting his legs and dragging himself free of the rubble, stones falling around him on the grass as he struggled. The Imp above let out a battle cry and jumped down, flapping its wings, ten more followed after him, flying down onto him. The little things seemed mindless with fury and they put it all into their assault, their teeth and claws painfully digging into his flesh.

Fortunately, they weren’t strong enough to do real damage, only surface, but he still found himself struggling under their barrage. The Imps quickly discovered they weren’t having much of an effect, unfortunately, they seemed to have learned from Vaush’s attack: There was always a weak spot in the eyes. The Imps swarmed toward his head, their little claws reaching. Rain snarled and swept them away with a clumsy paw, still struggling back from the rubble.