Sunrise found three dwarves fighting a bloodied and enraged lizard-monster not fifteen meters from the Clan-home and two others lying on the ground too injured to fight. Three families now were represented in this fight: MacDuff, Asmel and Ilral. Captain Sinewsacks MacDuff sported a newly broken ankle in his list of injuries, and was retching in pain but he still struggled grimly with the beast, determined to see the fight through to the end.
Miss Cloisteredjudges Asmel was thrown flipping into the air as the beast charged Miss Speargray MacDuff, but she landed moments later with natural grace a meter or so away before charging once more into the fight. She took a kick to the chest for her trouble and bent over gasping. Slapping the terrible head away from her throat as she attempted to regain her breath, the creature bit into her hand instead, head-butting her to the ground where his claws could more easily rip and tear. Although she was able to wrest her hand away without injury and once more roll to her feet, the creature was able to grip her ankle in its teeth as others pummelled it from all sides. Savaging the ankle from side to side, it did greivous injury once more, tearing apart muscles, tendons and ligaments. Agile Miss Cloisterjudges had been crippled but fought on.
"MacDuff's don't quit!", she screamed as her ankle gushed bright blood, striking once more at the thing holding her ankle in its teeth.
Mr Furnacebolts MacDuff jumped onto the creature's back, wrestling it away from Miss Cloisterjudges, trying to pin the creature so that others might have a better chance of slaying it. However, the creature refused to let go of Miss Cloisterjudges ankle, shaking its head from side to side, savaging the appendage further with each rending twist.
Joining the fight came Mr Roadstoker MacDuff, his bronze spear skewering the creature's right arm and lodging firmly into the wound before pulling it out for another go. Howling in pain, the creature snapped at Miss Shrinecobolt, catching her a glancing blow to the leg and knocking her back. Overcome with pain, Miss Cloisterjudges called to the others, "Help! Save Me! I don't want to die!" With more present concerns on their minds, the rest of the MacDuffs and the one representative of Clan Ilral kept thier focus on the fight at hand.
The creature took poor Miss Shrinecobolt's foot in its mouth, preparing to cripple yet another when Roadstoker stabbed it once more in the leg with his blooded bronze spear, crippling the creature in turn and driving it to the ground. Miss Shrinecobolt's foot, trapped in the creatures mouth, was wrenched down with it, severing nerves, muscles and tendons and she was borne to the ground as well.
Roadstoker stabbed the creature once more, his third strike fracturing its ribcage and puncturing a lung. The bloodied and gasping creature savaged Miss Shrinecobolt's foot back and forth, keening its rage and pain between clenched teeth - a counterpoint to her screams of pain and outrage with each new injury to her foot.
Roadstoker's fourth stab tore into the creature's foot, removing that appendage's ability to claw and rend.
Slipping in the gore, Mr Furnacebolts lost his grip on the creature's back, and it was able to catch hold of him via his cloak, but Roadstoker stabbed the creature in the foot once again to distract it from doing further damage to his clan-brother.
About mid-day, the Captain finally passed out from the pain of his wounds and slipped into a red slumber on his side a few meters off. Not long after, Miss Shrinecobolt also lost hope and called out to her companions,
"Help! Save me! I fear I'm running out of blood!"
Mr Furnacebolts was having a bad time of it too: the creature had latched onto his foot and was preparing to cause the same havoc it had on the others.
Angry at such injustice, Mr Roadstoker stabbed his spear into another of the beast's feet, ruining it also.
"A foot for a foot, you scaly anklebiter!", he cried, "Release it now or another of yours shall balance the bill!"
Alas, the creature either ignored his cry or did not understand it, for Mr Furnacebolts experienced the same savage twisting back and forth that had savaged the maidens Asmel and Ilral.
The Captain's wife, Roughnessscrews, finally made it to the fray, bringing with her a newborn son named Searchaxe. She'd come to show the tyke what a brave and mighty fighter his father was, only to find her husband's still and ravaged body lying in a pool of his own blood, but still breathing if only just.
"I'll save you, my dearest!" Cried she, and with that she attempted to drag his body to safety.
The fight surged back and forth all day long and into the afternoon until the last beams of the sun slipped below the horizon once more. By that time the entire clan had joined the fight and though many were bitten and bloodied, those few who had borne the brunt of the fight kept the monster at bay and no one else slipped into death at the hands of the monster. The last rays of the sun gone, the creature shuddered once and its scales, teeth and talons evaporated into the shadows, leaving only a naked goblin, its glowing red eyes the only form similar to its previous one. It let out a despairing cry then went limp from the pain of its injuries, a bloodied and broken skin-bag.
Roadstoker, having stabbed and stabbed the creature finally saw his chance and ended the pathetic creature's life with a final stab to the head.
"I'll keep this as my trophy!", cried he, and thus saying he brought the goblin's corpse to the boneyard where all refuse was piled, to rot and putrefy until the bones were clean of all flesh.
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Topic: Shadow empires (Read 18675 times)