Chapter 44 - Kithe Brutality (Violetta's POV)

The divine power made clear by the Kithe spread throughout the ground as a reverberating wave through the earth. The soil rippled and shifted, taking on the form of a raging sea under foot. Cookie, such an inoffensive and unassuming name for the brown-haired Kithe, formed a protective shell over the four of them, the walls of earth twisted and became transparent and shifting.

“Scorch it, Raeyn.” Cookie commanded, “Let Belos flow through you. Do not be afraid of his power.”

“Right!” Raeyn’s hands burst into flame with the snap of her fingers, and she touched the soil, but instead of extinguishing the soil instead caught flame and swirled, becoming as if dark blown glass. The gray world beyond the glass came into focus as the first Dwellin appeared in the camp. She had never seen one before and mortal fear spread through her at the very sight of even a single warrior.

Compared to herself, or even amongst the thickest soldiers such as Marsol, Dwellin were greater still. Standing half again her own height, and three or four times as wide as a normal woman, the hulking mass of green flesh reminded her of but a single creature: a gorilla. Devoid of hair throughout its entire body, the vibrant green hue looked like that of a poison dart frog or an emerald snake. Huge broad shoulders, thick bulbous muscles wielded a bow that resembled a young tree bent and formed for the purpose of firing the equivalent of spears. Standing on squat, bow-legged trunk-like legs, they marched forward the same as any wrestler strutting into the ring. Their faces were oblong squares with thick hearty domes covered in a mass of black straggly hair. While they resembled Gobbos in skin color that is where the differences ended. Each of the Dwellin wore thick leather vests and wore a strange set of leather pant legs which extended up their thighs, but did not connect to cover the buttock or groin, instead a belted skirt of hammered metal plates protected the area while allowing for them to effortlessly turn and move in unique ways. Despite their bulk, they could launch themselves forward through the air, slide and scuttle laterally like a fencer even at a crouch.

The Dwellin nocked an arrow and shot it at the barrier, the iron tip plunged through the barrier and landed at Cake’s feet. The barrier reformed the hole and continued to shift as Raeyn and Cookie worked to harden it, but to pierce the strange glass had clearly shocked the two of them.

“Such a beast, better not consider us part of their feast!” Cake ran her hand over the golden frame of her strange weapon, the dark crystalline mass beginning to glow as tendrils of shadow came to life, becoming black even to her vision and whipping like a scythe through the camp. Cake licked her lips as they converged and Wekts’ body was cut and ensnared in shadow, splatters of blood from the whip-like slashes glowing in the air and then across the ground.

“You… lousy…” Wekts growled as he was rendered harmless by six tendrils that wrapped around each of his limbs and one more for his torso, “Heretic priestess… rot and die… you…”

A loud series of ripping cracks and pops followed as Cake folded her hands and threw her arms out, as if puppeting the shadows. Wekts’ limbs twisted left and right, his wrists flipped upside down, his elbow forced in and out, shoulders dislocating. The man screamed in agony, but she did not stop as she repeated the steps on his legs, inverting and snapping his joints. The sound of his knees exploding and his hips dislocating with a heavy wet pop made Cake utter a moan of perverse joy at seeing her toy remain conscious through the agony.

“Aaaarghhhh… curse… you…. Curse… you!” Wekts eyes rolled back into his head, the shadow around his neck coiled and tightened with the one around his chest.

Six shots pierced his body, one after another, the spear-like arrows impaled his stomach, left lung, and each shoulder, with another lodging in his upper left thigh, the final took off the right side of his cheek and ear. The shadows pulled and then he was dismembered in a final wrenching pull where his limbs and head ejected from his torso in a torrent of blood as the tendril wrapped around his chest crushed him. Wringing the blood and pulp as if he was a freshly squeezed orange, Wekts body gushed crimson that splattered the front of the protective shell. Cake’s maniacal laughter was quick to end as she lashed out at every other soldier, she could get her hands on.

Between the slaughter from the Dwellin and Cake’s shadow sickle tendrils plucking arms and heads off in a geyser of blood, forty soldiers perished in the span of a minute or two. Unable to see in the dark, they were helpless against their attackers who brutally picked them off from range.

“Stop, that is Sig and Locke!” Raeyn said as Cake’s tendrils ensnared them.

“They are Mahn. Soldiers. Why shouldn’t I kill them?!” Cake growled, “They’ll kill us first chance they get.”

“Please.” She begged, “Don’t hurt them.”

“Thanks Violetta!” Cookie said as she formed a protective barrier around them, “They did not take part in the murder of innocents.”

Was it that simple for them? How many soldiers here were just following orders? How many had actually participated in burning out the warren? One by one, Cake had made a gruesome show of each kill that only heightened the confusion and terror.

Then it went silent as the battle came to an end. The protective earthen walls were strange enough to warrant the Dwellin to stop their attacks and approach cautiously. The two Kithe whose familiarity with their attacks suggested experience in dealing out death with comparative safety was just as striking to the Dwellin as it was on her and Raeyn.

“You… killed…. So many people.” Raeyn struggled as she gazed through the glass-like barrier, “You tore them apart.”

“Necessary to show our power and that we are not on the same side.” Cake pulled back her black hood and gestured for Cookie to dispel the barrier; the glass cracking and falling away harmlessly.

One of the Dwellin approached from the treeline and came towards them. Had they even lost a single person in this massacre? Doubtful, given the pile of bodies with and without their limbs. Cake had indeed made a show of it, wringing blood and ejecting the heads of close to half in a contest of sheer brutality. It was as if she solely wanted to prove that her power was greater than the whole of their forces.

The hulking masculine form stopped three paces from them and looked to Raeyn, speaking in its language that was vaguely Gobbo. She was unable to discern the words, but it was some greeting and Raeyn gave a bow and repeated most of the greeting in turn.

Cake and Cookie flanked Raeyn on the left and right, crossing their arms and marking themselves as her protectors. Did they understand the language? She would not put it past them. Sig and Locke stumbled forward and approached, crossing the encampment and having to step over the gore and scattered limbs of their fellow soldiers. They were in complete shock, and the squeezed-out husk of Wekts’ torso had perhaps the greatest effect on the two. They stammered and fell in behind her.

Raeyn and the Dwellin began to converse and one by one fifteen other archers emerged from the treeline and came to stand with their commander. Only one amongst their number was a woman, a hulking massive woman who resembled Lady Hilda well enough that the two could pass for sisters, besides being green and ugly. She really did resemble a giant gorilla. She stepped over to a discarded arm, picked it up and raised it to her mouth, and began to devour it like a chicken drumstick, pulling the flesh from the bones. The other Dwellin started to descend on the mass.

Locke vomited and Sig couldn’t watch as they feasted on the fallen, some pained cries of soldiers fatally wounded resounded. Each time they’d be cut short by a loud snap. Some had resorted to faking their own deaths. Cowardice, but they were helpless lambs to the slaughter. The moment the attack began was the instant those Kithe had decided it was in their best interest to curry favor with these beasts.

Raeyn did her best to not be bothered by what was taking place around her, but the young woman showed her own signs of distress. Raeyn, who had plenty of opportunity to sell Sig, Locke and herself out as more appetizers, specifically named them as her allies and seemed to recount how they came here and what had happened. The Dwellin seemed quite nervous of the two Kithe, but it seems as if everything would be fine.

“The fire in the cavern alerted them and they came to check on our tribe. If not for that they would not have been here. I explained that you are with me and that you are not bad, but they insist on speaking to the Chief. They still believed my father was the head of the tribe.” Raeyn explained.

“Raeyn, do you think anyone survived underground?” She asked.

Raeyn shook her head, “I hope.”

They moved off the site of the warren and tried to avoid watching the grotesque feast. After a while the ability to see faded and returned the night to being of near perfect darkness. The sound of the eating and the crunching was more tolerable when a glance did not sear itself into one’s mind. The gray monochrome world she had seen was so strange, so different, where blood and faces were hot and vaguely glowing white. So, this is how Raeyn viewed the darkness? Through her eyes the world must be a terrifying place. She was twice as tall and had kept her on a short leash; an unpleasant thought if she were to find herself at the mercy of one of those strange Dwellin. It must have taken a lot of courage to not abandon her in the caverns, or to fight for her. Raeyn really was something special and now she was saving her again.