Path of Dragons

Book 6: Chapter 92: Loss and Fury

Oscar didn’t think.

He didn’t feel anything but rage.

He and his pack only cared about one thing – vengeance. He leaped atop the snake-man and, with a roar, buried his hatchet in the creature’s face. Then, his other hatchet came around to join the first. He wrenched them both free before hacking into the monster’s destroyed head once again. Blood misted as he kept going until nothing but a ruined hunk of meat and bone remained.

His head whipped around, sending out a spray of blood and sweat as he searched for another victim. He found one close enough. Another snake-man, though one with legs instead of a thick tail, attacked with a spear. Oscar knocked the weapon aside, then sprinted forward in an all-fours gait that resembled an ape. He only had a few feet to go before he once again leaped at his would-be foe. Instead of hacking into it with the blades of his hatchets, he went straight for the creature’s throat. Without hesitation, he sank his teeth into the thing’s neck, bit deep, then jerked free.

Blood spurted, and the monster stumbled. Oscar used that small opening to his advantage, bringing his hatchets back into the fight. In the space of a few seconds, the creature shared the other snake-man’s fate. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

He sprang to his feet, then looked around.

His pack had already taken care of most of the other enemies, though a few remained. How many had they killed? Dozens, certainly. Hundreds, perhaps. The monsters’ number had seemed unending, and after what had happened, Oscar was in no state to count.

Everyone could die, as far as he was concerned.

That was what losing a member of his family did to a man. It was like a piece of his soul had been ripped to pieces, and he was left with whatever was left. He was broken and reeling, and he didn’t care about anything but killing whoever he deemed responsible. And that included every single native of Ka’arath he could find.

Oscar immediately jerked around to face a newcomer. Another snake-man, though larger and more formidable than any of the others. It was flanked by ten others, all armed and armored for war.

“Stand down, and you shall be –”

An enormous ball of fire fell upon the creature, bathing it and its allies in dense flames before the entire chamber was rocked by a huge explosion that tore a crater into the floor. Monsters went flying – some intact, while others had been ripped to pieces by the impact – but the leader stood its ground.

That was fine.

Oscar would have been disappointed if the fight finished before he ever got the chance to participate. From what he felt through Pack Sense, the rest of his family felt similarly. Escobar was already dialing up another spell, while Jackson and Sophie rushed in. Digby suddenly appeared behind the snake-man, ripping into the back of its disgusting tail. Meanwhile, Ray and Maymay used their spells to hinder its movements.

They wanted to dash in and use their teeth, though. The entire pack felt the same.

Freddie flanked Oscar, pacing him as they closed in on the reeling snake-man. The enemy recovered enough to lash out at Jackson, but the rottweiler mix’s shield held firm before the thing’s attack. Escobar barked, sending one fireball after another at the creature. They splashed over its scales, one after another, before Oscar and Freddie arrived.

They wasted no time with feints or special tactics. Their enemy was off-balance, and every instinct told them to go for the kill. They listened. Oscar went high, while Freddie took the low track. The snake-man managed to fend Freddie off with a swipe of its spear, but it was entirely unprepared for Oscar’s assault.

He used no abilities.

Instead, he attacked with Tooth and Claw – the name of the hatchets he’d gotten as a reward for defeating one of the challenges. The blades bit deep, parting scales and hacking into the creature’s flesh. Oscar’s attacks came in a furious flurry as he bellowed a primal scream of rage and loss.

The monster never had a chance. It tried to fight back. They all had. But the combination of Oscar’s reckless disregard for his own safety and the pack’s versatile abilities rendered any resistance futile. Still, it took a few moments to hit anything vital, and in that time, more of the snake-monsters had arrived.

The pack knew how to deal with them. Sophie and Jackson peeled off, while Ray and Maymay crippled their advance. That left Digby, Oscar, and Freddie to finish the big one off.

Shouting from the other direction warred for his attention, but it couldn’t stand up to the fury in his heart. He and the remaining members of his pack kept going, and soon enough, the thing fell. It lived for almost thirty seconds after that, its Regeneration working overtime to keep it alive. Oscar and his dogs overcame it.

At last, he finished the monster by finally tearing its head free and tossing it aside. With a snarl, he whipped around to see that the rest of his pack had already finished the snake-men that had arrived mid-battle.

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But they weren’t alone.

* * *

Elijah held out his hand as he cautiously approached. He didn’t like the notion of treating Oscar like a wild animal, but with the turmoil he felt within the man’s spirit, he felt it was a prudent course of action. Especially after what he’d just seen.

Battle was often a messy business, and it wasn’t uncommon for someone to lose themselves in it. But what he saw from Oscar went far beyond that. Better than most, Elijah knew the dangers of losing control.

And Oscar had definitely lost any sense of restraint.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “They’re all dead.”

Oscar grunted as his eyes darted around, clearly searching for someone else to fight. There was no one left, though.

“What happened?” Elijah asked when he got close. “Are you okay? Do you need healing?”

It was difficult to tell, what with all the blood. Oscar was absolutely covered in gore, with his hair plastered to his head and his clothes having been ripped to pieces. He looked like a man who’d been stranded in the wilderness for years, then forced to fight a war. Perhaps that wasn’t so far from the truth.

At last, Oscar’s shoulders slumped, and he sank to his knees. When he looked up, there were tears carving tracks through the blood on his cheeks. “They killed him,” he said, choking on the words.

“Who?” Elijah asked, kneeling beside the man.

“Jojo,” Oscar answered. “Hunted him down, trapped him, and murdered him like a pest. Benedict tried to help. I don’t know what happened to him…he’s probably dead, too.”

After that, Oscar haltingly explained that he and Benedict had teamed up a month or so before, and they were fighting their way through a challenge when everything had changed. They found the Seat of Thunder soon after, and they’d been fighting on the island or in the palace itself ever since.

Until Jojo – the tiny shih tzu who’d specialized in speed – had been caught in some sort of trap. After the dog’s death at the hands of a ta’alaki who called itself the Houndmaster, Oscar and Benedict had attempted to take their vengeance. At some point, Benedict had been separated.

“I just…I just kept killing,” Oscar said. “I should have looked for him. He wasn’t part of the pack, but…”

“I understand,” Elijah said, patting the man’s back.

“I…I can’t lose anymore of them,” Oscar said. The dogs had surrounded him, with one of them – Jackson, Elijah thought – laying his head in Oscar’s lap. “I’m…I can’t.”

“It’s fine,” Elijah said. “You can sit this out.”

“No. I’m coming with you. I intend to kill every last one of them.”

Elijah was about to object, but then he considered the situation. There really wasn’t much of a choice in the matter. They couldn’t exactly leave Oscar behind – not in his condition – and escaping probably wasn’t possible, either. So, as far as Elijah could tell, the only option was to bring him along.

“Fine,” Elijah announced. Then, he summoned Healing Rain and pulled a bar of soap from his Ghoul-Hide Satchel. He tossed it to Oscar, saying, “Clean yourself up. We’ll figure out which way we’re meant to go.”

After that, he left Oscar in the center of the room and returned to his companions. Once he’d explained everything, Sadie just shook her head and said, “Poor man. Those dogs aren’t just pets to him, are they? They’re family.”

“Something like that,” Elijah responded. “I imagine it feels like losing a limb or something like that.”

“Is he stable?”

“Not at all,” Elijah answered.

Lamar cleared his throat. “We need to figure out our next steps. This place is huge, and we don’t know where else we’re meant to go,” he said.

“And there’s this Houndmaster to worry about,” Dat added. “Traps are concerning.”

“We’ll just have to be careful,” Elijah said. “In the meantime, this is probably as good a place as any for everyone to stick around while the rest of us check things out.”

After that, the group retreated to the edge of the room, where Kurik deployed some traps. If anyone attacked, they’d get quite a shock.

Then, Elijah, Dat, and Helen set off in different directions. Along the way, Elijah confirmed his suspicion that they’d reached the palace proper. The décor wasn’t quite as opulent as he might have expected, but the lightning pulsing through the walls made other decorations largely superfluous.

On he went, covering miles of hallways and seeing one unused room after another. Once, they might’ve seen use, but now, they were entirely empty. There wasn’t even any furniture. That made his search much quicker, and, aided by One with Nature, he covered quite a lot of ground in a short amount of time.

And then, he sensed something up ahead.

Remembering the trap described by Oscar, he took to the walls, and then the ceiling before continuing on under Guise of the Unseen. Soon enough, the hall ended in another empty chamber. Or that was Elijah’s first impression. However, via One with Nature, he recognized it for the trap it was.

There were ten creatures circling the room’s perimeter, and though he couldn’t see them, he could sense enough about their nature to categorize them as creatures he’d dubbed scaled wolves. He’d seen beasts of that sort elsewhere, though these were bigger and somehow sleeker than their wild counterparts.

But Elijah’s attention was focused on the room’s other occupant.

The creature was tall and slim and moved with a grace that suggested its build was Dexterity focused. Not surprising, given what Elijah knew of the Houndmaster. It was also encouraging.

In most cases, it probably would have been smarter to go back and fetch the others, but Elijah had reason to think that was a bad idea. For one, he had no idea what traps lay within that chamber, and the majority of his companions had no ability to mitigate or detect those kinds of things. So, they would likely blunder into the same sort of trap that had killed Jojo.

On top of that, the thing was a Dexterity-focused class. That meant that it would almost assuredly be light on Constitution. As such, Elijah felt sure that he could kill it off before it had a chance to react.

With that plan intact, Elijah crept across the ceiling until he was directly above the Houndmaster. It was using some form of stealth, but he could feel the thing clearly enough to aim properly. He let go, twisting in the air before landing on the creature’s shoulder. He’d already embraced both Envenom and Predator Strike, so when he bit, it was with the full weight of the blight dragon’s power.

He only got one attack in before he was thrown free. He hit the floor, skidding across the room until he hit the wall. As he did so, he felt something begin to suck the ethera out of him. So, knowing what was coming, he initiated the shift into the Shape of Thorn just before his core was all-but emptied.

It wasn’t enough to completely disable him – probably because of his high Regeneration attribute – but it was enough to make any spellcasting impossible.

He had just enough time to complete the transformation before all of the scaled wolves charged.