Fire breather

Caelius P.O.V.

Murder chicken might not have been the best choice of words to describe it. If anything, it looked like the birds some nobles used to hunt small prey like rabbits and squirrels.

The difference was that this thing was massive and, with the right motivation, could probably tear off my arm.

After leaving the inn to go and look for the vile creature, I stopped at the butcher’s to see if he knew the whereabouts of what killed his son. What I hadn’t counted on was coming face to face with the boy’s grieving mother, who was very much worse for wear. Through bouts of wailing tears, she was able to tell me that her husband, distraught and enraged over the loss of his only child, had already set out after the blighted.

Fortunately, with snow thick on the ground from a recent blizzard, it wasn’t hard to track the butcher from his home, about a mile’s trek north, and around the bend of the mountain to where I was now, just out of view of the monster.

‘He’s lost his mind if he thinks he can kill that thing alone.’

The butcher, I presumed, stood face to face with the massive blighted bird that perched in the snow only feet away from him. Both the man and the bedeviled avian giant were bleeding, obviously already in an altercation before I’d arrived.

The difference was, while the butcher stood half-limp and clutching at his shoulder, the sorrowclaw looked unfazed.

While I had never seen a sorrowclaw before, I could tell something was inherently wrong with the one in front of me. Its legs appeared abnormally long and disproportionate to its body. While one of its wings appeared injured, with an arrow piercing through it and bent at an odd angle, the other was outstretched with what seemed to be ivory spikes protruding from its skin, causing the brown and black feathers to fall away. The eyes were vacant- betraying neither hostility nor calm, but completely void of feeling altogether.

Squinting my vision, I could swear I saw the points of its rib bones poking through its flesh, caked in feathers and dried blood. The worst thing about the monstrous avian was the smell.

Even at a distance, I almost gagged- the pungent odor of death seemed to permeate the air with enough weight to crush the breath out of my lungs and leave me gasping in desperation for an untainted breeze.

I surveyed the area around the two, trying to mentally map out the best plan of attack.

‘Ideally, I’ll be able to get the butcher out of here alive. That thing is big, but I can burn it. I just can’t let him get caught in the crossfire.’

Before I could work something out, my attention was snapped back to the beast as it let out the loudest, most earth-shattering screech I’d ever heard. The sound pierced so deeply that for a moment I thought my eardrums would bleed.

It lashed at the butcher, its talons grazing his torso as he stumbled back in a desperate attempt to evade the beast.

“Fuck!” I seethed to myself, drawing my sword and charging forward.

I had to divert the thing’s attention away from the wounded man and pull it far enough away to torch it.

Beneath the sound of its shrieks, I could hear the steady thud of my boots against the powdered ground as I dashed forward, raising my sword high and slashing down against its already wounded wing, slicing it off in one clean blow.

It jolted, seeming not to register the pain of losing a limb but instead only becoming aware of a new threat- or another meal.

Blood spurted out of the creature, spraying me across the face and body. The odor struck me harder than ever- almost making me double over and vomit despite the impending danger.

Still, I steeled myself against the urge and firmed my grip on my sword, ready for whatever it threw at me.

‘Just how long has this thing been blighted to stink like that?’

It charged in my direction, forgetting both the man it had maimed and its severed limb behind it, as though neither had ever been of any consequence.

The blighted raised its talons, swinging at me like razors in the wind. I dodged left and swung my sword against it, barely managing to scratch its torso.

Before I could steady myself, the bastard struck me with its remaining massive wing, knocking me back several feet and pushing the air out of me.

I landed with a muted, ‘Thump!’ against the padded snowy ground and gasped out a groan.

I could hear it stalking closer to me, its taloned feet crunching against the snow in my direction. It had resumed its foul shrieking, as though it had gone mad, and only its screams of defiance against the plague that had long taken the animal could save it from the rot. In this world, there was no such mercy.

Sword still in hand, I pulled myself upright, wincing against newfound pain that went shooting through my body.

The nightmare that crept toward me had lowered its head to ground level, twisting its neck impossibly so that its face was near upside down, making it appear all the more unnerving and horrific. Its feathers were bunched and raised. Something that I assumed was what a normal sorrowclaw might do to make itself appear larger in the face of a predator. In this case, though, it felt like a moot point as from a blighted’s perspective I could neither be a predator nor should it need to appear larger when the fucking thing could throw a grown man back like that.

I spared a split-second glance in the direction of the injured butcher who had allowed himself to collapse into the bloodied snow about fifteen feet away, looking on at the scene before him with a pained expression.

‘This had damned well better be far enough.’ I thought as I prepared myself for what was to come.

I began crawling backward, away from the beast, which, humorously, continued to creep forward at such a slow and steady pace it must have been trying to sneak up on me.

‘As though I don’t see your big ugly ass right there in front of me.’

Trying to maintain the distance between us, I reached for the fire within, bestowed by Akhael in my eighth summer. It had been difficult to use or control in the beginning, as it had felt so indiscernible from the very substance of my soul. But with time, I was able to call upon it- make it bend to my will and unleash its potential.

The problem now was that while I could bring forth its light and fury into the world around me, I had trouble containing it.

‘Deep breaths.’ I reminded myself, feeling fire saturate my lungs as the familiar heat scorched me gloriously from within, warming me to the bone.

One.

I stopped inching backward to focus.

‘Inhale. Exhale.’

Two.

The thing was closing the distance between us.

‘Inhale. Exhale.’

Three.

It charged at me.

‘Inhale…. release!’

I let out a battle cry that manifested itself into thick golden flames, leaping forward to close the space between myself and the blighted as though it followed an invisible path of kindling to its target.

The living nightmare screamed against its sudden combustion, writhing in the flames as my fire stripped away its flesh and feathers, consuming it as it had done to so much life.

Fire was the antithesis of the blight, its one true vulnerability.

I gasped in more air before reigniting the flames from within, unwilling to break off my inferno until the monster ceased writhing and screeching against its cleansing.

Only when it stilled did I falter, shakily calling the blessed light of Akhael back into my body where it receded along the pathways of my veins, absorbing itself deeper into my being until the warmth had subsided and left me painfully aware of the cold snow and aching bruises against my ribs.

I pulled myself to my feet, staring at the new flame in front of me that consumed the body of the beast.

‘I’ll need to finish this before I can take the man back.’

So I stumbled around the expanse of white, grabbing loose brush and twigs to feed the fire, keeping it alight. When that was done, I marched over to the bloodied butcher who now sat up, his body shaking and wracking with silent sobs.

I said nothing.

What do you say to someone who has lost a piece of themselves, their only child, in the most grisly way possible?

Instead, I diverted my attention to the discarded wing, which lay bloodied and festering with rot only feet away.

‘Even Akhael would lose his meal after dealing with this stench.’ I told myself as I fought the bile rising in my throat.

Steeling myself against what I knew would be an unpleasant task, I lifted the wing and dragged it over to the newly built pyre that devoured the body of the massive avian, throwing it in to be ravaged by the scorching heat. The only way to ensure a cleansing had taken full effect was to burn every part of the afflicted.

Stooping to my knees, I offered a silent prayer.

‘May the blight be consumed by your divine light. May the soul of the afflicted know peace in your flame. May you deliver us from the wicked. May the darkness surrender what you come to reclaim.’

Finally, I let go.

I fell against my hands and heaved out what I had been holding back, emptying my stomach of bitter acid and chunks.

‘Fucking chicken.’