The Scorpion of Shan'Gai Chah [closed]

[Twinflame]

((This thread takes place after What Can Be Found if you Trust the Gods))

 

Will had poured out of the Bowl of Embers just like sparks from an overturned brazier.

 

Baoht Zuqqa Roh, therefore, walked the sands. The sun did not burn as hot this far north, and his scales cooled. He clawed at his forearms in distaste, grinding his jaw and letting his pointed teeth click. The sun drakes noticed that their master had paused and turned, eight eyes glowing from faces the color of dust, to await his instruction. Their passive submission annoyed him -- they did not actively fear him -- and he exhaled a growl that burned the air like the breath of a molten fissure. The sun drakes turned more fully towards him, and their heads dipped, and their maws closed. Baoht Zuqqa Roh dropped down into a crouch and grunted instruction in a furious tone, gesturing, and the beasts followed his motions, obedient, quivering.

 

When Baoht Zuqqa Roh stood, two of the drakes departed, moving fast in two different directions. The others remained, eager for instruction, growing more submissive each instant he withheld it.

 

"Roh!" A grating voice shook through the stones. Baoht Zuqqa Roh turned to look behind him, the air roiling around him, and glared at the other Amal'jaa coming past the rocks behind him. A tracker, carrying a spear in one hand and a staff of calling in the other. This new Amal'jaa's scales did not glint as brightly, as though he were adorned in shale, or the tempering had left him ashen. The tracker raised his blunted claws. "Roh, word for Zan'rak!"

 

Baoht Zuqqa Roh shook. A twitch flowed outward from his spine, hot through his shoulders and arms and belly, and he belched volcanic breath. "Am I called for?" The wood of his bow thrummed as it shook in his hand.

 

"Shan'Gai Chah sends these words: You are to-"

 

"His words? Now? Send Shan'Gai Chah a message for me!" Baoht Zuqqa Roh lifted his bow and knocked a two-meter metal shaft into it, lifting it and letting it go without giving the tracker a chance to flinch. It was not a glancing shot; the arrow stuck in the Amal'jaa's chest and punctured one of its lungs, the dusty bundle of unpolished scales dropping on its side in the dirt. Bahot Zuqqa Roh shook his bow at the tracker. "Drag yourself back to Shan'Gai Chah and deliver that before you expire, or die a failure!" It was a fitting gesture. Baoht Zuqqa Roh would not deserve his title as the Scorpion's Tale if he did not occasionally sting.

 

The sound of a sun drake's call tore Baoht Zuqqa Roh's attention from his victim, drawing his gaze towards a rocky outcropping north of him. The beast was small and distant, but his sharp eyes could see its gaze directed still further northward. The sun drake shouted again, and Baoht Zuqqa Roh tossed his head back to let a very similar shout out himself. The two drakes at his feet responded, roaring at the sky, and moments later the fourth -- which had one southward -- called out as well. Turning his bow in his hands, Baoht Zuqqa Roh growled and grunted at the drakes before him, and they ran to join the northmost of them.

 

Baoht Zuqqa Roh took another metal shaft and set in against the string of his massive bow, and his teeth clicked. "Not even Shan'Gai Chah has the right to interrupt a hunt he himself requested. Especially once the hunter has the scent of their prey." As he took his first stop forward, he exhaled a hot breath, and it stirred a wind that wrapped around him soundlessly. His scent was trapped by it, concealed from the nose of his quarry. His footsteps made no sound. He lowered himself and crept at a running pace northward, his drakes running ahead of him.

 

*

 

The green-haired girl pointed out the Ourobon. She smacked Thal on the arm to get his attention. "I found one. There!" She pointed more emphatically. Her clothes by this point had degenerated into little more than red threads that wrapped her shoulders, torso and hips, as though simply decoration for her burned away chest and the burnt hole through her back. The cloth tied around her neck did not perfectly conceal the wound sliced in her neck. The thin, dark corpse bounced in the knee-deep water and pointed at the Ourobon as though it was very hungry. Really, she was just doing her best to help Thal hunt.

 

When she turned to look back at the Ourobon in the shallows, her gaze lifted to the sand-drake on the rocks, several hundred meters south of them and staring right at her. Her ears pitched back, and she looked vaguely troubled, though she knew that sand drakes rarely attacked full-grown Miqo'te in the wild. Then it roared, shouting at the sky above it like a wolf calling to its pack. And it was answered by others, an echoing series of calls throughout the southward rocks.

[Naunet]

He let his bare feet slap through the water as he searched, aware that it wasn't the most stealthy thing to do but not particularly caring. The cool damp mud felt good on his calloused feet and he was determined to enjoy the sensation, so different was it from the countless unenjoyable sensations that now composed his body.

 

At the girl's - he still couldn't bring himself to think of her as his daughter - exclamation, he looked up from where he'd been stomping around, only half keeping an eye out for fish. He grinned and spread his legs into a mockery of a crouch, lifting his arms to either side of his head and curling his fingers into fake claws. He shifted from side to side, red hair swinging. "Ahah, our prey is in our sights! Now watch as Thal, god of death and hunter extraordinaire, catches us some din--"

 

A crackling roar covered up the rest of Thal's boasting, and he froze, ears lifting straight up and tail stilling out in a banner behind him. "Eh...?" Ice blue eyes blinked upwards, following the sound, and then his posture very slowly pulled back into what outwardly looked like a relaxed stand. "Well, kid, looks like our prey was already claimed." He kept his voice steady and low, relaxed. "How about we leave 'em to it, huh?"

[Twinflame]

The green-haired girl, who had been called K'aijeen, drew back only slightly at first. She had memories of hunting sand drakes. Setting a trap. Harvesting one for its spine. She hadn't made the choice to do those things. She wouldn't have. It hadn't been right. But she remembered the feeling of bones and meat giving way under her small hands and improvised tools. She remembered touching the electricity of the dismembered nervous system.

 

Hiding almost more from the unwanted memories than from the drake itself, K'aijeen backpedaled and spun, putting herself behind Thal and pushing herself flat against his back, her hands up on his shoulders.

 

She looked around him as the drake came down the stones and headed for the water, shouting the whole way. Two more appeared atop the great stones near the water, following it, roaring in kind. Bestial roars still came from further south. The Ourobon heard them coming and began to flee clumsily, its unwieldy body moving with difficulty. But the drake did not chase it. It gave the fish no attention at all. The drake, pulling itself along on its belly but its head still as high as K'aijeen's shoulders, pulled itself into the water and continued straight towards herself and Thal. Its eyes burned with light. Its mouth opened to display teeth and tongue and oozing, petulant drool.

 

K'aijeen grated out a high-pitched sound of fear when suddenly there was nothing but air and water and silt between Thal and the lizard.

[Naunet]

Thal's feet shuffled backwards in the water, urging the girl to move back with him as the drakes approached. His ears remained upright, swiveled forward, his senses alert and focused entirely on the beasts closing rapid distance between them. Blue eyes left the beasts only glance minutely towards the mud at his feet, then back up. "Kid, I want you to run. On the count of three."

 

He didn't listen for any protest from her; there was no point in giving her an opportunity to do so. Instead he simply began, "One.... two..." He could feel his muscles drawing up against his bones, tendons ready to spring and jolt action into his limbs. The sensation didn't distract him, however, and his eyes flicked a second time to the ground immediately to his right. "Three, go," he didn't shout but he gave the girl a light shove behind him to get her moving. At the same time he lunged down and right, kicking up a stone with one foot and catching it in his opposite hand. A breath later he hurled it with every ounce of strength he could muster.

 

The rock struck the foremost drake in the side of its head, snapping its skull to one side and sending it stumbling with a squawk. Thal didn't wait; he scooped up a second rock and let it loose, calling out, "Hey, ugly face, back off!" Some instinct in his gut told him running was not an option with these creatures.

[Twinflame]

K'aijeen ran, but not very far. She sloshed through the knee-deep water until she'd reached the shallows on the other side and there turned to watch Thal. She had hoped he would follow her but was not surprised when he did not. A dead branch with curling leaves hung from a loop of red thread on her side, and she took it in her hand, untangling it quickly. Her hands moved quickly and carefully despite the fear that was pulling strange, choking sounds out of her shredded throat. She tried to think of Thal's questionable mortality as a boon, but she couldn't manage to lie to herself like that. He was still just a body, after all.

 

*

 

Baoht Zuqqa Roh crouched in a muddy pool, his shining scales making him appear as a great stone. He held his bow and its arrow low beside him, just above the water, and the hot wind that wrapped him stirred up the surface with considerable ripples. He watched the first drake dealing with the thrown stones as the two others surpassed it to rush the man. This was the prey given him by Shan'Gai Chah? Baoht Zuqqa Roh should have sent two arrows back with the tracker. Perhaps his drakes had misread the scent. That happened sometimes. He would ensure his target after this one and his companion were dead.

 

The fourth drake passed Baoht Zuqqa Roh to one side as he lifted his bow and directed it towards the sick-looking child that had fled.

[Naunet]

The second stone that had been meant for the first drake was thrown with a startled, choking sound as the other two rushed forward. It struck one of the advancing drakes straight between its ridged eyes, and the thing let out a screech. Thal scrambled backwards, dragging his hand low to pick up a third rock as he went. "Kid, you need to get moving, now," he called out. Rocks weren't exactly an effective weapon against these creatures, and he wished for the kind of spear that man who claimed to be family and yet hated him had carried. If he could get on its back, maybe...? He ran at an angle to K'aijeen and, a few steps into his retreat, spun to whip the third rock at the drakes behind him. He didn't pause to see where or if it struck, instead whirling back around to continue running. "Find some place to hide behind, kid. I'll distract them!"

[Twinflame]

K'aijeen's ears laid down flat on her head, and her face scrunched up stubbornly. "No!" She held the small branch out in front of her and moved it in slow, circular motions, concentrating even if she still appeared fearful. Green light and wind began to move about her hands, but just as the energy began to form, it was disturbed by the passage of a dark metal shaft. The projectile shattered the stick in her hands and pierced through her center, just below her ribs, knocking her off her feet and pinning her to the ground as though a great nail.

 

Baoht Zuqqa Rogh rose from the water, setting another two-meter shaft in his giant bow. He roared, and the drakes responded, spreading out to form a circle around Thalen. The Scorpion shouted again, and they came at him from all sides.

[Naunet]

When the arrow struck K'aijeen, he couldn't help the flash of fear and worry, even though he knew it wouldn't actually kill her. At least he didn't think it would. Gritting his teeth, he made to alter his course towards the girl only to find his path cut off with the scaled, hissing bodies of the drakes. "Kid!" He called out to her, backing up only to stop in his tracks when others closed in from the opposite direction. "Fu... K'aijeen! You okay?"

 

Crouching over his knees, tail quivering behind him, Thal darted his eyes between the drakes. He didn't have time to wait for them to make a move; if he did, he was sure those nasty teeth and claws of theirs would make quick work if his body. And he was pretty sure he still needed his body functional, even if it didn't have to be entirely puncture free. Letting out another curse under his breath, he felt his spine curve, his tail moving with it, felt his muscles coil up against his bones. And then very suddenly they released, launching him up and towards the nearest drake. He slammed against its neck, which the beast had lifted high in preparation for striking, and swung around to latch at its back. He kept his grip on its neck, though, locking his forearm and twisting as hard as he could.

[Twinflame]

Baoht Zuqqa Roh chuckled. it sounded more like a roiling, rumbling growl, and in making the sound he also dispersed the wind that wrapped him. His scent and the sound of his amused breath now rolled over the water. He raised his voice, "Your struggles are entertaining, child of man!" He'd never seen a soft-fleshed man try to wrestle his drakes bare-handed before. Baoht Zuqqa Roh raised a guttural howl, and two of the drakes fell back in response. A third, however, merely paused, and then continued, forcing the man to deal with two drakes. Baoht Zuqq Roh was curious to see what his quarry would do.

 

*

 

K'aijeen lay in shock, staring at the sky for a few seconds, before she lifted her hand to look at the shattered remnants of the stick she had been conjuring with. She exhaled a frustrated gargling sound, but decided quickly that they must be another stick nearby. It was just a stick, after all. She cast aside the stick and fixed both hands on the dark metal shaft sticking out of her belly. She strained her meager arms against it and gradually withdrew it, first from the dirt, then from her body. It disturbed her that it bore no fluid from her innards, making her worry that her body's internal functions were shutting down.

 

But she didn't concentrate on that. She rose to her feet and looked towards Thal, choking at the sight. At first it looked like he was being torn apart by the monsters, and when she noticed he was still alive, all she could think was that he mere moments for being destroyed. Shaking herself, she shouted in a violent croak, "Dad!" and through the sharp, two-meter long metal shaft into the fray.

[Naunet]

The drake thrashed beneath him, and it took all of Thal's strength to hold onto the beast. He barely noticed when some of them retreated, but he did notice when the remaining drake closed in, its maw hissing and snapping at his legs and tail. Feet scrabbling against the armored, pointy scales along the creature's back, he leaned away from the second beast. A voice behind him brought his head up, ears swiveling back towards the sound, and it was pure coincidence that he saw the massive arrow come flying from somewhere outside his vision, clattering into the muddy ground nearby.

 

It was just long enough to be a spear.

 

Grinning despite the danger, Thal lurched to one side of the drake's back and pushed off the beast. It toppled sideways and thrashed wildly to right itself, but Thal was already scrabbling in the mud towards the arrow. When he took it up in both hands, it settled into his grip with a casual familiarity. "Hah, the god of death, hunter extraordinaire always comes prepared!" He decided to ignore the glaring hole of logic in that statement. Drawing in a breath, his nose caught a harsh, acrid scent on the air, completely foreign, and he squinted at the beasts before flicking his eyes past them. He spent only half a second watching the massive, dark form some distance away before the drakes, having recovered from their tangled tumble, pressed at him. He lunged at them both with the arrow, driving its pointed tip towards them and growling.

[Twinflame]

Baoht Zuqqa Roh spun on the child-like female with a snarl, frustrated that he did not understand how she was still living and angered that she was helping the man. Had she used the shaft herself, he would have been impressed. But to give it to her protector? "Cowardly daughter of a weak species!" He raised his bow, angling another of the long shafts for her.

 

K'aijeen's eyes widened, and she snapped back half a pace. She waited for anger to come, the stubborn fury to rise up inside of her and bring the power with it. But it didn't. No anger came. No power found her. The other will was silent, or absent. She didn't realize that she would miss it. She didn't know how to protect herself. She lifted her arms crossed them in front of her, wincing away. "Don't."

 

The Amal'jaa released his bolt, and it impaled both of her arms before slamming into her skull.

[Naunet]

Thal caught the swift movement out of the corner of his eyes but couldn't turn to watch the arrow as one of the drakes lunged snapping jaws at him, its teeth dripping with something that both looked and smelled unpleasant. The other reared back, seemingly in preparation for something, its jaw opening wide, and Thal took the opportunity immediately. Skirting away from the teeth of the first, he thrust the arrow-turned-spear forward at an upward angle and drove its pointed end into the drake's softer throat. The thing let out a gurgling roar and thrashed, forcing his grip to break on the weapon, and he leapt back away from an attack from the other.

 

Eyes wide and ears flat, he spared just a moment to glance back towards the kid and felt his heart drop to his stomach. Then he was running, past the drakes and tearing the spear from one of the beasts as he went, and charged straight for the giant, black-skinned man-beast ahead.

[Twinflame]

When one of his drakes went limp in the water, blood pouring out of its mouth and choking it, Baoht Zuqqa Roh roared. This was not communication; it was fury. Each of those drakes had taken a decade to train. He had named them after the progenitors of his brood. They were living relics, sacred, and the blessing of Lord Ifrit burned in their eyes. When Baoht Zuqqa Roh shouted again, the sand drakes recoiled, putting distance between themselves and the man. No more of them would be sacrificed on this hunt. Shan'Gai Chah did not deserve it.

 

"Your bite is small, but stings, child of man!" Baoht Zuqqa Roh three down his bow and spread his claws, showed his teeth, his great tail swinging behind him. He waited for the metal bolt that his prey was using as a spear, but to the Amal'jaa was still just an arrow. He would catch it and claw the man to shreds.

[Naunet]

Thal had a flash of a thought for some witty comeback. It would have been very impressive, for sure, but there wasn't time for it as his legs powered him towards the Amal'jaa. There also wasn't time to think about the girl impaled through the skull behind him. All there was time for was considering the size of his opponent and figuring out the best way to get out of this alive.

 

At the last moment, he swerved out to the right, skidding on bare feet, and then thrust forward towards the man-beast's side.

[Twinflame]

The weapon was like a needle. Baoht Zuqqa Roh half-suspected it would snap between his scales if he was successfully stabbed with it. When the child of man ran to the side, Baoht Zuqqa Roh swung his arm in that direction, his one limb almost as large as his target was, all but ignoring the weapon leveled against him. As a result, he did take a hit, the weapon knocking against his hard scales, trying to push through to the soft meat beneath. All it succeeds at doing, however, is ripping out a line of scales which, while painful, only sharpens Baoht Zuqqa Roh's strength.

[Naunet]

Thal tried to dodge away from the arm, to use his size to his advantage in close quarters, but the Amal'jaa was both powerful and fast. Though his weapon struck home, dragging across the beastman's side and gouging a gap along his scales, the massive, black arm caught Thal broadly across the chest. He let out a silent "oof", bouncing against the arm as though it were a wall of solid bricks. He tried to go limp and slip beneath it - if he could get behind his opponent, he might have a better chance.

[Twinflame]

The man was small. Baoht Zuqqa Roh had felt what seemed like a firm enough hit to send the man skittering across the water like a thrown stone, but did not see a flailing body beset by hungry drakes. He turned, seeking with his claws, the water frothing about him and turning brown with stirred-up silt.

[Naunet]

As soon as he hit the ground, Thal tucked himself into a ball and rolled forward, around the Amal'jaa's back legs. One hand grabbed for the spear on his way, and he brought it around as the beastman was turning to jab it deep against his side again, aiming for the gap of scales he'd knocked off with his first blow.

[Twinflame]

The pain told him both where his quarry was and what his quarry was doing. It was useful for that. Baoht Zuqqa Roh would think about the injury later. He turned fast, to pull his wound away from his quarry and try to take the arrow as well, lifting his large arms over the man. "You bite like a fly!" He slammed his arms down in an attempt to catch his prey. "Let me show you how a scorpion stings!"

[Naunet]

The response was expected, but came far quicker than Thal would have liked, as though the beastman had barely even felt the jab of his weapon. Even more frustratingly, the arrow-spear tore from his hands when the beastman whirled about, leaving Thal with nothing but his body as a weapon.

 

There was no time to think about it. As the Amal'jaa brought down his mighty arms, Thal ducked forward, putting himself right up against his opponent's body and thus too close for those powerful fists to properly land their blow. Grunting with the effort, he grasped scale and armor and tried to whip himself around to where he could just see the arrow sticking out of the beastman's side.

[Twinflame]

The action Baoht Zuqqa Roh took next was so obvious a stone could have taken it. As the child of man pressed itself forward against him, Baoht Zuqqa Roh dropped his chest and pulled his arms inward, trying to crush the man.

[Naunet]

Thal grunted as his straining was brought up short abruptly. He'd nearly managed to stretch far enough to get purchase on the arrow when the Amal'jaa's arms closed in around him. He felt the pressure strangely, not as pain but still aware of the bruising of muscle and cracking of ribs. He could feel the curve of the mask Megiddo had given him digging at his hip. Kicking his feet against the Amal'jaa, he tried to ignore the pressure and strained his arm as far as he could reach towards the arrow.

[Twinflame]

Feeling the satisfying crunch of bone, Baoht Zuqq Roh did not hear the satisfying howls of pain he had hoped for. "You writhe like a captured beetle!" Seeking those cries he desired to hear, Baoht Zuqq Roh curled his head down to bite into his prey's body. The flesh tasted rotten. Men were not worth eating.

[Naunet]

"Hey! Stop that - I'm not for eating!" The hand that had been straining for the arrow changed course and delivered a solid punch to the Amal'jaa's jaw. He kicked again at the beastman's gut.

[Twinflame]

Children of men always squirm pathetically when faced with their ends. Not once had Baoht Zuqqa Roh seen one greet death with dignity, and this man was no exception. Writhing and pounding, leaving bruises beneath his scales and beating at his muscular head, not once did the small man succeed in inflicting a pain which Baoht Zuqqa Roh could not ignore. Instead, the Amal'jaa's teeth pierced through the man's chest and body. he felt his teeth pierce past muscles and through tendon, and when ripped his maw free of the man, blood was everywhere. Triumphant, Baoht Zuqqa Roh opened his arms, grabbing the man with one to cast him away. To let him bleed out and die as meat for his sand drakes.