Queen in the Mud: Book 2, Chapter 4

Chapter 4

~ Mudpuppy ~

Burning. I was burning alive, every inch of my body immolated with blood red flames, dancing and twisting sadistically against my writhing skin. The pain came in piercing waves of excruciating agony in time with the flickering, violent flames.

Wind whipped around me, the trees a blur as I sprinted through the snowswept woods, my tail trailing behind me entwining my spear so that I may run on all fours.

‘Don’t think about the pain, just the hunt.’ I repeated that sentence to myself over and over like a mantra through gritted teeth. The ring of burning blood spurred me to action, boiling my veins and slamming adrenaline through my body. It demanded battle, death and blood.  ‘Just keep your eyes on the path,’ I thought to myself, my fur-lined cloak whipping against my body with the blistering speed of my movement as I wove between trees and over feet of freshly fallen snow marred only by the trail left by my prey.

The tracks in the snow dead ended, but my tracking skill helped me spot a clawed tree without breaking pace and with the aid of my triple enhanced agility, I dove over a nest of frozen brambles, tail vaulted against a tree and tore my feet against the earth, charging after a trail of fresher tracks.

My quarry was a pack of vicious monsters that the Queen had called ‘Stone Raptors,’ a kind of giant bipedal lizard covered in a thick gray stone carapace. They were pack hunters, and had a distinctive whooping call, almost like what one might expect from a bird. These monsters of the forest were territorial, dangerous and relatively high level - perfect for my purposes.

The large scars along the side of my belly from that old battle with the wyvern were normally a constant source of irritating pain, but now they lit up like a branding iron under the touch of bloodflames. Smaller battle scars I’d earned in previous hunts over the last months were no exception; My body burned with pain.

It was a small price to pay for being primed and ready for a fight the moment I found my quarry. I grit my teeth and soldiered on against the pain. I wouldn’t let something like that slow me down.

Things were changing so quickly now compared to my carefree childhood - there was no time to rest, no time to slow down. My mission in life was to be the protector, to be the shield for those that I cared about, but I came to find that purpose growing more and more difficult by the hour as the stakes rose.

In less than a month, the Queen would be launching an expedition down to the human realms. Both ‘Thads and I had tried to talk her out of going herself, saying it was too dangerous, but she wouldn’t budge. To make matters worse, she had told me that I wouldn’t be making the trip with them, that she needed me to stay here and watch the village.

The perfect opportunity to prove my worth, to show all of my efforts over the last grueling months had been denied to me. I bit back on my bitter frustration and shook my head. No, a better way to think of it was that the Queen had entrusted the village’s safety to me. That forced change in perspective did little to help my disappointment, though. In the light of that disappointment, other fears and insecurities surfaced readily in my mind.

I had little ones of my own, now. Would I be strong enough to defend them if something attacked our home? Would I be able to drive off that wyvern if it came to finish us off?

No. No, I wouldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough, not yet.

There was a simple solution to that problem, though: Grow stronger. Was the ring of burning blood terribly dangerous? Yes. Was using it to kill monsters and gain experience reckless? Yes, absolutely. I could easily die with a single misstep, shrivelled and exsanguinated in a pile of blood and snow. However, it was the fastest way within reach to grow more powerful. No slowing down. I would tear forward with all of my strength and all of my resolve - fears be damned.

The clawed trees were growing more common, the tracks fresher and more frequent as I closed in on their nest. An alarmed call of one of the beasts sounded ahead of me, warning the others of its pack. I lurched forward, diving through the snow-laden forest foliage toward the sound, clearing through the brush like a thunderbolt tearing across the sky. The monster yelped in surprise when it saw me, eyes going wide.

I slammed my tail against a tree, my bloodflame empowered body causing the wood to splinter and crack as I tail vaulted at the beast, spear in hand. The thick gray stone armor was most thin right under the small forearms, just behind the chest. I cleared the distance in an eye blink and my spear tore through the air, bloodflames trailing behind me, as stone carapace shattered and red blood slashed out around the wound.

Without the ring, I would barely be able to put a scratch on this thing’s stone skin, but with triple the strength, I could easily punch a hole straight through. The monster screamed and I ripped my spear free from its chest, swiping at the air to flick the fresh blood off my weapon and painting the snow around me like a painter flicking a crimson brush against a white canvas.

More whooping calls, furious at the dying cries of my prey filled the silence among the heavy thumping of stone-encrusted feet. My heart slammed in my chest as I held my spear out to the side, my tail splayed out behind me in a crescent. This was the resting stance of the sala-lealu spearform, that school of martial arts for which I was founder and sole practitioner.

The night I had called purple lightning along my spear, I had earned a skill with the same name as my spearform, ‘Sala-Lealu.’ With that victory in calling the lightning, even the system had given me its stamp of approval. Two months of rigorous practice had brought that skill to level thirteen, reducing the mental strain from using my lightning-based attacks and allowing me to use them more frequently. There were, of course, limitations.

The snow ahead of me exploded as two stone raptors burst out, charging me head-on. I drew back my spear, levelling it in the direction of the enemy and slowly drawing a breath to try and quiet the burning pain as the flames licked at my skin. The monsters cried out as they neared on me. I slowly exhaled and the bloodflames streamed behind me as purple lightning surged along the length of my spear, folding space to teleport me a dozen feet forward and punching a spear-shaped hole through anything between.

One of the raptors immediately crashed to the ground, the place where its heart had once been instead replaced with empty air. The second kept running on momentum for a moment before the gaping hole in its neck proved too extensive an injury to survive.

It would be another minute and a half before I could call the lightning again, and the fight would likely be over by then. Already, more whooping cries were echoing through the trees as reinforcements rushed to defend the nest. Three more raptors burst out, their gray stone carapaces grinding against the trees as they rushed at me.

Right as I squared off to face these new opponents, two more stone raptors jumped from the trees right above me, yelling out in their sonorous voices as they executed their ambush, cornering me against five powerful monsters.

I should have been terrified. Anyone else would have felt intense fear of being torn in half by these menacing beasts that dwarfed me in size, but in the absence of that fear, there was a frantic pang of exhilaration blooming in my chest. A vicious grin crawled its way across my face.

A dark, whispering voice clawed its way into the back of my mind, its venomous almost-words twisting and squirming to the surface like a snake.

Why did I have to play these mind games with myself? Honor? Loyalty? Those things were just superfluous to the secret buried deep in my heart. The truth was that I just loved fighting and feeling that rush of adrenaline slamming through my veins. There was no feeling quite like the looming threat of death, and my every action chased after it. It was only natural that chasing bloodlust would burn me out, leaving me bleeding to death.

I stood perfectly still as five monsters charged at me, their heavy bodies rumbling the ground underneath.

No, that wasn’t true - Just the ring playing with my head. I couldn’t permit myself the luxury of self doubt, I needed to be resolute for the good of my Queen and my family. I fought for their sake, not for some baser desire or bloodlust.

I stood there as long as I dared, until I could nearly feel the dampness of their breath on my skin against the biting cold and burning bloodflames. The ring quietly gave a mocking laugh from a dark corner of my mind. It was no surprise that the previous owner of this ring had lost his mind to its insidious whisperings. I clutched my fist tighter around the wood of my spear, knuckles white. And then I moved.

I pirouetted around the first raptor, bringing around my tail to slam into its knee, tripping it up and sending the monster thrashing into another, the both of them collapsing into a whooping, furious pile. In the same movement, I smashed the butt of my spear into the lower jaw of another beast, sending it off course as I righted my weapon. The fourth raptor couldn’t stop its heavy momentum as it charged, impaling itself on my spear with a scream.

I ripped my weapon free with a spray of blood and tail vaulted at the next of my prey. Fast. I was so fast I could barely keep up with my own movement. My enhanced agility helped in the form of faster reaction speed, but it took practice to get acclimated to the immediate and immense increase in my body’s capabilities. I felt every natural agility point up in the form of a sudden lurch of extra speed; Sometimes it even set me off balance.

The point of my spear whistled through the air, trailing blood and chunks of shattered gray carapace as it cleaved through the neck of the next stone-plated beast. It gurgled, sputtering as it tripped over its feet, falling to the ground. I dove over the fallen creature, bringing my spear around and stabbing through the chest of the next of my prey. The last one cried out in a fearful fit of whooping and turned to run. Too slow, too slow. Its head hit the ground with a wet thump.

The shadowed voice of something evil whispered approvingly in the back of my mind.

More whooping, these ones higher pitched, cried out from the other end of the nest. I launched forward, tearing across the ground and looking for my next kill. My grin stretched further across my face and blood dripped from my drenched hands. I raised my spear, ready to strike.

Three stone raptors, tiny and only covered in a thin crust of stone carapace, cried out in small voices. Babies, newborn for as far as I could tell, with their eyes squinted shut and blind. Cracked stone eggs lay next to them in the nest, half buried in snow, as the children cried.

The whispering ring urged me forward. Knuckles white against the haft of my spear, I drew back, spear held above as bloodflames danced along my skin. I grit my teeth, glaring down at the helpless creatures below me, and with one decisive motion, I stabbed my spear into the dirt at my feet.

Drawing back by a step, I ripped the ring off of my finger and heaved a relieved sigh as the torturous bloodflames faded away. I glared down at the malicious artifact in the palm of my hand, the gluttonous silver metal band glinting with the crimson of blood it’d drained from me as recompense for its power. Damned thing always made it so difficult to think, and the lightheadedness from blood loss didn’t help.

If the Queen knew the mind games I had to wrestle with while using the ring, I doubted she would let me keep going out alone on these hunts. The last thing I wanted was to get stuck with the hairy man as a babysitter again.

I wrested my spear from the dirt, spinning it once through the air and thumping the butt of my weapon on the ground next to me. The little ones in the nest had grown quiet, softly whooping to each other. Three of them in total.

“Ah, damn.” I mumbled to myself. I went out this morning to go hunting, and ultimately I went and showed mercy to my prey. Giving a discontent sigh, I grumbled again to myself. “I’m just a big ol’ softie, aren’t I?”

I hadn’t inherited the Queen’s disdain for violence, but I wasn’t about to slaughter a trio of helpless babies. If we needed them for food then it would have been a different matter, but I was just hunting for the experience; the meat and bones were just an added bonus. Besides, maybe they could be useful after all. Humans bred and trained animals for various tasks, who said we couldn’t do the same?

And if they proved to be useless after giving them a fair shot at domestication, we could always slaughter and eat them. The rock-plated hide was difficult to remove, but stone raptors made for delicious wood-smoked meat jerky.

I gave a resolute nod and pulled a balled-up piece of rough fabric from my cloak pocket, shaking it loose - the sack that I used to collect wild herbs and vegetables with the Queen. The little stone raptor babies gave frightened whooping cries as I scooped them into the sack and heaved the squirming thing over my shoulder.

Turning back around, I surveyed the macabre, bloody scene I’d left in the wake of my hunt. I would need to remember this location for later, so I could send the villagers to butcher the bodies for meat. Sib would likely want to poke around their organs for… whatever it was that the bone-slug always cherry-picked from the monster corpses. Until then, the snow would keep them fresh.

[Enemies Defeated: 2x Level 11 Stone Raptor

1x Level 12 Stone Raptor

3x Level 13 Stone Raptor

Experience Gained: 219

Experience to next level: 178

Note: Experience augmented due to a significant difference in level.]

[Level up! Experience requirement to reach Level 10 has been met. You have one statistic point to allocate. The mastery system has been unlocked.]

I stretched my arms out, feeling the lightheadedness of blood loss fading away as the level up replenished my health. If not for these little ones, I could have even gone out hunting for a little longer. I considered it for a moment before shaking my head.

No, this was enough for now. With this, I would be caught up with the Queen in levels, though I still felt that she would completely decimate me in a fight.

The baby stone raptors called out again in high pitched whooping cries, muffled from inside the sack over my shoulder. Glancing back toward the little ones, I sighed and began the long trek back home.