by J Hawk
Ion swung his sword violently all around him, slicing down the creatures engulfing the space all around him. But the monsters’ claws had breached his sword’s spinning defense and laid faint slashes across his robe, and over the first layer of his skin. He knew he would not withstand them for long now: soon, they would have ripped him apart whole.
One of them cast a seething rip on Ion’s arm with his long claws. A deep gash that seemed to boil within his flesh, leaving blood to trickle down his sleeves. The pain of the deep wound stretched like a fiery tongue over his arm, causing Ion to go off focus…
As he faltered, one of the beasts landed over him from behind … and sank his jaws into his shoulder. Ion gave a throat wrenching scream that was drowned in the roars of the beasts around him. His shoulder spurting blood, with his other arm gashed, he felt his grip on his sword slacken. As his body landed on the cold hard ground, a dull blackness cropped into the edges of his vision…
The Zelgron surrounded him, waiting to sink their jaws into his flesh … and then a voice bellowed, “HOLD IT!”
The Zelgron around Ion stopped and raised their heads. The howling, roaring of the entire horde suddenly died down. The monsters came to a stall, forming a wide circle around Ion, who was beginning to feel the world grow fuzzy. A pair of footsteps thudded towards him, and one of the Zelgron arrived before Ion, bending down.
Carcasar looked up and down Ion’s weakened, bloody form, pausing at the parts where he’d been scarred. He then threw his head back and laughed. It was a horrific, rasping noise, which made it look like it was scraped off the dead skin of his throat. Bending down, Carcasar clenched one hand around Ion’s neck, his voice a bare whisper.
“No, you will not have a quick exit, not for this,” He pointed to the scar Ion’s sword had cast over his face, damaging one eyeball. “We’ll take you back to the cave, and we’ll show you the true meaning of pain, you filthy man being.” He turned to the Zelgron around, and commanded:
“Carry him back to the cave!”
His thoughts now close to blankness, Ion could do nothing but lie there, helpless, as the Zelgron stepped into the circle, lifted his body off, and slowly carried it down the way…
Stripped of the energy needed to fight the agony of his wounds, Ion felt the lights of the world around grow dim, fuzzy … and before the Zelgron even reached the cave to torture him, he was floating away.
Ion’s last thought was a fleeting glimpse of home.
Marion. Selia. Eol…
He was going home.
And then, unconsciousness blanketed him.
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