D.K.R Chapter 7 Elder Part 5 A Double Edged Lycanthropic Sword

  • Hasir was rudely awakened by his bones expanding which caused him so much pain that he could not hope to sleep through it. His

    eyes snapped open as he let out a blood curling yell as his scales stretched to accomodate the newly formed bones. He looked

    over to see Khash fast asleep on her bed of hay that he made up for her some hours before. He screamed bloody murder as he felt

    his limbs being torn from him by invisible horses. His soul split in two with the second half already in its white lupine form. Fur burst

    from his body, claws burst from huge black paws. He look at Khash's body limp in dreamland. He reached out to her with his paw to

    try and asked for help, before he could form the word in its entirety, a bloodcurtling screamed rang through the ship; razor sharp

    fangs burst from his gums and his mouth and nose fused together while eloongated into a wolf snout.

     

    Bloodfang stood there, muzzle wrinked and a sound of a truck engine enimated from deep within him as he pulled his lips back to

    reveal rows of pointy white fangs; ropes of saliva hanging from the upper row. He ran toward the sleeping Argonian, who stirred just

    as the wolf was just about to sink his fangs into her flesh. The white wolf intervened and put a paw in front of the Argonian, blocking

    her from the black wolf's dripping maw.

     

    Sensing that she was still asleep snugly on the straw. Bloodfang strode over to the cage door and scrutinized the door. Since bashing

    the door did not work last time, he tired biting the bars even though this did not work before. If you continue doing this you will

    break your fucking teeth Said a nagging small voice in his head. Instead of continuing this foolish endeavor, he backed off, thought

    on this in a well informed manner and brandished a single black claw which contrasted against the brown ship interior, or at least the

    brown wall interior seen through the bars of his cell. The wolf inserted his claw in the key hole which he saw when he maintained a

    level head about this rather than trying to get to his next prey forcefully.

     

    He manuvered the claw around the interior working of the lock. After some minutes, all of the pins of the lock gave way and the door

    swung open. The wolf stepped out and sniffed the air and listened to the world with his new enhanced hearing. Unseen by

    Bloodfang, the white wolf, Frost, followed close behind because he knew he was a part of the two parts that made up Hasir's soul. He

    knew that if Bloodfang were to be destroyed then he would, by extension, be destroyed as well. A thought passed through his mind  

    If Bloodfang starts the action of killing, then you must finish it. He thought on this for some time and found some merit in it. He

    reluctantly slunk in the shadow behind the black wolf who was five feet in front of him, closing in to his destination: a cell

    perpendicular from his which contained a stormy-colored khajiit fast asleep on a bed of straw. 

     

    He proceeded to unlock the khajiit's cell door with a well placed black claw. The white wolf lowered to its stomach and whimpered

    as he feared what the black would might do. The black wolf looked over its shoulder, saw the white wolf cowering and thought about

    how he was being a scared pup, growled at him and jerked his head toward the open cage door. The white wolf followed

    reluctantly; its movement slow, tail between its legs and ears flat against its head. He saw three barrels and hid behind them

    watching the black part of his soul warily. 

     

    The khajiit stirred and looked up at the wolf with its muzzle wrinkled and lips pulled back showing rows upon rows of sharp teeth

    dripping with saliva. The khajiit's question answered itself when he looked into the wolf's hard staring, narrowed eyes. He looked

    back at it with a calm, almost dumb look on his face; he was silently hoping internally that the wolf would see this act and leave him

    alone; this, however, did nothing. In a split second Bloodfang leapt for the khajiit and tore into his ribcage with a ferocity few beasts

    could match. He wiggled his head to and fro trying to extract the heart from the screaming khajiit. The wolf suceeded and began

    munching on the heart greedily. Unseen by the two wolves, Nerethi stirred from his slumber, saw what was going on and rushed

    topside.

     

    Above deck, the other dunmer were sitting in furred chairs talking to one another when Nerethi burst from the undercarriage of the

    ship. He was yelling something about a wolf attack, though the conversing dunmer hardly heard him. He groaned and raised his

    voice so loud that it drowned out whatever his fellow shipmates were talking about.

     

    The dunmer finally got their attention as they turned their heads toward him,

    "By the gods, Nerethi, what is it? Couldn't you see we were having a riveting conversation?"

     

    The dunmer who had just come up from the ship's hold nodded nervously,

    "Y-Yes and I do apologize for that but," He turned as white as a sheet, "One of our prisoners is being attacked by a rabid dog."

     

    The other dunmer looked at each other and roared with laughter,

    By the tribunal Nerethi, you must be drunk...or mad," The dunmer got up, walked over to him and put him arm around his shoulder,

    "Nonetheless, we will have a look and see if this 'rabid dog' isn't just a figment of your imagination." He then turned to his two other

    comrades sitting in their seats, "come on lads, this should be good for a laugh." He said as he roared with laughter soon joined by

    the other dunmer. They continued laughing as they went down into the ship's cargo hold.

     

    The dunmer all froze on the first, second and third steps as they beheld a large dog standing over a dead khajiit, his chest ripped

    open,

    "Okay, so Nerethi was not joking." They said collectively. The proceeded further into the cargo hold and brandished their weapons.

    Sounds of unsheathing metal cut rang out through the room. Swords raised they ran toward the threat and were about to cut into

    wolf when the wolf had bared his teeth and leapt at one of the men knocking him to the ground, shattering his ribcage with a huge

    black paw and ate the poor guy's heart. When he was done with his meal he leapt between the others and did the same with them

    as with the first dunmer. The stagnant air became thick with the smell of blood.

     

    The two wolves did not notice the sun peaking over the clouds of the overcast sky. both the black and the white dropped to the floor

    and writhed as though they were doing so from poison introduced into their blood; They yelped continuosly asthe Argonian's bones

    painfully shrunk and reslotted themselves into his pre-wolf state. The yelps of pain of the black and white wolf turned into cries of

    pain as Hasir transformed back. 

     

    His eyes fluttered open as he look around him and shrieked in terror,

    "Gah! What in Oblivion happened here?" He shrieked, edging himself away from the dead grey-skinned bodies which were arranged

    in a macabre circle around the Argonian. Khash came out from Hasir's cage several feet behind the argonian. She stopped a few feet

    from the Argonian and almost slipped and fell on some unseen sticky fluid; She looked down and her eyes went wide; red, viscous

    liquid was flowing from an open wound in the yawning ribcage of the dunmer nearest her. She crept closer to him, her hands flying

    to her mouth; his heart was gone. Khash looked around here in the circle of bodies; she went to each one in turn. She shrieked in

    terror as each of the bodies had suffered the same fate.

     

    She saw Hasir huddled in the corner of the room near some stacked boxes on a bed of straw. The small Argonian put a hand around

    the terrified adult-aged Argonian. She looked at him expecting to see tears flow from his eyes like raindrops from the heavens. He

    did not shed tears but felt shame for what he did, even though he did not remember doing it.

     

    Khash embraced him and looked him in his blue eyes,

    "Hasir, that," She gestured to the middle of the wood floor where the dead bodies were, "was not your fault, your wolf did that not

    you." She said, reassuring him and giving him a slight smile.

     

    Khash reached up and wiped a tear from Hasir's eye and smiled at him,

    "Come on, let's get this mess cleaned up and get back into our cages." She cast around as if to see a guard in an unseen corner of

    the room, "Judging from the slowing of the ship, we must be nearing Dren plantation." She said straining her ears to hear the water

    more clearly.

     

    Hasir slid down the wall and thudded onto the wooden floor,

    "You go ahead Kash, I don't deserve to go, if I do, I will be a slave either way." He said glumly

     

    Khash furrowed her eyebrows at him and said she did not understand. Hasir looked at her with fiery red eyes and told her, albeit all

    too loudly, that he was a monster and he did not deserve to live. Khash hissed angrily at him and told him not to be so down on

    himself and that his lycanthropy is not a death sentence. Hasir shook his head slowly and said he appreciated the sentiment but he

    did not feel so cheerful.

     

    The ship slowed even more as it approached the plantation docks,

    "Hurry," Khash hissed, "we need to move these bodies and clean up the blood before anyone sees." She cast left and right to see if

    there were any cracks large enough to hide the body in, even though that might be hard with their ribcages in their current state.

    Hasir got up, giving into defeat and helped the teenaged Argonian clean up.

     

    Khash barked orders to Hasir,

    "Hasir, pick up however many bodies you can carry and," She narrowed her eyes, obviously looking for a pristine hiding place for the

    bodies; her eyes lit up as she found a space just large enough for the khajiit body behind the rows of barrels that lay near his cage.

    Khash also said that they would try to hide the dunmer bodies as best they could. She directed Hasir to place the first two bodies in

    a huge straw pile that lay against the wall adjacent to the trap door. 

     

    Hasir's eyes flitted between the dead bodies they were in the process of moving and the haypile,

    "Ermmm... Kash, Will they get suspicious if we do this? I mean, the guards be coming down here to fetch us soon. Won't they

    question four dead bodies sticking out of the hay?" He asked, cocking his head at her.

     

    Khash said just to do it and not think about the reprocushions as they will be on Dren plantation proper before the guards notice

    anything. Hasir did not see that Juleen and Drujeeta had been freed by Khash moments before and stepped in to help. Within an

    hour, they had dumped every body minus the khajiit's mangled corpse into the pile of hay near the steps leading from the trapdoor,

    and scrubbed the floor clean with a sponge and a bucket of water that lay next to the haypile.

     

    As if on cue, a guard dressed in Imperial armor, judging from the shade of his skin he was an imperial, not a dunmer like the

    Argonian had hoped for. Hasir frowned when he saw the somewhat heavy set imperial walking down the steps. The steps groaned

    and creaked under his heavy foot falls, so much so in fact that Hasir was amazed the steps did not break in half due the increased

    stress. 

     

    As he steadily approached the Argonians he produced a length of rope and began to loosely fashion four holes large enough for scaly

    hands to fit through. He looked at them and smiled malicously,

    "Hope you had a nice rest slaves, now get your asses up on deck." He growled, he stopped and glanced at the Argonian, "Oi! why

    were ya out of your cages?" Nerethi told me when he said there were slaves on this ship that I could find them in their respective

    cages, what in Oblivion am I going to tell him now? That they were planning their escape?"

     

    Hasir walked up to the Imperial, smiled at him (though the Imperial thought it was more of a beastly snarl) and delivered a sharp

    uppercut that connected with the Imperial's chin and propelled him several feet backward where he smashed into the wall next to

    the haypile, slid down the wall and fell headfirst into it, his unconscious mind unaware that there were dead bodies around him.

     

    The assaulter ran up the steps and slipped through the door. The other Argonians took one look at the feet sticking out of the hay

    and followed Hasir. When Hasir and his gang of outlaws were topside, three dunmer led by Nerethi Hlaalu were staring at him, eyes

    narrowed in disgust; Hasir looked up, even the sky seemed to not have liked their little display of power below desk.

     

    Hasir told his followers to fan out; He hoped by them doing as he ordered, they would have a increased chance of success. Nerethi

    broke off from the other dunmer who were now spread across the ship fighting the other Argonian slaves.