Chapter 25: Feral Hunger

Lance watched Hoplite snap the Pillar-Born back over his arm with a brutal crunch of bone, the remaining widened eye of the creature portraying shock before its death… no fear though, only shock. She shook her head, trying to organize her thoughts. Her hands were shaking, nervous sweat was pouring down her face and a deep nausea had entered her. Not for seeing the Pillar-Born be killed in such a brutal fashion…

But for knowing that Decuma was approaching its end. 

 

However, she felt something stirring within her chest as she watched Hoplite drop the broken body of the godling to the grass. Seeing the broken corpse of the world-ending monster at the feet of a mortal made Lance feel as if perhaps just maybe… Ah! Why couldn’t she figure out this feeling? A warm faith in her chest that made her feel as if all would be alright… if only she could get her thoughts together…

 

Then it hit her.

 

It was hope. Hope that this age wouldn’t have to end after all. A mortal had never been able to kill a Pillar-Born before… and yet Hoplite had, he had killed the creature brutally. Sure, she and Michael had helped by firing those thunderstaves… but even three mortals working together shouldn’t have been enough to kill a godling.

 

Lance had a feeling that even if she and Michael hadn’t assisted Hoplite in the fight, that the end result would have been almost the same. It just would have taken Hoplite a lot longer to finish the job. Right after the body hit the grass, Hoplite fell to one knee and Lance rushed to his side. Michael for his part kept his rifle trained on the corpse of the monster, not moving an inch from his place atop the fallen log of the tree.

 

She placed a hand on Hoplite’s shoulder plate and leaned closer to the helmet.

 

“Are you alright?” She asked.

 

“I am fine.” Hoplite replied, standing after a moment’s pause “The threat has been neutralized.”

 

Hoplite’s voice sounded strained, she realized, and her eyes widened as he removed his helmet to reveal sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, devoid of any emotion save for an intense… craving. It was as if he had gone days without food. Lance knew for a fact that wasn’t the case, she had seen Hoplite eat before the camp was packed up that morning. His cheeks had been full and healthy then… What happened?

 

“I need… to eat.” Hoplite said almost breathlessly, falling to all fours once again “My organs were ruptured.”

 

Hoplite hung his head down low for a second before he began ripping grass out in huge handfuls, shoving morsels of the green blades down his gullet without even chewing. Lance frowned and urgently began patting Hoplite on that broad shoulder plate.

 

“I’ll get you some real food! You aren’t a cow Hoplite!” She yelled at him, though he didn’t even slow his consumption.

 

“He must’ve gotten pretty beat up to get that hu-hungry.” Michael said from the stump with a nervous stutter, his rifle still firmly trained on the monster's corpse “I- uh-I heard Hoplite’s can heal quick from pretty bad wounds, but th-they gotta eat a lot to keep up with the regeneratin’... Got no idea how it wo-works though.” He finished, his teeth clenching together to stop their chattering.

 

Surely Michael couldn’t be cold in this summer heat? Lance noticed Michael’s eyes flick for just the briefest of instants toward the grazing Hoplite, and Lance could see cold fear in those eyes. Fear of Hoplite, not fear for him, if Lance was reading that right. Why would Michael look at Hoplite in such a way? She hadn’t seen fear in Michael’s eyes for Hoplite before… So why now when Hoplite was grazing like a horse that had been starved for weeks?

 

“Those hits were-” Michael continued, taking a deep breath before continuing “Those hits that guy threw were pretty dang hard, probably shook Hopp’s guts up pretty good through the armor.”

 

Lance turned back to Hoplite, rifling through her pouch and pulling out a handful of dry jerky “I don’t understand how his… abilities work, but a man shouldn’t graze like an animal-”

 

She gasped when Hoplite swiped the meat from her hand forcefully, shoving the morsels down his gullet while barely stopping to chew. Lance frowned in concern at Hoplite, but she didn’t try to stop him as he finished eating the jerky. Regeneration? Lance knew for a fact that Hoplite couldn’t be a Foundation user, and he certainly couldn’t be Pillar-Born given his outworlder origins. So how was it that Hoplite was capable of regeneration?

 

Despite certainly not drawing on the Golden Flame, Hoplite’s healing seemed to work the same way as it did with those rare pure Foundation users. Mage’s normally could force their bodies to seal their own wounds with Foundation, using the Golden Flame to build the House of Dandeonla... Lance knew that some people could draw directly on the Flame without using it to support one of the three Houses of Foundation, but it was a terribly dangerous thing to do.

 

Without learning how to build the House of Dandeonla, a mage could use Foundation to recover from injury… but with pure Foundation, the Flame could only draw on the mage’s own body mass to heal. The creature Hoplite had slain certainly was a Foundation user, as well as a Pillar-Born… the wounds the Pillar-Born had sustained from those bullets should have been too much for any mage to heal from; even with raw Foundation… perhaps the godling could regenerate without the aid of Foundation? Or perhaps it had simply supplemented its natural regeneration with Foundation somehow?

 

The creature had certainly not built the House of Dandeonla before channeling regrowth… Lance would have been able to tell if he had. After all, before her career as a watcher, Lance had taken to training to join the tree-bringers. She had never really gotten a hold of channeling Foundation however… which meant that she could never build the house of Dandeonla to breathe more life to the Faewood… 

 

She shook her head. Lance needed to keep her attention on her starving friend, not how the dead monster could heal itself so effectively without building the House of Dandeonla, and she certainly should not be thinking of her failed studies of the past. It was done with, she could never tap into Foundation’s Flame… and that was that.

 

“Grass won’t be nutritious for you Hoplite.” Lance told him as he finished the jerky with gnashing teeth.

 

“I can eat…” Hoplite said with a gasp “I can eat anything.”

 

Hoplite’s golden eyes turned up to hers then, and Lance could see a deep unsatiated hunger there. A desperate hunger. He would need to eat more, but Lance was all out of jerky. There would be more rations in the bundle of equipment he had dropped earlier… yes, she would go and-

 

Hoplite’s eyes suddenly turned away from Lance, and he snarled, baring his teeth and darting forward on all fours towards an unseen attacker behind her. Lance whirled, drawing her daggers to see-

 

A rabbit?

 

Yes, a rabbit darting between the trees. Hoplite soon bore down on the small animal, catching up to it quickly while still on all fours like a feral wolf. Again like a wolf, Hoplite growled as he snatched the creature up in his jaws. The rabbit then let out a high pitched wail as Hoplite’s teeth ripped into its hide, lifting it from the ground in a spray of blood.

 

Lance took a horrified step away as Hoplite began to-

She looked away, turning to Michael to see him aiming the sights of his rifle down on Hoplite, sweat pouring down his brow as the sounds of snapping bones and ripping fur entered her ears. Michael’s eyes found her’s, and Lance could read sheer terror in them. Michael’s mouth fell slightly agape, and he turned away from Lance, training his rifle again on the corpse of the Pillar-Born…

 

Did Michael think that Hoplite had been going to…

 

No, surely not… but then why such a reaction? Lance moved further away from Hoplite, feeling disgusted by what he was doing to that poor animal. She didn’t despise Hoplite for it, for surely it was his voracious hunger that forced him to savagery that could put an orc to shame. Yet, the sound of flesh tearing, little bones breaking, and Hoplite’s subsequent gulping sent shudders down her spine and churned her guts…

 

Shaking, she approached the bundle of dropped camping equipment, where it still lay near the tip of the fallen tree Hoplite had blasted apart with his shotgun. A shame that… but the tree-bringers could sew it back together with the House of Dandeonla, so in Lance’s eyes it wasn’t too offensive. Still unfortunate for the poor tree however, for being sewn back together was rarely a painless process for the tree.

 

Lance knelt and pulled a pack free from the jumble of gear, rummaging through it and pulling out more morsels of jerky and hard tack. She took as much as she could carry in her hands, anything to stop Hoplite from charging another animal like some feral beast. When she turned she saw Hoplite kneeling where he had snagged the rabbit, panting heavily and groaning in pain. 

 

Hearing Hoplite openly expressing any form of agony sent another cold chill down Lance’s spine…

 

Lance quickly rushed over to him, Michael sparing a pleading look for her as she went. Likely Michael didn’t want Hoplite to know that he had aimed his thunderstaff upon him… Yet Lance could also see worry in the young man’s eyes. Concern for Lance mixing with the fear of Hoplite.

 

Once she reached Hoplite’s backside, she slowly came into his field of view, walking in a circle outside of his reach until she came to face him. The lower half of his face was covered in blood and fur, his tongue licking away scraps of raw flesh and blood off his lips. She noticed that Hoplite’s cheeks had filled out somewhat, yet were still more sunken than was normal. Lance immediately felt guilty after she simply threw the food down in front of him, like someone giving a meal to a rabid dog that was liable to bite if one got too close… Hoplite wouldn’t bite her though of course… surely.

 

Lance flinched as Hoplite’s hands quickly scooped up the food, eating it as swiftly as he had before. What would Hoplite have done had he gotten more injured in his battle with the Pillar-Born…? If the fight had dragged on longer without Lance and Michael’s aid? Would Hoplite have eaten Michael and her if his hunger drove him to it? Would he have been able to resist the craving?

 

Her skin felt cold as she watched Hoplite finish the food she had tossed him. That feral hunger in his eyes diminishing only a slight bit. For a few moments Lance considered not accompanying the two outworlders into the Fiendwood… but she had promised already that she would accompany them, and Hoplite was her friend…

 

But could she ever let him carry her again after witnessing this? Would she ever be able to speak with him the same way she had knowing that one day he may eat her alive to save his own life?

 

She did not know.

 

Michael’s reaction earlier hadn’t been uncalled for perhaps… She would talk with the young man about it more later, but not where Hoplite could hear them. Hoplite sighed as he finished the last scrap of food, and stood from the ground slowly, shaking his head as he turned away from her. 

 

“I apologize.” Hoplite said flatly “I was… I couldn’t stop myself.”

 

With that, he began walking toward where he had taken off his helmet, snatching it up and sliding it over his head to conceal that bloody face. Lance sighed and looked down at where the rabbit had been…

 

There was nothing left now, not even bones, just a spatter of crimson amongst the countless green blades of grass. It glittered in the sunlight, and Lance had to struggle to look away from the gruesome sight. Spying Michael again atop the fallen tree, she noticed that his gun had finally lowered. It was wise that Michael was keeping certain that the Pillar-Born did not rise, if it had been her…

 

Her hand went to the pistol Michael had given her, tucked into her belt securely.

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Lance wouldn’t have taken her eyes off the corpse for a while… no, she would in fact just take to throwing the body in a fire. Let not a trace of the godling remain, who knew what powers they could have inherited from their third parent? She opened her mouth to tell Michael to train his rifle upon the corpse again, but he seemed distracted by something.

 

He was no longer looking in the direction of the corpse, but was now looking directly at Hoplite, the fear in his eyes only somewhat faded as he flashed hand-talk to the massive man. Hoplite communicated back in the same form of hand-talk, with Michael flashing two fingers upright and Hoplite replying with his index finger and thumb raise while the rest remained furled.

 

Watchers had their own form of hand-talk, but whatever kind of hand-talk Michael and Hoplite were utilizing was completely alien to her. Yet she knew that they would only be using hand-talk if there were a threat nearby… it was what they had done when the Pillar-Born had retreated behind that tree. The question was…

 

What concerned them now?

Pulling the pistol awkwardly from her belt, Lance moved as close to Hoplite as she could bring herself to, still deeply unsettled from what she had just witnessed. Michael had taught her how to hold it properly, but the grip was still unfamiliar to her. Considering the intense combat happening at the time, she hadn’t really had the time to practice her grip. It was amazing that Lance’s shot had landed where she had intended.

 

Beginner’s luck certainly.

 

Hoplite gestured toward Michael again, and the marine hopped down from the log, crouching beneath it with his rifle at the ready. Hoplite repeated that very same gesture to her, and Lance moved to crouch next to Michael. Hoplite then hopped over the log, landing in a loud crash before walking toward where she assumed he had dropped his shotgun. 

 

“Why do you tell those two to hide?” She heard a familiar man’s voice say “Lancela, show yourself now!” The voice commanded, the strain of anger in the voice bringing recognition to Lance’s ears.

 

Oh no… 

 

Lance’s head popped up over the log, leaving only the upper half of her face in view. By the Pillars… it was who she thought it was. Long honey-blonde hair reached down to his narrow shoulders, his pointed ears sticking up between the thick strands of golden locks. Short even for an elf, he would barely come up to her or Michael’s shoulders, and compared to Hoplite the newcomer may as well have been a dwarf. The paleness of the elf’s flesh brought out the fiery red hue of his eyes, eyes that glared fury at Lance as she moved to fully stand, sliding the pistol back into her belt as she did so. Lance saw that today he wore an intricate gold lined silk garb of a fiery red hue, with a cape to match draped about his shoulders that just barely touched the forest floor. It was completely different from the garb she had seen him wearing in the Harkhall just a few days ago.

 

“Fire-eyes Terlin!” Lance shouted “I was just-”

 

“You were just what?” Terlin snapped, those fiery eyes fixing on her.

 

Lance’s blood froze, knowing that Terlin; if he chose, could immolate her in flame that very instant. Terlin had perhaps the most powerful Dok-Ah in the world, and that was on top of being a powerful mage that specialized in building the House of Kyria, the Pillar God of Magic. If he was here… then had he been sent after the Pillar-Born? Had the monster drawn the attention of the Harkhall before it had encountered Hoplite?

 

“I see that the…” Terlin turned his gaze upon the snapped in half corpse of the godling “Problem has been taken care of, I would know how this came to be.”

 

Lance climbed over the log as Michael began to stand, staring at Terlin with a furrowed brow. She prayed to all three head Pillar-Gods that Michael wouldn’t say anything stupid to Terlin, he seemed like he was prone to causing mischief with high-ranking officials such as Terlin. It was just a feeling she had.  

 

Hoplite stood tall a dozen paces away from Terlin with his shotgun in hand. Terlin flicked eyes toward Hoplite for a brief instant before turning his angry gaze back to Lance. Strange… for the briefest of instants Lance could see fear in those eyes… That was something she’d never expect to see from Fire-Eyes Terlin. Why would he be scared of Hoplite? Terlin hadn’t been afraid to come after a Pillar-Born apparently, so why did the sight of Hoplite unnerve him so? Perhaps it was the fact that Hoplite had killed the creature? Then again, Terlin had just arrived, he couldn’t know that for certain.

 

It would be best not to bring it up to Terlin, else she may stoke the flame of his anger for pointing out his fear.

 

“We neutralized the threat.” Hoplite told Terlin in a monotone before Lance could speak.

 

Terlin did not look at Hoplite, instead keeping his hot gaze on Lance. He must have been able to read the fear in her eyes, for he grinned in a most pleased-looking manner.

 

“Lancela is not capable of performing such a feat, and the boy looks no more capable than her at dispatching a creature such as this.” Terlin replied, turning to look at the corpse of the Pillar-Born “The weakness and incompetence born in Lancela would not have prevailed over a godling, and a mere human boy could not bring down such a monster.” He continued, turning to look behind Lance, likely to where Michael stood behind the log “I can see the weakness in his eyes, the deep festering fear of a coward buried beneath a mask of bravado. Now, tell me what actually happened Lancela. Now.”

 

Lance was glad Terlin was looking away from her in that moment, for the fury that blazed in her eyes would have stoked Terlin’s greater rage in an instant. Thankfully she managed to stuff it away before Terlin turned back, it was a simple matter of remembering just what Terlin was capable of. It wasn’t like it was only Lance that he insulted in such a way either… in Terlin’s point of view, every other living thing on Ahkoolis was either incompetent or a dissapointment.

 

Now, how should she go about reporting this-

 

“I ain’t no boy you stuck-up twink.” Michael growled, irritation plain in his tone.

 

Lance’s jaw dropped in horror as she turned to look at Michael. 

 

The marine’s glare for Terlin held a hot anger that lit up those blue eyes like twin suns submerged in a boiling sea “I would slap the absolute shi-” Michael began, blue eyes meeting  Terlin’s fiery red.

 

“Be quiet private.” Hoplite said firmly, cutting Michael off to Lance’s relief “Do not speak unless spoken to.”

 

Michael’s mouth immediately snapped shut and he turned his eyes away from Terlin’s hot gaze. Did Michael not know that Terlin could kill him in an instant!? She internally chided herself for the thought, of course he didn’t. Michael was an outworlder after all. Lance slowly turned away from Michael, seeing Terlin’s face turning red as the veins in his neck and temples bulged in an attempt to escape his flesh.

 

Hoplite moved to stand in the path of where Terlin was staring, and in an instant that bubbling rage was replaced by that same fear from earlier. The veins seemed to deflate as Terlin paled, craning his head to look up at Hoplite. It was something she never thought she would live to see… Terlin afraid? There was something else at play here, Terlin had the bravery of an orc with half a brain… So why did Hoplite provoke this kind of reaction from him?

 

“I finished the job.” Hoplite told Terlin in that same firm tone “Lance and private Michael helped me neutralize the Pillar-Born.” He continued, calm anger slowly spilling into his voice “Do not disrespect them, and do not doubt me.”

 

Lance’s eyes widened at the sudden heat in Hoplite’s voice, and she was afraid that Terlin was going to lash out with his magics at Hoplite’s tone… but to her shock, Terlin actually took a step back! Truly, it must have been the end of Decuma for Terlin to behave in such a manner. 

 

She loved every second of it.

 

Terlin regained his composure just as what must have been hundreds of watchers, both of the night and of the day, began to emerge from the forest behind him. They hopped through the branches high above, the color shifting cloaks making it seem as if a wall of water were passing overhead. The night watchers came like shadows, stark against the daylight and brandishing crossbows ready to fire. They came to surround the corpse of the Pillar-Born, some sparing wary glances for Michael but none for Hoplite.

 

Every watcher at this point must have known who Hoplite was and that he wasn’t a danger, but Michael…

 

She turned to see Michael with his rifle half-raised, looking with concern in his eyes toward Hoplite as watchers began to surround them. The massive man turned his helmet toward Michael and he flashed hand-talk. Michael eased slightly at the unknown command, but he kept his finger on the trigger of his rifle. Terlin took a deep-breath, and turned to address the hundreds of watchers now closing in.

 

“The Pillar-Born is slain. Rest be for our friends and for the watch-captain of the night!” Terlin shouted, freezing Lance’s blood.

 

Muro was… Muro was dead? He had given her a chance when everyone else had given up on her for a failure… Once the shock of the news faded, tears began to well in the corners of her eyes at the news, and she bit her lower lip to stop it from quivering. Muro had been the best watcher in the whole Faewood, and he had taught Lance nearly everything she knew… and now he was just dead? 

 

Lance had wanted to say goodbye to him before she left for the Fiendwood… The Pillar-Born had killed him? It had killed Muro and other watcher’s as well? How many fell to the monster’s hands before it was laid low by Hoplite?

 

The watcher’s all began cheering and weeping as Terlin approached the corpse of the Pillar-Born, looking down his nose at the thing before his eyes flashed. In an instant, the body was gone in a torrent of golden flame, leaving nothing behind.

 

Not even ash.

 

That minute detail almost drew her thoughts away from the coming death celebrations… At that moment though, Lance felt overwhelmed, unable to concentrate on such a small thing as that. She remembered Muro telling her that he wanted his death celebration to be one to end the age… she wondered if he knew that he would get his wish.

 

Lance hoped Hoplite understood that before she left the Faewood… She had to throw a party for Muro’s death-day. Human’s never understood the elven ways for funerals. Human funerals entailed gathering together to be miserable for the deceased. At least, that was what Lance had heard anyway. Elves however, were the opposite. After a death, those close to the deceased would gather together to hold revelry, to pleasantly remember the fallen as they were returned to the roots. 

 

Lancela would not be missing Muro’s return. Not for anything.

 

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