Born a Monster

Four of the priests roared off contradicting orders. I ignored them.

Kornath roared, and charged.

My hands burst into white flame where they held the axe, flesh burning and peeling. My vision was littered with colored static. Mostly yellow and red, with bits of blue and then individual motes of every color of the rainbow.

The burning stopped the instant the axe blade cleaved into his face.

I let go at the next instant after that. There were noises, voices, screams; none of them seemed to matter.

With an exhale, I fell to one knee. In theory, I had a good portion of my health left.

In another valid sense, I was done. I blinked, but the motes of color remained. I could hear sounds, scent blood, see the objects, but none of that mattered.

It barely registered when I was hurled onto my chest, and my wrists bound behind me.

.....

The golem cleared its throat. “Excuse me, but that is the prisoner of my master.” it said.

“Temple guard,” my captor said, sticking a thumb toward its badge. “My authority...”

There was a crackle, and a whiff of cooked flesh.

The golem hefted me onto a shoulder. I just hung there, limply.

I wanted to just pass out, but the pain wasn’t cooperating.

“Gyah!” I twitched as my System exploded messages at me.

Damage from this, experience from that... One by one, I dismissed them.

I didn’t count, but it took me several minutes. I’m reasonably sure there were just over a hundred messages, but again, I didn’t count.

“Can you walk?” the golem asked.

“Do you care?” I asked.

As an answer, he plopped me on my feet, shoved me between my shoulder blades.

I walked. I walked all the way back to the inquisitor’s camp.

“I don’t see Malkin.” I said.

As a reply, the golem struck me with the pain rod. “Move.”

“What is WRONG with you?” I responded, prompting another painful touch.

That was all it took; sleep reached forth from the painful, muddled part of my existence and dragged the rest of me off to unconsciousness.

My dreams were not lucid; I keep them as my own. I remember them, but they are mine.

Malkin was there when I woke, the smell of...

“Is that camphor salt?” I asked.

Malkin shrugged. “Scented candle, I’ll take your guess as to which one.” He held up a finger. “Follow my finger as it moves around.”

“Of course I have a concussion.” I admitted.

He grasped my wrist, held my hand where I could see it. “This was poorly thought out.”

“I came to that conclusion as well.” I said.

“There is rioting,” the golem said, “if you care.”

“I... I think that I do.” I said. “Care.”

“Put it to words.” Malkin said, hurling my own hand toward my face. “I need to hear this.”

I sighed. “I underestimated how much rage was directed at this form. It’s not just the clergy; people HATE this body.”

“Indeed.” Malkin said. “The gods of chaos laugh, for tonight they dine well. Not that I personally mind, we’d have had to thin out the ranks of the militia sooner or later.”

I moved to a seating position, nursing stiff and aching muscles. “I would have gone with later. The Kamajeen still outnumber the people.”

“Let them come.” scoffed the golem. “We are people. They are just humans.”

Malkin nodded to what remained of Tigrin. “All things within what has been planned.”

I yawned, rubbed my eyelids. “So however that started, it wasn’t a duel when it finished. What comes next?”

I tapped near my left eye, but it just wasn’t coming fully into focus.

Malkin didn’t even blink. “I have plans to survive this. None of them are broad enough to help you survive. You should take a form none of us know about, and either merge back into the army, or perhaps flee.”

“Flee?” I asked. “You saw me work to take this form. Didn’t you have plans?”

He shook his head. “You’ve thoroughly disproven them. There was far too much emotion around his form; I heard the crowd tried to tear Kornath apart to get to you.”

“It looked much the other way around.” I said.

I flexed my hands, cracking open the burned parts, letting pus and blood flow.

“I recommend your human form.” Malkin said. “Tigrin, let us go and prepare for guests. Once the Conclave stops pointing fingers at each other, they’ll be coming for me to get our shapeshifter. If you are still here, I will gladly turn you over to them.”

Well, I mean it was better than being in chains and tortured until they took me away to burn me. “I don’t have the biomass.” I said.

Malkin smiled. “In your skin, I would choose to die running. Your choice, of course, is only to die. I just wanted to see how you would face it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Look at your left ankle.” the golem said, holding open the tent door for Malkin to exit.

Sure enough, there was a steel band around it, linked to a chain, which was secured to...

I examined the band. It didn’t matter.

[Ability not located. Searching for...]

With my hands, I did it manually. My System threw up the relevant damage message, and I slipped free of the cuff.

After a few tentative steps, I limped off to the back of the tent. A lifted stake, a little bit of ground shimmy, and I was free. Free in the middle of a camp of people who would recognize me on sight, and kill me.

I sighed.

Okay, I’d done this how many times, now?

At least I was outside the city wall.

Crap.

I knew where to hide, with plentiful food. The Guild was INSIDE the wall.

Almost, I almost convinced myself that was the smarter gamble. In the end, I chose the wilderness. It wasn’t as if the Kamajeen were exactly cooperating with the invading army at the moment. They’d just won a victory; the guards should be...

Nope. A quick glance showed the guards alert and watching the brush, the rolling lines of the hills. With reinforced numbers, though not quite a doubled guard.

I sighed, taking cover among some boxes while I thought. My options, realistically, were north and south. I chose south, figuring that I could enter the river if I got that far around the perimeter without finding a break in the guard posts.

It was slim, but there was a break. Not much of one, but if there was a distraction, I might manage it.

Or, maybe, magic.

I couldn’t trust my own left eye, was I really about to try tugging on the threads reality was woven from?

In the end, it was a moot point. My own escape caused the disruption I needed. Soldiers, being soldiers, were not subtle. The eyes of the guards turning inward gave me enough of a head start outward that I made a small gully that had caught my eye.

I was only halfway done with my exhale before a serrated blade was pressed up against my throat.

“Goat that humps gods from behind!” exclaimed the young boy holding the knife. “What else can go wrong today?”

He had spoken in the dialect of Kathani used by the Kamajeen.

“Let us not tempt the true god.” an elder woman said to him. “Who is that you have there, Shinabib?”

To me, Shinabib said, “You look like a cross between a riding lizard and a hobgoblin. Beast and beast, that makes you a beast.”

“Shall we debate this at a greater distance from the angry army?” I asked.

“Angry army?” the woman asked. “What have they to be angry about?”

“Kornath, called the Axe Hero, is dead by his own weapon.” I said.

“That sounds about what I would have expected of an Axe Hero.” the woman said. “Though I’ve heard the minotaur Rakkal is the Axe Hero as well.”

“So far as I know, Rakkal is the true Axe Hero, and is still alive.” I said.

“Curious.” she said. “And you appear to be a child, if a large one, who is scaled, and whose eyes do appear to be solid black.”

“It is I.” I said. “My name is Rhishisikk, and I am a Truthspeaker. I literally cannot lie to you.”

.....

As many variants as I’d had to use in the past weeks, it was good to get back to the original version.

“We should kill it.” Shinabib said. “It’s dangerous, like a scorpion.”

“That is true.” the woman said, “But it is clearly the enemy of someone who is also our enemy.”

“Why should we bother Asheph?” Shinabib asked. But he turned, and the serrations left no new marks in my neck.

“Use his full name, Asheph ibn Harran ibn Pesh. That much, he has earned.”

“Yes mother.” said Shinabib.

And some from both the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum for good measure. This even though my eyes weren’t calibrated for them at the time.

Not as hard as one thinks. Once you get used to having claws, you can do such things with a modicum of safety.

My bad eye, if you can believe that. A smudge of soil brown among the green and yellow, but enough to rouse my curiosity.