Chapter 37: Funeral
Kaedros watched as the healer opened her mouth to speak, only for her words to be lost forever.
She collapsed, a monster’s leg lodged through her skull, blood spraying across her nearest companion.
The White steel stared in mute horror, paralyzed by the suddenness of Marr’s death. But Han snapped out of it first. His body trembled, and faint red wisps of energy coiled around him like smoke.
"Who did that!" he roared, voice cracked with rage.
His axe glowed, a deep molten red, and as he stepped forward, the ground cracked beneath his boots. "Who dares?!"
A giggle answered him, a grotesque sound like a grown man imitating a baby’s laugh. It came from the forest where the projectile had flown from.
And then it rose.
The monster.
Eighteen feet tall, it was an oversized version of the small one Ben had scolded earlier. Dark fur covered its body. Its two horns curled forward like ram’s horns, and its mouth, lined with finger-length fangs, opened wide as it giggled again, louder, uglier.
"So it was you," Han laughed, a broken, drunken sound, like a man who’d just lost everything at the gambling table. "Thank you for showing yourself."
"Dark fur Maulgig," Thandor said, calm despite the tension thickening the air. He glanced at Han, who was stalking forward steadily. "Rank one. He should be able to handle it."
"Dark fur?" Kaedros asked, narrowing his eyes.