“You can smell what in me?” The Void asked.
“That you are one of us. Or rather, you were.” The Ry replied. “I wouldn’t have dared come close to an Abomination if not for your smell. You have yet to become a monster, brother. You are better than this. Fight it!”
“Easy for you to say.” Derek snarled, the word “brother” hurt him more than his hunger. “I’m the one suffering. You are asking me to give up on my meal, on my prey for nothing but your sake. Give me one good reason.”
“I’ll do better. I’ll give you a tasty one.” The Ry nodded to his pack and the wolves stepped back. “Let the buffalos go and you can eat me. I’m stronger than any animal. I’m a magical beast. You can feed on both my mana and life force.”
The Void instinctively knew that the red-furred wolf was right. If the strongest buffalo was a torch, the Ry shone like a raging fire to his senses. Even the whole herd was nothing compared to a single magical beast.
“If you really have magic, why don’t you fight me?” Derek didn’t release his prey but he stopped feeding upon them.
“To what end?” The magical beast shook his head. “My pack would die. I would die. The herd would be massacred during our fight. I would lose everything and you’d miss the best part of your meal. Neither of us would get what he wants.
“Violence isn’t the only way to achieve victory. That’s why I’ve come here with an offer. Take me and promise to leave these lands. This way, the herd will survive and so will my pack.”
“What about you?” The Void felt a pit in his stomach that almost made him forget about his hunger.
Almost.
“I can afford to die. I already had cubs. My legacy will live on with them and my pack will have a leader better than me. I trust my children.” The Ry’s words sent a violent pang through the Abomination’s body.
He could hear a baby girl cry, he could feel her conscience calling upon him.
“Elysia.” He muttered as he suddenly knew the direction one of the missing pieces of his soul was.
At the same time, at the Verhen Mansion, the baby girl was actually crying, flaying her small limbs in her father’s direction.
“Dya! Dya!” Elysia shapeshifted into her Tiamat form, hoping that the resonance would help Lith find him but she felt no answer.
Valeron shapeshifted as well, using the Dragon scales to understand what was happening and adding his call to her own. He shared no blood with Lith but he could make Elysia’s voice louder.
“Valeron.” The black tendrils disappeared and the buffaloes were free to escape.
Free, but too weak to stand up. Only a few stumbled away, the rest just wheezed while lying down on the ground. Their hearts drummed in their chests and their legs failed them as if they had just collapsed after running for their lives.
“Thank you, brother.” The Ry used air magic to splash the drained buffalos with water from the nearby river, waking up the ones who had fainted and giving the rest something to drink.
All those who had suffered the touch of the Abomination were as gaunt and thin as after weeks of malnourishment. Even with the predator still among them, the buffalos drank and ate avidly, knowing that their lives were hanging by a thread.
The wolves herded the buffalos and guided them away from the Abomination while the Ry stood still.
Derek was wheezing as well, but not out of fatigue. The headache was back, worse than ever. He felt like he was forgetting about something important. A duty above any hunger or pain.
Yet he couldn’t remember what it was.
“Thanks for what?” By the time he came back to his senses, only he and the Ry remained.
“For keeping the first part of your word, brother.” The Ry walked forward. “I trust that you’ll keep the second part as well. Leave these lands and let my pack live.”
The magical wolf knelt down and put his head on Derek’s lap, like a convict on the chopping block.
“I’m sorry. I’m just so hungry.” Derek didn’t want to do it, but he had to.
“It’s okay. We all have to eat.” The Ry closed his eyes so that the Abomination didn’t have to stand his gaze as Derek feasted upon him.
***
The Void fed upon the magical wolf like he would have done with the buffalos. Slowly, taking his time to stave off the hunger as long as he could, and saving the Ry’s blood for Ragnarök.
Once he was done, the scabbard had recovered part of its red and the hunger was back to a bearable level. Just enough to let Derek realize what he had done and feel guilty for it.
“What have I done?” The dead Ry looked peaceful like he was sleeping. The long fur hid the dried-up skin and reminded the Void of holding the dying Protector in his arms. “What have I done?”
Derek wanted to cry but he had no tears left since the day of Carl’s death. All that remained were pain and guilt and they both came from the realization that he was still too weak to protect anything.
Too weak even to spare someone he respected from a painful death. Too weak to fight his own hunger.
“What he asked.” Ragnarök replied. “What you needed.”
Derek looked at the blade in anger but then he felt its pain. The Ry’s death had given Ragnarök relief, but it was still suffering.
“No, what we needed, little guy.” Somehow, the Void knew that the blade’s life was on the line as well and it was fighting for him. “We. Why does this word is so bittersweet? We.”
Another flash of light brown hair was followed by long raven black hair and a completely different smell. A hammer and a badge. A tower and a flower. We.
“We.” Derek mumbled as he walked away from the Ry’s corpse and the wolves’ turf. “We.”
He used that word a mantra to suppress the hunger. It was just a word but it caused him such joy, pain, and longing, that it fought the Abomination’s endless appetite on equal terms.
Sometimes, “we” even kicked the hunger down a notch.
“We.” The Void walked at Awakened speed to save his strength. “Talking wolves, magic, and talking swords. I bet I’m not the only powerful one here, little one.”
“You’re not.” Ragnarök confirmed.
“Then maybe, if I can find others like me, they can help me.” He pondered. “After all, either they do that or they become my next meal. They help themselves by helping me. It’s a win-win situation.”
They spent several minutes in silence while Derek pondered how easy it came to him taking the lives of three men and yet killing a single Ry weighed heavily on his conscience.
“You know, little guy, if I was a religious man, I’d say that this is a punishment for my actions. That this place is some kind of hell and my hunger is my curse. Yet it takes one second to realize it’s steaming pile of bullshit.”
