Short Story + Update! (Patreon)

It's been a while since I posted a general update.  Below is a short story I wrote for an anthology called Legendary LitRPG.  It's currently up on Amazon but NOT Kindle Unlimited meaning I can share the story with you (also meaning that it is bombing/flopping : - X).  There are a lot of cool authors that threw stories in there (and the end result is over 1000 pages).  If you like short stories, you should check it out.  Around the end of the month we will have audio with different narrators doing each story (I have the wonderful Christian Gilliland doing mine)

Also, Tower of Somnus has been announced for kindle unlimited starting on July 6 so this is your early warning that around the end of the month book one will be leaving patreon (also if you want to pre-order, I obviously won't say no).

And now, without further ado, the short story:

- - - - - Moonlit Farm- - - - -

Pete grunted, calloused hands clenched around the leather grip of his flail.  His back and shoulders heaving as he swung the heavy metal ball from its resting spot at his feet.  It traced an arc, maybe an arms-length from him as it pulled the flail’s chain taut, before it slammed into the pile of barley with a dull thud.

“Swenard!”  a deep male voice shouted.  “You’re going to need to pick up the pace!  Nicolas just got back from town with the replacement sacks we needed, and it sounds like Tenneville’s weather witch has performed an augury.  It’s going to rain tomorrow ‘bout noon, and we’ll need all of the grain dehulled and stored someplace dry by then or it will spoil.”

He stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow and frowning at the silhouette that stood in the doorway to the barn.  Dried straw stuck to his bare, sweat-covered chest, and it took everything in Pete not to claw at the scratchy substance.

At his feet, the pile of barley was almost the same size it had been an hour ago.  Worse, there were another five piles of chaff and grain, each about waist high, and all waiting for Pete’s attention.

“I don’t know about that, Mister Hampton,” he replied.  “I’m ready to work all night to make sure the harvest gets done, but I just don’t know if we’ll be finished processing the barley by tomorrow.”

The older man stepped out of the barn, grunting as he surveyed Pete’s work.  After a moment or two, he sighed, turning to walk toward the nearby farmhouse.

“You might have a point Peter,” Hampton said unhappily before he turned and strode away.  “I’ll grab Nicolas and join you out here in a minute.  Much as I’d like to take a moment to slack off, it’s too big a job for one man, let alone a boy.”

Pete bristled at Hampton’s back for a moment, hands clenching the haft of his flail.  No one but Mike Hampton called him Peter, and most of the time, that was to admonish him.

He was twenty, but as far as Mike was concerned, Pete was still a boy.  Nicolas was five years older than him, and he had been working for Hampton farm since he turned sixteen.  As the ‘senior’ farm hand, that meant that he got the better jobs, caring for the livestock and traveling to and from town to pick up supplies.

Pete wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t jealous of the man, but at the same time, he wouldn’t be on the farm forever.  He was already old enough to make the journey to Highcliff and join the Duke’s army.  There, he’d actually be able to make a name for himself during the incursions, and hopefully make enough money to buy a small piece of land once he grew older.

Mike Hampton wasn’t a bad man.  He was strict and required hard work out of his farmhands, but he was generous in his own way.  After all, the Hampton family farm had been nice enough to take Pete in after his parents had been killed during a star spawn raid, but he had paid that debt off years ago.  The farm gave him a roof over his head, food in his stomach, and a couple silver to clink together in his pocket when he went to town on holidays, but it wasn’t the future he wanted.  It was someone else’s.

The head of Pete’s flail slammed into the grain, continuing the slow process of threshing the barley.  He grunted, shrugging his shoulders against the burn from the constant activity.  Muscles that had grown from years of hard, physical labor, bunched and corded up and down his bare back.

His muscular and athletic body might be a legacy of his time and work on the farm, but Pete had repaid his debts years ago.  Really, there was nothing holding him to the Hampton farm.  He should have left months ago, but for some reason he couldn’t take the final step of giving his notice and setting out for Highcliff.

“Pete!”  An urgent hissed whisper, pulled his attention from the barley.

In the shadow of the barn, a silhouette separated itself from the wooden building, and a smile lit Pete’s face.

“Meredith,” he replied, taking a step away from his labor.  “Shouldn’t you be asleep right now?  Your dad will get upset if he sees you talking to me while I should be working.”

“He’ll survive,” she said, sticking her tongue out as she stepped into the light of the lanterns that were illuminating the barnyard.

She was a little shorter than him, her shoulder length brown hair framing a cheerful, freckled face.  Meredith winked as she handed Pete a jug filled with water.

“Dad always does this,” Meredith continued, rolling her eyes as Pete gratefully drank from the ceramic container.  “He sends the farmhands out to work and then forgets to give you breaks and water.  It’s inhumane.”

“Thanks Mary,” Pete said, lifting the pot above his head to tip some of the water into his tousled brown hair.  “At least today, he’s right.  There’s a lot of work to do and not a whole lot of time to do it.  Once he gets Nicolas off of his butt, all three of us are going to be working the entire night.”

He handed the container back to Meredith, shaking his head to flick the moisture from it.  A second later, Pete reached up, running his fingers through his hair, reveling in the moment of relaxation as the moisture evaporated and cooled him.

Mary leaned forward, punching him gently in the side.  She leaned toward him, whispering in his ear.

“You still owe me a walk in the moonlight once there is some moonlight.  You promised.”

Pete opened his mouth to reply but choked on his words as blood rushed to his face.  Meredith winked at him once, before turning on her heel and skipping off into the night.

He picked up the handle to his flail, staring thoughtfully down at it.  After a second or three of silence, he turned back to the pile of barley.  Before he could swing the implement, Hampton’s voice shouted from the darkness.

“Slacking again, eh Swenard?  I swear that I left you alone for five minutes and already you’re lollygagging.”

“See?” Nicolas’ reedy voice made Pete clench his jaw.  “He’s just being lazy.  Peter never needed our help.  We should just head back to the house and go to bed.  We can check on him tomorrow morning.”

“No,” Hampton said as he strode into the lantern-light.  “The boy might be lazy, but he’s right.  This is more than a one-man job, and there’s no purpose in setting him to a task that a grown man couldn’t complete.”

Mike stripped off his shirt, revealing his tan, heavily-muscled body as well as the light blue tattoo on his forearm.  A second later, Nicolas followed him into the light, a tall thin man with closely cropped black hair and a slightly crooked nose.

The skinny man looked uncomfortably at the other two shirtless men, his face screwing up into an unpleasant expression before he glumly hefted his flail.

“I suppose,” Nicolas replied unhappily.  “Could we at least get a couple of extra lanterns?  Neither of the moons are out and it’s super dark.”

“That it is,” Mike responded, pausing for a second to look up at the night sky.  When he spoke again, there was some tension in his voice.  “Peter my boy, would you mind shielding the lantern for a second, there’s something that I need to see.”

“But that will only make it darker,” Nicolas whined as Pete sprang into motion, grabbing the lantern from where it hung on a nearby fencepost and lowering the tin shutter on the contraption.

“Shut up Nick,” Mike grunted, dropping the entire yard into shadowed silence as the big man stared up into the empty sky.

“Well,” he finally said.  “I can’t see any stars.  That means that either Falekh or Faleh is close enough to block them out, and THAT means that whichever moon it is, it's close enough for the star spawn to cross the gap.”

“Does,” Pete began, stopping to wet his lips after his voice caught in his throat.  “Does that mean that there will be an incursion?

Hampton chewed on his lower lip, staring up at the sky without answering.  Finally, he shrugged and sighed.

“Hard to tell,” Mike said uncertainly.  “If it’s Faleh that’s close, they’ll probably just swap their ambassadors and refill their merchants’ stocks, but if it’s Falekh-”

He trailed off, glancing at the tattoo on his right forearm for a second before continuing.

“Well, if it’s Falekh, we’re far enough away from anything important that I doubt the star spawn will land here,” Mike continued, but without any strength behind his voice.  “Even if they do, I doubt they’ll arrive in large enough numbers to overwhelm the Duke’s army.  Night incursions are usually just raids.  The star spawn land, grab some loot and slaves, and leave.  We probably won’t be at risk, but still, maybe we should forget about the barley so that the three of us can keep an eye on Amy and Meredith back at the farmhouse.”

“Yeah,” Nicolas said nervously, glancing up at the dark sky.  “You were in the Duke’s army Mr. Hampton.  You should be able to protect all four of us so long as we’re in the same spot.”

“I might have a moon-touched weapon,” Mike replied with a snort, “but I was only a private.  I never made it past second level, so I never unlocked any of the more powerful abilities.  I might be a bit stronger than the two of you, and my spear might be a bit better at cutting through an unformed’s arcane defenses, but I’m hardly one of the heroes of yore.  If there’s an attack on the farm, I want the two of you to stick close.  If the star spawn want to steal the livestock or the grain, we let them.  It might cost me a mountain of silver, but silver doesn’t mean anything if you-”

Above, a streak of blue light arced across the sky.  It shattered with a deafening crash, the noise slamming into Pete with a wave of pressure and heat that knocked him back a step even as streamers of blue light erupted from the explosion, raining down on the countryside.

“No,” Hampton whispered shakily.  “Not here.  Not Amy and Mary.”

The darkness lit up as the gleaming lines of azure fell from the night sky.  As they approached, they grew in size from little more than a glint to brilliant orbs the size of a wagon.  In the distance, Pete even thought he could see the flicker of flames and dark shapes marking the descending spheres.

Mike thrust his right hand up into the air.  The tattoo on his forearm flashed with arcane light, and a moment later a metal short spear appeared in the farmer’s hand.  The weapon glowed dimly, a similar but subtly different shade of blue from the comets that filled the night sky.

“Get to the house!”  Hampton shouted.  “We should be able to hold them off until morning from there.  If you have to fight, your flails should be able to knock them to the ground, but they’ll have an aura that will stop you from finishing the job.  Just knock them down and keep running.”

Then the big man was on the move, his shirtless body crossing the barnyard in great loping strides lit by the dual lights from his spear and the deadly shower coming from one of the unseen moons.

Nicolas squeaked, racing Pete as the two farmhands tried to catch up with their employer as the three of them sprinted toward the house.  It sat in the dim blue light, a two-story edifice of wood and cheap white paint that promised refuge from the disaster that was unfolding around them.

Then its westward wall shattered.

A burning sphere of blue light slammed into the side of the building, crashing through the house’s wall and setting the building ablaze.

Pete’s heart leapt into his throat as the structure that had been his home for the last four years burst into leaping sapphire flames.  A second later, the sphere exploded, splintering planks and shattering supports.

Half of the house collapsed in on itself, hollowed out by the blast while the remains of the building disappeared in a cerulean bonfire.

“No!” Mike screamed, leaping over a fence with the agility of a gazelle.  He landed in a crouch just as five shapes shambled from the wreckage on all fours.

Pete couldn’t quite make out what the creatures looked like as they thundered across the lawn toward the three farmers, but he knew enough about star spawn to know what that meant.

Unformed.  The foot soldiers of the Falekh couldn’t hold a candle to some of the behemoths or sorcerer lords that the bards spoke of in hushed tones, but the gray monsters were still more than a match for most humans.

Bigger and stronger than a man, an unformed could control its shape to a certain extent.  They couldn’t grow wings or an extra limb, but more than one veteran deep in their cups had told Pete about limbs suddenly becoming too long in the middle of combat, or claws that could move on their own after being cut from the beasts.

“Stand fast!”  Mike shouted, planting the butt of his glowing spear into the soil.  “We’ll kill these five and then save Mary and Amy.”

The hair on the back of Pete’s arms stood on end as energy flowed from Mike.  Suddenly, the aches and pains from working all day threshing the barley faded away.  He felt stronger and more energized as the aether from Mike’s ability washed over him.

Pete wasn’t sure if it was the sorcery or overconfidence, but in that moment, as the five unformed loped toward the three of them on all fours like giant misshapen hounds, he was sure that they would win.  Together, the three of them would overcome the star spawn, and then he would save Meredith and the girl would blush at him and-

“No,” Nicolas whimpered, dropping his flail.  He turned and ran, abandoning Pete and Hampton to the oncoming aliens.

Neither of them had a chance to say or do anything about his cowardice.  Four of the unformed lunged at them while the fifth ran past them, pursuing the stumbling and fleeing coward.

Hampton struck first, angling the spear he had planted in the soil to point it toward one of the leaping monsters.  It flashed with white light, firing a blast of energy that plucked the star spawn from the air, skewering the creature on a bolt of energy that consumed it from the inside.  Even as the unformed fell to the ground, it twitched and writhed, brilliant white light shining from its open fanged maw and empty eye sockets.

The big farmer twisted, breathing heavily from using his abilities in short succession.  The point of his spear swung through the air, catching a second unformed on the center of its chest.  For the blink of an eye, the tip of his spear impacted on a field of reddish light that surrounded the monster.  Then, the aura shattered and the weapon’s head bit deep into the star spawn’s soft, wet flesh.

Pete didn’t have the time to concern himself with his companion’s prowess.  He held his flail in a two-handed grip, muscles bunching in his back as he swung it in a quick circuit, spinning the metal head up to speed just as the first of the unformed arrived.

The flail struck with the force of a charging ox.  A field of red light sprang into being, surrounding the spawn.  Pete’s weapon couldn’t penetrate the glowing aether, but the sorcery didn’t change the laws of physics and momentum.

With a crack, the unformed rocketed aside, slamming into its companion and knocking the two creatures to the ground in a tumbled heap of gray flesh and twisting limbs.

Pete stepped forward, swinging the flail in a downward stroke toward the two entangled creatures with enough force to dent iron. Once again, the red aether protected the unformed, but at the same time, there was little else for him to do.  With any luck, some portion of the blow made it through the monsters’ magical defenses, knocking the wind from the two of them.

Then Mike’s spear stabbed downward into the scrambling creatures.  Their aether shields shattered, clearing the way for the sharp metal head of Hampton’s weapon to push into their flesh.

Before they could squirm free, Pete swung his flail a third time, directing the ball of metal at the end of his chain into the head of one of the downed unformed.  The creature’s sloped, deformed skull shattered under the blow, spraying both Pete and Hampton with the monster’s spongy gray flesh.

The spear ripped free of the top monster, and a half second later the unformed under it scrambled free.  It swiped once at Pete, arm unfolding into twice its previous length, capped in a jagged collection of sharp grasping claws.

Pete stumbled backward, eyes widening as the monster’s arm telescoped toward him.  Just before it could reach his bare chest, Mike’s spear buried itself in the beast’s side.  The creature’s arm faltered for a fraction of a second as the glowing weapon shattered its aura.

The farmhand lashed out blindly, swinging his flail even as he tripped over his own feet and fell.  The metal chain of his weapon clanked into the star spawn’s spongy forearm wrapping around the elongated limb and redirecting the head of the flail into a tight arc that smashed into the other side of its grasping arm, breaking whatever passed for the unformed’s bones.

Mike withdrew his spear back, redirecting the weapon into a second lightning quick stab that claimed the unformed’s throat.

It collapsed.  The star spawn’s empty eye sockets slackened as it fell backward, lumpy gray flesh rippling bonelessly as it slapped onto the ground.

Pete turned to Mike, preparing himself to ask a question, but stopping as he took in the larger man.  In all of his time working on the Hampton farm, he had never seen Mike look this tired and worried.

A sheen of sweat covered him, illuminated by the pale light of his spear, and his chest pumped unevenly as he took deep, ragged breaths.  Between the exertion from the fight, and his overuse of aether abilities, the older man’s hands trembled as he struggled to stay upright.

“Amy,” Mike whispered hoarsely, locking his eyes on the burning farmhouse.  Between the flames and the collapsed walls, there was no way to enter the building.

“Meredith,” he continued, planting the butt of his glowing spear into the soil and slumping against it like it was a crutch.

“Mary wasn’t in the house,” Pete began, frowning slightly as the entirety of his right arm began to itch, like there were ants crawling just under his skin.

“She came out to give me some water while I worked,” he continued, gritting his teeth as the itch transformed into a steady burn.  “She left just as you and Nicolas arrived.  There’s no way that she got back to the building in time- ah!”

Pete dropped his flail, grabbing his right arm at the elbow as the pain became white hot.  He staggered, listing to the right as his limb began to glow with a pale blue light.

Mike’s big hand grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping Pete from tipping over and falling to the ground as the pain became too much for him.  The other man’s face leaned in close, his voice strained as he stared intently at Pete.

“Is this true boy?  Don’t give me hope like this just for the sake of giving me hope.”

He couldn’t answer, his jaw clenched so tightly from the agony that he tasted a faint hint of blood.  Instead, Pete just nodded, blinking through the tears that were welling up of their own accord.

“Don’t fight it,” Mike said with a relieved sigh.  “You landed the killing blow on one of the unformed, so you’re star-marked now.  It feels like you’ve shoved your arm in an oven, but the results are worth it, ‘specially if we’re gonna keep Mary safe.”

Pete closed his eyes, forcing a shaky breath out through gritted teeth.

“Just breathe through it boy,” Mike continued.  “You’ll get your mark soon.”

Then, just as the heat built to unbearable levels, the pain disappeared entirely.  One second Pete could barely think, and the next a cool numbness encompassed his entire arm.

“Will you look at that,” Mike said with an appreciative whistle.  “It seems that all that time carrying hay bales and threshing the barley did you some good.  Seven points in body, that’s better than most men-at-arms.”

He opened his eyes.

On his arm was a tattoo that matched Mike’s, but somehow Pete could read the incomprehensible runes and sigils that were inscribed in his flesh.

Moon-Touched Weapon

Flail (Level 1)

Body  7 (++)
Agility  4 (++)
Willpower  6 (++)
Spirit  3 (++)

Skills
(Savage Blow), (Whirl), (Concuss), (Rally)

Sorceries
(Moonbeam), (Defensive Aura), (Frost Arc)

“You always wanted to be a soldier Peter,” Mike remarked.  “This is your chance.”

“The Faleh taught us how to use the star marks a couple hundred years ago,” the big man continued.  “Before that, we were just prey and slaves for the Falekh.  Fighting them is still hard, the average star spawn is born or hatched or created- however it is the blasted things come into being, with abilities around 5.  Most humans start at around 3.  After that, we all level up the same.  Two ability points and one skill or sorcery per level.”

Pete stared at his arm in wonder.  A star-mark and a moon-touched weapon.  Those had always been his goal.  Usually it took months if not years of training in the army before you would be sent on an expedition to kill a star spawn in order to earn a mark, but here he was.  Barely twenty and without any training but with a mark of his own.

“How do I-” he began hesitantly only for Mike to cut him off.

“Just think about the changes you want,” the big man said impatiently.  “But hurry up.  If Mary is out wandering around in the dark, she’s in danger.  You saw the comet those things rode down.  There’s a lot more than a handful of unformed patrolling the countryside.”

After a moment of thought, Pete shrugged.  Mike was right, he really didn’t have time.  A moment of concentration later, his arm tingled, and it was over.  He glanced at the tattoo.  Pete felt a little stronger, but it also might have just been his imagination.  Regardless, it would have to be good enough for now.

Moon-Touched Weapon

Flail (Level 1)

Body  8  
Agility  5
Willpower  6
Spirit  3

Skills
Savage Blow

Sorceries

A shriek split the night.  Pete couldn’t tell for sure if it was Meredith, but he wasn’t willing to take the chance.  Mike and him broke into a run at the same moment, sprinting into the copse of plum trees that ringed the farm.

Pete could barely see anything in the light cast by Mike’s spear.  Branches whipped at him, clawing at his face as he squirmed through the obstacles toward the spot where he had heard the scream.  Mike led the way, ignoring the scrapes he earned from running through the brush as he continued his single-minded pursuit.

The two of them barely made it twenty paces into the trees when a shadowy form slammed into Mike from the side, bringing the big man to the ground and sending his spear flying.

Something tore with a wet popping and ripping sound, and Mike screamed in pain.  Pete didn’t think, instead lowering his shoulder and throwing his body at the side of whatever creature was crouching atop his boss.

He slammed into a mass of spongy flesh, sending the unformed flying into a nearby tree where its ruby aura flashed briefly, protecting it from any damage.

Anger and fear welled up inside Pete’s chest, without realizing it, his empty hand was now clutched around the handle of his flail.  The weapon gleamed, illuminating the scene with a pale blue light.

The star spawn shuddered, shaking itself like a wet dog as it cleared the twigs and leaves from its soft hide.  It cocked its sloped head at Pete, opening its too large jaws that were still stained with Mike Hampton’s blood to let out a wet, mocking cough.

It lunged toward him on all fours, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and Pete reacted on instinct, swinging his glowing flail in a downward stroke.  Every fiber of his hatred and terror powered the blow.

The spherical metal head of his weapon flared with white light, and Pete felt something flow from himself and into the attack, and for a brief moment the heavy threshing implement felt as light as a feather, responding perfectly to his heaving muscles as he brought it down on the attacking monster.

Then the glowing chunk of metal slammed into the star spawn’s misshapen head.  Its skull shattered under the blow only for the flail to explode in white light.

Pete staggered backward, blinking furiously to clear his vision after the bright flare.  As soon as he could make out the results of the attack, his jaw slackened.  Not only was the unformed dead, but the top quarter of its body was missing, replaced with withered blackened flesh crowned with translucent white flames.

He took another step away from his handiwork, his flail disappearing from his hands as it faded into the tattoo on his right arm.  Even after the blue light from his weapon disappeared, the grayish fire continued to burn, casting the entire plum grove into a surreal black and white.

Behind him, Mike coughed.

Pete whipped around and gasped when he took in his employer, the man that had taken him in when his family was slain in a Falekh raid.

Hampton’s right hand was pressed tight on the side of his neck, trying in vain to stem the flow of blood from a vicious bite.  His bare chest was hardly in better shape, torn from pectoral to navel by the unformed’s wicked, changing claws.

“At least you got ‘em for me,” Mike gurgled, his blood black in the strange light as it dribbled down his lips.

“By the two moons,” Pete whispered, rushing to the injured man and kneeling next to him.  “Mr. Hampton, is there anything I can do to help?  I’m sure I could bind the wound, and-”

“No, boy,” the older man said quietly, shaking his head slowly.  “Being star-marked grants great powers, but losing count of how many enemies you’re fighting is almost always a fatal mistake.  We killed four.  One went after Nicolas.”

“No,” Pete replied, eyes stinging as he shook his head.  “No, no, no.”

“Sorry Peter,” Mike hissed.  “But without moon-forged armor to channel my aether, a surprise attack like that was more than either of us could handle.  Unless you can find someone with a healing sorcery in the next minute or so, I’m done.”

“But-” Pete began, trying to deny the situation before him.

“There’s no time boy,” Mike cut him off.  “You heard Mary yell.  Night incursions are raids.  She doesn’t have any weapons so the Falekh will try to capture her and bring her back to their moon.  That means you still have time.”

“Get a horse and find her,” the big man rasped.  “If you can’t find her, get to Tenneville.  The guard will have supplies and they might know more.”

Mike broke down into a coughing fit, blood pouring from the wounds on his neck.

Pete stood up, biting his lower lip as he looked down at Hampton.  The older man glared up at him, black streaks of blood marking his chin.

“Go Peter,” he choked out.  “They’ll leave before sunrise.  Save her.  Do it for me.”

Hampton slumped backward into the tree he’d been leaning against.  He was still breathing shallowly, but his eyes were unfocused as he stared up at the night sky.  Some stars were still visible at the corners around the large dark circle of Falekh as the moon lurked low in the heavens, but the dying man wasn’t looking at them.  Instead, he gazed off into the void at… nothing.  The empty spot in the firmament that had spawned the invaders that had taken everything from him.

Pete turned, abandoning Mike as he sprinted back toward the barn.  Off to the side, barely a hundred paces from where the two of them had killed the unformed, lay Nicolas’ mutilated corpse.  Deep down, he knew he should care more about the mess of meat and bloodied limbs that had been his antagonist and companion for the last handful of years, but Pete simply didn’t have it in him.

When the moment had come, Nicolas had run.  If he had stayed and fought, Mike would probably be alive, and the three of them would be on their way to save Mary together.

But it was too late for that now.  He probably wasn’t strong enough to deal with whatever was lurking out there in the woods, but Pete had to try.  Mike had given him a roof over his head, but Meredith had turned that roof into a home.

Barely a minute later, he was strapping a saddle on a chestnut mare.  The horse chuffed quietly, brushing up against Pete as if requesting an apple while he fastened the saddle’s buckles.  Finally, he urged the disappointed animal out of the barn, and urged it into a trot.

Pete only paused long enough to unlock the paddock’s gate, and then the two of them were moving at a brisk pace into the plum orchard.  More than once, he had to jerk on the animal’s reins as it tried to shy toward the unripe fruit, but after about fifteen minutes of searching back and forth in the general area where he had heard Mary’s scream, Pete found his quarry.

Two of the plum trees were destroyed, one practically split in half by some sort of massive edged weapon, and the other mostly ripped from the soil.  The grass and underbrush were torn up, revealing a mix of large hoofprints and claw marks.  Most importantly, a scrap of Mary’s violet skirt fluttered in the wind from where a torn branch had ripped it from her clothing.

There wasn’t a body, so Pete still had hope, but the level of destruction worried him.  He was hardly an expert on star spawn, but whatever had snatched Meredith was something significantly more dangerous than an unformed.

He snapped the reins, turning his horse toward Tenneville and urging it forward.  Even with a mark, he didn’t like his odds against whatever had left those prints in the mud.  Pete needed help from other star-marked, and that meant support from Tenneville’s town guard or taking the four-day trip to Highcliff to get support from the Duke’s army.

They galloped, and Pete’s mouth settled into a grim line as he took in the devastation.  Not every homestead was hit.  Some sat silent with hastily assembled barricades still intact in their windows.  But more often than not, he saw broken doors and dead bodies, impromptu weapons in hand.  Once or twice he even saw small groups of unformed, loping through nearby farm fields in search of other prey.

If he had more time, Pete would have stopped and put the misshapen creatures down, but every time the thought drifted through his mind, the memory of Mary’s scream haunted him.

Finally, after almost an hour he rounded the last corner before Tenneville, and his heart dropped.  The town’s walls were mostly intact, but its gate was a wreck of splinters, slowly burning with eldritch blue flames.  Even from a distance, Pete could hear the shout and clamor of combat as the defenders fought on, but the mess of unformed bodies outside the town’s defenses had more than a few unmoving human bodies mixed in.

He spurred the horse forward, pressing his head against the animal’s neck as it accelerated toward the town.  Once Pete was within fifty paces of the entrance, he pulled back on the reins, slowing the mare before he slipped out of its saddle and broke into a run.

Inside Tenneville’s walls, chaos held sway.  A dozen or so unformed clashed with townsfolk in the wreckage of three or four homes, but they weren’t what drew Pete’s gaze.

A monster, half again as tall as a man and almost eight paces long stood at the center of a group of four guardsmen, all wielding gleaming blue spears.  Whenever it would lunge forward, propelled by four muscular legs, and swinging a massive black glaive, its target would scramble back, leaving an opening for the other three soldiers to jab it with their weapons.

None of the spear wounds were particularly deep, but the monster had already amassed at least ten of them, all bleeding freely.  It seemed to Pete like the defenders would likely win that engagement, but the vast majority of the villagers fighting the unformed were only wielding hammers or pitchforks, and he saw more than one flash of red from intact defensive auras.

Taking a deep breath, Pete summoned his flail and sprinted toward where a man and a woman were trying to fend off an unformed.  The man had the wreckage of a chair held in two hands as he tried to push the creature away like a beast tamer while the woman would periodically swing at it with a metal pole, originally designed for lighting the town’s lanterns from ground level.

The star spawn more or less ignored the attacks.  Occasionally a blow would stagger the creature slightly, but every attack was met by a red glow that prevented any real damage.

It stood up on its haunches and spread its arms wide.  They were half the size but twice as long as the unformed that Pete had fought earlier, sporting a second pair of elbow joints and a single long hooked claw at the end.

Both of the limbs swung at the same time, closing like a pair of shears on the man.  He managed to get his chair up in time to stop one of the attacks, but the other talon snaked around his defenses, raking down the center of his back and drawing a pained scream.

Pete swung his flail, whipping the chunk of metal into the star spawn’s shoulder, shattering both the creature’s bone and its defensive aura.  It staggered to the side, only to meet a frantic blow from the woman.

Neither attack was fatal, but the monster was both disoriented and injured.  It spun around, swiping one of its overly long claws at the woman.  She swung her metal staff at the creature’s arm, smacking the monster in the wrist, and knocking its hand aside.

Before it could attack again, Pete swung his flail forward.  The gently-glowing metal sphere traced an arc from just below his waist to up above his head before slamming down with the force of a meteor on the back of the unformed’s neck.

The creature squawked in pain, but the noise was abruptly choked off as the flail shattered something important inside the star spawn.  The woman dropped her weapon, running to the man’s side and ripping fabric from the hem of her dress to treat his wound.  Pete nodded in her general direction before sprinting to next unformed.

It was fighting a man wielding a sword and shield.  The warrior was clearly well trained, deflecting the gray monster’s heavy blows on his shield with practiced ease, but his ripostes only brought flashes of red as the mundane sword failed to penetrate the star spawn’s defensive aura.

Pete switched to a double-handed grip on his flail, torqueing his body as he swung the weapon with all of his strength.  The metal head shattered the red defensive field effortlessly, caving in the star spawn’s back and snapping its spine in one thunderous stroke.

A third unformed snarled and leapt at him, but Pete caught its clawed hand on the haft of his flail.  Shifting his hand to the side, he grabbed the weapons chain, whirling it once to bring it down on the monster’s wrist.

The blue glow from the flail warred with the flash of red from the star spawn’s aura, but the heavy ball of metal was moving too quickly, snapping the creature's bone with a wet ‘crack.’  It reared back, shrieking in pain, but a half second later its yelps were silenced forever as the head of Pete’s flail erased its face.

Then he was through the line of lesser star spawn and staring at the haunches of the larger invader.  It swung its giant black glaive in a low arc, prompting one of the defenders to launch themselves into the air on a pillar of blue-white light.

Across from Pete, another warrior rushed forward, jabbing her spear toward the monster’s side.  The point of the weapon stopped almost a pace short, freezing in the air for a fraction of a second before a cone of white energy erupted from its tip, slamming into the creature and staggering it.

It wheeled around, the man in the air forgotten, and hacked downward with its glaive toward the woman that had injured it.  She tucked her head into an elbow and threw herself at the ground, rolling away just ahead of the strike.

Instead, the star spawn’s polearm struck a two-story wooden house, splintering a man sized hole in the wall.  It leaned toward the building, bunching the muscles in its shoulder as it prepared to pull the weapon from its resting place deep in the home’s supports.

Pete lowered his shoulder and began running toward the monster, spinning the flail to pick up momentum.  He reached deep inside himself, trying to find the core of terror and rage that let him tap into the aether.

He lashed out with the flail, its head flaring to life as it smashed into the monster’s leg.  The star spawn’s red aura ignited, trying to fight the force of the blow, but it was about as effective as a dry autumn leaf.

The metal tore through the defensive aether, bending the creature’s knee backward.

It stumbled as Pete yanked back on the chain, spinning the flail in another circuit while breathing heavily from his aether use.  Then he snapped his arm forward a second time, launching the flail’s head into the creature’s flank with a satisfying crunch as it ripped through flesh and snapped bones.

The impact from his attack was the final straw for the teetering star spawn.  It fell sideways, away from him and toward the female warrior.  As it went to the ground, all four of the town guards pounced on it, jabbing the monster repeatedly with their glowing spears.

Unlike the unformed, its red defensive aura didn’t shatter immediately.  Each attack negated a small area of the monster’s defenses, but the rain of spear thrusts didn’t give it a moment to recover.  It flailed blindly, abandoning its attempt to extract the glaive from the home as it swung its arms ineffectually in a futile attempt to drive the humans away.

Barely a couple seconds later, the huge monster shuddered and went still.  Pete’s forearm warmed, itching slightly as the aether powering the tattoo interacted with something.  When he turned around, the unformed were running for Tenneville’s ruined gate, leaving almost half of their number in the wreckage.

He sighed, dismissing his flail and looked at the tattoo once more.

Moon-Touched Weapon

Flail (Level 2)

Body  8 (++)
Agility  5 (++)
Willpower  6 (++)
Spirit  3 (++)

Skills
Savage Blow, (Whirl), (Concuss), (Rally)

Sorceries
(Moonbeam), (Defensive Aura), (Frost Arc)

Quickly, he put a point in Body and Agility only to pause for a moment to consider his options amongst the skills and sorceries.  Pete heard the crunch of boots on gravel as someone approached him, and mentally picked Whirl.  As interesting as the sorceries sounded, he didn’t know the first thing about Faleh magic, and a desperate rescue attempt didn’t seem like the best time to learn.

“You’re one of Hampton’s boys, right?” A scratchy male voice questioned Pete.

He looked up to see one of the guards, a thin swarthy man with close cropped hair leaning against his spear as his chest heaved.  The man was wearing a chain shirt that glowed the same faint blue as his weapon, a stark contrast to Pete’s shirtless torso.

“Yes I, well, I’m Peter Swenard, and-” Pete stumbled over his words as he tried to answer the man.

“The name’s Aashif,” the stranger supplied.  “Do you think we’ll be able to expect Mike?  The emergency plan called for everyone with a mark to gather on Tenneville so we could protect the town until the incursion was over.”

Pete opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn’t find the terms to describe the situation.  Instead, he just shook his head.

“Damn.”  Aashif spat on the ground.  “Mike was a good man.  We could have used him in a mess like this.  We were ready for unformed, but the outriders were able to tear the gate from its hinges. Half the guard is dead, and there’s at least two more of those behemoths out there.”

“They kidnapped Mary,” Pete said, the words feeling large and alien in his dry mouth.  “Sorry, I mean Meredith, Mr. Hampton’s daughter.  Before he died, he sent me to the town to get help.”

Aashif sighed, surveying the battered gate and the wreckage that had been the buildings near the entrance to the town.  Several different colors of aether fueled flames burned amongst the mix of bodies and junk, turning the entire scene into a surreal tableau of rainbow-hued destruction.

“They got a lot of people Peter,” the other man replied, standing up straight and thrusting out his chest to crack his back.  “The original plan called for us to button up in town as the marked from the outlying communities brought their families and neighbors in.”

He dismissed his spear as he continued with what sounded like a pre-prepared speech.  “Once we had a place with enough star-marked guards to keep it safe, the plan was to put together a team to venture out past the walls and rescue as many people as we could, but-”

Aashif stopped, waving his hand generally at the battlefield.

“Half of our guards are dead and you’re the first star-marked we’ve seen from the farms Peter,” he finished darkly.  “The Falekh comet touched down just South of here, and we’re dealing with a much bigger force than anticipated.  I honestly don’t know if we’ll be able to hold Tenneville with the forces we have available.  Our only hope is to hole up here and hope that they summon another comet and leave before the sun rises.”

The woman that had been attacking the larger star spawn opposite Pete walked over to the two of them, her spear long dismissed and her shoulder length reddish-brown hair hanging free.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a Falekh raiding party this size before,” she remarked, nodding to Aashif as she approached.  “Honestly, the only thing I’ve seen like it are the incursions that happen during a solar eclipse, and that’s usually when the star spawn try and land whole armies in an attempt to conquer a chunk of territory.”

“Rebecca,” she continued, extending her hand to Pete, “but you can call me Becca.  Thanks for the assist on the outrider”

He accepted the handshake, slightly surprised at the strength of the woman’s grip.

“I served in the Duke’s army with this idiot,” she flicked her head toward Aashif, “and clearly I took some sort of head wound while fighting the star spawn because when he wanted to retire, I followed him out here and married him.  Apparently, it was supposed to be safer than the military.  Calm even.”

“Thanks,” Pete replied weakly.  “But I need to go after Mary, and I need whatever help you can give me.”

Aashif surveyed the wreckage once again, only to turn to Peter and study him in silence for almost ten seconds of silence, all while chewing his lower lip.  Finally, the other man sighed again, and shook his head.

“I’d tell you that you’re being an idiot Peter,” he said, dismissing his spear with a wave of his hand, “but I recognize that expression on your face.  You know it, but you still have something important that you need to do regardless.  I respect that.”

The other man grimaced, taking a deep breath before he continued.

“But I can’t let you put Tenneville at risk.  I can’t send anyone to help you Peter, and I’m sorry about that.  Truly I am.  The best I can do is get you a set of moon-forged armor so that you don’t have to fight the star spawn bare chested.  Davis was about your size and he won’t be needing it anymore.”

“I told him not to fight so aggressively,” Becca responded, shaking her head.  “There aren’t any sorcerers out here to save you from yourself if you over commit, and most of us were trained to fight unformed, not any of the more advanced star spawn.  He should have known better than to challenge an outrider on his own, but ‘should have’ isn’t going to put his head on his shoulders.”

“That’s it?”  Pete asked, his heart dropping.  “All the help you can give me is a dead guy's armor?”

“Moon-forged armor is a big deal Peter,” Aasif replied, shaking his head.  “It’s like a moon-touched weapon, enchanted and unusable by mundane folks.  The only difference between the armor and your flail, is that moon-forged equipment is stuck at level one.  It doesn’t grow with you the way a moon-touched weapon will.  Out here in Tenneville, that means that the best we can give you is level 1 chainmail, but I’ve seen breastplates and tower shields in Highcliff that were over level 15.”

Pete opened his mouth to complain further, but after a quick look around, he shut it.  The town’s gates were beyond repair, and at least a dozen of the villagers lay dead amidst the destruction, improvised weapons at their sides.  Worse yet, five guardsmen were dead, their chainmail no longer glowing as the aether provided by the star-marked had run dry.

“Thanks,” he croaked.  Aasif was right.  There were hundreds of people in Tenneville, and the only way to keep them safe was to concentrate the star marked at the gates to defend them.  He was lucky that the older man wasn’t trying to force him to stay.  The town could use his help.

“I wish I could do more Peter,” the other man responded apologetically.  “As best we can tell, the Falekh comet landed to the South.  Standard procedure is for the star spawn to set up a base where they will gather goods before returning home.  They’ll probably be bringing loot and captives there before summoning a comet to travel back to Falekh before the sun rises.”

“Aasif,” Becca said, nudging the man with an elbow.  “The least you can do is give the man a forgestarter.  He’s going to need it if he’s heading out into the night.  Give him a fighting chance.”

“You’re right my rose,” the man replied.  “Stay put Peter, I’ll be back in a second.”

The man jogged off in the direction of the handful of remaining town guards.  Pete watched him go, stomach in his throat as he tried to avoid thinking about the battles that were to come.  When he looked back, Becca was standing right next to him, her face barely a finger’s length away as she grinned knowingly.

“Tell me about this Mary,” she commanded.  “It sounds like she’s more than just a casual acquaintance.”

“Uh,” Pete stammered, blushing as his throat bobbed nervously.  “Well she’s Mr. Hampton’s daughter so I couldn’t ever like really ask her to the town harvest festival or anything but-”

“But you wanted to,” she finished for him, a glint in her eyes.

“Yeah,” he replied, unable to meet the woman’s gaze.  “She’s really pretty, and Mary has always been sweet to me.  I think she likes me, but Mr. Hampton would have made me muck the pig sties for a month if he caught us holding hands let alone kissing.”

“Maybe you should have cleaned out some pig sties then,” Becca said, bopping Pete on the nose with her index finger.  “Plenty of girls are waiting for guys to make the first move, and knowing that the boy you have a crush on is making a sacrifice for you?  Well, that’s pretty romantic.”

“I guess,” Pete responded, forcing the words out.  “It feels like it’s too late now.  So much has happened, and I can’t help but wonder if she would have been safe if I convinced her to wait with me for a couple more minutes when the Falekh attacked.”

“It’s not too late,” Becca chuckled, patting him on the shoulder.  “You’re about to run off into the darkness and fight monsters in order to save her.  It’s incredibly romantic.  Dumb, but romantic.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to do it?”  Pete asked, hope creeping back into his voice.  “Whatever that big thing was, I’m not sure what I’ll do if I run into another one.”

“It was an outrider,” Becca replied, taking a step away from him, smile still on her face, “and if you run into one, you’ll aim for their knees with that flail of yours.  Spears are basically the worst weapons to fight them with unless you have enough aether to take them down with Force Stabs from a distance.  Once you get rid of their mobility, outriders aren’t that threatening.”

Pete jumped at the sound of metal on rock as a blood-stained chain shirt hit the ground in front of him.  He turned to where the armor was thrown from to see Aasif approaching, a ceramic pot cradled carefully in his left hand.  The tanned warrior shot him a quick grin.

“One forgestarter as promised,” Aasif said as he carefully handed the crockery to Pete.  “Be careful with this.  There’s a lot of tar in the container, and it breaks easily.”

Pete held up the jar, cocking his head quizzically at it.  Becca rolled her eyes, taking it away from him and nodding at the armor laying at his feet.

“Put on the chainmail and I’ll fill you in,” she said dryly.  “A forgestarter is a small crystal that is moon-forged with a sorcery that heats it up.  They are useful for starting fires, or as the name suggests, blacksmith’s forges.  Normally they are reusable, but if you put too much aether in them, they tend to explode after a couple of seconds.”

“Now, that isn’t going to get through a star spawn’s aura,” Becca continued, “but that’s where the tar comes in.  The crystal will get HOT before it blows, and that means that it will spray flaming tar in every direction.  Falekh auras recognize the burning tar as an attack, and that means that they will activate.  It’ll sap a star-spawn’s aether, but more importantly, when the aura lights up they can’t see through it.  If you blow one of these up around head level, it might not damage your opponents, but it sure will blind them.”

Pete nodded as he shrugged the chain shirt over his head.  The minute the metal touched his shoulders, a static tingle ran through his body.  Surprisingly, the armor was quite warm and didn’t chafe.  So long as he ignored the blood stains covering the neck and shoulders, it was almost pleasant.

“There,” Aasif said, nodding at Pete as Becca handed him the pot.  “It’s not the best armor available but it’s enchanted to be durable and comfortable.  So long as you don’t run out of aether or get hit more than a couple times in the same spot, you should be fine.”

“Try not to get hit in the head,” Becca supplied helpfully, winking at Pete.  “That was Davis’ mistake.  The armor doesn’t protect the areas that it doesn’t cover.”

He gulped, nodding fervently before cradling the forgestarter under his left arm.  Nervously, Pete let himself smile at the two town guards.

“Thanks for all the help.  I know you need everything you have here, but-”

“Don’t mention it Peter,” Aasif cut him off.  “I wish I could do more.  By the two moons, I consider it a failure on my part that I CAN’T do more.  I understand that you need to go.  All I can do is wish you luck and hope that you save your friend quickly so that you can get back before the next attack arrives.”

Pete nodded at the man, chuckling nervously before turning and walking toward Tenneville’s ruined gates.  His mare was some hundred and fifty paces to the left, calmly eating grass well away from the chaos and tumult of the battle.

He walked over to the animal.  She lifted her head, calmly watching him approach while chewing.  When he arrived, the horse nuzzled his left side, trying to get at the container he had cradled under his arm.  Pete chuckled, reaching up to scratch the mare behind her ears.

“Sorry girl, no treats this time,” he mumbled before jumping up into her saddle.

The horse gave a disgruntled snort as Pete flicked its reins, turning the animal toward the South.  This time he didn’t push it faster than a quick trot, instead keeping eyes peeled for signs of the star spawn in the quiet blue light emitting from his new armor.

It didn’t take long, mostly because the Falekh weren’t exactly hiding their tracks. A large chunk of the grassy, rolling hillsides was torn up by dozens of star spawn feet heading in the same general direction that Pete had been traveling.

Fifteen minutes later, he brought the mare to a halt, dismounting and dropping into a crouch before scurrying to the top of a grassy hill.  The faint blue lights that he had seen from atop the horse resolved themselves into a pair of torches, burning with eldritch light, clutched tight in the grasping claws of a group of unformed.

He couldn’t get a great count on the smaller star-spawn, there was a cluster of somewhere between six and ten of them, but they weren’t what drew most of Pete’s attention.  To the side was a massive creature.  It looked like a gray ox except it was almost twelve paces high at the shoulder, and its diseased looking skin didn’t fully cover its protruding and exposed rib cage.  The dull white bones formed a gleaming half cylinder beneath the gargantuan animal, easily big enough to carry two waggon loads full of cargo.

Inside the massive bovine rib cage were four or five silhouettes.  Pete couldn’t tell for sure who they were, but even from a distance they were almost certainly the people captured by the Falekh raiders.

He took a deep breath as he stared down at the field populated with enemy forces, gripping the forgestarter in his right hand.  Then he blew out the air in his lungs and stood up, running down the hill, feeding aether to the crystal buried deep inside the ceramic pot even as he moved.

Whether it was arrogance, laziness, or simply luck, the unformed didn’t notice Pete until the forgestarter was sailing into the air above him.  One pointed a short, stubby but muscular arm at him, hooting out something unintelligible just as the overloaded crystal exploded, showering the entire formation with flaming tar.

The night lit up as the crackling flames warred with the star spawns’ defensive auras.  The creatures stumbled and thrashed blindly as Pete summoned his flail, spinning the weapon above his head as he closed the last couple of paces.

Aether flowed out of him and into the whirling chain and metal, and they began to shine a familiar blue-white.  Pete blinked in surprise as a disk of energy sprang into being above him, tracing the arc of the spinning flail and extending almost a pace out from it in every direction.

He angled the spinning flail slightly forward, letting the plate of energy adapt to the weapon’s new trajectory.  When Pete encountered the first of the wandering unformed, its upper body burning merrily from the tar, the plane of energy simply sliced through the monster’s defensive aura like it wasn’t there, decapitating it without the flail even coming into contact with the star spawn.  Pete raised his eyebrows, a grin growing on his face as he took in the aftermath.

A quick sidestep later, and he was running at a cluster of the blinded creatures, his whirling flail angled even further downward.  The aether ability limited his movements, it was hard to dodge or move agilely while swinging the heavy metal of his flail in a circle, but the star spawn were blind, unable to see Pete or dodge his charge.

The flail shredded the survivors, cutting a swath through the tightly packed crowd.  Pete’s forearm began to itch again as he turned for another pass, but he couldn’t spot any upright unformed amidst the mass of missing limbs and spongy, burning gray flesh.

“Peter!”

A shout from a woman’s voice was the only warning Pete got as he twisted around just in time for a black glaive to slam into the disk of energy formed by his whirling flail.  The disk of light shattered, and the momentum of the blow transferred through, driving him down to one knee.

He looked up to see an outrider, misshapen gray body towering on four legs above him.  It spun the glaive in its grip, bringing it around in an impossibly quick slash that slammed into the chainmail on his right side, picking Pete up and sending him flying into the darkness.

The ground stole his breath as Pete slammed into it, flail escaping his grip and dissipating as he bounced once before rolling to a stop.  He bit his tongue to stifle a groan.  The magical chainmail had saved his life, but that hadn’t stopped the star spawn from cracking a rib.

Every breath hurt, but at least the outrider hadn’t followed him into the dark areas outside the battlefield.  Instead, the monster was bellowing something in the strange, inhuman language spoken by the Falekh as it stalked back and forth amongst the burning bodies of the unformed.

He lifted his right arm up, looking at the tattoo on his forearm.  Like he had thought, the fight against the unformed had been enough for a level.  Pete made his selections, taking one more glance at the results to confirm his choices.

Moon-Touched Weapon

Flail (Level 3)
Body    9
Agility  6
Willpower  6
Spirit  5

Skills
Savage Blow, Whirl

Sorceries
Moonbeam

Then, he clenched his jaw, fighting through the pain to regain his feet.  The outrider hadn’t noticed him standing.  It was still pacing back and forth, shaking its glaive angrily at the prisoners trapped in the chest cavity of the giant ox.

Pete took a hesitant step forward.  His body still hurt, but whether it was his massive body stat or the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the pain was rapidly becoming manageable.

Still, he didn’t have much time to wait.  The monster might think that it had killed him with that attack, but that didn’t mean that it would remain in the dark forever.  He only had a small window to save the captives, and as beat up as he was, the element of surprise was his only chance.

He closed his eyes, reaching deep inside himself to touch on the aether that he instinctively knew was hiding there.  There was more now, between the increases to his willpower and his spirit, it felt like the trickle of energy he had been using had transformed into a river.

The flail appeared in Pete’s hands.  Barely a second later, a cylinder of blue-white light, about the size of a dinner plate, shot from the weapon and struck the outrider in its face.  The creature screamed, a high-pitched grating sound, like a demonic steam whistle, and jerked its head backward.

Pete charged.  The Moonbeam wouldn’t be enough to kill it.  Even with his upgrade stats, he knew that for a fact.  Still, the sudden flash of light and burning pain from its partially melted face would distract the creature.

It swung its glaive in a wide arc at waist level, but Pete simply jumped over it, counting on his now superhuman strength to carry him past the monster’s frantic attack.

As he landed, Pete swung his flail, tapping into his pain and rage from his side to dredge a little extra aether up from his depths.  The weapon flashed with light as it struck the outrider’s knee, burning through the monster’s defenses and shattering bone.

It shrieked again, but Pete was behind it now.  The star spawn tried to turn to face him, only for his flail to lash forward slamming into its thigh on the monster’s uninjured hind leg as his attack barely missed the creature’s vulnerable knee.

He threw himself to the ground, narrowly missing a blind backward kick that would have removed his head from his shoulders.

As quickly as he could with the injuries to his side, Pete staggered to his feet, half expecting to meet another blow from the outrider’s glaive.  When he turned, flail spinning on its chain in his hands, he let out a sigh of relief.

The creature was on its stomach, struggling to roll over.  In order to try and kick him with its good hind leg, it had placed all of its weight on the broken knee.  Evidently, the limb had buckled under its weight, spilling the monster to the burning hillside.

Pete rumbled forward, dodging an awkward and off balance thrust from the star spawn’s glaive before jumping up onto the creature’s flank and bringing the metal head of the flail down with the force of a falling sledgehammer on the monster’s ribs. The steel ball plunged into the monster’s side, pulping flesh and shattering bone.

The outrider let out a shriek pain that was cut short when Pete ripped the flail free.  Its head lolled drunkenly as he twirled the weapon once and released it, slamming the metal sphere into the side of its skull.  Its four eyes fluttered once before closing, head flopping to the ground now that its neck could no longer support its weight.

He jumped off of the creature’s side, limping over to the front of the unconscious creature, spinning the flail up to speed as he moved.  Its face was a mess, the lower right third was charred from when the moonbeam, and the upper rear right was a mass of bleeding flesh and cracked bone.

Pete grunted, ignoring the pain from his injured body as he twisted his body to add momentum to the strike.  The spinning flail arced up into the empty night sky, glowing brilliantly as his aether entered the weapon.

Then it plunged downward with finality, crushing the side of the outrider’s skull in a burst of light that half-blinded him.  The monster’s legs stiffened and went slack as the Savage Blow finished the downed star spawn.

“By the two moons!” Someone shouted from the bovine creature on the other side of the clearing.  “He did it, we’re saved!”

Pete turned from the downed body of the star spawn, glancing around the still burning battlefield once to make sure that there wouldn’t be any more surprises.  Once he confirmed that there was nothing left except the dead and burning bodies, he limped over to the ox.

The big creature stared blankly at him with golden eyes, making no move to run or to attack.  Calmly, it lowed at him an eerie sound that almost made him feel guilty as Pete began twirling his flail.

“Pete, no.”

He jumped as he heard a familiar voice.  Almost unconsciously, he let the flail dissipate, stepping forward as he squinted into the skeletal cage hanging from the creature’s chest.

“Mary?” he asked incredulously, finally able to make out the features of the captives.  “By the moons above, I was so worried.  I thought they had you, but I couldn’t be sure.  I heard your scream and-”

“Just get us out of here,” she cut him off, flashing a weak smile.  “As nice as the other folks in here are, I think we’d all be happier to talk once we’re free.”

“Got it,” Pete replied, summoning the flail and giving it an experimental swing.

“No!” a man shrieked from the cage.  “If you break the ribs, it will spray us with shrapnel!  Grab one of the star spawn’s hands.  The ribs would open from the bottom when they touched it.”

“Oh,” Pete said sheepishly, willing the weapon to dissipate as he turned and walked back to the smoldering battlefield.

He picked up one of the unformed’s severed arms, trying to touch as little of the spongy gray flesh as possible as he returned to the placid moon cow.  Once again, the creature just watched him approach, and made no effort to resist as Pete gingerly touched the talons of the amputated limb against its distended rib cage.

With a creak and a series of sickening cracks, the ribs on either side popped outward, sending the four captives spilling to the gently sloped hillside.  Above the five of them, the star spawn mooed contentedly before leaning down and grabbing another mouthful of grass.

The two other women and the man all scrambled to their feet, hugging each other happily as they whispered excitedly, but Pete was barely paying attention.  Meredith stood up shakily, her dress still torn from when she’d been taken in the plum orchard.  Suddenly, his heart almost stopped beating as he remembered Mike.

“Mary,” he began, “your dad.  We were going to come and get you together but-”

“I know,” she said softly.  “When I saw only you, I knew.  If Daddy were still breathing, he wouldn’t have let you come alone to save me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Pete replied, shaking his head as he tried to hide the moistening of his eyes.  “I did everything I could, but the star spawn took us by surprise.”

Pete felt like he was outside of his body.  He wanted to stop, but the words kept welling up, just throwing themselves from his mouth without any input or control.

Then Meredith’s hands were on the back of his head, pulling him tight to her as her lips made contact with his, silencing his panicked babbling.