The Lord of the High Reach

Chapter 62: Can you blame them?

Bramm waited. At five paces, the monster lunged, its massive shoulders rising to trample him into the bedrock. freewebnσvel.cѳm

Bramm roared in defiance.

Instead of dodging, he exploded forward with a short, violent step. He used the heavy oaken shaft as a bracing bar, catching the center of the Slate-Hide’s massive stone forehead directly against the middle of the handle.

The collision sent a blast of energy, blowing the surrounding slurry outward in a twenty-foot ring. The oaken shaft of the Dane axe groaned, the wood fibers screaming under the pressure, but Bramm’s arms didn’t buckle.

His boots plowed two deep, ragged furrows into the earth as he absorbed the entire momentum of the primal beast, his dense energy grounding the force straight into the mountain’s roots.

The Slate-Hide’s yellow eyes grew wider in pure, animal confusion as its charge was brought to a dead, shuddering halt against a single man’s chest.

"My turn," Bramm growled through gritted teeth.

With a surge of leverage from his hips, Bramm forced the beast’s head downward into the dirt. As its front knees gave way under its own stopped mass, Bramm released his left hand from the shaft, drew his heavy-backed seax from his hip, and drove the broad blade straight through the narrow, unarmored gap behind the beast’s ear-plate.

He twisted the iron once, deep into the brain-stem, until the massive Slate-Hide let out a long, shuddering wheeze and went entirely limp, its dark-crimson aura collapsing into grey smoke.

Bramm’s blade was hauled free, his face splattered with the thick, sulfurous blood of the beast. Breathing heavily, he looked up immediately, his dark blue eyes zeroing in on the remaining two Dark Red beasts that were already closing the distance over their fallen kin’s back.

Suddenly, a bright, amber-tinted flash broke through the dark crimson mist. Adara appeared at his left flank, her sword sweeping in a beautiful arc. The beast backed away, but the wound inflicted had already been quite deep.

The place where Adara had slashed, a long crimson line of blood began to flow. The second beast had retreated as well, warily staring at the newcomer. The beasts snarled voraciously, drool and foam running around their mouths...

They seem to see Bramm and Adara as mouth-watering prey.

"Don’t just stand there drooling with them, Chief—pick a target!" Adara teased, her voice sounding out with a sharp, breathless grin that cut right through the snarling of the beasts.

Bramm let out a harsh, ragged laugh, spitting blood onto the dirt as he shifted his weight back onto his heels and tightened his grip on his weapon. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

"Can you blame them? I look delicious," Bramm panted, shifting his stance to match hers. "But I’m a bit too chewy for their liking. Let’s show ’em how we bite back."

...

***

Somewhere in the forest...

The twilight air over the whispering mires of the lower pass didn’t carry the aroma of pine or dew, only the heavy, coppery reek of blood spilled.

A disastrous battle had taken place on the valley floor, and although the battle itself had passed, the valley floor still groaned.

It was a rugged basin of black mud and broken stone, mixed together with dead men and women from both House Morvayn and House Draken. House Morvayn’s men lay piled in a tangled drift—their polished, slate-blue armor cracked open like beetle shells, smeared with the dark, thick sludge of the moors.

Above them, the ancient, weeping pines of the forest dripped slow condensation onto the upturned, pale faces of the slain. The only movement came from the heavy, ragged banners of House Draken, their ragged crimson crests snapping idly in the cold mountain draft.

In the center of this quiet carnage stood a man who looked less like a person and more like a predatory monument carved from the dark bedrock of the mountains.

The interlocking plates of his scale-and-leather armor were caked in overlapping layers of fresh and drying blood, the dark crimson hiding the elaborate, serrated ridges that covered his frame.

Around his massive shoulders, the heavy, tattered pelt of a primal beast predator stirred in the wind, its clumped fur stained dark. His long, black hair fell in damp, coarse strands around a face which seemed entirely devoid of human warmth—sharp, gaunt cheekbones, a trimmed but feral beard, and eyes so cold and dark they seemed to devour the dimming alpine light.

The man was Mormaer Hadrin Draken. Lord of House Draken.

In his left hand, hanging a foot off the blood-soaked mud, was an Orange-tier High Warden of House Morvayn.

The warden was a massive warrior, built like a highland bull, but in Hadrin’s iron grip, he looked like a broken doll. Hadrin held him effortlessly by the throat, his thick fingers digging deep beneath the collar of the warden’s shattered breastplate.

The Morvayn warrior was bloodied from head to toe, his gasping breath a wet, rattling whistle through broken teeth. He dangled, his boots twitching uselessly inches above the muck, his fingers clawing feebly at Hadrin’s unyielding arm.

"Y-You..." the warden choked, a thick, crimson bubble popping against his split lips as he clawed feebly at the iron wrist. "Why... why are you... here...?"

Hadrin didn’t even look down at him. His gaze was fixed on the tree line, his expression as flat and unreadable as a winter grave.

From the edge of the clearing, the heavy squelch of frantic footsteps broke the silence.

A Blood Thane, a powerful warrior of the Yellow tier of House Draken, came sprinting through the piles of corpses. His dark leather duster was torn, and his chest heaved as he closed the distance. But as he drew within ten paces of the Mormaer, his hurried stride faltered. The sheer pressure emitting from Hadrin made the air feel heavy, thick, and hard to breathe.

The man dropped to one knee into the cold mud, his head bowed low, his gaze deliberately fixed on the blood-soaked hem of Hadrin’s cloak. He didn’t dare look the Mormaer in the eye.