Green lines flared within the cloud, baleful veins connecting the man to the devourer. The man’s screams rose to a high pitch, and then turned to a distorted wail as his body began to shrink in on itself, the hole of his mouth appearing to get larger as the skin drew tight against his bones. The green lines pulsed, netted the dying man. A green glow formed within the devourer’s abdomen, a vile egg.
The energy flared, causing Sayeed to see spots, and the man’s wails stopped. When his vision cleared, Sayeed saw the devourer drop the shriveled, lifeless form of the man to the mud and turn to face the women.
Within the devourer’s abdomen, caged by the bars of its ribs, squirmed a tiny, naked effigy of the man, the devourer pregnant with horror. The effigy’s eyes and mouth were wide with pain and terror.
Sayeed knew what had occurred: The devourer had caged the man’s soul and would use it to power its own unholy force.
Seeing that, the women finally broke entirely. They shrieked and turned to run. The older slipped and fell in the mud, and the younger turned to help her. The devourer keened. Green energy flared from the effigy in its abdomen, traveled to its claws, and shot out toward the women and their dog. It struck all of them at once, and the barking and screaming ended, cut off as if by a blade. All three fell to the sodden earth, limp.
The tiny body within the devourer watched it all and opened its mouth in a wail of despair. The devourer ran its tongue over its lips and fangs, shuddered as if in ecstasy.
The surviving dog whined, turned circles in its agitation.
Sayeed stared at the small form of the trapped soul, wondering if he could die were his soul so trapped. It had been so long since he’d rested. He wondered if he could find peace in the belly of a horror. What would it would be like, to have his soul slowly-
“What are you doing?” Zeeahd said. “I need someone alive!”
Zeeahd stood and pushed past Sayeed while drawing his sword. He spoke words of power, his voice ragged and deep, and extended his blade in the direction of the devourer. A twisting spiral of smoking, deep red flames exploded from the steel and slammed into the devourer’s chest.
The creature staggered backward, bent, flesh charred and smoking, steadying itself by placing one clawed hand on the wet ground. Its green eyes scanned the rise, fixed on Zeeahd and Sayeed, and flashed with unholy light. It crouched, flexed its claws, and shrieked.
The cats hissed in answer.
The surviving dog took to barking and growling but did not get within the devourer’s reach. The soul of the trapped man writhed, veins of green energy pulsing from it to feed the devourer.
Black energy swirled from the devourer’s form. Green light flared in its abdomen, and the tiny effigy of the man imprisoned there squirmed, shrinking ever smaller as the devourer consumed him for power. As the effigy shrank, the burns Zeeahd had inflicted on the flesh of the devourer healed, the flesh knitting closed.
A coughing fit seized Zeeahd and he bent double, slipped in the wet, and fell to the grass on all fours. His form twisted under his clothing, getting taller, thinner. Sayeed started to help him up-feeling his brother’s bones twisting-but Zeeahd pushed him away.
“Go!” he said, and coughed. “That’s all I can do for now.”
Sayeed stood, drew his blade, and readied his shield.
Zeeahd’s hand reached up and closed on his wrist. His brother’s hand was feverishly hot, although he still kept his visage hidden within the cowl.
“That creature cannot give you peace, Sayeed. Your soul and mind would live on in its form, regenerating constantly, forever sating its appetite. You would suffer eternally.” Another cough, then, “The Lord of the Eighth has promised me a cure. Promised us a cure. Only through him will we find an end to this. He has already gifted me with hellfire. You saw, Saied. You saw.”
The devourer shrieked again and padded across the grass toward them, stepping heedlessly on the corpses of those it had slain, driving the bodies deeper into the mud.
“I saw,” Sayeed said to his brother. He didn’t trust Zeeahd-he hated Zeeahd-but what choice did he have?
The devourer broke into a loping run.
Sayeed didn’t wait for it. He roared and ran down the rise, his armor clanging, meeting the creature’s charge head on. The thrill of battle filled him, the only thing he felt with clarity anymore.
They closed in five strides. The devourer slashed with one of its huge claws, but Sayeed deflected it with his shield and did not slow, instead slamming his body into the devourer’s larger form while he drove his blade into the creature’s abdomen, through the effigy, and up through the neck. The enchanted blade vibrated gleefully in his hands as it found purchase in flesh, and the movement made the already deep wound jagged, more painful.
The devourer and the effigy both keened with pain. Dark energy swirled around them, a black fog that pulled at whatever withered bits of Sayeed’s soul remained. The stink of the creature, like a charnel house, filled Sayeed’s nostrils. The devourer shoved him away, nearly causing him to slip on the wet earth, and bounded after him, claws slashing. Sayeed parried with his shield and ducked under another blow, but the creature pressed, heedless of Sayeed’s blade.
Sayeed slashed the creature’s arms, leg, but the devourer grabbed his face with an enormous clawed hand and squeezed, the nails piercing Sayeed’s cheeks, penetrating gums, and scraping teeth. Blood poured into Sayeed’s mouth. He felt no pain but nearly vomited at the taste of the creature’s foul digits in his mouth.
With preternatural strength, the devourer lifted Sayeed by his head and cast him five paces away. Sayeed hit the ground in a clatter of metal, rolled with the momentum, and bounced to his feet. Already the flesh of his face was knitting closed. He spat out the taste of the devourer’s fingers and a mouthful of blood.
The devourer cocked its head and licked its fangs with the rope of its tongue, perhaps puzzled that Sayeed had not remained prone.
Sayeed’s weapon shook in his hands, hungry for more violence. Sayeed, eager to feed it and high on the rush of battle, roared and charged anew. He blocked an overhead claw strike with his shield and cleaved the creature at the knee. His blade bit through flesh and sheared bone, severing the leg.
As the devourer fell, it lashed out with its other claw, catching Sayeed on the shoulder, ripping through mail and flesh, and spinning him around with the impact. A blast of dark energy from the devourer engulfed him, cooled his body, and once more pulled at his soul.
His rage proved the hotter and he resisted the dark magic. He spun and drove his blade downward into the prone creature’s chest. He left it there, pinioning the creature to the ground, while the devourer tore at his legs and abdomen. Black energy from the devourer churned around him, a seething cloud of unholy power. Sayeed felt the blood running warm from his body, but ignored it. Straddling the creature, he took his shield by the sides, lifted it high, and slammed the sharpened edge of its bottom into the devourer’s neck. The slab of enchanted metal severed the devourer’s head, ending its shrieking, extinguishing the green light in its eyes. The dark energy around Sayeed subsided as the head fell away from the body, tongue still dangling from its mouth like some grotesque pennon.
Sayeed stood over the corpse while the rain fell, while his body healed its wounds. With battle over, the rush left him, and he once more returned to his usual emptiness.
The devourer’s corpse began to leak shadows, the stink of them like rotting meat. Its flesh fell away from bones that began to crumble. The trapped soul in its abdomen, like a malformed fetus, was the last to go, screaming as it dissolved into putrescence.