“They have wings?!”
***
“Val!” Rocco shouted to his brother at the top of the stairs when the chamber went black.
My swords aren’t so useful without my eyes big brother.
He heard the twang of Billy’s bow close by and then an instant later the near simultaneous sounds of the arrow striking something soft and an accompanying cry but this cry was nothing like the paralyzing howls from a few moments earlier – something in the monster’s timber now suggested that the beast was simply irritated.
“I don’t know how much Val can help us,” Billy said to Rocco. He heard her draw her bow again. “These things are more your size.”
“ ‘These?’ How many are there? What are they? What do you see?” By now everyone had picked themselves up off the floor and all but Rocco could begin to make out the creatures in the dark.
“Val, lights!?”
“Workin’ on it bro’!” Val shouted back nervously from the top of the stairs and then Rocco thought he heard his brother mutter, “Oh fuck, where did it go?”
Not good.
He heard Billy let another arrow fly but this time the snap of her bowstring was not followed by the reassuring sound of an arrow hitting its mark. Instead Rocco thought he heard something like the snap of canvas and then the sound of Billy’s arrow ricocheting off the stone walls – a clear miss. “Could someone who can see please tell me what we’re up against?”
“I see two and they’re splitting up.” Billy answered, composed but stern.
He pieced together what little he knew: The statue was in the center of this oval room, about 25 feet directly ahead of them. The mural had been some 25 feet further behind the statue, centered along the back wall and so the chamber of screams was some fifty feet directly across from the bottom of the stairwell where they all huddled in the dark. The beasts had exited their secret lair and split up and were now circling on both sides. He could hear that they moved slowly, but stepped lightly. They were not sluggish beasts; they were big and dexterous and working together. This much Rocco could made out despite the tumbling, bumbling and unexpected darkness.
“I haven’t seen their likes in a century,” Dudley said matter-of-factly. Rocco heard the familiar sounds of the dwarf removing a throwing hammer from his belt and then hurling it in the direction of the gradually approaching footsteps. There was no sound of the hammer making contact with either beast or building. “Well fuck me. He caught it … Duck!”
Rocco could feel the hammer pass by his face – it could not have missed by more than a fraction of an inch.
“It has the head of a bird … an honest to gods owl … and the body of a …” Dudley’s voice trailed off, a little bit perplexed, a little bit petrified.
What Rocco couldn’t see he could hear and feel. The beasts’ breathing was heavy and loud and the sounds were coming from almost 10 feet high. They were easily as large as he if not bigger.
“A bear,” said Ar-Raguel finishing Dudley’s remarks. The elfkin was up now and his eyes had adjusted to the dark.
“The head of an owl and the body of a bear?” Rocco asked incredulously.
“Yeah, a bird and a bear, and they are greater than the sum of their parts … very big, big man, very big.” Ar-Raguel answered.
“But, hey, bigger ain’t always better, right Rocco?” Sammy said. Rocco could picture the little man’s smirk. Then he heard the halfling begin to sing an absurd bawdy tune as he went charging into the darkness followed by Ar-Raguel with Dudley taking rear. They ran to the left of the statue, towards the beast that Billy had at least irritated.
Billy on the other hand stayed with Rocco. “Well at least someone’s enjoying himself,” she noted as Sammy ran off singing.
“Ar-Raguel shouldn’t have followed – he’s the only decent healer among us.” He said.
“Dudley and Sammy will need his sword since - as you so delicately put it - you can’t see shit and that leaves us down one enormous warrior,” she countered.
“Well then be my eyes, love,” he said quietly with a hint of apprehension in his voice. She let fly another arrow, this time at the beast coming from the right of the statue. Rocco followed the arrow’s path by listening for the violent flutter of the feathered fletching. It found its mark low and he heard the beast’s gait alter as it stumbled a bit when the barb bit.
“Follow that sound.” She pushed him forward. “The other beast batted my arrow away with its wings but I tagged this one’s thigh.”
“They have wings?!”
“Big ones and for Sammy’s sake let’s hope they also have great big balls!”
He listened for the beast’s limp. Billy had injured the beast’s right leg, the one on Rocco’s shield side - but Rocco rarely carried a shield. Like the ebony effigy standing in the center of the room, Rocco had the strength and skill to wield a two-handed broad sword with just one hand. In Rocco’s shield hand he carried what most would consider to be a short sword but which he could wield with the grace and ease that Sammy used his daggers. Rocco spun the hilt in his hand turning the short-sword round so that the pommel was near his thumb, not his pinky, and the blade pointed out, back and away from him. He led with his long broadsword in his right hand, probing and slicing through the space ahead of him. His apish arms and long blade easily reached eight feet. He heard Billy shout, “Block on your right high, step left,” and instinctively his right arm brought up his huge broadsword. In the darkness he felt the massive force of the beast’s … wing? … come crashing down on his blade. If he hadn’t already been moving towards the left per Billy’s call he may have been knocked off his feet. The beast was stronger but Rocco’s blade was sharp and the creature squealed as it quickly pulled its limb back after slicing itself along the edge of Rocco’s blade.
“That was a wing?!” Rocco screamed, confused and wishing he could see his opponent.
What the hell is taking Val so long to light the torches again?!
“No, a bear paw!” Billy shouted from behind him but her voice was on the move. “Actually, it’s kinda’ hard to tell what’s what to be honest.” She added and as she finished this last sentence, the word “honest” came from above Rocco. “Feathers … fur … claws, talons!” Now he could hear her in front of him but still from far too great a height. “It’s a goddamn mutant!”
Did she just sneeze?
Rocco had no idea how much damage he had dealt his attacker or why Billy seemed to be flying around the chamber but he took full advantage of the creature’s momentary withdrawal to press his own attack and continued towards the sound of the beast’s limping right leg. He quickly found himself slamming into monster, the length of his short sword cutting a gash in what he thought was the monster’s gut. The beast wailed and sidestepped away from him as Rocco’s sword cut across and up its torso. Rocco spun around clockwise, twirling the short sword around in his hand again after he had slid it through the beast’s flesh. He came to a stop and assumed a defensive posture behind (he hoped) his opponent with both weapons at the ready. As Rocco brought his blades up to defend himself, the beast, having stumbled several feet away from him after being sliced, let out an even more horrible scream.
That thing’s not screaming about the gash I just gave it… Billy?
Rocco heard great wings flap and felt gusts of air blow by him as the creature howled, backpedaling, stumbling around, and flailing.
And then there was light.
Val’s staff, aglow like half a dozen torches but with no flame to be seen, clattered on the ground near Rocco. Magicked and thrown down the stairwell towards the battle by Val, it lit up the chamber more than well enough for Rocco to finally behold his opponent.
About ten feet away from Rocco stood a monster like none he had ever seen before. At first glance it seemed an enormous bear nearly ten feet tall. But its height was hardly the most exceptional thing about the beast. Its fur barely contained its massive bulk. Muscles and tendons strained against the hide giving the eerie appearance of a creature within the creature desperate to escape. Atop that muscled frame sat not some ursine crown but the billowing crest of a great grey owl. Its beak was easily a foot and a half long; its mandibles serrated, leading to a nail at the beak’s tip that looked more like a dagger than part of a bird’s anatomy. Feathered handsomely with the same intricate patterns of its less otherworldly forest cousins, the plumage did not stop at the beast’s neck but continued downwards like a feathered cloak, a simulacrum of wings. Its arms, rippled with muscles, fur and feather, were raised and waving wildly as it tried to reach behind its head while bellowing in terrible pain. The monster arched its back revealing its massive size as it struggled to remove Billy who was riding piggyback on the demon. Her legs were wrapped around its neck. Her left hand was buried deep in the plumage, assumedly finding grasp and holding on for dear life. Her right hand was wielding a dagger covered with blood and viscera which she was wildly striking against the beast’s beak and face. Having successfully landed a blow in the creature’s right eye, she was now trying for the left.
With an arrow in its thigh, its right arm and paw cut deeply, a foot long bloody gash across its abdomen, and now blinded in one eye, the beast was undoubtedly injured but all the suffering seemed to only make it fight more ferociously.
It took Rocco a moment or three to comprehend the scene now lit, a long enough delay to give the freakish beast a chance to turn the tables. One of its taloned bear paws hooked into Billy and the horrible hybrid hurled the elfkin across the room back towards the stairway. Rocco’s gaze followed Billy’s sailing body and just as he feared she would splatter against the wall, she twisted herself around, compressing, sliding and ricocheting off the wall, rather than slamming into it. She landed somewhat roughly on the ramp but still managed to tumble down it with a controlled somersault and then almost gracefully ended her acrobatics in a crouching position under the left hand sconce where her sword was still lying.
How does she do that?
“He’s all yours big boy. I did my part.” She shouted.
“How do you do-”
“Turn around and kill, Rocco! Kill!” She screamed at him, motioning for him to stop looking at her and remember his opponent.
He turned his attention away from his favorite flying rogue and faced again the beast. It was already charging him having shaken off the pain of its lost eye in the brief moment of respite it had earned by tossing Billy around and distracting Rocco. “Heh, you’re not so big,” Rocco mocked as he spun his short sword around again, dropped his left shoulder, raised his enormous broadsword high and returned the owl’s charge.
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| not so small, either |
Original Owlbear image by Todd Lockwood via GIS
(no (c) source found)
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