Everman and Sparky (Chapter 1 Part D)mature

The earthen trail lead to a large clearing in the ancient forest, which then lead to a field of slaughter. Everman and Gabriel caught scent before leaving the shade of the canopy. They approached slowly, sobered up and ready for trouble. Everman kept a hand on his hilt at all times. Gabriel had drawn his steel.

They came upon the ruins of a large camp. Fur skin tents and rickety huts had been fired, the ground trampled and bloodied. Corpses were strewn about. There was no sign of any real struggle, no corpses of the enemy left behind. They entered the camp proper, examining the signs.

There had been a small force of attackers, armed and armored, come from the west and having left the same way. The bodies had not been stilled for long, perhaps only a few days ago. Flies gathered in earnest, despicable little vultures come to feast upon this atrocity.

Men. Women. All primitive, covered in furs for clothes, laying beside primitive tools and weaponry. No children. Were they taken, or were there none in this village to take?

“Everman.” Gabriel spoke in whisper, hushing himself in the presence of so many who had recently moved on. Everman approached him, stepping around the remains of a fire pit. He had been peeking inside one of the few huts that remained standing.

Everman followed Gabriel's gaze inside the hut. What he saw surprised him.

They were smaller, younger, docile-looking even before they had breathed their last. Parademons. Slain in earnest whilst the tribes people of this village had protected them.

Everman could not believe it. Those vile, ruthless creatures, nurtured and raised by humans? It couldn't be!

In a sudden fit of anger, Everman felt that he had been robbed of the chance of killing these creatures himself. He would not have slain their caretakers like this party had, but for what these creatures had done to his people, he would have strangled the life from their bodies with his bare hands.

Gabriel went to check another of the huts. Everman did the same. Inside, the furs of the walls and supporting plank scorched black and frail, Everman saw the body of an elderly woman clothed in a simple peasant's dress. Rich, these people were not.

Around her body there had gathered several younger parademons, all slain. Curiously, they were all without scales, covered instead in red fur. The ones he had seen attacking his city of Anrene had been covered head-to-toe in an armor of impenetrable scales. Perhaps that was because the ones he had witnessed in the attack had matured.

Grimly satisfied by the deaths of so many of those hell-spawns, Everman stood upright once more, letting the tent flap fall closed.

He had turned to walk away when he first heard the noise.

Everman stopped, froze, listened. He heard it again. Something, in the tiniest, frailest voice Everman had ever heard, was mewing softly. Barely audible.

Everman turned, his heartbeat accelerating. Perhaps he had been given the chance to strangle the life out of one of these monsters himself! If there was one left alive, he would make it suffer before snuffing it out.

The images of parademons, leaping in ambush from behind ruins to mangle and savagely rip apart his comrades in arms, leapt through his mind. These beasts had slain Atherton and grievously wounded Taneth, leaving him to die. Not to mention the others of his squadron they had claimed.

It was unforgivable; a massacre he had witnessed and lived with for five months without prospect of any revenge. But now...

Everman ripped aside the tent flap, tearing its stitchings and detaching from the tent. It hung useless in his hand. He discarded it, looking inside.

He heard the mewing once more, stronger this time. And there he saw, hiding underneath the curled body of the elderly woman, one had survived. A pair of eyes looked up at him from shadow. It mewed loudly, crying.

Everman shoved his hand into the tent, forcefully pushing aside the corpse of the old woman, forgetting all respect for the souls laid to rest here. Without shelter, the parademon looked up at him nakedly from the center of the tent. Everman grabbed it, lifting it up.

He hoisted the creature outside of the tent and threw it upon the ground, his sword already unsheathed. He raised it up over the creature, the rage of seeing so many of his friends massacred boiling his blood. He hefted the blade, raising it high, and stared murderously down at the creature.

...And there he remained for several minutes.

Everman hated parademons for what they had done. He hated this creature and all like it for what they were. He hated the way they had feasted upon the life blood of his friends, the memory still fresh and painful in his mind's eye, despite how much time had gone by.

His brain ordered his arms over and over again to swing down the blade and split this creature in two, like it so well deserved. Yet his blade never moved. It remained suspended in the air above him, unresponsive, like his arms had been petrified.

That was because his arms had been receiving orders from somewhere deep down, bypassing the command of his brain entirely.

Several long moments passed, Everman remaining frozen where he was like a lifelike statue, while nothing at all happened. At length, his eyes and ears were finally able to see and hear the truth of what lie before him.

The creature before him was a parademon, of that there was no doubt. But it was also no larger than the size of Everman's hand. It looked up at Everman with a head too big for its body, standing upon shaky feet, barely able to support itself, that also appeared too big for it. A small tail curled up and around its tiny body. The outline of its ribs could be traced through its fur. Its fur itself was dirty, trampled, and mussed with visible bare spots in some places. One of its triangular ears was nicked at the top. Huge orbs dominated the creature's face, staring up at Everman with wide, pleading pupils surrounded by small but brilliant golden rings. Whiskers twitched as its cat-like nose sampled the air endlessly, whilst its small mouth worked again and again, emitting soft, feeble cries. Mew! Mew!

It was a small, pathetic creature, crying out with a desperate voice, unable to walk and barely able to stand. It started forward only to stumble and collapse under its own weight. And it weighed next to nothing. How long had it been taking shelter under its dead master, too terrified to come out, whilst starving and thirsting close to death?

Heaving a great sigh, Everman lowered his blade to his side. The creature before him now was clearly no less ravenous than a baby chick, cast out of its nest too soon and left forlorn. It may have been the same breed as the savage beasts that had spilt the blood of his people, but a vicious monster it was not.

It attempted to rise, looked up at Everman pleading for but a moment, then fell back down upon its belly, all four legs sprawled upon the dirt.

Everman covered his face with his hands, rubbing his forehead idly, sighing deeply again, exasperated. He was angry at himself. And maybe even embarrassed, too.

He heard the creature start mewing at him once more. Even with his closed eyelids concealed behind his gruff hands, he could see the small creature in his mind's eye as it attempted to walk once more. He felt it brush against his boot, stumbling over on its side as it did so.

He did not like it. He did not like the situation he had stumbled upon. He did not want anything to do with it. The creature's original caretakers lay slain in their own village, as well as the thing's entire family. If Everman were to simply move on, ignorant of his discovery, it would be dead in a few days. The option seemed very inviting, but again, as he had been unable to kill it a moment ago, he would be no more able to take that course of action now.

The decision proved easy, for it was really no decision at all. He had been left without a choice. Fate had smacked him across the face, whether he liked it or not.

Admitting his surrender, Everman let his hands fall to his sides. He looked down at the creature, which appeared to be batting at its own tail with the tiniest claws Everman had ever seen. He bent down and scooped it up with a single hand.

The creature looked about itself, looked at Everman, mewed once, then promptly curled up. As a ball, it was hardly bigger than his palm. Everman noticed for the first time that the creature had a belly and chin of white fur, sharply contrasting the rest of its red coat.

Gabriel, predictably, chose that moment to call out to Everman. He looked positively sour, and dreaded having to explain this to his accomplice. The prospect was embarrassing.

“No sign of survivors anywhere,” Gabriel explained as he approached. “But the tracks lead into the woods so we can follow—what's that?”