Crusade Gone Awry Ch. 14

The citizens of Tarbat had given up. They now screamed and scattered, fleeing in all directions. The frog monster wasn't finished. The human struggling against his sticky tongue wasn't the only leader here. The other races had someone they had elected as their chief. He would be easy to spot if he was out in the open. He was an oni, a race that was nearly extinct. They were large, had shaggy hair, and bright red skin. After looking for only a few moments, Adrum found the unmistakable red tint of the man's flesh. He was in the city square, shouting at people and trying to figure out what was happening. He was about to get a rude update. Once again, Adrum crouched down.

The oni only spotted the shadow above him for a split-second. Then the ground quaked and he was knocked off his feet. All of the people around him screamed and ran. Something large and strong slammed onto his body, pressing him onto the ground. The oni couldn't budge an inch. He felt as if he were being utterly crushed, struggling to breathe. Adrum paused for a moment, gazing around. Multitudes of people, both human and monster, were on the edges of the square. They were gawking at him, as if they couldn't believe it. How long had it been since Adrum had taken his true form? Judging from the stares, too long. They had forgotten what he was. He opened his mouth and spat the human leader onto the ground. He flopped around for a moment before getting to his feet, clearly confused. Adrum also lifted his hand from the oni, who also scrambled up. A magic circle lit up around the frog monster's feet. A glowing light enveloped Adrum as he slowly shrank back to his human form. It suddenly felt very limiting.

Adrum deposited the two children behind him as he walked towards the two leaders. They stared at him in utter bewilderment. The local fisherman had just turned out to be a monster of the highest order, maybe even the strongest thing in the desert next to the demon king.

"Both of you listen!" Adrum demanded. "You will stop this nonsense this instant! Your fighting is foolish! All of you hold the demon's blood in your veins! None of you are better than any other! Throwing this tantrum because some people look and act different is nothing but petulant anger! You two will talk your differences out and you will do it now!"

A very tense pause filled the square. The oni and the human glanced at each other and then back at Adrum. Just as the fisherman thought they were really considering his words, he received a rude surprise in how stubborn people can be. Simultaneously, both of them lifted their hands and magic circles lit up. They were going to attack him.

Adrum had to make a split-second decision. He was in his human form. His magic was suppressed, and his skin was now vulnerable and soft. He turned his head behind him. The two children had not moved. They had frozen, as frightened children often do. Unfortunately they were directly in the line of fire if Adrum moved. He couldn't let that happen. He had no choice but to take it. A moment later, the two men unleashed fireballs at him. One struck him in the face and the other his chest. There were two loud explosions as Adrum yelled at the top of his lungs, his skin sizzling from the blasts. He fell onto his knee as smoke billowed off him. The two children screamed and huddled together again, petrified that their savoir had been killed.

There was silence in the square as the smoke began to clear. Adrum was motionless as he gasped for air. Then, without warning, he popped to his feet and shot out his hands. He channeled his suppressed magic into two bright, blinding circles from his palms. Beams of sheer energy, giving off heat that would boil steel, blasted out of him. The two leaders in the square didn't even have time to react. The human was hit, the blast trailing across his body. He was eviscerated in seconds, all his body parts flying through the air. The oni was mercifully hit in the head, searing it off in an instant and dooming the oni to extinction with his death. The crowd around the square screamed and scuttled backwards, although none of them were hit. As the smoke dissipated Adrum was left standing alone, gasping for breath. He coughed for a moment before spitting out blood and most of his teeth. His entire face and chest were black, but he was alive, and hopping mad.

The fisherman glared at the crowd, sheer rage in his eyes.

"IS THAT HOW YOU LOT WANT TO PLAY IT? FINE! WE'LL DO IT YOUR WAY! YOU WILL STOP FIGHTING, YOU WILL OPEN YOUR SHOPS, YOU WILL OBEY THE LAWS, AND YOU WILL ALL GET ALONG! YOU WILL DO IT BECAUSE I SAID SO! ANYONE WHO DOES NOT WILL BE CRUSHED LIKE THE BUGS YOU ARE! IF YOU CANNOT FOLLOW THE LAWS AND GET ALONG SO HELP ME, I WILL BURN THIS CITY TO THE GROUND AND START IT AGAIN!"

Adrum finally stopped his tirade, panting and gasping for air. He couldn't remember the last time he had been this angry. How had these people become so stupid? If they wanted to act like children, he would treat them like children. Silence pervaded the square once again, as everyone kept glancing between one another, as if unsure of what to do. The tense scene seemed to go on forever. After finally catching his breath, Adrum felt another rush of anger.

"NOW DISPERSE! GO HOME! NOW!" he bellowed. Many of the people screamed as they all began running away. They had received a rude reminder that the ancient fisherman by the shore wasn't just some old man, but a beast they should never defy if they valued their lives.

With the square largely empty again, Adrum turned towards the two children. They were staring at his wounds, looking hurt and afraid. Adrum figured they were frightened by his appearance, and seemingly missed the gazes of guilt they were carrying.

"You two as well," he said. "Go home to your parents."

"We don't have parents," Renard said.

"Or homes," Hamid added.

"Then go find your clan. They'll find someone..."

"I'm in the pleasure caste!" Renard cried, fear on his face. Hamid sighed and closed his eyes. Without his parents, it was clear what they were going to train the child to do when he grew up. They would give him no choice.

"I'm a doll mage!" Hamid added. At that, Adrum flinched and cut his gaze away. Hamid bit his lip and tried not to cry. Everyone hated doll mages, even their savior. He was disgusted, just like everyone else. This was something Hamid took to heart, without knowing the billowing feelings of guilt Adrum held in his gut.

"I see..." the fisherman finally said. "Fine. You two come with me. I'll see to it you're taken care of until we can find a better solution." The two boys quickly nodded and followed him as he walked back towards the shore. Adrum now had an odd, squatting gait, likely damage from the impact of those spells. He kept it for the next eighteen years, refusing to go back to his original form. The pleasure of using it was too great to unleash very often. He would end up abandoning his duty if he got too addicted to it.

A better solution didn't come, not for eighteen years. Adrum kept Hamid and Renard by his side, teaching them to fish and protecting them from people who might hurt him. The skin that had been charred by shielding them slowly scabbed, wrinkled, and then sagged, making him look decrepit and ancient. Hamid and Renard were forced to look at that face day after day and remember the blow he took for them. The three lived for eighteen years, words and feelings remaining unsaid and hanging between them. Then Colonel Lionheart stepped onto the pier, and everything changed.

*

"Wait, wait, wait!" Catarina cried. "That...that was you? You were that giant frog?"

"I suppose you could say I'm always a giant frog," Adrum explained. "I can just take this human form."

"What were you doing there anyway?" the crusader continued. "Last I saw of you we were getting off our boats and..." Catarina paused. She turned her head towards the ocean and only saw open water. Her brain took another moment to process before she pointed. "What happened to our boats?"

"Finally noticed that did you?" Adrum asked. "They were clogging up my fishing waters, so I decided to move them. Much easier to do that in my real form. It had been a few months, so I figured you lot were all dead. I moved them way down the coast and beached them a few hundred miles away. Didn't want to deal with any debris on the beach."

Catarina continued to point as she slowly turned her head back around. "You were just...you found by accident?"

"To be fair, I heard your screaming from quite a distance away. My eardrums are quite sensitive. I also occasionally cull the gargantua so their population doesn't get too big."

As if finally catching up, Catarina's eyes lit up. "Wait! There was this other girl with me! Uh...Naralia! A fox woman! You have to go rescue her too!"

"Have they already laid their eggs in her?"

"Yeah!"

Adrum waved her off. "Then it's too late. By now they have pumped her full of their poison and rotted her mind. You can free her, but it would be a curse, to her and her loved ones. Best just to leave what's left of her where she is."

"I can't just abandon her!" Catarina shrieked, stomping her feet. "I've already had to abandon my sister and my army! I'm not losing anyone else!"

Adrum's dark eyes darted towards her. It was as if something clicked in his mind. "I didn't catch your name."

"It's Catarina Steinam," she explained. "I'm a private in the church's army...or I was..."

"What happened to them?" Adrum asked, his voice low.

"There were these things under the sand. They had these...tentacle things that came out of the sand. They ripped us apart. They were torn up and pulled under. I just...I froze."

"Assassin weevils," Adrum confirmed. "They roam the open desert as a large pack. By the time they attack, you've already been surrounded. Your fellow soldiers were doomed when they wandered into the trap. That's what this desert does. It chews people up and spits them out. I tried to tell your colonel this, but he wasn't interested. Staying still is what saved you. The assassin weevils needed to eat. The gargantua need to reproduce. That is he way the desert is. There was nothing you could do to save them, nor is there anything you can do for that fox woman. It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. It's simply the nature of this world you're in."

Catarina didn't respond. She just stared at the ground, stewing. Adrum sighed. She was young and had seen some terrible things. She wanted to fight and change the world. It was spirit that Adrum hadn't seen in a long time. He reached over and patted the stool beside him. It had once been the property of either Renard or Hamid, but they had long since moved into the city.

"Come. Help me clean some fish so we can eat," he offered. Wordless, Catarina marched over to the chair and plopped down. She was red in the face and frustrated. She needed something to occupy her mind. Adrum handed her a cleaning knife. "Do you know how to gut fish?"

"My dad taught me when I was young, but that was a long time ago."

"It's alright, I'll show you."

For the next few minutes, Adrum would hand her a fish and give her instructions. After a few tries, she got it right and developed a rhythm. She had seemingly cooled off and had lulled into silence. Adrum stared at her. The way she was weighed down by the world...it reminded him of two boys who tagged along with him for so many years.

"Your army's guide, Renard," Adrum began. "What happened to him?"

"I don't know," Catarina answered. "He was at the front of the column. I was at the end. He's probably dead."

"I see..." Adrum said, his voice dropping. "Perhaps we've all lost something these days."

"I lost my sister when we first got here," the crusader added. "She's probably dead too."

The fisherman's eyes darted towards her, but he said nothing. "Maybe we can do something about that."

"You should do something about that gargantua, too."

Adrum's jaw tightened a bit. "I did once before. That's why they are the way they are."

Catarina turned towards him, shock in her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Many centuries ago, the gargantua were led by queens. These queens gave birth to all and were very intelligent. When the gargantua's numbers were large, they began to attack everyone. They figured their superior numbers would let them enslave all in this desert. However, when you pick a fight with the humans, centaurs, batrians, foxmen, pigmen, basilisks, cockatrices, oni, hellhounds, snapping trees, and doll mages all at the same time, your numbers are meaningless. In the resulting fight, I killed all of the queens. Unfortunately, only a queen can give birth to a queen, so only females who couldn't carry the eggs were left. This forced them to find others to carry their eggs. I try to keep them culled...but I have no right to wipe them out. There's been enough of that in this desert."

"They're preying on people," Catarina replied sharply.

"So do lions and crocodiles, should I wipe them out too?"

Catarina didn't immediately reply. Eventually she turned back to what she was doing and sliced a fish open again. Adrum did the same. Silence hung in the air for several minutes.

"Wait!" the crusader replied, her head spinning. "You said centuries ago, right? How old are you!?"

Adrum raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want to know?"

Before Catarina could answer, someone came strolling up to the pier. He looked an average citizen of Tarbat and there was a swing in his step. He boldly sauntered up to Adrum's shack, but immediately stopped when he saw the town's fisherman. His face melted into shocked.

"Adrum?" he asked.

"Yes?" Adrum replied.

"Did you...?"

"What I did is none of your business."

The man's face contorted into rage, and he balled his hands into tight fists. "You could have fixed yourself this whole time? Do you have any idea how guilty Renard and I felt?"

"I never laid any blame on you. Any feeling of guilt you had was your own."

"Okay, you know what old man? I've had with you, and your bullshit! If you had treated either of us with a single iota of respect than maybe the two of us wouldn't have turned out like..."

For the first time, the new man spotted Catarina. She was staring at him, completely bewildered by the conversation.

"I'm sorry, who the hell are you?" the man asked. Catarina flinched, her brow furrowed at the sudden rudeness.

"Catarina," she barked.

"Catarina...?" That wasn't a name he had heard before. She was clearly not from Tarbat.

"Yeah, Catarina Steinam."

The moment he heard the last name, Hamid felt his spine go rigid and his stomach twist into a tight knot.

"You're a crusader..." Hamid said unsteadily, sweat beginning to form on his face.

"Yeah, so?" Catarina barked.

"I uh...I image Steinam is a common family name back in your kingdom..."

"Not really, no."

Adrum glanced between them for a few moments, as if he were thinking. Finally, he sighed and shook his head.

"He's the one kidnapped your sister," he said matter-of-factly.

A split-second later, fire returned to Catarina's eyes.

"HE WHAT!?!?!?" She jumped to her feet, the knife still in her hand.

Hamid went pale and his hands shot up defensively.

"Adrum what the hell!" he demanded.

"I said if the crusaders made it back, I would tell them what happened," Adrum explained. "She made it back."

"She's gonna kill me!" Hamid cried.

Adrum off-set his jaw but said nothing. Catarina quickly began marching toward Hamid, the knife being held like a murder weapon.

"N-N-Now!" Hamid said, his voice quivering. He walked backwards, causing him to stumble. "She isn't dead! If she had gone with the army she would be! She's alive!"

"Bring me to her!!!" Catarina shrieked, quickly closing the distance.

"I uh...I don't think that would be a great...you see your sister deci-" Hamid, trying to speed up, tripped over a nearby bucket. He hit the ground and scuttled along the ground. Catarina pounced, seizing him. With her knee on his back, she twisted his arm around, painfully.

"Take me to her!!!" she screamed.

"You really don't want me to do that!" Hamid screamed in a high voice. Catarina snarled like an angry cat. She lifted the blade and raised it above her head, clearly intent on ripping his skin from his bones.

"STOP!" Adrum bellowed. His voice was so authoritative, that even Catarina froze. The fisherman stood and walked over. "He didn't kill your sister, so I can't let you do that. I must also warn you, that he dies, so will your sister."

Catarina's fiery eyes turned towards Adrum.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, keeping her weight on top of Hamid, leaving him pinned.

"I've seen the results of the spell he put on her," Adrum explained. "If you kill him, the one who placed it, you kill her as well."

"You've seen it before?" Hamid asked, sounding both shocked and outraged.

"What did he do?" Catarina demanded.

"It's best if you see it," Adrum explained.

"That's not a good idea!" Hamid added. Catarina growled at him and pushed the blade against his back.

"SHUT UP!" Catarina shrieked. With surprising strength, she yanked Hamid onto his feet. With his arm still locked behind his back, she prodded him with the tip of the knife. "Start walking! Take me to my sister!"

Hamid glanced at Adrum with terrified eyes, but the fisherman offered no help. The mage began walking. Adrum followed behind, as if to make sure Hamid finally had to eat his just desserts.

They managed to enter Hamid's shop without any interference, likely due to Adrum accompanying them. Once inside, Adrum shut and locked the door.

"Now where is she?" Catarina demanded.

"She's in the back room!" Hamid said. "I just want to warn you...it's not as bad as it looks!"

"Bring her here!"

Hamid gulped and continued to sweat profusely. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. After a few moments, Marisa entered in all her doll-like, nipple-pierced, stone-faced beauty. Catarina felt her blood boil at seeing what her sister had become. She twisted his arm even harder and pushed the blade against him so hard that his clothes tore.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Catarina shrieked.

"She likes it!" Hamid cried like a woman.

"What?" the crusader demanded.

"She says she likes it! She likes what I did to her! She told me so herself!"

"Don't lie!"

"I'm not lying!"

"Alright!" Adrum interjected. "Let him go. He can't escape. I'm here."

Catarina was trembling with rage and would like nothing more than to flay him alive. However, if Adrum told the truth then she literally couldn't. She let Hamid go, but with a hard kick to his back. The mage went tumbling to the floor before coming back up, rubbing his arm.

"Hamid," Adrum began. "I want you to release all control over this woman so she can speak her mind. If you make her hold anything back, I will let Catarina do whatever she wants."

"I won't!" Hamid said defensively. Adrum motioned Catarina towards Marisa.

"Stand close to her. I'll put a veil around you, so you can have your privacy without him interfering."

Catarina's face was twitching with rage, but she ultimately walked forward to stand in front of her sister. The moment she was in range, Adrum pointed to Hamid. The doll mage grumbled but lifted up his hand. He snapped his fingers. An instant later, something sparkling and white surrounded the two sisters, shielding them from magic and making them unseeable.

The moment the two were wrapped around in white light, Marisa's eyes lit up. Her lifeless face melted into emotion as she lunged forward.

"Catarina!" she cried, wrapping her younger sister in a tight embrace. Catarina quickly returned the hug, and two of them were silent. Marisa's skin felt different, artificial and smooth, but Catarina hardly cared. Somehow, they were both alive after this hopeless crusade.