The men were celebrating the aftermath of their successful raid. As former members of the army, they defected from their kingdom due to either poor conditions or loses that saw the soldiers dispersed across the countryside and fending for themselves. With winter approaching, they needed a good raid to steal the supplies that would carry them through the months to come, and they had found it.
That village had been ripe for the taking, their stores full and prepared for the frost. There was food and drink aplenty, enough that they could comfortably live off their spoils for the months to come. The best part was that they were far enough from any large city that by the time soldiers showed up to investigate, the tracks they left will either be faded or covered completely by snow. No one was left alive that could give their pursuers any hints about their direction.
It was the best that they had eaten in weeks, and they were making the most of it before more modest rations would be their fare during winter. Near the edge of the camp, sitting around a fire, a group of the raiders who had been close during their time of service were toasting each other. One man was in this group having a jolly time as the ale flowed freely, as did his inhibitions. He made jokes and laughed with his friends before taking a hearty draught from his mug.
Suddenly the noise around the fire dropped into an eerie silence. He lowered his mug and saw everyone looking his way, mouths open and eyes wide in shock. In his drunken stupor, he could only question his friends on their staring.
“What?” He never even saw the fist that collided with the side of his head, fracturing his skull and snapping his neck as his body was tossed aside from the hit, rolling across the ground a few feet away before flopping to a halt, lifeless.
Nobody moved as they were frozen in fear as a creature out of their very nightmares had emerged from the dark of the forest. Scales black as night, claws sharp as knives, teeth like a plethora of daggers gleaming in the fire light as a thick fog rolled out between said teeth with every exhale. Daegal’s red eyes were dilated to slits and filled with an unmistakable hatred as he glared at the corpse of the man he just struck.
Another man who was sitting around the fire dared to try and inch away from him, and Daegal caught the movement with one of the eyes on the side of his head and locked onto the one trying to escape. Panic ensued as the man scrambled to get away, but it didn’t matter as Daegal closed the distance between them in a blink of an eye.
With a savage lunge forward, he grabbed the retreating man by the back of his head and slammed him face first into the ground with crushing force. Not satisfied with that, he picked him up and then drove him into the dirt once more, this time receiving a much more prominent crunch sound. Everything devolved into chaos at that point as people scrambled to get away from him with cries of alarm.
“Monster!”
“Demon!”
“We’re under attack!”
“Run!”
Daegal’s senses were overwhelmed with all the noise and motion as he watched the men run around. Some had enough of their faculties about them to go for their weapons, but the scent of fear was still prominent in the air. Daegal couldn’t think straight as anger and hatred were the only things driving his actions at this point. With a deep inhale, he manifested his rage in a roar the likes of which no creature of the earth could hope to match as he charged into the camp.
The first of his unfortunate victims was only able to turn around in time to watch as Daegal slashed him across the abdomen with his claws, disemboweling him as his guts spilled onto the forest floor. Leaving the man to die, he moved on to the next closest individual who only just got ahold of a weapon before Daegal jabbed his claws into his chest, hooking his fingers under the ribcage as he lifted the man off the ground before spiking him into the ground headfirst with a loud snap of the spine. Lunging forward again, he tackled another fleeing individual before grabbing their head and twisting it until they were looking the other way.
At this point, some of the bandits had acquired their weapons and started fighting back. A man charged with a spear and rammed it into the side of Daegal as he was standing up. He barely felt the intrusion of the weapon as only the very tip managed to get past his scales and hide. Reaching out, Daegal seized his attacker by the throat, and in one swift motion, ripped it out with a spray of blood before moving on.
Two charged at him together from the front, and he chose the one of the right to kill first as his fist smashed into the side of the man’s head with enough force to scramble his brain. The second one took the opportunity to raise his sword and take a swing, but Daegal lashed out, maw open wide as he clamped down on the offending arm. The man screamed as Daegal locked his jaw, crunching down as he pulverized the bones with his bite. With a twisting jerk of his head, the weak flesh ripped and tore as he completely severed the arm, letting it fly away with a toss of his head. His mouth was filled with blood now, delicious and revolting at the same time as he spat a bloody glob of flesh onto the ground.
Daegal heard one trying to rush him from behind, and using his wider field of vision, aimed a precise whip of his tail that sent the bandit to the ground. All that was left was to raise his foot and then stamp downward on the attacker’s chest, shattering his ribs and sending bone shards into several different organs that didn’t outright burst from the pressure of the stomp. Daegal was starting to fall into a frenzy now, mind devolving as higher thoughts all but vanished. Lowering his stance, he let loose another roar as he rushed forward again, slashing, biting, crushing, and eviscerating anything that stood in his way.
He sent one man flying through a tent, the cloth wrapping around his body as he dropped into a fire pit, catching alight and starting an out-of-control fire. One panicked individual was trying to crawl away from the chaos, but Daegal saw him, and grabbed him by the ankle. Lifting the man up, he swung him down into the ground with a wet thud that resulted in unconsciousness. The subsequent swings as Daegal used the man as a weapon against his fellow resulted in death before the bones and flesh in the leg he had hold of weakened to the point where they tore during a swing, sending the body flying and leaving Daegal holding a severed foot. He threw the foot away as he continued his path of carnage.
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One of the bandits cowered away from, speaking babbled words as he tried to beg for his life, Daegal’s claws ripped up his face, gouging out an eye in the process as he beat the man into the dirt with a single, swift rake of his hand. There was a loud twang sound and Daegal felt a sting in his shoulder. An arrow had been fired at him, the pointed tip able to make it just deep enough to stick out of his body. The one who fired at him was desperately trying to nock another arrow, but before he could achieve that, Daegal had already closed the distance and grabbed him by the neck. With a firm squeeze, he crushed his throat and broke his spine before dropping the limp corpse onto the ground.
With furious savagery he ravaged the camp and its inhabitants, endeavoring to make sure that not one of them were able to escape his wrath. Those that tried to run he went for first, catching them and then ripping them to pieces, leaving a bloody lump of meat where a person once stood. At this point, the population of the camp was starting to dwindle. Nobody attempted to fight him anymore as self-preservation instincts took hold.
Just as he finished separating a man’s jaw from his body, a loud shout was heard over the growing roar of fire and the noise of his own heartbeat in his ears.
“Out of my way!”
Daegal focused on the noise and saw one of the bandits pushing aside another before throwing a saddle back onto the back of a horse. The bag itself clinked and rattled with metallic sounds, and as the man moved to mount the horse, Daegal saw a bandage on his upper arm. Suspicion amplified anger as he began running toward the horse.
The mounted-up bandit saw Daegal approaching rapidly and spurred on the horse with panic. Daegal ran, slashing the throat of the man the horse rider had shoved aside in passing as he pursued the fleeing individual. The horse was spurred onward, galloping as fast as it could, but with the trees and surrounding foliage, it could not get up to speed quick enough.
Catching up to the horse, Daegal dived forward and swept the hind legs of the animal out from underneath it. The horse collapsed onto its side with a surprised whinny. The large animal ended up landing on the leg of its rider, breaking it. The man howled in pain as the horse slowly rolled off him, the contents of the saddle bags spilling onto the ground. It was a collection of coins, metal cutlery, and simple jewelry, though none of that was of immediate concern.
The formerly fleeing individual suddenly found himself pinned once again, though this time it was by a far more terrifying individual. Daegal didn’t waste time pouncing on the downed man, grabbing his arms and holding them tightly against the ground. Obviously, the man was terrified as he stared into the face of death itself as red eyes burning with rage pierced into his very soul.
Now that he was closer, Daegal could smell the blood of this man beneath the bandages. It smelled the same as the blood on the knife that was lying next to Adelaide. Understanding flooded through him as scattered pieces of his mind came together to paint the picture. This man attacked Adelaide and her family, she fought back, cutting him with the knife, he killed her.
He did it. His fault. Guilty! Responsible!
Daegal’s bloodied teeth barred as his muscles clenched with growing tension. His thoughts narrowed once more and became a single string of accusations.
It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.
It’s all your fault, It’s all your fault, It’s all your fault,
It’s all your fault It’s all your fault It’s all your fault.
“It’s... all... your... FAULT! RAAAAAAAAAHG!”
With a roar ripping itself from his throat, he brought his fist up to a pinnacle before bringing it down upon the face of this monster. The first blow turned said face concave, shattering bones and killing him near instantly. Daegal didn’t stop, though. He hit him again, and again, and again, each time resulting in a wetter thud and a splash of blood. There was nothing recognizable as a face anymore, but he just kept hitting him.
Bones were ground into powder, flesh pulverized or scattered, and brain matter flung into the dark. The wet squelching sound of his punches steadily began to change after nearly a minute straight of hitting him, turning into simple thuds Daegal had punched straight through the man’s head and was now hitting the bloodied ground beneath where it once lay. Even so, the punching didn’t stop as he hit the earth, targeting every last speck of flesh that remained of that monster’s face, determined to stamp it completely out of existence.
With every frenzied punch it felt like more of his soul was being drained out of him, pounded into the dirt along with the remains of the head he had long since destroyed. His limbs started to get heavy, each punch falling slower than the last as the exhaustion and pain was starting to catch up to him. Finally, with one last heavy swing, his fist collided with the ground and stuck there.
His chest heaved with deep breaths, body shuddering on exhale. Lifting his fist from the ground, strands of bloody viscera extending from his knuckles before breaking after a certain distance. All over his body he could feel the stinging pain of the many small wounds that were created during the fight. Everything ached, and when he looked at his hands, completely coated with mud and blood, he started to feel sick.
Instead of succumbing to the feeling, he bit down on it, jaw locking once more as his teeth gnashed together. Throwing his head back, he let loose a roar that was loud and long, carrying deep into the night. As the roar continued, it slowly began to change, becoming less animalistic as it went on. Soon enough, it just sounded like he was screaming. He was screaming with pain, with sorrow, with rage, and his hands came up to grab at his horns, pulling at them like he was trying to rip the things out of his skull.
Eventually Daegal ran out of breath, his body going limp, hands resting on the ground as he sat there, listlessly. He stared into the night, feeling absolutely nothing as he looked at the stars and the moon which was tinged red as the smoke from the rapidly spreading fire covered the sky. The sound a creaking and snapping managed to cut through his fogged mind as he cast his glance behind him to see a burning tent collapse.
The fire had engulfed most of the camp now and was spreading to the surrounding forest. The flames and sparks illuminated the aftermath of his carnage as bodies, organs, and blood covered the ground anywhere you looked. He was the cause of all of this, and yet looking at it, he still felt nothing. Who cared if the trees burned? There were plenty more. These weren’t people, they were animals, and animals get slaughtered.
Stumbling back his feet, he walked through the chaos and gathered everything of value in the camp, leaving behind the useless metal trinkets and food to be consumed by the fire. He held his tarnished treasures close to his chest as he walked through the flames and into the darkness once more. His eyes were vacant, his jaw hung slack, and blood dripped from his body as he only had a single thought in response to everything that had happened.
I’m done... with humans.
