My Furst Tail
#4 of My Furst Tail
Two days ago, we left our adventuring party-a trio of mages-for dead. They were all too typical: Thoroughly drunk with their own power, ready to throw handfuls of coin at anyone who could increase it, and too stupid to realize not every problem can be solved with a fireball. They had hired us to guide them safely through an ancient necropolis, chasing tales of arcane artifacts. We agreed to abandon them after one too many "half-breed" comments; that, and one of them telling us we ought to eat off the floor like the beasts we are. We had night watch again (because the spoiled bastards needed a full night's sleep to be good for anything), so we crept in their tent, took half our fee from their pouches, and left them to their own devices. Wouldn't have been right taking the full price we'd charged if we weren't going to stick around to lead them out. Anyway, I'm sure the plethora of traps protected something real valuable. Too bad for them you can't fireball a pressure plate.
We escaped both them and the necropolis with ease. My friend and I are professionals-I'm a scout, and he's a lurk, and a soulbow, and probably even more than what I know about yet. Point is, we get people safely into or out of wherever they want to go. It's good pay, and sometimes we actually get to test our expertise.
I'm a kenku, or "crow-man" among the ignorant. I don't quite hit five feet tall, and true to the name, I've got the head and torso of a corvid. I don't have wings; my squamous arms end in talons like my feet. My people are drab, and we dwell in darkness. My nest back home is made up traditional kenku with traditional callings: Spies, thieves, and assassins, stealing lives and riches in the city's shadows. It's not a bad way to live, but I've always felt more at home in the canopy. There's freedom to be found among the trees.
That's where I met my brother-in-arms, a green-eyed wolfkin named Red Leaf. It's kind of funny, since there's not a patch of red on him. His fur is long and grey as a summer storm, and his muscled frame stands a foot over me. He's got pierced ears, and protective charms tied to his tail. I think he likes being seen, because even when we have to venture into cities looking for work, he wears nothing but a loin cloth. Or maybe he just takes pride in his appearance-He's certainly beautiful. Wish people could look at me and think I'm something to admire. But we're a good pair: I'm as fast as the wind, on foot and with my axe. He's the best damn archer I've ever seen. We can disappear before your eyes, and our enemies hit the ground without knowing what hit them. A bird-man that can't fly, and a werewolf that can't transform. We've been traveling together for two years.
We're walking through the outskirts of a forest, hungry and looking for something to hunt, thinking about going back to that necropolis in a week and scavenging the mage's belongings. I'm showing off, darting from branch to branch in a blur. He summons a bow made of mental energy and tries to pin me down with an arrow. It's an old game of ours, and only once has he ever hit me instead of my cape. He refused to play for a while after that.
Suddenly I stop. I can sense something. I scan the forest. I can't see it; I can't hear it... but I know it's there. And it's watching us.
An arrow embeds itself into the massive oak, the thud reverberating among the all-too-quiet trees. I look fifty feet down at my friend, and he knows the look on my face: Danger. The smile quickly fades. He knocks three arrows at once and crouches low, his back against gnarled bark, sweeping his bow as he looks for the source of my dismay.
Twin fangs as big as my head materialize to my immediate left. My lightning reflexes save me; I hurl myself out of the tree, and a monstrous spider mid-lunge catches itself on the branches, raining twigs on me as I fall. It turns its eight eyes on me, its massive body coiling around to reposition itself for another attack-And then it vanishes again. Not like how we vanish, when we're really just too fast or sneaky to catch. This thing literally disappears.
"Lorek!" he cries below me. I catch myself on another tree, and three arrows go whizzing past my face. I am comforted by the sound of them perforating exoskeleton.
"Red, get out of here!" I move and speak in unison; I don't know how fast this thing moves. "Get back to the forest's edge-And be ready for me!" I leap to another tree.
In the beginning, he might have argued with me, thinking I was trying to sacrifice myself. Instead, he shouts his acceptance, and makes for the treeline. We both know now how clever we can be.
A globule of sticky webbing flies at me, and it splatters against the branches just above me, coating a man-sized patch in sticky silk. I see a flash of the spider, and then it's gone again. But I've got a lock on it with my preternatural senses. I call to it, perfectly mimicking the pained hiss it made when his arrows punctured it, mocking it, leading it to its doom.
I must have pissed it off, because I heard the thing roar like some cross between a bear and a viper. Good. We'll see if it's half as decent at this game as Red Leaf.
The spider's size works against it up here in the forest; every few seconds, I hear another lunge behind me, the pumping of its legs as it strains to capture me, to gain a foothold on these oaken arms. Strange how I can only hear it when it's visible. Sometimes my lock on it weakens. That's when it stops, and I know it's getting turned around to fire some more webbing. I jump from tree to tree as necessary. I don't bother turning around. I know it's right behind me, growing evermore enraged at my being just out of reach.
I have to pace myself. Red Leaf is better at hiding, but he's not as fast as me. I have to give him time to reach the forest's edge. I dart back and forth, slowing my forward momentum with some vertical swings. Maybe it'll think I'm panicked.
I call to it again, perfectly copying its frustrated hiss. Yeah, I'm taunting you, you ugly, beady-eyed motherfucker. And as soon as we hit that clearing, we're going to kill you.
I reach the last tree... and I stop. My every sense is on fire as my mind fights against me, instinct telling me to get the fuck out of that monster's range, but I stay still. My head is turned, watching over my shoulder, while my chest heaves like I'm out of energy. Just a few more seconds....
Just as I'd hoped, Red Leaf is there below me, standing in perfect form, his biceps taut as he holds his bow aimed at me, four arrows at the ready. The spider doesn't realize he's there; I don't think it ever noticed him. He's that good.
I can feel the heat of its foul breath, and then I glimpse those familiar fangs. Its eyes are wild with rage and the sweet satisfaction of my imminent demise. It surges towards me...
And I swing myself up, high into the branches above. I look down and see the arachnid continue its advance, unable to stop its momentum. It tries to latch onto the tree with its legs, spinnerets firing a stream of silk. It clears the forest, but the webbing tether breaks its fall. It crashes against the side of the tree, displaying its full head and back to Red Leaf. I watch with mirth as the perfectly-aimed arrows bury themselves into the center of each of the spider's four main eyes.
It howls again in agony, and I'm already on the move. With one solid hack against the bark, I sever its silken lifeline, and it crashes seventy feet to the ground below, another howl accompanied by the cracking noise of crumpled chitin. I leap.
As I fall, I watch Red Leaf unleashes another volley of arrows, crippling its legs, puncturing its abdomen. It tries to disappear again, but it's no use. It's on its back, and it's disabled. I land with an overhead smashing of my axe into the heart of its underside. The ring on my left hand glows for a moment as I connect, preventing every porous bone in my avian body from shattering into dust. Green gore flies up in a geyser all around me. My feet connect a moment later, and I'm standing inside this thing's obliterated carapace. Squishy.
"You crazy son of a bitch," he says as he strolls towards me. "And look at you. You look like you just got shat out by a gelatinous ooze." He moves the back of his hand over his face. "And by Obad-Hai, the smell!"
"Yeah, it's pretty rank in here," I calmly respond as I step out of the spider's leaking, broken shell, coated head to toe in bodily fluid, bits of innards sticking to my legs and feet. "I'm gonna want a shower now."
He looks dumbfounded for a moment, and then chuckles in thinly-veiled amusement.
"Well, the next town's not too far off. We can be there in the hour... god, Lorek. Wipe some of that off. Roll in the dirt of you have to. No innkeeper's letting you in covered in that, and I'm not putting up with this stench the whole way there."
It's grassland outside the forest, but I do my best to gather some dirt and give myself a birdbath. I can feel him watching me, and I raise my glance to meet his.
He blinks and begins to walk away.
"Brilliant strategy back there, crow," he says to me in a tone equal parts sincerity and taunt.
I finish dusting myself. I feel less disgusting, but definitely still need a good rinse-off. "Couldn't have done it without you, wolf." I wait for him to look back before I start walking. "I'm glad I can count on you."
He gives me a warm smile, and stoops a bit to put his arm around my shoulder.
"Same here." We take the first few steps together like that, and I'm touched by his desire to stay by my side, a drab, scrawny kenku with spider guts stuck between his feathers. "Now then, let's get you cleaned up properly."