Chapter 33.3: A Salt and Some Batteries

The moon, majestic in its fullness, held sway over the night sky like a pregnant goddess, or perhaps like a fairy who thought that she might be pregnant but was not certain. Either way, it was big and bright, glorious in both the intensity of its light and in the way that it caused the night-time shadows to grow longer as it moved beyond its Zenith and began down the lonely path toward the end of its nightly wanderings.

Red hair fluttered in the breeze as Sharde gazed out at the forest. A loud, lonely howl rose up from beyond the wood line. It was time. The final battle for the ancient island fortress had begun.

From out of the wood they came, black as a moonless night. They came without pause or end. If the dark wolves that had come for her before had come in normal waves, these came in a massive tidal wave of fur and fang. Their yellow teeth glistened in the moonlight, and their red-eyes burned as though hell itself powered them. Sharde thought those eyes to be quite pretty. She was fond of the color red, after all.

Hundreds of wolves, each twice the size of a Great Dane, came for her. They could smell the succulent tenderness of her meat. However, despite their great size and terrible number they fell prey to the same thing that all of the other waves of wolves had fallen to before reaching their prize.

Explosions rocked the area. Screams of pain and panic erupted as wolves fell into pit traps. Skewers whipped up and skewered the unwary and ropes that snared wolfish limbs also fractured legs and caused panic among the wolf army.

Sharde watched it all impassively. Burning wolves raced around while they screamed in pain, further causing traps to be sprung. She knew that it would not be enough to defeat the wolves, but it did not matter. They were strong and agile, but she easily cut through them. Her skills and level had risen considerably due to the constantly battles.

No, the only thing she was concerned about was Vyrkolag. The beast king that led these wolves. Unless he came, this would be a pointless endeavor.

The wolves that survived the initial rush, those who made it beyond the killing field, trickled through the broken sections of the city walls, and the ruined gate. They immediately set about scenting for their prey. They had to take her this time. Their alpha was displeased.

Sharde slipped into the darkness and began to hunt the hunters. The wolves blended well with the shadows, but not as well as the garishly dressed ninja master. Even the flaming red color of her hair and ensemble did not give her away.

Two wolves sniffed the ground as they turned a corner. A loud yelp from the one closest to the city wall caught the attention of the other. A throwing spike was embedded in its left eye. The lone wolf walked over to investigate, but then yelped as well as another spike found a critical target.

Those two spikes disappeared in a blur of motion as silent death moved past the corpses. The battle, such as it was, continued like that for quite some time. The wolves that made it into the compound were mostly dispatched one or two at a time. If a large pack congregated at one spot, Sharde took several out with thrown weapons then leapt in to finish off the survivors with a series of rapid strikes to vital locations. She was well-practiced at where to hit the beasts. Even in her current incarnation, she had faced many of the wolves before over the course of the last few days.

It was rare for the wolves to sense her presence before she struck. She could nearly eliminate the entirety of her presence, even in her human form now that her stealth skills had risen to their current point. However, whenever she was discovered early she always slipped away without entering combat. Her desire tonight was maximum annoyance and slaughter. She needed to kill the wolves in a way that showed that they were not even remotely a threat to her, but without allowing them to attack her in large numbers.

Hundreds of wolves died over the course of those few hours. Sharde showed no sign of relenting from her single-minded pursuit. Yet, the wolves began to draw back on their own a scant few hours before sun down. The ninja girl was excited, as this was something new!

The wolves retreated to the center of town and began to group into a single massed unit. They then spread out and formed a circle. Dozens of wolves still lived despite Sharde’s best efforts, and their cries were almost deafening.

At the center of the circle a black flame appeared. It wavered ominously for a moment before a loud and commanding voice echoed outward through the city. “You who dare disturb the nightmare sleep of this fallen kingdom, know this. I, Vyrkolag, now stalk the land.”

“Get on with it then.” muttered Sharde. The battle had taken longer than she thought that it might. “I should have brought a book to read.”

The wolves howled in unison and the black flame formed into the outline of a massive three-tailed man-beast that had to be at least twice the height of an average man. “Come out, meat. Come out and learn what it means to be the hunted!”

Sharde tilted her head to the side. She wondered for a brief moment, what sort of prey walked out into the open in order to be hunted. Her actual response to Vyrkolag was a throwing spike that hurtled out of the darkness. It embedded itself in his snout.

The great beast shrieked in pain, and Sharde cursed slightly. The distance had been too great. She had intended to end it all with a single critical strike. Her body, as interesting as it was, had not gained the sort of prowess that she was accustomed to developing.

“Find the hunter! It is a woman! A mere human bitch. Tear her down. Devour her flesh, crush her bones between your jaws my children! But bring me that bitch’s heart!” roared out Vyrkolag. The wolves jumped to heed their master’s command, while the evil nightmare boss or whatever he was supposed to tried to pull the spike from his snout.

The wolves stopped and turned back to their master when Vyrkolag began to shriek in pain once more. Several more spikes had suddenly been embedded into various parts of his face. One had come perilously close to blinding him, but had become lodged in the bone ridge just above his left eye instead.

Vyrkolag roared out a surprisingly girlish shriek of panic and panic then threw his meaty forearm across his eyes to block them. “Fuck her heart! Just eat that bitch!”

“Fuck my heart? Is that anything to say to an innocent young maiden?” asked Sharde loudly as she arose out of the shadows. She was not going to be able to instantly kill the boss, and she was tired of sniping from a distance anyway. Stealth assassination was her bread and butter, but she was not averse to direct confrontation. That was especially true when someone mocked her maiden heart.

“There she is!” screamed the wolf-man in a high-pitched tone. The wolves looked at him in confusion for a moment, before Vyrkolag managed to correct himself. In a deeper and much more resonant tone he commanded, “Devour her flesh my dark children.”

The wolves sprang into action. Sharde laughed pleasantly then leapt down among them. “So cute! I love playing with neighborhood dogs.”

She raced forward and immediately moved into a series of short, lethal, slashes like a chef cuts through a nice sausage. Wolfish body-parts flew about the area in a mixture of blood and gore that stained the Earth red.

Vyrkolag dropped his arm from his eyes briefly as he heard the disturbing sound of slaughter and knew that it did not sound like the sort of flesh-tearing that he had hoped to hear. He was greeted to the sight of a red haired beauty scything through his dark army like death itself. “Is she smiling?”

The man-beast took a step back to avoid an incoming Wolf head that had been neatly severed a mere instant before. “Impossible, this entire kingdom could not stop me.”

He narrowly avoided a projectile that looked to be some sort of burning paper fan. “The hell?” he asked in confusion. Who sets a paper fan on fire and throws it at someone?

His confusion turned to pain once again as a much harder to see object shot toward him. He tried to dodge but the metal spike punctured his nose. His eyes crossed briefly as he stared down at the sudden arrival in shock. The pain and reality of the situation caught up with him and he unleashed an explosive, and nasally sounding, scream.

The few remaining wolves turned to their lord, but paid for it with their lives as the overly endowed ninja whirled through them with her blade slashing and piercing their exposed weaknesses. After the last wolf fell, Sharde took a step forward and whipped her sword to the side to remove some of the excess blood and gore.

“How? How can you be so powerful?” asked the man-beast, obviously in shock due to his current ordeal.

Sharde merely provided him a sweet smile before she took another step forward, her sword casually pointing toward the ground at an angle. “Loot.”

“Huh?” he asked in confusion.

She began to sing a merry little tune that featured usage of the word loot repeatedly. With each repetition Vyrkolag grew angrier.

“I am not loot for the likes of you, you over-developed whore! I am Vyrkolag!” He snarled at her and took up a martial arts stance. He was Vyrkolag dammit! Why was she able to fight his forces like this? It made no sense.

“Vyrkoloot?” asked Sharde pleasantly before she whipped her free-hand forward with great speed. A metal spike appeared in the center of the beast’s forehead. It had not penetrated far, but the message was clearly sent. He was dead loot walking.

He glared hatefully at her then raced forward, one clawed hand raised up in order to finish her with a single blow. Had he actually struck her, it would have no doubt torn her in half. However, she was not some tank-style fighter who allowed her opponent’s to hit her casually.

Sharde moved forward at incredible speed due to her speed skills. Both the ninja and the wolf blurred past each other.

They stood in perfect synchronization for a moment after finishing their attack motions. When they moved again, Sharde slashed downward to clean the blood from her sword and Vyrkoloot fell downward in two neat pieces.

Despite the one-sided nature of the battle the wolf-man still had the power to speak. He propped his upper torso up on his paws and used his supernatural strength to turn and look at her. His life’s blood poured outward in a gushing stream, but he had enough time to ask. “How?”

Sharde sheathed her blade and did not even bother to look back at her fallen foe. “Time left you behind. Without the terror that you inspired in the people here, your powers dwindled. You were strong, but nothing like you used to be.”

“Impossible, your fear alone would have sustained me.” weakly-countered the still living half of the wolf beast.

“I fought you alone and without fear. You had no way to replenish your power.” she said simply. “By the way, please finish dying. I need to loot your corpse and skin your children. Wolf pelts are worth good Jerin in town.”

Vyrkolag glared hotly at her then howled one last time. It was an attempt at defiance, but it sounded hollow, and utterly defeated.

After he died she unleashed a soft sigh. “Finally. I thought that guy would never finish his death scene.”

She pulled out a skinning knife and moved toward Vyrkolag’s corpse halves. She merrily cut him apart while singing her loot song. “Loot, loot, loot.”

She pulled the pelt away from the bloody ruin that was one Vyrkolag and inspected it critically. “Hmm, maybe I can make a fur bikini out of this?"

She made a thoughtful noise then idly asked,"I Wonder if Scott is into barbarian girls?”

Sharde made a silly face then giggled in a girlish manner. Who was she kidding? Of course he liked barbarian girls. He got along well with Sonja after all. She stretched the pelt out on the ground then smiled happily. A thought crossed her mind not long after doing so. She could not help but giggle once more.

She flopped down atop the overly large pelt then hugged her chest. “Oh Scott..." She unleashed a breathy sigh. "You’re going to make love to me on this rug, right here in front of the fire? How romantic!”

She made kissy noises and giggled moronically for quite some time, amid the bloody carnage of the battlefield. “No Scott! Be gentle. Think of my innocence!”