needed to keep my level head here and I started doing so by scenting just how much blood there was. I followed it towards a broken part of the land that looked as though it had been created on purpose, this along with the melting shards of ice that spread out on the usually dry land.
What the fuck had happened here?!
I flew over to a small ledge and knelt one knee to the ground, finding the source of my current panic. I found a few droplets of blood and swiped them with my fingertip. Then I rubbed it in between my fingers and brought it closer to examine, inhaling deeply as I did. Thankfully, after another quick scan of the ground, I saw that despite it being her blood, there wasn’t much of it to suggest she had suffered any major damage. This was good not just for the obvious reasons but also the fact she had been here and had obviously survived, because there was no sight of her broken body unlike the Queen’s fate. And one look back at the land’s fallen ruler and I knew there had been only one creature capable of delivering that amount of damage…or should I say three combined.
A Wyvern, a Gryphon, and a Cockatrice.
The swifter brothers McBain.
I released a sigh of relief despite knowing there was a small chance at it being premature, which was why I needed to be sure. I looked up from the blood on my metal covered fingers and snarled over my shoulder at the one who could have caused her harm. Then I flew myself over to the twitching form of the losing side’s Queen and curled a lip in disgust at the desperate attempt of the spider race trying to reclaim its cursed prisoner.
Oh, there was no doubt putting her together again could be achieved, and that she would rule once again, but from the look of all the children she had lost, along with her devastating injuries, then that rule would take years to rebuild once more.
The moment I landed close enough the few spider children that had survived scuttled away, obviously sensing the threat in me as being one they had no chance of fighting. They had been trying to drag even more of the pieces of the giant spider and the mortal body of Arachne to the cave it called home. And from the looks of things now, then they would need a fucking eternity to become whole once more as the damage was far more extensive than I first thought. The brother’s looked to have shifted into their impressive combined form and ripped the bitch apart.
I looked towards the sky as if I half expected to still see the mighty form flying off with what I could imagine was their new charge in their grasp. I also knew they wouldn’t have gotten far as one of the downsides to their remarkable power when shifting was that it didn’t last long. Meaning that they would only get so far. Well, if they had received their orders from my brother’s way of communicating with them, then they would have tried to get as close to my castle as they could. This before being forced to change back to their original form.
Which meant if they were on foot, they would have no choice but to travel through the Kingdom of Death, a place that started with a rickety old town that was full of thieves, brothels, and vagabonds. Among these were admittedly the few just trying to make what life they could in Hell. It was also a place that bounty hunters often used as a pitstop, for it was known as a good way to exchange coin for more than just a meal and a roof for the night. It was also used for information. People gathered it like currency, telling me that it wouldn’t be long before word got out about Amelia.
But it was towns like this that were found throughout all of Hell, with fewer cites than the mortal world. In fact, the biggest misconception about Hell was that it was simply filled with tortured souls of the dead and little more. But it actually was a civilisation of many races and demonic creatures, who for most parts co-existed somewhat peacefully. Although one glance around where I stood now, and that statement seemed weak at best.
Arachne made a pained sound that drew my attention back to why I was here and what