Steel Burner

The Road Ahead is paved in blood

Back in the tunnels, Grell and his group searched the next few towns in a similar fashion. This time though, they found no survivors. Just empty burning houses and broken dead bodies.

Giving up, they trekked back to the main hallways, hoping they would meet up with the other group soon.

After a while of walking, they stopped and set up a sort of makeshift camp. They had not taken a whole lot of supplies, but they made due with what they had.

Grell held the child to himself as the others passed the food around, sharing equally with what they could eat. Grell was passed a loaf of bread and a quarter for him and Neebs.

For the most part, it was silent. The guards made a silent agreement on who stood watch first with an old game of ‘flip a bit’.

Laying on his back, Grell stared up at the ceiling, his mind filled to the brim with hundreds of thoughts. Lost to his own thoughts, Grell failed to notice the sound of someone sitting down next to him.

Suddenly, Grell’s vision was blocked by a pair of greyish green eyes. This erupted a startled yelp from him.

“Holy shit, you scared me! Don’t do that Lulya,” Grell took a nervous glance across the ceiling before turning his full attention to her.

Lulya blushed and responded in a quiet fashion. “Sorry Grell.”

She turned her head away. Silence reigned for a short time, until a tiny and cute yawn erupted from the child Neebs, who was sleeping right next to Grell.

“Neebs has been through so much in such a short amount of time,” Grell muttered to himself as he picked up the child.

“Mind taking him for a minute? I need to have a word with some of the others.” Lulya silently nodded to Grell and took the baby and cradled him in her arms. Grell stood up and walked to the two guards who are keeping watch.

“How’s everything Glaze, Fives?”

“Everything checks out so far; just an eventful day and hopefully a not so eventful night.” Glaze said. He sighed and muttered to himself a bit as he walked to the other side of the campsite.

“Don’t mind him much. He lost his family when they attacked, he’s just finding an outlet for his anger.” Fives said, placing a hand on Grell’s shoulder.

“We’ve all lost some, and he’s right. Let’s hope for an uneventful night.” sighing, Grell went back to Lulya and Neebs.

As soon as he was in arms distance of Lulya, a cry came from the end of the cave. “Intruders! South si-graaaaaaaah!” A bloody ‘Crunch’ sound was heard as the group got their weapons ready and trained in the direction it came from.

A group of monstrous foot soldiers came rushing through, each with the gryphon’s insignia. The group of monsters came to a halt when they saw the group, they smiled wickedly towards grell in specific. Behind the monsters was a familiar silhouette, it walked slowly into the light behind the monsters.

“You!” Grell hissed.

“Yes, well, it seems there are some survivors down here..” Blackwing grinned wickedly before continuing. “Get ‘em.”

With a mix of war cries, the creatures charged the group. Fives tossed one of his spears towards the attackers and pulled out his shortsword. The spear missed just barely and the monsters’ charge went unhindered. The rest of the group joined Fives in a counter charge, all except for Grell, Lulya, and Neebs.

The group didn’t notice as Blackwing made his way around the battle towards Grell and Lulya, grinning evilly on his slow speed towards them. Grell threw his spear straight on towards the deadly gryphon, only to have him split it in two mid flight.

Looking over to the others, they were having trouble dealing with the monsters Blackwing had taken with him. The battle was unclear of who the victor would be. Pulling his sword out, Grell got into a defensive stance in front of Lulya, blocking Blackwings path.

“I see we get a round two then, boy.” Blackwing opened his talon, sharp nails protruding from the ends of his claw.

With a screech, the gryphon swung his talons at Grell, attempting to rip open his stomach. Grell barely dodged the swipe by a hair’s length as it flew past him. Grell followed up his dodge with a slice towards the gryphon’s arm. The gryphon nearly completely dodged Grell’s attack as he jumped back, the arm of the Blackwing now had a small slice on it.

With an even more wicked smile, he charged Grell.

The sound of steel meeting steel and claws meeting rocks and metal were clearly ringing throughout the tunnel.

Grell faced a large gash to his left arm as he jumped backwards. He swung his blade and left a clean slash upon Blackwings left wing. Both were looking worse for wear, but neither looked to be surrendering anytime soon.

The battle that surrounded them was slowly drawing to an end with Grell’s group appearing to be winning. Blackwing’s soldiers were being forced back the way they came, being cornered as they fell one by one.

Grell managed to trip Blackwing, staggering the mighty gryphon until he fell to the ground. Grell stood over Blackwing with fury in his eyes, he raised his blade, planning to end the villain’s life.

One of Blackwing’s foot soldiers saw this as he was cornered, in a last bout of luck, he threw his dagger aiming for the rocks above. With a clean cut, a small group of rocks came tumbling down towards the two as the foot soldier died.

Grell looked up right in time to have a boulder collide with his forehead, staggering him and dazing him. Grell fell to the ground, coming in and out of consciousness. He saw as Blackwing got to his feet, he lunged forward and grabbed hold of Lulya, laughing maniacally he held a tight grip on her head.

“You have become a real pain in my tailfeathers, boy. Maybe I should show you a reason to give up.” He cackled madly, the others could take little notice as the battle was quickly turning south.

“N-no, don’t!” Grell coughed and wheezed, the blow to his head did more damage than he first thought and he felt his heart begin to sink.

Grell attempted to get to his feet, falling forward into another rock, damaging his head further.

Before falling under the grasp of unconsciousness, he watched as Blackwing started tearing Lulya’s limbs from her body. The gryphon was taking a great deal of pleasure in dragging out the suffering.

Grell watched helplessly as the gryphon ripped her head from her body where it fell limp near him.

The last words of Blackwing’s echoing in Grells ears, “Mmm... this looks like a tasty dinner.”

.....Then nothing.

A/N: this chapter was a lot darker then when first intended and thought up. Hope you guys still like it and sorry it's so short but it was hard to get this down, i'll be getting back into the swing of things soon.