Bare Your Teeth, Wicked Ones

16. Bad and Good Frustrations

Warning: Implications of sexual assault and gore.

William

Death returned. Always hungry. William dodged and cut, shot and stabbed. None were safe from the beasts pouring out of an ebony sky. Their wings cast sharp shadows. Their strength caused gales that ripped tents from the ground. Fire spread, flames chasing those daring to hide only to meet death in a myriad of other ways. Fangs. Claws. Poisons. Acid. The monsters carried an arsenal that mowed through the ranks. Bodies dropped. Puddles formed, blood and snow alike.

Charmaine had been separated from him ages ago. The chaos of battle often made one lose themselves. Survival kicked in. William's body moved of its own accord. Though faced by towering beasts, he moved without thought. His body knew what to do and he trusted his muscles to work. To fight. To survive. And maybe a part of him enjoyed this. He hated to linger on such thoughts, hated that Nicholas was right. The danger. The rush. He smiled in the face of death, defying her again and again when so many believed he wouldn't. Including himself.

A debrak, a red towering blister, spotted William through the carnage. It charged, as most did. Heaimed for the eyes, firing twice. The bullets pierced the soft surface, blinding one eye. The beast didn't stop, yowling like the damned. William knew not to swerve. Debraks were far quicker than they looked and they loved crushing one in their fists. He fell to his knees instead, rolling between the debraks legs. The knife in his opposing hand sliced at one of the ankles. The beast shrieked and stumbled. William dug a blade into the ankle tendon then lunged onto its back. He stabbed his second blade deep into its spine. The debrak screamed and swatted meaty hands about, though its body was already failing. William stuck the head of his revolver by his blade and fired. Blood coated his cheeks. The debrak fell forward, twitching. After retrieving his knives, he stalked to its head to finish it off with a stab to the brain.

The skittering of spions warned William of an attack. He jumped off the debrak as two spions sprang on. They were a rare breed, far older than any he had come across. The older they got, the bigger they became, and the two of them were the size of a horse. William fired at the eyes, but they shielded themselves with their pincers. The bullet ricocheted and William bolted. He dashed through debris for a nearby group of soldiers, though they were soon overrun by ratwings. Thousands of them tore the men to shreds, leaving little more than bloody bones. The spions chattered behind William. He kept up a brisk pace, sliding around a ripped tent where a group of mages battled shouting grumps.

Their magic called to the spions, glimmering and distracting. They lurched towards the mages as William took the opening to fire from the sidelines. He fell to a knee, grabbed a rifle from one of the dead, and fired from below, letting the bullets pierce the abdomen of one of the gruesome creatures. The spion shrieked and fell after a full clip riddled its guts. The mages handled the last.

William lost count of how long the battle lasted. The days were too dark here to guess time. Gray clouds loomed soon accompanied by suffocating smoke from the raging flames. Though the monsters lay dead or retreated, he could not call this a victory. In a single glimpse of the camp, he lost count of the dead. He shifted through the bodies, searching for who to save and who to let pass when a pained shriek echoed nearby. The noise sounded like a woman, potentially one of the nurses caught in this debacle.

He hurried towards the origin of the noise. Movement, shadows from within a surviving tent, sat lopsided and slightly torn. Keeping his gun high, he brushed back the flaps though his words silenced upon his parted lips from the scene sitting before him. One of the nurses had shrieked from a monster, only those monsters were two men haphazardly zipping up their pants. The nurse sat huddled at the back of the tent clinging to what remained of her clothes. Bruises lined her neck and snaked up her cheek, hair a knotted mess and eyes red with tears. A shaking hand covered her swollen lips and bruising cheek.