The Tyrant Of The Red Throne

CHAPTER 5: Running with Death

The air at the south gate instantly froze. The highly acidic stench of the Night-Stalker's drool stung their noses, completely overpowering the thick smoke from the burning barn. The two-headed mutant hound dug its massive claws into the dirt, its muscles tensing up like steel springs ready to snap.

Roy ground his teeth together. He desperately tried to call back the boiling heat in his veins, trying to force his remaining mana to form a single blade. But his body outright refused. His head throbbed violently, and his vision swam with black spots. The acute anemia made it so his legs could barely even support his own body weight.

"Back away," Roy hissed quietly, his voice dead cold, even as sweat the size of corn kernels dripped down his temples. "No sudden movements."

"Back away where, you bastard?! There's a wall behind us, and a hellhound right in front of us!" Ivan cursed, his voice shaking uncontrollably. His hand gripped Henry's shoulder in absolute terror.

Both of the hound's heads let out a synchronized growl, creating a deep resonance that vibrated right through the boys' chests. The mutant's single good eye locked dead onto Roy's blood-soaked chest. It had caught the scent of its primary prey.

The monster bent its hind legs, ready to pounce and tear Roy's throat out in a single bite.

CLICK.

The sharp sound of a metal hammer being pulled back shattered the tension.

Faried stepped forward, moving right past Roy's shoulder. The barrel of his hunting rifle was now aimed dead center at the mutant hound's right eye. The usually hyper-rational guy's hands were shaking violently, but his gaze was sharp and completely calculated.

"I thought you were completely out of bullets, you crazy bastard!" Henry swore, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"I am. I lied," Faried replied instantly, not taking his eyes off the monster. His hand reached deep into his cloak pocket, pulling out a single lead bullet that he had personally sharpened to a point. He chambered it in a flash. "A smart marksman always saves one last bullet to put through his own head if he gets caught."

"Then why the hell are you pointing it at that dog?!" Ivan screamed in sheer panic as the massive hound began its leap toward them.

"Because it turns out watching you idiots get eaten is slightly more terrifying than killing myself."

BANG!

The explosion of gunpowder ripped through the night. A flash of fire erupted from the barrel of Faried's rifle.

Ten yards was practically point-blank range for a hunting rifle. The lead bullet tore through the air and slammed directly into the right eye of the Night-Stalker's main head. Black blood mixed with ocular fluid sprayed violently into the air. The mutant hound let out an ear-piercing shriek, a horrific sound like a bear roaring and a woman screaming at the exact same time. Its massive body crashed hard into the dirt, thrashing and rolling around wildly as it frantically clawed at its own ruined face.

"RUN! NOW!" Faried roared.

Without wasting a single second, Roy spun around and sprinted as hard as he could through the gate, plunging straight into the pitch-black embrace of the Oakhaven Forest. Faried bolted right behind him, while Henry grabbed Ivan by the collar, dragging the limping boy forward with whatever giant strength he had left.

"Keep running! Don't you dare look back!" Roy yelled.

Low-hanging oak branches whipped violently across their faces, leaving fresh, stinging cuts. The damp forest floor, tangled with exposed roots, turned into a deadly obstacle course. The absolute darkness swallowed them whole, lit only by the faint glow of a crescent moon occasionally peeking through the thick clouds.

"How much time do we have?!" Henry shouted between heavy pants, his foot catching on a root, though he barely managed to keep his balance thanks to his sheer size.

"Not much!" Faried answered from the rear, constantly glancing back toward the village. "My shot didn't pierce its brain! That mutant's skull is way too thick! The second the pain subsides, it's going to come straight for us!"

"You're a damn marksman, not a dog anatomist, you asshole!" Ivan groaned in agony. Every single time his bruised right leg hit the ground, a shockwave of pure pain shot straight up his spine. "Slow down, Henry! My leg feels like it's going to snap completely off!"

"Suck it up, Ivan! If you stop right now, we are all dead!" Henry snapped back. The massive guy was already pushing his own absolute limits. His torn left arm was steadily dripping blood, leaving a clear red trail right across the forest moss.

Up ahead, Roy ran with a completely blank, hyper-focused stare. His mind was rapidly calculating distances, routes, and their exact odds of survival. This was where the absolute reality of Aethelgard slapped them right in the face.

The food chain of this world had been broken centuries ago. Humans were no longer sitting at the top. Physically, they were just fragile lumps of meat that ran incredibly slow. A village boy's stamina could never even hope to compete with the lungs of a mutant hound that could sprint non-stop for days on end.

Awoooooo!

A long, deafening howl, absolutely dripping with rage and pure vengeance, echoed from the direction of the village gate. It was barely five hundred yards away, yet the sound was so loud it felt like the monster was breathing right down their necks.

"That damn dog is back up!" Faried warned. The horrific sound of snapping branches immediately followed close behind them. The Night-Stalker was tearing through the forest, completely bulldozing through bushes and small trees right in its path.

"It's way too fast!" Henry looked back in sheer panic. "We're never going to make it to the river in time!"

"Keep running! Stop wasting your breath talking!" Roy ordered coldly. There was absolutely zero panic in his voice, only cold, hard calculation. "Take a hard left! Head straight into the cypress swamp! The soft mud will bog down its body weight!"

They took a sharp turn, crashing through thick, thorny bushes that shredded their cloaks and skin. Ankle-deep black mud immediately started swallowing their boots.

Roy's tactic was dead on. The sticky, thick swamp mud slightly slowed the massive monster's charge behind them. The heavy thuds of its footsteps started sounding noticeably sluggish.

But that tactic was also a brutal double-edged sword.

"Dammit, Henry, let me go," Ivan tripped hard, falling face-first straight into the black mud.

"Get up, Ivan! Come on, get up, you idiot!" Henry hauled his best friend up by the arm, desperately trying to force him onto his feet. But Ivan's right leg was now completely swollen and turning a deep, sickly purple. His boot was practically ripping at the seams from how badly his foot had swelled up after being crushed by that cart.

"I can't, I literally can't run anymore," Ivan gasped, his breath coming in ragged, broken wheezes. Tears mixed with sweat and thick mud covered his entire face. He weakly pushed Henry's chest away. "Just leave me here!"

"Stop talking absolute garbage! I'll carry you myself if I have to!" Henry yelled, his eyes tearing up again, instantly flashing back to the dead child he had failed to save in that alleyway. "I already told you I am not leaving anyone else behind tonight!"

The mutant's heavy footsteps drew closer. The horrific sound of its iron chains dragging across the tree roots echoed out, easily less than fifty yards away now.

Ivan actually laughed. A bitter, hollow laugh that somehow broke the suffocating tension, a sick piece of dark comedy right in the face of absolute despair.

"Just go on without me, you stubborn idiot! Is your brain made entirely of muscle?!" Ivan cursed, pointing weakly into the pitch-black woods behind them. "If I get eaten right now, at least I actually have some use! My meat is tough, my bones are thick, and I've lived a life full of absolute sin! That damn dog will need at least ten minutes just to chew through my leg! You guys can get further away!"

"You think this is a damn joke, you piece of shit?!" Henry grabbed Ivan tightly by the collar, fully preparing to physically throw him over his shoulder. "You really think I want to live the rest of my life picturing your flesh being chewed up by a dog?!"

Faried stopped running, turning back to look at them with a pale face and a tightly clenched jaw. His pure, cold logic was screaming at him that Ivan was completely right. Sacrificing one crippled guy was mathematically the only way the other three could survive.

"Both of you, shut your mouths," a dead, freezing voice suddenly cut through the air, chilling their blood.

Roy stepped right back toward them. His deep red eyes locked onto Ivan with the intense, terrifying glare of a tyrant who absolutely refused to lose his property. He didn't feel a single ounce of empathy or pity, only pure, unfiltered rage that his property, his best friend, actually dared to just give up.

"Roy, you literally told Henry yourself, didn't you? Let the dead stay dead," Ivan hissed, staring up at Roy with a totally broken, desperate smile. "Just use me as a sacrifice. At least my running finally ends right here."

"You owe me your life, Ivan," Roy replied completely flatly, gripping Ivan's shoulder with enough force to genuinely hurt him. "And I haven't given you permission to die to pay off that debt yet. If that dog wants to eat you, it's going to have to pay the price by chewing through my ribs first."

Roy snapped his head toward Faried and Henry. "Henry, grab his right arm. Faried, you take his left. Drag him if you absolutely have to. We are heading straight for the cliffs."

"The cliffs?! That's a literal dead end, Roy!" Faried protested loudly.

"Just do it!" Roy roared.

Henry and Faried didn't argue anymore. They forcefully hoisted Ivan up, practically carrying him as they blindly charged through the thick, tangled brush. Ivan groaned in pure agony, bouncing roughly between his two best friends, while Roy guarded the rear, tightly gripping a sharp bone dagger he had snapped off the Beast Man he killed earlier.

A vicious, blood-curdling growl exploded right behind them again. The Night-Stalker had completely pushed through the swamp mud. With its one remaining eye, it spotted the silhouettes of the four humans making a mad dash toward the much denser pine trees. Its highly acidic drool poured down, violently sizzling and burning the dry leaves on the ground.

"Faster! It's right on top of us!" Roy yelled, physically feeling the scorching heat of the mutant hound's breath washing over his back.

This section of the pine forest was absolutely choked with waist-high ferns. Their visibility dropped to almost zero. Henry ran completely blind, relying purely on raw instinct and brute strength to smash a path open for Faried and Ivan.

"Just a little further! I can hear the waterfall!" Henry encouraged them, taking massive strides as he completely plowed through the thick mounds of ferns.

Ivan, who was basically being dragged at this point, forced his good left leg to keep pushing off the ground, desperately trying to take at least some of the dead weight off Henry and Faried. "Screw all of you, if we actually survive this, you guys owe me free beer, for a whole damn year," Ivan muttered between incredibly ragged, shallow breaths.

The curly-haired guy forced his foot down hard, trying to push his body forward one last time. His right foot landed squarely on a totally normal-looking pile of dry leaves hidden deep in the fern bush.

But this forest was a literal hunting ground. And humans definitely weren't the only predators setting up traps out here.

The heavy weight of Ivan's foot pressed down hard on a thin, moss-covered iron plate.

CLANK!

The vicious, terrifying sound of spring-loaded metal violently snapping together shattered the dead silence of the forest. A heavy, steel-plated bear trap that had been sitting wide open, snapped completely shut with hundreds of pounds of raw crushing force.

The rusty, jagged iron teeth, easily the length of a grown man's finger, instantly bit straight through Ivan's flesh and muscle, smashing directly into his shinbone.

CRAAAAAACK!

The sickening crunch of bone snapping was incredibly loud and gut-wrenching.

Time literally seemed to stop for a single second. Ivan's entire body jerked totally stiff, right before a completely hysterical scream, a sound that absolutely shattered the limits of human sanity, exploded from his throat.

"AAAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHH!"

That agonizing, blood-curdling scream ripped right through the Aethelgard night, instantly stopping Roy, Henry, and Faried dead in their tracks, and officially marking the absolute, horrifying dead end of their escape. Death was no longer chasing them, it had already clamped its jaws right onto their leg.