Howl of the Heavens ch.18

     In the middle of the afternoon with a shady cloud covered sky the gargoyle Rawl has been following the scent of the Dire, which has led him up the side of a cliff. Atop the cliff he can hear barking and the sounds of young cubs playing, the very sound makes him drool as he ascends the cliff. He finally clears the top to see two strange creatures, looking like giant shaggy foxes as big as wolves, with black fur; the one with a female scent has a spot of white fur on her chest while the male is solid black.

     He looks over to his right to see the very same plateau he had encountered the large female Dire before, and thinks, “yes these two are those two cubs I smelled before, odd their scent is no longer like a wolf’s, ahh anyway large and tasty. How very nice. Strange though if these are the young than why are they not on two legs like their mother, no matter they will be in my stomach soon.”

    Rish and his sister Riska had been playing in the clearing between the plateau, the forest, and the cliff edge when they saw the gargoyle creature ascend the cliff and look at them.

     Riska turned to Rish and thought to him, “Living thing?”

      Risk responded, “It smells like stone.”

    Rish and Riska look at the gargoyle and a strange sensation overtakes them the gargoyle didn’t even notice during his own internal dialogue that Rish and Riska’s eyes had turned purple and they could hear his mind and even take information from his brain.

      Riska looks to Rish and thinks, “it name Rawl, not like us.”

    in turn Rish thinks back, “Not smell like food, but it have aggressive words and thoughts, we kill maybe?”

     Rawl looks down at the two cubs and says, “Little cubs don’t worry, I will kill you quickly, but I will savor your flesh.”

     He commenced to chuckle an evil chuckle.

      Rish looked at him and shared his thoughts with his sister and too Rawl’s surprise and pain he heard them in his head, “Mean creature, say bad things, violent things we kill you yeah.”

    Rawl held up his hand to his head and growled, “Tricky little devils, brain tricks won’t save you from my appetite. HA, HA, HA, HA!”

    Riska and Rish commence to bark at Rawl who only laughs at their barking when suddenly a bolt of lightning fires from Rish’s mouth and hits Rawl right in his face vaporizing his nose.

     Rish and Riska stop barking and look at each other curious  Riska thinks to Rish, “how you do that? It just like daddy and mommy.”

    While the siblings are talking to each other Rawl in disbelief brings his hand up to his face and touches the hole where his nose had been but a moment before. Rawl becomes furious, spreads his wings wide and roars at
Riska and Rish.

    Rish backs up growling and Riska jumps back and barks and to her surprise a strange blue and white bolt formed as though from her breath in front of her face as she barked that flew at Rawl as he roared striking his legs and incasing them in ice. Rawl stops roaring just in time to notice as his weight breaks and shatters his now frozen legs and feet knocking him to the ground with an *oomph*.  Rawl stretches out his wings to look fierce in order to intimidate the cubs.

     As he rises to his right knee Riska charges at him and half way into her jump emits an eerie blue flame aura around her body and with a horrible scream from Rawl she jumps right through his left wing, the force pushing him to fall on his left side, causing him to emit a growl that was half anger half agonizing pain.

    Rish watches his sister’s attack and when the gargoyle Rawl falls with his right wing up in the air like a flag Rish can’t help but mimic his sister’s attack. With his own body encased in blue flames he lunges and shatters his way through Rawl’s right wing. The force of this blow knocks Rawl onto his back. Rawl looked up to see Riska barking at him.

    Rawl growls, “Stupid little bitch.” And lunges at her with his left claw, he can’t reach her as she jumps back and he is virtually immobile.

    Rawl tries to get closer by lifting him self up on his right arm when suddenly his right wrist feels a piercing pain and he is knocked back against the ground and dragged “damn, forgot there were two.” He screams out, “let me go you little beast!”

    He stops and looks up in anger when a look of fear comes over his face as he sees where he is being dragged and sees Versa, the Dire that had beaten him senseless the first time.

     Versa is in her full fourteen foot humanoid form, not that Rawl had ever seen her any other way. She is sitting on a rock on the plateau he had encountered her the first time. Rawl has no time to contemplate his situation as a sudden pain shoots through his wrist, and causes him to release yet another scream as his face falls down in the mud.

    Rish stops walking backwards with a look on his face that is a combination of confusion and surprise, he has bitten through Rawl’s wrist.

    Rish drops the hand and sniffs it thinking, “Smell like sand, see blood, strange.”

    Rawl with his remaining hand drags himself towards Rish thinking, “one slash just one, kill, kill, must kill.”

    Rish jumps up in surprise as Rawl screams in pain. Riska is standing on Rawl’s back with his neck in her outstretched jaws, with a mighty growl and *snap* Rawl’s head is severed from his body. For a moment it sprays sandy blood before stopping abruptly.

    Riska sniffs at the head and jumps back when Rawl tries to bite her while screaming, “just a taste, come on you little BITCH!”

    Riska looks across at her brother Rish as he trots over to her as she thinks to him, “It alive, what we do with it.”

     “Don’t know” Rish thinks back.

     Riska pushes the head with her paw which then rolls a little way, Riska then smacks it with her tail across the grass towards Rish, who jumps back as Rawl’s head tries to bite him and cusses at him.

     Rish looks at Riska and thinks to her, “Play? Let’s play, get bitten loose.”

    Riska nods enthusiastically as Rish smacks the head with his tail towards Riska who then sends it back at Rish with her own tail.

    Versa looks on as her children play with the decapitated yet living head like it was a ball. Rawls curses, threats and attempts at biting only making it more fun for her children.

    Riska knocks Rawl’s head into the air where Rish jumps up and comes down on it with his claws unsheathed slashing it as he smacks it to the ground. He slashes five great scars across the left side of Rawls head tearing out his left eye and the front teeth on the left side. Rawl has no idea why they have stopped smacking his head about only that he is relieved, which is short lived as he sees something odd from out his one eye. A shadow of a Dire against a tree, that looks oddly like the shadow he had seen from the corner of his eye outside his cave after his encounter with the female Dire. To his surprise as his vision focuses the shadow moves towards him, Rawl realizes it is not a shadow just a very black Dire, a male.

    Rhuen looks down at the head and says, “So you did see me out side your cave.”

    Rawl thinks, “Psychic, so that’s how that bitch monster knew which way to kick me, damn it!”

    “Stupid little head, I am Rhuen and me and my family shall be the last things you ever see.”

     Rhuen then releases a rolling rumble of a growl like some cross between a growl and a purr with a wicked look and smile that would have sent shivers up Rawl’s spine had his head still been attached to it. Rawl can only look on as Rish and Riska trot over to Rhuen, Rish carrying Rawl’s hand in his mouth. Rhuen leans down and pats his children on their heads taking the hand from Rish as he addresses them, “My children, watch”

    Rawl tries to focus his hand to attack but it only twitches in Rhuen’s grasp. Rish and Riska look on fascinated as Rhuen’s hand begins to glow with the same type of blue flame their bodies had been covered in earlier. Rhuen closes his fist vaporizing the hand. Rish and Riska start to wag their tails in excitement which is a stark contrast to Rawl’s reaction. He sensed it, total destruction of every cell. Pure horror runs through Rawl’s mind as he realizes his mistake, these creatures have the power to completely destroy something. He shouldn’t have come alone; he should have brought an army of his kin, but now it’s too late.

    The look in Rhuen’s face reminds Rawl that Rhuen can hear his thoughts. “No” thinks Rawl, “I shouldn’t give this bastard the satisfaction.”

    Rawl sputters out, “bastad, dee du bastad, me ken vill keel du.”

    Rhuen walks over to the head and picks it up in such a manner that the jaw is pinned shut.

    Rhuen turns to his children and says, “Riska, Rish time to practice your fire technique,”

     Rhuen turns and points to the scattered parts of Rawl and says, “Burn it all, find every last little piece you can. Find and burn it to nothing, till you can no longer smell any of it other than this head I am holding.”

    Versa and Rhuen look on as their children make themselves glow with the mystical blue fire and jump up and down on the gargoyle’s body parts and on spots where they can smell the blood like some morbid game of hop scotch.

    Versa walked over to Rhuen, the two touched muzzles and stood close for a moment watching their children playing before walking out and stamping out the fires with their paws that their children were starting in the dry twigs and grass. Once Rish and Riska stop jumping about and glowing Rhuen and Versa walk around the area sniffing the air until they are satisfied that the only thing left of the gargoyle is the head Rhuen holds in his hand. Rhuen holds up Rawl’s head like a gem keeping the mouth firmly closed with his thumb.

    Rhuen speaks to the head, “Onyx gargoyle, it is said your kind have incredible healing powers, but I am no human, or amateur, I am older than you or anything you know and I know ALL about the world of demons and darkness, the secret of the regeneration of the Onyx Gargoyles lies with in your skulls. It is not until your head is destroyed that you can fully regenerate your bodies from any little piece, even a grain of your sand blood will do. We cleaned it off the plateau for it’s and I sense in your mind that no blood remains with in your own lair beast of stone. Any way as I was saying after your head is destroyed along with that little soul diamond with in it, that’s right like I said there are no secrets with me. Then after that is broken your spirit projects into what ever the largest chunk of your body is left but with out anything left, well you die of course. It must have been that hunter with the Golem Slayer sword that did you in and you projected to that useless wing of yours like you had planned this, but your mind is an open book to me, you didn’t. Coincidence played into your hands, or was it fate you are thinking. Well enough talk it is time for you to die.”

    Versa places her hand on Rhuen’s arm stopping him, “One moment Rhuen”

     she then looks at the head of Rawl and says, “Your wing was beautiful so black with little white spots, but it was just too fragile and brittle to be useful for anything, so I discarded it like the useless garbage it was. I even thought to use it as a chew toy, but it was even too stony and brittle for that. Even my children couldn’t make a toy of it.”

     Versa holds her hand to her face and in a mock smile says, “So like I said I simply dumped it.”

     This angers Rawl greatly who manages a hateful growl despite his mouth being pinned. Rhuen opens his palm and Rawl blurts out, “Stupid bitch I will kill you!!”

    Versa merely scoffs at this. Rhuen’s out stretched hand begins to glow with a blue flame; however Versa touches his arm again saying, “Wait, I would like to be the one to finish him.”

    Rhuen hands over Rawl’s head to Versa, who holds the head in her hand, the look on her face scares Rawl even more than when he was in Rhuen’s hand.

     Versa says to Rawl’s head, “You threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my children, and now you return after I clearly told you not to under penalty of death. NOW DIE WORM!!”

     With that her blue flame glowing claw closed, and in that instant that very instant, Rawl the onyx gargoyle who had lived un-challenged for centuries, who had brought fear and despair to thousands  and death to many creatures that had not yet begun to live was now dead. The only remnants, the only observers of this ancient beast’s death simply returned to playing in the cloud shaded noon day like nothing had happened.