>>5526799Soon, Sayazade turns away from the northern darkness. “Take them back now!” The lightheartedness vanished completely from her firm orders.
At once, the Vampyr use their wings to move quickly to fulfill her orders. Eddrick takes off ahead of the others with Mian held in his arms. Another female Vampyr carefully retrieves Haruei from the sled, followed by another battle-scarred male Vampyr easily pulling Misha into his arms, despite his feeble resistance. He firmly hands you the torch that Misha carried before turning toward the sea.
Soon, the two Vampyr are airborne, as Renauld rapidly assesses the heavy injuries on the remaining Elin’s body before gingerly enveloping her in his mighty grasp.
His dark wings beat with great force as he turns himself back to the east, and a flurry of snow is left behind in his wake as he takes to the air after the rest of his kin.
With the other three Vampyr having already passed your line of sight beyond the tall trees, the lingering torrent of white powder and the great beat of Renauld’s wings dominates the area. For a moment, it seems a foregone conclusion that his mighty wingstroke will carry him off before long.
Yet at the shrill sound of a screeching shriek his body plummets from its height from above the trees. The Vampyr seized his flight to barely evade the massive, pale white shrapnel that slices through the air over his head.
Whatever projectile that only just missed the large Vampyr with their deadly points now slam into line of trees immediately to the south. In the cracking blast of wood, Renauld manages to catch himself with a heavy beat of his wings and sprints into the eastern trees, forcefully pushing through the snow as if it weren’t there.
You desperately try to find the origin of the barrage from the massive line of imposing trees to the north, and eventually the flickering light of the torches you refueled lap against a slender form skulking within among their trunks. You spot a humanlike creature tortuously pinned to the ground on its four limbs. Bestial in its movements, and once spotted, the arm-length bony protrusions on its back quiver and rattle nosily against each other. As if sensing its exposure, it scurries out of sight of your torch.
As it flees, that's when you full hear another rapid set of tramping steps in the high snow. This one originating from the northwest.
Sayazade presses forward a step ahead of you, and in her hands she wields an unusual curved blade pulsing with life in its crimson form. Impossibly it materialized from the small handle, seemingly from compacted blood.
