"How are you faring?"

A wicked bounce of laughter. Red coated his pale tresses, hung like curtains just above his brow. Blood was all sticky sheen across his face. Flecks of bone shard stuck in spots where it had spiked. "Peachy keen," he set his eye to the darkness still ahead of them.

Was glad the Soulkeeper had snatched Hankh's skin off that fucking thing. Could bury the fucker when all was said and done. Not that he believed it made any difference. Least, not that he let himself believe it.

I shall try to find more of him, once the deed is done.

"Romantic old fuck," Garrod snikt through his white teeth. Looked back at the wizened old hunter. "Yeah," he said easy. "We'll get em," rolled his shoulder, and the great runed blade that rested there upon it. Dragon bone, and revenant metal.

The jewel of his gauntlet gleamed. Hungry and impatient.

Down they went.
 
Lips peeled back, and Tusk chuckled, fangs bared in brutish joy. 'Romantic?' Aye, s'pose he was. Old age did that to a man, made him soft and senile. 'How about you kiss my arse, you malodorous motherfucker? That romantic enough for you?'

Blood, fresh and sticky from the source, dripped from sharpened steel as they made their way deeper into the tunnels.

Silent as the grave, Tusk listened to the echoing rebound, eyes attuned to the darkness that lingered just beyond lantern's reach. Shroud-stretched senses told him of predators lying in wait, and of a feast already underway.

'Seems they didn't wait for us to get started,' he told Garrod as the tunnel opened up around them. Above the shiver-inducing crack of bone, and the squish and slurp of gorging takers, Tusk could hear the telltale sound of rushing water. Not to mention a faint breeze, salt-laden, but refreshing all the same.

'These tunnels lead down to the sea,' he continued, recalling the topography of the land above their heads. 'No wonder these things're flourishing down here. Fresh water, and an ample supply of meat from the city above.' No-one noticed when the occasional beggar or fisherman went missing. They simply didn't care. 'If not for some scholar's misbegotten curiousity, these warrens might have remained undiscovered for a while yet.'

'Imagine. Takers gathering en masse. A sleeping city, ignorant of the danger on its doorstep.' Frowning, the Cazadore paused, head canted to the side as they waited, and waited. 'I've witnessed enough slaughters to know how that story would have ended.'
 
Garrod laughed at the turn of phrase. "With or without tongue, Beast to my Beloved?" too pleased by the cheek.

Made a nice distraction from the foamy gore that coated him like a fresh layer of paint. Kept his mind off of the leaking pulp that had once been one of their own.

Nose blind to the scent of any fresh death rendered by claw and teeth, and strange tools the Takers still remembered how to wield.

"Not known for their curtesy," the one eyed Cazadore croaked. Hand loose about his blade's hilt. Little finger and ring languid as they looped about the pommel.

Wasn't till the smell of brine came through the rock and stone, that Garrod snapped out of the haze that came after such butchery. Nod to the older Cazadore's deductions.

"Too small to matter," he said flatly. Grinned wide and horrible. "Till its too big to handle," and that was why they were here, wasn't it?

The big blades. Killers extraordinaire. Caza. Gana. Maldizia. Hunt. Win. Malice. The words stamped on every coin minted by the dens of the Malcazadores.

Misfortune was their fortune.

"Whispers say you were at Grenrott," Garrod's eye sliced through the dark, pointed at the Soulkeeper. "What was that like?" cold. But he couldn't hide his curiosity. White armored hand tightening about the hilt of blood drenched weapon. The gauntlet pristine, in all its pale splendor.
 
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'What was it like?' As if it had been fun. Like he would have enjoyed it, the fighting, the dying. 'I lost more friends at Grenrott than I have since,' the old Cazadore replied, calm as the executioner's axe. Eyes of blood met the one eye. Unblinking. 'Nine years,' he continued, sniffing the air like a bloodhound on the scent. 'Long enough for the wounds to scar over.'

An entire den wiped out along with half a town. Eight thousand anguished souls made an awful lot of noise.

'By the end, I couldn't even lift my sword arm. It took the survivors a whole week to burn the bodies... ours and theirs.' No burials. The land around Grenrott was hard and unyielding, much like its people. Such mindless slaughter would have broken most people - the one surety in life, alas, was death. And we saw plenty enough of that, thought Tusk, remembering streets of blood, the lamentations of the damned.

How many there were! Men, women... children.

They all screamed the same, in the end. Sometimes death was better. 'Grenrott was and is a prime example of why we do what we do,' the orkin rumbled, a hand pressed to the pouch containing Hankh's ravaged remains. 'Because let's be honest... nobody's in it for the money.' The pay was nice, sure, but it never lasted. The drink and drugs and whores saw to that. Anything to drown out the nightmare that was a Cazadore's life.

'Some hunters enjoy what they do. I didn't before Grenrott. Now, I do.'

After all, monsters needed something to fear, too.
 
A heartless huff fell from the One Eye. "Fancy that," something darker than humor. Cruel.

Nobody is in it for the money.

The cave opened up to a chamber. Low ceiling. Stone spiked. Jagged and merciless stalactites hung down from the ceiling, whilst their stalagmite counterparts rose up to meet them, like the ugly underbite to a horrid jaw that would see the two of them, and anything else stupid enough to be caught beneath it ground to putrid dust.

Columns, moist from whatever water trickled and ran down them, stood like pillars holding up the world, where top tooth and bottom fang fused together.

"Almost beautiful," the One Eye said as he watched the water shimmer across the stone where lantern's light dared touch it.

Something flit through the darkness. Sword raised with arm behind it. A ping off its broad run. A needle dart, with paper charm there attached to it. Sigils of mind, thought, and domination there scribed upon it.

"Fuck," Garrod hissed through teeth bared in grin. "Chima,"

Something fell onto them from the ceiling.
 
Tusk looked to his companion, unfazed by his scorn, if a little perturbed as to what he had said to deserve it. 'Such callous disregard,' he tutted, hand on hilt, and an eye on the bone gauntlet. 'When did your heart grow so cold, friend?'

The Soulkeeper let his words hang in the air between them as the world opened up around them.

Almost beautiful, indeed. Even beneath the surface, life found a way to flourish. The Takers were proof enough of that. Glancing about the chamber, the orkin listened to the trickle and flow of the underground spring, the gentle tap of moisture dripping from stalactites like fingernails on glass. Soft. Creeping.

His hand came up on instinct, trapping the second needle betwixt thumb and forefinger.

Snick. Another needle met the steel of his gorget as he pirouetted, blade rising to take the taker mid-air. Flesh parted as its touch. Not Chima, Tusk realised suddenly, too slow, too stupid to be Chima.

A needle caught him in the back of his knee, and he snarled, ripping it out before its magicks could take root.

'Poisoned,' growled the orkin, snapping the needle in half. 'I need to thank my tailor next time I see him. A little deeper and I'd be fucked.' A sobering thought, Tusk mused, blade levelled at a stretch of shadows to their left.

'There!'
 
"There!"

A snap of bone white fingers, beyondmetal claws sounding like the break of femurs.

A spark, all green chispa and hiss in the darkness. Spiraled. Spat. Detonated into itself before it blew out all violent green bloom.

A score of the takers blown away in the new dead star of cosmic green. Their twisted, plated, fungal corpses all fuel to the fiend's fire. Garrod grinned like a wild animal. Eye huge and pupil wide and dark as a moonless night.

"You want to know when I lost my heart, Tusk?" he said, too pleased with the smell of corpses turned to ash. His green eye fixed on the Orkin Cazadore. As real a deal as there ever had been. "When I fucking died, old man," he laughed. cruel and wicked and lost to the haze of his fiend's power. Eye all spiraled and horrid want. Ran a thumb across his throat, there across his silver scar. "When my lover fucking killed me, and I came back. Soulkeeper."

A needle flit through the dark. Silver painted by the green fire of the still burning takers. Sank into Garrod's neck.

The pale haired hunter stilled one strange and frigid moment. The needle, laden with the tag, scrawled in dead man's ink. Ancient runes that read to learned eyes. Dominate Mind.
 
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A life landed at his feet, ugly as it was short, all singed meat and snapping teeth. A booted heel snuffed it out before it could prove problematic. Tusk turned to Garrod as the dust settled, unmoved by the hostility in his friend's voice. 'Never were all that funny,' he growled, a flicker of concern crossing his features as a needle found a soft spot.

Thick fingers plucked it loose before the poison could infect Garrod's mind; Chima wasn't to know the man had already lost it.

'Killed you, did she?' Flicking the needle into an oncoming face, Tusk thrust low with his blade, impaling a younger through the belly. Twisting, he led it through and out, wrists rolling to guide it about and down again, severing a head. 'Mustn't have done a very good job.'

Stepping over the freshly-made corpse, the Cazadore slapped aside a spearhead, hacked down to bisect neck and shoulder.

'Ain't the first to survive a throat-cut,' he mused, vambrace deflecting a needle. 'Ain't the first to come back different.'

Crimson-hued eyes picked out a shadow scuttling across the ceiling. Snatching up a discarded club, the Soulkeeper hurled it overarm, doming the taker before it could pounce. A hearty crack, and the creature fell, landing on its back amongst the charred dead.

'Figures that there gauntlet had something to do with it,' the orkin wagered, steel trailing gore as he held it level on One-Eye's arm. A shift, a slither. Tusk whirled, parrying a blow intended for his spine. Chima's slayer looked different up close. Less like a hunter, and more like a victim of the trade.

But then they all were.
 
What little bit of the needle had sunk in had been enough. The paper tag, so scrawled with ritualistic inks, too clean for any Taker to do the work.

The spell simply took time.

And whilst Tusk, valiant, brave, and true, fought the good fight. Felled Taker after Taker, the dead man's ink spread across the pinprick of needle that had pierced Garrod's skin, like oil shimmering across the water. Black scrawl poured out from the single bead of red there on Garrod's skin, like wild roots spread rampant and unnatural. Veins purpling and darkening to bruise and blister there about the spell.

His ears hearing the venerable Cazadore's wisdom. His eyes watching his masterful dance. So sure in his strength and speed. So steady and dauntless. Garrod's mind warped. Spiraled and twisted. Heart screaming as he felt his fingers move of their own. Tightened about the hilt of his greatsword.

The club thrown. The taker dropped.

Figures that there gauntlet had something to do with it,

"T...u...s...s...k" the name rattled out of Garrod's throat like the last breath from a hanged man's throat.

Chima's slayer wore the skins of many takers. Boneplates rattled on his face like a mask strung together. Eyes all mortal man. Smile all his. "Tusk old friend," voice of the Mind Master. "It's been so long, hasn't it?" A swipe of his yatagan.

Garrod's limbs jerked to the pull of invisible strings. Greatsword clanked clumsy against the stone of the cave floor. Arms still pumped with green fiend's fire. He swiped. Hard and fast at the man who was his friend. But none of the art behind it, none of the dance of death they were both so familiar with.

Just a puppet, pulled along by a sick man's fancy. And Chima laughed. "Oh Tusk! I am so happy the two of you will see the mother's nest! Will become part of our brood!" A swipe swipe. All cruel in how elegant they came. Aimed at wrists. Thighs. Gaps in the plate. Then danced away. Into the shadows.

While Garrod bulled forward. Clumsy as a newborn calf, still borne with all its power.
 
Of all the corpses filling the tunnels, those still standing spoke the loudest. Chima had been a good man, once upon a time. Resourceful, and magnanimous. Nary a harsh word to be heard about him. Had a smile that could light up a room, eyes that laughed and loved in equal measure. The Taker's mimicry was impressive, that much Tusk could concede.

Didn't change the fact Chima was dead and gone. Or that even the most talented deceiver could be seen through.

'So long, aye,' replied the Cazadore, pommel-punch driving the devil back. 'So late.' A swipe caught the creature's weapon, tore it aside. A deft strike followed, blocked by bony crown. Another thing Chima was skilled at, dancing the blade dance. Manipulation of body and mind. A thrust here, a cut there; tendon and artery and eye. Blind men fought like bleeding men. Poorly.

"T...u...s...s...k." A voice at his back, strangled, fighting to be heard. 'T... uss...k.'

Grinning its devil's grin, the Taker disengaged, cartwheeling away into the shadows like a mummer garbed in another's motley. A growl escaped Tusk's lips as he turned, hackles up, visage bloodied, and full of rage.

What he saw left him with a lump in his throat, and an emptiness where his heart used to be.

'Fuck.' Staggering, stumbling, Garrod approached with all the grace a paralysed mind could muster, chopper trailing through the dust of a millennia. A bloody pinprick marked his neck. All the evidence Tusk needed to come to a conclusion as to his state of mind.

When he attacked, he did so without finesse, blunting the edge of his blade against the stone where Tusk had stood a mere second before. The Takers came for him then, pouring in one after the other, chittering and chattering, and so full of glee.

Behind the wall of bodies, Not-Chima sat, patiently waiting for his old friend to die.

Ducking past Garrod, Tusk booted his companion's legs out from under him. Ignoring the fallen Cazadore, the takers threw themselves at the orkin, bone clubs poised to strike, stolen steel glinting in the wan light of otherworldly fires left behind by One-Eye's weaving. Tusk realised then and there that to fight was to die.

So instead... he flowed.

A lit fuse, a pinch of saltpetre and blackpowder, and the banger blew, disorienting everything and everyone within the chamber save the man who cast it. Devastation followed, the kind the bards barely dreamed of, so limited was their imagination.

Bleeding shroudlight, Tusk carved his way through the takers blocking his path, like a wargeist let loose on the unwilling.

Shattered skulls, slit throats, spilt viscera. A still-beating heart found its way to the Cazadore's palm as he punched clean through a taker too slow to move aside. The next collapsed under its own weight, legs severed at the knees. A stomp put an end to its screams.

Chima was still sitting when Tusk reached him. Grinning, hobbled by the brilliant mind it had consumed, the Taker willed itself to stand as the slain urged otherwise. 'We would have been so happy together,' it smiled up at him, dartgun clutched too tightly in a quivering hand. 'Mother would have loved to meet... meat... consume you!'

'Rest now, brother,' replied the Soulkeeper, raising his sword on high. 'Your fight is over.'

The Taker was still smiling when his blade found its neck.
 
Thumped to the ground. Dazed. The Takers, too drawn to the bleeding shroudlight that steamed off the force of nature Tusk had become to try and feed on Garrod. Their songs too consumed by the raging whirlwind of boulderous force that blew over them. Like an avalanche come loose amidst a blizzard. Ripping and tearing. Crashing and flowing. All the way up to Chima.

But before that final plunge. That last killing stroke.

A Taker had found the paralyzed body of the white haired Cazadore so planted amidst the stones. His eye wide open. Throat squeezed by an invisible hand that purpled the flesh about its terrible grip. His body thrashing to the pulls of a frantic string, trying to will the strength in his limbs to fight. To defend. To kill the monster that tore away at family. At loved ones and themselves.

Sorrow. Fear. Anguish. All swirled with the horrid glee of possibility. All wound and spun and pulled at Garrod. Who but thrashed in the dirt.

Blood afire with his fiend's power. A tide, all its own, that resisted others' currents. But the Takers. The Takers could smell the power. Could smell the horrid stench of fiend's magicks. Of storm clouds born over the mouths of fiery peaks, all rumble and ash that stirred the lightning strikes out of the sky. And even they, hive under threat that they were, wanted such power.

Half of them already killed. Another score blown away. Only one. Then two. Slathered over Garrod with long tongues. Claws ripping and tearing at the skin of his neck. At the flesh of his cheeks. Licked up the blood. Tried to gnaw at the sinew and bone behind the plate of his greaves. Dig into the hot flesh of his thighs.

A scream. All thunder roiled out of the clouds. Ripped out of the Cazadore turned feast's first course. Jewel fixed upon the white gauntlet burned like the last rays of a fading sun. Flashed all green lightning's afterglow. The white gauntlet thrashed, snapped, whipped. Its claws hammered into the side of one Taker's skull. Made to grab it. Ripped its shell open like a melon's skin come split.

That horrible white arm coiled and snatched with a will all its own. Grabbed another Taker's spine. The creature's teeth bit about and ripped at Garrod's leg. Tendons snatched between its teeth. The gauntlet drove its nails sharp into that taker's vertebrate. Took hold, and ripped it out with a wet shulk. Crushed it in a grasp that crunched it whole with jaws of emerald flame.

Still bleeding. Voice still choked. Blood leaking out of horrid, ugly wounds. Rakes across his face. Bite out of his neck. Ripped out muscle wherever claws had found their way in. Garrod still breathed. Ragged and blood sprayed as his gauntleted hand rose up. Clean. Splayed its fingers out in fanning pale rays. The jewel, all eye amidst bonewhite carapace, gleamed with an easy pride.

A laugh like shattered black glass stabbed across his mind. The invisible hands of the Mind Master's spell still squeezed about Garrod's throat.

Plunge went the sword's edge across Chima's neck. Head lopped off and set to roll and bounce down across stones. The invisible hands let go of Garrod's neck. The strings that had tugged and pulled at his limbs there with them went slack. Garrod's white hand fell limp at his side with a clatter and thud. Still white as a late summer's cloud.

Life gushing hot from a gash just made in the side of his neck. Red tears oozing down his cheek and into his armor. Garrod worked himself up off the ground. Leg fucked, and unable to move below the knee, so ruined were its tendons. He got to his feet. Monster slayer greatsword his crutch.

He hobbled toward Tusk. Toward power. Choking on his own blood. Wheezing through the ragged wound. Too shallow to tear the artery out. Or just lucky the teeth had missed.

No word. He dropped his sword with a clatter and got atop the headless corpse of Chima-who-was.

A man who had betrayed the Cazadores he had ventured down these tunnels with.

The why of it. Garrod could care less. Just drew his heavy headed hunting knife. Mounted as he was, legs splayed to each side of the dead Chima. Wheezing and ragged as he was. He plunged his knife down deep into the deadman's chest. All popping point of monstrous tooth. Again, and again. Hacked at the bones with an expert rhythm as the light of his green eye dimmed.

If Tusk said anything to him. If Tusk tried to pull him off. He could not. For the Fiend in Garrod's right arm drove too hard the knife. Made his skin hot as fire. His smell repulsive. All slag and sulfur. His weight, all the weight of rolling stormclouds turned to one man's flesh.

White claws opened the deadman's chest like the cover of a book. Reached into the cavity and squeezed pale fingers about the last beats of a dying heart. Gripped it tight until it went pop. Felt the blood rush through.

Red rivers splashed across valleys and canyons of the pale white hand. Its jeweled eye gleamed, a twisted green.

Red was the color of the gods. The color of sacrifice. The color of power.

Viridian promise flashed across his wounds. Emerald fire forgiving the weakness of his flesh. Flames, like a cruel lovers fingers, stitching back together those parts of him the taker's had tried to take. White hand dug into the dead Chima once more. Ripped lungs out next. Brought them to his teeth so he could eat.

He would need his strength after all. There was still work to do.
 
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The Taker's neck parted like paper beneath the keen edge of Tusk's blade. Muscle, bone, sinew that bound the two together. And blood. Warm, sticky, straight from the source. Severed arteries frothed and gurgled as the monster's head fell to the stone at his feet, its body following in quick succession, as if prostrating itself before the Gods.

Who turned a blind eye as what few survivors remained fled into the tunnels, afraid, and confused.

Steady breaths brought the Soulkeeper back to his senses. Shroudlight clung to him like a jealous lover, pooling at armpit, and along the length of his gauntlets, red now. Spots of grey steel poking through like eyes. Unblinking.

Tearing his own gaze from the body at his feet, Tusk turned to regard Garrod as the man made his way closer, neck weeping blood, blackened armour chewed and battered by the intrusions of dead takers. What're you doing? The Soulkeeper thought, calm, despite the rage pressing at his skull. A headache in the making.

A lone eye, like a shattered window, stared past Tusk, to the body at his feet.

Garrod's sword hit the floor, and the orkin turned back, disapproval writ in the way he watched, unflinching as the Cazadore sunk to his knees atop Not-Chima's corpse. Neglecting ones weapons was a mistake worthy of sin.

Whatever reminder Tusk had sought to give perished on his lips as Garrod started pulverising the taker's chest.

'Garrod!' He exclaimed. 'What the fuck are you doing?'

Wiping his blade clean, Tusk slid it home in the scabbard at his hip. A soft thunk... followed by a harsh crack as Garrod forced his way inside the taker's corpse. Not Garrod, he realised, gaze alighting on the bone gauntlet. Immaculate, even as it soaked up blood like wine. Pop went the heart. Then came the lungs, raised up by hands that knew no feeling. Wooden. Like a puppet's.

'Oh, Garrod... What have you done, my boy?' Shroudlight encompassed Tusk's brutish frame as he slapped the lungs from Garrod's hands. Emerald fire stung his fingers as they latched onto his arms, seeking to hold, and restrain. Like wrestling with a mountain, the orkin grit his teeth, channelling everything he had into pulling Garrod back, away from the Gauntlet's meal.

'Snap out of it, you fool!' Tusk growled, linking his glowing arms about the Cazadore's chest and heaving. Up. Around. 'Was it worth it?' A shunt. 'Allowing that thing into your mind?'

Hellish fires lit the chamber as their magicks met. All the while the bone gauntlet gleamed. Hungry for more.
 
Hands he could hardly feel against his skin that burned with a starcrazed fever. Palms and digits hardly there at the very edge of him. Pressing and weighing as they pulled. Tried to contain him. Hold him back from what he needed to do. No time for anything else.

Clawed and shredded as he was. Down in the darkness of this hell as they were. What other choice did he have? Wild eyed, red streaked, and grinning.

His hand went for more. Drove down and in as the emerald flames licked and hissed and ate away his wounds. The pain of it. Raw as all new life was. Sprouting and stitching and twinning back together where the Takers had taken.

A voice came like a shout across a storm. Muffled and hardly there in his ear. So full of the rumble and crackle of thunder and lightning. Felt his fingers come about something like a kidney. Teeth bared all the more.

He huffed, and he heaved against the strength of Tusk. Ripped out the kidney and shoved it in his mouth through all the binds. Chewed at it. Gnashed. Kicked and pulled, and pushed against whatever dragged him.

The green flames, they just sparked up all the more. Swirled and fed. On flesh. On Shroud. On anything and everything that was made an offering to them.

Friend or foe. Power was power. And the gauntlet wanted only that. Power.

A haul and a drop. Garrod slammed against the stone floor. Wounds sealing up with the last lustful licks of the fiend's fire.

A smouldering heap. Wretched and malodorous. Garrod groaned as he worked himself up. Eye wide as the beast's moon come full at night. Looked about the darkness. Painted as it was in the crazed green of those fires that still danced about the corpses it had made.

Blood still high, head swimming in the flame's rush. Garrod blinked.

"Tusk?" he croaked, throat full of brimstone and ash. Ozone and glassed earth.
 
Emerald light waxed and waned as Garrod tumbled bodily to the ground. The shroudlight encasing Tusk's arms and muscles flickered, as if he were a shroudlamp in some dusty atelier. Whatever curse inhabited the Gauntlet had touched him too, he realised, albeit fleetingly.

Blood dripped from Garrod's chin as the Cazadore called his name, the flames receding now that he had returned to his senses. The after-image, a wicked grin, all teeth and heartless glee until the darkness took back its home.

Standing over his companion, the Soulkeeper took a moment to relax his burgeoning senses. Sight, smell, hearing, touch. Tusk looked down at his hands, only to find them bloodied. All they're good for, anyway. Biting down on his rage, the orkin washed them clean, before taking a sip from his waterskin. Killing was thirsty work. Thankless, despite the lies they would tell themselves later.

'No shame, son. Get up.'

Slipping his arms beneath Garrod's, the Soulkeeper helped the wayward soul find his footing. Fire, brimstone and the stench of devil-dung clung to the man like piss to a drunkard. Almost enough to turn your nose up at. Almost.

'Steady, now. Stand up straight. There we go!' Relinquishing his grip, Tusk took a step back, another. Room enough to draw his steel, should he need it. 'Once all of this is said and done, you and I are going to have a chat,' growled the orkin, not unkindly. Bending at the knees, Tusk scooped up Garrod's steel, a blade as weighty and unwieldy as its owner.

'Don't make me regrets this, Garrod,' he said, offering up the weapon's handle. 'I've plenty enough as is.'
 
"No shame, son. Get up."

Bit down on the inside of his cheek. Couldn't taste anything save the iron of the flesh. Grit still about his tongue. Pieces stuck between his teeth.

Shame?

The orkin grabbed him up. Like a doll. Propped him on to his feet. Careful and ginger, like he was some broken thing. Garrod shirked off the older cazadore. Head still set to green and boiling seas. He jerked his arm away, all snarl and hiss through his teeth.

"Once all of this is said and done, you and I are going to have a chat."

Bit back the curses he wanted to say. His hand flexed and trembling at his side. He closed it to a fist as the man bent low. Picked up his monster slayer and handed it over, hilt first. Garrod took it up. Wiped the blood from about his mouth away.

Grinned. Ugly and bloody. Sharp toothed.

"Don't make me regret this, Garrod... I've plenty enough as is."

"Don't we all," smoked out of the One Eye's mouth.

Legs wobbly. He spit on the corpse he had made a meal out of. Pressed on. Down the throat of hell they went. A snatch of Garrod's hands saw some of the green fire wick after him. Set the thing before them. All putter of cursed light in a place so forsaken by the world touched by sun and stars.

Until they arrived at the belly of the horrid beast. Glowing pale with the otherworldly light of shroudstones. The air so thick with shroud, it burned the lungs to breath it in. Bent the rays of light bout the eyes. Brought tears there to the hunter's vision.

It was a massive crystal. Like the size of a wagon. Pulsing, and humming. A thing with life all its own. Snared by the twisting tendrils of oily corruption. How it shimmered, venomous colors. refracted and burst about its edges like steam off a roasted heart.

"A Tear of the Mother," the words were like ghosts, exorcised from his tongue.

A blur. One way, then the other. Silver flash. Steel caught against the spiny carapace of his gauntltet's tines. Green sparks wicked and licked there. Second sword blocked by the road of his greatsword.

"Paloma," Garrod grinned through bloodstained teeth. Turned his gauntlet, snatched a wrist.

Knife sunk into the gab, just beneath the palm. Swiped for the neck, save a swerve away saw the blade's edge catch against arrow catch.

A kick at the boot. Feet stomped and kicked for position. It was a game of inches. Garrod yanking hard on the arm he had caught. Paloma trying to dig the knife right into whatever bit of soft flesh she could reach. Quick jerks, and angles of the Monster Slayer, the only thing keeping Garrod's unarmored bits safe from the viperous sting.

A screech ripped through the darkness. The Taker's Queen, jaws all click and clatter, limbs boney as spines as she crawled over the blight snared shroud stone at the center of it all.

Green flames ate at Garrod's new wound. Paloma kicked off of the bigger Cazadore's plate armor like a springboard. Fan of knives flung out there in her wake. They clattered and pinged off his armor. One sliced him about the missing eye.

Takers poured out of the shadows.

All blur in the haze of shroudburning breath.

The gauntlet's eye, burned bright. Gaps between plates, breathing. Where no lungs had the right to be.

Garrod took up his greatsword. Eye full with horror. He pushed out a long breath through his teeth. Set low in his stance. Runes burnned lightning bright there at the great blade heart, hung behind him like some terrible tail.

A step forward. All motion arced forward at once. A vertical cut, low to high. Ripped through the air, thick as soup. Storm charged metal ripped through takers like scythe through chaffe. Upward sweep turned to downward smite. Straight through a thick shelled bruiser. Green lightning forked out from where the the Taker thing had been hewn in two.

Out the searing blaze snapped. Bouncing from one body, to the next. Till the storm spear lanced into the Mother's Tear.

Paloma fell on Garrod from the flank. Swords singing as the Queen screeched her agony's song.
 
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