“A-Aldora,” he slurred. “I do not know you well but answer me this question.”
She stilled, unsure of what he would ask of her.
“Whose children did you hear out there so late in the twilight?”
Aldora paused, confused before realizing he meant her story. Tears slid down her face. She didn’t have an answer because to answer was to incriminate and she couldn’t do that to an innocent. Could never to that. Not even to save herself.
Her silence was damning enough.
“Sacrifice her to the mists!” A yell went out that was quickly picked up by others. It grew until it drowned her, solidifying her fate.
She thought she would—could—do anything to end this nightmare. She’d been wrong.
Chapter Four
***
Vedikus heard the chantingof humans long before he made it into position. He gritted his teeth as he dropped his stealth and headed toward the noise. He’d been waiting in the shadows for the moon to slip directly overhead and into middling night, not long at all, and not even long enough to fully scout the perimeter and see what he was up against.
Thetras’s sacrificial clearing reeked of hungry beasts. It was one of the only places that remained a free-for-all for human sacrifices. Other locations, some far, some near, were ruled by different tribes and monsters. To capture a sacrifice within lich lands was near impossible.
His own hands were coated in blood from stealth attacks he’d performed from the shadows. The cursed mist dined upon them as he sprinted forward. The noise the humans made called others just like him to the location. In the distance he felt the thunderous strike of centaurs approaching, he heard the high-pitched shrieks of hobgoblins, and to his dismay, the sudden beat of an orc drum.
Vedikus unsheathed his axes, readying... His eyes sharpened as he entered the clearing.
A hobgoblin rushed in from across the way but was dead and twitching on the ground with an axe embedded in its head the next second. Vedikus stomped over and pulled his weapon from the body.
Two more came from his right and he sent his axe flying again. The one still standing hesitated long enough for him to pick up the corpse at his hooves and throw it, knocking the fleeing hobgoblin down under its weight. He walked over to the goblin’s struggling form and hacked its head off before picking his other axe back up.
Vedikus swiveled around, ready for the next death.
A group of centaurs came next, the smell of their horseshit contaminating his nostrils when suddenly, he heard a human female scream.
“Please. Please, listen, I didn’t do anything wrong! Please!” Her begging cries filled his ears and his eyesight sharpened further.
“Toss the witch cunt!”
