Tarous, стр. 20
I had one more trump card. I sent the mental signal to my skeleton mage to activate the diamond I had embedded in its head. Black energy rushed out from its skull, dying its bones black. Its entire body was black except for the gold lines running through its body and the blue glowing gem on its head. Death qi radiated from every inch of my skeleton. The blue gem doubled in brightness. The charge of death qi would only last a moment and the blue gem was working at 200% capacity. I could already see cracks running through the gem.
The skeleton mage dashed forward with insane speed. It was standing still one second and in front of the Rask the next. Although it looked as if the skeleton mage had used teleportation, it was pure speed. It grabbed the Rask in a bear hug, the force of its incredibly strong grip causing its own arms to crack. My skeleton mage was running far beyond its normal capabilities, fueled by the death qi I had used to help create it.
The blue gem on its forehead began to grow brighter and brighter until it exploded. The entire school glowed blue for a second as a blast of pure blue energy evaporated the Rasks head and most of its body. What little remained of it turned into a black goo that puddled on the ground.
Cracks began to show all over the skeletons body. Its bones turned back to white and then it crumbled into dust. I said a silent prayer for my little skeleton mage. Though its life was short it had served me well. I turned and began to walk away when I heard a voice behind me.
“Impressive. I want you as a trophy even more now than before.”
The black puddle swirled and slowly began moving upwards and becoming humanoid shaped.
The last thing I saw was his fist flying towards my face and then I tasted my own blood.
Chapter 15
(Edward, Young Lord of the Rask Family)
I had the servants take my new human trophy to a spare room. He was placed on the bed and the guards were notified of his presence. He awoke soon after arriving, and seemed rather concerned about the golden collar around his neck. It was to prevent him from ever escaping. It was impossible for anyone but myself to remove it.
I sat in a nearby chair, watching. He was my finest trophy.
“You watching me like that… It’s creepy as hell,” said the human with a glare.
“It’s the only way I could be sure no one would eat you. You’re in a land of monsters now,” I replied with a smirk. It was not an empty threat.
“What happened?” It was a nice open-ended question that he seemed to think would encourage the sharing of information.
“Manners make the monster, my dear young captive. I am Edward of the Rask family. How might I address you?”
“Tarous.”
“Well Tarous, our world has devoured almost all of its delicious human cattle,” I paused to lick my lips. My actions seemed to greatly disturb him which brought me great joy. I am a monster after all.
“We can no longer keep up with the demand of food for our people so we have begun exploring other worlds. We were lucky enough to come across the people of your world. I was the one to make the discovery and the benefits to my family will be immense because of it.”
That was an understatement. People were starving in the streets. There was such a great need for food that we had become insanely wealthy overnight. Not that we weren’t wealthy before. Monsters would pay any amount of gold for human flesh. After all, you can’t eat gold.
“So what am I? Your snack?”
‘More like emergency rations,’ I thought, but instead I replied, “You were rather impressive during our invasion. Besides the older ones of your species, you were the only one to offer any real resistance. I decided to keep you as a trophy and possibly learn more about your world from you.”
‘Or a midnight snack depending on my mood,’ I thought to myself once again.
“Was anyone else besides me caught?”
“A few. The dead have already been processed into food to feed our people and the ones that were caught alive have been sent to be with the other human cattle. It’s good to have fresh blood for breeding purposes.”
Tarous cringed as he realized his status here was on par with that of a hamburger.
He glared at me and began to speak again. “I recognized the werewolves from our legends of the past, but I don’t recognize you. What kind of creature are you?”
Stuff of nightmares.
“What I am? I am royalty among monsters. No one in all the world would dare to cross a member of the Rask family.”
Tarous looked unimpressed. “So now what?”
“Tonight we are having a ball to show off the overwhelming power of the Rask family. Also this is a good opportunity for us to brag to the other noble families about the discovery of your home. A new feeding ground could save our world. The status of the Rask family has risen once again amongst our people.”
It was getting bad, monsters had truly embraced eating other monsters. My family had brought in as many of our weaker allies as possible to shelter them from the cannibalistic storm that had been created. Some did not answer our call though, fearing we were only bringing monsters in as future rations. I would be a liar if I said I hadn’t considered it.
The human rolled his eyes.
“A maid will soon arrive with clothes for you to wear tonight. I suggest you wear them. If you do as I say you will have a comfortable life here, unlike the other human cattle we have captured.”
“Witch, not human, I’m a witch. We are humans plus magic. It shouldn’t be difficult for a