@Talvi: I'm saying that's as far as I've gotten. I plan to read the whole thing. Also, why the heavy criticism?
The leader of the pack leapt forward. Behind him charged the rest of the dingoes. The goblin mother placed her son on the ground behind her and readied her sword, both hands on the handle. With a thrust so quick I barely saw it she impaled the dingo on her sword. She flung the body off and it landed in the midst of the dingoes. The dingoes sniffed it and hesitated, but the goblin never shifted her stance, prepared to strike down more. The goblin boy stood back and tried his best to hide and covering his eyes.
The remainder of the dingoes charged. The goblin mother hewed open the head of one in such a way that it's brains fell out between its bifurcated nose. She attacked another, but it fought back, biting her leg. She let out a guttural, croaking scream and bashed at its head with the pommel of her blade. The second hit dazed it and she kicked it off, losing a chunk of leg in the process.
So enthralled was I by watching the combat that I forgot my task at hand. When I recalled it, I looked back down at the waning fire and the vial in my hand. I pulled the cork, nearly spilling the contents as I did so. I took a whiff, it smelled strongly of gasoline... Which gave me an idea. I stood back and splashed the liquid onto the tiny fire. I was rewarded with a mighty "WOOSH" as the flame leapt six feet and the air began to distort from the new heat of the burning fumes.
Some of the fire snaked its way up the line of gasoline fumes and caught my hand on fire. I started to panic, because I was on fire. I tried to calm down and I happened to remember something else from my PawScout days. A fire safety lesson. I dropped to the ground, landing on my forearm and extinguishing the flame. The burns were pretty minor but they stung a lot.
I heard a panicked scream from ahead of me. The goblin boy was running as the dingoes began to overtake his mother, surrounding her on three sides and latching to her limbs. The batted at her with their claws and she couldn't shake the ones who had latched onto her arm. She began to knee the one attached to her left arm in the head while pommeling the one on her right thigh.
I grabbed a large fallen branch and lit the end of it then rushed forward, waving it wildly. Several of the dingoes backed away in terror. Then something strange happened... It was as if time slowed and my brain started going a million miles an hour. I took in things I never saw regularly, small movement quirks in the dingoes, their patterns of attack, the movements of the goblin. I stabbed the attached to the goblin's swordarm while punting a dingo a few meters away. Then I withdrew my blade from the (now-dead) dingo while clubbing another in the face with the burning branch. A dingo lunged at my throat, but I dodged it causing it to land roughly on its paws.
I took a breath and with agility I didn't know dwarves could had I leapt above the dingoes landing hard on one's head and breaking its neck. My beard caught fire while doing that feat, but I did not pay attention as I began to punch a dingo in the nose and kick it in the ribs. The goblin came up from behind and I threw a dingo at her, which she sliced in half through the stomach, leaving a head half and a tail half. She proceeded to kill another dingo and greviously maim two more.
Within another ten minutes of violent slaughter, it was all over. The bloodsoaked goblin mother tapped on her son's shoulder. He uncovered his eyes and looked up at his mother standing there. She had bite wounds up and down her leg and a chunk of muscle was missing in one place where the dingo had ripped it off. Her clothes had several new tears and holes, revealing small parts of her arm mostly. She had been wearing trousers under her dress and armour, and it was the trousers that got it worst, her left knee was completely exposed. The truly troubling thing was all the blood. She was covered in blood, mostly that of the dingoes, but some was her own gushing from the bite marks.
Her son looked up at her and said what sounded like "ozo". His mother got down on a knee and signed to her son, then wiped away his tears with a clean piece of her dress. I don't know what was said, but the boy seemed to stop crying after this. She went down to the river to wash the blood off, and I did the same. The goblin-child followed us to the bank, but did not get in the water.
As soon as I was in the water I discovered a fascinating fact: dwarves can't swim. This was bad for me, because I was now being swept downstream by the current. The goblin-mother anchored herself as best she could and extended a hand. I grabbed it, and with a small grunt she pulled me ashore. Now in soaked clothes, but much cleaner than before we made our way to the still burning fire. The goblin mother took her dagger back and with it butchered one of the dingo corpses. It was a very disturbing site to see and the grass ran red with the blood of it, but it was the smell that got me. Dingoes smell terrible!
Most of the day was gone, so this is where we would make camp. The goblin had harvested the meat, pelt, and organs of the dingo, along with a nice femur bone which she gave to the goblin boy. I didn't and still don't understand why she did that. He held on to it like it was a sacred relic or a treasured toy.
That night we had roasted dingo meat, which I almost couldn't eat. I just... couldn't stand eating something that I watched die. Not just that, I had helped it die too. It went totally against everything I'd ever been taught, but I was... so hungry. I won't say it was good, but it was meat and it filled the stomach. The goblin mother took the first watch while me and the goblin boy slept. He was clutching the bone like a human kid might hold their favourite doll close. I think I was beginning to understand what a life was like here and it was horrifying.
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2253640 times)