WOLVES WITHOUT TEETH ( geralt of rivia.. )

009. darkest eyes..

The monster wielded a tail to act as a crossbow spitting at least five spikes at a time. Azaras slid off the rather tall bed and while her left hand grabbed her sword from the bedstand, she concentrated first on tucking her right shoulder under the margin of the bed. While she stood up, averting her face from the dreadful attack, her force flipped the bed over with all who were on it. Geralt fell limply and Jaskier, on top of him yelped, scared.

Five spikes indeed pierced the turned mattress. By some sort of luck, Azaras did not get scrapped, scratched or wounded, which turned to be enough of a shock to the monster, sure in its lack of consciousness that his strength rivaled that of everyone; one hit and they'd be dead, for who would survive this creature? Half scorpion, half a beast with permanently open mouth, rounded and filled with twelve rows of teeth, as a mutation between that which dwells on filth and sewers, growing the more it eats, and the terrors of the desert, Azaras never dreamt to see.

Now she'd get to kill.

As soon as she realized she wasn't dead already, no matter how little sense she made of everything, the instincts instructed into her very being by her own mutations had her knelt, sliding across the room and unleashing her sword in a lounge that cut off the monster's leg first.

She widened her knees to the side, leant back and the tail went right over her body flattened to the ground, exposing the thing's back. From her own back leaning she turned to lay on her front, raised herself from the ground and no struggle later, the monster's tail was cut off.

Black blood spilled, the monster erupted burning saliva from its round mouth and all his teeth started shivering like razors. Though it lost is tail, the main weapon, that mouth was the very next danger. While Azaras was barely standing up, trying not to slip on that poisoned liquid death, the monster turned around and its scream numbed into the floor.

He smashed his head wide mouth down trying to catch Azaras in the razors, eat her whole. Without its tail, the monster had no balance, no sense of space, so it missed. Infuriated, it raised its head again, confused, but this time, when it came down, it met a sword.

And its screech only got louder as that silver blade stuck through its throat, immune to the teeth clapping and flinching.

Holding her sword in a reversed grip, Azaras was the back of the monster she had placed herself under the attack of on purpose. When she shoved her sword in, she dug deeper until she felt the dark blood starting to drip, meaning that she hit something vital.

Only then, she stood up from one knee to standing straight and raised her right arm, shoulder high, in a light step to her left. The sword cut flatly through the monster's face, skull, minuscule brain. Loud enough to wake the dead, it fell dead beside her.

Yet she didn't ponder. She did not dwell in victory either, even though she wished she could have flaunted her pride of having fought so well after such a dizzying deep sleep. Prudent, she shook the sword of blood only once and ran around the turned bed to see Jaskier in a corner and Geralt still sleeping.

Blood raised to her temples, pumped loudly. Her heart, however, still beat slow. "What are you doing, Jaskier?"

"Geralt's not waking up," he whispered.

Noises were getting louder, more monsters, sounding the same or even worse, caused a ruckus outside their walls.

"Then start slapping him!" Azaras became alert too. Out of her and Jaskier, she was the one most capable of fighting, but also the only one with the physical strength of carrying Geralt out if he didn't wake up. However... she couldn't do both.

That was the choice she didn't want to take, so to avoid it, she started gathering her gear, putting on her armour with dexterity and full advantage of a slowed heartbeat. She was calm, but panicking, and it showed only in how much Azaras had quickened the way she retrieved each of her weapons.