The Blood of Alchemy

Chapter 10: Hoth and the Hound

"It's just some kids and a forest man, you silly mutt. Quit acting so tough"

The three refugees stared up at the cloaked man and his massive hound. The hound had obeyed his commands instantly and was no longer growling, and went over to the man and sat on his hind legs.

"Can we help you?" Gad asked.

The man looked down at him, he was much taller than Gad. All you could see of him was his face, kept in shadow by the hood. His skin was pale white, much whiter than Tharon or Tally had ever seen. His plain dark brown robes went right the hard dirt of the forest floor. The dragged, but they didn't look to be tattered or dirty. His hands poked out of long draping arms of the robe, the same pale white of his face. The skin looked almost water logged. He was frightening. Tharon didn't think he was there to for anything good, and kept his mind on making sure he could get as his dagger.

His hound was twice the size of any normal dog, with thick, brownish-red hair. It made a slight mane down its neck to the shoulder blade point of its back. It had bright green eyes, and very white fangs, for a dog.

"I came for a stone song. It rung and like a jagged rock in the air, it called. I know no other sound. May I see the stone?"

"It's not mine to show. It's the boy's."

The cloaked man turned to the green clad forest boy.

Tharon gripped his hand on the handle of his knife. The brachet had seemed to notice his wariness and let its hackles up.

"Don't fear, boy," the man said, "And, you, mutt, if you don't settle down, you won't have anything to eat tomorrow at all."

Tharon was getting tired of people telling him not to be afraid. Perhaps he was just angry at himself for being afraid, but he wouldn't admit that, especially not right then. He needed to be fearless.

"I'm not afraid," Tharon spat back, but he was. "What do you want?" Tharon kept his hand on his dagger.

The cloak man laughed, and lifted his pale hands to pull his hood back. His face turned into the massive head of a terrible horned snake, only made of flames. It had fierce fangs that roared out in bright orange and yellow, and its eyes burned and smouldered red and blue.

Tharon backed up, but Gad and Tally didn't seem not to notice it at all. He couldn't understand, he wanted to scream, but before he could open his lips to let it out, the snakes head stretched and slithered off of the shoulders of the man and lunged forward at him.

Tharon shouted a small yell, pulling the dagger from his boot and whipping it around, only to see the pale white face of a bald man emerging from the cloak.

Gad and Tally were now staring at Tharon with awkward faces. Tharon looked petrified. He was petrified, but not by a spell. He was so stricken with terror that he could not move. What was this creature, and what was happening, and what was wrong with Tally and Gadriver? He wondered in a panic.

"Tharon, what's wrong?" Gadriver asked, stepping away from the cloaked man.

"He's a monster! He's some snake demon! I saw his face!"

Gad didn't know what to do, but if Tharon said he was a monster, maybe something in his blood had told him. He wasn't about to wait to find out. He drew his sword - 'BRYNN!', the sword rang as it slipped from its sheath.

Then all three of them saw the face of the snake on the man, and Gad stepped forward, as Tharon and Tally notched arrows in their bows.

The handle of the sword started to feel hot, and then hotter in Gad's hands, until he had to drop it, and the bows froze solid as they drew the string back, frozen in their positions, and then grew hot as well. Tharon and Tally both dropped their bows at the same time; the strings staying pulled back tight with the arrows notched in place. It was as if the weapons had been paralyzed.