Synodic

Weapons in hand, Synodic races forward, his multitude of limbs clawing at the air and ground as he closes with his prey, the ring of steel-on-steel following in his wake. The Lich must have been half-mad, screaming something about being friends and wanting to talk. There was no talking with a Lich; the creatures had chosen to forsake the Mother and turn to the Shade of their own will - there was no reasoning with them now, only banishing them from this world.

In the back of his mind, he could hear something calling his name, but he is too busy fighting to listen.

The Lich twists away from him, face scrunched in concentration, fangs bared. Synodic follows, spear and axe swinging wide to prevent escape. He is not an experienced Hunter for nothing, has not endured the mutations of plague and Presence not to be a skilled warrior. He has sparred with the best Crusaders and Holy Knights, with the best of the Hunters; one Lich, exhausted and alone, is not going to present a threat now.

"Please can we just talk about this? I'm not a Lich! I'm your friend! We were hunting the Lich, you just struck them down a moment ago!" He hears the words - couldn't not really, with his hearing and how close they are - but dismisses them offhand as the desperation of an aberration facing their death. How could they claim not to be a Lich when they can both see the near-black stripes running down their back and across their wings? It's nonsense.

Synodic sighs lightly, almost patronizingly. "I can see the evidence of your bargain with the Shade on your hide, traitor." He does not yell, does not think he needs to. For some reason, his mind insists that the Lich will be able to hear him no matter how quietly he speaks. By the reaction on their face, he is sure that inkling was correct.

They parry a heavy blow, knocking the spear from his grasp and sending it flying into the distance. He traces the arc with one of the eyes on that arm, noting where it falls so he can retrieve it later. The two eyes on his head follow the swing that disarmed him, watching it go wide, not having expected as little resistance as it got. Letting the Lich knock away one weapon meant nothing in the end - he has another.

Not letting the abomination get a chance to recover and pull back their blade to defend themself, he thrusts forward with the spear in his other hand, striking true. The creature slumps forward over the wooden shaft of the weapon, grunting in pain and baring the unarmored back of their neck. He wastes no time in jerking his head down to sink fangs into vulnerable flesh - the Presence gave him more teeth for a reason, and it would be wrong not to use them.

The blood that leaks from the now-beheaded Lich is a shimmery dark color, almost silver, and it tastes like mercury in his mouth. He wonders at that. Most Lichs shed black or purple blood - at least to his eyes - some symbol of their allegiance to the Shade, but this looks more like the blood of a fellow Hunter. Synodic supposes that it doesn't really matter. Perhaps the creature destroyed a Hunter at some point in the past. Whatever the case, its death has eased the whispering in his mind, appeased the call to hunt at least for now.

He goes to collect his fallen weapon and return it to the bundle he carries, flicking the blood from his spear before it has time to dry and stain. His teeth he will clean later.

To his right, there is a rustle in the undergrowth, and he coils himself tightly like a spring, ready. But the figure that emerges from the brush is another Hunter, not an unwelcome monster. He relaxes his stance at the sight of the other Hunter, nodding to the bodies of the three Lichs and the Hunter they destroyed before he got there - though he would have sworn the hunter had lain a few paces to the left, where the body of a Lich rests now. "You're a few minutes late to the fun, friend."

The ashen mirror chuckles, "It does look that way. I came running when I heard the distress call, but it seems you beat me to it. How many of the Lichs were still breathing when you got here?"

"Just the one. The Hunter was dead when I arrived, but he took out two of the Lichs on his own. May he enter the last dream in peace." He ducks his head with the intonation, letting the grief of the death of one of their own pass over and fade. "He hunted well." The mirror nods and bows his head with Synodic, and there is a moment of silence between them.

Then, "I do wonder at that mark on his neck. It isn't often a Lich turns from his magic to fangs and claws."

He comes over to inspect the mark in question. It is a triangular bite mark, riddled with more teeth than any normal dragon skull would have. "Perhaps one of them summoned some kind of aberration. I didn't see any such thing when I got here though." The mirror nods, and concedes that it is a likely explanation. Together, the two of them bury their fallen comrade, each saying various rites over the body, commending him both to the Mother and to the Presence beyond. The Lichs they leave to the elements to rot.

They mark the grave with an upright log, and the mirror infects it with a strain of plague. Even his light-sensitive eyes have a difficult time marking the darkened patches of wood in the new-moon dark. That done, the two of them go their separate ways; the mirror back in the direction whence he came, and Synodic off to the north, deeper into the territory. The call of the hunt is already rising again in his mind, and that brief rest was enough for every nerve in his body to be jittery.

A thought touches on his mentor as he flies, and the memory of having to do away with the blood-drunk old dragon comes bittersweetly to mind. The old man had been powerful, and a great resource to the new generation of Hunters, but like many who lived to be that old, he had eventually fallen prey to the whispers from beyond. Synodic is glad that he yet retains his mind and sanity at his age. He is one of the older Hunters now, so many years after that day, but he is secure in the knowledge that he has never turned against his own.