Chapter 158

Chapter 158: Chapter 158

Smoke rose to the sky in the Deep Woods, the remnants of battle etched deep into the forest. Towering trees thousands of years old had been felled, thick trunks broken in half, some burned, some shattered. The soft purple of the ethereal sky was revealed, the peaceful sky at odds with the carnage underneath it.

Caedos stood in the midst of it, the charred bodies of Fiends surrounding him, and right in front of him were the empty eyes of Grand Duke Morkoth, fallen on his sword.

Blood spilled down the side of his face, an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. It had been a brutal battle, one that even innocent Hellhounds couldn’t be spared from. And unlike their first battle, there had been casualties...

He dropped down to a knee, exhausted but needing to keep moving. The Fiend Grand Duke was dead but there were still remnants of his army that needed to be dealt with.

Caedos was drenched in blood, it was difficult to say which was his and which belonged to the enemy. Their victory was already assured but he didn’t want there to be any more casualties if he could help it.

"Your Highness?" A solemn voice came from behind him.

It was strained, and Caedos didn’t need to look behind to know it was one of his injured kind. He pushed to his feet, the muted terror in the voice of the Hellhound that had called to him giving him a burst of strength.

"Not dead." He said bluntly, turning around to face Ardan.

The captain looked half-dead, a deep gash in his throat like he had nearly lost his head. Ardan closed his eyes in relief, leaning heavily on his sword to keep himself upright.

"Report." Caedos asked, it was quiet, melancholy. It held all the horrors of knowing they were just at the start of their dreadful journey to freedom, and it would only get more tumultuous from here on out.

"Fifty dead," Ardan said through gnashed teeth, "Every last vermin has been wiped out."

Caedos was able to stand with more balance after he heard that, his captains were truly capable. "Rally those who can to search for survivors," He directed, taking a step away and then another. "I’ll deal with the stragglers."

Ardan placed a hand over his heart with difficulty, "As your Highness wishes."

He watched the Prince put one foot in front of the other, picking up the pace until he shifted mid-step and flashed out of sight. Ardan’s sword fell out from underneath him, the vines underneath catching him gently.

Prince Caedos had dealt with an entire regiment of soldiers all by himself, which included generals and the Grand Duke, yet he still kept moving. The thought was enough to give him the strength to push to his feet again - warping while gravely injured caused discomfort but he did it without a change in expression, returning to Avalan.

Lady Dilya lifted her head when he returned, her dress was bloody, a gash on her upper arm. She was pale but her expression was grim, her back ramrod straight. "Did you find him?" She asked stiffly, the first hint of fragility in her eyes.

She had been stemming the bleeding from an unconscious soldier, signaling to one of her assistants to take him into the castle. The castle was partly in ruins, not even spared from the fallout of the battle.

"Yes," Ardan said without mincing words, letting Lady Dilya finally tend to his injuries. "He’s... He’s off to wipe out the rest of the enemies." He said after a pause.

He knew what Lady Dilya wanted to hear, but he couldn’t lie to her. Prince Caedos was far from alright, he might be a Royal Hellhound but he had already been pushed past his limits and forced to keep going despite that.

Dilya fell silent but her hands never stopped working, the bowls of water next to her continually changed. She was essentially working on the war front, providing first aid to promote self-healing and ease the strain on the few members of the infirmary unit attending to the countless injured in the castle.

She soon had a thick bandage around Ardan’s neck, his surface injuries were cleaned and were healing incredibly slowly but they were the least worrying. The young Hellhound’s internal injuries were extensive, it would take days to fully recover.

"I’ll take any that can move to search for survivors." He pushed himself to his feet when she was done.

Dilya was on her knees on the hard ground, a wooden pallet in front of her. She took off the bloody sheet she had just changed to attend to Captain Ardan, replacing it with a clean one just as another injured soldier was laid on the pallet. "Alright." She agreed, even though she thought the captain shouldn’t be moving. She couldn’t stop him and she didn’t want to, she would only hold onto the certainty that she would return.

-+-

Unable to pinpoint where the enemy soldiers were, Caedos could only rely on his speed, covering a lot of ground in a short time, he only slowed down when he caught sight of movement, like right now.

He slowed down, walking up to a duo of soldiers supporting each other, one more hurt than the other. Despite his massive size, he closed the distance soundlessly, seeming to appear out of thin air next to them.

Caedos didn’t ask any questions, he already knew why they were still lingering on enemy soil even after their defeat. Fiends were just as ruthless to their own kind as they were to every other species. There was no place for defeat, so even surviving soldiers couldn’t return.

In a short time, he was back on the move again, heading to the edge of the spore fields. It was difficult to get close, the cloud of spores was even thicker than the last time. He was forced to slow to a stop when a finger-sized mushroom sprouted on his front paw.

He cut it off with his teeth without hesitation, changing directions. No one could survive in such a thick cloud of spores, and that included Hellhounds.