Confrontation

Arianna felt her heart freeze. She knew that voice. She had only heard it the one time, but she knew that voice all too well. It haunted her dreams.

It was the first time Harr had seen the walking storm, but looking at him, he knew in an instant who it was. The man was massive, a hulking figure dressed in tight black clothing, and Harr hardly even had to focus to see the black tendrils dripping and rolling off of his body. His potential was incredible, but it didn't have a single lick of light within it. The man was more than a walking storm. He was practically death incarnate.

"Give me the girl, and you may be fortunate enough to only walk away with some damaged body functions."

Arianna was trembling, Harr could see it out of the corner of his eyes. He had to get her out of there. It was the only option. He just couldn't see a way of doing it. The man was approaching from the other side of the fire that dinner was still cooking on, just barely lit up by it. The shadows streaked across his face, making his eyes look empty, his features sharp and deadly. He was moving slowly now, but from how Arianna had described, that wouldn't mean much once he had decided they wouldn't go down easy. They may only have a few seconds.

The horses were barely beginning to lift their heads, and certainly wouldn't be on their feet in time for the two to even mount up. With barely any call, Harr's eyes were calling hard on potential. He saw lights coming from every direction, most weak, coming from animals in the area around them. Arianna's was bright and powerful, but was shrinking away from the blackness of the man. His dark flame was preparing to engulf everything in the area. Options were running short, and they certainly weren't going to last for long.

His only hope was the fire. The real fire. The lights of potential disappeared in an instant, and Harr slowly rose from the ground, his hands lifted in surrender. Arianna watched him, terrified, unknowing what he was about to do. For all she knew, he had seen the terror that was the storm, and he was preparing to give her up. Just as Perman had tried to kill her, know her own family was ready to give her away.

"You must be hungry," Harr called out. The man rose an eyebrow, but did not falter. "It's been a bit of a journey to get out this far, and I don't see your horse anywhere. Surely you must be tired."

"I should hope you do not think you can win my good side," the man called back. "You should know that I don't have one."

"Please, we were just making dinner. By all means, take it." He was inching carefully towards the food, arms outstretched as though he were presenting it to him.

The man was only a dozen feet away now. His dark and heavy voice felt like a thud to the chest with every word. "You have three seconds to hand over the girl." There was no hesitation in his voice. No hint that he was willing to negotiate. Three seconds, and then they would be dead. "One."

Arianna felt as though her heart was stopping. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. She saw her uncle reach down for the stick in the flames, and then the man was launching forward at high speed. It only took him two steps to reach Harr, who pulled back hard, flinging fire and ash into the air in front of him, just barely splashing it across the man's face. It paused him for only a moment, but in that moment Harr struck.

He punched the man in the chest with all of the force that he could muster, a straight blow to the dead center of his ribcage. Any normal would likely have at least cracked a rib. But the storm did not move.

Instead, as he blinked the burning rubbish from his face, he threw his own punch, slamming Harr in the gut and sending him flying through the air, directly over Arianna's head, before he hit the ground hard and rolled, spitting out blood as he made contact.

Arianna screamed. She screamed louder than she had ever screamed before. Screamed her throat out, her lungs dry, and made her own ears rattle in the process.

Harr could barely look up to see what was happening, struggling through the pain. He saw the storm stalking towards his niece, brushing the remains of the fire from his chest. He saw her trembling in fear, heard her screaming, felt her screaming rattling his chest, piercing through his already shattered ribs. And just beyond them, he saw another shape.

The wolf had heard the screams of the princess. In the moment, Harr could only assume that the wolf had recognized the scream as that of a dying creature, and wanted in on the remains. It leapt through the fires towards the two, unheard beyond the screams of Arianna, and landed on the man's back, claws digging in as it took a heavy bite out of the side of the man's neck. He was caught completely off guard and roared in pain, grabbing the wolf by the collar and tearing it away to smash it into the ground.

But the wolf had gotten a better grip than the man had counted on, and in pulling it off he teared out a sizeable chunk of his own neck. He roared in pain as blood poured out of the open wound, and the wolf landed just beside Arianna, bloody chunk of human flesh still in its mouth.

The sight only made her screaming worse. She was terrified beyond belief. She could see her life flashing before her eyes. This was not how she wanted to die. Not in the slightest. She didn't want to die alone in the middle of nowhere to a lunatic who was stronger than any man had any right to be, with a wolf looking to feed on human flesh, and her uncle lying a dozen feet away, utterly broken.

But the wolf's attack had bought a few more seconds of time. And in that time, the horses had gotten to their feet, packs still on their backs. One turned hard and ran to Harr, making a wall in between him and the man, while the other nudged Arianna's shoulder hard, pulling her for a moment out of her frozen state. Desperate to leave, she gripped the horse's mane, and as if knowing what she wanted, it grabbed her collar in its jaw to fling her onto its back, bolting hard away from the cleared space.

The man roared in anger, launching a rock through the air after the horse, but the pain in his neck put his aim out of commission, and the rock slammed into the ground ahead of them, having flown just to the right of Arianna's head.

And then the wolf was on him again, this time attacking his ankles. His roars were just as terrible as the rest of him, booming through the air as Arianna's horse galloped away as hard as it could.

It wasn't until she could no longer hear the man's screaming that she looked back and noticed that Harr was not with her.