Chapter 3: Book II. Chapter 2
Blood. Return of the fallen warriors. Inrag Kirit.
So many corpses littered the ground. The spikers fought very fiercely. At first, I thought it was because of Narr Nutt, but when the young spikers and their women ran up to us, everything became clear.
They fought not for their ruler, but for their families. And the mercenaries did the same, even though I paid them. Frankly speaking, in my opinion, the gold was needed only to start the attack, since the mercenaries had never been the first to attack and have honored some of their own laws of honor.
The memory, however, said that the mercenaries had no honor, and they were fighting for those who paid them - and they kill those whom the customer orders them to kill. But the warriors of Derergon and the other leaders did not kill the weak and peaceful spikers - although they could have quite easily done so.
On the other hand, I did not order them to kill everyone. However, having looked at Derergon and the other mercenaries who now walked with us, I realized that they would not have executed such an order anyway.
For a while we stopped in front of Garadan's body, which was scary to look at. Brabon had split the heavyweight warrior greatly. Alyona used some of her spells, and after quite a bit of time, Gard already stood before us completely unharmed.
"I didn't think you were so strong," one of the mercenaries said and grinned.
"Aha!" The heavyweight warrior grinned as a sign of joy. "My paws and armor got torn apart with such strength." The mercenaries began to make clicking sounds that I assumed meant laughter.
"Your warrior is strong," the old spiker agreed. "No one expected Narr Nutt to have such a high-level resident of the surface."
"And how did he turn out to be with him?" Hyde asked.
"I don't know." The spiker spread his paws to the sides. "But this is most likely due to the rippers, with whom he used to collaborate and who would bring him various artifacts."
"What did he exchange them for?" asked Lintirionel.
"The rippers needed mushrooms, moss, haloptiriuses, and many other ... ingredients for their potions. The gravediggers also collected the bodies, which were then given to the rippers."
"Hmm ... how much did that bear cost?" the elf wondered aloud.
"I'm afraid only Narr Nutt and Karag Garak know this, but you won't be able to ask the latter since this was his last rebirth."
"I wonder where that king has gone?" Hyde mulled.
"Nobody knew that he possessed such abilities since he hadn't used anything like that in his fight with the previous chief."
Talking as we were, we approached Inir's body. It was there that I became even more horrified. Inir's body lay in a large pool of blood, and nearby there was a whole mountain of spikers, which supposedly fell under a monstrous meat grinder.
Their bodies were excised, their limbs were torn off, and in the center of this whole pile of bodies, Mulf lay. Even then, his lifeless body merged with the world around him, and only his eyes, from which blood was still dripping, could not do it. Four blades protruded in his body, and their owners lay beside him with their heads cut off.
"It has been a good fight. Your warrior turned out to be very strong," said the old spiker. "I have never met a bug of his kind before."
"Yes, but I didn't expect Mulf to be defeated," admitted Derergon.
"I will return him now." Alyona activated her ability and revived the scout, who for some time did not understand anything, but he was clearly soon ready for battle again.
"I see that we won after all," Mulf said, looking at both us and the spikers standing nearby.
"Did you ever doubt it?" Derergon bared his jaws as a sign of joy.
"A bit," the warrior admitted.
"Eh, you." Derergon waved his hand. "However, it was still hard."
"Your two-legged doctor is much stronger than ours, and this was a very serious trump card," said the old spiker. "It is a shame that Inir cannot resurrect the fallen."
"So this is the doctor?" Alyona pointed to the body of a skinny spiker in a kind of light mantle.
"Yes." The spiker nodded. He knew the language of the two-legged quite well, which surprised me. It was strange that many of them spoke the language of the inhabitants of Reynea. "This is the most peaceful spiker anyone could imagine. Of course, he is able to fight fairly well, but killing someone ... that is a completely different matter."
"I see." The leader of the mercenaries nodded, while Alyona resurrected the doctor.
"What is that wonderful energy?" asked the doctor as soon as he was resurrected. "It is far superior to my own strength."
"Answer some of my questions, first, and only then can you ask about any-thing," said Derergon. "So you don't approve of violence? Then how will you protect your kinsmen, since you still lack the strength to heal them all?"
The leader of the mercenaries snatched the blade and put it to the neck of the old spiker, who accompanied us to this place. However, the spiker did not even jerk, unlike his relatives, who were stopped by the mercenaries.
Derergon carefully looked at the confused Inir, clutching a simple staff, and gradually pressed on the blade. The sharpest blade cut through the firm plates, and a trickle of blood ran from a small wound.
"Wait. I can't do harm." The doctor's hands twitched, and it was obvious that he was deeply at a loss and didn't know what to do next to save his relative. "Let me heal Inrag."
"Indeed!" snapped Derergon and removed the blade.
"As you see, we did not lie to you," the old man said calmly, and dim energy enveloped his wound.
"Very weak energy for such a level," said Alyona, looking at the result of Inir's work. "It seems that he does not use any spells. Moreover, he does not yet possess a number of abilities."
"However, he is still the only one capable of such a thing," said Inrag. "And he managed to save many."
"He even restored my broken shell one day."
"He restored my broken jaws too."
The spikers started talking about how their relative helped them, though many of them simply called him a slug. The nickname had stuck to this spiker from an early age when he did not possess such an ability, and now many were just used to calling him that.
Only the old man always called him by true name. Such a very unusual spiker this old warrior seemed to be. I did not pay attention to him, but now I looked more closely.
Inrag Kirit, Commander of the Spikers, level 73
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone