He took a jump forward.
Blazing red fire descended in front of him. Hadrian looked to the platform where the fire had come from. The man had his hands stretched out.
A Mage of Elemental Magic. Hadrian noted.
The two men carrying his body had dropped it and drawn their swords.
"all that for a dog?" One of them clicked their tongue.
"You're new," the Mage said, his voice low and grating, "See. Even that doesn't make it run."
"We're burning the bodies…. " The big man said as he put his sword back into its sheath, "let him eat them if he wants."
"Would even "you" deserve that?" The mage asked.
"A Mage caring for commonfolk…. " The man mumbled with a groan, picking up Hadrian's legs once more as the other man picked up Hadrian's head.
Dog Hadrian jumped forward once more and once more the fireball descended. He dodged and turned to the Mage, growling, his face twisted in a snarl.
A rat bolted from the tree line, though they didn't notice it. It ran up behind the Mage and up into his sand coloured pants.
The Mage jerked his leg jumping backward with a yelp. Rat Hadrian bit his thigh but did not use his snake's poison.
He turned to the two men who had once again dropped his body, smiling at the sight of the Mage. Hadrian ran closer, he needed to be at most ten metres away from his target at his current level.
"Mage said "no"doggy." The big man shouted, clapping his hand and stomping his right foot, trying to shoo dog Hadrian away.
Hadrian stopped a metre away from them and sat on his hind legs. The man's brow furrowed and his lips parted to a confused smile.
The Mage still battled with rat Hadrian.
Hadrian cursed. When he altered his sight, he did not see the flowing dark grey fog. All he saw was an abysmal darkness at his body's centre.
He pulled at it and it rose like viscous fluid; like it would take an hour just to get to him.
The Mage resorted to untying his pants, grabbing rat Hadrian and scorching him in his hands. Dog Hadrian's eyes twitched, the moment the Mage grabbed him he'd felt the heat and let go of that rat body.
"Enough of this!" The mage snapped.
The sun had set, but Hadrian felt like he was standing under the afternoon sun.
The Mage pulled up his pants. "Hurry!" He shouted, "I want to go back."
The men picked up Hadrian's dead body and tossed it into the pit. Hadrian's heart raced.
The Mage took a deep breath and shot out incinerating fire from his fist. For a moment it looked like the sun had risen.
"Skreeer!"
A Hawk went right for the Mage's eyes. The fire had not reached the bodies yet and it died down, dispersing in mid air.
The Mage was doing his job, Hadrian didn't want to gouge out his eyes for that.
Out of the tree line, four more wild dogs ran into the open space. Two went for the men, one went for the Mage.
I don't have time.
The Mage is bound to get agitated and flare out.
He rushed to his body with original dog Hadrian and the new fourth dog Hadrian.
Jumping down the shallow pit, he bit down on both his legs and coordinated perfectly to pull the body out.
As expected the agitated Mage grabbed the hawk on his face and pulled it. Its talons held on to his skin, stretching and breaking it, causing blood to come out. The mage did not care.
He kicked the dog and pulled the hawk in one strong motion burning it in his hands. He turned to the dog but it was already running for the tree line.
The mage snarled and turned to the two men who'd stabbed the two wild dogs that had jumped on them. Their shoulders rose and fell, their eyes wide staring back at the Mage.
Hadrian's body smeared a trail of blood. With the two dogs pulling at the legs, Hadrian looked at his dead body collecting dirt.
I'll need to clean that.
His remaining rat bodies led the way. Some Infront, others spread out around them as they moved and others behind them cleaning up the trail. He'd lost his one hawk though and cursed thinking about it.
The thought of this forest at night used to terrify Hadrian, now, he might be the most dangerous thing in here.
Gritjor was far up north enough in the human realm for Magical Beasts and Horrors to be rare.
His many ears picked up the sound of the river.
This far and I've still not lost control of the rats in the city….
The night was beautiful.
Distant howls, screeches, crickets, the sound of the leaves singing as the cool wind blew at them and, the night sky.
The stars were so far and unbothered as streaks of coloured nebulae painted the nightsky. They shone down onto the world with all their brilliance, and down there, two dogs dragged the corpse of a teenager to a river as vermin led the way.
Any creature that came too close would join the party.
The dogs made it to their destination and dragged the body to the banks of the river, the water gently splashing at the corpse, washing away the dirt.
The third dog that had run away from the Mage was in the tree line, observing the mage and men, in case they decided to follow the blood trail.
He heard them cursing, studying the dead dogs, burnt hawk and rat.
After some time, they pulled the bodies out of the shallow pit and put them into the iron storage structure. They got onto the cart and headed back into the city.
At the river; the viscous black mass flowed to the paws of dog Hadrian and four rats. In the city, rat Hadrian had gone back into the sewers to obtain more vessels.
Seconds turned to hours. Rat Hadrian in the sewers obtained more vessels, sending them out here.
A large owl with black feathers descended upon one of the many rat Hadrian's moving in the undergrowths of the forest.
Hadrian could instantly switch which vessels could make up the maximum six that grabbed at essence fog.
City rat Hadrian lost this ability while the one in the talons of the owl obtained it. At the same time it healed itself by "substituting" the flesh and bones of other rats on the ground that would fall down dead after.
Thirty seconds later, Hadrian felt the wind slam against his feathers. He felt his body light, his heart beating fast, his breaths coming in sharp and quick.
He flapped his wings and looked far into the horizon to the southern mountain ranges. Circling the air he saw the city, Gritjor, in the distance.
He could tell where the wooden houses in the poorer districts would merge with stone buildings as you went more north and higher into the city.
It was a large city. Even now his rat vessels scurried its streets looking for a lead to the Mages who'd caused his death.
From their fight he could tell they were a Force technique Mage and Elemental technique Mage. These were the most common.
He'd only caught glimpses of their faces but he remembered one had long black silk hair the other shoulder length auburn hair.
Probably members of the gangs.
Hadrian had gotten many opportunities he could have joined one but he'd kept his head low. Opposing gang organizations were ruthless when executing enemy members.
The past four months, however, had been relatively peaceful. Apart from fights like today that would happen.
I used to be so afraid of them. Does it end with the two Mages? Are these not the same gangs that have kept progress in the poorer districts down.
Owl Hadrian perched on a tree branch and began eating the rat in its talons. He'd let go of that vessel ready. His vessels were not dead and as such, they needed to be sustained.
It was not just Howl Hadrian feasting, in the city his rat vessels squeezed themselves through cracks and openings into inns and houses. Since Hadrian was no regular rat, he was not afraid to take risks.
His six essence grabbing bodies surrounded his corpse. Looking down at his pale face through his dog eyes, there was movement underneath the corpses eyelids.
Muscles around the eyes and his fingers twitched.
In the next moments his eyes shot open, his chest rising as he took a deep audible breath. His human sight meeting the night sky.
Blood was dry around his mouth like red paint. His abyss dark eyes darted. The pain was not immediate.
In the sewers, streets, houses and forests; rats fell down, their flesh deteriorating as if being eaten away by the air.
Hadrian had switched to mechanical control of these rats, but all the rats' pain happening at the same time summed up.
All his vessels trembled as his corpse's teeth gritted, wheezing sounds coming out of him; his body thrashing at the bank of the river.
His left hand dug into the mud, his feet kicking and splashing the water.
"Badum."
His heart beat for the first time.
"Badum- badum - badum."
The pace picked up. As the rats deteriorated into thin air his flesh and bones on his missing right side torso reconstructed themselves growing out of thin air.
20. 30. 40. 60. 100….
His rat vessels disappeared.
After nearly two minutes of torture, the corpse lifted its right arm above its face.
Hadrian looked as his wrist's and fingers' bones reconstructed; veins, muscles and skin wrapping around them.
On the horizon, dawn cracked. In the end, it took the entire night but after seventeen hours, Hadrian had brought himself from the dead.