*(Hope you are enjoying this small batch of updates. Please give me a little bit of feedback and let me know if Im doing justice to the story so far. Im a little worried, feeling a little negative and like Im writing trash and nothings cohesive. I haven't gotten any feed back for a few months so just give me some feed back even if its just a little emoji. Ill make sure to take it in and use what ever you tell me about improving!) (Enjoy!)

Chapter 16 - New Foes

The men guarding Bonsa summoned weapons from the air. With a graceful flick of their wrists and or a deft move each of the five men guarding Bonsa clapped their hands and a shower of dancing embers as blue as the sky zapped alive in their palms, before they pulled their thick hands apart and sitting like neon blue blade made of ephemeral light sat long shimmering blades that danced like liquid flame made into a solid shape.

How exactly the men were able to grasp and hold dancing blue flame was a mystery to the Clan Head and admittedly his mind was focused on his own attack to much for him to really take it all in.

In the back of his mind Mantilo worried about leaving Glen and the rest of them alone with Ezekiel when the Reaver sickness had their son so deep in its grasp, but Mantilo know that if he didn’t defend them from more attacks, Ezekiel wouldn’t be the only family member that could end up mortally wounded before him.

Mantilo rushed the first bodies that he could get his Claws into. The mans face was obscured by his red hood, but when Mantilo dashed into his space, dogged back to avoid a giant black blade of light directed at his throat, and twisted a fist of claws across the attackers chest, releasing a horrified scream, as flesh was popped open like an oily bloody zit.

The air danced with crimson spray as Mantilo ripped his talons over the mans body twice more, opening up deep wounds in his chest and guts....

The man made a choked sound, and a trembling hand dancing with ugly black energy raised as if for one final attack, but just as Mantilo dropped to the side to get out of the way a hair raising vicious snarl split the air, and the heavy body of a wolf sailed past and with a sickening crunch Nates wolfs jaws slammed shut on the mans face like a steel vice made of spikes.

In a gruesome display of pure blood lust and hatred the Wolf ripped the man apart. Bones snapped as Nates wolf savagely tore the man off his feet, and his screams were turned to choked gurgles as his face was ripped in half and his throat was torn open.

The space all around them filled with screams, roars, and the bellow of Mantilo...and the High Elder Bonsa all at once as the battle turned more bloody and fierce.

Two of the High Elders bodyguards were struck and fell in a matter of seconds as thick black shafts of burning light slamming into ones eye and blew out the back of his head. Another body guard was hit in the leg and them his neck was cut open nearly pulling his head form his shoulders as the black power stuck him down into the forest earth.

Mantilo was hit in the left side, and he snarled as black energy slicked open flesh and muscle in his shoulder making agony scream over him as he rushed into and tried to kill the man that had managed to cut him.

But their attackers were powerful, agile, skilled, their attacks whizzed by in a matter of seconds, released like the shafts of arrows from crossbows.

Landers Leopard was struck deeply and viciously across the ribs, and his fur was soaked through with crimson on seconds. Nates wolf danced wily around the men, dashing in, ripping flesh, tearing ankles and tendons, breaking away at the last seconds to avoid a fatal blade of black power to the side of the head or chest.

The High Elders eyes gleamed pure liquid golden yellow, and her hands and arms sizzled and danced with fierce flames like blue burning tornados that whipped and snapped around her like giant snakes made of blue fire.

“FOUL APOSTATES TO THE HEAVENS ABOVE!! YOU WOULD DARE ATTACK ME! ME!? HIGH ELDER TO THE GODS!?” Bonsa screamed with such magnums’ rage that even Mantilo felt his inner beast shift in discomfort of what had been evoked in the woman.

The Elder stepped forwards and threw out her arm, and a giant gout of blue flames shot forth like a geyser from all around her body. In the blink of an eye three of the men in red burst into blue flames, and their bodies began to melt as their screams tore into the skies.

They ran around frantic, but nothing slowed the flames that ate at them, as if the blue flames were made of acid that corroded them down into the earth.

At that moment one of the Elders body guard stabbed a blazing blue blade of fire into the chest of their attackers, and the man in red robes fell. The fight continued, but there was no way to keep a total score of who was killing who or how many of the attackers had fallen, the air was thick with blood all around and Mantilo only focused on dispatching as many as he could before his own fatigue and blood loss started to slow him down.

A horrified scream lit the air, and Mantilo glanced over to see Landers leopard tearing one of the men apart, his yellow and white Leopards face painted in crimson as he drew his claws over the mans back, and snapped his head to the side with a harsh shake of his jowls.

To the far left of the fighting Nate rushed in and took down one of the men as he attempted to rush past the wolf and go near Glen and Erin who were still fighting Ezekiel into submission. His wild and unholy screams were just more madness added to the din of screaming, cursing and whizzing black blades all around.

Four more men in Red were dominated, burned alive and openly slashed to pieces by Elder Bonsa and her men until all of a sudden there were only 5 attackers left to be dispatched.

But the reaming men fought just as fiercely as the last seven that had been killed, as though despite the change in numbers and no matter how many of their brethren got their hearts and throats ripped out it didn’t faze them....they fought on. Like men possessed. Like they felt no fear....like death meant nothing to them.

Mantilo tackled down on another one of the men and he pulled his claws left so that they would ripped out the man’s eyes, but not his throat.

Hard powerful hooks scored soft bloody flesh and popped gooey sockets wide open and the man screamed in horrible agony and fell to the ground...

Mantilo left him to his screaming and thrashing, his mind already ahead on what he would ask the man and do to him once the fighting was resolved, but to Mantilo chagrin....when he glanced back behind him...he was suddenly forced to watch the mans thrashing screaming body get engulfed n glimmering embers of light.

In a blink of the eyes the man was dashed off into the wind in a swirling dance of blue embers as if he had never existed.

Their retreating!? NO!!

Mantilo roared in feral hatred as he whipped around and he tried to call out a warning but in his gut he knew it was already too late.

“NO...!” Elder Bonsa screamed as one of the men she was about to attack, turned, dashed away being a tress and just....vanished a moment later.

And then in a shower of shimmering blue embers, the last four men in red robs, come of them bloody and badly injured turned, and in the flash of an eye they were carried away on a gust of glowing blue embers.

Shit...this is bad...we have to get back to the main village. Were not safe here!!

Mantilo instantly shifted his mind to thoughts of how he could get them all out of the forest and back to the safety of the inner Clan Lands. He knew that these red hooded men could appear from thin air, but at this point the Clan Head knew that remaining so far out in the deserted forests when they would easily be outnumbered and ambushed again was a terrible idea.

“We must leave now!!” Mantilo called out in urgency to all with in ear shot.

The Clan Head turned his eyes over the earth, looking past the dead, so he could shout to the Elder. High Elder Bonsa clothes and body seemed to have weathered the attack utterly unscathed, but her left cheek was split and blood was dripping down her chin into her clothes, and at least two of her body guards lay dead and horrible beaten around her, while two of her remaining men were bruised and bloody, their arms cut, and one of the men’s arms was held close obviously broken.

“High Elder if your men can walk, we must not linger here so far into the forest....we are obviously being hunted!”

“Yes!” Elder Bonsa nodded her head and a harsh snarl lit the air as she called back. “We must leave and once we are back in the center of the Lands I think the ones that attacked us will stay away...The Apostates are not infinite in number, even they would not try to take on an entire Clan alone....”

Apostates....? Why are they...and why does she seem so...unfazed by this!?

In the silence there was only a brief moment of peace and rest....before with an unholy scream....Ezekiel suddenly and violent thrashed free of Walter, Glen, Drin and Erin all at once.

Nothing could have been worse in that moment in time, then Ezekiel going wild in an already dangerous and unsafe place.