White Tusk

Ariana managed to arrive before the boar. One of the hunters wandered the road with a lantern. She shouted out while panting from the sprint. “BOAR! WHITE BOAR!!” Immediately, the hunter looks at her with a shortsword ready. She shouted again. “WHITE BOAR!!” The hunter’s eyes widen as he puts the sword away, latches the lantern to his belt, and readies his bow. “Where!?” Ariana finally came to a stop, incredibly winded. She pointed weakly towards the road she came from.

More villagers stepped out, alerted by all the noise. The other two hunters were in the crowd. It didn’t take long for them all to discover what the source of the commotion was. White Tusk had arrived, and it was charging straight down the main road.

“WHITE TUSK!!” screamed one of the hunters, and everyone ran back into their homes. The great boar’s path was plain, and it was heading straight towards where Ariana had tied down Duke Albert and his men. She saw them struggling and panicking against her roots. Ariana shot up and commanded a tangle of roots to slam up into White Tusk’s jaw as it charged them, sending it off course. She ran to them and started working to undo their bindings. “Do your jobs and protect these people!” She demanded.

She worked to unbind each guard in turn, staying close to Albert. The guards looked around for their weapons, finding them nearby and hastily brandishing them. Albert, though, was far more entangled than his men. Ariana struggled to unbind him in her current state. As she worked, the hunters and guards fought together to drive off White Tusk.

The colossal beast bucked and slammed at its aggressors. Their swords slashed and their arrows flew, but this creature had been shrugging off such nuisances long before most of these would be adversaries were born. With a swing of its tusks, it knocked two of the guards to their backs, and with a kick, it sent a third tumbling and gasping for life, with the newly formed dent in his armor restricting his breath. The arrows of the hunters did little more than scrape and anger it.

Albert began pleading for his life, begging, “D-demon, Rita, was it!? Please, release me!!”

“I’m trying!” Ariana cried.

White Tusk, no longer assailed by things of note, had its attention drawn to the desperate sounds of Albert’s struggles. It kicked up dirt behind it and snorted, clearly ready to attack. Ariana thought back to the first time in the forest when the boat charged. She flung one hand up to summon a tangled wall of roots between them while working to pull Albert free with the other.

The feral ancient did not flinch at the sight. Rather, it seemed insulted. It charged forward and gored at the barrier with its tusks, easily snapping most of the roots and pushing through. She panicked and brought her other hand up to summon greater numbers, but it hammered its gnarled tusks through them relentlessly. She moved to stand between the beast and Albert.

Ariana’s magic reserves were running on fumes, and she could feel it. She tried summoning more roots to strike it directly. That seemed to cause it pain, but it advanced more and more as gaps formed in the defense. With the last of her magic, she called forth as many roots as possible around White Tusk to attempt to bind it in place. She could hear the roots snapping as it fought against them.

She could feel the exhaustion tugging at her mind, threatening to pull her under. She looked around. The guards were still out cold, save for one who was frozen in place. The hunters were trying to approach with their short swords and knives to finish the job, but the flailing of the beast would not permit advance.

Ariana felt a surge of adrenaline as the titanic boar let out a cry of anger, maw gaping wide. She rushed for one of the fallen guard’s swords, gripped it as hard as she could muster, and threw herself into the monster’s jaws. She plunged the blade up into its mouth from within. White tusk squealed and flailed, it shook its head, and damn near throttled her as it fought with every last remaining drop of its strength. It broke free of the bindings and rampaged for exactly 15 seconds.

In that time, the hunters took Ariana’s cue to lunge at the beast and plunge their blades as deep into its neck as they could. The remaining guard followed suit, slashing the beast across its eyes as it charged Albert. White Tusk’s pain and blindness set it off course and into the market stalls. It kept charging forward through the stalls, reducing them to splinters in its wake and knocking the hunters away. It slammed its way through them, eventually approaching the home of the mayor, his wife, and their child. There was a shrill scream.

This scream sent a surge of power through Ariana’s body. Still within the beast’s mouth, she matched its empowered death throes, slamming her knee into its jaw. It cracked as she freed her legs and braced them against the ground. Her hands gripped the sword firmly and twisted. The two slid forward until they crashed to a halt against the front wall of the Mayor's home.

Finally, the beast collapsed.

She heard a faint jingle in her mind once more, followed by a more triumphant sound as her magic returned to her, but she was too injured to make use of it. The pain that once pulsed through her body receded, but not from relief; her body and mind were going numb. There were muffled sounds around her, but she couldn't tell one from the other. 

Then everything went black.

She was uncertain how much time had passed, but Ariana felt a warm, relaxing sensation spreading from her stomach and radiating through her body. Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw Albert there, resting a radiant hand over her gut. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, but she knew that she was safe for now. 

She fell under once again.