Enter the Bodyguard

"We've got our work cut out for us." Skye said. "Hurry, Fred!"

Fred was already racing down the corridor in the direction of the screams. He burst into the Room of Sealing, and beheld a terrible sight - Tarsa floating in midair, a giant horn of what appeared to be pure darkness sprouting from her forehead. She seemed unconscious.

"By the blood of Hell!" Fred exclaimed. "I... I recognize that Darkness!"

"We've got to help her, Fred!" Skye said, flapping in the air beside him.

Fred started toward her, when suddenly a horrific monstrosity scuttered toward him from the thick mist of shadow that filled the room! It was twice the size of a man, covered with glistening black spikes, horrific boils and red warts. A man's grotesque twisted face was barely discernible in that bloated mass.

"You've gotta be kidding!" Fred gaped, stepping aside just in time to avoid being skewered by the thing's deadly front spikes. Even so, it brushed past with such force Fred was spun through the air, landing on his back some feet away.

"Skye, help Tarsa!" Fred shouted, jumping up, Geoblade in hand. "I'll deal with this... whatever it is!"

"I have warts!" the beast roared, wheeling about to face Fred. "I'm in horrible pain!"

"So go see a doctor then." Fred suggested. "What are you asking me for?"

The creature let out another, inhuman roar and charged at Fred again. This time, as Fred stepped aside, he swung out with a flawless two-handed strike, which left the upper part of the creature's body rent nearly in twain, even as Fred was flung through the air once more.

He got up, dazed, to see the beast dying in a great foamy mass of ichor and exploding warts. Not sparing it another thought, he ran to where Skye was flapping beside Tarsa's floating form.

"Fred, I can't even get near her!" Skye exclaimed.

"As usual, I've gotta do all the work!" Fred yelled, leaping through the air to grab Tarsa around the waist. For a strange second he hung in the air with her, and then whatever invisible force held her loosened, and both tumbled to the floor. The dark horn on Tarsa's forehead flashed and disappeared.

"Allright!" Fred said, getting up, Tarsa unconscious in his arms. "We're getting out of here, now!"

________________________

"So that's what happened." Fred explained to Tarsa on a forested hillock far away from Agear Mountain.

"The power of Valmar's Horns had... possessed my body?" Tarsa whispered in terror. She sat legs akimbo, hands clasped over her bosom. "Are you sure of what you saw?"

"Positive." Fred nodded. "There was a giant dark horn growing right on your forehead. And that freakish... thing! Really nasty business. I better be paid extra for that whole little detour."

"How can you even think about money at a time like this?!" Tarsa cried angrily. "When Darkness spreads across the land, threatening everything! Could you truly be so blind and cold-hearted?!"

Fred shrugged. "None of my concern. I'm paid to do a job, and I'm doing it. There may have been a little snafu, but you're fine now, I think."

Tarsa stood up. "You will take me to see Father Suivant, immediately." she snapped.

"Sure." Fred said. "Agear should be right over that rise."

They walked on in silence, until they had topped the high knoll. Tarsa gasped. Where Agear Town once stood, now an enormous flaming pyre belched smoke into the pre-dawn sky.

"Granas save us!" she cried. "The town! Father Suivant! All my friends!"

She broke into a run, but stumbled and nearly fell as Fred grabbed her by the wrist. "What are you doing?!" she demanded.

"Are you crazy?!" Fred yelled. "Someone torched the town! That means they could well still be there! My job is to protect you, and that's exactly what I'll do, just like any blind, cold-hearted Geohound!"

"Let go of me! You monster!" Tarsa sobbed.

"Hey! Princess! The power of Darkness isn't coming this way to tell us about the neighborhood bake sale! We have to get out of..."

His sentence ended in a grunt of pain as Tarsa kneed in the codpiece. She pulled free and sprinted away in the direction of the burning town.

"Stupid broad!" Fred groaned. "She'll get herself killed! Skye, follow her - I'll, uh, be right there."

1. Skye flapped away, and a few seconds later Fred got up and stumbled after him.

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