Read Online Dusk Territories: Always Burning by Deston Munden - Free Book Online Page A

shouted, seething. “Dagon! Kill him!”
    Bound to the man’s orders despite its condition, Dagon charged forward. Graham shook his head. He was too close for a grenade. He could get himself killed in the blast. There were other factors inside of battle. For example, noting the environment held certain perks. In his rage, did Beastmaster forget that they were at a lagoon? Graham took stepped back to the shoreline. Did he notice that Graham didn’t necessarily have to breathe? He had all the weapons that he needed to kill Dagon. Beastmaster’s fear was the last piece that he need, and that was graciously given to him. Dagon pounced, and was unsurprisingly propelled into the water with his prey under him.
    They entered with a large splash. The water around them was dark, warm, and clean for the most part. Fish swam around them, hurrying to avoid the confrontation. Flakes of wood and other flotsam, either from the war or the cannibals, drifted in the purpled waters. There wasn’t a floor to the lake, only abyss.
    Graham held his breath, keeping a good grip of Dagon’s head. He twisted the creature’s neck. It wasn’t enough. He fought the beast off for a moment, gaining a free hand. Before he even knew it, he had removed shemaugh from his neck. His fingers and arm did the rest of the work, tightening the cloth around the neck, and twisting it like a lever. The bone on the creature was far too strong to break, but the maneuver did cause the creature to yelp in pain. Or at least try to yelp. The water quickly entered the feline’s mouth, choking it better than Graham could ever could. It went limp in a minute, life sucked from it eyes.
    With a margin of pride, Graham grabbed a tooth from the elongated fangs and tore it from its gums. Blood rose to the surface. Graham stabbed the animal over and over again. This wasn’t an act of cruelty, but persuasion. The Beastmaster—assuming that he couldn’t connect visually with the beast—would think he was dead. If he could, oh well. If he couldn’t, well that would be nice. Battle was brutal, and he was about to show him how different the two of them were in battle. He swam up to the surface, hand grasped tightly on the fang of Dagon. It was a perfect makeshift knife. Not as good as a KA-BAR, but it would have to do.
           Graham emerged from the water, pulling himself to the surface. His clothes were heavy, but mental anger fueled him. Beastmaster was still a healthy length away, but he could see the eyes of the man getting larger and larger with every step. Apparently, he couldn’t connect optically with the beast—only emotionally. The moment that Dagon’s connection was gone shocked him, but he probably assumed that both were dead. Blood of that volume would convince anyone of that. He was wrong, and Graham was right.
    “How did you--?” Beastmaster mouthed. He knew he had to act and he had to act fast. The charmer sent sharp beaked, mutated ravens soaring towards Graham. He should have quit.
    Graham dashed towards his target, moving out of the way of their flight lines. A flash of white stabbed each of them. Head, stomach, and their wings had been taken down with almost inhuman like movement. He knew wasn’t quite human, not anymore. His actions knew what he had to do. He forced himself to think as well. A man couldn’t let his thoughts rule his movement completely. There needs to be some consciousness.
    A shower of black feathers and pink inners ended the aerial assault. Graham gave one last stab, chopping a long mutated raven in half through the open beak to the tail feather. By the end, his entire body was covered in blood: his own, Dagons, the birds. But there was one that he didn’t have on his palette. He planned to correct that, now.

    Alas the chance escaped him. Beastmaster was nowhere to be seen.
    “The bastard ran.” Graham couldn’t doubt the man, in retrospect. Proficiency in combat of both the gun and hand to hand stacked the odds in his