Prologue:
Litan couldn’t let his work go to waste. Too many experiments and too many sacrifices had been made for lower minds to ruin his life’s achievement. He had to preserve it no matter the cost.
Litan clutched the skull close to his bloodied robe, moving carefully as to not upset his injury any further. His journey through the vast forest was a sad one, but one Litan had to make nonetheless. One hand clutched a staff just in case he needed to fend off the predators, and Litan took a glance behind him to see if he was still being pursued. There were no signs of the persons who had stabbed him, but Litan could still smell their hatred and bloodlust being blown his way.
Soon enough Litan encountered a great beast hurrying from his left, likely drawn to him by the scent of his blood. It was a long-legged mammal with brown fur and a long snout. Its eyes were dead-set on the wizard, and it snarled, revealing long teeth.
“Be damned, creature!” Litan snarled, then raised his staff. Light enveloped the top of it and a bolt of energy zapped the scirka. The beast railed as it made a high-pitched whimper. It lay on the ground writhing in pain, and Litan hurried off before the scirka’s death throws attracted more hungry jaws.
But in his haste Litan felt the sting from his wound and fell from it. He cursed and stood himself with his staff, and when Litan checked his feet and saw splotched with his blood, he knew he didn’t have much time. The ritual had to be now.
Then as Litan looked around, salvation came. The wizard regarded a cluster of conifer trees with interest, and hurried over there. He saw a large feline, and then a pack of deer, all of which Litan scared away with the light from his staff.
Blasted fools, Litan thought. They’ll regret this. Mark my words!
Litan finally found his way with the trees, stopping and supporting himself with the staff. He lifted the skull, taking one last marvel at his work. It was inhuman, like he was. Litan was a ferran, a being with the blood of both humans and animal. He had the ears of a bat, large eyes and a wide mouth. His skin was a light shade of green with fine hairs, and his fingers were long and gnarled.
The skull, however, was that of a large ram. Litan had replaced the horns with dark crystals in their shape, and three blue gems ran down its head. Beneath each eye was a sigil, and Litan touched one of it and recited an undecipherable phrase.
“I see his blood trail over here!” a voice said.
Litan quickly conjured his spell, summoning a dark wispy matter within the skull.
“This way!”
The voices were closer now, and Litan cursed under his breath and franticly dug a hole with his bare hands. He ignored the debris that cut his fingers until he made a good size hole, and quickly placed the smoking skull inside it.
There were many footsteps crashing through the bushes, that of men and women, ferrans just like Litan with varying animal attributes. They had machetes, axes, knives and three of them had rifles. All individuals cornered the wizard, who stood atop the freshly dug patch of earth. Litan pointed his staff at them, switching between them as if trying to figure out who would be the one to kill him.
“You disgusting little shit!” a reptilian man said, welding an axe.
‘Murderer!” a woman with rabbit’s feature snarled, leveling her gun at the wizard. “Do you have any idea how many people you killed?”
Litan said, “Street urchins and thieves—I did you all a service ridding them.”
“You killed two children!” another man said, his knife bloody from when he had stabbed the wizard. “They were homeless and hungry! And you took their lives!”
“The hell with all of you!” said Litan. “What are a few worthless lives for the greater advancement of magic! I could teach all of you, but you choose to kill me—the only one who can give you the power to defeat the humans!”
The rabbit woman said, “You’re the devil!” She deliberately shot Litan in the stomach to induce a slow death.
Litan yelled and fell on his back. Everyone else swarmed the downed wizard, stabbing and hacking him as they each satiated their rage. When they ceased Litan was covered in blood and he stopped moving.
“Rot in hell you son-of-a-bitch,” the reptilian said.
“What should we do about the body?” a man asked.
The rabbit woman shouldered her weapon and said, “Leave him for the animals. They’ll dispose of his remains.”
The mob walked away from the corpse, out of the trees and back to their community. However, minutes later, the black smog from the skull seeped from the soil, caressing the body of Litan. It enveloped him in the substance and slowly pulled him into the earth.
Fools. Do you think this is over? I will rise again. And you all better be prepared.