Chapter 53: "Crush the core, brother"
The recent hero of the crows, wanted nothing to do with the crows as a community. Jimmy never wanted to win the approval of his people, he didn’t care for it, and internally, he wished to destroy some crows because of the stress they caused him. If it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t want to completely lose his humanity, he would’ve killed them already.
However, despite what he felt, he couldn’t escape their needs. Be it for the sake of his family, the elders, or whomever else in the crow community bothered him, he kept being drawn back to fight on their behalf. He saw no logic in killing the people he protected.
Anyway, Jimmy spent the last couple of days taking care of himself. He progressed significantly, he was more powerful than ever, and even though the crows weren’t aware of his leap in power, they still urged to drag him back in their wars. He was amongst the strongest crows a couple of days ago, when he was significantly weaker than he was now. They demanded his help.
The crows had been restless these past couple of days. They’ve been looking for him, as per White Blade’s commands, but haven’t been able to find him. This city wasn’t too big by human standards, but it was huge for the crows, so it was no surprise that the scouts amongst the crows had a hard time finding him.
A big fat crow wasn’t easy to find within a mountain’s worth of carved stone, but it wasn’t impossible. The crows found him, even if it took them shy of two days.
Jimmy had the displeasure of talking to his brother Vorin again.
"Where have you been?" Vorin asked.
It was obvious that Vorin tried his best to stay calm, likely because he didn’t want to be verbally abused by his brother again, but his concern was painted behind his beak. His face was a canvas of darker colors, riddled with concern.
"I’ve been hunting," Jimmy answered.
"Hunting what?" Vorin asked, "Squirrels, I hope."
"Squirrels?" He parroted, "We’re having trouble with squirrels again? I thought I killed all of them."
Upon hearing this, it took everything within Vorin’s power to keep a straight face. For one thing, he was very upset, but on the other hand, he found it funny how oblivious his brother was.
"You killed some of them," Vorin said, once he took a deep breath, "But there are tens, maybe hundreds more squirrels in the meadows. I don’t think you were there to hear this, but elders said that the ravens took the meadow from us a few summers ago, only because they had squirrels to help them. The problem, brother, is that squirrels are still helping the ravens. We killed a lot of ravens, yes, but for the past couple of moons, we had to kill squirrels who were bringing the fight to us, in the city! We lost five more crows."
Vorin’s frustration spread like a salty wave. It splashed across Jimmy as well.
"The squirrels are breaching the walls, huh?" He said.
Jimmy’s brain spiraled down to the depths of hell quickly, it went into overdrive. Razor Squirrels were the nastiest creatures he ever had the displeasure of fighting, and he still feared them a little bit. They were extremely hard to kill, and mustered a natural violence in close-combat that crows could not compete with.
The last time he fought them, they nearly killed him.
Crows did not practice ranged attacks either, and this hammered down their fighting chance down to the gap of a needle! They had to fight the squirrels in close-combat in order to kill them.
With that considered, he couldn’t find a good solution as to how to fight the infiltrating squirrels without putting the lives of the crows at risk. This grinded his nerves more than he expected it to.
"Did you manage to kill any squirrels, brother?" Jimmy asked.
"I killed three," He said, "White Blade taught us how to fight them, but we can’t fight more than one of them at a time without risking our lives. It usually takes three of us to kill one of them."
Jimmy was impressed. The fact that the crows were fighting back without getting completely wiped out was promising. He was relieved that he didn’t have to craft the entirety of the defense plan.
Instead, he asked, "Have you burned the squirrels?"
"No," Vorin answered, "White Blade said that it’s too dangerous to throw the squirrels beyond the walls and burn them. We killed twenty squirrels so far, and left them to rot."
"Do you remember where all the dead squirrels are?" He asked right away, "Focus, because we might just have a solution at the tip of our claws."
"I remember some of them," Vorin answered, "Why?"
"You’ll see," He mustered a small smile, "Take me to one of the bodies."
Vorin was confused, but he was beyond willing to defend the crows, so he co-operated. The hate he cultivated towards the enemy over the recent days, out-weighed any sort of family drama he had, and whatever he felt about his brother.
The brothers landed close to a rotting carcass. The silver fur and sharp spikes across the carcass were characteristics that were impossible to miss. This was a Silver Squirrel no doubt.
"Disgusting, gray bastard," Jimmy scoffed.
Afterwards, he said, "Alright, now I know this may seem disgusting, but I need you to cut the squirrel’s stomach open."
"I don’t mind gutting it, but isn’t it cruel to mess with a dead body?" Vorin asked. "We’re at war, but we shouldn’t abandon our way of living."
"It is cruel, yes," He nodded, "I hate to desecrate carcasses too, brother, but we hardly have a choice. I don’t know what the elders or White Blade told you, and I don’t really care, but the fact is that we’re not well off, we’re losing the war. If we don’t build an advantage for ourselves soon, the squirrels will finish us off. Listen to me, because I’m trying to teach you something."
"Alright, I’m listening." Vorin held his breath, "Let’s see what you’re trying to teach me."
The fact that Vorin was equipped with a dagger was alarming enough. He had likely taken it from one of the fallen crows, which meant that White Claw had allowed it. The wishes of the dead crows were no longer being respected, which could only mean that the war had reached a point of no return.
To hell with a canvas, the blood spilled this past week could’ve painted a building!
Vorin gutted the squirrel. He clumsily pulled its organs out, as per Jimmy’s instructions.
Amongst those organs, one of them didn’t behave like an organ at all. It made a clicking sound once it hit the ground. Vorin had launched it with the tip of his blade by accident.
"That’s the one you need," Jimmy said, "It may not look like it because of all the blood, but that’s a gem brother, and more than that, that’s a Beast Core."
Afterwards, he added, "I need you to step on it. You have to crush the core."
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