Coyotes and Hawks
...The battle doesn't seem to be going very well for the Coyotes. The Hawks are swooping down from the sky and tearing flesh off of Coyotes, while the Coyotes are mostly helpless to resist.
Of course, all of Haalfrin's rescuers are using their spirit magic to make long lassos of Spirit Threads, and htey're chucking them into the air. Whenever they manage to catch one of the Hawks, the Hawks is yanked from the sky and cast to the ground.
As soon as a Hawk hits the ground, a horde of Coyotes descends upon him.
The lucky Hawks attackers are immediately bashed through the head with an ax by one of the Coyote guards...
...but the Hawks who are caught by the weaponless children or civilians are the unlucky ones.
The Coyote children throw themselves on a felled Hawk warrior, and they scream in blind fury as they dig their sharp nails into their eyes and yank them out. Haalfrin even sees the boy who warned him earlier plunging his arm through a Hawk's eye and breaking through the brain.
There is no disgust or fear in the Coyotes' eyes.
Even the peaceful, amenable, and fat Krea is growling menacingly as he's stomping a Hawk flat with his feet - almost relishing the feeling of the Hawk's wings breaking.
Haalfrin doesn't even need to use his Spirit magic to sense their sadistic savagery as the Coyote'sbite and claw - yelping in triumphant glee as the warriors below them struggle and bleed to death.
Alas, the Hawks' treatment of any Coyotes they catch aren't much better. Any Coytote's they manage to carry up into the sky are mercilessly ripped apart.
'Why am I just watching!?' Haalfrin scolds himself. 'I need to do something!'
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Haalfrin rushes forward and throws Dakka's ax. The ax flies off on it's own and starts slicing Hawks in half.
While Dakka is doing this, Haalfrin releases his Wills, and they all flow into the Hawks' weapons...
...However, before the Wills can yank their assailant's weapons away, the Hawk's glare at Haalfrin, and the Wills are all blown away by their Aura.
'I guess I'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way...,' Haalfrin sighs.
He draws his sword and joins Dakka in the slaughter.
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It doesn't take very long for all the Hawks to either lie defeated or dead.
The defeated ones are all lying hair buried in the ground with only their heads sticking up. In the distance, Haalfrin can see the Coyote's constantly beating their heads with sticks and using Healing magic to fix the damage...
... only to beat their heads some more.
"Krea... Shouldn't you just let those Hawks out of their misery?" Haalfrin says as he points at the Hawk prisoners.
"Why? They'd be doing the same to us if they caught us," Krea shrugs. "Besides, it's good to let the little ones vent some steam. It's good for them to become familiar with the taste of Hawk blood. This is a great opportunity."
"Umm...." Nothing that Kalastros taught him about Rehkin could've prepared him for... this...
Realizing that this won't go anywhere, Haalfrin points to the cart in the middle. That was the cart full of goods the Coyotes had bought from the humans. The entire carriage had been lit on fire, and the goods destroyed.
"Those Hawks weren't trying to rob you all. What's the point of this attack?"
Krea shrugs. "Hawks hate Coyotes. Coyotes hate Hawks. Why else?"
"... Why do your clans hate each other so much?"
Krea beams at the chance to tell this story. "Oh, the Hawks came to hate the humans a long time ago because one of the humans did something horrible to one of their daughters. When the humans built their big fortress, the Hawks couldn't sate their hatred as much anymore, so they let their hatred bleed onto us, since we continued to trade with the humans."
Krea kicks a Hawk corpse at his feet. "Bah! Those little brown feathered sweeties attacked us first. Those stupid cowards only came after us because they were too afraid of the humans."
Haalfrin sighs sadly when he hears this, though he chooses not to say anything about it.
The feud between the Hawks and Coyotes isn't for him to meddle with.
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Once they finally reach their destination, Haalfrin looks over the town's outer walls. It appears that the settlers of this town had planted trees all around the perimeter of the town, then used some strange form of nature magic to make all the trees grow INTO each other – making a completely solid barricade.
On crutches, Haalfrin follows the others through the front gates, and he notes that the houses are made from wood, with the windows being paper, and the doors sliding to the side. He'd never seen anything like it before.
Even the streets are strange. Just like how the trees were grown into a wall on the outside, many vines were draped across the ground, then grown into each other and shaped with magic to be flat enough to accommodate wheels.
Looking at the strange architecture and the powerful spiritual ambience in the place, Haalfrin remarks to Krea, "Huh, I was wondering what a Rehkin settlement looked like."
Krea shrugs, "This is just a place owned by the Badger Clan. I mean, even in the larger clans, you'll see different kinds of cities. We Rehkin don't trade our magical knowledge as much as you humans do, so everything we make usually looks wildly different."
Of course, Haalfrin already knows that Rehkin are unable to share their magic the way humans do, since their powers are passed on through bloodline, rather than learning.
As they walk down the vine-paved streets, Haalfrin looks at all the residents and asks Krea, "Huh, I noticed everyone in your entourage is a mage. I thought you just had a ton of mages for extra protection, but all the civilians here seem to be mages too."
Krea sighs and replies, "A Rehkin's power comes from their bloodline. When a child comes of age, each Clan has their own customs and rituals to awaken their powers."
"Huh, interesting."
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After the Coyote Clan's goods have been set up for shop, Krea finds a carpenter to make a leg for him, and a doctor to help attach it.
During the whole procedure, Haalfrin watches in fascination as a wooden leg is placed over his stump. Then, the stump seems to grow more branches, which entwines around Haalfrin's leg. The doctor then uses his Spirit magic to bind the leg to Haalfrin's leg – fixing it in place.
As a finishing touch, Haalfrin watches in amazement with his Spirit sight as his spirit's Aura extends into the wooden leg as well.
Your spirit normally can't occupy things that don't belong to your body. This means you can't activate magic through weapons or, more relevantly, prosthetic limbs.
However, with the Badger Clan's doctor, he can now run magic through this wooden leg as if he never lost it in the first place.
Before Haalfrin gets too excited, the old Badger warns Haalfrin with her stern voice, "###########!"
Krea translates, "She says you can use magic through this leg, but it's very fragile, and it can't accommodate very much magic – just enough for daily needs. Please don't break it."
"Ah," Haalfrin acknowledges, "So don't battle with it. Got it."
At least his daily life won't be inconvenienced. He can finally move about on his own without waddling around on crutches.
Haalfrin stands up on his own for the first time in weeks, and he clasps his hands, doing a polite bow to the doctor, then to Krea. "Thank you for healing me, and thank you for bringing me here. I will remember this favor."
Haalfrin then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his last space bag. Spatial technology and other advanced enchanting techniques are something completely exclusive to humans, so Haalfrin knows this bag would be insanely valuable on this side of the World Gate.
After all, Enchanting requires having a high Fel (the ability to change something's nature) and Reh (the ability to bind). Rehkin have extremely high Reh, but abysmally low Fel. Thus, they can't become traditional enchanters.
Humans, on the other hand, don't have the highest of any attributes, but they have a bit of everything. Indeed, their racial strength is in their diversity, as well as the strange and creative ways they can combine the schools of magic.
Seeing this bag in his hands, Krea's eyes go wide, and he tries to reject the gift. Haalfrin only rolls his eyes, "Please! I know how to make these. Just take it!"
Only then does Krea accept the gift. (Krea had already paid the doctor, so the doctor gets nothing from Haalfrin – not that he has anything left to give.)
Haalfrin then does one final bow before bidding Krea farewell and wishing him safe travels.
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Once Haalfrin walks out of town on his own, he pulls out Dakka's ax and thinks to the dragon inside, 'So… isn't it about time where you show me the way to Fheldin's place? It's time I challenge him.'
"You'll die, you know?"
"Isn't that the point?"