He flicked his visor over his face and grabbed my horns as he slammed his helmeted head into my snout. He twisted my neck left and right in a fit of rage then suddenly held it firm and pounded my face with his metal visage. I coughed blood and wheezed as my neck went loose and my head went heavy. He growled and slammed my body into the deck next to him. I heard him scream as sword-steel crashed through his metal breastplate, and if the philosophers are right, released his soft spirit. It certainly released his silky blood, which I felt leaking and meandering between my fingers.
I drug my face along the deck as I scrambled blindly away from the melee until I hit one of the masts and propped myself up on it. A dead body sat next to me, with a bleeding armored corpse next to it. When I looked back, I saw September frantically jerking her sabre out of the marshall’s breastplate right where my body had been.
“I was wondering when you would finally wise up and get over here,” the corpse next to me said. I wiped my eyes. It was Scammander. I pressed myself up closer to the mast.
“Shouldn’t we be helping them?”
“It’s Stunt’s ship, what do I care?”
I peered around the mast in time to see two gryphons land gracefully on the deck and quickly lift off again as their riders dismounted. Two armored elves with giant sledge hammers slowly strode over to the other mast and began smashing it. Karamel and Wish broke away from the fighting and began firing their shortbows while sprinting at the two hammering sky marshalls. The arrows simply bounced off the heavy armor, much the way splinters from the hammered mast did.
I turned and looked at Scammander who was patiently waiting then turned my head back to see the giant sledgehammer crash down on Karamel’s chest. Her whole body buckled up around the hammer, then flapped back against the deck. Wish screamed and dropped her dagger as she fell to her knees, holding Karamel’s limp head in her lap. I winced as the mallet crashed into her face and sent pieces of it scattering across the deck. The body remained seated, still holding Karamel’s head in its hands.
The knight rejoined his companion in the methodical pulverizing. The cabin door flung open, and a tall and slender female with a bright blonde ponytail emerged in a suit of form fitting glass. In her left hand she held a slender glass oval, and in her right hand was a golden hilt with no blade.
“Champagne,” Scammander said.
“Looks like she forgot the one thing she’s going to need to actually kill anybody.”
Scammander chuckled. “The blade is invisible.”
The elf took a few more swings into the mast before stepping away to deal with the newest threat while his companion labored on in the slow destruction.
“They’re going to get massacred. Then what are we going to do?”
“Take over the ship. Then we will fight for what’s ours.”
“You must have some magic hidden up your sleeve to even think we would stand a chance against these odds.”
“Speaking of odds, let’s make a wager,” he said. “Who do you think is going to win?”
“That pellucid champion,” I said. “If she wins, you have to kill me, on the spot,” I said hoping to cheat the wench life out of a little sport and torment.
“Very well. My wager is on that imperturbable hammerman who will crush the hourglass of your glassy warrioress.”
We turned and watched our chosen champions right as Scammander’s struck. The hulking sledgehammer slammed into the woman’s thigh sending cracks racing out across her armor from the blow. But Champagne didn’t flinch. She screamed as she swung the hilt across his shoulders and sent helmet and head hurdling off into the sky. A faint outline of a curving sabre emerged as the dark gore dripped down it.
“Easiest wager I’ve ever made,” I said turning back to him. “Time to fulfill our pact.”
“I make promises,” he scoffed. “I don’t keep them.”
He was actually a little upset. “I know,” I said. “Especially to someone like your brother.”
“Especially,” he emphasized as he peered around the mast. “I think I simply bet on the wrong knight.”
“Double or nothing?” I said standing up and looking around the mast.
He shook his head. “If you want to die right now, you’ll have to do the work yourself.”
“I’ll help you die you pathetic coward,” a voice behind us sneered.
I screamed as a lance crashed through my shoulder and pinned me to the thick mast. I stifled a second scream, which bounced off my teeth and rolled around my gums until it dissolved into a compressed groan. I closed my eyes and shoved my hand into the wood to keep from falling over.
“Try to take Lord Scammander alive,” another one said. “But keep that sword at his throat; if he moves you have my permission to kill him.”
I kept waiting for September to save us, but I couldn’t even hear the melee anymore. The battle must have carried to the opposite side of the ship.
“Which one of you has the stolen garments?” the voice said as it walked around me. A young, arrogant elf glowered in my face.
“Stunt does,” Scammander said.
The knight frowned and disappeared behind me once more.
“He’s lying,” I gasped.
“Of course he is,” the comely sky marshall said, walking back in front of me.
“Don’t be an idiot Evander, not now,” Scammander said. “It’s only just begun.”
The young elf took my chin in his fingers and softly turned my head so that I was looking into his eyes. “Come now, Evander. Scammander has gotten you into enough trouble for one lifetime. Tell me. You’ve got them, don’t you?”
“I’ve got them,” I muttered.
He smiled and cut his eyes over to his companion who was guarding Scammander, then grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. I wouldn’t scream but I had to close my eyes. “See? The great theft is over. Hand them over you foolish cow, and I will keep my promise to end your life.”
He released my shoulder and I wheezed and opened my eyes.
“Come now, it is a much better fate than dying in a cell. Remember your ancestors who were thought to be so honorable? At least die with their honor.”
“Of course, even they were just as stupid as this one appears to be,” his comrade shouted.
The elf in front of me chuckled. “Here is your chance to prove us wrong Evander. Die with honor and sagacity. Give us the garments. Die noble and wise.”
I nodded as I lay my neck on the mast and shut my eyes once more.
“My elbows,” I said. “I tore the shirt and tied it around my elbows.”
Scammander groaned.
I opened my eyes as the knight scowled and leaned in to untie the ripped, legendary shirt.
I jerked my neck and shoved my horn through his soft temple. The deep blast of Scammander’s shotgun went off next to me. I didn’t need to turn around to know that the other elf was tumbling through the sky and missing body parts.
My eyes turned to the dead elf hanging off my horn by his crushed temple, staring at me. His body swung back and forth as Scammander tugged on the lance, trying to wrench it out of my shoulder. Thick red clots bubbled out of his broken temple and dripped down his face. Some collected in large clumps on his cheek, sliding to a halt as the rest of the crimson rivulet rolled down his neck and splattered on the deck. I shook my head back and forth until the corpse slipped off my horn and fell into a limp pile on the ship.
When Scammander finally pulled the lance free, I dropped to a knee and grimaced. I shut my eyes as the horrible healing magic wove my shoulder back together and stitched me back into this dark existence.
Scammander dropped the lance, but I tilted my head towards it. “Give it to me,” I said. I grabbed the lance and turned to see Champagne battling the other elf, furiously slashing at the knight.
He backed away until he parried a wild blow with the thick tower shield and then lowered his shoulder and charged into her. Her feet shot up as her back smashed onto the deck and he tuc
ked his shield to his shoulder, crouched, and hurled himself on top of her. There was the unmistakable snapping and crunching of breaking bones as the elf and his heavy tower shield crashed onto Champagne and pinned her to the deck. Champagne screamed and writhed under the sky soldier as he shouted for help now that she was pinned and helpless. He began stabbing madly around the shield but her glimmering armor deflected all the blows. Champagne managed to push the soldier off her and as they separated she swung.
He reeled back as the tip of the sword scraped across his eyes, then collapsed to his knees holding his face as crimson rivulets slid down his knuckles and trickled down the back of his hands. Champagne rose up behind the wounded elf and with a quick thrust her translucent sabre sank down again into the back of his neck. She kicked him onto his face as she twisted the sword out of his corpse. She looked like she was wearing a broken mirror, with cracks and dents running all over the shimmering armor.
Suddenly Champagne wailed and buckled as another elf slammed his sledgehammer into her spine, sending her sprawling across the deck. The hilt with the transparent blade popped out of her hands, skipping halfway across the deck to me. The soldier calmly whirled the hammer then slammed it down onto her back. Everything cracked and snapped.
I was already running as I flung the lance which sailed out into the sky and pierced neither armor, nor flesh, nor cloud.
I grabbed the hilt with the invisible blade as the sun shimmered along the golden boards of the ship and I began to feel golden, potent, and dawn-like.
“You won’t be the first minotaur I kill,” he said.
I took a few practice swings then looked at my opponent with a grim stare and froze.
There is a secret poetry to existence, when it becomes rich and tumultuous and young, and it can be heard only along the hazardous borders where Death plays his alluring lyre and maybe even speaks—through life. That is the music I heard so often that morning, laced with sunlight and blood.
I jerked the crossbow out and rushed the elf, screaming and spraying. The golden bolts bounced off the heavy armor but I kept pumping volleys into him as I closed in and swung the translucent scimitar at his head.
The elf knight flung his arm up, blocking the swing, then stomped my foot. Pain seized me as I dropped the sword and crossbow and was shoved backwards by the elf. Suddenly the sledge hammer smashed into my ribs and I wailed with all the breath that wasn’t knocked out of me. I slammed my eyes shut as my mushy side stiffened and the cracked bones regenerated.
“Where’s your arrogance now? Your homeland is in ash, your ancestors sit in bits and pieces inside of lurking worms that dwell below the mud, and in one birth-cycle there won’t even be memories of the minotaurs,” he said above me. He knelt down and grabbed the back of my neck and pressed my face into the deck. “You’ll be a fiction,” he said with a heavy whisper into my ear.
When he released his grip I could barely breathe, and still couldn’t see, but I forced myself up anyway. I immediately dropped back to the deck, then stood up again, lurched to one side then fell down. The elf began laughing. I jumped up once more to spite him and tried to take a step towards the laughter but fell backwards and crashed to the deck again. The laughter continued followed by more insults.
“Just imagine what I’m going to do to your corpse,” I heard him say. “After I’m done, I’m going to mount your skull in my ancestor’s dining hall. It will look excellent next to the ogre, goblin, and human trophies we have collected over the years.”
I groaned and drooled and rose up again then flopped to the deck, exhausted. The elf continued with his mocking and laughing until I rolled under him and swept him off his feet. I heard the mallet come loose and clatter on the deck then forced my eyes open and stood on my gelatinous, burning, aching legs.
I snatched the warhammer and drove its staff into his face, then flipped it around in my hand and smashed his arm. He lay there gasping, staring at the shattered bone and armor and skin. As he recovered from the shock of the first blow, I brought the heavy hammer down on his arm again. This time there was screaming and thrashing.
“I’ll be a fiction one day, but I’ll be a fiction they’re scared to talk about because I do things like this,” I said heaving the mallet aside then leaning down and picking up the glass sword.
I drug the maimed knight to the edge of the ship, gurgling and cursing, then held him out by the scalp into the sky and glared into his eyes.
“I’ll see you in the line to the gloomy gate!” he screamed, clutching at my arm and kicking wildly into the empty vault of the morning.
“I wouldn’t recognize you from all the others I have sent down.” As the hair on his head began to tear away, I swung the sword under my forearm and across his neck, leaving me holding his head as the body plummeted down into the clouds.
“I wouldn’t have saved you,” Champagne’s weakening voice said from behind.
I dropped the head over the side of the ship as I turned to see her sprawled on the deck, bleeding beneath her cracked glass armor. “My ancestors killed a lot of your worthless kindred,” she said. “I was going to come for you next after I finished with these two,” she said glaring at me. She tried to speak but a grimace cut her off. She swallowed hard, then slowly lifted her head back up to glare at me again. “And end your horrible race.” Champagne propped herself up on an elbow, locking her gem-like blue eyes with mine. Few times in my life have I been looked upon with such searing loathing. “Hopefully someone else murders you this morning cow…so many accidents can happen in battle…” she flopped over as she was interrupted by a fit of coughing.
“To the lowest river with you and your slithering companion,” she wheezed, propping herself up on one elbow to deliver the curse. “And look, he’s gone!” she laughed and rolled over, receding into the dark forest of death, her skin becoming pale like the moonlight that shines there.
I don’t know why, but I walked near her so I could hear her final words.
“I want…to kill you…” she growled and coughed and glared at me. “I want…to…kill you…” The final utterance came the faintest as she mustered all her remaining strength to breathe a final insult across my brow, straining to complete the curse. “I…want…to…kill…to…kill…you…”
Though she could no longer speak, her englassed eyes kept repeating the hateful phrase long after she had ceased to draw breath under the vaults of life.
I pulled my eyes away from another corpse, as I had learned to do so often in this life.
Suddenly I saw the two wyrms emerge from the clouds, speeding straight towards the ship like they were going to ram it until at the last second, the sky-ship groaned and tilted backwards as the two dragons streamed underneath it.
I dashed across the golden deck as the morning sun splashed across the gleaming boards. Soldiers, loose lances, corpses, and scantily-clad aged warrioresses tumbled by me, cursing and skirmishing even as the Creiseda kept lurching back.
I leapt off the boat right as the two dragons emerged from under it. The silent sky bellowed and roared as wind ripped across my ears and through my fur, standing it all on end.
And for a moment—just one moment—my sandals tread the rushing wind like stairs of marble.
Suddenly my head snapped as my thick arms chopped the back of their slick, scaled necks and I wrapped their heads under my biceps and squeezed. Shock turned to anger as the great beasts began to snort, chomp their jaws, and beat their wings. Then for some reason, we began to fall. Fast. Shock returned to their eyes mixed with a moment of confusion. Then, the two beasts, staring right into each others’ eyes spoke at once: “Scammander.”
Two arrows zipped into the dragon’s snout on my left, followed by two more into the snout of the dragon on my right. Each released a heavy, basal groan as their eyes glossed over and slowly rolled up in their heads. I looked up as the boat began to grow smaller and smaller to see the faint outline of September, bow drawn, leaning over the ship halfway out into th
e vivid sky.
“Dragons,” I muttered.
A Warm Welcome
“Life operates essentially, that is in its basic functions, through injury, assault, exploitation, destruction, and simply cannot be thought of at all without this character.”
Nietzsche
Cold. I always knew death would be cold.
Quiet. I always knew death would be quiet.
Scammander.
“I always knew you wouldn’t let me die,” I grumbled as my eyelids slowly meandered back.
He still let me feel pain though.
Everything was fuzzy and dim and everything inside of me was vibrating.
I looked around.
No Scammander.
As reality began to stop shaking I realized I was lying in the warm exploded stomach of the blue dragon, and my head was resting on the back of the black dragon’s corpse in the middle of a massive frozen bloodstain. Before me lay an endless, bright, frozen plain. Snowflakes slowly floated down in front of me as my gaze drooped to the white earth below.
One of September’s arrows was laying in the snow next to me, dried tissue and gore twisted around the shaft. It must have popped out of the dragon’s skull from the impact of the fall. I thought about grabbing it and shoving it through my face, only my arms were too heavy and tingling to move. I sank back inside of the dragon’s burst belly and closed my eyes.
I’d been running towards death my entire life. This time, I would make death come to me.
I awoke shivering as a cold wind rushed across my face before I could completely succumb to the weather. Oddly, when the gusts came from one side they seemed cooler than from the other. My hand twitched and trembled as it slowly rose up to the side of my face—which was gone. I felt around the scorched edges of my fur as a cold gale blew across my naked gums and teeth. I guess the impact set off one of the dragon’s firebreath.
I sat and watched tiny snowflakes drift down and fall on my snout, between my eyes. So maybe this is how it would end: jittering and passing in and out of consciousness while slowly freezing to death.
Splatterism: The Disquieting Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse Page 4
