by Eddie Patin
The pain suddenly grew like an expanding fire, dull and knocking on the door of Gliath's consciousness, then tearing and licking at his broken body. The irritation scraped and lashed and ripped all over. The growing agony soon eclipsed the noises and odors of the real world and Gliath could no longer ignore it.
He thought of Ranaja just before he opened his eyes.
The pale light of this world's perpetual day pierced the opening slits of the leopardwere's eyes. Gliath felt overwhelmed with burning and the deep, clanging pains of broken bones. He'd broken bones before, and knew the pain well, but this was the worst he'd ever experienced.
Overhead, there was nothing but the white and dreary cloud-choked sky.
The floating castle was gone.
Ranaja was gone.
Something close to him continued those snickering sounds. With every smack and tick of one hard thing against another hard thing—along with the crackle and squelching of something soft and moist being dug around in—Gliath felt a tugging, sharp pain that shot up through his body and brain ... from his right leg.
Straining against the ocean of wounds that strongly encouraged him to stay splayed out in the mud, Gliath raised his head—his spine felt damaged, but it was mostly-healed now—to see what was going on down there...
There was a large animal chewing on his leg below the knee where his thigh armor didn't protect him. The leopardwere smelled it as soon as he saw it, and the beast's scent reminded him of rodent types. The creature was filthy, covered in mud, and its snout and face were splashed with Gliath's blood. It was nearly the size of Gliath in his primal form, thick and fat, with coarse, dirty brown fur that was decorated with mud and strands of red algae. The rat-thing had a plump, long tail with naked purple flesh that squirmed side to side behind it with every move. It was gnawing on Gliath's calve muscle with long, sharp fangs that were not very rat-like. Its greedy eyes were solid black and glittered under the white sky. Its small, delicate forepaws like fleshy hands with long, thin claws held Gliath's leg in place as it fed.
The leopardwere felt a weird, intense pain and yank as the thing must have nicked one of his tendons with its teeth.
Without a second thought, even though most of his bones were still broken, Gliath lunged with all of the strength he had, catching the large scavenger with the claws of his right hand and some of his left.
The thing squealed loudly and tried to back away, but Gliath had him and didn't let go, even though his body was racked with fresh agony and brilliant pain as the creature dragged him along, trying to escape.
With a desperate and furious heave, the leopardwere pulled his upper body toward the struggling rat-thing—dragging his ruined legs behind him—and expertly seized the nape of its neck with his dry, painful mouth. Gliath bit into the creature's spine with what little strength he had in his neck and jaws, and killed it.
As the giant rat collapsed into the mud, Gliath fell on top of it, refusing to release its neck. He breathed heavily around his unyielding bite, huffing and puffing, yearning for the sustenance that eating its flesh would bring. He fell on top of the creature and tried to rest, not releasing the grip of his fangs, even as the beast released its bladder and bowels and its furry body sagged under Gliath's weight.
The swamp came back to life around them. The frogs and other small creatures that had quieted during the attack were eventually croaking and chirping again.
The blood seeping into Gliath's mouth from the rat-thing's nape woke his furious stomach.
He finally released his hold then slowly and painfully fed upon the filthy creature. Flipping the big rat over onto its back, Gliath tore open its fat, furry belly with his hands. He didn't have his Blessed Warblade, but he could sense the weapon waiting a small distance away.
Gliath ate the animal's large, slippery liver, then its heart and kidneys. Then he tore its muddy, matted hide away and consumed the flesh of its hind legs.
He could already feel his overloaded body utilizing the fuel, replenishing his lost strength and repairing the most grievous of his wounds. With every bite—every breath—Gliath felt lancing, hammering pain in his legs, hips, and several ribs. His left arm was broken. That's why it hadn't fully obeyed him when he'd pounced on the rat. He could tell that the connective tissue of his neck and several parts of his spine were still weak. Even the base of his tail was fractured in places.
The meat filled Gliath like rolling fire and brought him fully back from the edge of death. The animal's blood and the dense nutrients in its organ meat gave the leopardwere small, warm bursts of pleasure as his Krulax biology broke the organic components into energy with which to mend his wounds.
Gliath ate every part of that rat-thing that he could. After consuming its muscles, he devoured its stomach and entrails, even though the partially digested waste inside was foul.
When there was practically nothing left to eat, the leopardwere assessed his wounds.
His legs were still broken. They'd been shattered. He'd have to change forms to fix them fully.
Feeling inward for a moment, Gliath knew that he didn't have enough energy to shift; not yet.
Sniffing around him, the Krulax Deathhand detected a strange, pungent odor in the mud not far from him.
He dragged himself through the swamp and the tousled strands of red algae, ignoring the still-considerable pain in his body, until finally crawling up to a thick, pearly-white grub the size of his forearm.
Gliath seized the helpless bug and devoured it. He felt a little stronger with each tangy bite of its juicy body.
Crawling on through the muck, trying to raise his upper body high enough to avoid letting his armor chest plate dig into the ground and slow him down, the leopardwere then found a large and glistening black toad. It moved to get away, but Gliath was faster, and snatched it up with his claws, delivering it straight to his mouth where he bit off its rubbery head.
After finishing off the toad, Gliath began feeling his way to his Blessed Warblade.
He was almost there; nearly strong enough to change forms.
The swamp creatures in his digestive tract were quickly being made into energy to fuel his regeneration. His neck and spine felt fine now, and his broken arm was almost nothing more than a sprain. His legs and hips were still pretty damaged, and he couldn't walk, but the torn flesh and gaping wound on his leg from the rat-thing chewing on him in his sleep was healed.
Gliath found his weapon—his spirit-bound knife—stuck in the ground on its tip, buried in the bog nearly to the hilt. The handle reached for the sky as if it had been waiting for him.
Feeling more than a little relief, the leopardwere seized the grip of his Blessed Warblade and pulled it from the dank earth. He paused to wipe the mud from the knife onto his fur until it was clean enough that Gliath could see its silvery edge shine again.
"The blade is me, and I am its edge," he murmured with a low voice, slipping his Blessed Warblade back into its sheath on his armor.
Soon after, following the scent of an oily reptile as he dragged himself through the mud with his arms, Gliath came across a snake as long as he was. He immediately grabbed the thick serpent behind its head. When it quickly coiled its body around his arm in response, squeezing and constricting him up to the shoulder, the leopardwere carefully bit into it behind its skull, severed its spine, then he pulled its head off.
The Krulax tossed the snake's head into the mud, unpeeled the skin of its body, and ate its flesh until he was powerful enough to shift forms.
Gliath changed into his pretender form—feeling his legs and hips pop and break and painfully rearrange their bones—then back again.
He stood tall, still far from 100%, but now mobile and no longer as helpless.
Picking at the slick, pink flesh of the skinned snake until only its bones and guts remained, Gliath looked around. He was in an area of thin trees and occasional open areas. He hadn't been paying attention to his location during his frantic crawl, frantically searched fo
r fuel for his regeneration, but he figured that he couldn't have crawled more than a few hundred yards from where he'd fallen.
The bog was relatively quiet, though now that Gliath was feeling a little better, he could detect all of the tiny creatures cowering in the mud around him. He could smell more of the musty rat-things in the distance. The trees were enormous, their bare trunks reaching nearly a hundred feet in the air before spreading out their branches into large, flat canopies. Their shapes made Gliath think back to a strange universe that he and Ranaja had visited once with Jason Leaper 113 and the others. There, the gargantuan fungi reaching into the sky and shadowing the land with their massive caps were, in fact, giant mushrooms. These trees merely looked like them.
Red algae streaked through the grey and brown muddy bog like strings of bright blood. The odd, red growths settled as strands and threads in some areas, and like piles of bubbling, red slime in others.
Gliath was covered in it.
He looked up and searched the skies for the blue giant's flying castle.
There was nothing.
The wind in the upper reaches of the trees gently shook and trembled thousands of red leaves.
Save Ranaja, Gliath thought.
But how?
He had to find Jason Leaper 934. He had to find him ... somehow. Perhaps if Gliath searched the area, he might find his way back to the troll's cave. Then, he could track the path of the Reality Rifters back to where Jason Leaper 934 had initially rifted them to this world of mud and slime and foul things.
The Krulax turned around until he found where the sky was black. It was beyond the forest on one side of the clearing. That way was the storm. He was fairly certain that the Reality Rifters' new boss would not be in those woods; the troll cave would be one way or the other along the unending clearing. Still, Gliath would probably find more food and be able to better wait out the next black storm if he traveled along the tree line...
He started walking toward the forest, sore and hungry again.
It wasn't long—quietly stalking up the bog on painful, silent feet—before Gliath picked up on the stench of another war band of what Jason Leaper 934 had called ettins. The two-headed creatures smelled of rot and reeking sweat, urine, and scat. The poorly-processed hides that they wore were uncured, so festered in the muggy heat while continuing to decompose. The smaller giants' odors smelled old and complex. The ettins likely never cleaned themselves.
They were very easy to track down inside the towering woods.
When Gliath finally set eyes on the roaming, stomping group of two-headed, stinking brutes, he watched them from a distance with shadows behind him, or from within the thickets of roots growing around the bases of the big trees.
They lumbered on, barking and grumbling at each other with deep, chortling voices. Gliath drew in closer and closer, eventually drawing his Blessed Warblade.
The party of four giants—each a little taller than Gliath himself in his warrior form—trudged through the swamp with heavy steps. Their backs were broad, their extra-long arms thickly muscled, and they each carried short spears made from parts harvested from the land.
When the giant at the back of the group lingered for a moment too long as the other three continued ahead, Gliath made his move.
Swift and silent, the leopardwere rushed up behind the ettin as it walked off again with careless, slogging steps. Before the creature was in sight of its brothers, Gliath pounced and landed nimbly on its thick back. One of the heads let out a raspy gasp. Then, the leopardwere thrust his Blessed Warblade through the side of the larger head's muscled neck, severing its throat and jugular, nearly decapitating it if not for the chunky spine behind his knife. Gliath simultaneously clamped his other hand around the mouth of the second smaller head, whose eyes immediately flashed in panic when the blade did its work on the first.
An instant later, Gliath cut through the throat of the second head.
As the heavy giant began to collapse, the leopardwere dropped down, caught its bulky form, and eased it to the boggy earth.
For a moment, holding his Blessed Warblade before him, Gliath contemplated the ettin's limbs. The arms were longer than they normally would be on a man-like shape; nearly as big as its legs.
Arms or legs? he thought.
Ultimately, he decided on the arms, and cut them free from the massive torso with precise speed. Then, Gliath wiped his knife off on the body, seized the heavy limbs of the dead ettin in the crook of his right arm, and jumped up to the nearest tree.
Gliath scaled the towering tree in scrabbling leaps and bounds, pulling himself up with the claws of his left hand and his feet as he held the two ettin arms in with his right. A hundred feet up, he made it to the first broad boughs of the canopy, where he sat with the two dismembered arms. Drawing his blade again, the Krulax quickly discarded the repulsive, maggot-ridden skin, then set to eating the thick muscles and fat beneath.
Through the quiet minutes of feeding, Gliath's thoughts raced back to Ranaja. He reached out for his good friend with his spirit, trying to feel him across the sky. He couldn't get the sight of Ranaja trapped within the crystal cube out of his mind's eye, and Gliath knew that his good friend would run out of breathable air soon. Ranaja might last for a day or more, he knew, but how long could he survive without rescue?
Dread—an impending doom of losing his Ranaja and forfeiting his second life—boiled up in Gliath's guts, churning among the feast of meat digesting there.
The leopardwere slurped down strip after strip of muscle, carefully listening to the world below and trying to pick up Jason Leaper 934's scent on the wind. He opened his senses to the smell of his leader's slug gun propellant; tried to detect the burned electric odor of his 'lightning gun'. Gliath could smell more ettins; smoke even. There was a fire nearby. He pricked his ears, waiting for the snap of an opening rift.
Time passed as Gliath finished his considerable meal. After a while, the leopardwere felt back to his normal, vigorous self, despite the gloom hanging around him about his trapped friend. He was completely regenerated and had fuel to spare; full of explosive power and unbridled strength. He thought of Ranaja and the human female, Morgana Soloster, and watched the sky for the great shadow of a castle sailing through the clouds
But there was no castle.
As the leopardwere sat and stretched, he looked at the grisly remains of the arms he'd consumed. Gliath discarded the remains over the side of the huge branch then prepared himself to climb down and continue his search. He'd head toward the smoke first. If there were no answers there, he continue away from the black sky back into the clearing and—
When Gliath turned to look at the dark horizon again beyond the forest again, he saw that it had caught up to him. Vapor-like clouds as jet black as his fur were rolling along the bog, pouring in; even sweeping up toward the upper reaches of the trees. The wind immediately followed and Gliath clutched at the bark with his claws, waiting for the storm to pass.
From up on his massive bough, Gliath watched the swamp below him. He followed the glowing, bobbing balls of blue light with his gaze as they explored the darkness down there. The leopardwere couldn't smell anything of the creatures in the gusty winds, but he expected that those crackling spheres of blue fire would smell a lot like Jason Leaper 934's lightning gun.
After several minutes, the maelstrom died down and retreated, leaving a swept and tousled swamp behind.
Gliath pulled his claws from the tree and watched for a few minutes more before heading down. The scents of the surrounding area gradually came back to him.
With great skill, the Krulax descended the hundred-foot trunk, nimbly dropping down the last ten feet onto the top of its bulging root structure. Below that, he saw the ettin that he'd killed; its body now abandoned or forgotten. The other two-headed giants were gone.
Then, Gliath suddenly heard three sharp booms of a rifle in the area where he'd seen smoke. The reports of the slug gun echoed through the swamp and reached far
and wide.
That is him, Gliath thought, quickly scanning the forest toward the sound. He looked for a place where he could hide for a moment without having to climb another tree.
Gliath slipped through a large gap in the root structure next to him, dropped down into the rotten shadows full of insects, then pulled out the 'radio' given to him back on u934. Putting the delicate device to his mouth—Gliath felt like he could easily crush it in his grip, so was very careful—he pressed the side button and spoke.
"Jason Leaper 934," he said, kicking a long insect off of his leg. The creature was the size of the shotgun he'd lost. It was trying to crawl up onto him. "Jason Leaper 934, do you hear me? This is Gliath. I heard a slug gun firing. Is that you?"
He listened for a moment, then remembered to release the button.
Shaking his head to dislodge two bugs crawling on his fur, Gliath reattached the radio to his armor harness then climbed out of the root structure.
Hoping that the leader of the Reality Rifters lay ahead, Gliath continued on, stepping over the dead, armless ettin. He moved in quick, long strides, staying close to the trees, and drew his Blessed Warblade.
The odor of the ettins was heavy in the light wind, and stronger yet ahead...
Chapter 22
Jason stepped onto the concrete floor of his garage, relieved to be out of the swamp.
That relief immediately turned into a rising panic in his heart and mind, thinking about his friends.
Damn, he thought. He'd successfully saved time by going back to the second bookmark where he'd saved the temporal coordinates, but what now? How much time did he lose wandering around, dealing with the plant monster, and running into trouble in that ettin village? How far was he behind Riley, Gliath, and Morgana being taken away by that titan; that Voro the broken god?
He'd have to go back and ... maybe go to the first bookmark ... even though it wouldn't be the same universe ... and ...
Jason released the rift, which closed rapidly and disappeared with a pop, leaving him in his nearly-silent garage.
