As they crossed into the narrows, Kalos couldn’t keep silent any longer, “I’ve never seen you like that before.”
Grimm continued at a relentless pace while he spoke, “War changes people into something they were never meant to be.”
It was too short an answer. Kalos could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, but he had seen too much to leave it at that.
“You killed him like it was nothing. I know he probably deserved it, but…”
“You have much to learn, Kalos...” Grimm’s tone was harsh. He shook his head and continued trudging forward at a pace that would be difficult for anyone to maintain, but gave no indication that he would slow down anytime soon.
“There will be times when you have no choice but to cut your enemies down like a demon. Especially when they threaten the ones you love.” Grimm’s gaze dropped for only a moment.
Kalos wanted to say more, but couldn’t bring himself to it. Grimm had killed the man in cold blood because he tried to kill Kalos first. During the fight, he barely had the courage to draw his dagger. He hadn’t even attempted to make a move against his enemies on his own despite the adrenaline raging through him. He repeated the scene over and over in his mind, remembering how fiercely Grimm fought to keep everyone else alive while he just stood by and watched for the longest time.
Kalos angrily shook his head at his own failure, gripping his fists in frustration. If Grimm hadn’t been there, they would’ve all been dead. He didn’t even try to help the man he’d known as “Da” his entire life until he had won the advantage back from their attackers entirely on his own.
Kalos felt a firm hand connect with his chest and froze. He’d lost himself again for several minutes and failed to pay attention to where they were headed. Grimm stood poised behind a thick beam protruding from a nearby wall while peaking around the corner. They were now standing between two rows of buildings constructed so closely together that there was no way to reach the main street from where they stood without somehow breaking through a wall so thick that even a horse running at full speed wouldn't be able to make a dent upon impact.
Occasionally, small slivers would allow them to see what was happening on the other side, but Kalos hadn't noticed a gap anywhere that would allow even a small child to squeeze through. He wondered how many people had simply watched passersby from the shadows without anyone ever noticing over the years.
They stood like statues for what seemed like forever until clashes of steel and another gunshot rang out from the main street on the opposite side of the buildings. A fight had just broken out on the other side, and a clean bullet hole was now suspended in a small window only a few paces in front of them.
Grimm moved quietly to a nearby break in the walls and peered through just long enough to scout the street to assess what was happening. A moment later he beckoned Kalos closer, “A guard patrol was just ambushed on the other side. It’s a good time to pick up the pace. We have a long way to go before dawn. Remain vigilant. The most dangerous threats lurk in the shadows ahead.”
#
Their pace eased only slightly over time. Kalos could tell that Grimm was growing more concerned as they moved deeper into the Narrows. They hadn’t seen an exit from the catacomb-like alleyways between the dozens of buildings they had been traveling between for what seemed like hours. He was starting to feel tired and exhausted from all that had transpired since being awakened by a cannonball blast just outside his window.
All at once, Kalos’ head began throbbing as thoughts emerged from deep within the darkest recesses of his mind. He gasped as a long-forgotten memory started consuming his consciousness and blocking his senses.
Images of an elegant room with a beautiful lady standing right in the middle grew more clear as a crushing wave of anxiety and sadness drove an icy wedge deep into his psyche. It felt like stitches keeping his mind together were being ripped apart one thread at a time by a long, sharp needle. He managed to catch himself against a nearby wall before falling flat on his face. From around the next corner, a long, bony hand slowly reached out of the shadows. Soon, its skeletal-looking face drifted within view and began searching for them through hollow eye sockets. When the creature’s attention pointed at them, its thin, leathery lips slowly curled into a sinister smile. Pale, white skin reflected an unnatural sheen that made the creature appear luminescent in the moonlight. Beneath an extraneous suit of flesh, there seemed to be no muscle at all. The creature's body seemed to consist only of skin and bones, yet it was still somehow able to move with a degree of precision and grace well beyond what any normal human would be capable of. It wore a thick, black cloak woven from some unknown material that gobbled up every fleck of light that touched it. The strange pattern of the weave made the material look even darker than the shadows.
Though Kalos was physically able to see the creature move into their path, the traumatic memory had become so clear and overwhelming that reality around him felt like a distant dream, like he was watching reality through a hazy pool of water that threatened to drown him at any moment.
The lady reached down and gently touched his cheek as her loving gaze melted into a pleasant smile. He tried to speak but instead of words, a high-pitched squeal came out that made her flush with happiness. The world around him trembled as she suddenly looked toward the entrance of the room. Through the door stepped an unknown man entirely garbed in black, angrily pointing at her before stepping aside to let two unusual-looking guards file in behind him and charge straight at her.
Fear filled her eyes as she immediately turned to shield him from the strangers. He realized they were talking about something, but he couldn’t make out what was actually being said. Their words sounded like noises filled with emotions that didn’t make any sense to him.
“Kalos!” Grimm shouted.
Another gunshot rang out from the other side of the wall. Immediately, Grimm erupted with rage as the temporary paralysis that had been afflicting them both lost its hold on them when the creature looked away. It was just enough time for them to recover enough mental fortitude to shatter the creature's spell.
“Putrid sack of bones and scat, how dare you claw your way through our memories? I swear rot shall consume your flesh like the diseased rat you are before dawn lights this morn.”
The creature immediately refocused its attention on Grimm and moved closer, challengingly. A deep, hollow laugh rumbled as it spoke, “Yoou aaare a foool to chaaaaalleeeenge meee.”
Only by the lengthening of vowels could the creature talk. Its voice was deep and raspy, making it sound just as devoid of muscle and fibrous tissue as it looked.
“Hooow dooo yoou proopooose tooo stooop thiiis ooone’s wraaath, chiiild?” The creature mused while continuing to draw closer at a slow pace. It was hard to tell whether it was walking or floating due to the thick cloak covering its body from the neck down.
Grimm slowly drew his blade with one hand and removed a vial from a hidden pocket near his lower back with the opposite. He firmly bit into a thick, wax-coated cork that had been keeping the container sealed up to that point and dropped it to the ground.
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A tart, acidic scent permeated the air, causing the creature to pause and allow Kalos to clear his head with a deep breath. The boy’s vision sharpened again as he weakly watched Grimm cast the empty vile aside before taking a shaky step toward the creature. Grimm’s weakness only lasted for one brief second before thick veins appeared all over his body all at once. Kalos flinched, realizing that the man’s musculature had tightened in an instant to make him look like some kind of lean, wild beast about to leap on its prey.
“Quickly...” came Grimm's brazen reply.
What happened next caused Kalos’ head to spin. Grimm launched forward at the creature, spinning into an extremely powerful backhand slash that would surely sever any normal man’s body in half with a single blow. The boy blinked, reassuring himself that it wasn’t his eyes that were blurry, but rather the appearance of Grimm’s mask movements due to the incredible speed he had suddenly been imbued with. The creature reacted with ease despite moving at a snail's pace up to that moment.
Kalos wondered if the intense flashback he experienced had more of an impact on his mind than he realized. It only seemed to be getting more difficult for him to see what was happening as the speed and intensity of the engagement increased almost beyond human comprehension. As the battle continued, he came to understand just how far beyond his own ability the combatants were. Their inhumanly fast and brutal maneuvers seemed so easy to execute that it terrified him just to watch.
The first attack Grimm had performed was a spinning reverse-slash targeting the creature’s neck, but the creature had drawn a blade from somewhere Kalos couldn’t perceive and parried it away with little effort.
It immediately reached out, trying to stab the fingertips of its rickety, bony, left hand into Grimm’s shoulder, but the warrior squatted just in time to avoid contact, which caught the overly confident creature off-guard. Grimm then successfully countered it by latching onto the creature’s cloak and stepped forward, thrusting his blade as hard as he could into his enemy’s stomach and driving it all the way through its body like warm butter. A deep, raspy roar exploded from the monster’s decrepit lungs as it tilted its head back in pain.
Kalos’ eyes lit in triumph just before the creature looked down at Grimm and screamed at him like it was no longer affected by Grimm's sword. Its face contorted with unnatural fury as the creature, whose outstretched arm had been dangling in the air behind Grimm’s back wrapped around the man’s head and tightened onto it like a vice. To Kalos’ horror, the creature leaned down with its mouth wide open and savagely sank its teeth into Grimm’s scalp. Its misshapen head twisted and writhed like some rabid beast hungrily trying to rip a chunk of flesh from a dead body.
Grimm squinted with a grunt as the creature’s teeth locked into place. He couldn’t do anything about the bite now, so he instead focused on the sword sticking through the creature’s body and grit his teeth before twisting the blade with both hands. It sounded like all the creature’s ribs snapped, one after the other in quick succession while Grimm oscillated and corkscrewed the blade, carving a bigger hole into the creature's body with every movement. The creature shrieked in response before leaping away from Grimm with such power that it completely lost its grip on the man’s head and dislodged his blade from its body.
Grimm quickly reached up to apply pressure on his scalp with his free hand while thin, ruby-colored streams glistened down his cheeks to the stony street below. To Kalos' amazement, the stones sizzled and popped wherever droplets landed like acid.
“Da!” Kalos yelped. He knew that Grimm wasn’t really his father, but he had lived with the man all his life and that’s how he had always known him. In that very moment, all he wanted was for his father to be ok.
Both combatants looked over at Kalos as if they had forgotten about him completely before that moment, which was all the creature needed to make its next move. The monster unexpectedly took off down the alley as fast as it could, trying to escape. Between the injuries that had been dealt to the fighters, blood had been splattered all across the street and against the walls like some grotesque masterpiece from the brush of a great artist.
“Come Kalos, this fiend cannot be allowed to survive,” Grimm shouted before sprinting after it in a blur.
Kalos, now thoroughly confused by the aggressive behavior he was seeing from Grimm tried to follow the trail as best he could. He’d always been one of the fastest runners in his village, but now the other two were rapidly pulling away from him like he was barely walking. He wasn’t sure why Grimm wanted to chase after such a dangerous creature, but it looked like he would indeed catch up if it didn’t somehow manage to lose them in the Narrow right away. Rounding several corners while continuing onward at full speed for quite some time, Kalos finally came to the first opening he’d seen in hours.
A very old street that must’ve been constructed around the same time as the original city of Blefcynn over a century earlier appeared in front of him. All the buildings looked tired and worn, but were still standing as sturdy as ever. It was dark and quiet despite the pirates continually spreading throughout the city. Maybe there wasn’t anything valuable enough to draw anyone there, or perhaps it was just too old and undersirable for anyone to be living there anymore, but the ntire area looked like it had been abandoned and growing wild for many years.
Kalos had been listening to the clash of blades and the unnatural sounds of the strange creature for some time, yet he still hadn’t quite been able to reach them until finally, a courtyard that looked like it once housed a small garden in the center intended to beautify the city when it was first created came into view. Surrounded by wrought-iron fencing now riddled with vines and thorny plants, it was an ancient place that’d been completely forgotten for many years.
In the middle of the garden stood Grimm and the monster locked in battle with one another. Blood littered the area, but both of them seemed strong as ever despite their wounds. The distant explosion of a cannon blast boomed over the sound of their blades colliding. Neither one of them noticed, for they had fallen into a trance-like state where they were completely focused on killing each other regardless of what was happening around them. According to Grimm's teachings, the battle trance was a common occurrence during intense fighting and war, but happened quickly when two opponents singularly focused on defeating one another no matter the cost. It was very dangerous for anyone to try and intervene once it happened.
Kalos could do nothing but stand by and watch as the duel continued through a grueling series of attacks and counters, each fighter barely parrying the other in time to surive another round. Finally the creature managed to slice Grimm’s shoulder open with an awkward attack that leveraged the height advantage it had over him. His heart felt like it was going to pound right out of his chest, but Grimm quickly revealed his true intentions, and the creature had no way to counter what came next.
Grimm had allowed his enemy's blade to connect so that when the heavy sword fell into a natural lull after slicing open his flesh, he could quickly parry it to one side with the base of his own blade and open up room for a decisive blow. Sparks flew from the power of the impact alone as it played out just like the aging warrior planned.
Kalos watched as Grimm moved close to his opponent and pivot forward, ramming his shoulder into the creature’s chest with the full brunt of his strength. The momentum generated by Grimm’s attack flung the monster backwards with ease. While the creature was still falling, Grimm only had to perform a half-turn to prepare for the next attack. His eyes burned with anticipation as he waited for the right moment to strike. Gently guiding the flat of his blade with his fingertips, he thrusted the tip of his sword deep into the creature’s chest the instant it landed on its back. The technique was executed with such perfectly-aimed precision that Kalos’ lungs clenched with shock. Eyes wide, full of disbelief and admiration despite the gruesome spectacle unfolding right in front of them, Kalos stared for several seconds without a breath.
As if trying to claw itself out of some terrible nightmare, the creature started wildly scratching at the blade with its nails. The sword it was carrying clattered to the ground as a result of its panicky, mindless efforts to free itself from Grimm's blade. Kalos couldn’t believe the shriveled-up being was still able to struggle so violently against its own demise after being skewered twice by one of the deadliest swordsmen in Ceirlan.
Consistenty trying to defy its fate, the large, blood-covered creature tried to kick Grimm away with the last bit of its strength, but didn’t have enough to do it again after only two attempts. Finally, the creature’s head lay back as it exhaled one last time while its limbs fell lifelessly to the ground beside it.
Making sure the creature did not have any surprises in-mind, Grimm twisted the blade one last time and waited several seconds. Nothing happened. He slowly pulled his sword free of the corpse before tiredly tossing it against some nearby brambles to catch his breath.
Kalos simply stared as pride and terror washed over him in equal portions. Grimm stood quietly atop a small knoll in the middle of the ancient garden, watching the creature one last time like a hawk for any sign of life before finally tilting his head up at the sky and exhaling long and slow. The man closed his eyes, enjoying the sound of complete silence for several seconds while Kalos tried to purge his unsteady mind of the brutality he had just witnessed. The creature was dead, and dawn was stll well beyond the horizon.
©2024, K. M. Plum, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED