The charges made against the accused are merely the jealous libel of base men

A merchant of his caliber would have no need to exploit those under his employ

-Anri Valpais, arguing before the court

Of all the estates Gaspard had scoured in this city, the one sprawled out before him now was by far the most lavish. The faded banners hanging from the gilded fences and the bloated, maggot-ridden corpses piled in every corner still did not entirely diminish the palatial grandeur of the merchant’s massive home. With trading contracts in every corner of the world and connections among the nobility, the merchant had easily been the richest man in the city.

Not a single coin of that hoard of gold had done anything to save him on the night of the Mad Moon. His severed head sat at the center of a shattered dining table, with one rotting arm dangling from a broken chandelier and a single leg sitting partially crushed on the floor. The rest of his body, presumably, made up the thin layer of crimson gore that coated the room and was now flaking off the walls. Gaspard appraised the violent end of the merchant, and was satisfied. He couldn’t have done it better himself.

As much as Gaspard appreciated the work, he did not wish to linger on it. Judging from the violence inflicted upon the merchant, something very large and very powerful had done the deed. Gaspard doubted the monstrosity would appreciate hearing Gaspard thank it for its handiwork.

A hypothesis Gaspard might well get a chance to test, if the sudden shambling from a side room was any indication. Gaspard took quick stock of the room. There were three exits from the room, and, true to form, the noise was coming from the one that stood between Gaspard and the other two exits. He moved to the far wall and made for the next closest exit.

“Liar!”

On queue, a twisting, emaciated form emerged from the other room. Three limbs reached out at once to take hold of the doorframe, and then two more hands braced against the floor to pull the tangle of bodies forward. Seven elongated human bodies, fuse and knotted together at the waist, crawled forward. Their lower extremities fused together, forming a snakelike tail that dragged behind the misshapen hydra as the long limbs of the flailing heads pulled it forward. The horror of the monster’s mutated body was nothing new, but it’s behavior was. This abomination seemed to have no interest in Gaspard. The long, serpentine extremities of the beast wound around the room, coiling across every wall, and blocking every exit, but they never reached for Gaspard.

“Cheater,” the hydra said, its seven voices raised in a discordant chorus. Putrescent limbs reached out to grab the scattered limb and savage it, tearing flesh from bone and clenching it in bony knuckles. Several of the heads dug into the scraps of flesh with broken teeth, while others focused on cracking the bones and extracting the marrow. Gaspard froze, and stared at the sorry sight. The hydra continued to make a feast of the merchant’s long-rotted remains.

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Gaspard eyed the exit. A single arm, ten times longer than it should have been, and with ten times as many joints, was coiled in front of the exit, one bony hand grasping a nearby shelf for stability. It was still low to the ground, low enough that Gaspard could possibly step over it. He slowly edged his way towards the exit, careful to muffle every footstep to avoid attracting the attention of the hydra. He stepped up to the tendril-like limb, watched the taut tendons flex once, and then raised his leg to step over it.

No sooner had Gaspard raised his foot than the stretched limb shifted beneath him. It swung wide, all ten of its joints bending unnaturally, striking Gaspard in the leg as it swung. He lost his balance and stumbled backwards, trying to catch himself before he fell completely to the ground. He failed, and fell to the ground with a loud clatter of the wooden wreckage beneath him. Where his hands had failed to find purchase to keep him upright, they now struggled for purchase on his sword to keep him alive.

Gaspard wrapped one hand around the hilt of a sword he never got a chance to draw. A hand with unnaturally long fingers wrapped around his own, and then another monstrous appendage grasped him by the shoulder, then the waist, then the neck. The grip was thankfully not quite tight enough to keep Gaspard from breathing -though the pressure being exerted to keep him restrained told him this fused hydra of flesh was more than capable of crushing his throat if it so chose. Unable to move his sword, Gaspard went for a more desperate move.

“I came here to kill the merchant,” he spat. “I came here to kill the man who cheated you.”

Gaspard directed his panicked eyes towards the remnants of the merchants head. The heads of the hydra twisted in place, some of the bulging eyes examining Gaspard while others turned to face the merchant’s remains. Gaspard did not know if the beast even understood his words, but the fact that it could speak gave him reason to try. It was either that or wait for the abomination to snap his neck like a reed.

Hanging limp in the Hydra’s grasp, Gaspard had little else to do but plead with what was left of the hydra’s many former lives. Thankfully, he had a feeling that those few scraps of humanity were the scraps Gaspard needed: The rage, the bitterness, the hatred.

‘There’s more like him,” Gaspard said. “More liars. More cheaters. I want to kill them too. Make them pay.”

The seven heads of the hydra all turned as one to face Gaspard. He stared right back into their bloodshot eyes and choked out one more word.

“Revenge,” he grunted.

The myriad misshapen bones of the hydra clicked loudly as it shifted, coiling it’s bulk into a serpentine twist.

“Revenge,” the seven voices said at once.

The constricting grip on Gaspard released. He had barely hit the ground before he turned and started to run, never daring to look back.