Ch 9: THE WICKSHAW WYRM

The field by the shearing pen looked like it had been turned inside out. The ground was all upended, like one of the gods had reached down with an enormous trowel to dig horrible designs into the land. Behind the pen stood a shed, lopsided and ramshackle, whose sides heaved and bulged like breathing lungs.

“I think we’ve found our beastie,” Fionnobhar said, drawing his sword.

Marten wasn’t prepared for the complete lack of subtlety with which Fionnobhar marched up to the shed door. With one kick, he slammed it open and charged in, sword-first.

“He’s not lacking in boldness,” said Jon, staring after him with wide eyes. “I’d never take such an approach, not even in a full suit of armor.”

“If the creature is better suited to the underground, the trick to catching it above ground favors speed over stealth,” Marten offered doubtfully.

“I’ll take your word for it. I wouldn't know the first thing about fighting a wyrm. Is your knight an old hand at it?”

“He has some experience,” Marten said vaguely, watching in horrified fascination as the whole shed shuddered before the wall nearest them exploded out in a single piece, nails torn up from their planks, to flatten the grass below.

With the wall down, the scene inside was revealed: Fionnobhar, standing atop one enormous coil, with his sword driven all the way through it and into the ground as the rest of the wyrm strained to escape back into its tunnel, only to be pinned in place by that blade. When it couldn’t escape, the wyrm wriggled back into the shed, bucking Fionnobhar off its back in the process, to whip its head around and bare multiple rows of tiny, pinprick-sharp teeth at the knight.

The shed was a tight fit for the wyrm’s many coils, which bunched up and overlapped before spilling out over the fallen wall. The beast was thick and muscular, covered in silvery green scales like a fish, so pale it was near white, with bulbous round eyes that seemed ill-suited to daylight. It snarled and snapped at Fionnobhar, who stood in the midst of its coils with both hands wrapped around the hilt of his sword, which was still anchoring the beast in place. If he pulled his sword out, the wyrm would regain its full range of motion and escape. If he left his sword in, he couldn’t use it to defend himself against the wyrm’s snapping jaws.

“He needs a second weapon,” Marten realized.

“You're his squire,” said Jon. “Godspeed to you both, but I'm not setting foot in that deathtrap.”

Marten didn't bother pointing out that he wasn’t a squire at all. He was still the one person on hand best equipped to assist the knight. As he took a step towards the fight, the wyrm seemed to realize the same thing about Fionnobhar’s position and lunged for him, moving from threatening to outright offense. Letting go of his sword but leaving it driven through the wyrm’s midsection, Fionnobhar raised both hands and caught the wyrm’s snout as it came at him. Grunting and swearing with the effort, Fionnobhar shoved one hand against its nose and hooked the other over its bottom front teeth, forcing its jaws open. If he hadn't caught it in time, the wyrm would have grabbed him around the middle, enclosing his entire torso. Its teeth were small enough that they probably couldn't pierce his armor, but the bite force could still have the strength to crush him like a tin of meat. Marten didn't want to bet on it either way.

“Sheep shears!” Jon called, pointing Marten towards the intact wall behind the knight.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

If Marten wanted to help, he was going to have to get within the wyrm’s biting range. Fionnobhar was doing an admirable job of keeping the wyrm’s jaws in check, but it wasn't a stalemate that could last for long, and Marten could be killed by a well-aimed whip of the beast’s tail as easily as a bite.

There was no point in trying to sneak around the fight, so, like Fionnobhar, Marten ran right up to the shed door. There was no floor space that wasn't occupied by the wyrm’s coils, but he could see the shears hanging on the wall.

“Don’t let go!” he shouted to the knight over the sounds of the struggle, before gathering his courage and stepping onto the wyrm’s body to climb his way over to that wall.

The wyrm was pure muscle, insanely strong as it shifted and twitched under Marten’s boots. Like trying to keep his balance on a boat, Marten kept his knees bent and tried to move with the beast’s motions as he circled around Fionnobhar and the creature’s head with all its teeth. Planting one hand against the wall to stay steady, Marten pulled the shears off their hook and turned to make his way back to the knight. He would have rather tossed the makeshift weapon to Fionnobhar and then retreated to safety, but the knight would have to let go of the wyrm’s head to catch the shears, and Marten didn't have armor to protect him.

As he inched his way closer to where the two of them were wrestling, he berated himself for his curiosity. He had wanted to watch the knight slay a dragon. He hadn’t actually wanted to participate. He should have known better, and as soon as he got out of this, he was taking his leave and heading home. Facing his failure in Drummondville was still preferable to dying in a sheep shed between the teeth of an overgrown snake.

Coming up behind the knight, he reached out to knock the flat side of the shears’ blades against Fionnobhar’s upper arm, getting his attention.

“Stab the thing in the eye!” Fionnobhar shouted at him.

“What? No!” That involved coming up all the way alongside the knight, and Marten wanted to keep both his hands and arms attached to his body.

“Then you have to hold its mouth open while I do it!”

“That’s even worse!” Marten protested. “Just take the shears!”

The wyrm thrashed and shook its head like an enormous dog, drooling thick ropes of saliva from between its teeth to hang over Fionnobhar’s vambraces. The creature’s breath stank like mulch and rotten meat.

Fionnobhar’s arms were starting to shake from the effort of prising the wyrm’s jaws apart. If he faltered for even a second, the wyrm would seize the opportunity and chomp down on him, armor and all—or, worse, turn and sink its teeth into Marten, instead. Marten hadn’t survived a village of bloodghasts just to be eaten by a wyrm on his next outing.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Taking the shears firmly in both hands, he braced himself against the wyrm’s coils and stepped up alongside Fionnobhar to the knight’s left, on the side of the shed where the wall had come down. Raising the shears before him in both hands, he took aim and drove the points directly into the wyrm’s rolling, bulging right eye.

With a thin shriek like a steaming tea kettle, the wyrm wrenched free of Fionnobhar’s grasp and reared back, pulling Marten, still grasping the shears’ handles, with it. The force of it nearly tore his shoulders from their sockets, his feet going out from under him as the wyrm’s whole body writhed and twisted. He fell against its upright neck, hanging against the side of its head as he dangled from the shears, which were lodged in the wyrm’s pale eye, both blades fully buried in that jelly, which was leaking awful, clear fluid.

“Ah,” Marten said faintly, the sound barely audible over his own terrified heartbeat.

He didn’t know enough about wyrm physiology to say whether the shears had penetrated the brain and it was only a matter of time before the wyrm dropped dead, or whether the injury would only infuriate the wyrm and spur it to greater and more desperate violence. He would have gone straight for the throat—generally a safe bet—but the knight had told him to stab it in the eye, and anyway, its scales seemed tough.

“Good hit!” Fionnobhar declared from behind him, followed by the meaty, scraping sound of the knight pulling his sword free from the wyrm’s middle.

The wyrm roared and screamed in response, still trying to dislodge the shears, and gave an enormous full-body flail like a serpent having a fit of convulsions. Marten lost his grip on the shears as the wyrm threw him off, and he smashed into one of the shed’s intact walls, hitting it lengthways along a row of the farmer’s tools. He fell onto a heap of the wyrm’s coils, the rough texture of the scales scratching his face.