8
The Cur's Bite
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The air felt different that day.
He sat atop his warhorse with his sword leaning over his shoulder, his dark armor gleaming against the sun. He turned back to the rest of the company, as they stood ready on horseback and on foot. They were skilled fighters, each and every one of them—he’d never allow otherwise of his first company.
Yet, none were as hardened as himself. And none seemed to feel that strange tension in the air.
It excited him, making his blood rise with anticipation. It was almost like a hunger in the pit of his stomach, a deep, animalistic instinct fighting within him.
Something was going to break. He could feel every man and aberrant’s eyes drawn to him.
Perhaps, even the gods’.
Vault savored it all, with a large smile spreading across his face.
Their advance brought them through a narrow pass in the hills, littered with ruined and abandoned stone structures. The settlement stretched on for miles. Its architecture was strange, having little in common with what the rest of Feoh usually boasted. Everything from the mortar to the stone was alien to the Hounds’ eyes, shining an almost blinding white. Likely, it belonged to what had once been an Elven city, long ago, nestled along the mountains of Feoh’s northern border.
When they finally crested the hill, they looked down upon the aberrant warband spread out before them, loitering among the ruins like vultures around a carcass. Orcs, goblins, imps, and countless others raised their eyes, looking almost stunned by the Hounds’ presence.
“Oh shit,” whistled a blue-haired youth standing beside him, giving a toothy grin at the sight. One of the Edds, perhaps, who just recently was promoted to the first company. “Looks like we caught ‘em in the middle of breakfast.”
“Poor, unlucky bastards,” replied Hicks.
Vault couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped his lips.
The leader of the aberrants, a one-eyed, goat-headed thing with a large, rusty axe for an arm, raised its head. He fixed the creature with a glare and bared his teeth, knowing that it was the surest way to challenge a predator.
He could practically feel the aberrant return his hostility a hundred-fold, as its one good eye filled with an angry mist. The goatman let out a growl, long strands of saliva splitting from its snout, and the rest of its horde sprang to their feet, drawing axes, clubs, knives, and other assorted weapons. With another infuriated roar, the aberrants charged.
The challenge was accepted.
Beast. Monster. Demon. Aberrant—The creatures of the Legion had many names, borne of awe and fear.
But those cries and lamentations meant nothing. They still died all the same.
Raising a fist into the air, Vault shouted, “Crossbows!”
Within a heartbeat, the bolts began flying. With such a target-rich environment, it was hard for any of them to not find their marks. But the aberrant tide showed no sign of slowing. And on top of that, a good number of the aberrants that had fallen in the volley dragged themselves back onto their feet, ignoring seemingly fatal wounds.
Good, Vault thought, feeling a fire burn within him. Wouldn’t be fun, otherwise.
“Pikes!” he commanded.
The Hounds rushed to obey. The crossbowmen retreated a step, allowing the pikemen to take their place at the front of the formation, and form a shield wall.
The horde arrived not long after. They were brutal, deranged in their ferocity, but even that failed to break through the wall. Within moments, the carnage began in earnest, man and aberrant dying in droves.
The air felt different that day.
He stopped for a moment, letting the sights, smells, and sounds of it all envelop him.
The ear-splitting clash of steel upon steel, the screams of the dying, the blood spraying, the bodies piling, the roars of anger, the howls of pain, the shouting and taunts, the smell of sweat and acrid smoke and horses breath, every last bit of it a song in his heart.
His destrier whinied uneasily beneath him, chomping at the bit. Not in fear, but in eagerness. Vault felt it, too.
Raising his sword into the air, and grinning from cheek to cheek, Vault shouted, “Go!” and spurred his horse onwards into the fray.
The Hounds’ aberrants—orcs, ogres, goblins, and minotaurs—broke through the lines, swinging their weapons and roaring ruthlessly, smashing friend and foe alike without a care in the world. They were fearsome fighters. By relying on their inhuman strength, the Hounds were easily able to turn the tide in their favor.
But even still, the battle wasn’t yet over.
The spears seemed to be holding their ground well enough, but eventually, they would cave under the Legion’s ravenous strength. When one imp had its guts skewered by a spear, it simply dragged itself forward along the length, biting out the throat of the man holding it.
He swung, and swung, and swung, Thousandlimbs hewing through flesh, bone, and gristle with each blow.
Beside him, Hicks flitted around the fight like a dancer, slicing into aberrant flesh and then hopping away before he could be struck back. The blue-haired boy rained down knives, axes, and practically anything he could get his hands on with deadly precision, felling an enemy with each toss.
An armored mercenary pulverized a goblin with a swing of his morningstar. A mage unleashed a crackling bolt of lightning on an ogre.
From the corner of his eye, he could see the rest of the cavalry charging in from the flanks, easily cutting down all in their path, and pinning the warband between them and the lines.
The air felt different that day.
He paused as the battle slowly came to a lull, panting slightly as he surveyed the results of the carnage.
There was no telling how many aberrants the Hounds had killed, but it hardly mattered. Victory was as good as theirs.
The battle had been short. Simple. Really, it was almost even disappointing.
With a sigh, Vault began to sheathe his sword. He almost didn’t have time to react as a minotaur leapt forward and swung its axe, killing his horse from under him. He cursed as he was knocked off the saddle and went tumbling to the ground with a heavy thud.
He brought up his arm, just barely batting away the axe’s blade with his vambrace. The impact still stung fiercely, but he used that shock of pain in his favor, and punched the minotaur with a growl. He leapt forward and bowled the aberrant over with a tackle. The minotaur growled back, drooling as it attempted to buck him off.
The two of them rolled over and over in the dirt, still striking at each other, as they wrestled for the advantage. Vault’s hand lashed out, managing to grab at one of its horns, and forced its head down, buying himself enough time to pin it, get on top, and drive his knee onto its chest.
The minotaur went to swing for him again, but Vault caught its arm, punched it again in the throat, and wrenched the axe from its grasp. It glared furiously, struggling and baring its teeth as he slowly began forcing the axe down onto its neck.
The aberrant was far stronger than him. That was without question. But the axe was heavy, and Vault’s position gave him all the leverage he needed to overpower it.
Then, just as the blade began drawing blood, the minotaur drove its head forward, cleaving its own throat on the axe, but also goring his chest with one of its horns.
“Fuck!” he gasped, as he staggered back onto his feet. He raised his eyes just in time to see the ambush go off—Dozens, perhaps even hundreds of aberrants stampeded out from their hiding place amongst the ruins, like ants from woodwork. The still-fresh blood of their dead kin drove them even more frenzied as they swarmed the mercenaries from the rear.
In the distance, standing about the mayhem of the melee, he could see the tall goatman looking back to him, smirking with malice in its eye.
The pain, the ambush, and the infuriating sight of its cocky, animalistic expression made something snap inside him. “Hah… you smug asshole,” Vault found himself smirking back as he picked up his sword, wiping a spurt of blood from his nose. “One cheap trick, and you think you’re all that hot shit, huh?”
“What’s the plan, boss?” asked one of the Hounds, as he and those nearby gathered around Vault. They were only a handful; Hicks, the blue-haired kid, two pikemen, an ogre, and a goblin.
“Same as always.” Vault lifted his sword in response, pointing Thousandlimbs’ tip directly towards the goat-like aberrant. “We kill the leader, and the rest scatter. Nothin’ else to it.”
They let out uneasy chuckles as that. “Uh-huh,” the kid said. “If only it was as easy as you make it sound.”
“With me,” Vault stepped forward, never taking his eyes off the goatman. “Whoever brings me that goat-fucker’s head gets double their pay—And first pick when we celebrate tonight. But any man dies with a clean sword, I’ll rape his fucking corpse.”
Whether it was a matter of his speech persuading or intimidating them, the Hounds fell into step and followed alongside him as he marched towards the enemy.
The air felt different that day.
Several aberrants tried to stop them. Ogres, wolfmen, and yet more goblins fell upon them. Each and every one of them died like the rest. Blood flew through the air, and limbs were detached from their owners. Moving like a tidal wave of steel, the Black Hounds fought their way through the horde, until finally, they stood before the leader, atop an overturned tower.
The goatman glared and snarled, practically frothing at the mouth along with the aberrants that flanked it on either side.
No words needed to be spoken. Almost simultaneously, the Hounds moved into action, as the goatman leapt forward, the rest of its aberrants following suit.
Neither side was shy in their offense. They crashed into each other with matching ferocity. Corpses began to pile up, as blood painted the white structure beneath them a deep red. Gargoyles swooped down and fell upon the ogre, tearing into it with their talons, even as it shattered them with swings from its massive arms. The kid was a wizard with his projectiles, killing aberrant after aberrant with every sharp thing he could get his hands on and throw. The goblin was batted away by a single swipe of a wolfman’s claw, falling beneath some greenskin’s corpse.
Vault and the goatman had eyes only for each other. He whirled as he sliced the Thousandlimbs at its neck, just barely scratching the tip of one of its horns as it ducked.
The goatman swung its axe-arm, smacking a mercenary so hard that he was sent sailing onto Vault, nearly knocking both of them onto the ground. He rolled with the momentum, just in time to avoid a stomp that crushed the man’s chest.
“Fight, man-filth!” the goatman jeered, licking at its chops with its long tongue. “Hide not behind your runts!”
As far as taunts went, that was a pretty weak one. It was laughable, if nothing else. Still, Vault rose to its challenge, slicing the leg off a wolfman as he got back onto his feet.
They clashed yet again, swinging with their weapons and limbs and teeth, but neither managed to land a solid, decisive hit. Vault possessed the greater skill, but the goat-headed aberrant had the superior strength. It was faster, but he was even more reckless.
Somehow, he couldn’t help but feel a strange mix of frustration and enjoyment rise within him as the combat dragged on.
But he wasn’t there to amuse himself with some foolish, drawn out duel. He was there to win.
The opportunity came when the goatman swung, just barely overextending itself in the attempt. Vault slapped aside the axe head and lashed out with a kick to its stomach, forcing it to backpedal away. Exactly where he wanted it to be.
“Now!” he shouted. And immediately, the goblin sprang up from the corpse it hid behind, latched onto the goatman’s back, and began frantically stabbing its knife into its neck and shoulders.
For an aberrant, it was far from a lethal blow, but it was enough to cause the goatman to howl out in pain. To its credit, it had enough presence of mind to throw the imp of its back.
By the time it turned its attention back to him, Vault had already closed the distance between the two of them. The goatman tried to stop him, swiping at him with its axe, but Vault slid under the blow, and retaliated with a swing of his own. The Thousandlimbs struck true, cleaving deep into the goatman’s ribs, sending it spiraling down onto the ruined tower’s cracked surface.
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It let out a pitiful, pained bray, as Vault pressed his foot down on its chest.
“My runts are good at what they do, wouldn’t you say?” Vault mocked, smiling in dark satisfaction. “They can run rings around the bigger oafs, crawl through the shadows, hide under the floors, and they’re tough as shit to find. But you know what they’re best at? Surviving.”
He put more pressure through his leg, watching the goatman flail in pain. “And that’s what you failed to do, goat-fucker.”
And with that, he raised his sword over his head.
“Vault!” a shout came, stopping his killing stroke just short. Vault glanced to the side, just in time to see a gargoyle screaming down towards him, its maw wide open and shining talons ready to cut him down.
Then the blue-haired boy leapt in between the two of them.
Vault caught sight of a spear’s broken haft shooting from his hand like an arrow and skewer the gargoyle through the heart. But it kept moving, even as life quickly left its eyes. Blood burst and splattered over the aberrant as its claws tore into the boy, and he fell, screaming.
But that didn’t matter.
What mattered was that he was distracted. And that was all the aberrant needed.
Its axe-arm smashed against Vault’s leg, tearing through metal plating and biting deep into his flesh. Vault screamed in pain, even as the goatman grabbed his other leg behind the knee and yanked him down on top of it.
“And you failed, too, man-swine,” the goatman rumbled once they were close enough to kiss, its rancid breath making Vault’s eyes water. It wrapped an arm around his throat, and began to squeeze.
His sight began to darken as the world became muted, and he felt his lungs burn.
Then, just before his consciousness slipped away entirely, Vault let his body go limp for a moment. With all the desperate, dying strength he could muster, he wrapped both his arms around the goatman, lifted it up, and slammed it back down onto the ground.
The impact was more than enough to make it let go of him. It was more than enough to shock all the adrenaline back into him. And it was more than enough to finally make the tower beneath the two of them break and collapse away into a pit of yawning darkness.
The air felt different that day.
And as Vault fell into that abyss, he couldn’t help but wonder why that was.
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He’d often heard that, when one was at death’s door, their life would flash before their eyes.
Really, he’d always dismissed that as melodramatic nonsense. And yet, a cold wind whistled past him, carrying with it memories and emotions long since abandoned.
His youth. His beginnings as a dog of war. The taste of iron, the smell of blood, the feeling of cold steel in his hand.
His first battle. His first kill. His first taste of victory.
Falcone striking him with a snarl, as he bellowed an order. The sound of marching feet he’d once tried so hard to keep up with. The sting of a coin purse thrown against his cheek.
Long-forgotten scars tingled faintly all over Vault’s body.
Battle after battle, job after job. He liked it. He was good at it. He reveled in it. He was respected for it. He was feared for it.
But in the end… Vault chuckled, surprising himself.
In the end, he had always fought because someone else wanted him to do it. Falcone, the Alliance, or any multitude of employers. He was a weapon, and he was wielded. He never fought for himself. He never truly led.
In truth, he was little better than a whore, with only his body and skills to trade for coin.
And only now, at the end of his life, Vault realized;
‘I want more.’
Not for coin, or for some noble, or a nation, or some vague higher cause—but for himself.
Every muscle in his body burnt, as if all of his bones had shattered. He saw nothing but darkness, and heard nothing but the rushing of wind around him.
And then, reality quaked around him. The darkness trembled and shook, as if tearing itself apart. His ears rang, his vision swam as a deep, strange pressure overwhelmed him. And abruptly, that nothingness spoke, in a voice of crackling thunder and endless howling wind.
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A small beam of light pierced the darkness, shining directly onto his face.
Vault blinked and groaned, shielding his eyes with an arm as he tried to sit up. His wounds strained against the effort, but somehow, he found the strength to stand. Strangely, he felt some warm liquid against his hands. He looked down.
The goat-headed aberrant’s ruined body lay beneath his, broken on a pile of rubble. It looked like it had landed first, and then taken the brunt of his own fall.
Vault couldn’t stop himself from chuckling at the sight. “Guess even you have your uses, goat-fucker,” he said, as he spat on the corpse one last time.
He wasn’t entirely certain where he was; old crumbling walls surrounded him on all sides, made from a stained white stone. The only light source in that space was the beam flowing coming through a small hole in the ceiling—almost directly above him.
And on those walls, there sprawling marks and symbols and images, all connecting to each other in a huge web of lines.
In the dim lighting, he could barely make out rough images of people and clouds, but the vast majority of it was almost impossible to see through the dark.
In truth, he had no idea what any of it was even supposed to be.
Just then, he heard a soft, crunching sound. It was so quiet that he almost dismissed it as his imagination, until he heard it again. Something was definitely moving above him, beyond that tiny hole in the ceiling. Whether it was a human or an aberrant, he’d soon find out.
Slowly, he limped back over to the corpse, and picked up his sword.
Again, the ceiling crunched, closer this time. Vault hefted the Thousandlimbs, preparing himself for whatever unlucky bastard might come through.
And then he heard a voice—it struck him as familiar. “Watch the damn shovel, asshole!” a man shouted at someone else. “You’re gonna cave the whole place in. Again.”
“Fuck off,” that someone else snapped back, “or I’ll cave your head in. Boss man’s in here somewhere, and we’re sure as hell not leaving without him.”
Vault sighed and rolled his eyes, lowering his sword. He then raised his voice, calling out through the hole, “You two dumbasses gonna keep bitching all day long, or are you gonna dig me the fuck out of here?”
There was a brief moment of silence, before a cacophony of noise filled the air, as tools struck the ruin overhead. After several minutes, the ceiling finally gave way, and a torch was dropped into the room. He narrowed his eyes into an unimpressed glare as one of the Hounds stuck his head through the hole.
“Ah, there he is!” he said, nodding to Vault with a wide grin. “Good to see you’re not dead, boss! That’s a real time-saver!”
“Uh-huh. Took you long enough,” Vault scoffed as he stood up. “Coulda had breakfast while I waited for you chucklefucks.”
He began to approach the man, but stopped. He turned back to the aberrant’s corpse, and with one stroke, decapitated it.
“Vault? The hell are you doin’?”
He picked the one-eyed goatman’s head, and turned back to his merc with a smirk. “Souvenir,” Vault said. “This sonuvabitch caused me a lot of grief, so that’s the least of what he owes me.”
The Hound chuckled nervously, before tossing a rope down the hole. Slowly, Vault began to climb his way out.
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The sun was setting by the time he made his way out of the ruin, covered in dust, blood, and dirt. The battle, too, was already over. As always, the Legion broke and routed after their leader fell, even if they did manage to pull off an ambush. The Black Hounds weren’t easily defeated, especially not by cheap, half-hearted tricks.
The Hounds milled about the battlefield, tending to the wounded, collecting the dead, and drinking after their victory.
One of the men that had dug him out handed him a wineskin. It was probably the cheapest, shittiest-tasting swill he’d ever drank, but after sweating and bleeding all day, he had very little fucks to give. He took deep gulps of it, then grit his teeth and poured the rest of the wineskin’s contents onto his wounds. He wasn’t going to bleed out from them any time soon, but he’d still have someone look over them later.
“Yo, Vault!”
Vault turned and saw Hicks jogging up to him. He’d gotten a cut across his forehead, and another along his chest, compared to some of the others, he was practically fine.
“Hicks,” Vault responded with a nod. “Miss anything important during my dirtnap?”
Hicks shook his head, falling into step beside him. “Eh, not really. Though, Vaughn and his boys are having a fit over one of their guys. Apparently, he got ripped apart by some wolfmen.”
Vault cocked an eyebrow. “Shit, was it Sweet Edd?” It’d be a real pain to lose the cook.
“Nah, his name was—You’ll laugh, by the way—his name was Long-Pig.”
“...‘Long-Pig?’ What the fuck kind of name is ‘Long-Pig?’”
Hicks shrugged. “Beats me.” Then, with a smirk, he added; “I bet it had something to do with his dick, or some shit.”
That time, Vault did let out an amused chuckle at the vague mental image. “Speaking of the dead, whatever happened to that kid, the Edd boy?”
Hicks’ smirk died on his lips. “I dunno. Slick, he... He was looking really touch and go when the surgeon came along. That damn gargoyle really went to town on him,” he said. Vault noticed that he was clenching and unclenching his fist.
“You worried about him?”
Hicks stopped walking. Vault turned, and met his wide-eyed gaze. His expression vaguely reminded Vault of a startled deer’s.
“Well?”
Hicks glanced away, scratched at his neck, and said, “Nah. Nah, not really.”
Vault merely grunted and came to a stop, too. He surveyed the ruins around them, as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. It was a desolate sight—broken walls, toppled structures, rutted streets filled with mud. Those ancient, crumbling buildings didn’t hold much meaning to him, but for some reason, his mind went back to that long fall, to his brush with death. To his strike of insight.
‘I want more.’
He took a deep breath.
The air felt different that day.
And that want—that desire—was still there.
“I killed him,” Vault suddenly said.
“Huh?”
At Hicks’ confused stare, Vault hefted the goatman’s severed head, and elaborated. “This fucker. I killed him. So all that about ‘double pay,’ and ‘first picks,’ goes to no one. You guys aren’t gettin’ shit.” He punctuated his sentence by tossing his grisly trophy into the air, and catching it again.
Hicks chuckled dryly. “Chyeah, okay. Thanks for rubbing it in, Vault.”
“But,” he continued, still fiddling with the head, “I’m feeling a bit generous for some reason. Call it an… an epiphany.”
Hicks cocked an eyebrow. “An epiphany?”
“Yeah, something along those lines.” He smiled then, widely and toothily. “Hicks, when we were on our way here, we passed by a town, didn’t we? Grass… something?”
"Grasmere," Hicks nodded slowly. “Yeah. Real small place, out of the way. Couple dozen houses, a church, maybe a tavern.” Then, a smile of his own started to spread, as he began to catch his meaning. “Why’d you ask, boss?”
“That’ll do,” Vault nodded, and stopped bouncing the goatman’s head. “Our boys, they fought hard today. Me, I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I want a woman. So, why don’t we give ‘em a reward? Why don’t we take what we deserve, huh?”
Hicks’ eyes gleamed, but he paused, looking to Vault, then back to the rest of the men. “You wanna bring everyone? Isn’t that cuttin’ it close, y’know, with malcontents, and all that?”
Vault began to shake his head, but stopped himself. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he admitted. But then, that smile became an all-out smirk. “That makes it all even more worth it, then.”
With those words, Vault laughed once again, and let the aberrant’s head fall from his hand. He watched it roll and tumble all the way down the cobblestone, leaving a trail of blood behind it.
“Catch some rest, Hicks. And get ready to head out in the morning,” Vault said, before turning on his heel.