“Fuck me,” Oak said.

He thought it mighty unfair that out of all the buildings in Ma’aseh Merkavah; the dwarves had set up shop in the one place they had to search through. Exactly how bad was his luck?

“Are you sure about the dwarves?” he asked.

Geezer growled.

“We must run,” Ur-Namma said and took a step back.

“Oh, it is already too late to run.” A voice like breaking rock echoed in the cellblock.

A short, bearded figure walked out from one of the cells down the block. Even though Oak had never seen a dwarf before, there was no mistaking the figure for anything else. The dwarf was singing a hymn in a low, droning voice and walking on the low ceiling. He was bald and bare chested, and his hands had been chopped off at the wrist and replaced with long and crude steel spikes. The dwarf’s eyes shone with mad glee as he stared at Oak, Ur-Namma and Geezer.

The dwarf licked his chapped lips. “Will you stay for dinner? We can converse while I eat your feet,” the dwarf cackled. “I will strum your tendons and play dice with your teeth! I will extract beautiful music from your throats!”

Oak took a step back and pointed his cleaver at the dwarf. “Not a step closer, little man, or I will separate that head from your shoulders,” he said.

Ur-Namma scoffed. It seemed like the elf considered diplomacy a pointless endeavor.

“Will you paint a masterpiece with the red that runs in my veins?” the dwarf asked breathlessly and cocked his head. His muscled arms were trembling, like he was barely restraining himself and losing the battle. “Will you make art with me, kind soul?”

Before Oak could respond, the dwarf started singing his hymn again and charged forward, running full tilt on the ceiling towards him. Just as Oak took a step forward to meet the charge, the sound of boots dragging on stone reached his ears. Another dwarf slid down from a hole in the ceiling on his right.

Oak was too slow. From the corner of his eye, he could see a dwarf clad in a mail shirt pounce towards him from the ceiling with a hammer in his hand. He raised his cleaver and tried to block the strike, but it was for naught. The dwarf’s war hammer struck a glancing blow to the side of Oak’s head, and his world exploded in pain.

Everything went dark. Oak crumbled to the ground, and blood gushed onto the stone floor.

Geezer bared his teeth in a snarl and growled, stepping between the dwarves and Ur-Namma.

Eyes gleaming with mirth and madness, the pair of dwarves turned their attention to the hellhound and the elf.

“Nice of you to join the dinner party, Aklaq,” said the dwarf with spikes in the place of his hands. He hopped down from the ceiling and landed next to the other dwarf.

“I would not miss an event like this for the world, Kanut,” said Aklaq and spun his hammer. “Now, which do we slaughter first, the mutt or the cripple?”

***

If all else fails, be a savage.

The thought swam in Oak’s head and he grabbed hold of it with desperation, clutching it like a drowning man clutches a piece of driftwood. He hauled himself upwards, towards the light. A bloody hand rose from the darkness and pulled him back down. No! I am free of you! The hand did not listen. It snatched the thought from him and Oak fell down to the darkness.

The Butcher lay on the floor. Blood dripped onto the stone from a wound on his head. That was not right. The Butcher did not bleed. He made others bleed for him. His hands closed around the handles of blades and a smile twisted his features. Good. He had his instruments.

The Butcher stood.

The dwarves were debating something, but they stopped their conversation and turned to face him. Mocking words fell from their lips, but the prattling of dead meat was not important. It was a frivolous distraction. The Butcher laughed, and the shadows laughed with him.

I am the Slaughterman. The Ferryman of Death. Ruin is my work, and I have been starving for it.

“You had your time. Had your chance, and wasted it,” the Butcher said and stepped forth. “I am here now.”

The dead meat with spikes for hands rushed him, trying to run him through, but the Butcher dodged to the side with a single, measured step and buried his short sword into the meat’s chest.

He hugged the meat close and whispered, “There is no need to struggle. Let me free the red in your veins.”

Eyes locked onto his next victim, and ear pressed against the dead meat’s quivering throat, the Butcher pushed his sword down. The meat sang a beautiful song. Bone cracked and flesh parted as he sawed through the dwarf in his grip until his blade tasted the free air once more. The dead meat with the hammer circled him. His unholy blood stained the hammer’s head.

This would be rectified.

The shadows whispered into the Butcher's ear, and he listened with care. More dead meat was approaching. That was good. That was right. More meat for him to slaughter.

The Butcher stepped over the lovely corpse he had made and panted. His mouth hung open like an empty grave.

I am the fire that burns crops. The famine that claims the children. I am the rattle of the last breath.

The meatbag wished for death. He could see it in the dwarf’s wide, bloodshot eyes. The meat took a mighty swing, trying to cave in his skull. The Butcher slapped the strike aside with his sword and chopped the dwarf’s head off with his cleaver.

“Thank you,” said the head as it rolled past the Butcher’s feet. He nodded at the severed head. It was only proper for the meat to thank the Slaughterman.

A dwarf poked his head down through a nearby hole in the ceiling, surveying the scene of carnage below. The Butcher focused his will and bathed the dwarf’s face in flame. Flesh ran like melted wax as the dwarf dropped from the ceiling, shouting out his adoration for the Butcher’s fine work.

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The dead meat’s beard was a merry bonfire, crackling along and adding its voice to the choir of worship. The Butcher knelt and listened closely for the secret message of the flames. Starved whispers licked his ears. The fire murmured to him. It was hungry, and the Butcher did its bidding. He chopped off the dwarf’s legs and fed them into the flames.

A pale, wrinkled elf cloaked in sorrow and hate leaned against the wall to the side, backing away slowly. The elf was not a threat. A thin cripple, barely able to raise his blade. A hound with an otherworldly shadow stood by the elf, standing guard, snarling and barking. The shadow coiled around the hound like a living thing, stretching and wriggling.

He would get to them soon enough. They looked like they would keep for the moment.

Allies, a faint voice whispered inside his mind. The Butcher ignored it. He was starving for ruin, yearning for carnage. All would be made still by the touch of his blades in due time.

More meat, the shadows whispered. Something pierced the Butcher's shoulder. There was no need to worry. Pain was the problem of lesser men. What was pain to the Butcher but an unheard language? It told tall tales and whispered sweet nothings to him.

The Butcher stood.

Four dwarves dropped from the holes in the ceiling. They were holding wicked looking axes and swords.

Adequate tools in inferior hands. This must be corrected.

Always the Butcher yearned for work, and always Creation provided.

“Ooh, a big fucker!” One dwarf shouted. “His skull will make a fine pisspot!”

“Kneel, so you can receive my kindness. Stand and I shall force it upon you,” the Butcher said. “Either way, none shall escape.”

The dwarves stood and faced him. The Butcher laughed. Head lolling to the side, he got to work.

A beautiful chaos filled the cellblock. The dwarves did their best to surround him, to bring their numbers to bear. They came from odd angles, crawled on the walls, and walked on the ceiling. None of it made a lick of difference. He was a wolverine, rending prey asunder. An alley cat playing with rats. His blades traveled in wide arcs, slicing off ears, lopping off fingers.

An enraged dwarf, the side of his face covered in blood, rushed at him. The Butcher had turned him asymmetric. Sword and axe flashed down upon him, cruel edges ready to spill his blood. He slapped them aside, metal clashing against metal, and kicked the little man in the nuts. The dwarf sputtered and fizzled like a bursting pig’s bladder.

He buried his sword deep in the dwarf’s stomach. A rip and a slice later, the meat lay on the floor, disemboweled. The Butcher took a deep, nourishing breath. The roots of his bones drank deep from the fresh blood.

“Is this the measure of you?” The Butcher asked. “Pathetic warriors make pathetic carcasses.”

An axe wielding dwarf took exception to his words. “Kill you! I’ll kill you, and roast that offending tongue of yours on an open flame!”

In response, the Butcher took his arm. Oh, how the dwarf sang when blood spurted from the stump, painting the walls red.

Every hurt he returned threefold, every swing he answered with three of his own. Exhaustion seeped into the remaining dwarves, shone in their eyes. More and more they gasped for breath, every swing of their blades slower than the last. The Butcher cared not for the weakness of muscle and sinew. He was a direwolf, long striding, foe slaying. A hyena breaking bone and shredding flesh.

He laid the dwarves low with wild abandon, and the corpses chanted his name.

***

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The Butcher beheld all he had wrought and found it good. Slaughtered meat was strewn about the cellblock in a pleasing manner, the sum greater than its individual parts. A ruinous act of creation. But the work was not yet done. There was always more to do.

The elf and the dog stood rooted on the spot as the Butcher walked towards them. His steps were measured and unhurried. There was no rush. No one escaped the Slaughterman. The hound stood between him and the elf, hackles raised and a low growl spilling from his throat. One had to be the first, so the other could be the second.

The Butcher lifted his cleaver.

Oak lowered it.

Tears in his eyes and slobber on his chin, Oak stumbled and crashed against the wall of the dungeon. The blades slid from his grip and clattered onto the stone. He slid down and sat on the floor, staring at Geezer and Ur-Namma with wide eyes.

“I am sorry,” Oak said and hid his face. “So sorry.”

“Exquisite. You are exquisite,” Ur-Namma said. Now that death was no longer a heartbeat away, the elf’s legs had given up, and he too sat on the floor of the cellblock.

“I almost killed both of you.” Oak wailed. “Oh, Geezer. I am sorry. You know I’m sorry.”

Geezer looked at Oak mournfully, but did not approach. Oak wailed harder. He felt like something was ripping his soul to pieces. For a time, they all sat in the dim light of the lanterns and waited for clarity to return to them.

“I have been lying to myself,” Oak said. “I thought I was free of him. That war had made him and when the war was over, he would disappear.”

“You told me you were a Warlock but…,” Ur-Namma said, searching for the right words. “I have to admit you are a bit more infernal than you let on.”

Oak laughed, and there was an edge of hysteria to the laughter that he could not hide. "Oh, I wish I was."

He turned his head and faced Ur-Namma, tired eyes boring through the elf’s skull.

"This is all me. Every twisted desire and perverse delight," Oak said. “Blood and offal. I am covered in them from head to toe. Enemy and friend, man, woman and child. Every corpse is mine, and mine alone. I have been slow to learn this lesson, but a man can’t run from himself. By Ashmedai I have tried.”

Ur-Namma’s expression was unreadable. The elf cocked his head and stared at Oak for a while, letting the silence between them stretch.

When he finally spoke, there was a hint of steel in his voice. "Northerner. Look at me. You might have done some evil deeds. Might be that you are an evil bastard at heart, but I doubt it. Our worst actions are rarely the truest thing about us. Whatever the answer, I care not. Be an evil man filled with ill intent if you must, be something else if you have to. There is room for it in the wide circle of the world. Sometimes Creation needs an evil man. This is the time of strife. I can feel it in my bones. The time of the sword and the spear."

“Even an evil man can do much good if he finds himself in the right place at the right time. And this is the right time. We just need to get you to the right place,” Ur-Namma said. “Do not fall into despair. The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. You have passed the first test. You have accepted that what you thought you were was just a dream.”

Oak just shook his head. As he did so, he noticed there was a knife sticking out of his left shoulder. He yanked it out with a cry and pressed the wound closed with his right hand. Blood stained the ruin of his jacket.

My hands are dripping red. At least this blood is my own.

He frowned morosely at the stone floor. How in the world had it come to this? How had he been so blind?

"Oak. My friend, please look at me,” Ur-Namma said and Oak relented, turning his gaze towards the elf.

“Tomorrow, just like the day before it, the sun rises and a new day dawns. There'll be time for new triumphs. And new mistakes. There is comfort in that,” Ur-Namma said.

“Maybe. But triumphs fade from memory while the mistakes linger,” Oak said and closed his eyes. “I have piled enough weight on my shoulders to last many a lifetime already.”

“It is a good thing that you have such broad shoulders,” Ur-Namma replied.

Oak chuckled. “Not broad enough for this, I think. I don’t know. Maybe things will be different in the morning. Can we be quiet for a while? I-I need to think. Find a sense of calm.”

“Of course,” Ur-Namma said. “Take as much time as you need.”

Leaning against the wall of the dungeon, in a slaughterhouse of his own making, Oak searched for a bedrock where he could plant his feet but found none. There was only a chasm under his boots, and below the Butcher waited, holding the tools of his trade in bloodstained hands.