This is knot the end

Kato walked forward; the tip of his spear trailed the ground as he let it drag across the floor. Each jolt and bump from it scraping over dirt and grass were barely registered, he hardly noticed the weapon at all.

His eyes were focused on the blurson. ‘Last one’ his rage whispered to him. ‘Make it hurt.’

With an animalistic screech Kato charged forward, his vision fogging as the world blurred, till the only thing he could see with any clarity was the blurson. The last one standing.

His breath quickened as he raised his spear, whatever respect he had for the beast dissolving in the face of his revenge.

The squat blurson stood still, eyeing Kato. The man was practically frothing at the mouth, driven forward by no more than his base instincts, his humanity all but extinguished.

Its eyes narrowed as a cold smile spread across its face. It steadied its breath as it calculated the distance between them with deadly precision. This was going to be far too easy.

Soundlessly, it sprang into action, powerful muscles contracted as it arched backwards, the spear rising fluidly overhead at a perfect thirty-degree angle. It gazed at Kato for a moment, as if checking its work, then nodded firmly to itself.

Kato charged on, blind to the blurson’s preparation, or too far gone to care.

With a sharp twist, the blurson rotated its upper body. It took a large step forward, and with practiced ease, its arm snapped forward with an audible crack.

The spear flew through the air, hunting the same prey it had hunted before.

The blurson smiled.

It watched coldly as Kato mindlessly advanced; the man tore up the ground between them, each footfall sending dirt and grass flying, a path of destruction left in his wake.

But it mattered not, for each crime the pale monster committed it would be paid back tenfold.

Innocuously, a cloud parted above. Nothing happened for a moment, then a ray of light shot forth, tearing past the fluffy barrier that had been keeping it from the journey of a lifetime. It danced past thick leaves, carefully manoeuvred around great, thick wooden trunks and waltzed past hanging branches, beelining straight towards the ground.

Until suddenly… Resistance.

The cold, dull, metallic tip of the spear gleamed fiercely. Its light a beacon in the dusk.

Kato recoiled, blinded. His foot missed the ground, but his body didn’t get the message, too focused on its mission. Kato went flying just as the spear whipped past him, peacefully continuing its journey overhead.

Thud. The spear buried itself in the ground some distance away, quivering in uncontrollable fury. How could it miss?

The blurson looked to the spear then to Kato, who rolled and sprang back to his feet, his impact far less permanent than that of the spear.

The blurson tossed its club back to its dominant hand. It was never that easy.

Kato stared at the blurson, ‘what just happened? I swear there were six of them.’ He blinked, dazed. Keeping the blurson in his vision he circled it, ‘one...two…three…four…five.’ Kato counted the dead, his shock mounting with each body.

‘What had killed them?’

“Ughh” he shook his head, groaning.

The squat blurson never took its eyes off him, its legs were in a firm stance and its club raised in a defensive guard.

‘It’s protecting itself.’ He realised. He continued to pace, drinking in his surroundings, blood death and destruction greeted him at every angle. The blurson’s eyes never left him, its cold fury evident. ‘From me?’ He gasped shocked, then wished he hadn’t, furiously he fought the urge to retch.

The scent of death hung thick in the air, clinging to him. Acrid and biting, it stung his nostrils and clawed at his weeping eyes. The blursons had apparently not taken enough from him in life; now they demanded more even in death.

‘Can’t show weakness, not now.’ Kato wasn’t sure what had happened, but the blurson seemed scared or at least wary of him, ‘foolish to give that up.’

Kato kept circling the short, squat creature, ‘What do people usually do when they find themselves alone in a forest surrounded by bodies?’ He thought bitterly. ‘Hide the bodies’ part of him promptly responded.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

‘You’re not alone… idiot’ another part of him sneered.

‘Oh, right.’ Kato looked back at the blurson, it was being awfully considerate here.

It stepped forward. Maybe not.

Kato stepped back his round pupils widening in fear.

It was the blurson's turn to look confused. Where was the maddened beast it had fought earlier? It sneered; it mattered not.

The blurson took another step forward.

Kato took another step back.

His hands trembling, he raised his spear ahead of him, weakly pointing it in the blurson's general direction.

In an instant, the blurson darted forward, its club swinging with deadly intent. Kato tried to dart back in turn, but he was too slow.

The blurson's weapon connected with a sickening crack. Kato’s spear was sheared in half and splinters flew through the air.

Kato stared, mouth agape, before raising what was left of his spear and hurling it at the blurson, with all the force he could muster.

The shaft’s remnants weakly thumped against its chest, before sliding down and further cracking against the floor. The blurson glared at him, eyes blazing with fury. It bared its teeth and charged.

Instinct took over, Kato turned and ran desperate to lose his pursuer. But stride by stride the blurson advanced gaining ground as Kato tried to fight the inevitable.

The blurson lumbered forward, its motions were unnatural, clunky and wrong. Its feet landed at strange angles, and it couldn’t keep a straight line if it tried. And yet impossibly, it closed the distance, laughing in the face of the world. The deceivingly squat stature hiding what could only be described as a fearsome athletic ability.

Kato’s heart pounded, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He cleared the distance to the wagon in seconds.

‘Find shelter’ his instincts screamed. ‘Get to safety, now!’

But the blurson didn’t care, loping behind Kato at a steady unrelating pace. It had its prey in its sight and would not let it go so easily.

Kato scrambled up the wagon, darting back inside.

The blurson stopped, then laughed, a bitter, hollow sound that pierced the thin cloth walls. Its prey had trapped itself, how fortuitous.

It stood at the edge of the wagon, savouring the moment, then with a simple shake of its head, it jumped. The distance to the wagon was cleared in one smooth motion and it entered without pause. Its own cold rage awakened by bloodlust into something that hungered, forcing it forward, transforming it. The cold, calculating demeanour giving way to something far more primal.

Kato scurried back into the depths of the wagon, nimbly stepping over the lone tankard that had almost got him caught earlier.

He slipped back into the cramped confines of the cage he had broken out from, looking down, his gaze fell on the motionless poker, its body still matted with blood where he had left it resting. The all-encompassing rage threatened to swell back up and consume him again. He clenched his fists till his knuckles turned white forcing it down. ‘There will be time to fall apart later. But not now.’

Kato bent over, grabbing the two bars he had smashed off in his haste to escape. One still slick with blood, glistening darkly, ‘Guess it hasn’t been that long.’ Grimacing he wiped it dry on the torn edge of his trousers, ‘At least now I can grip it, for what good that’ll do’ he thought darkly.

Standing again, his eyes caught the knot. He looked at its cold, twisted gaze for a moment, trying to decipher what it thought. It was no use, it remained silent and indifferent to him.

“I’m sorry” he whispered, “I tried.”

The knot didn’t say a word.

Tap. Tap.

The blurson's heavy footsteps echoed across the wooden floor.

Kato gulped, crossing the two bars in front of him in a rough X, his arms trembled violently even under their small weight.

Tap. Tap.

The blurson advanced, each step was slow and deliberate. It would enjoy this.

Kato’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest, each thump harder than the last. A lone drop of sweat slid down his left cheek.

Tap. Tap.

The blurson reached the doorway, it looked at Kato for a moment, saw his body trembling as it brandished a makeshift cross at him. It sneered. Was it supposed to be scared of this?

Like a flash it crossed the distance between them, smashing the bars from Katos’ hands with one brutal motion, the bars flew to the side in a cloud of splinters.

“Ahh” Kato could not suppress the cry as the flesh tore from his hands.

The beast looked at him and it smiled.

Kato pushed back against it his hands reaching for the creature’s neck, aiming to throttle it.

It smiled wider.

And with little more than a grunt, the club swung again. It came down hard on Kato’s stomach, knocking the air from his lungs. Kato recoiled back, his hands dropping as his body folded on itself.

He looked up, his hands weakly clutching his body as if that would make the pain stop. The short blurson towered over him. It met Kato’s pitiful gaze, and its eyes filled with contempt. This was the man who had killed everyone it had held dear, it raised its club high to deliver the final blow, and…

“Woosh!” Kato’s leg thundered out his heel clipping the blurson’s shin. The blurson stared at Kato for a moment, then blinked, slowly, as if saying “really, that’s all?”

Then the wagon jolted.

One of the beasts attached to it had pulled forward, dragging them along the uneven ground.

The blurson stumbled back, its footing slipped.

Its heel met with the so callously discarded tankard.

The tankard rolled and the blurson followed. Arms wide it crashed backwards, straight into the support beam.

Crunch!

The back of its skull collided with the knot embedded in the wood. The beam groaned in protest, splintering from the impact.

The blurson staggered, eyes wide in disbelief, its own wagon had betrayed it. For a moment it wobbled on its feet,

Then with a dull final groan the beam gave out,

The broken wood collapsed onto the blurson’s skull. The blurson hit the ground and… silence.

Wearily Kato stood, pulling himself upright. “Puhh” he exhaled sharply, his lungs trying to expel the sudden cloud of dust he had found himself in. A sagging chunk of cloth flopped against Kato. He batted it aside, forcing the tattered faded yellow cloth that sagging down from the collapsed wagon walls away.

He made his way over to the fallen blurson, his steps were slow and steady with the pain in his ribs protesting against each step. But he had to see, he couldn’t just rest.

The blurson lay prone, limbs twisted unnaturally.

It was dead.

A thick glom of sap oozed from the cracked beam resting above the blurson.

Tap. Tap.

Kato knocked against the knot, it was split perfectly in the middle, its life given for the cause. The sap arced through the air towards the now caved in skull, and thick, black, viscous sap pooled in the dent.

“Hhhuhh” A thin, pained gasp broke the silence.