The Timber King sat dejectedly upon his carved throne. The tree-shaped chair's intricate murals and majestic heaven-piercing branches going unappreciated by it's occupant.
"Just a few minutes more sire, then we can put this whole business behind us for good."
Jean-Paul let out an muffled grunt of annoyance as his steward continued wrapping his liege's jaw in a veritable spiderweb of bandages and gauze. After suffering a few more minutes of this painful embarrassment, Marcel finally relented.
"There, that should suffice for tonight. I've already adjusted tomorrows schedule to include a trip to the healer's, they'll see to your wounds better than I ever could."
The steward delivered the news to his master in an unusually chipper tone, no doubt caused by the little man finally living out his dream of sewing the boorish king's mouth shut, while said boor could only glare and mumble out his orders.
"If you're done over there, then leave. I need rest, and your useless gum-flapping is getting in the way."
Was what Jean-Paul meant to say. What actually came out was a slurred assortment of muffled ramblings, but enough of the message slipped through the thick layers of cloth for the steward to get the hint. With a stiff, mandatory bow the servant took his leave, and the Timber King was left in apparent lonesome.
Finally feeling the bliss of rest overtake him, the monarch relaxed back into his throne and allowed his eyes to seal themselves shut. He stayed like this for a few minutes, letting the trials and tribulations of the day slip away as he focused on the hums and buzzes of the distant forest nightlife.
His mind was stirred by the curious noise of one of his plum colored curtains ruffling in the wind, and the soft yet rapid clicking and clacking of a pair of boots meeting stone.
His eyes bolted awake in realization, but it was already too late. By the time they had shunted themselves open, he could already feel the heel of a boot digging deep into his throat; extinguishing his already muffled cry before it even made it to his lips. There, standing atop his slumped body like a giant-slayer from an old fairy tale: was the Burned Man from the cabin. Kurt Ross' discarded Derringer staring him right in the face, more than ready to finish the job.
Time moved agonizingly slowly as he saw the man's blackened fingertip slowly squeeze the trigger; his clear blue eyes held a passionless fury to them, the same look a shepherd would give a wolf before it was put down for the safety of the herd. The king attempted to scream, if not for help than to at least alert his guards so that they may avenge their sovereign, but the sound of gunfire drowned out his guttural cry.
For the second time Jean-Paul's eyes shot open, his bellows of shock and fear finally escaping his newly freed throat. Within a minute his steward and a small handful of Kingsguard burst through the door, the wig-less steward still rubbing the sleep from his overworked eyes.
"You called for us, sire? Is something the matter?" The servant droned out with poorly disguised disinterest.
The King either didn't notice or didn't care, as he was still stiff in his chair clutching his still racing heart; his mind's eye still locked onto the Burned Man's passionless gaze. The whole encounter had been a dream, no, a nightmare! And yet he knew it held the potential to be so much more.
He attempted to speak, and found his mouth still buried beneath layers of bandages. What had previously been a mere annoyance now served only to remind him of the avenging angel who'd invaded his place of rest.
Ripping the infernal wrappings and clearing his throat, the King gave his decree:
"I want you to break down the door of every printer on this Island and tell them to fire up the presses immediately. I don't care if they're sleeping, drinking, fucking, doesn't matter. Tell them they have twelve, no... FOUR hours to print as many wanted posters as humanly possible or their asses are getting thrown into the Lion's Den."
As the Kingsguard gave an unflinching chorus of "Yessirs!" and marched out of the room to their strange new assignment, Marcel could only give a baffled look as his tiredness was near-instantly replaced with confusion.
""Wanted Posters?" I'm sorry sire, but who exactly are we hunting this time? All your enemies are dead and buried as far as I'm aware."
The manservant gave a wary look at his liege, hoping for his own sake that he hadn't gone mad with paranoia and begun to purge those closest to him.
Jean-Paul glared at the smaller man his mouth slightly agape at his servant's question.
"You mean you didn't see him? Are you blind?"
This only raised Marcel's confusion and annoyance.
"See who, sire? You're going to have to be specific, we're very busy men. I can't be expected to remember every meeting an-"
As Marcel continued on in his monotonous droning, Jean-Paul felt a rumbling growl build in his core, before it burst out of his mouth cutting the manservant off mid-sentence.
"At the cabin you numskull! Don't tell me you didn't see him! He was wrapped in bandages like a damn mummy! His skin was so charred I could still almost catch the scent of cooking, sizzling meat; and his eyes... Gods, so piercing I could nearly feel their indents' pressing down on my skull, and held within was a killing intent I'd only ever seen looking back in a mirror... even now I can-"
The King cut himself off as he saw Marcel's eyes widen in revelation. In that moment, the Steward realized that for the first time in his eight years of unwilling service that Jean-Paul was genuinely, deathly afraid.
'Either he's finally lost it all, or this Burned Man might actually exist...'
Thinking it over, the steward found he couldn't quite figure out which one he'd prefer to be wrong about.
After a moment, the Timber King regained his composure and did his best to fall back onto his Royal duties.
"That enough description for ya? Then get outta my sight... and make sure the printers hear it as well before the posters are finalized, I want everyone to know what they're looking for before sunrise. Got it?"
Marcel gave a swift nod before turning on his heels and hurrying out of the chamber, not wanting to displease the already unstable monarch.
As the steward closed the door behind him, Jean-Paul felt himself deflate slightly as he turned towards the nearest window, his tired brain racing with questions and worries while he waited for the sun to poke it's head above the watery horizon. Who exactly was this man? Where did he come from? Was he hallucinating? Was he even flesh and blood? Or could this be the ghost of Kurtis Ross leaping from the grave to drag the giant down with him?
He let a yawn escape as he pondered the dilemma, his mind still not quite ready to attempt sleep. For fear of the Burned Man invading his respite once more.
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Digging was hard work.
Joshua was no stranger to manual labor, both before and after he began his time in the Legion. But as the years passed and his armies grew, his status rose with them and the labor was mostly given over to a mix of recruits and slaves. He shuddered as he remembered the mass graves the overworked and underfed slaves would dig, and were then subsequently thrown into once their bodies became too broken to be of any more use.
Shaking off the regretful memories, he focused back onto the task at hand as the soot-covered shovel pierced the hard ground once more before throwing the lump of dirt over his shoulder. He repeated this action over, and over, and over again until he stopped to catch his breath.
His body creaked and groaned from the strain as he leaned against a massive oak, yet he couldn't pinpoint if it was due to his injuries, or if this was simply a consequence of living to middle age. No doubt a feat most wastelanders could only dream of. Finding a small rip in his self-applied stitches and a loud pop once he rolled his shoulder; he could only assume a mixture of both.
Still, the end was in sight; only a couple feet left to go and he wasn't entertaining giving up now even if the strain left him blistered and arthritic from head to toe.
'I at least owe him that much...'
Half an hour later Joshua lowered the tarp-swaddled corpse of Kurtis Ross, grabbed the charred spade, and began the process once more. It was sunset by the time he'd pounded the makeshift cross into the fresh grave that now lay before him.
Heaving from the effort, Joshua dropped to his knees. Catching his breath before bringing his twitching blistered palms together and saying a silent prayer for his friend's soul.
'For all the good that'll do...'
The old man thought bitterly, for all he knew this world didn't even have a heaven. Though he knew for certain that it had to have a hell, after all, where else was the Giant-King's soul supposed to slumber once Joshua was through with him? But that was for tomorrow, for today Joshua was content with staying right here until the setting sun had once more been swallowed by the western sea.
Uncorking an ash-covered bottle, Graham brought it's lip to his own and took a swift swig of the foul liquid inside. It tasted horrible, as all moonshine did, but it didn't feel right to just throw it out. Kurt'd offered him some on the last night before his departure, a sort of "Going away present" as the veteran had put it. When Joshua clarified to him that neither chems nor alcohol had ever affected him, the Marine mistook it for bluffing and bluster and declared he'd drink the missionary under the table before midnight.
Joshua had to admit, it had been very amusing watching the soldier's confidence slowly slip into drunken disbelief as the hours went by and the Burned Man remained stone-cold sober. He chuckled to nobody at the memory of Kurtis Ross taking off like a space rocket and denting his ceiling as Graham downed his 49th consecutive shot.
But as that night had passed, so too did this one, and soon Graham was trudging back to the ruins of that once dented cabin under the light of the waning moon, the now empty bottle sitting comfortably on fresh dirt, next to a somber cross.
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Kicking aside any loose rubble Joshua wretched open the creaky, soot-stained cellar doors. Having been the only piece of the cabin not consumed by the inferno, he'd spent part of last night turning it into his own personal war-room, as well as taking stock of the various pickled vegetables, dried meats, and homemade jams Kurt must've stocked up over the years. If he wanted he could live down here comfortably (well, wasteland comfortable anyway) for weeks, maybe even months.
But he wouldn't do that, couldn't really. He hadn't even allowed himself the pleasure of sleep, there was work to be done after all. And so that same night, after stashing both Kurt's body and his singed travel-pack down in the cellar away from both the flames and the wildlife, Joshua had taken off into the shadowy grove in the direction he'd last seen the Goliath wandering. As the flames grew dimmer and dimmer, and his eyes slowly adjusted to the newly darkened forest, Joshua felt a twinge of fear that the Monarch's trail had grown cold before the flames had even been snuffed. A fear that was quickly assuaged when he practically stumbled into the man's ankle-deep boot-print.
Despite himself the former Legate felt a small, hidden smile press itself against his bandages, and he soon fell back onto one of the oldest tactics in the legion's depraved yet varied arsenal: He would let his prey lead him straight to their nest, whereupon he would metaphorically (and literally on some nights) slit their throats as they slept.
As he walked, a small part of him felt pangs of guilt at his readiness to fall back to his old ways. While a larger part of him knew that he was simply the utilizing the right tool for the job, the tactic no more guilty of his past sins than the pistol he still kept holstered at his side, and by far the largest part was simply too full of rage and sorrow to care.
After following the obvious trail for what must've been an hour, Joshua finally came upon a break in the nonstop growth of the mighty wood, and found himself looking out the edge of the treeline overlooking the ramshackle harbor below. Said harbor was surrounded on nearly all sides by a great clearing of trees, providing the most open space he'd seen since his arrival to these strange and terribly wondrous lands. In fact, the only plant life besides the shrubbery were the gargantuan stumps that went on for miles in all directions; almost giving the eerie appearance of an arboreal graveyard.
Shifting back to the task at hand: Joshua began to make a mental map of the harbor's buildings, it's streets, ships in the bay, gates and other various entryways. Even watching for patrols and other common foot-traffic just to gauge likely escape routes and low profile areas in case he was caught on his nightly errands; and of course he couldn't forget that towering mockery of a castle. He watched for hours, shifting up and down the treeline as need be, and even using the stumps as cover to get a closer look, but always being careful never to expose himself for long. He knew he'd locked eyes with the King as he sauntered away from his crimes, but he wasn't sure if he'd be seen as a threat just yet, and his cautious side wasn't eager to find out.
'Tomorrow.'
He decided after the sun had well and truly risen. Committing all he could to memory, Joshua began trudging his way back to the now smoldering embers of Kurt's Cabin.
He still had a grave to dig, after all.
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And so tomorrow came and went, and as night descended upon the raggedy Stolen Log Harbor once more, two of it's humble gate guards got ready to face off their mortal foe once more: Boredom.
The younger one, a man with sandy blond hair and a crossbow, began to take potshots at the birds, bats, or anything else that didn't walk on two legs that came into view. Hell, even the bugs were fair game depending on how monstrously huge they were.
'Especially the bugs...'
The thug shivered at the memory of the shit he'd seen buzzing in the night on some of his other graveyard shifts; so he kept his weapon drawn, and his eyes scanning.
He really wished guards were still issued guns, noise complaints be damned! They hadn't seen the monsters that crawled out from the Deepwood once nightfall came...
While the older one, a bald man with leathery skin and the ghost of a mustache eyed the two wanted posters in front of him. Squinting as he brought the left one closer to his face, before repeating with the right.
"Hey, I think Marc fucked up the one on the right. See! Don't this eye look a little droopier than the other one? Useless bastard..."
Blondie grunted, but didn't respond until he fired the taut crossbow's wooden bolt into the darkness as a bat the size of a small child swooped for some invisible prey; clicking his tongue as his shot went wide.
"Eh, Marc always fucks up the eyes a little, it's his signature or whatever. Besides, cut the dude some slack. I doubt you'd have done half as good a job if you were ripped from your warm, soft bed and had to print a couple hundred posters in your boxers just because your boss started seeing ghosts."
Baldy let out a snort as he looked back at the beige and black headache in his hands. Giving it another read, he found it odd that the rather generous reward was so prominent, while what this guy actually did was nowhere to be seen.
Not like he really cared mind you, he just found it odd that their notoriously stingy ruler would be so generous while also keeping his cards this close to his chest.
"So, you don't think he's real?"
The older man responded after a pregnant pause. While Blondie continued squinting into the darkness. Catching a glimpse of swooping feathers and yellow eyes.
"No idea, but honestly I'm kinda hopin' this dude turns up. Would be a nice break from playing exterminator for another shitty shift, wouldn't mind pocketing that reward either..."
Another glimpse passed, and Blondie let his weapon loose once more. A distant screech told him he'd hit his mark this time as the man-sized owl cratered towards the ground, and he whooped as he ran out into the Stumps to confirm his kill.
Baldy clicked his tongue at the younger man, tired of reminding him that they were to stay at their posts at all times before sighing and rehearsing a reprimand that would undoubtedly be ignored.
After a long minute, the older man's eyebrow began to furrow. After two, he was in the beginnings of a scowl.
'Strange, kid's usually back bragging up a storm by now...'
His thoughts meandered as his feet edged him closer and closer to the darkness of the stump-line.
"Hey kid! You get lost out there? Don't tell me you got your ass kicked by a-"
Was all he got out before a wooden bolt shot from the darkness and lodged itself deep into his throat. As he clawed and pulled at the stake lodged in his jugular, he barely noticed the mummified man stroll causally past him as he began choking on his own blood.
Pulling out his hand-drawn map as if it were a shopping list, Joshua hummed to himself as he got his bearings; easily tuning out the gurgling guard as he collapsed into a pool of his own life essence.
'Where to next...' He pondered. 'If this is Guard Post Gamma, then the weapons depot should be...'
While his mind mapped out a mental route, his eyes trailed down to the discharged crossbow still gripped in his right hand. He thought about bringing it with him, but the pros of a silent weapon were literally outweighed by the already heavy pack on his back. Letting the weapon fall from his hands, the Burned Man saw something at his feet that gave him pause.
Picking it up he found it was a wanted poster for him, a sight he was more than used to, under the name of "The Burned Man".
'So, he already knows I'm coming?' Joshua mused as he cast his eyes to the looming Timber Castle on the horizon.
'Good.'
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His first stop was the main weapons warehouse, easy enough to spot as it was one of the largest buildings still standing in the harbor. In fact, many of the wooden buildings looked dilapidated or run down to Joshua; literally speaking for many of them, as he could still make out the hoof, claw, and bite marks that still lined many of the settlement's walls. Some were even quite recent! It was as if the forest had never stopped it's siege.
Infiltrating had been even easier than spotting it, as was dispatching the lone guard. No, the hardest part came after. Gathering every scrap of explosives and gunpowder he could scrounge up, he was left with a comically large pile of black dust staring at him expectantly as his fingers wrapped themselves around the handle of a lit oil lamp.
All he had to do was let go, to throw it upon the pile and walk away. His distraction would be complete and his hazy, cobbled together scheme would continue unabated.
But that would mean a fire.
Despite himself, memories of The Fall played in front of his eyes; intermingled with images of Kurt's crooked spine, and the blaze that had consumed his home.
The sound of glass shattering and metal crashing was what snapped Joshua awake from his waking nightmare, but what got him moving was the heat radiating from the roaring, sputtering pillar of flame that appeared before him. Fear gripped Graham's heart as he turned on his heels and bolted for the door as fast as his injured body would allow; desperate to escape the demonic flame and the pain it promised. As he gripped his knees, puffing and heaving from a mixture of fatigue and internal panic, Joshua managed a sigh.
It wasn't quite as clean as he'd hoped, but the job was done. As he watched his handiwork rise and spread beyond the warehouse, and heard calls for buckets of water and sand, he quickly disappeared deeper into the settlement.
The night was still young, after all.
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"A fire? What the hell are you yappin' about?"
The mustachioed manager of The Lion's Den questioned.
"The fuck do you think it means Egghead!? Now are you gonna send some of your boys to help fight it, or do you feel like sleeping on an ash pile tonight?" The sooty, ticked off teenager in front of him fired back.
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, the manager got the memo as he poked his head outside the bar/zoo hybrid and saw that even though night had fallen hours ago, it wasn't quite as dark as it should've been.
Sighing at the long night ahead, the manager turned to the small crowd behind him and laid out the plan:
"Alright boys, looks like some idiot threw a cigarette butt somewhere he shouldn't have and the rest of us are paying for it. Now all of you, come with me and don't forget to grab a bucket on your way out."
As the staff moaned, groaned, and shuffled their way out into the flames the manager pointed towards a face in the crowd.
"Lenny! You stay here, somebody needs to watch the animals and make sure nobody raids the bar while we're dealin' with this shit."
Lenny gave his boss a mock salute as he tried to ignore his coworkers jealous eyes burning holes into the back of his head.
"Aye aye skipper, don't gotta tell me twice!"
As the rest the crowd continued to grumble and trudge their way to towards the flames, the young man took a second to sit behind the bar and relax; thankful that he'd been lucky enough to stay behind.
But after a few minutes of silence, relaxing got boring. And with nobody around to play cards with, Lenny defaulted to his second favorite way to pass the time:
Fucking around with the animals.
Every night shift he worked, he and a couple other of the boys would find some new, creative ways to mess with the admittedly impressive menagerie of beasts. Be it spiking their food with laxatives, dumping ice cold water onto them while they slept, or even just dangling some food in front of their cage just outside the limits of their sturdy steel cells
It was technically against the rules, but who really cared? They weren't even the only ones, most of the customers pulled stunts like this all the time; hell, it was one of the main reasons people even bothered coming to this dump!
So, after helping himself to a bottle of beer from the cooler, and making his way over to the newly installed ocelot enclosure, he quickly chugged it before lazily hawking it at the napping feline.
However despite both it's size and resting state, the horse-sized cat quickly snapped awake and swiftly dodged the projectile as it whiffed and shattered against the hard dirt floor.
"Hey! Nice reflexes there kitty, guess they ain't called "cat like" for nothin'. Now all you have to do is avoid the broken glass."
The ocelot gave it's captor a glare and a snarl, before a wrong step caused it to cry out in pain.
"Oops! Too late! Man, glass splinters are a pain in the ass even with thumbs and tweezers, wonder how those oven mitts of yours are gonna fare..."
The thug continued to chuckle to himself as he watched the cat squirm, but the sound of a gunshot from the building's skylight made him turn on his heels and forget the entertainment in front of him.
Up there, he could see a figure cloaked in bandages, but the spiderweb of cracks from the visible bullet hole piercing the roof's window made it hard to discern details. For a moment the two stared at one another, before another gunshot went off and Lenny dove for the cover of a barstool. Then another, then another...
Six in total rang out before the fire stopped, and to Lenny's surprise and relief, they didn't seem to be aimed at him.
No, strangely enough they seemed to be hitting the animal cages instead... But even that wasn't quite right.
'Weird, it's almost like he's aiming for-'
The creaking of steel hinges interrupted his thoughts, but the low guttural growling behind him was all he needed to confirm his bone chilling suspicion.
"The locks..." was all he could mumble out before the panther behind him pounced, swallowing his head in one bite and mercilessly clawing his corpse to shreds.
The rest of the animals soon followed the cat's example, as they all began trashing their previous prison. Some began to fight amongst one another, but most began streaming out into the city from the massive bison-shaped hole one of their comrades had created, eager to continue their rampage and earn the freedom they had been deprived of for so long.
Joshua could only look on in muted satisfaction. His second distraction had gone off without a hitch, and with so much chaos in the port, the Timber King's forces would no doubt have their hands tied; leaving their liege open and vulnerable.
All that was left was to finish what he'd started, and put Kurt's soul to rest.