[Chapter 4, Exiled Lands, Weeks later]
The Cimmerian stares down at the now blood-soaked floor, looking for a way to make it all piece back together. His thoughts no longer…“fit” if that was a way to say it. He could not accurately describe it. He knew he was not himself. His mind was not always his own. The mead helped, it distracted him for a time and if he drank enough…he sometimes even slept.
When he did sleep, it was always the same nightmare…He saw her thrown from a cliff. He saw her run through with a sword. The fire… the pack of hyena’s… the cannibals…
…So many deaths…over and over again… always he found her…always she died.
He takes a mug from the bar and takes a drink, longer than the last, trying to fill the cracks in his soul with the wretched liquid. He did not understand…that night he had set out to kill a demon and had done so!
But now…this.
He slowly looked up at the rage filled face of the tavern owner and his shocked patrons, his eyes filled with questions, madness and fear…
[The night before]
The thunder of the horse’s hooves shattered the silence as the steed and his warrior charged through the night. The man and beast became one as they hurtled through the black jungle with a blacker purpose.
This was not alcohol swaying a man’s passion. This was not murderous intent. This was something deeper…more sinister. This stank of demons.
The rage that broiled in his heart could be felt like a hot wind as the man and beast raced along the dark and narrow trail. Magic broiled around the man and mount. In his deepest mind, he screamed to himself to stop, but the magical rage only laughed at his impotence. He knew that laughter…it was Crom’s laughter. It was always there, ever since the day he lost her…every time she died…he laughed.
He always laughed.
The enraged warrior entered a clearing. Fog rolled across the jungle floor, the moonlight beamed down from a starry sky, giving the fog an iridescent glow.
The warrior dismounted the sweat soaked horse, smoothly drawing his axe and shield as he did.
“DERKETO!!!”
“DERKETO, I HAVE COME FOR YOU!!!”
The Cimmerian roared into the thick jungle. He banged his axe on his shield and stomped his feet on the ground.
“DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRKKKKKKEEEEEEEEETTTTTOOOOOOOO!!!”
He raged into the night with an almost inhuman howl. In an instant, the living jungle became as silent as a tomb. Zarkon hears only his blood thundering through his veins. His vision blurs with a violent red hue, the need for battle is all that consumes his conscious thought.
but…be wary warrior…
something wicked this way comes…
[CHAPTER 5]
The thick jungle foliage suddenly gives way to a true demon of the night. A massive black panther of unholy origin slithers out of the darkness and on to the moonlit clearing. Its burning red eyes illuminate the fog that flows slowly into the clearing. The earth smolders and rots wherever the beast lays its clawed feet, death following wherever the vile creature treads.
The putrid smell of feces and rotting flesh permeates the jungle as the demon nears its quarry. It stalks forward, coiling up with wrath and venom and hate, eyeing the barbarian with an unholy wickedness and preparing to devour him utterly. It opens its massive maw to reveal rows of razor sharp, massive teeth. Its breath rancid and cold and soulless. It shrieks into the night with an unholy tenor and tenses to launch into the barbarian.
Zarkon charges in first! Not allowing the creature time to act, with his shield raised and axe overhead he races towards the fell creature, roaring the ear-splitting battle-cry of the north as he charges into battle…
[The next day]
He rode slowly back to the beach-side tavern to present his promised prize to the tavern wench…the head of Derketo, the seductress demon in her true demonic form.
The tavern wench, a beautiful(ish) young nordheimer, had mentioned, JOKINGLY, to the barbarian that “Derketo ruled her life and she was now her slave!” in an attempt to get into his pants (a girl has to work). Upon hearing this however, the very drunk Cimmerian exploded from his chair, stole a mug from the bar, downed the entire beverage and left exclaiming that “No demon will enslave a such an innocent and beautiful flower!” and then that “This demon will be dead by sunrise, we will mount the head in your honor!” in a such a slurred and inebriated manner, that no one really understood what he actually said as he rode away in great haste!
It had taken Zarkon hours of bloody, tiring work to saw off the demon’s head, most people did not realize the kind of effort that went into taking such a trophy. Demonic hide and sinew were tough, the bone was tougher still, but the wench was going to love it! The task was a worthy one, and he smiled as he pictured the head of Derketo hanging as a prize above the bar of his favorite tavern.
He smirked at his thoughts, it felt good to kill demons, to do good again…it helped him to feel whole once more, like his old self. He smiled inwardly (Not outwardly, Cimmerians never do that) as he rode on.
The sun lazily climbs the sky and the vast ocean to the east rises and falls in a swirl of radiant colors. The world comes slowly to life. The barbarian rides happily on towards his destination…
The demon-slayer rounded the bend and the tavern came into sight. He approached the front entrance and dismounted, carrying the sack that held the massive bloody head. The smell was horrific. While animated, demons smelled wretched, but in death…it was something else altogether. None the less, he would present the great prize to her and win her unending affections, the two would swirl together in a mixture of passion and ecstasy.
He would mount the unholy head above the bar himself with nails of silver and recount the tale of his battle to throngs of fans from across the land as they came to marvel at the wonder!
As he walked into the bar, the dancer closest to the door doubled over retching at the horrible smell. An invisible tidal wave of disgusting odor slams into the patrons and workers of the bar alike as the ocean breeze follows the returning champion into the tavern. People lurched from their seats and raced for the door. Several people vomit as they run, unable to hold back against the stench and leaving trails of bile and slime among the overturned tables and chairs as they fled.
Zarkon threw the sack on the ground, and announces to the speechless tavern wench, “I present you my lady, with the head of Derketo.” and then spilled the contents out on to the floor.
The head rolls to her feet. The great tongue lolled to the side as the dead eyes roll back into its sockets in a strange cross-eyed way…blood begins seeping out of the severed head, pooling at Zarkon’s feet and quickly spreading across the floorboards. The few patrons left in the bar gasped at the sight, Zarkon himself was the most stunned of all.
Sitting on the floor was not the head of a great panther-demon…but that of a horse, freshly killed. He stares in disbelief and agony as the blood continues to cover the tavern floor.
One seemingly drunk old man in the back, apparently unaffected by the smell, begins to cackle in laughter. He stands up, laughing harder still and walks out the door. Unknown and unseen by Zarkon and the rest of the stunned crowd, the old man dissolves into thin air, continuing to cackle as he fades into nothingness.
The gods are cruel.
. You wrote this? Awesome.