The Death of Ascheriit
A/N: Übel Blatt and all associated characters (especially Köinzell, darn it), not mine. Just playing a little with some of the hints of backstory in Vol. 0. Meaning this may well be jossed before the end of the manga. If so, ah well, this was fun anyway. ;) M-rated, like the manga; this is a gruesome little bunny, yes.
Fall, 3972 A.D.
I'll kill them. I swear I'll kill them.
His vision was a red haze; no surprise, given one of the last things he clearly remembered was that tearing pain and emptiness as Glenn had torn out his eye. The real surprise was that he could see anything at all. If the fall into the gorge hadn't killed him, the loss of blood from severed limbs and tortured flesh should have.
But he was still breathing, though who knew for how long. The taste of blood was thick and warm in his mouth. And... oddly sweet.
He swallowed, feeling chewed raw flesh twitch as it slid down his throat. Was I... fighting someone else?
He didn't remember getting close enough to any of the Seven to bite them. Granted, things had been... less than clear, at the end. But they'd been afraid of him, he remembered that. That was why Glenn had taken his eye, and Schtemwölech had taken his arm, and-
He was breathing too fast. Had to stop that. Slow the heartbeat, slow the bleeding. Only chance he had.
What chance? No cautery, no tourniquet; no way to get leverage on one if I had it. I'm going to die here. I should already be dead.
He bent his head into the scent of still-warm blood, and tore off another slippery hunk of muscle. Meat was food; food was life. He wasn't dead yet.
They betrayed us.
They murdered us.
They left me last, they made it slow, I have to live to kill them-
He was tearing at the flesh below him like a starved madman. Fair enough; he was mad. Facing the enemies of the Empire hadn't been enough to shatter his mind, but what their comrades had done, even the Emperor's own-
He had a sudden desire to sneeze.
What the...?
Feathers. Tickling his nose, snared by that sharp indrawn breath. Reflex moved an arm to scratch at it. Only there was no arm, only a stump still sluggishly bleeding-
No. Had bled. The blood was just slightly darker. Drying.
Impossible. Wounds like that don't close on their own, they don't-
And another breath had drawn a silvery feather back against his nose. He wrinkled it not to sneeze. What kind of bird had he been eating-?
Not a bird.
Clouds were playing hide and seek with the moons, but a little light shone through.
Not a bird at all.
Staring at the bones and feathers of a fairy's wing, Ascheriit started screaming.
I have to live.
The maimed swordsman blinked at the dawn, throat raw from more than screaming. Turned out fairy flesh didn't want to stay eaten. Who knew?
He'd wrestled it back down, somehow. The harm was already done. Whatever he'd... killed...
Devoured. In an insane frenzy. Like a beast. Worse than a beast.
The fairy was already dead. And horrible as the thought was, he was currently out of other options. He could barely move, much less hunt. If he was going to heal at all, he had to have... food.
I'm probably going to die here. But I have to try. I have to live long enough to tell someone-
High in blue skies, two thin curves of snow caught his eye.
It's day, but the moons are up.
...They're pretty.
For a moment there was no horror. No war. Just the faint touch of moonlight, like a cool cloth on a fever.
This... isn't so bad...
In his gut, something twitched.
Oh great. It's trying to escape again. Nerving himself, Ascheriit glanced at the bloody mess where his gut had been.
The good news was, there didn't seem to be any more blood. Somehow, the gaping hole had pulled mostly closed, only a few raw edges still red as a dry wound.
The bad news was... those raw edges were moving.
What the hell is happening?
Though damn every one of those seven to all the hells, he knew what it looked like.
Wischtech sorcery!
The Land of Shadows used elvish and fairy blood - and worse things - to spellcraft ordinary humans into curse-bound monsters. He'd met his first defending Meister Ludift when he was twelve. He'd fought and given mercy to all too many others since.
No one enspelled me, there's no curse nodes - I won't be a monster! I won't!
The writhing in what had been severed limbs said otherwise. Ascheriit closed his eye, and prayed.
If I heal enough to move, let me heal enough to die.
He didn't at all have the confidence that he would. It took a phenomenal will for Wischtech victims to fight the cursed urges. About the only thing that might save people when the murderous rage drowned him was the simple fact that there weren't any here.
Teeth clenched against the urge to scream, Ascheriit waited.
...And waited.
Grimaced, as the sun rose higher and stung his face.
I'm thirsty.
He could still feel writhing where limbs had been, but his gut seemed to have calmed. He even felt... hungry. Not for meat. Bread. A sweet pie. Even the tooth-breaking hardtack of trail rations.
No curse pulling at him. No slavish thirst for human blood. Just his own numb, exhausted fear.
...And the oddest sense that as long as there was moonlight, nothing could be too terribly wrong.
Dazed, Ascheriit opened his eye.
The moons pull on water. Follow the moonlight. Find water.
It shouldn't have made a difference. Sunlight was far brighter than any moon. Yet he almost thought he saw a faint glow where light brushed the leaves.
If I'm not murdering people, then - then I need to live.
Water.
He was not looking too closely at the unnatural flesh sealing his wounds. He could crawl. That was enough.
Seep spring, Ascheriit concluded, looking at the tiny bubbles where the water sheeted out from the sandy side of the gorge. Water should be safe.
The water tasted like sand, wet leaves, a hint of pine from a sprig of needles that floated by. Not like blood at all. Ascheriit drank down as much as he could, letting the cool liquid soothe his aching throat.
Water is good. Water doesn't come with a person attached.
Caught by a glimmer of white, Ascheriit stared.
Seep springs still flowed, if slowly. And it was shadowy here. He couldn't see much of a reflection.
More than enough.
Black hair had bleached to unnatural white, straggling over his face. His eyes... well, one was still there, even if the shadowed color looked off. The other didn't look as bad as it probably should. The torn eyelid seemed to have sealed itself over the socket, and from what he knew of battle-wounds, that was likely the best outcome he could hope for. An open eye-socket was just asking for infection to set in, and his head was messed up enough without adding delirium to the pile.
I wish I were delirious. If this were just some fever-dream-
Wishes wouldn't fix this. Wishes never fixed anything.
Deliberately, Ascheriit glanced at what had been his right arm. At least it's not bleeding.
From the writhing, he'd halfway expected tentacles. Plenty of Wischtech creatures had tentacles. Or worse.
But there was just a lumpy end where the wound had been. The skin was pale, scar-shiny, with a few goose-prickles like a plucked chicken. But that was it. It didn't look natural... yet it didn't look like Wischtech either.
If it's not Wischtech, what happened to me?
Pale skin. Fairy-pale. With bumps that looked like they could have held feathers.
I... ate a fairy. And that looks like...
No. Think about surviving. I've got a water source. Now I need to find some shelter, and think about food-
The world whirled suddenly, exhaustion crushing down like a giant's hand.
The moons are setting.
How do I know that?
Fighting the dizziness, Ascheriit crawled up from the spring to drier ground. There. A hollow near a tree, where last fall's leaves had gathered. It might be enough cover to save him from hypothermia-
Blackness dragged him under.
Dear gods, please don't let me eat anyone else...
Something tickled across his face, like feet made of feathers.
About to yawn and stretch, Ascheriit froze, eye to beady eight eyes of the owner of those tickling feet. Spider. Big spider. Go eat a bird sized spider. "Get off me!"
So his voice squeaked. He'd defy Güsstav not to squeak when she had a godsdamned huge spider feeling up her face-
Güsstav is dead.
And the spider was retreating. Fortunately. He didn't think he'd be a match for it right now. Ascheriit blew out a relieved breath, and brought up a hand to wipe strands of web off his face-
Froze, at the touch of flesh on flesh.
Not a hand. Exactly.
The wounded stump had lengthened, sprouting nubs as tiny as kitten toes.
That's... different.
He ought to look at his other limbs. But he couldn't quite find the courage.
Check the gut wound first anyway. If that goes south, nothing else will make a difference.
The skin there seemed to have drawn together as well, leaving a faint scar. There was a more ragged gash of flesh under his torn tunic, near his heart. That one was shocking; he couldn't even remember who might have stabbed him there...
Why does my tunic look so long?
The cloth should have reached to mid-thigh. Now - it wasn't easy to be sure, but fabric flapped loose around him almost to his knees.
Wischtech victims don't shrink, Ascheriit thought, stunned. They grow extra limbs; they grow monstrous and huge from dark magic. They don't shrink!
No curse-nodes. No horrific urges to maim and slaughter everything that moved. And he hadn't eaten anyone else in his sleep.
Maybe... maybe this isn't Wischtech.
If it wasn't, he had no clue what it might be. But so far it looked like his survival wasn't going to lead to the mass slaughter of innocent people. So he'd better keep on surviving.
Going to be a little tricky if I can't even cinch my pants up.
First things first. More water, while he still had the energy to move. And then he needed to think.
I was out for days?
He'd quenched his thirst first; his throat had been desert-dry after he'd gotten moving. But afterward Ascheriit had taken the time to look at his old trail and his new one, checking how dirt had crumbled and other small beasts' tracks had mingled with his own.
No question about it. Between how soil and leaf-mold had dried and the number of overlapping tracks, he'd slept through at least two days. Possibly more.
Well. I guess I needed it.
Tunic wrapped around him as well as he could manage, Ascheriit sat on a log by the spring and shivered. He'd been helpless and unaware for days. Anything could have happened.
Not that I could have done much if I'd been awake, the swordsman thought bleakly. Even if it doesn't hurt, I'm still crippled.
...It doesn't hurt.
Ascheriit took a deep breath, paying attention to the rise and fall of now-thinner ribs. Healing flesh twinged. But more like wounds weeks old, instead of days.
I'm healing. That - what I ate-
He had to shy away from thinking of it too clearly. There was a fine line between sanity and madness on the battlefield, and he had a gnawing suspicion he might have already lurched across it.
But I am healing. I might live.
Now what do I do?
Good question. It was heading into autumn. So far the nights weren't cold enough that he'd frozen. Yet. That wouldn't last.
There's no village this close to the Forest of Death, and I'm in no shape to move far, Ascheriit thought. I need to find some better shelter nearby.
Then he'd need to find food. At least he hadn't lost his knack for foraging on this crazy mission. If he had a few hours awake, he was sure he could find something.
As long as something else doesn't find me first.
His breath quickened, as that same blue-black spider waved too many legs from the slope above. And it wasn't alone.
A fairy!
A tiny, dragonfly-winged girl, not at all like the feathered creature he'd devoured. But the anger in blazing green eyes was unmistakable. As was the threat from the needle-sharp dart strung on her tiny bow, tip glistening black.
Poisoned. Well, at her size, I can't blame her. "I'm... sorry," Ascheriit got out.
At least my voice is still mine. Mostly.
"I wasn't aware of what I was doing," the swordsman went on. "I know that's no excuse. You may seek vengeance on me, and you have that right. But," he had to swallow, as that tiny dart held a steady bead on his throat. "But the ones who hurt me murdered my friends. I swore I would have revenge." He stared back at her, determined to cling to that much. "If I live, I'm going to find them. And kill them. Then... then you can take whatever vengeance you need."
The dart didn't move.
Does she even speak a human language? She's smart, very smart; too far away for me to grab her, close enough that I won't dodge easily. With that venom, even a scratch might be fatal.
Krentel would love to see this.
The thought of the mage brought tears to his eye. Krentel would have been amazed. He would have asked questions. He would have taken notes until even the spider stared. And it hurt. It hurt that he'd never hear those questions again.
The bow lowered.
What?
The poison dart went back into a tiny quiver. The bow was slung, but not unstrung, across her shoulder. The little fairy held up one hand at a time, empty.
"You want a truce?" Ascheriit ventured. "Small lady of the forest, I'd like nothing better. I... I'm very tired. And confused."
Still silent, she flew over to him, hovering in front of his good eye. Stared deep into it, and landed on his shoulder.
Careful not to jar her, Ascheriit turned to face her.
Nodding, she put a hand against his cheek. It was small, and warm, and prickled like silk rubbed on wool.
Magic. What is she doing?
She'd asked for a truce. So long as nothing hurt, he'd let her have one.
The moons are up again. I'll have the strength to do something if I have to...
Like a whisper in the wind, he felt grief and pain. Not his own, still raw-edged with betrayal. This was wilder, wreathed about with curiosity like a plaited thorn-vine. And oddly delicate with worry, like mouse whiskers tickling his ear.
What's going on?
Small fingers brushed at a tear. The fairy brought her fingers to her nose, as if scenting the truth of his grief.
Shaking salt water away, the fairy reached up and hugged his cheek.
Grief-to-grief. Sorrow. Watchfulness.
Shaken, Ascheriit watched her dip her head in a nod, and launch into the air. In a blur of wings, she was gone.
The swordsman eyed the spider, still watching him from up the slope. "I have the oddest feeling I'm on parole."
Well. If he wasn't going to die yet, he'd better get to work on finding shelter.
A/N: It's canon that Köinzell can recover from dismemberment. Which gave me the odd idea that instead of Ascheriit killing and eating a fairy with just his teeth, a ruthless passing fairy healer with a grudge against Wischtech might have deliberately cut off some pieces of itself, let the moonlight heal them, and left. Given fairy grafts appear to overgrow most of the unfortunate victims, it's possible eating the flesh might have been necessary to allow a safer integration. Not that this would change anything in canon, given Ascheriit wouldn't know - but it seems a little more likely.