Prompt Fourteen
The Fallen
(Season 2)
"This is the place sire."
Gunmar the Black looked away from the sky. "There are no stars above the city."
Otto inclined his front worshipfully. So much fawning and scraping. Gunmar thought it would be amusing to see him die. Perhaps one could fill his place with less bootlicking, one with real fealty. "The lights of the city outshine them my lord. There would be many if we were in the countryside where humans have fewer lights."
Gunmar looked down again. The canal was empty, silent, and clean. "My son died here."
Otto licked his lips. "He died valiantly, seeking your liberation."
"He was killed by a human whelp." Gunmar knelt in the place where Otto said Bular had fallen, pierced by the human Trollhunter and shattered by his former general. Night was welcome, dark, and Gunmar did not look away from the ground. "Leave me. I will call when I need you."
With only a moment's hesitation – perhaps he did have the sense the Pale Lady gave a changeling – Otto hurried to the other side of the canal, looking around nervously. But Gunmar knew there were no humans near. They made noise where they were, they brought lights. They tried to drive back the dark, not just in vision but in sound. They were afraid of solitude, of silence.
"You were killed," Gunmar said at last, "by a human babe. I am ashamed of this. I am ashamed to have brought such a weakling into this world. And I am ashamed to have reared you so weakly. But you were loyal to me, my son. In all things, in all ways, you were loyal. All your effort was for me. And for that I will remember it."
He put a hand flat on the ground. This was where the stone pieces had fallen. "In your last moment you struck, trying to damage our enemies with all you had left. In death you did not falter, and I know at least that you were brave. Foolish and brave. Know that I will rend the krubera limb from limb and feed him to the hordes of my warriors. He too will know the agony of being broken. He is a traitor to the cause and will suffer a traitor's death."
Claws digging into the stone – cement, he thought was the word – created tiny cracks. "As for the Trollhunter…I wanted to break him but it did not work. He had too many followers and they freed him, and in doing so I was freed. But for the role he played in your death, I will exact suffering from him. I will deny him the peace of death. He will be tortured before I use the Decimar Blade against him. He will flay his friends' flesh and stone from their bones, cut them asunder, and I will release him only after he is soaked in their blood." Gunmar cracked the ground, digging up a fist of cement. "I will eat him then. Only once he has known suffering ten times what you felt will he die. There shall never again be a word spoken of the 'Bular-Slayer.'"
He lifted the cement and held it to his mouth, breathing over it. "You were weak, but you were my son. And I will honor your sacrifice. Bular." Gunmar inclined his head, resting his horns against the broken cement. "Where you are, I hope there are black nights filled with stars."
The crumbled cement fell from his hand. He stood, gazing at the broken place he had created. "Let us go Otto. The sun will rise soon."
"Of course sire. Right away." Otto hurried to his side and Gunmar led the way back to the truck they had come in. He climbed into the back and pulled down the shutter, sealing himself into utter darkness. After a few moments there came the sound of the ignition, the engine, the growl of the exhaust tank. The truck moved steadily, the rush of ground a soothing rumble.
He kept a single piece of cement, tucked into his palm securely. No doubt the trolls of the market had disposed of his son's remains in an ignoble way. So for all intents and purposes, this represented his son.
Gunmar did not love in the sense that a father should. But even a Gumm-Gumm warlord could grieve, if just a little, for the fallen.
End of Prompt Fourteen