Chaotic belongs to TCDigital.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Knight

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Before he passed, Grakak's husband had warned her about a monster in the tunnels. A beast, unlike anything he had seen before. It had made its lair in the tunnels north of the village, not even an hour's walk away. No sane creature would dare challenge the thing.

I doubt it says anything good about my sanity that I am not only heading out to meet the beast but that I'm also bringing the Human.

"You're a paladin," Nicolas sudden says.

I know the word and its meaning, but I am playing the fool for now. "A what?"

"Like a magic knight or something," Nicolas continues. "A holy warrior."

I glance down at the Human making an effort to keep pace with me. He's replaced his stolen clothing with a blanket, wrapped around his body in a strange sort of toga. Strips of cloth are wrapped around his feet like shoes, as well.

"What makes you say that?" I ask, more to fill the time as we walk than out of any sort of interest.

Nicolas points to the side of his head. "You have a voice in your helmet that comes from someone you called God. His voice plus whatever is going on around him." He puts his arms out in front of him and flexes his hands. "Your gauntlets are larger than your actual hands, and the fingers move using some kind of magic instead of being moved physically." Then he gestures at my armor. "Plus the whole iconography of your armor and the symbol on your loincloth. It all screams 'dark paladin'."

There's a lot to digest in the Human's words. "How did you discover how my gauntlets function?"

The Human's face goes a little red. "I, er, tried it on last night. Before your helmet woke you up."

I grunt and return my gaze to the road ahead. "No harm done, I guess. As for the voice, I called him a god, not that I said his name was 'God'."

I see the Human shrug in the corner of my vision. "Capital G, lowercase g, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. The point is that you hear a divine voice."

I roll my eyes. No point in arguing. "Finally, it's a scapular cloth, not a loincloth."

Nicolas raises an eyebrow. "A scapular cloth is an apron-like thing that hangs from the shoulders and drops down the front and the back. Yours is a sheet of thick cloth that just covers your dick. It's attached to the bottom of your armor, it doesn't go all the way up to your shoulders. Loincloth."

That's... interesting.

The Human's eyebrows pinch together, and he gives me a strange look. "That's a strange mistake to make, actually. Like you made a quick Internet search for the name and just picked the first thing you came across."

This conversation is getting dangerous. I need to distract him.

"You are quite observant." I look down at Nicolas, widen one eye, and shut the other halfway so that the glow of my eyes coming from the visor of my helmet mimics the expression of an eyebrow raised. "And here I was thinking that your staring at my body was with lustful intentions."

The Human jolts a little, and his face goes red again. "What? No! Ew!" He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "No, that's gay. I'm not gay. Nope." He falls silent and avoids my gaze.

It isn't long before he speaks up again. "Do you have a squire?"

The question takes me by surprise. "What?"

"A squire, or an apprentice?"

"I know the term," I snap. "No, I do not."

"Ah." Nicolas presses his lips together. "Are you looking for one?"

I don't answer with words. I simply give the Human an incredulous stare.

"I want to get stronger," Nicolas explains. "I want to learn how to fight. I might be stuck in Hell, but if I don't have to just suffer through it, if I can actually do something with my new life..." He forces his face into an expression of stern resolution. "Maybe I can be a knight like you."

"No," I state with as much finality as I can muster. "I am taking you to safer lands when I can, not dragging you around so you can live out some knighthood fantasy."

"I could start off as a page!" Nicolas insists. "Help you with your armor, your horse- er, steed, take care of your weapons-"

I turn to the Human suddenly and roar, "Silence!"

Nicolas trips, hits the ground, and scrambles backward. His face has gone white.

I step forward so I'm looming over the Human. "My brothers and I are the Red Hand. Our predecessors were hand-picked by Kiru himself to act as his personal warriors. For centuries we have done as the King of the UnderWorld commanded, only changing allegiances when another proved himself a more worthy ruler of Perim."

Nicolas is pressed against the wall of the tunnel, wide-eyed and shaking. "Be- be-"

I slam a hand against the wall near the Human. I'm crouched over him now. I can smell the terror in his breath. "Do not mock me with frivolous demands to join us, Human. Ours is a life fraught with danger. We work hard, we train harder. We craft our armor and weapons with our own hands. Our life is not one for a Human who isn't prepared for it."

"Behind you..."

I freeze, then take a deep breath. I reach into my chest with my mind, and I pour my consciousness out into the earth and stone around me.

Soft footfalls. The vibrations of each step are so small, so weak. Tap, tap, tap. Several feet behind me. Too far to strike at.

I close my eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. In my core lies the spark of power. Fill it, prime it, hold it.

The vibrations pause. Then a wave of force. A leap. A pounce. One second. Two seconds.

I turn and swing an arm, fist clenched. Metal strikes flesh, and a blur of muscle and fur sprawls sideways.

"Get behind me!" I shout, and I hear Nicolas scramble.

The creature flips to its feet and glowers at me. Large, muscular limbs, each ending in paws and sharp claws. Tusks sprout from its mouth. Its eyes glow a soft white. Spikes of bone protrude from the beast's shoulders. Its fur is red like rusted blood. Its tail swished back and forth.

The creature's mouth opens. "Meat hit us. Meat sees us."

I hear Nicolas whisper, "Oh my God, it talks."

The creature starts to circle the Human and me, and I follow it, keeping myself between it and the Human.

"So hungry," the creature spits. "Not hungry enough. Large meat protects small meat. Find other meat." Its circling begins to take it further away.

I can't let it leave. I need to deliver this beast's head to Grakak. "Coward!" I call out to it. "You are weak!"

"Meat taunts us," the beast mutters. "Tricky meat. Meat wants fight. So hungry." A long pause. "Not hungry enough."

I feel Nicolas's hand on my back. "Use me as bait," he whispers.

I had been struggling with that same thought. "If I am not fast enough, you die," I whisper back.

I cannot see the Human's face, but I can feel his hand tense up. "Isn't using me as bait why you brought me along anyway?"

I don't answer. Instead, I take a deep breath, then step aside.

The beast pauses. It looks at Nicolas, then at me. Nicolas lets out a loud whimper. Forced. Trying to sound weak.

The beast huffs. "Tricky small meat. Big meat wants fight. So hungry. Not hungry enough." It begins moving further away.

I grit my teeth. If I chase it, it will run, faster than I can. If I let it go, it might catch me by surprise again, and I might not have a warning the next time. I cannot make it to UnderWorld City in time on foot. I need Grakak's vehicle.

There's a sudden sound of a falling stream of water, and the beast freezes. I steal a glance at the sound. Nicolas is standing now. He's lifting his makeshift robes with one hand and holding himself with the other. He's... urinating.

"Big cat runs," Nicolas says, his voice shaking a little. "Big cat scared. Big cat's home now mine."

The beast bares its fangs and hisses. "Tricky small meat." It doesn't move, doesn't approach. "Small meat weak. Home is ours."

I understand. I take a step forward. "Small meat weak," I say, staring at the beast. I pull aside my scapular- ugh- my loincloth, and I wrap my fingers around my flesh and lift it. "Small meat runs. Mark home. Home is ours."

The beast snarls, and it pounces, claws outstretched. I let go of myself and raise my arms to meet it.

We collide. I fall backward, the weight of the creature more than I'd thought. My hands are on its face, its claws slide across my armor, across my skin. I try to squeeze, to crack its skull. It shakes its head free and bites at my helmet. One long tusk slides through my visor, stopping near my eyes.

I scramble for a grip on the beast's body. Its fur is slick, its muscles firm. I can't find a handhold. The beast's hind legs kick at my stomach, claws scraping down the metal and catching on cloth below. Whirling fur, hot breath, snarls and hisses. A slight pain as a claw manages to penetrate the skin on my leg.

A choking sound. The beast leaps off me. I gasp for breath and sit up.

Nicolas is on the creature's back, legs clinging to its sides, arms around its neck. It leaps and flails, rolls and squirms, trying to shake him off. He doesn't let go. A battle-cry, or maybe a scream, erupts from his lungs.

I rise up to assist. Or I try. My knee screams out with pain as I put pressure on it, and I collapse sideways.

The Human squeezes his arms tight and bellows like a maniac. The beast's flailing is slowing. It stumbles and falls sideways, legs kicking out. Its eyes are wide and rolling upwards.

Soon the beast is still. Nicolas holds on a while longer, looking around. He releases his grip on the beast and scrambles to a large rock. He lifts it up, staggers to the beast, and throws the rock down on its head. The beast's body spasms as the stone strikes it. The Human lifts the rock again, and he screams as he throws it back down, over and over.

After a couple minutes, the Human stops. He hunches over and puts his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. "Holy shit..." he gasps.

Part of me wants to scold him for putting his life in danger. I could have handled it. Could I have? Yes, I could have. I would have more injuries, but, in the end, I would have succeeded. The Human's involvement was unneeded. Another part of me, a stronger part, keeps me seated as I stare in awe at his victory. Awe and something more. That savagery, that primal rage. My heart pounds, my groin aches. It was beautiful.

Nicolas looks at me. "What do you think?" he grins between breaths. He glances down away from my face. "Ah. Um, I guess you liked that." He looks around, then lowers his head as he points to my right. "It's over there."

I look to where he's pointing. A cloth lying on the ground. My loincloth. Of course, it would have been torn away when the beast kicked and scratched at me with its hind legs. After reattaching my loincloth, I limp to the beast's corpse and hoist it onto my right shoulder, held in place by the spike on my pauldron.

"This changes nothing," I state as I turn away. "My answer is still no."

Nicolas scoffs in disbelief and rushes up to match my pace. "What the hell, man? I know you were impressed. You literally have a foot-long boner right now from watching me kill that thing!"

I make a futile attempt to drape my loincloth back over myself before quickening my pace. I do not answer Nicolas's indignant outrage as I hurry back to the village.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Chaotic belongs to TCDigital.