Professor S
09-25-2002, 08:35 PM
Fable Fan Fic
It had been 20 years. 20 very long years since I had set foot in Wyseth Port in my misspent youth. Back in those heady times I thought the way to revenge was power, and power was gained through fear. That is true to a point. Fear does grant power, but only temporarily and eventually to your downfall. Power through fear is without honor, and without honor you have no allies. Without allies you will fall.
It doesn’t matter how strong you are, or how smart. You will fall because there will be another younger, stronger you who has learned from your actions right behind you. I met him once. I do not want to meet him again.
The town of Wyseth Port is as old as it is beautiful, and I bring ugliness back to it. My scars, greying kinked beard and hair and worn cloak contrast the cobbled streets and blooming window baskets that line the shoppes of the square. In the center stood the stone well, like a great golem staring at me, reminding me that I can’t escape the past.
“Please, dear God don’t. We will give you anything you want.” Screamed the old woman as I dangled her child by the ankle over the dark, gaping maw of the well. The scrambling child knocked several stones from the ledge in her tantrums and they resonated from the abyss. Her other child, a small boy, clung to her leg.
“What will you give me?” I laughed. “My father back, or perhaps my mother? Or will you raise my DOG from the DEAD? Shut up you stupid whore! I gave you your chance, but you decided to ignore me.”
“What will this prove?” Wheezed a grizzled voice from behind me. “Put the child down, she has done nothing to you. This makes no sense.”
I wheeled around, smashing the girl’s crimson colored head into the stone walls of the well. “The world does not make sense, old man. For instance, does this make sense?”
With that said I flicked the girl into the well, unsheathed my sword and cut the mother in two from shoulder to hip. The crowd that had begun to gather around jumped back in horror. I liked that reaction, it meant I had gotten their attention. The little boy just fell to his bottom, covered in his mother’s blood.
“Now old man, that didn’t make sense yet it happened.” I chuckled as I cleaned the woman’s blood from my sword with his shirt and sheathed it. “Perhaps now you will show me something that DOES make sense. Well old man? I’m standing right here in front of you.”
Looking down I noticed a dagger in his belt. I grabbed his hand and firmly placed the dagger in it. “Well, come one then. KILL ME.”
The crowd began to yell for him to strike, but I just looked at him and laughed. He was just a pathetic old man. Maybe one day many years ago he would have made a move, but he was old and wise enough to see the writing on the wall. Snatching the dagger from him I put it to his throat
“Ha, you’re not even worth the effort.” I said while tucking the dagger in my belt and started to walk towards the Inn, back turned to the outraged townsfolk. “If anyone attempts anything foolish tonight like killing me, I will kill you and every child in this town, and then burn it down. Perhaps tomorrow you will all learn from this an greet my questions with answers, and not snide remarks.”
I rushed past the well trying to avert my eyes, but its stare followed me like an oil portrait. That poor girls bones probably still lay in there. No amount of rain could wash her mother’s blood from the cobbles by it. Throwing my hood over my head I quickly made my way through the square. I could feel the townsfolk’s eyes on me, searching their minds for the vague memories of the last time an outsider ventured into their hamlet.
I don’t know why I came back. There was really no reason. The men that killed my family are long dead, their ashes I made into my breakfast tea. As I consumed the tea over the ensuing months, so did I consume my anger. Once the anger was gone, it uncovered my guilt. My guilt from the methods I used to gain my revenge. They were darker times, or was a just a darker man?
“Excuse me.” Said a man that bumped into while trying to hide my face, “I’m sorry, are you ok?
I nodded under my hood and quickly tried to get away.
“Sir, you look tired and lost, let me help you.” Said the man as he chased after me, “Sir please, we here at Wyseth Port are known for our hospitality. Let me help you.”
With that he put his arm around me and led me to the Turk’s Head Inn. I looked up and saw a tall boy, in his mid to late twenties, with shock of red hair on his head. I was DAMNED.
The boy opened the familiar heavy oak door and we were licked by firelight and the smell of freshly roasted pig flesh.
“Here, sit down old one. You look absolutely exhausted.” He chuckled. I tried to keep my face as covered as possible as he sat me down in the biggest, most padded chair in the room. I had never been more uncomfortable. The barmaid approached; with the exception of a few age lines she looked as beautiful as she did 20 years ago.
“So what would you like, gents?” She said in her think cockney.
“More pig, and keep the ale coming, bar whore.” I choked through a mouthful of meat and bread as I smacked her on the buttock. “You are a tasty wench, I will say.”
I kept my eye on both her and the Innkeeper. Death often advanced from unexpected sources. The fat keeper kept whispering to the wench each time she went back for more pig and beer.
“None of that now,” I bellowed, “I have no care for your well being, you should have learned that by now at least. That fat mother of bastard children gained that knowledge through experience, brief as that experience might have been.”
“Here is your meat and ale, your LORDSHIP” The wench hissed through clenched teeth.
“Well, aren’t we the outraged little firebrand.” I grabbed her by her small waist and forced her to my lap. “Perhaps I’ll let you join me in my room tonight. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
The Innkeeper’s knuckles whitened as he wiped the counter with an eye following my hands as they groped the barmaid’s full figure.
“Ah, what do we have here? You are the Innkeeper’s private whore. You are, you are.” I looked at the keeper while licking his woman’s neck and cheek. “So how would you feel if I took her right now, in front of you? What would you do? Would you sit back and enjoy my theater, or would you try and kill me with that nasty cleaver of yours?
“Or better yet,” I said while pressing the old man’s dagger to the barmaid’s breast, “would I skewer her heart if you tried?”
The heavy oak door to the Inn slowly creaked open, revealing a small boy with a rolled up sheet of parchment. He shook horribly as the door latched behind him.
“What is it boy?” I growled, “Do you want to go for a swim too?”
“No, no… you lordship. I am but a messenger, bringing a message from the townspeople.” The boy carefully stretched out his hand with the paper, “Here ,please take it and give me my leave.”
“I will not. You will read this message.” I said continuing to massage the barmaid, “As you can see my hands are full.”
“Please, sir, I am frightened.”
“As well you should be, little one. But you will read it all the same. Now read before I become angry again.”
“Very well, sir.”
The boy unrolled the parchment and held it out before him, his breath wavering as he tried to speak. Finally, he found the strength.
“Your Lordship, we of Wyseth Port are a simple people. Mainly fishermen and shipbuilder’s. We have no Lord, we are not vassals of any despot or goodly king. We have no castles to plunder or wealthy merchants to take off. We live our lives to the best we can with no care for the activities outside our hamlet.
“We do not know why you have come, or what we have done to offend you so very badly. We only wish that you would finish whatever business you have here and leave us to our humble lives. You may have as much of the little gold we have saved as you like. Any goods you covet will be yours also, but please leave us to ourselves, as we have always left others to themselves.”
Grabbing the maid by the hair I lunged from my chair and grabbed the parchment from the boy’s hand. He fell to the ground cowering.
“So, they makes `requests’ of me do they? They make demands of ME?” Grabbing the boy with my free hand I threw him through the door, knocking it off its hinges. Behind it stood the townsfolk, cowering like the boy did when he was conscious. “You! You cowards! You send a boy to do your bidding, to send your `message’ to me.
“Take this,” I threw the parchment down by the boy’s limp body, “and clean that brave child’s wounds with it. He deserves my respect more than any of you. I will leave this town when I see fit. It is no concern of yours why I am here, or what I want from you. Your only concern is to do what I say or die.”
With that said I stormed back into the Inn, the barmaid still in hand, toward the stairs. I stopped near the bar where the Innkeeper stood in shock.
“I am now going up stairs to ravage your woman. You are a proud man, though, a good man. I will not make you suffer this indignity.” Pulling the old man’s dagger from by belt again I ran it across the Innkeeper’s throat. His eyes rolled back into his head as his red water spilled down his chest.
The barmaid screamed bloody murder and I dragged her kicking up the stairs.
I stared at the maid openly, flushed with memories of that night and what I did to her. The horrible things I did that night. The beating, the cutting, her blood mixing with her tears.
“Well, what will it be?” She repeated.
“I apologize for my friend.” Said the red headed young man, “He has had quite a long journey here, I’m sure. We’ll have the roast pig, a loaf of bread a two pints of your finest ale, Lizzy.”
Lizzy, her name was Lizzy…Elizabeth.
“Is that agreeable with you old friend?” he asked.
I just shook my head. How did she not recognize me? I suppose 20 years of fighting, scars and beard have hidden the monster that lies beneath. My God, and she still works here. What power, what strength she must have inside that beautiful breast that I had abused and threatened to impale so long ago.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
“Hmm? Nothing… I am fine.”
“You are crying.”
I checked my cheeks and indeed I had started to weep.
“So I am. I apologize. I am just a foolish old man. I know not what I do.”
“May I ask where you are from?”
“You may, but even I am not sure. I was orphaned as a child. I spent most of my youth wandering from town to town.”
“I was orphaned too.” Said Eron, “My father died of the Pox while my mother carried me. A mad man killed my mother and sister as I watched when I was but 6 years old. I still remember his laugh while I tried to wipe my mother’s blood from my face.”
I averted my eyes and looked down. “Do you remember his face, what he looked like? Perhaps we talk about the same man.”
“No, all I remember was the moonlight that shone from his sword and my sister hanging over the mouth of the well. Then blood, much screaming and laughing and blood.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to evoke such abhorrent memories.”
”Don’t worry, I have talked about the events of that day many times since. I find it helps.”
“Do you harbor any type of wantings of revenge towards the man who killed your family?”
“I did once, but no longer. The Pastor took me in, and showed me how the hatred I felt was only killing me slowly. No amount of vengeance, no matter how sweet, would ever bring back my mother and sister. Revenge is a selfish act, and like all selfish acts it only brings more pain. But to this day, I still do not know what I would do if I ever met him.”
The busty maid walked towards us, her arms filled with aromatic meat, bread and ale. “ Here you go gents, I hope you like it. I gave you the best cut of the pig, considering your friend here has traveled so far.”
“Thank you Lizzy.”
Lizzy… Elizabeth.
I couldn’t eat. Not this food. Not in this place. Not in this company. Not ever again. My red headed “friend” eagerly ravaged his meal and I flashed back to memories of the towns and women and innocent people that I had ravaged in my single-minded journey into darkness.
“Eron! Eron!” Screamed a teenage girl who had burst through the door. “Come quickly! There is a warrior here, and he is demanding we tell him where some old man went!”
Eron’s eyes glared in my direction, and then he wiped his mouth and raced outside.
Eron… His name was Eron.
I collected myself, straightened my jacket and matted by beard as best as I could. Now was my time and I could no longer run.
I followed Eron outside. Night had fallen and by the light of the oil lamps I could see me by the well, myself 20 years earlier, the man I had been running from, kicking a bloody corpse off the end of his sword. In his right hand he held a small boy by the throat over the well.
“Where is the old man?” The warrior bellowed, “How many more do I have to kill until you tell me?”
Eron tried to talk to talk to him, reason with him, but I knew it would be futile. That man, that beast, was under the same spell of rage and hatred that I once was.
“Stop!” I called as I walked towards the scene, “Here I am. I will run no longer. Leave these people alone.”
Eron raced over to me and begged me to go back to the Inn, but this had gone too far already. My body count had grown too large, even after I put down my sword and wished for peace to finally come. You cannot retire in peace when your business was war.
“Leave them alone?” he smirked, “Fine, I’ll just put her down then,”
He dropped the child into the well, he mother screaming.
He was big, bigger than I was at his age. His muscles were sinewy and throbbed with determination. Strength resonated from his form.
“So, there you are.” He said, having approached me, “After all this time of running you just stop. Perhaps you are braver than your actions have dictated.”
I just stood, feeling his hot breath on my face. He looked down and noticed the dagger I had first stolen from my old man and kept all these years. Unbuckling his belt he let his sword and buckler fall to the ground.
“I will give you a fair chance. You have a dagger. I am unarmed. Make your move.”
There he stood. Two inches from me, towering. I fingered the hilt of the blade, remembering the speed of my youth, the blood lust, the rage, and I wondered if I had any left.
“Here, let me help you.” He said, grabbing my dagger with my old speed and forcing the handle into my hand, “Make… your… MOVE.”
With the full knowledge of the outcome, I struck and felt my wrist break and 7 inches of cold steel fill my belly.
“Shhh…” He consoled softly in my ear, as I tasted my own blood one last time, “This is what you get, you bastard. To die with a whimper against an unarmed man. My parents were farmers. Damn potato farmers. They did NOTHING to deserve what you did. Although, now I have to say, making me watch as you raped my mother over and over again with my father’s eviscerated corpse lying in the corner… that was a touch of pure genius. Look at what you have created in me. In a way I am your son, but I will gladly kill my father in this instance. Just know in your last moments, everyone I have killed and will kill is because of you. But look who I’m talking to, you don’t care anyway.”
He dropped me on the ground and stepped over me as he walked to the Inn. Eron hunched down beside me.
“Thank you,” he cried, “You are a very brave man. I don’t know how to thank you. You saved many lives today.”
I grabbed the hilt of the dagger that was inside my innards and twisted it.
It had been 20 years. 20 very long years since I had set foot in Wyseth Port in my misspent youth. Back in those heady times I thought the way to revenge was power, and power was gained through fear. That is true to a point. Fear does grant power, but only temporarily and eventually to your downfall. Power through fear is without honor, and without honor you have no allies. Without allies you will fall.
It doesn’t matter how strong you are, or how smart. You will fall because there will be another younger, stronger you who has learned from your actions right behind you. I met him once. I do not want to meet him again.
The town of Wyseth Port is as old as it is beautiful, and I bring ugliness back to it. My scars, greying kinked beard and hair and worn cloak contrast the cobbled streets and blooming window baskets that line the shoppes of the square. In the center stood the stone well, like a great golem staring at me, reminding me that I can’t escape the past.
“Please, dear God don’t. We will give you anything you want.” Screamed the old woman as I dangled her child by the ankle over the dark, gaping maw of the well. The scrambling child knocked several stones from the ledge in her tantrums and they resonated from the abyss. Her other child, a small boy, clung to her leg.
“What will you give me?” I laughed. “My father back, or perhaps my mother? Or will you raise my DOG from the DEAD? Shut up you stupid whore! I gave you your chance, but you decided to ignore me.”
“What will this prove?” Wheezed a grizzled voice from behind me. “Put the child down, she has done nothing to you. This makes no sense.”
I wheeled around, smashing the girl’s crimson colored head into the stone walls of the well. “The world does not make sense, old man. For instance, does this make sense?”
With that said I flicked the girl into the well, unsheathed my sword and cut the mother in two from shoulder to hip. The crowd that had begun to gather around jumped back in horror. I liked that reaction, it meant I had gotten their attention. The little boy just fell to his bottom, covered in his mother’s blood.
“Now old man, that didn’t make sense yet it happened.” I chuckled as I cleaned the woman’s blood from my sword with his shirt and sheathed it. “Perhaps now you will show me something that DOES make sense. Well old man? I’m standing right here in front of you.”
Looking down I noticed a dagger in his belt. I grabbed his hand and firmly placed the dagger in it. “Well, come one then. KILL ME.”
The crowd began to yell for him to strike, but I just looked at him and laughed. He was just a pathetic old man. Maybe one day many years ago he would have made a move, but he was old and wise enough to see the writing on the wall. Snatching the dagger from him I put it to his throat
“Ha, you’re not even worth the effort.” I said while tucking the dagger in my belt and started to walk towards the Inn, back turned to the outraged townsfolk. “If anyone attempts anything foolish tonight like killing me, I will kill you and every child in this town, and then burn it down. Perhaps tomorrow you will all learn from this an greet my questions with answers, and not snide remarks.”
I rushed past the well trying to avert my eyes, but its stare followed me like an oil portrait. That poor girls bones probably still lay in there. No amount of rain could wash her mother’s blood from the cobbles by it. Throwing my hood over my head I quickly made my way through the square. I could feel the townsfolk’s eyes on me, searching their minds for the vague memories of the last time an outsider ventured into their hamlet.
I don’t know why I came back. There was really no reason. The men that killed my family are long dead, their ashes I made into my breakfast tea. As I consumed the tea over the ensuing months, so did I consume my anger. Once the anger was gone, it uncovered my guilt. My guilt from the methods I used to gain my revenge. They were darker times, or was a just a darker man?
“Excuse me.” Said a man that bumped into while trying to hide my face, “I’m sorry, are you ok?
I nodded under my hood and quickly tried to get away.
“Sir, you look tired and lost, let me help you.” Said the man as he chased after me, “Sir please, we here at Wyseth Port are known for our hospitality. Let me help you.”
With that he put his arm around me and led me to the Turk’s Head Inn. I looked up and saw a tall boy, in his mid to late twenties, with shock of red hair on his head. I was DAMNED.
The boy opened the familiar heavy oak door and we were licked by firelight and the smell of freshly roasted pig flesh.
“Here, sit down old one. You look absolutely exhausted.” He chuckled. I tried to keep my face as covered as possible as he sat me down in the biggest, most padded chair in the room. I had never been more uncomfortable. The barmaid approached; with the exception of a few age lines she looked as beautiful as she did 20 years ago.
“So what would you like, gents?” She said in her think cockney.
“More pig, and keep the ale coming, bar whore.” I choked through a mouthful of meat and bread as I smacked her on the buttock. “You are a tasty wench, I will say.”
I kept my eye on both her and the Innkeeper. Death often advanced from unexpected sources. The fat keeper kept whispering to the wench each time she went back for more pig and beer.
“None of that now,” I bellowed, “I have no care for your well being, you should have learned that by now at least. That fat mother of bastard children gained that knowledge through experience, brief as that experience might have been.”
“Here is your meat and ale, your LORDSHIP” The wench hissed through clenched teeth.
“Well, aren’t we the outraged little firebrand.” I grabbed her by her small waist and forced her to my lap. “Perhaps I’ll let you join me in my room tonight. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
The Innkeeper’s knuckles whitened as he wiped the counter with an eye following my hands as they groped the barmaid’s full figure.
“Ah, what do we have here? You are the Innkeeper’s private whore. You are, you are.” I looked at the keeper while licking his woman’s neck and cheek. “So how would you feel if I took her right now, in front of you? What would you do? Would you sit back and enjoy my theater, or would you try and kill me with that nasty cleaver of yours?
“Or better yet,” I said while pressing the old man’s dagger to the barmaid’s breast, “would I skewer her heart if you tried?”
The heavy oak door to the Inn slowly creaked open, revealing a small boy with a rolled up sheet of parchment. He shook horribly as the door latched behind him.
“What is it boy?” I growled, “Do you want to go for a swim too?”
“No, no… you lordship. I am but a messenger, bringing a message from the townspeople.” The boy carefully stretched out his hand with the paper, “Here ,please take it and give me my leave.”
“I will not. You will read this message.” I said continuing to massage the barmaid, “As you can see my hands are full.”
“Please, sir, I am frightened.”
“As well you should be, little one. But you will read it all the same. Now read before I become angry again.”
“Very well, sir.”
The boy unrolled the parchment and held it out before him, his breath wavering as he tried to speak. Finally, he found the strength.
“Your Lordship, we of Wyseth Port are a simple people. Mainly fishermen and shipbuilder’s. We have no Lord, we are not vassals of any despot or goodly king. We have no castles to plunder or wealthy merchants to take off. We live our lives to the best we can with no care for the activities outside our hamlet.
“We do not know why you have come, or what we have done to offend you so very badly. We only wish that you would finish whatever business you have here and leave us to our humble lives. You may have as much of the little gold we have saved as you like. Any goods you covet will be yours also, but please leave us to ourselves, as we have always left others to themselves.”
Grabbing the maid by the hair I lunged from my chair and grabbed the parchment from the boy’s hand. He fell to the ground cowering.
“So, they makes `requests’ of me do they? They make demands of ME?” Grabbing the boy with my free hand I threw him through the door, knocking it off its hinges. Behind it stood the townsfolk, cowering like the boy did when he was conscious. “You! You cowards! You send a boy to do your bidding, to send your `message’ to me.
“Take this,” I threw the parchment down by the boy’s limp body, “and clean that brave child’s wounds with it. He deserves my respect more than any of you. I will leave this town when I see fit. It is no concern of yours why I am here, or what I want from you. Your only concern is to do what I say or die.”
With that said I stormed back into the Inn, the barmaid still in hand, toward the stairs. I stopped near the bar where the Innkeeper stood in shock.
“I am now going up stairs to ravage your woman. You are a proud man, though, a good man. I will not make you suffer this indignity.” Pulling the old man’s dagger from by belt again I ran it across the Innkeeper’s throat. His eyes rolled back into his head as his red water spilled down his chest.
The barmaid screamed bloody murder and I dragged her kicking up the stairs.
I stared at the maid openly, flushed with memories of that night and what I did to her. The horrible things I did that night. The beating, the cutting, her blood mixing with her tears.
“Well, what will it be?” She repeated.
“I apologize for my friend.” Said the red headed young man, “He has had quite a long journey here, I’m sure. We’ll have the roast pig, a loaf of bread a two pints of your finest ale, Lizzy.”
Lizzy, her name was Lizzy…Elizabeth.
“Is that agreeable with you old friend?” he asked.
I just shook my head. How did she not recognize me? I suppose 20 years of fighting, scars and beard have hidden the monster that lies beneath. My God, and she still works here. What power, what strength she must have inside that beautiful breast that I had abused and threatened to impale so long ago.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
“Hmm? Nothing… I am fine.”
“You are crying.”
I checked my cheeks and indeed I had started to weep.
“So I am. I apologize. I am just a foolish old man. I know not what I do.”
“May I ask where you are from?”
“You may, but even I am not sure. I was orphaned as a child. I spent most of my youth wandering from town to town.”
“I was orphaned too.” Said Eron, “My father died of the Pox while my mother carried me. A mad man killed my mother and sister as I watched when I was but 6 years old. I still remember his laugh while I tried to wipe my mother’s blood from my face.”
I averted my eyes and looked down. “Do you remember his face, what he looked like? Perhaps we talk about the same man.”
“No, all I remember was the moonlight that shone from his sword and my sister hanging over the mouth of the well. Then blood, much screaming and laughing and blood.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to evoke such abhorrent memories.”
”Don’t worry, I have talked about the events of that day many times since. I find it helps.”
“Do you harbor any type of wantings of revenge towards the man who killed your family?”
“I did once, but no longer. The Pastor took me in, and showed me how the hatred I felt was only killing me slowly. No amount of vengeance, no matter how sweet, would ever bring back my mother and sister. Revenge is a selfish act, and like all selfish acts it only brings more pain. But to this day, I still do not know what I would do if I ever met him.”
The busty maid walked towards us, her arms filled with aromatic meat, bread and ale. “ Here you go gents, I hope you like it. I gave you the best cut of the pig, considering your friend here has traveled so far.”
“Thank you Lizzy.”
Lizzy… Elizabeth.
I couldn’t eat. Not this food. Not in this place. Not in this company. Not ever again. My red headed “friend” eagerly ravaged his meal and I flashed back to memories of the towns and women and innocent people that I had ravaged in my single-minded journey into darkness.
“Eron! Eron!” Screamed a teenage girl who had burst through the door. “Come quickly! There is a warrior here, and he is demanding we tell him where some old man went!”
Eron’s eyes glared in my direction, and then he wiped his mouth and raced outside.
Eron… His name was Eron.
I collected myself, straightened my jacket and matted by beard as best as I could. Now was my time and I could no longer run.
I followed Eron outside. Night had fallen and by the light of the oil lamps I could see me by the well, myself 20 years earlier, the man I had been running from, kicking a bloody corpse off the end of his sword. In his right hand he held a small boy by the throat over the well.
“Where is the old man?” The warrior bellowed, “How many more do I have to kill until you tell me?”
Eron tried to talk to talk to him, reason with him, but I knew it would be futile. That man, that beast, was under the same spell of rage and hatred that I once was.
“Stop!” I called as I walked towards the scene, “Here I am. I will run no longer. Leave these people alone.”
Eron raced over to me and begged me to go back to the Inn, but this had gone too far already. My body count had grown too large, even after I put down my sword and wished for peace to finally come. You cannot retire in peace when your business was war.
“Leave them alone?” he smirked, “Fine, I’ll just put her down then,”
He dropped the child into the well, he mother screaming.
He was big, bigger than I was at his age. His muscles were sinewy and throbbed with determination. Strength resonated from his form.
“So, there you are.” He said, having approached me, “After all this time of running you just stop. Perhaps you are braver than your actions have dictated.”
I just stood, feeling his hot breath on my face. He looked down and noticed the dagger I had first stolen from my old man and kept all these years. Unbuckling his belt he let his sword and buckler fall to the ground.
“I will give you a fair chance. You have a dagger. I am unarmed. Make your move.”
There he stood. Two inches from me, towering. I fingered the hilt of the blade, remembering the speed of my youth, the blood lust, the rage, and I wondered if I had any left.
“Here, let me help you.” He said, grabbing my dagger with my old speed and forcing the handle into my hand, “Make… your… MOVE.”
With the full knowledge of the outcome, I struck and felt my wrist break and 7 inches of cold steel fill my belly.
“Shhh…” He consoled softly in my ear, as I tasted my own blood one last time, “This is what you get, you bastard. To die with a whimper against an unarmed man. My parents were farmers. Damn potato farmers. They did NOTHING to deserve what you did. Although, now I have to say, making me watch as you raped my mother over and over again with my father’s eviscerated corpse lying in the corner… that was a touch of pure genius. Look at what you have created in me. In a way I am your son, but I will gladly kill my father in this instance. Just know in your last moments, everyone I have killed and will kill is because of you. But look who I’m talking to, you don’t care anyway.”
He dropped me on the ground and stepped over me as he walked to the Inn. Eron hunched down beside me.
“Thank you,” he cried, “You are a very brave man. I don’t know how to thank you. You saved many lives today.”
I grabbed the hilt of the dagger that was inside my innards and twisted it.