by Max Jager
She stood, bent herself to apologize and ran, dragging her beige-gray rags onto the dusty floor.
Darr could hear the crackling of kindling wood and above the flames, the long glistening body of a bug. A slug, perhaps. Fat and pale, green spotted along the wide body. It smelled like rancid chicken.
"I apologize, our cuisine isn't as developed as you're used to," Astrix said. "This is the only reliable source of food to feed on. At least on this island. Mammals are rare, people, even rarer."
"You've eaten people? I thought you were trying to convince me of your civility." Darr sat on a seat at the end of a long table some feet away from the fire.
"I don't, personally. The others don't think the same, unfortunately. I've often caught them, those demon's as you'd call them, with legs scarfed down their throats. I usually kill them when I catch wind." He removed one of the sticks and placed it in front of Darr. He reached around the table, found a container and poured. What was inside the cup smelled worse than the food. "It's made from muddled Sucklefruit. You can find vines of it west from here. They grow like long webs below the dirt and sprout every now and then."
"Why do they call it Sucklefruit?"
"Picking the fruit is difficult, the plant seems to have a mind of its own. Upon a touch, it's long red flowers latch onto you, like a leech. The name comes from the sound the tendrils make as they drain you, a suckling sound. If you're careless, it's easy to get caught in the web of vines. And killed, eventually."
Darr pushed back the drink. "I've lost my appetite."
"I lost five men to make that small glass of wine." Astrix pushed the glass back to Darr. "And what a nasty plant it is. Supposedly, the roots run deep, straight down to the first circle of Hell. Though that's a little far-fetched, even for me."
Darr took a sip. His lips puckered, it felt like tar going down his throat and stuck to his throat. He coughed a fit, five minutes maybe, of that headache-inducing coughing before he could finally breathe normally.
"Terrible," Darr said. "Why do you even need to eat? You're a soul, aren't you? Just aether and empyrium." He rubbed his fingers on his teeth, they came back purple.
"And yet I see and hear and smell and taste. The qualia of a physical body. And I starve too." His eyes narrowed. "And starvation here is worse than you can imagine. It's more than a slow death, it's like slowly dissolving. You get weaker, lankier, more ephemeral. And then one day, you're gone, back to the river. You need to eat, have to."
He took Darr's plate of slug and chewed firmly down the body. A green liquid splattered on the wood table.
"Would you have preferred a heart?" He asked. "They call your kind the heart-eaters. Is that just hyperbolic or literal?"
"I'm a Veron. That's all you need to know." Darr folded his arms.
"I heard stories of your kind, your people come down every now and then. You're great warriors and great wizards, I hear." He chewed loudly, his teeth dragged the long threads of fibrous slug-guts up and down. "I hear even stranger stories. That you have the hearts of principal devils inside of you? Of Lucifer himself?"
"That's half a myth." Darr pushed back his coat and showed a bit of his chest. A scar ran down his sternum. "And half a truth."
"Funny." Astrix gulped. "What an interesting faith that must be, to be hated and chained and forced to defend the very force that wants you dead. What a hypocritical existence."
"I've said enough about myself. Out of courtesy." Darr said. "But I didn't come here to talk politics or philosophy." Darr began.
"No, you came to talk about people and their fate."
"I have the right mind to kill you, you know that?"
"Even if you could, it would just guarantee the deaths of all you wish to protect." He finished chewing. "Would you like to hear my proposal?"
"What is it?"
"Your life for theirs."
"Is this a joke?" Darr scoffed.
"I don't make jokes. My word is plain and honest. I've grown an attraction to you and your friend." He rose. "I can't have him but I'll settle for you. I have more of an appreciation for your talents than that silly church."
He walked over to Darr and rubbed his shoulders.
"That artisan quality of war is what matters. Here, in this desolate, lonely place. Only strength matters. As it has been, as it will be. Strength. The difference between those that have and those that have not." He whispered into Darr's ears. "And I've stagnated."
Darr shook him off, jumped out of the chair and walked away.
"For years the steady surge of slaves have kept the warriors sated. They treat them like trinkets. And like trinkets, I've become bored. There's nothing to it. The shameless masturbation over trivial desires." Astrix said. "I want to feel the thrill of war again, I want you to help me."
"All you want is a cheap thrill? You diseased madman." Darr bumped into a table.
"Cheap? What's been cheap?" His voice rose. He slammed his hand on the table. The wine spilled, it leaked down into the tile floor. "Three thousand years in this Hell! Cheap? The scheming, the madness, the loneliness. Cheap? For what? My only crime was being an unbaptized infant. That was it! A holy bastard. And they stabbed me, threw me, just a babe, over the walls of Troy. Tell me, was that deserved? Was that cheap?"
"Considering all you've done, the trickery, the death-dealings. Yeah, it was appropriate."
Astrix laughed, he grabbed his long hair and slicked it back. "Appropriate? Not even in hindsight. Nothing is appropriate. Nothing and no one is deserving of this prison. You can pretend to imagine three thousand years of solitude, but you'll never understand it. How crushing it is."
"All your little armies and all your little soldiers can't keep you company?"
"The weak attract the weak, the strong to the strong. How could you call these vermin company?" He walked over, a guard stood in the corner of the room with his hands behind his back. Astrix punched him, made a notch in his neck in the shape of his knuckles and both of them watched as he fell and choked and held his neck. It made Darr stiff with fear. "He fell. He did not struggle, did not hesitate. Did not even try, he just died. Like that. Slaves put up more a fight than these fools."
"You spent all your life conquering the people of these lands and now you're disappointed? What a shame, nothing left to conquer?"
"You're exactly right. I rule this small ant hill, a very slave in the larger scheme of things. There is no freedom but in the base thrills, the pleasures of my nature. I want violence, nothing more. Violence and companionship. I can't bear the thought again, not another year of this. Not another hour."
"You're so shamelessly selfish."
"Selfishness? Is that contrary to your moral aesthetics?" He asked. His head was down, his voice was low. "Don't fool yourself. Everyone is selfish. And greedy. And gluttonous. I'm just trying to find my piece. That's it."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then the people die. All twenty-four that remain."
"Twenty-fo-"
"Twenty-four of the fifty-six that came." Astrix's eyes were yellow, large. "And it won't stop."
"I'll kill you." Darr said.
"No, you won't. You can't. But It'd be fun, wouldn't it be? If you tried, if you failed, and tried and tried. Endlessly, with me. Just dance and routine." He smiled.
They eyed each other, firm faced, like two lions in the bone-dry heat, with the low Savannah prickling their feet.
There was a moment, the height of tension, where they looked just about to pounce. But there was a crack of the wooden door, it sounded like a squeal and from it came the rat. Aleistar. Nimble-foot Aleistar who walked up and into the kitchen. Astrix smiled.
"Maybe you could convince him." He said. Both Hunter and prey unaware of each other, both unreasonably afraid of the other.
Ajax IV
Ajax
Every dream has its monster at the end, and for Ajax, that monster appeared as a burning skull. Screaming, begging. Too hot, too hot, turn me to ash. What an induced ter
ror, one that made him shout in his sleep. The terror of a relieved youth. He saw it, the young thirteen-year-old boy, devoured by a group of huddled creatures. A terrible fear. A familiar fear. It was a tradition at this point, to relieve this dream, under these circumstances. For in dire straits, he had always had this memory come back. The anecdote went like this:
A large rusty building that echoes the screams from its depths. Three Vicars. Two of whom, youths. One of which, master. Their heavy breaths, their heavy footsteps, racing across the wet and bloody floor of the rusty building. The meat hooks and large tuna fish dangling and bleeding from their cut necks. Scales upon the floor that catch themselves on the heavy stomping of their boots. The smell of sardines, stacked and so weighty upon each other as to collapse unto themselves into paste. Vile. Suddenly, three blurs. Three long black tongues and the yellow teeth that extended from their long mouths. Like anteaters, prodding, searching for the Vicars at the hunt. They find the scent. An attack. A lash out, one of the boys is struck. Nipped. He bleeds. Two of the hunters turned then plead, retreat, retreat. The master jumps upon the catwalk. Her footsteps are calculated, light and airy. The other thinks to do the same but stops. He looks back to the stubborn boy, the boy with the nipped leg and bruised arm. Ajax. His teeth are gritted, his eyes are fierce. Green like emeralds, fresh but in them still yet grows an uninhibited violence. Ajax, young, thirteen has made up his mind to fight. He lunges to the long mouthed demons. Clashes. Bone-teeth against silver-steel. Fish lopped and truncated, blood everywhere. Another clash. Disarmed. He doesn't understand. He's alone. Clank. His sword had flown to his side, slipped out of his hands. Alone. Trapped. He screams, louder and louder, he wants to let the whole building know. No one is there though, no one but the greeting of the three creatures and their long mouths like python snaps. He feels the hot breath upon. Feels the mist, the blanket of death then -
Ajax awoke from his dream. He turned his head, trying desperately it seemed, to remember something that had only come to him seconds ago, that now appeared as a soft blur in his head. He couldn't remember the images though, couldn't see or hear or even think about it. But he felt it. He felt in his chest which raced, he felt it in his eyes that swelled and reddened, he felt it on his body and the small dozen ball sized aches that scattered upon him like a constellation of pain.
"You were screaming in your sleep." A voice said. He turned. His first instincts were to grab the sword that lay feet away from him, somewhere in a pool of muddy water and chalky sand. He reached for it and stopped, collapsed with his chest hitting the floor. He felt five different bones snap, decompress, or rub wrongly. As if the friction of movement was in itself too much work for his body. True enough, even breathing taxed him. The greatest pain, he noticed, was from his legs. He put his hands on his right thigh and started feeling for bumps or bruises or mismatched joints. But the voice was still there and he quickly became anxious, juggling his attention between the soft voice and his hurting right leg. Both afraid of being weak and weak in his fear.
"You were having a sweet dream, it looked like it." It was the Spotted Hyena. It came from the murk of the cave, where the small holes of light from the collapsed boulder walls did not penetrate. It smelled humid in that direction. "I'm glad you're alive."
"You don't sound surprised." Ajax relaxed his body and laid back down for a moment.
"I told you, didn't I? I expect good things from you. You're an excellent delivery man, an even greater exterminator. If you put your heart into it, that is."
"Easy for you to say."
The Hyena sneered. His sharp snout dug into a puddle. "I never had a doubt."
He splashed water on Ajax's face. It forced him up again and made him try to stand, again. His hands sunk into the mud, he slipped. Face first he went. He felt sharp pebbles dig into him, not so much as to cut, but to dirty and scratch and annoy. His black hair dipped into the water and his tips became a muddy bundle. His face was caked brown and yellow. He could taste it in his mouth, where the sand lodged itself in between his teeth. He rubbed his eyes which burned and he tried again to stand.
This time by rolling to his side and seeing where the damage to his leg was.
"It didn't heal right." Ajax rubbed his palm across his foot. He tried breaking it and pushing it back into his socket (his foot that is) but found himself too weak. He looked around and found a wedge between two stones. He dragged himself there, put his foot in between the pile and made sure his leg was still and immovable from that spot.
"That's a doozy, how are you going to fix-" The Hyena stopped. There was a snap. A break of bone and then a groan. "Oh, or you can just do that."
Ajax had snapped his own foot. Well, re-aligned it, really. It pointed right this time and he smiled only briefly before he laid back down as the pain resuscitated. It felt like lightning bolts shot up his lower body, like an arrow through his Achilles heel, riding up the highway of his veins, straight through his heart and into his brain. That sharp, constant, flowing pain. His foot swelled. He could feel the pulsing bulge hitting the insides of his shoes. And to answer it? He put his hand on his mouth and laid on the floor. His other arm covered his eyes and in that muffled state he shouted. Mostly cursed.
"I know you're busy," The Hyena walked over to him. Ajax was biting his hand. "But I think you've rested enough."
Ajax threw mud at it.
"Fuck you."
"If you're healthy enough to talk back, you're healthy enough to stand."
Ajax struggled to lift his body. It seemed like a deliberate effort just to inch himself up. He inspected himself a final time.
"I'm not healing right." He felt the plenty cuts on his body, his finger hovered over the spots that burned the most. It was a strange feeling, one he hadn't remembered for a while.
"That's good, now you're remembering what mortality feels like. What a normal person endures every day. I feel drained, life essence, stamina, arcana. All drained. Like a dried well."
He looked up, dismissively almost, and breathed heavily. "This isn't good. I haven't fed for a while."
"Food? You need food?" The Hyena walked further into the dark cave and came back. It had in its mouth a four-armed creature, its pincer snapping wildly. "Say 'Ah'."
The Hyena snapped the shell of a skittering creature, it was no bigger than half a foot long and wide and he threw it to the floor near Ajax. Roe, and guts exposed. It was a slimy green and blue and Ajax looked at it, confused whether to be thankful or disgusted. It was sobering, at least.
"I don't mean like that." He drew back his foot from his rock bracings and rubbed it. He was beginning to get his feeling back. It was the sensation of trapped sand running down his nerves, and filling his foot.
"It's a funny, in a way." Ajax said. "I'm a demon hunter who hasn't eaten a demon in days. And here I am, in Hell, without a meal in sight. But it's usually never this bad. A Veron can starve for months without feeling much of anything. But down here, I guess it's different."
"Maybe it has to do with how much you've hurt yourself."
"Maybe." Ajax looked to his rear for his sword. It was half its original length, a straight even half. From the first time he had taken it out at that skeleton of a construction site, it had worn itself down. All his troubles, a kind of file, shaving away at the edge of his blade. Now, he was impotent. He picked it up only to hear it break some more. He had no point now. He accepted it, nodded, stepped down harshly with his bad foot and felt the pain rise up his spine. He grunted. Closed his eyes again. Dream or wake, all reality seemed to blend into itself, a maelstrom of confused pain.
"Your sword looks rough." The Hyena said.
"The explosions do that. But it won't go out, it's like small star in there."
"A star?"
"Yeah. It's hard to explain, but just imagine the steel to be a kind of incubator, maybe. Or a generator. Something like that." He put the sword back into his jacket. It disappeared. "It's got some more life in it before I'm really fucke
d."
"No offense." The Hyena scratched his ass along the floor. He was laughing. "But you already look fucked."
Ajax leaned himself against a wall. He coughed.
"Yeah, I get it." He said. "Make yourself useless, tell me a way out."
"Oh, you're trusting me all of a sudden?" The Hyena asked.
"Well, I figure that if you wanted to eat me, you would have done it already."
The Hyena stopped dragging himself on the sand. He looked at Ajax curiously, then stuck out his tongue again. "Even if I did. I don't think you'd taste well. You're too salty. A bit spicy. And very, very rotten."
Ajax spat. He heard the ball of phlegm and blood hit water.
"Enough banter. Shut up and show me the way."