Splatterism: The Disquieting Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse

by Christian Winter

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know what Scammander is going to do, but I’m going to help Bedlam.”

  I ducked down low and wove my way through the tables, stopping by one that had a sword lying next to it. As I was wrapped my fingers around the handle, I heard giggles and hushings from beneath one of the upright tables. I flipped the cloth up and was assaulted with the sight of Lord Fulham’s pale butt cheeks and a blushing elven maiden, who gasped and grabbed her dress.

  “Libidinous knight!” I hissed, lowering the sword in front of his face. He looked shocked and offended.

  “Wha—Scammander! When did you start wielding swords? Knowledge of all magic and philosophy wasn’t enough for you to cause trouble with? Have you tried writing novels?” he said, putting his hand across the blade, and turning to the girl to comfort her. “We were on the same staircase in the Academy, along with Lord Gourd. No need to worry. You said you were bored and wanted to try new and exciting ways, so it doesn’t get much more exciting than Ned Bedlam and Scammander!” He spread his arms and grinned. “It’s all part of the plan!” She grinned and kissed him on the cheek while he looked up at me and folded his hands in prayer, begging me to play along.

  I shook my head. “The book.” He thought I hadn’t noticed the bleak tome of suicides go missing after our earlier embrace.

  His shoulders slumped. “Fine, you can have it. It looks horribly tepid anyways,” he said. As he dug through his jacket, jewels, amulets, wands, and underwear fell out. “Here it is,” he said, slipping a necklace off the cover. “I was hoping you’d gotten your dissertation back, but if that’s what you are reading these days, then you’ve fallen a long ways from our debates at the Bramblevine Inn.” He tossed the book at me, glowered, then pulled the white cloth back over the table.

  I began winding and slinking through the field of tables once more. Some were turned over on their sides, some completely capsized, and some still upright. The giggles faded and the sound of mayhem flooded the room as I got closer to Ned Bedlam, who was still being pelted with arrows which only seemed to enrage him more. Most froze when they saw me moving toward them with a drawn sword; some veered off in the other direction, some lowered their gaze and darted by, and few, very few, gave me a pat on the back as we passed.

  I saw two elf females running away from Ned’s mayhem and towards me, then stumble and fall; as they struggled to raise themselves, a young elven boy ran over them and shoved them to the ground. He started sprinting toward the upturned table I was hiding behind, and as he darted by I swung my sword across his thin ankle, loping it off and sending him tumbling across the floor until he crashed into another table. He wailed and cursed, grabbing his knee and rolling around on the floor. As he stared at his missing foot, long tears rolled down his cheeks. He looked surprised that something so terrible could happen to him.

  I calmly strode over, rolling the sword around in my wrist, glaring at the petulant youth. I swung hard at the neck, but it bounced off the steel of a dwarven broadsword.

  “Run!” the dwarf yelled over his shoulder as he stepped between me and the youth, holding the thick broadsword with both hands. He took a deep breath and lowered the blade at me.

  “I don’t think he’ll ever be able to do that again,” I said with a malicious grin. “But it won’t keep him from being a coward.”

  “I am—”

  “I just don’t care,” I said, with regal ennui.

  He bellowed and lunged at me, but I skipped to the side of the thrust, then skipped back in front of him. Someone crashed into my back and two thick arms wrapped around me, locking together under my chest, pinning my arms down to my sides, and standing me up nice and straight. The dwarf came again, and I clenched my jaw and glared at the sword as he drove it through my face.

  I didn’t close my eyes.

  My body locked and every muscle tightened as the sword pierced my cheek, crashed through my gums and slid across my tongue. I bit down in agony as my jaw shattered and my teeth grated across the cold hard blade, rattled around like rocks in my mouth, and then began spasming and stumbling around. Something long and slimy was rolling around in my mouth and gagging me. I desperately inhaled through my nostrils, threw my head forward, and spit. Amidst a spray of splintered teeth my severed wet tongue went tumbling out over my lips, wrapped in a thick wad of crimson saliva. Weeping and coughing, I shook my head back and forth as long strands of spit ran off my maw, smearing on my face and fur, sparkling spit hanging across my eyelashes in thick clots. Then I jerked my head back, stumbled backwards, and wiped my face and shivered as I swallowed a few teeth and a thick pile of rolling mucus. A cold sweat burst onto my skin and spread through my fur as I folded over and winced and clutched my sides. The healing spell had already given me a new jaw, teeth, and tongue when the dwarf began speaking.

  “Maybe you care to know now, that my name is Gerard Winterhammer, and that this sword—” he tapped the side of my face with the blade, “was forged by the first dwarven blacksmith of our race,” he said arrogantly as he grabbed me and shoved me into an upended table. Tears slipped out of the sides of my eyes. I could barely breathe, much less stand up. Both warriors came at me again and slid their swords between my ribs and pinned me to the table with such force that my feet lifted up off the floor and my back arched up and thrust my chest out, bending the blades. They slid them out quickly then thrust them up through my sides and out of my shoulders. I wept and wretched and writhed as the swords dug into my sides and lifted me up on my toes. They drew away again, and I sank to my knees and knuckles, bleeding and all nothingy, staring into the floor, yearning for the sweet muteness of annihilation.

  But I kept breathing.

  I kept holding onto the pain.

  “Still alive?” the dwarf said, peering down at me with slight confusion. “You must have some pretty magic spell on huh?”

  I blew a bloody tooth out of my nose as my heart slammed against my hot, heaving chest.

  “That’s just as well, he will have to answer for his crimes,” said his companion.

  “Any survivors among the hobbits?”

  “Just one, like they have been leaving so far. But we have Scammander now; the minotaur won’t last long without him.”

  “Are we sure the minotaur isn’t a summoned ghost? What’s his name again?”

  “Evander.”

  “Has anyone seen the unlearned cow?”

  “No.”

  “Grey fur and a midnight blue death shroud right?”

  The other nodded.

  “Ok, I’ll tie him up, then help finish taming Ned Bedlam,” Gerard said.

  When I raised my eye I could see the dwarf standing over me, wiping the flat of his gory blade on my robe. I threw my hand across the sharp edges, sprang up, and drove my shoulder into his chest, sending him hurdling back onto the floor. Again my blood ran down his blade, but this time I held the sword.

  He was quick to his feet, but I loomed over him trembling and hysterical, and as my chest heaved and eyes bulged I pulled the white tablecloth off the table and threw it over his face and pulled it back behind him, catching the cloth in a bunch behind his head. He began sucking in cloth, frantically swatting at my hands, aimlessly over and behind his head as he stumbled backwards into me. He looked like a ghost trapped in its sheet and as his breathing grew desperate he flailed his arms wildly.

  I put my head down next to the quivering sheet as he struggled vainly against me. “There are few things one can be certain of in this life; but know this: it is Evander that kills you.”

  Then I struck him with the pommel of his own sword. I hit like a god who swings all the way from the end of eternity, who swings back through the future across eons, epochs, and millennia, and collided with his face in the present, shattering it. As a large crimson circle spread over the cloth, breathing turned to choking, and I ground my molars as I battered his face with the pommel of his blade, driving it again and again into mush below th
e cloth. I flung him to the ground and then dropped my knees into his chest and began pounding again. In a primal mania I stretched my fist as high as I could over my head, almost falling over, then drilled it down on his face, then stretched my hand as high as I could over my head and hammered his face with the thick pommel. Again and again and again I punched, pounded, and pummeled the covered face long after the choking had ceased.

  I rose up, still heaving and hysteric, whipped the bloody sheet off his face and knelt down, entwining his foresty beard around my fingers, curling it between my knuckles and under my fingernails. I clenched the beard in my fists as I planted my foot on the mush of his broken face and snapped up with a gutty groan. The face stretched and then the long beard ripped off. I screamed and shivered as I spiked the tangled skin and thick beard into the marble floor.

  Drops of dark gore and hair hung off my hands and stuck to my funeral robe. I tossed my head back and screamed and screamed and screamed: for it feels great to kill the heroes of this world.

  I collected myself just in time to face my next adversary, the sniveling academic.

  Professor Proseworthy emerged from behind a table, emboldened by all the chaos.

  “Scammander!” he snarled, “I know more than you ever could!” A trail of aquamarine and amethyst glitter spiraled around Professor Prosworthy’s head and the voluble scholar suddenly fell silent as his eyes glazed over with the emptiness of a befuddled undergraduate. I could feel the icy philosopher’s stone pulse next to my spine as the memories disappeared into it.

  Amid the screams, overturned tables, shattered glass, blood, and protest of the heroes, Proseworthy sauntered over to Ned Bedlam who was quivering with range and drooling. “My goodness you are tall!” he quipped.

  Ned Bedlam’s bloodshot eyes bulged with new fury. The feral forest lord screamed as the huge golden broadsword swept through the professor’s chest and up through his head, doing what scholars should have done long ago—cut his corpus down to size.

  “NED BEDLAM!!” the great stag screamed.

  Another hero was also screaming.

  At me.

  Judging by the fury with which the young archer was screaming, he must have recently taken classes from the old professor.

  “All that he knew and was known for is now lost, just like this estate will be when the next sun rises. I am a harbinger of ruin and ravens. I speak doctrines of decimation. And I say unto you and everything you stand for, wither.”

  Tears burst out of his eyes as he notched his bow. “You’re evil Scammander. You have lost your way with so much aimless villainy.”

  I nodded as I continued striding towards him. “If only because it makes me harder to hit.”

  In reply, he shot me.

  He shot me in the heart.

  He shot me in the throat.

  He shot me in the abdomen.

  He shot me in the thigh.

  He shot me in the hand.

  Then I pulled the arrow from my heart, because I do not love.

  Then I pulled the arrow from my throat, because I do not talk.

  Then I pulled the arrow from my abdomen, because I do not eat plates of food from this earth, but destroy its crops and animals.

  Then I pulled the arrow from my thigh, because I do not kneel to help the dead and dying of this earth, but stride forward over their bodies.

  Then I pulled the arrow from my hand, because I do not lend its aid to the other creatures of this earth, but use it to smite them down.

  Then I picked him up and slammed him into the tiles so hard that his fingernails popped off and scattered about all over the floor. He was dazed and bleeding.

  “Valentino! The ankh!” cried Brooke. Valentino’s bloodshot eyes were lost, but his oozing fingers crawled up his chest and found the silver ankh hanging around his neck. A frosty blue light whipped over him, blasting his hair back and his eyes open. Piercing azure eyes grabbed me, so to free myself from his gaze, I grabbed him by the throat.

  I gasped and flung my hand away as a chill raced up my arms and crystalized in my skull, then I grunted as his plated foot crashed into my temple. The kick sent me rolling off of him and under a table where I unfolded, leaving my legs sprawling out and my body covered. As my brain was thawing, a giant silver axe blade crashed through the table and smashed into the tile next to my face. Tiny blue stars dizzily orbited the ornate carvings on the axe. Two hands grabbed me by the ankles and slid me out from the split table.

  The two heroes loomed over me. Valentino had two arrows knocked to his short bow, which was pointed at me, and Brooke stood with his axe raised.

  “Last words?”

  “Turn around.”

  I watched with terror as Ned Bedlam’s hulking golden broadsword cleaved the young archer in half and showered his companion in organs and fluid. I flung my arm over my eyes and stifled a heave as bone shards bounced off me.

  Brooke looked like he didn’t know what hit him, so Ned reminded him with the pommel of his sword.

  The great stag’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen with a wildness of the wilderness and his body and head quivered with a druidic ecstasy.

  “NED BEDLAM!!!” he screamed and shook with fury.

  Suddenly a thousand azure lightning bolts struck down in the room, splitting tables, sundering the floor, and leaving smoking corpses all around. Next I saw a circle of golden glyphs floating lazily around Ned Bedlam’s wild face. My eyes followed the chain of symbols back to the troubadour Soren Goodwynd, who with a peaceful smile on his face was gently blowing on a slender golden flute. Listless halcyon musical symbols slowly grew out of it, and bobbing back and forth, calmly rose in a line towards Ned Bedlam’s head, who now looked as though he might fall asleep. Again the slender white lightning crashed down throughout the room. Two glowing bolts criss-crossed each other as they drilled down on Soren, throwing the flute from his grasp, pushing his helmet down over his face, and sending him crashing backward to the ground, then bounced off him and blasted towards a covered table near me. The table flew back against the wall and exploded, revealing Scammander. The wizard was as small as a field mouse, and his hands covered in globes of white light like two small suns which snapped and crackled as tendrils of thin white electric arched and twisted around the orbs.

  “Rancid bards!” he squeaked.

  Suddenly Ned Bedlam loomed over me, with his massive tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. He leaned down in my face and snarled at me, then went chasing after the shrunken Scammander, who ran from table to table as Ned shattered each one to splinters with the golden broadsword. As one table splintered apart, I recognized the craven elven youth whose ankle I had chopped off. He shrieked and tried to get up to flee, but Ned Bedlam’s hulking foresthood slapped him in the face as he strode past the youth, knocking him unconscious even as he slid across the floor.

  Standing next to me were two Bonheuroes who were also watching the chase with equal disbelief. We all turned to look at each other at the same time.

  “More than one place at the same time?” One said looking at me with a mix of confusion and amazement.

  “Greatest wizard of all time,” I said with a rakish grin, spreading my arms wide.

  And then I was running.

  And then I was hot and star-like.

  I dashed across the room towards the glass wall until a gang of unarmed elves leapt on me, crashing us all into the cold floor and burying me in a suffocating darkness of ballroom gowns and ceremonial robes. I began frantically kicking and punching and wiggling at the bottom of the dark and writhing pile. The elves were scratching, gnawing, and pulling on my limbs in desperate destruction. I grabbed someone’s neck and began screaming and squeezing until someone else’s thick blood fell in my mouth. Humid blue light consumed the pile and I began to cough and choke on the smell of toasted skin. I squirmed even more nervously, pushing and shoving melting bodies and their sizzled hair out of my face until I sucked in a quick breath of unpolluted air.


  As I threw the last body off the pile I tried to stand up, but a smaller one was pinned across my horns. I tugged on it, then stooped and shook my head as her waist fell across my brow and her limp feet brushed back and forth across the floor. I could feel the corpse coming loose, and began tossing my head until her throat stretched and ripped open and fell onto the polished floor, splitting her head and spilling young blood around her thick hair and long-staring eyes.

  I turned around only to lock eyes with the snarling wild green stag once again. Ned bellowed and scrapped his giant golden antlers across the gilded ceiling before charging towards me.

  The world became uneven and ruckussy as I ran through it once more, sprinting towards a row of tables that would lead me to the back of the room.

  Two elves jumped in front of me as Ned Bedlam crashed through the room behind me. I stutter-stepped, then dipped my shoulder left before leaping between the two elves and onto the table behind them with only their curses following close behind.

  Focus.

  Selwyn and the other heroes had regrouped near the shattered window. All pulled short bows from their shoulders and notched them with steaming arrows. She pointed at me as I skipped across the tables and they pursued me firing their magic missiles so speedily it was like running through a fluorescent meteor shower.

  Tables splintered as Ned crashed across them behind me, screaming and stomping through them and splitting them with his giant golden broadsword. Suddenly an old elf holding a short sword popped up between a crevice. I grabbed his face before he could swing, pinching his cheeks and thrusting him down as I leapt over him. I heard a brief scream before his face was shattered by one of Selwyn’s heavy bolts, followed by brisk snaps as the rest of his body was crushed beneath Ned’s stampeding hooves. I heard the disquieting twang of Elskov as a long white arrow rushed between my ankles and ripped out of the front of my robe, sweeping me off the final table.

  When I stood up and looked around, the room was filled with Scammanders.

  The Bonheuros had formed a circle with their backs to one another, their short bows and sparkling arrows pointing to the ground, creating a glowing ring of neon lights much like Scammander’s eyes, or a faery circle one sees on warm May nights. They traded uneasy glances with one another, guarding an exit no Scammander seemed to be running towards.