by Cale Madison
“The girls may still be alive.”
“No, too much blood was lost.” he replied with a frown.
Two lit candles sat on a wooden table, illuminating a slab of raw meat that sat on a bloody dinner plate. Flies buzzed around it, feasting and laying their eggs. Skalige noticed another trail of dried blood that stretched between the vacant bar and the front door, where it disappeared into the grass. A broken bottle had been slid beneath the bartop, out of sight.
“Was this an attack by Arrigon?” I asked.
“What would Arrigon gain from slaughtering a helpless village? They’re not savages you’d find in Zuma. No, this had be something more sinister. I’ve never seen anything like it. No struggle, just blood and emptiness.” the baron said as he followed the trail to where it ended.
Silence drifted through the few streets of this abandoned town, deserted of all colonizations from those we had encountered before. Buckets of compressed grapes sat in odd formations in the fields without an indication of reason. A blanket of stillness and secrecy covered the homes, the empty tavern and every inch of untended land. We entered each residence and discovered only blood splotches and untended dinner tables with lone pallets of uncooked meat.
“Wait...there’s an old folktale about this...” Skalige said as we moved into another farmhouse to check for inhabitants, “The Manokai of Valhalla. The Horse-Man.”
“The what?”
“You’ve never heard of the manokai? The legend came from the Valhalla Islands. They tell of a beautiful man who was unhappy with his appearance. He took his share of women but wanted all of ‘em. His unappreciative nature infuriated Opheria, who had blessed him with such beauty. To teach him a lesson, she bound his soul and body with his black stallion, turning him into the ugliest beast that ever roamed the world. The curse wouldn’t allow him to cross water, as he could no longer gaze at his own reflection, so he couldn’t sail back to his home on Valhalla. Stories say that entire villages began to disappear, leaving only feast-ready tables with raw meat displayed for no one. The manokai would kill ‘em and leave pieces of his victims in their homes on dinner plates. Some say he did it out of hatred because he didn’t have his own home.”
“Your mother would tell you such a dark story?” I asked, cautiously peering into each abandoned room.
“We’re not prissied sots from Ataman, Caine. We could handle a few dark stories. She would threaten us with the manokai when we refused to eat our supper. Said that the Horse-Man would sweep us away in the night if we didn’t.”
I listened to the story as we explored the empty house, noticing the raw, pink slices of bloody meat that rested along the table and shelves and the distinctive manner of order. It doesn’t look like a struggle took place...
“How did they catch it?” I asked, curiously.
“They didn’t. I’ve heard that the beast disappeared into the Further, never to be seen again, like most monsters of fable and folk legend. If not the manokai, then we have a serial killer who modeled himself after it.” Skalige noted. He moved quietly behind me, searching in rooms for anyone who could explain what happened, “I’ve heard other stories, saying that the manokai was once a dying alchemist who drank a bad combination of potions. There’s no telling. They’re just stories.”
“Not saying that the monster is real, but if it were, how would you stop it?” I asked, trying to conceal my anxiety as it flowed through my body. The more houses we ventured into, the more uneasy I became about finding the cause.
“If it’s half-horse, half-man, I’m guessing you can’t just toss a saddle over the damn thing and ride it. We could try feeding him carrots.” the baron said with a faint laugh, “Both humans and horses eat carrots, right? If only the world operated as simply as it did in my head.”
My companion then dropped into the seat at the head of the home’s dining table to rest. He glanced over the perfectly-positioned spoons and forks, noticing the precariousness of their spacing and how perfect it was all set; a slab of raw, untouched meat sat spoiling on a plate in the center. The sun set behind the mountains, basking Tuskan in the dark shrouds of night. Fireflies and glow worms danced in the trees surrounding Bardford, almost joyously as they learned that they were alone.
We sat at the table for a few moments before he banged his fists on the linen cloth and announced, “Alright, Caine, you win. I lied, alright? I lied and I’m man enough to admit it.”
“Lied about what?”
“I never pulled the wings from a damned harpy. It was a murder of crows that swarmed my father. He was drunk of his arse and I chased ‘em away with a switch. I’ve twisted that story so many times, I’ve nearly forgotten what really happened.” he replied, casually drinking wine from a goblet on the table. I could tell that he cared little if it were poisoned.
“Thought it spiced up the tale a bit. Didn’t have much of a childhood, to be honest. Had to invent my own daring adventures.”
“Well, if we’re revealing truth...” I said to him from across the table as I took a seat, “There was a moment when I had my bow aimed at the mother wolf...this one moment that I actually considered letting it kill him.”
I noticed the baron’s eyes shine in the creeping darkness, a sign of surprise from the tone in my words. His eyebrows raised as he leaned backwards and folded his arms. I cracked a smile as I heard the peculiarity in such a sentence, but I continued to explain, “The bastard would come home, all hours of the night, storming through the door to beat my mother for not preparing his dinner. He always smelled of cheap wine and women’s perfume. I can still smell the lavender on his jacket. I used to hide beneath the table and carve words into the wood to distract myself as it happened. I thought, in that one, sweet moment, perhaps I should let the wolf end it all.”
“I knew there was a little darkness luring in you, somewhere. Why didn’t you let her?”
“I’ll never know. I guess I’ve always seen retribution in people.” I replied, losing myself in my own thoughts, “I’ve never told anyone that, not even Aketa.”
“Where’s the old man now?”
“Probably tied to a stone at the bottom of Hallobar. He liked to gamble with criminals. Always wagering more than he had in his pockets. Once he started to lose his mind, I stopped visiting him. Haven’t heard a word since five or six years ago, when he moved into the swamps at Osprey’s Landing. If he’s still alive, he’s an old hermit who doesn’t want to be bothered.”
“Lose his mind?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“A mental sickness. He forgets where he is half of the time. Soon, the beatings became worse and after my mother died, he began taking out his anger on me.” I said, feeling a lump rise in my throat as I relived the memories, “Used to blame me for her death. Bastard would look me straight in my eyes and wouldn’t recognize me. I didn’t see retribution in his case, only hatred. Eventually, I left to go live with my friend, Taryn in the port and never saw my father again. I don’t kn-”
We suddenly heard a gruff voice singing from outside. Quickly, I pulled the baron to the floor alongside me as a shadow crept through the village street. We peeked from beneath the house’s window pane, watching as a tall, brooding figure crossed our line of vision. It dragged two limp bodies into Bardford’s central, where it casually tossed them like sacks of potatoes and returned to where it emerged from. The hooded figure sang a solemn rhyme to itself as it walked slowly, “Baby, baby, if he hears you as he gallops past the house, limb from limb at once he'll tear you, just as cat tears a mouse. And he'll beat you, beat you, beat you, and he'll beat you into pap. And he'll eat you, eat you, eat you...every morsel, snap, snap, snap.”
I shuddered as I heard the gravelly voice sing the old nursery rhyme, the same one that mothers would tell their children when they asked questions about venturing out after dark. The hooded man repeated the words as he disappeared into the house again, only to return with another, much smaller body. In his left hand, he carried an iron spade and dragged
a lifeless child with his right.
“And he’ll beat you, beat you...” the hooded man sang as he dismembered the child’s head with his shovel and then tossed it into the village well, “beat you into pap.”
“The hell are we doing, Caine? Let’s gut the whoreson now.” Skalige whispered to me, readying to attack the wretched person. I snatched the collar of his armor, prompting him to return to his hiding place. We had to know what we were dealing with before we charged out with swords in hand. The man removed the heads of his other victims before he calmly chucked them into the mouth of the Bardford well. He proceeded to heave the other two bodies over his shoulder and then depart from the village with his spade.
“Let’s follow him.” I whispered to Skalige, drawing my sword from its sheath. We watched as the figure began to disappear into the shadows of the night, beyond the property boundaries with the carcasses.
“You mean to let the wretch gain the upper hand on us? I say that we strike now while he’s unaware.” he suggested as we crept into the village streets and passed the well, “It looked like a man, didn’t it?”
“Whatever it is, it just slaughtered an entire village. Better start remembering more about that folk tale.” I quietly snapped as we turned the corner to find that the hooded man was venturing off the village’s path towards a gated cemetery.
With only the light of the full moon to guide us, we crawled over some thickets and locked our eyes on the figure as it dropped the carcasses and began to dig. Nearly fifteen fresh grave mounds rested next to each other. White bones protrude from the grey soil, forming an ‘X’ on each grave.
“...every morsel...snap, snap, snap...” he ferociously stabbed the spade into the dirt until the hole revealed other decapitated bodies, slumped and compacted together. He then dragged the heavy carcasses through the mud and stuffed them inside.
When the horrid deed was finished, the hooded stranger rose from the dirt and gazed at the full moon above. He stared for some time with his back facing us. He was a broad-shouldered man with stringy, black hair covering his arms and hands. His head looked elongated and his legs were queerly misshapen, as if they extended backwards. Skalige whispered over my shoulder, “This is our chance.”
“We don’t know what this thing is yet.” I whispered back.
“He’s a murderer and a fiend and deserves his own grave. Not those villagers.”
“Look at him, baron. He doesn’t even look human? Look at his legs, for God’s sake.” I said, pointing towards his disfigured limbs.
Before we could alert the manokai, a different sound echoed through the trees, coming from the abandoned village: a young boy’s shouting. I recognized the voice as Malachi’s, who was thoughtlessly calling our names in the distance. The creature snapped his attention to the cries, revealing his face: hideous and disfigured with mangled flesh piecing together his lips and yellowed, jagged teeth. His lidless eyes did not blink, only focused solely on the location of the child’s voice. He suddenly shed its cloak, stretched his muscular, hooved hind legs and then sprinted in the village’s direction.
“For fuck’s sake, Malachi!” I shouted as we followed quickly behind.
The manokai ran with the speed of a mindless animal, bounding over fallen trees and bushes tirelessly with his eyes fixed on the village ahead. He hardly made any sound as he crossed another patch of groves, moving as quiet as a prowling panther. We spotted Malachi standing in the street with his attention drawn elsewhere. The beast did not tire, nor did he appear to falter in his direct course through the woods. Skalige and I fell behind, unable to keep up with him.
Fortunately, the prince spotted the approaching monster and fled to climb the overhanging roof of a house behind him, carrying a handful of rocks from the ground below. He scaled it just as the three of us arrived into Bardford. The Horse-Man overheard our footsteps and turned on his heel, towering above us like a bear standing over two dogs. His pearl-white, milky eyes flashed in the moonlight beneath his black flesh as we stepped around each other in a semi-circle. Black saliva fell from his lips as he snarled and stooped low to the ground, crawling on all fours.
“Man-flesh...” the manokai said in a grating voice, “man-flesh...”
We did not respond to the lofty creature, keeping silent as he continued to choke out more haunting words, “Man bones...snap, snap, snap. Beat you...beat you into pap.”
A heavy rock soared through the air and collided against the Horse-Man’s face, catching his attention for just enough time to allow a first strike from the baron. He thrusted his blade at the beast’s muscular thigh, drawing blood as it found its mark. Malachi continued to lob sharp stones as we fought the beast on the ground. The manokai leapt in our direction, separating the two of us momentarily while he swatted away the flailing projectiles. Skalige buried his sword into his leg a second time, momentarily crippling him. The monster cried out in pain, lashing out savagely as we struck at him again, only to be swiftly knocked into the dirt.
He gnashed his blood-covered teeth at us and lunged with ferociousness but did not spot the fourth stone as it smacked against his left eye. Blindly, he flailed his arm in my direction, only to brush across the sharp edge of my sword. Blood spewed from the wound, mixing with the blood on the grass beneath him. Rather than suffer another blow to his other eye, the manokai kicked us onto our backs and limped towards the prince, who had run out of missiles. We staggered to our feet and followed the monster as he scaled the wall of the house, snarling and hissing.
“Malachi, jump!” I shouted to the boy who stood, paralyzed in fear. The Horse-Man scrambled atop the roof, his monstrous face gleaming in the moonlight; the prince had nowhere left to run. The weight of the creature caused the house’s shingles to crumble inwards. Malachi leapt from the house, gliding through the air just out of reach of the beast’s claws and landed on the grass below. The boy fearfully fled into one of the abandoned houses.
As the manokai turned to bellow a horrifying whinny combined with the scream of a grown man, the house’s roof collapsed. In a cloud of dust and debris, the roof crumpled inward and the beast disappeared. The baron gritted his teeth, never straying too far from my side. I could hear commotion coming from within the house. Skalige whispered, “I’ll hold him off. You find the prince and get as far from here as you can. I can buy you both some time. Got it? Caine? What’re you still standing her for? Run, now!”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I persisted.
“You’re not meant to die here, Caine! Take the prince and run!”
“We do this together, baron.” I said, wiping sweat from my brow.
From the billowing cloud of dust, a horrendously ugly face emerged. The manokai snapped his bloody jaws together, dribbling repulsively as he crawled from the open doorway. Rage was all that I could see in his right eye, as the left had been blinded from Malachi’s expert stone throw. Ten meters from us, the monster began to circle us like a shark in open waters. The hairs on the back of my neck began to rise as I shuddered.
Skalige turned to me and exclaimed, “I have a plan! Drive him to the well!”
I shoved my friend out of the way as the creature leapt upon me, snapping his powerful jaws at my face while my locked, outstretched arms kept him at bay. Skalige soon after climbed onto his back, straddling the hairy beast to pull him off of me. I caught my breath, taking in my surroundings to clear the intensity of the fight. Immensely agitated, the manokai rolled over the baron and crawled to his hooved feet. We had tumbled directly beside the village well, per Skalige’s instructions. We were left with nowhere to run and dwindling, viable options in surviving this attack.
The baron pivoted on his heel, skillfully dodging the manokai’s swipe. He zig-zagged under his arm and cut through the meat beneath his shoulder, nearly severing it. A monstrous howl nearly shattered my eardrums. I could almost hear wailing of the cursed man imprisoned within the beast. Skalige made sure that his movements were in line with his foe, not to step too quickl
y or too slowly.
I snatched my sword from the dirt and raised it above my head as the beast attempted another sudden lunge, clashing the blade against his sharp teeth. Dark blood flowed from his jaw as I sliced open a gash in his mouth. The manokai swatted my weapon from my grasp with one blow and grabbed my throat. Reacting quickly, I pulled the djinn’s mirror shard from my pocket and carved the beast’s good eye. Howling in pain, he doubled over, released me and then delivered a swift but brutal kick to my skull. The hoof made strong contact against my forehead, sending me into a state of deliriousness as the many swirls and vibrant sounds blurred together around me. I teetered between total blackness and consciousness as I collapsed onto the hard ground. All that I could see were bright flashes of white light. With my sense of hearing impaired, along with the majority of my sight, I fought to stand upright. As my vision came to, I could see the struggle continuing without me.
The baron fought with the speed and agility of a young soldier. He silenced another of the manokai’s infernal screams with a downward slice across his chest. Once the creature wrestled him into the dirt, Skalige unsheathed his jewelled dagger and began stabbing into his sides and back. They rolled together, knocking against the side of the well, where he managed to climb to his feet and shove the manokai aside.
Skalige spotted an opportunity to embed the entirety of his sword into the monster’s ribcage. Another ear-splitting howl echoed throughout the empty village. With one hand, the Horse-Man snatched the baron up by his throat and then sunk his teeth into his exposed shoulder.
“NO!” I cried out, attempting to crawl towards them. My eyes strained to see the fight happening in front of me and my hands fumbled in the dirt as I tried to reach my friend. In a daze, I fought to find the coordination to rise to my knees while they tousled.