Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (24 page)

Read Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Online

Authors: Walt Popester

Tags: #horror, #fantasy, #heavy metal, #dagger, #walt popester

He heard a confused chatter and advanced
until it was possible, before hiding to observe. The Tankar had
reached one of his like, sitting on the floor in front of a fire.
Beyond them, the winding path continued to ascend toward the top of
the cave, but for the moment it seemed the two didn’t want to go
further. They passed from hand to hand a large leather bag, from
which they drew great drafts of a thick and frothy liquid. Between
the sips, in that silence where even the smallest sound had its
moment of importance, he heard them speak in an articulated
language and understood they could not be mere irrational
beasts.
In addition, he could roughly understand
what they were saying, “Shadows made things big big,” muttered the
one he had followed there. “Ship destroyed, made prisoners. All
very Bum Bum! Fire and blood everywhere!”
The bigger one, barked in satisfaction.
“Yay, fire and blood!” he replied. “Saw humans pass in chains, in
terror. Perhaps fools understand where Gorgor come to this world,
pity they not live long enough to tell their fellows.”
They both laughed heartily, drinking
on.
Then the smallest one frowned, running his
tongue over his black lips. “But this time we big risk,” he said.
“Yes, too much attention on us and fucking passage. Guardians not
so stupid stupid.”

“
We and shadows got power to
resist any attack, now!”

“
No, we not power! Not until
the boy still in their hands! Better to stay hidden in dark for a
little, at least until he back in our hands!”

“
They not find
him?”

“
Nay, he not found. The
remains of the ship searched top to bottom, and the whole sea. No
trace of the boy. Shadows look for him for years. Time they hurry
up!”

The big one growled. “Maybe healthy old
torture come in handy handy. Sure prisoners know something!”

“
By the way, I show to you
one thing. Had some sort of pain in the ass for a while, following
me since I came into the tunnel. And who think me so stupid as not
to feel his smell of corpse left in the sun for days.” He stood up
and turned around, grinning with his lucid fangs as he looked
exactly at where Dagger was hidden. “You come out now!” he barked.
“I know you to be there, what you believe? Do you think I not
noticed? You come out and I kill you quickly. You make me come
there, and I will entertain with you a little more
more!”

Holy shit!

“
With who you
talk?”

“
Someone followed me this
far. Yay! His smell gets up to Adramelech!”

The big one jumped up. “And you let
yourself follow here?” he barked. “Stupid, this serious serious!
Passage no longer secret!”
His mate growled and wore the glove with
long metal claws. Even the big one put it on, ready to fight.
Apparently, they wore only one on the right hand, keeping the other
one free to grab the neck of their victims. The blades gleamed
menacingly in the firelight. They were sharp and pretty damn long,
definitely longer than Redemption.
With fire at their backs, the two beasts
moved a step forward, but Dagger came out from behind the pillar
and pointed the blade against them.

“
Not a step further!” he
menaced, trying to sound more determined than his trembling legs
would indicate. The two stopped and looked into each other’s
eyes.

“
A boy?”

“
Yes, sweet boy to eat
raw.”

“
You made follow you from a
boy?”

“
Come on, look how he
dressed! Bet one of them, a Guardian!”

“
He’s only a novice, he’s
not even… oh come one, look how he holding his dagger!”

At that, the little one cocked his head
sideways as if reasoning. “One moment!” he said.

“
What?”

“
Light! Light!” he barked.
“The dagger shines! Him the Boy! Yay! The Boy!”

“
Bring it on, motherfuckers!
I’ve already killed several of mangy dogs like you!”

The two Tankars looked at each other again,
this time only to burst out in wild laughing barks. Dagger took
advantage of their distraction and started forward, recommending
his soul to Ktisis and, now that he was around too, even to his
father Skyrgal. He stuck the lightning knife into the chest of one
of the two. Who answered just throwing him to the side with a
single backhand hit on the belly. Dagger barely had time to notice
he was suspended in midair, before slamming his back against the
rock wall and slide to the ground, folded in two like a
handkerchief.
The Tankar ran his hand over the charred
wound. He licked his own blood as he looked straight into his eyes.
He looked seriously pissed off now. Dagger forced himself to ignore
the pain and stand up again.

“
You boy very imprudent,”
the giant said, pointing him with his index finger. “Yay, you very
unwise and not even know how to use that dagger! That be very
powerful if you know how to use it. Too bad you do not have more
time. Now we Tankar eat you slowly, the hell with our
orders.”

“
You do not do shit!” the
little one warned. “Do not forget who he is!”

In response, his buddy turned around with
his arm outstretched and decapitated him.
Dagger jumped into the fire and grabbed a
firebrand, waving the flames in front of him, in hope that the
bestial nature of his enemy feared fire.
Seriously, how do I think to get away with
it, this time?
The beast growled, moving the menacing
blades in the air, before shooting forward at full speed. Dagger
closed his eyes, resigned to his umpteenth death. Then he heard a
hellish commotion and new ferocious barks. Hearing, he knew he was
still alive, or at least part of that world. He opened his eyes and
saw that a Tankar with thick white hair, born out of nowhere, had
bitten the neck of the giant moments before killing him. He sprang
to his feet, watching the two beasts clung to each other in a
desperate struggle for survival. Without asking himself too many
questions, he stuck the burning wood in the eye of his enemy, who
abandoned the fight against the white wolf to pull the ember out of
his skull. Even with a face reduced to a twisted mask of blood and
burning hair, he was back on his feet. The white one was whining,
hair stained with the blood gushing from a gaping wound on the
side.
Dagger was not unprepared. He dodged the
giant’s gloved hand and planted Redemption in the middle of the
mighty left bicep. This time, the shock blew up the arm of the
beast, who yelped in pain as he tried to stop the bleeding with the
remaining hand.
The white Tankar came again to his aid, but
the disfigured and dismembered one managed to turn around in time
to draw four lines of blood on his chest, knocking him out. That
was the last thing he did, as he himself seemed to understand
bringing his hand to the bright blade stuck in his throat.

“
Die, you bastard!” Dagger
cried, working his way through the neck of the beast, aided by the
Mayem’s vital force. He levered on the cervical vertebrae and
chopped off his entire head. The giant seemed to raise his claws
against him, still shaken by the unholy life that had suddenly
abandoned him. Finally, the chopped neck gave his last gush of
blood, and the body was abandoned to a deserved death.

Dagger knelt in the sticky
red fluid, panting. He looked at the blade, wondering why only now
it showed all that power. The handle was covered up with
blood.
His
blood.
When he saw it rapidly absorbed, or drunk, by the cursed metal, he
realized the Guardians had not told him the whole truth. Now that
it had taken his blood, he could feel the blade’s surface as if it
were the skin of his hand. It had become part of him, the natural
continuation of his arm. The feeling passed only when the blade
slipped back inside the sheath, becoming silent and unusable
again.

He turned to the white Tankar and stepped
back in surprise, because on the ground was no longer the beast who
had saved him.
With four lines crossing the bloody belly,
lying on the ground was the naked, lifeless body of Kugar.

* * * * *

 

He rubbed his fingers to loosen the layer
of coagulated blood that covered them. When he dropped it into the
flames, he was hit by its sour and disgusting smell. He moved his
skeptical look to Redemption, silent by his side. Giving him the
cursed weapon, Marduk had done for him more than anyone else had
ever done. Even Kugar, in one way or another, had risked her life
for his salvation. The Guardians did not trust him any more than he
would trust them, yet they were dying for him.

Who can love you anymore
than I, that I wanted and created you?
said
Skyrgal’s voice in his head.

He unsheathed the blade, turning it in his
hands. “I do,” he replied to the voice in his head. “I love me more
than he who created me.”
Kugar moved in her sleep and let out a
groan of pain. “No,” she yelled, jumping up. She looked around,
trying to figure out where she was. She saw her wounds, then turned
to the headless Tankar’s corpse.

“
There was a fight,” Dagger
said, sheathing Redemption. “We had the best of it.”

“
It looks so.” Looking at
herself, the girl realized she was stark naked.

Dagger blushed and looked away.

“
What? You’ve never seen a
girl as she is?”

“
Stop it.”

She smiled. “Nice virgin god that I’ve
found me,” she said. “I hate to think at what you’ve done while I
was unconscious.”

“
I just medicated
you!”

“
Really? And with
what?”

He did not answer.
Her eyes widened. She took her fingers to
the wounds, then the nose. She grimaced in disgust. “Dagger!”

“
I’ve never seen a wound
infected in that way, and I had no other means!”

“
You pissed on
me!?”

“
No, I just tamponed it with
a cloth soaked in…! I mean…”

She tried to punch him, but he dodged and
pinned her to the ground. They looked into each other’s eyes,
before bursting into laughter. They stayed like that for some time,
lying on the ground facing each other.

“
I’m afraid this is the most
beautiful thing someone has ever done for me,” Kugar said. “Shit,
you must really care for someone to do such a thing.”

Dagger became serious. He ran a hand
through her hair.

“
Hey?” she said.

“
What?”

“
Don’t get any weird ideas.
I’d better find something to put on me.” She pushed him away, got
up and went to rummage through the human remains at the base of a
column, probably the last meal of the Tankar who stood guard. She
found a worn-out coat and bent down to pick it up, slowly, wearing
it despite the caked blood stains on the fabric. Then she sat down
before the fire, hugging her knees with her arms. “The show is
over, kid.”

Dagger’s heart was pounding like horseshoes
on cobblestones. “You don’t remember anything, do you?” he managed
to ask.

“
Nothing at all,
sweetheart,” Kugar replied. “Since I ran away with hair growing
everywhere on my skin,” she paused, before growling, “I hate it! I
hate every time it happens!”

“
And how many times is
that?”

“
Sometimes every day,
sometimes it does not happen for months. I never know if I’m about
to become a threat to those around me. At any given, Ktisisdamn,
moment of my existence.”

“
When I did not see you
anymore, I decided to follow the beast in this cave,” Dagger
explained. “But he found me out. He was going to kill me, then you
came. You must have followed me into the cave, and you saved my
life.”

“
I did not do it on
purpose.”

“
What?”

“
Saving you. It was just
instinct. Probably it’s like when dogs bite other dogs before
attacking their masters.”

“
It’s all the same. You did
not drown when the ship sank and I have not been gutted in this
place. Now we’re even. In fact, I have even medicated
you.”

Kugar smiled and shrugged her shoulders
under the rags.

“
You’re one of them, right?”
Dagger supposed. “I mean—”

“
No,” she interrupted him,
getting serious. “I’m not one of them, even if their blood flows
inside me. My mother was a Guardian, my father a Tankar,.” She
looked down at the beast’s severed head. “The wolf men that inhabit
the desert of Candehel-mas, Gorgors’ allies, or pawns. Really
delicious individuals, as you may have noticed.”

“
And I suppose I’m the only
one to know your true nature.”

“
What do you say? The
Guardians would banish me forever beyond the walls of Golconda, if
they knew my true nature. And they would do well. I would do the
same with myself!” Her voice was loaded with rage, in the end. “Do
you know how to keep a secret or do I have to kill you?”

“
A secret must just be kept
on the right side of your mouth,” he answered. “In the end, I owe
you. If you had not intervened, it would have ended very badly for
me. I hate to think where I would have resurrected this
time.”

“
What part of the sentence
‘it was just instinct’ you did not understand? Besides, I don’t
think I was the only one to risk her life for you, given the
thoughtlessness with which you throw yourself into the arms of
death. To follow a Tankar in his den. Tsk! You have to be
completely crazy to do it. Maybe you cannot die, but others around
you can. And do!”

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