Revenge - 5

Magic!! Why he wasn’t informed that fiend knew magic?!

The inu growled between his teeth. No time to be shocked, no time to be scared. Quickly he regained his footing and made a furious dash towards his vehicle, still hovering in place. So what if the squamataur had bulked up? A coward is still a coward. He had brought enough weapons to take on a whole army, what chance did that monster stand? His revenge would not be denied!

Those thoughts were put into question soon enough. Just as Beo Wulf had started to run, the muddy behemoth had picked a great boulder from the now still pond, and with a mighty swing of a single arm he hurled it towards the flying device. In mere seconds it had struck, crunched ball of metal and smoke and granite spinning through the air and smashing on the ground with a terrible noise and sparks of magic energy. The inu had stopped at his tracks at the scene and actually yelled in frustrated anger. The brute! He didn’t have the right!

Grendel on his part merely stood there, letting out a groan that might as well have been a sarcastic laugh. Ugly, rabid grin behind his horrible scum-helmet as Beo Wulf turned around, locking his sight on him. Then raging bellows were traded, knotted muscles strained, drum-beat of heavy footfalls, and the two hunters charged at each other.

Their fight began anew.

But now it was different. The gouts of flame that had worked so well before now did nothing on the wet and slimy mud. What harpoons remained on his device the inu launched again and again without order, without cohesion, and yet none of them were slowing down the squamataur, pain shrugged off or ignored altogether. Even Grendel’s attitude had changed. So brutal, so relentless, so ferocious, never giving the inu a chance to fight back. A whirlwind of berserker rage that slammed and snapped, stomped and pounded, swung and clawed. And upon this assault Beo Wulf could did nothing but protect himself, jumping and scurrying and ducking desperately at every turn, only narrowly evading the cruel blows.

“What’s wrong???” Grendel roared, taunting “Can’t do jack without your toys, huh?! Weren’t you going to make me SUFFER?? Avenge your village???” In another burst of strength, he stood up on his rear limbs and brought down his whole weight on the inu, torn plants and soil flying everywhere in a thunderous shockwave “Come on!!! Fight me, bounty hunter!!!!”

Beo Wulf now tumbled before the squamataur, just as defiant if struggling to stay on foot. Drenched in mud and dirty water, with his hair all messy and falling over his face, breathing harshly and hard…but still, scowling back with those horrible, horrible eyes. Shakily he dumped the now-empty harpoon device, and whipped that fork-thing at Grendel defiantly

“I…don’t need weapons to take you down, monster!! My family…my revenge…I will…I will KILL YOU!!!!

“NO YOU CAN’T!!!!!!”

Grendel had swatted him brutally with one hand, sending him flying down the ruined undergrowth. With a dry cracking thud he struck the ground. And before he could get back up, Grendel’s mud-claw struck him again. And again. And again.

“You manlings are all the same!! “You think all them fiddly things make you strong! But you’re NOT!!! You’re WEAK!!! All huddling behind walls and tools to feel big! Weaklings that kill weaklings!!! Too scared to accept you’re FOOD, and NOTHING MORE!!!!”

The inu once more fell to the ground, coughing blood, clutching at his chest with the pain and sound of broken ribs. Struggling, doing his best to try and stand up.

“I’m not like the stunted runts you hunt down! I am GRENDEL!!! I don’t need no flashy con-trap-shun to be strong!! I AM strong!!!! You…almost got me, I’ll give you that….but you had your chance, and you LOST IT!!!”

As fast as an eye blink Grendel slammed one of his hands on the twitching inu, clamping him with rough earthly talons, and raising him to his face. Yet again they stared at each other. Shimmering hate, poorly disguised exhaustion, this and who knows what else so evident in their expressions. Fangs displayed menacingly, toxic saliva and blood respectively oozing from them. Whenever Beo Wulf struggled, Grendel would tighten the grip.

Her face briefly flashed in the squamataur’s mind. Promptly it was forgotten.

“….and with me, there’s never a second chance”

The fearsome maw was opened. Serrated teeth glistened with sunlight and thick drool. Putrid breath puffed out. Beo Wulf’s great scream of rage as he was crammed inside.

Then Grendel himself screamed.

He spat out the inu almost immediately and reached for his mouth in pained frustration. A clean slice was now splitting his upper lip, bleeding profusely. Where had that prick gotten that knife??

Beo Wulf, in the mean time, had landed several feet away, between the roots of some of the great trees. Kicking and yelling in the dark he was, all the while reaching for something in his increasingly torn clothes. Rapidly he pulled some sort of vial, and stabbed it on the torn stump that used to be his right arm, churning with pouring blood and sticky necrotic drool. He had surprised Grendel, for sure, but the squamataur had gotten a last laugh too. Pain, so much pain in every inch of his body, it was unbearable.


The earth was shaking. With eyes blurry from the accumulated pain he watched the equally wounded behemoth slowly lumber towards the woods, staring down at him once again. The mud armour was starting to fall off his body, exposing once again the bleeding, marred figure underneath. The darkness was obscuring Grendel almost completely, but his eyes were faintly visible, purple orbs glowing in such a terrifying image. Vile vapour emanating with each rumbling breath.

And Beo Wulf had practically lost it by that point. Madly he shuddered and convulsed, reaching shakily with his remaining arm towards the titan in the distance. Foam and blood surging from between broken canines, raspy and breathless cursing repeated over and over without cease.

“k-kill you….I’ll kill you---kill you----kill you----kill you….k-k-kill you….”

The squamataur was growing closer. No response of any kind to the inu’s threats, it just kept lumbering forward, hammering the ground with every great step, that ferocious stare never changing at all. Closer, closer….

…and then he passed him.


“…Hey….” The wretched inu croaked “Hey!!! Where are you going??”

“I’m sick of you” Grendel said, simply and bluntly. “Stay there if you want”

“No…No!!!!! Come back, it’s not over yet!!!! You damn monster!!!! I’ll kill you!!! I’LL KILL YOOUUU!!!!!”

But Grendel no longer paid attention. The giant predator limped through the dark greenery at a slow pace, staining the shrubbery with mud and blood as he pushed his way. The ground behind him littered with the remains of the mud armour and the inu’s harpoons as he plucked and tossed them aside. Sudden stings of pain continued to plague him, and his mind seemed to lose itself at times, but he couldn’t be bothered with it. He had enough.

The inu’s outraged cries didn’t go completely unnoticed either. From the tree tops swarms of Nexocula descended, drowning the half-silence of the gloom with the flutter of thousands of wings, circling above the bloodied inu in eager anticipation. In the shrubs many-legged things squirmed and skittered towards the manling, snapping mouthparts and fidgety antennae on the hunt for fresh meat.

Yet he remained uncaring, oblivious to the darkling host surrounding him, for Beo Wulf’s mind was wholly focused in that hated giant, that despicable demon that shamed him so. Even as blood clogged his throat, even as life slowly but surely leaved his broken body, his ire towards the marching ogre remained.

“Grendeeeeeel!!!!! Greeeeendeeeeellll!!!!!” He screamed with horrible gurgling in his throat “May the gods rot your entrails!!!! May chocolate poison your stagnant soul!! “With my last…breath…I spit at you!!!….FROM HELL’S GATE…..I CURSE YOOOUUUUUUU!!!!!

Only one last glance did Grendel give Beo Wulf, before his shape became lost in the vegetation and the bringers of death fell upon the hunter

“…See if I care”