Duel (2)

It was cold here. Strong breezes tore across the landscape amid pitted rocks. The few patches of ground that weren’t drowned by water gurgled with fresh glossy mud. Lily pads and buoyant plants of various kinds carpet all in sight, frogs and fish and crustaceans and water striders wriggling just beneath. And above all, the rain, ever present rain

Grendel didn’t like this. No, he didn’t like it at all. He had been travelling for a day, and not once had the rain stopped or given him a moment’s reprieve. With every step he took the water would splash, doing away with any sort of stealth, sometimes even sucking his claws in. Only things he could catch were slugs and slug-bloods and leeches. The first two are hard to swallow with their tasteless mucus, and the latter gave him the metallic taste of his own blood. And as he reached behind his neck with scratching fingers he realized the downpour didn’t even help with the parasites

This was not his place. He was but a creature of the heat, of the warm sun, of the dry ground and hot wind. What was he doing in a land of greedy water and fat clouds? Why did he even go up here to begin with?

For now he would move in the direction that seemed the easiest, a subtle and narrow valley he only now just noticed cascaded in a downhill slope. Perhaps he’ll find himself in the jungle again, that way he could look for a Groomer nest. Or even better, he might find a nice mud hole instead. It had been so long since he had a bath…

Weariness temporarily replaced by a vague sense of hope, the great squamataur continued his slow travel, almost tripping as one of his limbs sinks on the mucky path. The wind continued to howl and the monsoon would get in his eyes, but still he shouldered forward. There is no other path but forward. To turn back is the path of the weak.

Something was following him.

Quiet and sneaky it was, clambering on the slippery rocks, under the hissing drone of the rain. It could be said it was a squamataur, if one saw under the stretched animal hide that served as his cloak, and the makeshift goggles that distorted his eyes. He kept moving in short bursts of activity, blue and grey scales glinting faintly every time he did so. His hands clutched a long spear of knotted wood and bone, dangling ribbons of cloth that flapped in the stormy wind. And as he slowly approached his much larger victim his body was shuddering with anticipation, uncertainty. Perhaps fear as well.

The giant wasn’t aware of his presence. He could do this. He could do it.

Moments later Grendel stopped on his tracks and, silently, in a surprisingly swift motion, stood on his rear legs. He was trying to get a good look at the horizon.

The smaller squamataur almost stopped breathing at that sight. It’s time!!

In an eye blink he scampered across a patch of high-growing water weeds. With all the strength his lizard limbs could give him, he leaped. Animal screech as he aimed the spear at his target’s meaty neck.

Last thing he truly expected to see was that huge hand closing on his face.

That same hand threw him at the flooded slope with great violence. The sheer force of the impact, the shock of the water’s surface shattering against him, the edged bottom rocks piercing his skin… all coming together in crippling pain.

But before his numbed mind could register any other sensation, heavy fists and clawed forelimbs came down on him. In seconds the churning waters were running red, and the would-be attacker was but a twitching gobbet of meat, bones shattered, ruptured organs spilling out like diseased worms.

Grendel remained hunched over the kill, the increasingly heavy rain washing away the blood he splattered. And yet this was far from over. With an enraged grunt he grabbed the broken carcass and hauled it to the blurry landscape in front of him, then let out a loud snarl, moist cloud of vapour bursting from his fierce maw.

“Come on!!” He roared “I know you’re out there!! I can SMELL you all!!! Show yourselves if you have the guts!!! OR I’ll COME AFTER YOU MYSELF!!!”

Almost instantly he was answered. A cacophony of savage howls and whoops joined the cacophony of the storm, and then yet more figures emerged from behind the rocks. Many of them were squamataurs, but Grendel could make out some medium-sized nagas amidst them; three or four dridders as well. All of them seemed to be wearing nothing but animal skins and hides of practically all imaginable kinds, some worn like scarves, others like cloaks, or simply tied together in a grisly mimicry of human shirts. They were also wielding spears, and they waved and thrust them in the air as they revealed themselves. Screaming, hollering, laughing at Grendel’s face, cheering in triumph like they had caught a most delectable prey

The great squamataur would stomp the watery ground before them, hiss, roar, bellow, beat his chest, crack his tail in the air like the thunder that growled in the distance. He was not one to be impressed. Who were these pipsqueaks to defy him? Did they seriously want to fight? Come on, then, let them all come! He will make them SUFFER!!!

Then the largest of them all leaped in front of Grendel.

It certainly was quite the sight, for his choice of cloak was an entire naga skin, stripped from head to tip of the tail and many times larger than its new owner. The tauric half was that of an immense iguana, lean but muscular, with striking black markings on bright green scales. Long, thin claws on spider-like fingers combed and pinched at the very mud behind them, as if they couldn’t wait to be used. What could be seen from the human half had a strangely athletic build, and on its right hand was a spear, the biggest and longest he had seen from these buffoons, craftily decorated and ending in wicked shards of stone or metal, proudly displaying a superior status. And finally, drawing spiral patterns above the entire figure was the being’s tail, lengthy enough to wrap the entire torso, and covered in dorsal spikes that gleamed like the most polished metal.

The expression of angered disdain in Grendel’s face hadn’t changed at all when this opponent finally spoke, a voice raspy and wet like a tonorion gargling on citroise juice “Good show, ha ha ha! Veeery good show!! Those rumours didn’t disappoint!”

And before he could even say a word the stranger pulled back his grisly hood. The face of a young man, decorated in a similar style to his own tauric markings. Blazing red hair descending beyond the neckline, eyes as yellow as the morning sun….and a wicked grin under cut-up lips that no man would have found the slightest bit comforting

“So…I’m gonna taaaake….you’re The Outlaw...”