Michael Sullivan: Avempartha

Not losing a beat the Gilarabrywn swung its tail around in a sharp snap. The long bone blade on the tip hummed as it sliced the air two feet above the ground. Hadrian leapt over it and the tail glanced off the hillside stabbing into a charred timber. A quick flick and the several hundred-pound log flew into the night. Hadrian reached inside his tunic and drew Alverstone from its sheath. He crouched like a knife-fighter in a ring, up on the balls of his feet, waiting for the next attack.

Once more, the Gilarabrywn’s tail came at him. This time it stabbed like a scorpion. Hadrian dove aside, and the long point sunk into the earth.

He ran forward.

The Gilarabrywn snapped at Hadrian with his teeth. He was ready for that, expecting it, counting on it. He jumped aside at the last minute. It was so close one tooth sliced through his tunic and gashed his shoulder. It was worth it. He was inches from the beast’s face. With all his strength, Hadrian stabbed Royce’s tiny dagger into the monster’s great eye.

The Gilarabrywn screeched an awful cry that deafened Hadrian. It reared back, stomping its feet. The tiny blade pierced the pupil and cut a slice. It shook its head perhaps as much in disbelief as in pain and glared at Hadrian with its one remaining eye. Then it spat out words so laced with venom that Tomas did not need to translate.

The beast spread its wings and drew itself up in the air. Hadrian knew what was coming next and cursed his own stupidity having allowed the creature to move him so far from the pit. He could never make it there in time now.

The Gilarabrywn screeched and arched its back.

There was a loud twack! A wad of rope netting flew into the air like a ball. With small weights tied to the edges that traveled faster than the center, the net flew open like a giant windsock, enveloping the flapping beast even as it tried to take flight.

Its wings tangled in the net, the Gilarabrywn dropped to the hilltop, crashing down with a heavy thud, the impact throwing up bits of the manor house’s stairway banister that flew end-over-end before shattering in a cloud of ash.

“It worked!” Tobis shouted as much in shock as in triumph from the far side of the hill.

Hadrian saw his opportunity and, spinning around, charged the monster. As he did, he noticed Theron following him.

“I told you to take Thrace and run,” Hadrian yelled.

“You look like you needed help,” Theron shouted back, “And I told Thrace to head for the well.”

“What makes you think she will listen to you any more than you listen to me?”

Hadrian reached where the Gilarabrywn lay on its side thrashing about wildly, and dove at its head. He found its open eye and attacked, stabbing repeatedly. With a terrible scream, the beast raked back with its legs, ripping the net open, and rolled to its feet again.

Hadrian, so intent on blinding the beast, had stepped on the netting. When the monster rose up, Hadrian’s feet went out from under him. He fell flat on his back, the air knocked from his lungs.

Blind, the beast resorted to lashing out with its tail, sweeping it across the ground. Hadrian got caught while trying to stand up. Too close to be hit by the blade, the force of the blunt tail struck him.

Hadrian rolled and tumbled like a rag doll, sliding across the ash until he stopped in a patch of dirt where he lay, unmoving. Freeing itself fully of the net, the beast sniffed the air and began moving toward the one who had caused it pain.

“No!” Theron shouted and charged. He ran for Hadrian, thinking he could drag him clear of the blind beast before it reached him, only the beast was too fast and reached Hadrian the same time Theron did.

Theron picked up a rock and drew forth the broken blade he still carried. He aimed for the exposed creature’s side and, using the rock as a hammer, drove the metal home like a nail.

This stopped the Gilarabrywn from killing Hadrian, but the beast did not cry out as it had when Hadrian stabbed it. Instead, it turned and laughed. Theron struck the blade with the rock again forcing the metal deep, but still the beast did not cry out. It spoke to him, but Theron could not understand the words. Then, having little trouble guessing where the farmer stood, the Gilarabrywn swiped at him with his claw.

Theron did not have the speed or agility that Hadrian had. Strong as he was for his age his old body could not move clear of the blow in time and the great nails of the beast stabbed into him like four swords.

“DADDY!” Thrace screamed, running to him. She scrambled up the slope crying as she came.

From their blind, Tobis and the dwarf fired a rock at the Gilarabrywn, and managed to hit its tail. The beast spun and charged furiously in their direction.

Falling to her hands and knees Thrace crawled to Theron’s side and found her father lying broken on the hill. His left arm lay twisted backwards, his foot facing the wrong direction. His chest soaked in dark blood and his breath hitched as his body convulsed.

“Thrace,” he managed to say weakly.

“Daddy,” she cried as she cradled him in her arms.

“Thrace,” he said again, gripping her with his remaining hand and pulled her close. “I’m so-” his eyes closed tightly in pain. “I’m so-pr-proud of you.”

“Oh god, Daddy. No. No. No!” she cried shaking her head.

She held him, squeezing as hard as she could, trying by the force of her arms to keep him with her. She would not let him go. She could not, he was all there was. She sobbed and wailed, clutching his shirt, kissing his cheek and forehead, and as she held him, she felt her father pass away into the night.

Theron Wood died on the scorched ground in a pool of blood and dirt. As he did, the last tiny remnant of hope Thrace had held onto-her last foothold she had in the world-died with him.

There is a darkness of night, a darkness of senses, and a darkness of spirit. Thrace felt herself drowning in all three. Her father was dead. Her light, her hope, her last dream, they all died with his last breath. Nothing remained upon the world that it had not taken from her.

It had killed her mother.

It had killed her brother, his wife, and her nephew.

It had killed Daniel Hall and Jessie Caswell.

It had burned her village.

It had killed her father.

Thrace raised her head and looked across the hill at it.

No one that had been attacked had ever lived. There were never any survivors.

She stood and began to walk forward slowly. She reached into the robe and pulled out the sword that had remained hidden there.

The beast found the catapult and shattered it. It turned and blindly began to search its way back down the hillside sniffing. It did not notice the young girl.

The thick layer of ash that it had created quieted her steps.

“No, Thrace!” Tomas shouted at her. “Run away!”

The Gilarabrywn paused and sniffed at the sound of the shout, sensing danger, but unable to determine its source. It tried to look in the direction of the voice.

“No, Thrace-don’t!”

Thrace ignored the cleric. She had passed beyond hearing, beyond seeing, beyond thinking. She was no longer on the hill. She was no longer in Dahlgren, but rather in a tunnel, a narrow tunnel that led inescapably to only one destination…it.

It kills people. That’s what it does.

The beast sniffed the air. She could tell it was trying to find her; it was searching for the smell of fear it created in its victims.

She had no fear. It destroyed that too.

Now she was invisible.

Without hesitation, fear, question, or regret, Thrace quietly walked up to the towering monster. She gripped the elven sword in both hands and raised it above her head. Putting the full weight of her small body into it, she thrust the broken sword into the Gilarabrywn’s body. She did not have to put so much effort into it, the blade slipped in easily.