Champions and Monsters
Lightning curled his spine as the alligator sank its teeth into his, calf and fear flashed through his mind. Not because it had attacked—that had been expected—but because few things could pull the feet out from beneath a minotaur. Urkjorman was not used to being dragged like a child by a scornful parent.
Urk’s fingers hunted for purchase in the ponds depths and found nothing but mud and water. His hand wrapped around a stone, halting his trail through the depths, for a moment. Another jerk, and his fingers slipped free. The alligator pulled him through the water’s surface and slammed him down. He hit the water with a crack like thunder that sent stars exploding behind his eyes.
The alligator towed him through the water again. It shook him left and right, to force air from his lungs and drown him. But Urk was as much sailor as warrior, and he could hold his breath for a very long time. His fingers wrapped around a root deep in the muck, halting the attack with a violent tug.
The massive albino monster tugged once more, trying to dislodge its prey, and then twisted.
Pain, bright and pure, lanced through Urk’s body as his right knee dislocated. A roar escaped his lips, more fury than pain, as he dragged his ax through the water and into the side of the alligator’s skull. Urk could feel the blade of his iron ax skitter across bone and peel away bits of the leathery hide. The alligator released his leg and pulled away, hurt but far from dead.
Urk planted his good hoof and pushed up through the murky water. Hoots and wails washed over him as he broke the surface. On the shore, the tribe of reptile creatures had joined his companions in cheering him on. All save the two centaur. Omil was coal black, in stark contrast to Al’rashal’s golden coat, and he seemed more interested in Al’s attention than Urk’s victory.
Al seemed just as interested in giving it to him.
Rage.
Finish the fight.
Urk beat his knee back into place and focused his anger on it. Rage like threads of fire wound about the joint bracing tendons and knitting muscle. It would recover soon, but now he needed to focus on the alligator. The creature was circling him now, blood pouring from one side of its face, wearily approaching as it swam faster. It drew close then away, swam to the left, then the right, all to disorient Urk, all to twist him about and charge the minotaur’s back.
The alligator dove, little more than a swell of water now and charged Urk like a wave bent on murder.
Good. Let’s make this quick.
Urk pulled his ax into both hands and inhaled. He could feel the radiance of Kurgen'Kahl flowing through the weapon to fill his lungs. It was as though a tempest raged in his chest, struggling to burst free, but Urk held on to it, waiting until the wave was barely a dozen feet away. The alligator pushed itself into the air, jaws opening wider than the sky.
Urk opened his mouth, and the Voice of Thunder pushed past his lips. Water parted. Birds took flight. And the concussive force stunned the alligator in midflight almost halting its progress through the air. It hung, free of gravity for just a moment and Urk brought his ax about, removing half of the animal’s skull.
The crowd cheered and the cacophony was joined by the roar of a minotaur but not even one centaur.
Allowing himself to calm, Urk limped forward and grasped the alligator’s corpse and lifted it from the water. “Here,” he shouted. “Your champion is defeated!”
The cheers stopped. Silence swiftly rolled over the assembled to be replaced by agitated murmuring.
I said that in the Tongue of Kings, right? Urk wondered. He still had difficulty switching to the foreign language when filled with rage.
His eyes swept through the crowd to find Omil talking to one of the reptilians. The centaur reared back in surprise, as though struck before shouting to Urk.
“That wasn’t it!”
“What?” asked Urk.
“That wasn’t the champion!” answered Omil. “That was the … ” Omil stamped a hoof impatiently as he consulted with the reptilian chief.
“The what?” prompted Urk.
“The, ah … appetizer?”
Urk was about to shout “What?” again when pain circled his hips and jerked him backward.
The minotaur was dragged through the water several feet before he drove his ax into the churning soil and brought himself to a halt. Having a moment’s respite, he looked down at what was wrapping around his torso to find a bone-white tendril of bark sinking teeth like barbs into his flesh. With a swing of his ax, he severed the limb and turned about to face the new threat.
“That, is the champion!” shouted Omil.
“The tree?” asked Urk as he cast the severed tendril aside.
The shattered fragments of the moon bathed the swamp in its light, turning the ivory bark of the tree silver—though the thing was as close to a tree as a minotaur was to a bull. Gnarled white branches stretched into the sky, but they were not draped with leaves but barbs—or if Urk was honest, teeth. It twisted in place like a coiled serpent stretching in preparation to attack. while roots and branches swayed in Urk’s direction. Finally. as though at last awoken from its slumber the tree growled.
“The tree,” answered Omil, with a bit of trepidation coloring his voice.
Urk released a derisive snort. Of course Omil agreed for me to face some unknown threat on their behalf. The minotaur cast the thought aside—such things could be handled after the battle.
Urk lumbered forward. Pain echoed through his body like coming thunder. His wounds were flashes of lightning. Fury burned his veins. A crimson haze tinted his vision as the Red Mantle overcame him.
Urk roared.
The tree thundered in response.
Branches whipped through the air to leave long, jagged gashes across Urk’s hide, but the pain only fueled the minotaur’s rage. Rage became strength. He tore through the branches like a plow through dirt. Roots lifted from the water to curl about his legs and sink their teeth into his flesh. Blood ran down his thighs as the tree failed to pull Urk to his knees. Trudging forward, he drew closer to the tree, hacking wildly to clear a path to its heaving trunk.
Branches wrapped around Urk’s left arm and pulled him to the side, almost dragging him into the swampy water but the minotaur held his ground and pulled back. Grasping the branches in one massive fist he heaved. The tree bent under the stress and almost came free of the soil. Urk brought his ax down, severing more of the branches and eliciting a long, pained wail from the tree.
The roots about Urk’s feet lifted, pulling him into the air, and snapped forward to fling the minotaur into the muddy depths. Urk’s skull collided with a boulder beneath the surface, and his vision turned black. His whole body went numb, and his ax slid from still fingers. New pain brought him out of the black as more teeth sank into his body. His senses focused in time for him to notice the tree reeling him in.
Desperately Urk grasped at the roots and vines binding his body, tearing them apart, mashing them in his hands and ripping them with his teeth, but for every one he tore apart another two seemed to take its place. Closer now, the tree twisted. Its trunk split open into a massive, fang-filled maw that smelled of rotten meat and overripe fruit.
Urk thrashed, so much fury filling his mind that he couldn’t see through the crimson washing his vision.
No, he told himself. Not rage. Control.
His need for control was a hammer beating upon the molten fury that was his anger.
RAGE!
control.
He could smell the coiling stink of the tree, feel its barbs in his flesh, the water soaking his fur.
Rage.
Control.
The haze lifted from his eyes. Urk could see the tree undulating in anticipation, the corpse of the alligator filling the water with blood between him and the tree, and his ax thirty feet to his right.
rage.
CONTROL!
Urk planted a hoof into the soil, slowing the inevitable passage to the tree’s gapping maw, and inhaled deeply. His lungs filled with the radiance of Kurgen'Kahl. A blast of winter poured from his mouth, turning water and mud to ice. Freezing his leg in place and halting his progress toward the tree bought him a moment’s respite.
The ice groaned in protest of the tree’s strength.
The handle of Urk’s ax poked up from the water, but thirty feet might as well have been thirty miles. He would never free himself of enough branches and roots to reach it.
A loud crack sundered the air as the frozen water turned to powder. Tongues ran the length of the tree’s open maw as it pulled Urk closer.
Urk ripped one arm free of branch and root, then grasped the corpse of the alligator and swung it at the tree. Blood, water, and mud flew from the corpse as Urk lodged it in the tree’s jaws. The crunch of broken bones and blood erupting from torn flesh filled the air as the trunk slowly sealed around the meat.
Urk hung in the air, suspended by a web of branches and pain. He struggled as the tendrils wound tighter, like a fly trying to pull itself free from a spider’s web. Then he fell. Discarded like some piece of overripe fruit, he splashed down into the water. Forgotten and ignored.
Urk pulled himself from the churning depths and released a long, haggard breath as the pain of his wounds warred with the rage flowing through his blood. He trudged through the water and yanked his ax from the mud.
Noise filled the air.
Why? Urk shook his head, casting thick ropes of mud and water about, ears twisting left and right to make sense of the … Cheers?
Urk looked about to see the reptilians howling in delight as they shook spears and staffs at the sky.
“What?” shouted Urk.
Omil talked to one of the reptilians, and a broad smile spread across the centaur’s face before he turned his attention to Urk. “You did it!”
“I did?” asked Urk. He looked at the tree. Bits of driftwood surrounded it like the wreckage of a galleon that had splintered against a rocky shore-though in seeing the tree one would never know it had lost a single branch or root. But even though the branches had been thinned its trunk remained unblemished.
“I thought I had to beat it, not feed it.”
Omil shrugged. “They seem to think this is …” He paused, listening to the surrounding chatter of the reptilians. “Ah. They think the champion has accepted you as a worthy warrior, and that makes you part of the tribe.”
Urk released another derisive snort as he turned away from the monster and its meal.
“Really,” Omiul assured him. “This is better than killing their champion.”
Urk wasn’t angry enough to press the issue.
“Oh, don’t be so mad Urk,” cooed Al as she approached. “You were amazing out there. And now we can hunt the zerkesh without being harassed by the locals.”
Urkjorman sighed. He wanted to stay angry, but the way Al’s eyes gleamed with warmth turned his anger to vapor and filled his heart with pride. Urk brushed aside the ebony strands of Al’s mane warming his palm with the heat washing her face.
Omil seemed to balk at the rivulets of muddy water curling down Al’s chin.
Urkjorman fixed the male centaur with his gaze and dragged Al’rashal to him. She yelped in surprise and met his lips with a laugh and a smile.
