The Last 100 – Ch.13

Moshkur raised his shoulders slightly in affirmation, the scout leader had ordered for the column to advance with a guttural snort. They hadn’t heard from Shib’ Zur and his family in several moons. Even more, several scouts they had sent to search for the wayward son of the leader had gone missing.

Moshkur liked the leader, he was the greatest of the newborns to be sure. He had been the first to brave the black stone and the man who had forced the flight of the tall thing and his furry commander. Moshkur had been there that day, the day they were birthed. He remembered how furiously the furry demon had fought, how he had brought low many of Moshkur's brood brothers with his gnashing fangs of ivory white.

He remembered how deftly he commanded his tall, pale subordinate, it took a great chief to fight so well in unison with such a cowardly creature. The great leader of his people would drink from the skull of the furry one and give him a hero’s death. It was deserved.

Small, grey feet crunched on the green sea which blanketed the earth, holding it in a gentle embrace of fragile vegetation. There were three of them, the other scouts had been lost to the great green and the leader, furious had sent his full contingent of scouts to investigate, they were part of the largest and most fearsome force the clan had mustered since the storming of the high hill, the new home of the clan.

The great leader had tried to amass other war parties since that fateful battle against the furry one, to take spear and blood to the tribes of the scaly folk across the way and the winged ones who harried the hunting and gathering of the clan folk. But the clan was hard to muster, and harder yet to order around, it took a strong leader and a time of true strife to sway the will of the people in one direction or another. Luckily for the clan of the high hill, they currently had both.

Moshkur remembered the speech the great leader had made from his throne, how he had called the people to action with a war dance to shake the earth and a roar to sunder the skies. It still sent shivers down his spine. A kookaburra laughed at the grey folk from his perch on a gnarled gum branch.

This was the first prong of a full-scale invasion into the green, no longer would it swallow the folk of the high hill. They were the hero’s who had braved the black stone, they were the ones who had broken down the horizontal trees that barred their entry to the leader’s castle! They were the ones who had made low the furry one and his tall soldier! And they would not be cowed by this great expanse!

His hands gripped the shaft of his spear tighter with each thought, rising to an intensity that threatened to snap the fire hardened wood. Determination burned in Moshkur’s eyes, it was the passion of a man who assumed himself to be an instrument of righteousness.

Distracted from his orders by daydreaming he hadn’t noticed the small, slight crunching of leaves from of to his right, nor had he seen the frantic signing of the scout leader for the column to halt. For the scout leader had heard the signs. But his men had not, and they reacted sluggishly and so it was upon unsuspecting prey that Jack and Wilhelm struck.

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We rocketed out of the woods silently, a grim pall hanging over our actions, Wilhelm struck the head of the column and I the back, we had been following this group for a small while, not used to pursuing groups numbering more than one or two and I had been busy devising a plan of action to take them out. All the while praying furiously that they wouldn’t hear the cacophonous thumping of my heart, because it was fucking deafening to me.

Eventually I had decided to blitzkrieg them, smashing the man at the front whom I assumed to be their leader and the man at the back whilst also setting us up for a pincer movement on the final grey creature in the centre.

With those final moments of planning it was ready. It was time to kill, time to die. We charged out of the woods.

Dimly I recognised Wilhelm in my peripheral vision, leaping through the air and crash tackling the head man, teeth sinking deep into the throat of the creature. My focus however was consumed with the creature ahead of me.

Time seemed to slow down as I weighed up different possibilities and consequences, something I had realised was most probably a side affect of my investment in intelligence. I slammed into the creature spear tip first, the fire blackened wood piercing the hide of the beast just below the arm-pit with an audible puncture, I felt the resistance of flesh, grimacing slightly as the wood stormed through it. Vibrations shuddered up my arms as the spear struck home, my thrust was slightly off the mark though, slamming into the ribs of the creature instead of the clean shot to the heart which was planned. The head of the spear snapped off, skidding into a gap between two ribs and lodging deep within the heart of the beast, I guess it worked out in the end, I thought morbidly. It died almost instantly.

I pulled the broken, blunted haft of the spear from the creature’s side with a sickening sucking sound and turned to survey the next scene of the battle, not watching as the small grey man clattered to the ground in a pile of limbs and blood, like a puppet with the strings cut.

The creature between Wilhelm and I looked back and forth in a panic, a small fire quickly retreating from its yellow gaze, being replaced by an all-consuming fear. It finally turned its sights onto Wilhelm, deciding him to be the more dangerous of the two of us, something I didn’t wholly disagree with, it was, however, a fatal mistake.

I ordered Wilhelm to go low, ducking under the spear point of the creature before it could even register movement and then spring up, latching onto the small creatures’ knees with a sickening crunch.

It fell to the ground in a heap much like its companions had. Except this one wasn’t silent, it fell and, as it did so it howled, it screamed for its life, a haunting, melodious wail that nearly made me reconsider those decisions I had made in that cave several days ago.

I fell to my knees before the beast, raising the heavy wooden haft above my head and slamming it down into its head, splitting its ear and denting its skull.

“Shut up!” I brought the wood down again, I wasn’t even sure if it was still screaming or if it was just the sound was echoing in my mind, nevertheless I kept hitting.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, please god be quiet.” I smashed its head over and over again before looking up, locking eyes with Wilhelm. My vision was blurry with tears, but I still managed to make out his measured, disapproving stare. No, it was probably just my own thoughts reflecting in his eyes. Whatever the case the meaning was clear. It said ‘Man up, if you doubt now then you die. Cry on your own time Jack, there is work to be done.’

I wiped my tears and stood up, he… I was right.