13

Imperfect Goliath

‘Sethel!’ Ludgar called from over the falling debris. ‘What the fuck is that?’

They made it out of the main hall as some enormous beast tore through the walls of the private chamber and dropped into the courtyard below.

It landed amongst the torn brickwork, not with a mighty crash, but with more of a slap. Like wet meat hitting the butcher’s counter.

It rose as a bulging mess, the same way dough does when placed in the oven. A tangled mass of bone and flesh.

Bone grew beyond skin, and muscle grew beyond bone. It’s once ordinary muzzle, fine in all ways if not a little weathered and ragged, now distorted and engorged. One tooth growing to such lengths, it pierced the flesh and continued through the other side.

His gut alone, while already of considerable size, bloated in an inconsistent mass. The underside split, and the viscous red contents dripped beneath.

The arms developed at different rates, one extending no longer than what looked like its torso, malformed fist clenching hard, while the other reached the full length of his body, bone growing through, splitting skin and muscle.

A testament to the chaotic nature of unrestricted growth.

‘That’s the potion starkvol makes!’ Sethel answered. ‘They call it a Goliath elixir. Its strength is unparalleled, but completely uncontrollable.’

It lifted what they believed to be its head, and it gave a deafening roar.

Without a moment to think, Caspar was on it. He swung his oversized axe into the stomach flesh, where it stuck as it would have if swung into a tree.

The beast swung back, wielding a warhammer as if it was an ordinary blacksmith's hammer. Caspar’s shorter stature helped evade till it swung with the engorged arm and sent him rolling backwards and into a trench.

Kathiya let her arrows fly, which proved little help. They sank into the skin and muscle, failing to hit anything vital. She may as well have been firing toothpicks.

She wanted to hit his eyes at least, but it was moving so frantically and the skin was so strangely shaped that she didn’t even know where to begin. The best she could hope for was to be a fitting distraction.

Ves’sa was already airborne, blade clutched in talon, as she dived at the head, cutting off piece after piece with each swoop.

Whether this was causing any form of damage or if it was simply making it mad was up for debate. Still, its attention was divided and gave the other room to strategize.

‘What’s the plan, boss?’ asked Caspar.

In truth, he had no idea. He had never seen a beast like this before. People? Easy. Animals? Fine. This? Not a clue.

But the most important part about being a leader is seeming like you know what you’re doing.

‘Kathiya, take to the parapets. Work with Ves’sa and keep his attention upward.’

‘My arrows don’t do anything. I think they just annoy him,’ she said.

‘Then annoy the shit out of him! Sethel! How long does this potion last?’

‘A few minutes, at most.’

‘Good. Caspar, let’s go for the legs, try to diable his movement. Sethel, I’d appreciate it if you could do your mage thing and find a way to stop this thing.’

‘I have an idea, but it will take time.’

‘Then we had better get to it.’

Ludgar kept low as he ran in. The beast swung at the airborne Ves’sa, and Ludgar slashed at his tendon. It ineffectually slid off the exposed bone, and a swift kick forced Ludgar back.

Caspar was back at the stomach, trying to pry the axe from the stomach. The beast's smaller arm could only reach so far, and the greater was shielding its face from Ves’sa’s and Kathiya’s assault.

Caspar tore it out, crimson gore spilling onto the dirt below, and he gave a heavy swing at one of the legs.

With a satisfying crunch, it dug straight into the bone, and the beast fell onto one knee.

He went in for another chop, but the warhammer came down with one powerful swing. With just enough time to bring his axe up, they collided. The impact knocked Caspar along the ground and he scraped along the dirt, sharp lights filling his head.

It raised its arm, ready to bring it down and smash Caspar further into the dirt, before the talons of Ves’sa began digging into its face, desperate to claw out an eye.

The greater arm moved frantically, trying to grab onto some part of her. Normally this was something that would be easily dodgeable, but his exaggerated proportions threw off her sense of space, and his malformed fingers caught hold of her talon.

She tried clawing at the meat with her free talon, but there was far too much to dig through. With one great swing, the beast threw her across the courtyard and towards the debris of a long collapsed wall.

She threw her wings open, slowing herself as much as possible, but the force was too much and she hit the ground with a crack and rolled along into the mound of brick and dirt.

Kathiya was doing what she could, even if the arrows were sticking into the exposed sinew and bouncing off the exposed bone.

The enormous hand scooped up a pile of bricks and launched it at the walls, forcing Kathiya into cover till the bombardment ceased.

Ludgar tried jamming the point of his blade behind what he thought was the exposed kneecap. It didn’t work, and his blade got stuck.

The arm came across, and with a solid backhand, it sent Ludgar flying into the remains of an old barn, shattering what little of it was left.

It walked toward Caspar, great foot directly on his chest. Slowly, he put on the pressure.

‘You are majestic!’ Sethel shouted, standing at a distance from the abomination. It released Caspar and turned to look at the offending noise. Was it anger? Confusion? Wherever it was, it got its attention. ‘An abject failure, no doubt, but such a specimen! I always wanted some insipid, moronic creature to test starkvol on, but you were dumb enough to try it yourself!’

It turned back and continued to focus on Caspar.

Shit, that didn’t work, Sethel thought to himself. What else would? He thought hard about what he knew of Hands. A step above general bandits. Always on the outskirts of everywhere. No real leader. Disorganised. He could see the painted handprints on the oversized body, a mix of different shapes and sizes. He could see a necklace held tight in the shrivelled other hand. That’s right. Hands were more of a clan than an organisation.

‘Despite all of this, you were too late. You couldn’t save them. You failed.’ That got its attention. Even through the confused mess, he could tell it was glaring. ‘You locked yourself away while the rest of them were fighting! They died because of you!’

‘Sethel!’ Ludgar screamed at the stationary wizard, pushing bits of broken timber out of his way. ‘Move!’

But Sethel didn’t move. He firmly planted his staff in the dirt and remained still. He looked on at the beast, that vague smile still plastered to his face, as though he was daring it to attack.

The beast obliged. It roared long and loud, phlegm and spit dripping from the grotesque maw and it threw itself towards Sethel’s direction.

Sethel still did not move.

It lost its footing, somehow stumbling over nothing other than its own misshapen body, and it fell directly in front of Sethel.

He jabbed his blade in what he assumed was its eye, but it made no reaction.

It was dead.

Kathiya clambered down from the wall and checked on Caspar. Ludgar helped Ves’sa out the rubble. She accepted his shoulder to lean on, but it wasn’t long before she could limp by on her own.

The team gathered where Sethel stood, a little shaken and a little hurt, but otherwise fine.

‘What did you do?’ Caspar asked, trying to push out his dented breastplate..

‘Me? Nothing. He did this himself. The point of all Goliath elixirs is to dilute starkvol extract as much as possible. Otherwise, this happens. It grants unprecedented strength, but the growth becomes too much for the body to handle. Organs grow wrong, or they’re split by their own bones. The pain from a single drop alone is intolerable, or so I’ve heard. The huska must have numbed it, and he had no idea what damage he was doing.’

‘So he was dead as soon as he drank it,’ said Ludgar, still picking splinters from his fur.

‘What drives someone to do something like this? Especially to themselves?’ Asked Kathiya, retrieving what arrows she could.

They stood in silence as the effect of the elixir wore off, and the muscle, bone, and cartilage melted back into nothing, leaving only the much smaller corpse of the lead member, body covered in handprints of various size, the strange necklace of oddities still grasped in his off-hand.

‘Desperation,’ said Ves’sa.