Glen

(Garth Aniculo)

A human, a Gish, the Corpse and a Wyvern…

GRRRRR

“Yeah, he’s creepy,” Glen agreed with Biscuit, eyeing the corpse, mostly loose skin over bones, with no flesh in between. A skeleton wearing a skin-suit, empty eye sockets returning his stare, mouth half-opened showing wrinkled lips over blackened teeth, a couple of them missing. No tongue. Cavernous wound on his throat, hissing and flapping as it tried to talk.

“EWINNDLE!”

“What does he want?” Glen asked Flix, still searching the Cofol Glen had pummeled earlier.

“He’s dead, Garth,” The old Gish replied. “He doesn’t want anything.”

“KOHACKER!” The corpse growled, staring at the masqueraded assassin.

“Did he just said cocksucker?” Glen wondered aloud and Flix grimaced.

“Did you get the dagger out?”

“I ain’t touching him,” Glen said, deathly serious.

The corpse stared at them both for a while and then raised a bony hand, grabbed the Wyvern’s Tongue and pulled it out his caved in chest. Tossed it to Glen next, the former thief snatching it out of the air.

“He understands us,” Glen said.

RRRRR

Biscuit seemed to agree, chewing on what appeared to be, a bloody human thumb.

Huh?

“Where did you get that?” Glen asked the small wyvern and the little devil gulped down quickly, burped, then stared at him innocently and a little affronted.

Ye clever little turd.

“The Arachne controls its prey, even after death,” Flix explained, the unexplainable. “The dagger must have severed that connection.”

“Can it do that?” Glen asked, sheathing it on his waist.

“Theoretically, it is possible. Dragonite bones are magic items, powerful,” Flix elaborated. “Gimoss would have known that,” Glen saw him frowning troubled.

“What?”

“This doesn’t explain how it’s still standing,” Flix replied, looking about him. “It should have returned to being a regular corpse, the moment the spell was broken.”

“Thank you,” Glen said and he meant it.

Flix raised a washed-out, but neatly trimmed pink brow.

“Why?”

“For answering my questions all this time,” Glen said. “People always try to find a way to avoid explaining stuff.”

“I do that too, sometimes,” Flix replied, a little embarrassed at the praise, “But I’m old as dirt and you’ve brought a Wyvern back to this Realm. The more you know, the better for all of us. Plus you’re very handsome, for a human.”

Glen blinked at the loaded compliment and caught the corpse guffawing, hideous mouth hanging open, a gushy-sounding laughter, more a gurgle.

He’d recognize that crazy glee anywhere.

It lived inside Glen’s head for months.

Ye gotta be plaguin’ kiddin’ me!

“Gimoss?” He probed and the dilapidated living corpse stopped chuckling and stared at him knowingly. Well, it was more a disconcerting, creepy exchange, the left empty eye-socket occupied by a fat white worm that wriggled and died in front of Glen’s eyes. “Are you in there, ye crazy fuck?”

Gimoss pointed a decrepit nail-less finger at his neck wound.

“SEWINNDLE,” He half-hissed half-growled again and Flix staring more shocked than Glen had ever seen him before, shook his head right and left in utter disbelief, then pointed to their horses.

“In the bags, a very small metallic box, in the square leather satchel.”

“Right, this is turning out to be weirder, than the stories I’ve heard growing up,” Glen decided, watching Gimoss, now occupying the corpse some-fuckin’-how, stitching his neck wound, a crude, gruesome job, stomach-turning and utterly ridiculous.

“Are you certain this is Gimoss?” Flix asked, a permanent frown on his wrinkled nose-less face. It did him no favors looks wise.

“Aye,” Glen muttered, wiping his face with a dirty cloth, the skin a burned tan color. “Have ye ever seen something like this before?”

“A dead Wyvern living inside an ancient corpse?” Flix asked and Glen grimaced in response.

“Yeah, it’s pretty weird,” He agreed. Flix's query being a rhetorical one, or something.

“No magic of this Realm, can make this happen,” Flix noted, putting the pipe in his mouth.

“Maybe ye should lay off for a while,” Glen advised. “Until we figure out, what to do wit him.”

“My back is killing me,” Flix scoffed. “And I’m not sure I know another remedy for either problem.”

“Think he’s dangerous?” Glen asked and the Gish gave him a look that spoke volumes.

Right, of course.

Gimoss, the corpse, finished up, put the sewing needle back in its box and walked calmly to where the Cofol was laying, half-unconscious and pretty badly beaten up. Glen and Flix watched him stumbling past them, swaying awkwardly forward, bones creaking as if ready to snap, and stinking of death and decay. He kneeled next to the Horselord, extended a skin-covered skeleton hand and grabbed the hapless warrior’s jaw.

GRRRRR

What the fuck is he doing? Glen thought glancing towards Biscuit, the small wyvern’s snout bloody, burgundy eyes locked on the corpse.

A shadow fell over the ancient street, as if a wayward cloud had just blocked the sun, the sky above them clear, just a moment ago. The temperature dropped dramatically, a chilly gush eerie blowing through Lebesos’ empty alleys and half-buried ruins. It came suddenly, sounding like a huge beast was breathing over them, even the air tasting strange.

A second later, it was over.

The sun burning over their heads again, the wind gone and the corpse that was Gimoss stood up. Glen felt Flix’s hand on his elbow, pulling him back. His eyes dropped lower, found the Cofol’s body deflated, the skin a sickly mauve-black, fists clenched tight in death’s last gasp, black fingers dug inside his own palms, past the nails.

What in Luthos god-forsaken piss is this?

Gimoss cracked that ancient neck one way, then the other and turned to look at them.

Glen’s stomach launched to his throat, acid flooding his mouth. The corpse had a full blue-green eye filling that empty socket now, pupil split right in the middle, each part a different color, the other eye formed partially, a disgusting milky white, with no pupil at all. Parts of his face had filled up with flesh underneath that loose skin, same for the rest of his body. The torn skin, leaking pus and watered bloody fluids everywhere.

RRRRRRREEE

“Agh,” Gimoss rustled, voice bubbling up and grating, white tongue swollen, but moving inside that decayed mouth. “Glerh, feeh…” He paused, spat something awful down, sole working eye moving right and left energetically, while tearing up. Gimoss raised a hand to calm the small wyvern down, noticed a broken nail dangling from his middle finger and ripped it out completely, tossing the bloody piece away. “Wearin’ food ort… feels…rrl weird,” Gimoss crackled, half the words ineligible, creepy smiling at the end of it for good measure.

It’s probably rare, finding such an implausible statement, delivered in a more revolting manner. Glen gasped instead of replying and stooping puked between his legs. The putrid torrent so thunderous, it came out of his mouth and nose equally.

Glen dry-retched, feeling horrible, had some more water, spat most of it after cleaning his mouth and then took a couple of deep breaths to regain his composure. Flix standing a couple of feet from him, offered him his lit pipe.

“Get this off my face,” Glen croaked.

“It helps wit stress,” The Gish insisted.

“I’m not stressed,” Glen explained patiently. “Where’s the freak?”

“Went to look for clothes,” Flix replied.

Great.

“Is he… good gods did ye see that?”

“I did.”

Glen puffed his cheeks out and watched Biscuit staring at the blackened corpse of the Horselord, all curious. There were three more bodies rotting further down the street, the dead city well deserving its moniker.

“Any solutions?” He asked the old Gish.

“We better get moving,” Flix suggested.

“Wait for the night—”

“Soon as possible,” Flix cut him off.

Glen stared at him, with red eyes. “The reason being?”

“If that’s Gimoss and if he just used death magic, then whatever is sensitive to it, will flock here.”

“We are in the middle of the plaguin’ desert, Flix!” Glen snapped, not liking whatever it was, he was implying.

“Empty places, are bare for a reason Garth,” Flix said simply.

Outlaw neighed and shook his head, forcing Biscuit to let go of his mane, the small wyvern sitting on the front of the saddle snorting annoyed. Glen still checking on the bags, tossed him a piece of hard-tack and turned to watch Flix bringing the rest of their mounts towards the outer walls collapsed opening. Gimoss following right behind him, walking with a gait and looking worse for wear.

At least he wore a bloody tunic and a pair of leather pants, but no boots.

“Small footed humans!” Gimoss repeated again, his earlier gripe, Biscuit perking up to his voice. Gimoss only eye stopped and glared at the small wyvern. “I may need your skin soon, my idiot young kin,” He added and Biscuit growled in response.

“There’ll be no further skinning,” Glen warned and Gimoss stopped and stared at him, face almost healed, some sunken spots still remaining, the color a mix of gold, green and purple. Nauseating looks aside the corpse looked better than ever, Glen thought with a shiver.

“Hah,” Gimoss chuckled, teeth rattling as if unused to the action, mouth opening and closing at the wrong moment. “Haha… hah!” He reached to his waist, found the handle of a scimitar there, held by an improvised harness made out of hemp rope and unsheathed it.

What in the slovenly fuck is he doing? Glen wondered and took a step back, reaching for the sword he carried on his back. His hand grabbing a hairy appendage that pulled away the moment he touched it. Glen gasped and twisted around, huge chelicera snapping with a sharp clack, almost taking away his nose and part of his face.

Lucky freakin’ crap, Glen cursed, his hairs standing up and jumped backwards the giant spider droping next to Outlaw, the horse neighing panicked and dashing the other way, Biscuit screeching, huge eyes ogling at the monster that had landed amidst them.

The Arachne hissed, long white legs propelling it forward and after Glen that landed on his back, jerked to the side immediately and rolled three meters away, all the time struggling to get his damn sword out. The creature reached him in a split second, long foreleg jabbing his way alike a spear missing him for half-a-hair. Glen gasped, cursing its lineage going back ten generations, dodged to the right, unsheathing Emerson’s blade and parrying the second foreleg away, keratinous skin feeling like iron on his blade.

The Arachne let out a spine-chilling drawn out hiss that reverberated into Lebesos’ quiet afternoon streets and then repeated again and again from its kin waking up. The sounds coming from everywhere around them.

“We need to go now, Garth! THINK IT’S A NEST!” Flix shouted a belated warning, mounted on his own horse and Glen glanced his way, jaw clenched and wild eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

“YE PLAGUIN’ THINK?” He yelled back an angry reply, Gimoss still chuckling hysterically watching him trying desperately to dodge away from the tireless attacks. Glen chopped a piece of leg off, foul fluids spraying everywhere and used the opening to unsheathe his other sword. The Arachne came at him again, Glen parrying the hurt left leg away with one blade, blocking the right with the other, the giant white spider shoving him back a good two meters, his boots sliding on the sand.

“Hairy freaky turd,” Glen spat, goosebumps all over his skin and made to charge at it, a silvery sticky net covering his left side stopping him dead. The Arachne clicked its fangs, red compound eyes mean and hungry.

Pitiless.

Then it jumped, huge many-legged body flying through the air and landing on him. Glen went down, his knees buckling and he landed on them, nasty Chelicera snapping repeatedly trying to decapitate him, his head jerking away again and again, raised at the last moment blade stuck between him and the spider’s body, his only shield.

Luthos provide fuckin’ aid.

What is this crap?

Glen put everything he had in his shoulder and pushed, veins popping on his neck, teeth gridding to the point of breaking, managing no progress. The Arachne hissed nastily, realizing he couldn’t dislodge it, stared at him intently –a weird numbness spreading in his chest, then up his neck- the feeling dying, when a bolt pulverized one of its compound eyes, fluid spaying on Glen’s neck.

With a mighty roar, Glen shoved the giant insect back and got up on shaky legs. The Arachne cried in horrible pain, fangs rattling, hind legs digging in to stop its body and then kicking, it propelled the massive torso forward, reaching Glen before he’d the time to recover and sent him tumbling five meters away. He crashed on a ruined ancient wall, dust raising a thick cloud around him, his swords missing.

Coughing and stunned, Glen got up, hearing the many limbs digging at the ground as it came towards him. The Arachne, not as large as that first one, but only by a couple of centimeters, covered the distance in a brief second, injured eye and leg spraying foul fluids in its tracks and made to launch at him again.

Left the ground in fact, only to return back down again, legs giving out and extending outwards by the countering force. One of its large fangs broken and hanging, leaking stomach acid down its mouth. Gimoss, who’d blocked its path the first time, took another step forward, raised a bloated, dangling at the wrist, fully broken hand and punched again right at the Aranche’s ravaged mouth with it, sending the radius long bone of his forearm, upwards until he rammed it all, into the giant spider’s brain.

The sickening crunch heard, enough to make Glen’s stomach turn again.

“Jump on the horse!” Flix ordered him, throwing him Outlaw’s reins, eyeing the corpse extricating a horribly fractured arm out of the Arachne’s skull. “They’re coming!”

Biscuit agreeing enthusiastically.

RRRRRRREEEEEEEEE

There are more spiders, his mind translated calmly.

Glen snapped out of it and climbed atop his mount. Flix gave him his swords and turning he gave another look at the approaching Gimoss.

“Can you ride?” He asked him and the corpse snorted, while trying to put the bones in his arm back together. An impossible task, bloody torn pieces of skin flapping, bone fragments falling off and what was left too crashed to mend, like ever?

“Darn thin and rickety things! What manner of bones are these?” Gimoss bellowed in righteous indignation and climbed atop the Cofol horse, after giving it a stern stare.

“Why didn’t you use the sword?” Glen asked and Flix, riding next to him sighed.

“He did, on that first blow.”

Glen frowned and kicked his legs to have Outlaw go faster, the moment they cleared the outer walls, the dead city behind them coming alive with repeated screeching and rattling sounds.

“Did you know about the spiders?” He yelled at Flix, as they rode away, the Gish taking its time to answer,

providing an excellent chance here for a cut to the story. A human, a Gish, an ancient Corpse and a Wyvern…

“I told you, a different part of the city was uncovered, Garth!” Flix replied ages later –very rudely- and eyed Gimoss riding stiffly without holding the reins, hands crossed on his chest, one of them in pieces, a pleased look on his decrepit face.

Uhm.

“What was it?” Glen probed, glancing at the corpse’s shenanigans himself.

Flix smacked his lips, grimaced, wrinkled face a mess and then blurted out, a little embarrassed.

“Rock Scorpions,” The Gish shivered at the memory.

“Bigger than this shit?”

“No, regular ones,” Flix replied and seeing him frowning, he added blushing. “I fear scorpions.”

Glen nodded. He feared scorpions as well, all insects really, but he’d give his left nut not to see another spider for a while. Biscuit climbed his chest, reached his nappe and finding a good spot, long tail wrapping around Glen’s right arm, wiry fore-arms hugging his neck, slowly fell asleep, burping a couple of times, forked tongue tickling Glen’s ear.

The Arachne didn’t follow them out of the ruins.

So let’s try this again.

A human, an old Gish, a possessed ancient Corpse and a baby wyvern, rode out of the ruins of Lebesos and into legend.