Eugh, chose to go with the one I used for TLM's contest, as it's more fantasy (and apparently thirteen hours of writing only produced 5k words/part of the introduction). Guess it'll show up next month after all!
As for you medication; that makes sense. Still horribe, though, and I don't feel any less bad for you. Hopefully they'll at least be able to learn from this? I'm sorry to hear you didn't get to enter the AGWL or PK's contest, either! Man, seems like it's been a pretty crappy month overall.</3
THESEUS AND THE WOLF
Birds.
Everywhere.
He couldn’t see them, but he could hear them, and after weeks locked in the bowels of the earth their chattering meant everything.
Prince Amos’ eyes searched the blackened skies and white lands, unable to spot the poets across the boundless horizon; their serenade brought sanity nonetheless. Were it not so cold here, and were he dressed in more than a tunic and sandals, he may have been persuaded to sit down in the frigid snow and listen to them all night.
There was a task to complete, though. This was the mouth of the labyrinth. There was only one route to follow; one route leading him to the beast. To home.
The maze you will start in is a test of the mind. The labyrinth, a mere test of endurance.
The maze he came from had almost cost him his life. Welts, bruises, gashes and burns licked up and down his thighs and legs. His arms had fared better for the most part, and his face even moreso. Amos was more careful about what he touched and looked at than he where he stepped.
Clumsy boy, his mother would hiss if she saw him now.
It was hard not to notice many of the traps were set to maim rather than kill. A prolonged torture was preferable to a swift end for these northern barbarians who had stolen children and maidens in the name of some ancient treaty. In the jungles of his homeland such impractical devices would never be put to work; a lame tiger was all the more ferocious. Then again, perhaps their cruelty was to be appreciated; he would not have survived the maze at all had it used more lethal force. He feared what the labyrinth held, if the maze had been considered simply a test of the mind.
The birds abruptly stopped singing. Amos inhaled the cool night air deeply, then trekked forth. The snow crunched loudly underfoot, explosive in the expansive nothingness. Powdery remnants cascaded into his sandals, between his toes and under his soles – it was cold, but it felt nice against his sore feet. Ahead he could see a flicker of blue, and decided that with no other marker visible that was the way to go.
The temperature grew steadily colder – or perhaps Amos became less pleased with it the longer he was forced to endure it. His left hand clutched his sword – his life line – in a grip he was sure even the Lycaon, beast of the labyrinth, would be unable to break. The sword trembled, and with his free hand he rubbed his right upper arm to return circulation.
It didn't seem fair that he should be the one forced to endure this. Amos came from a simple world where he wished only to run and play all the time, and pretend to know politics when it pleased his father. Death was a way of the jungle, but it had never been so overt before. Men killed by jaguar were pulled off by them, never to be seen again; they were not left as screaming wretches with legs crushed and fire creeping upon them.
The distant flame did not appear to grow closer. If anything, it felt as if it was steadily moving away. Panic set in at the back of Amos’ mind – where were the other tracks, the other tributes; what if he had gotten turned around and this wasn’t really the labyrinth but instead an elaborate subdivision of the maze?
Then, the blue light was suddenly before him, and he had to stop himself from colliding into the wall it hung from. The unusual flame danced atop a simple steel torch, the grip black and bolted to the wall behind it. The wall almost looked like it may have been bricks at one time, but snow and ice had long since reclaimed its texture.
The meager heat the flame emitted was enough to calm Amos' murmuring heart.
The wall set with the torch was wide, and dwarfed a similar wall to its left. This close, Amos could see now that there was a tunnel ahead – a corridor between the pair. This truly was the mouth of the labyrinth, then. The Nozama Jungles' debt would be paid, after decades of servitude.
How close had Amos’ own fathers come to this place? To their freedom?
It was nauseating to think he may have to enter so confined a space after being trapped for so long beforehand in the maze. It was even more sickening to think he may never see the lush forests of home again, and so he willed strained muscles and locking knees to carry him forward.
The screaming started gradually.
At first Amos thought he imagined it, haunted by the dying calls of friends he could not save if he wished to save himself. When it grew louder, he suspected mockery from the absent birds.
Then, when he was close enough that it rattled through his bones and sent white hot fire through his veins, he broke into a run. There was a sharp turn to his left that made him stumble, and then a gradual turn to the right that left his lungs feeling clawed and shredded as his shoulders nearly brushed the tightening walls. It was around another corner that he finally found the source of the screams.
A man – or what was left of him – was being slammed against the walls and ground by a hunched beast that cackled at his misery. The monster was draped in a hide made of skinned victims, twines of hair wrapped in cords and used to sew the pieces tight. Bones jutted here and there, and peeked out where the flesh had curled in on itself or shrunken away from its moorings. It was mind-numbing to stare at a monster and have twelve faces stare back.
It looked like a bear, though its mouth was too long – too dog-like for that. Twin ivory horns curved off of its head, and its muzzle was as much a carcass-with-bones as the rest of it. Through pustulous holes he thought he saw a man. It laughed, the sound more of a roar, and slammed the man back up against the wall where, to Amos’ horror, he stuck.
The man flailed, blood gushing from everywhere on his broken body, his flesh peeling from beneath him as he tried to pull himself off of the frozen wall. Amos swallowed the burn of bile at the back of his throat, lifting his sword high. “Beast!”
There was a suddenness to the silence. The man stopped screaming, the Beast stopped cackling, and even the wind seemed to die down in a single, drawn out breath. Both Beast and man looked to Amos slowly; he stepped back, ankles wobbling, the strength gone out of him with the wind. “I have come to slay you, and free my people! No lon—“
Amos was drowned out by the man’s screams, the Beast ripping him from the wall – where the hide of the man's back stayed as an imprint – then slamming his face against it, only to peel him off again. His skull was shockingly white under the mess of red that had been his face.
“Stop!” Amos ran at the pair, spurred into bravado by the cries of a brother-in-arms, and pulled his sword back as far as his joints would allow. The Beast looked to Amos and snarled, pulling the man from the wall by pushing its claws – sharpened blades – through muscular shoulders. It tossed the man at Amos, and the prince clumsily dropped his blade in an attempt to catch the mutilated soldier; the man was too heavy and bowled both over. By the time Amos had scrambled out from under the man and looked up the Beast was gone, leaving him only with the screaming wind and howling soldier.
The man alternated between grabbing at his torn shoulders and touching where his face had been – Amos reached out a hand to stop him that was quickly slapped at. It left the Prince still on his back in the snow, half-sitting, and unsure whether to grab his sword and chase after the Beast or try and help the ruined soldier.
The man stood suddenly, rigid and gasping, then abruptly collapsed and started seizing, his limbs flailing and then pulling tight, only to contract and release some more. Where flesh was visible the veins bulged against it, and spurts of black blood shot out of multiple wounds. The man laid on his back and started choking on the liquid, spitting it out along with a number of teeth.
“Stop!” Amos crawled the short distance between them quickly, sat up into a kneel at the soldier's side and tried to pin him down as the man continued to spasmodically seize and choke. His eyes had turned sickly yellow with pupils blown wide, and when Amos tried to push the soldier's face to one side the man responded by spitting his chewed off tongue at the prince.
Amos recoiled and it was enough of an opening for the soldier to kick him away and flip to his belly, crawling and then running towards the wall.
His skull connected with a hard crack.
Amos didn’t move from where he was, half-collapsed on the now bloody snow. He could hear the man gurgling but couldn’t bring himself to look. Of the six men he had come here with, he couldn't name the man. It made him nauseous to even try.
The Beast was gone. Perhaps he would never find it in this place. Seven years from now Amos' cousin would find this place in hopes of freeing the people, and find that same beast wearing hides and bones, except Amos' stretched face would stare at the boy the entire time.
Then again, perhaps it was not so mighty a monster after all. Under the bodies was just another human one; perhaps some deformed son of the Old King, but son – human, nonetheless. Perhaps it really could be slain. Amos had always been more of a cowardly son, not through lack of trying (he was excellent with polearms and angry, clawed animals) but through a general disinterest. Many of the animals he chased escaped, and his lack of true experience stacked all the odds against him. People whispered of his uselessness, of his brother being a more fitting king; he well knew this.
He had never thought they may be so right, until now.
It may have been minutes or hours; the corridors here were disorienting, and these northern islands could stay blanketed in night for months. The birds returned, though, and he no longer heard the gurgling (or whining, as it had turned into in the final moments of life) of the soldier. Amos collected the sword he had dropped and stood shakily, avoiding the mess of blood and matter spilt on the ground and continuing along his path.
It was a mighty sword. Amos had arrived here only with training in polearms and traps, but found he adapted swiftly to the blade. It imparted a great deal of confidence. The hilt was carved intricately with wolven décor and a strange pattern meant to represent the various mazes. It ended in an almost-circle, depicting the labyrinth he was in now. Most of the passaged had lit a soft yellow, including much of the first corridor in the labyrinth.The blade itself also glowed with an internal fire – gold, for now – and he focused on that while he walked. It had ruined any hopes of his eyes adjusting to on-and-off darkness, but there was a human comfort in having light by his side.
It had been a witch that gifted him with this – one of the daughters of the Caniis Isle King. She was as much a northern barbarian as the rest of them, but she had the wisdom to appreciate the wretchedness of this land. For a means to traverse the maze and slay the Lycaon monster, he promised to win his freedom and take her with him when he left. He had little choice but to accept.
The fates, she claimed, were on his side. Only he could slay the Lycaon.
Torches mounted on the walls continued to light his way, the soft blue tones not fitting the horrors they oversaw. There were no marks in the snow to be seen by their light – no proof of the Beast having crossed this way, but other carcasses were preserved against the wall. The further he travelled the more mutilated they became, trapped in the horrors of neverending winter. It put Amos on edge and perpetually aware of the space between he and the wall, his nerves mostly fried between the boil of his blood and the cold of the air. The more he willed his breathing to be silent the louder his gasps of air seemed to become.
The torches became wider spaced, and then absent entirely. Amos didn’t realize he was walking in total darkness until a particular inhale clawed its way down his throat and made him stop to try and fill his rasping lungs. His torch glowed a faint orange, verging on red. He realized now what a disadvantage he was at, being so clearly marked out amidst the darkness. He couldn’t even see the walls any longer – the Beast might have been right in front of him and he’d have no hope of seeing it.
Amos closed his eyes, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He listened for the sound of snow being crushed. Unless this so-called Beast could fly, it could not hope to move in on him.
Cackling.
Amos spun, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. It grew louder and then faded. There was silence, and then an abrupt reprisal.
“Show yourself so I may be done with thi—“
The Beast tackled him from behind, roaring and striking at him. His tunic did well to fend off its claws, and Amos kicked it hard in the stomach to dislodge it from atop him. It stumbled back under the force of the blow, and Amos swelled with confidence. This Beast was weaker than the men he had trained with back home!
The Beast circled him, steps silent on the snow – he had been foolish to expect human’s feet; they were netted with bone and wide, like the bottoms of a basket – Amos mimicked the Beast, keeping his blade slightly out so the creature could not vanish into the darkness without his lunging and spearing it.
It leapt forward suddenly, striking an arm out at his head – he ducked to the side and swung his sword up, severing the appendage with a sickening snap of bone and tendon.
The Beast howled, stumbled back, and Amos followed it. With a roar and clutching its stump elbow it suddenly turned and ran. The corridor widened again, the torches once more appearing amongst walls with picked at carcasses. The prince chased the Beast, fast on the monster’s squealing heels – too close, though, for when it dropped to the ground and spun onto its back, claws and feet up it managed to bury its remaining hand in Amos’ stomach. He flipped over the creature from the momentum of his chase, narrowly avoiding being wholly gutted. As it was the flesh of his flank was exposed through tearing in the tunic; it had not been built as durable through the front, or else it had amassed too much damage through the mazes.
Amos got up but the Beast was faster, getting to its feet and running at the still kneeling prince. He swung his sword upwards, deflecting its attack via severing its other arm with a spray of warm blood. It shrieked and threw itself on him anyways, worming against him and slamming its head into him.
There was a surprising amount of weight to its skull. The first strike made him see stars; the second left him dazed, his arms limp at his sides. The Beast shovelled its horns under his body and tossed him at the wall, though he was fortunate to merely land a few yards shy. The Beast huffed and puffed as it stalked towards the still dazed Amos, lowering its head and preparing to spear him through the throat.
There was a stillness again. Or perhaps Amos imagined it, this time, in his battered state. He became acutely aware of the monster standing over him, unmoving, as if it were sizing him up. There were no birds in this moment, no wind. It didn't breathe, and slowly its legs began buckling. The beast's head tilted until a series of pops sounded, the head rolling off the body entirely.
Its head bounced along the snow, rolling towards a wall; its corpse twitched and stumbled as it tried to remain upright. Amos’ savior grabbed the Beast by a shoulder and shoved it hard, casting the body to the ground a metre away. Then he stepped to its head, crouching down and lifting it by one ivory horn that looked more like carved bone, now. From within the mask fell the head of an old hag, her features distorted and matted hair grey. Her eyes continued to stare, as if she would resume her attack any moment.
“Tch,” He cast the mask by the body, then moved to Amos.
“Are you alright?”
Amos knew he should know him. He tried very hard to summon any memory of the man at all. Amos blinked, as black spots distorted his vision. He blinked again and they refused to disperse.
“Amos?”
The prince heaved a breath, lifting his chest from the ground and straining the muscles in his neck, then falling back down. He turned, slowly, and from his back stood the old hag’s hand, blades embedded in his spine.
The pain exploded in his brain, suddenly a thousand times worse without the direct pressure and pounding adrenaline. He could feel worms burrowing under his flesh, crawling into his hollow bones and burst arteries. He reached back, swinging his arm to try and dislodge the arm, but failed.
His eyes. Amos could feel them in his eyes. He let his sword go, reaching up to his eyes to try and pop them out. A sudden kick to the side of his neck caused Amos to cease all function entirely.
.x.x.
When he awoke, the sky was as black as he remembered and just as filled with the gay chatter of birds as before. This particular corridor boasted several torches near one another, casting a sense of safety no part of the labyrinth deserved.
It was still hard to remember what had happened. Amos felt distinctly safe now, though, and warm. His mother was feeding him spoonfuls of soup and the broth was thicker than he liked, but he didn’t complain. She said something and he smiled, though he didn't quite hear what she said.
But it wasn’t his mother. All at once it came back to him, and he was very aware he was laid out in the lap of the witch he’d brokered a deal with, eating a tangy soup that was causing his stomach to shrivel in on itself.
“Y-you!” Amos struggled to pry himself free, and she did not stop him; simply stood as he did, looking beautiful in her simple gown, blonde hair cascading down her back in faint curls. Her face was soft, her eyes moreso. She was every bit the temptress beauty his father had warned him of, and yet he had fallen for her deals anyways.
“What was in that!” It wasn’t a question. Amos struggled for a moment when he realized he was dressed in more than his tunic – a thick black cloak, woven from the fur of panthers, clasped him in its heat; a single medallion kept it fast to his chest. For a moment he considered casting it off, but the heat was too welcome after trekking in the cold.
“This is my brother’s cloak!” A delayed realization; an even slower revelation that the man who had saved him was his older brother, Kifo.
“A cure is what I fed you, Prince.” Her voice verged on irritation. “Or would you prefer I had left you to maim yourself?”
“That—that monster poisoned me!”
“She did.”
“What was in your cure?” Amos spat, and blood came with it, and he tried not to think about it.
“Her flesh and blood.”
Amos had her at sword point. She didn’t even see him grab the sword up from the ground – didn’t flinch, either. She only raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps I should let you die, next time?”
“I never asked for your help,” Amos hissed, and he turned from her so he wasn’t reminded of what he’d just consumed.
“No, but your brother did.”
“Kifo?” Amos faced her again, sword raised to her voluptuous chest. She remained unaffected.
“Yes. He had wanted to wait but I told him his energy might be better spent slaying the Lycaon. He chose to leave his mantle for you.” It was a cruel thing to say. Kifo was proud, and reminding him that he was not capable of slaying the creature would only upset him.
“Where did he go?” Amos' voice was softer now, his sword slowly lowered. He did not trust the witch or her accent, but there was no other choice. She wanted freedom as much as he did; perhaps there was some loyalty to be found in that.
The witch gestured towards the distance. Amos stared hard at the vast expanse of night, his eyes slowly adjusting. He could see a hint of three mountains far off in the distance; the void of stars defined them.
Amos began walking in their direction, following the wall. Perhaps the labyrinth was larger than he had first thought.
“Don’t forget our deal, Prince.”
“Don’t forget your place.”
.x.x.
Amos’ legs burned when he finally came within the shadow of the mountains. The cloak had done well to keep his upper body warm, but his feet were turning a purple he could no longer pretend was mere bruising. The tips of his toes had gone black.
“Amos!”
And just like that he didn’t mind that he was slowly freezing to death, or that his back ached with each step, or that he couldn’t quite hear on his left side; because there, only a few steps away, was his brother. Amos would have run and embraced him if his body would only cooperate. As it was, he could only hobble and smile, grip weak on a sword whose light had grown dimmer and dimmer.
“Brother! You have gone too far,” Amos laughed at the confusion written on his elder's face.
“Oh?” Kifo looked nothing like his brother. All broad shoulders and wide-chested, the opposite of his younger, lithe brother. His hair was golden and features pale, like the men of the Caniis Isle, while Amos enjoyed conformity as a dark-skinned, haired, and eyed youth. It was this conformity that promised his ascension to King and his brother’s forever barring of royal office. It didn’t make them care for each other any less. Kifo's mother had been a stowaway from these very isles, and Amos' father hadn't loved her any less, either. No other mistress was so showered with gifts and appreciation.
Kifo looked cold without his mantle. Amos couldn't force himself to offer it back.
“You crossed the center hours ago,” Amos huffed, limping over to the other. “Don’t you see?” He laughed, perhaps louder than necessary, and it made Kifo laugh softly, if bewilderedly, too. “There is no Lycaon! There’s nothing!”
His brother still smiled. “Then how do we leave?”
Amos’ stared out across the expanse before them, leading to the mountains. “It must be there. That must have been where we started.”
Kifo looked, too, slowly frowning. He knelt, running one of his shortswords (when had he gotten that? Had he always had two? Amos couldn’t remember) along the snow in front of him – beneath it was ice. “This is a sheer drop, Amos. The ice will not hold us both. It may not even hold one.” Kifo stood, smiling bitterly. “I don’t suppose your sword has any ideas?”
A sky bridge. Amos had only ever heard of them, never seen one up close. Somewhere, maybe twenty feet down but more likely hundreds was a boiling, writhing lake casting off steam that raised as high as it could before freezing into a platform. It took hundreds of years to make, a slow culmination on either sides of a gap that eventually met. Amos was not entirely convinced they were not some of the island’s magic as well, but his experience with the cold was limited.
“We can go one at a time,” Amos stated firmly. “There’s a fair width. It will hold us.”
The blond didn't look so sure. He stared out at the mountains, then down at the ground. He sized Amos up and then, with a nod, decided “I’ll go first."
“If the ice breaks, I should be able to pull myself up. I should be able to mark out a path for you, too, if you follow in my steps.”
Amos didn’t argue.
Kifo’s hands tightened around his shortswords, the only show of fear Amos had ever been able to read on him. He walked forward with confidence, stepping onto the ice he had exposed.
It was silent. No creaking, no crackling.
Another step. It now bore the full weight of the blond.
Nothing.
Perhaps it was sturdier than it looked.
Kifo continued across, wary at first but gradually increasing his speed, until he was walking across it at a comfortable pace. Amos could barely see him now, but with the mountain rising up at Kifo’s side it was fair to trust he was across the gamut.
“It’s fine, Amos! Completely safe!”
Strangely, seeing someone cross it did not instill in Amos the confidence he'd hoped for. He walked slowly across it, limping, and holding his blade low so he could illuminate his brother’s path. The older man's steps seemed so much larger and deeper; so much more sturdier than his own. Back home, Kifo had once wrestled with a panther that had tried to kill father in his sleep. In the hunts he always fought to take part, often leading expeditions and returning all the more stronger for it. He was an incredible asset, and Amos regretted getting split up from him during his journey through the maze.
The birds began a bizarre song. Amos paid it no mind, completely focused on the ground before him. It was truly incredible how Kifo's steps could be so much larger, when their feet were not all that different in size. The bird song grew louder, and the prince still did not mind. It was only when the shouting of his brother clicked in his mind that he suddenly looked up and then slowly back; realized it was not the songs of birds but the howling of wolves.
There was too many of them to face, all as big as bears and dressed in thick fur coats. A large grey male snapped its jaws as it lead the pack towards the prince, flanked by a mosiac of reds, oranges, blacks and whites. Amos broke into as best a run as he could, half hopping and half sprinting as his brother called for him. He could hear the ice groaning now, heard a whine as the pack managed to break through some of the ice and send one of their members plummeting. It howled and Amos was struck with anger that his brother would not come and defend him – hated that Kifo was safe and healthy and he was wounded and being left for the wolves.
He came down particularly hard on one step, heard the crack of ice and stopped dead. He looked at Kifo, and then at the wolves. Kifo was yelling and gesturing at something but Amos couldn’t tell what – he felt the ground shift beneath him, the ice giving more way. The wolf pack, initially so eager, now paused where they were and looked around with the same primal terror.
“Amos, you have to go back!”
Back? To the wolves? Amos shook his head and felt the ground sink again.
“Amos! Look at me! If you go down I'm coming after you! Go back!”
He dumbly took a step forward instead, saw his foot go through before he felt it. A splinter ran along the length of the bridge and then squealed, cracking open and sending massive chunks falling. The wolves howled as most of them fell, and what few remained were quickly trying to bound back to the safety of the start of the bridge, clambering over each other and shoving shoulders.
Amos, his lower torso hanging and his sword embedded in the ice – the only thing saving him – did not have that luxury. He felt the ice as it teared into his belly, could see the cracks starting to run from where he had buried the sword to the edge he was bracing his chest against. Hopefully his death would be quick; he couldn’t imagine being trapped below, every bone broken but still alive and unable to struggle ahead. It might take weeks to die in such a way.
Then he was being pulled backwards and up, and Amos blinked dumbly as he was hauled out of the hole, his grip so firm on the sword that it came with him. It tore more of his stomach open and ruined the front of his tunic completely, but he didn't have the air to hiss in pain.
“Come on,” His brother had an arm around his waist, walking briskly and leading him between broken chunks of ice and crackling surfaces. Amos didn’t speak, could hardly catch his breath, but appreciated it wholly. Kifo was warm and good at keeping him from stumbling, more dragged him than actually helped him. Amos only vaguely registered making it to the other side of the gauntlet, the bridge beginning to sink and warp as the weight of itself without any support caused it to buckle. The wolves howled and paced from their lair across the fallen sky bridge, perhaps mourning their fallen brothers or their lost meal. With a final heave the bridge collapsed inwards and snapped, falling as two single pillars. Amos didn't have the stomach to watch it collide below, though the sound of shattering ice carried in the wind.
“You saved me,” Kifo walked him slowly to the crux of the mountain, sitting him down against it.
“Are you sure there is no Lycaon?”
“Positive.” Amos closed his eyes, letting his head fall back. The cold had gone back to being refreshing.
He felt something clawing at his hand, and begrudgingly opened his eyes to see Kifo pulling at his fingers, trying to get them away from the sword. “Hey,” He drawled, “What’re you doing?”
“I need the sword, Amos. I cannot see up ahead.”
“I can carry the sword,” Amos muttered, and Kifo sighed, picking him up by the fur of the mantle to steady him back onto his feet. It made Amos' thighs burn.
“No. Give me the sword.”
“No! Get your own,” Amos stumbled, and Kifo steadied him again.
“Amos.” His voice wasn’t joking. “Give me the sword.”
There was no arguing with that voice. Amos hesitated, wanting to debate, but settled instead with holding his arm out. His forearm shook, muscles twitching against the bronze skin. “I… can’t let go.”
“What? Why?”
“I think I'm... frozen.”
Kifo’s eyes widened, then narrowed. The blond tossed down both shortswords and roughly pushed his back against Amos' chest, the contact stinging after the scraping against ice. “Don’t watch this part,” and before Amos could protest his brother had wrapped his big arm around Amos' forearm and placed his other hand near blackened fingers gripping an icy hilt.
Crack! Snap! Amos fingers were being snapped at the joints, and the prince found himself strangely removed from the affair. He felt nothing save for a slight pressure at the knuckles. His mouth hung open, eyes blinking lazily in time with the snaps.
With a dull thunk the sword hit the snow, and Amos choked on his breath. Kifo released him, turned, and took Amos' chin in his hand to look the prince over; to look him in the eye. It made Amos uncomfortable.
“There is no Beast?”
“There is no Beast,” Amos repeated, pushing his mangled hand under his armpit. He was shaking all over, and he wasn’t sure it was because of the cold anymore. Kifo loosened his grip and patted Amos' cheek with a smile, then bent down to collect his two fallen swords.
“There is no Beast.”
Kifo buried his sword into Amos’ side, angled under his ribs and into his stomach. Kifo pushed his chest against Amos', pinning him to the mountain wall and burying the sword deeper as the wide-eyed prince pawed at the larger male. “Don’t fight it, it hurts less if you don’t.”
“Wh—”
“How could I let you be King? You, who can’t even fend for yourself?”
“Wh—”
“I will not dishonour my mother in such a way. Your father is a pig, and I will not let him mock her. For her sake I must be King.” Kifo kissed Amos’ forehead, then pulled the sword out with a vulgar squealch. He gouged the second sword across the dark-skinned boy’s throat. "I'm sorry." Amos collapsed, gurgling and twitching.
Kifo threw his swords down and nonchalantly lifted Amos' fiery blade from the snow, looking it over. It glowed a vicious red. He touched pale fingers along it, wiping away snow and ice from inside the passages, then touched the blade to the spurting neck wound of his brother. Amos remained on the ground, gasping and clutching his side.
Kifo lifted the sword a few centimetres above Amos' neck, and widened his stance to better support his weight. He brought the sword down lightly, testing it against the sun-kissed skin, then raised it again. He repeated the action a few times, before again setting himself and gripping the hilt with both hands. Kifo raised the sword high, the prince a pathetic ball at his feet.
But, he found he could not cut off Amos' head; perhaps prevented by some lingering memories of childhood.
“It is your King who has betrayed you,” Kifo informed Amos as he grabbed him by the hair and dragged him to the edge of the mountain. He backed away from the gurgling prince. “If not for him we might have made glorious leaders, side by side.”
Then, Kido kicked Amos' body off the side, and watched the body plummet as the sky bridge had. When Kifo could no longer see Amos he turned from the ledge, heading back towards the mountain's passage. There was no Beast – and now, no Prince either. The kingdom was his.
For you, mother.
After hours of traveling, he finally came to a bend that continued only a few metres before veering sharply left, leading to the top of the mountain. This had to be it. Perhaps there was some marble archway leading to the Palace, or even a flying stallion. Kifo wouldn’t put anything past the Caniis Isle's abilities at this point.
He walked the last few steps up the mountain. Dread set in.
Atop the mountain – plateau, really – were dozens of carcasses, some still alive and wailing. A makeshift shelter had been created against a rocky ridge, with some spare bone and flesh acting as structure; near it a fire burned. Beyond, he could see the beginnings of another route off of the mountain, coiling down into darkness and leading to the second mountain of the range. Kifo looked down at the base of the sword, and realized that he had only now entered the center of the labyrinth – whatever Amos had mistaken as the center was either some hallucination brought on by pain or further proof the boy was an idiot.
Screaming started from the shelter – a woman. Kifo stood his ground as the red cloak used as a drape parted, revealing a massive beast holding a woman within its claws. With a derisive snarl it tore her in half and tossed either end in opposite directions, which both bounded off the cliff edge; then, it looked at Kifo.
It was bigger than two men stood atop one another’s shoulders. Fine black fur covered its muscular frame – its body was a vulgar cross between a man and wolf. As it snarled it revealed sharpened teeth and a dark purple tongue still wet with the woman's blood.
Oh, this was no hag in a costume. It was certainly real.
On its head were two pairs of horns, ebony in hue, with the outermost ribbed and the inner two smooth. Any one of those horns could be used to cut him from groin to breast.
The irony struck him, then. All this time he had considered Amos to be an idiot who trusted too easy and was all the more easy to manipulate for it; but it was Kifo’s trust in Amos that lead to this – Kifo facing a legendary monster – and his certain demise. By all means Kifo should have seen this betrayal coming, did suspect it from most people – but the only one he had trusted had cut him the deepest. Kifo outsmarted by one of the greatest fools of the Nozama Jungles.
And from the grave, no less.
Still, fate or not, Kifo could not run from this monster. The legends may have favoured the dark-skinned Amos, but so long as Kifo held the mystic blade he stood some chance of winning.
“Let’s have at it,” Kifo laughed. “I don’t want to keep my kingdom waiting.”
He knew already he would fail.
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