WARNING! this post contains some descriptions of violence that may be upsetting for some readers.
Reader discretion is advised.
Carmina The Wolf
Carmina crouches behind a tall thorny bush; peering through a small, nearly invisible crack in the shrub that allows her vision to pass by.
She has to be perfectly still.
The slightest move…
The slightest motion... might cause a hinge in her armor to squeak with the unmistakable, unnatural sound of metal rubbing against metal.
…
These men are a few of the nastier variety. At least they
are men.
Not like the godless heathens that run about naked in the hills.
These men, if they had seen her first, would have ambushed her with a dozen at least.
Carmina is smarter than that.
She waits hours, crouching on the balls of her feet until the scouts arrive.
There are two of them. This is very fortunate for Carmina because the last time she had come to a head with this group, there were three. She ran that time, but would not do so again (even if it had been three).
…
There is a shift in the wind. Carmina is unmoved, but it brings with it their scent. The smell is a familiar one to anyone who has passed near a farm or a busy outhouse. The smell of man, absent of decency.
Carmina makes the association in her head of a plump, shit covered, pink hog meandering… waddling unknowingly toward a den of wolves. She is just one person; not quite a den, but she is a wolf undoubtedly.
The soft, muffled sound of a not very eloquent pig’s voice, distorted and unintelligible from within her helm, grows louder as the two draw closer. The hair on the back of her neck stands up and her nostrils flare, taking in a strong burst of air.
She is a wolf.
She licks her lips to stop an abrupt surge of saliva from spilling over their cusp. It doesn’t work. She barely feels as a trail of drool cascades all the way down from the corner of her mouth to the padding of her gorget.
…
…
SNAP!
Carmina’s legs extend up just as the guards pass by her position. A single fluid motion.
Grip your weapon.
Assume Form.
Strike.
Before either of the two knew the conversation had come to an end, one of them hears a horrendously loud sound that, in an instant of profound clarity, reminds him of a woman he had seen a few years back slapping a rug against the rails of her balcony. She was com-pletely nekkid, and he always said “she knew he was lookin’!” (eventually he would come to believe his own lie, forgetting the great effort he had gone through to stay unseen).
His head snaps left to see the corner of his cohort’s helmet spinning just a bit further than the neck should allow it to. A chunk of something slaps against his shoulder with a sound much louder than the force behind it. His eyes go wide and he draws his weapon with speed.
Carmina could have already been upon him.
She is not being courteous. She wishes to see how a savage fights. She wants to see how he fights when he is truly afraid. His reaction is not expected. He is FEAR.
His hands tremble and tears build up at the corner of his eyes.
He wears armor that is a size too large, and a weapon that has seen use. He is young. He is frightened. He is LIFE. His eyes are straining. His pupils struggle in little circular efforts.
Carmina notes that his struggle is not to see her, but to prevent himself from looking down to the now twitching left leg of his comrade. Dead? no.. his leg is twitching, so there is some life in him.
“Ya.. ya.. ya kill Sammet… ya kilt him.. he ‘es jes there an ya kilt him!”
He is sorrow. He is anger. He is DEATH.
He is reading aloud his own epilogue.
Word by word.
Sentence by sentence.
Carmina takes notes. Allowing him the dignity of a place in her heart. The man on the ground is not dead. She sees his chest moving up and down as he struggles for air. That means he would be her second, and the terrified young man in front of her would be her first.
The man grips his sword with both hands. He is not in a fighting stance. He has been trained, but he doesn’t know how to fight. Steel must be learned from experience. Carmina has steel. She is a lumbering mass of red and polished metal. She provides no words as she hurls herself toward the man in a full charge.
“
When mounting a charge, one must yell to the void as though he is death itself. The first strike is always against the will of your opponent.
Ser Hilyeard, Hilyaerd’s Militations – Vol I
Her lungs press together and expel pure RAGE.
The gods of war speak through her and she channels them through her core.
The young man’s face contorts into dread as he makes eye contact with the wolf.
His instincts take over and he feels his whole body simultaneously tense and relax at the same time. His stomach sinks, and he can taste his own fear in the back of his throat. His sword is still held, but his grip is just barely enough to contend with its weight. He hears himself speak, but doesn’t feel himself providing the effort to do so.
“pl.. pl.. NO! DO-”
There is a pressure that he feels somewhere below his head. He doesn’t know how far, which he doesn’t consider to be very odd (had he been able to think rationally, this may have been worrying).
His eyelids seem to flap up and down on their own. He sees them doing so, and doesn’t find it very odd either. It’s nice now that he has time to stop and think for a moment. He see’s the dust kick up in front of him as what was once (or perhaps still is, depending on who you ask) his body hits the ground.
His eyes continue to blink on their own as he watches Carmina take her helmet off in slow motion.
He only makes it up to her brow before the light goes out.
...
...
He tries to call for his mother but nothing comes out.
Carmina is elated. She is high. She is ALIVE.
She approaches the man who lay bleeding from his head and reaches down to pry off his helm.
There is a hole where his left eye once was. Not very deep, but enough to make recovery implausable. His right eye is gone as well and nowhere to be seen, but he was still breathing and maintaining just a bit of life.
Carmina considers how much effort the body must require to maintain this state of barely living.
She takes a sharpened wood axe from where she had set up ambush and strikes through the left leg at the pelvis. It isn’t until after she has severed each limb that she considers how odd it is that she didn’t remove the head first. She supposes that the preventative guides always start with the limbs assuming that the person is dead (she considers that a letter to the authors may be in order). Only a moment passes in thought before she puts what remains out of its misery.
