Chapter 53: Sewer

Chapter 53: Sewer

Pain, there was only blood and agony. And rage. When Erec's axe slammed into the monsters, they shattered. They'd split, and their shards would fly. Their jagged rocks dented his metal and tore into his skin as the fight wore on—but his Strength only expanded.

It wasn’t long before his swings had enough force behind them that he was able to split their heads clean from their bodies.

And if he’d failed, Olivia, with her prayers, was able to finish his disabled foes.

He tore through the camp, leaving the confines to join the battlefront. Each buzz in his head led to another fight, another challenge, for something else to test his war axe against.

His anger flowed freely as fires rocked the streets—Knights marched in droves to join the battle. Around him, allies maintained a defensive line.

Even though the battle was momentarily swung in their favor, more stone giants poured from the city. It was an endless wave of giants and those annoying smaller stone monsters.

They didn’t bleed like Erec wanted them to.

In the distance rumbled a larger one of the stone creatures—three heads hung off on long thick necks; it crashed through a building, sending rubble flying as it charged toward the defensive line. Several senior knights broke off their engagements and rushed the bigger threat. Yet that only freed their previous opponents to press the weaker Knights.

By the second, the momentary advantage on the battlefield was slipping away. There wasn’t the firepower, manpower, or right ground to defend.

It didn’t matter.

Erec swung his axe, cleaved it through another foe, and decimated more, littering the battlefield in the unsatisfying chunks of decapitated and shattered stone enemies.

At some point, Alister joined him and Olivia; those cackling tendrils cleaved foes.

Erec still had the space for his battles, to pick his fight.

Good, they knew better than to get in his way.

Hell burned inside, and he let out a victorious scream as a blinking dot pulsed on the edge of his vision—blood ran down from the split skin on his brow.

Its pain was only a feat of living, a well-earned badge to mark his success at war. They couldn’t kill him.

He was victorious.

He left behind another pile of rubble as he slew another enemy.

Finally, an order was broadcast over the battlefield. “Retreat!” Boldwick called—“Pull back and retreat south, towards the subway network.”

Erec traced the frustratingly loud noise to a man in Armor. He watched the figure promptly cut a fiery sword twice the size of a giant into one of the enemies, melting the thing into two halves.

Why retreat?

He hadn't had his fill.

Erec picked another foe, and another, and one more—until the ranks of the others in Armor began to thin. Olivia yanked at his shoulder, spouting nonsense about needing to leave.

[Go.]

The buzzing. And that other voice, deep within, grew in strength as it threatened to summon that cold fire to fight him. Both voices wanted to end this glorious battle. Despicable. Cowardly.

But...

Perhaps it’d be best to bend. These things were annoying to fight anyway; they didn’t fill the field with blood.

One of the giants stepped into his sight—a large broken old-world vehicle in its hand. Olivia wasn’t looking in its direction—no, she was searching for an escape route but didn’t see the attacker.

It would crush her.

He shoved the girl off her feet and launched himself forward in a burst of speed. The old-world scrap metal slammed into where they’d been.

Erec twisted his body as he reached the thing, digging deep. The cold fire bled into the inferno—but this time, they didn’t fight one another but complimented, forming a cycle of strength. He put it all into a single swing—his damaged Armor strained as the weapon tore through the air, crashing into the giant’s leg.

The man tilted his head and walked towards him; a rough hand with a tattoo of a two-headed snake reached in his direction.

“...Help...” Erec got out before he fell over.

— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

The first thing he noticed was the smell—an awful reek of decay and putrid rot. Erec took a deep lungful of the scent.

It was beautiful; it meant he was still alive, no matter how horrid it was.

The second thing he noticed was the light; a small fire burned not too far away. Erec tried to get to his feet—the wound on his back was caked in blood and reopened, but he made no progress. His hands were bound in steel manacles.

[Ah, welcome back. Do not panic]

Whistling to himself was the man with the two-headed snake tattoo; a glint of steel shined near the fire. It had a long barrel and mechanism near its grip. A ranged weapon of—

A gun?

Such a weapon would get you thrown out of the Kingdom if the priests suspected you’d fired one. They were found hidden away in old cities, though rarely working models. But, they shouldn’t have been able to do what they’d done to the giant.

It could kill an average man easily enough, though.

A tiny blinking light pulsed in the corner of his vision. He found it hard to care, at the moment, what it might say.

The guy glanced at Erec and spat on the ground.

“Aw, the brat’s up, huh?” he said, standing up and grabbing the weapon, only to crouch near Erec and yank his head up by the root of his hair.

More pain. But it gave him a good eyeful of the bastard. That scraggly hair around his face spoke of months without a proper shave. He had awful yellowed teeth and bulging red veins on the whites of his eyes.

And a cocky grin, he waved the gun in front of Erec’s eyes. A weapon that slew a stone giant, even when it should’ve been impossible.

The bastard leaned too close, close enough to smell his rank breath that spoke of rancid garlic and spoiled meat.

“Who the hell are you?” Erec asked, squinting. This guy, clearly, did not come from the kingdom, which was baffling in its own right, had Boldwick not mentioned such a thing to be possible.

Though maybe he was an exile. He looked the part.

“Haha, aint you a lil bit like an overgrown roach? Thought you might die with the wounds, but they stopped bleeding, aint they? Was out for a day or two, maybe. Hard to say.” The guy shook his head. “Better, suppose. Maybe can fetch a price. On top of getting to keep your shit, like I win twice.”

“...Keeping my shit?”

“Slow lil fucker, aint ya? Yeah, finders keepers, and all that. Beats being a corpse, but of course...” the barrel of the weapon pressed against Erec’s head, and a wider smile grew on the guy’s face. “...We could change that now, ‘twen the two of us if you act like a whiny brat. Easy fix.”

Erec fought hard to kill the instant rage of anger in him—his vision flooded red. His wrists strained against the steel binding.

[Comply. I would suggest you bide time.]

One... Two... Erec started to count, as the barrel of the gun left his head. He twirled the gun as Erec’s chin slammed into the ground, no longer held by the hair.

“’What sorta price do they put your life at? Maybe they’ll give up more of those steel things—though, hard to get’em to work. But maybe Maria, she’s handy with techno-babble-shit. Hey, aint that right, you gap-toothed bitch?”

He said the last bit with a shout—and aimed the gun towards a scrawny figure Erec hadn’t noticed before. A small woman nodded several times in a row, darting out like an animal from the shadows of the fire. Her hair was a ragged mess, and her eyes darted between him and the man in the disgusting coat.

She reached out on the floor in supplication, crawling towards the fire and proffering her hands toward the man pointing a gun at her—palms up as her fingers wiggled ever so slightly. Begging?

He stomped on the outstretched hands as she let out of a cry of pain—before retreating back to the shadows. He chuckled to himself as she vanished.

“Needy. So needy. Alright, kid, I’m going to yank you up, and we’ll have a bit of a mosey. Talk to your friends, and see if they’re keen or not about you breathing. Sounds fun, aint it? Hey, kid what do you think you’re worth? I reckon the heartless fuck’s tell me to end you.”

Erec didn’t answer that. No, he fought hard to keep the anger down since it’d do nothing but end his life. It was a full effort. Made even harder as the man yanked him up by the collar and dragged him down the sewer tunnels. But if he didn’t, if he broke, if he let it slip for a minute...

That gun would be pulled and it’d end him, just like it ended the giant with ease.