by catch » Fri Apr 05, 2013 12:54 pm
The Third
The Grand Hall would always be littered with bones, tiny-bones, if they were not swept away. The once-Son, his heavy chain rattling, darted from the shadows to which he belonged, and he scooped the little silver-struck birdling into his black, calloused hands, and retreated with his prize back into the shadows. It is such a little thing, a delicacy of tiny meats and brittle bones, so that for a moment he sits on his haunches, and he admires it. It is so pretty. Perhaps he should save it, save it, pin the little wings against the wall, pretend that it still flew - pretend that it is Cherny, come to speak kind words to him once more.
He was not made for pretty things.
He tore the birdling to pieces, the better to stuff every bit of it past the grill of his muzzle, and he ate and he wept as he watched, bleakly, the Killer's final stroke -
The Second
They felt it first. Quickened-blood, quickened-mind, they, more than others, attuned to his pulse. The beasts threw their heads back, and they rattled, a vast and terrible howl, for they could not sing - they were only beasts - they could not sing. They were only beasts, and as the catalyst snapped it's delicate lines, they threw down their makeshift weapons. They slunk down cobbled streets, and their minds were once more the minds of animals, though their bodies remained twisted, ruined. Fox and rat, raven and thrush, cat and horse, each ran, they ran, on hands and feet that were no longer built for their running, their eyes mad and wild with terror, and they tore themselves to pieces in the Labyrinth, trying desperately to escape.
He, alone, stood, in the ruins of his army, his throat vibrating with the need to speak, yet he had none to speak to. His vast hands gripped the maggot-dripped sword, and he lifted his head, and past the blindness of human-tears from dog-eyes he looked to the stars.The Hungry came, since now he had no army, and he fought blind, for he was a warrior, a warrior, and though he could not sing, he spoke the Finishing-words, he spoke of Cherny, he spoke his praises, and in the end it was a misting-pile of blood and gore that he died, brought down by their sheer numbers, torn viciously asunder as they desperately devoured.
The First. The Last.
The Song came to him, filled his back, ran across his spine as the remnants of Myrkenwood cowered, their eyes cast upwards. They echoed without knowing. The terrible gift he had given the boy, Eater, blossomed like petal-flowers, the boy's ribs shimmering with cheerful-things, the like of which could not be found in Burnie's kingdom, innards torn out to show the beautiful, multi-colored petals that he had given the boy so long ago, like a porcelain doll laid out before a door-step. Catch turned his whole face to the stars, the calling of the stars, and his throat unfurled to them.
Once. Twice. His throat made a noise that no throat could make, the brass-and-silver claxon of bells, and it put force behind that Song. It put command.
The thousand-silver point of the Stars answered the boy Cherny's call.
He had never needed the chain. As his throat swelled, it snapped, the beautiful, jeweled collar clattering to the gold-paved streets. He had waited, waited so long,f or this moment, the like of which had not been seen in the world since Lothaine's fall, of which Jernoah was but a poor imitation, because he had been lost. In Myrken, he found himself. Myrken was the one thing he would never be able to forgive.
His first step changed him, the heavy foot-fall a clatter of silver-shod madness, writhed in smoke that dripped, impossibly, upwards, striking unlikely, multi-colored sparks from the gold of the pavement. He Called in that booming, terrible voice, flexing nostrils cast upward, spitting smoke and unlikely fire, molten blood that spattered from someplace beyond the squamous writhe of tendrils where a mouth should be, and was not. The first few those spatters touched, they screamed, and the mad-elf Solena was made fortunate. It spilled from him, unable to halt, unable to stop that which Cherny had set in motion. The gold turned to rivers underneath their feet, and they melted into it, wishing to scream, but unable to, their mouths stolen from them to coax forth the crescendo of the Song.
He strode through the town that had housed him, fed him, saw him comfortable. The town that had made him such a Good Citizen. He could have stepped over it, for his glory stretched to the stars themselves, the silver-points that gathered around his flowing mane, the glory of a thrice-bound horn, from which hung a weeping, black spider, a maddened, white wolf, a quiet, red stag. They had been bound long ago into it, and set the Power into his brow, and he bore it like a sword, great and sweeping scythe to split the clouds asunder, the roiling, oily clouds that had cast their pall across the City-town. He took his time. There were many to hunt, many to cleanse, and he saw each one like a beacon, for they sang - their eyes reached for him on tendril-stalks, they screamed and dragged their melted halves from the golden river-streets, trailing smoking viscera behind.
He hunted, and the sound of bells followed him; and when the Star-Crowned hunter was finished, his mismatched eyes turned to Regent's hut, a gaudy, inglorious thing, shabby and melted without his Glory to uplift it. He dragged his head from the heavens, and the tendrils of his mouth tore, and where once singing-birds had fluttered and struggled, impaled on silver lances, now his tentacles strove, groped, struck; a single, great eye, blue as a summer's day, cast down into the meeting-hall, maddening-howls dis-timing the golden bells.