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Chapter 4 - Lars

I

        Whether from imagination or unmeasured fact, the night felt cold. Spring was succumbing to summer and the night should not have be giving chills to those who were forced to be outside. Cold made joints hurt and skin prickle into sores. It stole the strength from muscles and made the mind drowsy. Lars hated the cold for all those reasons and more. He was not particularly old but was towards middle age’s wrong side. Each year he hurt more; each year he was slower. Old injuries renewed their roaring pains in his joints, and whenever he sat unintentional grunts escaped his lips. All this was exasperated by the drop in temperature. He hated the cold.
        He hated those clustered around the fire even more. His face clearly showed the disquiet he held for each and was made sinister in the flickering orange fire light. They were young and lean, where he could not lay claim to be either, especially the latter. They did not feel the chill like he did, and they stole the fire’s warmth that should have been his, by rights. Was it not right to respect those with more experience? Lars knew this was a punishment. The new guard captain was young like the two boys on the fire’s other side and a woman privileged by name and not deed. Some brat spawned by Lavici’s higher classes. She had not seen eye to eye with him despite his experience in the town’s guard. Lars could already see the favoritism she gave the latest recruits. It was unfair. He wanted nothing more than to leave his post to attend the social halls and wash his pains away with a hearty drink. Why did he have to babysit these two brats in the cold and at night.
        “Quiet night,” One of the youths remarked, breaking Lars’s revelry. Lars had not bothered to learn the youth’s name.
        “That’s a good thing,” Said the other.
        “Anyone have some cards to past the time?”
        “Lights no good for that,” Lars spat, “Ya’ll need to keep your mouths shut. Your ramblin’s are making my bones hurt.”
        They looked at Lars with blank expressions. It made him hate them more. Slacked faced idiots, he thought, why in the Gods’ names am I stuck with these slacked faced idiots?
        Too afraid to reply directly, the first youth turned to the second and said, “Pay comes tomorrow, what are you going to do with it?”
        “Eat something with custard!”
        “Damned fools,” Lars growled, “Ya need to have a drink that’ll give you your first ball hairs. Stick a prostitute with your pecker to become a man. Everything else is a waste of good coin, ya youthful fools.”
        From Lars’s perspective, the second youth grew a pair as he spoke up, “Quit your rambling old man. I don’t want to listen to your whining all night.”
        Lars laughed heartily. His large belly swelled with each booming bellow. It ended in a coughing fit that stole his breath. He was not upset by his lacking oxygen, even as he struggled to regain his breath. Panting, he cleared the tears from his eyes with a finger. This one ain’t so bad after all, he thought.
        “I would like to see you try something, boy,” He finally replied between breathless rasps.
        “I don’t think you stand a chance if your breath is lost simply by laughing,” The second youth said and stood. His hand shot to the sword at his hip and he freed the first few inches.
        Lars felt heat rise in his breast and grew serious. He rose slowly with as much menace as he could muster. Already, he was planning his first moves. The second youth was a shrimp and lacked any real strength in his arms. Lars could tell fear was already freezing the youth’s nerves. He stood a head taller and was easily twice as thick. Even though he had accumulated extra fat on his frame in recent years, he was always a big man. His arms bulged with muscle and his legs were thicker. He had toiled all his life and his pains were not caused by disuse, quite the opposite. He was a hard man and was imposing despite age’s discomforts.
        “Ya better think really hard now, son,” Lars growled like a predatory wolf.
        “I-I,” The second youth stammered.
        The night grew silent; not even the fire dared to crackle as it ate the wood that fueled it. There was anticipation in the air. Something was coming and stole the normal sounds, smells, and warmth from the world.
        In a sudden blur, the second youth vanished from Lars’s sight. The heat evaporated from Lars’s chest and for the first time in a long while he stood dumbfounded. A blood curdling scream, to close for comfort, erupted from a tortured throat beside him. His face drained its colour. A ghost white thing with one arm thrashed, punched, and bit at the second youth’s face and throat.
        Its strength was incredible, despite its starved skeletal appearance. Even disfigured, it manhandled the youth with ease. Large cable like muscles bulged in its neck and it thrashed faster than the eye could follow. After a few moments, the youth was a bloody mess, and his eyes were swollen shut from the beating. Blood gurgled from his mouth as the thing repeatedly struck his midsection. Lars watched the youth’s ribs break under the chainmail armour and tensed at the horrific sound that followed.
        Soulless midnight black eyes stared with an inhuman hunger as they turned to Lars and the other youth. Their image burnt into Lars mind and he looked away in utter horror. Even still, they remained in his imagination, staring and unblinking as if seared into his brain.
        Without thought, Lars backed away. He ignored the second youth’s blood that jetted across his face as the white thing reared up in a roar and then clamped its jaws on the youth’s throat with savage impossible speed. It was the death blow. The thing’s neck pulsed wide and then inhumanly thin, as it suckled and swallowed bloody mouthfuls from the twitching youth.
        Lars’s sword was in his hand in an instant. His grip was firm, and he knew what he had to do. He hacked down on the dumbfounded surviving youth’s knee. The joint shattered with a sickening crunch. The blow had not been well aimed, but it was delivered with force and the sword acted more like a club than a cutting weapon.
        The youth wailed in agony and writhed on the dew damp grass a moment after he fell. The white thing lifted and turned its predatory gaze to the sound. Thick blood coated its mouth, chin, and chest. Long fangs stretched from its mouth like daggers. Its throat rumbled like a feline ready to kill a mouse. It pounced on the wailing youth and tore into his throat. The cries stopped sharply at their peak.
        Lars saw nothing after he sentenced the youth to death. He was already through Lavici’s open gates by the time the white thing bit into the first youth’s neck and did not spare a glance backwards. He took no time to close the town’s barrier as he raced down the main street with gulping breaths.

II

        Lars pushed into the social hall and nearly collapsed. After a few more gasping strides, he fell onto a stool at the bar. The seat groaned in response as he shifted his weight onto it. Sweat rolled down his face with a rapid river's tenacity. An iron blood tang in his mouth and was made worse from his ragged breaths. He felt ready to keel over and swore to lose weight. He felt nothing for the two youths, but he did feel the white thing’s black eyes staring into his soul. They had a physical hunger to them that he would never be able to forget but that fact would not stop him from trying.
        “I need a damn drink!” He roared.
        The bar’s tender was old and sheepish. Lars knew the man well and had never liked him. Always seeking to please and no damned backbone, Lars thought. However, the bartender’s trade afforded him a certain respect that others with similar a nature would not ever receive from Lars.
        The bartender meandered over slowly - due to age more than anything else. He smiled warmly and freed a ceramic tankard from beneath the counter when he arrived. After a few stuttering steps, the old bartender reached out to the tapped keg and filled the tankard with amber coloured liquid and carefully placed it before Lars. A layer of foam slowly retreated into the cup and dribbled down the tankard’s lip.
        “That’ll be a copper, Lars,” The Bartender said with a wisp after each word.
        “Put it on me tab, Vel,” Lars grumbled before draining half the ale in a single gulp.
        “You have yet to play your tab from last night,” Vel the Bartender stated.
        “I said, put it on me tab!” Lars growled.
        “As you say,” Vel replied, “I thought I would not be seein’ you this eve’, Lars. Are ya not on watch tonight?”
        “Piss off, Vel. Not in the mood to chit chat.”
        “Is that blood on ya face, Lars?”
        “I said, Piss off!”
        The Bartender nodded and made his way back the way he came without complaint, checking on the other patrons as he shuffled by.
        Lars paid no attention to that and paid even less to the eye that stared at him throughout the hall. He sipped his ale and found the tankard emptied faster than it should have. His head began to buzz, and a warmth filled his gut. As soon as the feeling began, it started to ebb away. A vision of the white thing stole the pleasure the ale.
        He swore and cried out for another, “Keep ‘em coming Vel. I don’t want to feel nothin’!”

III

        Sun rays reached over the horizon and stabbed through the open gates. Lars swore at them as they pierced is eyelids. He lay in a heap outside the hall. Cold sapping at his joints would have been luxurious compared to how his head pulsed. Breath did not come easily through his nostrils. He sucked air into his lungs through his teeth and forced it out through his nose. Large blood clots and a sharp sting were his rewards. It was then that his fists started to ache. The fog in his mind made realization hard to come by. When did I get into a fight? He asked himself, and with who? Fortunately, he knew this feeling well. With an ungentle hand, he forced his broken nose back into place with a sickening crunch and then popped his two dislocated fingers back into their sockets.
        Through sheer will, he put his feet under him - causing nausea and vertigo to race through his alcohol bleached mind. The vomit that followed tasted like acid and clung to every inch in his mouth. The dry heaving, which followed a few gasping breaths, made his ribs burn with pain.
        “Gods be damned,” He coughed.
        He managed to take a few wobbled steps before the cobblestoned street came up to meet him. More vile liquid spilled from his mouth and ran down his face. A whimpering grown followed and he pushed away from the vomit with a back handed wipe, then with a groan was back to his feet. His whole body felt like a bruise and he wanted nothing more than to curl up and die.
        Somehow, he found himself in an alley but had no idea where he was. His consciousness was blacking in and out. He attempted to find something to guide his path, but the dread-filled alley felt like something from the terror stories bards used to scare children at festivals. His hands quested along his belt in response to the tension crawling up his spine. Relief came from a leather wrapped hilt. He drew the knife and enjoyed its familiar weight. Although, he still had his sword, he doubted he had the poise to use it in his current state. He was just as likely to skewer himself as anyone who sought trouble.
        Lars kept his free hand against the grime covered alley wall and pressed his weight against it to give himself some stability, while keeping his knife ready at his side. He did not expect to run into trouble but was not going to risk relying on his uncoordinated body. His progress was slow. Each step was excruciating.
        “Help me...”
        He froze. Sweat beads dribbled down his spine. The voice was hollow and weak. Somehow it sounded sick. Lars did not know how he knew that, but he did. Whatever called to him was sick. He had always despised the sick. They should be burned for all he cared.
        “Please...”
        With slow dread, he gazed to the ground. A pale, almost ghostly, white hand reached out from under a pile a refuse. Thick black veins throbbed visibly along the hand and the arm attached to it. The wraith-like figure crawled weakly into the open and Lars was at once reminded of the white thing attacking the youths. The only difference was this thing was a woman and she was weak where the white thing was strong. She also lacked the dagger fangs jutting from her mouth and the hungry eyes that sought to consume all. Her eyes were filled with worry and dread. She knew full well that she was dying, and Lars could see that realization easily enough across her tortured body. Her clothes were torn and in rags. One breast flopped about with each struggled move like an old lady. The only colour on her was the crimson that covered her wounded neck and chest. Lars could not quite tell from the angle, but if he had to guess, it looked as if something tore her throat out. There was no way she could be alive with such a wound. He was reminded what the white thing did to the youths the night before.
        She gasped, “Hel-”
        The knife slashed across the reaching arm, spilling rancid blood onto the cobblestones. Panic broiled in Lars’s veins. Adrenaline and fear-filled sanger followed. His mind cleared. He roared with a hate that was born from survival instinct. Lars followed his first reactive attack with an intended knife thrust, which punched into the women’s eye, just as they turned coal black. The eye popped as if it were under pressure, sending a thick liquid splashing across Lars’s face in a burst. More jet gore dribbled from her mouth in long stringy gobbets.
        With a twist and a pull, Lars freed his knife and punched it twice more. He fell back against the alley wall and panted like a dog on a warm summer day. The thick blood ran between the stone as if reaching towards him. Desperately, he crawled away - managing to find his feet. He ran from the alley. He was ashamed that his body gave out a few paces later. Fire filled his lungs and muscles from the exertion. Tainted blood mixed with sweat and ran on his lips. He spat with all his might to keep it from getting inside his mouth.
        He struggled back to his feet, feeling no alcohol in his head anymore. Hot burning adrenaline gave him clarity and he used it to stand. With a few staggered steps, he resumed his panicked flight down the street.

IV

        Lars collapsed into his bunk. His head pounded with savage fury. He could feel the veins at his temples throbbing and wanted every sensation to go away. Sweat beaded on his flesh. His stomach turned sour and demanded release, but he swallowed hard to quash it. He did not know how he got here and felt as if he woke from a bad dream. Exhaustion took him. The world spun. His vision became a void and consciousness disappeared soon after.

V

        The black blood crawled as if it had sentient intent. Ever so slowly, it stretched outward from the ruined woman’s face in an ever-growing flood - consuming the cobblestones around her. It pooled beside an open sewer hole, before reaching over and drooling into the depths below in long molasses-like strands. As the blood touched the grey sewer water it dispersed. Clouds swirled with the slow but steady sewage flow and dissolved.
        The sewers were far from unoccupied. Although the less fortunate dwelled within tunnels, the true occupants were what many within Lavici would call pests. Rats and stray animals interacted with the water for either drink or travel. The affects were not immediate, but the changes occurred more rapidly than they should have for any natural contagion. There was power in the blood. It was a thin and diluted power in comparison to what birthed it, but still potent. It did not seek to destroy; it wanted to create symbiosis. There was a cost however and not all survived the change. However, it learned from each failure, like an ant hive searching for food it consumed in an ever-spreading wave.
        A particularly large rat squealed in agony as it used its last strength to crawl out from the sewer’s stew and onto a ledge that helped channel the liquid waste. It crawled a few steps and its sides pulsed as if they were about to explode from the effort to breathe. Hair sluffed off it in patches and thick black veins raced across its exposed pale skin, like cracks in a stone.
        The one-armed ghoul watched the rat transform and become rabid from a shadowed alcove. With an animal’s understanding, it knew the rat was changing into something close kindred. Because of this it did not devour it as had done to the vermin piled beside it. Although, the ghoul’s hunger was impossible to satiate, its recent feedings gave it the ability to resist this final morsel. Unconsciously, it smiled revealing its long snake-like fangs as the rat’s own sharp teeth elongated.

Let me know what you think. See you next week!

Brett