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Chapter 11 - Lars

I

        “Wake up you tub of lard!”
        Water splashed him in a torrent. The rats scattered from the oncoming wave – hissing with unnatural bravado. Lars gagged as an unexpected mouthful went into his lungs. His coughs echoed through the dungeon, temporarily overshadowing the constant dripping that acted as metronome from the leaking ceilings.
        “Ye bastards,” Lars spat between ragged breaths.
        “What’s that fat man?” The guard asked, almost pleasantly, from beyond the cell’s bars. “What did you say?”
        Lars spat in the guard’s - whose name he had never bother to learn – direction, which caused laughter to erupt in an uproar. The saliva ball was feeble, just managing to dangle from Lar’s mouth onto his chest. He was so weak and could not even feel his defiance’s failure on his skin.
        “You waste of flesh,” The guard smiled with cruel delight. “I am sorry for waking you... but I wanted to ensure you were up for your big day. Today is the day you get put on a cross you pathetic fat bastard. I can’t wait.”
        As if summoned from Lars’s darkest imagination, a lank form rose behind the guard. The obscurity caused by the dungeon’s shadows seemed to cling onto it as it moved into the poor light. It made no sound and its decaying smell blended perfectly with permeated soured flesh odours throughout the dungeon. Impossibly long fingers, tipped with knife-like claws, unfurred from its only hand.
        The guard turned at the low hiss rumbling from the thing’s throat – just in time to see his death. The fingers did not slash but gripped to choke. Rich crimson washed out as the claws stabbed in and tore out the guard’s throat, preventing all protest except a gurgling blood jet that coated the ceiling. The thing took a savage bite from the torn flesh in its palm, before launching itself at the doomed man with a bestial snarl. Its long fangs plunged into the leaking throat. It slurped, bit, and twisted like an animal stilling prey in its death thralls. Gore splashed in all directions and Lars squealed as a particular thick stream traced a line across his rugged face. His cry drew the thing’s attention. Everything grew still as Lars met its cold black eyes. He could see no life in those dark orbs. They stole his complete focus, and he ignored the dead guard’s death twisted face – who was allowed to slump against the bars. Fear made Lars’s muscles tight, and voice finally found him. He screamed with all the air in his lung. The thing smiled with a skeleton’s glee; fully revealing its dagger-like fangs.
        Metal clanged on stone and air rushed through the dungeon. Lars knew the sound well; more guards were coming down into the dungeon. The thing’s mouth twisted into a snarl and reared to face the sound – hissing with a snake’s venom. It took flight and the shadows consumed it greedily, like parents welcoming a long-lost child home. Lars just managed to catch the thing exiting into a sewer hole.
        The guards’ footfalls shattered the brief silence as they rushed down the halls. Torchlight wobbled closer with the same tempo as the running feet. Lars could hear their horror as they rounded the bend within his cell’s sight, and he imagined their eyes widening in fear as they took in their fallen comrade. The thing had almost taken the man’s head from his shoulders with its savagery.
        With tentative care, the torch came into view – held aloft by the guard who stopped Lars’s earlier beating. Two others flanked him, and their legs wobbled with each careful step. Shock twisted their faces.
        “H-how?” The torch-holder stammered. His face turned to anger, and his eyes filled with accusation, then hate. With a raging slowness, he directed those eyes to Lars.
        “I didn’t do it!” Lars cried at once when he took in the Guard’s demeanour and its full meaning.
        The guard freed the cell’s keys and passed the torch off to another. With an angry clang, the cell’s door swung open, and the three men rushed in with fist clenched.
        “I’ve been in chains the whole time!” Lars pleaded with all his might and did his best to make as much noise with his tight restraints as possible, “I couldn’t’ve reached him!”
        A fist cracked his jaw before he could continue his plea. Another made him gag out air in a heave as it rocked his gut. The kick to his ribs sent his nerves spinning, but it was the final blow that took his consciousness. The guard grabbed his chin and teed off with a blow that caused Lars’s head to bounce off the stone wall. Black overtook his vision and with it the pain went away.

II

        The sun stung his eyes with the same ferocity as a needle sowing flesh. Even with the overcast sky it burned bright. Lars remembered hangovers fondly. Again, he wished he could experience that particular sensation one more time. Funny, how a few days ago he would have never believed that wish possible. Life was simpler then and, for the first time in his life, he appreciated what he had.
        With more force than was necessary, his escorting guard pushed him forward. Lars swore as he stumbled and bashed his toe against a lip in the road. His eyes were drawn to the red beads in the shadows as he regained his footing, and he growled at their gaze. They scurried beyond his reach – hissing with an almost gleeful tone. They were the choir to his doom, and he wanted nothing more than to smash their heads in. He hated his situation, he hated the guards, but he hated the rats more than the rest.
        “Keep moving,” The guard – another whose name he had never learned – ordered.
        Lars regained his footing and did his best not to limp. Lavici had changed since the rats had become his only true company. The once vibrant colours painted onto the walls and streets seemed dulled – as if years had passed, not days. Cracks, he never noticed before, ran up stone pillars and walls; they looked infirm and ready to crumble. The wood structures fared no better. Jagged splinters sagged off the walls and beams, like waterlogged rot wood. Clay shingles were missing everywhere and many lay shattered in the gutters.
        Few people walked the streets, and they were little better looking than the albino rats. Their cloths were so besmirched with grit that it was anyone’s guess what the fabric’s original appearance was. They all looked like the dregs that Lars use to beat near to death outside the drinking halls. He did not recognize any and they were not his regular brawlers. He got the impression they were not from Lavici.
        A hot rage filled him. Why are piss poor bastards like these allowed to walk around, while I am in chains!? He thought.
        “What happened to my town,” Lars spat between clenched teeth.
        The guard responded with another hard push, which caused Lars to fall. His hands were useless – being firmly secured behand his back. There was no break to his fall. His face landed first onto the cobblestoned road and did little to cushion the blow. He could feel the heat from new swells enter where it impacted. With all the pain doled out to him over the last few days, he was impressed that his body could still swell. That made him chuckle darkly.
        “Get up you bastard,” The guard growled, “Your cross awaits you outside the gates.”
        Whether it was rage, or the insanity born from desperation, Lars roared with a bull’s fury. He found his old strength once more and kicked out, like a mule. The blow connected and the sickly bone crunching was only drowned out by the guard’s agonized scream.
        Lars rushed to his knees and flopped onto the prone guard. He bit down, hard, on the guard’s throat. Iron from the warm rich liquid danced across his taste buds and for a moment he enjoyed it – he had not eaten in days and the lifeblood was almost refreshing in his madness.
        Sanity took hold a few seconds later and he spat. The bloody flesh glob landed with a fat thud on the street. With a moan the guard tried to roll away. Lars examined the wound with a glance and new the guard could survive if it were sealed.
        “It's unfortunate my hands are bound, ye bastard,” Lars snarled, “Else I could help ye with your lil’ cut.”
        Lars spat another bloody saliva onto the guard’s face and punched the man’s larynx with his forehead for good measure. The moaning wails were silenced. Shakily, he got to his feet. As adrenaline made his mind sharp, he wondered why only one guard was escorting him from the dungeon. He decided he did not care. Never to be one to question good fortune, Lars darted for the nearest alley. The rats scurried around him, dodging his heavy and desperate footfalls. For a moment, he rested and gazed back the way he came. He watched the hairless albino vermin as they approached the dying guard like a wolf pack from all directions. He smiled with a murder’s delight when they finally pounced. The guard could not stop them or cry for help. Lars turned away as they began to pull out the guard’s eyes. His stomach may have been empty, but he could not control its turn at the grizzle sight; though, a sinister part – welled deep inside and finally freed – enjoyed the suffering the guard was undergoing. Revenge felt good.
        He stumbled down the alley, like a drunkard. Weakness was returning as adrenaline subsided. His mind raced. He had no idea what the best course was. The rats gave him his answer. They swarmed around an iron grill, which covered an entrance to the sewers.
        It took effort to get it open with his hands secured behind his back. When he finally managed to get the right leverage, the iron clanged open as it bounced on its hinges. The rats hopped, happily, into the abyss now that their path was unbarred. A smell, he could not name, rose from the uncovered hole and instinct told him not to go down. He pulled away, repulsed by it.
        His heart skipped a beat as an outraged shout rose from the street where he had left the guard. With no choice, he followed the rats and dropped into the abyss below the streets.

III

        The fall was not long, but Lars hit the shallow grey water hard, which did little to break his fall. Somehow, he managed to keep the air in his lungs, despite the impact’s violence. He rolled onto his knees and stumbled to his feet, soaking wet. He had to lean against the sewer’s grim covered wall to keep his balance and he wondered if he hit his head in the fall. He felt foggy as if in a dream.
        “This better be real,” He growled to himself, “If I am hallucinating and rotting in that – God's be damned – cell, I am going to bash my own skull in against the wall when I wake up!”
        He could hear heavy footfalls above, racing towards the opening he had fallen through. Panic rose in his breast in a quick surge, and he pushed off the wall with fresh adrenaline rushing through his veins. Not a dream after all, He thought. With unsure feet, he sloshed through the putrid liquid coating his feet and ankles. There was no light, aside from the opening behind him, and he felt a gut twisting vertigo without his hands outstretched before him to guide his way.
        As his eyes adjusted, somewhat, and hazed shapes became visible in the black. He could make out the sewer walls and water channel’s curb near his feet. The sewer was cramped, and he had to keep his chin tucked to his chest and knees slightly bent to fit the space.
        He found he was not alone. His constant companions travelled with him. Now that he could see the rats, he could also make out their red beady eyes in the dark. Exhaustion prevented him from scaring them away, but he felt it weird that they raced with him along the curb and in the water as if guiding his way as a dog might. Unwilling to argue with his good fortune, he followed them with more confidence now that he could pick is way through the dark.
        “At the worse, ye little bastards will find me an exit,” He whispered to them.
        The sewer curved to the left and he carefully rounded the corner. Sunlight streamed into the tunnel from where the grey water poured into the river and he blessed the gods. He knew it was dumb luck to have found such an exit; the sewers were a labyrinth. And knowing full well that he could not escape through a similar grill as to the one he used to enter with his hands bound.
        Renewed vigour filled him, and he half ran, half stumbled with desperation towards his freedom. Before the light touched his skin, a figure rose from the sewer water with an unnatural slowness. Lars slowed and halted, unable to make out who the figure with the backlighting against its slender, almost skeletal silhouette.
        “Who goes there?” Lars questioned and his blood began to run cold.
        The rats gathered around the silhouette and turned to stare at Lars. A shiver made him tremble and realization struck him. As if sharing his thoughts, the thing smiled, revealing its long fangs and it lifted its only arm in welcome.
        A tear rolled from Lars’s eye and a hopeless defeat filled his gut until it ached. The thing launched itself at him and he did not struggle as its teeth tore into his throat with an unquenchable greed. He did not scream at the pain; it was no more than he had already suffered. In a way, this pain was a release... a freedom from the others that made his body sore. His vision ebbed away into a haze and then he was gone.

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