Coventown - 2 (827 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: coventown
Rating: 1.57 on 26 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Snark << snarkk.at.gmail.com (View user info) at 2006-09-16 02:32:53 EDT
Thank the God's, I hurt.
The world tilts and shudders. Tall shadows rise above and for a moment I wonder if they aren't the sentinels that hold the tear to the Deadlands open but then I remember again that I hurt, and pain is life.
My vision clears enough to make out starlight sky and hard worn skin.
I'm on a stretcher and I do not recognize the men who carry it. Their faces are worn but not of my village. They are mercenary and uncaring in their task. They trudge hard down an uneven wooded path with the steadfast determination reserved for men of duty, or servitude, or something deeper.
They carry me towards the city. They'll take me through the thick stained stone that makes its walls to the lair of a fat man who is pleased with me.
I was cut deep tonight. I'm dripping through the makeshift bandages onto the ground beneath. I can hear my lifeblood impact dried leaf.
I breath, leak and hurt but what's worse is I remember the first of the night.
His name was Philla Pern and he was a good man. He was a Herdsman of Coventown, a patron of Brewer's Ally and rumored to be a fine hand with mallet and spike. I didn't share much beyond the occasional word of greeting with the man but I knew him as we all know each other in the village; always a friend of a friend of a cousin of a wife. That's how it goes and that's how it was with him. He was a familiar face in daily passing but something much different under the bloody torchlight of the arena.
He was I. He was bread and blood.
We stood in the muck and waited for the feather to fall from on high. The mob pushed and shoved on the ridges above us. Their shadows danced furious on the mud at our feet as Lord and Freeman vied for easy viewing while we stared at each other without seeing each other.
Never recognize. Never acknowledge. That's the trick of it. Once the man on the other end of the blade turns from bread to brother you're lost.
He was a good man, but he wasn't fair.
He spoke my name when the feather hit the mud and it gave me pause.
"Traitus."
I focused for a moment, caught in the unavoidable warmth of familiar recognition, and then his blade was past mine and some vestige of animal instinct forced me back.
Of all the cuts I suffered this night, his was the worst. I felt the impurity of it. I felt each nick, fleck of rust and bit of old flesh stuck to it follow it through the thin sheath of my skin.
I heard my flesh rip and my bone scream as it glanced off my rib, and then I was twisting and bringing my teeth down on his neck as I buried my Father's pride deep in his groin.
He screamed and made to withdraw but I held his blade in my side with my free hand as I pushed my own into deeper into his groin as I tore out his neck with my teeth.
His death gave him strength and he pulled his knife free of me despite my grip then shuddered, fell back and screamed his love's name to the trees and jeering crowd before leaving the world.
The stretcher lurches again. Something hard and unforgiving rams through the hide at my back. My mouth slams shut and I taste the Herdsman's blood.
I taste bread.
Every drop spilled a bit of flour; every gout splashed across my face a blessing.
The second was easy enough to be harder than the first. He was a boy and in it for blood, or fame, or some other lie told to him by his elders. He came at me smooth faced with his chest puffed out like a rutting bull and he barely had time to cry out before I buried my steel in it.
I felt his Mother's curse as he gurgled his last.
The third was the prize. He was a Noble's man and he should never have stood against me.
Two foes a night. That is the rule.
Two souls taken, then coin in hand and hearth, home and the cold frightened stares of wife and children. Such should have been my fortune but a fat man in a luxuriant robe was taken by the way of my blade and ordered my way out blocked.
I stood, swayed, and held my skin to my bones with bloodied hand while the crowd mirrored my displeasure at the breaking of tradition.
"Fairly killed! Fairly won!"
The mob yelled it loud and true but the fat man had enough coin to drown them all and threw it to them as he ordered his champion in.
"Braoulum!"
I should tell you about the fear in my guts as he pushed past the guard's spears but not yet.
Something is amiss. I can see the walls of the city and they're not right. The great lanterns are calm and black. There's a foul wind washing from them. It reeks of disease and misfortune and I can feel my ancestors in my bones. They're telling me to get up but I can't. I'm spent. There's hardly any liquid left in me.
The men who carry me stop a short way from thick timbers of the city gate and mutter curses under their breath. Their eyes are furtive and their muscles taught. Each has one hand on the thick wood connected to the hide beneath me, the other on the sword at his hip.
Overhead a Nighthawk cries. Its call is as short and as sharp as a last breath and I can see the mercenaries face again.
I remember Brauoulum. I remember the edge of his blade. I can see his eyes go cold and the sickening soft white of the Coven's curse burst through them as he dies. He grabbes my hair and pulled hmy ear close to split lips then giftes me with his last wish as he passes from here to Kailos' lair.
"Paifos lies."
And then he shuddered and bursts putrid white stuffing where blood should be, and the crowd seeing it cries out and flees while I stumble and fall.
I remember the strange clutching comfort of mud and blood and then all was nothing until the fat man's laughter woke me.
I yearn for hearth and home but he will not have it.
I yearn for the summer's heat and my boy's laugh but I understand now that was nothing but an interlude between now and the end of things.
I'll sleep.
I'll drift to the place we all go when our bodies grow weary and our souls thin, because that's what the Coven wills.
All is as the Coven wills.
All is white and bloom.
User Reviews
Submitted by Stabkill (user info) at 2008-09-16 02:22:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Alter (user info) at 2007-09-26 22:36:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No, Comment.
Submitted by ColchesterDr (user info) at 2006-10-03 03:56:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-09-18 14:17:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wait...this is Coventown?
I was looking for Allahtown?
So, I have to get back on the Interstate and keep going?
Ok, thanks then!
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2006-09-18 11:42:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-09-18 06:36:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
WHERES MA TITLE!
Submitted by earth_collapse (user info) at 2006-09-18 05:11:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Bob_Dole (user info) at 2006-09-17 05:38:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good stuff
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-09-17 03:06:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
How ballsy to put -2 right in the title.
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2006-09-17 01:50:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
you haven't listened to my advice
or was that someone else, i'm a bit confused.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-09-16 21:41:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-09-16 21:31:17 (#)
Ranking: 2
Snark... you're doing it again... sloppy punctuation, spelling, grammar.... proofread, boy, or I WILL hunt you down.
And yet, you are a fucking incredible storyteller.
================
It all looked good to me after beer 8!
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-09-16 21:31:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Snark... you're doing it again... sloppy punctuation, spelling, grammar.... proofread, boy, or I WILL hunt you down.
And yet, you are a fucking incredible storyteller.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-09-16 15:54:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Poots (user info) at 2006-09-16 10:08:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good job sir. Well fucking executed...
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-09-16 09:36:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-09-16 05:53:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-09-16 04:57:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-09-16 02:35:18 (#)
Ranking: 2
Blah, blah, blah...
How dare you mock my entry into Grueberfest '06!!!
**weeps**
Oh well, just for that, I'm giving this a +2 without even reading it! So there!
BTW, are you guys just gonna cancell UM4 or what?
====================
Ahhahaha not mocking you bro, was just drunk and it was there.
UM is on. Look at the comments on the last post.
You're in.
Official post with seedings on monday.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-09-16 03:29:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by VelvetElvis (user info) at 2006-09-16 03:18:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Reads like opening "Witch Storm" by James Clemens to any given chapter. Well written- w/o the Barkeresque fugues into fantasy. (Not that I dislike Barker).
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-09-16 03:17:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2006-09-16 03:00:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm definately liking this series. You really went to town with typos in one sentence (the paragraph about remembering Brauoulum).
Submitted by Allyson (user info) at 2006-09-16 02:57:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-09-16 02:46:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Snark -- I have a question:
Why do you get to write UberMadness posts when it's not UberMadness? I assume Bart gave you some sort of administrative power?
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-09-16 02:45:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark!!!
Can I post my submission entry to UM4 yet or what?
Oh, and this was quite good...
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-09-16 02:39:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm liking this - how many parts are you doing?
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-09-16 02:35:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Blah, blah, blah...
How dare you mock my entry into Grueberfest '06!!!
**weeps**
Oh well, just for that, I'm giving this a +2 without even reading it! So there!
BTW, are you guys just gonna cancell UM4 or what?