This one is particularly brutal.
"When you cease to breathe, I will leave you here for your own carrion kind to eat." Sorian hacked red blood onto the ground and crawled over to his opponent. That blow to the head, at inhuman speed, left his ears ringing.
Rivek groaned. He couldn't see. With one hand, he rubbed the sand from his eyes. The other held the bleeding stab wound in his side. He kicked violently, a futile attempt to move backwards but, more importantly, keep Sorian from drawing any closer. Every movement stretched the muscles in his abdomen, delivering another strike of pain. He couldn't get up.
Sorian could not let him run away. Not again. Never again. He struggled to his knees and took a knife from his belt. Inches before Sorian reached his target, Rivek landed another strike to his face. Sorian's nose shattered, and blood flowed from his nostrils onto his chin. He howled and responded by grabbing his prey's flailing leg. Rivek instinctively reached for the his caught limb, moving the arm gripping his stomach. This gave Sorian the opening he required. With one forward strike, he drove his dagger through the mage's groin, carrying the strike just up to his sternum.
"Try changing now," he laughed, saliva running down his chin and blood pumped up from the gash. "Not as easy as before, I would believe. I hope you knew better than to think I would strike your heart. I have every intention of making this slow and painful, Ailinar."
Rivek writhed, freeing his leg and delivering two more hits to Sorian's chest with the heel of his boot, drawing more blood and spit from the prince's mouth. Howling in anger, Sorian threw his body forward and re-positioned himself squarely on top of the other man, away from his reaching legs. If it meant sitting in his entrails, so be it. He leaned over until his chest almost touched the tangled mass of intestine below him.
Rivek squinted, trying to see anything but red. He reached at Sorian's face and dug his nails into his cheek, drawing blood as they shifted into talons.
Sorian grabbed the offending wrist and pinned it to the ground. The transformation faded, leaving Rivek with human fingers again. Sorian placed his other dirty, bloody hand on Rivek's neck and tightened his grip to cut off any possible airway. He smiled as his victim gagged, blood coming up his crushed throat. It left little black rivulets as it dripped down Sorian's hands. He ignored the acid burn the same way he ignored the thinner man's desperate grasps at his arms, shoulders, and face.
Keeping his stronger, right hand on Rivek's throat, he moved his left to his face, to his eyes. He forced his eyelids open. The iris darted in mad, twitching saccades, looking for a way out.
"Gold eyes," Sorian muttered through the blood on his lips. "Truly like a dumb animal."
Rivek gathered the last bit of energy he had, the last bit of magic he possessed. He struck the arm that held open his eye, and he heard a satisfying snap as the elbow joint bent backwards. Sorian fell forward from his own weight, and Rivek struck him in the side of the mouth.
Enraged, Sorian sat up on his good arm. He spat a broken tooth into Rivek's face. His chest heaved with rage as he pulled the broken arm close to himself, cradling it with the other. Stupid, stupid, wild animal. Stupid. Disobedient dogs, of course, should be punished.
He plunged his fingers into the socket of Rivek's right eye. The bird-man arched his back, screaming and releasing another torrent of blood from his lips. He settled back down, taking little, shallow, breaths. Every movement sent massive, pulsing pan through his skull.
Sorian blinked. He held Rivek's eye, his thumb still in the socket, delicately encircled between his thumb and index finger. He laughed. And then he yanked it upward, severing the optic nerve with the strength of his pull. He stared at his trophy, turning it like a diamond.
"Beautiful. She always said your eyes were so beautiful. I suppose I am beginning to understand. However, as you surely must know already, a man of my station cannot have an incomplete collection."
Sorian took out the knife, Rivek still held by with the entire weight of his body. Physical trauma had set into the mage's flesh. Drained of blood, Rivek's skin was pale, almost grey. He let out a series of spasming coughs. All he knew was pain. Where he was, who was there with him, why he had gone to his own doom. He struggled to remember as his It was all beginning to fade.
"It would be in your best interest not to struggle," Sorian said. "I am sure that you can logically figure that the more you move, the less accurate I can be with this. And I would like my pretty, little jewels in tact."
He went in slowly this time, peeling back Rivek's left eyelid. He was inches away from his face. He could feel every ragged breath, every shudder. He grinned. He slipped the knife in under the tear duct, and slowly, meticulously, sawed away at the membrane, carving a perfect little circle around his prize. He chuckled as tears and blood ran, in an unbidden mechanical reaction, down the side of the other man's face.
Rivek remained still under his body. Sorian held the disembodied eyes in his palm. He watched as the magical colors faded. Gold. Green. Blue. Grey. Finally, they rested on a rich, inhuman, violet.
Sorian stood, crushing the soft orbs in his hand. The fluid ran, warm, down his wrist. His other arm hung limp as his side, and the acid blood had melted holes into his armor. This did not matter. After years, the hunt was over, and the dark-mage lay motionless at his feet.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment