The Vile&Violent (Solo)

[Slayer]

The tapping woke him long before he opened his eyes. Steady and unrelenting, four rapid fire taps, a pause, then four rapid taps...it went on and on, reminding him of some solemn war drum. A beat marching on, into eons of slaughter in the name of something, anything. It took him some time to open his eyes, to indulge the ceaseless signal. He didn't know what to expect. Mercenaries? Bounty hunters? Soldiers? By this point on his life, he'd made more enemies than friends, there was no argument there. Like so much in his life, what he found at the window, was wildly differently from what he ever expected.

Aside from the cold, gray fireplace, its life crackling and popping to a quiet end, very little in the room had changed. He was now the sole occupant, and the encroaching cold licked at his pale, sweaty skin. A single, nearly colorless candle was set on the edge of his small, square bedside table, and its weak little light made the thing in the window all the more horrifying. Shadow claimed most of its body, but it seemed to be a skinless dog that had learned to walk on two legs. Sharp, rough cut rubies dotted its shoulders, chest, and throat, inlaid into some vibrant red metal Dan had never seen before. The gems glistened along with its raw muscle, not an inch of it moving....save for the long, human-like finger that began its vicious, sharp tapping as he watched. It saw his eyes move to it. It was impossible to tell, as its one foot long snout was always in a rictus grin, but Dan could see it smile in the malevolence in its night-sky eyes.

He didn't move. He couldn't, the thing caught him in its stare, and he could feel sickness climb from his toes to his throat, like a flag unfurling in the wind. Here he was, a man of many names; the Wilmhearst slayer, bane of the undead. The War Wolf, ironclad mercenary, raging throughout Alerar with his teethed axe. Kross, always with a tiny bemused smile, cutting away Raiaera's hope. Dan Lagh'ratham, name bequeathed to him by Ithermoss, the one and only Red Beast. But there, under the carnivorous gaze of the raw monster, its blood gems winking in the flame, he was just Dan, a sick man in a stranger's home.

"Let me in, oh, let me in," it crooned, finally stopping the tapping, instead turning its hand and softly stroking the window pane. Dan imagined its touch to be not so dissimilar to razor blades and salt, but there was an odd part of him that felt...comforted. Nostalgic, even. "I ate them, and I'll eat you too, boy. But it can be ok...just let me in."

'If he's here, it might not come down from the valley.' Gianna's words from his last lucid moments came to him then. She'd been wrong, whatever it was had come, and it had chosen its next meal. A ghost of a smile touched his lips as he struggled to raise his right hand, the wool blanket falling away like a burial shroud. It had chosen wrong. Of anyone in this village, Dan Lagh'ratham was much a predator as the beast sweetly whispering to him, even with the pain thumping heavily through every bone in his body.

"I feel the pain coursing through you. A savage onslaught. I can numb it...take it away...make you forget." As though a switch were flipped, it stopped. It vanished like a leaf in the storm, carried away into oblivion. Dan sat up quickly, clutching his stomach; even the nausea was gone. But it was replaced by a deep, bottomless rage, the sort that swallowed everything inside, and outside. He felt it building, swelling like a massive thunderhead. "I want to be inside you. Peel back your skin. Break apart your rib cage. Slurp your organs, close your heart in my fist. But only if you kill him."

The thing slapped its skull against the window. Little spatters of red surrounded its long, animal skull, its black eyes blazing with intense hatred. The other hand came to the window too, and for a second, Dan saw a greedy child at the window of a candy shop as its pink tongue slithered from between its jagged teeth and slid wetly across the glass. "Kill him kill him kill him KiLl HiM KILL HIM - "

Dan woke with his hand on Lukas's wrist. He hadn't gotten to see the man beforehand, but as he leaned hard into the bed, hoping to push the dagger further into Dan's chest, the saraelian had time to take him in. The man's hair was red, the color of a cooling forge. A deep, vertical scar was carved across his forehead, two inches above his eyes, a wound that would have blinded him. His chin was sharp, like an arrowhead, and completely free of stubble. He was clad head to toe in glassy black delyn chainmail, and his sea-foam colored eyes had a deep, and old hatred in them. Dan felt it himself, and it came in waves. First came a swift, but passing fury that anyone would have the stones to try and kill him in his sleep. Second, a horror that blanched his cheeks with the sudden realization that it had all nearly ended him quickly and quietly. Third, the quick and hardening realization that he wasn't safe, not even here, where they had treated his wounds and saved his life.

"I was there," Lukas whispered softly through gritted teeth, struggling with every fiber of his being to push against the Saraelian's grip. An inch of the dagger was already pressed into his chest, and he could feel the tip of vibrating, hoping to find his heart, buzzing like frightened wasp. His ice and stone colored eyes locked with the man who was trying to kill him.

"I saw what you did. I watched your Rotslayer cut them down. It was easy for you, wasn't it? But a beast never has trouble killing anyone!" Lukas put his other hand on his clasped wrist and shoved down with his weight. For once, Dan felt himself struggling. It had been a decade and a half since a normal man could make the Saraelian struggle, but he was. The veins stood out on his forearm and the back of his hand as he fought with Lukas, striving to keep his life.

"I don't know...what the fuck you're talking about." Dan felt the power around him thrum, all the wood, the glass, responding to his panic. It would be simple to peel a few splinters from the hardwood floor, and spear them through the back of Lukas's head. But he'd made a promise, hadn't he? Though when was Dan Lagh'ratham known to keep his promises?

The half baked assassination unraveled when he felt frozen wind wash over him. Instantly, he felt the fight leave Lukas's hands, and the jittering of the dagger blade ceased. From his spot on the bed, he saw Gram stride in, and throw Lukas to the ground with one rough backhand. "You know how it works in Geflen. You do boy, aye, I can see it in the guilt in your eyes. Stupid boy. How'd you like someone sticking you in the heart in your sleep?" Lukas didn't answer. Instead, he scrambled to his feet, and without even trying to retrieve his killing tool, he went stomping out the door, slamming it shut, sending a shower of snow crashing down outside the window, flashing in the sunlight. Gram took the knife off the blood spotted sheets, glancing it over without a word. The bleeding from the wound had already stopped.

"Guess that's as good as any way to see you mean your promise, aye. Could have killed him swift, even without me coming in, I'm sure. But...ah, never mind." Dan carefully pushed himself into a sitting position. The pain rippled, then renewed; he decided then it was only something else he had to cast behind him, like everything else. It would not cripple him. A forgotten one's curse was to be forgotten. The tall dwarf handed Lukas's dagger over to him. A plain, ugly, and hastily forged thing of iron. A hasty weapon for a hasty kill.

"With the money you gave me, it was plenty for the deed. Had some left, but I kept it, lost it to the card game."

Dan threw his head back and laughed, the wind pulling deep from his belly and booming with true mirth. He'd have done the same, undoubtedly, but if he'd been in Gram's place, he'd never have admitted it. He found himself quickly growing warm to his savior, and not just simply for some blood debt. After a few breaths, he swung his legs out over the bed, and carefully pushed himself to his feet. He tried very hard not to notice the dark green and purple streaks sliding through his arms, a mark of poison roiling in his blood. Gram reached under his snowy furs and tossed the saraelian a thick, black wool robe.

"You seem to be fond of the color, aye. Least from all I heard." Dan slid it over his shoulders, then tucked his right arm in, then the left stump, watching for a moment as the empty sleeve fluttered at his waist.

"Honestly, I only wear the color because it hides dirt and bloodstains. Every two bit fuck wears it like its the only color. Really...my favorite color is purple. Where I come from, they said it was expensive to make. They said it was the color of fucking royalty. But I'm just a killer, now." Gram nodded, then turned away, striding towards the door, into the snows of Salvar. As Dan followed him, he dropped Lukas' knife on the ground, and buried it deep into frozen earth with a gesture down.