The Vile&Violent (Solo)

[Slayer]

Despite the dwarf's warm ups, Dan made no attempts to brandish a weapon, or even adjust his footing. Instead, he reached over, and shook the limp, empty sleeve of his coat, knocking snow free, then reached into his pocket to fetch his snuff box. It was a crude thing, like its owner, that he'd shaped himself with his power, which were about the only time he used it anymore. What had once been a fearsome tool, had become just another facet of his laziness and procrastination. Certainly, he could have spent delicate time carving it with hand and tool, something to keep his mind off the approaching chill of death, but like all his furniture, he'd just shaped it out of the floors and walls with indifferent waves of his hands. It was better to spend his time in the morphine bottle. He clumsily loaded his pipe one handed, clenching it tightly between his teeth, then puffed a wobbling smoke ring in Gram's face after lighting it.

"Look, that's real cute. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I made my name as the Red Beast walking the same path I always did. Worked then, and always will. I got enough strength in this one arm to break every bone in your squat little body. Now, if that old witch doesn't want her shit, I'm going back to my cabin. I wanna crank one out before I take a nap." To his surprise, Gram didn't back off, and instead reached down to the old nest. Most of it was buried under drifts and banks of the relentless snow fall, but pale brown patches of rywan bark shone through. The dwarf's thick fingers grabbed the long, then sunk in with soft crunches and snaps. Snow and dirt and bits of frozen broken bones fall off it in great billows. He lifted it with ease, letting it hang at his side, like a child playing make believe would hold a stick.

"So, if you got the strength, why didn't you punch that great bloody beast to death, that we hunted here? All I ever heard, that was how you fixed problems, aye? Just holler and smash them. So if you can smash me, like you say you can, you can catch this one handed, right?" Without another warning, the dwarf swung the log back handed at the saraelian. Dan dropped to his haunches, and the huge makeshift club passed over his head with a low roar that briefly ripped the cold air off his shoulders. The assault wasn't over yet; with a fluid motion that could only be executed with years of martial practice, Gram moved his blow into an over head swing, and Dan managed to throw himself out of the way just as it smashed into the ground. The impact sent a surge of frozen air, dirt, and broken stone into the air, right into Dan's face.

Then, the log connected.

The swing took him in the belly and off his feet. It tore the breath out of his chest and sent masses of pale color splashing across his vision in bruised starbursts. He didn't know how long he tumbled through the air, but when he slammed into a rywan and folded around the trunk, spine creaking and ribs screaming, he knew he wasn't just going to get to slink back to his cabin.

"C'mon now, you daft boy, do the stupid thing you always do," Gram muttered under his breath, watching Dan climb slowly to his feet, blood dribbling steadily from between his lips. For a moment, he thought he'd been wrong; maybe it had all beaten the fight out of the man, leaving him a simpering mess, all the bite and no bark. But Dan Lagh'ratham had never been a man to disappoint. Throwing his head back, he unleashed a monstrous roar of savagery that echoed through every branch of the forest. The ground at their feet trembled violently, shaking at the call of the saraelian. He surged forward like a bullet, teeth clenched in a lunatic smile, eyes wide and wild and absent of a single shred of humanity.

Dan's rampage stopped as abruptly as it began, as he slammed bodily into Gram, and found the breath knocked out of him again. The dwarf didn't even flinch; it was like he'd tried to tackle an adamantium wall. A smart man would have retreated, but a beast would just continue to lash out. From the shadows of his coat, Dan slashed out with a flash of silvery titanium, letting the Blade of Death do its work, its hungry tip making a straight jab at the dwarf's heart. Big blocky fingers slapped it away with what could only be apathy, and continued to do so as Dan continued his frenzied, brutal hacking. Gram didn't even bother dropping the man sized log in his other hand as he thwarted every violent swing.

From behind him, a long, curved spine of stone rose; the tail of a rockrats. While mostly content to simply feast on unrefined ore, the rockrats that rumbled through the tunnels of Kachuck were just as partial to dwarf flesh, and were often a Coaltongue's first kill. It had also been the first spirit of nature that the dwarf had taken into himself, just like the dire bear he'd become to kill the wolf-hog. A rockrat's four legs and long tail were the only similarity they shared with common tavern rats. They were nasty things, the babies always twice the size of any dwarf, their stone like skin meant to deflect any steel blade. But a Coaltongue's axe? Few beasts ever could, and once he'd ate its sinewy heart, Gram had taken it into himself, and started his first steps onto the path of the rest of his life.

The rockrat tail slammed into the center of the snarling saraelian's chest, knocked him to the ground, and pinned him to the snow. Dan flailed wildly, beating at the stone tail, cursing with no rhyme or reason in a nearly incomprehensible stream of babble, then hurled the Blade of Death at the dwarf's face. Gram tilted his head, and it slashed off into the afternoon sky. He opened his mouth to speak, but Dan had summoned his handgun from the cabin's shelf, and had both barrels aimed at both of Gram's dark brown eyes. The gun barked twice loudly, its report sounding through the forest like twin thunderclaps. Shifting the tail slightly, without releasing the pressure, the big bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the stone hide in great puffs of rock shard and dust. Gram snatched the saraelian's wrist and squeezed until Dan let out a choked obscenity and dropped the gun.

"Done? I could just smash your head like a melon, right now. Hate has crippled you."

"I didn't...didn't know they stacked...shit so high as you," Dan gasped out, still struggling to rip free from the tail and grip, and sighing, Gram twisted, snapping the arm in his grasp.

"All you ever do is yell and charge. Sure, going berserk makes you unpredictable, but it makes you sloppy, aye? I kept my cool, remembered what tools I had at my disposal! I expected you to try and rip open the ground at my feet, but no! You just ran at me, yelling! Who taught you to fight?" The stone tail raised up, then slithered away, disappearing over the dwarf's shoulder, and he let go of Dan's flaccid arm. The saraelian pulled it instantly against his chest, scowling as he finally let his body start healing itself.

"Me. I taught my damn self. You don't need fancy katas or peregrinations or some old swordmaster with shit in the corner of his lips to figure out how to beat a man to death."

"Boy, we take great risk harboring you here. Rest of the world don't really think you're dead, and its only a matter of time before bounty hunters are in Geflen. But I don't care about that. I care about that thing in the valley, aye, the thing that came down while I was on hunt, first week you were here. Great dark bloody thing, throwing fire down on everyone. Now, Lukas has done a good job, throwing together a guard, but there's only so much a soldier with a sword can do. That thing comes back, its gonna be just you and me! What...what are you laughing about, aye?"

"I don't know, who told you that...thing in the valley was some fire breathing blob. I got fucking news for you, Gram, you might wanna sit on your broad pimply ass for this; it has come down from the fucking valley. Every night that skinless thing is at my damn window, trying to get in, and last night, it did." Dan felt his anger rising again as the dwarf gave him a puzzled look, tilting his bucket shaped head curiously to the side.

"Skinless thing? No boy, you best apologize to Gianna, have her look at your head. Every single soul in Geflen saw that great bloody thing blot out the moon before it started throwing bolts of fire." Staring at Gram in stunned silence, Dan pushed his forearm against his chest, trying to set the bone straight as it reknit itself. If the skinless dog wasn't the thing in the valley...was it the curse? He'd never heard or read of a curse like that; the poison coursing through his veins was a hallmark of the dark art, but manifestations of a sticky red dog monster was new to him.

"You...made your point. But you can't teach an old dog new tricks, Gram. I'm getting sicker as the months pass. Just...let me go back to sleep." The dwarf sighed, then helped the saraelian to his feet, shoving something into his pale hand. Dan looked down, surprised to see the fraying, threadbare ribbon that had once been tied to his door handle.

"She wouldn't want you too. You don't need a new trick, aye? Or a new weapon. Althanas is your weapon. The trees and the dirt and the rocks. I can do it too," he demonstrated with a small, peach pit sized rock at his feet, which he shaped into a tiny assemblage of working stone gears within a few seconds. "But I can't do it like you. You're neglecting your bloodline, boy. All you have to do is focus your power, refine it. Its the difference between a bar room brawler and a world champion pugilist." Dan nodded slowly, watching the little gears work. He could make spears, and swords, and all sorts of weapons, giant living stone hands, and slabs of armor, but something so fine and delicate was far beyond him.

"Ok. Show me, sensei. But let's go into town, I gotta...say sorry to Gianna."

"Aye, now you're getting it, boy." Chuckling, Gram clapped him on the back as he snatched up his book bundle, and they hiked away from the clearing, and out to the path.