Book 3 - Chapter 127 (Patreon)

The train finally came to a halt, the damaged engine unable to go any further. The cabin glowed from the crackling boiler, the orange light casting a long shadow from the Professor.

The man stood with hands behind his back and eyes trained on his own creation. Wretch had found him. He had fought for the chance to meet this man, and here he was. Alone in the palm of his wicked hand.

The memories of the cage and his escape from it felt as distant as yesterday's dreams. But when his gaze finally landed on the vile scholar, he knew. The lines on the man's forehead that could crease in a theatrical mockery, the thin lips that could smile through the most hateful of acts, and finally that disgusting arrogance to dare to wear a tie in a war. Oh yes, this was the right man. This was the Professor.

Wretch inched closer, staring down on his prey. An urge washed over him, fierce and ravenous like a starved beast. Rip him in twain. Eat his heart. Wear his skin. It would only take a moment for him to do so, but Wretch denied the urge. All in due time.

“Hatred is a beautiful thing, thus poorest is the man without an enemy,” Wretch said with a thick and uncanny voice. “But you and I, Professor, we are gilded. Surrounded in riches.”

The Professor wore a blank expression, but a slight raise of his eyebrow didn’t go unnoticed. “You really remember what I said to you in that cage. After all this time?”

Wretch slowly extended a dark claw, its tip barely touching the wound on the man’s neck. “Of course, I remember many things. How you took my flesh and blood. How you smiled at misery. Now you smile no longer.”

The Professor followed the dark claw as it pulled a drop of his blood into Wretch’s twisted maw. For a moment it looked as if the man would give a soft smile to prove him wrong, but in the end the Professor didn't. Perhaps he knew that would have meant his end. “My goal is, and has always been, to create a Blessed who breaks my expectations. If you strike me down here, I will have succeeded. Then and only then will I have won.”

Wretch sniffed the air, red pupils flickering to the smoking corpse behind the Professor. “Humor me then, for old times' sake. How do I win over you?”

The Professor spoke quickly but without any palpable fear. “You go and live a life worth the pain. Let the violence within you settle like sediment in water. You find something to love and never hurt a soul again. That would be my ultimate loss.”

The shadows flickered in the demolished cart. A hoarse laugh escaped Wretch’s throat. “Friends and foes alike ask me to do so. But out of all, you are the most proficient with his words. A smith of words, almost like that of flesh."

A silence settled in the wagon until Wretch spoke again. This time his guttural voice was harsh and demanding. "How long was Dalynja a traitor, and why is her torched corpse nestled behind you?”

The Professor gave a nod. “She took the means of my last escape. She's rebirthed in the home of the Gulschaks. She carries much blame.”

Wretch lumbered past the Professor, glaring at the man as he walked behind him. The Professor stared straight into the dark without a glimpse of weakness.

“So she sold me out to you. That’s how your masks found me. What of the letters on the corpse on the way to Sternthal?” Wretch said as he prodded at the burned corpse.

“Planted by her. Empty leads, except the one I sent to you,” the Professor answered. "It was planned from the beginning: the reveal of Grendel in Voska, the pull of military Blessed to allow Dalynja to travel to Sternthal with the other traitors and the explosives. Never was she anywhere by chance."

Wretch blew air out of his nose, his monstrous form casting a flickering light as he stood in front of the dying furnace. “She was at my Captain’s funeral.”

“That was not any order of mine,” the scholar said, staring straight forward as Wretch moved behind him.

A claw extended to touch the skin of the Professor’s neck. “Grendel then. Where is he?”

“In the same place. You and the swordsman wounded him. He is not like you. He is methodical and careful in his actions.”

A sniff against the Professor’s neck. “How does one enter such a place?”

“I can lead you, in both flame and direction. Even smuggle you inside. But you can’t wait for too long. When the remnants of the Gulschak army return, the gates will close behind them. They might not open for decades.”

Wretch chuckled behind the man’s neck and walked back to face him. He tried to find that burning anger, that molten and fickle emotion birthed from his suffering. There was none. That heat had cooled, leaving an unsatisfying but more useful emotion. Will. As strong as steel.

“It’s strange. I’ve dreamt of having you as I do now. That I would first flay your skin. Then cut each limb an inch at a time. Seared and cauterized after every rasp of a saw or claw. So I would continue until your heart gave, or it was next to be cut.”

The Professor met his gaze with a strong will of his own. “But now you see a use for me. As all great men do.”

“What can you offer me then?” Wretch growled, fangs an inch from the Professor's nose.

The Professor’s lips moved with prepared words, lies and promises flowing from his tongue as easily as a wounded artery. “You crave Grendel’s death, that I offer. Ascension and nurturing I offer. Or you leave victorious and never hurt again.”

Wretch’s hand punched through the man’s chest. Each clawed finger pushed deep into his chest. A quiver went through the Professor, a streak of blood running down the edge of his mouth.

“Oh,” Wretch said with a raised eyebrow. “Strange, this doesn't feel like defeat. Tell me, Professor, does this feel like Victory to you?”

A cough of blood rattled from the man’s throat as Wretch squeezed the heart gently. “See how quickly words betray you. They carry no strength like tooth and claw. Do you wish to go without a final word? No poetic truth parted in your dying breath?”

The Professor squirmed as Wretch lifted him up. The scholar’s bloodstained teeth gritted closed and finally he wove words anew.

“I do not go quie—”

The Professor whimpered in defeat. That was enough, Wretch realized. He had gotten what he needed, seen the man demolished in more than strength, and Wretch would feel no joy leaving this human breathing for even a second longer. So he let it end.

Before the Professor could mutter his final words, Wretch ripped the beating heart from his chest. The pulsing cord of muscle—squirming in his hand. Wretch let the man see it before sending him to the floor with a thud.

He watched in silence at the man's last death throws. How long he stared he didn't know, but when a caw echoed through the cart, he realized he'd forgotten to breathe.

He exhaled finally. Giving a last glance at the defeated heap of flesh. A coal now glowed in the blood.

He scooped it up and with a turn, he left, exiting the train. He frowned. He would rather not even take a piece of the dead man’s flame, but for what he planned to do, he could waste nothing.

He pulled the weak coal into himself, barely moving his own fire. The Professor was not worthy prey, a mere fireling, and he would not be haunted by such weaklings no longer.

On a nearby branch, a crow watched him intently. Buttons gave a caw and jumped from the branch with beating wings.

The bird perched on his shoulder as he looked through the night. Lost in the wilderness somewhere north of Voska.

“It’s going to take time to walk all the way to the Scar-Spines,” Wretch said. “You’re lucky to be able to fly.”

Buttons cawed and showed its wingspan.

A scratch at his consciousness made him freeze. With a turn, he pivoted back towards Voska. Something had happened there, something momentous. At first nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but Wretch wasn’t fooled. He could sense it, the heat of the train flowing towards the horizon.

“Buttons, close your eyes,” Wretch said, putting the raven to the ground and jumping up on the train cart to see clearer. On the horizon, the light of Voska burning was still apparent, but something else was happening. Something had been born from the war.

Someone is ascending, Wretch thought.

A point of light, then a roar. A beam of fire pierced the dark skies above Voska, scorching the very sky. A shockwave ripped the snow from the trees for miles around. The name of the victor spread to all who dared gaze at the pillar of the divine.

The Lion was no more. The right hand of the Saint now brandished a new name. Gustavius, the Cruel.

Fitting, Wretch thought even as whispers of the divine assaulted his mind. But he was no novice to its ravings. No, he felt the texture of the commander's power. Coarse and demanding. One that made others yield and swear fealty. Power through fear, and fear through power.

“A flame of domination, beyond even Pyre,” Wretch said as he turned around.

As the victor’s flame waned, he strode through the snow, eyes towards the north. His pack of vermin was lost in his wake, only the few bound to him still sharing their senses.

One watched Elenya hug Astrid as they were reunited. Another three were hidden in Gulschak trains. No matter.

Far to the north, the dawn pierced over the Scar Spines. How many months had it been since he last saw through the fog of war? Somewhere up in those mountains, Grendel nurtured his wounds. Believing himself safe.

It was strange how little satisfaction he had felt from killing the Professor. No balm for his aching soul, but more akin to an appetizer that grew one's appetite.

A city nestled up there in the peaks, hidden behind snow and tortured pines. And a wounded prey beyond his rank hid within.

“Wings,” Wretch said slowly. “I need wings.”

He moved as Buttons circled above him. From above the clouds, the Gulschak retreat looked like a hundred streaks of silver flowing towards the north. Their trains darted on fresh tracks towards a stronghold at the base of the mountains. Sternthal, the fallen fortress. Ripped from the hands of Nov Yanosk by the slaughter hounds and then taken again by the Gulschak wave of steel and fire.

What remained of the losing army gathered there. Vowing revenge in generations to come. The beast and his vermin were long left behind. Wretch walked the abandoned tracks towards them, but soon broke off his advance and headed north-west. Towards a crater of frozen sand and an old foe who watched from its center.