Overkill. (A Grimdark LN)

                                                              What makes a man, when

                                                              the spirit has left, and only

                                                              splinters remain?

                                                            Was it all a dream?

                                                            A mistake of creation?

                                                            Fated to drown us all?

                                                            The Warrior only knows pain

                                                            and the stormcloud in his heart.

                                                             The Warrior needs no prayer,

                                                             only the will to go on,

                                                             while smiling at some

                                                             far-off banquet.

                                                 Chapter XXX: Sword of the Blade.

It was a mess: a righteous mess, but a mess all the same. 

The body was cold, but the heart still beat in his chest, and very soon even that would fade. Graves. The name of the man and the result of those who stood in his way.

That was the plan at first, for even the rain seemed to cast vengeance on his naked form, swinging high up on the cliff, overlooking the burning village he swore to protect.

Meaty hands bound in thick rope, he could do nothing but wait for the noose to tighten, wait for his moment in Hell’s court, to be judged and sentenced and damned.

Was Earth not Hell enough for him? Had he not suffered torment o’er decades long? No matter where he looked, no peace could be found, no humanity stoked.

T’was an ungodly land, where the weak scrabbled for light, crushed under the boots of the corrupt and sadistic. Graves had toyed with the notion of this being the true face of the planet, the true face of humanity…a mistake that would ruin itself and eat away at anything pure.

So be it.

He would become its vessel of chaos, he would strike fear in those who ran rampant o’er the defenceless and innocent.

Innocent, like the girl. Whose only crime was to patch him up and find good in the world, his only light in this dismal existence, only to end up beaten… violated…butchered.

No. He was not done yet.

He needed them to know…

He needed them to see,

A heart blacker than pitch, they would face the abyss.

***

With a thunderous roar, Graves cursed the skies and began to swing back and forth, o’er thin air, with nothing below but a dense forest.

The noose around his thick neck squeezed, but he kept going, rocking until his bound feet found the tip of the cliff edge.

Success.

With unhinged levels of strength, Graves began to pull at the tree branch from which he hung.

The rope stretched and grew taut, crushing his neck, as veins became thick cords around his throat, but he kept on, pulling and pulling, allowing the rope to tighten.

A little more, and he would be risking folly, and the reaper always collects.

With what little breath he had, the big man strained fiercely and yanked outward, until the branch creaked violently and finally broke from the trunk, sending him down, down, down, toward the bottom of the cliff, through branches that whipped and tore at his flesh, before reaching the ground with a shuddering impact.

He did not savour the moment, for t’was Hellish.

He did not thank the Gods, for they had abandoned him.

All he did was groan, spit blood and roll onto his side, hoping beyond hope nothing was broken.

Breaking off the newly frayed rope that bound him, he got up, cricked his neck, rolled a thick shoulder and set off toward the blazing village, casting the forest in an unearthly glow.

***

Walking from the edge of the forest, Graves stalked toward the village in the bearskin mantle and head-dress he had acquired from a raider, pissing by a tree.

The raider was taken by surprise, but not for long, when he found himself deprived of a sword and decollated at speed.

With only his thick, black beard visible from under the hood, Graves looked up at the remains of the girl. Her arms nailed to the left of the gate, her bottom half nailed to the right and the rest, high above in the middle, like a gruesome keystone.

Graves kept walking, no time for sentiment, his motivation renewed, all that was left was to clean up.

***

The dogs came first.

Out from the side, the big Mastiffs sprinted toward him in a pack of three.

Narrowly avoiding their gnashing, razor-sharp teeth, Graves put one down with a broadside fist, and the second he used the sword to cleave through the neck. He then stabbed the sword into the ground, grabbed the third dog’s tail and swung it at the vertical blade.

It didn’t even have time to yelp.

The raiding party fell just as easily, in a red mist o’ steaming innards that saw daylight as torsos became unmoored from spinal columns.

The  Noble on horseback looked nervous, babbling something about who he was related to and various assorted outcomes, but Graves wasn’t listening; he simply took a pair of shiny, lion-shaped ‘Monster Gauntlets’ from the Raider Commander and detonated an upper cut on the head of the horse.

The head became nothing more than a shower of blood, viscera and atomised bone fragments, which rained down like a macabre firework.

The horse fell heavily, trapping the Noble’s leg under the beast’s body. Towering over, Graves could only glower at the writhing man.

“Now you’re just a fat lord with a dead horse.”