Chapter 3: 'Coward' (2669 words)

Having come face-to-face with a Dwurkn, Vievel and Halycen fight for their lives.

“Grkkr!” The Dwurkn’s cry was guttural, deep and ravenous; the creature flung itself toward Vievel without a moment’s hesitation. Vievel’s arm pulled up instinctively as he tried to bring his sidearm to bear, but a mass of knotted muscle ploughed into him, knocking him down before his arm was even past his sides. The blow forced the air up and out of his lungs and he stumbled, tripping over his own feet as the Dwurkn tackled him. The two of them fell together, Vivel’s arms suddenly limp as they were crushed between his chest and the Dwurkn’s powerful body; Vievel’s sidearm and flashlight both fell loose of his grip and dropped to the floor.

The dark rose up between them and swallowed the pair, the sudden gloom leaving Vievel unable to make out the creature but for its touch and the rapid struggling as it tried to find a grip on his clothes. The two wrenched backward with a sharp motion and Vievel collided with something behind him, crying out as piercing pain erupted from the square of his back. He heard a clattering of a metal as something was knocked aside by their grapple, felt the hard stone of the basin behind him, but his mind was a soup of instinct and adrenaline, unable to pay attention to the sounds and feelings around him; a stray thought briefly imagined that the creature had somehow stabbed or clawed at his spine, the slickness that he felt becoming blood cascading from the visualised wound. Moments after the impact the two lurched to the side and Vievel’s arm, brandishing behind him frantically, gripped a hard edge wet with blood. Realising it to be the stone basin, Vievel understood the slick blood on his back to not be his own.

It was only a split-second’s respite as the Dwurkn regained its footing and pulled itself toward Vievel. Thick calloused fingers, only three to each hand, suddenly grasped at Vievel’s neck - short pointed nails tearing and clawing at wherever Vievel’s armour left his bare skin exposed. The Dwurkn was taller than Vievel had ever imagined, a fleeting thought which only struck him as the creature’s squat fingers closed around his throat. The stubbled hair on the Dwurkn’s knuckles bristled and stung as it scratched against his skin; a pungent odour of sweat and, inexplicably, sulphur struck Vievel’s nose with almost equal force. Vievel pushed upward with his hands; unable to get a grip on the Dwurkn’s writhing arms, whilst its burly shoulders were kept squeezed together, he instead planted his hands firmly on the beast’s chest and pushed with all his might.

His knuckles dug into the Dwurkn’s muscle and met strong resistance yet the Dwurkn didn’t move, didn’t react to Vievel’s attempt to move him. It showed no sign it had even felt Vievel’s pointed metillion gauntlets. His throat already raw, and what little air he had left in his lungs proving to be insufficient, a panic began to grip at him. His vision began to distort, and as Vievel looked up and locked his gaze with that of the creature, looked into its wide-set eyes and bulbous features, he saw an indifference, an indifference that chilled him; a declaration that Vievel was nothing more than an inconvenience to the beast, that it would most happily kill him and then think nothing more of it for the rest of its days. Vievel imagined himself looking into the deep and dark itself.

“Get off of him!” Halycen sprung forward with a cry of action, shattering the fear-borne shackles that held her still. She locked her hands together and looped her arms around the Dwurkn’s thick neck, pulling at it until the sweat broke from her brow and a cry of exertion escaped her lips. The Dwurkn grunted, gurgling as phlegm rose up and as it spat the same phlegm from its mouth. Sharp teeth flashed from beneath its fat lips, razor-sharp fangs that flanked the beast’s snarl as it spluttered and spat. The stout creature could not press itself forward against Vievel whilst Halycen pulled it backward. The pressure on his throat gently reduced as the hands around it were unable to exert their full strength or maintain a firm grip. Seizing the opportunity Vievel again drove his hand up, his palm extended outward and forcing its way between the two bodies; the Dwurkn’s arms were widened as it stretched forward, trying to drive the air out of Vievel’s throat; a lightheadedness began to descend over Vievel as his aching arm suddenly found freedom and rushed upward, rushed through the gap between the beast’s forearms. A crooked nose crunched under the weight of Vievel’s gauntlet, folding even further beneath the strike. Vievel felt the creature’s hands release and a rush of merciful air struck his lungs as he drew breath inward, relieving and exhausting him in equal measure whilst he panted furiously.

The Dwurkn drove backward, knocking Halycen to the ground as it tried to force her to let go. She cried out as the creature fell onto her legs, a clash of metal and stone echoing out as the pair tumbled to the floor. Vievel’s vision began to unblur, the cavern-shaped room coming into focus as he heard his cousin’s cry. The burning sensation that chafed his throat both inside and out began to abate as well, as the feeling softened Vievel became increasingly aware that his back and arms were bruised and sore, the pain in each rising up in a swell, waxing as the pain in his throat waned. His arms felt no more than ropes strung to his shoulders and left to hang limply beside him; Vievel could exercise little control over them, what attempts he made to move them were answered by an aching so distant and disconnected that his mind couldn’t even associate it with his limbs. Halycen cried out a second time, Vievel turning toward the sound in time to see an anguished look upon her face as the Dwurkn began to claw its way to the top of their struggle. Beside the room’s threshold, the pair fought and grappled for control, the beast’s stumpy knees digging into Halycen’s abdomen as she began to lose ground.

Vievel didn’t hesitate, forcing himself to stumble forward and to the sidearm he had dropped. The gun was sitting a few feet away, lit up by his fallen flashlight, whilst to his left the Dwurkn’s arms were flailing wildly trying to find a new grip on his cousin. Halycen grabbed at its hands as they moved for her, trying to keep them away from her throat.

“Vie-” she started. Whatever thought she’d had upon her tongue was lost as the creature shifted, dealing a blow to her stomach. Halycen grunted, trying to keep it from winning their duel upon the floor, but the Dwurkn was beginning to overpower her. Vievel dropped to his knees, colliding with the stone as he fell purposefully to reach the gun even quicker. His arms scorned his haste, denying him even the basic movements he asked for and awkwardly fumbling for the sidearm when they did obey. His wrist caught the barrel of the gun, knocking it away. Vievel cursed and lunged forward to grab it before it could slide anymore, his palm slapping down wildly around the sidearm before a lucky grab stopped it dead. He gripped it as tightly.

The gun was an iron weight in his hand, demanding of the muscles in his arm and shoulder, just as they, in turn, demanded that he let it fall back to the ground. A fire raged throughout his arm, dancing beneath his skin and searing the tendons that tenuously held his grip around the weapon. At that moment it was all Vievel could do to drag the gun towards him, the tip of its barrel scraping over the stone floor as he brought it closer to his knee and then heaved it onto his bent leg. Halycen let loose another cry but the harsh sound quickly dampened and dwindled, shifting instead into a choking sound. The Dwurkn’s raspy growl echoed over Halycen’s, gleeful and full of an unseated frenzy that fell ill upon Vievel’s ears. Vievel shoved another hand beneath his rebelling arm, lifting the gun with all his strength and levelling it towards the back of the Dwurkn’s head. The creature’s stumpy hands were now firmly around Halycen’s neck. Without cue from Vievel the gun’s barrel extended and the chamber rotated with a perfunctory mechanical click, readying itself as it bore down upon its target. Vievel squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the firearm’s hammer dominated the small room. A micro-explosion erupted inside the weapon and forced the chambered bullet free, the revolver barrel rotating in sequence with the sound whilst the bullet was unleashed from within. His aching arm couldn’t steady the recoil of the shot, his hand jerking upward before the bullet had even made it to the tip of the gun. A flash broke dramatically from the edge of the weapon’s long barrel, illuminating the entire room for a dazzling but short-lived moment. The arched threshold to the room splintered, expelling a tiny cloud of rock slivers and dust. Vievel blinked, the flash briefly brokering a disagreement between his eyes over what had happened. As the room came back into focus he noticed a charred mark upon the red rusty stone of the chamber threshold, a black spot where the bullet had struck the wall in lieu of its actual target.

Vievel’s hand resounded with a pain that echoed about his bones, despite himself Vievel dropped the revolver. He felt the weapon strike his knee and then heard it clatter against the floor, bouncing free of him. Still blinking, and rubbing his eyes with his other hand, Vievel stretched and searched frantically for the gun, his right hand reaching haphazardly about the nearby floor.

“Help!” Halycen yelled as she drove her elbow into the Dwurkn’s face. Distracted by the gunfire the creature had already released her throat, the addition of Halycen’s blow was enough to force it off of her chest entirely. Halycen rolled with the creature, trying to grab its arms before it could start grappling with her again. “Vievel grab it!” The beast snarled and thrashed as Halycen managed to get a grip on it

 Vievel launched himself forward, staggering up as he stumbled toward the pair; in the gloom he could only make out their roughest outlines but the moment Vievel was close enough he lunged forward, aiming to collide with the Dwurkn’s thick and stocky shape; Vievel felt a thick hair and even thicker muscle as he collided with the back of its knees. He fell atop the creature’s legs and tried to stop their flailing by pressing his body weight against them, but beneath him the legs writhed and tried to find their way free. He pressed harder still but the Dwurkn’s legs seemed to bend freely both ways, arching in directions he didn’t expect and giving it a wider range of movement than it should’ve had.

Halycen shrieked. Her hands flew backward as her voice carried across the small chamber; a steady trail of blood was flowing from her palm where a series of sharp red punctures ghoulishly decorated her skin. Below his chest Vievel caught a blurred glimpse of a sudden and vigorous movement, and then the air rushed from his lungs. Vievel tumbled to his side, an acute pain bursting from his stomach as he felt the delayed effects of the blow. The Dwurkn rolled away from the two Aælfir, knocking Halycen over and lurching toward the chamber threshold as it stood. Vievel glanced at the creature’s feet. A revolver, he couldn’t tell whether it was his or Halycen’s, lay beside the beast’s heel.

The Dwurkn caught Vievel’s eye and followed it, shooting a quick look down at his bare feet, at the weapon.

It wasn’t user-locked. Vievel’s thoughts raced with the sudden realisation. Halycen had stolen both of the guns from the armoury and jailbroken them so the user restrictions were overridden. If the creature took the revolver, it would work. Vievel’s tongue grazed the edges of his teeth. He wondered whether Dwurka weapons were user-locked, whether it knew it could grab the weapon or whether it would expect the gun to be useless. Vievel glanced around the room for the other revolver and found it by the chamber’s threshold, closer to the Dwurkn than either Halycen or himself and too far to reach.

“Illandr,” Halycen whispered beside him. She’d seen the same and fallen to their knees as they both had there was no chance of moving in time. Even startled the creature would surely grab the weapon and bring it to bear on them before they could reach it. As Vievel looked from Halycen to the Dwurkn he saw the distance between them had stretched, and it continued to expand as he watched, a distance that seemed insurmountable.

“Carkn-Qurza,” the Dwurkn said, its voice low and threatening. A smile crept across its face as it looked over the two fallen Aælfir. The smile wasn’t wicked or cruel, as Vievel first imagined it to be, but it was unsettling all the same as the creature’s grin proclaimed loudly you are beaten. The beast glanced down at the revolver once more and Vievel felt a hardness in his throat rise up, the thin air left on the ship struggling to find its way down his throat. He was close enough to the stone basin behind him that a wild part of his mind screamed for him to get up, to run, to try and hide behind it; the muscles in his legs contracted firmly, twitching at the prospect. Vievel’s thoughts continued to rail at him, to beg and plead that he take the opportunity to hide, but the twitch in his legs was stayed by his cousin. Halycen couldn’t hide. To his left she was sitting beside the chamber wall, leaning on it for support. Halycen was closer to the Dwurkn than he was, but still too far to reach the beast before it could grab the revolver. His cousin had no such cover. The Dwurkn coiled itself, hunching down and bending toward the revolver. Vievel’s twitching leg fell still, paralysed along with the rest of him. He was caught.

The Dwurkn took its eyes from the revolver as it reached out to grab it, its stubby fingers outstretched, and looked to Vievel, studying him. Stopped in contemplation a peculiar look flitted across the creature’s face, a pain and confusion as if it was wrestling with two conflicting compulsions. It grunted softly and whilst its fingers curled around the revolver’s grip, the beast averted its eyes. It took a short sudden step backward, bringing its haunch up against the stone and pressing its second hand to the sharp and uneven rock face that comprised the chamber wall. The revolver hung limply from its grip. The Dwurkn glanced toward Halycen, and then Vievel again, quickly flitting from one to the other.

You should have acted. Vievel condemned himself, a dread sinking into his chest as he imagined what was to come. The twitch in his legs flared again, building into an unbearable anxiety that begged him to move before his nerve withered away. A noise from deep within the ship resounded through the ragged walls and beneath the stone floors. He heard a heavy step on the stone floor, and then another. Vievel closed his eyes, scrunching his face together as he waited for the inevitable. The creature’s ragged breaths echoed out over the room, drawing quieter as the steps continued; the breaths and the steps began to ebb, falling quieter until they diminished entirely. Vievel could suddenly hear nothing. He opened his eyes gingerly, expecting to come face-to-face with the revolver-wielding monster; instead, his gaze came to bear on the rusted red rock-face of the small chamber. The Dwurkn was gone.