A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

194  The Shadows - Part 19

It bellowed in dismay, realizing that it had been foolish, realizing that its doubt was all for nought. It was merely that its opponents were fools who could not tell his true strength. It opened its beak and let out a great roar, before turning to face the rest of the goblins.

Just before its strike landed, Beam's control over the goblins faded, and they gave a shriek of alarm, as they turned and attempted to run away. But it was far too late for that. The Titan came after them. With two swift strikes, it ensured their death.

Blood flew into the air as the Titan's claws tore the goblins in half. It howled in delight. Even after it had killed them, it ran to follow up on the corpses, so that it might grind them to a halt, but a terrible feeling of dread stopped it midstride.

It looked up over its shoulder, back into the air, its heart pounding. After just regaining its confidence, something overwhelming was forcing it back into the depths of fear. Up, under the starlight, he caught the shadow of a boy, his sword raised.

He'd forgotten. In his obsession over the goblins, he'd forgotten where the true threat lay. He'd forgotten that this measly creature was able to survive some of its attacks. How could it have forgotten? To miss what was important, to allow itself to be roused by the weak, to be unsettled so greatly.

Yet something was off. The boy it was fighting earlier, he wasn't this large, was he? What was this darkness that cloaked him, that gave him mass? What was that burning looking in his eyes, as golden flecks danced around, demanding that he yield?

What now gave him such a powerful force? Why did the Titan feel the sudden urge to kneel? Why did fear run through it so strongly, against an opponent that he had already injured, that he had already dominated?

The strike came down from above. The Titan thought it saw a golden light catch the blade. A golden light that conflicted with that shadow of darkness that hung about him. The Titan was overwhelmed by fear, and then with beauty. Its heart was moved, and then destroyed.

Despite its strength, Beam broke its soul.

Before his strike even landed, the creature was torn apart. The desperate binding force that had attempted to hold the souls of several different monsters together – it was shattered. Now there were merely several individuals in the same body, all of them afraid, all of them fighting each other, all of them creating weakness.

They sought the mercy of death, for they could no longer deal with such pressure. It was only natural, after all.

Weakly, it raised its arm to defend itself, its movements half-hearted, as strength already began to leave its body.

Beam's blow came down. The sword that had previously bounced off the thick hide of the Titan now slid straight through it, as though it had suddenly increased in sharpness.

It bit straight through the forearm and neared the bone. And then once it reached bone, it tore through that too, hardly slowing down at all.

The sword finished with the arm and then went onto the head. The strike wasn't aligned well enough to decapitate, but it was able to tear straight through the throat all the same. In an arc of spurting green blood, Beam finished his strike, and landed in a roll.

The Titan stood for a few moments longer, distraught, watching the blood pour from its throat with a grim fascination. Confusion was the last emotion in its eyes, as Beam climbed to his feet to meet its gaze.

Even as it died, it couldn't understand why it had lost. All it knew was that it was afraid, so terribly afraid.

Noting that emotion, Beam's eyes softened for just a moment. He that walked such a tightrope, who was forced to struggle so immensely, he understood that feeling better than anyone. Such was one of the many foundations of his strength.

As the Titan collapsed in a heap in the centre of the clearing, the world grew suddenly quiet. There was a stillness in the cold night's air, despite the carnage that decorated the clearing, with all the strewn-about scraps of charred meat, and the corpses of the goblins, the firewood, and then the central piece of the giant Titan corpse.

Exhaustion overwhelmed Beam, as the strength began to leave his body. He would have collapsed there and then, if he hadn't known what a terrible danger these monster corpses posed.

Though, at least now he knew there was something of a limit. That if several monsters were bound together through a crystal, it would create a beast of nightmarish proportions, but that would have an equally unstable soul to match.

What he didn't know was the effect the crystals had on the binding strength of that soul. It was highly likely that they had something stronger, that was capable of supporting an even more nightmarish creature. After all, they had used crystals of different colours on the rabbit and on the goblin.

With such new information in mind, despite the absolutely crushing level of exhaustion that Beam now felt, he was forced to once more rebuild his fire. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

He gathered more wood from the forest – which was growing increasingly harder to find nearer the clearing, especially without his axe to tend to any of the thicker pieces – and built up a raging bonfire in that gap in the cliff, making it even larger than before.

Despite how large he made it, it would have been impossible to get the Titan corpse on there. Just as it would have been equally difficult to move the Titan corpse in the first place. The end result of such a predicament was a good deal of grizzly work, as Beam was forced to cut the Titan down into more manageable bits with his sword.

His clothes, that were already a mess, now became dyed almost exclusively with green blood.

Little by little, he completed his task. The only thing managing to keep up with his exhaustion was a growing sense of satisfaction, as he cleaned up the clearing, little by little. He dealt with the smaller pieces of flesh first, leaving the Titan until last, since at least that was in one piece, making it easier to defend should more monsters come.

Need name suggestions for the Vice-Captain of the soldiers!! He's gonna be a stocky bearded guy with a loud mouth. Any ideas???

Nick_Alderson

Creator's Thought