Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 54
54
Dorin felt numb. He couldn't even feel his own pain anymore. It was just... it was like he couldn't feel anything in that exact moment, otherwise the sheer force of it would tear his mind apart. So he just sat there in the snow, completely stunned, while Aisa clung to his side like a frightened child. Actually, there were a lot of frightened children here today, probably going through the exact same thing. He could see it in their eyes, in their blank stares. He could see it in the way they stood perfectly still, some of them with vomit still clinging to their lips. He could even hear it in the deathly silence permeating the air. Their entire world had changed in the blink of an eye, and none of them knew what to make of it.
Shekka stood up, spat into the Pit and said: "Di Cora sal yo noit vergewe ni."
The Cora shall never forgive you.
The silence was shattered by deep, rumbling laughter, somehow even more terrifying than the sounds that had come out of the Pit. Banno was standing in the Cora's shadow, holding the Chieftain's blood-drenched necklace in one hand. He had his head thrown back to the sky and he was just laughing and laughing, laughing so hard there were tears streaming from his one remaining eye, and as he laughed, the first snowflakes of the day started to drift down from the heavens, landing upon his pitch black fur in stark contrast.
He sighed, holding the dripping necklace up to his face. "I guess this makes me the Chieftain now. Unless..." He looked to the crowd. "Are there any objections?"
No one said anything.
"Are you sure?" He almost looked disappointed.
Still no answer.
Banno smiled and the cut in his cheek gaped wide open once again, sending a fresh flow of blood across his teeth. "Then it's decided."
"What just happened?" Aisa whispered into Dorin's ear. "What... what does this mean?"
"It means we get to live for now, so be quiet."
"But -"
"Aisa."
For a moment it looked like she was going to argue further, but something in his face must have convinced her otherwise. She covered her mouth, whether to stifle the sounds of her panicked breathing or to keep herself from throwing up, he didn't know, but he was once again struck by how much she looked like her daughter, with her face all battered and bruised, swelling up before his very eyes. Perhaps this really was some deity's twisted sense of justice at work. Wasn't it 'fair' that she be pounded into the ground, just like she had pounded Renna? And Ivio, was it not 'fair' that his hands and feet be pierced after seeking to do the same to so many others? Denko, was it not 'fair' that he be forced to suffer the pain of a single arrow for the rest of his life, after he had aimed so many at the hearts of his fellow Wolves?
That only leaves me.
Dorin glanced at the leaves wrapped around his arm, now quite tattered and frayed. Even with the beating he had taken at the hands of Wardo's men, even with the horrific visions his head kept conjuring up, it didn't feel like enough. It didn't feel 'balanced' like the others. Maybe his punishment was still coming, but even so, it would just have to wait a little bit longer.
"Listen to me, Aisa," he whispered, fighting hard to stave off a sudden wave of dizziness. It hurt to breathe. "My tent is the closest. Take Ivio and Denko with you. Don't make a sound. Just stay there and wait for me. There's a knife hidden underneath the bedroll, just in case. If someone tries to come after you, use that."
"Wait, aren't you coming with us?"
"No, I can't."
"Why?"
Dorin had no logical answer for that. There was only a feeling that something was keeping him here, something he had to do, something he had to finish.
And that's when the answer came bubbling right out of the ground itself. It came to them all in a feeble cry of pain that quickly swelled into a scream of pure anguish, making his fur stand on end. They all turned to the Pit as one, listening in horror at the wretched gargles floating up from the darkest depths, and all of them came to same terrible conclusion. Somehow, beyond all reason, beyond all sanity, beyond all mercy...
Wardo was still alive down there.
*
Aisa tried to hold him back.
"Let go of me!" Dorin yelled, every syllable pounding against the back of his head.
"You'll die! Just leave it alone!"
"I can't!" He broke free of her clutching grasp and just barely managed to keep his feet. The snow was coming down at a steady pace, much too beautiful and peaceful to match the frenzied screams filling the air.
Banno peeked over the edge, whistled, and stepped back, chuckling to himself and shaking his head like someone who had just heard a silly joke. For a moment they locked eyes, and Dorin felt something. It was the same kind of feeling that sometimes crawled up his spine when he looked at Shekka, only more intense. Shekka had a sense of emptiness about her, but it was a _repulsive_kind of emptiness. It seemed to push you away. This feeling he was getting from Banno, though... it was the same, but opposite. It felt like that dark eye was trying to suck everything in, like he wanted everyone and everything to come just a little bit closer...
And that's exactly what I'm doing, too... he thought, trying his very best not to look into that solitary eye, just as much of a 'Pit' as that hole in the ground. I must be even more crazy than Ivio...
Dorin kept walking as best he could, limping along, trying to ignore the pain in his head, his side, and his legs, but he knew Banno was watching him like a lame buck. He could feel that eye crawling all over his face like a giant, bristly spider, but even that feeling faded away the closer he came to that hole in the ground. It got bigger and bigger, much bigger, far bigger than a few lurching steps could possibly be responsible for. By the time he reached the edge, it seemed big enough to swallow the entire world.
Terrified of standing too close to that black throat in the earth (especially with Banno nearby), Dorin lowered himself onto his stomach. The chains were ice cold and rattled beneath his body as he pulled himself up to the edge, but there was another sound beneath it all, very soft, but very distinct. It was the crinkle of a wet leaf slowly being crushed inside a fist. It was the cracking of a mighty tree falling to its fate. It was the deep, breaking groan of an icy lake finally beginning to thaw in the sunlight. It was all those sounds and more, but most of all, it was the sound of something struggling, and ultimately failing, under immense pressure.
He looked over, and that's when he knew. Sometimes, when compared to reality, insanity can be a comfort.
He had seen some terrible things before this. Horrific illusions straight out of a nightmare, but a nightmare was all they ever were. They were waking dreams, murky and ill-defined. Even when they filled his head, they were never more than representations of what he felt on the inside. He knew this. He understood this. They were no more than shades, and their shapes were soon forgotten, buried under moments of clarity. But this... this was no illusion. This was no hallucination. This was no trick of the mind. This was real, and it made him long for the comfort of insanity.
Wardo was down there, in the dark. Snowflakes dotted his body, appearing on his mangy fur as if by magic, and then melting away in the blink of an eye, swallowed by blood.
At least a dozen biters had clamped down on the Wolf who was once his Chieftain, the Wolf he had fought and killed for. They had bitten into every piece of him they could reach, sinking their teeth deep into his flesh. Ribs poked out of his side like broken branches, and a bloody loop of intestines had settled on his stomach, glistening in the dark. As for the thinner parts, they never even stood a chance.
Wardo's tail was severed near the base, and was hanging limply over a coil of chains like a dead snake, drenched in blood. His left ear was missing entirely. Another biter had slammed shut on his hand, cutting cleanly through the palm, severing four fingers and leaving only a solitary thumb, twitching weakly.
There was one on his face, too.
Dorin couldn't do anything, say anything, or even think anything in the presence of such horror. The biter had clamped down on the bridge of his muzzle, which meant that the other side must be cutting into the back of his neck. It was a slow, agonizing death, but surely... surely... it must be over now? It had to be...
Wardo eyes flew open. They were just as red as Shekka's on the day she almost stumbled into this very Pit, but they were not blind. Even with blood pouring out like crimson tears, they could see everything through the gaps in that metallic abomination, and what they saw was his right hand Wolf, staring down from a small circle of light an infinite distance away.
"Dor..." He couldn't get any further than that. The biter was holding his jaw in place and his mouth was quickly filling with blood. It poured out from between his shattered teeth and pooled around his head, spreading out in search of even more snowflakes to devour.
Wardo tried to move, but it was like watching a small insect trying to break free of a spider's web. The chains barely shifted, rattling softly as they rubbed up against each other, and still those eyes, staring up at him, begging, pleading...
I have to end this. Right now.
"Spear!" Dorin shouted. "Someone, give me a spear!"
A thousand Wolves, all of them completely paralysed, not moving a muscle, just staring in horror. The steam issuing from their nostrils was the only sign they were even still alive.
"A spear, an axe, anything! Just give it to me!" Dorin begged, holding out his hand.
No one made a move to help. Shekka was just standing there, sniffing the blood on her fingers with the utmost revulsion, while Banno simply watched it all, a broken smile still lingering upon his broken face.
The sounds were getting louder.
"Dammit!" Dorin grabbed a handful of chains and swung his body around, carefully lowering himself into the mouth of the Pit. Already the pain in his wrist was starting to build into an unbearable scream.
"Dorin!" Aisa floundered through the snow, blood dripping from her nose, a look of pure desperation on her face.
Denko lunged forward and managed to grab hold of her legs just in time. She swayed in place, then crashed, facefirst, into the snow. She twisted around and swung her fists at Denko's head, screaming at him to let her go, all while Ivio stood over them both, not knowing what to do, chewing on his nails and ripping the fur out of his face all at the same time. It wasn't ideal, but it would have do for now. Dorin didn't want her anywhere near this hole. He didn't want her to see what was down here.
Dorin slid down the chains, each link sending a small shockwave through his arm. It felt like he was being eaten alive, slowly sinking down a monster's throat.
And the sounds... they were getting louder. It was Wardo, whimpering in agony, but there was that other sound, too... that wet, crackly, breaking sound. What the hell was that? What the hell was that!?
"Dor... ooor..." Wardo's voice was becoming more gargly by the second. Every breath wasn't merely a struggle, but a battle.
He didn't want to look. The view from up there, from that shrinking circle of light, was bad enough. How bad would it be up close? Down in the dark, with nothing but lines of chains and a solid wall of dirt before his eyes, Dorin could imagine all too clearly what he would see.
How did this happen? How did it all end up like this?
Dorin was very near the bottom now. He could see all those metallic teeth shining in the shadows as zigzag lines of silver reflected in the black, their chains crawling all over each other, each one eventually snaking its way back up the side of the Pit.
It was time.
Dorin turned his body as far as he could without losing his foothold, and now, only a few feet away from his former master, he was finally able to figure out what that terrible, terrible sound truly was.
The biters were still closing. The pressure was still there. Before Dorin's very eyes, their metallic teeth were sinking deeper and deeper into Wardo's flesh. That strange crackly noise, like dying embers, was the sporadic sound of bones snapping and clockwork jaws closing shut, cleaving through muscle and tendon one agonisingly slow increment at a time.
The sounds coming out of Wardo's face couldn't even be considered Wolven anymore. They weren't even the sounds of a dying animal. The sounds bubbling out of his shattered jaws and the remnants of his nose were those of a creature that should have been long dead.
The biter across his face suddenly closed another inch and a bloody crack appeared in his muzzle, making a sound not unlike that of a wet branch snapping underfoot. His whole body was slowly being twisted into a foetal position even as it was being torn apart.
Wardo looked at him from between the bars of his own creation, sharp beams of metal, iron rods, rows of spikes. Tears leaked from the remains of his eyes and mixed with his blood - clear drops of fluid tainted by swirling red clouds. But somehow even worse than that, worse than all of it, was the crimson handprint across his face; a final damnation.
This was a terrible Wolf who had done terrible things, but Dorin couldn't let this go on any longer. Still holding onto the chains, he worked his fingers underneath the bloody wrappings around his arm and ripped out his 'last resort': a knife with the handle carefully removed, a raw blade with a naked tang.
Upon seeing this, Wardo's bloodstreaked eyes went wide and a series of gargled whimpers bubbled out of the ruin that used to be his face.
"I don't think either of us wanted it to end like this," Dorin said, raising the knife above his head. "But at least you get to have one."
Wardo screamed. Or he tried to, at least. He managed to pry the biter open just wide enough for a fresh torrent of blood to spurt out over his neck and chest, creating a new necklace to replace the one that had been stolen from him.
Shekka's handprint was still there. Red and dripping.
Dorin plunged the knife into the screaming face as hard as he could, and twisted. He closed his eyes and listened as the blood-filled scream slowly faded away into a choked gargle, and then disappeared completely. But he knew... he knew that Wardo's scream would echo on inside this darkest of pits, as well as his own mind, forever.
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