Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 86
86
Banno's face crinkled and cracked with his smile, shedding bits of frozen skin and blood. Watching Ander go to pieces was a special kind of fun. It was like the final moments of life, when the eyes roll back and the breathing slows, when the heartbeat stops and the warmth fades away.
Banno closed his eye for a moment, taking it all in, the wind roaring in his ears, the numb, tingly sensation of the snow caressing his body, the booming voices of the dead echoing through the pass, their furious snarls grating through decomposing throats, their lifeless feet stomping out a deep, frenzied melody that could be felt even through the ground, vibrating through his bones.
When he opened his eye again, the pass seemed brighter, more alive. Maybe this was what it felt like to be born. First darkness, then growing light, and then... why, then the taste of life on your tongue.
Soon, Valery. Very soon.
More and more torches flared up at his back, passing from Wolf to Wolf. It cast a rather unflattering glow on the rows of Foxes. So much like mindless birds they were, roosting up there on the wall, shoulder to shoulder, shaking and shivering in the cold. And the biggest, most mindless one of them all, clutching a dusty old horn to his heart: his little brother, Ander.
Banno licked his lips. The greater the anticipation, the greater the final reward. He could feel it building to a climax all around him.
Ander suddenly slammed his hand down between two of the wooden spikes, dragging his claws through the wood and baring his fangs, looking like he was about to explode. "Why are you doing this, Banno!?" he screamed, tears actually streaming down his face.
It's for Valery little Valery sweet little Valery...
Something warm and sticky flowed from behind Banno's eyepatch, dribbling down his cheek and across his teeth. It tasted like blood. "I am going to pin you down, Ander, and I am going to take these fingers..." He held up his hand to let the half-breed freak get a good, long look at his claws. "... And I am going to push them into your eye. I'll try to get it all out in one piece, but if it pops, that'll be fine, too. I will scoop it out and I will eat it right in front of you. I will lick it from my dripping fingers and you will watch every second of it."
"Is that all you want!? You'd kill thousands of Foxes just for that!?" Ander shouted, furious. He took the horn and turned it around, so the mouth piece was pointed right at his eye. "If that's all it takes, I'll do it myself!"
"No!" A little Fox bitch grabbed hold of his arm and latched on like a tick, dragging it back down with all her weight. Banno couldn't be entirely sure, but he thought it was the same one who had pulled his tail. The one who had cost him his foot.
"You still don't get it, do you, Ander?" Banno chuckled, but that annoying little itch in his head was back, the same itch he got whenever he looked at that backwards wall too long, only now he was getting it from that curly horn. Why did he have a horn anyway? To signal the archers? Something about it made him feel uneasy. It was just too... out of place. Just like that damn wall. Just like Ander himself, actually. No matter where he went, he was always out of place.
"Then explain it to me, Banno!" Ander shouted. "Let's talk about this, and maybe we can find a solution! Some way where no one has to die!"
"You're a fool, Ander! What, do you think that death is some negative side-effect to all this? Something we'd rather avoid, or keep to a minimum? Do you think it's a price we're willing to pay to get to our goals?"
"Well if not, then what is it?"
"Death is_the goal, Ander! We don't care about the valley or the land or the rivers or the game or whatever spoils might be back there! The reason we fight, the reason we go to war, is to kill! Plain and simple! We come to taste your death and the deaths of your comrades! We're going to storm that wall! If your little friends can stop pissing themselves long enough to take aim, they might be able to fire off a volley or two before we reach it. If they're lucky, they'll kill some of us. Maybe even hundreds of us. But you and I both know that won't be enough to stop us. We'll tear through that pitiful line of traitors, and then we'll tear through _you."
Ander's friends looked to each other with pure terror in their eyes. Banno could smell it all the way from here, that sickly sweet stench of vomit and urine. He'd bet that, behind that row of sharpened wooden posts, half of them had their tails tucked between their legs.
Banno smiled and let his voice carry through the pass, not just addressing Ander anymore, but all of them, every single cowardly Fox and treasonous Wolf. "We will grab you, we will snap your limbs, we will rip the flesh from your bones, we will cut your throats, we will pry open your chests and pull out your insides. We will cover ourselves in your blood and swarm into your valley. We will break down your doors and find your mates, your children, your sons and daughters -"
Valery I'm coming I'm coming to taste your death to taste your blood on my tongue sweet Valery I'm coming you can become one with me become one with me fuse together be real forever become truly alive through me it's the only way don't worry just a little bit longer I'll save you I'm coming I'm coming for you coming just for you sweet Valery.
"- and do the same to them. Cut open their soft little bodies and see what's inside - lick them, taste them, hold them close as they die. We will have our fill, and there is not a damn thing you can do to stop us."
The noise swelled. Furious roars filled the pass, so feral and animalistic they put the wind itself to shame. Torches flared up and a thousand dancing shadows, their ears elongated into demonic horns, stretched toward the wall, mimicking the eagerness of their owners. And standing tall above them all was his own, a solid expanse of black falling over the faces of the weaklings who had turned their backs on their own people. How they cowered, holding hands, whispering empty promises to each other even as their knees shook.
One of the Foxes up on the wall (an old one with long grey ears) disappeared behind the posts for a while, and when he came back up, there was a thick line of sickly yellow vomit hanging from his lips.
"Dammit, Banno!" Ander yelled. "It doesn't have to be this way!"
Banno took a step forward.
"Please, Banno!" He was begging now. Crying and begging, holding on to that horn like a treasured child's toy. "Don't make me kill you a second time!"
Banno's smile grew wider and wider. He felt the corner of his mouth first tighten, then tear open anew. "Oh, Ander, you still don't understand, nobody understands..." he said, blood gushing down his face. "I! Cannot! Die!"
He broke into a run. He could not feel the dull, throbbing bursts of pain inside his head or the sharp daggers of ice and rock stabbing his raw and bleeding stump. He could not hear the explosion of sound at his back, the ecstatic, animalistic roars of a thousand Wolves following his charge.
The only thing that existed in his world was Valery's perfect face.
Thank you, Banno, she said, smiling so beautifully. The tendons in her neck moved ever so slightly with every syllable, shifting beneath that golden fur... Thank you... opening like a flower... Thank you... slowly turning red... Thank you... wet and glistening... Thank you... pouring out, flowing into him, becoming a part of him... Thank you...
_ _
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