The war on April: Chapter 1;Part 1
October 18, 2009
Tom watched the gremlin rope ten fat strands around each hand. The thick ill-proportioned brute coughed from deep in its throat, working up the bile to gum the ropes into an impossible snarl. Tom let his fury build and steady, counting down his pulse until the tremble left his limbs. Tom moved with the cough; the nauseating houaaaaaakkk covering the low shush of boots on blanket. The Gremlins diseased toad neck bulged with phlegm; Tom reached over the gremlins shoulder, pinned his flabby lips shut with one hand, while the other drew a long blade across the Gremlins throat. Before a drop fell Tom had sheathed his blade and pressed a thick rag over the creatures wound: there could be no sign that either had been there. He pulled the awful thing to the floor and made his way back to the garden.
***
Dawn was close enough burnt orange was seeping over the horizon. Tom threshed and swore his way through the tall grass; fat globs of dew clung and burst against the corpse he shouldered, soaking his clothes in the rotten mushroom smell of Gremlin blood. He reached the Oak far later than was acceptable, even by his lax standards. He prayed: thanking the Oak for its strength and mercy, its welcome. The bark parted and Tom stepped into his home.
“You return late… and bringing filth into our barrow!”
Tom unrolled his travel blanket and dumped the Gremlin on it. He wrapped the corpse tightly, marking the edges in ash to ward off rot. Tom lashed the bundle with cord before replying, keeping his back to Alan Beste.
“I’ll bury it tonight. There wasn’t time before sunrise.”
“But there was time enough to be a damn fool, I suppose?”
Tom wiped his hands on the blanket, stood, stretched, and then finally turned to face the taller Folke. Slump shouldered and furious Alan Beste managed the cringing loom of a heron scolding a fox. Tom bullied his way past a flush of guilt to stoke his own anger.
“Aye, but not time to enough to listen one” said Tom, sending the slender Folke backwards with a one handed shove.
“You’ll murder us all, boy!” Alan Beste shouted at Tom’s back.
“At least one unless you take your talk elsewhere” said Tom, ashamed before the words left his mouth.
***
It had taken seasons for Tom to coax his door from the Oak. There was nothing like it in the barrow, and none who could see the value of it. To the Folke there was the Barrow and the world, alone and together. Separation was a brief necessity to be endured. And yet, they’d lent Tom his duty; asked him to carry without holding, to bear lightly and never speak of the weight. Tom stripped off his clothes, another conceit few shared, and put him self to cleaning his blade with rough moss and wax. The blessed wood was harder than stone, harder still for the blood it’d let and the brutal thoughts wished into it. Save his axe there was no keener edge in the Barrow or the world; save her his lot seemed thinner and harder still.
***
