mace and flail

The air is so thick that it's almost hard to get it past their throats. They've been pressed up against the hard wall of the room for what feels like an hour but was definitely not as long, because then they would have been dead already.

Cahara had hurried to put out the torch as soon as they had heard the heavy mace dragging across the stone floor. Anything that could give away their location had to be disposed of in a matter of seconds. Even then they had managed to scurry into the room just in time to avoid entering his field of vision.

The shorter male looks up at his companion from the corner of his eye. Renee's chest rises and falls with a quick pace and Cahara knows their current situation is doing nothing but drain their sanity faster. He swallows thickly and wills his body to move, to separate from the wall and lean in just enough to peek out into the corridor. On the left there's engulfing darkness, a path that led deeper into the dungeon, and though he couldn't see it, he could hear a guard in the distance; the sound of harsh metal scraping the floor indicating that it was an elite. On the right there's light coming from the passage that leads to the courtyard, blocked by the large, dark figure that put them in this predicament in the first place.

The Crow Mauler is facing the other way when Cahara's head peeks out of the door, lucky him. The light against his frame is enough for him to make out his features just barely; the mace arm hanging heavily at his side and the crow head tilted in an odd posture. He wondered if he was actually looking outside or it was merely an act of patience—waiting for anything that would expose them. A certain death slowly creeping closer to them by the minute. The metal scraping rings in his ears as a gloved hand grabs at his shoulder and pulls him back.

"He's coming," Renee's voice is weaker than a whisper. "The elite guard."

Cahara realizes with dread that the metal noise was indeed growing louder, followed by heavy footsteps that meant nothing but a painful end. Renee already has his hand over the large meat cleaver on his belt and the shorter rakes his brain for solutions–anything that could help, even if a little. His weary eyes dart around the room until they land on a medium sized stone by his feet. He picks it up faster than he has ever grabbed anything.

"What are you doing?" Renee whispers.

"I have an idea," is all he says, through an exhale.

"A good one?"

"I don't know," he says, honestly.

And he forces himself to act. Renee doesn't have time to stop him before he's stepping out of the room with the rock in hand. A guttural grunt erupts from the guard’s throat as it sees him, and Cahara fights the primal urge to run away as he raises his arm and aims for his best shot.

He throws the rock with baited breath. It impacts against the Crow Mauler's shoulder blade. Cahara rushes back to the room and prays to every old god that this works.

The Crow Mauler turns around after the hit, empty lifeless eyes searching the corridor for its source, landing on the elite guard approaching the nearby door instead.

“What did you do?!” Renee hisses through gritted teeth. He pulls out the meat cleaver and Cahara grips the handle of his scimitar when the large, bulky hand of the guard appears on the doorway. The sound of the flail scraping stone right outside is like nails on a chalkboard and the feeling of oncoming death leaves a bitter taste on the tongue. The head of the guard comes next, peeking inside the room and looking down at their smaller forms with disgust.

That is until a heavy mace comes down onto the guard's helmet with brute force. The sound its deformed body makes as it hits the ground echoes within the small room. The only thing the other two can do is press their bodies against the wall again and hope that the darkness was enough so that the Crow Mauler hadn't noticed them yet.

The helmet has caved in and dark blood seeps from the holes where the mace spikes had perforated the tough material. Too focused on his current prey, the Crow wastes no time in smashing the body with his mace again, the grotesque noise of bones breaking and meat mushing filling the silence. The metal plate protecting the flesh caves in under the vicious mace like paper and every inch of skin soon becomes nothing more than a bloody pulp, gutted open like a pig.

The view is almost ironic, considering how easily that could have been their own fate, either at the guard’s hands or the Crow Mauler’s. At least the latter went straight for the kill, unlike the slow torture of the elite guard, who seemed to find some sort of wretched pleasure in seeing its victims crawl around before ultimately getting their brains sprawled across the floor.

No one was safe in these dungeons. Not even the horrors.

The blood has reached their feet by now and yet the Crow Mauler keeps beating the lifeless corpse before him relentlessly. The metal armor makes a displeasing loud noise with every blunt hit of the mace, and the other two find that with each one, their turn to be under the weapon grows closer. Cahara eyes the exit like it’s some kind of treasure. The gap between the Crow Mauler and the door was enough for both of them to go through, and yet it was a distance that the monster could easily fill with his mace if he noticed them quickly enough.

Was it risky? Yes. But it was either this or waiting out the minutes before a painful death. Cahara looks up at his companion and sees his head is turned to the door, too. Their gazes meet for a brief moment of unspoken communication; the shorter male gives a nod, and Renee’s mouth twists in an expression of uncertainty, but doesn’t refuse. Cahara looks at the door again and swallows down the fear and anxiety settling deep within his core before he takes a step to the side. Then another, and another, with his eyes fixed on the Crow to catch any sudden movements—any sort of head twitch or elongated pause that would indicate their presence had finally been discovered. Nothing of that comes, however, as his large figure bends over and grabs the head of the guard with his other hand and shakes it around, seemingly checking for any drop of life left in its body, as if that was even possible still. Renee watches the scene with dread until he feels Cahara’s hand on his wrist and they look at each other, the glint in the shorter’s eyes sending a shiver down his spine.

He breaks into a sprint, and the taller can only follow after him. The Crow’s head twitches and turns, right as the two scurry behind him. His mace arm raises and aims towards Renee with dangerous speed, and he has only a second to crouch before it crashes against the wall with force. Cahara stops on his tracks and turns, but is heavily relieved when he sees his companion managed to dodge the hit on time. They run out the door and towards the light of the exit leading to the courtyard. The corridor feels so much longer than before, and there’s a tiny voice in the back of their heads telling them that at any moment the mace could crash down onto their skulls. Right as they’re about to reach the exit, Cahara turns his head. The Crow Mauler stands outside the room, but gives no chase. He simply stands, with blood staining his hands and feet and dripping from his mace. The white, lifeless eyes of the crow head instill a deep anxiety within him, and so he hurries to look back ahead and get out of there.

The feeling of grass under their feet is oddly comforting. Renee stops some distance away from Cahara, breathing heavily as he squints his eyes to adjust to the new light. He sees Cahara hunched over, with his hands on his knees and panting. He looks in the direction they had just come from and notices how the area past the entrance is pitch black. The empty gaze of the Crow weighs heavy on him still—though he’s not even sure if he’s still there, his presence lingers like a bad fright.

“You okay?” He hears Cahara’s voice. He looks at him and sees he’s standing upright again, his forehead damp with sweat and his eyes tired.

“... Yeah,” he answers after a second. His breathing has calmed down some. The shorter male puts his gloved hands on his lower back and stretches, giving out a deep sigh.

“Sorry for doubting you,” he adds.

“What?”

“Sorry for doubting you,” Renee repeats. “You saved us.”

“Oh,” Cahara’s lips curl in a smile that helps lift some weight off the other’s shoulders. “It’s cool. I get that it seemed crazy back there.”

“Yeah,” is all Renee can think to say.

“But if you feel terrible about it you can give me a kiss to make up for it.”

“What?” He looks at him, only to see a wide grin on his face. Cahara laughs and Renee gives a faint chuckle, after a bit.

“Okay. Funny,” he huffs. “How can you joke at a time like this?”

“It’s how I cope.” The shorter male tilts his head. “If I didn’t remain positive I would’ve given up long ago, ya know? I would’ve probably sliced my neck open or something.”

“I get it.” The other allows himself to finally relax. His gaze lands on the darkness again.

“... Why do you think he didn’t chase us?”

“Dunno.” The other shrugs, running both hands through his hair. “But I really fucking hope it stays that way.”

“We’ll have to fight him, eventually.”

“You think so?”

“Violence is unavoidable here.” Renee crosses his arms. “He’ll corner us at some point.”

“Well, we better be prepared then.” Cahara rests his hands on his hips.

A second goes by before he speaks up again. “If we manage to defeat him and you cut off some meat, do you think he’ll taste like chicken?”

Renee snorts, and Cahara smiles widely as it evolves into a laugh. “Maybe.”