Collegare - Young Writers of Earth (a court of thorns and roses ebook free txt) 📗

remained was a small piece of muscle and fat that connected the back of her neck to her scalp. It was an extreme act of savagery that had been executed with an extreme precision. Whatever had attacked Heltahk had managed to get extremely close to her, which somewhat confused Ulgoth. If it had been a Smilodon or some other large, furry creature with an abundance of sharp teeth and an uncanny bloodlust, then surely Heltahk would have made a run for it. But from the positioning of her body, it looked as if the killer had gotten close enough to strike when she least expected it.

What really intrigued Ulgoth (or puzzled him to the best of his limited knowledge) was how clean the wound was. There was not a drop of blood spilt on the body or the ground below. It wasn’t the storm that had washed the blood away. There would still be traces of blood in Heltahk’s hair if that had been the case. No, this was something different; something Ulgoth had never seen before. The body had been drained completely of all blood, leaving nothing but stretched purple skin, rotting muscles, and a pile of brittle bones. Whatever had attacked Heltahk had sucked every inch of life-milk from her beating heart and had left the corpse to rot in the wild.

The meat had been ruined in the storm and rot and there was no salvageable flesh to be gathered from the corpse. So, instead of feasting, Ulgoth took to his knees and tunneled a hole into the wet earth. He worked diligently for a while, carving a slender rectangle in the ground not more than three feet deep. Eventually, with caked dirt fresh under his fingernails, Ulgoth grew tired and stopped digging. He pushed the husk of Heltahk into the ground and quickly flung the rich dirt on top of the makeshift grave much like a dog would. After her body had been stored in the ground, Ulgoth took his spear up and scratched a symbol at the base of the grave…and that was that, as they say.

***

The rest of the night was more or less the same daily routine for Ulgoth. He spent the remaining daylight hours searching for food (which had been harder and harder to come by lately, compliments of the creature which had stricken Heltahk down, no doubt) and bathing himself in the icy waters of the nearby lake. Dusk was fast approaching. Ulgoth knew that whatever beast had attacked Heltahk would soon be searching for him, using the nighttime veil of darkness as cover.

Ulgoth moved as quickly and diligently as his posture would allow, amassing large amounts of firewood for the night’s flame. He decided that a big fire would be appropriate tonight so that he could keep an eye on his surroundings. The monster would fast be approaching and Ulgoth had to be ready.

The night came in a flash as darkness fogged the sky like oil slowly dumped into crystal water. Ulgoth’s fire crackled as it lit the cave with intensity. Shadow puppets danced on the walls behind him as he sharpened his spear and crafted new weapons to defend himself from whatever was coming his way. In his hands rested his trusty spear, a weapon he was proficient with, especially from a long distance. On his belt was a new weapon he had crafted: a long stick handle with a rock edge that he had diligently smashed and carved into a rectangular blade, of sorts. If nothing else, he would attack the best from a distance with the spear. If that didn’t do the trick, he would try his hand at bludgeoning the creature to death with his newly crafted weapon.

The night dragged on slowly for Ulgoth, the wind whistling somber notes through the trees outside. He sat huddled in the corner of his cave with his back against the wet rock as the fire crackled and painted fire-devils and flame-ghosts upon his countenance. Throughout the night his head would grow weary upon his shoulders and the sandman would drop the heavy dust of slumber upon his eyelids. Eventually, inertia would pull his neck down to his chest and jar the sleeping savage awake from his 30 second nap. The process repeated in a continuous cycle that Ulgoth was helpless to defend against.

Soon, the wind began to rustle through the flame and a chill permeated the air. The bumps of geese began to prickle his skin and the hair began to rise on his forearms. There was a faint scratching noise that began to ripple at the mouth of the cave. Ulgoth rose to his feet, alert, with his back still against the wall. The spear was firmly in his palms and he held it at his side, point thrust forward and ready for the beast to dive from the darkness of the cave mouth ahead. His heart began to pound furiously, increasing by the second. He could hear it in the back of his head. Thump thump. Thump thump.

Something slowly rustled and the wind grew chillier. The fire began to pop as the flames licked the cold air. Perspiration was slowly building up on Ulgoth’s brow and his upper lip began to twitch. Footsteps were approaching. The cave was silent. There was no crackling from the fire. There was no wind upon the jagged edges of rocks. There was only the dull thud of footsteps as they pattered upon the sediment. The sound echoed in Ulgoth’s skull, bouncing around his brain like vocal yelps upon the shore of the ocean.

The creature stepped into the light of the flames…and it was human. The flames licked the right side of his face and Ulgoth could see that his eye was as onyx. His greasy, pendulous hair swayed over his face and shielded his Cheshire cat grin. Ulgoth spotted fangs that protruded from creeper’s mouth as his saliva-coated teeth caught the light and sparkled. He walked upright and with a straight posture, his footsteps silently striking the dirt. It was almost as if the figure was sliding across the ground, moving with a grace and precision that Ulgoth had never quite seen before in neither man nor beast. This man, which Ulgoth was slowly beginning to suspect was anything but, had been the creature responsible for the nightly shrieks that disrupted his slumber. This approaching creeper was responsible for draining Heltahk dry, leaving Ulgoth with nothing but a pile of bones and leathery skin to bury…and he was slowly approaching.

Ulgoth took the initiative, tossing his spear as the shadow puppets on the wall leaped to the cave floor. The creeper took a dive, moving quickly, and dodged the spear as it flew out of the cave mouth. The creeper moved faster than any beast Ulgoth had hunted in his short life. Ulgoth was on the ground in seconds, the creeper resting firmly upon his sternum. The flames crackled and flickered in the cave as the creeper pinned Ulgoth’s arms down beside his waist with his powerful thighs. Ulgoth was strong but the creeper easily overpowered him.

The viscous blackness of the creeper’s eye trapped the flickering light as Ulgoth struggled beneath the weight of his attacker. The shadows danced on the rocks in the cave. The creeper hyper-extended his jaw and raised his fangs to the sky in a sort of ritualistic preparation for the kill. Ulgoth flinched in panic, his fingers writhing with a claustrophobic intensity. Ulgoth felt the tickle of rough bark upon the tips of his fingers. The struggle was quickly reaching climax and Ulgoth was fingering the hilt of his newly crafted weapon which had been safely hooked upon the waist of his Smilodon-pelt toga.

The creeper jabbed his fangs forward and tore into the flesh of Ulgoth’s throbbing neck. Ulgoth let out a primal grunt. All attempts to writhe himself free of the creeper ended in futility. The creeper affixed himself to Ulgoth’s throat and held on with a death-grip that would be impossible to break free of. The creeper began to drink and Ulgoth felt the free-flow of his blood as it drained from his veins and quenched the thirsting savage. In his pain and desperation, Ulgoth tightened his fist around the hilt of his makeshift axe. In the swiftest of motions, the shadow puppets mated as Ulgoth raised his axe above the drinking beast and dropped it with intensity into the back of his head.

The creeper jolted with the strike of the axe, tearing Ulgoth’s flesh with his fangs and spilling blood upon floor of the cave. Ulgoth drove the axe into the creature’s skull again as his scalp began to shatter and his blood ran free into Ulgoth’s mouth. The creature was loosening as Ulgoth pounded his skull again. Any other man would be long dead from the intensity of the axe strikes, but this was no ordinary man.

The shadows danced and their blood ran wild as the creeper broke free from Ulgoth’s pulpy throat. The creature backed up as Ulgoth shuffled, choking on a mouthful of the creature’s vile blood. Ulgoth swallowed and rose to his feet, chopping at the assailant with all of his might. The creeper was still strong and dead-set on returning to the veins in Ulgoth’s neck…he needed the nourishment straight from the source like a baby pines for its mother’s teat.

Ulgoth tossed the axe towards the creature, lodging the stone in the shoulder of the beast and sending him backwards into the fire. The flames popped and the cave went dim as the creeper let out a bloodcurdling yelp. The axe had done its fair share of damage but the flames had really harmed the creature. The beast rose and dove out of the mouth of the cave, his skin bubbling like hot tar.

Ulgoth dropped to the ground, his body exhausted and his blood flowing like a river. He let out some light grunts as his eyelids shivered with post-adrenaline muscle spasms. The shadows danced upon the rocky ceiling of the cave as the embers from the flame rose above Ulgoth’s bloody cheek. He let out a breath from the bottom of his diaphragm and went limp as the chill left the cave…and all that was left was the stench of cooked flesh and the sweet smell of copper in the air.

***

The heavens flicked a light switch and morning dew spilled over the forest. Curfew had finally come for the shadows on the cave walls and daylight chased them away with the fury of angry guardians. Ulgoth sat huddled in the corner of his home, naked and bloody, with the Smilodon pelt wrapped firmly around his neck. The stench of thick smoke from the smoldering fire, the copper smell of blood, and the fresh redolence of dew moisture mated in the air and reproduced in Ulgoth’s nose.

The blood on the cave floor had lain stagnant throughout the night, congealing and turning to thick syrup. Ulgoth could feel his heart thump slowly and reveled in the sound, swimming in the dull beats much like a trout piloted and mated with the ocean. He stepped toward the cave mouth slowly, the sun’s rays pulsing in the back of his eyes. The creeper had not left a trail of any kind in the soft earth. The only thing he had left in his wake was the mark of his fangs upon the dry flesh of Ulgoth’s neck.

The sun burned hotter today than most days, it seemed. Ulgoth felt warm and sluggish in the heat as the humidity hugged him and gently forced breath from his lungs. His stomach was empty and he wanted to feed, but the sun and the nighttime attack had done nothing but exhausted him to the