The door thuds shut behind man and beast. When the bar falls into place just after, Vidar feels a part of him becoming similarly secured. Like dried clay, he settles into his sculptor’s vision. Because the enemy is at their door, and he does not quake with fear. Because even though he knows that he will soon be drenched in pain and blood and violence, he does not cower under the imminent downfall. He is prepared – matured. All of the torture has made him stronger. All of Grumbles’ praise and prodding have made him into a man that is capable (perhaps not of anything, but something. Enough to protect his captor-savior; enough to be proud of his efforts in the face of death).
I will not falter, he tells himself, even as he hears the storm clouds solidifying outside the fortress, becoming a mass of directed rage and magic. I will not fail, he chants, watching the warning lights go off like rockets through the narrow window alongside the door. Grumbles spares the brewing war only a moment’s look from the sill. Vidar can see the lines of tension pulling his mouth into an unconscious frown. He wonders, for the first time, why an army of fairy-folk is hell-bent on bringing down one, singular crooked man. A man who has surely done terrible things in his time (the mercury gas swirls in his mind’s eye; he can smell the brine of burning fish and the sulfur of the preceding lightning) but has also contributed in some ways (he barely remembers the boy he used to be before Grumbles made him a man, before the power filled his veins and the gentle words nourished his soul). He is a giver, the stallion thinks, a maker. A healer.
Bones are stronger after being broken.
It is only when Grumbles turns away that he does as well. He will not leave his captor-savior unprotected with the wolves breaking down their doors. They retreat to the innermost parts of the fortress with the sounds of unrest growing fainter behind them with each step. Vidar keeps one ear trained forward on Grumbles and the other swivels back to the doorway. Even as the stone columns of the safest rooms rise ahead of the pair, he can hear the loud crashes following them, stalking them. Like predators. But they are quick. They know where to hide, where to make their last stand. Like prey. They know exactly where they will die if they are caught.
But they can’t let that happen. Vidar won’t let it happen.
Grumbles stops only when he runs out of doorways to pass through. And in fact, the last doorway is more mirror than door. The reflections of horse and man meet the real horse and man at the juncture, but their images are flipped upside down. A sense of urgency fills Vidar then, and he makes a move forward as if to barge through the relatively simple barrier but stops when Grumbles puts a hand out. “Watch, he says instead, and Vidar is surprised at the absence of stress in his tone. He watches, and the mirror melts away with the touch of one crooked finger. Everything in Vidar tells him not to go into the dark space just beyond. The man, sensing his hesitation, tugs on the halter. They step through. A shiver passes down the blue roan’s spine.
“Easy, see? And the horse does. He sees that they emerge into a small, dank cavern with dripping walls and low light. Underground, he muses, feeling a cool shiver against his legs from one pitch-black corner of the room. He sees that they are all right, even though his senses had informed him he wouldn’t be. “Won’t be so easy on the others, trust me.” He sees, too, that they are not alone. Grumbles’ friend peels himself away from a shadowed wall, appearing in the dimness like his own flickering light. Vidar can sense the exhaustion creeping over both faeries. He mostly cares about the welfare of one, however, and tenses to help support Grumbles when he leans on him. “They’re here, he says, but they already know. “I don’t know if we’ve done enough. I don’t know if we’ve done enough. I don’t know if we’ve done enough.
BOOM.
We. Me. Vidar berates himself, because he had been the Guardian. He had been the first and last line of defense, and now? Now, the horde is after them because he’d been too stupid to protect them. Too stupid to think of cleverer traps and too stupid to save the one man who had made something of him. Who had broken and squeezed and torn him to pieces to rebuild him better. Who had believed in him.
The sounds grow outside of the mirror-door. Stumbleduck smiles weakly when the pained sound of one attacker reaches them. Vidar had nearly forgotten about one defense, the lit-torches that sometimes shot out unnecessarily long arcs of blue-green flames at passerby. Right now, he’s only glad that they’d waited to strike until he and Grumbles had moved away from the corridor. The trio watches their last hope, that shimmering doorway that had made Vidar nearly sick with the need to go anywhere but past it. They watch as it shakes with the power of multiple attackers forcing their way. They see when it falls, when their safe space becomes anything but.
But, the fairies are not in any fit shape to attack at first. The stallion sees the faintest grin touch the corners of Grumble’s lips and knows he has given his last ounce of strength for this. The winged people are upside down, just as their reflections had been before one crooked finger had allowed them passage. Fear scrunches the men and women’s faces as they try to right themselves. They walk on air, jumping and hitting their heads on the cave floor to no avail. The Guardian will not waste this chance, but even as he moves forward (growing his ox horns as he does), the first fairy has managed to repair gravity. He is disoriented, though, and Vidar plows through him with one curling horn.
The other five seem to sense the urgency of their situation, and before he can do anymore damage on the lot, they fight their way back to straightness. Somewhere behind him, Vidar can hear his captor-savior draw in a breath. But he cannot look back. Not now, in the thick of battle. Five against one is not terribly good odds (and he is not terribly good at goodbyes). Instead of goodbye, he blinks and he is wearing his snakeskin pattern. He hopes it gives the twisted little man the smallest bit of light in the gloom.
The others are on him quick. He knows he will die, but he fights back, anyway. Out of the corner of his eye he sees one borrow some of their torch flames. It sends balls of purple-red fire at his left side, swirling, bright missiles that reveal the entirety of the cave. He tries to throw up a protective shield of water, but he is not fast enough to stop one from charring his shoulder. The skin splits instantly and he cries out. Seeing red himself, Vidar leaps to the hovering man and rips his throat out with his elongated canines. He wears a part of Fenrir, thinks he’ll carry him forevermore. For the next few minutes, that is.
Two fairies – a yellow-haired man and a black-haired woman - pull at fallen boulders in the cave, their strength bolstered by magic. He sees that they mean to crush him, to pound him into the deep earth like he had once wanted to do to Grumbles. He can’t have that. The stallion flexes his power as easily as a muscle, accelerating the growth of one stalactite and one stalagmite. One races from the ceiling and pierces the man; one shoots from the floor and impales the woman. Blood spills from each of them. He turns away.
In this time, yet another fairy has moved beside him, holding something… Something familiar. POP. The balloon bursts in his face, and the grey smoke settles in his nostrils. He feels himself begin to shake, the tremors like small earthquakes dislodging him from his goal. His mind blurs, feels fuzzy. Grumbles. Duckstumble. Stumble – he does, nearly falls. The fairy grows in his eyes, gets bigger, closer. It carries a small dagger. Places the wobbly weapon at Vidar’s neck. He feels his skin peeling away but it is funny, that. Like it should hurt but all he can think of is how cold the dagger feels pressing against his throat. How warm it feels, just after. Like the jungle and the sweat that had beaded along his skin after a long run. Sweat. Salt. Life.
The stallion pushes the fog from his mind, making a physical and mental vacuum to protect himself from further gaseous advances. The blood is there, thick and falling from his throat. But the dagger is there, too, its work not yet complete. Vidar rears and lashes out at the fairy with his front hooves. He is satisfied with the resulting dull thud and crumpled body. Instinct keeps him alive rather than magic, his own flesh and fight-or-flight keeps him in the game of life.
Another fairy dives at him from the shadows. The wet floor splashes against his legs as the creature runs at him. It makes his decision easy, effective. He calls the lightning to him a final time, delights in the way the human’s hair stands on end before it all comes crashing down.
One is left, looking bedraggled but determined. He feels much the same, blood falls down his throat and chest, his veins pulsing and failing him at the same time. His skin is sloughed in places from mercury poisoning and a singular, sizzling fireball. But his mind is clear. Five bodies lay scattered around the cave, none of them his allies. He finally knows, even if he will take the knowledge to the grave, his final lesson. I am the predator.
Vidar