21st of Saun 721
Continued from here
It'd been two days since he'd left the pyre of Ash-Flaw to the banks of the river. Still he hadn't eaten. A gnawing hunger tore at his insides, but he had water in plenty. That much he would allow himself. He couldn’t very well survive without it. While as a master of the enervations of the Flesh, he could suppress his hunger with a combination of manipulation and sheer willpower, water was always a necessity. Perhaps more so in the fasting process.
He wore his embersteel girdle, capped with the Swine King’s buckle. Beneath it, a thick lower robe covered his legs, of coarse and tough cloth and leather. His feet were bare, their soles toughened by travel and exposure to the dirt of the road. He bore several throwing axes on his person, about nine to be exact, all tucked into loops along his girdle. He’d bought them off of some family members of soldiers, who’d died in the conflicts of yesterarc. Apparently, a great plague had befallen the countryside then, wiping out most of the population. Many were trying to pick up the pieces, so a buyer for unwanted or unneeded weapons or tools was a godsend to them. They could use the proceeds from selling it to buy seed grain or some such. Rakvald didn’t bother with farming anymore, he hunted and foraged for his food.
He was on the trail of the monster that had killed Ash-Flaw. Several dead carcasses of harts and hinds, presumably having fed off the river waters, had been ambushed by the great King Crocodile. The mangled corpses looked to have been crushed in one swift bite, their heads swarmed by maggots and buzzing flies. It was a grisly scene. Yet it gave Rakvald an idea of what to do, and how to approach this hunt. And if in the meantime it slaked his hunger, and deprivation of ether, so much to the better.
He took to the waters of the river himself and swam beneath the surface. There, he remained, looking out from beneath the surface, as it were, to spy any animals approaching for a drink.
He kept well under the surface, using his permanent echo of mer water breathing to facilitate the submersion. He swam just outside the banks, keeping an eye out for the King Crocodile while maintaining his awareness of his surroundings.
He missed several animals in the search for prey. A few hinds passed him by, bolting at the last moment just before he was in range to strike. He had to be more alert, or else quicker in the waters if he was expected to make his kill. Or perhaps a more stealthy approach was called for?
He swam along the bottom, his hands trailing across the stones and smooth rocks that lined the bottom of the river. His movements, he kept even and slow, stroking with both arms so as to introduce a matter of symmetry of movement.
Before a break was done, he did spot a large hind crawling up to the bank of the river, to take a drink…s of the river. Still he hadn't eaten. A gnawing hunger tore at his insides, but he had water in plenty. That much he would allow himself.
The pain of hunger formed a gnarl in his gut as he crept closer from beneath the pool, toward the hind. It was kissing the surface of the pool, and Rakvald could almost feel the primal energy of the prey slipping out of its every movement. The shifty eyes focused on both sides, keeping watch for predators. Ready to up and bolt at a mometns notice. It took a risk coming to the riverside in search for refreshment. To most it would seem like such a simple act, something one might take for granted. For civilized people, they took for granted that water was there for the taking, without much of a thought for the suffering and predations man had suffered to bring the benefit of water to the rest of the colony. The ease of life made people soft. Rakvald had seen it in his time in Quacia, in ages past when he'd returned again and again. The people sought out sin, and when that was deprived of them, the ease gave way to a galvanization of their spirit, to where they rose up again. The Theocratum had always made that incorrect calculation in their tyranny of the populace, thinking they could mold them into something they desired. The Theocratum thought it wanted to make their people strong. They had been and were still wrong. Whether they knew it or not, they wanted a flock of sheep for shearing. Taking away their right to sin was the first mistake, that arose in the Heap's rebellion.
But now Rakvald's mind wandered, as he watched the hind drinking and continuing to drink. Getting downright greedy it was. He calculated his approach as he got closer to the surface, closer to the banks of the river. Until, with a tremendous splash he emerged and wrapped his tentacled arm around the hind's neck. It tried to bolt, but the rest of his body followed with that first effort, pulling its legs in with his one good arm. His tremendous hunger prompted the power of his artifact, and he was given more strength than he knew what to do with. And what he did with it, was downright grizzly. He crushed the hind's legs, to where it couldn't move or run away.
Then, with methodical and precise strikes he began pummeling its brainbox, until it lay unconscious, dying out on the banks of the river. Rakvald had his bait, now. It was time to go fishing for a Crocodile. He began by using his kukri to hack into its carcass, leaving it open and bleeding out into the river. The scent of his kill would travel far, hopefully enough to attract notice of the King Crocodile matriarch. Once his miserable task was done, he tied a line to the still-good legs of the beast, and threw it with a mighty heave into the river.
There, he sank back into the waters, holding the other end of the line, and waiting for his old 'friend' to appear.
It took near a break of waiting. A break through which the brackish, bitter waters of the river filtered its way through his internal gills. He hated this place, hated that he had to be here. He let that anger fuel his wait, let the fury store itself as unrealized potential in his tensed muscles. Until at last, he felt a great pull on the line, and the current seemed to shift in that river. It was then he saw her, the King Crocodile matriarch.
His ithecal claws were sharp, ready for enacting revenge upon her hide. And so he swamp, swamp after her wake. For a few moments, after he gripped her tail, she didn't seem to notice him. He used her lack of observance to work his way further up her body. An important aspect of crocodile wrestling, especially the gargantuan kind, was to secure the maw. Without doing that, the crocodile would thrash and whip itself around, probably bludgeoning to death anyone who sought to attack it.
Rakvald knew better than that and was well familiar with the creature's hunting behaviors. Thus, she barely noticed as he swam right upstream toward her maw, and then wrapped his mighty arms around it. Once that was done, he gouged her eyes with his feet, bludgeoning the orbs enough that they shut tightly.
But though he won that victory, the crocodile was far from defeated, and began to thrash, to spin, and to dive deeper into the river. It felt its terrestrial opponent, and anticipated that it wouldn't be able to survive a struggle beneath the water without air, same as any land-born prey. It's mistake.
Rakvald let it spin, and went along for the rid, still maintaining his vice-like grip on its maw.
Rakvald continued his assault while holding onto its maw. He kicked its brain-box and vertebrae as he held onto its maw, keeping it shut, its deadly teeth from lashing out.
The Crocodile groaned hideously as he delivered the beating of thirty decades, unleashing the pent up hatred and enacting his revenge for what the crocodile had done to his buddy, Ash-Flaw.
Finally, one last kick to the brain box, and he felt a resounding crack ripple through the water. This gave him a moment of relief, as he believed he'd defeated the creature. But no such luck. As he loosened his grip on the craeture's maw, it opened it and began thrashing, gnashing, and tearing across the waters, trying to turn itself around.
Now, Rakvald was a competent swimmer, but no match for a crocodile in its native environs. Even so, he had to defend himself in such an environment as he was in at the moment. As it closed the distance, he braced against its top and lower jaw with his arms and feet, acting as a living lever to keep it from snapping shut on his torso, and tearing him in twain.
It pushed and pushed through the water, though it couldn't see, it could smell, it could feel through the water his struggle. And as his claws dug into the hide of its snout and bottom jaw, it felt where he was. It's maw snapped shut one last time, and that was when Rakvald used one last burst of energy to push backward, but not before unsheathing his kukri, and with it slicing down into the Crocodile's brainbox.
A sudden rush of black ichor and red blood filled the surrounding waters. Drenching Rakvald in its stench, he felt its life's blood exit, and as it did, he Fed upon it using the power granted from Llyr's Becoming spark. He siphoned its life energies. Before long, it's struggles died down, and it was very much a dead thing. He felt his ether returned to him in that moment.
As he emerged from the swamp-like river, he dripped red blood and green-black ichor. He would stink for weeks, but it was a bitter-sweet smell. The scent of vengeance delivered.
