Daily sketch #212 // Pandora's box: Battle (Patreon)

Hey guys!

Today with a little delay, as I was waiting for dear Aksan to write the short story to go along with the sketch. I hope you enjoy <3 Once again, the thane. I hope soon I will be able to reveal his face in the sketches ;) Maybe next month!

And once again, acompanied with a lovely short from Aksan <3
Hope it's a good read. I know I loved it!

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Warmth bloomed through my gambeson.

“Twenty minutes to put his armour on, and probably five with help to draw his sword.” The priestess’ words haunted him.

Spluttering now, that coppery flavour, stronger than he’d ever tasted it before.

“Catch him before he’s armed, put some spears in him and he’ll fall.” He wondered now if she’d even believed those words herself. The spears were scattered and broken now, and there wasn’t a scratch on the beast.

As the figure stood looking out from the calamity of the raided camp towards the mountains I felt my faith waver. The calm he exuded, with the blood of me and my fellow faithful pouring from him. The violence had been fast, absolute. Destruction that had no mercy but its swiftness.

“They are the first true mark of sin upon this world.” She had echoed the dogma of so many before. Describing things unseen, those words had shaped my life, but the flesh and blood before me lacked the reek of sin I’d imagined.

The titan turned, walked over to me and knelt. His hot breath was calm now after the brief battle, but still intense and smoky as it washed over me. Such a creature, such an avatar of strength, of sin, could it truly spring from nothing? Was the trial of faith really so insurmountable as to be defeating him?

“Should I make it quick?” came in a grumble like a mountain.

I looked down at the rich red blood that drenched my fingers. They tensed and trembled as they held my guts within me. The pain was hidden below a rush of adrenaline, flowing faster than this blood between my fingers, overwhelming everything. I shook my head slowly, definitely, shuddering against the spasms of muscles.

“They know no mercy, they cannot, they are born of human suffering!” Those words she offered before she sent us to this fate. Was this a trick before me? What ends could deceit even have now?

Slowly he took a cloth from a servant and began to clean his arm. “To your own self be true. The offer stands though, as I must assure you, you will not see dawn.” Doubt had no place in how he spoke, every word rumbled from him as though written in stone.

“Let me succumb to my wounds,” I snarled, “I don’t need the mercy of a monster!”

His eyebrows flashed in acknowledgement and he calmly wiped up the blood my outburst had splattered on his pale violet scales. Like the mountain behind him he seemed indifferent to the rage and viscera around him. A lifetime of hate, doctrine of telling me everyday how I should despise him. Not an iota of it mattered. He rose up to his full height, towering over me in my insignificance. My hate for him, my justifications of it, it meant nothing. I had threatened him and he had put me down for it.

“Should I be expecting more Inigne violence?”

Softly, weakly, finally, I shook my head. “Not that I--” I spluttered as more blood filled my lungs, his warm calm drained the adrenaline from me.

“Do not speak to them, their tongues only serve to corrupt.” Not just the priestess, my own mother now. Words built on dogma. Deny them communication. Deny anything but their monstrosity. What did it matter now, I’d told my truth.

I tried to snarl, to muster anger now, but it failed me. My life, my faith, my anger brought me here. Even with the best odds we were nothing before him. All my training, my prayers and my zealotry were not even enough to break the fatal calm of the dragon.

“Death walks with them, but their foul nature will defile living and dead alike!” Priests and Hierophants, family and friends, even my own lips have said such things.

I looked around at my comrades, those I would soon join in death, and in whatever may wait. Would my religious fervor still find me in heaven? Would this sudden doubt bar me at the gate? The bodies, the pieces of bodies, broken symbols adorning broken people. The terrifying creature seemed at home in it. That much of my teaching held true. But he did not revel in it like I was told, did not feast on the bodies, nor commit unspeakable acts with the dead or dying.

“Only humans are truly of the creator. This is our world!”

Blood, pain and realisation mixed in a foul, stretching moment as my life waned. I watched him turn and see to his people, settle them and calm them. Care, compassion. He ordered our bodies organised for burial. He gave us respect we’d never return. I wanted nothing more now than to close my eyes. The monster I’d spent my life hating came slowly back towards me now. That face I’d pictured so many times in snarling menacing rictus was soft with compassion. Darkening vision as I faded from life. A single sight that made me question, a first hand truth that made me question . . .

“The faithful will be rewarded.”