Aveline and the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse

Part 18 - Fire in the Hold

I should have known that my fight in the Cirque de Macabre was nowhere near over - that getting clean away from Krafir and sending him to hell would only be the prelude to the piece. I was on a high with my success and thought I was pretty much home free. Just catch up with Grimmoire, delve into his mind (this time, I'll go in with a plan), and onward to round up the other three Horsemen I need to tackle Charles. I felt confident and powerful, and thought the sword was going to help we win this thing!

More fool me.

The animal sounds I'd heard earlier had gotten louder, and from the other side of the fabric separating the space I was in and the circus ring beyond came a noise like some demented rhinoceros roaring through a megaphone. Screams of fear and excitement accompanied the roaring. Not having a better idea in mind, I leap at the fabric wall, slashing with Damocles to open a way through. I land in the glare of a spotlight. Looking up, I see the source of all the noise. In the middle of the ring stands a godzilla-like lizard, three times my height and muscled like it had been fed on steroids for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fluff would have called it 'cute'. I just see a whole heap of 'Uh-Oh...'

"Behold, the Wyvern!" calls the ringmaster, gesturing to the lizard-thing as I land on the floor, crouched ready to pounce. "And your champion, a girl of spirit and fire, in a fight to the death! Let battle commence!" The crowd screams louder. A glimpse into the stands tells me all I need to know. Everyone who had come to the Cirque de Macabre was either certifiably insane or suffering from some kind of delusion that all this was somehow faked for their entertainment. True, some members of the crowd had a look of oh-my-god-what-the-hell-is-going-on? about them, but they were few and far between. Beyond the crowd, in the half-light at the back of the giant tent, I see Grimmoire and the troupe of demonic acrobats leaving through a back exit.

Fluff, Grimmoire's heading out and I'm stuck between him and a Wyvern. Think I'm gonna have to fight my way through. Cut him off and hold him if you can.

A Wyvern! No way, I'm comin' to get you Aveline. Whatever you do, don't let it bite you!

Why not? I'm dead already, not much more it can do to me, can it?

Wyverns eat the living dead Aveline, that's what they are for! Just stay away from it, I'll be there in thirty seconds.

A monster that eats the living dead? Who knew? Despite a teeny little bit of me wondering how that works, I decide that finding out is not an option. Besides, the thing has really large teeth, and my sense of self-preservation is still alive and kicking, that's for sure.

"Right then, ugly. I need to pass, and you're in the way. Enguard!" I've no idea why I said enguard, it just sounded the sort of thing one says when wielding an awesome sword. The Wyvern lunges at my face.

Now, that might sound bad enough, but let me tell you, a Wyvern is one ugly son of a bitch. And they smell. Really bad. Apparently, if this specimen is a good guide to the species, Wyverns have no arms, or fore-legs or whatever, so I had assumed the thing is really crap when it comes to moving around. The thing looks half made, with it's thick tail and snake like neck. Awkward was the first word that came to mind. Bastard, was the second. The Wyvern's mouth-full of teeth miss me by, like, a hair's breadth. Despite lunging out of the way as fast as my inhumanly rapid reactions allow, I only just escape my head being crushed like a melon. My senses are assaulted by a fetid stench emanating from the Wyvern's mouth, the smell so overpoweringly awful it has mass. I swing Damocles up awkwardly from where I've ended up - sat on my ass on the floor - but the Wyvern rears upwards out of reach. It pulls its head back and opens its maw.

A stream of fluid shoots forth from the Wyvern's mouth like a torrent of oily vomit, a split second before sparks from the points of the Wyvern's teeth ignite the jet of liquid and the pool that has formed exactly where I was just a moment before. I watch the resulting explosion and fire as I'm still going up from the leap I've made to get out of the way, reaching for a tent support some thirty feet above the ground. Splashes of oil and fire land in the lower tiers of the stands behind where I had been, immolating several people. I grab the support and hang above it all, looking down at the scene below. For a whole second, the crowd is deathly quiet, processing the deaths of several of their number, no doubt realising for the first time that this whole show is not quite what it seems. And then the real screaming starts.