The Ringmaster's Revenge

The Ringmaster's Revenge: Phase Six

Phase Six

1month: 7days: 2hours

Until the Ringmaster’s Revenge

Grift

Grift woke with a pounding head and aching limbs.  He felt as if he’d slept for days, but little more then forty minutes had passed since Tibold had thrown him.  A sour taste filled his mouth and while scrambling to his hands and knees, he coughed, leaving a pool of froth on the floor.  When his stomach was empty, Grift braced his arms against the wall.  Dragging himself upright, Grift blinked, hoping the passageway would return to its normal dismal hue.  But when the dark spots glistening along the hall refused to fade he moved closer to the nearest, touched it, and recoiled as his finger tip turned wet.  There was blood on the floor.  Speckles and smears along the walls.  Grift checked himself.  There was a dab of gore scabbing in the corner of his mouth but that was all.  So where then had the mess come from?

“Father?” he slurred while stumbling towards the parlor.  “Tibold, where are you?  You said… you said you’d give me another chance.  You said you wouldn’t leave.”

No answer.  His fingers slipped, sending the boy falling through the wooden archway.  Something snapped under his knee, breaking his fall, but he didn’t look at what for his eyes were on the Shadow-man who was standing in the center of the vacant room.  Grift’s black eyes could easily pick out the sword dangling limply in the shade’s hand, as well as the body at its feet. 

Tibold’s corpse was mangled, torn and broken like a rodent tortured by a cat.  It wasn’t merely cut, it was carved and robbed of limbs.  One of which had cushioned Grift’s fall and the other rested near the thief’s severed head which stared blindly beside the hearth with an expression of horror on its face.  The boy crawled to his father’s torso, shaking it and succeeding only in spilling more warm blood.  “Father?  Father?”  He fell on Tibolt’s chest and placing his ear over the heart.  He knew he’d hear nothing but couldn’t just sit there.  He sobbed deeply, unaware of the harsh wails pouring from his mouth until they choked him.  The shadow-man remained frozen over them both and Grift howled at him.  “What did you do?  What did you do to him?”

“Only what you wanted me to do, Master,” said Aviraz.

“You lie!  You lie,” the boy pounded his fists on the floor.  “I loved him.  I loved my father.”

“He’s about as much your parent as I am,” said the shade.  “This man was a charlatan.  You have no family, Grifter.”

“It’s not true.  You don’t know!”

Though Grift had covered his ears tightly, he heard Aviraz clearly say, “I do know.  Because you told me yourself.  Just as you told me, deep inside, that you wanted him to pay for hurting you.  To suffer.  To die.  To bleed.  What a disturbing little child you are.”  Aviraz remained impassive as he spoke, as if brutal murder were common to him.  And, Grift realized, it probably was.  Hadn’t he just dreamt of the shade’s first kill while sprawled unconscious in the hall?  He uncovered his ears to conceal his eyes as he scooted backwards towards the hall.  The shade whispered, “A good slave, like myself, might also feel it within their duty to inform you that the neighbors have been woken by your cry.  They are on their way.  I wonder what they will think of all this.” 

Unsteadily rising from the slick floorboards, Grifter lunged into the bedroom where he searched the room for his spilled possessions.  His bag was nearly full when there came a knock on the front door.  Then he heard it smack against the frame for the second time in one night, as a young farmhand kicked it open.  The man swore grimly before screaming for help.