The screams split the fetid air of the Dark Swamp deep within the Central Fire of Praetoria. They were a ghostly echo that haunted him, a punishment for the lives he had just taken. Stumbling toward a fallen tree, he slumped down onto the rotten wood and covered his ears. He tried to silence the screams, but one cannot shut out what is already in your head. So the shrill cries of death continued. He looked around for a distraction to his nightmare, but there were only the faces of the slaughtered glaring back at him, staring with judgment through glazed and empty eyes.
“I am just a doctor, here to study life, not death.” Doctor Blight clawed at his face, his feet tapping the murky puddles beneath. “Alastair Lexington, that was my name.”
The body of a young tribal woman lay broken across the roots of a mangrove. Her arm was twisted at an impossible angle. Her shattered jaw hung from a twisted sinew of muscle and rested against her shoulder.
“What kind of doctor would kill for pleasure?” Her voice broke into the corner of his mind.
“Not I,” he replied, clenching his fist. “I would never kill another soul…would I? I am only here to study.” A tear touched the corner of his eye.
“Death has shown me the trail of your destruction. The broken spirits follow you in their legions.”
“The seed of Blight was thrust upon me! I did not choose to carry it…even though it was a thing of great beauty. Death is no longer my companion. She has left me to walk alone.”
The woman’s body rolled onto its front and pushed itself up with effort. Its jaw swung across her tattooed chest. “And what of the death of my tribe? You have slaughtered us all. Maybe death has given up following you, and instead, resides within your black soul.”
“But I didn’t do this.” He looked away from the bodies and saw the Carnage Titan standing nearby, looking out across the swampland. He pointed at the great, metal golem. “It was him, not me.”
“A simple servant following his master’s will.” She coughed and gore fell across her naked body as she lumbered towards him. “When will the cost be too much? When will life become too precious?”
“Enough!” he cried, slapping his head hard and closing his eyes. When he opened them again, the woman’s body was where it had fallen, unmoving. He looked around. All of the dead were still, none of them had moved. “What is happening to me? Why are these voices in my head? They were never there before. I could only hear the seed of Blight and its benign persuasions.”
The Carnage Titan turned its head to look at him and gave a hollow moan. Red eyes burned within the horned helm.
Doctor Blight wiped the tear from his eye and found his feet. “What happened here? Why did we kill them?”
The Carnage Titan only watched him as he approached. The eyes of a devil burning brightly as its gauntlets flexed and claws snickered. The doctor placed a hand on the golem’s plate cuisse and looked into the swirling mists that curled about the swamp waters.
“I was once a respected botanist, you know?” The doctor’s voice was no more than a whispered remembrance of fonder times. “Quillton Field University in Pelcroft was where I studied, near the Jungles of Azmare.”
The great golem remained silent. Watching, always watching.
“Even my closest colleagues, Professors Tildor and Quinn, were envious of my work,” the doctor continued, sharing a small smile. “I remember they used to come to me asking questions about the interactions between plant life within different environments and the diseases that might afflict each species. Everything they ever needed to know was written in the Yerivin Manuscript, but they refused to study its foreign text and its hints at lost lands and strange new flora. They denied its knowledge for more traditional methods, whilst I studied ancient artifacts and rotting scrolls. I even stole an obscure jade tablet from one of the university storage vaults to try and find the key to the lost language. I was willing to do things they never were. That is why they weren’t chosen.” He frowned, trying to remember more of his time back then, at the university with his peers, but most of it was still a venomous blur, hidden behind the remaining taint of the Blight still. “They chose me,” the pride lifted his voice. “Before any of the others, it was me they wanted to take the first expedition into this new land.”
“And look at what you have brought with you, doctor,” the dead woman’s voice was shrill, icy fingers resting upon his shoulder. “You tended death more gently than any other. A seed you cultivated into its dread existence to gift the people of Praetoria with.”
The doctor spun about, but there was nobody there. A fat carrion fly buzzed lazily past him and settled upon the body of a child, crawling over the bloody furrows across its back.
“Do not mock me!” he shouted into the low canopy. The sound of his voice tumbled back at him as he started forward into the horror of the recent massacre. “I came here with good intent, to seek out bright, new wonders that might color the world with their beauty. Plants that carry medicine to cure the sick!”
“And what of the sickness you carry, Blight. Is there a cure for your pestilence aside from death itself?”
“It is gone…” His voice broke and he faltered, reaching for a twisted tree to steady himself. “The seed has been taken from me, I no longer carry it…it…is gone.”
“You sound so sad. Did you not reap enough destruction? How many more bodies did you hope to return to the earth?”
“It wasn’t me, it was the Blight. I never meant to kill anyone, but it clouded my mind, I was not myself,” the doctor replied. “It was Silus. He gave it to me. I had no idea what it was. He gave it to me, and now he has taken it back.”
The Carnage Titan sensed the anger and distress in the doctor’s voice and turned, searching for the source of his suffering, but there was nobody there.
“It is Silus who has done this.” The doctor knelt beside the body of a mother with her baby still gripped in her arms. He gently lifted the blanket and covered the infant’s head, shooing away the flies with his other hand. “And it should be him who pays for it.”
“Most convenient,” the voice startled him and he looked up to see the woman’s corpse swaying above him. “I wonder, does it matter how a life is taken? Whether you know your own mind or not? Wickedness is still wickedness.”
The doctor flopped onto the wet ground and held his head. “But what can I do? What is done, is done.”
The woman pointed an accusing finger as her broken jaw dangled before him like a puppet on strings. “You say the Blight was taken from you and yet you still massacred my tribe, not leaving one soul left alive.”
“Your warriors threatened me—”
“They were protecting their people from a stranger. They didn’t threaten you.” She bent over and pushed her face into his own. “You unleashed your golem, and it cut us down…even the children.”
The accusation in her voice stung like venom and the doctor knew all too well what that felt like. “He was only protecting me.” His reply was pathetic, but it was the truth. “He is bound to me, my guardian.”
“And what a dance he performed for you.” The woman stepped aside as the vision of the bloodbath played out once again.
The doctor pulled his knees up tight to his body and watched. The great Carnage Titan stepped between him and the warriors at the head of the tribe as they made their way through the swamp and mangroves. The first strike cut warriors in half and tumbled heads from shoulders. The women and children screamed as more warriors darted forward to protect their families. And then the Titan was among them, long, metallic arms shredding bodies and cutting flesh to bloody ribbons. The spears and knives of the warriors did not even scratch the golem’s armor, only serving to direct its next blow.
The doctor let out a whimper, the worst was yet to come. When the Titan had finished with the men, it started upon the rest. Striding into the huddled groups of women and children, it continued with its slaughter, holding nothing back and persecuting this new enemy with equal zeal. Children and babies were cast aside as their mothers and sisters tried to shield them, but the Carnage Titan was nothing if not thorough. The metal monster sought out every last glimmer of life and snuffed it out without a flicker of emotion.
“It is not his fault.” The doctor turned to look at his guardian, wiping the tears that ran from his eyes and whispering the same pitiful excuse. “He was just protecting me.”
“Then whose fault is it?” The woman demanded.
That name fell upon his lips again but this time he spat it out in disgust. “Silus. It is Silus’ fault.”
The ghost of his conscience paused before she pirotted about and began to lumber away from where he sat, the twisted and broken back making her sway from side to side. “Then do something about it.”
Doctor Blight waited until she faded away into the darkest depths of his mind and then struggled to his feet. He wiped some of the grime from his long, black leather coat and felt the comfort of decision settle his nerves. The bodies still lay all around him, leaking their life blood into the murky water. It did not matter anymore, though, he was going to make everything right again.
“Come!” he called up to his stoic champion. He slipped the long, beaked mask back over his face. “There is someone we must find. Someone who must pay for what they have done to me.”
As he picked his way through the mangroves, he heard the low groan of his golem followed by the great splashing of its armored greaves as it stomped after him. Soon he would have his revenge, and then maybe he could sleep in peace again.
Collect special Limited NFTs related to this story at https://www.splintertalk.io/nfts/
Credits:
Story: Daniel Beazley
Editor: Sean Ryan
Narrative Lead: Joey Shimerdla
Character Art (cover): Candycal
Illustrations: HPL Game Design Corporation
Graphic Design: Tamer "Defolt" Oukour
Voice Acting: David Dahdah
Ending credits song: AfterSound
Music: Isaria
Post Production: INFLUX Pictures
Creative Director: Nate Aguila
