This is a follow up to my first narrative "In the Shadow of Giants" which can be found here or here, depending on the blogging platform you prefer! It follows the beginning of Wanda's journey – the initial cutscenes through to the defeat of the first Colossus, Valus. I encourage you to read it first!
III: Quadratus
Dormin’s guidance rings in my ears.
“Thy next foe is in the seaside cave. It moves slowly. Raise thy courage to defeat it.”
Every one of Agro’s steps feels lighter than the last. It’s the hope and anticipation mixing within the chambers behind my ribcage, like the blood from my lips mixes with sweat. I urge the beast onward though my calves, resting on its flanks, can feel its heart pumping faster. I close my eyes and press my face upon Agro’s mane, kiss it softly. I open my eyes and look north, in the direction of the light.
It directs me across a lush green bridge of the earth. Its supports rise shamelessly from the soil, rock and mud and stone. If I had any time to think then, I am sure I would have regret crossing that bridge. Men do not deserve to tread on such marvellous constructs of the natural world, we have no right to trample the grass that grows there, the life that thrives there. Yet, my mind is elsewhere and I trample without regard.
The bridge forks at its far end. I shine the light again and it directs me down, toward the sea, away from the green. Agro, buoyed by gravity, gallops at speed across the rocks. I remember Agro hasn’t seen a colossi yet. He hasn’t had the chance to size them up, to smell them, to examine them with his finely tuned equine senses. I pat his flank as we reach the bottom of the winding cliff face, his heart still pumping against my calves. That heartbeat, my constant. I try to blunt the inevitable sense of wonder and fear that will clog his pores shortly.
We slowly trot across the fine sand, underneath the great bridge that brought us to this world. I can smell the salt from the sea fill the air. Agro sneezes and I laugh. A moment outside this moment. We trot against the shore and I imagine the old world, my world, and the sand that fill the beaches in it. I pull up on Agro’s reins and disembark, my feet landing at the water’s edge. More reflections of a face I don’t recognize. Agro neighs playfully, as if to tell me he still knows who I am.
I climb back on to Agro’s back and as I do so I notice the shadows that dance within a small alcove deep within the cliff face. As we approach, the second colossus bursts through the rock wall like the reptiles of the land burst through their egg shells. Rocks crumble around it, obscuring my view at first, allowing me to severely underestimate its size.
It is a four-legged beast, like a bull or bison. Its hooves beat the earth in rhythm, making Agro’s most forceful gallop seem gentle. Its skull is flanked by two horns, although one is greatly damaged, and sit like a stump on the right side of its head. I imagine that perhaps it was not a horn at all, but a great tree that had been felled. Its other horn lies on the left side of its skull, and it curves around and faces forming the fingers the creature lacks, and pointing toward its prey. Smoothed by the winds and the rocks, the horn acts as a warning to those who dare challenge the beast.
I dare to challenge the beast.
I circle it several times on horseback, my bow drawn, firing arrows into its hide. The beast is covered in fur, darker than the previous colossi’s but its spine is just as prominent. From the ground I notice several spots where I can potentially grip onto the beast, yet they are far too high for me to reach from here. Somehow, I think, I have to get the beast to topple over.
It doesn’t take long circling the beast to notice the fleshy yellow pads that lie underneath its hooves. With every prolonged step the creature reveals these yellow pads and with it, a weakness. I imagine I can truly hurt the colossi if I lodge an arrow within the underside of its hooves. Upon its next step, I fire an arrow into the rear left hoof and the beast crashes forward, rocking the beach and throwing sand into the air brazenly, like a turtle does as it struggles to reach the sea with all four of its inconvenient limbs.
From here the fight is won. My new found courage, the courage I drank as Valus crumbled, means I am smarter this time around. I know that the beast will harbour fluorescent blue sigils and all I need to do is find them. I crawl up the beasts leg and grip onto its fur tightly. It regains its footing, lurching upward and forward all at once.
It is here I feel some sense of sorrow for the creature. As soon as I have understood how it moves, how it attacks… As soon as I sense a weakness, the creature is dead. Yet, in the moment between the plunging of the blade into its sigils (the light seems to focus on two sections of this colossus, the skull and its rear) it protests fate. That is the mark of something truly alive, something trying to survive. Something resisting death, just like I am. Something rioting against the cold hands that come to remove it from this place. The creature is just like I in that moment, the creature is holding on.
The small increase in energy that I seemed to have gained from fighting the first of these beasts makes it much easier to balance as I move between the creature’s weak points. The battle is over quickly and the beast crashes into the sand, dissolving into the daylight. I run for the water as the darkness comes for me, but I cannot avoid it.
I again wake in the chamber where she lies.
IV: Gaius
Dormin speaks the riddle for the next colossi, the third.
“Thy next foe is… A giant canopy soars to the heavens… The anger of the sleeping giant shatters the earth…”
I look at her, lifeless upon the stone altar. Another dove rests at her feet.
Agro returns the chamber unharmed, unnerved. He calms as he slowly canters towards me. I grab the reins and jump upon his back.
The light directs me north, against the direction of the wind.
I take a similar path to the previous colossi, across the natural bridge and over the seaside cave. As I pass the fork in the road I notice a small stone temple slightly to the west, and I head towards it, even though the light directs me in a more northerly direction. The colossus can wait.
As we get closer to the small stone monument that lies alone in the middle of the plains, a lizard catches my eye. I withdraw my bow but realise that Agro, at full gallop, will not allow me to get a clean shot. I pull on the horse’s reins to slow him, and circle the temple slowly. Another lizard catches my eye, high upon the temple, this one a little more exotic. It has a pure white tail that glimmers like a diamond under the sun. Perhaps it is made of diamond. I fire an arrow at it, but it goes wayward, getting caught partially in the wind, and partially in inertia.
I stop Agro and climb off, noticing the lizard has scampered away, higher up the temple. It is just within reach of my bow, so I pull back and fire straight at it. A direct hit. The lizard curls over and crashes to the earth, like I had during my first fight. I imagine the reptile is experiencing the same sensation as I now, although it is probably more akin to the experience she is having, upon her altar. The tail remains, still glistening.
I pick it up, blowing the soil off of it and watch as the two elements meet in front of me. The tail glows in my hand, and wriggles slightly. Nerves still firing. Escaping. It is like a glow-worm, yet the cave it usually finds itself within has been illuminated and collapsed. My stomach grumbles as I look at it and feel it alive in my hand.
I devour it.
It tastes like dirt.
I have to chew harshly to tear it into sizeable chunks that will fit through the dry passageways of my throat. I feel it scraping the muscles of my neck as it is forced through the tube. The painful peristalsis causes me to cough and I beat my sternum with the butt of my enclosed fist. By the time it reaches my stomach though, I feel a little better. It tastes horrible, like it was not meant to be eaten raw, yet it stimulates some latent energy that I didn’t even know I had. I dart back to Agro, jump on and make my way past the stone temple, through a gap between the cliffs.
It is here I become a little lost. The light from the Ancient Sword does not shine as brightly and I am stuck in a winding mess of rock faces that I haven’t seen. Their shadows are grim. I continue to push forward, through various pathways, the light only briefly giving me glimpses into the required direction. The labyrinth’s menacing walls constantly gazing upon Agro as he gallops across their feet.
We reach a parting in the rock where their faces do not grimace so darkly. Galloping down the hallway, I feel like we’re back on track. Indeed, as we come to the edge of a deep blue lake, I gaze at a large stone structure that fills its mouth. A ramp leads to the top, so I leave Agro yet again and dive into the water.
It isn’t cold because I know the cold. This has past that point, to where I cannot experience the temperatures that the receptors in my skin sense. It has passed the point of cold that my body knows. My fingers seize up before my arms follow suit. It makes swimming across the lake to the ramp slow, as if the lake is made of mud and sand. I trudge forward.
The ramp brings no heat, but it brings relief. I wheeze. The lake’s icy breath encroaching on the lungs. I do not rest, instead, I run, trying to ensure the blood continues to flow, that the oxygen continues to oxygenate. As I traverse the large stone ramp, itself a colossal construct, a heap of stone and fur becomes apparent upon a central stone arena. That must be the next colossus.
The ramp does not provide a direct path to the arena, so instead I have to make a jump from the top of the ramp across. I hang on the edge of the ramp at its highest point, swinging my body back and forth until I finally summon the strength and leap necessary to reach the other side. For a brief moment, I am falling.
My hands catch the stone border of the circular arena and I climb up.
The colossus, asleep.
I approach it at speed, hoping to catch it off guard. Even as it lies there, it casts a shadow that engulfs the arena like the night. The centre of the arena is punctuated by a stone platform, slightly raised above the dark soil. The colossus protects it, unwillingly, with stone and dark. I sprint forward.
The colossus, awake.
It clambers upward, and eventually comes to rest on its two feet, with a slight hunch forward. This colossus is far larger than the previous two. Perhaps it will present a real challenge after the relative ease that I dispatched the previous two. The cold I thought I had warded off starts to creep back into my lungs. I don’t know if it is from wonder or fear or both.
Its right arm forms a titanic stone sword at its distal end, where the wrist joins the hand. The sword is magnitudes larger than I. I note then to stay as far away from the colossus as possible, for a direct hit would most certainly end me. The previous two colossi were animalistic, stone creations of the bear and the bull. This one is humanoid, a Frankenstein’s monster of boulder, stone and fur that stumbles like a three am drunk toward me.
I dart around the edges of the stone arena, examining the beast from a distance, looking for weakness. I feel like a poacher, encroaching on the beast’s natural habitat, stalking it, sizing it up. I have at least given it the option to flee, but it stands and fights.
There are no visible signs of weakness from afar.
I withdraw the bow, as I always do and fire a shot. I should know by now how futile this is, but I attempt to harm it anyway. At least I hit the creature in the stomach with my first shot. It roars, more from irritation than pain.
The colossus has been allowed to approach as I steadied my bow. It raises its sword high, ready to bring it down upon me, a stone bolt of lightning from the murky sky. I run as far back as I can, metres from the edge of the arena and a formidable, probably fatal, fall back into the lake. The sword cracks the sky.
The impact throws me off my feet, kicking up a mound of muddy soil that shoots into the air like a geyser. I wipe it from my eyes quickly, fearing that the colossus is close enough to finish me with another swing of the stone sword but my fears are allayed quickly.
I grin, thinking that I have found its weakness as I stare at it trapped. The grin feels like a stranger.
Its blade is lodged metres deep within the muddy soil of the arena. It gives me an opportunity to climb upon it and I sprint toward the weapon, running up its blade, ascending the beast. It squirms to free itself and as I reach its arm, dense with fur, and grab on, it begins to rise. Another grin allows my cheek muscles to reacquaint themselves with the unusual formation. I feel like the battle’s end draws near. After all, half the battle is mounting the creature, the other half is holding on.
This time however, I am wrong.
Although the creature’s arm is covered in dense hair, it is protected by a stone brace that does not allow me to climb higher. I search for a way around it, but there is none. I look towards the colossus’ stomach, where a sigil lies. The distance is too far. Even the most calculated jump will fall short. I continue to hold on to the beast’s arm-fur as it lumbers around the arena, but my energy reserves are depleted. The white tail lizard only does so much. My hands, cut, bleeding, dirty, worn – they only hold on so long.
I tumble a great distance back to the earth as the beast artfully removes me from its arm with a calculated shake.
I land within an inch of the beast’s foot and it raises, ready to trample me. At best it will kill me immediately, at worst it will toy with me, breaking individual bones, watching me squirm and crawl and cry and shiver. I don’t know. I try not to think about it. I try to dispel the thoughts that even with a vessel that is essentially human, it lacks the callousness of the human mind and simply wants to end the threat I pose to its existence. I need to dispel those thoughts. I need to climb it and kill it.
I get to my feet and dodge to the side of its foot before it can plant it. I begin to reassess.
The only way to reach its head is to climb its arm, but with the brace that protects its elbow I have no way of doing so. I have to destroy the brace. But how?
Dormin provides no assistance, though his voice booms, ringing in my ears “The armour it wears seems brittle…”
If I can remove the brace, I can climb the arm.
As I dart across the arena and it continues to throw its sword down from high upon me, I realise that it is a simple being. Its only offense is the stone sword and its gigantic swing. Somehow, during this swing, I have to get it to break its own elbow brace.
The central platform of the arena.
I manoeuvre, luring the beast across the soil to the border, then darting between its legs and sprinting towards the opposite border. I run the radius of the arena and stand upon the central platform, the characteristic sound of my shoes on stone. The colossus readies its attack again. I run the other radius to escape the swing, and the stone sword crashes down onto the platform.
It works.
The elbow brace breaks into a thousand pieces, one for every ounce of hope the beast has lost. It reveals the luscious, greying fur beneath. My handholds, my hallway. I again trick the beast into a swing of its sword, watch it lodge itself within the ground and traverse the length of the blade quickly. As I reach the fur the beast surges upwards, throwing me around in a circle, yet the violence of the movements is of little concern.
I ascend the arm, coming to rest on the creature’s shoulder. I am sure to regain my energy here, crouched low. It gives me the stamina necessary to climb upon the skull and plunge the Ancient Sword into the beast. I assume it has no brain, for this would be a lethal blow, and my previous unease at dispatching these creatures subsides. I experience no trouble holding on, but the fight is not over. The stomach holds a second sigil, necessary for destroying the beast.
I slide down the colossus’ neck holding onto the fur, which is lush but moist with dew. The fall from here to the colossus’ stomach is a long one and one that I ensure I make. I land on the stone belt of the creature, above its pelvis and run around to the front, where the sigil glows a cool blue. The beast shakes, trying to dislodge me, like they always do, so I make sure one hand remains firmly entrenched within its fur. Although I believe the creature may not have a brain, I can hear its stomach turn, the splashing of its contents against the fleshy walls, the gas bubble bursting within it.
Perhaps these creatures are alive. Perhaps they eat, and sleep, and communicate like I do. Like we do. Like she did.
Like she did.
That thought carves a hole in the creature’s stomach, and it wails. It senses the end and its fight is extinguished. It is like a wildebeest under the weight of a hunting lioness. Her efforts are considered, premeditated. She lurks within the yellowy-orange of the savannah and waits. Then she hits her prey like a javelin, her claws piercing the tough exterior. Amazingly, the hunted often recovers from the initial blows, but the lioness holds on. She holds on like I hold on, until the beast falls, exhausted. She holds on like I hold on until the beast falls, frustrated.
Like the wildebeest, the colossus crumbles.
This time I do not run, I wait for the darkness to envelop me. I am not afraid. I will wake by her side.
Three doves lay at the foot of the altar where I awake.
Slaughter is progress.