The creature had a swirling, coiling madness of a mouth. A magic eye of concentric circles that echoed down into its gullet; pointed teeth bursting from raw gums that dripped saliva that was a putrid colour, like spoilt snake venom left to decay in the muscle fibre of an unfortunate victim. The stench from it was awful, an olfactory assault of decaying fish and long rotten meat that betrayed the favoured diet of such a menacing creature: flesh, either dead or alive.
Daris steeled herself, pushing her boots into the dusty ground, her lithe limbs tensing, lean fingers coiling around the handle of her father’s axe. She looked straight at the creature, meeting its yellow eyes with her own dark amber ones.
The girl with the burning eyes.
It had been her nickname amongst the village children since forever. Amber eyes that danced in red hues when the sun or the moonlight caught them just right. She had been feared, revered and mocked for them in unequal measure for her entire life up until this point.
But the creature that towered over her, having at least two feet in height over the already tall barbarian girl, seemed completely indifferent to whatever colour Daris’ eyes may be. It lusted after her blood, could sense it running their her veins, its large, bat-like ears almost hearing its circulation like the running rapids of a raging river, just like the river Tye that bordered Daris’ village, the same river she had crossed to come this far to stand on the dusty shores of this great lake, from which this abomination had stepped forth.
The barbarian girl grimaced and then turned her mouth into a snarl. Her blood was up. The journey here had been arduous, her body utterly spent from the exertion, her stomach rumbling with painful hunger. But these complaints only served to fuel the rage that was building, boiling inside the girl. The weight of the axe in her hand felt good, just. But it was whispering to her, tempting her to let it swing, to help it cleave and bathe in the blood of an enemy. She listened carefully to its manipulation, pinky finger absently stroking the rough bound leather handle as she did so.
The creature opened its abyss of a mouth even wider, as if it intended to swallow the girl whole. A rotten wave of bad breath washed over Daris like one of the smoke bombs the Hertian soldiers were said to use to help confuse their enemies in battle. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and spat the taste out from her mouth.
“You stink, cunt,” she vented, her eyes narrowing, focusing in on the creature.
In return, the monster from the lake let out a cry that was shrill and spoke of pain, frustration and longing. The stand off was to come to an end. The creature was eager to feast on its prey.
As it moved one of its muscular, veined legs forward, looking as thick and finely hewn as one of the barbarian warriors of old, Daris, body sinewy, strong, and devastatingly quick, sidestepped to the left and then leapt forward in a movement that was so nimble that it served to temporarily confuse the creature as to where its prey had disappeared to.
Just as the monster’s head pivoted to find Daris once more, it found itself just in time to watch as the barbarian girl’s axe shimmered through the air and buried itself deep into the creature’s thigh. The thing howled with a heady mix of rage and pain and swept a long-clawed hand towards Daris, who ducked it easily, and wrenched her axe from out of the nearly severed leg, having to rest her foot against the creature’s lower leg to gain enough leverage in order to do so.
A jet of almost black blood arced suggestively from the wound in a merry fountain, staining the sandy ground with its filth. Daris, focused only on the task in front of her, swung the axe again, landing directly on target and now finishing the job she had started, the creature’s leg now amputated at the thigh, sending it crashing to the ground in a plume of dust, another hideous screech calling out from it.
Daris stood, over her fallen foe, barely having broken a sweat, axe still held next to her face, the creature looking up at her with its narrowing yellow eyes, watching its own blood drip in a constant flow from the edge of the axe.
The monster bared its sharpened fangs again, although in an act of defiance now rather than in threat.
“Those will make a pretty necklace,” Daris smiled. She kicked dust up into the creature’s open mouth, causing it to cough and splutter. While it was distracted, Daris raised the axe up above her head so that it caught in the late afternoon sun, rays glinted off the shining metal, turning the splattered blackened blood to a rich red.
With practised ease, the girl brought the axe down straight into the centre of the creature’s head, splitting its skull and penetrating straight into its lump of a brain.
This time there was no screeching, just a gurgle as its mouth filled with blood and it choked momentarily before the brain switched off and the creature went limp, dead for sure.
Daris pulled her axe free with a grunt, planting her foot into the wasted creature’s right eye socket to do so, her toes squishing and bursting the eyeball and she pushed down, straining to free her coveted weapon.
Exhaustion seemed to seep into the girl’s very bones, her limbs growing heavy, eager to be left alone to rest and recover. But the grumbling of the girl’s stomach was much stronger willed. So, instead of collapsing to the floor, Daris raised her axe once again and back to hack at the body of the fallen creature, taking its limbs before cutting chunks from its ample, fatten torso. This time, Daris was sweating, the toll of the work heavy. But, despite this, before long the job was done and the creature had now been carved into manageable chunks.
Too exhausted to hunt for dried wood to start a fire, Daris simply picked up one of the hacked chunks of flesh, carried it over to the water’s edge and dunked it enough to wash the worst of the gore from off it. The girl then sat cross-legged next to the lake and began to tear into the flesh, blackened blood dribbling down either side of her mouth as she satiated her hunger with the flesh of a fallen foe in battle.
As it should be.
***
And so, here is our introduction to Daris, daughter of the head of the Talon clan. But this version of Daris was not how it always was for the girl. She was not born as a slayer of monsters. So, to find Daris here, feasting on the flesh of a river creature known as a Marg, we must first journey back to the start of Daris’ tale. Back to her village. Back to when her life began along its path to darkness.
Read more about the adventures of Daris The Barabrian in the next chapter.