Hunger at the Mudstop
Nukra stooped through the door from the kitchen into the main room of the Mudstop tavern. Steam billowed in his wake, catching the filtered light of the sun coming through the overhead shades.
He made his way through the noisy crowd. Pausing to dodge their arms as they called to each other or emphasised a joke. Waves of laughter and shouts buffeted him. He tried to make himself smaller to avoid both arms and eyes as he passed their tables. This was hard for someone 7 feet tall with a torso like a barrel of ale. But Nukra had practice.
In his thick hands, he cradled 6 clay bowls of zickety stew. Hot and greasy. The smell of the cooked crabs filled the room. It was his specialty, and all the merchants who plied the river would come to the Mudstop for it.
Zickety crabs were well known. Crushed and powdered, their shells were a heavy narcotic, but Nukra has mastered the cooking of them. Not too strong. Just enough to get everyone buzzing with a full belly and feeling calm and connected. It was the calmness that Nukra savoured.
It hadn't taken effect yet though, as service had only just begun. The room was still agitated in that way Nukra detested. Everyone was too loud, too sharp, too fast.
Papa was entertaining some visiting merchant and his entourage. He looked up as Nukra approached their table.
"About time," his father grunted, "Have you finally been soulhusked by all that zickety?"
Nukra's head shrunk into his shoulders, his ears burning as his father's guests all chuckled at the joke.
"Oh come now, he's only got two arms," one of them laughed, "can't confuse him for a Chimera just yet."
Nukra clenched his jaw as he placed the bowls on the table in front of the men. Nukra wiped his hands on his stained apron as he turned away.
As he retreated back to the kitchen, Nukra could hear his own father laughing even louder than the others.
Later, Nukra found himself outside, on the stone jetty that jutted out from the rough clay walls of the Mudstop over the slow waters of the Godswollen River. The heat shimmer made the desert sands beyond dance like fire.
He sat in a little bit of shade, listening to the dull creaking of riverboats as they quietly jostled against the jetty, ropes creaking. His knees were drawn up, and his head bowed.
The teasing from Papa and his friends wasn't unusual. Nukra had grown used to it. Sort of.
He knew he was not the smartest soul on the Godswollen. He had known that for as long as he could remember. Papa knew it too. He had no head for numbers. Couldn't follow a conversation. Nor hold a tune.
Papa always found a way to remind him.
He was, however, a very good cook. And he could connect with people through food. He could feel what the customers felt as they savoured what he served them. That was enough for him. Most of the time.
And thankfully it was enough for Papa too. It kept the customers coming. It meant Nukra had somewhere to sleep. Somewhere safe.
Nukra's reverie was interrupted by a distant cry.
Something, someone, was emerging from the shimmer haze just upriver. A man. He staggered and fell down the last dune face to fall on the cracked mud flat by the river bank.
Nukra stood, and jumped down off the jetty and set off at a lumbering run along the bank toward where the man had fallen, his feet slapping in the shallow mud.
Only then did Nukra see that the man had deep, ugly gashes along his torso. His blood was trailing behind him across the sands.
The man looked at Nukra, his eyes wide. Nukra could feel the fear radiating off him in waves of gut-wrenching panic. He could feel it in his gut, his throat. Acid rising and choking off his breath.
"It comes!"
"Papa! Papa!" Nukra shouted as he dragged the man into the main room of the Mudstop. Patrons yelled in confusion as he shoved them aside.
"What in the everfire are you…" his father's scolding was cut short when he saw the bloody mess.
Nukra lifted the man onto one of the tables, sending bowls of zickety stew flying onto the floor amidst a splattering of blood. The man groaned in pain.
Papa shoved Nukra aside, and he fell back, crawling into the corner of the room. The others crowded around to tend to the man. Nukra could hear him moaning and grunting.
"It comes…" the man repeated, "It comes!"
"What did this to you?" Papa asked him. But Nukra already knew. He could feel the man's panic in his twitching sinews, his tightening skin. The restless hair on his neck.
"Chimera," Nukra whispered. But no-one paid attention to him.
The doors to the inn were flung open with a force that Nukra felt through the floor. The heavy wood panels lay splintered on the ground.
In the doorway, framed by the harsh glare of the sun was a… thing. It had too many limbs. Long. Sinewy. All ending in sharp claws. Skin and flesh hung off it like tattered rope. Parts looked human. Atop its long neck was a head that was mostly mouth filled with sharp teeth, and skin stretched over a misshapen skull. Wide-set eyes like coals.
Nukra scrambled back as the creature launched itself into the room.
Papa was the first to go down. Shredded by a long talon. Nukra just sat frozen as his father collapsed in a shower of blood. Others followed. The panic and screams melded into a writhing knot within Nukra's belly and a piercing shriek in his ears.
The creature began to feed, tearing limbs from the living and the dead as others desperately tried to escape.
Nukra could feel its gluttony as it fed. It was like a void within it. Beneath the void Nukra could sense something like joy.
Nukra's revulsion finally moved within him.
It had not seen him. Too intent on satiating its hunger. No feelings beyond the feeding.
Nukra could work with that.
He launched into motion. A sudden avalanche across the room. And the chimera finally noticed him. It howled as it launched to intercept.
Nukra slid beneath its talons and let his momentum carry him through the kitchen arch. He could feel the chimera gather itself. Nukra could somehow sense what it was about to do. He rolled just as it struck, claws sending sparks across the stone floor.
He crawled to the barrel where he kept the ground Zickety. His hand reached up to grab the rim.
But the creature had him. Its claw grabbed his ankle and it began to draw him down.
Nukra kept his grip on the barrel, tipping it as the Chimera's claws gripped into his belly. The barrel spilled its content all over both of them, powder in the air and across the floor.
He looked up at the chimera as it stood above him. The hunger within it spiking to a crescendo as it brought its teeth down.
But Nukra reached out with his left fist and grabbed the creature's neck, halting the strike.
With his right hand, Nukra grabbed a handful of the powder and shoved it down the creature's open mouth. Teeth ripped at his arm, but he managed to tear it free.
Another handful. And another. Until his arm was in tatters.
But he felt the change as the zickety did its work. The creature's hunger grew confused, its joy turned into something new. Fear? Its grip released him and it started convulsing. The Chimera was feeling something other than hunger for the first time, and it was terrified.
Nukra pushed into it, reversing the flow of the emotional connection that the zickety allowed. He filled it with his shame and remorse. All those times Papa had called him useless and slow. He gave it to the chimera, and the Chimera's panicked hunger devoured it all.
Nukra slowly stood and watched as the creature writhed on the stone floor, howling, mewling. He slowly reached to pick up a cleaver from the kitchen bench.
"Now," he hefted the cleaver in his remaining good hand, "Let us end this."
"Someone told me this place has the best crab stew this side of the Dawncrags."
Nukra smiled and nodded to the young merchant. Barely beyond boyhood.
"First time down the Godswollen?"
The young man nodded.
"Is it true you beat a Chimera single handed?"
"Not quite," Nukra laughed and raised the stump where his right hand had been, "At the time I still had two."
The young man's eyes grew wide in admiration.
"Enjoy your stew."
The Mudstop was his now. No-one would go hungry and no-one would feel unwelcome or unsafe while he was in charge.
Nukra smiled as he made his way back to the kitchen.
Comments