Chapter XXIX:
The Unghost and the Weever
“Ramalamadamdam-Ramalamadong,Ramalamdamdam Ramalamadong!”
From the presidential stage The Ramadam Subohemian Band, fronted by a female singer with white hair down to her toes, droned on with a song that blared incessantly in the stadium.
Only the voice of the Unghost was louder.
At his throne, Azza spoke, more circling sentinel obelisks descending onto the field:
"Graduates prepare your deepest fantasies for the ghost!"
The bleeding red sky was shut off from the stadium, its spiked walls collapsing together to form an egg shaped roof.
Azza spoke and his servants listened:
“Adatmen! Groomslayer! Bloodfirth! Out into the arena!”
Winged ettins gripped the three men, lifting them up over the dazzled crowds, before dropping them onto the arena in the midst of the gray skinned Geissmeister; struggling to stand up, two gaping holes in his torso impeding his balance.
The Groomslayer drew a pistol from a leathery holster, pointing it at the Geissmeister.
“You disappoint me, son.”
He shot the gray skinned man with an explosive round, rendering him a gray jelly.
“Grooms,” said Adatmen, formerly the handsome lad Erich von Herrenhausen Jr, “That one in the metal suit is moving...” Sir Pork’s voice boomed: "How exciting! The Geissmeister Mark 34 is turned into goo! Shot by his own creator, the Groomslayer!
Now, the ape hunt continues, led by the Prince of the Wildermark and his young pupil, Adatmen, Erich von Herrenhausen II!
And the handsome devil Arnulf the Count of Bloodfirth! Looks like it’s all over for Kurt Carolusson...what do you think Carolus?
How will your son manage to get out of this pickle?”
Carolus Eisenforst grumbled into his vox-amplifier: “He deserves the worst if he can’t defend himself! He is not making his Pa-pa proud...” “Thanks,Carolus, and, whoa! DO you see that,folks?? What sort of move was that??”
The crowds screamed in displeasure.
“That’s cheatin’,” said Carolus. “He can’t win without playin’ dirty.”
Sir Pork chuckled. "No, apparently not! Non-competitors have entered the arena and are attacking these noble ettin thanes!
Not something we approve of in Subohemia for the record,folks.”
Standing between the fallen bodies of Kurt and Embla, the battalion of Uthurs plunged their weapons into the ettins.
Grimnar screamed a battle cry that pierced the chants of "KILL" his axe striking the Groomslayer’s shoulder.
Uthurs pushed back the other young ettins with his sword, the other men stepping forward as they drove the ettins back into the arena’s boundary fence.
“These intruders are driving our men into the wall, it seems!” said Sir Pork, "Will they be victorious? Of course, our hometown competitors are not apes, so that excludes any possibility of victory according to the rules. Remember: an ape must be butchered and eaten here in the arena for a winner to be crowned, and, OH! Carolus, what was THAT??”
Carolus shrugged. “Just some Subohemian tomfoolery. We at Carolusopolis would have gotten the job done already.”
“But, Carolus, you must admit, we’ve never seen anything like this...the gray jelly-ooze that the Geissmeister had become, has now expanded, and swallowed up its creator! The Groomslayer has completely disappeared in that ooze!”
“Ramalamadamdam-Ramalamadong,Ramalamdamdam Ramalamadong!”
Grimnar pulled back his axe. The gray matter swallowing up the Groomslayer shivered like a wet tarp, then standing tall and at attention, a third face appeared on the face of the Groomslayer.
“Three faces!” shouted Sir Pork, "Two heads are better than one, but three is-” “-a crowd,” said Carolus finishing his phrase,“I think we’ve witnessed the latest in this Geissler foo’s cheap experiments reliably backfiring. The creator has become its creation!”
“Or vice-versa,” said Sir Pork, “and-oh-good god me, he’s going straight for our Duchess!
She’s out cold on the ground!
These armored men are seemingly no match for our hometown hero: the Geissmeister!”
“The Groomslayer,” said Carolus puffing on a cigar.
“Both! The Three-faced Groomslayer is ready to win this ape-hunt!” said a too giddy Sir Pork.
The Groomslayer held Embla up by the neck and opened his mouth.
“That’s it! It’s all over!!” shouted Sir Pork in his amplifier.
An axe to his neck sent the three faced man flying.
“You put her down,Yottin!” Grimnar commanded, his axe stained with the creature’s black blood.
The gray skinned creature then wriggled and writhed, till its body was like jelly again and Embla was covered in that muck from the head down.
“She’s gettin’ slimed!” Carolus shouted from the announcer table.
“You have a way with words, Carolus...yes, unfortunately our lovely Duchess who remained an ape all her life will be just another dinner item on the Nu-Groomslayer's menu...oh! It can’t be! Carolus, do you see THAT???”
Carolus took a cigar puff, his tone souring: “Yes. Looks like the little bastard still has some fight in him.”
Gripping Deathbrand, flames shot from its candelabra, the wolf’s had saber, the ettinslayer burned the Groomslayer into ash.
Under the ashes, Embla lay unmoving, pale as a corpse.
“Take her,” Kurt said to Grimnar.
He spun Deathbrand around to the attacking forces of Adatmen and Arnulf, sending them windmilling over the arena fence.
There was silence in the stadium.
Azza stood up from his throne, stepping from the towering dais.
All eyes fell upon him as he descended, walking on the air as if it were a staircase, graceful and proud, the errandghost of yore entered the arena.
+++++
Grimnar cradled Embla, as Azza picked a handful of the Groomslayer’s ashes from the sand, and forming a little manikin out of the dust, a figure in black, three faced, the slayer once more appeared before the spectators.
“From dust to flesh, so I make it so,” said Azza to the crowd, applauding him.
He turned to Kurt then, still holding Deathbrand, the flames at the ready.
“Before you strike my creation again, remember your pact with the Errandghost of Doom, Todteld:
You owe him your life for the opportunity to save your loved ones.
Now, that opportunity has been granted. He is here among us, ready to take you to the grave.”
Todteld appeared, his black wings wrapping the entirety of the arena.
“But we also made a deal, he and I...don’t throw your life away, Kurt, I can save you. I can bring you back from the dust, reform you to perfection. You, your friends, all will live for aeons in the Kingdom of your Heart’s Desire.”
Kurt stayed mum.
Grimnar cried out: “Is this true? You promised your life to save ours? Fool! We are far older than you,boy! We are the ones who pledged our lives to save you!!!”
Four obelisks suddenly landed on the sand, their eyes scoping the men among them.
“My gift booths. Gifts of life, Kurt Eisenforst! Enter and receive your own. But remain here and you will die...” Kurt looked into the eye of one of the booths. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an egg shaped object bleeding from a slit.
Placing it into his blind socket, it fixed itself to his face.
“I can see now,” he said. “I accept the terms of my oath, Todteld. Before Rammbock and the Spellgesith, let me die in peace, if it is my time.” Azza cursed.
Wielding a gigantic sword, Todteld struck Kurt in the heart.
“Kurt!!!” Verity cried from the top of the stadium.
The others in the arena bowed their heads mournfully.
Azza shrugged. “Well, a waste. But the show must go on...Open the gates!”
Around the arena,the tall black fences fell toppled over.
Those on the lawn, engaged in their exhibitionism, became alert as if awakened by a tolling bell.
“The ape hunt must continue! Whoever survives shall become the new Prince of the Wildermark! As of now, any soul who is not the Groomslayer, is designated as an ape!!!”
“Ramalamadamdam-Ramalamadong,Ramalamdamdam Ramalamadong!”
The crowd murmured in confusion for a moment, before heads began to fly.
Limbs and torsos were strewn about the sand.
Glowing,flying, sprinting and hiding, ettins and their devotees thrashed in the mad opera of gore that was the ape hunt.
The pageantry was part of the graduation, it seemed to those spectators.
To be included in the ceremony was a bonus.
Multiple duels spilled out onto the arena.
Thinning the mobs, Obelisks zapped lightning from their eyes, pulverizing the men into pulver sand.
The hundred of thousands turned to mere hundreds still living and breathing in that world, all others escorted to the Eldermark by busy errandghost wings.
The giant telescreen could not keep up with the pace of carnage, and Sir Pork himself had given up on his announcing duties, Carolus Eisenforst chasing him around his desk with a butcher’s blade.
“This one, I used on Herrenhausens! Herrenhausens! You think you have a chance against me?” Carolus growled.
Sir Pork leapt from a great height before falling into the arena, narrowly evading an obelisk’s lightning bolt. It was blocked; Uthurs took the obelisk’s bolt directly to his face.
He died instantly.
More bolts rained upon his men, leaving only three left.
Adamten and Arnulf were yet again engaged in combat, while Carolus had slunk away unnoticed.
Verity and Martin were alone at the top of the stands. Among those surviving were 50 graduates from Subohemia College, and 50 students from Temek High School cornered between two obelisks that promptly evaporated them both.
“Ramalama-ramalam-the lam-the ram-dam! dam! dam!”
The Ramadam singer held a pyrophone, burning a mob of attackers as she continued to belt out her horse-neighing vocals.
Grimnar, Embla still carried in his right arm, fought off scores of ettins with his left-handed axe.
The crowd, still in the hundreds, spilled out into the field and had begun crushing one another.
Grimnar in his momentous strength was able to drive off a hundred men, but soon felt the squeeze between ettin shapes.
Closer and closer he was fed into a lightning blasting Booth: one eyed, furious, merciless and spreading its steely wings of black pulver.
He raised his axe, ready to throw it into the head, aiming, pulling it back with a catapult’s force.
“Grim-narr Gryn-Karl! Listen! Look!”
The obelisk was speaking to him. “Look into my great eye, see what shall come next...”
“Ramalama,damalama!”
Within the reflection of the obelisk’s one eye, he saw a glimmer behind in the lightning strikes.
It was a bleeding egg shaped eye, the most refulgent of quickore.
“He and Todteld are inside my booth...come, hurry.”
Grimnar felt the press of the crowd, the lightning strikes from the other booths.
Many sought refuge inside them for an apegift on the opposite side of the stadium; on the left side more and more bodies crumbled to ash.
Grimnar drove forward with his one free hand, Embla tight to his shoulder, the mob biting and snarling and ripping at his flesh.
The Eye fell upon him.
Lightning struck the dismembering horde.
The arena was more a heap of cremated remains than sand, the lightning continuing to flash, Azza hovering above them all, pleased.
“I accept this worthy sacrifice,” he said to the survivors.
“You have proven yourselves true gods among gods. But you ten who remain still have not slain the last apes...hurry!”
The music stopped.
"Quick!" thundered the beast.
The huntsmen set off into the arena illuminated by the hovering obelisks and the glowing thousandfold legions of Azza , pointing the way to the women and children that hid in the crevices of the stadium.
An ibis headed gorilla wielding a scimitar rode atop an elephantine creature, stomping among the dead in the arena. With his saber he chopped down an obelisk that had shot a lightning bolt at his back.
The batallion of Uthurs had disappeared.
Few faces were left in the crowd that could be considered human.
“Encore!” Azza commanded.
The stage band immediately fired up their drum machine and pyrophones into another rendition of “Ramalamadamdamdong,” playing for the ten huntsmen scouring the bleachers for a kill.
Adatmen and Bloodfirth were still busy bluedgeoning one another before the Groomslayer spat gray slime upon them drenching them in the mess.
He opened his mouth, ready to swallow them both,when Azza ordered him to halt: “Up, Groomslayer, up! Do you not see?”
An oblelisk spiraled up to the ceiling, its glowing eye casting a spotlight on those below.
“The ape girl---Verity. And her father. Let one of them slay her.”
Beneath rubble beside the Groomslayer, Martin von Herrenhausen emerged.
He fell first to the blow of the Groomslayer’s hand.
“Another ape for me,” spoke the Slayer.
Verity dropped to the ground, at her father's body.
"I...love you, Dad."
He had saved her; distracted the Unghost's men long enough for her to meet the obelisk’s spotlight falling on her.
In her hand, she held a glowing orb, bleeding, pumping blood.
She vanished with a lightning flash from the Obelisk’s eye.
“Damn apegift booth got her,” said the Groomslayer glumly.
Adatmen and Arnulf said nothing, shivering from the slime encasing them moments before.
“Anyway...I win, right? Still the Prince of the Wildermark! Still the Groomslayer!"
“Yes, Groomslayer, you’ve served your master well,” said a boy in gleaming armour stepping forward.
“What...another ape?” said the three-faced creature.
Etzel Galvan had appeared, looking to Adatmen and Arnulf.
“You still want to let him swallow you up?”
The tall, long limbed creatures stared at him in annoyance.
“We said ‘no’ to your offer already, Bastard,” said Adatmen in a huff,“we’ve slain countless humans-apes-tonight, look at the scoreboard.”
The big screen flashed the names of the top competitors, Adatmen and Arnulf in second and third respectively following the Groomslayer.
“I understand that,” said Etzel. “But this is your last chance. The world will not die in a day. It will wither and atrophy along with its rulers mortal and otherwise. You will either live long lives in this dying place or abandon those pulver costumes you’ve dressed yourselves in.”
“The answer is still ‘no’, now run off to your lover, the Bock King or whatever,” said Adatmen.
Another figure stepped forward, black moustached, wearing black sunglasses, and bearing a long black knife.
“Son, you have given me much to think about...” Carolus dropped the knife to the ground.
“You two, do your worst...do your worst, I deserve it...what I did to you even if you were ettin thanes...I’ve done worse to my own children and here...here is one, asking for help. Asking us for help! He’s delusional, crazy. Me?...I’m trash. Filth...I know what I am.
Take the knife and have your revenge...”
Etzel picked up the knife and passed it to Adatmen.
“Your move, Erich,” said Etzel.
Erich winced in Carolus’ direction. Lifting the blade, he pointed it to his own heart.
Behind him a woman in purple garments floated, holding an orb and scepter, wearing a heavy crown of quickore.
“Who...who is that woman?...” The others looked about to see no one but Azza sitting upon his throne displayed on the Big Screen.
“There’s no woman...” said Carolus.
“No...there is...” said Arnulf.
“I see her too...” said Adatmen.
Etzel knelt in her presence.
“There...there she is...” said Carolus, "In her red wedding dress...Rosa.”
“I see another woman...a ghost,” said Adatmen, "I...killed her.”
“I see many women...children, many lives, families I’ve ruined,” said Arnulf.
An obelisk landed before them, though the men took no notice of its immense presence or its watching quickore eye.
“I see her now too, the most beautiful woman...” Carolus then fell to his knees.
Adatmen knelt after him and finally Arnulf.
The three all lay postrate, their chests exposed, hearts visible as if through a glass dome, burning in purple flames.
Tears streaming from the purple woman’s dark eyes, she spoke softly to their ears alone: “I weep for my children slain by your hand; as I weep for you,my sons.”
The men gazed upon her face and the women and children in her presence a moment longer, before a shot rang out.
The Groomslayer lowered his pistol, his three faces wroth, the Geissmeister, Eugenius and Erich von Herrenhausen Sr. speaking in unison: “Thou shalt bow only to thyself!”
Carolus collapsed, only a pair of legs remaining from the Slayer's shot.
The Groomslayer raised the pistol towards Adatmen.
“Azza wants you alive, so stand up and march onto my airship. We’re leaving this shithole. Both of you.”
A winged hairy creature with a human’s face glided upon the obelisk’s top.
“Orbaulker, are there any more apes running about?”
Orbaulker shook his head. “No, my Prince. They have all been caught.”
President Claymore ambled up the stadium steps on his elephant holding a bouquet of heads in his grip.
“That puts me at second place if the Count and Erich are disqualified!” he said with a chipper smile.
The Groomslayer pointed his pistol at Etzel. “And you? You an errandghost? Leave this realm; it is not for your kind.”
Etzel shook his head. “I am no errandghost, but a boy who died once at your command.
I have come once more to offer a final invitation into the halls of King Rammbock.”
The Groomslayer groaned. “I am the Groomslayer, the Geissmeister, Master Doctor Eugenius Geissler and Erich Von Herrenhausen, and all the men he had slain, and all the men they had slain, a 1000 and more men am I in one body. I am a tomb of gods and the true-superlative god of gods for centuries to come. All will worship me, fear me, even your King. He will sing my praises in my hall! I will make him into my latrine and chamber pot, and grant him no reprieve.”
The obelisk eye released a lightning strike upon the head of the Groomslayer.
He was stunned, his body twitching on the floor.
“Now. Who shall be next?” the Obelisk asked.
“No one! You are an obelisk, obedient to the Unghost!” shouted Orbaulker.
“Wrong! I was forced into this position long ago. I wished to be a man, but instead I became something less fortunate...now I need time to reassemble myself. Those who have passed down my parts are given an opportunity to bring me back...back as I once was.
Those who held my parts were slain or beaten or went mad for millenia.
But those men who promised their errandghosts that they’d lay their life down for their kinsfolk, for their friends, family and even enemies all came forward, all were brought to see my disfigurement, praying that my being whole once more could vanquish the Unghost which has plagued this world since before man was man.
Now, they are here, within this apegift booth, or do you not see my eye? Do you not see the scales on my hide, or the claws at my feet?
My tail thundering fire upon the stadium, my teeth; great fangs to the damned?
Another eye I have been given, and finally a heart, the heart of our King, the or-man who once conquered the ettinland: The heart of Rammbock!!!- brought forth by a ram...you see, all heirs to my body, to me-, they have fought valiantly and selflessly across time and across realms and marks to finally bring me back to form! Look now! I am made whole! The Pulver within me has been extinguished! And now I only await my rider!”
The Weever had the form of a man with two legs, his arms webbed and clawed like bat wings.
His body was covered in fish like scales all producing a bright silvery sheen.
His face was like a crocodile’s with long fleshy whiskers drooping from his chin and mouth.
His eyes were bleeding, as were his teeth and his tail’s end, the bloodied axe of Grimnar.
He towered over the others below him, a single claw of his taller than even Adatmen.
“Where is my rider??!” he called.
Etzel stepped forward.
“There, there he is...but there ought to be another...a second rider...”
Opening his great mouth, an armored figure stepped forth, holding high his flaming wand Deathbrand.
Kurt Eisenforst, dead moments before by Todteld’s sword reemerged, alive and shining the same radiant glow as his brother.
He cut down first Orbaulker, then the Groomslayer charging with a lightning quick fist.
Both were consumed by Deathbrand’s flames.
President Claymore fled still riding his elephant, shouting for his obelisk ship.
Kurt turned to the Weever. Standing between him and it was Azza Unghost.
Azza reached for Kurt’s ear and pulled.
“You can’t escape me, child. No matter what magic you use, I am the nu-god, the return of death made flesh.”
His hand snapped back, burnt and smoking.
“What?...” The ear he had gripped was of quickore.
“Your ear...I see...you really believe that Bock's ore will save you?? You don’t think I can predict what your future will be?? That I have not seen your shadows dancing on the walls, worshipping in my temple?"
“It’s your call, my riders,” the Weever said, his jaws casually snapping a winged ettin in two.
Etzel and Kurt leapt onto the saddled back of the Weever.
The Unghost charged at its belly, wielding a double-edged scythe.
The Weever ascended, shooting up and over the stadium like a rocket.
Night had already fallen, a red moon hanging high above them all, watching them with concern it seemed.
Azza's scythe struck the Weever's belly, a strange golden fluid discharging as the blade spun.
The Weever whipped its tail in retaliation, Grimnar's Axe meeting the head of Azza.
The speed of both creatures could not be discerned by mortal eye, striking, gouging, cutting away at one another; each eye seeing into the future and past, its teeth snapping at the winged devil, Azza’s scythe spinning into every naked scale, every weak spot, into Etzel and Kurt.
Kurt held Deathbrand aloft against the red moon, crying out the names of each errandghost engraved in his sword, flames spouting from the wolf’s head.
The seven creatures of the saber emerged in the flames, first with Iseld and his horn blasting in the night, then the oldest of errandghosts unleashing his fury upon great Azza Unghost.
They gripped him, restrained him, as he pulled and cursed midair.
High above the Subohemian hills, overlooking, admiring their beauty, Kurt remembered again his name, his home, he remembered those late nights lighting the way for Rosa, his mother, as she returned from the dark woods from her work, escorting her to the ferry crossing the lake to reach the opposite shore home.
And then again carrying a candle for her the next night and night after until there were no more candles, and no more nights at home to light them for.
“I’m bleeding,” the Weever said.
The golden fluid was pouring out from an open wound in his belly.
Revealing his inner workings, others were inside him within glassy compartments: Grimnar, Embla and Verity, all asleep in their little tombs. He pounded his wings again.
Azza broke free from the errandghosts’ grip.
His scythe met Deathbrand’s edge; a great display of sparks spitting forth like an erupting volcano as the blades collided.
Todteld, one of the seven, pulled the scythe from Azza’s clutches.
“That’s mine, Unghost.”
“It’s mine!” Azza yelled back. “All is mine, or demonstrate your ownership more clearly!”
The Weever began to dive down to the earth.
“It’s too much to bear,” he said to the two brothers,“I’m sorry...”
“Don’t be,” said Kurt, "you’ve done so much already.”
Under the blood red moon on that eve of November 1st, the great and ancient Weever, fell to his death.
He died as a man did, and his soul was carried beyond the Earthenmark by errandghosts.
Etzel and Kurt too found their burial place among the Weever, under the natural soil of their native land, along with Grimnar, and Embla and Verity.
Todteld had claimed them, though Azza, bruised but still flying above the city gloated over their deaths.
“Mine! Mine! Mine!” he screamed.
It could have been one last gasp of mortal breath, one final spark of the errandghost’s, or simply annoyance at his grave being disturbed; but whatever the reason, and I know not what, the hero of Temek County tossed his blade with the speed of a hellbound devil, and just as quickly, though cackling, 'mine, mine,' his bruises, his bludgeoning from the Weever had made the great indomitable pulver-spewing body of Azza Unghost vulnerable.
Deathbrand skewered the front of him and exited the back.
Its flames ate him alive, its errandghosts returning to pull him down, down, down into the Eldermark.
Azza Unghost was then imprisoned once more, as had been his fate, his choice to war with his creator at the dawn of history.
For a brief while at least, there was quiet in both Earth and Ettinland. For that brief while, around the graves of the men and women who had given their lives to rid the world of the great errandghost Azza, they were watched:
Five little shadows gathered round their bodies, holding hands and praying quietly.