the weapon

The sun had gone down. That much he was sure of. The last thing he remembered seeing was the sun blinding his weary eyes. The cool dark night was, at the moment, some comfort. The intense pain gnawing its way through his right leg soon crushed that comfort. That pain lent its own comfort by affirming that he was indeed alive. He instinctively reached for the source of the pain. His trembling hands found a sticky mess of ragged cloth and missing flesh that used to cover his calf muscle. He pushed on the raw wound and decided that for the most part his leg would still be useful. As his mind began to regain focus, he knew that the wound would need to be dressed before infection set in. The thick, foul stench of gangrene had graced his nostrils many times during battle, and he was not about to become another amputee hero whom the women and young would look at with an odd mix of reverence and pity. No! He pushed himself up with his hands, and putting most of his weight on his good left leg, he stood up. He wiped his sweat dampened black hair away from his face and spit the heavy taste of blood out of his mouth as if it were the embodiment of weakness, and stood tall.

The flexing of his exposed right calf muscle sent waves of gut wrenching pain racing straight to his brain. Tightly, he closed his eyes and made himself accept the agony of exposed muscle fiber, such a thing as pain would not conquer him. He was stronger than that. “ I am a Weapon”, he said out loud, “ I am Aden Terlin, son of Morden, and I am a Weapon.”

Reaching down to his waist, he found that his guns were still secure in their holsters. In a flash he drew them and aimed straight out into the darkness. These two pieces of steel had been handed down from father to son through the Terlin line six times. While holding the sleek pearl grips, with their gold and silver inlays, he could not tell where he ended and the guns began. He was part of them just as they were part of him. In the center of the ornate metal work was his family crest, a blazing phoenix clutching a pair of crossed arrows in its talons. Above the great fiery bird, written in brilliant golden letters, the word DUTY and below it the word TRUTH. The same phoenix was hand-carved into each of the six chambers of both cylinders. The intricate swirling vine motif that filled the entire area of the barrels seemed to be actually flowing through the hardened steel in which it was carved. These were not merely implements made by a simple gunsmith, these were works of art, created and brought to life by a master of his trade. There was a story told that the craftsman who had made these twin pieces of perfection took his life afterwards, so as not to spend the rest of his days trying to recreate them. Many practitioners of harm and evil have seen their last moments being delivered by a Terlin Weapon wielding these powerful creatures. And now here stood Aden, the seventh Weapon in the Terlin bloodline to carry the fire-breathing steel of his father.

Aden returned the guns to their holsters that hung on the wide belt around his waist. His tired eyes were slowly adjusting to the surrounding darkness, and he could now see a figure lying on the ground about forty feet to his right. Instinctually, Aden dropped his right hand to his steel companion. His grip eased once he remembered whom the dark form used to be. His grip had relaxed in its firmness, but his hand remained ready on the revolvers smooth handle, Aden’s years as a Weapon had taught him many valuable lessons in regards to dead enemies, the most important of these lessons was that death is not always as final as it seems. Many of the beings that give their lives to the dark seduction of evil are capable of surviving a deathblow, usually just long enough to even the score with an over confident opponent. Aden was quite sure that he had relieved his adversary of any life force through two large holes entering its head where its eyes used to reside, and exiting as one much larger hole which helped to evacuate the cranium of most of the gray spongy mass it housed. Had there been but a single spark, Aden felt sure that he would not be the one standing right now.

Aden carefully approached the body laying in the darkness ahead of him. As he moved closer the terrible odor which was emanating from the new corpse began to fill his nostrils with a pungent mixture of wild unwashed animal, excrement, and death. The smell of death did not belong to this corpse though, since it had only become deceased recently. It was the stench of countless murders of its innocent victims. This had been the creature known as Ra’mijaal. For years it had preyed upon harmless people for no reason other than to satisfy its insatiable blood lust. Aden had followed the trail of carnage for five months. Each time he found a village where Ra’mijaal had been it was the same, the inhabitants were nearly all dead and a few survivors in varying states of shock, most wishing they would die to escape the grizzly images seared forever into their eyes. It was hard to tell how many corpses Ra’mijaal had left behind since there were never any bodies found whole and the remains were barely recognizable as human. Aden had found countless mounds of shredded people in every village. Some piles seemed to contain hundreds of dismembered bodies. At each ghastly discovery Aden would pray to the gods for the souls of the victims and ask to be their Weapon to stop this evil.

Five long months had finally led the Weapon to Ra’mijaal while it was descending upon yet another community. Upon seeing the creature tearing flesh and bone into tiny bits Aden let out a primal yell. Ra’mijaal stopped instantly and turned to the Weapon. Their eyes locked upon one another and neither one moved for what seemed like hours. Aden’s hands were steady beside his holsters, he realized he would need to get closer to Ra’mijaal in order to kill it. Blood dripped down the face and body of Ra’mijaal into pools gathering under its feet. Ra’mijaal knew this tiny human was a Weapon, but did not care since it had dispatched countless humans with little effort.

The Weapon spoke with a calm and sure tone, “Ra’mijaal, I am Aden Terlin. I am the Weapon that Fate has sent to end your savage brutality. Do not ask for mercy for none will be given. Now you will die.” He then just stood there waiting, watching, and calculating with every nerve in his body ready to fire.

“Tiny bug do not bother me!” bellowed Ra’mijaal. The creature let out a roar that shook the ground under Aden’s feet and in an instant it charged at him. Aden drew the revolver on his right and placed a round in the left bicep of his adversary followed by a second round to the right thigh. With the distance between them closing rapidly, Aden drew the left revolver and fired, this time hitting the creature in the left shoulder. Ra’mijaal moved with great speed and when it was within a few yards of the Weapon, it lunged with its long terrible claws outstretched ready to tear Aden to pieces. Aden too was swift and hurled himself away from the rushing beast. Ra’mijaal was able to make contact with the Weapon’s right leg and stripped a large portion of flesh from it. The Weapon did not cry out however, that was not the way. He often did not even notice injuries until after the heat of battle had grown cold. Pain fueled instinct, and instinct was faster than thought. To a Weapon, pain was a tool.

Aden jumped to his feet and looked where he had been. Ra’mijaal had tried to stop quickly but the bullet lodged in its upper leg had made that difficult and the beast tumbled to the ground. That was precisely what Aden had anticipated and now he rushed upon the creature as it was slowly bringing itself upright. Both guns were trained on Ra’mijaal as the Weapon ran towards it. The beast turned and saw the Weapon quickly approaching and in a blur, jumped nearly forty feet up and over him. The Weapon stopped and turned to follow his target, but Ra’mijaal was already upon him and connected its enormous hand directly to his body with a sudden, arcing swing which propelled Aden through the air like a child’s rag doll. With a hard bounce he landed about fifteen feet from where he had just stood. Sore and about out of wind the Weapon rolled on to his back in time to see Ra’mijaal coming once more at him. The huge beast dove at the Weapon with its claws wide, teeth bared and a blood curdling roar coming deep from within. Aden stayed his ground and leveled both revolvers directly at the eyes of Ra’mijaal. Waiting until the beast was just about to land on top of him, the Weapon fired both guns and the body of Ra’mijaal became limp and fell heavily on him. With great effort he crawled out from the immense weight of his dead foe, crawled a few yards away, and lay there catching his breath. The sun’s warmth on his face and the fatigue of battle made his eyes heavy and soon he fell deep asleep.

Now it was night and the cold lifeless body of Ra’mijaal lay on the ground at Aden’s feet. He searched a barn at the edge of the village and found few jugs of oil, a lamp and several stacks of firewood. It took every ounce of his strength to roll the body of Ra’mijaal up onto the pile of wood. Once in place he soaked the body and wood with the lamp oil and tossed the lit lamp onto the pyre and flames erupted instantly. The fire grew more intense as it consumed the evil mound of flesh that was once Ra’mijaal. A column of white-hot flames shot upwards through the night sky and illuminated the entire village. Aden had to seek refuge from the inferno behind a large tree. Within a few minutes the blaze had consumed all of its fuel and was reduced to a pile of glowing red embers. The Weapon’s task was complete. Time to move on.