His left thumb slid over the glossed wood, around and back over the soft gentle curve of the haft. He tightened his grip and pressed his skin against the grains, felt the stiff maple refuse to yield. His right fist closed over a red gem. No inlaid dagger pattern, this time.
"Strength. Weight. Pressure. Wield them. Wield them!"
He hefted the axe, felt the heavy metal blade wanting to fall. The man grunted and winced as the motion tugged at old wounds; his right hand crossed over his chest and slipped the gem into a pocket before clamping down on his left side.
"One! Two, two two, yes, ha ha, and here's... three! Failure, failure, must do better, Os, must do bet-ter."
He grit his teeth and set his jaw as he shifted, boots pushing through the snow as he took up the stance that Gnasher had drilled into him bell after bell after bell. He reached inward... for the fear, and for the fury.
"Terror has a home in the heart of man. So too does wrath. Do not dispense with anger, embrace it. Firewood to the flames, bairn!"
Pulse quickened. Blood rushed. Heat rose. Muscles went taut. The First Below opened and, as if in answer, so too did the First Above. The world around him snapped into a sharp focus. Snowflakes across his cheeks. The cold biting at his ears, his nose, his lips. The crunch of powder as life trekked across these wastes. The distinct tell of leather against wood as his thumb slid against the haft. In the distance, approaching him out from the whirling white wasteland... a silhouette. Large. Tusked. Fiercesome.
He grinned his defiance at it as he seized the gates below and above and threw them open.
The chill left him. The tension. The weakness. What coursed through his veins now was something more than mortal, and he believed in it. Welcomed it. Embraced it. Strength and weight and pressure were his to wield.
The Abomination of the Coerthan Highlands roared as it charged him, and he roared back.
A plume of snow erupted a dozen fulms into the air as there came a flash of luminescent green, and suddenly the midlander was there, right there, within the beast's arms. This time, he was ready for the speeds that followed the internal burst; his heels dug into the ground as he skid forward, his left hand dropped to serve as a fulcrum, and he let momentum and inertia and every ponze of force he could drive through his right arm carry the blade of his axe forward to sink into the monster's chest.
There came a loud, high-pitched shriek of pain. He ducked to the left and down, let his grip shift and slide down the haft, and he tugged. There came a sickening squelch as the blade tore through and free of the beast's torso. He powered back upward, straightened even as he wrenched the axe into a spin over his head and back around. He felt the blade slice through more fur and flesh; foiled in its attempt to grapple with him and crush him into a pulp, the yeti roared again in pain and stumbled back, bleeding arms wide open. The midlander released the axe with his left hand as it spun, and caught it again further up the haft; he turned that motion into a jab, a thrust that drove the spike atop the axe into the chest wound. He pushed with his right even as he released with his left again and retreated: one, two, four, half a dozen steps back through the snow he went. That right arm came for him again; skin and flesh and bone hardened as he sped aether along his own left arm and into his left fist. He drew it back and lashed out, a backhand blow with the concussive force of a small explosive that threw the beast's claws out wide once more. He withdrew his axe as he crouched and spun, transferring new momentum and inertia into his hips. The axe head dipped low, came back around and flew into an uppercut that tore into the monster's left hand and severed fingers and claws alike from the appendage.
That red mist was threatening to cloud his visage again, even as he ground his teeth in the midst of a macabre smile against the outraged cries of a wounded animal. He adjusted his grip once more, pommel leading the way, left hand presenting the base of his fist as it held the end of the haft, right hand trailing behind him and just ahead of the axe's blade.
Scythe. For culling.
He dashed again, darted right to avoid another lumbering blow, then curved back to the left. The axe caught against the yeti's calf, just above the foot, and just as Gnasher had once tripped him, now he tripped a monster. The beast fell to its left knee as Osric pulled its right leg out from under it; he reversed his momentum, spun the axe back around, behind, and over. Down it fell as he ran back at the beast, and over and into its shoulder sank the blade.
His own right shoulder flared in sympathy, pangs of long-forgotten pain threatening to drive him to his own knees.
Two points of amber light bore into him with all the hatred and scorn of the seven hells.
He screamed, he leaned and with all his strength, weight, and pressure severed the yeti's arm from its body. The effort was long and arduous; steel sliced through flesh, carved through bone, tore through sinew and muscle... but at last, his blade fell free, and the arm fell free as well as he stumbled several paces back. The abominable snowman threw back its head, threw open its maw, and the thundering bellow that echoed across the cauldron as it turned and came for him chiiled him to his marrow.
...or would have, had his blood not been running hot, his thoughts fevered and his intent murderous. The axe rose and fell once more. The beast's roar faded, then grew into a high-pitched whine of shock and suffering.
"I''ll build my future on a mountain o' corpses," hissed Melkire, "and yours'll be but the first. Kith 'n' kin will meet y'soon, swear on Rhaglr's name, for I'm sendin' you all to Thal."
He twisted, and the yeti yelped. He pulled the blade free and struck one last time, clove the skull asunder, sank the steel into the boiling brains beneath.
His first kill crumpled and collapsed onto the stone. The Hyur eyed the severed arm that lay several fulms off to the side, blood staining the snow upon which it had fallen. He spat on the trophy.
"Death and damnation will follow."
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
