Little King (10)

Tales of The Methisian Emissaries

Drakar tugged at his stead to veer to the right as a gust of hot air shot up past them. He braced himself against the animal, his metal breastplate pressed against it as he steadied himself on the saddle with his legs. They veered to the left again, avoiding the changes in air pressure with practiced ease, but keeping their line straight for their target. It was not the safest way to travel, but it certainly beat the time it would have taken to travel on the ground … and the risks.

The dark-skinned soldier kept himself composed despite the movements, focused solely on his mission: to deliver a message to the ruler of Evenguard. He had heard rumour that these were a savage people, at least in comparison to the Empire from which he came, but there was no time to fear for his safety, when failing his mission would seal his fate anyway.

The inch-tall man spurred his hawk on, pulling it up to climb before hurtling down in a rapid dive. He had been riding hawks since he could walk, as part of the brutal yet efficient method of training messengers for the empire. He had been scared initially, at the thought of ending up as food for the unpredictable birds that were easily several times his size. But over the years, he had seen what could happen to a man without purpose. Particularly one as small as he was. He was grateful for having a reason to exist and even a job, where most people his size outside of the empire had little in terms of a life or future.

Still, like any military, he was motivated by a mixture of loyalty to the throne and fear of punishment should he disobey. He didn’t want to think about what would be waiting for him, or his family if he did not return with pleasing news. The unlikely pair continued to sail through the sky, on their second day of travels, and with the forest that surrounded Evenguard below them. Drakar estimated that they would reach the castle by nightfall, then he could present himself to their ruler in the morning.

He glanced over the side of the bird’s neck and caught sight of the green below. He couldn’t see too much of the ground from on the creature’s back, but he trusted the bird to sense danger from any predators. They had travelled together for almost a year and he had grown accustomed to the animal, like a sort of friend or partner.

He ignored a faint snap from far below: a fatal mistake. Suddenly a pointed projectile materialised below the bird and it had no chance to evade it. The barbed metal tip of the column pierced its left wing, tearing through the muscle and sinew and knocking the animal off course. Drakar instinctively held onto the saddle, as the bird screeched in pain and began to tumble to the side. The soldier tired to steady it, but with the huge arrow stuck in its wing, the hawk simple began to spin as it careened off to the right, dropping toward the trees at a terrifying speed.

The man did all he could, and held on to the anima for dear life, gritting his teeth as the force of the spinning animal dared to rip him away into the nothingness of the sky. His head started to ache as the spinning drained the blood from his body to his limbs and he felt like he could vomit. All this stopped abruptly however as the hawk struck the first branch of a tree. The jarring impact nearly threw Drakar from his stead, but was enough to shatter the fallen creatures ribcage. It tumbled to the ground and struck the soft earth with a bone-shattering crunch.

Drakar couldn’t hold on and was tossed away form the animal from the force. He rolled painfully along the ground, his elbow cracking against a tiny pebble before he came to a halt, on his side and breathing raggedly. He managed to raise his pounding head to look over at his bird, lying motionless on the ground a few hundred body-lengths away from him. He felt like the world was still spinning from his fall, but he could swear that the ground was shaking as well … almost rhythmically.

‘OVER HERE,’ yelled a voice, and Drakar turned his head to look up, just in time to see the bottom of the huntress’s boot. The colossal leather structure landed on him with the force of a meteor and his already injured body exploded beneath it with a pathetic squelch. The giantess’s gaze was fixed on the bird she had just shot down, and paid no mind to the helpless man that she trampled to death, his gory remains mixing into the mud as she churned away any sign of his existence. As her boot rose, the tiniest trail of blood was dragged up from the earth, to be trodden on again until it was gone. The only thing left Drakar was the tiny metal square of his breastplate, bent and bloody in the soil.

***

Blaise tugged on the rope to make sure that he had secured his falcon to the post. He had only recently been paired with the animal and didn’t trust it not to abandon him in the far away land. Once satisfied with the bindings, he set his sights on finding some food.

The tiny man was in Even guard on a mission, but it was dark and he could not present himself to a King of Queen at this hour. He decided that he would have to wait until morning, no matter how much he wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

It had been a week since the last emissary had failed to return from this mission, and the Queen had not been happy about it. Blaise had been sent to complete the task, but the mysterious circumstances around this colleague’s disappearance had not filled him with confidence. He couldn’t imagine what had happened, as traveling by bird was the safest means for a shrunken person to get around, especially since Queen Aaliyah had banned the hunting of birds throughout the empire.

He pushed those thoughts from his mind as he crept out along the beam on which he had landed. He had decided to secure his bird in the rafters of barn, just on the outskirts of the town. He could see the castle in the distance, and knew that it would be a short ride in the morning. He walked along the rafters to the edge, where the barn joined a farmhouse, squeezing himself through a gap in the wooden wall separating the two structures. He found himself on the same support beam, but below him now was warmth and light.

He had entered the kitchen of the farmhouse: what luck! Blaise carefully walked along the wooden beam, taking in the smells of the strange food below. He noted the marked lack of spices, but the warm, earthy scents of meat and grains wafted up to him and made his stomach gurgle. He stopped midway across the room and looked down, finding himself directly over a small wooden table, with bowls and plates laid out. A true feast was below him: a small cooked fowl, some potatoes, and soup. It was not even close to the food that peasants ate in the empire, he thought, but it would do. He pulled out a rope from his belt and held the large, hooked end in one hand. He raised it overhead and swung down with as much force as he could muster, sinking the tip into the wood and giving the rope a firm tug to make sure that it would hold his body weight.

The thin rope was long, but it would still only just get him down to the level of the table. He thought about tying it around him, but he calculated that that would take too much length out, and he wouldn’t be able to reach to surface. He didn’t like the idea of scaling the rope with no security, but he needed food, and the kitchen below seemed to be empty. He braced himself against he rope and swung himself over the edge fo the wooden beam. The rope swung and then tightened, and the tiny Methisian emissary began his climb down to the dinner table.

He was about halfway down when he heard a frightening sound: stomping from outside the kitchen. He glanced up the length of the rope and knew that it was too far of a climb to get up quickly. He decided that he would simply get to the table and explain who he was. He could easily ensure that the residents were compensated for feeding him, as the guarantee of a Methisian emissary was heeded across the empire. He inched his way down further, when the door to the kitchen swung open.

He force of the movement in such a small room, sent a gust of wind across it. It was enough to make the table rattle, but worse, it caught Blaise off guard, and he lost his grip on the rope.

The man’s eyes widened, as he desperately reached out for the string with his arms … and missed. He opened his mouth in a gasp of horror as he began to fall, accelerating towards the table below at a terrifying rate. He fell for what seemed like a full minute before he finally landed on a hard surface. His body struck the curved wood with a sickening crunch and he felt his back shatter. He coughed up blood as his head snapped up before coming to rest on the surface. He could feel the searing pain in his back, but worse, he couldn’t feel a thing below his waist. Blaise tried in panic to move, but his legs weren’t obeying his commands, and remains paralysed on the wood. He looked around him, and saw that he was not on the table, but rather, in a curved dome.

A bowl.

‘CHILDREN, COME IN NOW, IT’S SUPPER TIME!’ boomed the voice of a giantess, and Blaise caught sight of a heavy-set woman leaning over the bowl above him. Her tremendous breasts loomed over the bowl, covering the sky in its entirety, and he opened his mouth in awe, ready to call out to her. But before he got a chance, she withdrew, and as she did, a huge wooden label appeared above the broken man.

Blaise raised his arms in a futile attempt to defend himself, as the saddle was tipped and the boiling soup rained down upon him. The scalding fluid crashed into him, searing his skin. The tiny man screamed as he felt his flesh blister and boil, his breastplate absorbing the heat and melting his chest. He ripped the armour off and his robe with it, exposing more of his body to the terrible torrent.

He was suddenly struck by a huge object, a squishy block that pinned his legs. As the hot soup flooded around him, Blaise tried desperately to push the cube of carrot off of him. Before he could, the liquid reached his head and he had to hold his breath as the meal rose around him, and he began to drown in the peasants' dinner. The tiny  soldier had never before experienced such pain, but just as he was about to gasp in the searing soup, he felt something slide underneath him and lift him out of the bowl.

Boiling liquid drained away from him, but remained around his legs as the curved wooden surface that he now found himself on carried him up. The carrot was still on his legs, but looking at his horribly burned skin, he looked a lot like a piece of it.

Suddenly, Blaise realized what was happening, and where he was. He cleaned his neck to turn around and followed the handle of the spoon to a gigantic hand. Beyond this, he is as fast approaching the colossal, muddy face, of a girl no older than 10. Her hollowed cheeks and pale complexion attested to her place in society, but right now, the honourable soldier was on the little peasant girl's spoon, taking a one way trip to her mouth.

Blaise opened his mouth to scream, but all that emerged was a soft, pathetic groan. He watched the giantess's lips part and the titanic spoon flew past them, between the rows of yellow tinged teeth, and into the hot, moist cave of her mouth. He watched helplessly as the teeth came down behind him, and sealed him in the dark cavern, with only the stench of the child's breath to accompany him.

Without warning, the spoon was rugged out between the sealed lips and the chunk of carrot pushed Blaise off of it and onto a slimy, living surface. The titanic tongue was several times his size and easily pushed his scarred body to the side of the girl's mouth. Blaise could do nothing to stop her as she placed him, and the carrot onto her teeth. He looked up and made out the vague shape of another tooth above, mere seconds before the child snapped her jaw shut.

The little girl's teeth crushed Blaine's body without the slightest issue, the huge blocks of bone compressing his body into a fine paste. The Methisian emissary's remains were quickly mixed into the soup and saliva in the girl's mouth, already being digested before she even swallowed him.

The girls continued her meal, totally unaware of the human she had just devoured along with a tiny cube of carrot in her soup.