Munmun(82)

Finally he tossed it up in the air, definitely he wanted it to land on me, kill the guy who ejected the spider lasttime, I scrambled insanely as the beast thudded down behind me.

Spiky deathtail whipped the ground between us a couple times, hello meaty little human.

“Spread out spread out,” I yelled, backpedaling.

Again most littles were useless, crowding and scrumming like before, idiot thoughtbubbles over their heads of, maybe if I cower behind everyone else I’ll die last.

Again rage turned me into a machine, no thoughts just movement, I skirted to the back of the scorpion, leapt onto the stupid tail, locked my arms under its poison barb so it couldn’t sting.

Lucky for me a couple other littles were also brave lunatics, they dove in from either side and yanked legs off while the tail thrashed me, deathlobster screamed like a bird.

Here’s how you disarm a hellbeast, trap the pinchers, twist, wrench, unscrew. The scorpion moaned deep choky birdmoans, battered me with its spazzing unlegged body, I hung on tight and waited for its death.

Another night came, I dozed but couldn’t dream, they don’t tell you that when you scale down, your body can’t dream for a while.

A few more days, a few more battles with toxy tenlegs. We tied our clothes into whips and flails, bashed the killer from every side.

We got good at windmilling sand into a spider’s twenty bubbling eyes, wrapping a scorpion tail in shirts.

Ofcourse to kill these beasts you need some fighty psychos to take risks, jump in first, do the hardpart. Unfortunately that was only three of us, two rangy dans from upnorth and me.

The other six were cowards, useless until the beast was pinned, then you can ask them to run in and rip off some legs, even then they’re freaking out.

? ? ?

A few more nights of dozing, napping, impossible to dream.

“Hey, are we setting any records of how long can a team stay alive,” one of the cowards asked the todd king.

“Ask me in a month,” rasped the todd.

“You guys are feeling cocky, huh,” smiled another.

Ohno, I thought.

Nextday, the todds dropped in a snake, babyrattler thrashing like a maniac.

Both dans got fanged and killed that day, infact the only reason we could even kill the snake was because it was trying to lunch. I snuck up on the fangy worm while its mouth was around a corpse, headlocked the snake and spiked his brains on the penwall barbwire, screamed rage at the giggling todds.

That night I knew we were probably doomed, it’s just me and six useless peens. The cowards knew it too, squabbled and squawked all night about, dave you need to step it up tomorrow no matter what, well bro maybe I’d step it up if I saw you get off your butt and do literally anything, oh heckno what are you saying dave do you want to fight me, heckyeah I’ll fight you let’s go.

“Heygreat, I didn’t know you were so fighty, maybe that’ll come in handy tomorrow for once,” I yelled at them, everybody shut up for a while.

Doomed, I knew, freaking doomed.

In the morning the todds came with a cage, dropped the cage in the middle of the pen, everyone screamed and scattered.

Looked like the cage was empty but whoknows, maybe this snake is invisible or something.

The todd king pointed at me.

“Get in,” he said.

I gazed around, tried to guess from the todd faces what’s coming next.

Tough to tell from these druggy tweaky moronfaces but the creepy grins and soft low hoots told me, here comes a super gristly deathfight.

Bynow the todds know who’s a fighter and who’s not, I’m the only good one left, maybe they’re taking me to fight some creature oneonone.

Some crazy hellbeast, some nightmare monster. Look at their idiot faces, gummy sharktooth grins, redrimmed sniffy heartshape noseholes.

“Get in, big guy,” said the king of the todds to me again, everyone giggled, what was I going to do, I got in.

They lifted me out of the pen, set me on the ground nearby.

And dropped two spiders in the pen, two black bristly pitgoliaths versus six cowards, Warner you’re in the audience now.

“Oh what the heck,” I screamed, rattled the cage.

“Don’t worry, big guy, we retired you, enjoytheshow,” the todd king told me.

Oh I felt rage, ugly rage.

I felt hatemyself rage for my dumb relief.

What a relief not to be in there, what a crappy jerk I am to be so relieved, I was sick with rage at myself.

“Let me fight,” I shrieked, hammering the cagewalls, “let me freaking fight,”

hoping they wouldn’t listen to me, oh don’t worry coward Warner, they didn’t, just watched and laughed like lunatics.

I bellowed orders to the cowards, tried to organize them, give them courage, tactics, anything, forced myself to keep watching and hoping.

I watched the whole thing but I won’t make you watch, I won’t describe it to you,

it wasn’t over fast though.

They left me in the cage alone, explained nothing.

I sat for hours, first weeping with anger, then dried out, baking in the sun.

Late in the day, a familiar halfcar pulled up.

Puppyneck stepped out and greeted the todd king.

“Here’s tenthousand,” said Puppyneck.

“Twenthousand,” said the todd king.

Puppyneck gazed at him.