there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail
the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream
If there’s one thing Rapt loves, it’s a monster.
If there’s two things Rapt loves, it’s a monster, and to serve.
So when he wakes in this strange place, bound in gold and tasting metal, he is intrigued. He enjoys the touch on his neck, the praise, and nothing in him panics, nothing in him cries out that this is unusual, that he did not go to sleep in this strange place, so why should he wake here?
Ah, but Rapt is so accustomed to the unusual, so it almost feels like home. He listens to the brothers’ exchange, smiles at the idea that he is something god-granted.
It’s not a question, for Rapt. He has always been ready for breaking, so when the bit slips in, he savors the taste of metal on his tongue, the heavy weight of it in his mouth. He lets the man – the god? – on his back. He had never thought himself a warhorse, though he bears enough scars for it. His scars are all from different kinds of wars. Still, he does not hesitate, and he does what he has always done best – he obeys. He moves toward the cacophony of war, because that is what is asked of him.
War does not suit him. Rapt prefers his violence to be personal, intimate – this is pure chaos, a seemingly endless stream of bodies colliding, bleeding, dying. He doesn’t know who’s a friend, who’s a foe – or if there’s any distinction. Perhaps they are all fighting just to fight. Perhaps that is the way of this world.
Rapt is moving faster now, weaving through the sea of bodies, guided by the warm metal in his mouth and Pollux’s shifting weight. A horse crashes to the ground before them, and Rapt jumps awkwardly, trying to avoid the body, but the horse’s rider is beneath his hooves too, and there’s a horrible crunch as his feet make contact with something soft, and Rapt wants to look back, stricken with a terrible desire to see what he has broken, but Pollux keeps the reins tight and digs his heels in.
By the time Rapt is able to glance back, the fallen pair are gone, swallowed by war.
Pollux fights astride him, and Rapt’s ears ring with the clang of the weapons. Someone’s sword slices down his neck, a shallow wound, but he feels the warm trickle of blood, staining his pale gold coat. When there’s a momentary pause in the fighting, Pollux notices this, touches his hand to Rapt’s damp neck.
“Sorry boy,” he says, pulling the bloodied hand away, “I won’t let it happen again.”
Rapt senses this is a lie. He knows he should be frightened, thrown into this as he is, yet he feels almost calm. He does not belong here, sure, but he has been given a job, and he has served.
Besides, there’s no use crying over spilt blood. Isn’t that how the saying goes?
Pollux guides him away from the heart of the battle, toward the sea’s edge. There’s a hint of red in the sand, and the sea itself is wild, frothy and tumultuous. Rapt can feel the sting of salt in the air, and the wound on his neck burns from it. Pollux halts him there, at the sea’s edge, waiting.
They don’t have to wait long, after a few minutes they hear hoofbeats, and the other man – Castor – arrives on his own steed. Castor’s mount looks more like a proper warhorse, a dark stallion thick with muscle, and Rapt feels dwarfed in his shadow.
“Is it there?” Castor asks. Rapt doesn’t know what it is. He listens, curious.
“I think so,” says Pollux. The brothers look out at the ocean, the furious waves. Rapt follows their gaze, and for the first time notices one section of the ocean that seems especially turbulent. The water appears to move in a pattern dissimilar from the regular rise and fall of the waves, like something else is creating the motion.
He has no sooner had this thought when something breaks the surface of the water, something dark and big, and the brothers are laughing.
“I knew it!” cries Castor.
“All the blood’s brought it close,” says Pollux, “damn thing’s gonna beach itself if it’s not careful.”
Rapt is still watching the waves. Now that he knows what to look for, he can see glimpses of the dark thing in the murky water. He still doesn’t have a full grasp on its size, or what it even is.
He knows it came for blood. He knows the brothers are laughing.
(If there’s one thing Rapt loves, it’s a monster.)
He watches the waves. The froth of them has turned red. Rapt’s own blood drips on the sand. The sounds of battle sound so far away.
“Shall we?” says Castor.
“Let’s go,” says Pollux.
Rapt is not asked his opinion, instead he is steered into the waves. The water breaks against his ankles, lapping against them. The water is warm, almost strangely so. Rapt wades in deeper, Castor’s mount beside him, and he does not question the reasoning of this, bringing such land-bound creatures into the waves to fight a monster.
He does not consider that they might be bait.
He is swimming in places now, his feet finding sand for a moment then losing it. The water is rougher here, and he inhales it, the salt burning his lungs, his eyes. He tries, for the first time, to disobey, but Pollux yanks the reins and Rapt finds himself unable to turn back to shore, helpless in his obedience.
There is a scream, and Rapt looks over just in time to see the blade in Castor’s hand, his mount’s throat cut, bleeding into the ocean, turned in just moments from warhorse into chum.
There’s a shriek, and a tentacle bursts out, searching. Castor’s knife strikes it, and something dark and ichor-like leaks from the wound, mixes with the blood already in the water.
It’s an inelegant fight, this, two foolhardy brothers against this unknown monster.
(Later, Rapt will learn the word kraken, finally given a name for the thing he was made to face, and the word will haunt him.)
They are in its element, but they have weapons, blades, and they strike, and Rapt swims where he is aimed, fighting to breathe in these churning waves and wondering, for the first time, what drowning must feel like.
Rapt doesn’t know if they’re winning. He only knows the taste of seawater.
Time passes. Somehow, it passes. It gets harder to swim. Something grabs his ankle and begins to pull him under, and he would fight it, really, he would, except he’s so damn tired, and for a moment he knows what drowning feels like.
(It feels like nothing. Like everything. There’s no metaphor for it, not here.)
It isn’t until he feels the tug on the reins that he realizes he isn’t being pulled under anymore. Pollux had saved him. Rapt doesn’t know if he’s grateful or resentful.
They win, or, Rapt thinks they win. The fighting stops and they are headed back to shore, and he can feel the sand beneath his hooves again. The creature floats motionless behind him.
Odd, that it floats. Rapt thought for sure it would sink.
The brothers are laughing, Castor finally able to stand, walk to the shore beside them. Their laughter is high, giddy, tinged with the taste of near-death.
Castor is still laughing when the arrow goes through his throat.
Neither Rapt nor Pollux realize this, at first. They take a few more steps – almost to the shore, now – when there’s a splash as Castor hits the shallow water.
Pollux screams, a high, reedy noise, and flings himself off of Rapt, runs through the knee-high surf to his fallen brother. Rapt looks out at the floating body of the monster.
You should have killed him, he thinks to the monster, it would have been a more noble death.
There is nothing noble about this, Castor facedown in the waves as Pollux shouts, trying to turn him over while blood – so much blood! – blooms around his knees. Rapt tries to talk – to say what? – but when he opens his mouth seawater spills out. Had that been there, all this time?
How strange. Maybe he had drowned after all.
He should care more. He knows this. He tries. He splashes over to Castor. More arrows have begun to rain down, but neither seem to care. Pollux has flipped the body over now, and it floats, Castor’s open eyes staring at nothing, the hint of a smile still on his face.
At least he died laughing, Rapt thinks, but figures that’s not much of a consolation to Pollux, so he’s quiet. He’s very tired. He finds he’s gone to his knees, too. So much blood in the water.
He looks back out at the monster. Pollux is talking, begging, saying something to his brother – or, the thing that was his brother – but Rapt is too tired to make out the words. He watches the monster’s body move gently in the water. The waves are calmer now.
He has already forgotten what drowning feels like.
but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever