Wrath

Ovrythe was found in the south-west of The Mane. For most of its history, Ovrythe loamed like a storm cloud over its neighbours, striking with thunder and lightning when it suited: a new government that wasn’t going to do Ovrythe any favours, it had to go; heads of state in favour with other countries Ovrythe didn’t like, they had to go; minerals, precious metals, and such, they would be better used by Ovrythe.

It was an unchecked sore. If left, it would become something far more malignant.

A mob of thousands, thick with the miasma of misguided devotion and hypocrisy, infested the palace garden like rotten flotsam. They wanted someone to blame for their own problems, and for the crises caused by their leaders.

And the heap of saggy flesh upon the podium had provided their scapegoat. It wasn’t the rich. Oh no. Certainly not those with the wealth to save the nation from its ills. It was the fair minded, and, naturally, the foreigner.

It was beyond ridiculous. This figure had at the start stood before mobs like this, telling them how stupid they were – in this he was correct, though by accident. His most devoted supporters naturally assumed such vitriol did not apply to them, that they were the exception. That is, when they weren’t lost in his barely coherent rants as to why all their problems were the fault of someone else.

Now he stood atop the figurative rubble of freedoms of expression and civil liberties before a mob who would hand over their own children to him.

Wrath made his way through the throng. Though he had found a way past his blindness, he somewhat regretted it as grotesque snarls assailed his mind.

Upon him he wore a simple feathered mantle, and rufus jambon, with off-white hose. Hidden beneath the jambon was a necklace fixed with the petite skull of a snow-skipper starling. Through its beak, the hollows of its eyes and ears, the passing air whispered to Wrath of the world around him, building an image of it in his mind.

In his grasp was Companion, his longbow, used now like a walking stick; twisted jewel wood, onyx and amethyst colours fighting one another, with mighty behemoth sinew for string. The quiver, fixed to his belt, had been fashioned from the robes of dead kings, and other leaders slain by Wrath – not always under Divine Sanction. Within this deathly remnant, each laboured-over arrow was graced with shoebill feathers, dragon-blood stain, red deer antler nocks, and leviathan scale piles.

Stroking the flights of the arrows had become a habit for Wrath. His tactile nature awakening since his blinding. And the shoebill… He rebuked himself for not recognising the novelty of this animal before, its clacking call, like rich wood drumming against richer wood, a cure for melancholy.

He took to the marble stage, noting three guards in gold armour, nervously grasping halberds. They became ashes through nothing greater than a whisper, and Wrath had no qualms about stepping through what remained of them as he approached their leader – noting the armour was not real gold, or the stone real marble. Two more guards rushed him, only to fold over in agony, every cell in their bodies decomposing at once.

And not that he was worried about Ovrythe’s leader escaping, but Wrath shattered his flabby heels anyway. The blobfish like body went down, flailing, saggy folds flapping like the wings of a frantic bird. And the horror in his eyes sharpened Wrath’s smile. He would remember that look in the future.

Giving the leader a wide berth, Wrath turned to address the few thousand miserable creatures, stunned into paralysis.

“Ovrythe!” Wrath shouted with a voice that could quell volcanos. “Believe it or not, your salvation is here.” Though he couldn’t help but sound lackadaisical, because he knew the outcome, and that this was a waste of time – but he had to perform this show. “You have condemned yourselves by supporting this… Creature.” He nodded towards the prostrate mass of flesh. “Despite having little of your own, you upheld his insatiable lusts for wealth, power… And children.” Wrath swallowed his ire, hesitating as the empathic wash of fear bristled its way through him. “You fell for this fraudulent game at first, but when the truth of what he is began to break through, like the roots of trees shattering rock paths set over them, you ignored it. Especially those of you who handed over your own children to this obscenity,” he cried. “You take your neighbours as slaves,” he spat venomously, “Strip their lands of anything of value. And where does that wealth go? Who here has seen the benefit of this thieving? Instead of taking responsibility, you look to blame others for your own faults, and bad decisions. You are in my eyes,” Wrath’s grin returned at the silly joke, “not worth saving. But, the Gods, say that should you rise up and overthrow that, you will be spared destruction.” Wrath guested to the trembling mass of filth with his longbow.

He fitted an arrow to his longbow and leaned back to take aim upwards. As he did so, Wrath drew back on the string until the barbs of the flights whispered past his ear. Deftly, the string slipped from his fingers, and the arrow vanished into the sky.

Like acid poured across his skin, Wrath felt the mob’s gaping, their dazed, panic filled stares.

“In two hundred days that arrow will fall back to this spot, and if you have not overthrown this beast by then, from my arrow will spill all the wrath of the Gods into your land. No one will be spared, save the victims.”

This was how it was done.

Why?

Even in his most sorrowful wallowing, Wrath couldn’t say, and he had had thousands of years to receive an answer. Within his alienated heart of hearts, he knew two hundred days from now, nothing will have changed.

A month from now everything would go back to normal, this whole affair dismissed! Even those present would find a way to convince themselves this was inconsequential. And if not, hold close the propaganda their government disfigures their minds with.

Then comes blame for the affair, placed on a minority community, or a neighbouring nation, and more violence will follow.

Why give such irredeemable people an opportunity even the Gods know will be wasted? Was it not foolish to give precious flowers to someone who would throw them upon a compost heap?

Put them down now, prevent them from spreading further pain. How many more innocent lives would be taken, or touched by terror, in that time?

And so, two hundred days later, when Wrath’s arrow did fall back to the very spot from which it was loosed, Ovrythe’s people were consumed by a plague so vicious, no organic trace of them was left.

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