GRIMCUB BODEN #1

Deep in the borderlands between Grimvaldia and the Romulan provinces, something stirs in the mud and mist. Whispers of violence, echoes of old wounds, and the first chapter in a story drenched in blood.

This is where his legend begins.

Make sure you’re caught up with “The Terror Of Grimvaldia” before jumping into this story… it thickens the plot.

GRIMCUB BODEN #1

It’s raining on a gray morning in the muddy outskirts of Alpinia, a Romulan Province wedged in-between Romula and Grimvaldia. A young boy, no older than six or seven, sprinted frantically through the dripping brush. He was running from something—his bare feet slipping in the muck as branches scratched at his skin. Bursting onto the road, nearly losing his balance, he spun his head in both directions. His body language screamed desperation. Searching. Pleading. For anyone.

He locked eyes on a large man walking down the road—a giant in black cloth and lamellar armor, metal greaves covering his shins, armbands cinched tight around broad arms. A long, dark metal mace was strapped to his back. His blonde hair was soaked and plastered to his face.

“Help! Help!” The boy cried out.

The man heavily stopped in his tracks as the child ran up to him.

“My mother, my father, they’re being attacked!”

The man silently looked down at the boy, his golden stubble dripping with rainwater.

“I think they’re raiders, I can’t watch my family be killed. Please, help them!” The boy said as he grabbed onto the man’s armor, tugging at it, moving in the direction that he had come from.

The man said nothing, but he followed. Gently smirking under his darkened, rain covered eyes.

The boy ran into the woods, deliberately pacing himself just enough for the man to follow at a walking pace—his urgency unmet by the man's calm. It was as if the stranger had been in this exact situation a thousand times before.

“Please hurry,” the boy said. But the mans pace did not change.

“I don’t wan’t them to die…” he continued.

As they traveled through the brush, through the trees, past rocks and ancient stone formations, they finally descended upon the tiny home where the boy had come from. There was no fire, no sign of footprints from a band of raiders outside. However, the door to the boy’s home was wide open.

“No. No no no no…” the boy mumbled as he ran inside of his home. The man followed behind him. Inside the home it was cold, dark, and silent. The sparse furnishings were displaced. Any valuables that might’ve been inside, including food were long gone. Whatever had been here had ran its course. The child knelt over a body, the body of a woman. She laid in front of the fireplace which had cobwebs draped from its corners.

“Mother… mother please.” The boy said as he rocked her body. The man walked closer, his face expressionless as he looked down at him grieving.

“It’s not fair!” The boy weeped, “who’s going to take care of me now? Who’s going to feed me?”

The room suddenly got colder. The door slammed shut. It was dark now, with only a sliver of gloomy morning light slipping into the room through a window partially covered in old cloth. A figure stood behind the man now. A figure that wasn’t there before. It was still.

“You should’ve been quicker…” the boy said, a change in his tone.

He looked over his shoulder at the man, not a single tear fell from his eyes. His glare baleful.

“…I guess you’ll have to feed me now.” The child said.

The man remained silent. The boy’s eye color changed from brown to white. His skin tinted into a blueish gray, his veins raised throughout every part of his exposed skin. Fangs extended from his canines. His ears pointed. The man did not react to these changes. He’s been here before. The figure behind him waited patiently, mouth gaping with drool and the very same fangs seen in the boy. Then, the mother’s “body” began to move as well. As her palms planted themselves on the moldy wooden floor, her fingers turned to flesh ripping claws. He skin tightened, exposing those veins on her blueish skin as she stood now, mouth agape, eyes blank and soulless.

Ghouls.

The man was surrounded, but he smiled ear to ear.

“At least you didn’t lie about how many you had in here with you,” he finally said as he reached for the bludgeon on his back.

Just then, a pair of clawed hands burst from the wooden floor and sunk themselves into the flesh of the man’s calf behind the metal grieve. He gritted his teeth as the other three ghouls lunged at him. The swing of his mace clipped the ghoul behind him mid swing, narrowly missed the child, and completely crushed the head of the mother ghoul as it slammed the floor causing it to collapse.

They fell into the cellar, pieces of wood flooring and skeletal remains were scattered around. One of the ghouls pounced on the man as he stood up to his feet. The man raised his arm just in time to meet its fanged maw with his metal bracer. As the ghoul gnawed on his arm, the other launched itself at the man. Seeing this coming, he intercepted the fiend with other ghoul attached on his arm, violently flinging them both back into the cellar wall. Still holding his mace, he swung it as hard as he could with both hands, ripping through the torso of the father ghoul until the end of the swing connected with the jaw of the second. Decimating the two monsters. Brain matter and entrails spewed onto the ground.

The boy-thing watched from the first floor, his claws attaching him to the ceiling directly above. Desperate and starved, the young ghoul recklessly flung himself towards the man. But he was snatched by his throat, mid-air. The man spun around and hurled the ghoul like a shot put through the rotted roof of its lair, landing hard with it’s face buried in the rain soaked mud.

The ghoul woke up moments later and looked behind himself. In the doorway of the emptied home stood the man, mace and the detached head in hand. Instead of human flesh, the ghoul was granted a taste of true terror. It began to flee, but it’s ankle was twisted from the impact of it’s landing. It shuffled into the wooded brush as quickly as it could. He could hear the deranged laughter of the man behind him, who slowly trailed him.

The ghoul transformed back into his boyish disguise as he cleared the forest onto the main road, but before he could continue any further, he heard something whistling behind him. Then a sharp thud. He felt something hot and warm burrow itself into his one good leg. He collapsed, screaming out in pain. The dark warrior rushed out of the woods with a manic expression, hands gripping the mace behind his head. He plunged it into the ghoul’s chest, shattering his sternum. As the ghoul gasped for air, the man followed up with crushing blow to the face, bloody brain matter shooting out of the top of his head onto the muddied road.

The ghoul was vanquished.

“AHAHAHAAA!!! You FUCKING FREAK. You thought you could ESCAPE?! I tracked your scent for MILES. You thought you HAD me?!” The man roared over the corpse.

As his adrenaline came down, he noticed something to his left. Just a few meters down the road, a small Romulan convoy came to a halt. Every soldier on the back of those wooden carts witnessed the carnage that had just taken place. The horses leading the front cart reared and neighed.

“There, there! Relax!”, the driver said. The animals reacted as if they were in the presence of an apex predator. Three soldiers from the front cart stepped out and brandished their swords, approaching cautiously. Two others remained on the cart, bows drawn, arrows cocked, aimed and ready to fire.

“By order of the Romulan Empire, lay-lay down your arms and come quietly.” The commander of the legionaries said as he approached the man.

“Are you going to Rema?” The man asked as he pulled the mace out of the corpse’s flattened skull.

“LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS OR WE WILL CUT YOU DOWN WHERE YOU ST-”

“Yes! We’re in route to Rema.” A younger guard interrupted, seemingly being the only one who could comprehend the danger that stood before them.

The dark warrior firmly planted the mace into the mud and calmly raised his hands to the sky, palms facing the soldiers.

“Then I will come quietly.” He said.

The rain had stopped, but the clouds never parted. The Romulan convoy rolled down the road quietly. In the back of the lead cart were 4 romulan infantry, a captain, the man with his hands bound together, and the corpse of the ghoul lying under a tarp on the floor. The military members were speechless and shaken. All accept for one, who required answers to what he had just seen.

“Why?” He asked, looking at the apprehended warrior. “Why did you decide on this day to viciously murder a child?”

The man looked up at him, unbothered by this question.

“Silence, soldier!” The commander demanded.

“Sorry sir, but I need to know… I just can’t understand it.” The young soldier said.

“That thing, that you’ve laid under this cloth before us is no mere child. It is not even a human.” The man answered. The soldier became disgruntled, he exposed the tarp to the bound warrior.

“LOOK!!! This is not a human to you? This looks very human to me!” The soldier stated furiously.

“Soldier!” The commander shouted. The rest of the entourage grimaced and looked away, but the warrior stared at his work, admiringly… then back at the young soldier.

“Take a look at those teeth, have you ever seen fangs like that in a little boy?” The man asked. The soldier looked down at the carnage once more.

“Where I come from, we call them Doppelgängers. You might know them as Ghouls. I’m not sure if any of you were briefed on the creatures that reside in these woods… but let me assure you, the corpse you see in front of you is that of a Ghoul. They transform their appearance to deceive travelers and lure them in. They kill fast and prefer their meat putrid.” The man said, stone cold.

“How are you so sure?” The soldier asked, putting the tarp back over the body.

“I’ve hunted and killed evil creatures like this for the past two years.” The man answered.

“That armor,” another soldier interjected, “It looks familiar. Grimvaldian?”

“Yes. At least the chest piece is.”

“And the rest?” The soldier asked.

“Spoils of war.” The man answered. The younger soldier looked puzzled.

“Wait… how old are you?” He asked.

“Hmm… what’s today’s date?”

“October uhh… October…”

“October 31st.” The other soldier answered.

“Ah. Then today, I am 18 years old.” The warrior said.

“WHAT?!” The young soldier said.

“Impossible!” Another soldier exclaimed.

“Yes. Today is my birthday.” The warrior said.

“You don’t look your age at all,” another soldier said, “what is your name?”

“Boden. Grimcub Boden.” He answered.

“No family name? You’re young, right? Haven’t you got one of those?” The soldier asked.

Boden went silent. He looked down and squinted his eyes for a moment, then looked back up making no eye contact.

“No. My family has been gone a long time now.” Boden said solemnly. The soldiers went silent, feeling the pain. Some could even relate.

“Was it one of our own?” The young soldier finally asked. “You’re a little younger than me, I remember when our people were at war with yours when I was a kid. Lost my father then.”

“No. The Hrungar took my family away from me.” Boden said.

“Hrungar?”

“Yes. Maybe you know them as Trolls. I’m sure you’ve heard stories of soldiers running into the Grimvaldian wilds looking for rebels, only to never be heard from again. They killed my father and sister one night… about 10 years ago now. They’re the reason I hunt filthy creatures like this in the first place.”

“Gods…” the young soldier says. “What about your mother?”

“I don’t talk about her.” Boden says.

“Why not?!” The commander asks. Everyone else goes silent.

Grimcub Boden looks away.

“Oh what, you don’t have anything to say now? Run out of lies already?! I know these buffoons have been eating up your garble like it’s their last meal but I haven’t believed a single word you’ve said for a second!”

“With all due respect, the only reason you and your men are still breathing is because of these ‘buffoons’… specifically this one right here. You should be grateful he’s with you, you owe him your life.” Boden says, pointing at the young soldier.

“Grateful?! I’ll have you strung up, Ashling! You’ve got a child’s blood on your hands. The only reason your kind are still around is because the Senate allowed it! If anyone should be ‘grateful’ for still breathing it’d be you!! Now all of you shut your maws until we get to the city. A dirty mireborn kills a child in front of your eyes and now you want know it’s life story?! You should all be disgusted with yourselves!” The commander roared.

The road the group was traveling on suddenly became shrouded by mist. Grimcub began sniffing the air, his eyes widened once he caught the scent.

“And you, I’ll be there when they string you up to the Pillars of Judgement” the commander continued, “I’ll be watching. I’ll be there every day to watch you slowly fade as your body emaciates and your muscles tear from baring it’s own weight. Or maybe they will slow roast you under the Iron Cross. Watch you cook until your eyes bleed out of your skull, you dirty child mur-”

“Sir!” The rider exclaimed.

“What?!?”

“The- the village. There’s a village of… people ahead.” The rider responded as the carriage came to a halt. The soldiers on board stood up in confusion. What they saw stirred fear inside of their hearts. There were 20… no 30. 30 people blockaded the road just beyond the mist.

“They’re just… standing there.” The young soldier said.

One of the people in the front of the crowd spoke.

“Give us the blonde one, and we’ll let you all live.” They said.

The commander jumped off of the cart and drew his gladius, walking towards the still crowd.

“By order of the Romulan Empire, I command you all to remove yourselves from the road and go about your bis-shsh” The lead villager sliced through his throat before he could finish his statement. It licked the blood off of it’s claws with an elongated tongue, exposing a mouth full of fangs. The horses reared as the rider tried to get a hold of them. The other soldiers sprang off of the bus to defend their fallen commander, who was now drowning in a pool of his own blood. All accept, the young soldier who was shuddered by what he just watched.

“Aren’t you gonna help them?” Boden asked. The soldier turned to him, pupils dilated, breath quick and heavy. He couldn’t muster a word.

“You know they’re going to die right?” Boden asked facetiously. The other soldiers screamed in agony as the ghouls began to rip them to shreds. The sickening sounds of limbs dismembered and insides sliding on the road over gargled screams of horror, filled the air.

“I… I- I…”

“Can you get me to Rema?” Boden asked the soldier, seriously now.

“Yes! I-I can! P-please!” The soldier finally stammered.

“Okay.” Boden stood up. “Rider. Stay here with him. Don’t worry about the horses, they only crave human flesh… and me.” Tearing off his binds with ease, he grabbed his confiscated mace from the cart and leaped into the mob with uncanny agility. Mace in hand, and a smile on his face.

The reserve soldiers stood back in shock as they watched the carnage.

Some even dropped their weapons once they understood the futility in aiding the monster in his rampage… they’d only get in the way.

Ghouls are physically much stronger and faster than the average soldier, but every swing from Boden’s bludgeon crumpled them like pieces of parchment.

Once their numbers dwindled down to about a dozen, the remaining Ghouls turned in terror.

This annoyed Boden.

“What?! You’re running?!? I thought you wanted to kill me?” He said maniacally. Blood gushing out of the gashes in shoulders and neck, wounds that would easily prove fatal to any other man. He turned back to the remaining legionnaires.

“Your wounds,” The young one said, “You need a medic!”

“Ah… these? These’ll close up in a few minutes. Are we going to Rema now?”