BRUTUS

Caelum held his upturned palm to his lips. With fingertips aimed for revenge upon the sacrilegious canine, he took a deep breath and shot from his throat an arrow of putrid wind. Flying fast, the tip pierced deep into the dead crow’s breast, and filled its flesh, feathers, and hollow bone with poison.

“Filthy beast, you shall writhe and whimper until death when you taste the flesh of the feather,” whispered Caelum in the tongue of Aeries, and his soft voice sounded like wind rustling leaves.

The mangy dog continued on, unaware his meal had been poisoned with wretched air. Pitter-pattering down the cobblestone street he kept prancing along, head high and tail wagging. But an attacker even scabbier than him sprang out from the shadows with a heavy stick and struck him on the snout! The poor dog yelped, dropped the crow from his mouth, and scurried away, tail between his legs. 

The one-eyed highwayman chuckled as he watched his victim run off. He slid his club back into his belt, scratched a louse or two from his patchy scalp, snatched up the crow from the street, and shoved it into his tattered pouch. With head high, he whistled along, his stick swaying with every prancing step. Into the alleyways he went, then he hopped down into a culvert and escaped to the countryside through a sewer grate.

Caelum seethed, “So this is what Mother Dirt has kept from me? This is why She and the Others have insisted I stay perched in the heavens, with the stars and the clouds, where the mountains are no bigger than my thumb? Their pets, these wingless beasts with hooves and paws, hands and feet – they not only maim one another, but they recklessly abuse my feathered children for sport!” The earth trembled at the sound of his words.

Clouds began rolling in, the firmament flashed with fire; the Winds arrived and began spinning a web around the city.

“I will tear down these walls, drown, and wash away every wingless beast!” Caelum proclaimed.

Shutters and began slamming shut, doors locked. The night’s stragglers ran for cover.

The Shoemaker quaffed his ale, threw down three coppers, and slid off his barstool. “From the sound of things outside, none of us are going to have shingles in the morning. Best I be on my way,” he said to the barkeep. 

“I don’t need a roof, seeing folk always comes here to get wet anyhow.”

So as the highwayman with freshly cooked crow in his belly writhed, seized, and foamed at the mouth with eyes turning to blood, the lightning became blinding, thunder began shaking houses at their foundations, wind started ripping shingles away in sheets, and torrents of rain and hail began pummeling the city. Blackened clouds formed into countless towering funnels and began descending, swirling fast with lashing tails.

“Rip stone from stone, roof from wall! Rend the limbs from every beast and drown the heads!” commanded Caelum.

“Turn it all into a heap and wash it over the cliffs and into the sea!” he thundered from the mouth as he shot lighting from his fingertips, knocking down walls, splintering rooftops, blasting trees apart and setting them afire.

He then aimed his destroying finger for the city’s highest temple spire, a pillar rising above the city, overlooking the southern cliffs and sea. But what he saw perched at the very top, desperately clinging to the smoldering altar, made him drop his ethereal hands and widen his eyes. The wind and rain paused for his next command, and the tornadoes refrained from putting their tails down.

At the top of the spire, a lithe girl was desperately holding on, trying to avoid being thrown to her death by lashing winds. Her gossamer robe had been ripped away, revealing her trembling, rain soaked skin.

So quickly wingless beauty cupped its soft hand over Caelum’s mouth and put an end to the storm.