“Aaaaaah!”
“I can die happy. I’ve annoyed many over the years but this is the first time in memory that I’ve pissed off a spirit.” As the neck untwists, blood is smeared in a streaked band around Cameahwait’s head. Coyote stands as it wobbles on the still twig-sized neck, the once smooth face a storm of angry creases and wrinkles. Cameahwait glowers at Coyote, its eyes burning white hot beneath its hat-like brow. Its breath becomes heavier and each one comes at longer intervals, and it begins to puff up again. Coyote backflips away from it, eyes from behind the mask pointing at its mouth. But no more viscous blood comes forth from its maw. Instead, Cameahwait grows in size, increasing outwards from its core, where a heart would be, and its lower half sinks into the ground, until only its chest and arms are visible. As it grows, it absorbs the doppelgängers that have been milling about while it fought Coyote. It towers over him, face in shadow, sword and staff extending up into the black sky, two eyes shining like distant suns. He holds the now immense sword out, the flat of the blade facing down. As it falls towards Coyote’s head he dashes away from the giant spirit, making a line towards where he threw his axe. The area around him gets darker as Cameahwait moves towards him and he does not look back as he runs. He reaches his axe and picks it up, spinning around to face the titan.
“You’re not the only one who can change sizes!” As he says this, the axe begins to grow, and continues to do so until the haft is as big as a tree trunk and the blade more like a piece off a cliff face rather than a shaped piece of stone. His fingers can no longer curl around it but splay out, clutching it on either side of the ridged wood. It rises up until it is level with Cameahwait’s chest, forty feet in the air. He lifts it back over his shoulder, muscles and tendons in his arms and hands standing out. Cameahwait’s eyes raise from looking down at him and follow its movement, which is faster than would be expected for something being lifted by a person a twentieth the size of the weapon. It raises its sword to block the swing while also bringing the staff around to the front and pointing it down at Coyote. But as it begins to glow just as the axe shatters the spectral blade. Its shards drag sheets of red through the air as they fall and fade away. The blood streams down but evaporates before it hits the ground.
Go on →