The two hands of the Devil

Chapter 2 – The Giant

The sheriff, leaving the woman to one of his assistants hands, moved aside the others as he made his way toward the huge figure, trying to appear as professional as he could be.

“G’Morning Mister, forgive my associates. They’re good people deep in their hearts…very deep in their hearts. Anyhow, I’m Sheriff Urrp, Wyatt Urrp. And this is the wonderful city of Nounville.

Now, could you please tell me your name? Ya know how is it. Bureaucrat papers."

The voice that emerged from the figure sounded just like the crunching of rocks against rocks.

“Monger. William Rufus Monger.”

“Well, Mister Monger, thanks to have come in our fine city in this wonderful day. Now, move along please, we’ve got to teach this sow, here, a little of good ol’ manners.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Sheriff Urrp didn’t took too well that reaction from the freshly arrived stranger, as he began moving his hand toward on of his guns at his hips, soon imitated by his four associates, except for one who, suddenly began searching frantically through a wide wad of papers he had on himself.

“Mister Monger. You’re aware that acting in this way you are putting yourself against the Law?”

“So?”

Wyatt Urrp had heard that answer a million times already. But what moved him to think about the situation was the total carelessness of the man in front of him, which stood silently on his horse.

Right at that moment, the deputy who had frantically searched between the papers in his possession stepped on, getting near his boss, giving to him two sheets of papers, with trembling hands.

Two Bounties sheets.


The first one showed the picture of an attractive woman, with long coppery hairs that framed the left part of her face, covering it. Below the picture there was the name under which the woman was wanted.

‘Miss Fortune, Wanted dead or alive.’ The sheriff red mentally as the bounty of fifty thousand dollars impressed itself on his brain, and he looked at the woman lying at his feet. He rapidly checked her notes, seeing as she was wanted for theft, assault, homicide and damages toward government property.

With an evil glint in his eyes, he looked at her while thinking that not only they were going to have fun with her but, afterward they could also collect the bounty.

The only thing that piqued his curiosity was the last line on the bounty sheet.

‘Usually in company of the notorious criminal known as Warmonger’

The second bounty sheet instead left him without a word, as he began staring at the figure of the apparently fat man in front of him.

Without wanting it, he began reading the note aloud, as his hands began shaking tremendously due to the terror that was paralyzing him.

“William Rufus Monger, aka Warmonger.

Wanted: Dead or alive. Bounty:…two point five million dollars, dead. Five million dollars, alive.

Wanted for: theft, assault at public officer, assault at public officer on service, rape of public officer on service, multiple act of violence on adults [males and females], destruction of government property, terrorism, assassination, pyromania, multiple accounts of genocides, act against nature,…Sacrilegious activities?”

The last phrase emerged more as a question than as a statement toward the colossal man on the horse, and the sheriff stood motionless as that monster answered him with a smile, showing off his sparkling white, extremely sharp, triangular teeth.

“I’ve burned a few churches and a monastery or two, with their occupants locked inside, in my youth, Sheriff.”

Miss Fortune was still on the ground.
She remembered the punches and the kicks and already was expecting of being raped, so she had done whatever she could to ignore the world around her.

Soon, though, she realized that there weren’t any hands holding her down, and the stares of those men were not hungrily on her but on someone else. Raising her head, her bruised face tried to move to express a smile as she recognized who those brutes were looking at.

“Warmy!”


The Sheriff Wyatt Urrp had always felt as if he was the strong arm of the Law. It was true that sometime he had drunk a little bit too much, or maybe had accepted some favors or some silence money, but he still believed to be part of the law. In that moment, though, as the woman on the ground greeted painfully that titan on a horse, he would have easily left everything he had just to escape the stare, first surprised, and then full of a red hot fury of that man.

Warmonger, as he was known in those regions, had never been a gentle type. He was known to be an irritable man but, it was widely known that there were two things that sent him in a rage so deep he had exterminated entire cities. And one of those two was toward those fools who dare to touch His Woman (even though she wasn’t really privy to that fact).


“Sheriff…” his cavernous, hard, voice hit the presents with a an edge so furiously hot that the air itself seemed to be on the verge of taking fire “Now, you shall tell me who of you has touched My….friend.”

One of the deputies, tired of all this, or maybe not smart enough to realize what kind of trouble he was getting into, moved forward, trying to manage a threatening pose toward the titanic man.

“And if we don’t comply? What’re you gonna do, Blob?”


For a long while there wasn’t a sound in the wide street, until there was a frantic scraping of feet as Miss Fortune blanched and tried to get as far away as possible from the deputy who had spoken. Seeing that reaction, each of the deputies, and the same sheriff, moved side by side, giving a wide berth from the man who kept insulting the criminal in front of him.

“So, Blob, what’re you gonna do? I bet your fingers are so fat that you will not be able to even grab your gu…”


The rumble of a cannon destroyed what silence there had been up to that moment as the figure of Mark Mushybrain disappeared from view, except from his, still smoking, boots which stood normally for a few second before falling down revealing their macabre, and still quite hot, contents.

The Sheriff slowly turned his stare to the point where, up to a moment ago his deputy had been standing, noticing the trail of destruction as if a huge and strong hand had delved a deep trench in the middle of the street, until it had crashed against an old wooden hut, leaving only ashes.

His eyes swiveled back to the figure of Warmonger, and he pissed himself on as he saw a hugely fleshy arm, keeping up the wide barrel of an artillery cannon, which barrel mouth smoked copiously.

“I truly hate it when they call me ‘Blob’.”