This chapter took longer than usual to get out, sorry about that. The next chapter is actually what I couldn't wait to get to, and I had this one less planned, so it took me forever. Sorry guys D: But there's been a lot of new readers lately, and the lovely comments keep pouring in. Thanks so much, everyone! Hope you all enjoy.
Meviahd knew from the start that it was a bad plan. It was true, the trolls had the manpower to easily slaughter the diseased, demented satyrs, and Devi Devi would have been able to fly to their immediate aid. But Meviahd knew that all it would really take was the shallow scratch from a diseased claw, or even a bit of blood splashed from a satyr's wound into her eye. She was lucky enough that she hadn't been infected by the naga back in Booty Bay.
The problem was that Jandali didn't think the satyr would attack them, and Meviahd was pretty damn positive they would. If Meviahd was right, and there was even the most minor conflict, it was unlikely Majir and she would escape untainted. No matter how many back-up plans they had in place, they were in the thick of it, and there were simply too many.
A rogue never went unarmed, and a soldier did not walk into a firefight without a trick up his sleeve. Or maybe it was the other way around. Regardless, Meviahd could feel the pinch of the blade she'd slid, wrapped in leather, between her leggings and the skin of her thigh. They hadn't been checked very well by the messenger, but even if they had, Meviahd doubted they would have caught the tiny, paper-thin knife.
She had seen Majir's wink back in camp as he'd dropped a few little goblin cherry-bombs down the front of his pants. A bit unorthodox, but still effective, if it came to that.
These few slight insurances might have been enough, had it not been for Lord Xavanius. Meviahd would hate the admit it, but Xavanius scared her. Meviahd hadn't felt that kind of fear in years, sick and boiling deep in the pit of her stomach. She found she couldn't look into the satyr lord's tree-ruined face for more than a few seconds.
Down in the cave, Jandali looked directly into the satyr's eyes and said, "Show me."
Xavanius began to speak as he led them further down the winding tunnel. The walls were tight but the roof of it was oddly high, giving Meviahd the simultaneous feelings of being very small, and being caged in. Majir fell in step beside her and she began to translate for him very quietly under her breath.
"We used to push warriors into our well," Lord Xavanius began, his tone almost genial, "When the Point would take ours, we would take some of theirs, and make them our own."
"You pushed their men into your well and transformed them into satyrs?" Jandali said.
"Precisely. When our ranks ran thin. The well had been corrupted with fel energies long before my reign as Lord, but it was not until some months back that the it grew... More unstable."
The tunnel opened suddenly into an enormous cavern, at the center of which was a well. There was little else than that, save for a few more chunks of rubble and pieces of the ruins. The roof above the cavern looked made from laid bricks, as if it had once been opened to the sky but was now closed. The well itself glowed a strange, sickly green-yellow. The traditional archway that usually hung over it had been removed, and the stones around it's edges had been carved with unrecognizable runes.
"Fel," Jandali grumbled in Darnassian, and Xavanius's broken lips pulled into a smile.
"Indeed. But I began to notice a change in the satyrs that we created some months back. A disfigurement, if you would. They grew illness in bubbles underneath their skin, and died not soon afterwards. I myself had never touched the well, just as I had really never liked the thing, but I did command my people cease to touch it as well. Still, the disease spread."
Here the lord paused and looked away again. Meviahd got the impression of a thoughtful expression on the creature's face, though for a satyr it seemed unlikely.
Lord Xavanius said, "Sometimes we would take maidens from the Point and pluck the flowers from between their legs."
Meviahd stopped translating, leaving Majir staring at her expectantly. Jandali, who had been slowly creeping towards the tainted well, froze. He craned his neck, glancing back over his shoulder and saying, "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Xavanius waved his living hand through the air, "We stole women from the settlement, I need make it no clearer. Now and again we all would fall asleep, and a she-elf lucky enough to live might slink off and back to the Point. Such things happen, with tricksy little elves."
"And that's how Nijel's Point became infected," Jandali looked murderous, but he said nothing further on it. If the Lord noticed, he didn't comment. Instead the satyr strode to the well and leaned down, dipping his live hand into it. The green water stuck to his furred paw, glowing, and Xavanius smiled at it almost absently. He was not afraid of it: anything it could do to him had already been done.
"But I did not touch the well before, and whenever I did partake in a succulent fruit from the Point, she was always claimed as mine and mine alone. I do not let the others touch what was mine."
"Pretus the Plagueminister," Jandali said, his voice almost conversational, "That is how you contacted the disease."
Xavanius looked up sharply, then smiled again. "The Jandali is a bit too smart for his own good."
For a moment the world rushed away from Meviahd. Certainly not Pretus, who she remembered as a young man picking apples in her mother's gardens. Not Pretus, who had gently brushed her hair when she'd returned from an assignment. He was an honorable man, and though he'd had a reputation for being firm, he had never been cruel. Had he?
The satyr lord was talking again. Meviahd struggled to catch up. By this point Majir had been left far out of the loop, having lost his translator. He was so on edge Meviahd wouldn't be surprised if, any minute now, he went for the cherry bombs stowed down the front of his pants. She coughed out a quick word of comfort to him, but even to her it sounded hollow.
"I was captured during a raid on the Point. Pretus and his men took myself and a few others for his experiments. When he found that I was yet untainted, he forced me drink another of my men's blood, and soon I was taken with the disease myself." The satyr stretched his ruined mouth, "But he also tested my face with what I imagine he thought was a cure. The result was clearly not what he had intended."
"You escaped." Jandali stated.
"I tricked him to thinking I was weaker than I actually was. His little trees did do me some good, but for a short time. Now, I fear this one does deplete me quicker than the disease itself." Xavanius pointed a dark claw to the sapling growing between his horns, "Even now I feel it press against my skull, tickling the back of my eyes. It will kill me soon, indeed."
Meviahd realized why he scared her so. Ever since they'd begun talking to the satyr lord, a rage had been building in Xavanius's voice. It was so faint at first Meviahd had only felt it, like a burr needling her every time he spoke. But now it was there, sure and thick.
"The trolls approached me promising their petty bourbon bribe if only I'd talk to their Jandali. Tell him how I had gotten my disease, give him some hint. They would not have guessed, oh no. But I remembered the Jandali from years before my lordship, when he had visited here before. You struck me as a sharp man. And now through you I will have my revenge."
Xavanius moved faster than Meviahd ever guessed he would have. The satyr lord crossed the room in two long leaps and was on top of Jandali in an instant. The troll let out a strangled yelp as the satyr lord tackled him to the ground. Xavanius shook with laughter, taking Jandali's whole face in his massive, clawed hands and holding it there. Under him, the troll gasped on his damp, shaggy fur.
The moment Xavanius moved, Meviahd and Majir had too. Meviahd drew her knife, but she'd only just gotten it out when the satyr hit Jandali. Majir was a bit quicker. He had struck a match against his cracked leather armor and had already pulled a little bomb forth, but he hadn't lit it. Meviahd realized he hadn't planned on anyone being so close to the satyr. The explosion could just as likely kill the troll.
While they were frozen, Xavanius rolled off of Jandali, as quickly as he had hit him. The troll sat up, coughing, and Xavanius stood with his mad smile still stretched across his face. The satyr flicked some of the green water from his hand and wiped it across the back of his mouth, bending little saplings against his lips.
"Oh," Meviahd said quietly. Why else would he have done it?
"He's trying to infect you," she called to Jandali. She wondered what he would do with that. Surely, if the troll hadn't been diseased beforehand, he would have been now. Jandali eased himself up, careful with his wrapped waist, and laughed nearly as loud as the satyr had.
"Well," Jandali said finally, "I wonder how long I have now."
"Long enough to catch Pretus, and take some sweet revenge on the man. He has slaughtered your kind as well. Was a little troll girl, not very old at all, all tied up with me in the cages." Xavanius turned towards Meviahd, his tone frightening, "She was not long for that world, as far into 'La Grippa' as she was. I couldn't let her die without knowing a lover's hand, now could I?"
And that was when Majir threw the bomb. It bounced off of Xavanius's shoulder and blew up midair, tossing the satyr backwards. The hunter started forwards, drawing a knife Meviahd had not even known he had stowed in the lining of his vest. The blade was no wider than her finger, and looked clear as glass, swirling with a faint yellow enchantment. Majir reached Lord Xavanius's prone form, splashing through the puddle of blood that had already formed around the body, and turned the satyr with his boot.
There was a hole blown out of Xavanius's chest, open and oozing like raw meat to be roasted. But Xavanius was still alive, and when Majir moved him, the satyr shook with mad laughter. Even as Jandali yelled and ran towards them, it was too late. The satyr lord had more fight in him than Majir had counted on.
"Idiot," Xavanius sneered. The satyr lashed out with his good arm. He caught Majir around the ankle and yanked.
There was a massive splash of vile water. Majir had fallen backwards into the tainted well, spluttering, his knife clattering across the room. There were wordless yells on Meviahd's lips, and a dull roar in her ears, and she was vaguely aware that it was now she poised over the dying satyr with her own knife. Xavanius laughed harder.
"You've only sped up what Pretus began," the satyr cackled. "But go ahead, girl. Finish me, for all those of your kind before you who never had the chance."
A hand pressed her shoulder. Jandali had come up behind her to look down at the satyr lord. His face was pulled with a look of deep disgust, but he stayed Meviahd's blade with his hand.
Xavanius coughed and spat to the side, "As if I figured you would truly come unarmed. I am not stupid. But you would listen to my tale first, that was enough."
"What if I don't seek out Pretus?" Jandali demanded. He looked up quickly at Majir, who was standing knee deep in the well and just staring down into the green depths. The shaman lashed out suddenly, kicking the satyr in the stomach. Xavanius's giggling began again, hushed and bubbling.
By all rights, with his ribcage opened in front like a crushed nutshell, Xavanius should have been dead. He should have been dead before he'd tripped Majir into the tainted well. But he wasn't yet. His breath rattling, Xavanius declared, "You will. Not for me, and perhaps not to kill the man, but you will try and stop him. Let the disease give you the hatred and urgency to end him. R-rage."
His voice was becoming so quiet that Meviahd barely heard the last part. Jandali had leaned low to catch the gurgle.
"M-m-more incentive? He h-had made weapons. I saw."
Then Lord Xavanius was no more. The tree atop his head shivered and went still. Jandali growled low in his throat and spat on the gently smoking corpse.
"I'm... Am I fucking..." Majir raised his hands, still standing in the well, and Meviahd turned away from him when she felt the confused look on his face stab her heart. Neither she nor Jandali could meet his eye.
"Don't touch Meviahd," Jandali said quietly, "You're covered in the well water."
A sudden anger passed over Majir's stricken face, like a storm over the dry Barrens plains, but it passed suddenly. There was a rumble, and far up the stone path came a voice calling Jandali and Majir's names. It was a troll voice, one of the guards they'd brought. Jandali called back, and a moment later the man came striding down the tunnel.
He eyed the body of Lord Xavanius with loathing, then said, "Y'alright, boss?"
"No," Jandali said, looking at Majir again. The other troll looked numb. "But what happened up there?"
"Ah, as soon as you all went underground with the big guy here, her horse hawk started picking them off." The guard pointed to Meviahd.
"He's not mine," she said automatically.
The soldier shrugged and continued, "We figured, weren't many of them. Might as well help him out and get the rest of them ourselves. Then we'd get this guy by surprised when you came up. Not like we planned, but... And yeah, Jandali, we were careful about their blood and everything, like you said. Didn't even lose a man. They were all drunk as hell, half of 'em were asleep by that point."
Jandali cast a dark look over the satyr's corpse by his feet. "Maybe somewhat according to plan, yes."
"Oi, Majir," the soldier said, "You doing alright over there? You look, hmm."
"No," Majir said, finally stepped from the well. He looked like hell. In a horrified, faraway voice at the back of her head, Meviahd asked herself whether the disease might get the hunter first, or if it were more likely he'd turn into a satyr. She had heard of fel wells such as these, but nothing of their mechanisms.
Nervous now, the soldier led them back up through the tunnel, rattling a quick summary of the battle off to Majir. The hunter had never looked so uncomfortable. He kept wiping his hands dimly on his damp pants and glancing around at the dead satyrs they encountered with equal parts fear and malice. Usually the soldiers would have been stacking the bodies, but Jandali's warning kept their from touching any of them. In the center of Sargeron sat Devi Devi, cleaning his claws in the ash and preening his wings.
Meviehd did not go down to meet him. Jandali walked ahead, lost in thought, and the soldiers followed him asking questions. She was left behind on the wide stone ruin at the top of the hill, but she wasn't alone. Next to her, but not standing too close, Majir drove his fist into a ruined column and howled.
She pressed a curled hand into her eyes, listening to Majir's heavy yell fade out to be replaced with his hoarse panting.
"I could'a sworn," his voice shook. Meviahd had never heard him lose control before, "All that blood, I could'a sworn. I definitely wasn't thinkin' he'd still be dat strong. I wasn't mindin' the well..."
Meviahd finally turned to look at him. He was nursing his bleeding knuckles, staring down at the ground, but her movement grabbed his attention. "We're going to find a cure." She said, "We've been searching for so long, it has to be close now-"
Majir jumped forwards and fastened his hand around her wrist, dragging her close.
"Don't fuck with me, Meviahd," he said, his deep voice low, "Come one now, girl, not after everything that be happenin' today. I knew the Jandali was infected a long time ago. That's why his limp never healed up right, and that was why you never jumped his bones a long time ago."
Meviahd spluttered, tugging her wrist, but Majir was strong. He held her tight, his face close to hers so that she could see the scarlet flashing deep in the backs of his pupils. Meviahd realized suddenly that she didn't know Majir all that well. She'd spent time with him, and she'd been in his house, but she did not know the things he did when she wasn't around. She didn't know what kind of man he'd been in the years before she'd met him.
"If you gonna use me, girl, you gonna use me. But don't lie about it, too," he released her, and Meviahd stumbled backwards. Majir shook his head, his face white, "I'm not stupid, Meh'vi. I don't miss the looks he gives you, or the way ya turn ta him first whenever anything happens. I'm not stupid. Even around Jin'Jeda the trolls all know about how Jandali's a skinner."
Meviahd hadn't heard the term before, at least not the way Majir used it. She could tell from the way he hissed it from his teeth it was an insult. But she was too stunned by his sudden outburst to ask. Her heart ached.
"Hah, y'told me the Jandali said you reminded him of his wife."
Jandali had once, and in a moment of weakness, Meviahd had told Majir. The way Jandali, a few wine bottles in weeks ago, had said it to Meviahd: "How you remind me of her." With such despair, not even realizing Meviahd shouldn't know who 'her' was. Jandali had never told her himself, after all.
He'd mumbled then and trailed off, switching topics back to their lesson, but Meviahd had known what he was saying. The next day, she'd been sitting with Majir on the Barrens plains and it had just come out. What she'd really wanted to tell him was how she wasn't doing right by him.
"I don't see what that's got to do with it," Meviahd said after a moment.
"Meh'vi, Meh'vi," Majir actually laughed, high and furious the way Xavanius had sounded, "It's been so obvious for so long, girl. In Zandali, the word Meh'vi means 'gun mouth'."
Meviahd had known this. Jandali said her called her that because he said she was too quick with her sharp tongue, pointing and shooting without thinking.
"Jandali's wife didn't die in the war," Majir said. He smiled ghoulishly and formed a gun with his hands, straightening his index finger and middle finger into the barrel and curling his thumb into the lock. He put the muzzle of it deep into his mouth and twitched his thumb, as if shooting.
Meviahd just stared at him.
"Gun mouth," Majir said with another laugh.
It was too much. The cruel look on Majir's face, and behind that his awful desperation, and the smell of the tainted fel water still dampening his clothes. Meviahd couldn't take anymore. She turned and did something she hadn't done since she was a small child. She ran.
Down the ashy Sargeron ruins, across the white bone rubble and, into the blackness at the foot of the hill. At the campsite the soldiers were back, lighting larger fires now that their threat was gone. They were already breaking out bottles of spirits and talking animatedly amongst themselves. On the edge of camp, on the edge of them all, Meviahd drew her arms around herself and shivered in the darkness. Still up in the ruins, Majir began to howl again.