Hello, and thanks to everyone who's been reading thus far. Thank you for the reviewsKyn, Muse, and Lorok, (I hope others are reading but are just to lazy to type up a review). Please continue with the feedback, even if it's just to tell me your still there. I'll try to post a new chapter roughly every four days, but no garrentees. Alright, here's Chapter 7:
Chapter 7
A knock on my door makes me jump. This is a nerve racking time for me after all. I'm that last one job for every mercenary and bounty hunter there is.
"Hey mon, open up. I forgot me key," says Aloos. I breathe a heavy sigh of relief and undo the bolt lock. The troll slips in and takes a comfortable seat on my bed next to Mab.
"How is it out there?" the spirit elf asks.
"Whole damn town is crawling wit hunters, mon. Night elf in da bar asked about ya. I was goanna follow her but she slipped out just before a fight broke out."
"A night elf," I ask, interested. "What did she look like?"
"Ahh," Aloos says scratching his head. "Kinda like Mab only, y'know, not dead."
I briefly thought back to the elf I'd saved in the Ashenvale woods, but quickly pushed that idea from my mind. I've already had to kill several elf mercenaries, no reason this one's any different.
"What about the ship," I grunt.
"Already bought it. It'll be stocked in a few hours. Ye ever sail mon?"
"I've done my share," I shrug. "Where are you going?"
"Out," the troll says slipping through the door. "Still haven't gotten me booze. I'll meet ye at the docks in three hours."
Mab waited for the door to close to speak in a soft tone. "Are you sure you can trust him Taff?"
"Am I sure I can trust you?" I blurt out without thinking.
Mab lowers her head in shame and I immediately want to kick myself. When I was still very young, just a small child or calf as most races call us, a squad of elf soldiers attacked my tribe. We still lived as nomads, despite the effort of Bloodhoof, so we were easy prey for the group of well armed warriors. They'd been traveling through the Barrens for days, their food supplies long run out. When they laid eyes onto our meaty cattle, they worked themselves into a rage and laid siege to our village. I only survived because Mab, the very soldier who murdered my parents, decided to smuggle me back to her home in Teldrassil and keep me as an exotic pet. When I was old enough, I left that elven city under the moon's light, never turning back.
It would be years later, during my many travels, that I would stumble upon Mab again. I was young when she took me, but I recognized her scent. We tauren have a much more acute olfactory sense than most other creatures. Seeing her, smelling her, knowing she was responsible for the death of my parents, I went a little crazy. I attacked her with everything I had, all the wrath at losing my family. And when she lay dieing at my hooves, I was prepared to deliver the final blow. But I just couldn't bring myself to kill her. Instead, I nursed her wounds and let her go when she was able. It was at that moment, after all the years: she realized just what she'd done. Stricken with grief, she pledged her services to me, until she could rest with a clear conscience.
Mab has never asked for my forgiveness. Not that she doesn't desire it, but because she still doesn't believe she deserve it. I would forgive her of-course: she sacrificed her flesh for me.
A knock mercifully breaks the silence. "Aloos," I grunt as I open the door. "Forget your k..."
A fist the size of my chest flies through the open threshold and strikes my jaw. The sheer power of the blow sends me stumbling back. I'm quick to regain my footing, and dive for my staff but something grabs my leg and throws me into a wall. My body aches as a hit the ground with a thud but nothing is broken, thankfully. I struggle to look through the dust as a huge creature that shuffles carelessly through the opening in the wood. The monster stands almost a foot higher than I do, and is easily twice my size due to his layers of swollen rolls of fat that is his body. On his broad shoulders are two heads, each with a pair of eyes that glare at me through the debris. His skin is various shades of a sickly blue and green, covered with soars that ooze pus and stitches that can hardly hold him together. His smell assaults my nose and makes me gag: a horrid stench of rotting meat and flesh, like any undead but magnified by hundreds. I can feel the dark, demonic energies that seep out of him like the pus. I've seen his kind before. The Dark Lady uses these creatures of necromancy to guard her precious Undercity. Once, before this bad blood between her and I, I witnessed a very ignorant human attempt to infiltrate the capital. I then watched as he was brutally torn limb from limb very slowly by one of these titans.
I stand up as quickly as I can and grab a chair. I swing with all my might, but the weak wood breaks on contact with the monster. The creature lifts me by my throat and begins to choke the life from me. "Cow want hurt master," the thing roars. "Grumb crush cow." I swing a hoof into his chest. Nothing happens. I kick him again. He doesn't flinch. The world begins to swirl and fade before my eyes. One chance at this. I lash forward and grab one of his heads. My hand tingles as heat forms in my palm and burns his skin with flames. He releases me and I fall to the ground gasping for air. "Cow hurt Grumb," the monster screams. I ram into him with all my might, and manage to knock him off his feet.
"Mab," I say, still gasping for air.
The spirit cautiously approaches me.
"Get Aloos."
"What?"
"Get Aloos, I can't kill this thing alone." The creature is already back on his feet and shuffling towards me. "Go," I shout. Mab takes a glance at me, then the creature. "Go," I scream.
"Be careful," she whimpers before running out the door, leaving me alone with the creature. This will be tricky.