Author's Notes:
Warcraft and all applicable trademarks belong to Blizzard.
This chapter is going to be just a little longer than the previous ones. It has K'dzok in it so you know to expect the usual blood/gore/indiscriminate sexual exploitation.
I know some of you are eager for more Nathiel, others for Nabniath. Sorry, they aren't in this chapter, but the next one will be extra juicy, so come back for more!
Act I, Scene IV
In The Minds Of Wizards
Ambryn shook his head as he rounded the corner of the hallway, headed back to his apartment. The more he got to know Annatta, the stranger she seemed. Not in a bad way of course, but he got the distinct sense that she didn't quite get human society. Bringing an entire cake for just the two of them for example.
Still, he'd never been one to make friends easily, and he wasn't inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth. Less than a month ago he'd been, for all practical purposes, alone. It was almost enough to make him grateful to the troll that had been so insistent on having his way.
Almost.
Right about now of course, Ambryn expected the troll in question was probably enjoying an extended stay in a cell somewhere. He might get out in thirty or forty years.
Ambryn shook the thoughts away. The last thing he wanted in his mind was the memory of that horrid, pale green face with its grotesque tucks, yellowing teeth, and lascivious expression. He let out a long slow breath, and let his mind's eye gaze on an entirely different inhuman male, one who was chivalrous and sweet and so incredibly sexy.
Feeling a little voyeuristic as he reentered his apartment, he gestured at the sink in the small kitchen, and water flowed from the tap, swirling through the air, sparkling and wavering into a thin sheet. Color danced across its surface, painted by his mind, and he looked upon Nathiel's handsome face. He still remembered those lips on his, remembered the way that warm tongue had delved into his mouth, turned the threads of fire in his blood to torrents, heat pooling between his legs, there, where he practically ached to be touched.
He wanted it, and yet, there was a tiny part of him that was still nervous at the thought of what he desired.
There was a knock on the door, his fingers curled involuntarily, and water dropped onto the hardwood floor of the kitchen. Ambryn let out a small sigh, and a wave of his hand sent it swirling back into the sink and down the drain.
He opened the door and honestly considered closing it again the moment he saw who was on the other side.
Tybalt Dellani's eyebrows rose briefly. The silence dragged out. "Are you going to invite me in, son?" he finally asked pointedly.
"I'm still thinking about it," Ambryn replied with brutal honesty.
The ambassador's brow tightened ever so slightly. "In that case, might I suggest that you invite me in so that we're not occasioning comment between your neighbors. I know how much you hate being the center of gossip."
Ambryn considered that. "Only if you leave when I tell you to, and you keep a civil tongue in my home."
"We have an agreement," Tybalt said quietly.
Ambryn stepped back, holding open the door, and closed it behind him. To his surprise, his father didn't immediately speak, blond head turning from side to side.
"It's the first time I've been here," he said after a long moment. "I would have expected you to choose something a little . . . larger."
Ambryn felt his face tightening. He didn't bother even attempting to stem the drop in temperature in his tone. "You didn't come here to examine my quarters."
Tybalt turned, face dispassionate. And yet, there was something in his eyes, something Ambryn didn't recognize.
"You may recall Sir Hector Evansley, though he hadn't yet earned his spurs when the two of you had your . . . association." Tybalt's gaze left Ambryn's and went to the windows that looked out onto the late afternoon. "His family is not of . . . particularly strategic value, but he has acquitted himself well, and his career is off to a promising start. He's in the city." He folded his hands. "I had thought of perhaps making an inquiry on your behalf if you wished to . . . resume your relationship."
"I'm seeing someone," Ambryn said bluntly.
"The night elf mercenary." Tybalt nodded after a moment. "I am aware of it."
"And you're embarrassed by him." Ambryn was only growing less inclined to pull any punches.
"I'm trying to be diplomatic." Tybalt's tone dropped as quickly in temperature as his son's, brown eyes flashing.
"This isn't diplomacy. This is damage control." Ambryn took a long, slow, deep breath, and let it out, closing his eyes for a moment. He opened them, saw his father start to relax. "Get out. We're not family anymore. We'll see who gets to the courts to sign the disinheritance papers first."
It was the first time in Ambryn's life that he'd ever seen his father flinch. He was experiencing a lot of firsts lately.
"Ambryn-"
"You gave me your word that you would get out. Is not Ambassador Tybalt Dellani a man of his word?" Ambryn flung the words like knives and saw them strike home, saw blood finally drawn behind those brown eyes. There wasn't any satisfaction in seeing it. Ambryn hadn't expected there would be. It was a surgical procedure, a cut that needed to be made, a limb he had to sever to save himself.
It didn't stop him from sitting down on his couch and crying until he could barely breathe after the ambassador had left.
Ж
"This is . . . a little unusual." The gnome clerk on the other side of the counter blinked.
"I see," Ambryn said politely as he signed the last of the multitude of signature lines on the paperwork he'd been given. "Thank you for your time."
"Ah, good day," the gnome said belatedly to Ambryn's turned back as he stalked out.
He'd expected to feel at least a little bit like he'd been freed, or at least turned a page in his life as he stood on the front steps of Dalaran's administrative tower the following morning and took a deep breath. The hollow ache in his chest didn't go away. He supposed it would take time.
Really, the whole act was more symbolic than anything else. If there was anything he was certain of, it was that Tybalt Dellani wouldn't have left him anything in his will. The separation was just official now.
Still, he would have thought he'd feel at least a little bit better now that it was done with.
Ж
Tybalt Dellani's brown eyes were lit by a fiery glow, its reflection dancing in their depths. He had his hands folded in front of his face, watching carefully as the thick sheaf of papers crumbled and withered, mantled in flame as it hung over his desk, growing smaller and smaller.
"It's a felony to destroy public records, Ambassador." Eanté's tone was teasing.
"Is that why you went and fetched them for me? So that I wouldn't have to go to prison alone?" Tybalt asked idly.
She sighed, her dark brown hair a cascade over one shoulder. "I honestly always thought he was the most reasonable of your children. I'd have expected him to be more . . ."
"Manageable?" Tybalt's right eyebrow rose as he looked up from the glowing ball of shrinking ashes and met her gaze. "He changed after Marianne's death. Diplomacy isn't working Eanté. I need him back."
Eanté lifted an eyebrow. "I'm not sure that's possible, Ambassador." She nodded in the direction of what little was left of the formal notification of separation she'd brought from the files of the administrative center, plucked only ten minutes after they'd been filed. "Have you considered letting him go?"
"I have." Tybalt let out a snort. "But I need him if I'm to secure my seat in the Upper Senate. House Dellani must present a unified front. It will reflect poorly on my candidacy if it appears that I cannot even manage my own household."
Eanté almost bit back the question. Her eyes flicked to the smoldering little pearl of ash that was all that was left of Ambryn's disinheritance papers, the last wisps of smoke dissipating into the air. "Forgive me Ambassador, but I think you might be taking this a bit . . . personally."
He didn't answer her.
Eanté sat on the corner of the massive scroll-top desk in the office and folded her hands in her lap, holding in a sigh. "What would you like me to do?"
"Arrange for Sir Hector to meet with Ambryn, but be subtle about it." Tybalt gestured, and the last little flaky remnants of ash vanished soundlessly. "He's our best hope at the moment. He's aware of the potential gain if his family becomes allied with my House, and that will encourage him to be vigorous in his pursuit."
Eanté nodded. "What about the night elf mercenary?"
"He needs to be removed, or at least checked." Tybalt raised his gaze to Eanté's. "If we can prosecute him and have him banished, that would be the best result. Otherwise, keep him . . . occupied. Recommend his services. Make sure he's in very high demand. He can't turn my son's head if he's not in the city to do so."
"Why not simply hire him ourselves for a lengthy mission? Say, a sea voyage? Give him something to guard, tell him it's valuable, and have him out of the city and on a boat to Stormwind. He'd be gone for at least three weeks even if he's teleported back." Eanté cocked her head.
"Because it's too obvious." Tybalt lifted his knuckles to his lips. "But if it works, I suppose it won't really matter. If you can manage it, then by all means proceed."
Ж
Annatta smiled brightly at Ambryn when he opened the door, saw his features relax into an answering grin, and held up the three cookbooks she'd brought along.
"I thought perhaps we might start with a nice soup," she said as she entered. "I think Nathiel would really feel welcomed home if homemade soup was waiting for him."
She saw Ambryn blush slightly, saw pleasure enter his eyes, and patted herself on the back. Really, it was almost too easy. A few inquires here and there had given her the idea, and she'd already taken a look through the cookbooks so she had a few recipes in mind.
Ambryn's smile widened. "Annatta, you're wonderful."
Annatta gave a little laugh as she set the cookbooks down. "Oh, I just know after a long day, especially after its been really cold, my favorite thing to do is stop and get a nice little pot of soup on the way home." She opened the first cookbook and quickly flipped through it. "I was thinking the tortilla soup, or perhaps the chicken noodle, or chicken with dumplings."
In the end they settled on chicken and noodle soup, because it was something they were both familiar with and looked to be the least complicated, drew up a list of ingredients, and Annatta tucked Ambryn's arm into hers as they walked out of the apartment building and headed towards the grocery store.
"So when is he supposed to be home?" she asked, glancing over at him.
"Five more days." Ambryn let out a small sigh, and then blushed again. "I'm really excited to see him again," he admitted quietly.
Annatta chuckled. "I'd gotten that impression." She looked up at the sky. "Actually, I envy you a little bit. It's nice to have someone to wait for."
"Are you seeing anyone?" he asked after a moment.
Annatta shrugged. "Oh, I'm waiting for the right one to come along. It's almost the same." Because I certainly don't have time to go out and look for him, she added privately. Still, she'd known ever since she'd decided on her path that there would be many sacrifices. Love was one of them.
"He will." Ambryn smiled brilliantly at her, a shining reflection of that night when she'd seen him dancing down the hallway of Periont's Tower. "I know it."
"You give me hope," Annatta said softly, and felt a momentary twinge of guilt as she patted his arm.
"So," she said as they entered the grocery store "do you want to buy the premade noodles, or make them from scratch like the recipe says?"
"If we're going to do this, let's do it right." Ambryn grinned broadly at her.
She nodded, returning the grin. "Homemade it is."
It was a surprisingly pleasurable experience, working alongside Ambryn as they started with making the dough for the noodles, mixing in flour, water, egg whites, rolling it out thin and carefully cutting it into long strips to be baked. The noodles went into the oven, and they started on the chicken next. That part was rather messier, but they managed to successfully pluck it, aided by a water invocation Annatta used to create a suction force strong enough to pull out all the remaining feathers. Then they stuffed it, spent a goodly time rubbing in butter and spices, and set it over the fire to roast slowly with a minor air elemental to turn the spit.
"This is actually kind of fun." Ambryn was laving more butter and spices over the chicken with a brush as it turned.
Annatta smiled at him as she looked up from checking on the baking noodles in the oven and closed it once more. "And we haven't even gotten to the part where we eat it."
Ambryn drew in a deep breath through his nose. "Mmm . . . it already smells good."
It really was too bad, Annatta thought regretfully as she looked at him, relaxed and happy, a slight smile on his face. He probably would have made a good husband.
She gave herself a firm mental shake. She couldn't have him that way, and really, she was only befriending him to further her own plans anyway. She had to keep her eye on the goal. That was why she was doing this.
Still, she could at least enjoy their friendship while it lasted a small part of her reasoned. After all, she'd only be more convincing the more genuinely she played her part.
The apartment filled with the mouth-watering smell of slow-roasting chicken, and by the time it was cooked and ready to go in the soup, she literally was salivating, practically ready to eat it without bothering to wait for it to be made into soup. She saw an identical look in Ambryn's eyes.
They cut up vegetables - celery, carrots, onions, leeks, tossed in spices, cut up the chicken (though not eating it as the heavenly scent of it filled the kitchen was a very near thing) and poured it all into a big pot to simmer.
The noodles were finished. Annatta went back to her cookbooks. She was already ravenously hungry, and resistance was becoming difficult. She needed something light, something that would take the edge off without spoiling her dinner. She glanced at Ambryn.
"I have some spinach leaves . . . perhaps a salad?" he offered.
She raised an eyebrow, and tapped the page she'd found under dinner salads, irrationally pleased by the similar path their thoughts had taken. "With a little bit of bacon," she replied, tone satisfied.
A quickly whipped up vinaigrette, warm crispy bacon chunks, and disaster was averted, the soup pot remaining unmolested atop the stove. The salads had been small, certainly not enough to spoil the appetite, but they had been enough.
"I'd never thought of putting bacon on a salad." Ambryn set down his fork with a smile. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to enjoy one without it now."
"Well, it certainly didn't take nearly as long to get together." Annatta smiled back at him. Her gaze went to the pot on the stove, smile turning rueful. "It was a very near thing."
"I think we might have to have just the chicken by itself at some point." Ambryn looked thoughtful. "You know, there is an awful lot of soup there, and I wouldn't want to eat it all by myself. We have Circle work tomorrow."
Annatta nodded. "Agreed, but we taste it first, tonight, while it's fresh." She drew in a deep breath, just smelling it. "You know . . . I'm not sure what you have for dessert after a soup." She glanced back at her cookbooks.
Ambryn followed her gaze. "I'm sure we can find something."
Annatta relished the flavor of the noodles, the chicken, the vegetables. It was perfect. Together, the two of them had made something wonderful, not in a grand, earth-shaking way, but a small, intimate, heartwarming accomplishment, a lovely chicken and noodle soup that warmed her not just to her bones, but to her heart. She wanted more. Her eyes went to Ambryn's, feeling that suddenly and strangely now-familiar smile curve her lips, its glow redoubled in the light of his own.
Well, there would be plenty of opportunity for more, wouldn't there?
Ж
The inside of Bouldercrag's Refuge was surprisingly crowded considering the unfriendly locale in which the place sat. Of course, it was one of the the very few places one might possibly rest relatively comfortably and in less danger then elsewhere in this horrid, bitter, northern wasteland if you weren't a local. Perhaps it wasn't such a surprise, because that meant everyone else congregated there including the Earthen, mineral-bodied progenitors of the Dwarves, who'd been driven out of their own holds by the storm giants.
K'dzok scanned the other occupants of the Refuge warily, on the lookout for amber eyes. His last encounter with Heironymus had left him with a sour taste in his mouth. If not for Hiath's surprising tenacity, he would have been at the mercy of four possessed orcs, raped until he was as loose as a forty year-old five-copper orc whore in Orgrimmar. The realization did not sit well with him. He wanted to find Heironymus, not only because the Steel Sheen wished it, but because he was certain he wouldn't be safe until the human mage was dead.
It was finding Heironymus, he was quickly coming to suspect, that was going to be the difficult part. The strategy up until now had been to show up, wait for Heironymus to do the same, and then kill the human. The encounter in the cave had made it clear that wasn't going to work.
K'dzok glanced at Hiath. The blood elf wasn't exactly an ace in the hole, but he was probably K'dzok's only chance of getting this done. He looked noticeably thinner. The passage here had been hard, and the green of his eyes was dull. K'dzok left him at a table and went to go order a meal at the bar.
"Looking for a human mage," he said to the barkeep. "Very distinct eyes, like amber."
The Earthen blinked. "Heard of amber," he said slowly after a moment. "Crystallized tree sap isn't it?"
"Yeah, kind of a yellow."
K'dzok almost snarled when the dwarf-like little man shook his head.
"You need rooms for the night?"
"And meals." K'dzok jerked his thumb at their table.
The Earthen nodded amicably, either not noticing or simply unconcerned by the irritation in K'dzok's expression.
The food wasn't great, but it was edible. Hiath wolfed his meal down without hesitation, eating hungrily. K'dzok ate more slowly, trying to figure out how he was going to lure the mage out. He glanced around. His first impulse was to find another human boy and rape him, ideally while Heironymus had an eye on him, stir up a sympathetic response, and see where that got him. His eyes swept the inn's interior. No humans. His mouth tightened.
"You looks like you lookin' for sumthin'."
K'dzok didn't turn around immediately. "Maybe I am," he said slowly, pretending to study the pale, unappetizing root lying on his plate.
The newcomer was an ogre, not bothering with the chair, just toeing it aside with one big foot before sitting down in front of the table. Rough, fur-covered hides were wrapped around his rolling bulk and he had a staff over his shoulders. The chair out of the way, the table came up to just about the right height. Hiath still hadn't glanced up, continuing to eat.
"You gonna eat that?" the ogre asked with a jerk of his chins, four eyes in two faces fixed on the tuber on K'dzok's plate.
K'dzok considered it for a moment, picked it up, and tossed it onto Hiath's plate instead, raising his eyes to the ogre's. "Nope."
The ogre scowled. "Skinny elf ain't gonna . . ." His words trailed off, twin scowls deepening as Hiath finished off what was left of his own tuber and started on K'dzok's without missing a beat.
"Innkeeper!" K'dzok hollered. "Bring me some meat!"
"So you lookin' for somethin'," the ogre's left head resumed, the right still staring covetously at the root that Hiath was wolfing down. "I can help you find it."
"You know what I'm looking for?" K'dzok kept his tone casual, but his hand edged toward the haft of his axe.
"Titan treasure." The ogre shrugged. "Only reason anybody comes to this frozen hole."
K'dzok relaxed slightly. "Not exactly."
Both ogre heads turned to look at him at that, eyebrows rising. "A grudge?" they asked in unison.
"In a manner of speaking." K'dzok struggled to keep his face impassive. The ogre's eyes weren't gold, more like a dull maroon, but the two voices speaking together reminded him uncomfortably of the cave. "I'm looking for a human mage, calls himself Skinslayer, but his real name is Heironymus."
The ogre frowned. "How much you pay me to help you track him?"
K'dzok snorted, a smirk crossing his features. "How about I let you live?"
The ogre let out a bark of laughter. "Funny troll." Two sets of yellowing teeth were bared in twin smiles of dire intent, pairs of muddy eyes glinting. "Tim-Tom would rip you into pieces, and the Earthen would serve you to the next travelers who came through. You give Tim-Tom ten gold pieces a day, and Tim-Tom helps you find the human mage. Tim-tom knows these parts, knows the cliffs and the peaks."
"You've got a deal." K'dzok eyed the two thick necks. He'd killed an ogre before. This one couldn't be much harder. Once he got his axe into the base of one of the brain stems, the other head would be too busy writhing in agony for the few seconds it would take for K'dzok to cut that one too.
The staff bothered him though. It was gnarled, weatherbeaten, and old, but it looked solid nonetheless, little mouse skulls hanging from leather cords spiked to the top. It told him Tim-tom was an ogre-mage. It meant he would have to be extra-careful when the time came to kill him.
"You sleep tonight," Tim-tom said, faces and tone satisfied. "We leave for K3 in the morning. Goblin base. Plenty of heads to see your Skinslayer. Knock some together till they tell us where he went."
Well, K'dzok reflected as he followed Hiath into the room they would share, if there were a lot of heads in K3, there might just be a human one, and even if it didn't belong to Heironymus, it would still come in handy. He didn't have the money to pay Tim-tom, but he didn't really care. He just needed the right moment to kill the big bastard and loot anything valuable he was carrying, preferably while his back was turned, and ideally before Heironymus took mental control of him.
Tim-tom was waiting for them in the common room when they rose. K'dzok ate, though he still didn't care for the fare. It was fuel for his body, nothing more.
Outside, the howling hail they'd trudged through yesterday was absent, and K'dzok muttered profanities under his breath as he put the black goggles over his eyes to keep from going blind, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure Hiath did the same. Tim-tom fumbled a pair of goggles over each of his two heads, and they headed for the cliff edge.
They skirted the villages of vrykul, and K'dzok waited for the moment Tim-tom would turn, muddy maroon eyes changed to frozen amber, but it never happened. For all the sunlight it was still bitterly cold, enough that K'dzok could feel it biting through the furs he wore. He checked periodically on Hiath, but the brief rest in the shelter of the Refuge seemed to have refreshed the blood elf at least somewhat, because he kept up without apparent difficulty. It irritated K'dzok slightly to be dependent on this slim, pale-skinned little creature, but he kept his mouth shut and his eyes forward.
They were passing through a particularly narrow neck between two sheer walls of glistening sheet ice when the other ogre appeared at the mouth of it.
K'dzok wasn't terribly surprised. Tim-tom had made no mention of the payment he'd demanded for his services the previous night. The ogre-mage turned and smirked. K'dzok glanced backward. Sure enough, two more ogres were coming up behind them. He turned his gaze back to Tim-tom.
"Friends of yours?"
Tim-tom's grin widened. "You come quiet and Tim-tom doesn't have to hurt you. You fetch higher price that way too when Tim-tom sells you."
K'dzok's eyes drifted over Tim-tom's shoulder and widened as they caught sight of the approaching ogre. "I don't think they're going to help you," he advised, hefting his axe.
Tim-tom snorted. "These ogres are Tim-tom's kin, his blood. We sell you, get money. Done it plenty of times before. Don't think your elf going to save you either."
"Do you feel that, brute? The magic on the air?" Hiath's voice was a cool whisper. "Don't you feel it trying to coil around you? Pierce your flesh?"
Tim-tom snorted. "Tim-tom doesn't fall for mind tricks, elf. Tim-tom has a special charm just for that."
"Duly noted," said the amber-eyed ogre behind Tim-tom in calm, cultured tones as big, meaty hands closed around Tim-Tom's windpipes and started to squeeze.
K'dzok charged, axe rising and falling as it sank into Tim-tom's chest, coming up red, blood flying from its edge. He heard something explode with a howl behind him and kept on swinging even as the cold ground trembled beneath his feet.
Massive arms tossed Tim-tom's corpse aside, and the possessed ogre lurched towards K'dzok, arms outstretched. K'dzok swung, axe blade taking off sausage-like fingers, shearing through thick hands, biting again and again into fat forearms until he was covered in ogre blood, and then they were around him, lifting him in a bear hug and he let out a roar as they started to tighten on his ribs. He brought his axe down on one head and then the other, swings wild, cleaving pale, pudgy, hideous, tusked faces until the amber color drained out of the single remaining eye and the ogre tumbled backward, taking K'dzok with it.
For a long moment he simply lay there on the fat, distended belly, completely covered in blood, and then picked himself up, shrugging off the dead weight of a massive arm, and tried vainly to wipe some of the ichor off of his face.
Hiath was standing a short distance away, hands hidden in his sleeves, black goggles looking overly large on his delicately-featured face. K'dzok could see more blood running from underneath the left lens. Behind him, the neck of the narrow passage had filled in with chunks of ice. Of the other two ogres, there was no sign.
"Help me find the charm that kept the human out of his minds," K'dzok ordered after a moment. "Then let's go find K3."
The day passed to night before they managed to make it to the goblin base camp. Hiath matter-of-factly carved a hole into a cliff wall, and within minutes it had frozen into a suitable cave.
Melt me some water," K'dzok ordered, looking down at his blood-covered gear. He didn't ordinarily mind the stuff, but he was completely crusted with it. "Make sure it's hot."
He washed himself and his armor next to the fire, the heat of it keeping out the worst of the howling storm that had risen once more outside. At one point he glanced up and found Hiath's gaze resting on him, the eyes a distinct, radiant green-blue. He reached down, pulled on his cock, and stared back.
"Well?" he growled.
Hiath stared a moment longer, and then lowered his hood over his face once more.
For the first time, K'dzok considered fucking him. It had been almost two weeks now since Dalaran, and longer than that since his last actual fuck. He was past due. He snorted, and then shook his head. He needed to find Heironymus first, and to deal with Heironymus, he needed Hiath. Maybe after that he'd give the skinny blood elf the pounding of his life.
His eyes went to the little brooch he'd found in on of Tim-tom's pockets, the one Hiath said was probably the thing that had protected the ogre-mage's minds. It was green jasper, carved into a swirl, bracketed in silver clasps. He wasn't sure why Heironymus hadn't already taken control of his own body and used it to kill Hiath, but he wasn't going to take the chance of that happening now that he didn't have to.
He settled himself against the wall of the cave. His eyes went to Hiath, the elf curled up against the opposite wall on the other side of the fire.
"Hey," he growled. "Come warm me up."
Hiath got up after a minute, made his way around the fire, and K'dzok pulled the elf roughly to him. His bony ass wasn't as bad as it might have been with all the layers of robes providing padding, but it was still enough to give K'dzok second thoughts about putting his cock in it as he settled the elf in his lap, spreading the enveloping robes over his own legs like a blanket, and tucked one arm inside the robe, ignoring the elf's shiver.
It was, he thought sourly, like snuggling with a skeleton.
The storm didn't abate the next morning, and snow gradually began to build up in the mouth of the cave, piling on top of what had already been deposited the previous night. Barely two hours after what K'dzok's time sense told him should have been dawn, it was halfway towards the roof. K'dzok's mouth thinned. At this rate they'd be buried.
He shook Hiath roughly awake.
"We're going to have to move, or we'll be buried in here."
Hiath got up, and K'dzok mouthed a profanity as cold slid into the places where their bodies had trapped heat between them.
"Fuck," he muttered only five minutes later as the top portion of the snow wall fell in and a shaggy white-covered head appeared, big amber eyes regarding him with amusement in the huge, pale blue face.
"Come along," Heironymus said through the mouth of the frost vrykul he'd possessed. "I can't have you suffocating under three feet of snow before I've had a chance to make you really suffer. It's entirely too peaceful an ending."
Hiath was standing at the back of the cave, hands raised, but no fire jetted forth yet. K'dzok looked at him, and back at the vrykul.
"A truce, for now." The vrykul shrugged.
"We'll freeze out there," Hiath said quietly.
"You're a mage - you should know cold wards unless the elves have become even shittier spell-casters than I recall," the frost vrykul said bluntly. "Your fire spells certainly won't do you much good in this."
"How'd you find us?" K'dzok demanded.
The vrykul chuckled. "I've been combing the passages from the gorge where I almost had you with those ogres all the way to K3 for a good five hours now." He jerked a huge thumb behind him. "Come on, I've got much better entertainment planned for you courtesy of the goblins, and if you stay here, you're dead."
Once again, K'dzok half-expected Hiath to fall behind, and once again he was surprised by how the elf kept up. K'dzok didn't respect him for it exactly, but he was less irritated than he would have been otherwise, and that was something.
An amber-eyed taunka met them after around what K'dzok estimated was three hours of travel, and took them the rest of the way to K3 through the howling blizzard. They followed him through a thick wooden door into a low-ceilinged building lit by torches and the big fireplace along one wall.
K'dzok was numbed, frozen to the bone by his frosty journey. The scuffle was brief. He felt a pinprick in his right arm, and suddenly it wouldn't respond at all to his commands. He went down under a rush of two more taunkas, and got a glimpse of Hiath doubled over a fist in his belly, a troll with dark-green skin slamming him over the back of the head with a club.
"Well," the taunka said cheerfully in the cultured tones of Heironymus. "You know what comes next."
K'dzok only grunted as he was flung across a table, face-down, and iron manacles were closed around his wrists, his legs forced up and at an angle, knees clamped in more restraints. Armor and clothes were sawed off and ripped from his body. The wood was hard and slightly cold against his skin. K'dzok set his teeth.
"Joo got a nice ass, mon." The accent reminded K'dzok of home. It wasn't a comforting recollection. He craned his head around. The eyes that met his were red, not amber.
"Help me out," K'dzok said in Zul'amani.
The troll just grinned around his tusks, white teeth contrasting with his dark green skin. "Don't worry, you're gonna enjoy this. Or at least I am anyway."
He wasn't small, he wasn't shy, and he didn't use any lubricant. At first K'dzok was able to hold it in. That lasted about two seconds, right up until he felt a massive bell end press against his tightly furled hole and start to push. Then he felt the other troll penetrate him and he couldn't help the agonized snarl that was torn from his throat.
K'dzok had never liked pain, and there'd always been more than a fair share of it for him growing up. He didn't like it any more now. He fought, struggled, writhed, muscles bunching, willing his right arm to wake up. The iron should have given way like wet tissue paper.
His arm didn't move in the slightest, didn't even twitch.
The troll plowed further into him. K'dzok's howls were lost in the storm that shrieked just outside.
When he woke, the manacles were undone. The building was empty but for the coals that burned low in the fireplace, and the huddled bundle in one corner that turned out to be Hiath, hair matted with dried blood, breathing shallow. K'dzok could feel the fluid that trickled down the inside of his leg from his loosened sphincter, seed and blood draining from his violated hole, a hollow, burning feeling there between his legs.
When he'd finally passed out, he'd dreamed once more of ice. It had melted away with the return of consciousness, leaving him scraped and stretched, used and aching. He could still feel that hard, throbbing, unyielding heat, driving into him again and again, merciless, feel the jizz splatter against his insides.
The shredded remnants of his clothes and armor were where they'd been left, but his axe was gone. K'dzok sorted through the rags until he found a pocket, brow creasing slightly as his fingers emerged with the swirl-carved jasper broach.
Of course. If Heironymus tried to pick it up with one of his pawns, he might well lose his connection to it. K'dzok caught it up in one fist.
He was going to have his revenge, and when he did, it was going to be particularly painful. Heironymus was going to find out just what a colossal mistake he'd made by humiliating K'dzok.
He was debating the wisdom of going out, ripping someone's head off, and taking their clothes and money when the door opened, admitting a troupe of goblins.
"We don't know what Skinslayer wants with you," said the leader. "We don't care. We just want him to stop screwing with K3. He's hiding up at the Temple of Winter, thinks nobody knows he's there." They dropped their burdens onto the floor, a thick cloak, a set of leather armor, and a short sword. One of the goblins left a small clay jar with a red cross on the table where K'dzok's blood was still soaking into the wood.
"Honest Max has wyverns, and the storm should blow over in an hour or so," their leader added, and without a word more, they left.
The jar was obvious. K'dzok uncorked it, took a generous swig himself, and felt the ache between his legs ease. He slapped Hiath until he started to come around, tipped up the elf's head, opened his mouth, and poured the rest down his throat.
It was all an obvious set up. K'dzok almost snarled at the contempt Heironymus was showing him.
The storm didn't exactly blow over, but the wind died down and the snow fell more or less vertically. The clothes were rough and a little small, the armor mismatched, but K'dzok took it anyway.
He didn't really have a choice.
Hiath was once again silently at his heel, the blood elf as uncommunicative as ever.
Honest Max handed them the reins of a wyvern with a broad grin, one that K'dzok half-suspected was a rictus, a facial muscular disorder the little green bastard couldn't get rid of. They flew swiftly northward, guided by a crude but serviceable map.
K'dzok's eyes narrowed as the roofless columned portico came into sight, a circle of mammoth pillars cresting a peak, oddly devoid of snow but for the rim of stone that connected their tops. The interior too, was noticeably bare of snow, even from this height, and K'dzok could see massive figures standing within as he circled above it. The wyvern banked with a shriek as K'dzok yanked its head around and dived towards the Titan temple.
The frost vrykul arrayed around the circular interior looked down at the troll and the blood elf with unblinking frozen amber eyes, not moving from where they stood.
K'dzok estimated there were maybe ten of them total.
"Where are you, Heironymus? I'm here, just like you wanted!" K'dzok's shout seemed thin and small in that place. The wyvern growled uneasily beneath him.
"Right here." The frost vrykul spoke in that freakish unison that K'dzok was coming to despise, mouths moving as one as they folded their hands behind their backs in perfect synchronization. "Right . . . everywhere." They chuckled together, booming voices like an avalanche.
"Where are you really?" he roared. "Quit playing games! Show yourself, conjurer of cheap tricks!"
"I enjoyed watching your kinsman fuck you." The voice came from the direction of the throne at one end of the portico that had, up until now, been empty. A pale figure stood in the seat, wrapped in snowy-white, even his long, braided hair colorless, the only exception his eyes, like frozen amber. "Listening to you howl and scream and wail, K'dzok, that was quite satisfying indeed."
K'dzok could feel his teeth grinding. It was probably just another trick. He didn't care. He booted the wyvern in the ribs and it leapt with a roar.
The roar was still echoing between the columns when the beast literally turned to ice between K'dzok's legs, coming down and shattering over the stone, leaving him and Hiath both sprawled across it.
Heironymus had an amused smirk on his face. "You're going to have to do so much better than that."
K'dzok reached for Hiath, grabbed him by the arm, and yanked the blood elf to him. The pale face was fixed in agony, thick trails of blood pouring from eyes that glowed like brilliant azure stars.
"He hasn't given in yet." Heironymus shrugged, tucking his colorless hands into the pockets of the robes he wore. "He keeps eating the magic. It'll be interesting to see how long he can keep this up until he just explodes. At the rate he's going, by the time he pops he might well incinerate everything within a three hundred yard radius."
K'dzok picked up the elf, slung him over one shoulder, and began the futile sprint to where Heironymus was standing at his ease. He saw the smirk on that bloodless face widen.
The frost vrykul closed in.
K'dzok's left shoulder was beginning to sting, little jabs that pricked his skin, made his muscles twitch, and arcs of energy were crawling over Hiath's body. There wasn't much time. K'dzok dodged a massive blue hand that moved to block his path, feinted left and dove right around slapping fingers, dropped flat in time to avoid a large, swinging foot.
Heironymus, damn him, was laughing.
K'dzok was determined that that laughing sound would be the last one the human mage would ever make.
A vrykul crouched in front of him, golden eyes and huge mouth grinning, watching as he came.
K'dzok waited until the hand was almost around him, and stabbed the needle of the broach into the pale blue flesh.
The amber color drained from the vrykul's pale blue eyes, and it stared at him, confused. The laughter stopped. K'dzok dove right between the massive giant-kin's legs, slid, fetched up against the bottom of the throne, and held Hiath up, willing the blood elf to explode in a fiery conflagration.
Golden eyes looked back down at him, a mocking smile on those pale features, and K'dzok dropped him, arms and hands suddenly numb, coated with frost. The blood elf tilted his head back, opened his mouth wide, and blue fire spiraled skyward, a cerulean spire that reached the clouds and dwindled to nothing.
K'dzok watched as the charred remnants of Hiath's face tilted back downward, pale green eyes wide and lifeless, and the elf's corpse toppled at his feet.
He was too stunned to even notice the titanic roaring behind him, the battle that had ensued as two of the frost vrykul tackled their awakened kinsman off the side of the Temple. He glowered at the thin, shrunken body, furious at the betrayal.
"Well, this has been entertaining." Heironymus was sitting on the edge of the throne now, a few feet above K'dzok's head. "But it's time for you to go and destroy yourself, just like I did." The human mage's smile was malevolent, amber eyes hard and cold. "Go. Find a way to kill me, K'dzok, and be damned just as I am now."
K'dzok was still trying to force his frozen arms to work, to obey him, to reach up and tear the human down from the titan throne and batter his face into ruin as light swept him up, taking away the world.
Ж
Skinslayer looked at the place the troll had stood, the creature he had given up everything to destroy, and his hand came to rest briefly on the axe that sat on the stone beside him, cold and still sharp. He could feel the worn wood grains beneath his hand. How fitting it would have been to have reached down and cleaved that wretched visage in twain with the scarred blade, felt the vibrations travel up his arm as the axe took one last life. He could have in that moment of vulnerability, as those eyes raged at him, full of hate.
It hadn't been mercy that stayed his hand.
To kill K'dzok now would have been to avert the fate that Heironymus himself had suffered, to grant him respite from the terrible evil that his hatred would force him to become. A tiny, still-human part of him had almost done it, full of loathing for the rest of him. It was too small, too weak. The inexorable fate that Heironymus had set in motion would claim the troll, would take everything from him. In the end, he would know no pleasure, no ambition, no desire. In the end, there would be only vengeance, and then that too would be taken from him.
K'dzok would become as hollow, bitter, and terrible as Skinslayer himself, would hate himself for it, and in the end, would destroy himself. Even death's sweet embrace would be denied him.
Skinslayer would see to it.
He met his own eyes, saw the cold, deathly self-loathing in each reflected gaze.
Skinslayer vanished into glimmering motes of light.
Frost vrykul woke, staring at each other in confusion as their own minds slowly reasserted themselves. Pale, frosty blues eyes caught on the standards and symbols of enemy tribes.
The Storm Peaks reverberated with more than just howling wind.
Author's Post-Script Notes:
Well, a lot happened with K'dzok this chapter. Yes? No? Is this interesting? Is it boring?
Once again, I am looking for a good, constructive critique, especially as far as stylistics and flow go. And please let me know if I've got any typos. I proof-read these things, but I still have the occasional (and embarrassing) one or two here and there.