by Rex Hazelton
To compensate for his blatant defficiency, Wyzlethrom decided he better act like the idea of molesting Bala was his. If he could turn rape into a threat that would force their prisoner to talk, Wyzlethrom could assume the role of the aloof leader who lets the underlings do the dirty work.
"We're males alright." A flat-faced cretchym, who looked like he was closing shutters on a pair of round windows each time he blinked, spoke with a deep, gutteral voice from his perch on a nearby wall. Puffing up feathers that ran down the back of his head, across his shoulders, and onto wings that were slowly rising from the back they had been folded against, the cretchym reached down to unbuckle the belt he used to hold up his leggings as he stared at Bala.
"Do you hear what they're saying?" Wyzlethrom stood as he spoke. "You better talk before I let them take you." He said this like he had the power to determine Bala's fate. But that wasn't the case at all. She belonged to the swarm now.
"I don't understand." Bala feigned ignorance as she looked stoically about. She knew her life was over, so why not milk the situation for more time."Talk about what?
"Talk about what?" Wyzlethrom swept one of his four hands out as he said, "For starters, why are you here?"
"I told you," Bala rotated her head in an effort to loosen the noose that was cinched too tight against her green flesh, "I live nearby."
Wyzlethrom rubbed his chin with another one of his four hands. "You being a female is a problem in itself, though some of my brothers would say otherwise. And that concerns me much more than what your home looks like. The Sorcerer has forbidden your kind to live. He has also forbidden magic to be worked in this foul place. Now both forbidden things have appeared here. Is this a coincidence? I think not.
"So, let's talk about the magic that was recently used here. Were you the one who conjured it up? Maybe a friend of yours was responsible? Hmmm?"
The mosquito-man paced about with two of his hands clasped behind his back like commanders sometimes do when they inspect their troops. Looking at the others, nodding his head as he did, the cretchym said, "Something unlawful is transpiring here. This female is proof of that. If she doesn't tell us all she knows about the illegal doings that have taken place, I'll give her to you to do with as you please. I only ask that you don't kill her, at least, not right away. Who knows, she might eventually find her tongue."
The tall cretchym with the cloak-like wings smiled as he swung his arms behind himself and clasped his hands behind his back, replicating Wyzlethrom's posture. His unblinking eyes peered at Bala out of the shadows that filled the deep sockets they were set in. To think he was about to get his first taste of a female cretchym.
Maybe, he reasoned, once we've had our fill, we might just bring her along with us so we can have something to snack on when we get hungry again.
Getting to the roots of the mysterious outworking of magic that had recently been unleashed in Mishal Parm was close to being the last thing on the tall cretchym's mind.
"I'm first." The flat-faced cretchym spat out his words to claim the right to be the first one to violate Bala. And to get his point across, he spred out his massive wings, lept off the top of the wall he had been perched on in a human-like crouch, and swooped down to the ground in front of the tall cretchym.
Aiming his wings in a rigid downward angle with his feathers all puffed out, the bird-man unsheathed the sword he had fastened to the belt he had not quite unbuckled. Then he shoved the tall cretchym uncerimoniously aside and took hold of the rope that was looped about Bala's neck. He didn't bother dealing with Wyzlethrom who quickly untied the rope from the ring he had affixed to his belt. Why should he when he didn't think the commander would care about who was first with Bala when it couldn't possibly be him.
Dragging Bala to the wall he had lept from, the flat-faced cretchym lifted his wings and spred them out until their ends touched the wall. This formed a barrier he was certain his source of entertainment couldn't get past and created a shield that gave him the privacy he wanted.
"Hold Still." He rasped out his words in a deep, threatening voice before he pursued his lips in concentration. With his flat face, large eyes, and pursed lips, the cretchym looked more like an owl than a human as he scrabbled to loosen Bala's gaments.
The members of the swarm looked on with various degrees of interest. Some looked bored. Others were excited that pain and humiliation was about to be dispensed. This was in keeping with the desires they inherited from their father. Then there were those who leered at their brother's back, lost in their imaginations, as they wondered what the naked female must look like.
Bala had stoically accepted her fate until the huge cretchym finished unbuckled his belt, let his leggings fall to the ground, and began groping at her body. That's when she screamed and knew terror like she had never known before.
The swarm stirred as the exhilirating sound washed over them. Wings opened. Heads bobbed. Mandibles worked feverishly. Laughter was heard. Coarse jesting followed.
The woe Bala was about to suffer was part and parcel of what made Ar Warl the dark place it was, a place where both abuse and abusers were accepted as the norm by a population resigned to enduring the inevitable. Because of this, the Ar was stunted in its growth. Only the evil it bred had reached maturity.
If Ab'Don's realm had a tenth of the civility that the Nyeg had, the Ar would have groaned over the cruelty that was about be inflicted on Bala. But as it stood, Ar Warl simply turned its attention away from the atrocious scene, ignoring the deplorable goings on, acting like the natural order wasn't being disrupted, corrupted, or twisted.
In a time now past, the Age of Stars Blood as it was called, Vlad'War spoke of the appalling condition the warl would allow itself to fall into. Somehow, he knew it would happen. That's why he created the Hammer of Power, to give his descendents a weapon to fight against the encroaching darkness.
A famous writing of his, called The Ruminations of a Concerned Wizard, that made its way into the Candle Makers' library, says:
If the light does not vigilant remain,
The darkness freed will leave a stain,
That will heap upon itself in relentless fury,
A pile of filth, a mountain of worry.
Rising up like an impregnated womb,
The darkness will bulge with threatening doom.
Then proof of life must be demanded,
Will the light shine forth or goodness be stranded?
For on that day battle horns will be heard,
And the hearts of the weary will finally be stirred,
To fight a war they have long forsaken,
Until the Warl From darkness is retaken.
Bala's piercing screams continued, interpsersed with pleas for mercy that fell on deaf ears. The cretchym's cacophonous chatter rose along with the volumn of her cries.
Then a dog howled. Another howl joined it to create an unpleasant tritone. More joined in. Howling soon turned to barking, the stoccato-like outbursts marking the location of a large pack of canines that was approaching Mishal Parm at speed. Growing louder by the moment, the way the canine ruckus hung in the air like it was the sonic version of seeing spots after being blinded by a bolt of lightning gave evidence that magic was at hand, Hag magic, that was being employed by a company shapeshifting wizards that were drawing ever closer; the type of magic that the cretchym were well acquainted with. But before the cretchym had time to worry that the Hag were on their way to take Bala off of their hands before they were ready to give her up, for it was only logical to assume the dark wizards would be profoundly interested in the swarm's catch, a stag of huge proportions burst out of the shadows filling Mishal Forest and onto a rise that overlooked the ruined city.
With a chest broader than a full grown bull's, the reddish-brown buck lifted a head that was crowned with antlers wider than a wagon's bed. After sniffing the air with its uplifted nose, the stag snorted so loud the cretchym heard it in spite of the distance that lay between them and the grea
t beast. Nor did the noise the pursuing hounds were making drown the sound out.
An instant later, a pack of large black dogs exploded out of the forest and fell upon the stag- snarling, barking, and biting as they did. Reacting to the viscious attack, the intrepid stag- for neither did its eyes bulge out in fear nor did its mouth gape open in terror- swept its spike-laden antlers through the pack like they were twin scythes harvesting a field of grain. Catching one of the black hounds with its sharp embrace, the huge buck lifted the screaming dog overhead before throwing the wretched shapeshifter on top of the furious pack.
As the other hounds drew back, some going to their haunches as they frantically pushed away from the deadly antlers' reach, the great stag lept down the rise and entered Mishal Parm.
Knowing this was no ordinary buck they were following, the shape-shifting Hag bounded after their prize. The sounds of pursuit and battle filled the city as the combatants wound their way toward the startled cretchym.
Would the stag make the mistake of dashing into the midst of the deadly swarm while trying to evade the hounds? As time passed, it seemed more than likely that this very thing would happen. It became a certainty once the stag appeared in the same street where Wyzlethrom and his band of winged-vermin were waiting.
With the hounds scrambling over the top of one another, as they tried to sink their fangs into their prey, the buck moved swiftly forward, sweeping its antlers from side to side to make certain its way was clear.
Seeing the stag leaping towards him, Wyzlethrom's nasal voice rose in pitch and volumn as he ordered the swarm to help the pack of shapeshifters bring the buck down. Wyzlethrom was right to guess the stag was much more than it appeared to be. No ordinary forest denizen, no matter how big it was, could have survived so long. No doubt the creature possessed magic of its own. With this in mind, he warned the swarm to beware and to make the kill quickly.
After taking time to see what the ruckus was all about, the flat-faced cretchym turned his attention back to Bala. What did he care about some deer? He had a female cretchym in his grasp, and he wasn't about to let an opportunity like this pass by.
With his wings keeping Bala contained, the bird-man reached out with his arms to use his hands to strip off her clothing. It wasn't long before he realized that the ropes tying his captive's hands together would prevent him from removing the black leather coat she was wearing. So he drew out his sword and cut the bonds away, confident he would have no problem controlling the diminuitive female once he did. Besides, a rope was still looped around her neck.
With his belt unbuckled and his leggings discarded, the flat-faced cretchym fumbled with the small buttons on Bala's jacket as the storm broke upon the swarm. When a cretchym slammed into one of his wings as it slid along the ground, it angered the bird-man so much that he drove his sword into the affronting intruder who slid into the wall Bala was pinned up against. Not taking time to remove his weapon from the lifeless body that lay beneath him, after pushing it aside with a bare foot whose talon-tipped toes were too long to be human, the flat-faced cretchym took advantage of having two free hands to unfasten the stubborn buttons. Still he fumbled along until his impatience made him grab the coat and try to tear it off Bala's body. Instead, he ended up inadvertantly throwing the female to the ground as his hands slipped off the jacket they were pulling on.
"Bala!" Someone called out the little cretchym's name.
"I'm here." Bala found herself shouting as loud as she could. The way her name had been called out had prompted her reply, though she didn't know who she was replying to.
"Bala!" Her name was shouted again.
"Here." Her voice broke as she cried out, "I'm here!"
A moment after she called out for a second time, the heart of the tumult reached Bala and her captor. The sounds of fighting drowned out all noise except the roar of pain the flat-faced cretchym released as he was lifted up off the ground. Having failed to grab hold of the sword he had plunged into his brother-cretchym as he was swung skyward, the bird-man blinked in disbelief as he found himself skewered by the stag's deadly antlers. Looking past the spikes that had been rammed into his back and through the skin covering his stomach, he moaned loudly over his misfortune, for not only was he losing his life, he was losing the opportunity to partake of the flesh of the only female cretchym he had met in his fetid life.
While lifting the flat-faced cretchym high overhead, the stag said, "Flee Bala! I'll keep them busy for as long as I can. But that won't be long."
The stag's voice was familiar, though the shape of its elongated mouth distorted the sound it made.
"Bacchanor?" Bala shouted the name of the man Mar’Gul had taken to be her husband, a man that was nearly as dear a friend to her as his wife was.
"Free yourself and fly away," the shape-shifting wizard shouted before tossing the bird-man at the snarling black hounds that surrounded him.
Turning to face both the pack and swarm, Bacchanor rose up on his hind legs and flailed at the dogs' snapping jaws with sharp fore-hooves that soon crashed to the ground. Then he swept the expanse of his huge antlers before him to create a space where he could shift shapes. And before there was time enough to pronounce the name of the city they were in, if anyone had the inclination to do so, the stag's reddish-brown hide took on a tawny hue, antlers were exchanged for a dark mane heavy with hair, hooves morphed into huge paws armed with dagger-like claws, and a griffin appeared where a stag once stood.
But Bacchanor wasn't the only one shifting shapes. Most of the Hag were assuming their human forms. They did this so they could call on the magic that dwelt in the black candles they carried with them. The stag's speed, and the pack's inability to corner the great beast, kept them from doing this sooner. But now, in a street bordered by broken down walls that were walls nevertheless, and with the addition of a swarm of cretchym that could take over the job of cornering the swift creature, the dark wizards were free to assume a shape that would allow them to conjure up their considerable magic and the arsenal of weapons it provided them.
One by one, the large black hounds elongated into upright human forms. Candles, just as black as the robes the wizards wore, appeared. Words of Power were spoken. Wicks ignited. Flames began to twirl about in the hands that would soon craft their fields of magic into weapons they would use to attack the griffin.
Bacchanor assumed the form of a winged-lion in anticipation of the Hag's transformation. Having chosen to take the shape of a stag as he approached Mishal Parm in a failed attempt to avoid detection, for the magic the griffin-body activated would have been readily picked up by Ab'Don's agents, Bacchanor threw stealth aside to take on the shape of a winged-lion that the Warl's Magic itself had created, a shape, that because of its origins, was inherently magical.
Becoming a griffin also allowed the Brown Wizard greater access to the remnant of Vlad'War's Magic that had been given to him in the Battle of the Cave of Forgetfulness when the Hammer of Power reached out of Jeaf Oakenfel's arm, where it had settled, and touched him with a vein of blue light replete with power that made his skin nearly as tough as armor.
Thus far, the magic that was associated with Mishal Parm’s greatest wizard had protected the stag, preventing the pack from inflicting any wounds of consequence on the great animal. But that would change once the Hag threw their candles' might into the fight. So, the Brown Wizard assumed the griffin form that could tap into the residue of Vlad'War's Magic that remained in his body in a way he wouldn’t be able to if he stayed a stag, a residue that had steadily diminished over time's passing but was still formidable if it could be properly accessed.
While the swarm fixated on bringing the griffin down, a fixation that was driven on by the tales the cretchym had heard about how the Community of Blood had slaughtered their kind in the Battle of Decision, and while the Hag were turning their twirling candles’ magic into fiery shields or into giant fiery hands they intended to use to crush Bacchanor with, Bala set about freeing herself in
accordance with Bachahnor’s urging.
Not taking time to loosen the noose that was cinched about her neck, Bala grabbed hold of the part of the rope that lay on the ground. Hurriedly running the braided tether along the edge of the flat-faced cretchym's sword that still protruded out of the creature he had skewered, she severed the rope to a length she could carry in flight, though her haste kept her from gauging its span accurately. Then extending her wings, Bala leapt into the air and flew off. To stay was to die. Still she wished she could help her savior who was battling for his own life. But Bala pressed on, knowing Bacchanor would be angry with her if she did otherwise. Besides, Mar’Gul must have had a premonition about her troubles and sent the Brown Wizard to do what he was now doing.
When the tall cretchym, with wings that looked like a flowing black cape as he stood, rose into the air behind her, all thoughts of trying to help Bacchanor were pushed aside by an urgent desire to escape the one who was set on using her body as his personal playground.
Off Bala went, out over the mayhem-choked street and on to Mishal Forest where she was confident she could escape the lust-driven pursuer with her superior speed and mobility. But Bala hadn't counted on the drag the dangling rope placed on her. Longer than she thought it was, its weight and unwieldly nature kept her from outdistancing the tall, black-winged cretchym.
When she finally reached the forest, Bala found that the trailing rope reduced her mobility so much that it was a good bet the tall cretchym would eventually catch up with her. Though his black wings were long, Bala's pursuer was amazingly swift and agile, and he flew with a recklessness that was commensurate with the value he placed on the female he was willing to risk physical harm to catch.