The Beast Inside

by M E Wolf

  If that was not all, his four other sons were on four different fronts that had no scouts reporting in to the command tent for six days. He hated waiting like this with no information of what was happening on the fronts in the field. At least he knew more of the front that he was commanding, but what had him concerned was the lack of enemy confrontation on this front. A few days ago they had chased away many of the enemy.

  Over five hundred of the enemy in five separate units of over one hundred men had attacked them outright. The enemy had no real plan of attack and would hit a specific unit of theirs and then pull back. Doing the same thing for each unit they eventually left the field all together. BlackBear’s command had lost two hundred total troops while the enemy lost three hundred on the field and about one hundred and fifty of the ones that fled the field. It was estimated that more than fifty enemy troops had escaped to make their report.

  Concerned that the enemy would come in force from any direction at any time, BlackBear had posted scouts up in the trees three miles, two miles, one mile and half a mile from the command tent in each of the main directions of the compass, North, South, East and West. It was obvious that all of their strengths and weaknesses had been tested to their fullest.

  A hundred troops had been posted at the northern, southern, eastern and western perimeters to prevent them from being completely surprised by an attack. Despite all of his preparations, there was still no sign of his son SilverFox. Later he would see the men that were at least partly responsible for his son’s disappearance, but for now he would think of the possibility of him not returning.

  In a way he blamed himself for his son’s disappearance after all he did give him the post. He actually thought that his son would be safe, but what surprised him most was his son’s uncanny ability to translate enemy ciphers. This deed was what would later find him in trouble.

  “My Lord High General,” one of his many aides called into his tent. “Captain Greenwood is out here to see you. May I send him in?”

  A few moments passed as BlackBear prepared himself for the eventuality of speaking to the one of most senior rank in the command most responsible for the disappearance of his son.

  “Send him in Gordon.”

  Captain Greenwood entered the tent by lifting up the flap. He was a relatively tall man and was still wearing the monk’s robes that he had arrived in only a few hours ago. BlackBear did not know what to make of it. It did not occur to him that this man had ever spent time in the monastery like his son. Putting aside those thoughts he began his questioning and let the man remain standing as he sat in his chair that was fit for a king.

  BlackBear, facing Captain Greenwood, began his questions. “I want a report of everything that happened from when you left the post to your arrival here.”

  Captain Greenwood gave him a detailed report of the events that he wanted. The disappearance of Tree made them go off course and in the confusion of arrow fire they lost track of SilverFox and had assumed that he was still on his horse, which took off through the forest. For days they had tracked the horse but were not experienced trackers and did not notice or know that there was a small difference between the tracks of a horse without a rider and the tracks of a horse with a rider.

  BlackBear called in the rest in turn, but got the same account or similar account of the events as he had gotten from Captain Greenwood. He decided to determine their punishment at a later date, which would most likely be after the war. Even if he had the real message that was supposed to have gotten to him, no one was able to read the report, but his son SilverFox because it was in a different code than their usual cipher and that meant that his son expected himself to be caught.

  Greenwood had mentioned that his son switched messages just before the horse took off, if he had not have done so the cipher would still have been on SilverFox.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE

  Ghak did not like being treated the way that he had been for the last four days. It was a place and situation that he could not magic himself out of, but at least he was left with some semblance of dignity. The two elves had strange white collars around their necks that kept them from magic and even the simple ability of speech. To Ghak it was obvious that they knew each other and even had a slight resemblance to each other.

  Elves usually looked the same to him and he knew that he would have to overcome this if he was to marry two elves that were princesses, not in the ogre sense, but in the Deep Elf sense. As in Deep Elf culture the female rules the society as a queen, while the males in their society can only be princes even if married to a queen. He wondered how they would plan an escape when it was obvious that there would be a scrying device in the jail that him and his two hundred or more comrades had been put in.

  It was hard for his comrades to get used to the fifty odd humans and two elves that were in the prison with them, even though the commander and some strange old man that smelt of death and evil was more concerned with torturing the elves and the humans. Ghak looked at the elves and understood for some strange reason that he would need to free them too. Elvin law was strange and protected its people by exacting a private justice on them.

  The elves did not like the way that other societies treated offenders and that is why an agreement was made with the other societies to bring offenders to the Elvin courts. People obliged because the Elvin courts, if they found the duly charged guilty, would exact a greater punishment upon the offender than any other society. The one resolve is that they heard the cases fairly and without prejudice of any kind.

  There were other problems that would make escape difficult. His mortal enemies, the Orcs that had thrown him and the elf in the jail, were standing in front of the only exit out of the prison. He was thinking of an answer when he heard something flying through the air at a speed that was almost unstoppable. Ghak’s ears were not sharp enough to tell where the arrows were coming from or how many had been sent to flight, which to him meant that it had to be an elf or elves firing longbows.

  Deep Elves were trained from birth in the longbow and were not given arrows until their thirtieth birthdays. They were not allowed to go on a hunt until they could fire eight arrows before the first hit the target, which happened to be when they were older than fifty. When they reached the age of one hundred and fifty they were allowed into the army at the lowest rank.

  They were trained in all aspects of fighting, but bows, longswords and magic were their preferences. An elf seemed to stop aging at about seventeen to twenty-five, at least it did for most. Aging was so gradual for their race that a human or Ogre would not notice them aging at all. This was all speculation on Ghak’s part because once an elf reached twenty it was really hard to tell how old an elf was after that. Only elves could tell how old another elf was.

  Before Ghak realized it, since he was caught up in his reverie, two young elf women that were clearly from different elf clans were freeing him from the shackles and chains that had him bound. The two women were not veiled and that meant that they were betrothed to another.

  It was obvious by ebony skin and velvet hair that one of the women was from the Burnt Deep Elf Clan and the other with snow white skin and sparkling ice blue hair was clearly from the Ice Deep Elf Clan. One of them spoke in a strange language to the other and then giggled like young school girls. He did not understand their language, but understood their gestures and realized that that idiot commander did not return his clothing to him.

  In elf society it was forbidden for anyone but a man’s wife or wives to see a man without clothing. Ghak soon understood why it was they who had freed him and not anyone else as these two women would be his wives. He smiled at them and they smiled back. Between the two of them they were able to get some clothing that was adequate enough to cover his massive body.

  Ghak had to be supported by these two women as they guided him out of the jail and into the forest. They traveled for two days until they reached, what the women called, the wishing tree. He had never seen the device b
efore and it was surrounded by water. Jumping in the water, they quickly sunk to the bottom.

  The women said some words while they stood on a flat, round object that glowed once what they said was done. A moment later and Ghak and the two women were in the middle of his hut, which was in the land of his people.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR

  Michael Cronin knew that he had to report to his emperor. The escape of the elves disheartened him. That damn human commander had to blunder on everything that would give him the possibility of pleasing the emperor. Now, he had to explain the failure to the one he loved more than his wives and children. It took him a few months to arrive at the emperor’s palace with ten soldiers.

  Four horses died on the journey and five soldiers were either lost or killed while traveling through enemy territories. Traveling through swamp, bog and forest was far easier than confronting enemy troops that were on constant patrols of the road, rivers and forest. If Cronin had more time he would have investigated the patrols further. As it was, he put his men at risk by capturing and binding one of the enemy officers on patrol.

  So far his prisoner had not spoken a word, not even in his defense. The emperor had ways to make even the most devoted of the enemy speak their ruler’s secrets. Even after death one could be made to talk. That is why the emperor loved him so much and tolerated his eccentric behaviour. He liked to play with the dead and for that reason most of the soldiers left him alone.

  Unfortunately most women, even whores, left him alone too and even avoided him completely. If a whore spent a night with him he would have to spend twice as much. On the contrary his wives would cost him three times as much as a regular whore. Having a total of forty children with them did not help matters much, in fact he rarely saw them at all anymore. They now spent most of their time with the kids, which allowed him to spend more time with his duties as a man in service to the emperor.

  Upon arriving at the palace gates, him and his party were let in. The soldiers took the horses to the stables and his prisoners were roughly escorted to the dungeon. Two body servants escorted him to a bathhouse that he usually shared with other nobles. Today the bathhouse was empty save for him and his two body servants. A preference of gender he did not have when it came to body servants, so one was male and the other was female.

  Age did not bother him much, but he required that they be older than twenty. Of all the strange things that he admitted were or might be wrong with him, being a pedophile was something he was not. His demented ways were avoided while his face and body were much sought after commodities. In the bathhouse he was always treated like a lord. The fact that business and your reputation in the outside world were forbidden to be discussed in the bathhouse made it his favourite place to be. Cronin was always accused of being obsessed over cleanliness.

  Close friends of his knew the real reason that he spent so much time in the bathhouse. He came to relax with his body servants as they kneaded out all of his worries, sorrows, stress and many other things that bothered him. Together, it did not take long for his body servants to rid him of his travel stained clothing. He lowered himself slowly into the moderately hot bath water using the supports provided for stability. Cronin once knew a man who believed that the weak were the only ones that used the supports.

  One day the man was in a hurry to bathe and getting into the bath he slipped on a bit of soap residue left behind by the previous patron and split his head open so badly that the servants were cleaning blood out of the bath for weeks. Chucked over the side of fools’ cliff, his useless body was. It felt good to have his shoulder muscles kneaded until the kinks were worked out. That was what his male body servant, Jessie, was good for.

  He usually messaged his back and chest and arms. However, while he did that Veronica, his female body servant, messaged his legs, feet, buttocks, mid-section and various other parts of his body. Michael felt real close to his body servants. They had been in his service for more than ten years. Now at the age of fifty he needed the bath house more.

  It was not due to his age, but due more to his bodily hungers that continued to grow as the years passed by. A natural occurrence was increased need for bodily pleasures the more that one followed the darkness and shadow. Michael did not mind it much, but he became more wary of things and people shying away from him. He was avoided like the plague. Suddenly aware that the sun had taken its place where it usually positions itself at mid-afternoon, he abruptly got up making apologies to his body servants.

  Cronin did not remember falling asleep, but he must have. Hours he was in the bath and the emperor was waiting. Despite being the emperor’s favourite, he would probably have hell to pay for letting him wait despite the two prisoners he had found and the soldier that was on patrol.

  Getting dressed quickly, still paying attention to detail and his noble upbringing, in the fine clothing left folded neatly on the bench where his travel stained clothes used to be he set off to the audience chamber where he suspected the emperor was waiting for him.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE

  “After the dogs picked up the sent of SilverFox, we followed his tracks. For miles we followed him being as they were deeper than one with his weight. He had to be carrying something, something heavy.

  “It could be that he was carrying someone. At least that is what we were thinking for the first mile, but after ten we were wondering how he was managing it.

  “As it turns out, he was carrying a young woman. Prettiest thing I ever did see. Unconscious, she seemed to be. Three days onto the trail and we spotted the emperor’s men. There were too many men for us to get your son and the girl away from them.

  “It was hard enough for us to get back here alive. Was thirty of us in the patrol, but only us two made it back.” Both scouts fidgeted with their hands and shuffled their nervous feet while they awaited their Lord.

  BlackBear was long in silence. His face was neither angry nor distressed, only ice hard and expressionless. SilverFox was now in the hands of his enemy and had been for more than six long months. Why did it take so long for these two to get back with the information?

  Something could have been done to rescue his son and that girl, but it was far too late to dwell on it. The war needed his attention, he needed the war to keep his mind busy and his men needed a general that could think clearly,

  “Why did it take you so long to get back with this information? It is far too late to act on it now, far too late. We must believe that my son is alive and continue to do our part in the war effort.

  “Now that I have heard the news of my other sons being alive, I can focus further on the war. We remain strong and our forces continue to get stronger. Captain Greenwood will be your new commander and he is waiting for you at the stables.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX

  Captain Greenwood, still in the monk’s robe and chain mail, waited in front of the crudely built stable yard that was merely a fence adjoining a lean-to made out of logs tied together with hemp. He waited with Captain McOrton, Ghost, Brisbane and BoneTac. Knowing that this assignment was given to him to make up for a blunder done by him and those with him did not make him feel any better about leaving SilverFox in the hands of the enemy.

  When only two men from a thirty man patrolling team came into the camp three days ago after being gone for the better part of six months, he started to wonder. This wondering of his stopped shortly after when he was called into a meeting with BlackBear. Given enough provisions to travel for the three months and one hundred gold, he was set to wait for the two survivors and then head out on a mission.

  His mission was to get into enemy territory and retrieve SilverFox and some girl no one seemed to know anything about. A half hour later the two men arrived, Bart and Duncan. Shortly after the meeting everyone was on their horses with the two new comers scouting out ahead. If it were up to Captain Greenwood and the others, Bart and Duncan would not be going.

  As it was they knew the way to the emperor’s palace and how to
get in and out without being noticed, to Greenwood this was circumspect and cause for concern. The story that they had told the rest in the group was that they spent just over three months gathering the details for an eventual rescue. When asked they did not know anything about the ciphers that SilverFox was carrying on him.

  Greenwood did not trust the two men and did not bring up the subject again, not even to mention that they were the decoy message SilverFox had made up. He found it strange that throughout their month of travel they passed no villages, saw no people, not even a farmer or a farm was visible. He had seen more life in the deserts than he had seen here. It was like Bart and Duncan hadn’t the slightest notion to be seen by anyone.

  After an entire month of weapon drills with his men, he felt relieved when he saw Redmond City just over the horizon, the city that the people of Grand Reach called the City of Bone. With any luck they would reach it by mid-afternoon.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN

  SilverFox and the girl were put into a small dank stone room together. The room was cut from solid stone that was of one piece except for its cast iron door that fit in place so tight that the room could most likely be filled with water and not lose a drop. There was no furniture in the room save for a large stone bed that was just a large block of rock that seemed to be part of the wall and floor.

  The girl was unconscious for more than six of the eight months of their stay in the room. It was then that she gave him her name. Her name was Alexandra. She was starting to get colour back in her cheeks and her health looked to be coming back.