by Karleigh Bon
He felt a rush as his bladder released inside his robes, sending a stream of hot urine soaking between his knees. He proclaimed his fealty before his face went completely numb with shock.
“The elves no longer plague us, and you are the only supreme power left to rule. You are our risen god, Lord Surmanos!”
He managed to articulate the last part clearly, with the authority of his office, as he fell forward, prostrate among the piles of flesh. He prayed the deity he knew as Lord Surmanos, somewhere inside this vile creature, heard him. His left eye started to involuntarily twitch as if the final blow was coming for him. He waited for an answer with his shivering face pressed into the hot wet stench of blood, and his own bodily fluids.
The dragon, in human form, stalked slowly around the dimly lit throne room. Blood dripped from long hair and clawed fingers. His eyes focused on some memory of the distant past.
“We shall rule, yesss...” he hissed at the Heritor.
The fallen lord’s mind focused on more rational thoughts. He liked the word “god” that this man used. He was not always a dragon, although the instinct to be one was very strong.
“It was, that I was, once a Lord... I am... a god… returned,” the monster worked it out in his mind. Lordly power surged through his nerves, and he felt the body tingle alive, and it pleased him. He turned his eyes upon his Heritor, and for a long moment, just stared.
“Stand up, Heritor. Your prayers on this great day have been answered. Long have I waited to take this mortal realm for my own by bludgeon and by blood. I am returned!” Lord Surmanos announced with certainty. His eyes flashed blue and red flame, and a cheer went up from a multitude of followers who were there hiding in the shadows.
There were among them, darkness cloaked men, who were unwilling to show themselves because they were rich and haughty and well-fed, and they did not plan on greeting death on this day.
“Bring my robe,” their lord commanded as he prepared to leave the carnage in the throne room behind. Muted men obediently ran forward and clothed him in silk. They silently ushered him away to his chambers.
As Lord Surmanos walked away, his worshipers, who wore gold silks and rings, disrobed and pressed forward from out of the shadows Their Heritor, hunched over in exhaustion, pulled himself off the floor. He was simply glowing with pride. He had successfully survived the rebirth of their god made into flesh. The man stood up, enraptured in his power.
His heavy robes that stuck into dried blood on the floor quickly fell away. He mindlessly wiped at the itchy grime on his face and staggered forward to join his priests.
They cleaned him with holy oils, and in laying hands on him, blessed him as he came. He would be the first to feast on life, taking back his strength as he caressed a terrified captive who was tied to the altar. Cheers went up as he thrust the final blow into the victim. Now their worship would be conducted in an orderly fashion as the Shadow Cult’s orgy of blood and lust continued.
Naalin’s Bane
Chapter Thirty Five
Naalin woke floating on top of a pile of mutilated corpses. Her first instinct was to scream, but she managed to muffle her face before it happened. As she came to her senses, she remembered the attack that put her deep inside this putrid well. All she could think of is how she was going to survive this nightmare. She had to stop this evil, or all this pain would be for nothing. In her heart, she held a hope that she could save her Roevash. She tried not to think of what had happened, but the pain she felt in her body was a harsh reminder.
Naalin was too small to straddle the well and climb out, so she felt around for an opening or a ladder of some sort. The stone was rough-hewn and slimy to the touch. Blood had thickened along its slippery edges as the bobbing water lapped at the walls like a sick dog. Something dripped down onto her face. Naalin seized with dread as she slapped at it trying to get it off.
She could hear voices speaking of torches and fire.
In a rush of horror, “Lords, they are dumping oil. They mean to set a fire!”
Panic-stricken, Naalin blindly dug for the salves in her waterlogged waist bag and pulled out the fire repel. She slapped the sticky balm over her face and head and hands.
“This is not enough!” her mind reeled.
She tried to calm herself as slippery fingers worked the slick leather ties. She found the water breath and quickly jammed some of the thick salve up her nose. She dove under the pile of corpses as flames burst over her.
Swimming some thirty lengths down, away from the hot oily water, Naalin touched bottom with her hands. The floor of the well was elbow deep, thick with slime that floated up, swirling the water murky with debris. Trying not to gag, she slammed her eyes shut and blindly felt around for a drain or opening into the natural water flow. Naalin’s fingers jammed on something sharp. Feeling for the opening she had no time for a bloodied finger. She found metal bars at the lowest edge.
With eyes still held shut, she wiggled through into an even tighter space that was wider than it was tall. She was suddenly thankful for the slippery slime coating as she slithered, like a snake shedding its skin, through the narrow opening.
Icy cold water bubbled clean around her as she passed near the source spring. Slime washed away as she swam. She wondered how long Master Farghal’s magic salve would work as she let herself float slowly upward to the surface.
Naalin found herself in another dark cave. She could not see anything. The sound of water streaming off her body followed her as she emerged and collapsed. She lay sobbing on a large hard surface giving in to weakness. She was thankful for the cold smoothness of the rock slab.
“Oh gods help me, this is real,” Naalin cried. She had witnessed sorcery of a kind beyond her knowledge. It had taken over her Roevash and turned him into a monster.
Her body suddenly shuddered violently, and she couldn’t stop shaking. The rawness of the suffering gave her heightened awareness of every painful twinge. Focusing on escape was impossible.
Thoughts of her newly discovered sister and her beloved Eijlam flooded her mind. “They are always touching and reaching for each other. They love each other so kindly.” Naalin half-smiled at the memory. Hot tears flowed down her face into her ear and onto the cold rock as she thought of Roevash.
Feeling weightless and upside down in the darkness, she dry-retched as she fought back waves of nausea.
Naalin woke with a start to strange noises. She suddenly realized, she had passed out in her grief, and the cavern was now full of goblins with torches. Her body had grown stiff in the coldness, and her muscles refused to work fast enough. She crawled slowly back into a corner, but it wasn’t far enough. There was no shelter from their sight as her half-naked skin glowed bright against the dark stone walls in the torchlight.
With no cover and her weapons gone, the biggest goblin in the pack quickly picked her up like a prize to be won and carried into the arms of the others. Dirty fingers pinched her skin and poked at her. Wriggling wildly, she tried to escape, but their hands held her tight. She knew the hideous creatures would add her to their stables, and each would have its turn with her. They laughed and pushed at each other as they brought her to the one in charge.
The hiisi leader was the height of a large human. It had a long twisted face that ended in broken teeth that didn’t quite fit in its ugly toad-like mouth. Naalin shivered in disgust. It stared at her through beady black eyes that betrayed the color of its blood.
“This one is in spawn!" The hiisi could smell it in her as he inspected her flesh. He locked a chain collar around Naalin’s neck as the others finished stripping the rest of her tattered clothes off. Sounds of protest came out of her mouth as she hit and clawed at them, but she could not stop them from handling her.
“See the marks!” The smaller one fearfully pointed to her stinging half-healed back. “It is the master’s mark!” The goblins seemed gleeful in their discovery as they yelped in a chorus, “she holds his heir! She holds his heir!”
They dragged her crying and stumbling up to the top of a tower and locked her chain to a metal bar embedded into the stone wall. The leader threw what looked like roasted meat down into the dirty straw pile beneath her. Naalin had grown hardened in her resolve to live long enough to kill her captors. She glared like a wild beast back at them.
“This will do. Run, tell the master,” the taller one said. The little-twisted one jumped to his command and skittered off.
"Get back on patrol," their leader backhanded the nearest one sending it flying into the wall with a grunt. The leftover goblins quickly shambled away, sneering and moaning as they went. The hiisi then sat down across the room. Naalin pretended to taste the rotten meat that was given to her, and made low growling noises as if enjoying the feast very much. Her eyes riveted on the creature before her. The skin of hiisi and goblins were always smeared with dirt and dark sticky oils, giving the beast a scent that made Naalin want to spew her guts out. It took all her strength to pretend like it didn’t bother her as she put her plan of escape into action.
“Come to me, hiisi,” she beckoned in her lowest voice. “Thy master already fills me, so why not have some fun. My belly full, I am ripe with desire… I will not tell,” she crooned.
She smiled, licking at the grease on her fingers and making loud sucking noises with her mouth. She went pale when she noticed the meat rind had burned fur still on it but managed to keep the ruse going. The hiisi swelled visibly to her taunting. He stood up and pulled hard on himself, showing her the great pleasure he had for what he was about to do to her. When he came close enough to be in her waiting embrace, Naalin whipped her chain around its scrawny neck. Surprised by the attack, the monster could not even cry out as she shoved her bare feet up into its chest to gain leverage. In tightening her grip, something foul drooled on her as the chain broke its neck. The hiisi let out a final gasp, and the whole thing came crashing down in a limp heap on top of her.
“These creatures must all die!” Kicking and struggling, Naalin could not push it off fast enough. She spat and gasped for air, trying to wipe the slime off her neck and face. Her gut twisted in vile queasiness, and she vomited to clean out her system. She had learned this technique while in the service of Ellinduil’s kingdom.
It didn’t take much to persuade her body to get the job done. It left her feeling dizzy.
“There is no time to be sickened in all this,” she spat again clearing her mouth as her eyes shifted around assessing her surroundings. Naalin found a ring of keys and took a weapon off the dead hiisi’s stinking body. Her light skin shown too much, so she found a pile of wet filth and smeared it over her face and arms. She used it to mat her hair into an odd shape to fake a goblin deformity. Naalin expertly assassinated every lone ogre, hiisi or goblin that had the unfortunate luck to cross paths with her. Gathering what she needed from each corpse, Naalin soon hid her femaleness under layers of dirty, ragged cloth and ill-fitted armor.
“By all the lords above! It was bad enough that I have to smear myself with their feces, but now I have to suffer their bug-infested wraps! Oh lords help me!” Naalin steeled herself, trying not to think on it as a shiver of madness threatened to overtake her. She wanted to scream, but she knew if she did, she would never stop screaming.
Rounding a corner into an opening, she saw a massive creature that seemed to be in command. It was wearing some of Roevash’s distinctive armor. She recoiled, catching her breath in the shadows. There were too many enemies to fight for it, so she had to let it go. Forcing herself forward, she moved through the space unnoticed among the horde.
"Filthy hiisi and goblins must have divided up Roe’s gear after that monster cast it off... like prizes to be won!” Her mind reeled with the agony at such thoughts.
Roevash’s beautiful sword walked past attached to the back of a hiisi. Emotion rose inside Naalin out of her control. She stalked the offending monster across the cavern down into a path that was only a crack in the rock wall. The creature carried a torch that lit up the height of the place as it shambled on. The hardened dirt walls towered unending into a black emptiness above. The cramped corridor seemed to go on forever in the darkness. Naalin hung back beyond the edge of the light until she was sure there would be none but her target.
The fiery torch fell out of its grip as the rusted iron sword Naalin wielded sliced down into its unguarded shoulder. She had used the narrow walls to run up to a height far enough to make the momentum of her first strike lethal. The blade punctured through its right lung, killing the hiisi with barely a sound. Its lifeless body fell on the burning torch dousing the flame, leaving its assailant hunched over and alone in the pitch darkness.
Wanting nothing else, Naalin frantically felt around for the familiar weapon that belonged to her beloved Roevash. When her searching hands finally found it, she pulled his sword free from the miserable beast’s corpse and hugged it to herself. She bitterly wept. The ornate gold filigree that decorated the sword's scabbard pressed its design into her cheek. She was comforted by the coolness on her hot, swollen face.
“I cannot give way to weakness here,” she thought, but the scent of the polishing solution that Roe used to clean it and keep the blade to a razor sharpness was still faint, and it stung her nose into more tears.
“At least I can keep this for him. For when you might return to me,” she tried to give herself that hope. She slung the weapon across her shoulder and made her way forward in the darkness. The path finally opened into what looked like a stable.
Captive human females lined the walls. Their eyes watched the ragged beast that was Naalin as she made her way through the long dim passage. Some were glaring angrily while some stared blank at walls, others had red tear-swollen faces as they swooned over in madness. Naalin’s mind blackened as she stalked forward through the place. She had witnessed this kind of evil before. She stumbled forward trying not to lose focus. The goblins fed their captives forcibly, prodding and touching them like prize cattle and then there was the constant, continuous defilement. She noticed a few were already dead from either the stress of being captured or torn open from birthing halfbreed spawn. Their bodies would be used for food as nothing went to waste in a goblin horde.
“These are the voices we heard as we entered this place,” Naalin realized as she turned her eyes upward and saw the ledge that led to the tunnel above. She and Roe had climbed past here only a few short days ago, “or has it been weeks?” Naalin wasn’t sure anymore.
Two goblins were making noise and fondling a young girl whose hair and clothes were cleaner than the rest. “That one must be new,” Naalin thought to herself as she noticed the bout of activity at the far side of the room. “She still has some strength in her.” Naalin stepped closer as the struggling girl kicked one of the monsters away. The thing cackled as it righted itself and pawed at her again.
Naalin could see the goblin’s growing excitement at what it was about to do. Her body boiled in anger as she swiftly moved up behind them. The creatures were too distracted in their intent to notice her until it was too late. Their black blood splashed over the girl's terror-filled face as Naalin easily sliced through their scrawny necks. The goblins fell heavily on either side of the girl. They lay halfway hidden under the crudely piled stall branches.
“I am Naalin. Do not be afraid,” her voice was gruff as her eyes darted around to see if they were discovered. Leaning forward against the wall over the girl, she shoved the bodies further under the wood and straw.
“We are going to get out of here,” Naalin hissed.
A sizable hiisi guard came shambling down the line towards them. Narrowing her eyes, she dropped the sword down out of sight. Inspecting its line of captives the hiisi stopped and stared at them. Naalin pulled the girl up violently by the hair and slammed her against the wall. She made noises and motions as if she was busy defiling the girl. Her captive screamed very convincingly at the shock of it. Pretending to faint, she endured Naalin’s harsh grip. “He he he he, Tas
ty one,” it laughed, scowling down at the fleshy girl. Its wet lips were thin and toad-like as it spoke. The monster passively looked on but soon got bored and continued his inspection farther down the room.
Naalin was glad it left because she was ready to cut him down if he thought to get in line and she was hoping not to draw more attention to herself. One of the keys Naalin carried worked to open the girl's neck chain.
“Do you know how to use this?” Naalin demanded, pointing at Roevash’s sword.
The girl vigorously nodded yes, but Naalin was not so sure the frail young human could do anything more than faint right now.
“Once you carry it in your hands, do not ever let go of this blade,” Naalin commanded.
The girl could see the pain the weapon summoned in Naalin’s eyes, and she nodded again. Pressed into the shadow of the wall, they pulled a chain-mail off one of the dead creatures and slipped it over the girl’s head.
“We have to get up there,” Naalin pointed, and the girl’s eyes rolled upward as she smeared her face in more blood to help hide her skin.
“What about these?” The girl asked about the other victims.
“Give them the keys,” Naalin said coldly, staying focused on their escape.
The girl reached out to a frowning woman who was glaring at her from the wall. She had seen everything that happened and probably would have set off screaming in alarm had they attempted to leave without freeing her too. The women smiled in her madness as she gained the key. The dirty metal collar that hung around her neck fell clanking to the floor. She started unlocking the next victims, and many of them ran away in every direction in the last bid for freedom. The captives grabbed at things to fight the horde monsters, but many were quickly subdued or killed in their weakened condition.
The diversion let Naalin leap up to the wall near the ledge. She expertly hauled the girl up to her side. They made their way across the stones toward the opening. Finally, in the tunnel that led to their liberation, Naalin took off running.