Dark Imaginings
At the Enemy's Pleasure
xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
Enemy’s Pleasure
drag Arithien and the other bound Silheen away through narrowed eyes.
classic pose that indicated suspicion. The
General of the hosts of Light thrashed and struggled and even though he was
bound, he somehow managed to send more than one of the Lycean warriors
sprawling. Normally, Cu’Ren would have
chuckled at the sight of the guard yipping excitedly, their hackles raised as
they were. This time, he found no humour
in the spectacle.
Silheen under his direct command, had killed most of his brothers and his
father, as well as countless other of his kin over the years tended to sour his
mood somewhat. The Silheen General
wasn’t the sole cause of his unease though, and Cu’Ren couldn’t shake the
feeling that something was simply not right.
He could feel it. It raised the
hair on the back of his neck and made his skin prickle with foreboding.
three elves didn’t struggle at all.
Cu’Ren had faced enough Silheen to know they would die before they ever
submitted. By rights, they should have
been thrashing and fighting as hard as their General but they weren’t.
spectators to bustle and shove them toward the centre of the encampment without
even a single word or curse. Arithien
was cursing and fighting enough for all four of them all but still... Cu’Ren
knew something was amiss and the smiles that hinted at the corners of the
three’s lips sealed it.
at him in askance but he was staring intently at the Silheen.
a different angle would reveal to him what it was that that he could sense was
so wrong. As expected, Arithien
continued to attempt to shrug away the hands that were restraining him but the
other three were still standing placidly.
They looked like any other Silheen, but there was something...
under guard but do not touch them
until Evan is free.”
in his own language to the others and they all chuckled softly in answer,
except for Arithien, who looked sharply at the elf and then snapped a few
words. Even though the Lycean couldn’t
understand what he had said, they understood the reproachful tone and laughed.
garble, elf. You’re among civilised folk
now!”
to look at the stout Lycean. His lips
peeled back from his teeth and his eyes blazed.
“I’ll translate for your benefit then, shall I?
heart from your chest and leaving your entrails on the thorns for the wild dogs
to bury.”
his lips. “Not a very friendly sort, are
you?”
eyed Dwr as though he was what the wild dogs would leave behind after eating
said entrails, and then returned his glare to the elves in his company.
Dwr and Arithien. “What you have to say
doesn’t interest me. It’s easy enough to
guess what would come out of a Silheen’s mouth, especially yours.
three elves and snapped a few harsh words which Cu’Ren guessed would be something
along the lines of ‘tell them nothing.’
Cu’Ren glared at him but before he could speak, one of the three elves
of whom he was so suspicious laughed softly.
only be described as hungry. “My friend
said that he was disappointed you were going to leave us tied up in a
tent. We had hoped we’d get to taste
Lycean meat.”
eye was glued on the three smiling Silheen.
Both Cu’Ren and Arithien’s jaws were actually gaping.
exactly what kind of Lycean meat they wanted to consume.
recover. He blinked rapidly and shook
himself out of his momentary state of shock.
“Well...if you are that
hungry...” He darted forward and threw
the elf who had spoken first over his broad shoulder.
the pouting, clearly disappointed elf to the ground.
of the warriors who had begun scuffling to see who could get to the remaining
elves first and they instantly fell silent.
“Cu’Sciath, guard those three.
Make sure no one touches them.”
after wiping his own appreciative smile from his face and nodded to the rest of
the Blood Guard. The warriors shoved the
Silheen toward a huge construction of hide and wood pole where the Lycean packs
ate together. It was easily the largest
tent in the camp and a column of smoke rose through a small round opening in the
roof. When Cu’Sciath opened the door and
held it ajar, the delicious smell of the morning meal escaped to waft through
the thin mountain air and a collective sigh rippled among the packs.
appetites would be sated.
gripped Arithien’s arm as he passed.
“You’re coming with me.”
than to clench his jaw when Cu’Ren grasped the short length of rope that bound
his hands. The Spear jerked the Silheen
after him so hard that Arithien sprawled over the snow.
dispassionately. “Get up.”
side as though he was going to stand, and then he shot his foot forward so fast
that it blurred with speed. He kicked
Cu’Ren’s legs out from under him and he landed hard on his back.
but Arithien was faster. His next kick
caught Cu’Ren on the side of his head.
The next smashed into the other side of his face and on the way down,
Arithien found The Spear’s nose with his knee.
It happened so fast that the General was already sprinting away by the
time the rest of the Lycean’s had time to gasp.
and watched the lithe Silheen escaping.
He offhandedly pulled his one handed crossbow from his belt and plucked
an oversized bolt from among another three just like it, which were secured in
the thick leather belt draped over his broad chest.
and took aim. A pale red crosshair was
illuminated across Arithien’s buttocks but before Cu’Ren had a chance to shoot,
a pack of sentries who had just returned from patrol appeared around the corner
of the tent Arithien was fast approaching.
to let out a few alarmed yips before the Silheen leapt high into the air and
ran over their heads the way a herding dog will do to sheep and they dropped,
one by one like dominos in Arithien’s wake with either their noses broken or
were simply unconscious.
shot at the elf. He lifted his crossbow
and without further ceremony, he fired it.
The shining silver case of the bolt sped above the snow and caught the
strengthening sunlight, which made the Spear smile absently.
when it sparkled. Right when he expected
it would the silver chamber flowered open into sharp petal-like points and fell
away from a tight coil of twisted leather rope, which spread and flared now
that it was no longer bound within the metal casing.
and the length was stretched between them.
too late, the elf realised Cu’Ren had fired a hobble bolt at him.
and he sprawled over the frozen ground.
With his hands bound as they were, he couldn’t free himself.
wouldn’t have been able to remove the restraint that Cu’Ren was infamous among
the fleet elves for inventing. Arithien
could feel the tingle of shadow magic flow through the leather rope and prick
his skin even through his clothing.
Cu’Ren’s psychic signature was all over it, and now, it was all over
him. He was murderously angry and
flipped himself over and onto his back in the snow.
stroll casually toward him as though he was merely taking a walk in the morning
light. Arithien gritted his teeth and
then, bizarrely, he began to laugh.
Softly at first but by the time Cu’Ren stood over him, having at last
crossed the significant distance that Arithien had made, the elf’s laugh had
blossomed into a harsh derisive chortle.
of rope from his belt that hung next to his cross bow.
to him and then sat down on Arithien’s legs, hard enough to slow his laughter a
fraction. He lifted the elf’s ankles so
he could bind them tight. Too tight,
actually, but there was no way alive that Arithien would let that be
known.
counterpart. “I watched your father and
your six brothers breathe their last through the blood bubbling from their
mouths after I skewered them on my sword.”
and eyed the knots with which he had bound Arithien’s legs.
Silheen had said but of course he had.
It just hadn’t bothered him. He
expected that his arch enemy would say something like that and he didn’t doubt
that Arithien had personally killed his father and brothers in battle
either. It wasn’t an insult though.
they had gotten close enough to the General of the Silheen host so that he had
to kill them himself.
efforts would hold the swift elf bound, Cu’Ren met Arithien’s blazing eyes
without emotion. “If you killed them
personally and I believe that you did since you strike me as a lot of things
but not as a liar, then that means my kin left a heavy trail of dead Silheen in
their wake before they reached you.” He hauled Arithien roughly to his feet and
stared him straight in the eye. “And
that knowledge makes me smile.”
but Cu’Ren had anticipated the elf would do something like that.
just been betrayed to his enemies but what Cu’Ren had gathered, was his lover,
so it he supposed it was understandable that the elf would be a little off his
game. He wanted to laugh at Arithien
for missing what should have been a sure strike but considering the elf
humiliatingly so, Cu’Ren just couldn’t bring himself to be so spiteful.
had the same consideration for him if their positions had been reversed but
that was by the by. The only conduct
that concerned Cu’Ren was his own.
unceremoniously over his shoulder. While
he had restrained himself from laughing at the elf before, he couldn’t bite
back a smile when a furious string of indignant Silheen curses erupted behind
him. He guessed, correctly again, that
Arithien’s main problem would be the indignity of a General of the Silheen
hosts being carried like slave booty.
That made Cu’Ren happy, just as the thought of his kin killing Silheen
had made him smile. At least he hadn’t
laughed. It was harder to hold back his
mirth when he felt Arithien’s face bounce off his hard buttocks with each step
and he deliberately hoisted the elf a little further over his shoulder so that
Arithien wouldn’t be able to arch his back far enough to stop his face meeting
Cu’Ren’s arse. The thought of the
General of the Silheen host rubbing his face on his butt tickled the Wolf
Spear, as did the renewed and vehement string of elven swearing that erupted
from Arithien’s mouth at each step.
arses, elf?” Cu’Ren said over his
shoulder.
enough to hear my voice.”
then. He couldn’t help it.
had to admit, he’d walked straight into that one.
well clear of the camp’s perimeter and the smile faded rather quickly from
Cu’Ren’s face when he saw just how far he had to walk while carrying the
Silheen’s substantial weight.