CHAPTER 20.

First Clash

"Ach, Av'ees of the house of Khran does nay happen to be utterly ignorant, then. E'en thou judging by the bearing of yours, your wits ought to have been the closest kinsmen of a particularly dullard nuljaskh!" the old man cackled.

Sweat ran down the crooked bridge of Khran-Av'ees's nose. Well. He had for a good while kenned that the seed of the elderday kings still bode its time somewhere deep in hiding; it would be pointless to start sputtering worn-out sayings such as 'But ye all were supposed to be dead!' or, indeed, as the most desperate item of small-talk, 'You won't get away with this!'

And yet, yet... he needed time. There had to be a means wherewith to bypass this peril. Had not he marched victorious through hundreds, nay, thousands of strives and battles erenow, ne'er submitting his lofty stature and pride unto groveling? Ne'er would he come quietly; that be the utter and final verity beneath and above Tghuonegh'err and Yl-maargh'Inegn.

Somewhere behind the front line of Khran-Av'ees's party, the elves fallen flat due to G'Uhageid's spell were slowly clambering up and returning to their erstwhile steads in the defense formation. A beating that might have required hospitalization for a plain human corresponded to barely a scratch when it came to the Rha-kan'Ockians. Even when profusely bleeding and broken, they would linger betwixt life and death far longer than many an else mortal. Quite much the only means to assure that a Rha-kan'Ockian elf died instantly was either to crunch or chop off his head or drive a blade through the heart. In some sense they were like vampires, if vampires had been mead-drinking, muscle-poisoned hairballs clad in just about everything else than opera cloaks and top hats.

"Ach-grah-ghah-hah, not yet soiled your wee puny loinpocket, son of Khran? For I, without any a doubt whatsoe'er, can smell the abominable fetor of your dripping fear e'en from this afar! Nay wonderment therein, wherefore e'en the maggots wriggling in the dirt are forsaking the patch of befouled ground you are trembling on!"

The warlord bared his teeth, for a moment forgetting his dread. That be it, nobody was going to jeer at his mighty manliness! Most of all, as he in his younger daytides had been obliged to pick out small helmets for his Protectives, ere various smiths had wrought him special sizes.

"And what art thou, so that thou darest strut hither alone, jesting at an enemy undefeatable to most and unparallel to many? If I should smite thee down on this very hourtide, where be thy kingship then, but rotting away as did thy lost kin uncountable tides agone?"

Too late, Khran-Av'ees realized he had sounded too much alike the foolhardy bandit, and that the gaffer was hardly alone. As his distraught focus had been hitherto fixed merely to the haunt of yesteryears, he had neglected the movements in the bushes at the perimeter of the deeper darkness. Now, grim-faced and heavily armed elves were sallying into the better light, several of them grouping on both sides of G'Uhageid.

At this, the gaffer burst out into a raucous horselaugh, slapping at his thighs in the rolling mirth, "Lost kin? Lost? Ach, gragh-hah, so then be your savvy indeed punier than the measure of your itty bitty and pitifully slack man-pride e'en a graveworm would be perilously ashamed to hight its own! Did you think that I, in my long-time exile, would have spilled my plenteous seed to dry on the barren dusts of the sandlands? Nay, a fertile soil worthy of it I chose, and e'en if I should fall into the courtyards of Tghuonegh'lchach, broken and consumed, my sons and their sons and their sons thereafter would pursue the quests of mine! RUAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Adam's apple bobbing up and down, heart hammering violently against his ribs, Lord Khran-Av'ees stared at the men recognizable as the sons of this ole geezer. Six of them were visible; the thicket hid possibly more. Pursuing the same out-of-date fashion, they sported kilts and high ponytails, though none had yet hoarfrost sprinkled into his hair or beard. Two were verging on his height, and none appeared below ten millennia, if one verily could reckon years from bearings on these tides of blood-weakening. Yet neither the raiment nor the ages were responsible for the warlord's confusion-mixed dread: nay, the culprits were the faces.

There was a horrible familiarity of somekin right there, albeit him being unable to place an exact finger on it right now, amid all this jumbled tension. Particularly the shortest one beside his father, with his curling hair and shoulders nigh overly stocky for his elsewise somewhat stunted stature... Most certainly he had never beholden them heretofore, and yet this, this... What was it? Some outlandish kinship to something...

There were statues of some members of the bloodline in the high palace of Rha-ghi'Leh, above all that one rutting buffoon of a king who ostensibly spent most of his days in bed, and not because struck by a baneful illness. It might have been some lingering memory of those, but-

He startled out of the reverie as Ghaagh'urih by his right side gave him the tiniest of elbowings. At this familiar sign, Khran-Av'ees lifted his gaze up for a second, which was just enough to spot the three-four ghamyrluuschk flapping silently above the canopy of trees.

Air-steeds. They had air-steeds. He had to close his claws around those; it would be the mere wherewith to flee this dire game. And whyfore was it that the rebellion scum wanted him alive, anyhow? Had he been the gaffer, he already would have chopped off the head of his rival, and spared the gloating to the aftermath when carrions were already pecking at the corpse's glazed eyes. Of course, the handbook for darklording for aye put mightful stress on monologuing, but there be nay efficiency within. Too many an overlord had perished and revealed his plans whilst savoring his upcoming triumph. Where be the sense in not learning from these mistakes?

This train of thought and the memory of the oldtimer's insults were clearing up his mind and contributing to the rising rage. Oh, if he only could arouse the ole beast within that for aye gave him the strength of a hundred men and attention unlike aught... Thousands of yeartides had he been the soul of battlefields with his boiling, seething fury which, according to rumor, made his eyes burn red. Therewith, there might be a chance...

He made a little smacking sound, which anyone without further kenning might have taken for an effort to moisten a dry-gone mouth. From the barely noticeable swishes of clothing behind him, he comprehended that the order had sunk in. And now, if he could acquire e'en a spoonful of waters from the rivers of tides, then-

The appearance of a new figure emerging from the gloom however was akin to looping a tightening noose around his neck. Lurching onwards with his jerky, stiff-back gait, as if he had sported a constant itch in some embarrassing place, daik'schepp Gha'ugonak was joining the main body with some other elves bearing no semblance to the noble-blooded. These contained another eight-foot bloke with a walloping war-axe, some fat lad in the sort of lacy, sweeping robes wizards of the more academic persuasion tended to drag around, and... what... two skinny grannies with swords tied to their backs?

Lord Khran-Av'ees barely managed to stifle the high-strung laughter about to escape his throat due to the sheer dreary ludicrousness of it all. Nay, nay, he had to rely on his reason founded in stone, whereas so many a pinhead ne'er gazed further than the outer appearances. Women -- as so many of them could be cleped nought else but despicable trollops and airheaded titterers of triflings, excluding of course mommy-deary -- could yet in some cases be mettlesome fighters and hoarders of magical mights, akin to the witch-sist...

His neck muscles spasmed, as he took a glance longer than solely the age of a thunder-flash at the wrinkled ole hatchetmouths. He realized they were plainly the same figures his memory had sought for as an example. Lhov'yghiatdhar and Lghoughees, the notorious witch-sisters who, alike their prowling male counterpart, had been reported bygones thousands of yeartides agone. Grarh, what be this, the convention of the undead?

"Ah, the reflection of the black heart in the gaze of the evildoer..." Guarh snorted at Khran-Av'ees's reaction. "But, come now, show at least some courtesy to our charming ladies, e'en if that of an utterly partly kin of the deepmost netherpits wherein the shadows of the elder banes still squirm. What be you, gelded from the very birth so that there be nay e'en the faintest respect for the sweeter kin dwelling in your heart?"

Oh indeed, jeer and mock at the mights of Lord Khran-Av'ees, and he shall show your doddering soul the gateway into Tghuonegh'lchach...

"Has nay there been enow loitering unto now, father?" the shortie abruptly growled. "Whate'er this slimebeast has deemed for his ain fate, he ought to have already made up his mind!"

The warlord shifted his glower away from the G'Uhageids and the cluster of wizards. Graurrgh, even the voice of that puny freak was so eerily familiar that this sort of travesty ought to have been punishable by law! Verily, what, what be hidden within this rally of mummers and dung-jugglers?

"Indeed, you have a well-wrought circlet of reason set upon your brow, Aaschgh'rd. The sands have trickled out of the hourglass of your dread-tides, son of Khran. Hence, hie, hail the fates of yours!" the eldest G'Uhageid prompted.

So... the roads had all converged to lead to the gates of doom. Whatever that gaffer wanted from him, he would not become the arrow-practice dummy of the rebellion and the jest of their ole crones. He doubted there was even the minutemost chance to survive from this ordeal, but try he would, verily, to chop down as many as possible of these bastards of yonpits ere he joined the wormfeast.

Graah, time, time, if he could be granted just a breadcrumb's worth of time to amass Plan Z, now that the previous ones had failed all at once... Nay, he had to fake something to win more of it...

"One question I have for thee, o thee dung-slurping by-blow mongrel of Ghi'izsch's daimon-loins, ere the worst shame of Lord Khran-Av'ees trampleth his master's noble form into the oozing muds of Rha-paghlh'adack, and ere the son of Khran-Ddu'h the Skullhammer shalt turn himself in." At the end of the sentence, he made a hacking sound as if clearing his throat, and which yet told his men a great deal about his intentions. Well, at least Ghaagh'urih and a smattering of others he could observe from the corners of his eyes stood determined to do his bidding.

"Aye?"

"However doth it be that ye thuswise have been able to foil the plans of mine and pester the dominion with these beyondworldish attacks?" Time, time... he could not summon magic for his aid. The filthy bastards would sense it, and his avenge -- even if a wee little one -- would be for nought. And by the bloody blights of Veersch'urm, he wiste nay any of those concealment spells some of the yoremasters had narrated about. "Or have ye by some daimonic wherewith awoken the three forces of legend and put e'en the lastmost standing gholmgh'arkgich'oov beneath the yoke of obligation to do your twisted, foul bidding? Hrmh?"

Furthermore, what had that outlandish codex -- Schuur'khunijnhgaaz Gha'igivhal'tdjen ncheuvotd, which had taught him such splendid concentration methods -- told about the quickmost incantations... Ah, indeed...

His off-hand query had likely touched the truth, or at least skimmed at it. Whilst the gaffer's wrinklegarden had remained a total deadpan, one or two of his less careful kiddies had erred for a twinkling to let their jaws droop open. Well, well. And, hah, the perma-frown of that damned puny mimer of somekin merely deepened, even though it clearly scolded at his wee'er brethren rather than manifested astonishment. Hah!

Lord Khran-Av'ees was clearly thinking in overspeed. The horribly accumulating tension was poking at the stirring beast deep in his gut, which always had made him run amuck in the heat of the slaygrounds, butchering lesser warriors left and right...

The shadows of the gliding ghamyrluuschk swept over the two opposing groups in the deep, damp silence of the woods. Time, time... If he could filch one of those beasts, even one...

"Well, now," G'Uhageid mused, "That be an intriguing inquiry from one graced with less wits than manhood, indeed. Howbeit, these matters shall nay be for you to weet-"

Here, Lord Khran-Av'ees made one of those clacking sounds, and with dreadful speed jumped onwards. He clove in two whomever first occurred on his way, and heard the rush and hoarse battle-growls of his tiny army beyond.

A rising chitter. Someone was touching magic. Half-blinded by the first lust of bloodshed, his senses started presenting everything to him in garish, oversaturated colors and magnified sounds. Ah-hah-HAH-RAH, the beginning of the sweet ecstasy, ah, indeed, the raving beast within was making e'en his marrow boil... Again his scimitar crunched its way through mail and bone, and a loud rattling scream reached his ears as he cast a shield-spell and groped for one of schuur'khunijnhgaaz Gha'igivhal'td's quick-attacks...

The gaffer was straight ahead of him, presented in slightly zigzagging, overbright outlines. His face was a seething kettle of fury, and-

THWUNNNNG-HUMMMMM!

Khran-Av'ees found himself flying backwards, an intense, sharp pain tearing at his sides. With a sickening crack, he crashed into the rootstock of a large tree, breaking wood on the way.

His magic... too feeble... and yet he would fight unto the last breath...

Despite the pains, he was up in less than the blink of an eye, and instinctively cast the quick-attack he had been fumbling for. Yet for the warlord's utter astonishment, it was the gaffer who tottered backwards as his red-glowing shield barely sustained the fireball. During the overstretched second that ensued, he could nigh smell the mingled confusion and astonishment etched into the hard lines of G'Uhageid's face.

Ah, so he kenned magic quite as mightful as these fogy elderday ghosts! His mouth widened into a lopsided leer, his fangs gleaming red beneath the yonworld light of his eyes.

"GRUAHHHAHAHAHAH, do not take Lord Khran-Av'ees either for some petty trickster's farce, o thee who so unwisely claimeth himself king upon-"

The flush of sudden pride due to powers he ne'er had wist to possess yet almost became his perdition. Not quite at odds with his flabby waistline and white hair, the ole geezer had managed to bounce several meters into the air during Khran-Av'ees's errant gloat, and was after a triple-somersault bringing his scimitar down towards the warlord's skull with a good two hundred kilos behind the strike.

Khran-Av'ees managed to parry just in time, and their blades smashed to one another with an ear-rending grinding that sent sparks flying hither and thither. The warlord had fallen to the same trick he had utilized against the rebels. Yet he seemed still underestimating the foe's swiftness. As he made a swipe at G'Uhageid's waistline, the insufferable pest reacted akin to a released spring, dodging the blade's edge with a leap-and-split and a fraction later cartwheeled somewhere behind him, ponytail flying hither and thither.

Hit. Grind. Leap. Pound. Duck. Scraunch. The background was a gray blur of roars, bangs, and battlecries, as the rebels and Khran-Av'ees's men crashed against one another. It was difficult to tell whether even less than two minutes had passed since the warlord's first assault. Yet every second was downright toiling: spells flew towards him from one or two directions at all times, either stray misses meant elsewhither or deliberate, hence requiring him to wield magic together with the blade. Once or twice something sizzled ominously in the destination of his counter-hexes. Yet there scarcely was time to check out whether they had hit a desired target.

It would have been easier if he had owned one of those nifty enchanted swords that cut through stone and perchance even the very fabric of the universe, if it is assumed that the Creator was actually that uncreative so as to form the elvenland, say, out of some other Inconceivably Old Cosmic Entity's old woolen knickers. Withal, Lord Khran-Av'ees's scimitar was far from magical. It only had a posh light-reflective coating to aid the spreading of rumors and to fool petty diddle-tricksters into thinking that here be a true and awe-inspiring wizard. It could not parry even the paltriest spell. Furthermore...

"Stayest thou put, thee bloody fool!" the warlord roared at G'Uhageid who bounced and twirled akin to a hyperactive spinning top falling downhill, always waltzing out of the reach of Ghalowazahrh by a hair's breadth. "Get back into thy rocking-chair and knitwork; thy tides are but bygones!"

"Wrah-hah-huarrh-hah-haarh, mayhaps it be you in the need of spoon-feeding and a bed-maiden warming your auld chill-gnawed bones! Hah, as speedysome as an anchored sailship on a windless day!" the gaffer cackled back, and slashed at Khran-Av'ees chest so close that despite him dodging just in time, the coat and vests ripped till the skin.

Khran-Av'ees swore thunderously, lumps of spit flying everywhere. That insolent dotard ne'er ought to have been able to aim and parry so well, considering that there be e'en no depth to his vision. He must have summoned some of those shadow-daimons of the beyondworlds to aid him overcome his half-blindedness, that impudent kinsman of the Bane! Also his scimitar, whilst hardly a magical one either, must have been forced sometime in the dawn of tides when the better smithlore still walked the earth. Judging by how it flew like the limbermost whip in the air, its balance sat enthroned in much loftier heights than that of Ghalowazahrh.

Bloody lost princelings and doe-eyed heroes; they for aye were born with sixteen silver spoons in their mouths and maybe other orifices too. For once, those blasted buggers should just suffocate to them.

Ere the warlord could spit out more insults, G'Uhageid for some reason stuck two of his fingers into his mouth and whistled loudly. Someone grasped at the powers of the Plane of Wyrds with a hard yank. Khran-Av'ees's hasty counter-spell was as short-lived as a jellyfish thrown into an incinerator. Ghalowazahrh dropped from his spasming hand, as he, screaming on top of his lungs, was lifted up into the air. It was as if a hundred-thousand white-hot needles had pierced his skin and flesh from every direction, jabbing and screwing themselves further in, into the very heart of his bone.

Someone was laughing raucously below him. Nay, above. Nay... whither rose the clouds and whither poured the rain he could not tell, as he scraped at the empty air with his fingernails, screaming, kicking. The spheres of the world had in the fraction of a second turned into a white-streaked crimson blur, wherein nought but the stinging, stabbing ache persisted. The mad cackling mingled with his own screeching and the rush of blood in his ears. He could not open his eyes; his skull felt as if it had been drilled and ground by a hundred imps of the netherpits.

Soon, the pulsating, pain-filled redness that his senses perceived as the singularity of all universes was turning ever darker, the buzz in his ears becoming louder...

***

Lord Khran-Av'ees had no concept of the lapsed time when he finally came back to his senses. The very first observation of himself and the yet far-off reality was the absence of the hideous pain. Ere his heavy-feeling eyelids tardily dragged themselves open, he but listened to the mishmash of noises around him that gradually grew clearer.

Quite nigh, someone was sobbing and swearing loudly. A sharp, slightly sweetish stink, which he recognized as that of mixed blood and open-sliced guts, wafted nearly everywhence. Elsewhere occasional groans, moans, complaints, and the creaking of tree branches reverberated in the air. And... two-three people talking...

A great deal logy, he was not even definite whether there actually had been a battle, afore he let the watery-gray light of the early e'enfall spill into his vision. He might just as well have been snoozing in an onward-rolling wagon, while some of his men were cleaning out some afresh-caught game. Yet, the... wossinnebloodynameof... thingy...

He squinted, the blurry vision becoming acuter by the second. The absence of ground made him nigh panic for a twinkling, but then he realized he was hanging upside down in the air several meters above the rootstocks. Attempting to move his arms or legs had no effect whatsoever: some kind of spell bound him akin to a very large and ugly wingless moth into an invisible cocoon.

Someone spoke again nearby, or more like vociferated, "Father? FATHER! C-cannot you do aught in your power? I wol nay, I WOL NAY see him perish in this damned bog forsaken by the grace of the Immortals, and-"

"Alas, grim as it be, this is a hardship we sometimes have to endure. Yet he shall join his passed brethren and Ygh'mir Ikgh-u'Thurgh'ischaaz himself in the halls of Tghuonegh'err, and one daytide after the dimming of hereafter, shall he walk beneath the silver of Phohjn'nha-Ulagh together with all of his kin, for aye without the bitterness of tears and anguish."

"I do nay bloody care whom he joins and whither he passes! He-"

"My son, I shall let you descend down into the bleak abysses of my yoretime sufferings, if that shall aid you to better bear the heavy yoke of your grief on this dire hour. Nevertheless, Ghoschkg wol now but dwindle away, and the mere wherewith of helping set on our hands be the utter and final banishing of his bales..."

Askance, Khran-Av'ees could behold a huddle of ponytailed men squatting or kneeling in the muddy undergrowth. Through a gap between the wide backs of two younger G'Uhageids, he glimpsed the scrubby one cradling the head and shoulders of an obviously dying man in his lap. Slowly, with torment carved deep into his visage, the eldest was drawing his scimitar from its scabbard. Upon beholding his father's act, the one highte Aaschgh'rd raised his grimacing face towards the heavens, letting out a long, booming curse. One of his younger brothers attempted to put a consoling hand on his shoulder, but actually had to duck when his hard-knuckled fist nigh crashed into the sibling's face.

"I shall lug the burden of this heartgrief alone and proud; I do nay need any more of this foolish twittering that nowise helps with bringing Ghoschkg back!"

Hah. Even if he be now more worthless than a rotting dungbeetle, he had cut down the number of those royal bastards at least by one, Khran-Av'ees sneered in his mind. Elsewise he would have cackled out loud his gleeful mirth, but the binding spell worked furthermore akin to a gag.

Almost straight ahead of him, on a patch of less miry ground underneath a massive tree, lay three more quarries of the skirmish, covered from head to foot by cloaks. On the far right... a sight far less exalting than the demise of the rebels. Twenty, mayhaps thirty of his comrades had been hewn into a grisly, bluish-brown mass, out of which more or less connected limbs stuck out in odd angles.

Tsth, at least his troop had merely relieved the bandits of the weight of their blockheads, not made outright mush out of them. Well, for the most part. Two-three of his companions for aye enjoyed a trifle of playing with their preys, but, say, reducing someone down to blackened bones was a clean job. Yet verily, this? Where be the glory in a grand victory, if one could nay e'en recognize whom he had slain or make tankards out of their skulls? These heads were so smashed in, that he was scarcely able to name even the nighest of the butchered.

Hypocritical as usual, Khran-Av'ees did not even consider how the head-hunting had become his favored sport but during the ongoing hundred-yeartide, or what kind of mess he had left behind on the fields of Gho-rhah'Duuz after entering his infamous berserker mode. You could have dumped the results into a vat of curdled milk and pretended you were selling straw- and blueberry yoghurt with an exotic new taste.

A handful of his cronies had been spared, apparently for an ill, netherworldly purpose of somekin. Also bound tight by some wizardly wherewith, their dark outlines could be seen by a cluster of steeds and some freely loitering rebel scum. As his awkward state did not allow him to twist his head into any direction whatsoever, he could merely play lots with the thin air about their identities.

"...Woe and lamentation upon the house of G'Uhageid, that the head and the eldest thusly ought to see his heir-blood yet anew being deplorably spilled on the altar of ne'er-ending wars..."

Khran-Av'ees's eyes flicked back to the tragedy occurring in the left. His voice cracking with suppressed sorrow, the hoarfrosted elf was rising his blade above the coughing wreck of a man on the ground.

"Of the seed of your father and the fruit of your mother's loins were you born into the earthly pining beneath the Dusk, and n-now, by the hand of your father, s-shall you b-be relieved of the bale-daimons of pain consuming your s-shattered soul on this dark hour. F-Farewell, o blood of mine; pass now with peace upon your brow into the courts of the netherworlds, and hail your brethren of eld-"

"Marveling at the fruits of your handiwork, hmm?" a rasping hiss of a voice issued from behind Khran-Av'ees.

A moment later, Gha'ugonak scuttled into the perimeter of Khran-Av'ees's vision. Fury flashed in his eyes; so, that insufferable by-blow of yonmaggots was not lying extinguished underneath those cloaks? And he already had cultivated heightening hopes about-

"Oh, I could behold the savoring in your regard, the feasting in the spilling of the noble soul-meads..." Gha'ugonak halted before the inert, hanging figure, leering up at it with an odd, twisted smile. Somehow, upon this expression, a recollection of the hysterical laughter ringing in his ears on the moment he had been hit with the unbeatable incantation crept into Khran-Av'ees's awareness.

Somewhere in the left, a heavy object crunched its way unto the ground, ensued by a series of strangled groans and sobs from several men.

"But you... you shall not pass on that easily. When you are done with the questioning, perchance I shall make a new ornament from your worthless southlander's head." The wizard showed the warlord the shrunken skull propped on top of his rune-carven staff. "Would it be pleasant if I kept you alive the whole of tides when a swarm of ngavertdyach slowly cleans away the flesh of your filthy beast-face? Or when they would enter your brain-chambers and even more tardily feast with these tastier tidbits... grrhyehyehye... Eye for an eye and life for a life, even though if I were the king of the wyrds, serpents and spiders would devour your flesh and entrails every day unto the high night-noon of the hereafter, and every morn you would regrow your body afresh, so that your throes would cease nevermore..."

If Khran-Av'ees had been able to, he would have spat on that jeering countenance. This foul misbegot of sewer-snakes was clearly on level with the head torturers of his dominion. And he ne'er wanted to take a closer look into their goings-ons. A couple of visits into their interrogation chambers had been convincing enough to hight them all slavering lunatics. Questioning... the whole word had become shaded with a foreboding tint in major parts of Rha-kan'Ocka, thanks to the reputation of such men.

And he would ne'er, ne'er turn into the banquet of one such raving fool! Much rather he would cut his own throat with Ghalowazahrh, or elsewise tear the thread of his life into tiny shreds of string-fluff.

He attempted to reach magic. Nought, simply nought. It was as if great, doorless stonewalls had been built inside his head. Oh, he had harked about this sort of spells, but ne'er deemed to come face to face with one. The ultimate binding; being now denied even the waters from the beyondplains' sweet wells...

"Or, be there aught else you would wish? Mayhaps something akin to cutting small pieces out of your foul, maggot-soiled flesh and making you eat them? So that slowly, ah-so little by little, you would thusly perish by your own hand..."

Even the small hairs on the back of Khran-Av'ees's neck rose up in clammy horror. Zounds and blood-soaked netherpits, had that maniac just read his inmost heart of hearts, or be this merely a coincidence? Whate'er, he would fight back, fight back... Besides, he surely kenned magic the gaffer and his pestilential peons did nay; he had seen it plainly in the ole geezer's eyes during the fight. Yet what, WHAT...

He could again feel sweat crawling down his temples. In growing hysterics, he began to rake his brains for aught usable. Yet what good be doom-fire or the harnessing of lightning when you could not even reach out for the spells? Nay, neither would the ability to heal minor wounds have any gain here, nor the skill of turning wine into water. Also, who in the twelve hellpits of Dhulijch'arv would on this instant profit from being able to grow grass out of his nostrils?

The wizard must have spotted the rising panic on the bound elf's visage. He slunk even closer, so that Khran-Av'ees could even this high up smell his musty, age-old breath rattling through the brownish-yellow teeth. Not that the warlord's own was much better, but anyhow.

"Already beholding the merry hour of pain in your tainted little mind's eye? Oh, and be sure that I shall add to your suffering and end-wails -- which shall be so loud e'en the fifteenth sphere of the worlds will echo with the force of them -- the wasted life of Lghoughees, who-"

At that instant, a raucous brawl erupted in the left, and both men's gazes flicked to the clump of G'Uhageids. The shortie and some other princeling were yelling at their father, pointing in turn at the covered ruin of a body and Khran-Av'ees.

"We will nay abide with our brother being laid to an unhallowed rest somewhere beyond the reign of e'en the pettiest heavenlord! This bloody forsaken-"

"And wherefore should he subsists beneath the vanished light of Ghu-nochtd'har's lanterns? When by his flyblown hand of a filthy yonworld dread-spirit the kinsblood of ours was poured down to nourish all the wee beastlings of utter foulness worming and creeping beneath the rock and root? Whence did he acquire the highmost leave to-"

"SILENCE!" the head of the house roared back, "He shall live for now! Did I nay already make it plain that behind his vile brow lurk kennings whose origins must be unearthed! It be indispensable to..."

Lord Khran-Av'ees endeavored to shut his ears from the noisy quarrel and again focus in digging out helpful wherewithals of somekin. Nay, nay, it became more and more vital by the second to either flee or wipe himself from the plains of Rha-kan'Ocka. Slaughtering the royal bastards was not an option; the gaffer alone was a mountainous hardship. And he had regarded himself as a superior fighter most of his life-tides...

What to do, what to do...? The single thing that kept pushing its way into his consciousness was the uncanny book of the schuur'khunijnhgaaz. The name of the authoring wizard-king had been entirely absent from all the chronologies and lineages he had come hitherto upon. And yet, yet, his advice and spells had for aye provided the finest results, without the need for hundreds of yeartides of practice. This sage had to be some forgotten genius; no other explanation existed. And how he had discarded many an item therein as purposeless or unusable... woe and alas, how foolish unto the uttermost degree!

Nay, there had to be something... something... if the damned lack-wits only would cease brawling over the corpse and the mad daik’schepp hissing his sadistic threats...

A good few minutes lurched past, during which the G'Uhageids reached an agreement of somekin and Gha'ugonak continued his dread-blather. Yet there was something now. Khran-Av'ees was toiling to bring back the chapter about breaking various barriers, albeit him nurturing quite a few doubts over its usefulness in the very situation. Nevertheless, what else be there? This blethers about reaching... the-ah... 'sichs scepters ov myght Sette inne Þe sichs Cornyrs ov Þe arzway leeðng inne Þe harte ov Þe Wyrð-Mount Wherain Þe greetste Powyrs royleðe' sounded the most promising... He had no true inkling what all that stood for, but his well-wrought memory recalled the steps a wight had to take, and the pursuing incantations which concerned the summoning of something named schy-nkgiascha'lonch peiyaghatd, whate'er in the bleeding firepits they then were supposed to be.

He closed his eyes even tighter, pushing out the snickering of Gha'ugonak who obviously believed the warlord was about to soil himself. Nevertheless, the mingling anger and fear actually strengthened his concentration, just alike the stretching, creeping minutes ere the first clash with G'Uhageid. It was all about haste anew. Thus he let the tendrils of his thoughts descend into the deep whirlpool roiling in the uncharted seas in the back of his mind...

Long he fumbled in the swirling, sinking darkness, looking for aught that would be even of vague assurance that he was on a trail to freedom. As the seconds or minutes or whate'er unknown droplets of tides flew past, a dim, pulsating light finally began to grow in the event horizons of his subconscious.

No such language existed which could have described the journey and surroundings in full detail. The mind for aye consisted of a cacophony of old memories, sensations, smells, primordial instincts, and a myriad of other almost surreal elements mingled and tangled together.

He followed the light, swimming onwards in thought-streams meandering past isles of consciousness and reverie, till he floated into what might have been loosely described as a black-watered lagoon. Upon it and in front of yet another border of mental dimensions loomed some kind of gray, tumorous, hazily transparent shape.

Ah, he had to be in the right direction, verily. Erenow, the weird barrier had been utterly without a conceivable form, rather like trying to draw a line to where numbers ended. This, now...

With that, he was yanked back into the cold reality, and his eyes started open. The invisible cocoon trapping him was with increasing speed being lifted towards the clump of steeds and wardens. Behind him, someone was making a note on the transportation of the rest of the captives.

Naynaynaynaynaynay he had to, had to reach anew that inner hall in the maze of his mind! At least he kenned the route better now, but would he be granted enow time...? Forcing his eyes close, muttering a nonsense mantra in his head, he made an effort to descend back into that semi-hypnosis.

Accompanied by the jeers of Gha'ugonak and some other elf, Khran-Av'ees arrived at a ghamyrluuschk, on top of which he eventually was bound to sit akin to a wooden dummy, just as gagged and unable to stir as ever. He, however, gradually became less and less aware of the reality, ultimately losing all traces of sight and sound.

Far off from the bottomless pits of his mind, bodies were lifted, the weaponry gathered from the warlord and his minions packed tightly away, the bandit women so generously 'saved' tied to huddle together with the rest of the captives...

At one point, amid the general chitchat and shouting, Ghgalev'jenschus G'Uhageid -- the second of the tallest brethren and who had been saved from the deathbringers of the underworlds -- began every once in a while glaring over the heads of his comrades.

It seemed there were some wonky goings-ons in the beyondplains. At erst, the tremors had been insignificant and irregular, but wherefore this sudden, unvarying rush?

A moment later, Guarh was frowning in equal suspicion, soon mimicking his son's movements. "Be someone herein weaving petty spells of somekin, or whyfor-"

But then his gaze hit the air-beast on top of which Khran-Av'ees sat mounted, and the sight nearly made him swallow his own tongue. Trembling all over, the warlord was dripping with sweat, his face a rictus of agony, his eyes nought but red pinpoints. And whilst priorly indiscernible, the surface of the constraints around him was now wavering pale gray, with red, zigzagging lines sneaking to and fro. The ill-boding effects were increasing by the fraction of a heartbeat, and Guarh could have sworn the last time his regard had swept past the prisoner, mayhaps ten-twenty seconds agone, there had been nought of this visible.

"Y'Jhaidr! Ghgalev! Lhov'yghiatdhar! Hie, he be getting away!"

Nevertheless, Khran-Av'ees's strange reaction was hardly all of it. As the wizards rushed to cast counter-incantations, an ominous, churning and sizzling darkness rolled over the treetops. It could not be just a harmless cloud: it hung far too low, and equally the swiftness of its advancing took all by surprise.

As a few of the slower-reacting elves still stood gaping up at the sudden, black curtain, Khran-Av'ees's bindings broke with an audible crack despite the few reinforcement spells the wizards had barely cast. It nonetheless seemed the warlord was not in control of his own magic. He continued his spastic trembling in the saddle, even as the beast began rearing in fright. Electric-blue beams of light crackled out of his eyesockets, whipping into the air and connecting with the murky mass which started to whirl and sputter even more ferociously.

G'Uhageid and his sons stood rigid, fingers ready to fire spells. Yet they hardly wiste how to embrace this spectacle. Ne'er had a single one of them beholden aught akin; it was like trying to make sense out of a tree which had been laden with ripe apples the previous day and now sprouted stethoscopes instead. The wind was furthermore strengthening into a positive gale, which had to be entirely the fault of the abrupt twilight.

"Make the lightning halt, make the lightning from his daimon-eyes halt!" someone yelled, but it was too late.

A rift appeared into the coughing vortex of cloud and unnamed shadowy textures. Dark beams of what could only be called some kind of anti-light shot out, together with a growling voice with high-pitched, screeching overtones woven within.

"Hoi Uhageiden urghoh urtd'ich, gha-lvanch gha-lsch'kia ghantdaj! Jhopb'on itsch Yshca-Perghk'el pchaatd'asch pholeach pbherg'hamasch, vhu-odt'amasch vhighu-laischench vhertd..."

Therewith, the darkness lit up with a hundred octagonal eyes that stared unblinkingly down at the dumbfounded rebels, full of immeasurable malice.