Weapon of Flesh
This one is for Anne
As are they all
A special thanks to
The Elfwooders
Best damn editorial staff money can’t buy
Contents
Prelude
S
he stirred in the impenetrable darkness. Heavy links of chain clattered with her every movement, awakening her to the misery of the iron collar that chafed her neck, the sodden rag of a dress she wore and the fetid odor of old blood. Torchlight flickered through the cracks beneath the massive door to her cell, the faint rattle of iron keys snapping her attention from the bundle she clutched so tightly.
Was someone coming?
They visited twice a day with food and water, but she’d been fed only hours before. Perhaps they came with fresh clothes, or simply to clean her filthy cell. She longed for clean skirts, or even a blanket.
The clatter of a key in the lock stiffened her like the crack of a whip. Yes, someone was coming!
Hinges squealed in protest and torchlight blinded her, but the figure silhouetted in the open portal bore no food, no clothes and no water. It bore nothing save an iron-shod staff of crooked and gnarled wood. The shape of that staff struck a chord through the numbness of her suffering. She remembered it clearly. She remembered the one who bore it. And, worst of all, she remembered that day weeks ago when he stole her away from home, husband and family.
She opened her mouth to scream, to deny, to plead, but even that small act was stolen from her with a mumble of guttural syllables and a wave of his hand. She sat paralyzed, unable to move, speak or even blink as he strode forward and stole from her the only thing she had left. Prying her numb fingers away from the bundle of bloodied skirts she clutched to her breast, he lifted the protesting babe in one careful but unyielding hand. Another flow of words stilled the babe’s cries and the man, if man he was, smiled down at his prize.
“Perfect!” was the only word he uttered that she understood.
He turned and walked away, having taken the only thing she had that was of any value to him. As the door closed, and the light faded, never to return, the magic that held her waned, and her piteous wail rent the dank air of her cell. She lay sobbing and empty, forgotten by the creature that had stolen her baby boy.
Chapter
I
I
n the forever midnight of a deep cavern the pat-pat of unshod feet echoed as a wiry boy of six sprinted unerringly along. His eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, the magic within him drawing in the surrounding heat that emanated from the very womb of the earth; it allowed him to see, after a fashion, even when those born to utter darkness were blind. He ran tirelessly through the darkness, unfeeling and uncaring, absorbed with the task of navigating the underground and seeking the goal he had been assigned.
A chasm opened before him, heat billowing from its depths, brightening his vision. Without slowing his pace, he gauged the gap and chose which points of stone he would use to launch himself across. Without pause, for fear was unknown to his mind, he leapt to the sheer wall, bounding off a tiny crag of stone in a spinning flip that brought him to the other side. He landed in a roll that brought him to his feet at a run. The cavern continued on, twisting and turning as if wrought by the passing of a great worm. And though miles had passed under his feet, his pace did not slow.
Finally the place he had been told to seek loomed out of the darkness. The cavern ended in a steep shaft, the thick, acrid scents of sweat, rotting food and excrement wafting up to assail his sensitive nostrils. Ears that could hear the heartbeat of a mouse picked out the clink of chains, the grinding of bone between teeth, and the restless click-clack of iron-shod feet pacing on stone.
Briefly, the boy gauged the steep incline of the shaft. It was too wide for his arms to stretch across in any attempt to slow his descent, but a solution clicked into his mind, even as he dived into the blackness. His bounding roll alternated in skidding contact with ceiling and floor, slowing his plummeting descent minutely with each impact. As a result, when he tumbled into the room at the shaft’s end, he had only scrapes and bruises.
Battered and disoriented from the tumultuous descent, he still rolled to his feet, squinting at the glaring torchlight and taking in his new surroundings at a glance. The room was hewn out of living rock, a perfect half-sphere, the walls set at intervals with iron rings and manacles. Only two of the sets of restraints were occupied, and the two slavering orcs glared at the intrusion into their captivity. Their disgruntlement was only brief, however, for with the boy’s arrival their manacles clicked open, and fell from their chafed wrists.