Growing Pains
Author's Notes:
This chapter wouldn't have been possible without my lady love, beta reader Thornfoote and my faithful editor bikoukumori. For your help, support, input and tireless editing passes I offer my thanks.
All participants in sexual activities are adults in their respective species.
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Thick, warm mud sucked at the soles of his feet. The only noises he could hear were the cawing of the crows overhead and the wet, disgusting slurp whenever he pulled his foot from the mud for another sluggish step. The reddish-brown sludge seemed to fight his every move.
"Where are we?" Lishaka asked. The goblin sorceress trotted alongside him, wearing nothing more than a concerned expression. Her leaf-green skin was spattered with the same retch-inducing substance.
"Dunno," Rhys muttered. He looked down. He was naked as well, his slender body bleeding in numerous places. His right arm hung useless by his side, the forearm bent in a way it wasn't supposed to.
Strange. It should hurt like hell,
Rhys thought. He raised his gaze and finally, his surroundings came into focus. He and Lishaka were slogging through a grisly forest made up of crosses lit by an infernal orange radiance. Not quite sunset.
More like a flaming inferno.
The bodies on the crosses moaned in agony as they passed them. Unlike the previous time, no wooden plaques had been hammered onto their foreheads. Rhys could clearly see who they sloshed past.
Mirrin wailed as their eyes met. "Where were you when I needed you?" she screamed, each word like a lash. Rhys stumbled, crashing into the sticky mud. The cloying smell of blood and guts threatened to swallow him.
Lishaka's small hands were there, trying in vain to pull him up. "We can't stay here, Rhys," she pleaded, throwing panicked looks over her shoulder.
Rhys unsteadily came to his feet, his gaze following hers. There was nothing to see, only unending rows of crosses.
That's not quite true. There is someone, isn't there?
But try as he might, he could not make out any details. Rhys held on to Lishaka's small, clawed hand and pulled her along in his wake.
"That's what you get for meddlin' in things you have no business meddlin' with." Padec, gutted from chin to crotch, gloated down on him. Even near death, his face was a mask of utter disgust as he stared at Rhys. "Everyone you know will die."
"What do you know?" Rhys snarled. "You were content to let yourself be slaughtered like cattle!" Snarling, he dragged Lishaka onwards. He had no idea where they went but he knew that getting there was of the utmost importance.
"I hope you're happy fucking a goblin," Jenny Billings hissed, her naked body writhing on the cross. "Instead of learning how to fight Carver, you're wasting time sticking that dick of yours-"
Rhys sloshed on, past the gleefully cackling girl. Her blood dripped into the mud, each drop pattering onto the ground with the sound of a pebble impacting water. He could feel something close in, a malicious presence aiming straight for him. His honed senses, attuned to the flow of magic, registered it. Massive, powerful, all-consuming. And it was coming closer. Snarling, Rhys snatched Lishaka off her feet and pressed her shivering, naked body against his, carrying her. He had no idea how he managed it with his shattered arm. Lishaka hugged herself close to him, her eyes burning with a strange mixture of fear, eagerness and lust. Step by torturous step, Rhys dragged his weary body past rows and rows of crosses.
"Don't let them fool you." The voice, coming not from a cross, but from straight ahead, stopped him harder than any blow to the head could. Sitting in the mud, swaddled in layers of blankets and with her pipe in hand, was Gran. Her smile was radiant and her eyes sparkled like Rhys had never seen before. The horrifying dent in her skull was there too, oozing blood and brain matter. But if Gran noticed the ghastly injury or not wasn't obvious. She took a long drag from her pipe.
"What... what is happening?" Rhys stuttered, going to a knee. Lishaka wriggled against him, her hands caressing his scarred back.
"Isn't it obvious?" Gran pointed with the stem of her pipe. "You're having a nightmare."
"I... I don't want to!"
Gran reached out and patted his knee. "Your subconscious is trying to cope with all the horrors you have endured. Fight the guilt, my little reed. There was nothing you could have done to prevent Dara's death."
"How do you know?"
"Her suffering is over, as is mine. We are both in Mercy's arms. It was about time she and I had a serious talk."
"Talk? What about?"
"You know I wasn't keen on that girl but seeing how much you have changed since she bedded you..." Gran chuckled. "I need to apologize. You would have made a fine innkeep, Rhys."
"If only that were true," Rhys whimpered. He crawled through the mud and pressed Gran's bony frame against his body. "I miss you so much."
"Now, now. No more tears, Rhys. Chin up." Gran's hands moved along his broken arm, setting bones, knitting flesh. The sound of bone chafing on bone was stomach-turning.
"You say it like it's the easiest thing in the world," Rhys sobbed. "Will the pain never end?"
"Losing someone you love hurts. That pain stays with you forever," Gran said, her own eyes misting over. "Ursa... my dear sister." She sniffled.
Rhys remembered something. "Say, Gran... the Witch blood..."
A sly, devious smile crept over Gran's lips. "Ah, you finally noticed, eh? Ursa and I were twins. Of course the blood ran in both of us." The smile was gone as quickly as it had shown up. "I had dreams, Rhys. Much like you are having now. Visions. And when I dreamed what would happen to Ursa, I hid my gift deep, deep inside where even I could not find it."
A moment later, Gran was gone. The moaning forest was gone, replaced by a single cross. Dara hung upon it. Rhys looked around. Lishaka was gone too, leaving him alone. The fearsome presence was closer than ever, a mausoleum's icy breath upon his bare shoulders. But he could not run away.
"Oh Dara," he moaned.
