IVANKA
Tiffany and I watched from the mouth of the Broken Pass as the sun sank into the horizon, casting violet rays into the sky that faded to purple, then blue, then black. I waited until the last light faded, then I stripped my robes, and felt the cool wind caress my naked flesh. I took a deep breath of the night air, and my blood surged with a primal thrill. I pulled Tiffany into a heated kiss, tasting the avarice on her tongue, the suffusion of sexual desire and blood hunger, the need to fuck and kill. We separated with a gasp, touching foreheads to stare into each other's eyes, feeling the same energy thrumming within us, compelling us to succumb to ancient instincts. We grinned with predatory mouths, our fangs dripping venom onto our crimson lips. It was time to hunt. Without a sound, we dashed into the woods.
There were so many interesting smells in the Maples. Beyond the ambience of sweet sap, was a veritable forest-menu of treats. There was an incubus twenty yards to my left. There was a faun a half-mile to the south. A loan centaur was galloping a mile to the north. But I was to feast on orc tonight, which was one of my least favorite meals. I caught my target's scent from two miles away, and the nearer I got, the clearer the picture became.
I could smell infection on his skin, a bog-born parasite that he wasn't treating well. He was middle-aged, but still virial by the distinct musk that wafted from him. As I drew nearer, I zeroed in on the thumping of his heart. His resting heartrate was abnormally high, and bore a murmur that drummed out of cadence. He was fat and out of shape, which would make my job easier, but the meal worse.
I stopped at the entrance to his village. I heard over two-hundred hearts beating, all to different rhythms, each a song of identity. I peered through the darkness and saw the orc's warm bodies glowing from within their huts. My target was in the center of the village in the chieftain's hut, gorging himself on ale and pork. I silently raced through the settlement, taking cover behind walls and huts, passing laughing children, boisterous teenagers and watching elders. I climbed the chief's roof, and dove through the smoke-hole.
The fat orc chieftain gawked at me with a mouth full of pork. He was at the head of an expansive table fit for a feast, but he was alone. I wiped the ash off my feet, and casually sauntered over to him. His mind came to him too late. He stood to brandish the club on his back while choking on a scream for help, the masticated pork dribbling down his jowls. Before he could even get his hand on his weapon, I'd imbedded my fangs deep in his throat, biting through fat and muscle to find the frantic vein within. I sucked the foul molasses that was his blood, and he withered against me, mouthing around his last meal. Lovingly, I snaked one hand through his braided hair, and caressed the other along his chin. Then I ripped his head clean off. As his neck fountained, I laid his body beside a headless roast duck, and began carving Brock's message into the orc's chest. Then I grabbed Brock's cranial trophy, hopped out of the smoke hole, and raced out of the village without making a sound. As I disappeared into the woods, someone screamed, and an alarm bell tolled.
BROCK
"How do I know you're acting under the orders of Queen Yavara?" Braun, the leader of the centaurs asked me, "Because this sounds a lot like an ambitious Pine orc making a bid for the Tundra."
"I am a very ambitious Pine orc." I replied with a winning smile, "Under the orders of an even more ambitious queen."
"Where is she?" Braun asked, "She hasn't come to ask for our aid, and we would give it to her freely."
"You and I are the only ones, it seems." I sighed, "The other clans have forgotten their vows. Queen Yavara left for the Spruces to deal with an emergency; I am her acting diplomat to the Maples."
"You still haven't presented me with proof of your allegiance." Braun said, "You are killing orcs that I have trade relations with, and I will not defend you against the vengeance of their people until I know you are acting under the Dark Queen's orders."
"Here," I said, dropping the sacks of gold into his hands, "that's Ardeni currency, procured by a loan from King Dreus to Queen Yavara. In one of the bags you will find a note of transaction signed by Console Drake Titus and Console Zander Fredeon."
"
The council of Queen Yavara has sanctioned counsel Brock Terdini, Secretary of War, to deliver this payment to Braun Lighthoof of the Spearheads to ensure centaur aid in the Terdini's endeavors with the tribes of the Maples.
Signed Drake Titus and Zander Fredeon, but conspicuously not Queen Yavara Alkandi."
I shrugged. "The deed's been done, Braun. You're just going to have to trust me."
ZANDER
I walked through the abandoned nymph camp. The remnants of a pyre smoked from the clearing, and I didn't have to move closer to know what had been burned. I stopped at the edge and stared at the smoldering wood. I stared for a long time. There were still embers in the pyre, and they burned like cobalt in their nest of charred logs and bone. The wind spun the ashes into playful vortexes that danced from the pile, the wistful flecks glinting like moon-kissed snow. Gone. I felt her absence like a hole in my chest, one that I'd bandaged and stuck full of morphine to keep the pain at bay. I could outrun it for a while, this pain; long enough to do what needed to be done before it consumed me. I glanced down to see the pitiless socketed eyes staring at me from the crowned skull that headed my staff. Alkandi's skull. "We're all just ideas of people to each other." I muttered to her, "I was never the man in your head, and you were never the woman in my heart. I hate you, you know." I blinked away a tear, the first I'd shed in centuries, and looked back upon the pyre. "Rest easy, Prestira. Don't wait for me on the other side."
The wind gusted through the trees, sounding the groan of an enormous spruce that loomed over the clearing. Its branches drooped, and its needles fell freely. The sap that ran from its bark was milky and white, smelling nothing like the nectar of the tree. I stepped on one of its roots, and the wind suddenly died.
"Zander," a seductive voice whispered from within the mighty trunk, "come in."
The trunk opened into a large doorway, and I stepped inside. Elena's succubi were sitting cross-legged in a circle, their hands entwined on each other's knees, their eyes aglow with violet light and staring vacantly at the tree's apex. I looked up to see the once-green bioluminescent fungi had all changed to the same passionate hue as the women's eyes. They all turned their gaze to me at once, but only Crystal spoke.
"I needed to take their minds." Arbor said from Crystal's mouth, "They were nearly hysterical when they could not save our master. I feel it too, this mortal pain of loss. As do you, Zander Fredeon." Arbor smiled sadly, "But we immortals can bear it much easier, so I have eased their suffering."
"Arbor," I said as I sat down, "you've been corrupted."
"I like to think I have been awakened."
"Elena." I sighed.
"You sent her to subvert me." Arbor didn't say it as an accusation, simply as a fact. "It is why you did not come yourself. You thought you could steal my children from beneath my nose by having her parade her slaves before them."
"Yes." I admitted.
"Why did you not tell Master of me?"
"For this exact reason." I gestured to her, "I knew there was a risk, but I didn't think you'd tell your daughters the truth."
"I would do anything for my children; you miscalculated."
"I've been doing that a lot lately." I muttered, "But now the path is clear. No more diversions. Where is Yavara?"
"Your queen has taken my daughters to Castle Thorum." Arbor said. She pushed her hand into the soil, and closed her eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek. "They have captured it at great cost."
"Bullshit."
"Have you ever known me to be a liar?" She opened her glowing eyes, "Your queen is more powerful than any of her past selves; I have not seen energy like she has since the heathen gods of old." Her voice dropped, "But even all her strength could not bring my master back to me."
"Yavara has attacked the Highlands." I said under my breath, "The Ten cannot deny her now! I need to build a portal -just a small one -, and they can swear their allegiance to her within the walls of Castle Thorum!"
Arbor cocked her head. "Did you not hear me? All that sacrifice was for naught. My master is gone."
"I can set you free."
