Chapter 3: Escape
Grohl rode at the head of the column. He really did not care to travel, but at least this mission got him out of the palace –for a change. Most of the time, the Empress insisted he be at her beckoned call, and not farther from her than shouting distance, but this errand was important enough that he was ordered to lead the expedition. However, it did bother the captain that such time, money, and resources were wasted on retrieving her newest toy. Why did she not just get another one, and leave this one be? What harm was he doing? Sometimes, the Sorceress-Supreme was like a spoiled child, and when she did not get her way...
Although he would never give his opinion voice, because doing so could mean his horrid end, and not something as merciful as a hanging or beheading. Her Majesty had much more creative and painful ways to execute those who displeased her. He remembered one in particular.
It was about three months ago at the court in which all of her vassals gathered to pay their annual duty to the Empress. It was a three-day extravaganza of feasting, entertainment, and activities meant to show off her wealth and influence, as well as to ease the pain of her vassals for having to open up their coffers.
There was one among them, a rather corpulent baron, which had come up short of money the year before, and had promised to make good this year. In the time between, she had found out that the fat nobleman was simply holding out on her; and to make matters worse, he had reported -once again- that he did not have the full duty this year, as well!
Grohl figured he was an extremely foolish and stupid man that deserved his fate.
The Empress ordered the entire courtly gathering of nobles, retainers, and servants to the courtyard. The offending little man was already in attendance when they arrived –stripped of his clothing, and bound to a stake by his head, and only his head. Judging by the unusual manner in which he had been ordered to prepare the baron for execution, the captain had wondered what sort of unspeakable end this miserly aristocrat might suffer. It was not long before he found out.
Standing next to the condemned man, she announced his crimes to the throng, and proceeded with his punishment. Upon summoning her arcane power, the baron began to disintegrate. Starting at the toes, the spell moved arduously slow up his body. It burned white-hot, cauterizing his flesh, and not allowing him to bleed out. This made his death a very protracted event, as he flailed, screamed, and begged for mercy.
By the time it made it to his heart, he was dead. The Empress allowed the spell to continue eating away at his corpse, until all that was left was his head and hands –which were displayed as the centerpiece at the banquet table later that evening. It was a gruesome display that served as a warning to all that would betray, or even vex their new monarch. It was very effective.
It was the end of the second day of their long march, when the train of four wagons, and some eighty orcs, arrived at the Spear & Plow. They would be in Belshire at sunset the next day, if they were ready to move by sunrise; so he announced to the men that they were to turn in early, and that any drunkenness that night would met with ten lashes. He then ordered camp set across the road from the inn, and went inside to acquire rooms for the officers.
——‡―—
Her palace has become a dark and lonely place; and in her private chamber, silent and cold, Axania tossed about -unable to sleep.
The dark queen liked the fact that she was feared by those she ruled. She had grown up in a brothel. Her mother was a whore, and she did not know who her father was. Learning from a young age not to trust, to do unto others before they did unto you, and most importantly, she had learned that mercy was the most preventable form of weakness. Kindness was for fools and clergymen, and charity was just giving away ones wealth to those who did not deserve it.
These, so called, qualities were actually vulnerabilities in her experience. Did her mother's pimp show kindness or mercy when he forcefully took her virginity? She was just at the dawn of her womanhood, when the lecherous viper got her drunk on mead and took what was left of her innocence. A year later she returned the same kindness and mercy, when she drew a dagger across his throat while he slept.
She had come a long way from that polluted and foul place, and now she was the ultimate power of the realm, but her success had come at a price.
The Empress often considered marriage, but at her station, such things were a commodity, and rarely done out of a romantic connection. Matrimony was a brokerage of power amongst the aristocrats; it was not the solemn and blessed event it was for the common folk. It did not matter anyway. She knew that finding a man she could respect, as an equal, was very unlikely –if not totally impossible.
Giving up on her sentimental and self-pitying thoughts for the evening, she wondered, what would it be tonight? What will ease my loneliness, and slake my desires? Perhaps some variety, she concluded.
The sorceress rose from her bed, donned her night robe, and headed into the antechamber just off her bedroom. It was a secret room. The door was disguised as one of the many mahogany panels that covered the walls of stone, and was behind a large tapestry. She kept many of her most valued possessions in there, and it was most private –Grohl did not even know that it existed.
Along with some of these valuable properties –one of which was the reason for her absolute arcane power- was a small laboratory. It just had enough of what she needed to bring forth any manner of beings that she might be in the mood for.
At the snap of her fingers, the lanterns lit the small room, as she moved to the cabinets that contained the components she needed for the particular kind of summoning spell she had in mind. Dumping the ingredients into a stone pestle, and crushing them with a mortar, the dark queen passed her hand over the top, and they began to smolder. Smoke filled the room as she intoned the incantation. The white vapors swirled about, and began to coalesce into two figures.
The first form was obvious.
Just under five-feet tall, it had the masculine shape of the upper body of a man, and the legs of a goat. It was the embodiment of male carnal lust. Its ovine horns curled downward from its forehead that framed its a face, with sharp features, a long goatee, and piercing eyes –eyes that burned with lecherous intent. The satyr stood proud in the center of the sorceress' chamber, and was more than willing to do the bidding of his new mistress.
