Bluud of Shamanz

[Azulfae]

“Mumz…. Why is I havez dems big teeth on bottom dat is sticked up like?”

Moss’s mother looked at him with that hidden yet blatantly readable pained look she always tried to cover whenever he asked these sorts of questions.

“It’s just one of those things Moss, you know, like how sometimes…”

“Dems other kids is say I is pig face… dems is say is orc, stupidz orc face pig boy dems is said.”

Moss held his face rubbing his hands back and forwards over his nose and tusks angrily at their presence.

Suddenly he slapped out knocking the cooking pot flying away from the fire into the trees.

His eyes erupted bloodshot and thick veins stood up on his grey/blue forehead.

“Why is not answer question, youz is never tell me, whut is dis Orc, whut is wrong wid Moss, I is just want make it better and be like all dems else.”

Moss’s mother jumped up for a moment almost loosing her temper. She dropped her raised hands and adjusted her long black hair.

“listen up, these tantrums of yours, I will not tolerate them any longer. The blood of your father taints you and makes you aggressive. Maybe your uncle is right, maybe you should see what your kind are and what they are capable of yes. I have been afraid so long to loose you Moss but it is not me that shall feel your loss most it will be yourself. If you want to know then fine I will tell you but hear this, you will not like what you hear, do you really want the truth?”

Moss walked over and picked up the half empty pot, his dinner scattered across the base of an oak ten times his age.

“Gah!, now is hungry too!”

“Moss!”

“Yes… yes,” His voice calming “Is say it I needs truth, no more seek retz. No more.”

Moss’s Mother turned away and paced back and forwards. The sun was setting and a cold wind blew through the Ardeep forest making Moss shiver all of a sudden. He listened eager, eager to know what was wrong with him and why the other kids mocked his strange face.

Lathander's orb was sinking over the sea of swords and waterdeep begin to light up in the distance, a beautiful sparkling of little lights. Moss knew it was far way and for that reason the sheer size of the city made his head spin with wonder.
“Your father… he… no, no let me start again. I was... I used to be the high druid, back when I lived in the wood, of sharp teeth.”

Moss’s eyes widened with a questioning look on his face.

“Youz is was da High one, like Uncle Alogor?”

“Yes, yes I was and there was another circle. Those were good times. We lived as one with the sylvan beasts of the wood and the fey and nymphs and dryads, all were in harmony for a time… but, uh…”

Moss’s mother seemed distracted.

“Whut is dat?”

“It’s alright Moss, it’s hard to talk about. These Orcs, they are terrible beings, they hate and fight and destroy and nothing good ever has come of them.”

Moss’s face filled with horror as he reached up once more cupping his maw with his right hand.

“The orcs came, lots of them and they murdered everything, they cut the trees, they trampled the plants and they…”

Moss’s Mother trembled as she wiped a hand over her eyes. She fell down to sitting and began to weep.

Moss tilted his head as if almost about to understand.

“The shaman kept your mother alive for his evil pleasures Moss, he bred with her against her will, until she managed to escape him.”

Alogor rose from the lengthening tree shadows. Behind him two wolves craned up onto their hind legs, their bones creaking and cracking back into human forms.

Moss’s mother just sat and wept, it was what she could not say, she was relieved and mortified at the same time.

“Moss not orc!” Moss tried to stand and fell back,
“No is not, I is not one of dems, I not does dat thingz, why dems is does dis, why…” moss clutched at his head and screamed, the scream broke halfway and turned into the cry of a beast, the deep, unhuman, guttural roar of an orc.

Lathander's orb eclipsed beneath the sea, twilight drawing to an end. Moss stood up and walked towards his mother. He reached out to hug her but as he did so he saw her flinch. The roar, she knew that roar and it was too much, her mind re-living the horrible incidents of the past.

Moss stared at Alogor. “I is goes, I need… I is need to make dis okays…”

Alogor looked at the two other druids with him. “How could you make something like this alright Moss, there is nothing you can change here, you are what you are. It’s just a case of controlling what you will become that matters now.”

“I is go den and I is learn to become anythingz but dis, I is be like youz and turn into wolf or goat or somefink else.”

Alogor patted Moss on the shoulder.

“Moss, you are too young to go out there into the world, it is a dangerous place, people will take advantage of your innocence, they will exploit that you no nothing of life outside of this forest, most of all, they will see an orc before they see who you really are.”

Moss pushed out hitting Alogor in the chest. “No! Is get off! I is not orc I is du ridz, I is not a bad one and I is not a kid no more, I bigger den all of youz, look!”

Moss lurched forward putting his massive chest into Alogor’s face.

“The apple does not fall far from the tree it seems, perhaps you are not one of us after all, perhaps you are an Orc Moss, your idiotic aggression proves you have much to learn.”

Moss sank back in realisation. His eyes glazed, He looked one last time upon his mother and turned to flee into the woods, and over the slopes, his legs carried him for waterdeep. He would see the city and he would find a way, everyone went to Waterdeep to find answers to their problems, it’s what the rangers told him. He believed them, they were smart, they walked the lands not just hiding away in a tiny grove all the time.

[Azulfae]

Moss lay on his back, the world spun around him in a haze. Whatever had hit him on the back of the head must have been in the hands of the massive Orc that now stood over him.

The creature raised the giant warmace up one more time and readied itself for the final blow. Just as the mace started to descend, a large green forearm snapped out grabbing the shaft of the weapon stopping it dead.

This second orc was even bigger. His face was maned like that of a lion, but dark and dirty and dreadlocked in places through sheer lack of hygiene.

“Nosgrug! shaggoth brogadur! Orcbluud zugul.”

The larger orc’s words were calm and quiet to the mace wielding orc. For a second, Moss got the impression that orcs could be rational. Then the bigger orc disappointed him.

“ZORGAKHUULL!!!”

A massive hand grabbed Moss around the throat and a second went between his legs gripping firmly what was most available and also what was most painful.

Moss felt himself swiftly raised up high into the air above the orc’s head. He looked down nauseous and convulsing in pain. He choked for air and flailed his arms trying to escape.

Dozens of the monsters were now surrounding him and they all cheered and chanted, some throwing objects at him.

Whatever Zorgakhuull meant, he had now decided it was not going to have a positive outcome.

Ten years had passed and he had finally found his way to the wood of sharp teeth. Two more nights in the wood and he had finally tracked down orcs. It had not been easy in the cities. Baldur’s gate had been harder than Waterdeep, humans elves and those freakish short ones the others called dwarves had been the worst. He had been compared to the monsters now before him at every opportunity. Other half-orcs had not been much help either, most of them unable to hold a useful conversation and some, straight up tried to just fight him for his things.

These ones were real orcs though and he now understood the sheer horror of what he was being compared to. Unfortunately he had realised to late… for they had seen him first.

The orcs tied his back to a large wooden post. They pulled his arms around behind him and tied them to the other side and his legs the same. They rose it up effortlessly and sunk the bottom of the post into a hole in the ground. On the floor beneath him lay ashes and pieces of charred bone. Moss knew at that instant that he was not in for a good time dying.

“woah woah woah, is stop! Is stop! I is…”

Wallop.

He found himself spitting blood and half a tusk out onto his hide tunic. Roars of laughter went up all around.

“GANZA TUCKZ KRAGZ!” The Orc picked up the piece of tusk from Moss’s tunic and flicked it in his face.

“Guulra….”

The orc said slowly.

“GUULRA!!!”

Roars went up all round, some turning into laughter and some into aggressive taunts.

One orc lunged out of the mob and thrust a spear into Moss’s leg, then ripped it back out again.

Moss screamed, “aaaAAAAAGGH!!! crapz crapz crapz!!! Baztordz!”

Large pieces of wood, some collected and some cut for purpose were now finding their way around the bottom of the post and his feet.

The largest orc returned again. This time making a motion with his hands, rubbing them together.

“K’ZUTH! K’ZUTH!” He repeated the motion.

All around orcs fell silent, some shrugging, some looking around at the floor. The big one slapped his head. “SHAMANZ!!! SHAMANZ K’ZUTH DUUGU GANZ!”

Some orcs ran off into the woods. The word shamanz rang a bell to Moss, it was making sense that the idiots were to stupid to light the fire and they had to go get to the shaman. He almost smirked except for the big axe that had just flown out of the mob and embedded itself between his knees.

The orcs wanted to see him afraid. He would not submit. Moss knew the end was coming and he was terrified but he was not going to give them satisfaction. His face straightened and his stare fixed on one after another, he stared into the eyes of as many of the orcs as he could.

One beat out at him thumping him over and over in the stomach and face. “GUULRA!! GUULRA!!”




“Guulra?”

Moss felt a shiver up his spine. The new voice was colder and wiser sounding than the other orcs. It had a familiarity that he could not place. He blinked many times trying to get the blood out of his eyes and see.

“Guulra?” Said the shaman one more time. He raised a long and lumpy knuckled, blue finger to Moss’s face, pointing. He scraped a dirty brown fingernail down the half-orcs cheek.

Suddenly from the shaman’s other hand erupted a glowing orb of brilliant light illuminating all in the area. Casting out shadows long and far into the woods all around.

“MOZGUL!”

The orcs stared in silence, Moss’s blue skin now clear in the light.
The large orc that had picked him up before stammered back.

“Uh… oopz.”

The shaman crushed the orb of light in his hand. Black veins coursed over the orbs surface and as the light extinguished the veins continued to spread across the shaman’s blue skinned hand.

Nails became black talons and the hand became like a black glassy shadow. The shaman turned to the orcs, his eyes glowing red in the darkness of the wood.

He reached forwards. The largest orc crumpled before him. Strands of shadow, once fingers, wrapped over his face, pushing into eyes and nostrils and his mouth. Bone cracked and buckled. A horrible gurgled scream signified the orcs expiration.

The shaman looked down as the remaining shadows dissolved the flesh from the orc’s skull and ate into the bone. Flexing his fingers he looked back up again, at the other orcs.

“Guulra….” A smirk crept across the shamans face.

The orcs all turned and ran.



Moss was alone now, with the shaman.

He looked into the red eyes of the shaman. The shaman looked back smiling, his hands crossed behind his hunched back.

“Mozgul.”

[Azulfae]

“I is ready father.”

Mozgul kneeled before his shaman father. The cave was dark, lit only with occasional torches. The orcs needed virtually no light to see down here and so it was more a case of the torches providing a little heat than anything else. The shaman sat in a cold, hard and roughly chiselled stone throne. Around him lay bones scribed with orc written, Dwarven runes and a chest, magically locked with a strange gem encrusted contraption.

“I is ready for becomes a shaman”


“Youz has been here long nowz and learn much of my ways.”

The shaman nodded and rubbed his chin.

“Youz is not tough as dese other orcz but is okays cos youz is have my smartz.

Orc words youz have learned fast, dis is a good one and maybe nowz I am think youz mother bluud is make some good stuff in head.”

The shaman eyed his son carefully, “Dese other orcs, dems is not like us shamanz, we is get us power from place dems is not understand. Our bluud-line is draws dis power from da darkness.”

The shaman clutched out at the air, slight trails of shadowy whisps seemed to be dragged by his hand from nothing but the dark of the cave.

“If youz is want to learn dese ways dis is how to becomes a shamanz. Youz go dis ways and youz is never be nuttin else.”

Mozgul nodded. “I am shamanz, I does whut it is take”

His father smirked. “Der is a secret place in da ford of daggers. Is a place where dems others of dese ways is meet. Dems is not orcs but dems is like us. From dems we is take orders of whut is to does and how we is to make da tribe move.”

“How does I get der?”

Mozgul’s father chuckled, “Is long walk or…. Or is can see taste of whut power is to come.”

The shaman rose up from his stone chair. He raised his arms and began a chant. Dark energies swirled in the centre of the large cave and coalesced void of all light. Slowly in the centre emerged an image of another place, stripped of its colours, viewed through the plain of shadows.

“Step cross der Mozgul, der youz is become a shamanz”

[Azulfae]

The teachings of the priestess had been arduous for the half-orc, his mind was one of concepts and theories but when it came to remembering the intricate details of rituals and the obsessive compulsive routines required of the worship of Shar, he was a mess.

It all seemed perhaps a formality created to keep the clergy obedient, but as Mozgul understood from his knowledge of nature and the ways beasts and animals behaved, these people were, like him, depressed about something in their lives. There was something missing from them and these sorts of mental issues resulted in odd behaviourisms.

One thing he did understand was that giving these behavioural disorders a place and a name made them acceptable somehow within this social circle. He’d probably enjoy it in his current state, if he actually had the mental capacity to learn it all, without screwing it up every time and taking a punishment in return for his efforts.

Mozgul swirled the blood in circles within the shallow, blackend copper bowl. He placed the bowl carefully upon it’s three pronged stand, with the candle beneath.

As the candle heated the bowl, the blood around the edge of the bowl burned dry.

He leaned forwards and dipped one finger in the blood, wiped a line from his forehead upwards.

Then leaned forwards again and took the edges of the hot metal. He winced and the result was a slap across the back of the head.

The removed his hands, stood back up straight and then repeated the action correctly not showing the pain on his face this time.

Mozgul lifted the bowl and turned. The priestess stepped aside letting him pass to the marble sink at the other end of the small shrine. The sink was filled with some sort of green watery substance, Mozgul didn’t understand the details of such things but he knew it was important.

He submerged the bowl directly and centrally into the green liquid, blood and all.

The blood fell away, mixing with the green liquid. Bubbles rose and rippled the surface, now turning purple. He lifted the bowl out and drained it thoroughly.

It now appeared as a blackened disk, purple around the outer edge where his dried blood, now stained by the chemicals, had set.

Mozgul turned and looked at the priestess, his tutor, for approval. She nodded saying not a word.

He turned and carried the bowl back to the candle and symbolically used the bottom of the bowl to dab down on the flame putting it out.

There it now sat, a symbol of his goddess, completed from his own blood.

“Now it is ready for your sacrifice.”

Mozgul nodded.

“Uh… whut is mine sacrifice?”

“Oh my dear by now you should surely know. There is a piece of you that was given long ago, when you were coming of age, back in your,” spitting the word almost, “mother’s grove. They showed you a baby animal yes, do you remember now?”

“uh… oh yeah, I is nearly forgotz dat one, is was a baby piggy, is was all black and fluffy and went hronkwheeee! hronkwheeee!”

The priestess raised her arm at the half-orcs barbaric behaviour. Mozgul quickly cut it short remembering his place.

“You must summon it to you, as they taught you.”

Mozgul hesitated, he knew what was going to happen but put on a facade, for some reason, that he did not understand.

“Why? Whut is need dat for?”

“You know what for, I already told you, it is for the sacrifice.”

Mozgul nodded feeling as always a little uncomfortable.

He reached under his black robes and grabbed at a small wooden carving of a boars tusk on a hemp chord around his neck.

In his mind he envisioned the piglet and tried to remember the name he had given it.

“Uh… hmm… SNARGZ!!!” He yelled and before him a massive wild boar manifested in a burst of light.

The boar stood stunned with mud all over its face a large truffle hanging out of one side of it’s mouth.

“Hronk, hronk, hronk.” The boar snuffled.

The priestess burst into incantation, a streak of electrical energy streaked from her fingertips right into the boar. The poor creature fell onto its side twitching furiously from the shock.

“Grab it you fool and bind it’s feet!”

Mozgul snapped out of his stare and into action still amazed by how much the piglet had grown.

He got to work and tied it’s front and back ankles together swiftly.

“Good, good.” Pronounced the priestess.

“Now, put it on the alter.”

Mozgul hefted the boar upwards and humped it up on top of a large stone alter at the far end of the shrine, as he turned back towards the priestess, beside her stood a shadow. Mozgul gawped, the shadow was in the form of a Boar much like Snargz, it’s eyes buzzed red in the darkness of it’s head. The sight of the thing made him shiver.

“Whut is dat one?”

“That one my child is what will replace the gap left in your soul when you slay the beast, according to the ritual.”

Mozgul felt his shoulders tighten. For the first time he had some doubts about the path he had taken. The shadow boar was a terrible creature and for the first time there was a feeling like he was actually about to loose something. He didn’t know what… there was nothing about himself that he liked or cared about, he did after all want to be anything but who he was but this, this was wrong, inside himself there was a fear brewing and a sense that he was not becoming something different but more likely to become something less.

The priestess pulled, from under her robes, a glorious obsidian Chakram. The blade was unflawed and perfect. Around one side of it she wrapped a piece of dark and shiny leathery material, so that it could be held without cutting ones own skin.

She handed the chakram to Mozgul.

“When I finish the prayer you must behead the beast with one blow.”


The two of them stood in front of the alter. Mozgul towering above the priestess, his shoulders hung low, as did his head.

He looked down into the eyes of the boar, the poor creature tried to squeal as the priestess began her low whispering prayers. Her hands hovered above the belly of the beast, dark energies beginning to swirl beneath her hands.

Snargz fell silent, a choking sound coming from his throat and his body turning limp. Mozgul felt the presence of the shadow boar behind him, awaiting to join with him in union when he killed Snargz.

Mozgul raised the chakram above his head, angled downwards and gripped firmly with both hands.

The priestess nodded to Mozgul.

….

She nodded again, this time with widened eyes.

Mozgul looked back.

A look of anger grew on her face.

Mozgul looked down at Snargz’s eyes as they looked back at him. He saw himself and all the times he had had whilst growing up amongst the druids. The trees and the grass and the birdsong, he remembered playing with the other children, he remembered many things.

He felt the feeling he had felt the day his mother and Alogor had revealed the truth to him. He realised that is was such a small thing now. It was nothing to do with him but it had been everything that had made him what he was.

Mozgul smiled at Snargz like he was an old friend, an old friend that reminded him what he ‘really’ was.

He took Snargz’s hooves in one hand and sliced the ropes with the chakram.

“WHAT! What do you think you are doing!”
Exclaimed the priestess.

“You will die for this!”

The shadow boar leapt instantly for Mozgul. He saw it out of the corner of his eye and dived forwards on top of the priestess, bringing her to the ground beneath his massive frame.

He looked up to see Snargz and his shadow tearing the hells out of each other. The sound was horrendous.

Mozgul’s head turned back to the priestess. Her mouth blurted words of power and the weapon he held in his hand glowed red hot. He dropped it instantly as she began a second incantation.

Mozgul’s hand thrust into her mouth displacing her words. The priestess gagged on his hideously huge and not so clean fingers.

He pushed more and grabbed her throat with his other hand. She gagged again and vomit burst up through Mozgul’s hand covering her face.

His eyes became bloodshot and yellow, his violet irises burning with orcish hate and a perverse pleasure he gained from the violence.

He slid his thumb around the bottom of her soft chin and gripped her jaw bone firmly. Muffled screams ended with the terrible sound of ripping and snapping.

Mozgul turned to the boars and rose.

The sound of air wheezing in and out of the priestesses open neck amused Mozgul. Maybe she would survive? Somehow that pleased him.

He threw down the jaw and picked up the chakram, still hot enough to singe his hands, and threw it hard into the hide of the shadow boar.

The creature flitted and leapt from on top of Snargz. As it struggled away, Snargz bounded after it digging tusks deep into one of the creature’s hind legs and dragged it back, swinging from side to side.

Mozgul jumped astride the creature and reached down grabbing it’s smokey black tusks firmly in his hands. He snapped it’s neck hard to the left, once then twice and the second time yanked upwards violently.

The boar vanished instantly, sending Mozgul onto his behind and falling backwards onto Snargz.

Snargz looked at him once more.

The boar was calm, the boar waited.

Mozgul stared back.

What were they going to do now?

[Azulfae]

The disciple tapped on the wooden door of the shrine.

“M’Lady, m’lady are you there?.”

There was a pause of silence.

“Nightbringer, is everything alright? Do… do you need assistance m’lady?”

Again there was a pause of silence.

The disciple carefully pushed the shrine door open a crack. Inside was dark, very dark.

“M’l….”

The disciple never saw what hit him, he never saw Snargz fly through the gap he offered as he opened the door, he never saw the boar’s head slam into his own and he never saw the creatures tusks pierce into his unconscious torso and throw him about like a toy in the corridor.

Mozgul crept out and searched under the dying disciples cloths where he found a dagger fastened to the dying man’s belt.

As the disciple came back into consciousness Mozgul placed a hand over the man’s bloodied and swollen face. Groans of suffocation muffled though Mozgul’s fingers. It went on too long so the Half-orc slipped the dagger up under the palm of his hand and into the man’s oesophagus. His body lurched up then dropped again. Mozgul quickly grabbed the body and turned it over holding the hair on the back of the man’s head whilst dragging his robes back and downwards, off his body, keeping them out of the puddle of blood erupting from the slit throat.

Still a sound of choking came from the throat of the man so this time the half-orc slammed his face down into the stone floor repeatedly until there was silence.

Mozgul looked at Snargz and rolled his eyes giving the body a kick with his boot as he stood up and robed himself in the long dark cloth of the shrines disciples. He raised the hood and tucked away the dagger.

“Okays den, dis is better.” Mozgul crouched down and patted Snargz on the nose. "Youz is goed nowz, I call youz again when time is a good one.”

The boar stared blankly. “Bugger off!” Mozgul gave Snargz a firm boot in the head and the boar burst into sparkles of moonlight and vanished into the dark.

The half-orc suddenly felt very alone.

He crossed corridors and slipped through rooms, nodding to the appropriate people and stopping to pay homage at the appropriate shrines and icons before continuing.

Finally Mozgul came to a set of stairs, a very long and steep set of stairs. He closed a door behind himself and breathed a sigh of relief. If was not far now, not far except for behind him he heard cries of alarm and the terrible unworldly howl of summoned shadow mastiffs.

[Azulfae]

The Dirty Rat was a cramped little bar in a featureless wood and brick building in the middle of dense woods off an unbeaten track with only the river Delimbyr as the nearest geological feature. Anyone found drinking in this small bar most likely came here by row boat and if so, their boat was dumped outside the bar, and not left in the river.

People that came here were not the sort that wanted those passing down the river to know about this place. It was a private place for private people, people who didn’t like to be disturbed, people who had their own way of living.

In the bar were various types. Three rather inbred looking humans with features that perhaps suggest some orc blood maybe a half dozen generations back. The mother was heavily overweight with long greasy hair and a bald patch around the top of her head making her appear rather masculine. Her brother was a skinny hunchback with one eye bigger than the other and their son was a rather short little idiot with a big head, small shoulders, a body of a much taller person but with stumpy little legs and buck teeth on the lower row.

The other side of the bar, were a man and a woman, both in black and purple velvet cloths, skin so pale you could almost see their veins through it. They looked to have money, why they were here none would know and none would ask.
The lady’s face was slightly wrong in some way, perhaps stretched or pointed. It was hard to place but she was just wrong. Her waist length, raven black hair accentuated her strangeness.

The man possessed long, jaw length, burley black side burns and swept back hair. He smoked a pipe and when he sucked on it his long pointy canines were occasionally visible. The couple always seemed to be touching each other and talking in whispers.

The barman was a fairly normal looking human. He was so normal he was almost the text book image of a barman. Charming demeanour, white shirt, brown leather apron and muscular hairy forearms. His bar was well kept and immaculate, as was his hair and teeth.

He spent most of his time polishing glasses and wiping the bar.

A small elven boy scuttled in and out of the bar rolling barrels from outside. On his way in he would occasionally be kicked and walloped by the inbred child who would taunt him with words that were not words and retarded squeals of excitement.

As long as these people came here, as long as this barman ran this bar, this boy would be a boy. His elven blood would age him so slowly he’d be a kid forever to them. Maybe a century, the boy would be a boy, in the woods, by a river, rolling barrels and being beaten upon by the inbreds and freaks. Maybe the dark couple would turn him if he was lucky, maybe they would just make him into some other kind of slave for another four centuries.

As the boy rolled yet another barrel behind the bar, the trap door next to him flapped open.

Out popped a large bald and slightly bluish grey half-orc face, with eyes of deepest purple.

“Hello mister Mozgul. A..a..a…are you, uh..uh…uh.. d.. d..d.d.do you need s…?”

Mozgul reached out with one massive hand and cupped the boys head throwing him sideways straight down at the floor. The half-orc bounced out over the child and laid one massive wallop into the barman as he turned to face him. The barman unfortunately still had his hand wrapped in a towel inside a stein, polishing it and ended up stiff as a board laid out unconscious on the floor in the same position.

The vampires watched, unmoving, the whole scene was below them and they had no reason to get involved unless someone brought it to them.

The other side of the bar were in hysterics. The fat momma was bouncing up and down in her chair screaming in a state of heightened delirium, unable to get up because of her weight. The father, her brother, pulled from somewhere a very nasty looking woodsman’s axe and started swinging at Mozgul, taking chunks out of the bar, tables, stools and any other object Mozgul could manage to dive behind.

The inbred child ran around in circles screaming “MEEEAHH!! AAAHHHAAAHHHAAA!!! WHEEE!!! WHEEEE!!!” and other such retardedness as his little arms flapped around ridiculously.

Mozgul managed to catch the child from behind and hoisted him in the air whilst spinning around.

The boy’s father was just at that moment swinging right down at Mozgul with his axe.


The bar fell silent.


Mozgul knelt with one foot and one knee on the ground and both arms raised, holding the child up gripping under his armpits.

The axe sat firmly in the middle of the boy’s head. His eyes crossed, looking at the blade between them.

The father stared without expression, almost confused looking, almost looking like he realised what he’d done.

Mozgul lowered the boy carefully putting him back down onto his feet. “Maa… daa…. Kutta bu..but.taaaa….” And various other gibberish was still being spoken from the child’s mouth, now rather more quietly.

Mozgul looked carefully at the father. His arms were still stiff and gripping the axe firmly, eyes fixed on his child.

The mother was silent, just staring.

From behind the bar a little elven boy stood up, still looking pathetic.

The vampires looked like they were enjoying the show and waiting to see what would happen next.

Mozgul paced backwards towards the door and stepped out into the twilight.

The air was fresh and the woods sounded as woods do at twilight. He paced backwards into the cold violet sky, veined with the dark branches of leafless autumn trees. The sudden space around him, setting his balance off, in comparison to the warm, close, browns and yellows of the indoors. His eyes were fixed, always watching the door, not knowing what was behind him but keeping his eyes on the immediate danger.

He got further and further away from the small building. It was growing dark. He started to turn and right then he heard the unholy screams from within the bar.

They seemed so far away and detached from his position.

He knew better. They were for him.

Mozgul turned and ran, he ran with a fear in his heart he had never felt before. Shouts of the disciples from the shrine below and the howls of the shadow mastiffs cried out.

He heard the hiss of crossbow bolts flying by him and the thud of various missile types pounding into the trees as he wove between.

Mozgul was in his own territory now. He lept and bound, diving over logs and gripping branches as he swung himself through the forest and clambered. Occasionally he could get a sprint going and gained more ground. All he could hear was his own chest bursting with every heart beat.

He was running… but where?

Mozgul stopped and panicked. He looked around for somewhere or something to head towards.

Selune’s light lit a path through the forest, and beyond, her cool reflection shimmered in the waters of the Delimbyr.

Mozgul began to run again. A raven came flying behind him, it cawed at him and lashed out at the back of his head.

He span and grabbed the bird quickly stuffing it’s head in his mouth and ripping it clean off.

Running again, he spat the mess out and dove at the river, falling short, flat into the mud of its banks as a shadow hand grabbed his ankle and ripped him backwards into the forest.