Orcs vs Elves (part 15)

"Psst!"

Firak Skulltaker groaned softly, his throbbing head returning him to unwilling life inch by inch. He felt the cool, gentle pressure of Meph's body against his back - but it was the hissing, piercing, feminine voice in his ear that was wrenching him from oblivion.

"Wake up, you idiot orc!"

Firak's eyes opened. He saw a complexly designed mosaic floor - tilings of geometric patterns and shapes, lightning bolts and angled lines that might have been dragons or warnings about the dangers of forward motion. He lifted his head and saw the wall of the same room, lit by an eldrich blue light that shifted, slowly, from dark and somber blue to brilliant gold, to purple, back to blue again. He blinked slowly and heard that voice.

"Over here!"

He turned his head.

There, in the center of the rectangular stone room were four ancient statues of armored figures, with hooves rather than feet, holding aloft weapons of equally ornate design - a warhammer, a spear, a sword, and a bow. Their helmeted faces were unreadable, but their shape and formation struck him as being totally alien to anything he had ever seen before. Over his shoulder, he could see Mephileph Icewild, her head lolled forward, her eyes closed, a thin trickle of silvery blood leaking from a bump on the side of her head.

Then he looked down and saw that upon his shoulder was a tied and bound... fairie.

She was small and slight, with short brown hair, piercing purple eyes, and an expression Firak recognized from many a day in Bloodrock - a furious warrior, trapped in an undignified position.

"Finally, you lunk," she hissed.

"Who are you?" Firak mumbled.

"Estoc, call sign Estoc," she whispered. "I'm an Armorite. But we have bigger fish to fucking fry than your rapacious ass."

"Mmnhot..." Meph mumbled, her voice woozy.

Both Firak and Estoc craned their heads.

"Hes... nice..." Meph's head sagged to the side.

"... right, she's fucking concussed," Estoc said, then shook her head. "We need to get free. I know you don't know shit, but this situation is fucking serious." She jerked her head. "Your goblin friend here is about to royally fuck up everything."

Firak turned his head.

There was Nija, standing beneath the source of the light - a glowing orb of shimmering, magical energies. Her palms were spread and her fingers arched as she held aloft a pair of carefully carved crystaline shapes, which seemed to be catching, shaping, directing the light. She twisted her hands left and right, her expression intent.

"What is she doing?" Firak whispered.

"Fucking with Precursor shit," Estoc hissed.

Firak frowned. He started to wriggled his wrists, feeling the sharp bite of the cords against his skin. It was no use. He frowned even more, thinking about the mechanics of this situation - while his lips mumbled out: "What is a Precursor."

"I hoped orcs were slightly less parochial than elves but fuck me in the ass," Estoc grumbled. "Okay. Uh. Long story short? Precursors are what came before. Our planet is ancient. It's old. Only the dragons know how much, and they're not fucking telling. Before there were elves, and the worldtree, and orcs, and humans, and anything else, there were the Precursors. Their magic, what they left behind, is more

powerful than anything you've ever seen."

"And how would you know that?" Firak asked.

"Yeah!" Meph's voice sounded more focused this time. She was lifting her head, and Firak hoped her eyes were focused - but he worried that she might look half drunk.

Estoc was silent for a long moment as the orb shifted in hue to purple again.

Then, quietly.

"... because a single fucking piece of Precursor magic was used to build the entire Armorite Order." Estoc was silent for a moment more. "I... that's how serious this is. We found one working Precursor artifact - a device whose magic was so powerful and well compacted, s... so so fucking elegant that it turned the Armorites from a footnote to one of the best warrior orders on the whole planet."

Firak nodded, slowly.

"Okay," he said. "I've faced your Armorites. I've seen what they can do to my friend. Now." He started to joggle his shoulders.

"Hey, what are-" Estoc hissed.

She rolled off his shoulder and Firak shifted, squirmed - Meph doing likewise, catching the fairie and skidding her down their backs. Firak managed to spread his palm and she landed right there. Estoc let out a muffled grunt - but she figured it out. Firak heard the quiet grunting noise, and felt the wiggling of his bindings. Her teeth were small, but the damn fairie had a jaw that was a stubborn as her armor was well crafted. Firak glanced over at the center of the room to see that the glowing orb had settled into place. It no longer rippled and quivered, but instead glowed a single, solid blue color.

Nija, it seemed, had been waiting for that. She lowered the crystals she held, then spoke a word that he didn't recognize. The orb rippled once, and then the glowering face of Ner'gal appeared within the orb.

"Report," the old Blood Shaman grumbled.

"The temple here has been brought into alignment, master," Nija said. "And the... potentially dangerous assets have been diverted."

"Good." Ner'gal nodded. "Keep the Blademaster alive - he may be required once the second step of the plan begins."

"Can... can I explain it to him?" Nija asked.

"Yes," Ner'gal said. "At this point, he is either with us or he's against us. The fool has made his move in the high queen's court. He has no idea that his petty elf dramas are of no matter to the true prize." Ner'gal nodded once and the orb shimmered back to blue. Nija sighed, then laughed.

"Okay!" she said, then turned to face Meph, Firak and Estoc. Firak remained very still, feeling Estoc's teeth still work work working against his bindings. Nija walked forward, her hands clasped together as she smiled down at Firak and then frowned at Meph. "All right. I know this looks bad, Fir-"

"Bad? Bad!?" Firak didn't need to act to distract Nija from Estoc - his fury was boiling over, like a cattlebeast overstuffed with ragewine. "You drugged me to get me to rape my captives - you helped me besmirch my honor, and the honor of the whole Hoard! And for what? For an old lunatic who creates monsters?"

"He created me," Nija snapped. Then, sighing. "And no. The Master has a glorious plan for all of us." She gestured her hands around herself. "Did you ever wonder at the mad old dreams of our first Elder? The dreams that got the Hoard to conquer half the world?" She shook her head. "They were delusions. An excuse for the Elder and the war-chiefs to conquer the world and take all the women. Ner'gal, though, has always had his eyes on what matters. The blood, Firak. The blood coursing through your veins and mine. Orcs are the strongest not because they were born strong, but because they made themselves strong - by using blood magic to shape body to match will." Her ears perked up and she grinned, fiercely. "That's what Ner'gal is after. The perfect blood."

"You're out of your mind," Firak said, his voice soft. "There's no such thing as perfect blood. An orc is stronger, but they can't fly. A dracorc can. But a dracorc can't do figures and numbers like a goblin. And none of them are as tough as a trolloc! And... and that's not even getting into the fact that each goblin is, themselves, an individual. This is against everything the Hoard has ever taught!"

Nija shook her head. "You don't understand. This isn't just some ruin. It's a temple. A temple built by the Golden Order. The people, the beings that once walked this world - who crafted the elves and the dragons, whose magic is what we use today. That's what the Shamans will never tell you!"

She stepped backwards, spreading her hands.

"We didn't invent Blood Magic. We found it."

Firak felt his wrist binding going looser.

"And now we are going to call the true creators of it back to this world," Nija said. Then she paused, her brow furrowing slightly - as if she had just noticed something was subtly off. Firak felt his heart leap in his chest. He tensed, muscles bunching, readying to try and do what he could, but-

"How?" Meph's voice broke into the conversation.

Nija's gaze snapped to the pale snow elf.

"What?" she asked.

Firak's wrist binding came free. He moved, very very carefully, to shift his hands around and hook a finger between the fairie that he held in his palm and the bindings around her. He started to worry his finger back and forth - while softly, he felt her spitting out bits of rope against his palm, and making soft disgusted noises. He could not blame her.

"How are you going to call the Precursors back? They've been gone so long that... that only scholars and madmen like Ner'gal know about them," Meph said. "A war... even this war, it seems beyond their notice."

The tiny bindings that Firak felt around Estoc came free. She buzzed from his fingers and he tried to look as restrained as ever, even as he felt her fingers pressing to the small of his back, her feet braced against his shoulder. She shuffled left, using him as if he were a huge climbing platform that she could scramble about on, using his green bulk to hide her small body from Nija. Nija shook her head slowly and laughed. "Ner'gal has been planning this for decades. He's laid his plans carefully - but the solution came when he first made a hobgoblin. A fusion of elf and orc. He realized that we're magically resonant - and so, if he made a whole lot of us very rapidly, he could form a net that would reach out to the stars themselves."

"And he started a war," Meph whispered. "To..."

She paused.

Then she looked down. Firak was almost shocked into immobility as he heard Nija's laugh.

"Oh yes, you're definitely with child," she said, her hands on her hips. "You know, I'd feel worse about it if you elves weren't all such stuck up arrogant conceited-"

"Now!"

Estoc burst into motion as Firak flung himself to his feet. Meph, who had been unbound by the daring faire, sprang to her feet as well and each rushed away from one another - leaving Nija in the heart of the room and with three possible directions to go. The rangy hobgoblin reacted quickly, drawing a flamepowder weapon and a bone dagger, her face set and grim. "Damn it!" she hissed - while Estoc buzzed about the ceiling and Firak dove behind a stone pillar. The flamepowder weapon was, worst of luck, one of the expertly crafted gobguns that could hold multiple shots in a revolving magazine that sat in the belly of the gun like a dragon brooding over its eggs. Firak heard the click boom of the flamepowder going off, and a bullet exploded the stone near his head.

"It doesn't have to be this way!" Nija shouted. "With the blood of the Precursors, Ner'gal will make us immortal! He will make us into gods!"

"I don't want to be a god!" Firak shouted back. He peeked from cover. Another shot, this one nearly taking off his nose, was the response. But Nija, clearly, knew that her position was dangerous. She rushed into the shadowed corners of the temple chamber, and found a pillar to hide herself behind. Her voice seemed to echo across every wall as she responded.

"Don't you? Then why do you fight for the Hoard?"

"I fight for freedom! And honor!" Firak shouted. He risked a sprint from pillar to pillar, the blue light of the orb casting terrifying shadows across the walls. He looked around for either Estoc or for Meph, but he saw neither. "Not for a twisted old man's dreams of godhood!"

"You're a fool, Firak!" Nija shouted. "We could have- Nnnh!"

The sound of a struggle rang out. Firak sprang out of cover and saw that Meph and Nija were both struggling, one and another, with the flamepowder weapon. The nearly naked ice elf and the powerfully built hobgoblin grabbed and struggled, pushing back, and forth. Firak sprinted forward.

There was another shot!

He froze.

Nija froze.

Meph froze.

Then...

Slowly...

Nija fell to the side, her eyes closing, blood pouring from the hole in her chest, while more pumped from her back in a crimson tide. As she sprawled upon the ground, smoke rising from her chest and from the barrel of the flamepowder pistol at once, the blood flowed and dribbled into the cracks and patterns of the floor, beading into the empty spaces and forming strange new patterns. Firak dropped to his knee beside her, while Meph tossed the flamepowder weapon away, an expression of shock and horror on her face - more for the weapon than its effect, Firak guessed. His hand went to the hole on Nija's chest, trying to stem the tide of blood as she smirked up at him, bloody toothed and wild eyed.

"Y... You'll see... the master..." She whispered, then coughed once more - and then went limp beneath his fingers. The blood beat between his palms, as if her heart continued to struggle - but then even that too stilled, and Firak drew his hands away from Nija. He shook his head slowly, his voice soft.

"Damn..." His hands tightened, then with a furious bellow, he lifted his hand above his head and shouted. "Nerrrr'gaaaaaaaal!"

As his blood-cry reverberated from the walls, and the oath of vengeance set firmly within his heart, Meph put her hand on his shoulder, her voice soft. "We need to get out of here. Some kind of powerful magic has been awakened here. We-"

"Too late!"

Estoc flew down to land on Firak's shoulder. Her finger thrust at the wall.

"I don't know what that is, but I don't think it is meant to be doing that in Ner'gal's plans!"

The wall was coming to life. The blue orb was being joined by half a dozen more - shimmering spheres that could have represented anything, Firak didn't know. Beaded lines of light connected one to another to another, while runes made of graven starlight flashed to life about them, utterly unreadable. Then the spheres were bisected by a rectangular portal that opened full into the room - a white banded, color filled kaleidoscope of sound and color. Firak, Meph and Estoc cried out in equal shock and fear... and then the colors and lights faded and a face peered from the window.

The face was delicate and beautiful, with dark blue skin, and long dark hair. Her chin was framed by a pair of thick tendrils, banded with golden hoops - clearly decoration - and her eyes were pure, glowing white orbs of light. She had a pair of curved, curling goat horns that thrust from her brow, and had been worked into her elegant hair style with clear signs of filing and adjustment. She wore a golden cuirass and shoulder pauldrons, studded with shimmering crystals that were clearly rich with magic. Her expression was of faint confusion - then determined focus.

The window vanished.

And the room was plunged into darkness.

"What was that?" Firak whispered.

"A Precursor?" Meph asked.

"I don't-" Estoc started.

A concussive force flung each of the three back against the walls with stunning impacts. Firak groaned as he fell to his side, his head ringing, while a blinding white light filled the chamber - not merely from his head cracking against stone. He shook his head fiercely and managed to get partially upright - and saw that the whole center of the temple room had been scooped out, as if a god had reached down with a hand of molten fury. The stone bubbled and hissed, cherry red and furiously hot, while the ceiling itself had a large hole that let in a pure beam of sunlight. The edges of the space that had been 'scooped' formed a perfect sphere.

And hovering in the center of that sphere was the delicate woman from the portal - save she was not delicate in the slightest. She stood nearly six feet tall, in gleaming gold armor, and hovered in the air while grasping a two handed war-hammer that looked sized for a giant. Her hooves clicked onto the floor as she drifted down. Her expression was cool and distant.

Estoc, her wings buzzing, shouted: "Run!"

Meph ran after the fairie, while Firak scrambled to his feet.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

More spheres of reality were rent aside - each hammering Firak's ears with their overlapping reports. With some distance, it was less like being struck by hammers and more like being caught in a hurricane gale of hot wind. But as the booms settled, he saw that the woman had been joined by half a dozen other - some purple, some blue, some gray, all armored in gold and bearing warhammers. They advanced towards him and Firak stumbled backwards, but they paid him no mind as they formed a circular pattern around the shimmering, smoldering ruin that was the heart of the temple.

Holding aloft their warhammers, the squadron of warrior women created a pentagram of interlocked hammer heads and shafts. Despite the size and girth of those hammers... they held them as easily as Firak would have lifted a child.

With the pentagram formed, golden lightning crackled along their hammers - and then smashed together into the heart of the room, creating a banded mass of whirling fire, interlocking rings covered in blazing, ruby red eyes. Flames roiled around the bands as it hovered in the air before Firak, a thing of impossible perfection and awe inspiring beauty. He stumbled, falling to a knee before he pushed himself up and took a step back.

Resonanting from the ring-creature came a voice like the clangor of a smith's workshop meeting a pipe organ.

"BE. NOT. AFRAID."

Firak turned and fled, all thought of bravery forgotten.

Behind him, the room trembled.

"PURIFICATION. HAS. BEGUN."

Overhead, as he ran into the snow beyond, the sky split asunder.

"THE. GOLDEN. ORDER. IS. HERE."

And thus began the end of the world.

***

Scimitar Darkblade reeled. His head rang as if it had been struck by a gong, and his very essence seemed to scream through his body. Standing before him, the smirking expression of Lord Sindroc had become a rictus grin, his muscles as taut and as tensed as every other elf. Through sheer force of will, Sindroc remained standing, his body trembling - while Scimitar tried to draw together the will it took to create his darkblade. But... he... couldn't. The pain of the Everqueen's death resonated through his bones, his mind, his soul. He felt Melindan and Jewel's hands on his shoulders, and through the ringing in his ears, he heard their shouts and cries. The orc diplomatic envoys were looking around wildly, and their warmaster was speaking quietly to his daughter.

But all Scimitar could do was look up at the headless body of the Everqueen. The color of her body was fading, leaching away as her flesh turned to marble, to stone, to crumbling powder.

The hobgoblin who had blown her head off stepped away, shaking her head. Faintly, Scimitar could hear her voice.

"I barely felt it... are you okay, master?"

A hiss came from near where Scimitar knelt - and it came through sharp, whistling in the way that an elf could do, when they wished to be heard by but one person and no one else.

"On your feet, drow! On your feet."

Scimitar lifted his gaze and for a moment, he swore he saw double. There was Lord Sindroc, standing in the center of the room, his expression softening as the roiling pain of the Everqueen's demise fading like the sound of a gong in a mountain pass. And there, to the left, was another Lord Sindroc, his face pale and set, his expression determined, the small door he had opened in the wall nothing more than a shadow. Then Scimitar blinked and the face of the other Sindroc focused and became clear... it was Lord Sindrac, his brother!

"Come!" Scimitar hissed, pointing - and without hesitation, Melindan grabbed her daughter's arm and the two sprinted for the door, followed by the Hoard members, then Scimitar, who scrambled to his feet last of all and forced himself forward.

"Stop!" Lord Sindroc bellowed - but Scimitar threw himself through the door seconds before Sindrac slammed it shut with a grinding of stone on stone. Then, Sindrac jerked his head.

"This way! My dear brother will have to claim the throne without an audience to his petty vengence," Sindrac said, teeth clenched.

"How? How can you think, let alone plan now? Of all times?" Scimitar asked, his own voice a pained wheeze. "The pain of it..."

"I was shot by a flamepowder weapon and left to die," Sindrac said, jerking his head and guiding the party through the narrow, winding corridors of the secret elf-ways that wound their way through the Everqueens palace. He moved with surety and grace, despite the bandage wrapped around his shoulder that bound his arm in place, clearly immobilized. "But I heard enough of my brother's dear plans - though, I fear he has bitten off more than he can chew, working with Ner'gal."

"Ner'gal!" The orc warchief, Tarish, growled and punched the wall as he walked, a fist blow that left obsidian stone cracked and crumbling. His daughter jerked at the impact, then touched the hand, frowning as her palms glowed with the eerie light of her blood magic - strength or no, the blow had clearly broken something. "If I find that scrawny old wretch, I will break him in half with my bare hands!"

"Let us hope we can avoid that fate," Sindrac said, shaking his head as he guided them left, then right again - the paths seemed to be endless to Scimitar, who put his hands on Melindan and Jewel's shoulders to keep both halflings close to him. Jewel was whimpering with each step - sniffing and wiping at her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. Melindan, more used to such horrors as war and death, even shocking death, kept her jaw tight and set.

They emerged into one of the large ballrooms of the palace, the elf-door opening and allowing the party to enter. But before they could catch even a breath, before a single word of planning could be said, a voice shouted.

"There! There they are!"

Two hobgoblin women, who had been lurking in the corridor beyond the ballroom, charged at the door. The dracorc Othar and Sindrac both threw themselves to the task, throwing the door shut. The broad shouldered scaled brute Othar spread wings, claws, and dug his taloned feet into the tiled floor, splintering stone as the door began to shudder and shake with the impacts of hobgoblin shoulders. His teeth flashed in a feral snarl.

"They're stronger than they look!"

"How did they even know we were going to be here?" Melindan hissed.

"Ner'gal has who knows how many, spread throughout the palace," L'ara said, taking her hands from her father's knuckles. "But there is more going on here than a simple elf coup-"

"It's no simple coup!" Sindrac said, sighing as he stepped from the door - the bashing had ceased, momentarily. He wiped pained sweat from his brow. "The Everqueen has kept the elf song in pace for time out of memory - her will and her story is our story. But Sindroc wants to change it - his bitterness and hatred for being trapped in the same telling, it seemed... eclipsed even mine." He shook his head and laughed. "Being the villain made me realize what pain was for others. Yet, being the victim made him see himself as the only real character, the only one who matters. Ironic, is it not?"

L'ara blinked at him. "What!?" she shouted.

Othar grunted. "The door!" he said. "Something's happening!"

The door was not quaking or shaking with impacts.

No.

It was hissing. Bubbling green slime bulged out from one corner of the craven stone, and Othar sprang away seconds before it released a putrescent stream as the door melted, first at a corner, then in the center, sloughing forward and creating a bubbling path from the corridor to the ballroom. Standing beyond was a long nosed beast of sickly complexion and greenish, bulging bile sacks. Snot dribbled from its nose as Scimitar gaped in horror, whispering. "What... is that?" he asked, as the foul stench of the melted door reached his nose.

"It's a sline," L'ara groaned. "They were used in a siege, once, before we invented flamepowder."

"I've improved the bloodline..."

The sneering voice announced a robed figure hunching towards the door. Scimitar had never seen an orc that was so hunched, so elder looking. His beard was long and white, and he was clad in thick black robes, covered with the hanging skulls that seemed to be a mark of honor and status among the Blood Shamans that had made the Hoard so terrible on the field of battle - and so bountiful in times of peace. His bearded features were split by a wide and wicked grin, and his staff - a gnarled, knotted thing of wood and bone - clacked and rattled as he walked forward.

"This sline can spew once every minute, and needs only simple meat and water - it needs no sulfur extracts, no-"

"Ner'gal!"

Everyone froze at the blood curdling bellow of the warchief of the Hoard, ringing off the ballroom wall, resonating in Scimitar's ears. Jewel and Melindan cuddled close to his sides, while Ner'gal stepped over the cooling acid slime to stand before Tarish, who was pointing at him with a single finger.

"You have gone too far, shaman!" Tarish growled. "We end this. Here. Now. I challenge you to a duel. To the death."

"As the challenged, I choose the weapon..." Ner'gal said, his voice dripping with venom.

"Yes. That is your right." Tarish tensed.

"I choose... my creations..." Ner'gal purred - and his hand shifted. His robes shivered and from the pockets and sleeves came writhing snakes, their bodies glowing with venom lines and glittering with ill intent. Their fangs winked sinisterly as they writhed towards the warchief, who took a step back, his face set and determined. Then, as the snakes leaped forward... they struck air, as if it were stone, rebounding and collapsing into a heap of confused scales. Everyone gasped - and Scimitar forced himself to his feet, his palm spread.

"I may be a master of darklight," he said. "But I can still make a shield spell when needed - and Ner'gal. You accepted the challenge in the Everqueen's castle. This is a place where stories, oaths, words... where they matter. Look, at your hand."

Ner'gal paused. He did lift one withered hand - and saw, already, that blackish lines were beginning to grow in his veins. His brow furrowed and he snarled. "What trickery is this?"

"No trickery," Melindan spat. "Elf bullshit."

"You swore an oath, Blood Shaman," Sindrac threw in, his grin wry. "Now, you will have to live or die by it."

Ner'gal swept his hand in a gesture of negation. "Enough!" The snakes withdrew, called back by his eldritch powers - and the veins on his hand showed green once more. He sniffed. "Fine. I chose bare fists.'

Tarish puffed a snort of derision. "Bare fists? Ner'gal, you served my father in your middle age, I-"

"I said. Bare. Fists." Ner'gal hissed.

Tarish frowned. He stood taller and straighter, his massive shoulders shifting - slabs of green muscle that left Scimitar feel almost unmanned. He rolled his head in a slow arc, cracking the vertebrae loudly, then sighed. "Very well. Fists."

Ner'gal spread his hands - and dropped his staff with a clatter. Tarish, seeming to take this as the call to attack, started forward. He did not move arrogantly but rather shuffled forward with his fists raised, ready for a trick or attack. Next to Scimitar, L'ara grabbed onto Othar. Comfortingly, the dracorc swept his wing around her shoulder, drawing her in close, his expression grave and his tail stilled save for the very tip, which trembled with anticipation.

Tarish snapped his fist out, the motion swift and unerring, cleaving the air with a whipcrack noise. Ner'gal lifted a single withered hand and caught the blow - and skidded backwards an inch. His robed form remained perfectly still as he smirked slowly up at Tarish, whose eyes widened as his arm trembled at the pressure that he was putting onto the Blood Shaman. Then Ner'gal squeezed and Tarish clenched his mighty jaw to keep from crying out as his hand spurted red blood as those fingernails dug into flesh. He twisted, wrenched, and managed to get free as Ner'gal began to advance... and with a single sweep, Ner'gal tossed aside his black robes, to reveal that rather than the bent, sunken bellied husk that Scimitar had expected, he was as straight and tall as Tarish, his shoulders corded with heavy muscle, his skin pale and wrinkled... but beneath it, power writhed.

"Blood magic!" L'ara whispered.

Tarish jerked backwards as Ner'gal struck at him once, twice, three times. The third blow landed, catching the warchief's belly with a resounding crack, lifting the mighty orc up and off his feet and leaving him hollowed out and whuffing air from his lungs. He fell to his knees and Ner'gal grabbed his head, sneering. "See what power you could have had, had you allowed me to rule, as I was born to!?" Ner'gal cackled as his thumbs pressed inexorably towards Tarish's eyes - but before he could complete his hideous work, the warchief swept his knee up and caught the blood shaman in the hip, then struck him a resounding blow with the flat of his palm. Ner'gal stumbled and Tarish came to his feet, gasping, and kicked him in the jaw.

Ner'gal flipped backwards, and crashed into the floor.

"You may be strong, Ner'gal, stronger than I! But you have never had a fair fight in your life!" Tarish lifted his heel and tried to stomp it down onto Ner'gal's chest. Ner'gal grabbed onto his heel as it came rushing down, grunting as the floor beneath him cracked like a flamepowder weapon going off. Stone chips flew up around him, while Ner'gal's teeth and tusks flashed white. His eyes blazed red.

"You always were a stupid brute!" Ner'gal twisted.

Tarish tried to turn with the motion - but the resounding crack that filled the air caused L'ara to cry out in fear. Tarish fell and Ner'gal sprang to his feet, his back rippling. A bony spur thrust from his shoulder blade, arcing up and around his back as he grabbed and wrenched it free. The splintering sound of bone cracking and the spurt of red blood against the wall made Scimitar feel sick - but as Ner'gal held his bone blade, he smirked.

"It is as part of me as my fists are," he said, sneering. "Will your elf customs stop this?"

"I..." Sindrac hesitated - but Tarish hesitated not at all.

With a furious bellow, Tarish dove forward. He lifted his arm, catching the blade on his forearm and turning it aside through main force. For a single gratifying moment, Ner'gal looked utterly terrified, seconds before the shoulder of the warchief caught his chest and the massive orc lifted him up and above his head, then flipped and brought him back down with a resounding crash! Tarish' ankle was already turning a horrid purple color, and the pain of it must have been overwhelming, debilitating to all... all save the mightiest orc that had yet graced the world. Tarish planted his knees to either side of Ner'gal, and began to pummel the blood shaman into the ground, with blow after mighty blow, his fists like hammers and Ner'gal like a blade to be forged.

"You! Are! Not! The! Future! Of! The! Hoard!" Tarish punched once more, panting as blood dripped form his knuckles and spread around the head of the blood shaman. He panted raggedly, glaring down at the ruined face of Ner'gal, whose tusk had been shattered, whose lips were bloody, whose nose was a broken ruin. Scimitar breathed slowly out, while L'ara sagged in relief. Melindan pumped her fist and hissed 'yes!' while Othar squeezed his orc love tight to his side.

Ner'gal's lips worked. Scimitar's elf ears caught, even from his distance, the mumbled words. "I... must tell you... one thing... my... old friend..."

Tarish nodded. He leaned forward, cradling the blood shaman's head - and Scimitar could see him gathering the strength for one final twist, a wrench that would snap Ner'gal's spine and end his life forever. Tarish leaned forward.

"You..." Ner'gal hissed. "Are... a fool."

The soft crunch as his jaw worked baffled Scimitar - as did the greenish haze boiling from the prone orc's mouth, spewing from a shattered molar that the orc had cracked himself. The greenish smoke billowed around Tarish's face - and Tarish surged backwards, releasing Ner'gal. He scrabbled at his throat, his face, and a horrid gurgle tried to escape his mouth.

"Father!" L'ara screamed, running towards him. Tarish stumbled backwards, falling onto his side, his mouth frothing and bubbling as Ner'gal scrambled to his feet, wobbled, stumbled, then started to sprint from the ballroom. Red tears streaked down Tarish's face while L'ara worked her magics frantically, red light sparkling around her hands. "No! No! No! No, father, father! Breathe! Breathe!" She hissed as Tarish laid on his back, frothing more reddish slurry from his lips. His eyes, hazed and half blind, closed... and he reached up, placing his palm upon L'ara's cheek. And yet, still, her palms flared as she placed them to his chest.

For a moment, Scimitar dared hope. He had heard Tarish speak many times in their voyage here, to say that his daughter was the greatest of all Blood Shamans of their age.

Then...

Tarish's hand fell down to his side, rebounding off the cracked stone floor and he lay still.

L'ara ducked her head down, burying her face against her father's chest, sobbing, while Melindan and Jewel clung to Scimitar, and Othar lowered his head, his wings drooping. Even Sindrac closed his eyes in pain, turning his face aside as L'ara sobbed.

Scimitar was the one who moved. He pushed himself to his feet, then knelt beside L'ara. His hand went to her shoulder. "L'ara..." He said, softly. "The tale of your vengeance will be written in Ner'gal's blood. But we must away, before Sindroc finds us, before-"

The whole world shuddered and shook. The floor rocked. The ceiling quaked. Dust dribbled from some of the cracks, while L'ara sniffed and stood, her voice a hiss. "This, I swear," she whispered. "Ner'gal's skull will hang from my necklace. I swear it." She lifted her head up - while Sindrac frowned.

"What was that?"

Everyone looked at him. Melindan, her voice sharp, was the one to voice it. "Was it not something Sindroc did?"

"Nay. I felt... did you feel that, oh dark elf?" He asked.

Scimitar shook his head, then frowned. "But I am a darklight master. My attunement to the weave is focused inwards."

"It was as if a great rent had been torn asunder..." Sindrac whispered, then walked towards one of the ballroom's vast, curtain covered windows. Before he could open it, hobgoblins came streaming into the room, bearing flamepowder weapons trained on the would be escapees. Sindrac's brother, the wicked Sindroc, followed them, scowling.

"Did you think you really could-"

Sindrac, ignoring his brother, swept the curtain aside.

And the view beyond, the view of the city of Sunshadow, and the skies above it, put paid to any question of coups and elf kingdoms, of Hoards and bloodlines, of calls for vengeance, and of the petty desires of the people of this world.

For hanging above the city of Sunshadow was the harbinger of doom itself.

"What the fuck is that?" Melindan whispered.