CHAPTER 8
The creaking sound of Bavrry's jail cell door jolted him awake. He rubbed his eyes and stared in disbelief at his good fortune.
He got up and pushed the door further ajar. Peeking out, he saw no one around.
Walking over to Thodak's cell, he unhinged the lock and opened the door.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Bavrry whispered.
Thodak rolled over and sneezed out a nose full of snot.
“Shhh...” Bavrry put a finger to his lips and motioned for the sleepy-headed Thodak to follow him.
The two old thieves moved silently down the hall, like foxes in a chicken coop.
“We can sneak past Snearos,” Bavrry said. “Or you can distract him and I will run out.”
“No, how about you distract him and I run out?”
They peeked around a corner at the front door. Expecting to see an elven sentry guarding the post, they saw no one.
“This has to be trap,” Thodak said.
“Or a dream.”
“Look!” Thodak pointed at a smearing of blood on the ground. They followed the crimson trail which got thicker as they went along.
Turning the corner, they saw the body of Snearos in a pool of blood. His limbs lay at grotesque angles, as though every bone had been snapped.
“Look out!” Thodak said as a Killtooth dropped down from the ceiling.
The vampire caught Bavrry by the collar and pulled him close. He bit down hard on the thief's jugular, squirting his blood onto Thodak. The elf writhed around like a loosely strung puppet as the Killtooth sucked on his neck.
Running for his life, Thodak made it to the front door. He opened it to reveal a horde of Killtooths who greeted him with hungry smiles.
They leapt onto him, fighting for a piece of his flesh.
Thodak felt their fangs spear into his body. His screams filled the air as the demons sunk their sharp teeth into his throat, legs and genitals.
“Gates of hell!” one of the cellmates yelled.
The sound of Thodak's screaming had awakened all of the prisoners. Most were gripping the bars of their cells, trying in vain to poke their heads through.
The Killtooths opened the prisoner doors at random and attacked each elf one by one. One prisoner tried hiding under his bed.
The blue scaled bodies of the vampires soon covered his entire cell.
His screams shook the walls.
Bharxen had vowed he would never go to jail again. A young elf who failed in his first try at thievery, he had served his time and would be released in the morning.
Would it be one day too late?
The Killtooths came to his cell with their bellies full. Slow to open Bharxen's door, they left too large of an opening and the young thief jumped between them.
Bharxen's nimble feet sprinted past the clutches of two other pairs of vampires. He raced down the corridor, jumping over dead prisoners and sloshing through their puddles of blood.
He turned a corner and raced for the front door when he saw Tholan blocking his path.
“Run!” Bharxen said. “The Killtooths are devouring everyone.”
The barbarian drew his sword and decapitated the young thief.
Killtooths in pursuit of the young man quickly lapped up the blood pooling from his headless torso.
Tholan grew hungry at the sight of the Killtooths feeding. He made his way down to the basement of the prison looking for the pantry.
Waving aside cobwebs, he found an old elf seated at a kitchen table lit by a fading candlelight. At least a hundred years old, the old elf slurped from a bowl of tomato soup.
“My name is Norril,” he said. “But I know you don't care.”
Tholan reached for his sword.
The old elf moved his face closer to the flame. Small tufts of white hair covered a scarred head. His eyes were a milky blue.
“I'm blind as a bat,” Norril said. “They kept me down here because they ran out of jail cells. I'm not the threat I was when I was your age.”
Blindness aside, Tholan felt the old elf''s eyes scan over him with scorn.
“You are a hired assassin, right?”
The barbarian said nothing.
“How did I know that?” he said with a smug, toothless smile. “You never know when your last meal is going to be. I'm glad I get to know. I learned to be thankful for the little things.”
Norrill scooped and swallowed the last of his soup with a relish.
“I was like you once,” the elf said. “A long time ago...”
Tholan took out his sword.
“That blade doesn't make you dangerous. Hell, my farts are more dangerous than you.”
The barbarian grabbed the elf's bowl and threw it against the wall.
“Yeah. Yeah,” Norril mocked. “I can smell the evil on your breath. I was the same way. I poked out my own eyes because I did not want to see the horrors I had done. But memories are always in the mind, aren't they? That is where you relive the horror. In the mind.”
“You're nothing like me, old fool.”
“Maybe you're right,” Norril's blind eyes locked onto the barbarian. “When I was your age, I was slaying dragons and screwing five princesses a night!”
The old elf cackled with glee.
The barbarian raised his blade.
“Go ahead, kill me. But you're the one that is afraid. I was never more afraid to die than when I was killing. That power that you get only lasts for so long. Then you need it again. And again. And again. But in the back of your mind you know that one day it will be you on the other end of that blade-”
Tholan brought his sword across Norril's neck.
The old elf's head rolled onto the floor. His blind eyes dimmed.
The Dark Queen walked into the prison snarling like a thunder cloud.
“We saved this one for you,” one of the Killtooths said.
They held the young elf down by his arms. His legs flailed and kicked at the approaching Dark Queen.
“Let him go,” she said.
The Killtooths released the elf and he ran toward the open front door. The Dark Queen waved her hand and it slammed shut in his face.
The elf pulled at the doorknob with all his might.
“No use,” Ravalynn said, slowly walking over. She grabbed the elf and exposed his neck with a practiced ease. “Nothing seals a door tighter than black magic.”
Blood gushed as her sharp fangs cut through his carotid artery. The elf's mouth gaped in a silent cry and terror filled his eyes. The Dark Queen drank directly from his heart but then dropped the elf's body to the ground in disgust.
“Spoiled blood!”
She spat down on the dead prisoner. She did not want the bitter tasting blood of the elven criminals. She wanted the pure and sweet blood of the missionaries.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!” The Dark Queen marched through the halls, her Killtooths attacking the last of the prisoners. “Leave no throat unmarked!”
“This is too easy,” Tholan said as he watched Ravalynn wipe her mouth.
The Dark Queen motioned for the barbarian to follow her outside of the prison. They walked about a quarter of a mile before they reached a cliff.
The castle of Wandacove could be seen in the distance. Ravalynn stared at the castle for a few moments, contempt and fury etched into her face.
“I will make the elves of Graceonna suffer like they never have and never will again. They will be a forgotten people. They will cry out to their God as my creations devour them one and all. Carella will not even be a memory. She will be erased from the earth as if she didn't exist.”
Tholan smelled the myrrh and incense that radiated from The Dark Queen's body. He became excited by the shine of fresh blood on her lips and the animalistic intensity of her eyes.
“I will enslave and devour them. I will cast spells that will make them turn against one another. They will lose all hope. And their blood will
taste so sweet.”
The Dark Queen's fangs glistened in the moonlight like pearls on alabaster.
When Elves Die : Episode One Page 8
