Within seconds the Grabber started panicking as outstretched torches came at it from all directions. Raegith realized that he never asked Fibbitch if this thing could fly and he hoped the sarcastic little turd would have told him before they scattered themselves.
The torchbearers closed in on the beast and it moved more frantically, pushing the bounds of the light and revealing itself in flashes. It looked like some kind of insect, with thorny legs and skin that sizzled every time a piece of it came into the light. In under a minute the circle had nearly closed in on it and as the little patch of night shrunk around the beast, it finally lost its mind and charged at its destruction. The poor little creature in front of it caught the entirety of its frantic rage as the miserable beast pounced upon it and bore it to the ground. In full light, the beast looked like a skeletal wasp with its wings cut off. It had a large abdomen that made up most of its lower body, with six legs sprouting from a slender upper body and a screaming head that looked like it had an arrow-shaped helmet on. Its skin was greyish and mottled and was stretched over bone and sinew that looked like it lacked any muscles.
As it pinned the squirming creature down, a split in the beast’s chest opened up and a spiked appendage shot out and impaled it. The light from the torch burned into the beast’s skin and it sizzled and popped as if it were grease in a frying pan, but the thing continued to extend and retract the spiked appendage in its chest, jabbing into the dying creature in rapid succession. Fibbitch yelled at it and the others crowded in on it, adding more light to the dead Gimlet’s torch until the beast’s skin erupted in flames and it shriveled up into a husk. The fire died out quickly and all that was left of the Grabber was a tangle of bones and smoked meat and the mostly intact head. The surviving members of the group all stood around the corpse and stared until one of the creatures lifted his fist to the sky and yelped in triumph. The others soon followed suit, whooping with delight until Fibbitch calmed them all down.
“Fibbitch not believe it,” The lead Gimlet said, turning back to Raegith. “Pasty-face, you stupid… no, smart… uhh… damn, I got nothing here. That was amazing!”
“Good work, Prince,” Ebriz added. “You may have saved us all this night.”
“Why does short Pasty keep say ‘Prince’?” Fibbitch asked. “In Pasty tongue, ‘prince’ must mean hero. Know why? Because no one in Greimere try to kill these things. It’s insane!”
“I never said I was sane,” Raegith said, staring Fibbitch down. The little creature shuddered a bit, but covered it with a grin.
One of the little dudes screeched and jumped back, pointing at the corpse and chattering away at Fibbitch. Fibbitch snapped his head towards the corpse and he slowly circled around it with his crossbow at the ready.
“Dormitt says the beast’s eyes still glow,” Fibbitch said. “These idiots think Grabber still alive. Oh, weird, the head is still alive?”
Raegith followed him and looked at the helmet lying on the ground and saw that the eyes glowed a faint green. He crouched down and lifted the head up, making the other creatures back up a step and gasp. Raegith inspected the helmet and noticed the glowing was a bit stronger on the inside. After scooping out ash and brains and using a rag to wipe out the glasslike eye bulbs, Raegith turned it up, slapped the top a few times and pulled it over his head. The others groaned with disgust as Raegith fit the dead beast’s skull onto his head and adjusted it close to his face. He immediately cupped his eyes around the sides of the eyes and turned away from the group, walking out away from them a bit.
“I can see,” Raegith said, still facing away from the rest of them. “The eye bulbs, they can see through the darkness!”
With the help of the Grabber’s head, Raegith led the group on for about twenty more minutes until they reached a hill that Fibbitch recognized as the safehouse he was trying to reach. Using a key in a secret hatch hidden in a rock, Fibbitch opened a little door and walked in. Raegith and his companions had to crawl through the door, but the place was big enough for them all, granted none of them try to stand up completely. There were several beds in different rooms, a small kitchen and a stone on three prongs coming up from the ground in the middle of the main room. As soon as light hit the amber stone, it began to glow and radiate light. Raegith recognized it as an emberstone from Rellizbix, which was used in libraries and places susceptible to open flames.
In the very back was a large room with pallets on the ground big enough for even Raegith and a steel, barred door with a lock. Fibbitch smiled at them and pointed his thumb at the back room. The four of them crawled back to the room and Fibbitch locked them in as his crew settled in for the night among the beds.
“Don’t let the bars agitate you, Pasty-face,” Fibbitch said. “This is the best room in the house for ones your size.”
“Yet you still lock us in,” Raegith replied.
“Fibbitch not live this long because of all the strangers trusted, Pasty-face,” he said, locking the door in place.
Despite being in a prison cell, Raegith actually slept well that night. When he dreamed, it was of home, but not the home that he knew. The stories he had heard from Boram and Ebriz came alive, but they were tempered by the actual experiences he had outside of the keep. He dreamed of Rellizbix and all of the people, but as he walked the capitol of Thromdale, no one saw him. People were too busy in their day, blissfully unaware of his presence. The people ate and drank and laughed, but everything was full of tar. Tar stained their teeth and their hands and it bubbled out of their mouths when they chuckled. He saw that many were occupied with something in the middle of the town.
Raegith moved through the crowd to see what they were all laughing and crying about. In the center were three men, each of a different race, all attacking a small creature. The creature was black and furry and made chittering noises like an agitated squirrel. The men beat and sliced and burned the creature and it screeched with hatred and fury. Each time it would fall in defeat, the men would cheer and then yell at the creature to rise back up and fight again. Each time the creature would slough off its burned and bruised and bleeding shell and pick itself back up off of the ground, only to be tortured and torn all over again.
“It keeps going like this, Raegith,” Onyx said. Suddenly she was beside him in the crowd, but she would not look at him. “It never ends… we will not allow it to end.”
Raegith looked back at the scene and caught a glimpse of the creature’s face and it saw him as well. Out of the entire crowd, the creature was the only one who could see Raegith. “Pasty-face!” it wailed and Raegith knew its name.
“Get up, Pasty-face!” Fibbitch said, nudging Raegith in the side and waking him. “Still have lots to go to reach Citadel. We maybe reach outpost by night, but not if Pasties keep sleeping so.”
Chapter 14
The terrain went from dangerous to bizarre on the next day. They passed through an entire forest of trees that had solidified to diamond hardness with branches that were twenty feet off the ground. Then there were the Flutairs, geological anomalies that captured wind in their mouth-like openings, sent it across sets of flexible gills that vibrated and out holes in the top. The vibrations made noise that sounded like giant cellos were being played alongside brass instruments. The Gimlets took great pleasure in repeating the notes they heard from the Flutairs through a kind of united howling, which they started out of nowhere and scared the living shit out of Raegith. Although Fibbitch had claimed that nothing grew in Greimere except for fungus, there were long rows of thorny vines that stretched along sections of land like natural fences and it seemed everywhere they went, something hard and spikey was protruding from the ground at every angle possible.
“How long have you been waiting on us, Fibbitch?” Raegith asked as they walked. “How long have you been watching the Hell Cliffs for that signal, I mean?”
“Fibbitch been given this mission a long time ago… hundreds of nights ago,” the Gimlet replied. “Fibbitch already figured out what been go
ing on with Empire a long time ago, that why Fibbitch picked to go. Fibbitch pretty smart like that. Smarter than Rathgar sometimes.”
“What do you mean by saying you ‘figured out what is going on with the Empire,’ Fibbitch?”
“Fibbitch know why Pasty is here. Fibbitch know Empire go to war soon and lots not come back. Maybe not enough Rathgar and Lokai to fight anymore.”
Fibbitch paused, sighing long and slow as he looked about the land.
“Maybe Empire not last too much longer, anyways, methinks,” he continued. “Maybe Empire fall and Gimlets just go about their days and die like everything else in this shit hole.”
Raegith wanted Fibbitch to elaborate on his statements. There was something strange in his melancholy tone when he spoke of the Empire that bothered him. He had not once thought of how the Rathgar or any other creatures in the Greimere felt about the deal they had struck with Rellizbix so long ago. He had always assumed they were happy with the bargain, as they received gifts from the north to appease them. He had no idea what kind of living conditions the people of the Greimere had to live, in; he had not considered what kind of toll the constant war had taken on a people not blessed with the natural peace and fertile lands of Rellizbix. Raegith was about to continue the conversation, but he was interrupted when a scout came speeding towards them, screaming and flailing wildly. Zakk pulled her sword and Raegith looked about to see what fresh danger was upon them. The Gimlet scout came into range and Raegith heard him yelping about something called a “happy hole.”
“A Happy Hole?” Raegith asked. “What in Fate’s name is a Happ… no, forget it, I don’t think I want to know.”
“A stupid fun thing for stupid Gimlets,” Fibbitch replied, annoyed as ever. “Not really something to find every day, cause they put them in random spots. It take forever to pry this group of dummies away from it, though. Dumb Gimlets love ‘Happy Hole.’”
Raegith spent the next hour pondering what kind of thing a “happy hole” could be and he thought of some pretty deranged things. Maybe it had something to do with alcohol, in which case he was pretty excited. Maybe it had something to do with loose women, in which case he was also excited. Then again, maybe it was something decisively dangerous or hazardous to his health, something in which booze and loose women certainly might have been included. He found himself putting more thought into this than he intended and nearly tripped over a snake-like creature that was camouflaged against the red dirt of the desert.
When they finally came into view of the “happy hole,” Raegith received his first glimpse of Rathgar culture and it frightened him a bit.
Out in the open, beside a lightly-paced trail, was a stone block that stood about waist high to Raegith and was as wide as a small bed and half as long. On each corner, rings were bolted into the stone, which had chains running through them. The chains looped through each ring and up to shackles that held a prisoner faced-down and bent over the stone, as if someone had walked up to it, lost all of their energy and draped themselves over the edge of the rock.
“By the Fates and everything else that is holy…” Zakk said. “That can’t be what I think it is.”
Raegith had never seen a Rathgar before, but he didn’t need Fibbitch to tell him that the prisoner shackled ass-up in front of them was Rathgar and he certainly didn’t need anyone to point out that it was female. The Rathgar was greenish-grey skinned, like an olive and on the muscular side, though not to the point of being overtly masculine. Black tattoos spread across her back like skeletal wings and swirling, blade-edged markings lined her arms and legs. She had short, lavender hair which was bisected by a dirty blindfold and her ears swept backwards and came to a quick point at their tips. She was completely naked and barely moved as they approached, though she did growl when the first Gimlet hands started running up her legs.
“This is Happy Hole, Pasty-face,” Fibbitch said with a smile. “When stupid whore get caught for being stupid whore, she get turned into Happy Hole. Happy Hole get placed out in country for anyone who finds them. Kind of like gift to community. Find a Happy Hole, feel free to use a Happy Hole! Is kind of lucky, I guess.”
“People… um, ‘use’ any Happy Hole they find?” Raegith asked, watching the Gimlets try to figure out a way to reach an opportune position.
“Yep,” Fibbitch said, walking over and shooing his minions away from the exposed female. “This one still alive and healthy! Since you new here, Pasty-face, I let you go first! Happy Hole is public property now, so go crazy!”
“Hey, bird-fuckers, will you all figure out who’s going first and get on with it?” the female said in a voice that seemed too soft and sarcastic for the person it came from. “I got shit to do!”
“Ugh, this one bossy,” Fibbitch said. “I think I see why she Happy Hole, now. Hurry up, Pasty-face, she not get any nicer.”
“Either you bunch of boy-huggers are still trying to figure out where to put it or you’re so small I can’t even feel you,” the female laughed. “I tell you what, I’ll be nice to you if you do me a favor and put a damn axe to my spine because I’d rather be lame the rest of my life than feel your silly little prick!”
“Fates! These monsters are no different than those we just escaped, Raegith!” Zakk exclaimed, clearly upset by the sight. “Get her out of that thing, Raegith. Get her out or kill her, please!”
“Zakk, dear, settle down,” Ebriz said, trying to calm the frantic girl. “We’re the strangers to this land. We don’t know what the situation is…”
“I feel I’m pretty fucking clear on the situation, Bard!” she snapped, leveling her blade at him. “I know exactly what’s going on here… more than either of you!”
Raegith approached her, his hands held up before him. “Zakk, put that down. I’ll find out what’s going on here, but you’re making everyone nervous.”
Zakk flinched and looked down confused, as if she did not even realize the sword was in her hand. She looked at Raegith and Ebriz and then straightened, sheathing her sword. “Just deal with this, Raegith. Please, I don’t care how.”
“What the hell kind of noises are you assholes making?” the Rathgar continued. “I can’t understand that gibberish and that pisses me off! Have some gods-damned consideration and speak Greimere while you’re humping me, you ass-goblins!”
“She’s certainly not tempered much by her situation,” Raegith mused, walking around to the front of the stone.
“No, Pasty-face, not that side!” Fibbitch yelped. “Mean ones try to bite it off!”
“Pasty-face?” the female laughed. “Don’t you sound like a fucking winner!”
Raegith crouched down in front of her and yanked her blindfold off of her face. Immediately he was staring into crimson eyes full of hatred and malicious desire. “We don’t always get to pick our names. And what is your name, Happy Hole?”
“Fuck… you,” she said, deliberately drawing out the pause for emphasis.
“I believe it’s supposed to be the other way around,” Raegith said with a grin. “You’re Rathgar, right?”
The female just stared at him hard.
“I’m on my way to the Citadel,” Raegith continued. “You’re the first Rathgar I’ve seen, so you can imagine I have absolutely no idea how to interact with one. My friend is very concerned with your current state and wants you released. If this seems even remotely interesting to you…”
“You’re wasting both of our time, now,” she said. “I don’t know what the fuck you are, but you look like a strong wind might kill you and if you’re running around with Gimlets, you obviously don’t know a damn thing. And what the hell are you going to the Citadel for? The Empress? You got an appointment?”
“Actually… yes.” Raegith laughed
“Well get on with it, then!” the female shouted. “I’m tied to a damn rock in the middle of the desert about to be gangbanged by mongrels standing on each other’s shoulders. Go to the Citadel, Prince Pansy-hands, I don’t care. I’ll still be
here when you head back to where you came from… if they let you.”
“Fibbitch, what would happen if we freed a Happy Hole?” Raegith asked.
“Uh, besides piss off all these dumb Gimlets?” Fibbitch asked, scratching his head. “Nothing, I think. Is public property, but no one frees them. Why would they want them free? Free Happy Hole not so happy at that point!”
“Do you have an axe, or something to break these chains off with?” Raegith asked.
“This a really bad, stupid idea, Pasty-face,” Fibbitch groaned as he pulled his pack off and started fumbling around inside it. “No need for heavy axe when shackles can be unhinged quick enough. When Rathgar jump up and try to kill us all, I hope Pasty-face very happy about it.”
Fibbitch pulled out a small pack with instruments inside it. He produced a chisel and a small hammer and went to work on the shackles. He looked over the one at her left foot, found a spot in the shackle near the hinge and tapped a small pin out of it with ease. He did this with the other three until the female was freed. The Gimlets went nuts with anger, but a glare from the freed Rathgar was enough to shut them up.
As she stretched her cramped muscles in full view of everyone, Raegith couldn’t help but look her over. She had the look of a warrior, much like Zakk, with several scars in places where her armor dug at her and where a blade of some sort sliced her open. She was lean and had thick shoulders, but she displayed a subtle grace in her movements, like a dancer. Unlike Zakk, she stood as tall as Raegith and had curves that would have made Onyx look like a thin length of board. More black tattooed wings stretched across her upper chest, from shoulder to shoulder. More imposing than her stature or muscle definition were her breasts, which were the size of melons.
“See something you like, Pansy-hands?” the female said, drawing Raegith’s attention back to her face. “Take your time. They’re yours, now, I suppose.”
Beyond the Hell Cliffs Page 14
