Conqueror

by Isaac Hooke

  He sighed. Okay fine. Abigail, can you just scream in pain and pretend Mauritania is torturing you? So she can save face? And Mauritania, you can cackle evilly or something.

  Abigail glared at him, then she turned her head skyward and let out a heart-wrenching scream. Another. She jerked her body, which was still in the grip of those green mists, as if in absolute agony.

  Malem felt no pain emanating from her energy bundle, so he knew it was fake.

  Mauritania, seeming surprised at first, began to cackle madly, playing along.

  This sucks, Mauritania sent. But she continued to cackle.

  Aren’t you going to do something? Weyanna asked. You can’t let her torture the princess.

  He joined all the women to the mental conversation then.

  It’s for show, he told them. You can sense Abigail, if you concentrate. She’s in no real pain.

  Xaxia, who wasn’t in on the conversation, merely shrugged. She apparently didn’t care either way.

  Mauritania finally set Abigail down, and the latter made a show of walking weakly back to the others, and collapsing in Weyanna’s arms. The soldiers around her seemed sufficiently cowed, because when she looked at them, the nearest of them cringed.

  “What are you all looking at?” Mauritania said. “Get back to your posts! We march in the morning.” As the rooftop cleared, she glanced at Malem. “At least, I assume we march.”

  He nodded. “We do. But you and Weyanna won’t be coming with us. At least not at first.”

  “Oh?” Mauritania said. “Which one of these pleasant women is Weyanna, by the way?”

  “That would be me,” Weyanna said, coming forward.

  “You’ll travel on her back,” Malem told Mauritania. “And return to the front, informing the Alliance of everything that has transpired.” He glanced at Weyanna. “You will give them hope that the war will soon end. Tell them a fresh army is coming to reinforce their ranks. An army of the Eldritch. Tell them Vorgon will soon fall.”

  Mauritania grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him so that he was physically facing her once more. “But you can’t send me.”

  “I have to,” he told her. “Especially with those scouts of yours scattered throughout the Midweald, ready to shoot down any passing dragons.”

  “I’ll send out couriers instructing my scouts to stand down,” Mauritania said.

  He shook his head. “It will take too long for the message to propagate, especially if you plan to send those couriers on foot. Do you?”

  She nodded.

  “There you go,” he said. “We have to send word immediately, or there’s a good chance the Alliance will crumble. This is why you’re going with Weyanna. You’ll ride on her back and defend her against any Eldritch magic your scouts launch along the way. Besides, it’ll be a good bonding session for the two of you.”

  “Assuming they don’t kill each other along the way,” Abigail commented. “Considering how well the queen and myself get along. By the way, why not just go with them? You plan to summon Banvil to fight Vorgon, don’t you? Why not get it over with?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I have a feeling we’ll need Mauritania’s Eldritch before this is through. I want them there, as support, when the time comes. I doubt Banvil will be able to defeat Vorgon alone—the latter has grown too powerful. We’ll need the evil magic of the Eldritch to give Banvil the advantage it needs.”

  But now it was Mauritania’s turn to shake her head. “You don’t understand. If you send me, my army will revolt in my absence, I guarantee you. They’ll slay you and the other women in the night, and march back to our homeland with your head as a trophy.”

  “I wasn’t aware how tenuous a hold you had on them,” he said. “Though I guess I should have suspected, considering how you treat them.”

  She smiled indignantly. “You couldn’t resist putting in that little gibe, could you?”

  He returned his attention to Abigail. “Does Goldenthall have any carrier pigeons?”

  “He used to,” Abigail said. “Though who knows what happened to them after Queen Bitch here sacked the castle.”

  “The men roasted the pigeons and ate them,” Mauritania explained.

  “I figured as much,” Abigail said.

  “What about Nemertes?” Weyanna said. “Can we send the ancient blue? The Queen’s scouts won’t shoot it down, right?”

  “I’d rather not,” Malem said. “It’s too important of a task to entrust the strange dragon. You two are a known quantity. But Nemertes, not so much.”

  Mauritania gave him a pensive look. “I can send one of my strongest mages to accompany this one, if it pleases you.”

  “Like Nemertes, I just don’t trust your mages,” he said. “You I’ve Broken. But some random mage? He might hurl deadly magic into her the moment the pair cross the horizon.”

  “Then Break him, too, if it makes you comfortable,” Mauritania said.

  “While having the five of you occupying a place in my mind has increased my abilities,” he told her. “I still have limitations. I won’t have very much control when the mage is half a continent away, for example.”

  Mauritania flashed him a grim smile. “Then I will simply tell the chosen mage that if any harm comes to her, he shall be executed immediately upon his return.”

  He stared at Mauritania for a moment, then glanced at Weyanna. “That works for me.”

  The half white dragon nodded. “I suppose it works for me as well. Someone has to do this.”

  “I should go, too,” Abigail said.

  “That means we’d have to send another mage to protect you,” Malem said. “No, one is enough. Weyanna will go alone.”

  31

  Malem and his companions rode on horseback, while Mauritania’s troops marched on foot. It took a while for Capilet and the other horses to grow accustomed to the Eldritch, but they were able to trot alongside the different units with ease now.

  Malem and his companions spent the week riding west with that army. He kept Hansel, Khaan and Ophid bound to him, and the monsters accompanied them at a distance. He had also Broken a new hawk to act as his eyes in the sky alongside Nemertes, who accompanied the army overhead. He confirmed early on that he had thirty-six total slots by Breaking different animals en route until he maxed out.

  Mauritania’s second in command, the Eldritch named Jacob, acted as her liaison with the army, and ensured the troops remained on course, and on schedule. She rarely interacted with the officers below him directly, and when she did, their words were mostly perfunctory.

  The monsters gave them little trouble in the forest. Most fled when they sensed the rumbling of five thousand marching feet. But the bigger, braver monsters that attacked were promptly subdued by the Eldritch mages.

  Weyanna and the Eldritch mage returned after only a couple of days into the march.

  “The Alliance remains intact,” Weyanna said. “They await your arrival. And Vorgon’s fall.”

  Weyanna brought with her a new suit of dragon scale armor, and he promptly used it to replace the basic robe he was wearing.

  During the journey, he thought often of what had taken place between himself and Banvil in the Black Realm. It was an interesting feeling, knowing that he was finally free of the Darkness. Assuming the Balor lived up to its end of the bargain. Then again, it seemed Malem could actually control Banvil’s Darkness now. That essentially ruled out the Balor ever snatching him again. Unless the demon did so while he slept, or otherwise caught him by surprise.

  Malem had his own tent, borrowed from the Eldritch. It was rather spacious, seeing as it was designed for their bigger bodies. In that tent he shared his bed with a different one of his companions each night, but because of their link, they all got to partake in the magnified pleasure, except for Xaxia. Even Mauritania took a turn, and she was particularly naughty in the sheets. She liked to explore with her hands, touching every part of his anatomy in a way that was truly intimate, from his underarms to his b
utt crack. Because of her size, she couldn’t really ride on top, and when he took her in the missionary position, his face was level with her breasts, which was just about perfect as far as he was concerned, providing a soft cushion to rest his cheeks should he find the need, and a great view to boot.

  Because she was so large compared to the average woman, oversized in every way, he was a little worried he wouldn’t be able to satisfy her at first, but she was surprisingly tight where it counted.

  During the afterglow of their first coupling, she turned to him and murmured: “I’ve slept with the man who could save us, or Break us all. The fate of the world is in your hands.”

  “That’s not all that’s in my hands,” he commented, lifting one of her humongous breasts. Honestly, he’d dreamed of being with someone so well-equipped in that department, and she definitely had the largest cup size he’d ever seen. He just wanted to roll around in those sexy balloons of flesh all day and forget about this huge burden on his shoulders.

  She pulled away from him. “I was being serious. Silly.”

  “Sorry.”

  She sighed, twirling a finger idly in his hair. She singled out a tiny strand, and stretched it outward, away from the others. “How does it feel, knowing that the world hangs by a thread, and all it will take is one mistake on your part, and…” She plucked the hair, and he flinched at the sting.

  “I never asked for this,” he told her. “Never wanted it. Fighting for humanity… that’s the last thing I ever envisioned for myself, growing up. I was always the loner. I never fit in, or had friends. I couldn’t. Oh sure, I got really good at picking up women. That’s what happens when you find yourself unable to make lasting friendships, because of something that hunts you. But actual relationships? Never. Who knows what I would have become if a Balor hadn’t chased me my entire life? Maybe I would have devoted myself to the sciences, and discovered how to bring man to the stars. Maybe I would have developed— ah, who am I kidding? I probably would have still pursued pleasure.” He buried his face in her breasts.

  She pushed him away gently. “You don’t know that. You can’t know. You had your life ripped from you by a Balor. You were cheated. And yet, you were also gifted, because if it wasn’t for these powers you possess, the world, right now, would most likely be doomed.”

  “You say that as if you regret the part you played in the dooming,” he told her.

  “Oh, I do,” Mauritania said. “The Eldritch, we are a people of war, yes. But by tradition, we never warred with others, only among ourselves. We were only the ones ever worthy of war. But Vorgon changed that. He made war against us, where no others dared. He proved himself worthy, and then when he Broke me, he dishonored our traditions by sparing me, and forcing me to lead my armies. He shamed me. He should have taken control personally, and killed me. Instead he made me, the defeated, continue to lead my men. Now you understand why I have to be so hard on them. They will never forget this great dishonor I’ve brought to my people. A dishonor that has come twice-over now, with my Breaking by you.”

  “How can they blame you, when it was their own failings that allowed Vorgon to win?” he said.

  “Yes, but I was their leader, so I hold the blame,” she explained. “Now you understand why I must always be on my guard, and never dare show weakness. Unless of course I want to be challenged hourly. Already, during this march, I’ve had to fend off two challengers to my supremacy.”

  “Is that what that earlier scuffle was about?” he asked. This morning, when he’d awakened, he’d found a score of half-dissolved Eldritch bodies scattered around her tent.

  She nodded. “A waste of troops, that. They came, intending to assassinate me. They had to be slain to the last man as an example to others who would usurp my authority.”

  “You have to start interacting more with your men,” Malem told her. “Especially the senior officers. It will be harder for them to revolt against you if they consider you a friend.”

  “But it will also be easier in some ways,” Mauritania said. “Considering they’ll have better access if they want to assassinate me. No, let me run my army. You don’t understand the differences between human and Eldritch culture. There is a wide gap. I don’t tell you how to behave around the other women, do I?”

  “No, I suppose not.” He paused for a moment, considering all that they had said. Then he pulled away slightly to look up into her eyes. “The other women… when I journeyed to the front to join the Alliance, I surprised myself. Here I was, fighting for humanity, something I’d said I’d never do. Except, it wasn’t really for humanity. It was for the women in my life, like you. That’s why I fight. For you. And I suppose… you’ve all changed me. Made me care a little more for humanity, and the potential future we might have among them. Even though all of you are only half human yourselves.”

  “We’re more human than you know,” she said, cuddling him like a little girl might a teddy bear. Okay, their size difference wasn’t that great. But he still occasionally felt like some doll in her large arms.

  “You’ve taught me not to be so selfish,” he continued when she released him. “To use my abilities for the good of all, rather than the good of myself.”

  Mauritania pursed her lips in consideration. “That’s a lesson we could all use, I suppose. Perhaps even I.”

  “Especially you,” he said. “Queen of the Eldritch.”

  She shrugged. “I was never known for my humility.”

  “Never too late to start,” he said.

  The days continued to pass in relatively monotony, the nights in brief spurts of pleasure before a sleep racked with nightmares. He dreamt of Banvil raging across the land, the large Balor tearing away buildings with its claws, crushing running citizens beneath its feet, and cutting through armies with its fell blade. But at the end of the dream, he always discovered that it wasn’t Banvil razing the world, but Malem himself. They were one and the same. In the dream.

  He had considered using the Black Realm to transport the army to the front lines, because given the time distortion, weeks spent there would only be days or hours in the real world. But when he thought of how precarious his hold over Banvil would be the entire time, he decided against it. He might wake up to find himself cut in half by that fiery sword. Or worse: maybe Banvil would Break him, like in the dream. Or at least, that was one way to interpret the nightmares.

  So he stayed in this realm. And when the week passed, Malem returned victoriously to the front lines of the war against Vorgon, bringing an army of Eldritch to fight side by side with the Alliance. He had sent an advance unit composed of Weyanna and Xaxia to give ample warning of their arrival, and when the Eldritch troops made camp just south of the main tents, every Alliance soldier present turned out to watch, forming a long line along the outskirts.

  The war council held a hasty session, and Malem discovered he had arrived essentially just in time: the armies of good were close to breaking. It might have been better to risk traversing the Black Realm to arrive sooner, given how depleted the Alliance troops were, not just in numbers, but morale. Malem’s arrival had bolstered both attributes, but whether or not it would be enough, he’d soon find out. Ziatrice’s orak troops were particularly devastated: the Alliance had used them as fodder in her absence, and their numbers had dwindled to less than fifty, with only four black dragons remaining among them. Needless to say, the night elf was pissed.

  Malem couldn’t just summon Banvil and wait for Vorgon to arrive. He doubted he would be able to take control, not when the Balor was at its full strength, but even if he did, he was uncertain how long he would be able to maintain that hold. No, it was better for Vorgon to arrive first, so that when Banvil appeared, the Balor had something to fight immediately.

  Thus he presented the plan to draw out Vorgon he had developed with Mauritania, Ziatrice, and Abigail during the long march here. The councilors accepted it readily, as they had no other viable options.

  Then the different armies too
k to the field, joined by their generals. Normally those generals would have stayed back, safe in their tents, but they knew there was no point, not anymore. If this fight was lost, so was the war. The enemy ranks would sweep over their tents in victory, slaying any who remained.

  And so, only an hour later, Malem found himself crouched behind the central trench on the front lines, where he waited anxiously beside General Rashan and Abigail.

  “The armies are in place,” General Rashan announced.

  Malem nodded. He remained in place, crouching, willing himself to stand, but couldn’t do it.

  “Breaker?” Rashan asked.

  Malem closed his eyes, bowed his head, and then looked up again. “A hundred years from now, when this moment has been relegated to the annals of history, no one will remember the players involved. Those who died. Those who lived. The triumphs. The setbacks. The heartache. It will all be forgotten.”

  “Perhaps,” Rashan said. “But they will remember you, Breaker. For a thousand years and more.”

  “And yet I am perhaps the least deserving of us all,” he said. “Because without you, I couldn’t do this. Without your armies, I could never get close to Vorgon. Without these brave women whom I’ve Broken, I would have never developed the power to Break Banvil. You all are just as deserving of remembrance, if not more-so.”

  “History never remembers the bit players,” Rashan said. “I’m fine with that. I don’t think I’ll really care when I’m dead anyway!”

  He felt malicious glee from Ziatrice’s energy bundle. The night elf was crouched next to Abigail beside him. She spoke in his head: That’s good, keep buttering him up. Say more, so that when we turn on the Alliance, they won’t see it coming!