Richard Knaak - The Fire Rose

“You command Sadurak,” the other ogre repeated. Jod vaguely recalled the Atolgus he had first met in earlier years, not at all like the confident, overwhelming warrior. “You will speak of all of its defenses. You will tell them all to me.”

Jod could no longer feel anything in his left leg. He wanted to look at his wound, but could not. Instead, words began spilling out, words in the best Common he could speak.

And when he was done, the ogre wished he could have cut out his tongue, for he had left nothing out of his description. Even if he had wanted to, he could not keep any secret from Atolgus. The eyes, more golden than ever, demanded and received all they desired.

“You have heard all?” Atolgus asked the minotaur, finally letting Jod look away.

“The defenses should be simple, even if they know that we’re coming. Sadurak will be ours before the day’s over!”

“Will that satisfy your emperor for the time being?”

The horned officer seemed not to notice that Atolgus’s Common was even better than when they had first met. “Aye, it will. My legionaries can keep the rabble under control and solidify our holdings along the border, warlord.”

Atolgus grinned. He took his own sword and, as Jod stared at him, said, “Fya i f’han iJodi hardugh . I give you good death, Jod.”

He drove the sword into the other ogre’s throat. At Atolgus’s side, the Uruv Suurt grunted approval at the clean sweep of the stroke.

Withdrawing the bloody blade, the warlord gazed past the sprawled corpse. “Sadurak.”

Blood played a part in many Titan ceremonies and spells, blood drawn especially from the elf race. Elves were the closest race to the ancient High Ogres in terms of their innate magic, which was why their sacrifice had been required to make the elixir.

But elves were scarce those days, and Safrag was not yet ready to sacrifice those in the stockade. Besides, he had a different source in mind.

A stench filled the chamber in which the Black Talon had cast its latest spell. Residual energies drifted around the darkened room, briefly illuminating the giant sorcerers’ faces in most unnatural expressions of disgust and anxiousness.

The three abominations stood clustered together in the center, with the talon symbol of the inner circle under their misshapen feet. Safrag gazed at the three, his lips pursed in mild interest.

“Three where there should be four,” he sang. “Why three, Falstoch? Why?”

The lead abomination dripped forward. It was more hunched than the others, and there was a furious quivering to its constantly shifting form that the other pair did not display.

There was… There was the elf , Falstoch said in their minds. The elf slave of the mongrel .

“And what could she possibly do?”

Falstoch moaned from pain before managing to respond, The elf slave … She stabbed … She stabbed Grahun, and he melted .

The sorcerers muttered among themselves. Despite their unwholesome appearance, the abominations had been discovered to have some distinct advantages over their former brethren, for their constantly shifting forms made them resistant to magics which even the Titans had to be wary of. Their same shifting ability meant they could literally fit into places nothing else could. The abominations were almost truly liquid. So Safrag had used them to follow Golgren’s trail into the mountains.

There was a third, very important reason why Safrag had chosen Falstoch and the others for that momentous task, a reason not spoken of aloud but known to all. Even the monstrous beings themselves knew it. They were expendable.

But the abominations were so desperate to restore themselves to a semblance of life that they were willing to be used.

“The elf slave stabbed him, and he melted?” The lead Titan studied Falstoch closely. “And what of you? You are wounded also, Falstoch, but you have not melted.”

The mongrel’s elf cut me with her little blade. The pain is still great .

“But you did not perish.”

No. There was blood on the blade .

“An elf … Blood of her race …” Safrag nodded in satisfaction. “Of course. What makes us glorious can also poison us. So said Dauroth, did he not, Morgada?”

“Yes, great one. The elf blood can be turned against our kind.”

“No elf should know it. But she apparently does. And she even knows how it must be done.” He glanced at the others, appraisingly. “Draug. You have watched the slave often of late. What is known of her that I might not recall?”

The other Titan shrugged. “She may spy for Neraka, thinking that they would help free her people. A naive notion, if she believes it. I have not been able to discover her contact there, though, for there is some magic involved-”

“The Nerakans are pawns for us, as are the Uruv Suurt,” Safrag interrupted, dismissing the intelligence as of little importance to his question. “Of her past?”

“Oakborn is her family, strong among elves, but not so great as to claim ties to their leaders.”

Safrag frowned. “Yet she readily guesses the weakness of something she can never have seen before, hmm. No matter! If she lives, she will give up her secrets to us.” He turned back to Falstoch, who seemed to be having trouble breathing. “Tell us all else that occurred.”

Falstoch did the best his labored body and mind could to relate his version of the hunt. He revealed to them the High Ogre markings and the vague comments made by the mongrel and his slave. Of more interest to Safrag, however, was the place where Golgren had used the signet to slip into the stone. From where, the Titan leader surmised, he was transported elsewhere.

“You do not know where you ended up? When you sent out the call, we brought you back. But our link was only with you. We could not sense your true location.”

Do not know .

“No matter. We shall find it readily enough through the Grand Khan Golgren.”

There is more . Falstoch straightened as best he could, although it was clear that his suffering far exceeded that of the duo behind him, who stayed respectfully silent. Falstoch spoke with some of the dignity of one who had once been among the august ranks of the Titans. There is this .

One globular hand thrust out. Although it constantly melted and reformed, what lay in its palm was visible to the sorcerers.

“The signet!” Morgada hissed.

“The mongrel’s signet!” growled Draug.

“You took it from him?” Safrag angrily roared. “You took it from the half-breed?”

Safrag did not want it? the lead abomination managed to gasp, confused. A signet of the High Ones?

“It was the half-breed’s means by which he was able to follow the trail! It responded to him as if he were born to its use!” Safrag’s right hand crackled with black lightning. “I gave no order to you and your putrid ilk, Falstoch, to take the signet from him, not when the mongrel seems the only key…”

The other Titans sat silent as Safrag stopped. He leaned back in consideration, his golden eyes never leaving the signet.

Without warning, he reached his hand out. With a slight wet sound, the signet flew out of Falstoch’s palm and into the hand of the Titan leader.

Safrag suddenly grinned. “You have done us a great service after all, Falstoch.” As the wounded monstrosity tried to bow, the handsome sorcerer added, “Go until you are needed again.”

The abominations had only a moment to bemoan their protest before vanishing. The other Titans showed no curiosity as to where Safrag had sent them. Oblivion would have been the choice of many, but that would have been a waste of minions. Like Dauroth before him, Safrag wasted little.