Chapter 2 Threk
THREK
Pain.
The world is red. A haze over my vision, a burning behind my eyes. The magic of the Urog. It screams. It demands.
Kill. Rage. Destroy.
But there is only cold. A wet, biting cold that seeps into my hide, into my bones. The cold is a different enemy. It is a slow, quiet death.
Blade. Fire.
The memory is a white-hot spike. The Dark Elf. The sneer. The twist of black metal in my chest. A star of agony. Failure. I am a failure. Left to die.
The red haze surges. No. Not failure. Rage.
I hiss, a wet, ragged sound. The snow beneath me is pink with my blood.
Scent.
Something new. It cuts through the fog of pain and the smell of iron. It is not elf-stink. It is not Worg-musk. It is not the rot of a Batlaz den.
It is… snow. Clean, sharp snow. And... berries. The small, sweet fialon berries that stain the ground in autumn.
And human.
Small.
My eyelids are heavy, caked with ice and blood. I force them open. The world swims, a vortex of red magic and white snow.
And her.
She is there. A small, pale thing.
Prey.
The red haze screams. Kill her. Tear. Break.
I could. So easily. She is a thing of brittle bones and soft, snow-skin. My hand, my massive, clawed hand, is larger than her entire torso. I could reach out, just one motion, and crush her. Squeeze her small face until her sky-eyes burst.
Her eyes… they are blue. Not the bright, clear blue of a summer sky, but the deep, bruised blue of the mountains just before the blizzard hits. A tired, cold, empty blue.
Her hair is the color of mud-brown earth, peeking from a wrap.
She holds a small, chipped stick in her hand. A weapon.
I hiss again, a low rumble of warning from my chest. Threat?
But she does not smell of iron. No bloodlust. No rage. Her scent is... fear. It spikes the air, sharp and thin. But beneath the fear... something else. Pity? A strange, weak, useless smell.
She is not a threat. She is not a soldier. She is nothing.
She should run. Prey runs.
But she stays. She just watches me. Her sky-eyes are wide, fixed on the star of pain in my chest.
The red haze churns. It does not understand. It wants terror. It wants the chase. It wants the kill. This small, strange female offers only her scent, and the stupid, still beat of her heart.
Cold.
The ice is winning. The black ocean of pain is pulling me under. My strength is gone, bled out into the snow.
The female moves.
She drops her stick.
Foolish.
She steps closer.
My claws twitch in the snow. Kill. Even in death, the Urog magic demands it.
But I am too weak.
She reaches out a small, pale hand. It hovers, shaking, in the air between us.
And then she touches me.
Her hand lands on my bicep, just above the elbow.
Warmth.
A small, shocking patch of fire. Not the fire of magic, but the fire of life. It burns through my frozen hide. It is the first thing I have felt besides pain and cold in… forever.
The red haze… it recoils. It shrivels, pulling back from her touch like a shadow from a torch.
What… is… this?
She grunts, a small, weak sound. And… pulls?
She is pulling me.
This tiny, impossible creature, trying to move a mountain. The absurdity of it. She strains, her mud-brown hair falling into her face, her sky-eyes squeezed shut.
She is trying to save me.
Why?
The red haze whispers. Trick. Trap.
But her scent is pure. Fear. Effort. Pity.
She pulls again. I am a dead weight, a mountain of useless muscle. But I do not stop her. I don’t want to stop her. With little energy I have left, I willed my body to move.
The red is fading. The cold is gone. There is only her scent, and the small, burning star of a hand on my arm.
The world goes black.
Warm.
Safe.
A new scent. Fire-smell. But not the elf-fire that burns villages. A contained fire. Wood. Hearth. Dry herbs.
And her scent. Everywhere. Snow. Berries. Human.
I am in a den.
My eyes snap open.
The red haze is still there, a thin, smoky film over the world. But it is quiet. Watching.
I am on a bed of furs. I am... inside.
I try to move. To sit up.
The star on my chest explodes. It is a fresh agony, a tearing, burning white.
I roar. The sound is a wet, choked thing, trapped in my throat.
"Shhh. Shhh. It's all right. You're safe."
The voice. It is not a thought. It is not a smell. It is a sound.
And it is... cool water.
It washes over the red haze. It soothes the burning. The Urog in me hisses, like water on hot coals, and retreats.
She is here. The small female.
She leans over me. Her sky-eyes are wide in the firelight. She is so close. Her snow-skin is flushed from the heat. I can smell the life of her, the blood pumping beneath that fragile skin.
She holds a wet, steaming cloth.
She dabs at my wound.
I roar again, a true sound this time, shaking the small den. My muscles tense. My clawed hand—my killing hand—snaps up. KILL.
The magic surges. Kill the thing that hurts!
"I'm not hurting you." Her voice. Cool water. "I'm helping. It's… it's infected."
She does not flinch. She does not scream. She does not look at the black claws hovering inches from her throat.
She just looks into my eyes.
Her gaze is steady. Her sky-eyes are not empty now. They are… stubborn. She dabs the hot, wet cloth against my wound again.
It stings. A sharp, clean fire. But the deep, rotting itch of the infection... it eases. The red haze churns, confused. Hurt. Help. Hurt. Help. The Urog magic has no word for this.
I lower my hand. Slowly.
I watch her.
She dips the cloth in a bowl of steaming water. Her movements are small, quiet, sure.
This creature. This small, soft, foolish thing.
She is not a threat. She is...mine.
It’s not a thought. It is an instinct. It rises from a place deeper than the red haze. A place the Dark Elves did not burn.
She is mine.
She dabs the cloth again, her brow furrowed in concentration.
The red haze surges, angry at the new thought.
I watch her fragile, snow-skin throat, the pulse beating there.
This human is mine.