Dark shapes
moved through the gloom.
Goblin soldiers muttered, uneasy at
the vile smells that wafted towards them as the Corrupted One gathered the goblin
captains to the rear of his wagon. Crudely built from massive lengths of
timber, its solid wheels had sunk into the muddy ground as it was dragged here
days ago, drawn by manacled teams of slaves: maimed ogres, tortured into
submission decades ago for work in the mire. Their sightless faces twitched as
they crouched in their chains at the front of the wagon, squatting in their own
filth like huge maggots.
Torches burned from sconces fixed to
poles in the ground as the goblin leaders watched the Corrupted One work. As he
dragged out bodies from the depths of his wagon he laid them across the ground,
muttering to himself a high-pitched litany.
Standing with the rest of the Grand
Council, Mickle Gorestab scowled as the air grew cold about him, knowing that
this was sorcery of the darkest sort. Beside him, Ograff Bludrip shuffled his
feet, his large hands gripping the hilt of his sword for reassurance. Ghosts of
the dead elves lying before them seemed to whisper in their ears, while phantom
fingers, as cold as ice, plucked at their arms. Mickle's eyes darted from side
to side but he could see nothing, though their armed escort, watching from
beyond the torchlight, seemed even further away than before. Mickle grunted,
knowing they probably were.
"I wish we had never needed his
help," Ograff murmured, his large face sick with nausea.
Mickle swallowed, though his throat
felt dry as he steeled himself as firmly as he could against his fears. Vile
though it was, they needed the Corrupted One's help. Without it they would
never get past the city’s walls. And he knew - oh, he knew, with a twitching of
his hands - that the burning of Cyramon and the wholesale slaughter of its
pestilential citizens would be worth all of this.
The air seemed to thicken,
congealing about them. Mickle stared through the flickering, unreal gloom
towards the elf. The bodies he had gathered from the slain lay at his feet as
he raised his face and glared at the stars - at the harsh stars that burned
intensely in the sky. He shrieked suddenly. Mickle involuntarily clamped his
hands to his ears in a vain attempt to seal the awful, blood-chilling sound of
the Corrupted One's cries from his head. The bodies before him seemed to glow,
seemed to spread before his eyes, their outlines shifting and growing softer as
if somehow they were starting to melt.
Fascinated despite the nausea that
made him want to be sick, Mickle stared as the elves were transformed from
solidity to a liquid, then into a shimmering translucent gas like feeble,
enthralled ghosts before the Corrupted One's arms. The shrieking ended and
Adragor, exhausted, slumped to his knees, his head bowed onto his chest. As he
fell, so the ghosts of the elves dispersed, floating and fading towards the goblins,
who flinched away from them, dazed as the shapes disappeared inside them.
Mickle removed his hands from his
ears. It was then that he noticed the change that was taking place in his body
- how his fingers were becoming paler and thinner and... elf-like!
Startled, he turned to Ograff, the
shock of what he saw, as his eyes bulged with disbelieving horror, paralyzing
his throat.
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