Dark Warrior Rising by Ed Greenwood Page B

around him and the Rift raged, bubbling as it flowed past. He took care to keep that comment under his breath, even in the clanging, ringing heart of a flurry of hammer blows. The nightskins had magic that let them spy and listen from afar—and who knows when they might use it?
    The Whipping Bitch probably spied on her big brute of a pet often. It was not out of whim that Grunt Tusks checked to make sure he never tried to cover any part of his body except his eyes—and came growling to drag him back if he strayed too far or too often from the area lit by the ring of braziers. Braziers that were not only burn perils, but utterly unneeded heat and light, here on the lip of the Rift. All they served to do, aside from lighting him from shoulders to nethers to any magically unseen eye, was make him glisten with sweat all the while he was working. They also made necessary the slakethirst that Grunt Tusks provided so grudgingly—but attentively, clearly under orders.
    Oh, yes, Taerune was watching. Perhaps not this particular moment, but often. She’d pounced on his every trifling carelessness, insolence, and defiance—even those he’d done when he was certain he was quite alone—when he’d first come under her sway, training him well with her whip to behave as the perfect slave.
    Often, in those early days, when he’d roared curses and hauled hard on his chains, she’d flogged him bone-deep, used a dagger to slice muscles into uselessness, and even hurled handfuls of salt into his open wounds—only to revive him and heal him with magic.

    It had been a long time since she’d cast such spells on him—but then, it had been long indeed since he’d offered her the slightest defiance, either. She liked it more when he seemed eager to receive punishment—and in her delight, dealt out less pain.
    They’d come to know each other, far more than he was sure other Evendoom even noticed their slaves, and … well, she had spirit, he’d grant her that. A certain reckless tossing aside of fear, a defiant “well, what of it?” that he admired. She was a fool, but a magnificent fool.
    Aye, magnificent—that was the other thing. She was beautiful. Achingly, exquisitely beautiful—by Thorar, they all were, these Nifl, for all their cruelty and sneering. Sleek, rounded where they should be, with … with …
    He shook his head, trying to banish memories of velvet black flesh he’d glimpsed when Taerune and her sisters wanted the thrill of revealing themselves to a slave. Orivon growled as he held up his blade to sight along it. Straight and true. Of course.
    He could barely remember what human women looked like. He’d seen none in the Eventowers, and from talk among the gorkuls and nameless Nifl he’d overheard, he knew how short a time human “playpretties” were likely to last when dragged to Talonnorn. They were called “screamers” by most Nifl for good reason.
    He might share their fate, in time to come, if ever he displeased Taerune or her fellow Evendooms sufficiently. House Oszrim was reputed to prefer male slaves for bedchamber play, and he’d seen hunger in the cold eyes of the Oszrim brothers when they’d encountered Taerune in the streets and exchanged smoothly cutting insults—or as Taerune termed them later, “the usual pleasantries.”
    He had to escape Talonnorn, had to get away from these cruel dark elves and back to sunlight and green growing things and … forgedark, why couldn’t he even remember their faces ?
    There’d been women in Ashenuld, women he’d scampered after and spied upon when they stole off into the deep forest to bathe in the streams. Long, wet hair, curving over drenched, dripping breasts as they murmured pleasure at washing away the stink and grime, standing up in the stream to toss their heads back and—why couldn’t he remember their faces ? Thorar