Warcraft Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodstained Shadows - Chronicles of a Lost Soul ❯ The Kiss of Nightfall - Chapter 7 ( Chapter 37 )

Chapter 7:

 

 

"Sheesh..., now I have to go and do the dirty work again. Snobby undead elves...", I mumble to myself as I stray through the streets of New Avalon on the search for more people to question.

Why can't they just send a group of geists and get one of the Crusaders. Just bring one or two to the crypt and torture them there till they tell us what they know. Killing them afterwards should be far easier than all of this effort.

Not that I wouldn't enjoy it, but I always get those menial jobs. Kill things here, kill things there.

But well, who am I to judge all of it... Sure, it would be more ... uhm, interesting to be on a big assignment for once, yet I guess the master tells everybody what they should order me to do.

So, keeping that in mind, now I stand here waiting for another righteous and overzealous member of the Crusade that I can tear to the forge and torture there with two heated iron spikes that are currently fixed to my belt.

Keleseth gave them to me inside the crypt. He called them his `persuaders', what a lovely name for two spikes made of solid metal that were built to torture humans. I would definitely be able to reach the same effect with the tip of my blade, yet the elf wanted me to be careful. The humans should live as long as possible and not die due to loss of blood.

After a while of waiting and searching I see a guard patrolling between a couple of buildings.

I don't try to sneak up on him but still, I approach him from behind.

A hit with the flat side of the blade of my sword to the back of his head sends him to the ground. He shouldn't be completely unconscious for long, but he should feel dizzy and blurry long enough so that he won't be able to struggle too much.

I grab him by the collar of his armour. It's only made of tanned leather, nevertheless he is wearing a shield and a sword. It seems their supplies are running thin already.

The floor of the forge is already bloodstained from the Crusaders before. Their bodies now lie behind the building waiting for our necromancers to show up and revive them. The corpses are all covered with burns. I tried every body part at least once, to get a hold of how effective it would be on which part. Of course I made differences between men and women, but the number of male members is definitely higher. Yet again, I may be ruthless... but I still have a fair amount of personal honour, at least concerning these matters.

I put the Crusader in chains for a start up.

Whilst the spikes heat up in the forge, the man seems to wake up again.

I already wonder what he would try to tell me. The Crusaders are a stubborn folk. Some of them tried to threaten me, told me stories about me hanging from the gallows soon. Other almost begged for death, announced that they would tell me nothing and I would have to kill them. Those idiots. That one really expected me to kill him on the spot as he told me that. His screams were loud enough to be heard in the fortress up on the hill.

Yet the most exhausting ones were those that tried to mock me. One even tried to tell me that their Grand Inquisitor Isillien would be more fearsome than I was. Why do these people tend to make their greatest mistakes in the seconds before their inevitable death? I took his sight first as a present of my graciousness, so he could imagine that Isillien was killing him instead of me, if this was the person who he had feared most in his life.

It turns out that I have found me a weak one this time. I stare at him with my ice-blue eyes for a moment. This already builds up pressure in his heart. I broke him already before anything had happened. I did not take off his helmet. He is probably rather young, not too devoted to the Scarlet Crusade, still he is wearing a tabard of their guard, so I hope he will know at least something useful.

I get up and go to the forge. His eyes follow every movement I make, his breathing is uneasy, he is too scared to actually scream. He struggles to get out of the chain but it's useless.

Panic is clearly visible in his eyes as I smash the tips of the two hot irons together sending a sole spark flying through the air.

Yes, he has to be still rather young and a bit blunt.

I slowly approach him. I put down one of the `persuaders' on a large anvil next to the boys right, its heated end pointing in his direction. It lies there on about eye-level to him, I guess this will be intimidating enough for this brat.

My sword is leaning at the wall on the other side of the room, far away but still clearly visible. A pool of curdled blood has formed on the floor where the tip of the blade is standing.

I crouch down next to him and grab his throat with my left hand. I don't want to squeeze too tightly, not that I kill him or he faints again. I then hover the hot iron in front of his eyes. Only centimetres above the skin. He immediately closes his eyes and tries to tilt his head back. My grip and the wall stop his efforts abruptly.

I see how he tries to scream but the panic doesn't let him. He has a lump in his throat. I expect him to throw up sooner or later due to the pressure.

I then start my questioning, I remained quiet long enough.

“Tell me about the 'Crimson Dawn' and I will end your miserable existence quickly. Tell me not and you will experience a world of pain!”

I let loose of his neck and take a hold of his right arm. His eyes are wide open as I draw closer to his skin with the `persuader'.

He utters things like “No, please don't...” or “Just stop, please!” I pretend he is talking to quietly for me to hear him. As the hot metal touches his skin his whole body starts shivering. He screams out loud for once, this should be a bit of a relief for him. He tries to pull his arm back as good as he can, but the chain hinders him to do so. It looks almost as if the upper layers of the skin are melting. Blood evaporates as it touches the iron, making a quiet hissing sound. Tears come to the eyes of the young man. He is the first of them to cry. All of the other ones just sat there with their eyes closed, most of them screamed as well, but none shed even a single tear. In an awkward way one could even call it touching the way how he is sitting there.

Being completely helpless, that is what humans should really learn to fear. Sadly this boy would not live through this day to tell his story to anybody. To tell how it felt. To live his life scarred from these moments.

I turn the metal on his skin making it roll down his arm to an unburned spot. The short hair underneath it is simply burned away. For a second I lift it off the arm and repeat what I wanted to know.

I give him a moment to focus again, let the adrenalin in his body ease the pain for at least a short moment. I'm already sure about getting something out of him, but it wouldn't be easy. I have to be careful so that the words that I wanted to hear are not drowned in his tears.

He swallows hard and takes a deep breath.

It seems he wants to tell me something.

The first words he is saying are indefinable, but as I come closer with the hot iron again, he swallows another time and begs me to stop. He says he will tell me everything that he knows.

“We..., We have only been told that the `Crimson Dawn' is an awakening. You see, the Light speaks to the High General. It is the Light!“, he has trouble suppressing further tears.

“The Light that guides us. The movement was set in motion before you came... We..., we only do as we are told. It is what must be done...“, his breathing is uneasy, the pain is coming back again.

“I don`t know too much about it...“, his voice grows faint. “The High General chooses who may go and who must stay behind. There`s nothing else! You have to believe me!“

What is that brat trying to tell me? It sounds like a bunch of lies, but still this... boy... is too young to make things up like this when suffering from such amounts of pain ...

I`m sure of it, at least I think so...

I press the hot iron again against the skin of his arm. “Everything you tell are lies!“, I yell at him.

My ice-blue eyes are gazing merciless at his writhing body.

“PLEASE! STOP! ... A courier will come here soon... from Hearthglen! He...“, his words suddenly die away. I take the hot iron off his arm and take a closer look at him. He couldn`t have died already, I hardly did anything to him. Did he faint?

I get up to my feet again. At least two things are for sure now. First of all, I have something that I can tell the elf in the crypt, and secondly, the boy is unconscious.

I don`t think that I would get too much more information out of him now. So I might as well kill him now.

I get the blade from the other side of the room. Now I could go back to the elf and leave this place. Maybe I get a more interesting assignment this time.

I drive the sword through the heart of the young man without hesitation. I don`t care if they find his dead body still tied up like this or the other corpses behind the forge.

After all, he`s just another Crusader.