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Chapter 41 - White Rage

“The abandoned infants cry is rage, not fear.” - Robert Anton Wilson.

Riin’s POV

Shadowfell, Region Unknown - Date Unknown

Week Thirty-one

The centre is filled with people, Varo is speaking with a angry looking face but I have no idea what he is saying and no one is close by to translate it for me. I spot Shagi and Theadis together with two guards who is holding the young men in what looks to be a painful grip. I get eye contact with Theadis and wave him over. He speaks to one of the guards who grabs hold of the guy that he is holding on to before he comes running over, kneeling in front of me.

“Master.”

“What is going on?”

He wastes no time in explaining things for me.

“The two young warriors have committed a grave sin by trying to claim something what was not theirs to claim. Since they have tried to take something without the owner's permission, they will now be punished until you, master, is satisfied.”

He takes a short break inhaling some air before continuing.

“The second in command’s son, is also explaining why this is a great sin and warning everyone else not to lay hands on others property before they are given approval from their owner.”

He stops and listens to Varo who is still talking, too much for my taste. I want to tear them into tiny bits as painfully as is possible without them dying on me. I'm burning with so much rage that my body feels cold. Theadis speaks up again.

“The second in commands son, is telling everybody that you have slain a high number of Shadow Hounds and that you have gained the respect of two knights from the northern Villages and most importantly, that you have been given a mission by The Queen and that we belong to you and are part of that mission. So unless you allow it we are not to be touched.”

Hmm, so a clear warning. While Varo has been talking and Theadis has been translating the whole ordeal I have been wrapping my hands in strips of cloth, no need to damage my own body when beating up some trash.

“You are now allowed to start the punishment, master.”

Ah, when was the last time mere words let me feel such release?

I once read somewhere, a quote from some long dead man that said, ‘Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything which it is poured.’ I found myself laughing so loud and uncontrolled that I started to tear up. If that quote holds any truth behind it, then let me burn from within. Let me burn with a pain so strong that no words can describe it, let me feel the searing pain as I melt. For I'm left bare, an empty shell that holds nothing but rage. A rage burning so hot that it is blinding any that dare look within. Do not take that rage from me for I fear to become empty once more, to feel not even my body being broken apart. If rage is the only true emotion I have left within me, then let it boil and burst from within as long as I feel something. That is what I thought when I read that. If me laughing were from the words burning themselves within my mind so strongly that it hurt or from the fact that I had nothing but rage left, I still don't know and might never. I remember feeling the wetness on my cheek and thinking that somewhere within I can still feel, even if it is just a spark of an ember. I found a peace settle somewhere deep within me. Even as that small ember was drowned and forgotten by waves of pain from the wounds that would come.

I found that quote so very fitting as drops of warm blood hits my face. Well at this point the top part of my body had become like a twisted painting of war, the bare skin covered with lines of crimson red. I ignored all around me as I poured out my hated on the flesh beneath me, ignored the sting as my fists made contact with the bruised body. I burned with a long forgotten rage so hot that I felt like I would burn up if I stopped.

Varo's POV

It is said that we became a twisted race from the curse that plague us, that we seek the pain just so we can feel anything but the madness that nest beneath our skin. But as I look at this young human in front of me I feel like our madness is nothing more than a way to say that we were alive, that we existed to feel that we were here.

When the seer told us that she had seen four young Shadar-Kai bow before the human child and that the young was stronger than anything we would be. We all thought that the young was the ones that had completed the hunt. How shocked we were when she informed us that the young we had cast away where to become more powerful than any of us. ‘She have seen his fate and she has given her blessing and has gifted him aid.’ But how could we give aid in form of weaklings? Had we failed our Queen? ‘What we have cast out is now his.’ We all knew that those who failed to show themselves as warriors had no place among our kin, were we really to give him such weaklings, such cowards? But we do not dare question our Queen for she sees all and knows all. So we gifted the cast out to him as we had been instructed.

When the young had carried the unconscious boy into the village with words of how he had jumped into the battlefield and taken on many hounds and how he had lost his eye but kept on fighting. How he had saved the wounded with shadow grab and of the legs that came from the shadows themselves to protect him as his body failed him. None knew what to do, so we decided to mend him back to health. The chief's wife mended his body and when the fever broke, we waited, the lady would know his fate and she did. By each visit the chief was more and more convinced that the young boy would fulfill the fate our Queen had spoken off. ‘He shall bear my mark for his mind lingers in the dark.’

When we were informed by the chief that our guest had used blood magic I was amazed that such a young child could use such strong magic. The Queen must want to use this, so we shall observe him. When one of her knights saw that outcasts severed a marked one he was angered, but the child responded by insulting the knight for glaring at what was his, angered, the knight tended to show him his overwhelming power and drew his sword. ‘The legs of from the shadows’ came forth as a well grown blood queen protected him, her white bone legs that rip the very air apart. ‘She has given her blessing, for he has given a part of himself to her.’ The shadows mingle with his shard and fuel his power and that of his bonded ones.

‘He shall aid our young as the battle rages on.’ And so it was decided that he would train the young so that they would have something from one that the Queen put trust in. A knight came along with the group from the northern village, he had heard that the young human had taken a liking to the gift but wanted to see the skills of this ‘little human’ as he called him. As he a fight with the boy, the boy started to smile and I felt the power of his rage, that which is known as the Bloodlust Aura.

Ancient is the art of blood magic, cruel is the wielder that binds the fate of another, old is the will that brand the blood. Bloodlust Aura, while we call it blood magic, it's roots stretch much deeper than the mere blood and the power to control that. Not even we descendants of the Queen have a word strong enough to describe the power behind what is known as bloodlust. Our saying ‘Ancient is the art of blood magic, cruel is the wielder that blinds the fate of another, old is the will that brand the blood.’ Is not for the young but for the old, so that they remember what power runs in our blood. ‘Blood is the coin of the soul.’ The humans say, but they know not the depth of those words. The blood is filled with our will, our emotions, our memories, our very being, humans know nothing when they speak of the shard, they speak of the very beginning of their soul. Bloodlust Aura… The will to lay waste to life itself, the burning hunger of the end, the desire to slay all in ones wake.

I can only pray to the queen that she has seen such powers of destruction used to slay the undead and the restless that defy their fate, for I fear the powers that brand the soul and the very essence of one's very being with rage so hot that others kneel before it.

His smile as he strikes his target, his eyes as they burn with an untold anger, one so bottomless that even the abyss seems too shallow to hold it in, how deep does his hated run? But I find myself wanting to ask what the Queen saw in such a soul, one so filled with what we call madness that it leaks into the very air around him. I want to know how he can look so calm as he lay staring at the night sky, what holds him together? I want to ask, yet I fear the answer. I fear that which lurks beneath such a calm surface.

He smiles as the screams of pain fills the air, he smiles as he is dragged away from the bloody mess beneath his feet, he laughs as he is released on to the next one, a never ending madness burning in those eyes of his. Our madness now seems like a mere drop in the ocean, whereas his is a madness that rivals a never ending storm.