The Blind Valiant

IN THE GREENEST OF OUR VALLEYS.

 When the Echelon had first launched their conquest over the Expanses that occupied by Fell states and cities, covering over three-quarters of the continent, the natives said they wouldn’t stay for long. That the Infernals would have them run out of their domains soon enough.

But they’d been very wrong and so few understood what that meant because they had put too much faith in their way of life protecting them from these foreigners with even foreign ways.

Marrąkans were neither Noirish nor Fell; less because they held their own indigenous beliefs and more for their nature which was even more distinctive than others.

 So much so that they didn’t even count themselves as mortal as well. But their differences didn’t keep them from allying with the Fells.

And when the Deluge had been wrought, Fells were persecuted and hunted by the tens of thousands for simply being what they were- different from their Noirish conquerors, the Marrąkans had tried to come to their aid.

Anduin remembered someone calling their kind, the other end of the evolution even though the Noirish have been existing as long as they had.

It was that joke, which the Echelon had taken too sourly. Anduin knew the moment he stepped into the villa that he'd made the worst mistake in the last few years of his blissful solitude.

Clouds of vaporized opium stuffed the air already dank with stench of sweat, cheap ale and stronger spirits that he was certain was illegal for these part of the city. Yet the scene provided opportunity for his own kind of merriment.

 The weeks had been spent on reckless and futile pursuits at something he wasn’t sure existed.

Now he was exhausted and starving. So when the chance had come in the form of a jamboree at the villa of the self-proclaimed prince of Marrąkan underworld, he’d taken it wholeheartedly. First by having the host of the party as an appetizer.

 Anduin’s red gold eyes scanned the floor, where slender limbs clad in scraps of expensive silk and velvet overcoats brightened and dimmed from the colored lights, as they danced.

 Girls tossed their long powdered hair, boys swung their leather-clad hips, and bare skin glittered with sweat. Even before he had walked into the villa, he had no difficulty sensing the vigor of life and vitality of the occupants.

 He could smell it from the cobblestone streets across the bridge and it had clenched his throat, salivating his mouth in anticipation.

 Now he was amongst them, his shirt stained with blood and gore from the appetizer he’d made of the two lovebirds making out in the gardens.

Luckily the dim lights and the fact that everyone of these adolescents had their minds addled with alcohol for anyone to notice. His stomach growled as the cloud of pulsing heartbeats dizzied him to a state of near inebriety.

The high tunes of trance chimed as a fair haired girl sighted him from a few feet away, the flickering fire behind colored glass made her skin rich and pale.

 In her fixed and eager gaze, he saw what he always saw in his victims when first they looked at him; awe and lust.

They all couldn’t help but gape at him; mesmerized.

His tangled locks of deep maroon hair plastered by sweat down his forehead and ears, face tarnished yet pecan brown like the rest of him, a gruesome scar cutting down the left side of severe cheekbones that did nothing to mar the rest of his looks.

 There was no mistaking him for anything older than a very youthful twenty-three. His blood stained lips curled up slyly as the fair girl started for him, her hips swinging and feet bobbing to the music as she neared.

These mortals had no idea how lovely and irresistible they were at this moment; the one before their death.

But this one was no mortal – Noirish, by the smell of the lingering sorcery over her. Just how I like them.

 She reached him and draped her arms on his shoulders allowing him closeness to her gyrating body. He allowed the contact and peered down at her, close enough that they shared breaths and she could hear him murmur.

“You want a taste of me, don’t you?”

 The exhilaration and hunger lathering his words with an accent from a forgotten people.

 The girl, clearly intoxicated by either alcohol or music or his proximity, nodded and flicked her tongue over his lips before smashing their mouths together.

He permitted the kiss, his teeth granite hard against her soft lips almost bit down too strongly but he pulled away and looked at the girl from under a fan of lashes.

“Tell me, what does that taste like?” Anduin crooned a sound as soft as purr, his head already swimming with the vapored opium swirling through the room.

He watched the confusion take over her face as a slight twinge of awareness came over her drunken state as her tongue worked it out.

“It tastes like... like...”

“Blood.” He enunciated with an amused smirk as the girl’s blue eyes seemed to clear off the fog of alcohol abandon as caution and a twinge of fear crept in.

 She looked him over, noticing at last that it wasn't some craftily dyed robe he wore or a trick of the distortion of the multicolored lights.

 Bits of flesh hanging from sticky smears of blood, on his clothes and that maniacal gleam of wrongness in his flame-like eyes. Right then she felt what the gazelle felt when a sauntering lion ensnared it under its paws; a deer felt caught by the incoming spear.

 Her throat clamped up as a bloodcurdling scream started to rise from the pits of her guts. But Anduin pressed his face close to hers as he whispered.

 “Go on then, scream. Tell them all what they’ve lured into their midst.”

But as soon as her mouth bared open to release that wail of utter terror, he lunged and ripped into her like a child tearing through Decrra present. Those surrounding him drew their eyes to him; screams floated around him but he wasted no time.

 The mania of hunger and rage overtook him completely and unlike some time ago in his past, he let the hysteria drown him as he lunged from one body to another. Devouring. Sating. Wrecking havoc and death just as he replenished his body.

 Anduin soon heard footsteps sounding through the foyer floor as its owner approached in his direction, without a care or pause from the torn and littered body parts and puddles of blood.

It was the steps of heeled boots echoing through the muted music, its owner stopped right in front of him. Sitting in the armchair he'd managed to lounge himself in, mauled bodies of his dead victims stacked like an altar.

Anduin looked up from the sternum of the half alive boy, at the figure in a maroon tunic dress of fine satin and ermine trimming, firm legs struck out through slits and were held in leather boots.

She was remarkable to look at, with sleek oil black hair spilling straight past her dark shoulders, her honeyed eyes stared past the heap of gnawed limbs and bodies he was half buried in.

“Well, well, you’re a little too late for the party. Don’t you think?” He intoned in the fluent Tangier he had only just picked up that evening.

 The dark haired beauty shook her head exasperatedly at the m******e of dozens of children that was sure to end up in the news, drawing unwanted attention.

But what else could she have expected from him especially when the same pattern had occurred in five other cities, bringing her right up his doorstep?

Or rather that of his ravaged victim’s. But the young woman responded to Anduin in the common tongue though it held traces of the same accent.

“You’ve outdone yourself this time, Anduin.”

He shoved off the body he’d gorged well into its chest cavity, cleaning his bloodstained mouth with the back of his hand.

“What, you mean all this?” He snorted as he rose to his feet, brushing off bits of flesh. “You should have seen what I did in Pagne last month. You’d be prouder.”

She sighed, with folded arms she retorted snidely. “Let’s not forget Burnise, Hayes and Tuskege. Honestly if you were this desperate for attention all you had to do was stop by.”

“What do you want, Nadezdha? I can’t hope that you’re here of all places, just to insult me.” Anduin all but growled at her, crossing his legs at the ankles.

 Nadezdha sidled up to him and plucked a piece of gut and scalp from the side of his head, like she was simply pulling lint. “I’m here to bring you home. You’ve had your fun much to our discomfort.”

He c****d his head to the side, cautious as well as suspicious of his old time friend, and remarked.

“‘Our’?” They held each other’s gaze for a moment before Nadezdha replied.

 “She asked me to come get you before you attract more than just bad reputation.”

“Last time I checked it was the lot of them who exiled me. Told me never to shadow their paths again.” Nadezdha sighed out, in no mood to endure his rants far longer than she planned for. “Call it a change of heart. Now let’s go.”

Anduin shoved off the hand he reached to take his arm with and glowered distrustfully. “How do I know this isn't some scheme to lure me back and kill me? What’s changed?”

Nadezdha’s stately looks softened from its stiffness as she pressed her hand against the side of Anduin’s face.

“Oh, everything’s changed, Anduin.”