Deeping Lore - 7. Chapter 7 - Quiet

The armor felt cold on Kian's skin; he recoiled from the touch of it. Next to him, Dylan finished suiting up; slipped his leather boots over his smooth feet. The large dragon spurs the knight attached to his boots made a tinkle in the dark of the tent warmed by their combined body heat. Kian grimaced because of the chill, buckled on his breastplate, and finished getting into the black and silver killsuit. After a few minutes, his body warmed up the inside enough that he was no longer uncomfortable. He reached for his helmet, put it on, and closed the visor. The heads up display across the glass sputtered and came to life.

Dylan kissed him on the helmet; Kian responded with a similar caress. It was their mutual agreement not to have any actual "bare skin" physical contact once they got up for the day. Dylan didn't want to risk the feral rut descending upon Kian again until they were ready to bed down for the night. Otherwise, they'd never leave the tent and probably starve to death while having sex.

It really was that powerful. And the magic in the blood that pooled in an Omega's mouth following intercourse was what Dylan called "The Heat".

Although Kian had wanted to get back into Dylan's pants for years, he admitted to himself in the quiet of the morning that he was unprepared for the level of lovemaking he'd been put through the previous night. The physical intercourse had gone on for an hour but the drinking of Kian's Heat-enriched blood that pooled in his mouth had continued for quite some time beyond that. Dylan had lapped it like the thirsty dog that he was and each time he swallowed a mouthful of The Heat, Kian felt his energy ebb for a brief moment. It hurt, but he couldn't stop Dylan from taking it from him until it was all gone. His friend had almost gnawed at his lips, tonguing him so deeply and violently that at times; it didn't feel at all like kissing. Rather, if felt like he was being consumed and the fear of being bit only added to his intense arousal. Kian hadn't expected the rut to force his body to provide blood to his Valion lover and it frightened him. He also knew that The Heat wasn't ordinary blood; it contained powerful life energy secreted from his body as a result of being put to stud by an Ice Wolf of Thomas, God of War. Every muscle in his body ached as if he'd been exercising and pushed beyond the point of safety to complete muscle failure. However, despite being tired and drained, he was acutely aware of the good hurt that clung to his body. Dylan was almost too big for Kian to handle and it had been painful. However, the knight also knew how to make love, how to apply pressure in just the right areas, and how to be gentle with Kian so that the boy could relax and allow him access to his beautiful body. It had been the best sex he'd ever had. But beyond the pure physical union of their coupling, there was now a fascinating emotional bond with his lover that extended beyond tangible barriers. At every instant, he was aware of Dylan's softly beating heart beneath his ribcage. He actually felt the warmth of Dylan's love; could feel the young man's thoughts and feelings even if all that showed on the surface was a flutter of the knight's long eyelashes. Kian also knew that as Dylan had fed him breakfast that morning from his armored palm, that he relished his touch. Dylan stroked the blond boy's hair softly while Kian licked the food from his fingers because he couldn't resist touching him.

And they'd eaten in the quiet. There was something splendid in this lack of verbal communication. Men have difficulty putting love into words and it oftentimes comes across as awkward, stilted, and forced. Not so with the rut. Dylan didn't have to say anything. In fact, he never would. Kian could see the feelings in his mind and Dylan was forming images of the two of them holding hands, coupling, and hugging. Even though they sat apart, their souls were together as one. Kian discovered that Dylan's feelings were incredibly profound. The look inside his head gave him another perspective on the man that had made love to him. Dylan's silence was intentional; he hung on every word that Kian might say, took an interest in him to a point that the knight was making an effort to be emotionally available should Kian want to bring up any topic or speak to him about any subject that might be on his mind. If he hadn't been joined to Dylan's soul by the feral rut like this, it's possible that the silence might have been misconstrued. However, this was simply not the case. Both of the boys were aware of each other on an emotional level that was difficult to put into words. And they couldn't stop smiling at each other because of it.

The feral rut from a Valion Knight to an Omega was a mind-blowing thing. Kian was in a constant state of Heat similar to a bitch in cycle, however, this was something only Valion's could detect. He craved penetration in every minute that he was around Dylan but he felt he could control it as long as they did not touch physically skin to skin until they were ready to be taken by it. Kian also knew that the feral rut was stronger in the Omega. The bond was there in the Omega's partner, but it was different because of the role of the dominant over the submissive. The Omega's role was to prepare to be the recipient of whatever the stud had to offer. Kian became aware of this as he thought about it with a clear head and forced himself to be comfortable in that role because the rut wasn't going to give him or Dylan a choice; it wasn't going to back down.

Once they chose to proceed in this direction with their lives, there was no going back.

It was the way the feral rut worked.

No matter what Kian may have wanted, he was going to be under Dylan when it came time to bed down for the night. Kian realized he might as well get used to the idea now and get to liking it, but this wasn't the position he normally performed. However, the fact that he wasn't upset by this designated role as a sex partner did raise one question in Kian's mind. Did he enjoy being the submissive because he was so dominant in other aspects of his life? Because, he really did enjoy it. In fact, he relished feeling Dylan's Alpha male cock inside of him. He struggled in trying to figure out if this would have been his choice had he not been an Omega and the only thing he could think of was yes. However, he doubted whether or not he could view this topic objectively anymore. So yes wasn't necessarily the answer that eased his mind because it seemed artificial, as if placed there in his mind by another entity with enough skill that it managed to blend with his other ideas.

Then there were issues with defining the rut itself. What the hell was it? At this time, Kian could only describe it as an unrelenting force of nature. As the day wore on, Kian knew he would go into Heat. It would be mild at first and grow stronger with each passing hour. But he asked himself if he'd be able to resist it. At some point, Dylan would insist upon breeding him and once his friend touched him, any resistance at all that he harbored would be swept away by the rut. Dylan was correct, like a moth to a flame he would seek it out again and again. And even if Kian resisted, within Dylan there would be a slow build in the primal urge to fuck. It would make the knight more agitated and aggressive as time from their previous coitus steadily increased in length. Kian and Dylan both had no idea if it would be hours, a day, a week, or longer before the urge to rut again would force Dylan's hand.

Kian was grateful that there was only one love, one Valion Knight, in his life.

He laughed to himself while hugging his partner because sex which had always come easy for Kian, had suddenly become the most complex thing in his life.

Dylan put the candle away and reached for the steel cup that he'd used to feed Kian just a few minutes earlier. He was surprised when he accidentally almost crushed it and carefully, he bent the sides out with his fingertips and looked at Kian trembling with excitement. Kian could feel Dylan's joy and it simply arose because young men love to feel tough and strong. The physical change in the knight was undeniable. However, since these transformations in his partner occurred following the draining of his Heat-enriched blood, he did wonder what tonight was going to be like in the bed of the Valion Alpha. He wondered if it was going to be as pleasant because an unenhanced Dylan had been flirting with the borders of torture but had never crossed the line.

"Kian, I'm so much stronger now than I was yesterday it's almost unmanageable," he said, hands trembling. "I literally have to hold my strength back on anything short of corobidian-made items or risk breaking them."

"Because you bred an Omega?" Kian grinned behind his helmet. " Then he hugged him. Even through the armor, the smell of Dylan's loins floated up to his nostrils and hung there like exotic perfume. It aroused within him the Heat which was a drowsy yet yearning beast; he felt his sphincter sweat and he was sure that the air was filling with pheromones that the knight could smell. Uncomfortable because of his erection, Kian just moved away from the Alpha and closed his eyes, repeating the ten virtues of Golconda in his mind to quiet his pulse and clear his thoughts. Without this training, he felt he might have been lost to the rut. He understood why Omegas did not survive; they were truly casualties of love.

"Yes," Dylan whispered. "Because of you, I'm the most powerful Valion Knight in the universe right now."

That was when Kian heard the footsteps on crackling snow.

He reached out and gently touched Dylan's arm with corobidian wrapped fingers. "Someone is outside."

Dylan swallowed, his pale features framed in glossy black hair, stubble barely visible on his face. He blinked deep blue eyes ringed in long black lashes, donned his helmet, and peered out into the swirling white snowflakes.

"Hello there!" a voice greeted him.

Next to Sir Avery, Kian unsheathed his cibrian wrist blade.

"Wait," his lover said. "I think it's okay."

Kian peered around the tent flap and saw a four-foot tall rabbit dressed in a jacket and wearing a bow-tie. He had on boots and a belt but no weapon. His fur was thick and no doubt, it insulated him very well from the freezing temperatures of Vas of Kleef. The rabbit had glowing orange eyes and wore a cap through which his ears were sprung.

"Ella Fravaugh at your service," the rabbit stated. "You can just call me E.F. I've not seen you boys around here before although I recognize you," he said, pointing at Kian's crest on the left shoulder of his killsuit. The crest was ornamentation. The Silver Rose to which he was assigned was displayed on a shield-like prominence against a curved black metal surface in the shape of a shield. "Your reputation is legendary even amongst the fey. And, I know you from your armor sir knight," he stated, bowing. "It's a pleasure to meet a Crimson Guard of the Valion Order of Ice Wolves-a force of good and righteousness to which there is no equal. Seeing the two of you together here addles my brain." Then the rabbit laughed.

"Why is that funny?" Kian asked him.

"Well, you're a blood thirsty murderer and this here knight is a man of good will and charity. He keeps no wealth save only that which he needs to live upon. You on the other hand are rumored to be one of the richest professional killers on Wynwrayth. Am I wrong?"

Kian shook his head. "I come to the sixth planet furthest from the tri-fold suns to be given a lecture on morality from a talking rodent? I think not."

Dylan pat him on the back reassuringly. "You're just misunderstood."

"Thanks."

"Do you boys need some help?" Ella Fravaugh asked. "Vas of Kleef is not a vacation spot for anyone...even men who worship the God of War, Wolves, and Winter."

"We could use any help you have to offer," Dylan said. "We are marooned here as a result of using untested magic within one of the portals inside the Librarium Apocalypto." When he said "untested magic" he shot Kian a glance that meant he was referring to him. But Kian shivered at those deep blue eyes boring into his soul. He knew Dylan had little clue as yet how even the briefest glance was affecting him, was causing his heart to flutter, and his body to ache. This would never have happened before; the rut was entirely to blame. He resolved to wanting to keep Dylan from finding this out, if for any other reason than to have some piece of him that he could still call his own. Giving someone this much control over his body was a thing of which Kian was beginning to have issues. If he could, he was going to put those kinds of feelings behind a wall in his mind, seal it up with the tightest mortar, and blow out all the lights that lit the corridor in which that wall resided.

"Ahhh," Ella Fravaugh said. He was having a ‘Eureka' moment and even snapped his fingers. "You were trying to kill someone and things went awry. So you fled and ended up here." he nodded. "Whoever it was that you were after must've been someone really important."

"How did you come to be here yourself?" Kian asked him, changing the subject, and emerging from the confines of the tent. Behind him, Dylan took down their shelter and rolled it into his pack. Beyond the safety provided by the huge ice block in which they had camped for the night, drifts had piled six feet deep and the wind was furious.

"I was a prisoner set to be executed in the city of Lookfar in Noremost a few nights past. However, never discount the resourcefulness of the Fey. My good friend Henna saved me from a most gruesome fate."

"Don't tell them about me," a small voice said.

"What was that?" Kian asked, suddenly curious. He knelt in the snow as did Dylan and a girl of tiny stature and great girth with butterfly wings emerged from the vest pocket of the talking rabbit. She wore a green skirt and blouse as well as a belt of tiny flowers.

"You mean, who was that-not what?" The little pixie clarified. "I'm Henna; E.F. is my friend."

"I meant no disrespect," Kian stated.

Dylan lowered his visor to protect his face from the bite of the cold wind and bowed courteously to her and clenched his fist over his heart. "Good day, milady. I recognize your belt as the symbol of the House of Queen Shelendrolar. Are you related to her majesty?"

"Yes," Henna said, smiling. "Shelendrolar is my mother."

"Who is Queen Shelendrolar?" Kian asked.

Dylan looked at him across the bridge of his nose. "Kian, she's the leader of all the noble Fey on Wynwrayth. Her kingdom is as vast as any ruled by a human emperor and she even has influence with the Unseelie Court. I'm shocked you don't know this."

From ehind his helmet, Kian hung his head in shame. "How the hell am I supposed to know about the wee folk?"

"Hey!" Henna exclaimed. "We are not wee folk. Those are gnomes."

"I beg your pardon," Kian stated. "But the question still stands. How was I supposed to know about them, D? It's not like there's a huge market of paying customers hiring us assassins to go after things that you could kill with a fly swatter."

Henna folded her arms over her chest. "No one has ever killed a pixie with a fly swatter."

Dylan beheld Kian with a condescending turn of the head. "You still haven't learned to read have you?"

Kian was silent and shuffled his metal boots in the snow. Dylan knew he'd crossed the line; he'd hurt Kian's feelings.

"I-I'm sorry, Kian, that was uncalled for. Please, I take it back and don't be mad."

Kian nodded after about a minute. Even though the insult hurt, there was no way this early in their relationship that he could stay mad at Dylan. He was too much in love with the knight. This last thought went with the other behind the wall Kian was trying to build in his mind.

"So you helped E.F. escape?" Dylan continued with the question. "For what were you in prison and why were you set to be executed by the Timeron Council?"

"Because what I know is dangerous," Ella Fravaugh answered. "For example, Mr. Hunter-"

"-Just Hunter," Kian clarified, cutting him off. "No ‘Mister' to that."

"Fair enough," he said with a pause to collect his thoughts. "Hunter, there's a traitor in your church. I know who the Nocturne Inquisitor is and he goes by the name of Dolmani. He's a powerful priest in your faith and is secretly getting money from Sarilor Evelenwyn, High Disciple of Nahemoth, to whom I love."

Kian didn't answer him immediately; this was all stuff he already suspected. He stood there recollecting his vision of the gray dwarf woman and the discussion of the Nocturne Inquisitor, a person so named in oral prophesy by Church elders centuries ago as a being that would destabilize the foundation of the faith. As he was pondering the implications of this confirmation, the other part of Ella Fravaugh's message caught up with his brain. "Wait a minute, did you say you're in love with Sarilor? She's the consort of the Night's Daughter, the High Disciple of the Queen of Demons herself."

The rabbit tweaked the hairs under his nose. "Yes, but I shall put her down all the same." Then he sighed.

"Oh that's just barmy," Kian said. "How in Tethyr's name can you explain this?"

"Well, she's single because she hasn't met the right rabbit yet. And when she does, she'll know how much more powerful I am than her and be attracted to me for my savoir-faire." He polished his paws on his vest, "But, alas, she's evil and evil never wins so, I'm afraid I'll just have to limit my dalliance that I plan with her and let her know that she cannot know my touch."

"What kind of race are you?" Dylan asked, chuckling to himself. Behind his helmet, he was clearly amused. "I'm not familiar with talking rabbits?"

"Well, we're rather new."

"Tell him," the pixie said. "He needs to know."

"One thing at a time, Henna."

"Please," Kian said, clearing his throat. "I'd like to hear your story."

Ella Fravaugh observed Kian smiling at him; the boy had teeth white as new snow. "The race of "hare-foot" fey creatures emerged after the end of the Third Age at the moment Brutish the Vile made his choice in Thorabad-Hai," he said. "Do you know anything of Brutish the Vile?"

"Isn't he the new King of Hell? Although I'm not exactly sure how that all came about, or, for that matter, how he was able to depose Azmalak Kring as the former ruler. Do you?"

"Why yes. Yes, I do," Ella Fravaugh stated with some smugness. Even in a hare-foot, who looked nothing like a human being, Kian could discern the slight hints of a smile, the turn of the nose, and a peculiar posture that was common in nearly every academic he'd either friended or murdered throughout the years. And this is what Kian was observing now. "See, Mr. Kian, this all ties into the choice that Brutish the Vile made in those crucial times. To understand it better, you'll need some background. Of course, you have at your service one of the senior historians for the clergy of Melzhondra, so I'm the perfect person to be telling you about this. Don't you feel fortunate?"

"Very," Kian said. "But can you get on with it?"

Ella Fravaugh nodded. "You aren't the least bit impressed that I'm a cleric of Melzhondra? I dropped that intentionally and thought you'd at least raise an eyebrow."

"I'm extremely impressed but it's so cold out here my face is frozen in place. I beg your pardon if I seem unemotional about it."

"Oh..." he looked at Kian and shook his head. "I'd no idea. You have my sympathies."

"Thank you, now on with your story, please."

The hare-foot smoothed the fur on his chin while his eyes seemed to grow distant, looking into the past, and recalling the histories that he'd studied. "You see, this Brutish person fancied himself a courtesan at one point and parlayed his way into a position of trust within the commune protected by Captain Ellwyn Lucern of Janner Lee. Well in time, he became the paladin's boss and was appointed as Mayor . He also banged the former Mayor's daughter and that helped solidify the deal with the townsfolk."

"It usually does," Kian commented. "The whole baby thing is important to us humans."

"-Anyway, when he became King of Hell, he took Janner Lee with him along with all those that lived there and called the place home. I can only assume that all the townsfolk were doomed to a terrible fate because of this. I mean, who wants to live in Hell, right?"

"Definitely," Kian answered. "The rent is terrible."

"Is that a joke?" Ella Fravaugh asked him.

"How does any of that have to do with the hare-feet?" Dylan queried.

"Just listen, sir knight. The proof is in the pudding. You see, near Janner Lee in Vailymar was a powerful ley line that was used to keep the witch Yu-Babba's Nightmare beast in a deep slumber. When Janner Lee was annexed by Hell, this ley line was severed, causing a snap of evil power that rode all the way back to the Quintessence nexus which was its source! You see, Queen Shelandrolar of the pixies had moved her beautiful court to an alternate yet adjacent spot on a different plane of existence to avoid a pesky man who thinks too much of himself and has little to show for it."

"And just who was that?" Kian asked.

"A cleric by the name of Collin McCipson-the most annoying person you will ever meet. He'd been badgering the Queen for permission to use the grove's magical power to further his own glory. Each time, of course, the Queen had refused him. This was, Afterall, the seat of her kingdom and to boot, he left huge track marks in the garden because his feet were enormous."

"-Collin McCipson is the High Disciple of Elistra's church," Dylan stated to Kian. "I've met him once, a rather intense fellow that's also unreasonably jealous of you, Kian."

"Jealous of me? Why in Tethyr's Teeth is a cleric of the Lady Dove jealous of me?"

"-Because to date, you're the only male to have ever passed the Lady Dove's tests of perfect beauty." He uttered these last words with a bit of a snicker meant to rib him somewhat. Kian cracked a cherubic smile. He understood immediately the joke that Dylan was making at his expense, again because of the connection established by the feral rut. His boyfriend wasn't saying he didn't think that Kian deserved to pass those tests because having seen him naked, he completely agreed with every one of them without question. Rather, what Dylan was ribbing him about was the fact that none of the followers of the Lady Dove could measure up to what their matron considered her singular specialty-beauty.

Kian giggled.

He recalled the ridiculousness of the whole affair. It involved a lot of awkward measuring, posing, and testing of every part of his lovely body. Even more ridiculous was the reason he was put to it to begin with. You see, Kian got caught screwing the Reverend Mother Helen of the Doves, rumored to be the most beautiful girl in the entire world. He completely agreed that the Reverend Mother was the most beautiful virgin he'd ever taken. However, the sex was so-so and her actual lack of experience in that department didn't make up for the fact that she was born pretty. He'd been forced to instruct her and Kian was a bad teacher. It was made even more annoying because he was on a time limit so really, he was only concerned in blowing his nut. To get things moving along, he'd asked for a blowjob and she'd even botched this up by leaving chafe marks on his skin with her teeth because she had no idea how to keep them properly covered with her lips.

Anyway, the Church of the Lady Dove had at one time a Test of Perfection that Elistra had created that she told her faithful was a measure of a cleric's ultimate devotion to her. She had banned its use because, for centuries, no one could pass it and the penalty for failure was always death. However, the Goddess took exception to Kian's lack of hubris in her sacred city and called for its use with the intent to punish him for his many transgressions. Elistra herself impressed upon Kian that in order to live, he would have to take the test. If he won, he would have the Goddess' pardon. If he lost, then she would take his life. It turns out that he won and was one of the only people in history to manage this feat. All smiles and with a very public face, the Goddess proclaimed several statues to be made of his nude likeness and to his knowledge, they still stood to this day in the patron city of Passion's Cove. That was probably the thing of which Dylan was referring. Those marble statues were colossal and would dominate the skyline as well as any big temple on the nearby hills. And Collin McCipson did so love his temples.

"When the cascade fueled by Hell's power entered the Quintessence nexus," Ella Fravaugh continued, "the web overloaded and detonated! It wiped out the alternate plane that had been set up by Queen Shelendrolar for her beloved Court. The result was that the Queen, her pixie grove, and all else who lived there were killed. This tragic event was all Collin McCipson's fault. To the fey, he's a murderer, plain and simple."

"That's brilliant. The Goddess of Love is hated by the fey. The irony is so delicious that I couldn't have planned it better had you asked me to. And for the record, I never liked him," Kian stated. "I met him only once and he was obsessed with pink."

"Isn't that natural?" Dylan asked. "Pink is the color of Elistra's church."

"Look, it may be natural but too much of it is, quite frankly, overwhelming. And I'm a black and silver kind of guy."

Dylan laughed and hugged Kian. He wished he could run his naked fingers through Kian's blond hair but that all changed last night. He would have to learn to restrain himself to keep the rut under control.

Ella Fravaugh continued with his narrative. "As you can imagine, on Wynwrayth, ripples of the Quintessence web's destruction spread throughout the forest of Truhl's Rukken, and awakened to sentience the rabbits that had called Shelendrolar's grove their home."

"And that's how Ella Fravaugh was born!" Henna cheered.

"Yes, yes, thank you dear," the rabbit stated.

"Excellent story," Kian said. "Thank you and I don't think I shall ever forget it."

He looked the two boys over, saw that they were ready to travel, and then motioned for them to follow him. "Henna, can you sprinkle the walking dust on them?"

The little pixie flew up and sprinkled magical white powder over Kian's boots and then followed suit with Dylan's. The two young men swiftly discovered that they could walk on top of the snow. With eyebrows raised behind visors because they were impressed, the two boys fell in behind Ella Fravaugh who started off into the wind, not speaking, but continuously directing them to tag along, heading northeast across the featureless snow. Henna travelled in his pocket. As they walked, Dylan held tight to his cloak which billowed in the fierce wind.

They traveled in the shadow of the mountain range at Kian's right for about two hours. Then Ella Fravaugh led them through a steep-cliffed canyon and across an ice bridge that glittered brilliantly in the sunlight. He pointed down at a crevasse, "In there lies a local lair of the Ice Maidens. This whole area is their domain and they wage war against the Necrolords of Zanda that maintain a post not far from here."

"Where're the portals back to the Librarium Apocalypto?" Kian asked him. "We need to get back there as soon as possible."

"The portals? They're all located in the Tower of Illusions. It's the central gathering place for all of Zandine's forces on the world of Wynwrayth."

"Where does it lie?"

Ella Fravaugh shrugged indecisively. "Henna and I have only been here a week or so. I'm not sure where and how far we are from it. However, we have located one of the Necrolord Citadels. I'm going to show it to you and if we could get inside, I'm sure there are maps in the bailey or in the Commander's office that might give us a better idea of what's going on here in this remote corner of the solar system. Just from what I've observed, there's a war going on out here between the Ice Maidens and the Zandanites."

"Do you think the Ice Maidens would help us?" Dylan asked.

"Not at all, good knight. They would sooner eat you than speak with you. I don't think that any of them are capable of emotion, kindness, or compassion of any level. Their entire bodies are composed of frost that looks like flesh, their hearts are beating things of pure living ice, and their blood is frigid even if it is as red as your own. Something tells me that being so cold has left them physically unable to appreciate the warm bloods or any of our problems."

He hopped in front of them; scrambled up a steep slope of snowy drifts. Wind whipped his white fur around; Kian followed with Dylan at his heels. Ella Fravaugh motioned for them to crouch which Kian did and he crawled forward on his belly to peer over the edge of the snow. There, between the mountains, was a valley ringed in towering cliffs covered in ice. There was a single winding road that went through a narrow canyon in the mountains and snaked its way to one side of the valley and out through another. A river uncovered by ice flowed slowly past a tower of white blocks that rose several hundred feet from the bank. Kian counted six parapets topped in red conical roofs. A wall enclosed the courtyard with a high and narrow portcullis, probably suitable for two horses to travel abreast of each other. Kian surmised that the whole keep, discounting a basement, was large enough maybe to support fifty men.

"I'd think a single garrison is all that place could manage," Dylan stated. "It's situated on that river that's kept free of ice from hot springs. I can see steam rising up from them."

"Aye. Now get down here and just watch," Ella Fravaugh stated. Dylan complied, dropping into the snow next to his boyfriend.

Kian looked intently at the fortified tower. He saw gray smoke rising from chimneys indicating that there were warm fires within those rocks. The portcullis opened and twenty heavily armored Necrolords on the back of Ice Mares rode out from the tower, hooves churning up thick gobbets of snow. Without warning, the snow erupted on either side of the road and red haired, white-faced women carrying a serrated sword in each hand leapt up from the ground. Kian was shocked and amused at the same time.

He didn't even see them.

"I count twenty of them," Dylan said. "And something else there-what in Thomas' name is that?" Kian followed his index finger which was pointing to a great lump in the snow. From this distance, it looked like a small hill. Only, this hill was moving.

The ground rumbled and quivered. A huge shaggy white beast with enormous horns made of ivory that twisted and curled about its head rose up from the plain. This massive creature shook out its long tangled locks of unkempt hair. Huge snowballs as large as wagon wheels dangled from the thing's body like ice on frozen hemp rope. A colossus, the white beast was fully half the size of the stone keep itself, had four blue eyes, and a maw with fangs that Kian surmised were at least the length of his leg from groin to toe.

"Tethyr's Teeth" Kian swore.

"A Chaggeroth," Ella Fravaugh said. "A fey giant of the old world. They feed on Ice Dragons, of which there are plenty here in the waste. The Chaggeroth along with the Ice Dragons, and lastly the Ogavran Kor-the Snowmen of Vas-are at the top of the food chain here on this wintry rock."

Kian watched as the Chaggeroth swept a huge clawed forearm through the ranks of mounted Necrolords, tossing them from the backs of the translucent Ice Mares. The tips of the Chaggeroth's claws were razor sharp and clear like ice, but Kian knew they would be as hard as steel. However, the Necrolords were not to be easily dismissed. The armor they wore was a special kind of living steel somehow able to repair itself when damaged and they never took it off.

"I've seen the Necrolords before," Dylan stated. "They mowed through a legion of Timeron Knights. They don't use swords like conventional warriors. Instead, they are fighters trained in hand-to-hand combat. They have enormous steel claws on the ends of incredibly muscled fingers and the ferocious plate mail armor they wear is coated in spikes meant to pierce as well as protect. They get you in close quarters, and you're in trouble."

"How can they wield those knives on their fingers?" Kian asked. "It gives me arthritis just thinking about it."

"Training," Dylan said. "They aren't proportioned like you or I. Their hands are all that they focus on from about five-years old on up. Many of their joints are so encased in bone that they are no longer flexible, so they use their slaves to perform activities that require fine manipulation of the fingers."

"They're also undead," Ella Fravaugh said. "Once the men reach a certain age, they are murdered and summoned back to the world by a priest. Their strength is maintained by drinking the blood of the living."

"I didn't know that," Dylan stated. "Are you saying that they're vampires?"

"Not all that drink blood are vampires," Kian said, smiling at him. "Some are gentle and beautiful men that just enjoy the taste of life."

Ella Fravaugh regarded Kian indifferently. It was clear that there was some kind of double entendre in the boy's words meant only for the ears of the handsome Valion knight. "They drink blood to live, but they won't turn you into one of them. That's something only a Coatlicue of Zandine can do. But they're undead, you could use the word vampire I suppose and it wouldn't be inaccurate."

Down below, Kian observed the carnage and licked his lips.

The Ice Maidens shrieked and attacked the Necrolords. He saw the edge of weapons gleam and body parts fly off into the snow. Red blood erupted from Necrolord and Ice Maiden alike staining the snow with the charnel of their carnage. Nothing, however, could harm the invincible Chaggeroth.

Kian watched as two Necrolords in ornate living black armor raced toward the icy behemoth. They slashed at the Chaggeroth with their long steel fingers. It looked like their weapons were unable to penetrate the thing's thick white hide. In response to the assault, the Chaggeroth let out a monstrous bellow and a ball of ice flew from its mouth and exploded in a cascade of deadly ice shards. Five Necrolords fell dead, the ice shards erupting from the detonating sphere tore them limb from limb in a shower more deadly than a storm of glass. The ice slashed through flesh, bone, and even plate armor as if it were wet tissue paper.

"Does the Chaggeroth have a weakness?"

"Only one," Ella Fravaugh said. "It's immune to magic and immune to blades. There's a pearl on the back of its neck that can only be shattered by a blessed holy weapon. If this happens, the Chaggeroth dies."

"The thing stands thirty feet off the ground," Dylan said. "There's no fucking way I can get to that."

"-At least thirty feet," Kian added. "When it stands on its hind legs there, it's taller." He looked at Dylan, "If I get it down to your level, do you think you can destroy the pearl with your gauntlet?"

He thought about what Kian was saying. "Are you suggesting we go down there and attack?"

"Look," Kian stated, "Now is the best time. They won't be expecting an assault, the gate is open to the keep, and it won't be once this battle ends. And if we wait, there's no telling what's going to arrive from Zanda to help-they could send word that they need an Ogavran Kor and from what I've observed, a Snowman of Vas looks substantially harder to deal with than that thing. All we have to do is crush a pearl and it's game over. Surely, you're man enough to do at least that."

He could see Dylan looking at him worried. Once again, the rut told him what lay behind the frightened gaze. His lover wasn't worried about himself, he was worried about Kian. "D, I'll be fine. I'm the same person you knew before we did it last night. I'm just suggesting that if we wait for a side to win this, we're at a disadvantage. The Ice Maidens could also call for support and then, I don't know, seal the whole thing up in a huge ice block. That'd make it impossible for us to find any books or maps that you can read and find out where we need to go."

"You're right," he agreed. "We should attack."

"Just the two of you?" Ella Fravaugh said. "That's almost 20 to 1 odds in that fray."

"You don't have to come," Kian said. "D and I are more than capable of handling ourselves. In fact, I recommend that you stay safe behind this hill and wait ‘til we signal to you that it's safe."

"We'll wait up here," the rabbit said with just a hint of relief. "Godspeed."

Kian turned back to Dylan. "I love you," Dylan voiced.

"I know,D," he said, voice soft. "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Good, join me when you get down there. Once one of us attracts the attention of the Chaggeroth, I'll knock it down so that you can get at the pearl."

"Knock it down? How?"

"You'll just have to see," he said grinning. "I'm tricky like that."

"Do you boys play like this often?" Ella Fravaugh asked.

"You've no idea," Dylan said. "Kian's incorrigible."

Kian winked at the both of them, invoked the quantum sidestep, and appeared at the edge of the fray. In front of him, one of the Necrolords had just killed an Ice Maiden. Up close, these Necrolords were tall, about seven feet, and the thing towered over Kian making him feel small even though he wasn't. It withdrew the steel spines that attached to the fingers of its gauntlets and tossed the bloody body at his feet. Then, it slowly whirled on Kian, sniffing the air, realizing that what it smelt was neither Necrolord nor Ice Maiden, but something else-something fresh.

"Warmm blood!" the Necrolord shrieked. Its open mouth was all fangs, its eyes bloody red, and skin as white as the snow. Long strands of hair hung down past its waist. Kian saw that its belt buckle resembled an ornate skull with twisted horns. Dangling from the waist, the Necrolord wore a black steel skirt with iron rings fastened upon it. The bottom swept the snow where clawed boots left tracks that looked like those belonging to a reptile. From the Necrolord's back depended a cape, stretched tightly between steel spines to look like black wings.

"Come and get it, big boy," Kian taunted with his fingers.

The Necrolord lunged with astonishing speed, diving and slashing at him with his hands; snow flew up in chunks from where Kian stood. The Black Dragon Assassin charged in, parried the hands aside resulting in sparks from the killsuit, his bones stung with the impact because the Necrolord was so strong. Kian leapt off the snow, and struck the Necrolord in the chest with the flat of his right foot. He used the Clicking Lotus style and called forth his chi for a massive spirit kick-a legendary martial art that Kian had managed to perfect in the years he spent studying the discipline. His chi extended outward from his foot like a hammer, went right through the plate armor, and destroyed all of the bones in this undead monster's chest with a sickening thud. The Necrolord flew back 10 feet and landed with a heavy plop in the snow. It was unable to get up because the muscles in its chest were now free floating in a ruined bone cavity. They were unable to contract against a non-existent framework in order to perform their most basic function and lift the Necrolord from off its back.

Kian, drew his sword, flickered, and attacked an Ice Maiden who whirled to face him as he materialized from thin air. Her red hair flew about her shoulders; blue armor frosted over in a blistering aura of intense cold that emanated outward from the surface of her skin. She swung at him with her serrated blades; Kian punched one aside, knocked the other out of her hand, and clove her in two with Bloodbane. She fell into the snow on his left and right with a column of blood rising up to almost shoulder height somewhere in the middle.

Two Ice Maidens, disappointed that he'd killed their sister, fell upon him with joyous shrieks that promised exquisite pain at their hands. They slashed at Hunter furiously with blades that danced and sung in the frigid air. Kian spun around so fast that the snow swirled in a whirlwind about his feet. Deftly, he parried their blows using forearm, knee, calf, elbow, and hand to punch, maneuver, and deflect blows that rained down upon him almost simultaneously from serrated blades so sharp and so hard they could cut glass. He cut one of the blades in half with his Cibrian blade and booted one of his assailants to the ground with a circle kick to the head. His cibrian cleats tore a gash across her face and left her skin a pile of bloody hamburger. Then he behead the other with his sword. As he landed, he came face to face with the Chaggeroth. The towering giant roared at him. Then it hurled an ice bomb which exploded in a deadly shower of violent shards. At the last instant, Kian quantum sidestepped, reappeared above one of the Necrolords, landed on its shoulders and drove Bloodbane straight down through its head. Then he leapt off, did a summersault in mid-air, and landed right as the air was clearing from the explosion of ice.

Dylan killed an Ice Maiden on his left by shattering her jaw with a punch from his gauntlet; he engaged a Necrolord on his right by parrying the fingerblades with his sword. Kian watched the athletic skill of his friend with deep admiration; Dylan moved his blade so quickly and deftly it almost seemed like he was fencing. It was different training but more elegant than Kian's short quick moves meant to slay instantly. Then the Necrolord made a fatal error, followed through with a critical misstep that caused him to overreach by a fraction of an inch. Against a lesser opponent, it wouldn't have mattered. Against Sir Dylan Avery, Valion Knight and Ice Wolf Alpha, he was finished. Dylan deked inside and swung the blade up through the groin, slaying the Necrolord in a shower of foul blood.

Then Dylan signaled him with a fist pump.

Kian teleported onto the Chaggeroth's back, saw that Dylan was a few feet away. He watched as the merciless knight ducked under the attack from another of the Necrolords and swung upward with his gauntlet into the Necrolord's solar plexus where his fist smashed home ten times in under a second. There was the crunch of metal and bone and Dylan's fist appeared through the undead thing's spine, punching through and spraying blood, bone, and metal in a circle. He tore his fist free of the limp body. That was when he was run through from the back by a second Necrolord. For a single instant, Kian's heart stopped.

Stunned, Kian watched Dylan drop in pain, metal spines protruded from his chest dripping blood. Then the Necrolord withdrew the needle-like fingers cackling, only to get an elbow from Dylan that shattered its teeth into small bone chips. Then he swung his sword about in a brutal arc and lopped of its head. Kian watched in wonderment as the fatal wounds to his lover literally stopped bleeding and obviously healed beneath his armor. What he saw just wasn't possible before last night and Kian laughed at the blatant absurdity.

Dylan signaled to him that he was okay with a slight wave.

Underneath his feet the Chaggeroth acted confused at Kian's sudden disappearance; it was a trait common to most individuals that fought him prior to their death. Kian popped the pommel stone of Bloodbane with his thumb and pulled out a long chain made of corobidian links and looped it around the Chaggeroth's horns. Then he hopped down and slammed Bloodbane into the ice all the way to the hilt. From inside the pommel emerged a winch that started to coil and tighten the slender, almost unbreakable chain. The Chaggeroth bellowed, fighting the chain as it grew shorter and shorter and finally, Bloodbane pulled the huge giant's face into the very ice, toppling it. Dylan killed two Ice Maidens, one with his sword, and one with the gauntlet, leapt on the back of the Chaggeroth and punched the glittering pearl.

It shattered with one blow from his holy weapon.

Simultaneously, three of the Necrolords bull-rushed Kian who was momentarily weaponless, however, he was just as deadly with his hands and feet as he was with a cibrian blade. They had no idea what they were getting into when they chose to engage him in hand-to-hand combat. Kian fell into the Prancing Cheetah stance-a form of martial arts that he'd invented that capitalized on his superhuman agility and muscle strength. He parried weapon blows with his feet and hands, and double kicked one into the body of the Chageroth where Dylan cut off its head from behind. Then, he spirit punched the second; parried attacks from the third by snapping his torso. Kian teleported when the Necrolord charged him. Dylan swung, and Kian watched from ten feet away as the knight's gleaming blade amputated the Necrolord's arms. Then Kian smashed his chi-enhanced fist through the thing's skull, spraying pink brains over the snow.

Beneath Dylan's boots, the Chaggeroth shuddered, let out a breath, and then died.

The white knight hopped down and hugged Kian in a victory embrace. "We did it by God!"

Kian laughed and looked around at the bodies that lay strewn around in front of the keep. Ella Fravaugh was crossing the snow to where they stood cheering themselves on because what had transpired here was more than brutality. It was a demonstration of exceptional skill by two young men who had honed their bodies to supreme athletic perfection for one singular purpose-killing. There wasn't a single survivor; both sides had been effectively wiped out in this bloodbath.

"Be cautious," Ella Fravaugh said as he hopped up to them. "There could be more inside the keep."

"I feel so alive!" Dylan said, breathing in the crisp, freezing air. He swung his sword around excitedly; Kian saw it as a physical symbol of his astounding virility.

"That attack should've killed you," the rabbit said, shaking his head. "I saw you run completely through. How did you recover so quickly from that?"

"My body is immune to damage," Dylan bragged. "To be sure, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch but Valions are trained to shrug off pain."

"Oh," the hare-foot stated. "I didn't know Valions had instantaneous regeneration. Is it something you get from your God?"

Dylan looked intently at Kian. "You could say it's divinely inspired. And Valions don't all have this power; it's something unique to me."

Ella Fravaugh watched Dylan with those orange eyes; from out of his pocket, the pixie girl Henna also emerged, leaning her tiny fat body on folded arms. She had nothing to say; it just looked to Kian as if she were amused at the young knight's exuberance. Kian grinned at his boyfriend. Being an Omega was perfect. He couldn't think of a better fate than one that allowed his lover to achieve greatness he would otherwise be unable to reach on his own.

"I'm going to explore the inside of the keep," Kian said, retrieving Bloodbane from the ice. The magic sword withdrew its corobidian chain from around the horns of the Chaggeroth and slid them inside the pommel; Kian restored the stone to its place with a flick of his thumb.

"Wait a moment and I'll go with you." Dylan wiped his sword off on the fur of the Chaggeroth, and then sheathed it. He was so clean, Kian thought to himself. He looked at his own blade and realized he never bothered to wipe down Bloodbane because it drank blood. It was the unsung benefits of wielding a weapon with the soul of a demon. But then, Kian realized that he really wasn't all that clean of a person. At home, he had a staff that kept things organized for him, but if it weren't for that, he just piled his armor in corners, left clothes on the floor, and never made his bed. Although he had money, his favorite chair was a threadbare old thing that didn't match any of the other furniture in the house. He had it propped in front of the fireplace where he'd sit for long hours with one foot draped over the armrest working on a jigsaw puzzle. Kian loved puzzles and bought them wherever he could find them in the foreign lands of the world. His favorite were made by a toymaker that lived in the oriental land of Shaitan in the mystic east. At present, he was working on one that supposedly had 10,000 pieces-the largest he'd ever bought-and the toymaker had promised him it would show him something beautiful when it was completed.

Bloodbane moaned in his hand, bringing his thoughts back to the present. He grimaced at the thought of the rivers of blood that the sword had drunk since the first day it was unsheathed. A twist of his head to the east and Kian saw that Dylan was ready. He started for the small keep with its high narrow walls and tall main central tower. The portcullis was still raised and hung in place above Kian by about thirty feet. Fearless, he walked through the gate cautiously looking around for any sign of life, but there was none. As the three of them entered the courtyard inside, stillness in the air settled about them for the wind could not reach this place. Snowflakes and bits of ice sifted down from the empty frost-covered walls.

Kian crossed over to a row of steps, took them two at a time, and pushed at the double doors, swinging them wide. There was a tall hall about thirty feet deep, shackles on the walls still held onto the bodies of humans that had been drained of blood for food. These hapless human victims were probably culled from slave pens in the Tower of Illusion somewhere on this dreadful planet. He saw they'd been hung upside down by the feet, throats slit so that every drop of blood would flow down from the neck into bowls that could be carried to the serving tables. Their lifeless bodies were limp and sagging from the cuffs, bones flared under thin leathery skin. The stones on the floor were stained in red where blood had been spilt. Kian lifted his visor and took a look around with his natural eyes, which had returned to their brown color in the absence of the slumbering rut.

Kian saw a symbol, branded on the skin. It was of a fallen angel and a demon that roughly formed the shape of a capital "H" turned on its side. The demon was on top, the angel upside down on the bottom, the wings spread on both, and joined at the waist. As Kian watched the brand, he saw the eyes on the demon blink at him, as if they were alive.

He staggered backward, not sure that he just saw that.

"'It's the Mark of Zanda," Ella Fravaugh said. "It's a powerful symbol that can never be removed once branded on the flesh like that. It allows the followers of Zandine to always know the location of their slaves so that they can find them should they escape. It's said that once you're a slave of Zanda, there's no escape."

Dylan walked over to the cold corpses and Kian watched him with interest. The knight said prayers over the dead, clasped his holy symbol in his leather gloves, and kissed it. Kian looked away feeling a bit of shame. In all the years he'd killed people; he'd never said one word of comfort or offered one single prayer to the Gods. He just got it over as quickly as possible and tried not to get their blood on any of his belongings simply because it was difficult to wash off. Now that he was having these thoughts, did that make him a bad person? And Kian had to wonder if these thoughts were even his own, or were they intrusions from Dylan who was a much better person than he in so many ways.

"You're feeling guilty," Ella Fravaugh said to him.

"What?"

"I can see it in your face, you're feeling guilt. And, I reckon that this is not something to which you normally are privy. Have you never felt it before?"

"I've no idea to what you're referring, hare-foot," Kian stated, slamming down his visor. "But you should learn to mind your own business."

Dylan finished up with his last rites, and rejoined them. "I'm sorry that took so long," he said. "I just didn't feel right leaving them there like that. I mean, I'd expect someone to do that for me should I be killed on the field of battle."

"You're not going to die in battle," Kian said, opening up another door. Beyond there was a passage and a stairwell to the immediate left.

"How can you say that?"

Kian turned to him, "I say it because I can't lose you, D. If I were to lose you my heart would break. So I'm going to do anything in my power to keep you alive. Does that make me selfish?"

Ella Fravaugh rolled his eyes while the two boys went about exchanging their feelings for each other. "I think we could start with the stairs," he offered. "If we find nothing of note, then we could circle back to this hall. But we need to search quickly because there's no telling when others may arrive."

"Agreed," Kian said. There was no better person in their group to take lead, so Kian went up the stairs, idly checking for things that he might set off in passing but knowing that such a well-traveled stairwell would never actually be trapped. The second floor in the tower opened into a large circular room to which there were three arches that led into chambers in the parapets that he'd seen from the exterior. The staircase continued upward, but Kian saw that the third, fourth, and fifth floors were cordoned off by balconies of wood and they all shared a common vaulted ceiling high above. Tapestries from the fifth floor were draped over the balcony and descended past the lower floors almost to the top of this one on which they stood.

There was an awful, rotting smell in the air.

The center of the room was occupied by a three-headed dog composed completely of squirming worms. As Dylan stepped up behind Kian, the knight put his feet on the wooden floor planks and they creaked loudly under his weight. Kian shot him a sideways glance, but the noise was enough to alert the hound, who lifted its maggot encased head and stood up on legs that writhed with the squishy things.

It howled and the sound of it reverberated from the walls; Kian thought it resembled the dull thrum produced by a million insect casings rubbing together. Then it lunged at him; he dodged, flickered, and reappeared on the far side. He thrust Bloodbane into the body of the horror but the motion just showered the ground at his feet with worms that crawled back to the main body, and merged into the hound through its toes. It whirled on him and struck him with a paw that he deflected with his arm. However, the force of the hit caught Kian by surprise and threw him up against the eastern wall with a loud thwack. Because of its size, only one of its four claws raked across his armor which did nothing to the corobidian suit. The other three gouged the rock on either side of his body, tearing out deep slits into the hard granite blocks and peppering the wooden floor with pebbles.

He cried out in pain, flickered, and staggered to his feet near the south side of the room.

At his direct opposite, Dylan distracted the three-headed dog with a flash of his sword and a swirl of his cloak. The monster attacked him with two of its heads. His Valion reflexes avoided one of the clashing set of mandibles but Dylan backed himself into a corner and the other mouth snapped over his chest when he couldn't maneuver out of the way. Teeth lanced off his white armor with a burst of sparks. Then it picked Dylan up as if he were a paperweight and threw him against the floor with such force, it knocked a hole through the four inch thick wooden beams and pinned Dylan to the concrete beneath. Splinters and wood shavings exploded into the air. The hound raised one of its paws and crushed Dylan, pressing down upon him with all its weight and worms spilled into the hole, obscuring him from sight. Kian heard him scream in pain; he thought he saw blood fountain up from Dylan's mouth, spattering out of the creases in his visor.

Ella Fravaugh hopped into the room. Kian staggered, and leaned against the wall to catch his breath; in his chest, his lungs fluttered in agony. From out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hare-foot raise his paws and begin to cast, calling upon the lilting word of the ancient speech to raise the magic of the wyld.

Kian saw the windows shatter in the tower and cold wind poured into the room, swirling in icy eddies, carrying with it snowflakes and the bitter chill of Vas of Kleef. White light from the hare-feet's extended paw directed the wind to flow around the three-headed dog. It was cold magic, a spell of winter amplified by the presence of so much frigid waste outside the keep. The hound bayed once from each of its mouths and then to Kian's surpise, it fell apart into millions of worms that swamped the floor, the stairs, and the other adjoining rooms in a wave of pink bodies to a depth of about three inches.

Kian flickered to where Dylan was buried, reached down and pulled him up. Worms cascaded off of him and he fumbled with his fingers at Dylan's visor, finally got it open. Sure enough, blood was on his face; Kian helped him to remove the worms from his skin, brushing them off with his fingers. Then he took out a bit of torn cloth, and helped him wipe his face clean.

"Are you okay?" he asked him. When he didn't immediately answer, Kian's eyes welled up with tears, "D, damnit, are you okay?"

He nodded, "Yes, but-" he gasped, "I'm still hurting. The regeneration might be wearing a little thin."

"It's possible. We don't know how long it lasts or even if it's a time-based thing. It could be that it has charges and each usage of it, takes away one of those. There are just too many unanswered questions to take risks. Please, be careful even though I know you feel invincible. I was scared-scared for you."

He shook his head, seeing Kian limp as he went to follow the rabbit. "How about you?"

"I-I think I've broken something," Kian admitted. "Maybe a rib. That hit was a lot stronger than I thought from...well, whatever it is."

"A maggot demon," Ella Fravaugh said. "They are summoned from the Lice Fields of Hell. Their bite causes flesh to rot with disease; their claws can cut through any material, except, corobidian and cibrian. You two are lucky that I was here. I knew that insects and worms are susceptible to the cold-it's why they kept it inside I'd imagine. To keep people from out of the upper levels and it couldn't escape because the cold of Vas of Kleef would cause it to disassociate into this," he gestured, "a sea of worms."

Kian leaned on Dylan who helped him up the stairs to the next level. Behind them, the bubbling carpet of worms rubbed against each other trying to stay away from the cold air swooping in upon them from the shattered windows. The sound they produced was like a dull sizzle from a frying pan.

The third floor had two chambers.

The first they walked into was some kind of laboratory. Beakers and pipettes lined the granite walls on old dusty shelves. There were multi-colored jars of strange liquids that bubbled and fizzed behind glass containers. "Don't touch anything," Ella Fravaugh said. "This is stuff used in the rituals of making the Necrolords." He hopped along, leaving the trail of his boots in brown dirt that lined the wooden floor in a thin layer. Kian smelt phosphorous and the unmistakable scent of putrefaction. In an adjoining room through an archway of stones, they came across a grisly experiment. It was a table with a naked human who'd been sewn together in several places and his body glistened in the light. The body had obviously been enlarged through grafts of flesh and bone which would explain the seven-foot height of the Necrolords. Dylan turned away from the hulking, distorted, misshapen feet which were probably 16 inches long and nearly as wide. Toes were grown together, bent, and gnarled. "Disgusting," he heard him utter. Kian could see heavy ridges of bone over the ribcage, further protection against weapons if the armor they wore was not sufficient.

"This one was almost ready for the resurrection to the undead," he said.

"How do you know?" Dylan asked.

"Its skin was anointed with jars of this," he gestured, showing Dylan a strange black container filled with an oily unguent. "Go ahead, it's safe to inspect."

Dylan sniffed at it, detecting an almost spicy cologne rising from it. "Why do they use this?" He tipped some onto his finger, a single drop, and looked at it. The oil was clear and gleamed in the light.

"Don't get any of that on you unless you want the spot it touches to be free of hair forever."

"It removes hair?"

The hare-foot nodded. "In preparing the Necrolords, all hair is removed from the body. The inside of their armor is lined with living horsehair and once the armor is strapped onto the Necrolords, the horsehair grows into the smooth skin of the undead warrior. Their armor essentially becomes self-repairing so that when it is damaged, it grows back, allowing them to be free of the need for blacksmiths."

"Interesting," Dylan said, looking at Kian. When Kian and Ella Fravaugh had moved on to the next floor, he trailed, behind, grabbed the jar, and placed it in his pouch making sure to place the lid tightly before doing so.

On the third floor, they entered an office that must have belonged to someone of importance. There were large rolled maps, scroll cases of bone, leather-bound books, and other devices laying strewn about a cluttered oak desktop. Kian stood by the heavily seasoned wood door; he knew he was of little use here and it gave him a chance to catch his breath while leaning against the door jam. He probed his armor with his fingers and felt pain in a particular spot over one of his ribs. He knew that he'd either cracked it or bruised it, but it was too hard to tell with his armor covering the place. He thought for a moment that it was delicious irony that the Omega didn't get any of the regenerative properties bestowed upon the Ice Wolf during the feral rut.

"I think I've found something," Dylan said. "This is a map with a circle over a keep that I think describes where we are. It's called Alsamarax; it lies east of the Tower of Illusion, basically the largest settlement on Vas of Kleef that overlooks a huge crevasse known as Kalek Haru which in Zandan means "the Throat of Hell."

"Nice," Kian stated. "Nothing like a little hyperbole to get you going. How far is it?"

"A hundred seventy miles of ice and two mountain ranges. These peaks that rise from the glacial plain are enormous. However, there look to be several passes and a couple of Zandan settlements that can give us some respite on the way."

"Settlements?" Kian queried. "Why would anyone choose to live on this desolate rock of a planet except to avoid religious prosecution?"

"Cibrian mines," Ella Fravaugh stated. "All of the metal that comprises your beautiful sword had to have come from Vas of Kleef for it comes from no other place. Your weapon is made from material mined by the slaves of Zanda and sold for millions of gold on Wynwrayth. How else do you think the other religions have tolerated Zanda and not descended upon the ranks of the coatlicue and destroyed them? To do so, cuts them off from a most wondrous metal."

"What's the difference between cibrian and corobidian?" Henna voiced.

"Cibrian," Kian said, "can cut anything. Its hardness is legendary and holds an edge better than any metal. I could cut through corobidian with it like a hot knife through butter. But cibrian is heavy and unsuitable for making armor. That's where corobidian comes in. Dylan's entire full plate suit is stronger than a steel armor suit by at least 100 times but only weighs a pound. It also has two states. The first is the curing and this is when it can be easily set into any shape. Once it has cooled from the curing, it can never be put into that state again so masters that know how to work corobidian make an entire suit to order all at once so that everything fits perfectly. It's a true master craft."

"It's also superconductive," Dylan added, pointing at Kian's almost invisible grounding bands.

"That as well, although as a thief, I don't feel it adds much to my ability to skulk in shadows."

Dylan rolled up the map and tucked it away in his bag. "Alright, I think we've everything that we needed from here. Let's get out of this place."

Kian nodded and went out the door. He tried to walk without a limp so that Dylan didn't see he was in pain and he managed to do so rather convincingly because of his training. Behind him, Ella Fravaugh came up second, Dylan last. They descended through to the first floor, past the writhing carpet of worms that was attempting to coalesce again into something resembling a hound with three heads.

As his foot touched the stones on the first floor of the keep and the others descended behind him, Kian looked down the hallway and decided to walk that direction. "What are you doing?" Dylan asked him from behind.

"I'm looking to see if there's food here. We don't have much left and we need to eat, D." Kian pushed open a door with his hand, "Especially, if we've to cross 170 miles of cold inhospitable wasteland." It swung inward revealing a kitchen, pantry, and stairs that descended into a basement where he heard muffled noises of men and women.

Dylan looked down the stone steps and Kian knew what he was thinking. "No, D. Don't go down there. We cannot take on people and get them across the waste with us, much less get them into the Tower of Illusions and through one of the gates back into the Librarium Apocalypto."

A child's cry floated up from down below; Dylan lifted his visor and looked at Kian, eyes brimming with tears. "We have to help them." His sapphire eyes were so beautiful that it took Kian's breath away. It was difficult for him to keep his guard up, to stay objective. While he was distracted, Dylan started to walk toward the stairs.

"D, God damn it! Don't go down there!"

The expression on Dylan's beautiful face was a flat line; deep-set eyes that enhanced his masculine, chiseled features, prominent slim nose and small nostrils flared with torn emotion. "I'm sorry, Kian, I've got to have a look." Then he went down the steps, spurs clicking as he descended. Kian swore and flickered in the quantum sidestep. He appeared in front of Dylan, and blocked his way down with his body.

"Out of my way."

"No."

"Kian, I'm only going to ask you one more time."

"D, just listen to me. What if these people are sick? Starving? What are we supposed to do? Can you cure disease? If you can't, we risk our health."

He shook his head, "No. But none of that matters. It's the right thing to do."

"No, it's not. We can't take care of them, D. How will you deal with the Mark of Zanda? It cannot be removed. And the Necrolords will be drawn to the mark; they'll know exactly where the slaves are located. You'll bring them right to us with reinforcements to boot."

"We'll kill them like we did that horde outside the keep," he said, looking at him confidently. "I can't be harmed, Kian! Not with you here. You've seen it yourself."

"D, we don't know how the rut works quite yet! I know you feel fucking incredible but we need to be careful. We're not invincible and Necrolords are not the only thing that's looking for us, D. There are Nevrenachtur Assassins that'll have come through the portal for us because they know we can't get back there through any other means. We're cornered and our only chance to survive here is to use this vast expanse of snow to obfuscate our presence until we can get safely back into the Librarium Apocalypto and kill that fucking wizard. I'm hurt, D. I may be hiding it well but believe me when I say that I'm in pain. And we don't know Vas of Kleef-this is a strange land with strange rules and we have to sleep, you know? We get tired and the Necrolords are undead-they don't need rest. They'll come find us and kill us!"

"I'm going to forgive you because you don't know your place, yet," he said leveling a finger at Kian's chest. "In case you weren't keeping up with current events, I bred you last night. That means you're my pup and pups don't ever tell their stud what to do. You should be in my corner like a true bitch would be instead of arguing with your Alpha. Stop whining about this and help me."

"I'm not your bitch, D. I'm your boyfriend, your lover, and an Omega that you need."

"Whatever. You'll be under me when I order, you'll suck me when I command, and you'll thank me when I want to fuck you which is going to happen every single night whether you're in the mood or not," he stated. "And you'll take what I have to give you and like it! Now get out of the way."

If Kian didn't have the rut, he would have been cross with Dylan for saying those things. But he could see behind the knight's exterior and the need for him to be in charge was pushing him to force Kian to submit. This was a test of wills and the Alpha was proving his dominance. As if in response, Kian could smell Dylan's loins in the air stronger than ever...it was like he was spraying the air with pheromones to force him into submission. And, it was working. But Kian still had his mind. He may not have the rank in the pack to order Dylan-he wasn't even technically a part of the pack since right now, it consisted of just him, but he sure as hell was going to try. Additionally, Kian knew that Dylan's usage of the term ‘bitch' was actually meant as an affectionate term. There's no way he would have understood this had it not been for the rut. But as it were, it made sense since he was seeing the association of his role in Dylan's mind. Inside the knight's chest right now, the wolf was roaring, and the animal had risen inside the boy with furious hackles at being blocked by a lowly Omega. This was unacceptable because Kian had come to understand from Dylan's thoughts that yes, Omegas were a rarity. However, they were also something to which every Ice Wolf in the Valion Order would feel entitled to breed and then afterwards, love. Omegas were made to be fucked.

"Absolutely not, D. This is stupid. We cannot burden ourselves with whoever is down there."

"Get out of my fucking way, Kian!"

"No!" Kian put his hand out and shoved Dylan back up the stairs.

Behind Kian's shoulders the wail of a child pierced the darkness followed closely by a woman's piercing scream. "Help us! Please."

"I'm sorry I have to do this," he said to Kian. Dylan grabbed Kian's hand, twisted him around and threw him against the wall. Pain from Kian's injured rib stabbed through him with the impact of his chest on stone. He knew Dylan was going to knock him out, so he moved first even as Dylan was getting ready to punch him in the head. Kian teleported behind Dylan, hit him in a pressure point by extending his chi through Dylan's armor, and knocked him out. He grabbed him before the knight hit the steps, scooped him up in his arms and carried him gently back up to the kitchen and set him carefully on the ground.

"What're you doing?" Ella Fravaugh asked with wide eyes. He was searching the room and stores for food, closing several cabinet doors, peering under tables, and looking into bags.

"Saving us from taking on unnecessary problems."

"How is this saving us from a problem? He's your friend."

"He isn't hurt. And he'll wake up in just a few minutes with nothing more than a headache. It's better than what he was going to do to me. One hit on the head from his gauntlet might have given me a concussion. Did you find any supplies?"

"I found one loaf of bread, a small wheel of cheese, and some pickled meat. All of that is probably used to feed the prisoners downstairs, but it isn't much. It might last you and Dylan a week at most." Ella Fravaugh grimaced and then flinched from a particular high-pitched scream from below. He looked back at Kian. "At least we could have a look. There's no harm in that."

"I disagree," Kian said, jaw set tight. "Just don't go down there or I'll be forced to kill them all. I can't allow us to be identified and don't think that for an instant, that I won't do it."

Ella Fravaugh swallowed hard, looking at the blond man, who had his visor up. Kian's brown eyes looked murderous. "You're bluffing."

"Am I?"

"You couldn't murder children, that's monstrous. You and your friend can leave this place, I'll stay behind and help them. It's my choice."

"I need you to come back with me and meet with my church Elders. You can blow the whistle on Dolmani."

"Well, if you want me, I'll be back with the people downstairs that are asking for my help."

Kian stared at him with angry eyes.

He stood up and walked with purpose down the steps, drew out his sword. As he descended, the corobidian veins inserted themselves into his skin. In the basement, Kian found a filthy prison. In the first cell was a woman covered in bleeding pustules. Emaciated, she struggled to her feet, hair coming loose from her scalp and stretched out feeble hands to him. "Please, help me." One look at her and he knew she wouldn't last ten minutes out there in the bitter cold.

He swallowed hard against the stench, his eyes moving to the next cell where a naked woman sat cradling a child that didn't look entirely human. The baby turned its head and regarded him with red eyes and sharp pointed teeth. Shocked, he stared at this abomination which was some kind of offspring of a human mix and something else entirely. Kian noticed that she was bleeding from a breast where it had been suckling and that her belly was distended and misshapen with another pregnancy. She had an empty look to her face, eyes unfocused, and hair limp around the shoulders. The baby in her arms wailed in a volume that set his teeth on edge.

In yet another cell, Kian found two men with amputated limbs pleading for food, a third man bent over with age, barely able to walk, stumbled to the doors of the cell asking to be freed. He imagined dragging them across the ice on sleds they'd have to make from canvas and other things. Next, he wondered how they would get them across terrible gaping crevasses and over mountains of madness. How would they evade the Ogavran-Kor with broken men clinging to their backs? In the last cell were three human girls in relatively good condition. They were crying loudly, tears streaming down their faces.

"We want to go home," they cried to him, shaking the bars. In his hand, the sword Bloodbane trembled; sweat rolled down the side of his face. Kian saw that they had all been branded with the Mark of Zandine. No matter where they took these girls, the eye of Zanda would be upon them. It would be a beacon in the night to the Nevrenachtur Assassins that sought to rip Kian's soul from his body and kill Dylan. No, none of these prisoners could come with them. And if he didn't do something about it, the hare-foot was going to stay behind and get killed himself. Then all hope of blowing the whistle on Dolmani would disappear with him and most likely, the Nocturne Inquisitor would bring about the destruction of his church.

Kian swallowed his feelings and transported inside the cell; one of the girls turned and he lifted his visor to look at her. She paused in her crying to gaze upon him. This was a reaction that Kian had gotten all of his life. The girl thought he was the loveliest man she'd ever seen and instantly liked him. She dried her tears with her hand, "Can you help us?" she asked him.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," he said, voice gravelly.

Then he killed them.

Shrieks rose from the neighboring cells and Kian teleported into those and slew them. Last of all, he killed the mother and the abomination in her arms. His sword dripped in crimson blood. Kian was professional, clean, and no one suffered. He had hundreds of years of practice, knew precisely where to strike and did so with surgical precision using the cibrian blade that thirsted for fresh blood.

At long last, the wailing stopped, and quiet descended upon the keep.