The elves gathered when one of the town guards spotted the hero staggering back from the direction of the mountains. The massive human was still bandaged and still wearing clothing rather than armor, and the keen eye of the guard and the scouts could not see any blood soaking into the clothing, nor did he look any more injured than he had when he had come into the village earlier in the day. The Maire had his advisors around him as the human came into the village, throwing aside a painted gourd and wiping his mouth. He marched up, dragging his axe, and stopped in front of the gathered elves. A moment later the stench of human sweat, unwashed body, rotting blood and hard alcohol wafted over the gathered elves, causing a few to retch. After a long still moment of silence, the elfan known as the village Maire stood forward.
"Honored Fraker, have you stopped the kobold horde from descending upon us and devouring us?" the Maire asked, bowing low in front of the hero.
One of the elfi, an elvish women at the back of the crowd, noticed that the visible eye seemed to get redder, almost glowing, as the human stared at the back and top of the Maire's head, and his knuckles seemed to tighten around the haft of the axe he had been dragging behind him.
"Aye, I did," Fraker rumbled, shifting his grip on the axe. "The kobolds will not descend on you in a ravening unthinking horde, attacking all they come across without cause, as I have taken control of the horde."
There was a murmur of confusion, and the Maire drew back to discuss with his two top advisors what it meant, all of them sneaking glances at the massive hero. After a few moments, the Maire returned, bowing again.
"How would a human take command of a horde of merciless savage killers?" he asked.
"I am Fraker the Axe," the human answered simply, as if that was all that needed to be said,
"And that is it?" the Maire asked, wringing his hands.
"Almost," Fraker said, walking by the bowing elfan and pushing his way into the crowd, ignoring the protests of the elves he was bowling over. The massive human thudded up to the inn and kicked in the door, the carefully carved wood shattering into fragments that Fraker ignored as he marched through the common room of the inn. When he reached the bar, he grabbed it with one hand and wrenched it out of the way, the floor exploding as the bar was ripped from its mountings.
Two more steps took him into the kitchen, where Fraker pulled off the bandage covering his eye, narrowed his eyes and scowled fiercely at what was before him. The blisters were gone, the red skin healed, the acid induced injury forgotten, the rage knitting flesh and bone as it filled him. From the thick throbbing veins on his forehead spread healthy skin, replacing the damaged and blistered flesh.
Small lizards dangled over a steaming trough on strings from one leg, their mouths open and tongues lolling out. Their throats were slit across in an 'X' pattern, their little eyes open and blank, their blood gathered in small bowls to be spiced and mixed into sauces. On cutting boards, several dismembered steamed lizards had been skinned and the steamed muscle filleted away. Another pot had large eggs bobbing in the roiling boiling water. Several eggs were sitting out, hardened honey and sugar surrounding them, in the midst of being made into sweet delicacies.
Fraker growled low in his throat, an animalistic sound, looking at each of the lizards closely, one after another. The Peeper in his belt pouch was quivering and murmuring in horror, the cheeps sad and mournful as Fraker passed each of the bodies that had been savagely butchered. Fraker knew they had not been hard to catch, soft words and something shiny would have led them right into the hands of their murderers. They would have purred affectionately and rubbed against the very hands that had slit their long and slender throats. Bright and curious eyes would have excitedly watched the bright colors of the village that they had been brought to die in. The eggs would have contained unborn Peepers that would have been singing songs of waiting, of longing to be free of the egg and to run through the grass and hide in the tangle of berry bushes. They would have felt the movement and been excited that it was time to be taken to the hatching ground where they would hear the voices of the tribe singing to them, urging them to be free of the egg, songs of love and longing from the female and male kobolds of the tribe to their unborn children. Now they would never push their way from the egg with their egg-tooth and emerge, blinking and weak, into the love of their tribe.
The voices were stilled, their bright promise wiped away, and now the songs would never be sung for them.
Fraker turned toward the doorway he'd stormed through, tightening his grip on his axe, and felt the fury build inside of him until it was a raging inferno. He turned from the preparation counter, the amulet to Lorshani the Bitch Queen, Goddess of Carnage, Slaughter and Destruction, glowing brightly, and began walking toward the shattered kitchen door. Between one step and the next, shining heavy armor covered him, a heavy shield hanging from one arm, and the notched axe in his other hand. The sigil of Lorshani burned brightly on one breast, the sigil of the Thorn Lord on the other, wrought in red fire that pulsed in time with Fraker's heartbeat.
There was still a song to be sung.
Spurs rang on the wooden floor as he slowly walked toward the exit, his red eyes shining inside of his helmet as he marched out into the sunlight. Some of the elves screamed and broke away from the group, fleeing from the sight of the armored human, but the majority of them just stared as Fraker walked across the packed dirt of the village street, the spurs still ringing as if he was walking across stone. His brain automatically counted the number of houses, estimating them against the common number of elves per household, and noted defense points, magical guardians and escape routes.
A song that Fraker sung the best. That his Father had taught him.
The massive Eternal stopped in front of the Maire, the armor creaking as he slowly looked down at the elfan.
Fraker knew at long last why his Step-Mother had tasked him to carry the basket.
"They told me," he growled in bestial voice. "They bury their eggs in the sand around the lake."
Someone in the crowd groaned.
"Their young used to play in the berry bushes. Play Peeper games. Learn what it was to move from primitive childhood to children of my Step-Mother. Learn their place in their pack so they can understand how to learn their place in their tribe, make attachments to one another, learn to cooperate, learn to communicate, learn to sing the songs of self, of life, of the tribe, to be children among the berry bushes," Fraker rumbled, his gauntlets creaking as he clenched his fist around the haft of his axe.
"They're babies," he said, his voice clanging iron plates. "Baby kobolds."
He tightened his grip on the haft of the axe in his hands, the metal of the gauntlets creaking under the stress and the claws popping from the sheathes in his hand to glint in the light.
"You dug up their eggs to eat as a delicacy," he snarled and stepped forward. A lurid purple ray shot out of the crowd and bounced off of something unseen inches from his armor to hit a tree and cause it to slowly sag and dissolve into dust. Several of the elves were chanting, weaving spells of protection around themselves. Some were fleeing toward houses and women were grabbing children off the streets. Fraker saw a young elfi, the brutally tattooed markings of the lower caste on her little face, get pushed out of a doorway and the door slammed in her terror twisted face at each door she ran to. A part of his mind marked her as no older than two decades, three to four years old in human terms, and decided that she alone would survive to spread the tale.
She alone would remember the song that Fraker would sing.
"You caught their young in traps and skinned them for food." He took another step forward, the sound of his spurs ringing lost in the screams that were beginning to gain volume. "You lured them in and stilled their songs." His eyes seemed to glow like red coals inside his helmet, the brown lost completely among the red. "You gathered their eggs, boiled them to quiet their singing voices, to turn into delicacies, to peel apart and eat the unborn."
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"Peepers are not food." The rumble was stones grinding together. Fire erupted around him as an elfi in the crowd desperately tried to kill him with arcane flame.
Fraker stepped out of the fire as if it did not exist, toward the Maire again, his voice low and deadly. "There are two kinds people in the Six Worlds." His voice was a rumble of doom, and he paused for a second, relishing the fear he could feel from the elves.
"Those that die horribly, screaming in agony in an explosion of blood and gore, and those with axes," he continued in the same tone.
More spells struck near him and either fizzled out or bounced away. Fraker ignored them as he watched the growing horror on the faces in front of him, the resignation appear on the faces of older elves who understood what was about to happen and how powerless they were to stop it. He felt the fear from them at what he was about to say.
"You appear to be elves," Fraker said, lifting his heavy axe. The inlaid runes burst into light and blood began dripping from the cutting edge of the axe.
"I rule the horde," Fraker snarled, his axe sweeping back. "I am the largest, the strongest, the biggest. I am the Kobold Queen's Favored Son!" The last was bellowed in a voice that had rang out defiantly over battlefields for eons of war all over the Six Worlds.
The axe swept down, cleaving through the clustered elves in front of him, the Maire and his advisors split apart as the supernaturally sharp axe sliced through flesh and bone with equal ease. Lightning, caged by magic within the axe-head, burnt flesh and vaporized blood, the cold of the dead of winter, placed into the axe by his Step-Mother's hand, froze gobbets of blood and flesh, and fire scooped from the heart of a dragon and lovingly crafted into the axe burned and charred flesh. The blood sprayed across Fraker's armor as he cast the shield aside and raised the terrible axe in both hands over his head.
From the forest around the village kobold warriors erupted, dressed in chain shirts and carrying spears and knives, screaming their war cries and falling upon the outskirts of the village, some carrying torches they threw upon the buildings as they poured into the elven settlement. A female with iron nails impaling her eyes stepped from the underbrush, raising her skull topped staff and calling lightning down from the clear blue sky onto the building in front of her. At her feet, the small forms of a silver and a bronze Peeper could be seen, their eyes flat and merciless in the actinic backwash of the lightning bolt.
"I am Fraker the Axe!" the giant roared as he waded into the crowd, the terrible axe rising and falling in sprays of blood. "And you shall water the wheat!"
* * * * *
Flames had engulfed the buildings and most of the defenders of the elven village were dead, hacked down by either Fraker's axe or the knives and spears of the kobold tribe's warriors. Those elves that had run into the forest had found the tribe's females waiting with heated iron knives in their fists and vengeance for every stilled song in their hearts. Fraker stalked through the bodies, blood and ruin, his bloodshot eyes visible even through the smoke that filled the village, his axe crackling with chained electricity and drifting chips of imprisoned ice.
The kobold warriors had gathered up the children and the pregnant women of the elven village into a circle, spear carrying snarling raptors keeping them penned in. There was nearly a hundred elves being held just outside the village. Fraker stalked toward them, the scorch marks on his armor fading away and the dents popping back out with each step.
Several of the elfi screamed when they saw Fraker stalk out of the smoke, murder in the bloodshot eyes that were locked on the prisoners. Some of the pregnant elfi went into labor, a few fainted. The children began crying and screaming as each step, his spurs ringing loudly despite the fact he was walking across grass, brought him ever closer to them. The kobold tribe's spirit-singer, the iron nails in her eyes glinting in the firelight, saw Fraker heading toward the elves and chattered a warning to the warriors that were watching over those whom kobold taboo prevented from being killed in revenge.
Varak Fangnose, one of the warriors of the clan and named for the fact that his egg tooth had never fallen off and instead had hardened into a small horn on the end of his long muzzle, turned around and saw the massive human approaching. He could smell rage, human war scent and powerful magics pouring off of the man, mixed with the smell of scorched and fresh blood. Varak abandoned his place in the circle and moved in front of the Favored Son of the Queen, his ears flattening in fear.
"Out of the way, brave one," Fraker growled, an almost inhuman sound.
Varak restrained an urge to swallow and tilted his head to the left and the right twice, the kobold method of signaling a negative.
"Their blood must water the wheat, for they have stilled the songs of the beloved." Fraker's voice made Varak want to run away, back to his small hut by the stream, and curl up next to his mate where her warmth would make him feel safe.
"They are kits, like our kits, and may not be slain," Varak trilled, planting the butt of his spear against the ground and pointing the honed steel head away from the human.
"They must water the wheat," Fraker repeated.
"No! Kits are not harmed for what the parents do! So sayeth the Queen!" Varak cried out, reciting what all kobolds were taught in song and tale.
"So sayeth the Queen!" the warriors gathered in the circle cried out, stomping their feet. The elves inside the circle, unable to understand what the spear and knife armed raptors were shouting, screamed in fear.
From the belt pouch on the human's waist the head of a small Peeper poked up and it began chittering rapidly at the man who carried it. Varak ducked his head in shock as the infant kobold threatened the massive human, reminded him that his Step-Mother would punish him severely if he broke her commandments, and told the huge warrior that if he slew the gathered elves then he would be no better than the elves he had slain.
And that the Peeper would bite his boy-stick and seed-sack while he slept.
The red seemed to soften in his eyes, so they were merely bloodshot human eyes, not pools of blood.
Varak pointed one claw at the village, where the warriors had manage to shatter the magical defenses of some of the last holdouts and were throwing spears and javelins at the exposed elves. "There is still blood to water the wheat."
Fraker stared for a long moment at Varak, and then at the elves, and the red in his eyes deepened in color again, the smell of human rage flooding back over Varak.
When the massive warrior turned away from Varak and broke into a run toward a pair of elfan wizards who were using magic to kill kobold warriors, Varak realized that he had accomplished something that would have the maidens lining up to sing their desires for him to soup their eggs and swell their bellies.
He had refused the Favored Son of the Queen and survived.
Of course, he'd make sure that nobody knew he had freed his water.
* * * * *
The inn was on the road between the Ruby City and the city of Lobrin at the edge of the Alben Arch-Duchy, where a small trail led from the mountains to the highway between the two great cities. It was a small, comfortable inn. Made of wood, rather than built of quarried stone or formed of hardened liquid stone, with only a single story high with a barn behind it. It boasted a comfortable feeling, simple and basic, containing only a large dining room, a kitchen and a common room where poorer patrons slept on the wooden floor.
The inn was empty except for a single patron, a large man dressed in simple clothing. His tattoos marked him as a veteran of the horrors of the Lich King War, which explained his freakish size and the massive axe that hung from his belt to the workers of the inn. All of them figured that he had been modified by rituals and magic to make him more fearsome in combat by one army or another. His scars bore mute testimony to the fact that whatever had been done to him had worked and enabled him to survive the war that had swept the Six Worlds for decades.
The man had eaten enough food for four men, paying with the curious silver pieces known as 'Yumyum Coins', and feeding scraps to a small lizard that only poked out its head and neck to receive the tidbits or rub its head against the man's shirt while purring.
The sun was setting and the man was finishing up a suckling pig when a chorus began outside. One of the servants rushed to the door and looked out to see what or who was singing. When the door opened, high sweet tones floated into the large dining room, and the massive man shook his head slowly, exhaling with frustration.
The maid, who was looking outside, turned around and faced the bartender with a confused look on her face, shrugging her shoulders helplessly. The bartender moved over and looked out, then rushed toward the bar.
"Wait!" The man's outburst stopped the bartender in his tracks. He looked at the giant, who slowly stood up.
"Milord, there are kobolds surrounding the inn!" the bartender blurted out. "They have torches they are waving in the air. They intend on burning us alive!"
"They aren't attacking." The giant sighed, moving toward the door.
"Then what are they doing?" the bartender asked.
"I think they're juggling the torches..." the maid said softly in wonder, peering out the window. "And a bunch of them are wearing ribbons and turned around to lift their tails at us. Some are hopping around like they are dancing around a large carved pole decorated with skulls and topped with a river-ox skull, and there is one with what looks like spikes in its eyes waving a staff with a skull on it."
"They're after me," the giant said. A small lizard popped its head out of the pouch and began chittering rapidly, a smug tone strangely evident. The giant looked down and glared. "I know it's my fault, you don't have to rub it in."
The maid turned from the window as the lizard started chittering again.
"You're right, I should have taken care of this before I left," Fraker rumbled. He looked at the maid. "I don't suppose you and some friends would mind helping me with something, would you?" he asked.
The maid blushed, remembering that she had been whispering wicked things in the giant's ear. "I may have some friends that lay that way."
"Get them," The giant rolled his head, crackling the barely existing neck, and stared at the door, sighing.
"Their maidens are in heat," the giant rumbled. "The horde leader gets first pick, none of the others can go until the horde leader mates with as many maidens as he can in one day."
The little lizard's mouth hung open and it made a choking sound of laughter.