Worlds Apart Read online

  Tiberius recalled certain serpentine images drawn on scrolls made from the flayed flesh of virgins. He did not relish that meeting. He tightened his grip on her arm. “Answer my question. Where am I?”

  “So impatient,” she sighed, stroking his shoulder, leaning up towards him, her writhing hair brushing his cheek. “You are on a world not your own. Cast through space and time beyond what you know.”

  “Cryptic.”

  She tittered, the sound ringing in the rafters with a leathery hiss. “I am a goddess, you know.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Then if I am, I’ll conquer this world instead.”

  She gasped in mock shock. “And abandon your Twin Kingdoms? Oh Tiberius, so unfaithful to your lost loves.”

  “What do you care. One world is the same as the next to you lot.”

  Again she giggled. “Mmm. True. And it would be a pleasure to stride across it.”

  “You mean slither.”

  “How you wound me.”

  “If only,” he growled.

  Lamora smiled, the slave girl’s teeth fanged. Her pupils slits. “Ah Tiberius, you have a long road ahead of you. A road of ruin paved with suffering.”

  “I’ve walked down darker.”

  “True.” She brushed his face, but as she touched him, her hand dissolved, falling to ash. “Oh,” she moaned as her bracer clanked to the floor. “Looks like our time is up. You chose such an unworthy vessel for my greatness.”

  “I work with what I have,” Tiberius said.

  “Then listen closely,” Lamora murmured, standing on her tip toes, lips an inch from his ear. “You have power Tiberius. Power and ambition. But never forget. Until you open the gate, your soul is ours. Our plaything. And we do not tolerate failure well, and will have eternity to express it. So if you ever want to know freedom, you will serve. And you are not alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Closer.”

  Tiberius leaned down. She curled up like a flower to the sun, and suddenly kissed him.

  Tiberius jerked back with a curse, his cheek burned with the glowing marks of her lips. Laughing, the goddess finally overcame her vessel, the slave girl’s supple form falling to ash in his hands.

  Tiberius stared at the pile of ash and golden jewelry on the floor. He curled his hands into fists.

  “Bitch.”

  Arming

  The hammer came down, ringing through the forge.

  Auria watched, breathless. Her heart thudded with every bang of the steel. The vibrations shuddered through her like the knight hammered on her very soul. Her body throbbed in time to Felix’s efforts, her eyes riveted to the work.

  Felix had stripped to the waist. Sweat gleamed across his arms and chest, golden in the light of the forge like some primeval god. His blonde hair whirled round his face as he raised the hammer and brought it down again. The bandit’s blade glowed molten gold as he worked it. But in the midst of the light, signs blazed down the steel, flashing an icy blue with every blow.

  She could feel the power. Feel the magic as Felix whispered the words beneath his breath. The flames in the forge roared. The steel flickered, sparking as he brought down the hammer, beating those words of power into the waiting steel. With every blow he struck magic snapped and arced in blue static off the anvil.

  “Oh,” Auria gasped, hips twitching at the latest blow. “Oh. Oh. Oh.”

  He plunged the blade into the fire again. Heating it. She had not expected any of this. Had not expected the power which surged through the room, whirling around Felix in a tempest. She could feel the steel shake with the strain. Crude, cheap metal. But it would work. It had to work.

  He pulled it free. Again he laid it on the anvil. Again he brought the hammer down. The slightest moan escaped Auria’s lips as he struck with sparks and clamour. She quivered as the steel sang in answer to him. Never had she seen such magic. Never had she felt it so strongly. The spells grew in power. The markings in the molten metal more defined. The singing of the steel grew to a crescendo.

  The last blow shattered the anvil in a flash of blue. The impact like a crash of thunder. Split it in twain, the anvil falling in pieces with a bang.

  But it was done. Felix lifted the blade. The blue, jagged marks glowed along its length. The metal cooled even as he held it, returning to the shine of new forged steel. He let out a slow breath.

  It was done.

  “Gods above! My anvil!”

  Auria winced, the spell of awe broken. Felix turned in surprise. The blacksmith they had borrowed the forge from stood in the doorway. The man was a heavy fellow. His arms were thick from work and his belly from wine. He had been driven out of the forge fairly quickly during Felix’s efforts to re-forge his blade, but now that he was back, he was staring at the shattered anvil in horror.

  Felix glanced back at it. He blushed slightly. “Oh. Sorry. I ah… got a little carried away.”

  “My anvil…” the blacksmith moaned.

  Auria rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you don’t need it.”

  He whirled on her, his gut taking a moment to catch up as it jiggled back into place. “What are you talking about, elf? That’s my trade there! Do you have any bloody idea how long it’ll take to get a new bloody anvil? I have carts to fix you know!”

  Irritation flashed through her at the man’s tone. “I’m sure you’ll find a way,” Auria said sweetly. She pressed herself against the blacksmith, smiling down at his face. Her skin burned with radiant lust, her flesh an even deeper hue of purple than usual. The man swallowed, feeling the gentle curves of the elf’s figure through her sheer gown. He felt something hard in his hands, and glanced down at the gleam of gold pressed into his fingers.

  “… You know, I was thinking about getting a new one,” he said, quick in certain things.

  “Again, I really am sorry about the anvil,” Felix said.

  “He’s fine,” Auria said, taking Felix’s hand and pulling him out of the forge, her body vibrating still. The moment they were outside she spun him around, hurled her arms around his neck and pressed a bruising kiss to his lips.

  His body was still alive with magic. It crackled against her lips. Her quim burned. His whole body tasted of power. She broke the kiss, her tongue sliding along his chest.

  “A-ah, Auria,” Felix gasped. “We’re in public!”

  “I don’t care,” she gasped.

  “But-“

  She rolled her eyes. Humans. Grabbing him, she yanked him behind the forge. A narrow alley between buildings would do. In the shadows she stripped aside the filmy garments clinging to her gash and pulled down his pants, freeing his cock.

  Felix never stood a chance. Pulling herself up him, she plunged down onto his cock.

  “Ah!” the rune knight gasped.

  “Mmmmn!” Auria moaned as she felt him fill her. Without a moment’s hesitation she rode him, hips hammering into him with a frantic desire. “Yes,” she gasped. “Oh Felix. M-my Knight.”

  Felix grabbed her, pulled her close. She could feel his fear of being seen, and she relished it. His human prudishness thrilled her. Not at all like the lovers her mother had taken and kept, bound in silk and wine and perfume. He smelled of sweat and steel and hard work. She giggled, moaning as he thrust frantically into her, desperate to relieve her. Desperate to escape, but enthralled with her voluptuous frame. She hardly cared, but her body from the curl of her toes to the blushing tips of her pointed ears still shuddered from the feeling of the forge. Her cunt clenched. She gasped, pressing herself to his chest, and came with a cry.

  It took perhaps five minutes from beginning to end. With the word of a spell she cleaned them of the evidence, and then examined the blade.

  “So these are runes,” she said, admiring the glowing marks along the blade.

  “Simple ones,” Felix said, voice muffled as he pulled his shirt back on. “A rune of force and might. But with the steel and forge, it was the best I could manage.”

  She nodded, still
admiring the cool, jagged engravings. She brushed her thumb along it, a spark sending a jolt down her spine and into her core. Even being present, watching him work from beginning to end, she couldn’t begin to guess how he had done it. But the evidence stood before her.

  As did the man.

  She glanced at him as he pulled on his rude leather jacket. As he began to lace it shut she touched his hand, forestalling him. “Let’s head back to the inn,” she breathed, her body tingling with desire.

  Felix glanced down at her. “Why?”

  She cocked her head. Pushed her breasts against his chest. “Why do you think?”

  “Ah,” he said. “But, didn’t we just…”

  “We have time,” she said, hands lingering on his chest. “Besides, we need to rest up.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  She pulled herself up him again. “Give me a minute,” she said, grinning, and kissed him again.

  Chief of the Clan

  Socretha strode through the camp. The tents of the bands sprawled about the flatlands that the clan made their traditional home. Cruel totems of bone and hide decorated the outskirts. Yet how much had it changed in but a night, she marvelled. Tension was thick in the air as the orcs moved about. Though normally the meeting of the clan would be marked with drink and sport, there was a heavy, subdued feeling. Every orc stared at the chieftain’s great tent, as if expecting any moment the hide peak to erupt with the wizard who had come upon them so suddenly. Perhaps they were right to fear, Socretha thought.

  But today she would find out.

  The other night she had met with a number of the band leaders. Around a single bonfire, the orcs had talked in low guttural voices.

  She had listened to them, stroking Luan’s fur, the worg settled beside her and watching the others with fathomless golden eyes.

  “Never!” Borgron barked, slamming his fist against the ground. “Never will we follow a human!”

  “But he is powerful,” Morlick said, his voice a whisper. The shaman hunched in his tattered robes. A necklace of human skulls was strung around his neck, his crooked staff rising tall beside him. Wizened, his eyes gleamed from the darkness of his hood. “Powerful as the spellcasters of the elves, perhaps. It could be… useful to have such a one among us.”

  “But lead us?” Urick growled. The brute had ogre blood in him, his skin a coppery cast, and he towered over the other orcs. Nearly as large as Morgoroth had been, Urick was garbed in only a loincloth, his heavy hands locked before him in fists. “We let a magic one lead us?”

  Fargrim rattled the knucklebones in his hand. The pale orc tossed them, his still face painted with the crude semblance of a skull. “The bones say we follow him.”

  “I am not listening to your bones!” Borgron snapped.

  Fargrim raised his eyes, black as pitch. “You should. They are made of wise ones.”

  “That one’s a pigs’!” Borgron snapped.

  “Pigs are wise,” Fargrim said serenely.

  Socretha listened to them bicker and argue among themselves, keeping her own counsel. When at last she spoke, the other orcs fell silent.

  “We must know more.”

  They stared at her. Morlick coughed, a rasping sound. “What do you mean?”

  “We must know what he wants. If it will benefit the Clan, then perhaps he should lead us. He is powerful, but we are not slaves. We are Orcs of the Iron Tooth Clan.”

  “And,” Morlick had glanced about the others then “Who will ask?”

  She could see the image of Morgoroth’s death rise in the mind of each. She’d leaned forward into the light and the heat of the flames.

  “I will.”

  And so she was. She had their support in that, she knew. Borgron had been Morgoroth’s greatest ally. He may be troublesome, but like Morgoroth, a coward against anything but the certain, and the rest would follow her lead for their own reasons. No guards stood beside the doorway of the chieftain’s great tent. None dared to, she suspected. There had been strange sounds from the hall that night after their gathering had been so abruptly ended. Mutterings in the darkness and strange flashes of light flickering against the hide of the tent.

  She pushed aside the flap, entering, smelling a strange, sharp scent in the air. Something she could not name but raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The bonfire once more burned in the middle of the room. The shadows seemed deeper in its light. The air thicker.

  “What?”

  She spun at the voice. Tiberius sat nearby, reclining on Morgoroth’s former throne. The savage chair was far too big for him, but though he should have looked absurd upon its bone and hide seat, his presence seemed to fill the air about him. He was dressed in some ill-fitting pants, leaving his pale chest and its innumerable markings bare, their red glow like windows into some flickering hell beneath his skin. He slouched, head in a hand, lazily holding the rim of a goblet of wine with the other, the rubies of the stolen trinket glinting like the eyes of serpents in the weird light.

  “Tiberius-“

  “Lord Tiberius,” he said. “Or Master. Whichever.”

  He was tense. Annoyed. Maybe a bit drunk. She saw it at once, feeling his simmering red eyes on her. “…Lord Tiberius,” Socretha said, approaching the throne. Something clattered at her feet. She paused and glanced down, jerking back her foot from a pair of jewelled bracers and a glinting collar. The edges seemed slightly singed.

  “Have you seen my room?”

  Socretha blinked, looked up to the brooding sorcerer on his stolen throne. “The…the warchief’s chamber?”

  “Is that what it’s called? Because it smells like an abattoir.”

  Socretha had no idea what an abattoir was, but judging by his expression it was not something good.

  Tiberius rose. Socretha fell back a step, reflexively reaching for her axe. The sorcerer paid her little mind, walking down the steps from the raised platform, distractedly swishing the goblet in his hand. “I had a nice room once. Right near the dungeons too in case I got any... urges. In a forbidding keep with lots of pointy towers and spikes." He sighed longingly. "I miss spikes." He looked up towards the smoky ceiling. "...But now I'm here. Wherever here is. So. This did not really work as I expected,” he observed. “Things have gone maybe just a little sideways lately. I will admit that. I will admit that… maybe I didn’t quite account for everything.”

  Socretha’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, where the shadows seemed to move. Chattering as they seeped down to surround the warlock. His back was to her, the lines carved in his skin pulsating with the anger she could hear straining beneath his words.

  “That maybe, just maybe, I underestimated that… armoured twit! Felix!”

  She flinched at the pulse of heat. She saw a muscle twitch on his neck.

  “That maybe!” Tiberius continued, and she could fairly hear his teeth grind. “That maybe! Things have not gone… quite according to plan. But that’s fine. That’s good! We’re still alive. That’s a terrific thing. Because if we weren’t, things without shape but with many teeth would be gnawing on us right now. Wouldn’t they?”

  “No?” Socretha said.

  Tiberius slowly turned to her. Anything metal in the room crackled with red static. Socretha jerked her hand back from her axe handle as a finger of lightning shocked her. The sorcerer’s shoulders shook. His hands convulsed.

  He took a deep breath, stretched forward his hands. He jerked up, back straight as a rod. “So!” Tiberius said, wearing a twitching smile. “We’re going to adapt, aren’t we? We are going to overcome!”

  Socretha had listened to his tirade with baffled awe. She could feel the danger in his voice. The anger lurking just below the surface. But his energy did something more. She found herself enthralled to his strange tirade. How his words seemed to strike her very soul. Words of surety. Ambition. She stepped forward.

  “My lord?”

  “Yes?” he said, drawing out word in a hiss.

  Socretha took a slow,
deep breath. Now. It was her chance. “What would you have of the Iron Tooth clan?”

  “Have?” He leaned forward, cocking his head at her. “I thought I was clear last night. I appear to be lacking all the resources I had spent my life painstakingly gathering. And I appear to have lost my chance at ruling the Twin Kingdoms. So, it appears I’ll have to settle for ruling whatever is here. I’m not picky. So long as there’s crowns to melt and men to crush, I think I can work with it. Don’t you? Which reminds me!”

  She stiffened as Tiberius stabbed a finger at her, piercing her with his crimson eyes. “You,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  She straightened. “I am Socretha. Socretha Bladebreaker.”

  “Interesting name. How’d you get it?”

  “I break blades,” she said.

  Tiberius’s lip twitched. “How fitting. Well, Socretha,” he said, rising. “You appear to have a good head on your shoulders. Along with…” His eyes roamed over her sculpted form. “…Other assets. So tell me. Where’s the nearest castle?”

  Her brow knit. “Castle?”

  “Yes!” Tiberius barked, temper snapping. His skin burned. The shadows jumped. The flames of the bonfire spat. “Castle. Temple. Fortress. Something built on the bones and backs of slaves! Something with a brand. Something that says ‘Evil Sorcerer Abides Here! Enter at your own peril, fuckwits!’ Something with walls thicker than animal hide.”

  Socretha frowned. “Why?”

  “Why! Because we’re going to take it, that’s why!” Tiberius said, his hand curling into a fist. “Because I refuse to plot the downfall of kingdoms from a tent. Because I am gods! Damned! Worth it!”

  His words seemed to shoot through the orc. She caught her breath. “You…you want to take one?”

  “Yes! How quick of you. I’m going to take that, then the rest of the lands around us. I’m going to conquer every nation on this world. I’m going to crush every ounce of opposition!”

  The sorcerer seemed to grow as he spoke. The flames at his back cast him before her in shadows. “I’ll burn down their cities and make their daughters my slaves. I’ll build a throne from their bones! A new cup for everyday of the week from their skulls. I will carve the name Tiberius into their collective consciousness! I will haunt their children’s nightmares for generations to come! So pack your bags, Socretha. You and your clan are being dragged on a power trip.”