Shadow of the Mountain (Fantasy, M/M) (COMPLETE)

[Charmides]

[mention]Tsuhaya[/mention] and [mention]Varlance[/mention], can't thank you enough for sticking around! (And I'm sure I speak for many other writers here when I say, thanks for signing up to comment, Varlance; genuinely, it means a lot.)

Many apologies that I haven't been on the board much recently. This is gonna make me sound a little too whiney/embarrassingly young, but truthfully, I find myself in the midst of a whole bunch of midterm papers and projects right now, and time is a tad tight. Serves me right, for thinking I'd finish the rest of Shadow before Halloween! But, I'm definitely still puttering away at the next installment, and as soon as I have a couple free days to hole up somewhere and devote myself it, I'll send the next chunk your way. You folks all have saintly patience, and I'm super grateful. (Be still my heart, [mention]privateandrews[/mention], I love that idea -- maybe when everything is over, if I can commission someone to do a few illustrations and share them with the board, I'd be ecstatically happy. But that might be the most hubristic thing I've said in a while, so for now, I'll try to just focus on getting the thing done...)

[KidnappedCowboy]

Well ace those mid-terms and papers, [mention]Charmides[/mention]!

I cannot wait to see what happens to my favorite character, Elias. I hope he gets his revenge on Captain Kent!

[privateandrews]

You must concentrate on you. The story is for when you have time. .

[privateandrews]

I must also add. If you were to commission pictures to go with this epic and sooooooooooooo horny a tale , i would be more than happy to put some payment your way to get said pictures/drawings done. Hope all is going well with your studies .

[privateandrews]

Hope all is well with you. and a very happy Christmas to you.. Can i just add please please let me know a rough time scale when i might be able to read more of your epic tale.

[MountainMan_91]

Hey [mention]Charmides[/mention]

There are few words to do justice to the greatness that is this story.

It is an Epic - heroic and grand in scale and character!!

Once again I found myself wishing to be in Garrets place with the chair bondage, that was some masterful description. I enjoyed the various viewpoints - you gave us an update of each of the characters we have grown to love/hate. AT the same time moving the story forward.

I aspire to write like you do mate!

[Charmides]

PART 11

Garret slowly awakened, but for all he could tell, he might as well have still been asleep, trapped in a shapeless, spaceless void.

He could see nothing. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t hear. Very clearly, Garret felt that some soft, dense material had been wadded into his ears, reducing the world around him to an echo of itself. And he couldn’t move, not a finger, not an inch. Every part of him seemed welded to another part, from his hands to his feet. He stood upright, ramrod straight, his back pressed against something hard and cold, immense pressure encircling him, seemingly from everywhere.

His mouth was stuffed so full, his jaw was wedged open fully, that even moving his tongue was impossible. The soft, suffocating sensation of foreign packing plugged up his mouth, from the back of his throat to his lips. But even that wasn’t the end of it. A huge spherical ball was stuck into his stuffed mouth, squashing in the incredible packing and distending Garret’s lips, which could hardly fit around the ball. And over that, more tight layers, covering his entire mouth. Breathing was precarious. Every lungful of air that Garret drew through his nose was a hard-won victory.

“… Mmmbm…” Garret tried to make a noise, but he could hardly even hear himself, especially not with his ears plugged. Just a dull, distant vibration in his skull. He knew he should be making sound, but in this state, that became impossible.

He could feel one thing, though. One clear sensation, that baffled and bewildered him more than anything: The ground was swaying. Back and forth, as if he were standing on the needle of a metronome. It was a slow motion, and a subtle one, but unmistakable. The world heaved beneath him.

Garret fought back tears behind his thick, tight blindfold. He couldn’t even bring himself to put his thoughts into words. All that was left was the desperation, and the darkness. And the fervent wish for escape.

Garret struggled. He tried to. He tried to squirm. But he was held firm, blind, and silent, and the world heaved beneath him, heedless of his muffled cries.



***



The butterfly hovered over the heads of the city folk, drifting lazily along like a leaf on the wind. Hendrick followed at a distance.

Could no one else see it? Even passing through the market place, as crowded a section of Red Haven as there ever was, no one looked up at the iridescent butterfly, so out of place among the cobblestones and lamp posts of the city. Could only Hendrick see it?

If so, that’s okay, thought Hendrick. As long as I’m not crazy. And as long as it takes me where I need to go…

Of course, Hendrick still vaguely suspected that following this butterfly was an utterly absurd thing to do. Had he gone crazy? Maybe just a little? That wouldn’t be the strangest thing to have happened recently. But even if that were true, even if the butterfly were a mirage — it was all he had left to follow.

The journey was slow going, but then, there was no way to rush a butterfly. Hendrick followed as inconspicuously as he could, keeping his head low, hood over his face, avoiding eye contact, staying at least a full block away from any guards that he happened to notice in the corner of his eye.The city surged around him like a stream, flowing in every direction, and Hendrick walked against it, slow and sure.

As he walked, a new thought came to him, so strong that it nearly buckled his knees:

I want to go home.

Only a few days had gone by since Hendrick had slept in his own bed, but now, that bed seemed a world away. If only he could go home. With Garret. With Elias. If only everything could be exactly as it was before. Even with the heartache, even with the self-doubt. Hendrick could bear that. If only he could go home again.

Hendrick’s eyes fixed on the butterfly like a drowning man in the ocean, spying a raft over a far-off wave. And step by step, he followed.



***



Officer Kent had given his men very detailed descriptions of his runaway prisoners. And all of them were on high alert, and told to be careful; they were known to be slippery. If they should encounter these suspects, they should strike at a moment when escape is impossible.

This was on the mind of the guard who saw Hendrick, walking through the forest and tents and stalls in the square. The red hair, poking out from under the suspicious hood, the age, the pale skin, the height; this may be the man Kent was speaking of.

Never talking his eyes of the suspect, this guard wandered over to another guard, who’d been scheduled to the same watch. They whispered to each other for a moment. Then, as casually as they could, they fell in step behind Hendrick, keeping safe distance, and staring at the back of his head with all the mercy in the eye of a hawk.



***



Amadi had stopped crying a long time ago.

His initial bondage had been spirit-breaking enough; bound and gagged with old scraps of clothes, torn off of neighboring clothes-lines, and then, having it all reinforced by rope. And then, to be fondled and petted and squeezed and molested by his captor, to have to fight back his own involuntary pleasure — and then finally, to land in his current predicament, from which he could see no escape. Not down here, in the belly of the ship.

After Thomas had abandoned the empty, decrepit inn where he’d been hiding his “collection,” he’d taken Amadi and the others (binding them anew, and trapping them in coffins again for transport) to Copper River, running through the center of the city. The river also ran through more desolate parts of town, where nearby buildings were left to crumble, out of sight and forgotten. But not just buildings. Thomas had found a ship.

This ship, barely still worthy of floating on the placid river surface, was a world away from the hustle and bustle of Red Haven proper. An abandoned relic from some merchant who had clearly found better things to do with his time than ship objects in and out of this viper’s nest of a city. Thomas had no problem carting his collection on board, and restraining them as he pleased.

What most stood out in Amadi’s memory was the darkness of the coffin; the sudden burst of gray light when Thomas had ripped off the lid, and pulled him and out of it; and, the binding that followed.

Amadi had been forced belowdecks, and now he sat there, crammed into a shape resembling a ball. His legs and feet, bound together copiously with rope. His knees bent, and his calves tied to his thighs. Then, his thighs pushed up against his chest, and tied around his back. Then his hands, tied behind him, and even his elbows, bound so close they were almost touching. His arms had then been secured to his back with ropes wrapped all around his crumpled, compacted body. And finally, a leather collar had been fitted around his neck, secured to a chain that led to an iron ring in the wall. Amadi had never felt more like an object; he had never felt so small.

His gag was as excessive as ever. Thomas had forced in as much cloth as he could, which in Amadi’s case, ended up being three socks, one stuffed into each cheek, and a third one plunged into the center. It would have nearly burst from his mouth, if Thomas hadn’t bound the stuffing between his broad lips with loop after loop of rope, binding over Amadi’s mouth so thickly and so tightly that it became a massive cleave gag, forcing his jaws open and distending his cheeks cruelly over the top from the tightness. The rough hemp collected his tears as they fell down his face. But now, there were no more tears left to cry. All that was left was the numb terror, as Amadi wondered what would become of him.

And shame. The greatest shame of all stood only ten feet or so away from Amadi — his old comrade, and his fellow traveler from the Glass Islands, Makaio. He stood in the center of the room, which gently shifted and creaked as the river undulated below them. Makaio was dressed the same way Amadi was; stripped down to a flimsy pair of white briefs, hardly enough to contain their packages, or to cover them from behind. But instead of being bound into a ball, Makaio’s back had been pressed up against a wooden column running from the floor to the ceiling. His hands had been bound together in front of him, with the same rope that was biting into Amadi, and then those bound hands were hoisted over his head, and bound to the column, leaving his thick arms stretched skyward. The rest of his body had been encased with rope, fixing him inescapably to the pole from ankles to shoulders. Even his bare feet had been lashed together with rope, down to his big toes, melded into one with twine. A heavy black blindfold was fitted over his eyes, leaving him to thrash in solitary darkness.

Amadi had been a witness, when Thomas reinforced Makaio’s gag. It had already been excruciating; a huge leather ball gag plugging up his lips, covered with a very thin leather panel, stretched so tight you could see the outline of Makaio’s lips, helplessly wrapped around the ball. But Makaio had always been fighter. Growing up together, Amadi had seen that in Makaio every day; the pride of his village, the paradigm of a young, honorable warrior. And that warrior spirit could not be extinguished; as long as he had lungs to breathe with, he would fight. Just as he had fought all through his captivity, struggling and crying out no matter how tight the restraints, or how muffling the gag. Thomas had noticed this. After Makaio had been bound to the pole, Amadi watched as Thomas had unbuckled the leather panel, revealing the massive ball beneath; then, he’d removed the ball, and Makaio drew in a deep breath, to let out a fearsome war cry that Amadi knew too well — but before he could release it, Thomas stuffed a wad of cloth into Makiao’s mouth. Amadi recognized with horror and shame that it was a pair of briefs, not unlike the one he’d been forced to wear, that Thomas had balled up and crammed into Makiao’s mouth (maybe even two, judging by the size of the bulge). But the greatest humiliation was when the ball gag and the leather panel were strapped right back into his mouth. Once Thomas had tightened the leather to his satisfaction, the only visible difference in Makiao was a slightly greater bulge in his cheeks, but Amadi knew the added cruelty beneath.

And there, Thomas had left them. There were others, too, bound with them under the ship deck, but Amadi was too sickened and exhausted to watch as Thomas finished their bonds. The two slavers Thomas had captured had been stuffed into a long brown sack together, only their four bare feet wriggling feebly out of the tied-off opening. Judging by the muffled grunts, Amadi was certain Thomas hadn’t spared them excruciating gags, any more than he had spared anyone else. The sack had then been wrapped in rope, and hung from the ceiling, so that the two ex-slavers bucked around in midair, heads down, feet flailing toward the ceiling.

Then there was the other one — Amadi had gathered that his name was Taylor — that Thomas had roped into a wooden chair, gagged with two socks and a huge knotted scarf, thrust a hood over his head, and jammed into a small nearby closet. He had been attired like the rest of them, stripped down and forced into revealing undergarments; but for Taylor, Thomas had taken more sadistic care. He had bound Taylor’s package through his underwear, with what looked to be near-painful tightness, trapping Taylor’s member and jewels into a small, tight pouch of fabric, his cock throbbing against the constraint. And then, another length of twine was used to bisect the packaged, sectioning off his balls and leaving even less room for his straining cock. Thomas had smirked as he closed the closet door on Taylor and locked it, listening to his gagged, pained cries of forced arousal.

Amadi consoled himself; at least he’d been spared that fate. For now.

Now Thomas was gone. How long, Amadi couldn’t say. All he could do was concentrate on breathing, and watch sadly as Makaio struggled in his bindings, his body shimmering with sweat in the dim light. Amadi knew he would never give up for good. He would struggle for a time, try to yell, to cry out in threatening tones that just came out as pathetic whimpers. Then for a short time he would stop, to regain his strength. Then, he would start again.

Did I really think I could save him? thought Amadi. If this world was too much for Makaio — too much for the real warrior — what chance did I think I had?

Amadi closed his eyes tight, and clenched his fists in anger.

As he did, he felt his fingers brush something on the floor. Something small and cold.

“… Gmmbph?”

Amadi’s body went still. Slowly, he extended his fingers again. There. A small, cold prick. Something sharp and metal…

A nail. A nail was sticking out of the floor in this corpse of a ship. Something Thomas hadn’t noticed.

With a grunt of effort, Amadi tried to shift his ball-tied form backwards, slipping a fraction of an inch at a time. In a few moments, his hands were directly above the nail. And so were his wrist bindings.

Amadi felt his heart beat faster, but willed it slower. This might not work. He might be laboring under false hope.

But if this was going to succeed — if there was still a chance for Amadi to do what he came to Red Haven to do — then he had best get to work.

This was bound to be a long, tricky process…



***



Elias sat by the small campfire, roasting foraged mushrooms on a sharp stick. He tried to keep calm, to stay trained on the fire, to let its flickering tongues soothe him. But there was so little he could do.

He was senior to Garret and Hendrick, maybe by a little over ten years. It was just old enough that Elias felt as if he’d watched the two of them grow up. Seen them change from children, to young men, to men. And always, whether he was teaching Hendrick the art of leather working, or advising Garret on what sort of sword best suited his physique and fighting style, he’d been happy to help them. More than that. Proud to help them. Proud to be kind.

Now, the best he could do for the both of them was to get out of their way. In each of their own ways, they had outpaced him. Maybe even outgrown him.

Elias sighed at the fire, running a hand through his hair, speckled lightly with grey before its time. He’d often wondered about that. Why the gray, before he had even hit thirty-five? Surely, it was just a quirk of nature, outside of his control. It pained Elias greatly, to even consider that maybe, there were some things that he cared about too much.

The mushrooms sizzled quietly over the pops and hisses of the fire. Elias plucked one off of his stick and chewed solemnly.

He was so lost in thought, he hardly even noticed the stranger who entered the clearing, until he’d sat down on the opposite side of the fire.

Elias froze mid-chew. His eyes locked onto the man’s chain-link shirt; the helmet he held under one arm, with visor that went down over the face; the sword at his belt; and the insignia of Red Haven emblazoned on his chest.

The guard gave Elias a small wave and a half-smile. His strong, square face was framed by curly black hair, and a short black beard. “Stranger,” said the guard.

Elias nodded, slowly beginning to chew again. He swallowed a mushroom. “Stranger,” he replied.

Calm, Elias. Calm. I’d be in captivity right now if this guard knew who I was.

Elias was shaken to realize that the guard had tied up his horse to a nearby tree, all while Elias had been lost in thought.

The guard licked his lips. “Smells great. Makes for a nice break from my rounds, too — stopping by, to lay my eyes on a snack.”

Idiot. Offer him food. “Please, help yourself. I imagine you work very hard.” He passed his stick of roasted mushrooms to the guard, who managed to take it without hardly taking his eyes off Elias.

The guard plucked off a mushroom and popped it into his mouth. “So,” he said, mid-chew, “you don’t seem like you’re from around here.”

“I suppose it doesn’t. What gives you that impression?”

“Well, I’ve never seen you before. I’m sure I would have remembered you.”

Elias was about to gently suggest that since Red Haven was a big city, this guard couldn’t possibly know everyone — but then, he noticed more clearly the intent way the guard stared into his eyes, and the way he licked his lips just a little more frequently than might be normal.

Oh.

Elias cleared his throat, hoping to cover up the sudden rush of red that lit up his face. “Well,” said Elias, “it’s a pleasure to meet you. My… my name is Holbrook.”

The guard nodded. “Rhylim. The pleasure’s mine.”

The guard, Rhylim, stood up, and gestured to an empty space next to Elias, on the log he sat on. “May I join you?”

It wasn’t until Rhylim stood up that the situation blew open in Elias's mind with explosive clarity. Surely, this guard was out looking for Elias and Hendrick. He must have received descriptions of both of them. And now, he stumbles on a campfire, where a man of the suspect’s description sits munching mushrooms. Now, since Rhylim and Elias were of similar height and build, a physical fight might be a toss-up. So, it would probably be a better idea to lull Elias into a false sense of security, and then, spring the trap.

After all, what would Kent be sure to tell his subordinates about Elias? That he was gullible. That he was simple-minded. That with some low cunning, you could ensnare him as easily as a fish in a net.

Elias had been taken for a fool before. More times than he liked to remember. But would he let it happen again? Was he so trusting, that any pretty face or kindly word could sway him from the powers of reason?

Well, it is a very pretty face, a tiny voice piped up in Elias’s mind before he was able to silence it.

Elias glanced at the empty seat beside him, and back to the guard. Then, he gave the guard a very long, obvious look, from his toes to his eyes, and licked his lips himself.


“I could always use some company,” he said, leaning back, his muscled chest pressing noticeably against his shirt.

Rhylim laughed and winked. “Just what I like to hear,” he said, and walked over to Elias’s side of the fire.

As he did, Elias reached toward the fire, poking it with a stick. The log groaned under him and shifted an inch or two as Rhylim sat next to him.

“So,” said, Rhylim as he placed one hand gently on the back of Elias’s neck. “Do you want to know how you can help me make the most of this little break?”

Elis chuckled, still reaching toward the fire. “That depends,” he said. “How long do you have, until you —”

The hand on Elias’s neck turned hard and cold as a talon, and Elias dropped the stick and wrapped his hand around the grapefruit-sized rock he’d been reaching for. Rhylim swung his gauntleted fist at Elias’s face, clearly hoping for a quick knockout-blow, but Elias reared back and deflected it with the stone, the metal clanging off the rock as the gauntlet veered past Elias’s neck.

While the element of surprise was still on Elias’s side, he brought one of his legs between him and the guard, planted it on his chest, and shoved for all he was worth, sending the two men off the log, tumbling away from each other. He knew he only had a few moments to spare; Elias scrambled to his feet, and bolted for his own horse, tied up nearby. He had no sword; this was the horse he’d stolen (Commandeered, Elias mentally nudged himself) from the streets of Red Haven, and the original horse and sword he’d brought to the city were long lost.

But upon later inspection, Elias had found something else attached to the saddle. A whip.

Elias pulled the whip from where it hung, and his horse whinnied as it unspooled like a six-foot snake. He whirled back around.

By this time, the armored Rhylim had found time to get over his shock, clamber back onto his feet, and draw his sword. The silver blade smiled dangerously in the light, and Rhylim smiled with it, just before fitting his helmet over his head.

Rhylim grinned like a jackal, then pulled down his helmet’s visor. “It’s a shame,” he rasped. “You are easy on the eyes, escapee. But who knows — when I bring you back to Kent, he might just let me have my way with you all the same.”

Elias glowered at his adversary, and gave his whip a practice throw, pulling it back and flinging it in Rhylim’s direction. CRACK — the noise shot through the woods around them, birds twittering in alarm and fleeing the nearby trees. Rhylim flinched. Barely.

The two circled one another. I can win this, Elias thought. All I need is an opening… some deft whip-work… and a little bit of luck.

Unfortunately, as of late, luck had not been on Elias’s side.



***



The moment Amadi’s wrists broke free, he began to sob with joy. He’d never heard happy muffled sounds from behind a gag before, but that was exactly what he let loose as he slowly began undoing the rest of the knots around his body.

Not only was the nail well positioned to carve through the ropes holding Amadi’s wrists, but once that was done, with a little bit of prying, Amadi was able to pull it cleanly out of the floor, making the process of releasing himself immensely easier. It wasn’t exactly the same as having a knife, but as a device to pick at knots, it was miraculously useful.

Soon enough, Amadi unwound the rope from his mouth, letting it gather up on the ground in a coil.

“Mmmph…. hmmm… MPHAH!” Amazed grunted, as one by one he drew out the three socks that had been packing up his mouth. Seeing them together in a heap on the floor, he was taken aback at how much space must really exist behind his lips.

His mouth was dry as parchment. He licked his lips and rubbed his face, trying to get some feeling to return to his cheeks. Slowly but surely, he felt blood returning to the areas where the rope had been biting. It was a dizzying, almost euphoric experience.

The final item restraining him remained. The leather collar around Amadi’s neck, that chained him to the wall. Amadi tugged on the chain — there was no forcing it out. He spent a few precious, futile minutes trying to use his nail to pick that lock that joined his chain-leash to the wall — but he had no idea how to pick a lock, and simply wiggling his nail around in the keyhole was producing no tangible results whatsoever.

Just before Amadi started to slide back into despair, he had another idea. He tentatively held the nail up to his collar, and tried cutting through the leather. It was tough, but if Amadi had enough time, he just might be able to cut through. The question was, did he have enough time?

He investigated the collar with his fingers, feeling the smooth leather, hoping to find anything worth exploiting. Any imperfection, any weakness. His escape had been charmed so far. Did Amadi truly dare hope for another answer to an impossible problem?

There. A long, thin line under Amadi’s finger, running from the bottom to the top of the collar. It was a seam. A spot where the leather was joined snugly by some very tight stitching.

Amadi closed his eyes, and sent up a prayer to his ancestors. Would the nail be enough to break through the stitching?

Within five minutes, the collar fell to Amadi’s feet. He was free.

In his first moment of complete freedom, Amadi didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d never felt like this. Even here, in the dark bowels of this ship, he felt as if the sun had broken through a storm cloud. He stretched his arms up toward the ceiling — oh, how beautiful that felt. He laughed. Laughter! When was the last time he’d been able to laugh, or had any reason to? A hundred years ago. A millennia.

His limbs were shaky and weak, from so many countless hours of grueling bondage, but he was the master of his own body. He turned to Makaio.

He walked up to the stronger, taller bound young man where he stood, bound against the pole in the center of the room. Makaio was hanging imply against the ropes, gathering strength for another bout of struggling. Amadi didn’t know where to begin.

So, he stepped up to Makaio, and placed both hands on his chest.

Makaio’s head shot up, and he immediately began thrashing uselessly in his bonds.

“Shh, shh, Makaio” said Amadi, never lifting his hands from Makaio’s chest. “It’s me, it’s Amadi. Makaio…”

Makaio stopped struggling, his body tense and taut. “Gmm?” He mumbled in shock. How long had it been, Amadi wondered, since Makaio had heard anyone speak his name?

Amadi spoke in the Old Tongue of the Glass Islands,

“Brother Makaio. It is I, Brother Amadi. Be calm and still. Salvation is near.”

Amadi reached up, and pulled the blindfold off of Makaio’s face. Makaio blinked, adjusting to the the dim light, until his shocked eyes settled on Amadi’s, neither of them quite able to believe what was happening.

Amadi unbuckled the leather panel gag and peeled it off; then, unbuckled the leather ball gag, carefully pulling it from Makaio’s stuffed lips; then finally, removed the two soaked pairs of briefs that had been plugging up his mouth from throat to teeth.

As soon as the stuffing fell from his mouth, Makaio took in great greedy gulps of air, breathing easier than he’d been able to for many, many days. He finally licked his dry lips and looked down at Amadi; a smaller young man, who’d never been the cleverest, or the strongest, or the most skilled warrior. Yet here he was, rescuing Makaio from the greatest peril he’d ever been in.

Makaio, too, decided to speak in the Old Tongue.

“Today,” said Makaio, in a voice weak but insistent, “you cover yourself in honor.”

The words nearly stopped Amadi’s heart. Fighting back tears of pride and relief, he began untying the rest of Makaio’s bonds.



***



Two guards trudged through the woods outside the city walls, scouring the underbrush near the road.

“Kent might at least have given us some horses,” said one, a shorter, more grizzled man named George. “These boots are too small, and I can feel a blister starting up —”

“Well,” said the other, Wessel, taller, clean shaven with black hair pulled into a ponytail, “I guess Kent doesn’t care about your blisters. And neither do I, so please never speak of them again, or I won’t be able to eat tonight.”

George opened his mouth to say something indignant and scathing, but through some nearby trees a voice called, “Gentlemen! Looking for this sack of meat?”

The guards turned. A third, helmeted guard materialized out of the thicket, leading a horse by the nose. And sitting in the horse’s saddle was a sight that caught George and Wessel rather by surprise.

A man sat in the saddle, tied in place with a generous amount of rope. He had been stripped to nothing but a pair of tight brown pants, his bare feet wriggling furiously where they’d been tied into the stirrups. His legs and hips were bound to the saddle, anchoring him in place, while his wrists were tied to his hips, so that his arms were stuck straight down, pinned to his body. This was made even more secure by the rope wrapping around the man’s finely honed abdominal muscles, plus ropes wound tightly above and below his thick bare chest, which strained and bulged against the rope as the bound man flopped and squirmed. He was clearly capable of no more than grunts, though the exact manner of gagging wasn’t immediately apparent — a black hood had been pulled over his face, turning his whole head into nothing but a black parcel.

“Here’s your Elias,” said the helmeted guard. “Guess I beat you to him, didn’t I?”

George whistled, recognizing Rhylim by his swagger. He smiled and took a slow walk around the horse, admiring the rope work. “What a great catch! Maybe this means we can end our shift early…”

“Hold on,” said Wessel. “This is Elias, right? There was another one, the scrawny red-head. Where is he?”

“Gone,” said Rhylim. “No idea where, and Mr. Brawn-Over-Brain here isn’t talking. I figure if we take him back to the dungeons with us, we may be able to persuade him.”

“Sounds good to me,” said George, already turning and starting back toward the city gate.

“Now wait a minute!” said Wessel. “Kent was clear. Find them both if we can. Yes, congrats on finding the big one, but I don’t want to tell the boss we gave up with the job only half-done.”

“Hm.” Rhylim’s eyes glittered behind his visor. “Well, I suppose one of us could stay out here and look, and the other two can bring Elias back to the city.”

“I nominate you for prisoner-catching,” said George, with zero hesitation. “Clearly you’ve got the magic touch, and I think I just felt my blister burst.”

“First of all, disgusting,” said Wessel, “and second — I have to agree. You wouldn’t mind if we make this delivery for you, would you, Rhylim?”

Rhylim sighed behind his visor. “Friends. It wasn’t easy subduing this creature. Granted, all I had to do was flirt with him to lure him in. But after I made my move to bean him, he actually thought that he could beat me and my sword with a whip. A whip! It was easy to land a knock-out blow with the flat of my blade, but the bondage, that was the tough part. You ever try to hoist this much meat into a saddle before?”

Rhylim reached up and grabbed one of the bound man’s prominent, bound pecs, eliciting a new flurry of useless struggling and garbled complaints.

“Not easy,” Rhylim continued, chuckling and giving the ample, muscular chest a pat. “But in the end, I gagged him with his own socks, and wrapped that whip of his through his teeth, to keep that maw permanently stuffed. In short, gentleman, I’ve had a long morning. Find it in your hearts to give me a day off, just this once.”

George stroked his chin with mock-pensiveness. “A vote?” he said.

“A vote,” Wessel echoed.

“All in favor of Rhylim staying out here and continuing his thrilling hunt, while Wessel and I make the laborious, tedious journey back to Kent?”

Wessel and George’s hands shot up. Rhylim sighed, and offered the horse’s reigns to Wessel.

“Treat him well,” said Rhylim, giving the side of the bound man’s ass a playful slap where it bulged out of the saddle. “Him and I are due for some alone time later.”

Wessel and George laughed good-naturedly, and with that, they were off through the woods once more, this time towing a horse that carried an unhappy, feebly squirming, indignantly numbing passenger. Within moments, the two guards, the horse, and the captive were gone, swallowed by the trees.

Elias took off Rhylim’s helmet, and let out a long sigh of relief.

That should throw them off my trail for a while, thought Elias. Now all he had to do was find a place where he could watch the road in safety, and trust that sometime soon, Hendrick would return with Garret.

Elias tossed the helmet into some nearby thorn-bushes, and began peeling off Rhylim’s various bits of armor, which, of course, he’d stripped off of Rhylim’s unconscious body after Eli had managed to wrestle him to the ground and choke him with the whip.

Poor Rhylim, thought Elias with a gentle but satisfied smile. But those two guards! I pity them most of all. They should be in for an earful from Kent, when they finally take that hood off their captive and realize that it’s Rhylim, roped up on that horse, mouth packed with socks and cleave-gagged with a leather whip.

They really ought not to be so trusting.



***



Once Makaio was completely untied, his immediate instinct was to rush around the room, searching for a weapon.

“We lie in wait,” he said, eventually discovering a heavy oar hidden behind a crate in the corner. “And when the bald devil returns, we repay his cruelty with death.”

But Amadi could see that Makaio, though a seasoned young warrior and an admirable specimen, had been left severely weakened by his long weeks in bondage, first at the hands of Master Borhim, and then Thomas. Even Amadi, who at least had briefly escaped and found some precious hours of freedom with Garret and his company, could feel the toll these weeks had taken on him. His limbs obeyed him, but without the strength or the surety they should have. After being freed, his body felt only half restored; the other half was gelatin. And that wasn’t even to mention the fact that they’d had minimal food and water for their entire ordeal.

But Thomas was a monster in his prime.

As Makaio brandished his oar and looked hopefully at Amadi, Amadi laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Makaio… I think it’s time to go home.”

“Yes. And we will do so with our honor fully restored.”

“Your arms…”

“Hm?” Makaio looked down. His arms were trembling, holding the oar, tendons shivering under his skin. He seemed genuinely surprised.

“There’s no honor in useless dying,” Amadi said softly. “You know this. And if you were to fall… I could never return home. Even if I could escape on my own — I would never show my face in the village again. Not without you by my side.”

Makaio’s eyes never strayed from his hands, gripping the oar so tightly. It was a long, heavy piece of wood, at least six feet in length.

He stepped away from Amadi, and gave the oar a few curious swings. Its arc was slow and labored. He lunged, pressing it forward in a sharp thrust — then hissed in pain, grasping his shoulder as if he’d pulled something.

Amadi watch his friend’s shoulders slowly slump. Makaio regarded the length of wood with darkening, regretful eyes.

The oar clattered to the ground, and Makaio turned back to Amadi.

“If I could fight, I would,” he said. “Don’t think me a coward. Please.”

Amadi pressed an affirming hand onto Makaio’s chest. “No, Makaio. You’re the strongest person I know.”

Makaio clasped his hand over Amadi’s, closed his eyes, and breathed. They stayed that way for a time.

Finally, they made their plans for departure. Some searching of the ship yielded a few rags of clothing. Not much, but it was better than walking through Red Haven bare-skinned.

And there was one more thing that needed doing. Amadi led Makaio to the closet where Taylor had been stored.

He opened the door, and there Taylor sat, still bound in his chair, stripped down to his briefs and brutally crotch tied. To Amadi’s surprise, Taylor seemed to be both sobbing into the gag behind his hood, and simultaneously gently grinding into his crotch tie, which bound his package into tight cloth pocket, bisecting his balls. The tip of his cock had just barely escaped over the top of his briefs, angrily red and weeping.

Makiao shook his head and clucked his tongue. “These Valians,” he murmured. “What strange pleasures they have.”

Together, the two of them unhooded Taylor, whose half-lidded eyes looked up at them in bewilderment, then removed the knotted cleave gag and the two socks from his mouth, and finally made quick work of untying him from the chair.

Taylor cried out in pain as the thin ropes around his cock and balls were untied, the area being supremely sensitive. He gingerly pulled the top of his briefs over his still-throbbing shaft, and nodded shakily at his two saviors. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“And what about them?” Makaio asked Amadi, pointing to the suspended sack hanging elsewhere in the room, with two bound pairs of feet jutting out the top.

“Borhim’s men,” said Amadi. And while Amadi certainly saw the fire of vengeance burning in Makaio’s faith, they both knew it was against their code of honor to harm the defenseless. But perhaps fate had given them a better solution. So instead, they decided to leave the slavers — the former slavers — in the hands of their new captor. And may their knots never loosen.

They found some more raggedy clothes for Taylor, and were prepared to be off. As they climbed up onto the ship deck, nearly blinded by the light of day (bizarre and purple though it was), Amadi and Makaio supported Taylor from both sides as they made their way onto the dock, then onto the nearest street.

Garret, Amadi thought. Elias. Hendrick. It’s unlikely I’ll ever see you again. Be safe, my friends. Get out of this city. And may you one day find peace.

“We’ll bring Taylor to his home,” said Amadi. “And then, we’ll take our most important steps.”

“What steps are those?” asked Makaio.

Despite the pain and the fatigue and the uncertainty of all things, Amadi smiled.

“The first steps,” he said, “of our homeward journey.”



***



There were too many pieces on the board for Lord Castero’s liking. Too much uncertainty, not enough security. Luckily, the easiest way to win a game was to toss the board into a fire.

The previous night had been a fruitful one for Castero. After a late-night visit with the High Commander of Red Haven’s military forces — a category under which all guards and patrols fell — Castero’s problems began to easily drop away, like overripe apples eager for the rot of the earth.

The Ritzak problem had been… dealt with. Now, it was time to deal with the Kent problem.

The streets were crowded as Castero made his way to the barracks, his dark velvet-green robe flapping silently at his ankles. A few merchants who recognized the tall young bachelor greeted him with small bows, and their most winning smiles, which Castero returned with bemused nods.

To inherit money, Castero thought, is to inherit the world.

The guards at the barracks quickly showed him into Kent’s office, where Castero sat and waited, drumming his long white fingers on his knee.

After a short time waiting — but still longer than Castero found acceptable — Kent entered, long cape trailing from the shoulders of his armor. “My Lord,” said Kent.

“Thank you for making the time,” said Castero with a smile. He did not stand. “I hope I’m not catching you… indisposed?”

Kent did seem a bit frazzled. Even more so than he had been the previous night. His breathing was ragged, and his face was pale, shining with a glaze of cold sweat. “Oh, no,” he said, “things continue apace. Our search for the escaped prisoners continues.”

“And how has that been going?”

Kent sat behind his desk. “It goes… well, we continue searching. We had a bit of a false alarm this morning.”

“Oh?”


“It seems one of my guards ran into Elias in the woods, and Elias sent him back to us in an — unfortunate state. But rest assured, that bird-brain and his companions are being disciplined as we speak, for letting that dumb lug slip through their fingers.”

“I’m sure you’re doing the best you can.”

“At least now we have a rough idea of where to look in the forest. Maybe he and the red-head will flee. Remove themselves from the equation for us. In a way, that would be best, don’t you think?”

Castero found Kent’s hopeful, half-pleading tone as funny as it was pathetic. He’s incompetent, thought Castero, nodding reassuringly at Kent. He thinks all this will away in a puff of smoke, and he can continue accepting my bribes and the bribes of the city’s slavers in perpetuity. It’s almost sweet.

“I think,” said Castero, “that I have an even better idea. Wouldn’t it be nice, if we were able to capture the small one? The red-head that Elias rode away with?”

Kent paused, distant hope welling up in his eyes. “That would be nice, indeed.”

“In that case, noble Kent,” said Castero with a grin, “would you like to join me, for a little interrogation?”

Kent shot to his feet, with a bark of triumphant laughter. “At last! Some good news! Where did you find him?”

“Oh, wandering the streets. He must have gotten separated from his protector. I have him stored away quite nicely in my home. Perhaps he can tell us where he and his friend were planning to go.”

The walk back to Castro’s home was a quick one; Kent’s long strides and obvious enthusiasm made for a break-neck pace. Castero kept up a few feet behind him, until finally they arrived back at Castro’s abode; the butler let them in the back door.

The house was dark and quiet. Castero led Kent upstairs.

“I didn’t want to store him with my leisure-prisoners,” said Castero as they ascended. “Terrible to mix business and pleasure. You understand.”

“Yes, yes,” said Castero, with a wave of his hand.

They reached the landing and rounded a corner. Castero gestured to a door at the end of a short hallway.

“After you,” said Castero. “I’m sure you and this young man have some choice words to exchange.”

Kent dusted off the front of his armor, a steely look in his eye, opened the door and walked in. A funny thing — all it took was a tiny turn in fortune for the better, and already, Kent was beginning to get his old confidence back.

The room was dark, shutters drawn over the window. In a dark corner of the room, there sat a chair, which creaked and shivered in protest as the bound man strapped into it bucked and writhed. He had been forced into a strait-jacket, his torso bound with rope to the back of the chair. Each ankle tied with ample rope to a chair leg, and the head was covered with a hood.

“Blgrmph! Pmph-GRMM!” mumbled the figure, as Kent stalked up to him.

“Well, well,” said Kent. “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. My name is Officer Kent. You and I have a mutual friend. I look forward to you telling us everything you know about him. In the meantime, we’ll begin with something simple. I’d very much like to learn your name.” Kent reached over and whipped the hood off the figure’s head —

Ritzak. It was Ritzak. Even in the dim, shuttered light, Kent could see that it was Ritzak.

He sat there with a leather blindfold on under the hood, and a leather ball gag crammed into his mouth, lips distended and sucking helplessly on the huge foreign object.

“Lrmm-hmph!” Ritzak murmured feverishly, spittle from the gag beginning to drip down his chin. “GMPH!”

Kent realized what was happening too late. BAM — the room flooded with light as someone behind Kent tore the shutters from the window and threw them to the floor. Kent whirled around.

And was met with six uniformed guards, who’d been hiding in the darkness of the room, led by a squat, burly, tough-as-granite man, with a graying mustache and a long, blood-red cape trailing his armor. Kent knew this man. Yorlon Mox. High Commander of the city's military.

“Officer Kent,” rumbled Mox. “I hereby place you under arrest, for bribery, abetting the slave trade, and flagrant corruption.”

Kent sputtered. Blood drained from his face. “N-no! High Commander! There’s been a misunderstanding! I’m not — this isn’t — it’s Castero! Castero’s the one you want, go look in his basement, he’s been trading with flesh-peddlers for years! It’s him! HIM!”

Kent pointed with a violently shaking finger at Lord Castero, who lounged casually in the doorway.

“Really, Kent,” said Castero, his face and his smile hidden in a block of shadow. “Don’t be absurd. I called these gentleman here to expose all your crimes. And that is exactly what they’re here to do.”

As Kent’s wild, manic eyes scanned the guards glaring at him, hoping to find a way out, Castero couldn’t help but think once again, Ah, yes. To inherit money… Whatever would I do without it?

Kent let out an anguished cry of defeat as the guards rushed toward him, pinning him the floor. Castero gently let himself out, closing the door softly behind him. He’d paid these men well for their services and their discretion. He certainly didn’t want to get in the way of their work.



***



The crowds thinned as the butterfly slowly flitted forward, and Hendrick followed, until at last the homes and shops and stalls fell away entirely, leaving only an expanse of broken-down buildings and neglected roads.

It was mid-afternoon by now, the sun baking the dusty streets. Hendrick wondered how much longer it would take, or where he was going. He thought that he knew where this butterfly was taking him — or at least, to whom it was taking him — but he dared not hope too much. He was in the hands of nature, now. There was nothing else to be done about it.

And then, Hendrick began to hear a noise; a soft, low thrumming sound. He rounded a bend, and the source became clear. A river running through the city.

The butterfly danced along the edge. The water ran between two raised walls that split the city, like a canal, but the walls were low enough so that it could be fitted with docks, and ships could be tied to them. And sure enough, the butterfly danced in the air down a dock, and up the gangway of a moderately sized merchant ship.

The ship seemed barely seaworthy, tilting alarmingly as the river gently hummed beneath it. But still, this is where the butterfly had led Hendrick. This was the end of the journey.

Hendrick went down the dock, and was about to put his foot on the gangway — then stopped.

If this is where Garret is… maybe he’s not alone. Could I be walking into a trap?

An enormous wariness had built up in Hendrick over the past several days. Everywhere he looked, he imagined malevolent eyes, hungry grins, and mounds of rope hidden just out of sight.

But somehow, he trusted the butterfly, with its multicolored wings shimmering in the sunlight. He trusted his guide.

Hendrick made his way up the gangway.

“Hello?” said Hendrick, stepping onto the deck. He knew that there was no one else around, but still, he hardly dare to raise his voice. “Garret?”

There came no answer.

The butterfly tumbled through the air. Hendrick expected it to lead him below; maybe Garret was hiding out there. Had he been captured by someone? Hendrick hated to imagine it.

But instead, Hendrick followed the butterfly with its eyes, and it rose up, up, up — until it finally came to rest, landing on a bundled mass of sail that was wrapped around the top of the ship’s mast.

Hm. Maybe it wants me to climb? Maybe from that height, I’ll be able to look around this area of the city, and see what it wants me to see.

The boat tilted slightly to the side, and Hendrick fought not to fall. Even standing on the deck was difficult. Would he be able to climb?

Hendrick drew a deep breath and examined the mast. A wooden ladder had been carved into it, leading up to the crow’s nest, where the sail had been wrapped around the tall column of wood.

If he kept his wits about him, and his grip firm… he should be fine. He approached the mast, and began his ascent.

The higher rose, the more he felt like an insect clinging to a stalk of grain in a high wind. Hendrick guessed that the mast was something like fifty feet high, and what had seemed to be gentle swaying on the deck became violent lurching as he gained altitude.

“Don’t suppose you could help me out, could you?” Hendrick called out to the butterfly, which still sat on the mound of sail above him. It did not respond.

Soon enough, Hendrick managed to clamber over the edge of the crow’s nest, and spill onto the small platform, encircled with a waist-high wooden wall. He caught his breath, and began looking around.

“Okay, butterfly,” he huffed. “What next?”

He cast his gaze over the nearby buildings. Desolate and still. In the distance, he could see smoke rising from chimneys, and heard the phantom clatter of distant wheels on cobblestones. There were people in this city, going about their everyday lives, unaware of the terrible games of cat-and-mouse happening just under their feet.

Hendrick’s breath caught in his throat, as he realized some of them might even be happy.

They might have spouses. They might have children. They might have work they loved, and people they loved to work for. There was happiness out there, happening right now. In this very city. But worlds away.

Hendrick brought his hands to his face, and tried not to cry. Then he said, in a broken whisper, “I don’t know what to do…”

“…Mmm…”

Hendrick froze. He turned around, staring at the butterfly. Did it just… grunt?

“What did you say?” said Hendrick dumbly.

“Mm…

Realization crashed over Hendrick. It wasn’t the butterfly. It was the sail. Someone wrapped up under the sail, so thoroughly entrapped that even the shape of the body was almost impossible to make out.

In a frenzy, Hendrick started searching the huge lump of cloth for an edge, for a knot, for something that would let him begin tearing this confining mess away.

“Hang on!” he cried, finding the edge of the sail, untying it and beginning to unwrap. “I’m coming! I’m here to save you!”



***



From two blocks away, many eyes watched as Hendrick fiddled with the sail on the mast of an abandoned ship. The two guards that had begun following Hendrick had grown to seven, as the original two brought more into their company as they came across them, unwilling to let this escaped prisoner slip through their fingers.

They had all been hesitant to try taking him in the street. They’d heard the bizarre story of the city gate cracking open to let the two escaped prisoners through. Magic? That was dangerous stuff. They’d best not strike unless they had an optimal opportunity. And now, the red-headed young man had brought them to a near-empty part of the city, and was stranded at the top of a fifty-foot pillar of wood, all by his own design.

“Nowhere left to run, boy,” said one of the guards. Together, they broke cover and made their way to the ship.



***



Hendrick tore away the last of the sail, and gasped at what he saw.

The last time Hendrick had seen Garret, free and unbound, was the night of Thomas’s choosing. The night Thorn Village hd received their instructions from the Beast, to send a sacrifice up the mountain.

Now, here Garret stood. He was nearly mummified with rope, from toes to shoulders, and his head was wrapped in a huge scarf, so that even after all the sail had been pulled away, he was still bound, blind, gagged, and fixed inextricably to the ship.

Hendrick worked as fast as he could, finding knots and untying them, beginning to loosen the ropes. But there were just so many, and every knot seemed to lead to another.

Finally, the whole apparatus of rope loosened and began falling away, revealing Garret’s bare, heaving chest, striped with rope burns. It fell away entirely, showing that he’d been stripped down to nothing but his briefs. Now all that was left was to untie his head and hands, which were bound behind his back, and then in turn connected to the mast with strong loops of rope.

Nearly crying with joy, seeing that his friend was at least alive, Hendrick unwrapped the huge scarf from Garret’s head. Once the entire gray woolen monster was pooled at his feet, Hendrick saw that it must have been at least ten feet long.

But still, there was more. A leather blindfold pressed tightly down over Garret’s eyes. A huge ballgag bulged out of his mouth. Even two wads of cotton had been stuffed cruelly into his ears.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Hendrick muttered as he pulled the cotton out, and the blindfold off.

Garret’s eyes squeezed tight, in the sudden lance of glaring sunlight. In a few moments, his eyes slowly began to peel open. And the first thing he saw was Hendrick, inches away, staring up at Garret with worried, bewildered eyes. Eyes he could trust.

Garret's eyes immediately began to brim with tears. “Hmdmph…”

“Shh, shh, don’t speak yet…”

Hendrick reached up, unbuckled the gag, and popped the ball out of Garret’s mouth. Hendrick was so eager to speak to his old friend, but another garbled moan — “Glmbrmmph…” — showed him that there was more. Horrified, Hendrick reached into Garret’s mouth, and pulled out a soaked sponge, at least the size of his fist. Garret gasped for air as soon as it was removed, leaning his head back against the mast and closing his eyes.

“Hendrick,” he said in a cracked voice. “Hendrick…”

“Hush now, hush, we need to get you out of here —”

“Are you hurt? Did Thomas hurt you?”

Hendrick was about to untie Garret’s hands, but stopped. What had he just said? Had he just asked if Hendrick was hurt? Even after being stowed up here, bound and wrapped up for who knows how long… even after everything he must have gone through… his first thought was to ask about Hendrick.

Hendrick could help himself. Even before Garret’s wrists were untied, Hendrick flung his arms around him in a desperate embrace, crying into his friend’s chest.

“Hey now, it’s okay,” said Garret softly, resting his chin on the top of Hendrick’s head. “Everything will be — ”

“Don’t move!”

The call came from below. Hendrick whipped around, to see seven guards on the dock, each of them with a bow, each bow pointing an arrow directly at his head.



***



Thomas had been out on a hunt. The hunt had gone well.

He had trolled the streets, looking for new meat. And who should he find, but an apprentice to a butcher, carving up a boar in the back of his master’s shop. Thomas had spied him through the window. A big fellow, probably from somewhere up north; very tall, thick-set muscled body, short blond hair and ice-blue eyes. A gentle-giant type. Thomas went inside to ask how much a leg of lamb would cost, and learned that the apprentice’s name was Runolf.

It was a busy shop, in the middle of the day. Thomas asked if he could come back again with money, before they closed, and Runolf had said yes; they’d be open till sunset.

There were so many things Thomas planned to do to his new meat, after tonight. He planned on waiting for sunset, until Runolf left, follow him home; then, to sneak inside with all the silence of moonlight on the wall, and bind him in his sleep. A big man. Bigger than Thomas. What a prize he would be. Ah, what pleasure he would bring.

Thomas needed to return to the ship, to gather supplies. Some items of bondage. Though for tonight, he would be taking much from Runolf’s home. He’d use Runolf’s briefs, to stuff into those pretty, full pink lips, and use his carpet to roll him up with, or drapes, or a quilt. Possibilities exploded in all directions.

These were the images that danced in Thomas’s mind, like a wild mating dance around a fire, as Thomas made the return journey to his ship. But he stopped in his tracks a block away.

He heard raised voices. And he saw guards standing on the dock, arrows knocked and pointed toward the mast.

My collection, thought Thomas. He ground his teeth, eyes wide and bloodshot.

“They’re mine,” he whispered. “Mine.”

He ran toward his ship.



***



“Come down slowly,” one of the guards called up to Hendrick, “and surrender yourself, or we’re well within our rights to kill you.”

Hendrick looked around, searching for something, anything — but there was nothing up there, just the vestiges of Garret’s bondage. Even the butterfly was gone —

That struck Hendrick. The butterfly, it had been here a moment ago. Where could it have gone…

A breeze began to pick up.

Hendrick felt it toss at his hair, as the growing wind howled in his ear. He looked down, and saw the apparel of the guards was flapping in the gusts as well. Even the water of the river was beginning to ripple and churn with white froth.

A distant rumble sent shivers up the mast, vibrating in Hendrick’s feet. Growing louder. Closer. He looked upriver, not knowing what was happening, or what was coming —

The wave was at least thirty feet high. A hill of water, rushing toward the ship, which was already lurching as the water shifted beneath it.

“Hold onto me!” cried Garret, still tied to the mast by his wrists, and staring at the incoming wave with huge eyes.

Hendrick felt it would be foolish to argue, and complied.

As soon as he wrapped he arms around Garret’s neck, he felt the wave hit — CRUNCH. For a moment, Hendrick was afraid that the ship was breaking apart beneath them. But he peeked over Garret’s shoulder, and saw that the wave was propelling the ship downriver, and the ropes had snapped free from the dock, leaving them at the mercy of the current. The dock was groaning dangerously as water pileup beneath it, rising fast.

“Off the river! Off the river!” cried one of the guards, and they all bolted for land. With a terrible sound of wood splintering, half of the dock broke free, as water rushed up over it, sweeping off three of the guards into the angry foaming water.

And just like that, the ship was unmoored, and shot downstream through the neglected canal.

Hendrick hung on as tightly as he could, closing his eyes and wishing for it all to be over. The top of the mast rocketed to and fro, threatening to pitch him over the side if he didn’t hold on to Garret.

As Hendrick clung to him, Garret looked down at the waters below. The wave had just been the beginning — the water was still angry, still pushing the ship along rapidly. Without any means of steering, it bucked along precariously, but somehow never collided with the walls of the canal. Garret watched the streets that ran parallel to the river, hoping they wouldn’t run aground, hoping that there was no one around to be injured —

There was one person. A bald figure, sprinting down the street and racing the ship, as if the very gates of hell had opened behind him. His cloak billowed out behind him, like grotesque leather wings.

It was Thomas. And he was outpacing the ship.

Garret looked ahead, and saw that the walls of the canal were growing higher and higher. He could see why. There was a bridge coming up fast, maybe in fifty yards. And Thomas had just made it to the foot of the bridge.

Garret’s stomach turned to stone as he realized what Thomas was planning.

“Hendrick,” he said, as calmly and firmly as he could, “I need you to untie me now.”

“But, the ship — you could get thrown over the edge —”

“I won’t. Just trust me. Please.”

Luckily, Hendrick didn’t take long in hesitating, and quickly undid the knots tying Garret’s hands behind him.

Garret rubbed his wrists and nodded at Hendrick. “Stay here,” he said. Then, he grabbed one of the coils of rope that had been binding him, and began climbing over the side of the crow's nest.

Stunned, Hendrick grabbed Garrets’s forearm. “Wait! What are you doing?”

“Getting ready for that,” said Garret, nodding downriver.

They were coming up fast toward the bridge, and Thomas had already gotten to the center of it, and was swinging his legs over the edge, his bared white teeth visible even from here.

Dumbstruck, Hendrick released Garret’s arm as he watched Thomas, perched on ledge of the bridge like a gargoyle.

“Stay here, and hang on tight,” Garret said, and started to descend.

The ladder was slippery with spray from the river, and Garret had no shoes, nor anything else but his briefs — but somehow, he was able to get down to the main deck without falling and twisting his neck.

And not a moment too soon. The ship passed beneath the bridge just as Garret dismounted the ladder. Thomas snarled — or was it a feral smile? — and leaped from the bridge.

It was a leap that no sane man would make. As he sailed through the air, Thomas clawed at a second, smaller mast on the other end of the ship, and somehow managed to grab a handful of rope. He jerked in the air as the rope arrested his fall, then swung down to the main deck where he tumbled down onto the water-slick planks.

“ARGH!” Thomas cried out, as he skidded to a halt on his side, blood from a long scrape seeping out of his shoulder. But, he found his feet. He stood and faced Garret.

Garret looked around. A sword. If he only had a sword —

There, tucked beside a crate, set against the side of the ship. A hammer. It was a miracle the ship’s tossing and turning hadn’t flung it overboard. It would have to do.

Garret grabbed the hammer and assumed his stance. Hammer in one hand, coil of rope in the other. He blinked away the sudden shock of being free, tried to ignore the blood that was still refilling his limbs. He locked onto Thomas with eyes like stone.

Thomas observed Garret, and laughed.

“Nothing changes,” shouted Thomas, over the roar of the water around them. “Nothing ever changes. You still think you’re more than an object, don’t you? Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?”

He reached behind him, into the folds of his cloak, and pulled out a crossbow.

“This,” said Thomas, leveling the bolt toward Garret’s chest, “is how it should be. This is the choice I should have given you years ago. Submit, or die.”

Garret could tell that it was difficult for Thomas to keep the smile out of his voice. But Garret held his stance, hammer and rope at the ready. He wasn’t faster than a crossbow bolt. But maybe he could fight through the pain, and keep Thomas from getting to Hendrick.

“Wouldn’t it be better,” said Thomas, now with an unmistakable giggle, “to be my pleasure-toy? To be wrapped and bound and have your mouth stuffed to over-bursting, your ears plugged, your eyes blinded, every limb mummified — better that, than oblivion?”

Thomas paused, cocking his head, looking at Garret with genuine curiosity.

“But then,” he continued, “those are all things that can still very well be done to your corpse.”

Thomas put his finger on the trigger, and pulled.

“NO!” shrieked a voice from above, and a shoe came plummeting out of the sky in Thomas’s direction. The sheer shock of it sent Thomas flinching backward, and the crossbow skewed wide. Thwunk, sang the string as the bolt flew, shooting past Garret’s shoulder and falling harmlessly into the river behind him.

Thomas looked up to see a figure silhouetted against the sunlight, hair lit up fiery red against the unnatural purple sky.

Thomas’s jaw fell open. But then his lip curled and his eyes went dark as night. And with a voice like death, he bellowed, “You.”

He reached into his belt for another bolt, but it was too late. Garret was already on top of him.

Garret lashed out with his rope, just as he'd trained. A loop of rope cinched tight around Thomas’s left ankle, and with a hard yank, Garret pulled him off his feet, Thomas’s breath escaping him in a pained gasp as he landed on his back. Garret tried to straddle him, to grab onto his hands, but with a frenzied cry, Thomas swung the empty crossbow wide, and it connected with a thud to Garret’s temple. Garret stumbled backwards, bright lights bursting in front of his eyes.

Thomas was on his feet again, crossbow discarded, animal fury in his face, and tackled Garret at the waist. They both went sprawling onto the deck as the ship rattled forward in the frothing water.

As they clashed, wrestling on the deck, Hendrick — against all his better instincts for survival — began the tenuous climb down from the crow’s nest. He couldn’t let Garret face Thomas alone. There must have been something else he could do. His heart nearly stopped as the mast rocked, nearly throwing him off, all the way into the water; but, he continued the climb.

Thomas had nearly gotten his hands around Garret’s neck, but Garret deflected with his hammer. He found a chance to roll away a few feet, and snapped his rope in the direction of Thomas’s free foot. With a carefully placed looped pulled tight, suddenly, Garret had both of Thomas’s feet snagged in rope.

He pulled hard, swinging Thomas’s body around and bringing both his feet within arms’s length. Another lightning-quick coil, and fast knot, and before Thomas knew what had happened, his ankles were tied together.

Garret stood over Thomas. “Come with me,” said Garret, river water spraying around him. “You’ve been called by the mountain.”

Thomas’s face was blank for a moment. But then, for the first time since Garret had watched the people of Thorn Village rope Thomas into a chair and force the ceremonial stag’s head over his face, white-hot terror appeared in Thomas’s face.

It was gone instantaneously, replaced by a wolfish growl, and he reared back with his legs and delivered a hard double-kick to Garret’s stomach.

Garret stumbled back and doubled over, seeing stars again. Thomas reached down to his legs, trying to undo the knot.

The ship lurched again. Hendrick had made it to the bottom ten feet of the mast. But now, he saw out of the corner of his eye Thomas sending Garret reeling backward. He gasped, about to shout out a warning, Be careful Garret —

Suddenly, Hendrick was suspended in empty air, grasping uselessly at the rung of a ladder that wasn’t there. He’d slipped off the mast as the ship lurched.

A moment of suspended stillness — and then Hendrick collided with the deck below, falling backward, his head cracking against the planks, knocking him out cold.

The moment Hendrick’s consciousness winked out, the ship lurched again; this time, as the water around it abruptly stilled. The wind died down. The hungry rumble of the water dissipated.

As the ship bucked in the water, Thomas flipped over onto his stomach, before he could untie his ankles. And that was the chance Garret needed.

In a flash, he was on top of Thomas, straddling the small of his back, grabbing both of Thomas’s hands and pinning them behind him. Garret’s rope moved as if it were alive, as if it knew exactly what it had to do, as it tightly bound Thomas’s hands together, then tied those hands to his already-tied ankles.

As the ship slowed to a halt in the suddenly-placid river, Garret stood, panting hard and looking down at Thomas, hog-tied at his feet.

It took a full three seconds for Thomas to realize what had just happened. And then, with volcanic rage, he began screaming.

“AAUGH!” He bucked and thrashed in his bonds, as Garret, catching his breath, calmly bent over and tore two large strips of fabric off of Thomas’s cloak. “YOU FUCKING WORM! YOU USELESS MEAT SACK! LET ME GO! I’LL HAVE YOUR FUCKING HEAD AS A TROPHY, I’LL WEAR YOUR COCK AND BALLS AROUND MY NECK, I’M GONNA —”

Garret flipped Thomas over, and grasped him by the back of his neck.

“Oh, shut up,” said an exhausted Garret, as he stuffed a balled up wad of Thomas’s cloak into his mouth.

Thomas’s eyes went wide in shock, and his face went blood-red in mortified anger as Garret prodded the whole thing in, quickly stuffing up his cheeks. By the time it occurred to Thomas to try and bite Garret’s fingers off, his mouth was so full that his jaw would no longer close.

Garret tied a hefty knot in his second strip of fabric, placed the knot into Thomas’s stuffed, still-ranting mouth, and tied it off behind his head, tightly as it could go. The stuffing was shoved even further into his mouth, and his cheeks bulged from the extreme tightness.

Tears of rage boiled down the sides of Thomas’s face. “HMMPHPLMBGHM! FLMMPH-HMM! GRMBMMPLMMPH!”

Garret let Thomas flop back onto his stomach, wriggling as helplessly as a beached fish, as he turned his eyes toward the mast — and gasped as he saw Hendrick, laying on the deck, stone-still.

“No,” he breathed, rushing over. He sat, pulling Hendrick’s body toward him, cradling his head in his lap. “Hendrick, wake up… can you hear me?”

Garret placed a finger underneath Hendrick’s nose, and relief surged through his body. He was breathing.

And just like that, Hendrick’s eyes slowly fluttered open. They focused, and found Garret’s face, staring down at him.

“Are you all right?” asked Garret softy.

Hendrick blinked, then looked over at Thomas, still thrashing twenty or so feet away. Then he looked at Garret.

“You saved me,” he said.

“No, my friend,” said Garret, with a small smile. “You saved me.”

“… Then… Then we’re…” Hendrick’s lower lip began to wobble. “Then we’re safe?”

“Yes, Hendrick. We’re safe.”

Now openly weeping, Hendrick threw himself at Garret, and the two of them sat there embracing each other for a long time.

Finally, they decided it was time to leave.

Luckily, the ship had reached a resting place only a few feet from the wall of the canal, which was roughly level with the ship’s deck. They stepped off easily, and planned together, setting off to find horses, to bring the two of them back home, and to bring Thomas to justice.



***



Thomas no longer thought in words. He thought in images, in feelings, in tangled bursts of pain and pleasure.

“Hmmph… Hmmph…” he wheezed into his gag, staring at nothing.

Humiliation. Utter ruin. And the mountain. Garret had said something.

You’ve been called by the mountain.

Thomas began hyperventilating behind his gag, his breaths short and shallow. He’d never felt so confined, so out of control, so weak —

His unfocused eyes settled on an object, sitting on the deck of the ship, flung away during his battle with Garret. His crossbow.

And there was still one bolt left in is belt.

Thomas stopped hyperventilating. In fact, his breathing became downright calm.

More feelings. More images. A bolt flying through the air. Borhim, toppling over like a defeated giant. A dead dog, sputtering where it lay, moments after Thomas had kicked it to death.

Pain. Pleasure. Reckoning.

His eyes never leaving the crossbow, he grabbed hold of his thumb behind him, and a sickening shudder shot through his body as he twisted it backwards with a snap.



***



Garret and Hendrick spoke as they walked. Both were drained, both were longing for home and for bed, but still, they found such pleasure in talking to one another. They related their experiences over the past few days, filling in the other’s gaps, and forming a complete picture of their tumultuous time in Red Haven.

“So you’re saying,” said Garret, as they began to creep into a more populated part of the city, “that just now… the wave, the way the water acted… that was you?”

“Um… I’m still not sure.” Hendrick laughed nervously, as he kept his eyes peeled for anyplace that might let them borrow a horse or two (while keeping his hood up, knowing that some guards may still be looking for him). “I suppose it was nature that did it. A force beyond my control. But, a force that’s… on my side. I know, it doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to,” said Garret. “I can’t imagine my own story makes more sense than yours.”

“Yes…” A moment of silence passed, then Hendrick went on. “Inyatala. The spider-person. So, all that time while we lived in Thorn Village, he’s been there? Up in the mountain?”

“I suppose so,” said Garret, eyeing a horse-drawn cart with two horses towing it, pedestrians peppering the sidewalks around them.

“So Inyatala is the Beast?” Hendrick pressed.

Garret stopped for a moment, lost in thought. “No,” said Garret. “I don’t think so.”

“If he isn’t, then what —”

THNK.

Hendrick stopped, as if the breath had been driven out of him. He blinked, then looked down in surprise at the bolt-tip sticking out of his stomach.

Complete silence, for a terrible instant. Hendrick looked up into Garret’s face. “Gih… Geh…” And then his eyes rolled back, and he fell forward.

Garret caught him in trembling arms before he could hit the cobblestones, unable to believe it, hardly seeing it, hardly feeling the hot stickiness of the blood seeping through his fingers.

“Hendrick?” he stammered, voice high and terrified. “Hendrick?!”

He began to hear the townspeople shrieking around him, and looked up numbly. A block behind them, in the middle of the street, stood Thomas, crossbow trained at Hendrick and Garret. He tossed the crossbow aside. And then, he sprinted in their direction like a maniac.

Whatever fear Garret had felt on the mountain, waiting for the Beast to come take him, it was eclipsed by this moment, the utter horror of his friend bleeding out in his arms, and the very face of death growing larger and larger in his field of vision, eyes like a dog, a rabid dog, with teeth made only for tearing —

Inyatala. The thought came like a blast of cold wind. No living medicine man can fix this. But maybe Inyatala.

Determination replaced fear, driving it out like a gruesome infection. He hauled Hendrick into his arms, and ran to the horse-drawn cart. He untied one of the horses from the cart, pushed Hendrick up onto its back, then swung up behind Hedrick, reigns in hand.

“YAH!” he cried, driving his ankles into the horses’s sides, and it shrieked and started forward.

Garret didn’t even need to look back to know that Thomas would steal the other horse and follow. He just kept riding, blasting through the streets toward the city gates. Hendrick sat limply in front of him, the bolt still lodged in his stomach.

Follow me, you son of a bitch, though Garret, as stunned city-folk and buildings and market stalls passed in a blur. Follow me to justice.

The sun was close to setting. Garret knew well that the next day was the final day he had left; the last day to return Thomas to the mountain. The horrific purple sky began to dim above Red Haven. The drumbeat of hooves beneath him pounded into Garret’s chest like hammer strokes, as he led his pursuer on one last chase, one that would lead them all into the very mouth of darkness.





To be concluded.

[Charmides]

Hey there, friends. Geez, it's been a hot minute, as the kids say.

Don't want to be overly maudlin or anything, but I just wanted to thank you folks again, for following or commenting on this story -- [mention]MountainMan_91[/mention], [mention]DeeperThanRed[/mention], [mention]Tsuhaya[/mention], [mention]privateandrews[/mention], [mention]KidnappedCowboy[/mention], [mention]Varlance[/mention], [mention]dahanband[/mention], [mention]Volobond[/mention], [mention]sharpliketoday[/mention], and everybody else. I know that it's just a silly fantasy-themed bondage erotica, but it's ended up taking a surprising amount of creative juice out of me. The fact that you've stuck around is incredibly appreciated.

I hope you folks can understand why this upload took the longest for me out of all of them so far. Aside from personal stuff, which I won't bore you with, this has ended up being one of the longest and most plot-dense chunks of the whole thing. (Plus, one doesn't want to disappoint in the bondage department.) But it looks like all the pieces are finally in place for the endgame. I'll make a firm commitment now, that the last installment will NOT take me nearly half a year to complete. (Low bar, I know. But, still.)

Phew. One more installment left. Love you, guys. See you at the end.

[KidnappedCowboy]

[mention]Charmides[/mention]...Well Worth The Wait!

i haven't even gotten halfway through Part 11, buddy, and it is already living up to and surpassing the previous ten parts.

Back to reading...

[gag1195]

I'm not sure I want this story to end! Such a good story with compelling characters! And of course I could read your bondage scenes forever! I'll be bittersweetly awaiting the end of this epic.

[Volobond]

[mention]Charmides[/mention]!

What can be said here, as I remain here in awe of your talent both in fantasy writing and bondage erotica? The incredibly excessive and CREATIVE bondage is utterly amazing, and there is no other word but incredible to describe your talent. Not only was I on the edge of my seat during the confrontation between Garrett, Hendrick, and Thomas, but the way you've interwoven all these stories into a perfect whole is simply mind-blowing.

Though there is one installment left, I have great confidence in referring to this as one of the great masterpieces on this site, and one that will be referenced and viewed a great many times in the future. This story is the very definition of "good things come to those who wait," and I just... I think it's amazing.

Phew. One more installment left. Love you, guys. See you at the end.

Love you too, Charmides! Take your time and write as you will - I have no doubt we'll be eagerly devouring the tale's end whenever you post it, and eagerly beginning the first full reread as soon as we finish!

[KidnappedCowboy]

Omigod, [mention]Charmides[/mention]...

Elias! My Man! He has certainly become a great deal more sophisticated since his experience in the dungeons...

[DeeperThanRed]

I'm going to sound like a broken record but this chapter was really worth waiting for. How much time and effort went into your work truly shows in the brilliance of your characters and creative voice. The unusual premise or not, this one is a rare gem.

After chapters of detailedly described bondage scenes, this one felt like it had a theme of "breaking free". There are quite a few amazing bondage scenes (including the great inner monologue of Garret at the beginning) but we also saw the good guys finally getting out of their bonds and turning the tables against their captors which was genuinely cathartic. Elias using his smarts to tie up Rhylim and tricking the guards into taking him away and his Amadi rescuing Makiao and proving himself to be an equal of his idol was the best.

(as a side note, their relationship was likely meant to be platonic but I couldn't help but ship Amadi with Makiao a little. Probably because of how much time they spend with both of them in their briefs and Amadi's hands on the latter's chest, haha)

Castero seems to be getting off easily from this whole mess but maybe he's a necessary evil. With Ritzak, Thomas, and Kent out of the way, there's no saying if he'll be more or less dangerous but I can't see an easy way to punish him for his crimes. Speaking of Thomas, he really reached a new low in this chapter, showing an even more disturbing and deranged side of himself. There's truly no negotiating with him now. Here's hoping at least some of the damage he caused can be reversed.

Also, last but the least, Garret and Hendrick are finally reunited! It was amazing seeing them team up and fight together so easily after all they went through. ...Just to be interrupted by the cliffhanger I have faith that the last chapter will be a satisfying conclusion for the heroes but I'll still be lowkey worried for them until then. I can wait to learn the deal with the Beast of the titular mountain and the supernatural side of this world.

Great job, man.

[Opal]

This was AMAZING!!! I have to know what happened to Kent tho c:

[Charmides]

As always, I'm hugely grateful for your feedback, pals! [mention]Opal[/mention] and [mention]gag1195[/mention], I couldn't be more flattered -- and I promise, we'll have a chance to catch up with Kent before all is said and done. And [mention]DeeperThanRed[/mention] and [mention]Volobond[/mention]... geez, you guys have been so supportive from the start, I'm genuinely touched. DTR, you always leave the most insightful comments imaginable, and Volobond, you've done more to turn me into a raging egomaniac than you know. I have such huge respect for both of you guys. Thanks for everything. (Wow, I'm getting surprisingly sappy. Sorry -- somehow, nearing the end of this project is just making me fall progressively more in love with my readers.)

[mention]KidnappedCowboy[/mention], I'm glad you aren't too disappointed that Elias was able to wriggle out of that tough situation! Some people are just meant for bondage, I guess, but this time Elias just got very very lucky. Ah, well -- life is long, and the world is full of rope.

I'll update you all again when I have news on a possible time frame for releasing the last chapter. Much love, chums.

[Kratos]

My god the wait was worth it
Amazing chapter can't wait for the conclusion of it all

[privateandrews]

I have reread this latest chapter a number of times, i have to say i agree with all the other very eloquent full messages in response to this chapter. I have to admit being fully immersed in the world you have so beautifully created and as such i have found myself feeling some sympathy for Thomas , the fact he has to be bound and taken against his will to the Mountain makes me feel for him. . The bondage and wonderful gag descriptions are as always pure wonder and so horny. This is a story i will reread again and again.. Thank you for all the time you put into such a creative and eagerly anticipated story..

[Rtj65]

Okay, so I realise that I'm arriving a little bit late here, but I've just binged through the first 4 chapters, and I'm simply blown away by how brilliant this is. Every single scene is impeccably put together, every single detail is relevant and interesting. Some stories can either have too many words, or too few, but this feels just right - the story moves along at a perfect pace whilst still giving time to really bring every scene to life.

The concept is simple but not without depth, and nothing feels out of place. Even the bondage scenes which give this story its place on this forum don't ever feel forced or there for the sake of it, and they are all magnificently described. That said, I also just really want to know what's going to happen next, the story just has me hooked! Thank you so much for providing us with such a beautifully crafted story, and I have no doubt that the parts I haven't read yet continue in this fashion.

Also, side note - I have no idea how I've missed this until now, especially since I'm a sucker for the fantasy genre! Anyway, so glad to have found this and I'll keep reading the rest over the next couple of days so that I'm fully caught up.

[Rtj65]

Okay, I've finally finished reading up the end of part 11, so I'd like to share some more of my thoughts of everything that has happened so far.

This story is an absolute roller coaster the whole way through, it's utterly compelling. The way that so many characters with different motives and personalities have been weaved into this narrative as effortlessly as you have made it look is incredible. The level of detail in every scene, the pacing, the perfect balance of both highs and lows for our protagonists - I could go on, it's just a work of art.

The bondage scenes are wonderfully described, and don't feel out of place at all in this setting. It's honestly impressive how much of it you have managed to cram into this story without sacrificing the quality of the story at any point. And despite that, the bondage scenes never feel repetitive, or too similar, and I look forward to each and every one.

The characters are the real stand out part of this though, and I find myself genuinely really caring about what happens to them. The last chapter was so satisfying, finally seeing Garret and Hendrick reunited, after rooting for them the whole way through. They are both likeable, relatable but not without their own flaws. Seeing both Hendrick gradually realise his self worth and Garret realise where he's been going wrong has been really satisfying. Their showdown with Thomas really showed just how much they need each other.

The rest of our protagonists are great as well, particularly Elias, who has acted selflessly throughout despite it being at great cost to himself. He has found himself in some tough predicaments (which I can't help but feel a little envious of myself), so to see him finally turn the tables was great.

Thomas is obviously a really interesting character, you just don't know what's going to happen next when the perspective shifts to him. He is undoubtedly deranged, and an awful person, but I actually almost feel sorry for him in a way. He's been unhinged from the very beginning, when we learnt what he did to that poor dog - I'm curious if we'll ever find out what made him that way.

In a way, I actually think that the likes of Castero and Kent are worse than Thomas. The latter has probably done more evil things so far, but he's acting impulsively and spontaneously. I have no doubt that Castero and Kent would resort to similarly evil tactics if either of their positions were at risk, particularly the former. It doesn't look like Kent will get the chance to now, but still. While Ritzak and Kent seem to have met their match, is Castero just too far ahead of the game to escape punishment? In any case, I'd be interested to see what he would resort to if he ever found his back against the wall; he's the only character who hasn't really been in that position yet.

It's really interesting to me that Castero is basically what Thomas wants to be, yet Thomas has hardly paid him any attention during either of their encounters so far. The difference between them seems to be their temperament - Castero is cunning and rational, always thinking ahead, while Thomas is rash and always acting in the moment. Judging by the end of part 11, this could be Thomas' downfall when Garret leads him back to Mount Thorn.

In any case, I'm absolutely enthralled by your work, and I can't wait to see the conclusion (even though at the same, I don't want it to end). The only downside for me is that I regret not reading this masterpiece sooner. Thank you!

[Charmides]

[mention]Rtj65[/mention], I couldn't be happier that you've discovered this project, and even more so that you've been enjoying it so much. I'm in a very lucky position, where a number of folks have found this story and been generous enough to give feedback, which is absolutely the fuel that keeps me going. A really do appreciate it.

I think I might have said this somewhere on these forums before, but I don't mind mentioning again that I started writing this thing expecting to write a much more modestly-sized story. I figured it would have four or five chapters, and the whole thing would last 30k words, at the very most. But then I just kept writing, and the web became more complicated, and more characters kept clamoring to get introduced... so now, it looks like the upcoming final installment is going to push this thing a little past a 100k word count. I only mention this, Rtj65, because I'm so impressed and honored that you got through everything in only a few days. And the fact that you have such interesting and well-spoken thoughts on the characters is enormously gratifying. And the same goes for you, [mention]privateandrews[/mention] and [mention]Kratos[/mention] -- your comments rock my world. Many, many thanks.

Also, a more general update for everyone! I can't believe I'm saying this... but I'm actually making some good progress on the last chapter. I'm not going to put out a specific date, but I can very safely say that I'll have the conclusion published before the end of this month. (And giving myself a public deadline will certainly help me power through!) I imagine this will be my last comment before the final chapter hits (and not for nothing, but it might just turn out to be my 100th post, which is kinda fun). Then, after that -- onward to new horizons.

See you at the end, folks.

[Straitjacketed]

My apologies [mention]Charmides[/mention] for not having taken the time to feed back on all the instalments of this fantastic story as you posted them. They were most definitely a highlight of the forum for me and even when I wasn't coming here regularly, when I did check in, I'd think, "ooh, is there a new Shadow the Mountain?!"

There's something truly amazing about the balance you've been able to strike here: your characters and storyline have evolved into a properly involving fantasy chronicle (at every point, I genuinely wanted to know what would happen next) while maintaining full-on erotic tension throughout - and, I don't doubt, to the conclusion. This is a tale I can read and reread, always finding something new.

While I remain invested in the main characters (especially Elias, my favourite), I think I've been even more engaged by the minor ones. I amuse myself by picturing smaller spin-offs: a Hill Street Blues-style drama set among the city guards, with dastardly Officer Kent, Cheek Bones, Rhylim/Wessel/George and the barely-glimpsed but intriguing Yorlon Mox; the origin story of one of the Venesthian slavers (how are they recruited/trained?); The Further Misadventures of Nester and Cal (I think I'm slightly in love with Cal ). Even the one-appearance characters are finely drawn.

I adored your Cresswell Mall CYOA writing but Shadow has been EPIC. Thank you so much.

[Muscle-Flex]

All caught up. Wow. Not normally much of a fantasy genre reader, but if more of them were written like this one, my bookshelves would look a bit different. This story is excellent. Exciting plot; great characters; great tie-up scenes that flow seamlessly with the plotlines. Great job! I can’t wait for the final installment, but when it is over I’m going to miss Garret (the all-around good-guy hero), Hendrick (the classic sidekick with some hidden talents), and Elias (the brotherly beefcake with a burgeoning attraction to being kept bound and constrained). I hope we find out just what happens to Officer Kent, and I wonder what the future holds for Cal and Nester after their intimate predicament given that they both seem to have some secret inclinations? The little references to some classics in the genre (Tolkien and Pratchett) are fun. Thanks for such an enjoyable tale!

[Charmides]

PART 12

Workers milled about the city gate, which had been ripped open by a tree-sized tentacle of root from the earth. They scratched their heads, surveying the damage, shrugging helplessly at each other. The root had been cut away and carted off, but there were many repairs left to be made, as the crippled gate stood permanently open, the lock destroyed and cracks rippling across its surface. Magic did rear its head, now and then, and it was always as fearful as it was wondrous.

A horse with two riders careened down the street, blasting past the workers, who dove for cover. A few moments after, a second rider followed them, baring his teeth and tearing through the open gates.

The workers grumbled as they watched the horses shoot down the road, kicking up billowing clouds of dust. First, this strange magic at the city gate, then the sky turning horrendously purple. Rumors of dangerous escapees from the city dungeons. And riotous hooligans, riding each other down in the street, sending honest working folk diving for safety.

Surely, the world was out of balance. Surely, something was terribly, terribly wrong.



***



Elias gaped as he peered out from the bushes, watching Garret and Hendrick flash out of the city gates on their horses, Thomas galloping hard behind them, only ten seconds separating them.

What had happened? What was happening? Was this part of the plan?

It had better be, thought Elias grimly, as he hurriedly untied his horse from a nearby tree. The hours had blurred together as Elias sat in this well-hidden nook in the underbrush, watching for any sign of his friends from the gates. This, perhaps, qualified as a sign.

Garret and Hendrick flew past Elias’s hiding spot, and Elias’s breath stuck in his throat as he caught a look at Hendrick. So pale. His head, lolling so strangely, his eyes half-lidded.

Heart thumping nearly painfully in his chest, Elias mounted his horse, just as Thomas whipped by.

That inhuman glint in Thomas's eyes… Elias felt a chill as he remembered that look. He remembered it well, from when Thomas had bound him in his own leather shop, strapped him to a bench, gagged him with socks, a cleave-gag, and a leather bit, then finally wrapped him up like a sausage and stuffed him into a chest. Elias shuddered to think about it. And who knew what Thomas was planning now, with Garret and Hendrick in his sights.

The plan, then — it must be the same. Bring Thomas back to Mount Thorn. And clearly, Garret and Hendrick had found an efficient way of doing that; using themselves as bait. It would have to do.

Elias brought his horse to a hard gallop, sticking far enough away to remain out of sight. Should Thomas get it into his head for any reason to turn back, or if he suspected he was being led into a trap, Elias would be there waiting for him, as a final failsafe. It was the least he could do. So Elias rode off after his friends, passing through plumes of dust kicked up by the riders that came before him, terribly aware that their efforts to return Thomas to the mountain had all led up to this. It was a long way back to Thorn Village, and the chase was on.



***



As the sun began to die out over the horizon, the swirling purple sky began to shift. Like thin whispers of smoke that seep from an extinguished candle, narrow columns of purple cloud began to descend from the sky. They touched the earth in shadowed corners, and there, formed into creatures that were not quite alive, yet far from dead.

All over the forest, wild, beady eyes began to glow red in the darkness, as night swamped the earth.



***



Garret had been riding his horse for a solid two hours before the sun set. This beast was exhausted, and Garret could tell, from its ragged breathing to its slowing pace. They’d outpaced Thomas. Stealing a look backwards every now and then, Garret had watched as Thomas had slowly shrunk, until he was totally hidden by the trees. But Garret knew he was far from gone.

Hendrick swayed where he sat in front of Garret. Sometime he would mutter wordlessly, gasping for shallow swallows of air. Garret rode in a constant state of terror, that at any moment, Hendrick might fall from his saddle, or worse, his body might simply give in to his wounds, and then Hendrick would be…

Garret hadn’t known how to remove the crossbow bolt, and wouldn’t have dared causing Hendrick further harm. So now, the feathered side of the bolt stuck grotesquely into Garret’s belly as he rode, a constant reminder that time was running out.

The last of the sun’s glow still shone through the trees, but total darkness was coming, and fast. Garret knew that he couldn’t keep this up. The horse would collapse. And to rise a horse in pitch-darkness? A horse he’d never ridden before, had never built up a rapport with? The poor animal was certain to either trip and break its leg, or get spooked and cause havoc.

But Thomas was unlikely to stop. He would ride his beast to death, if it meant catching up with Garret and Hendrick.

Let him, Garret thought, surprised by his own venom. His hands tightened on the reigns. I beat him once. I can beat him again. Let him try showing his face to me, after what he did. A killer — no, a would-be killer, and if he’s fool enough to face me…

Garret blinked. The path ahead was muddy with darkness, and he could hardly see twenty feet in front of him.

He slowed the horse to a stop, then hopped off, careful to see that Hendrick stayed safe and secure on its back. He had no torch, nor any way to light the road. The best he could do was to lead on the beast and its burden, making what progress they could in the night.

And always, Garret kept his ears trained for incoming hooves. A coil of rope swung gently from his belt. He would be ready.



***



“Go on, Shit-for-Brains, faster!

Thomas’s horse had started to slow once the sun set, and now its breath came in tremulous whistles as it tumbled blindly along the path. The horse knows, thought Thomas. It knows where to go. It knows not to cross me. It can hear my voice, can’t it?

He gripped the reigns so tightly, his fingernails began gauging his palms, slicking his fingers with blood.

The horse could still follow the path, barely — a faint parody of moonlight shown through the purple veil stretched over the sky. It was mostly smothered by the treetops, yes, but shafts of blue and purple light still sporadically lit the forest floor.

You’ll ride, beast. You'll get me where I need to be.

The horse whinnied, and scrambled to a stop.

Thomas growled, completely unaware of the red glinting eyes in the darkness off the path, and kicked the horse hard with both feet, jamming his heels into its belly. “You fucking mule, we’ll lose them! Run, run them down —”

The horse screamed and reared up, pitching Thomas backwards. His blood-slick hands slipped on the reigns, and he fell through empty air, crashing into a bush next to the path.

The horse whirled, spraying Thomas with cold sweat from its whip-like mane, and ran back the way it had come.

Thomas stood, staring after the creature, then opened his mouth wide and bellowed in furious agony as it faded into darkness.



***



Elias knew something had happened when the empty horse shot out of the darkness and ran past in a blur. Elias was just able to maneuver his own beast to the side of the path in time to avoid a collision.

But whose horse had it been? Thomas’s or Garret’s?

Elias urged his horse forward slowly, carefully. He’d brought the animal down to a walking pace once the sun set, and kept his ears and eyes carefully attuned to the road ahead, making the most of every slice of light that slipped through the canopy.

He had no weapons. What if he were to run into Thomas?

Well… he could always find a branch on the side of the road. And if he needed to restrain Thomas, perhaps a vine? Even the reigns of his horse would do in a pinch. And certainly, it would give Elias no small pleasure to stuff that degenerate, bloody-minded mouth with some strips of cloth, which Elias could always tear from Thomas’s own clothes.

As Elias considered these options, trotting forward on his horse, something took shape in the gloom ahead. A tall, gray shape, walking away from him, walking with a limp. The figure stopped. A bald, lacerated head turned slowly, and Elias locked eyes with Thomas, alone on the night-path.

Elias brought his horse to a stop, his mouth open from the shock. It had all happened so fast.

And Thomas was smiling.

“You again?” he rasped, with a grotesque chuckle. “Shouldn’t you be wrapped up and stuffed in a chest somewhere, like the dumb sausage you are? That’s how I left you, wasn’t it, Leather-Man?”

Suddenly Elias could feel, physically feel, the sensation of his arms bound to his side, his body strapped down with leather to a wooden bench, his mouth over-stuffed with cloth and gags, and Thomas, straddling him, grinding down perversely on his crotch, torturing him, molesting him.

Elias could urge his horse forward, and run Thomas down. It wouldn’t be hard. After everything he had down, Elias could end it all now. The thought was as shocking as it was simple.

But no. Never. Even if they didn’t need Thomas alive. There were some lines that couldn’t be crossed.

Elias swung down from his horse. Thomas had turned to face him fully. Neither were armed.

“I had help escaping,” said Elias. “But I certainly don’t need any help to subdue you tonight.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed, his smile never faltering. Elias was a good two or three inches taller than Thomas, and had weight on his side. And Elias noticed the way Thomas favored his right leg. He wasn’t at his best.

But Thomas’s smile did falter, and melt into a look of confusion, when Elias heard a terrible cry behind him. He turned, and saw his horse had reared up. When it clattered back to the ground, it began snorting and scrambling backward, eyes wide, head swaying back and forth.

Elias put both his hands up, in a gesture of calm. “Whoa, girl, whoa there, everything’s okay…” What spooked her? he wondered. Maybe she mistook a branch for a snake?

Before Elias could reach the horse’s reigns, it let out a shriek, turned, and bolted.

Thomas’s smile returned. “You’re so alone,” he said, in a mirthful, lazy drawl. “Always were. Always will be.”

Breathing heavy, Elias looked around the forest, and saw it.

No, he thought, as the breath was driven from his chest by the sight of it. We’re not alone.

It was only a pair of eyes at first, red specks in the night. Not just bouncing back light, like a red mirror. They were shining. Theses eyes, they were actually glowing. As they approached the path, the rest of its body came into view.

Or did it have a body at all? The creature was a amorphous mass, like a cloud, like a jellyfish, a purple mass, floating across the ground. Floating? No, not floating, it had limbs, that slid out of the body with every step, half a dozen leg-like appendages skittering across the ground like the legs of an insect. And the body itself, writhing in shape, one moment a ribbon of smoke, the next a ball of gelatin, impossible to get a bead on. And those red eyes shone out from the center of that mysterious, awful vortex.

Elias took a slow step backwards as the creature advanced. Then another. Then he heard a branch snap behind him, and whipped his head around.

Another creature. Just like the first one, coming from the other side of the path. And then, another glint of red in the corner of his eye — Elias turned to see three more pairs of eyes lancing through the darkness where the horse had vanished. Five. Five creatures, five pairs of eyes, burning closer and closer.

Elias felt his foot hit something — it was a branch. He lurched down and picked it up, brandishing it like a sword at the path behind him, backing up — in spite of himself, toward Thomas.

“Thomas,” Elias said, in an intense, dry voice. The two creatures from the woods had made it to the path, and now all five of them slipped silently along the dusty road, slowly, terrifyingly slowly.

“Thomas, our contest can wait. Do you have any weapons?”

“No,” said Thomas, and something about his voice sent a chill running up to the crown of Elias’s head.

“Find one. If we escape this, it will be together.”

Elias slowly kept backing up. The creatures kept slowly advancing. Thomas was silent.

“Thomas,” Elias hissed. “Do you hear me?”

Suddenly inches away, Thomas whispered in Elias’s ear, “Ever think about dying, Leather Man?”

Elias whirled around, in time to see Thomas, still smiling, STILL smiling, lift his bad foot off the ground. His smiling face contorted into a mask of brutality, and he let out a roar as he kicked Elias in the stomach with all his strength, sending him toppling backwards, into the waiting arms of the creatures.

The creatures caught him, and began their work.

All Elias could do was watch as Thomas turned and continued his limping run down the road, laughing a high, wretched laugh, until he was out of sight.

Elias didn’t know how many limbs grabbed him, these things must have had endless arms, flashing before his face. Some were like tentacles, some like antennae, some with claws, some with fingers. Elias barely had time to struggle before the purple shapes had grabbed hold of all of his limbs, forcing his feet, ankles, and legs together, and pinning his arms to his sides. He writhed, using all the strength his muscled body could muster, his ample chest heaving beneath his shirt, his legs trembling, even his toes and fingers flailing as much as they could. But vices held him from all angles.

“Thomas!” he called out, despair and panic sinking in, the animal instinct to be free taking over. “Thomas! Don’t do this! Help!”

The arms began to twist and turn around Elias’s body, and he realized that they were spinning something around him — not quite a web, more like wide, thick bandages, purple and heavy as wet cloth. Everywhere, they began wrapping his body, binding his arms to his sides, crushing his legs together. Within moments, most of his body had disappeared beneath the wrapping, yet still it continued, smothering his muscles and tightening, always tightening, leaving behind a tortured outline of his sculpted form.

They creatures even began binding up his head, one monster starting at the neck, the other at his crown, and both slowly worked their ways toward one another.

By now, Elias had stopped calling for Thomas, hardly knowing why he did so in the first place — surely because he had no other choice. Instead, he cried out any plea that entered his mind, desperately hoping that a passerby might hear him, that anyone at all might help him, because this, this was different. This wasn’t bondage born of some political machination. This wasn’t a scheme to be outwitted. This was a force of nature, and Elias faced it with the same grim terror with which he would face a dead end.

“Stop!” he shouted, staring up with wild eyes at the creatures looming over him. Five pairs of eyes. Ten points of light. Ten red daggers piercing the night. The wrapping starting slipping over his brow, and up onto his chin, as the dispassionate, inhuman eyes stared down at their prey.

“STOP!” he screamed. “Help, someone! This can’t be happening! Is anyone there! Is anyone— GLMPH!”

A slim tentacle slipped down into his open, screaming mouth, and the tip of it ballooned, like an eye on a stalk, until a huge, dense mass of some unknown material had expanded into his entire cavity, and into both of his cheeks, keeping his jaw stretched wide, filling his mouth more fully and perfectly than it had ever been packed before.

“Hmmpm!” Elias mumbled, sorrow overtaking him, as he tried to expel the foreign object, but was unable to. He tried to bite down; the material was soft but unyielding, like a full water skin, impenetrable and permanently planted between his distended lips.

“Mmm! Gmbplmm! Hmmmm!” Even in defeat, Elias wriggled and writhed under the merciless mummification, no longer even trying to speak intelligible words — just moaning in anguish. He kept crying out wordlessly as the bands of heavy bandage-like wrapping turned over his mouth, once, twice, half a dozen, a dozen times, and the last thing Elias saw were those dread eyes, boring down into his soul, before the bandages clamped down over his own eyes, wrapping his head tightly and sealing away any hope of visible light.

A bandage wrapped over his nose, and suddenly, there was no air, no way to breathe.

Ever think about dying, Leather Man?

His bucking and thrashing — or at least, his attempts — grew to new heights as the sickening sensation of breathlessness crushed his chest. But, the sensation only lasted an instant. As if the bandage had a mind of its own, two holes appeared in the bandage under his nostrils, and Elias was able to breath again. But nothing else.

Garret. Hendrick. Will you be alright without me?

A bizarre feeling of increased tightness tugged at every part of Elias’s body. It was as if the whole encasement, which now covered his entire body, were airtight, and all of the air had been abruptly sucked out, leaving no room, no air-pockets, no space whatsoever between the bandages and his body, not even where his hands and feet had been bound. From the outside, he was like a gruesome sculpture of himself. A passerby would still see the outline of his great muscular chest, his sharply defined abs, his sculpted legs and glutes — and they would just be able to make out bewildered, defeated, desperately sorrowful expression on his face, as well as the way his cheeks bulged so hugely, and the way his full lips were forever trapped around his inflated, supernatural stuffing, then sealed behind a heavy wrapping of bandages, rendering him more object, more squirming, useless animal, than man.

He couldn’t move a finger. He couldn’t move a toe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t speak. The creatures lifted his viciously mummified, still imperceptibly squirming and moaning body off the ground, and holding tight to their shocked, hapless, helpless prize, they trundled him off into the darkness.



***



Hendrick had stopped talking to himself, and that made Garret very anxious. For a time, he’d kept on muttering, but now, he just stared ahead with eyes that wouldn’t see. The bleeding had somehow stopped. Garret had no idea how that was possible, but it had stopped, leaving Hendrick frail and hovering somewhere between waking and sleeping, between living and…

Thomas ain’t reached them yet. So much for small favors. But he would still be coming. Garret had no doubt of that.

Garret looked up at his friend. Even in the dimness of the night, Hendrick’s pale face floated strangely, like a ghostly echo of himself.

Garret felt something hot of his face. He reached up to wipe his cheek, to find that he’d beg to cry. How long had he been crying?

Before these past few days, these unnatural, terrifying days, when had been the last time Garret had cried? He wasn’t prone to crying before. There had been some tears out of fear… like the day in the field, just before the mountain called on Thomas as its lamb, and Garret had been left bound in a field. He'd cried then. And maybe other tears along the way, that he’d hardly been aware of at the time. But before that… He would meditate instead. He would lose himself in the stances and forms of his sword craft. He would find peace inside himself.

But some things, not even a wall of stoicism can hide you from. Was it the pain, the stress, the uncertainty of Garret’s own safety that made him cry now? The threat of Mount Thorn, always looming unseen? Or the shadow of the Beast, whatever it was, always lurking where it couldn’t be seen, waiting to be fed?

But no. None of those things had been the real cause of Garret’s tears, not really. Now, the real cause was Hendrick.

Without thinking, tears still flowing… Garret slowly reached up, and grasped Hendrick’s limp hand in his. It was so frail. So cold.

“You’ll live,” Garret whispered. “I swear it. Please don’t leave me…”

Those last words surprised Garret, but they felt so right to say.

The path was so dark, sometimes Garret came close to stumbling over stray roots and stones. How far had they gone? It was so hard to judge distance in darkness. But somewhere ahead of them was Thorn Village. Home. It felt like weeks, not days, since Garret had slept in his own bed. Somewhere, off at the end of the dark tunnel that sprawled before him —

A faint red spark glittered in the distance, small and sharp. Then a second.

Garret brought the horse to a stop. A torch? Was someone up ahead? The only noises were the breath of the horse, and Garret’s own slowly thumping heartbeat.

He almost whispered, Hello? But the lights were getting closer. And the realization that he was looking at a pair of steady, approaching eyes shuddered through Garret's body, and he took a step backward, his hand tightening around Hendrick’s. His other hand reached for the coil of rope.

“Who’s there?” said Garret, his voice enormous in the stillness. The lights didn’t answer, just grew closer and closer.

Garret stole a glance up at Hendrick. If this was a hostile creature incoming, could Garret get Hendrick off the path? To go tearing off the road in the middle of the night would be a terrible way to —

Beyond Hendrick’s pale hand, another pair of eyes hovered in the forest, coming on fast.

A drop of sweat ran down Garret’s temple, and a cold feeling of doom settled in his stomach as he whirled around, and saw his fears confirmed, with more eyes on the other side of the path, and more behind him. Four creatures.

Reluctantly, Garrent released Garret’s hand, and brandished the rope. The horse had started skittering back and forth, grunting in increasing panic, Hendrick bouncing on its back, as the creatures came into clear view.

Horror. What were they? Neither flesh nor smoke, neither liquid nor light. Just eyes, and the purple vortex, and the writhing limbs. Garret dared not blink, zeroing in on the creature just in front of the horse. Garret gathered that the horse would have bolted by now, but the creatures had appeared too quickly, and they were surrounded on four sides.

This must be a dream. A nightmare, worse than anything I’ve seen so far… No sword. Just this rope. It’s served me well so far…

Garret prepared a loop to throw at the beast in front of him, but hardly knew where to throw it. Limbs appeared and reappeared, seemingly at random. And the eyes — it was unmistakable. They exuded malevolence.

It was either make a move, or wait for them to advance. So, Garret lunged.

He meant to wrap the rope around a tentacle, but it slipped away instantly, reappeared between Garret’s legs, wrapped around his right thigh, and pulled tight.

It wasn’t then that Garret knew he had lost; it was when a spectral claw grasped onto Garret’s rope, and yanked it hard and sharply enough to rip it from his fingers, rope-burn stinging Garret’s hand. A flurry of strange arms, claws, tentacles; Garret’s legs were swept out from under him; the world spun; and the subjugation began.



***



A snorting horse. Cold night air. A dull ache in his stomach. Hendrick’s eyes flickered open weakly.

What was the last thing he remembered? The street in Red Haven. Talking and walking with Garret. Then…

Hendrick’s body spasmed, as he drew in a painful gulp of air. His hands clutched at his stomach. He felt the tip of the bolt prick his finger. It was so dark, and the pain was swimming back, from the sweet numbness of unconsciousness to the burning reality.

The forest swam around him, as Hendrick’s eyes found Garret, on the ground a few paces away from the horse he sat on. And on top of him, monsters. Wrapping him. Garret’s arms had been pulled to his sides, and his hands had been reduced to mittens by the bandages that kept coming and coming, spinning out of the shimmering bodies of the red-eyed aberrations. His feet, too, had been bound, and the wrapping spun quickly up his legs as Garret struggled uselessly.

Something cold that sent a tingle up Hendrick’s left arm. He turned his head, and stared into a pair of red eyes, inches away from his own. Bandages began coiling around his fingers, up his left arm, to his elbow, to his bicep —

Is this nature, too? These things? Has nature turned on me?

Something warm started to pulse in Hendrick’s pocket. Like a small heart.

With his trembling right hand, the hand still free from the wrappings of the creatures, Hendrick reached into his pocket. His fingers curled over the acorn that sat there. It had given him hope before. And now it was so warm… hot. Getting hotter.

Only half-lucid, and getting curious, Hendrick pulled the acorn out, expecting it to steam in the cool air. He held it aloft.

A soft blue light slipped between his fingers, and began to grow.



***



Garret struggled to pull away as the wrappings slithered upward, reaching his neck, a bulb of alien mass already growing in his mouth, his cheeks bulging, his entire lower body and torso entrapped, and now, his face followed, the bandages sealing in the stuffing. His eyes blurred, his fingers scrambled feverishly under his wrappings —

A blue light grew. And then he saw it. Hendrick, awake, his left arm wrapped by one of the creatures. His right arm, holding up a ball of blue light, growing, growing, now nearly white with intensity.

Garret’s eyes went wide. The creatures, too, seemed to pause, the red eyes now shining a little less brightly, the wrappings slowing.

Something small and hard began to grow warm against Garret’s right thigh. Something in his pocket, just beneath his wrapped hand… and over the warm spot, the bandages, slightly but definitely, loosened.

In a desperate flail of his fingers, Garret had just enough space reach into his pocket. He grabbed the stone. The yellow stone. The totem of Inyatala.

“Mmm…” Grunting with effort, Garret pushed his closed fist against the wrappings, and they loosened, loosened, their elastic softness becoming brittle, thin —

“GMMPH!” Garret’s fist broke through, and with it, a blazing sphere of yellow light, firelight purified. He raised it as high as he could, imagining for a moment that it was the sun, and morning had come at last.

The two lights washed the forest, burning away shadows and restoring color and warmth to the night. The creatures, at first uncertain, now began to shrink away. The red eyes, once piercing as thorns, were now dull coals, overwhelmed by the strange power before them.

Like skittering bugs, the monsters slunk back into the night, fading among the trees, fleeing like stars before daylight.

The lights shone at peak intensity for a few more moments… then, slowly settled down to two torch-like glows, pulsing blue and yellow.

Garret took a moment to breathe, best as he could, exclusively through his nose. It had all happened in hardly a minute. So fast. Had that actually happened?

But, the fact that nearly his entire body had been mummified was lingering evidence that, yes, those monsters had been real, just like the lights…

Hendrick’s eyes had rolled back again, unconscious, his outstretched arm falling to his side… but his hand still clung desperately to that soft ball of blue light, whatever it was, swinging gently in his pale fingers.

The process of escaping his binds was more intensive than Garret had expected. Even with the light of Inyatala’s stone (Garret wasn’t even ready to begin wondering why it had started glowing, or what was going on), it took a solid quarter of an hour of struggling before Garret’s other arm broke through, and another quarter of an hour before he’d gotten the rest of it off, the bandages flaking as he peeled them away, and finally pulled off his gag, spitting out the slimy, unknowable stuffing and watching it disintegrate as it hit the ground.

Garret rushed over to Hendrick. The wrapping that had been encasing Hendrick’s left arm had mostly cracked and dropped to the ground, peeling like paint. Other than that, he was unharmed, and Garret thanked whatever gods might be watching.

It was a miracle that the horse hadn’t bolted. But the lights, while fearful to the creatures, had been mind-clearing, even calming to Garret. Perhaps they had the same effect on the horse.

But if they were going to keep going… they may well find more of these creatures. What if they came back, and Hendrick was riding the horse, and the horse decided to run, or rear back at the wrong time? One wrong step, then the horse breaks its leg, and then —

What about Hendrick?

Garret did the only honorable thing he could think of. He gently took Hendrick down from the horse, and cradled him in his arms. He softly urged the horse back the way they had come, trusting it could find its way back to Red Haven. The horse eagerly took the opportunity to escape, and vanished in the dark.

As Garret walked with Hendrick in his arms, they both still held their stones tight, the lights moving through the forest like two stars orbiting one another.

And three words flared in Garret’s mind, like an alarm bell sounding. The Great Subjugation. That was what Inyatala had said.

Perhaps it had begun.



***



Thomas’s eyes adjusted well to the darkness. Once he’d seen another pair of eyes in the dark, he’d ducked off the path, stuck to the gulches, the shallows and the shadows. The creature had come searching… then passed by.

It took everything Thomas had to keep from giggling as he pressed on, stealthy as a cat. Somehow, after every catastrophic setback he’d faced, he felt more in control than ever. He was outwitting death. Outpacing him. Replacing him.

Sometimes he crawled on all fours, causing hardly a rustle among the leaves. I’m like a hyena, he thought, eyes glistening in a beam of moonlight. Such teeth, as you’ve never seen.

He knew very well that Garret and Hendrick were leading him back to Thorn Village. The village where he’d grown up. The village that wanted to kill him.

They did kill me. They killed me. Remember?

Oh, yes. That was right. They had killed him. Sent him up the mountain. So what, that he’d sent Garret in his place? When the mayor had called out his name, to offer him up for slaughter, had anyone rushed to his defense? Had anyone cried and wailed, “Not Thomas, what will we do without him?”

Yes, Thorn Village had killed him. Red Haven had revived him. And he was ready to come home.



***



As night bled into morning, Garret sometimes saw the creatures, the awful formless monsters (beasts) glaring at him from behind distant trees, keeping away from the blue and orange lights as best they could. Hendrick still muttered on occasion, and Garret just held him tighter when he did.

Morning became mid-morning, but the glare of the sun never arrived. The sky brightened slightly, but the horrendous purple veil still held sway over all, and the air seemed denser today. Heavier.



***



No sleep. The entire night, spent traveling. Garret blinked hard, trying to remain alert, awake, running on pure anxiety. They had made their original trip from Thorn Village to Red Haven on horseback. But now, on foot — the dim outline of the sun behind the thick purple curtain reached its peak, and kept moving, while still, the forest shot out ahead of them. Garret's legs burned. His breath was hot in his throat. The two lights still glimmered in the shadowy forest, burning a tenuous path through danger.



***



Finally, the path became familiar. Garret had walked this road before. Warm summer evenings, alone, taking walks through the forest at sunset. Thinking about the future.

There. Up ahead. The path opened up into a field. Like a hole in the woods, the gap yawned darkly.

Through that hole in the woods, a spire of rock jetted up into the sky. The top obscured by thick purple fog. A broken rib of the earth, bleeding into the sky. Mount Thorn.

Garret had a sudden chill. Home was there. But he was completely certain that it would not be the home he left.

He couldn’t carry Hendrick like this anymore. Hendrick was light, but an entire night spent cradling him in his arms left Garret’s muscles trembling. Instead, gently as he could, he shifted Hendrick over his shoulder. Garret hated to carry his friend like a sack, but this was the only way to get him to Inyatala — the only way to save him.

Garret took one last look behind him. All night, he’d stolen looks backward, always expecting to see Thomas, leering up at him, pale and smiling in the night. But always, there had only been blackness.

He must still be following them. He must. But what if there had been an accident? What if Thomas had fallen, or if one of those creatures had taken him…

Too late for doubt, Garret. Far too late. The die is cast. Save Hendrick.

With Hendrick over his shoulder, Garret burst out of the forest. Thorn Village sat across the field in front of from him.

The field writhed with at least two dozen monsters.

Some were the sizes of rats, others the size of horses, or even larger. They surrounded the village, overran it. Garret could see some of the creatures scrabbling across the roofs of the distant buildings.

Garret couldn’t breathe. The stone in his fist began to grow hot again. He steeled himself. And he pushed forward.

With one arm, he tightly hugged Hendrick’s legs, and the other, he thrust out his fist with the stone, the amber-yellow light shooting out from between his fingers. The creatures in the field regarded him warily; some tried to approach, but couldn’t get within twenty feet, before hissing and creeping away.

Halfway across the field, Garret was sure his legs would buckle beneath him. So many steps. And his feet grew heavier with each one. But he kept walking.

Terror gripped him as he realized that the field wasn’t just populated with monsters. Clearly, the town guard had put up the best defense they could, and failed.

Cocooned, mummified bodies had been thrown into piles. Mounds of writhing, muscled young men cried out in painful muffled groans as Garret passed. He had no doubt that they he’d been bound just as the creatures had tried to bind him — total mummification, and a huge unnatural stuffing, all the material so slick and strange that it felt almost alive.

Garret cast a sympathetic look to a pile of bodies as he trudged by. Half a dozen poor young men, blind and mute. They wormed on the ground, some of them still trying to speak, muffling pathetically in their sorry state.

“I’ll be back for you,” Garret whispered, hating to leave them. He had trained with these people. He’d laughed and joked with them, sparred with them, grew up with them. But evening was descending. The last day was almost up. The mountain — it was the cause of all this, and so too was it their last hope.

The quickest route was straight through the heart of town. Garret prepared himself as best he could… but still, it was sickening to see what had become of his home.

Horse carts overturned, doors crushed to splinters. The windows of Elias’s leather shop had been smashed in. (And where is he now? thought Garret. Still waiting for us, outside of Red Haven? Caught by the guards? Following behind us, braving the creatures? I can save him, I can save everyone…) Red eyes peered at Garret from roofs and around corners. And mummified bodies littered the place like leaves in autumn. Some struggled and moaned on the ground. Others were still as stone, resigned and terrified. Still others had been stuck up onto the side of buildings, or hauled up into piles on roofs, attached to hard surfaces as if they were bugs in webs.

“Mmmph… Hlmmmh-hmph! Brmph, lmrphmmmbm…”

All around, the gagged moans of the townsfolk pressed in on Garret like the whispers of the dead. Everywhere he turned, he saw heads wrapped in bandages, cheeks bulging from enormous stuffing, bodies squirming, but never to any effect. And who knows how long they’d been that way? Hour after hour of useless struggling…

He crossed to the other side of town. The buildings thinned. So did the squirming mummies, and the monsters.

And there it was. The path. The path up the side of the mountain, winding among crags, twisting upward. The mountain itself loomed directly over Garret and Hendrick. Most of the sunlight had drained from the sky.

No time. No time.

His muscled legs screaming in protest, Garret forced them into a jog, as he began the last journey up the side of Mount Thorn he would ever take.

There were no more monsters here. They had become more and more sporadic since Garret and Hendrick had left the village behind, until now, the mountain was barren of them. As if they dared not venture up the path.

It was impossible to tell the time, the sky had been so dark all day. How much light was left? How much light had been there at all today? Twilight reigned eternal, and the day had passed in a dreamlike blur. One step. Then another. Another. The path wound endlessly upward. Another. Step. One more —

And he stepped onto a plateau of stone. The circular patch of smooth rock where he’d trained Sword and Snare with Inyatala in his dreams. Up ahead — the path, leading upward, into the purple so dark and lifeless it was almost an oily black. Thunder rolled, somewhere in the darkness, sending vibrations up Garret’s legs.

“We’re here, Hendrick,” said Garret, with a weak, triumphant smile. “We’re…”

Footsteps echoed on the sharp stones enclosing the plateau. Garret peered at the steep upward path ahead.

“Inyatala?” he called.



***



Thomas crawled.

He crawled up the mountain path, so that even if Garret thought to turn, he would see nothing, Thomas’s body obscured by the rocks.

He had caught up to Garret long ago, even with his limp, and had been following like a phantom for miles, hiding from Garret, and the creatures to boot.

Thomas had paused at the mouth of the mountain path. There went Garret, carrying his little boy-toy (My baggage, Thomas thought, growling deep in his throat), traveling to the only place where Thomas would have conceivably hesitated to follow. Mount Thorn. He was afraid. Hardly able to admit it to himself — but he was afraid.

Will I let them escape? I’d rather die.

The paralysis passed. The hyena behind his eyes took over. Thoughtlessly and greedily, Thomas followed.

Now, they were so far up the mountainside, no one could save Garret. (Not that anyone could — the entire town had been wrapped up quite neatly by the invading monsters, and Thomas had been ecstatic to see it.) And Garret was weak.

So when he saw Garret come to a stop on the path ahead, on a wide circle of stone, Thomas stopped crawling. He stood. He walked. Blood dripped from his lacerated hands and dappled the path as he strode toward Garret’s back.

Garret called out a word into the purple fog — some nonsense word, maybe Garret had finally cracked, after all he’d been through — as Thomas readied the sledgehammer he’d taken from a shed as he’d slunk through Thorn Village.



***



Garret. That was Hendrick’s first thought as he woke again. How can you be so strong? How?

The bone-cold breeze of the mountain bit at him as he lifted his head, staring down the path of Mount Thorn. And there was Thomas, walking toward them. Eyes blank, smile hungry, fingers dripping blood, sledgehammer swinging from his right hand.

No.

Obeying an instinct he didn’t know he had, Hendrick let out a strained yell, and lifted his hand, holding the acorn that he hardly remembered lifting out of his pocket. It flared with white-blue light, and Thomas stopped, a look of surprise slamming over his face. Thomas lifted an arm to shield himself from the glare, and looked so afraid and small in Hendrick’s light, that for a moment, Thomas wasn’t frightening anymore.

Then Thomas roared, and charged blindly toward Garret and Hendrick, hammer raised over his head.



***



It happened in a single second. Garret heard Hendrick scream, then heard an inhuman bellow behind him, and whirled around to see Thomas, like an ogre that had clawed its way out of the earth to find them, as he charged toward Garret, shielding his eyes with one arm, readying a sledgehammer with the other —

Years spent training. Years diving within himself, finding himself, finding his strength and skill. In that moment, while he still had the strength, a lifetime of carefully grown instinct took over. Garret ducked out of the way, and swept his leg at Thomas’s legs — and Thomas went down in a tangle of limbs, skidding ten feet across the rocks, his sledgehammer rocketing across the plateau. It tipped over at the edge of the circle, and disappeared into a deep black crevice.

Garret took Hendrick from his shoulder, and sat him upright carefully against a stone at the circle’s edge. Hendrick was barely awake.

Garret touched Hendrick’s face. Hendrick’s eyelids struggled to stay open. “Hendrick… hey… Stay with me, pal.”

“G-Garret,” Hendrick rasped, then his eyes went wide. “Behind…”

Garret turned just in time to see Thomas rush toward him. Thomas grabbed him by the throat, and threw him into the center of the plateau. Garret hit the stone hard, winded, as Thomas towered over him.

Keep fighting, thought Garret. He propped himself up on one arm, trying to stand. His arm wobbled under the pressure of his body, after carrying Hendrick all night. Keep fighting…

Thomas kicked Garret in the face. He tasted blood. Another kick in his stomach, and Garret crumpled back to the ground. He hadn’t even gotten his breath back before Thomas pushed him onto his stomach, straddled his legs, and forced Garret’s arms behind him.

Garret let out a low moan of pain as Thomas took his rope from his belt, bound his hands behind him, then bound them to his feet, in a quick and dirty hogtie. Thomas wasn’t a genius with knots, but it was tight, and it would take Garret time to get out of this. And Hendrick still sat there, completely exposed.

The sound of ripping cloth. Thomas had ripped Garret’s shirt up the back. Then he tore the whole thing off. Garret shook his head, trying to shake away the stars swimming in front of him — only to feel his head being pulled back by his hair. His mouth opened in a gasp of pain, and Thomas shoved in the huge knot of cloth he’d tied in the middle of Garret’s tattered shirt. Then he tied the ends behind Garret’s head with a vicious flourish, Garret grunting from the painful tightness. The knot tied, Thomas released Garret back to the ground.

“Hmm… Hmmph…” Garret rotated his wrists. It was no use. He needed more time. All this way, for this. All this way…

Another noise. Tiny, solid taps, like stones clicking on stones. Tick, tick, click-click. Getting louder.



***



Thomas didn’t even have the words to gloat, once he’d tied the massive gag into Garret’s mouth. To see him there, his sweat-soaked torso straining against the hogtie, his tiny groans hardly reaching Thomas’s ears… This is where Garret had always deserved to be. And finally, finally, Thomas had him.

What to do now? Throw Hendrick over the side of the mountain? Or bind him with his own clothes, jerk him off —

Fuck him. A thin line of drool slipped out from Thomas’s open, panting mouth. Bind him. Gag him. Jerk him off. Fuck him. Fuck him bloody. FUCK HIM —

A noise, echoing down from the path above. Something from the mist.

Something dark stirred up ahead. A shape, obscured by the fog. Something big.

The mountain isn’t done with me, thought Thomas, then immediately let out a scream of frustration for even letting himself think that, and slapped himself across the face. Blood mixed with the spittle on his chin. No. I’m Master Thomas. Borhim couldn’t stop me, Garret couldn’t stop me, no one can stop me —

A long white shape whipped out of the darkness, like a rope. It landed on Thomas’s right hand. He jumped backward in shock — the rope stuck there, long and sticky. He shook his hand wildly, his whole arm, but it did nothing to dislodge the strange substance. Snarling, Thomas grabbed the rope with his left hand, trying to pull it from his right, but found he was unable to let go, and now found both of his hands melded together in front of him.

The rope turned taut, and pulled Thomas slowly toward the mist, as the shadow grew clearer.

Eight huge legs. A monstrous spider-like body. A pale, lithely muscled torso, that of a beautiful young man, with black hair, and sharp yellow eyes, fixed on Thomas with predatory precision.

The Beast.

Thomas tried to scream, as the creature pulled him closer, like a fish on a hook. He tried to dig in his heels, but slid over the stone. The creature (BEAST) was reeling him in with his arms, pulling in coil of white rope after coil of white rope.

A moment later, before Thomas had even gotten his voice back, the Beast stood over Thomas, and looked down at him with an expression glacier-cold, and a voice ocean-deep.

“Thomas Clayborn,” said the Beast. “You’re long in coming.”

This can’t be happening. It’s all been a dream, ever since the mayor read my name. Too much has gone wrong, too much has gone right. I need another chance. I’m not supposed to lose. I’m supposed to conquer.

Thomas took in a great seething breath through his teeth. “Let me go,” he said with a shaking voice, “and I’ll let you live.”

The creature shook its head sadly. As the Beast reared up over him, Thomas’s stomach dropped into the earth beneath him.

“You have much left to learn, Thomas Clayborn. And you will learn it in silence.”

A flash of huge black legs, and Thomas was pulled off the ground. He spun in the air, so fast he could make nothing out but a swirl of fog and rock, and the harsh inky lines of enormous sider legs, wrapping him, wrapping him —

Five seconds was all it took. And Thomas’s entire body was smothered in webbing. His feet, legs, his torso; his arms, stuck together in front of him, now forced over his stomach, and pinned there permanently. The Beast held him aloft as he squirmed.

Thomas let out a high, whining noise of panic. Like a dying dog. Before he even thought to say another word, the Beast forced his mouth open with one hand, and with the other, stuffed in a fist-sized wad of webbing.

“BRMMPH!” The sticky mass filled up his gob from throat to teeth, adhering instantly to his teeth and tongue, pressing brutally against the inside of his cheeks. He mumbled desperately as the Beast took one last long strand of webbing, and with a look of grim resolution, wrapped it around Thomas’s mouth, and eyes, then over the top of his head and under his chin, crushing his stuffed and sealed lips around the ball of webbing.

Thomas screamed a strangled scream, imagining himself winning. Bursting out of the cocoon and finding his hammer. Finishing off Garret. Laying claim to Hendrick. Breaking the Beast’s legs, one by one. He would win. How glorious it would be, to win —

The Beast let Thomas’s body flop to the stone. There he lay, and began sobbing in fury, struggling in terror with the bindings he would leave this world in.



***



Garret watched Inyatala appear, and capture Thomas, and couldn’t quite believe what was happening, even when the cocoon dropped to the stone and writhed there impotently.

Had he really succeeded? Had he truly gotten Thomas back to the mountain in time? Had he saved the village? The world?

No. Hendrick. There was still Hendrick.

“WMMPH!” Garret tried to speak through the knot lodged between his lips, trying to get Inyatala’s attention.

Inyatala took a few steps toward Garret, and gave him a solemn nod and a relieved smile. “My love. My faith was well-placed. You need only endure your bondage for a few more moments. The sun has nearly set, and I have no moment to spare. I will return to release you.”

Inyatala picked up the worming cocoon, but Garret shook his head franticly, doing his best to nod in the direction of Hendrick.

“HLMPH HN-DRMMPH! PLMMPH!”

Inyatala paused, and turned his head to Hendrick, seeing him for the first time. The pale face, the bloodstained shirt, the bolt-tip still sticking out of his stomach.

Curious concern on his face, Inyatala let drop the cocoon one more time, and quickly scuttled over to Hendrick, legs clicking on the stone.

After a bare moment of examining the wound, Inyatala gasped sharply.

“You should be dead,” he murmured. “You should have died hours ago. What is…”

The blue light in Hendrick’s hand began to pulse warmly. And when it did, Garret felt the stone that he still held in his own hand begin to grow hot in turn.

Inyatala gently opened Hendrick’s hand, and saw the acorn, glowing blue white. His mouth dropped open.

Tears gathered in his eyes.

“My fire-haired stranger,” said Inyatala, in a voice nearly choking. “I thought I was the last of us.”



***



Hendrick watched with wide eyes as the creature that had rendered Thomas a webbed-up parcel skittered over to him. He had no strength left for words. He was at the creature’s mercy. But he wasn’t afraid. Why wasn’t he afraid?

When the creature saw his acorn and spoke, Hendrick’s pale brow knit together in confusion. What did he mean, the last of us?

The creature — Inyatala, that was what Garret had called him — placed a soft hand on Hendrick’s forehead. The world flashed white and vanished.



***



Visions. Fragments of images. Echoes of sounds.

A collection of huts, fashioned from stones and branches. An ancient little village, completely alien to Hendrick. But familiar. The roll of the hills, the character of the forest — the mountain overhead. This was where Thorn Village would one day sit, under the cold eye of Mount Thorn.

Flashing across the village like a line of light, Hendrick watched a young man plant a seed in the ground. A familiar young man. Inyatala. Still beautiful, but now fully human, and not so pale.

He pushed soil over the seed, then held a hand to his heart. Something in his pocket began to radiate amber yellow light, as the tree grew before him, a twig twisting out of the ground, then a full branch, and a sapling, exploding with leaves and bearing fruit.

Inyatala picked an apple and took a bite, the juice running clear and sparkling down his chin, as he closed his eyes, chewed, and smiled.

Then, the village was gone, and time had gone by, so much time. There was no village left, only Inyatala. He stood in the middle of a field, among empty and broken huts and hovels. His body had started to change. His skin was more white. His two legs were stranger than before, longer under his pants, and the knee broke the center of his stride at an odd angle.

The sky was purple. Thunder rattled Mount Thorn. Inyatala had a young man slung over his shoulder, bound with course cloths, wrapped from head to toe. He begged through a stuffing gag held in with a tight knotted cleave. But all Inyatala could do, crying all the while, was the take another strip of fabric, and blindfold his captive.

“Shh, my love,” he said in a breaking voice. “It will all be over soon. For the good of the world…”

Inyatala stared up the mountain, and murmured as if in a state of hypnosis, “Too many people, taken from me, all because we refused the call, refused to offer the name it wanted…”

He shouldered his writhing bound friend once more, and began walking toward the mountain path.

“It can’t be defeated. Only assuaged. The few must suffer so the many may live free. I swear now: I will suffer. I will not live free. I will see that the mountain is satiated. For as long as the mountain stands…”

The amber light glowing in Inyatala’s pocket burst into a powerful glare, and the world was swallowed with warmth and radiance; the ground disappeared, and Hendrick fell into nothingness.



***



Hendrick returned to the living world with a start. Inyatala removed his hand from his forehead.

“There were so many druids, once,” he said. “We don’t choose the gift. We don’t choose to live forever. But that’s what saved you, stranger.”

Hendrick swallowed in his cotton-dry throat, and finally spoke, Inyatala’s words not quite settling yet in his mind.

“What… what will happen to Thomas?”

“The Great Subjugator will take him, and enjoy him, as a trophy and a captive, until his life force is drained. And when Thomas is dead… the mountain will call us again.”

A line of sacrifices shot out in Hendrick’s mind, stretching out into a distant past, all of them bound and gagged against their will, forced to serve as the toy of an inscrutable force until their souls were shriveled and used up.

“Your wounds will heal,” said Inyatala, “and I will help you all I can. But the mountain will wait no longer. I shall return.”

“Wait…” Hendrick said, but too late. Inyata was already on the other side of the plateau, picking up the squirming, muffling bundle that had once been Thomas, and disappearing into the mist beyond.

Suffering. Suffering beyond what Hendrick could imagine. Lifelong captivity. Could he sit here, and consign Thomas to such a fate?

Yes.

The answer was so simple and clear that it churned Hendrick’s stomach. If it had been anyone but Thomas, he would have objected. He would have begged Inyatala to find another way. But to feed a monster with a monster was better than offering up an innocent.

But there would be more. After the Beast was finished with Thomas, there would be more. Could anything stop it? Thomas wouldn’t live forever —

Hendrick’s breath stopped. The acorn in his hand pulsed insistently with light.

Hendrick looked at Garret, where he lay squirming on the ground. He had turned his hogtied body enough so that he and Hendrick were facing one another.

Hendrick smiled at him.

“I did what I wanted to do,” Hendrick breathed. “I kept you safe. And you saved me. Garret… I think you saved me for this.”

“Hmp?” Garret cocked his head and muffled questioningly.

Hendrick tensed his whole body in preperation, then grabbed the bolt sticking out of his stomach, and in one swift tug, pulled it through and freed it from his body, then sent the blood-crusted length of wood clattering to the stone.

“HMMPRPH!” Garret stared with wide eyes, renewing his struggles, as Hendrick inspected his wound. The pain was intense… but the wound left by the bolt wasn’t bleeding. Inyatala was telling the truth.

Hendrick stood, and was ecstatic that he could stand. His steps were slow and tumbling at first, but by the time he reach Garret, he had found his rhythm.

He knelt before his friend.

“I’m so, so sorry,” said Hendrick. “If I untied you, you would try to stop me. Just remember… Remember…”

Hendrick’s heart was so full, and there was no time to say what needed to be said. So instead, he leaned over, and planted a long kiss on Garret’s forehead.

He pulled away, and Garret’s look of confusion and alarm had been frozen in place.

“Goodbye,” said Hendrick, and with his pain-filled steps, made his way as quickly as he could up the path, and disappeared into the fog.



***



Garret was alone, with no idea what Hendrick had in mind, but that kiss, and that last “Goodbye” — Hendrick was about to do something dangerous.

Whatever strength you have, find it now. The day isn’t won yet. Catch up to Hendrick, help him, help him —

Garret renewed his struggles. Little by little, he felt the ropes around his wrists loosening as saliva soaked through the cloth wedging his mouth open. He would get free soon. But not fast enough.



***



Hendrick felt his way though the tunnels blindly, scrambling forward as quickly as he could, his labored breath echoing everywhere around him. How long he scrambled forward for, he couldn’t say, but soon enough, a light appeared ahead. The dim light of a day that was almost dead.

Hendrick sprinted forward, and collapsed as he burst onto the mountain peak. Another small plateau of stone. Wind tore at his clothes as he struggled onto his knees. There in the center of the plateau was an altar, a rectangular stone slab. Over it stood a statue of a dragon, wings spread wide, toothy mouth opened at the vortex of purple and black that swirled directly overhead, a whirlpool in the sky.

A white cocoon still mumbling in terror and panic, writhed on the altar. Inyatala stood to one side, and regarded Hendrick with surprise.

Hendrick took the acorn from his pocket, and stumbled toward the altar.



***



One last twist of his wrist — and Garret’s right hand was free.

From there, it took only a few moments to untie the rest of his limbs, and leave his rope behind in a lifeless coil as he stood on his weary legs. He pointed himself toward the upward-winding path that led straight into the darkness of the mountain.

Wasting no time, and without even bothering to untie his gag, Garret launched himself into the darkness.



***



Hendrick knelt by the altar. He lifted his acorn with his long thin fingers.

“Stranger,” said Inyatala, taking a step forward. “What are you doing?”

“I’m saving the future,” said Hendrick.

Something in the sky roared.

Hendrick and Inyatala’s faces snapped upward. The noise had been like thunder, but more than that. Living thunder. Hungry thunder.

A mass of purple smoke began to cohere in the sky. Something was starting to form.



***



Garret tripped in the dark more than once, his overworked legs tangling beneath him as he made the last sprint of his journey.

“Hmmph… Hmmph…” Garret breathed heavily through his gag, which he hardly remembered was there, as he turned one more corner, and saw that the tunnel lead upward, to a mouth of grim purple light.



***



For a moment, all Hendrick could do was watch as two huge orbs of red light collected in the sky. Then, a face emerged, built up out of the clouds. Nebulous and terrible. Were those horns, or ears? And how high up was this face, how much of the sky did it spread over? But the one thing certain about it was its teeth. It had a long, snout-like maw, lined with long, dark-purple teeth, pointed directly down at Thomas and Hendrick. The face of a dragon.

Hendrick forced his gaze back downward, wind beating at his hair and face so bitingly that tears streaked across his face sideways. He took his acorn. He laid it down in his palm.

He pressed his palm onto Thomas’s cocooned chest.

Thomas’s panicked writhing was a constant thing, and he seemed to pay no heed to Hendrick’s touch. Hendrick closed his eyes. With his free hand, he touched the stony earth beneath him.

“You’ve given me a gift,” he whispered to the earth. “But I don’t want it… I hardly deserve it… It should have been Garret… But if it has to be me, let me pass it on. Let it pass…”

The mountain was silent. The wind was cold. The face above loomed closer and closer, eyes flat and red, jaws beginning to open.



***



Garret burst onto the mountaintop. “HMMPH!” he cried, forgetting his gag, as he saw Hendrick kneeling before the altar, a hand on Thomas’s chest. And above…

The beast’s mouth opened. Down the abyss of its throat, perfect darkness.

Garret stared in terror and awe. Then he remembered himself, fumbled with his gag, pried the knot out of his mouth, and cast it away.

“HENDRICK, GET AWAY!” he shouted, and lunged toward Hendrick across the plateau.



***



The acorn was warm in Hendrick’s hand. The hot breath of the creature above beat down over his entire body. The acorn grew hot. So hot, he could hardly touch it. But still, he pressed it, pressed it down —

He opened his eyes. He stared off into the empty sky surrounding the plateau, buffeted by storm winds and despair. Something was out there. Something caught Hendrick’s eye. A glint of color. Something small, with wings.

Arms grappled around Hendrick’s waist and pulled him from the altar. He knew immediately that it was Garret. Garret heaved the both of them to the mouth of the tunnel, as far from the altar as they could get.

Spent, Garret pulled Hendrick up close to his chest and refused to let go. Hendrick looked down at his open hand.

The acorn was gone.



***



Thomas’s mummification was imperfect. There was a small sliver of his body left uncovered, almost invisible from the outside. A thin crack in the webbing, just over his left eye. And with his left eye, Thomas watched as the Beast appeared.

Thomas screamed, chewing in ultimate animal panic at his gag, contorting his muscles in every possible way beneath his web prison. He kept screaming and screaming. Somewhere in the empty caves of his soul, he knew that he would go on screaming forever.

The mouth opened. There it was, beyond the teeth. That black hole. That must be death. It must be.

But I am Death. I am. I am, I am, I —

Thomas began to float off the altar.



***



Garret and Hendrick watched as Thomas levitated into the air, five, ten, twenty, thirty feet above the altar, writhing in his webs like a fish caught in a net and tossed back into the sea.

The face came lower and lower. The eyes blazed with their eternal red light. The mouth was opened wide, impossibly wide, as Thomas drifted past it’s teeth, each tooth a monolith, each tooth a mountain.

The cocoon screamed one last time, as suddenly the smoky jaws of the Beast swung shut, in an explosion of purple cloud and red light and thunder. Then for a bloody instant, the sky was a warped portal of madness, a tear in time that led from one world to another. Then, a crash of red lightning.

Then silence.



***



Moonlight.


Garret opened his eyes, and there was moonlight. The full moon, perfect and pale, sat in the clear sky, dusted by stars on every side. The night was still. The air was clear. The altar was empty.

Garret let his head drop to his chest. He laughed. He never thought he would laugh again.

“Hendrick,” he said, “we did it. We…”

But Hendrick was limp in his arms.

Fear stabbing him, Garret turned Hendrick over. Hendrick’s shirt was hot with fresh blood. His wound had started bleeding again.

“No, no,” Garret muttered without knowing it, and pulled Hendrick out from the mouth of the tunnel into the bright moonlight. “No, Hendrick, we’ve come so far, please…”

Hendrick stirred. Still alive, for a moment.

Inyatala walked quickly over to them, his mouth gaping open. “He gave himself,” he whispered. “He gave himself, so that Thomas will live forever. We’re free, Garret. Free from the Great Subjugator. We’re free…”

“Hendrick?” Garret cradled hid friend in his arms, tears flowing freely. “You’re going to live. Remember what Inyatala said… Right, Inyatala?”

He looked up. Inyatala simply stared at Hendrick. Then knelt, and lowered his head.

Hendrick’s eyes slowly opened. “Garret,” he whispered, in a voice nearly gone. “I’m… I’m so glad you’re safe…”

“Shh, don’t say anything —”

“I’m sorry. I had to. If this ever happened again… The next time the Beast called… The next time…”

Hendrick’s eyes met Garret’s, and he offered up a small smile.

“The next time, it might have been you…”

Hendrick cleared his throat. Blood began trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Overcome, overwhelmed, Garret let out a keening cry and hugged the trembling Hendrick close to him, feeling the blood seep through his shirt and stick to his skin. He’s so warm, Garret thought, he’s so warm…

“Give me my totem, Garret.”

Garret looked up, and through his tears, saw Inyatala extending a hand toward Garret.

Lifelessly, Garret took the yellow stone from his pocket. The glow was entirely extinguished. He handed it to Inyatala, and returned both his arms to Hendrick, holding him, rocking from side to side…

Inyatala held it up the moon, and the stone began to glow again.

“I didn’t know it was possible,” said Inyatala, his own tears shimmering in the moonlight. “To give myself, the way your friend did. You must believe me. If I’d known, decades ago, centuries ago… I would have done it… But I can still do it now.”

Garret blinked, and watched in wonder as Inyatala gently pulled Hendrick away, and pressed the yellow totem into Hendrick’s wound.

Garret wanted to stop him, to say, no, you’ll hurt him, don’t touch him — but the light grew brighter, and brighter, lighting up the top of the mountain like a candle flame.

“There’s no more need for me,” whispered Inyatala. “The Great Subjugator is satisfied. My task is done…”

Abruptly, the light winked out. Hendrick’s drooping eyelids burst open. He drew in a huge breath.

“Hendrick!” Garret cried, and pulled his friend to him once more.

Inyatala smiled, and backed away, as Garret buried his face in Hendrick’s shoulder. “You’re safe, Hendrick, you’re safe now, I’ve got you, and I’ll never let go…”

A strange noise, like paper crumpling, drew Garret’s attention. He looked up.

Inyatala was fading. Pieces of him were curling away like ash, and disappearing over the side of the mountain in the light breeze, as if he were firewood that had long refused to burn, but now finally gave in to the fire.

As his torso began to dissolve, Inyatala raised his hand in a gesture of farewell.

“Goodbye, my love,” said Inyatala. “Remember to feel…”

With that, Inyatala’s shining yellow eyes vanished in a cloud of dust. A swirl of dark particles melted into the night, and suddenly, Inyatala was gone.

Garret and Hendrick stayed there for a long time. They clung to each other. They cried together. They laughed for no reason. They basked in the moonlight, and were wordlessly enraptured by a deep, inexplicable feeling of exhausted peace.

Finally, the sun rose.



***



When Garret and Hendrick returned from the top of Mount Thorn the following morning, Thorn Village had already begun the process of recovery.

As soon as Thomas had vanished, the otherworldly creatures that had tormented the town disappeared, and the bindings that had subjugated them all fell away like dry grass.

Out deep in the forest, Elias’s bound body had been wrapped against a tree. He’d struggled all through the night, and was amazed when his squirming and mumbling finally seemed to pay off, and he burst easily through his mummification and tumbled to the ground. He continued on his way to Thorn Village, and arrived just after the sun came up. He quickly learned from the recovering townspeople what had happened, and rushed to the mountain.

Elias arrived just as Garret and Hendrick finished their descent, leaning on one another, supporting one another.

Elias rushed to them, and the three of them embraced as they had never embraced before.



***



Thorn Village was of two minds about the story that Garret, Hendrick, and Elias had to tell. Many celebrated the end of the Beast’s sacrifices, and praised the three young men (“heroes,” they were now called sometimes, in eager tavern gossip) for their bravery and resourcefulness. But others were skeptical. They had lived all their lives in fear of the call of the Beast. Could it truly be over? But Garret, Hendrick, and Elias knew that time would prove them right.

For a week, Elias cared for Garret and Hendrick in his own home as they recovered, refusing any help for himself. Hendrick’s bolt wound had completely disappeared; more than anything, the two of them needed rest and food and quiet. And Elias was happy to supply it all himself, until Mayor Barlon himself barged in and insisted that Elias allow himself some time for recovery, and let one of the town herbalists take care of Garret and Hendrick for a few days. Elias reluctantly agreed, meaning to only take one evening off… and then accidentally collapsed into bed for thirty hours.

By the time that week was over, Garret, Hendrick, and Elias had done all the physical recovering they could from their ordeal.They walked through the streets of their village, and smiled with red faces as the townsfolk cheered them, slapping their backs and thanking them for all they’d done.

Soon after they had gotten their strength back, two unexpected but welcome visitors arrived at Thorn Village: Amadi and Makaio, on horseback, wearing the uniforms of Red Haven guards.

Garret was out in a field practicing Sword and Snare when they arrived, and he rushed over to greet them, overjoyed that Amadi was all right, and happily introducing himself to Makaio. Makaio had seen Garret’s well-executed, disciplined sword forms as they’d arrived, and offered him a warrior’s full respect.

When Garret asked about their attire, Amadi said, “I’m afraid it’s a long story… It wasn’t easy, getting out of Red Haven together. But Makaio is… well, when stealth fails, Makaio knows how to handle himself.”

“Oh, the guards will be found, said Makaio, with a huge white grin. “Perhaps in a day or two, if they can’t escape by themselves.”

Amadi and Makaio were just passing through, on their long journey back to the Mirror Islands, and didn’t want to stop for long. Elias insisted on hosting them himself, for at least a night, and the two of them agreed. The town was happy to offer the foreign travelers supplies for their journey.

They all said their goodbyes the following morning, as Garret, Hendrick, and Elias saw them off.

“Home at last,” said Amadi, as he climbed back up onto his horse. “We wish you happiness, and you will always have a place at my table, if you find yourselves traveling east. Thank you again, for all you’ve done… and farewell.”

Amadi and Makaio disappeared eastward.

Safe travels, Garret thought, as he silently wondered at how much had changed in just a week. How easily he could slip back into routine, after all that had happened. How the world seemed to be setting itself right.



***



Taylor stood in the crowded sqaure, looking down at his wrists. The rope-burns hadn’t gone away yet. He hoped they would soon.

After escaping the ship with Amadi and Makaio, they had taken him to his home, and Taylor had rested after his ordeal. But the experience still ached in his mind. He kept thinking of the fear and pain it had caused him, to be tricked by a maniac into bondage, and kept in a trussed-up, gagged state for days…

And most fearful of all, he thought about how by the end, he’d truly started to enjoy it.

At the very thought, he blushed, just as the crowd around him pressed forward, toward a large wooden platform that had been erected in the market square. The public punishment was about to begin.

Guards hauled up four men onto the platform, each wearing ratty, ill-fitting rags that hardly stretched over their honed muscles. Three were Venesthians. Taylor recognized them well, from his visit to Master Borhim’s Venesthian Circus. He had seen them bind up members of the crowd for fun, but Taylor hadn’t any idea that they’d been slave peddlers; he’d thought that Thomas had been working alone. And the third was the tall, largely muscled Officer Kent, an officer no more, with short hair and angry eyes that glared over his gag.

All four were bound similarly, their hands manacled behind them, leather bit gags shoved between their teeth. Taylor had heard all about the trial over the past few days. This officer of the town guard, Kent, had been caught in a grand human-trafficking conspiracy. But luckily, Lord Castero, a wealthy aristocrat and member of the city council, had found out and blown the whistle. The trial was surprisingly fast. And today was the day the sentence would be announced.

Commander Yorlon Mox, stout and regal in his full armor, stepped onto the platform, and was immediately followed by a graceful, tall figure in a blue robe, refined and sharp-featured; Lord Castero.

Castero raised a hand and quieted the crowd, which had been hollering and jeering at the four bound prisoners, waiting eagerly to see them get their just desserts.

“Good people of Red Haven,” Lord Castero called out. “How sad it is, when our jewel of a city is defiled by corruption and immorality. The courts have spoken. As a member of the city council, it gives me no pleasure to announce that the sentence, recommended by the council and accepted by the courts, is the harshest punishment we inflict here in Red Haven: Lifetime imprisonment. Commander Mox — please prepare the prisoners for their sentence.”

The crowd cheered wildly as Mox waved a half dozen more guards onto the platform, each carrying various items — ropes, strange looking jackets, and bundles Taylor hardly even recognized.

Taylor tried to keep himself calm — he could feel himself beginning to become excited, in spite of himself, by the sight of all these bindings that these men were about to endure.

“He’s very striking, isn’t he?”

Taylor turned. Beside him stood a thickly muscled young man, with very dark skin, shaved head, and bright, twinkling eyes. Broad and ample in his chest and legs, he wore a tight-fitting white outfit, with a small V-neck in the shirt, and white gloves.

Taylor’s heart fluttered a bit at the sight of him. Taylor, would you calm down, he silently reprimanded yourself. Take your mind off sex for a fraction of a second, if you can.

“Who do you mean?” asked Taylor.

“Lord Castero,” said the man, eyes still locked with Taylor’s. Then he chuckled. “Apologies. My name is Mendu. It’s a pleasure.”

“Taylor, and likewise,” said Taylor with a smile, reaching out and shaking Mendu’s hand. “And, yes… this Castero certainly seems to have an air of… authority about him.”

“You think so?”

“I mean… just look at him!” Taylor nodded up at the stage with a forced laugh, pretending he wasn’t devastatingly excited by what he was seeing. The four men had been un-manacled, only to have their arms forced into thick strait jackets, the arms tied tight around their bodies. The three Venesthian slavers had already had their bit gags replaced with leather panels, forced into their mouths, that seemed to have pumps attached to the front, which a few guards were now eagerly pumping. And as they did, even from a distance, Taylor could see the prisoner’s cheeks inflate more and more under their gags.

But it was Castero whom Taylor had been gesturing toward. The guards had just taken the bit gag out of Kent’s mouth, and he opened his mouth, perhaps to scream, perhaps to plead for mercy one last time — but Castero just slapped his hand over the muscled man’s mouth. Inaudible over the roar of the crowd, Castero whispered something in Kent’s ear — and Kent exploded in anger, trying to speak through the tight hand gag, glaring daggers at Castero. But Castero simply stepped back, and instantly one of the guards shoved the inflatable plug into Kent’s mouth, followed by the tight panel buckled around his head. Then, the inflation of his cheeks began.

“I have to agree with you,” said Mendu, as all four of the prisoners had their bodies coiled with rope, from their feet to their shoulders, piling more tension over their strait jackets. “Castero has a way of taking control. I work for him.”

“Oh! You do? What’s your line of work?”

“Oh, I’m a… servant. I was nervous at first, entering into his service. But after Lord Castero introduced me to his style of living… well, I enjoy my work. And what do you do?”

“I’m an actor,” said Taylor. His dreams of performing had somewhat dimmed over the past week, as he’d struggled to get over his time in captivity, and the confusion of the pleasure it caused him.

“Hm.” Mendu looked Taylor up and down. “You’re handsome enough for it. And you have the body. If you don’t mind my saying.”

Taylor smiled and cast his eyes downward, hoping he wasn’t turning too red. “You’re very kind. I only wish there were some directors in this city who thought the same.”

Mendu was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Have you considered a finding a patron?”

“… A patron?”

“Someone who can offer you financial support while you hone your craft. Someone to invest in you, purely for the sake of your art.”

Taylor hadn’t considered that before. It sounded nearly too good to be true.

Taylor cleared his throat. “And do you know of anyone who might be willing to, um… be my patron?”

“I just might. Follow me.”

Before Taylor could object, Mendu gently but insistently took Taylor’s hand, and led him through the crowd.

Once they’d gotten to the edge of the throng, Mendu led Taylor to a figure waiting by the corner of a building. Lithe of limb, blue robed — Lord Castero.

“Mendu,” he said, with a wry smile. “I see you’ve brought me a stray. May I ask why?”

“This young man is a promising up-and-coming actor, my Lord. I suggested to him that you might be willing to offer your patronage.”

“Is that so.”

Still smiling, Castero turned to the platform. Taylor followed his gaze, and saw that the guards had finished wrapping their subjects in rope, netted tightly over each of the prisoner’s bodies. And now, each was being forced into a thin black leather sack, starting from the feet, and working all the way up to the head. Despite their mute screams and almost comically ineffective struggles, within moments all three had been enveloped in their own private skintight black bags, laced up in the back with brutal tightness by the guards who snickered in pleasure as they continued their work.

Taylor wasn’t aware of the way his mouth hung open as he watched, or the obvious lust in his eyes. And he failed to see Lord Castero and Mendu share a pleased, knowing look.

“I’d be happy to consider you for my patronage,” said Castero, recapturing Taylor’s attention. “I have only one condition. Join me in my home, right this minute, for an audition. I have a few hours before my next meeting, and I’d be happy to use them in order to get to know you better.”

Taylor could hardly believe what he’d just heard. His new life — it could be just one more audition away. “Are you sure? I’d hate to be any trouble —”

“No trouble,” Castero continued, with a wave of his hand. “But I should let you know, if I take you under my wing… you will want for nothing. You will be free to become the best artist you can be, without fear of starving. In return, I may sometimes request some private performances.”

Taylor nodded eagerly. That was all? He would be more than happy to give Lord Castero some private shows, if it ensured his financial future.

“It’s settled then,” said Castero. “And it looks like we’re done here, anyway.” He glanced at the platform, and Taylor saw that the four prisoners had been further bound with belts over their black sacks, reinforcing their bonds at the ankles, above and below their knees, their thighs, waists, and above and below their heaving, struggling chests. Finally, all four were shoved into a huge burlap sack, which was then tied to a close at the top, and more rope was used to wrap the whole bundle together. The moaning mound of sack and rope that not too long ago had been four prisoners was hauled off the stage on the shoulders of the guards, to the great cheering of the crowds. They were dumped into a horse-drawn cart, and pulled out of sight, making their bumpy journey to the city dungeons.

Taylor turned, and saw Lord Castero and Mendu had already started away. Taylor rushed after them.

“You won’t regret this, my Lord,” said Taylor, short of breath from excitement. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I’m sure you will… What’s your name?”

“Taylor, my Lord.”

“Taylor. And have you been in Red Haven long?”

“Not long, Lord Castero. I’m still getting to know the place.”

“Take it from me, Taylor. You have a look about you that I like. I think you’ll find Red Haven to be the perfect city, for you to discover who you truly are.”

Taylor smiled, following along at Castero’s heels like a puppy, as the three of them vanished into the crowds of Red Haven, the city closing over them as easily as a smiling flytrap.



***



Two weeks after Thomas was taken by the Beast, Garret found himself unable to sleep. At midnight, he lit a lantern, found a sword and a coil of rope, and went out into the fields to practice.

He arrived in the grassy plain just outside of Thorn Village. He kicked off his shoes. The dew felt cool and sweet between his toes. He pulled off his shirt, faced the straw-stuffed dummy standing in the center of the field, and fell into his familiar stance. He began practicing.

Garret was unaware that Hendrick had followed him, until finally Hendrick said, “I think you’re good enough with that sword already, you know.”

Garret turned. Hendrick stood there, smiling at him. Garret couldn’t help but smile back.

“That’s kind… But I can always get better. I want to be better. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.”

Garret almost fell back into his stance, and returned to his forms… but instead, he dropped his sword, and stepped toward Hendrick.

“Hendrick… we haven’t really talked, since everything that happened.”

“I know. I’m sorry…”

“No, no, don’t be sorry. I feel as if I’ve only just gotten my breath back.”

Hendrick nodded. “Me too.”

They stood there for a moment. A handful of fireflies flickered in the nearby woods.

“I…”

Hendrick began, then stopped, looking down at his feet. Garret waited, then kindly pressed: “What is it?”

Hendrick looked up again.

“I didn’t mean for… for Inyatala to… to save me. And now he’s gone…”

A guilt that had been slowly growing in Hendrick since they’d descended the mountain rose up into his throat, and he began to quietly cry. Garret wasted no time in rushing toward him and wrapping his arms around him.

“Shh. Please, don’t. Don’t you dare,” said Garret softly. “Inyatala chose what he chose. Who knows how long he lived on that mountain, longing to find a way to end it? I know it’s hard, but you have nothing to regret.”

“I just…” Hendrick looked up into Garret’s open, wondering face. “I just… I thought you might blame me. That his death would hurt you. I didn’t… I mean… Garret… I don't want to see you hurt.”

For some reason that Garret would never understand, that was the moment. It was the moment that something that had long been stalled in his mind clicked into place, and new, strange warmth began vibrating in his chest.

Garret grasped Hendrick gently by the chin, brought their faces together, and kissed him.

It was tender and slow. It was Garret’s first real kiss, as it was Hendrick’s, and neither of them knew what they were doing. But they knew what they were doing felt good, and they wanted more.

Hendrick grasped Garret’s face in both of his hands, tears running as he kissed him. Somehow, as moment later, they were both down in the wet grass, Garret on his back, Hendrick straddling his waist.

They kept kissing, still tender, but getting hungrier, taking their time, tasting one another's lips, probing, curious and elated, pausing only for breath. Garret’s hands ran down Hendrick’s waist, and then Hendrick grabbed Garret’s hands, and slowly, almost teasingly, pulled them over Garret’s head, and pinned them softly in the grass as the kissing continued —

Then they both froze, realizing the position they were in.

Hendrick broke the kiss, looking up at his hands, holding Garret’s muscled arms over his head. He hadn’t meant to do that. It had just happened.

“Is this…” said Hendrick, “is this… all right?”

The kindness and concern in Hendrick’s eyes was so clear, so pure, that all Garret could do was breathlessly nod.

Once they both knew that what they were doing wasn’t a mistake, but was something they both wanted, the moment changed completely. That simple gesture; Hendrick, holding Garret’s arms over his head; blossomed into the warmest, most intimate, most erotic moment that either of them had ever experienced, or ever would again.

They stayed in that field until golden light broke over the treetops, and that whole beautiful night, they banished loneliness, and silently understood that they would never be alone again.



***



A few days later, Garret, Hendrick, and Elias stood at the edge of town, the sun high, the grass green around them. Two horses were saddled and stocked with provisions. Garret wore his sword on one side of his belt, and a coil of rope on the other.

Elias was there to see them off on their journey. The two had decided that they needed to shake the dust off their lives, travel a road where peril and danger weren’t waiting around every turn. They would travel together for a time, before coming home again. Perhaps north; see what else the world had to offer, aside from slavers and monsters.

“Write whenever you can,” said Elias, as he helped Hendrick onto his horse. (Hendrick didn’t need the help, but knew that it made Elias happy to be useful, and so he kept his mouth shut.) “If you’re gone too long without writing, I’m coming after you two, you hear me?”

“We wouldn’t expect anything less,” said Garret with a smile. They said their final goodbyes, and Elias began making his way back toward town.

As he did, Elias kept a private smile for himself. He’d seen the change in Garret and Hendrick over the past few days. They looked at each other differently. Sometimes, he’d caught the two of them in total, comfortable silence, simply looking at one another, and grasping each other’s hands.

I’ve seen them grow up, thought Elias. I’ve seen them be children, I’ve seen them be men. And whatever beautiful thing it is that they’ll turn into next… well, I hope I have the chance to see that, too. Goodbye, boys. Don’t stay away too long.

Elias returned to his leather shop, and spent the rest of the day polishing saddles, and sighing happily at the window.

When Elias left them, Garret and Hendrick spared one last look at Thorn Village, before the path swept them off to who-knows-where.

“Are you ready?” asked Garret.

Hendrick looked at the path ahead of them. A crystal-blue butterfly settled on a fallen log, its paper-thin wings shimmered in the sunlight.

“I’m ready,” said Hendrick.

They spurred their horses onward. Garret and Hendrick stepped out from the shadow of the mountain, setting their sights on the wide world — and their new lives began.












The End

[Charmides]

A quick little self-indulgent note from the author:

I've gotta say, this is a pretty nice little corner of the internet we have here. These forums have always been an amazing place for me to visit, unwind, indulge in some kinky interests, and make new friends. And a whole lot of those friends, I made through writing Shadow of the Mountain.

I just wanted to take a second to thank the folks who've shown interest in this extremely genre-specific TUG-serial that I've been puttering around with for the past couple of years. I always had a good time writing it... but I definitely wouldn't have gotten close to finishing it, if I didn't know some other people liked it, too. So, a huge thank you to everyone who cornered my heart in an alley, wrapped it up with rope, stuffed a pair of socks in its mouth (followed by two dozen turns of electrical tape, naturally), and hauled it over this story's finish line:

[mention]DeeperThanRed[/mention], [mention]Volobond[/mention], [mention]MountainMan_91[/mention], [mention]cj2125[/mention], [mention]Straitjacketed[/mention], [mention]Rtj65[/mention], [mention]privateandrews[/mention], [mention]Kratos[/mention], [mention]Opal[/mention], [mention]KidnappedCowboy[/mention], [mention]gag1195[/mention], [mention]Varlance[/mention], [mention]Tsuhaya[/mention], [mention]bondagefreak[/mention], [mention]Xtc[/mention], [mention]FelixSH[/mention], [mention]BoundWolf[/mention], [mention]LexMachina[/mention], [mention]MaxRoper[/mention], [mention]Camguy2050[/mention], [mention]notreallyme06[/mention], [mention]dahanband[/mention], [mention]TightropesEU[/mention], [mention]sharpliketoday[/mention], [mention]noescape[/mention], [mention]Mummyboi[/mention], [mention]Viperbound7[/mention], and [mention]WaffleSquidge[/mention]. (And to anyone who's been reading, but hasn't felt comfortable commenting -- I completely understand, I've been there myself. I offer you my sincerest thanks, too; I appreciate your time.)

What I'm going to do next with my spare TUG-time, I can't rightly say, but I'll definitely be hanging around to bother all of you fantastic people. Stay safe out there, friends. Much love to all of you.

[MaxRoper]

Thanks for the shoutout. While I'm not usually a big fan of fantasy tales, this has been a fun ride. I look forward to whatever you have in store for us. You are an excellent writer with a good sense of characters and humor as well as being a top notch self-editor (not an easy task).

Well done!