[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (36 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias



He woke slowly this time, huddled close against 
the wall until he realized that he was cold but 
dry. Lindsey's eyes flicked open and he pulled 
gently on his chains. They rattled but his hands 
were no looser than before. The skin was sore and 
cut, but he wasn't bleeding anywhere that he could feel.

The boy had no idea how much time had passed, or 
whether any time had passed at all. He knew only 
that when the dawn came Calephas would return and 
make him drink whatever potion he'd prepared.

It took him a long time to still his sobbing. 
Part of him didn't want to stop. Why fight what 
he couldn't fight? He was just a boy now. His 
father was a prisoner. Gmork was after his 
friends. And the Resistance had been betrayed and 
would not have the men they needed to assault the 
castle. What hope did he have really?

But Lindsey wasn't ready to give up just yet. To 
calm his nerves, he tried to recall those who 
he'd loved. How many happy times had he recalled 
ever since returning to Arabarb? Lindsey set his 
mind to work counting them and recounting them.

The home in which he'd lived, full of life as his 
father Alfwig had dressed kills, his mother 
sewing or preparing meat, while he and his 
brother played in the fields with Pharcellus, or 
learned the many woodland crafts they would need 
from their parents. He dwelt on games, on songs, 
on prayers, on stories, all of the things that 
made his home a true home, that formed him into the man he'd become.

Alfwig was so strong and sure, doting on them but 
teaching them where that strength came from, the 
heart and not the sinew. Elizabaeg showing them 
patience and that love comes through service. 
Pharcellus being for them a playmate and 
protector and an older brother he hadn't even 
realized he had. Andrig wanting nothing more than 
to get into mischief with his big sister. Lindsey 
smiled as he thought on them all.

And with the memories came more measured breaths 
and a weariness that could not be denied.


Lindsey was still a boy, but now he was being 
dragged by the Lutins through the castle walls. 
The cold stones bumped him and bruised him as he 
tried to get his feet under him, stubbing his 
toes and then tripping only to bounce on his 
thighs and rump again and again. “Where... 
ooof... are you... ugh... taking me?”

“You quiet now,” the Lutins, neither of whom were 
the one who'd brought him to Calephas, laughed 
and kicked him before continuing on their way. He 
groaned and kept trying to get to his feet.

He managed it only a dozen paces before they 
turned into the same room where he'd first met 
Gmork. The monster was there, dressed in his fine 
northern furs and standing almost in the pose of 
a man. His nose was wide but mostly human, and 
his lips concealed teeth only slightly too long. 
His peppered black hair was drawn into a braid in 
mockery of the men of Arabarb. Still his ears were pointed and tufted with fur.

“Welcome Lindsey. Your family missed you.” The 
creature grinned and swept a clawed hand to his 
left and Lindsey's eyes followed. He screamed and 
tried to run to them but the Lutins yanked him back.

There, chained to the floor were his father 
Alfwig, his mother Elizabaeg, and his younger 
brother Andrig. Set before each one of them were 
little baubles, all of them cold and dark. “Father! Mother! Andrig! It's me!”

“Lindsey, there's nothing you can do,” Alfwig 
said softly in broken agony. “They've defeated 
us. Arabarb belongs to them now.”

“I don't believe it!” Lindsey shouted as he 
struggled against his bonds. The Lutins kicked 
his legs out from under him and he fell to the ground, bruising his knees.

“It's true,” his mother side with a weeping sigh. 
“They have all of us now. There's no one left.”

“But, Pharcellus and the birds are out there! Thjey'll bring help!”

Gmork laughed and leaned down over the bauble in 
front of his brother Andrig. “Oh, I think not. I 
killed him before coming back here.” He smiled 
and drew a parcel wrapped in a leather satchel. 
“I made sure to bring back evidence of course, so 
that you would know that you have no friends 
left, Lindsey.” He set it down in front of Andrig 
who stared at it with fierce hate. “Open it.”

“Never!” his brother spat at the monster and 
glared. “I'll never do as you ask!”

Gmork leaned over and put one finger on the 
bauble, rolling it back and forth. “Never? You 
will do as I ask, boy. You can do nothing else.”

A light flared inside the bauble and Lindsey 
pulled at his chains again. “Don't listen to him, 
Andrig! Don't listen to him! He's stealing your mind!”

“Listen to me, boy,” Gmork said, his words an 
insistent growl as his face began to swell with 
the suggestion of a snout. “Listen to my words and my words only.”

“No!” Lindsey cried, before one of the Lutins 
jabbed him in the gut with his fist. He coughed 
and gagged as the light inside the bauble flared brighter.

“I don't...” Andrig cried, face twisting in an 
anguish as his hate began to be replaced by a 
sick and vile love. “I don't... I listen... I listen...”

“Good. You like listening to my voice,” Gmork 
crooned as the bauble flared brighter and 
brighter. Lindsey gasped in horror as his younger 
brother began to stare at the monster with 
adoration. By the time the boy had regained his 
breath, Andrig was obediently ripping the leather 
pouch open. From within he drew out a very 
familiar gray and red rimmed skull. A dragon's head – Pharcellus.

Gmork left his brother and moved next to his 
mother, reaching out with one fur-coated hand to 
stroke her cheek. She pulled away, but his voice 
whispered across a long, red tongue to tantalize 
her ears and mesmerize her mind. Lindsey shouted 
for it to stop, even as he wept over his older 
brother's death. But the bauble before his mother 
began to glow and glow brighter and brighter.

“You love me, don't you?” Gmork asked before 
bathing his mother's face in long strokes with 
his tongue as his definite snout brushed either 
side of her face with thin whiskers.

“I do my master!” Elizabaeg gasped with almost sensual delight.

Gmork glanced back at Lindsey, as he draped one 
arm over his mother's back. She buried her face 
into his chest and peppered his fur with kisses. 
“She isn't your real mother, but I am sure you 
would hate to see her give herself to me like a bitch begging for pups.”

Alfwig rose form his torpor and lunged at Gmork, 
but his chains drew him just short. “Don't you dare touch her!”

Gmork laughed. “When I have finished with you, 
man, you will beg me to rape your wife. And you 
will beg me to rip out your son's throat while I'm doing it.”

Lindsey tried to beat at th eLutins in his 
struggle to stop Gmork, but they pummeled him 
with their fists until his entire body felt like 
one large bruise. Purple blotches dotted his 
arms, chest, and legs as he lay there between 
them, gasping and wheezing in pain as he watched 
Gmork speak to his father. Alfwig's eyes burned 
with defiance but that softened with each new 
word, dwindling into confusion before finally 
surrendering to obeisance and complete capitulation.

“Now,” Gmork said as he ran his paw-like hand 
beneath Alfwig's chin, “what do you wish me to do, my little pet?”

Lindsey wailed as his father spoke words that 
should never have come from his throat. But those 
wails did resolve themselves into words, 
objections, any thought that he could dredge from 
his misery and onto his tongue. “No, this cannot 
be! Alfwig is immune to you, Gmork! Just like I 
am! You can't make him your pet! You can't do that! I know you can't!”

Gmork glanced back at him, the jaws of a wolf 
spreading wide to reveal yellowed fangs and 
hideous breath. “But I have, little boy. I have. 
With the dragon dead at my paws I have greater 
power than before. And I will have you too as my 
little pet, boy!” He drew a fourth bauble from 
his cloak and set it down on the flagstones in 
front of Lindsey. “And now you will listen to me too.”

Lindsey shook his head. “Nay! My friends from 
Metamor! They promised to rescue me. Misha promised to send help!”

Gmork's golden eyes widened in amusement. “Oh, 
you mean that axe-wielding fox? He did come. Oh, fox, come in here please!”

Through the doorway stepped a completely naked 
Misha, his eyes noticing nothing but Gmork. He 
dropped down to his four paws, still almost human 
in shape, but just low enough that he would keep 
his head beneath that of Gmork's. “What is it, my master?”

Gmork ran his paw through the fur on Misha's 
back, ruffling the deep red and and smiling as he 
studied it. “You have such beautiful fur. I would 
like for my own. Do you wish me to skin you and take your pelt, my pet?”

Misha gasped with hope and anxiety. “Oh, let me tear it off for you!”

“Nay, my enthusiastic pet, let me do this. Stay 
still now.” Lindsey shouted Misha's name over and 
over, but the fox never even flicked an ear to 
listen to him. Gmork pressed his claw into the 
back of Misha's neck until it started to bleed, 
and then drew it straight down his spine until it 
met his tail. Then he moved it over Misha's left 
hip and down his leg until it was just above his 
hocks. He returned to Misha's front and did the 
same thing down his left arm. Blood welled along 
the cuts but the fox's expression was one of angelic rapture.

Lindsey tried to look away, but one of the 
Lutin's grasped his head and forced him to watch. 
His family were breathless in their excitement. 
Misha kept perfectly still as Gmork began to peel 
back the folds of flesh from his back, revealing 
the bright red muscle beneath. Everything was 
sticky and foul. Blood pooled at their feet. 
Gmork lifted Misha's limbs one by one and ripped 
the flesh right off, tearing out each claw as he 
went. Misha meekly set his ruined stumps back on 
the stones and offered no complaint.

Lindsey vomited by the time that Gmork made 
another incision across the fox's face before 
lifting the last of his pelt free. His friend 
stood a thing of pulsing tissue and dripping 
scarlet, not a man at all but a simple animal 
that should be hanging from a butcher's hook. 
Gmork stroked the top of his head where the ears 
had once been and growled a most satisfied sound. “You may die now.”

Misha yipped once and then collapsed on his side, 
quivering from the agony for only a few moments 
before falling completely still.

Lindsey wept at seeing his friend die and die 
like that. Misha should have died with his axe in 
his hands drenched in his enemies blood, not 
skinned like a common beast. Gmork draped his new 
fox fur over a tanning board next to the far wall 
and stroked his paws through the lush fur. The beast sighed with a growl.

Sucking in his breath, and wrestling free of the 
Lutin's vice-like grip, Lindsey shouted, “There's 
more friends than just him! They'll all come to 
make sure you die and go burn in Hell!”

“I've been told that before,” Gmork replied 
laconically. He rubbed his face against the fox 
pelt and wriggled his jowls in delight. “Oh, this 
is so very soft. I will enjoy wearing this. It will line my new cloak.”

“I have more friends, you monster!”

“Which ones?” Gmork asked as he continued to rub 
his head against Misha's pelt. “Charles the rat 
Sondecki? Or his rival, Rickkter the raccoon 
Kankoran? Or perhaps the skunk, Kayla, who has 
learned quite a number of interesting spells 
during her journeys with you. And of course, 
Jessica the hawk who is a master of many arcane 
arts. Even that little stone mage Abafouq of the 
Binoq. I've never met one of them before, but 
they are close enough to your stock to respond so well to my voice.”

“They will defeat you!”

“They will come here and become my loyal and 
devoted pups. I will cherish each of them and 
teach them to hunger for the flesh of men.” Gmork 
pressed the fox pelt to his nose and inhaled 
deeply before stepping back and looking at 
Lindsey. “And now you are going to listen to my voice and love it.”

Lindsey screamed as the bauble resting in front 
of him began to glow with a faint light.


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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias


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