Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (56 page)

Would he think that she
too wished to rise, at his side, before the eyes of the great Storm
Lord? Would he think that she coveted the same sort of power, from
which she wished to achieve greater freedom? Another Petling maybe?
Would he think her ambition rested with the command over others?
Would he think with his newfound status she would hope to have
slaves of her own? Human slaves? Ones she could tickle and pinch to
her heart’s desire. Would he think her as base and simple as that?
Would he think she would want such grand possessions and still
allow him to climb atop her and penetrate her as he pleased? Would
he think she would consider herself fortunate to have all that
power? Did he think consuming the delicacy that was tortured human
flesh would be enough for her? Did he think she would want that
while he went on violating her? Would he?

The stupid, little
fiend!

Yes, Inghëldir, he
would.

She wanted nothing of such
things. She wanted, no,
craved
, something else.

Jätung stirred then, in
his pretend sleep, jarring her thoughts from her evil
mind.

She turned to look at his
giant, white furred body with mild agitation, but otherwise did
nothing. Let Jätung fake at resting, she figured. It did not matter
one way or the other. He was going to need all his strength once
this storm let up and once again they could traverse the landscape.
She did not care if she burst his heart searching.
She
would be the one to
find those god-cursed kids.
She
would bring them before the Great Maelstrom. She
would receive the reward she was due.

It would not be Fenris or
his accursed Hross who would find them.

No!

It would be her and her
alone. It would not be the idiotic Dēowulf packs he had sent out or
the Vürmm scouts or the various Bands of Swüreg she assumed still
roamed the land.

She would be the one to
would find them, subdue them and bring them back.

Of that, she had no
doubt.

She just had to get out of
this accursed cave and be about it!

Inghëldir took another
gruesome bite of her meal. She enjoyed the delectable crunching and
squirming of flesh and bone and sinew in her mouth. She swallowed
another great gulp, allowing her eyes to settle on the land beyond
the wide portal of the cave.

Though it was dark now,
her eyes could peer through the shadowy play of the snow and the
wind with ease. Without a second thought, she made it turn
transparent. Her vision sharpened and stretched. Before her, lay
the land. She could see the tiny, huddled shapes of creatures in
the deepest boughs of the trees. She could make out the quivering
forms nestled amongst the jumbled roots of a large bush. They had
pushed themselves as far back as their tiny bodies could manage,
shielding themselves from the cold. She watched the brave flight of
a huge Gürkk. It battled the ferocious winds, willing its way
toward its’ intended destination. Its’ powerful wings beat as fast
as possible, making headway despite the strong currents of air
surrounding it. Its’ frustrated screech lost to all but her
ears.

She closed her powerful
eyes then, letting the sounds of the night magnify in her head. She
heard the breathing of tiny rodents, the frightened chirps of baby
chicks tucked safe in their nests. The great tolling of Jätung’s
heart dominated all. But, she could still make out the burrowing of
some animal, digging frantic into the ground, trying to escape an
icy death.

That was when she heard
it… No, she felt it. It was the familiar, invasive intrusion into
the most intimate regions of herself.

{Inghëldir, Inghëldir! I
call, by the will of the Storm. I call you to answer
me!}

Rather, she felt it and
heard it at the same time. It was a resonance in her mind. It was a
cold, inky liquid inside her body, defiling her mind. It made her
sick her and heightened her wariness in an instant.

It was familiar and yet it
still managed to feel like an invasion. It was her master, calling,
requesting she attend him. It was something she could not ignore
for too long.

Still, she would make him
wait this time. If she could, she would delay to the point where he
would rage at her. He would threaten to kill her or not feed her
the tortured bodies she needed to consume to keep her sanity.
Without mangled meat to eat, it was the doom of her kind to descend
into the chaos of masochistic insanity.

She was a Nixy, a flesher,
a consumer on a grand scale, who needed flesh to exist, blood to
think, bone to garner strength. If she wished to remain sane, if
she wanted to keep her mind, she would need to eat the flesh of the
maimed and the tortured, the tormented and the suffering. This was
what kept the balance within her. This was what allowed her to
remain the honed instrument of pursuit, a trait required by her
superiors, demanded of the elite.

Thus, her master fed her a
constant diet of the flayed, the disemboweled, the impaled and the
slow burnt. It was all to curb her madness and nurture her
strengths as a finder-of-things. To reduce her inclination toward
this crippling psychosis, he would keep this morbid consumption
constant. It was the only thing that could sharpen her ability to
find what needed finding.

He had cared for her for
so many years. Others like her had long ago faded into the
bottomless depths of an anarchic mind or slain in the line of their
master’s commands. She supposed, he had grown fond of her over
time. Maybe he had become indulgent of her flesh to the limit his
own twisted mind would allow. Because of that, he had given her
power, moreso than any Nixy known to have walked the Six-Fold
Empire of Storm.

As more time had passed
and with more power bestowed, Inghëldir had begun to change. She
began to grow in mind and self-awareness. While at the same time
she became renowned throughout her world as the best of all the
Fleshers - guaranteed successful. And, she had made her master rich
beyond belief because of it.

This was why she had a
bedchamber of her own. This was why she could garnish the room with
trinkets she had gathered over time. This was also why Jätung was
hers. They were all gifts, bestowed upon her by her master, tokens
belying his gratitude, his thanks.

It still did not stop him
from raping her whenever he got the chance. It still did not stop
him from suckling power from her while he plunged his shrunken cock
into her body. No, that would always by the way of things between
them. After all, it was the reason for her creation in the first
place. All Nixae must endure the ravaging vented by their masters.
It had been thus for millennia.

It was not by mere
coincidence. The handpicking of her and Vallüm had been deliberate.
There were the tip of the sword of this foray into the Melded World
by the Rigă-Kur himself, the High King of the Vülfen, for a reason.
Their choosing had been out of thousands. To assist in the
execution of the first crucial steps needed to bring the Storm Lord
onto this plane itself was a great honor. After which, their great
Lord would begin his conquest of all the known universes and they
would be held above all others.

She was well aware of her
worth now, cognizant of her value. She was not about to squander
it. This could well be her time…

{Inghëldir, it is by my
command that I summon you! Attend to my request, you brazen
bitch!}

More inky filth and the
thrust of his poisoned will filled her. Where it should have made
her cringe with fear, it made her chuckle to herself instead. With
languorous relish, she finished the last of her meal. Her thoughts
had consumed her to the point she had blocked-out Vallüm longer
than she had intended. This was a thing she had been unable to do
until recently. After almost six hundred and fifty years of her
vapid existence.

She grinned, a bloody grin
not bothering to wipe at the sanguine juice coating the lower half
of her face? Who cared? All the pretenses she’d had to fulfill
earlier were no longer necessary. She was more than happy to reveal
what the true Inghëldir the Nixy looked like. She was much more
than the beautiful, child-like, cherub. Sure, she had delicate
features and appeared innocent. But she also had a pair of jaws
that could chew through bone faster than a hyena. She had a tongue
she could use to strangle a grown human male without the use of her
hands.

She was
Inghëldir.

Blood was her favorite
lipstick, gore was the basic ingredient in her rouge. The obsidian
coolness about her eyes was wrought of nothing more than pure evil.
She would revel in her horrific allure. She would grow into the
creature she had often dreamed she would become. She would make her
own way –.

The pain hit her like a
thousand daggers stabbing through her flesh at once, so intense, so
white hot, it was searing. The force threw her sideways, away from
the hulking body of Jätung. Her hands and feet pulled taut as if
she were drawn and quartered by some invisible entity.

It was then that Vallüm
entered her mind, not like before, not with a polite probe. This
was a delving - a shoveling of his consciousness into hers with
such force, it almost stunned her into unconsciousness. Only at the
last second was she able to hold on, able to recall who she was and
why she was in the small cave. She was at the brink of oblivion,
lost to the abyss.

{You grow ever
impertinent, Inghëldir. I find it all the more tiresome and
wasteful of my time, which is precious to me},
thundered Vallüm in her mind.

Her small body went rigid,
making her strain with the brutality of his intrusion.

{Maybe Fenris is correct
in saying I have given you too much leash over the course of all
these years. He believes you have forgotten to remember your proper
place in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it is time to relinquish
some of what I have given. What say you of that?}

Inghëldir was half-aware
her mind - her very
self
- should have dwindled into nothing. She should
have been held fast in a quivering stupor by now. For some
miraculous reason, she was not.

She had seen many a Nixy
destroyed beyond repair by such a mental assault. She had seen
their desecration with open glee, had danced about in exaltation to
the great Metohkangmi himself.

Now, it was happening to
her.

And. she had
survived.

She was somehow strong
enough to exist, even before the massive shockwave of enchanted
mental strength assaulting her. This tiny, insignificant thought
comforted her, made her feel at ease. It soothed her, despite the
mental molestation Vallüm was exuding upon her psyche.

Unlike the night before,
she was able to sense something else as well. It was something she
should never have been capable of sensing in the first place. She’d
never had this level of control. In the past, such information was
not hers to know. A Nixy should not have been able, and
yet…

She could sense something
he felt, an emotion. It was no more than an impression, but to her
it was monumentous.

She was
exultant.

For the first time, she
could make out something of him, from him, a window into him! This
gave her hope, a tether from which she could tie off, hold onto. It
allowed her to know who she was, what she was. She would not lose
herself in her own mind.

He was
desperate.

{You do not answer, my
sweet. And yet… somehow you still have the capacity to resist where
you should not. I should have been rendered a muddied pulp of brain
matter for me to command},
Vallüm
volunteered.
{I wonder…}

Inghëldir knew Jätung was
no longer pretending to be asleep.

Now, he was looming over
her with an expression that melted from anticipation to hunger. He
was unsure of what to make of his master strewn about the floor,
helpless, unable to defend herself. She could see he could not
decide between loyalty and the strong desire to taste her sweet
meat. He was salivating onto the stone of the cave.

“
My lord, forgive me,” she
repented through the mental connection. She knew her master could
hear it regardless. “It has been a long day. I had to eat before…
before the worst, of which you are well aware.”

You ignorant toad, so keen
on rutting that you cannot even see deception when it is so obvious
before you!
She had wanted to say, but
forced herself to keep her opinions in check. She dared think on
them for too long.

She could feel the
pressure against her mind, the aching press against her
personality, let up a bit.

The Prēost gave pause to
consider her excuse.

In this second of
distraction, she was able to remember what she had been thinking
before Vallüm’s brutal, psionic beating. By retaining that small
part of herself, she centered her consciousness.

She sent a tiny, soothing
message to Jätung.

The great beast sat down
upon his haunches, trying to resist it at first, but in the end he
could not. In seconds, his tongue lolled. He was as playful as he
had been as a pup, smiling at her with wide jaws.